I wonder if Garrison Keillor sings the literal English translation of the German Stille Nacht:

The vote in favor of passing HR3962, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, was 220 in favor to 215 opposed in the House of Representatives last night.

While not a perfect solution to all of the flaws of the American health care “system,” this bill goes further to provide all Americans with health insurance coverage than ever before. And while I am personally in favor of putting all insurance companies out of business and adopting a government-run, single-payor system, I recognized the promise of this bill as one of a series of steps toward the ideal.

In short, this bill isn’t liberal enough to satisfy my ultimate preferences, but it is so much better than the status quo that I just don’t understand how anyone who was elected as a Democrat could vote against it.

And yet, 39 members of the Democratic caucus in the House did just that.

The New York Times has a very helpful chart of those individuals, including the percentage of “nonelderly uninsured” individuals in their districts as well as voting breakdowns from the 2008 election.

Let’s look at some of those figures, along with statements from the Representatives themselves, shall we?

First up, with the highest percentage of “nonelderly uninsured” at 29% is Congressman Dan Boren from Oklahoma’s second district — the eastern quarter of the state. The district has a population of around 690,000 people, according to the 2000 census, which means that approximately 200,000 of those people are the “nonelderly uninsured” documented by the NYT chart.

Dan Boren won his last election by 41%, even though his district voted for McCain by a margin of 32%. And why did he vote against insuring ~200,000 of his constituents?

Two reasons: abortion, and taxes. He’s a so-called “Blue Dog” Democrat, a fiscal conservative, and doesn’t want to spend a trillion dollars on health care by raising any taxes, especially if any of that money goes toward funding abortions.

Except that the anti-abortion amendment, the Stupak amendment, passed by a vote of 240-119. Proposed and championed by a Democrat from Michigan, the amendment forbids any insurance policy purchased through the federally-funded exchange created by the bill to offer any coverage for abortions.

So for Boren, it really came down to money in the end. Money, vs. ~200,000 people without health coverage.

Second is Congressman Harry Teague, from New Mexico’s second District, the southern half of my state, with 25% “nonelderly uninsured.” The district has just over 600,000 people over a vast geographical area, so that percentage works out to about 151,000 individuals without health coverage.

Harry Teague is a freshman Congressman, and won the election by 12 points in a district that went for McCain by ONE percent. And why did he vote against health care reform, insuring ~151,000 New Mexicans?

After waffling about “concern” over the public option, Teague’s official reasoning is that the bill doesn’t go far enough to rein in the insurance companies, or lower costs for businesses. While I am inclined to agree with this statement, I don’t see it as a valid excuse for voting against a bill that does so many good things — particularly abolishing exclusions for pre-existing conditions. And when you represent a district with ~151,000 individuals with no health care at all, I find this vote unconscionable.

For the record, Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio’s tenth district voted no for much the same reason — he is of the opinion that a single-payor system is the only way to go, regardless of the approximately 82,000 individuals in his district who currently have no health care.

There are 36 more Democratic Representatives who voted no, for all kinds of reasons.

And then there is Republican Congressman Joseph Cao from Louisiana, the ONLY Republican to vote for the bill.

I have to say that I personally respect Congressman Cao more than any of the Democrats who voted no because the bill “doesn’t go far enough,” because he actually took his constituents into account rather than pure politics. Louisiana’s second district, encompassing most of New Orleans, needs the health care coverage that this bill provides (PDF), regardless of what the Republican party leadership says, and Cao stood up for them.

I wish more Democrats had that kind of conscience.

I suspect that Congressman Cao will also be easily reelected, particularly if health care reform gets through the Senate and is actually signed into law. Likewise, I suspect the Democrats who voted “no” to face some tough primary challenges, and Republican victories in the general.

As webmaster for the Mountain Desert District, I’ll be blogging events from our District Assembly in Fort Collins, CO, for the next several days. Things started last night with an absolutely stunning concert by keynote speaker Holly Near, performing with with emma’s revolution — my soul is very full already.

Keep up with me at mdduua.org/blog.

Word is going around that the Rev. Dr. Forrest Church passed away tonight, and I am sad. He gave his whole self to the service of Unitarian Universalism and left us with many gifts, not the least of which is this beautiful sermon, The Cathedral of the World, from June of 2001:

As Unitarian Universalists, we share a magnificent theological legacy. Think about how redemptive our first principles actually are, especially in answer to those who would further fracture an already divided world. Unitarianism proclaims that we spring from a common source; Universalism, that we share a common destiny. Both affirm that we are brothers and sisters by nature. Nothing that divides us can gainsay that which binds us together, for we are children of a single and abiding mystery. Our Unitarian and especially our Universalist forbears affirmed this as a matter of faith, Unitarianism by positing a single creator, Universalism by offering the promise of a shared salvation.

With this life-affirming legacy comes an attendant responsibility. To honor our inheritance, we must enlist our imaginations and energies in service of the One. I consider this a sacred calling. With appropriate passion and due humility, we are called to witness to the Unity that comprehends (in all its wondrous and essential diversity) our chosen faith.

Two obstacles thwart the fulfillment of this mission. First, Universalism is an exacting gospel. Taken seriously, no theology is more challenging, morally, spiritually or intellectually. Given the natural human tendency toward division, Universalists run the constant temptation to backslide in their faith. One can lapse and become a bad or lazy Universalist as effortlessly as others become ice-cream social Presbyterians or nominal Catholics. Think about it: actually to love your enemy as yourself; to see your tears in another’s eyes; to respect, even embrace, otherness, rather than condescendingly to tolerate or combatively to dismiss its independent validity. None of this comes naturally to us. We are weaned on the rational presumption that if two people disagree, only one can be right. This works better in mathematics than it does in theology; Universalism reminds us of that. Yet, even to approximate the Universalist ideal remains devilishly difficult in actual practice.

The second obstacle is intrinsic to Unitarian Universalism itself. Though named after two doctrines, ours is a non-doctrinal faith. By definition, we don’t even have to believe in our own name. We can exercise our freedom to believe whatever we will. We can be free from, for, or against whatever we choose. In a society that indulges it, religious freedom (a once precious commodity) is cheap and plentiful. We should be thankful for that. But we also must remember that when others are shouting fire in a crowded theater, freedom alone won’t put it out. To answer the call of our times, we must invest our personal freedom in the bank of mutual responsibility, that it may pay dividends for everyone. Only a respect for the worth and dignity of every human being and a shared commitment to the interdependent web of being of which we are a part-each a Universalist touchstone-present a saving alternative to the perils of internecine division in an ever more fractious world.

Given our commitment to pluralism, Unitarian Universalism should represent the perfect laboratory for modeling amity in a world rife with passions that stem from inevitable differences of belief. Often, however, we too muster more passion for that which divides us than we do for all that unites us. Ask yourself this. If, in our communities of faith, we find it difficult to unite under the banner of this one over-arching sympathy, how can we hope effectively to counter fundamentalisms of the right and left? Without a uniting passion of our own, how can we begin to answer the often-destructive passions of anti-Univeralists? Without a deep, articulate and lived appreciation for our own first principles, how can we persuasively contest the validity of contesting principles that divide, not unite, the human family?

Responding to these questions, I present for your consideration a possible new foundation for Universalist theology, one designed to underpin our diversity in a more intelligible and practicable manner. Though I place my full emphasis here on theology, everything I shall say has implications for our ministries of justice as well. Unless we put its implications into practice, Universalism is frivolous, self-denying and moot.

On a cautionary note, let me begin by noting that Universalism itself can be perverted in two ways. One is to elevate one truth into a universal truth (”My church is the one true church”); the other is to reduce distinctive truths to a lowest common denominator (”All religion is merely a set of variations upon the golden rule”). The Universalism I embrace does neither. It holds that the same light shines through all our windows, but that each window is different. The windows modify the light, refracting it in various patterns that suggest discrete meanings. Even as one cannot believe usefully in “everything,” to find meaningful expression Universalism must be modified or refracted through the glass of individual and group experience (which by definition will be less than universal). One can be a Buddhist Universalist, a Jewish Universalist, a Pagan Universalist, a Humanist Universalist, a Christian Universalist. On the other hand, one cannot in any meaningful sense be a Universalist Universalist; it is impossible to look out every window. Neither can one be, say, a Universalist Christian; when the modifier of one’s faith becomes its nominative, primary allegiance is relegated to but one part of the whole that encompasses it.

Try looking at it this way. Imagine the world as a vast cathedral. This cathedral is as ancient as is humankind; its cornerstone is the first altar, marked with the tincture of blood and blessed by tears. Search for a lifetime-which is all we are surely given-and we shall never know its limits, visit all its transepts, worship at its myriad shrines, nor span its celestial ceiling with our gaze.

The builders have labored in this cathedral from time immemorial, destroying and creating, confounding and perfecting, tearing down and raising up arches, buttresses and chapels, organs, theaters and chancels, gargoyles, idols and reliquaries. Daily, work begins that shall not be finished in the lifetime of the architects who planned it, the patrons who paid for it, the builders who construct it, or the expectant worshipers. Nonetheless, throughout human history, one generation after another has labored lovingly, sometimes fearfully, crafting memorials and consecrating shrines. Untold numbers of these today collect dust in long-undisturbed chambers; others (cast centuries or millennia ago from their once respected places) lie shattered in shards or ground into dust on the cathedral floor. Not a moment passes without the dreams of long-dead dreamers being outstripped, crushed, or abandoned, giving way to new visions, each immortal in reach, ephemeral in grasp.

Above all else, contemplate the windows. In the Cathedral of the World there are windows beyond number, some long forgotten, covered with many patinas of dust, others revered by millions, the most sacred of shrines. Each in its own way is beautiful. Some are abstract, others representational, some dark and meditative, others bright and dazzling. Each tells a story about the creation of the world, the meaning of history, the purpose of life, the nature of humankind, the mystery of death. The windows of the cathedral are where the light shines through.

As with all extended metaphors, this one is imperfect. The Light of God (or Truth or Being Itself) shines not only upon us, but out from within us as well. Together with the windows, we are part of the cathedral, not apart from it. Together we comprise an interdependent web of being. The cathedral is constructed out of star stuff and so are we. We are that part (or known part) of the creation that contemplates itself. Because the cathedral is so vast, our life so short and vision so dim, we are able to contemplate only a tiny part of the whole creation. We can explore but a handful of its many chambers. Our allotted span permits us to reflect on the play of darkness and light through remarkably few of its myriad windows. Yet, since the whole is contained in each of its parts, as we ponder and act on insights derived from even a single reflection, we may experience self-illumination. We may also discover or invent meanings that invest both the creation and our lives with coherence and meaning.

A 21st century theology based on the concept of one light (Unitarianism) and many windows (Universalism) offers to its adherents both breadth and focus. Honoring many different religious approaches, it excludes only the truth-claims of absolutists. This is because fundamentalists-whether on the right or left-claim that the light shines through their window only. Skeptics draw the opposite conclusion. Seeing the bewildering variety of windows and observing the folly of the worshipers, they conclude that there is no Light. But the windows are not the Light. The whole Light (God, Truth) is beyond our perceiving. God is veiled. Some people have trouble believing in a God who looks into any eyes but theirs. Others have trouble believing in a God they cannot see. But that none of us can look directly into God’s eyes certainly doesn’t mean God isn’t there, mysterious, unknowable, gazing into ours.

Religion can be dangerous, of course, especially on a shrinking globe where, with discrete backyards a thing of the past, conflicting faith positions contest one another in almost every human precinct. The greatest challenge to theology today is the reactionary retrenchment of competing theologies and ideologies with mutually exclusive truth-claims. Though the recent spread of religious or ideological terrorism throughout the world compounds the danger contemporary true believers (or true-unbelievers) present, every generation has had its holy warriors, hard-bitten zealots for whom the world is large enough for only one true faith. Terrorists for Truth and God, not only have they been taught to worship at a single window; they also are incited to demonstrate their faith by throwing stones through other peoples’ windows. Tightly drawn, their logic makes a demonic kind of sense.

1) Religious answers respond to life and death questions, which happen to be the most important questions of all.

2) You and I may come up with different answers.

3) If you are right, I must be wrong.

4) But I can’t be wrong, because my salvation hinges on being right.

5) Therefore, short of abandoning my faith and embracing yours, in order to secure my salvation I am driven to ignore, convert, or destroy you.

Aristotle coined something called the Law of the Excluded Middle. As a logical certainty, he asserted that “A” and “not-A” cannot both be true at one and the same time. By the light of my cathedral metaphor, Aristotle is wrong, at least with respect to theology. His logical certitude oversteps the law of experience. Contrast one stained-glass window (its dark center bordered by more translucent panes) with another (configured in the opposite fashion). Though the same light shines through both, it will cast diametrically opposite shadow images on the cathedral floor (”A” and “not-A,” if you will). Even as we cannot gaze directly at the sun, we cannot stare directly into the light of God. All the great world scriptures make this point. No one can look God in the eye. Truth therefore emerges only indirectly, as refracted through the windows of tradition and experience. To a modern Universalist such as myself, this suggests that-since the same light can be refracted in many different ways (even “A” and “not-A”)-the only religious truth claims we can discount completely are those that dismiss all other claims for failing to conform to their own understanding of the creation.

One presumably impartial response to the war of conflicting theological passions is to reject religion entirely, to distance ourselves from those who attempt-always imperfectly -to interpret the Light’s meaning. There are two problems with this approach. One is that such a rejection deprives us of a potentially deep encounter with the mysterious forces that impel our being, thereby limiting our ability to invent and discover meaning. The second is that none of us actually is able to resist interpreting the Light. Whether we choose the windows that enlighten existence for us or inherit them, for each individual the light and darkness mingle more or less persuasively as refracted through one set of windows or another. Attracted to the partial clarification of reality that emerges in patterns of light and the playing of shadows, even people who reject religion are worshipers of Truth as they perceive it. Their windows too become shrines.

Because none of us is able fully to comprehend the truth that shines through another person’s window, nor to apprehend the falsehood that we ourselves may perceive as truth, we can easily mistake another’s good for evil, and our own evil for good. A Universalist theology tempers the consequences of our inevitable ignorance, while addressing the overarching crisis of our times: dogmatic division in an ever more intimate, fractious, and yet interdependent world. It posits the following fundamental principles:

1. There is one Power, one Truth, one God, one Light.

2. This Light shines through every window in the cathedral.

3. No one can perceive it directly, the mystery being forever veiled.

4. Yet, on the cathedral floor and in the eyes of each beholder, refracted and reflected through different windows in differing ways, it plays in patterns that suggest meanings, challenging us to interpret and live by these meanings as best we can.

5. Each window illumines Truth (with a large T) in a unique way, leading to various truths (with a small t), and these in differing measure according to the insight, receptivity and behavior of the beholder.

I am certain that others will refine and improve upon these principles. I offer them as much to promote an ongoing dialogue about the integrity and intelligibility of Universalism for our time as I do to answer the many questions Universalism poses to the inquiring mind. Yet I offer them with complete conviction. If we Unitarian Universalists are unable to recognize the ground that we share, we shall remain only marginally effectual in helping to articulate grounds whereupon all together might stand as children of a mystery that unites far more profoundly than it distinguishes one child of life from any other. To the extent that we fail in this mission, we betray our Universalist inheritance.

Amen. I love you. May God bless us all.

I would love if the whole health “care” debate were actually about health care, but instead, it’s about health insurance. The story I’m about to tell/rant is not one of denied treatment for chemotherapy or organ transplant, nothing like that. It’s about the daily experience of seeking treatment for a medical condition, and then dealing with the bureaucracy that ensues.

My family has health insurance. Lucky us. A premium is deducted from my husband’s pay check every month, his employer pays their much higher share, and we carry little blue identification cards that mark us as “insured.”

We go to the doctor and pay a $20 co-pay for a standard visit. Then we get an indecipherable “Explanation of Benefits” statement from the insurance company stating charges, allowances, what they (didn’t) pay, and what our doctor might bill us, and then we usually get a bill from the doctor for an amount that may or may not relate to the “EOB” statement that we received from the insurance company. And then I, as the money person in the household, spend a bunch of time on the insurance company’s website and the phone trying to make sense of it all before, usually, writing a check for some esoteric amount and mailing it off.

Recently, I had to get a blood test. Six months ago, I had the same exact blood test, and I was sent to a lab in the town’s mini-mall for it. That lab didn’t give the results to my doctor in time for my follow-up appointment, so this time, I was told by the very nice nurses to go to the lab in the hospital attached to my doctor’s office, which they said offered the same services but delivered their results more reliably.

“Great,” I thought, “One stop shopping.”

A week or so later, I got the usual statement from the hospital lab detailing what they would bill the insurance company. My insurance company thinks that this particular blood test should be filed under “diagnostic” rather than “routine” (even though it’s really monitoring for a chronic condition that has already been diagnosed, to make sure that I’m taking the right amount of medication), so the cost is applied to my yearly deductible and I pay for it out of pocket, which means that I of course will pay attention to the amount billed on the hospital lab statement. This seems slightly lower than what the mini-mall lab billed for, interesting.

Then I get the “EOB” and, sure enough, the health insurance company doesn’t pay anything on it, and it’s applied to the deductible, and I’m responsible for the charges. Then I look at the discount column, or “allowable charges,” and see that they are significantly higher for the hospital lab than they were for the mini-mall lab. More than THREE TIMES higher.

At the mini-mall lab, I was expected to pay $23.47 out of pocket after the insurance allowable charge was applied. At the hospital lab, I am expected to pay $80.

“Not so great,” I thought when I got the bill from the hospital lab confirming this amount.

So I call the insurance company and ask why, for the very same test, I am expected to pay so much more to one provider than the other. This seems like a reasonable question, right? After all, my family and my husband’s employer pay premiums to the insurance company every single month so that they will negotiate prices and, theoretically, pay for our health care, right?

The answer that I get from the very nice insurance lady is convoluted at best. “Well,” she says, “It’s not the service but the contract that determines how much a patient will be responsible for if they have a deductible like you do. Each provider negotiates their own contract with the local insurance plan, and we don’t have any control of that because we’re just responsible for applying your benefits to the claims. We’re based in Pennsylvania, but it’s the New Mexico plan that determines the charges.”

I point out that I as the patient has nothing to do with these negotiations and that I just went to where the nice nurses told me to go for a blood test. I also point out that the nice nurses in both my doctor’s office AND either of the two labs in question probably don’t know what either lab has negotiated with my particular insurance company, either, so there’s really no reasonable way I could have made an informed choice about how much I would end up paying out of pocket for this test, a test that really should be covered under routine care in the first place, but I won’t get into that.

“You could have called us ahead of time so that we could advise you in these matters,” she says.

I’m all for doing research before making a purchase, but that seems unreasonable to me. I should have to call the insurance company to ask where I should get my blood test done according to what contracts they have negotiated with individual providers? That seems excessive. Why doesn’t the insurance company negotiate the same amount for the same test, with every provider on their list? Wouldn’t that make more sense, both as customer service AND for their own bottom line?

But no, I’m not getting anywhere with the insurance company, because the portion of the company that manages my family’s benefits is not responsible for the portion of the insurance company that sets contract prices with providers in my state.

Does your head hurt as much as mine, now?

So I call the hospital lab and explain this story, wondering why they charge so much more in the end for exactly the same service, and wondering if I can get any kind of discount since I’m paying this out of pocket. I’m told no, which I expected, and that “any time you use a service of a hospital, you’ll be paying a little bit more, since we’re open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” I ask if that applies to the lab, and she admits, “No, but the lab is part of the hospital.” Okay, fine.

It’s not the hospital lab’s fault, it’s not the fault of the nice nurses in the doctor’s office, or the mini-mall lab’s fault, either. This whole convoluted mess is a direct result of an unregulated, nonsensical insurance industry.

This is just a small story, of one claim, and I as the patient end up on the losing side, out $55 extra, because of negotiations in which I have no part.

I have no illusions that this is a unique story, which is part of the reason I tell it — this kind of experience has become the norm for the American health care system, and it just shouldn’t be.

I should be able to go to my doctor, do what she tells me, and not have to worry about all of this crap.

No one should be nickeled and dimed by an insurance company for what minutiae they have decided they will and will not pay for according to purposely inaccessible criteria.

For another example, we had to pay the pediatrician $2.50 for a peak-flow cardboard tube that my son used in an asthma checkup, because the insurance company applied that charge to the deductible rather than as part of a yearly physical for a kid with asthma. It cost more for them to bill the insurance company, then bill us and for me to mail a check than the $2.50 tube in the first place.

It’s not the amounts of money that get my ire up, it’s the absurdity of all of the pieces of paper sent hither and yon, and the hundreds of phone calls that I have to make to just understand why something is happening the way it is, why I’m receiving x bill for x service, for x amount that doesn’t match any other piece of paper with that date on it, that as far as I knew ahead of time should have been paid for by the insurance policy that we pay premiums for, every month.

Over the life of this insurance policy, about two years for a family of four with all of the checkups and a few random mishaps, there have only been TWO occasions in which I have not had to call to get something corrected or clarified or rebilled or FIXED in some way or another, where everything went smoothly and everyone was relatively happy and the right people were paid the right amounts.

And when all is said and done, our premiums plus the amount that we pay in co-pays and deductibles and prescriptions, NOT even including the huge amount that my husband’s employer contributes, are easily FIVE TIMES MORE than the amount of benefits we have received. And yeah, I understand that’s part of what insurance is about, hedging the amount of premiums you pay over possible disaster like a car accident or cancer diagnosis, but still.

Health care just shouldn’t be this complicated.

I mean, imagine if I were really sick.

Here’s a song from the amazing Chris Smither, to compliment the rather wonderful conversation that is still going on over “The False Debate” of atheism vs. theism, below. Enjoy:

(hat tip to Evolution of the Mystery for posting the lyrics earlier today)

Recently in the Unitarian Universalist blog-world, much has been made of the printing of an advertisement from the Freedom From Religion Foundation on the inside front cover of our association’s magazine, the UU World.

Here’s the ad (PDF). Here’s a bunch of conversation about the ad, and how it offended many (me included).

For some, the negative reaction to this ad in our religious association’s magazine that features proposed bus signs with anti-religion quotations on them has spurred a debate over whether or not there is enough room in our non-creedal, open minded religious communities for atheists at all.

This question has been asked on both sides: “If you believe in God, why do you go to the Unitarian Universalist church when there are so many other places you could go? And, “If you don’t believe in God, why do you go to church at all, much less a Unitarian Universalist church?”

I really think these are the wrong questions, stemming from a false dichotomy: “Is there a God, or isn’t there one?”

The answer is really, simply, but oh-so-complicatedly, “Yes. There is, AND there isn’t.”

(Well, leaving out the fundamentalist position for now, because it is directly opposite to liberal theology in every way, and Unitarian Universalism is at the very least liberal theology!)

Consider this from Karen Armstrong, printed in the Wall Street Journal in response to the question, “Where does evolution leave God?” (emphases are mine):

Darwin may have done religion—and God—a favor by revealing a flaw in modern Western faith. Despite our scientific and technological brilliance, our understanding of God is often remarkably undeveloped—even primitive. In the past, many of the most influential Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers understood that what we call “God” is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence, whose existence cannot be proved but is only intuited by means of spiritual exercises and a compassionate lifestyle that enable us to cultivate new capacities of mind and heart.

But by the end of the 17th century, instead of looking through the symbol to “the God beyond God,” Christians were transforming it into hard fact. Sir Isaac Newton had claimed that his cosmic system proved beyond doubt the existence of an intelligent, omniscient and omnipotent creator, who was obviously “very well skilled in Mechanicks and Geometry.” Enthralled by the prospect of such cast-iron certainty, churchmen started to develop a scientifically-based theology that eventually made Newton’s Mechanick and, later, William Paley’s Intelligent Designer essential to Western Christianity.

But the Great Mechanick was little more than an idol, the kind of human projection that theology, at its best, was supposed to avoid. God had been essential to Newtonian physics but it was not long before other scientists were able to dispense with the God-hypothesis and, finally, Darwin showed that there could be no proof for God’s existence. This would not have been a disaster had not Christians become so dependent upon their scientific religion that they had lost the older habits of thought and were left without other resource.

Newton’s God is the one that usually comes up — the idea that life could only be so complex that some kind of supernatural intelligence had to have designed it.

Most liberal theologians have come to the conclusion that God is not an intelligence, but rather a shortcut word or idea to talk about that which is bigger than the human mind can hold, the very essence of the universe that sustains every living thing.

What I find so sad is that many atheists cling to the idea of Newton’s God when they argue against the existence of anything that one could call God.

Consider this from “notorious” atheist Richard Dawkins’ response to the same question as above (emphases again mine):

Where does that leave God? The kindest thing to say is that it leaves him with nothing to do, and no achievements that might attract our praise, our worship or our fear. Evolution is God’s redundancy notice, his pink slip. But we have to go further. A complex creative intelligence with nothing to do is not just redundant. A divine designer is all but ruled out by the consideration that he must [be] at least as complex as the entities he was wheeled out to explain. God is not dead. He was never alive in the first place.

Now, there is a certain class of sophisticated modern theologian who will say something like this: “Good heavens, of course we are not so naive or simplistic as to care whether God exists. Existence is such a 19th-century preoccupation! It doesn’t matter whether God exists in a scientific sense. What matters is whether he exists for you or for me. If God is real for you, who cares whether science has made him redundant? Such arrogance! Such elitism.”

Well, if that’s what floats your canoe, you’ll be paddling it up a very lonely creek. The mainstream belief of the world’s peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists.

He plays right into the false dichotomy: God the divine designer exists, or he doesn’t. But until Dawkins went to this particular rhetorical device, pretty much everything he had to say on this question fit very well with what Armstrong had to say, from the “theist” perspective.

The real question we should be asking, in Unitarian Universalist churches and everywhere else, is not, “Do you believe in God?” but rather, “What does the idea of God mean?” The exercise from there would be to answer such a question without negative statements, no “God is not. . .” but rather “God is. . .”

Even with someone who identifies as atheist, perhaps especially so, I bet that conversation could be really interesting.

The point of such an exercise is not about coming up with “THE” answer, either, but instead to enrich our spiritual conversations with one another rather than staying behind our self-imposed barriers of thinking that we already know what someone of a certain ilk might say.

All of this branding of people as “Theist” or “Atheist,” putting people on either side of a hard and fast line without discussion, doesn’t do anyone any good. This false dichotomy seeks to separate us when religious community should be about bringing us together.

Prepared remarks for this speech are here.

With all of the furor going on about whether the President of the United States should be “allowed” to address the students of our nation as they go back to school, to offer them encouragement in their scholarly endeavors, I’ve heard and read all kinds of variations on a theme:

“What can HE say that I can’t say to my own kids?”

Listening to the speech, I heard a lot of things that I have said myself to my own kids. Things like, “There is no excuse for not trying.” Or, “The truth is, being successful is hard.” Or, “Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength — because it shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and that then allows you to learn something new.”

But here’s the thing: I’m just Mom. I know that some day, the things that I have said to my children will resonate with them, but right now, I’m just Mom, who makes them scoop the cat box and make their beds and set the table every night.

I’m not so far removed from my own adolescence that I don’t remember brushing off my own parents, though reflecting now, many of the things they said that I didn’t take seriously at the time resonate greatly.

When you have someone like the President of the United States say directly to kids, “You have to do your part, too,” it rings a little louder, a little clearer, in the here and now.

This is the kind of message that kids need to hear from people OTHER than their parents, too. This is a message that kids need to hear from all over, so that they GET the message: they are important, not only in the context of their own families, but in the context of the future of their country and the world itself. That what they do, their choices, matter, right now.

“What’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a President who comes here in 20 or 50 or 100 years say about what all of you did for this country?”

I figure that the people who are really convinced that end of life counseling = death panels are not going to be swayed by any kind of logic and fact, but it can’t hurt to have accurate information posted everywhere possible, if only to prove even further how ridiculous the whole thing has become.

From Sherwin B. Nuland, in The New Republic:

In 1990, responding to several high-profile court cases–notably, those of Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan, two young women in deep and irreversible comas who were kept on life support for unconscionably long periods, even as their families petitioned for cessation month after month–Congress mandated that any health care institution receiving Medicare or Medicaid funding (which means all but a very few acute and chronic care hospitals) must, on admission, provide patients with three statements: one outlining their right to accept or refuse any type of treatment; another laying out their right to issue advance directives to ensure that their wishes about continuing life-sustaining therapy be carried out; and a third explaining any policies that govern the institution’s withholding or withdrawal of life-supportive treatments.

. . .

In order for patients to make knowledgeable decisions under the 1990 law, it is essential that they thoroughly discuss with their physicians the implications of the directives they are choosing, such as “do not resuscitate” orders. H.R. 3200 would, for the first time, legislate that the physician receive a fee for these discussions, making it more likely that they will take place and that they will be of real substance. From these provisions of the bill, the ignorant, the nefarious, and the just plain stupid have extrapolated that the purpose of the periodic consultations is really to determine life or death, with government officials and even physicians–heaven forfend–taking on the role of Dr. Mengele. It is ironic that the very legislation designed to protect patient autonomy is that from which Sarah Palin and her ilk have derived the fantastical notion that her son, Trig, who has Down syndrome, would be euthanized if H.R. 3200 were passed.

[emphasis mine]

Issue has been taken with the possible cost-saving effects that more people having advanced directives in place will have — as if doctors will be encouraged to pressure their patients to choose to forego medical treatment to save money.

It seems to me that if more people are given the opportunity to make knowledgeable decisions about how they will be cared for in the event that they are incapacitated, it is logical to assume that a majority will choose not to undergo heroic measures or artificially life-sustaining treatments, for any number of reasons — and this will end up saving money, because all of those measures cost a whole heck of a lot. But, that doesn’t change the fact that the default will always be to do everything medically possible to keep a person alive, unless they have a binding advanced directive in place with orders otherwise.

And, an advanced directive can also specifically stipulate that everything be done to keep a person living, no matter the quality of that life. Control of what the advanced directive says is completely in the hands of the patient.

This provision of H.R. 3200 is not meant to pressure people to make a choice one way or another about their end of life care, it is meant to give people the opportunity to make their wishes known while they are still of sound mind and body. This provision is meant to stave off some of the heartache that can occur when one’s family is faced with making tough choices without knowing what their loved one really wants, or fighting with each other to make the right decision when disagreements arise.

It’s about having conversations about hard things, to make it easier in the end. More people need to be having these conversations — with their families, and with their physicians, since a physician’s signature is legally required for an advanced directive to be binding.

There is nothing sinister about giving more people the opportunity to create an advanced directive, and fairly compensating those medical professionals who provide this service to their patients.

Really. There isn’t. The end.

I will be the first to admit that the current health care bill under consideration, H.R. 3200, is flawed. Any bill over a thousand pages is.

But let’s argue over what it actually says, not about crap opponents of any health care reform dream up to scare people.

Here’s a pulls-no-punches fact check on the viral email claiming that this bill represents the end of the world, from FactCheck.com. In particular, the truth about the absolute nonsense going around about advanced directives:

Claim: Page 425: More bureaucracy: Advance Care Planning Consult: Senior Citizens, assisted suicide, euthanasia? Claim: Page 425: Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc. Mandatory. Appears to lock in estate taxes ahead of time. Claim: Page 425: Government provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death Claim: Page 427: Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment; government dictates how your life ends. Claim: Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient’s health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans. An ORDER from the GOVERNMENT. Claim: Page 430: Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life.

All False. These six claims are a twisted interpretation of a provision in the bill that says Medicare will cover voluntary counseling sessions between seniors and their doctors to discuss end-of-life care. Medicare doesn’t pay for such sessions now; it would under the bill. End-of-life care discussions include talking about a living will, hospice care, designating a health care proxy and making decisions on what care you want to receive at the end of your life. Doctors do the consulting, not the “government” or a “bureaucracy.” The e-mail author’s assertion that the bill calls for “an ORDER from the GOVERNMENT” for end-of-life plans rests on language about a patient drawing up such an order stipulating their wishes, and having that order signed by a physician. There’s nothing about “an order from the government.” The bill defines an order for life-sustaining treatment as a document that “is signed and dated by a physician …[and] effectively communicates the individual’s preferences regarding life sustaining treatment.”

To quote Sarah Palin, “Let’s stop making stuff up.”