I have been thinking of making use of my Amazon account to purchase a couple of books. The total cost of the two just exceeds the $25.00 minimum to qualify for free shipping. (The double purchase is, in effect, a cost saving measure.)  During the past couple of weeks, there seems to have been a coming together of various bits 'n' pieces from varied sources. I will try to walk through my perception/thinking process without tripping or getting lost.

The two books are: The Presidents and Their Faith by Darrin Grinder and Bad Religion by Ross Douthat. One of D. Grinder's premises is that experience, rather than affiliation with and participation in a faith tradition, determines the moral choices made by an individual, even presidents. R. Douthat's premise is that the American Christian tradition is largely responsible for its own demise.

A few weeks back, Chris Hayes had Jonathan Haidt as a guest. He is the author of Why Good People Are Divided. He speaks about the concept of "confirmation bias." Intuitions precede reasoning. All of us look for and develop a rationale for our positions after we have effectively "decided" upon those positions. Let us acknowledge "justification after the fact;" increased civility will likely ensue. I prefer to think of it as "affection" rather than "intuition." We fall in love with or become aware that we simply like something. We then go about selectively gathering data and establishing a supporting rationale to intellectually legitimize where our "hearts" have taken us in the first place.

The Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act and Chief Justice Roberts' role gets tossed into this mix as well. The long term consequences and equally unintended consequences of this decision are yet to unfold.  And finally, the appointment of Bishop Gerhard Mueller by Pope Benedict to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith appears to be another one of those "sit up and take notice" events. Just when everything seems to point to a return to 1567, the Pope picks an individual for a crucial position, who is considered a heretic by the traditionalists in the Church. Is the Spirit at work or has the Pope acted on his affection for a long term associate?

We aren't out of the woods just yet--reference the article reporting on the recent re-ordination of six former Episcopal priests within the personal ordinate for those Anglican/Roman Catholics. One of the newly re-ordained is quoted several times citing the reason for his decision to affiliate with Rome, that being his desire for an absolute authority. I am not so sure that absolute certainty in any area of human knowledge, as well as in faith and morals, is within the capacity of the well formed human intellect. From a religious perspective, there would be no need for faith, if there was absolute certainty or a legitimate expression of absolute authority within the sphere of human activity.

Where does all this end up? Did I trip up or trip you up? Am I lost or did I get you lost? For me, I come away with a good deal of optimism. Or is it just my own confirmation bias? If it is, that's okay too. For now, I will continue reading The Pine Island Paradox by Kathleen Dean Moore and take comfort.