Dragging in God by His Left Hind Foot

Sometimes it’s hard to filter out the truth from conflicting testimony. People, conconsciously or unconsciously, shape what they say to fit a vision of the truth. For example, I watched part 1 of the ABC special on The Road to 9/11. The movie showed CIA and Northern Alliance people hiding just outside a camp where bin Laden was meeting with cohorts. They had no doubt that they had him now and would get him. All they needed was a GO order from Washington. The movie then showed a series of vacillations by Sandy Berger and George Tennent that resulted in a NO GO decision. It was clear from the movie’s vision that the men in the Clinton administration didn’t have the guts to take responsibility and do what was clearly needed.

But, hold on, after the movie, they interviewed a Clinton staffer who was at this meeting and said the reason they didn’t go ahead was because a) there were civilians around who might have been killed and b) there were machine gun nests and two tanks. He said the the assault squad would have been massacred if they had tried the attack.

Two versions of the truth. Were Clinton’s people cowards, were the attacker’s rash, all of the above or none of the above? This situation is the very reason that NO account of anything can be taken at face value. The first account was framed around the vision that the Clinton Administration was cowardly or indecisive. The second version was based on the vision that the same people were prudent in protecting civilian and military lives, not rash like the people on the ground.

I think some detailed, skeptical questions would have been in order. For example, “How many machine guns were there? Where were they located relative to the attackers? Where were the tanks? Could the assualt have been successful despite the enemy weapons? How do you know? How long would it take? What complications could have happened? What plans for mitigating these contingincies did you have? How many civilians would likely have been killed? Why did the men on the ground think they could succeed? How did you know it was bin Laden? Was it legal to kill or capture bin Laden? ”

There is wisdom in the way court trials are structured–testimony, cross-examination, decision by impartial jury. In the 9/11 movie and follow-up interview, we had testimony only, and no impartial jury.

To bridge to a different matter, too bad we can’t have a similar method for examining religious scriptures. We have the testimony, but where is the cross exam and the impartial jury? So, how is it that we think we know the Truth when we read any scripture? It seems that truth based on human testimony is very hard to come by. Mostly what we see is our own vision of what the world is like.

I want this blog to be a conversation among friends about our ideas of what God is like and how he/she acts in the world and in our lives. We all have experiences to share as well as ideas and beliefs. Also, things move us–a poem, an essay, a quotation, a painting, something a friend said, and we sometimes would like to share them. Here is a good place.

• Agnostics and atheists are not only welcome but encouraged to join the conversation to help keep the spiritual ones honest.
• I hope also that we will be joined by Muslims, Hindus, Wiccans, Neo-pagans, and people from every variety of spiritual belief in the world.
• Since I am a Christian of the Catholic variety with heavy influences from Eastern spirituality, I hope many of my fellow Christians will join in too.

Years ago I hosted a forum called “God Talk.” on the Ryze network. All of the groups mentioned above made their appearances at one time or another. I learned a lot I didn’t know about other belief systems. Witnessing the interaction among the individuals, including myself, of different spiritual persuations was even more informative than the intellectual content of what anyone said. 

A few guidelines to keep things civil:

• Please agree to disagree sometimes, and try to keep comments impersonal.
• Name-calling is not allowed.
• Proselytizing is not forbidden, but also not encouraged.

Posting

Use the Comments for short posts. For longer posts, email me (see my profiles for the address). I will post your comments either signed or anonymously (indicate which.) I reserve the right to refuse to post comments for any reason whatsoever. If you send third-party photos, cartoons, text or other content, be sure you comply with all copyright and trademark laws.

Full Disclosure

I am publishing a book this fall called Dragging in God by His Left Hind Leg. This will be the only time I mention the book because I want no conflict of interest. I will not use this blog to market the book; however, I may refer people from the book’s web site to this blog. If anyone brings up the book in a post, I will go offline with my response. I ask readers of this blog to address all questions and comments about the book to my personal email, rather than posting on the blog.

Thanks and welcome!

M. David Orr