Ignorance is bliss

"I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." -- Galileo Galilei

Shut up

"It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others." -- St. John of the Cross

Catch me if you can!

And you thought I was kidding about young people fleeing the Christian faith.

Growing pains

"The concept of a Supreme Being who childishly demands to be constantly placated by prayers and sacrifice and dispenses justice like some corrupt petty judge whose decisions may be swayed by a bit of well-timed flattery should be relegated to the trash bin of history, along with the belief in a flat earth and the notion that diseases are caused by demonic possession. Ironically, the case for the involuntary retirement of God may have been best stated by one Saul or Paul of Tarsus, a first-century tentmaker and Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin, who wrote, 'When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things' (I Corinthians 13:11). Those words are no less relevant today than they were two thousand years ago." -- John J. Dunphy

It is well

"When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope." -- Henri Nouwen

The paranoia complex

"The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear." -- Jiddu Krishnamurti

This phenomenon can manifest itself in a variety of ways. The politician who passionately expounds family values might be hiding a secret affair; the woman who constantly raves about how much she loves her husband might be overcompensating for some inner regret; the preacher who perpetually talks about the goodness of God might be covering up his own unbelief.

I know a married couple who is currently going through a trial separation. They've been married for several years, but have never been truly happy. Sure, they go church every Sunday, smiling and holding hands and praising the Lord. They write odes to one another on the internet, for all the world to see! The woman posts daily Facebook updates about how she "has the best husband in the world!" But it's all a show. It's all superficial, shallow, and fake.

I often wonder how many religious people experience a similar struggle -- not with their spouse, but with their God. Whenever I hear a pastor (or any Christian, for that matter) assert that the Bible is perfect, that it is dictated by God, and that anyone who believes otherwise is a threat to Christianity and doomed to the fires of hell, I can't help but think to myself, "I bet this guy wishes he was an atheist."

Of course, he can't be an atheist. He can't be agnostic. He can't read the Bible as allegory or accept other faith traditions. He's got a wife, a family, and a job that pays the bills. His entire life is built upon his confidence in the Bible. His entire existence is predicated upon whether or not he's right. If God is actually bigger and more complicated than he lets on, if parts of Jesus' life story are actually copied from pagan religions, if his congregation actually learns to think for themselves, he loses everything.

Israeli musician Eef Barzelay has a verse in one of his songs that goes, "And they all think I'm stupid, I can see it in their eyes. But I know what's inside their hearts, I penetrate their lives. Sometimes it gets me crazy, but I keep my feelings hid. Cause I know deep inside they're only frightened little kids."

Well, some of us aren't afraid to embrace that frightened little child within. We're not afraid to admit that we don't have a clue about the workings of God and the mystery of the universe. We're not afraid to doubt, to question, to probe. We're not afraid to seek a different, better path, a path that actually makes sense, a path that is inclusive and truly generous.

If the constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear, then the constant assertion of doubt must be an indication of courage.

Know hope.

Up on the ladder

In his book "Losing Faith in Faith", preacher-turned-atheist Dan Barker writes:

Every Christian has a particular hierarchy of doctrines and practices, and most Christians arrange their hierarchy in roughly the same manner, with the existence of God at the top, the deity of Jesus just below that, and so on, down to the bottom of the list where you find things like wearing jewelry or makeup in church. What distinguishes many brands of Christianity is where they draw their line between what is essential and what is not.

Extreme fundamentalists draw the line way down at the bottom of the list, making all doctrines equally necessary. Moderates draw the line somewhere up in the middle of the list. Liberals draw the line way up at the top, not caring if the Bible is inerrant or if Jesus existed historically, but holding on to the existence of God, however he or she is defined, holding on to the general usefulness of religion, and to rituals, which many people claim to need despite its irrelevance to reality, to give structure or meaning to life.

Put another way: it's as if we're all standing on a giant metaphorical ladder. Fundamentalist Christians are at the top and liberal Christians are at the bottom. Problem is, regardless of where a person exists on this ladder, he/she invariably feels the need to justify his/her position and spew vitriolic hatred towards anyone located on a different rung.

But in the words of master theologian Thom Yorke:

I've been climbing up this ladder
I've been wasting my time
Up on the ladder, out of time to escape
Up on the ladder, we wait for your mistake
Up on the ladder, trying to crawl out the way
Up on the ladder, you're all the fucking same

Indeed we are.

RE: Belief

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." -- Buddha

Like filthy rags

"Which is more moral, helping people purely out of concern for their suffering, or helping them because you think God wants you to do it?"

It's no secret that the Christian religion thrives on guilt and fear. Even among more progressive, postmodern (or, emergent, as the cool kids say) churches, parishioners are constantly inundated with a message of obligation. We're taught that God needs us, that we're his "hands and feet" on earth, that there are certain things we should be doing and certain things we shouldn't be doing. We're told that Christian service is a noble endeavor. Every year, thousands of North American youth groups go on mission trips to Africa and South America and other heathen lands because Jesus commanded us to "go into the all the world and rape cultures of their heritage." Young teenagers are taught that third-world citizens are uneducated, unsophisticated drones who are doomed to an eternity of hellfire unless they renounce their silly gods and accept our True God. And it's your job to make that happen! For impressionable children raised in the church, this is an awful lot of pressure.

Christian authors and pastors and speakers are motivated by contrition. It's what attracts attention, pulls people in, and makes those people cry. I'm convinced that ministers feed off the tears of their congregation: If we're making them cry, we're burdening their hearts; and if we're burdening their hearts, we can manipulate them to do more things for Jesus; and if we can manipulate them to do more things for Jesus, our congregation will grow; and if our congregation grows, so does our fame/ego/bank account.

Everyone has a different method. Some pastors take the direct approach: these are the guys who explicitly berate their listeners with guilt, beseeching you to think about how much God gave up for you. He sacrificed his Son! Jesus hung on the cross and bled and died! It was awful and painful and he did it for you! He loves you that much! Now, what will you sacrifice for him?

Trendier pastors prefer a different avenue: they aren't as "in your face" about it, but they want to remind you that you are loved. You are accepted. You are cherished. No matter how bad you are, God loves you. And you're a bad person, aren't you? You've done some naughty, terrible, shameful things. You must feel really dirty. You must feel like a whore. Well, you're not. Because Jesus is here. He's holding you in his arms. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. Now, what will you do for him?

Ultimately, the end-goal is the same: Christian leaders want people to feel a sense of obligation to God. Because if people don't feel a sense of obligation to God -- if they don't feel guilty -- they're not going to follow him.

A good friend of mine is an adamant atheist. He has no use for faith, or Christianity, or Jesus. He's too busy volunteering at a downtown homeless shelter, caring for the impoverished and underprivileged. He's too busy petitioning the government to reduce third-world debt. He's too busy raising money to help fight AIDS in Africa.

My friend has never set foot in a church. His parents raised him to be socially conscious, to care for the planet, to be mindful of those who have nothing. His parents raised him to be a good person, not because that's what God commanded them to do, but because they're genuinely concerned about the plight of humanity. These folks are the most moral, upstanding citizens I have ever met. And according to every single Christian I know, they're also destined to spend eternity in hell.

What a messed up religion, indeed.

A drunkard for pain

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" -- Epicurus

RE: Good deeds

One last snippet from the Sullivan/Harris conversation and then I'm done, I swear.

Andrew writes:

I have met fundamentalists whose convictions are extreme but whose spiritual humility nonetheless leads them to great tolerance for dissent and doubt among others and great compassion for the needy. I have met those who are utterly uncompromising on the issue of sexual morality and yet have never shown me anything but interest, empathy and friendship. I have seen fundamentalists do amazing work for the poor and forgotten - driven entirely by their fundamentalist fervor. Try and think of how many souls and bodies the Salvation Army has saved, for example, how many sick people have been treated by doctors and volunteers motivated solely by religious conviction, how many homeless people have been taken in and loved by those seized by the fundamentalist delusion.

I disagree with many of fundamentalism's theological assumptions; when fundamentalism enters politics, I will resist it mightily as an enemy of political and social freedom; when it distorts what I believe to be the central message of Jesus - love and forgiveness - I will criticize and expose it. But when I see it in the eyes and face of a believer, and when she glows with the power of her faith, and when that faith translates into love, I am unafraid and uncritical. I know I cannot know others' hearts; I cannot know their souls. I know further that the mystery of the divine will always elude me; and that beneath what might appear as a bigot may be a soul merely seized by misunderstanding or fear or even compassion. My sense of the fallibility of human reason and the ineffability of God's will leads me not to dismiss these "extremists" as fools or idiots, but to wonder what they have known that I may not know, even as I worry about their potential for evil as well as good (a potential we all have, including you and me).

Sam's counter argument:

You claim that many fundamentalists are tolerant of dissent and capable of friendship with you despite their dogmatic views about sex. You also remind me that many devoutly religious people do good things on the basis of their religious beliefs. I do not doubt either of these propositions. You could catalogue such facts until the end of time, and they would not begin to suggest that God actually exists, or that the Bible is his Word, or that his Son came to earth in the person of Jesus to redeem our sins. I have no doubt that there are millions of nice Mormons who are likewise tolerant of dissent and perfectly cordial toward homosexuals. Does this, in your view, even slightly increase the probability that the Book of Mormon was delivered on golden plates to Joseph Smith Jr. (that very randy and unscrupulous dowser) by the angel Moroni? Do all the good Muslims in the world lend credence to the claim that Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse? Do all the good pagans throughout history suggest that Mt. Olympus was ever teeming with invisible gods? As I have argued elsewhere, the alleged usefulness of religion--the fact that it sometimes gets people to do very good things indeed--is not an argument for its truth. And, needless to say, the usefulness of religion can be disputed, as I have done in both my books. As you may know, I've argued that religion gets people to do good things for bad reasons, when good reasons are actually available; I have also argued that it rather often gets people to do very bad things that they would not otherwise do. On the subject of doing good, I ask you, which is more moral, helping people purely out of concern for their suffering, or helping them because you think God wants you to do it? Personally, I'd much prefer that my children acquire the former sensibility. On the subject of doing bad: there are, at this very moment, perfectly ordinary Shia and Sunni Muslims drilling holes into each other's brains with power tools in the suburbs of Baghdad. What are the chances they would be doing this without the "benefit" of their incompatible religious identities?

"Which is more moral, helping people purely out of concern for their suffering, or helping them because you think God wants you to do it?"

The carcass of Christianity

It hasn't been a particularly productive morning. Rather than doing work, and rather than blogging while pretending to do work, I've been poring over those essays I discovered yesterday afternoon. I'm absolutely mesmerized.

Of particular interest was this back-and-forth, initiated by Harris:

Rather than pick over the carcass of Christianity (or any other traditional faith) looking for a few, uncontaminated morsels of wisdom, why not take a proper seat at the banquet of human understanding in the present? There are already many very refined courses on offer. For those interested in the origins of the universe, there is the real science of cosmology. For those who want to know about the evolution of life on this planet, biology, chemistry and their subspecialties offer real nourishment. (Knowledge in most scientific domains is now doubling about every five years. How fast is it growing in religion?) And if ethics and spirituality are what concern you, there are now scientists making serious efforts to understand these features of our experience-both by studying the brain function of advanced contemplatives and by practicing meditation and other (non-faith-based) spiritual disciplines themselves. Even when it comes to compassion and self-transcendence, there is new wine (slowly) being poured. Why not catch it with a clean glass?

To which Sullivan responds:

Why would I want to forget all of that precious inheritance--the humility of Mary, the foolishness of Peter, the genius of Paul, the candor of Augustine, the genius of Francis, the glory of Chartres cathedral, the haunting music of Tallis, the art of Michelangelo, the ecstasies of Teresa, the rigor of Ignatius, the whole astonishing, ravishing panoply of ancient Christianity that suddenly arrived at my door, in a banal little town in an ordinary family in the grim nights of the 1970s in England.

You want to be contingency-free? Maybe you need a richer slice of contingency. There is more wisdom, depth, range, glory, nuance and truth in my tradition than can be dreamt of in your rationalism. In answer to your question, "why not leave all this behind?" my answer is simply: why on earth would I? Why would any sane person abandon such an astonishingly rich inheritance that civilizes, informs, educates, inspires and then also saves? If faith were to desert me, I may be forced to leave. But even then, the wealth of that human inheritance would inform me and make my life worth living. I would cling to and celebrate this cultural inheritance, even if the faith that made it possible has waned for me.

To which Harris fires back:

I do not deny that there is something at the core of the religious experience that is worth understanding. I do not even deny that there is something there worthy of our devotion. But devotion to it does not entail false claims to knowledge, nor does it require that we indulge our cultural/familial/emotional biases in an unscientific way. The glass can get very clean--not sterile perhaps, not entirely without structure, not contingency-free, but cleaner than many people are ready to allow. One need not believe anything on insufficient evidence to experience the "ecstasies of Teresa" (or those of Rumi, for that matter). And those of us with the benefit of a 21st century education can be more parsimonious in drawing conclusions about the cosmos on the basis of such ecstasy. Indeed, I think we must be, lest our attachment to the language of our ancestors keep their ignorance alive in our own time.

Seriously, carve out some time in your schedule tonight and read the entire discussion. Have I ever steered you wrong before?

God, faith, and fundamentalism

Highly recommended: this intelligent, civil exchange -- and this follow-up conversation -- between best-selling author Sam Harris (atheist) and author/blogger Andrew Sullivan (religious moderate). A long read, but definitely worth your time and effort.

Brazen doubt

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." -- Thomas Jefferson

What might have been lost

"Christianity has been buried inside the walls of churches and secured with the shackles of dogmatism. Let it be liberated to come into the midst of us and teach us freedom, equality and love." -- Minna Canth

One of the main reasons I left full-time ministry several years ago was because I felt suffocated by the "shackles of dogmatism". In the eyes of most Christians, being theologically curious is absolutely wrong. To openly question certain parts of Scripture, to doubt the veracity of particular Biblical stories, to nurture and accept people of other faith traditions, all of these things are frowned upon within the confines of the Christian church. Anyone who argues otherwise is deluding themselves.

I once had a Christian minister tell me that tolerance -- yes, tolerance! -- is the single greatest threat facing Christianity in the 21st century: "We can't just go around condoning inappropriate beliefs and behavior," he said, "That's not what Jesus taught. He is the way, and the truth, and the life." A different Christian minister, upon discovering my affinity for homosexuals and the GLBT community, cancelled my speaking appearance at his church. Within the hierarchy of the Christian religion, there is no room for diversity; either you fall in line, or you fall out of it altogether.

The Christian faith is a perplexing dichotomy. On the one hand, it teaches selfless love, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness; on the other hand, it proclaims an entirely narrow, prejudiced, hateful, and self-serving message. Salvation is only available to a select few. Those who put their trust in Christ will be saved. Those who put their trust in science or Guru Dev or Allah will be tortured for eternity in a fiery furnace. Good works are useless (unless you're a Christian, in which case, good works are an overflow of your relationship with Jesus). Being gay is awful. Having sex before marriage is deplorable. Enjoying alcohol is despicable. The list of restrictions goes on, and on, and on.

It's no wonder that young people are fleeing Evangelical churches in droves and seeking refuge in the Anglican and United and Presbyterian faith traditions, in New Age books, in the teachings of Buddha and Ramakrishna and Tao Te Ching. It's no wonder that mainstream Christianity -- as we know it -- is rapidly dying. A religion that restricts the rights and freedoms of others (women and homosexuals, to name a couple) deserves to perish. A religion that is permeated by fear, guilt, and shame deserves be ignored. A religion that boldly proclaims, "God loves you... but if you reject him, you're going to burn forever", deserves to be abolished.

Is there a Christianity for the rest of us? A Jesus for the non-religious? I don't know. But I do know that people are longing for something deeper, for something profound. We are hungry for justice and truth and a spiritual experience that transcends reality. We are yearning for the Divine. We are searching, and seeking, and stubbornly clinging to our confusion. And we are hoping that someday, somehow, our thirst will be quenched.

Process of elimination

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." -- Stephen Roberts

My creed

Written by Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899):

To love justice, to long for the right,
to love mercy,
to pity the suffering, to assist the weak,

to forget wrongs and remember benefits,
to love the truth, to be sincere,
to utter honest words, to love liberty,
to wage relentless war
against slavery in all its forms,

to love family and friend,
to make a happy home,
to love the beautiful in art, in nature,
to cultivate the mind,
to be familiar with the mighty thoughts
that genius has expressed,
the noble deeds of all the world;

to cultivate courage and cheerfulness,
to make others happy,
to fill life with the splendor of generous acts,
the warmth of loving words;

to discard error, to destroy prejudice,
to receive new truths with gladness,
to cultivate hope,
to see the calm beyond the storm,
the dawn beyond the night,
to do the best that can be done
and then be resigned.

Structured to believe

The past few years have been a profound spiritual struggle for me. I used to be a passionate, outgoing Christian who sought to evangelize everyone I met. Now, I sometimes find myself on the brink of agnosticism.

However, I also find that I very much want to believe in God; I want to be a generous, peaceful, joyous, and spiritual human being. Granted, believing in God isn't a prerequisite for being a good person (often the two are antonymous), but there's something rather enlightening, serene, and beautiful about faith. I like the idea that we’re not alone in this universe, that something -- or Someone -- is out there: looking after us, caring for us, loving us.

I was recently struck by something in this blog post:

An interesting angle you haven't mentioned concerns how belief systems concretely affect the development of the brain. People raised in cultures with distinct words for certain color tones see them more clearly than those in which just one word suffices (the most well-known example is Russian, which has one word for marine blue and another for sky blue -- but there are many others). So believers, having been raised in a cognitive environment in which this mystical experience was ritualistically repeated presumably have brain architecture that differs in significant ways from those raised outside the Church. This could explain the special pain of being a lapsed-believer. Your brain is structured to believe, but your intellect won't let you.

What a remarkable insight. Having been raised in the church and having been a 'minister of the Gospel' for many years, I'm hardwired to believe in God. But logic, reason, and intellectualism are suddenly standing in my way.

Thus, the battle rages within my soul.

This is the table

From last night's liturgy:

All who are joyful, come
All who are broken, come
If you have faith, come
If you have none, come
Come to the table
Jesus would meet you here
Come

Give yourself away

"For those who wish to climb the mountain of spiritual awareness, the path is selfless work. For those who have attained the summit of union with the Lord, the path is stillness and peace." -- Bhagavad Gita

I reconnected with an old friend today. We talked about what it means to be a selfless human being, what it means to be truly alive. I am a very agitated, unsettled person; very few things bring me a sense of lasting joy and peace. I'm happy when I get to visit my parents, or when I lie under the stars, or when I walk around in the pouring rain, or when I sit silently in nature. But beyond that, most of the elation I experience is profoundly shallow.

I know a guy who volunteers three times a week at a homeless shelter. He is one of the most joyful people I have ever known. This is not a coincidence.