Short Thought on American Conservative Christianity

If they'd named him Jesus America it might make more sense that you keep confusing the two.

Short Thought on Death and Purpose

In this prison, sad and dark, my only consolation, my only hope, my only purpose are the prisoners sitting next to me. In the event that their light is extinguished before my own, my purpose then becomes seeking others.

Pinpoints of light wink on, wink off, mattering only to those in the radius of their luminescence. If you find this state of affairs depressing, I am sorry; but that is the way things are.

February

Why do so many people hate February? Is it simply because they long for winter to be over? Is it because Valentine's day conjures up the depressing realization of their aloneness in the world?

Those are boring answers, and therefore false.

The real reason is because an alien race from somewhere in the Aquarius constellation is bombarding us with a rage virus that will eventually bring about a zombie apocalypse.

So yeah, 5th Dimension was a little off in their prediction.

Short Thought on Evangelism

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

If Christianity's deity is real, why does he depend so heavily on his children to introduce him to everyone else?

Also, when his child attempts to introduce him, why won't he say hello?

"Hogarth, I'd like you to meet my Father."

"Oh! Great! Hi, Mr..... ?"

....

"Um..."

Shucks, why won't he say hello when I say it first? If he's real, why is he so hidden and silent? Why does he constantly remind me of Baal in the story of Mount Carmel, and his followers of Baal's prophets?

“Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” And they cried aloud ... but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention.

Short Thought on Hell

From what I can gather, a fair amount of those who know me believe that, unless I rejoin their club, I am destined for a literal eternity of torture, brought about by my rebellion and refusal to accept the free gift of salvation. (Whether or not someone can accept salvation a second time after having "given it up" once is up for debate, I imagine.)

Here is one of my problems with this idea.

Reference to God as Father is a common metaphor in Scripture, as is the idea that God is Love. Evangelical Christians want me to accept the idea that God is a loving father, who has the best interests of his creations at heart.

The sentence of eternal torture goes against this metaphor, and only some insane theological twists can make one think the problem is resolved.

If God loves me, why would he torture me? Is it because he is perfect, and therefore cannot abide my sins? If he cannot abide my sins, why not put me in Hell now? Is it because he is patient? Okay - so he's patient now, up until the moment of my death and we go from patiently waiting for 30-100 years to an ETERNITY OF TORTURE. Well that escalated quickly! It's like he's bipolar or something - excessively patient or the other extreme.

Calling this kind of god good goes against the definition of the word good. Are you trying to tell me that the better a person I am, the more I will feel the desire to eternally torture people who aren't? How the hell is this a good plan?

Short Thought on Christmas

It was a good Christmas.

I feel like my personal "War Against Christmas" has evaporated since losing belief in the "Reason for the Season." Before, my strong desire to follow Christ and to be more like him prevented me from feeling complete joy in the gifts I would give and receive while celebrating his birthday. It felt like going to someone's party and ignoring him, giving gifts to the other guests, eating cake, but not doing much for the birthday-boy.

Now I don't worry about what Jesus wants - I don't think he's alive to care about it. I've come to appreciate Christmas as a warm and familiar holiday in the middle of the bitter cold that draws on traditions from many faiths. Now my joy is complete in the giving and receiving of gifts, in the egg-nog with a wee bit of rum, in the singing of carols - both beautiful and silly, in the happiness of family and friends.

If there is any sadness in my heart this Christmas, it is in the memory of years lost in service to a myth and in the knowledge that most of the people I know still labor under the same heavy yoke of the Christian faith.

Mr. Rogers and Tragedy

I don't know if this would comfort me, were I in the position of the loved ones of 27 people in Connecticut tonight. But for what it's worth:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”
- Mr. Rogers

Is Mystery Overrated?

This is taken from Steve Shives, without his permission; hopefully he won't mind.

A little over a week ago, as my wife and I were on our way home from Hagerstown, I looked up and saw a group of strange lights in the night sky. There was a period of maybe thirty seconds where I had no idea what they were. They weren't stars, or aircraft, or anything immediately familiar. They just burned bright and hung there in mid-air, as if by magic, or perhaps some technology far advanced of humanity.
As we began to drive past them, I realized what they were: sky lanterns — candles inside inflated paper bags. The heat from the candle's flame heats the air inside the lantern, causing it to rise like a hot air balloon. The lantern flies as long as the candle burns, then falls back to the ground once the flame goes out. No magic, no alien technology. Something humans in China knew how to make hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, a simple combination of science and craftsmanship.
My purpose in sharing this with you is to demonstrate (hopefully) the beauty of a true explanation for something, even when that explanation might appear mundane to some when compared to more fantastic theories. Mysteries should intrigue us because we want to know things, not because we cherish our own ignorance. To cling to a supernatural or extraterrestrial explanation of something without evidence undermines the very thing that got us interested in that something to start with: we wanted to know. And wanting to know is pointless unless we're willing to accept the answer we find, whatever it might be.
I find nothing beautiful about reports of UFO sightings or alien abductions or magical and supernatural happenings. There's no reason to believe that any of these things is real. They stand between us and the truth. They're the clouds obscuring the stars. (Metaphorically speaking, you know — clouds are actually very interesting.)
Those sky lanterns, though . . . they were beautiful, especially once I knew what I was looking at.

My favorite parts of this:‎
"...wanting to know is pointless unless we're willing to accept the answer we find, whatever it might be."
and
"...they were beautiful, especially once I knew what I was looking at."

There's something about "mystery" that is beautiful. Do you think there is something about the reveal that lessens the beauty?

Blind & Deaf

Yup. Good reminder.

Self-fulfilled Prophecy

As a non-topic preface: My sister recently pointed out how scary it can be to publicly share your ideas - whether writing a blog post, commenting on a blog post, or arguing on Facebook. She was referencing a post I had shared on Facebook by a fellow at Patheos named Bob whose recent post on Christianity as an Adult Activity got severely criticized in the comments section. Bob has a lot of readers. I do not. And sometimes I'm happy about that...

Okay. Here I go, sharing my ideas with the three or four of you. (grits teeth) I welcome your criticism...

I've been enjoying Anna Mardoll's re-read and criticisms of the Chronicles of Narnia so far. Admittedly, they've left a bit of my nostalgia in tatters, but that's not always a bad thing. Sometimes it's good to wake up and smell the coffee. At the end of each book, she watches the movies (BBC version and Walden/Disney/20th-Century-Fox version) and comments on those as well. Her most recent post was about Walden/Disney's adaption of Prince Caspian. You should read it! And especially the little links she has here and there to some pretty hilarious critiques of the movie.

There was one quote from the movie that she mentioned that stuck out to me, and it is a line spoken by Trumpkin after Peter expresses amazement that what looked to be a talking Bear simply wasn't:

"Get treated like a dumb animal long enough, that's what you become."

I'm pretty sure this line was not in the book, although there is a similar idea in The Last Battle. There, Ginger the Cat, having entered the stable and encountered the evil god Tash, and, running for his life, ceases to become a Talking Cat. And this is exactly what Aslan says might happen to the Talking Beasts way back at the Creation of Narnia, back in The Magician's Nephew, if they stop acting like Talking Beasts:

"Treat [the Dumb Beasts] gently and cherish them but do not go back to their ways lest you cease to be Talking Beasts. For out of them you were taken and into them you can return. Do not so."

There's a pretty big difference between Lewis' concept of reversion to Dumb Beast's and Disney-Trumpkin's. Lewis stipulates that the onus is on the Talking Beasts to remain Talking Beasts, whereas Trumpkin puts the blame for the sad state of affairs squarely on the oppressors of the Talking Beasts - the ones who continue to treat them as Dumb so that they eventually act that way.

What's my point?

I think kids (and people in general, I guess, but especially kids) tend to become what they're told they are, even if they weren't that way in the beginning. It seems common knowledge that if you call your kids stupid, they just might behave that way. Tell them they're unworthy sinners long enough, that's what they become?

Is a person who has done stupid things Stupid?
Is a person who has stolen a Thief?
Is a person who has sinned a Sinner?

Be careful of applying labels to people because of single snapshots of their lives. They may just become the label.

Short Thought on Inerrancy

The Holy Scriptures, as originally given by God, are divinely inspired, infallible, entirely trustworthy, and constitute the only supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.

(from The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada's Statement of Faith; emphasis mine)

If God is so interested in making the originals of Scripture infallible, why is he so unconcerned with keeping Scripture that way? If you're going to divinely inspire the authors of the originals, why not do the same for the scribes and translators?

The Deaths of Judas Iscariot

I'm not sure what the small amount of people who read this blog actually think about Biblical inerrancy. Is the Bible inerrant? What does inerrancy mean to you? It seems to have different definitions for different denominational persuasions.

I've come across a figurative ton of Christians recently who are perfectly comfortable throwing the idea of inerrancy out the window. That is, point out an obvious contradiction in the Bible, and you get a nod of agreement.

That is not, however what most of the Christians I know believe. They believe that the Bible (in its original manuscript) is inerrant; that is, error free. It has literally no contradictions. Point out an obvious contradiction to this person, and you get denial.

So here is why I think the accounts of the death of Judas Iscariot are at odds with each other and that any attempt to reconcile them is simply scriptural gerrymandering.

Here they are:

Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” So they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.
-Matthew 27:3-8 ESV

Now this man [Judas] acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.
-Acts 1:18-19 ESV

I see two contradictions here:

1. In Matthew's version, Judas dies by hanging himself. In Acts' version,  Judas dies by falling and losing his guts.

2. In Matthew's version, the chief priests buy the field with the 30 pieces of silver. In Acts' version, Judas acquires the field.

Here is how I have seen theologians attempt to square these stories with one another and keep the doctrine of infallibility intact:

First, they say that Judas hung himself, and that his body somehow fell to the ground and burst open, whether because the rope broke, or someone cut him down, or something like that.

Second, they say that the priests bought the field with Judas' money, so they were his proxies, in a sense.

Unless you are completely committed to the reliability of the Biblical accounts, you can see why these two attempts at reconciliation are absurd. Those who are committed to inerrancy would not accept this kind of twisting of the narrative in any other situation.

Here's an example:

Say I have a friend, Betty, and I just discovered today that she has died. My mother calls me up and tells me, and at the same time, a friend of mine posts it on Facebook. My mother says that Betty was in a car accident and was killed instantly. My Facebook friend posts that Betty was shot in a convenience store robbery gone wrong.

Both my mother and my friend are generally reliable people. What am I to make of this? If I were to follow the lead of Christian apologists, I might come up with something like, Betty was driving in her car and crashed into a convenience store where a robbery was taking place. As the car crashed through the front window, the criminal pulled the trigger and shot Betty, killing her instantly. And so, both my mother and my friend are correct in their versions of the story.

Now, is it possible that Betty was killed in this way? Sure. Is it plausible? Do I have any good reason to believe that this is what happened? No. Why? Because there are a few possibilities that are more plausible. My mother is mistaken. My friend is mistaken. They are speaking of different Betty's.

So back to Judas.

Isn't it far more likely that either Matthew or Acts (or both) got it wrong? Or that there were a few stories circulating and Matthew picked one and Acts picked the other?

If you disagree with me, in what way is the Judas story different from the Betty story?

What Would Change Your Mind?

There are so many things I've been wrong about that I've been fortunate enough to discover.

There are so many things I'm still wrong about that I may never even know I'm wrong about. As Donald Rumsfeld says, "...there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know."

But once I start thinking about the possibility of being wrong, what does it take to cross over to Rightness from Wrongness?

I suppose it's different every situation and for every person.

For evolution, it took a desire to know not only what it really was (I had never been taught that), but why the scientists who accept it (and there were far more than I was told) believe it to be the best explanation for the diversity of life.

For religion, it took a desire to follow the evidence wherever it led, even if my most cherished beliefs were proven wrong.

For gay marriage, all it took was a little thought, a little bit at a time. Even before doing a little research and realizing that homosexuality was not the abomination I had been taught, I thought a little bit about what it meant to live in a pluralistic, secular society. Even while still believing it to be sinful, I realized that this was a religious position to have and that I had no right on imposing my religious view of marriage on state marriage (which are two different things).

Which leads me to the title of this post. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you're wrong on one of these issues (or any other issue, for that matter), what will it take to change your mind? I think that's an important question to ask yourself, because if you are in the wrong about a given issue, and you don't think about how you could get out of that predicament, you never will.

What inspired this thought are an amazing collection of videos from John Corvino about the gay marriage debate in the U.S., and this ad from Expedia:

Will these be a couple of the little things that move you from one frame of mind to another?

Also, I need a recipe for Lawyer Guacamole.

Short Thought on Fanaticism

Give me the freedom to criticize you, and I will be respectfully critical. Deny me that freedom, and you have earned my disrespect.

Short Thought on Church

I miss the community and fellowship of church.

I don't miss the cognitive dissonance.

Is there a place (not online) where you can get the good stuff without the bleaugh?

I'm an Idiot for Making You Think I Thought You Were an Idiot

A friend told me yesterday that this blog makes it seem like I think Christians are idiots.

Oops.

Since all of the people I consider good friends minus one are Christians, I must be losing friends fast. So I'm sorry if you know me and have felt like I think you're a dumb person.

As we were talking we both agreed that there are many many smart people – smarter than me – who find the Christian faith believable, plausible, and even factual.

So I think it's pretty obvious that intelligence has nothing to do with it.

I think we all have blind spots, though, and I think a smart theologian's biggest blind spot is the implausibility of his faith, and I said this to my friend.

He asked what my blind spot is. What a jerk - as if I want to take time for that sort of introspection. I'm far better at finding other people's flaws than my own... My reply was that I didn't know - that's why it's my blind spot.

If you know me, what do YOU think my blind spot is?

I guess the bottom line is this: if you are a Christian (or of any religious persuasion), I think you're wrong when it comes to matters of faith. If I know you personally, I try very hard to separate my respect for you from my respect for your beliefs. Those beliefs used to be my beliefs, and I now consider my former beliefs wrong almost to the point of shaking my head in wonder that I actually swallowed such a tall tale. But that doesn't mean I think my former self was an idiot. I mean sure, I'm not the smartest guy around, but I don't suppose I'm the dumbest either. So there I was, a guy of fairly average intelligence, believing things that I now find ridiculous. Was I an idiot? Nah. Misinformed? Definitely. Ignorant of my faith's validity? For sure. But you know what? I still kinda like that guy! And I respect him. Because as silly as I know regard his faith, he cared about doing what was right and holding to his beliefs for good reasons.

If I think a person's an idiot, it's generally because of actions and not beliefs.

I'm sorry to have conveyed otherwise.

You Are The Media

YOU are the media.
Blame yourself.

The higher the technology becomes, the more everybody becomes the media. People at V-Tech complained about over-extensive media coverage of their plight. And that is because Cho himself WAS media. He used media-producing devices to get his message out there. As did whoever filmed the classroom using their cel phone. That person is also the media. Our world is changing. Anyone can have a blog or a vlog. Anyone can upload stuff to Youtube.

We are the media.
And we are biased.

People rant and rave about how Fox news is so Right-wing. People rant and rave about CNN and MSNBC. They rant and rave on blogs. They rant and rave in songs that are later published on CDs. They rant and rave in front of their little webcams and post their rantings and ravings on Youtube. Um, hello!? These networks are biased because they are catering to viewers who are equally biased! You’re just a small version of whichever giant’s viewpoint you espouse!

Meaning

What is the meaning of the color yellow?

What is necessary to give meaning to yellow? Me. It's my favorite color. Because of this, it has meaning to me. Perhaps your favorite color is red. I'm happy for you.

What is the meaning of life?

What is necessary to give meaning to life? Me. It's my favorite form of existence. Because of this, it has meaning to me. Perhaps your favorite form of existence is mineralhood. I'm happy for you. Okay, maybe not.

Weird thoughts at 2:30 in the morning.