I had been meaning to do a post on a book I’d recommend to anyone who is interested in religious history: A History of God by Karen Armstrong. It’s a readable book that takes a close look at the history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I have to confess that I bogged down and stopped reading when she got into 14th century Islamic philosophers and the like. The places and the people involved became too foreign for me to really internalize; at least for a book I was reading casually.

I found the bulk of the book to be excellent, however. I was reminded to post about it today after reading Dispatches from the Culture Wars quoted DaveScot:

My position is that in the ordering of baby killing God was wrong and therefore cannot be a trusted source of moral absolutes. If the Old Testament is a true accounting of God’s interaction with the world then I have no choice but to conclude that my morals are superior to His. But rather than believe that I choose to believe that the Old Testament is not a true account of God’s interaction with the world but is rather, at least in part, a rather destructive immoral human fabrication created during a much more barbaric, violent time and place in world history when the sword was more respected than the olive branch.

I was raised as a Presbyterian and wrestled with a lot of these questions in my younger years. Eventually, I came to be agnostic and would place my money on atheism being correct if I were a betting man. In any event, I have not seen any reason to believe that Christian myths are any more likely to reflect reality than the mythologies of countless other civilizations and religions that came before and after. Had I kept on being a Presbyterian, I would have been doing so only because my parents are Presbyterians — which seems like a silly, yet common, reason to embrace a particular religion.

If you believe that Jews and early Christians were writing the books of the Bible rather than God himself, it gets you out of a lot of these philosophical tangles. However, that comes with a price, since the Bible stops being the inerrant word of God if it’s written by flawed humans.

Armstrong’s book does a good job of describing the historical contexts in which the various books of the Bible are written. For example, some of the early ones are written when there wasn’t a particular belief that their God was the only God that existed. Rather, they took the somewhat unusual step for the time of having a jealous God who looked dimly on the other Gods who were acknowledged to exist at the time such as Baal. The books of the Bible reflect a transition as Yahweh turns from one of many Gods who actively intervened in the world and made good on direct promises to his followers into more of a solitary, non-anthropomorphic, Platonic ideal that remained aloof from the world. Along the way, Yahweh turns from primarily a militaristic God into a God who has a broader skill set such as fertility until he becomes the only God.

Also part of the process was the “discovery” of Deuteronomy by the High Priest of the Temple in Judah which, at the time, was undergoing quite a bit of political stress. The northern Hebrew kingdom of Israel had been destroyed and Judah’s larger imperial neighbors were bearing down. The High Priest presented this new document to the Judean King. It was purported to be lost sermons of Moses with a particular emphasis that Yahweh should be worshiped exclusively. King Josiah, who had permitted worship of deities such as Baal and Asherah in the Temple, became convinced that this faithlessness was the reason for these troubled times and presided over a series of reforms requiring Yahweh to be worshiped exclusively which presumably enhanced the power of the priest who “discovered” those lost sermons of Moses.

So, anyway, blasphemous as it may be, viewing Yahweh as a story who evolved with his story-tellers is much more interesting to me than trying to engage in metaphysical acrobatics trying to reconcile the eternal truth of the Bible; the frequently cruel and jealous military God of the early Hebrews; and the mostly detached, loving, omniscient/omnipotent God of modern Christians.

Indiana is trying to capitalize on its relationship to Abraham Lincoln. Gov. Daniels, accurately I think, refers to Indiana as the “forgotten stepchild” in the Lincoln legacy. Kentucky seems to have promoted itself as the place where Lincoln was born and Illinois has dubbed itself “the Land of Lincoln.” With Indiana, it’s always been more like, “oh yeah, he lived there too.”

According to Gov. Mitch Daniels, the Indiana Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Mother’s Day Celebration will begin to correct the oversight of Indiana being the “forgotten stepchild” in the Lincoln legacy.

. . .

In his remarks, Daniels said Indiana has been too modest and passive regarding its Lincoln connection.

“This is where his character was born that saved the nation,” he said. “A year from now no one will doubt the credit Indiana deserves in the Lincoln legacy.”

Daniels termed the event “a great celebration for our state.”

Asked afterward why he noted Lincoln as the “greatest American,” Daniels said, “Because of his moral courage, his willingness to endure almost unimaginable criticism to do what was right — he suffered enormously, both physically and emotionally.”

Of course, if enhancing the state’s Lincoln cred is really one of the state’s priorities, a first step may have been trying to keep open the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne.

According to this Lincoln family time line, Lincoln was born in Kentucky on Feb. 12, 1809; he moved to Indiana in 1816 where he lived until 1830 — basically from age 7 to age 21.

The New York Sun has a column by Patrick McIlherhan of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about Indiana’s Voter ID law. It contains arguments I view as specious. But, that’s not why I’m writing this. That battle is over, the good guys lost. No help for it now but to elect different legislators and change the law, preferably to impose a duty on the government to actively work to get ID into the hands of its citizens.

No, the reason I write is to congratulate Indiana Barrister’s Abdul for his recent apparent promotion. That’s Professor Hakim-Shabazz to you! (Though, I confess, I haven’t checked his identification or other credentials to verify his elevation to a professorship at the unspecified Indianapolis law school.)

“There’s always some incidental costs to voting — you can’t come to the polls naked,” an Indianapolis law professor, Abdul Hakim-Shabazz, who served on the task force that wrote the rules, says. The remarkable thing is that for all the talk of disenfranchisement, Indiana has had seven elections since, and those challenging the law have yet to turn up a plaintiff who credibly can say the law stymied him, Mr. Hakim-Shabazz says. (A dozen nuns, give or take, notwithstanding — Doug)
. . .
There is a decent trade-off to be made between access and security, and Indiana seems to have found it. “I never thought Indiana would be the model for the country of how to do anything,” Mr. Hakim-Shabazz says. It isn’t, not yet at least, but it ought to be.

More seriously, there was a task force for this? On which Abdul was a member? I missed that completely.

Looks like some tight races here in Indiana. Lake County is delaying its results, reportedly because it’s counting absentee votes and won’t release results until those are counted. My skeptical side figures that, even if Clinton is winning the state, someone in Lake County figures to jam up her ability to claim victory until after most folks go to bed. She’s up by about 4% but Lake County could possibly erase that advantage.

The Governor’s race is tight, tight, tight. Schellinger appears to be up by a percent or so. Andre Carson has won in the 7th with about 46% to Woody Myers 24%. Dan Burton fended off his challenger 52 to 45%.

Obama won North Carolina in convincing fashion.

Good times.

Melanie Hayes, in the Indy Star, has an article about a 5 year old boy who shot and killed his 4 year old sister.

Makayla died Sunday morning after her 5-year-old brother shot her while playing with a handgun, police said.

Vensko wants her daughter to be dressed in her favorite color when she is buried.

“That’s my snuggle bunny,” she said.
. . .
According to police, the brother had pulled a chair up to a bookcase in the downstairs living room and taken his father’s handgun from the top shelf. There was no magazine in the pistol, but a round was in the chamber.

“The 5-year-old took the gun upstairs to play, and there pointed the gun at his sister and pulled the trigger,” the statement said.
. . .
Vensko wasn’t allowed to see Makayla at the scene, but she was able to see the other two children before they were placed in the care of Child Protective Services.

“He seems like he’s doing OK,” Vensko said of Makayla’s brother. “He told me what happened, what he did. But I know he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know Makayla is gone.”

One thing I wasn’t fully prepared for when I became a parent was how you start to internalize stories like this. At some visceral level, the boy and the girl in that story become my kids. It’s hard to keep a sense of perspective about all of the various dangers that could (but probably won’t) snatch your kids away from you at any time.

The Indianapolis Mini-Marathon was today. Amy ran in it. I cheered. Great weather. Good event.

Ryan Clark, writing for the Richmond Palladium-Item, has a good article on the planned departure of Marvel Industries from Richmond. The plant closing will cost the community about 140 jobs. The article does an excellent job of laying out Richmond’s extensive, but ultimately unsuccessful, efforts in trying to convince the company to stay in town.

I am currently serving as the board president for Tippecanoe County’s Legal Aid corporation. It is the mission of Legal Aid to provide legal services for people who cannot afford it themselves in civil, non-fee generating cases — for example, CHINS cases (children in need of services; could involve termination of parental rights). The theory is that our legal system only works if people believe, by and large, that they are getting a fair shake. That belief erodes when they do not have a lawyer and simply get steam-rolled by the system or perceive that is what is happening to them.

Obviously, lawyers cost money (damn us lawyers). Actually, the legal aid attorneys for the Tippecanoe County Legal Aid corporation are damn near saints and don’t get paid a lot in comparison to the work they do. Still, money is necessary, and for a good chunk of that money, we rely on fund raisers; one of which is the upcoming golf outing. Here are the particulars:

Date: August 26, 2008
Time: Noon lunch, 1:00 p.m. shotgun start
Location: Battle Ground Golf Club (North of Lafayette)
Format: Scramble
Cost: $80 per golfer, $400 for a foursome + hole sponsorship, ($100 for a hole sponsorship with no golf.)

Checks should be made payable to Legal Aid Corporation of Tippecanoe County which you can send to “Tippecanoe County Legal Aid, Attn: Legal Aid Golf, 212 North Fifth Street, Lafayette, IN 47901.” If you have any questions, feel free to let me know.

Benjamin Lanka has a story in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette about the beginning of improvements to US 24 from Fort Wayne to Toledo. This is a project that really needs to happen. Currently, there isn’t a very good, direct route from Fort Wayne to Toledo which is ridiculous considering how close the cities are and how big they are.

From Fort Wayne, US 24 is in good shape all the way to Logansport. Construction is underway to improve SR 25 from Logansport to Lafayette so that eventually there will be four lane highway from Lafayette to Toledo. I’m wondering if, eventually, there ought to be a four lane improvement on the other side of Lafayette, at least extending south to Crawfordsville and I-74 which heads to points west or possibly west to I-57 somewhere in Illinois. Though, given the rate of increase in gas prices, by the time such a construction project was completed, we might not be using cars for regular travel anymore.

According to Karl Kurtz of The Thicket at State Legislatures, a new ethics law in Oregon appears to have caused 150 local government officials to leave their jobs.

The provision that has drawn the most ire is a requirement that all government officials, even volunteer members of certain boards or commissions, disclose not only their sources of income and those of their spouses and adult household member but also the names and addresses of all children and siblings who are not members of their household.