I often observe — mostly with wonder and astonishment — that the US must be the most religious country in the world.  Religion is not as strictly enforced as in, say, the Islamic countries.  But it has permeated so many facets of our life, and so many people (according to actual polls)  believe in God or a deity, the afterlife or heaven, punishment or hell and such parallel beliefs as angels among us, that we are constantly bombarded by religion or a reaction against religion as we go about our daily business. Speaking of which — while travelling recently, I read the USA Today which I found either at the hotel front desk or on some communal table in front of the breakfast bar.

That is where I found an editorial about religion, purporting to explain why religion was necessary. I mean, the author — Oliver Thomas – thinks religion is as essential to life as oxygen and water. I was raised in the Jewish religion and spent a lot of time in temple, as my father was organist and choir director all of his adult life.  The only socializing my family did was at the temple, with breakfasts and holy day observances and things like that. I have always believed in a deity myself, not specifically in the way that the organized religions present it (as if to three-year-olds) and still have my own private rituals of prayer and meditation. That being said, this editorial disturbed me. Instead of ripping up the paper or making any attempt to answer it, I put it somewhere on the floor of the car hoping it would go away, but knowing that I would eventually have to deal with it in some manner. A lot of people seem to think that everything is in the world to support what they already believe.  Thomas, the author, is way far out — past the people who, for example, read Ford advertisements after they buy a Ford to prove to themselves that they have made the right decision. Thomas, a member of the USA Today board of contributors (I guess you have to be able to write enough to fill their quota of space) and author of a book titled “10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can’t Because He Needs the Job)” writes an editorial that asks an intriguing question, but does not answer that question or prove what he contends. (more…)

An administrator of a clinic where I worked long ago and far away once told me how he had to go to an orthodox (Jewish) rabbi and get some sort of a special document in order to satisfy his community (and mostly his wife) when a cardiac surgeon decided to put a pig valve in his heart to keep him alive.

I was not as impressed with the gravity of the situation as he wanted me to be.  Sure, I know that Jews aren’t supposed to eat anything that comes from a pig because it wallows in the mud and is thus “dirty.”

The prohibition against consuming its flesh is often credited with saving generations of (religious) Jews from getting sick with trichinosis.  Medicine has, however, advanced considerably since Biblical designs.

Whatever people believe about our Creator, there is no way that he or she is going to introduce information to the world that we can’t understand because our technology is not advanced enough. Nobody told about genetic recombination on Mount Sinai.  Nobody talked about transplantation in the era when the Gospels were being written.

The obvious conclusion is that it is time to stop worrying about right or wrong in religious doctrine and start living as fully and joyously as our medicine and technology will permit. Instead, I find that people whose spiritual beliefs seem associated with organized churches, seem to be given easily to generalizations and even name-calling: blatant intolerance. (more…)

How could anybody think it was justified by their religion to stick sewing needles into a child’s body?

Now according to the news story, the (obligatory) academic expert said there were no potentially harmful rituals in Candomble, the most popular of the Afro-Brazilian religions.  This statement ranks right up there with, “Hey, Columbus – don’t go too far or you’ll fall off the edge of the world!”

Someone is obviously worried about prejudice against the Afro-Brazilian religions.  Me, I am more worried about the sanctity of human life. (more…)

All of this balderdash from opponents of so-called “Obamacare” health care reform about “Death Panels” that will come and put your grandparents to sleep like an injured Chihuahua makes me think about the patients I’ve had to counsel regarding end-of-life issues.

I have a wonderful patient who is still struggling, after many years, with her father.  He is, like many men of his era who spent a fair amount of time in the military, the kind of guy who speaks little.  He has outlived his wife, which is statistically unlikely, for she was very ill for a very long time.  He is tired, just plain tired, of medical interventions.  He had a hunk of colon taken out some years ago, and there was something somewhere between normal and cancer on it.  Who knows when he tells his daughter.  Her confusion is expressed to me through tears.

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We want religious freedom, which is good.  We do not want prejudice that is unfounded.  We do not want people to preach or incite sedition.  We have no interest in disguises of sedition as religion.

We have problems with anything that gets in the way of freedom.  We love popular votes, and want to see the president of the United States elected directly some day, so the people have the sovereignty that Jefferson had in mind.  Radical factions corrected by some sort of wisdom, perhaps divine in origin, that flows down among honest and intelligent and diverse groups, so that they somehow exercise a sort of internal control, and radical factions cancel each other out.

I have no idea how a referendum about minarets made it to the Swiss ballot.  It seems that most people there don’t want these public symbols of the Islamic faith.  There is a nice photo in the Wikipedia article of a plastic minaret of Turkish construction that someone put on a cultural center in Switzerland for what I suppose are religious reasons.
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I have sat silent for a long time, waiting for the news to come in from Fort Hood, waiting for people to understand and explain.  Now, I have read and seen enough that I think I understand.

As always, my own life and experiences have been so rich and so diverse that I have an overwhelming memory or vision.

It was a California state prison; I have worked in a few.  Religion was always especially popular within the prisons where I worked.  I assumed, as did the mental health personnel in general, that it was because inmates felt so dehumanized and downtrodden that they could be expected to grasp onto anything that made them feel good.  We knew and understood this.

I certainly maintained friendly associations with all chaplains.  I considered them a bit idealistic, a bit naive, but I also considered myself that way.  And in that feeling, that belief, that “give them the extra mile” feeling, I got some peace.

Still, I remember the day I was scared.  I rarely ventured into the areas of religious worship, but once, just once, I happened to be out crossing the yard during one of the five daily times of Muslim prayer.  I could not count the number of inmates, as they covered the yard.

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