More responses to blogs others wrote to try to convice me of the veracity of belief.


You cannot prove a negative. I have read the New Testament and find it utterly ridiculous as a factual document. As metaphor ... maybe it's a nice story which can have meaning. Worse, however, the New Testament provides the rationale for Antisemitism and is saturated with it especially in the later gospels as decide is its accusation NOT against Rome but against the Jews for Christ's alleged death. It was the necessary precondition for all antisemitism which followed it up to and including most especially the Holocaust even until contemporary times in Europe today and without question in the Middle East. It has wielded MUCH negative for the Jews.

Each entity of the Gospels was written by different people in Greek and well after Jesus' alleged death. I do not believe in defying the laws of nature and physics and therefore I do NOT most especially believe in most anything which exists biblically. If you do then fine. By all means do. A person cannot walk on water unless there is a flotation device or a walkway, cannot rise after being dead for three days as the body decays and rots. Since Jesus is alleged to have been at least part human he would succumb to the laws of nature as he supposedly did when he was allegedly crucified. Certainly all those surrounding him would be subject to those laws as well. Moreover, even the fact that a man named Jesus existed is subject to distinct question. There is no evidence, absolutely nothing, nil, nada, no way nothing in Roman coin or artifact or literature which talks about a man whose death was mandatory because he posed a significant threat to Rome. There is NOTHING. Do NOT say Josephus because his historicity is not a credible.

New Testament and Hebrew Bible stories too are not new and grew out of much that was believed in that place at that time and well before in time. Much can be shown in Egyptian, Greek, Roman mythological lore, pagan beliefs which comes close or mirrors the stories of the New Testament virgin births, walks on water, healing the sick and rising from the dead is STREWN throughout ancient history among mythologies of various peoples.

CS Lews proves NOTHING and Chuck Colson, Nixon aficionado and ex-con, proves even less. These people have had life experiences, as most of us have had, which are difficult. I would say a jail sentence gives one much time to think there must be a reason for my suffering. Yes, there is. He broke the law. Try NOT breaking it and stay out of jail. All these books prove nothing. The only rationale for what you believe is that you believe it. It is NOT provable or scientifically verifiable and bears no resemblance to fact.

I am NOT capable of belief which has no capacity for scientific veracity period end.

WBUR broadcast a discussion of belief. I added my two cents.

Doubt: I have waged war with religion and on religion my entire life. Richard Dawkins's book "The God Delusion" was excellent as was Christopher Hitchens's book "God is Not Great." They sold me. I did not, however, need much convincing. At 60 years of age I suppose I define myself as agnostic but throughout the years I have religiously been all over the map. I was born Jewish, had a flirtation with Christianity in my early 20's, wavered like a ping pong ball for decades even returning to some semblance of Jewish ritual trying to maintain some tradition. The ball is at rest now. I am an agnostic. I do not believe there is a sky god but truly do not know if there is some other initiator of world being. I simply do not know. I envy, somewhat, those whose faith in God is solid as, I think, perhaps their fear of death is not as profound as mine.

I cannot believe there will be a time when I do not have cognizance of how history plays out. While I know I have not always been here it seems as if I have. So, death is not only frightening it is unacceptable to me.

Just because, though, I want something more to be true does not, my atheist friend always tells me, make it so. As Richard Dawkins once said it's too bad we cannot appreciate the grandeur of life as it is and not wish for something more than what is. Well, being placed in the ground, six feet under, my body decaying and my bones remaining is NOT my idea of a good time. So what else can I do? I live with those facts and merely hope I can experience many more presidential elections to come!!

Another editorialist Jeff Jacoby reply

Food Fables: I follow Jeff Jacby's pearls of wisdom. I BELIEVE I heard him on NPR. He was talking against the latest Massachusetts Governor's initiative which would have calories posted at restaurants. So called conservatives are so loath to have government control anything except maybe bombs or sexuality and oh yes, they LOVE to overhear our salacious conversations. Somehow in the conservative mind the government is so bad EXCEPT when they think it isn't. The truth is when conservatives so please they are MORE than happy to have government intervene and when they don't all of a sudden government is the pariah and their laissez faire credo screams for attention. If it has to do with sex or snooping sure conservatives are chaffing at the bit to use government to control it but guns, tobacco or food no way.

If conservatives have to put "compassionate" as an adjective to conservative then conservatives REALLY are NOT compassionate. IF it were up to conservatives I have no doubt there would be NO warning labels on cigarette packages, no tax on cigarettes, the government would have halted efforts to show how poisonous tobacco is and they would simply aver the tobacco companies are just selling a product and the individual has his right to make that choice for himself. Tobacco is so perfect an example. Putting heavy restrictions, labels and taxes in addition to HUGE civil actions against it has kept that poisonous leaf from killing even more than it kills today. Recent statistics suggest simply limiting smoking even outdoors is making the death from lung cancer drop. Outlawing a parent smoking in a car with their children will save lives .. kids lives...maybe even YOUR kid's lives. Many in my family of prior generations at a young age have a grave somewhere due to the effects of smoking. Thank God the government took the action it did. The Surgeon General's report on the effects of smoking in the 1960's began this hard fought campaign to educate about a product which the glorious tobacco corporation and ALL the political hacks associated with it were perfectly happy to sell and LOATHE to regulate. Government worked. Smoking rates have gone down throughout the years and deaths have gone down with it. I would still be smoking today and maybe even dead if I were not bombarded by the 1980's with medical government sponsored studies which made the realities of that disgusting product hit home.

Likewise, labeling of food products has been the best thing for me since (if you'll pardon the pun) sliced bread. The swill that the lovely corporations try to sell us in the guise of food is legion. From high fructose corn syrup to artery clogging hydrogenated oils, they take the BEST like whole grain out of food and give us the worst. Why? It is easy, tasty, has a longer shelf life and is cheaper to make. The public be damned. When my cholesterol in 1988 hit a high of 285 the understanding of nutrition was in its infancy and my eating habits started to change because of it. I read EVERY single label now and want to know the contents and calories of everything I put into my hallowed body. Think of how much money I'm saving the insurance companies and the state the longer I stay out of the emergency ward. They don't have to pay for my hospitalizations due to stroke, heart attack, a host of cancers and God knows what else. At least at 60 I am trying to avoid that. So far so good and I have the labeling and the government to thank for its monitoring of food (with the exception of course of that thing who was in the White House for the past eight years). Government CAN work for the good of the individual and yes, often to the cost of corporations. Tough. So the CEO in some corporation makes 50 million a year instead of 100 million. Makes my heart break.

In addition, I like places in which I decide to spend my scarce money to give me an option to look at ingredients and calories. Not everyone is computer savvy or has one to look up restaurant menus and calorie counts. It can't hurt and it just may help AND if they don't want to look DON'T cover the menu up or turn your head away.

I think you are dead (pardon the pun again) wrong the individual OFTEN is not savvy enough, does not have enough time and is too besieged by other things in their life to know what is quality to eat and what isn't. We are getting fatter by the second. My family has a significant history of obesity and diabetes. My mother, most of my aunts uncles and many other of my close relatives were and are obese. Numbers had heart attacks, strokes and othercardio issues. One cousin died several years ago of obesity related diabetes and I KNOW others will follow. So far I am 110 lbs because I am the healthiest eater in my family. I have the numbers to prove it. If an enumeration is not on the menu when I eat out I ask. Since I had polio it is a damn good thing I keep my weight off as I have had three fractures of my polio affected leg so the older more disabled a person is the more he/she MUST keep weight in control and how nice it is that we will be able to monitor the calories of that which we eat. So many who have Chinese food, for example, have NO idea the sauce is LOADED with sugar and often coconut saturated fat oils. They don't ask and the restaurant surely does not tell. Now they won't have to ask they will be able to see. I say GREAT!

Too bad it's costing companies money. Let them absorb it. There IS a place for government. In the long run I predict it will be well worth it for everyone. Health care will save money AND the individual might just be helped, a life saved and a quality of life maintained in the process. So what's so wrong with a little government intervention and TRUE compassion. I'll forgo THAT freedom if government gives up tapping phones and denying habeus corpus. Now that is TRUE government intervention. Truth is some humane government intervention WORKS often for all of us and may will even work for you and your family too!

In the Dark: Mr. Bennett's article "Dark Green" about the Medea Hypothesis of Peter Ward in the January 11, 2009 Sunday Globe was phenomenally interesting . I love it when new theories arise which tug on the reins of credulity and say wait a minute not so fast. Things may not be as one thinks they are. I had heard of the Gaia Hypothesis which seems to be the prevailing thought that the earth's contents (minus man) work in some earthly harmony to produce life until evil man ruins everything. It seems so rational. Yet, when one thinks about it the earth has experienced upheavals threatening its existence long before man appeared on earth. Moreover, one sees the destructive nature of our planet's power in times when man's influence was not so dramatic.

My own totally unscientific thought is that our planet is influenced by both things humans do and things humans do not do. I suspect it is neither all one nor all the other but both. How interesting it would be to live to see what happens. One wonders if man will control his own harmful influence on the planet, which I believe does exist, and, perhaps, even right the wrongs the planet perpetrates on itself. It is simply fascinating science theory. No matter what one believes it proves one thing; life is, indeed, precarious.

My Eternal Dilemma:This opinion below – with some edits – was one I left on the Metrowest News blog. I often have exchanges (sometimes heated but not always) on controversial issues with regular bloggers on that site. One blogger said and I quote what he said in pertinent part:

“ … except that I said in a previous post, Palestinians
should assassinate Zionist leaders, and I still think
that is a good tactic …”

Throughout the exchange I tried to entertain a balanced view. As I have said on my blog and in discussion, Gaza is an anathema to the human heart. It hurts me to watch the news of it. I understand the Palestinian side and I understand the quagmire that has been Israeli fate.

In the final analysis, though, I tried to think about my most basic view which was that I could never oppose the existence of the State of Israel, acquiesce to the assassination of so called “Zionists” (in my opinion an anti–Semitic cover word), and I cannot separate most Islamic states from their fundamentalist religious fasteners. I will be free, as all are in Israel to criticize Israel’s POLICIES but I will not countenance its demise. So I said the following to the blogger whom I believed, decidedly, did not take into account the position of the Jewish state. Clearly, my own blogging posts are mixed on this issue. When I gave it even more thought and irritated by the other blogger’s call to assassinate all "Zionist" leaders I iterated my basic view by posting the following:

I said:

The Zionists, as you insultingly call them, either show strength or the State of Israel as a Jewish state will cease to exist. It is that simple. When explosives are placed among families and children, when children are armed with guns and explosives, when an army is fired upon by its enemy, when a culture instructing young children to take up arms and wear exploding belts then the Jewish people, as I call them, have the right to defend themselves and the right to fire back. If one is shot at by a 10 year old he will be just as dead as if he were shot at by a 28 year old. We KNOW Hamas does unspeakable things to their own people and to their own children by placing incendiary devices among them. I too as you consistently say and as I said before, had an Iranian friend whom I thought was absolutely lovely. I have a Pakistani friend with whom I have shared meals. They are wonderful people. When we keep our conversation light things are fun but if we chat about Israel things get tense. So I stay away from that subject when I am with them. I know other Palestinian people who are kind, wonderful and would not hurt anyone. I love them. However, that does not mean I am not aware that as a political entity the states from which those people originate would eliminate my people in an instant. This cannot happen. This WILL NOT happen.

The world must know, and Israel's enemies respect nothing else, that the Jew will no longer cower in fear, act like a sitting duck and roll over because either a 2000 year old document moronically indicts it for deicide OR a Muslim picks up that baton and says Israel will be destroyed and the Jews thrown into the sea. It is, I know, sometimes a shock, to those who for centuries have not been used to Jews fighting back but since 1948 a hard lesson was learned. The lesson is IF Jews do not protect themselves then they will cease to exist and the world will care nothing. The lesson is simple. The Holocaust is the lesson for the Jew. It is immutable, ever present and all consuming to the Jewish mind. It is the rationale behind everything. No, Arabs did not create the Holocaust but most Arab states especially radical Islamic ones would be perfectly willing to pick up where it left off. Jews cannot and WILL not allow that!

Does it pain me to see anyone suffer? OF COURSE it does. Gaza is heart wrenching. But, truth be told again, I love my people, I love the state of Israel because it is the freest state in the entire Middle East, it is a secular state and it is a state which governs by respecting the religious separation concept. The Jewish people MUST have their homeland and they MUST have it with no threat of annihilation. That is an uncompromising existential fact. If it were not for, as you call them Zionists, then the Jewish state would not be. Fighting back is all Hamas, Hezbollah and the like understand. If this is all they understand this is what they get. When push comes to shove I am in love with the Jewish people and I will NEVER be unmindful of that. The Jewish people cannot falter again and they must not fail.

No Exit -- The Existential Nightmare to Nowhere I agree with Jeff Jacoby's January 7, 2009 op editorial. I am always astounded at the pervasiveness of the two thousand year old viral infection that is antisemitism . The Jewish people cannot seem to shake its onslaught or find the antibody to it. I also cannot believe how those who would take the Holocaust's name in vain and perpetrate the same Nazi-like venom still overwhelm me with ire. They get to me. That is exactly, I think, what they want to do.

When I finished watching the news last evening, though, I thought it was a particularly difficult broadcast to watch. I worry that Israel, as much as I support it, is losing the public relations war. Gaza is so horrific that I simply do not know how it can continue like this despite what each side says the rationales for it are. It reminded me, staggeringly and ironically, of the Warsaw Ghetto where a huge number of Jews were jammed into a small area with no food, no medical supplies no electricity, and no sanitation existentially trying to live in an unlivable situation. As a Jew the Holocaust is burned into my psyche. It is with me every day I live because I think about it every day I live.

I fear, though, at this moment the Jewish people morally are losing the Holocaust high ground. The slaughter of innocents in Gaza, although surely brought about, in part, by the intractability of Hamas, is a moral disaster and cannot, I think, continue. The invasion of Gaza has become so disgusting that I cannot even watch it on the news. It is a moral conundrum to me because my entire left leaning political philosophical bent was molded in opposition to the Nazi era and the Holocaust. I truly now do not know what the answer is.

My cousin living in Jerusalem emailed that Hamas is hiding in UN houses with children and puts explosives underneath as they know Israelis will bomb them and fuel a public relations nightmare. I know that. Your editorial was excellent as antisemitism and its direct relationship to criticism of the Jewish state has veracity understood even by Martin Luther King. I know that too. I know people want to kill Jews and eliminate the Jewish state. Where does that leave us? What does never again mean? Is it only in relation to Jews or is it the broader implication that there are some human behaviors even in war that are so abominable they cannot be tolerated and must be rejected by the civilized world entire?

The three hour cease fire just ended and the dreadful killing continues. More bodies, many of women and children, will be stacked up. So now what? Where are we in this struggle? Will Jews be better off for this? I do not think so. Grimly, I think we are nowhere and there is, existentially, at least for now, no way out.

Gagging on Gaza: I just finished watching the news. It was a PARTICULARLY difficult broadcast to watch. I am thinking that Israel, as much as I support it, is losing the PR war. Gaza is SO bad and SO horrific that I simply do not know how it can continue like this. I'll tell you what it reminded me of -- it reminded me of the Warsaw Ghetto where a HUGE number of people were jammed into a small area with no food, no medical supplies, no electricity NOTHING. the Holocaust is burned into my psyche. It is with me every day I live because I think about it every day I live.

I am thinking at this second in time that the Jewish people are losing the moral high ground. This disaster cannot continue irrespective of what I know Hamas would do to Israel if it could. It has become so bad and so disgusting that I cannot even watch the news. I simply cannot. I do not know what the answer is but this can not go on. That's what I am feeling at this moment even though I KNOW this is bigger than Gaza. These people cannot be used this way it's simply horrific. I can't stand to watch it. I just can't. Now if I can't stand to watch it and I almost NEVER criticize Israel then you can imagine what the rest of the world is thinking.

There were assaults on Jews in various countries in Europe today...antisemitism rears its head again. I am beginning to think Gaza is a cancer around the Jewish neck.

To Cut or NOT: Okay, what do I know about economics but this is how I feel and sent the below on to Obama who has a web page for ideas. I cannot help but feel these tax cuts are RIDICULOUS and he is pandering to Republicans. I KNOW some will disagree. Fine no problem. This is not eloquent but just stream of conscious and obviously just my opinion. It springs from a feeling I have which I find funny because I hate economics but sometimes I get it right odly enough. AND on I think it was PBS someone else who knew what she was talking about said the same thing about tax cuts after I had thought about it awhile ago.

So I said.


Personally, I have a feeling that tax cuts will do NOTHING. The Bush tax cuts did NOTHING. In this type of systemic downturn people will NOT spend the few extra bucks they have from a tax cut except to pay a bill or two. When things are THIS precarious tax cuts are NOT the remedy. I am against tax cuts really for anyone but MOST especially am against tax cuts for the very wealthy. How many times do we have to get burned to realize this so called "trickle down" effect did NOT work. It trickled down alright and not to the average person or to the middle guy. Truth is trickle down means trickle down into the already wealthy's pockets to buy the wealthy's toys like a new boat or a new or two BMW'S or three or 17 houses. It does NOT necessarily go for more jobs.

The tax cuts are not enough to do anything. We need rather (1) STRICT regulation of financial markets (2) stop unnecessary wars (3) curb spending for new weapons and war which is hugely costly (4) pay down the deficit and not create more and (5) use government money to yes create infrastructure, repair roads, bridges etc and work on global warming, alternative energy and stem cell research, and MOST importantly health care.. THAT will create jobs. Tax cuts do nothing.

If anything we need a tax increases. THAT would do the trick in paying down the deficit, get more money for infrastructure, alternative energy. reduce need to borrow from foreign countries and reduce our need to print more money increasing scary inflation of the 1929 German Weimar Republic type.

How to sell it is the problem. People need to know we are in deep trouble and that we cannot just keep raising our debt. We must pay for our government's immoral decisions over the last eight years and even more. We simply have to if people want to enjoy the things that government can give us like infrastructure, medical advances, health care and alternative energy, stemming of global warming.

I believe the American people IF YOU TALK TO THEM can understand the WHY of things. Try a fireside chat. It helped Roosevelt it just may help us!

The Right to Survive: My comment appears on the Newsweek blog (with a couple of typos). I dashed it off the top of my head so it is not perfect. Some may not like what I have to say. I do not care. It is what I believe.


My mother had a saying. You lie with dogs and you get up with well you know. It astounds me that the violence plagued Arab world sits mainly silent when time after time after time after time atrocities and the most bestial of acts are committed by Islamic fanatics. Think about it for a second. IF the Arab world had let Israel be, just let it be in 1948 and more than that just think if it took the opportunity to work together and to use Israeli brilliance and western advancement just think they just might be living and working together in a good place for humans to be; in a place that everyone would want to visit. Their families might just be thriving.

Instead, no way, they just could NOT let the Jews be. And to this day the world especially the left wing (of which I consider myself a part) stays silent about the brutality the Arab world visits not ONLY on Israel but on their own people! If there were NO Jewish Israel do you think Israel would be at peace? NO WAY. Hamas would be splitting Fatah's head, or some other fanatical group's head who think they have the truth.

Where were the crowds in the street with fury about Mumbai, or Spain or suicide bombings EVERYWHERE? The silence is deafening. But holy cow when Israel tries to say no more and defend itself wanting simply to be left alone the world suddenly is screaming what they think is their righteous indignation.

The Jewish people will NEVER NEVER again submit to the world's onslaught. NEVER! You will reap what you sew. Believe it. The game has changed and the Jewish people changed it for themselves.

Beyond Our Differences: I was absorbed yet again by Bill Moyers Journal. Beyond Our Differences presented a ray of hope in an otherwise bleak religious scene. Just when I thought there was some hope I checked the news in the morning, as I always do, only to see that Gaza was in flames again. This time Israel struck in significant fashion. So far nearly 200 Palestinians are dead and 400 wounded. There are Israeli dead too. Hamas has been striking Israel consistently breaking the cease fire time after time after time. They must know the Israelis will not sit back and take an onslaught. So the beat goes on. Tit for tat again and again and again people’s bodies are dismembered and death reigns supreme. Nothing gets resolved except the willingness of each side to inflict more death and more destruction on each other ad infinitum until, I suppose, the end of time if necessary.

The hopeful aura of Bill Moyers Journal of “Beyond our Differences” showing the commonality of the religions of man to me this morning was rescinded as reality spoke otherwise. I know the voices of peace are out there. I know it because I am one and am no less a Jew than many who are more militant. Our voices though soften with the reality of the tears we shed, and by the incredulity and powerlessness we feel. How many more, for what and for whom? Is a life worth land, dirt, stone, pebbles, a 5000 year old text or a less than 2000 year old text? What is a life worth and who says so? Who wrote these edicts? Did a sky god come down from on high? Each group claims that He did and claims He did for that particular group and no other.

The criticism I have of this episode of The Journal is that for every sentence of peace in the Torah, the New Testament or the Koran one can find an equal and opposite sentence of violence. Those sentences of violence serve as justification for the never-ending mayhem inflicted by religionists. The Journal in its effort to seek common ground fails to state the very elements of those texts which are NOT non-violent and from which fundamentalism gets its fuel.
One of the statements on this part of the Journal said that 95% of humans on this planet believe in a Creator of our universe. 95% is very high. I must be among the five lonely percent who does not believe in a Creator who personifies himself and takes one side of man over the other. I am sure in the Middle Ages one could say 95% of all men thought the earth was the center of the galaxy and the sun revolved around it. They were consummately wrong. So what does 95% mean? As an agnostic I labor about the question of the first cause and as Bill Maher says in his wonderful film “Religulous” I don’t know. I just don’t know what the first cause for the creation of the universe was.

What I do know is one can pray until infinity and no god is going to answer your particular prayer. Why would He answer your prayer and not the other fellow’s? Why would he save one five year old from Israel and not another from Gaza? Could there have been some all powerful something that began our universe? I suppose there could have been but is that all powerful something going to reserve particular plots of land for certain people and not for others? Most emphatically NO He, She or It will not. That, man will have to do either by taking the land or blowing someone’s head apart for it and he does that very well, indeed, on his very own.

No Doubt about “Doubt” I saw the newly released film “Doubt” yesterday and loved it. This serious multi-faceted enigmatic film starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams was, in my opinion, extraordinarily thought provocative and perfectly cast. The film was excellent.

The movie takes place in a private Catholic school – perhaps in Boston -- shortly after the death of President Kennedy. It involves Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), the strict, sour, humorless nun and principal of the elementary school, who makes accusation against a humane and likable parish priest, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman). She accuses him of committing an immoral act and mortal sin with the lonely and lone African American student and, perhaps, somewhat effeminate, church altar boy whom Father Flynn has befriended.

It is thought that by the younger, sweeter, more innocent Sister James (Amy Adams) on Sister Aloysius’s order to “keep an eye on Father Flynn” because of his sermon on the subject of doubt. Sister James believes, on circumstantial evidence, that Father Flynn may have committed an immoral act with the boy. She has, though, no concrete proof of its occurrence. Sister Aloysius is happy to do the obligatory assault on Father Flynn’s character when Sister James provides her with this salacious ammunition however flimsy it may be.

As I watched this, other excellent films came to mind. I thought about Lillian Hellman’s “The Children’s Hour,” a film about a child’s lie and the suicidal consequences of that lie as well as that lie’s element of truth. I thought about Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” and its false accusation of immorality when people see things even when they don’t see them and what they will confess to seeing even when it is not there. I thought about how easy it is to bear false witness, to think we see what we do not and to believe false witness testimony, holding the fate of others (perhaps innocent others) in our hands. I finally thought of the Christian element of this film. It is about the possible accusation against a humane and potentially innocent man. It is about the surety of his accuser (Rome) and the torment of the accessory to the punishment (Pilot) because he knows he is condemning an innocent man.

This film, though, is not about certainty it is about doubt. Sister Aloysius is, perhaps, the most interesting character. What made her the Dickensian menacing character she was? It is hard to tell but we are told she had a married past -- a nun with a married past? That’s all we are told. Sister Aloysius is hard pressed to show an ounce of humanity and in true Dickensian fashion derives glee from whatever gossip she can acquire.

She, however, shows us another side. She shows us doubt. What does she, though, have doubts about? I do not know. That is one of the enigmas of the film and that is what the viewer must weigh. Does she doubt her own possibly false consequential accusations against Father Flynn or does she have her OWN personal doubts about her faith, the church and the existence of God. When she puts up "any old pope" on the blackboard despite the fact that it is not the right one she says oh who cares you just want to use it as a reflective mirror to watch the kids and "make them think you have eyes on the back of your head." This is not exactly what one would expect from one who is supposed to love the church and its hierarchy. She is really quite cynical about church hierarchy and knows how the power game is played. She is shrewd and smart as she lies to Father Flynn about her knowledge of his allegedly sordid past in other parishes. She has none but she told him she did. He never questions it. Why would an innocent man not question that? More room for doubt this time of Father Flynn’s innocence. We never really do know if he is truly innocent even though I rooted for him to be so.

The once innocent Sister James says she now never sleeps. I have no doubt that she does not. Sister Aloysius cries with doubt at the end. Why? I do not know. I have my own doubts. This film is about good and about evil, truth and lies and shades of gray. It is above all, I think, about doubt of all that we are and all that we know. There is no doubt in MY mind that “Doubt” is a film not to be missed.

This is an exchange between people in the Metro West Blog. It refers to an editorial in which the person chastised those who voted for Obama. We exchanged heated opinions....well theirs was heated .... and I responded again.


Yes, Iona you are right...the problem is there are so many who believe as I do such as you but they do not usually write responses so I get the ones whose ire I provoke and I DO provoke it. It's futile of course. No matter it's fun to see the fervor. That's why I write it. I KNOW what it's going to provoke and I find it enjoyable. Of course, I know we were ALL fetuses. Guess what I don't seem to recall that in utero experience do they?

They are right all those horrendous tyrants were atheists but for all those I can relate hundreds of thousands who were believers who were the most barbaric tyrants and did and DO the most despicable things. In fact, Hitlerian Germany while it was a perverted paganism, grew out of two thousand years of Christian Anti-Semitic brutality. Christian behavior brutal and extreme was a NECESSARY precondition for the Holocaust. It cannot be denied in any way as the Gospels especially the latter ones place decide at the feet of the Jews. There is no getting around it I do not care how much it is twisted. Six million full term human beings, men, women and ONE MILLION children went to their deaths because early Christianity fostered a poisonous creed. Without the illustrious history of Christian inhuman behavior toward the Jew the Holocaust would never have happened.

In addition, preeminent scientists who were and are atheists have brought the most advanced discoveries so religionists see what they want to see. MOST I say MOST scientists are agnostics and do not subscribe to a sky god or Biblical myth. We all need to feel good and we all fear illness, old age and death. As my atheist social worker humanitarian supreme friend said just because you want it to be so does not make it so. It's hard to be an agnostic or an atheist absolutely but I am a TRUTH person and I am a science person. I will ONLY believe what can be shown to work and be true. Other than that it's faith and I'm not good at nor do I buy that.

They ask ME why I am afraid of god believers I am NOT afraid of the god believers except if they try to destroy my rights which they have for decades. The question, I think, is why THEY are afraid of people who doubt or who have no belief or question belief through logic. It obviously threatens their entire system. If somehow god flew down from on high, showed his existence and eliminated immense human and other suffering THEN I would be happy -- MORE than happy -- to reverse course. Until then I am a confirmed doubter.

To my good buddy Jennie: Our country, while those who set foot on its shores in 1620 were of a self flagellating grim Calvinist Christian witchcraft believing variety, thank fate by the time our Founders arrived most were emphatic in church state separation for the very reason that exists in our exchanges. Religion spells anger and historically often war. They knew it as evident in Europe's religiously violent past. Sure religionists do some good, no doubt about it. So do Hindus, Buddists and oh yes so do atheists. It is in the human DNA to do good. It is better for the advancement of one's DNA to ensure the species survives. I will agree with you on one thing Christopher Hitchens would do well to eschew his profanity. It does, however, NOT make him wrong it simply makes him profane. Well, violence among religionists IS profane but of a different variety.

And by the way, Sheila, please do NOT waste your time praying for my sister or me for that matter. The answer your question is a RESOUNDING NO if the situation were reversed, I believe, I would have NO idea NONE, NIL, NADA, NOTHING about what occurred less than 10 days after birth. My very first memory of self is at age 3. Praying, I believe, does nothing. As Dawkins said in his email to me one day, it is too bad one cannot find joy and ecstasy in the universe as it is. Gloomy is NOT a word he uses to describe the awesome nature of its existence. However enjoyable, this, happily I am sure for some, is the final installment of the debate. I rest my case.

This was written on the Middlesex News editorial page by someone whose beloved cat, Mittens, was killed by a car recently at Christmas time just as the family was sitting down to enjoy the beauty of the decorations and tree. Her story is at this link: http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/x758547324/Berry-Prayers-of-thanks-for-a-good-cat-and-more.

It prompted my response which I placed on the Metro West News blog:


The Mortality of Mittens: THAT editorial is a profoundly beautiful, ever-so-sad and touching story which has my tears staining the keyboard as I type. We have two cats one (Sugar) who is 17 and the other (Sky) who is 5. Since we have no children, the cats are the two joys of our lives and foci of our attention. We see in them their intrinsic beauty and gentleness every day. They are a source of continual comfort and humor in an often humorless world which has seen fit to visit some tough times on us. It is a world which shows us its razors edge all too often and because of which I am all too often prone to gnash my teeth. The cats seem to obviate that.

We know the reality, as you do now, that death will soon pay an unwelcome visit to our 17 year old Sugar, a loyal, loving and beautiful friend with us for nearly all that time. My hands hesitate to even type those words.

How, though, can we experience the beauty of life if we do not accept its opposite? To me it is the conundrum of existence with which I always will, I know, grapple. Although I am a very secular person, I believe certain Biblical texts have profundity. The one I always love which many rabbis read at funerals is Psalm 90 verse 10: "The days of our lives are three score and ten; and if by reason of strength they be four score years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away".

This is true for all living things on earth no matter their biological life span. We all fly away. It seems to be the natural order of things. With life there is risk and uncertainty. The labor and sorrow is a fact, I think, we must endure to be able to experience the beauty and joy life has to offer as well. A lifespan is, we so often know too, not equal to all. It varies with time and circumstance. I hope, though, your grief is tempered by how much joy the animal you knew and loved brought to you. Perhaps, when you are ready, you can experience the love of yet another furry friend again who needs your love and attention in return. My thoughts and hope are with you!

This was written in response to an article written by a Doris Cadigen in the Metro West News where a great deal of my writing has either been printed or appears on the blog. Ms. Cadigen was quite critical of the Israeli blockade of Gaza and both Mr. Rosenberg and I took issue with that.

Yes, Mr. Rosenberg, I saw the Doris Cadigen letter and I wrote an opposition to it. I simply cannot understand why so many who claim humanitarian viewpoints are not equal opportunity employers . They do not and will not condemn the utter mind boggling atrocities committed by so many in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, America and against the State of Israel. If Israel were guilty of what Islamic political violence has done, the world would be at its throat. It already is no matter what the nuance of Israeli policy is.

I part company with much of the left when they wax critical about the brutality of the State of Israel and saccharine about the plight of Palestinians. I feel for many of the innocent Palestinians who suffer horribly. I am for a two state solution. Somehow, though, the left does not see the cacophony, brutality, and barbarity that exists in so much of the Islamic world. If the State of Israel never existed do you think there would be peace in Jerusalem? I suspect not. This does NOT for one second mean that I am blinded to the inhumanities of democratic states. I am not. I condemn that as well. Truly, though, I hear little outcry for the Mumbai attacks, the attacks in Madrid, the London bombings or the continual bombs flying over the wall Israel has erected to protect its people. What state would not do the same to ensure its security?

Hamas despite having been elected still represents an EXISTENTIAL threat to the Jewish state. There is NO disputing the fact that most of those who comprise the power arm of Hamas want to eradicate the Jew from the land, throw him into the Mediterranean Sea and have said so countless times. I, curiously, believe them. It would be suicide for the Jewish people to think they are empty threats. As I recall they thought that once before about a tyranny which nearly eradicated them.

What would have been wrong with one humanity seeing that another part of humanity during the years of the Jewish catastrophe needed help and make room for those who tried to survive its onslaught? Why is humanitarian policy observed by some on the left but when it comes to Jews and Israel well not so much.

I can never forget the fate of the six million during those brutal years. It is not for one day out of my memory. Could the Arab population have helped the Jewish people at that time instead of playing up to Mr. Hitler? A RESOUNDING YES. Sadly, no one was interested. To the contrary they picked up the Nazi baton, ran with it and still do even to this day. Funny, I thought a humanitarian philosophy was supposed to work all ways! Among Arabs and the Axis powers of that era and many on the left in THIS era it does not. Jewish destiny once again must be mainly in Jewish hands or at some point the Jewish people could see that existential threat come true.

This is an email I exchanged with a professor friend of mine who was raised in the Mormon church but considers herself a feminist and a gay rights supporter. Her article which appeared in the Globe is linked at:

http://webmail.aol.com/40627/aol/en-us/Mail/get-attachment.aspx?uid=1.22321289&folder=OldMail&partId=2&saveAs=20081216084043.pdf

My answer to her is as follows:

I felt the disappointment I thought you feel by the Mormon church's behavior having been raised in a culture which gave you great support. Being a Jew I surely can relate to that. I suspect that your viewpoint now and those who criticize the church now are probably in a distinct minority as are orthodox Jews some of whom actually are trying to debate some form of accommodation with and rationalization of innate sexual orientation. Probably most will have no debate on it but at least some are trying and the other sects of Judaism especially reform perform homosexual marriages. Judaism lends itself to debate which, I believe, is one of its pluses. Some say it's woven into the Jewish DNA.

Religious orthodoxy no matter which genre is, in my opinion, uncompromising and extreme. Change represents a threat to not only the veracity of what they believe (which is usually based on gargantuan myth) but a threat to losing the huge money from the corporate entities they are and oh yes a threat to male control. Bill Maher's "Religulous" said it all. The money making scheme of religion -- all religion -- is really well nothing short of brilliant. They make BILLIONS! Between the Catholic Church, the Fundamentalist Church, the Mormon Church and other orthodoxies together they could probably pay down the national debt or certainly bail out the big three auto companies and save some jobs.

In my opinion religion -- ALL religion -- is utterly phantasmagoric. There is not usually one ounce of truth or very very little, perhaps, historical truth but mostly it relies on faith for its oxygen. What angers me, though, is it puts across that FAITH as truth. Ridiculous. It prays (pardon the pun) on the weaknesses we all feel about the why of things, sickness, old age and ultimately death. Who among us does not fear sickness, old age and death? But fearing it and saying one has the truth about it are, indeed, two different things. I had and still do have an atheist friend who said to me during a time I had my own war with religion, just because you want it to be so does not make it so. She is absolutely right. I also communicated at one time via email with Richard Dawkins who wrote "The God Delusion" -- an astounding and great work by an astounding and great evolutionary biologist and steadfast atheist. I said in my email that I completely accepted what he had to say in the book but that I envied religionists who bathed in great comfort against the vicissitudes of life. He said to me that it was too bad I could not look at the grandiosity of the universe in all its forms and have that be enough.

I saw what he meant. However, when I was in mortal pain after my three femur fractures the last thing I was thinking about was the grandeur of the universe. I was thinking god get me out of this situation. Of course, while I was in the hospital I had so many "praying for me" and, naturally, I said sure why not, okay, pray. Did it do anything .... NOPE. It took as long as it was going take to heal (a year for each fracture) as biology dictated. No god, no supreme being did one thing to ease my pain, my psychic pain or my anger. Hell if it did I would have wondered why didn't it save me from my fate in the first place. Time, biology and I had to do it all. Anything that denies truth, denies science which really DOES tell us the truth. Denying science stifles the beauty of the human brain and its ability to improve and explain man's condition which makes me see red ... well maybe purple. Man's mind to me is the absolute essence of what separates us from everything else. It is the ONLY thing that can look at the universe and seek the answers to why and, indeed, postpone the onslaught of illness and the eventuality of death. Beyond that we are at the mercy of our telomeric DNA and that's the truth.

An Insult: I am angry at President-Elect Obama today. The Democratic Party takes the gay community for granted. When WILL Democrats understand that they will NEVER NEVER NEVER capture that Christian Fundamentalist Republican vote NOR should they. Why should I give $120 bucks of my cash that I have to be so careful with to President Elect Obama who has millions IF he is going to insult gay people by having a non-gay-friendly pastor give the benediction. I resent it. Rick Warren is, I will admit, a bit different than Pat Robertson, et al. He has a small amount more humanity and does not condemn gays to hell but, still, many in the gay community are FURIOUS with the President-Elect that he did this and so am I. SURELY there was a neutral minister who could give the benediction who is perhaps a Unitarian or a Congregationalist like the President-Elect is. Barack Obama is supposed to be about everyone.

I do NOT want him to repeat George Bush's presidential inauguration where Franklin Graham (Billy Graham's son but worse) the right wing fundamentalist fanatic gave the benediction. It was EXACTLY representative of what George Bush's corrupt and inhumane administration was about. Barack Obama was elected for CHANGE. I want to see some!!! I wondered WHO he was going to get for the benediction at the inaugural because it says something about what his administration will be like. Now I know what he is saying. His inaugural may be about some Americans but it's not about everyone.

The Madness of Madoff: See Steven Pearlstein -- Madoff's Lesson for the Market -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/16/AR2008121602875.html?hpid=topnews
This is an EXCELLENT article to which I wrote a response:

Mr. Pearlstein I surely could not have written a better editorial myself. Your article is, pardon the pun, right on the money. It is so well written. After hearing about the Madoff scandal I remembered my mother's echoes "Sha (quiet), do not talk about the Rosenbergs." I wonder, a generation later because I am a Jew, why did I want to run and hide after reading about the Madoff disreputable and illegal behaviors. After all it had nothing to do with me as, unfortunately, I am NOT one of those stereotypical Jews who anti Semites say is bathing in bucks. Still, I felt mud splattered on my face by his egregious behavior simply because I am a Jew even though I didn't even make (or lose) a cent from it.

When one truly reflects on its substance, I submit, this simply is a reflection of who we are as a nation. When history is written of this sad time, long after I am gone, it will be said that not only the financial markets were corrupt but EVERYTHING was corrupt. America, probably for much of our history,could be bought. Whether it was slavery, trust busting, Boss Tweed, Tameny Hall, the Keating Savings and Loan, Enron, Iraq, Blackwater, crony no bid contracts, multiple Congressional scandals, Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, Stevens, Wall Street credit default swaps, Standard & Poors and Moody conflict of interest rating systems, no strings attached 700 billion dollar loans floating in the breeze, Blagovich and now Madoff (the list goes on), simply put NO ONE but NO ONE ran the store or cared as long as people made money. The proverbial foxes in our political and financial sectors guard the chicken coops while the taxpayers go like lambs to their slaughter.

I believe it is intrinsic in the very nature of our country. People are slightly envious when other people make big bucks even IF they make it in dubious ways. Perhaps, most especially when they beat the system. I think there are some who secretly wish they could have gotten away with it too. They continually elect the all powerful to advance that system. Mayor Curley one of the most corrupt mayors in Boston history ruled from his jail cell and people to this day have a spark of admiration for him. Even Al Capone shares a mythic grandeur. George Bush is exemplar supreme but surely he is not the only one.

Will this ever become a better country? Maybe Barack Obama is the answer. I hope so. I surely do know it is not the fault of the Jews. Unfortunately, I believe it is in the country's soul. Americans have a very very short memory. Unless this hits home in their pocketbooks for generational time -- and it just may -- then I submit, it will be forgotten when the Dow reaches 11,000 once again.

The two rights but one egregious wrong: The following is an exchange I had with a blogger on the Metro West site in response to a pro Hamas anti Israel opinion. The link to the opinion of a person named Cardigain prompting the disagreement is: http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/letters/x281387996/Cadigan-Blockade-of-Gaza-a-disgrace

One man wrote:

Cutting off food and supplies to 1.5 million people is barbaric -period. There is no justification on Earth to cut off water, food, and medical supplies, unless you want to ignite a new round of war. The genocide of Jews was not carried out by Arabs...but by Europeans. Jews and Arabs have NOT been fighting for 2000 years....but Jews and Europeans have. Since the Romans invaded it just has not been a very pleasant experience for most Jews and Europeans to mix. In England thousands of Jews were expelled from the kingdom long before the 1492 inquisition. I don't consider Hamas any better or worse than the right wing Jews who supported the assassination of Rabin at the hands of another Jew. More than 80% of all Jews and Palestinians want peace and a peaceful solution to the ongoing blood bath. There are over 1.5 million Israelite Arabs...who live every day within the state of Israel. It is not Arabs that is our enemy. The enemy is ongoing justification of warmongering -demonetization- ignorance of history, and the thinking that any one side can live without the other..They can not. A successful Middle east--political and economic and social-will exist when all groups decide enough people have been murdered. In Europe the price has been high for a fragile peace of today. During the past 100 years 50 million or more Europeans have died in brainless war. Accomplishing little but to invest in new weapons more destructive than the last. I reject the violence and I reject the hatred. More than ever I reject the notion Jews and Arabs are enemies. The day the British and French thought they could determine peoples lives without consulting them has lead the world down a path justifying empire and colonialism instead of what America stands for. Palestinians deserve to be free and safe as well as a Jewish State has its right to be free and safe. There is no other path for either side..the respect and dignity the Israelis want -they should receive but-can never stop being shown toward the Palestinian people as well.
Jewish, American, and hungry--time to get some chips.
LK

I responded

Believe it or not LK I agree with some of what you say. There is no question inhumanity on both sides is an egregious fact. However, where I part company with much of the left is that Hamas, despite having been elected, still represents and EXISTENTIAL threat to the Jewish state. That is simply a fact irrespective of the rationale of the Holocaust for the state of Israel. No, Arabs were not to blame for that BUT I really must take issue with what you say a bit. Arabs in the body of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem were squarely on the Axis side and moreover Muslim troops in the Baltic countries volunteered for the Nazi Wafen SS during WWII. Why? Perhaps they could agree with their policy of the 'Jewish question.' Little is known about that.

Jews have ALWAYS been in Israel as Arabs have as well but it was not until the UN partition of it , because no one wanted Jewish refugees in THEIR countries, that the State of Israel was born. It was not only then given to Jews in 1948 but it made provisions for Arabs too. But that wasn't enough for the Arab population. Before that, Jews bought land from Arabs who gladly sold it to them. After the UN mandate all of a sudden they wanted it back and the 1948 war ultimately broke out. Peace has been elusive ever since.

There is NO disputing the fact that most of those who comprise the power arm of Hamas want to eradicate the Jew from the land and have said so countless times. I, curiously, believe them. Perhaps the majority of Palestinians want a two state solution but the public policy of Hamas does NOT. It would be suicide for the Jewish people , yet again, to not make damn well sure they will NOT face another annihilation attempt.

In addition, what is wrong with humanity seeing that another part of humanity -- THE SIX MILLION -- could be a rationale to have made room for those who survived. Why is humanitarian policy so observed by some on the left but when it comes to Jews, well, no one cares. Oh sure it's not an Arab problem. Well, it became everyone's problem ... sorry. That cannot be denied and Arabs at that moment in history were perfectly okay with a Hitlerian alignment before World War II's end.

You will forgive me if I am sick of five thousand years of getting bounced around in nearly every corner of the globe including the Middle East after the rise of Islam in the 8th century. Arabs in many lands at various times unpredictably were not accepting of Jews either. Sure, maybe they were not exactly responsible for the Holocaust but who of them would have shed a tear if it was entirely successful which it almost was.

I once read the phrase years ago "Jewish destiny is in Jewish hands." I still believe it to this day. That does not mean I countenance cruelty but when Hamas is willing to agree to a two-state solution recognizing the safety and security of State of Israel then I will be more discerningly critical.

I can never forget, I always remember every day, every minute the beyond belief destruction of the Jewish people -- the Shoah -- during those fateful years. It is NEVER out of my mind for even a day. It is the rationale for all that I am. Should Europeans feel bad for what they have done? A resounding YES -- for as long as man resides on this planet. Could the Arab population have helped at that time? A RESOUNDING YES, as well. Humanitarian behavior works both ways.

Shoe Heard Round the World: I Polished up my viewpoint by making some small changes and sent it on to the Globe and Metro West News.


Some have said that the shoe thrower should have voiced his opposition to US policy by verbally registering his anger instead of throwing a shoe. Do those who would suggest that really think that the Iraqi journalist who opposes an occupier and an invader under false pretenses has any hope of vociferously uttering disagreement of US policy? How would we feel if we were god forbid invaded by a foreign country with massive weaponry equipped with shock and awe deployment and then that foreign power stayed unwanted in our country for an undetermined amount of time?

That journalist was making an insulting statement loud and clear by Arab standards NOT American standards, the only way he could and be observed and heard by the entire world. Bush was right he wanted attention and attention he got. He wanted attention to shout that he hated the US violent invasion and occupation of his country. He hated an invasion which was directly responsible for the sectarian violence and killing that followed. He hated the ruination of what stability that country had, and he hated most probably the elevation of Iran and the entrance of Al Qaeda into his country where it never existed before. Without US interference, for better or worse, Sadam, who knew how to control that country, would probably still be in power today. It, indeed, may not have been heaven but may have been a hell of a lot better then what ensued after his fall. Better is a relative term. The hubris of the unnecessary preemptive US invasion promulgated through lies might make one just a little bit irritated. How effective would a verbal or written objection by that journalist be? Let's face it it would have meant nothing. One might say this was the shoe throw that was heard round the world.

So which is worse to that journalist, Sadam's hammer-like but relatively stable rule or the US invasion which killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, sent millions into exile, decimated and tortured families creating what is now really a failed state? Some said what the journalist did is a joke to the American people. I don't think so and I do not think it is a joke in the Arab world. It is far too serious and the symbolism too great to be a joke and certainly that is no joke to me!

This is a response to Chris Matthews's interview of an Arab female journalist about the shoe throwing of an Iraqi journalist directed at George Bush. He called it a joke and asked why don't they verbally state their opposition instead of reacting violently like they do.


Chris, I love your show and watch it faithfully. I must take issue with you about the shoe throwing episode of the Iraqi journalist at George Bush. Do you really think that the Iraqi people who oppose an occupier and an invader under false pretenses have any hope of vociferously uttering disagreement of US policy? How would we feel if we were god forbid invaded by a foreign country with massive weaponry equipped with shock and awe policies and then stay uninvited in our country for who knows how long?

That journalist was making an insulting statement loud and clear by Arab standards NOT American standards, the only way he could and be observed and heard by the entire world. Bush was right he wanted attention and attention he got. He wanted attention to shout that he hated the US violent invasion and occupation of his country. He hated an invasion which was DIRECTLY responsible for the sectarian violence that followed. He hated the ruination of what stability that country had, and he hated most probably the elevation of Iran. Without US interference, for better or worse, Sadam, who knew how to control that country, would probably still be in power. It, indeed, may not have been heaven but may have been a hell of a lot better then what ensued after his fall. Better is a relative term.

So which is worse to that journalist, Sadam's hammer-like rule or the US invasion which killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, sent millions into exile, decimated and tortured families creating what is now really a failed state? You said what the journalist did is a joke to the American people? I don't think so and I do not think it is a joke in the Arab world. It is far too serious to be a joke and certainly it is NO joke to me!