Easter and Opposing Tales of Spirituality

It was an interesting week leading up to Easter. Surely the most important event on the Christian Calendar. For me it isn't a special spiritual time, which I think reflects my growing up in the Bible belt where wearing a new suit and going Easter egg hunting were the most important points. But I was exposed to two views of spirituality this week and I would like to challenge both. The first one I challenge on philosophical levels and the second is purely a personal taste with no philosophical implications, or at least I think.

 I am a great fan of Science Friday on NPR. I only get to listen to 30 minutes each week as I'm at work and get mostly 30 minutes to swallow lunch and a coffee in a hurry. So I sit in my car and tune in. Here is a link to the part I listed to this past Friday. As you will see, it was about the concept that real science, mostly talking about quantum mechanics, is far more interesting than science fiction . . . for which I will agree. But questioners in the audience got the scientist to take a detour and talk about science vs religious spirituality.

 Once again these scientist cheated and cheated in a huge way that is only rivaled by the most simple-minded evangelicals. They got to the point of absurdity and inject a huge, may I say HUGE level of personality where there can be only inanimate. So, the scientist on the panel make the statement that not only is quantum mechanics more interesting (and bizarre) than science fiction but also more spiritual than the Bible. They said that when they ponder the incredible events, say at the edge of a black hole, it is a very spiritual thing and is better than the Bible because the bizarre twisting of time and matter is real and the Bible is fake.

 But here is where they insert the linguistic gymnastics that gives some feelings of peace in the absurdity. They use the term "spiritual" when they mean "emotional." Emotional, in their sense at least, is a function of a highly evolved limbic system of the brain. So I can understand what they mean by having an emotional response to the strange world (not even mentioning the beautiful world as captured with Hubble) of special relativity and incredible forces.

 But true spirituality is about a personal creator, not pure chance of something out of nothing. In something, by chance, out of nothing . . . then the sum of all the parts is nothing.

 If I save the world from cancer it is nothing in that paradigm. If I torture and murder all the children of the world it is nothing. If I ponder the beauty of the universe 24-7 it is nothing and if I crawl into a hole and become completely self-absorbed it is nothing. Trying to add anything to nothing is a celestial scam. They need to come clean and live consistently with their claims of atheism. If God is not there, you cannot create meaning, but they use words like "spiritual" to give the illusion of substance . . . a personal substance . . . as substance of a personal beginning.

The second part of this post was long and I drifted into some emotional chatter so I came back and deleted it. But what I was trying to say, that my other event on Friday was going to a Good Friday service at my wife's evangelical church.  There spirituality was displayed by emotional singing. That doesn't work for me anymore, when it is described as the Holy Spirit. I think it is simply emotions and nothing is wrong with that. But then the singing was followed by a Easter message from my old pastor.

The last time I heard from him was when he was screaming at me in a state of rage two years ago after I, as pleasantly as I could, told him I was leaving his church.  He verbally eviscerated me in front of my family with such hostility that my son thought he was going to punch me in the face.  The whole circumstances around that event was one of the most painful in my life.  It was a feeling of total betrayal and I felt totally alone. My crime was simply serving his church well for many years and politely saying that I loved everyone there but believed I would fit in better someone else. 

So Friday I had to endure his spiritual message.  I think I felt the same way, and it has happened many times in history, where someone was raped or molested but then had to bear the sermons of the rapist every morning in church as he donned his big smile and his praise of Jesus. Words can't describe and when I tried to describe this when I first wrote it I went off on a very emotional path, so I will try to avoid that this time.

This is What I Mean - The Desperate Atheist

I've said before that all paths away from the undeniable fact that we are here must face a cliff of absurdity somewhere. The atheist, the child of the spontaneous universe, must insert meaning where none can exist. This commentary on NPR is a classic example of this feeble attempt and is of the same magical thinking as the evangelical's constant miracles built of wishful and narcissistic thinking.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/03/27/174647716/how-to-see-the-world-in-a-grain-of-sand
 

In the Valleys and on the Banks

If you grew up in Christianity, you know that the concept of the valley always relates to the low or tough places in life from Psalms 23.  But there is another valley that I'm talking about, the valley of conformity.

Transecting every culture and subculture is this steep gorge, where on the bottom is a wide path of expectations of that culture.  To try and deviate from that broad and smooth path is difficult . . . it is walking on the steep banks and cliffs . . . or walls.  Gravity constantly pulls you downward to the crowds that march in holy union going left and right, north and south like army ants.

There are days I want to give up. Where I want to turn around and go in step with those around me.  The Bible speaks in the New Testament of not being conformed to "this world."  I never thought when I first read this, that "this world" could also include this evangelical world.

Why do I even attempt to stay in the valley?  As I think about it, it is for two reasons.  My wife is in the center of modern evangelism. I want to connect to her. To connect to her, I must enter and be a part, even a tangential part of that wide path.  But I have to walk in silence there . . . or I will be hated.

The second reason is that there are few paths on the hill sides. There are other valleys, those of the totally non-Christian views.  Those valleys are even wider and I do go there. But I don't fit there either because I have to walk on the walls there too as I am as much of a Christian as I have ever been. There is hardly a path for those who believe in the central thesis, Jesus on the cross, a loving God who created all that is, but reject much of the other pretense of the evangelical culture.

A third reason, is of course for some human contact.  All my old friends are in that evangelical world. To be with them is to have some sense I am human because I can experience a social setting. Yet, I have to bare that constant flow of notions such as Obama being the devil, Jesus wants us all to have assault weapons with 50 bullet magazines, that all Arabs are evil genetically and despised by God, who ironically made them and that gays are the epitome of evil.  I can only bare those conversations briefly or I will go mad.

Gay Marriage . . . A Sign that the Planet is Getting Better?

I must first give a disclaimer.  This will not a discussion about homosexuality or even if gay marriage is a good thing or bad thing.  I look at it this way, I’m not gay so it is none of my business if gay people favor or disfavor marriage.  For a great theological discussion on the topic, go back to imonk’s pages about it and will try and link it here.

But here is to my point. 

I remember sitting in my old evangelical church a few years ago when the pastor preached on the topic.  He was adamant about opposing gay marriage when it first came up in our state.  He was actually the vocal leader and local champion against the law and marched in pro-family rallies at the state capital.  But, eventually a law allowing gay marriage was passed this year.  I can remember our adult Sunday school discussing it and the leaders of the church, including the pastor’s right-hand man saying that gays legally marrying were proof that the world was going to hell in a hand basket.  In other words, that this world was getting ready to burn and Jesus was coming back soon and gays were proof of that.

I tried not to speak up in Sundays school in those days because every time I did, I would feel the wrath of everyone and I was told, in so many words, more than once that I couldn’t be a real Christian with my liberal viewpoints. Meanwhile my wife would be down in her class having a wonderful time talking about precious things, good fiction books, flowers and etc.

But that day I spoke up that rather than the world getting worse and falling apart, I was actually leaning in the direction of Amillennialism . . . believing that we are now in that glorious times when the Church will succeed more and more until this planet is fixed.

The Sunday school class all agreed that I was a heretic at best and a blooming lunatic at worse.  They pointed out how America is in ruins compared to the glorious 50s when things were almost perfect . . . and there were no gays (I assume).

I see a world that is improving as time goes on.  To start with the 50s . . . well that was the period when the Sunday school director at my childhood church was sexually molesting little boys.  This has nothing to do with the issues about gay marriage, but I’m trying to make the point that bad things were happening back then. What made it worse in this child molestation problem in our church was that the pastor and the mom’s all covered for the Sunday school director. They tried to keep their little boys away from him and introduced him to other little boys as decoys so he would fulfill his pleasure and leave their sons the hell alone (I know it sounds sick now). The dads called any talk of what was going, “women’s gossip.”

Take this case study alone. What happened in my church in the 50s and 60s I don’t think could not happen today.  The parents of the first boy sexually assaulted would go to the police . . . or appear on Dr. Phil and all hell would break loose . . . or so I would hope.

But we can take it back further.  Smiling daddies have been raping or molesting their little princesses since the beginning of time . . . but it stayed in the closet. But now?  Not so easy, at least I hope.  And moms?  Well, the bad moms used mental torture since Eve left the garden. That may still happen now but not as easy.

This doesn’t even touch on the developing world. It is much harder to be an evil dictator today than 100 years go . . . not to mention a 1,000 years ago. Then look at Church history. Could the Church get by with peeling the skin off people, who were alive, but who disagreed with the church as they did in the past?

So, this week I was listening to the news about Obama supporting the Supreme Court case to over-turn the ban on gay marriage as a civil rights violation.  And I listened once again to the voices of the people wanting the opportunity to marry the person they love, often who they have been committed to for decades.  It isn’t about the gay community wanting the license to have bisexual orgies left and right

I know I’m walking on the very edge of the topic, but again this isn’t a discussion about homosexuality, but about the pursuit of justice.  I believe the world is getting better and better (thanks to the distant influence of Christianity on the world) where justice is held high, and the pursuit of it is a noble cause.  The pandemic of social injustices is slowly diminishing, with strongholds still only in the dark places, deep Africa, in the world of the Islamic fundamentalists, in the world of dictatorships and in the worlds of some Christian fundamentalists.  The desire to overturn gay marriage bans is just a part of that pursuit of justice which is a good thing, even though I can understand my Christian friends who see homosexual love as theologically wrong, this desire for justice and fairness in all areas of life . . . could it just be part of the great redemption? 

Church Defined Without Stones

Of course . . . ask any Christian, evangelical, catholic or other, and they would quickly define the Church as the people and not the building or organization . . . but . . . of course they don't mean it.  It is so ingrained into our Christian culture that getting your heads around the concept of a stone-less church is about as beyond conception for most of us as the proverbial one hand clapping, fourth dimension . . . or the Higgs boson.

Now, I think I'm in a good position to discuss this right now because I am happily involved in the organized church.  I'm not as involved as they would like.  As I said before I must stay at this point of equilibrium . . . half way out . . . half way in . . . or it wouldn't work for me.  If I moved in a little further inward, it would be like the satellite that looses just enough speed that the centrifugal force is over-taken by the gravitational pull and goes crashing inward like a meteor. In the inward circles of even my great church, I'm sure I would find the same evangelical voices that can drive me crazy.  I'm not cut of that "church culture" any more and I'm beyond re-reform. But, I'm at a good place in this church and that is my main background point.  Now to my main-foreground point.

Several things have brought this to my mind of late.  One was someone here asking the question (in a prior discussion) about whether we were referring to The Church or a church. The next situation was during a week-long family reunion in Florida last week.  It this strange stew of people (20 in all) the common "Christian" denominator was being brought up in the Bible belt church.  Most of them don't believe anymore. Some go to large churches that embrace new age spirituality.  One works for a famous TV evangelist. You can't have a conversation about spiritual things at all without it being defined by church meetings ("do they still go to church?"  "Oh, having seen him at church in a while").  One clear example is a family member who is almost out of control. She drinks heavily and runs around with a lot of men, rich and married, men.  So, rather than talking about the real issues of her endless search for meaning, the conversation is about when is the last time she was in a church meeting.

Another thing that was the final tipping point was a story told in my good church last Sunday.  The speaker told a story about a woman who was almost blind and almost deaf was brought to church each Sunday morning.  When her driver asked her, "Mrs. Brown, can you hear anything said or see anyone at church?"  She answered, "Of course not."  Then her driver asked, "Why do you still go?"  She smiled and answered, "So the world will know whose side I'm on."

Now stories like that sound sweet and most Christians love them . . . but when you deconstruct them and I mean totally deconstruct them . . . I don't think they are so sweet.  For one, like my formal paragraph about my extended family, implies the magic of working into a church meeting.  This is a long ways, in my opinion, from the original intent of Christian getting together.  It wasn't about penitence or magic as it is today (and has been for 1500 years). It was practical.

I don't know if I'm making sense in this.

I just glanced at Imonk (don't have time to read anything these days) and saw they were listing the long history of Church abuses.  I can't imagine how to qualify the amount of psychological abuse that has occurred under the guise of God wanting you to come to the church meeting.

My previous evangelical pastor was very skillful at this.  He was a control freak and abusive to people and his family. Yet, to question him, was to question God. He often preached about those people who have turned their backs on God because they were not under the authority of a pastor.  Now, in a perfect world it is wonderful to be under the care (better word) of a pastor. But, having worked with him as an elder for 8 years, I knew what he really wanted was obedience to himself and he used God as his tool of manipulation.  Even when I left his church he suggested that I was leaving God's will and calling and thus was doing something dangerous.  If you listened between the lines, he was making treats that God wouldn't protect me nor my family anymore if I walked away from his church (very cult like talk).

Now, this brings me to my final story and point.

I have a friend now who is one of the nicest men I've ever known and I will call him Hank.  He is an insider at my new church. He is an insider simply because he thinks that is where God wants everyone to be and he has great motives.  Yet, poor Hank, has just endured a season that is Job-ian in nature (as Job in the Old Testament).

I will tell the story with my limited knowledge of the situation.

Two years ago his wife wanted to start a business, her life dream. He liquidated his entire savings and retirement to help her fulfill her dream. The business was a disaster and failed.  This almost bankrupted them, but he seemed to have the attitude of a saint about it.  His wife, however, seemed to be too evango-cavalier about it. I approached her after the failure, "How are you holding up?"  She tried to make distance and answered, "What do you mean?  I always trust God and he never fails me."  Evangoplastic.

So, anyway, the next curse for Hank was that his deeply religious wife suddenly left him, or threw him out of the house.  I think it was tied to her shame of failure somehow but not provoked by his cruelty or anger about her loosing their savings.

The final blow for Hank came a few weeks ago when the company, which he had worked for for 30 years, suddenly announced hey were going out of business.  He is left unemployed after enjoying a good position.

My heart grieves for Hank and I'm trying to get together with him.  But he confined with me on Sunday morning that he can't go to all the men's groups that he had gone to for years because they blame him for his troubles.  They say things like, "He hasn't claimed it for the Lord."  It is so hurtful for him, that he feels like he can't fit into the epicenter of the church anymore and I wouldn't be surprised that if he doesn't walk away altogether.  I want him to come out to my orbit, where you can enjoy the good teaching without the evangocrap.

So, finally I reach my point.  I wish there was a way to "give permission" to good meaning Christians that they can come out to this outer orbit of involvement . . . or, I'm nervous to say this, they can be freelance Christians with no church affiliation.

Now, this last point scares the hell out of most Christians and such a statement would have had me burned at the stake for anyone of about 1500 years. But I'm talking about the lessor of evils.

Sure, in the ideal world, the way the Church started, getting together with other Christians and enjoying a meal and having some education was better than going at it alone. But when the choice is between a evangotoxin or a total rejection of Christianity, then there has to be place of either minimal involvement, like I enjoy or going solo.  Now, even going solo is healthier with others to iron-sharpen-iron, but that could be a couple of like-minded friends or even an Imonk "virtual" church.

But too often we give up the good, replace it with the terrible, while hoping for the ideal.

Under the Cover of Godliness

Well, it has happened again.  A prominent, local pastor was arrested for trying to have sex with a minor.  It was a sting and the policeman pretended to be a 16 year old girl online. The pastor agreed to meet her and give her $200 in exchange for sex back at the parsonage. He had the cash and condoms in his pickup (no pun intended). If you have nothing to do some day, do a Google search for "pastor arrested" and see how many you turn up.

I had an old, ex-coal mining uncle (who died a couple of months ago).  He was quite rough around the edges. He use to say (and he was quite a character from deep in the mountains) that when you bait a trap with . . . well a very vulgar name for a women's genitalia . . . you will catch a preacher every time.

But this is not a discussion on preachers or pastors. They just happened to be an easy target as their professional name implies a sense of "godliness." This is more of conversation about godliness and what I believe is the myth inclusive in that concept.

I use to be a godly man for about 15 years.  I considered myself godly as did my peers.  I could quote scripture left and right. I had quiet times every morning. I prayed before I ate . . . especially if other Christians were watching.  I was as sincere as anyone could be.

But here is the real problem.  I do think that godliness is always a myth.  I'm not doubting sincerity. But we have a human nature, emotional baggage and other vice driven parts of us that don't mend over night, or even after years of "discipleship."  The process of discipleship is the process of socialization into a particular Christian class and is as fragile as paper thin porcelain.

I'm not suggesting that the process of godliness makes us more likely to do horrible things, like solicit sex from a minor.  I'm also not saying that our nature is so bent that we can't resist that draw of evil.

My point is, if you believe that you can change your character overnight, and your peers believe the same thing, but in reality you cannot (because our character is written on the very real brain) then we fall into role playing.  We start pretending that we are above the nature.

This is where I think we become most vulnerable.  How many people have been hurt by so-called godly people?  Too many to count.  But if they see themselves as godly and their local society sees them as godly, then a space or hollow develops between the facade and the real person. It is within that hollow that bad things can grow.  That is why the most visible "godly people" have done the most horrible things.

I would much rather trust my daughter to take a trip with a man who is humble and extremely self aware of his fallen nature, than a godly man.  I no longer trust godly people because I was one once . . . and I've been betrayed by them.

I think of a friend of ours who discovered that her very attractive 13 year daughter would hold hands or cuddle with her 30 year old, married, youth pastor when they were alone.  He assured her that he was a godly man and only did it only to comfort her, spiritually . . . but never did it when other kids (and certainly not his wife) were around. Hmm . . . now that is odd. She, being a naive girl raised in the myths of evangelicalism never doubted his motives . . . even when he told her to keep it a secret as the other kids would be jealous.

Thank God that we are forgiven.  We do strive to do good. To walk in humility, to seek justice and to love kindness . . . but we never arrive at any of those lofty goals.  What we fear are bad motives deep within us  . . . usually are.  We don't deceive ourselves into thinking we are above that. We don't need to hate ourselves for our nature, but to understand our true and dangerous self and to enjoy grace but beware of nature.

A Thought on the Heaven Seen

I am on a short vacation, actually family reunion, in Florida.  I was really hoping to do some writing while here . . . and while away from the 24-7 demand of trying to keep a medical practice afloat.  But through a strange chain of events (too complicated to discuss here) I found myself computer-less on this trip.  So I've focused on exercising, watching back to back episodes of International House Hunter (some would say my attempts to get in touch with my feminine side) and of course visiting with my extended family.

So, I've borrowed my wife's computer this morning and after a 10 mile ride to Starbucks, I have some solitude to write.  My infamous typos will be worse this morning because my wife's computer's keyboard is offset to the left (has a number keyboard on the right) plus her computer has some type of virus (I think) that causes it to constantly lock up. This, oddly, also causes the spell-checker not to work.

But anyway, I took a reprieve from reading novels to read the book, Proof of Heaven, by Dr. Eben Alexander. That is him pictured above.  I was drawn to the book when he appeared on the Katie show for an interview. To make a long story short, he was a highly accomplished Harvard neurosurgeon, who knew the brain inside and out but then whose own brain completely shut down (a very, very near death experience for a week) and during that shut down, he had a NDE (near death experience) but as a scientist is 100% convinced that this experience was real. It has changed his life.

I could write an entire book on this concept of the Psyche (as described by the Greeks and those prior to them), the Judo-Christian soul and the mind.  But let me say that Dr. Alexander does a good job of it in his book.

I personally am the greatest skeptic you could ever know. I don't believe 99% of the stories I hear people tell . . . not that I think that they are liars . . . but because I have some humble glimpse of the deceptive nature of our own psychological make up. In the case of Dr. Alexander, I'm am less doubtful than usual.  This is mainly because he does have an intellectual approach and he too understands how our hearts are deceptive, and our psychological make up can trick us (as can a malfunctioning brain).

So, I actually think that it is very possible that Eben's experiences were an actual excursion into the other side.  Now, I don't agree with his interpretation of his experience, which is very 21 century American (quasi-pantheistic). In his story, it appears that there is no fallen nature, although he does allude to evil.  But that is not my point here.

The one facet of the book I wanted to talk about is that which relates to this blog, the nature of monistic thinking, or the harmony between that which is seen and unseen.  This especially was a focus in the book when it comes to consciousness, what is it. Dr. Alexander assumed it was from circuitry in the neurons of the brain's cortex . . . before his big adventure. Afterwards, he is convinced it is something else.

I've said before that the one convincing proof for me is that I am. It is a Descartian way of thinking, but I am aware that I exist, that I'm not a mechanical or semi-conductor robot . . . nor am I an organic, biological robot. I am a soul and I can tell from the inside out.  This is what is also called self-consciousness.

Once we know that we are . . . there is no easy way out.  As I've said before, all paths out of the crater have great barriers to rationality.  I believe that these barriers exist because our minds are fallen and can't grasp what would seem like an easy path out.  So, the atheists are no better off than the most extreme fundamentalist Christians, who don't think at all but blindly believe.  They each must come to grips that we are here and the universe is here and how it got here, if you take each thought to its ultimate conclusion, becomes complicated.

I do digress, but I think the book does a good job (maybe I should say that Dr. Alexander's experience did a good job) of trying to grasp the universe as it is . . . dark matter and all.  Knowing that the spiritual side is not understandable by us people any more than a two dimensional being trying to understand the three dimensional world of which they have never experienced. But somewhere in this madness is the answer to why we are here (not the purpose of why we are here but the history of how we got here).

So now we come to the mind.  The book got me thinking about how our physical brains and our spiritual selves relate. I use to say that the brain was the interface between the spiritual selves and our external persona. But now, I would say that the brain is a window to our true spiritual selves. But, the brain is real and of tremendous value. If a window is fractured, it distorts the image of the other world. When our brains are fractured through mental disabilities from the severely mentally retarded to those of us with some form of mental illness to the rest of us who are never perfect. We do see in a mirror dimly who we are but our spiritual selves are the real, the un-fractured view.

But I close this rambling and semi-book review with one more thought.  Eben, like so many, seems to take the view at the end of the dualists.  But rather than being an evnagelical dualist, it is more of the panthesitic dualist, where our labor should be to transcend this world through meditation and try to connect to the other, more important world.

I still think that the most healthy view is to embrace this world, as fractured as it is, and to love it as a God created space for our present lives. But to know that in the other side are the parts that make sense of the big questions. We will enjoy those parts in their due time. And there is a need and a place for the redeemptive power of Christ. The cross did mean something, which Eben implies it did not. But I see the Christians who do not think embracing Eben, as nice of a guy that he is, line, hook and sinker . . . not noticing that he completely eliminates the need of Christ. They will embrance him because he talks about angels and does visit a church to light a candle. Just like the Christian bookstores embraced the godly couple of Jon and Kate + 8 because they prayed before they ate their fish sticks .  .  . And exploited their children for money. I'm sure his Poor of Heaven book is available in the Christian bookstores even now.