OT: Rooster's Omnibus Thread (Revisited)

[spitintheocean]

Rather than forfeit a wider audience some of which may have abandoned Rooster's most recent walk on the wild side, I thought that I would take this opportunity to mount my own pulpit (named out of love and respect for the cock of the walk himself) and threaten some established beliefs for the express purpose of seeing how long I can last before becoming mortally wounded.

Will this be like Travis at the Alamo, hanging in against overwhelming odds and favourably remembered by historians as a true hero or more like Custer' Last Stand, succombing swiftly to superior forces, remembered by many as a victim of his own arrogance?

If I've read his thread properly, there seemed to be several conversations occurring simultaneously.

1. Charity and tax benefits.
2. Off Topic discussions.
3. Creationism vs Science
4. Religion and history.

Let's take the easiest subject first:

2. Off Topic Discussion

While it may be off-putting for a novice web surfer to stumble into a passionate discussion about subjects completely unrelated to the published mission of a message board, in fact, this is a common occurance throughout the internet. Successful message boards need an active cadre of experienced participants to pass on expertise to new users and expand the collective knowledge base by exploring the depths and boundaries of the subject matter in much greater detail than that immediately of concern for typical new users.

But after one has provided advice on how to set up a CPAP device for the umpteenth time, people return for the same reason they frequent a favourite bar or coffee shop ..... for the conversation with old friends and the sense of community established with others of common interest. If the conversations were never allowed to spin off into alternative topics, there is a greater likelihood that boredom will set in and controversy is never boring. Cheers!

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got;
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows your name.

1. Charity and Tax Benefits

Rooster's original post pretty well stakes out his condemnation of political change that results in the government negatively impacting private charitable donations so here's my take on the subject.

In the US, changes to tax laws have already reduced the tax rate on income above $250,000 to 33%. If I understand correctly the proposed legislation (just defeated in the Senate) would have limited all deductions, including those for charitable donations to 28% of taxable income. I think Rooster believes that this will cost those same individuals (remember that's not family income) about $10 billion in additional taxes which will have some (undefined?) impact on future private charitable donations. Rooster believes that this is a bad thing, hence the debate.

In a democracy, everyone gets a vote on how their government operates. How many of you got to vote when the Chairman of Nike donated a $100 million to seed the construction of yet another business school at Stanford that cost you $33 million of your due taxes? How many of you voted to cover a third of the the alumni donations to support college football teams or a new boathouse for the rowers at Yale university?

When was the last time anyone asked you if it was OK to provide a $10 million tax break to some beer baron who donates an inherited Picasso that originally cost a couple of thousand dollars to the local museum? Could you really think of no better way to spend government tax money than becoming one third "patron" to a struggling symphony orchestra or ballet company that continues to promote "arts and culture" from a bygone era to a wealthy few who choose to believe that one more interpretation of "The Nutcracker" is superior to another episode of "Dancing With The Stars" and Chopin is superior to Coldplay? Some people forget that Shakespeare was the Spielberg of his day.

And let's not forget that thirty-three cents of every dollar John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, or any of the rest of Hollywood's elite Scientologists' donate to their church is at the absolute expense of expanded medicaid, social housing, veteran's benefits, etc.

This isn't a personal attack on non profit organizations or religious groups but I will go on the record and say that I don't support any tax benefits for charitable donations. If you want to give money or your time to something you believe in, I say great ...... go for it. Just don't take my share of your taxable income to save the seals, fight smoking, champion anti-abortion, or condemn meat eaters. Do you hear that Pamela Anderson and PETA? I'd prefer to see your share along with my share continue to pay for the maintenance of our roads and bridges, upkeep on our schools, policing and other personal security,etc.

Governments may be bloated and inefficient but at least we get a say on who makes the decisions on our behalf; if we've decided the price we collectively pay for good government and public order is up to 33% of one's income, I'm dead set against anyone diverting any part of their proportionate share into their pet causes. Asking for that diversion to be limited to only 28% still seems pretty charitable to me. Remember, there's no such thing as me and you and the government ...... it's just me and you, we are the government!

3. Creationism vs Science

I believe that something beyond my compehension created the universe. I have no idea whether that was by accident or design; was the "Big Bang" some cataclysmic 'sneeze' from an all powerful God or are we here on Earth nothing more than an ant farm under glass that receives occasional scrutiny and the odd divine intervention? To believe that we are the only sentient beings in a known universe where our planet is but the equivalent of a grain of sand on a pretty big beach is nothing but sheer hubris in my humble opinion.

I was raised in Catholic schools, taught only by Irish Christian Brothers and Jesuits, no mixed schools for us; in fact I'm still convinced that I must have been the ugliest altar boy in Newfoundland because I received not one pass, reach around, grope or fumble in the dark during four and a half years of service. Yet I was never taught to believe what was written in the Bible was a literal transcription of God's word or that Genesis was more than a metaphor for the evolution of life on this planet.

I see no conflict between my view of Creation and Darwin's theory of evolution. With each passing year, more evidentiary proof surfaces to support a continuous evolution from less developed forms of life. Just last month, the NY Times reported astronomers have established the age of the universe to be 13.73 billion years old, give or take 120 million years. Geologists had already established that our planet is 4.5 billion years old while paleontologists have established that dinosaurs of one form or another roamed the planet for 185 million years until their ultimate extinction 65 million years ago. Fossils have established the first versions of a human species that could walk upright arrived less than two million years ago but they were butt ugly and stunned as my arse.

Modern man, defined as those that were smart enough to get out of the way of an oncoming bus did not arrive until about 40,000 years ago. So I can't help but wonder why an omnipotent God would create and watch over dinosaurs for 185 million years when he could have banged us out first? I mean I've watched Jurassic Park and can see the attraction but c'mon, 185 million years when he could have been watching us blow things up with atomic bombs, or even catching reruns of Seinfeld? And where was he during the 65 million years after the dinosaurs became extinct and the arrival of man? There is plenty of fossil evidence identifying evolutionary life forms during that time period but no sign of man, not even an old empty beer can.

There's nothing inherently wrong about mixing religion and science in the class room, but ignoring established scientific evidence of evolutionary process is akin to joining the Flat Earth Society,

4. Religion and History

These days atheism has gained the upper hand in our western secular society. We collectively worship at the altar of consumerism, granting high priest status to paragons of conspicuous consumption like Donald Trump or Paris Hilton while sipping ridiculously priced coffee from Starbucks in our supersized SUV's. But it hasn't always been this easy.

We are the lucky ones, fortunate to be born in a part of the world and of a time when we have never been threatened by war or famine, nor suffered the pangs of hunger or need. Today we don't need organized religion .... it needs us. Secretly we already know that success in Iraq or Afghanistan or North Africa will not be determined by military might, but by spreading our own particular form of western religion, "Forget about Allah, what every home in Afghanistan really needs is a 50" plasma, a satellite dish, and a subscription to DirecTV. Today's mass is brought to you directly from Hollywood so look what can be yours with a decent education and a little hard work!" It brought peace to Northern Ireland, democracy to Russia, and is subverting communism in China.

It's easy to be cavalier and claim religion has been the cause of nearly all wars since the dawn of man, that more blood has been spilled in God's name than ever benefitted from organized religion. That today organized religion is about as deleterious as Labour Unions. But that's simply not true.

For centuries, religion provided an answer to nearly all the mysteries and miseries known to man. It provided hope and purpose to survive and prosper in a cold, unforgiving world. It established social discipline, protection, education, and healthcare (unless you were a witch which was easily determined using the scientific methods of the time).

Think about it as you look at news clippings of life in Afghanistan where citizens sleep on the ground in stone huts with no real windows, and ponder another lousy day just like yesterday's, only marginally better off than their ancestors in the Middle Ages. "Strap on a bomb to meet 73 virgins in the afterlife? Where do I sign up?" Why would you even get up if you were a mother in a Darfur refugee camp housing about 80,000 people in tents under the desert sun with inadequate water or waste treatment and absolutely nothing to do but pray to your God, any God for forgiveness and relief from pain for your dying child.

Without a belief in God and the promise of an earned paradise or the threat of eternal damnation it's doubtful we would have ever gravitated beyong pack animals like wolves, smart enough to recognize the benefits of a peaceful co-existence and cunning enough to hunt in packs and take by might whatever they can get away with. Religion gave us hope, but it also taught us guilt; we're all the better for it.

Paul

[wlenz]

Religion gave us hope, but it also taught us guilt; we're all the better for it.

Very true.