Christianity: What's So Loving About It? (part 1)
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PART I
I recently got into a debate with a friend over the "beauty" of the Christian religion. I'll rehash most of it here for you, but before I do, let me state for the record what my personal involvement with Christianity has been. I grew up in a Conservative, Fundamentalist Christian home to parents recently graduated from Christ For the Nations Bible Institution in Dallas, Tx. My dad is a pastor, my parents were missionaries while I was growing up, and I continued missions work (7 different countries) after I left home. I studied the Bible rigorously for 25 years; took Bible classes in school; attended private, Christian high school and college, was a music director/worship leader for a time, and am still an ordained minister. I've read the Bible cover-to-cover - from Genesis to Maps - 22 times and counting. I have large portions of it memorized. I'm well versed in all things apologetic, from Augustine to Aquinas to C.S. Lewis to Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel to - and it pains me to admit this [gulp!] - internet sensations like J.P. Holding.
Somewhere along the way, however - I think it was about 5 years ago - I started asking questions that had never occurred to me to ask before. You see, Christianity's mantra is, "don't think, just accept. Do as you're told, and don't ask questions." Such a world view does not sit will with me, and it finally reached critical mass. 25 years-worth of pent up, un-voiced, and thus, unanswered questions erupted like a hot volcano. Over the course of the next several years of intense research and soul-searching I found answers to my questions that were to my satisfaction, and felt quite comfortable "retiring" from Christianity. Sold the farm, took my gold watch, and got straight out. Looking back on it as an outside, objective observer rather than an internal, emotional adherent, I consistently find myself shocked and appalled at some of the beliefs the faithful are required to harbor by their peers and superiors. It was one of these beliefs in particular that my buddy and I were heatedly debating. Here was the argument:
Ever concerned with my recently "lost" soul, my buddy (let's call him"Tom"), was encouraging me to "give my life back to God," reminding me that even prodigal sons are welcomed home. He waxed eloquent on the love God has for His children, and orally painted the overwhelmingly loving scene of Jesus' sacrifice for all humanity. At which point I stopped him. Now, if you've ever spent any time in a Christian institution, it's been hammered into your head how "loving" this collaborative gesture between Jesus and God the Father was. But suddenly, I realized this affirmation was like watching propaganda news: they don't just tell you the facts - what happened - they also try to tell you how you're supposed to feel about it. And so I offered Tom this analogy as to why I find absolutely nothing redeeming about the Christian "plan of salvation," and in fact find it truly horrific. Here's why:
When the weather's pleasant, my wife and I - along with our nearly-3-year-old daughter - like to stroll through the neighborhood in the evening. Imagine one day, as we're ambling along, that we happen upon a rather severe house fire, a raging inferno enveloping all 3 stories of the unfortunate building. From an upstairs window come cries for help - a lot of them. It sounds like at least one adult, and definitely several children. Altruism kicks in. I realize that one may be severely burned attempting to rescue these people, but personal comfort does not come before the life of another human being. Some sacrifice here is called for. So, mustering all the courage and fortitude I can find, I kiss my wife, look down at my child - my only begotten, if you will - and say to her, "Sweetie, run in there and try to rescue those people while I stand here and watch." I daresay that there would be many so incensed by my actions that a length of rope and a low hanging branch would most likely be - if they were exceptionally generous - their first order of business. Imagine the overwhelming outrage! Now let's amp up the situation. Imagine that, the day before, the neighborhood kids were playing rather loudly in the street, making it difficult for me to get in my afternoon nap. It's a rather petty offense, to be sure, and I could probably remedy the situation by putting in a pair of ear plugs, moving to a room not facing the street, or politely asking the kids to move on, but instead, I've decided that sometime tomorrow I'm going to light them all on fire. I realize that the punishment doesn't quite meet the crime, but I'm the adult and they are the children. Who are they to question me? Anyways, I locate them the next day all hanging out in the same house. I sprinkle some lighter fluid on the back porch, light a match, and walk away. Twenty minutes later I'm strolling through the neighborhood with the fam, and come upon the aforementioned blaze. Suddenly I'm struck by remorse. These kids didn't do anything to merit being burnt alive. Someone should do something about this! "Sweetie, run in there and get them."
And that, folks, is the "beauty" of the Christian religion. God was/is under no obligation to anyone whatsoever to meet out whatever horrific punishments He concocted in his cosmic head. He was absolutely free to make up whatever rules to the Game that He saw fit. And as Supreme Arbiter of the Universe, He was/is free to change those rules at any time. He very well could have made this decision: "If someone lights a cook fire on Saturday to make sure their kids get a hot meal, I won't find this offensive." But He didn't. He made a whimsical decision that such an abominable activity should be punishable by earthly death, and then later, by an eternity in hell. Now, a first-grader could tell you right off the bat that this is a rather rash decision. It takes God, however, a couple thousand years to come around and see the light. Remedy please? Kill someone! "Son, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you......." What kind of sick, twisted parent intentionally sends their kid into a potentially harmful - even deadly - situation on purpose in order to remedy a situation the parent has full control over at all times, and is, in fact, personally responsible for creating in the first place?! This to me is one of the sickest, most disgusting, heinous, vile atrocities ever thought up. It is an exercise in selfishness, megalomaniacalism, solipsism, and narcissism on a level barely conceivable by human consciousness. And that. my friends, is 1 of the 87 reasons that I have retired from this abhorent religion.
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Thank you Jim. I'm sure I could probably use them.
Wow.
I was turned away from the Christian faith at an early age by fundamentalism. Questioning is at the root of morality, I think, and it is highly immoral not to question god and the bible.
This is a good illustration of the unquestioned assumptions in Christianity!
Good point, Will. Why would "God" give us the gift of reason, and then request that we not use it?
Freakin' awesome.
Both my parents were non-practicing Witnesses. Around my freshman year I realized I couldn't inherit a system of beliefs by default and have them be valid totally unconsidered on my part. A lot of spiritual evaluation and hilarity ensued.
A Course in Miracles brings an interesting perspective to the Christian Redemption. It claims (and I'm inclined to buy it as the most meaningful interpretation I've found on offer) that the point wasn't the Savior-on-a-stick bit. It was the Resurrection. It claims that the Resurrection, like the other miracles, were demonstrations to humanity that Divine principles could overcome earthly conditions - even death. Because earthly suckage is impossible under Divine precepts, and thus the manifestations of such lameness are null and void... impossible... from the get-go. It also states that there was never anything to Redeem humanity from, because sin is another manifest impossibility.
Genesis is pretty intriguing. God creates a Perfect Creation (and ahead of schedule mind, so He can even knock off a day early). Within this Creation, all is Perfect. Outside of it, there isn't anything. Alright, beautiful. But then, alleges Genesis, /one day... imperfection manifests./ (Dun dun DUUUUNN!) Sure, okay. How? On accident? Wouldn't that be impossible? To have imperfection, you must first have imperfection. Well that doesn't work. Hmm, let's try it again. Oh, I know! Imperfection happened because there was, imperfectly, some circumstance where Man's Free Will and God's Will didn't jive. Or where he /on accident/ thought so. Nope! Again, to have imperfection you must first have imperfection. That doesn't work. So what happened?
Adam decides to take into himself the Knowledge of both Good (which God made, and which was manifest /everywhere/) and Evil (which God hadn't made, and which was manifest /nowhere/). How can you know something that's a totally foreign concept, not present in any way shape or form?
By inventing it. We're made in the image of our Creator, told in Genesis to cultivate the whole world and make it like unto a garden, and many Christians still can't seem to reconcile the ability to magickally manifest our Will as a Divinely-bestowed attribute. To create by an act of Will requires a "knowing" of something that isn't yet manifest, and an investment of yourself (and your Will) into the idea. So Adam, the story goes, decides to invent Evil. He "knows" a state that posits a different basis to Creation, one that isn't Love-based. It's based on... something else. And his acceptance of that state causes him - and about fourteen billion other people and counting - to forfeit a Perfect state of health and grace and well-being, and instead has him living by the sweat of his brow, fighting nature for food, living shorter lifespans, and brings the womenfolk greater suffering every time they bring another life into this state of being.
We'd seem to have a lot to thank Adam for. We have a whole global history of an imperfect state, one that by Divine precepts is impossible. And Adam knew it from the get-go, in his glorified Perfect state. Like the Savior-on-a-stick bit, we're waiting for the Divine fact of Love to come in and overcome this impossible and imperfect state of being, like a lesser piece of legislation being struck down because it's unconstitutional.
Christianity makes a lot of sense to me, when I read it this way. Like anything else, it can be misunderstood or misapplied, until you have throngs of people taking its messages out of context and misapplying a morality play about Love to justify all kinds of lovelessness. (Have you ever noticed that the only stuff people ever try to justify is the stuff they already know is wrong? Nobody tries to justify, say, charity or compassion. It's always stuff like bombing abortion clinics.) In finding some reason, any reason, no matter how far-fetched, people today honor a grand old tradition that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden itself. And invest themselves in the same error that brought us where we are today. You know, a constant fact-fighting mission.
Great piece. It's awesome to check in with you again. Thumbs up, as usual.
You bring up a pretty interesting point, Satori, and I think I'll dry to explore it more deeply in the next installment: that of Adam's alleged "sin." In a world of supposed Absolute Perfection, one where none of the players have any concept of right and wrong, how can one judge anothers' actions as "wrong" when (1) such a concept didn't even exist, and (2) even it it HAD, the "guilty" party had no idea what he was doing? We're told that Adam's "crime" was disobeying God's orders against eating the forbidden fruit, but no one ever told Adam that it was "wrong" to be disobedient in the first place! I'm getting fired up just mulling this over. I'll keep this short and save my diatribe for the next hub. As always, thanks for popping in!
Your logic, sir, leaves much to be desired and is based in humanism.
Thanks for taking the time to post a comment, Cedar Cove Farm, even if it is somewhat less than constructive. Which particular argument did you have a problem with, and what corrections would you offer to remedy it? (BTW, this is an editorial piece, not really subject to the rules of "logic" any more than if I wrote an article detailing why I don't find chocolate appealing.)
I love the concept. Getting fired up about it is most certainly an appropriate response!
As you write your second piece in the series, I wanted to be sure to clarify one or two points. First, I'm fairly certain that Adam was forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge of both good and evil:
http://bible.cc/genesis/2-17.htm
But not in the sense of a stern fatherly "don't make me have to take off my belt" threat, as it's currently interpreted by most. I read it more like a law of physics being recited to Adam. "So Adam, I've created this whole place out of Perfect love. But, if you run off that cliff over there gravity will cause you to plummet to your doom, and you will surely die." If He'd said it like that, how many countless people today would still imagine gravity as some kind of Divinely punishing force? Would we have fundamentalist Christians bombing airlines instead of abortion clinics, claiming that by defying gravity they "go against God"? (Come to think of it, it's no worse than Muslims bombing airlines. But the parallel does make it funnier.)
Bottom line, Adam chose to defy the Divine state of grace and allege a manifest state of imperfection in direct opposition to Divine grace and love. He knew what he was doing - Love's an intrinsic and it takes an almost visceral effort to manufacture an intentional defiance of it. The resulting Fall from Grace has given us a world in which practically nothing makes any sense, because it all takes place in the terms of an absurdly skewed premise.
However there is a bottomer bottom line, if you will. Adam created the state of "wrong" by inventing the premise that anything could be out of alignment with Divine Will. John 15 goes further into the mechanics of it. Adam invented an image of himself as, like God, the center of his own universe. This meant that Adam had to view himself as apart from God, with a manifest nature that had to reject God (because you just can't have two alpha males in a pack, and Adam had set himself up as his own basis for existence). Adam rejected the Divine agenda in favor of his own, as part of an agenda to usurp God's place an rewrite existence according to his Will rather than Love. Not only did this defy the Divine Will /and/ certain very fundamental spiritual and metaphysical truths, in having to see himself as out of alignment with God as part of that Choice, Adam had to accept an edited, revised self-perception of himself as well. He had to see his own nature as being opposed to God's, to the extent that he could find anything worthwhile in pursuing an agenda to usurp it. Which of course is what makes the alleged choice so absurdly worthless that only millenia of manifest experience in this imperfect state make it seem even remotely credible. None of us could ever want that, because it's not what we are (we're made of Love, not Machiavellian avarice) and we're unable to alter our intrinsic nature (although we can deceive and perhaps self-deceive about it for a time). But there's literally no reason or point to doing so. And no reason Adam would have wanted to.
So interestingly, while the wages of sin are death (which is nowadays slightly misleading; that's like saying that the "wages" of jumping off a high cliff are falling to your death) and therefore to the extent that we invest ourselves into a useless premise (like "My Will replaces God's and I live in a completely self-contained universe of my own making, rather than on the basis that Love causes all things") to that extent we create something that's broken, and which is self-defeating. But beyond that, the choice to invent sin never actually occurred. And the only meaningful there is to do - ever - is to affirm the Love and grace that is rather than to invent more within a self-evidently absurd premise for Evil. Will /can/ replace Love, to a point. Or at least, be used as a substitute for it. But in doing so there's a choice to forget that they're actually the same thing - and that begets something that nobody could ever want. For that reason the idea that such a choice was ever made becomes absurd, nothing that followed it ever made too much sense, and the only thing there's any sanity left in doing is affirming our true nature which pre-existed the error. Which rather leaves most of this manifest world in a high state (impossibly high, actually) of insanity and absurdity at the moment, yes? -gryn-
Can't wait for you to develop this approach, or something like it, in your next Hub. I wanted to make sure where I was coming from was quite clear, both to make sure your effort wouldn't be wasted and because ambiguity and vagueness tend manifestly to do far more harm than good. Which of course is an absurdly impossible state to encounter. =)
Be well,
- Satori
That's a very intriguing prospect, definitely worth further examination, but I was going to go a slightly route, namely: why would God hold Adam accountable for any "wrong-doing" before Adam even had a concept of right and wrong, indeed, before such a concept even existed?
Ah, I get you!
"Poverty is an anomaly to rich people. It is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell."
- Walter Bagehot
My experience with higher states of consciousness tells me that in his more exalted state before the alleged Fall from Grace, Adam was vibing with Love. He was in the flow, whatever you want to call it. Now imagine a junkie for a moment who just got loaded, put on an old Pixies album and is so mellow and cozy in an opiated afterglow that he's almost on the verge of nodding out. What are the odds he'd suddenly decide it's time to jump up and go for a jog around the neighborhood?
Higher states can be so profoundly encompassing that even if you're familiar with lower states, there's no motivation to want to even think of them. No inclination. I guess I'm saying that even without a good/bad dichotomy in place, Adam could easily get a sense for what affirmed his state of consciousness and what rejected it. And to the extent that people today still manifestly enjoin his Choice, knowing the results even if they're not presently as i
even if they're not presently as in tune with their true state of grace as Adam was, we have an even bigger absurdity to contemplate... and one that we can access and observe here, today in the world. If people know better, why would they ever do such a thing? (And to that, I think the only sane answer comes from God's perspective in all this, outside the scope of such an absurd choice. Which brings us neatly to the second part of your line of inquiry.)
In terms of accountability, I don't think God does hold us accountable for it. He's in repose in an eternal graceful state, knowing that we never made such a choice in actual fact. We only made such a choice in fiction, which we currently experience. The choice for fiction (and the realm that it manifests) is itself necessarily fictitious. If He suddenly doubted and had a crisis of faith (and it's such an odd thing to imagine. "Really? Did I make Adam wrong? Oh noes! I don't even have anyone to pray to about it!") then He'd be buying into the illusion. So, remaining sane, He a) refuses to contribute to the fictitious choice in any way shape or form whatsoever, and b) affirms the Love that is, rather than the alleged lovelessness that never was. According to spiritual precepts, this will dispel this illusionary realm by dispelling the illusion that the Choice for it was ever made. Which of course seems remotely improbable at the rate people are wandering around this place harming and deceiving one another, but fortunately the Divine facts remain eternal and constant. It's only people enjoining the [fictitious] Choice for harm and deception that make this lesser state seem remotely credible. And even that only lasts when the idea of people actually doing something that absurd seems credible. Personally, I've come to the conclusion that nobody can be that stupid except on purpose. (Or as Chandler said on Friends, aghast at Joey's mindmelting degree of apparent stupidity, "How d'you... How d'you not fall down more often?") -gryn-
This is familiar spiritual territory for me. I'm happy to compare notes with you, if you find you have gaps in your model. I've had years to smooth out the rough spots, but feel free to stress-test aspects of it rather than just accepting it wholesale. If for no other reason than that will make it stay with you better.
Be well,
- Satori
In reference to: You see, Christianity's mantra is, "don't think, just accept. Do as you're told, and don't ask questions."
I'm not sure how that is Christianity's mantra. Maybe you went to some churches or had leaders who didn't encourage questions and thinking for yourself, but that has not at all been the case in my life and Christian education.
Perhaps I should have said that is Christianity's UNSPOKEN mantra. I have no doubts that their are some sects and denominations that encourage questioning and free thought, but they are definitely exceptions rather than the rule. Obviously, I can only speak from personal experience - and what I've gleamed in conversations and books - and what inevitably is usually the case is that Church "authority" figures are mostly unwilling or unable to answer the questions posed to them. Oh, they'll occasionally tackle an issue (that's what apologists are for), but rarely to anyone's satisfaction who has not already decided to accept whatever they're told in the first place.
yes, I am a thinker and I was discouraged from thinking eg "it's dumb to doubt". Being an outsider looking it, I wonder how I was entrapped in such a cult-like religion (pentecostal christianity), but I guess as a child, I wanted to please my parents.
Was it hard leaving (I didn't escape unscathed). I'd be interested in reading more like the first half of this hub of what it was like for you, if you have time to write about it. How did you family take it etc?
Wow what a summary of God. You asked questions and got blasted for it. You are a man and I am not trying to make light of what you went through with the Fundies, women have a harder time becasu we are supposed to sit and take whatever man gives us. Opening my mouth the first time when I also asked questions was not taken lightly by and preacher, priest or minister and certainly not my Roman Catholic husband. Ohhh boy, he tried to put me on guilt trips glaore. See that is who they want you to feel-that you are hurting them deeply--they don't even think about God in that situation. Bailybear is getting a whlle lot of it now and I am with her on her journey and it isn't an easy one to go against the mainstream of brainwwashed people for the control and power that the clergy delight in.
You can read my upbringing on my Whispers From Oz Memoirs. I was brought up Welsh Baptist and went on until I became Roman Catholic, then it all sort of clicked or fell apart and I started asking questions.
@ Baileybear: No, I wouldn't say it was "hard" leaving, it just took a long time. I'd say my "de-conversion" took a good 6 years from "Fundamentalist" to "whatever the hell I am now." I think an article detailing that process might be a great idea.
@ Lady Guinevere: It seems to me that Christianity's 2 favorite tools (or weapons) are guilt and fear. I look forward to reading about your experiences.
Didn't even have to read it all...
"Christianity's mantra is, "don't think, just accept. Do as you're told, and don't ask questions." "
Not so...
Matthew 7:7
7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Sorry..
God Bless.
That's your problem, Vector7 (which I've noticed from our brief time together in the forums): you don't read it all, but you form opinions on all of it nonetheless, and as a result your comments don't have a lot to do with the material. Thank you for pointing out a passage that instructs one to ask (for STUFF, mind you, not questions that challenge the institution). It is irrelevant to my hub though, as my hub is not about what Jesus taught, but about how the Church Institution as a whole operates. Try to develop the habit of going into an article without an opinion on it before you've read it, then you might be able to finally contribute a relevant comment.
I forgive you..
Thanks.
Jim 2 years ago
i've added u to my daily prayers.