On the occasion of IKAR’s 20th -A Cautionary tale and a Celebration

 Cautionary tale:

Close to 25 years ago, I began studying the central prayer in our liturgy.  The Shemoneh Esreh or Amidah, in its weekday form, consists of 19 prayers. We are supposed to read it thrice daily, so, over one thousand times per year.  I asked myself why.  After having invested many years in this endeavor, I reached the conclusion that the Rabbis who composed it had in mind that which I later named my work:  I call it NTAG.  Never Take Anything for Granted.
The middle 13, the petition prayers, ask for wisdom, health, forgiveness, good harvest, justice and more, and the frequent recitation of this is there to remind us not to take any of these attributes for granted. 
In life in general, I have come to realize, it’s a good policy to Never Take Anything for Granted.    
The same is true for IKAR. 
Yes, IKAR is soaring to ever higher altitudes and doing so well.  New members are constantly added, and even non-Angelinos join from afar. But we cannot take IKAR for granted. Will it always be the shining light it is today? 

Imagine 70 years from now, when the founding Rabbi turns 120, and decides she wants to spend her time with her grandkids and great grandkids.  What will happen then? Everything in your power must be done to secure a succession and make sure that this won’t be a “20-year fad”.  Just as a caution. 

A celebration
Thousands and thousands of Jewish people in the 20^th century, grew up Jewish, maybe
attended Jewish day school, had a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, maybe went to Jewish summer camp and then………….  The 1960’s.  The Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War.  So many of us turned progressive and felt alienated from our Jewish upbringing.  We simply had no use for Judaism in our lives. 

And still.  As intellectuals we were detached, but as humans we still had warm memories of a Jewish childhood, of food, music, history, stories, community, and friendships.   

Our intellectual and emotional selves were definitely on a collision course.

Then IKAR came along!

We were told that no longer do we have to choose!  Keep your good memories, the steaming good odor of your mother’s cooking, the Jewish jokes, the music.  BUT combine it with a progressive, outward-facing, conscious, smart, egalitarian, equality-centered world view. 

And voila!  Here is a group of (at the time) young professionals, angels in the city of angels, saying “Yes, we can!”  From a modest beginning with just a handful of couples rose an “empire” of likeminded, active, positive, funny people, who simply could not be stopped.
If this is not worth a CELEBRATION, I don’t know what is! 

From coast to coast, from all continents of the world, we raise a glass (or two) and say MAZEL TOV!

A translation of an interview with Rabbi Sharon Brous in a Swedish (!) Magazine...

JUDISK KRÖNIKA (Jewish Chronicle) -   

HEADLINE: “We must be able to see the other’s grief”

Intro paragraph:     
In a time of increased tension and conflict after Hamas attacks in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza, Sharon Brous, a Rabbi from Los Angeles, stands out as a clear sighted and humanitarian voice.  Through her new book, The Amen Effect and her work with the IKAR congregation, Brous highlights the importance of understanding and recognition of the deep grief and betrayal that many Jewish people experience, and at the same time, she emphasizes the acute trauma and the humanitarian catastrophe that the Palestinians are facing.

By Sarah Clyne Sundberg

Sharon Brous’ clear-sighted and humanitarian voice stands out in the media cacophony after Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7^th, 2023, and Israel's ensuing war in Gaza.  Brous is a rabbi in Los Angeles where she leads the independent congregation IKAR.
She manages to articulate the deep grief and the feeling of betrayal many Jewish people feel at the same time she reminds us about the Palestinians who are now experiencing an enormous trauma and humanitarian catastrophe of hard-to-grasp proportions.

-      An American Jew’s feeling of existential loneliness does not contradict that a Palestinian in the USA also feel existential loneliness.  I believe that it is something that can position us to understand each other on a deeper level, she says. 

Brous is in the news with the book “The Amen Effect”, which was released in January of this year.  The theme of the book is the witnessing and confirmation of the other’s grief, to stretch out your hand to someone who has difficulties is the only - and the most important - thing we can do.  The title refers to the Amen that a congregation expresses when a grieving person reads Kaddish. 

Brous thinks that grief rituals is one of the things that the Jewish tradition does the very best and that these rituals can help us understand the moment we are in right now, after October 7^th.

When you grieve in the deepest way, just after having buried a close family member, you sit Shiva.  You have seven days at home. Your near and dear take care of you and make sure that you get food and comfort. You don't go out, you do nothing. But you can't sit there forever. So, when the seven days are over you go around the block. You will see then that life still goes on out there.  Your neighbor is late for work, another one also grieves, while yet another one is happy.

Central in the book is a text, a Mishna, that concerns an ancient Jewish pilgrimage to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  Those who are by and large feeling good, go into the holy place in one direction, while those with broken hearts walk in the opposite direction.  When they meet, the non-grieving is commanded to ask: “what happened to you”?

Brous Says that her attitude towards grief has shifted during the 18 months since she wrote the book. She tells me that when she wrote it, she belonged to the group non-grieving.

I would say that as a congregational rabbi I worked a lot with grief but I had never lost anybody in my core family. My father passed away just before Rosh Hashanah so now I go in the other direction as a grieving person for one year.

Then October 7th happened, and the perspective shifted for most Jews, in Israel as well as in the Diaspora.

- For American Jews I think many changed from having seen themselves as comfortable to feeling that they needed empathy and comfort in that moment.

Brous admits that she was a little nervous before reading through the text again when it was time to record an audio book. But she still felt that there wasn't a lot to change.

-      The book stands firm.  It is built around an ancient thought that that actually is multidimensional.  It's written by rabbis in the 300’s, who had experience of grief from both directions and therefore prescribed a ritual that works, regardless of what direction you're traveling.

She emphasizes the importance of emerging from the feeling of powerlessness to find a new role a new way of handling the grief that many of us feel towards the war in Israel and Gaza. 

-      Part of what I want to say with the book is that we in our grief must find a way to meet other grieving people. No group or individual has a monopoly on grief.

At the same time when a person experiences acute trauma and danger it is very hard to take a step back and be empathetic.  Social safety is the basis for empathy.  If you don't feel safe, it's not easy to meet people with an open heart.

-      For us who live here, far away from Gaza, from the kibbutzim and the villages at the border, can we allow the distance to give us room to open up and be curious about the other?  Not in order to persuade each other about something, only just because we are all human beings.

 

The American Journalist Ezra Klein has made an excellent series of interviews about the massacres and the war with those affected from many different ideological camps in his podcast, the Ezra Klein show. (Brous is one of them).  In one of the first episodes a person says “I have never felt so totally tribal in my thinking, and I don't like it. It frightens me!”

In her book Brous speaks about tribalism. Are there any positive sides to that?

-      Connection to other people is a fundamental need. We are social beings. And we are naturally drawn to those who look like us, speak like us, vote like us, people who have something we recognize in ourselves even if it's a shared feeling of estrangement.  To belong to a group can help us build self-confidence and well-being, it can challenge us. 

To feel part of a group is extremely important for humans. But it can also lead to indifference, or even animosity towards those outside the group.

-      That is extremely dangerous. And of course, this dynamic is much older than October 7^th.  But I think that many were confronted with this feeling of belonging to the Jewish group in a new way.  “It happened to my family why doesn't the world around us see what happened to my family.”

Brous says that it was a part of the agony many Jews have felt the last few months and that has been reinforced by the reactions of the outside world.   

-      Denial of the rapes that have happened, the justification of violence, posters with the hostage that have been torn down, the psychological warfare that happened the days after.  I believe that it influenced people and made them feel that they were maybe not part of a bigger society they've previously felt they belonged to. And that the feeling of Jewish belonging then became more important.

 

Brous tells me that more people than ever before now come to her services on a regular basis, that Jews to a greater extent are seeking community.

-      And at the same time there is a danger of digging yourself into a group or tribal belonging. It doesn't help us to understand those who stand outside our group. It instead has the opposite effect.

Brous has long worked with other religious leaders from different groups for coexistence.

- Building bridges is crucial in order to create a community, that I would like to live in. To create a just society is the ultimate goal.

Sharon Brous has worked for decades for peace, coexistence, and justice. She has even spoken in interviews of her feeling of betrayal and alienation from some of those she previously worked with, after Oct 7^th.

-      The first few days were painful. The silence.  To not hear from people that ought to have contacted me to say that that it's never OK for civilians to be exposed to violence.

I asked her if there's been any new development in that regard. 

-      It is very quiet. And then there were celebrations in certain quarters. It was shocking, it showed such a lack of moral clarity about what is OK and what is not OK. To see that some even wanted to justify such brutal actions in the name of liberation was extremely painful.  At the same time there were many who did contact me.

But as time went by, Brous realized that some of those who had not been in touch, they themselves had been hit by tragedies some had family in Gaza who had been killed, others had lived through private traumas that was unrelated to the war.  And yet others express themselves in a way that she felt was anti-Semitic and didn't even want to hold an individual dialogue with her when she contacted them.

Already on October 14^th, the first time that Brous gave a sermon after October 7th, she pointed out that many still had backed the Israelites who had been affected.

-      The US President, Joe Biden, the world's most powerful man, condemns these cruelties. My representative in Congress called me four times in the first week to see how my congregation was feeling. She is not Jewish.  So, we were not actually alone. We have friends and allies. But the absence sometimes feels stronger than the presence.

Brous also says that seeing the other, to see a human beings grief, is an obligation that we as Jews have towards Palestinian who grieve their own family members who have been killed, hurt or were forced to flee Gaza.

- Our anxiety, grief, and trauma must make us pay attention to those feelings in the people who live on the other side of the border.  After a few days I called my Palestinian friend who had not been in touch. It turned out that he had lost two family members that day in Gaza. We must be able to see and honor others’ humanity without dishonor our own pain as Jews.    
  
Sarah Clyne Sundberg -

Francis Collins: Obama's Biggest Mistake

Here is a discussion with my friend on Francis Collins - Head of NIH.  

Collins was appointed in 2009 by Obama and many considers this appointment to be Obama's biggest mistake.

The discussion was prompted by my friend's reading of "The Language of God" by said Collins.   
This resulted in me sending him (my friend, no Collins) the following email:

Dear Friend,

Please visit this site:

https://samharris.org/books/the-moral-landscape/

The book, which I have here and that is yours to read when you want, is the one with the quote about Obama appointing Collins as head of the NIH in 2009.

One page 164 (ff),  he outlines lectures given by Collins, statements that make him unsuitable to be called a scientist and much less the Director of NIH. 

Now, this book by Sam Harris, was written in 2010 and much may have happened since then.  

Here is the comment on "The Language of God": 

      " 'The Language of God' is a genuinely astonishing book.  To read it is to witness nothing  less than intellectual suicide.  It is, however, a suicide that that has gone almost entirely unacknowledged: The body yielded to the rope; the neck snapped; the breath subsided; and the corpse dangles in ghastly discomposure even now - and yet polite people everywhere continue to celebrate the great man's health."

 Verbatim quote.

Next follow my summary of the ensuing paragraphs: 

Collins meets - and clears  - two VERY low bars:
1.  He is not a "young creationist" (meaning, he realizes that the universe is more than 13 billion years old) 
2.  He is not a proponent of the "intelligent design" hocus pocus.  

BUT he has a budget of $30 BILLION (back in 2010), and still says:  

(This is from a slide presentation Collins did:)

And I quote (Collins): 

SLIDE 1:
"God Almighty, who is not limited in time or space, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of complexity over long periods of time."

SLIDE 2:
"God's plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living things on our planet.  Most especially, that creative plan included human beings"

SLIDE 3:
" After evolution had prepared a sufficiently advanced "house" (the human brain), God gifted humanity with the knowledge of good and evil (the Moral Law), with free will, and with an immortal soul"

 SLIDE 4 (and here it comes, finally)          

"We humans use our free will to break the moral law, leading to estrangement from God.  For Christians, Jesus is the solution to that estrangement" 

END QUOTE

And this was just from less than one page!  There is so much more! 

If I hadn't told you that a "scientist" wrote that, I am convinced you  would have asked: 
"What Southern Baptist church is the speaker a pastor at?"

This is NOT how a scientist speaks - much less the person trusted with $30 billion supposedly earmarked for life saving research.  

 I have said my piece!  I rest my case.  

Hope is both an act of defiance and an expression of love.

My friend, Rabbi Sharon Brous, of IKAR, wrote this today, November 3, 2020, Election Day

Hope is both an act of defiance and an expression of love.

Last week, a friend quoted me in a blessing to his daughter on her bat mitzvah. He shared that I once said the following:

Hope is not naïve. It’s not some opiate to dull the pain of an oppressive reality. Hope may be the greatest act of defiance against a politics of pessimism and a culture of despair.

My first thought was, “I’ll have what she’s having.” To be honest, I’ve been aching for that kind of hope this year, that fierce, honest, rebellious hope—the kind that pierces the cynicism of today and allows us to see the possibility of a better tomorrow. So I tried to reconstruct and tap back into what I was thinking when I first wrote that, four years ago.

I remember now. That was the fall of 2016. While I wore my worry for the future like invisible protective gear against the inevitable, in my heart I believed that we were poised to witness the final repudiation of a white supremacist narrative that had defined, and threatened to destroy, the American project. I thought that the excitement generated around a campaign of fear and division really just represented a kind of extinction burst, a not-so-grand finale to the thinking of segregationists and supremacists. It was time to look to a brighter future.

No electoral setback could steal my hope. The morning after the election, our kids ran into our room and we wept. I told them: There is a lot of callousness and cruelty out there. From this point forward, our home is an oasis of love and justice. We give each other the benefit of the doubt. We listen to one another. We lead with love. We go out into the world today being exactly who we’ve always been, but better. More compassionate. More generous. More awake. Because that’s what it will take to build a more just and loving world.

The thought that we were all responsible for holding the dream, that sustained my hope.

Four years have passed, and we’re exhausted. At times, demoralized. Maybe we’ve been burned by all that hope.

But my friend, R’ Uri Hersher, pointed me yesterday to a verse from the prophet Zechariah (9:12) that I never noticed before: We are prisoners to hope, he says. We have no choice. It’s built into the system. It’s the only way to live. We’re locked into that spiritual mindset because we might otherwise abandon it for the more alluring and sometimes logical alternative: resignation and despair.

But this is no time for despair.

Yes, we’re tired. We’ve protested and written and organized. We’ve prayed and sang and wept. We’ve learned to listen deeply and we’ve grown, in spirit and understanding. We’re smarter now than we were before. We’ve built alliances and gotten strategic. We’ve made mistakes and we’ve course corrected. We’ve held one another with grace and tenderness. Most importantly, we’ve countered the lie that we are powerless… we have found our power, our voice.

The Torah ends before the people reach the Promised Land, I think to teach us how to live in that liminal space between oppression and redemption. To teach us that hope is not an option, but essential to our nature. That the work is not nearly done, and therefore we’re not nearly done.

Stay strong today, and in the days ahead, you who stand on the side of justice and love, of equity, equality and liberation. We will prevail. Remember that hope is both an act of defiance and an expression of love. For ourselves, for our children, and for the future.

R’ Sharon Brous

Humanity’s 100 questions about reality. - A rework of 2011 Blog Post

Humanity’s 100 questions about reality.

This is a rework of a post originally written in 2011 and drew some attention.  The rework includes minor changes.  

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40
41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50
51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60
61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70
71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79	80
81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90
91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	100

Imagine that reality is a square, consisting of 100 boxes.  Each box represents a question man has asked themselves – and each time they have gone to the Church, Imam, Rabbi or Shaman for the answer. 

My contention is that the answers given were inadequate.  Therefore, as time has gone by, people have abandoned religion as the source for answers.  One by one, those boxes, now containing scientific answers, reduce the number of boxes that contain correct, religious answers to the questions:

Example:
Let’s transport ourselves 1000 years back in time. Back then, in the Nordic countries, “we”[1] believed that when we heard thunder, the God Thor was using his hammer to make noise.

Everything back then, every reality box was “explained" by religion. Nothing happened that the priest (or the Rabbi, or the Imam, or the Shaman) was not consulted for an “explanation” for.

A little later, real scientists realized that it was probably not a god who caused thunder, but that there were scientific explanations.

Another example:  You get sick, back in Biblical times, and all the way through medieval times, there were no “doctors”.  Again, the “professional” that was consulted did not know anything about medicine, and their answers were, consequently, inadequate.    Later we learned that Medicine is a science.  Box 2 turned from “religion has the answer” to “Religion does not have the answer”

So, in my little example, 100 boxes of reality that could be explained by religion now shrunk to 98.

Then other things happened, including Newton, Galileo Darwin and suddenly the reality square that could be explained by religion was down to 50.

Then we learned about DNA, we started brain research, we are starting understand genetics, I argue that the number of squares is now down to a very low number.

And it would be ARROGANT to say that we now “know everything” - like the genius said in 1899, when they tried closing the Patent Office because, and I quote: “Everything that can be invented ever has already been invented”.

So, what is the little corner of the 100 boxes that is still “held” by religion?
Well, it is for sure NOTHING that has to do with Nature, Science, Technology, or anything tangible.

There is nothing in “life” – giving birth, growing up, and so on that even remotely can be explained by religion.
Now, what do the religious still claim:  “Feelings”? "Comfort”? “Trust”?

Well, modern brain research now show that we will be able to explain those neuro-scientifically too. Maybe not completely today, maybe not in 5 years, but I would think that within this decade, or the next, maybe before 2030, we will be able to explain all those things scientifically.

In his excellent book, “The Moral Landscape”[2], Sam Harris gives an overview of the progress in neuro-science – primarily through fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and through the understanding about the role of neurotransmitters for our memory – and shows that we are still just in the beginning of the journey that will lead to the understanding of our psyche.

Societal Memory
The problem is that we view our societal memory in very short terms:  When we say: “Well, this has always been this way, and it will never change” - it is simply not true. Our perspective is too short.

A few examples. 
“The help in our household has always been black people.  This is not something new”

What the speaker conveniently forgets is that only 125-150 years ago, that help was part of a group we called Slaves. Saying that they “always” been our help is only true of if your time perspective is 30, 40, 50 years old. 

“That grocery store has always stood at the corner of Main and Elm Street”.  No, it hasn’t.  “Always” here is used as a shortcut for “as long as I can remember, or per what I heard through my grandparents”.  But the grocery store wasn’t always there. 

“Dogs have always looked like they do now!”  No, they haven’t!  All dogs were, in the not far past, wolves.  Every one of them.  Breeding turned wolves into dogs[3].  If science is your guide, these are not difficult facts to grasp.

“A rose is a rose is a rose” - Rudimentary knowledge of horticulture informs you that it ain’t 

so. 

And, to turn back to religion, this is one their favorites, that is totally false as well:  “The human relationships and the insights of the human nature that are described in the Bible still hold true today.” --- Then they sigh:  “Man is just the same!”  “Nothing is new under the sun”.

Again, they are not aware of the facts in the matter. 

Just take this recent book[4] where Steven Pinker shows, like others have before him, that in proportion to the population, and despite “better” “technology” to kill people, the number of war deaths has actually declined the last 200 years and is steadily declining.    Just because the Holocaust and Hiroshima provided “technologies” for mass killings does not mean that Human Nature is getting more violent.  In fact, it is getting less so and many scientists explain this because of the decline of religious influence while scientific knowledge is growing.

The Bible as a source for moral truth
This is to say that the “remaining” boxes that apologists still try to claim for religion may not be so. 

The premise:  Bronze-age, undereducated (really only schooled in their own texts) “prophets” (like Ezra who is the most likely candidate for the title of the actual author of the Bible) with no knowledge of nature, genetics, chemistry, history or physics compiled old stories – handed down over the generations – into a book that later was revered as containing “eternal wisdom”.   What possible “eternal” wisdom could they have, especially when they – and their descendants – later claimed that the book was written by a supernatural god and handed to his “Servant”, whose existence is highly historically questionable? 

Furthermore, the “wisdom” provided in the book is full of violence, slavery, inequality and sanction for cruel death penalties for the smallest crime. 
“If you find that your wife to be is not a virgin on your wedding day, she shall be stoned to death”[5]

“If you find a man collecting wood on the Sabbath, he shall be stoned to death”. [6]
The latter example even includes an opportunity for the “wise” “Servant of god” to reconsider and grant a pardon for the poor stick-picking man.  The answer – after some thoughts – was “No, he shall be stoned to death” 

That is the “wisdom” we are supposed to learn and take to our hearts. 

This is the source for moral behavior, they say.   The problem is that – even if we were to find that the “morality” of the bible something to strive for - we know right from wrong before we even open the book the first time! 

Here is how.  They say:  “We must not take the words of the Bible literally!”  (Although every word in the Bible is the Word of God!) – And we have to understand it “symbolically”- this comes from people who accept reason and science – and who still want to hold on to the “ol’ time religion”.  These people are trying reconciling their religion with reason.  
“You have to understand the metaphoric language of the Bible” - “It really doesn’t mean that you should stone sinners to death!”

So, they would say: “Of course, we wouldn’t stone to death non-virgins today, in 2011!!!”  They may even joke about it and say:  “There aren’t enough rocks around to make that happen!”

The problem is that they - by stating this - admit that the Bible is not the source for their moral choice! 

Even if they never had opened a Bible, they would have said:  “Of course, we wouldn’t stone to death non-virgins today, in 2011!!!”  So, the Bible does not add anything to their moral choice foundation!  In fact, they make a moral choice in spite of what the Bible says.

No wonder, then, that when apologists say that there are lessons to be learned from the Bible, it is really hard to find that credible.

Warmth, Comfort, Community, Confidence (in illness, before death)
So, no aspect of the natural world gives us any reason to go to religion for answers.  You can list all the empirical sciences, like Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Medicine, Geology, History, Archeology, Engineering, Computer Science, Statistics, and more, and find that no reasonable person would go to religion to find answers.  Yes, there are even religious fanatics who prevent real doctors from treating their sick kids, and rather let them die than being treated by a scientist.  That’s just confirms the insanity that religion induces. 

No, most reasonable people would go elsewhere to answer questions regarding these aspects of reality. 

So, let’s go back to our 100 square box:

What’s left?

I list 4 squares “unfilled” – see above.  The first 96 questions can be answered by science and not by religion – provided you want accurate answers.  The remaining boxes may be:

-       Warmth.  Feeling of warmth, including music in the church (or Synagogue or Mosque or whatever), food, culture (jokes, familiar stories etc.,) are provided by religion – and it is possible we cannot go to science to get that.  At least not yet.  One has to remember though, that throughout the history of Christianity, its church has had a lot of power and artists and musicians were forced to write church music, paint church paintings, etc., because the powerful church provided a source of living for the artists.  

Just look at the works of Mozart.  He wrote a lot of church work, because his employer ordered him to.  An illustrative example of the hypocrisy can be found here.[7] -

       Comfort

     You are sad, you are depressed and you need some cheering up.  In years past, the first
(and maybe only) place to turn was your priest.  Were there many people who found comfort in the church, in their faith, with their clergy?  Absolutely!  The problem, of course, were the “side effects” – like kids being taken advantage of by unscrupulous priests and other clergy, the false hopes that were given, not to mention the notion (at least in Christianity, and in Islam) that “it is OK to suffer in this world, in the next you’ll be in heaven, and that’ll be wonderful.”
That notion worked real well in feudal times when the feudal masters and the church worked in tandem to send that message instead of improving working and living conditions.  
Today, the concept is of course still there with Islamic suicide bombers who are promised 72 virgins in heaven.
The question you must ask yourself if you find comfort in the church is:  Are there other sources for reassurance that would work the same or even better? 
If the answer is:  “I have searched high and low, and I have honestly looked for comfort elsewhere and only the Church can provide it”, then I guess religion is for you. 
In other cases, comfort can be found elsewhere, music, poetry, friendship, meaningful jobs, and many other places. 
 

-       Community
Mordechai Kaplan, a revolutionary Rabbi (1881 – 1983) stated that religion has components, Belonging, Believing, and Behaving. 
The Belonging – the community – is indisputable. 
However, secular people can also find community.  Religion is not the only way to feel you belong to something, or that “this is your community, this is your home”. 
Many people feel that being a sports fan, a group of people who go fishing together, playing cards together, and so on, also feel Belonging, experience community. 

-       Confidence (in illness, before death)
Many people turn to the church to hear that their illness will be cured, if you are suffering from a painful disease.  And if you are dying, your suffering will end with your passing.  The Priest may visit you at the hospital, come to a house of mourning, and you may feel that the knowledge that visit will comfort you and your loved ones one day,  makes you coming back to the Church, even when you are not sick and far from your last days. 
But what can the priest really say? 

What insights to illness does he (or she) have?  What insights to death, if any, can the Priest provide?
Yes, one can feel comforted after having talked to a clergy person, but ask yourself if you cannot feel that way after having talked to a Social Worker, a therapist or a friend?

So, if you look at the world with intellectual honesty, free from superstition and wishful thinking, you will see that the box truly should look like this:

And we pay money to, spend our time with and expend lots of energy, swords and words on something that, at its best, would provide answers to 4% of your questions.  And if you  are humble enough to realize that we do not know everything about our psyche yet, and that neuro-science is making huge strides in understanding, then the last 4 (in this example) boxes that may still – today – have answers coming from clergy. 

An open mind would demand that you allow for the possibility that “hold-outs” for religion will be explained scientifically within a decade, in the same way as the Human Genome was mapped and that DNA was explained – and was the source for so much additional explanation in just the last 50 – 60 years.

Richard Gavatin
Oct 20, 2011

  

---

[1] “We” – because I was a Scandinavian

[2] Publisher: Free Press; Reprint edition (September 13, 2011)

[3] The Greatest Show on Earth – Evidence for Evolution (Richard Dawkins, 2009) where you can learn do much about biology, physics, chemistry and medicine. 

[4] The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined [Hardcover] by Steven Pinker (2011) Publisher: Viking Adult (October 4, 2011)

[5] Devarim/Deuteronomy Chapter 22, Verse 20.

[6] Bamidbar/Numbers Chapter 15, verses: 32-35.

[7] In 1779 Mozart wrote the so called Coronation Mass, a beautiful work.  He wrote the Mass for the coronation of the Virgin Mary in Plain, a small village outside of Salzburg. Especially beautiful is the mass’ last movement, Agnus Dei (the lamb of God). 
Seven years later when he wrote the totally secular opera, The Marriage of Figaro, he “borrowed”  the melody from Agnus Dei ands used it in one of the feature arias in the opera, the Countess’ grand third act aria, ‘Dove Sono’.   So, is this a secular or religious piece of wonderful music?