Church of the Churchless

Christian cross shouldn't stay on public land

Driving around yesterday, I heard a Portland talk-show host get enraged about a lawsuit that seeks to have a Christian cross removed from the Mojave National Preserve in California.

Right-winger Lars Larson said that a plywood box has been placed around the cross. "Unbelievable. How can this be happening in America!"

What's unbelievable is that there would be any controversy over removing an obvious religious symbol from public property -- regardless of whether the cross was put up by the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The National Park Service denied a request to put up a Buddhist memorial. So it looks like only Christians who die for their country deserve respect.

Ridiculous. The United States isn't a Christian country. It's a country with lots of Christians. Big difference.

This editorial gets it exactly right:

Religious symbolism of this kind on government land is, by its very nature, exclusionary. Allowing only a cross to stand over the memorial sends a message to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and others that their sacrifices, and their family members’ sacrifices, are not appreciated or mourned.

It also sends a message that state and church are intertwined. A single cross does not, by itself, mean America has an established religion, but if the Supreme Court stops caring that the government is promoting a particular religion, we will be down the path toward having one.

Sacrificing a child for religion gets two months jail time

Here's some bad news for children being abused or killed in the name of religion: last Friday an Oregon judge sentenced Carl Worthington to two months in jail for sacrificing his child, Ava, in the name of Jesus.

It's disturbing that this legal slap on the wrist is all Worthington got for committing an atrocious crime. As Oregonian columnist Susan Nielsen said today, religious crazies benefit from a double standard under my state's laws. 

This trial should inspire Oregon to look outside its borders and consider the following:

First, other states aren't so deferential to parents who withhold lifesaving medical care and offer prayer instead. A woman in Wisconsin who let her daughter slowly die of untreated diabetes was convicted of homicide this spring and faces up to 25 years in prison. Her husband is on trial now for the same offense. [Note: he was convicted and could get the same sentence as his wife.]

Second, it's hard to define what qualifies as "religion." In a few recent cases of fatal medical neglect, parents claimed a religious defense because they were diligently following some spiritual advice they found on the Internet.

Third, other states have gotten into trouble for maintaining an Oregon-style patchwork that allows a religious defense in some circumstances but not in others. Appeals courts tend to throw out convictions when they notice the absurdity of punishing the same behavior that is singled out elsewhere for protection. 

On the positive side, Judge Maurer got it exactly right when he sentenced Carl Worthington. This is just what I've been saying in my posts on this subject.

"I will stand by my assessment that this was wrong, wrong, wrong," Maurer told a Clackamas County courtroom full of supporters from Worthington's church. "This was an unnecessary tragedy"..."This, religious tenet or not, is simply wrong -- fundamentally and simply wrong," Maurer said.

As noted before, I was surprised at how some commenters on this blog tried to excuse criminal neglect -- not taking a child to the doctor when she had a life-threatening condition that could have been easily treated with antibiotics.

SImply wrong. It's refreshing when judges cut through religious and pseudo-philosophical crap.

There have been quite a few letters to the editor published about the verdict and sentencing. Here's a sampling:

I am absolutely disgusted that the jury failed to convict the Worthingtons of manslaughter in the faith healing death of their daughter.

If there was ever a case of child abuse that directly caused the death of a child, this was it. Denying necessary medical treatment for a child is no different than denying that child food, water or shelter from the elements. Abuse is abuse and religion is no excuse.

Rather than practicing a perverted form of Christianity, what if the Worthingtons were followers of the "Spaghetti Monster" and claimed it was part of their religion to not seek medical help? I'm sure the verdict would have been different.

What a sad statement this jury has made on its behalf and that of the American justice system. Rabbit hoarders and others who neglect their animals receive harsher punishment than the Worthingtons will receive for killing their child.
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I was particularly struck by two details in your story on the Worthington verdict (July 24).

First, the report that "Of 78 children buried in the [Followers of Christ] church cemetery from 1955 to 1998, at least 21 could have been saved by medical intervention, according to a 1998 analysis by The Oregonian."

This means the demise of little Ava Worthington brings the death toll to 22. Twenty-two children have suffered and died of preventable causes in the name
of their parents' religious beliefs.

In the words of presiding juror, Ashlee Santos: "Granted, they didn't take her (Ava) to the hospital, but it was truly because they thought she was getting better ... That was the best epiphany moment."

Some epiphany. The Worthingtons didn't take their baby to the hospital because they don't believe in hospitals. They don't believe in medical treatment, period. Somehow, the foreperson overlooked this central fact.

I wonder who the 23rd child in the cemetery will be?
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What stands out for me about the Worthington case is that Raylene's parents are going on trial in January for "criminally negligent homicide" because Raylene's brother died of a curable "urinary tract blockage."

These may be nice people, but they "kill" their children.
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Put your faith in the mythological teachings of a 2,000-year-old itinerant carpenter instead of the collective wisdom of millennia of human learning and experience and this is what you get. Dead and suffering children.

The Worthington jurors let their good sense be overcome by their empathy for the unrepentant and unreformed parents of this unfortunate innocent child.
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Ava Worthington died because her parents reject medical science and the ability of physicians and medicine to cure sick patients and ameliorate suffering.

I wonder how far their rejection of science goes. Do they have a car? Do they have a television set in their home? A radio? A refrigerator? A gas or electric stove? Air conditioning? Heating? Electric lights?

All of these and many other everyday items are products of scientific endeavors. I am sure the Worthingtons do not live in a cave with only a log fire to cook their food and warm themselves at night.

Why is it they can make use of many products of science and yet deny science that would save their child? I find this very troubling.

Me too. Thankfully, Judge Maurer ordered that Worthington provide medical care for his five year old daughter and the baby his pregnant wife is carrying.

No more Christian child sacrifice. Never. Ever. Religion doesn't belong in 21st century civilization. It's an archaic relic of ancient mythologies. Truly freaking bizarre:

Ava Worthington died in March 2008 while church members gathered around her for prayer, "laying on of hands," anointing her in oil and administering small amounts of wine.

Child sacrifice gets a yellow light in Oregon

Today an Oregon jury came to a verdict in what I call a child sacrifice case.

Carl and Raylene Worthington let their 15-month old daughter, Ava, die because their bizarre variety of Christianity teaches that Jesus cures illnesses, not doctors.

All I needed to know to conclude that Ava's parents should rot in jail for a really long time was summed up by Ava's grandfather, Guy, in a newspaper story.

Worthington said no one in his family has seen a doctor and has no use for them. Instead, they put their trust in God, he said.

"Jesus Christ almighty can cure anything," Worthington said.

"Doctors are irrelevant?" Horner asked .

"Correct," Worthington said.

Even if it's a life-threatening situation, Horner asked.

Calling a doctor shows "a lack of faith," Worthington said.

After lengthy deliberations, the jury absolved Ava's parents of manslaughter charges, which could (and should) have gotten them up to six years in prison. Instead...

The jury convicted the father, Carl Brent Worthington, of criminal mistreatment, a misdemeanor carrying a maximum sentence of a year in jail. The mother, Raylene Worthington, was acquitted in the 2008 death of their daughter Ava.

Why was the mother given a free ride? Because in their patriarchal Christian household, the husband makes all of the important decisions.

So far apparently only one juror, Ashlee Santos, has agreed to talk with the media. Her comments struck me as annoyingly clueless. I'm glad I wasn't in the jury room with Ashlee. My head probably would have exploded.

“Just because something isn’t normal to you. It doesn’t mean it’s bad or doesn’t work. As parents we all make our own decisions and sometimes they’re not the best. But I really do feel like they were loving people who cared about their kids and truly didn’t mean for anything to happen so tried not to judge them on beliefs and religion, they’re just like everybody else, just a little bit different.”

Jesus fucking Christ!

Yes, Ashlee, you freaking idiot, sometimes abnormal beliefs are bad and don't work. Like if you believe that Jesus is going to heal your daughter and she dies of an easily treatable medical problem.

That's when it is absolutely imperative that we judge parents who want to practice child sacrifice, because nobody has the right to kill an innocent person in the name of God.

A columnist for the Portland Oregonian, Susan Nielsen, correctly said that we helped kill little Ava, too. "We" being everyone who gives religious believers special treatment under the law because, gosh, belief is sacred, isn't it?

Oregon law still includes several exemptions and defenses based on religious belief, which foster some confusion about liability. The law also allows for much shorter sentences for parents who can claim a religious motivation than for parents who can't. (If you're high on meth when your child dies of neglect, you'll rot in prison. But if you're high on religion, you'll enjoy some grace at the courthouse.)

Steve Duin, another Oregonian columnist, pointed out the hypocrisy of Ava's Bible-toting parents, who had plenty of faith in Jesus' powers when it wasn't their ass on the line, just their daughter's life, but ran to get the help of a doctor when they faced six years in jail.

As the issues of crime, punishment and the death of Ava Worthington head to a Clackamas County jury, those 12 men and women will contemplate a precious irony:

The parents who would not summon a doctor to their home to save their child called a doctor to the witness stand to save themselves.

Carl Brent and Raylene Worthington relied on half-baked spiritual remedies when their daughter was at risk, but their lawyers have resorted to garden-variety defense tactics in an effort to spare these parents the cost of discipleship.

I could almost -- but not quite -- have respected the Worthington's if they'd told the judge and jury, "We let Ava die because we believed Jesus would heal her. Now, we offer no defense of our actions, other than our religious beliefs. Whatever God wills the jury to decide, we accept it."

That would have showed some courage of their convictions. Stupid convictions, admittedly, but courageous and consistent.

Instead, Ava's parents showed that they really have loads of faith in the medical profession, so long as the doctor has been called to the witness stand to testify in their defense.

The Oregonian editorial board is glad that the jury convicted Carl Worthington of criminal child neglect. I wish I could be so positive. I'm angry that the jury gave a yellow light to child sacrifice in my state.

Maybe the Economic Development Department can use this story in trying to attract businesses to Oregon:

"Are you a creative entrepreneur with equally creative personal beliefs, like It's OK to let children die without medical care? In some states, you will be judged for having some little eccentricities like that. But here in Oregon, child sacrifice is just a misdeneamor  -- no big deal. Oregon: we accept you as you are, even if you're a child killer."

Great news: Christian America is on a decline

Maybe there is a churchless God after all, because my prayers are being answered: Christianity is becoming less influential in American culture and politics.

So argues Jon Meacham persuasively in Newsweek's "The End of Christian America" -- just in time for Easter weekend.

The percentage of self-identified Christians has dropped 10 points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent. People unaffiliated with any faith have doubled to 16 percent. The number of agnostics and atheists has quadrupled.

As if this wasn't enough to throw Christian fundamentalists into a frenzy, this week they also had to deal with President Obama's remarks in Turkey.

And I've said before that one of the great strengths of the United States is -- although as I mentioned, we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.

It's difficult for me to see how anyone could disagree with those sentiments. But folks on Fox News managed it.

Optimist that I am, I'm confident that one day in the not-hugely-distant future fundamentalist religious beliefs are going to be looked upon like racism is now: as a deluded thought process.

People used to view some races as superior. Most humans have moved to a higher level of understanding now. Yet a majority of people still see certain religious beliefs (namely, their own) as being superior to other dogmas.

So this is why it makes sense to say that "fundamentalism is religious racism." For a long time the United States condoned slavery and overt racism.

Eventually a belief that certain people are favored by God, while others are doomed to an inferior life (and afterlife) will be viewed as equally ignorant and uncivilized. The decline in Christian fervor is a positive step in that direction, but we still have a long ways to go.

Jesus’ body found in the trash! For real!

What a beautiful sight for churchless eyes: here's a photo of Jesus lying in a trash bin, pierced with a rusty nail and in the company of some banana peels (plus coffee grounds and other assorted discards).

If you're not a Catholic, you may not recognize the Son of God. But if you're a believer, there he is, in the form of a communion wafer – which the faithful consider to be transformed into the body of Christ at holy communion.

In a fascinating blog post, "The Great Desecration," biology professor P.Z. Myers relates how his wafer trashing has caused his email inbox to be filled with messages chastising and threatening him for mutilating a little piece of bread. An example:

Professor Myers,

I was saddened to hear of your plans to harm our Lord Jesus Christ. It obviously isn't the first time and it won't be the last.

I know you do not believe, but what if it truly is Jesus that you are attempting to hurt? You are in my prayers.

The credulity (I started to write "idiocy," and probably should have) of these people is amazing.

They have pretty much the same mentality as Catholics in the middle ages who killed Jews and others who were accused of desecrating communion wafers. (See the beginning of Myers' post for details.) Myers says:

You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university (the diminution of my vast powers is also a common theme).

Congratulations, Professor Myers. You've done a terrific service to those of us who subscribe to the Religion of Reality, by pointing out that bread is just bread, no matter what other illusory qualities are ascribed to it.

Of course, I haven't always believed in reality as strongly as I do now, a confession I made last year in "Ridiculing my own religious fundamentalism." An excerpt:

Like most other satsangis, I believed that food blessed by the guru was really special. I'd treasure little bags of blessed puffed rice or granulated sugar that initiates would bring back from India to share. I'd string out the supposed spiritual benefit of consuming this parshad
by eating a teeny bit every morning before I meditated. If any spilled, I'd eat it off the floor, along with any dust or dirt it might have attracted. After all, it was holy!

Well, I've come a long ways. Much closer to the Eastern religion version of hellfire, to many . But I'll take my chances.

My mother made a half-hearted attempt to get me indoctrinated into Catholicism when I was a kid. I made it through first communion but flamed out before I got to the "confirmation" stage. (Too much to remember, all those venial and mortal sins, among other stuff.)

At first communion, I kneeled down and stuck out my tongue. Then I started coughing like crazy as the wafer stuck to the top of my dry mouth and wouldn't go down.

I remember being scared that I was going to spit out the body of Christ onto the floor of the church. After considerable effort I managed to swallow the communion wafer and proceeded to my first confession where, because I was too young to have done much sinning, the best I could come up with was that I hadn't been going to mass every Sunday.

Before too long, my nine or ten year old mind couldn't swallow any part of Catholicism. My mother let me stop going to those unpleasant noon hour get-togethers with the nuns that cut into recess time (and which, in retrospect, must have violated the constitutional separation of church and state).

Myers reminds us, nothing must be held sacred.

By the way, I didn't want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur'an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet.

You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanities' knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.

What, it’s Easter?

After I bought a cup of coffee and some muffins this afternoon, the clerk said "Have a nice Easter." I thought, What, it's Easter?

I'd completely lost track of what tomorrow was. I started to say, "I'd forgotten about it. Guess that shows how religious I am."

But I decided to bite my tongue and simply say, "Thanks."

Easter means absolutely nothing to me. Probably somebody in the world celebrates a memorable day in Zeus' existence. The two celebrations are equally senseless to my churchless self.

Yet I realize that other people find religious rituals and holidays deeply meaningful. They're welcome to their beliefs, as unfounded as they are to me.

We all need something to help us cope with life – which is full of uncertainty, pain, suffering, distress, unhappiness.

Coffee picks me up when I feel down. Others go to church, read the Bible, pray, or visualize Jesus' love for them. Personally, I think a latte is a better choice.

The Jehovah's Witnesses who knocked on our door this morning don't agree, though. I was in the midst of doing something important: eating a pancake and surfing the Internet. When I saw who was standing on our front porch, I felt a quiver of faithless indignation.

A woman handed me a leaflet, while a much older man in a suit stood to one side. "Hello, we'd like to invite you to a celebration of Jesus tomorrow."

I began rehearsing putdowns in my mind.

If she says one thing more…If she asks me if I've found Jesus…I'll tell her what she can do with her brochure…Yeah, bring it on sister…Just one more word…You knocked on the wrong door this Easter eve.

But she just smiled. Said, "thank you." And walked away.

Good move. The Jehovah's Witnesses have learned something. Or maybe they have a notation next to our address: "Tread lightly with these pagans."

Whatever, I went back to my pancake and laptop wishing them well. They were spending the day acting on their beliefs. Not in a pushy fashion, at least not with me. They simply wanted to spread the Good Word.

Which isn't so different from what I do on this blog, except I don't search people out.

Fresh from seeing Barack Obama yesterday, I'm in a pretty mellow mood. I agree with him that we need to do a much better job of breaking down the distinctions that plague this country.

Red states, blue states. Conservative, progressive. Faithful, faithless. Moral, immoral. Right, wrong. Patriotic, unpatriotic.

It isn't that we have to blend into some sort of featureless amorphous mass of oneness, losing our individuality.

It's more that believers need to do their best to look through the eyes of unbelievers, and vice versa. Ditto for blacks and whites, rich and poor, Republicans and Democrats, young and old, men and woman, etc. etc. etc.

In the bread store I paused before I blurted out what was going to be an impulsive rejoinder from my perspective. I realized that I had no idea how the clerk viewed Easter.

Maybe it meant a lot to her. Or maybe nothing, like me. Regardless, there was no need to say anything but "thank you." That's what I told the Jehovah's Witnesses also.

Have a nice Easter. Whatever it means to you.

Christian sex toys

Well, finally. Some Christianity that I can get behind. Or on top of. Whatever.

Christian sex toys. Though the offerings are fairly tame.

The NPR story says the "site steers clear of certain types of sexual activity that they believe are unholy." Any guesses?

Well, at least Joy Wilson and her husband are making good use of Biblical passages from the Song of Solomon. Sexual theology appeals to my churchless soul.

[Update: Gosh, does God have a plan for me? Am I about to convert to Christianity? Could be. Just noticed a CNN story about a minister asking his married couples to have sex every day for a month.

All of a sudden Christian dogma is looking quite a bit more appealing.]

Is it negative to be anti-Christian?

My wife and I try to be positive people. So when Laurel told a man we'd just met today, "You should know that we're anti-Christian," I hoped that this believer wouldn't take our negativity personally.

Fortunately, he didn't. I went on to explain that it isn't so much Christianity that turns us off as fundamentalism – which comes in many guises. Christian fundamentalists just happen to be by far the most common variety in our neck of the world's woods.

This cartoon does a good job of summing up what we find objectionable about so many Christians. They take the most ridiculous parts of the Bible literally, rejecting science in the process, but look upon the most elevated aspects of Jesus' message metaphorically.

"Love your neighbor as yourself." "Judge not, lest ye be judged." "Sell everything you have and give it to the poor." Whaaaaaat? Jesus couldn't have meant us to take that stuff seriously. He's all about stopping gay marriage, abortions, and stem cell research, right?

Well, I'd bet on wrong, though it's an open question whether Jesus even existed, much less how he'd feel about 21^st century social issues.

So I don't see it as negative to be anti-Christian if what you're against is Christian negativity. Negate a negation and you're left with something positive. Or neutral, at least.

Still, I'm pretty much on the same wavelength as Michael Shermer's "Rational Atheism" essay in Scientific American. He argues that while religious beliefs have to be dealt with when they conflict with scientific facts or violate principles of political liberty, skeptics should be cautious about going overboard with all-out attacks on religiosity.

Shermer's five reasons are:

1. Anti-something movements by themselves will fail.
2. Positive assertions are necessary.
3. Rational is as rational does.
4. The golden rule is symmetrical.
5. Promote freedom of belief and disbelief.

Here's his explanation of #5, which is difficult to argue with.

A higher moral principle that encompasses both science and religion is the freedom to think, believe and act as we choose, so long as our thoughts, beliefs and actions do not infringe on the equal freedom of others. As long as religion does not threaten science and freedom, we should be respectful and tolerant because our freedom to disbelieve is inextricably bound to the freedom of others to believe.

Yes. And I recognize that while I no longer see the need to pursue my "do-gooder" activities under a religious banner, other people feel differently.

For example, Jonn, the man with whom Laurel and I had an interesting chat this afternoon at a table outside of the charming Sisters Coffee Company in (where else?) charming Sisters, Oregon.

(As an aside, Sisters Coffee has a reference to Jesus prominently displayed behind the cash register, and an open Bible near the seating area; this means nothing to us heathens, because they serve great lattes and sweets).

Jonn came up to us with some comments about something he and I have in common: a gray beard. Ostensibly he wanted some feedback on a desirable beard length, but pretty clearly a primary motivation for sitting down with us was to share his Christian-related vision of a cause called "Profits for Peace."

Which I'm still vague about. The description on his web site doesn't cast much light on what his recently formed non-profit organization is all about.

But, hey, we're down with sustainable peace. I'm just understandably a bit skeptical about whether "Profits" or "Peace" is the main goal of this group, notwithstanding its non-profit designation.

Regardless, talking with Jonn helped Laurel and me to remember that many (if not most) Christians aren't of the fire and brimstone fundamentalist variety. Yes, they're committed to their faith. And yes, they want to act on that faith. There's nothing wrong with either "yes." Often, a whole lot right.

Someday, I hope, people won't identify themselves as Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, or whatever. Nor will they be anti- or pro-religion. Humankind will have evolved beyond such distinctions.

Until that blessed time comes, it should be the goal of each of us to tolerate differences of belief and unbelief with as much goodwill as we can muster.

Yet only, as Shermer said, when one person's thoughts, beliefs and actions don't infringe on the equal freedom of others.

If you want to take away my grandchild's right to learn the scientific truth of evolution, unmixed with creationist or intelligent design B.S., then you'll have a fight on your hands. Or if you want to stifle federal funding for embryonic stem cell research that could benefit millions out of a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture.

Remember, Christians: the Bible says Thou shalt not pray in public! Keep your beliefs private and no negativity from unbelievers shall fall unto you.

Creation Museum displays Christian credulity

Just when I've been thinking, "summer is here, living is easy; maybe I shouldn't hammer religion so hard," the Creation Museum has to open its doors and make me wish I had a hammer of Biblical proportions.

Oops, bad choice of words. Because the problem with the Creation Museum — a huge one — is that it treats the Bible as gospel truth rather than manmade fables.

So if Genesis says that the Earth was created just a few thousand years ago, then dinosaurs must have co-existed with Homo sapiens, no matter what science has discovered.

This ridiculous monument to religious credulity cost $27 million. Sadly, plenty of adults will fork over $19.95 to gaze upon the Creation Museum's impressive looking (so long as you look past their idiocy) displays.

Even sadder, children are going to come along. I'm with protester Edwin Kagin, who said:

Teaching children that science supports the Bible rather than evolution "is a form of child abuse" and "terrorism" that could plunge America into a new dark age.

Absolutely. Polls show that 40% of Americans believe that God created humans in our present form less than 10,000 years ago. Every effort should be made to get that percentage a lot closer to zero. The Creation Museum is a step in the wrong direction.

The Bible was written by pre-scientific people. They were human, not divine. They had no idea that dinosaurs even existed. Nor did they know any other purported "facts" (such as the Sun goes around the Earth) that weren't part of the limited knowledge base of those times.

Hmmmmm. You'd think that a divine revelation would include some hitherto unknown accurate information about our place in the cosmos. But none ever has — whether Christian, Muslim, Judaic, Hindu, Sikh, or whatever.

That doesn't bother the true believers. Museum visitor Kim Schiffman said, "Every word in the Bible is true. The whole evolution theory to me is ridiculous."

Well, Kim, as the Evil Bible web site points out, you must endorse ritual human sacrifice, rape, murder, and slavery (to name but a few Biblical barbarities), because these are spoken of fondly in your Absolutely True Bible.

You might also take a look at the many Biblical contradictions. I guess truth can be both true and false, because the Bible often likes to swing opposite ways.

Thanks to this sneak peek at the Creation Museum, I was able to get a look at how human reason is viewed there. Given the Bible's strong tilt toward superstition and myth-making, it isn't surprising that the museum gives reason short shrift compared to God's Word.

This means that if something was written by scientific ignoramuses hundreds of years ago, and has been given a stamp of approval by almost equally ignorant religious authorities, it should be accepted uncritically even if every reasonable brain cell in your body is screaming Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!

No, I haven't been too hard on religion. The Creation Museum helped me see that. So long as children are being taught that reality is to be fled from, rather than embraced, religious fundamentalism has to be fought.

I'm mildly worried about Islamic radicals. But I'm much more concerned about the Christian crazies right here in the United States. That's who really threatens American freedoms.

Such as the right to know the truth.

Christians admit their religion is based on hate

I'm pretty harsh on Christianity, along with every other faith-based religion that asks us to believe in things unseen and a god unknown.

But it takes a Christian to really reveal the dark side of Christianity—a true believer whose world view is so blinded by an egocentric conviction that he's got all the answers, he doesn't see how deep is the moral morass into which he's sunk.

Such a man is Rick Scarborough of Vision America, an organization that claims to be "restoring the original American vision." This supposedly includes the right to discriminate against, hate, and vilify people who are different from you.

The House of Representatives has passed a federal Hate Crimes Act that would expand the definition of hate crimes to include attacks against homosexuals and transgendered people. On Fox News I heard Scarborough inveighing about this threat to hatred.

Religious freedom is about to be dealt a mortal blow, and religious tolerance is about to become history if this legislation becomes the law of the land.

Huh? Hard to understand what the hell he's getting at, but a Fox reporter explained.

Some religious groups fear prosecution and intimidation of pastors whose sermons against homosexuality inadvertently inspire a hate crime.

Oh, poor pastors. They're demanding that society tolerate their spouting of hatred toward homosexuals, even if it leads to violence, while basking in the hate crimes protection already offered (for attacks based on race, religion, or national origin).

Consider the delicious irony. And bullshit. Christianity, a religion that supposedly is founded on love, is up in arms at the prospect of hate crime legislation being passed. If this isn't enough to make you an atheist, or at least an agnostic, what is?

Yes, not all Christians are anti-gay. But an awful lot are. In fact, it's difficult to come up with anything but a religious reason for abhorring homosexuality.

This is why Vision America screams "the hate crimes bill would criminalize Christianity." Fine with me. Criminalize away. If you can't practice your religion without discriminating against other people, you don't deserve to enjoy unfettered religious freedom.

It's good to see a counterpoint to the Christian right prejudicial mindset. A "Call to Courage" campaign has set out to urge believers not to be taken in by the anti-gay wing of Christianity. Motto:

Religious-based bigotry…Let's end it now and forever

Amen to that.

It deeply disturbs me to read letters to the editor like the one that appeared in our local newspaper today. It was written by Angela Makarenko, a 13 year old who, sadly, has already been sucked into the hate-filled whirlpool that passes for mainstream Christianity these days.

I know Salem legislators are deciding laws regarding gay rights, and I'm against that. Since the day I was born, I went to church called Slavic Christian Church of Salem.

I'm Christian, and my parents taught me that God created Adam and Eve – one man and one woman.

Most people say that they were born gay. You can't be born gay, you choose to be gay – it's your lifestyle.

I have three nieces, and by the time they go to school, teachers are going to be teaching them that it's OK to be gay. I don't want that to happen.

Please, no gay rights.

Angela, sometime you're going to Google your name and find this blog post. I hope so much that by the time you do, you've opened your mind and heart to a more compassionate philosophy of life.

You're confined in a small fundamentalist pasture right now. Jump over the fence. Head for the horizon.

There's a lot more joy and love out there than you'll ever find in the Slavic Christian Church of Salem.

Pope says hellfire is real and eternal

Well, looks like it's going to be an interesting afterlife. If you believe the Pope—and why wouldn't you, since he's infallible—the fires of hell are real and eternal.

This news comes on the heels (oops, I typed "hells" first time around; guess the Devil made me do it) of my condemning myself to hell for a free DVD. And providing video proof which, unexpectedly, has been viewed by 755 people in less than three months (only a few of whom were me).

Despite being a devoutly unfaithful lapsed Catholic, I figured that it was safe to take the blasphemy challenge. After all, Pope John Paul II had rejected the reality of a literal hell.

Pope Benedict XVI has overturned the Paulian good news that hell is just the condition of separation from God. Since I'm also separated from the Tooth Fairy, Bigfoot, and the Easter Bunny, none of which I believe in either, I can handle Pope John Paul's form of damnation.

Pope Benedict's vision of hell is a lot hotter. And longer, since it's eternal.

Hopefully my Catholic baptism and first communion will stand me in good stead after I die. Limbo wouldn't be so bad, though the last time I checked Benedict wasn't big on limbo as a hellfire alternative.

On Fox News I saw an ex-ambassador to the Vatican interviewed about the Pope's "hell is real" announcement. This foursquare Catholic was asked if non-Christians are going to hell, even if they're otherwise good people.

He prevaricated a bit, but ending up saying that he's pleased the Pope is telling it like it is now (in comparison to John Paul's feel-good Catholicism, I assume). In other words, nonbelievers in Jesus are screwed.

Benedict won't be Pope forever, though. So if pagans like me are able to outlive him, we've got a good chance of seeing the "is hell real?" question take another turn around the wheel of Catholic dogma. The infallibility of the Papacy is strangely mutable.

It reminds me of another supposedly infallible line of religious leaders, the gurus of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. They're considered to be God in human form, seemingly a step up the divinity ladder from the Pope.

Charan Singh, who served as guru until his death in 1990, said that it was okay for vegetarian disciples to eat cheese even though it contained rennet—which usually is derived from animals. However, Gurinder Singh, his successor, put out the word that rennet should be shunned if you want to keep your karmic load light.

That led to a flurry of quasi-panicked research into rennetless cheeses among the faithful. Of whom I was one, back then. We'd spend many anxious moments reading the small print on cheese packages, not to mention driving pizza parlors crazy with cheesy questions they'd likely never encountered before.

It's interesting how the God-given truth can change so quickly. Sort of makes you wonder whether we're speaking of truthiness here, rather than the really real variety.

I'm betting that hell isn't real. And that a bit of rennet won't doom me to transmigration into a lower form of life, such as a neo-conservative.

If I find myself worrying about whether my bets will pay off, I've found that doubling down is a good strategy. I break another Radha Soami Satsang Beas vow and sip a glass of organic red wine.

With some cheese. Usually rennetless, I have to admit. Karma or no karma, I prefer not to eat the stomach of calves. Ick! That's hellish!

Unbelievers should want the Bible taught in public school

Seeing the headline on this week's TIME cover, "Why We Should Teach the Bible in Public School," I was prepared to become outraged. But after reading the article, and giving more thought to the subject, this unbeliever is all for more Biblical instruction.

Naturally it shouldn't be with an evangelical slant. The article's author, David Van Biema, says that the Bible should be treated as the bedrock of Western culture, not the holy word of God.

Other religious texts also should get wider exposure in schools. A few weeks ago I pulled up to a drive-in Dutch Brothers for a latte fix before speaking to a comparative religion class.

The guy on duty asked me how my day was going. I said, "Well, I need to stay awake for a talk on Taoism that I'm about to give." He responded with a "Taoism? What's that?" I offered up a 30-second summary after getting over my amazement that someone his age wouldn't know anything about one of the world's preeminent quasi-religious systems.

However, even more amazing is the fact that we live in the land of Biblical idiots. The United States is the most Christian-crazy nation on earth. Yet Americans know next to nothing about the Bible, as Stephen Prothero tells us in his book Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know—But Doesn't

Blogger Wonkette shares some of Prothero's delicious ignoramus tidbits:

75% of adults believe the famed Benjamin Franklin saying "God helps those who help themselves" is one of the Ten Commandments.

50% of high school seniors believe Sodom and Gomorrah were married.

Only one in three Americans can name the four Gospels, while less than half can even name one of them.

As Van Biema notes in his piece, those Christians who support the death penalty with "an eye for eye, tooth for tooth" mentality either don't know about "turn the other cheek" or conveniently choose to ignore it.

There are many other examples in the Bible of contradictory or ridiculous teachings that demand active consideration by free-thinking individuals, not passive acceptance.

Bart Ehrman is a scholar who changed from a devout evangelical into an agnostic after learning so much about the history of the Bible, he realized that the words in it can't be trusted. Ehrman's book, Misquoting Jesus, definitely should be part of any public school curriculum.

I'm certainly no Bible scholar, but I know more about Christianity than most Christians. That's one reason I'm not a believer.

I know how little evidence there is that Jesus even existed. I know that the Gospels were written long after Jesus' purported death and resurrection, and have been heavily edited—both intentionally and unintentionally—ever since. I know that the books of today's Bible were selectively chosen from among a much larger collection of early Christian writings, some of which (like the Gospel of Judas) cast heresy in a new light.

So when it comes to teaching the Bible in public schools, I say "bring it on." Critically. Comprehensively. Creatively.

Personally, I don't find the Bible to be interesting or compelling reading. But I can take it in small pieces. In fact, now and then I even come across scriptural passages that, for one reason or another, seem eminently worshipful.

Lost Tomb of Jesus story shows shakiness of Christianity

Sunday the Discovery Channel will broadcast a documentary, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus." James Cameron claims to have found evidence that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and fathered a son named Judah.

And that he didn't ascend bodily to heaven, since his body was buried.

Lots of Christians and scholars are in an uproar, for different reasons. Scholarly types are critical of how the archaeological evidence has been interpreted. True believers are offended that anyone would try to demolish the foundation on which Christianity is built.

For the bodily resurrection is one of the essential doctrines of the Christian Faith.

Here's what I find most interesting about all this hullabaloo: it points to how shaky Christianity really is. Cameron's documentary likely will be shown and then quickly forgotten, because he seems to be making a big deal out of not much.

But if solid evidence did come to light that Jesus wasn't who the Bible says he is—God's divine son—then two billion Christian believers would have their rug of faith ripped out from underneath them.

That's the risk when your religion is founded on an individual person rather than universal reality.

David Kuo asks why so many people are out to disprove Jesus and Christianity, while so few take on the Buddha and Buddhism. Well, David, one reason is that Buddhism does just fine without the Buddha. In Zen, even better without than with.

I like to take my spirituality with a heavy dose of science, topped with some creamy skepticism. That's how it goes down best for me.

So when I see people worshipping a man who may never have existed, about whom nothing solid is known, yet is the being upon which they depend for their eternal salvation—that strikes me as bat-shit crazy.

Imagine how scientists would react if somehow it turned out that Isaac Newton wasn't who we thought he was. Maybe his wife, or gardener, actually wrote the Principia and Newton was a fraud.

No big deal. "Newton's" laws of motion would still guide the planets around the sun. All that would change is the credit line attached to the first discoverer of those fundamental principles of the universe.

That's because science is founded on facts that are independent of any person, while Christianity is a faith personified, through and through.

No Jesus as he is claimed to be, no Christian religion. No Isaac Newton, just a yawn for the practice of science.

To my mind the lesson to be taken away from "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" is that if your conception of reality is founded on the presence or absence of some bone fragments in an ossuary, you're on really shaky existential ground.

I recommend finding firmer footing before a more reputable researcher than James Cameron leaves you in metaphysical quicksand. (In my opinion you're already there; you just don't know it yet).

I condemn myself to hell. For a free DVD.

I haven’t made my Blasphemy Challenge video yet, but here’s the written version: “Hi. I’m Brian. I deny the Holy Spirit.”

According to Mark 3:29, my soul is now in deep hellish doo-doo.

“Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.”

On the plus side, if my video is among the first 1001 to be uploaded to YouTube, I’ll get a free DVD of The God Who Wasn’t There. That’s a $25 value, definitely enough for me to sell my soul.

Actually, I’d condemn myself to hell for a lot less. Like, for free, since I don’t believe that hell exists. Why, hell, I might as well condemn myself to Tartarus also while I’m at it. Along all the other mythical underworlds posited in the world’s religions.

If I’m wrong, the joke (and eternal damnation) is on me. But I’ll take my chances.

Bishop Carlton Pearson is on my side. He’s an evangelical minister of the United Church of Christ who preached fire and brimstone until he got a revelation from God. Which basically was: There isn’t any hell. All are saved. Christians and non-Christians alike. Everyone.

You’d think this positive, inclusive, non-judgmental message would be greeted by his congregation with a hearty “Praise the Lord!” But just the opposite occurred. His flock went from over 5,000 to just a few hundred.

Apparently hell sells. Which makes sense, in a sense.

If you’re a Christian believer, you damn well want to get some special benefit from all that believing. If hippies, drug dealers, homosexuals, and Buddhists are going to reach heaven along with you, what’s the point of going to church and filling the collection plate?

Nonetheless, it looks like Carlton Pearson now is doing fine. He has a snazzy web site and a nifty slogan: “The Friendliest, Trendiest, Most Radically Inclusive Worship Experience!”

Not surprisingly, Bishop Pearson is viewed as a heretic by fundamentalist Christians who aren’t into friendly, trendy, radical inclusiveness. This lengthy critique of Pearson’s hell-free theology calls him the charismatic bishop of heresy.

I suspect Pearson takes that as a compliment. As he should.

[Thanks to Church of the Churchless regular Randy for emailing me about Pearson, and to Newsweek for cluing me in to the Blasphemy Challenge.]

“The Pagan Christ” looks at Christmas differently

Spoiler alert: if you’re a Christian who believes that today you celebrated the birth of someone who actually existed, stop reading--if you don’t want to run the risk of having your belief balloon punctured.

Since I’ve never had any allegiance to the historical Jesus, I had no problem breezing through Tom Harpur’s eye-opening “The Pagan Christ,” subtitled “Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity?”

Harpur, a former Anglican priest and professor of Greek and New Testament at the University of Toronto, argues that Christianity is nothing more than warmed over Egyptian and Greek mythology. Jesus never existed as a historical personage. His Gospel story is an amalgamation of allegories that have no basis in literal fact.

Makes sense to me. But not for lots of others. I note that right now this book is selling for a rock-bottom $2.99 direct from Amazon. Probably the Christmas season is a slow period for books about the pagan origins of Christianity.

And Harpur, not surprisingly, comes in for some heavy criticism from erudite fundamentalists like James Patrick Holding.

My brain is still too much in my stomach after excessive gorging on a Christmas dinner to wade through Holding’s lengthy screed. I’ll simply observe that Bible skeptic Robert M. Price has his own extensive critique of Holding, along with critiques of numerous other apologists for Christian dogma.

Myself, I resonate with Harpur’s freeing message:

The personal Jesus concept is truly a limiting, and deeply divisive, dead end. The historical evidence simply isn’t there. It’s a classic example of the emperor’s having no clothes.

What is more, it commits idolatry by making a flesh-and-blood man into God—thus forever alienating Jews, Muslims, and believers of a host of other religions, and making full religious harmony on the planet a perpetual impossibility

It has, most notably in the United States, created a kind of passive-dependent Jesus cult totally prone to extreme magical thinking. It restricts Christhood to one person in all of history, instead of acknowledging the deep, archetypal power of a universal—yes, cosmic—principle and ideal.

Jordan Stratford is a Gnostic Christian blogger who likes “The Pagan Christ.” He straightforwardly lays out the choices: “Either Jesus Christ was a man who lived 2,000 years ago, suffered under Pontius Pilate and died, or he was not.”

Stratford points out, as does Harpur, that middle of the roaders like The Jesus Seminar participants try to have it both ways: Jesus really existed, but the Bible doesn’t accurately reflect who he was or what he taught. Stratford chooses one lane.

In my opinion it is far more honest to accept the premise, as put forth by a new current of writers including Freke and Gandy, that the Jesus story is entirely mythical with absolutely zero historicity.

So what happens with Christmas? If it isn’t a celebration of the birth of a once-real person, what is it? Just an opportunity to stoke the economy, or something more?

Harpur says that it definitely can be something more, so long as we take the Jesus story as a symbol of how divinity can be born in every person. He quotes John Dominic Crossan:

My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.

We’ve got to wise up, Harpur advises.

This is to refute the charge that if the events of religious festivity are thrown out as non-historical, Christmas and Easter and ceremonies like them will lose all their gripping impressiveness.

On the contrary, [Alvin Boyd] Kuhn affirms, the symbols will exert a far weightier significance when they are envisioned truly as symbols and not falsely as events. I can only add that this has been my personal experience too.

The celebrations of Christmas and Easter have become infinitely more potent for me as I have learned to penetrate beyond the externals to the realities within. As Origen says, taken in its literal, allegedly historical sense, “Christ crucified is teaching for babes.”

Or, to quote St. Paul, “But when I became a mature man, I put away childish things.”

Yes, it’s time to grow up and become churchless.

Almost time to celebrate the Christianity meme

Here we are, late December, and there sure is a lot of Christian talk going around. Someone from outer space would be asking, “What’s that all about?” Mangers, wise men, gifts of frankincense and myrrh.

Our alien visitor would be told that Christmas is a celebration of a man who was sent by God to redeem the world’s sins; that he died, was resurrected, and now is able to give other people eternal life in heaven if you believe in him; and that he expects believers to praise his glory to others so that they too can be saved.

“Oh, I see,” the visitor’s Universal Galactic Translator would say. “The minds of your people have been infected by a powerful meme. Our consciousnesses are prone to the same disturbances.”

Not exactly how Christians view the birth of Jesus. But it’s an entirely reasonable explanation of the hold that Christianity, along with other salvific religions, has on billions of Homo sapiens.

The Christianity Meme web site is dedicated to exposing what’s really going on:

"--Christianity is a meme, a mind virus that lives in the minds of people and is spread through proselytization and other means.
--Christianity is a meme about God, but it has no other connection to God.
--The Christianity Meme has been shaped purely by natural selection--the law of survival of the fittest--as it has played out in human minds. It is a sophisticated product of cultural evolution.
--Being a "true Christian" infected by the Christianity Meme will subject you to aid its survival through its adaptations that allow it to exert control over human behavior.
--As a consequence, the more Christian you are the more you are prone to certain kinds of immoral behavior. The Christianity Meme is not bound by the moral principles it carries.
--We seek to expose Christianity for what it is and we advocate a conscious and rational approach to morality in its place."

Makes sense. Memes are theorized to be the mental equivalent of genes. Whereas genes are passed on from parent to child through DNA, memes propagate through cultural forces: books, conversation, magazines, television, movies, art, blogs, all kinds of methods.

When you hear a new song and can’t get it out of your head, that’s a meme replicating itself. Or when you just have to get an Ipod, because everyone else has one. Or, if you’re of a certain age, when wearing a baseball cap anyway but backward becomes unthinkable.

In his essay “Viruses of the Mind” (in A Devil’s Chaplain), Richard Dawkins says, “Like computer viruses, successful mind viruses will tend to be hard for their victims to detect. If you are the victim of one, the chances are that you won’t know it, and may even vigorously deny it.”

These are the tell-tale signs that Dawkins says we should look for.

--The patient is impelled by a deep conviction that something is true, right, or virtuous. This conviction isn’t based on evidence or reason, but still is totally compelling and convincing. In other words, “faith.”

--Patients make a virtue out of faith’s being strong and unshakeable in spite of the lack of evidence. Indeed, the less evidence there is, the more virtuous the belief. Once the proposition is believed, it automatically undermines opposition to itself.

--A related symptom is that “mystery,” per se, is a good thing. It is not a virtue to solve mysteries. Rather, we should enjoy them and even revel in their insolubility.

--The sufferer may find himself behaving intolerantly toward vectors of rival faiths, in extreme cases even killing them or advocating their deaths. He also will be negative toward apostates (people who once held the faith but have renounced it) or toward heretics (people who espouse a different version of the faith).

--The patient’s beliefs likely have nothing to do with evidence and a lot with epidemiology. Meaning, it is the faith his parents and grandparents had, for by far the most important variable determining a person’s religion is the accident of birth. If he’d been born in a different place, he’d have a different religion.

--Yet even if the patient follows a different religion from his parents, the explanation still can be epidemiological: he has been exposed to a particularly potent infective agent, a John Wesley, a Jim Jones, or a St. Paul.

--The internal sensations of the patient may be startlingly reminiscent of those more ordinarily associated with sexual love. Some priests speak of the consecrated Host, the supposed body and blood of Christ, in romantic terms: “I would gaze on the Host…soft-eyed like a lover looking into the eyes of his beloved.”

So beware of what lurks within the religious mind. Memes, like viruses, don’t care about you. Their goal is simply to replicate by means fair or foul.

You might find yourself flying a plane into a building at the behest of a religion meme. Or, donating more money than you can afford to a meme that says, “God loves those who give to Him until it hurts.”

Have a Merry Christmas-meme. Just don’t turn your back on the devious creature.

Don’t spam God

It’s rare that I resonate with a Christian message. But I like the general tone of this short “Do you spam God?” piece (a PDF file).

I wonder, though, whether maybe God would prefer not to be bothered at all, compared with getting heartfelt messages. What’s the point of blabbing away to an omniscient omnipresent being?

(Thanks to the New Life Church for sharing this link).

Struggling to comprehend the Christian mind

I’ve been enjoying the Christian/non-believer dialogue being carried on via comments to my “Morality comes from nature, not God” post. Pastor Phillip Ross has stimulated some interesting cyber-conversation between himself and Church of the Churchless regulars, me included.

Today I’m in a pretty mellow mood. Last night’s election results filled me with hope that the divisions plaguing the United States can be bridged by moderates who realize that left and right can’t exist without a center.

I was in that spirit when I perused the latest comments from Phillip and others today. Rather than reflexively thinking, “Geez, that’s ridiculous” after reading some assertion of Christian theology, I did my best to comprehend Phillip’s frame of mind.

That is, rather than criticize his statements from my own perspective, I tried to get a feel for what it might be like to believe in God and Jesus as a devout Christian does (however, Phillip’s web site, Pilgrim Platform, is devoted to pointing out fallacies of the contemporary church—which points to the fact that these days it isn’t a simple matter to figure out what Christianity is and isn’t).

I’d like to be able to report that I succeeded in my empathic quest. But I can’t.

I was a political conservative in my deluded youth, so I feel that I understand how a right-wing Republican thinks.Likewise, I was a religious true believer for many years, even though at the time I wouldn’t have called my fidelity to the teachings of Sant Mat and Radha Soami Satsang Beas as such, so I feel I understand how a person of faith thinks.

Even so, a Christian mind such as Phillip’s is damnably tough for me to grok. I don’t say this critically. It’s just the way it is. There’s a gap between a fundamentalist Christian way of looking at the cosmos and my own perspective that is so wide, I end up gazing across the divide at a distant shadowy figure who is waving his hands and yelling faintly, “Do you get what I mean?”

No, I don’t. I’m sure this doesn’t dismay Christians like Phillip, because to them faith in Jesus is something you either have or you don’t. Sort of like a Zen satori. It isn’t explainable, defensible, comprehensible, rational, or explicable. Some get it, some don’t.

Why is this? In his November 7 comment, Phillip said that the main part of his religious outlook breaks into two halves, sin and forgiveness.

First, all have sinned. That's you and me and every biped. And the first evidence of sin is it's denial. Second, forgiveness comes through Christ alone. When we deny the first half, God denies the second half.

Well, I’m befuddled. The notion of original sin makes no sense to me. So not surprisingly, the notion that God had to send his son to suffer on our behalf for non-sensical sins also escapes me.

As do a lot of mystical precepts. The Buddhist “emptiness is form and form is emptiness” is absent from my store of adages that I feel I can explain. Yet Phillip, like most Christians, rejects a mystic approach to God. I’d mentioned to him that I had read widely in Christian mystical literature: Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, Cloud of Unknowing, and such.

He replied:

We have a thorough reading of Christian mysticism in common. I, too, spent many years looking there. But God is not there. The God of the Christian mystics is "mystery, darkness, not-knowing, ineffability." You're right about that. But that is not the God of the Bible. That is the false God of Gnosticism.

What is the true God, then? And how would we recognize this divinity? Can’t rely on a direct mystical experience. That’s a Gnostic no-no. And you also can’t rely on reason, according to Phillip. That’s a Platonic no-no.

The effort to prove God is an exercise of Greek categories of thought trying to make sense of the biblical God. But, alas, they cannot. Paul speaks to this in Acts 17 and in First Corinthians, where he identifies Greek philosophy as foolishness, that is, lacking in discernment and good judgment.

What’s left? The Bible? But Phillip says, “The Bible offers no proof of God's existence.” So it seems that we can’t rely on the Bible to point us toward the true God, since it can’t even demonstrate the existence of any God.

For some reason, though, in his comments Phillip quotes passages from the Bible to support his argument. Somehow the same Bible that contains no proof of God’s existence can be relied upon to tell us what God is like and what he expects of us. I learned from Phillip that…

--God is a person
--God is jealous
--God does not answer all prayer
--God invades human history

And (bad news for me)…

--God is offended by being called a false name

This explains why, even though I’ve been praying to God for a convertible Mini Cooper S (unselfishly, because I’d occasionally offer joyful rides in it to other people), one hasn’t appeared in my driveway.

Phillip said that my cover-the-bases prayer to God/ Allah/ Jehovah/ Tao/ Buddha-nature/ One isn’t going to win me points with the jealous Christian God, a.k.a. The Only True God. God apparently wants to be called “God,” (in English I assume, not Aramaic) and nothing else.

You pray, "whoever might be out there, here I am. Show me." [either yourself or the Mini, I’m easy] But your prayer is an absolute affront to God. You call Him by many false names. It's like you want to talk to me, but you can't remember my name. So, you call out, "George, Pete, Sam, whoever you are." And I don't answer. Are you surprised that I don't answer? You shouldn't be. Generally speaking, when you don't call people by name, they neither listen nor respond.

Hmmmm. About four hours ago my Tai Chi instructor, Warren, told a story about calling a phone company repairman “Ron” about twenty times before he said, “Actually, my name is John.” Yet John successfully collaborated with Warren on finding and fixing a broken wire on the roof of the Tai Chi studio, even though he kept being called “Ron.”

I guess John beats God in the humility department. As do I. If a neighbor’s house was on fire and they saw me passing by, I’d still run to assist them even if they mistakenly yelled “Help, Brad!” Apparently God wouldn’t do the same if you got his moniker wrong.

Nevertheless, during my meditation time this morning I spent a whole five minutes calling out to God. And only God. That was about as long as I could concentrate on talking to God before returning to mentally contemplating the oh so sweet election results.

I just checked our driveway. Twelve hours have passed. Still no Mini Cooper. This proves to me there is no God.

Phillip should approve of my conclusion. After all, he wrote in one of his comments that the only incontrovertible proof for the existence (and, I extrapolate, non-existence) of God is our own life—his, mine, yours. On that we agree.

Phillip finds that God exists. I find no evidence of that. He says tomahto. I say tomato. Each to his own. There’s nothing wrong with faith in God, nor with skepticism toward God. so long as believers admit that their belief is purely personal and improvable.

Phillip, you wrote, “I am just saying that the need for proof regarding God is resolved by meeting Him.”

Tell me: have you met Him? I assume so, or you wouldn’t know so much about him. Could you ask him why he has such a thing about being called the right name? Also, find out what name, in which language, he likes the most.

Send that info along to me. Then I’ll try my prayer again. Maybe he favors German and I should have been saying, “Gott, bring me a Mini Cooper.”

Hope springs eternal.

Texas governor says non-Christians are going to hell

On this election day eve, let us remind ourselves why it is so important to send a message to the Christian Taliban in this country: we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!

What aren’t we going to take? Intolerance. Sanctimoniousness. Attempts to turn the United States into a hateful Christian nation.

When the Republican governor of Texas agrees with a sermon where the pastor said that non-Christians are “going straight to hell with a non-stop ticket,” it’s long past time to scream bullshit.

Governor Rick Perry’s weird religious beliefs are his own business. But he needs to keep them to himself when he’s acting in his role as a political leader. He was among 60 mostly Republican candidates for tomorrow’s election when the pastor made his remarks.

Perry should have said something like, “I represent all Texans, Christians and non-Christians alike. Theology is one thing, democracy is another. I’m not going to comment on a matter of personal religious belief.”

How would Perry feel if he were a Christian living in Saudi Arabia and heard that nation’s leader say, “Every follower of Jesus will be judged harshly by Allah”? (This doesn’t require much of a stretch of the imagination.)

Could he be confident that justice would be applied equally to him and to Muslims? I doubt it. So how does he think Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, and other non-Christian Texans feel about his own intolerant remarks?

Independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman said, “He doesn’t think very differently from the Taliban, does he?” No, he doesn’t.

Unfortunately, Perry has lots of Christian company. Check out these quotations from the American Taliban.

I often hear it said, “Oh, these sorts of hateful people aren’t real Christians. The Bible teaches us to love, not hate.” Sorry, but that’s also bullshit.

The Bible is full of hatred. The haters of sodomy and homosexuality at godhatesfags.com say that they are merely preaching the Gospel. And, judging by the scripture they cite, they are.

These members of the Westboro Baptist Church have put together a persuasive PDF document: “God Loves Everyone.” The Greatest Lie Ever Told. 701 Passages Proving God’s Hate & Wrath for Most of Mankind.

It turns out that the Bible does say that non-Christians are going to hell. The Christian God isn’t full of love, as the document points out.

Have you ever wondered how many times “God loves everyone” is found in the Bible – 20, 50, 100, 200? Have you ever wondered if it appears in the New Testament or Old Testament or both? Have you ever wondered who said these words or who they are attributable to? Have you ever wondered how many times Jesus said “God loves everyone?”

As a matter of uncontroverted fact the phrase “God loves everyone” never appears in the Bible. You can search from Genesis to Revelation, including looking in all 66 books, 1,189 chapters, 31,173 verses and 774,746 words and you will never find this phrase. Period. In other words, the most famous Christian notion of God that is repeated without measure or limit in this evil and adulterous generation is never found in the Bible.

And that’s one reason I’m not a Christian. And why I urge you to vote Democratic tomorrow. The Dems are by no means perfect. But at least they haven’t been hijacked by the American Taliban like the Republicans have.

God wants to be forsaken

My churchlessness and agnosticism is adored by God. Yes, God looks upon me with more favor than all those worshipful Christians, Muslims, Jews and other religious types.

For God wants to be forsaken. Happy to oblige, my friend. It’s a pleasure to comply with the divine will.

I learned about what God wants from Meister Eckhart, the German theologian and mystic. He’s got some excellent doctrinal credentials, chief among them being accused of heresy by Pope John XXII.

You know that a Catholic is pointing toward the truth when he’s branded a heretic. So we need to take seriously the advice Eckhart proffered in one of his sermons.

Of course, it sounds astonishing to say that the soul should forsake God, but I assert that it is more important for the soul to forsake God to attain perfection than it is for the soul to forsake creatures, or all will be lost.

The soul must exist in a free nothingness. That we should forsake God is altogether what God intends, for as long as the soul has God, knows God, and is aware of God, she is far from God.

Now, it isn’t easy to understand Eckhart. He recognized that himself, concluding another sermon in this fashion.

Whoever has understood this sermon, I wish them well. Had no one been here, I would still have had to preach it to this collecting-box. There are some poor folk who return home and say, “I wish to sit down, to eat my bread and to serve God.” But I say by the eternal truth that these people shall remain in error and can never attain what those others attain who follow God in poverty and in exile. Amen.

D.T. Suzuki, a teacher of Zen, explains that for Eckhart “God” and “Godhead” are “as different as earth is from heaven.” Godhead is empty of everything that can be known, perceived, understood, comprehended. So, says Suzuki, to Eckhart pure nothing “is the highest point at which God can work in us as he pleases.”

With him God is still a something as long as there is any trace of movement or work or of doing something. When we come to the Godhead, we for the first time find that it is the unmoved, a nothing where there is no path to reach. It is absolute nothingness; therefore it is the ground of being from whence all beings come.

If this isn’t unclear enough, here are some additional Meister Eckhart quotations that have the delicious effect of overturning our unduly stable metaphysical apple cart.

But I say that if someone perceives something in God and gives it a name, then that is not God. God is above names and nature.

Taking leave of God for the sake of God is the greatest act of renunciation that someone can make.

Therefore we ask God to free us from “God” so that we may be able to grasp and eternally enjoy truth where the highest angels, the fly and the human soul are all one—in that place where I desired what I was and was what I desired.

Your soul should lose all her mental nature and should be left non-mental, for if you love God as “God,” as “Spirit,” as “Person,” as “Image,” then all this should be abandoned. You must love him as he is a non-God, a non-Spirit, a non-Person, a non-Image.

You are never better placed than when you are in complete darkness and unknowing.

Ah, thank you Meister Eckhart. I’m reassured that my meditation is going just fine.

Sam Harris shakes up a Christian nation. And, me.

I loved “Letter to a Christian Nation.” Sam Harris punctures every variety of religious vanity. Though his focus is, obviously, on the follies of Christianity, Harris’ razor-sharp dissection of one religion leaves in shreds every faith-based belief system.

I read nearly all of the 96 pages in one evening. It’s hard to put down this book. I agree with Harris nearly 100%, but even if you don’t—and most Americans won’t—his blunt epigrammatic style will draw you in.

After all, right off the bat Harris establishes some common ground between he and his Christian audience.

You believe that the Bible is the word of God, that Jesus is the Son of God, and that only those who place their faith in Jesus will find salvation after death. As a Christian, you believe these propositions not because they make you feel good, but because you think they are true.

Before I point out some of the problems with these beliefs, I would like to acknowledge that there are many points on which you and I agree. We agree, for instance, that if one of us is right, the other is wrong. The Bible is either the word of God, or it isn’t. Either Jesus offers humanity the one, true path to salvation, or he does not.

From there, Harris is off and running. Since neither Christianity, nor any other religion or spiritual faith, can prove that it knows the nature of ultimate truth, it isn’t difficult for him to demonstrate the folly of religious certainty.

For Harris, as for me, a scientific approach toward knowing reality is the only sensible way to go.

In the broadest sense, “science” (from the Latin scire, “to know”) represents our best efforts to know what is true about our world…The core of science is not controlled experiment or mathematical modeling; it is intellectual honesty.

It is time we acknowledged a basic feature of human discourse: when considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn’t. Religion is the one area of our lives where people imagine that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies.

I’m proud of my churchlessness. But Harris’ bold defense of truth in the face of religious attempts to substitute faith for facts made me realize how wishy-washy I can be.

I’ll listen to someone’s recitation of their religiosity and think to myself, “That’s bullshit.” Yet I won’t say it. Harris says it. As he should. As we all should.

In his first book, “The End of Faith,” Harris reserves special scorn for religious moderates and liberals. He does the same in “Letter to a Christian Nation.”

I have little doubt that liberals and moderates find the eerie certainties of the Christian Right to be as troubling as I do. It is my hope, however, that they will also begin to see that the respect they demand for their own religious beliefs gives shelter to extremists of all faiths…Even the most progressive faiths lend tacit support to the religious divisions in our world.

If somebody said to me, “Global warming isn’t happening,” I’d reply, “You’re wrong.” I wouldn’t say, “Well, you’re entitled to your belief” because this issue is too important for erroneous ideas to trump the truth.

Yet often I’ll keep my mouth shut when a believer spouts some equally indefensible statement about God, morality, life after death, or such. Partly I’m motivated by a desire not to rock the conversational boat.

But Harris is right: in the past, and to some extent now as well, I’ve held equally indefensible beliefs that I didn’t want others to question. So I’d hold to a policy of mutual assured religious destruction. “You could demolish the arguments I use to defend my faith just as easily as I could destroy yours; so let’s each hold our fire.”

Intellectually dishonest. Yet it worked. The cost of this I’ll scratch your absurdities if you’ll scratch mine is too high to tolerate, though. Personally as well as culturally. Blind belief threatens to tear apart the social fabric. In the United States; in the world.

So each of us needs to suck it up and allow our most cherished spiritual and religious fantasies to be seen for what they are: egotistical attempts at wish-fulfillment. Harris points out that scientists and non-believers are the most humble of humans, while the religious display astounding arrogance.

There is, in fact, no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer: the creator of the universe takes an interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of the truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend eternity in hell…An average Christian, in an average church, listening to an average Sunday sermon has achieved a level of arrogance simply unimaginable in scientific discourse—and there have been some extraordinarily arrogant scientists.

Read “Letter to a Christian Nation.” Even if you’re not Christian. If you’re a spiritual believer of any stripe, Sam Harris is speaking to you too.

Jesus Camp: turning kids into Christian soldiers

Jesus Camp. Only in America.

Well, also in Pakistan. But they’re called “madrassas” there. And it isn’t Jesus the children are being trained to die for.

However, in fairness to the camp director, Pastor Becky Fischer, I heard an interview with her on the Ed Schultz show.

She said, convincingly, that the Jesus Camp documentary didn’t include all of her “radically laying down their lives for the Gospel” comment. (Which you can see here, if you have broadband).

Fischer said that what she means by “lay down your life” is dedicating yourself to Jesus 100%. Makes sense. I really don’t believe that Jesus Camp is out to produce little Christian suicide bombers.

It’s still scary though.

The Pope isn’t infallible. Oh my god!

Well, another religious bubble has burst. The Pope makes mistakes, just like the rest of us. So much for infallibility—though the Catholic Church is smart enough to attach conditions to infallible Papal statements, leaving themselves an out when he makes a mistake.

Which I’d say he did in his recent speech to a German university, parts of which seriously offended Muslims. But I don’t think it was a mistake to quote a medieval emperor, who said:

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

That’s an interesting observation that deserves open discussion. Kudos to the Pope for having the guts to point out that Islam’s theology contains undesirable elements. Undesirable, that is, if you’re an infidel. Or a woman. Or a Muslim writer who criticizes his faith. Or on the receiving end of an Al Qaeda explosive.

I’m all for studying comparative religion. Let’s compare the most idiotic elements of every religion. We need a theological Consumer Reports that warns of beliefs which are hazardous to our humanity. Islam has its fair share. But so does Catholicism.

I suspect that Muslims would have found the Pope’s remarks about Islam more palatable if he’d accompanied them with mention of the Inquisition and the Crusades, just to show that things “evil and inhuman” are part and parcel of Catholicism also.

So far the Pope’s apology has been decidedly half-hearted. He must have an American public relations firm advising him. The tone of his apology is familiar: “I’m sorry that _____ felt offended by what I said. It never was my intention to make _____ feel bad.”

George Bush uses this half-assed sort of apology a lot. “I’m sorry that the defeatists and terrorist sympathizers in this country are offended by my decision to invade Iraq in order to keep this country safe.” Like the Pope, Bush tries to maintain an aura of infallibility around him, even when he’s caught in a major screw-up.

Again, though, it doesn’t bother me that the Pope said what he did. The mistake he made was saying it in such an incredibly boring fashion. I mean, given the attention his “evil and inhuman” statement has received, the Vatican had a great opportunity here to convey some gripping Catholic doctrine.

Yesterday I had some dental work done. My dentist, an anti-religious Taoist (much like me), said that he dug out and read the Pope’s entire speech via the BBC. I followed in his footsteps today, but decided to go right to the source. Yes, the Vatican has a web site. And a darn good-looking one, too.

Where I didn’t have much trouble finding…

APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO MÜNCHEN, ALTÖTTING AND REGENSBURG
(SEPTEMBER 9-14, 2006)
MEETING WITH THE REPRESENTATIVES OF SCIENCE
LECTURE OF THE HOLY FATHER
Aula Magna of the University of Regensburg
Tuesday, 12 September 2006
“Faith, Reason and the University
Memories and Reflections”

Ugh. Boring, boring, boring. I managed to highlight my way through seven printed single-spaced pages, filling the margins with lots of question marks. What a letdown. I finally am drawn to read a Papal pronouncement and bummer, I could hardly make any sense of it.

Pope Benedict’s speech was so incomprehensible to me, I couldn’t even understand it well enough to disagree with him. Which I’m sure I would, if I knew what he was getting at. Something about faith and reason. And the university. I got that from the title.

But I’m not sure how faith and reason tie together. I read that “not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature.” However, here the Pope is echoing the thought of the medieval emperor, so I don’t know if Benedict really believes this.

Because he then starts to talk about the “profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God.” Hmmmm. As an admirer of the Greeks, I’m not sure about that.

The Pope moves on to speak about the “dehellenization” of theology. I gather he’s talking about the upswing of faith over reason, but it’s hard to tell. He does put down science if that means “the kind of certainty resulting from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements.”

God forbid that god and the divine might be considered empirical. If they were, people might expect to actually get in touch with them through religion. Then a Religious Consumer Reports could hold faiths accountable for their promises. Can’t have that.

So the Pope says that “any attempt to maintain theology’s claim to be ‘scientific’ would end up reducing Christianity to a mere fragment of its former self.” That doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me, but I guess I can understand why the Pope would feel otherwise.

Anyway, I figured that Benedict would sum up his message at the end, making clear whatever the heck he’d been trying to say. So I read:

The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur—this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time.

Clear as mud.

Let’s see. Reason is good. Except when it is empirical scientific reason, then it’s not good. So reason has to be broader than what is empirically verifiable. That leads to faith. Thus faith and reason are the same thing. To the Pope. For most people, including moi, they’re quite different. But hey, I’m fallible.

If anyone wants to read the Pope’s speech in its entirety and make sense of it for me, I’ll be grateful. The BBC has an abridged version that, however, doesn’t do justice to the confusion of the original.

What’s up with worship?

Yesterday my wife had a epiphany. Laurel was driving by a church and saw a sign about Sunday Worship. “Suddenly,” she told me, “the whole idea of worshipping God seemed so ridiculous. How do we know that God wants to be worshipped?”

Excellent question. Which presupposes that there is a God at all. So the notion of “worship” is doubly dubious. The good Christians who attend that church believe in a God for whom there is no demonstrable evidence, and they also believe that this God whom they are clueless about loves to be worshipped.

Why? Because the Bible tells them so. And why should they believe the Bible? Because the Bible tells them to. It’s no wonder most scientists eschew religion. Circular reasoning that leads nowhere isn’t their cup of tea.

Nor, mine.

Christianity believes in a personal God who is the absolutely greatest being there could possibly be. This is Anselm’s Ontological Argument. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but regardless, I’ll agree that if God exists, you’d expect that this dude (or dudette) would put pretenders to perfect divinity to shame.

So I picture really good people like the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, or Gandhi being asked, “Is it OK if we worship you?” I’m pretty sure these humble souls would be aghast at the idea. “No, for god’s sake, don’t worship me. Love me, get to know me, be with me—but don’t put me up on a pedestal.”

Yet God does want to be worshipped?

My own adaptation of Anselm’s argument is that if it is possible for you to envision a human being who has higher moral qualities than your conception of God, you’d better rethink that conception.

In his book “Breaking the Spell,” Daniel Dennett addresses the marketability of the two main God hypotheses: God as essence (ground of being, non-anthropomorphic, not in time and space, abstract) or God as conscious supernatural being (who listens to and answers prayers in real time, for instance.) Dennett quotes Rodney Stark:

“There is no more profound religious difference than between faiths involving divine beings and those limited to divine essences,” he [Stark] says, and the latter he judges to be hopeless, because “only divine beings do anything.” Supernatural conscious beings are much better sellers because “the supernatural is the only plausible source of many benefits we greatly desire.”

Ah, now we’ve gotten to the root of worship. It’s an exchange relationship. God asks for praise and devotion; I offer it; God then gives me what I want. Eternal life. A place in heaven. Escape from damnation. Freedom from my sins. Divine wisdom.

Well, I’m with Laurel. The more you ponder the worship game, the more absurd it seems. I’m supposed to kiss God’s ass even though I’ve never seen God. Or his ass. And I don’t even know if this God whom I don’t know likes to have his ass kissed.

For all I know, which I don’t, maybe God hates all this worship stuff and he’s going to kick my ass if I kiss his.

Good luck, faithful worshippers. You might be needing it.

Emerson’s sacrilegious Divinity School address

On July 15, 1838 Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed a class of Harvard Divinity School graduates. He wasn’t invited back to Harvard for three decades. Given what he said, I can understand why.

The complete address can be read here. I’ll share some of my favorite passages:

Meantime, whilst the doors of the temple stand open, night and day, before every man, and the oracles of this truth cease never, it is guarded by one stern condition; this, namely; it is an intuition. It cannot be received at second hand. Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or reject; and on his word, or as his second, be as he may, I can accept nothing.

He [Jesus] spoke of miracles; for he felt that man’s life was a miracle, and all that man doth, and he knew that this daily miracle shines as the character ascends. But the word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain.

Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion. As it appears to us, and as it has appeared for ages, it is not the doctrine of the soul, but an exaggeration of the personal, the positive, the ritual. It has dwelt, it dwells, with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus. The soul knows no persons. It invites every man to expand to the full circle of the universe, and will have no preferences but those of spontaneous love.

That is always best which gives me to myself. The sublime is excited in me by the great stoical doctrine, Obey thyself. That which shows God in me, fortifies me. That which shows God out of me, makes me a wart and a wen.

It is already beginning to indicate character and religion to withdraw from the religious meetings. I have heard a devout person, who prized the Sabbath, say in bitterness of heart, “On Sundays, it seems wicked to go to church.”

Let me admonish you, first of all, to go alone; to refuse the good models, even those which are sacred in the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil. Friends enough you shall find who will hold up to your emulation Wesleys and Oberlins, Saints and Prophets. Thank God for these good men, but say, “I also am a man.” Imitation cannot go above its model. The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.

“God Laughs and Plays” but doesn’t go to church

I figured that I’d enjoy a book subtitled “Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right.” And I did.

“God Laughs and Plays” is David James Duncan’s paean to fly-fishing rather than pew-sitting, to practicing Christian love rather than judgmental hatred, to finding inspiration in God’s natural creation rather than the artificial human dogma found in misnamed “holy” books.

A talented writer like Duncan best speaks for himself. So I’ll shut up and let him do the saying. Here’s some passages that I especially liked:

Intense spiritual feelings were frequent visitors during my boyhood, but they did not come from churchgoing or from bargaining with God through prayer. The connection I felt to the Creator came, unmediated, from Creation itself.

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Following intuition and love with all the sincerity and attentiveness I could muster, I consciously chose a life spent in the company of rivers, wilderness, Wisdom literature, like-minded friends, and quiet contemplation. And as it’s turned out, this life—though dirt-poor in church pews—has enriched me with a sense of the holy, and left me far more grateful than I can say.

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God is Unlimited. Thought and language are limited.

God is the fathomless but beautiful Mystery Who creates the universe and you and me, and sustains it and us every instant, and always shall. The instant we define this fathomless Mystery It is no longer fathomless. To define is to limit. The greater a person’s confidence in their definition of God, the more sure I feel that their worship of “Him” has become the worship of their own definition. I don’t point this out to insult the fundamentalists’ or anyone else’s God. I point it out to honor the fathomless Mystery.

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If you’ve got yourself a little faith community and feel some love and mercy bubbling up in it, why mess with that? Why “structure” it? Why “enchurch” it? Why not just live it and be thankful?

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To judge by the conservation voting records of those the Christian Right supports in Congress, however, the majority of fundamentalists see Mother Earth as a trampoline upon which we must stomp, the harder we stomp the more proud of us God will be, for Earth is fleeting, and only here to launch us toward heaven, so why not blow mountains up and dump them as rubble on top of streams, and why not support, from the pulpits of our so-called houses of God, so-called conservative candidates who conserve nothing but corporate profits reaped through our Armageddon-aimed Earth-stomping agenda?

We nonfundamentalist students of the Bible can think of many reasons not to practice such a “faith”—the words, example, and Person of Jesus chief among them.

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Needing church—which I have to admit I define as “two or less gathered in His Name”…

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A second thing that attracted me to Jesus at age seven: His father was allegedly God; and God had made the world and trees and rivers and stars and mountains and birds and clouds and sunlight and raspberries and animals and snowflakes and wildflowers and wilderness; and even though nobody could prove any of this like, scientifically, I loved the world God had allegedly made so much that it seemed like a good idea to love God, too.

Trouble was, I didn’t. Loving Creation made sense to me the same way that loving, say, Peanut M & M’s made sense. You tossed a handful of Peanut M & M’s in your mouth, crunched down, your tastebuds fired off, and without even trying, Yum! Love! Gratitude! Piece o’ cake. Loving the Invisible God Who’d created Creation, on the other hand, felt more like trying to love the unknown and invisible people who worked at the Peanut M & M’s factory.

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As for my having left institutional religion behind without bitterness: how in the Name of the Lover of field lilies, the poor, the prostituted, and His own murderers, could I be bitter about having traded self-righteousness, pharisaism, judgmentalism, and church pews for sunlit river banks and rising fish and moonrises over Rocky Mountain ridges and the path of intuition and salmon runs and great literature and world Wisdom traditions and abiding friendships and the incessant following of the sweet scent of love?

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I consider the infinite wilds to be the divine manuscript. I hold these wilds to be the only unbowdlerized copy we have of the Book that gives and sustains life.

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The word “mysticism” still means little to me as an experiencer, since everything I experience continues to simply be what it is. But as the beneficiary of certain inner experiences that have guided my life, and as a writer in love with a world in which much of what is visible is abused and much of what is life-giving is unseen, my respect for the word “mysticism” grows if only because, by definition, it shepherds us toward realms in which “what is” is much more than physical.

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If we are ever to rise to new levels of consciousness or to the Beauty that is Truth, we’ve got to describe our perceptions as consciousness truly perceives them. I therefore confess my lifelong love for a wilderness found outside myself, till once in a while I encounter it within.

It’s a wilderness entered, it seems, through agendaless alertness at work, rest, or play in the presence of language, rivers, mountains, music, plants, creatures, rocks, moon, sun, dust, pollen grains, dots, spheres, galaxies, grains of sand, stars, every sort of athletic ball, cells, DNA, molecules, atomic particles, and immaterial forces.

It’s a wilderness that occasionally “inside-outs” me, leading to a Teilhardinian burning and Leopoldian harmony that leave my mind wondrous happy but far, far behind. It’s a wilderness my trusty dog, Reason, will never succeed in sniffing out or chomping up, yet a wilderness I’ve been so long and grandly assailed by that I’ve lost all but comic interest in the dog’s endless hounding and suspect that even he begins to enjoy himself when the wilderness flips us inside itself.

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If I stake my life on one field, one wild force, one sentence issuing from Sinai it is this one: There is no goal beyond love.

One last quote. Concerning the title. From Meister Eckhart, the medieval mystic theologian whose teachings were so truthful he was accused of heresy by the Pope.

Truly! Truly! By God! By God! Be as sure of it as you are that God lives: at the least good deed done here in this world, the least bit of good will, the least good desire, all the saints in heaven and on earth rejoice, and together with the angels their joy is such that all the joy in this world can’t be compared. But the joy of them all together amounts to as little as a bean when compared to the joy of God over good deeds. For truly, God laughs and plays.

Buddha enlightens Jesus about the self

A meeting between Jesus, the Christ and Siddhartha Gotama, the Buddha. I’d love to be able to sit in a corner and listen in. Maybe even throw in a question or two.

Obviously so would Carrin Dunne, who wrote “Buddha & Jesus: Conversations.” Carrin said that she is a Christian with a growing interest in Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism.

I enjoyed this short (112 page) book, which was loaned to me by Warren, my Taoist marital arts teacher. He said that he felt Gotama gets the better of the arguments. I agree.

Dunne’s book was published in 1975. I note that a 2004 book about the I Ching was co-authored by one Carrin Dunne. I like to think that this is the same person, and that after writing about Jesus and Gotama Dunne continued to migrate toward the East.

For me the most interesting dialogue revolved around the subject of the self. To put it bluntly, I’d say that Gotama kicked Jesus’ ass. Spiritually speaking. Christianity just seems way too personal to be an accurate reflection of ultimate truth.

I can’t believe that the Word which supposedly created the cosmos became flesh and walked among us. Give me a break. The power behind the big bang that over 15 billion years has brought into being 100 billion galaxies, how could this force be encapsulated in a finite human being?

Who, according to Gotama, doesn’t even exist as a separate self. Gotama considers the self to be “the absolute source of illusion, the heart of ignorance and bondage.” Jesus, on the other hand, says that the self “is not only valuable but of infinite, irreplaceable value. Far from being the source of illusion, I see it as the source of truth.”

Gotama tries to set Jesus straight:

Infinite value? The source of truth? Indeed our differences are great if you mean what you say. I hope we can understand one another. I was deeply heartened when I heard you say that men must leave self behind to follow along the way, but I was disturbed when you added that to follow the way was to follow you.

Your way of putting it confuses the issue—which is a question of leaving all self behind, myself, yourself, all selves, the whole notion of self. You would do better to distinguish clearly between your person and your teaching.

Great advice, which applies equally to religions and spiritual paths of both the West and East. For it isn’t only Christianity which brings divinity down to a highly personal level and has a human proclaim that “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.”

This also is the teaching of many Eastern guru-based faiths. The guru is considered to be God in human form, just as Jesus is viewed by Christian believers. Thus Indian mystical philosophies such as Sant Mat (“path of the saints”) bear much resemblance to Christianity in their emphasis upon love and devotion directed toward an earthly person.

Jesus feebly tries to claim that when he asks men to follow him, this “is the most radical form of self-renunciation.” Gotama replies:

Forgive me if I still cannot grasp your language. When I speak of leaving self behind, I mean not only this particular self, but all notion of self, whether particular or universal, human or divine. You seem to be asking men to renounce themselves in order to cleave to another self, your own, which becomes a new world, an all-encompassing self for them—your desires in the place of their desires, your thoughts in place of their thoughts.

Jesus admits that “When you put it that way I can see why they say that I am possessed and raving. It sounds like the ambition of a self-obsessed madman.”

Gotama: “I am sorry to say it, but it does.”

It takes two to Tango, though. There is no guru without a disciple. I’ve seen tens of thousands of disciples staring spellbound at a guru, hanging on his every word, drinking in every manifestation of his personality.

Even when I was highly devoted to Sant Mat, in the guise of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas branch, I couldn’t understand this emphasis upon the person rather than the teaching. Some Western disciples loved to go to talks by the guru where he would speak entirely in an Indian language they couldn’t understand, just to be in his presence.

I found it boring.

I’ve also seen Westerners give their own talks about Sant Mat where they would mimic the gestures and speaking style of the guru. Just as Dunne says, they strove to submerge their own personality in the personality of another. I’d sit there thinking, “This is weird.”

For the person they wanted to become was someone else. They wanted to skip Socrates’ step of “Know thyself.” Buddha advises that this is the first, and likely also the last, step toward enlightenment. Why take on another persona when you are clueless about your own?

So I’m with Gotama in this regard. And most other regards. It makes sense to me to look within for spiritual truth, not without. I can admire another person, but I can never become him or her. My devotion should be to my own higher self, not to someone else’s.

Or, lack of self. Whichever, I’m confident that the self or non-self I discover at the end of my quest won’t belong to some other person.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said:

How many people are there in Boston? Two hundred thousand. Then there are so many sects. I go for Churches of one…The faith that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul.

…The soul gives itself, alone, original and pure, to the Lonely, Original and Pure, who, on that condition, gladly inhabits, leads and speaks through it….Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

“Be Still and Know that I am God” DVD—not still enough for me

I surprised myself, walking out of Hollywood Video with a rental DVD about Christian contemplative prayer. “Be Still and Know That I am God” appealed to me because I’m a big fan of The Cloud of Unknowing, a medieval text that inspired the modern Christian centering prayer movement.

The DVD disappointed me, though. My suspicions were aroused when I read the back cover and didn’t see any mention of leaders of the centering prayer movement that I was familiar with, like Thomas Keating or M. Basil Pennington.

When I watched the film I understood why. “Be Still” doesn’t preach the glory of genuine stillness. Rather, it advocates a half-assed stillness. True, the film emphasizes the virtue of listening to God, as contrasted with speaking to God through prayer and such.

But the “listening” is limited to the message of scripture, rather than a genuine empty receptivity. One speaker said that God will never go against the words of the Bible, so if you receive an inner communication that doesn’t reflect scripture, you shouldn’t trust it.

I saw people reading passages from the Bible. Then they’d re-read them. Four times. Whatever lines struck you the most, you were supposed to focus on. Whatever your mind mentally highlights after reading scripture, that’s supposedly God’s personal communication to you.

Whoopee. I don’t consider this to be close to what meditation or centering prayer is really about. If getting an aha! feeling after reading something interesting brought you closer to God, I’d be in his lap by now. So far as I can tell, I’m not.

Promoters of true Christian contemplative centering prayer say that it’s desirable to become a lot stiller than the “Be Still” DVD teaches. Basically, the idea is that a single word (The Cloud of Unknowing advocates one syllable) be repeated until there are no other thoughts in the mind.

So, the method of centering prayer bears a lot of resemblance to mantra meditation. Buddhists, Hindus, and other forms of Eastern philosophy are right at home with this type of Christian contemplation.

Not surprisingly, this freaks out Christian fundamentalists. They figure that if a Zen monk or Yogi ascetic does it, it’s got to be devil-inspired. Thus even the mild stillness urged upon Christian faithful by this DVD is too much for Brian Flynn, who warns “Be Still and Know…that you are being deceived.”

The Achilles heel of contemplative prayer has always been its lack of biblical support. The choice is clear, we either come to God on his terms or any way man sees fit. Coming to God through a practice taught by mystics during the Dark Ages which they borrowed from eastern religions is not coming to God on His terms.

I left the New Age to escape practices like these, because I knew they lead to deception. I am not going to stand by and watch while my brothers and sisters in Christ fall into the same trap. The participants in this DVD are in scriptural error and must be confronted. No matter how much these modern day mystics try to attain the silence they will never receive silence from me.

Good god. Poor Brian. My namesake has so little faith, he doesn’t trust that God has the power to speak to us in any way he wishes. In words. Or wordlessly. Through the Bible. Or any other writing. With the aid of a mediator. Or directly to the soul.

Brennan Manning is cited in the acknowledgements at the end of the film, but, I believe, doesn’t appear in it (I didn’t watch every minute of the DVD). A website out to expose the dangers of contemplative spirituality shares some excerpts from Manning’s writings. He makes a lot of sense to me.

The first step in faith is to stop thinking about God at the time of prayer. Contemplative spirituality tends to emphasize the need for a change in consciousness. We must come to see reality differently.

Choose a single, sacred word. Repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often. Enter into the great silence of God. Alone in that silence, the noise within will subside and the Voice of Love will be heard.

I can understand why right-wing Christian fundamentalists are scared of such talk. Lord, imagine what would happen if the voice of love began to be heard by them. I don’t think they’d be able to say that God wants a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, more deaths from AIDS because condoms are sinful, or the death penalty.

“Thou shalt doubt,” the first commandment

Proving that there is a churchless God, yesterday I turned on the TV for my morning cable news fix just in time to hear Andrew Sullivan speak on C-SPAN about the genuine form of faith: doubt.

Sullivan is my favorite conservative essayist and blogger. I thought that his recent piece about the dangers of Christianism (as contrasted with genuine Christianity) was great. It was a treat to hear him on a Book Expo of American lunch session panel with fellow book floggers Pat Buchanan, Arianna Huffington, and Frank Rich.

His book, “The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back,” won’t be released until October. I expect I’ll be buying it. Not because I want to get back my conservative soul, but because I enjoyed Sullivan’s take on faith and doubt. Here’s some of what he had to say:

The soul, when it is beleaguered by fear, has two options. It can create a certainty, an ideology, a mantra, that it will cling to with white knuckles. To make sense of the world, to reassure itself, to tell itself it’s safe, regardless of the empirical evidence, to suspend rational judgment, and to capitulate to a form of psychological and spiritual fundamentalism.

That, I think, is what has happened to conservatism. It has been high jacked by fundamentalism. The emergence of the religious right in this country, and in the middle East—fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity—gearing up for what the extreme elements on both sides actually literally regard as an apocalyptic battle, this is the great question of our time.

The waging of war between two absolute certainties where doubt is banished, where all dissent is regarded as treason, when empiricism is regarded as a threat, and where individual freedom is always sacrificed on the altar of security and paternalism.

What I try and do in this book is to restore and to remind conservatives that there is another conservatism. There is another tradition, within the conservative political tradition, that resists fundamentalism, resists certainty, and is rooted fundamentally in doubt. Against the conservatism of fundamentalism, we have and must advance the conservatism of doubt.

And there are two areas in which that doubt must be allowed to grow and flourish. The first is religion. You know, there are two kinds of religious faith. And the great lie of today is that the only genuine form of religious faith is fundamentalist. That the only real form of religion and faith is adherence to a set of doctrines that cannot be questioned and which must merely be imposed.

There is another kind of Christianity and another kind of faith that understands, first of all, that God, if God exists, must by definition be unknowable to us. We cannot know for certain what God’s ways are and what God is telling us to do at any given moment in time.

We cannot know, at any moment, what God wants us to do, let alone believe as some people do that God has a position on stem cell research, or capital gains, or welfare reform. These are emanations of an enormous hubris and a betrayal of faith as it is properly understood.

Because the root of all faith is doubt. No human being would ever come to think of God unless he asked questions of the meaning of life and questioned himself.

The kind of faith I’m talking of is, I think, actually held by a majority of Americans who have had their own faith high jacked in public by fundamentalists. And the mainstream media which has not been alert enough to what real Christians and real faith is in this country has swallowed their line and had religion actually defined by the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

Now the faith I’m talking about is one that looks at God and feels humility. That believes in service, that practices mystery, that engages in wordless sacraments that manage to describe the ineffability of the divine. It is a faith that is always interwoven with doubt. It is a faith that asks, “What should I do?” not what someone else should do.

It is a faith that finds it hard enough to impose our own beliefs on our own actions, let alone want to use government and law to coerce the actions and beliefs of other people.

Bible and The Da Vinci Code are both fiction

I’m used to hearing absurdities when I listen to conservative talk radio, but this really jarred me: today I heard “The Da Vinci Code” being compared to holocaust deniers. Geez, righties, you should at least make a halfway attempt at rational discourse.

This evening Victoria Taft interviewed Michael Chapman of the Media Research Center, which bills itself as “the leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.” He was frothing about all the Christian bashing that’s gone on with coverage of The Da Vinci Code book and movie.

Funny. I haven’t noticed it. I’ve read quite a few articles about The Da Vinci Code (and the book itself). Without exception they’ve noted that the book is fiction and that its claim that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had a daughter is just that: a claim which neither can be proven nor disproven.

Just like the Bible itself. Almost certainly, the Bible is nearly as fictional as The Da Vinci Code. Scholars agree that there were many conflicting accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings circulating among the early Christian community. There wasn’t agreement about whether he was human or divine, resurrected or plain dead, a Jewish prophet or a harbinger of a new faith.

A few Gospels were picked out of many. Bingo, a religion was born. A fictional religion, in the same sense that second- or third- hand accounts of happenings that may or may not have occurred fifty years ago are fiction. It’s impossible to distinguish truth from untruth in such a mish-mash.

So Chapman was way off base when he said that The Da Vinci Code is to Christianity as holocaust deniers are to the killing of six million Jews. He bemoaned the fact that the media jumps all over someone who writes a book about how the holocaust never occurred, but has been giving The Da Vinci Code lots of positive press.

Earth to Michael Chapman: this is because the holocaust is an irrefutable historical fact; Christian theology, on the other hand, is entirely subjective and thus eminently debatable.

Both Chapman and Taft used the term “Christian bashing” a lot. They’d probably give this appellation to many of my Church of the Churchless posts. Well, if I or Dan Brown (two writers on opposite ends of the best seller list) were to point out that there is no evidence for the existence of leprechauns, I guess believers in Irish elves would call that “Leprechaun bashing.” Me, I call it stating the obvious.

Good Christians, you’re in the same boat as good Jews, good Muslims, and good believers of any other religion. Your faith is the only thing keeping you afloat. There’s no objective evidence that you’re floating on real water.

Dan Brown knows that The Da Vinci Code is a product of his own mind. In that sense he’s more in touch with reality than religious believers who mistakenly consider that because a holy book says “everything written here is true,” that makes it so.

Brown said something of the sort at the beginning of his book and that statement certainly hasn’t been uncritically accepted. So why shouldn’t the Bible be equally open to debate? And, yes, even bashing.

The Media Research Center notes disapprovingly that Da Vinci Code actor Ian McKellen said in an interview:

Well I've often thought that the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying, this is fiction. I mean walking on water? I mean it takes an act of faith. And I have faith in this movie. Not that it's true, not that it's factual but that it's a jolly good story and I think audiences are clever enough and bright enough to separate out fact and fiction and discuss the thing when they've seen it.

Right on, Ian. Bible and The Da Vinci Code: two fictional pieces of literature. Read them both. Enjoy them both. Just don’t take them as fact. Or, too seriously.

Beware of the Christianists

Islamists use Islam to further their narrow political agenda. Christianists use Christianity in the same way. Hearty churchless thanks to Andrew Sullivan for sharing this insight in his recent TIME magazine essay, “My Problem with Christianism.”

Your problem is my problem too, my friend. I like Sullivan. Politically, he’s conservative on Iraq and other issues. But culturally he’s progressive. And not coincidentally, gay. He’s appeared on Bill Maher’s HBO program several times. Sullivan is well-spoken, humble, and clearly a nice guy.

Which helps explain why he dislikes so much the cocky certitude of Christianists who believe that they, and only they, know what God wants of us. This just happens to be precisely what the right wing of the Republican Party wants. Amazing. God only speaks to conservative Christian ideologues.

Sullivan makes a lot of sense here:

And there are those who simply believe that, by definition, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and souls. If God is ultimately unknowable, then how can we be so certain of what God's real position is on, say, the fate of Terri Schiavo? Or the morality of contraception? Or the role of women? Or the love of a gay couple?

Also, faith for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.

Naturally the Christianists are threatened by a devout Catholic who refuses to accept every bit of Church dogma and the right-wing party line. Gregory Borse considers that there is no room for individual moral choices in Catholicism. He says that he belongs to the Catholic Church; the Catholic Church doesn’t belong to him.

OK. Agreed. I belong to the American Automobile Association. I don’t believe that AAA belongs to me. But I can disagree with some of the central policies of that organization and still be a member. Tell the Pope to shove it on abortion, gay marriage, and female ordination, and you’re not going to be welcome at the Vatican.

That’s why Christianism, or any “ism,” is so dangerous. It is intolerant and authoritarian. If you mistakenly believe that you’re carrying out God’s will, like George Bush does, any and all evidence that you’re on the wrong track is going to be ignored. I talked about this in “Religious values have no place in politics.” Andrew Sullivan makes a similar point in his blog:

I'm not arguing that faith should have no role in political discourse. Someone's faith will affect her politics. My faith informs my own positions on torture, the death penalty, gay dignity, the Iraq war, and so on. But in the political sphere, mere recourse to religious authority is insufficient, because, by definition, it cannot persuade those of a different faith or no faith at all.

And so religious doctrines need to be translated into moral arguments, applicable to any citizen with good will and an open mind. When Tom DeLay, at a Republican gathering, invokes Christ as his ally; or when the Catholic hierarchy comes close to barring votes for Democrats; or when Jesse Jackson uses the pulpit to garner Democratic votes, they have crossed an important line. It's important to defend that line - for the sake of politics, and for the sake of faith.

In another post Sullivan observed that the Christianists are fighting back against his eminently reasonable suggestion that religion should focus on spirituality, not politics. Hugh Hewitt is worried that others are going to pick up Sullivan’s term.

Be worried, Mr. Hewitt. Be very worried.

Christianist. Christianist. Christianist. I’ve picked it up.

Dear devout Christian, thanks for the offer but…

A few days ago I got a comment from Scott, who wrote: “I beg of you to listen to the true Gospel message. Repent and believe in Jesus as your Savior so that your sins may be wiped away and that you may have the hope of eternal life.”

Scott, thanks for the offer. I understand that you sincerely believe in Jesus and consider that I’m heading for hellfire. Which I may be. I don’t know. And this gets to the main difference between us. Uncertainty.

You’re certain that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. I’m not. Even more: I’m uncertain about every other religious claim that this is the Way. Scott, you’re probably aware that many religions say that they have a direct link to God that others don’t.

Hindus consider that the Vedas and Upanishads are divinely inspired, the Word of God. Ditto for the Koran, from the Islamic perspective. To devout adherents of Judaism, the Jews are God’s chosen people. I’m an initiate (satsangi) of the Sant Mat tradition and can testify that satsangis are taught that they are the chosen people—having been part of the small percentage of souls who didn’t want to leave the Lord back at the beginning of time.

So you see, if I wanted to believe in salvation, that would be easy. According to what I was told at initiation, I’ve already been saved by the guru. He is considered to be God in human form, just as Jesus was.

Except, the guru is alive and Jesus is dead. I’ve talked with the guru. I’ve sat at his feet. Thus I have a lot more reason to believe in the salvific power of Sant Mat than you have for believing in Christianity. Your gospels are secondhand accounts written sixty years or more after Jesus’ death. The “gospels” in which I used to believe came direct from the pen or mouth of the guru.

Plus, I’ve got a backup salvation avenue. I was baptized Catholic and went to first communion. Baptism supposedly gives me a free pass into heaven. I’ll find out if that’s true after I die. That’s when all the uncertainties will become certain, one way or another, for each of us.

I’m sure your Christian belief gives you a lot of comfort. That’s great. Naturally you want to share your good feelings with other people. That’s understandable. Just keep in mind that the true believers in every religion believe that their way is the way. Everyone can’t be right. Or, can they? More uncertainty, Scott.

I’ve become a believer in the value of uncertainty. This is the core of my spiritual questing these days. I call it my Wu Project. Not this, not that. Not yes, not no. Not faith, not atheism. Something else. Wu. I’m pretty sure this is the best way of approaching God: as mystery. Humbly, in a spirit of unknowing.

In one of his books Huston Smith speaks of a Zen friend who tells him, “I’ve got a new koan: I could be wrong.” Wonderful. I think it would be great if each and every religious person had the same attitude: I could be wrong. The world would be a much better place if everyone had that open-minded perspective.

Imagine a joke that begins, “Three fundamentalists walk into a bar: a Muslim jihadist, a Christian evangelical, and a Jewish Israeli hardliner.” What would the punch line be? “Only one of them walked out”? Except, that’s not so funny. Likely would be true, though. Milder version: “They all sat at different tables.”

Let’s change the joke: “A Taoist, a Zen Buddhist, and a Hindu walk into a bar.” What comes next? “At closing time they were still laughing together and arguing about who should buy the next round.” Still not funny. Also likely would be true, though.

You see, it’s possible to be spiritual and not rigidly religious. No Christian knows for sure whether Christianity is true. Neither does the adherent of any other religion. So why not be honest and admit that uncertainty? Faith then would become the embrace of mystery and a confidence that the cosmos rewards sincere truth-seeking.

To my mind, this sort of faith is far superior to a dogmatic clutching onto theological tenets that are clearly the stuff of mankind, not God. Which brings me, Scott, to your statement that:

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are unanimous in their declaration that Jesus came to lay down his life for His sheep and to be raised again for their salvation. These gospels have stood the test of archaeology and historical criticism, and have more historical validity than any secular works from the ancient world. I understand you're a proponent of anything that might reduce the credibility of Christianity, but really, the gospel of Judas is as historically suspect as any of the other gnostic gospels to date.

In an update to my recent post about the Gospel of Judas I included an article by Biblical scholar Elaine Pagels where she makes the point that early Christianity was much more diverse in its views than the four Gospels that made it into the New Testament. Those Gospels were chosen by a human being, Irenaeus, because they reflected his personal theological views.

A National Geographic program about the Gospel of Judas that I watched included a realistic re-creation of Irenaeus’ editorial approach. Dozens of scrolls were stacked on a shelf. Irenaeus would pick the ones he liked and throw the rest on the floor. The modern New Testament is the result. There’s no reason to believe that the discarded gospels are less representative of Jesus’ actual teachings than the gospels that were kept.

Of course, this assumes that Jesus actually existed. There’s good reason to believe that he didn’t, since the contemporary historical record is virtually silent about him. Jesus certainly didn’t make much of a splash at the time. I suspect that Christianity is much more the result of good marketing and the political support of Constantine than the legacy of a God-man.

But what a difference two thousand years makes. Now it takes much more courage to doubt than to believe. The easy way out, particularly in the hyper-religious United States, is to parrot the party line: Jesus saves.

The thing is, questioning religion requires faith also. Faith that human consciousness was given to us for a purpose—to understand our place in the cosmos and what reality consists of. If we don’t use what many would call our “God-given” faculties of rationality, intuitive insight, and questioning, I doubt that it’s possible to be saved from our ignorance.

That’s the salvation I long for—genuine knowledge of ultimate reality. The pseudo salvation promised by Christianity has no appeal for me.

I’m arming for the War on Easter

Just one day left to take part in the War on Easter. Got to armor up. Fire the weapons I’ve got available. Can’t disappoint Fox News, WorldNetDaily, and the other paranoid Christian conservative mouthpieces.

They’re quick to take affront and slow to recognize their own unfounded assertions, just like their revered leader, George Bush. Bill O’Reilly, though, broke from the ranks and admitted that there is no attack on Easter.

Well, there should be. And there has been. Back in April 2004 I wrote “‘He is risen!’ No, almost certainly not.” This was an attack on the almost certainly mistaken belief that Jesus rose from the dead. There are countless reasons to doubt this; blind faith is the only way the resurrection can be believed.

I’ll cast my lot with doubt, thank you. Tomorrow I won’t do anything different. Except, I won’t be able to go exercise on Sunday at the Courthouse Athletic Club like I usually do, because it will be closed all day. Stupid Easter. Why should non-Christians have to suffer tomorrow?

However, this week I did think more about Christianity than I usually do. All the publicity surrounding the Gospel of Judas stimulated me to contemplate the divinity of heresy. I’ve been basking in the warm glow of my churchlessness even more than usual.

I watched the two-hour National Geographic program about the Gospel of Judas. It featured realistic-looking reenactments of episodes from the Bible and the Gospel of Judas (though Judas’ hairstyle and short beard looked disturbingly metrosexual).

This was one of my favorite parts. We see the disciples sitting around a table. The narration goes:

The Gospel of Judas uses familiar scenes to convey unfamiliar ideas.

One day, he was with his disciples in Judea. And he found them gathered together, seated in pious observance. When he approached his disciples, offering a prayer of thanksgiving over the bread, he laughed.

Jesus comes upon the group of disciples, and they are celebrating together what looks to be a sacred meal, maybe it is kind of like the Eucharist. And they’re offering a prayer of thanksgiving over the bread, and Jesus laughs. In fact, in the Gospel of Judas, Jesus laughs a great deal.

He’s laughing because they think they’re worshipping the true God, but in fact they have it wrong. They’re worshipping the God who created this world, not the true God. The only one who understands is Judas.

To the Gnostics, the God who created Earth wasn’t worthy of worship. Only the true God, a being beyond comprehension, was sacred. Jesus laughs at what he sees as false piety. But the apostles don’t understand and grow angry at him.

Jesus: “Why have you been provoked to anger? Let any one of you who is strong enough stand and reveal to me the true spiritual person within.”

Their spirits did not dare to stand before him. Except for Judas Escariot.

Judas: “I know who you are and where you came from. I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you.”

Jesus: “Step away from the others. And I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is a great and boundless realm which no eye of an angel has ever seen, no thought of the heart has ever comprehended, and it was never called by name.”

Jesus issues a challenge to the disciples. He says, let the perfect person inside of you step forward and face me. And that perfect person within is the inner person, the spiritual person, that truly knows, the person that ought to have a knowledge of God and a knowledge of oneself.

And the disciples say, well we can do that. But they couldn’t do it. And so Judas steps forward. And he was able to stand before Jesus.

Great story. This should be the Easter message, not an absurd fantasy about a body coming back to life. We don’t know what Jesus really taught, or even if he existed at all. But if Jesus was real, the Gospel of Judas is likely much closer to the truth than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

For if Jesus were to pop in on an Easter service tomorrow, I bet he’d laugh as heartily as he did at the disciples’ prayers.

“What the hell are you doing?” he’d chortle. “Two thousand years of Bible study and this is all you’ve learned! What a joke. The truth is within, not without. God isn’t a person, nor any other entity that you can wrap your mind around. God is in you. You are a spark of the divine, just as I am. Don’t worship me. Worship yourself. Your true self. All this genuflecting before altars, eating bits of bread, and taking sips of wine is laughable.”

I love it. The Gospel of Judas teaches that Jesus himself would lead the charge in the War on Easter. Heretics, it turns out, are the holiest. Churchless of the world, stand straighter tomorrow. You are the chosen ones.

(For another take along these lines on the Gospel of Judas, check out Mark Morford’s “The Bible’s All Wrong, Again.”)

Gospel of Judas casts heresy in a new light

Believers often say that the gospel of Jesus is good news. For churchless folks like me though, I’ve never been able to find much to cheer about in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

But now we’ve got the Gospel of Judas, and it contains some really good news for heretics. Jesus tells Judas that he is the disciple who will exceed all of the others. In short, he’s the only one who got Jesus’ message. As an excellent National Geographic article puts it:

The Judas gospel vividly reflects the struggle waged long ago between the Gnostics and the hierarchical church. In the very first scene Jesus laughs at the disciples for praying to “your god,” meaning the disastrous god who created the world. He compares the disciples to a priest in the temple (almost certainly a reference to the mainstream church), whom he calls “a minister of error” planting “trees without fruit, in my name, in a shameful manner.” He challenges the disciples to look at him and understand what he really is, but they turn away.

This gospel makes considerable sense to me. It says that Judas was being obedient to God’s will, since Jesus needed to die so he could be released from the confining physical body and liberate the genuine soul-Christ inside. It’s mystical rather than theological.

I’ve always wondered why Christians express so much sorrow over the crucifixion. Don’t they believe that Jesus died for our sins? Didn’t the crucifixion need to happen if humanity was to be saved? Wasn’t Judas part of the Big Plan rather than a duplicitous traitor?

True believers won’t look upon Christian dogma any differently now that the Gnostic Gospel of Judas has been released to the world. That’s the nature of true belief: it is impervious to fresh facts. But hopefully the open-minded members of the Christian faithful will study the gospel and consider its implications.

If a personal God exists, and that’s a giant “if,” seemingly He/She/It would be in control of the creation that this being has brought into existence. A clueless impotent God is no god at all, really. So if it is true, as Jesus said, that “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30), it makes sense that God was directing the whole crucifixion drama and wasn’t a passive member of the audience.

This means that Judas’ apparently black-hearted actions were divinely inspired. More generally, blasphemy, heresy, skepticism, and doubt are seen to be an integral aspect of God’s plan for the world (again, assuming that there is a personal God who has plans). The Gospel of Judas points us toward an inclusive and non-judgmental Christianity far removed from the absurd attitude of “the Devil made him do it.”

Gospel of Judas or not, Christianity still doesn’t resonate with me. It is too dependent on distant historical tales that probably never happened and lacks a coherent philosophical foundation. I lean strongly in the mystical direction but still am attracted to a metaphysics that makes sense.

It’s encouraging, though, to see that some early Christians, the Gnostics, had a more enlightened view of Jesus than the canonical gospels present. I can get behind this conception described in the National Geographic piece:

While Christians like Irenaeus stressed that only Jesus, the son of God, was simultaneously human and divine, the Gnostics proposed that ordinary people could be connected to God. Salvation lay in awakening that divine spark within the human spirit and reconnecting with the divine mind.

Amen to that.

[Next day update: Religion scholar Elaine Pagels has an interesting Op-Ed piece in the NY Times today. I'll share it as a continuation to this post. She makes the point that the Gospel of Jesus and other non-canonical early Christian writings are considered "heretical" now by church authorities. However, it may be that the heretical teachings are closer to Jesus' original message than the heavily edited New Testament.

This seems to be a general Rule of Heresy: many times, if not most times, a seeming heresy is an attempt to restore the clarity of a spiritual truth that has gotten covered with the mire of institutional dogma. People start to worship what is without rather than what is within and revere abstract concepts rather than direct experience. Viewed in this light, gnostic writings like the Gospel of Judas reflect genuine Christianity, while what passes for Jesus' teachings today is the counterfeit.]

Losing faith in the fiction of Jesus

Christians sometimes say that there are just three options as to who Jesus was: a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. Bart Ehrman adds a fourth option: legend. Ehrman is a Biblical scholar and author of “Misquoting Jesus.”

His book strikes at the heart of Christian faith. For the Bible is considered to be the inerrant Word of God. But the problem is, we don’t know what those words were. There is no original trustworthy Biblical text. All we have are copies of copies of texts that were changed countless times over the centuries, sometimes from simple clerical error, sometimes purposely.

Ehrman once was a devout evangelical. Now he is an agnostic. His scholarship caused him to realize that the words of the Bible can’t be trusted. There’s no proof that Jesus was divine, that he was resurrected from the dead, that he performed miracles, that belief in him results in salvation.

You can believe in Jesus if you like. You can also believe in the Easter Bunny. Or Santa Claus. Or leprechauns. If it makes you feel good to believe in a legend, do it. Just don’t expect that other people should take you seriously or respect your ill-founded faith. Ehrman writes:

Occasionally I see a bumper sticker that reads: “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” My response is always, What if God didn’t say it? What if the book you take as giving you God’s words instead contains human words? What if the Bible doesn’t give a foolproof answer to the questions of the modern age—abortion, women’s rights, gay rights, religious supremacy, Western-style democracy, and the like?

What if we have to figure out how to believe on our own, without setting up the Bible as a false idol—or an oracle that gives us a direct line of communication with the Almighty?

Reading “Misquoting Jesus” was a real eye-opener for me. This is billed as the first book about modern Biblical textual criticism that is aimed at general readers, not scholars. I’d always been skeptical that the gospels bore much resemblance to what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John actually said (leaving aside the bigger question as to whether what they said is true).

Now I know that my skepticism is well-founded. I suspect that most Christians think the Bible they read on Sunday was written soon after Jesus’ death and has come down to us unaltered. Nothing could be further from the truth. If their Christian faith rests on the words of the Bible, it is resting on slippery sand. Ehrman says this about Biblical texts:

Not only do we not have the originals, we don’t have the first copies of the originals. We don’t even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later—much later…If one wants to insist that God inspired the very words of scripture, what would be the point if we don’t have the very words of scripture?...It’s a bit hard to know what the words of the Bible mean if we don’t even know what the words are!

There are several worthy candidates for the title of World’s Craziest Major Religion. I go back and forth trying to decide which faith deserves this dishonorable honor. Usually Christianity and Islam run neck and neck in my mind. I’ll give this to Islam, though: at least the modern day Koran is, to my understanding, unchanged from the days of Mohammed. Muslim beliefs may be weird, but at least they’re consistently weird.

Christianity, by contrast, is a mish-mash of dogma that has been cobbled together over the centuries. Little, if any, can be reliably traced to Jesus. There’s little doubt that if Jesus returned to earth today and took a look at the Christian faith he’d say, “What the hell is that all about?”

Ehrman has rejected a religion that no longer made sense to him. He talks a bit about his personal journey from faith to faithlessness in “Misquoting Jesus” but mostly keeps himself in the background. As a continuation to this post I’ll include a fascinating Washington Post review of his book that provides a fuller picture of Ehrman, the man.

Jesus says, “Beware of religion”

Here’s another great churchless teaching story from Anthony de Mello, my kind of Jesuit priest. The kind who was censured by the Catholic Church after his death for speaking the truth too freely. This is from his book, “Taking Flight.”

The priest announced that Jesus Christ himself was coming to church the following Sunday. People turned up in large numbers to see him. Everybody expected him to preach, but he only smiled when introduced and said, “Hello.”

Everyone offered him hospitality for the night, especially the priest, but he refused politely. He said he would spend the night in church. How fitting, everybody thought.

He slipped away early next morning before the church doors were opened. And, to their horror, the priest and people found their church had been vandalized. Scribbled everywhere on the walls was the single word, “Beware.”

No part of the church was spared: the doors and windows, the pillars and the pulpit, the altar, even the Bible that rested on the lectern. “Beware.” Scratched in large letters and in small, in pencil and pen and paint of every conceivable color. Wherever the eye rested one could see the words: “Beware, beware, Beware, Beware, beware, beware…”

Shocking. Irritating. Confusing. Fascinating. Terrifying. What were they supposed to beware of? It did not say. It just said “Beware.”

The first impulse of the people was to wipe out every trace of this defilement, this sacrilege. They were restrained from doing this only by the thought that it was Jesus himself who had done this deed. Now that mysterious word “Beware” began to sink into the minds of the people each time they came to church.

They began to beware of the Scriptures, so they were able to profit from the Scriptures without falling into bigotry. They began to beware of sacraments, so they were sanctified without becoming superstitious. The priest began to beware of his power over the people, so he was able to help without controlling.

And everybody began to beware of religion which leads the unwary to self-righteousness. They became law-abiding, yet compassionate to the weak. They began to beware of prayer, so it no longer stopped them from becoming self-reliant. They even began to beware of their notions of God so they were able to recognize him outside the narrow confines of their church.

They have now inscribed the shocking word over the entrance of their church and as you drive past at night you can see it blazing above the church in multicolored neon lights.

The greatest heretic of all

If you’ve ever been called a heretic, take heart. You’re in good company. Really good company.
------------------------------
“Prisoner at the bar, said the Grand Inquisitor, “you are charged with encouraging people to break the laws, traditions, and customs of our holy religion. How do you plead?”

“Guilty, Your Honor.”

“And with frequenting the company of heretics, prostitutes, public sinners, the extortionist tax collectors, the colonial conquerors of our nation—in short, the excommunicated. How do you plead?”

“Guilty, Your Honor.”

“Also with publicly criticizing and denouncing those who have been placed in authority within the Church of God. How do you plead?”

“Guilty, Your Honor.”

“What is your name, prisoner?”

“Jesus Christ, Your Honor.”

Some people are just as alarmed to see their religion practiced as they are to hear it doubted.
------------------------------
This is one of the stories in Anthony de Mello’s “Taking Flight: A Book of Story Meditations.” I’ve written before about de Mello, a Jesuit priest, being a spiritual rebel. He was excommunicated by the Catholic Church ten years after his death in 1987.

In 1998 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the present Pope, took the deceased de Mello to task in a “Notification Concerning The Writings of Father Anthony De Mello, SJ.”

It’s too bad that de Mello wasn’t alive to read this fundamentalist blather from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I’m sure he would have gotten a good laugh out of it. Ratzinger is bent out of shape because de Mello speaks the truth. He is accused of such heresies as saying:

Nothing can be said about God; the only knowing is unknowing…In other passages, the judgment on sacred religious texts, not excluding the Bible, becomes even more severe: they are said to prevent people from following their own common sense and cause them to become obtuse and cruel. Religions, including Christianity, are one of the major obstacles to the discovery of truth.

This truth, however, is never defined by the author in its precise contents. For him, to think that the God of one's own religion is the only one is simply fanaticism. "God" is considered as a cosmic reality, vague and omnipresent; the personal nature of God is ignored and in practice denied.

…He considers Jesus as a master alongside others. The only difference from other men is that Jesus is "awake" and fully free, while others are not. Jesus is not recognized as the Son of God, but simply as the one who teaches us that all people are children of God.

To me, all this makes great sense. I was baptized Catholic and had my first communion. I wonder if there’s some way I could get the Church to excommunicate me too. I’d be honored to share this fate with a distinguished heretic like Anthony de Mello.

[Note: de Mello’s story undoubtedly is inspired by Dostoevsky’s parable, “The Grand Inquisitor.” Here Christ comes back to earth and is told the Church no longer needs him.]

Limbo on the way out

This is big news. The design of the cosmos is about to change: the Catholic Church is dismantling limbo.

Theologically speaking, of course. In David Van Biema’s TIME essay that I read last night, “Life After Limbo,” there’s no hint the Vatican believes that its theological ponderings have any effect on reality, per se. Whatever limbo actually is or isn’t, Papal pronouncements have no causal connection with its state of existence.

The whole debate over whether there is a half-baked afterlife in between heaven and hell further proves the ridiculousness of religion. Nobody knows! Most likely, there is no limbo. And no heaven or hell either. But again: Nobody knows!

When I read the story, “Limbo appears doomed by Vatican theologians,” I had to smile at this paragraph:

“Limbo has never been a definitive truth of the faith,” Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI earlier this year, said in an interview in 1984, during his long term as Pope John Paul II's doctrinal watchdog. "Personally, I would let it drop, since it has always been only a theological hypothesis.”

Are you kidding me? Every single doctrine of the Catholic Church, 100% of it, is “only a theological hypothesis.” Ditto for Christianity as a whole, Judaism, Islam, and every other faith-based religion (which means, in effect, every religion).

Christianity, especially, is the product not of divine revelation but of all-too-human men. Modern Christianity isn’t the teachings of Jesus. No one knows what Jesus taught. What we do know is how over many centuries Church leaders made decisions about what doctrines to accept or reject after lots of horse-trading, jostling for power, heated debate, and infighting.

Which is still going on today, as evidenced by the decline of limbo. The Catholic teaching has been that babies born unbaptized are, to state it bluntly, screwed. In the Catholic Encyclopedia, it says:

The fate of infants who die without baptism must be briefly considered here. The Catholic teaching is uncompromising on this point, that all who depart this life without baptism, be it of water, or blood, or desire, are perpetually excluded from the vision of God.

This sounds pretty harsh. So to improve the Church’s marketing efforts in third-world countries, where many babies die before they can be baptized, limbo is being deleted from afterlife possibilities. Heaven and hell then become the only two alternatives, and who believes that an innocent newborn is destined for hell?

So limbo is on the way out. But only the theological variety. Caribbean tourists won’t be affected by the Vatican’s action.

Be a spiritual rebel!

Here are some inspirational quotations about spiritual independence from Anthony de Mello, a Jesuit priest who was born in India and wonderfully melded the best of East and West.

In 1998, after his death, his writings were condemned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the current Pope.

To me that’s a high recommendation of de Mello. If you’re condemned by the Catholic Church, you must be doing something right spiritually.

I have two of his books. The quotations below are from “The Way to Love.” This is an official-looking de Mello website. More excerpts from his writings can be read here and here.

I love the guy. He energizes my inner rebel.
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“But you have also been programmed not to suspect, not to doubt, just to trust the assumptions that have been put into you by your tradition, your culture, your society, your religion.

And if you are not happy, you have been trained to blame yourself, not your programming, not your cultural and inherited ideas and beliefs.”
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“First, realize that you are surrounded by prison walls, that your mind has gone to sleep. It does not even occur to most people to see this, so they live and die as prison inmates.

Most people end up being conformists; they adapt to prison life. A few become reformers; they fight for better living conditions in the prison, better lighting, better ventilation.

Hardly anyone becomes a rebel, a revolutionary who breaks down the prison walls. You can only be a revolutionary when you see the prison walls in the first place.”
-----------------------------
“Your ego is a great technician. It cannot be creative. It goes in for methods and techniques and produces so-called holy people who are rigid, consistent, mechanical, lifeless, as intolerant of others as they are of themselves—violent people the very opposite of holiness and love.”
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“You can get someone to teach you things mechanical or scientific or mathematical like algebra or English or riding a cycle or operating a computer.

But in the things that really matter, life, love, reality, God, no one can teach you a thing. All they can do is give you formulas. And as soon as you have a formula, you have reality filtered through the mind of someone else.

If you take those formulas you will be imprisoned. You will wither and when you come to die you will not have known what it means to see for yourself, to learn.”
-----------------------------
“So, what can teachers do? They can bring to your notice what is unreal, they cannot show you Reality; they can destroy your formulas, they cannot make you see what the formula is pointing to; they can indicate your error, they cannot put you in possession of the Truth.

They can, at the most, point in the direction of Reality, they cannot tell you what to see. You will have to walk out there all alone and discover for yourself.”
-----------------------------
“You have lost the freedom to make a fool of yourself, to be laughed at and to be ridiculed, to do and say whatever feels right to you rather than what fits in with the image others have of you.”
-----------------------------
“Contrary to what your culture and religion have taught you, nothing, but absolutely nothing can make you happy. The moment you see that, you will stop moving from one job to another, one friend to another, one place, one spiritual technique, one guru to another.

None of these things can give you a single minute of happiness. They can only offer you a temporary thrill, a pleasure that initially grows in intensity, then turns into pain if you lose them and into boredom if you keep them.”
-----------------------------
“If we are dissatisfied, not with anything in particular but with everything, then I think we shall find that our discontent brings clarity. When we don’t accept or follow, but question, investigate, penetrate, there is an insight out of which come creativity, joy.

…The day you are discontented not because you want more of something but without knowing what it is you want; when you are sick at heart of everything that you have been pursuing so far and you are sick of the pursuit itself, then your heart will attain a great clarity, an insight that will cause you mysteriously to delight in everything and in nothing.”

God is born in everybody, not just Jesus

With the supposed day of Jesus’ birth about to be celebrated tomorrow, it’s worth remembering that God became human not just once a few thousand years ago but countless times. Such is the teaching of the German Dominican Meister Eckhart, one of my favorite mystical theologians.

Back in the middle ages he reached understandings about God, Jesus, and the incarnation that are much more spiritually advanced than the confused rantings of modern Christian fundamentalists, who mistakenly worship Jesus as if he was a one-time special deal.

Rather, says Eckhart:

People think that God became human only in the Incarnation, but this is not the case, for God has become human just as surely here and now as he did then, and has become human in order that he might give birth to you as his only begotten Son, and no less.

To you. And, of course, me. Not just Jesus. All of us. This is the true Christian teaching that has gotten hidden under masses of dogma. The organized institutions of Christianity have a powerful vested interest in keeping this truth under wraps (that’s why the Catholic Church accused Meister Eckhart of heresy).

For if people realized that the ultimate reality of God is directly accessible to them without a religious intermediary, the hold that churches have on the faithful would loosen greatly, if not be released completely.

So celebrate your own divine birth tomorrow. Jesus is dead and gone. As Eckhart says, you are alive and here. Forget about Jesus and remember yourself. You accomplish this, paradoxically, by forgetting yourself. And not only yourself, but you have to forget everything else that you think you know, whether it be about worldly or godly matters.

According to Eckhart, who often sounds like a Christian Zen master, God is only born in an absolutely empty soul that is free of thoughts, images, imaginings, and concepts.

For this birth to take place God required a bare soul, untrammeled and free, in which nothing is but himself and which is filled with expectation for nothing other than himself…God who is the master of nature, cannot tolerate emptiness in anything. Therefore remain still and do not waver from this emptiness, for if you turn away from it at this point you shall never be able to find it again.

I love how Eckhart would preach that the very sort of activity he and his parishioners currently were engaged in—namely, a church sermon—was completely useless in finding God. Those who stay serenely at home tomorrow, he implies, will be acting more divinely than the churchgoers.

God is no more likely to be found in external observances than he is in sin. But these people, who practice many external devotions, have great status in the eyes of the world, which comes from their likeness to it. For those who understand only physical things, have a high regard for the kind of life which they can perceive with their senses. Thus one ass is adored by another.

If you don’t want to be a religious ass, take to heart Meister Eckhart’s central teaching: there is no distance between God and you. Perhaps Jesus understood this also. But again, Jesus’ realization (whatever it may have consisted of) is of zero value to you and me. What we need are our own realizations.

So don’t focus on Jesus tomorrow. Marvel at the birth of God that is constantly taking place within you. Here’s my favorite Eckhart quotation:

The eye with which I see God is exactly the same eye with which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowledge and one love.

The Chronicles of Narnia: a myth about a myth

Christians are getting excited about the release this week of “The Chronicles of Narnia,” a movie based on C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” fantastical allegory. Newsweek reports that “preachers are reportedly urged to give ‘Narnia’-themed sermons and invite non-Christians to see the movie with the congregation.”

Well, when my daughter, Celeste, was young I read “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” to her. I don’t remember thinking, “Ah, how Christ-like is Aslan the lion.” Of course, maybe if I had been a Christian the allegory would, let’s say, have leapt out at me.

A few weeks ago The New Yorker published a marvelous overview of C.S. Lewis’ life and works. Written by Adam Gopnik, “Prisoner of Narnia” will be regarded by the Christian faithful as more proof of the liberal media’s anti-religion bias.

But it has the ring of truth to me. Gopnik presents us with a picture of Lewis that isn’t painted in the blacks and whites favored by fundamentalists.

As one reads the enormous literature on Lewis’ life and thought—there are at least five biographies, and now a complete, three-volume set of his letters—the picture that emerges is of a very odd kind of fantasist and a very odd kind of Christian. The hidden truth that his faith was really of a fable-first kind kept his writing forever in tension between his desire to imagine and his responsibility to dogmatize.

His works are a record of a restless, intelligent man, pacing a cell of his own invention and staring through the barred windows at the stars beyond. That the door was open all the time, and that he held the key in his pocket, was something he discovered only at the end.

Lewis’ conversion to Christianity was sparked by a famous walk with J.R.R. Tolkien, author of another not-too-shabby fantasy series about some hobbits searching for a ring. Tolkien convinced Lewis that (as Lewis later wrote) “The story of Christ is simply a true myth, a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.”

Well, I doubt it. In my opinion there’s no evidence that the story of Christ as related in the Bible is actually true. The contradictions between the various gospels argue more for myth than fact, as does the almost complete absence of any independent corroboration of Jesus’ life and death.

So to me and many other skeptics “The Chronicles of Narnia” is a myth about a myth, a fantasy about a fantasy. This shouldn’t diminish anyone’s enjoyment of the movie, which enthusiastic fans are giving rave reviews.

Let’s just remember that the stories in the New Testament are far removed from the actuality of whoever Jesus might have been. And C.S. Lewis’ imaginative allegorical treatment of those stories is another big step away from whatever spiritual reality Jesus may have represented—not a step toward it.

Just as with “The Passion of the Christ,” the enthusiasm toward this new Christian-themed movie points out how religious belief is a hunger that demands constant feeding, because it isn’t intrinsically satisfying. Adam Gopnik puts the matter neatly:

A startling thing in Lewis’ letters to other believers is how much energy and practical advice is dispensed about how to keep your belief going: they are constantly writing to each other about the state of their beliefs, as chronic sinus sufferers might write to each other about the state of their noses. Keep your belief going, no matter what it takes—the thought not occurring that a belief that needs this much work to believe in isn’t really a belief but a very strong desire to believe.

After Lewis’ wife died (she was an older passionate woman who rescued him from priggishness), he wrote “A Grief Observed.” It tells of how he came to question the goodness of God and, for a time, lost his Christian faith.

As Gopnik says, you have to wonder how believable Christianity is if a true believer’s belief in it is so fragile.

Lastly, I loved this excerpt from The New Yorker article. Lewis not only converted generally to Christianity, but also specifically to the Anglican creed. Gopnik’s pointing out of Lewis’ theological absurdity is right on the money.

Lewis insists that the Anglican creed isn’t one spiritual path among others but the single cosmic truth that extends from the farthest reach of the universe to the house next door. He is never troubled by the funny coincidence that this one staggering cosmic truth also happens to be the established religion of his own tribe, supported by every institution of the state, and reinforced by the university he works in, the “God-fearing and God-sustaining University of Oxford,” as Gladstone called it.

Yes, how amazing, that a man on a planet circling one of several hundred billion stars in one of the universe’s several hundred billion galaxies just happens to be living smack dab in the middle of a provincial culture that possesses the absolute truth about this whole shebang.

And what is even more amazing? That there are so many other men and women on this planet who believe the same thing.

Intelligent design is creeping me out

I just read an anecdote about the visit of an intelligent design advocate’s son to Disneyland. It creeped me out.

Not only because I feel sorry that this boy’s critical thinking ability is being squashed, but also because the story reveals how Christian fundamentalists want to usurp science, and indeed the whole American culture, for their own ends.

Yesterday I wrote on my HinesSight weblog about how intelligent designers are out to Christianize America. This morning I read a few more chapters in the book that my post was based on, “Signs of Intelligence.”

Actually, it should have been called “Signs of Dumbness,” because the intelligent design movement (which is thinly disguised creationism) is notably bereft of solid facts or defensible logic. It’s based on blind faith. That’s acceptable in religion; it isn’t in science.

Here’s a briefer version of the anecdote told by John Mark Reynolds in his chapter “Getting God a Pass: Science, Theology, and the Consideration of Intelligent Design.” (Click on the link to read the entire disturbing piece).

Reynolds and his wife took their young son, Ian, to Disneyland. He wandered away in a store and they spent twenty minutes looking for him. After finding him sitting with some Disneyland cast members, Ian’s parents talked to him about the episode. Here’s where John Reynolds’ story started to sound really creepy to me.

Hope [his mother] said, “Well, Ian, we are so thankful to God for bringing you back to us. Mommy and Daddy prayed and Jesus heard us.”

Ian looked at his mother with the slightly bemused look usually reserved for the mentally disabled. “Mom,” he said with care, “Stop it. You are ruining the story.”

Hope was shocked. “What do you mean, Ian?”

Mr. Ian replied, “God had nothing to do with the story. The story is about me.”

“But Ian,” she replied in vain, “God is everywhere.”

Our four-year-old rolled his eyes and explained, “Mom, to get into Disneyland you must have a pass. God does not have a pass to Disneyland.”

Those Christians involved in the boycott of Disney might be tempted to agree with my son’s statement. In the end, however, all Christians have to agree that while God may not have a pass to Disneyland, he is certainly there. It is understandable when a small child makes such a mistake. After all, superficially God had nothing to do with his “rescue.” Because of his simple view of causation, God was not necessary to explain the events in the park that day.

Reynolds then goes on to say that what’s excusable in a child isn’t excusable in adults, who should know better. He castigates Christian scientists, theologians, and philosophers who consider “that the addition of theism to science ruins the story.” (Non-Christians who feel the same way aren’t similarly singled out for blame, probably because Reynolds views them as immature spiritual children who can’t be held responsible for their lack of understanding.)

As this story indicates, what Reynolds and his fellow true believers in intelligent design want is that Christian religion becomes the backdrop of every aspect of American life, scientific or otherwise. They desire a return to the not-so-good-old-days of the Middle Ages, when the Church and culture were essentially indistinguishable. Reynolds writes:

The issue, when carefully understood, is not whether Genesis should be interpreted literally. It is whether science or theology will be considered the paramount source of knowledge in the culture.

Reynolds doesn’t want science and theology. That is too accommodating, too liberal, too open-minded for Christian fundamentalists. He says that the attempt to make nature and revelation coequal domains of knowledge “has been a disaster.” So he concludes that it’s got to be Christian theology that rules the cultural roost. Take the fundie way or take the highway (to secular Europe, I suppose).

We believe that such things—incarnation and resurrection—happened in space and time. This is not just theological speculation, but something we know.

No, it isn’t, Mr. Reynolds. You don’t know it. You believe it. What you know is very different from what you believe.

Your son, Ian, knew that he was found because his parents looked for him, and Disneyland staff took care of him until this happened. He was clearly right. You believe that your praying to Jesus caused Ian to be found. There’s no evidence of that. It’s just something you feel. Almost certainly you’re wrong.

Just like you, Mr. Reynolds, are almost certainly wrong about intelligent design being superior to the theory of evolution as an explanation for how living beings came to be as they are. In each case—finding your son and finding the cause for the origin of species—your religiosity causes you to add meaningless extra conjecture to what is plain and evident.

Yes, it is possible that Jesus answers prayers and God designs creatures. It also is possible that fairies keep the sun shining and gnomes are responsible for maintaining gravity in good working order. But science has prospered by following the principle of Occam’s Razor: one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.

Religion, on the other hand, prospers by doing just the opposite: adding on concepts such as “God,” “grace,” “divine will”, and so on to what otherwise would be simple (or, simpler) explanations of events.

This is a free country. People can believe whatever they want about how the cosmos works. However, they don’t have the right to impose their unfounded subjective beliefs onto others. And that’s just what the creepy goal of the intelligent design movement is: to substitute Christian theology for well-founded objective scientific facts.

In the end, laughter is an apt response to this ridiculousness. Check out this cartoon: “Intelligent Design, Coming Soon to a School Near You.” This cartoon is good too.

Christians say God punished New Orleans

The Universist movement has found that a disturbingly large number of sermons on Sunday, September 4, preached that Hurricane Katrina was the will of God. New Orleans supposedly incurred God’s wrath because it was sinful and decadent.

"If there's ever been a city that's needed to be swept clean of the sin and the wickedness it's New Orleans," said Chris Hodges, Church of the Highlands, Birmingham, Alabama.

Breaking new ground in meteorological science, Tim Bourgeois of the Tree of Life Christian Church in Canoga Park, California revealed that:

When there are storm winds, they don't just meet because a low pressure area happens to meet with a high pressure area in the upper atmosphere and suddenly this wind just randomly, naturally occurs, and waters randomly fall along with it. This is God's word at work in the midst of his creation.

Now, I’m sure that these are minority views. Most Christians, like most Americans, have been wonderfully generous and non-judgmental in responding to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Nonetheless, the Universists have a point:

This is 2005, but Christianity's various denominations were unified this week in thought circa 1205…The world has moved on since the dawn of Christianity and its heights in the Dark Ages.

Reading the ridiculous stone-casting sermons got me thinking about the root of such magical thinking. In my opinion it is a feeling of specialness.

Meaning, some people (in this case, fundamentalist Christians) believe that they enjoy a special relationship with God. This enables them to know God’s will, his likes and dislikes, and what is sinful. That special position at the right hand of God enables these faithful to interpret earthly events through their unique divine understanding.

Which is garbage, I’m highly confident. However, I then considered how I’ve held similar—though less extreme—beliefs about my own specialness. For in 1971 I was initiated into the mystical-spiritual path of Sant Mat, also known as the Path of the Saints or the Science of the Soul.

There are various branches of Sant Mat. Theological differences abound. Not all agree with the teaching of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the branch I’ve been associated with, that there are “marked souls” who have a special relationship with God. Supposedly I’m one of those souls, since I’ve been initiated into the RSSB fold.

My wife isn’t. She’s unmarked, I guess. I’ve never been able to recognize my mark, but apparently it is visible to those with eyes to see. Here’s how this highly questionable theological hypothesis is described in “The Journey of the Soul,” a RSSB children’s book:

After a while God willed the creation. He sent forth a wondrous luminous wave of Sound and Light from his own Being and made the entire creation from it. He made skies, planets, suns, moons, and stars. He made mountains, valleys and deserts, oceans, lakes, rivers and streams. The creation was majestic and beautiful…but there were no living things in it to enjoy it.

So God decided to put on a play, using his souls as actors, and his new creation was the theatre! God was the Director, and He named his play, “Life.” Almost all of the souls wanted to be in his show, so God told them they could leave their Home in the Ocean of Light and journey down to be performers in the theater of creation.

But there were a very few of the little souls that did not want to go at all. They wanted to stay home with their Lord. But He told even these to go and enjoy being in his play, too. Then he put a mark on each one of the souls that wanted to stay with Him, and promised them that one day He would send for them and have them brought back to their Real Home with Him.

He told all the other souls that if they ever decided they wanted to come back Home again, He would mark them too. One day, through God’s boundless Grace, He would help them come Home, too.

Thus if you’re not one of the original marked souls—like marvelously fortunate me!—you’ve still got a chance to jump on a later soul train headed Home. You just won’t get there as soon as I will.

I have come to reject my specialness. I don’t consider myself better than anyone else, especially not my wife, who is a more compassionate and caring human being than I am.

Every religion wants to be special. As I’ve observed before, religious faiths are like Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average.

The Christians who consider themselves morally superior to the homosexual, whoring, gambling sinfulness of New Orleans (which, of course, is why people loved to go there, including George Bush in his younger days) aren’t so different, really, from the members of Radha Soami Satsang Beas who consider themselves to be “marked souls.”

Feelings of specialness are feelings of specialness. They’re all repugnant to me, though some manifestations of “I’m special!” are more repugnant than others.

Isn’t spirituality supposed to be about humility and not feeling superior? I’ve always thought so, but maybe I missed a memo from God.

How does Jesus save?

We often hear that “Jesus saves.” My question is, “How?” What is the exact mechanism by which Jesus saves souls? How did Jesus’ actions here on earth fit into the cosmic order of things? I’ve never heard compelling answers to these questions.

I’m not just picking on Christianity here. Virtually every religion or spiritual path is equally vague on “how’s.” For example, with Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the organization that I’ve been associated with for a long time, a central tenet is that the guru connects the soul of the disciple with spirit, a.k.a. shabd or sound current.

But how? Another central tenet of RSSB is that the soul is a drop of the spiritual ocean. It is of the same essence. Is now, always was, always will be. So how can the soul be connected to spirit when the gurus say that the soul is spirit? Explanations that I’ve read in the RSSB books are, like Biblical passages concerning how Jesus saves, vague and unconvincing.

A friend of mind, Bill Long, has a Divinity master’s degree and a Ph.D. in the history of early Christianity. He told me once that when he was young he used to drive his pastors crazy with his questions, which were along these lines:

So, Jesus died for our sins. Did he have to die on the cross? What if he had died just after being born? Or by stumbling and falling off a cliff? Would mankind still have been saved by this sort of death?

Or was it the shedding of Jesus’ blood that saves? If so, how much blood was necessary? A pint? A quart? What about just a drop? Could Jesus have simply pricked his finger and gotten the same salvation results?

And so on. When Bill talked like this I was struck by how much sense he was making, and how infrequently I’ve heard questions like these raised by Christians. Or, indeed, anybody. What kind of a cosmos is ruled by a God who demands that his Son has to die on a cross in atonement for the sins of humanity? Excuse me, but this is just freaking weird.

If religion or spirituality has any value, it has got to be real. At least, that’s my opinion. I realize that many people embrace a religious belief because it is comforting. Beliefs don’t have to make sense; they just have to be believable.

Jesus saves. The guru connects souls with spirit. Each of these salvationary statements is wonderfully reassuring if you consider that you’re one of the people being saved or connected. Sometimes I wish that I was still able to believe in the absence of evidence like I used to be able to do.

As I wrote in my previous post, quoting Alan Watts, agnostics tend to be more anxious than believers. I certainly worry more about what’s going to happen to me (if there still will be a “me”) after death than I did during my faithful days.

However, as the saying goes, you can’t go back again. I’ve entered a psychological place where a cogent answer to “How?” has to be provided before I can even tentatively accept a theological or mystical proposition.

It’s possible to have faith without having a good idea of how. But this is a faith in mystery and the unknown, not a “faith” (actually, a belief) in an illogical or incomplete metaphysics.

Give me hows or give me mystery. For the moment, I’m embracing mystery.

Fundamentalism is religious racism

Racists erroneously believe that there is proof one race is superior to another. Fundamentalists erroneously believe that there is proof one religion is superior to another.

Thus there’s a natural affinity between fundamentalism and racism. This is one reason, among many, why fundamentalism in any form—Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, whatever—can’t be tolerated by tolerant people.

On my other weblog, HinesSight, I recently wrote about the danger of “Religious right on a crusade.” Now, many people would accuse me of overreacting to the attempts by Christian fundamentalists to take control of the political, educational, and judicial systems in the United States.

“Why don’t you just let those on the religious right do what they want and focus on your own spiritual path?” goes the argument. I can understand this point of view, but I can’t accept it.

I try to be a tolerant person. However, it’s extremely difficult for me to be tolerant of intolerance. That’s when I become an extremist—when I see that someone else’s basic human rights are being attacked by an intolerant “ism” such as racism or fundamentalism.

There are clear connections between the two. This study found a positive correlation between fundamentalism, authoritarianism, homosexual discrimination, and racism, noting that “Results support the previous research of the fundamentalism-authoritarianism-racism relationship.”

The Fundamentally Aware web site discusses the connection between fundamentalism and racism, as does the article “A theology for racism: Southern Fundamentalists and the civil rights movement.”

So toleration of fundamentalist faith-based religions is dangerous. For anyone who blindly believes that his or her religion is superior to all others will find it easy to blindly believe that his or her race (or sex, country, sexual orientation, etc.) is superior to all others.

As I noted in my afore-mentioned other post on this subject, fundamentalism is inherently opposed to reason. So scientific facts aren’t going to convince a closed-minded fundamentalist that races and religions are much more similar than they are different, and that there is no basis for considering that one race or religion is superior to any other.

Fundamentalism is based on faith. Thus faith is the root of prejudice and intolerance, as Sam Harris persuasively argues in his book “The End of Faith.” Faith isn’t a positive thing. It’s horribly negative, responsible for countless instances of killings, tortures, hatred, discrimination, and such.

Fundamentalist extremism is kept afloat by an ocean of faith. Eliminate the faith and the extremism would be left high and dry. For example, the August 8/15 issue of The New Yorker quotes a Marine lieutenant general:

“This is no more a war on terrorism than the Second World War was a war on submarines. The decisive terrain in this war is the vast majority of people who are not directly involved but whose support, willing or coerced, is necessary to insurgent operations around the world.”

If this is true of the Muslim people who tolerate Muslim extremists, it is equally true of the Christian people who tolerate Christian extremists. The intolerant fundamentalist religious right in the United States is being supported by the passive tolerance of what likely is a majority of Christians who are opposed to Christian theology being forced down the throats of unbelievers.

Just as the Ku Klux Klan remained a powerful force until the broader culture disowned racial intolerance, religious intolerance will be with us until believers of all faiths say to the extremists among them “We won’t put up with this any longer.”

I hope that day is coming soon. I fear that it is a long way off.

Talking with a churchless Christian

Last Tuesday I spent two pleasant hours talking with a Christian philosophy professor, Thomas Talbott. Tom teaches at Salem’s Willamette University. We were introduced by philosopher/artist/writer Patricia Herron, a friend who was instrumental in getting me thinking about this here Church of the Churchless back in August 2004.

Pat, Tom, Don (a friend of Toms) and I got into lots of deep stuff during our conversation at the south Salem Beanery. Though my neurons were flying on the caffeinated wings of a grande vanilla latte, I really didn’t need any artificial stimulation to stay focused on the fascinating topics that we covered. Here’s a sampling:

God is love—all love. Tom has written a book called “The Inescapable Love of God” whose title just about says it all. He believes in the doctrine of universalism, a.k.a. universal reconciliation. In the first chapter of his book Tom says, “Against the many religious doctrines that appeal to and cultivate our fear, I shall urge upon my reader this simple proposition: Contrary to what we might fear, the Creator and Father of our souls—the Lord of hosts and King of kings—is good.”

Hallelujah! The good news Tom brings is that everyone ultimately will be saved, Christian and non-Christian alike. When I asked him to confirm that this included my pagan soul, I liked his answer: “Sure. In fact, you might be closer to salvation than I am.” Now we’re talking. I could get behind a Christianity that lets you be saved without becoming a Christian.

Divinity starts on the high end of humanity. I told Tom that I liked the notion that God is all love, because I’ve always believed that a God who isn’t as good as a decent human being isn’t worth having faith in. I mean, it’d be taking a cosmic step backwards to worship a judgmental, punishing God who arbitrarily plays favorites, since lots of people here on earth manifest superior qualities.

I’d suspected that this view of mine wasn’t original (what view is?), and got that suspicion confirmed when I read the first 25 pages of “The Inescapable Love of God” (a free PDF sample). For Tom says the same thing on p. 8:

“I knew instinctively that I could never worship a God who is less merciful, less kind, less loving than my own parents, but that is just what I seemed to encounter in the mainstream of Western theology: a God who, though gracious (after a fashion) to some (the elect), refuses to will the good for others (the non-elect). And I could not imagine my parents refusing to will the good for anyone.”

Of course, it isn’t just Western religions that have an exclusionary policy concerning who gets to ride on the God train back to heaven. The Eastern mystical group that I’ve been associated with, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, believes that unless you’re initiated by a “perfect living master,” you’re doomed. Nonetheless, my poor doomed wife, whom I like to call my lovely infidel, isn’t losing any sleep over this. According to Tom, her peaceful slumber is absolutely warranted.

Why is God so well hidden? I told Tom that I liked his omnibenevolent conception of God. However, if God cares about us so much, why is God so hidden from both our physical and spiritual eyes? A good parent doesn’t stay in the bedroom all of the time with the door closed, leaving his or her children to fend for themselves. How can we have a close relationship with God when there’s nobody evident to relate to?

Tom had a short answer: “God doesn’t care if we know that he exists. He wants us to learn how to love each other, and all else that has been brought into existence by God. To love the Son is to love the Father. We all are Sons of the Father, not just Jesus.” Not bad. I don’t know if this really is true, but the basic notion intuitively appeals to me. If earthly existence is a sort of school, then God, the headmaster, isn’t concerned with how much we know about him, but rather with how well we learn the big lesson of life—love.

However, I replied that if God is love, then getting a great big infusion of God-realization into my soul seemingly would both (1) enable me to know the nature of God, and (2) teach me what love is all about. On the other hand (my Libra-ness keeps coming out) I also observed that any creative force which can form an entire universe in the big bang and keep it banging away for fourteen billion years, with many more billions yet to come, probably is a tad too powerful for my psyche to touch directly. Some insulation between us and God is necessary, which could explain God’s invisibility.

You’re a sinner! I got a flavor of good old traditional fire-and-brimstone Christianity after I shared an example of how I had strayed from one of the commandments of my own spiritual group. Without missing a beat Tom thundered out, “You’re a sinner!” With a smile, of course. I’m tempted to tell you what I said, but for literary reasons I want to let the denouement of this story wait a while, building up some dramatic tension before my confession is revealed (don’t get too excited; my sin is pretty tame by modern sinning standards).

Tom spoke about a similar experience from his conservative Christian high school days. He says in his book that “at my high school, a good Christian was identified as someone who does not smoke, drink, dance (roller skating was ‘iffy’), play cards, or attend Hollywood movies.” However, after Tom became more heretical and independent he went to a John Wayne movie with a friend from another high school.

They enjoyed the movie. After it ended they were walking down the sidewalk when some of Tom’s Christian classmates approached from the other direction. “What are you up to?” the classmates said. Tom was tongue-tied, but his friend—unaware that going to a movie was a Christian no-no—blurted out, “Oh, we went to see a John Wayne movie.” Tom said that as soon as those words came out of his friend’s mouth he felt like everything inside of him shriveled up into a wad of shame.

Such is the power of a religious group. One moment you can be on your own doing something innocent that feels perfectly fine; the next moment group pressure, either inwardly or outwardly imposed, can leave you feeling like a horrible sinner. One action; two ways of looking at it.

I threw out for discussion my Desert Island Theory of Morality. The theory isn’t fully formed yet, since I made up most of it on the spot there at the coffee house. But it’s something I have thought about now and then—such as when I fantasize Angelina Jolie appearing on my doorstep, dressed in as little as my fantasy will allow.

I say “will allow,” because fantasies are situated in some sort of context. For example, Angelina and I are somewhere; I’m somebody—married or not married, much as I am now or wildly different. Now, my Desert Island Theory of Morality comes into play in this fashion: I imagine that I’m on a deserted island similar to that of the “Lost” TV series. I’m disconnected from every aspect of my current worldly life. And there’s no chance that I’ll ever be reconnected to that life again.

I’m starting fresh. No religious group to belong to. No family to be a part of. No job to work at. No friends to associate with. I’ve already got the necessities of life on the island, such as food, water, and shelter, but anything else above and beyond that will have to wash up on its shores.

Such as one day, praise God!, Angelina Jolie. And the same merciful power that brought her to me has instilled in her a passionate desire for a 56 year-old graying man. Double praise God!! The moral question becomes: what to do? What is right when you’re absolutely on your own (well, aside from Angelina), free to make your own moral decisions without having to worry about what other people think or how they will react to what you decide to do?

This is an interesting question. It’s too involved to explore in any detail here. I’ll simply observe that much of morality involves a concern with how our actions affect other people. Such is absolutely appropriate. I believe in marital fidelity. Almost always infidelity, when it’s discovered, causes pain to the offended spouse. One person’s pleasure shouldn’t be bought with another person’s pain.

But Tom’s anecdote about going to a movie points to the craziness of feeling guilty for doing something that should be guilt free. Often the only reason we feel guilty is because we’ve been illogically taught to feel that way. Religious and other social institutions have a vested interest in keeping firm control of their members. For if people feel free to follow their own well-calibrated moral compass, they also may feel free to leave the confines of the group that has established boundaries thou shalt not cross.

I’ve been a vegetarian for about thirty-six years. It would take a lot to get me to eat an animal. If that desert island had fruits and vegetables to keep me alive, a refrigerated container full of filet mignon and a French chef could wash up on the beach and I wouldn’t have the slightest interest in it. Really. I believe that the more our morality can be inwardly grounded rather than outwardly proscribed, as my vegetarianism is, the better.

Anyway, it was a delight to talk with Tom, Don, and Patricia. Near the end of our conversation, when I asked Tom if, given all his heretical views, he still considered himself to be a Christian, I liked how there was a slight stammer as he said, “Um, ah, yes, I am.” I could be wrong, but he seemed to be mentally defining Christianity in his mind (as a college professor should), deciding whether what he believes could reasonably be called Christian.

Tom is a churchless Christian, the best kind.

Universism, a kindred unfaith

A few weeks ago I became a Universist. I didn’t have to give up my churchless faith to do so, for Universism is a marvelously kindred philosophy. The Universists just are a lot more organized than the Church of the Churchless ever will be and have a much cooler web site.

They actually sign people up who are willing to affirm that they fit the definition of a Universist. I figured, “What the heck?” and proclaimed my allegiance to Universism (pronounced “universe-ism”). I’d already joined the Unitarian Jihad, so signing on to another uni-philosophy seemed right in line with the trajectory of my spiritual evolution—which some would say is heading straight for hell.

Well, I’ll have some interesting company there. Such as John Armstrong, assistant director of the Universist movement. Last Tuesday I listened to a radio interview with Armstrong on the arch-conservative national Lars Larson show. The Universists had sent me an email about the show, saying that Armstrong’s interview had been moved up a day because of Bush’s impending announcement of his Supreme Court nomination.

I liked Armstrong’s style a lot. As I often not-so-humbly say about someone, “He made a lot of sense, since he sounded an awful lot like me.” Except, Armstrong was more calm and collected than I suspect I would be if I ever conversed with the hugely annoying Lars Larson. And Armstrong had a rich supply of quotes on hand about the Deistic beliefs of this country’s founding fathers, a subject I know little about.

You can peruse these quotes at Deism.org, a related Universist web site that Armstrong was able to plug shamelessly throughout the interview. I do have to give Lars Larson credit for having Armstrong on his show (this was a repeat appearance), for Larson and most of his regular listeners are devout fundamentalist Christians.

Armstrong persuasively argued that George Washingon, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, among others, were Deists, not believers in Jesus. The Universists say that Deism is “belief in God as revealed by nature and reason combined with a disbelief in scripture, prophets, superstition and church authority.” The founding father quotes they’ve assembled certainly seem to support Armstrong’s assertion, which didn’t go over well with Larson (to my great delight).

I can’t recall the exact Jefferson quote Armstrong read on the show, but I think it may have been this one: "One day the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in the United States will tear down the artificial scaffolding of Christianity. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

Armstrong skillfully pointed out that the Universist skepticism about organized religion is exactly in line with the virtues of freedom and independence that this country was founded on. “Don’t tread on me.” “Give me liberty or give me death.” He said that Russia became free (or, at least, freer) when its people rose up against the power of the state dictating every aspect of their lives.

Yet now the United States government is trying to force religion, in the guise of Christianity, down citizens’ throats. This is un-American, Armstrong said. The United States Constitution doesn’t mention religion at all, except to say that it must be kept out of public affairs.

Larson didn’t have much of a response, other than to bring up the pitifully weak argument that I’ve heard him use before: “But the last words of the Constitution say, ‘In the year of our Lord…’”

Good God! God damn closed-minded conservative talk show hosts! My use of the name of God just now doesn’t mean that I’m a Christian; it’s just a way of speaking. The same is true with “In the year of the Lord,” Armstrong said.

The Universist FAQs are worth perusing if you want to know more about this intriguing movement. I applaud Armstrong and his fellow Universists for their efforts to make personal reason and experience the foundation of a spiritual (or non-spiritual) world view.

Still, I sympathize with John Horgan. He wrote in his “Keeping the Faith in My Doubt” essay that he wouldn’t be joining the Universists or any other areligious group:

“First of all, I’m just not a joiner, more out of laziness than anything else; I avoid commitments that might jeopardize my sports- or sitcom-watching time. An organization for freethinkers--one of the Universists self-definitions--also strikes me as oxymoronic, like an anarchist government. Isn’t the point of being a free-thinker eschewing categories like Satanist, Scientologist or Universist?”

Yes, it is. Horgan concludes that each unbeliever could form his own personal “ism” with its own name. He says, “Since Universism is taken, I’ll call mine ‘Horganism.’ You can revile it, admire it, or ignore it, but you can’t join it.”

Amen to that.

A particular Way isn’t the only Way

I was encouraged when I picked up the newspaper today and saw the headline, “Pope says church will stress unity.” “Gosh,” I thought, “maybe the new Pope has had a sudden change of heart. Perhaps he’s forsaken his absolutist position that Christianity is the only way to God and Catholicism is the only true form of Christianity.”

I was ready to give a “thumbs sideways” to Pope Benedict XVI instead of my previous thumbs down. However, now that I’ve read the entire text of the homily he delivered, the supposedly more inclusive Pope Benedict sounds a lot like the dogmatic Cardinal Ratzinger—which isn’t surprising, since they are the same person. Tigers don’t change their stripes so quickly.

Admittedly, the new Pope reached out to Jews and non-Catholic Christians. He also added, “Finally, like a wave gathering force, my thoughts go out to all men and women of today, to believers and non-believers alike.”

But when you get to the end of the homily, it’s evident that the unity Pope Benedict seeks is for every person on earth to become Christian:

Here I want to add something: both the image of the shepherd and that of the fisherman issue an explicit call to unity. "I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must lead them too, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd" (Jn 10:16); these are the words of Jesus at the end of his discourse on the Good Shepherd.

And the account of the 153 large fish ends with the joyful statement: "although there were so many, the net was not torn" (Jn 21:11). Alas, beloved Lord, with sorrow we must now acknowledge that it has been torn! But no -- we must not be sad! Let us rejoice because of your promise, which does not disappoint, and let us do all we can to pursue the path towards the unity you have promised. Let us remember it in our prayer to the Lord, as we plead with him: yes, Lord, remember your promise. Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd! Do not allow your net to be torn, help us to be servants of unity!

At this point, my mind goes back to 22 October 1978, when Pope John Paul II began his ministry here in Saint Peter's Square. His words on that occasion constantly echo in my ears: "Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors for Christ!"

I don’t hear a genuine call for unity in the Pope’s words. His conception of oneness is limited to the bounds of Christianity, not the cosmos. He isn’t seeking a universal truth that encompasses people of every faith, including those who believe in not having a faith. His message, though eloquently phrased, is still divisive. His theology still merits a thumbs down.

The Pope spoke yesterday to 350,000 people in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square. I gave a talk also on Sunday, to 4 people in the McKinley Elementary School music room. Call me biased, but I liked my “satsang” (an Indian term for a talk about spiritual truth) a lot more than the Pope’s homily.

I started by speaking about how to speak about spirituality, inspired by some guidelines for authors that I’d received from the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) Publications Department. I’ve had my differences with the Department, mostly because I have a strong distaste for claims to a singular knowledge of spiritual truth. In the past RSSB has been as guilty as the Catholic Church in asserting that its Way is the only Way.

I find this attitude distasteful. It’s bothered me so much that at times I’ve considered cutting off my ties with RSSB and becoming a genuine spiritual independent, which also happens to be my political affiliation. But I agree with the central goal of the RSSB metaphysical philosophy: uniting one’s personal consciousness (“soul”) with universal consciousness (“spirit”). And I enjoy socializing on Sundays with the people who come to our local RSSB meeting (“satsang”), few though they may be.

So it was heartening to read this new missive from the Publications Department. I’ve often sounded off on similar themes when speaking at RSSB gatherings and have observed a fair number of quizzical looks from audience members after I launched into my favorite “Why would anyone think we’ve got the sole franchise on spiritual truth?” rant. I would imagine that cries of “Heretic! Rabble-rouser! Burn him at the stake!” were going to erupt from the crowd.

How nice, then, to find that the Publications Department now is saying what I’ve been preaching: it’s insulting to people of other faiths (which includes my wife) to come across as claiming that this is the only Way of knowing ultimate reality, God, whatever you want to call it. Hopefully this humble attitude will permeate down into the minds and hearts of everyone associated with RSSB.

Maybe even more broadly, because open-mindedness is a universal virtue. Who knows? Perhaps Pope Benedict XVI is fond of surfing the Internet and will come across this post. For him, and everyone who writes or speaks about spirituality—which includes most people, since speaking to ourselves inside our head is a form of communication—I’ve edited the RSSB guidelines into a form more suitable for universal consumption. Click on the continuation link below to read them. (The unedited guidelines can be found here.)

Thumbs down to the new Pope’s moral absolutism

I have some Catholic qualifications for criticizing newly-elected Pope Benedict XVI’s stance on moral absolutism: I was baptized and had my first communion, after which I flamed out on Catholicism (around the age of ten) before being confirmed.

At my first communion I had trouble swallowing the wafer. It stuck to the roof of my mouth and I started coughing. I still remember feeling panicky, wondering what sort of mortal sin it would be to spit the body of Jesus onto the church floor. Eventually I got the wafer down, but God had sent me a message that I’ve never forgotten: don’t easily swallow the Catholic faith—or any religious teachings, for that matter.

All I know about Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, or Pope Benedict XVI, is what I’ve learned since his election. But this is enough for me to give his philosophical stance on truth a big “thumbs down.” Previously Ratzinger had served as the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which used to be called the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition back in the not-so-good old days of the 1500s.

Now, I can’t hold Ratzinger responsible for the Inquisition. Yet the absolutist Catholic dogma that Ratzinger strongly supports was the foundation for all of the Inquisitorial atrocities committed in the name of God.

Ratzinger believes that Christianity is the only true religion, and Catholicism is the only means to salvation within Christianity. He also believes in objective truth (I have no argument with him there), yet holds that Christ is the ultimate and definitive reality for men in the world (I do have an argument with him here).

If Christ is the epitome of objective truth, why can’t everyone recognize this? The truths of science hold sway across the world, among trained scientists at least, because the laws of physical reality are known to be the same for everybody, everywhere, irrespective of their personal beliefs. But religious, moral, and ethical “truths” are as much open to question now as they were in the days of the ancient Greeks.

Except in the minds of fundamentalists such as Ratzinger, who mistake subjective scriptural assertions for objective universal reality. There is no evidence, none at all, for the Church’s claims that it alone has a clear understanding of moral truth—for example, that contraception is wrong, gay marriage is a sin, abortion can’t be justified, and capital punishment is a no-no.

Neither Ratzinger nor any other theologian can point to indisputable facts in the world out there that support a stance of moral absolutism. Nature leaves very few clues, perhaps none at all, about how human beings and other highly evolved animals should act. We know a lot about how people do act, yet the philosophical gulf between “should” and “do” is immense.

Given that there are so many differing opinions about what is right and what is wrong, I’m on the side of pluralism. When there isn’t any convincing proof that one set of moral standards is better than another, it makes sense to let people find their own way down life’s multitudinous choices of ethical paths.

However, Ratzinger considers religious pluralism equivalent to moral relativism. He has come to the false conclusion that if people are left to decide for themselves what is right and wrong, chaos will result. Ratzinger thinks that there is only a single source of objective moral truth, the Catholic Church. If you don’t get your morality from the Holy See, you’re trading in counterfeit goods.

By contrast, wiser theologians understand that pluralism isn’t the same as relativism. Here are some principles of religious pluralism contained in the above-linked article:

“1. The religions of the world affirm an ultimate reality which they conceive of in different ways and which both transcends the material universe and is immanent within it.

2. Whilst in itself ultimate reality is beyond the scope of complete human understanding, in its relation to humanity many claim to have experienced its presence in diverse ways, including great individuals in supreme revelatory moments that have given rise to the world’s religions, including the great world religions.

3. The great world religions, including their different and at times incompatible teachings, are as totalities of scripture, history, tradition, paradigmatic figures, rituals, creeds and forms of spirituality, authentic paths to the supreme good.

4. The world’s religions share many basic values, for example, love, compassion, justice, honesty, treating others as one wishes to be treated oneself.

5. There are however forms of religion, including some based in the great world religions, which are misused for purposes contrary to those values.

6. Each person must follow his/her conscience. Therefore the possibility of conversion is part of the human right to religious freedom.

7. In the present century the traditional assertions of an exclusive possession of absolute truth repel rather than attract many people who seek the wisdom that religions, and other explanations of the ultimate meaning of life, have to offer.

8. Hence, from a pluralist point of view it does not make sense in the contemporary world to try through missionary activities to convert the world to one’s own tradition.

9. Interreligious dialogue, as conversations among people who wish to learn and benefit from one another’s inheritance and insights, should be the normal way for religions — and ideologies — to relate to each other.

10. Within this dialogue a paramount need is for the religions to heal any historic antagonisms between them.”

Now, my Church of the Churchless preference is to make reality my religion, which does away with the need for religious pluralism altogether. One reality, no religion. But so long as religions exist, religious pluralism is certainly much preferable to religious absolutism. When there is no objective evidence that any spiritual path leads more directly to God than any other, it’s best to keep your traveling options open.

John Allen, Jr., who wrote the article listing the 10 statements of pluralistic faith, says that “the list, especially points seven and eight, also helps explain why defenders of conventional Christological and ecclesiological positions find the [pluralistic] model worrisome.”

Yes, it is indeed worrisome to defenders of the Doctrine of the Faith that spiritual seekers might dare to think for themselves and come to the conclusion that the key to unlocking the ineffable mystery of God isn’t the exclusive possession of any religion, and that converting to a religion is like picking up a fresh pair of dice at Las Vegas: the odds are still overwhelming that, in the long run, you’re going to lose.

The wisest course of action is not to gamble. Neither with your money, nor with your soul.

Invest your effort in finding the truth about God the only place where it can be found—within yourself. That’s a bet worth making.

Unitarian Jihad needs to get rolling

Just a day after Laurel and I joined the Unitarian Jihad, Senate majority leader Bill Frist demonstrates why this campaign against religious extremism is needed so badly.

The New York Times reports that Frist, my least favorite U.S. senator (especially after he outrageously dared to “diagnose” Terri Schiavo’s condition from videotapes and medical records) “has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as ‘against people of faith’ for blocking President Bush's nominees.”

Senator Frist, I have some news for you: there are lots of “people of faith” who are pleased that the Democrats are preventing a few unqualified nominees from getting lifetime appointments to a federal judgeship.

I am one of those people. It isn’t necessary to be a Christian to be a person of faith. There are many varieties of faith. Some don’t even have a name, not being associated with an organized religion. These might well be the truest faiths.

It’s a strange conception, this notion of Christian right’ies that only people who have a belief in God exactly like theirs have high moral and ethical standards. The New York Times article says that Christian conservatives consider that the battle over the nominees is part of a 30-year culture war.

I don’t understand what culture and religion have in common. I’ve always thought that the eternal God and all things divine were far above ephemeral cultural comings and goings. But if the Christian right wants a culture war, we of the Unitarian Jihad are prepared to fight for truth, justice, and the universal way.

Universal. Not Christian, not Islamic, not Jewish, not Buddhist, not Taoist, not anything with an “ian,” “ic,” “ish,” or “ist” attached to it. The American government represents everybody. Christians are part of that everybody, but just a part. No part should be able to run rough-shod over the whole, even if it is a majority part.

I have no problem with politicians who have strong religious beliefs. I do have a problem with politicians who don’t recognize the relativity and subjectivity of those beliefs, mistaking them for absolute commandments From On High. No, they’re just beliefs. And they have to be rationally defended in the court of public debate just like any other beliefs.

The most annoying characteristic of religious fundamentalists like Frist and his Christian allies is their sense of entitlement. “Because I believe it, it must be so.” No, it doesn’t. Again, your beliefs are just beliefs. You may believe that Terri Schiavo should have had her feeding tube reinserted, abortion is a sin, and gays shouldn’t marry. Fine. Just remember that other people have valid reasons for believing differently. Argue about your differences, but don’t claim that you have a direct line to God.

The first communiqué of the Unitarian Jihad says it nicely:

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.

Sounds good to me. Bring on the Jihad.