I don't believe in [the divinity of] Jesus but I do believe in Bono...

 In a very compelling, short video, Bono, the lead vocalist of U2 talks candidly about his spiritual and religious beliefs.  
I don't believe in Jesus, but I do believe in Bono, so I found the video compelling. However, Bono is a far more brilliant musician than he is a religious historian (or even demographer of contemporary religious affiliation because far fewer than half of the planet is Christian).
Bono, like so many today, misuses the word messiah. It means anointed ones (all Jewish kings were anointed ones) and more loosely messenger, but is not at all synonymous with divinity. When Jesus was asked who he was, he repeatedly described himself as "bar nasha" (son of man).
Bono argues that because so many people cannot be so wrong for so long, modern Christians must be right. This would only be true if the popularity of an idea makes it true, or if we have few or no examples of wildly popular ideas that were later shown to be wrong. We bled people for centuries to get the bad humors out and thought the Earth was flat and a few thousand years old, but that doesn't mean these ideas were correct. Billions believe in astrology but this does not make it true.
Also, this same reasoning could be applied to the billions of people who adhere to non-Christian faiths, some far older than Christianity. Since there are far more non-Christians than Christians, does this mean that they are right and Christians are wrong (modern Christians claim exclusivity so some hybrid reality is not admissible)?
Christianity reached Europe and Ireland not so much because of its compelling narrative but because it had become the exclusive religion of the Roman Empire shortly before it collapsed. All other competitive belief systems and their followers were systematically hunted down and killed or forced to convert. We simply don't know how many people in Europe, if free to do so, would not have renounced the faith of their fathers for this Mediterranean import because they were not free to do so. Throw in a public burning or two, torture a few dissenters to death, and you have yourself a totalitarian theocracy that held huge swathes of Europe in its grip until the Enlightenment.
At any rate, Bono is assuming, as many modern Christians do, that his conception of who Jesus was and what he represents has been accurately portrayed, faithfully transmitted and translated, and that he has had an opportunity to be exposed to alternate hypotheses and seriously consider them. Bono's faith was not something that occurred to him through divine revelation but was passed along to him as an accident of geography. Were his parents Hindu or Ireland a predominantly Muslim country, I might be impressed with his reaching out and finding Christianity spontaneously and by choice, but there is a certain inevitability to what he considers a miracle. Again, it could be true that people in Western and Northern Europe and their former colonies are correct and that billions of other human beings, most people on the planet, are incorrect, but then this argues that god is not universal and transcendental but regional.
Bono has a right, as do all of us, to imagine god or gods in our own way, to choose saints or intermediaries that personalize an otherwise unapproachable, distant deity, but my point is a simpler one: Jesus never said he was divine. None of those who knew him claimed that he was divine. Paul (who never met him) did not believe he was divine. Half of the first few centuries of Christians did not believe he was divine.
It's very possible, of course, that he was divine and simply failed to mention it, but this seems a rather glaring omission for what  modern Christians especially of the evangelical variety consider a core tenet of their faith.
And by the way, even if Jesus did claim divinity (he didn't), this does not mean that he was right. It doesn't mean he was lying or even delusional either. Many men throughout history, even great teachers (which I believe he was), have simply been wrong.

GOP Senators Call For Special Committee To Investigate Their Special Committees April 1, 2014

April 1, 2014:  Another one!  This is really a crazy news day!  And it's not even 6 a.m.!

GOP Senators Call For Special Committee To Investigate Their Special Committees

AP Photo

Sahil Kapur – April 1, 2014

A trio of Republican senators is pushing for a special committee to investigate all former special committees, especially the committees investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left four Americans dead.

"We are calling for the appointment of a Joint Select Committee to investigate why so many special committees have been called to investigate the terrorist attacks on our compounds in Benghazi, not to mention the pseudo-scandals of the IRS investigating groups requesting special tax status, or the countless hearings on the war on religion through the guise of healthcare access by women," said Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) in a statement Tuesday. "It is imperative that we learn everything that happened before, during and after the appointment of the committees.  At what point should committee members exploring Benghazi, for example, have known that this was an unfortunate outside job done by people who do not like us very much, whoever is president?   Before the 32nd or 33rd hearing perhaps?   Let's face it, far more embassy and consulate staff died during the Bush administration, and 9-11...  Let's not even go there.  A Joint Select Committee should be established to help the American people understand our compulsion to form another CEBP" using the acronym for a Committee to Embarrass a Black President.

The push comes as House Democrats are admitting that House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) has actually done a pretty good job probing purported Obama administration mischief over the attack.  "The more he cuts off other Congressmen's mics, the more he holds hearings that go nowhere, the more he looks like a complete asshole," said an Obama administration official speaking on condition of anonymity.  "Benghazi, IRS, Fast and Furious, hell let's have Issa try to blame steroids in baseball (remember that one?) on President Obama.  As long as the Republicans spend millions of taxpayer dollars on hearings that go nowhere while not spending a dime on hearings as to how so many Americans can get guns so easily and shoot 20 schoolchildren in the face, let's say, the more out-of-touch the GOP will look."

Aware that the backlash to Republican over-investigation of the first African American president by so many white men in a virtually all-white party might hurt them at the polls, the GOP is hoping the Joint Select Committee to investigate their committee might make them appear to be doing something to get to the bottom of the problem.

"Some say it's Republicans who are behind all these congressional investigations of things that might embarrass the president," said Senator Graham.  "But how can we be sure?  Until we have a Joint Select Committee explore this issue thoroughly, taking as much time as it needs, then issuing a lengthy report on a Friday before a long weekend after the next election, we just won't know, will we?"

Senator Kelly Ayotte, the only woman among those calling for the Joint Select Committee, said she also wants the Committee to explore whether she is simply being used as a token female, a pretty face to make the GOP look less like disgruntled club of old white men, one of whom - Senator McCain - personally lost an election to a black man.  "This has nothing to do with gender or with race," she said.  "The fact that these wild allegations are floating around out there means they merit a Joint Committee to put them to rest.  When I asked my male Republican colleagues if there was any truth to accusations that I am being used for my gender, Senator McCain personally reassured me I wasn't, patting me on the back of my hand and telling me not to worry my pretty head about such things.  I am reassured, but are the American people?"

Ted Cruz Announces Resignation From Senate April 1, 2014

April 1, 2014   Another one!  This is a very strange day indeed.

   

   

                     

   

                                                                        

                                   

                               

Ted Cruz Announces Resignation From Senate

               

 By JULIET N. ROMEO April 1, 2014               

                                                    

Michael Stravato for The New York Times  Senator Ted Cruz on August 20, 2013, just before he shut down the government over healthcare reform, a move he now says he "deeply regrets".

In a hastily schedule press conference for 1:00 p.m. EST today  Senator Ted Cruz plans to announce his retirement from the Senate as soon as a replacement can be found via a special election.  Sections of the prepared comments to precede the press conference leaked to the press indicate that the Senator not only will admit he was wrong, but will apologize directly to President Obama.  

"I was wrong on my movement to shut down the federal government unless healthcare reform was defunded.  This was anti-democratic and dishonest.   It was immature.  It was disrespectful to the people of the United States of America who had elected representatives who they knew in 2010 would get healthcare reform done.  The fact that I opposed this single law was no reason to hold the entire government hostage to my demands."  

Mr. Cruz admitted that the fact that over 7 million Americans signed up through the exchanges despite the active opposition and refusal to participate by 26 Republican-led states, was the final straw.  "This demonstrates that support for this law is deep and strong."  Notably absent from his statement is any reference to "Obamacare"; instead he now refers to the law by its name - the Affordable Care Act - or simply "healthcare reform."

Those close to the senator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mr. Cruz apparently had a "come to Jesus moment" when he realized he just could not continue to call something a "train wreck" that had benefited so many lives already.  "Who am I to say that 48 million uninsured Americans should remain uninsured indefinitely just so that we can continue to make President Obama look like an ineffectual failure?"  Cruz will ask.  "Is it really consistent with my Christian faith to continue to fight for a status quo that kills 45,000 Americans a year, according to the best estimates of Harvard researchers?"   As a Harvard law school graduate, Mr. Cruz had particular respect for the study by Harvard researchers that linked 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of health insurance while showing that 59 million Americans, 22% of all adults between 18 and 65, lack health insurance.  

As Alex Seitz-Wald wrote months ago in The Washington Post, it will be much more difficult to alter or uproot the health care law now that millions have signed up and received comprehensive, affordable health insurance, often for the first time in their lives, so Cruz is ready to capitulate.  In a flourish of political hyperbole to which supporters and critics of Mr. Cruz have grown accustomed, he will admit that "perhaps at no point in the history of our great American Republic has any politician been so wrong for so long as I have."

He will not only ask for the forgiveness of the American people, but of the president, and encourage his colleagues to do the same.  "The game is up," his aides stated off the record.  "Everyone should know now that we were complete jerks on this issue, and if they don't, they will soon.  Unless we get ahead of this, offering a few sacrificial lambs like Senator Cruz, we will get crushed in the next election."

Although analysts dismiss predictions that the Republican party will go the way of the Whigs or the Know Nothings, they do see the similarities.  Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina who called Cruz's shutdown plan the “dumbest idea” he’d ever heard said Republicans could still survive the backlash to the success of the Affordable Care Act if they acted quickly and with determination.  "The key here is not to look weak, but we see how disastrous that whole 'stay the course' mentality was in Iraq.   It cost us the Senate, the presidency, and for a time the House, not to mention the lives of thousands of Americans.    Although I think Senator Cruz is being overly dramatic here - but then again, what do you expect from a guy who reads Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor? - not admitting we were horribly, terribly, unbelievably wrong is possible, if we instead just pretend we were for the plan all along.  Yeah, that will be a tough sell since not a single Republican voted for the Affordable Care Act and, sure, we have said plenty of nasty things about the law and the president and how it would raise healthcare costs, cause the number of the uninsured to skyrocket, and generally end Western civilization as we know it, but my staff is looking through past transcripts of all my speeches and press releases to see if there isn't something - anything - I said in favor of the law.  All Republicans should do the same."  

Not all Republicans are in any mood to do so.  Sarah Palin said she had nothing to apologize for.  "Look, if the death panels don't scare the hell out of you, consider all the illegal immigrants who will get healthcare under the president's failed legislation.  This is appeasement, just like in 1837 or 1937 or something all over again.  Don't you get it - if we admit Obama is right about anything then next thing you know, we will have to give him credit for killing Osama bin Laden and rescuing the auto industry.  We'll look like gosh darn assholes for keeping little kids from getting their chemotherapy. If we were wrong when we called Obamacare a failure, then the American people might think we were wrong when we called the economic stimulus a failure and cut it off prematurely.  I mean Americans in these small towns make great freedom-lovers and all those decisions through all those years mean our founding fathers fought too hard to abolish slavery for us just to be enslaved to the liberal media again."

Her Facebook status indicated that she was in shock and any pictures of her with Senator Cruz had been deleted from her account.  "I can't believe I fell for that stupid World War II Memorial stunt.  It was Cruz's idea - I always thought it was goofy.  And those old guys smelled."    

The Tea Party, founded in opposition to healthcare reform and whose support helped send Senator Cruz to Washington, issued a defiant statement through its normally reserved founder and financial backer, David Koch, that they would "continue to oppose any and all efforts to make comprehensive healthcare affordable and universal.  We don't care what the facts say - never have, never will.  We continue to believe that healthcare reform will be a disaster.   Insuring children and paying for their cancer chemotherapy only enables them and makes them dependent on a  government handout.  The free market is the best mechanism for allocating healthcare even if hasn't worked all that well for the past 40 years or so."  When asked what should be done about the tens of millions of Americans without health insurance, Mr. Koch said "deregulation and tax cuts" should work as well here as they worked in Sweden.  When it was pointed out that Sweden was a socialist country with high, progressive tax rates and a heavily regulated healthcare system, Koch said he meant Switzerland then.  "Whatever."  

Senator Cruz during a Speedo Meet and Greet in Texas.

To be fair to Mr. Cruz, he has always been in a tough spot. Now that he has admitted that the whole “defund or shutdown” movement was nothing but a reckless gambit for publicity, he requests that he and his family be given some privacy as he seeks repentance in Texas.   When asked about his future plans, he said he will become a lobbyist for healthcare reform in his home state or perhaps work as a Navigator to help guide people to the best healthcare options for them on the Affordable Care Act exchanges.   

One option is off the table, however:  he cannot work for the megachurch of his father, who told his supporters that he is furious with his son for "capitulating to that Kenyan communist in the White House."