Day 26: The Death of my need to be right about "God"

 

This week we are heading into "The Death of God" Theology in our AFL journey.  I wanted to go back to last years posts and see what inspired me about "The Death of God" idea.  I found my April Fools Day Post.  It wasn't so much about the "Death of God" as it was about the death of some perceptions of "God" that I wanted to talk about.  Here's the post: 

AL Post  2022  Day 31: The Death of God as Father and Mother

Almost a year later, I get to see how much my perspective has changed.  Strangely, not much.  I still see the whole gender thing as a balance issue: making "God" in our image.  But the more I spend immersed in history lessons of Christianity, I understand more now that maybe perceptions is all we have.  Billions of humans have billions of perceptions.  There seemed to be a need over recordable history to find the right way to understand that which in reality can never  be understood.  But not for a lack of trying.  And then there are the wars and persecutions that arise from all those perceptions and all that need to be right.  

Maybe its a pipe dream, but what would this world look like if it didn't matter what someone else thought or believed?  What if we didn't need to have others on the same page as us or even in the same book.  What if we could all be a library, still sharing space with our own expressions and perspectives? 

What if Christians could share Jesus like they pass along their love of chocolate.   Maybe others would like our favourite flavour of chocolate... so we give them a taste and then they can decide.  

"Mmmm... I like Lindor dark chocolate.  Thanks for introducing me to it.  I think I might pick some up on my next shopping trip." 

And maybe they won't like our brand... 

"Mmmm... Not bad, but my favourite is still Hershey's Hugs.  But thank you for the Lindor experience.  I hope you enjoy." 

What is the response?  Can we still share space?  What if Christian Evangelism stopped at the introduction  and didn't add things like shame, hell and condemnation in the mix.  It's no better than saying that every other brand of chocolate out there is laced with Strychnine.  I'm not saying that Jesus is irrelevant in our world and in our culture. But in the early accounts of Jesus, he didn't seem all that motivated about convincing the world that he was the only good "chocolate" around.  He seemed to be more about his little community.  It looks like it was his followers that needed him to be "the be all and end all".  

Is it "God" that needs to die... or just our need to be right about our perception of "God".  Maybe "God" has a place in the world and doesn't need dying.  For some people, there is not other way to look at the world than through the "God" lens.  So why take that away from them?

Right now, at this juncture of my life, I don't eat much chocolate.  It's a sugar thing.  I have arthritis, and sugar is bad for arthritis.  So I gave up my regular consumption of chocolate.  I miss it and I don't miss it. There may come days when I take a bite or two, but the days are probably over when it is my regular source of pleasure.  I will still buy chocolate for my family because I know they like it.  Life is hard... sometimes we just have to find ways to make it feel better. Some need religion, some  need chocolate, some need both,  some don't need either.  But maybe we can still sit at the same table and enjoy each other while we nibble on what tastes good for us.  

Day 25: Crazy Beliefs

 "Religious ideas are teachings and assertions about facts and conditions of external (or internal) reality which tell one  something one has not discovered for oneself and which lay claim to one's  belief."  Sigmund Freud

All teachings like these, then, demand belief in their contents, but not without producing grounds for their claim.  They are put forward as the epitomized result of a longer process of thought based on observation and certainly also on inferences.  If anyone wants to go through this process himself instead of accepting its result, they show him how to set about it.  Moreover, we are always in addition given the source of knowledge conveyed by them, where that source is not self-evident, as it is the case of geographical assertions.  For instance, the earth is shaped like a sphere; the proofs adduced for this are Foucault's pendulum experiment, the behaviour of the horizon and the possibility of circumnavigating the earth.  Since it is impractical, as everyone concerned realizes, to send every schoolchild on a voyage round the world, we are satisfied with letting what is taught at school be taken on trust; but we know that the path to acquiring a personal conviction remains open. 

Let us try to apply the same test to the teachings of religion.  When we ask on what their claim to be believed is founded, we are met with three answers, which harmonize remarkably badly with one another.  Firstly these teachings deserve to be believed because they were already believed by our primal ancestors; secondly, we possess proofs which have been handed down to us from those same primaeval times; and thirdly, it is forbidden to raise the question of their authentication at all.  In former days anything so presumptuous was visited with the severest penalties and even today society looks askance at any attempt to raise the question again. " SF

" We ought to believe because our forefathers believed. But these ancestors of ours were far more ignorant than we are. They believed in things we could not possibly accept today..."    SF

"The riddles of the universe reveal themselves only slowly to our investigation; there are many questions to which science today can give no answer.  But scientific work is the only road which can lead us to a knowledge of reality outside ourselves." SF

Someone I love very much believes that the Earth is flat.  I didn't understand, until this person came into my life, that in the twenty-first century people could believe in a flat Earth; but a quick Google search made me aware that there are communities around the world that can't accept a globe like planet for their home.  

I have had the opportunity to listen to my friend on many an occasion, but I have no rebuttal.  I haven't been in orbit about the Earth to see what it looks like.  So I can't defend a position I only accept on faith myself.  A round earth makes sense to me.  All the evidence makes sense.  A flat earth seems like a crazy belief.  But I have known my friend for a long time, and it's not a "crazy belief" to my friend.  

This helps me understand the world I came out of and now get to look in at from the outside.  I once believed with certainty in a cosmic figure that listened to me every time I opened my mouth and my thoughts.  I believed that cosmic figure had power and could change my circumstances, but often wouldn't either because a lack of faith... or because what I was asking for wasn't what I needed.  (ie... like a living Dad instead of a dead one). I had then, what seems to me now, as crazy beliefs.  But I was convinced in them.   No one then called me crazy.  Maybe because the communities I was hanging out with believed the same things.  Still...  I wasn't called crazy... and all I had was belief... no proof.  

What if I could give my friend proof of a round earth?  What if I was given the opportunity to fly out of the earth's atmosphere?  What if I took a picture of the earth from orbit?  Would my friend believe me?  So many pictures exist today by people who have had that  opportunity.  My friend doesn't believe them.  

I have learned over the years that what I might see as "crazy beliefs" are a sort of life blood to people I love.  I have no desire to call them illusions or delusions.  I only can smile, listen and say nothing in response.  This is the world I live in, these are the people I love.  

Day 24: Sharing my thoughts without Sartre today.

Today, I didn't get much out of the AFL reading... but  I have something else that excited me.  I am working on a little project for my up and coming birthday party.  I am inviting my family and some friends to celebrate my Freedom 55 at a restaurant that has a Chinese Food buffet.  Since I don't do the fortune cookies anymore, I thought I might provide a replacement.  I understand that fortune cookies are a standard with Canadian Chinese food meals, but I don't eat them anymore.  It's my party and I want to feel included in the whole experience.  So I am making something else.  Part of the project includes quotes that I have harvested from a collection of my writings over the years.  I found a few that I will be using in the fortune cookie replacements.  I figured that since my family and friends don't read my AFL blog, it would be safe to share them here.   

"Isn't that the way Love works?  Once you see what it does when it touches your heart and life, it seems impossible to keep it to yourself." 

"Maybe instead of pictures, we need to pass along an invitation to seeing nature's beauty bloom in person.  Maybe we do a disservice to another human being by just providing pictures, when what they really need to fill their soul is a walk outside without the electronics."  

"You don't have to like someone to have compassion for them." 

"Hope in the little things when the big things look hopeless."

"One person's act of love done over and over, risks becoming a tradition. When it becomes tradition, it risks turning into an obligation. An act done out of obligation is seldom an act of love." 

"Asking someone to love you, is like asking a cat to purr. First find a way to love them and then hope that your love will mean something to them, eventually initiating a response of love in return." 

"Wisdom always takes a little extra effort." 

"There is an attraction and even a romance in the LETTING GO of the need to have all the answers; to understand everything; to know it all, and to be able to explain what is really beyond all explaining." 

"Imagine an artist that paints a landscape.  The artist asks nothing of the painting. They don't even sign it.  They just paint it and let the beauty be enjoyed by others.  No one knows the artist, and maybe some wonder who that artist is, but the artist cares not about recognition.  It was never about recognition... it was always and only about the beauty of the painting."  

"I used to believe I needed to change the world to think like me. I now want to embrace the only thing that can change the world... Love.  And the way I understand Love... it doesn't require that I change anyone.  Love only invites me into its flow and that is the most beautiful thing." 

"Life is too short and too valuable for us to spend it pretending we are someone we are not." 

"The "best conversation" happens when we are both okay with our different approaches to life and our differing journeys.   Having a conversation with someone doesn't in anyway mean that you have support their conclusions." 

Day 23: Who is Jesus... really?

"The average mind is easily content with inherited and acquired things, or with the dicta of parents and teachers, because it is much easier to imitate than to create." Emma Goldman

When looking for a picture of Jesus... I landed on "Forensic Jesus" ... I have to snicker at the idea, but it suits this blog more than "Swedish Jesus" or "Hollywood Jesus".  I want to share about my recent educational journey through the "History of Christianity".  But I found a lot interesting bits in today's reading, so I will intersperse my thoughts between some Emma Goldman quotes.  

"The rulers of the earth have realized long ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the blood of the people. They know only too well that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a more powerful protection against rebellion and discontent than the club or the gun." EG

An authentic history lesson of Christianity would probably deconvert most evangelical Christians.  Maybe that is why history isn't a topic of most sermons.  If Christians understood the messiness of their historic roots, it would change everything.  Like the Bertrand Russell quote in my office reads. " People's opinions are mainly designed to make them feel comfortable; truth, for most people is a secondary consideration."  

"No doubt I will be told that, though religion is a poison and institutionalized Christianity the greatest enemy of progress and freedom, there is some good in Christianity “itself.” What about the teachings of Christ and — early Christianity, I may be asked; do they not stand for the spirit of humanity, for right and justice?" EG

Who is Jesus?  I have been learning something significant from Bart Ehrmann.  That question has baggage.  It is like googling Jesus in images and finding out that there are so many portraits of a man who lived two millennia ago and long before there were cameras.  So people have to get creative.  

Who is Jesus?  It depends on which gospel you read.  The Jesus of Mark is not the Jesus of John. And the Jesus of Matthew and Luke is not Paul's Jesus.  And Paul's Jesus is not the Jesus in Revelation.  

"But the ethical and poetical Christ-myth has so thoroughly saturated our lives that even some of the most advanced minds find it difficult to emancipate themselves from its yoke. They have rid themselves of the letter, but have retained the spirit; yet it is the spirit which is back of all the crimes and horrors committed by orthodox Christianity." EG 

According to Bart Ehrmann, There is enough evidence to conclude that a man called Jesus of Nazareth existed 2000 years ago, but what people have said about him following his thirty some years on earth... well that is where the baggage comes into play.  

"And the poor? They cling to the promise of the Christian heaven, as the home for old age, the sanitarium for crippled bodies and weak minds. They endure and submit, they suffer and wait, until every bit of self-respect has been knocked out of them, until their bodies become emaciated and withered, and their spirit broken from the wait, the weary endless wait for the Christian heaven." EG

Wondrium has opened my mind and my eyes.  It offers some great intellectual courses for home bodies like me that can't make it to the local university. I've already listened to the following courses by Bart Ehrman. "Historical Jesus", "How Jesus became God", "The Triumph of Christianity" and "New Testament". I have one more in the Ehrman collection of courses "Lost Christianities" before I maybe sum up the courage to take on Ancient Greek 101.  I told myself I would never read the bible in English again... so maybe I can start again seriously trying to get a handle on some Greek.  I turn 55 this month.  Maybe it's not too late.  

"When the Jews, according to the gospels, withdrew from Jesus, when they turned him over to the cross, they may have been bitterly disappointed in him who promised them so much and gave them so little. He promised joy and bliss in another world, while the people were starving, suffering, and enduring before his very eyes." EG

Who is the Jesus I'm learning about in all these courses? I wish I knew.  There are so many versions of Jesus, it's hard to embrace one kind.  I don't know if I like Mark's Jesus, and John's Jesus is so far away from what might even be real, it's not even attractive anymore.  I figured out years ago that all those monologues had to be creative writing.  No one could keep that good of notes.  And then during the courses, and Bart's other resources, I discovered that no one was keeping notes at all.  The gospels don't start getting written until forty years after Jesus' death.   

"Much as I am opposed to every religion, much as I think them an imposition upon, and crime against, reason and progress, I yet feel that no other religion has done so much harm or has helped so much in the enslavement of man as the religion of Christ." EG

Bart mentions several times that Christianity is not the religion of Jesus, but the religion about Jesus.  Christianity didn't get started with Jesus, or with the death of Jesus, or even with the supposed resurrection of Jesus.  It was only when people started believing the resurrection of Jesus that Christianity took off.  And then it wasn't even about Jesus and what he did for thirty three years that mattered.  It was about what happened to him over the course of three days.  If someone doesn't get the last three days right... then nothing else matters.  That seems to be the premise of Christianity. 

So who is Jesus?  Good question.  Christianity, for two thousand years, hasn't been much help with the answer.  

"Christianity is the conspiracy of ignorance against reason, of darkness against light, of submission and slavery against independence and freedom; of the denial of strength and beauty, against the affirmation of the joy and glory of life." EG

Day 22: Equality or Respect?

My husband and I love our new vet clinic.  It is called  "The Pet Hospital".  It is the first clinic we have been to that has separate treatment areas for dogs and cats.  There is one entrance door and one reception desk, but that is where the oneness ends.  

Hubby and I have two cats.  Our cats are our children... for the most part.  We have found a place, in the Pet Hospital,  that holds cats with as much respect as dogs.  I'll be the first to admit that I feel that cats get the shaft when it comes to respect.  Dogs seem to get more of that from most of the culture.  The pet world seems more catered to dogs than to cats.  I wonder if it is because dogs can be controlled and cats, for the most part, can't.  Dogs serve while cats need to be served.  Dogs provide unconditional affection, while a cat's love needs to be earned.  There are so many possibilities for why dogs are respected more than cats.  But not at "The Pet Hospital".  Cats have found respect there.   

After reading today's excerpt from Simone de Beauvoir, I felt myself back in my head wondering what mattered to me as a woman.  What is this fight for "equality"?  Is it just about voting rights, job opportunities or salaries?  Is there something beyond that?  

Everytime I am faced with a word in the English language, I have to do a little word study.  I want to know what that word is supposed to mean.  And even then, after my word study, I, then, get to figure out what it means to me.  

Equal according to the online dictionary... 

1. being the same in quantity, size, degree, or value.

2. having the ability or resources to meet (a challenge).

When I look at the first definition, I see a problem right away.  I see the definition of what another English word defines as a "clone" or "duplicate".  

When I take that definition into my relationship with my husband, I can honestly say... I am not "equal".  We are not the same size, we are not the same in so many ways.  (and yes, one of the synonyms of "equal" is "the same").   

So if equality in my relationship doesn't makes sense, what is my hope?  What do I want as a woman?  It's an easy answer.  I want respect. 

I want to be valued for who I am.  That doesn't always mean that I will hold the same value as my male counterparts in this world.  But I want MY value to be understood and acknowledged.  I am not competing against anyone else in my space for existence in this world.  I am trying to shine in my space.  

This doesn't mean that what women have fought for over the generations, like the right to vote, doesn't hold value for me.  When I went to vote at the last election, I took pictures of Nellie Mclung, Emily Murphy, Louise Mckinney, Henrietta Muir Edwards and Irene Parlby with me.  I wanted to be reminded of an amazing opportunity I have here in Canada because these women.  In a political world where I feel like my vote doesn't count... I needed their faces to remind me of something bigger than just my X on a ballot. 

I go back to my cat and dog analogy.  The Pet Hospital staff know that cats and dogs are very different, but they are held with the same respect and given their own space.  I can understand now why that means so much to me.  I just want my own space.  

(My cats were given their own space on wall perches in the treatment room. They were much more relaxed than previous visits.  This made all the difference.  )

Day 21: The Void can't be Imagined, it must be Experienced

Demopheles: ... Or, to speak less scientifically, truth that generally cannot be expressed except mythically and allegorically, is like water that cannot be carried about without a vessel; but philosophers who insist on possessing it, pure and unalloyed, are like the man who breaks the vessel in order to have the water simply by itself. Perhaps this is actually the case. At any rate, religion is truth allegorically and mythically expressed and thus rendered accessible and digestible for mankind at large…

Philalethes: What a dangerous weapon is put into the hands of those who are given authority to employ falsehood as the vehicle of truth! If this is the case, I am afraid that the damage done by falsehood will be greater than any advantage ever produced by the truth.

Demopheles: Properly speaking, a mystery is an obviously absurd dogma which nevertheless conceals within itself a sublime truth. In itself, this truth is wholly unintelligible to the ordinary understanding of the crude and uncultured masses, who now accept it in this disguise on faith and trust, without allowing themselves to be led astray by the absurdity that is obvious even to them. In this way, they now participate in the kernel of the matter in so far as it is possible for them to do so…

Philalethes: That would be all right if only religion were allowed to declare itself to be true merely allegorically. But it appears with the claim to be positively and absolutely true in the literal sense of the word. Herein lies the deception and it is here that the friend of truth must adopt a hostile attitude.

Demopheles: If religion were to admit that only the allegorical meaning of its teachings were in it the element of truth, it would be deprived of all effectiveness and its inestimable and beneficial influence on the hearts and morals of mankind would be lost by such rigorous treatment. …  

How much you will then guard against casting suspicion on something through theoretical fault-finding and thus finally wresting from the people something which for them is an in- exhaustible source of consolation and relief and which they need so much in fact, with their harder lot, even more than we. For this reason it should be positively sacred and inviolable. 

Philalethes: What is the use of grounds of consolation and tranquillity which are constantly overshadowed by the Damocles sword of disillusion? Truth, my friend, is the only sound thing; it alone remains steadfast and staunch; its consolation alone is solid; it is the indestructible diamond.

Demopheles: Yes, if you had truth in your pocket, ready to bless us with it on demand. But what you have are only metaphysical systems where nothing is certain except the headaches they cost. Before we take something away from a man, we must have something better to put in its place. 

Philalethes: If only I did not have to hear the same thing over and over again! To free a man from an error is not to take something away from him, but to give him something; for the knowledge that something is false is just a truth. But no error is harmless; on the contrary, sooner or later, every error will land in trouble the man who harbours it. 

by Arthur Schopenhauer

Today's reading captured my attention.  I narrowed down the selection to a few quotes that were significant for me.  

I am drawn into space again, thanks to Star Trek Voyageur.  For those not aware of one of the greats of the Star Trek Franchise, Voyageur is the ship that was thrust in to the Delta quadrant, seventy light years away from Earth.  

I find so many similarities to my journey in Voyageur's journey "far from home".

 - It wasn't my choice to be thrust into a Post-Christian agnosticism

 - I feel light years away from most people I used to spend my Christian life with. 

 - Going home seems impossible

 - As Janeway and crew could not imagine the Delta quadrant until they were there, I could not imagine my journey today, from where I was twenty years ago. 

 - I feel alone, until I'm reminded that I'm not.  

 - I wouldn't trade my "trek through the Delta Quadrant, now that I understand what I got from it." 

 - No one in "the Alpha quadrant" will truly understand, because they haven't been here

I found a couple great conversations between Captain Janeway and her first officer Chakotay.  If you are familiar with the series, they might make more sense, but I think even without familiarity, the messages are pretty clear.  

Janeway and Chakotay are facing the adversarial Borg.  Janeway looks for comforting wisdom from previous Captains that experienced the Borg... Chakotay offers her a different kind of hope. 

Janeway and Chakotay's Conversation about the present

In this episode, Chakotay time travels back to when the Voyageur was still in the Alpha quadrant, before it was thrust into the Delta quadrant.  He has a conversation with Janeway about what really matters. 

Janeway and Chakotay's Conversation about the future

Day 20: Did he not find his "God" there?

"Mere man lives in houses, he encloses his gods in temples." Ludwig Feuerbach

My dad was a builder.  In seventy five years of life, he built a lot of buildings.  I grew up around his handiwork.  It was his passion.  

One day, it must have been one day, but that one day was a gathering of days of thought and decision.  One day, he came to his children and told us that we would be leaving the farm.  The plan was to go on the road and "build churches".   

That plan culminated in fifteen years and two provinces of my Dad's handiwork.  The picture above was a church in Holden, Alberta.  That steeple was Dad's handiwork.  Built in a shed that now belongs to his other daughter, he artistically crafted a topper for this old gathering place. A crane was hired to lift the steeple up on to it's resting place.  

My dad has been gone fifteen years now.  The same amount of time that they spent "on the road renovating and building churches".  I wish I could access that part of his soul that felt the need to uproot his family from their home and, as Feuerbach states, "make temples to enclose his god in."  

There is an ironic story about that church.  It is now an art gallery and craft store called "The Gallery" .  It didn't have enough income to continue to be a church, but now people go to see paintings and buy home made goodies.  Creativity draws people into a building much like "God" drew them into the building before.  It seems strange that people still need "temples" to experience a condensed version of what no "temple" can hold.  

I have long since laid to rest the pain this caused me.  I have gained so much as a result of his choice to move.  I just wonder what he felt back then.  Why were those buildings so important to him.  He was an outdoors man.  He loved nature and animals.  Did he not find his "God" there?