Insurance, Religion, and an Offer

[talon]

I've been keeping close track of the health care reform bills because what Congress decides and the president signs into law will have a direct effect on my personal finances. The more money I have to pay the government or their cronies, the less money I will have to support myself and my family and the less money I will have to devote to charity. It annoys me that our government, once a government that acknowledged we had the right to live our lives as we saw fit, feels they know better than we do what is best for us and how to live our lives.

In fact, the government is skating very close to causing us (Numenists) to say our religion mandates that we not participate in certain government-mandated activities.

There are some activities we agree are reasonable: taxes, much as we grumble about them, play an important role in keeping our country functioning (even if our elected employees have forgotten that taxes are meant to lubricate interstate and international communications and trade, to support our infrastructure of utilities, communication, and transportation, and to support our rights and freedoms via criminal and civil court, to protect us from invasion and from damage by other countries and to control the influx of immigrants, among other things), so we pay our taxes for the privilege of living in America. We support our soldiers even in the face of a government we think is abusing them (and some of us are either in the military or have near family in the military because we believe in supporting our country). We protest those laws and regulations our government tries to enact that we feel are too restrictive or that don't allow for individual circumstance.

In none of these does insurance figure. Not any kind of insurance. Insurance is not a government function, nor is it a government function for our government to give our tax dollars to support private industries, especially industries that are directly responsible for harming vast numbers of Americans. Our government should be protecting us from insurance companies. That our government seems to be choosing to protect and support private businesses over the welfare of most Americans means that we can't participate in this act.

It's not a political move, it's a religious one. Numenism is a religion that considers the family and community sacred and anything that causes harm to families and their communities is a violation of our religious covenant. Just as the Quakers abstain from serving their country as soldiers and the Jehovah's Witnesses abstain from certain medical procedures out of religious convictions, we Numenists must abstain from government mandated insurance coverage out of religious convictions.

As long as the choice exists to choose insurance or not without penalties imposed by the government, we're fine with insurance existing. If we choose to not drive, not own a vehicle, we aren't penalized for not carrying auto insurance; but we can't choose to not have a body. At least, not in the here and now, we can't.

For a long time, we thought we'd simply pay the penalty for choosing to not have insurance, if that is what happens. But we've been talking about it and debating theology over it and looking to our core covenants in Numenism, and we've come to the conclusion that if we have no choice about having bodies during our lifespan, then we must have choice in providing optimally for those individuated corporeal bodies. Being forced to give up resources we need to provide for our own care violates our religious prerogative. The creative generative force that brought us into being - what we call Dea Nutrix - has provided us with the means to care for ourselves. We joke among ourselves that Dea Nutrix gave each of us enough brains to preserve our hides and it is our duty, as creations of Dea Nutrix, to use our brains and resources to the best of our ability to keep us alive and healthy.

It ties into our doctrine of the cornucopia - we provide for our needs first, then what spills out, we share with others. Only we can determine when our cornucopia is full and how much spills out to share. No one else can dip into our resources with impunity and haul out however much they feel like taking without regard to our individual needs. Certainly no impersonal government entity can shake us down to take what they want as opposed to what we can spare. Numenists are generous people, and we are happy to share our surplus. The point is, it must truly be a surplus from which we give.

By all accounts, the health reform bill doesn't regard what is surplus, attaching its deduction to our gross income - what's inside our cornucopia as well as what is outside it. Taxation to support the American infrastructures of commerce, transportation, communication, and criminal and civil liberties comes from inside the cornucopia because these are things that affect all Americans relatively impartially. Health care is individualized and is not something that affects all Americans relatively impartially - some are healthier than others either by birth or by their own personal efforts or luck, and others are less healthy for the same reasons. Personal effort plays a much larger role in our health that it does in the maintenance of the roads or trade agreements. Taking a set amount of money from all individuals without regard to their actual survival needs violates our doctrine of the cornucopia and the duties imposed upon us by our birth under the aegis of Dea Nutrix.

There are all manner of complications and extenuating circumstances we've looked at. Some form of health savings is necessary, and so we've started encouraging and creating private health savings plans among ourselves and some of us have set up charity health plans to give money to other Numenist adherents for health issues - none are very large at the moment, but with diligence, they will increase. We are also encouraging our adherents to be pro-active in their health care and to take care of themselves so perhaps only a catastrophic health insurance would be needed or a liability plan in case we cause harm to others. Those suit our religion tidily, placing the onus on the individual as much as possible with the option for community support and purchasing only what we feel might be needed.

We have decided that if this bill does pass and imposes a fine for not having insurance, we will have to exercise our religious option and become religious conscientious objectors. As the only currently surviving Elder of Numenism, the burden of signing these forms will fall to me. I know that we've chosen not to proselytize in Numenism, it's one of our core doctrines, but I don't think that should extend to not recruiting new members. Numenism is sort of dying out - in the past 5 years, we've lost all our Elders to age but me, and we aren't replacing those who die in accidents, of disease, or of old age fast enough.

Recruiting isn't proselytizing. We need to change our mindset on this. I know there are a few people out there who are attracted to Numenism and might want to be more deeply involved, but we've been discouraging about it because we watched what happened to Wicca. That's not very survival-oriented, and we may go the way of the Shakers simply fading out after a couple of generations, leaving even less behind than they did if we don't change our ways. We need something between the free-for-all Wicca has become and the deep introspection Numenism has mostly been.

So, I'm exercising my Elder Option.

Anyone who is willing to adhere to the core doctrines* of Numenism is a Numenist, a Celebrant, and may enjoy the benefits of Numenism - including, if it comes to it, of becoming a religious conscientious objector to paying the health insurance fine or showing proof of insurance in filing with the IRS (should those things happen).

Anyone who wants to become a minister or priest in Numenism, I will personally undertake your training and education in Numenist ways. This does not mean I will travel to wherever you are to train you because you may live too far away, but I'd be willing to travel partway, and have decided to organize a weekend training seminar for those who wish to take advantage of it. I don't know yet if the seminar will be twice yearly or more often, but I will try for twice yearly somewhere in states in the middle of the country (Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Texas, or points in between) with one being in Oklahoma. They will probably be held outdoors at state parks in order to keep the expenses down as much as possible. You will have to contact me and RSVP if you plan to attend. I'll post details later, as I have them.

If you are interested in becoming a Celebrant, agree to adhere to our core doctrines and that's it. You are a Celebrant. You may, if you choose, contact me to tell me you consider yourself a Numenist and wish to be placed on a registry in case you need to claim a religious conscientious objection. We've ever kept a registry of members before, but times change and perhaps we should.

*Those core doctrines:


1. There is a creative generative force, which we call Dea Nutrix because we need names for things.


This force is divine in nature and is everything we see and don't see, all we perceive and don't perceive, extending into multiple dimensions, and has no specific gender we can comprehend so long as we are in our individuated corporeal forms. We can interact with it as if it were a single being or multiple beings, although we tend to believe it is either 5 beings or holds 5 distinct aspects of its being. The numena for which Numenism is named are aspects, avatars, essences, personifications, or otherwise differentiated forces with whom we enjoy direct personal contact. Altars or shrines may be erected to Dea Nutrix or to our own numena.


2. The focus of Numenism is on divinity through family and community, both spiritual and geographic.


3. Celebrations always pay tribute to the divine but are staged for the participants and always involve family, friends, and food


4. The doctrine of the cornucopia provides us with guidance in living our lives. That doctrine states that we must keep our personal cornucopias full, and share any excess. When our cornucopia is depleted, we either allow others to help us refill it and then keep it full, or we work hard to refill it ourselves even if it means not helping anyone else for a while - hard, but possible.


5. Charity is important because everyone is divine and deserving. Life is set up so it isn't fair, but we've been given the means and the resources to even things out. We see it as our divine duty to help when and where we can.


6. Our spiritual values are:
Acknowledge the sacred
Know yourself
Aid friends
Nothing in excess
Accomplish your limits
Praise virtues
Cultivate kinsmen
Respect age and wisdom
Continue learning
Cause no willful harm
Make reparations where possible
Betrayal is our only sin


7. Our primary symbol is the cornucopia. Other symbols we recognize with a religious connection to Numenism are: the eternity symbol, the acorn (beginnings, hope, handfastings, remembrance tokens), the bee (community, protection, charity), the spiral (learning and moving on), the cauldron (charity), and the onion (layers).


8. Magic works. For us, it works through observation, understanding, and action. Trends, patterns, and layers provide the information we need, education the understanding, and our will the action to make the magic happen.



9. Our 2 religious holy days are: August 19 - Founding Day and December 12 - Cookie Day. The first is celebrated with a picnic or feast and a recitation of the Story Ropes or history of Numenism and the second with cookies and divine stories.