maeve66 | mini rant on xianity

Entry tags:

politics,
religion

mini rant on xianity

Yeah, I think I'm doing that "X" thing to be rude... sorry, to any who are Christians who might read this. It's just that this particular religion's loudest proselytizers piss me off so much. Even fluffy confusing Christians who are famous guitarists -- that would be "Edge" from U2, also Bono -- come up with these wacky quotes that want to be all politically radical and revolutionary, but then invoke the notion of the Saved and the Rest.

I don't mind admitting that many of the central tenets of the historical Jesus were radical in their time, and still are, and can legitimately be part of politically liberatory arguments. But that's true of lots -- maybe even all religions. Humans are basically capable of great compassion and empathy; I believe that, so it is only sensible that human religions should aspire to that human capacity. Islam has some excellent core beliefs and principles; so do Buddhism and some of Hinduism, and Judaism, ad infinitem.

What pisses me off about Christianity is that it rigorously excludes any Truth but its own, and mentally condemns those who are not Christians. I don't know if Islam is quite the same in that. Historically, I think that many Islamic states were fairly tolerant of other religions, or at least those "of the book". But this exclusion/condemnation thing*... it pretty much eviscerates all the nice claims for me.

Anyway, the quote that kneejerked this tirade out of me is the following:

"I really believe Christ is like a sword that divides the world, and it's time we get into line and let people know where we stand. You know, to much of the world, even the mention of the name Jesus Christ is like someone scratching their nails across a chalkboard." -- The Edge (CCM Magazine, August 1982)

My kneejerk reaction was set off by the notion of drawing a fucking line in the sand with a sword, Christians on one side and presumably everyone else on the other. I am sure that that guitarist meant that the politically radical, tolerant, COMPASSIONATE, Christ-like Christians would be on one side, not the intolerant, rigid, condemning ones. But it doesn't play like that in today's religious/political rhetoric. And anyway, it doesn't matter, because on the other side of the identify-as-Christian line is all the rest of the non-Christian world. Then I looked at the date, and am slightly less pissed off, because at least when he said it, fundamentalism was just beginning its long climb to the political top, it wasn't already enthroned. Even so.

As a result of the current politics, sometimes even the name of Jesus Christ is like someone scratching their nails across a chalkboard. For me.

As an atheist, it's fair to ask, "why should I care?" Only because of the current political and cultural weather. I love many people who are Christians or Jews, and I've loved a few people who are Buddhists or Hindus. I don't think I've known any people of other religious persuasions, except Pagans, I guess. Anyway, /end rant.

*as I say, of any stripe, not just Xtian -- just, in the West, these days, the loudest fundamentalists are the Xtians, and it's the culture I grew up surrounded by, so the majority of my ire goes there.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm not here to argue or defend, but, y'know, these guys have not actually listened very hard to the teaching of Jesus Christ.

I'm thinking in particular of 'he who lives by the sword dies by the sword', but there's loads of stuff. 'Love thy neighbour as thyself' is a good example.

I know -- I don't really want to be polemical and I wasn't meaning to incite to argument... it was just frustration spilling over.

I agree with your comment... what's frustrating is that I'm pretty sure those U2 members would perfectly agree with you, too. It's the us/them dichotomy I'm not liking. At the same time, I don't care what kind of exclusivity people practice about their heaven, as long as it doesn't spill over to the shared political realm that millions of people who don't share those beliefs inhabit.

I am a religious person, a spiritual person. I'm a Jew.

But...

Christ is like a sword

Holy crap, can you IMAGINE believing wholeheartedly in a religion that taught you to think of your Lord and Savior as a sword? A knife? That's so violent. Kind of like crucifixion. I can't imagine coming from a faith based in elevating oneself above the rest of the world, and worshipping a vengeful god.

As Jews we do have the whole "Chosen People" thing, but I've been taught that this means we are *extra* responsible to be good, righteous humans... Not that we are special or get rights other people don't.

As a kid, that's how I differentiated Judaism for myself (I went through a phase where I felt like I ought to pick a religion, having been raised without any, around age 10... I narrowed it down to Catholicism and Judaism, because I thought if you were going to be a Christian, you might as well be the original kind, rather than the amended, and because the other main contender in my environment was Judaism) -- by the fact that it wasn't a recruiting religion, and didn't condemn people who WEREN'T Jews. Chosen, schmosen, whatever. In general I didn't care if other people felt special for whatever reason, since I felt special enough for myself. It was the attempt to force one's "rightness" on others that bothered me.

At the same time, the whole time I am writing this, I am feeling ambivalence and/or guilt because I'm a marxist. I'd prefer it if millions of other humans beecame revolutionaries, too. But I wouldn't force it on them. I couldn't, for one thing, and in a period that was revolutionary, I suspect people will be recruiting themselves. This ain't that, sadly, though things do change in history with shocking suddenness, on rare occasion.

I consider myself a socialist, and a probably-communist. I feel that I am not well educated enough about communism to call myself a communist, but that is basically where my politics lie. However, I don't feel that this conflicts with my religious beliefs because I believe that "the opiate of the masses" is not religion in and of itself, it is the patriarchal and self-righteous and violent approach to religion that evolved out of the crusades and beyond. To me, G-d is that which is good and holy and pure within all of us... I see Revolution as a necessary precursor to the "coming of the Messiah" - Because the "Messiah" to me is not a person, it is a time in which all people are able to be in touch with that which is good, holy and pure in themselves and can act accordingly towards others. I think that a revolution that involves the ending of economic injustice would be the only thing that could bring about a time when this much peace and unity could be a possibility. Which is why I find messianic religions that think that some dude is going to show up and make everything better, pretty ridiculous and unrealistic.

I agree with every word of that -- my own spirituality is more of an evanescent thing... the closest I ever get is a moment that seems a bit like Emerson's "allseeing eye" transcendentalist thing, a visual moment that takes me out of myself. But that's me. I respect spirituality in lots of forms, because I do believe what I said about human capacity for empathy and compassion.

humans are human. Maybe they have something 'good, pure and holy' in them, but it's necessarily mixed up with what is not. Real human societies are not and never will be 'good, pure and holy'. To believe in anything else is, to my way of thinking, to believe in magic.

But a capacity for empathy and compassion is not the same thing as an inevitable practice of that -- I don't see how that's magic. I don't believe in anything more than a random mutation of genes, and before that a random accumulation of molecules that tended to get more complex, and before that the explosion of some elements in a void. I'm a materialist, myself.

Somehow, though, that (ha, ha -- the song playing now is Eminem -- "Will the Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up?" and just said "we ain't nothing but mammals"... I like coincidence) that doesn't really conflict with my appreciation of the universe as feeling somehow bigger than my own consciousness. I don't need a superior being for that, but I've liked some of the transcendentalist interpretations of that, e.g. the Emerson. It all seems like metaphor to me. Also, I'm often sympathetic to metaphoric magic, which is how I see a lot of the Pagan/Wiccan impulses.

Empathy and compassion are human characteristics. Purity and holiness are not.

Pagans and Wiccans are consumers too. I used to correspond occasionally on LJ with a travel agent from WA (Western Australia) who was a dedicated pagan about to wear a white dress to church for her wedding (in which her 'bastard' child was also to participate)! You can do that sort of thing in a secular society.

Metaphor may be OK. If there's any religious impulse involved I just tend to find it annoying. I haven't read Emerson, but I don't think your transcendentalism has anything to do with 'spirituality'. You said it takes you out of yourself. What you mean is that you occasionally experience something different from the everyday. YOU see YOURSELF from a different perspective. Nothing mysterious in it. Human brains are like that. What I can bet on is that your experience is absolutely unique to you, precisely because it comes from YOUR brain and not from the cosmos or god.

I didn't say that humans or societies will be "good, pure and holy" ... I said:

"a time in which all people are able to be in touch with that which is good, holy and pure in themselves"

i.e. people having the optimal circumstances to be in touch with that *part* of themselves.

I think it's more important to be in touch with other humans.

I said that too, actually.

I narrowed it down to Catholicism and Judaism, because I thought if you were going to be a Christian, you might as well be the original kind...

Some would claim that as an argument for Eastern Orthodoxy instead.

it's perfectly acceptable to say xtain and that abbreviation is even used by Jesuits. true dat.

A while ago, the Vatican decided that Jesus was so powerful and so mysterious that He could even choose to send people who didn't believe in Him to heaven, but that was one of those things that was just too complicated for people to understand. I'd laught at that, but they have soo much power.

In my adult life I think I have met very few christians. I'm serious. I currently know, in real life, three people who are bold enough to say that they are believers (and in one case I doubt the strength of her belief, as distinct from a love of ritual). I know one person who goes to mosque on Friday. There are possibly others, but they sure keep it to themselves. I like it that way.

If I believe in anything, it is the power of humans to transform themselves. Relgion in all its forms is a counsel of despair. Even the tolerant ones, those who do charitable works, are basically in despair - applying bandaids to situations they feel they can do nothing real to change. Good enough to wait for the next life? Religious belief is a declaration that we cannot and will not change life on earth.

I don't know many, either, and those whom I do know are wonderful people who have nothing that I can perceive in common with fundamentalists or any of the stuff I critique above. But the general culture in the US is kind of permeated by that unstated (or very loudly stated) historical culture. I am, myself. My parents may have been out and out atheists, and my grandparents kind of functional atheists (I don't think any of them believed in god, though in their younger days they went to various denominations of Protestant church). But my great grandparents were either Catholic or Protestant, and you can't be in this country without learning some of the basics of Judeo-Christian history, ethics, language, and metaphor. I know far less about Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, or other world religions, even though I've actually studied Buddhism and Hinduism, in college.

Your views sound refreshingly materialist; I like that, though I understand people for whom spirituality is important.

You can't live in this country either without learning those 'basics'. But wtf is Judaeo-Christian culture? I presume it refers to the Old Testament and a particular part of the Middle East - which are also part of Islamic culture (e.g Abraham). The whole point about Jesus was that he was supposed to make a radical break from Judaism. There was a time when people in the west spoke more about Semitic culture, from which christianity was quite distinct (all those medieval paintings that made JC look distinctly non-semitic). I was in Naples last year. It is a city with a history of over 2,500 years. In the land of the Catholic Pope, there is magic and superstition in Naples that has nothing at all to do with Judaeo-Christianity. What is Judaeo-Christian about Filipino Catholicism or Mexican for that matter? In short I think the whole definition of J-Xity is one of those historical legends that has been developed ex-post to explain and justify what is essentially a preposterous belief system.

Ok. While I'm offending your friends, let's ask what is this 'spirituality' that people seem to need. Religion and magic both come from historically existing cultures in which people tried to understand something they didn't understand (and we still don't understand). So humans invented gods etc and 'intelligent design' so that there was something to which they could refer in order to answer the Big Questions (why are we here? where do we fit into the scheme of things? and, most importantly, from where do we get our intelligence, that which enables us to plan, design, manufacture, etc that other animals do not have?). Most religions (maybe all?), on account of the last question, place humans in a special relation with god and the cosmos. The point being that humans are definitely not some random genetic mutation.

The term 'spirituality' in modern usage seems to refer to some special quality of communing with god, the universe or whatever. For which you apparently require some kind of religion or other. I find this totally offensive. Just because I'm an atheist doesn't mean that I cannot stand under the stars and experience a complete sense of awe, beauty and incomprehensibility. Why do I have to lay my house out according to the laws of Feng Shui (magic) in order to have a sense of being a part of this enormous universe? Of course there are things humans cannot control - our brains are too finite and stupid. Why should that bother us? Why can't we just get on with doing what we can do - trying to make our society better.

Further, I think that 'spirituality' in the modern world (America, Australia, etc) is a manifestation of the extreme individualism that capitalism has driven us to - pure selfishness if you like. "I have my saviour and the devil take the rest of you." (saviour being broadly defined to include whatever 'spiritual belief' turns you on). This is especially true in the later manifestations of capitalism - consumerism - in which we a free to choose our own version of 'spirituality' in the same way that we choose a new car. There is no 'community' any longer to tell us what we have to believe on pain of excommunication and/or eternal damnation. This kind of 'spirituality' is therefore anti-community. Although you might find a 'community' of like-minded 'spiritualists', you effectively cut yourself off from people who have a different 'spirituality' - even if (or especially if?) they are the next door neighbour. Instead of being part of a real community (which necessarily squabbles) you have to invoke a creed of 'tolerance' in order to be able to live next door to each other. But you're not sharing each other's world.

In short, one of my missions in life is to try to dissuade people from their 'spirituality'. Mission Impossible! :( Unfortunately, most of them find my views offensive. The argument usually ends up with 'let's agree to disagree' (impossible from my point of view) or 'I don't care what you think, I know'.

You should read a post by my Belfast ex, on Blogspot. I kind of referred him to you, for that matter, in my comment on his post, which predated mine, but independently. I think it's all this stuff about the Danish cartoon coming out. His post is explicitly on that topic, the one below the demonstration one, and I suspect that some of that cartoon stuff is motivating my own frustration, too.

I think your linking of individual spiritualism and consumerism is fascinating, by the way. I sometimes struggle towards those notions, but I am less willing to offend, I think. I really like reading you.

Here's the link:

MacUaid on religion and imperialism

As a result of the current politics, sometimes even the name of Jesus Christ is like someone scratching their nails across a chalkboard.

Exactly my thought when I read that part of your quote. (Note to Edge: biblical prophecy is not the same as self-fulfilling prophecy.)

Well, if you get your theology from rock musicians...

I don't have a theology. But, in a nice turn of synchronicity, the single U2 song I have on my computer, one in 2,000 possible songs, "Sunday, Bloody Sunday", is playing right now, as I answer your comment.

Yeah, I did consider the source. It's maybe that I read some equally annoying interview with Bono a month or more ago, and that it frustrates me also that giant rockstars can be seen as a political force, when that is so much the opposite of my own socialist support for a mass movement and mass politics.

Anyway.

I think I'm doing that "X" thing to be rude...

Ironically, any X'ian who finds the X rude is ignorant of their own religion's history. The X is not an X, but the Greek letter chi, as in Χριστος (Christos, i.e, Christ). The fact that it resembles, in a strange way, a cross being carried on the shoulder made the symbolism even more appealing to early Christians, so the X became a code word for their persecuted cult.

I'm as militantly materialist as angel80, so I think that believers, in general, are either temporarily duped, incurably stupid, or cynically taking leave of their rational faculties. But, having been raised by a Jewish mother and an anti-religious father who blames the Church for everything that ever went wrong in Greek history, I developed the prejudice early on that Christians in particular were especially duped, stupid or cynical. I recognize that it is a hereditary bigotry and thus probably wrong, but in all my years of trying to overcome it, the evidence hasn't helped much.

I have nothing really smart to add to this, but I'm glad you posted it. I too like

angel80's link with consumerism. Most obvious in the huckster fundie churches (or the Catholic juggernaut of tithing) that link gifts to ministers or the church with "holy acts."

Which is perhaps my greatest peeve: I inherently distrust anyone who has to rely upon a book of fairy tales to remind them that it's a good idea to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, take care of the poor and the sick and the dispossessed. Seriously: If you can't figure that shit out on your own, I really don't trust you. Which isn't to say that there are no Christian or other religious groups that do marvelous work with poor, elderly, sick, hungry etc. people. But why can't we do it just to do it, instead of to feel right with some idea of God?

(Which, if I wanted to be insufferable, is why I would suggest that it's the atheists who do those things who are morally superior. We don't believe we're racking up brownie points toward a perfect life in the Great Unknown Beyond.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

mini rant on xianity

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

rant

Re: rant

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject