AZ Senate Bill 1062 Is Endorsement of Hate - Not "Religous Liberty"!

As the kerfuffle continues over Arizona State Senate Bill 1062, the bill that would enable and allow businesses in the state not to serve gays, it becomes crystal clear there is NO "religious liberty" involved here. Rather, it is an endorsement of hate using the egregious cover of religious liberty. Defenders- invoking their Bibles of course, insist the law is "designed to protect religious freedom, especially for wedding photographers and bakeries."

Cathi Herrod, who helped craft the bill and heads the 'Center for Arizona Policy', blabbed on CBS Early Show this morning:

"What's at risk here is religious liberties. Whether or not our first amendment right to freely exercise our religious belief will continue to mean something in this country or whether we are now in a country that frankly is hostile to individual religious beliefs."

Which, of course, is semantic codswallop. It also sounds almost exactly like the excuse trotted out to deny women contraception under the Affordable Care Act. Remember that?  To refresh memories, it was when FOCUS - a Catholic University group - hired on the “Alliance Defending Freedom” - whose mouthpiece then yapped:

“Faith-based organizations should be free to live and operate according to the faith they teach and espouse. If the government can fine Christian ministries out of existence for keeping their faith there is no limit to what freedom they can take away.”

Of course, this was absolute nonsense. There was no attempt whatsoever to “fine Christian ministries out of existence” – only to have them adhere to the standards of all other employers in the public sphere. If then the Catholic Church operates as an employer in the public sphere – never mind it’s a religious institution – then it’s bound to adhere to public standards pertaining to the Affordable Care Act, which all other public employers at other institutions, corporations are also bound to accept.

In the case of the justified protests against AZ 1062, these are in recognition of the fact that businesses operating under state codes and laws cannot cherry pick which customers they will serve and which they won't.

National corporations are urging Jan Brewer - the AZ Governor - to do the right thing and veto this offal. Even Mitt Romney has chimed in and asked Brewer to use her veto. Even one time supporter Steve Pierce said that "we now need to kill it". He offered that the "perception now trumps reality" but the reality is if this hate law is passed (and it's being considered in other states too, e.g. Georgia) this country will be on its way to a similar outcome as the backward African countries (like Uganda ) that have passed laws to put gays away in prison for 14 years or more - as well as any family that protects them. Most African observers - including former Peace Corps volunteers who served there - believe this pot was stirred up by hateful evangelicals who preached this "was the right thing to do".

No, it's never "right" no matter who is the subject of the law. If the law, any law, is based on Biblical bunkum or bollocks then it's no law at all.  It's an exercise in religious hatred masquerading as justice, or a first amendment "right".

Brewer needs to do the right thing here, and if she doesn't pressure will be put on the NFL to move the Super Bowl from Arizona next year.

Sotomayor Needs to Back Off - Remove Emergency Stay on ACA Birth Control Provision

After weeks of fighting the Repukes - after the new healthcare.gov website didn't live up to expectations, Obama and his administration now are confronting someone they saw as an ally: Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor (appointed by Obama).  Sotomayor, acting on a request from Catholic nuns based at the Denver Little Sisters for the Poor Home for the Aged,  granted an emergency stay for the implementation of the ACA birth control feature- which had been denied earlier in the day by a federal appeals court.

Apart from the fact that Sotomayor - appointed to the highest court- has as her first mandate to be objective and not allow ideological bias to sway her, it is also bad form to be seen appearing to appease the Catholic Latino demographic bloc.  Thus, the Obama administration has rightfully called on Sotomayor to dissolve her stay, arguing (correctly):

"With the stroke of their own pen, applicants can secure for themselves the relief they seek from this court -- an exemption from the requirements of the contraceptive-coverage provision -- and the employer-applicants’ employees (and their family members) will not receive contraceptive coverage through the plan’s third-party administrator either,"


Why is Sotomayor doing this? Perhaps either because she's overlooked the fine print that allows a practical out, or has been driven to make this decision by pressure from the Latino Catholic demographic. (Which we know is the fastest growing in the nation, and which she - as a the first Laino on the SC- would dearly love to appear to attend to.)   As for the "Little Sisters of the Poor", one can't help but suspect they've been put up to this by the same front group rabble that put the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) up to their own challenge to the contraception provision of the ACA In other words, all the Catholic groups are willing and compliant puppets to the machinations of the conservative shadow players and organizations who want to derail Obamacare.

In the case of FOCUS, it was the Alliance Defending Freedom calling the shots, who claimed:

Faith-based organizations should be free to live and operate according to the faith they teach and espouse.”

 

Adding:

“If the government can fine Christian ministries out of existence for keeping their faith there is no limit to what freedom they can take away.”

As I noted in response to that babble, there is no attempt whatsoever to “fine Christian ministries out of existence” – only to have them adhere to the standards of all other employers in the public sphere. If then the Catholic Church operates as an employer in the public sphere – never mind it’s a religious institution – then it’s bound to adhere to public standards pertaining to the Affordable Care Act, which all other public employers at other institutions, corporations are also bound to accept.  Hence, the only thing being “taken away” here is the Church employer’s ability to take away secular employees’ rights to the same standard of health care as all other secular employees’ in the public or private sphere.  The Church, meanwhile, is quite free to morally legislate its own members’ do’s and don’ts to its heart’s content. NO one is taking away that right. 

If the Church sees fit to deny its own members’ as employees access to birth control or the morning after pill, or abortion, then fine. It is well within its purview. But it can’t extrapolate that to secular employees and retain tax-free status as a peculiarly religious institution.

The specious 'Alliance Defending Freedom' argument also went on:

"The (ACA) mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as well as the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.”

Which, again, is total bollocks. There is no such violation because Catholic employers – whether in schools or hospitals or whatever – are quite free to set whatever moral standards they wish for their OWN Church members who are employed in such venues. What they are not free to do is to set those standards for secular employees!   If they still wish to, however, they can follow the path laid out by the Justice Dept.,  especially as a "church plan is not required to provide contraceptive  coverage".

Never mind common sense, we can be sure that more attacks will be readied with the ACA in Right wingers sights, despite the fact that millions of citizens desperately need the ACA to secure some kind of health care. But does the Right care? Not any more than they do about the unemployed losing benefits, or the economy diving into the crapper because of it.

But at the very least, we ought to expect Supreme Court justices not to be played and exploited in these political battles, and hence Sotomayor needs to remove the temporary stay post haste.

'Fellowship of Catholic University Students' (FOCUS) Is Out to Lunch on ACA

Would one of the FOCUS women rather be emulating this secular teacher at a Catholic HS, or accepting an unplanned pregnancy because of a rat bastard doing a "roofie-rape"? Inquiring minds want to know!

According to the news in yesterday’s  Denver Post (‘Suit Filed Over Birth Control’ p. 2A), a Catholic college group (FOCUS – or the Fellowship of Catholic University Students)  plans to challenge  the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act health coverage mandate on the basis of its “forcing religious employers to offer sterilization and contraceptive services, and abortion-inducing drugs for employees.”

 

Mouthpiece Mike Norton of the “Alliance Defending Freedom” (a fulsome name if ever there was one) bloviated yesterday that:

 

“Faith-based organizations should be free to live and operate according to the faith they teach and espouse.”

 

Adding:

“If the government can fine Christian ministries out of existence for keeping their faith there is no limit to what freedom they can take away.”

Of course, this is absolute nonsense. There is no attempt whatsoever to “fine Christian ministries out of existence” – only to have them adhere to the standards of all other employers in the public sphere. If then the Catholic Church operates as an employer in the public sphere – never mind it’s a religious institution – then it’s bound to adhere to public standards pertaining to the Affordable Care Act, which all other public employers at other institutions, corporations are also bound to accept.

Hence, the only thing being “taken away” here is the Church employer’s ability to take away secular employees’ rights to the same standard of health care as all other secular employees’ in the public or private sphere.  The Church, meanwhile, is quite free to morally legislate its own members’ do’s and don’ts to its heart’s content. NO one is taking away that right. 


If the Church sees fit to deny its own members’ as employees access to birth control or the morning after pill, or abortion, then fine. It is well within its purview. But it can’t extrapolate that to secular employees and retain tax-free status as a peculiarly religious institution.  Here's another reason this applies: Unknown to many Catholic purists, many secular hospitals have been taken over by Catholic ones. Their original secular workers who had benefits under those private secular hospitals now see them threatened because of antiquated Church dogmas invoked after the corporate takeover.

According to the Post (ibid.):

“The legal group filed a lawsuit in Denver district court on behalf of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students- a non-profit organization founded in 1998.”

Here's some more of the folderol in their statement(ibid.):

“The (ACA) mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as well as the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.”

Which, again, is total bollocks. There is no such violation because Catholic employers – whether in schools or hospitals or whatever – are quite free to set whatever moral standards they wish for their OWN Church members who are employed in such venues. What they are not free to do is to set those standards for secular employees! Not if they wish to continue to receive  tax-free status from the federal state. As for violating the First and Fifth Amendments, that’s totally preposterous: there is no proscription against freedom of speech – they can spout whatever medieval nonsense that they desire. Nor is there proscription against being a witness against oneself.

 

One of the ignorant First Amendment arguments usually employed is that: "No one is denying the secular women access to contraception or abortion if they want it, they just don't wish to be forced to pay for drugs that violate their religious beliefs".   The point is the "drugs" aren't doing that because they're not being used by the Catholic women who are free to follow their own mores.  They're being used by secular workers as part of the coverage promised under the ACA  health insurance plan!  And, moreover, those drugs - such as contraceptives - may well be needed for more than birth prevention (though that ought to be important enough - given too many mouths to feed can tilt a family over to food stamps, welfare).   But as Sandra Fluke noted in her testimony in March last year: e.g. 

Contraceptives can be used to treat ovarian cysts. If this is not done, the contraceptives denied, then an ovary may need to be surgically removed- and health care costs explode beyond what they would have been.

Contraceptives are also key in limiting severe health problems - such as miscarriage or stroke - which could ensue if a woman becomes pregnant. Moreover, once one commences use of  contraceptives then they need to be taken regularly or they don't work - an educational point that had to be reinforced on dimwit Repukes during their 2012 'war against women'.

 

Meanwhile, we also behold this drivel from John Zimmer – FOCUS VP -  that:

“FOCUS sincere religious beliefs forbid it from providing insurance coverage that includes birth control for its employees, it says: ‘ As Catholics we do not impose our faith on anyone but propose to others the life-changing power of God’s love.”

 

But as I noted in my recent book (‘Beyond Atheism, Beyond God’), humans with their limited neural capacity aren’t in any remote position to define or know “God” since the noun (G-o-d) isn’t the same as the entity. Since the entity is supposedly “infinite” then no finite brain can comprehend it. The best it can do is forge approximate god-concepts which are relative, limited and subjective.  Hence the term “God’s love” is totally meaningless other than on a subjective level. It’s vacuous verbiage because if one can’t comprehend “God” one surely can’t comprehend any “love” derived therefrom.  And by extension one is proposing to others nothing more than one’s own ideations as internally subjective lingo.  As Philosopher Joseph Campbell put it (The Power of Myth, p. 56):

 

“ 'God’ is an ambiguous word in our language because it appears to refer to something that is known..”

 

All of which reinforces the point that when people use the word G-o-d they’re not talking or writing about an actual entity but a limited construct or ideation configured as a noun, which we call a God concept. People BELIEVE they are referencing the real entity by use of the noun but they are deluding themselves. It would be analogous to me going to a restaurant – seeing a ‘steak’ picture on the menu – then tearing the image out, consuming it and asserting I’d eaten a ‘steak’.  Any such pretense would ordinarily earn one a fast trip to the loony bin.

 

As for the claim of “not imposing their faith on anyone”, I am afraid FOCUS’ collegians need to take a semantics or logic course, preferably both.  If indeed, they’re all about preventing SECULAR employees – say atheists like me – from accessing artificial  birth control- then they are indeed imposing their faith.  Besides - what if the tables were turned? How would Catholic purists and dogmatists react if a Hindu-run corporation took over a Catholic Hospital? Would such a happenstance be called a "forced conversion" or  "violation of religious liberty"? OR - would it be considered a business transaction only? Also, if the newly merged entity produced subsidiary corporations - what religious principles would rightly apply? Catholic blowhards and tools like FOCUS need to think such questions through before they get all sanctimonious on us.

 

Now, if instead they confined their natural law moralism to Catholic employees only, there’d be no objection. “Imposing one’s faith” means taking away rights of secular citizens– based on invoking one’s own imagined religious principles.  In other words, extrapolating their “principles” beyond their proper moral domain to take away the rights of citizens who aren’t part of that domain other than in an employee capacity.

 

While we’re at it, let’s take a closer look at these principles which they profess to hold so dear. Biologist Elizabeth A. Daugherty  has asked ('The Lessons of Zoology'. in Contraception and Holiness, p. 110):

"Why do we call secondary the ends of the sexual act which have been accorded in fullness to us, and why do we call primary the end which we share with the lower animals?"

She's referring to the fact that the core of Pius XI's  original encyclical Casti Connubii was that the "sin" of artificial contraception inhered in making primary a sexual aspect that in reality is only "secondary". According to that pontiff:

"Since therefore the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature."

Which is irredeemable codswallop. As Daugherty notes in her chapter (op. cit.)  what the pontiff and his ilk really sought to do is reduce humans to the state of lower animals, at the behest of their "natural" reproductive cycles. In this sense, unlike the lower animals, humans have the intellectual capacity and sense of novelty to introduce a vast variety of pleasure-play into their sex relations. They aren't yoked to  primitive instincts to simply mount and hump at specific times. As Daugherty notes (pp. 96- 97):

"After ovulation, all mammalian females are under the influence of progesterone from the corpus luteum. This is a period of rapidly declining estrogenic activity which ends the sexual receptivity of the lower mammalian female, whether or not fertilization occurs.
 

But (in humans) marital relations continue during this progesterone -dominated period before the abrupt onset of menstruation. It is the period of lowest estrogenic activity and the progesterone-dominated period after ovulation which are known as the 'safe period' for marital relations."

This then, is what the Catholics'  “rhythm method” (of  Ogino-Kaus)  seeks to do: establish the "safe period" for a particular woman and then ordain that this is the time to safely have sexual relations if one wishes to not have any kids. The trouble is, it requires meticulous temperature taking at various times during a cycle to establish where that safe period begins and ends, and often this will be for no more than 10 days or so in a given month. Presumably, the couple is quite happy to do without sex the other two thirds of the time!

Thus, the moralizers of the Vatican are actually demanding that married couples act UNNATURALLY, since as Daugherty observes (ibid.):

"Humans are free from physiologically determined sexual desires so we possess a more or less permanent sexuality from adolescence to old age."

Indeed! But the Church and its robed minions (and now evidently younger acolytes in colleges)  seek to dictate that despite being sexual or having sexual desires from adolescence until old age, her members are only free to discharge those desires under certain limited times and limited conditions. For example, teens who have such exploding desires on account of their hormones are warned they cannot even masturbate to relieve themselves because those organs are only allowed to morally function in the state of marriage. Then....once married, the couple is informed they may gratify their mutual sexual desires only if they are open to conception....that is, unless they use the rhythm method.  Anyone not see a pattern here?

 

But once more, my gripe is not so much the Vatican roping  in its own flock’s gonads, but seeking to rope in the gonads of secular employees working at their schools, hospitals etc. (And please don’t anyone tell me “They can get another job!” – NO, not in this low aggregate demand, high unemployment environment. That’s like telling a guy who’s been denied food stamps (and on his last legs)  to go jump off a roof, then he won’t need them!) Besides, would Catholics tell Catholic employees to just "get another job" if their hospital was taken over by Hindu owners? I doubt it!
 

Julian Pleasants has observed (op. cit., p. 88) the Vatican has always been hostage to:

 

"Aristotelian modes of thought which tend to fix behaviors within very limited and fixed definitions and categories."

Thus, the Church once believed it "natural" that some men be enslaved because they were “unable to manage their own affairs”  (ibid.)So why be surprised when the same Church seeks to ordain all her members abide by a sexuality more fitting of lower primates?   However, be that as it may, we MUST express surprise (and outrage ) when the Church and its enablers like FOCUS seek to impose that same sexuality on secularists. That is simply unacceptable.

 

The abiding question for me is: Why would 21^st century college students, embedded in a bunch like FOCUS,  be yoked  to Aristotelian modes of thought they seek to impose on their more enlightened peers or secularists? Maybe they are jealous they themselves never broke free of their mental chains to see just how limited they are by the Vatican’s nonsense. And while we’re at it, let me remind them that the birth control proscription has never been stated ex Cathedra so it’s not infallible. It is proposed under the Magisterium or Teaching Office. As one honest padre once confided to me: "You are free to use your own conscience in this regard, since the teaching isn't binding."

 

As for abortion, the FOCUS groupies ought to bear in mind that John Connery, S.J,  a leading Catholic historian,  showed that up to 1869 the Church’s Canon Law had historically held abortion to be murder only subsequent to the end of the first trimester.[1]  The interesting thing is that for the bulk of Church history the practice of abortion was allowed, at least up to the first three months of pregnancy. More interesting is that the doctrine of papal infallibility was pronounced in 1870. Could it be that the latter doctrine was introduced to back up the Church’s change in its moral position on abortion? If so, one wonders who really controls the Church, the Holy Spirit-  as is so often claimed-  or zealous prelates in positions of high power who fear relinquishing vise-like grips on their congregations[2]?

Oh, one also wonders if they still teach critical thinking at Catholic universities, as Loyola did in the 1960s - even encouraging atheists such as Jean -Paul Sarte to lecture us on existentialism! To see FOCUS' antics is to wonder if critical thinking went the way of the Dodo - at least in the universities that harbor FOCUS outlets!

---

[1] Sagan and Druyan: PARADE, (April 22, 1990), 6.

[2] And  (most recently), nuns, mainly belonging to The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which was issued a reprimand by the Vatican for straying outside the purview of Church teachings – especially after they defended the inclusion of contraceptive services in Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The Vatican has also censured Sr. Margaret Farley (of Yale Divinity School) after publication of her book, ‘Just Love’. Farley evidently stepped on Vatican toes when she justified artificial contraception as well as masturbation within marriage as an aid to preserving fidelity.

 

Catholic College Evangelists Need a Reality Check!

Curtis Martin - kneeling at center- during a noon mass at the offices of FOCUS, The Fellowship of Catholic University Students.

Buddhist philosopher Alan Watts in his magnificent monograph, The Wisdom of Insecurity , noted that the path for peace on Earth is paved by cultivation of benign passivity as opposed to neurotic, paranoid hyper-reactivity and seeing "evil" in that which is different or apart from one's own field of righteous vision. In the first, the attitude of "live and let live" is cultivated, and not deviated from unless one is directly attacked. One never acts merely upon speculations or even "possible threats", far less on vacuous religious beliefs and contentions concerning what is "good' and what is "evil".

As noted in an earlier blog ('On The Origin and Definition of Evil') what people refer to as “evil” is easily explainable in terms of brain evolution. Thus, Homo Sapiens is fundamentally an animal species with a host of animal/primitive instincts residing in its ancient brain or paleocortex. Meanwhile, the paleocortex sits evolutionarily beneath the more evolved mesocortex and neocortex, the latter of which crafts concepts and language. This tri-partite brain structure has been compared to a car design welding a Lamborghini to a Model T Ford chassis, with a 1957 Chevy engine to power the Lamborghini. If an automotive engineer can conceive of such a hybrid beast, I'd be interested to know exactly how he thinks it would run.

The behavior resulting from this hybrid brain is bound to be morally mixed, reflecting the fact that we literally have three “brains” contending for emergence in one cranium. Behavior will therefore range from the most selfless acts (not to mention creative masterpieces) to savagery, carnal lust run amuck and addictions that paralyze purpose.

The mistake of the religionist is to associate the first mode of behavior with being “human” and not the latter. In effect, disowning most of the possible behaviors of which humans are capable.- and hence nine tenths of what makes us what we are. Worse, not only disowning these behaviors – but ascribing them to some antagonistic dark or negative force (“Satan”) thereby making them into a religious abstraction or external alien force.

The neocortex then goes into over-drive, propelled by its ability to craft words for which no correspondents may exist in reality. Suddenly, our “souls” are at risk of being “lost” to “Satan” who will then fry us in “Hell”. In effect, the religionist’s higher brain centers divide reality into forces of darkness and light, just like the ancient Manicheans. As the divide grows and persists, certain behaviorally idealistic expectations come to the fore, and a mass of negative or primitive actions is relegated to “evil”. Humans tuned in to this Zeitgeist, which is soon circulated everywhere, being to suppress all behaviors that they regard as defective or “sinful”. They don’t realize or appreciate that humans are risen apes, and not “fallen angels”.

Buddhist Watts had two salient points to make in this respect:

The first (p. 111) is that "Your goodness must have an edge to it"

In other words, there is never perfect or absolute goodness. Goodness has bounds and limits inherently factored in, on account of humans' possessing a defective brain. This means the person who strives to be absolutely good will be exposed sooner or later as a pretender and plaster saint, with feet of clay. We need look no further than those numerous evangelicals - such as Jimmy Swaggart, Tammy and Jim Baker etc. in the 80s, who put on a public goody two shoes facade that was later ripped off.. We have also seen it with self-righteous politicos - many of whom often ranted against sex or gays, and then were themselves found in compromising positions.

Never try to be too good, or your brain's "edge" will find you bitten on the ass!

Watts goes further than merely accepting the edge of goodness by noting (ibid.):

"For all the qualities which we admire or loathe in the world around us are reflections from within...Our feelings about the crawling world of the wasps' nests and the snake pit are feelings about hidden aspects of our own bodies and brains, and all of their potentialities for unfamiliar creeps and shivers- for unsightly diseases and unimaginable pains."

In other words, we are beings already enfolded in those biological and neurogical limits and patterns that portend "evil" and it is as impossible to escape from them as to escape one's own shadow. (Another way to put this, first posed by Philosopher N. M. Wildiers, is that "an evolving world and a perfect world are mutually exclusive propositions.")

But the Catholic College Evangelicals don't see it that way. According to today's Denver Post a new breed of Catholic Evangelicals, as represented by one Curtis Martin, are out to change that antiquated religion's dynamic by mounting an evangelical mission to recover "lost souls" who have strayed from Holy Mama Church. According to the article (p. 1A, today) Martin saw "a hunger and an openness among young people to learn about Catholicism."

Obviously, this would be prevalent among young people, including of college age, who haven't yet done their own thinking or wide reading. This is especially so of those attending Catholic Universities, which already places them inside a kind of cocoon. By contrast, at Loyola University in the 1960s, the Jesuits invited all manner of outside guests to lecture and expose students to a wide variety of ideas. The purpose was to incite critical thinking. My good fortune was to encounter Existentialist Jean Paul-Sartre which set me on the road to atheism.

The conclusion then is that this "hunger" singled out by Martin is a pseudo-hunger. It is the product of not knowing enough, not living enough and not encountering all the ways humans are fallible, including their popes. (Which is why the papal infallibility doctrine is among the most specious as well as pernicious).

Martin goes on:

"Their parents are scandalized. But young people look at the saints, not the sinners. They know you can find sinners everywhere."

Martin here, like most latter day Catholic apologists with blinkers, believes their parents (mainly baby boomers) were simply "scandalized" by the priest pedophile crisis and incidents, and that is true. But it goes much deeper than that. It extends to the fact that the Church's own malignant doctrines spawned the very moral contradictions embodied in the pedophile incidents. Thus it was that on the one hand they could hector couples against practicing artificial contraception and youths against masturbation while the priest themselves engaged in the most hideous acts imaginable. And yet the latter were dismissed - more or less- as the foibles of a few and in no way connected to the Church's magisterium or teaching office. Virtually, no one, other than we atheists and hardened former Catholic skeptics, saw that all were of the same piece: the actions of the pedophile priests was bound up with the Church's own moral limits, failings and malignant doctrines.

Here then Martin is too clever by half because the issue isn't that one "can find sinners everywhere" but rather that those who purport to uphold a perfect moral or ethical standard, e.g. to "lead sinners", i.e. to "goodness", "salvation" or "God" lack the innate, inherent moral compass in themselves or their fabricated dogmas, doctrines, structures to do so! This fundamental deficiency is therefore what outsiders beheld, but that ostriches like Martin and his FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) associates and apologists have not processed.

Evidently, Martin left the Church once then came back, and like most of the re-converted, displays the peculiar holier-than-thou attitude of the true believer. He claims:

"I was morally, spiritually dead. And I knew it. I spent all my time pursuing fun because I believed the lie that fun leads to happiness. God tells us that goodness leads to happiness."

But since I already noted, from Alan Watts, that all human "goodness" is limited and has "an edge" than it follows that the pursuit of blind goodness in itself, as an abstraction, can never bring happiness, only disillusionment. Indeed, the other point of Watts is that since human conceptions of goodness and founded on limited brain structures and evolve in different cultures, then goodness must be relative.

One need only consider the case of the Catholic nun dismissed from her hospital in Arizona by her Bishop some months ago, because she saved a mother's life, which cost the life of her stillborn child. By the Church's abysmal and misguided teachings, the nun had no right to interfere to choose one to live. Both ought to have died, because that would have been the ineluctable "natural" outcome of not "playing God". The nun, by contrast, believed in her own conscience that one life saved was preferable to none saved, and so acted on the mother's behalf.

Is there absolute goodness here? Of course not! It's totally relative to the situation. The goodness has an "EDGE (limit) . This is why Alan Watts' statement of goodness having an edge must be taken seriously. And if it has an edge, it can't be pursued single-mindedly! In the same manner, happiness can't accrue singly from it. When the edge of the goodness emerges, as it must in human choices, then happiness itself must be contained or limited by degrees - since no perfect choice for the 'good' exists or is feasible.

One would have thought these Catholic missionary upstarts would have learned these basics, but evidently not. Indeed, they still appear to operate in the world or realm of delusion fueled by the part of the brain known as the OAA or the orientation association area disclosed by the research of by Andrew Newberg, M.D. and his associate Eugene Daquill M.D. ('Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief’.) Recall here that once the OAA processes a religious idea, image or idiom and focuses on it, then that entity monopolized brain function to the extent of creating self-reinforcing feedback loops.

In this light, the article notes:

"FOCUS personnel spend at least an hour a day, "the holy hour," they call it, in prayer and contemplation. 'They spend seven hours a day talking to young people about God and at least an hour a day talking to God about young people' according to Martin".

It would be interesting to ask Martin here, if he's aware of which portion of his brain "talked to God" and whether he received any intelligible answers at all.