Did Joseph Think It Was His Kid?
As you may have heard, SCOTUS is hearing oral, and possibly anal, arguments about gay marriage today. In a stroke of irony, this is day after March 25, nine months before Christmas. In other words, a crucial day, in the most famous unconsummated marriage in history.
PG began to ponder the traditional marriage of Joseph and Mary. Apparently, Joseph’s last name is lost to history. The question of the day is “when did Joseph and Mary get married?”. There are brain damage inducing answers at facilities such as Liberty Gospel Tracts and Fish Eaters Traditional Catholic Forum.
LGT (the B got kicked out for some reason) contributes a bible passage, Matthew 1:18-19. 18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. 19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.
Put her away in the privy? That is some kinky business there. Maybe the Christians and Jews have it all wrong. The thirds Abrahamic religion, Islam, might have the answer. A site, TurnToIslam, has another point of view about the traditional definition of marriage.
What about Mary, Jesus’ Mother peace be upon both of them? How old was she when she got pregnant? Not only was it a custom in the Arab society to Engage/Marry a young girl it was also common in the Jewish society. The case of Mary the mother of Jesus comes to mind, in non biblical sources she was between 11-14 years old when she conceived Jesus. Mary had already been “BETROTHED” to Joseph before conceiving Jesus. Joseph was a much older man. therefore Mary was younger than 11-14 years of age when she was “BETHROED” to Joseph. We Muslims would never call Joseph a Child Molester, nor would we refer to the “Holy Ghost” of the Bible, that “Impregnated” Mary as a “Rapist” or “Adulterer”.
“….it is possible that Mary gave birth to her Son when she was about thirteen or fourteen years of age….”Mary was approximately 14 years old when she got pregnant with Jesus. Joseph, Mary’s Husband is believed to be around 36. Mary was only 13 when she married Joseph. When she first was arranged with Joseph she was between 7 to 9 years old.”
According to the “Oxford Dictionary Bible” commentary, Mary (peace be upon her) was was 12 years old when she became impregnated. So if I want to be as silly and ridiculous as many of the Christians, I would respond to them by saying that Mary was psychologically and emotionally devastated for getting pregnant at a very young age. And speaking of “child molesting”, since most Christians believe that Jesus is the Creator of this universe, then why did G-D allow himself to enter life through a 12-year old young girl’s vagina? Please note that we Muslims love and respect Allah Almighty, Mary, Jesus and Allah’s Message to the People of the Book (The Jews and Christians). In other words, we Muslims would never make fun of Christianity through such childish topic like this one as many ridiculous Christians do make fun of Islam through our Prophet’s (peace be upon him) marriage.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
More Skepticism About Facebook Graphics
A facebook entity called Skeptics; Atheists; Realists; Agnostics; Humanists recently blessed the digital world with a graphic. The image features a purported quote from Henry Louis Mencken, to the effect that “Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right?” A group with skeptic in it’s name shouldn’t object to a bit of fact checking.
Mr. Mencken was not a religious person. The Baltimore scribe was famous for his cynical sayings. He made up the story of Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, and watched in horror as people refused to believe that it was a hoax. (Those who enjoy stories about bathtubs might enjoy this radio show, The Bathtubs or the Boiler Room.)
Mr. Mencken may indeed have said it. Wikiquotes does not have the quote, but they are not the last word. It would seem that as much of his written work survives, that, if the quote is genuine, there is a paper trail. PG does not have the inclination to search for this quote.
There is the sense that the poster quote may be a bit on the trite side, for the learned Mr. Mencken. It is a common rhetorical device, which some english teacher has a name for. The writing of Mr. Mencken that this reporter has seen has a bit more subtlety. As the Saturday Evening Post. wrote once, “Too many present-day Americans know Mencken solely through the occasional printed sound-bite which political writers pilfer in an attempt to appear erudite.”
One of the quotes that Wikiquotes turned up was “We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.” This is credited to “Minority Report : H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks (1956)” This says much the same thing as the poster, but with more style.
Mr. Mencken continues to be controversial, years after his death in 1956. Some of his letters have unflattering things to say about Jews, Blacks, Southerners, and a few other groups. On the one hand he said very rude things about Jews; on the other, he denounced the Nazi persecution of Jews years before it was fashionable. Perhaps this “premature anti fascism” was the reason for the FBI keeping a file on him. While he might not have said the poster quote in so many words, many of his writings showed the thought in action. Mr. Mencken might also look down at the vulgarity of facebook graphics, and bumper sticker wisdom. He might not want to be blamed for the words appearing on that poster. UPDATE QuoteFail says they can find no evidence that this is a valid quote.
Respect And Fear
It has been seven days since the last edition of the series tagged “repost this sign”. This is when someone puts up a visually pleasing (sometimes) graphic, with the invitation to repost the graphic if you agree with the message. The edited graphics are attached to this post, and the reader is encouraged to copy them onto a facebook wall. There might be copyright issues involved, but this is facebook, and we are making people better persons, so it’s all right.
There are four messages this week. Here are the links to the originals: one, two, three, four. They have been converted to grayscale, which helps them to fit in with the other pictures posted. These pictures are from The Library of Congress.
The first two are tough to disagree with. We all want to see people have well fed, happy lives. The second one is about finding a baby animal on the ground, and putting it back in the nest. The conventional wisdom says this is bad, the poster says it is not, and PG does not know.
The last two posters sort of contradict each other, with the truth somewhere in the middle. Many people confuse respect for fear. Right makes right, and you need the approval of an authority. Perhaps people who are raised with this mindset are more likely to develop mental illness. Or, children with problems have bully, authoritarian parents who make their problem worse. Maybe this is why the wide eyed girl in poster four clutches her coffee with such enthusiasm.
Poster four was put up last week, which is the middle of March. According to the inerrant wikipedia, Mental Health Awareness Week is the first full week in October. Maybe the people posting this need to be taught respect for the perfectly obvious facts.
When producing text for a column of pictures, it is normal to have space to fill. Last week, a series of quotes were copied into the spot, and the cup quickly runneth over. A bit of commodity wisdom from Friedrich Nietzsche was deleted.
Today, there is going to be random nonsense written, until the space runs out. It is ok to skip this, and go ahead to the pictures. These images are from the War Between The States. War is a time when the lines between respect, authority, and mental illness are blurred to the point of no return. A war is usually popular for the first thirty days, at which the memories of previous wars become unblocked. It was ten years ago that we started to kill people in Iraq. This is a textbook example of the inmates taking over the asylum. The oil revenues have not paid for this war.
Debaptism
PG is a recovering Baptist. However, he was never baptized.
The Baptists like to pressure pre adolescent children into making a “Profession of Faith”. Every Sunday, the mob would sing “Just as I am” and the kids would walk down the aisle, shake the preachers hand, and be recruited into the Baptist way of life.
Every few weeks, the Church would fire up the Baptismal pool, and go to work. The house lights would dim, and the young Baptists were dunked in the pool.
A while back, the wiring was carelessly installed in a Baptist building. The Preacher was electrocuted when he used the microphone in the Baptismal Facility.
Now, the British have an answer. The Church of England goes for infant baptism, using the sprinkle on the noggin. This is too much for some, who object to the indoctrination into the cult of Jesus Worship, made before a person is eating solid food. One answer is the “Certificate of Debaptism”
The certificate is the work of the National Secular Society , which suggests hanging it in the loo. The various churches involved thus far decline to remove the baptized from any church records. The certificate is purely symbolic.
The text above is a repost. HT (for the original post) to JoeMyG-d. Pictures (with one obvious exception) are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
The importance of baptism is questionable. To some , it is a big deal. In a society without an official state religion, there are few measurable benefits or penalties for being registered in a religious organization. The concept of baptism is essentially symbolic. It is usually practiced on children, often on infants. Many adults realize that this children’s ritual no longer fits the person they are.
The National Secular Society has a web page about the efforts of people to make their de baptism official. Some of the stories are worth reading.
From Chris Taylor: After reading about other NSS members successfully managing to ‘de-baptise’ themselves I thought that I would give it a crack with the CofE mob. I emailed the diocese where I was dunked many years ago asking if I could be struck from the record as I have always thought it to be a load of old rubbish and said that if my parents had given me the choice of going through some sort of black magic voodoo ceremony performed by a probable child abuser in a dress I would, even at the age of 6 months, have said thanks but no thanks. I received a reply telling me that there was nothing that I could do about it. I replied asking again, suggesting that it would be easy, and a good christian deed (as these christers like to call it) to simply remove me from their register but it was to no avail. They replied again saying that it was just not possible and that I would just have to live with it. I would be interested to know if anyone has been successful with CofE as the RC lot seem to give different answers to different people. Maybe it depends on how god is feeling at the time!
Here is the reply sent by the Catholic Church, to someone who wanted to officially cut his ties :
If you have decided formally to renounce your Catholic faith, there is a simple procedure. You need to write to an official known as the diocesan chancellor for the area within which you were baptised. Give him as much detail as possible about where and when you were baptised, and briefly state the reasons why you wish no longer to be considered a member of the Catholic Church. Keep it factual and avoid anything that he might construe as aggressive or insulting to the Catholic religion.
A note will then be made in the baptismal register of the Church where you were baptised stating that you have formally renounced your membership of the Catholic Church. For all legal purposes, both in the law of the Church, and, where applicable, in civil law, you will no longer be considered a Catholic. It is not possible to cancel your baptism as such, since baptism is regarded by the Church as leaving an indelible mark on the soul, but of course, this will not concern you since you no longer believe in that.
2013 edition: If you click on the National Secular Society spot, you get this: “Sorry, the page ‘/official-debaptism.html’ is no longer available.” In it’s place is Debaptized dot com. The symbol of the new movement is the hair dryer. (Perhaps if Jesus had died at the hair salon, people would worship the hair dryer.) The Debaptist Church is pastored by Reverend Thomas Wubby.
TDC offers many services, including debaptism by proxy. Recently debaptized people include Andreas Jambak Nilsen, Ivan Popovski, Craig Nicholson, Christopher Price, and Peter Von Burg. The FAQ does not indicate if donations are tax deductible.
Fools Quotes Religion
The conversation started when East Point Man posted a graphic of Mark Twain. The beloved writer is clutching a pipe, leaning back in an easy chair, with his white hair flying in a hundred directions. The quote is “Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.” Readers of this blog should know what happens next.
PG- Wikiquotes does not show Mr. Twain saying this. I searched under religion, invented, and fool. He might have said it, but I do not see a source. While I agree with the concept, I strongly suspect that Mr. Twain did not say this.
EPM- Wikiquotes is not a reliable source..
EPM- Goodreads Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool. – Mark Twain
PG- Do you know when, where, and under what circumstances? Also, the context would be fun to know. Online quotes can be fun, but they leave out a lot of useful information.
EPM- Like you I agree with the concept.. as for the validity.. hard to say.. I have found it listed on several well known sites.. but it is not listed on the Mark Twain quote website. and i also found this
EPM- Ne’er the Twain did speak it
EPM- whether or not he said it is not as important as the message that so many others agree on..but in this digital age.. anyone could have said anything lol
PG- When you go looking for information, or to verify information, you are liable to find out something unexpected. Often the journey is far more interesting than the destination. I agree with the essential truth of the original quote, even as I dispute who said it. I have long suspected that people like Twain and Oscar Wilde had interesting friends, whose witty sayings were borrowed by the famous scribe. Thank you for the link to Zebra fact check.
EPM- agreed..like the email warnigs that you get sometimes warning you fo a product and such.. I usally attempt to find out if something is true or not before I send it out to anyone else.. Facebook posts are different as most people agree with the content and pay less attention to the delivery of it
EPM- You are welcome.. the Zebra page is new to me too.. and will be using it to check on things
PG- This is a favorite subject of mine. You can fool all the people all the time, if the people want to be fooled. The christian religion places great emphasis on believing, and less on whether this belief is the truth. Even for those who have moved away from religion, this emphasis on belief… on mythos over logos… is present.
PG- Also, I don’t know if wikiquotes is a total authority, but it is a good place to start your search. While the absence of a quote in wikiquotes does not mean the quote is completely bogus, it is evidence thereof. There is a difference between prove and indicate. While a quote not being in wikiquotes does not prove that it is phony, it certainly is evidence that something is amiss.
EPM- I personally find all the wiki sites to be unreliable as they let anyone put in the information and I do not see any actual checks and balances. but as a starting point.. they can always be a starting point as long as you do not rely on them soley. just my opinion
Two links are used in this discussion. Goodreads parrots the quote without any more information. The page is sponsored by a cleaning product called Swiffer.
Zebra Fact Check is the star of this story. They do more than searching for key words on wikiquote, which is what this slack blogger does. Here is the key paragraph from “Ne’er the Twain did speak it”.
“We were poised to interview experts on Mark Twain and do searches of available databases of the author’s works, but the patterns in simple Google searches suggested an easier alternative. All the Google hits for our set of keywords lacked a source attribution, a classic symptom of spurious quotations, and more importantly the hits were recent. We revised our search criteria to look for an origin of the quotation. It didn’t appear before 2002 on the Web. Anti-religious quotations from famous people just don’t go unused over that length of time. If Twain wrote or said it, somebody would have quoted it online before the year 2000.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Agnotology
Agnotology is the study of ignorance. It is not connected to Agnetha Fältskog, the Abba G-ddess. One messenger of this noun says “Today I learned the word “agnotology,” or the study of why we do not know what we do not know. These are the “unknown unknowns,” the questions we don’t even know to ask.”
PG found the messenger’s blog through a google search for the phrase “G-d is a concept through which we measure our pain”. The resulting post was about the death of John Lennon. The embedded video has a guest appearance by Howard Cosell, a well known scholar of ignorance.
There is a book, Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance. A two star review hits on a cause of ignorance, the inability to communicate knowledge.
Bartolo interesting, but beware, if you value good writing June 11, 2011
… It is the level of writing that is atrocious. Maybe I should have waited for the Bill Bryson version, or for anyone who could use these materials to fashion a book that doesn’t insult the language and waste one’s time. These writers, to a person, are academics, and almost all should be soundly thrashed with a hardbound copy of Strunk & White. This is a compendium of every fault scholarly writing is heir to: wordiness, redundancy, needless complexity of sentence structure (often designed to mask or extend mundane observations), pointless jargon, infelicitous phraseology, obscurantism, even lame humor (as per the double entendres in the essay on the clitoris, by a feminist no less!) that probably plays better in the senior seminar than in a book intended for mature adults. These scholars write as though being paid by the word–and for a nonexistent editor. The book could have been half its length with no sacrifice whatever to the content.
A facility called ResearchGate offers an article about agnotology. You need to pay to see the article. The disclaimer is free. “Data provided are for informational purposes only. Although carefully collected, accuracy cannot be guaranteed. The impact factor represents a rough estimation of the journal’s impact factor and does not reflect the actual current impact factor. Publisher conditions are provided by RoMEO. Differing provisions from the publisher’s actual policy … may be applicable.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This feature is written like H. P. Lovecraft.
Rob Bell Incorporated Wrote A Book
PG saw a link for “What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell.” The first sign of trouble was the video starting by itself as the window opened. Auto start is the work of the devil.
So, the equal sign/arrow duality was clicked (does anyone know which is stop and which is play?), and the man started to talk. He had the preacher cadence, his voice rising and falling in every sentence. At one minute and one second, he said that for many people today, G-d is like Oldsmobile. There is only two minutes and nine seconds left, so it won’t hurt to listen to the rest.
There were few surprises in the rest of the video. Some people don’t agree with what they are told about G-d. Others believe, but don’t like it. Mr. Bell, in the biggest non surprise of all, has a book coming out, What We Talk About When We Talk About G-d. The video is a sales pitch for the book.
While looking for material to go with this post, PG found a 1932 cartoon. A young man rescues Lucille, and takes her driving in his Oldsmobile. The man and woman get married. The Parson does not look, or sound, like Rob Bell.
The youtube comment crowd is pushing pixels. javawocky I think you need to decide who you are going to trust – Rob Bell, or Jesus Christ. You may have noticed the Rob never quoted a single scripture here, its just his ideas. Rob never performed miracles, he never rose from the dead, and he never lived a sinless life. I strongly urge you go back and seriously study what the bible says not Rob Bell. kueagle1 No, I disagree. You believe or you don’t believe. Preachers like Bell are preaching to tickle liberal ears, not what is in the bible. The preacher here is talking about advocating the new modern liberal attitudes of reinterpreting the bible in ways to support their present opinions. What is written plainly in the bible doesn’t seem to matter, only the liberal heresy.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
G-d Is
G-d is
… in the details
… the opinion of an atheist
… the union with every breath
… smiling in your face when you turn your back
… isis, astarte, hecate, demeter, cali, iana, diana
… the whirlwind that blows through a junkyard, creating a jet engine
The Six G-ds of Christianity
There is a discussion brewing in the Jesus Worship blogosphere on the question of ” Is Christianity really monotheistic ”. This is in response to a post, on the subject of the unquestioning Christian .
There is a “motivational” poster, with the headline “Ten signs you are an unquestioning Christian”. One of these (either number one or ten) deals with monotheism. To wit: “You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of G-ds claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of your G-d.” Some writers are promising/threatening to write about all ten of these arguments, and the feature on monotheism is the first.
PG is a recovering Baptist, who is severely alienated from Jesus. He does suspect that there is a G-d, and is in no way an “atheist”. The tracts linked to above tend to break down the discussion to atheists vs. christians, which is highly misleading.
PG has been knocking around for some time the idea of a post about the six G-ds of Jesus Worshipers. The appearance of this series…at blogs that ban PG from commenting…has spurred him into action. Whether or not there will be more comments (from PG) remains to be seen.
Christianity claims to be a monotheistic religion. This means, there is only one G-d. In contrast, the Romans and Greeks had G-ds and G-ddesses galore, and the Hindus have literally millions of deities. In what was claimed by some as an advancement, the Jews worshiped one G-d. (Zoraroastrians are said to be monotheistic, and did it before the Jews. There may be others.)
One of the sacred tracts of Judaism and Christianity is the ten commandments . The first three relate to the concept of monotheism, and the proper way to talk about G-d.
1-Thou shalt have no other G-ds before me.
2-Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy G-d am a jealous G-d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
3-Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy G-d in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
As a side note, PG has heard something about the use of Lord as a name for G-d. The riff is that “Lord” was an expression for an English nobleman. When the Bible was translated by James I, his workers used the L word as a synonym for G-d. The words for G-d in the Greek and Hebrew texts that comprised the Bible do not translate as Lord…that word was inserted by the anglocentric workers of James I. This is something that PG read in a book by Tom Robbins, and has no other source for. It may, or may not be true. If it is, then it just might be a violation of the third commandment.
Getting back to monotheism, does Christianity live up to the first commandment? This may seem to be a silly question when you consider the concept of the trinity. At some point in the early days of Jesus Worship, a decision was made to split G-d into three parts. We now had the father, the son, and the holy ghost. (Which makes for a neat blessing…the father the son the holy ghost, whoever eats fastest gets the most) The first commandment is still in effect, but, well, you just have to understand. The Jews continued to worship one G-d, and when Mohammed started his franchise, he changed the name to Allah. In that version, there is no G-d but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger.
Meanwhile, the Jesus Worshipers were good at converting and reproducing, and soon had a very popular religion. But was it one G-d only? The faith had a book of ancient texts that they call “the word of G-d”. The fact that it was written, copied, edited and translated by man did not stop folks. The first commandment would seem to prohibit this custom, but, you just have to believe.
PG is willing to concede the point that he doesn’t understand the concept of the Trinity. He thinks it is a concoction of the Council of Nicea, and a violation of the first commandment. This is something that seems to happen a lot with Christianity…to proclaim one thing as a rule, to apparently violate that rule, but have a clever explanation that few seem to understand.
This does not explain the other G-ds of Christianity. For this discussion, we will focus on three…the Bible, Satan, and Salvation.
The Catholic Church had a conference to establish a consistent canon for their church. This conference became known as the Council of Nicea. (This conference is where the concept of the Triune G-d was formulated.) The texts in use by the church at the time were collected in one book. Some texts were not used, and there is a good possibility that the texts that were used were edited. This committee effort became known as the Bible.
During the protestant reformation, the new churches needed a source for their authority over the people. It was during this time that the concept of the Bible as the “Word of G-d” became known. This in effect made a G-d out of a book. This is in direct defiance of the First Commandment, which teaches to have no other G-d before you.
The book has been interpreted into many languages, and the interpretations have been interpreted. The star of the New Testament, Jesus, spoke Aramaic. His words were recorded, in Greek, many years after he *died*. Any quote from Jesus has been translated at least twice. This is from texts that were written many years after he lived. And yet, people talk about what Jesus taught, and have confidence, that they know what they are talking about. (The only things we know about Jesus is what the Council of Nicea chose to tell us.)
At some point, the idea began to float around that the Bible was not only the word of G-d, but that it was inerrant…that is, without errors. This would presume that no body in the chain of production made a mistake. This includes a scribe copying a text, and a Catholic editor assembling a canon. Nobody translating ancient languages, from ragged source materials, made a mistake. The people who make this claim seem to assume that they have a perfect understanding of this text. Is it a coincidence that the spell check suggestion for inerrant is ignorant?
This one is too blatant to let slide. When you declare a text to be the “word of G-d”, you are making a G-d out of a book. There is a semantic argument to be made… you can say that this isn’t worship. Lets say it out loud… calling the Bible the “word of G-d” makes a G-d out of a book, in violation of the First Commandment. This is not monotheism.
A quick look at the way Satan is treated by the church shows a curious similarity to worship. Yes, it is backhanded worship, and lots of negative things are said about Beelzebub. He with the horns and tail is given credit for all kinds of powers, and needs to be fought (with human collateral damage). Yes, Jesus Worshipers give the Devil his due, and then some.
The last “G-d” that we will look at today is Salvation, or the Christian scheme for life after death. Anyone living in the USA has heard this plan a thousand times, and many agree with it. Some do not agree with it. It is none of your business how PG feels, even if your first guess is probably correct.
What is undeniable is the importance placed on salvation in Christianity. It is discussed in every church meeting, often at top volume, and with dramatics that would shame a ham actor. Salvation is said to justify all the rudeness and verbal abuse that Jesus Worshiper inflict on their neighbors. If you do not agree with the concept of Salvation, you have no business belonging to a Christian Church.
Does this hysterical emphasis on Salvation make a G-d out of the concept? As with the Bible and Satan, it is a matter of perspective. A good argument could be made that Jesus Worshipers treat these three items with G-d like devotion, and make G-ds out of them.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Lie About Jesus
Jamie Foxx sang a few words
Supposedly to the parents of Trayvon Martin
No weapon formed against you shall prosper.
This is a lie.
Kel Tec does very nicely.
Jesus is used to hurt people.
Gun owners
And bible owners
Like to have fun.
Nat Hentoff
PG saw a talk with Nat Hentoff on Booknotes. A series of stories about jazz musicians was expected. That is not what the talk was about. The first topic of the conversation was abortion.
LAMB: (Brian Lamb, host of Booknotes) “When has a liberal been the most upset with you to your face?”
Mr. HENTOFF: “Oh, well, the most controversial subject-issue I’ve ever gotten involved in to this day was when I became pro-life. And liberals are very–many liberals are very angry at me because of that. In part, because–they could understand it, they say, if I came to it from a religious kin–a Catholic perspective. But I’m still a Jewish atheist, and that really bothers them.”
Later in the interview, Mr. Hentoff commented on atheism.
LAMB: “What does it mean to you to be an atheist?”
Mr. HENTOFF: “It means that I was never able–I mean, I really envy, in some respects, some of the people of faith I’ve known–A.J., for example.”
LAMB: “What was his religion?”
Mr. HENTOFF: “He was–he–I don’t know what he finally came out believing in, but it was some kind of higher being. But Kierkegaard said it for me a long time ago. He said, `You can’t really think yourself into a faith, into a religion. It’s something you have to make a leap into faith.’ And I’ve never been able to do that. I wish I could. Then maybe I could believe in an afterlife.”
Being an atheist did not keep Mr. Hentoff from befriending religious bigshots.
“My favorite story about O’Connor (John Cardinal O’Connor) –one of them–is I was in Toronto at a pro-life conference. And I was … explaining … that the best way to not have unwanted abortions was to have much more research on contraception. And two very large, true-faith people came out of the audience, wrested the microphone out of my hand and said, `That is inappropriate, improper. Pro-lifers do not believe in contraception.’ And O’Connor’s watching this. I get up again and introduce him, and O’Connor said, `I want to tell you I’m delighted that Nat is not a member of the Catholic Church. We have enough trouble as it is.'”
Mr. Hentoff may be the one “pro life” advocate who is also opposed to war and capital punishment. The interview was broadcast October 19, 1997, when his political passion was a distaste for Bill Clinton.
Mr. HENTOFF: “Oh, I think–I don’t think he does anything–I don’t think it’s ill will. I don’t think he’s evil in the sense that he hates the Bill of Rights. He does what he figures will help him politically. It’s like when he was running for president. I’ll never forget this one. He was running in New Hampshire. He was not doing well. And he suddenly, over a weekend, rushed back to Little Rock to execute a guy who had killed a cop, but in the process, the policeman had shot him in the head and he was out of it. He didn’t know today from tomorrow, good, evil, whatever. His lawyer begged–his lawyer was an old friend of Clinton. He begged Clinton not to have this guy executed. It was absurd. But he did it anyway.”
When you say anti war to people of a certain age, they mean Vietnam.
Mr. HENTOFF: … “I got fired from The Reporter. Max Askeli was a very courageous, principled man up to a point. He had left Italy before he was thrown in jail by Mussolini. And he started this very good magazine…. I was in the back of the book doing music. I once did a–the first piece on Malcolm X that anyone had ever seen in the– white press.
But I was very much against the Vietnam War, and Max Askeli was visiting Lyndon Johnson in the White House cheering him on, writing editorials. And in The Voice one day I once referred to him as Commander Askeli. And I called in to The Reporter to go over the galleys of a music piece I had written, and the editor whispered to me, `It’s not gonna run. You’re not gonna run. Max Askeli has fired you because of what you said about him.’ You see, the person who has the strong ownership of free speech is the one who owns the press.”
Some of these opinions got the FBI interested in Mr. Hentoff. Years later, Mr. Hentoff filed a FOIA suit, and got to see his FBI files.
LAMB: “You also once decided you wanted to look at your FBI file.”
Mr. HENTOFF: “Yeah. I was writing–at least beginning to write Boston Boy and there were a lot of holes in my so-called research. I didn’t know the towns my mother and father came from in Russia. I didn’t know the name of the clothing store I went to work for when I was 11 years old. I didn’t know a lot of things. So I called for my FBI files, not expecting to have that stuff there, but I wanted to know what they had on me. And–but they did have the towns my mother and father lived in in Russia. They had the grocery store I worked in when I was 11 years old.
Then they had a lot of clippings, a lot of articles I’d written. And to me the–the funniest one was–I had done a piece for Playboy about J. Edgar Hoover. I had not been very kind to J. Edgar Hoover. And the field agent had written on –it was sent directly to Hoover–that–the director should see this–`And, besides, Hentoff is a lousy writer.’ And I thought that went a bit far.”
The Booknotes talk aired October 19, 1997. Mr. Hentoff was promoting a book, Speaking Freely: A Memoir. He is still alive. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. This was written like James Joyce.
Listen To The Gut
There is a festive graphic going around on facebook. It is about bullying, which no one is going to say they like. Like gossiping, it is a custom which few will admit to, but many practice. The definition is elastic, and gets bigger every day.
PG agrees with the first part of the graphic. He has been humiliated by Jesus worshipers. The problem with the graphic is the last two sentences. “Re-post if you are against bullying. I bet 99% of you won’t, but repost this if you’re that 1% with a heart.” Can we say passive aggressive bullying? 
The good news is that what can be displayed can be altered. A few minutes with an image manipulation program, and you can doctor the graphic into a more palatable message. It still goes on too long, but that is a problem for someone else. If you want to see the uncensored graphic, go here.
Teddy Roosevelt is a popular former POTUS. He reportedly was fond of saying “bully”. Only that isn’t what he really said. The rough rider used an eight letter word for bovine excrement.
It is said that if a man isn’t a liberal when he is twenty, he doesn’t have a heart, and if he is not a conservative when he is forty he doesn’t have a brain. PG is moving in on twenty plus forty. The possession of a heart, and a brain, is uncertain.
What is evident beyond doubt is the ownership of a gut. When someone tells PG to repost a message to prove he is not a terrible person, it does not agree with his gut.
This is written like H. P. Lovecraft. Pictures are by Chamblee54.
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