Religion: Starting Over

If I could change human nature, one of the things I would do is to hit the reset button on religion. Religion is the powerhouse behind some of the worst things in the world. It is at least part of the inspiration for the Israeli strikes this summer against Palestinians (and so far Palestinians have been almost the only casualties in the conflict), as well as the inspiration behind Palestinian rockets fired into Israel as well as the way the Palestinian militias have put civilians directly in the line of fire. The only thing that Palestinian militias and the Israelis agree on is that Palestinian civilians should get killed in the name of religion. And here in America, there are a lot of people who at least act as if the gospel is where Jesus said you should accumulate assault weapons and be ready to use them. And as the previous blog essay indicated, a lot of religion is just a scam. I wish I could hit the reset button.

And starting over might allow the good aspects of religion to grow back. If there is a God of love, then this power might be able to find greater expression. There are many loving Christians (and Jews, and Muslims, and Buddhists, etc.) but the people who use religion as a justification for hatred crowd them out like tender seedlings among gigantic weeds.

I suspect that religion is inherently illogical and cannot have a reasonable basis. But suppose I am wrong. If there is a true God of love, then our minds ought to be able to reasonably choose that God and that religion. One of the main reasons this cannot happen now is the religious part of most people’s minds is filled with religious junk that we have inherited from previous millennia. If we could just hit the reset button and make a reasonable choice about what form our religious instinct should take…maybe Christianity would more closely resemble what Jesus said than what violent conservative Christians believe we should say using His Name as a justification.

Dream over. Time to get back to real life.

The Holy Spirit: An Experiment

Back when I converted to Christian fundamentalism when I was in high school, I was told in no uncertain terms that the Holy Spirit was absent from me before I was baptized, and that it would enter into me at the moment of baptism. The details were unclear; would the Holy Spirit merge with my own spirit, or would they remain separate like two battling Zoroastrian entities? (Modern Zoroastrians seem to be the only cultural group that every major religion wants to slaughter.) It was also unclear whether the Holy Spirit would ever leave. But at least if I should stop adhering to fundamentalist beliefs, the Holy Spirit would become inactive.

Therefore my conversion experience, and my subsequent rejection of organized religion, followed the classic ABA experimental design. Situation A, my previous unconverted self; B, my converted self; then back to A, my post-fundamentalist self. My spiritual experiences during B should be significantly different from those during A.

It is true that, during B, I had deeply and soaringly religious experiences. My feeling of inspiration was sometimes so strong that I could hardly breathe. The whole world radiated colorful beauty. The problem is that I also had these experiences before, during the first A. Somewhere around age nine I started feeling unspeakable inspiration when I was surrounded by beautiful natural scenes. Once at a Presbyterian church camp (which clearly did not meet fundamentalist standards) up in the Sierra Nevada we wrote little skits. I was Paul Bunyan going to heaven, and I said that if heaven didn’t have trees I didn’t want to go. The feeling was so strong that I experienced it even when riding my bicycle through endless acres of pesticide-drenched monocultures of orange or olive trees. I can still remember the scent of Malathion. I identified this feeling with God. And I believed the basic Christian doctrines. But I had not yet been baptized.

Many years later, when I left theology behind, I continued to have these experiences. Just this past summer I felt inspiration over and over as I beheld the wonders of nature (see my evolution blog). I am not an atheist like Sir Richard Dawkins, but even he likes to quote someone who described him as “a deeply religious nonbeliever.” If I am indeed still experiencing the Holy Spirit, which really does make me love everybody and the Earth, then why is it still a palpable presence in my post-doctrinal life? Why did I have these feelings before and after my time as a fundamentalist? A statistician would say that my experiences (the dependent variable) during A vs. B (the independent variable) were not significantly different.

I experience the mental state that many (most?) other people experience, and I experience it more often than nearly everyone I know: I feel breathlessly inspired by nature, and I love altruism. (I also hate those times when people defy altruism. Those are the only times I get really, really angry.) But those experiences are not associated with the presence or absence of belief in fundamentalist doctrines.

We’ve been sold a big lie. Fundamentalists insist that everyone who has not joined their ranks is an abject sinner who lives only for pleasure and is constrained from harming other people only by the fear of Hell, and that when you join them you become a new person who is filled with the spirit of love. Both of these assertions are wrong, and are lies. There are perhaps billions of non-fundamentalists who behave in the way the Bible says we can recognize as Christian, except for the doctrines and rituals; and there are at least thousands of Christians in America who are constrained from acting aggressively toward you only because they fear the secular law of the land.

Behold the Lamb

Back in my formally religious days, one of my favorite Biblical passages was what John the Baptist said when Jesus showed up to be baptized. He said, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”

To me, the most important word was the first one, behold. What was there, about a young Jesus, that might suggest that he was the Lamb of God, which you could see just by looking at him? Jesus had not yet begun his public ministry. It is very likely that John knew Jesus, knew about his character and his beliefs, but it is very unlikely that John knew about what would later be considered the essential theology of Jesus as Son of God and as King in the lineage of David. Based on evidence that Bart Ehrman has outlined very clearly in How Jesus Became God, it is not likely that Jesus even made these claims about himself. At the very least, Jesus almost certainly had not yet made such claims back when John baptized him.

So what could John see, and bid others to see, by looking at Jesus? They could see a man who really cared about his fellow humans, who noticed and championed those who are oppressed and poor, who turned away from the path of violent opposition to the Romans, who took time to notice the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. When you beheld Jesus doing things like this, you could conclude that he was the Lamb of God. As a scientist, I consider this to be a good, if primitive, application of the scientific method.

But when you behold a modern conservative Christian, you see almost the exact opposite of these things. Modern conservatives glance at the poor and oppressed and blame them for not being rich. To modern conservatives, laziness is the only reason that anyone is poor. Furthermore, to these modern Christians, armed opposition is the first choice against any power of which they do not approve. Jesus told Peter to put away his sword, but modern conservatives say that we should all have as many guns as we can afford, and be ready to use them. And to modern conservatives, the birds of the air and lilies of the field are invisible parts of a countryside that is just asking to be driven over by ORVs or developed into resorts. To listen to modern conservatives, you would think that Jesus got rich by ruthless business practices, shunned the poor, had as many weapons as he could carry, and aspired to live in a big house on the hill built by underpaid and uninsured laborers.

What about the rest of the verse? Lamb of God referred to the idea that Jesus was to be the sacrifice that would take away the sins of the world. The Apostle John said that “God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world but that through him they might be saved.” But according to conservative Christians nearly everyone who has ever lived is going to suffer unspeakable torture in Hell forever. In most cases, it will be because these people never even heard of Jesus. In many other cases, it is because these people beheld the actions of Christians and concluded that, if Christians imitate Christ, then Jesus must be evil. And in most other cases, it will be because these people did not accept the interpretation of the Bible that conservative Christians insist is the only correct one. For example, the Book of Revelation depicts 144,000 people being saved. To most of us, this is clearly a figurative number, based on holy numerology and the number seven. But conservative Christians believe that if you do not believe this number to be literally exact, then you will not be among that number. Or if you do not believe that this or that or some other specific political event is in fact the beginning of the End Times and Armageddon, then you are damned. If about 100 billion people have lived in the history of the world, and only about 100 thousand will be saved, this is a one-in-a-million success rate—or, a 99.999999 percent failure rate, for God’s announced purpose of saving the world.

No wonder conservative Christians hate us. When one of them looks at you, he or she knows that there is only a one in a million chance that you will be with them in heaven. This being the case, why should they care to treat you with any respect? Why should they hesitate to throw garbage in your yard? I wrote about this earlier, in which my former neighbor (who wears a God-and-guns-and-American-flag T shirt) trespassed into my yard to use my trashcan (or did, before I locked up my trashcan on an enclosed porch). Why not? I am just hell-fodder anyway, and so, probably, are you.

In the famous parable of the Good Samaritan, a student of religious law asked Jesus to define the term neighbor. A neighbor, Jesus indicated, is whoever you give assistance to when they need it, even if you find them out on the road. But to modern conservative Christians, even the person who lives in a house next door is not a neighbor, but is merely some biomass headed for Hell.

When I behold modern Christians, I cannot see at all the figure of Jesus as depicted in the gospels. The Jesus I love is someone I must wholly construct out of fantasy.

Poems

First, a brief poem that I wrote. I have written thousands of little four-line quatrains (more so in the past than now) and I would like to briefly share one now.

They build a lofty church

And imagine

That it encloses God

And that He is theirs.

Then, here is a fabulous poem by Rupert Brooke, called “Heaven.” This is how fish might imagine—and rationalize—heaven.

…This life cannot be All, they swear,

For how unpleasant, if it were!

One may not doubt that, somehow, Good

Shall come of Water and of Mud;

And, sure, the reverent eye must see

A Purpose in Liquidity.

We darkly know, by Faith we cry,

The future is not Wholly Dry.

Mud unto mud!—Death eddies near—

Not here the appointed End, not here!

But, somewhere, beyond space and Time

Is wetter water, slimier slime!

And there (they trust) there swimmeth One

Who swam ere rivers were begun,

Immense, of fish form and mind,

Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;

And under that Almighty Fin,

The littlest fish may enter in.

Oh! Never fly conceals a hook,

Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,

But more than mundane weeds are there,

And mud, celestially fair;

Fat caterpillars drift around,

And Paradisal grubs are found;

Unfading moths, immortal flies,

And the worm that never dies.

And in that Heaven of all their wish,

There shall be no more land, say fish.

A Letter I Plan to Send

To Gregory Alan Thornbury

President, The King’s College

56 Broadway

New York, NY 10004

Dear President Thornbury,

My name is Stanley Rice. I am a professor of Biological Sciences at Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant. I am also the president of the Oklahoma Academy of Science. I was a faculty member at The King’s College from 1987-1990, at which time I chose to leave for other employment (I was not asked to leave). I was a sabbatical replacement, then a temporary instructor, then an assistant professor of biological sciences.

I wish to express my disappointment with the way King’s, a supposedly Christian college, prostituted itself to the Republican Party, as well as some relief that, with your appointment as president, a more theological and less political direction seems to have been restored. From what has been in the news, it appears that the only thing that was important, from the viewpoint of the administration and governing board of King’s, was that a faculty or staff member adhere zealously to the Republican Party. This was particularly evident in the case of your former president, Dinesh D’Souza, who apparently considered himself exempt from the laws of both man and God as he broke the civil law regarding campaign contributions and God’s moral law regarding faithfulness. While King’s could not have known about his utter disregard for personal morality when D’Souza was hired, it was clear even long before he became the president of King’s that he believed he could say anything he wanted, regardless of fact or evidence, against Democrats, especially President Obama, and that God would approve of it. While this may not be what you intended, the message that the outside world gets from this is that D’Souza was acceptable as your leader merely because he is a zealous Republican, and that, for King’s, Christianity is merely a disguise for rabid political conservatism. Previous presidents of King’s (I was there during the administration of Friedhelm Radandt) were not famous conservative zealots but were more interested in education as, it appears, you are. At the time I worked at King’s, I felt uncomfortable with this switching of Republicanism with Christianity, and now I am completely ashamed of it. Just be assured that the outside world does not deride The King’s College for being Christian, but for being unchristian.

During my time at King’s, I knew some truly outstandingly good individuals, most notable of whom was Dr. Wayne Frair. But even these fine individuals got caught up in the continual warring factions that eventually led to the 1994 temporary closure of the college.

When King’s should prove ready to heed the call of the prophets, ancient and modern, to care more about the poor than the rich, and to care about the earth, as commanded in Exodus, and to behold the lilies of the field, as Jesus did, then let me know. I would be happy to circulate your response to those who read my writings.

Sincerely,

Dr. Stanley Rice

I’m So Glad to be So Out of There

From 1987 to 1990, I was a faculty member at The King’s College, which at the time was in Briarcliff Manor, New York. I voluntarily left in 1990. I was a moderate Christian at this very conservative religious college. Some of my colleagues had inquisitive minds, but many were simply closed-minded to anything outside of conservatism. Many of them spent their time fighting one another in power struggles and doctrinal disputes. The students got really tired of it and eventually there were so few students that the college closed in 1994. Then it reopened in New York City.

I am so glad to be out of there. You see, I called it a conservative religious college, not a conservative Christian college, because the only things they really affirmed with any enthusiasm were the tenets of the Republican Party.

I had stopped paying attention to The King’s College until I heard a news report about the hyper-conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza. It turns out he was president of the college from 2010 to 2012. D’Souza is the perfect example of the belief that all you have to do to be saved is to worship the Republican Party—that is, the extreme right wing of the Party. Moderate Republicans do not count.

D’Souza expresses this opinion most vividly in his absolute hatred of Barack Obama. In a Forbes magazine article in 2010, D’Souza said that Obama was “...trapped in his father’s time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation’s agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father’s dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost.” D’Souza stops just short of saying that President Obama is demon-possessed.

Even those aspects of history and current affairs that most conservatives find disturbing seem to be pretty damn acceptable to D’Souza. For example, he thinks that the European conquest of Africa was just fine. According to Wikipedia, “In the second chapter of What's So Great About America, D'Souza defends colonialism, arguing that the problem with Africa is not that it was colonized, but rather that it was not colonized long enough.”

D’Souza also claims that the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib was the fault of liberals, not of certain members of the American military or the Bush Administration. He said the tortures and degradations (which the whole world saw on video) were caused by “the sexual immodesty of liberal America”.

In May, 2014, D’Souza pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign contributions in a senatorial race. He and his wife each made contributions to the full legal limit, but then he made further contributions through “straw donors,” one of whom was the woman with whom he was having an affair. On September 23, he was sentenced to eight months in a halfway-house rather than prison; five years of probation; and a fine of $30,000.

As I read the Bible, God considers it wrong to have affairs and to break national laws and to lie about people (as D’Souza has lied about Barack Obama). But D’Souza apparently thinks, or at least thought, that he was exempted from God’s laws because of his worship of the Republican Party. I wonder if his sexual immodesty will cause a new rash of tortures of detainees.

Although The King’s College had the integrity to pressure D’Souza to resign his presidency once the sexual scandals emerged, I very much doubt that the College has opened itself up to reasonable thinking any more now than it ever did in the past. I thank whatever God there may be that I got out of there.