Sunday, May 31, 2009

Kansas Abortion Doctor Slain; Suspect In Custody : NPR

Kansas Abortion Doctor Slain; Suspect In Custody : NPR.

Firstly condolences to family, friends & fellow church members. It is a real tragedy.

We do not yet know who killed this man or why, but anti-abortion extermists have been blamed. This tragedy can foment more anger and animosity between the factions on either side of the abortion debate.

Tragedy is often a spring board for other agendas (for even this discussion). I wonder if it's worth speculating about all this without knowing the motive behind Tiller's killing? Perhaps we should lay off the wild theories until the crime is solved?

What do you think?

Atheists: No God, just whining | Charlotte Allen | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Atheists: No God, just whining | Charlotte Allen | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Here is a polemic rant - the very parallel of many atheist rants which I have either read or been subject to. It's not my style as a theist though I understand the position. What do you think?

Undercover At An Evangelical University : NPR

Undercover At An Evangelical University : NPR.

An interesting experiment with somewhat suprising results.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Oh God, You Devil - Dealing With Evil


‘There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.’
C.S. Lewis
The Devil Made Me Do It
What indeed is the right balance when it comes to Satan? Growing up, I gave him/it/her way to much attention, control and credit in my life. That did a couple things:
1. It made me think angels and demons - but mostly demons - were involved in everything from stubbed toes to lost homework, and that made me essentially ruddy paranoid. 
2. It made me more concerned about what Satan was up to than what God was up to.
I think my life, before really getting serious about God, was an unhealthy mix of religious hypocrisy and charismatic weirdness. Everything was attributed to the devil and demons. Laziness, lust, tiredness, anger, bad grades, general stupidity, taxes, natural disasters and the list goes on. The problem with that approach is very little was attributed to me! James does say 'but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.' Ya, 'his own evil desire' or stupidity, lust etc. I'll never forget the depiction of a person struggling with the 'demon of pride' in a very popular Christian fiction book (which I would still recommend), but the idea that something external to you is the source of your own arrogance or selfishness is a little far out. It overlooks the deeper more challenging issues of character we all face.

I don't know if you can relate, but that mindset convinced me that the only thing worse than a complete absence of some kind of faith is just enough to make you fearful and/or hypocritical. I have always found it odd how much people fear the occult and such like, even while claiming they don't believe in God. Yea, exactly! How come they don't believe in God, but fear Harry Potter (which I love - Wingardium Leviosa!) and Gandalf the Grey (White after the Balrog dust up)?

Fear No Evil
I've met people who completely balk at the idea of God and religion but quake at the mention of witchcraft and Obeah (Jamaican black magic). How come? Even in movies (except ones like Constantine and The Prophecy series - but even then) demons and the devil are real threats but the only way to combat them is with a mystical sword or a kick-butting magical boot or something like that. God? No, he's no good as a defence against the Dark Arts. Then in the movies it's always Catholic priests (did The Exorcist and the Omen series get that going?) coming to the rescue and inevitably getting their butts whooped in the name of the Lord. There was this one movie (the name escapes me) where the weapon used to send the incarnate devil back to hell was on over-sized toy rocket. An over-sized toy rocket!? C'mon! Satan's supposed to be the Prince of Darkness not a wayward teenager (though the two greatly resemble each other in intent and ability to create pain and misfortune).

I think there are those people, religious and otherwise, that give evil far more credit than they give good. Now in one sense, I don't blame them, evil gets way more headlines and media coverage than good does - and then there's all the wars, and eight long years of 'W'. But maybe evil gets so much support because we give it so much support - both religious and non-religious folk.

For sure evil is real. But certainly we are our greatest enemies. My good confession as a Christian was 'Jesus is Lord' not 'Satan is the devil'. So I subscribe to James and pay attention to how I may be tempted by my own 'evil desire' rather than running around afraid of demonic attack. Now, I'm not saying that we can't or are not hounded by minions of hell (though I don't recommend sitting around waiting for the doorbell to ring). But maybe we should think about how we are hounded a little differently.

Personal Demons
Granted, books like Job will get you wondering if God is gonna roll the dice over your faithfulness (a part of me kinda hopes God will be like 'ahh - no not this one he's too weak to test right now') but I do think that these divine transactions probably occur a little differently in heavenly realms. We see an earthly explanation for a spiritual event - difficult to translate I think. Indeed, the spiritual world would be an alien place to us all from this side of heaven.

Still, I have my doubts. Take demon possession. Far less of an occurrence than the reports suggest methinks (I have no idea how much it is reported - go figure) but it's really a popular past time in Jamaica and religious circles generally. Every now and then at some all-girls institution, some one will get possessed and make a whole party of it. Most of the time I just think it's plain old mental illness. Why? Cause when religious people are mentally ill - they are possessed. When non-religious people are mentally ill – they’re just crazy! I'm just saying before you start beating people with a hardbound copy of your favourite NIV red letter Bible, give the doc a call. I just find it a bit suspect that most of the people who seem to get possessed are Christians and Churchgoers. Shouldn't the main victims be non-Church goers and those who are vulnerable to satan’s attacks?

Natural disasters are another thing - but God get's the blame for those mostly. The 2004 Tsunami was a very tough one wasn't it? I surfed a public commentary site and persons of all faiths and creeds offered their condolences and prayers or sombre best wishes. Then the Christians came along and pronounced the reason for the death and pain was 'God's judgment' and anger at the people for their sin! Now, how in the world do they know that? I mean everybody is going to die some day - by tsunami or heart failure, but we are gonna go. Jesus said, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were guiltier than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."


For goodness sake
Now again, the reality of evil in the world is undeniable - it's way too apparent to ignore. While I think satan can attack us to discourage us, rob of faith, hope and maybe even life, through whatever nefarious means - evil can only be manifested by one outlet in this world: mankind, and good can only be expressed through the same.

Paul attests that 'God works for the good for those who love him' - I believe that to be true. Indeed, I think that 'good works for the good of those who love to do good' is another way to put it.

C. Arthur Young

Thursday, May 28, 2009

But Seriously: Neo-Atheists - The Fundamentals

Dogma Isn’t Just For The Religious
In the past 2 years or so, I’ve met more atheists and agnostics than in the over 16 years since I came into my own understanding of faith, God and spirituality. There seems to be either a proliferation of atheism or at least a pronounced vocalization thereof. I’ve met those who were once well known and committed believers disillusioned by hypocrisy, irrationality and guilt or those who never got bitten by the faith bug at all.

Most of my contact with the sceptics came through the Amazon Religion & Spirituality forum. I started participating in the forum some time early in 2007 because I felt it necessary to put my faith to the test. Could I open it to criticism and examination and still leave with it intact? I noticed that threads were started and dominated primarily by vociferous, dogmatic and sometimes insulting and very angry atheists. They preached the evils of religion with all the fervour of a Puritan and proselytized their doctrine of logic, evolution and science with the meticulousness of a Pharisee.

I was amazed at the striking similarity they bore to myself in my zealous and often misguided days of spiritual youth. Many referred to Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens – the Apostles of Neo-Atheism – in their rants. They railed against ‘godbots’ and ‘fundies’ and scoffed at ‘scripture slinging’. They had a language of their own and created a society within the forum that had its own mandate and purpose: to ridicule religious adherents, to confound their arguments and hopefully disprove and remove their faith. It was a particular delight for some to see believers leave in a huff with scriptures in their wake, fire & brimstone on their breath and frustration tainting their ‘peace in Jesus’ (most religious participants were of some variant of Christianity including myself).

But Atheists Make a Good Point
In truth, I learned quite a lot from these neo-atheists, if not a lot, then a few very significant things. They were right about many issues including the reluctance of some religious folk to question the rationality of their beliefs, the over-emphasis on guilt as motivation, the contribution of religion to war, prejudice and oppression throughout history and that many adherents know very little about their own faith and therefore argue very unconvincingly in their efforts to win others over – especially those who have no fundamental belief in the Bible and therefore cannot accept it as a platform for argument.

These things caused me to examine and question the evolution and progress of my faith. Indeed I was forced to ‘practicalize’ Biblical tenets– to express them in non-biblical terms, in real terms. I was forced to look at the questions to which I either had no answer or never really thought about before. The logic and science behind Noah’s ark and the flood; death, violence and war in contrast to Grace, forgiveness and peace; the role of the devil in mankind’s moral quest and idea of morality outside of religion. It was an adventure that was both frightening and exhilarating. I teetered on the edge of my faith attempting to navigate a landscape that included scientists, witches, homosexuals, Jews and others – and many of them (if indeed they were what they claimed) were perfectly decent folk.

My assumptions and prejudices surfaced like never before. It was easy to condemn acts and lifestyles from the pulpit in a context where most agreed. But to do so in such a liberal environment, and to those who (in some cases) were so respectful of my own faith and position was brand new.  It made me consider the humanity that is often absent in mouth-frothing condemnation of others that has so defined much of religion. It made consider my view of Jesus himself and how he interacted with ‘sinners’.

Pearls & Swine – But Who’s What?
However, despite forging great rapports with some of the most vehement of non-believers the dehumanizing rhetoric, anger, ridicule and hostility continued – indeed flourished. Many threads, despite attempts to engage in reasonable discussion would devolve into a closed commiseration of atheists comparing notes on the virtues of their stance and the inferiority of both religion and the religious. It was the latter point that I found to be most disturbing. All viewpoints are open to deconstruction but to attack an individual’s personhood and freedom to believe as they will is very the thing of which religion has been guilty. The very thing these neo-atheists condemned. But a common response when challenged on this was justification. Many felt they had a right to launch these attacks because of abuse they experienced at the hands of religion and its proposers, because of the relative silence and ostracism of atheists over the years, according to some forum participants.

Still, I found it odd that for persons who had no faith in God, they felt an amazing amount of emotion about the things God did or was supposed to do, according to my or others faith. Some were very angry with the subject they claimed never existed. ‘Why would he let so much pain and misfortune afflict the world?’, ‘why create hell?’, ‘if he is all-powerful why doesn’t he just fix this place?’, they would often ask – truly, we all ask these questions from time to time. But I counter that if one does not believe in God then there is only one other responsible for the state of the world, and therefore only one who has the remedy: mankind. But they rarely argued that point. Some would simply condemn religion for emphasizing how sinful mankind is – but they were doing the same thing by pointing out the reality of human suffering often at the hands of humanity itself.

I was unquestionably disturbed by the approach of some of the neo-atheists and oft argued that their attitude betrayed something about human nature itself. Religion had committed no crime – men had, with religion as their weapon and, I concluded that there seemed to be a movement on the rise that was about to engage in the same crime but with a different weapon. I posit that atheists actually have the opportunity to exercise morality and reasoned argument in exemplary ways because of their non-religious stance. They are not burdened by the baggage religion can bring; the guilt, tradition, formality, heady zeal and practical restrictions. They have no motivation for goodness except goodness itself – no heaven or hell to compel or terrify them, just life, history, morality and science. But I fear many have simply thrown atheism’s hat into the ring of superiority, judgment and self-righteousness that often defines the debate around faith instead of standing outside that ring where they actually belong.

True Respect For All
In the end, my experience taught me that wherever we go we take our character with us. Our personal beliefs, ethos and attitude will ring true regardless of what we may say we believe, or not believe.  The forum, the last time I visited is still dominated by atheists, perhaps all the more, but I still believe in God and I still do my best to follow the teachings of Jesus albeit with a new sense of understanding, curiosity and openness to others. I am left convinced that whether we believe in God or not – whether he is real or not…we sure need him, and now more than ever.

C. Arthur Young

But Seriously: If There is a God - Why so Much Suffering?

'If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?'.

So controversial is this question that some voluntarily give up faith in God because of the unbearable reality of human suffering and death. It is a sort of 'revenge through unbelief' because God hasn't conformed to a particular perspective.

But there are a few assumptions one makes when taking a stance of 'unbelief' due to suffering:

1. Assumption of Omnipotence & Omniscience. Can we determine what is the best case scenario without absolute knowledge & power? The only way we can assume to know the best way to 'run the universe' is if we have the knowledge & ability to do so. One would have to go about managing the interaction between billions of personal choices, actions & attitudes and the impact of collective choice, not to mention the movements of nature itself and ensure the best possible outcome in the face of contradictory desires, agendas and purposes. Any volunteers (let's hope no bankers put their hands up)? Because one has the power to do something doesn't mean it's a good idea, pain-deprivation is not even recommended as a good parenting technique ('spare the rod and spoil the child'). Perhaps the Divine intervenes constantly and in ways that we do not even perceive. Perhaps we are living in the best case scenario and if you were God you would be doing exactly what God is doing, whatever that might be. But our distinct and glaring lack of omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence leaves us sorely underqualified for the job.

2. Assumption of Suffering. Is all suffering pointless & evil? I think we know the answer is 'No'. People who overcome great adversity or live with seemingly insurmountable challenges are some of our greatest inspirations: The handicapped child filled with joy & laughter, the abused wife and mother who finds love & strength, the martyr who liberates a nation, the bleeding man who dies on a cross. Indeed, suffering often inspires a virtue that without it would be absent in some of us: compassion. It gives some a purpose in life - to help others. Pain can put our lives into perspective, allowing us to see what is really important. If the Bible suggests somewhere that life is painless I could understand the abandonment of faith - but it does the exact opposite and repeatedly acknowledges, not just the reality of suffering in this world, but its cause and value.

3. Assumption of Responsibility. Can we believe it is God's job to ensure 'painlessness' yet expect to have free-will? We can't have both. Much of humankind's pain is self-inflicted and product of free-will. The 'if I were God' argument is played-out every day in our choices when we try to be God rather than be like God. Hence we see bloodshed, rape, poverty, greed etc. Much pain is the result of 'playing God' and doing so very badly. Perhaps our responsibility is to contribute to the reduction of suffering in our sphere of life through honesty, generousity, forgiveness, fidelity, humility etc. We can't abdicate our responsibility to pain we have caused or to alleviating suffering because God is 'in charge', If anything, faith in God should spur us to action rather than blame shifting. Consequently, one is behoved to acknowledge religion's contribution to suffering and perhaps to correct former errors 'in the name of God' as far as possible. As it is, when mankind has been in 'the position of God' he has often made very ungodly choices, hence, '...absolute power corrupts absolutely' rings true more often than not.

4.The Assumption of Death. Death certainly is the source of some of our greatest suffering in this world - as common and universal as it is, we all do it, but that doesn't make it easy. The loss of loved ones and the inevitability of our own death are weighty even to contemplate, not to mention experience. There is a part of us that thinks we should not die - or at least that we should do so only according to our 'rules'. Ideally, one's death should be meaningful and heroic or a quiet passing full of years, surrounded by loved ones with a fulfilling life of success behind us. This of course is not reflected in reality for a great many of us. Death is a certainty - the variable is when and how - we are left to consider how we live, while we live. Jesus faced our greatest of fears most admirably - it suggests that not even God considered himself above suffering and death. Somewhere in there is the secret to dealing with that Dark Veil.

5. Assumption of Alternatives. As much as we consider all the 'what ifs' they don't matter in the face of the great 'What Is'. Unbelief in God doesn't alleviate suffering or remove our responsibility for the way the world is. Indeed, if one claims there is no God then there really is no one else responsible for the suffering in the world but mankind himself (and impartial nature). The Bible suggests that God allows some suffering - even causes it, so we are technically allowed to question the reason behind said 'allowances', hence point 2. In the end we are left with no alternative but to actually do something about our human condition. Life as we know it is not just the best case scenario - it is the only scenario. But we have a say in how this scenario develops.

Rather than ask 'what's God's purpose in all this - just to watch us stumble over our awkward imperfection?', perhaps it is a partnership between us and the Divine. An exchange and interaction between acquiescence & self-determination, surrender & proaction, faith & reason. A balancing act of allowing God to be God and man to be man, while not ignoring the reality of cause and effect or the power of faith and hope to influence our inner and outer reality.

For a working example of victory through tragedy check here.

Women, Woe, Men & God

It was when I became a Christian back in '92 that I heard about this 'women must be submissive to men' business. It threw me into an uncomfortably confusing world that perhaps, 17 years later and some 7 years into marriage, has only just begun to make sense - only just...I think.

Now Paul mentions in 1 Timothy 2 that ' 11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.' Calm down. I didn't write this - call Paul up and shout at him (there's context - but that's another note).

Then there are the passages on wives respecting husbands and husbands being the 'head of the house' etc. Now I heard these scriptures - but the confusing thing was what I saw. I have yet to meet an actual 'submissive' woman (I hear they exist but I don't believe it) - and back in my single days the wives always seemed to be in charge and to have the last word - the husband, as head of house, deemed his wife correct! I silently vowed to myself that I would not be such a husband. However, what made me even more disturbed and annoyed was that I always found the least submissive of women to be the most attractive - so I married one.

Now my wife was not in on my 'silent vow' so she hasn't paid any attention to it whatsoever - and since it completely slipped my mind to tell her my plan - well, I'm just going with the flow. But I was decidedly befuddled as a young man and young Christian as to what this submission was all about. Should I expect the women to wash my car on demand? Should they fawn at my feet and say that I am right even when I am obviously wrong? If I was about to walk into the street and into the path of an oncoming Tata bus; should they remain 'in quietness and full submission'? After all, as a man I clearly must know exactly what I am doing...right?

Well, since then I've come to a few conclusions - none of these conclusions apply to my wife, unless of course they are happy ones, and any resemblance to her is purely coincidental. At any rate I am being forced to write all this by some dude with a high-powered weapon that is dictating everything to me.

Ahem:

1. It WAS Eve's fault. Yes it was and I make no apologies. It has come to my attention that women think they are smarter than men at all times. It has also come to my attention that women are in fact smarter than men at all times. Eve should have known better - Adam was a complete idiot. This was confirmed when watching a UK TV show about pre-teen children sent to live on their own for two weeks. In innocence, a couple of them liked each other and started 'dating' (they are no more than 10 y/o). The undue attention caused the girl to do the most sensible thing and conspire with the boy to pretend they had broken up publicly and proceed to date 'secretly'. It was all her idea. A boy would never have even begun to think this - we are not smart enough. Later we discovered that she already had a boyfriend. Sigh. IT WAS EVE'S FAULT.

2. Men will do anything to get a woman to shut up...including make her happy. Yes, it's true. But women know it's true. Nagging is an age-old technique to getting what she wants, and in lieu of the man doing the right thing ad libitum, she must talk incessantly until he does it. After the 4th year, 3rd if she is proficient, a man will do almost anything to get her to stop talking for as long as possible. If the woman is made happy as a result of his efforts to get her to stop talking - this is only a pleasant side effect. Now we know why Adam ate the fruit. See point 1.

3. The most confusing and dangerous moment in the Universe is when a woman asks her man 'What do YOU think/want?'. Most men know that the woman does not want to know what he thinks/wants...or does she? His experience will tell him that she only wants to know if he knows what she thinks/wants. The seconds in which he deliberates what it is she REALLY wants to know are the most painful in a man's life. He must determine whether he will be talked at for not knowing what she thinks (by saying 'I don't know') or for not caring what she thinks by insensitively expressing an opinion different from hers aka his own opinion. How very dare him... I mean us. By far, the safest answer (since you asked) is 'whatever you want/think'. However, this will work for only a limited time.

4. Women are experts at deceiving...themselves. The illustration in point 1 would have already helped. Men are liars - but they absolutely suck at it. Women, on the other hand have perfected the art. But what makes a woman a good liar is that she genuinely believes what she is saying, as a lie, to be the truth (hence all women reading this have no idea what I'm talking about). This is also what makes women right most of the time - they have the ability to change the parameters of correctness to suit their conclusions. Amazing. I'm beginning to seriously doubt if there was snake in the tree and that it said anything at all to Eve. Indeed, if there was a snake in the tree it was minding its own business. But if you were to ask Eve if there was a snake and it told her to eat the fruit she would say 'yes' and pass a lie detector test to boot. That said, the fruit has been eaten and we are now in a grand cosmic mess. Adam still continues to be an idiot and somewhere in creation there is a very offended snake.

5. All wars are caused by women. Shakespeare (via Macbeth) and the the Iliad (Helen of Troy/Trojan War) prove this point, if at least theoretically. You don't have to believe me but I guarantee it's true. Wars are generally fought by men for money and power - money and power are for getting things done - women want things done. Consequentially, the Iraq war was a result of Bush doing his best to get his wife to stop talking. See point 2.

6. God is having a good laugh...and then a good cry.
Even in nature, the female of the species is the more aggressive and usually does most of the nesting, feeding, raring, hunting etc. Take lions, the females do the hunting and raring of the cubs. The males however, rule the pride based on their decidedly more stylish hairdo and larger size. But the females get the job done.

Why all the submission for women then? Well, men need it - their self-esteem and masculinity depend on it. And since there is no woman known to man who will be submissive on purpose, well we have to at least present the illusion of it. As the saying goes 'the man is the head, but the woman is the neck that nods/shakes the head'.

Anyway, the dude with the high-powered weapon wants me to get him something to eat. Till next time.

C. Arthur Young