The Ark and The Dove

Don't Blame Triggers for Crazies

Not that the media will actually blame Al Gore for inspiring the madman at the Discovery Channel, but I'd like to be the first blogger opposed to Al Gore's fanciful environmental policies to point out that I do not think Al Gore is in any way, shape, or form responsible for the lunatic's actions.

While leftwing pundits are fond of blaming rightwing pundits when mentally-disabled listeners cause harm to another person, I'd like to be above that.

Your run-of-the-mill mad bomber most likely will find a trigger somewhere. It might be Glenn Beck. It might be Al Gore. It might be his dog.

The rhetoric they spout, whether right, left, or canine, is ultimately just ornamentation to a delusional, twisted fantasy world.

We can pray for mercy for the victims and perpetrators, and that the medical community find a suitable treatment for the disorders that lead to public violence.

Unless evidence is uncovered showing that Al Gore or some official green movement intentionally cultivated this madman, then I don't really think we can blame them for his actions.

That being said, I think we can all name some organizations that do in fact seek out mentally disturbed individuals and groom them to cause harm to others.

My Glenn Beck Moment

I was flipping through Proverbs tonight and was struck by 1:26. If you read it out of context, the NAB translation is kind of chilling. I'll italicize the line for you:

Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the open squares she raises her voice;
Down the crowded ways she calls out, at the city gates she utters her words:
"How long, you simple ones, will you love inanity,
how long will you turn away at my reproof?
Lo! I will pour out to you my spirit,
I will acquaint you with my words.
"Because I called and you refused,
I extended my hand and no one took notice;
Because you disdained all my counsel, and my reproof you ignored--
I, in turn, will laugh at your doom;
I will mock when terror overtakes you;
When terror comes upon you like a storm, and your doom approaches like a whirlwind;
when distress and anguish befall you..."

Obviously, when the NAB translators worked on this text, they did not intend to the word "terror" to carry with it images of bearded men hijacking planes or strapping bombs to their chest. However, our current climate makes it almost impossible for me to think of terror without thinking of terrorism. Oh, deconstruction, you have such a clever way with words.

I'm calling this my Glenn Beck moment because stumbling upon these lines again immediately brought to mind the current fears and turmoil in the country, our complicity in these troubles, and the way in which the text offers a religious method to avoid those troubles.

Let's get something straight, though. I'm calling this my Glenn Beck moment, not my Pat Robertson moment. Someone like Robertson might suggest that our troubles are a punishment from God (I'm thinking of his ridiculous profession regarding the earthquake in Haiti).

It's important to keep in mind that the speaker in the passage above is Wisdom. Now, God is all wise, and Wisdom is a gift of the Holy Spirit, but the impression in this text is that Wisdom is more of an allegorical figure than a theological one. Wisdom is not saying, "If you disagree with me, I will smite you." Rather, Wisdom is saying that to leave her is, literally, foolish. The woes that befall the foolish are not retribution; they are not artificially constructed punitive measures imposed directly by a social institution. The suffering of the fool is often nothing more than the natural consequence of their actions.

The problem of living in a world of fools is that the consequences of a fool's actions are just as likely to visit the fool's neighbor.

Obama and the Muslim Thing

Some statistics are making the Internet rounds claiming that one-fifth of Americans believe the president is a muslim.

And, of course, this is getting blamed on conservatives.

Really?

First of all, I wonder how we know that the statistics are accurate. If people are willing to claim to be Jedi to make a political statement on census forms, then I'm pretty sure a large portion of a disgruntled population is willing to intentionally get this answer wrong just to make a point. How many people checked off "Obama is a muslim" merely to express a feeling that Obama has been soft on Islamic terrorism?

I dunno.

What I also don't know is who is really propagating the idea. A NYTimes op-ed is bubbling up from about two years ago which argues that Obama is technically an apostate muslim according to Islamic law since his father was a Muslim despite Obama's acceptance of Christianity.

But the vast majority of chatter I seem to be finding on this article is that liberal sources are accusing amorphous, uncited conservative bloggers for disseminating the "Obama is a Muslim" belief.

Is it possible that misinformation on Obama's wishy-washy form of faith life is actually the fault of liberal media reporting on the confusion itself? Are Americans who believe that Obama is a practicing muslim drawing the conclusion based on conservative sources, or based on what liberal sources say that conservative sources say?

Is there a kind of media reverse-psychology? What if every time a conservative hears a liberal pundit complain about conservatives believing that Obama is a muslim, some conservative out there thinks it must be true merely because the liberal pundit is claiming it to be a conservative lie?

For the record, I don't think Obama is Islamic. I think he's a nominal Christian who doesn't really understand Christianity. It's a religion of the Word, not the TXT...and I'm not sure a Blackberry really cuts it in the end.

And on a similar note, I'm having a hard time finding conservatives who don't think the Cordoba group has a legal right to build its sensationalist and controversial mosque. It kind of annoys me to hear liberals make the constitutional argument, when I don't seem to run into many conservative disagreeing with them on that front. This isn't a can or can't debate...it's a should or shouldn't.