The end of an era.

Many Christians, today, do not want to admit that what we are seeing in this world, is the end of a very long era.
I was reading a wonderful Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece by famed member of the Four Horsemen, Daniel Dennett. You can read the article here.
Dennett's main point was, I think, that as we get more and more intelligent and have more access to information and news and ideas, we are less likely to believe in the supernatural. People will not turn to God if they believe he is irrelevant.
But, likewise, if something horrible happens, he says, like a real world wide catastrophe, you will see a drastic rise in religion and religious participation.

For me, I rejoice in the knowledge that people are falling away. If you have time someday, go to r/exChristian on Reddit. Read a few of the posts on the first few pages. There are tons of young people saying on this subreddit that they are no longer able to delude themselves into buying their parent's beliefs, and they are falling away. And, even in the face of harming family relationships, these young people are deciding that being honest and truthful is better than lying to themselves and others.

The reality is, for Christians, that, as long as they try to continue to sway people back, but don't really live according to their own avowed beliefs, things will continue to go sour. I know many people who only attend church because they believe that it's the right thing to do, or because that's all they've ever done.

But, there are also those who are Christians, but who do not go about bashing folks on the head with it. They may or may not attend church. They may or may not even acknowledge their own faith to others. These people, whether they know it or not, are the next stage of Christianity. And hopefully, they will find it in their own hearts to continue on this road of silent observation.

Sadly, though, as with anything, as something dies, it becomes more violent, more radical. The death throes of organized religion are upon us. But, as we get closer, the people who are irrationally dependent on their 'faith' will be more vocal; will go to new and horrid lengths to bring out the worst in their religion.

We, the rest of us, must watch for these people. We must handle ourselves carefully. But we must not live in fear. We must be willing to help those who are leaving get where they need to go and we must be patient with those whose lives are being ruled by fear. As we watch the end of the era of Religion, I hope that what we see are people getting the help they need from the more viable belief systems.

Lost and found

As a parent, the worst possible pain you could suffer, short of losing your child is to not know where they are for a prolonged period of time.
A family member's daughter disappeared for just over a day and the entire family was horrified.
The feeling of helplessness was awful, even for those of us far away.
At one point I messaged my two oldest Christian friends and asked them to please keep their thoughts on the situation.
I did this for two reasons: first, they both have daughters. Second, I no longer believe praying helps me.
But each of them still do. So I knew I would feel better telling them.

There is nothing wrong, on my book, if people pray. It is a form of communication and meditation. I do meditate, but I can no longer pray in the main Christian sense.

Almost immediately after I told them, they found her. I do not make claims here. I only know it helped me to share it with them.  Whether is is a ghost of the amputation of religion from my life; an old habit hard to break or just silliness on my part I cannot say.

All I know, is that I am so relieved for her family, that she's been found.

Feeling and no longer feeling.

As a Christian, I used to feel pretty sure that unless I was "on fire" I was falling short of God's glory.
"On fire" was a mentality that filled me with exuberance; high, happy emotions relating to God's literal presence in my life. These periods were short and irregular, but we were taught that this was the desired mentality to have.
When I wasn't on fire, in some cases, I was just regular me, with my guard down. Cussing, smoking, the occasional beers with my pals. And I would always, after times like this, feel that I had been sinning, because the reality was that while  I was being just a regular guy, I was being deceitful to my real source of joy, my faith.
There were times when, feeling down about myself for falling short, I was painfully aware of how far God seemed from me.
I struggled deeply with this. And it was in these times of pain that the doubts would begin to creep into my consciousness.
Was I really feeling God in my life? Was he really communicating with me? Did we really know for certain that we were doing this right?
These doubts plunged me even farther from my jovial self, because there was no relief from them and certainly, there was no way to discuss them with anyone. Doubts are not a viable thing in Christianity.
Over the years, though, I avoided trying to feel the On Fire joy. I tried to cleave a path of reality in the turbulent waters of life. I strove to be more honest with myself. I allowed the doubts to take root and grow.
But doubts are like tulips: they spend a long time growing, burst open in a vivid color and then fall away.
The more doubts I allowed into my life, the more I had to face the fact that, once the doubt came to fruition, what was left was an irrationality that I clinged to blindly.
The first to go was the belief that I had to maintain some florid exuberance and stay on fire.
I began to realize that suddenly, the way I was everyday, with all of my struggles and flaws and emotions was an okay way for me to be. I didn't feel any longer that I had to somehow keep up a fake and false feeling of spiritual excitement.
Also, I began to realize that, instead of sinning, and falling short of the glory, I was simply dealing with the things that humans deal with in their lives. Disappointments and dreary days and bad choices were all mine; they were all my own and no other had a say in them.
One by one my doubts flourished and left me with the realization that I had been scammed into trying to be someone else's version of who they thought I should be instead of being who I really was.
When I cottoned to that, I felt very resentful -- I was totally dismayed -- that there are others who, even in the face of evident truth, continued to persist in blind attempts to reach that emotional high, like junkies, rather than face facts.
For years, I grieved. I tried different versions of the faith, adjusting here and there, trying to maintain a personal tradition of being a Christian.
Eventually, though, it all fell away. No ritual, no precedent, not even tradition could hold me to what was basically a self perpetuated lie. I knew that, no matter what, the reality was, it was all a lie I allowed myself to believe.
When I came free of it, I was no longer seeking the painful impetus of religiosity, but was calmly and quietly mesmerized with life.
Do I still call myself a Christian? No. I do not and refuse to label where I am. There is no mysticism in it, except a willingness to find and revere the majesty of nature, of love and of truth. There's no need to wave your arms in the air to feel the spirit. You can actually feel genuine awe without convincing yourself you are.

Permanency

I am often caught off guard by how I take for granted things around me. I assume that, because they've always been a certain way, they always will be that way.
I do this, even in the face of the growth of something I've planted or the death of a tree.
I sometimes think that our sense of permanency comes from how short and narrow our perspectives are.
However, if we take the longer view, that we are only here for a short time, in the scheme of things, maybe it would help us to take more advantage of the time we have right now.
I often lament the ideologies that make us focus on the afterlife. But I also lament the ideology that makes us forget or helps us ignore the fact that we are someday not going to be here.
Every day is a gift. But nothing is permanent.

Contamination

I was watching a video, a few days ago that showed babies exploring and being curious, while Neil DeGrasse Tyson was speaking about how that natural instinct of ours to learn and explore; to be curious is quite often squelched by parents and adults at large.
It is called "The Most Human Activity". Watch it here.
This got me thinking.
Parents aren't purposely squelching this natural desire to explore. They are, at least in some cases, I believe, trying to keep the children safe.
However,there is a level of parental participation that falls down a terrible rabbit hole. Indoctrination.
It seems to me that basically forcing the children in our lives to believe things that we believe is falling short of what it means to be a parent. Still millions of parents across the world are purposely forcing their own beliefs on their kids.
Now, some of you will say that I'm overreacting. You will say that it is the prerogative for a parent to decide what to teach their kids. I agree. What I'm saying is it's fine to introduce your beliefs to your kids. What I'm not saying is it's not fine to make your kids feel as though they have no choice to decide for themselves if what you believe is right for them.
The downfall of the Christian Dogma is its mandatory participation. Of course, initially, it's singing Christian songs about Jesus and so on. But very slowly, as the child grows, it becomes inevitable that they make the connection that if they don't believe, or can't, they are sinners and won't go to heaven.
Imagine that!
For years, I strongly doubted and disbelieved. I was terrified to tell my mother, or my church family. I would have alienated myself and caused huge amounts of pain for everyone. All of this, because of indoctrination.
Now, many Christians will say that a child cannot get a good dose of morality without the Christian upbringing. Christians routinely exclude other moralities. None of them are good enough. They adhere to the "train up your child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it" mentality.
And this is not a bad mentality -- it's logical, albeit, not very religious. It can be applied to any child, anywhere.
But this is meant as an internal and not external statement. It refers to spiritual growth, not mental or behavioral growth.
Oddly enough, however, it really makes no difference, either way.
For example, my brother's son was baptised and we were made his godparents. Meaning, that if anything ever happens to my brother, we take over the role of parent. All of this happened in the church that they do not regularly (or ever) attend, and while we were getting ready, my other nephew had to wear this fancy outfit that had a sort of bib on it with the cross in white satin.
He asked his mother why there was a "plus sign" on the bib.
We laughed but this has always served as an example to me. Here was a kid, who, unlike his father or myself, had not been indoctrinated with all of the nonsense they pour into kids. No guilt, no sin, nothing.
He just is a kid. It's wonderful.
On the other hand, children who cannot escape the gravity of the beliefs of their parents, often wind up being so forcefully indoctrinated, that they cannot even begin to think outside of the faith.
The point here is, that it's fine to discuss your faith with your kids and even to extol its virtues. But it isn't something that should be thrust upon them at any cost. Let them decide.
I promise that it will be better for them in the long run, when they call up something they struggle with, and you don't force them at the gunpoint of hell to follow it.
We need to stop contaminating our kids.

Complicity

I remember a morality experiment from an ethics class that went something like this: you witness two muggers attacking a man in an alley. You are physically fit, know several martial arts and can handle yourself. What do you do?
Some of the class waded right in to the rescue of man.
Some were inclined to wait until the muggers departed.
Some just kept on and did nothing.
I always found the last two to be amazing. Given some time to think about this (which one wouldn't have, presumably, in real time) some people would just keep going.
When the professor asked these classmates for their reasoning, their answers varied slightly but all basically claimed they did not have enough information.
They felt as though the man maybe deserved it; it wasn't a mugging but two fathers beating up a perv, and so on.
The other group, those who waited for the attackers to depart had interesting reasons too.
What if they were hurt, how much help would they be? Is it just to use force against men who are doing the same, and so on.
This group believed they would make the situation worse by wading right in, so they opted to wait until the man was alone, before getting help.
Finally, there were those who waded right in; those who believed that no matter the reason for the attack, or the consequences of helping, it was better to do something decisive than to wait.
The professor then added a new aspect to the thought experiment. What if by not acting to save the man being attacked made you morally complicit in his attack? What if, by not helping him, for whatever reason, you became as bad as his attackers? He redid the votes, and far more came out for wading in to help immediately.
This always fascinated me, because by adding this one caveat -- complicity -- people saw themselves as being in the wrong even for inaction. Where once it seemed morally justifiable to wait and do nothing, faced with their own guilt, they would wade into fight for the man.
We spent the whole class changing up various aspects of the scenario and recording responses. Only two people maintained that they would wade right in to the victim's defense, no questions asked.
The point here is not to illustrate that people are motivated differently by different situations. The point is to call to mind the question of complicity.
There are many people who do not condone violence in the name of religion, even if they are adherents to said religion. They believe to their core that the violences, verbal or physical, perpetuated against others by members of their own faiths are the worst possible thing.
But what do they do to stop it?
I posted a video yesterday that showed a pastor advocating for a literal reading of the Levitical laws regarding homosexuals. (Scroll down to find it.)
I asked, what if there were people in that congregation who had a secret that they were terrified to share, because they felt trapped into being in that man's congregation?
What I failed to ask was how everyday common run-of-the-mill believers would feel if I told them that by not standing against this evil dogma within their own faith, that they were just as bad as this pastor.
What I failed to make absolutely clear was to point out that, even if you disagree with his doctrine or ideology, if you don't stand against him and his type, you become just as morally complicit as if you were up there yourself touting his sermon.
Christians and Muslims today are not all of this caliber of evil. But, again, by failing to root extremism of any sort out of their faiths, they are not only allowing monstrous evils to continue against innocent people, they are also morally complicit in those evils.
It's not enough to claim you don't follow that dogma. You have to actually do something about it.

True Commitments.

Over the last few years, close friends of mine have been working to open a brewery in our town. The idea is several years, or perhaps a decade old. But, from the Kickstarter campaign until today,  I have seen them go through the spectrum of human emotion.
They have been varying degrees of ecstatic, exhausted, frazzled, fried, frustrated, pissed off, elated, grouchy, on the brink of despair; they have experienced and lived through the depths of commitment.
Like having a child, or starting a new relationship, when the going gets tough, we cannot just walk away, or give up in disgust.
But in a very similar theme, we cannot just go blindly forth and start something without the willingness to commit to it.
It's difficult for people, I believe, to understand the kind of commitment it takes to start a new business. Imagine leaving your job, where you have a regular paycheck and some job security on a huge gamble. Imagine how you wake up at night and wonder exactly what the hell you're doing? What if you or a loved one get's sick? What if you're house is washed away in a flood? The doubts and fears that vanish in the face of all you accomplish can really gnaw at your soul in the bleak moments.
If you're weak, or if you have an unclear purpose, or if you're just impulsive, imagine how crippling that fear could be.
My friends have not, and will not give up on their way to opening their brewery, regardless of the hours of struggle and frustration that they have had to work through, they are both committed.
The lesson that we can take from this is to be thoughtful about the things we decide to do in our lives.
Measure twice, cut once, as my grandfather would say.
Weigh the options. Have plan B and C and D in the margins in case. But in more than this, we have to be cautious that we are not talked into something that could be detrimental to us in the long run.

But at the same time, while I speak words of caution, we have to admit that there was a certain amount of bravery in the face of the unknown and courage in the face of despair that carried these two and their families to this point.
We cannot forever hide ourselves from possibilities that may make us better or help us grow, or to finally be happy.
But we cannot do it rashly.
One of the biggest scams in this world is that you can say a few words, with good intentions and some magical power will cover you with goodness and riches and no want. These philosophies claim that if you simply name what you want, it is as good as having it.
The reality is quite otherwise.
If you want something in this world, you have to be willing to grab hold of it and wrestle it to the ground with all of the bruises to ego and scratches to hope and dreams.
Do not be cowed into believing you can't do what you want if you're motivated and willing to take the knocks. But also, don't be scammed into thinking you're going to be given an easy time of it.

The log in their own eye

So many "moderate" Christians don't support or acknowledge the more zealous and fundamentalist parts of their faith.
They aim to not support "Bible Thumpers".
And yet, their fundamental beliefs are based on the same thing. The Bible is the infallible Word of God.
Christians, experts at feeling persecuted, do not want to be associated with extremism in their own faith. They often claim that they have nothing to do with that mentality, while at the same time adhering to the same mentalities, in a slightly calmer manner.
That, friends, is hypocrisy.
If you're interested in seeing an example of what I mean by extremism in Christianity, look here. (Warning: this is deeply offensive. I in no way support this horrible mentality. Watch at your own risk.)
The point here is not to highlight this all too frequent hate mongering in the faith. The point here is that if Christians who claim to be run-of-the-mill don't want to be associated with these kooks, then it is their responsibility to fight against it.

Christianity --The Church -- is called the body of Christ. Well, there's a serious malignant cancer at the core of this body. Jesus said, if the right hand offends you, cut it off. How much more offensive is this?
"Regular" Christians will tell you that this man's doctrine is a thin slice of the whole body. They will tell you that it really isn't representative of the whole belief. They will say it is the atheists fault for pointing it out.
They will claim anything but responsibility for it. And, because these are fellow believers, they will not do a thing about it.
Now, if you have the stomach for it, think back or watch the video above once more. Do you hear the child crying? What if that child is a homosexual? What if that child or others in that congregation are hiding a secret? What if they feel trapped, need love and compassion, have a need to be accepted. Isn't that what Jesus called on us to do? To love one another?
This isn't strictly about being gay in the face of this kind of hate. This is about being human and knowing that there are people in this world who will try to take that from us.
This is a call to all the moderate Christians out there. Before you try to heal the rest of the "lost" you had better work to root out the David Berzins in your body.

Falling Away

A friend posted an article about a book which addresses the reason that many young Christians are falling away as having largely to do with Youth Groups making the faith about emotions, rather than dealing with hard questions.
My knee-jerk reaction was to comment, "Too little, too late."
You can read the article here.
The article speaks about  Nancy Pearcey and her book Finding Truth.
On the surface, the article seems to mull over some very important things in the development of a good Christian. That other Christians should not fear the doubts and challenging questions of other, younger developing Christians. If we teach them not to be afraid of counter ideologies, then they will not fall away.
Instead, they claim, the pastors and teachers of the young focus on the emotional high from worship or finding a new way of life, etc.
This, from a developmental standpoint is pretty good logic. If we, say, take this concept and apply it to young lovers, it would be very good that they understand that, at some point, the feelings change, but that doesn't negate the relationship, or the commitment they made.
However, if we delve into the deeper mentality, what we find is a rather more disturbing scrabbling fear.
This is not a book about reinforcing values and changing the way the faith is taught. It is a book about the realization that the religion is failing.
Young people, according to this article are, being shown too many challenging ideologies in school and those cause the child or young person to begin to doubt the meaningfulness of their faith, in the face of all the wonder of their education, which is cast as a bad thing.
My opinion is that this is rather less about not being prepared for the challenges faced in school and rather more about the reality of indoctrination.
Young people who are raised in strict Christian upbringings are indoctrinated from the outset that their faith is a way of life. They are not encouraged to ask certain questions. They are not welcome to go beyond certain boundaries. "Trust and Obey, for there's no other way."
Children are taught that, if they don't feel or think in a certain way, they are sinning. We know what sin leads to, as that, too, is drilled in from a very young age.
When a child goes to college, and is faced with the Real World of Truth and the wonderful things that exist beyond the faith, it's no wonder they begin to see the religion for what is truly is. The dogma of control disguised as hope.

This article and the book are a fundamental, although unintended admission about the reality of the faith. Beyond a certain point, many young people no longer believe, not because they haven't been indoctrinated enough, or indoctrinated incorrectly -- on the contrary, they're quite thorough with it -- but because in this world, young people want to see as much evidence as possible. They are sick of paying lip service to a dogma and ideology that doesn't value them as individuals, but as 'followers'. And this falling away threatens and frightens people like my friend and Ms. Pearcey, not because they are worried, ultimately, about the spiritual well being of young people, but because they are afraid they will be exposed for what is really happening. Young people are becoming too savvy to believe the nonsense drilled into them any longer.
And that means, that if this next generation is no longer falling for the ruse, the previous generation risk exposure for what they really are: participants in the greatest scam ever played on humanity.

The church is failing, but not in its providence of correct teaching, but because it fails to see itself as outdated, and based on bad logic. No amount of internal criticism ( or external, for that matter) will solve this epidemic. But it will not be until young people are free to express their own reasons, that the veil will fall completely away.

Whether we see that happen in our lifetime, without the necessary rise in fever pitch of the zealous faithful, I cannot say. I only hope that young people will, in the end' not fear to call BS when they see it.

Ascension of Man

Ascension, the feast that celebrates when Jesus rose to heaven, after his resurrection, in full view of his followers is one of the more epic accounts of his life, or in this case, afterlife.
Whether or not you believe this actually happened, it is a fine analogy to something far more mundane and natural within ourselves.
While we live, we often change and grow, experiencing a sort of metamorphosis.
Like the man, we are born and raised and we grow and we are taught to believe things.
Like the man, we are challenged by the world about our beliefs. Like the man, we have to face real persecution.
And like the man, we may come to the point of spiritual death: that point where the reality and truth around us prevails over the superstitious and naive beliefs we've held.
This is very tortuous; very difficult.
Some cannot bear this loss and forever seek in the dust the ghost of their blind belief.
But some rise again.
Like the man, they have the scars of their death. But unlike the man they no longer persist in insisting that what they've formerly believed has any hold on them.
Like a butterfly freshly free of their chrysalis, they are new, slightly vulnerable and wobbly.
But soon enough the sun of truth warms them and the old ways fall away and where once there was fear and helplessness and dogma and doctrine, there is now only joy, awe and freedom.
The ascension of man comes when we realize it is worthy to let the old versions of ourselves, which clinged to the thralldom of mythology as fact, die away and we can become new in freedom from bad dogma.
Ascension of Man means we let the poisonous beliefs we held fall away, and find hope in the real, every day truths we can depend on.

Not at liberty

Someone somewhere is afraid. That fear leads them to believe that because some things are changing in America, that what they have been comfortable with is under attack.
Someone else has taken hold of that fear and tried to magnify it one hundred fold. Because where one person is scared that their ideology is under attack, there are others who feel the same. And even if they don't, they will, because it's nice to feel righteous indignation in the face of being wrong.

If I believe the the Yankees are the best ball team hands down, and someone shows me that Kansas City is 7-0 compared to the Yankees 3-5, I might get a little shaken up. I have to face the fact that I'm wrong. That's scary.

Now, I have the freedom to continue believing that the Yanks are the best team, even in face of evidence to the contrary, but this cognitive dissonance in no way exemplifies a love of truth.
It just shows denial, and fear. And those two things love the idea of being persecuted by the 'others' who see the truth for what it is. Those Royals fans are ruining baseball for Yankees fans!

No one is persecuting Christian's right to believe what they want. Just because gay marriage is taking hold across the nation, and people are becoming more aware of the outdated patriarchal ways that Christianity lends itself to -- in fact depends on -- and are tired of it, doesn't mean that Christians can no longer live the same way they always have.

What it means, however is that things are changing and Christians cannot deal with it.

That fills them with fear. They want to deny the reality. As above, fear and denial love the idea that because things are changing it means that Christians are under attack.

So, while a Christian can choose to believe that homosexuality is a sin, and that the patriarchal ways of some denominations are good and sound, even in the face of huge change, it doesn't mean that their way of life is under attack. It just means that the realization of having been duped is much harder to deal with than continuing to do things the same old way.

In this country we have the freedom to do many things, but we are not at liberty to persecute members of any faith, legally.

We are not at liberty to call you out on those issues where you are hanging on to bad dogma.

But we are at liberty to grow, change and make this world safe and habitable by all walks of life. If your faith prevents you, fine. You are not at liberty to shriek "PERSECUTION" just because you don't like what you see.

A moment of life in death.

The deeps of winter, where I live, are not so deep. Sure, it gets cold, but not so much that you have to worry about permafrost. Even still, the winter is the time that I prune trees that I've planted on our property.
Two of the trees -- a Bradford Pear and a Cleveland Pear -- have grown exponentially over the last few years, and so I've had to work extra hard to keep them at a manageable size.
I kept the 'wands' I cut with the hopes of maybe making something from them, a basket or something.
One of them, a longer one, I cut a small point on and stuck it in the ground by a pile of wood near our fire circle.
A few weeks later, I was surprised to see that there were leaves blooming on tiny branches. I showed my wife who suggested that "life wants to keep living."
I agreed and planted the wand into the good deep wet earth in our yard.
I was speaking to a friend who knows plants, and he said that, if I want the wand to develop roots, I'd need to prune the new leaves. My hope was that if I ignored the leaves, the wand would still develop roots. Nature might find a way.
As I walked out this morning to look at the thing, I felt the same affection for it that I do the others I've planted. I would be hard for me to pluck the leaves. But rationality kicked in and I knew if I wanted it to live, it was a sacrifice I'd need to make. There wouldn't be any magic involved.

Life is often like this. We want something, and we know that to get it, we have to make sacrifices. Despite this, we often delude ourselves into thinking that something or someone unseen will intervene. My hope with the tree, that it would survive either way, was not a bad hope, but it was uninformed.
I know what I'd like, and I know what will be. The choice I have to make is whether I will allow my wants to cloud the reason. Or if I will trust to the  reality of the situation and make a rational decision.

We can hope and wait on an eternal unseen presence to intervene, or we can act on what we know.
It won't always be life or death. But, realizing that we have within ourselves the power to act, even in the face of what we know is inevitable may just be for us a moment of life in death.

Divine, or Not?

There are a great many people who claim the The Bible is the Word of God. They claim that the writers thereof were divinely inspired and that even those books which were written after the death of Christ must, by this claim, be included as God's unchanging Word.
They claim that this divine inspiration makes the Bible divine, as a whole text. But does it truly make all the writers divine as well? Who decided they were inspired, and how do we define divine inspiration?

According to Dictionary.com, divine inspiration is: an act or process that is purportedly inspired by a deity; 

inspiration endowed by God upon 

spiritually gifted persons

Now, that in itself is pretty easy to understand. A person has a spiritual sensitivity and so is able to more plainly evoke what he or she believes is the nature, will or desire of God. But can we spread this same sensitivity to all of the authors of the Bible? How do we measure the 'sensitivity' of authors we know so little about? We could claim that their writings are so in common that we can assume the power of inspiration runs throughout. But the commonality of the Gospels is not so easy for us to show.

From the historical perspective, even if we simply want to hold the light of historicity to the Gospels alone, we begin to see some tears in the fabric of divinity.
Mark, the youngest of the Gospels in terms of time passed between the death of Jesus around year 30 and it's origin tells the story of a Jesus who is not seen after the resurrection, has no mention of virgin birth and makes no claims of the divinity of Jesus. Written somewhere between 60 and 70, it also has the empty tomb tale.

Paul's writings begin somewhere around 50. Which means that long before the tale of Jesus was written down by the Gospel authors, Paul had converted and had begun his ministry and letters.
Eight of the books of Paul are undeniably his work. However thirteen books that are attributed to Paul or Timothy, are not verified works. They are called, by theologians, pseudepigraphic, or 'under a false name'. If we cannot verify these authors, how can we know that they were inspired? Also, Paul never claims that Jesus was born of a virgin. And unlike Mark, there is no empty tomb. He claims Jesus was raised from the dead and appeared to him on the road to Damascus.

Matthew, having origins closer to year 80, records virgin birth and being born in Bethlehem.

Between Luke and the Acts, we can see more of the Passion, those things we are used to seeing. The last supper, appearing multiple times in the Upper Room, the ascension and the murder of his followers. Luke and Acts have origins near year 85. John, happening in year 90 talks more about the incarnation of God-as-Man, the divinity of Jesus and so on.
In every single one of these cases, from Paul, through the lowly Mark and through, we see so many different versions of Jesus, that we can tell that his many biographers were not so sure of his story as they perhaps claimed.
If there are this many differences among men who were this close to these times, how can we say that there is a truth that runs through all of them which invites us to accept infallibility of the text.

Even if we ignore the translations of the original writings, various 'gnostic' texts ascribed to Mary Magdalene and Jesus himself, we have enough of a muddled history to make even the most sane historian mad.Leaving out Paul's letters, how can you adhere to the divinity argument, if even the Gospels do not agree? Perhaps one is more accurate, historically, than others, but even in the face of all that, we cannot tell for sure, which of the four was the most accurate.
If we cannot even apply empirical historical validity to these events, and the writers don't agree or match up, how do we logically make the claim of divinity of the texts?
The next question is: do dare apply divinity to those texts which were obviously written under an assumed name? Were they written under duress? Were they published under a different name to avoid persecution? How does that hold up against the idea that martyrdom is a good thing?
Perhaps, even if Paul's epistles were inspiring works, we might disagree that they were divinely inspired. He says very different things to the different 'churches'. Pastors and theologians will chalk this up to different cultures of his audiences.
But the real question is, outside of Jesus himself (we will tackle his divinity later) can anyone in or contributing to the unfolding story of Jesus' life and ministry be considered divine?
If we apply this same incredulity of divinity to The Bible as we do to the Quran or the Kalevala or the Bhagavad Gita, we may be surprised at how poorly it holds up to historical scrutiny, not to mention questions of divine inspiration.

Even more poignant, can we call the writings of theologians and other clerics who wrote about Jesus divine too? What if they disagree with Paul or the Gospels? Clearly historical integrity among the Gospels themselves is not considered important, or, at least is glossed over. At what point do we draw the line? Only those books that were accepted at the Council of Nicea?
But it is not enough to question this book's origins in history. We must ask, do the claims made in the book to anything to add or subtract to the morality within that believers also call divine and absolute?
At what point do we willingly suspend disbelief in order to believe that which doesn't hold up against very much literary and historical scrutiny?

Note: Special thanks to Matt Barsotti at his blog Jericho Brisance and the lovely infographic there which guided my navigation of the historical origins. I take no credit for the infographic, but you may find it helpful. Find it here

Death? No. Possible Redemption.

The final verdict has been submitted and the jury found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of all 30 counts of murder in the Boston Marathon bombing. The second part of his trial will now be about whether or not he is sentenced to death.
According to a New York Times brief, the defense will try to save him by building the argument that he fell under the power of his brother, Tamerlan.
This is one of those interesting situations where my knee-jerk reaction is somewhat different from a more thoughtful and slow approach to the question of whether we should kill Dzhokhar for the horrible crimes he committed.
My knee-jerk reaction was instantly 'No.' We should not kill him, because that is exactly what he wants. His mentality about death is that it is honorable to die for what he believes. He believes that killing people, Americans, would bring him glory in the afterlife. My knee-jerk reaction was to keep him alive so that the glory he so wished for would be kept from him. That should be torturous for him metaphysically.
But, after I thought more about it, I realized that I was wrong about this approach. I do not mean to say that I think that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be sentenced to death. I abhor the death penalty. I mean that it was wrong of me to think of this from the perspective of being kept from his own joy of his afterlife.
The idea that a man could do what he did, notwithstanding, Tsarnaev is a human being. Even though we would not deign to admit it, for good reasons, he has dignity. He is alive. He is capable of thought. He can be rehabilitated -- even reconciled -- from his way of thinking.
I agree that he needs to go to prison. I agree that his sort of mental sickness is awful. But I don't agree with is that he can never be a person who can look back and say that what he did was wrong.
Religion in this situation is at the root of this young man's evil act. He did this as an act of evangelism. He wanted to gain notoriety by being a terrorist and he wanted to die to gain glory in the afterlife. That is poisoned thinking, for sure.
How often do we not get poisoned into thinking something that, in a clearer light, we would reject out of hand?
Dzhokhar is a human with some really bad problems. In time, those problems may heal. In time he may be brought to see the error of his ways. In time, he may be able to help end the situation as it is in this world, where we are not fully free until we stop believing poisoned philosophies and dogmas.
I for one wish to see no more loss of life from this terrible tragedy. I do not foresee it doing much good to take his life from him, the way he took the lives and liberties of so many others.
He is a sick person, but that sickness comes from a lifetime of indoctrination. Perhaps if Dzhokhar had been raised in a place where he was free to find his own Truth, he would have been a productive member of society.
I believe that killing him is wrong, not so that he will experience the metaphysical torture of being kept from what he believes he will receive in the afterlife, but because there is hope that he will be able to find that the afterlife he believes in is nothing compared to the redemption that may be found if he gets the help he needs.
Incarcerate him. But do not kill him.

The Discussion

A good friend of mine is a theologian. He's smart. Sharp as a razor, and very evangelical.
Recently I posted a comment about my heroes and I included Christopher Hitchens. Hitch remains one of the few voices of reason from the atheist side of the chamber. For me, it was one of many acquired tastes to get to know Hitch. I disagreed with literally everything he said.
He was offensive, boorish and English.
Not that there's anything wrong with being English, but there is an ingrown sense of fear of their use of the language.
I included on the list, Orwell, Hitch, Jesus.
My friend commented and said he did not think Hitch should be on the list.
My friend is too smart not to observe that I have deconverted. But it provided an opportunity to show the place of Judas in the Passion.
We are taught that he was bad. The worst. Yet, even with that, had not Judas sold Jesus to the Sanhedrin, would we have had a Passion?
I agree with nearly everything Hitch says, now. He's gone, but not forgotten.
Wherever he's gone, if anywhere, he helped one person divest all the bad philosophy and contradiction and hypocrisy in Christianity. Things I've found I cannot tolerate any longer.
If that means I'm a sinner, so be it. But if that means I am now free to move ahead in my search for Truth, well, Amen.
Here's to Hitch, to those who challenge the Establishment and to those who are learning to fear no longer.

A note on Coming Back

Resurrection is a funny thing. Short of being something that can only happen within a very short time of heart stoppage, we tend to think of resurrection as being strictly metaphorical.
Yesterday, billions of people all over the world celebrated the resurrection of Jesus, a mythology which puts it's weight completely on the coming back.
There are lots of mythologies out there that have magical or miraculous parts.
But this one is designed to get us to not worry about right now, and instead place our hopes on the after life, where we shall, one day, be resurrected like Jesus.
I have no taste for the torture and death of who I still believe was a great man with a hugely important message.
I have even less taste for celebrating an internal mindset that values something after death as more important than the right now.
Experts in theology often have to skirt the issue of the miraculous. They have to trump it up as the power of God or claim that we just don't know, but we'd better believe anyway, just to be sure.
In both cases, there is just one problem: it accomplishes nothing.
It's fine to celebrate the man, a thing we should do every day. But to give ourselves over to believing in nonsense which poisons our ability to live and be awake in the here-and-now, is really a frightening prospect.
Follow the teachings of the man, but eschew the fantastical things in the stories.
Focus more on how to emulate his story to fit today. Focus less on the afterlife.
Today is the day. That's the real miracle.

Fear of Death

We all have a tendency to fear the end of our own lives. Things may be rough, while we're alive, but since we don't know about what happens after we die, if anything, we're terrified by it.

This fear, no matter how irrational is something that all living creatures feel. I believe that it is, and I mean no pun here, a survival instinct. Since our desire to survive is the most powerful drive we have, it seems reasonable that we've built up death to be something that we fear and detest and dread.

This is where religion steps in.

Religions all across the spectrum deal with death in very specific ways, but most have a way to avoid death, make it less frightening or fulfill some way to lessen death.

Think of these three random examples:
Asatruism, the religion based on the Norse Mythologies, claims that if a man lives a brave and bold life, and dies in battle for something he believes in, he will be brought to Valhalla by angels called Valkyries, where he will be considered Einherjar. He will live and fight and be born again every day in Odin's battle hall for eternity.
In Christianity, a religion based mostly on Biblical scriptures, a person either goes to eternal torment in the afterlife or to Heaven to sing the praises of their Holy God, Yahweh. The deciding factor between these two is whether a person accepts Jesus Christ, the human version of Yahweh, sent as a human sacrifice to pay for the sins of mankind. If you believe in Jesus, and live by his laws, you can go to Heaven.
Buddhism, like it's earlier root of Hinduism says that if we can throw off all attachment and desire in our lives, we will be born again into another life, that is easier and this reincarnation will continue to happen until we become one with everything, called Nirvana.

In each of these three examples, there are ways that the living can have some control over their own deaths and their afterlives. And that may just be the point. It offers us a reason not to fear and goes one step farther by providing a means to change the way we live in our current lives.

While all of these religions I've mentioned are not bad, in their own right, the focus they put on death and what happens in the afterlife have profound affects on  their specific individualities in life. So, while a Viking who believes in Valhalla may have little fear of death, because of what he believes will happen in life, he very well may throw his life away in some vain attempt to die in battle. Asatru, in it's classic formal belief system, valued this kind of rash behavior.
In Buddhism, those who follow this religion or philosophy look forward to being one with everything.
And finally, in Christianity, once we add the rule that we must convert others to the same belief system, we are focused on not going to Hell and going to Heaven instead.

What each of these fail to do, however is help us have a healthy understanding that death is natural, normal and actually, in some cases, not a bad thing at all. But we have to look at things differently. We cannot be rash and throw away our lives erratically, but we also must understand that it is going to happen.

To me, that means we need to be smart about how we live every day, to both lengthen our lives and to get as much out of it as possible. To be coerced 'at the gunpoint of Hell' to live a certain way, is one of the best cons ever played on humanity. Since we are not focused on doing good or being moral for the sake of being good and moral and instead out of fear, we actually become even more selfish and shallow.

But a rational and healthy understanding of death, and the fact that we really don't have any knowledge of what's after death regardless of the claims of religions, helps us to be more willing and able to live a full, moral life without irrational or undue fears of the afterlife.

The freedom that this provides in daily living can mean the difference between a negative and unhealthy personal philosophy and a positive and compassionate one.