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Just finished reading a cool book called The Warded Man. Found it in the library.

The book takes place in a world beset by demons. They arise every night from the core of the Earth. A lot of bad stuff happens to the main character, of course. To all three of them, actually. But the title character... well, it destroys any chance of him having faith. And he's talking about that to a priest, who is trying to convince him that there is a Creator and a reason for it all and a plan that could be understood if only the bigger picture could be seen.

It's not the first time I've seen a conversation like that in a book. But it brings up the same thought in me every time. Whatever I think of theology in our world, I know the truth of theirs. The priest is absolutely right. In their world, there is a higher power. There is a creator. No question. Their entire lives, their entire world... all part of a greater plan. The deaths of loved ones, the plague that rips through the town, the demons who slaughter anyone they can get their hands on, the betrayals and bandits and everything... all part of the plan. A plan that will eventually (almost) certainly bring triumph, glory, and (some measure of) happiness to the main characters. There is indeed a reason for all that pain and suffering and conflict and death.

That reason? Entertainment. For people like me who can pick the book up off the shelf and escape into it for a few hours.

Sometimes, I wish I could tell them. But it would be doing them no favors. Sort of feels like maybe I owe them something, though. And an apology isn't nearly going to cut it. Not after everything they went through.

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Related to the Coffee Party bit from yesterday...

I've been thinking for a while now that we have a real problem in politics here in the US (and quite possibly elsewhere, come to that). It's a very strange problem, and it's one that goes greatly against my deeply-held beliefs.

There is too much information, and it's too easy to get.

It is really strange to write that. I believe in freedom of information. I believe in purity of information. I believe that if we could all just speak plainly and truthfully the world would be a much better place, despite the loss of short-term pain saving social niceties (though of course there's still room for tact even after prioritizing blunt honesty). If I have a religion, it's that.

(What's odd is the conflict of that belief with my views on Wikipedia. Their idea is that if you just bring everyone together, the truth will eventually naturally rise to the top. Which kind of fits in with my views on the bigger picture and the desire to open the floodgates of information worldwide. Cut through the propaganda and let people see that the people on the other side are just that - people. Not the evil baby-killing monsters that some would have you believe. But Wiki's truth by consensus, the way they've set it up so that anyone can alter it to suit their own beliefs at (pretty much) any time, means that it's unreliable. Hearsay. Maybe the truth will generally rise to the top, but in any particular case you just can't be sure.)

Here's the problem, though... There's more information, available from more sources, than it's humanly possible to take in. You have no choice; you have to filter it. You have to pick and choose your sources. And when you do that, you're naturally going to gravitate towards the ones that fit your own worldview, your own preconceptions. And even if you decide to check out the others, it will be with the (perhaps subconscious) understanding that they have the wrong bias.

There's no longer a Walter Cronkite^* to give us all a reliable, even-handed view and tell us, "...and that's the way it is." You've got the Fox News people and the MSNBC people. The World Net Daily people and the Daily Kos people. And they all hold CNN and its ever-more-superficial coverage in contempt.

^*And how cool is it that the correct spelling of that name was in FireFox's built-in spell-check dictionary?

We've got two parties, with both sides becoming more and more polarized. And as that happens, each side turns more and more to its own sources of information. Which means that each side now effectively has its own facts. The people on the left know just as surely that Bush lied to get us into Iraq as the people on the right know that Obama's health care plan is a socialist disaster that's going to fund abortions with taxpayer money. And neither side is going to believe the other. Instead, they'll just turn to the "trustworthy" newscasters who give them the "real story" that reinforces what they already believe.

Which leads to the nuts out there who still believe, for example, that Obama doesn't have a valid US birth certificate and won't trust anyone who tells them otherwise. (Even though World Net Daily verified the thing a year ago.)

Information overload has broken the system. It's hard for me to accept, but it's clearly true. And I don't know how it's going to get fixed.

Kiva founder on Buddhism

(Crossposted to kiva)

A couple of weeks ago, after the Tiger Woods apology press conference, Matt Flannery, Kiva's founder, Tweeted his reaction:

"Thought Tiger used Buddhism in an uncommonly Christian context: faith, forgiveness and redemption."

That struck me as a rather odd take on the situation, especially from someone as worldly as he is. I responded, saying that those values were hardly unique to Christianity. His response didn't help:

"I agree. But, in the very American tradition of public apologies, tiger used buddhism in a place where Christianity is common."

My take on that (to which he didn't respond) was that this was perhaps due to the fact that Tiger actually is a Buddhist. I could understand the point that he was clearly using the standard fill-in-the-blanks post-rehab apology script, and yes, it's unusual to hear Buddhism stuck into that blank. But that doesn't change the fact that the reason he did so is that he actually is a Buddhist.

To me, it's especially jarring after the comments from Brit Hume of Fox News, in which he said that Tiger, in seeking redemption, would be better served if he turned to Christianity (and away from Buddhism).

What's your take? Am I misunderstanding? Reading too much into what Matt Flannery is trying to say? Is there a valid point that I'm missing? Or is he entirely missing Tiger's point, which was that he screwed up (so to speak) and, in seeking forgiveness and redemption, he's turning to his own faith?