Foreign Policy magazine has a regular feature where an expert on a subject refutes common wisdom on a given subject - it is called "Think Again." In the Nov/Dec 2009 issue, Karen Armstrong discusses religion in "Think Again: God." Well worth reading - I find her to be one of the most insightful people on matters of faith and religion.

Her points really hit home for me in the discussion of whether God breeds violence and intolerance. She writes:

But "religious" wars, no matter how modern the tools, always begin as political ones. This happened in Europe during the 17th century, and it has happened today in the Middle East, where the Palestinian national movement has evolved from a leftist-secular to an increasingly Islamically articulated nationalism.

This is my view as well - religion does not cause people to become intolerant. Rather, when times are tough (when the economy falters or diseases break out), people become intolerant of each other. This happens irregardless of religion but often expresses itself via the religion because it is a convenient dividing line. In the case that religion is not a convenient dividing line, ethnicity, skin color, or cultural differences (damn long haired, hippies, for example) become the dividing line between warring parties.

Belief in God provides a justification for intolerance, but mostly does not cause the intolerance itself. As someone who continues to believe human behavior is more shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary selection than by logic and recent developments in human history (changes to how we organize society since the industrial revolution, for instance), I believe it was an evolutionary advantage for people to become intolerant when resources were scarce.

There are times when all Muslims feel united - as when they watch the a Palestinian home being bulldozed by the Israelis because a member of the family was suspected (or proven) to be a terrorist. Then there are times when the Sunnis and Shia are united amongst themselves in hatred of the other. Then there are times when a city composed of Shia and Sunnis are united in their fear and hatred of the political leader - Saddam Hussein, for instance.

Thinking back over our own history, religion often fails to explain how groups will react to each other. During the Jim Crow era, black Christians were prohibited from worshiping in the same church as the whites. Religious dogma provided justifications for that. Now, religious dogma tends not to be used to justify racial discrimination.

Belief in God and religious teachings are used both to encourage and discourage intolerance and hatred, which is to say that religion is a tool that some use to further their political ends. Humans will continue to search for meaning and some will hijack that search in order to further their own power -- not always cynically, but often. In the absence of religion, people will still war over perceived cultural or ethnic differences.

What I find fascinating is that there seem to be as many religions as their are people. How many Christians are there in the world? Depends on who you count as "Christian." Different people have different criteria for whether one is a true Christian and I suspect that if pressed, most people could find ways of disqualifying everyone outside of their church and 3/4 of those in it as not being true Christians. Everything is a continuum and context defines where we locate ourselves along the continuum and how far we can see in both directions.

OMG! So pumped!!

As I continue to plow through the magazines I set aside during my sports shooting season, I wanted to note the 2009 October issue of The Atantic. It focused mostly on media issues, but also featured one of the best discussions of U.S. Torture Policy in Andrew Sullivan's letter to former-President Bush that offers perhaps the only real solution for moving forward on this important issue.

I was struck by a quote from Mark Bowden (an author I almost always enjoy reading, regardless of subject matter) in his "The Story Behind the Story" that really gets to the heart of why Fox News bothers me so much:

Journalism, done right, is enormously powerful because it does not seek power. It seeks truth.

Fox News has blazed a path of subverting what journalism should be. They weren't the first - but they have blown away the competition. And it bothers me to the extent that other networks copy that approach in an attempt to gain viewers rather than educate viewers.

I was pleasantly surprised by Robert D. Kaplan's "Why I Love Al Jazeera," (which was about Al Jazeera English, not the arabic sister-channel). AJE is basically a BBC-style program if Howard Zinn ran it - it focuses intently on the perspective of the powerless.

And Kaplan also zinged Fox News - noting:

I have spent the past two years reporting from the Indian Ocean region, dealing predominantly with Muslims and indigenous nongovernmental organizations; watching Al Jazeera is the vicarious equivalent of engaging in the kinds of conversations I have been having. One of the multitude of problems I have with Fox News is that even its most analytically brilliant commentators, such as Charles Krauthammer, seem to be scoring points and talking to their own ideological kind rather than engaging in dialogue with others. Watching Fox, you have to wonder whether many of its commentators have ever had a conversation with a real live Muslim abroad.

These are the bookshelves in our living room. Stained by Michelle and varnished by both of us - the first time we tried to classy-up our shelves. It went pretty well.

The books aren't arranged yet, so don't go looking for patterns or anything.

It's been awhile since we started the tour, and I thought I had already posted these, but I have learned that my brain is faulty. So - let's take a look at our kitchen... or at least our kitchen months ago. Not much has changed.

Today is a unique day (Tuesday, Nov 17) in that if you donate to the nonprofit where I work, local foundations will cover the transaction fees and provide a matching contribution. If you have a moment and a few bucks, please make a contribution here so we can continue advocating for communities. Your contribution will go farther today than any other day.

Thank you!

Hey all, Michelle and I have committed to a date for our commitment. Well, wedding, but I was on a committing role. So be available on June 26, 2010 (a Saturday) and plan to be in the Saint Paul, Minnesota area. Maybe you'll get an invite (when we send them in a few months) ... if you don't hear anything, feel free to beg for an invite.

Well worth a watch - a modern day Christian goes back in time to talk with Jesus and his followers.

I just finished editing and posting the photos from Macalester's 2009 football season. Here are the best in my opinion...

I have been remiss in posting photos - both on my Macsportsphotos.net site and here. The photo below is from this gallery of Mac volleyball v. Saint Olaf.