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Two programs with strong religious connotations served as entertainment for the Adams household this weekend. The first was Bill Maher’s documentary, “Religulous”, (available for rental download from Amazon.com), and the second was “Bill Moyers Journal”, which this week was devoted to the religious expert and copious writer, Karen Armstrong.

These two offerings were as different as Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ. Bill Maher was most enjoyable. He survived making this film without, apparently, being punched on the nose, or shot by obese, right-wing Republican, fundamentalist truck drivers – though once or twice it seemed he came too close for comfort.

Maher’s efforts came across, to me at least, as an attempt to ridicule religion as a bundle of old myths successfully repackaged by various conmen for the purpose of making big bucks out of the guileless and unwitting. Needless to say, as much of it was set in America, the film succeeded in achieving that aim beyond its wildest dreams.

In contrast, Karen Armstrong expressed the deepest respect for the historical roots of all mankind’s major religions, and talked at length of the “The Golden Rule” and how man has conveniently allowed his ego to obliterate it, both from his religion and his everyday life.

True compassion, she states, has been swept away in a tide of egotism and greed. The concept of “The Golden Rule”: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is the chain that binds all religions together. Unless we bring compassion for others back into our everyday lives, we, as a species, are dooming ourselves.

Unlike Bill Maher, who condemns religion for the ills of the world, Armstrong recognizes the beneficial roots from which all religions sprang, and accepts man as the perverter and corrupter of those benevolent universal truths, for the sole purpose of furthering the greed of his ego-driven self.

Both programs served as excellent entertainment, though Bill Moyers Journal went one step further by educating, as well as entertaining.

Karen Armstrong is one of the world’s great experts on the history of religions and their impact around the globe. She left me realizing that it’s not religion, whether Christian, Islam, Hindu, or whatever, that is to blame for the world’s ills, but those who purport to preach its tenets and communicate with its spirit, while growing fat from the contributions of its faithful, and drunk on the power of its conveniently corrupted messages.

This weekend’s episode of Bill Moyers Journal, featuring Karen Armstrong, is available both as a transcript and in video, from the link below. I heartily recommend it as compulsive viewing.^[1]

^{[1] “Bill Moyers Journal” March 13th 2009}

Filed under: Holy weekend

Following the shooting of a pastor in an Alabama church on March 8th, the Associated Baptist Press reports that State Rep. Beverly Pyle (R) is to reintroduce a bill in the state senate that will allow guns to be carried into churches.

I have received numerous e-mails and phone calls concerning this wanting me to bring this back, none against it,” Pyle told the TV station Little Rock CBS affiliate KTHV on March 9.^[1]

It’s safe to assume those opposed wouldn’t bother contacting Ms Pyle, given her obvious enthusiasm for this legal measure, an ardency that boiled up long before the tragic death of Fred Winters last week.

The very notion should be anathema to those truly professing the Christian faith, whatever their denomination. Jesus of Nazareth was a man of peace. He abhorred violence, preached the loving of one’s enemies, and if the Bible is to be believed (as so many Christians decree) even forgave those who crucified him.

Remember:

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?”

^{[1] “Bill to permit guns in churches revived in wake of pastor’s shooting” ABP, March 10th 2009}

Filed under: Religious right, and wrong

I remember a time when Britain was, perhaps, no longer “Great”, but at least it was sane and sensible. Then I left, to live in America.

Now, I’m not suggesting the old country went downhill just because it lost one of its favorite sons to the colonies, but there’s no doubt sanity and commonsense have become rarities in modern Merrie England, just as they have on this side of the pond.

Only a few weeks ago I wrote of Dr Brian Primack from Pittsburgh University, who was obsessed with the idea that sex became irresistible to teenagers who listened to lots of rap music with randy lyrics.^[1] Now, the nutty scientist syndrome has crossed the pond, and we have Russell Foster, a neuroscientist from Brasenose College, Oxford, telling us teenagers should not begin lessons until 11 am, as their brains work better in the afternoon.

According to Professor Foster, head of circadian neuroscience (that’s a fancy name for sleep study) at the college, teenager’s brains are wired differently from those of adults and work two hours behind adult time.^[2]

He then goes on to blame the rest of us for “making teenagers the way they are” by forcing them to get out of bed at a reasonable hour and do a bit of work.

I’m not sure if Professor Foster ever was, himself, a teenager, or maybe he was a young nerd who never went partying, courting, or generally whooping it up, after school or college. Perhaps, he just arrived on Earth by flying saucer at the age of eighty-six?

Someone needs to point out to him that teenager’s brains don’t function well before 11 am because they’re clogged with all the booze and marijuana consumed by their owners the night before, coupled with humping the current girlfriend/boyfriend from midnight till four in the morning.

Neither is this phenomenon specific to teenagers. While grade-school kids are less likely to be comatose in the morning due to reasons related above, (though with certain kids on my school bus all three factors may be relevant) kids generally don’t get enough sleep these days. Most have TVs and computers in their bedrooms, and parents are generally lax in ensuring their offspring are in bed and asleep by a reasonable hour.

The sweet, bleary-eyed, little angels I drive to school each morning bear no resemblance to the brood of Beelzebub’s offspring that assail the school bus for the home run in the afternoon. Yelling, screaming, fighting, throwing school bags around, and generally behaving like a pack of wild baboons on the rampage, these creatures, shot full and high from artificial sweeteners and sugar, are not even related to the little dears happily dozing in their seats at 8.00 o’clock that morning.

Professor Foster has teamed up with Dr Paul Kelley, a school principal from Monkseaton High School in the county of North Tyneside, England. Dr Kelley wants his school governors to adjust lesson times to take account of Professor Foster’s findings.

Last year, Doctor Kelley carried out his own research by giving students three, 20 minute long science lessons interspersed with ten minutes of physical activity, before making them sit an examination. Prior to the lessons, the students had not covered any of the General Certificate of Secondary Education science syllabus, yet amazingly, results showed the students scored up to 90% in the GCSE examination paper.

The finding could revolutionize education in Britain. If Dr Kelley’s conclusions are correct, students need only attend school for an hour and a half per subject, before sitting and passing all the examinations necessary to assure them places at the most prestigious universities, where they’ll enroll for a day, achieve their degrees and move on to become top ranking politicians, doctors, idiot circadian neuroscientists, and mentally retarded school principals.

Presumably, during the ten minutes of physical activity, teenager’s brains are able to pluck the knowledge right out of the ether. Or, a more plausible theory, and one shared with the vast majority of British teachers, is that the GCSE examinations have now become so ridiculously easy that kids are able to pass them without doing any work at all.

Of course, that’s a different subject, and yet another chapter in the long saga of declining sanity and commonsense effecting the western world.

^{[1] “Seriously?” Sparrow Chat, February 24th 2009}

^{[2] “Head urges lie-ins for teenagers” BBC, March 9th 2009}

Filed under: It’s been a hard day’s night