Silent Seas

By Ed Raymond
Staff Writer

Another Miracle Of The Fish

I think W.C. Fields, humorist, actor and philosopher, was one of the funniest–-and most insightful men who has ever lived. Fields admitted he drank a lot, and I think there was sufficient evidence he was telling the truth.

My favorite story about him involves a thermos jug filled with his favorite drink—martinis. Fields kept a thermos with him on the movie set, always claiming it was lemonade. One day the camera crew played a joke on Fields by dumping the martinis and substituting lemonade. When he next sampled his thermos during a break, Fields spluttered: “Hey! Who in hell put lemonade in my lemonade?”

When he was on his death bed a friend visited his home for a last call. A nurse allowed his friend to peek in Bill’s bedroom before entering. He was shocked to see Fields paging through a Bible. He said, “Bill! I never knew you were a religious man!” Fields, with that red, bulbous nose still lit, responded: “I’m not.  I’m just looking for loopholes.”

Each afternoon I celebrate Fields’ life by having a martini, my favorite cocktail. It’s strictly medicinal, of course. But I have a more serious purpose in using his humor. I have spent most of my not-very-religious life “looking for loopholes.”  I suspect I am not alone in that enterprise. I was basically an ignorant cafeteria Catholic for my first 27 years. I enjoyed singing the Latin mass in the choir when I was in high school, and I occasionally slipped into the confessional when I felt loaded with guilt. That wasn’t very often. In the end, Corky and I didn’t want to live our lives between the 13th and 18th centuries so we converted to Lutheranism. But I graze around the green pastures alot. I may be a Lutheran on Sunday, or an agnostic by Monday morning, or an atheist by Tuesday, or a pantheist by Wednesday, or a Wiccan by Thursday, or a pagan by Friday, or a Deist by Saturday night. I guess I’m still looking for loopholes.

Is It Really God’s Will?

A few weeks ago a man in Delano, California, died after being stabbed in the leg by a fighting cock while watching an illegal cockfight. Those knives that are attached to the legs of cocks are razor sharp because the winner is declared when one cock is killed or severely injured.

Experts in cockfighting say it probably is the first time a person has been killed by a cock. I imagine there were several different responses to the man’s death. People for The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) members might want to immortalize the cock in bronze. Pragmatists would say it was an unusual accident but he had it coming. I have no idea what the man’s insurance company would say, but I’m sure they would reject the claim. The owner of the cock might be worried about birdslaughter. Others would say it was “God’s Will.” If it had happened on a fall Friday night, Texans might say God was too busy answering prayers at football games to notice incidents in California.

The Japanese earthquake death total has reached 12,000 and is sure to grow. This is only five percent so far of those killed in the Sumatra tsunami in 2004, but because of the Japanese use of technology it is the most videoed, filmed and photographed earthquake and tsunami in history. I have heard hundreds of Japanese interviewed about the tsunami, but I haven’t heard one bring up “God’s Will” or that sacred spirits were punishing the Japanese people for being evil. Most Japanese are Shinto and Buddhist. Shinto gods take the form of things important to life such as wind, rain, mountains, trees, rivers and fertility. Shinto and Buddhism are optimistic faiths with the philosophy that humans are fundamentally good. I haven’t heard a single Japanese say that the earthquake was punishment for sins. Do they then feel that such disasters are simply natural events they must endure? Perhaps a Japanese Shinto or Buddhist believer can set me straight on this.

The First Cry Of Western Religions: Where Was God?

Historians and theologians say that the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 was a major event that caused a great decline in the paradigm that God was eternally benevolent and a nice Guy. The impeccable timing of the earthquake which killed 40,000 out of a population of 200,000 brought tremendous arguments about the theological implications. First, every major church in the city was demolished by the quake. Second, the earthquake happened on a major church holiday. Third, every church was packed with parishioners and practically all died in the collapse of the churches. Some bettors would call that a perfect trifecta.

The 18th Century French philosopher Voltaire, somewhat of a cynic about religion anyway, abandoned all thoughts about God conducting oversight on the world’s affairs after the quake. Immanuel Kant, on the other side, was so upset by the timing of the earthquake he wrote one of the first books ever on the causes of quakes. He then went back to the study of how man created and used ethical codes to live by—in both the absence and presence of God.

So many bad things have happened to us lately it has shaken our confidence in our ability to create and maintain the sweet life. We have been told that our nuclear power plants are safe even if they are on earthquake faults. Now we have visions of waving at our radioactive California relatives as they sink into the Pacific in one giant splash. We were told by Wall Street bankers and other thieves that credit default swaps, derivatives, subprime mortgages and collaterized junk distributed risks so much no one had to worry about losing big.

Now both the Wall Street bull and Main Street taxpayers have been castrated by the big “can’t fail” banks that got us into the home foreclosure business through arrogant malfeasance and criminal stupidity. We were told by the deepwater oil drillers not to worry: that blowout preventer on top of the pipe at 5,000 feet would stop all possible leaks so the fish would thrive. We should have told these avaricious and sometimes remarkably stupid arrogant men that pigs fly—and that God had nothing to do with it.

“We Believe What We Want To Believe”

Voltaire, a man with an ironic sense of humor like W.C. Fields, also kept looking for loopholes: “The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe.”

Woody Allen was also troubled about faith vs. reason and asked God, if there was one, to give him a clear sign, such as making a large deposit in his name in a Swiss bank!

As an impressionable teenager after World War II, I read everything I could find about The Holocaust, and later such books as William L. Shirer’s “The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich” published in 1960. It seemed that man’s inhumanity to man had no limits. I will always remember the question asked by an Auschwitz survivor after she had seen her fellow Jews stripped and pushed into the gas chambers. When asked if she could ever forgive her captors and torturers, she asked in return: “If there is a God, where was He while six million Jews were killed?”

A letter written by Etty Stern Weiner of Queens, New York, to the editor of the New York Times February 21st, 2011 brought back vivid memories of the scenes of black and white films taken by the German SS who ran most of the concentration camps. They took films and kept accurate records to authenticate Hitler’s “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” Etty’s words outline the absolute horror her mother experienced as she approached the life-or-death selection point at Auschwitz:

“As my mother was herded along as human cargo through the selection process at Auschwitz upon arrival in April 1944, she was told repeatedly by prisoners who understood that a mother with a small child had no chance of survival to give her 3-year-old son to an old woman. At first she resisted, holding tightly onto him, but as her turn neared the front of the line, she was warned once again, and passed the child to her mother. At that moment she was sent to the right, they to the left. Even today, at age 90, not a day goes by that she does not see his outstretched arms, crying for her to take him back as he and my grandmother were marched to the gas chamber and death. The pain is as visceral now as then. If it is possible for even a moment to understand the magnitude of making impossible choices in extreme moments of distress, that is a very valuable lesson.”  Etty Stern Weiner

Just imagine for a moment a daughter handing her baby son to her mother, both facing certain death in what is now known as the biggest cemetery in the world. Does Etty have the right to ask the question: “Where was God?”

Do the Christians and Muslims, the two bloodiest religions in history, have an answer? The Muslim Taliban bows to Mecca and Kandahar, denigrates women and sends out its suicide bombers. The American Taliban bows to Rome and evangelicals, denigrates women, and sends out its killers of abortion doctors.

Could It Be There Is No God In Foxholes?

According to a survey of military personnel in 2009, 45 percent are Protestants, 21 percent are Catholics, 26 percent have no religious preference and nine percent are put into a wide category of Humanists and others. The Humanist category includes atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, secular humanists and possibly Tennessee snake handlers, Caribbean chicken pluckers and some skeptics. With well over two million men and women under arms, the survey indicates we may have as many as 180,000 in either non-religious or super-religious Limbo.

The nine percent in the Humanist category are now trying to form MASH units (Military Atheists and Secular Humanists) so they can win recognition and fair treatment in a military that is overwhelmingly Christian. They are trying to be recognized to disprove the old idea there are no atheists in foxholes. Some of these atheistic warriors have been in many foxholes. Atheists and Humanists at as many as 20 military bases are waiting to form MASH units. The Fort Bragg unit is the first to apply. Ironically the Army has said the Army Chaplain Corps will review the application! Good Luck.

How Many Worlds Are There?

NASA’s new Kepler telescope may be adding new perplexing conundrums to old religious ideas. The Kepler is out there searching for planets like earth. So far it has found 1,235 planets, with 54 in what the astronomers, with a W.C. Fields touch, call the Goldilocks zone. Some may be “just right” to sustain some kind of life. That’s a lot of potential Adams, Eves and snakes. Scientists estimate there are 300 billion stars in our Milky Way with 50 billion planets among them. That’s just our home. They figure there are 100 billion galaxies like the Milky Way in the Universe. WOW!

This column may be a real load for some. I’ll end it with the story of “Born A Lutheran,” another miracle of the fish. It seems that each Friday night Ole of Ortonville grilled venison steaks, sending those delicious odors. This caused a moral and morale problem for local Catholics during Lent because they couldn’t eat meat on Fridays. The priest was asked to talk to Ole. He suggested that Ole become Catholic. After Ole attended Mass and catechism classes, the priest sprinkled holy water on him and said: “You were born a Lutheran, raised a Lutheran, but now you are a Catholic.”

But Friday night came and the smell of venison again filled the air. On call, the priest rushed to Ole’s yard, clutching his rosary and ready to scold Ole. But there stood Ole, sprinkling a small bottle of holy water over the grilling meat. He chanted: “You vuz born a deer, you vuz raised a deer, but now you is a walleye.”

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