The Evolution of God? Inferences, Abstractions, Higher Purpose ?

[From the Washington Post, a review (8.02.09):]

Thank God for agnostics. Over the past decade, our public conversation about religion has all too often degenerated into a food fight between the religious right and the secular left. Now comes journalist Robert Wright with a gentler approach: a materialist account of religion that manages (sort of) to make room for God (of a sort).

"The Evolution of God" is a big book that addresses a simple question: Is religion poison? ...The assumption underlying many answers to these questions -- an assumption shared by fundamentalists and "new atheists" alike -- is that religions are what their founders and scriptures say they are, rather than what contemporary practitioners make them out to be.

Wright rejects this assumption.... Scriptures are malleable. Founders are betrayed. At least for historians, there is little provocation here. The provocation comes when Wright claims that religious history seems to be going somewhere, as if guided by an invisible hand. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all appear to have a "moral direction," and that direction is toward the good....

The key argument is that, ever since hunters and gatherers have been hunting and gathering, the invisible hand guiding human history has been working (largely through advances in technology and communication) to create non-zero-sum situations that force historical actors, often against their own inclinations, into ever-widening circles of moral concern. Jews, Christians and Muslims are led (gradually and in fits and starts) toward moral universalism not because religions are inherently good but because believers are inherently flexible -- flexible enough to see when they and their enemies are in the same boat.

All this happens, it should be emphasized, on entirely naturalistic grounds. Wright, a self-described "materialist," believes that history is driven not by fiat from on high but by natural selection via "facts on the ground." In his account, Judaism gives rise to Christianity and Islam without even a whiff of the supernatural....

Yet all Wright's talk of "business models" and "algorithms" and "positive network externalities" somehow opens up the conversation about God rather than closing it down. In this oddly old-fashioned book, which recalls Hegel more than anyone else, Wright speaks repeatedly of "design" and "goals" and "purposes" in human history.

In the end, Wright allows himself to wonder whether the evolution of "God," the concept, might provide evidence for the existence of God, the reality. "If history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement, toward moral truth, and their God, as they conceive their God, grows accordingly, becoming morally richer," he writes, "then maybe this growth is evidence of some higher purpose, and maybe -- conceivably -- the source of that purpose is worthy of the name divinity."

--"Preaching the Gospel of Maybe," a review by Stephen Prothero of The Evolution of God by Robert Wright, The Washington Post (8.02.09). Stephen Prothero is a religious studies professor at Boston University and the author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- and Doesn't.

This is a good and interesting review of a more interesting book. What I find most notable about it is that Wright embraces a deterministic observation--an inference, really--more openly expressed these days by voices in evolutionary science and observers of humanity and history. That inference is that there appears a "direction" to the evolution of mankind, his experience in community and with religion, perhaps even a "higher purpose."

Wright posits that the evolution of religions has recurrently set the occasion for extending the “moral imagination”—shared moral empathy, even identity—among ever-expanding groups of people from different religious traditions. Focusing on the Abrahamic faiths, he explains how this has been happening over the millennia as the growth and advancement of peoples in the world pushes them closer into expanding definitions of community and the need for mutually-beneficial cooperation, what he calls “non-zero-sumness.” And yes, Mr. Wright opens the door for consideration of “direction” and “higher purpose” in it all, which for him are “moral truth” and the “source of the moral order.” But if some people of faith feel implicitly invited, even compelled, to extend his inferences further, Mr. Wright, by reasoned conviction, stops short of the scientifically unprovable: Deity.

Many of Abrahamic religious identities will surely object to some of Wright's observations about the history and evolution of their Scriptures and narratives, their faith practices and community, and faith itself--the "evolution of God." Many will dismiss the book as unimportant--perhaps even insulting--to people of faith, because its thesis is such a modest concession in the direction of a deterministic quality to the world, and leaves them well short of the sought after validation of deistic faith--and their particular version of it. Its intellectual inferences and speculations clearly fail to embrace an omniscient, omnipotent, ubiquitous and intervening personal God--whether imagined as anthropomorphic (which is hard to reconcile with ubiquitous), a spirit being of some type, or something different or more abstract. Interestingly, Wright nevertheless provides an Afterword in which he speculates on what God is. (The Gospel of John's more abstract characterizations as Spirit, Logos, Love, Truth and Light resonate most with me.) And, of course, on the other end of the continuum, many atheists and anti-theists will also reject Wrights inferences outright, fearful that they go too far and imply too much.

But the closer a person of faith and prayer is necessarily drawn to spiritual or Deistic abstractions, the closer Robert Wright's more abstract reflections and possibilities approach an affirming determinism not at all antagonistic to the intuition and experience of faith, Abrahamic or others. Wright clearly suggests that, among various abstractions of "higher purpose", his "the source of the moral order" is not so distant from Christian theologian-philosopher Paul Tillich's "the ground of being," or, for that matter, the estimable psychologist-philosopher William James' "belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting to it." Of course, many conservative and fundamentalist believers would sniff dismissively at the reflections of Tillich and James, too. But my point is simply that they nevertheless find a legitimate, meaningful place on the field of religious or spiritual discourse.

I would also suggest that, among the various organized religions, conceptual abstractions of "higher purpose" would likely first find resonance with notions of spiritual truth, divinity, or Deity among the most prayerfully devout, the more contemplative groups or adherents of those faiths. For, with regard to their spiritual apprehensions, epiphanies, and understandings that most defy description or explanation, conceptual abstractions alone are useful in expressing them and relating to them.

But no, to the conservative and fundamentalist, Wright's inferences will most often be viewed as misguided speculations and meaningless abstractions--an intellectual construction of an ambiguous, godless determinism irreconcilable with the Scriptures, constraints and requirements of their Abrahamic religions.

Evolutionary Convergences: Direction? Purpose?

As insightful and interesting as this book by Wright is, it is not the most important to infer an inherent or overarching "direction" or "purpose" from empirical observations of the evolutionary progress of life, mankind, and human community. His earlier, highly-acclaimed book, Nonzero, sets the foundation for Evolution of God. But for me, the more important work belongs to Simon Conway Morris (as shared in my essay/post, Conway Morris: Evolutionary "Convergences"--with a Purpose? (Hyde Park's Corner 6.24.08)).

Dr. Conway Morris is chaired Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at the University of Cambridge, UK. His pioneering work on the Cambrian fauna and "explosion" (of life and species, that is) based on the Burgess Shale fossils was the subject of his 1998 book, The Crucible of Creation. It earned him world-wide professional recognition and respect. He is a member of the Royal Society and has been the recipient of many professional awards and medals.

But for our purposes, his more interesting and provocative work advanced the proposition that evolutionary "convergences" of form and function play a more central, universal role in the evolution of life forms on Earth--and that evolutionary "direction" or "purpose" might be inferred from it. And, yes, Conway Morris offers his conclusion on that "direction" and "purpose": the evolution of sentient, reasoning beings--and all the additional metaphysical questions of "why?" and "what purpose?" that follow from it.

By evolutionary "convergences" is meant the tendency of evolving forms to find the same or very similar evolutionary solutions or advancements regardless of when or on what branch of the evolutionary tree the life form evolves. Overworked examples would include camera eyes and various types of limbs for mobility and manipulation, among many others. But, most intriguing is his proposition that sentience and cognition are also convergent evolutionary solutions, and that something like intelligent humans would evolve regardless of how many times you rerun the evolutionary process of life.

Professor Conway Morris's case is most comprehensively presented and defended in his 2003 book, confidently titled, Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe. That was followed in 2008 by his edited work, The Deep Structure of Biology: Is Convergence Sufficiently Ubiquitous to Give a Directional Signal? This volume is a compendium of articles by authors representing interests as varied as micro-biology, botany, human evolution, metaphysics and faith. They offer a range of views on these questions of "direction" and "purpose," and whether there results a "deeper structure," a purposeful lawfulness in the evolutionary mechanisms and constraints in the world of biology.

Of course, Conway Morris's work and conclusions have their detractors, most prominent among them being committed anti-theists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. For they see the implications supporting serious consideration of questions of Higher Purpose, spiritual Truth, even Deity, where my brethren in faith most often do not, or are indifferent to it. The anti-theists are concerned about a slippery slope. The fact that Conway Morris is a Roman Catholic Christian likely makes them all the more uncomfortable.

Regardless, skeptics, atheists, and anti-theists will still take a measure of comfort in the fact that however provocative this research and reasoning, however appealing its more deterministic mechanisms to some people of faith, it still takes us no closer to proving or disproving the existence of God, however defined. Yet, it nonetheless reflects more how some of we faithful might envision how a creative Author Spirit or God might order and direct the purposes for creation. I conclude on this point as I did in my 2005 essay, What God?:

And so I am left with my epiphanies, still asking, what could be more miraculous and awe-inspiring, more beautiful, more humbling, than the complexities and unfathomable realities of evolutionary mechanisms and the progress of life? How else than through these evolving biochemical, genetic, social and psychological processes might all of creation have moved continually upward toward sentience and cognition, curiosity and questioning, the pursuit of truth and identity? For what other purpose might we be brought face to face with the history of the development of creation, and those transcendent apprehensions that lead us, than to seek the sensed Author and understandings of why we are now here?

Prayer & Spiritual Experience of God: Inferences, Abstractions

Whether confronted with the science and evolutionary interpretations of Simon Conway Morris, or the insights of Robert Wright, many are nevertheless so committed to their identities and understandings that they will not or cannot be moved from them. Some cannot get past the rigidities of their faith or anti-theism, others their indifferent complacency. But there are many others who will listen and consider the importance of new research findings and inferences, new understandings and insights.

Among them are those who open-mindedly seek an informed, functioning balance of existential and spiritual identity. Some don't even mind being a "fool for Christ," as the Apostle Paul used that phrase, but will not be a simple fool--the kind of fool who is closed-mindedly blinkered to information and ideas that may conflict with or challenge their beliefs and identity, particularly their religious or ideological identity. For if it is the truth they seek, they must be open to what the truth might be.

These are often people of deistic faith and prayerful dispositions, sometimes contemplative dispositions. Perhaps they are genetically predisposed (as research evidence suggests some may be). And perhaps their temperament (which is also likely genetically influenced) renders them more open to following a spiritual intuition or inclination. Of course, some may be more influenced by family and religious acculturation. Regardless, many people appear to have a constructive, emotional need for faith and prayer. They feel drawn, even called to it. Many of us relate to it in just that way, and it makes us more whole.

For some, that wholeness is advanced by transcendent, sometimes transforming spiritual experience, experience that often defies fair and useful description. Often attending it is a received sense of gratitude and peace. These are most often people whose spiritual journey has delivered them to a more devout, exploratory prayer life and experience of God, experiences not bound by the limitations of rigid fundamentalism, constrained scriptural understandings, or brittle theological barriers. And they share no space with religious legalism of any stripe or degree. But they can share a Spirit of love, forgiveness and compassion, an experience of "relationship"--and as often, a quiet, patient but engaged openness that offers more freedom and clarity of view, more insight and understanding. And it all can change you.

This more open, contemplative experience can allow us to see in the realities of the material world, and the evolution of humanity in community, the creation and work of God. Every new scientific revelation about it all, every new understanding informed by reason, can be openly considered, and allowed to find its place in the larger reality of a merging existential and spiritual life. You may also feel moved toward Wright's "non-zero-sumness," an expanding sense of commonality, even inclusiveness and community, toward all other people. For, whether you view all this as some variant of the theological, exegetical notion of "progressive revelation," or merely the evolution of our understandings of God, we by nature (or purpose) seek to reach higher, to understand more, to become more.

But on this spiritual walk to higher ground, a growing sense of humility appears essential. The more humility we can bring to this process, the more open and contemplative our prayerful time can become, it seems, and the more clear and unburdened, even transcendent, our understanding of the world and our sense of identity. And the more open we are to expanding our experience of what some people of faith call the Spirit of God.

Some of us embrace a Christianity of that type: an open-minded pilgrimage with Christ and the Spirit of God, with Mystery. But we must be intellectually and spiritually honest. For the more one enters into that type of faith and prayer life, the more personal the experience and relationship becomes. And the more important it becomes to recognize how powerfully the language and traditions of faith culture and society shape how we understand those experiences. That is, they inform the inferences and abstractions we become reliant on to find meaning, direction and purpose in those experiences. If we are to be intellectually and spiritually accountable, then, we must also look beyond our personal inferences and abstractions, and those shared or recorded by others of our faith tradition. We must explore those of other faith, contemplative, and philosophical traditions--and the work of research science, too--that also inform our experience, that affirm, augment, or advance our understandings.

So thank you, Robert Wright; I think you're onto something--and to Simon Conway Morris, too. But more, I'm grateful for the insights of the Psalms, Sufi and Chan/Zen poetry, and the understandings given up by my faith Scriptures and reverenced texts across faith traditions. For if we would seek some semblance of physical, emotional and spiritual balance, we must pursue well informed personal understandings of the existential and spiritual directions implied by life and humanity in community—and yes, of Higher Purpose, too. And in that process, we must also honor and wrestle respectfully with the complexities of identity, and pursue intelligently the possibility and purpose of doing something useful and honorable with it.

Yes, then, we should entertain that continuing invitation to be more adventurous in those inquiries and pursuits. And as essential and illuminating as research science is, we must also recognize that quite often only the process of reasoned inferences and conceptual abstractions will serve. I'm certainly grateful for how they invite me to think more broadly and comprehensively, more critically, more profoundly about my experiences and understandings of humanity, spirituality, God and faith.

[Posted also to What God?]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/31/AR2009073102033.html

Cheney Inadvertently Rehabiltates Bush (Sort Of)?

Cheney uncloaks Bush frustration

WASHINGTON - In his first few months after leaving office, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the "far left" agenda of the new commander in chief. More private reflections, as his memoir takes shape in slashing longhand on legal pads, have opened a second front against Cheney's White House partner of eight years, George W. Bush.

Cheney's disappointment with the former president surfaced recently in one of the informal conversations he is holding to discuss the book with authors, diplomats, policy experts and past colleagues. By habit, he listens more than he talks, but Cheney broke form when asked about his regrets.

"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming. It was clear that Cheney's doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times — never apologize, never explain — and Bush moved toward the conciliatory."

... "When the president made decisions that I didn't agree with, I still supported him and didn't go out and undercut him," Cheney said, according to Stephen Hayes, his authorized biographer. "Now we're talking about after we've left office. I have strong feelings about what happened. . . . And I don't have any reason not to forthrightly express those views."

---"Sources: Cheney uncloaks Bush frustration," by Barton Gellman, New York Times, as reported on msnbc.com (8.13.09)

So, Dick Cheney has decided it is time to speak out about President George W. Bush--and on the record. He is writing a book. What a surprise. And if we think about it, we should not be surprised that he feels it necessary to criticize and further undermine the president he served in order to defend and burnish his own legacy--at least among his oddly anachronistic following at the trailing edge of American society.

But something ironic may inadvertently result from Cheney's self-serving mission: he may make George W. Bush appear a better, stronger man than we gave him credit for. At least that's my surprised, personal response to it all. In his criticism of Bush for distancing himself from the VP and his influence during his second term, Cheney has managed to make Bush look wiser, more presidential, stronger, even more likable--certainly compared to the frightening persona of the Dark Lord. I found myself feeling sympathetic toward Bush for the first time in many years. A modicum of belated respect fought hard for recognition against the dark memories of the Bush presidency.

But don't get me wrong. It appears clear by now that a hapless and less-than-adequate George Bush was quite capable of authoring a lot of misdirected and ineffective government completely on his own. He didn't need Dick Cheney for that; Cheney just made it a lot worse. For, much more than most presidents, Bush clearly needed to be influenced and supported by smarter, wiser men and women. Just as clearly, he made some disastrous choices in that area. But now, somehow, I am a little surprised, even a little relieved and heartened, to find that by the beginning of his second term, he likely rued the day he had been so unwise as to bring such a willful, arrogant, ideological power monger as Dick Cheney to a place of such influence.

But was he as insecure a man and weak a president as portrayed? Well, most of us came eventually to recognize that he was a man short of the requisite intellectual qualities, a vision of government and statesmanship, a vision of the future and--importantly--strength of leadership and confidence. But it now appears that by the end of his first term, he had actually developed some sense of presidential identity and confidence apart from Dick Cheney. He had become more his own man and, perhaps, more a leader. Still, by personality and judgment he would nevertheless hard-headedly follow his decisions and policies through--probably for lack of any sense of what else he might do, and the absence of more temperate, centrist voices among his advisers to guide him. But if I could get past the way I viewed him and give him a more objective look, were there later signs of a better President G.W. Bush?

Yes, there were some welcome signs of change toward the end. He was at long last moving toward a process for extricating us from Iraq, even if the timing was purposefully fuzzy, as was the criteria and process for staged departure. However controversial, his financial team of Bernanke and Paulson, with the President's full and public support, took the right and necessary first steps to address the crisis in the financial markets and--of critical importance--moved quickly. And even if the process and prescriptions were not perfect (after all, there was little history and research to guide them), an economic disaster of 1930s dimensions was likely avoided as a result. To Cheney's dismay and disapproval, Bush rightly if belatedly fired Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, even though his own reputation and credibility were already significantly damaged by the time he did so. And then there was the President's unexpected, uplifting stand on the conviction of Scooter Libby. On principles of justice and fairness, there would be no pardon for Libby--no matter how vociferously, arrogantly and disrespectfully Dick Cheney argued for it, no matter how entitled Cheney felt.

I can't help but entertain the view that what changes did evolve and express themselves as better leadership were, in large part, a result of the President no longer indulging Dick Cheney. He apparently no longer had the same standing and access, the same credibility and influence. (And I didn't even know!) But too late--far too late in the hapless Bush presidency to make a difference on the issues and failures that will define his place in history. Yet, it may nevertheless prove modestly rehabilitating to Bush's image--at least in the last years. And, if these resentful, spiteful revelations by Dick Cheney reflect a little better on George W. Bush, that's all right with me.

Postscript: Toward the end of George Bush's presidency, it was reported that, cloaked in light humor, the President wryly offered this lesson from his experience: Don't allow the chairman of your vice president's search committee to recommend himself for the job. Live and learn? Yes, but at such a cost.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32398177/ns/politics-washington_post/

The Fellowship/The Family/The Christian Mafia

Doonesbury this past week cast some light on a troubling "Christian" organization operating out of Virginia and Washington, DC--an organization that quietly, even furtively, recruits the powerful in government and business, both in the US and around the world. They call themselves "The Fellowship," or more informally, "The Family," and their leader, a man named Doug Coe, has sometimes referred to them as the "Christian Mafia." And no, I'm not making this up. I am not kidding.

[To see last weeks Doonesbury strips, click here at The Daily Dose (Slate). Just scroll down to the strip and click on "previous" until you get back to last Monday's strip. And just under the strip, you can read a cute quote from Doug Coe.]

Over a period of decades The Fellowship have recruited and cultivated close relationships with many in government, primarily Republicans, including a considerable list of household names, including presidents--ostensibly to provide conservative Christian influence and mutual support in their leadership roles. However, what from one view could appear a good influence and helpful support organization, from another can more soberly be seen as a co-opting quasi-religious/political organization trafficking in power and influence. And the more you look into them, the more they appear to resemble the latter. And, in turn, the more you can be unnerved by the lack of transparency, understanding of roles and reciprocities, and accountability of the organization and, by extension, their government "friends."

Recently, there have been a spate of revelations about extra-marital relationships involving at least one senator, a congressmen and a governor. It turns out they all had or soon developed a close relationships with The Family. Quite a number of senators and congressmen have also resided or now reside at The Family's C Street meeting house in DC. And the list of unsavory, disreputable international rogue leaders in relationship with The Family and supported by them over the years is even more troubling. All somehow, inexplicably, part of Coe's approach to, and goal of, a "totalitarianism of God."

Before the Doonesbury strip last week, I knew very little about The Fellowship. I had read an unsettling article about them in Harper's some years ago, but figured it must be an exaggeration; I just forgot about it. It's author, Jeff Sharlet, is a young man who actually spent some time with a Fellowship-run residential youth group in Arlington, Virginia. And he now has a new book out titled, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. And David Kuo, former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and Deputy Director of the White House Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives, has also published a book about The Family titled, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. I have only read excerpts from and references to these two books, but reviews assure me they are fascinating if unnerving reading.

Scary stuff. And yes, there's more. I would suggest your next stop might be Wikipedia, which you can access directly by clicking here on The Family. Buckle up, pilgrim.

Was Sgt. Crowley Stereotyped, Profiled?

David Wright is a Black American, just like Henry Gates. And like Professor Gates, Dr. Wright is a scholar and author. He is an associate professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. And in 1999, while a faculty fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard (directed by Professor Henry Gates), he had a real black profiling experience one evening walking with a friend.

As a black scholar similarly situated to Henry Gates, he has some unique insights on status, privilege and playing the race card. In his recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (7.30.09), "The Profiling of Sgt. Crowley," Wright's subheading asserts: "The reason for Gates's arrest? His own hubris." It is worth the read. Excerpts from that article:

...The officer who stopped us unlocks the cuffs. He explains that a house has been broken into in the adjoining neighborhood. "And you're stopping all black men on the street!?" Arnold or I or both of us said.

He doesn't reply. He doesn't apologize.

In that instance, and in others before and since, I used, or attempted to use, my class privilege to extricate myself from, or at least lessen the potential threat of, an encounter with the police. That night, Arnold and I had been joking and laughing (maybe even shucking and jiving) before being stopped. Yet though we'd done nothing wrong, I immediately switched to a mainstream style of speaking when addressing the officer, and called attention to my professional status. It was reflexive. I'd been in situations like that since I was a kid, and had responded at times in an accommodating manner; at others, belligerently, and had come to understand that the best way, however demeaning, is accommodation.

So when I read the details of the confrontation between Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James M. Crowley of the Cambridge police, I recognized the situation.

Gates acknowledges having brought up race. Gates, in an interview with his daughter for the online magazine The Root, recalled asking Crowley, "Is this how you treat a black man in America?" (The official police report says that Gates stated it as accusation, pugnaciously, repeatedly, and loudly.) The subtext of Gates's words, even calmly articulated, is clear. Gates was accusing Crowley of behaving in a racist manner; by extension, Gates was calling Crowley a racist, to his face, in front of other officers, at least one of whom is black.

Those are fighting words. And Gates knows it....

The brouhaha surrounding the July 16 arrest strikes me most for the reasonable voices that have lost all sense of reason in response. From President Obama to the countless others who have weighed in, all focus has been, in one way or another, on the victimization of Gates. Professor Gates has become a stand-in for the "average black man," subjected to humiliation and abuse at the hands of a racist police force. But Gates, while obviously black, is not a stand-in for the many African-Americans, men and women, who daily are victims of profiling and worse.

Was Gates profiled? Richard Thompson Ford makes a compelling argument on Slate that Gates was not. Sgt. Crowley was responding to a potential crime in progress; he was performing his duty, by all indications, in a professional manner.

The more interesting question, it seems to me, is, was Crowley himself profiled—as a racist police officer? The answer is, unequivocally, yes—not only by Gates but by the rest of us, in newspapers and magazines, online and on TV, even by the White House....

If you are interested in reading my earlier essay/post on this topic, you can find it by clicking here on the title "Henry Gates, Obama: Mistakes, Misjudgments."

http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Profiling-of-Sgt-Crowley/47508/?utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

Health Care "Debate": Distortions, Lies Abound

WASHINGTON - Confusing claims and outright distortions have animated the national debate over changes in the health care system. Opponents of proposals by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats falsely claim that government agents will force elderly people to discuss end-of-life wishes. Obama has played down the possibility that a health care overhaul would cause large numbers of people to change doctors and insurers.

To complicate matters, there is no clear-cut "Obama plan" or "Democratic plan." Obama has listed several goals, but he has drawn few lines in the sand.

The Senate is considering two bills that differ significantly. The House is waiting for yet another bill approved in committee.

--"Distortions rife in health care debate," Associated Press, reported on msnbc.com

I suppose we can't be surprised. I too have been getting e-mails misrepresenting provisions of one or another of the various health care proposals--which, by the way, are still very much works in process. Of course, a lot is at stake, and there are a lot of very interested parties. Users of health care, those 58 million in need of health care, and health care providers would seem to be voices of notable importance. But sadly, we don't hear as much from them, even though access, cost, financing and the context for medical services are very important to these groups.

No, the most active and misleading players are the health insurance companies and their quiet lobbyists, Republican leaders in Congress, other groups of the ideological Right, and--of course--populist conservative media operatives like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. These are most often people who have or can afford health insurance, but have no interest in contributing to financing health insurance for those who don't have it and cannot afford it. And ironically, neither do they appear to have serious interest in reforming the health care system to control and reduce cost. This is not our proudest political moment.

So we now have these folks desperately opposing needed health care reform--needed to both control and reduce health care costs, and to assure access for all. But they have moved past fair and open debate of the real possibilities and proposals, and on to distortions and lies demonizing the process and the possible results. This is not new, of course. This is too often the case when financial and minority political interests see no other way to protect their interests, even when it will be at the expense of the very people to whom they are misrepresenting things.

Lets look at some examples from the AP article:

A look at some claims being made about health care proposals:

CLAIM: The House bill "may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia," House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said July 23.

Former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey said in a July 17 article: "One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years ... about alternatives for end-of-life care."

THE FACTS: The bill would require Medicare to pay for advance directive consultations with health care professionals. But it would not require anyone to use the benefit.

Advance directives lay out a patient's wishes for life-extending measures under various scenarios involving terminal illness, severe brain damage and situations. Patients and their families would consult with health professionals, not government agents, if they used the proposed benefit.

CLAIM: Health care revisions would lead to government-funded abortions.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council says in a video, "Unless Congress states otherwise, under a government takeover of health care, taxpayers will be forced to fund abortions for the first time in over three decades."

THE FACTS: The proposed bills would not undo the Hyde Amendment, which bars paying for abortions through Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor. But a health care overhaul could create a government-run insurance program, or insurance "exchanges," that would not involve Medicaid and whose abortion guidelines are not yet clear.

Obama recently told CBS that the nation should continue a tradition of "not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care."

The House Energy and Commerce Committee amended the House bill Thursday to state that health insurance plans have the option of covering abortion, but no public money can be used to fund abortions. The bill says health plans in a new purchasing exchange would not be required to cover abortion but that each region of the country should have at least one plan that does.

Congressional action this fall will determine whether such language is in the final bill.

CLAIM: Americans won't have to change doctors or insurance companies.

"If you like your plan and you like your doctor, you won't have to do a thing," Obama said on June 23. "You keep your plan; you keep your doctor."

THE FACTS: The proposed legislation would not require people to drop their doctor or insurer. But some tax provisions, depending on how they are written, might make it cheaper for some employers to pay a fee to end their health coverage. Their workers presumably would move to a public insurance plan that might not include their current doctors.

CLAIM: The Democrats' plans will lead to rationing, or the government determining which medical procedures a patient can have.

"Expanding government health programs will hasten the day that government rations medical care to seniors," conservative writer Michael Cannon said in the Washington Times.

THE FACTS: Millions of Americans already face rationing, as insurance companies rule on procedures they will cover.

Denying coverage for certain procedures might increase under proposals to have a government-appointed agency identify medicines and procedures best suited for various conditions.

Obama says the goal is to identify the most effective and efficient medical practices, and to steer patients and providers to them. He recently told a forum: "We don't want to ration by dictating to somebody, 'OK, you know what? We don't think that this senior should get a hip replacement.' What we do want to be able to do is to provide information to that senior and to her doctor about, you know, this is the thing that is going to be most helpful to you in dealing with your condition."

CLAIM: Overhauling health care will not expand the federal deficit over the long term.

Obama has pledged that "health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it."

THE FACTS: Obama's pledge does not apply to proposed spending of about $245 billion over the next decade to increase Medicare fees for doctors. The White House says the extra payment, designed to prevent a scheduled cut of about 21 percent in doctor fees, already was part of the administration's policy.

Beyond that, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the House bill lacks mechanisms to bring health care costs under control. In response, the White House and Democratic lawmakers are talking about creating a powerful new board to root out waste in government health programs. But it's unclear how that would work.

Budget experts also warn of accounting gimmicks that can mask true burdens on the deficit. The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says they include back-loading the heaviest costs at the end of the 10-year period and beyond.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Please be wary of what you are hearing or reading from these desperate financial and political interests--those who have fashioned, supported, and greatly benefited from the most expensive (by far), unfair and dysfunctional health care system in the advanced, industrialized world. They are often unctuous, very self-serving purveyors of misinformation, and they have no interest in, or intention of, letting you form opinions about health care reform based on a fair and complete presentation of the facts, possibilities and proposals. Fear is too often their stock-in-trade; distortions and lies are too often their currency.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32258640/ns/politics-capitol_hill