24th December, 2008

MICAH TILLMAN

United States

Winter has officially begun here in the States, and it would seem the Weather (whatever that is) noticed.

INAUGURATION DAY: President-elect Barack Obama will be sworn into office on 20th January, 2009. PICTURE: PeskyMonkey (www.iStockphoto.com) "The latest stir about Inauguration Day - other than the fact that many (but not all) GWDCMA residents are afraid of the entire world showing up on our doorstep, stealing our parking spaces, clogging our roads, drinking all our water, overwhelming our hospitals, tying up our phone lines, etc - is over the fact that Rick Warren will give the invocation."

It's cold. Not as cold (at least here in the Greater Washington, DC Metropolitan Area) as the coldest I can remember.

But it's still cold.

It makes me wonder what itís going to be like on 20th January, Inauguration Day.

The latest stir about Inauguration Day - other than the fact that many (but not all) GWDCMA residents are afraid of the entire world showing up on our doorstep, stealing our parking spaces, clogging our roads, drinking all our water, overwhelming our hospitals, tying up our phone lines, etc - is over the fact that Rick Warren will give the invocation.

The fact that Obama embarrassed himself in his attempt to Warren's human rights question (back before the election) makes the fact that Obama wants Warren to say the official prayer at his inauguration intriguing enough.

The fact that Warren came out in favor of the California gay marriage ban has angered the American Left.

And the fact that Warren would participate in Obama's inauguration has angered American conservatives.

Put all that together and you've got a mighty confusing situation.

The other confusing situation in which Obama is currently involved is the Blagojevich Senate Seat Selling Scandal.

Both Obama and Clinton will be leaving the US Senate to take their new posts in the Executive Branch. (That is, Clinton will be, if she is confirmed by the Senate for the position of Secretary of State. But she will be, so it's not really an “if.”)

But that means Illinois and New York will both be one Senator short. (Each of the 50 states gets two Senators, no matter how large or small it is. That decision was part of the Great Compromise.)

And that means that the governors of Illinois and New York will have to appoint replacements, to serve out the rest of Obama's and Clinton's terms.

The charges are that Blagojevich, Governor of Illinois, wanted a little something in return from whomever he gave Obama's Senate seat. And yet, it seems, the investigation into him was revealed publically before he ever actually took any bribes.

So who knows what's going to happen there. What I do know is that there's something ironic about the whole thing, seeing as it's Christmastime. Gifts and secrets and whatnot.

Speaking of Christmas, the American Humanist Association has been getting all us GWDCMA residents in the Christmas spirit with its, 'Why Believe in a God? Be Good for Goodness' Sake' adverts.

Shouldn't it be 'Goodness's', not 'Goodness''?

Maybe not.

Anyway.

The reference, of course, is to the line from Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. But the philosophical assumptions built into it are less obvious-and more interesting.

It would seem the AHA (not as cool as A-ha, of course) thinks people believe in God in order to give them a reason to be good. God is the ground of ethics, and nothing more. We need God in order to have a reason for morality. Without God, there'd be no right and wrong, so to save the distinction between right and wrong, we believe in God.

I wonder whether anyone actually starts to believe in God-or keeps believing in God-because of the moral consequences of not believing in God.

It would seem that if such people do exist, they're already placing goodness above God (thinking that the reason to believe in God is to save goodness), and, therefore, are already pretty close to the AHA's preference for goodness above all else.

When you realise that God is goodness, however, the AHA's advertisement starts to look silly. If God is goodness, then being good because God wants you to is being good for Goodness'(s?) sake.

But enough of the philosophising. I've got to get back to work...Which, for me, is philosophising.

Um...

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Micah Tillman is a lecturer in the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America, and the curator of the WEeding Awards.

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