tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44203226900400766752024-02-06T23:55:33.357-06:00Rusty's God BlogThis blog is not exactly what you think it might beRusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-79993146517823231432020-03-13T20:40:00.003-05:002020-04-05T02:29:25.863-05:00Trump Calls for National Day of Prayer to Stop Pandemic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sure, why not? In fact, go ahead and pray to every god.<br />
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<i>Pandemic</i> is a Greek word, so pray to the Greek gods for sure. Asclepius is the Greek god of medicine. Panacea is another good one, of course. We've got a few to choose from, just from this area alone.<br />
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Need some more? The Aztec god of medicine is Ixtlilton. Jengu is an African water spirit who cures diseases. The Irish goddess Airmed can even bring you back from the dead, if it comes to that.<br />
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Obviously this all started in the first place because the Chinese didn't give enough attention to their Li Tieguai, one of the Eight Immortals who can heal with his magical gourd.<br />
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Whatever works for you, and they all work the same. I've always favored Ningishzida, the Mesopotamian god of the underworld and patron of medicine, but that's just me.Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-59087097384592632532018-04-10T10:35:00.000-05:002018-04-10T10:35:10.422-05:00The Religion ShowI have a TV show now. It's called <i>The Religion Show</i>. It's not like the God Blog, and I'm doing a character, but it is about religion. Two episodes are up already. Enjoy!<br />
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZVzxN2Xyk88" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XfFU6P2Vo84" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-3696487399930018692018-02-15T21:14:00.000-06:002018-02-15T22:24:11.354-06:00Thoughts and Prayers and Sacrifice<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/thoughtsandprayersandsacrifice.jpg" align=left>I'm going to take your "thoughts and prayers" seriously for a second. I'll focus on the "prayers" part, since I don't know anyone who actually thinks you can send brain-thoughts through the air to other people. (So maybe stop saying that part of the phrase?)<br />
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So: prayers. I assume you're praying to the god of the Bible? Yes? So, the thing I notice about him is that he likes to eat meat. His modus operandi seems to be giving people land and slaves and stuff so that they will, in return, feed him meat. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, go read the Bible real fast. This is mostly what it's about.)<br />
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In the Bible, when people would "pray" to God, he would often appear in person or at least in a dream or a burning bush or something. Most people don't have the experience of seeing God anymore, but no one seems to mind. I guess this is why "thoughts and prayers" get linked together, since they both achieve the result of "nothing."<br />
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Which brings me to all the shootings, the constant slaughter-via-gun in our country. Millions of Christians are praying that it will stop. (Or they're "thinking" that it will stop, same thing.) But, of course, it hasn't stopped. We have about a shooting a week now, which is -- you know -- weird. But, yes, constant prayers flowing up (not that there is any such thing as "up," since we don't live on a flat earth as the Bible assumed, but I digress) to God. So why isn't he answering?<br />
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God isn't answering your prayers -- I am now proposing -- because he is hungry. "Hangry," even. He is hungry for meat.<br />
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Remember, in the early days, God demanded meat all the time. They called them "sacrifices" in the Bible, because you were giving up something that you yourself desperately wanted. You, too, were hungry and wanted to eat. I dare say you needed the food more than God did, but -- then again -- he's a very large-bodied deity (maybe? who can say?), so maybe he requires enormous amounts of food.<br />
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So, yeah, God demanded that his people give him meat, specifically from first-born things: first-born goats, first-born lambs, first-born humans. Yep, he even wanted your own children. If you're surprised by this, then -- <i>and I cannot stress this enough</i> -- go and read the Bible. Luckily, God did make an exception for children. He allowed a "scapegoat." You could give an animal instead of your son. A kid for a kid. Whew!<br />
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This meat-giving went on for quite some time, but then Rome destroyed the temple where most of the meat offerings were happening, and so it stopped. It hasn't been done for a while now.<br />
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A little before the offerings stopped entirely, Jesus (and here's where Christianity kicks in) came along and offered himself as a sacrifice. And, don't get me wrong, that was a sweet gesture and all, but it was only a single meal for God to eat. Since Jesus was a god himself (sort of? maybe?), perhaps he was even more filling, thus sating God for a couple thousand years--I don't know. I do know that people all over the world, to this day, pretend to eat Jesus's meat and drink his blood, so maybe some wires were crossed somewhere? Because we're not the ones who are hungry. God is.<br />
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Also, some people think you can offer prayers as sacrifices for God to eat, but how do you eat thought-words? Answer: you don't. Your thoughts and prayers intended to feed God do about as much as your thoughts and prayers intended to halt gun-caused deaths.<br />
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So I'll say it again, at the risk of sounding completely repetitive. God is starving after all this time, and he wants to eat meat again.<br />
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And here's the deal. As I said before, in the Bible, God would give men (it was always men) land and slaves and stuff in exchange for the meat. God also gave the men who fed him women to use as they wished (for sex and wealth through lots of children mostly), and he helped slaughter people indigenous to places God's people wanted to live in. Yeah, so God's already done that for America. He gave American men tons of land (remember Manifest Destiny?) and tons of slaves (as I'm sure you'll recall) and a bunch of women to generally abuse, and of course the Native Americans were dealt with easily enough. That was all thanks to God. He did it in the Bible; he did it again for our history books.<br />
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But America forgot their end of the bargain. We're all fat and happy (except the poor ones, of course, who God doesn't care about because they can't help him), but God is ravenous and angry. We didn't give him his meat sacrifices: no animals, no nothing. So, tired of waiting around, and of course generally indifferent to human suffering (as is the nature of God--again, please read Bible: start with the book of Job), he has started killing us. He's using hunters to get his food. This is why God isn't listening to you when you're talking to him. He's busy eating.<br />
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So maybe, instead of offering "thoughts and prayers," try slaughtering a lamb instead?<br />
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Look, I know this sounds weird, or like I'm making some sort of sick joke, but I'm pretty sure this is how God works. Remember, he likes meat so much that he didn't even accept the "sacrifice" of fruit from Cain. He only wanted brother Abel's meat. Did God eat Abel after Cain killed him? I don't know. I wasn't there. But probably.<br />
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When God told Abraham to cook his son Isaac, but then stopped it at the last second, was God's stomach growling so loudly by then that he had to immediately eat an entire ram? Yes, yes, read the book, yes.<br />
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Maybe it's embarrassing to you that you worship such a disgusting pig of a god, but I'm sure he has some redeeming qualities, too. (I didn't actually find any good qualities while reading the Bible, but -- as I've said -- much of the book was about land, slaves, forced sex, conquest, and meat consumption, so maybe there wasn't much room for, say, God's appreciation of dry humor.) Besides, don't feel bad that your god is just a hungry boor: most gods were like this. Ever read Gilgamesh? The gods "swarmed like flies" to the meat sacrifice of Utnapishtim. Disgusting. But that's just how gods are, I'm afraid.<br />
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Anyway, I'm letting you know: I've done the research, and this is almost definitely what God wants. So give up on the thoughts and prayers and start killing some animals and burning them on altars so that God doesn't come for your children next week in the form of a white dude with a semiautomatic weapon.<br />
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Or, if you want to try something <i>really</i> off-the-wall, we could just have sensible gun laws. Totally up to you.<br />
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<center>*</center><br />
<center>Stupid Dumb Fact That Makes Me Stupid:<br />
This post began as a tweet I wrote to Marco Rubio.</center><br />
<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/thoughtsandprayersandsacrifice2.jpg"></center>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-29031666940700770352017-10-07T23:33:00.000-05:002017-10-07T23:33:11.748-05:00Rusty's Halloween Chick TractI made this by cutting together a bunch of <a href="http://www.chick.com">Chick Tracts</a>, adding a few drawings of my own, and replacing the text. Happy Halloween!<br />
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<center><a href="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/chicktracts.jpg"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGV80U-DVULpL8uVqxjFCzh2U3f96noH856GQfWmx65xY-LOTX98eklB6JQzaZLCurB3lW-VGgF6MeuThUrkgBEnX7wQ6k4WBPU55k0xiMFRHjjscAmPtxSf0i7bHyqqqtDb2W9B7u2M/s1600/Chick+Tracts.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGV80U-DVULpL8uVqxjFCzh2U3f96noH856GQfWmx65xY-LOTX98eklB6JQzaZLCurB3lW-VGgF6MeuThUrkgBEnX7wQ6k4WBPU55k0xiMFRHjjscAmPtxSf0i7bHyqqqtDb2W9B7u2M/s640/Chick+Tracts.jpg" width="576" height="640" data-original-width="1440" data-original-height="1600" /></a></a></center>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-57644895065651251262017-05-14T02:20:00.001-05:002021-05-08T22:17:34.655-05:00Mother's Day Church Services<img align="left" hspace="10" src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/mothersdaychurchservices.jpg" />Once upon a time, someone had a seemingly good and obvious idea that eventually turned out to be horrible: "Why don't we honor all the mothers in church tomorrow for Mother's Day?"<br />
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A simple "Happy Mother's Day" from the pulpit, I suppose, would have been fine. However, what we now have in many churches (ask around if you don't know what I'm writing about) is a weird, time-consuming rose-based game show that looks very much like reality TV's <i>The Bachelor</i>.<br />
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"I have a handful of roses up here at the altar. Some of you will receive them. Some of you will not." The entire church gets to find out who the mother with the most kids is, who the newest mother is, who the oldest mother is, who the youngest mother is... often through some sort of elimination sit-down game. You can begin to see the problems with this already, I hope, and we haven't even got to the bad stuff yet.<br />
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There have been many articles (thankfully, though apparently not effectively) written about this bad stuff, which includes exclusion, insensitivity, ignorance, and a general stirring of painful emotions caused by the church that make many women dread the Mother's Day church service. A short list of who these articles mention include stepmothers, women who cannot have children, women who have had pregnancy loss, women whose children have been adopted, and women whose children have died.<br />
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Things can be uncomfortable at these services no matter what. For example, being a non-mother at all having to sit through such a ceremony can be weird, since so many dumb expectations are put on women to "be fruitful and multiply." Society in general does this (pay attention to movies, to get a taste), and the church plays a big part. A writer in one of the articles I mentioned described herself as feeling like an "empty shell" when sitting among the standing mothers. (The church also weaves in their goofy judgments concerning abortion, the importance of having children with a husband, their stance on gay people adopting, etc.)<br />
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I suppose the happiest mothers during Mother's Day services are the ones who don't think of any of the above and are just pleased as punch to sit on a pew with all of their children present. But what happens when (for a completely random example) one of those kids becomes an atheist and leaves the church altogether? Train up a child in the way he should go and... ah, never mind.<br />
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So what's the solution?<br />
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I can't say I agree with the articles that want to confront the negative feelings head-on during the services with lines from the minister like, "To those who experienced loss through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away--we mourn with you. To those who are single and long to be married and mothering your own children--we mourn that life has not turned out the way you longed for it to be." This seems, to me, like yet another road to Hell paved with good intentions.<br />
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The only solution is to stop the nonsense altogether. If you're someone in charge of the church, do what you gotta do to cut it out. If you're not someone in charge, you can make it happen eventually by not showing up to the (apparently) third-most attended holiday of the year (after Easter and Christmas). Tell your church pals you're not going, and tell them why. Guys and gals both: just an all-out boycott of church on Mother's Day if they insist on this game show. Then let the free market decide if it continues.<br />
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Because it is, ultimately, a distracting game show instead of, you know, a church service. Okay, so there are mothers in the audience. Who gives a shit? Don't you have a god or something to worship? I know that, when I used to be a church-goer, Mother's Day was always the day I could count on for zero percent spiritual edification. We all had to give up God for a day to serve the almighty Hallmark and 1-800-FLOWERS. The Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, yes, but those corsages weren't going to pin themselves.<br />
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So just stop it. Do the Mother's Day stuff in your homes in the privacy of your own whatever.<br />
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And, before I go, a theory. Ever wonder why Father's Day isn't a big church event while Mother's Day is? My guess is because every day is already Father's Day at church. We have Big Daddy God the Father, of course. Most of the church leaders are "Fathers." Within Christianity, men still hold most of the power. But these men still count on the women of the church to pump out all those future tithes-payers (or future companions in Heaven, if you want me to be a little less cynical), so Mother's Day is their time to honor them. To patronize them. To throw them a bone.<br />
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A bone in the form of a rose.Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-64213029148534303572017-02-08T15:33:00.000-06:002017-02-08T15:33:58.215-06:00Alternative FactsReacting to side-by-side photographs released by PBS contrasting the massive crowds of Barack Obama's inauguration to the poorly-attended inauguration of Donald Trump (as well as other data provided by crowd scientists), White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer declared that Trump had the "largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period." When <i>Meet the Press</i>'s Chuck Todd asked Trump's counselor Kellyanne Conway why Spicer would "utter a provable falsehood," Conway dismissed Todd and said that Spicer was merely providing "alternative facts."<br />
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This little story would be all fine and hilarious, except that "alternative facts" seem to be winning the day. During the Obama administration, we had conspiracy theorists convinced that Obama was a "secret Muslim" (whatever that means) who was born in Kenya, intent on taking our guns and forcing Sharia Law on America. During the Bush years, Stephen Colbert had to invent a new word -- "truthiness" -- to describe the phenomenon of "feeling" the truth rather than relying on facts.<br />
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If our newest incarnation of the battle for reality is frustrating to you, then you have a pretty good idea of how atheists feel most of the time.<br />
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It's easy to make fun of Kellyane Conway's phrase "alternative facts," but it happens to have essentially the same definition as the word "supernatural," the idea that there can be something beyond nature itself: an alternative to the real world. As Chuck Todd said, "Alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods." Similarly, super-nature is not nature; it, too, is a another apologetic name for a falsehood.<br />
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The supernatural is what we are expected to believe in when the actual facts are stubbornly not available. There is no evidence for God, but he is apparently <i>beyond</i> evidence. He is beyond nature, beyond science, beyond our comprehension. He is not accessible in the same way facts are. We are simply supposed to "feel" God, to "know deep down in our hearts" that he exists. We are meant to have "faith" in him, to go against all reason, logic, and common sense and "just believe."<br />
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Trump wants desperately to believe that he had a large crowd at his inauguration. He <i>needs</i> to believe it, similar to many theists. ("I want to believe," as Mulder says.) "Trump is a very popular president" is part of the grand story he is telling himself, the false universe he has created. Because his ego is so large and delicate, he is attempting to force this false narrative and alternate universe onto all of us. He needs us to believe as well. Trump claims that any news (including polls) contrary to his personal belief is "fake news." He tweets out what he wants us to think the truth is, attempting to contradict and circumvent reality itself. To erase it and replace it.<br />
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If you are curious what the successful end result of such an aggressive reality-altering strategy is, you could read <i>Nineteen Eighty-Four</i>, I suppose, but that is just a book. For an actual example, just look around you. Religion has already created a functioning alternative reality, often having used (or still using) the harsh methods described by George Orwell in his novel. After these methods are successful, believers -- now feeling that they are only under the influence of their own decisions -- are happy to evangelize so that the false reality becomes self-replicating. Belief in the supernatural becomes so widespread and part of the texture that it becomes "normalized."<br />
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But it <i>isn't</i> normal. Nonsense is still nonsense, even if the majority believes in it. We all know Trump is speaking nonsense when he claims that millions of people voted illegally. We wouldn't dare swallow such unfounded statements. Yet we can easily swallow the even more nonsensical claim that humans have inherited this thing called "sin" that can only be removed by believing that a god-man died and came back to life three days later and that we can all go live with him in the sky (or an alternate dimension), in a paradisal afterlife. If we're taking bets on which of the above could be proven first, I'd bet on Trump's claim.<br />
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Belief in the religiously supernatural is one of the few delusions humans can have and not be called insane. Even many secular people, who don't "believe" any of this, will <i>accept</i> it as normal human behavior. Many simply prefer not to think about religion at all, even though it affects their everyday lives in profound ways, just as many citizens prefer not to think about politics.<br />
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So I do try to think about it, about how weird it is that people are functioning as if invisible creatures are all around us, about how abnormal it is that there's a church everywhere I look in my town, established to promote and sustain these peculiar anti-factual traditions, people singing songs and raising hands to something that -- by all objective appearances -- is not there.<br />
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I know what it's like to live in a fake reality, because I lived in one most of my life. Like most people, I was handed my deeply-held beliefs at birth, and it took me over thirty years to claw my way out of the made-up world of gods, demons, ghosts, spirits, and angels. After I escaped, I realized that I hadn't been just living in a pretend world; I was living in <i>someone else's</i> pretend world. At least Donald Trump gets to live in a land of his own make-believe. The fantasy world I lived in was created thousands of years ago by ancient religious cultures, shaped and refined by time and place, saving itself from extinction over and over through adaptation and aggression. This evolving survival machine called "God" found a place for me and tried its best to make me comfortable so that I would never leave it. I nearly never did.<br />
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Even after struggle, I didn't really escape religion entirely. No one does. I still have to play by its rules, still have to survive within the structures religious people have created. As the saying goes, it's their world; I'm just living in it. For a harmless example, I am expected to behave as if it is perfectly normal when someone closes their eyes and says they are about to speak to the creator of the universe, when of course no such thing is really happening. I am expected to behave this way, in part, out of politeness and respect. For a more serious example, we all have to deal with those who hate, discriminate, destroy our environment, deny science, misunderstand reproduction, and all the other garbage we have to deal with from the worst segment of religious people, all because of something they "believe," eternal "truths" they "know," based on knowledge that is about as real as the alternative fact that Donald Trump has been on the cover of <i>Time</i> magazine more than anyone else.<br />
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Because of Trump (and those who promote and believe his false narratives), we are currently involved in a fight for reality itself. It's pretty serious, and the consequences if we lose the fight are severe. So will we be able to live based on observable facts, or will we give in to a fiction created by the state? Will two plus two equal four, or will it -- as I'm hearing it from a lot of people now, big league -- equal five?<br />
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I don't know, but I can't say I'm hopeful. In the meantime, atheists are already used to this kind of gaslighting. Atheists say (often rather quietly) that God doesn't exist, and a majority of the country responds (sometimes lovingly, sometimes not) with "What if you're wrong?" or "You're just thinking about God in the wrong way" and makes every attempt to call <i>us</i> the crazy ones devoid of morality: you know, the ones who <i>don't</i> believe in the invisible guy whose idea of social order was murdering our neighbors with rocks.<br />
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If it weren't such a painful experience to be subjected to yet another round of post-factual politics and Orwellian absurdity under Donald Trump (the worst case I've seen in my lifetime), I might even say it's refreshing that someone else gets to experience what a forced alternate reality feels for a change.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/alternativefacts.jpg"></center>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-40539864764831237172016-12-02T23:52:00.000-06:002016-12-06T01:18:57.679-06:00Donald Trump and ChristianityDo you know what it tells me about yourself if you say you are a Christian? Next to nothing.<br />
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It doesn't tell me anything about your morality or about your politics, and it doesn't even tell me what the word <i>Christian</i> means to you.<br />
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Before the election of Donald Trump, Christians were desperate to convince other Christians of who Jesus would vote for and what the proper "Christian" decision would be. Many of the articles one found online were by the Christian Left explaining how the words of Donald Trump do not line up with the words of Jesus. Meanwhile, the Christian Right did what they always did, which was say the word <i>abortion</i> endlessly and drape dead fetuses around their opponent's neck.<br />
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The Christian Right certainly had their work cut out for them this time. Most Christians like to think of themselves as nice people, and Trump decidedly was not a nice person. In fact, Trump was a shit person, barely a person at all.<br />
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Of course, Republican politicians are often not-very-nice people, but they are better at faking it and codifying their hatred than Trump was. Mitt Romney could have been your friendly next-door neighbor when saying things like (actual quote), "Call me old fashioned, but I don't support gay marriage" Aw, shucks.<br />
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Donald Trump, however, as many have pointed out, was the Frankenstein's monster that the Republican party created. He was their pure id, and the racism, sexism, xenophobia, and the rest of the garbage that modern Republicans have always stood for was there for everyone to see: unfiltered, every night, using the most vile vocabulary and imagery we've ever witnessed publicly from someone running for the highest office in the land. "Aw, man, now everyone knows what we really look like underneath these smiling game show host masks," one could almost hear the Republican leaders lament.<a name='more'></a><br />
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Mainstream Republicans were like the "mainstream" Christian churches who say, "We love the sinner but hate the sin when it comes to homosexuality. We just don't think God approves of that lifestyle." Donald Trump was Westboro Baptist Church: "God hate fags." One is more crass, but both are exactly the same message. In a way, we should almost value the more blunt versions. As a Trump apologist might argue, Westboro is just "saying what everyone else is thinking" and "speaking their mind."<br />
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The Christian Left seemed to have an easier job. They could just point to Jesus's Golden Rule -- "Treat others like you want to be treated" -- and then point to nearly anything Trump has ever said in his lifetime and say "See?" They could also fall back on the connotation of the word <i>Christian</i> as a positive and declare that Trump was "not being very Christian" or that Trump supporters were only "so-called Christians." They could insist that voting against Trump would be "the Christian thing to do."<br />
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Except that Jesus was also a racist, a sexist, and a xenophobe. He called a woman a dog and refused to help her because she wasn't of his race and religion (Matthew 15:22-28), and he only finally helped her after she admitted that she was indeed a dog, one begging for his table scraps. Jesus did allow female disciples (his groupies), but had no women apostles in true leadership positions. He is perceived as all-forgiving in the story where he saves a woman from being stoned to death because of adultery, but he only adds insult to injury by leaving her with the parting phrase, "Go, and sin no more." He may as well have said, "I saved your life, not get out of here and stop being such a slut."<br />
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And if you move away from Jesus and look at God himself (who is the same person as Jesus, according to most authorities), the Trump comparisons are overwhelming.<br />
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We can start with a pretty serious thing Trump said early in his campaign when he suggested that the way to fight terrorists was to murder their families. God felt the same way about his people's enemies. See 1 Kings 14:9-16 for just one example of this. (There are many.) God did worse than just killing specific families, often demanding the death of entire areas: men, women, children, babies, and even animals sometimes. (Sometimes he did the job himself.) He was known, however, for keeping young virgins around as part of the spoils of war (Numbers 31). Of course, as Trump says, these women were losers for being captured anyway.<br />
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And speaking of rape: "Grab them by the pussy"? That's nothing compared to the allowed (and sometimes commanded) rape that happened in the Bible. See just one example, Judges 21:20-21, where men of God hid in the vineyards and waited for women to arrive, at which point they would abduct the women and carry them back home.<br />
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To continue with Trump and God's misogyny, both are disgusted by women's periods. See Trump's comment about Megyn Kelly bleeding "out of her wherever" as well as calling Hillary Clinton's bathroom breaks during the debates too disgusting to even talk about. God's law made women untouchable for a full week after menstruating. Anything she touches is unclean and impure (Leviticus 15:19-24).<br />
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I could go all day since both Trump and the Bible have a seemingly endless supply of "deplorable" words and behaviors. Both even devalue the disabled (Leviticus 21:17-19), which one would think would disqualify you from being the president and certainly from being an all-loving supreme being. Here's one final comparison. If you think it's bad that Trump wants to ban Muslims from entering the country, look at what the Bible says to do to people who aren't members of the "correct" religion:<br />
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"If anyone secretly entices you -- even if it is your brother, your father’s son or your mother’s son, or your own son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your most intimate friend -- saying, 'Let us go worship other gods'... you must not yield to or heed any such persons. Show them no pity or compassion and do not shield them. But you shall surely kill them; your own hand shall be first against them to execute them, and afterwards the hand of all the people. Stone them to death for trying to turn you away from the LORD your God..." (Deuteronomy 13:6-10).<br />
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My point is that you can use the Bible to support whatever you believe, about Trump or anything else. Do you think people should love each other, treat immigrants well, be nice to women? You can find Biblical support for that. Do you think we should secure our borders, value men as superior to women, deny gay people basic rights? You can find Biblical support for that. God, Jesus, and the Bible itself is whatever you want them to be. It all depends on where you look and (even if you're looking in exactly the same place) how you choose to interpret it.<br />
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Hell, you can even find Biblical passages to support abortion if you like: Numbers 5:11-31, to be specific, the only time something like an abortion is explicit in the Bible (it is otherwise not discussed); here the abortion is commanded by God and carried out by God's priests who torture the woman in the process--I suppose because there needs to be (as Trump said) "some form of punishment."<br />
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I should point out that, back when I was a Christian, I didn't vote at all. I thought that -- as a "spiritual" person -- politics had nothing to do with me. If you had asked me who Jesus would have voted for, I would have said "no one," that he wasn't political either, not concerned with "this world." If anyone asked him who to vote for, I imagined he might say, "Vote for whoever you want." Render unto Caesar and all that. So in my case, also, my generic Christian label said nothing significant about me or my politics.<br />
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Although "I'm a Christian" is one of the least telling phrases one can utter, saying you are part of the "Christian Left" or "Christian Right" does say a little something about you. Not, again, because you're telling us you are a Christian, but because you are now letting us know something specific about your political beliefs. The "Left" and "Right" labels are what matter. The "Christian" label is nearly inconsequential, as if you are saying "I am a Left/Right-leaning person who happens to also be Christian."<br />
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However, I do think it can be important to add the religious label to the political one for one reason: to show other Christians who do not share your politics that your version of Christianity is just as valid as theirs. I was pleased, this election, to see the Christian Left standing up for themselves and telling the pompous Christian Right, "You do not own Christianity."<br />
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Because, as far as morality goes, the Christian Left is definitely winning. They have picked out the nicer bits of the Bible -- the love-based bits -- and tried to ignore (or, sometimes, "explain away") the hateful stuff (including most of the Old Testament). They have decided, against all evidence to the contrary, that "God is love." And God bless them for it, because I pity anyone who wants to worship the deity that the Bible actually presents.<br />
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Within this stripped-down, living-in-the-modern-world version of Christianity, many believers on the left have been consistent when lining up their religious beliefs to their liberal political choices. They did not have to compromise their ideals to vote for Barack Obama, and they did not have to do so (too much anyway) to vote for Hillary Clinton. They were more or less moral people who voted for the more moral candidate. If you insist, they voted for the "lesser of the two evils," but need I remind everyone that it is better to allow less evil into this world than to allow more of it?<br />
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Now, concerning the Christian Right, I don't have many pleasant things to say. These loud shit-sacks in suits spent decades bogarting Christianity in order to get votes for the Republican party, touting themselves as the Party of God, as "Real Americans," and as the only ones who cared about "family values." And we see how important these beloved family values are when the Christian Right -- in this election -- twisted themselves into an impossible pretzel in order to defend their support of the least family-friendly candidate this country has ever seen.<br />
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Apparently the "single issue" that brought many Christians to Donald Trump was abortion, which is hilarious if you consider how many abortions Trump personally paid for during all of his extramarital affairs, one-night stands, and unsolicited gropes that played out in his favor. Hey, I'm not saying anything is confirmed about this guy arranging multiple abortions for women he filled with Trump babies, but "people are saying." You wouldn't believe what they're finding out! Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton's policies concerning planned parenthood could have actually helped keep the abortion rate down. But who's counting?<br />
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As for Trump's other sins, why should Christians care about sexual assault, a creepy emphasis on physical beauty and body parts (including for pre-teens and even his own daughter), body-shaming, and other misogyny when the Bible (Old and New Testament alike) says that men are superior to women--that women are in fact <i>made</i> for men? Male dominance over women is a common church teaching. Why should Christians care that Trump chose gay-basher Mike Pence as his running mate when Christians gay-bash from the pulpit? Even leftist Christians do this sometimes, with "We love gay people, and we're all sinners who fall short of the glory of God!" rhetoric, as if being gay is a "sin" and as if calling someone a sinner is in any way "loving" them. Christian Right politicians, of course, have built careers out of denying gay people basic rights. And the exclusivity of "Jesus is the only way" teachings paired with anti-Muslim sentiment and good old-fashioned racism naturally leads to some of the wackier and more conspiracy-fueled Christians who spent the last eight years declaring Barack Obama a "secret Muslim" from Kenya who wants to enforce Sharia Law in America. It is no miracle that racist Christian birthers voted for our Birther-in-Chief.<br />
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And if Christian voters searched their hearts and could find absolutely no reason to vote for this vile candidate, but still wanted to vote Republican, they could use this handy excuse that I heard many, many times: "Trump is not a good person, but God can use bad people to do his work. No matter who we vote for, God is still in control!" Mysterious Ways wins again! So does Lack of Free Will, even though free will is the foundation of most Christians' theology. The biggest winner, of course, is the buried-deep desire to be true to your "team," even if it compromises everything you thought you stood for.<br />
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I will give credit to frustrated Christian Republican voters (including some of its leaders) who simply sat out this election, and I will give extra credit to Christians who voted for a third party candidate--especially those who actually liked the candidate.<br />
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The conclusion drawn from this election, though we already knew it, was that the Christian Right were simply immoral people who would sell out their souls (such as they were) to retain and grow their power, so if the unstoppable super-winner Trump wanted to shoot someone on 5th Avenue, as he bragged that he could, fine. The Christian Right would back that horse. Even if Trump was not a practicing Christian. Even if he knew less about the Bible ("Two Corinthians" included) than almost anyone in this country that I know. Of course, he did have that last-minute born again conversion, so I suppose that made it all okay. Slate wiped clean with the blood of Christ.<br />
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And, hey, I guess you've figured out by now that I'm not going to say Trump is "not really a Christian," because with religion you can only take the person's word for it. Sure, I'll say it: Trump became a real, bona fide, laying on of hands Christian just a little before the election. Why not? That's how it works, I'm told. This dubious conversion of convenience certainly fit with the theology popularized (most recently) by <i>God's Not Dead</i>, in which a "militant" atheist professor with anger management issues gave his pathetic life to Jesus (what was left of it) after getting hit by a car, saving his immortal soul seconds before dying. I would give Trump supporters an A+ for being consistent, except that for eight years they denied that actual church-goer Barack Obama was a Christian, and they also questioned the Christianity of known Sunday school teacher Hillary Clinton. Once again, it was really about their politics all along, their team. Otherwise, why wouldn't a true believer rejoice that two souls had been saved?<br />
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So Donald Trump, who -- as one of Louis C.K.'s characters on <i>Horace and Pete</i> said -- had a president-sized hole in his soul to fill, used the Christian Right, their followers, and the power of Team Republican to help get him elected. Meanwhile, the Christian Right and Republicans took advantage of Donald Trump's fame and media savvy to ride his caboose all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue. So now the White House and beyond will soon be filled (more than before) with leaders who are anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-woman, anti-black, anti-Mexican, and -- generally speaking -- anti-anything that they are not.<br />
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The fact that millions and millions of Americans voted for this circus of horrors made me realize, more than I ever had, that I simply do not share the same morals and values with a large percentage of the population. I don't even call what they have morality at all, and they think that I and millions of other Americas are "evil" and "godless" for being supportive of all these "liberal" ideas that we simply call "being human."<br />
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In short, there are at least two extremely large pockets of Americans who cannot agree on what it means to be a moral person! This, to say the least, is a troubling situation for a country to find itself in. We are incompatible. There are irreconcilable differences.<br />
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And, sure, before this election we could laugh about what our racist uncle said at the Thanksgiving table. We could still love that uncle because he was family and because we knew he was, in spite of his racism, a "good person." But now that this uncle has put his doppelganger in the White House, perhaps we're realizing Uncle Dipshit wasn't that amusing after all. As for our racist uncle being a "good person," is he really? Or does he just treat us nicely because we're his family? What if we were not his family? What if we were not his race? How would he treat us then, and would we still call him "good"? Would our lives matter to him? Would he rather we lived on the other side of a wall? Christ! Why did we allow this immoral person to lead the Thanksgiving prayer all these years? We let him spout intolerant nonsense <i>and</i> gave him religious authority over us? What were we thinking?<br />
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We're in a scary situation, and I would love to find a silver lining. I would love to think that this election could have the effect of detangling morality and Christianity: the election of Donald Trump as a definitive demonstration that the two have nothing to do with each other, but that would be me being optimistic, and I am not optimistic. Instead, I think this election will further confuse the concept of morality. Morality is confusing enough as it is, since it's always shifting. I wouldn't compare my 21st century morality to the morality of someone who lived in the 19th century. This is why many Christians find comfort in religion: they think God's morality is a constant. But people's concept of God's morality shifts, too. If we were still following God's morality, as written in his stupid book, we'd still be stoning our neighbors and our children.<br />
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In spite of the slippery nature of morality, I still think there are some general guidelines that have more or less stood the test of time. There was that one famous guy, for example, who said you shouldn't do anything to anyone that you wouldn't want done to you. That's right: Confucius.<br />
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So let's apply Confucius's "Silver Rule." Would you want to be denied basic human rights because of who you naturally fall in love with? Would you want to be excluded from our country because you belong to a particular religion? Would you want to be treated as less than a person because of your sex or gender? Would you like to be discriminated against because of your skin color? Would you like someone to suggest that a wall is what it takes to keep people like you out? Would you like to be mocked for having a disability? Would you like to be called a loser because something horrible happened to you? Would you like to prevent people from helping our planet continue to be a place where we can physically live? Would you like to be called a thug for protesting when members of your race keep getting murdered for no reason? Would you like someone to use your body for their sexual gratification if you didn't ask for it?<br />
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I'm guessing everyone in the world would answer "no" to all of the above. But now apply all of the above to <i>others</i>. Would you want others to be denied basic human rights because of who they naturally fall in love with? Would you want others to be excluded from our country because they belong to a particular religion? Etc. This is the "Golden Rule." If you can still answer "no," you are a moral person, no matter your religion or lack thereof. (Jesus did not invent or own the Golden Rule, of course.) It is difficult to always practice this morality perfectly and all the time, and of course there is nuance to navigate, but at least you have a basic understanding of what morality is and that it requires an ability to empathize.<br />
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However, if you answer "yes" to any of these questions, then you may need a moral realignment.<br />
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I truly do understand the temptation to say someone is "not really Christian" if they don't practice your version of Christianity, especially if you feel that Christianity is based in morality and love, and the person you are talking about is not being moral or loving. I am often critical of Christianity, but I still find it difficult to say the sentence "Donald Trump is a Christian" with a straight face, since my own understanding of Christianity is that the religion (flawed as it is) is based around love, forgiveness, rebirth, and an attempt to transcend the material world. (All non-Trumpy things.)<br />
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But saying that someone who professes Christianity is "not really a Christian" is as factually incorrect as saying that Donald Trump is #NotMyPresident. He <i>is</i> my president, even if he doesn't have the morality, decency, or (perhaps most importantly) competence one would wish a good leader to have. But, again, if you want to find Biblical or theological support for the concept that Christians should be Trump-style "winners," you can find it. (Start with the Prosperity Gospel and expand out from there.) You could easily argue that Christianity, as a religion that conquered the entire world, fits quite nicely with Trump's competitive personality and his definition of success. And how different is Trump's "I will fix everything and make America great again" from Jesus's "I am the way, the truth, and the life"?<br />
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Immoral Christians are Christians, too, and they are plentiful. Indeed, it seems increasingly difficult, especially for secular people like me who don't get out much, to encounter Christians willing to publically and vocally stand up for human equality and common decency. The focus, then, should not be on whether these Christians actually belong on your religious team or not, since playing teams is part of what got Trump elected. The focus should instead be on what really counts: morality, competence, facts, equality, empathy, quality work, creativity, intelligence, compassion, reality... to name just a few things that American citizens should value, none of which depend on any religion in order to grow, live, and thrive. They are the true fruits of the human spirit.<br />
Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-39499963006010300222016-03-18T14:03:00.001-05:002016-03-18T14:03:22.227-05:00Alabama ScienceThe Alabama State Board of Education has recently written inserts for science textbooks that cover evolution. I have provided the text below (italics), in full, and have also spelled out the subtext for you.<br />
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<i>The word “theory” has many meanings. Theories are defined as systematically organized knowledge, abstract reasoning, a speculative idea or plan, or a systematic statement of principles. Scientific theories are based on both observations of the natural world and assumptions about the natural world. They are always subject to change in view of new and confirmed observations.</i><br />
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Subtext: Scientific theories may change, but God never changes.<br />
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<i>Many scientific theories have been developed over time. The value of scientific work is not only the development of theories but also what is learned from the development process. The Alabama Course of Study: Science includes many theories and studies of scientists’ work. The work of Copernicus, Newton, and Einstein, to name a few, has provided a basis of our knowledge of the world today.</i><br />
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Subtext: It is wonderful that God provides us with scientists to understand his creation better, even if they don't always get it right. God, however, will always be right.<br />
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<i>The theory of evolution by natural selection is a controversial theory that is included in this textbook. It is controversial because it states that natural selection provides the basis for the modern scientific explanation for the diversity of living things.</i><br />
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Subtext: We recognize that evolution explains a lot of things that we previously thought God did, and we're not comfortable with this.<br />
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<i>Since natural selection has been observed to play a role in influencing small changes in a population, it is assumed that it produces large changes, even though this has not been directly observed.</i><br />
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Subtext: Rather than reading about evolution ourselves, we got other religious people to explain their understanding of it to us.<br />
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<i>Because of its importance and implications, students should understand the nature of evolutionary theories. They should learn to make distinctions between the multiple meanings of evolution, to distinguish between observations and assumptions used to draw conclusions, and to wrestle with the unanswered questions and unresolved problems still faced by evolutionary theory.</i><br />
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Subtext: Because studying evolution might make students not believe in God, we want them to distrust science. Any time science cannot quickly and simply answer a complicated question, we want our students to be brave enough to suggest "Maybe God did it?" We want student to feel that doing so is a tough intellectual endeavor fought against mammoth persecution.<br />
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<i>There are many unanswered questions about the origin of life. With the explosion of new scientific knowledge in biochemical and molecular biology and exciting new fossil discoveries, Alabama students may be among those who use their understanding and skills to contribute to knowledge and to answer many unanswered questions. Instructional material associated with controversy should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.</i><br />
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Subtext: We can't prove that God exists, but we hope that our future scientists will look for God in everything they study. If they look hard enough and believe hard enough, they will find him. In the meantime, never lose your faith that he exists!<p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-48665125697831512962014-12-08T23:31:00.000-06:002017-05-02T18:43:11.178-05:00"How To Suck At Your Religion": A Lengthy RebuttalThe Oatmeal is a web comic that, a couple of years ago, did a piece called "How To Suck at Your Religion." It bugs me. It may seem late to be bringing it up now, but it still pops up in my Facebook feed and other places and -- according to his website -- is one of The Oatmeal's most popular comics, so I need to handle it.<br />
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Just so you know, I'm mostly indifferent about The Oatmeal in general. I'm annoyed more by its fans than it itself, since they gush about it a bit more than it deserves. I admit that it deserves something, since it's mostly okay and sometimes even funny or clever. However, even the harmless comics he does -- like ones about grammar (correct use of the word <a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/literally"><i>literally</i></a> or how to use a <a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon">semicolon</a>) -- seem to only make those laugh who already know these things. I doubt that it actually educates those who don't.<br />
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This "How To Suck at Your Religion" comic is similar. It seems to be written to make atheists (or perhaps liberal believers) laugh and share it on their social media walls. It's (probably) not going to teach anyone to not suck at their religion.<br />
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There have been a handful of Christian rebuttals written about this comic. These rebuttals contain a mix of valid points (some of which are probably mirrored by me) and they also have stupid points that rise as a result of their religious beliefs (sorry, guys). So one reason I'm writing this is because I haven't seen too many rebuttals from atheists.<br />
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Also, mine is incredibly long, and things that take a long time to read is what internet users crave the most.<a name='more'></a><br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/oatmealreligion00.png"></center><br />
The title is a problem, for starters. It declares itself as a "how to," but the comic itself doesn't show you how to do anything: it just asks a bunch of questions. So it gives up on its own premise as soon as it begins.<br />
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And, as you'll see, this comic isn't so much about sucking at religion as it is about why the comic thinks religion sucks. Most of the comic's illustrated examples are about being <i>good</i> at your religion, in fact: how to be an accurate follower.<br />
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If he had titled the comic "Does Your Religion Suck?", many of my complaints would disappear--though there would still be plenty left.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/oatmealreligion01.png"></center><br />
I'm not sure what's wrong with judging people, first of all. I'm judging someone right now. The Oatmeal is judging most of the earth's population with this comic. When Jesus told his listeners not to judge people, he was judging them. Even uttering the phrase "don't judge" creates a feedback loop.<br />
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The ideal of what Jesus was getting at, of course, was to be more concerned with your own faults than with others'. (He follows up "don't judge" with the whole speck vs. log in eye metaphor.) Christians (which is who The Oatmeal is attacking in this example) believe in this ideal. So if they do "judge" (in this sense), it's not because their religion makes them (as the comic suggests). It's because they suck at their religion (which the comic doesn't suggest). To judge people is to suck at Christianity. To not judge them is to be successful at it. This bit of the comic now explodes.<br />
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As for the question of Hell (the example in this comic), for Christians who believe in Hell (and many don't), this isn't so much a personal judgment as it is a law of the universe. If you're not Christian, you go to Hell. This isn't something a human decides. God does--or so the belief goes. So Christians are just trying to be helpful, to "save" people. The concept of Hell is a stupid belief, to be sure, but it has nothing to do with the kind of judging implied in this comic.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/oatmealreligion02.png"></center><br />
Does religion hinder the advancement of science, technology, and medicine? Yes, often. Galileo and stem cell research are decent examples. But this means (again) that religion itself often sucks, not that a follower of religion is sucking at it.<br />
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I don't feel like quibbling much with the examples themselves, as others have. This is a simplified version of the Galileo story, but it gets the essence across, and the stem cell example combines real-life objection with a little goofy humor.<br />
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The reason why religious leaders (such as Catholic bishops) feel that they have any say in science is because they feel that morality and humanity is their realm of expertise. It isn't, of course, but they think it is, so when Catholics oppose the use of embryonic stem cells, it's because they're trying to put mad scientists in check. ("This is a human life!" Etc.) This is them being good at their (bad) religion, not sucking at it.<br />
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I agree with what The Oatmeal is probably trying to get across: that religion has been holding back humanity for centuries and continues to do so.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/oatmealreligion03.png"></center><br />
So, according to this comic, you suck at your religion if it was given to you by parents? But if you choose your religion yourself (Lisa Simpson style, perhaps at age twenty-five), then you don't suck at it? If you follow along in the family business, does it mean that you suck at business? Or do you always have to start your own business to be good at it?<br />
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These questions are giving the comic too much credit anyway, since really it's just trying to make fun of religious beliefs (like creationism and Noah's ark). Something tells me he wouldn't have a problem with my daughter being an atheist like her parents (unless his response would be "atheism isn't a religion"--if so, fair enough).<br />
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I'm still upset at the faulty premise of the comic. This bit is really saying "You probably didn't choose your religion. Your parents gave you theirs before you were old enough to reason for yourself, which is why you still believe it, because those kinds of things go deep." Yes, true. But you can't help but get things from your parents. (More on this after the next, connected, bit of the comic.)<br />
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I'm also not convinced that "demon tiger monkey" style jokes are helping here. (They're certainly not helping the comedy.) The closer you stick with what believers actually say, the better your argument, especially since some of the beliefs are truly ridiculous. Even the "invisible bearded flying man" is not a concept that most followers of the Abrahamic religions would subscribe to, which would turn them off of this comic, showing again that they're not (in spite of the comic's claim) the target audience. (Jesus defeated Jehovah's army? Jehovah is Yahweh, Jesus' dad. I know it's supposed to be "random," but that's just stupid.)<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/oatmealreligion04.png"></center><br />
This is the worst part of the entire comic. This is the thing my brain went back to over and over until my brain finally made me write what I'm writing now. This bit of the comic is dumber than any religious belief ever was. (Not really, but close.)<br />
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What we have here is one of the largest false analogies I've ever seen. Well, more than one really, since it switches analogies midway through. The Oatmeal somehow thinks that a favorite color is anywhere near a religious belief. True, few parents would argue with a kid who says her favorite color is green, insisting that it's purple. Because it doesn't matter and because favorite color really is a personal choice.<br />
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But the belief in what happens when you die is not an irrelevant personal choice. It's not a matter of taste. It's a question that mankind has been asking since the beginning, and the answer you arrive at (one way or the other) can determine the way you live your life on earth. Whether you prefer green or purple is none of these things.<br />
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As for the analogy-switch, even though the analogy would still be false, in order for it to be an analogy <i>at all</i> the girl in the "don't do this" section would have to say "When we die, I believe we just die" while the dad would have to say "That's not true! We go to Heaven, and that's final!" Or the girl in the first panel would (nonsensically) have to ask, "Dad, what is my favorite color?" As it is, the comic says "You wouldn't insist a favorite color upon your child, so why do you tell her what you believe to be true about the afterlife when she asks you?" Huh?<br />
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And, by the way, a parent <i>might</i> argue with a kid over her favorite color if the color is significant. When my daughter told me she was supposed to have a certain item in pink as opposed to some other color, I asked her, "Did anyone tell you that you're supposed to choose pink?" Because pink is a significant color, insisted upon girls by our society, and it made me mad that someone might be limiting her already, at age three. A more conservative parent, if his girl said her favorite color was blue, might say "Are you sure you don't like pink better?" These colors mean things in this context. When's the last time you saw a little boy wearing pink pants and a Minnie Mouse shirt? But The Oatmeal isn't concerned with meaningful colors, even though that would have fit the analogy slightly better.<br />
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There's so much wrong with this section that it's difficult to even organize a response to it. Let's go back to the "so don't do this" panel. The dad here is giving his view of Heaven as an afterlife, which is a view his parents gave him. Once again, the dad is not sucking at his religion; he's simply passing it down. So this really seems to be another chance for The Oatmeal to complain about religious belief--in this case, the concept of Heaven. (We know he's talking about a Christian concept of Heaven because of the "2,000 years" tip-off.)<br />
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While I agree that Heaven is a "ridiculous belief" (though I wouldn't have always said so) and that no one would believe in it if it hadn't been handed down for thousands of years -- dating back to a time when we didn't know any better -- I think that the dad in this panel is doing exactly the right thing. When I believed in Heaven, I would have told my daughter about it, too. Now that I don't believe in Heaven, I will tell her that it doesn't exist if she ever asks--and even if she doesn't ask. Don't we teach our kids things to the best of our knowledge? When the folks before Galileo and Copernicus were asked about Earth's place in the universe, they said "we live in the center." They didn't say "I don't know, honey. What do you think?" They were not wrong for this, even if they were wrong.<br />
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So the dad in the final panel is an idiot. His daughter (who the comic has already admitted is not old enough to think rationally) asks him a direct question. It's fine, of course, to tell her what other people think (Heaven, reincarnation), but then just answer the damn question based on what you think you know. If you don't know, then you don't know, but don't turn it back on the kid. She is young and ignorant and asking you the question. What if her answer is "I believe we turn into My Little Pony dolls when we die"? Do you then say "That's great, sweetie; whatever you believe is true"?<br />
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And what's with this "No one really knows for sure" business? I think that if you've advanced beyond the wish-fulfillment that this very comic makes fun of (the "bizarre, backwards, ridiculous beliefs" of the previous panel), then we can at least know for sure what <i>doesn't</i> exist. So tell your daughter that we don't know everything about death yet, because we don't, but we've pretty well eliminated anything you might find in the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita about it.<br />
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So finally (again, again) this has nothing to do with sucking at your religion. To have a religion and be good at it is to pass it down. This bit of the comic is really "How To Be a Gutless Agnostic" (an agnostic who is also gutless, that is, since I'm not suggesting that agnostics in general are gutless), where "I don't know" is somehow the noblest answer even when you <i>do</i> know.<br />
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The comic's even larger message here is "If you're a religious person, <i>do not</i> teach it to your children." This is a stupid message. If you truly believe that there is a Heaven and that God lives there and that you know the way to get to it, why would you keep this from your own kids? Why would you keep it from anyone? You don't. Atheists think the concept of Heaven is nonsense, but you can't blame believers for wanting to help their families live forever.<br />
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The example here is mostly "demon tiger monkey" humor and easy jokes about Nickleback, so it's nearly useless.<br />
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I'm not sure that parents feeling weird about their children growing up and having sex is at the root of all this. That places the blame on parents, which is not religion, so -- once again -- The Oatmeal has gone against its own argument. Couldn't atheists also feel uncomfortable about their children growing up and having sex? (Hint: yes.) This could be a good place to demonstrate that, certainly, religion does have screwed-up, antiquated, incorrect views of sex that can mess people up for life. But the comic folds in on itself and loses the opportunity.<br />
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The awareness of the adult in the comic is also problematic. If the parent is truly following her religion, she will teach a screwed-up version of sexuality to her daughter because she truly believes that this version is true, not because a conspiracy has been formed of adults vs. children.<br />
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In the example, things implode mid-sentence, saying that you "cope with" the concept by making the kid feel guilty. This isn't coping with it: this is doing something about it. It should say (if anything), "I feel uncomfortable with you having sex, so I'm going to use religion to make you stop." The stopping doesn't happen, naturally, which is where the guilt feelings and all that comes in. Coping with our children growing up and having sex is something every parent has to do, in reality.<br />
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And, of course, this bit of the comic has nothing to do with sucking at religion. The Oatmeal is trying to say that religion gives you twisted attitudes about sex, which it does. But parents teaching their kids what their religion says about sex (none before marriage, homosexuality is wrong, masturbation is immoral, etc.) is attempting to follow the moral code of the religion, however screwed up it is. The code supposedly has a purpose, and the purpose is not to make parents feel more comfortable.<br />
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If I have a belief of any sort, it's nice when other people agree with me. For example, if I think that all people should be treated equally, but my racist uncle says otherwise, it's not wrong of me to wish that he comes around to my way of thinking, even maybe asking (or bugging) him about it. (This is a fictional example, by the way.) I don't do it to "validate" my belief. I do it because it's what I think is right.<br />
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The same is true of Mormonism (which is what The Oatmeal is picking on here). Mormons aren't trying to validate their beliefs. They truly believe that they have an answer that not everyone has, and they'd like to let the world in on it. It's potentially annoying, yes (only if you open the door), but the annoyance is based in compassion. The Mormon example doesn't work, and I can't think of too many examples that do.<br />
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But, okay, let's stick with what The Oatmeal actually asks and ignore the example: "Do you validate your beliefs by constantly trying to convince others to believe the same thing?" I suppose if the answer is yes, then fine: maybe you're (for the first time in this comic) sucking at your religion. You should just believe, not seek validation, though validation in any endeavor is nice to have, so I can't say that it's sucking too much.<br />
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The observation about Jews and Buddhists made me laugh because it's so ridiculous. Maybe The Oatmeal didn't read all that stuff in the Bible about killing anyone who didn't believe in Yahweh. There may not be door-to-door Jews, but I seem recall a door-to-door angel who would murder your entire family if you didn't smear lamb's blood on your house. Who needs to convert people when you can just kill them?<br />
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This is from ancient texts, of course, and it's true that contemporary Jewish people pretty much keep their religion to themselves, but this is arguably more selfish or elitist than "awesome." The religion's "validation" is only among themselves, making it so insular that the real world doesn't have to be dealt with. (Forgive me if this is a straw man, but you have to fight fire with fire sometimes.)<br />
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Maybe you remember the orthodox Jewish men on a plane recently who refused to sit next to women and spent most of the flight praying. This is worse than proselytizing: this is annoying others with your harmful religion without even giving others the chance to join in.<br />
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Buddhists, of course, are and always have had missionary work as part of their religion. Just because The Oatmeal doesn't see them doesn't mean they don't exist. And are we to assume that The Oatmeal feels that Jews and Buddhists <i>don't</i> suck at their religion (whatever that means)? I'm not sure.<br />
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We're learning that The Oatmeal's main wish is that he doesn't have to hear about religion at all.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/oatmealreligion07.png"></center><br />
The question itself here is fair enough. If you feel that you have to mock someone else's religion, maybe you suck at it. And the examples here work. Why? Because they stick with actual beliefs. There are no monkey tiger ninjas here, only what these religions actually believe. Sure, The Oatmeal throws in more contemporary terms like "zombies," but it works for the humor (such as it is) and gets across a concept about Jesus that (even though it's not original) might make someone think about his resurrection in a different light. All of these are good things. I award The Oatmeal one full point.<br />
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If you vote based solely on your religious beliefs, it may mean that you suck at politics, but I'm not sure why it would make you suck at your religion. But it probably doesn't mean you suck at politics either. If your candidate shares your religious beliefs, it might mean the candidate shares many of your other ideals. Do I pay extra attention to (the very rare) atheist politicians? Yes.<br />
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Whenever I see candidates running on the God platform, I typically don't vote for them. It's not all I look at, but it's certainly a factor. I'm a fan of the separation of church and state, so anyone who gets too Jesus-y on me or wants to put the Ten Commandments in front of the capitol is not someone I want running things.<br />
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This bit of the comic is The Oatmeal's attempt at putting a pox on both houses, which is one of those hip things to do to show that you're above it all. But the stuff here is just misleading. He seems to indicate that liberals aren't religious, first of all, which is wrong. Atheists make up only about two percent of Americans, so that means most liberals are just as godly as anyone else.<br />
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And the questions that the reporter asks the conservative and the liberal are clearly just fictions to force the point. When I do look beyond the "Vote for me because I believe in God" statements of the too-religious candidate (as the comic says I should), I usually can't find any reason to vote for him or her. After this happens a million times, it's a pretty good shortcut (for me) to just assume that the God candidates aren't worth bothering with.<br />
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The last panel doesn't even take full advantage of the two straw men. "Monster trucks" is not a political issue, just a jab at conservatives. And "the environment" and "hybrid cars" are the same issue. Can't think of a third? How about separation of church and state? The liberal could yell that.<br />
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This <i>is</i> a good example of sucking at religion. Even though there's nothing about it in the Koran, Islam eventually forbade depicting living beings at all (not just Muhammad but also regular ol' humans and even animals). Not a great idea to begin with. This eventually got somewhat dogmatized into Muhammad specifically, so that drawing a cartoon of him (for example) could get you killed. This is taking your religion and sucking at it by interpreting it oddly and badly.<br />
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Implicitly, The Oatmeal is giving credit to Christians and other religions that don't mind silly drawings of Jesus or whoever. Christians don't suck at this. Jesus is a public domain comic hero in America and most of Christendom.<br />
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I think this one works well enough because The Oatmeal has finally got the phrasing right. He doesn't ask "Does your religion make you so extreme that...?" It asks "Are you so dangerously extremist that...?" He's finally asking about the singular reader within the religion rather than the religion itself. That allows this one to pick on extremists within Islam rather than Islam itself, which is perhaps The Oatmeal being fearful (of Islamists or of critics who would call him Islamophobic).<br />
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However, he's now just picking on crazy people, on extremists--except that the religion itself is what causes the craziness (they wouldn't be crazy without it), so I'm not sure it works after all.<br />
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As a side note, I think the new rule jihadists should follow is that anyone who does the old "NO PICTURE AVAILABLE" joke is worthy of death. You know, just to step up their game. (Just kidding, of course: especially since I've done the joke myself.)<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/oatmealreligion10.png"></center><br />
If you die for your religion, then you're a martyr, which means you win your religion, not suck at it. So we assume The Oatmeal is really saying "If you would die for your religion, then you're in a bad religion." So let's examine this. Perhaps your religion values sacrifice of self to help others, sometimes to the point of death. Many religions do, right? Even non-religious people would be willing to die for others, right? I'm not sure that this sucks.<br />
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What would suck is dying for your religion simply to be a martyr. Drawing a plane crashing into the World Trade Center would have done the trick. Instead, we get more "random" humor (rollerblading with Dark Lord FireApe) that does next to nothing.<br />
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We also get, I'm afraid, someone simply making fun of the mentally ill. There's a difference between a Muslim terrorist following an ancient faith that is practiced by nearly everyone he knows (and therefore accepted as normal reality) and a delusional person who has created his own private religion that is now causing him to spread peanut butter on his privates and commit suicide.<br />
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Even though religion is technically a delusion, psychiatrists don't classify it as a mental illness for good reason. The religious aren't hearing voices: they're being told they're hearing voices, by nearly everyone in the world. You feel abnormal when you <i>don't</i> hear them (and, of course, you don't).<br />
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So The Oatmeal's basic question ("Would you die for your religion?") isn't specific enough to really answer anything, and his illustration is off the point and a little cruel to those who actually have voices in their heads.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/oatmealreligion11a.png"></center><br />
Although it's hard to tell what's "okay" in the first statement (the dying part? all of the above?), we eventually (maybe?) figure out that he's saying "If all of the above is true, then that's okay, I suppose, but would you kill or otherwise hurt other people for your religion? If so, you suck at it and should quit."<br />
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Since he's now talking about killing, this would be an even better place to draw the World Trade Center, but you can see that he's run out of drawing steam at this point and the rest of the "comic" is just text--which is too bad, since apparently this is the most important piece for him.<br />
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As for the killing question, some religions do call for killing, so doing so would be not sucking at your religion, but he means that the religion sucks and says "You should give it up." Just that easily.<br />
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His alternative to religion is wind surfing or ping pong, because he apparently thinks that religion is a hobby. I know that wind surfing and ping pong jokes are "just jokes," but even funny stuff needs to have a solid premise, and this one doesn't. Religions aren't hobbies, so it's stupid to even joke that they are. I didn't go to church for most of my life just because there wasn't a bowling alley in town. In fact, I blew off many of my hobbies and interests and friends (regrettably) in order to go to church.<br />
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I, too, wish that people could "find something better to do" than practice religion, but it takes an extreme amount of self-searching and struggle to overcome it, and I'm afraid it won't be easily dropped, even if the believer reads a very good web comic.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/oatmealreligion11b.png"></center><br />
Here's where religious people get permission from The Oatmeal to keep being religious. The first thing he's okay with is religion helping people, but I've already explained how much of what he had issue with <i>was</i> (at least in the religious person's mind) helping people (helping them find Jesus, get into Heaven, etc.).<br />
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He says religion is okay if it makes you happier, but I'm not sure happiness is really the goal of most religions. Religion did often make me happy, but it just as often (and, eventually, more often) made me miserable. This misery, I thought, was for a purpose, so I suffered through it. But I didn't ever think "I should drop this religion because it doesn't make me happy." We were even taught that our "trials and tests" were what made us closer to God and that if you were happy all the time, you were probably doing something wrong.<br />
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The next part about "coping" (linked to the happiness he's writing about) is where The Oatmeal really gets it wrong. If you're religious just because it helps you cope, then I'd say that's you sucking at your religion, not succeeding at it. If you truly do feel that you're just a bag of meat who is going to die soon, and if you're just pretending that Heaven or God or whatever exists so that you don't have to face this reality or because it's "comforting," then that's being religious for a horrible reason. "Opium of the people" and all that.<br />
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The correct thing would be to face reality, right? Why doesn't The Oatmeal want this to happen? Why does he only allow religion for one of the worst reasons?<br />
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Fortunately, our actual reality is less bleak than The Oatmeal posits. We are more than bags of meat, whether you're religious or not. We may not have eternal souls, but we do have consciousness. The fact that we're aware of our death at all puts us in a position above the animals. Simple bags of meat couldn't even create a comic like this one, much less a William Blake poem.<br />
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And the "rock in outer space" we happen to live on is incredibly wonderful. For a rock, it sure has a lot of nice amenities. Ever seen the Grand Canyon or Niagra Falls or -- heck -- even your local city park? Even from outer space, the Earth is a gorgeous swirl of blue and green, not some dead thing no one would want to visit. We live on an amazing, impossible planet. God didn't put it here, but here it is, and aren't we lucky?<br />
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And I'm not sure who told The Oatmeal that we're "powerless, helpless, and insignificant" in relation to existence. This sounds like God-talk, not good atheist talk. God was the one who told Job (for example) that he was insignificant compared to himself. In fact, God <i>demonstrated</i> how powerless Job was by taking away everything he had... just to prove some weird point to Satan. And then he gave a big speech about it when Job questioned him: "Because you're puny and insignificant compared to me, so shut the hell up" is a good summation of God's final answer to the question "Why?"<br />
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Fortunately, we <i>do</i> have power and we can help some things (not all: "grant me the serenity," etc.) and we are very, very significant. So this whole section is a faulty premise. Religion is the thing (often) that tells you you're worthless (without Jesus or Allah or whoever stepping in anyway), while humanism and non-belief is the thing that helps us find meaning and exposes us to reality (both good and bad). Religion will not get me through this. There is nothing to "get through." Here I am.<br />
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The Oatmeal concludes -- after his permission for readers to carry on with their religions as long as it helps them cope with The Oatmeal's personal bleak outlook on life -- by saying "Just keep it to your fucking self." So even if your religion, in his view, is positive, it's still not something you should share.<br />
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So what we have in the end is not a comic about sucking at your religion or being good at your religion or even discerning between positive and negative religious practices. We just have a comic about this guy's personal feelings about the broad kind of religion that's spotlighted on television and how he wishes people wouldn't be so annoying about it. Even though he feels he's cool enough to deal with the harshness of life (powerless on a space rock, etc.), he realizes that weaker minds maybe need some of that sweet sweet religious comfort drug, which he's kind enough to let them keep as long as he's not bothered by their habit--because he's got more drawings of dinosaurs and comma splices to make.<br />
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So the comic, in short, says, "Religion is completely horrible (especially the ones I'm exposed to most often), but if you can manage to practice religion without letting anyone know about it or letting it affect anyone around you -- even your own family -- then go for it if it makes you happy, you poor thing you."<br />
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The comic's heart is in the right place, and if you quickly read it half-cockeyed, then there might even be a good message in there. The Oatmeal sees the problems of religion and attempts to attack them while at the same time attempting to demonstrate that it could possibly be practiced in a less problematic way. That's the attempt, I think. But almost every element of the comic is wrong, which is frustrating--especially when the comic is presenting itself as a logical antidote to religion's illogic.<br />
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My only hope is that this little writeup helps to balance out the universe just a smidge. Sorry again that it takes slightly longer to read than the comic itself. I know a picture speaks a thousand words, but what if all the words are garbage?<p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-51579362891865964932014-11-04T21:05:00.000-06:002014-12-08T23:40:52.036-06:00The Great Pumpkin<i>A Charlie Brown Christmas</i> had Linus reading from the nativity story in order to combat the commercialism of the Christmas holiday. Charles M. Schulz's Christianity was right there on millions of television screens, a quiet and holy and beautiful answer to Charlie Brown's (our our) holiday depression. It was and is a wonderful thing.<br />
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But anyone who has read Schulz's comics knows that he can be satirical and even brutal about religion, especially his own. (I highly recommend his comics created for the Christian magazine <i>Youth</i>, a criticism of religion from within its own walls.) The most famous example of this satire is his use of the Great Pumpkin, a holiday deity only believed in by Linus.<br />
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One day I'd like to write about every appearance of the Great Pumpkin in the entire run of the comics, but for now the TV special <i>It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown</i> will do.<br />
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At the beginning of the special, Linus demonstrates his belief in animism when he is horrified that Lucy has stabbed a pumpkin to death and removed its guts in order to make a jack-o-lantern. ("You didn't tell me you were gonna kill it!") Linus's horror is further explained when we later find out about his belief in the Great Pumpkin, Lucy's now-dead pumpkin being -- presumably -- one of its earthly avatars.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/greatpumpkin01.jpg"></center><br />
Linus, of course, is already at this point in Peanuts history (this is 1966) known by fans as the religious scholar among the Peanuts characters. His knowledge of the Bible, his overall intelligence, and his generally kind nature makes him one of the more positive characters. But he also clings to a security blanket and sucks his thumb. And, it turns out, he is clueless enough to have somehow conflated Halloween and Christmas, pumpkins and Santa Claus.<a name='more'></a><br />
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The mythology of the Great Pumpkin is that he arrives on Halloween night, rising out of the pumpkin patch to bring presents to all the boys and girls of the world. He knows which kids have been good and bad. Most of this is Santa, of course, and Linus at one point asks if the children are joining him to sing "pumpkin carols." This simple joke was probably the main reason for Schulz's invention of this idea.<br />
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As for Linus inventing the Great Pumpkin, who knows how he came up with it? His child brain (in his case, highly creative and supremely innocent) probably just has crossed wires, not a surprise since Christmas creeps in during Halloween anyway (something that Schulz satirized in other specials and comics long before this phenomenon became truly out of control). So Linus is the only one who believes and keeps the faith, giving us insight into what our own religions look like to people who don't follow them.<br />
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Charlie Brown tells Linus, "You must be crazy. When are you going to stop believing in something that isn't true?" Linus answers: "When you stop believing in that fellow with the red suit and the white beard who goes 'Ho ho ho' " and walks away. The first true nod to this TV special being a religious satire appears at this point, when Charlie Brown says (to the audience) "We are obviously separated by denominational differences."<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/greatpumpkin02.jpg"></center><br />
The point, of course, is that Santa and the Great Pumpkin are essentially identical. Linus is no more objectively crazy than Charlie Brown. The only difference is that the <i>majority</i> of children Charlie Brown's age believe in Santa Claus. And, as we know, the perception of sanity has less to do with what is actual and more to do with what is "normal." Belief in Santa (though he doesn't exist) is widespread and "sane," while belief in the Great Pumpkin (who also doesn't exist) is considered insane because it is not a belief held by the majority.<br />
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Linus also doesn't have the luxury of having an omnipresent deity. Santa Claus is -- almost literally -- everywhere, at least at Christmastime. You can't open your eyes without seeing him somewhere--some representation of him. Even real life versions of Santa are at every mall. You can sit in his lap! And, of course, those presents he promised you are actually there Christmas morning, with the additional evidence of an empty glass of milk and cookie crumbs. No actual religion could ever provide for us this level of "reality." If it did, there would be no reason to doubt them.<br />
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A common observation these days is that if you want to understand how an atheist views your religion (if you're a Christian, for example), just look at a religion that you don't subscribe to, especially a newer one like Scientology. In this scenario, "Charlie Brown" is saying Linus is crazy for believing in Xenu and body thetans and E-meters, but "Linus" could counter by saying that Charlie Brown is crazy for believing in Satan and the immortal soul and rosary beads. (Of course, even Scientology has many followers. With the Great Pumpkin, the number of believers is only one little boy.)<br />
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So what is Schulz really up to so far? Is he attempting to have us question our religious beliefs? Is he making us realize that we sound just as crazy as Linus by believing in the invisible things we believe in? Yes and no, I think.<br />
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I know that Schulz likes to find humor not necessarily in religion itself but in the human behaviors of religious people. He is definitely making fun of how we believe, possibly how even he believes. If you question a believer long enough, the answer eventually comes down to something not much better than "I just believe that what I believe is true." In one comic strip, Schulz has Snoopy writing a book on theology called <i>Has It Ever Occurred To You That You Might Be Wrong?</i><br />
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This title was also the punch line in a later strip involving the children being sent to a fundamentalist church camp. Camp leaders had been scaring some of the kids by saying it was the "last days" and other religious nonsense. Linus spoke up and asked the leaders this question. It was a glorious moment.<br />
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On the other hand, I don't think that Schulz is -- as some have suggested -- going full-blown agnostic on us. Schulz probably believed in God until the day he died, but he certainly was a questioner and studier and he hated anyone who claimed to have all of "the truth." Although he endeared himself to many Christians for his use of his religion in his strips and television specials, he also alienated many by calling their beliefs into question and using these beliefs as a source of humor.<br />
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One of the best lines in the show concerning belief is when Linus is writing a letter to the Great Pumpkin. He says, "Everyone tells me you are a fake, but I believe in you. P.S. If you really are a fake, don't tell me. I don't want to know." So, when it comes to the Great Pumpkin, Linus is a fanatic. He refuses to listen to anything suggesting that the Great Pumpkin isn't real--even from the Great Pumpkin himself (a hilarious bit of illogic). Since there is no evidence at all for the Great Pumpkin's existence, belief is all Linus has.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/greatpumpkin04.jpg"></center><br />
Belief and "faith," of course, are two highly-valued possessions in religious culture. That's why they show up so often as one-word home decorations. When we're talking about either God or Santa Claus, belief is what our culture has decided is the most important thing. To see it ridiculed like this (especially by a believer) should be off-putting. You can see why some Christians assumed Schulz was an atheist. Compared to those who value belief above all and who find it sacrilegious to question those beliefs, he may as well have been.<br />
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Now we move into the part of the show where Linus attempts to woo a potential convert, Sally. She, of course, is interested in Linus romantically. He's older and she regards everything he says as intelligent. For her, Linus is the perfect charismatic figure, so it doesn't take too much for her to consider the possibility of Linus's belief. "Maybe there <i>is</i> a Great Pumpkin" she tells the other kids.<br />
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Where God is concerned, nearly everyone around you could be a potential Linus figure (from Sally's point of view) from the day you are born. Everyone is older, wiser, someone you respect and love. If your parents or ministers or teachers or president had told you that the Great Pumpkin was real when you were Sally's age, you would have believed them. If they had told you to sit in the pumpkin patch with them on Halloween night, you would have done so unquestioningly, especially since most of the world would be doing the same. You'd probably still be doing it now. If you managed to abandon those beliefs, you'd have millions judging you for not sitting in a pumpkin patch and for not believing.<br />
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The Great Pumpkin, God: it's all the same.<br />
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This is where Sally's story becomes a sad one. Because this is the first year she is old enough to able to fully participate in Halloween. She can go trick-or-treating, and she can go to the Halloween party with the other kids. But her love for Linus -- and her willingness to believe that the Great Pumpkin may exist -- makes her sit in the pumpkin patch with him instead. She still has her doubts, causing Linus to say to her, "I thought little girls always believed everything that was told to them. I thought little girls were innocent and trusting." (This, of course, is what is counted upon when belief without evidence is concerned.) To her credit, Sally says, "Welcome to the twentieth century," a great comment on how -- as time marches on -- this sort of blind faith disappears.<br />
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Linus turns on the magic for Sally at this point, telling her about the sincerity of his pumpkin patch and how the Great Pumpkin respects sincerity. (These days, one can't help but think of the legal phrase "sincerely held religious beliefs" and how it allows businesses to discriminate.) He tells Sally that she'll be able to see the Great Pumpkin "with [her] own eyes." He tells her this in spite of the fact that he's never seen the Great Pumpkin with <i>his</i> own eyes, even though he's sat out here and waited before. The other kids say that "every year" he misses trick-or-treat and the party, which implies that this has happened at least twice, maybe almost every year of his young life.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/greatpumpkin06.jpg"></center><br />
Linus is the "man of God" getting us to sit in a church pew Sunday after Sunday, missing life itself because Jesus could show up at any time if we just believe. The minister isn't trying to trick anyone. He truly believes it himself; it is a sincerely held belief. His church is "nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see." But there isn't anything actually there, nothing actually coming. Everyone is waiting for Godot.<br />
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This doesn't deny the potential beauty of the church service or of the pumpkin patch. There is a moment in the special, when Linus is waxing poetic, when one might envy Sally, when one might wish to be there with charming, sincere Linus in the pumpkin patch: the enormously full moon behind them, stars shining, a slight fog, the stillness of the night... well away from the blabbering of Lucy and the gang. No candy to rot your teeth. No rocks in your bag. The pumpkin patch can save you lots of heartache, and so can the church. The church, undeniably, can conjure up what feels like magic. The anticipation for what is promised can be overwhelming and seem to give life a higher purpose.<br />
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Ridicule -- cruel as it may be -- is often exactly what we need to break this spell. The Peanuts gang is always up for some good ridicule, and it is at this point that the other children, having finished their trick-or-treating and who are heading toward the party, show up at the pumpkin patch to mock Linus (and Sally). "What a way to spend Halloween!" one says. Sally, now having to resort to anger and defense like Linus (a pumpkin apologist), says to them, "You think you're so smart. Just wait until the Great Pumpkin comes. He'll be here. You can bet on that. Linus knows what he's talking about. Linus knows what he's doing." But then, when they leave, Sally angrily turns to Linus and says, "All right, where is he?"<br />
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As someone being sucked into the religious spell but not yet under it completely, Sally is willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but she reserves her right to be skeptical. She needs some evidence, not just faith, especially if everyone is going to be making fun of her.<br />
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It is at this point that the Great Pumpkin "arrives" for Linus, in the form of Snoopy in silhouette. When you're so willing to believe, an appearance of anything that remotely resembles what you're looking for can be mistaken for the real thing. We see examples of this all the time, from the ridiculous (Jesus appearing in toast) to the strange (Virgin Mary statues crying or bleeding) to the coincidental ("answered" prayers of things that were going to happen anyway). Plain old human emotion can also be mistaken for God, and Linus experiences a sort of religious ecstasy when he thinks he sees the Great Pumpkin and faints.<br />
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But clear-headed Sally sees the truth, and it's the final straw for her. If Linus can mistake a beagle for the Great Pumpkin, it's certain that he's wrong and that she's missed her opportunity to participate in the actual pleasures of life. Her angry tirade against Linus (and herself) is worth quoting in full. It's a lovely speech, and could bring tears to the eyes those who have wasted a good deal of their lives following an imaginary dream:<br />
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"I was robbed! I spent the whole night waiting for the Great Pumpkin when I could have been out for tricks or treats. Halloween is over and I missed it! You blockhead! You kept me up all night waiting for the Great Pumpkin! And all that came was a beagle! I didn't get a chance to go out for tricks or treats. And it was all your fault! I'll sue! What a fool I was! I could have had candy apples and gum and cookies and money and all sorts of things! But no! I had to listen to you, you blockhead! What a fool I was! Trick or treats come only once a year, and I miss it by sitting in a pumpkin patch with a blockhead! You owe me restitution!"<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/greatpumpkin07.jpg"></center><br />
For Sally, tricks or treats come once a year. For us, we only get one life. "What a fool I was!" is a common sentiment for those who have missed out on the full participation in secular life itself because they've been too busy listening to and following religious blockheads. All those Sunday mornings that could have been spent having real activities with family or friends that didn't involve sitting on a bench listening to a repetitive and fantasy-based message. All of that misplaced hatred for people God supposedly finds abominable. All of that body shame and guilt about sex. All that time you were told you were born full of sin and believed it and acted accordingly. All those Bible verses memorized instead of devoting that brainpower to something more meaningful. "What a fool I was!" indeed.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/greatpumpkin08.jpg"></center><br />
Of course, Linus will never see beyond his own delusion. As Sally leaves, Linus says, "Hey, aren't you going to wait and greet the Great Pumpkin? Huh? It won't be long now." No, really: Jesus is coming soon. Any day now! Can't you see the writing on the wall? This is the end times, people! You've come too far to turn back now!<br />
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Linus continues: "If the Great Pumpkin comes, I'll still put in a good word for you. Good grief, I said 'if'! I mean <i>when</i> he comes. I'm doomed. One little slip like that can cause the Great Pumpkin to pass you by." This, too, sounds familiar. It isn't enough to simply believe in Jesus. You have to believe with all your heart. You can't doubt for a second. There's a constant fear of him passing you by, of being "left behind." Because, apparently, Jesus and God are like that. You can be the sweetest kid in the world and do everything right, but if you make some slip like saying God's name with a bad attitude or if you say "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" or if you doubt for a second that anyone is actually hearing your prayers, God has every right to ignore you forever.<br />
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At this point, like Jesus himself crying out his last words on the cross when God has abandoned him, Linus yells to the sky, "Oh, Great Pumpkin, where are you?"<br />
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Linus does all he can do, which is to sleep out in the cold, shivering under his security blanket. It is up to his "mean" sister Lucy to take care of him (after spending a night embarrassing herself by asking for extra candy for her brother, who didn't deserve it). She brings him inside, takes off his shoes, puts him in bed, and tucks him in. She cleans up his religious mess. Somebody has to live in the real world, and sometimes it is the crabby realist who actually gets things done.<br />
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After all this, Linus hasn't learned his lesson. When Charlie Brown suggests (innocently) that Linus shouldn't feel so bad for missing Halloween because he has done some stupid things in his life, too, Linus goes full-blown angry apologist again: "Stupid?! What do you mean: stupid?!" Appropriately, the special ends not with Linus learning anything but with Linus hanging on tighter and more desperately than ever to his baseless beliefs.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/greatpumpkin09.jpg"></center><br />
<center>*</center><br />
The Great Pumpkin is a belief of one fictional character, but we know what it's like when this level of belief is spread to millions. We know what it would be like if, say, Peppermint Patty had an opposing belief, maybe about the Omnipresent Specter, the <i>real</i> (to her) deity that comes every Halloween. We know what it would be like if Schroeder also believed in the Great Pumpkin but thought that believers were supposed to sacrifice a squash to him instead of waiting in a pumpkin patch. We know what wars between these various factions would look like. We know what it would look like for politicians to declare their belief in the Great Pumpkin to even get elected (the opposite of what happened in <i>You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown</i>, when Linus's mention of the Great Pumpkin during a campaign speech cost him several votes). We know exactly what all of these absurdities look like in the real world, because we live them every day.<br />
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Of course, in writing all of this, I'm ignoring Linus's wisdom when he says, "There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and The Great Pumpkin."<br />
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<center>HAPPY HALLOWEEN!</center><p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-9981455929075023732014-08-03T14:53:00.000-05:002014-08-03T14:53:38.641-05:00Literally!<center><b>The Three Camps</b></center><br />
<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/literally3.jpg" align=left hspace-5>We've all heard the question of whether or not the Bible should be taken "literally." The answer seems to be "yes" if you are (a) a fundamentalist who believes everything the Bible says no matter what reality it clashes with or (b) an atheist.<br />
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The group that wants to say "no" or "not always" are the more moderate believers of the Bible (or liberal believers or mainstream believers or whatever label you prefer), those who recognize that the Bible often says things that do not jive with reality and therefore must be metaphorical in nature. In fact, some of these moderate believers -- because fundamentalist and atheists both tend to read the Bible literally -- declare that atheists are "no better than" fundamentalists for failing to understand the nuances of this special book.<br />
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What fundamentalists and atheists have in common is the attempt to honestly face the reality of their world, but the reality of an atheist is the actual world, while the reality of a fundamentalist is what is written in an old book.<br />
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So atheists can recognize that the universe is billions of years old, for example: a fact that is proven in the real world with overwhelming evidence. Atheists can then read the literal words of the Bible -- which says that the earth and everything on it was created by a god in six days -- and know that this book is an artifact from a pre-scientific age when then-unanswerable questions were addressed with supernatural stories--which no one faults the ancient writers for writing.<br />
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Fundamentalists read in the Bible that the earth was created in six days and believe it, on "faith." When confronted with the fact that this simply isn't true by people who observe the real world, fundamentalists defer to their "reality" (the Bible) and deny that the actual reality exists.<br />
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You can, I hope, see the difference between these two camps.<a name='more'></a><br />
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Atheists also have something in common with moderate believers, which is that both have to continually change their perception of reality according to new information provided about the universe. But the difference here is that the atheist (again) only has to deal with actual reality. A moderate believer in the Bible has to deal with actual reality <i>and</i> the reality of this very outdated book. So moderates have elements of both the fundamentalist and the atheist.<br />
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So when new evidence about the universe comes along, the atheist can just be happy about it, discard the outdated view, and have a better picture of reality. For the moderate, the new evidence can't be denied either, so it has to be force-shoved backward into the holy book--with the pretense of seamlessness, as if it were there all along, often by imagining that clear, plain, and "literal" language is metaphorical when (as is obvious to any good reader) it simply isn't.<br />
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So, presented with new information about the age of the universe, the moderate believer has to now say that the word "day" in the six day creation story was being used figuratively. "Of course it wasn't meant as a literal day," they say, but the "of course" is only obvious in retrospect. Before evidence to the contrary appeared, the literal meaning of the word "day" worked just fine and would have never been taken figuratively.<br />
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So you'll hear that a "day," to God, can be thousands or millions or billions of years... or that the creation story was written as a simple myth since the Bible didn't want to concern itself with hard science... or whatever explanation you like, as long as the Bible isn't discarded entirely. You'll also hear, as another example, that it's true that the universe was created with the Big Bang, but now it was God who set it off. He also used evolution to get us here, etc. etc. People living in the real world do all the difficult work explaining the nature of the universe, and the moderate believer can come along at the end of it and say "That, too, was in our book all along."<br />
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So I hope you can see the difference in those two camps as well. From what I've heard, atheists often prefer (if that's not too strong a word) fundamentalists to moderates because at least fundamentalists attempt to read words that are on the page (if those pages are in the Bible, that is), stick with their "reality," and (perhaps most importantly) unintentionally expose the outdated beliefs in the book for what they really are. Moderate believers in the Bible, on the other hand, are slippery experts of retro-fitting and help to perpetuate something that should have expired shortly after the Enlightenment.<br />
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<center><b>Genesis vs. Aesop</b></center><br />
So let's look at some specific, textual examples to talk about literal and figurative language -- as well as genre -- from the Bible and from another source that was being written at around the same time as some of the Hebrew scriptures, Aesop's fables.<br />
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First, let's look at the opening of Genesis 3:<br />
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<i>Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?' " The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.' " But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.</i><br />
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Now let's look at the entirety of the fable "The Bee and Jupiter" from Aesop:<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/literally4.jpg" align=right hspace=5><i>A bee from Mount Hymettus, the queen of the hive, ascended to Olympus to present Jupiter some honey fresh from her combs. Jupiter, delighted with the offering of honey, promised to give whatever she should ask. She therefore besought him, saying, "Give me, I pray thee, a sting, that if any mortal shall approach to take my honey, I may kill him." Jupiter was much displeased, for he loved the race of man, but could not refuse the request because of his promise. He thus answered the Bee: "You shall have your request, but it will be at the peril of your own life. For if you use your sting, it shall remain in the wound you make, and then you will die from the loss of it." Moral: Evil wishes, like chickens, come home to roost.</i><br />
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You can see that these two examples have lots in common: a god (Yahweh and Jupiter, both of whom were believed to be real by their followers), a talking animal, an explanation of why things are the way they are (later in the Genesis story, it is even explained why a snake crawls on its belly), and more.<br />
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However, no one believes the Aesop story to be factual. No one thinks that bees have stingers because Jupiter did it or that bees were ever able to talk. Of course, almost no one believes in Jupiter (who the Greeks called Zeus) anymore, and of course not everyone knows this story (unlike the Genesis story, which everyone knows), but even Jupiter-believers of Aesop's day wouldn't have believed this story to be factual. They would have recognized it as a fable, which is a simple story -- usually involving animals -- that illustrates a moral.<br />
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So why is Genesis believed if Aesop isn't? One reason, of course, is because people <i>do</i> still believe in the Jewish god Yahweh who also became the god of Christianity and Islam (so powerful he's now just known as "God"). The reason why people still believe in Yahweh and not Jupiter is another story entirely, but the quick answer is that Yahweh -- unlike the more accepting gods of neighboring religions -- is an all-or-nothing jealous god whose followers kill or oppress to keep him number one. This kind of enforcement, naturally, leads to people taking God's holy book a little more seriously than they do Aesop's fables.<br />
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Because, yes, it is a fable, and fables are never to be believed, just used. So genre is the main reason no one believes Aesop. So what genre is Genesis? Is it, too, a fable? A parable? A myth? A history? A science lesson? My vote is on myth, but with a qualifier that I'll explain soon.<br />
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The Adam and Eve story is not direct enough for a parable, since there's no clear moral. What would the moral be? "Knowledge, even if it's forbidden, helps you to know the difference between good and evil"? If so, why is this a bad thing that gets Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden? And what about all this stuff about death? God says they'll die, but the serpent says they won't. And they don't! Too complicated, weird, and unexplained for a fable, the moral of which can be (and usually is) summed up in once sentence.<br />
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But it's got elements you expect from myth: a god, supernatural animals, "firsts" (man, woman, snakes, disobedience, etc.), magic food and trees, questions about the nature of death, knowledge, civilization, humanity, etc. Myths aren't necessarily meant to be "believed," but they are meant -- though symbols and archetypes -- to express large truths and feelings that are difficult to get to in a nonfictional way. Myth is like a dream: even if you can't explain the meaning of it to yourself when you awake in the morning, it doesn't matter because it has already done the psychological work, and you are changed. So people could and did believe in a literal Jupiter, but they also could recognize him as a symbolic signifier.<br />
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So here's my qualifier about Genesis as myth. The book feels like it was once a more clear myth that got jumbled up with other myths and stories and histories and everything else. In fact, the first chapter of Genesis is the six-day creation story while the second chapter is this snake story, and they're both related but very different accounts of the creation of mankind... and with two different sets of gods: Yahweh (the snake story) and the Elohim (at least two gods of the six-day story). This gets jumbled with two different versions of the Noah story (two animals vs. seven animals and other inconsistencies) and the Tower of Babel story and other myth-like stories, while those eventually get jumbled with the more "historical" (though not actual history, of course) accounts of Abraham and his descendants, which merge myth and legend.<br />
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So everything is a complete mess. This complete mess -- for the Torah -- even has a name, which is the Documentary Hypothesis, which looks like this:<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/literally1.jpg"></center><br />
The Documentary Hypothesis says that at least four different documents make up the first four books of the Bible and that these documents were blended together (somewhere along the way) to give us what we have today. It would be like if you took the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) -- which are also varied, contradictory, and contain difference voices -- and blended them together into some kind of rough chronology (which does happen in people's heads, if not on the page).<br />
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So in mixing documents, we're also mixing genres. In mixing genres, it's impossible to tell what the intent of the writers were who gave us the books, which makes it impossible to tell whether we're to take anything "literally" or not. And this is all after the possible oral stories and rituals that got them there to begin with. So the source materials of Genesis were probably great myths, but now they are near-useless nonsense.<br />
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One thing we can do is to raise this question for believers of every stripe: why would God allow this mess to happen? Why doesn't he present his message to humanity more clearly? Why does he begin with a jumble of contradictory myths (which is rather like trying to describe four separate dreams at once to a listener who would be confused to hear even one) only to eventually give us (in the rest of the Bible) legends and histories and confusing prophecies and songs and proverbs and even erotica? If the answer is that man screwed it up, that doesn't help much, since the man-screwed version is all we have. It's all we have, and yet -- in spite of its obvious errors -- it is still so widely regarded and considered "inspired."<br />
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The usual answer to these sorts of questions is not that man or God or anyone screwed anything up but that everything is as it should be. It just has to be properly understood with "spiritual" discernment. The usual answer quotes Jesus when he says, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants..." The answer is that the Bible is a literary puzzle to be solved, but it can't be solved by adults using their minds: you have to "become like children," turn off your brain, and tap into the spirit of God for the truth.<br />
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In other words, my trying to make sense out of all this is counterproductive because I'm thinking like a man, not like God. God does everything mysteriously. You have to wait for his invisible ink to appear and then hold the backward letters in the mirror and then convert those letters into numbers and know what the numbers symbolize, and if you kill a goat in the moonlight at midnight, the stone door will open and you can walk inside the crystal palace.<br />
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To that line of (very common) thinking, I'd like to say this: <i>Nonsense. It's just another book.</i><br />
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<center><b>God vs. Santa</b></center><br />
So, just like any other book, it can be read by human beings, no problem.<br />
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In fact, I doubt the earliest readers of these Biblical stories (or hearers of these stories before they were written down) looked for any mysterious meaning. When ancient believers were told that God appeared in the form of a burning bush, they accepted it as easily as you accepted it when your parents told you that Santa Claus went down your chimney at Christmas to give you that new bike. Why would God's followers, who had no other answers, have any reason to doubt him? It was only when doubt crept in -- through our greater understanding of the universe -- that we began to retro-fit God's books as metaphorical.<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/literally5.jpg" align=right hspace-5>When children first begin to doubt the existence of Santa Claus, many parents do not initially give in and simply reveal him as false. Instead, they invent some additional explanations to satisfy the child for a little longer, to keep the "magic" going.<br />
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So the initial myth is that Santa Claus travels around the entire planet in one night, on a sleigh pulled by reindeer, visiting each individual house to leave presents, taking the time to eat cookies and drink milk. But what happens when the child says, "How does Santa have time to make it to every house in one night?" The first answer might be something like "He's very fast," which satisfies for a while. (One imagines that his reindeer once walked on the ground and then had to evolve into fliers in order to answer these sorts of questions.) A more complicated answer might be needed later, as the child becomes more educated: "Santa Claus travels so fast that he approaches the speed of light and affects time, so that what seems like one night to us is actually thousands or millions of nights to him."<br />
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You see the parallels. As the child becomes older and more sophisticated, more sophisticated answers have to be given about Santa. As humanity becomes older and more sophisticated, more sophisticated answers have to be given about God. Eventually, of course, either the parents cracks and says "Santa Claus isn't real" or the distance between real life and fantasy becomes so great for the child that he or she grows out of it, no matter what the parents say. In the case of telling God stories, the "parents" will never crack, either because they are (usually) believers themselves or because they have something to gain from perpetuating the factualness of the story. So it is up to the "children" to simply stop believing.<br />
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Once you clear away all the apologetics about the Bible, you can read it for what it is. Once you realize it isn't a magic, secret book, you can read it for what it is. Once you do your best to clear away everything your parents and grandparents and pastors and youth leaders and television programs and politicians and everyone has said about it, you can read it for what it is.<br />
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You can read it <i>literally</i>!<br />
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<center><b>An Obvious But Important Side Note</b></center><br />
Naturally, there are things that are figurative within the literal. For example, in the excerpt about the serpent above, there is a sentence where the snake says "... when you eat of [the tree], your eyes will be opened." This is figurative language. It doesn't mean that when Eve eats the fruit that her eyelids will be pried open after walking around with them sealed the entire time. No one thinks this, because everyone is able to recognize figures of speech. "Your eyes will be opened" means that something will be revealed: in this case, the knowledge of good and evil. Even fundamentalists don't take these kinds of things "literally."<br />
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There are also fuzzy areas. For example, Jesus says many things that could be taken either way, like when he says it's good to tear out your right eye if it causes you to sin. Does he mean it literally, that if you lust after a woman who isn't your wife (since this is what he was talking about at the time), you should cut your eye out? He might, and he's said crazier things than that. But it doesn't really make much sense. The right eye only? Don't you look, and lust, with both eyes? And how would this stop the sin really? Most would assume that Jesus was being figurative in this case, telling you to get rid of whatever causes you to sin. Jesus, like some of the prophets, are a special case, since they seem to present themselves as "spiritual" speakers, meaning that they almost always speak metaphorically. Still, it's difficult to tell, and I wouldn't be surprised if he really wanted you to throw your eyeball in the garbage can.<br />
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So what I'm talking about are places where there is no reason (other than reality) to doubt that the writing is literal, where it takes considerable effort to come up with what the writer is "really" saying. In the "your eyes will be opened" example, our brain automatically treats the phrase as figurative. In the Jesus example, we're not quite sure. But in the case of the six day creation story, we have to do a lot of difficult work in order to force it to be figurative.<br />
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<center><b>Noah vs. Utnapishtim</b></center><br />
Since comparing a myth to a fable has problems, let's try comparing a myth to a myth. In fact, let's try comparing the near-identical myths: the Noah story and the Utnapishtim story from the Epic of Gilgamesh, which pre-dates the Bible by about a thousand years.<br />
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In the Biblical Noah story, mankind becomes too wicked and God regrets creating them, so he decides to destroy them with a flood. But God chooses to save Noah, his family, and a sampling of animals on an ark that God has Noah build. The boat lands on Mt. Ararat and Noah sends a raven and two doves to look for dry land. When the family leaves the ark, they sacrifice animals to God who says it was a mistake to destroy mankind and puts a rainbow in the sky as a sign that he'll never do it again.<br />
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In the story of Utnapishtim, the gods -- headed by Enlil -- want to destroy mankind with a flood because they are too noisy. But Ea, in a dream, warns Utnapishtim, who builds a boat and saves his family, the workers who helped build the boat, and a sampling of animals. The boat lands on Mt. Nimush and Utnapishtim sends a raven, a swallow, and a dove to look for dry land. When the humans leave the boat, they sacrifice animals to the gods. A goddess puts her necklace in the sky (a rainbow) as a sign that she will never forget these events, and Enlil is scolded by her and the other gods for bringing the flood.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/literally6.jpg"></center><br />
Atheists, of course, have no trouble dismissing both of these stories as equally impossible. We can enjoy them as literary works that offer up some commentary about the desire for immortality and the nature of survival against the brutality of nature, and we can recognize and appreciate that the Biblical story was a borrowing from the older culture who composed the Gilgamesh epic.<br />
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What do fundamentalists do with the brutal fact of the Utnapishtim story? I'll let one of them (Frank Lorey, M.A., writing for the Institute for Creation Research) tell you in his own words (words in bold mine):<br />
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<i>Dating of the oldest fragments of the Gilgamesh account originally indicated that it was older than the assumed dating of Genesis. However, <b>the probability exists</b> that the Biblical account had been preserved either as an oral tradition, or in written form handed down from Noah, through the patriarchs and eventually to Moses, thereby making it actually older than the Sumerian accounts which were restatements (with alterations) to the original.<br />
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<b>The divine inspiration of the Bible would demand that the Genesis account is the correct version.</b> Indeed the Hebrews were known for handing down their records and tradition. The Book of Genesis is viewed for the most part as an historical work, even by many liberal scholars, while the Epic of Gilgamesh is viewed as mythological. The One-source Theory must, therefore, lead back to the historical event of the Flood and Noah's Ark. <b>To those who believe in the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, it should not be a surprise that God would preserve the true account of the Flood in the traditions of His people.</b> The Genesis account was kept pure and accurate throughout the centuries by the providence of God until it was finally compiled, edited, and written down by Moses. <b>The Epic of Gilgamesh, then, contains the corrupted account as preserved and embellished by peoples who did not follow the God of the Hebrews</b></i>.<br />
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So this sort of fundamentalism rejects that the Utnapishtim story is a thousand or so years older, in spite of the evidence, because "the probability exists" that it isn't. The word <i>probability</i> should be replaced with the words <i>extremely slim possibility</i>. The unalterable belief that the Bible is divinely inspired "demands" that Genesis is correct and that God "preserved" it with his people and not the others. This is what we in the fallacy business call "begging the question." The Bible as a "historical work" is incorrect, and that it is viewed as such by "some liberal scholars" may be true if "some" means three or four among thousands and thousands. (Compare with the "some scientists disagree with man-made global warming" argument.) The insulting conclusion of this argument is: "No, they borrowed from <i>us</i>!"<br />
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In other words, the usual willful ignorance and "la la la, I can't hear you" response you would expect from a fundamentalist, who is both dismissive and offensive toward a belief that isn't his own.<br />
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So what about moderates? Moderate believers have to admit the impossibility of these flood stories, and they also have to recognize that the Utnapishtim story is considerably older than theirs. This was an especially embarrassing fact to admit in the history of the moderates because the Epic of Gilgamesh wasn't discovered until 1853. This meant that once they finally were forced to admit that a worldwide flood didn't happen, all those animals couldn't fit on a boat, etc., insult was added to injury when they had to further admit that their story was plagiarized from a "pagan" source, from a people who were enemies of their god!<br />
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After the initial sting wears off, the moderate recovers as swiftly as always, declaring that "of course" the Noah story didn't actually happen, but that the world flood story is such a beloved myth that the Bible needed it too, and that it provides an important message about starting over when things get too bad, or whatever, etc. etc. <br />
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Well, if that is the case and it's all just metaphor, then might I offer this proposal, at least for this flood story: follow the Epic of Gilgamesh instead! Use it as your holy text. It's more ancient, more pure, and (where it varies) it's a much better story! Here's why:<br />
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Weather, like a flood, does not destroy because humanity is wicked. Weather is not a judge of morality. But it may destroy if mankind becomes too "noisy." We, right now, have become too noisy, too populous, and we are altering the weather with the things we do to the environment. The ice caps are melting, and soon parts of Florida may be underwater. If the gods are metaphors for weather disasters, the Utnapishtim story makes more sense.<br />
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In the Noah story, God talks to Noah with an audible voice, which is something that doesn't really happen. But people do have dreams, which Utnapishtim has. This is all metaphor, remember? The moderates have agreed on that. So a man having a dream to do something about the impending weather conditions is realistic and fits the metaphor perfectly.<br />
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Noah allows everyone but his family to die, but at least Utnapishtim has the decency to save the workers who helped with the boat--who he would have obviously needed to complete such a massive undertaking. More realistic and more moral.<br />
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Three different birds (raven, swallow, dove) obviously make for better story-telling than two birds with one repeated (raven, dove, dove) and has more potential symbolic meaning.<br />
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Most important, the gods of the Utnapishtim story can represent various aspects of nature or even of human nature, so it would make sense that they quarrel over who did the correct thing where the flood was concerned, and it gives us a greater metaphorical story. What doesn't make sense is a God who creates mankind, regrets it, kills them all with a flood, then regrets that. What sort of god is that? I'll tell you what kind: it's the kind that is attempting to be all the gods at once. Since the Noah story was plagiarized, the quarrelling gods couldn't happen. Instead, God had to have a multiple personality disorder and argue with himself.<br />
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And what moral lesson is finally learned after the flood is over? We learn in both that gods enjoy cooked animals, but in the Gilgamesh story, Utnapishtim is able to relate this story to Gilgamesh as part of an attempt to persuade him that he will not be given immortality, so that the lesson is that humanity should face our death with dignity and with a desire to leave something positive behind, which Gilgamesh eventually does. In the Genesis story, however, what happens afterward is that Noah gets drunk and his son rapes either Noah's wife or perhaps Noah himself. (The text is ambiguous, but something incestuous happens.)<br />
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Which story, if neither is historical and merely meant as moral metaphor, would you prefer? Why would the moderate believer pick Noah over Utnapishtim? Why wouldn't you worship Ea over Yahweh? The answer can almost only be that the moderate was simply raised to know and prefer God/Yahweh no matter what, even if all of his tales are metaphorical.<br />
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And if all of his tales are metaphorical, if all of these are just made up stories, then how does anyone know anything about God at all? For someone reading the Bible literally, we can learn plenty about God, but if these stories are rejected as figurative, we know nothing of him.<br />
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I hear the answer now: "God is mysterious, and our puny, mortal brain can't understand it." If that is so, then how is the moderate's puny, mortal brain able to understand that he <i>is</i> mysterious? What secret decoder ring have they used to know even this one thing about God, which is that they cannot know nothing about him? It's as if they're saying, "We can never know the mind of God. Now, here's exactly what he thinks..."<br />
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The best argument, perhaps, is that the Bible is full of metaphorical words that are meant to create an <i>impression</i> of what God is like, since apparently the book can't manage to do it more directly. But, guess what: the impression those metaphors and images give is that God is a tyrannical, jealous, petty, quick-tempered, unimaginative, murderous, racist, misogynistic psychopath who wants us to be just like him (as long as we grovel in the process). Read the Bible literally or read it metaphorically: God is an asshole, a figurative asshole.<br />
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<center><b>Heaven vs. Heaven</b></center><br />
Let's take an example of how something that was written as literal was transformed over time into the figurative and then into something metaphysical: heaven.<br />
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When I first read the Bible at age six or so, I wasn't able to look at it with my own eyes -- like I would have for any other new book -- but from someone else's point of view: from thousands of years of theology filtered through church, parents, pop culture, etc.<br />
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So in the first sentence -- "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" -- I thought the "heaven" being referred to was "Heaven," the dwelling place of God, the place we go when we die, the realm that exists somehow out of our universe, the place depicted in countless films and comic strips. Because my reading had been adulterated, I wasn't able to read the literalness of the words, which might normally be read as "In the beginning, God created the sky and the ground."<br />
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I was further corrupted from a pure reading because I was already told who "God" was. This wasn't like reading <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i> for the first time, where the name "Holden Caulfield" had no prior attachments for me. "God" was a word with pre-packaged meaning, handed to me from birth until this point.<br />
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And in addition to misreading the word "heaven," I also misread the word "earth," because I thought I was reading about the earth that I already knew really well just from living in the 20th century: a sphere spinning and orbiting the sun, residing within the solar system and the milky way--with its single moon that we had actually landed on six years before I was born.<br />
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But this wasn't the "earth" the writers of Genesis were describing. They were describing a flat earth floating on the sea (elsewhere in the Bible described as having four literal corners), with an underground (call Sheol or Hell) at the bottom and a dome covering the top, holding back the chaotic waters that God would eventually (in the days of Noah) let loose through the dome's windows. The earth was "fixed" by God (later described as being held by pillars) in the middle of everything. The lights -- sun, stars, and moon (a moon that gave its own "lesser" light) -- were attached to the dome.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/literally2.jpg"></center><br />
Because I was picturing the correct, modern conception of earth, I had to read the first chapter of Genesis a thousand times to figure out what was being described. "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters"? What? (It didn't help that I was reading the beautiful but archaic King James Version of 1611, which was all that was allowed in my church.)<br />
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So my reading was corrupted by fundamentalism but also by modern science, since I was able to learn and believe both, being raised in a church and family that had both moderate and fundamentalist leanings. There was no way I was going to be able to properly read this book. I kept asking myself "Where are the Neanderthals?" and "Where are the dinosaurs?" and "Where is the Big Bang?"<br />
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I was skilled at living with cognitive dissonance even at this age, but it could only get me so far. It was only when I was older that I was able to adopt the "sophisticated" explanations for why the Bible was so horribly wrong. When I read "as a little child," the emperor had no clothes, but I learned to see them soon enough, and it was decades before he was naked again.<br />
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So, in the beginning, heaven was just heaven, was just sky. And apparently God lived either in the sky or above the sky, above the dome. It would have been pretty easy to believe originally, since no one was able to go up there and check it out, just as no one was able -- originally -- to see if there were any gods on Mount Olympus. In the Tower of Babel story, the tower was destroyed because God thought we might actually be able to reach the top and find him. Clearly, gods don't like to be found. (I used to have a joke about how Neil Armstrong landed on the moon and saw Jesus sitting there in a lawn chair, saying, "Aw, crap, you found me.")<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/art/biblestories027.jpg"></center><br />
Much later, Jesus confused things further when he was able to say (in the Lord's Prayer) "Our father in heaven," but also that we should seek the "Kingdom of Heaven." It's difficult to tell what Jesus meant by those kinds of phrases (difficult Jesus again), especially since different writers had him expressing different things. Sometimes Jesus seemed to be speaking of the actual sky, "Our father in the sky." Other times, he seemed to be talking about the "inner life" (another metaphor): the Kingdom of Heaven, not as a physical place, but a state of mind. Of course, he could still keep it literal if he wanted to, since God was still safely out of sight.<br />
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As a result of Jesus's confusing talk and apocalyptic works like the Revelation, "heaven" got turned into "Heaven," and the place where God lived (the sky) became the place where we could live (after death) if we followed Jesus. All dead people going to the underworld (which made a certain kind of sense) became dead people either going to Hell (to burn) or to Heaven.<br />
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But then, you know, we went to the moon. Oops. We actually got to see that giant ball we lived on. We knew it wasn't flat for a long time before that, and of course we eventually figured out that we went around the sun and not vice-versa, and we knew that there wasn't a bunch of cosmic water above the sky dome and that there wasn't an underworld and that the universe is expanding and that we're just a dot on its map, etc. etc. We knew these things for hundreds of years, and the moon landing should have been the final nail in the coffin of any Biblical or Biblically-inspired concept of "heaven" and "Heaven" both.<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/literally8.jpg" align=left hspace=5>But, instead, for all of those hundreds of years, moderate believers retro-fitted and re-defined. "Oh, you silly, God isn't some man in the sky. We're not going to live with him in the <i>clouds</i>. Heaven is a place that exists beyond the confines of this universe, since God is not of this universe but the creator of it." Universe? I only read that God created the sky and ground. The book doesn't seem to be aware of anything beyond a very small range and certainly has no concept of the solar system or expanding universe.<br />
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"Oh, well, the book was written for people with a limited scope of knowledge, so God didn't want to confuse them with the real picture of the universe." Why would it have confused them? What would be so difficult about saying that God took billions of years to get things where they were: a moon spinning around the earth, the earth spinning around the sun? Seems less confusing than what's actually written in the Bible, which sounds more like something a two-year-old would imagine before learning science.<br />
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"Oh, and Hell isn't really a place underground. It's just the absence of God." That's not what your book says! "Well, you're reading it wrong, honey. Don't take it literally. Don't read what it actually says. Just listen to what I say instead, because my priest explained this all to us already. In fact, don't bother reading the book: that's your trouble."<br />
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And what would be so difficult about picking a genre that made sense? There was nothing fancy going on when Abraham's lineage was described, for example, so we know that straightforward writing was possible. Besides, God can do anything! As Carl Sagan once pointed out, God could have put E=MC² in the Bible somewhere if he had wanted to. But, no, the "end times" battles use swords and horses.<br />
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By this point in history, there is very little in this most important book in the world (inspired by God himself) that <i>can</i> be taken literally or historically (since Abraham and company didn't exist, the Exodus didn't happen, etc.) if you're going to live in the real world. So is the entire book taken as a metaphor? David and Goliath weren't real but are representations of the large spiritual battles we fight? Jonah and the Big Fish isn't real but simply symbolizes the low points we go through when we run from God? Jesus didn't really turn water into wine but instead this was a story about how we can take a banal life and make it more satisfying?<br />
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I'm willing to accept this argument if we can go one step further: God, too, is a metaphor.<br />
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<center><b>Metaphors of Metaphors</b></center><br />
Willing as many moderate believers are to declare that almost everything in their book is a metaphor, they are not willing to say that God or Jesus is. Usually they're not willing to say that the resurrection is, or any of the miracles--even though those <i>do</i> have fairly obvious metaphorical and spiritual implications: making the blind see, healing the sick, raising the dead, etc. Heaven isn't a metaphor either, although "heaven" is a metaphor for Heaven.<br />
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Hell and Satan could go either way. People are more willing to drop the evil stuff.<br />
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This is where the atheist frustration comes in. "Who gets to choose what is metaphorical and what isn't?" is the biggest complaint. It's a valid complaint. Why does this book, this anthology, get so much wiggle room when it comes to what it "really" says and what it doesn't say? No other book in our culture seems to have this superpower.<br />
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The answer is usually that it's not just another book, because it's a book inspired by God--you know, according to itself. (The Koran, according to itself, was <i>dictated</i> by God, but no Bible believer seems to care about that.) So the answer for who gets to decide figurative vs. literal goes something like this: "Each believing individual gets to decide for him or herself what the Bible is 'really' saying and can believe whatever he or she wants to believe about it, as long as the belief in God remains. For Christians, this also means Jesus and the resurrection."<br />
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And, yes, believing sub-factions will disagree with each other, but they are all unified in the one main premise: God exists, and the Bible is his word, so do whatever you need to make those two things seem true.<br />
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So, since God and Jesus are metaphors themselves, we end up with metaphors of metaphors. "The world flood didn't really happen, of course, but it was written to foreshadow the coming of Christ's church, which is the 'vessel' that we all need to get inside in order to be saved." Or a simpler example: "The lamb Moses made his people sacrifice was a metaphor for Jesus."<br />
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Because, yes, the other thing that happened during after the New Testament writings was that we learned that, apparently, the Old Testament was all about Jesus. Everything. The Gospel of John kicks it off in grand style by re-writing the creation story so that Jesus is the "Word" that was spoken by God to create light and the rest of it, so that God created Jesus who created everything else.<br />
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The Christian theologians who came after the New Testament was complete were the ones who really ran with the idea. Everything the prophets ever said was about Jesus. Abel was a type of Jesus, the first martyr for God. Noah was a type of Jesus, who saved us all from a sinful world. Isaac was a type of Jesus who was (in this case, nearly) sacrificed by his father. Jonah was a type of Jesus who was in a death-like state for three days and came out. The list goes on and on.<br />
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You even hear it said for non-Biblical characters in modern times, so that "secular" characters get to be about Jesus, too: Superman is Jesus. Neo from <i>The Matrix</i> is Jesus. Everyone is Jesus!<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/literally7.jpg"></center><br />
But since Jesus is really a metaphor himself, it would eliminate the middle man to say that all these things are metaphors for the one thing they're all pointing to: a "killing" of the old self to "resurrect" as something new and improved--all of which is metaphorical language, all of which we understand, which means that if we could really understood this and not insist that Jesus and God are the stopping places, we'd finally be getting somewhere.<br />
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<center><b>I've Had Enough</b></center><br />
But we're not getting anywhere. It's just as muddy as it always was, and once you clear away the mud you see that the Bible is trying to say, literally, some basic stuff: God created the world and mankind (as written), he wasn't happy with it so he killed almost everyone in a flood (as written), he picked one guy (Abraham) and his family to pay attention to and give land and power to (as written), a bunch of stuff happened that made God variously happy and sad, etc. (as written). It's just a story, and it can be understood without "reading between the lines."<br />
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So I'm afraid I'm no longer able to go down the pot-fueled rabbit hole to arrive at the conclusions moderates would have me believe now that I'm able to read the Bible myself with my own educated working adult brain. I'm not willing to fast for thirty days, take peyote, and then read the book in order to find its psychedelic hidden meanings. I'm not willing to suffer the tedium of list after list of patriarchal lineages and pretend that they have hippie-dippy spiritual significance. I'm not going to read the erotica of the Song of Solomon and take a hit of ecstasy which will allow me to see that it is actually a love letter from God to the Jews or from Jesus to the Bride of Christ.<br />
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Call me secular, call me lacking in spirituality, call me what you will, but I'm not gonna do it!<br />
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No, no, <i>you</i> hold on! I know I've had a fairly measured tone throughout this piece, but I've had enough! I've got a goddamned PhD in English, motherfucker, and think I know how to read a goddamned book! Oh, what, you think this reasoned analysis has devolved into me screaming? Is that what you think? Is that what you really think? Well, I can only blame you. You've done this to me! How many times do I have to listen to you say "We're not really going to be up there strumming harps, you know?" Who said shit about harps? Did I say harps? Was it you, Jimmy? Did you say harps? I did read about a street of gold, but I guess that's silly too, even though it's in your book in black and white and sometimes red!<br />
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Your book, not mine. I reject it! I thought it was fine at first, but I'm done with it. Oh, I hear your words: "Shit, this is too big for you, you know that? Who did the president? Who killed Kennedy? It's a mystery! It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma! The fuckin' shooters don't even know! Don't you get it?" No, I don't get it. I get that Oswald killed Kennedy, so take that. I'm not going to listen to conspiracy theories about how the truth of the Bible was all a cover-up.<br />
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Nope, you can't talk me out of it. No more Bible. I refuse to look at this book any more. I mean, let me just open to a random chapter: "Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool." What? You're kidding me! God said that. Was he being literal, guys? Was he? He's sitting on the sky with his feet on our constantly-hurling planet? Oh my word, is that what is happening? My eyes are bleeding! Burt. My eyes are bleeding!<br />
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I'm out. I'm done. Last post about the Bible. I'll never open it again. Forget it. We're breaking up.<br />
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<center><b>Addendum: The Next Literal Day</b></center><br />
I'm sorry, Bible. I didn't mean it. I was just being figurative. You understand. Thanks, baby. You always did get me. Let's go find a cozy couch together, just you and me, and I'll open you up--just like old times. That's better. Now what were you telling me? The psalmist's prayer for God to smash the enemy's babies on the rocks was just literary hyperbole to demonstrate the frustration we feel with the sin that we nurture? Okay, sweetness. Whatever you say. Whatever it takes, baby.<br />
Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-27057698648305057832014-07-23T21:02:00.001-05:002017-02-09T13:59:06.303-06:00Chapter 12What if the Bible, instead of starting with the first eleven chapters of Genesis, started with Chapter 12?<br />
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This isn't as unusual of a question as it might seem. The first eleven chapters are almost purely "mythological," while the rest of Genesis is "historical." This means that the first eleven are interesting to humanity in a universal way, while the rest of the book (and most of the rest of the "Old Testament") simply isn't. Beginning the book with Chapter 12 would start the book more properly, without misleading us into thinking it's about something that it isn't, and it would help eliminate many of the needless "controversies" surrounding education, science, and the way we think about and live our lives.<br />
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As a reminder of what occurs in the first eleven chapters, Genesis 1 gives us the famous six day creation story. Chapters 2-3 gives us an almost completely different creation story involving Adam, Eve, the serpent, and the forbidden fruit. Chapter 4 is Cain killing Abel and other murder stories. Chapter 5 (not mythological) is the lineage of Adam to Noah and his sons. Chapters 6-9 is Noah's ark and the re-boot of humanity after the flood. Chapter 10 (also not mythological) is the lineage of Noah's sons. Chapter 11 is the Tower of Babel and the scattering of people and languages, with some additional non-mythological lineage thrown in at the end of the chapter.<br />
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These scant chapters of Genesis (only 8 1/2 if you take out the lineages) are some of the main things we remember and care about when we think of not only this first book but of the entire Bible. In these chapters, we learn where the world and humanity come from (two versions: take your pick, or force-merge if you like), where sin and evil and death come from, the notion that the planet -- at one point in its history -- became so wicked that it had to be destroyed by water and begun anew, where rainbows come from, where language comes from, where races come from, and more.<br />
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Unfortunately, the book of Genesis -- in a rush to get to what it really wants to talk about (which I'll explain soon) -- rushes through all of these large ideas haphazardly, confusingly, wrongly, ignorantly, immorally, and every other negative "ly" you wish you add. So now we live with the God-given "facts" that the universe (which apparently only reaches to the visible sky) takes a week to make and is only a few thousand years old, evil and death come from a magic fruit that we ate, "sin" is something we're born with and inherit, women come from a man's rib, man is the ruler of woman and animals, a sampling of every species in the world once fit on a boat and were saved from a world flood, different languages are punishment for humanity working together to make a great city and building, and so on.<br />
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We're stuck with these idiotic ideas, even after the Age of Enlightenment, even after Darwin, even after we landed on the moon, even in the 21st century where the Bible is proven false while science fiction novels become truer every year. If these unnecessary eleven chapters were gone, we may not have some of these stupid problems and misguided notions--or at least not to such a degree.<a name='more'></a><br />
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So what was the big rush? What did the Bible really want to say when it was skimming through the less-important "How did we get here and what is the meaning of life?" stuff? The answer begins in Chapter 12, which is when God -- after several generations and do-overs -- reveals himself to Abraham (then called Abram) and decides that he wants to give Abraham and his family... some land.<br />
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That's it! Most of the Hebrew Scriptures, the "Old Testament," is about God giving a somewhat arbitrary family some property and power.<br />
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So it didn't really matter where humanity came from or <i>why</i> people were evil (Abraham and his descendants are, by the way, some of the most evil characters you'll ever encounter) or why we have different languages or any of that. Those things were just leftovers from older mythologies that cared about universal questions. The much older Epic of Gilgamesh, for example (which thoughtfully examines our desire for eternal life, ultimately rejecting the possibility), has a flood story, so Genesis feels the need to copy it and replace Gilgamesh's gods with its God. The Babylonian creation myth has Marduk creating humans in order to take care of the earth, so Genesis makes its God do that now. Even Marduk's powerful ziggurat, the gateway to heaven, is converted into the Tower of Babel as a negative. The first eleven chapters exist in order to re-write mythology, inserting Yahweh in place of the old gods, pretending that he was the only one there the whole time and that every other god is a lie.<br />
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But the real plot of the Bible is God giving land, slaves, animals, wells, women, etc. to Abraham's descendants (only the male ones, of course, and usually the first-born: another reason the story isn't universal), all the time making sure that those descendants know that God is the one giving it to them--else they get punished by having their land taken away. It's a materialistic message and nothing more. I guess the "prosperity gospel" Christians got it right.<br />
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You can read the rest of the chapters and books if you like. Abraham gets some additional property by tricking Egypt and then by defeating an army in a battle. Abraham disturbs his all-powerful lineage by getting a slave woman pregnant rather than waiting for his wife to have a baby. When this baby is finally born, God "tests" Abraham by telling him to kill the son. When Abraham passes the test, God promises again that he'll have land and power. Genesis plagiarizes itself when Isaac has almost exactly the same story as his dad. There's some trouble over inheritance with Isaac's boys, including Jacob, who gives birth to Joseph, who becomes even more powerful through a series of misadventures. Egypt takes over for a while and Moses has to rescue the family so that they can flee slavery and establish laws (one that lets the family have slaves, of course). All the laws are in aid of this family line having land and power. Joshua attempts to take over the land God promised, which ultimately happens in the book of Judges. Little side-stories like Ruth slip in there, which are mostly about whether anyone can marry into this powerful, land-owning family or not. On and on: one bloody land-grab story after another.<br />
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Even poetic books like Psalms are mostly about pleasing God so that land can be kept, or about asking God to defeat enemies who want their land. Same thing for the prophets like Isaiah. "Morality" plays, such as Job, end up having more to do with whether or not you submit to God unquestioningly or not... so that you can have a new wife and family and cattle if God kills your first set for no good reason. Same for Proverbs. In fact, only two books -- the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes -- seem to provide the reader with love, humanity, romance, humility, and true wisdom. I'm not sure how they were snuck into this otherwise materialistic anthology.<br />
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So let's look just at the opening of the book to see how misleading it is. Here's Genesis 1: "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters." Right away, we're misled into thinking that we'll be reading about an all-powerful god who created the world out of chaos. Maybe we'll learn something about the true nature of the universe and ourselves.<br />
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But no. Contrast Genesis 1 to the true opening of the book, Genesis 12: "Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.' "<br />
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This is a more honest opening. As readers, we may be interested in reading a potentially-great family epic, but we won't be tricked into thinking we're reading anything spiritual or anything about <i>us</i>. The Chapter 12 opening clearly suggests the story of this very local, specific person named Abram and his personal family god, Yahweh: a very limited god who can only intervene with human affairs in a miniscule way and who seems to be playing within a set of cosmic rules that are beyond his control.<br />
<br />
The only reason anyone would want to pay attention to the Genesis 12 story for any reason other than a literary one is because we thought it was about the creator God of Genesis 1 who can do anything. But the god of Abraham <i>isn't</i> the god of Genesis 1. The god of Genesis 1 is a rip-off of the gods of Gilgamesh and of Babylon and of the Greeks and of all the other "pagan," "false" gods that the rest of the Bible spends its time insisting aren't that great: all of the gods (and goddesses!) that the Bible has stolen and meshed into one "God." This new God has nothing to do with humanity, just Abraham's family, and even for them he can only offer material things that don't need divine intervention, since property and power can be gained through good old-fashioned greed, war, and a lack of humanity--which is what Abraham's family excels at.<br />
<br />
Okay, yes, but what about the New Testament? Doesn't the Gospel of Jesus have something to offer humanity? Well, yes and no. Jesus does two things, both of which wouldn't be necessary if it weren't for all the nonsense of the Hebrew Bible. One is that he claims to be able to forgive "sin" and -- for reasons having to do with the animal sacrifice established in Moses's law -- he feels the need to be executed in order to truly do so. But "sin," as we've discussed, is a literary invention--one that comes across most clearly (and mythically) in the first few chapters of Genesis (even though the word <i>sin</i> itself isn't used in the Garden of Eden story). When, in Genesis, we learn that <i>humanity</i> let "sin" enter the world by eating fruit, we now need a scapegoat to be forgiven of it, and that scapegoat is Jesus. So without this Eden story, we wouldn't need forgiveness for a thing we didn't do, so Jesus wouldn't be necessary.<br />
<br />
The other thing Jesus does is offer us something more in life than just land and power. This is what all the selling all you own to feed the poor is about. This is why we are laying up our treasures in "heaven." The word "heaven," it seems, is Jesus's metaphor for the spiritual life, something "inner," but -- of course -- since we have been trained for thousands of years to value nothing but real estate, this "kingdom" becomes literalized, a new "promised land" to own, to conquer if necessary. So Jesus knew we needed more than land and power -- more than "bread alone" -- to be happy in life (you would imagine that Abraham and company would be miserable despite their riches), but we wouldn't have needed him to tell us that if these books hadn't established that all God has for his chosen people is land and power. (Similarly, Jesus wouldn't have had to destroy and revise the law that was created to uphold this power.)<br />
<br />
Paul, in the New Testament, was the one who eventually opened up this religion to those not of Abraham's line, but -- unless I'm missing something -- Paul and Jesus are just gateways to God, and all he can offer us is land (and possibly afterlife "land" in the sky, though this seems to be a misunderstanding). Anything Jesus offers (forgiving ourselves, abolishing nonsensical and outdated laws, finding purpose in our lives) we can do all by ourselves.<br />
<br />
So if the Bible had started with Chapter 12, we could have read it (mostly anyway) for the simple story it is: a local god picks a local family to give property and power to in exchange for worship and burned animals (which is, apparently, what gods want--even in the more ancient stories). Nothing to do with the cosmos or our place in the universe or the inner life or morality.<br />
<br />
This Chapter 12 version of the book probably would not have connected with the population so strongly and would have faded in popularity, rendering the New Testament unnecessary and un-written. Perhaps we'd now be living in a society with the foundations laid by Greece (as, indeed, the best parts of us currently are), where gods are (or were eventually) recognized as the signifiers they are, not the signified. Thinking and behaving like Plato (for example) would be more important than asking "What's in it for me?" We could, right now, be giggling at this silly god who thought he was God, when he was really just the least imaginative and most violently greedy among the legion of pantheons.<br />
<br />
Just 8 1/2 powerful, tiny, misleading chapters at the beginning of a weird anthology. That's all it took.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/art/biblestories267.jpg"></center><br />
<center><b>BONUS: Q&A</b></center><br />
Q: What does God want?<br />
A: Burned animals and to be adored.<br />
Q: Can he get the animals himself, since he created the world and animals?<br />
A: No, he needs humans to do it for him.<br />
<br />
Q: What will God give us if we burn animals for him and adore him?<br />
A: Land, money, power, women, slaves, wells, etc. Material wealth.<br />
Q: Will he give us anything else? Happiness, answers to the "big questions," love, etc.?<br />
A: No. All you need is material wealth.<br />
<br />
Q: Can Jesus do anything for us?<br />
A: Yes, he can kill himself so that you can stop burning animals for God, but now you have to adore Jesus.<br />
Q: What do we get if we adore Jesus?<br />
A: Possibly eternal land in the sky, though this is nonsensical, so Jesus was probably using metaphor to offer us something besides just material wealth.<br />
<br />
Q: If we figure out what his metaphors mean, do we actually need to adore Jesus or accept his sacrifice in order to get these things: inner peace, happiness beyond material wealth, a self-given purpose in life, etc.? Can't we just do this ourselves?<br />
A: I don't see why not.<br />
Q: Also -- and not that I'd want to do this -- but if I commit myself to be brutal enough to get this kind of material wealth through whatever dishonesty and slaughter necessary, can't I also do that by myself?<br />
A: Again, I don't see why not.<br />
Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-43955740989403257502014-02-22T00:16:00.001-06:002014-02-22T00:22:14.975-06:00I Chose To Be Gay Just Last Week<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/ichosetobegay.jpg" align=left hspace=5>I'm more surprised than anyone about this recent turn of events. Up until last week, I was a heterosexual man. Then I chose to be a homosexual one afternoon. It was much easier than I thought.<br />
<br />
Let me start from the beginning.<br />
<br />
It was in Kindergarten that I first remember finding a girl aesthetically pleasing. I'd already heard about girls and how I, as a boy, was supposed to like them, but I was too young to really think about it. But then this girl named Michelle was just standing there in class, and I looked at her, and I thought to myself, "Wow, she's really pretty. Wow, I guess I like girls. Wow, I guess I get what everyone's been talking about." I didn't even need to do anything about it right then: it was enough to know she was pretty and that I could look at her.<br />
<br />
Later, of course, as early as second grade and certainly by fourth grade, I had painful crushes on girls. I would think about them, desire them. Maybe I wanted to kiss them or hold their hands, but mostly I wanted them to be my girlfriends.<br />
<br />
These feelings got even stronger as I got older and, in seventh grade, I had my first real girlfriend. What a spectacular experience. I still remember how neatly everything worked: I liked a girl, she liked me, and we got to be together and to be called ("officially") a couple, with all the privileges afforded couples--holding hands and kissing in public, going to dances together, trading meaningful trinkets like Swatch watches to prove to the world that we were going together... and, yes, we even got to break up. I even remember that part fondly. It was the most beautiful breakup I would ever have, and it was definitely part of the experience.<br />
<br />
Future relationships, though sometimes more painful, only grew deeper. In these many relationships, there was true love, there were tears, there were fights, there was discovery of ourselves and our bodies, there was a different kind of friendship, we introduced each other to our favorite TV shows... we shaped each other's personalities in unalterable ways forever.<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Eventually, I even lived with women and married them, had mortgages on houses, got divorces, had children, had step-children, put together photo albums full of family trips, organized Easter egg hunts... the whole ball of everything. I can't imagine my life without these things.<br />
<br />
If you're wondering if anyone objected to any of this, they didn't. No one: not parents, not friends, not my church members, not my president or my congressmen. They didn't object because -- as I'm sure you'll remember me telling you -- I was a straight guy. Childhood kisses were cute, elementary school crushes were celebrated, news of junior high girlfriends caused pats on the back from siblings and parents. I could sit on a church pew Sunday morning with my arm around my wife, and -- hey -- they even told me I was doing God's will. If anyone said anything negative about the woman I was with, it was about her as an individual, but no one ever said, "You shouldn't be with a woman. It's just not natural. In fact, it's a sin."<br />
<br />
That brings me to last week. I started thinking about this seemingly rich life I've led so far and I wondered, "But what about men?" Because I've never had sex with a man, never kissed a man, never held hands with a man, never fantasized about picking out a new living room suite with a man, never called a man on a cell phone to pick up our kid at day care because I was going shopping, never wondered how different it would be if someone close to me died and a man was there in my house to put his arm around me and comfort me. Never. None of it.<br />
<br />
In fact, and please don't be offended when I say this, I was a little repulsed at the thought of being with a man. I mean, girls and women were so beautiful, so perfect, so desirable. It felt as if I was simply born with a predisposition toward women, and to think that I could feel otherwise or behave in any other way... well, it felt like no more of a choice than my skin color was a choice. I assumed the same was true of gay people, that they were born with a predisposition toward the same sex, perhaps with a repulsion to the other.<br />
<br />
But I heard it <i>was</i> a choice (I don't remember from where: maybe the cable news?), so I gave it a shot. It turns out what I thought was a biological resistance to men as a result of my being born heterosexual was simply me not being aware of my full opportunities. It was as if I knew that extra crispy chicken existed but I never took the time to try it because I was so enamored by the original recipe.<br />
<br />
So now I'm 100% a gay man. As it turns out, penises are just as enjoyable as vaginas once you make that decision. But, more importantly, a serious relationship with a man is just as deep and meaningful too. Because I'm in a deep and meaningful relationship with a man now: my boyfriend, who I'm living with. His name is Gary.<br />
<br />
I left my wife and my kids, of course. I had to, if I was going to commit to this new lifestyle choice. But she and I are still friends, so whatever. I met Gary soon after deciding to be gay, and I tried to be up front with him, letting him know that I was straight for almost forty years. "But you're choosing to be gay now, right?" he said, and I assured him that I was, so he had no problem with it.<br />
<br />
"I chose to be gay soon after I was born," Gary told me soon after we met, "so I've been this way all my life."<br />
<br />
"Oh, that's interesting," I said, and I told him about how I didn't realize it was a choice and how uncontrollable my desire toward women was and everything else I just told you. In the middle of the story of my romantic life, he started crying. Then he explained why.<br />
<br />
He said that he, too, was hopelessly attracted to people (guys for him) but that everyone treated him like a freak because of it. When he told his mother that he thought the boy in his Kindergarten class was cute, she told him it was morally wrong to feel that way, so he never spoke to his mother (or most people) again about his crushes and feelings. When he had his first boyfriend in junior high, it had to be kept a secret, and -- when the secret got out -- they were both beat up and eventually he abandoned that boyfriend and started acting "butch" and calling the old boyfriend a faggot in front of his new friends. He started forcing himself to date girls in high school -- even though he <i>chose</i> to be gay, mind you -- just to get along in life. For most of his twenties, he lived a life of forced celibacy just so he wouldn't have to deal with it. It wasn't until he was in his mid-thirties, after lots of therapy and support group meetings, that he began finally living openly as a person who had chosen to be gay.<br />
<br />
I asked Gary why he didn't simply choose to be straight once he started having all those problems. "Oh, I'm just stubborn, I guess," he said.<br />
<br />
Poor Gary. I guess I made the correct choice originally (even though I didn't know it was a choice) when I chose to like girls. What a privilege it was to be able to develop as an emotional, psychological, sexual, and biological human being without being told that what I was experiencing was an abomination to God and nature. It's confusing enough to figure out relationships and love when all of society is supportive of you. Imagine how difficult it must be when a large part of society is forcing you to deny your feelings or worse. It must be maddening. Anyway, Gary wants us to get married, but of course we can't--not in Alabama, where we live.<br />
<br />
I asked Gary why people thought homosexuality was so wrong, since it seemed perfectly normal to me, especially now that I had chosen to be gay. I mean, one out of ten people are gay. He said the only answer people seemed to have was a religious one, that God said it was wrong, that it was written in a couple of places in the Bible or <i>Paradise Lost</i> or some old book like that.<br />
<br />
"So there are laws against gay marriage and other anti-gay laws because of religion?" I said. "Isn't that unconstitutional?" I was thinking of the first amendment and all that, where we're not supposed to impose religion on anyone. It's been a while since I read it, but I remember learning about it in social studies.<br />
<br />
He said, "Yes, but -- even though you're able to choose your sexuality -- you're not able to choose your religion. Whatever your parents believe is what you have to stick with the rest of your life. So even though certain religions take away my basic rights as a human being, I can't do anything about it because it would discriminate against those who were born with certain anti-gay religious ideas."<br />
<br />
"So if you tried to stand up for your right as a human being, it wouldn't be fair to bigoted Christians or whoever because they were born believing that guys who like guys aren't actually humans after all? To oppose their hate is to oppose their religious freedom?"<br />
<br />
"You got it," Gary said.<br />
<br />
"And there's really no other reason other than religion?" I said.<br />
<br />
"Well," he said, "many straight people find gayness to be icky."<br />
<br />
"Oh yes," I said, "I did, too. Then again, I still find geriatric sex to be icky, but Lord forbid I should prevent them from being happy."<br />
<br />
"Of course, my other problem is that I was born a Christian, too," Gary said, "so I wake up with guilty feelings every day of my life. In fact, every time we do something simple, like watch a movie together as boyfriend and boyfriend, I'm thinking in the back of my mind about how God hates me and will probably send me to Hell when I die."<br />
<br />
"Wow," I said. "I never had to think of any of this stuff when I was straight. I just did what I wanted and everyone left me alone and told me I was going to Heaven." It's true! Now that I think about it, <i>that</i> seems pretty abnormal.<br />
<br />
So now I was starting to think that maybe I should choose to be straight again. This gay lifestyle choice was very difficult, and I wasn't nearly as stubborn as Gary. Surely my wife wouldn't mind if I became straight again and took her back. She already complained to me that the phrase "single mother" had a negative connotation, for reasons we couldn't quite figure out.<br />
<br />
But I guess I'll remain gay, at least for now. It's only been a week, like I said. Isn't it weird how only ten percent of people choose to be gay? Maybe if more of us chose to be gay, then the country wouldn't oppose us so much, since we wouldn't be so much in the minority. Or maybe there should be a law passed that -- if you want to write anti-gay legislation -- you have to choose to be gay for one week first, just to walk a mile in the other guy's shoes. Kind of like when they force vaginal ultrasounds into women who want an abortion. You really get to see what you're doing first.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I don't know what I'll do with all of those pleasant memories I had as a straight person. I mean, I feel a little weird even writing about them here, since I don't want to be all in your face about it. I wouldn't want you to have to explain straightness to your children or anything, since I do find it a little gross now. I would never tell my children the stuff I used to do with their mother. Ugh!<br />
<br />
So I guess I'm making the daily choice to be gay for Gary's sake. If he finally commits suicide, as he often threatens, then I'll definitely choose to be straight again. Until then: I'm here, I'm queer, I chose to be!<p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-90060579994799926642014-02-10T00:25:00.002-06:002018-02-13T11:05:33.130-06:00Eros: A Valentine's Day Gift<br />
<img align="left" src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/eros1.jpg" hspace="5" />For most of my believing life, probably the #1 reason I believed in God was that I thought I felt him. That was my "proof." But what had really happened, of course, was that I felt feelings that I was <i>told</i> came from God. Once I realized that God was not necessarily the source of these special feelings, I was eventually able to drop him... and still have the feelings, of course.<br />
<br />
Now, think of when you've felt romantic love: maybe especially as a very young person feeling it for the first time or (especially especially) as a teenager. Then imagine your parents or priests or whoever swooping in and telling you, "That's Eros you're feeling. He has hit you with one of his gold-tipped arrows, and now you are uncontrollably in love with this person until the poison wears off." This authority figure might even follow up with, "And I'm sorry if the person you love doesn't return the affection. It probably just means that Eros has hit that person with one of his lead-tipped arrows."<br />
<br />
We can all see the ridiculousness of these statements, since we're now taught Greek mythology in high school (<i>mythology</i> here meaning, of course -- as Joseph Campbell quipped -- "other people's religion") and can easily recognize the allegorical nature of the mythological characters. It's especially easy to see metaphor in Greek mythology when the gods have names like Ocean, Night, Sleep, and Death or when they're gods "of" something (of war, of wisdom, etc.). It's a little more difficult in the Abrahamic system when all of these nicely-divided deities become lumped into one male figure who eventually becomes so powerful that not only is he "a god," but his name actually becomes <i>God</i>.<br />
<br />
So, back when I was feeling "God feelings," those feelings could have been anything since God is everything. God is love, after all, but he's also a jealous god, an angry god, a god of mercy, a god of righteousness, and whatever else. He's a shepherd and a king and a rock and a father and even a mother hen. No matter what I did or felt or experienced, God could be blamed for it.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
But let's go back to Eros (known as Cupid by the Romans). With him, we have a simple explanation for romantic love. A god shoots you with arrows. The end.<br />
<br />
Anyone would think you were nuts if you took this image literally, and yet it's no more odd than thinking the problems of the world were brought about when a couple ate a piece of fruit or that somehow these problems were alleviated when a man was executed on a cross or that when we die we live in the clouds or in a fiery underworld. The reason no one believes in Eros (anymore) and many believe in God is because the early followers of the Abrahamic religions utterly destroyed the heathen "pagans" who believed in Eros and his family, so now that stuff seems like nonsense while God is just everyday life. If the followers of the Greek gods had been more militant, magic arrows would be as normal as a magic tree.<br />
<br />
Love, we'll all admit, is confusing. I asked you earlier to think of falling in love for the first time or as a teen, because that's often when love is the most passionate, awkward, dramatic, and heartbreaking (since Eros is first beginning to re-tool our body for his purposes), but love is just as powerful in rational adults as well.<br />
<br />
C.S. Lewis, in his book <i>The Four Loves</i>, says this about romantic love: "Eros does not aim at happiness... Everyone knows that it is useless to try to separate lovers by proving to them that their marriage will be an unhappy one. This is not only because they will disbelieve you. They usually will, no doubt. But even if they believed, they would not be dissuaded. For it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on any other terms... Eros never hesitates to say 'Better this than parting. Better to be miserable with her than happy without her. Let our hearts break provided they break together.' If the voice within us does not say this, it is not the voice of Eros."<br />
<br />
Right! We all, I imagine, have been in at least one romantic situation where every clear-thinking friend you have is screaming at you: "Get out!" (Or "Do not enter!") Why would we throw away years of close friendship and good advice in these situations? Why would we risk losing those friends just to have this one new, un-tested person? Why does it happen over and over, even when we know better? Why does it suddenly feel like Us vs. Them, where "Them" is the people who have provided support and stability (and real love) for years and years and "Us" is a couple with <i>doom</i> written all over yourselves? In these situations, have we gone fucking insane?<br />
<br />
In short, we have. Parts of our brain simply quit working when we're in romantic love, "including areas linked with negative emotions, planning, critical social assessment, the evaluation of trustworthiness and fear." And, of course, the pleasure centers, meanwhile, get extra boosts, like the kind we get from certain drugs. (You can find out this stuff anywhere, but I'm grabbing it <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/what-exactly-is-love-436234.html">here</a>.)<br />
<br />
So what if we believed in Eros? What would be different about our lives? For one, we wouldn't be able to do scientific research like I just mentioned without stirring up false "debates." We'd have guys loudly declaring that "Eros's arrows" are the only answer we need. (It's right there in Hesiod's <i>Theogony</i>. What other evidence do we need?) If it were suggested that this kind of passion were in part the result of evolution, forcing us to mate whether we want to or not, then that would be a reason to stop teaching evolution. "My love don't come from no monkey love!"<br />
<br />
Belief in the god Eros would squash scientific inquiry in all areas where love is concerned, and it would also cause us to stop questioning our own lives. "Eros shot me. What can I do?" As much as love may be difficult to conquer (conquering all as he does), realizing that we do have some choice in the matter could change things for us at least a little. Rather than feeling poisoned by the arrow, we could realize what is truly affecting us and attempt to act accordingly, difficult as it may be. If nothing else, we'll know that are lives aren't in the hands of some bow-and-arrowed god.<br />
<br />
You'll notice that not believing in Eros doesn't take away from the majesty, the mystery, the beauty, or the (maybe most important) feeling of love. In fact, not believing that you're simply shot with an arrow <i>increases</i> all of those things. You can see the comparison to God here, I hope. Some feel that not believing in God reduces the mystery and purpose of life, but removing the God deity increases it in exactly the same way. "God did it" is as simple and useless of an answer as "Eros's arrows did it." And since Eros covers only romantic love and God encompasses <i>everything</i>, imagine how much grander things could be without him.<br />
<br />
With this in mind, I take a cue from all of those (now old and mundane and often fully-answered) questions asked of atheists by believers, creationists, etc. and present a similar list of questions that might be asked of Eros-atheists by Eros-believers.<br />
<br />
<center>
<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/eros2.jpg" /></center>
<ul>
<li>If Eros doesn't exist, then how do you explain love? What existed before? Did it "just happen"?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Doesn't the beauty of love and the feeling you get when you're in it prove that Eros exists?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>How can you think you are in love without believing in Eros?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Why would you commit yourself to something as serious as marriage if you don't even believe in Eros?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>How can you explain the heartbreak and suffering you feel because of love without Eros?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Doesn't the complexity of love prove that Eros exists?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>How does your relationship have any meaning without believing in Eros?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Why do we find eyes, hair, breasts, behinds, lips, beards, legs, eyelashes, penises, etc. so attractive if Eros doesn't exist?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>What sort of horrible romantic experience did you have that caused you to not believe in Eros?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Why are you so repelled by certain people? Doesn't Eros's lead-tipped arrows answer this question?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Instead of only teaching about biology, psychology, neuroscience, etc. in schools concerning sex and romance, why not "teach the controversy" and show the other side: that Eros exists and shoots us with arrows?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Why are you so angry at or afraid of Eros? Do you hate him?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Why are you so angry in general? Does it bother you that much that we believe in Eros? Why would you devote so much time to something you don't even believe in?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Can you prove that Eros doesn't exist?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Doesn't it take just as much blind faith to not believe in Eros as to believe in him?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>If Eros didn't exist, wouldn't it mean that we could just fall in love with whomever we wanted?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Even other cultures believe in love gods (Ishtar, Kamadeva, etc.). Aren't these just versions of Eros (even if they're incorrect or prototypical) and proof that he exists?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Of course, Eros is the clearest, most specific version of love that exists -- more than the other love gods -- so why can't you believe in him when he shows himself to you?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>What if you're wrong? Doesn't that scare you?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Even if Eros doesn't exist, don't you find it more comforting to believe that he does?<br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Isn't not believing in Eros really just its own religion?<br />
</li>
</ul>
<center>
<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/eros3.jpg" /></center>
<center>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Happy Valentine's Day!</span></center>
<br />
<center>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Click <a href="http://rustysgodblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/belief-in-marduk.html">here</a> for a similar premise concerning the god Marduk.</span></center>
Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-64993196173864081352013-09-12T22:20:00.000-05:002013-09-12T22:20:59.615-05:00Was I a Jehovah's Witness?<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/jehovahswitnesses.jpg" align=left hspace=5>I wasn't raised as a Jehovah's Witness. The church I grew up in considered itself "nondenominational," though it was part of a large collective of members all across the world that called themselves the Body of Christ. Like every other religious group, we knew we were special and that everyone else got it wrong. Indeed, we had many beliefs that I thought were unique to us. Much later -- after I left it all -- I learned more about the Jehovah's Witnesses, and -- whaddaya know -- they had many of those same weird doctrines. Was I a secret Jehovah's Witness without knowing it?<br />
<br />
Here is a (not comprehensive, but pretty decent) list of beliefs that my church and the Jehovah's Witnesses shared. It will give you an idea of what I used to consider the most important stuff in my life. Behold:<br />
<br />
<b>Trinity</b> -- There is neither a trinity nor a "oneness." God the Father is a spirit but also a "person," an intellect. The Son of God is another spirit-type person who eventually came to earth as a human named Jesus. The Holy Ghost isn't a "person" but instead is some sort of power of God or something like that. More like The Force. You can talk to the Father and the Son, but you can "have" the Holy Ghost. Jesus was filled with the Holy Ghost from birth, so he had powers that other humans didn't have (though, after he died, we were allowed to receive that power). Two persons, one "thing": none of them a part of each other.<br />
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<b>Jesus</b> -- The Son of God (before he was the human Jesus) was the first creation of God. God then created nothing else, which is why the Son is the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." The Son is the one who created the universe and is the one who has a personal relationship with you. God is only gotten to through the son. The Son appears in the Bible in his pre-Jesus form as the angel Michael, the concept of Wisdom, and the concept of the Word.<br />
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<b>The 144,000</b> -- Only 144,000 people will reach "perfection" and enter Heaven. You don't just go to Heaven because you're a good person who dies. These 144,00 are called the Bride of Christ and will serve as the government for the eventual New Earth, an earth (this same earth we're on now) which will always have humans and which will eventually be free of sin, making the world free of death, disease, etc. The Bride members will be able to go back and forth between Heaven and Earth. Many or most of this number already exist, so seats are limited.<br />
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<b>The Resurrection</b> -- Eventually, those who have died will get another chance, in a bodily resurrection, to do good and live on the New Earth as immortal humans. These will be the people who make the earth look the way God intended in the first place, before the Fall. You only have one shot, however, in this first life to make the 144,000.<br />
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<b>Satan</b> -- Satan and his fellow fallen angels torment humans and try to make them turn from God. But, one day, Satan will be bound for one thousand years, then unleashed again, then eventually destroyed for good (along with his underlings) in the Lake of Fire (which was created for this purpose and is not to be confused with Hell).<br />
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<b>Hell</b> -- There is a Heaven, but there is no Hell. God is happy to reward you for doing well, but he's not going to punish you for making poor decisions, since you didn't ask to be born, after all. Instead, if you're bad, you just die and that's it. The soul, therefore, is not necessarily immortal, but can be snuffed out like a candle.<br />
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<b>Eve</b> -- The wife of Adam was actually an evil dark-haired woman created by Satan to torment and destroy the first human. However, the Son of God managed to make her good (and blonde) through the power of the Holy Ghost. Still, Satan had a trick up his sleeve and turned himself into an old beggar woman who offered Eve a poisoned apple, which she took and also gave to Adam, causing them to slowly die and also discover their genitals. (Okay, that's actually a mash-up of the Eden story, Snow White, and the Smurfs, but I had you going for a while.)<br />
<br />
So there. Obviously, of course, I wasn't really a Jehovah's Witness. Unlike them, I celebrated all the holidays, would have taken a blood transfusion if needed, didn't go door to door with <i>Watchtower</i> magazine, etc. But it's odd to me that these two belief systems that seem to have nothing to do with each other arrived at the same specific conclusions. And maybe it's the remnants of my brainwashed mind talking, but I still think that -- as a comic book style mythological system -- the above still makes more sense than most "mainstream" Christian doctrines.<p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-33419879611759376572013-06-08T21:12:00.000-05:002018-09-09T20:54:04.588-05:00Religion: Facebook OfficialA few years ago <i>The Washington Post</i> published a semi-interesting (as these things go) <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-08-30/news/36860801_1_facebook-profile-facebook-users-facebook-last-year">article</a> about the little box on Facebook where you get to type what your religion is. As the article pointed out, it's kind of daunting when you've got "Religious Views: _____" staring at you, knowing that whatever you write is going to potentially influence how people think about you (even if you don't write anything).<br />
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I think I left mine blank when I first got the account. But eventually I decided to put something there. "Atheist" doesn't accurately describe my "religious views," and why would I willfully reveal to hundreds of friends and friends of friends of friends the fact that I eat babies? What else could I write? "Former-Christian"? "Myth-Lover"? "Ask me when I'm dead"?<br />
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I took a cue (once again) from William Blake: "I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's." I came up with my own:<br />
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SPELLIANISM<br />
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(I named it after myself.) This is its description: "The prophetic writings of William Blake, the Joseph Campbell approach to myth, a marriage of humanism and mysticism, absolute liberty for others, and the necessary blasphemy of tricksters. (Major texts include William Blake: <i>The Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i>, Joseph Campbell: <i>Thou Art That</i>, Christopher Hitchens: <i>The Portable Atheist</i>, Paul Radin: <i>The Trickster</i>, and the First Amendment of the US Constitution.)"<br />
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If Spellianism were a religion (and it isn't), you couldn't join it. It's just for me. Even more exclusive than "God's chosen people."<br />
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I feel the description of Spellianism does a pretty good job of at least pointing you in the right direction. It's easy enough to unpack all the authors, terms, etc. and put together a decent starting picture of how I think about religion. Most important, no one has ever said a word about it to me, so I think that means it has done its job. Or it means that no one looks at these things anyway.<br />
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My political views on Facebook were a lot easier to answer. One word: "Angry."<p><br />
<b>UPDATE (2018): I CHANGED IT TO JUST "ATHEIST." IT'S BEEN THAT WAY FOR YEARS NOW. STILL SAYS "ANGRY" FOR POLITICAL.</b><br />
Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-17075011095415570822013-05-25T22:50:00.000-05:002018-04-26T17:03:07.481-05:00The Ten Commandments<center><b>Introduction</b></center><br />
<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments1.jpg" align=left hspace=5>Many are taught that "The Ten Commandments" are ten simple "thou shalt nots" that spell out how to live your life, written by God himself on tablets of stone. But, in addition to the Commandments having little to do with our lives and modern sense of ethics, there are other problems and confusions that occur concerning the commandments when you examine the text of the Bible. There are more than ten commandments, first of all. There are hundreds. And it's difficult to say which ones, if any, were written on stone. The Bible does eventually give us a list of ten commandments, but they are not the popular ones we sorta kinda think we know. There is much to sort through and discuss concerning this topic, so we'll walk through it slowly.<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments3.jpg" align=right hspace=5><center><b>The First Ten (Or So)</b></center><br />
It begins simply enough. God allows Moses' people to escape slavery by bringing ten plagues upon Egypt and then killing their pursuers in the Red Sea. Moses makes it to Mount Sinai, where God comes down in the form of fire. Moses' company is instructed not to touch the mountain or get too close or they'll die. There's lots of thunder and trumpet blasts. It's all very Wizard of Oz, and it sometimes seems as if Moses is just making things up, saying that the words are from God, and asking everyone not to pay attention to that man behind the curtain. But, of course, we're supposed to imagine that God himself really is saying and doing these things, so that's what we'll do.<br />
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At this point God begins to instruct the people, giving what are commonly known as "The Ten Commandments," even though the book doesn't call them that here and I'm not so sure they add up to ten. They are as follows, with commentary by me. Since I've heard over and over that the Ten Commandments are the basis of many contemporary laws, including those of the United States, I'll discuss them in relation to the current laws of our country. Penalties for breaking these commandments are also worth noting, so I'll list those. If you want to read along with me in your preferred translation (I'm, as usual, using the New Revised Standard Version), you can find "The Ten" in Exodus 20. They appear again, slightly modified, in Deuteronomy 5.<a name='more'></a><br />
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<b>ONE. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me."</b><br />
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The Talmud suggests that the "prologue" before the semi-colon is actually the first commandment. Seems like more of a statement to me. Most everyone else takes this whole sentence as the first.<br />
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What we notice, right away I hope, is that this commandment has nothing to do with contemporary readers. This is a commandment written specifically for Moses' people, since they were the only ones who were brought out of the land of Egypt by God. I guess the idea is that Jews are descendants of Moses' people and that Christians and Muslims are "spiritual" descendants and therefore must follow this rule? I'm not sure, but it seems that most of the Laws of Moses are just that: laws created exclusively for those following Moses. The laws probably became irrelevant sooner rather than later.<br />
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The phrase "gods before me" could imply at least two things. One is that there is only one god and that anyone worshipping other gods is worshipping deities that don't exist. This, I imagine, is the common interpretation for believers, since it supports monotheism. The other implication, and the more likely one within the context of the Exodus story, is that multiple gods <i>do</i> exist and God wants to be #1. (We see more of this idea in the second commandment.) So either God wants to be the main god (allowing you to have others as long as he's most important) or (more probably) he wants the others ignored completely. Where Jesus, a human-god hybrid, fits into this commandment for Christians, I'm not sure (unless you think that Jesus <i>is</i> God, which is its own conundrum).<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments4.jpg" align=left hspace=5>A more symbolic reading of this could be that God wants himself placed above other "gods," such as the god of money or war or football. "God" could also be symbolic in this sense. But I think these commandments are meant to be taken literally as practical laws, and so I won't spend much time reading them symbolically in order to make some kind of contemporary or spiritual sense out of them, unless such a reading seems relevant.<br />
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As a basis for current United States law, this commandment is of course nonsense. We'd have to throw away the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, for starters (which would be fine with some people, of course).<br />
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Penalty if broken: Stoned to death. Possibly genocide of entire people who worship other gods (since God did command this a few times).<br />
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Have I broken this one? No, I went from believing in only God (unless you count Jesus and the Holy Ghost and angels and devils) to believing in zero gods, so I think I'm safe. "Thou shalt not be an atheist" is not a commandment and perhaps didn't occur to anyone.<br />
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<b>TWO. "You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments."</b><br />
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St. Augustine and the Catholic Catechism treat this as a continuation of the first commandment, since it has to do with other gods. Most take this as number two.<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments5.jpg" align=right hspace=5>We assume "idol" here means little statuettes of other gods. But, based on the weird language, it could just as easily mean anything artistic: any kind of sculpture or painting or whatever. This commandment could also, of course, prohibit artistic renderings of God himself, or Jesus, or angels. Thank goodness no one seems to interpret it this way, else we'd have missed out on some great art over the past few thousand years. (Although it would certainly solve the problem of government officials who, ironically, want idols of the Ten Commandments in their government buildings.) My best guess is that these idols refer to the "other gods" of commandment one. It probably specifically refers to nature gods, since it uses that language. The Hebrew god was an attempt to create a deity that existed outside of nature (whatever that means), a way to separate himself from the more useful gods who represent the actual world.<br />
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This one specifies why God doesn't want us having other gods before him or making idols: he's jealous. This gives evidence that other gods do exist. If they don't, then God is jealous of imaginary deities. We also learn that God punishes "to the third and fourth generation" those who reject him and love "to the thousandth generation" those who love him. I assume the "thousandth" thing is hyperbole, but "third and fourth" sounds pretty literal. Either way, I'm not sure how this could work.<br />
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Because let's say my parents love God, so therefore God will show me love and my daughter love (and 998 more generations down). But if I reject God, then my daughter (and her kids) don't get the love but they get punished? What trumps what: my parents' love of God or my rejection of him? It makes you think that it might be easier to simply let each person be punished or rewarded based on his own merit!<br />
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Like the First Commandment, this has nothing to do with contemporary American law (go look at all the monuments and statues in Washington D.C. if you don't believe me), so those who think the Ten Commandments are the basis of our modern laws are 0-2 so far.<br />
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Penalty if broken: Death. Possibly genocide of entire people who make idols. Again.<br />
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Have I broken this one? I make art all the time, and I've made crosses and other icons, and I've drawn pictures of Jesus or whatever, but I've never made a god statue and bowed down to it. I have a fertility idol in my house, but I didn't make it and I don't worship (or believe in) it. I'm considering making a little butterfly garden in my back yard and maybe scattering little gods and angels and Buddhas and things throughout it. I'll call it the Commandment Two Defiance Garden.<br />
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<b>THREE. "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name."</b><br />
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Once again, I have to make guesses as to what this means. The NRSV says "make wrongful use." A common translation is "take in vain." A one word translation is "blaspheme." My best guess is that God didn't want people using the "power" of his name when making oaths, such as is done with oaths like "I swear on my mother's grave" or "I swear on the life of my children." "I swear by God himself" isn't something God would like. Or, as we often still say, "I swear to God." Another idea is that you're doing something evil "in the name of God," such as being a minister or some other kind of representative but misusing this power.<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments6.jpg" align=left hspace=5>We're not even sure what his name is. "Yahweh," I guess, but that just means "I am," which was his way of saying he didn't have a name. "God," surely, is not his real name, even in translation, since that's just a generic term for a deity. It would be like my name being Man (which, by the way, was Adam's name, more or less, when properly translated).<br />
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Some say that curses like "God damn it!" or "Jesus Christ!" is breaking this commandment. Perhaps saying "Thank God" or "God knows" or "God bless you" could get you in trouble. Or screaming his name out during sex. Many folks are so worried about this one, in all its ambiguity, that they won't say the word "God" aloud at all and they'll write it in print as "G-d," just to play it safe.<br />
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And no wonder, because the penalty itself is somewhat built into this commandment: "the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name." The penalty is the usual, being stoned to death, but it's even more severe for someone who believes in the afterlife because God never forgives you. This commandment, then, must be the same as (or at least similar to) the concept of blaspheming the Holy Ghost (in the New Testament), the only unforgivable sin, which brings about eternal damnation. So, apparently, using God's name in a wrong way is worse than pretty much anything you can do in this life.<br />
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No use in modern American law, of course (0-3). In fact, the president, congress, and everyone else can't seem to stop saying God's name in speeches, writing it on coins (which I'm pretty sure would fall under "wrongful use"), invoking it in public school prayers, and otherwise using it for their own political purposes.<br />
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Have I broken this one? Almost certainly. I've sworn by God, I've cursed using his name, I've used it casually ("God knows," etc.), I've called him an asshole, and -- hey -- look at this: "I deny the Holy Ghost, goddamn it!" I'm already beyond hope of acquittal, so why not?<br />
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<b>FOUR. "Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days shall you labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work--you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it."</b><br />
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I don't know what it means for God to "rest" on the seventh day. It's not like he went back to work on the eighth, right? Anyway, we're not sure if the sabbath is Saturday or Sunday (it depends on who you ask), so some folks sin once a week while others don't, depending on who is right. Of course, God might be liberal enough to let us pick whatever day of the week we like.<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments7.jpg" align=right hspace=5>While I suppose it's a good idea to have a day off, it seems like observing the sabbath causes more work and less relaxation. Jesus later said that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath, so he was annoyed with its inconvenience as well.<br />
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But did you notice something weird about this commandment? When God is clarifying who shouldn't work on this day, he includes (in addition to things that probably don't pertain to you like livestock and "the alien resident in your towns"), <i>your slaves</i>! Not to give anything away, but "thou shalt not buy and sell people" is not a commandment. Instead, slaves are casually mentioned several times as something you probably own. (I wonder if slaves in America were given the day off by the good Christian slave-owners who used the Bible to defend this peculiar institution.)<br />
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We're up to the fourth commandment and still we haven't found one that forms the basis for US law (0-4). Imagine if we tried to enforce a day off work. We're so used to everyone working all the time that we pay special attention when Chick-fil-A snootily takes Sunday off.<br />
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Penalty if broken: Stoned to death. (This is getting redundant.) My favorite example of this punishment is the guy who was gathering sticks one sabbath. Moses and company weren't sure what to do with him, I guess thinking that gathering sticks didn't exactly seem like work, so they asked God's advice. God himself demanded that he be stoned to death. I would be afraid to even pull the lever on my La-Z Boy. Resting is such dangerous, difficult work!<br />
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Have I broken this one? Yes, and so has ever preacher who goes to work on Sunday.<br />
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<b>FIVE. "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord is giving you."</b><br />
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I guess? Who knows what this means? Show them respect? Obey them no matter what? Give them cards on Mother's and Father's Day? Anyway, it's the first commandment that has anything much to do with human beings, since everything so far has been about keeping God happy (except maybe the last one, which is possibly for humans, even if it's more about celebrating that time that God had a vacation). It's the least objectionable so far, though I can imagine it being abused by shitty parents.<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments8.jpg" align=left hspace=5>Once again, this is another one created only for Moses' people, since it refers specifically to "the land that the Lord is giving you."<br />
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Useless in modern law (0-5, halfway there). If anything, our country puts more emphasis on parents honoring children.<br />
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Penalty if broken: Death again, folks (which explains why your days won't be long). And the parents are often the ones who get to decide if their kids deserve this death or not, taking a "stubborn and rebellious son" to the elders if their usual disciplinary measures don't work. This punishment goes against our most fundamental sense of morality and even our biological programming. Why are we supposed to respect a law that forces parents to kill their children?<br />
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Have I broken this one? I can't think of anything I've ever done that would be considered "dishonorable" by my parents, though I've been doing things that go against their wishes since the day I was born. Who doesn't? "Kids these days..."<br />
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(And, hey, while this writing isn't exactly meant to be a God-bashing document, I would like to spell this out: if you believe in the version of God recorded in the Bible, he -- once upon a time, even if it was just for this "chosen" people of his -- commanded that parents murder their children by getting the town to hurl rocks at their brains until they die an unimaginably painful and confusing death. Think about this fact in the quiet of the night, right before you pray that God watch and protect your little ones.)<br />
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<b>SIX. "You shall not murder."</b><br />
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As soon as Moses brings down the tablets from the mountain, he sees his people breaking Commandment Two by worshipping a golden cow. In anger, Moses then gathers a group of his favorite followers (the sons of Levi) and says to them, "Each of you kill your brother, your friend, and your neighbor," which they do, killing <i>three thousand</i> of their own people. (God follows this massacre up with a plague, just for good measure.)<br />
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My point is that "You shall not murder" isn't as clear-cut as one would imagine. And, what with all the required stonings we've been talking about, I like to think of this as "The Ironic Commandment." I can't really read it without laughing.<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments9.jpg" align=right hspace=5>Of course, today we generally say that murder is wrong, and yet we murder, so the concept is not too clear-cut for us either. Murder is sometimes okay if during wartime, or for self-defense, or if you're executing someone who has committed a heinous crime (usually murder), if you think blowing up people will get you into paradise, if you think your lawyers can help you get away with it, if you're a super-genius serial killer who has a code-riddled scheme to teach society a lesson, or if your dog tells you to do it during an especially warm summer.<br />
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This is one of the short laws (they get shorter once they begin applying to humans), so it's pretty non-specific. We assume it applies only to humans (especially since animals are always being sacrificed). We might assume it applies only to Moses' people (though, again, he couldn't follow it for five minutes, and God wanted even more murder).<br />
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The Jainists, an Eastern religion that obviously doesn't follow these commandments, do much better than the Abrahamic religions with this one. They try not to murder anything, wearing masks so they won't accidentally eat bugs, sweeping little soft brooms in front of them so as not to step on them, eating only a few grains of rice a day--more or less killing themselves in the process, of course. (Suicide, by the way, is not specifically outlawed in the Ten Commandments, though this one may cover it.)<br />
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This is the first commandment that is also a contemporary secular law, though to suggest that no one ever thought of "do not kill" before The Ten Commandments were written is silly. The Code of Hammurabi was about a thousand years earlier than The Ten, and that code (of course) wasn't the first time the bright idea appeared either. All social animals figure out pretty quickly that one can't just go around murdering everyone without serious consequences, and one doesn't need a belief in God to realize it. (One does, often, need a belief in God to <i>justify</i> murder.) But, yes, it reflects modern law, so we're 1-5 now.<br />
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Penalty if broken: Lifetime in prison. Just kidding. It's death. (Prison is never an option in Moses' law.)<br />
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Have I ever broken this one? I've never killed a person, no. My brother convinced me to kill a bird once as a child (a mockingbird, no less; a state bird, no less) and I felt like shit afterward, so that's about the biggest animal I've ever killed. I've killed many bugs, flies, spiders, etc., though I try to avoid even that as much as possible these days.<br />
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<b>SEVEN. "You shall not commit adultery."</b><br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments10.jpg" align=left hspace=5>"Adultery" here apparently means sleeping with another man's wife, since men in the Bible were allowed to have concubines, other wives, prostitutes, female slaves, rape-able spoils of war, etc. A man couldn't sleep with another man's wife because it was the other man's <i>property</i> and therefore a kind of sexual theft. But as long as he owned the woman (usually bought from the previous owner, the father), he could do what he wanted with as many as he wanted. So a single man could sleep with another man's wife and be an adulterer, which isn't really how we think of the word now.<br />
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So it's not the good-rule-of-thumb, semi-moralistic commandment it at first appears to be. It has little to do with a monogamous ideal. God obviously doesn't promote monogamy in the Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament (confirmed bachelors Jesus and Paul) seems to support no marriage at all, with marriage as a last resort for the super-horny. So much for "traditional," Biblical marriage being between one man and one woman.<br />
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Today, adultery is a mild crime in less than half of the states in the USA, though it's not much enforced and is usually a misdemeanor. Even in my rather religious and conservative state of Alabama, it's not considered adultery unless you're actually living with the person as well as sleeping with them, and then it's a Class B misdemeanor. Most adultery laws are fading from the books. But I'm feeling generous, so I'll say the score is 2-5, since this commandment has some connection to contemporary law.<br />
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Penalty if broken: The adulterer and the piece of property (the wife caught in the act) are killed.<br />
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Have I ever broken this one? Nay verily. Although Jesus had some more strict interpretations of the word <i>adultery</i>, such as not allowing a divorced woman to sleep with a man (he considered her still married) or the famous one about committing adultery by "lusting in your heart" when you even look at a married woman with desire, so God would say no, but Jesus (and Jimmy Carter) would say yes.<br />
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<b>EIGHT. "You shall not steal."</b><br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments11.jpg" align=right hspace=5>Some Biblical scholars think that the better translation is "You shall not kidnap." Indeed, kidnapping is the only case of theft that requires a death penalty (the only penalty so far in the Ten), and since people were often property (slaves, wives), this theory makes sense.<br />
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For non-people theft, penalties vary, depending on the situation. For example, if someone steals an ox, then slaughters or sells it, the thief has to pay five oxen for the one ox stolen. If the thief can't pay it, he's sold into slavery. (There's that word again.) If the ox is still alive, he will only pay two oxen. It is permissible to kill a thief breaking into your house during the night, but if you kill a thief doing so in the day, then it is considered murder.<br />
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Most of the punishments, relative to the other commandments, seem almost reasonable. This is also a common sense humanity-based commandment that still applies in modern law. Like the other humanity-based commandments, however, laws against theft would exist no matter if the Bible was ever written or not. But since we're keeping score, we're now 3-5, catching up.<br />
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Have I ever broken this one? I've never taken anyone else's physical items, no. I am guilty of using Napster back in the early 2000s, but Moses could have hardly predicted that situation.<br />
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<b>NINE. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."</b><br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments12.jpg" align=left hspace=5>With the exception of the "your neighbor" phrase (anyone in the world? others in Moses' camp? your actual neighborhood neighbor?), this one is pretty straightforward. Do not say that someone has done or said something that they haven't done or said. This is an especially important law in relation to the rest of the Ten, since a false accusation could result in the death penalty for the one accused.<br />
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Slander and libel are part of our law (4-5), and the explanations the Bible gives for how to deal with these issues sound nearly like a judicial system, with the potential false accuser coming before priests and judges (and the Lord himself, apparently) who will make an inquiry. If the accusation is found to be false, then he'll be punished according to what he accuses the person of doing. For example, if he falsely accuses someone of murder, and is found to be lying, then he himself receives the punishment for murder. Okay, it's a little goofy, but it's better than most of the above punishments.<br />
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Have I ever broken this one? Not that I can remember. Almost certainly not as an adult. When we were children, my sister told Mom "he hit me" a lot when I hadn't, but I've since forgiven her for breaking Commandment Nine.<br />
<br />
<b>TEN. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or female or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."</b><br />
<br />
In order to force-fit all the above commandments to the number ten, some (including Augustine) split this one in two, making "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" as its own. Adultery is so bad, I suppose, that this one was thought to be its own commandment, as if to say, "Don't even <i>think</i> of sleeping with someone else's wife." Or: "You even <i>dream</i> about having sex with my wife, you better wake up expecting a stoning."<br />
<br />
<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments13.jpg" align=right hspace=5>This is the only commandment that is about <i>thought</i> (coveting), not about <i>doing</i>. This one doesn't seem to have a punishment, so I guess it's preventative medicine against the ones that do (adultery, theft). This commandment also takes Jesus' eventual route, preventing you from even <i>thinking</i> of doing bad things. Jesus, for all of his softness compared to the angry Hebrew God stuff, was a lot more hard when it came to putting things into practice. Don't lust in your heart, do not be angry with your brother, love your enemies as yourself, let people beat you up, let them steal your stuff and give them more when they do, give all of your money away, despise your family if they don't allow you to do God's work, bring every thought into subjection, etc. At least the Ten Commandments are <i>possible</i> to follow. Jesus' laws are not, which I why I suppose so much emphasis is put on grace and forgiveness. (Note the circular trap every Christian finds himself in. It is impossible not to sin, so the business of forgiving sins is a lucrative one.)<br />
<br />
While a human being <i>may</i> be able to detect your coveting something, it would be difficult to prove. However, if you believe that God can read your mind, then the Tenth Commandment can actually come into play. If you find yourself, even for a split second, wishing you had that guy's riding lawnmower, you're breaking a commandment and God knows it. And there's nowhere to run and hide inside your brain.<br />
<br />
It's not against US law to want other people's stuff, and -- in fact -- wanting other people's stuff is part of the "American Dream." So the final tally is 4-6. Only four-ish commandments have anything to do with secular, contemporary American law, and none of those (murder, adultery, theft, false witness) quite fit the contemporary definition, spirit, or practice of these laws, certainly not concerning punishment. So let's not hear any more of that bullshit talk.<br />
<br />
Have I ever broken the "thou shalt not covet" commandment? Sure. I'm probably doing it right now. Although I can say for certain that I've never coveted anyone's ox, donkey, or slave (male <i>or</i> female). I guess I just never wanted those things.<br />
<br />
<center><b>The Rest of the Commandments</b></center><br />
Here's where everything becomes different from what I (and many others) was taught. After this "tenth" commandment is given, at the end of Exodus 20, the people become scared of God's light show on the mountain, thinking they will be killed by God's power. So, in fear, they ask Moses to stick around and listen to the rest of the commandments by himself so that they can get out of there. (If the Wizard of Oz theory is true, this would be especially handy for Moses, who could just make up what he wanted to tell them without even having to tinker behind the curtain.)<br />
<br />
After everyone leaves, God gives Moses his "eleventh" commandment, which concerns proper altar-making. Then the "twelfth" commandment concerning slaves (a commandment well worth reading if you're interested in God's ideas about people-owning). He just keeps going, for ten more chapters. (There are 613 commandments, more or less, spread out over the rest of the Torah.) So the "Ten Commandments," if anything, should be called "The First Ten Commandments." I guess they're like the Bill of Rights.<br />
<br />
It's true that many of the rest of the commandments are further explanations of the first ten (which is where I got most of the information about punishments), but you could say the same about many <i>within</i> the first ten. (Jesus summed them all up as "Love God above all" and "Treat others as you want to be treated.") So we get new laws and clarifications about violence, property, theft, bearing false witness, the sabbath and the sabbatical year, annual festivals for God (in which he demonstrates that he's <i>very</i> picky about the kind of food he likes to eat), and more. Moses goes back later and gets additional instructions about the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, and other priest-and-ritual stuff (stuff that <i>really</i> doesn't apply to modern society).<br />
<br />
This is when the golden calf incident happens and Moses slaughters his own people. God, by the way, was prepared to kill all of them (not merely three thousand) and "make a great nation" of Moses (kind of like Noah Part II), but Moses talked him out of it. (God is so jealous, please note, that he is threatened by a cow statue.) Moses himself was so mad when he saw the cow that he broke the two tablets that the covenant was written on. But what was on those stone tablets? Was it the ten that we just examined? Was it the entire set of hundreds of commandments? Something else? Let's look further.<br />
<br />
<center><b>The <i>Real</i> Ten Commandments</b></center><br />
Eventually God lets Moses return with two more stone tablets so that he can "write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you broke." But what we get are <i>not</i> the "Ten Commandments" we just looked at. We get something else completely. And at the end of God telling Moses this brand new (but apparently same) set of commandments, the narrator of Exodus (34) says, "And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, <i>the ten commandments</i>" (italics mine), the first time this phrase actually appears. (The same wording occurs in the recap in Deuteronomy 10.)<br />
<br />
The so-called "Ten Commandments" we just examined, and that everyone thinks they kinda sorta know, <i>are not even the Ten Commandments</i>!<br />
<br />
So I'm calling the commandments on the new set of tablets the <i>Real</i> Ten Commandments, even though they are traditionally called the "Ritual Commandments." (Sometimes the ones we just looked at are called the "Ethical Commandments.") Tradition decided that the first ten were "The Ten," but tradition got it wrong. Tradition often gets the Bible wrong, and it's amazing when you sit down and read the actual goddamned words how much tradition gets it wrong. It's even more amazing how the power of tradition can cloud your mind even while reading the actual text, so that tradition changes what is in front of your eyes.<br />
<br />
So what are the <i>Real</i> Ten Commandments? Brace yourself.<br />
<br />
<b>ONE. "See, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, or it will become a snare among you. You shall tear down their altars, break their pillars, and cut down their sacred poles (for you shall worship no other god, because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God). You shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods, someone among them will invite you, and you will eat of the sacrifice. And you will take wives from among their daughters for your sons, and their daughters who prostitute themselves to their gods will make your sons also prostitute themselves to their gods."</b><br />
<br />
This commandment somewhat parallels Commandment One of the "Ethical Commandments" we discussed earlier, but it's a lot more specific about nationalities, icons, etc. It also parallels the ten-plus commandments we discussed earlier (the "eleventh," "twelfth," etc.), commonly known as the "Large Covenant Code."<br />
<br />
If it is debatable whether the "Ethical Commandments" were intended for Moses' people only or for everyone who considers themselves members of an Abrahamic religion (Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, etc.), then it should be pretty clear that the actual ("Ritual") Ten Commandments are only for Moses and company. Oh, I suppose you could be very symbolic about it if you like, allowing God to clear out the "spiritual" Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites from within your inner self. In fact, this is what the church I grew up in suggested, attempting to make applicable to the modern day Christian what amounted to the useless (and of course invented) history of the Bible. Our ministers referred to them as your inner "Ites."<br />
<br />
But, of course, this is really just God giving the command to never be diplomatic. What's interesting about most ancient nations is that, whenever a people were conquered, they would adopt the bits of their religion and culture that they enjoyed and add and combine those elements with their own, sometimes throwing their own out in favor of the new. (The spoils of war, therefore, included gods and goddesses.) But the Hebrews said "Fuck all that." They were complete iconoclasts. This world ain't big enough for the host of us, only Sheriff Yahweh.<br />
<br />
<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments14.jpg" align=right hspace=5>The "sacred poles" mentioned in this commandment refers to "Asherah Poles" or "Asherim," which are either wooden poles, actual trees, or perhaps carved statues of the goddess Asherah, the "Queen of Heaven," the female consort of God (and female equivalent of his power) that the Hebrews wanted to (perhaps literally) root out. There was only room for one god, and he had to have a penis, so the age of the goddess was over. If our mythology feels lacking, it is. Fifty percent of it, the female aspect, was destroyed by these xenophobic writers. And, since as go the gods so go humans, actual women suffered (and continue to suffer) as well. It is not an exaggeration to say that, because of commandments like these, Western culture is a lopsided, limping lobotomy case.<br />
<br />
I won't go through the punishments for breaking the real commandments, since it's pretty much the usual (death, etc.). I also, for obvious reasons, won't bother figuring out whether they influence current American laws (hint: they don't). However, I will note that some politicians and political voices are attempting to follow this first commandment in our country: to eliminate any religion that isn't the one they like, their preferred religion being, of course, Sufism. I'm just kidding, folks: it's Christianity.<br />
<br />
Have I ever broken this one? Although I said "no" for the earlier Commandment One (about other gods), for this one I'm saying "yes." I am interested in many religions, including their diverse icons and symbols, and I enjoy many different gods and goddesses. And, although I attack pretty much all religions eventually, the attack is usually for the larger purpose of preserving religious freedom: living and letting live. If I attack Christianity more than any other religion, it's because it is the largest current group that attempts to destroy other forms of the sacred. This is true in America anyway: Islam probably wins the intolerance title worldwide.<br />
<br />
<b>TWO. "You shall not make cast idols."</b><br />
<br />
A parallel of Commandment Two, but less wordy. Again, I've never made idols, but people who sell crosses do.<br />
<br />
<b>THREE. "You shall keep the festival of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt."</b><br />
<br />
A parallel from the "Large Covenant Code" I glossed over earlier, the part about annual festivities held for God, almost word for word. I've never followed this commandment because I never can remember when Abib is.<br />
<br />
<b>FOUR. "All that first opens the womb is mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck."</b><br />
<br />
In which God reveals himself to be Rumpelstiltskin, wanting firstborns for some reason, which I suppose explains why he doesn't like anyone saying his name. What does a god need with all of this shit? Or does he just not like us having it?<br />
<br />
Have I ever broken this one? No, I've never owned livestock.<br />
<br />
<b>FIVE. "All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. No one shall appear before me empty-handed."</b><br />
<br />
<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments15.jpg" align=left hspace=5>In the same way that you can "redeem" a firstborn donkey that you'd like to keep by sacrificing a lamb instead (or breaking its neck), you can also redeem a firstborn son (with, probably, a lamb, or maybe another animal). This prevents you from having to actually kill your firstborn son, but -- as God says -- "No one shall appear before me empty-handed."<br />
<br />
This obviously leads to the Jesus story in which Jesus becomes the ultimate "redeemer" for everyone, the first son ("only begotten") of God himself, becoming the "Lamb of God" who is killed to compensate for God's bloodlust. Of course, some interpretations say that Jesus <i>is</i> God, which means that God became the human Jesus who became a symbolic lamb who was sacrificed (on the cross) for the sake of the celestial version of himself. I dunno. Even if it makes sense symbolically, it doesn't make any practical sense, and -- unfortunately -- Christianity is running off the assumption that it makes some sort of genuine sense that Jesus dying did some economical magic trick for us on behalf of the mafia god who wants his cut.<br />
<br />
So the theory behind the crucifixion of Jesus goes back to this scapegoat commandment and others like it, where one thing can be sacrificed for another. Apparently the cosmos just works this way, though no one has been able to really explain to me why. An old gospel song we used to sing puts it this way: "He paid a debt he did not owe. I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away [with sacrificial blood drained for an angry god]... Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay." (But, hey, do you want to hear a secret? Lean in. You don't actually owe anything! I give you your freedom! Rejoice!)<br />
<br />
If Jesus existed, it seems that he was someone who was sick to death of all these stupid laws and wanted to do away with them once and for all, even if it meant arranging his own death. This is probably what he meant when he said he came to fulfill the law, not destroy it. "You need to kill animals to atone for sins? Fine, I'm the son of God himself, and I'll be the ultimate scapegoat for everyone. Oh, and you're forgiven. Now get on with your lives!" If Jesus didn't exist (or only existed in part), then it seems that the writers of the "new" testament were trying to get this idea across by creating this character. It partially worked, in that animal sacrifices no longer occur, but now Christians have to sacrifice themselves to the <i>scapegoat</i>, which seems to have defeated the purpose.<br />
<br />
Have I ever broken this one? No, I've only had a daughter, a nearly useless human being in God's eyes.<br />
<br />
<b>SIX. "Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in plowing time and in harvest time you shall rest."</b><br />
<br />
This is parallel to the Fourth Ethical Commandment. It also is expanded in the Large Covenant Code, which says "so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and your homeborn slave and the resident alien may be refreshed."<br />
<br />
I've already told you I've broken this one--the spirit of it anyway, since I've never owned oxen, donkeys, or slaves (not yet anyway).<br />
<br />
<b>SEVEN. "You shall observe the festival of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the festival of ingathering at the turn of the year. Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year."</b><br />
<br />
A less specific version of this is found in the Large Covenant Code. I admit to never having attended any of these festivals, even when I was at my most religious. This is apparently why I don't own much land.<br />
<br />
<b>EIGHT. "You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, and the sacrifice of the festival of the passover shall not be left until the morning."</b><br />
<br />
Found in the Large Covenant Code. Passover stuff. I've never done a passover. I just hunt Easter Eggs: unleavened ones.<br />
<br />
<b>NINE. "The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God."</b><br />
<br />
Found in the Large Covenant Code. God enjoys the fruit and vegetable group as well as the meat group. I've broken this commandment, since I have grown fruits before and ate them myself. Forgive me. They were delicious: so sweet and so cold.<br />
<br />
<b>TEN. "You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk."</b><br />
<br />
Last and possibly least! Found in the Large Covenant Code. Boiling a young goat in its mother's milk and then performing a ritual with it is something some of the "competing" polytheistic religions did. As we learned from Commandment One, God doesn't like other religions, so many things considered "evil" by God were (and are) really just things that other religions practiced, no matter how harmless. This is why you can frighten certain Christians by calling something they own "pagan," maybe suggesting that their Christmas tree is a Asherah Pole or pointing out occult-looking symbols on their Procter and Gamble products. Even Satan's look was inspired by innocent-enough goat gods, a successful attempt to literally demonize other religious practices. So that's why the tenth and final commandment that God saw fit to re-record on stone tablets was this one about seething a tiny goat in its mother's milk.<br />
<br />
I've never broken this commandment, but it sounds like fun.<br />
<br />
<center><b>Conclusions</b></center><br />
Even if you believe that this commandment-giving story actually happened, I don't see that it matters too much which commandments God wrote on stone and which ones he didn't. It seems like the commandments themselves would matter, not the format they were presented in.<br />
<br />
More importantly, the commandments don't apply to you; they were given to Moses for specific purposes that God had in mind for those people in that situation. I'm willing to believe that perhaps there was some really good reason for following those crazy laws that we now just don't understand, or that perhaps what seems barbaric now was the best they (and therefore God) could do at the time. ("An eye for an eye," for example, is better than "Revenge for my eye! Kill everyone!") Baby steps.<br />
<br />
If you find that some of these laws still apply to modern morality and law (such as "don't murder"), then it's only because those are the kinds of things you'd expect to find in any society at any time, large or small. If you find that most of them feel irrelevant or confusing, then this should make perfect sense.<br />
<br />
For Christians who feel that Jesus wiped out the entire "old" testament with his death, I suppose it's okay if you think that as long as you're not digging around in these wiped-out laws to support your beliefs concerning modern society. (I'm looking at you, gay-bashers!) I do think, if nothing else, that the "new" testament makes no sense without the "old" (and barely then), so I wouldn't use this theory as an excuse to not read your own holy book on which you are supposedly basing your most important life decisions.<br />
<br />
Since archeology has demonstrated that there was never an exodus out of Egypt and since I'm pretty sure Moses never existed, these commandments have about as much relevance to my life as the rules of Fight Club, so I've -- in part -- written this analysis to have fun with it, much like someone who tries to figure out which circle of Hell Dante would place him in. However, like many religious matters, other people's beliefs about the Ten Commandments do affect me and the country I live in, so I wanted to share some thoughts about them that might put them in a more proper context. I know similar things have been done all across the internet and elsewhere, but not as thoroughly and entertainingly as I've done them here, you'll have to admit.<br />
<br />
<center><b>The Ten Commandments Redux</b></center><br />
Oh, and I almost forgot! God has revealed to me (through an email attachment) a redux of his Ethical Ten Commandments. I hope you find them as surprising and refreshing as I did. Here they are.<br />
<br />
<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments2.jpg" align=left hspace=5><center><b>ONE</b></center>I don't go by the name of Jealous anymore. I've mellowed out a lot in the past few thousand years, and I've decided that if you prefer other gods to me, that's fine, especially if they aid you in establishing a morally superior life. So don't do crusades and jihads and all that anymore. In fact, serving no gods at all is preferable, since your rational, scientific minds don't really need us anymore and most of us are ready to retire anyway. And I see now that my whole "chosen people" idea was rather racist, so don't be a racist like I was. And don't be anti-feminist or homophobic like I was either. Your new goal should be embracing diversity and promoting equality. I know all this sounds weird coming from me.<br />
<br />
<center><b>TWO</b></center>Art is beautiful, so make as much of it as you can: sculptures, paintings, photographs, songs, stories, movies, whatever. It doesn't have to be about me or any other god, but it can be if you like. Anything that helps you and others get through life. Edgy and innovative is often nice, since the best art is often controversial. Might I suggest some artwork with the subject matter of that Muhammad guy?<br />
<br />
<center><b>THREE</b></center>Swear as much as you feel is useful. Use my name (I'm a fan of "goddammit" myself) or just say "shit!" or whatever. It does help. However, I would advise you against "lazy" swearing. You know, sentences such as "I'm just fuckin', like, whatever"? Really mean it when you swear; that's all I ask. I don't think it's especially cute when children curse, but I don't want them to use chainsaws either, you know what I mean? Cursing is an adult tool to be used responsibly and effectively. I would ask, however, on the subject of my name, that you stop making those billboards with quotations supposedly signed by me. It's also pretty stupid to swear on a Bible.<br />
<br />
<center><b>FOUR</b></center>Don't work too hard. This advice doesn't mean, however, that you can own slaves (or too-cheap labor or children) to do the work for you. Also, you probably don't want to spoil one of your days off by waking up early to sing and talk about me in a formal gathering: unless you really enjoy that kind of thing, of course.<br />
<br />
<center><b>FIVE</b></center>If you have a good family, be nice to them and try not to let anything break that bond. But don't put so much emphasis on family that you forget friends. They can be just as important. Oh, and don't abuse children: physically, sexually, psychologically, or otherwise. That includes "spankings." If you think gettin' a whoopin' made you the person you are today, you may be right, but that's not necessarily a good thing.<br />
<br />
<center><b>SIX</b></center>Do your best not to kill anything living (human, animal, plant) without having a very good reason. War, self-defense, food, punishment, resources, and everything else involving survival that unavoidably requires death is so complicated that I'll let you and your individual cultures sort it out. There's no simple, all-encompassing answer that I can possibly write here. You <i>are</i> allowed and encouraged to "kill" at a comedy club.<br />
<br />
<center><b>SEVEN</b></center>Whether you are a man or a woman, your significant other does not own you. Having said that, it is a good idea to establish expectations in a relationship. Most of the time, your partner will not want you to be with others, and you probably feel the same way. If this is not the case, make sure that both of you agree to the arrangement. Relationships (marriages, living together, dating, casual sex, etc.) should be built on consent, respect, trust, and maturity, which will naturally rule out rape and other sexual violence, forced marriages, pedophilia, bestiality, and the like. It should go without saying that adults may do whatever they like -- as long as it causes no harm -- no matter if they are straight, gay, of any race, or whatever. So saith the Lord.<br />
<br />
<center><b>EIGHT</b></center>Do not take what isn't yours. Obviously you don't want to sneak those earrings out of the department store, but you also shouldn't participate in "white collar" fraud that rips people off either, because that's much, much worse and can make civilizations crumble just to satisfy your greedy ass. So don't be greedy either. A poor person stealing a candy bar isn't as bad as a super-rich person hoarding money like a dragon, allowing much of the world to live in poverty in the process. This, too, is a kind of theft. I'm not drawing any definite line in the sand here concerning what you should and shouldn't do with your wealth, but please use wisdom in these matters, especially those who have a lot, remembering that happiness for as many people as possible is a definite goal in this world. Also, I'm a big fan of Robin Hood, so take that for what it's worth.<br />
<br />
<center><b>NINE</b></center>Be as honest and transparent as possible, within reason. (I think everyone by now knows the proper answer to the question "Does this make my butt look big?") Certainly do not lie about someone else or put words in someone else's mouth (including mine, though I realize how difficult that can be). Be direct and avoid passive-aggression. Don't be like <i>some</i> people I know.<br />
<br />
<center><b>TEN</b></center>While you should always strive to make yourself, your life, and other people's lives better, you should also make real attempts to be happy with what you do have and not always look to the future (or the past) for the things that you want. If your neighbor has something that you'd also like to have, go for it, but make sure that you really want it (or need it) and aren't just having some "grass is greener" moment or trying to be "in style." Discover what is individual, good, and interesting about yourself and attempt to find a peace within that realm; you will find yourself wanting less as well as inspiring others more.<br />
<br />
<center><b>ELEVEN</b></center>Do not always rely on tradition, heritage, the sacrosanct, or anything that is "set in stone." Sometimes you need to go to eleven.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/tencommandments16.jpg"></center><p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-50978648743456990562013-03-26T21:39:00.000-05:002013-03-27T22:28:57.668-05:00A Father's BlasphemyI can't walk into one of these empty places<br />
Without thinking of Philip Larkin's "Church Going,"<br />
And I certainly can't write about going to an empty church<br />
Without Larkin's ghost poking me on the shoulder<br />
And telling me, "I've already been here. Move along."<br />
But I'm not moving along. I'm staying. I used to live here.<br />
<br />
And so here we are: me and my daughter,<br />
Who has only been walking on this earth a few months,<br />
At the entrance of a church, a respite from downtown shopping.<br />
She is banging on the baptismal font and laughing at the echo.<br />
"You bang away, sweetheart," I tell her.<br />
"You'll never have to be water-boarded in one of those things."<br />
<br />
She runs from pew to pew, more giggling at novelty,<br />
And I only make sure that she doesn't rip the hymnal pages.<br />
Otherwise, I let her run free and sinless in the aisles<br />
As I become distracted by wall paintings of Peter, Paul, and Mary,<br />
Which remind me of the children's song "Puff the Magic Dragon,"<br />
A bittersweet song about putting away nonexistent childish things.<br />
<br />
After the baby grabs my finger to climb onto the platform,<br />
She whacks and scream-laughs at the wooden pulpit.<br />
In her size four purple Sauconys, she runs roughshod over this space,<br />
Like a little trickster who knows she is defiling the sacred.<br />
But it is her ignorance of sacrilege that pleases me most,<br />
That odd word invented by penis-owning homo sapiens.<br />
<br />
I imagine that my daughter will change the world one day.<br />
I won't allow places like this to tell her that she can't.<br />
I won't let them tell her that she needs a dead man to marry her<br />
Or that to have a vagina is to be a second place human<br />
Or that my sperm contained the gene for original sin,<br />
Passed down to her along with my eye color and penicillin allergy.<br />
<br />
When she lifts her arms for me to pick her up,<br />
I think of those who will fill the sanctuary this weekend,<br />
Crying and raising their hands, like babies in a crib,<br />
Toward a father who isn't around or maybe has his headphones on.<br />
As for me, I can pick up my girl, tell her I love her, and leave this place.<br />
In this way, I'm a much better dad than certain folk I'm not allowed to name.<br />
Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-68042333638840595022013-02-13T22:59:00.000-06:002013-03-26T21:53:46.129-05:00Catholicism Reboot: The Forty-Five Theses<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/45theses.jpg" align=left hspace=5>Now that the pope is retiring, it's time to bring in some changes to the papacy and the Catholic Church in general to make it more up to date for the 21st Century. Here are my Forty-Five Theses. (Martin Luther had just under a hundred. I'll go just under fifty, since I know we have less time on our hands than they did in 1517, what with all the screen-based activities we have to do.)<br />
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1. The dogma of papal infallibility should be abandoned.<br />
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2. Bishops should be allowed to move in other directions besides diagonally.<br />
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3. In order to improve upon the other-worldly quality that Latin provides, the Mass should be performed in Klingon or Elvish.<br />
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4. Baptisms should be optional. Also optional in baptisms: the use of water. Green slime preferred, especially to attract the youth.<br />
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5. Popes should not be considered important political figures or otherwise have any political power.<br />
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6. Popes should be chosen at random: slips of paper with the names of all Catholics will be placed in the hat of the previous pope and pulled out by whoever is the current host of <i>Let's Make a Deal</i>.<br />
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7. Rather than believing in the trinity, the new doctrine should allow for a fourth person of God -- a female -- because that actually makes more sense. (If the word "Trinity" is something that wants to be kept, then simply remove the Holy Spirit from the lineup.)<br />
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8. Rather than white smoke announcing the election of a new pope, a firework that forms the shape of the robot from the 80s television show <i>Small Wonder</i> should be shot into the sky--because why the fuck not?<br />
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9. Any social works -- such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, etc. -- should be recognized as something anyone can do without getting it all tangled up with the supernatural.<br />
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10. Anyone who finds the baby in a king cake no longer has to bring the cake the next year. Instead, they have to bring the condoms to the new Catholic swinger parties.<br />
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11. Priests should not be allowed to rape children. Any church authority who finds out about a child molesting priest should not consider themselves above the law and should turn over the criminal to the police, rather than moving them to another diocese where they can rape more children. This practice should, within a reasonable time, be thought of as "common sense."<br />
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12. On Ash Wednesday, instead of ashes, maybe some garlic shavings--which will have the added bonus of warding off vampires.<br />
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13. Transubstantiation -- the belief that crackers and wine served in communion are literally the body and blood of Jesus Christ -- should be replaced by a belief of things that happen in the real goddamned world.<br />
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14. Catholics should stop forbidding birth control and realize that allowing women control over whether or not they have babies is a sure-fire way to help solve the poverty problem. (Poverty should also be considered a problem, not a fetish object.)<br />
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15. Priests should be allowed to marry and otherwise engage in healthy adult sexual activities.<br />
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16. Catholics should be much more clear that the "immaculate conception" actually refers to the Virgin Mary being born without sin and filled with the "grace" given during baptism, that it does not refer to the virgin birth of Jesus. Once this clarification truly sinks in, this and similar doctrines should be abandoned, for fear of sounding like one is arguing over who would win in a fight between two comic book characters.<br />
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17. Women should be allowed to be priests. Men should be allowed to be nuns.<br />
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18. <i>Nunsense</i> should no longer be thought of as a musical that hilariously breaks the fourth wall.<br />
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19. Priests, bishops, etc. should begin dressing like artistic depictions of Jesus, not like Liberace.<br />
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20. Anointing the sick should be replaced with visits to a qualified physician.<br />
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21. Any pope who accepts the title, after chosen, should be immediately martyred. Any pope who refuses his title, after chosen, should decide a new, non-religious career path.<br />
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22. Lent should no longer be a creativity contest for what to give up.<br />
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23. The "Final Judgment" -- in which God decides who goes to Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell -- should be a game show in which Catholics can live out this fantasy doctrine, since it likely won't happen when they die.<br />
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24. The church should pay taxes, and at a higher rate than billionaires to make up for lost time.<br />
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25. Instead of Lent, Catholics should just think about spiritual things each time they clean the lint screen in their dryers.<br />
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26. Rather than wishing to go to Heaven, all Catholics should just go ahead and take that long, expensive vacation to another country they've been talking about for years.<br />
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27. Confession booths should become masturbation stalls for repressed priests.<br />
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28. The practice of confessing to a priest to be absolved of sin should be replaced with individuals taking responsibility for their lives and facing the consequences of their actions. In most cases, however, there should be no need to confess anything, since the concept of "sin" will be recognized as a human invention and a tool of oppression.<br />
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29. Marriage should be allowed only for same-sex Catholics. Men and women who want to marry will have to undergo what is known as a "genital-interlocking ceremony" and keep their union hidden from the public until they reach age 85, by which point it will be viewed as adorable.<br />
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30. Boys should no longer have to kneel in front of priests.<br />
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31. All sacred images, candles, crucifixions, stained-glass, and other beautiful objects should be given to museums, where Indiana Jones would prefer they be.<br />
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32. Rome should admit that it stole and worsened Christianity just as it stole and worsened Greek culture.<br />
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33. Prayers for the dead should only be allowed when the dead person specifically requests it. (Requests made while still living do not count.)<br />
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34. The church should admit that (for reasons that should be obvious) it has no business deciding matters of morality.<br />
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35. Catholic Schools should have a "Whack a Nun Day" during which schoolchildren hit nuns with rulers in memory of the days when nuns used to do that to children (which, if they still do, should be abandoned).<br />
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36. All Catholic dogma should be replaced by Lars Von Trier's Dogme 95 philosophy of filmmaking.<br />
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37. The Vatican should be sold off brick by brick and the money should be donated to charities aiding victims of childhood sexual molestation.<br />
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38. Catholics should, each time they want to say "God" or "Jesus" or the equivalent, replace it with a god they don't believe in, just to see how it sounds to the ear.<br />
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39. The pope should no longer be considered the successor of St. Peter.<br />
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40. St. Peter should no longer be considered "the first pope" or a saint or anything else special, since he seemed like one of the stupider disciples among many stupid disciples.<br />
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41. The Virgin Mary should heretofore be referred to as "The Sexually-Active Mary."<br />
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42. The priesthood should be dismantled, and Jesus should no longer be recognized as the son of God.<br />
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43. The Catholic Church should admit that it is not the "one true church" and should help elect a new "one true church" every four years (coinciding with the Olympics), starting with the Mormons.<br />
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44. The church should apologize one more time for that Galileo thing.<br />
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45. All Catholics should become Protestants, try that out for a year, dabble in Buddhism (preferably during a year off after college), and then realize it's just as well to become secular and live a real life.<p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-81729933912931685752012-11-04T22:10:00.000-06:002012-11-04T22:16:22.053-06:00A Mardukian NationI have <a href="http://rustysgodblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/belief-in-marduk.html">already explained</a> why Marduk of Babylon is the ultimate god and why everyone should believe he exists. I have already explained why the <a href="http://www.cresourcei.org/enumaelish.html"><i>Enuma Elish</i></a> is the ultimate authority on the creation of our world, the creation of humanity, and Marduk's power, making it a very clear blueprint for how we should live our lives.<br />
<br />
But did you know that the "God" referenced so often in the government and culture of the United States is supposed by many to be some other strange god? For this reason, I propose (below) some changes that will make the god we are meant to be worshipping absolutely clear.<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/marduk-1.jpg"></center><br />
<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/marduk-2.jpg"></center><br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/marduk-5.jpg"></center><br />
<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/marduk-6.jpg"></center><br />
<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/marduk-7.jpg"></center><p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-46992228382775742412012-10-17T22:25:00.001-05:002012-10-17T22:26:42.365-05:00Demons!<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/demons1.jpg" align=left hspace=5>Growing up with God is often rough enough, but I also had the opportunity to grow up with his evil counterparts: the Devil and his evil underlings. In a lot of ways, demons were more real to me than God. God never spoke to me, but evil spirits did, and they manifest themselves in a variety of ways, while God never quite managed to solidify as even one satisfying image in my mind. And devils might show up anywhere, during almost any time.<br />
<br />
In the very early days, I didn't put as much stock in the supernatural (not counting God, of course) as some of my immediate family. Perhaps it's because didn't watch horror movies, knowing they would scare me. My brother, however, would wake up in the middle of the night to see some little green hobgoblin jump into our chest of drawers. Or he would open his eyes and see Freddy Krueger sitting in our desk chair, right next to our bunk beds, menacingly curling his bladed glove. My sister's visions were even more odd, since they involved seeing <i>me</i> walking through the hallway or hearing my voice in her ear when I was -- in reality -- in the other room sleeping.<br />
<br />
As for myself, I've always been able to open my eyes at night and see all kinds of visions: as a kid, little hopping gnomish creatures would appear and -- today -- spiders. I once woke up screaming, thinking our cat was clawing me, and it took a long time to convince me that the cat was outside, since -- even while this was being explained to me -- I felt the pain of claw marks on my skin. But I knew enough about dreams back then to know that that's what they were: nightmares, waking dreams, mind tricks.<br />
<br />
<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/demons3.jpg" align=right hspace=5>Unfortunately, however, simple childhood dreams, in my house, were often given immense power through the backing of religion. (And no wonder, since religions are based on dreams.) Sometimes, luckily, nightmares were quickly and lovingly dismissed as "just a bad dream," but -- other times -- they were not. The Freddy Krueger episode, for example, did not lead to a speech about how maybe my brother shouldn't watch scary movies if he couldn't handle them at age fifteen. Instead, it led to a speech about how God was more powerful than the Devil and that our family, with God's power, could defeat him. I was nine years old and this was happening in my bedroom. I was learning not only that the Devil could bother you at night, but he could do so in the form of a cheesy movie character. I woke up annoyed at all this commotion in the middle of the night, but by the end of the overheard conversation, I was certainly leaning toward the idea that this could be real.<br />
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One does not always become more rational or intelligent as one grows up and -- sure enough -- I did eventually buy into the idea that demons existed, even if I could still distinguish dreams (and movies) from reality. Unclean spirits were in the Bible, so I pretty much had to believe in them. So what did I think I was dealing with? The usual: fallen angels. God created angels before he created humans. Lucifer rebelled against God and he became Satan (just as Milton told us). He gathered other angels to his side and, together, they became very interested in sticking it to God by tormenting his beloved humans, looking for bodies to possess and souls to thwart before one day -- at the end of time -- they would be cast into the Lake of Fire.<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/demons4.jpg" align=left hspace=5>It wasn't just my immediate family feeding me this stuff. For example, while other kids were busy doing fun things with flutes at band camp, a lot of my pals spent their time dicking around with Ouija boards (from Hasbro!). Some for fun, some with trepidation, some wanting to see Satan face to face. My own response to it was a detachment from the stupid board itself, thinking that I was so spiritual that I didn't need it: by age fourteen, evil spirits wanted my holy ass. So sometimes I would hop on the witchboard to show what it looked like when someone with a <i>real</i> spiritual connection was involved. I would then get duly scolded by a few Christian friends who said I shouldn't be inviting that evil--but I figured the evil spirits were already messing with me, invited or no. What a godly prize I would be!<br />
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Whenever I saw movies in which people (even the priests) didn't believe in evil spirits or possession, I was always confused, since it was taken as a given nearly everywhere around me. Based on the (varying) poll results I now read, it seems that belief in the Devil and Hell is still rampant all over the country (though not as much as belief in God and Heaven), so it may not have been just my area. (So don't blame it on the hillbillies.) Anyway, belief in evil spirits wasn't something outside the norm or nutty in my neck of the woods.<br />
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Paul tells the Ephesians to "Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." I did indeed think the Devil was wily, that he knew me better than I knew myself, and that the more I found myself in "heavenly places," the more he was out to get me. If I went to church, he was after me. If I prayed, he was after me. If I read the Bible, he was after me.<br />
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My greatest fear, however, was that the Devil would no longer be after me. I could stop going to church, stop praying, and stop reading the Bible and the Devil would certainly leave me alone, but then he would have won. But here's the problem: even if I continued to do all of the correct heavenly things, but maybe I just decided to relax and stop thinking about devils all the goddamned time... he'd win then too. Why? Because if I didn't feel his torment, I must not be a threat to him anymore.<br />
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As was expressed in the short story "The Generous Player" by Baudelaire, "The loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he doesn't exist!" For myself I wanted to be sure that I knew he existed and also that he existed in my life. If I didn't feel God's presence (and, usually, I didn't), no big deal. He was probably just testing me to see if I'd stick around even when he wasn't near. But if i didn't feel the Devil's presence, it meant one of two things for me: 1. I was so far off the godly path that I wasn't worth the Devil's time. 2. The Devil was already inside me and I didn't even know it.<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/demons5.jpg" align=right hspace=5>Because, yes, I believed in demon possession. So maybe one or two times a month on average, I'd lie awake scared, with dark, sinking feelings in my stomach. The fluttery nervousness you might feel after a horror movie when you have to walk down the dark hallway by yourself, when you sense that you are unprotected or exposed, when you become sweaty and it's difficult to breathe, or you think about your breathing too much because you wonder which breath the devil will use to slide in on. I'd sing gospel songs endlessly to scare the bad spirits away. I'd pray and beg God to make me feel at peace again and -- above all -- just let me go to sleep (without nightmares). But then I'd feel what I know now to be a normal burst of adrenaline, some nervous butterflies or whatever, and I'd wonder: "Was that the evil spirit entering me?" I'd hear my thoughts and wonder if they were my thoughts or the demon's. And I'd wonder how many demons were in the room with me. Would I see them if I opened my eyes? Were they using horror tactics to make me scared because they fed off of my fear?<br />
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I was not always a small child or an early teen when these things would happen, I'm sorry to say. These feelings and episodes stayed with me through about half of my twenties. In fact, it was during my late teens and early twenties that things were at their worst. Even my short stories were about evil spirits. And although I would have loved the TV show <i>Twin Peaks</i> no matter what, it certainly made me pay attention even more when Laura Palmer's killer turned out to be possessed by a demon named BOB.<br />
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So I was fucked up. Richard Dawkins likens religious upbringing to child abuse, which sounds harsh, but -- when I think back on my own psychological suffering, which was mild compared to many accounts I've heard about -- I see his point. (Our church didn't even believe in a physical Hell, so my suffering was mild indeed.)<br />
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It doesn't take much to set one off toward crazyville when one's brain is trained to think about the world in this way. And these are waking thoughts. When nightmares enter the mix, it's potentially worse. Unfortunately, I also experienced something called "sleep paralysis" in which I would find myself in that stage between sleeping and waking, the body still paralyzed (since the body prevents extra movement during sleep), an overlap of dream images and real images in my mind, eyes open. This is a common experience, and many others have symptoms that are much worse than mine. For me, I'd usually hear a rush of wind in my ears, I wouldn't be able to move, and I'd get the feeling that I had to somehow move or something evil would overtake me, but it was more of a struggling claustrophobic feeling than anything. Strangely, I was more scared of my waking thoughts than I was of these actually-scary events (since it was then an unexplained thing for me).<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/demons7.jpg" align=left hspace=5>Those who have sleep paralysis worse than I do see shadowy men or monsters in the corners of their rooms, or standing next to their beds, or sitting on top of them. The legendary incubus and the succubus were the creatures who sat atop the victims, often for sexual reasons. We see it everywhere in folk tales and collections like Pu Songling's <i>Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio</i> in which supernatural things are always happening while someone is reclining or waking up or feeling drowsy: sexual visits from "fox-spirits" in which the man's "Yang essence" is drained (often fatally), ghosts of beautiful young girls appearing, tiny men parading across the floor (like my gnomes), giants and ogres barging in the room... The body and brain work this way during that "dangerous" time between waking and sleeping (or vice-versa): projecting whatever bogeyman is in the religious or secular culture, whether fallen angels or space aliens or Freddy Krueger.<br />
<br />
The important thing to know is that these things <i>aren't real</i>. If you are a reader who is freaking out reading about these stories: <i>don't</i>. (I used to get scared reading about other people's sleep paralysis experiences, especially at night.) My paralytic episodes all but disappeared once I came to understand the nature of them and stopped associating them with the supernatural. No doubt my anxieties about demons (and God himself) brought upon my restlessness at night, and restlessness apparently is one cause of this phenomenon. I still see the spiders (probably just my dreams translating my eye "floaters" into visions), but I know they aren't anything to worry about; they're just kind of annoying. These days I also see images of my little baby in the bed, so often it's just whatever is on your mind. The point is, I no longer live in fear of nighttime, and no one should.<br />
<br />
But now I go beyond childhood delusions and nighttime hallucinations and into broad day, in-public, among-adults "demon possession." These things, of course, usually have their roots in church. So now for an embarrassing admission: I've been "possessed by devils" and also have had them "cast out." Whee! Fun! When it comes to my religious past, I have several embarrassing admissions, but admitting I was once Linda Blair might be number one. It's just so--what? Silly? What will you think of me, no matter how long ago it was and no matter how rational I've become? It is still part of my history.<br />
<br />
If I'm remembering correctly, this is how the event went down the first time. I was getting prayed for in church in our normal way, which involves the "laying on of hands," lots of shouting, lots of speaking in tongues, lots of crying, and me in the middle of this chaos feeling bodily exhausted (these sessions can last hours) and (even more importantly) feeling like a piece of shit because religion insisted that I was just that. We are born sinners because Adam made a bad mistake and we inherited his stinky DNA and now we have to grovel and sweat before a god whose death simultaneously (a) forgave us of our sins and (b) caused us to feel even more guilty about our sins.<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/demons8.jpg" align=right hspace=5>It's not easy, you should know, for people to make me feel shitty. I've been told I have something of an ego, but more importantly I am simply a very happy and content person. I like myself and my life very much: always have. God and his ministers were pretty much the only people who could make me feel awful about myself. When you go to church, you're told how shitty you are and you're encouraged to go down for prayer. For no <i>real</i> reason. It's not like I was ever doing horrible things or even having spiritual doubts. Jesus was just all right with me. But apparently I was a shit-smelling sinner like everyone else, so I tended to get prayed for every now and then, just to make sure I was doing everything I was supposed to do.<br />
<br />
So here I am, crying and pleading to God among a pile of men who are getting their Brute and Old Spice all over me and I suddenly hear the preacher that I love and respect the most screaming toward me, "Come out, you devil!" What? Me? Is he talking to me? "Come out, you old devil!" So I supposed, immediately, that I must have one. It's just that easy, folks.<br />
<br />
Why did he decide I had a devil inside me? Who knows, but it could have been any number of things. Even though I tended to swallow the bulk of what the church fed me without much fuss, I was still something of a loveable troublemaker. I still questioned things. I had my own interpretations of the Bible that didn't fit with the church's old standards. My hair was slightly longer than the church norm (indie rock length, not hippie length). I didn't use preacher clichés in my testimonies and typically spoke in my own voice at a reasonable volume. I smiled all the time and didn't complain about "trials and tests." I listened to pop music. I dated girls outside of the church. I didn't call up ministers in the middle of the night with personal problems. I valued education and knowledge. I had a sense of irony about me. I didn't think that being a Christian meant being a Republican. What a bad boy, right?<br />
<br />
<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/demons10.jpg" align=left hspace=5>But, yes, I was told (via screaming) that I had a demon living inside of me (at least one: "Come out of there, <i>all</i> of you!" was another sentence screamed in my ear), and now it was being cast out through the power of the name of Jesus Christ, just like in the picture shows. So, as I was supposed to do, I start crying more and then I start screaming and then I kind of just hang there with my mouth wide open, drool coming out, and now someone is excited that they get to bring the little blue garbage can over for me to spit in. To spit the demon out!<br />
<br />
I can speak about it with ironic detachment now, but how was I feeling then? Well, I took it seriously. I believed this was really happening to me. Afterward, when they told me that the evil spirit was gone and asked me if I felt better, I said, "I think so, yes." But I didn't really feel as if anything had happened during the exorcism. It's not that I thought I didn't have an evil spirit. I <i>did</i> believe that. It was that I didn't feel any different afterward, so maybe it was still there. Maybe the demon had tricked them into thinking it was gone, but it was still in there, hiding in the corner of my soul or wherever they're supposed to live. More worries to keep me up at night. They told me I needed to start thanking Jesus and asking him to fill in the gap where the demon was, else it would come back and bring his friends. This is Biblical. In Matthew 12:43, Jesus says that seven devilish buddies will come back to the "empty, swept" house so that "the last state of that person is worse than the first." How can you win?<br />
<br />
I only remember one other time when I was delivered of a spirit. It was different this time, since it seemed to have happened without any prompting or suggestion from others. It was in church and people were speaking in tongues and others were translating those tongues and -- man oh man -- God was using this method to speak to us directly. New information. (This didn't happen often. This night was the only time it happened around me, though I heard reports of it happening other times.) God was speaking to his people using King James style English, which I found odd, but I reasoned that this church group was so used to God speaking this way (the KJV was the only translation of the Bible they read) that God felt he would have confused them if he had used contemporary American English. (The gist of God's message, if you're interested, was "Do better.")<br />
<br />
Anyway, hearing the actual words of the actual God made me feel all kinds of weird emotions. I suppose it would be weird for a believer <i>not</i> to feel emotional if the creator of the universe began giving a private lecture in a room you're sitting in. I mean, I got pretty nervous when I saw Kurt Vonnegut speak, especially when he looked me in the eye, and he was just a human (and a heathen!). So I started crying and soon I was bent over in the pew doing the old mouth-open drooling thing like last time. God was right there in the room, so there was no way an evil spirit could stay inside me. What really happened, of course, doesn't require much of a rewrite of that sentence: I <i>believed</i> that God was right there in the room and so there was no way an evil spirit, which I <i>believed</i> that I maybe still had, could stay inside me. I was completely wrong, of course, about all of it, but my mind and body didn't know that, so it behaved in the only way it could. Psychosomatic.<br />
<br />
So now poor Rusty -- honors student and second prize winner of the state science fair -- is sitting there spitting out a nonexistent fallen angel because he thinks that a nonexistent deity's power is flooding the room through the manifestation of a nonexistent supernatural language which is being made known through a nonexistent translation into a version of our language once used by William Shakespeare.<br />
<br />
This is why I have the right to feel just a little embarrassed.<br />
<br />
But, hey, it happened to friends, family members, and the one girlfriend I ever dated within the church, so whatever. Just another religious rite of passage, like water baptism or learning that every denomination except yours is the Whore of Babylon. (The scary thing is that I'm only skimming the surface of my first-hand demon experiences. Most of it is too personal or weird to share.)<br />
<br />
<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/demons11.jpg" align=right hspace=5>One problem with Christianity is that it just isn't humble. (The humility that you do find is a major source of pride.) It's not enough to promote a philosophy in which humans are supposed to take care of each other or deal with personal issues or discover an inner life. It's a lot more sexy to believe that you're in a war with <i>fallen spirits who existed before the beginning of humanity</i>. Your life becomes an epic battle. You're like a character in <i>Lord of the Rings</i>, maybe Gandalf fighting the Balrog. "You shall not pass!" I know I felt this way when I supposed myself to have cast out demons from other people. Prayer warriors! Pretty decent compensation for feeling like shit all the time.<br />
<br />
And angels and devils are so much more interesting than God himself, since God -- in contemporary times -- has become this invisible, abstract not-quite-personality, some vague force of good. He's not, anymore, the powerful superhero who fights Leviathan, as detailed in Job 41 and mentioned in Psalms 74. Angels, however, are still magical creatures circling around your car to protect you when you're skidding off the road, and devils are psychologically crafty bad boys who could one day make you write a blog denouncing their existence so that others might more easily be trapped by them. Tricky, tricky!<br />
<br />
As I began living in the real world more and more (<a href="http://rustysgodblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/my-path-to-atheism.html">showing here</a>), as my rational mind eventually defeated my childish attachments (the <i>real</i> battle, by the way), devils left me alone... and this time, I didn't consider it a bad thing. They faded before God did (since he tends to be the last to go), though it wasn't until after God was gone that, one day, I realized: "Oh yeah, I guess evil spirits don't exist either." So much for all that late night worry.<br />
<br />
In closing: for any readers who find belief in devils to be ridiculous (readers I imagine I've been writing to for most of the above), I hope this post helped you get either a good laugh or at least a good (perhaps pity-filled) mouth-drop at how gullible someone like me (an intellectual and creative genius!) could be. But for those readers who are currently suffering because of the supposed existence of devils, listen: <i>they don't exist and you don't have to suffer anymore</i>.<br />
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<img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/demons2.jpg" align=left hspace=5>I'm not saying you have to stop believing in God (and I know you might find listening to an atheist about religious matters difficult to do, though I've certainly paid my dues), but -- please -- just let these little guys go. Or, hey, believe in them all you want but just don't think about them. Don't fall into the circular trap I did, the one where you worry because you're not worried. I'm not the Devil's instrument. I'm just a guy who grew up in a religious background -- as you did (as of <i>course</i> you did) -- who has come out the other end alive, to tell the tale.<br />
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You know that phrase "fighting your personal demons"? That's all "demons" are. They are personifications of fears, anxieties, neuroses, etc. They're no more real than the "monkey on your back" is to a drug user. These colorful characters and handy ways of thinking of abstract things get converted into "real" things, through misunderstandings, through ancient people stupider than you taking poetic images literally. You're not the dumb one here. Neither are your parents or my parents or my old ministers or anyone who taught us this nonsense. They couldn't help it either. Do you know how difficult it is to break these old habits and beliefs? I do! It's taken me most of my life. But it can be done.<br />
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So, if you're the person I'm -- here at the end -- writing to, this my Halloween gift to you. Look at the face of the beings who seem scary, evil, against God, hellish, whatever. Look at them and realize that they are just rubber masks. Laugh at them. Turn on the lights and see what you were really looking at. When I was a child having a nightmare, I was smart enough then to realize, within the dream, that I could stick out my tongue at the monster and it would go away. It's true that we are more powerful than devils: not because God is on our side, but because illusions lose all power the moment we realize they aren't real.<p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-91671631677800638652012-09-06T22:40:00.000-05:002012-09-07T19:15:40.360-05:00The MartyrsA friend of mine told me a dream he had:<br />
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"I was in church and a man burst in with a gun. He walked right up to an elderly saint, someone I always figured was ready for Heaven, held a gun to her head, and said, 'Deny God or I'll pull the trigger.' She smiled and said, 'That is something I could never do,' so he killed her, her brain flying out of her skull."<br />
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"I think I've heard this one before," I said, but he continued:<br />
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"Next in the dream, the shooter found a person in the church who I considered 'lukewarm' where Christ was concerned, on the fence about his faith. 'Deny God or I'll pull the trigger,' the shooter said. The man hesitated for a moment, then -- though he seemed nervous about it -- said, 'No, I can't deny him.' So his bloody brain ended up everywhere too. I knew that he had finally made the correct decision and that he immediately went to Heaven. Everyone in the church was slaughtered in the same way: they wouldn't deny God and they were killed for it. Then suddenly, in the dream, I was at a convention for atheists..."<br />
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"Ah, here comes the punchline," I said.<br />
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"This isn't a joke. It's a dream," he said. "The gunman walked up to the keynote speaker and held the gun to his head. To him, he said, 'Say that you believe in Jesus with all your heart or I'll kill you.' The atheist actually laughed a little, but then repeated the words, as if to humor the gunman. 'Again!' the gunman screamed, so he said it again: 'I believe in Jesus with all my heart.' 'Again!' 'I believe in Jesus with all my heart!' Then the atheist started sobbing, saying, 'I believe in Jesus with all my heart, with all my soul, and I give my life to him!' Everyone at the convention began sobbing, repenting, and professing, and the killer opened fire on them all, a bloody massacre, sending them immediately to Heaven. It was like God's mercy. Then, in the dream, I was alone... just me and the man with the gun..." He stopped.<br />
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"Yes?"<br />
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"Eh, the rest of the dream isn't important. Never mind."<br />
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"C'mon. Tell me."<br />
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"Well, the truth is, the dream ended there. The man held the gun to my head, he told me to deny God or he'd pull the trigger. But before I had the chance to say anything, I woke up in a puddle of come."<p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-63367751889314390152012-08-09T22:05:00.000-05:002012-08-09T22:05:18.649-05:00Adam and SteveI think I finally figured out why people keep saying "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." It's so clear to me now, as it should have been all along: it was right there in the book. Yes, Adam and Eve.<br />
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God doesn't want anyone to get married whose names aren't Adam and Eve. These are the only two name pairings that God wants. It's traditional marriage!<br />
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So is your name Adam? Then you can only marry a person named Eve. Is your name Eve? Then you can only marry a person named Adam. Is your name neither Adam nor Eve? Sorry, you can't get married... unless you want to offend God.<br />
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I know this inconveniences a lot of people, but the Bible is pretty clear on this. For a long time now, this garden story has been held up as the example for how we should live our lives, whom we should marry, how we should treat women, the importance of obeying our parents, the existence of original sin, and many other things. But it's time to stop overlooking the obvious: wedding registries at Williams-Sonoma are for Adams and Eves only.<br />
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Either that, or the Bible forbids all marriage except between males who were created from dust and women who were made out of those males' ribs. Also a possibility.<p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-88731700898885350122012-08-07T22:27:00.001-05:002021-06-30T03:14:23.444-05:00The Tao of Jesus: A Spiritual Analysis of the Gospel of John"There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. It is serene. Empty. Solitary. Unchanging. Infinite. Eternally present. It is the mother of the universe. For lack of a better name, I call it the Tao. It flows through all things, inside and outside, and returns to the origin of all things." --Lao Tzu, <i>Tao Te Ching</i><br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 1</b></center><br />
<center><b>The Word</b></center><br />
<img align="left" hspace="5" src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/gospelofjohn1.jpg" />Heinrich Zimmer said (as Joseph Campbell was so fond of quoting) that the best truths can't be spoken and the second-best are misunderstood. This quotation sums up my spiritual analysis of the Gospel of John (and I'm afraid this is going to be one of those essays in which the thesis is stated over and over again with different examples). The Tao is the name for the former (can't be spoken, beyond all words) and Jesus's words are the latter (misunderstood, attempting to express inexpressible through metaphorical words and actions).<br />
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To explain what I mean, I'd like to walk us through the book of John, the most spiritual of the gospels, beginning with its cryptic opening:<br />
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"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."<br />
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You can see already that we're dealing with concepts that are difficult to explain with words. It is no accident that the word <i>Word</i> (sometimes translated as <i>Logos</i>) is used, as both a proper name and a concept, attempting to explain what Jesus is, re-writing (or at least clarifying) Genesis to declare that "in the beginning" Jesus created the world and was apparently the subject of "Let there be light." And lest we begin thinking that these things are physical (and how can they be, since the Word is described both as being "with God" but also God himself?), John writes that those who accept the Word/God become "children of God, who were born, not of blood... but of God." So we're not talking about bodies. We're not talking about "the world" as a planet. We're talking about the inner life, otherwise known as the spiritual life.<br />
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On the other hand, John is constantly blending these spiritual words with things that are "worldly" indeed. Jesus Christ is a specific, presumably historical human in this book, and -- throughout -- Jesus can't seem to decide if he's a full-blown Taoist guru attempting to explain the unexplainable or if he's a reformer of Judaism, beholden to those traditions while desiring to make them less dogmatic and more spiritual ("The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"), even if it requires him engineering his own literal and metaphorical death.<br />
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The schizophrenia of this book might be due, in part, to the retro-fitting of the more established Christian religion (this book wasn't finished until about 100 years after Jesus lived, and of course everything was gathered second-hand, at best) into what may have once been a more pure Toaist-like (or at least Eastern or mystical) teaching, one in which "God" is not an actual entity but only a symbol of the transcendent, a name to help us experience things we can't understand. But, tempting as it is to use this to explain the inconsistencies in Jesus's teaching (Western vs. Eastern, legal vs. mystical), I have to admit that Jesus seemed to have his feet in both worlds: the spiritual and the literal/physical/historical. So I will tackle both as they occur.<br />
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If you want to see what a pure version of Taoist teaching looks like, look at the first chapter of Lao Tzu's <i>Tao Te Ching</i>: "The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding."<br />
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Note the similarities but also the contrasts between this and the opening of John. "God" may be a good simile for the Tao, but John claims that the Word/Jesus <i>is</i> God, something named, something that "can be told." And while Lao Tzu says that darkness within darkness is the gateway to all understanding, John says that the Word defeats this darkness by being the light. One offers truth only through a passive uncertainty, while the other offers truth through a rather specific entity. One thing is agreed upon by the two sources, however, which is that the Word did create everything, since "naming is the origin of all particular things." Before the Word, there was the Tao (a name for the unnamable), and nothing but it, but through the Word came everything else.<a name='more'></a><br />
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<center><b>Baptisms</b></center><br />
John the Baptist said that he baptized with water in order to let the Messiah reveal himself to Israel, one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. In this situation, the water is used as a transition metaphor, a metaphor that clarifies an even deeper metaphor. The water is a symbol of a rebirth (your mother's water breaks and you are born) and it helps the baptized one transition into the difficult-to-comprehend metaphor of being baptized with the Holy Spirit. The latter is an impossible thing to visualize (unless you're willing to picture it as a dove landing on you), but to be baptized with water can be both visualized and enacted. So the material ritual, being dunked in the River Jordan by John, awakens the body to a future spiritual baptism, an ineffable one.<br />
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Do understand: the water baptism is an actual, physical act, but its purpose is to prepare the way for something that is not physical at all. The River Jordan could have just as easily been a swimming pool or a fish tank. It could have been something other than water, and the metaphor could have been something other than childbirth. John the Baptist, for example, may have chosen to have his disciples wriggle their way through a low and narrow cave in order to put them in a spiritual state. (Try it to see what effect it has on you.) He could have had them hold their breath until they passed out and were re-awakened. The specific metaphor is not as important as the end result, which is to train the body to accept things beyond the body.<br />
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<center><b>New Names</b></center><br />
At this point, Jesus begins collecting disciples and renames Simon as "Peter," which means "rock." So he's giving out symbolic names (as Yahweh did before him), but also continuing the rebirth imagery. Everything old has to pass away in order to get his disciples thinking in a brand new way (though, as you'll see, getting them there isn't as easy as performing these symbolic tricks).<br />
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<center><b>The Son of God</b></center><br />
John the Baptist and the disciples recognize Jesus as (and call him) "the Lamb of God" or "the Son of God." Everyone knows that "Lamb of God" is a symbolic name (since Jesus was a human, not an animal), but the "Son of God" description is often taken literally, at least more literally than "Lamb of God." I'm not saying that believers think that God has a penis, but maybe they do. (Ask a Christian if it makes a difference if you call God the Heavenly Mother and see what answer you get.) Later we will see that everyone can become sons of God, just as everyone in Buddhism can become Buddhas, not only Siddhartha Gautama.<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 2</b></center><br />
<center><b>Water Into Wine</b></center><br />
The first miracle, Jesus changing water into wine, is reported as a story that actually happened, not Jesus speaking metaphorically. As readers, we are meant to believe that the transition was an historical fact. Nevertheless, there is still a spiritual meaning behind the act, and -- again -- it is one of renewal. The parallel to John the Baptist vs. Jesus repeats. Water (John) and wine (Jesus): wine being not just something that sustains life, but that enhances it. Wine also intoxicates, alters consciousness, which is what Jesus is attempting throughout the book. The book uses this miracle as a "sign" to get his disciples to believe in his power, but the spiritual significance is more relevant for a reader seeking transcendence than the magic trick performed.<br />
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<center><b>Cleansing the Temple</b></center><br />
<img align="left" hspace="5" src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/gospelofjohn3.jpg" />Religions usually begin as life philosophies or metaphorical ways of explaining mysteries of nature and humanity, but after a few generations they quickly devolve into literalized dogma that can then be exploited to make money for those in charge. The old practice of paying a priest money so that he will pray your loved one out of Hell is a good example of this. Hell might have originally been thought of as an inner condition, but once it gets connected to a literal, physical place (the "underworld" of old), and once rules are standardized for how to get thrown into it or avoid it, priests and other opportunists can cash in. This is what was happening in the temple in Jerusalem where Jesus found animal sacrifices being sold, and this is why Jesus becomes so angry, drives the animals out with whips, and destroys the money tables.<br />
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<img align="right" hspace="5" src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/gospelofjohn2.jpg" />Jesus seems to be angry about a few things. One is that the idea of sacrifice has lost all symbolic meaning. Sacrificial birds or cattle are bought easily by a consumer and make a quick buck for the seller. Where, really, is the sacrifice? This is like paying someone else to give something up for you for lent.<br />
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He is also upset that the temple is no longer "holy." I don't mean anything supernatural or magical by that word: just "set apart." You can be a consumer anywhere, all day long, but holy places are set aside to escape those things. (Think of a quiet, stained-glass cathedral or maybe a little bench in a forest glade.) So when temples or churches are used to conduct business as usual, when they become strip malls, what's the point of them? No doubt people seeking holiness feel like destroying Christian bookstores (and churches) that sell T-shirts parodying (I think this must be the proper word) brand name slogans and logos like "Got Jesus?" instead of "Got Milk?" or "HisWay" for Subway Sandwiches or (my favorite) "Heavenly Divine Son" for Harley Davidson... or chocolate crosses sold for Easter... or crucifixion nail replicas... or whatever you find in those places that are so ridiculous they seem like they must be satire but aren't.<br />
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On an even more spiritual level, the temple cleansing is about cleaning up the commercial glut clogging up your own holy self. As we learn in this chapter, the body is a temple, and if it is only filled with this kind of crap, the inner Jesus would do well to turn over the tables inside you.<br />
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<center><b>The Body as a Temple</b></center><br />
Jesus was full of puzzling non sequiturs, and one of his earliest in this book was when he was asked why he did what he did in the temple. His answer was, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Those around (and who can blame them?) assumed he was talking about the temple they were standing in, saying, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" But, John explains, Jesus was talking about his body and his future crucifixion and resurrection. Of course, even John may have missed his point, but my current point is that when Jesus is asked a direct question, he usually responds with a somewhat-related-but-indented-to-distract-from-the-question spiritual metaphor. It's as if he doesn't have time for real life, so when a real life question is posed, he changes the subject while seeming to keep it.<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 3</b></center><br />
<center><b>Nicodemus</b></center><br />
This famous chapter (containing John 3:16) concerns Jesus speaking with Nicodemus -- a Pharisee and leader of the Jewish people -- and it is another example of Jesus speaking spiritually and others (Nicodemus, in this case) taking him literally. Nicodemus admits that Jesus must come from God because of Jesus's "signs" (miracles). Jesus says that no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again (or "anew" or "from above"). This is the rebirth imagery that we're so familiar with by now, but Nicodemus asks, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Haw haw. This comedic misunderstanding of figurative language is something that every Christian reader recognizes (often the subject of sermons), and yet the lynchpin of much of Christianity is embedded in this same conversation (eleven verses later, in verse 16) and taken just as literally as Nicodemus takes it. (More on this soon.)<br />
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Note that Jesus brings up "the kingdom of God." Again, is God a literal king on a literal throne? Is there a literal kingdom? Is it to be "seen" with literal eyes? Jesus goes to on to say that one can only enter the kingdom by being born of the water and Spirit. "What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit." Jesus then explains what may as well be the Tao, or "The Way," using the wind metaphor ("wind" and "spirit" having the same word in Greek): "The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes." The idea of following the Tao or the Way is to be passive and surrender yourself to it, that it will take you where it should. The water metaphor is to "go with the flow." Jesus asks Nicodemus, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?" It's difficult to tell is Jesus is being sarcastic or if he's just naive in his belief that his mystical language should be easily understood by those not trained in it.<br />
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After being (perhaps) faux-surprised that Nicodemus doesn't understand him, Jesus goes on to declare that <i>no one</i> understands him, concerning both "earthly" and "heavenly" things. He then says "No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man." Christians, believing in an actual place called Heaven, argue over the meaning of this verse, whether anyone is currently living in a place called Heaven or not. But what is "heaven"? Literally, heaven is just the sky. Metaphorically, it's a place up above, separate, holy--not earthly, everyday, mundane. It's not a place. It's "inner," "spiritual," a state of mind... and all the rest of the words I can use to attempt to describe things without words.<br />
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Once upon a time, one could think of a literal god as living in the sky because we hadn't been there. This is why God used to be able to live in heaven without anyone questioning it. But now we have been to the sky, to heaven. We've got airplanes flying up there, and we've got rockets that have gone beyond our atmosphere, our "firmament," into outer space (which no one then knew existed). There aren't gods living on Mount Olympus either. So once we figured out that God couldn't live in heaven, the sky, we put him in "Heaven": a place apparently in some alternate dimension that you cross into after you die. It was taking things literally that eventually caused the literalists to be non-literal, since this new alternate dimension "Heaven" isn't the literal heaven, the sky. If the figurative had been understood, we wouldn't have this problem.<br />
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Spiritually speaking, the gods are within us, and therefore so is heaven, and this what Jesus was desperately trying to communicate, so when Jesus says that he (the Son of Man) is the only one who has ascended to heaven and that he's the one who has descended from heaven, he means that he's the only one who seems to be able to live in the natural world while having a spiritual life, a second life that no one around him seems to have or to be able to comprehend. Everyone is selling doves and garbage in the one place designated for helping humans go beyond their mundane physicality (the temple), and every mind is clouded with a crippling materialism that doesn't allow them to delve into their deeper natures. And he wants to fix this. Therefore, Jesus (conceitedly perhaps) suggests that he needs to be "lifted up" so that whoever believes in him can have "eternal life."<br />
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<center><b>John 3:16</b></center><br />
And stop! We're about to discuss John 3:16, which uses the phrase "eternal life" or "everlasting life," but it has been so drilled into the heads of Christians and non-Christians alike that "eternal life" means living forever in a place called Heaven that I feel the need to remind everyone that this is not what we're talking about.<br />
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Jesus is struggling to communicate unexplainable things to Nicodemus using metaphor and -- up to this point -- Christian readers are laughing at Nicodemus for misunderstanding ("Ha ha! He wonders how he can crawl back into his mother's womb! Ha ha!"), but now they are guilty of precisely the same mistake in their reading of John 3:16.<br />
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<img align="right" hspace="5" src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/gospelofjohn4.jpg" />Let's look at the famous verse one more time: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."<br />
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Jesus is suggesting is that he can help us have the realization that we are already one with the universe, or at least the Mother of the Universe (aka the Tao), which had no beginning or end: it is eternal. I'll attempt to unpack the metaphors. We already know that "Son of God" can't possibly be literal, and that "God" is also a metaphorical word used to describe the unnamable (equivalent to "Tao"). Jesus calls himself the "only Son" because he thinks he is the only one (at least in his neck of the woods) who "gets it," but he wants everyone to be "sons of God" (even the ladies). So the first part of the sentence suggests that the Tao (or Way) allowed Jesus the teacher to teach the world (the people in it, that is, not the planet, of course) the Way. And if they "believe in" (follow, understand, practice) this teaching, they will understand that their lives are eternal, non-perishing, because they came from the Tao and they will return to it. (If you prefer to be more of a materialist, skip the Tao and think of returning to the universe, an eternal thing. Think of the conservation of mass: neither created nor destroyed.) Before any human was born, that human already existed, and after he dies, he will continue to exist: not as a body or as a conscious being (not as a "he" or even a single "it"), but as part of the matter that composes that which is not created. Zen Buddhism asks you to see the face you had before you were born; if you can swing it, you've discovered eternal life.<br />
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So here's another way to read John 3:16: "The universe brought forth a unique teacher who, if you believe him, can help you understand that the universe is eternal and that you are, were, and will always be a part of it."<br />
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Or, if you want to get slightly more religious: "That which existed before the universe, which we have no name for, brought forth the universe which brought forth a unique teacher who, if you believe him, can help you understand that you are, were, and will always be a part of the universe and even that which came before."<br />
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From the <i>Tao Te Ching</i>: "The Tao is infinite, eternal. Why is it eternal? It was never born; thus it can never die. Why is it infinite? It has no desires for itself; thus it is present for all beings."<br />
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<img align="left" hspace="5" src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/gospelofjohn5.jpg" />The uniqueness of Jesus, of course, is debatable. Buddha was saying much the same thing and so was Lao Tzu and so were many teachers. But Jesus feels that he is special (and it seems that he was where he lived, if not world-wide) and continues to say so throughout the book, so his ego is just something we have to live with. The idea that the universe has a force behind it that could "bring forth" or "give" such a teacher is also debatable, but I'm not arguing that what Jesus says is true. I'm only trying to explain what he is saying and what he isn't saying. I don't necessarily believe him!<br />
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If I do nothing else, I'd like to convince readers (quoters, really) of John 3:16 to read the entire chapter (if not the entire book) and realize that it is framed within the context of metaphorical language and a conversation with a character (Nicodemus) who is a fool for taking this language literally, much like the foolish children's character Amelia Bedelia, who messes up her chores by "dressing the chickens" in little clothes and "drawing the drapes" on a sheet of paper. As always, what Jesus is saying concerns the inner, spiritual life--not an afterlife or anything else supernatural.<br />
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<center><b>Light and Darkness, Good and Evil</b></center><br />
<img align="right" hspace="5" src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/gospelofjohn6.jpg" />Next Jesus speaks of himself as being "the light" again. (I think by this point I don't have to re-emphasize that Jesus wasn't trying to convince anyone that he threw off a natural luminescence, like a star or a florescent bulb.) He feels that people prefer darkness because their deeds are evil, but those whose deeds are good prefer light in order that the deeds can be seen. This good/evil distinction is not Jesus the Taoist speaking. Taoism doesn't split the world into good and evil, or -- if it does -- it doesn't feel that one is "better" than the other. From the <i>Tao Te Ching</i>: "The Tao doesn't take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil." In the "Vinegar Tasters" painting, both Buddha and Confucius make a sour face when tasting the vinegar, but Lao Tzu has a happy face. Everything isn't "good," but everything is as it should be: neither good nor evil. So this is another step away from this kind of philosophy for Jesus, who feels that there are correct ways to behave and that humanity can be split into two camps.<br />
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<center><b>God's Wrath</b></center><br />
There is more discussion about how important the Son and his message is, saying that the Father has "placed all things in his hands." (Attempt to make that sentence literal if you can.) "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God's wrath." Once again, it is very tempting to think back to the traditional, literal image of a vengeful human-looking God throwing thunder bolts (Zeus-like) on those who don't enjoy the words of his kid. But since we already have given a possible reading of the first part of this sentence (that you can be aware of your connection to the universe), the second part might read like this: "Whoever doesn't believe this message will not realize his connection to the universe but will always be miserable."<br />
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"God's wrath" is what happens when one goes against the Way, the flow. Cutting with the grain yields the best results; going against the grain brings about the wrath of the wood. Here are a couple of quotations from the <i>Tao Te Ching</i> that gets the same message across: "Trying to control the future is like trying to take the carpenter's place. When you handle the master carpenter's tools, chances are that you'll cut your hand." And: "The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail."<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 4</b></center><br />
<center><b>The Samaritan Woman and Living Water/Food</b></center><br />
Jesus's conversation with the Samaritan woman (and, afterward, with his disciples) is another good example of someone having a conversation about an earthly thing and Jesus switching the conversation to a spiritual thing, using the same earthly thing as a metaphor. He asks the woman for a drink, then tells her that -- if she knew who he was -- she would be the one asking him for a drink, because he can give her "living water." "Everyone who drinks of this [earthly] water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." Once again, Jesus's message is to get beyond the body, to tap into the endless source of the inner self.<br />
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Jesus does one of his charlatan tricks here to demonstrate that he's a prophet, telling the woman that she's been married five times, causing her to say to friends, "He told me everything I have ever done!" Then, as now, it doesn't take much to trick people, and apparently these folks needed gimmicks like these to pay attention to holy men. He uses the opportunity of her interest in him to say that she soon will no longer worship on the mountain (where her people worship) or in Jerusalem (where the Jewish people worship), but will worship the Father "in spirit and in truth." Places like these (holy cities, mountains, temples, shrines, etc.) are simply metaphorical passageways, but they do not have any power in themselves. Buddhists make pilgrimages to the original Bodhi tree, but the true tree of enlightenment is inside of them. Jesus is interested in the eternal (as previously defined), not the local or historical.<br />
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"God is spirit," Jesus says, "and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." God is a concept that you find within yourself. When the woman says she knows a Messiah is coming, Jesus says, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." The people in the book are looking for a natural messiah, a natural savior (like King Arthur returning to restore England), but so are contemporary Christians. Jesus says he is the Messiah because he has a message that goes beyond physical needs. Like the Buddha, he helps to eliminate desire and therefore suffering.<br />
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The disciples receive a similar lesson when they ask Jesus to eat something. He says, "I have food to eat that you do not know about" and gives them the lesson that the work has already been done (the sowing) that will allow them to reap the harvest. Jesus feels that he and others before him (such as John the Baptist) have made it so that people can finally begin living inner lives, not only concerned with natural food and drink, like animals. He wants them to evolve, to push humanity to the next level.<br />
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<center><b>Signs and Wonders</b></center><br />
"Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe," Jesus says, scolding someone who wants Jesus to heal his son (since Jesus's reputation as a magician spread after the trick with the wine and other conjuring tricks), so -- the book says -- Jesus heals the boy: long-distance even. We are meant to take these stories at face value, that Jesus had these powers, but you'll notice that all of them also have metaphorical significance: in this case, that Jesus can give (spiritual, inner, more significant) "life" to those who are "dying."<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 5</b></center><br />
<center><b>Healing on the Sabbath</b></center><br />
Apparently even healing an invalid on the sabbath is against the law, since Jesus gets scolded for it by the priests, but Jesus tells them, "My Father is still working, and I also am working" (or, my translation, "I will not stop living while life continues"). This is the first case in this book of Jesus saying that his new way trumps the old law. The Mosaic law (savage as it may seem now) was an attempt to make humanity more humane, less animal, more thoughtful, to help everyone get along, and to have a more enjoyable life. One day off from work per week went a long way toward this goal, just as our weekends and vacations currently do. But imagine if you had to be a slave to the relaxing weekend. "I can't take my sick kid to the hospital. This is my day off!" Jesus realized the purpose of the law in a way that the slaves to dogma did not: they only knew that the law was the law. And the priests' submission to the law was so severe that they now wanted to kill Jesus for working on the sabbath--and for saying he was the Son (and equal) of God. Because, of course, they weren't taking the liberal view of the word "God" as Jesus was possibly doing, but seeing him as all-mighty Yahweh, the jealous and vengeful god of the mountain.<br />
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<center><b>Raising the Dead</b></center><br />
Although Jesus will literally raise someone from the dead in a few chapters, here he speaks of the living and the dead only metaphorically. He says that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." Then: "All who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out--those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation." It is so tempting to imagine corpses in the ground hearing Jesus speak and break out, zombie-style, to then be herded off to Heaven or Hell. But it shouldn't be tempting: we use this kind of language all the time. "She really comes to life when her boyfriend enters the room." "I died when I heard the news." "You haven't lived until you've gone skydiving." "Let's not resurrect that old idea." Life and death are among the most common metaphors we use.<br />
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Those in the graves are those who are dead spiritually: they live day to day but with no passion, no inner contemplation, no <i>joie de vivre</i>. When Jesus's words make them "live again," they will also examine what they have done with their lives. Have they done well? Then they can now live with an awareness of the goodness they have done. Have they done badly? They will now live with regret, a regret that only is only made available through an examined life. This does not, I imagine, rule out the possibility of living well once the regret occurs. Think of Ebenezer Scrooge's "awakening" after his dreams of the ghosts: "He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew."<br />
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<center><b>Jesus's Ego</b></center><br />
Jesus's huge ego has been mentioned before, and here we have a full passage in which Jesus brags on himself, his relationship to the Father, his message, and his right to judge people--all while putting down the ignorant masses he feels he was sent to help. He attempts, however, to be humble by claiming that he doesn't do anything on his own, only what the Father shows him. He also says that he's not the one making these large claims about himself: John the Baptist is (though he's quick to point out that he doesn't accept human testimony) and the Father himself is. Jesus also tells them that Moses was writing about him, which is another piece of genius Jesus uses to spread his message. If he started "from scratch," the message might not have any traction, but if he superimposes it onto the Jewish religion (though it bears little resemblance), then maybe it will work. And it does.<br />
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The <i>Tao Te Ching</i> also spoke of spiritual masters this way: "The Master, by residing in the Tao, sets an example for all beings. Because he doesn't display himself, people can see his light. Because he has nothing to prove, people can trust his words. Because he doesn't know who he is, people recognize themselves in him. Because he has no goal in mind, everything he does succeeds." Replace "Tao" with "God" or "Father" (and speak in first person instead of third) and you have Jesus's words about himself.<br />
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The claims Jesus make about himself are really not much different from modern religious persons' mix of humbleness and ego, declaring that both (a) they aren't wise or strong enough to do anything by themselves and yet (b) that the god of the universe has taken a personal interest in them and gives them power and favors.<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 6</b></center><br />
<center><b>Bread</b></center><br />
In Chapter 4, Jesus uses the food and drink metaphor to explain spirituality, commenting that there is more to life than eating and drinking and surviving. ("Man cannot live by bread alone" is how he puts it in other gospels, a great summary of his entire message.) Here, Jesus is said to feed five thousand followers with only five loaves of bread and two fish (with twelve baskets of food left over at the end). Although this is meant to be taken literally in the story, the spiritual significance is that of abundant, overflowing life. Jesus doesn't perform miracles that have no symbolic significance, which is why you never see him doing card tricks or making Mary Magdalene disappear behind a curtain.<br />
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<img align="left" hspace="5" src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/gospelofjohn7.jpg" />He explains the significance of his miracle to the crowd the next day, first by scolding them for following him only because he provided food. "Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life." There is a popular (and reasonable) idea that people must first be satisfied with bodily things like food and shelter before becoming interested in other things such as art and philosophy. But Jesus disagrees, thinking that those "eternal" things should be found first, even if one starves in the process. Jesus then compares himself to manna from heaven, saying he is "the true bread from heaven" to "give life to the world," the "bread of life."<br />
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Even though Jesus has given them a spectacular, illustrative stage show (the loaves and fishes miracle), and even though he's explaining the meaning of it with what one would imagine is pretty straightforward metaphors, this is the point when some begin to take him literally again, wondering why that kid from down the street (Joseph and Mary's boy) is claiming to have "come down from heaven." Jesus attempts to explain himself again, saying, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." This only makes matters worse, because now the people think he's asking them to be cannibals. One might think that Jesus would clarify at this point (maybe explain what a metaphor is!), but instead he plunges ahead: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood will have eternal life." By this point, everyone except the twelve disciples abandon Jesus since they don't want to be the Donner Party.<br />
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Some current Christians, however, don't mind being thought of as cannibals, since -- through the process known as transubstantiation -- the bread and wine of communion is meant to become the <i>actual</i> body and blood of Jesus! Amelia Bedelia strikes again!<br />
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<center><b>Walking on Water</b></center><br />
Sandwiched in the middle of the two bread narratives is the story of Jesus walking on the stormy water of the sea. Once again, although meant to be taken literally, the symbolic message is "I am above nature. The figurative storms of life do not affect me."<br />
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I'll make a few comments about when I write that something is "meant to be taken literally." I mean within the context of the story, it is something that actually happened, not the writer being metaphorical. I'm not saying that the stories historically <i>did</i> happen or that there wouldn't be logical explanations for them if it did (the number one explanation being exaggeration over time, fact morphing into legend). I'm just saying that, as a story -- whether fictional or nonfictional -- these are things that are meant to have happened within it. However, they are meaningless without further metaphorical importance.<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 7</b></center><br />
<center><b>Prophecies and Authorial Additions</b></center><br />
Some in the story say that Jesus can't be the Messiah because he isn't a descendent of David and that he comes from Galilee, not Bethlehem (both referring to prophecies). Some of the other gospels force-fit prophecies on Jesus, but this book doesn't bother because it has bigger fish to fry. (John doesn't bother with the virgin birth stuff either, though this concept, too, has metaphorical meaning, as something outside the natural.)<br />
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And yet John does add some authorial intrusion that suggests that even he didn't understand Jesus. When Jesus says "Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water," John writes "Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified." What? Jesus was doing what should by now be considered Spiritual Water Metaphor 101, and yet John is trying to get it to fit within some dogma about a "glorified" Jesus causing an actual Spirit (or Holy Ghost) that would enter the disciples in the future. Even John couldn't escape a literalist religion.<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 8</b></center><br />
<center><b>Abraham</b></center><br />
Perhaps the comical misunderstandings (and Jesus's comical insistence on speaking metaphorically when it clearly isn't working) of this chapter would be best served in script form:<br />
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JESUS: You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.<br />
PEOPLE: Free? But we are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves.<br />
JESUS: You are a slave to sin, and slaves never have a permanent place in the household. But the son does, so he can make you free. Through my word, you will never know death.<br />
PEOPLE: Abraham died and so did all the prophets, but not you? Are you better than them?<br />
JESUS: Abraham was happy that he would see my day come, and he did.<br />
PEOPLE: You're not even fifty years old. How have you seen Abraham?<br />
JESUS: Before Abraham was, I existed.<br />
[People get angry and pick up stones to throw at Jesus. Exit Jesus.]<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 9</b></center><br />
<center><b>Blindness and Seeing / Miracles Explained</b></center><br />
This chapter concerns the blind man who Jesus heals. Another literal story with a spiritual message behind it, which Jesus sums up at the end by saying that he came to make those who were blind see and those who see to become blind--whereupon the Pharisees say, "But, wait, we're not blind." (I hope this isn't getting too old.)<br />
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My job here is not to "explain away" the miracles, but this one (if any of these stories happened at all in any form, which is doubtful) is easy to explain. Jesus spoke about spiritually opening "blind eyes" and this got passed down in legend as Jesus actually healing a blind man. The fact that every miracle has symbolic significance and the fact that no one in the stories (or even writing the stories) seems to understand that kind of language backs this theory up. The figurative is understood as literal and in time is believed as fact: an explanation for all the miracles (if you'd like one).<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 10</b></center><br />
<center><b>The Shepherd and the Gate</b></center><br />
By now, verse six should be hilarious: "Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them." In this case (and a few others), I put some blame on Jesus, because his metaphor was a little sloppy. He says that anyone who doesn't enter the sheepfold by the gate (but climbs over the fence) is a bandit. The shepherd is the one who goes through the gate and leads the sheep. So who is Jesus in this scenario? He's the gate <i>and</i> the shepherd! Sometimes Jesus gets so carried away with his figures of speech that he doesn't bother to revise for clarity.<br />
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<center><b>Everyone Is God</b></center><br />
The whole debate about whether God, the Son, and the Spirit are three or one or all of the above (or whatever) is explained here. As expected by now, the debate itself is nonsense, since all three of those words are figurative. The people want to stone Jesus again because he said he was the same as God ("The Father and I are one"), but Jesus quotes Psalm 82 for them: "You are gods."<br />
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Eastern and mystical religions have less of a difficult time equating man with God, and this is what Jesus has been attempting to explain all along. The people are "sinners" only because they don't recognize their divine nature. And Jesus is the "Son" only because he feels he is specially chosen (or has had the enlightenment, if you prefer) among everyone else who is blind to this concept. Jesus's ultimate goal is for everyone to realize that they too are God.<br />
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In the highly allegorical Sufi (mystical Islam) work <i>The Conference of Birds</i> by Farid un-Din Attar, the birds go on a quest to find their god called the Simorgh. In the end, after crossing seven difficult valleys, they find this god of the birds, and it turns out to be a reflection of themselves. The Simorgh was just a mythical, figurative representation of the entirety of life. Jesus has the same message in the book of John.<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 11</b></center><br />
<center><b>Lazarus</b></center><br />
See the blind man story. Replace the blind man with Lazarus, blindness with death. Same thing.<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 12</b></center><br />
<center><b>A Grain of Wheat</b></center><br />
Whether by murder (John Lennon) or suicide (Kurt Cobain), or just accident (Buddy Holly), the untimely death of an artist puts him on a higher pedestal, and Jesus -- according to the story in this book -- seems to be masterminding a suicide/murder combo for himself. And Jesus is an artist, something like a spiritual performance artist, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to make his point. "Unless a grain of what falls into the earth and dies," he says, "it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Jesus is the grain.<br />
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But lest I too fall into the temptation of taking Jesus's death only literally, his next line is, "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." The <i>Tao Te Ching</i> puts it this way: "If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you aren't afraid of dying, there is nothing you can't achieve." Dying to the self causes living. Giving up makes you win. Letting go allows you to hold on. I could come up with these all day. The <i>Tao Te Ching</i> says "True words seem paradoxical," and Jesus certainly had those, but they exist not to be simply paradoxes, but because they do make spiritual sense.<br />
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Jesus has a "troubled soul" while contemplating his coming death, but he knows he's been working toward this moment, so he doesn't resist it. This is the same feeling one has when on the threshold of enlightenment.<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 14</b></center><br />
<center><b>The Father's House</b></center><br />
<img align="right" hspace="5" src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/gospelofjohn8.jpg" />Chapter 13 was more of the same (other than some talk about Satan entering Judas, which is more of the same from another direction), so I skipped it. Okay, well, everything since Chapter 1 has been more of the same, but the images keep changing and I feel I have to cover some of them. One is when Jesus says "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places" or "rooms." The King James translation of "dwelling places" is "mansions" (an old use of that word), and many Christians get all excited that they get a big fancy house in Heaven, though some of the humbler ones tell Jesus that they wouldn't mind just having a little shack on one of the more modest clouds behind those pearly gates. I'm not making any of this up. (I'm also not sure who thinks that mansions are found inside houses, but I'll let that go.) The slightly-less literal-minded came up with alternative ways of looking at this verse, like suggesting that maybe the mansions were new bodies, since our old ones would be rotting in the ground on earth, but even that is a material explanation of something that's meant to be spiritual.<br />
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But the answer is more simple. Say it with me: "It was a figure of speech." (Do I really have seven more chapters to go?) Jesus is preparing the Way for his followers. He's showing them the Tao. All he is saying is that within the Tao, there is room enough for everyone. We use this figure of speech every day, whether we're talking about having "slots" available for the softball game or "room" for someone in your heart or whatever. Jesus goes on to explain that he is preparing "a place" for them and will take them with him, "and you know the way to the place where I am going." Thomas says he doesn't know the way, so Jesus says he <i>is</i> the Way (capitalization mine) and equates himself with the Father once again. Philip asks to see the Father and Jesus says, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?" Then: "I am the Father and the Father is in me."<br />
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Yes, confusing and nonsensical if treated literally: "My name is Rusty Spell. My father's name is Charles Spell. But I am also Charles Spell. Furthermore, he lives in my stomach." Two thousand years of trying to figure this out in a literal way has made the most intelligent and sophisticated theologians sound completely bonkers, when all that Jesus is saying is that everything in the universe is one: he came from it, he is it, and he is returning to it... and we only need to realize that the same is true of us.<br />
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The early Hindus understood this. The <i>Rig Veda</i> says that the primeval "man" Purusha gave birth to Virj who gave birth again to Purusha, who was then sacrificed (dismembered) to become everything in the universe. We are all Purusha. Jesus felt that he was the only one of his time and place who realized he was Purusha, and he wants everyone to follow him to that realization.<br />
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<center><b>The Holy Spirit</b></center><br />
Jesus says that he won't be around for much longer but the Father will send "the Advocate" (also translated as "the Helper" or "the Comforter," commonly known as the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost, the third part of the trinity) to teach them everything and remind them of his teachings. This is the same as saying of anyone who has done great things that his "spirit" will remain on earth after he is gone. Martin Luther King did not have a literal dream one night that little black and white kids would join hands, magically bypass biology, and become actual siblings. But we understood what he meant in that speech, and his "dream" and "spirit" lived on after his death. And the Holy Spirit isn't some dove or ghost or female aspect, but "spirit" is still a good way to describe it, as in the phrase "the spirit of the times."<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 18-19</b></center><br />
<center><b>Pilate</b></center><br />
The next chapters (skipping 15-17 for redundancy) concern the crucifixion, and it is interesting to watch Pilate -- a Roman and a person invested more in the real world and not the dogmatic blather of the religious people around him -- interacting with Jesus and the priests. As an objective observer, but someone who has to make the ultimate decision, he seems to find the entire thing confusing and ridiculous.<br />
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Pilate has been told that Jesus is the "King of the Jews" and Jesus attempts to explain that this is merely a metaphor, saying, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews." Good point: if he were a natural king, there would be a natural war or at least some sort of violent resistance. Peter had cut off the ear of the high priest's slave when they came to arrest him, and Jesus said to put the sword away because he <i>wanted</i> to be arrested: the murder/suicide combo he'd been planning--even picking Judas to do the dirty deed of the "betrayal," one of the oddest acts of friendship in literary history. So there is nothing natural about this. It is an actual, natural crucifixion, but Jesus is doing it for the most idealistic, spiritual reasons, and of course Pilate can't understand this. How could anyone understand a man organizing his own crucifixion?<br />
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The way that they finally convince Pilate (who tries multiple times to save this pitiful self-martyr) is to say that Jesus, as a would-be king, threatens the emperor--though of course this "kingdom" is only an internal idea. Pilate writes "King of the Jews" on an inscription and places it on the cross. The Jewish leaders want him to clarify that it should say "This Man <i>Says</i> He's the King of the Jews," but Pilate lets it stand, no doubt preferring to crucify a would-be usurper than a religious crazy person.<br />
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Because here's what Pilate is dealing with, according to the information he has. Imagine you're the governor of Texas (an execution state). You hear of a man who thinks he's Napoleon Bonaparte who has been sentenced to death. You'd like to pardon him, but he's remaining mostly silent. He also tells you that <i>you're</i> the one who said he's Napoleon, not him. He seems nutty enough, but then you find out that the people who helped convict him were even nuttier. They are religious leaders who have the following law: "Anyone who claims that he is Napoleon Bonaparte shall be put to death." This is the story exactly! No wonder Pilate seems like the only sane person around.<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 20</b></center><br />
<center><b>The Resurrection</b></center><br />
Another literal story (Jesus is reported to have actually risen from the dead) with a metaphorical meaning, one similar to the Lazarus story, only this time perhaps more about one's message living on after one has died. Elvis Presley has been seen by many as well, and for the same reasons. Because it is such a fantastic story, there is much made of "belief" by Jesus (John writing that "belief" is the purpose of his writing the book), saying to "Doubting" Thomas, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." A dangerous message, but there it is.<br />
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<center><b>CHAPTER 21</b></center><br />
<center><b>Peter</b></center><br />
As the book goes on, Jesus seems to shift from a teacher who uses metaphorical language to teach something like Taoism into a egomaniac who begins, himself, to take the metaphors literally (or at least to actualize them): concocting this scheme to die in order to make his message more eternal, more hard-core. Not only did Jesus sell out Judas by making Judas pretend to betray him, but -- after the resurrection -- Jesus is asking Peter to die for the cause as well. He asks Peter three times, like an insecure boyfriend, if he loves him before telling Peter that he'll have to prove this love by going where he doesn't want to go, to follow Jesus into death. (And it does happen: in the book of Acts, Peter gets crucified... upside-down!)<br />
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Either this shift is happening or I am guilty of a misreading myself. I do know that Jesus seems to stray from the Tao, putting undue importance on himself as the one and only Way (which re-defines the Tao as something that <i>can</i> be grasped--and not only that, personified). So Jesus may not have been a true Taoist master, but he did attempt to bring religion back to the inner self, though I'm afraid it quickly went back to the material and the dogmatic anyway, starting with Paul and snowballing to the present day. (This is not to suggest that Taoism or any other religion is better or worse than Christianity. The holy texts of these religions often seem fine, but the practice of them suffer from the same sorts of idiocy.)<br />
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To give a taste of what a real Taoist master is like, here's a final chapter from the <i>Tao Te Ching</i>: "The Master takes action by letting things take their course. He remains as calm at the end as at the beginning. He has nothing, thus has nothing to lose. What he desires is non-desire; what he learns is to unlearn. He simply reminds people of who they have always been. He cares about nothing but the Tao. Thus he can care for all things."<br />
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<center><b>Conclusion</b></center><br />
So the Gospel of John has two primary strains. One is Jesus as a spiritual teacher who uses language metaphors and the Jewish religion to teach concepts that are beyond words, failing miserably due to being taken literally and therefore misunderstood. The other strain is Jesus attempting to actualize these metaphors by performing miracles suggesting transformation and resurrection, culminating with the death and rebirth of himself. The two, of course, can be married since they're really the same thing: one in word, one in deed.<br />
<br />
So perhaps Jesus was the offspring of a sky god who was also a piece of bread, a lamb, and a grain of wheat. Perhaps he helped wedding guests get drunk, healed a blind man, resurrected a dead man, died himself, then went fishing three days later. Or perhaps he was a misunderstood spiritual messenger who spoke a language that was so beyond the ignorance of his day that his story -- even as presently understood -- has become a beautiful piece of nonsense. Either way, it seems that the message is what matters, the Way to get to wherever you think you need to be: an afterlife or an enlightenment. One of the few things that Jesus said clearly was his "new commandment" to his disciples: to love one another. A novel idea!<p></p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-36007909188844851762012-06-20T23:19:00.000-05:002012-06-20T23:19:01.476-05:00God-ManRuben Bolling is the best comic strip writer working today, and I don't read any other comic strips to even be able to properly judge, so you know it must be true! When I had the idea to do <a href="http://www.rustyspell.com/art/biblestoriesindex.html"><i>Bible Stories</i></a> five years ago, I first did some searches to see if anyone was doing anything similar already. No one was (luckily), but (also luckily) I ran across "God-Man," a character that appears from time to time in Bolling's strip, <i>Tom the Dancing Bug</i>.<br />
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The major complaint about Superman is that he's too powerful, even spinning time backward when things don't go his way. Ruben Bolling takes this flaw to the extreme with God-Man, the superhero with omnipotent powers. Usually God-Man gets the bad guy or "narrowly" escapes by changing the laws of physics or blowing up the world and starting over or moving characters to an alternate universe. Bolling also uses God-Man to comment on perceptions of God himself, such as the strip where God-Man refuses to save a woman who doesn't believe in him, or when Science-Hero is "defeated" when the people thank God-Man for "causing" Science-Hero to develop a vaccine to save them from an outbreak of disease.<br />
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Recently, to show my appreciation of Bolling's work, I bought him a compilation of Archie comics. I received this in return:<br />
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<center><img src="http://www.rustyspell.com/godblog/godman.jpg"></center><br />
A rare case where the thank you card is worlds better than the gift. His drawing was in black-and-white, but I decided to color it (in Photoshop--don't worry: I preserved the original drawing) so that I could pretend that we collaborated on something... and because coloring is fun.<br />
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Being thanked by God-Man is the next best thing to being thanked by God himself.<br />
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Read <a href="http://gocomics.typepad.com/tomthedancingbugblog/">Tom the Dancing Bug</a> each week, or go to <a href="http://www.fecundity.com/pmagnus/godman.html">this fan site</a> if you wanna get caught up on your God-Mans. God Blog approved!<p>Rusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.com1