They’re the two things you can’t talk about. There is a reason for it (I believe, my opinion, not the last word). I believe the reason is that people want to have their convictions, and they don’t want them challenged, or they fear the entire belief system they have established will crumble like a house of cards.
Whatever it is, politics or religion, it will stand the test of time if it’s true. If you believe in a supreme divine being, that supreme divine being ought to be strong enough to withstand questioning, otherwise I would doubt the supreme and divine parts, and might seriously question the “being,” also.
I also believe that if you are not sufficiently knowledgeable about the beliefs you profess to hold, if you can’t use your sacred (even in politics people think their views are sacred, ordained by God, etc., etc.) texts in a sensible way to show why you believe what you believe, you have no right to hold the beliefs. You can’t blindly accept what others have told you, even if they are your religious leaders. You need to do the work yourself, hold the beliefs yourself, even if that study leads you to modify your entire belief system, or ponder a little more deeply.
That pondering is what I might do here. I’ll add to it from time to time.
If Jesus Were Here Now
I’m sure you’ve heard of Jesus. He was a cool guy. There’s a religion named after him. It’s called Christianity. I was wondering, though… what if Jesus came back now, but didn’t come back in cloud of glory. What if there was no trumpet fanfare and the clouds didn’t part and the ultra-religious weren’t pulled up into the heavens while us heathens were left behind?
What if Jesus was born in a homeless shelter to an unwed mother (not far from the Bible story, really)? What if he grew up in intense poverty, and his family was migrant workers, never settling down anywhere for very long? What if he wasn’t white? What if he did all the cool things Jesus did and said all the amazing things Jesus said? Would the church that calls itself by his name recognize him?
Would the church tolerate Jesus if he were walking among us? Would they kill him? Maybe he did come back, and the Spanish Inquisition took care of him before he could raise a fuss. I just wonder, because when I hear religious people talk, I hear a lot of condemnation. When I read what Jesus said, I hear a lot of compassion—except for religious people. He was pretty hard on them for creating too many hoops for ordinary people to jump through, so they could never live up to what was expected of them. Sounds a little familiar.
So that’s what I was wondering. What if Jesus were shining your shoes or delivering your paper? He wouldn’t be a CEO. He’d just be a good guy doing amazing things. And the religious people wouldn’t like it one bit.
On that note, I’ll get back to work and pondering.
Crucifixion: Divine Child Abuse or Divine Suicide?
I have a friend who is a pastor, and she was the first person who complained to me about the crucifixion as a disturbing act of child abuse. Actually, she remains the only one who’s verbalized it. I think she’s probably not alone. But, if we take some religious people at their word, God sent His only son (these people all call God a He, the divine He, because it justifies their belief that women are inferior—but the He and His and Him all get capital letters to differentiate them from the mere men who are our family, friends, or lovers) for the sole purpose of dying.
Now, I have to think if that’s the only reason God sent his son, then… perhaps my friend is right.
Of course, there is another option (many options, really). If Jesus was indeed fully human and fully divine, and was in fact God, and did, in fact, die on the cross, then… the all-powerful God, who had the power to stop this act, effectively committed suicide by not stopping it.
I’ve heard the argument by some who are apparently fundamentalist that at the moment of Jesus’ death, God left his body (which is why he cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”), so when he died, he was NOT God. Well, call me silly (I know there are those who do), but if Jesus was just a guy who was executed by his government and was in no way divine at the time of death, couldn’t any criminal on death row in Texas while Bush was governor have died a similar death? Executed by the government for a capital offense. Doesn’t make them special. It just makes them victims of the criminal justice system.
But, whatever the actuality of the crucifixion was, divine child abuse, divine suicide, or divine gift, I have a theory on the life of Jesus that runs counter to what most churches tell us. Jesus’ life wasn’t about being dead on a cross. It wasn’t about giving “Christians” carte blanche to be as evil and despicable, as vile and hateful as they wanted just because they were forgiven.
I think Jesus’ purpose was to show people how to live. The focus on the cruel death (I still have refused to see “The Passion of the Christ” because I don’t need to see how experts at torture performed it; Jesus was not alone in being tortured and executed by the Romans) negates the good life.
Jesus was a cool guy! He did all kinds of miracles, healed people. He hung out with sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers. I envision him hanging out around a campfire laughing heartily, telling stories, cooking up some barbecue on a stick, and sipping a little wine. Kind of like that wacky uncle we had who was such a blast at family reunions.
The only people Jesus really had problems with were—brace yourself—the religious. The people who set more rules than God ever intended and made the gates to salvation so narrow that they were the only ones who could pass through. The people who scared more away from the faith than they drew to it.
People kind of like the religious fanatics now.
So, whatever the nature of the crucifixion, the other big part of the story, that so many religious people also seem to gloss over (except on Easter Sunday), was that Jesus didn’t stay dead, according to the scriptures. The people executed in Texas stayed dead. Anyone can do that. But I think the whole Jesus story is a story about life, not a story about death.
Maybe I’m wrong, it is only my opinion, but I think it’s time to stop using faith as an excuse to be obnoxious and cruel and hateful. In the wise but simple words of Rodney King: can’t we all just get along?
Is God Schizophrenic?
Or does God suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder?
Okay, not quite. But here is a thought I’ve been entertaining that won’t leave my mind. The Christian faith teaches of a God and a devil. God is all good, the devil is all bad. However, the start of the Christian Bible tells us that God created everything, and it was good. If God did not create anything that was evil, where did the evil come from? Is the devil all evil?
Could the evil, perhaps, have come from God? Have we, in our belief systems, failed to integrate the parts of God that are there? Are the devil and God just two parts of the same being? Why can’t they be?
We deny our own darker sides, our weaknesses and meanness, and we pretend we’re all awesome and good. I will freely say I’m usually a good and nice person, but I have mean moments. I have a darker side. That’s how it is. Even Genghis Khan probably had moments of being good to his kids, perhaps Hitler had moments of goodness (honestly, how can anyone who is never nice come to power or win people’s hearts?)
Why do we have to divide everything into good and evil? Why can’t we accept that both might coexist, and realize that it’s within our power to make the choices about which path we’ll follow?
The Bible pretty clearly says God has a temper. It says God orders the killing of entire nations (personal theory: the winners write the history books; anything can be justified in God’s name, including sacred writings).
Perhaps I’ll be punished for having thoughts and ideas that buck the trend, but I suspect that God, whoever God might be, is happier to have us question than to have us blindly follow without thought.
I also suspect that any God who is real will have more than one means of being reached, so we are not forever condemned by the accident of our birth (a term I hate, as if all of us are mistakes, or as if one group is better than another).
Those are the ideas that have been swirling in my head of late. And they’re questions, not answers. I may well spend a lifetime wondering, but at least I am reading and thinking. I’m wiling to hear other views. I encourage it.
