Involuntary Lifer!

lifer |ˌlaɪfər|
noun
1 informal a person serving a life sentence in prison.
2 a person who spends their life in a particular career,
3 (Providence Definition) one who spends their entire life at Providence College and Seminary

Well, I was on the phone with the University of Manitoba today and asked if I could get a course calendar. I have not received mine yet and really need one to find out how to register and what courses I want to register for, and graduation requirements etc. They said that they needed to wait to get the final grades from my summer courses until I could get the information and have everything finalised. Because I took the summer TESOL program at Prov which really is not a summer program, but stretches until next April I told them that my final grades would not be available until then. (I have practicum requirements to fill which will probably take until then). I was then put on hold only to be told that they would have to call me back. When they did call back they told me that they had revoked my status as a University of Manitoba student and that because I was still technically enrolled at Providence. I would have to remain at Providence for another year or request a letter of permission from them to be able to take classes at the U of M and have them count towards my degree at Prov. I don't know what this really means for me yet, I don't really want to be a Prov student, but I do know that I will have to remain a providence Student for yet another year. I wonder if I even get a university of manitoba student card... because that is where I will be doing all of my classes.

I don't even know what this will mean for my student loans.

Overall mood: Pensive, apprehensive, anxious and aggravated.

I just want to get all of this sorted out.

Continuation on a Theme

Okay, in response to the comment in which I am told that I “seem to ignore the number of times He [Jesus] refers to Himself as God”, I have decided to write this entry.

In the course Jesus and the Gospels, A class by Michael Gilmour I had last year, I was taught that scholars today pretty much unanimously believe that The Gospel of Mark was the first of the Gospels to be written, though it was not completely written by one author, and instead was edited together from multiple sources. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke then copied Mark and other documents, constructed their own gospels soon after. Finally John was written quite a while later. Interestingly enough, in these books the focus on Jesus as a man to Jesus as a divine figure shifts progressively in chronological order, Mark treating Jesus as entirely human and the others progressively focussing more on the divinity of Christ In Mark Jesus refers to himself as solely as the son of Man, only in the other gospels does he refer to himself as “Son of God” or divine, though really even if he does call himself the “Son of God”, Christians today call themselves “sons and daughters of God”, making it not really any different, at least from my perspective. Another thing which deserves pointing out, is that in the Gospel of Mark (10:18) Jesus actually makes a point to make sure that he is not seen as divine/God by the people. When someone comes to him kneels and asks him “Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds “Why callest thou me ‘good?’ There is none good but One, that is God.” (sorry for the antiquated English, I am quoting from the KJV). So it seems that Jesus really did not view himself as the same as God, and that the “divinity of Christ” really did not come about until later within Christianity.

The phenomenon of great people becoming deified is quite a common occurrence, Gandhi, who died fairly recently 1948, has a following people believing he was divine, as does Mother Teresa, and she passed away much more recently. To me this illustrates that it is entirely possible that a similar thing could happen in Jesus’ day. The individual, (Jesus, Mother Teresa, Gandhi) know they are not divine, however because of the things they accomplished people begin to think they are, and they develop a cult following. And really since Jesus didn’t write anything, how can we know what he truly thought of himself. The only difference between these recent movements and Jesus is that his has had nearly 2000 years to develop.

Another interesting story worthy of mention is that of Shabbetai Zevi whose life is actually quite similar to that of Jesus’ and also has a sect of Judaism which thinks he is divine, (for more information on this sect see http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/asym/zevi.html, which is a direct quotation of Karen Armstrong’s A History of God).

Take the above for what it is worth, but really I have trouble believing that Jesus believed himself to be divine, I do believe that he believed in God, I would say that is obvious and a result of the culture he grew up in. I would not however say that belief in God or the divinity of Christ is necessary to work towards the goals he had for society. This is also shown by Reimarus (1694-1768), who “argued that Jesus had simply wanted to found a godly state. . . . He point[s] out that in the Gospels Jesus never claimed that he had come to atone for the sins of mankind. That idea, which had become central to Western Christendom, could only be traced to St. Paul, the true founder of Christianity. We should not revere Jesus as God, therefore, but as the teacher of a “remarkable, simple, exalted and practical religion” (Karen Armstrong 307).

As final thoughts I would like to quote my textbook from Jesus and the Gospels written my Craig Blomberg, which states: “Historically, the church’s doctrine of Scripture has almost always stressed that it is only the contents of the original manuscripts that are authoritative, inspired, or inerrant.” And yes I know that the whole New Testament is viewed as authoritative, inspired, and inerrant, but I would challenge this saying that it seems evident that details about Jesus and his nature evolved over time, and so I think it is safe (though heretical I realise from a Christian perspective) to not trust the validity of much of the New Testament, because much of it is based on a Paul-originated theology and christology instead of a Christ-initiated teaching.

Lastly, I know that my thoughts on the bible and Christianity and all of these things will not be easily accepted by Christians, and I don’t necessarily believe that they should be... because... (this is probably something better thought and kept silent than typed and published, but I am going to type it anyway, ) I believe that some people are not ready to not have Christianity as a crutch. As Karen Armstrong similarly states: “Freud made a valid and perceptive point when he insisted that it would be dangerous to attempt to abolish religion. People must outgrow God in their own good time: to force them into atheism or secularism before they were ready could lead to an unhealthy denial and repression” (Armstrong, 358). Some people need a superior being in their lives in order to be psychologically “healthy,” and some don’t, and it is my realisation of this, I believe, that allows me to be a “pluralist-atheist,” because I may not necessarily believe in God (whatever he/she/it may be), but I realise the value of the belief of God (or any being resembling God) in others’ lives who are not able or ready to be without “him”.

Again, I hope that this does not seem to rambleish, if it is it is because it is two years of my thoughts squeezed into an evening of writing, but again, I hope that whichever side of the fence one is sitting on, that it fuels appetites for further research on the subject!

I think my mom caught the hint

Okay, so I have been trying to avoid being at home for the past three weeks so that I am not home when church is going on so I don't have to tell my mom that I don't want to go. Tonight I was home but had an excuse ready incase she asked me to come. My auntie came to pick her up for church and she didn't even ask if I wanted to go. I was impressed, but also felt bad because I know she is upset with me, and I think she feels quite worried and let down that her son didn't turn out how she raised him to be. She found out that I had an alcoholic beverage in the UK *gasp* and we had an interesting talk about it before church. In this conversation I told her that it is pretty sad when what defines Christian from non-Christian is the consumption of alcohol. I wonder how long I can last before I have to tell her that I am not a "Christian". Maybe I should just print off my last blog entry and give it to her... though I think I should talk to her soon because I don't want her to be agonizing forever, however if she doesn't see things my way I guess she still will be...

Why I am no Longer a Christian

I have been wanting to write this entry for a long time but have not had the courage to do it, until now, and even though I don’t think everything I want to be included will be, I have faith that the message will get across. “What was the straw which broke the camels back?” you ask, well that would be the opportunity of sitting in on a Jehova’s Witness Bible study. The Bible study was being presented to a fifteen year-old girl her mom and her younger thirteen year-old sister. Though they have been Jehova’s Witnesses for a long time, they (the children) didn’t really seem to know much about what it meant, except that God had a name and it is Jehovah (though really this is just, as far as I understand the German pronunciation of the Hebrew Yahweh, which is the true name of God, though no one really knows what the true vowel sounds are, but the J and Y have been exchanged and, as is typical in German, the V and the W). The meeting started with a prayer to “Jehovah” and then they started talking about things such as the garden, Adam and Eve, perfection, and then how Adam’s sin which meant that humankind was no longer perfect and so God decided to make his son into man and send him to earth to die as a ransom to pay for our sins, as a result of which we could achieve the lost state of perfection again. This seems really close to the Christian message, at least to me, (I know there are differences between the JW teaching and “orthodox Christianity” but this is not necessary to examine for the purposes of this entry). Essentially the way I see the Christian message, it is at its very basic form this, God created perfection, humanity screwed it up, God sends his son/himself to pay for the damages, Humanity is saved and can be perfect again.

In the class Interpreting the Old Testament Narrative, a class I took while at Prov, I learned about two words “Utopia” and “Dystopia” these words essentially are words which describe a perfect state (like that which was in the garden, or ‘heaven’) and its direct opposite, a completely imperfect state (hell, etc.). When defining these terms we had to say how they were used in the text and so I did that and also said their purposes within texts in general. The idea of Utopia provides a positive reinforcement for following a system, (If you do these things, you can be perfect/have a perfect society), Dystopia provides negative reinforcement, (if you do bad things, all of these terrible things will be heaped upon you).

From my experience with visiting “the cult” that I visited when going to Prov, one thing that I noticed was the emphasis on “going to heaven,” and “avoiding hell”. Or in other words it was providing heavy reinforcement using Utopia and Dystopia. One key feature of “cults” to me seems to be heavy mind control used to keep people in the system, and this seemed to be how it was done at this church. Even amongst the JW meeting they talked heavily about Adam and the perfect state he was in and then how he fell away, and then talked about the dystopia we are in right now and how it will be even worse at Armageddon. Those who follow God until that day (which is Very very close) will be spared from his wrath and be able to enter his perfect kingdom. I find that this system of heaven and hell, or even just heaven (for those who don’t believe in negative reinforcement), is cultish and I, personally, am distrustful of anything which focuses, even a little, on “what is promised for us when we die”, or the “promises of God” etc. This rules out a large portion of Christianity, not just the sections which are actually labeled as “cult” by the rest of “orthodox” Christianity but a much larger section, I would even say mostly all of Christianity, as can be seen by the sales of the Left Behind series.

Though now that I am on the topic of “labelling” one thing that I found interesting was during the JW meeting when they were going through all of the other devilish forms of Christianity, like “Catholocism which was allied with Hitler during World War Two, the Pope and Hitler signed an alliance, you can read about it in the history books, and George Bush, look at the mess America is in with the war, do you know what he is?..” “ uh... I dunno Baptist” “yes that is right, he is Baptist... and what about the Monarchy in England, they are involved too and guess what they are.... they are Anglican... and do you know that all of them have severely edited God’s name Jehovah out of the Bible... etc.” so yah, one thing I noticed was how much the JW’s reinforced their beliefs by showing how wrong every other sector of Christianity is. And this reinforcing by the negation of others, has happened all over Christianity. I have had countless conversations with my Grandmother where she tells me how evil the Catholics are, or how she wouldn’t even allow a JW into her house, because her way is the only way to get to heaven and the catholics and the JWs and most of the rest of Christianity doesn’t follow the way and thus should not even be called Christian. It happened in Protestantism with the Reformation and Catholocism with the Counter-Reformation, and has been perpetuated by many even today, people are reinforcing their beliefs not by deeming them to be in-fact true, but by deeming others to be false. Should a student assume that because everyone else got a question wrong on a test that the odds that they got it right have increased because of everyone else’s failure?!

It seems to me very illogical to say “well everybody else is wrong therefore I must be right” how can we claim to have a monopoly on truth simply because we view everyone else’s truth as wrong. It is also an absurdity. The odds that we just happened happened to choose or be born into the “right” religion are highly stacked against us and chances are we are just as wrong as all the faithful in all the other religions we view as heathens. Though we can only judge them as heathens based on the “absolute truths” which our religion defines as truth, everything truly is relative to the religion of the viewer. Instead it is much more logical to say that there is no absolute truth to lean on to judge other things as faulted. Perhaps it is true that we are as Sartre states “condemned to be free” that there is nothing that we can turn to, and it is our dislike of being in control of ourself, and our realisation that we do not have a utopia and therefore we must be flawed, that we cannot deal with. We want a way out of the mess we are in, and something to look to so that we don’t have to take the responsibility for ourselves, and so we invent a perfect deity, who we can look to and turn to for hope, and in some cases a satan which we can blame.

The way I see it, it is us who are imperfect and therefore it is us who should fix our own situation. The illogicality of the Christian system was very easily noticed by the fifteen year-old at the JW bible study. As she was asked numerous times if she understood why God would need to offer a ransom, (a ransom similar to the one that would be payed by her mom if she was kidnapped), and she seemed very confused and said, “I just don’t understand why God would be paying a ransom to himself....” at this point, internally, I was like: wow her logic is much better than the adults in the crowd, but she was merely told “Questioning is good, it means you are thinking about it, and that she would understand eventually. Let’s move on.” To me this seemed like a form of cultish conditioning, a way that people are brainwashed into believing something ludicrous or nonsensical. If someone who a child views as older and wiser says to them that they will understand something such as the salvation message eventually, even if the child logically can see its illogicality he or she will still view themselves as wrong and not smart enough, until they eventually have lied themselves into believing it and truly stand up for it as “truth” even if they don’t know why, or they say they believe it because they don’t want to be viewed as an outsider or inferior.

Realistically, when it comes to salvation, why should “God” pay for our problems, it doesn’t seem to solve anything at all, we screw up and then God dies for us so that we can be not screwed up, though we don’t really learn anything from this except that we are supposed to believe that he died and then voila we have been saved from our “wretched state”. How does simply believing change the world? should it not be action. To me it is the message of Christ to follow him, not by believing that he died for our sins, but rather to be kind one to another, that was his entire mission in life, he even states at one point that it is much better to be kind to others that to offer sacrifice to God, this means that according to Jesus, the “author and finisher of our faith” that it is better to be kind to others than to rely on his “sacrifice” for our salvation. This seems to be a common thread between people who have become my role models, Jesus sought to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, as did Mother Theresa, and Gandhi too, they were all quite selfless, the Buddha also strived to be a selfless being. In my opinion, it is not our duty to have faith in God, but it is our duty to realise the human condition, and to work to help those who are not as well off as us, to be selfless, (which is endorsed by Christiantiy), and because it is our problem, our imperfections, really it is our responsibility to fix it. This perhaps is why I find Buddhism a much more attractive faith than Christianity. It does have Gods but they are not perfect beings that one can look to to distract one from one’s own faults, they are faulted just like everyone else. In Buddhism attempting to reach Nirvana is something that each person has to do for themselves, by striving for the love of all things, not by believing that loving all things is possible and believing in the somebody who accomplished it, but by actually attempting to do it ourselves.

So, am I Buddhist, no, but I cannot call myself Christian either, the closest I could call myself to this is a “Christ follower” meaning I see value in the way he lived his life, and would like to be able to do the same, I could easily call myself a follower of anything which leads one to love others. But overall, I want to be my own person, I want to be able to embrace the “condemnation to be free,” to not try to escape it, but to truly live as myself. Or in the Buddhist mind set, to live as no self, but to live a life of love in serving others.

I dunno, this may seem like one big ramble, but I do hope that it makes sense, or at least causes fodder for thought and self-research. and for those of you who have read this far... Thank you for reading!

~Justin Goodman