Ok, a couple issues with this. If you enjoyed the previous article, please
take the time to read this. I welcome responses with open arms. Even ones
about how my grammar is poor.
First off, it is painfully obvious that Ben Stein is not the only author
of this article. In fact, while reading it, I was beginning to worry about
the brilliance of Ben Stein (who I am a very big fan of). Thankfully, the
Snopes link sorted things out (along with the something's-fishy-about-this
dual signatures at the bottom).
He starts it off with an honest and well-said criticism of the religious
divisiveness, taboos, and over politically correctness in America today.
Pride in cultural identity paired with acceptance of others, and all the
while treating it as not something to get worked up over, is always a more
righteous choice (at least in my opinion).
But then around "In light of the many jokes we send," he drifts off into a
misleading and misinformed rant. Not very Ben Stein. Which, upon visiting
the Snopes link given, reveals that to be exactly what it is. Something
someone threw into this chain mail around 2006 to confuse and delude
people. And that's what I'm going to be responding to (because I yield to
Ben Stein's wisdom, but the other ranting is very easily picked apart with
the irony of my own ranting).
Basically, it's an attack on the secularization of America (fully loaded
with the false claim that the child psychology doctor's son committed
suicide). My personal favorite is his quote that portrays the tragedy of
Katrina (and implicitly the rest of the article's description of the
degeneration of America) as the result of a higher power's answering our
request to leave us alone. Revenge by sea? Seriously? First off, that's
Poseidon's jurisdiction (honestly guys, are we really having this
conversation?). But suppose we take the metaphore (hopefully) implied and
then continued upon.
"Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the
world's going to hell"
Ok stop. The world is not going to hell. In fact, far from it. *see:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/h...ever_seen.html
(even if you already hate me in this email, please watch this speech, it's
amazing)
Also, in terms of acts of violence, even on top of continual conflict in
the middle east, the past few decades have shown reason for sincere
optimism. To quote the Center for International Development and Conflict
Management's conclusion: "the general magnitude of global warfare has
decreased by over sixty percent [since the 1980s], falling by the end of
2004 to its lowest level since the late 1950s." Long story short,
worldwide violence is tiny and getting tinier, and nothing compared to the
past. We just have instant access to 99% of it thanks to the internet and
other mass media (making it seem much worse than it really is). I'm not
trying to attack modern media here; the internet is amazingly useful (see:
bigthink.com, ted.com, pandora.com), but that's a subject for another
day...
I'm having trouble writing this response because that article is just so
wrong on so many levels that it hurts my head oh so much. But I continue
on.
"Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible
says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as
yourself."
"Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they
don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill
strangers, their classmates, and themselves."
These are pretty bold statements (that wasn't a compliment). Especially
since they are founded on the premise that children do all these things
because we stopped reading the bible in school. Which is nonsense. Even
IF the latter excerpt were true, which it's not, it wouldn't lend ANY
credence to going "back to the good old days" being the answer.
I have an idea though. Why don't we teach children about sincere, genuine
compassion for other human beings, and how that is why they shouldn't do
such horrible things.
I don't know, sounds legit to me.
And as crazy as it seems, the whole "compassion" thing, as opposed to
teaching by fear, actually works in society. For instance, look at
predominantly secular countries like Sweden, Finland, Japan, Norway,
Canada, and Denmark, which surpass us in the I-guess-they're-important
areas of health, literacy, divorce rates, public generosity, per capita
aid to the developing world, and low rates of violent crime and infant
mortality. Meanwhile, America is frighteningly inept in all of these
categories, given our potential. Now I'm not trying to hate on America,
it is the best country in the world, but we shouldn't use that as an
excuse to be lazy when faced with improvement.
Well, I suppose this has gone on long enough for now. And you all by now
probably think I'm some fire-breathing liberal, which is not the case at
all. Yes, Christian idealism, and living life solely by the golden rule
does have all kinds of merits (see: Erasmus's Praise of Folly). I'm not
even going to begin to argue against that. However, I do feel the need to
speak up when someone begins making misinformed and misleading claims that
swindle others into dogmatic and delusional thinking.
Best regards,
Andrew