pascalsview

U.S. Health Care Reform Made Simple-- Eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, and Employer-Based Health Insurance

Zeke Emanuel is known for having Big Ideas. His short, easy to read new book, "Healthcare, Guaranteed", is a must-read.

I first met Zeke several years ago at the Aspen Institute's Socrates Society, and Zeke has been one of the most popular Socrates seminar leaders on the topic of bioethics. An oncologist and currently the chair of the department of bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, Zeke is a penetrating, deep thinker who knows how to cut to the core element of difficult issues. I have previously posted about Zeke when he remarked at our last Socrates gathering that our society is robbing posterity to live today. His new book is no less profound in its approach to simplifying the American health care system by gutting its core 'sacred cows':

According to Newsweek's review of "Healthcare, Guaranteed", written by Mary Carmichael:

In place of all these institutions, Emanuel says, the government should offer every American a voucher for health insurance—one that covers the same benefits that members of Congress get. Insurance companies would have to accept the vouchers, and each person could choose from a variety of private networks of docs, hospitals and health plans. A National Health Board would oversee it all. And that's pretty much it. Now the big question: how do we pay for it? Emanuel's plan lowers some taxes by gutting costly programs, but it also adds a new fixed tax on some goods and services to pay for the vouchers. "Americans will come out revenue-neutral on average," he says. "The poor will pay less." And the rich will probably pay a lot more. Sweeping changes are one thing, but sweeping changes and a new tax? Even if the plan could save health care, it'll be a hard sell.

Clearly not a layup, but also a very interesting and possibly a compelling solution to the broken healthcare financial reimbursement system in our country. So read this book-- and let me know what you think by commenting on this blog post.

Confusing Common Sense with Cultural Sensitivity-- Are We Staring into the Orwellian Chasm?

A friend of mine recently brought to my attention an article originally published April 2, 2007 in the The Daily Mail which revealed the following highly disturbing trend among teachers in England:

"Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed. It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial. There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques. ... The study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, looked into 'emotive and controversial' history teaching in primary and secondary schools. It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class. "

Every blog comment or follow-on article that I've read on this topic condemns this "sidestepping" approach to the unpleasant historical truths that make up the Human Journey as fundamentally flawed.  But it's not enough.

We need to be outraged at the lack of leadership that allows spineless fear of difficult discussions to bury reality.  We now live in a digital world where anyone with a keyboard can falsify history or advocate hate on the Internet and remain largely unfettered in the name of free speech.  In societies where the Government monitors and controls Internet content, we are more likely to see this control used to suppress dissent, force conformity. and paint a thin veneer of social harmony over underlying currents of instability and unrest.

We are increasingly buried under an avalanche of unverifiable data that can be manipulated to suit unscrupulous ends by groups with wide ranging hidden agendas.

Ignoring the truth of global history condemns us to ignorance and opens our societies to manipulation which, left unchecked, could send us back to the world of Hobbes.

"If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?"

George Orwell, 1984

To learn more about the truth of the Holocaust, go to http://www.adl.org/education/edu_holocaust/default_holocaust.asp

   

How Do We Prevent Religion From Degenerating Into Fanaticism?

Many people are asking this question today and not finding any satisfying answers.  To my surprise, Maimonides answered this question concisely 800 years ago.

Kenneth Seeskin's analysis of Maimonides' positions on religious fanaticism and false prophets is profound and refreshing:

"... Maimonides had firsthand experience of religious intolerance.  He knew that Jewish people are not immune to to ignorance or superstition.  His answer is that our prime criterion for deciding who speaks for God is truth (Guide 2.40).  If we are presented with a body of law which inculcates true beliefs, which encourages intellectual growth and critical reflection, which makes sound recommendations for personal health and social harmony, then, and only then, do we have a basis for believing that the message may be divinely inspired.  So the criteria for deciding who is a prophet are just as rigorous-- indeed, more so-- than those for evaluating expertise in other walks of life. . . . only the most extraordinary individuals have the right to claim that they speak for God.  And the only way they can earn this right is to provide both a vision and a rational defense of it. . . . the more a person asks us to make leaps of faith, the less likely it is that he or she is carrying a divine message."

Maimonides' approach is so basic that it is novel: Question the messenger.  Raise the credibility bar.   Ask yourself if the message makes sense and if it is in harmony with moral absolutes. 

Seeskin continues:

"God does not want people to starve themselves,  torment themselves, take vows of celibacy, or endure physical deprivation.  What He wants are honest dealings with our fellow human beings, moderation of the passions, respect for the poor, the sick, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger, rest on Sabbath, and in general a life in which we grow to our fullest potential."   

Maimonides has been criticized by some as being an elitist, and he is certainly not popular among ultra-Orthodox Jews (or among fanatics of any brand).  In my view, these critiques fall far short.

I strongly agree with the view that not everyone can be a prophet, just as not everyone can become a brain surgeon or a semicondutor designer.  In Maimonides' philosophical construct:

"True prophecy is instructive; it teaches us about God and calls us to our highest moral ideals and aspirations.  It is founded on a thorough understanding of the universe and human efforts to grasp the principles thatr underlie it.  A person ignorant of those principles, whose only claim on our attention is an intuitive feeling or dreamlike image, cannot speak for God.  Allow such people to determine our religious practices or beliefs and we are certain to get chaos."

Why does this seem so reasonable and yet sadly true in the context of current global affairs?  It is because unscrupulous people continue to manipulate religion to their will for power.  Unfortunately, these manipulators are not held to a higher standard of accountability.  Why? In my view, these answers have more to do with the weaknesses of man than the weaknesses of religion and the shortcomings of faith.

Kenneth Seeskin's Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed, was first published in 1991.

Faceoff: the New New Atheists vs. Maimonides

The New New Atheists (present day)

... from the vantage point of the 21st century, and thanks to the moral progress of mankind and the achievements of natural science, we can now know, with finality and certainty, that God does not exist and organized religion is a fraud. "

Versus

Moses Maimonides, aka the Rambam (רמב"ם)

(1135-1204)

"... Maimonides suggests . . . that, rather than talk about God, and give the impression that we understand what we are talking about, it might be wiser to contemplate His perfection in silence.  In this instance, silence would be the mark of learned ignorance."

In the July 16th edition of the Wall Street Journal, Peter Berkowitz, a law Professor at George Mason University who is a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, writes an interesting though necessarily superficial critique of the 'New New Atheist' troika-- Messrs. Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins (pictured above, respectively).  This being The Wall Street Journal, the article first notes how much money these gentlemen are making on "today's fashionable  disbelief."  Getting to the theological point of the New Atheist argument, Berkowitz concludes that "the disproportion between the bluster and bravado of their rhetoric and the limitations of their major arguments is astonishing."

Berkowitz focuses on debunking Hitchens and notes many inconsistencies in his various writings.  In particular, he blasts Hitchens' assertion that "all attempts to reconcile faith with science are consigned to failure and ridicule."  Citing Alistair McGrath, who holds a doctorate in molecular biology from Oxford, his wife, Joanna Collicutt McGrath, who is currently a lecturer in the psychology of religion at the University of London, and the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, whom Hitchens respects, Berkowitz notes:

"According to the McGraths, Gould was correct to think that both conventional religious belief and atheism are compatible with natural science, in part because "there are many questions that by their very nature must be recognized to lie beyond the legitimate scope of the scientific method." 

Berkowtiz continues, "The literalness of Mr. Hitchen's readings [of the Bible] would put many a fundamentalist to shame."

Which brings me to Maimonides, a man of science and of faith, who happened to live 800 years ago and spent many years addressing these questions in a far more comprehensive manner (writing the Mishneh Torah, for example, while being persecuted and hiding in a cave for close to ten years) than any of the people mentioned above.

Maimonides, who wrote many of his manuscripts in Arabic, completely rejects the literal interpretation of scripture.  He also keenly grasps the battle between faith and reason from the standpoint of man's intellectual limitations.

Kenneth Seeskin's outstanding book, Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed should be required reading for the New New Atheists because the story they are telling is an old one.

Maimonides starts developing his thesis at a place that the New New Atheists probably don't spend a lot of time visiting: asserting the concept of God's unity and transcendence and deriving the practical implications of what this means to man:

"The passages in the Bible which depict God as sitting on a throne or descending on a mountain cannot be true in a literal sense.  If we are to understand the truths such passages contain, we must go beyond the anthropomorphic language to the philosophic point they are trying to make.  ... In the Middle Ages, philosophers like Maimonides claimed that God's consequences or effects emanate from him.  It is as if God were like an eternal and inexhaustible source of light whose energy is so vast that it nourishes and illuminates everything around us.  But even the best scietific theories cannot explain how that light is generated....

When most people think about God, they try to imagine what it would be like to have infinite power or infinite knowledge.  They picture themselves being able to move mountains or see through walls.  Does this sort of conception help us to know God?  Maimonides is convinced that it does not, that it is no more than a ticket to incoherence. ...

One can almost hear Maimonides saying: Do not focus your effort and attention on what you cannot comprehend....  Recognize that God is completely transcendent; no earthly force or entity can be compared to him.  When dealing with God as He is in Himself,all we can do is admit ignorance and contemplate God in awe.  On the positive side , we must focus our effort and attention on the qualities which flow from Him.  Think about justice. mercy, feeding the poor, healing the sick, observing the Sabbath, following one's obligation to parents, friends, and civil authorities, respecting the dignity of other parts of God's creation, living  in knowledge of and harmony with  the forces in one's environment.  What is God? He is the one who bids us to perfect our souls and insures that such perfection is possible."

I am a rational person of faith. In my view, Maimonides posesses a far firmer grasp on the complexities of the universe and of the debate between faith and reason than anyone else I have encountered in my studies of religious philosophy. 

My Summer Reading

I admit to having a particularly eclectic reading list this summer.  Here it is, in no particular order:

Al Gore's The Assault on Reason is an important, factually supported indictment of the Bush Administration.  A must read, regardless of your political affilation.

Three books on Maimonides:

Kenneth Seeskin's Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed, is a clearly written, relatively short monograph that ties together some of the key themes in The Guide for the Perplexed-- such as why literal iinterpretation of the Bible is not only senseless, but is contrary to G-d's intention.  Yeshayahu Leibowitz's The Faith of Maimonides, and David Bakan's Maimonides on Prophecy.   If you are into Maimonides (yes, there are a few of us who aren't Rabbis), philosophy, or general deep thinking, you will enjoy these books, which were recommended to me by a new friend who is a Maimonides expert.

In the "I wish it really was fiction" category, I read, in one extremely long sitting (while flying across the country) Khaled Hosseini's powerful A Thousand Splendid Suns.  This novel takes you through 30 years of Afghanistan's chaotic history, as experienced through the personal tragedies of several families.  The novel combines factual historic detail with an emphasis on the abrogation of women's rights under Shar'ia as applied by the Taliban.  I agree that it is better than The Kite Runner, which I also devoured and found disturbing and enlightening.

On the lighter side, for the fisherman in you, there is Sex, Death, and Fly-Fishing, by John Gierach, who is the great scribe of all that makes trout-fishing a religion, as opposed to a recreational sport.  What do I mean by that?

"The wool sweaters and millar mitts came off shortly aftrer the sun was up, and we were squinting and sweating by nine-thirty when the Callibeatis mayfly spinner fall should have started,  but wouldn't.  Not in that heat and piercing sunlight.  That's why we were up so early in the first place."

Comprende?  If not, don't read this book.

And finally, for paperback Ludlum-style mystery lovers who also enjoy a religious conspiracy that ties together the Holocaust, Pope Pius XII, professional assassins, the Mossad, Bernini, and the Jewish Ghetto in Rome, read Daniel Silva's The Confessor-- it's actually quite good.

Looking back at this reading list, I can see why I don't feel that I rested much this summer.

Plato, Contemporary Government, and the Aspen Institute

I don't read Plato often.  In fact, I don't even have Plato's Republic on the bedside table.  But I'm reading Plato today, as I prepare for my upcoming seminar at the Aspen Institute's Socrates Society.  The three-day seminar that I am taking, Humanity, Power, Leadership: Strategizing Success, moderated by Leigh Hafrey, includes extensive readings about the Rwanda genocide, all of which have been important and eye-opening for me.

The thing that I like the most about the Socrates Society, second only to the lasting friendships I have made there over the past eleven years, is the luxury of having time to engage in critical thinking and open discussion on subjects that we don't consider every day.  Which brings me back to Plato:

"... the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst. . . . you must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life.  Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after their own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State."

                        Plato, The Republic, 428/427 - 348/347 B.C.E.

The relevance of this text today in the United States of America, where so much of our political system is consumed by "hungering" for the advantage of special interests trying to snatch "the chief good", is striking.  As our society faces large issues concerning the common good such as global warming and the equitable allocation of increasingly scarce natural resources, we should all wish for the ruler who is not only virtuous, but who can show enlightened leadership.  Plato's text certainly raises a lot of fundamental questions, and I hope to come back from this year's gathering of the Socrates Society with interesting answers after rigorous debate.

Einstein, the Conservation of Matter and Energy, and Heaven and Hell-- a Stretch or Not?

Jim Cooper, the Rector of Trinity Church in New York, comments on the notion of Heaven and Hell in the context of Einstein's theory of the conservation of matter in a post in On Faith-  A Conversation on Religion.  Check it out if you want to see lots of comments, both pro and con, on this thread about the after-life...

Einstein on Orthodoxy, Judaism, and Faith

"A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth."

                                        Albert Einstein

Walter Isaacson's rich biography of Einstein captures the essence of the man and of the iconoclastic scientist while illuminating important influences on his emotional and intellectual development that one would not normally consider in thinking about the world's greatest scientist.  References to the role of religion in his life shine a very important light on Einstein's evolving sense of his own Jewish identity during the dark time of Jewish and world history that would define his personal journey.

According to Isaacson, at the age of 12, Einstein's exposure to science produced a sudden reaction against religion, just at the time that he would have been studying for his Bar Mitzvah.  This tension between what is demonstrably true through science and what is only understandable through faith is one of the great dilemmas of human consciousness. 

The book notes that, while as a child Einstein had embraced the Jewish religion, at this juncture he turned decidedly away from faith and, in particular, ritual:

"But at the time, his leap away from faith was a radical one. 'Through the reading of popular scientific books, I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true.The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression.' ... As a result, Einstein avoided religious rituals for the rest of his life. . . . Einstein's rebellion against religious dogma had a profound effect on his general outlook toward received wisdom.  It inculcated an allergic reaction against all forms of dogma and authority, which was to affect both his politics and his science."

Einstein would formally renounce Judaism in 1896, at the age of 17, but his exposure to "virulent anti-Semitism in the 1920's" would lead Einstein "to begin to reconnect with his Jewish identity":

The year before Einstein died, he wrote to a friend:

"At that time I would not even have understood what leaving Judaism could possibly mean. . . . But I was fully aware of my Jewish origin, even though the full significance of belonging to Jewry was not realized by me until later."

According to Isaacson, Einstein would later come close to embracing the following position on faith, written by Aaron Bernstein in a series of volumes titled People's Books on Natural Science:

"The religious inclination lies in the dim consciousnes that dwells in humans that all nature, including the humans in it, is in no way an accidental game, but a work of lawfulness, that there is a fundamental cause of all existence."

Maimonides, the greatest Jewish philosopher and also a man of medicine who has been described as a "religious rationalist", faced this conflict and addressed the tension between faith and reason in his writings such as the definitive Mishneh Torah, finding a middle ground where both coexist.  In some respects Einstein's unfinished quest for a unifying theory of everything may be profoundly based on faith in the existence of that unseen relationship which binds everything together-- that something which is empirically unverifiable but that we must believe in to bring sense to the cosmos.  Faith and Science may, indeed, meet at the intersection of String Theory, but that's another, longer story...      

Botzina D'Qardinuta; Alma D'Ahtay

So you are interested in learning about the Zohar?  A great introduction to the Kabbalah comes in the form of Rabbi Larry Kushner's first fictional novel, Kabbalah: A Love Story. I just finished it and recommend it highly.  The story weaves its characters together with important elements of religious philosophy and Iberian Jewish history.  It also successfully links Jewish mysticism with the rationalist cosmology of Einstein's concepts of space-time.  I was drawn into the dual love stories whose temporal juxtaposition is at the core of the mystical thesis of the novel, and also a central tenet of the mystical unity of Kabbalah.

I know Rabbi Kushner from our synagogue because he is the Emanu-El Scholar in-residence at the Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco.  We have been fortunate to have him with us for several years, and I was delighted to discover in the novel some personal touches that other congregants who have worshipped with Rabbi Kushner will also recognize.   

Excerpts from two of my favorite passages are below:

                                    REINAFIDANQUE 

I understand now.  The botzina d'qardinuta is the seed point of beginning,and the alma d'ahtay is the mother-womb of being.  Botzina d'qardinuta, it is the flash of light.  Alma d'ahtay, it is the unattainable and ultimate womb.  But these two must become one.  You are the darkness; I am the spark.  Botzina d'qardinuta and alma d'ahtay.   

...

"Then what do you mean when you talk about God?"

"There are two ways to understand our relationship with God.  The first is classic theism . . .  In that model, God can be represented as a big circle.  . . . And you a little circle below it. . . . there is another model.  It has a more Eastern ring, but it has been around in Western religion, too.  In this model God is still a big circle. . . . The little circle . . . still represents you, but . . . it is within the big circle of God.  You would call this mystical monism.  It's all one and it's all God.  God is simply all there is.  And therefore, the separateness of anyone or anything is illusory because everything is a manifestation of God!  God is the ocean, and we are the waves."

Insights on Religion and Islam from Vali Nasr and Nick Kristof

I've been reading Vali Nasr's outstanding book, The Shia Revival, and was struck by a comment he makes in the introduction that ties directly into Nick Kristof's opinion piece in today's New York Times, "Looking for Islam's Luthers".

The Shia Revival is required reading for anyone who wants to understood the roots of the centuries-old blood feud between Sunnis and Shiites.  It is particularly relevant in providing historical context for the current power struggle between these Arab ethnic groups inside Iraq.  Nasr writes eloquently and develops an insightful thesis into the motivation and tactics driving the Iranian theocracy's strategic manipulation of the Iraqi, Syrian, and Lebanese players in the region (not to mention the U.S.) in the region.

In the introduction, page 23, Nasr makes a very important statement that may be lost to rationalists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins:

"Religion is not just about God and salvation; it decides the boundaries of communities. Different readings of history, theology, and religious law perform the same role as language or race in defining what makes each identity unique in saying who belongs to it and who does not."

Kristof's column today makes a very important point in relating the ascendancy of religion in our time to social alienation:

"Islam is on the rise for many of the same reasons evangelical Christianity is surging: they provide a firm moral code, spiritual reassurance and orderliness to people vexed by chaos and immorality aorund them, and they offer dignity to the poor."

I would add to this that social fragmentation has been accelerated by the rapid pace of technological change since the beginning of the Internet age ten years ago. In the globalized Internet era, which is the breeding ground for the alienated, super-empowered individual, this quest for order and meaning becomes more and more urgent.  Anger and frustration can play out through nihilism, or they can lead to reform.

Kristof's column focuses on Islamic feminism as a harbinger of reformist thinking in this religion. He concludes on an optimistic note:

"All this underscores that Islam is much more complex than the headlines might suggest.  The violence and fundamentalism gets the attention-- and should be more loudly condemned by ordinary Muslims-- but we would be close-minded ourselves if we ignored the more hopeful rumblings that are also taking place within the vast Islamic world. . . including, perhaps, steps toward a Muslim Reformation."

Like Nick Kristof, I am anxious to hear moderate voices reclaiming control of the Islamic, Christian, and Jewish faiths.