Archive for category belief
You’re all pretty.
I have lots of things that flow through my head but when I try to write them down, they sound fake and preachy and forced.
I took the kids to our *new* church. Not sure we’re going to go there often but whatever. Spoke to the Rev for a bit.
There is just something in me that can’t stand religious relativism. I understand fighting for the right for freedom of belief, but I don’t understand someone who actually believes that everyone is right. Not just the right to believe, but the actual beliefs are all right. That’s like being asked by your prom date if you think she’s pretty and you look at her, with conviction in your eyes and wave your hand at the whole room and say, “You’re all pretty”. Doesn’t wash.
You have to believe something to be true. And in doing so believe something else to be not true. That kind of conviction is important for survival. It doesn’t mean you know you are right, it just means you believe something to be true. I don’t see those as conflicting positions. One persom believing in one and only one god means that person doesn’t believe in many gods. It doesn’t mean that person goes to war against the many gods dude. The communal right to believe is intrinsic to humanity, but so is the personal conviction to truth.
“The coming evangelical collapse”, an article from Michael Spencer of the Christian Science monitor.
There was a pretty interesting article over on The Christian Science Monitor about the potential demise and collapse of the evangelical movement.
Here’s an excerpt that highlights one of the reasons, according to the author (aka Internet Monk), that this collapse is impending and unstoppable:
We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we’ve spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.
Take a second to read the entire article. I’d be interested to know some opinions and criticisms.
Oh, and Christianity Today’s Mark Galli has posted what I think is a fair response from someone in his position.
As senior managing editor of Christianity Today — whose masthead reads “a magazine of evangelical conviction” — it would seem that I have a vested interest in the survival of evangelicalism. Yes and no. On the one hand, as a student of church history, I can also predict that cultural evangelicalism will collapse, not likely in ten years, but collapse it will. On the other hand, evangelicalism will never collapse, at least not until the final altar call.
It’s fair, but it’s also kind of missing the point I think. Evangelicalism (not a redefinition to mean Biblical Christianity in whatever form it currently exists) has become a polarizing movement that aligns itself with political ideologies and attempts at mass market appeal. It can’t market it’s way out of the situation with clever commercials or radical rebranding or awesome alliterations.
But then, I’m probably missing the point too. What do you think?
Religulous, with Bill Maher
I don’t think I could ever be friends with a guy like Bill Maher, but then again, I’m kind of a jerk myself most of the time, so I’m sure he wouldn’t enjoy me much either. I did however spend some quality time with him when I watched his documentary Religulous. I found myself wishing I could spend an afternoon smoking a joint with him, lighting my hair on fire and laughing at all the ridiculousness brought to us by our dear friend, Religion.
Religulous is Bill Maher’s attempt to understand the reasons people believe what they believe, even in the face of hard questions that at times shake the faith down to the golden gonads. He interviews truckers in a truck stop church, sellers of religious trinkets, Jesus himself - as played by an actor at the holyland theme park and many other indignant, confident and self affirming believers.
Let’s be fair. Bill can be a bit of a dick. He is pompous in a way that really gets your sacrificial goat. But all that didn’t matter to me. What mattered to me was what people said, didn’t say, couldn’t say or wouldn’t say while trying to defend their dogma to the obvious questions. It was incredible to watch people get cornered by such seemingly trivial questions. Like the genetic physicist who had to admit that the biographers of Jesus didn’t actually meet or know Jesus personally, and that they wrote down their accounts 10 or 20 years after the fact. Or the trinket salesman who believed his life was laden with miracles; miracles that were the foundation of his life and transformation; who couldn’t come up with a real example, save for a rainstorm that he thinks was a sign from God. Or the reformed homosexual minister, now married to a reformed homosexual woman, who had to admit that it is the Old Testament, which is supposedly no longer authoritative, condemns homosexuality and that Jesus actually never mentioned it.
For me, this movie didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know, but it reminded me with dark precision, just how little evidence we humans really need when it comes to our belief systems. We trust what we’re told, and we can shape entire personal theologies and doctrines around the shakiest of stories. That’s not to say that the fervor or sincerity wasn’t real. The people in this movie are real people, not cardboard cutouts of stupid ass Americans. (He does also dig a bit into Judaism, Islam and Mormonism, but for the most part sticks to the Evangelicals). I implore the passion and the faith of the people pictured; but it’s a cautionary tale. We all want something to believe in and no, we’re not stupid enough to let ourselves believe in something we know isn’t real. We’re smart. Bill makes a point of saying this. But still, instead of facing some hard truths, we make sure that our belief is based on something we make ourselves believe is real, regardless of the evidence, and that let’s us sleep at night. This was less an examination of the existence of God, but rather a story about empty belief that we just won’t acknowledge. Let’s face it - most of what we believe is made up. And I’m not talking about the words of the bible or the koran. I’m talking about our interpretations and theologies and organizations that we extract and create from these books. These books teach us faith, morality and justice; we invent everything else.
So I guess for now, I’ll preach the gospel according to Bill. And that is basically, “We just don’t know”, so stop being stupid and live your life.