No business in the bedrooms of the nations, but in the clothes closets?

According to the reliable Pew Research Center - majorities in France (82%) Germany (71%), Britain (62%) and Spain (59%) support banning the full Muslim veil (covers everything but the eyes) in public. France's Parliament is due to vote on the issue on July 13th.

In contrast, most Americans would oppose such a measure; 65% say they would disapprove of a ban on Muslim women wearing full veils in public compared with 28% who say they would approve.

This stark difference of opinions reflects the difference between EU style Postmodern Secularism and American Romantic Secularism. In Postmodern Secular countries (EU, Canada and the UN), human rights legislation encourages the state to intervene into the private sphere to counter religious activities merely because they are not consistent with a "secular" values, not on the basis that someone is being harmed.

No doubt there are Muslim woman who surely would rather not wear the full veil (burqa) given the choice in isolation but the reality is that we are social creatures that do best when we find the right balance between asserting our individuality and feeling like we belong. Making something illegal forces a social change within the Muslim community but not necessarily for the better.

The question for the French legislature is whether this balance between individuality and belonging is best found individually, socially or through the legal system. There is also a significant number of young Muslim women who are choosing to wear both the hijab and full burqa, even when their parents do not require or even approve of it.


By making such a law and removing the choice, France approaches the heavy handed Rational Secularist constitutions adopted by the former Soviet Union and Turkey, not surprising given their common time frame (1905-1928).

It's interesting how quickly some abandon the secular notion that the state had no business in the bedrooms of the nation, when the gender and religion changed. No business in the bedrooms of the nation, but business in the clothes closets and the mosques?

The United States developed their secular constitution during the Romantic era of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1776) which is why I called it Romantic Secularism. In America the highest political value is to ensure that freedom of beliefs and conscience are entirely between an individual and their creator - whether atheistic or religious. It limits state intervention into the private lives of individuals to where there is evidence of someone suffering harm, or the high probability that someone will be harmed. It was on this basis that the crime of sodomy was overturned - because there was no evidence of harm or coercion.

By distinguishing Romantic Secularism from Postmodern Secularism, the debate becomes one of different types of secularism, not theocracies (as promoted by the Taliban and medieval Catholic Church) versus secularism or perpetuating the fale dichotomy of reason versus religion that the "wall of separation" has created.

My main objective in making this distinction is that Postmodern Secularism is on a collision course with monotheistic beleivers. The monotheistic religions had no problem making the political compromises required of Romantic Secularism, but they do with the compromises required of Postmodern Secularism.

Understanding secularism as a wall between reason and religion puts the religious right at a significant disadvantage misstating their concerns from the beginning as irrational; when I believe that their real concern is that religion is still the most effective social institution for promoting individual integrity and accountability.

As a former policy analyst that worked on developing the two biggest pieces of corporate accountability legislation - the 2002 Sarbanes Oxley Act and the 2005 Basel II Capital Framework for international banks - both of which failed miserably - the only way to prevent fraud is with individuals who have a higher allegiance to telling the truth than to making money. Too much regulation just buries the honest in paperwork and makes it even harder to have a higher allegiance to the system over your own financial well-being.

In countries with Postmodern Secular Constitutions, the objective is to celebrate individual diversity, eradicating any groups that hold concepts of morality that work on a group level. Unfortunately, this moral framework discourages the very behaviour necessary to prevent fraudulent, or grossly negligent companies from taking excessive risks with our common assets.

As a Canadian I'm with the Americans - keep the government out of the churches, mosques, and syngogues and get them back to the much harder business of protecting our economies and environments.

I hope you consider supporting the religious right with their constitutional concerns because I am certain that the majority will abandon the libertarians in their quest to live without any state restrictions on their unbridled greed - if they believe that their religous values are protected from state intervention.

The greatest academics were not atheists

Jaques Maritain (1882-1973) a french philosopher, Catholic and major contributor to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, was a great, and very accomplished academic. Here is one of his quotes on how Aquinas reconciled Christianity with the philosophy of Aristotle (reason and religion):

"If the philosophy of Aristotle, as revived and enriched by St. Thomas and his school, may rightly be called the Christian philosophy, both because the church is never weary of putting it forward as the only true philosophy and because it harmonizes perfectly with the truths of faith, nevertheless it is proposed here for the reader's acceptance not because it is Christian, but because it is demonstrably true. This agreement between a philosophic system founded by a pagan and the dogmas of revelation is no doubt an external sign, an extra-philosophic guarantee of its truth; but from its own rational evidence, that it derives its authority as a philosophy".

Meritain made pursuasive arguments for what he called Integral Humanism in his book entitled the same in 1936:

It is not to the dynamism or the imperialism of race or class or nation that this humanism asks men to sacrifce themselves; it is to a better life for their brothers and to the concrete good of the community of human persons; it is to the humble truth of brotherly love to be realized--at the cost of an always difficult effort and of a relative poverty-- in the social order and the structures of common life. In this way such a humanism can make man grow in communion, and if so, it cannot be less than a heroic humanism (page 7).

My views are quite consistent with Maritains and I hope to show how his political views have been fundamentally altered, not merely expanded.

In a similar fashion, I have also read some preliminary work that suggests that Trudeau would not be supportive of how the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms have been interpreted and applied in the last twenty years.

Trying to derive a common understanding of the metaphoric wall of separation between church and state is like trying to get oil back into a gushing wellhead on the ocean floor. But that doesn't mean we are excused from trying!

Check out my new series - A Moderate's Guide to Understanding Secularism.

Don't Take your Constitution for Granted!

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State
"What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.

Jean Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract(1762)

To stop demanding more from our government is to squander our most precious inheritance - our political freedom. But to quote Rousseau again - to demand more than our freedom is to risk losing it:

"Never exceed your rights, and they will soon become unlimited."

Whether you are part of the majority or the minority - don't ask for more than your right to liberty. Demanding that others agree with you and sacrifice their freedom of conscience, is exceeding your rights.

This is what Rousseau meant by virtue, not reason and science, being the basis of morality.

einstein

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Albert Einstein

Reconciling Different Moral Judgements on Same-Sex Marriage and Sexual Orientation

This is how I explain how reasonable and caring people can come to different moral conclusions regarding same-sex marriage and sexual orientation. 

In April 2010, 29 mines died at a Massey coal mine, the largest mining US disaster since 1970. In March 2010, the authorities cited the mine for 57 safety infractions, 50 for improper ventilation and poor escape routes and there have been a total of 1,342 safety violations since 2005. Between 2000 and 2009, two fatalities occurred at this mine. Federal regulators had ordered portions of the mine closed 60 times in the last year. Family members of the minors who died were informed via the Internet; no one from Massey called them to personally tell them.

How does this happen in a "modern" world? In their desire to be 100% accurate, regulators and the safety community do not use judgment. In an interview between CBC’s As It Happens with an editor of an industry safety newsletter, the editor was asked to speculate as to whether the lack of proper ventilation cited in the numerous safety violations, caused the explosion. She proudly responded that it was impossible to say because there was once a mine explosion that was caused by lightening, but she promised that investigators would be "tough" and get to the bottom of the cause of the explosion once they gathered their evidence. Even the safety editor was not outraged at the lack of preventative action and the interviewer did not probe further - because technically she was accurate. No one feels any complicity because "how could they know" that a spark would ignite the gas? They cannot predict the future.

Why is this company even operating with such an obvious disregard for life? Because there is little regulatory teeth and the executive clearly feel little social peer pressure, or incur sufficient regulatory penalties, for operating such a reprehensible company. Further, in the United States, corporate law is based on the firm ground that a government cannot interfere with a corporate structure. This law was determined in the days of mercantilism when monarchs would regularly unfairly intervene in commercial activities. But times have changed and now we live the age of moral relativism - where no one dares to say anything until after someone causes harm — and even then say we say “allegedly" until the moral outrage passes. Our collective ability to prevent tragedy is nothing short of shameful.

The FBI has reportedly launched a probe, investigating charges of criminal negligence and possible bribery of federal regulators. Meanwhile years will go by and more people will die, and the executives who are paid hundreds of time more than the managers who actually made the decisions to balance their local budgets by cutting back on safety 'requirements', will never 'pay' for the 'accident'.

Our legal systems are not delivering justice for the most egregious of crimes: those who make outrageous profits from the wilful disregard for life. Corporate accountability laws needs to be changed. What I like about the concept of sins over crimes is that is much better at risk management. It is a sin to covet they neighbour's wife. In other words, marriages, like life, are so fragile and precious, they should not be threatened by even a reckless thought, never mind reckless action. I am not advocating a return of theocracies; I am suggesting our legal system could learn a lesson or two about preventing the worst crimes from occuring in the first place.

10 Minute Video Version of Secular Hope

This video summarizes my aspirations in my book Secular Hope.

Inspiring Integrationalist - Chris Hedges

American journalist Chris Hedges gets added to Secular Faith's list of Inspiring Integrationalists as the sole author of these books with seemingly opposing views:

America's Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America

America's New Fundamentalists, When Atheism Becomes Religion

The Empire of Illusion - The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

Hedges, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and journalist with over 20 years of exposure to war, has the rare talent of being able to draw upon, and critique, all three forms of knowledge. Consequently, Hedges is able to simultaneously convey the moral conviction of a Baptist preacher, the sobriety of War veteran and the "get to the point" rationality of a newspaper editor. 

Hedges is not dogmatic, but he has the knack of drawing the reader in with his titles. A cynic would conclude that Hedges is just seeking to sell more books by being a sensationalist. I choose to believe that Hedges' experiences as a war correspondent cause him to speak out vehemently against all injustices whatever their angle, because he has witnessed so much death. He understands rationally, theologically and first hand that if people fail to speak about the small injustices they mushroom into war.

What is unique about Hedges' writing is the passion with which he is able to express a plea for boring, common sense. Yesterday, I had an interesting conversation, wherein someone said "there is no more common sense - there is no agreement on anything, anymore." Hedges is making a passionate plea in The Empire of Illusion that if we don't find our "common sense", then our liberty is at stake. And he argues it is reason that has fallen behind and is being railroaded by the sensationalists and their spectacles, as well as the fundamentalists of both the religious and atheist varieties.

Finding common sense in pluralistic societies means having difficult conversations about faith, beliefs, and personal differences. It means developing strong enough relationships to risk offending people by asking them why they believe certain things. It means learning to ask, and answer, the question with open minds and hearts. It means appreciating such questions as an attempt to build community and genuine understanding and respect. Defining common sense will allow us to move beyond our addiction to war and mere tolerance, and balanced state of objective and subjective truths. 

The Beatles over Jesus - no. The Beatles over the Catholic Church - ?

Last Sunday, L'Osservatore Romano, a newspaper closely associated with the Vatican, ran a front-page article praising the legacy of the Beatles. The article reversed decades of Church condemnation originally sparked by John Lennon's claim that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus and that rock and roll would outlive Christianity.

Consider how the Trinity of Truth plays out in this ongoing story. Note how both parties first exaggerate the power of their preferred form of knowledge (sensation versus religion) then come to a healthier balance once they are held accountable to objective reasoning.

Lennon's controversial comments were made to a journalist at the Evening Standard in 1966: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first — rock and roll or Christianity." 

The comments were later explained by Lennon that he had no quarrel with Jesus or even with Christianity, so while coming short of a retraction, he implied that he should have differentiated between the Church and Jesus.

The Beatles' success is obviously due to their expression of a truth that resonates with millions around the globe, and continues to do so with new generations today. The most popular and long-standing of musicians share a marked disregard for both religion and reason because success is the ablility to bypass both the mind and the soul and immediately win the heart through sound. Alcohol and drug use play a role in facilitating that disregard.

Last week's article acknowledges the validity of this form of truth despite the Beatles disregard for other religious values: "It's true, they took drugs; swept up by their success, they lived dissolute and uninhibited lives". "They even said they were more famous than Jesus and put out mysterious messages that were possibly even Satanic. But, listening to their songs, all of this seems distant and meaningless. Their beautiful melodies, which changed forever pop music and still give us emotions, live on like precious jewels."

Some are suggesting that the Catholic Church's semi-official blessing is just a distraction from the sexual abuse scandals that are seriously challenging the Church's moral authority. A more hopeful way to look at it is that the Church is showing signs of acknowledging that the truth of the body needs to be balanced with religious truth.

Both sides need reminding of the need for balance. Since 1966 there has been no shortage of evidence suggesting that excessive reliance on the truth of bodily sensations may also lead to obesity, pedophilia, sexual addiction and drug abuse. Ten years after Lennon's comment the King of Rock and Roll died of an overdose. Thirty three years after that, the King of Pop died in a similar manner. Neither one were able to control the tyranny of his bodily appetites.

Freedom and power are often used to seek shelter from one form of truth and not to become fully conscious. Clear bias towards one form of truth is maintained by focusing on, and exaggerating, the faults of your opponents - who usually have a different preferred form of knowledge. Rationalization is the denial of the legitimacy of one form of knowledge so the Church's acknowlegment of value of the Beatles' music is a step forward.

Much of society remains stuck in this falsely, competitive dichotomy between reason and religion - making exaggerated truth claims as proof of allegiance to one's gender or politics. Conservatives prefer religion, liberals personal experiences - both claim reason and slip into rationalizations. Men often dismiss the validity of feelings and religion, while women more often dismiss rational argument and other people's experiences.

Praying helps to find the balance, not because God puts plagues on your opponents, but because the concept of being accountable to an all-knowing God quickly deflates our self-serving exaggerations or claims of ignorance when dismissing the evidence generated by other forms of knowledge.  When rationalizing we hold tight to our narrow versions of the truth.

Whether the Catholic Church will survive or not will depend upon its ability to face the plethora of objective evidence suggesting that its version of truth is out of balance. The narrower, but better balanced versions of truth, expressed by the Beatles and Jesus are good places to look for inspiration.

Where Passion comes from

In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love - Mother Teresa

Is it even possible to do something great without love as the motivator?

Why are the most beautiful buildings churches?

Is not love the source of all passion and vision?

Fuzzy words cause wars

Depressed about the state of politics? If not—wakeup—you aren’t paying attention. If you’re in bed—get up—it’s not as hopeless as it seems.

So, the world is going to hell in a hand basket. That is true. But that good news is that it’s only because of some poorly defined words. Yes words. You can make a difference by perking up when you hear them.

They are secularism, secularization and monotheism. Don’t feel stupid — there is no common understanding of these words, despite the fact that they are used to justify wars. Think of them like chunky abstract paintings made with 5-inch paint brushes. Fuzzy, obscure words, just like bad abstract art, just make most feel excluded because everyone assumes everyone else gets it but them.

What we need to do is add some dimension using 2-inch brushes. Enough detail to ensure we are all talking about the same thing, but still big enough to be inspiring.

Here is my attempt at using a 2-inch brush. Use my definitions, come up with your own, but please stop using the fuzzy 5-inch words. 


5-inch Secularism — anti-religious and modern.

2-inch Secularism — the belief that the social sciences sufficiently understand human nature to justify eliminating religion and personal experiences, as legitimate forms of knowledge in moral debates.


5-inch Secularization — the progressive demise of religious beliefs that occurs in all educated societies.

2-inch Secularization —the belief that reason, religion, and personal experiences are different, but valid forms of knowledge that can eventually be reconciled into one moral truth that is universally confirmed.


5-inch Monotheism — the dogmatic belief in one God.

2-inch Monotheism — the belief that one creator made all human beings therefore we should seek to understand human nature so that we can treat each other morally.


Thanks for considering how poorly defined words can shut down conversation. I hope these definitions inspire more meaningful dialogue between secularists and believers. 

Spring is a fantastic season for opening up the heart and the mind to new possibilites.

When your lover makes a recess appointment - its time to court their allies.

In addition to the routine name-calling and exposures of incompetence, political debate has recently escalated to accusations of treason and spitting. These in turn, are being countered with the more civil, but more dangerous, use of constitutional loopholes like "recess appointments" in the US and "proroguing Parliament" in Canada.

This week President Obama shocked the Republican Party for bypassing Senate consent of 15 appointees by waiting for Congress to recess, in order to make "recess appointments". Republicans had been refusing to vote on Obama's recommendations holding up the appointment of 15 positions for an average of seven months. While used in the past by President Bush, this time it was used for a controversial appointment that did not even have unanimous Democratic support.

In Canada, at the end of December 2009, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper "prorogued Parliament" - closing it down for two months, until March 3, 2010. The Conservative government's move was labelled as "almost despotic" by some because the government's record was being challenged by new evidence regarding for their complicity in the Afghan detainees affair.

When commitment to civil dialogue and the spirit of the constitution are abandoned, what's the point of talking anymore? When distrust threatens a country's constitution, it's time to take a lesson from the book of love.

The American constitution was formed at the height of the Romantic Movement. As such it hailed the "common sense" of the people as the new moral authority replacing King George's divine right to rule. The "common sense" of the small, but heavily persecuted Baptist Church and Jefferson's secular rationalists, was their wall of separation. Once America appreciates that their constitutional wall of separation is actually the love-child of today's arch enemies--the same ones currently at each other's throats fighting before the Supreme Court over custody of the constitution--romance will return.

Like everyone in relationship free-fall, each side will desperately court the favour of their lover's allies and new alliances will break ground like daffodils in spring. As Oscar Wilde put it "The proper basis for a marriage is mutual misunderstanding."

Does this mean that America's founding relationship meant nothing? No, it effectively broke up the Anthony and Cleopatra love affair between the institutional churches and the monarchs. Cleopatra's absolute monarchies are gone for good. Consequently, each American subject was elevated to status of philosopher king, free to choose both their God and their political ruler. The Jefferson/Baptist union produced many beautiful children. Reason and religion both flourished.

Today's problem is that half of their offspring are courting science, the other half religion. The Union stays unhappily married only because both assume there are no other suitors and there is no common ground between them. Cynicism has finally broken America's founding relationship. But assumptions of no common ground are based on outdated information. The Catholic Church forgave Galileo in December 2008. And some philosophers, like Jurgen Habermas, are actually acknowledging the wisdom of religion over science. The Baptists just might get tired of fighting with the scientists and start hanging out with the philosophy majors.

When your lover spits in your face, prorogues Parliament, or makes recess appointments, it’s time to open up your dance card and court their allies. You would be surprised who might be interested and what beautiful children you might create.

What Fundamentalists and Atheists have in common

Secularization was defined first by a Dutch theologian C.A. Peursen as the deliverance of man “first from religious and then from metaphysical control over his reason and his language.” This is where extremists on both sides of the wall of separation focus – on the phrase “control over his reason”. Both atheists and religious fundamentalists share a fear of having their thinking controlled – because they both want to rely on one form of knowledge exclusively, reason or revelation.

Atheists object to voters using their religion as a factor in deciding their preferred candidates or voting in referendums, although this is clearly within the parameters of a liberal, democratic society protecting freedom of conscience. Fundamentalists want to separate the education of their children because they do not want science to challenge their children’s faith in religious doctrine. Extremists on both sides of the wall would like truth to be as simple their single-sided analysis because they share the fearful assumption that reason and revelation are incompatible.

At the moment they are to a certain degree, but it is only through honest public conversations between individuals that they can be reconciled. Secularization, as opposed to secularism, is a process that assumes that there is ultimate compatibility between reason and faith that will one day be revealed. Secularism, on the other hand, excludes this possibility hence in secular ideologies like communism, faith is something to be controlled if not extinguished.
 
Today’s populist conflicts are the due to the fact that for some the wall represents the position that faith and reason cannot be reconciled and therefore must be a permanent part of any “modern” or “post-modern” state until religion dies. This secularist belief then stimulates reactive and dangerous win/lose thinking.
 
Secularization is merely a political commitment to separate the institutions of church and state, which only requires that public laws be limited to those that are “rationally justifiable in a free and democratic society” as we say in Canada. Secularization is the political process of transferring of responsibility to resolve any conflicts between reason and faith to individual citizens.

Remembrance Day 2009

Because today is Remembrance Day, I was trying to recollect memories of my Grandfather, Andrew Brass. He signed up for both WWI and WWII but did not discuss much, indeed it was only after that my grandfather passed away that we learned of the following war-time relationship that obviously meant a lot to him.

Born in 1900, my grandfather had to lie about his age in order to be accepted into the army in 1915. In addition to being so young, he was only 5'4" so someone must have turned a blind eye. He was on his way to France, waiting in the Moncton train station having travelled from Duffield Alberta, when a little boy of only four years was walking with his father who when he spied my grandfather said "I'm going to give that fellow my box".

The little boy was Harry Stoyles and my grandfather wrote him letters as Harry was "crazy about the soldiers" and would send him treats. Harry continued to correspond with my grandfather for twenty years, when he last wrote to say that he was planning to marry that year.

We found one letter from December 12, 1916 in my grandfather's very small box of personal mementos after he passed away in 1985. I miss my grandfather; he was the strong silent type, but obviously had a soft spot to bother writing to a four year-old when he was only fifteen himself.

How different things are now. During my grandfather's time there was no need for conscription; today it would not be politically possible. It makes the sacrifices of today's military families especially heroic. I, like four-year old Harry, honor their courage with a heart full of admiration.

Personal Experience

Human Rights ensure every citizen is guaranteed educational, economic and political participation and freedom in their private and social lives. While very important because they affirm the value of life and personal dignity, human rights also support a profound philosophical assumption which is that individual experiences are the means by which we test the truth in our rational and religious imperatives.

This point is made in the parable of the Prodigal Son; who needed to test through personal experience, and indeed validated, the wisdom in his father's religous way of life. Placing the greatest reliance on our own personal experiences as the means of determining truth, is akin to attending the school of hardknocks. This is where we keep testing inherited truths until we get hurt or uncover a faulty assumption.

Often enrollment in the school of hardknocks isn't voluntary, like the story of the Prodigal daughter. Her story began, like her brothers, when she felt that reason and religion offered her no relevant or meaningful guidance. So she sought to challenge, through experience, the accepted wisdom of patriarchal privledge that she was intellectually and morally inferior. She did just that and when she returned home, her father legally changed her status from chattel to person.

The logical trajectory of these parables is that ultimate truth lies in our individual experiences - that no one can tell us who we are, how we feel and what we believe. While this is true, when taken to the extreme of moral relativism, that we each have our own truths and therefore cannot be judged by others, it is ultimately limiting because humans are social beings. We crave recognition of our uniqueness, which necessarily involves judgment.

To balance the critical premise for human rights with the social and political need to have rules that apply to all, it is important to try to understand what differences in personal experiences may lead to different politics. This is not usually done because religion and politics is a very effective means by which we assert our interests without having to discuss our rationale. The courage to solve our political problems lies in our willingness to reflect upon how our religous and political views may be informed by legitimately different experiences.

Truth is a trinity - reconciling the incredible diversity of personal experiences with religion and reason, into one absolute truth. We are not there yet, but belief in this goal is the foundation of peace, hope and charity.

Cynicism - Enemy of Civilization

Kenneth Clarke in his 1966 BBC television series on Civilization said that lack of confidence, more than anything else, is what kills a civilisation. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs he warned.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines cynics as those showing "a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions" and a tendency "to express this by sneers and sarcasms".

It is often very hard to see what might be the legitimate positive motivations for religious extremists, but to conclude there is none is to be a cynic and an enemy of civilization. Its one of those catch 22s - you need faith in the goodness of humankind in order to persevere and eventually rationally understand the legitimate humane motivations of the religiously fanatic. This is because the religious fanatic is not a true believer but is really just a cynic himself. Anyone who oppresses voices of reason fears his religion cannot stand up to the scrutiny of reason and is therefore not a true believer.

For those who prefer a scholarly explanation Clark also pointed out that Western civilization is a series of rebirths, which means that history has shown that we should never lose hope when things look bad.

All fail but all are necessary

Philosophy has been barren so long, says Bacon, because she needed a new method to make her fertile. The great mistake of the Greek philosophers was that they spent so much time in theory, so little in observation. But thought should be the aide of observation, not its substitute. Will Durant - The Story of Philosophy.

We are victims today much like the Greeks 2400 years ago. Our dogmatic adherence to worshipping freedom and liberty in an age in gross excess suggests that our theories on human nature need some refinement. Rousseau promoted human instincts as the purest, most reliable form of truth and hence liberalism - because he convinced the revolutionaries that without the confines of aristocratic society, man was naturally moderate. I don't advocate a return to aristocracy but perhaps a revision on our idea of human nature or moderation is in order.

Lets look at the evidence - has the Internet - the great enemy of culture - made us more moderate? Has the deregulation of gambling made us more moderate gamblers? Have 24 hour drive thrus made us more moderate eaters?

The only thing that I know of that reliably makes man more moderate is education. Rousseau anticipating my response and helpfully provided a retort "Education does not make a man good; it only makes him clever - usually for mischief. "It was even a saying among the philosophers themselves that since learned men had appeared, honest men were nowhere to be found."

He has a point - there is ample evidence to support this allegation too. Did the lawyers deliver justice in the OJ trial with their commitment to truth? Why is so little of the medical profession devoted to the prevention of cancer instead of the cure? Is it their higher allegiance to truth? What about the accountants and their ability to identify and report on fraudulent books?

Self governing professions need to be held accountable to their communities that they serve. Can we call the medical, legal and accounting professions to be pillars of our communities - shielding the lay people from disease, injustice and corruption? Reason without allegiance to some higher standard than oneself - God, King or country - or just plain old fashioned truth. It is not that doctors, lawyers and accountants intend to mislead - its that they get so good at considering all perspectives and they become equal valid. The result in a capitalist system that rewards research grants, winning cases and satisfying customers means that the small voice of the public interest is seldom heard until tragedy falls. Calls for the end of predatory lending were made in the US for many years and were still not negotiated with the handing out of the corporate bailouts.

Unfortunately, religion provides not much hope for being the champion of truth either. All Christian churches have been ridiculously recalcitrant in admitting to the reality of the sexual abuse occurring under their steeples for centuries, never mind contemplating how they may be inadvertently contributing to such colossal failures in the spiritual well-being of their employees.

From all this pessimism you likely think I believe that humans are naturally evil but I don't. I conclude that we need a new philosophical paradigm - the trinity of truth - trump to none!

Remembering all Veterans November 11, 2008

Today I wish to pay respect to our war heroes who fought against tyrants. Trinity of Truth is a political philosophy that claims that truth can only be found by balancing the different truths offered by religion, reason and personal experience and anyone who discredits one of the three ways of knowing truth is dogmatic at best, a tyrant at worst.

I have come to see religious faith, reason and my own personal experiences, as three different sources of knowledge that reliably contribute to what is true and right (an adolescence properly lived eliminates parental authority). The three sources interact much like the game of rock, paper, scissors. Experience, faith and reason can go on endlessly trumping each other because each offers a different, but reliable version of truth.

While many can point to the horrors of religion and therefore want to throw the baby out with the bathwater - it is wise to remember that when one overreacts a counter-reaction is guaranteed.

Political philosophy is the study of how each of these three ways of knowing truth is given different priority. In liberal, freedom loving societies like America, experience is trump, reason is strong and religion is relegated to private sphere; in China reason is trump, but religion and personal freedoms are crushed; and in Taliban countries religion trumps, crushing personal experiences and reason.

As a wise Chilean refugee once told me at a cold bus stop in Edmonton in January 1982-beware of the politician with the simple message. In memory of all of those who have died fighting tyrants remember the trinity and try to fight your own moments of dogmatic indignation.

Separation of Church and State

Do we really want a permanent separation of reason and faith as different means of knowing truth? Is it not more in line with notions of progress to see the separation as a necessary step in which reason had the opportunity to catch with the wisdom of our religions and reason? And do religions not require a rational accounting for the violent acts they inspire?

What if it is possible to find a permanent way to address the conflicts between believers of different faiths or between believers and rationalists? Should we not intellectually pursue that possibility given the obvious stress the current model is causing?

As only Jack Nicholson can deliver with just the right combination of contempt and disappointment– Is this as good as it gets? The biggest problem with the concept of separating church and state is that we have assumed that there is no way to bridge the two worlds and it is time to discuss this assumption. We need to consider what we gain and what we lose by adhering to this constitutional ideal outside of any contentious issue.

New Political Choices

It is time for a new constitutional ideal in the US. Something that looks beyond truth as a battle between faith and reason. The Wall between church and state has become a wall between states.

Constitutional change is not an easy topic but it is time to start discussing some of the limitations that come with such a divisive view of the future. What if secularization is not possible as has been assumed since the enlightenment.

Harvey Cox after all predicted the demise of religion as the private fetishes in the 1960s. Clearly not the case. Reason must have missed something. Maybe reason is unable to know certain truths, maybe reason needs more time to catch up to the wisdom buried in our religious inheritance. Do we want to be limited to the truths that we can only know by reason? I think we should be but only so that it creates social pressure on those who know truth by another means to find the hard proof that their view of truth is right. They need to have more faith in their religions - that they can stand up to tests of reason.

It is time to consider the costs of the American constitutional ideal, not as a means of going backwards to the days of justifying patriarchal privilege but to consider if the neat separation of ourselves into public material beings and private spiritual beings is helpful. Are there not public spiritual issues? How do they get a place in American society?

It is a time of hope that I hope translates into some creative, progressive thinking as the world tackles a daunting set of problems. We need the faithful, the rational and the poet to unite their energies to tackle the political issues facing the US and the rest of the world.