The interesting thing about faith

Hi everyone,

I know you haven't seen me around in a while. I didn't even do any reporting about the third and final debate, of course if you really want to know what I thought then just read my post on the first two debates and then substitute "third" before the word debate. Though I will admit Bush did better, both candidates "stayed the course." It was repetitive, and if you're following this election, then you were bored stiff. And that was just it. I didn't write anything because one--it was dull (except on the topic of Cheney's daughter, yet another media and political distraction) and two--I was having my semi-monthly political OD. There's only so much of this BS I can take, and when I think about how "close" this race is supposed to be, with all these "swing voters" I want to take a chainsaw to my neck.

Which brings me to the topic of this. Faith.

Today, I was on my way to work when three Jehovah Witnesses accosted me with their Watchtowers. Usually this would only mildly irritate me, but today it really churned my butter. I was thinking to myself as I waved them off, that here I am, running to work so I can pay my rent, and bills and bar tab(s), and these women are, at the same time, roaming the streets hawking God and I wondered, "Who the hell is paying these women? Do they have homes? Where are they getting their money from?" Money, that's what it all comes down to. Follow the money and you'll understand the motivations, and in their case money is the price of faith. Only the most devout believers wander for naught, but these women were well dressed, and well fed-- not the standards of your wandering pilgrims. But even that didn't bother me as much as this: I met them on the streets of Harlem. Harlem, though not the Mad Max terror zone that the media makes it out to be, is a neighborhood of many social ills. Education and social programs aren't funded and operated properly. We have the highest incidences of asthma in New York City among children, and gentrification looms over most of the traditional populations head threatening to run them out of their low cost rent stabilized homes and into...who knows, maybe the Hudson River, and through all of this our political foundations are nearly non existent. I can run into these wandering bands of Watchtower bandits, but a voter registration worker or a Kerry (or Bush) campaign worker is as rare as a health food store. Why? Do people believe that God, or man will make life better for them? Is it faith, or fact?

And that right there is the interesting thing about faith in this country. The way we, as Americans, blind ourselves to the reality of a situation through a shroud of faith, rather than work on practical realistic solutions. A majority of people who are for Bush are "Born-again Christians," a group that GWB claims to belong to. These are people who choose to put their hopes and dreams primarily and firstly in the hands of God, rather than elected officials or, heaven help, their own hands. Frightening as this method seems in ordinary hands, it is even more terrifying in the hands of our chief executive who seems to rely on "faith based thinking" to create public policy. Can we even debate that our whole reasoning to go to war was anything other than "faith based thinking" rather than fact?

And this ideology turns even from religion. We have people depending on blind faith when it comes to patriotism ("my country right or wrong") and our medical industry. They are dependent on faith to maintain the status quo even when evidence points to the contrary. Right now there is a tremendous lack of a flu vaccine which endangers the lives of thousands upon thousands of Americans. Last year along roughly 31,000 Americans died of the flu--a whopping 1000 times higher (maybe more) than those that died of terrorism. Yet we spent 200 Billion, not counting the money spent on the war (if you think that's combating terrorism), but we have a flu vaccine shortage. Once again, blind faith in the medical industry, blind faith in our elected officials.

Faith is a good thing--don't get me wrong, I am not an atheist by any means. Yet my mother and grandmother, the two most religious people in my family, always taught me that "God helps those who help themselves." Faith is best utilized when joined with experience and fact. I place faith in reputation, and reputation is an ongoing process. Every day when a person wakes up they stake their reputation on their future decisions. When they mess up we should approach that mistake with as much understanding that we can muster, but yes, their reputation is tarnished. A title or a family should be no guarantee of a person's mettle, only the validity of their actions.

We have spent too long selling blind faith as a manner of decision making--it takes pressure off of us, but in the long run it will be detrimental to the nation as a whole.