Dream Housing

I want my very own room. A room that I may rightfully keep others from entering. A room that I won't have to pay anyone else to be able to live in. A room that I won't be kicked out of for failing to pay any fees. A room that isn't more than I need.

It has to be in a suburb or in a city. I want to get away, but the hills and the country are too far away. The air is dirtier there, and life out there would involve more driving than life in the city or suburb. And more driving means more money spent on gass and less free time.

I don't want a house. I want to live by myself. Houses are made for 5 people, not 1. Why would I want to pay the price of housing 5 people, when I only need to house 1? Why would I want to live in debt for the next 20-30 years of my life paying to house 5 people, when I only want to house 1? I'll already be in debt that long trying to pay off my student loans.

I don't want to rent an apartment. Why would I want to pay someone else every month for somewhere to live, when I can own a place myself? And why would I want an apartment? A 1-room apartment is 1 room too many. I rarely cook on my own, and I kinda like the idea of eating nothing but trail mix and dried mango the rest of my life, so I really won't need a kitchen. It would have to be something like a kitchenless studio. It just needs to be big enough to have a shower sink and toilet, a closet for my clothes, and a room just big enough for bookshelves, a table and chair, and a mat with pillows and blankets.

I want to OWN it like a condo. But I don't want to be required to pay HOA dues just to keep owning it. I want to pay for the utilities on a per-use basis. I would be willing to pay for 1 security guard. I don't need a d! swimming pool. I won't be using a lot of gas, because (1) I won't be cooking and (2) I could wear clothes inside when it's cold. I won't be using much hot water, cause I could take sponge baths when it's not winter (and I don't need to bathe every day anyway).

The HOA is perfectly entitled to give me an incentive to pay my dues, like voting rights in town hall, but I should be able to opt out of that. I don't really need a say in swimming pool hours and how much they pay the night guard, and I want to be able to decide when I want that say, wouthout having it being a necessary condition or necessarily accompanying my right to live in my own room.

"But what if not enough people pay for a night guard?" Well then, I'll put up a sign at the front saying "WARNING. Armed Resident. Guess Which One." The bottom line is that I shouldn't be forced to pay for anything that I don't request, even if I directly or indirectly benefit from it.

"But if you benefit from other people's service then they have the right to force you to pay for it." Not if I don't ask for it. If an HOA can legitimately force me, on pain of eviction, to pay for security service that makes me safer, then it can also legitimately force me to pay for the provision of firearms and weapons training for all residents. That would make me safer, wouldn't it? Most of us can agree that it isn't fair to force people on pain of eviction to pay to arm and train their neighbors, even if it makes them safer, unless the payment is a term of the agreement under which these people got their property. And so, we should also agree that it isn't fair to force people on pain of eviction to pay for any security service unless the payment is a term of the agreement under which they got their property. The fact that I benefit from a service has no bearing on whether I should be forced to pay for it.

"But what if you 'forget' to pay the water and sewer bill?" Then they could cut off my water until I do pay, and if I decide I don't want their water or sewer I could buy tanks of water and go in bowls. And if the stench gets so bad that it becomes a public nuissance or even a public health threat, then they could fine me for causing a health threat or a public nuissance. They shouldn't be able to kick me out of my own room until it becomes very clear that I won't pay my fines, fix the ptoblem, or let anyone else fix the problem for me.

"But what if the contract you sign when you buy the room gives the HOA all these powers you don't want it to have?" Well, since I DON'T want my HOA to have these powers, I'll make sure to not sign any contract that DOES give them these powers.

"No one makes housing arrangements that affordable, that taylored to a suburban wannabe rugged individual's tastes, or that relaxed." Which is what I don't get. Don't people know that there are a lot of guys like me? I thought there would be noticeable demand for an arrangement where a man can live however he wants to in his very own space in a suburb or city so long as he doesn't bother anyone else. If there isn't this kind of demand, then I guess I must be the only one who doesn't want to always be insulted by other people's presence and who doesn't want to be charged for things he doesn't ask for. If there is this demand, then I don't know why it isn't met.

God, the Bible, and Moral Authority

The following essay was written in response to the question: "Do you believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God?" I thought that giving an answer one word shorter than this would be a disservice to myself and to the young lady who asked the question.

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The Bible may very likely be the inspired word of God. However, I do not believe that its divine inspiration gives it moral authority.

I do hope that you don’t find this to be a lame roundabout answer. It is the most direct answer that I can give, and if I were to answer any differently, this response would be at least twice as long as it is. I want this answer to address the most basic assumptions, and I can’t address those by examining whether a literary piece was actually written by such-n-such character. What you are truly asking about is not whether I believe that the Bible was written by God, but whether I believe those 66 books that have been handed down to us should be taken in their entirety as morally correct, and whether I believe we have a moral obligation to obey each and every precept contained in them. In other words, you aren’t asking me whether I believe that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, though those are the words you used. Instead, you are asking me whether I believe that all scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.

My reply could have been “well, WHICH books count as scripture? Are only the Gospels scripture, or the whole New Testament? What about the Old Testament?” But rather than ramble about how the Bible came to be composed, I will try my best to answer your question about whether I recognize the authority of the entire Bible as we have it. And so, for the purposes of this response, I will assume that the entire Bible as we have it IS the inspired word of God, and that it so closely reflects what God wants us to know that he may as well have written it with his own hand. I will now examine what this assumption implies.

Once we allow that the whole Bible as we have it is the inspired word of God, we can assume one of two things: either God wrote a fiction, or God wrote a non-fiction. Scriptural fundamentalists wish us to believe the latter, and would consider strange and even offensive the idea that God inspired the writing of a book that amounts to a fun romp through imagination land. And so, I’ll allow that the Bible in its entirety is a non-fictional account.

Once we assert that God wrote the Bible and that those historical events recorded in it actually did happen, we come upon theological or ethical loopholes to jump through. For, if God truly did write the Bible, and if the Bible is true, then those commands and those actions that the Bible alleges God to have issued and performed actually were issued and performed by God. Every action that the Bible says God did, and every command that the Bible says God gave, was done or commanded by God. This would mean that God actually commanded the Israelites to kill every man, woman, child, and animal in quite a few cities throughout Canaan land. It would also mean that God commanded that a whole family including young children and pets should be stoned to death because the father stole and hid some clothes and gold. It would mean that God at least condoned the sacrifice of a military leader’s daughter. It would mean that God himself burnt down entire cities with all the inhabitants. It would mean that God killed a king’s baby because that king committed adultery and murder. It would mean that God killed seventy thousand of that king’s subjects because that king ordered a census. It would also mean that God did or condoned all these things despite his own dictate that the fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers, but every man shall be put to death for his own sin. Very often it seems that we have to choose not just between parts of the Bible, but between the Biblical God and our own notions of morality.

Some people try to resolve this problem by writing off most of the Old Testament as allegory, fiction, or completely illegitimate. They start by assuming something about someone that they might not be entitled to assume. They presuppose that God must necessarily be morally good and incapable of committing actions we consider evil, and they go about selectively reading the Bible, calling “uninspired” those passages that don’t accord with their own moral sentiments and calling “inspired” those passages that do. A typical answer from them would be: “God is love. God definitely commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. But God could not have commanded genocide, or ordered us to implement a completely disproportionate and brutal justice system. And so though most of the New Testament applies, most of the Old Testament doesn’t.” You know as well as I that these people don’t take all of the Bible as fit for doctrine, instruction, etc. They even deny the divine inspiration of the Bible. This denial conflicts with the premise of my response. And so, for the purpose of this response, I will set this viewpoint aside.

Another possible solution could be to view God as a dynamic, developing character. Any straightforward reading of the Bible reveals a God who changes his mind. Throughout the Bible, God frequently decides to stop some catastrophe that he formerly was inflicting, or decides to act for the sake of someone who begs him to. These events illustrate the saying “Ask and it shall be given unto you.” This view of God presents prayer as an efficacious act, and not as some mere exercise meant to express God’s sovereignty. It makes God a person. And God according to this view is more sovereign than an unchanging God. Sovereignty implies control and volition. Someone who can’t change his or her own mind simply has no control over him or herself, and can’t be called sovereign. This view of the relationship between God and man seems to fit most closely with the relationship as portrayed in the Bible. And this view is completely compatible with both the inspiration of scripture and common sense morality. It doesn’t require that we leave on the wayside our idea of the individual’s right to live. It doesn’t require that we pick and choose between parts of the Bible. According to this view we can accept all of the Bible as a document written by a God who changes his mind. We can accept that God did and commanded some horrendous things, and we can accept that those horrendous things are morally wrong. There are two reasons that fundamentalists would be reluctant to accept this view. First, it divorces God from morality. By accepting that certain acts of God are immoral, it shows God as being capable of doing something immoral. (Of course, this is a bunk worry, because the Biblical alternative to accepting that the horrendous acts of God are immoral, is insisting that the horrendous acts are not immoral at all. It’s like a neo-Nazi accepting that Hitler massacred Europe’s Jews and insisting that all those Jews deserved it.) Second, despite its acceptance of the inspiration of scripture, it undermines the moral authority of scripture. It recognizes that some of the things condoned in the Bible actually are immoral, have always been immoral, and should never be committed by anyone anywhere anytime. It shows that not all of the Bible is fit for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. And once we adopt this view, we may as well stop trying and claiming to follow the Bible. It comes down to picking and choosing between passages of the Bible, just as the above-mentioned solution does.

There is a third possible solution, which unfortunately is very popular among fundamentalists and evangelicals. Those who offer this solution accept the inspiration and accuracy of the Bible and insist that all actions condoned, commanded, or committed by God in the Bible are perfectly moral, and that nothing condoned, commanded, or committed by God in the Bible is immoral. Like the first possible solution I mentioned, this view presupposes the idea that God must necessarily be morally perfect, and that nothing God does is immoral. But unlike the first solution, which assumes God to be essentially incapable of going against morality, this solution assumes morality itself to be essentially incapable of going against God. It defines morality as whatever God wants. And so, it was right that the Israelites killed everyone in Jericho, Ai, and other towns. Why? Because God said so. And it was right that a young man who collected dry sticks on the Sabbath was stoned to death. Why? Because God said so. And it is right that we all submit to the rule of a monopoly of violence and pay our taxes to support preemptive and non-discriminate wars. Why? Because God said so. Since what is morally right is whatever God wills, everything God does, commands, or condones is perfectly moral, no matter how disturbing or blatantly unjust. This view is similar to that of the above-mentioned neo-Nazi who admits that Hitler massacred Europe’s Jews and insists that all of them deserved it.

I fear that too few of us have faced the Euthyphro dilemma. Is what God commands moral because it is commanded by God, or is it commanded by God because it is moral? The last solution I mentioned says that whatever is commanded by God is moral simply by virtue of being commanded by God. This is called Divine Command Theory. Hypothetically, if God commanded us to execute a woman for being raped, then it would be moral for us to execute a woman who was raped, and it would be immoral to spare her life, simply because God said so. All morality, in this view, is contingent on God’s will. And there is no such thing as a right to live or a right to property or a right to do with oneself as one pleases. In this view there is no such thing as “right”, because whatever is “right” is just whatever God wants, and there are no objective rules to guide us in figuring out what is right.

The other horn of the dilemma states that what is right is commanded by God because it is right. According to this view, there are objective moral principles which make things right and wrong, and these principles are not contingent on the dictates of any being. No one’s saying so can make anything right or wrong. This is the most common-sense understanding of morality. We like to think of morality as being inherent, absolute, and objective – as existing in itself, regardless of the dictates of any king or president or anyone else. This is called Moral Realism. It claims that morality exists and is not subjective to whatever someone feels. It claims that there are moral rules which can be known and followed, and that things that are immoral are immoral because they violate these rules, and things that are moral are moral because they respect these rules. If this is the view of morality that we share, then we have to try to understand and express morality in terms of moral principles – not in terms of God’s will or what the Bible says.

If we believe that some things are right and some things are wrong regardless of what people say, then we have to accept that some things are right and some things are wrong regardless of what any authority says. If the Governor or the President were to issue an executive order commanding us to kill every child under the age of two, I can trust that both you and I would disobey that command. And why? Because we both believe that killing babies is fundamentally immoral, and that fundamental morality does not depend on political authority. We both believe (or rather, I believe, and I trust and hope that you too believe) that each of us is endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these rights is the right to live, and that this right exists prior to and regardless of government and human law. Our basic rights are objective, absolute, and universal. This is why we have the moral right to disobey unjust laws. This is why we have a right to revolt against tyrannical governments (and why we have a right to secede). We both understand that might does not equal right. We both understand that one’s ability to coerce another to kill does not make the killing right. We both understand that there is a Higher Law that preempts the laws of men.

If there is a Higher Law that preempts the laws of men, why shouldn’t we accept that this Higher Law also preempts the laws of God? After all, what is God? According to the most straightforward reading of the Bible, God is that than which there is none greater. God is the biggest, the brightest, and the most powerful. God is a very big king. And just like a very big king, God has the ability to issue immoral commands, but not the ability to change morality. Morality is objective and absolute. It is not subject to God’s will. “But God can punish you for disobeying him,” one may say. So? Hitler punished people for disobeying him, too. As did Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Roosevelt, Lincoln, and every other murderous tyrant. One’s ability to punish does not give one complete moral license. We have inherited from our forbears ideas about morality and authority that separate right and might. We know that kings and princes aren’t necessarily right. We know that parliaments, presidents, and congresses aren’t necessarily right. We should also be willing to speculate that God himself isn’t necessarily right.

Some people have marveled that I can be so sure about my ethics. “How can someone be so sure that they’re right?” I’ve been asked. “What will you replace God’s commands with? How can you be so sure that you know all the answers?” Frankly, I don’t have all the answers. I’m just strongly convinced that some things are flat out wrong, and should never be committed by anyone. I’m not proposing any “theory of everything”. I’m just concentrating on something that should be obvious to us – that it’s wrong to non-discriminately kill everyone in a city. And to doubt this intuition – to wonder whether one is always correct in following it – is to say that one isn’t quite sure that killing unarmed men, women and children is always and in all places wrong. It is to say that there just might be one situation where killing unarmed men, women and children is morally neutral or even right, and that it would be unnecessary or even wrong to oppose wholesale slaughter. Is that really a reasonable doubt?

And so, I ask you. If God were to command you to kill every child under two years of age in a particular city, would you obey him? “But God couldn’t command something like that,” you might say. Well, God might not command you to kill only every child under two years of age in one particular city. There’s no Biblical evidence suggesting he has or ever will. He might, however, command you to kill every man, woman, child, and animal in several cities. After all, he did command this in the Bible, and if we assume the Bible to be the inerrant and inspired word of God then we have to accept that God did in fact command people to kill babies and that God might be able to do it again. Deep down inside, I trust that you would disobey a command like this. You might still believe that God is necessarily moral, but you would probably insist that whoever would command you to do something like that couldn’t be God. This probably is because you have formed notions of morality that involve fundamental principles that are not contingent on anyone’s will and which are not prescribed in the Bible, and you have developed a method of determining which Biblical passages “count” and which ones “don’t”. Neither these notions of morality nor this method of interpreting the Bible are found in scripture. Though you may call yourself a fundamentalist, and though you may claim to regard the Bible as God-inspired, you deal with the uncomfortable parts of the Bible in ways that you did not get from the Bible itself and which differ from the ways you deal with other parts of the Bible. This doesn’t mean that you’re not a fundamentalist in the sociological sense. But it does mean that you aren’t a fundamentalist in the philosophical sense. No one is. Biblical fundamentalism doesn’t exist.

The concept of scriptural fundamentalism is useful as a sociological tool. It helps us understand various religions that are based on strict readings of certain texts. But it is not useful in philosophy or even theology. Scriptural fundamentalism doesn’t exist in its own terms. It is a logical impossibility. There is no set of religious beliefs based entirely and solely on a particular book. People who believe the Bible say that we should follow the Holy Spirit. When we ask them how we can tell whether we are being moved by the Spirit, we are told that the Spirit only moves us to do things that are Biblical. But when we ask how we could tell whether a thing is Biblical, we are told that the Spirit moves within us to help us interpret the Bible. When people look to the Bible for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, it’s not JUST the Bible that they’re reading. They’re also reading that thing they call “the Spirit”, which in any objective sense is really their own reason combined with all the norms they were programmed with during their lifetime. It’s impossible to read the Bible without cordoning off extant sections of it, and judging those passages according to standards that differ from the standards by which other passages are judged. When the Bible says “love thy neighbor as thyself”, we all say Amen and thump our Bibles. And when the Bible says to kill every man, woman, child, and animal in a particular city, we comfort ourselves with the thought that this command was issued a very very long time ago to a select group of people in a special situation on the opposite side of the world and that this command does not apply to us. The act of reading and digesting necessarily involves the act of interpretation. It is through an act of interpretation that we infer that commands to perform genocide (and to establish theocracies where numerous sexual and religious offenses are punishable by death, etc.) were directed at Biblical Israel and not at us. Since interpretation necessarily accompanies reading, there is no such thing as Sola Scriptura. There is belief based on interpretation of scripture, but there is no belief based on scripture alone. This is why I say there is no such thing as Biblical fundamentalism.

The Bible cannot be taken in its entirety as moral authority, since if we assume its divine inspiration and its inerrancy we must also assume that God is guilty of committing numerous things that we would normally consider monstrosities. If we call these things “monstrosities” when committed by men and “justice” when committed by God, we would be adopting a relativist notion of morality. We wouldn’t really have a moral system at all, since we would be blessing an action if committed by one person and condemning it if committed by anyone else. Any honest look at both the Bible and common sense moral sentiment would show a God who has not only committed horrendous acts, but who has done things that he himself regrets. Once we acknowledge that God as portrayed in the Bible has committed injustice, we have to admit that God is not morally perfect all the time (that is, if we assume that God wrote the Bible and that it is inerrant). We have to admit that God can issue some unjust commands which should not be obeyed. And since God can issue some unjust commands which should not be obeyed, we cannot read his book with the idea that it is some guide to living a flawless life.