Sometimes as part of a thought experiment, I will consider what a theoretical path back into theism would be like for me. This can be fun, since I know a lot more about religion and Christianity than I used to and can incorporate various new tidbits into my theoretical religion (Jesus: probe sent by emotionless cosmic space computer to help it understand humankind?). However, I tend to immediately run into a problem when I try to think of how to create a workable conception of God: There is absolutely no way to understand what any god is like without some kind of tangible evidence. Could I build a philosophical construction of a god that I think sounds plausible? Well, sure. I'm a writer. I invent plausible characters, including deities, all the time. But how would I jump the gap from theorizing to believing it as a truth? I can't believe in something when I don't even know what its characteristics are.
Are there many gods or just one? Can the gods be male, female, genderless? Are the gods part of the universe or outside it entirely, or are they what created the universe? Do they notice humans? Meddle in our affairs? Judge us? Talk to us? Love us? Prank us? Various religions will say different things and often present assorted "proofs" of their claims (none of which stand up to factual scrutiny, as far as I know). How can I know any of the answers to these questions in the absence of some kind of proof that doesn't disappear in a puff of "you must have faith" or "it was divinely revealed to XYZ" once examined? Claiming any knowledge of a god without proof is intellectual treason but religious people seem perfectly happy to do this and still insist that their version of god is 100% obvious and correct. It's bizarre.
I get extremely uneasy when I hear people saying they have a personal relationship with a god, or that the god talks to them. For such people I would ask them this: How often does your god tell you something you could not have known by yourself? Sure, once in awhile, thoughts that happen to be predictive cross our mind ("I wonder if my friend Jessica is feeling okay. I'll give her a call." And it turns out Jessica had been having a bad day). But if your god is really another person outside yourself, you should be hearing independently-confirmable new truths constantly, just as we do from other human beings who talk to us ("The identity of the smoke monster is revealed on tonight's episode of LOST." "The city is changing trash pickup day to Thursday." "Did you know Bob got a raise?"). Instead the sorts of things gods usually tell people are commands ("Invade Iraq." "Become a missionary in Ghana."), judgments ("You worthless sinner!"), or soothing platitudes ("You are forgiven." "Do not be afraid, my child"). Interestingly, these are all things people are perfectly capable of thinking up in their own heads. Why doesn't any god give us new information as a matter of course? They only tell us what we already know.
No one knows anything about god(s). That's why religions vary by culture. That's why religious groups splinter and splinter instead of converging on truth. That's why it's so damn frustrating trying to get theology to work. And that's why the gods people talk to are indistinguishable from invented characters, or, to use a worn-out comparison, imaginary friends. Someone, somewhere made up every god that there is. Simple as that.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Christianity Ruins Love
When I was a kid, I would occasionally find myself in a position to do some good deed or another, usually Pro-Life but sometimes not. I didn't really like doing these things. Sometimes it was just annoying physically: I didn't like standing in the summer sun with a picket sign for hours or walking around in sub-zero temperatures for a candlelight Roe v. Wade vigil, or shoveling up bird-poop-filled sawdust at a bird-conservation center where my family volunteered. But it went beyond that. I always left these things with a bad taste in my mouth, like something was off about what I was doing or why I was doing it. Good works were supposed to feel good, right? At least on some level?
I suspect the reason it did not feel good was because the Christian faith I followed robbed good works of their intrinsic joy. Kindness and helpfulness became a minefield of mind games.
The rules surrounding good works are considerable. You have to do good deeds to please Jesus. These good deeds have to be sincerely done out of love for God, because self-righteous displays of piety are like dirty rags. If you don't do good deeds, you're at risk of being told "Depart from me, I never knew you." You have to show the love of God to others so that they'll become Christians. But it has to be true love, because non-Christians can detect fake love that just exists to try to convert them (more on that later). You had to be very careful about not letting anyone know you were doing a good deed, too, since showing off your good deeds was a sin. That gave charity the kind of forbidden, icky air that permeated sex and romance in our worldview. And of course, it was never enough. You couldn't be proud of yourself for using an afternoon to tidy up a park. Anything short of martyrdom meant you were not doing enough. I longed to be a martyr and prove to God once and for all that I would make sacrifices for him, and also I would get to be dead.
So of course all this would go through my head whenever a volunteer opportunity or Feed the Children ad or a collection plate crossed my path. It grossed me out. It still does and I get a knot in my stomach when I think about doing volunteer works or giving money to charity. It's a quagmire of inadequacy and guilt when I didn't even do anything wrong.
An exception comes to mind: One time at church, an old man was struggling to open the heavy door to leave the building. I noticed his distress and rushed to help him (even though I was a scrawny 8-year-old and was probably not much stronger than he was). With real gratitude in his voice, he thanked me for my help as he toddled outside. I was beaming, giddy even. It was a very pure feeling and I liked it. I wasn't sure why doing that good deed felt great while doing others made me feel icky. I suppose now that it's because it happened too quickly to morally angst over, it was immediate and personal, and I independently chose to do it (rather than being guilted into helping). Still, this kind of feeling was the exception.
I'm going to be bold enough to suggest that this wasn't just some problem with my poor confused brain. This is a problem with Christianity. Christianity makes love suck.
Christianity makes love an order. Jesus is the carrot and the stick: You must be kind enough to please Jesus, so that he will deem you worthy (eternal bliss may follow). If you do not love enough, you will not please Jesus and you will be cast into hell (or whatever the Emergents have thought up to replace hell... for some, just the idea of making Jesus sad is sufficient punishment). Many long for a pure love, a true Jesusy love.
But Jesus is why it's not pure. Coerced love is not love. An elephant does not need to be told by God to pull its baby from a mud hole. A chimpanzee does not need the Bible to tell it to put its arm around a suffering friend (they actually do this). Neanderthals did not need Jesus's example to tend to their sick and elderly. Neither do homo sapiens. What does Christianity add except an abstract reward and punishment scheme? How is it anything but a corruption of intrinsic compassion?
What if the best way to get to a pure, unfettered love is to get rid of Jesus and the whole tumor of dogma that surrounds his mythologized figure?
Looking at it this way, I have bad feelings about Christian claims of love. I was a Christian, I know they're ordered to love people no matter what, or at least fake it til they make it, and it's gross to me. Not that I think they're necessarily insincere (though I am wary of love bombing since that is the most popular Christian way to deal with non-believers and LGBT people and other undesirables other than, perhaps, getting angry at them). There are layers to these things, and buried under divine mandate to Love or Else, there is usually real affection that would exist even without the religious shackles, whether or not the Christian in question realizes it. Most would say with a straight face that all their love comes from God but I try to give them enough credit to see past that. We're humans, after all. Humans can be pretty good at love all on their own.
I suspect the reason it did not feel good was because the Christian faith I followed robbed good works of their intrinsic joy. Kindness and helpfulness became a minefield of mind games.
The rules surrounding good works are considerable. You have to do good deeds to please Jesus. These good deeds have to be sincerely done out of love for God, because self-righteous displays of piety are like dirty rags. If you don't do good deeds, you're at risk of being told "Depart from me, I never knew you." You have to show the love of God to others so that they'll become Christians. But it has to be true love, because non-Christians can detect fake love that just exists to try to convert them (more on that later). You had to be very careful about not letting anyone know you were doing a good deed, too, since showing off your good deeds was a sin. That gave charity the kind of forbidden, icky air that permeated sex and romance in our worldview. And of course, it was never enough. You couldn't be proud of yourself for using an afternoon to tidy up a park. Anything short of martyrdom meant you were not doing enough. I longed to be a martyr and prove to God once and for all that I would make sacrifices for him, and also I would get to be dead.
So of course all this would go through my head whenever a volunteer opportunity or Feed the Children ad or a collection plate crossed my path. It grossed me out. It still does and I get a knot in my stomach when I think about doing volunteer works or giving money to charity. It's a quagmire of inadequacy and guilt when I didn't even do anything wrong.
An exception comes to mind: One time at church, an old man was struggling to open the heavy door to leave the building. I noticed his distress and rushed to help him (even though I was a scrawny 8-year-old and was probably not much stronger than he was). With real gratitude in his voice, he thanked me for my help as he toddled outside. I was beaming, giddy even. It was a very pure feeling and I liked it. I wasn't sure why doing that good deed felt great while doing others made me feel icky. I suppose now that it's because it happened too quickly to morally angst over, it was immediate and personal, and I independently chose to do it (rather than being guilted into helping). Still, this kind of feeling was the exception.
I'm going to be bold enough to suggest that this wasn't just some problem with my poor confused brain. This is a problem with Christianity. Christianity makes love suck.
Christianity makes love an order. Jesus is the carrot and the stick: You must be kind enough to please Jesus, so that he will deem you worthy (eternal bliss may follow). If you do not love enough, you will not please Jesus and you will be cast into hell (or whatever the Emergents have thought up to replace hell... for some, just the idea of making Jesus sad is sufficient punishment). Many long for a pure love, a true Jesusy love.
But Jesus is why it's not pure. Coerced love is not love. An elephant does not need to be told by God to pull its baby from a mud hole. A chimpanzee does not need the Bible to tell it to put its arm around a suffering friend (they actually do this). Neanderthals did not need Jesus's example to tend to their sick and elderly. Neither do homo sapiens. What does Christianity add except an abstract reward and punishment scheme? How is it anything but a corruption of intrinsic compassion?
What if the best way to get to a pure, unfettered love is to get rid of Jesus and the whole tumor of dogma that surrounds his mythologized figure?
Looking at it this way, I have bad feelings about Christian claims of love. I was a Christian, I know they're ordered to love people no matter what, or at least fake it til they make it, and it's gross to me. Not that I think they're necessarily insincere (though I am wary of love bombing since that is the most popular Christian way to deal with non-believers and LGBT people and other undesirables other than, perhaps, getting angry at them). There are layers to these things, and buried under divine mandate to Love or Else, there is usually real affection that would exist even without the religious shackles, whether or not the Christian in question realizes it. Most would say with a straight face that all their love comes from God but I try to give them enough credit to see past that. We're humans, after all. Humans can be pretty good at love all on their own.
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