what we hate

A few days ago, NPR ran this story

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113889251

about atheism in America. Specifically, it was about what some call "radical atheists." These are people who are not only atheist, but they are convinced that religion is a threat. So to make their case known, they go for the shock value of offending religious people.

For example, some of the atheist organizations around the country are sponsoring art exhibits which have paintings of religious leaders in shocking ways. Of course, this is nothing new.

On the one hand, this whole movement is hardly worth noticing. Look, in Iran Christians are being jailed and potentially hanged for their faith. In China, even with the lessening tension, Christians can still be harassed and persecuted. Given that, who really cares if someone wants to hang a painting of a communion wafer with a rusty nail through it.

On the other hand, it makes me think about a topic that I keep coming back to -- becoming what you hate. Children of abusers tend to abuse. Not all of them, of course, but the trend is there. Children of alcoholics tend to become alcoholic. Some of it is biological, of course. But there seems to be this tendency of doing unto others as it was done to you. I would have to think than an abused child would *swear* that he or she would *never* abuse another. Yet, statistically, there's a better than average change that this is exactly what will happen.

You see it on the national level too. People groups who are persecuted often fight back until they are the persecutors.

So with the atheists, it is interesting. Here are a group of people who are angry at religion because they feel that religious people are intolerant. And they are responding to this with intolerance.

They make infomercial, lopsided claims to support their cause, just as some of the religious people have made. So they point out that religious people sometimes become suicide bombers and terrorists, but they neglect to mention that religious people also become saints and open hospitals. And they ignore the anti-religious who have caused the deaths of thousands (they're still finding mass-graves from Stalin's regime).

Or they blame religious people for interfering with science (for example, insisting on the teaching of creation in schools). But they neglect to mention that Einstein was a Jew and Mendel was a monk.

To me, it is very interesting, this idea of becoming what one hates. I see religious people doing the same things -- the one-sided arguments and spins on reality. Look closely, and you'll see that the two groups -- the extremist atheists and the extremist religious -- are pulling from the same well. Their tools are bias information, fear, and psychological manipulation.

It is amazing, isn't it? How we imitate what we oppose? Perhaps, becoming aware of that is the first step to stopping it?

Alive and well

The pack is a live and well in America.
All you need to do is look at the health care debate.

Do you and your friends and family feel that you have proper health care? Then your pack predetermines they you are most likely against any changes. Any changes means your pack is lessened. Who cares about those not in your pack? They are a secondary consideration.

Are you and your friends and family struggling with pre-existing conditions or loss of heath care coverage? Known any one who lost a job or a house or both because of an illness which left them bankrupt? Then you are probably all in favor of change, since the current system threatens your pack. Who cares if it works?

Unfortunately, the causality is truth. But then, it usually is. Governments always miss the last step of governing. Responsible government implies periodic check to see if programs actually work. Whatever you think of the philosophical meat behind a government action, there is a pragmatic consideration of whether it succeeds in reaching its goals. And it is a simple thing to look.

But governments never do. After all, looking for truth means there is a possibility that one may be proven wrong. And being proven wrong has a psychological cost. It is the Dick Chaney model -- never admit mistakes. Mistakes, after all, show fallibility. And fallibility will make people question.

Theologically, we see that all over. Questions are forbidden. Try to question the spiritual leader in Iran and.. well, you see the consequences -- protestors jailed, beaten, and probably killed. Question the pope, and one may get excommunicated. Question the President and one may be called a traitor or communist or some other thing. Flaws in one area imply flaws in others.
It is interesting how the interests of the pack dominate. The ideas which seem to support the preservation of the pack become dogma. The leaders who proclaim themselves worthy of defending the pack, become inerrant.

And somewhere in the whole debate is truth.

Pity it seems so unconnected to our conversations.

9-11

Years later, I look at 9-11 as a real flashpoint in my faith.

I suppose it had that effect on lots of people. But for me, it was for an unusual reason.

Play the hypothetical game for a minute, and suppose you're a Muslim living in Jordan or someplace. Now, among your friends, there are a group of pretty strict tradionallists.

As a Christian, this isn't much of a stretch for me. I've known people in the church who collect guns to safegard against the advent of a government takeover. I've seen people use their faith as a thin cover for bigotry or sexism. I've heard people say how 9-11 was the fault of the homosexual activity in America, since God was punishing us for our sin. I've known people who said the Branch Davidians weren't so bad. Naturally, these views weren't strictly supported by the churches, but the people were there, nontheless. So it's not too much of a stretch to me to think that a moderate Muslim may have friends who are extremists.

So, bear with me. You're a Muslim in Jordan and you've a couple buddies who are a bit more strict than you. One of them outlines the 9-11 plan to you before it happens. He tells how he's going to go to the U.S. and ... well, you know the story.

And you think... "he's out of his flippin' mind" -- not just because it's evil, but because it's impossible. How could you *ever* hyjack a plane in the U.S. where the security is the envy of the world. And to do it with a box knife? Please. No way. And the buildings.. they're *huge* and solid and steele and unbreakable. Worst case, you put out a few windows.

Then.... it happens.

Now, wouldn't you think that the only way that could have happened is if it was ordained by God?

After the horror of that day, some letters that the terrorists had written were made public. If you ignore the mind-numbing "wrongness" of the content, and you look at the words, they sound very familiar. The words they used, the ideas, the faith, the providence -- those things, I have heard in Christian churches for years. Oh, the topic is differnt of course. I'm not suggesting that we can ignore the terror. But the way those people *thought*, the way they spoke about God and faith and providence is the same way churches do.

That's what shook my faith a bit. I see it still. "God told me to get a new job".... "God said I should do this".... "I overslept today for work, so I have to believe that God was making me avoid an accident or something".

It started me thinking. And questioning. It's where this blog really came from. I started to think that if those terrorists could be so sure of what they were doing, and if the coincidences could line up like that on something that was so obviously not of God, then our confidence in our beliefs must be questioned. I started to look with a new eye. And I saw similar things all over the world. I saw Hindus and Muslims and Evangelicals and Mormons and others all with the same kind of words and ideas. The details differ, naturally. But the faith is the same. And it all seems to be founded on the same things.

How its used is really, really interesting to me. But I'll save that for another time.

the pack

The Pack. The pack defines everything in human existence. Humans are pack animals.
Three thousand years ago, it was easy. People lived in villages. Everyone in the village was in the pack. They shared the same droughts, the same famines, the same good harvests, the same wars, the same joys. Naturally, there were leaders and followers, rich and poor. But, as a group, they all prospered together and all suffered together.

The traditions and the ethics were driven by the pack. Anything that threatened the village was evil -- to be banished. A man from the village who married a woman from another village was a threat, since he broke the consistency of the pack. The genetic lines were threatened. In addition, the marriage would have brought in a threat to the pack itself. An outsider in the village could undermine the pack's stability -- could threaten the leadership and social order and violate norms and practices meant to safeguard the pack. What if she was a spy? What if she carried a plague? What if a threat to the leaders?

When the woman arrived, the villagers would have seen that the new bride as someone who looked similar. She cooked the same foods, spoke the same language, knew some of the same traditions. She went into the fields to work for the good of her new pack. And the villagers started to see that she was not a threat; she was one of them. So the pack was not threatened and she became welcomed over the years.

But imagine that a merchant from a far off land passed through with a lovely daughter. A young man in the village became stricken with her and wanted her for his own. Now, that was too much. She did not look the same. She spoke with an accent. Her traditions and food were different. In short, she was a threat to the pack. For something like that, the young man could be banished from the village. He could be cast out, even by his own family, for bringing a threat into the pack. In fact, almost all cultures have rules against marriages that cross racial or cultural lines. It simply was not considered proper. It was evil, immoral, an affront against God Himself.

All of life in those days revolved around the pack. What was good for the village was good. What threatened the village was evil. The lines of ethics were as simple as the geography that defined the pack's boundaries.

It is the same in all packs. Wolves, coyotees, gorillas, chimps, geese -- indeed all packs -- share the same ethics. A wolf who harms the pack is cast out or killed. A coyotee who regularly provides food for the pack is a hero. A gorilla who threatens the pack by challanging its leaders is pushed out.

In the same way, human packs have moral laws. And they are similarly based. Murder is immoral. Anyone who randomly kills someone on the streets is called a murderer and punished. But when the same man kills an enemy on the battlefield, the pack calls him a hero and builds a statue in his honor. It is because he is protecting the pack, of course, in the latter case, and threating it in the former.

The boundaries of the pack expanded as time moved. By the 1600's, the definition of the pack was no longer the village, but the nation. The British fought the French. The French fought the Spanish. The Spanish fought the Portuguese. The pack was still the pack, and it was still defined by geography. But the geography was no longer as restricted. And the pack bent to accommodate different dialects and traditions. Of course, the core of the pack was still the village. Normans would associate more with Britons than with people in southern France. The Welsh were seen as outsiders by the Irish, even though they were technically part of the same kingdom. It was not so much a large pack as it was a series of small packs, joined together for common survival. Such binding was seen as good, as long as the local pack was not threatened. If, for example, a famile hit in another part of the nation, a local village may send food -- unless they were fearful that sending food would weaken them. There was still a strong dividing line. Loyalty to the pack still drove ethics and actions. Other packs may be considered friendly, but never, ever to be placed ahead of one's own.

A thousand years later, the lines have changed. Geography no longer defines our packs. The airline industry, the internet, the availability of satellite broadcasting -- these things break the bounds of the geography. So the pack is no longer defined by the village. It seems obvious that the printing press was the focal point of this change. With the exchange of ideas, people started to connect more with comrades from different lands. By the Elizabethan era, many people saw themselves as Catholic first, and Spanish second. Loyalty to the local pack was maintained because of the strong connection between religion and culture. But the threat was no longer to just the village, but to the culture itself. The lines of the pack shifted from geographical boundaries to ideological, theological, philosophical, and cultural ones.

But humans are pack animals. We need packs. If the pack is no longer defined by the village, it must be defined by something else. So all over the world, this shift continues. In Iran, for example, the particular branch of Islam is defined by the traditions that date back farther than anyone can remember. These traditions tie the religious practices with the Persian history to create a theology that is different from the Islam of Iraq, even though the two are neighbors. Throughout the world, pockets of culture emerge. This culture is the sum of the experiences of the pack. it revolves around language and history and religious ideology. However, as the geographical lines have blurred, the cultural icons have spread of themselves. And taken on lives of their own.

Christianity, which started in the ancient Near East and took root in Europe, has now spread across geographic and traditional boundaries. Islam, Buddhism and other major religions have as well. As the geographical lines have blurred, so have some of the cultural. To be sure, the practices of a Christian in Africa look very different from the practices of a Christian in Europe. Each culture morphs the theology into something it can recognize. A Catholic celebration in Mexico may look and feel very different from an Anglican wedding in London. In spite of the differences, there is still a commonality. The lines of the pack have shifted. And some of the believers in London feel a closer brotherhood to the Christians in Mexico City than they do to their own neighbors down the street. In the same way, a Catholic in southern India may feel much closer to the the Catholics in Mexico than the Hindus just a few miles away. The pack is less about geography today than it is about ideology.

It is, of course, a world in transition. And some areas of the world retain the ancient notion of pack. For them, they identify still with the village or the nation or the culture. Sadam Hussan regularly pointed out how he was a Babalonian while the Iranians were mere Persians. And, naturally, he was not alone in this assessment.

But there trend is sure. The connection to geography wains. While the connection to the ideology is based in cultural and geographical roots, it is still distinct from them. Today, the pack is defined by political party or religion or solcal status or educational level. But it is still the pack. And it has its own rules, just as the pack always has. And it has threats. As before, anything that threatens the pack is still considered evil. While anything that boosts the pack is considered good.

For better or worse, this creates a huge challange for humanity. While some are still rooted in a pack based on geography or culture, others are embracing a culture based on economic level or political ideology or another of a thousand connections. Further, the connections are variable. The connection is based on a wide array of different things. It is not a spiritual connection only, nor is it a political or humanistic one. It varies on whatever is important to the individual. Further, it varies for any individual during a lifetime. The wilde idealism in ones youth may give way to a economic materialsm of middle age, then to a gentle spiritualism in ones old age. So one changes packs throughout ones life. During these times of change, the individual will often find confusion, stress and uncertainty. The laws of good and evil bend as the pack changes. The ethics of good and evil are defined by what prospers or harms the pack.

But what is the pack? Its boundaries have vanished. They are no longer locked by the river that defines the borders of the village. They are ideological, mutating, vague and blury. A Christian in New York who wants to help the poor may now connect with a Bhudast in Tokoyo to help a poor Hindu in Calcuta. And the Christian now may define his pack to include the Bhudist and the Hindu more than to include the Christain who perhaps disagrees with the specifics humanitarianism.

As society moves forward, it important to understand this. What fuels a person to fight or kill? Why does it seem to be impossible for some people to live together? Why is it that nations like Somalia can have infinite resources -- port cities, shipping lanes, gold, fertile soil, ample water -- and destroy all prosperity by wars?

Often, the answer is the pack. The Somalis are not so much a nation as a collection of packs. Some of them feel the rival packs are a threat. So they fight, even when fighting does not pursue their own best interest. Across the world, there are Islamisist who see themselves as connected to a non-geographical pack. In that, they seek to spread their teaching in a hope of boosting their pack.

Meanwhile there are packs defined by Western ideologies. Anything that is a threat to capalism or economic growth is seen as an evil. So, indeed, is trillions of dollars spent to bolster the economy. Because economic struggles threaten the pack -- but the pack is not made up by geographical lines anymore. Rather these lines are capitalistic. Anyone who shares the same economic system and lives in the same economic villiage is a member of the pack. While people who see themselves in other packs -- say Bhudist monks -- do not see an economic crisis as an evil. Rather they may view it as a common event, as if economic systems follow the same laws of balance that all of nature does.

Throughout the world, this defines humanity. It adds challanges to all the negotiations, since different packs understand different priorities. There is, in fact, very little comonality. Some packs are based on theology or tradition. To these, any threat to the pack comes from that which compromises the religion or its traditions. Economic prosperity is to be accepted only if it does not threaten the traditions of the pack. To them, it is the tradition that defines the pack. Remove that, and the pack dissolves.

Others define their pack by race or culture. Some African nations are engulfed in wars that are rooted in the racial and ethnic threats of the past. When two packs had threatened each other in the past, those old wounds often linger. If these packs have an ethnic connection, they often persist. To these groups, the threat to the pack is ethnic. Destroy the ethnicity and the pack disolves. To them, religious differences can be tolerated. Economic prosperity must be sought, but only if it does not threaten the ethnicity. That is the pack.

Understand the pack and one understands the conflict. Mis-understand the pack, and one will never connect with the conflict or its resolution.

How do you solve the world's problems?

I am a Christian -- sometimes in spite of myself.
I've never been one to fit neatly into a box. The T-shirts with the logos on them are usually a horrible fit for me.

But at the end of the day, you have to be *something* and I am a Christian.

As a Christian -- in order to call myself that -- I have to believe in Christ. So what does that mean: "believe in Christ"? Part of it means, I have to believe that, as the old bumper sticker said, "Jesus is the answer."
I always used to joke around about that, saying "what is the question"? But the truth is, it doesn't matter.

In order to be a Christian, I have to believe that Christ was right. I have to believe that the basic principles of Christianity are accurate. I'd be an idiot to knowingly be a Christian and still believe that Christianity is wrong. Can you imagine? "well, I believe that Buddha is probably right about how to live, so I'm a Christian".

When I look at the world, and the church, I don't see much of this "Christ is the answer" attitude, though.
Listen. Go to church, watch TV, read the newspapers and listen. Tear it apart, bounce it off of the sayings of Christ and think.

What you hear is that Christ is the answer, unless you're talking about money, then you need a good financial adviser. What you hear is that Christ is the answer, unless you're thinking about politics, then you need a good political agenda. Or that Christ is the answer, unless you're talking about saving your marriage, then you need a 10-step plan which involves Dr. Phil. ("How's that working for you", by the way?).

How do you address the poverty in Africa? What programs do you believe in to really solve the aids crisis? What do we do as a nation about the political instability in Central America? How do I plan for my retirement? How do I live a more healthy and active lifestyle? How do I win my lover's heart?
Christ is the answer.

We want laws. We want movements. We want organizations. We want plans and strategies. We call in the military. We apply economic pressure. We consult the pop-sages. We join Jenny Craig. We apply sound, academically approved economic models to our businesses. We set up our youth groups to mimic the way the boy scouts are organized. We read articles on how to be promoted at work. We embrace political candidates and ideas.

These are all great and everything. But Jesus didn't do any of it.
None. Zero. The closest thing to His financial adviser was Judas. The nearest He ever got to a political campaign was "Render unto Caesar...". The closest He got to starting an organization was "go ye, therefore".

And Christ is the real answer.

How do you address political corruption in Central America? You show them Christ. You help them. You serve them. You show them that there is an alternative to hatred and greed.

How do you address the aids crisis? You show them Christ. You help them. You serve them. You show them that there is an alternative to hopelessness and abuse.

How do you plan for retirement? You look at Christ. You help others. You serve them. You show people that there are other things in life besides 401Ks and early retirement.

All of the other things we chase after are great. We need to vote in November and so it is important to vote responsibly. But we need to move beyond the naivety of thinking that a President can have the answer. Presidents can impact the world, but they cannot fundamentally change it. Only Christ has that power.
Presidents can do good things or bad things that help people or hurt them. Of course, the truth is that they will do some of both. But in the end, after a zillion Presidents and Princes and Shahs and Kings, we are basically the same. The boarders change, the power shifts, the people rise and fall, but the world doesn't really change much.

Christ is the answer.

And if you believe anything else, then I would humbly assert that you're either not a Christian or a fool for following what you don't really believe.

Sin

I've been thinking about original sin. Seems to me there are 2 kinds of original sin. There is the original sin – that is, Adam and Eve in the garden and the apple and all. And then there’s “Original Sin” as a systematic doctrine. That is, the sin we’ve inherited what Calvin and(as usual, Wikipedia has an nice section on it).

It always seemed strange to me that we could inherit sin. I mean, how could we be held responsible for something someone else did? Not that we don’t have enough sin in our lives anyway, but the idea that a newborn baby is guilty of “Original Sin” has always confused me. So I started thinking about what “Original Sin” really is. Maybe it has to do with power.

The sin of Adam and Eve was that they wanted to be “like God”, knowing the difference between right and wrong. This is really strange, since they clearly knew that eating the apple was wrong. So didn't they already know the difference, but weren't acting on it?

But I am thinking the "know good from evil" is a bigger question and somewhat of a paradox. I think it may be more like "wanted to proclaim good from evil." In a sense, isn't that what we do? We have our opinions on good and evil about everything from ethics to wars to politics to people's choice in clothing. I *think* they may have wanted to know it all -- to be in a position where they were able to sit and proclaim right and wrong in every situation. And perhaps, the implication is that they wanted to have the power to make it so.

Perhaps the real thing maybe was that they wanted to be “like God” -- not in that they wanted to be Godly. They wanted control over the universe. But they weren’t gods. In some ways, they were given control over the universe. And even today, we pretty much control everything. But they didn’t have God’s “Godness”. So they were left trying to control a universe that they didn’t understand and couldn’t really master.

Perhaps that desire, that need to push along what's right -- to know emphatically the best course every time about everything -- and the the "God-like-ness" to be clever enough or powerful enough to carry it out is the Original Sin.

We are born into a world that is ruled by those who are trying to play God. So, from birth, we’re taught that we’re in control and we’re not taught about God. And we have to deal with the world system controlling parts of our lives, but this isn’t God. We are rewarded as "leaders" if we take charge and enforce "good." We pass laws to force people to obey the "good." In that, we proclaim that we know good from evil and that we have the power to force people to obey.

I'm honestly not sure I'm right, but it does seem to make sense to me. To be less "Adam-esque," we should be less convicted of our own discernment. I'm not saying we should never render a thought on what is good or evil, but that our focus should be on how we live that out, not how we can enforce our ideas on someone else. Had Adam & Eve just focused on how to live what God had already told them was good, they wouldn't have gotten into trouble. The irony is that they did what was evil in the name of the good. But that seems so natural in our world, doesn't it?

On the other hand, I don't see how a baby can be "sinful" as the Calinists teach. I am still not sure this answers that.

I've thought a lot about how we use the ends to justify our means the way that Adam & Eve did, but I'll save that for later.

Speechless

I saw this today:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080303/od_nm/italy_saint_dc_2;_ylt=ApYlTTQxGAPAlxl9krcavvoE1vAI


I was going to blog my thoughts on this, since it touches on a question I've long wondered -- how do evangelical Christians explain miracles outside the evangelical Christian faith?

But I'm left so speechless by this, that I can't even add to it. Let me know what you think.