Kelly James Clark's Blog, page 3

Advice to the Sphinx: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Sheikh Murgan Salem al-Gohary recently called for the destruction of the Sphinx and Giza Pyramids in Egypt. In a television interview, he said, “Muslims are charged with applying the teachings of Islam, including the elimination of idols, as we did in Afghanistan when we destroyed the Buddha statues.”

How seriously should the Sphinx take the sheik?

“God ordered Prophet Mohammed to destroy idols,” he continued. “When I was with the Taliban we destroyed the statue of Buddha, something the government failed to do.”

My advice to the Sphinx: be afraid, be very afraid.

While no one has been tempted by the Sphinx to worship the sun God Harmakhis for over two millennia, this is a legitimate threat. High-profile and more mainstream religious relics have been a target in the recent past. Salem al-Gohary, a jihadist with links to the Taliban, participated in the destruction of Afghanistan’s priceless and irreplaceable Buddha statues. You can construct a new Buddha replacement statue but you can’t construct an ancient Buddha. Misdirected religious fervor can destroy priceless relics just about anywhere.

So it’s not surprising that an Egyptian sheik would find a convenient target in his own backyard. Given the size and status of the Sphinx and the Pyramids, they afford a convenient target.

And what more could an otherwise unknown imam do to call attention to himself than call for others to destroy Egypt’s most important and irreplaceable cultural relics?

Islam has no Pope, no centralized religious authority, so just about anyone can assert himself as a religious authority; and many do. I can’t speak for Islam, but, lacking a centralized authority, no one authoritatively can. But because no one can really speak for Islam, just about anyone can. So a reactionary like Salem al-Gohary can incite violence by a misguided appeal to Islamic tradition and there are enough dispossessed Muslims who are only too eager to comply.

One should be wary, though, of generalizing from the proclamation of a single extremist to all Egyptian Muslims. While there are surely jihadists in Egypt eager to topple both pyramids and vestiges of Western cultural imperialism, they are a small minority. Egyptian Muslim attitudes towards extremist groups are way down on the list of fundamentalist sympathizers in the Middle East. For example, only 20 percent of Egyptian Muslims have a favorable view of al-Qaeda. Here’s a better way to put it: 80 percent of Egyptian Muslims hold a negative view of al-Qaeda.

Yet, once again, the crazed call of a single extremist will confirm Western prejudices of all Muslims. And should the sheik succeed, the prejudices will be all the more dramatically confirmed.

The Sphinx can sleep in peace tonight. President Morsi has increased security at the Sphinx and pyramids.

Their loss would constitute a huge cultural, economic and political setback. The cultural loss is obvious. But Egypt’s economy is deeply dependent on tourist dollars. Take away the pyramids, add fear of fundamentalists, and Egyptian tourism will dry up.

Over 10 percent of Egypt’s economy is due to tourism. Subtract tourism as from the economy and the consequences will be disastrous and not just for the pyramids. Egypt cannot afford, pun intended, the loss of tourism dollars.

While one might have thought the so-called Arab Spring simply a demand for freedom, it was equally a cry of the impoverished and dispossessed for jobs. We continually forget: It’s the economy, stupid. And since revolutions are not job creators, the economy is still in turmoil. Growth has shrunk from 6 percent pre-revolution, to its current 1.8 percent. Ninety percent of Egypt’s unemployed are between ages 15 and 24. Nearly 50 percent of Egyptians live in poverty (on less than $2 per day).

There are political consequences to the Sheik’s incitement as well. Morsi, despite many vocal Western critics, has pursued the path of moderation and won’t be deterred by fundamentalist Muslims who comprise a very small percentage of the Egyptian population. Now Morsi must concern himself with minority, pyramid-destroying elements in Egypt.

So Morsi needs power. His recent assertions of authority may simply be a reaction to threats to the revolution and to stability. Salem al-Gohary and his ilk surely constitute a threat both to stability and democratic rule.

Has Morsi thereby acquired too much power? His recent rulings seem to place him above judicial correction. Let us take hope in Morsi’s brokerage of a ceasefire in Gaza. Let us hope that he is a man of peace and the people.

Egypt’s path to democratic rule will be long, slow and painful. Opportunistic extremists will seize on youthful dissatisfaction to derail democracy and assert authoritarian and repressive rule. We must do all we can to protect both the Sphinx and Egypt’s fragile democracy.

Advice to the Sphinx: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Sheikh Murgan Salem al-Gohary recently called for the destruction of the Sphinx and Giza Pyramids in Egypt. In a television interview, he said, “Muslims are charged with applying the teachings of Islam, including the elimination of idols, as we did in Afghanistan when we destroyed the Buddha statues.”

How seriously should the Sphinx take the sheik?

“God ordered Prophet Mohammed to destroy idols,” he continued. “When I was with the Taliban we destroyed the statue of Buddha, something the government failed to do.”

My advice to the Sphinx: be afraid, be very afraid.

While no one has been tempted by the Sphinx to worship the sun God Harmakhis for over two millennia, this is a legitimate threat. High-profile and more mainstream religious relics have been a target in the recent past. Salem al-Gohary, a jihadist with links to the Taliban, participated in the destruction of Afghanistan’s priceless and irreplaceable Buddha statues. You can construct a new Buddha replacement statue but you can’t construct an ancient Buddha. Misdirected religious fervor can destroy priceless relics just about anywhere.

So it’s not surprising that an Egyptian sheik would find a convenient target in his own backyard. Given the size and status of the Sphinx and the Pyramids, they afford a convenient target.

And what more could an otherwise unknown imam do to call attention to himself than call for others to destroy Egypt’s most important and irreplaceable cultural relics?

Islam has no Pope, no centralized religious authority, so just about anyone can assert himself as a religious authority; and many do. I can’t speak for Islam, but, lacking a centralized authority, no one authoritatively can. But because no one can really speak for Islam, just about anyone can. So a reactionary like Salem al-Gohary can incite violence by a misguided appeal to Islamic tradition and there are enough dispossessed Muslims who are only too eager to comply.

One should be wary, though, of generalizing from the proclamation of a single extremist to all Egyptian Muslims. While there are surely jihadists in Egypt eager to topple both pyramids and vestiges of Western cultural imperialism, they are a small minority. Egyptian Muslim attitudes towards extremist groups are way down on the list of fundamentalist sympathizers in the Middle East. For example, only 20 percent of Egyptian Muslims have a favorable view of al-Qaeda. Here’s a better way to put it: 80 percent of Egyptian Muslims hold a negative view of al-Qaeda.

Yet, once again, the crazed call of a single extremist will confirm Western prejudices of all Muslims. And should the sheik succeed, the prejudices will be all the more dramatically confirmed.

The Sphinx can sleep in peace tonight. President Morsi has increased security at the Sphinx and pyramids.

Their loss would constitute a huge cultural, economic and political setback. The cultural loss is obvious. But Egypt’s economy is deeply dependent on tourist dollars. Take away the pyramids, add fear of fundamentalists, and Egyptian tourism will dry up.

Over 10 percent of Egypt’s economy is due to tourism. Subtract tourism as from the economy and the consequences will be disastrous and not just for the pyramids. Egypt cannot afford, pun intended, the loss of tourism dollars.

While one might have thought the so-called Arab Spring simply a demand for freedom, it was equally a cry of the impoverished and dispossessed for jobs. We continually forget: It’s the economy, stupid. And since revolutions are not job creators, the economy is still in turmoil. Growth has shrunk from 6 percent pre-revolution, to its current 1.8 percent. Ninety percent of Egypt’s unemployed are between ages 15 and 24. Nearly 50 percent of Egyptians live in poverty (on less than $2 per day).

There are political consequences to the Sheik’s incitement as well. Morsi, despite many vocal Western critics, has pursued the path of moderation and won’t be deterred by fundamentalist Muslims who comprise a very small percentage of the Egyptian population. Now Morsi must concern himself with minority, pyramid-destroying elements in Egypt.

So Morsi needs power. His recent assertions of authority may simply be a reaction to threats to the revolution and to stability. Salem al-Gohary and his ilk surely constitute a threat both to stability and democratic rule.

Has Morsi thereby acquired too much power? His recent rulings seem to place him above judicial correction. Let us take hope in Morsi’s brokerage of a ceasefire in Gaza. Let us hope that he is a man of peace and the people.

Egypt’s path to democratic rule will be long, slow and painful. Opportunistic extremists will seize on youthful dissatisfaction to derail democracy and assert authoritarian and repressive rule. We must do all we can to protect both the Sphinx and Egypt’s fragile democracy.

The witness of Malala

Last week, 14-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousufzai was shot in the head and neck by the Taliban. Her “crimes”: the courageous Malala exposed Taliban atrocities and advocated for the education of girls. A cowardly Taliban gunman walked onto her bus on her way home from school and shot her. Malala is recovering from her wounds in a hospital in Great Britain where she fled out of concern for a second attack — the Taliban has pledged to finish what they started.

Thousands of Pakistanis have rallied to express their support for Malala and their condemnation of the Taliban; they pray for Malala and for what she stands for — the education and rights of women.

Malala has been an activist since she was 11, writing a blog to protest Taliban edicts against the education of girls. The Taliban carried out these edicts by destroying hundreds of schools for girls. Malala spoke truth to cowards with no regard for her own wellbeing.

While many lessons are being drawn from Malala’s assassination attempt, I’d like to offer her up as an example to our presidential candidates.

We have one last debate and three weeks left in the campaign. Can our politicians set aside their lies, obfuscations, misleading statistics, and caricatures of one another and just speak the truth? And, like Malala, speak the truth with no regard for their own wellbeing? I don’t mean that they should not be concerned with attacks on their lives. By “wellbeing” I mean “whether or not they get elected.”

Our representative democracy is predicated upon candidates telling us the truth. Failing this, we read in the Federalist Papers, we may find the following:

A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose. To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good.

So candidate A tells what she stands for and what she would do and candidate B tells what he stands for and what he would do. Only then can the demos, the people, reasonably decide which of the two candidates/ideologies they prefer. “Let the people decide” only works as intended if the people have been given truthful information from the candidates. Otherwise, we trade popularity for the public good.

Unwillingness to forthrightly speak the truth leads to democracy’s demise — the people, then, must guess based on image not on reality. Of course, this plays into the hands of the media which slices images like baloney. But make no mistake, an election run on image is still baloney no matter how thin you slice it.

So here is the Malala challenge for Obama and Romney. Tell the truth. Let the people decide.

There is bad news in the truth and there is no easy solution to that bad news — from the trillion-dollar debt to global warming, from our complicity in Israel’s treatment of Palestine to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, there are no, shall we say, revenue-neutral solutions. We face very difficult problems with no obvious and certainly no free solutions. Tell us what the problems really are, Mitt and Barack, let us confront them as a country, and get us thinking about difficult solutions. Then let us decide, based on the truth, which of the two of you is most suited to solving the problems.

Romney’s prevarications are aplenty. His message seems to change on a whim, usually depending on audience. The presidential candidate Mitt of 2012 bears only a superficial resemblance to the Governor Mitt of 2003. Explain to us, Mitt Romney, how you could have changed so drastically and what you really stand for. Do you or do you not stand for tax cuts for the most wealthy? Do you or do you not oppose abortion? And come clean: Have you managed to avoid paying taxes by shipping your money into off-shore accounts? Will you or won’t you cover pre-existing conditions? And, while you’re at it — what is your plan for peace in the Middle East and for global warming? Is peace in Israel-Palestine really impossible? Finally, do you really care about the 47 percent (I don’t mean to focus on images here –surely too many people, including many rich people, are getting benefits from the government without adequately paying for them).

Democrats cannot take the moral high ground on truth-telling. Obama promised to close Guantanamo immediately upon taking office; its continued existence is a blight on US pretensions to justice — the natural right to a fair and speedy trial is universal, it is not just a right of U.S. citizens. He promised to repeal Bush’s tax cuts for the rich but then fought for their extension in 2010. And though he promised to repeal Bush-Cheney’s medieval and inhumane counterterrorism programs, his use of drones to kill without judicial recourse dwarfs the ambitions of Bush. You can see a top-ten list of Obama’s broken promises here.

You can attribute Obama’s missteps to the horrific condition Bush left our country in (tax breaks for the rich, two unfunded wars, and permitting the collapse of our financial system). Or you can attribute Obama’s missteps to a recalcitrant Republican Congress who would shoot our country in the foot rather than cooperate with Obama.

But in the next few weeks, President Obama, tell us truly what the problems are and what your solutions are. You, too, Mr. Romney. Give us the truth for once — if it’s ugly and the solutions painful, let us know. We won’t be coddled with lies.

Give us the information we need to make a responsible decision and don’t fret about the consequences. If the people should reject your positions come election day, rejoice — democracy has spoken. But if you continue in your prevarications and obfuscations, if you keep telling us there are easy solution to not really very difficult problems, then we will fail in democracy: we will be moved by passions in response to fleeting images not reason in response to truth.

In short, mime Malala’s courage. Speak the truth. Don’t fret the consequences.

When Politicians Talk Theological Nonsense

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), in a recent talk at Liberty Baptist Church, proclaimed that the earth is not more than 9,000 years old and was created in six twenty-four hour days. And he was just getting started: evolution, embryology, and big-bang theory, he says, are “Lies straight from the pit of hell.” Evolution and the big-bang are familiar targets; but embryology?

He knows these are lies, he states, because (a) he’s a scientist and (b) scientific data proves the earth to be young.

Broun serves on the House of Committee on Science, Space and Technology with Todd Akin (R-MO) who believes that women cannot become impregnated as the result of rape because during “legitimate” rape, “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Broun and Akin are joined on the House Committee on Science by Ralph Hall (R-TX), chair of the committee, who rejects the human contribution to global warming because God alone is responsible for global warming. Theories of climate change, he opines, are rooted not in scientific data, but in human greed: they were hatched by devious scientists to secure federal funding for their research. Others on this Committee likewise reject human-induced global warming, calling scientists who affirm global warming “fascists” and “frauds,” and their theories “hoaxes.”

Judy Biggert (R-IL) stands alone: “The science behind climate change is sound.”

But, as disturbing as the rejection of global warming is, I digress. Let us return to evolution and embryology.

Why does Broun, with his BS in chemistry and an MD, claim that evolution and the big bang are lies from the pit?

His reply: they are designed to convince us we don’t need a Savior.

If Augustine is to right, it is Broun’s babbling incompetence not evolution that is liable to convince us that we don’t need a Savior.

Augustine argued that the interpretation of Genesis involving seven literal, twenty-four-hour days could not be the correct interpretation. Since Augustine (354-430 AD) wrote and lived more than a millennium prior to Darwin, he could scarcely be accused of being held captive by the spirit of our Darwinian age.

Augustine argued that the text itself precludes a naïve interpretation of literal twenty-four-hour days. He asks the simple question: if night and day are not created until the fourth day, how could there possibly be a day in the first three days of creation? The term “day” must have some other meaning than, as Broun claimed it must, “days as we know them.” Augustine’s interpretation was not prompted by the big-bang, it was based entirely on a careful reading of the bible itself.

Augustine refused to limit truth to the bible; instead he held that a Christian “should understand that wherever he may find truth, it is his Lord’s.” There can be no real contradictions between true science and the proper interpretation of the scriptures. Christians need not fear science.

Finally, Augustine offers wise counsel to Christians like Broun who so loudly proclaims his ignorance on scientific matters:

Even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for a [nonbeliever] to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.

By demonstrating his ignorance on scientific matters, Broun has made it easy for detractors to laugh and scorn and then to infer: If Broun is ignorant on scientific matters (which we know well), we have no reason to trust him on religious matters. Augustine writes,

If [nonbelievers] find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about [the Bible], how are they going to believe [the Bible] in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think [the Bible's] pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Broun’s foolish opinions, not evolution, according to Augustine’s reasoning, are leading people away from the Savior.

My aim is not to determine the best strategy for persuading people to be Christians. It is, however, to show to Christians, who share Broun’s and Augustine’s beliefs and bible, that Broun’s understanding of evolution and the bible is scientifically, theologically and biblically defective (and an Augustinian approach is superior).

Broun’s proclamations are politically troubling as well. Broun stated in his talk that he takes his political marching orders from God: “As your congressman I hold the holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C.” This makes Broun’s ignorance of science and the Bible deeply and doubly troubling. Not only has he proven himself unfit for the House Committee on Science, his poor understanding of both theology and the Bible proves him unfit to fulfill his Congressional duties. Given Broun’s shallow and theologically inept understanding of the opening chapters of the Bible, even the most devout Christian should not be encouraged about his ability to make wise Bible-based votes in Congress.