Rusty's God Blog

An Alternate Origin Story

2011-11-17T23:50:00.000-06:00

In the beginning, there was everything already: planets, sky, bushes, people, buildings, books, drinks, musical instruments, tape recorders, ice cream cones, grass skirts, Rhode Island, telescopes, digital watches, sexy stable boys, the disowned Velvet Underground album Squeeze, cardboard cutouts of Jesus, VCR 4-heads, arugula, Thanksgiving break, plastic keychain toys for babies, the King's Quest computer game series, square colored memo cards, racism, George Burns, masturbation, internet trolls, "Hills Like White Elephants" student interpretations, fingernail clippers, photographs of dead people being sold for five cents apiece, Smurfette, stains on a Frenchman's bathroom sink, the TARDIS, children who could sing the jingle for Krazy Glue, beard dandruff, open mic karaoke, boat anchor chains, Tylenol PM, the smell of an aluminum bucket full of crayons and erasers, elephant tusk controversies, dried lily pads in a scrap book with butterflies on the cover, the Articles of the Confederation, slam dunk contests, paper airplanes made with Hello Kitty stationary, WordPerfect 5.1, tetanus, Leanna Foxxx's fake breasts, the Gladney Center for Adoption, furries, conspiracy theories, Zildjian ride cymbals, 1840s camera tripods, New Coke prototypes, alt.tv.twin-peaks, all of the lead singers for Tower of Power, Babylonian theology, Regular Scent Dry Idea underarm deodorant, teeth fillings in transit to Atlanta, the Age of Reason, adobe huts, the Acronis Secure Zone, canker sores, Lotus 123 spreadsheets, sod, Avenue Q, plankton, quilts made of T-shirts worn in elementary school, Germany, the Horsehead Nebula, Song-Poem collectors, grocery store receipts, spend the night parties, white Chiclets, dinosaur sex, Humbert Humbert, donkey rides up the Grand Canyon, The Pirate Movie, hip-hop translations of the Bible, mitral valve replacement surgery, Hüseyin Kıvrıkoğlu's great-grandmother, No Fear Shakespeare, Phillip Joll, false etymologies for the Tagalog language, the clitoris, Dave's Records of Guelph, failed recycling programs, stardust, the dropping of the letter O in the word opossum, the R65 in South Africa, gaydar, soccer trophies, foreign exchange students who pretend to not know the language, three day weekends, the Naval Battle of Awa in 1868, Scott Walker's later albums, historic gazebo tour pamphlets, the buffy-tufted marmoset, potatoes, the 2002 US Open, the WEDWay People Mover, the asteroid belt 15034 Décines, the Faisalabad Railway Station, Egyptian feminism, childhood interest in tumbling, the peak of the Hochfrottspitze, abandoned planetariums, Scarlett Johannsson nude photograph leaks, moonshine, treacle, and Dan Quayle. For starters.

Eventually everything got to be too much, so it began swirling into itself, until everything was compressed into a tight ball. This was not done by anything or anyone outside of itself, and it was not done for reasons of morality. It just happened, as one might expect. And there the tight ball sat.

And then, as one might also expect of something that contained all of these things, it finally exploded. But everything did not re-exist at once. The universe unfolded slowly, starting with hydrogen or whatever. Everything expanded, and eventually the earth was formed and all of that business happened.

And now here you are, motherfucker.

God and Babies

2011-11-14T19:54:00.001-06:00

After three miscarriages, my wife was diagnosed with a "uterine septum," a little malformed wall hanging down from the top of the inside of her uterus, making it look like a little heart. This septum was not allowing room for attachment to the uterine wall, and this (we're more or less certain) caused all three miscarriages. Fortunately, after my wife was diagnosed, we learned that there was treatment for the problem: a relatively un-invasive surgery where the doctor goes in, finds the septum, and -- in the doctor's words -- "trims it out." So trim it out he did, and the next pregnancy was a successful one, producing what they call, in the business, a "take home baby," a girl. So I'm a dad now.

Even though infertility wasn't our issue, we were recommended to infertility specialists (since they also handle related problems). The motto on their pamphlets and website is "For couples with infertility, miracles happen every day." They also have a place on their website for submitting "miracle memories." Now, if by miracle they simply mean "something good and unexpected," then fine, because this was both. If they are referring to the work they themselves do as miraculous (meaning wondrous, amazing), then fine, because it is. But if they mean that some sort of divine intervention or circumventing of nature was involved, then I have to take issue with whoever decided to use that word.

My baby is not a miracle. If it weren't for medical science, she almost definitely would not be here. She's my medical science baby.

If we had attempted to have a baby even a few decades ago, the procedure the doctor used to remove my wife's uterine septum would not have been available. It's possible we could have had a baby, but we most probably wouldn't have, and -- if we did -- it would have only been by "playing the odds" (which we wouldn't have done): after a dozen or so miscarriages, you might get lucky and finally have a kid.

In our case, there was a definite cause and effect. No surgery: no baby. Have surgery: have baby. God had nothing to do with it. My most immediate thanks goes to the skilled, intelligent, and super-nice doctor who worked with us through the entire process and finally removed the biological problem. I also thank the other doctors involved, the nurses, and the staff: all of them wonderful humans. "Well, don't you thank God for giving these people the wisdom, talent, and kindness?" No. Why should I go that far back, all the way to "first cause"? I don't thank the doctor's mother, so why God? I could thank her, of course, since she raised him and perhaps supported him in becoming a doctor. I could also thank his eighth grade biology teacher for possibly sparking a desire. These are assumptions and guesses, and so is God's involvement. Either way, it's indirect at best. I do, however, thank the entire history of medicine that led to the discoveries that allowed him to do his job.

More importantly, why would I assume that God even wanted us to have a baby? After three miscarriages, wouldn't all signs point to God not wanting us to have one? In going to these specialists and circumnavigating nature, changing the body that my wife was born with, aren't we just "playing God"? The argument that I am a sinner for going against God's wishes is a lot stronger than the argument that I should thank God for finally giving me a baby. What an assumption the latter would be, and how convenient to my own wishes!

At any rate, I can assure you that our baby was not a "miracle baby." Maybe no one would suggest that she is anyway, since there was a medical explanation. But what about babies that are born against all odds, without medical explanation? Are those miracle babies? It's an expression I dislike no matter what. I hate the implications. Does it imply that God allows the babies he doesn't provide miracles for to die? Are babies who are born miracle-free Godless in some way? Does he sometimes look at a woman who is infertile and finally one day say, "Okay, enough is enough: here's your baby"? For those babies born with complications, does he rescue them just enough: not so much that they're free of the complication, but enough so that God leaves his mark? My problem also applies to "miracles" in general, whether babies are involved or not. Google the phrase "The doctor's can't explain it" and you'll see that the "explanation" is usually "God," which is quite a leap, especially since things we couldn't explain in the past and answered with "God" were eventually explained without relying on the supernatural.

The usual religious answer for those who promote the idea of miracle babies are imaginative narratives. "God didn't allow those babies to be born, so I guess he needed them in heaven." "God blessed us with no complications." "I was infertile for years while God was testing me, but he chose just the right time to give me a child." "This baby almost didn't make it, but I think it was to show that God had his hand on us. If the baby had been born without problems, we wouldn't have known what God could do." Make up any narrative you like. A little earlier, I made up the negative narrative that God didn't want us to have a baby, but we defied him with surgery. (If my baby grows up badly, perhaps turning on me -- the Mordred to my King Arthur -- I can't say I didn't see it coming.) But I could have also made up positive narratives: that this was the child God wanted us to have (not the others), that he was attempting to better me and my wife by putting us through trials, or even something more far-fetched, like that if that first baby had been born, then she'd have been killed in that car wreck my wife and I were involved in around that time. God was saving us from the even-worse trauma of losing a live baby. Hey, why not?

I've always felt this way about the idea of "miracle babies," but going through these experiences myself has given me the "permission" to share my opinions. One shouldn't need this kind of permission to share opinions, but I wouldn't have shared them before, since I know people feel strongly about these issues and would have thought I just didn't understand. "How you could you, who haven't been through what I've been through, know?" But now I'm a dad and I've been through years of heartache trying to become one, and I have the right to say that miracle babies don't exist (and that mine isn't one) just as much as anyone else has the right to say they do (and that theirs is). The default doesn't belong to the believer.

I do understand the impulse for thinking this way about why things do or don't happen concerning reproduction. What my wife and I went through was lots less than many go through, especially since we ultimately had a good outcome. But what we felt most of the time during that nearly three year experience -- from miscarriage to miscarriage to miscarriage to delivery -- was helplessness and uncertainty. We didn't know anything and couldn't do anything. We talked to each other in loops, trying to solve a puzzle that was unsolvable. Maybe this, maybe that. And it often seemed that the professionals were at as much of a loss as we were, since reproduction is still pretty mysterious, in spite of our vast knowledge. In a situation like this, it is very tempting to turn to gods and superstition.

Religion has always been about attempting to sway the uncontrollable in your favor. We can't control the rain, but we can do a rain dance. We can't make someone fall in love with us, but we can make a sacrifice in the temple of Venus. If you want a baby and you're completely in the hands of nature, of course you would want to turn to a deity that either (in the olden days) is nature or who (in the west these days) controls nature.

For the record, during those helpless years, I never prayed or believed that we would be aided by the supernatural. I cherish the fact that I didn't. Emotionless nature and biology did not care about me, and neither did anything "outside" of nature. I was secure in this knowledge even if I was helpless in everything else, and it was a powerful feeling in its own way. I did not have to pray. I did not have to worry that I was displeasing God. I did not have to sit up at night, after driving hours to and from the out-of-town specialists, wondering why God was punishing me and my wife. I did not tell myself that I would understand one day, or that it would be explained to me in Heaven, in the by and by. Whatever happened happened, and there was nothing I could do beyond what I had done. There is a dignity in this, greater than any "comfort" one might find in the hope that, if I beg him long enough, maybe God will lower himself to help an unworthy sinner.

I did buy my wife a fertility idol from Africa. Huh? Yes, I did. I didn't believe it would do anything, of course, so why did I buy it? I'll try to explain. I knew, in buying it, that there was a very good chance that we would never have a baby and that the idol might one day be a reminder that we didn't. That fact was part of why I bought it, odd as that may sound. But I also bought it as a symbol of hope. Hope, but not certainty or faith. You can have hope and still fully anticipate the worst, and I did. (Even after my wife was pregnant for months, I didn't count on having a baby.) I also bought the statue as a symbol of love for my wife, for all that she went through and all that she meant to me. On the whole, and most importantly, it was a symbol of the experience, no matter what the outcome. Here was a emblem representing something we went through together. This is the difference between symbolism and idolatry.

I joked that, if we did have a baby, I would give credit to the fertility idol. I see no difference in giving credit to it than in giving credit to God. Both would be an example of the false cause fallacy. But at least the fertility idol would for sure want the baby. That's the idea behind them, after all. We're not sure if God wants anyone to have babies or not, but we do know -- if we're talking about Yahweh of the Bible -- that one of God's first actions was making it so that women suffered during labor. Once again, my wife chose to bypass this curse by having an epidural. She felt zero pain during labor once the epidural was administered. At one point during the delivery, the umbilical cord became tied around the baby, but the doctor whipped out a little vacuum and, before we knew it, the baby's head popped out and said hello. Before modern medicine, that "small" umbilical event might have killed the baby. My wife might have suffered in labor for half a day, and then the baby might not have made it, and without all the advanced treatment we'd been receiving (not only during labor, but proper prenatal care), who knows if my wife would have lived. Death for both mother and baby used to be much more common. Those who say of childbirth "we make such a big deal out of such a natural event" (I'm looking at you, Bill Cosby) seem to forget that. And those who believe in miracle babies must wonder why God wasn't working overtime before the advent of modern science to save the lives of all those dead babies and mothers.

Because nature isn't perfect. Or, if it is, it is a perfection that does not suit us. Look at what babies are like when they are born: completely helpless. Animals are not like this. Animals can walk on day one. Because humans evolved large brains, we have to be born "premature" simply in order for our huge noggins to fit through the birth canal (and we still don't do that very well, as many mothers can tell you, graphically, if you ask them nicely). The sin in the Garden of Eden was knowledge, yes indeed, and -- as a result -- our brains are enormous. (As a bonus, unlike small-brained animals, we have the knowledge that one day we'll die, which is what all that fuss was probably about in the book of Genesis.) After babies are born, they have to suck from their mothers' breasts for months (or be given some substitute) just to survive, and breastfeeding isn't exactly instinctual (as I stupidly thought it was before watching my baby struggle the first time) and some babies never quite get the hang of it (for example, once again, my own). Until their stomachs grow larger than a marble and then a walnut, babies can't sleep for more than a piddly amount of time, wailing for food and causing parents to rarely sleep at all. Parents inevitably experience something that feels like insanity (which seems to stick around even after the sleep comes). And when can these little ones finally take care of themselves? Age five? Age eighteen? Older? We're so helpless for so long that we live our entire lives overcoming the trauma, and maybe we never do. Who would come up with this on purpose? One thing my wife and I kept and keep jokingly saying through the entire baby experience is "Such poor design!"

A side-effect of being born premature, helpless, and completely dependant on our parents (with knowledge of our death) is our conception of God. The idea is that we depend on God for everything. To even understand this concept, we must "become like little children." We must also be "born again." Like children, we depend on God for taking care of us, showing us right from wrong, comforting us, feeding us, letting us know that we're not going to die, etc. Of course, eventually one is meant to "put away childish things." Except that, in this culture, we never do. We never leave the house--the temple, the church, the mosque. A spiritual adult does not need the constant comfort of God. He does not need God at all, in fact, though he may appreciate what he once did for him. The first true step in growing up spiritually is leaving the comfort of God.

And which parent, in our culture, is God? He is our father, of course. But where's our mother? Good question. The older beliefs that inspired the Abrahamic religions had both mother and father, and often the mother (rightly, it would seem) was the more important of the two. One of the reasons a Yahweh-based religion is broken is because there is no universal mother, only a father who does all the stereotypical fatherly things like punish or make rules or tell us "because I said so." During the divorce known as monotheism, the court had to decide which parent we would live with, and I'm afraid we got stuck with Dad.

When we look at the wonder of what women can do and endure (carry and deliver a child, feed it with her own body, and more), there naturally would have been two responses in the ancient days. The first possible response was reverence. Women were magic, holy. Make the goddesses in her image, accentuating bellies and breasts. Make the world in her image: Mother Earth, Gaia. When humans come from the earth, we come from her. The second response (the one we eventually got stuck with) was fear of this magic. Look at all the Biblical laws, for example, of how menstruation is unclean. Men couldn't touch women during this time, and women had to stay away from the tribe during that week. "Keep that magic at bay!" Adam and Eve had daughters, but we never learned anything about them. Humanity's first natural-born daughters: apparently not important enough to mention! And of course God himself is male. Males are dominant and women are subservient. I'm talking about the ancients, but these attitudes have been passed down thousands of years (even in the enlightened United States) in ways that I'm sure I don't have to dwell upon.

So we have a twisted view of women, one that we're still struggling to correct, and I also think we have a twisted view of life itself. For example: our obsession with "when life begins." Does it begin at "conception" (that slippery word)? Does it begin when we exit the birth canal (or otherwise--as Macduff did years before killing Macbeth)? Are we "alive" when we are partially in the sperm, partially in the egg? Are we alive when we are twinkles in the eyes of our grandparents, or when our genetic material was passed down to our grandchildren, even after we're dead? Is, as Monty Python sang, every sperm sacred? Did God really know Jeremiah before he was born? Well, yes and no and what was the question?

Let me put it this way. When my wife and I have thought back to those three miscarriages, we naturally have thought about what the children would have been like if they had been born. But then we realize this: what if, concerning our baby who was born, we had had sex on a Tuesday instead of a Thursday? What if Sperm #877 had made it to the egg instead of Sperm #3,322? What if a different follicle had matured and become the egg that dropped that month? What would those babies have been like? The idea becomes foolish or at least mind-bogglingly useless. Yes, I do see the difference in three specific pregnancies that didn't produce a baby and the kinds of questions I'm now asking, but I also don't think that those three pregnancies were "babies" yet, so thinking about them as such is just another way of driving you insane with nonsensical "what ifs." Things are as they are; hypotheticals are just that.

In my view, life doesn't begin. Life has always been and always will be (for all practical human purposes anyway). When I looked at very early sonograms (five weeks or so) and saw nothing more than a gestational sac, I did not think, "This is a baby." It wasn't. The Koran says that humans were formed from "clots of blood." That's about right. And before that, we're not even that much. Was that gestational sac "life"? Sure, but what isn't? I'm not making any sort of political statement, by the way. Everything is a mystery. Life is a mystery. To me, a life that is lived (and connected to other lives) is more valuable than the concept of life, so take that however you want if you are looking for some stance on a controversial issue, but that's about as much as I want to say about it.

So I have a baby now, a beautiful one who looks quite a bit like me. She's a life who is living, who is connected to me (her daddy-o) and her mother and her grandparents and aunts and uncles and even strangers. She's becoming more human every day. It takes a while to get there. She has only recently begun smiling. She's only recently started trying out sounds that will eventually become her language. Can we even call her human before she laughs and speaks? One day she'll just be a boring adult like me and all that special cuteness, fragility, and everything that makes us want to say "this is a miracle" in the first place will be stripped from her. (No one cares about a "miracle adult.") She'll see what it's like to be a woman in the twenty-first century, and maybe she'll help get rid of some of these ancient woman-fearing ideas. She'll have her own thoughts about God, probably much different than mine. She'll maybe have a baby herself one day. For now, I can only treasure her and ponder these things in my heart.

This post was begun one day before my daughter was born, four months ago. You can thank her and her helpless baby ways for it taking so long.

Why I Am a Football Heathen

2011-10-06T21:58:00.007-05:00

I've never been more afraid to publish a God Blog post than the following. I wrote it last year and decided it would fit on this blog (though I didn't originally write it to be published here), then sat on it like a coward. Yes, I've written about the Bible, evolution, Christianity, atheism, Islam, Scientology, and Santa Claus, but never about something people get this passionate about: football. If this is my last post, you'll know that some fan tracked me down and put a stop to my blasphemy.

During my third year teaching at a football university, I went to my first -- and let's hope last -- of their football games. It's one thing to grow up (as I and most everyone else I know did) in a football house, but it's another to live in a football town. Luckily, even though my wife and I currently live in the latter, we no longer live in the former, so it balances itself out somewhat. I can only pity the little boy or girl who doesn't enjoy football and lives in both.

Let me first get this out of the way: football fans are selfish. The assumption of football fans is that football matters to them and so it should matter to everyone else (and it often does, so that fits their opinion nicely). Anyone football doesn't matter to is just a perversion, easily ignored.

If a football game is on television, it must be on, usually at extreme volumes, often accompanied by everyone yelling at the screen. "But, Dad," a child might argue, "this show is on that I really want to watch. It only lasts twenty minutes and will only come on this one time. Once it's over, you'll still have the next eight or more hours to watch football." Answer: "No, I might miss something." Or say you're having a party, maybe a birthday party or a going-away party. If there's a game on, it will eventually trump the special occasion. Your special celebration becomes just another football night. Selfishness is the reason Thanksgiving is synonymous with football. Football doesn't make Thanksgiving special; football makes Thanksgiving commonplace. Over and over, the ubiquity of football wins over any potentially-unique event.

Imagine if I behaved this way for my own personal hobby or interest. What if I went into the middle of the family room and began reading a book at the top of my lungs and insisted that you let me do it? Imagine if I, in fact, got downright violent if you didn't let me do it (as football fans do when interrupted). Once my wife and I were trying to have a birthday dinner at a restaurant during the Super Bowl and the server ignored our table because he was distractedly staring at the screen the entire night. What if I stopped in the middle of my job, stopped teaching students, so that I could play some videogame or engage in some other personal interest? What if this were acceptable or even expected--since I'm sure many readers are thinking, "Well, yeah, if you try to have dinner during the Super Bowl, what do you expect?"

In this football town, if Halloween falls on a Friday or Saturday (perfect nights for the holiday, you'd think), it is moved to another night because of football. (Sunday, I learned, is safe, so take that however you like.) Most businesses here close early on Saturday. The guy hooking up the DSL at my new house was surprised that the wires were properly color-coded because, normally here, the wires are the same colors as the football jerseys. (I learned that out-of-towners put these wires in, so that's why.)

Don't think that my anger comes from my personal dislike of football as a game. I don't like bungee jumping either, but I don't mind if people do it, as long as they don't come crashing through my roof or insist that all other life stop while a bungee jumping contest is underway. In fact, I even like football as an activity to some degree. I played the game all the time with friends and family as a kid. I understand the sport. I know all the rules. I can throw a perfect spiral, and I will teach my daughter to do so. It's the selfishness of the fan that bothers me, and the way that -- as a result of this selfishness -- football sticks its enormous face in yours and screams at you, whether you want it to or not.

On the weekend that I went to the university football game, as is the case every game weekend in my town, tailgating begins on Thursday or Friday. Tents are set up all over campus and people just sit there, waiting for Saturday. Do they sleep there? I'm not sure. Do they have jobs? I'll have to ask someone one day, but as far as I can tell, fans will sit on campus for 40+ hours just to claim their spots, like in the frontier days. Even if you do as I did and only show up a little ahead of time, you're still dedicating at least twelve hours of your precious day off to football. I left my house a little after noon, because I had to park at the mall and then be shuttled over to campus -- since, on game day, faculty parking decals are meaningless -- and, after some mild tailgating and the game itself, didn't get home until after midnight. Out-of-towners have to tack on however long it takes to drive (and many do it every weekend) plus the time it takes to drive back (and let's not forget money: potential hotel prices, tailgating fees, food, and the extraordinary price of the game tickets).

Tailgating is admittedly the most fun of the day, since the sport seems more about hype and less about itself. (For what is it really but, as Mary Robison says of all sports, "men and a ball"?) Hanging out with friends and family and eating hamburgers is always fun. All the parades and banners and celebrating is pretty exciting... once in a while. But, again, I can't imagine doing this every weekend for four or five months, nearly half the year. When does it wear off? Why would you want Christmas every day?

Upon entering the stadium, the first thing I notice is that the women (especially the female students) are wearing dresses, what are known as "game day dresses." (They apparently spend all summer shopping for them.) They're kind of ugly and stupid-looking (especially since they're all the same two non-flattering colors), but that's beside the point. The point is that these women are (as far as they know) "dressing up," wearing uncomfortable clothes (complete with high heels or some kind of mismatching boots) to a sporting event filled with thousands of sweaty people screaming at a field full of sweaty boys. This scenario would be bad enough, but then I remember that these same women come to my air-conditioned classroom where they're able to sit down in a semi-serious and academic setting... and they wear gym shorts. The same exact pair of Nike gym shorts, specifically, but that's also beside the point.

Or is it? Certainly conformity is playing a role here. No doubt the answer for why they wear dresses is "Because that's what you're supposed to do." I've asked my students point blank why they wear gym shorts to class and they say it's for comfort. (Hmmm.) They cannot or will not answer why it's the same exact pair for each girl. The men tend to wear the same shorts and flip-flops they always do to the games, except the fraternity boys who (as some sort of hazing ritual disguised as "respect") are forced to wear ties. At any rate, it's discouraging to me as a professor that they'll "dress up" for football but not for class. They'll "respect" football, but not learning. They'll conform to whatever football tells them to do, but will whine endlessly about academic expectations. (God knows how they'll find time to do the textbook reading for Monday.) And they'll stand for four long hours at the game (because students find shame in sitting on the bleachers, even if it means the short girls can't see and that they all get foot sores) but get fidgety after forty minutes sitting in a desk where they get to actually participate and not just watch. And of course there are stories of guys puking on girls who will sit in their boyfriend's vomit rather than leave or even clean up, which would show disrespect to both the (charming) boyfriend and to the game itself.

The pageantry of the pre-game begins when someone lets loose an eagle that flies around the stadium and then lands in the middle of the field while the crowd screams at it. The eagle and the chant has something to do with some mythology I'll never understand, and all I can think about is that they have starved this poor bird nearly to death so that it will be sure to land on the scrap of food they've placed on the 50 yard line. "Surely," someone in front of me says, "the bird must be hurt or something or they wouldn't keep it in captivity just for this." That would make it better? Not only is the majestic eagle starving for the sake of cheap spectacle, but it's also crippled?

More pageantry includes drum majors in synchronization, stabbing maces into the ground that sets off more confusing crowd frenzy, techno club music that turns the stadium into a rave every handful of minutes, and a Jumbo Tron that reminds us that it would be easier to just watch this all on TV (everyone craning their necks to watch the screen nearly as often as the field). The whole thing has a Greco-Roman gladiator feel, and there are so many white people in attendance that I thought at one point I must have stumbled into a Glenn Beck rally. Of course they play "God Bless America" before playing the actual national anthem to remind us that we're really here to, apparently, worship God.

And we are. I've never seen the god of football worshipped quite like this before. Sure, I've been to little church services here and there, little high school football games. I've seen the televangelists on NFL Sunday. But here I was in person at a bona fide mega-church. And this football god gets 'em young. Nine-year-old boys are behind me with their hands raised, tears in their eyes. They know their credos by heart. "We need to get back to the running game." Or: "What we need out there is some good coverage." Little bullshit prayers that mean absolutely nothing, but are said with such gusto that it seems full of import. Witness this testimony I heard with my own ears: "If our team can tie up the game before the end of the quarter, we'll have a good chance of winning." No kidding? You mean if the team scores points, they could win? Only in football can obvious statements of fact be taken as profound. From the mouths of babes and men alike.

And the men are the worst. One poor fellow a few rows down and to the right of me, while the game was tied, tried desperately to begin a "wave" in the stands. Then another man, sitting about three seats to the left of me, stands up and screams to the instigator from across the bleachers, "You don't start a wave during a tie game!" A pause, just enough for me to wonder why, then, "It's bad luck!" This was too much for me and I started laughing loudly. I'd never heard anything so ridiculous come from a grown man's mouth who wasn't in politics. Bad luck? After cracking up some more, I decided (actually, it just came out of me) to yell something myself. I screamed to the waver, "Yeah, don't you know anything about superstition?" (Either the superstitious guy didn't hear me or thought I was being serious; either way, he didn't threaten violence.) The god of football is a fickle and fragile god, and you must be very, very careful not to upset him. Try a wave during a tie game and he will smite your team so fast you won't have time to prepare your lamb for the sacrifice.

Of course, unlike actual church where everyone is more or less on the same side (not unlike a pep rally), the greatness of the football service depends on whether your team wins or not. I hear fans complaining: they'll go home if their team doesn't pick up a few points soon. Do they like football or not? Are they here to watch a game or just to win? Can't they win at home? Instead, they'll be sore losers and go home early, wasting their hundred and something dollar tickets (mine was given to me, by the way) if things don't go their way. I couldn't help but thinking that when I, say, go to see Paul McCartney perform live, half the crowd doesn't walk away depressed. Once again, the religion of "contest" is nothing in comparison to the beauty of real things like literature and music and rational thought.

But then the real spirit of the religion begins. A guy catches a pass and gets sacked by the opposing player, one of those bone-crunching hits everyone can feel and hear. "He held on to that thing, though," someone says, referring to the ball. That's right. He did his duty to god and country: he caught a brown pigskin and held it as tightly as he could, even though he knew it meant someone would come crushing into him any moment. Both god and worshippers are pleased.

Later, a play ends and there's a lone figure on the field, some player laid out unconscious. He's one of ours. The crowd gets silent as a few people rush to his attention. Time passes. The crowd grows restless. More than one in the crowd decides, "He's all right." "He's all right?" My sarcasm button, which before had been flipped humorously, is now flipped angrily. "Yeah," I say, "I know that when I've had the crap smacked out of me by the biggest guy I've ever seen and I'm lying flat on the ground unable to move and completely blacked out, I know that I'm really just thinking how 'all right' I am." Time keeps passing. The crowd is now beyond restless. They begin applauding. What for? You're only (and this is a custom I thought I knew well) supposed to applaud if the hurt player is able to make it off the field by more or less walking off. Some emergency golf cart thing pulls up with a stretcher and then the crowd applauds like crazy. What are they applauding for? The poor boy is still unconscious, no doubt headed to the emergency room. Ah, I get it now. They're applauding for two reasons: 1. This kid -- who I realize must be not much older than twenty, or less -- has sacrificed his own body so that we can be entertained. 2. They are carting him the off the field so we can get on with the fucking game.

The same thing happens about half an hour later, but it's someone from the opposing team, so everyone gives even less of a crap if he dies or not. And this is where football and I truly part ways. The moment even one young man in the prime of his life permanently damages his body (often in greater degrees than I witnessed here, and of course there have been actual deaths), the game should be over forever. No more football. Not worth it, no matter how great the adrenaline rush, how good the hamburgers are, how hot the chicks you get may be, how much it means to you when the crowd worships you as a holy sacrifice.

I sat there in the stands with my head in my hands and felt sick. Here I was contributing to this, even just this once.

My empty seat in the stands isn't going to mean anything, of course, just as it didn't before. Neither is this thing you're reading. The economy of not only my town but my entire country would probably collapse (even more than it has) if football were taken out of the picture. The gods of football and money work together: they feed each other. (The only church service I ever went to in this town, by the way, began with a celebration of the previous night's football victory.) The only reason I'm writing this is to get some of the past thirty-something years of this force-fed misery out of my stomach and onto the page and to let at least one or two of you understand why this sport makes me so terribly sad.

Feel free to call me a pussy now.

*
UPDATE: (10 Nov 2011) Penn State.

Rusty W. Spell, Ordained Minister

2011-09-15T23:39:00.002-05:00

Last November, I became ordained as a minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery. They only have two tenets: 1. To promote freedom of religion. 2. To do that which is right. It's not connected to any religion, and it even welcomes atheists (who, of course, are fully capable of following the two tenets). So I am now able to perform marriages, funerals, baptisms, ceremonial rights, last rights, and exorcisms. I can start my own church, ordain new ministers, and I can absolve you of your sins. Since I'm humble, you can simply call me Dr. Rusty W. Spell (a title it took me a bit longer to receive than this one). Anyway, I thought I should let readers of my God Blog know. Not sure why I didn't get around to it earlier.

Oh yeah, I remember. I recently purchased this nifty card from the Monastery. I carry it in my wallet with pride, just waiting for someone to muse aloud, "You know, I sure wish I could be baptized." (I prefer dunking for full metaphorical impact, but I will sprinkle if you insist.)

Some might ask, "But Minister Spell..." and I will interrupt and say, "No please, please. Russell Wayne Spell, PhD will do." And then they will continue, "Isn't this a scam? Aren't they just hoping that, after you become ordained for free, you'll want to buy the wallet card and the ordination certificate and the clergy badge and the parking hanger?" Maybe. What's your point?

If it's a scam, it's a scam I can get behind. I think that the people running the Monastery are sincere in wanting their "We are all children of the same universe" message to be heard, so I'm willing to chip in to make that idea more public. And the product delivers what it promises. It gives you permission to do all of these things with authority.

I mean, naturally, I could already absolve you of your sins before becoming a minister. You know why? Because there's no such thing as "sin," at least not as an invisible substance we inherited that can only be dissolved by spiritual magic. At the most, it's a word to describe the things we do that others may not exactly appreciate. When a cat eats a lizard, is the cat sinning? Does a tree branch sin when it falls and hits you on the head? If you like, I can also forgive you for having a survival instinct or the hiccups.

This card and this title, "minister," is meaningful because I say it is. Why is the Pope so powerful? Why is Pat Robertson listened to? What do they got that I ain't got? Getting this little card is the same as the Scarecrow getting his diploma or the Tin Man getting his clock heart. Was the Wizard wrong in giving them tokens of things that was in them all along? No. Tokens are nice. I've done my homework, read all the holy (and unholy) books, wrestled with a million angels, peered into the abyss. The least I can ask for is a 2 x 3.5 inch piece of plastic that says I've been a good and faithful servant of myth and morality. I like my token, and it was worth whatever silly amount of money I paid for it.

Don't forget though: I really can perform weddings and all that. So can notary publics, so whatever, but my thing works too. All proper and official. Yes, sure, they want you to buy the coffee mug, but the free part is the most valuable, and the life quest that eventually led to a "be a minister in less than 24 hours" website is priceless.

The Cosby Show: The Juicer

2011-06-12T02:20:00.003-05:00

In season two of The Cosby Show, in an episode called "The Juicer," Dr. Cliff Huxtable brings home a new gadget: a juicer that he demonstrates to the family, making it look fun and appealing, especially to his youngest daughter, a cute and innocent six-year-old named Rudy. Dr. Huxtable makes it clear that this is his juicer and that no one is allowed to touch it.

One day, Cliff and his wife Claire leave their thirteen-year-old daughter Vanessa in charge of Rudy, but Vanessa is preoccupied with her friend on the telephone and largely ignores her. When Rudy and her friend Peter are bored, they go to the kitchen to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but there's no jelly, so they use her dad's forbidden juicer: shoving grapes into it and leaving the top off. Naturally, they make a terrible mess. Both children flee the scene of the crime, hide, and feel ashamed.

When Cliff comes home to see juice all over the kitchen, he is predictably angry, though calm. Dr. and Mrs. Huxtable (Claire) first have a talk with Vanessa and scold her for not doing her duty in watching her little sister. Claire also points out that Cliff was partly guilty because he made the juicer look so attractive. Then Cliff and Rudy have their special talk. She earnestly apologizes, and Cliff reminds her of why what she did was wrong. She is told that she has to clean up the mess, with Vanessa's help. It is a very sweet scene between father and daughter, and it ends with a tender kiss.

But is this what should have happened? No!

First, since Cliff was both forbidder and tempter, he should have convinced Rudy that the temptation was actually carried out by another person altogether (because good and evil can't exist in one being), insisting that this evil person was some lowly creature. Vanessa seems to be the best scapegoat for this scenario. Cliff has already blamed her for not watching Rudy -- apparently expecting a young teen to be the equivalent of a parent -- so blaming Vanessa for the temptation itself is the next logical step. Rudy, being impressionable, will easily believe the new version of history, and this will cause enmity between Vanessa and Rudy for the rest of their lives. Dr. Huxtable, meanwhile, can be secure in his role as the all-powerful, all-good forbidder.

Of course, Dr. Huxtable doesn't need a wife either. As a doctor who delivers babies, he can bring life into the world, and he doesn't need anyone to point out when he's done something wrong, since that will damage his all-good reputation. So Claire should have never been in the picture to begin with.

Next in the story, Cliff should have used his skills as an obstetrician to make it so that -- if his daughter eventually has children -- she will have an especially painful labor. It's obviously what a disobedient daughter deserves. As for Peter, Cliff should have instructed him that he and Rudy are no longer equals in friendship. Instead, Peter is now the dominant friend and should behave accordingly, since Rudy was the one who put the fruit in the juicer. But Peter will be punished too: he will not be able to eat as much food as he wants because he'll have to work for it now (a terrible fate for a fat kid).

Because, of course, what should have ultimately happened is that Cliff should have kicked the pair out of the house altogether, forever, so that they didn't mess with any other appliances, now that they probably knew how to use them as well as Cliff, causing them to be like him, with the knowledge of the right way and wrong way to use gadgets. Maybe Cliff could give them an extra set of clothes first, though, to be nice, before sending them on their way. Cliff should also have placed attack dogs at the entrance of the house (especially the kitchen), to make sure the couple -- especially Rudy -- never come back.

And if this harsh and seemingly unfair punishment leads to these innocent, helpless children having a rough life, maybe eventually giving birth to a son who becomes the murderer of his own brother, so be it.

May 21, 2011: In Perspective

2011-05-20T00:33:00.008-05:00

As you've probably heard or seen on billboards, Family Radio, founded by Harold Camping, has said that Judgment Day and the Rapture will be on May 21, 2011 (at about 6:00 pm, in whatever time zone you're in) and that the end of the world itself will be later the same year on October 21 after five months of suffering for those left behind. The Rapture will be accompanied by earthquakes and will take about three percent of the population.

Of course, mainstream Christians do not believe this prophecy. They know that one god created everything in the universe, that he was a father who begat (without a mother) only one son, both of whom -- along with a magic spirit -- are part of a unit that is actually three entities in one. When this creator god created the first two humans, a snake tricked them into eating a piece of fruit, so sin began and mankind was cursed. But one day, a woman who had never had sex was impregnated by the magic spirit and gave birth to this son of the god in human form. This god in human form was nailed to a piece of wood so that humanity's sins could be forgiven, but three days later (after diving into the underworld first, where the punished are tormented forever) he was brought back to life and floated upward in the sky where his father lived. But, one day, the son of this creator god will return to judge those living and those who have died (a resurrection of dead bodies occurring somewhere in this timeline), appearing in a cloud in the sky with trumpets being blown by creatures who are immortal and live in the sky but are not themselves considered gods. Anyone who accepts that the human version of the son of the god is in fact the actual son of the god (especially if they also ceremonially are covered with water, eat crackers, and drink wine) will be forgiven and called up to the sky, but those who do not will suffer until the world finally ends.

But to say that this judgment day is going to be Saturday is too far-fetched to be believed!

Belief In Marduk

2011-04-17T04:32:00.002-05:00

As you all know, Marduk is the ultimate god. When Marduk defeated the chaotic Tiamat and created mankind out of the blood of her rebel husband Qingu, his father Ea bestowed all of his power onto Marduk himself. Fifty gods were then absorbed into Marduk so that the became the supreme being. His tower was built in Babylon, which is the center of the universe. This is all recorded in the Enuma Elish, written around 1800 BCE, which is also known as The Epic of Creation.

However, some people do not believe that Marduk exists. Some are atheist, some are agnostic, and some believe in strange gods. The following is a list of arguments that attempt to explain why Marduk does in fact exist.

The Teleological Argument (Argument from Design) -- Just look at the world around you. Doesn't it seem like a huge coincidence that humans need water to drink, air to breathe, and food to eat, and here we are in a world that supplies all of those things? Did you know that if the earth were weren't tilted just so that nothing could live on the planet? Not to mention the beauty all around us: the waterfalls, the rainbows, the mountains. All of it couldn't have come about by chance. There must be a designer. The Enuma Elish tells us that, when Marduk defeated Tiamat, he split her in two and created the earth and the sky. Her tears became the Tigris and Euphrates river. Her breasts became mountains. Marduk established order in the cosmos, telling the stars, moon, and sun how to behave. He set up our calendar and established time itself. None of this would have come about if it were not for Marduk. He is the intelligent designer, and he is the true answer to the question of how things got here: not evolution, which science cannot even prove and is just a theory.

The Cosmological Argument (First Cause) -- Everything that exists has a cause. You know that you came to exist because your mother and father brought you in to this world. They exist because their mothers and fathers brought them into this world. That tree was once an acorn, which came from a previous tree. And so on. So what caused it all? Something had to, right? We know that Ea was Marduk's father and that before Ea there was Anu who was the son of Anshar who was the son of Lahmu who was the son of Tiamat and Apsu, who is known as "the first one." So Apsu was the first one, the first cause, but Ea defeated Apsu and then Ea gave all his powers to Marduk. Therefore, Marduk exists and is -- essentially -- the first cause.

Argument from Morality -- We know that morality exists. Why don't we murder people? Why don't we steal? Why don't we eat babies? Because those things are immoral. But where does this idea of morality come from? If Marduk had not established the cosmic order of the universe, then we would have no morality at all, no right and wrong, and all would be in chaos. We know that Tiamat was evil, not because of anything she did necessarily (though we now call what she did evil), but because Marduk (who is wise above all) felt the need to defeat her. William Lane Craig reasons this way: 1. If Marduk doesn't exist, then morality doesn't exist. 2. Morality does exist. 3. Therefore, Marduk exists. Note that morality is beyond science. Science doesn't care if we shoot someone in the head or not, because science just thinks we're a series of atoms randomly put together. But Marduk cares, and so we don't kill. The fact that murderers are punished proves that all of our laws are based on our belief in Marduk's existence.

The Ontological Argument / Argument from Degree -- This argument says that if we are able to imagine the greatest possible being, then he must exist. Descartes said that he could conceive of a supremely perfect being just as easily as he could perceive of any shape or number. He thinks it; therefore, it is. Anselm of Canterbury said that we can conceive of the greatest thing possible to think of, but if that thing we conceive doesn't actually exist, then it wouldn't be the greatest thing (since existing is greater than not existing). We know that Marduk is this greatest thing. The Enuma Elish says that Marduk sucked from the breasts of goddesses who "filled him with awesomeness," that his father Ea "rendered him perfect," and that "perfect were his members without comprehension." He has four eyes, four ears, and breathes fire. He is described as "the loftiest of the gods." And this was all before he took on the power of all the gods. Such a being is the greatest possible being we can conceive of, and therefore Marduk must exist.

Majority Argument -- The number of people who have believed in Marduk is impossible to count. Why would so many people believe in a god who did not exist? Mass hypnosis? Could everyone be that deluded? Entire cultures were founded on the belief in Marduk, and it was a culture that thrived for ages and still exists in various forms. Could such a culture be founded on something that didn't even exist? Can something be founded on nothing? It wouldn't make sense. Would you even want to live in a society in which the majority of people believe in something that has no basis in reality? What kind of society would that be? Thank Marduk that we don't live in such a world.

Arguments from History and Archeology -- Our main source for historical proof of Marduk is of course the Enuma Elish. But we can see evidence that the book is true from archeology. For example, we can read of the building of the ziggurat of Marduk, known as the Etemenanki, which was built in Babylon by the Anunnaki as an abode for Marduk, Enlil, and Ea. We also, even today, can go look at its ruins. You can also read about this ziggurat (although in a perverted form) in the book of Genesis, where it is commonly referred to as "the Tower of Babel." Because we know that events like these are true, we know that the historical book is true. And because we know the historical book is true, we know that Marduk is true.

Argument from Miracles -- Have you ever had something happen to you or someone you know that no one could explain? Let's say your friend had a brain tumor and then one day it was gone. The doctors couldn't explain it. Or maybe your car went off the road and, instead of crashing into a tree, managed to find just the right path to avoid all of those trees until you were safe. Coincidence, huh? What if every ob-gyn you saw told you that you couldn't have a baby and then you had one? These are called miracles, they happen every day, and they are caused by Marduk. When something happens that defies the known laws of nature, something has to cause them. Without Marduk, miracles wouldn't happen; therefore, he must exist.

Argument from Aesthetics -- I will only cover the Bs: Bach, Band of Horses, Barber, Bartok, Count Basie, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Beethoven, Belle and Sebastian, Berlin, Berlioz, Bernstein, Chuck Berry, Bizet, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Bowie, James Brown. Could any of these composers have made such beautiful music without the divine inspiration of Marduk? To think that mere humans could rise to this level of aesthetic perfection is to think very highly of ourselves as a species. Clearly a higher being was involved. Therefore, Marduk exists.

Transcendental Argument -- Everything that we know we know because of Marduk. He is the source of all knowledge. Of course mankind would not be here at all if it weren't for Marduk, but even if we somehow were, we still wouldn't know anything. The fact that I can sit here and logically prove the existence of Marduk is, in itself, proof that he exists. Here is a proof to show what I mean: 1. Knowledge exists. 2. Without Marduk, knowledge doesn't exist. 3. Therefore, Marduk exists. Ea said that Marduk "knows all wisdom," and it is only through him that we know anything at all.

Common Sense Argument -- The 18th Century philosopher Thomas Reid knocked some helpful sense into us with this argument. Some things, he said, are just common sense. You can't go around all day questioning the existence of things that you just know is true from plain old common sense. Have you ever tried to prove that your mother is actually your mother, or do you just accept it? Do you wonder whether a banana will be inside once you peel it, or do you just assume it will be? When a baby drops a ball, does he know everything about Newton's laws of physics, or does he just use his common sense (the sense Marduk gave us) to know it will fall and bounce? We can do the same with Marduk. It is only common sense to assume that he exists.

Burden of Proof / Limitation of Science Argument -- Well then, can you prove that Marduk doesn't exist? The Enuma Elish describes Marduk as "beyond comprehension, unsuited for understanding, difficult to perceive." It would be foolish and insulting to try to prove Marduk in the same way that you would try to prove the speed of a falling object or to explain how an electromagnet works. Marduk is not your science project. He is beyond science. Science is all well and good for certain things, but when it comes to Marduk, I know that science is inadequate, and so I will always believe in Marduk no matter what science says. At any rate, science will never be able to prove that he doesn't exist, and so there is no reason not to believe in him.

Pascal's Wager (Gambit) Argument -- Blaise Pascal set up a hypothetical situation where he stated first that Marduk either (heads) exists or (tails) doesn't: fifty-fifty chance. You have to bet on one or the other, and now he'll flip the coin to see if he exists or not. If you bet that Marduk does exist (heads), then you win everything and lose nothing. But if you bet that he doesn't exist (tails), then you win nothing and lose everything. A no-brainer which side to bet on, huh? Why would you want to be on Marduk's bad side? Remember that, now that the coin has landed on heads, we know for certain that he exists and is as powerful as he has always been described. Marduk will certainly not suffer an unbeliever gladly. So, Pascal says, even if Marduk doesn't exist, it's best to act as if he does, including your belief in him.

Will To Believe Argument / Faith -- In 1896, William James said that sometimes we have to believe in something on faith before we have any real evidence for believing it. Even scientists do this all the time. They hypothesize that something is true, and many of them take their entire lives to prove it. Maybe they do so successfully, maybe they don't, but the fact that they have faith in it is what matters. Suppose you don't have any real evidence to support Marduk's existence. Isn't it better to rely on your faith that he does exist rather than throwing him away just because you can't prove him right this moment? I am confident that, in the by and by, whether in this life or in the underworld, we will be able to have the proof that we want, for we will see Marduk face to face. When that happens, it will all be worth it.

Scientology

2011-03-20T16:23:00.002-05:00

One of these days, I'm going to read L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics. For one, I was always intrigued by it, ever since I saw those TV commercials in the 1980s with the exploding volcano. (I've since learned that the volcano is meant to trigger a repressed memory of a historical event, placed on the cover to make it enticing.) More importantly, I want to read it because it's the book that kick-started what eventually became the religion of Scientology. And I like to read source materials more than I like listening to what second-hand sources have to say. However, since what I'm writing about today isn't meant to be exhaustive and since what I'm writing is largely about these second-hand sources and opinions, I'm going to jump on in and discuss it.

Scientology gets picked on more than any religion I can think of. It gets picked on by religious people in the same way that other religions get picked on by non-religious people: as something ridiculous, man-made, harmful, etc. Tom Cruise jumped on a chair once on Oprah Winfrey's show and John Travolta made a bad movie, and now everyone feels they have the right to mercilessly tease a group that many take as seriously as the more established religions.

And yet -- again, having not read Dianetics or any other book by Hubbard -- based on my current understanding of Scientology, I don't see how it is different from any other religion. Furthermore, Scientology seems to have the added bonus of being just as much about real life (psychology, "self-help," etc.) as the supernatural, a bonus that religions that pretend to be more "normal" don't have.

I'm looking at the official Scientology website for basic beliefs to see how non-unusual this religion is and to see how, in many cases, Scientology is less wacky than its grandfathers. Because Scientology is so new, having begun in 1952, and because the website is more uniform and "official" (in spite of the independent Scientology "Free Zones" that keep popping up), this site proves to be handier than a source that pretends to explain, say, basic Christian beliefs, which vary from church to church.

According to their website, Scientology offers a path that allows people to understand their true natures and their relationship to themselves and everything and everyone around them (including the Supreme Being). Isn't this what every religion claims to do? Ever since humans noticed the order of the heavens and nature, we have tried to align ourselves with this order, to prevent chaos in all of its forms. This is what religion is all about (not to mention basic concepts of the "meaning" of life).

Let's look at some more specific core beliefs:

1. Scientology is more concerned with the "spirit" rather than the body and mind. Nothing new there.

2. Man is immortal and spiritual. Another common conception.

3. Man's experience goes beyond one lifetime. Sounds like reincarnation. And, if you want to get more Western about it, just look to any "sins of the father" theology, that our experiences are the products of a long line of people. No lifetime is an island.

4. Man's capabilities are unlimited, even if he doesn't know it yet. Christian scriptures immediately spring to mind: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" or the ability to move mountains with faith.

5. Man is basically good. Well, that one is certainly not compatible with the religions that teach that man is essentially evil, but even then the idea is that the goodness of man was somehow corrupted through some fall or foreign evil element. (Scientology -- and Rousseau, come to think of it -- says that the evil comes through experiences and exposure.) No matter what, it's not an uncommon or unusual religious thought, and it's one that is believed by both the religious and non-religious the world over.

6. Scientology values observed results over blind faith. Ah! Here we have a big difference between Scientology and faith-based religion, but it's a difference in Scientology's favor. What is more insane than believing in something that you have no evidence for? At least Scientology claims to possess proof.

7. The goal of Scientology is spiritual enlightenment and freedom. Once again, the "spiritual enlightenment" part is Religion 101, and the "freedom" part is more refreshing than the religions that shackle and bind.

That list of seven items was one page ("What Is Scientology?") of the website. I'll skip around now in search for anything incriminating, then eventually move past the "official" word and into what others say.

One of the ideas behind Scientology is that humans are largely better off materially these days (I assume they have a limited population in mind) but they aren't any happier. Scientology attempts to rectify this. For this reason, the religion seems to appeal to the materially better-off (most famously, celebrities) rather than the downtrodden. So maybe it's a religion for the rich. Great. I've certainly heard the testimonies in church: "I may be poor, but the richest man in the world don't have what I got." Then perhaps Scientology is the answer for them.

Or maybe some of its principles is the answer for anyone living in the modern world. According to the site, science has advanced rapidly in the last 100 years, and the humanities have yet to catch up. I don't think the second part is necessarily true, but certainly this feeling exists. This is why religious people often have bad relationships with science: too much of it threatens to kill their religion. Scientology claims to bring balance to the two, which is a better alternative than obliterating one in favor of the other.

Perhaps it sounds like I'm trying to sell you Scientology. I'm not, I promise. What sounds like defense is merely a way of trying to understand others' attacks. But to make you feel better, I'll do a little attacking on my own. One thing the website claims is that Scientology is different, better, the only truly effective practice in solving the problems of mankind. A religion that claims to have all the answers? Wow, it truly is no different than any other religion.

One of their different, better, more effective practices is what is called "auditing." In auditing sessions, auditors listen to people in order to free them of problems they didn't know they had. Sound familiar? Scientologists takes great pains to say auditing is nothing like psychotherapy (and, in fact, are opposed to psychotherapy). In order to distance themselves, they use specific questions (feeling that psychology sessions are too random and unfocused) as well as something called an E-meter, which is a gadget (they call it a "religious artifact") that measures electrical resistance on the body. This is where the "man, these guys are nutty" arguments come in. But remember: I'm not claiming that Scientology isn't nutty. I'm simply saying that it's no more nutty than any other religion. Yes, an E-meter seems pretty un-scientific and ineffective in solving problems. But is it more or less effective than dabbing olive oil on someone's forehead while praying for them to be relived of a mental or physical illness? Is an E-meter more or less effective than prayer beads? Than facing a certain direction when talking to an invisible being? Would you prefer your religion to practice faux science, or would you rather it outlaw science altogether and instead rely on superstition?

A few quick observations from the site and then on to a list of others' complaints. 1. Scientologists have Sunday Services. 2. Scientology has ministers. And, unlike other kinds of ministers who often don't have an understanding of their own religion, Scientology ministers (at least according to themselves) also learn about other religions from around the world. 3. The Church of Scientology has a creed which consists of more or less sane principles: all men are equal regardless of race, men have religious freedom, man shouldn't destroy man, etc. Based on their presentation of themselves, Scientology is just like any other religion, combined with elements of psychology (even though they disagree) and "self-help."

So what are others saying about Scientology? What are some of the big things being ridiculed? I know you shouldn't look at the product's home page for an objective view of the product; you should look at the customer reviews. So I'll snatch the most common criticisms from the web and comment on how these complaints could just as easily be lodged against any other religion.

L. Ron Hubbard was a science-fiction writer. -- So? Science-fiction is one of the more common ways of expressing religious, philosophical, and mythological thought these days. The Matrix, Star Wars, superhero comic books, whatever. (Not that Dianetics is written as sci-fi anyway.) And at least we know who Hubbard was. We don't know who the writers of most of the ancient texts were, but we do know that they had the same kind of vivid imaginations as sci-fi writers. Yes, Scientology is "man-made," but what religion isn't?

1952 wasn't that long ago. -- Does a religion need thousands of years for it to be authentic? I've heard many a Christian wish he could have been born during Jesus' time, since he would have definitely been a disciple. Not if he followed this "new is bad" logic he wouldn't. You gotta start sometime. One reason we tolerate the nutty nature of ancient religions is because the huge time distance makes the nuttiness more palatable, as if the laws of nature were different back then. Besides, the current version of political/evangelical American Christianity began around the same time with Billy Graham, and it's taken off like a rocket.

Scientology has a mythology involving space aliens. -- Yes, Hubbard conceived of a "space opera" involving Xenu blowing up millions of frozen people around volcanoes with a hydrogen bomb 75 million years ago which released Body Thetans that now plague humanity. Is this any odder than Indra slaying the dragon Vritra in order to release the water that the dragon had been restraining? Is this any odder than God and Satan having a war in Heaven, apocalyptic horsemen, the downfall of man depending on a piece of fruit? Any odder than God writing a book that he passes on to Gabriel who reveals it to Muhammad? Any odder than a baby being born of a virgin mother whose death somehow releases people from sin? Mythology is mythology, and at least Hubbard's contains things that observe the laws of nature (aliens not being something out of the realm of possibility). Also, these stories are only meant for more advanced Scientologists (and doesn't even appear in any of their official literature), whereas other religions force their mythology on beginners and children and are viewed as critical to the life of the believer. South Park said that Scientology's mythology is stranger than others', but they didn't explain how they evaluated this strangeness.

All these weird words are stupid and confusing. -- They only sound stupid and confusing because they are new, but they are often just different names for existing things. A thetan is just a soul. A body thetan is something like an evil spirit. An engram is a suppressed image in the mind. A state of Clear is more or less Nirvana. We need words to describe abstract ideas, and these are the ones Scientologists use (choosing, for better or worse, not to utilize existing ones).

Scientology is a cult. -- Every religion is a cult. A cult is just a collection of people who worship a particular god. Some cults are just bigger and more respected than others. Christianity is the largest cult right now: a spin-off sect of Judaism (more or less) whose leader was so cultish that he was deemed worthy of the death penalty. (Not to mention the other Christian leaders. Don't forget that Peter was crucified upside down.) I know, I know: attackers have a more specific definition in mind, one involving the "manipulation, controlling, and exploiting of its members." Still sounds like every other religion to me. If they don't think so, perhaps they're in a cult themselves.

Scientology brainwashes its members. -- The teacher might not write this one on the chalkboard since it is already covered under the "cult" entry, but I'll treat it separately anyway. I've always been dubious of the idea of "brainwashing" to begin with, since it brings up images of Clockwork Orange style manipulations and other things that don't exist. But if the word is used generally to mean that the brainwashing organization gets members to think what they think, then yes, Scientology seems to do this. So does, once again, every other religion (not to mention any group you hang around with or listen to for any length of time). One reason other religious people hate Scientology so much, one might argue, is that they're brainwashed to do so. (A digression: Wouldn't a brain washing be a good thing, a cleansing? Shouldn't the term be "braindirtying"?)

Scientologists attack those who attack them, often with law suits. -- Would you prefer holy wars? All religions do this, to lesser and greater degrees. Ask Salman Rushdie. Or watch Fox News. At least Scientologists wait to be attacked, and at least their retaliation is death-free.

Scientology is a scam. -- Watched any televangelists lately? If a scam is something to which you give your money or time and receive nothing or little in return, then -- one more time -- all religions could be considered scams. All this energy expended on things that are invisible. If people feel that the money and time they put into their religion actually give them positive results, then they probably do not think it's a scam. Scientologists feel they get results, too, so to them it's not a scam either. This is one of the defenses people give for religion in general: "I don't care if it's real or not; it makes me feel good." Let's be happy with our favorite scams and let others be happy with theirs.

I'll stop there. If I haven't made this clear enough I'll say it one more time. I'm not promoting (or attacking) Scientology, and I'm not attacking (or promoting) other religions. I'm simply trying to show that I can't tell any difference between the two, and often I see positive things about Scientology that other religions seem to be lacking. By all means, let's continue to call BS on every religion that exploits people, steals their money, makes false promises, uses confidence tricks, etc. Let's just realize that the older ones with angels and souls are no different than the one with aliens and thetans.

The Least of These

2011-02-20T00:36:00.005-06:00

I don't feel like Jesus very often, but sometimes it happens. I had the experience of someone who is always very nice to me being very mean to others. To make matters worse, the ones who were the object of the cruelty were in less fortunate situations than me, both materially and mentally. Which made me feel bad as a result, as if the cruelty were being done to me instead of them.

My first thought was, "Well, at least the guy is nice to me, so he's not all bad" but then my follow-up thought was, "But if he really wanted to be nice to me, he'd be nice to them. In fact, I'd rather he be nice to them than me, since they need it more than I do."

Then I remembered Matthew 25:31-46. This is where Jesus describes the coming of the "Son of Man" (a third-person way of talking about himself, though sometimes it's hard to tell), a king who will separate the figurative sheep from the goats. To the righteous "sheep" he says, "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me." When the righteous ask when they did all these things for him -- because they hadn't actually done these things for him, since he was a king who wouldn't need them done -- he answered, "Just as you did it to one of the least of these... you did it to me."

Similarly, he tells the cursed "goats" that they didn't take care of him when he was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, and in prison. When the cursed say that they never actually saw the king in any of these conditions and so how could they neglect him, he answers, "Just as you did not do it to one of the least of these... you did not do it to me."

I've known this passage all my life, but I hesitate to admit that I only thought of it as a way to please Jesus himself: help people and you're helping Jesus, hurt people and you're hurting Jesus. Rewards or punishments follow. It never occurred to me that (even though the logic of the passage dictates it) everyone is potentially in the position of "the king." Perhaps I didn't see it because Jesus (as he tends to do) situates the story during an end-of-time style judgment day, when "the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him," when "he will sit on the throne of his glory. And all the nations will be gathered before him."

But of course "judgment day" is every normal day of our lives (once you get past the fancy imagistic talk). And on the particular day I'm writing about, I happened to be the king on the throne (a rare treat). Luckily for the guy that offended me, I showed more mercy than Jesus would have. Jesus rewarded the sheep with the kingdom but punished the goats with "the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." My reaction was to feel sad for a while and then get over it, which is notably less dramatic.

You might be thinking that I should now take the next obvious step and write about how I, too, should be careful about not having double standards when it comes to decency toward people, especially those less fortunate, but who wants to read about that?

Bonus: The Sin of Sodom

And speaking of the less fortunate, did you know that the sin of Sodom was not homosexuality? My source is the prophet Ezekiel, who says this (in chapter 16:49-50 of his book): "This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it."

The sin of Sodom was the "I got mine, Jack!" mentality. Ironically, for those who use the Sodom and Gomorrah story as an anti-gay story, the truth is that the only way to quit committing the sin of Sodom is to quit being cruel to homosexuals, an oppressed minority in need of a helping hand.

Lost Gospels

2011-01-31T18:18:00.004-06:00

I am reading Bart D. Ehrman's collection Lost Scriptures -- a companion piece to his Lost Christianities -- in which he collects scriptures that were "lost" (some of them very recently found) or that fell out of favor and didn't make it into the New Testament. The book includes gospels, acts of the apostles, epistles, and apocalypses. Some of them are "Gnostic" (a sect of Christianity that didn't win out in the end) and some are not.

I am going to focus on gospels included in Ehrman's collection. Primarily I want to give you a summary of them, in case you haven't encountered them and would like to read them yourself. Many of them can be found online, though I do strongly suggest picking up Ehrman's book. I also give some of my own commentary in the process. I have skipped a few of the more heavily fragmented gospels and the ones about which I have nothing much to say.

The Coptic Gospel of Thomas
This book doesn't contain stories, just teachings of Jesus. It's more like a book by Confucius or Lao-Tzu. While many of the teachings and sayings are found in the four canonical gospels, their significance seems illuminated more greatly here.

The Gospel of Thomas demonstrates (even more than usual) that Jesus (a) spoke almost entirely in metaphor (when he wasn't speaking in parables) and (b) that one of the major metaphors was the Kingdom of God, which signifies not a literal place but a state of mind. God himself is a metaphor as well. For example: "When you come to know yourselves... you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father."

Life and death are also metaphor. Jesus says, first thing, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death." He isn't referring to literal, bodily death, but to a recognition of a greater life, of one that has always and will always exist. Or, as he later typifies it, the "light." He tells his disciples that they "came from the light, the place where light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image."

Joseph Campbell once explained the above concept through a metaphor of a light bulb. When a bulb burns out, you don't say, "Well, no more light for me." You simply replace the bulb. The light is "manifest" through the bulb, which is yourself, so when it's your time to shine, shine as bright as you can. And when you burn out, that's just the end of your body, but not the light, which is (as Jesus says in this gospel) where you came from. (This might also bring new meaning to God's phrase "Let there be light.")

Another key message in Thomas is that what you're looking for (literally) is already here (spiritually, inside you). After the disciples ask when the new world will come, Jesus says, "What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it."

A final passage worth noting is about Mary and women. When the disciples say that Mary Magdalene needs to leave the company because she isn't "worthy of life," Jesus says, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven." It sounds backward at first, but it's feminist in a figurative sort of way, simply saying that women will have the same privileges as men.

The Gospel of Peter
Only a fragment of this book exists: the pre-crucifixion, the crucifixion, and the post-crucifixion. Most of it seems to be just another version of what is found in the four canonical gospels. But there are a few weird and interesting bits. While on the cross, the text says that Jesus "was silent, as if he had no pain." (Take that, Mel Gibson.) Before dying, instead of saying "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus says "My power, O power, you have left me behind!" This, to me, seems like a more accurate assessment of what is going on, no matter what you take the "power" to be.

Finally, the most unusual part is an account of the ressurection itself. Two men whose heads reach up to the sky (presumably angels) are supporting another man whose head reaches above the skies (presumably Jesus himself). Behind them, a cross is floating. Stranger than this is that a voice is heard from the sky asking "Have you preached to those who are asleep?" The cross itself answers, "Yes." This kind of makes talking snakes and donkeys look tame.

The Gospel of Mary
This is another one that only exists in fragments, but what fragments! As the title suggests, this book is about Mary Magdalene and shows her as the most beloved of all the disciples (which I guess means that The Da Vinci Code was right), not John (not that the book of John ever says he's the one). In the book, Andrew and Peter question that Jesus would tell Mary, a mere woman, things that he didn't tell them. But Levi sets them straight, saying that they should listen to anyone who Jesus favored. Levi is the one who suggests that Jesus loved Mary most of all.

The parts that are even more interesting to me, however, are some of Jesus' teachings. He gives a "circle of life" / conservation of mass explanation of life and death, explaining that all things "exist in and with one another and they will be resolved again into their own roots."

In Matthew 24:5, Jesus warns against the coming of false messiahs. It's difficult to tell if he is being literal or not here. But it's more clear in Luke 17:20 when Jesus says that the coming of the Kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, that it is in our midst, and again warns about running after false messiahs. But it is even more clear in the Gospel of Mary when Jesus says not to look for false messiahs because "the Son of Man is within you." At any rate, the three passages seem to be relating the same story/message, right down to the people saying "Look here!" and "Look there!" rather than looking inside themselves.

Jesus the law-basher is shown more clearly in this book as well. He says to "not lay down any rules" and "do not give a law like the lawgiver lest you be constrained by it." As William Blake said, "One law for the lion and the ox is oppression."

The Gospel of Philip
Like the Gospel of Thomas, this work does not contain any stories, only messages, this time even more centered around the idea of the image and how it works in stories. I know it seems as if I'm writing about nothing but ideas of the figurative vs. the literal, but -- although with the four canonical gospels I could go either way -- lots of these "lost" gospels make it more clear that the figurative is winning the day, the Gospel of Philip perhaps most of all.

The book claims that most people only know the "wrong meaning" and not the "right meaning" of certain words, such as father, son, life, resurrection, and maybe especially God. But, even though we run the risk of getting words wrong, it is good to use them so that we can know the truth at all. "The truth did not come naked into the world, but came in types and images." This is one conception of God -- often an Eastern and especially Taoist conception -- that God cannot be named or talked about or you're not talking about God (or the Tao) at all. However, you can talk about the "10,000 things" (as Lao-Tzu puts it, at least in some translations) that come from God, including yourself.

On the other hand, the writers of these Gnostic works -- as opposed to the "proto-orthodox" (Ehrman's term) writers we're more familiar with -- seemed to have their own potentially-literal conceptions. For example, this book says, "Some say Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit. They err... When did a woman become pregnant by a woman?" This seems to be less an attack on literal interpretation and more of an explanation of the nature of the Holy Spirit and their different understanding of Mary's story (which is explained in the Proto-Gospel of James). So initially it seems that the Gnostics are more liberal in their interpretations and presentations of these ideas, but -- in the end -- it does just seem like another perhaps-just-literal strain.

The Gospel of the Savior
This one was only found in 1991, and only fragments exist, of the last bit of Jesus' life, from just after the last supper until death, and because of the fragmented nature it's very hard to read or get into. But it has a few standout moments, like when Jesus says to clothe yourself with "the garment of the kingdom, which I have bought with the blood of grapes!" (A new spin on communion.) He also speaks directly to the cross several times (as he did in the Gospel of Peter), this time saying to it, "Do not be afraid," "I will fill you with my wealth," and "I will mount you."

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas
This is probably the most fun gospel, since it's about Jesus as a kid, from the age of five to twelve. It concludes with the story of Jesus in the temple, as reported in Luke. Jesus develops from a little supernatural brat into someone who can control his powers and go about his father's business. This almost seems like the inspiration for the Smallville stories in the Superman comics. At any rate, it's the same idea: someone from another world who has powers beyond those of normal humans, who has a hard time fitting in as a result, always tempted to use his powers selfishly instead of for others.

One of the first miracle stories involves Jesus breaking the sabbath by making sparrow sculptures out of mud. When he's about to get in trouble for doing so, he tells the sparrows to "Be gone!" and they become real sparrows and fly away. This story is also alluded to in the Koran (and not in a negative way).

When another kid annoys young Jesus, he whithers the kid's skin. Having a taste for this kind of revenge, Jesus supernaturally kills a boy simply because he bumped into him. Not content to punish children, he also makes adults go blind who get angry at him for doing these things. Jesus has stirred up and scared the entire neighborhood.

Then there is a series of would-be tutors for Jesus. But when they try to teach him the alphabet, Jesus instead points out that he knows more than they do, saying, "Since you do not know the true nature of Alpha, how can you teach anyone the Beta?" He tries to explain what that true nature of Alpha is, but he seems to essentially describe the nature of a triangle (which of course is what the letter looks like)--I guess simply to show that he knows geometry (and the tutors don't?) already so he doesn't need these basic lessons. But maybe he means something more, maybe even referring to himself as the Alpha and Omega.

Eventually, Jesus starts performing miracles that we're more accustomed to, even if they are still in service of keeping him out of trouble and he's still being a smart aleck. When he was playing on the roof with a kid named Zenon, the kid falls and dies. Since Jesus has a bad reputation, people gather around and accuse Jesus of killing the boy. But then Jesus says, "Zenon! Rise up and tell me: did I throw you down?" And then Zenon comes back to life (long before Lazarus). The parents of Zenon, in this case, begin to worship Jesus.

A man is chopping wood but accidentally chops his foot, so that he almost dies from blood loss. But Jesus heals him, saying to "Remember him." And long before the loaves and fishes, Jesus causes one grain of wheat to produce one hundred bushels. Sometimes Jesus loses his temper (usually with tutors) and kills them like in his very young days, but now he tends to bring them back to life again.

As Bart Ehrman points out, it's difficult for modern readers to tell if these stories are meant to be taken seriously or as entertainment, stories told by those who want to fill in the blanks of Jesus' life. It certainly does have a different feel from any of the other gospels ("lost" or otherwise). It's almost as if these childhood stories don't "count" as scripture, not because they're not "true" or just as authentic as anything else, but because they tell the story of a man as he was before he came into his own as a prophet. This may be why the story of Luke includes the temple story; in it, you can see the germ of the Jesus we come to know.

No gospels get into Jesus from twelve to thirty, so for information about Jesus' teenager years, you have to turn to the song by the Canadian band the Rheostatics called "Jesus Was Once a Teenager Too."

The Proto-Gospel of James
While the Infancy Gospel of Thomas told of Jesus' early life, this gospel details the birth of his mother Mary: her upbringing, relationship with Joseph, and Jesus' birth.

Mary's mother, Anna, feels useless (and is treated as such) because she can't have a baby. But an angel tells her that she will have one, miraculously. There's a big deal made about how Mary is to remain pure and clean, and Mary is kept in the temple from the age of two until twelve, where she is fed from the hand of an angel.

When Mary reaches the age of twelve, Joseph is chosen to care for her, like an adoptive father more or less, not really like a husband. Joseph was reluctant, but he was chosen by a miracle (a dove lands on his head), and everyone made him feel afraid to refuse, so he agreed. But he leaves Mary immediately to go off to work elsewhere, and when he comes back, she is six months pregnant (a good narrative alibi to help prove the virgin birth).

Of course, Joseph immediately feels guilty for not protecting her, and of course everyone accuses Joseph of knocking her up. It's during these episodes that the well-known stories of angels' visitations to both Mary and Joseph occur. But while the four gospels don't explain how the community eventually thinks everything is okay, James does. It is explained that Mary and Joseph drink the "water of refutation," a kind of holy truth serum, and they're shown not to be lying, so all is fine.

This is when the nativity story begins, but with a few added details. Jesus is born in a cave (the manger scene comes later when he's hiding from Herod) while Joseph is out looking for a mid-wife. While he's out, he sees time freeze (during the moment that Jesus is born), apparently out of time himself in order to witness it. When the would-be mid-wife enters the cave, there is a bright cloud and bright light in and around the cave. When it disappears, they see the baby Jesus. The mid-wife reports this to a woman named Salome who has to prove to herself that it was a virgin birth by putting her finger in Mary's vagina. This act causes her finger to burn and "fall away," but it is healed when she feels bad about her doubt. (This, to me, is an even more extreme version of the Doubting Thomas story.)

The entire book is interesting and contains other details big and small (such as Mary miraculously making a moutain split open for her to hide from Herod) that I haven't summarized. Unlike the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, this one seems to contain the right amount of "holiness" so that it fits well with the nature and tone of other scriptures. This book also seems to have been used to fill in some historical gaps for the screenwriters of the mini-series Jesus of Nazareth.

The Epistle of the Apostles
The Gnostic Christians were known for writing "secret" epistles in which they revealed secrets that not everyone was privy to. As a reaction, non-Gnostic Christians wrote the Epistle of the Apostles which specifically calls out two Gnostics named Cerinthus and Simon. Because of the nature of this work, it is a more conservative recap of many of the other gospels, but it does have a few interesting moments worth noting.

One is "the Word" declaring that it became Gabriel and then became Jesus. In other words, the Word -- as Gabriel -- told Mary that he would be entering her, and then he did, and came out as Jesus. The Word also says that it will return as the Father in the 150th year. (Whoops.)

In talking with the disciples, Jesus (as usual) gets angry at them for not understanding his basic teachings, in this case that the flesh itself will become whole and resurrect, not just the spirit. He also predicts the coming of Paul, which I guess gives Paul more credit, since he didn't seem to have anything to do with Jesus and yet he took over his enterprise: kind of like Walter Hooper did with C.S. Lewis.

The Coptic Apocalypse of Peter
A Gnostic work in which Peter has a vision of "the Savior" who explains to Peter that there were two persons during the crucifixion. There is one above the cross who is glad and laughing, and he is "the living Jesus." The one who is being nailed to the cross is "his physical part, which is the substitute." While this short work simply seems to draw a distinction between the body and soul, the mortal and immortal, the next book in question -- The Second Treatise of the Great Seth -- goes all out and suggests that Jesus (in any form) wasn't killed at all.

The Second Treatise of the Great Seth
While the Jewish Scriptures, the Christian New Testament, and the Islamic Koran seem to be pretty connected, with of course many corrections here and there as things progress (or digress, depending on who you ask), Gnostic works like this one (though not all of the Gnostic works) seem to promote something almost entirely separate from those stories, even while using the same "characters."

In this work, to show what I mean, the god (called Yaldabaoth here) who created Adam is not an almighty god, not the highest power. This book is narrated by "Christ" who is that highest power, and he calls God a "laughingstock." He also calls Adam, Moses, Solomon, and the rest of the Hebrew prophets laughingstocks. Why? Because they think they are more than they are. They are simply the creations of this creator god Yaldabaoth, but they are not the most important people in the world, and their god is not the ultimate god. And their religion is nothing more than a doctrine "to keep dietary rules and bitter slavery" (which is my favorite line from this gospel).

Imagine a small child who makes little paper dolls. Now imagine if that small child thought that he was the god of all the universe, not just the "god" of his little paper doll creations. That's the idea of Yaldabaoth, who everyone who follows Abrahamic religions think of as "God."

So when "Christ" does enter the world, the world sure feels it. Christ says that all of the false gods and angels (the "archons") were disturbed when he entered. This Christ enters a man named Jesus. Specifically, he casts out the human who was inside Jesus and wears his body.

But even Jesus, the human, wasn't crucified. Simon was. Another person drank the vinegar. Another person had the crown of thorns put on him. Meanwhile, Christ was continually changing forms and (as he did in the previous book) laughing at the confusion all around him.

So Judaism, what we think of as Christianity, and Islam at least have in common the idea that God is God (whether they realize they're worshipping the same god or not). For the writer of this book, however, God is a silly boy playing with paper dolls being laughed at by the true god.

The Secret Gospel of Mark
Said by some to be a forgery, this is a fragment of a letter (not a gospel itself) describing a gospel of "secret" extra bits to be included in the book of Mark for those readers who are more spiritually advanced. Think of it like an expansion pack for a video or board game.

The only part that remains is supposed to be inserted at Mark 10:34, and it describes Jesus raising a young boy from the dead, the young boy approaching Jesus days later "wearing a linen cloth over his naked body," and spending the night with Jesus to learn "the mystery of the Kingdom of God." Another part of the letter claims that a phrase reading "naked man with naked man" was added by a Gnostic sect that practiced sexual rituals.

*
So there you go. I'll continue reading Bart Ehrman's great collection and -- if you're lucky -- report to you on the rest of the work.

Genesis Retold: Part Two

2011-01-24T22:38:00.007-06:00

Read Part One.

Based on the New Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible.

Chapter Four

The man had called himself Adam, or "Earth," because he was a man of the earth, and he called his wife Eve, or "Life," because she was going to give life to all of their offspring. Eve gave birth to two boys: Cain was a tiller of the ground and Abel was a keeper of sheep. While Abel managed to make a great offering of food to his family with his sheep, Cain's offerings were not as well regarded. Because of this, Cain became very angry with his brother.

Though Cain tried to reason within himself that he needed to take control of his anger, the anger overtook his reason and he said to his brother Abel, "Let us go out to the field." And when they were in the field, Cain rose up and killed his brother Abel. In his mind, Cain knew that people would wonder where Abel was, but Cain had an answer prepared: "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?"

But Cain's guilt overtook him; the guilt was so strong that Cain imagined he heard Abel's blood crying from the ground. Cain could no longer imagine himself tilling the same ground on which he killed his own brother, thinking that it might not even produce food for him, so he decided to leave home. But Cain was afraid that someone would kill him while he was wandering abroad, so he put a mark on himself to frighten others away. The mark suggested that whoever killed Cain would be avenged seven times over. So Cain left toward the east and settled in the land he called Nod, which meant "Wandering."

Cain found a wife among other groups of people and they had a son named Enoch. And Cain built a city, which he named after his son. Enoch had a son named Irad who had Mehujael who had Methushael who had Lamech.

Lamech had two wives, Adah and Zillah. Adah gave birth to Jabel, who taught his offspring to live in tents and raise livestock. She also gave birth to Jubal, who taught his offspring to play the lyre and the pipe. The other wife, Zillah, gave birth to Tubal-cain, who made all varieties of bronze and iron tools. Zillah also gave birth to a daughter, Naamah.

One day, Lamech told his wives, "I have killed a young man for striking and wounding me. If Cain is avenged seven times over, then I am to be avenged seventy times over."

Chapter Five

Meanwhile, Adam and Eve had a third son who she called Seth, which means "Appointed," because Eve had said, "Since Cain killed Abel, this child is appointed for me." Seth had a son named Enosh who had Kenan who had Mahalalel who had Jared who had Enoch (who died young) who had Methuselah who had Lamech who had Noah. Lamech felt that Noah would be of the generation of people who would find relief from years of working the unyielding ground, so he named him a name that meant "Relief." Noah also had sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Chapter Six

During this time, as the population of the earth increased, many felt that times had been different before. People seemed to live longer and men were like giants on the earth, heroes and warriors of renown, as if they had not been born of mere mortals. But then people began noticing that humankind was wicked, with their hearts fixed on violence continually. So when natural disasters occurred on the earth, many felt that it would be better if the disasters simply killed everything: people and animals and birds. But Noah was more optimistic.

Noah also was able to read and predict weather conditions, and he predicted the coming of a large flood. So Noah made a large wooden boat, complete with rooms spread out among three levels, covered inside and out with pitch. He made it as large as he could, so that he could fit himself, his sons, and their wives. He also wanted to save as many of his animals as he could, making sure to save both male and female. He even planned on rescuing birds. Noah stored food in the boat and was ready for the flood.

Chapter Seven

A little before the flood came, Noah and his family entered the ark, along with as many animals and birds as he could fit. On the day the flood came, it felt as if the fountains of the chaotic waters burst forth, as if there were windows in heaven that opened up. It rained for many days and flooded the area, as Noah had predicted. While many living creatures -- birds, domestic animals, wild animals, swarming creatures -- and many human beings died, Noah's boat floated on the water and he and his family and the animals he saved were protected against the flood.

Chapter Eight

After the flood subsided and the waters began to recede, Noah opened a window of the boat and found himself atop a large hill. To test how far the flood waters had gone down, Noah sent a raven out of the window, which could only go to and fro. Next he sent a dove, but the dove could not find a place to land, so it returned to the boat where Noah put out his hand and took it and brought it into the boat with him. The next day, he sent the dove again and the dove came back to him in the evening with a freshly-plucked olive leaf in his beak. So Noah knew that the waters were subsiding. When he sent out the dove again the next day, the dove did not return, so Noah and his family left the boat to find dry land.

Noah immediately made a fire, killed an animal, and cooked a feast of meat for his family, because they had been living off of stored food for several days. As he smelled the pleasing odor, Noah said to himself, "Although the human heart is evil from youth, no one deserves to die in a flood like this, and I hope this never happens again."

Santa Claus

2010-12-16T02:00:00.002-06:00

My parents never lied to me about Santa Claus. It may be difficult to convince some that this didn't hinder my fun as a child at Christmas, but it didn't. Though Mom and Dad were always straight with me and my siblings about Santa's nonexistence, we still got to "play" Santa Claus. We would sit on his lap at the mall, get excited when the news would show Santa's sleigh on radar, set out milk and cookies before going to bed, earnestly listen for jingle bells, and wake up to find presents in front of the tree that weren't there the night before--with tags on them that read "From: Santa Claus."

Was this play just as fun and magical for us as it was for those children who actually believed? I'm pretty sure that it was. Think about it: children play at things that aren't real all the time. One way is to pretend to do something that is based on reality, such as playing house or school. You couldn't possibly spoil a child's fun if you broke in to say "You know you're not a real mother" or "You know you're not a real teacher." The child would just think you were stupid, someone who's grossly missed the point. Another way to play is to pretend concerning something that is completely fantastic, such as imagining you're Superman or that you're chasing unicorns. Children know that Superman and unicorns don't exist, but it's still fun to pretend, and -- for a child -- imagination feels very real, even while being fully aware of actual reality. If you told a kid these imaginary things weren't real, you'd be the stupid fool, not them.

In elementary school, when most of my friends either believed in Santa Claus or were questioning their belief (as all children eventually do), they would ask me if I believed. Sometimes I simply said no, but my favorite answer was, "I like to pretend that he's real." As nearly any kid naturally would, I enjoyed the image and idea of Santa Claus. There's no reason to deny a child (or an adult) the mythology of Santa Claus, since it is possible to celebrate him without taking the next (stupid, foolish?) step of forcing belief.

My parents no doubt had a few good reasons for not wanting to lie to us about Santa. The first is probably the obvious one: it's a lie, and not a small one. Most have observed that this lie can be a lazy way to control kids. If your child is being bad, simply tell them that Santa won't bring them any presents. I'm ashamed to admit that I once tried this myself. One night I was responsible for a small child who wasn't behaving, so I picked up the telephone and pretended to dial the North Pole to tell ol' Saint Nick that a certain youngster was being naughty and not nice. The fit of tears and screaming I heard (until I corrected the problem) made me realize how evil I was being and -- more than that -- what a sinister hold this lie can have on such a young little mind.

This screaming child example points to other good reasons my parents must have had for telling us the truth. Lying about Santa Claus about the "naughty or nice" idea implies that goodness leads to gifts and badness leads to no gifts, which is another lie. Not only is this concept not true universally (which is really the larger issue), but it's not even carried out locally. Parents never use Santa for actual discipline, only the threat of it. I might be more slightly more sympathetic to this manipulation if children who misbehaved didn't get any presents; it would still be questionable on the parents' part, but at least it would be consistent and truthful. Instead, children are really taught that goodness leads to toys and badness also leads to toys plus getting to do whatever the hell you want anyway. Santa Claus becomes a sucker.

And because Santa is a sucker and apparently the richest man in the world, kids can milk him for all he's worth. But if children know that their parents are doing the work of Mr. Claus, sticking those gifts under the tree, then there's a greater chance for true appreciation on Christmas morning. Speaking for myself, I was happy that I could give proper thanks to Mom and Dad who went through all this trouble for their family. Otherwise, I would have simply expected rewards from an invisible deity for whom anything was possible.

I do know that my parents were uncomfortable with how Santa Claus became deified. In spite of Charlie Brown and Linus's best efforts, Christmas had long ago changed from the silent, holy night that greeted the birth of a new message of love and peace into a loud and obnoxious night in which an obese elf stuffed living rooms full of useless shit for spoiled children. Mom, more than once, lamented that "These are grown adults, treating Santa Claus like a religion," parents actually becoming angry at children who didn't believe.

At this point, at my mention of "the true meaning of Christmas," some non-Christian readers may be thinking, "Ah, but even though your parents were telling you the truth about Santa Claus, they were still lying to you about Jesus." But there's a big difference there. No one believes in Santa Claus--except small children who will eventually grow out of it one way or the other. Many people -- most importantly, in this case, my parents -- believe in Jesus. Whether he actually exists or not (as a historical teacher, a supernatural redeemer of mankind, or otherwise) isn't the point. The point is that they believed in Jesus, as someone their children should know about. Whether they were telling me "lies" (things that weren't true) or not about Jesus is debatable, but they certainly weren't "lying" (intentionally telling me things that weren't true). In fact, they were telling me the complete truth to the best of their knowledge.

But lies lead to lies, and eventually the following are the kinds of questions you have to figure out answers to if you perpetuate the Santa Claus thing: Which Santa is the real one, the one at the mall or the one ringing the bell outside the Wal-Mart? How can Santa possibly circle the world and enter everyone's chimney in just one night? What if we don't have a chimney? If Santa's elves make all the toys themselves, then why do my gifts say Mattel and Fisher Price on them? Why did Joey not get as many presents as me when I know he's a lot nicer than I am?

On top of inventing uninspired (a word I choose carefully) mythology on the spot (never a good idea), the parents have to ask themselves the following sorts of questions as well: When is a good age to tell my kids the truth? Is it moral to use Santa Claus to get them to behave? Is my child going to be picked on at school for being the oldest kid who still believes in Santa? Will this belief influence other beliefs or disbeliefs in the future?

Or one could avoid this confusion and chaos altogether.

I do want to back up a bit and say this, that I don't believe anyone has actually become psychologically scarred as a result of believing in Santa Claus. (If they have, I haven't heard about it.) One day a little girl believes in him with all of her heart; the next day some kid at school says "Santa is just your mom and dad" and that makes sense to her and that's the end of that. All of the transitions I've heard about are relatively swift and fairly painless. The seemingly-best argument in favor of letting kids believe in Santa Claus is that they're only young once and can only truly believe in magic for a little while, so why ruin it for them?

Okay, sure, but get this! I'm a thirty-five-year-old man who still finds magic in Santa Claus, and I never once believed in him as a literal truth. I can also be brought to tears by contemplating the Christmas story, whether from the Biblical account or in its other incarnations (songs, movies, etc.). The story is very precious to me, even though I don't (sorry) believe in the virgin birth and even though I question such a thing as an historical Jesus. Because here's how it works. When a little boy or girl finally doesn't believe in Santa Claus anymore, it seems that the attitude just becomes "Oh, he ain't real," and suddenly Santa doesn't belong to them anymore--he belongs to dumber, younger children. "Kids' stuff." Just as certain non-Christians or former Christians might say "Oh, that ain't real" and dismiss the Christmas story altogether, something below them.

But I don't dismiss either of them, because -- when it comes to myth -- belief isn't the key ingredient. This is the great misunderstanding found in nearly every Christmas movie about Santa Claus. The basic plot of these movies is that kids stop believing in Santa and his powers wane and Christmas may not happen this year, but then some dumb miracle gets some skeptical kid to believe and Christmas comes after all. Or whatever. Belief becomes the main thing that matters in these movies, regardless of reality, when in fact it's the image that matters, not the belief.

I don't know if the Christmas story (any of it) is true or not, but its factuality is irrelevant to me. What matters is the image: a night of calm beauty, a single bright star revealing the focal point of the world, a fresh newborn lying among filthy beasts of burden, his mother who was impregnated by the universe itself, awe-struck shepherds who are let in on this great secret, men of learning who are spiritual enough to know the importance of this seemingly humble event, an angel declaring that peace and goodwill are finally possible. To unpack these images and explain them would take another writing, but the good news is that -- like a great painting or a dream -- no one has to explain them for the images to work. Those who look at a Christmas nativity scene and question the historicity of it ("Well, the wise men actually arrived years after Jesus' birth," "etc.) -- like the person who butts in to tell the children that their playtime isn't "real" -- are missing the point. The point is to have all of the images there at once. (A crèche works even better than reading Matthew or Luke.) Reality and fact are not the key players in providing the emotional and psychological resonance.

Somehow everyone understands this concepts with the "lesser" myths (fairy tales, legends, etc.) but not with the greater ones... and not with Santa Claus, which is why he seems to be playing ball with the Major Leagues (the deities) and not with the Minor Leagues (such as with hobgoblins or Robin Hood) where he belongs.

We know what Santa Claus at his worst embodies (over-commercialization, greed, false dichotomies), but at his best Santa Claus embodies a fun and colorful spirit for a secular world in which the giving of gifts can express love and bring happiness (for starters). Children are only literalists when you let them be, but they're also not too shabby at understanding symbolism if you let them do that. Rather than giving them one or two years in a belief-based understanding of the man in the red suit, why not (possibly) give them the greater gift of a lifetime of the joy and mystery that Santa Claus represents?

The Girl Who Cried Dragon

2010-09-11T00:14:00.002-05:00

What if, instead of hearing the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," someone told you the story of "The Girl Who Cried Dragon"? Instead of a boy who constantly lies that a wolf is attacking his sheep (only later for the lie to come true, when no one believes him), you're told a story about a girl who lies about a dragon who attacks the town's magic treasure? What would your response be? Would you think the story was nonsense because it wasn't how you were taught it? Would you knowledgably declare that dragons don't exist? Would you have a problem with the hero being female instead of male? Would you puzzle over the meaning of the magic treasure?

If you find these cosmetic differences in the two stories so big of an obstacle that you don't understand the basic moral -- namely that liars aren't believed even when they tell the truth -- then you're hopeless. But if you see why these minor changes in character, animal, sex, etc. don't affect the moral of the story one bit, then you can begin to understand the universal nature of myth and the language of God.

Rusty Consumes the Holy Books

2010-09-10T18:10:00.006-05:00

International Burn a Koran Day may or may not be held this Saturday. Whether or not it is, I figured I'd use the opportunity to treat holy books a little differently than Pastor Facialhair...

I started by reading the Koran rather than burning it. Boy, did I learn a lot! Did you know that Jesus is in it? Did you know that the god in it is the same god of Jews and Christians? It's part three of the Yahweh trilogy!

Next I read the Bible. I was told this was an instruction manual for living, but instead it's more like a multi-genred literary anthology: it's got mythology, history, legend, prophecy, songs, poetry, plays, erotica, letters, and more. You should read it! It's most likely not what you think it is!

Genesis was so good that I decided to read it again, as illustrated by the guy who invented Fritz the Cat and the "Keep on Truckin' " bumper stickers. He pictured the serpent as a lizard while I thought of it as a winged dragon, but that's the beauty of difference!

Hey, look! There's some stuff that wasn't included in the Biblical canon. It's just as cool, and it's where a lot of our ideas seem to come from. What do Adam and Eve do after leaving the garden? What does Paul find when he goes to Third Heaven? Find out!

Even Judas has a gospel. It wasn't dug up until recently, but it turns out Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice were absolutely correct back in the 70s!

Holy crap! The Epic of Gilgamesh has a flood story that's identical to the Noah story, but this one is one thousand years older! This stuff is really making me think!

The true mythology of America. It makes me wonder why "In Zeus We Trust" isn't written on our coins.

Sure, this Hindu text doesn't weigh as much as the Bible (and certainly not as much as Gary Larson's complete Far Side cartoons), but it's just as interesting.

After reading The Life of Buddha, I read this more contemporary adaptation of the life of Siddhartha Guatama. It has a better magic tree story than the Garden of Eden's.

Did you know that if you think you are certain about the nature of God (aka the Tao), then you must not be talking about God at all? Makes you wonder about all those people who think they know exactly who God is and how we should live our lives as a result.

Salinger also had some thoughts about Eastern philosophy. (He also called me yesterday just to say hello. Together, we're known as the "phonies.")

David Lynch doesn't only make the best movies; he can teach you about the power of meditation! Twenty minutes in a quiet room can change your life!

The Romans ripped off the Greeks and then the Christians, but they sure know how to tell a story!

Reading this, I felt like a Virgil, touched for the very first time.

Everything we see is just a shadow of a truer reality! The Matrix was right!

Man, it's too bad we killed these guys before they taught us this stuff.

My new favorite Native American stories! Hilarious! Religion should make you laugh as well as cause other emotions. I'm starting to see that lack of humor is part of the problem. The Trickster takes a dump on his own religion so that he doesn't take its symbolism too seriously. Book-burning would be rendered a mere joke!

I can feel the shackles falling off my mind. "One law for the lion and ox is oppression"! "Everything that lives is holy"! My favorite holy author so far! And Blake makes pretty paintings too! Everything you need to know about the power or prophetic writing is here. With comedy!

Since William Blake was so eye-opening, I tried another artist. Charles M. Schulz combines the beauties of Christianity and simplicity of Taoism with a knowledge of the psychology of suffering that goes even deeper than Buddhism. With jokes! In only four panels!

Could other comic books be holy books? I'm not sure if Popeye qualifies or not, but I sure love to watch Popeye punch the crap out of someone. Maybe if we read more violent, funny books, we wouldn't be as violent ourselves?

I honeymooned in St. Augustine, so I figured I could at least read his book.

Dante's concept of Hell is so over-the-top that I couldn't help but laugh at it. Satan gnaws on the head of Judas, Brutus, and Cassius: you can't make this stuff up!

From this book, I learned that Satan is more important than I ever imagined before. No wonder those heavy metal guys worship him!

The allegory is not exactly subtle. The lead character's name is Christian, for example.

Charles Dickens writes about another kind of Christmas ghost.

Oh, I see! Fear of death is a root of most religious belief. This scary story book of grusome stories makes that more clear than any reading I've done yet tonight.

More popular than Jesus?

I picked this one up thinking it was about the head that floats down the road in the Talking Heads' "Burning Down the House" video, but it wasn't.

Morality tales, starring animals! Everything is spelled out for you, but it's still more subtle than Bunyan.

I see! It doesn't matter if stories are "believed" or not; the importance is in the image and the effect it has on the mind and spirit. Thanks, George!

Since George MacDonald worked so well, I moved on to other fairy tales. No one believes these are factual either, and yet they work on a similar level as the higher myths. My brain is growing so big!

A combination of fairy tale and various mythologies, leaning heavily on the Christian. Very nice! A new favorite series (except The Horse and His Boy, which was boring). Once again, it doesn't matter that talking lions don't actually exist. I'm glad I took Jesus' suggestion to "become as a little child" and read all these holy kids' books.

Lewis's Mere Christianity had more goofy arguments than his children's books, but you should still read it.

Aha! You don't have to follow the archaic pre-scientific understanding of ancient holy books in order to be moral and spiritual! The scientists are the heroes in this book. Our understanding of the world should always be up to date scientifically, just as they were in the ancient days. Thanks, Maddy!

Thomas Mann fuses Greek mythology with contemporary ills, physical and spiritual. These old stories are applicable to the new!

Whaling as mythology. Every little detail about whaling is another detail about God.

Taoism in the form of a British stuffed bear owned by a little boy in short pants.

The Morte d'Arthur is good, but Howard Pyle makes it even more fun. Also check out his Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. Mythology combined with history and legend: the adventure of the human life!

You can't get enough Arthurian legend! This version is even suitable for musicals and cartoons!

I figured this would round out any holy writing for children I missed.

Life, the Universe, and Everything! Turns out humans don't come from monkeys after all. We come from an alien planet's useless middle-men that were shot off into space. Our absurd behavior makes perfect sense now!

Mark Twain makes me laugh at "the damned human race." Retellings of the Adam and Eve story!

Oh no! John Irving writes stories like M. Night Shyamalan writes movies! The mystery of religion reduced to cheap tricks and let-down conclusions! You can't win 'em all when you read as many books as I'm reading tonight.

Dostoevsky, on the other hand, does not disappoint. Almost everything I've read so far is found somewhere or other in this brick.

The mystery of the wordless moment, the nature of torture and menace, the sharp sting of language itself! Harold Pinter is indeed the weasel under the cocktail cabinet!

I gotta be careful not to be arrested for a thoughtcrime after reading all these mind-opening books! Big Brother is watching, and I don't mean Tony.

This one seemed oddly familiar to me. It had some nice things to offer concerning late twentieth century relationships and gas stations, but nothing you can't get somewhere else.

Hey, look! A book by my old religion teacher and relative (we both come from Sullivan's Hollow). Dr. Sullivan lets Christians know that sex isn't dirty after all! Wow, you can even have sex before marriage... or be a homosexual!

It sure helps when you read the death of God parable in context! Turns out it's not some idea that can be reduced to three words.

You mean all of these stories have the same essential elements? Every religious system is "true" if read as mythology rather than science or history within the context of the culture that created it? One story or god isn't any better than the other? We probably need a new collective mythology since the old ones are only causing problems and divisions?

Time to bone up on the anti-god stuff. Freud explains where religion comes from, which is nice to know, though something you can figure out yourself if you've read all the books I've read tonight.

After reading Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species and enjoying its own revelations and mythology (the "tree of life," etc.), I picked up this one... it wasn't what you might expect, though it certainly had Darwinian themes.

The mind of God as explained by Einstein is a little more complicated than mythological images I've grown used to, but it certainly makes more real-world sense and all amounts to the same thing.

No collection of holy readings is complete without this brilliantly-edited anthology of atheist writings from the past 2000 years. If you come out the other side of this tunnel, you'll be a changed person!

The title reveals Hitchens' thesis pretty well. A good chaser to all the god books.

I tried to round out what was missing by reading all the World Literature books I could find. Trees, water, snakes, underworlds, and fertility abounds!

My last stop was a book on writing. Since those who burn books and otherwise value ignorance tend to be horrible writers, I wanted to avoid sounding like them.

After reading all these holy books (and there were many more that I didn't take pictures of) -- rather than burning them -- I put them all in a blender, one by one, with a bit of banana for flavor.

I ended up with several glassfulls of holiness and knowledge in creamy, liquid form. It was sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly.

After figuratively and literally consuming every holy book I could get my hands on in one night, I became an enlightened human being. Even if you skip the milkshake idea, and even if you don't have time to read as many as I did, I strongly recommend reading at least one this weekend: preferably one you haven't read before or one you think you might hate.

HEADLINE: Citizens Angry at Landowner Over Dumb Misunderstandings

2010-08-22T02:32:00.009-05:00

One of my favorite aspects of America comes from the very first sentence of the very first amendment of the US Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The idea of separation of church and state (which Jesus himself advocated when he said to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God) is a beautiful thing, allowing us to be a republic/democracy (not a theocracy) that protects your rights to be a Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan, Atheist, or someone who's completely indifferent to the entire god thing.

And yet, though this simple and beautiful concept would work in practice if we'd let it, often we don't. Growing up (in Mississippi, if you're curious, not that that means anything), we had prayer in public schools all the time. I don't really know what they were thinking. Most probably, they weren't thinking anything. I student-taught once at a place where they did prayer over the intercom system. The principal said to me something like, "We could get in trouble for doing this, but I think it's worth the risk." My memory is fuzzy, but I think she even said, "Everyone here is a Christian anyway." Not only would that be beside the point, but it's quite an assumption. When my public school prayed when I attended, I considered myself a Christian, too, but I hated that they prayed in a public school. I knew it was wrong. Even if most of us could be filed under the broad label of "Christian," I knew that they weren't praying to my god. The god I believed in wouldn't have liked what they were doing. Especially since I knew for a fact that some of my friends were non-Christians and Atheists and may have cared for forced prayer even less than I did. During these prayers, with "every head bowed, every eye closed" (as they commanded you), I looked around the room in an angry mini-rebellion. I sometimes caught eyes with others who were probably doing the same.

Then of course I got to hear nonsense my whole life like "Everything gone downhill since they took prayer out of schools," which happened -- you know -- in 1964, so that shows how outdated a statement like that was (not to mention that the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791). Sometimes they'd go this far: "There's been another school shooting. Well, what do you expect when you take God out of the schools?" Which means, one must assume, that these statements were made by those who choose to worship a god who will murder innocent teenagers in the guise of a disturbed child with a shotgun (who now gets to spend the rest of his life in jail), just because he's upset that no one is talking to him during federally-funded education hours.

As I say, I don't know what people are thinking when they willfully combine church and state and impose their religion on others, but the sentiment sounds, to me, something like this: "Our ancestors came to America to flee religious persecution. The founding fathers included freedom of religion in the first amendment. That means that today every American is free to worship Jesus, and if any fuckers who believe in anything else want to do otherwise, I will eat the American flag and shit it down their pagan necks."

Sound demonic? It is.

This mentality is alive and well right now with the "controversy" over the Muslim community center (which is being built in order to improve Islam-West relations) being built several blocks from so-called "ground zero," where the World Trade Center used to be. I don't like to write about current events on the God Blog, and in a way I'm not, since this is just a manifestation of something that's been going on and will continue to go on: a continual struggle to uphold our constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Any objection that I've heard to the community center is based entirely on ignorance. I don't mean "ignorance" in the general, "you're stupid" way, but in the sense of not knowing something, or in believing misinformation. Some of the misinformation seems to be spread on purpose (for political reasons or to sell Post Toasties on television by stirring up exciting "controversy" for us to watch), some of it is from those who are too lazy to learn the truth, and some of it is simply a stubborn kind of ignorance.

Because what are the objections? The main one is that the community center is "insensitive" to 9/11 victims. First of all, what is more insensitive than forgetting the fact that many 9/11 victims were also Muslims? Second, 1.5 billion Muslims in all of their varieties are not the Taliban. To say that all Muslims are terrorists is to say that all Christians share the beliefs of the KKK, or that all Christians bomb abortion clinics. Islam does not equal Osama Bin Laden: a statement of fact, and one that, if taken as fact, erases all controversy.

Even George W. Bush told us this (beautifully) just one week after the attacks in 2001: "The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war." He went on to say, "Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't represent the best of America. They represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior. This is a great country. It's a great country because we share the same values of respect and dignity and human worth."

And the spreaders of misinformation, those who set up some false image of evil terrorists Muslims setting up a "fuck you" mosque (which translates to "terrorist attack headquarters") on the rubble of the twin towers, should be ashamed. But at least I can understand those people. They're hoping to use this for a future political victory. I can understand that kind of selfish evil, even if I don't care for it one drop.

But I don't quite understand non-politicians and non-pundits who are opposed to the mosque and therefore opposed to their own religious freedom, unless they're just that gullible. When someone cries "just build it somewhere else," the "somewhere else" is really "not America." In their world (I can only guess), America is composed entirely of Christians who look like them. New York City, however, is one of the greatest cities in the world (even if it's not my personal cup of tea) because of its diversity. If there's such a thing as a "real America," New York City is it. And if you have such a narrow view that you think "real America" is only white Christian carnivores, then you should probably shut up until you learn a little something about this country of immigrants and ideas.

To paraphrase (and add to) Yoda, "Ignorance leads to fear which leads to hate which leads to suffering."

Ignorance: "All Muslims are terrorists." "A mosque is being built on ground zero in order to claim victory and rub it in." "America is a Christian nation." "Barack Obama is a secret Muslim." "Muslims are secret because they're evil and they're always plotting to overthrow the country." "Illegal immigrants are dropping anchor babies who will grow up to be terrorists." Etc.

Fear: "The Muslim terrorists want to kill me." "The mosque will train the secret Muslims to make me become Muslim, too, or die." "Barack Obama will use a combination of socialism and Muslim terrorism to make me his slave." "Illegal immigrants' anchor babies will convert my babies into Muslim terrorists who will kill me and my wife."

Hate: "I hate those goddamned Muslims!"

Suffering: "Kill the Muslims! Bring on the 2010 Crusades!"

I can't tell how much of that is exaggerated. If the guys on television believe the nonsense coming out of their mouths, almost none of it is.

Well-founded personal opinions are excellent. They make the world go 'round. But ignorance is not acceptable. Franklin Graham, son of Billy, said that Obama's "problem" is that he was "born a Muslim," which means that Graham believes just enough of Islam (the idea that lineage passes down through the father) to condemn Obama for being a part of it, even when, of course, he isn't a Muslim--though apparently 20% of Americans believe he is (which, once again, demonstrates the problem with "belief" vs. facts). White House spokesperson Bill Burton said that Graham was entitled to his opinion. No! This isn't an opinion. If someone says that I, Rusty Spell, am made of cheese, that's not an opinion. It's a delusion. Graham is entitled (as a mentally insane person) to his delusion, and we are entitled to have someone in the know say, "Billy Graham's idiot son is delusional."

My original point is this: If you are worried about someone else's religion taking over yours, then the last thing you want to do is limit freedom of religion! The moment you say "You can't build that here, even though you're an American protected under the first amendment" is the moment you're saying "Take my religion, please." The moment a public school teacher or principal forces students to pray is the moment when their freedom of religion is stolen from them. Why is this not common sense?

And "insensitive"? This word used by a group of people who control everything in such a way as to be able to use the concept of "them" when referring to Muslims as if Muslims don't have televisions and aren't American? A group who thinks that being Muslim is a "problem," that Barack should be ashamed (or something?) even if he were? A group who insists Christmas upon the entire nation for about three-fourths of the year? A group who denies basic rights to about ten percent of the nation because they think dudes kissing dudes is gross? A group who builds "abortion graveyards" on their church lawns specifically to make people feel bad?

Look, I just I don't want to live in a theocracy controlled by the ignorant, that's all, and this whole thing is really bothering me, if you can't tell. I haven't felt this bad since my elementary school teacher said this prayer: "Dear Jesus, I know everyone in this room believes in you... and if they don't, I pray that you will save their souls today." Will the fate of our country come down to our "opinions" about whether Obama bows to Mecca five times a day or whether he bows at his bedside every night, to pray to something that is -- let's face it -- invisible? Is our country becoming nothing but a collection of delusions? Will our freedom of religion be taken away because someone refuses to give that freedom to someone else because (get this) "they hate us for our freedom"?

Allah forbid.

A Phrase To Avoid

2010-07-01T04:15:00.007-05:00

Never say this again: "Well, I'm a Christian, so..."

There are a few reasons for this request. If you were to say, "Well, I'm a feminist, so I believe in equal rights for women," it might be okay, but even in this example you can see that it's redundant: you're just defining what a feminist is. You could just say "I believe in equal rights for women" and it would mean the same thing. Also, you don't believe in equal rights for women because you're a feminist, because you have this feminist label. You are called a feminist because you believe in equal rights for women. Similarly, when you say "Well, I'm a Christian, so..." you're mixing up cause and effect.

Unfortunately, you're not even being redundant if you say "Well, I'm a Christian." You're simply not communicating anything. Because the label Christian has no real meaning. You can hear that the word has no meaning when you listen to what comes out of different people's mouths after saying this phrase:

"Well, I'm a Christian, so I believe in the trinity."
"Well, I'm a Christian, so I don't approve of homosexuality."
"Well, I'm a Christian, so I am a member of the Republican party."
"Well, I'm a Christian, so I believe we need to do missionary work."
"Well, I'm a Christian, so I believe the Pope is infallible."

Et cetera.

You couldn't get all Christians to believe in any one of those things. I'm not sure that an umbrella definition for Christian exists, and there certainly isn't a shared belief system, in spite of some apparent similarities. (The best you could say, and be universal, is "Well, I'm a Christian, so I have some belief having something to do with Christ." Maybe.) So when you use this phrase, what you're really saying is, "Well, my version of Christianity forces me to believe this..."

The word forces in the rephrase above is my next problem. Again, look at cause and effect. Do you (to pick one of the above examples) not approve of homosexuality because you're a Christian or do you not approve of homosexuality for some other reason? If it's the latter, then just state your reason. If it's the former, then really this isn't a "reason" at all. It has nothing to do with reason. It has only to do with a somewhat arbitrary definition that you think you are following. To go back to the feminist example, you might say that you believe in equal pay for men and women because it is fair (and you could go on to explain why it's fair), but you wouldn't say "because that's what I think feminists believe." You wouldn't say "Because I was raised feminist" and leave it at that (at least, you wouldn't have to leave it at that).

You can truly see the fruitlessness of the "I'm a Christian, so..." phrase when two Christians who use it talk to one another. Listen:

CHRISTIAN 1: Do you think abortion is wrong?
CHRISTIAN 2: Well, I'm a Christian, so yes.
CHRISTIAN 1: But I'm a Christian too, and I don't think abortion is wrong.
CHRISTIAN 2: Then you must not be a Christian.
CHRISTIAN 1: But I am, and that's what we believe.

Et cetera.

Now listen to a Christian and a Non-Christian for another version of fruitless conversation:

NON-CHRISTIAN: Do you believe we should spank our kids?
CHRISTIAN: Well, I'm a Christian, so I don't believe we should.
NON-CHRISTIAN: What about "Spare the rod, spoil the child"? I thought that's what Christians believed.
CHRISTIAN: Maybe some do.
NON-CHRISTIAN: Personally, I think that children need a harsher form of discipline than "time out." Spankings seem to be more effective.
CHRISTIAN: Well, you say that because you're not a Christian.

Et cetera.

Of course the Non-Christian in the above dialogue approves of spankings not because he's "not a Christian" but because he actually has a reason, and he's able to give it. The Christian in the above example, however, can't provide any real reason for himself, and -- what's worse -- he ignores the Non-Christian's actual argument, pointing instead to something that isn't a reason at all.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying that Christians individuals don't have real reasons for believing what they believe. Most do (or at least I hope they do). Most can provide arguments that don't simply fall back on the answer "because I'm a Christian." But whether real reasons exist or not, the phrase should go away. Then the real reasons can emerge from behind the clouds. And those people without real reasons, who rely on the phrase, might begin to actually think for themselves.

A Question of Grammar

2010-06-27T02:24:00.001-05:00

Should pronouns referring to God be capitalized? (For example: "God will do whatever He wants.") No. There's your quick and easy answer from a real life English professor: me.

But maybe you want to know why. First, it's ugly. That should be enough.

But there's more. Let's take a look at some examples. Let's say you're a religious person writing about God. You write something like the example above: "God will do whatever He wants." My thought as a reader is stop preaching to me. Rather than getting across whatever message you're trying to get across, you're simply condescending to me, invoking some capitalization trickery to show me that your point is valid and mine isn't because your God is Big.

Let's say you're a religious person writing about God and you write the same example, but without the capitalization: "God will do whatever he wants." A reader will be more willing to read more from this person. No disrespect has been shown to God or to the reader.

Let's also imagine that you're a non-religious person writing about God. "God will do whatever He wants." The condescension of the religious person has become the mockery of the non-religious person. The "He" may as well be in quotation marks as the mocker prances around the room. In both situations, using non-caps allows people to write to each other in a civilized manner.

More important, you can write in a more objective manner. I consistently (well, when I have time for proofreading) correct my student's papers when they summon the capital pronoun. "God placed a rainbow in the sky to show that He will remember His promise." Is there anything less academic? I've never seen anyone do it for Zeus. "Zeus transformed into a swan so He could have sex with Leda." In an academic situation, the capital pronoun tells us too much about your personal life and takes away your credibility as a dispassionate critic.

C.S. Lewis argued that you should use capital pronouns for God based on the idea that it's a nice little grammar convention that prevents confusion (i.e. that you will be certain what the pronoun is referring to). But C.S. Lewis was a man who always employed what seemed like good common sense simply in order to get what he wanted (God love him).

He, like others, wanted to show "respect." Seems an odd way to show it, but I do understand the impulse. I suppose, then, that this kind of capitalization is allowed (reluctantly) in one situation: a religious person writing to an audience of religious people. But even in that case, you should know that what you are doing is "preaching to the choir." You're saying "Isn't God great?" and your readers are saying "Surely He is" and you're saying "Kind of comes across as an empty religious cliché, doesn't it?" and they're saying, "Yes, but don't it make us feel good!" Et cetera.

So there you have it. If you want ugly, condescending (or mocking) sentences that discredit your arguments and makes your words seem hollow, go ahead and capitalize. But don't be surprised when Zeus strikes you down with His thunderbolt.

BONUS GRAMMAR (in case you didn't know): Capitalize the word god only when it is used as a proper name: "Our god is named God."

Two Ways of Looking at a Tree

2010-06-12T01:45:00.003-05:00

Consider these two stories:

Story One: A prince is born supernaturally out of the side of his mother. His father, the king, never allows him to leave the palace, preventing him from seeing old age, disease, or death. But the prince makes it outside one day anyway, and the gods allow him to see these things, which makes the prince want to learn more. The prince sits beneath a tree and declares he won't leave it until he gains the knowledge he wants. A supernatural snake encourages him to do so, declaring that this will be the day he will enjoy the divine fruit. While demons try to prevent the prince, the gods encourage him. Eventually the prince gains the knowledge he wants and becomes enlightened about the nature of suffering. He is now able to help others to do the same.

Story Two: A man is born supernaturally from the ground and then a woman is born out of his side. Their father, a god, shelters them from all suffering within a garden, not allowing them to experience shame, bodily pain, hard work, or death. There is a tree that can give them this knowledge, but their father forbids it. A supernatural snake encourages the woman to eat the fruit of the tree anyway, telling her that she will gain knowledge if she does. She eats from the tree, shares the fruit with her husband, and they become aware of themselves and experience shame. Their father curses the snake, makes the woman (and all women) suffer in childbirth, and makes the man (and all men) experience hard work. They are forced out of the shelter of the garden to eventually age and die (as will all mankind as a result).

The first is the story of the Buddha and the Bodhi tree. The second is the story of Adam and Eve and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They are both essentially the same story (birth from side, sheltering father, encouraging snake, tree of knowledge, recognition of suffering), but with one major difference: in the first one, the knowledge tree is good; but in the second, the knowledge tree is bad.

If you ask most people what the message of the Adam and Eve story is, the disappointing answer tends to be "Don't disobey." It's the best anyone can usually come up with. "Don't disobey" is fine if you're meant to obey a rule worthy of following. If God had said, "Don't eat from the tree of violence," then maybe. But instead, he's forbidding knowledge. Why is knowledge bad? We tend to think that knowledge is good, right? Is it bad in this case? Again, the common answer is yes. Why? "Because God commanded it." And if that's the answer, then the real "moral" of the story of the garden is "Listen to anything anyone tells you, no questions asked, even if they forbid something that seems good for you. By all means, remain ignorant."

And of course Eve and Adam did see that the knowledge was good for them, and the snake helped them to see it. If the story had stated that the couple ate the fruit and discovered suffering that already existed, the story would have made better sense. But, instead, the story says that the couple caused suffering, that they were the origin of it. But you know what? It's not our faults. Suffering is a fact of life. Childbirth pain is a fact of life. Working hard to survive is a fact of life. And death is the ultimate fact of life. Unfortunately, because of this story, millions of people are blaming themselves (or at least some distant ancestor) for something that isn't their fault. Isn't suffering and death painful enough to deal with without thinking that it's also our fault?

Now, if the story had simply said that God gave the couple a choice: if he had asked, "Do you choose to live a sheltered life of ignorance, or do you choose to become more like me and know what real life is all about?" then we would have an accurate story. This is what the Buddha story is. The prince could have lived his sheltered life that the king (the God equivalent) provided him, but he chose knowledge, to know suffering, and to help mankind with that suffering. The snake was right; the king was wrong.

Blaming yourself for the existence of death is foolish, not to mention conceited beyond belief. Refusing to believe that death exists is also foolish. Facing death is the beginning of wisdom and of real life. No one should want to live in the Garden of Eden, in a world of ignorance, selfish and useless to the rest of humanity. Blind acceptance of authority is not a good lesson. Being ashamed of knowledge, enlightenment, and human curiosity is a horrible lesson.

Mythological stories use strong images to convey very large truths that can't always be expressed literally or in any other way. They are so powerful that they guide the consciousness of millions of people, whether these people realize it or not. But is it possible that myth can sometimes get it wrong? When I compare these two stories, it seems that the answer is yes.

Genesis Retold: Part One

2010-05-27T02:24:00.006-05:00

Based on the New Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible

Chapter One

Before there was earth and sky, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the chaotic waters. A strong wind and lightning swept over these waters and light appeared: sometimes it was light and sometimes it was dark.

A dome began to form around the earth, separating the chaotic waters, forming a sky. The waters on earth began to gather into one place (the seas) and dry land appeared (the ground).

The ground began to bring forth vegetation: plants and fruit trees and trees of every kind containing seeds.

Stars and other lights were in the sky, which were used for seasons, days, and years. The greater light was the sun, which shined during the day. The lesser light was the moon, which shined during the night.

The water brought forth swarms of living creatures, and birds flew above the earth in the sky. There were great sea monsters and every living creature the water swarms with. These sea creatures were fruitful and multiplied and they filled the waters of the sea, while the birds multiplied on the land.

The earth brought forth living creatures: cattle and creeping things and wild animals.

Humans appeared, male and female, and they became thinking creatures, and they had dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, the wild animals, and every creeping thing. They were fruitful and multiplied; they filled the earth and tamed nature.

Every plant and every fruit tree were the food for the humans. Every green plant was food for the beasts, birds, and everything that creeps on the earth.

Chapter Two

In one area of the earth, there were no plants or herbs in the field, because there was no rain, although there were streams that would water the ground. Since the dust of the earth brought forth mankind, man could till the ground and plant gardens, where he would live. One man lived in a garden in a land he called Eden.

A river flowed out of Eden to water his garden. This river divided into four branches: Pishon (which flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, bdellium, and onyx stone), Gihon (which flows around the whole land of Cush), Tigris (which flows east of Assyria), and the Euphrates.

Men eventually named every living creature: giving names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field. But among these animals, there was no suitable helper or mate for men. Only women were compatible for men. And men would say of their women, "She is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." This is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, because it seems as if they become one flesh, as if woman had been taken from out of the body of man. And the man and woman who lived in the garden were always naked, and they were not ashamed.

Chapter Three

Now the woman was one who wished to gain knowledge. Sometimes she felt as if her thoughts came from somewhere else, from some crafty creature, because these thoughts opened her eyes. She saw that knowledge was good, delightful, something to be desired to make one wise. She learned about death, and she learned about good and evil. She shared her knowledge with her husband and his eyes were opened too. They realized that they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together to make loin cloths for themselves.

The woman and man's new knowledge made them feel guilty and afraid and they sometimes wanted to hide. The man blamed the woman for sharing her knowledge with him, and the woman blamed the thoughts that seemed to come from somewhere else, from some crafty creature, as if she had been tricked. The woman's least favorite creature in the garden was the serpent, because it would strike at her heel and she would have to strike at his head. So she blamed the serpent, as a symbol of these thoughts, and she imagined that this is why the serpent slid upon its belly and ate dust all the days of its life.

The woman learned of other things, such as the pangs in childbearing. She learned that in pain women brought forth children, yet she knew that she had desire for her husband anyway, because he ruled over her.

The man learned that he would have to toil all of his days, because the ground would not easily yield things to eat; it contained thorns and thistles, and he had to eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of his face he ate his bread, until he returned to the ground, because out of dust he was brought forth and to dust he would return.

The man and woman made garments of skins for clothes. They knew about good and evil, and they knew they would not live forever. They knew that, if there was a secret for living forever, it would be impossible to obtain it. And they left the garden in Eden to till the ground elsewhere.

Read Part Two.

Belief in God: An Analysis of My Early Years

2010-05-18T15:10:00.005-05:00

Introduction
I'd like to analyze my earliest beliefs about God, to explain why I believed what I believed as a young boy and young man. I'd also like to stop shy of my current beliefs, since those don't really matter for this post. I also do not want to argue any belief or disbelief in God. I'm not trying to convince you of that (even if I write in the second person). This is a self-analysis of what started it all, but not a statement where I ended up or of what you should think.

Because I Said So
The main reason I believed in God, of course, was because I was told he existed: by parents, by siblings, by teachers, by the television, by the President of the United States... As kids, we believe in all kinds of things. I remember sitting in front of the TV Saturday mornings sincerely trying to figure out if the people inside the set could see me and if I should put on some clothes or stay in my underwear. I also believed you could get a girl pregnant by touching her nipples. I'm not ashamed of these little boy beliefs. Very early human adults didn't know where babies came from either, and I'm sure they'd have had some odd thoughts about television.

There is a difference between those little boy beliefs and a belief in God. While I (badly) reasoned that the folks in the TV could see me and that thing about the nipples, God isn't something you really arrive at yourself. Even if it could be something you arrive at by yourself, you don't get that chance. You're bombarded with him before your cloudy brain turns into a firm one (and that takes a long time). And you're not just told he exists: you're told exactly what he's like, where he lives, what he wants you to do, and all the rest of it (with varying descriptions, of course, from different people). Your parents, siblings, teachers, and the rest are the authorities. You rely on them for all your information. Most of the information is good and valuable and provable. Don't touch the stove or it will burn you. Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals. But the thing that many hold (or pretend to hold) as most valuable of all -- God -- isn't provable.

So that's the first reason why I believed in God as a small child. This is an important fact. It wasn't until later that I realized that sometimes authorities are wrong and not to be believed without further investigation. You haven't really analyzed your belief in God unless you come to grips with the fact that this is what started it all for you, that your belief is not from deduction or revelation, but from what someone told you a long time ago.

The Good Book
After I was told that God exists, I was told how to find out about him in this thing called the Bible. What about the other God books? The Koran, The Rig Veda, Hesiod's Theogony? I either wasn't told about them, or -- when I was -- they were dismissed as so much bullshit. Ignore them or treat them as fiction. The Bible is the "Word of God." Period. Because I was accepting of everything else at that age, I was accepting of this dismissal too.

So the Bible soon becomes this invaluable text, whether you actually read it or not. You can take the Bible on authority too: just listen to someone's summary and interpretation of it and you don't have to wade through the pages and pages and pages.

For me, I did read it (or most of it) on my own at an early age, and I started noticing that people were saying things about it that weren't exactly there. I also started immediately questioning some of the more odd-sounding parts. I knew that when I read fairy tales, that the giants didn't really exist, and yet I was told that they did in the Bible. I knew that animals didn't talk, and yet they did in the Bible. I couldn't imagine all those creatures fitting on an ark. Was a man named Abraham really crazy enough to almost kill his son, and were we meant to believe that he was a good man for doing so? So even as a young and gullible kid, I saw lots of the stories from the Bible as more or less illustrative, exaggerations to prove a point. I didn't take everything as factual history.

But a few things I did. God created the world, Jesus came down and died and rose, the world is going to end and Jesus will take care of his people somehow. All the core stuff, whether it was believable or not. Like everyone, I played "pick and choose" with my Biblical beliefs. I guess the core stuff was just too big and important, so it was drilled in head more. But if I didn't believe that Moses parted the Red Sea, fine. At any rate, the Bible was a certain kind of truth for me and became a certain kind of "proof" concerning God.

Egomaniac
I can explain my willingness to ignore other holy books and other conceptions of God in another way. I am the center of the goddamned universe. I knew that Jackson was the capital of Mississippi, the state where I lived; but I thought that Pearl (the city where I lived) should have been the capital because it was the best. I had the best and prettiest mother in the world. My school football team was the best, much better than the shitty team that lived in the next town over. And I lived in the greatest country on earth. God had once favored a handful of Jews and got them to write my holy book for me, but eventually he got tired of them and their stinky old desert and decided to pay attention to Americans instead.

You can see that there's nothing objective about any of the above, but it's more or less what I thought and what lots of people -- both children and adults -- think to their dying day. I think humans feel this way to save time more than anything. Do I really have to travel all over the world to see which country might be the best to live in, or can I just assume that the one I know is the greatest? Because it has to be the greatest, because I am the center of the goddamned universe and I will accept no less, no matter what the facts are.

Eventually I started realizing things that stripped me of my ego. For example, I learned that while most Americans are Christians, most Iranians are Muslim. Most Chinese are Buddhist. Most Indians are Hindu. Furthermore, while most all of my friends were Christians, some were Baptist, some were Catholic, some were Methodist--whatever their parents were. It started sinking in that you are what you are taught. My Christian ministers told me that those people in other religions simply didn't know any better and that -- if they were lucky -- Jesus would reveal himself to them and their nations too, but I was a little suspicious of what they said. Eventually I concluded that if had been born in Iraq, I would have been Muslim. But, as a Christian American, I still felt lucky that I hadn't been.

Just Lucky, I Guess
The life I was born into, combined with my ego, also helped convince me that God was real and that he cared for me personally. My family was neither extremely poor nor extremely rich. We had economic struggles, but we never missed meals or went without expensive toys at Christmas. We were very happy most of the time--at least I know I was. It seemed that I was blessed by God. Everything just magically worked out for me. If we had an economic hardship, God would see us through it. When a tornado struck down in our town, we'd hunker down in the hallway and pray that it wouldn't hit us and it didn't. If our car was stuck in a flood on the highway, God would send some nice men to push us out of it.

I'm not saying that the same theory doesn't work for the extremely rich, the extremely poor, or the extremely "unlucky." (It does.) This is just how it worked out for me: I was always provided proof of the goodness of God for the most part, punctuated by occasional rough patches that God got us through without fail.

Once again, I see there's no real logic here. In fact, it's a logical fallacy: false cause. But this is how it felt. Just like, when you're playing Monopoly as a kid, it feels like it helps to shake the dice forever while saying "Come on eight! Come on eight!" And when you do roll eight, it was because of what you did; when you don't, it was because your brother or sister had cursed you somehow. Life, too, feels like a game of chance, and it helps to believe that God loads the dice for us.

Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings
Probably the number one reason I kept believing in God (even after some of the realizations and rationalizations mentioned above) was emotions. I felt that I felt God. I experienced emotions that were not quite like the ones I experienced with other things. They were related -- involving tears, laughter, disgust, euphoria, sick feelings, giddiness, guilt, mourning, and many more -- but they had a slightly different God-like flavor.

There are a couple of ways of looking at this. One is to recognize that the only reason I felt they were of God was because someone (once again) told me that that's what they were. If, for example, I was a small child in church feeling overwhelming emotions while listening to music or praying, someone would say, "That's God you're feeling." I felt something I didn't know, and someone was there with a ready-made answer and thousands of years of religion to support it.

You can see why someone might think that music (to pick on music as an emotion-causer for a moment) that causes you to feel other, seemingly opposite ways might be called "the Devil's music." Perhaps Elvis's hips and rock music did eventually lead to the sexual revolution. Look at the hippies at Woodstock in a frenzy and compare them to people at church "in the spirit." It seems that the main difference is the music itself, the locale, and the amount of clothing worn. (And the drugs, of course. Religious ecstasies are drug-free.)

The other way of looking at this is to recognize that maybe there is something to these feelings that are associated with God, that they're associated with God for a reason. This isn't "proof" that God exists any more than it's proof that the Devil exists (when he forces us to headbang while listening to his heavy metal music) or that Eros the god of sexual love exists (when he drives us nearly insane with passion), but at least it gives a name to "godly" feelings, since we may not have much else to call them and all the forms they might take: from dancing "in the spirit" to raising hands to shouting to speaking in tongues. (I choose these Pentecostal or Charismatic incarnations since some of the less extreme feelings wouldn't have meant as much to me and I just associated them with warm feelings you might get at Christmas or watching a sad movie.)

A related reason I believed in God was because I didn't want to be lumped in with the grumpy ol' Atheists who seemed to be lacking these special feelers and thought only with their dry brains. I believed that the essential difference between Atheists and Theists was a presence or a lack of a "God antennae" that hooked up to our spiritual radio box (presumably given to you by God himself). I don't at all feel that way about Atheists anymore, but that's another post.

When You Wish Upon a Star
I have to talk about magic. I could call it other words, but "magic" seems to contain all the other words I'm trying to get at and with all the right connotations: numinous, artificial, otherworldly, cheesy, mythological, wish-granting, mysterious, fantastic, tricky, awe-inspiring, artistic... When I was a kid, I almost only read magic books. Most of my play and daydreams involved fantasy. I began to associate God with magic; he was the gateway to the other world.

So, as Freud argues, my belief in God here was based upon an illusion, a wish-based fantasy. I wanted my world to contain magic, and I figured God was the only "real" way for that to happen. Of course, as many have argued, the world is pretty darn magical without believing in anything supernatural. The main reason fantasies and legends are attractive is because they're not real, but not always because of anything necessarily special about them. The grass is always greener on the other side of the magic door. Is Atlantis any more special than Paris, France? Is Bigfoot any more special than Lucy the Australopithecus? Don't butterflies, fireflies, and hummingbirds seem almost as magical as anything in fairy stories? What about the Grand Canyon? Glow-in-the-dark underwater creatures? "The 1812 Overture"? Soft-serve ice cream? Personal computers?

Whether God had a hand in creating these things or not is debatable, but my point is that eventually I realized that I believed in God partially because I wanted magic, which seemed wrong or weird, and then I further realized that I had magic already anyway.

God à la Cart
No two people believe in the same god. This is a thing I'm convinced of, even if I'm not convinced of too many things. Even things that certainly exist aren't always "seen" or talked about in the same way, but at least with visible things you can point to them so that we can have something of a general consensus. But with invisible things, we have to personally invent and decide what we're talking about.

One of the things that became appealing to me about God was that I could pretty much make him whatever I wanted him to be. Everyone else did it. (The Catholics famously invented limbo because they didn't know where else to stick the un-baptized babies.) You can look at this historically for evidence, how God always changes with the times and culture. Or you can simply get a group of two or three together and ask them to talk about God. Get two or three from the same church, from the same family even. You'll meet with some agreement at first since they've been taught the same things, but keep going and you'll see that some things they've discarded, some they've picked up from elsewhere, and some they've just invented. (If they're willing to talk about it, anyway. You might just get some uncomfortable squirms from those who are afraid they aren't conforming to the correct picture.)

I never liked the idea of a god who tortured you in hell for eternity just for being born, so I got rid of that. I picked some bits I liked from Genesis about God regretting that he created man and then regretting that he destroyed them with the flood, so I imagined God as someone who actually could screw up, who wasn't perfect or even omnipotent. Etc.

I don't want this to sound the way it sounds, but I believe people (including me) like arguing about God the way guys in comic book stores like arguing about superheroes. Who would win in a fight: Hulk or Wolverine? The God of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims (all three worship the same "character," by the way) may be the most dominant god in the world because he's described as the most powerful. The Bible itself says that these other super-villain gods exist (or at least that people thought they did), but Yahweh/God/Allah kicked all of their asses (including Thor, who is both a god and a comic book hero). Invention and debate about God's character is not only necessary but fun.

But, as they say, the fun all stops when someone loses an eye (and then another eye is required as payment), which is what ends up happening with religious arguments. We have so many wars and lesser denominational splits because every single person who believes in a god has their own conception. Which is one reason why I also eventually decided that if you're gonna talk about God, you need to have a sense of humor and not take yourself so seriously.

Conclusion
Although I spent all this time more or less debunking any reasons why I believed in God as a youngster, I want to say once again that the point of this post wasn't necessarily for debunking. It certainly wasn't to debunk anyone besides me anyway. I just wanted to examine my belief of God during my early years in as honest a way as possible, and what I found is that I believed in him because I was told so by authorities (who also told me why I felt certain emotions), because I saw the world in relation to myself rather than in an objective way, and because of wishes.

If you're curious about what I think now, I will only say this. If I do still believe in God (in whatever form), the remaining reason must only be because I'm incredibly stubborn. But if I don't believe in God, then I must be incredibly silly to spend all this time talking about him.

500 Page Tome vs. 12 Line Scrap of Paper

2010-05-07T16:21:00.001-05:00

I ordered, online, a used copy of Christopher Hitchens' The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever in which Hitchens collects atheist writings by 47 authors from the past more than 2000 years. Hidden inside was this tiny square of paper:

I feel that the universe is in balance.

Parable #4

2010-05-05T22:54:00.003-05:00

The Parable of the Wooden Talents: A Lost Parable of Jesus Christ

When Jesus and his disciples had departed from the house of Simon the leper in Bethany, the Lord gathered his disciples together and spoke unto them a parable. Thus he spoke: "There lived a man who collected for himself wooden talents. Other men collected talents of gold and lived richly, enjoying the pleasures of the world. But the man who collected wooden talents could not live as they lived, for the wooden talents were worthless and of no value. Other men mocked this man, saying, 'See this man who collects only wooden talents! They are useless, for they are made of wood and not fine gold. He will die a poor man who has not tasted the pleasures of life.'

"But the man who collected wooden talents did not heed the other men, for he had found a greater happiness for himself than that which can be found in gold. Though the wooden talents only brought him a life of poverty and depravation in life, he felt that they were holy. And the day that the man died, he gathered his wooden talents around him and said aloud, 'I have spent my life, indeed my youth and my old age, collecting these holy wooden talents. The wicked that collect gold around me die, the same as I am surely dying now, but they have lived lives of pleasure. I have lived the life of a man who only collects wooden talents.' And the man died."

Then the disciples, who had heard Jesus speak many parables in the past, hastened to interpret the meaning of the parable. Peter spoke to the Lord: "Rabbi, I have an interpretation of your parable." Then Jesus spoke, saying, "Let us hear." Peter spoke, interpreting: "The man with the wooden talents is likened to the disciples of the Lord, who are few in number. He is not great in wealth, but he has in his possession the secrets to the Kingdom of Heaven. The other men with the golden talents are likened unto the world, who are great in number. They have great fortune, but their happiness only lies in worldly things. Therefore we should be as the man who collects wooden talents, separating ourselves from the sin and flesh of the world." And Jesus heard Peter's words, but he spake not.

When the other disciples lay themselves to rest, Judas Iscariot approached the Lord, saying, "Rabbi, tell me the true meaning of the parable of the wooden talents." And the Lord spoke to him, saying, "The man with the wooden talents are indeed as the disciples of the Lord, as Peter has spoken. And the men with the golden talents are the world. But verily I say unto you that the wooden talents are made only of wood and are worthless. If they make a man happy, it is a fool's happiness. If it make a man happy to spit upon those who spend gold, it is a prideful man who spits, and a fool. If a man say that wood is holy, he is a fool. The gold, however, is likened unto happiness and of life, for it contains something of value. Man should enjoy what riches can be found in life and not hoard things that have no value, calling it 'holy.' Therefore, live in the world, Judas, and do not waste your life as a man who collects wooden talents."

When Judas heard these words, his eyes were opened. He said unto the Lord: "If then, Lord, I should happen to find true wealth, and not a fool's wooden talent, shall I then accept it? What if not gold, Lord? What if I am given thirty pieces of silver to do a task? Shall I accept even silver, trading in my wooden talents, seeing as silver has true worth?" And the Lord spake: "It would be wise for you to do so, Judas Iscariot." Judas then departed from the presence of the Lord, and Jesus began that day to make preparations for the Passover.

Charles Darwin, Prophet of God: On the Origin of Species

2010-03-31T21:28:00.003-05:00

If you do a Google search for "God," "prophet," and "Charles Darwin," you'll see that I'm not the first to suggest what I'm about to say, that Darwin was a prophet of God. (Luckily, the point of this writing isn't simply to make that claim.) You know how both believers and non-believers are always asking why God doesn't speak to anyone anymore like he did a few thousand years ago? Or those who say that God will reveal more about himself one day, but we'll just have to wait? Those people have obviously never read Charles Darwin.

When Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, we learned more about God than we had in hundreds of years. We arguably learned more than we ever had from any other book, sacred or otherwise.

One could make the case that many revelations of God are really just advances in scientific understanding. In the very old days, we didn't know anything about nature, but we wanted to understand it. What were the amazing flashes in the sky and the loud noises that followed? What was the invisible coolness we felt on our faces that blew our hair? What was the incredible wet stuff that gave us life but could also drown us? What was the hot flickering that became the centerpiece of civilization but that also could consume us? We called it God! In all of his awe and wonder and terror, something to be loved and feared, that gave life and killed.

Specifically, it was gods. And eventually these gods were named. (Naming them was a step toward understanding.) What we now call thunder and lightning was Zeus or Thor or Indra, depending on where you lived. The wind was Njord or Fujin. And so on. Everything was a god, and God was everywhere you were. (It's difficult to speak of nature in this way now without sounding like a hippy, but I do wish we hadn't lost all of this belief. We would think twice about polluting the ocean if we thought that Poseidon might take his revenge. But we should think this way, because of course he will.)

The Greeks not only assigned gods to nature but to human feelings and ideas and experiences, like Laziness (Aergia), Peace (Irene), and Dreams (Morpheus). So not only was nature God, but so was everything you thought, felt, and experienced.

In early creation stories, like the Enuma Elish, the Mesopotamian epic of creation, you had Tiamat (primeval water) who was the grandmother of Anshar (heavens) and Kishar (earth). A storm wasn't just a storm: it was the great god Marduk. But in later creation stories, like Genesis, suddenly nature was just nature. Heaven and earth weren't gods, but God created the heavens and the earth. It may not sound like it now, but this was a scientific leap.

You often hear those who follow the Bible say that science pushes God out of the picture, but Genesis is the book that truly did so when it denied us the idea that we were walking among the gods. Before, if we looked at a rainbow or walked on the grass or touched a tree or even thought a thought or felt an emotion, we were experiencing communion with a god. But Genesis says that if you do these things, you are simply experiencing a bit of nature or a thought or feeling. (In fact, it had a word for those who retained their belief that a river was a god: idolaters.) God may have created these things, but he is somewhere far off, pushed out of the main picture. A demotion.

I said that I lament this loss of nature as God a little bit, but -- at the same time -- understanding nature is of course essential to not only a greater understanding of the way the world really works, but also to a better understanding of God. So what seems like God being pushed away is, in fact, God being revealed. Understanding Zeus is understanding a picture of God, but understanding lightning is understanding God as he truly is. This is where Darwin comes in.

Darwin addressed his opponents when he writes, "It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the 'plan of creation,' 'unity of design,' etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject my theory."

The same rejections certainly happened when the Hebrews said that there were not multiple gods, embodiments of nature, but that there was only one god who lived separate from nature. (The rejections were so strong, in fact, that the Hebrews were more or less forced to kill anyone who stood in their way to get this new truth across.) But apparently the Hebrews were scientific enough to realize that water was water and earth was earth. They also had some understanding of the separation of species, but they weren't scientific enough to understand where these species came from or how they fit together.

Charles Darwin, God's newest prophet, did. Darwin, by the way, never claimed to know where life came from. The name of the book is The Origin of Species, not The Origin of the Universe. And the origin of species is explained through the concept of natural selection, one of the most elegant concepts ever proposed, one that -- to this day -- fits with the way we are able to observe the way our world behaves and has always behaved.

Natural selection says that, as life continues, the traits that help us survive are retained while the traits that do not help us are abandoned. This does not happen quickly, of course. "Nature does not make leaps." The fact that we can't see it happening in front of our eyes is what makes some skeptical. But Darwin was able to see the evidence of natural selection on his voyages on the HMS Beagle, his communion with God. You can see the evidence of natural selection yourself if you travel to some place like the Galapagos islands (one of Darwin's stops) where certain animals are preserved in more ancient forms because of the protection afforded them by the island.

Because of his studies, Darwin was closer to understanding God than any writer of a "sacred" text. He says, "When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of nature as one which has had a history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, nearly in the same way as when we look at any great mechanical invention as the summing up of the labor, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting, I speak from experience, will the study of natural history become!"

And humans are smart enough now so that we're not "savage," not dumb animals. Humans, indeed, are a special case. The phrase "survival of the fittest" (a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer only after reading The Origin of Species) is somewhat misleading since we think of "fit" as being physically strong. Humans are that, but not in the usual way. We don't have very many specialized body parts the way many animals do (no claws, no fangs, nothing to dig with, no shells); in fact, we're rather exposed and defenseless. But we make up for that in our intelligence, and we do better than any animal as a result, no matter how big its teeth are. This is how natural selection worked in us. We passed on traits of intelligence (which allowed us to master tools) while discarding our fur, tails, and all the things we needed when we were more stupid.

Another creature worth looking at in more detail is the platypus. A platypus is a furry mammal who lays eggs, has a bill like a duck's, has a tail like a beaver's, has feet like an otter's, and can shoot venom out of its ankle spurs. If you think that there is a god who creates each species individually, then you might say (as many have) that this god has a sense of humor. But he doesn't. The platypus is only funny-looking because we're used to seeing ducks, beavers, and otters as ducks, beavers, and otters. But to say the platypus has "a bill like a duck's" is misleading. A duck, in fact, has a beak like a platypus's.

Darwin explains why ducks, beavers, and otters are like platypuses (or Ornithorhynchus), and not the other way around, with his version of the Tree of Life. It's a long excerpt, but it's worth reading:

"The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during each former year may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and to overtop and kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species and groups of species have tried to overmaster other species in the great battle for life. The limbs divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser branches, were themselves once, when the tree was small, budding twigs; and this connection of the former and present buds by ramifying branches may well represent the classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups. Of the many twigs which flourished when the tree was a mere bush, only two or three, now grown into great branches, yet survive and bear all the other branches; so with the species which lived during long-past geological periods, very few now have living and modified descendants. From the first growth of the tree, many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off; and these lost branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera which have now no living representatives, and which are known to us only from having been found in a fossil state. As we here and there see a thin straggling branch springing from a fork low down in a tree, and which by some chance has been favored and is still alive on its summit, so we occasionally see an animal like the Ornithorhynchus [platypus] or Lepidosiren [lungfish], which in some small degree connects by its affinities two large branches of life, and which has apparently been saved from fatal competition by having inhabited a protected station. As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications."

My crude illustration of some branches of this "Tree of Life":

This little picture isn't meant to be a scientific representation of the relation of these animals, but it does illustrate a couple of ideas. One, that some branches, as Darwin explains above, have died (become extinct) either because they simply die out or because they are overtaken by another "branches" or species. Note how some branches become blocked by others so that they can't survive anymore. This is similar to the ideas of Thomas Malthus who wrote about overpopulation and how this eventually gets remedied by sickness or lack of food or one species taking over another. (This is certainly something we do see within a lifetime.)

The other idea in this picture is the platypus and its relation to the animals that came from it. As Darwin explained, the platypus branch dipped down and so was able to avoid being blocked by other branches. (The platypus lived in Australia, where it wasn't threatened until more recently.) Meanwhile, in other areas, descendants of the platypus became more specialized, and out of it came the beaver, otter, duck, and others.

Here's another, more carefully-drawn, picture, not by me (though I'm not vouching for its correctness either, only its illustrative properites):

This one gives you an idea of how humans can be cousins of gorillas and chimpanzees while also being more distant relatives of sponges, snakes, or tortoises.

Doesn't this paint a picture of a God who is greater than some guy who sits around making flawed animals? Because the common conception of God as some kind of machine-maker also shows us a machinist who creates inventions overflowing with mysterious parts. Why do we have a useless appendix whose only function is to threaten to burst so that we have to be cut open by doctors? Why do we have wisdom teeth that have to be yanked out? Why do we have a tailbone? Says Darwin: "Nature may be said to have taken pains to reveal, by rudimentary organs and by homologous structures, her scheme of modification, which it seems that we willfully will not understand." (I'm getting into well-worn atheist territory here, but hang tight.)

But if we think of ourselves as being "in process," it all makes sense. This should appeal to the "I'm just an old lump of coal, but I'm gonna be a diamond one day" sensibility, the idea that even a single life is in process. Darwin says that these steps may not reach any kind of eventual perfection, but that it comes closer with each small change, each little tweak: "As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to a secure future of equally inappreciable length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection."

This is what Darwin calls "the plan of creation," a much better plan, it seems, than inventing things left and right with slight variations on a theme, then setting humans above all of these creatures for no discernable reason. We got to where we are through a long line that goes back to the pre-human days. We are part of that story, and we will always be a part of that, no matter what we eventually become. We are not just part of the human race, but the race of life itself. This is what it truly means to be in God's image.

Lao-Tzu writes that it is from the Tao that heaven and earth sprang: that from one came two then four then eight and then the ten thousand things. Darwin similarly says, "I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number," and that " analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype." And: "The whole history of the world, as at present known, although of a length quite incomprehensible by us, will hereafter be recognized as a mere fragment of time, compared with the ages which have elapsed since the first creature, the progenitor of innumerable extinct and living descendants, was created."

I know it's a gut reaction to say "I didn't come from no monkey," but read this: "When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled." And read this, the conclusion of The Origin of Species: "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." Prophecy!

So in the beginning, when we understood nothing, everything that wasn't understood -- all of nature -- had to be called God. When we understood nature better, aspects that we still didn't understand -- the origin of species -- were said to be merely created by God. Now that we understand the origin of species, what we still don't understand -- the origin of life itself -- is the only real power we give to God. The next step is to understand the origin of life itself, which of course will push God more in the background.

But only when God disappears completely will we understand him fully.

Parable #3

2009-10-22T01:01:00.001-05:00

The Parable of the Stoners

Once there was a homeless, unemployed guy named Al who moved into the apartment of a guy named Doug, who let Al live there rent-free. Doug said to Al, "Feel free to use any of my crap you see lying around. You can even dip into my stash if you want to. But if you so much as touch my Walkman, I'll kill you."

During the day, when Doug was gone, Al killed time with Doug's videogames and records and VHS tapes, but he eventually got bored with nothing to do all day long. So Doug hooked Al up with this chick named Edie who decided to crash at the apartment too.

One day, a dude named Stan came over when Doug was gone and Al was sleeping on the couch. Stan said to Edie, "You should totally listen to Doug's Walkman." When she said that Doug told them not to, Stan said, "He won't do anything. It's a demo of his solo stuff. You totally have to hear it."

So she listened to Doug's Walkman and gave it to Al when he woke up. The music was so funny to them that they knew they couldn't look Doug in the face when he got home. When Doug did get home, they tried to hold in their laughter, but they couldn't. "You assholes have been listening to my Walkman, haven't you?" Doug said.

"Stan told us to," they said. So Doug pushed Stan over and kicked him in the side. Then Doug said to the couple, "All right, you guys are out of here. I guess you'll have to follow your loser boyfriend around, huh Edie? And as for you, bro, I guess you'll have to, like, get a job and stuff."

After they left, Doug put a padlock on the door so they wouldn't break in and take his stash.

*

I believe the moral of this story is obvious.

They Might Be Giants: Here Comes Science

2009-10-13T22:39:00.005-05:00

When I was a kid in the 1980s -- willing and wanting to believe in pretty much anything, from ghosts to centaurs to Robin Hood to the angel Gabriel -- I never doubted one thing: science is real. I never had a problem with that concept. Some things can be believed or imagined or wished for, while other things can actually be proven. Easy enough for a small child to understand.

Apparently, many adults today (and, as a result, their children) don't care much for science, don't "believe" in it--as if it's a belief system and not an explanation of the way things actually are. I don't feel like I have an accurate sense of how rampant this fact-hating phenomenon is, but what I do know is that I have DVDs of Walt Disney movies and TV shows from the 1940s to the 1960s that discussed and taught things like evolution and the Big Bang to an audience of millions of average American children and families without apology. Well over fifty years later, however -- in an age that you'd imagined would have progressed even further -- the band They Might Be Giants feel compelled to make a children's record that attempts to, in the long-awaited words of our president, "restore science to its rightful place."

The album is called Here Comes Science (following their first two albums in this children's series, Here Come the ABCs and Here Come the 123s) and the first song is called "Science Is Real," but it really should be called "Fuck You: Science Is Real." Only in this screwed-up decade can I imagine a need for a song like this. At first I lamented that the song might not reach its target audience since anti-science parents wouldn't let the children listen to it (unless by accident), but I imagine it's just as useful for children who will hear it since it gives them some ammunition on the playground to battle their fundamentalist friends (who, we hope, will also be converted by the indoctrinating jingles of this special music).

The song begins with the lines "Science is real, from the Big Bang to DNA, from evolution to the Milky Way." Right off, the fight is on. It continues with the fantasy/fact compartmentalizing I wrote about in the first paragraph: "I like the stories about angels, unicorns, and elves. Now I like those stories as much as anybody else, but when I'm seeking knowledge -- either simple or abstract -- the facts are with science. Science is real." Only in this screwed-up decade can I say that They Might Be Giants are "bold" to place evolution, the big bang, and angels in the first thirty seconds of their song. Old-fashioned Walt Disney, who expected science to give us a utopia, would be ashamed that this is considered any kind of progress.

The song goes on to explain what a scientific theory is: "A scientific theory isn't just a hunch or guess. It's more like a question that's been put through a lot of tests. And when a theory emerges consistent with the facts, the proof is with science. The truth is with science. Science is real." This seems to have been placed into the song specifically to combat those who say things like "Evolution is just a theory," not knowing what a theory actually is--as if the word "theory" would prove anything anyway. (What do these sorts of people know or care about proof?) TMBG emphasize this point later with the song "Put It to the Test" with lines like "Are you sure that that thing is true, or did someone just tell it to you?", "A fact is just a fantasy unless it can be checked," and "Don't believe it 'cause they say it's so; if it's not true, you have a right to know."

The song "My Brother the Ape" playfully shoves the "I ain't related to no monkey" argument right down its own throat. This song also shows how all life is related and how some things are more related than others. The narrator of the song (like the anti-evolution crowd) doesn't quite see the family resemblance, but eventually says, "But I'll admit that I look more like a chimp than I look like my cousin the shrimp or my distant kin the lichens or the snowy egret or the moss, and I find it hard to recognize some relatives of ours like the rotifer, the sycamore, iguanas, and sea stars." The concept that we're all branches of the same great tree trunk is further emphasized with the line "They say you don't get to choose your family, but there's no other one to choose." Everything you see on earth is your relative. (What's more godly than that?)

Unlike religion, science doesn't mind admitting when it is wrong. This concept is made apparent in the back-to-back tracks "Why Does the Sun Shine?" and "Why Does the Sun Really Shine?" The first one is a 1959 song by Tom Glazer that They Might Be Giants originally covered in 1993 and reprise here. (They also do a cover of his song "What Is a Shooting Star?" on this album.) This song says that "The sun is a mass of incandescent gas" and that "The sun is so hot that everything in it is a gas." But the second song corrects the first one with new evidence: "The sun is as miasma of incandescent plasma. The sun's not simply made out of gas... Forget what you've been told in the past... Forget that song. They got it wrong. That thesis has been rendered invalid." It's one of the funniest songs, and it's also a good lesson for kids: knowledge means that you can learn new things and prove things that you once thought were true to be untrue. "That's not what I was told" goes out the window (where it belongs). This album somewhat addresses a similar issue with the question song "How Many Planets?" (in the DVD that accompanies the CD more than on the album itself) which points out that Pluto is no longer considered a planet. Even something simple like this can prove controversial, showing that people simply don't like to learn anything new whether it's about religion or not. I heard college-age students say, when the news about Pluto was coming out, that they should just call it a planet anyway because "otherwise, they'll have to change all those textbooks." (You can see that not wanting to alter books is a theme common to the willfully ignorant.)

The rest of the album gives (slightly older) kids (and adults who have forgotten things) great tunes about the elements, paleontologists, blood, electric cars, photosynthesis, cells, velocity, computer assisted design, and more. The only time this album gets dangerously close to mythology is in the song "Roy G. Biv," a song about the mnemonic that helps us remember the rainbow's colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet). Roy G. Biv is described as "a colorful man" who "proudly stands at the rainbow's end." This mild mythologizing is harmless (and the song is great and I'm not blaming TMBG for anything), but it's the only time that it gets away from pure science and so it runs a small risk. It makes sense to anyone (including a child) who understands how poetry works, but I think history has proven that you can't count on that kind of understanding.

This song also says "You'll never see a unicorn, but you'll see a rainbow, and inside every rainbow is the spectrum of light." Sure, it might be initially disappointing to hear that unicorns aren't real, but what's more cool: a stupid horse with a horn on its head or an optical phenomenon that appears when sunlight passes through raindrops, refracting and reflecting light itself into a beautiful band of colors that cover the entire sky? Not only does science trump religion when it comes to fact, but it often trumps religion when it comes to beauty, complexity, mystery, and awe. And it's observable. It's real!

*
Watch the video for "Science Is Real" while you have a chance.
While you're here, read some comments to prove that I'm not too far off here. (Or don't, if you don't want to puke.)

Parable #2

2009-09-25T02:37:00.007-05:00

The Parable of the Keyboard

A man plays a very tiny keyboard, perhaps only two octaves wide. He wants to hit low notes and he wants to hit high notes, but he cannot. While playing a tune, the man moves his fingers beyond the keyboard, left and right, to the place where the notes would be if the keyboard were longer at either end. He hears the notes in his mind, but it is frustrating that neither he nor anyone else can hear them in the air.

Faith

2009-09-24T02:57:00.012-05:00

C.S. Lewis properly defined faith as a virtue that allows us to hold on to our reasoned ideas in spite of any mood shifts or other temporary shaky grounds we might encounter. The "reasoned" part is important. Let's take a non-religious example. Let's say that you meet the same friend for lunch every Sunday at noon, always nearly on the dot. You've been doing this now for a year. One day it gets to be four minutes past twelve and your friend hasn't shown up. But you have faith that he will show up or will at least call to let you know what happened. Your faith is based on evidence, on reason, and you remain calm. You don't start cursing his name or thinking he doesn't exist. And sure enough, here your friend is at five minutes after, explaining that he got detoured because of a parade route. You can safely keep your faith.

Unfortunately (as I briefly suggested in the Mere Christianity post), many religious people aren't using this reasonable definition of faith. An example to illustrate their altered definition runs something like this. Your parents call you up and tell you that someone you haven't met wants to have lunch with you at noon and would like to make this a Sunday tradition. So you show up to the restaurant. The person isn't there, but you go ahead and order anyway. Not only do you order your food and begin happily eating, but you talk to the empty seat as if someone is sitting there. You do this every Sunday. Some people around you at the restaurant begin to question you, but you tell them, "I have faith." "Faith that this person will show up?" they ask (thinking perhaps you are in Waiting for Godot territory). "No," you say, "faith that he is right here in front of me. If you don't believe me, you must not have faith."

I don't think this is an exaggeration of what "faith" means to some people where God is concerned. If God is something that you arrived at because of some genuine reason, then fine. There will be reasons to have faith in him. But if you believe in God (or in something about God) simply because your parents told you (or some other "authority"), then you're just as insane as the guy talking to himself at the T.G.I. Friday's.

An actual example I've encountered over and over again that demonstrates something worse than this mentality is the person who was taught the Genesis stories at an early age and took them as literal fact. No harm, no foul yet--but eventually this same person has it proven to them (and this person, in a strong sense, believes the proof) that the earth is billions of years old, that evolution is a fact, that the story of Noah is an impossibility, etc. But, in spite of this proof, this person feels that it is the right thing to do to ignore this new evidence and insist that these Biblical events actually happened... on faith.

This person might be asked, "Okay, you don't like new evidence. What about stories even older than Genesis? What about stories about Ra from the Ancient Egyptians or stories about Marduk from the Mesopotamians? Is it not a lack of faith to have shifted from those works which are at least a thousand years older than the Bible?" The answer is usually something like "Those are just ridiculous" or "I don't know about those" or "That's not what I was taught."

So it turns out that the new and unimproved definition of faith is this: Faith is believing in whatever the very first fucking thing you ever heard was and sticking to it until the day you die no matter what reality has to say about it.

There's nothing wrong with believing almost anything (the literal nature of Genesis included) if you have a good reason for doing so, but can the above example be described as anything but a psychological disorder? If you are shown that something you thought was true isn't true anymore, it's your duty as a sane person to alter your beliefs. Otherwise you're even crazier than the restaurant guy talking to his invisible friend. Suddenly you're like a woman in the delivery room at the hospital watching your own child come out of your own body, loudly insisting that "No! The stork brought me this baby!"

The sad fact is that if you're really interested in knowing something about God, this new perverted definition of faith is the least helpful thing for you. If you're a Christian (for example), wasn't Christ something new that came along, something unexpected, something that went against the old beliefs? Isn't this why he was killed by people "of faith"? Couldn't Charles Darwin (for example) have been the new, unexpected prophet that God sent to show us a fuller picture of the beauty and splendor and drama of the world we live in? (Hint: yes he was.) Does God ever progress, or do we always have to be stuck in 500 BCE?

Faith is a good word. It's not connected with willful ignorance or hate or insanity. It's connected with reason and trust and an actual sense of security. So gimme my goddamned word back.

Parable #1

2009-09-20T01:42:00.004-05:00

I am going to write a series of original parables on the God Blog, when I feel like doing them. Some will be parables in the true sense of the word (very short fiction that -- like a fable -- contains something like a moral or truth, but -- unlike a fable -- is more or less realistic and open for interpretation), some will be written in the style of a parable (often specifically in the style of Jesus' parables) or parodies of existing fables, some will be surrounded by other stories (usually of the teller of the parable), and some will be close enough to a parable to qualify for this series.

The Parable of the Gay Man

Once there was a preacher whose colleagues felt he was a little too compassionate for his own good. And one day his fellow church leaders came into his office with a young man. Then they said to the preacher, "We have just found out that this man is a homosexual. The rules of our church says that he can no longer be a member of our congregation, but what do you say?" They wanted to test the preacher, so that they could perhaps remove him from his post.

At first the preacher just doodled on a notepad, as if he didn't hear them. But when the men became louder and asked the question again, the preacher said, "Anyone here who feels he is without sin and worthy to be in this congregation, I'll let that man kick this one out of our church." Then the preacher resumed doodling.

Every church leader left the room one by one, until only the young man and the preacher were left. The preacher said to the man, "Where did everyone go? Did they kick you out?" And the young man said no. "Then I won't kick you out either," the preacher said. "You may go now, but sin no more."

Then the young man turned to the preacher and said, " 'Sin no more'? Fuck you, I haven't done anything wrong."

C.S. Lewis: Mere Christianity

2009-09-08T03:00:00.019-05:00

Preface
Like a lot of people, I was first introduced to C.S. Lewis through his Narnia books, around the age of ten. I knew they had a basis in Lewis's Christianity, but it wasn't that aspect of the work that interested me the most. It was the magic. When, a few years later (I was still really young), I started reading what I called Lewis's "specifically religious" books, I liked them a lot, and I still like them -- because Lewis's writing style is simple and fun and he's always got smart analogies -- but they certainly weren't as inspiring. This is a good example of how something indirect (fairy tales in this case) can be more effective than something that's direct (Christian apologies). If being a Christian were like being in Narnia, who wouldn't want to convert? But if being a Christian is the life described in Mere Christianity, one might say "no thanks."

When I first read Mere Christianity as an early teen, I certainly considered myself a Christian. I'm not sure I recognized much of an alternative to Christianity then. It's been a long time, so I don't recall my exact experience reading it, but I think I remember agreeing with him for the most part and wondering where he got his info for other parts. The second time I read Mere Christianity a larger handful of years later (maybe in my twenties) is around the time that I started to suspect that maybe I'd never been a Christian after all. I do remember the experience the second reading: I kept saying to the book, "Really?"

So do I consider myself a Christian now? No. I base this answer on the fact that I don't seem to line up with any of the Christians I know, and there are many, of many varieties. At the same time, I can't find (too) much fault in what Jesus actually preached. But apparently being a Christian isn't simply following what Christ said. Apparently it's also following what Paul's epistles said about Jesus (and about everything else). And what Peter said. And what St. Augustine said. And what C.S. Lewis said.

As Lewis reports in the ten-years-later preface to his book, others have the same kinds of questions I do about the definition of Christianity. As they put it (in his paraphrase): "Who are you, to lay down who is, and who is not a Christian?" Lewis then goes on to say that he's not interested in who is most Christ-like, but who is a Christian according to the "original, obvious meaning" of the word. But this meaning is debatable too, his definition being "those who accept the Christian doctrine." Well, what's the Christian doctrine? This, of course, is where his book comes in.

The following is my response to Mere Christianity upon reading it the third time, in my mid-thirties. As you can see, before I even get past the preface, I already have problems. I don't have any sort of extremely focused argument I want to make so much as I just want to respond. There might be a good bit of "killing the father" here, but everyone should know that I will always love C.S. Lewis dearly. He helped me discover a larger world, and he's someone I will continue reading over and over again. This writing itself is proof of his power over me. I grabbed the book to quickly look one thing up and here I am, twelve thousand words later.

Book I: Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe
Book I essentially "proves" the existence of God (or something that we might as well call God--Lewis uses lots of names in the process) by taking us step by step, using something that resembles logic. I'm making fun a little, but I'll back up first and say that one of the things that I admire about Lewis is that he is usually more or less logical. He's a fan of logic. Part of his conversion experience has to do with studying logic as a subject. But in this part of Mere Christianity, there seem to be definite gaps (or at least assumptions) in his logic.

Lewis begins by discussing the Law of Human Nature and explains, rightly, that humans tend to feel something that drives them to do right -- to treat others as they'd like to be treated -- but that we're constantly not quite obeying this drive to do the right thing. I'm with him so far. But Sigmund Freud explains this concept better than C.S. Lewis does and doesn't involve God. Freud says that "goodness" is basically a concept that has to do with how much pleasure we receive as individuals. Of course, in order to feel this pleasure, you sometimes have to do things that aren't pleasurable. In order to have the pleasures that money affords, you have to work (which helps society). In order to maintain a pleasurable relationship with someone, you have to sacrifice certain pleasures of your own. It's always a balancing act of pleasing yourself and pleasing others, but it all can be explained by something that is more or less selfish. What about simply doing good for goodness' sake? Well, that's a pleasure in itself, isn't it? It makes you happy to make others happy: that's a personal pleasure. It's not selfish in a negative way, but it could fairly be called selfish. And living within a society of lots of people, there are a huge set of rules we have to follow in order to enjoy the pleasure of that society.

Lewis himself says as much when he says, "Human beings, after all, have some sense; they see that you cannot have real safety or happiness except in a society where every one plays fair, and it is because they see this that they try to behave decently." But then Lewis, immediately, illogically, begins to sneak God into the above picture starting with this dialogue:

"Why ought I to be unselfish?"
"Because it's good for society."
"Why should I care what's good for society except when it happens to pay me personally?"
"Because you ought to be unselfish."

Lewis has set up a false loop here. He says that "because you ought to be" is the only answer, but it's not. The real answer is "Because doing something that's good for society is ultimately good for me." This is obvious, right? You don't even have to read Freud to understand this simple concept. "Human beings, after all, have some sense."

But this is the "proof" Lewis uses to then make the following statement: "It begins to look as if we shall have to admit that there is more than one kind of reality; that, in this particular case, there is something above and beyond the ordinary facts of men's behaviour, and yet quite definitely real--a real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us." This is some leap! Lewis can't figure out why we feel compelled to do "good" and so now we "have to admit" that there's a higher power? He goes even further: "If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless."

Lewis later fears that some readers might think they have been "tricked" by him. No wonder. As I say, he sounds logical most of the time, and he's consistently charming even when he's frustrating, so it's easy to get sucked into his spell.

*
The existence of a higher power is the main argument of Book I and the main one I wanted to counter, but I also want to comment on other things Lewis writes about in this book that are interesting. One good point that he makes is that being good doesn't mean being consistent or following one idea no matter what. "Don't lie" is, in general, a good guideline, but we know that, in order to be good, sometimes lying is necessary. (This isn't his example, but it's the idea he's getting across.) Those who hold onto one "truth" and center their entire faith around it seem to be the most hopeless. This is the way children think, and the way they have to think, because they aren't old enough to (for example) judge whether it's okay to get into a stranger's car or not.

Something more convincing that he brings up is the idea of a "Real Morality." Lewis's example is that the Nazis are bad and we know they are (he's writing in 1943), so we are closer to the Real Morality than they are. This almost gets at a believable concept of God: that God might be the Real Morality, the ultimate form of goodness that we're trying to reach (and this is, more or less, what Lewis says God embodies and why God rejects our badness). "Don't be a Nazi" is probably not a rule we'll have trouble following, but could a perfect morality ever be possible? It would either be a Utopia where everyone is receiving maximum pleasure at all times (impossible, unless the nature of the universe changes) or it would be a balance (of the Freudian kind) in which everyone's receiving as much pleasure as we can get while still doing things that aren't pleasurable. Technically possible, I suppose, but not probable--which is where God comes in, supernaturally (because it would take something beyond our abilities) letting us know what we should do at all times to achieve the greatest happiness for everyone.

Lewis says, correctly, that a man sitting in the seat of a train before you get there is just as inconvenient as a man who moves your bag and slips into the seat. And he says, correctly, that you blame the second man but not the first. He's trying to demonstrate that we place blame because of our concepts of how humans should behave and how these concepts come from God, but it doesn't work since only with the second man are you dealing with human behavior (and I've already explained why we should "behave"); with the first, you may as well be dealing with an inanimate object. And Lewis has already said that blaming non-humans for not doing what you want them to (his example is a tree that doesn't give you enough shade) is silly. Besides, if some ultimate form of goodness were being truly followed, maybe you could blame the first man. Maybe he should have listened to God and offered his seat to you.

As a side note, apparently Jesus himself doesn't think it's silly to blame trees for not making one happy. Jesus was hungry and wanted some figs one day, but the fig tree he found didn't have any fruit on it so he cursed it and made it wither. The "lesson" here, to his disciples, was that you can get whatever you want, whenever you want it: that you can tell the mountain to throw itself into the sea and it will do it. This certainly isn't the only time Jesus was selfish. When it was suggested that the ointment being used on him could have been given to the poor, his response was, "Eh, there will always be poor people."

I agree with Lewis in his discussion of science and how it can only explain things as they may be observed. This is what science is and this is why it's useful. Lewis is rather dismissive of the "materialist view" of the origin of the universe, however. He does the old routine: I guess things just "happen to exist"… "a sort of fluke" has made creatures that can think… "by one chance in a thousand something hit our sun and made it produce the planets; and by another thousandth chance the chemicals necessary for life, and the right temperature"… "and then, after a very long series of chances"… and so on. Yeah, why not? What are the odds of my being born, but here I am. "Oh yeah, I guess generations and generations of couples reproducing eventually produced your parents who happened to conceive at a very precise moment that just so happened to create Rusty Spell. I'm so sure!" The universe and our world seems to make sense because this is what we know to be sense. For someone who wants to think "outside" of reality so much, it seems odd that everything is centered around our only known reality. Maybe if something like Earth and humans happens twice I'll think about it some more, but in the meantime, isn't it probable enough that anything can happen at least once? My problem, by the way, is not that I believe in one thing and not the other. My problem is Lewis or anyone else dismissing something that doesn't deserve dismissing (the "fluke" concept of this world) or using science/probability as a springboard onto the more believable (?) supernatural explanation of how Earth came to be.

Lewis begins to conclude Book I with a discussion of the meaning of the universe. Is the idea of a meaning of existence silly? I'm not sure. I find comfort in Existentialism, but that's just me. My favorite part of Book I is probably when Lewis says that, if there is a God who lives outside of the universe, that he can only show himself through us in some way, usually through our behaviors. It doesn't quite make sense how he explains this (since he says that God can't show himself as one of the "facts inside the universe," even though we are one of those facts), but I like the concept. Now he's getting into William Blake and Joseph Campbell territory. Lewis also says that even though God seems to be something like a "mind," that he probably is something unlike a mind or person, which is refreshing after pages that seem to be leading up to the revelation that God is just some dude.

Book II: What Christians Believe
"What Christians Believe" is a pretty promising title, but unfortunately the Christian belief system isn't as spelled-out as I'd hoped. But this is what I gather from Lewis: God created a universe, including the angel who fell and became Satan, and Satan taught the new human creation how to rebel, which they did, and now humanity is corrupt. Since we can't escape this corruption on our own, we needed God to take the form of a human named Jesus to die for us, which somehow (Lewis admits he doesn't know how) gives us a fresh start. We may now evolve into newer creatures through three things: baptism in water, communion (eating bread and drinking wine in memory of the last supper before Jesus died), and the belief that all of these things are true. Eventually, God will return to earth to vanquish sin completely and reality as we know it will end. For Christians, the new reality will be bliss; for unbelievers, it will be miserable; and now is the time to choose sides.

So, yeah, I guess I'm not a Christian. Did I ever believe all of the above? More or less, I think. I wasn't sure how much a devil was to blame (or how much he existed), but I thought humans must have gone wrong somewhere (the Garden of Eden story being a metaphor for that wrong). I thought that Jesus died for some reason, but I never knew what that reason was. I never thought he (or baptism) "washed our sins away." I thought that Jesus must have "proven" something about what humans were capable of. An "If he can do it, I can" kind of thing, though I'm not sure what the "it" was. I've only taken communion once in my life. I've never believed in a literal end of the world, at least nothing that would be caused by Jesus. I have always, since birth, loathed the idea of someone being punished for not accepting Christianity or any other religion. I guess, according to Lewis's version of Christianity, I was a semi-Christian and now I'm not one at all.

I'm kind of amazed that C.S. Lewis, famous for his Platonic views and his understanding of shadows and images and metaphors, is so literal-minded. As it turns out, Aslan of the Narnia books might be a symbol of a symbol. Communion (already a symbol of a symbol) is not just a representation to Lewis: it is the thing itself. "The end of the world" really is the end of the world.

One reason not to be a Christian is that it takes away the fun of believing all religions at once. Lewis begins this book by saying that Christians don't have to believe that all other religions are wrong, which is nice, but he's quick to say that they only contain "hints of truth." He says that everything that came before Christianity (including, I guess, Judaism, though he does allow that they were God's chosen people), was (at best) "good dreams" or (a little worse) "queer stories" from "heathen religions." He doesn't seem to understand Pantheism at all, calling it "damned nonsense," and he admits to not really understanding Hinduism (which isn't surprising).

The baptism and communion are both rituals that are meant to bring you closer to God. Fine, but what about other rituals? Do they not bring us closer to the same God? If Lewis does not believe in other representations of God (Vishnu, Zeus, Marduk, Ra, etc.), it really makes Narnia and Aslan confusing to me. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan says that by knowing him in Narnia, the children can know him better in their world, which suggests that Aslan equals God or Jesus. But do they have to know him better in their world? In other words, wouldn't it be just as well to worship the lion? And, if not, is it because the children are not part of that world? And, if that's true, shouldn't we worship whatever god is found in our world--or, in this nonfictional case, our culture? Anyway, I'd much rather be a follower of Lewis's lion than Lewis's God.

*
Once again, I'll jump around to other smaller points that Lewis makes in Book II. He begins the book with the now-tired "logic" from Book I, saying that you can't say the world is "unjust" without believing in God. He's not alone in this belief. Many Christians I know are surprised when they discover that an atheist is also a moral person. Their answer to this often is that this moral person is only fooling himself into thinking he is an atheist. But the real answer is that atheism often allows for a greater morality than any religion ever will. Even if murder weren't against the law, God's or society's law, most of us still choose not to be murderers.

"Atheism is too simple," Lewis says. Whatever. I used to think somewhat along these lines when I was younger. My problem with atheism then was that I didn't know why someone would be so adamant about the nonexistence of God, but now I realize why. Atheism might not be too simple, but if everyone were an atheist, the world would certainly be a lot more simple, in a good way.

I do like what Lewis says about those who make dumb arguments against Christianity, that they are putting up a six-year-old's conceptions of the religion and attacking that, then switching into adult mode when convenient. Christians often do make the worst debaters since the final answer can always be something like "that's what faith is for" or "we'll know when we get to Heaven," but those who attack Christianity can be just as bad.

This leads Lewis into the idea that these attackers often dismiss Christianity because it doesn't make any sense. Lewis uses this as further proof that Christianity must be linked to reality, since reality itself is often complicated and doesn’t make much sense. It's "not what you'd expect," he says. But I disagree. It's completely what you expect. It's almost the same story that's been told since the beginning of religion, all those "queer stories" he was dismissing earlier. Once again I'm surprised that Lewis the professor and poet seems to keep forgetting that lots of what he's talking about is poetry. And poetry does make sense if you know how to read it.

I remember during one of my first readings of Mere Christianity being somewhat impressed with Lewis's idea that Jesus must have either been (a) a crazy person or (b) God himself: one or the other. But I'm not so impressed now. He begins this argument by saying that, if Jesus were a pantheist, it would be normal for him to say he was God (though, technically, Jesus never says this, right?), but since he was a Jew, and therefore not a pantheist, to say he was God (something that created the universe, something that exists outside of this world) means he's either telling the truth or that he's crazy. This assumes that Jesus had to behave like a Jew, when I think we see a billion times that Jesus doesn't behave like a Jew. Isn't that part of the reason he was killed? Jesus also goes on to tell everyone else that they can become Sons of God too, which -- by Lewis's logic -- would mean that (a) Jesus wants everyone to join him in his insanity or (b) that we actually will become God.

But of course Jesus did want everyone to become God--just not God in the way C.S. Lewis perceives him. The Kingdom of Heaven was now, not in some distant future when the world ends. He was on a higher plane and wanted people to come with him. Jesus, at the last supper, told his disciples to think of him when they ate and drank, but I'm not sure he intended for it to be one of the key elements that prevented you from living in a world of reality-altering hell.

Once again, I'm not really sure Book II tells us "what Christians believe," and I'm pretty sure it doesn't tell us much about what Christ believed.

Book III: Christian Behaviour
This is the longest book in the chapter and the one where I said "Really?" the most when C.S. Lewis would slip in something about Christianity that he (I guess) assumed everyone knew (and maybe everyone but me did). But it's also the book that I've found the most to agree with. He also discusses marriage and gives us the Christian sex talk. I'm dividing up my segment here into those four things: disagreement, sex, marriage, and finally some long-awaited agreement.

*
Chapter one contains this sentence: "Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live forever." Really? News to me! Why wasn't this included in the book titled "What Christians Believe"? When he drops bombs like these, I wonder who this book is really for. If he's writing it for those who wonder what Christianity is all about, shouldn't something like "eternal life no matter what you choose to do" be covered in chapter one? If the book is for people who are already Christians, then what's the point? Was my Christian teaching that unorthodox? I mean, I know that certain groups feel that everyone will go to Heaven or Hell, living forever either way, but I figured some might think the way I used to: that the wages of sin are death and that Hell would be a kind of life (even if a horrible sort) and so must by definition not exist, that only those who demonstrate a desire for life and God will get it and everyone else will have the merciful relief of death. I guess I'm asking this: is the belief of eternal life for everyone "mere" Christianity?

One of the silliest examples from Mere Christianity has to do with this assumed concept of living forever. Lewis is saying that sometimes we have the need to kill, as in war, which I don't have a problem with. But then he says he can't understand what he calls a "semipacifism" (he respects regular pacifists but thinks they are "entirely mistaken"), someone who sees the need for war but who has to fight "with a long face and as if you were ashamed of it." Isn't this the only natural, sane reaction to war? What does he expect, gaiety and wholeheartedness? Let's read the next sentence and find out. "It [semipacifism] is that feeling that robs lots of magnificent young Christians in the Services of something they have a right to, something which is the natural accompaniment of courage--a kind of gaiety and wholeheartedness." Ah, well, apparently so.

But that's not even the silly part I was talking about. The silly part is when Lewis wonders, when he served in World War I, what it would have been like if he and a German had killed each other simultaneously and found each other a moment after death. He says he can't imagine any resentment or embarrassment. "I think we may have laughed over it." First of all, embarrassment? They didn't show up at a party together wearing the same dress; they killed each other. And laughed over it? I can only chalk this up to a certain kind of insanity that can only arise when you are 100% sure that you are going to live on after death. (I'm not saying, by the way, that believing in life after death is insane. I'm saying that a belief of it is likely necessary for the kinds of oddball statements he is making.) Sure, he was in a war and I wasn't (thank God), but, I mean… really?

Lewis says that Christ is the only man who never yielded to temptation, that he was the only one who has become (for lack of a better word) "perfect." The idea of perfection is something I used to strongly believe in. I (like Lewis) thought that Jesus was the first man to reach it, but (unlike Lewis) I believed that part of the point of Jesus dying was to demonstrate that it could be done. Furthermore, I believed that people had already done it. I thought that Paul, Peter, and some (if not all) of the other apostles did. I thought that people in the twentieth century did and that people since Christ had always done it. I mean, why not? If there is such a thing as an ultimate goodness (as Lewis is arguing), then why couldn't someone conceivably reach it? That's all that perfection would mean in this sense. You wouldn't be the perfect human, and you certainly wouldn't seem perfect to most people around you, but you could be a perfect human. Lewis is fond of comparing everything the Christian life with math sums, so why can't everyone -- who is born with their own personal math "problem" -- reach their own personal correct "answer"?

Finally, I'll make some comments -- if not completely disagree -- with Lewis's thoughts on Heaven. Lewis argues that thinking of Heaven as a goal gets us a better earth than if we were focused on earth only. I'm not sure how this makes sense, and his health analogy doesn't work for me. He says that if you are focused on your health itself -- whatever that means -- you become a hypochondriac, whereas if you focus on good food, activities, etc. you become actually healthy. So if you focus on the earth itself, you… make the earth crappy? And how can you focus on Heaven as you focus on food and activities when those are things you can do and Heaven isn't? Thinking about food and exercise doesn't make you healthy.

The part where Lewis makes a little more sense, or at least proposes an interesting theory, is when he says that for everything on earth that you have a desire for, there is something to satisfy it (for hungry babies, food; for wanna-swim ducks, water; for horny men, women). But there is a spiritual desire that the earth can't satisfy, so Heaven must be the place that does satisfy. Some things hint at Heaven (music, literature, sex, family, nature--my examples), but they are only echoes and don't last forever. C.S. Lewis is back in full-blown Plato mode again, finally. We are in the cave and he is the Philosopher King who will show us that we are only looking at shadows.

It's a beautiful idea, and I certainly wouldn't mind if it were true. Of course, one could just as easily say that the nature of the universe is a burst of life followed by a descent into death. Your desires are temporarily satisfied (as Lewis admits) before fading and dying. Any empty feeling could just as easily be caused by not accepting this nature. The embrace of death, not quest for eternal life, could be the key to ridding yourself of these desires and empty feelings. The Epic of Gilgamesh and other mythologies say as much.

At any rate, Lewis destroys the beautiful dream mid-sentence: "I must keep alive for myself the desire for my true country…" (so far so good) "... which I shall not find till after death" (boo!). Why is death necessarily the Stairway to Heaven? And, by the way, isn't this another thing that should have been explained in "What Christians Believe?" I didn't know that Christians believed that death was the only door to Heaven. Doesn't that mean that Jesus cheated by dying at such an early age? (I promise I'm not being flippant.) What if he had lived to be an old man? In fact, if someone were on earth who had resisted all temptation and achieved perfection, wouldn't God want that person to stay on earth as long as possible, to make it better? What about other outs? What about being called up in a whirlwind? The Rapture? (And what is The Rapture? It doesn't appear in this book. Neither does the idea of the resurrection of the dead.) I was even bothered in The Last Battle when we learn that the kids have died on earth (and that's why they're in Narnia Heaven).

If nothing else, I do feel like Heaven is always cheapened when the argument surrounding it (and your death and your belief) is "what if?" And this is exactly what Lewis says: "Supposing infinite happiness really is there waiting for us? Supposing one really can reach the rainbow's end? In that case it would be a pity to find out too late (a moment after death) that by our supposed 'common sense' we had stifled for ourselves the faculty of enjoying it." Here's my tip for Christians who want to covert people: don't use the "what if?" argument. Don't tell the unconverted that they are going to die and the first thing they're going to say is "Oh shit." Or that you and others will be saying "I told you so" on Judgment Day. As a favor to me.

*
This is the sexy part. I'll start with one of those now-famous "news to me" statements from the book: "There is no getting away from it: the Christian rule is, 'Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.' " I do wish that Lewis would occasionally show us where he gets his information, whether from the Bible or elsewhere. The Bible has all sorts of things to say about sex, but nothing definitive enough to not be able to get away from. I do know that the "marriage or abstinence" view is common among Christians, but I didn't know it was the view. I didn't know that it fell under "mere" Christianity. In fact, I figured the more outspoken churches on this subject were just that: the more outspoken ones, and that the more normal ones had more normal sex habits.

Lewis, of course, would call into question my use of the word normal, and -- actually -- I would too, since I don't like to use the word normal and sex in the same sentence. But Lewis has a more specific complaint. He thinks that the very biology of our bodies is abnormal, perverted from what it is supposed to be. He reasons this way: first that "the biological purpose of sex is children." And second: "If a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village."

The small village example is true enough (and funny enough), but anyone who studies "the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees" knows that spreading the seed far and wide is simply how nature works. It's the most natural thing in the world. Imagine if pollen were more shy about its job. Besides this obvious fact, who says that the "purpose" of sex is children? Yes, sex makes babies, but baby-making isn't even the first thing we think of when we think of sex. (I can hear Lewis screaming "Exactly!" and maybe he has a point.) What about lovemaking? What about magic? And who's to say that sex always has to be with a partner? Masturbation could be the answer to Lewis's horny young man puzzle. Maybe there's something to be said for "getting in touch with yourself," and maybe this is especially healthy in men. (Lewis later writes, in passing, that masturbation is a sin.) If nothing else, Lewis's idea that sex has a "purpose" is begging the question (though I don't blame him, since he warned his readers that Book III would assume the Christian view of a universe with a purpose).

But let's assume that Lewis is right and that our sexual instincts are out of whack (whatever that means). So what? Shouldn't we (Christians or otherwise) handle this like any other potential problem arising from our urges and relationships? Perhaps before the dawn of very effective birth control, the abstinence rule made more sense, but does it now? The "complete faithfulness to your partner" bit is fair enough (unless you swing some other way), but even then isn't there a problem as far as Lewis is concerned? He's not saying that once you get married your sexual "perversion" goes away. Marriage doesn't "cure" you of this. You're still horny all day (especially if you're male). So the "marriage or abstinence" rule doesn't work. No matter what, according to Lewis, you're still a perverted biological creature with an unnatural craving for s-e-x. You're either going to go through unspeakable amounts of suffering (abstinence) or guilt (failed attempts at abstinence), or you're going to get married and only have sex when you want to have a baby. Have fun.

Though Lewis uses the word cure when discussing these matters, he's misusing the word. He says that when you feel tempted you should pray (or whatever) and eventually a cure will come. But a "cure," according to his perversion theory, would have to be a complete biological overhaul, a regression of your body back to a more primitive time (before the fall of man?), which of course can't possibly happen (as Lewis would admit). The only "cure" is suffering. You may as well suggest that the cure for being on fire is not dousing yourself with water: instead, it is trying hard not to think about being burned.

Lewis's real problem, it seems to me, is a personal one. He, famously, was a bachelor until age fifty-eight, and the going theory is that he and Joy Gresham never got around to consummating the marriage. Fair enough, to each his own, but read the "Sexual Morality" chapter of Mere Christianity and tell me if it isn't the most venom-filled chapter of the entire book. The modern world is sex-crazy and C.S. Lewis is not and it pisses him off. "Perversions of the sex instinct are numerous, hard to cure, and frightful. I am sorry to have to go into all these details, but I must." What details? I'm curious to know what these perversions are, but he doesn't explain. Rather than assuming something actually dark and dirty, I imagine simple things that would drive Lewis crazy: an affinity for leather, creative uses of food, spanking, or -- hell -- even the doggy-style position.

Listen to this: "The reason why I must [go into all these details] is that you and I, for the last twenty years," and remember it is now 1943, "have been fed all day long on good solid lies about sex. We have been told, till one is sick of hearing it, that sexual desire is in the same state as any of our other natural desires and that if only we abandon the silly old Victorian idea of hushing it up, everything in the garden will be lovely." An unfortunate metaphor? He goes on: "They tell you sex has become a mess because it was hushed up. But for the last twenty years it has not been hushed up. It has been chattered about all day long." I'm not sure what happened in 1923, but I'd love to know. Oh, and listen to this passage in which Lewis explains that you will become more sexually aware of yourself if you attempt abstinence: "They come to know their desires as Wellington knew Napoleon, or as Sherlock Holmes knew Moriarty; as a rat-catcher knows rats or a plumber knows about leaky pipes" (another unfortunate metaphor). In other words, you will know your sexuality for the arch-nemesis that it is.

Some of the more interesting parts of his sex talk are his comparisons to food. In explaining how sex has gone wrong, Lewis asks us to imagine a world in which food is treated in the same way that sex is treated. Unfortunately for our own time, this comparison hasn't dated well. Listen: "There is nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying your food: there would be everything to be ashamed of if half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips." I'm not sure about "half the world," but this seems to be the present situation in America. Unlike having sex, however, gluttony is something closer to an actual "sin," in that it causes harm. Food is perhaps the number one killer in America, yet every day tons of viewers tune in for Paula Deen's butter orgies.

Lewis does have a good point about sex in advertising. "There are people who want to keep our sex interest inflamed in order to make money out of us." You can't disagree with that. (He has other smart things to say about advertising and how it artificially makes us "who we are.") And, in spite of Lewis's squeamishness and anger about this subject, he does have a fair degree of tolerance and understanding. He begins the chapter by saying that standards of modesty vary from culture to culture and even generation to generation within the same culture, wishing that old fogies wouldn't give the young kids such a hard time for their skimpy clothes. He says that sexual pleasure is a good thing (in marriage), that bodies are God-approved and beautiful, that Christians write the best love poems, etc. Finally, he ends the chapter by saying "The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins." Thank goodness for that.

*
As a small child, I thought that marriage itself is what made babies. I had enough sense to know that marriage was just a ceremony or signing a paper, but marriage and making babies were so closely linked that I figured one somehow caused the other. I thought that sex (what little I knew of it) was some separate thing, or maybe that you couldn't possibly even have sex unless you were married.

I know that small children have all kinds of ideas about where babies come from, but I suppose a Christian upbringing is to blame for my idea. C.S. Lewis says that the "right working" of sex is Christian marriage. I guess there was no such things as a "right working" for sex before Christianity, even for the married couples. I'm not sure that Lewis's ideas about marriage and sex are any less ridiculous than my ideas about them at age five or six or whatever I was. He says that Jesus' notion of becoming "one flesh" was more or less a fact, just as it's a fact -- Lewis says -- that a lock and key are one mechanism. If that's the case, all guys are walking around with skeleton keys.

He calls sex outside of marriage a "monstrosity" and simply living together "fornication." His idea is that the couple is trying to isolate sex from everything else that goes into a relationship. If Lewis had bothered to have any girlfriends, he would know that this isn't exactly what happens. (Instead, Lewis spent his 20s, 30s, and 40s taking care of and living with the mother of his friend who had died in the war.) I don't know anyone who's been able -- as much as they might want it -- to have a relationship that's purely about sex. And most people wouldn't want that anyway. For most non-married couples, sex is an important part of their relationship, but it certainly isn't everything; the same is true of married couples (though, traditionally, according to the most reliable stand-up comics, there is less sex in marriage than there is in non-marriage--I'm not sure how Lewis would feel about that).

Lewis says that "isolating" sex in this way is the same as chewing food and then spitting it out to isolate the taste, rather than actually swallowing and digesting for full nutrition. This is a bad analogy. In any sex-based relationship, you do swallow and digest, whether you want to or not. Sometimes (to quote the Bible) it tastes sweet as honey to the mouth but bitter in the belly, and sometimes it's the other way around, but you certainly are eating the "food." The true analogy for people who aren't married is simply that they are more free to try other foods. Being married is like finding your favorite food and eating it every night for dinner, no matter if you have a taste for it or not, even if that once-delicious steak is now simply disgusting and you'd do anything to eat even a fried baloney sandwich. This isn't me knocking monogamy, by the way; I'm just trying to point out that Lewis might have made better arguments if he'd bother to get his food analogies right.

And I do agree with Lewis once he begins talking about the value of monogamy. The fireworks of early love fades and gives way to a deeper kind of love if you can stick with it. I've always said that people shouldn't marry simply for love, and they certainly shouldn't marry simply for sex (though this is exactly what lots of Christians do). Love becomes more or less a habit eventually, and this isn't a bad thing. And, like Jesus, I think that "one flesh" is a good way of putting it. Divorce is like dismemberment, if not like death itself. But this can be true when marriage isn't involved too. What if you live with someone for years without getting married and eventually the other person leaves you? Isn't this dismemberment also? Why is the marriage contract so important? Why would Lewis or anyone else deny that this relationship was "real," or even say that it wasn't godly? We're still talking about human beings and reality, right?

I'll end this marriage section with C.S. Lewis's take on the "head of the house" debate. Lewis takes the view of another celibate, the apostle Paul: as Christ is the head of the church, man is the head of the woman. To answer why there should be a head at all, rather than equality, Lewis says that eventually there will be some decision that the couple won't agree on and there needs to be a head in place to make the final call. But is this also the case when, say, two male roommates live together? Do they have to decide on a head? Again, are we talking about human beings? For the question "If there needs to be a head, why should it be the man?" Lewis replies "Is there any very serious wish that it should be the woman?" To which I reply, "Fuck you." He eventually blathers on about the woman being the one who takes care of the family itself while the man is the "diplomat" to the outside world. No wonder Lewis calls himself a dinosaur.

*
Oddly enough, when C.S. Lewis gets into the "deeper" issues of social morality, forgiveness, pride, charity, hope, and faith, I find less to disagree with. I don't think that Christians corner the market on these concepts, but I do think that -- at least as Lewis is describing them -- Christians are going about things the right way (at least in theory, if not always in practice).

Lewis says that everyone knows at the core that the Golden Rule is the way to be, but we don't always follow it. We make laws that attempt to force people to be nice to each other, but -- as Lewis says -- "You cannot make men good by law." This is true, and this was certainly one of Jesus' central premises. The Law of Moses was written on stone (and often broken, and one time literally), but Jesus wanted God's "law" (which boils down to the Golden Rule) to be written in men's hearts. Jesus went above and beyond mere written law. Instead of "an eye for an eye," you should turn the other cheek, for example. He wanted a society not of people who were looking for loopholes within the law that would allow them to abuse each other, but one that loved each other in some real sense. (Sometimes this even meant breaking the law--not stoning an adulterer, for example.)

To "love," as Lewis explains isn't necessarily to "like." To love someone "as yourself" often has to do with forgiving someone, not because they're likeable or anything special, but because they're humans like you. You forgive yourself for doing bad things, but not because you deserve it. This is one of the best explanations of forgiveness I've heard. And it has nothing to do with approval of someone; forgiveness doesn't do away with punishment. I want to live in a world where crime is punished, so I want the same rules to apply to myself, so there is no problem administering this punishment on someone else while following the Golden Rule. This concept can apply to larger situations like murder, or smaller ones like someone being a horrible person to me. I don't have to like the horrible people or hang out with them (denying my approval and company being their "punishment" in this situation), but I do have to forgive them. Not forgiving does me more harm than it does them. It would be like, as the old saying goes, drinking poison and hoping they die from it.

I especially like what Lewis says about the idea of relative goodness, an idea that might aid in being able to forgive. The idea is that a considerable portion of our behavior is simply biological. Our bodies partly determine our temperament. Therefore it is more difficult for some people to be good than it is for others. This is why it's important not to judge, not to say "I'm better than him," because are you? This gets into tricky ideas of the separation of body and soul. Does a soul even exist? Is there such a thing as a "real you"? Maybe, maybe not, but we do know that you can regulate people's behavior with pills, for example, and this makes us wonder if chemicals are all we are. Lewis believes that there is a soul and that one day the body will drop off and our true essence is all that will then exist. Only then will we be able to see what we are really like. In the meantime, it may be more spiritually meaningful for a bad-tempered person to not punch you in the face than it is for a good-tempered person to give you his kidney.

Whether we believe in a soul or not, and whether we are Christians or not, I do believe it's a good idea to think this way, at least a little bit. It will be easier to forgive people if we know that they -- because of both nature and nurture -- have a hard time "helping it." Lewis is basically describing a sort of spiritual socialism. He says that those who have "more" (heredity and upbringing that allows for more goodness) have to work harder than those who have "less." Which brings us to earthly socialism. Some people have a harder time (for the same reasons) making money than others, so maybe the poor don't need to be shit on quite so much and maybe the rich don't deserve to have anything they want.

This certainly won't sit well with the Christians we see in contemporary culture (at least the ones we see on TV "news" and those who follow the TV's ministry): the right wingers who seem to think Christianity boils down to hating gays, cutting taxes for the wealthy, and getting crappy healthcare, but C.S. Lewis correctly points out that if a Christian society were actually put into practice that parts of it "would be what we now call Leftist." He says, "We should feel that its economic life was very socialistic." Jesus, of course, was more or less a socialist: encouraging everyone to give away their money to the poor, distributing the wealth, believing in hard work (but for the good of the community, not necessarily for himself), healing people without charging money, speaking against interest on loans (usury), despising the class system, etc. But before anyone gets too excited, Lewis also (correctly) points out that other aspects of this society would be old-fashioned and that "each of us would like some bits of it, but I am afraid very few of us would like the whole thing." I doubt I would like the whole thing either, but Lewis's description of a Christian society is certainly closer to the vision of Jesus, and it is immeasurably preferable to the current societal wishes of the most vocal modern-day Christians.

C.S. Lewis seemed to have some of the same problems with the Christians of his day that I (and many, many others) do with the current ones. Thank God I know a lot of really smart and compassionate Christians who are using their beliefs to actually help save the world, but those are unfortunately often overshadowed by the ones who pride themselves on being ignorant (sometimes to an evil degree). Lewis says, "Many Christians have the idea that provided you are 'good,' it does not matter being a fool." Under the umbrella of "faith," brains go out the window.

Christianity becomes an excuse to be intellectually lazy. But Lewis says, and I agree, "Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself. That is why an uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has astonished the whole world." I know that I received this special education. I knew more about literary analysis at age nine than lots of the sophomores in my World Literature class. Even if your Christian study is limited to the Bible (and it shouldn't be), you can learn a great deal about poetry, metaphor, symbolism, mythology, word play, hyperbole, and more--just in the field of literature alone. I don't mind so much that many Christians don't read the Bible, but I do mind when they claim to know what it says when they're really basing their beliefs on what other uneducated people have told them, or maybe on a children's retelling of Bible stories.

Lewis is talking about nonbelievers when he complains that "if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them," but I think the same could be said for Christians themselves. He writes this in response to those who say that Heaven is a boring place where you'll "spend an eternity playing harps." "All of the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.)," Lewis says, "is, of course, a merely symbolic attempt to express the inexpressible." (Nevermind, for now, that Lewis doesn't always understand this concept himself.) Many Christians don't understand literature enough to read their favorite book, which is sad enough from an educator's point of view, but it's even more sad when you realize that some of this ignorance causes oppression and war. (Daily frustrations are bad enough.)

Shifting gears. Lewis's chapter on pride is called "The Great Sin," and I tend to agree with this title. Out of the entire book, this was the chapter that "convicted" me the most (as we used to say in church). I would simply think that it's the remnant Christian in me responding to the chapter, except that I disagree with Lewis when he says that only Christians admit that they have pride and that pride is a bad thing to have. I think any person wanting to be moral could recognize pride as the granddaddy of all foul behavior.

Lewis, by the way, isn't talking about pride as in the phrase "I'm proud of you, son." This use of the word just means that the son has accomplished something and the father is praising him, and it's okay for the son to be happy to receive the praise. My church was so concerned about being proud that they would never use the word even in this sense. They would say "I'm well pleased with you, son." They took great pride not using the word pride.

I'll try to sum up what C.S. Lewis says about pride. First, it's the opposite of humility. Second, every other sin is caused by this one. Lewis's test for how much pride you have is to ask yourself, "How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronize me, or show off?" Pride is essentially competitive. It always wants you to be better than someone else, which means that you are always comparing yourself to other people, which means that you are the center of the goddamned universe. Vanity is pride, Lewis says, but it's a mild form; you care what people think about you and want their attention. But when you simply don't care what other people think about you because you think so highly of yourself (and so lowly of them), that's when it's bad.

The very religious can often be the most proud, Lewis says. "They are worshipping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people." If you can forget about yourself altogether, you have overcome pride. But if you meet people who have overcome it, Lewis says, they will be humble but they won't necessarily seem humble. They'll seem happy and bright and interested in you as a person. If you don't like them, you're probably resentful of how much they are enjoying life and other people.

If the main Rule is the Golden one, then pride is the thing that will make you break that rule every time. Why should you treat others as you'd like to be treated when you are so much better or smarter than these people, when they just don't get you and your friends, when they don't treat you nice, when they bore you, when they don't understand God the way you do, when they started it, when they haven't bothered to learn your name, etc. etc.?

Turning then to charity, the ultimate tool of the un-proud. I remember being pleased, when I first read Mere Christianity, that C.S. Lewis used the word charity rather than love. Most translations of the Bible use the word love (the King James Version uses charity), but that word has so many meanings already that a different word altogether is needed for what's being described in the Bible and here by Lewis. Of course, charity these days commonly means giving to the needy, which is not what's meant here either, but it's still a better word to use than love.

Lewis calls charity "love in the Christian sense." Once again, I think he's incorrect to limit it to Christians, but I do believe that it takes a conscious effort to put on charity (which might require something like Christianity to get you to think about it), since -- as Lewis points out -- this kind of charity is not an emotion, not like love, but is a state of the will. Charity, then, is acting as though you love your neighbor whether you do or not. There's a fair amount of pretending that comes into play, though if you do it enough the pretense becomes real. Charity is impossible with pride; it seems ridiculous. "I like who I like and dislike who I dislike: why should I pretend otherwise?" This is a prideful thought. A non-proud person will naturally like who they like, but they will also say, "I dislike this person. I should be nice to them and get to know them better."

My church used to say that if you don't like someone (whether initially or after they've hurt you in some way), then bake them a cake. A literal cake is fine, but this was shorthand for being nice to someone who wasn't likeable. Often they really weren't likeable and everyone agreed, but this is an unacceptable argument for not baking them the cake. Maybe you bake them the cake and they tell you it tastes shitty. Can you stop being nice to them then? No. Keep being nice (though try something besides a cake). Your niceness will probably just annoy them at first, but eventually it might wear them down and make them think, "Maybe I'm the one being an asshole." Even if this turnaround in them doesn't happen, that's not really the point. Remember: it's not about you. The point is that maybe you will discover something in them that is likeable, and even if you don't, you can learn to love them anyway.

If the above paragraph sounds silly, it's because we're so used to the rationale given to us by pride. If you have your little group of friends and more or less ignore everyone else, that's pride. Everyone else isn't cool enough for your clique. This clique can very easily be you and your Christian friends, of course. Jesus certainly hurt the pride of his followers when he made them hang out with prostitutes and other "lowlifes," but imagine the pride that was hurt when eventually more than just God's chosen people were allowed to hang. You can see why I think that love, which implies emotion, is incorrect. Charity is greater than regular love because it's not an emotion. It's beyond the moodiness of feelings, a constant. This is why Paul says that among hope, faith, and charity, the greatest is charity.

Lewis concludes Book III with two chapters on faith, which seems to boil down to the idea of constancy: of constantly trying to remove your pride and put on charity, which is what Christianity boils down to (at its best) and which is difficult as hell. Having "faith," then, doesn't just mean having a collection of beliefs, which is what lots of Christians seem to mean by the word. You believe in God, or in Jesus, or that the world was made in six days, or that Noah built an ark. So what? If you're not shedding pride and practicing charity, what good does that do? Even Paul said that even if you can speak every language (even the language of angels), have the gift of prophecy, understand every mystery, know everything there is to know, have faith enough to move mountains, feed the poor, and sacrifice yourself to be burned… if you don't have charity, you don't have shit. (I'm paraphrasing.)

But can you do these things without God? C.S. Lewis says no. I suppose this would be the ultimate form of pride for him: "Screw you, God: I don't need your help." Lewis says that whenever we do anything, we're really just borrowing some of God's goodness to be able to do it. The analogy he gives (which I've always liked) is that it's like asking your dad for sixpence so you can buy him a birthday present. "Keeping the faith," according to Lewis, requires daily prayer or scripture-reading or church; otherwise, it just drifts away.

Whether I believe you need God in order to work on removing pride and putting on charity depends on how you define God. I don't think you have to be a Christian, and I don't think you have to believe in any particular version of God or of God at all. (I certainly don't think you need scripture, prayer, and church--though you do need some kid of reminders.) Lewis may be able to understand the harps and crowns as symbols, but he seems to get stuck on some of the larger ones. But if you prefer to call this kind of goodness or selflessness or love-beyond-reason "God," then fine. Removing pride and being charitable is what counts.

Book IV: Beyond Personality: or First Steps in the Doctrine of the Trinity
The fourth and final book is mostly about theology. At this point you're either with C.S. Lewis or you're not, so if you're a Christian or are on your way to becoming one, I think this is a useful book; and if you're not, I think it's interesting anyway. It helps to explain a lot of complicated ideas about God, appealing to both the logical brain and also pointing out where our own brains aren't enough for complete understanding.

As Lewis points out, and I've also noticed, many people get hung up on the metaphysical questions being (somewhat) answered in this book and dismiss the religion entirely as a result. I've always thought these were lazy dismissals. One question Lewis doesn't bring up, but is the kind that I'm talking about, is the question "Where did God come from? How could he have always existed?" This is like asking where did the universe come from; where did anything come from? We know the universe exists because we're in it, but no one knows how it got here. And the idea of it "getting here" seems to be a stupid idea to begin with, so how much more so with a concept like God. I'm not arguing for or against the existence of any kind of god here; I'm just pointing out that if God is really God, then having him arrive on the scene just as a human or anything else does wouldn't make him a god at all.

I like how Lewis explains the usefulness of theology. He explains that "feeling" God is like looking at the ocean or diving into it. Nothing will replace that experience. However, theology is like a map of the ocean. It doesn't have the same profound effect, but it's certainly more useful. My analogy would be weather reporting on TV. They always stick some poor sap out in the middle of the hurricane to give us a visual of the hurricane's power, but it's more useful to just show us a radar map and tell us when it's hitting.

Lewis says that those who just want the "ocean" or "weatherman in hurricane" version of God are part of a vague religion: "all thrills and no work," just "flowers and music." But what's wrong with just flowers and music and other ineffable things? Some might think this is what God actually is, and they could be right. Why is God necessarily connected with morality? But of course Lewis thinks God is morality, so it's too late to argue about that at this late point. However, if -- as Lewis says -- human morality isn't enough (he makes that point that simply listening to Jesus' teachings doesn't work, since humans are not ones to follow good advice), might some honest contemplation of flowers and music and the ocean and poetry be the kind of "working from the inside" that Lewis is asking for? Or is this the Pagan in me?

Some final "really?" moments. Lewis casually says that Christ existed before the beginning of time, along with his father, and he earlier has said that Jesus on earth is actually just a manifestation of God himself. I'm not sure that this is "mere" Christianity. What about Unitarian vs. Oneness vs. the Trinitarian? What about those who feel that God and Jesus are two "persons" and the Holy Ghost merely a spirit? I think Lewis is confuses "mere" Christianity (which doesn't seem to exist) with his own specific version.

Lewis also (again, casually) says, "Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow." At no time in my life did I believe this. What's with all the stuff in the Bible about God having to ask people questions, about changing his mind, about regretting something he did (like the flood)? And since Lewis isn't confining this statement to Christianity but to "everyone who believes in God at all," it's a hundred times more confusing why he assumes it.

In spite of these problems, I do think that this final book is helpful or interesting or both. Lewis gives good illustrations of a "super-personal" god, writes about a 4-D god that lives outside of the dimension that we live in, explains God as an author of the novel of the universe who has all the time in his world to stop between writing to answer the prayers of his characters, shows us a Lord who wants to turn his toy soldiers into real ones (Pinocchio style), teaches us about a Jesus who "infected" the spreading tree of humanity both forward and behind, and basically gives us a lot of time-talk and postmodern talk and something very much like pot-smokers' talk. The fact that theology eventually just sounds like stoners looking at the stars is probably part of the reason that many of Lewis's acquaintances warned him not to write Book IV. (But I'm glad he did.)

The most useful -- for Christians or otherwise-- parts of this book, however, are in the less metaphysical elements. Lewis takes us quickly through evolution (which he seems to have no problem with, by the way), pointing out that the kinds of creatures that once dominated this world were dinosaurs, and that anyone might have imagined that for a more dominant creature to exist, then they would have to have even more of what dinosaurs have: largeness, an armored body, large teeth, etc. But what we get instead is domination by humans. We dominate not through physicality but with our brains. It's not what you'd expect; it's some completely different thing. Lewis then explains that the next step of evolution has already happened (or has started to happen), but that it has nothing to do with larger brains (just as we did not evolve to have larger teeth). Instead it's the kind of spiritual evolution he's been writing about. (Luckily, I suppose, humans are the ones evolving instead of being replaced by something else, as was the case with dinosaurs.) Darwin himself says that the development of reason, morality, etc. was a result of natural selection, so it almost sounds like Lewis is on to something. Only the spiritual will survive.

Lewis also provides even better illustrations of how charity works and how it does amount to (at least at first) pretending. He compares it to the Beauty and the Beast story (a beautiful woman pretends a man is not a beast and eventually he isn't) and to the story of the ugly man who wears a handsome mask long enough so that his face eventually contorts itself into the mask and he actually becomes handsome. He compares it to our pretending to be grownups as children, which eventually leads us to actually being that way. As Kurt Vonnegut says in Mother Night: "You are who you pretend to be, so be careful who you pretend to be."

*
As you can tell, I've certainly got my problems with Mere Christianity. I think those problems are quickly summed up by saying that Lewis is describing his own particular brand of Christianity rather than a "mere" Christianity that doesn't exist, and that how he arrives at these ideas of his brand of Christianity are often illogical or worse. Even in Book IV, I have problems with the way Lewis suggests you approach God: saying your prayers, specifically the Lord's Prayer. Both the specificity of the image and the childishness of it bothers me (but the latter may be my own problem). Lewis did say that if you try to live a moral life without Christ, you'll either eventually quit trying to be moral or become grumpy all the time, so maybe that's why I'm grumpy all the time. (Though I'm also happy all the time.) But he also says this: "When a young man who has been going to church in a routine way honestly realizes that he does not believe in Christianity and stops going… the spirit of Christ is probably nearer to him then than it ever was before." So maybe there's hope for me yet.

At any rate, I do like this book. If you are a Christian, I think you should read it so you can be a better one. The smaller stuff that seems like nonsense to you is probably the stuff that isn't as important. This is the stuff that denominational splits are made of. How many persons are God? Do you sprinkle or dunk for proper baptism? Is there a resurrection? Can communion wine be non-alcoholic? The important stuff -- as far as I can make out -- is elimination of pride and the putting on of charity, which leads to the Golden Rule, which everyone wants. And in these matters, Lewis's writing excels. If you're a Christian, my advice is to focus more attention on these important things, in your life and in your conversation. If you're not a Christian, my advice is to focus on these important things too. Lewis says you can't do it properly without Christ, but I'm interested to see if he can be proven wrong.

Two Miraculous Gifts

2009-06-30T03:16:00.004-05:00

There have only been two times in my life when something has miraculously appeared out of nowhere, as a gift for me. The second time happened just this month. I had been searching up and down town for a 3.5 x 3.5 inch memo cube, since I had finally run out of the one I bought back in probably 1997. I've been using these things every day since the mid-80s (their heyday) and I simply can't switch to any other kind of stationary.

The problem is that Post-it notes seem to have the corner on the square stationary market. Go to any store and all you see is Post-its. Post-its, of course, are sticky and smallish, which is fine if you want to stick a little note somewhere, but what if you need a nice-sized, non-sticky square sheet to write a note on or draw a picture on or fold into a non-sticky bookmark? Do we really need this much stickiness? Anyway I don't think so, and that's why I searched for my special memo cube for many weeks.

I had already been to the Office Max where they had nothing but an aisle full of Post-its: one major corporation scratching another's back. My wife Carrie and I went back a second time to get something else, and we visited the stationary isle to see that only Post-its exist in the world. After both of us looked once more (thoroughly) and gave up, Carrie looked in a spot (that we'd already looked in) and said "Hey, what's that?" She then pulled out a beyond-perfect cube of "Astrobrights" that was wedged behind something. Even the colors were fancy. There was no other cube like this in the entire store (or anywhere else in town, maybe not in the country) and I was pretty convinced that God said "Fuck it" and placed it there for me, maybe out of frustration, maybe out of love.

*
The first miracle was even more miraculous. It was in high school when every ninth grader had to do a dreaded bug collection ("dreaded" because we had heard about it since elementary school). I was trying me best to find my required insects (we had a list), spending my days pinning them to my Styrofoam board, and generally having a miserable time. I'm not a big fan of bugs to begin with, and finding specific kinds isn't exactly easy. One in particular was proving impossible to find. If I didn't manage to get one, I'd get my grade of Q or whatever, so I was getting depressed.

The next day I walked outside and saw the insect I needed sitting on my carport. But it wasn't alive. It was dead, in pristine condition… and it already had a pin through it, ready for mounting! If I had complained aloud about not being able to find this one (and I hadn't), I'd chalk the episode up to someone doing me a favor (though placing it on my carport to be blown away by a faint wind or run over by the family car wouldn't have been wise). The real story is most likely that it was a part of someone else's collection and got lost and somehow ended up on my carport. But that's just the details of the miracle, since a miracle is what it was: a gift from the Universe just for me, nature itself breaking its rules just to make me less miserable and more happy.

*
In the spirit of these true stories, I figure I can't go too much longer on the God Blog without sharing with you the picture I took of my car window one night after a bird had miraculously crapped an image of Jesus Christ on it. I decided not to sell the window on eBay. Instead, I sprayed my window with a water hose and kept the memory in my heart.

A Spiritual Book

2009-06-04T04:16:00.007-05:00

Let's play a game. Follow my logic. We'll take this simple premise as a starting point: "The Bible is a spiritual book." We'll pretend that anything within it of any value has nothing to do with anything concrete or factual: laws, politics, history, places, people… Whether it's something that seems magical (a talking donkey, an angel) or something that we know is real (the city of Jerusalem, the Red Sea), we'll assume that all of these "worldly" elements are actually just metaphors for something spiritual, something concerning the inner life, the life of our thoughts and feelings. Let's just take this as a starting premise, just to see where it gets us.

Let's start with Heaven. Following this "everything is spiritual" premise, we will have to reject that Heaven is a physical place. Which makes sense anyway, since heaven is just a word for sky and the God of the Bible is a sky god (versus an earth goddess). If God, in the Bible, is in Heaven, it just means that he's "out there" while we're "down here." But if we're speaking spiritually, the sky can't be a physical place either, so we have to locate it inside ourselves. "Inside" sounds physical too, but we all know it isn't. Even the word "feelings" sounds physical, but isn't. "You hurt my feelings." Or my favorite: "You broke my heart." We speak spiritually/metaphorically all the time, but -- in spite of our everyday use of figurative language -- the metaphors of the Bible are taken by many as physical facts. But we're going past that idea today, for fun. So now we have it that Heaven is a place, seemingly out of reach, inside us, where God lives. Hold that thought.

Let's go to Hell. Again, if we're following our premise that the Bible is a spiritual book, Hell isn't a physical place either: no fire (except as metaphor), no brimstone (except as metaphor). So it too must be a place inside us, traditionally (though not Biblically) a place where the Devil lives.

So what about the Devil and God himself? Are they spiritual also? We're sticking with our premise, so yes. They too fit within the symbolism of our spiritual life. You know the standard cartoon image of the little devil on one shoulder and the little angel on the other telling you what to do? Are they physical? No. Are they real? Yes.

And God as a character is the most important symbol of all, a symbol pointing to the beautiful and unexplainable and unnamable mystery of life itself. But the only way to get to him is to go through the symbol. If you get stuck on the symbol, you haven't reached God.

*
If you want to go beyond this premise game, stop listening to idiot me, and listen to an expert, then listen to Jesus himself: "No one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again." Now listen to the response to this statement from Nicodemus, a religious guy: "How can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born." Now listen to Jesus slapping his head in frustration.

Jesus goes on to say, "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to the spirit." When Jesus said to drink his blood and eat his body, everyone got upset because they thought he was asking them to be cannibals. I could give example after example of Jesus getting frustrated when someone doesn't understand that he's speaking metaphorically, which is the only way to speak spiritually (and almost any other way). If only more people would pay attention in literature class.

This Nicodemus section, by the way, is from a very famous book and chapter of the Bible: John 3, in which Jesus says that whoever believes in him will have "everlasting life," a slightly better translation of that phrase being "the life of the future." Because the "future" he's talking about is the immediate future for anyone who wants to shed their old ways of thinking and accept this new way. That's what the Kingdom of God is. When Jesus "ascends" (stop! remember to think spiritually!) to "Heaven," he's going to that "place" where he says anyone can also go right now. The only thing you have to do to enter the Kingdom of God is to realize it's already here. It's a mindset. It's a metaphor. And it's the opposite of religion.

I know it's comforting to put everything off until the distant future, especially if you think that future won't arrive in your lifetime or be available until you're dead. It's a procrastinator's dream. And I know that it's not too sexy to think of these fantastic Biblical images simply as metaphor. The Apocalypse is transformed from an explosive World War III in the year 4000 into a spiritual destruction of your old way of thinking. The Garden of Eden is no longer a beautiful paradise with two naked supermodels, but instead it's just an inner place you can return to once you get past your limited conception of life as merely a series of "good" things and "evil" things. (Note that I'm greatly simplifying interpretations of these strong images; they will resonate differently for everyone, and to fully absorb them is to have no words for them at all.)

But thinking this way is also liberating. Everything begins to make logical sense, and you don't have to feel silly for believing in water shooting out of stones or sticks turning into snakes. If you become a good enough student of spiritual literature (the Bible is good, but don't stop there), the metaphors open up to you and you will understand them (and not understand them, which is often even better) the more you think about them, and they can actually change your life in a practical way: your inner life affecting your life in action which affects the world around you which affects the world at large.

If you weren't thinking this way already, give it a shot for about a week or two and report back to me with your findings. Good luck.

The Holy

2009-05-29T03:28:00.006-05:00

When I was a kid, the family tendency, as soon as we got home from church, was to strip off all our dressy church clothes, put on shorts and T-shirts, and watch TV the rest of the night. But I resisted this tendency. I don't blame the family for doing it (as I got older, I did it too), but something in me wanted to go into my room by myself, keep my church clothes on, do some quiet activity or do nothing at all (maybe even just go to bed and think), and above all avoid the TV. Something about immediately going back to "normal" just felt wrong to me, made me feel a little sick. I realize now that feeling has to do with the concept of the holy, which I'll attempt to describe here.

The experience of going to church -- if the church does it right -- puts you in another frame of mind, to allow you to think a different way, feel a different way, talk a different way, etc. That's what the stained-glass windows and candles and architecture is all about (not that my church had any of that). When the Bible tells you to separate yourself from this world, it's addressing this concept. As a boy (about age six to about age fourteen), I wanted to retain that different feeling. I didn't want to kill it as soon as I had the opportunity, especially since it would be gone by morning. It's not that the more comfy clothes and television were evil. They just weren't holy.

A lot of people say they get their best ideas in the bathroom: either taking a shower or taking a long dump. They might also get their best ideas while walking or jogging. Why is this? Easy. Because these are the times that you are by yourself, alone with your mind, away from what I'm going to call the glut.

When I was young, TV was the primary glut. It was the thing that best allowed you to do what you most wanted to do (whether you realized it or not): to be as far away from your inner life as possible. In the past decade, the glut has become more attainable than ever. As useful as cellular telephones can be, their primary function seems to be the twenty-four hour a day ability to disconnect yourself from the life of your thoughts. The main reason I don't use one (and I promise that this is not simply going to be a complaint about cell phones) is that I don't want people to be able to reach me at all times of the day. This isn't selfish. This is mental and spiritual health. I don't want to be the guy at the airport who sits down in his chair, nothing to do for thirty minutes, who looks around anxiously until he finally (and eventually this happens quickly, becomes second nature) realizes (oh!) he can call someone. And what does he say? "Hey, I'm at the airport. Yeah, I've got about thirty minutes till we board." Translated to: "I'm using you to avoid meditation."

If he were forced to sit there for that thirty minutes -- no cell phone, no laptop, no magazine -- he would be forced to have a holy moment. Maybe he'd look at people. Maybe he'd have thoughts about them: they look different, they look the same, they are moving while he is still, they have similar destinies, some tend to radiate more than others. Maybe he'd think of himself, at various stages of his life and of his future. Maybe he'd think of other people, which would connect him more to them than if he called them to talk glut, because he needed to kill time (and is now killing them and their own inner world). He'd, for that thirty minutes, be forced to become part of the eternal life that he's so afraid of.

As a kid going to a church that affected me in a positive way (and I plan to write about those days in a later post), the arrival home was part of the experience. The clothes, too, were part of the experience. Why? Because they were different. They weren't my daily clothes: the clothes I wore while watching a rerun of The Munsters for the fiftieth time. I remember thinking once, "This is why they say cleanliness is next to godliness." This is what dressing up is all about, to remove yourself, through clothing, from the everyday. And I felt I had to run away from the TV. It immediately came on (it was pretty much always on in the house) and I had to close myself off to avoid it. Certain religious groups preach against the television. They exaggerate, as always ("You're going to hell if you get one," "There's nothing but pornographic filth on it," etc.), but in a way they're on to something. Television's number one function is to distract you from anything real.

When I was older, I sometimes got those sick feelings too, when moments of holiness were juxtaposed with moments of glut. When I was seventeen, I saw David Lynch's Fire Walk With Me and the effect on me was profound. (Holiness, by the way, doesn't have to be a religious concept; it can come in different forms, in this case a movie.) Eventually after seeing this film, I had to creep back into the real world, and later that night, still feeling the holy feelings, I walked into a room where someone was watching television. The screen looked like it was covered with moving vomit, literal vomit. I couldn't make out anything on the screen: just smears of someone else's sick. My inner world was filled with art and my visual world was suddenly filled with the opposite, and that was the moment I first truly realized the destructive power of television for the mind and spirit. I had a lesser version of that experience a day or two ago when I was reading Joseph Campbell. I put the book down and (apparently too quickly) went to my computer and loaded up Facebook. Everyone's little posts -- "I'm about to eat some dinner, " "I'm ready for 5:00 to get here" -- and just the mundane look of the site made me a little pukey. (I hesitate to even write about that experience here, because I want this God Blog to be somewhat holy, separate from those kinds of places on the internet.)

I again promise you that I'm not just picking on certain kinds of technology (cell phones, television, laptops, social network sites, etc.). I'm not just being the old grumpy man. It just so happens that TV and cell phones seem to be primarily used for glut (while books are often not). I've seen true art on TV and had holy moments while watching it. The relaxation that television (even bad television) affords can even be therapeutic for your soul to a point, but after a while (once you've properly relaxed), it transforms and all you're left with is the crappy TV. It becomes glut. (The food analogies are obvious here: over-eating, "comfort food," etc. This kind of eating, of course, is usually paired with TV viewing.)

I also don't want you to think that because I'm talking about the inner life that my idea of holiness is only arrived at through solitude. The only reason I escaped my family those post-church nights was because they were returning to a place that I wasn't ready to go back to. My favorite nights after church, in fact, were the ones where we came home and sat together a little more and talked. We would talk about the Bible or about other things that may have happened, or maybe we just talked about something non-church related, just enjoyed each other--no television. Or we would have friends follow us home and we'd play the piano and sing. Times like those allow you not only to have a fun time together, but (if you're thoughtful enough) it also makes you aware, within the moment, that you are experiencing something special and gives you those special feelings. (If this doesn't happen, these moments can just turn into common noise: fun, but not holy.) Christmas can be a good time for that communal holiness. If you allow the magic of the tree lights, weird food, strange music you only hear one month out of the year, etc. to sweep over you, it can be amazing. This is that "special feeling" the songs are about, the "spirit of Christmas." You're removed from the normality of the rest of the year and enter this special zone. (Alternately, Christmas can be the noisiest, most depressing, spirit-killing glut-fest.)

I realize I'm not saying anything entirely new here (I never do), but I do think I'm saying something beyond just "Stop and smell the roses." I'm not just talking about getting away from the business of everyday life every now and then to have a quiet moment (though that's a start). I'm talking about attempting to go beyond the almost irresistible comfort of glut, so irresistible and comfortable that -- to some -- they don't know they're in it. For some, glut is life and the holy is merely boredom. (For me too, often, unfortunately.) This is why reincarnation (as a metaphor) is seen as a bad thing: it's just the same shit over and over again.

So -- to attempt a definition -- the holy is anything beyond the everyday that can alter or increase your consciousness in some way, anything that makes you thoughtful instead of thoughtless, anything that allows you to delve down to your inner life, anything that makes you feel that which is beyond words. And the glut is anything that is so mundane, artless, or noisy that it hinders the above.

For me, solitude does seem to work best for arriving at this holy state. Sitting outside with trees arching over me, birds talking, squirrels nibbling everywhere, insects crawling through the leaves at my feet like blood. A quiet room and a sheet of paper. An art museum--all that white space, all those echoed footsteps, all those pieces on display that wouldn't have as much power somewhere else. Staring at any given space and meditating on whatever happens to be there: a stack of CDs, two shoes arranged in that particular way on the floor, the base of a microphone stand, the top left corner of a window pane. All of this is holy, all of this is God.

William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

2009-03-20T03:41:00.008-05:00

I first read William Blake in high school when I was about sixteen years old: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. I liked those, but I started really liking Blake when I chose to do my eleventh grade research paper on his life and works. The more I found out about him, the more weirdly familiar he seemed to me, until I eventually started flattering myself with the thought that I must have been William Blake in a previous life (something that still crosses my mind each time I read him).

I was intrigued by Blake as a mystic, his having visions of his dead brother and of angels, of staring at a knot in a piece of wood until he became scared of it, etc. I've never had strong visions or dreams about anything (unless you count my occasional sleep paralysis), but I like the concept of seeing things that aren't there--or specifically, seeing differently the things that are there. I think I do this different-seeing a little, though sometimes I simply see nothing where everyone else sees something. Lots of this world is invisible to me.

I was also intrigued by Blake as a visual artist. He was just as much a drawer, painter, engraver, etc. as he was a writer, and I loved the way he combined the two on the same page (or, in his case, engraved plate). This is how I got my start as a writer, too: writing words to tell stories about my pictures (and not the other way around). Like a lot of my favorite storytellers (C.S. Lewis and David Lynch to name two), the images came first. He also produced everything himself, rather than going to a traditional publisher, creating his books indie rock style, which is way that I've approached most of my art (especially my music), often from necessity but also because I like the freedom.

I became especially interested in Blake's prophetic books, though I didn't begin reading them properly until recently. As a teenager, I liked reading about them, but I must have felt (after glancing at the works themselves) that they were too much to undertake at that young age, so I put them off until later. Every time I read them now, that familiarity hits me again. They get me excited, and they also make me laugh.

I will probably eventually create posts for most of Blake's major works as I read (or re-read) them, but today I want to start with The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Primarily I just want to get across some of the ideas he expressed in this work, even just as summary, but I will also give some commentary. You should be warned that some of the commentary will be comparisons of Blake to me more than any kind of real analysis of the work--which might suck for you if you don't know who I am… or if you do know who I am. I'm not sure which is worse.

(Special note: when I quote Blake throughout this post, I have chosen to correct his crazy spellings, capitalizations, and punctuation to more or less "smooth out" his writing for the sake of readability.)

You can and should read the entire Marriage of Heaven and Hell here first. It has both the text of the work as well as his illuminations. And, if you're interested in an analysis of the book, you can read a "run-through" I wrote for my world literature class this semester. The PDF is here.

One of the things that I love about The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is that, although it doesn't look like it at first glance, it's both a parody and a satire. As I said in my Trickster post, comedy should be a part of any meaningful connection with God. My favorite parodies are not necessarily the ones that "make fun" of something, but the ones that are more or less loving tributes. The music of Ween, Tenacious D, Liam Lynch, and 'nikcuS comes to mind. And this is what Blake is doing in lots of the Marriage. He begins with a parody of the book of Isaiah. Again, he's not "making fun" of Isaiah, but he's using the Biblical language in order to (a) give his words extra built-in power and authority and (b) to be funny. So it's a parody, but it's a serious parody (like Hamlet).

The entire thing isn't using the voice of Isaiah, however, and lots of it is just downright plainspoken (which is also funny). Throughout the entire piece, however, is a perfect combination of comedy and seriousness, self-importance and self-depreciation, sacred and profane. This fits perfectly with one of Blake's initial statements: "Without contraries is no progression." That's the purpose of the "marriage" of Heaven and Hell. Religion almost always separates. Religion (for one) says that the soul (or mind) is separate from the body, that the soul is good while the body is evil, that passive people will go to Heaven while active people will go to Hell. Blake thinks that this kind of dualism is death. To say that Blake wants to "combine" these elements is only partially true, since the real truth is that he doesn't see them as separate at all. They are simply bogus distinctions.

Think of how much of religion is based around the idea that the body is evil. The idea of the "Virgin Mary" is crucial to most of Christianity. Jesus was only able to finish the job by having his body destroyed. The Da Vinci Code controversy (as well as the older Last Temptation of Christ controversy) is based around the for-some-reason-scandalous idea that Jesus may have had sex (or at least thought about it). Abstinence education is more of a religious movement than anything else. And this is just the sexual component of the body. (Fasting and avoiding gluttony was once another religious way of avoiding temptation, but this has largely gone out the window in America. We traded "free love" for obesity, it seems, but that's another post.)

"As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys."

Throughout my early life, I was taught by religion that the body was bad news. Sometimes the body was stifled so much that sex was something too far in the distance to even discuss. At least we had the outlet of doing things "in the spirit." I might go into this in a later post, but I was raised in a pretty physical church. You could dance in the spirit, sing in the spirit, and generally do anything that was fun as long as it was "in the spirit." But woe unto those who did these things out of the spirit. Dancing in a club on a Friday night, singing ABBA songs at a karaoke: all of this was bad. To a kid, of course, and often to an adult, the distinction was difficult to discern. Luckily, my family and I were rebellious enough that we didn't care, so I sang and danced to Alvin and the Chipmunks all I wanted while my folks did the Twist guilt-free.

It sometimes seemed that the ideal state was to be some kind of floating cloud of invisible thought. The Age of Enlightenment was a great leap ahead from an age of the blind following of religious authority, but in some religion in America these days, it seems that we have the worst of both ages. We can't love our bodies or use our brains.

Part of the premise of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is that Blake is going against the common thought of his age (the tail end of the Age of Enlightenment), which makes him a devil. So all the positive (for lack of a better term) characters in the Marriage are devils, while the negative characters are angels. The fun, glorious places are Hell, while the stifling places are Heaven. This isn't reversal for reversal's sake. Remember that these good/bad distinctions are silly to Blake to begin with. Instead, he's adopting these dualist terms to make his points.

We do the same thing ourselves all the time in conversation. We say "Man, I know I'm going to hell" while laughing, or we call ourselves or others devils because of some fairly harmless behavior (that nonetheless offends others). And we sarcastically call self-righteous people "little angels." And if you go just an inch or two away from the norm, you run the risk of being called a devil. Even someone who has a God blog might be under attack for being a godless heathen.

Hell, by the way, as a place for eternal punishment, was an offensive idea to Blake, and it always has been to me. Even as a child, hellfire preaching smelled to me like desperate fear tactics. "If you don't want to worship God because you love him, then consider that you might be burned and stabbed with a pitchfork." Images of Heaven were equally silly to me, even some of the more metaphorical ones. All of the images appealed to either our materialistic, need-for-comfort natures (Heaven) or to our fears of pain (Hell). The whole thing felt like a parent offering a kid ten bucks if they make all As and a spanking if they didn't, rather than stressing the innate goodness of doing well in school.

Anyway, William Blake is using the same kind of "ain't I a devil?" jokes we do, but -- once again -- he's being more serious about it, since at the core of some of these jokes are grave issues such as the American and French Revolutions, slavery, oppression of the poor, the suppression of creativity, repressive theology, etc. So, using the voice of the devil, Blake launches into a direct attack on these oppressive thoughts arising from religion, politics, and more.

Blake is able to explain how religion comes about in only one page of writing. He says that once upon a time, artists would take common elements -- woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, etc. -- and assign a god to them. So we have wood gods or river gods or a statue put in the middle of a town that is meant to represent the spirit of the city. Only art and poetry can properly describe God, and that's what was happening here. However, literal-minded, boring priests came in and actualized these poetic images and forced people to worship the images, eventually claiming that it was the gods themselves that did the forcing. In this way, Blake explains, "men forget that all deities reside in the human breast."

I always think it's stupid when people say that believing in God is like believing in fairy tales. For one thing, I don't like fairy tales being put down as something silly. But I do understand the point of this statement, and Blake says what these people are trying to say in a better way when he says that priests are "choosing forms of worship from poetic tales." God is all of these poetic tales put together, not just one. The problem lies in first separating whole things into parts and then choosing only one of those parts that you feel is the best. In doing so, you're only getting a small portion of God; as a result, you're actually not getting God at all. It would be like having a conversation with my clipped toenail and then pretending you've met me.

As an illustration of this in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Blake imagines that he is speaking with the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel. They explain to him that their prophecies, more than anything, were trying to turn people away from these narrow gods and to tell people about the true God, which they call "Poetic Genius." They explain that prophecy isn't hearing God in an audible voice or seeing him in a physical way. Instead, they "discovered the infinite in everything" and wrote what they felt. Of course, the prophets lament, everyone enjoyed so much what they said that they wanted to worship their god exclusively, missing the point. Creativity was once again replaced with specific gods and rules, and the cycle continued.

It's refreshing to think of the prophets in this way, that they're not out to convert you to one god. On the contrary. They're not playing religious football, rooting for the winning deity. As a simplified illustration, think of it this way. Imagine someone says, "When I come to this art museum, it feels like I am with God." As a result of hearing this, someone else starts worshipping the art museum itself. This is the basic concept of idolatry, but not in the basic understanding of it as "statue-worship." In William Blake's version of idolatry, worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- or worshipping Jesus -- is also idolatry. You're choosing one element of the infinite and putting all of your attention onto it alone. You're worshipping God's clipped toenail.

In the final parts of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Blake tells us that worshipping God has nothing to do with going to church, praying, or anything like that. He says that worshipping God is honoring what is creative, great, and valuable in each other. Jesus said almost as much when he says that whatever you do for "the least of these," you do for him.

There's a large comparison to be made between Blake's ideas and what Jesus was preaching--more than I'm willing to write about now, but basically Jesus was telling everyone that he was God and was more or less telling everyone else that they could be God, too. Remember, "all deities reside in the human breast." Blake points out in the Marriage that Jesus went around breaking all of the commandments and says that "no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments." Think of what Jesus constantly got in trouble for: not following rules, not following religion, claiming he was God… you know, being a devil.

And, most importantly to Blake, Jesus was being his own person, creative and original. William Blake prizes creativity more than anything. Sometimes creativity looks foolish, but Blake says that "if the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise." Anything anyone's ever done worth remembering or repeating is something that maybe began as something seemingly foolish, and it certainly began as an idea, a bit of creativity. Someone attempted something new and the world was changed, in a small way or in an immeasurable way.

I recently realized that anything I care about in the world can be reduced to two things: creativity and love (and maybe just creativity). As this pertains to God, you'll notice that he seems to mostly appear in one form of art or another: literature, music, dance, paintings, films, sculpture, architecture, etc. Even church is a piece of theatrics, sometimes called "the art of worship." Prayer is soliloquy. I don't think it's an exaggeration, or a reduction, to say that God is art, or "Poetic Genius."

William Blake's ideas, too, might sound foolish. To some he's simply a weirdo mystic. But you can see how our world would improve overnight if we were able to sincerely put his ideas into practice. We'd go one better than the golden rule of treating each other like we want to be treated; we'd treat each other like we'd want to treat God. We'd stop arguing over whose deity has the biggest dick, which would reduce tons of wars and even infighting amongst the religious. We wouldn't blindly follow rules simply because they're "holy." We'd stop thinking of our bodies as being lowly, and we'd realize that it and the mind work together. We'd be able to discard any shackles of oppression, in all of its forms. We'd value the best and most creative ideas, squash the mediocre ones, and throw out anything that simply isn't working anymore. We would know that every good idea we have, and every application of that good idea, is a godly expression, better than any prayer. We wouldn't even have to use the word god anymore if we didn't want to, and morality would have meaning beyond religious rules and restrictive images. We'd be able to discover the infinite in everything.

Of course, if I actually am the reincarnation of William Blake, I'm sure it sounds like I'm just tooting my own horn. At least it's a prophetic horn.

No Intelligence Allowed

2009-03-03T02:13:00.002-06:00

Sorry for two "origin" posts in a row (though I'm still going to write a true Darwin post one day), but I just watched that Ben Stein documentary on evolution and intelligent design called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. As a movie, it was averagely entertaining. It was like a third-rate Michael Moore (who himself is often third-rate) paired with a twentieth-rate Errol Morris. I've always liked Ben Stein: he has that dry goofiness and he seems like a guy who's full of love and warmth.

The documentary began innocently enough. It seemed to want to explain the idea of intelligent design a little more clearly (and it did), demonstrating that it was more than just "creationism," and the film initially focused on a handful of professors who were fired for (presumably) even talking about this idea in the academy. I'm sort of with the "skeptic" guy from the movie on these firings when he says "something else must have been going on," but I'm mostly willing to give these professors the benefit of the doubt.

But then the movie loses this initial point and goes horribly wrong. The worst offense in the movie is when Darwin is linked to Hitler and the Holocaust and despair itself, taking a weird dark detour that felt like a different film entirely, ominous music playing while Ben stares sadly and accusingly at a statue of Charles Darwin as if he's blaming the theory of evolution for the death of six million Jews.

The sit-down with Richard Dawkins was also just silly, since Ben Stein asks Dawkins where life originally came from and of course Dawkins says "I don't know. No one knows," and Ben (and the editing) takes this answer as an admission of defeat--the assumption being that the correct answer is "God made life." But what if Dawkins had turned around and said, "Where did God come from?" (And maybe Dawkins did; only the editor knows for sure.) Suddenly Ben would have been defeated by his own dumb question. At any rate, the arguments for intelligent design are all but lost at this point and are replaced with a simple insistence that God is real.

But the main problem with the movie is that the premise itself makes no sense: the question Ben Stein is asking doesn't make sense and neither does his central metaphor. He's basically asking "Why can't science pursue the possibility of God as creator?" and his central metaphor is that leaving God out of science is like putting up a (Berlin) wall that separates one thing (God) from the other (science), limiting freedom. What Ben is forgetting, of course, is the definition of science itself. Science is based on things that can be observed. And if God can't be observed, then by definition God has to be on the other side of that wall. Some separations are okay. The movie doesn't make sense because the movie doesn't seem to know what science actually is.

What if we flipped it? What if, in my discussion of Romeo and Juliet in my literature class, I spent the entire time talking about the chemicals that are activated in the body and brain when you are in love? What if I talked about how Romeo and Juliet had high levels of adrenaline and dopamine and low levels of serotonin and that they both released the hormone oxytocin during sex and went on to explain how those things work scientifically? What, I can't allow for the possibility that maybe Romeo and Juliet were simply controlled by chemicals? Is this not an alternative reading of Shakespeare that also needs to be addressed side by side with traditional literary criticism? No, it's not. It has nothing to do with literature. It could only be useful as a joke.

Humanity, of course, needs to examine life from every angle it can: scientifically, religiously, philosophically, psychologically, etc. But it doesn't have to do it all at once and it doesn't have to do it in the same place. Even the Bible suggests that there's a time for everything.

The Origin of the Universe (A Cartoon)

2009-01-28T02:36:00.006-06:00

Someday soon I'll write a more serious post about Charles Darwin and how The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man actually have some pretty moving passages in them and descriptions of God that rival those of the Bible. For now, however, I'm going to demonstrate, in comic strip form, how those who believe in the Bible shouldn't have any beef with those who believe in, you know, stuff we actually have evidence of concerning the origin of life, the universe, and everything.

First, we have God. Fair enough. Science, hang on tight: we'll get to you in a second.

For the purposes of my comic strip, a Son of God (the yellow dot) was also introduced, but that's not important to what we're talking about today. What's important here is that the little red ball of energy (God's "grandson," if you want to get technical) eventually undergoes a big bang, creating the universe. I never understand when someone says, "I don't believe in the Big Bang Theory. I believe in God." Well, why couldn't God have set off the bang? That's like saying, "I don't believe in an oven. I believe the cook made this dinner." Isn't there sometimes a middle?

From here, of course, things spread out and form as they form: galaxies, stars, planets, etc. Did God control or guide these things, or did they "just happen"? What's the difference? If you believe they just happened, what's wrong with someone calling that phenomenon "God"? If you believe God guided these things, what's wrong with saying he made them "just happen"? No one should be arguing.

Eventually life springs forth: in this case, single-celled organisms (or "Phil," if you want to be all scientific about it).

News flash: dinosaurs and humans never lived together. We never rode them like cowboys, and we didn't have smaller purple versions of them as dogs. No matter how much "faith" you have, you can't make something true just by believing it. I feel silly even writing this, because I can't imagine who would need to hear it, but then I do a Google search for "dinosaurs lived with man" and my mind is blown. Anyway, I like to believe that dinosaurs evolved into birds. (For proof, look at a bird.)

Eventually, through evolution, came mammals and man. If you want a Godly answer for how the domination of man came about, then maybe God gave him a little nudge (maybe even using the monolith from 2001). If you want the Darwinian answer, then -- in order to survive -- mankind passed on helpful traits: reason, invention, a sense of morality, etc. Either way, it's the same result.

And if you're hung up on the "first man" notion from Genesis, then consider what that means. Does it mean that man had to be created from scratch, or could "man" have come only after a long line of evolution: from ol' single-celled Phil to fish/amphibians to monkey-types to Neanderthals to modern man (with God breathing the breath of life in him, if you like, just to give us that extra flavor)? I don't understand why God would have to create every single thing from scratch. Simple observation certainly doesn't show this to be the case. (In a future post, I'll explain why the duck-billed platypus does not prove that God has a sense of humor.)

Here's something you don't see depicted every day: Adam (the first man) hanging out with his primitive ancestors...

... which certainly solves the literalists' problem of where Cain found his wife (without having to resort to his sister--gross).

Of course, things get simplified or mythologized. For one thing, the guy(s) who wrote Genesis didn't know what we know today about the universe. But that doesn't mean that they explained it wrong. If a little boy named Jimmy asked his parents where he came from and they told him, "Well, Jimmy, we fell in love, got married, prayed for a child, and the next thing we knew, we were holding you in our arms," there's nothing incorrect about that version of the story. It's just not specific.

That version of the story doesn't go into the gory details of sexual intercourse, Jimmy's development inside the womb, the actual delivery, etc. And, when Jimmy grew up and learned about sex, he probably didn't turn to his parents and say, "You lied to me!" Jimmy's parents were giving him a mythologized, poetic version of his genesis, and Jimmy (as an adult) was smart enough to know that.

Notice, too, how Jimmy's parents said they prayed for him to be born. Did the prayer bring him about? Maybe, maybe not: that's something we can't really know. What we can know for sure, however, is that their having sex brought him about. And there's the crucial difference between science and faith. Faith is something we can believe in that gives our lives more meaning and poetry. Science explains what actually is so that our lives are not lived in complete ignorance and we can make smart decisions that truly affect our lives. When in doubt, then, you'll be wise to choose science.

And the Bible is not a science book. (We learned in a previous post that it's not a rulebook.) It is a book about humanity: the good, bad, and ugly of it. It doesn't have the answer to everything you want to know (sorry). If you're truly interested in the creation of the universe, the Bible isn't the book to go to.

So good news: you don't have to try to throw away your seventh grade science book just because you believe in God. You don't have to make creationism compete with evolution. Genesis skims through the origins because that's not what it's interested in, so you don't have to be either (though it's cool if you are). So relax!

And, science, you can go on doing your good work. The more we know about how the universe actually works, the more we can know about God.

*

P.S. If you're wondering how seriously I take my Bible Stories comic and its explanation of the origin of the universe, I'll tell you. My goal in writing the comic is to treat the Bible pretty literally and present it in a comic strip form (complete with jokes). While doing so, I try to give it some kind of real world sense. So while I have talking snakes and floating people and all the supernatural stuff, I also try to ground it with a certain contemporary understanding. So if you're asking do I believe (there's that word again) in what I'm drawing: no, not necessarily. I'm just trying to tell the story in a way that makes some kind of sense within the logic of the strip as I've fashioned it.

Speaking In Tongues

2008-11-20T03:06:00.005-06:00

Glossolalia is when you speak in a "language" that no one on earth (including yourself) can understand. (The idea is that God can.) Xenoglossy is when you speak in an actual language that you have no way of knowing. Both of these are usually called "speaking in tongues." The second one (Xenoglossy) is certainly more impressive. This is what the apostles (in the book of the Acts) reportedly did. They could preach to people who spoke other languages, as if they had a Babel Fish for the mouth. That's why Xenoglossy is often more specifically called "the gift of tongues," and why you'll be hard-pressed to actually find it. Plain old speaking in tongues, however, is fairly common. You may have done it yourself.

The second chapter of the Acts describes an event that takes place on the day of Pentecost (a day that marks the giving of the Ten Commandments) during which the apostles are filled with the Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit) that causes them to speak in other languages. People of several nationalities (who all lived in Jerusalem) were confused to hear Galileans speaking their native language. In addition to speaking in tongues, they also appeared drunk to the observers.

A similar thing happened in Los Angeles in 1906 during the Azusa Street Revival, which lasted (more or less) until 1915 and spawned the Pentecostal (and Charismatic) movement. There may not have been any Xenoglossy, but there was Glossolalia, and certainly what looked like drunkenness. Though mostly black, there were also whites at the revival, as well as a combination of rich and poor, and they were all "holy rolling" together. "A disgraceful intermingling of the races," a local newspaper wrote.

Okay, so what do I think about all this?

First, I've never seen Xenoglossy, actually speaking in an existing language that one hasn't learned. I don't know anyone who has. I have been in church services during which members have attempted interpretation of tongues (another gift of the spirit), but the fact that these tongues were typically translated into King James style English makes one dubious. The gift of interpretation is stuck in 1611?

As for speaking in tongues, speaking sounds that has the characteristics of language: there's certainly something to it. And let's keep it simple for now; let's remove God and see what's left. What happens when someone speaks in what seems like another language, if they can get to that state?

The University of Pennsylvania (as reported in The New York Times) found that, while speaking in tongues, activity in the parts of the brain that have to do with self-control (and language itself) are reduced while emotional centers are heightened. So something exists, that's not in the form of a drug, that makes you feel pretty high (as if you're speaking to God himself, if that gives you an idea of the sensation). Something exists, that's not in the form of alcohol, that allows you to lose control of yourself so that you have a drunk feeling--but without a hangover in the morning, loss of memory, vomiting, etc. In fact, you're plenty conscious the entire time (as those parts of the brain are active). Something exists that makes you feel euphoric while it's happening and then better in the morning. Who wouldn't want this?

This takes me back to Azusa Street. No wonder people of all kinds were flocking together. What looked like a disgraceful intermingling of the races to the bigots of the early 1900s felt like a beautiful communion of humanity that ignored race and class. I've seen this first-hand, too, in churches. Reserved, potentially-racist white men are suddenly hugging all over black men (eliminating, apparently, any potential homophobia as well). It never ended in a bar fight, and it caused actual racists to rethink their opinions: "Last night, while we were speaking in tongues together, he felt like a brother to me," etc. So, removing God for now, you have something like the best effects of ecstasy and alcohol, without any of the negative effects, and the added bonus of instant brotherly love.

Let's think of phenomena that, to me, seem similar: laughing and crying. Both are similarly weird. One of them even causes liquid to drip from our eyes. And both are beneficial. What if we didn't laugh? "Laughter is the best medicine," anyone? Freud said laughter releases psychic energy and tension. And crying. I suppose we'd just shrivel up and die without tears. Maybe there's some third, misunderstood, often-missing emotional element that goes along with the outbursts associated with comedy and drama.

I didn't mean, by the way, for this post to become some advertisement for speaking in tongues. For one, I don't think it's something that most could just start doing. And those who speak in tongues might be offended that I'm taking away the "gift from God" aspect and placing tongues in the realm of the hippie-dippy or faddish (something that could catch on as the new yoga). I'm really just wanting to talk about it as a potentially natural phenomena, to perhaps defend it, or at least to look at it from the point of view of those who experience it, to explain it in a non-religious way to those looking on at these confusing and "disgraceful" displays of emotion.

So if you've ever felt sorry for someone who you think has deluded themselves into thinking they're talking to God, then don't feel sorry. Feel jealous.

The Trickster

2008-10-20T04:16:00.008-05:00

I talked a little bit about the Bible in the last post, and that's certainly the collection that has influenced my thought about God and religion the most, but it's not the work that most appeals to me. The two writings that I relate to the most, the two things that speak to me personally, are the prophetic works of William Blake and the Winnebago Trickster Cycle. I'm going to talk about the second of those today (saving William Blake for a later post).

You can read a version of the trickster cycle here, though I recommend picking up a book by Paul Radin called The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology. It's got a better translation, is cleaner, and has commentaries and background by Radin as well as an essay by Carl Jung.

It was only a few years ago that I discovered this version of the trickster, when I decided to teach Native American myth in my world literature class. I knew about other tricksters, of course (even if I didn't call them that). Any character who breaks rules, plays jokes, shifts shapes, and turns things on their heads can be considered tricksters, including Brer Rabbit, Woody Woodpecker, and Bugs Bunny. I also knew about some of the more purely mythological tricksters like the ones found in Gilgamesh and Popul Vuh (another work that really appeals to me that I may talk about in a future post). Tricksters in general appeal to me, but none as much as the Winnebago (or Hotcâk) version, the one they call Wakdjunkaga ("the tricky one" or, more mysteriously and appropriately circular, "the one who acts like Wakdjunkaga").

The Trickster is a character who is sent by the Earthmaker to help humans, but he ends up going off on his own to do what he wants. The Christian tradition would probably call a character like this a devil, someone who rebels against the one who created him, usually because he wants to be independent. But the Winnebago didn't think of him that way. They thought of him as being foolish, but loveable, and also worthy of a certain kind of respect (he is a god, after all) and certainly important to their stories and their lives.

Here are just a few of the Trickster's adventures:

He begins his story by becoming a tribal chief who does everything wrong, blaspheming all of the Winnebago traditions. He then makes one of his arms angry at the other and begins cutting himself. He borrows two children from a friend and kills them through neglect. He mistakes a tree stump with a protruding branch for a man pointing at him and they have a pointing contest (a model for the "tar baby" story in Brer Rabbit).

He kills some ducks and tells his anus to guard them while he sleeps. Some foxes appear and Trickster's anus attempts to ward them off by farting, but they steal the ducks anyway. When Trickster wakes up, he is so upset at his anus for not properly guarding that he stabs it with a hot stick, causing his intestines to fall on the ground which he finds and eats. To heal his anus, Trickster ties it together tightly so that it wrinkles, which is why our butt-holes look the way they do today.

Trickster wakes up with an erect penis and thinks that the covers at the end flapping in the wind is the chief's banner, but he eventually gets his blanket back, coils up his penis, and puts it in a box he carries on his back (his penis box). He sees naked women in a lake and sends his penis across the water. It finds the chief's daughter and begins having sex with her. Her friends try to get the penis out, but can't. They call strong men who can't remove it either. Finally an old woman pries it out with an awl, throwing her backward several feet. Trickster responds, "Hey, I was fucking that girl!"

Trickster and his friends eventually decide to live the life of luxury by marrying the chief's son, so trickster makes breasts out of elk's kidneys and a vulva out of an elk's liver and puts a dress on. He marries the guy, and the Trickster gets pregnant and has three boys. But the jig is up when his fake vulva falls out.

He then takes the opportunity to visit his real wife and son, but gets bored and leaves. This is when he hears a voice that says, "If you eat me, you will shit." He finds that it is a talking bulb on a bush. He wants to prove the bulb wrong, so he eats it. He immediately begins farting, so much and so hard that his ass starts hurting. He farts so forcefully that it picks him up and pushes him forward like a jet-pack. Another time he is shot straight up into the air and he grabs a tree to stop himself and pulls it up at the roots. "At least I'm not shitting," the Trickster says. But then he begins doing that too, so much that he has to climb a tree because it keeps piling up under his ass and hitting his body. He eventually falls into his mountain of crap.

Later, a hawk flies into the Trickster's ass to teach him a lesson, but Trickster closes up his butt-hole so tight that the hawk can't get out. A chipmunk chews off part of Trickster's penis and testicles, which is why our penises are so small now, but also where we get lily-pads from (since that's what happened to the discarded parts). That's also where we get potatoes, turnips, rice, and other good things.

Eventually, Trickster does finally do some good for humanity around the Mississippi River area, and you can still see his butt and balls print on a rock where he had his last meal on earth.

My students are naturally confused by the stories. What is Trickster? A human, a god, an animal? Is he a man or a woman? How can he get pregnant if he has only a fake vagina? Do his ass and penis really have a mind of their own? Are we supposed to take the origin stories seriously? Why so much farting and pooping? And sex? And, most importantly, why is there so much comedy in a religious text?

I essentially tell them that if they can embrace all of the above mysteries that they will be better humans. We are so uptight. We like "yes" and "no." Thank God for Bugs Bunny (and similar characters, usually found in cartoons), because the religions we're most familiar with don't offer much comedy. Even the Trickster himself was hijacked by Christians; the Christian-influenced Peyote tribe would use him for morals ("Don't be like the foolish Trickster," etc.), as if he were just a "Mr. Bungle" from a 1950s education film.

Do we watch Bugs Bunny to learn a moral? Are we confused when he dresses as a woman and seduces Elmer Fudd? Does it bother us that he's a rabbit and human (and more) at the same time? No, I hope not. If Bugs were part of our religions, we'd have better ones. Instead, we have a separation of church and comedy (if not always state). (As a side note, I don't think we should always be learning morals or lessons from the Bible either. As I said in the last post, there's a lot more going on than can be summed up in some Aesop's Fables style sentence.)

Two of the most powerful and downright magical things humans can do: (1) have sex and (2) laugh. The Trickster has both of these in abundance. This is why it speaks to me more than the Bible does. In spite of the fact that I'm making a comic out of the Bible, it's just not that funny. It has lots of sex, but (with the exception of the Song of Solomon) the sex is usually just violence or oppression in disguise. Presumably, religious texts are for humans, but it doesn't always seem like it. The Winnebago Trickster Cycle is definitely for humans.

The first part of the Trickster Cycle begins with this sentence: "Once upon a time there was a village in which lived a chief [the Trickster] who was just preparing to go on the warpath." This is only important (and funny) when we realize that a chief never went on the warpath. Later Trickster is found having sex, something forbidden to those going on the warpath. You can see the complications piling up, and they continue to for pages. The jokes begin eating themselves in paradoxical form. The Winnebago (rightly) felt that it was important to poke fun at their most sacred and profound customs and traditions.

To demonstrate an equivalent, imagine a Christian pastor at the beginning of a story sitting in the congregation waiting for church to begin (instead of starting it himself at the pulpit). He's stacked clumps of his feces and cups of his urine on the communion table, explaining that the body and blood of Christ has passed through to the other side from the previous communion. And so on (except tons more funny).

Many would just be offended, but that's where our religions fail. The funniest jokes should be those poking fun at the things you care the most about. This is why it's an honor to be roasted. One of our most ingrained concepts is the concepts of blasphemy (as a negative), but the Trickster Cycle asks us to embrace blasphemy. Blasphemy can be funny, and God can take it. The things we treat as holy (such as communion) are just symbols, and symbols are silly (and dangerous) if taken too seriously, and so to arrive at a stronger version of what those symbols can do for you, the entryway to this larger world is blasphemy, parody, and laughter itself. I'm totally serious, folks.

So if you read only the Bible for your spiritual edification, make sure you're supplementing it with one or more of the following cartoons that offer trickster-style releases necessary for fully-functional humans: Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Warner Brothers cartoons, Beavis and Butt-Head, or Ren and Stimpy. Tom Green is also a good solution.

The Bible

2008-10-13T03:58:00.005-05:00

Part One: Historical Disclaimer

Just as the question "Do you believe in God?" leads to the question "Which God?," the question "Do you believe in the Bible?" leads to the question "Which Bible?" There is no such thing as The Bible.

There's the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy), the Prophets (Joshua, Judges, etc.), and the Writings (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and some of the other more poetic stuff) which gets lumped into the somewhat offensively-named "Old Testament" (which I admit to offensively calling it). Then there's the "New Testament" which contains the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and the Revelation. The Catholic Church recognizes nine books that the Protestants don't. There are a dozen or so recognized by other Christian churches. These are the "canonical" works, but only depending on who you ask (which calls the word canon into question in this context).

Then of course are the books you don't get to read in Sunday School. There's a great collection called The Other Bible (edited by Willis Barnstone) that contains Gnostic Gospels, Dead Sea Scrolls, and more: other versions of the creation of the world, the further adventures of Adam and Eve, additional psalms (including a few by Solomon), a "secret" gospel of Mark, the acts of Pilate, and tons more goodies.

There's another great book called Lost Scriptures (edited by Bart D. Ehrman) that focuses on additional New Testament era works, including the gospel of Thomas, the gospel of Mary (a woman!), the acts of Paul, additional epistles, and more than one apocalypse. Lately, they've even discovered the gospel of Judas.

So there's quite a bit to work with and no one collection of all of these together. Even the word bible translates to something like "little books," so it's these individual little books from different writers over different periods of time we should be talking about, not some arbitrary collection of these books put together by people who want to trick us into thinking it's a unified vision.

Some will argue otherwise: that the Gnostics and the rest are non-canonical for a reason, a reason stemming from God himself, that they weren't inspired, that they are "fakes." Only the "real" Bible is the Word of God. Anyone can write scripture, but what gives it power? Good question! And it's a question that actually has an answer, and the answer has little to do with God and more to do with human power struggles, but that's beyond the scope of what I'm wanting to talk about here (and I've already gone too far).

I can tell you one thing, however, that gives the current version(s) of the Bible power: laziness. The one we grew up with in Sunday School is the "real" one and everything else can go lay an egg. Lots of us haven't actually gotten around to reading the real one yet, so we certainly can't be bothered with these imposters. (Forget the fact that our real Bible actually refers to these "other" books from time to time.)

Don't get me started on translations. Perhaps you've met someone who truly believes that Jesus spoke in Victorian English.

Part Two: I'm a Fan

Okay, fine. You can learn those things from Wikipedia. What are my actual thoughts on the Bible, in whatever form I know it?

I love it.

I love it so much that I'm making a comic strip out of it. (I'll try to post some of those here from time to time for a bonus.) I grew up with it, I've got lots of it permanently embedded into my brain, and I can talk about it even longer than I can talk about The Brothers Karamazov. It's a magical, twisted, offensive, beautiful, profound, gory, confusing work. I have read the whole thing (my narrow, Protestant version of it anyway, plus several books of the "other" Bible), though I am more familiar with some books than with others.

Genesis is probably my favorite because I love origin stories. (I hope to teach a class on nothing but creation and genesis stories one of these days, collected from different cultures.) I also like the Exodus (mostly because of the plagues). The laws I either love or hate, depending on what mood I'm in. Job is weird and good. The Psalms and Proverbs are good. The Song of Solomon is sexy, and I'm surprised (and happy) that someone hasn't thrown it out yet. Isaiah is awesome, but I need to read it again more carefully. (Maybe I will once I get ready for my William Blake post. Same goes for the Revelation.)

The Gospels are surprising when you finally read the Jesus story for yourself. You don't hear a lot about how smart (and crabby) Jesus was, but you get it here. Luke's is probably my favorite version. I like the epistles (especially Paul's); these are where to begin if you want to see (a) a crystallization of the Christian doctrine and (b) the beginning of the end of what Jesus was actually saying. (Perhaps more on this in a later post.)

Part Three: What the Bible Is and Isn't, Says Me

I still haven't said anything about what I personally think about the books. Here are a few things.

I think the Bible is not a rulebook. If you're looking for rules to live your life by, you're reading the wrong book. Whenever I hear someone say something like "The Bible says that homosexuality is wrong," I have the same answer each time: "The Bible says a lot of things."

Leviticus (where you can find the "God hates fags" law--20:13) also says that you can't wear 60% cotton (19:19), you can't trim your sideburns or beard (19:27), you can't eat shrimp (11:10), that handicapped people can't fully worship God (21:17-23), you can't have sex during your period (20:18), and that anything you touch during your period (such as your chair) is unclean (15:19-30).

Deuteronomy is another book that says a lot of things: If your wife accidentally touches another man's penis (if she's trying to help you while you're fighting), you have to cut her hand off (25:11-12). If your kid just won't behave (like if he eats too much or gets drunk), you should get the townsfolk to kill him (21:18-21). If your testicles are wounded or your penis is cut off, you can't be among God's people (23:1). If a man rapes a virgin and is caught, he will have to pay the father 50 bucks and marry her (22:28-29). If your buddy believes in another God, kill him (13:6-10). And, finally, that when you need to take a dump, you should dig a hole, do your business, and then cover it back up with a paddle (23:13-14). (This is how the book got the name Doo-Doo-Ronomy.)

So if you take dumps in toilets, eat shrimp, or go to church with no penises while ranting about how dudes shouldn't kiss, you're either ignorant of these other laws or you're just hate-filled. If it's the latter, admit that you are. I'd rather you say "I have a problem with homosexuals" than "God hates homosexuals." As long as you don't act on your private hate, everyone should be okay.

By the way, if you aren't in the wilderness with Moses, none of these laws (including the one about homosexuals) applies to you anyway. Leviticus, etc. is a document about a time long gone, nothing to do with us as far as rules are concerned.

My real question to those who want to use the Bible as a rulebook is this: Do you really need these rules? You can't figure some of these things out yourself? Do you need God to tell you not to sleep with an animal or to not commit incest? I believe that you should treat others like you want to be treated, not because Jesus said so, but because it's common sense (though sometimes difficult to put into practice).

So do I believe that you can actually learn something from the Bible, or do I simply admire it as a piece of literature or as an interesting artifact of an ancient culture? Well, learn is a strong word, but I certainly get something out of it. Also, I think admiring it as a piece of literature is enough, since I get plenty from literature. One does not degrade the Bible by calling it "literature."

In fact, when we don't treat it as literature is when we get into trouble. For example, the fundamentalist idea of taking the Bible "literally." Anyone who reads the Bible should know better. Jesus himself taught using parables. If the disciples had taken these parables "literally," they would have missed his points.

One of the beautiful things about certain books of the Bible is its imagery. Listen to this passage from the Revelation: "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born."

And this from Isaiah: "Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it. And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof."

I'm not sure how you would even begin to take that literally, but you can certainly get a lot out of it if you read it as literature. One thing a lot of us don't know how to do is read. Reading the Bible and ignoring its literary elements (taking it only "literally," whatever that means here) is like reading satire or irony and taking it at face value. America, especially, has little room for poetry, and it often thinks of myth as something "untrue" rather than a deeper form of truth that can't be explained with abstractions or the literal. As Werner Herzog says, we don't have enough "adequate images."

Lots of us have lost the ability to read myth and to feel its power. Myth is one of the languages of God. There is a powerful story told in the story of creation and Adam and Eve, but the power isn't in trying to figure out how old the earth is, if we evolved from apes or not, or if the apple really "stood for" sexual intercourse. Myth (and the Bible) isn't a puzzle to be solved. It's a spiritual book. So is Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. So is Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. So is James Barrie's Peter Pan. And the Bible isn't often as difficult as most of those.

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On one hand, I assume that most people reading this would agree with me and wonder why I'm protesting so much. On the other hand, I know so many people (good people) who are using the Bible to hunt down scriptures that match their (sometimes hate-filled) worldview while missing its true beauties and pleasures, who would certainly assume that I'm not a godly person at all based on some of the things I've written. (See previous post.)

I feel like I've only just begun talking about the Bible as a subject, but I'll have to save anything else I have to say for a later post. (I hope they will be shorter in the future.) In the meantime, check the text box to the right and request any of the subjects you'd like me to talk about next (or ask a new question). Also, enjoy the very first "Bible Story" comic below. (Click on the image to see more.)

Introduction to Rusty's God Blog

2008-10-08T21:58:00.011-05:00

The first thing you might want to know is whether or not I believe in God. It's a silly question to ask someone unless you have lots of time to listen to any kind of real answer. A simple "yes" or "no" won't do. Imagine I say "yes." Now you have to wonder "Which God?" What you're really asking is "Do you believe what I believe concerning God?"

A better question is "What are your thoughts on God?" This question doesn't imply that I should necessarily believe in anything, which is good because the idea of believing in something is also a little silly if what you're really wanting to know is concrete facts.

But we can all agree that God at least exists as a concept (whether he exists in any other way or not), and the concept is about the best any of us have, so that's all we can really talk about. So that's what I'm going to talk about.

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Here's a concrete fact: God -- as something beyond a mere concept -- either exists or he doesn't. No amount of believing or not believing will change this. Just as you won't disappear if people don't know about you or believe you exist. Here's another fact. If God only exists as a concept, then believing and not believing in him are crucial to his survival. Tinkerbell will die if you don't clap for her.

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What is this blog going to be? Why did I create it? I created it because I wanted to talk about God and my thoughts on him. I felt a strong desire to. I'm a guy who grew up surrounded by God and I live in a country obsessed with him in a particular way and I see him when I read and teach literature. So I want to talk about those things too. In short: God is everywhere in my life and I needed a place to write about him and my relation to him, in a place that's a cross between a diary and a public forum... a blog. Rusty's God Blog. Hi, I'm Rusty.

If you are reading this, leave me comments. Give me suggestions for things to talk about or ask me questions. What do you want to know? In my posts, I will attempt to pick a subject and stay focused on that one thing, rather than rambling or freewriting. At the end of each post, I plan on making a short list of future God-based subjects, so if you like any of those, let me know and I'll get to it more quickly. [Addendum (5/30/09): I now keep that list over there on the right.]

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If you think I'm dodging the seemingly simple question "Do you believe in God?" then all I can say is keep reading. I continue to insist that there is no simple answer, but if you read enough posts, maybe you'll figure out what you want to know. (If I said "yes" or "no" now, you may end up not believing me if you keep reading.) If you don't need the answer to that question, then you're a good person to keep reading too.

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This post was meant to be a brief intro to what this blog is all about. Here are potential future post subjects: general and specific conceptions of God, my earliest experiences with God and church, William Blake, The Trickster Cycle and other mythology, America and politics and God, Atheism.