Religion « The Ramblings of An Eternal Student of Life

Thursday, March 29, 2007

◊ Can’t Go Home Again, not even to Saint Barts

Personal Reflections ... Religion ...

I actually attended an Episcopalian “Eucharist Service” this past Sunday, for the first time since 2000. I grew up as a Roman Catholic, but I converted to Anglicanism in 1988. At the time, it seemed like a really groovy thing to do. And for a while, I tried to make a go of it. But in the end . . . . . well, Christianity in general just didn’t seem to be my bag. And Episcopalianism in general didn’t seem as dynamic as it was cracked up to be. It really didn’t seem all that . . . . healthy (not intended as a criticism of their pro-gay philosophies, which I still give them credit for). There’s an underlying neurosis of some kind in that church; they just can’t seem to decide what they stand for – English cultural tradition? the Enlightenment? the establishment? the anti-establishment? core Christian doctrines? red doors on old stone buildings?

Nonetheless, I wanted to catch up with a guy who worked at one of the non-profit agencies formerly affiliated with New Community Corp., my former employer. I helped this guy get the job way back in ‘92, back when I was a newly-minted Episcopalian. My friend was still a devoted if liberal Roman Catholic at the time. So it surprised me to learn a few months ago that he was now involved with an Episcopal parish.

Thus, I made the trip across the Hudson River to St. Bart’s in Manhattan, for the 11 AM Eucharist, where my friend was helping out as an usher. Bottom line: it was good to catch up with a former associate, but as to the church stuff – well, it was the same stuff as before. They say you can’t go home again, ‘cause the old home just ain’t home no more. That’s pretty much how I felt.

Afterwards, I was pondering the fact that Christian tradition is so ingrained within our Euro-American “daily culture”, while the tradition of ancient Greek philosophy was reduced to an appendage within our academic institutions. I’ve heard some philosophers talk about “Jerusalem and Athens” being the two legs of our modern ethos. But it seems to me that Jerusalem certainly won a much bigger share of social recognition, although it did so by conquering Rome (and Constantinople). There are Christian churches all over the American landscape. On any Sunday morning in most any town with a population of over 100, you have your choice of congregations praising the risen lord in a variety of styles. And yet, if you want an intelligent conversation about how to live in an increasingly crazy world, perhaps guided by the wise men and women of the past, well . . . that’s rather hard to find.

I myself regret that Athens lost out to Jerusalem and Rome. Why, one might ask, did people come together on those Greek isles long ago to ponder what life means; what our obligations are as humans; how are we to govern and be governed; what is our relationship to the divine; etc. When did that lose popularity? When was it relegated to a course or two that you take in school when you’re 18 or 20? When did philosophy become so shrunken, so dried-out, so esoteric, so hidden away, so irrelevant? Where are the successors to Socrates, Aristotle, Kant and Kierkegaard in a world of techno-terrorism, zenophobic globalism, interconnected loneliness, and transitory family values? When leadership is bought and sold, when children are pre-designed, when morals and human rights are used to sell cars and soap (along with immorals and human wrongs)? Why aren’t people demanding philosophic wisdom in the face of all this confusion?

I know that there have been recent attempts to popularize philosophy. In fact, I attended a local chapter of the Socrates Cafe movement for a number of months. The concept sounded great, but the execution left me somewhat disappointed. There was almost no reference to what Socrates, nor any other philosophers ever said or taught. It was generally a 15 or 20 person bull session / group therapy exercise, which broke by 9pm so that the younger crowd could get to the local pub for a nightcap or two. No one seemed very inspired afterwards; no one wanted to keep the discussion going. By 8:45, everyone seemed antsy to get back to socializing and chit-chat; the group leader became anxious to keep the conversation from veering off in new directions. I never came away with any great insights.

And I didn’t come away from St. Barts this past Sunday with any great insights either, except that it’s always good to catch up with a friend. And that the Episcopal Church hasn’t changed so much since I left. Oh well, maybe that’s for the best. Long may they pay, pray, and pretend not to obey. And yes, I’ll probably stop by again to see my newly Anglicized friend. But what would really impress me is if St. Bart’s started their own Socrates Cafe — and did some real philosophy with it.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:07 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

◊ Hey Dawkins, Thanks for the Memes

Religion ... Society ...

I saw an article in the NY Times about Richard Dawkins’ soon to be released book “The God Delusion”. You might remember Dawkins for his concept of the “meme”. He explains it in his earlier book “The Selfish Gene”. Basically, a “meme” is something like a social version of a human gene. Instead of being an actual strand of molecules that determines our physical features, such as a DNA gene is, a “meme” is a social idea that helps to determine our mental features, e.g. our beliefs, our wants, our cultural tastes, our sense of humor, etc. A “meme” starts out with one person or a small group of people who think up something clever; or at least they find it clever. It can be a joke, a song, a poem, an ad jingle, a magazine article, an opinion, an idea about parenting, a positive or negative review of a restaurant, etc. This “clever thing” can be about big ideas (e.g., Plato’s theory of the forms) or about little stuff (an opinion about a certain kind of mouthwash).

A meme starts out with one or two people, but it soon gets passed on to other people (word of mouth, publication, paid advertisement, etc.). And that’s where it gets put to the test. Just as a species of flora or fauna is tested by the environment it faces, a meme competes for people’s attention. If a lot of people find the “meme” useful or interesting or edifying, it gets passed on. If not, it dies out quickly (or has but a brief season in the sun, like hula hoops and mood rings did). So, the “meme” goes through a Darwinian evolutionary process, where it’s the survival of the fittest (or most popular).

Personally, I’ve had a lot of meme ideas, and they’ve all bombed out. I just can’t seem to “touch the nerve” of the public. (The blogosphere is a good example of a competitive “meme” environment. A handful of blogs — even some non-pornographic ones — get thousands of hits each day. And yet many, like mine, are lucky to get a handful a week. They just never catch on.)

Anyway, Dawkins obviously has some opinions about religion’s status as a meme (or more accurately, as a “memeplex”, a complex system of inter-related memes). I haven’t read his new book yet, but according to the reviews and his other writings and interviews, Dawkins feels that religious faith is a bad meme, something like a gene that causes cancer. According to the Times article, Dawkins feels that God and religion are evolutionary defects that will eventually be eliminated as humankind progresses. In fact, he says that this is already happening in one place — western Europe. He seems quite enthusiastic about this brave new Euroworld.

The idea of God is indeed a meme (or memeplex). It seems to me that it’s a meme that has done pretty well over the centuries, survival-wise. And as with living creatures, you can argue that the idea of God has evolved so as to get better and more intelligent every so many centuries. It took quite a while for a kinder and gentler God, a wiser and unified God to emerge from the many concepts of spirits and multiple gods that have been bandied about across the many cultures of the world over the past — what? — three thousand years? As to religions, admittedly, they still have a long ways to go. Some of them are still quite crude, and all of them are very crude in certain ways. Dawkins spends a lot of time in his book outlining this. As with Dawkins, none of the religions inspire me to get up early on a Sunday morning. But I have faith that some day, we may see the evolution of a better religion, one with greater wisdom, one that makes its peace with science and individuality. That is, if the world doesn’t blow itself back into the Stone Age (through science and individuality).

I obviously see God and religion as being similar to all of the imperfect living creatures in the physical universe, which are slowly improving over time through evolutionary processes, i.e. by responding to varying and ongoing environmental challenges. As with most creatures, the ideas of God and religion sometimes seem to challenge or even threaten intelligent life; although more often they are beneficial. Dawkins and a variety of other modern thinkers (most notoriously philosopher Daniel Dennett) find religion to be an unfortunate and pernicious “memenic” accident, something like a deadly virus. Obviously, they feel it has little to offer to the cause of intelligent enlightenment, and much to harm it.

Well, Mr. Dawkins. If the memes of God and religion are like harmful microbes, they certainly have infected a large swath of humanity. And they have done so for a long, long time. How many biological diseases or pathological conditions can you compare that with? Despite continued belief in God and participation in religion, humankind continues to develop such things as human rights, democracy, critical thinking, artistic culture, philosophy, science and technology. In some cases, religion (or a certain form of it) even assisted the emergence of these things.

And as to western Europe — their secular orientation is something relatively new, something that developed over the past 40 years or so. And just what has western Europe contributed, “meme-wise”, to the human condition during this time? Well, let’s consider some things: Techno-trance; Europop; Spaghetti Funk; Abba. Well OK, the Scorpions, admittedly; but also Eiffel 65 and Turbo-Folk. If that is what the future of culture is going to be like once secularism reigns supreme, then give me that old-tyme religion!

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:11 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Sunday, November 27, 2005

◊ Heaven, Hell, or Vacation?

Religion ... Spirituality ...

Is there life after death? I hope so. But just what would it be like? What would be the point of it? The standard concept of Mid-Eastern / Western monotheism is that Heaven is a place of eternal reward for those who have earned it here on earth. According to some strains of Islam, Heaven is the place where each good man will find 72 black-eyed virgins awaiting him (“houris” in the Quran). Heaven is eternal sex, in other words; all of the pleasure and none of the guilt. Unfortunately, this bit of hadith (a tradition relating to the sayings or actions of The Prophet) has been getting twisted around into an argument for suicide terrorism lately.

Christians and Jews usually don’t think of Heaven as an eternal orgy (although Song of Songs in the Hebrew Bible does spice things up a bit). However, some of their concepts of the afterlife are just as immature. In a new book called A Travel Guide to Heaven, Anthony DeStefano provides a popular Catholic perspective (the book did get a bishop’s imprimatur) of what awaits the saints. DeStefano’s heaven will be a place much like earth, and the souls there will have bodies, albeit bodies that aren’t so high-maintenance (thus there won’t be much for doctors to do but play golf). Will our favorite pets be waiting there for us, all bright eyed and bushy-tailed or bushy-feathered? You bet. Heaven won’t be a timeless stillpoint of mystical contemplation; “books will be written and read, public structures will be built and utilized.” There will be banquets of pasta and red wine. Once in a blue moon you will get the thrill of meeting the Big Guy, sort of like going to a black-tie affair where the Governor will attend and you get to shake his hand. I’d bet that God the Father always wears an outstanding tux, and his hair is perfect. Probably gives a great after-dinner speech too.

To sum it up, “Heaven is dynamic. It’s bursting with excitement and action. It’s the ultimate playground, created purely for our enjoyment, by someone who knows what enjoyment means, because He invented it. It’s Disney World, Hawaii, Paris, Rome and New York all rolled up into one. And it’s forever! Heaven truly is the vacation that never ends.” In other words, you can’t go home again.

(Ironically, the World Trade Center is shown on the promotional web site for Travel Guide to Heaven, in the Rest In Peace? Not! section.)

Arg. I myself hope that George Bernard Shaw is right in his description of Heaven in Don Juan in Hell. According to Shaw, Heaven would be a rather boring place for people like Mr. DeStefano. It would be a place where time both stops and proceeds (a huge contradiction here on earth, but this is the after-life). The clocks will stop ticking in the eternal contemplation and reunification with the One, i.e. in the presence of God. But spirits in Shaw’s heaven will also participate in the temporal realm as well. They will carry out continuing work assignments in order to “help the cause of the life force”. In other words, they will stay involved with the imperfect realm from which they came, trying in unseen ways to make things better, to support truth and goodness whenever and where ever it rises from the muck. Perhaps this is what angels are truly all about.

According to legand, Don Juan was dragged down to Hell by the great statute of Ana’s father. But in a twist on fate, Hell turned out to be just like DeStefano’s Heaven (except that the man in the tux is you-know-who; but the Devil is certainly a gentleman, so one could hardly tell that he isn’t whom Mr. DeStefano would have expected). According to Shaw, Juan eventually gets bored of “the vacation that never ends” (a potential problem that DeStefano addresses by promising tours of Saturn and the Milky Way). Don Juan walks away from it all and finds his way to the real Heaven. There are no guards at the gates to either Hell or Heaven, and anyone can come and go as they please. But as you might expect of a Heaven that is both eternal contemplation and a regular desk job, traffic is light.

If Shaw’s paradigm of the afterlife is correct, then Hell is really what the old-time Catholics used to call “Purgatory”, and there is no eternal place of fire and brimstone having a red man with a forked tail holding a pitchfork. Hell is actually a place where you go to grow up, where you reach spiritual maturity, where you get beyond the “ultimate playground” of earth-like pleasures. Only when you are ready, as Don Juan finally was, do you voluntarily enter the place of true oneness with the ultimate, and then work to bring the force of life closer to that ultimate.

Hopefully, the 72 black-eyed virgins eventually get to go too.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 3:28 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Saturday, August 13, 2005

◊ Bart Ehrman, and Jesus as Son-Of-Man-In-Training

History ... Religion ...

BOOK REVIEW: I recently finished reading Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium by Bard Ehrman. A whole lot of non-academic books dealing with the “historical Jesus” have been published over the past 10 years. Some of the big authors include John Dominic Crossnan, Robert Funk, N.T. Wright, Msgr. John Meier, and Marcus Borg. Each of them seems to be grinding an axe of some sort, despite their purported attempts to present an unbiased historian’s interpretation of the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. Some are obviously supporting the traditional Christian interpretation of Jesus as the Christ, as the Son of God, and as the Lord and Savior. Some others paint Jesus as a social and political reformer, someone who was out to promote a secular vision similar to our modern “-isms” (e.g., socialism, universalism, feminism, pacifism, rationalism, communism, or maybe even capitalism!), despite all the God talk.

Professor Ehrman, by contrast, tries to popularize what appears to be the modern academic consensus about Jesus: that Jesus was one of many Jewish apocalyptic prophets who preached and gained a following in Roman Palestine. Like the others, Jesus was convinced that God was angry about the continuing sins of the Jews and about the Romans trampling upon the Holy Lands, and was about to come down from the sky and establish a righteous kingdom of His own. Not a kingdom in the heavens, but one right there in the hills of Galilee and on the streets of Jerusalem. The end and the beginning would come with a mighty reckoning. A mythic figure called “The Son Of Man” would appear in the sky and cast judgement: good people could stay and flourish, but the bad were gonna get cast into a pit of fire or something. It was all about ancient Judaism, all about the fulfillment of scriptural prophecies. And it was all going to happen in Jesus’ time. It had nothing to do at all with later Christian beliefs or Enlightenment-age theories about how the world should be run.

I personally found this book to be monumental. It’s one of those handful of books that you read in your life that opens your eyes and puts a lot of puzzle pieces into place. HOWEVER . . . . . this is not to say that Professor Ehrman has written the definitive biography of Jesus. I still think that he misses some important things and suffers himself from certain biases that distort the picture. The biggest problem is that Professor Ehrman assumes that Jesus was much like his friends in academia: a sober, reasonable fellow with whom you could have a polite, well-informed conversation about worldly matters. Ehrman forgets that if Jesus was an apocalyptic, he was probably much like the modern apocalyptics that are described at the start of his book — i.e., people with fire in the belly, people quite sure of their beliefs even when based on conjecture and fantasy. I.e., someone you might call a fanatic, even a “nutcase”. Jesus was clearly a man with a passion for the holy. So it’s a bit strange when Ehrman strongly asserts that Jesus did not think of himself as the Son of Man (or maybe more accurately, the Son-of-Man-in-training, awaiting the big day). According to Ehrman, that notion had to have been made up by the Christians later on, after Jesus was long gone.

Ehrman argues that within the Gospels, especially Mark, language about Jesus’ preachings seem to refer to the Son of Man in third person; i.e., Jesus was talking about someone else. However, in many other places Jesus clearly refers to himself as the Son. Ehrman reasons that Christians wouldn’t have made up Jesus’ third-person referral to the Son (since it would militate against the view of Jesus as God), but they certainly would have incentive to write about Jesus calling himself the Son. Ergo, any surviving third-party reference must be historical, and the other first-party references in Mark and the later Gospels must be made up.

Now wait a minute. If the early Christians were tweeking the text and inserting revised memories (and I agree that they probably were, up to a point), why were they so shy about re-hashing the lines where Jesus seems to envision the Son of Man as someone else (e.g., Mark 13:26-27 and maybe 8:38 — although that line implies some connection between Jesus and the Son)? Ehrman replies, “because it was the truth”. But that fact arguably didn’t stop the ancient Christian re-writers elsewhere.

I’ve got another theory. Some lines in the Gospels infer that Jesus taught his disciples things that he didn’t share with the crowds (e.g., Matthew 13:17). What if Jesus believed that he was the Son (or was coming to believe it over time), but was a bit shy about announcing it to the masses (perhaps for fear of what eventually DID happen to him, i.e. arrest and death)? What if Jesus shared this belief with his disciples, but was slow in proclaiming it to the crowds (until perhaps that fateful week in Jerusalem)? Then his followers would remember him as the Son, but the memory of his preachings might be a bit more circumspect. And that is just what we see, at least in Mark (which again has the most credibility as the earliest writing).

Another little irritation: Ehrman’s homey, jokey, ultimately condescending writing style. He obviously wouldn’t attempt such humor in a paper published in an academic journal. But when he appeals to the masses, he bends over backward to prove that he’s a regular guy. It’s OK at first, but it gets old real quick. Professor Ehrman, it might be better if you didn’t try so hard to prove that although you’re an academic superstar, you still know how to talk to dummies like me. The story about his son’s rebuke for calling him a dude because “dude” also refers to a camel’s gonads is something that should stay in the family. I can readily accept the proposition that words sometimes have two meanings without a sidenote about everyday teenage sarcasm.

Nonetheless, this book goes a long way in explaining who Jesus really was and what he was all about. It seems rather simple and obvious once you understand it, but it will be hard for many Christians to accept it. So maybe that’s why Ehrman tries so hard to be lovable to the average lout; a lot of average louts aren’t going to love him once they get the gist of what he is saying. Despite its various flaws, this is is a powerful and important book.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:23 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Sunday, April 11, 2004

◊ Jesus, Unplugged?

Religion ... Spirituality ...

EASTER EDITION: I was browsing the magazine rack at a bookstore yesterday and glanced at the TIME Magazine cover story: Why Did Jesus Have To Die? From my thirty second scan of it, the article appeared to focus on alternate theological and historical interpretations of the Jesus story, ranging from the various Christian mythological interpretations (Jesus as Son of God) to modern “histo-critical” views (Jesus as a human being living in ancient Judea).

I guess you could say that I sympathize more these days with the scientific view of Jesus rather than the religious view (or at least the standard religious views). My first answer to the Time Magazine question would be: Jesus died because he was human, and all humans die. (If you are a really heavy-duty Christian, you might say that Jesus DIDN’T die; he rose again on the third day, body and all, and was swept up into heaven about fifty days later). My second answer would be: that’s just what the Romans did back then. As a dilettante student of the Roman Empire, I know that the Romans held on to their distant colonies through brute force. They responded to the tinyest little signs of rebellion with torture, humiliation and painful death. It was their way of keeping their subjects in line and thus maintaining their Empire.

Do I have a third answer? Well, when you zoom in on the Jesus Passover Incident of approx. 30 CE, the answers start turning into questions, sort of like ice melting into pools of water. Jesus seems to have been a pretty savvy dude. He must have known » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 11:59 am No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Tuesday, April 15, 2003

◊ A Dream For Holy Week

Religion ... Society ...

So it’s Holy Week for Christians, and Passover time for the Jews. The Muslims don’t have much going on right now; their lunar-oriented New Year holiday was in March, and they don’t seem to have another holy day scheduled until May. Nonetheless, I’ve been celebrating the week by pondering what you might get if you mixed equal parts of Christianity and Islamic doctrine together. (Admittedly, if you didn’t filter out the political aspects, what you’d get is a deadly explosion).

Islam sticks by a radical monotheism, and criticizes Christianity for its emphasis on the God-identity of Jesus. Well, personally, I’m ready to cede that point to the Muslims. After some fairly extensive study of the historical roots of Christianity, I have come to conclude that the concept of a Triune God is a hangover from Greco-Roman antiquity.

Next, Islam sees Muhammad as the ultimate prophet; he is not the son of God, but his voice speaks the truest of words on the subject of Allah. OK, I’m gonna give some and take some on that one. I’m ready to agree that over the course of history, a few rare individuals have somehow spoken to the nature of the Divine and the Ultimate better than the billions of other folk who have inhabited the planet. And Muhammad was no doubt one of those rare people. But I’m not going along with the theory that Muhammad should be listened to in an exclusive fashion. Personally, I think that the Islamic view of Muhammad, i.e. as an extraordinary human prophet, can be applied with good effect to Jesus. So, if we get out the theological kryptonite and take away Jesus’ Trinitarian powers, then who’s the better man: Jesus or Muhammad? Which of the two speak the more powerful truths about the Lord?

Well, I myself am partial to Jesus, but not without conceding some points to Muhammad. According to the picture presented in the Bible, Jesus was a complete ascetic. He wasn’t married, didn’t have any kids, and didn’t even have a sex life. That basically sets him apart from 99.9% of the human race. It could be that Jesus did in fact have some romantic and sexual experience during the unwritten phases of his life, but even so, he didn’t make his mark on history as a family man. By contrast, Muhammad did have a wife — more than one, actually — and kids. He could arguably relate better to the everyday life experience of most people. Elevating a family man to the rank of ultimate prophet of God seems to say that family life isn’t so bad, and can in fact be the bedrock of sacredness. Catholic Christianity, by contrast, is still struggling with the idea that family life and sexuality, although capable of being sacred with the Church’s help, still comes in second to celibacy and self-denial, when spiritual attainment is the issue.

(Let me make it clear that I’m not naively suggesting that Islam is less hung up than Christianity with regard to sex. But the problem of Islam and sex is more a function of desert-induced scarcity and cruelty, than a problem relating to foundational religious concepts.)

What I can’t get comfortable about with Muhammad is the fact that he was a warrior during varying phases of his prophetic life. Yes, I can accept that he was a righteous warrior. But in the end, it was still war that he was waging. And war, however righteous, is still hell. Jesus, by contrast, was the man who told his disciples to put away their swords when the Big Boys finally came to dispose of him. Jesus’ final offering to his Father in Heaven was the gift of peace, even at the price of his life. To everyone who says that radical peace like that is a futile, impractical gesture, one would have to ask: did Jesus not change the world for the better?

So, could Islam move away from the role that war and conquest played in Muhammad’s life, a role that unfortunately has been used over the course of human history by some Muslim factions to justify bloodletting in the name of religious intolerance? (Not that Christianity has been innocent of that either). And can Christianity somehow move away from its deification of Jesus, and then from its over-glorification of denying the body’s needs and pleasures? (Not that Islam has been any more healthy than Christianity in this regard). And finally, can both sides move away from the notion that because their chief prophets are male means that women are spiritually inferior? Both sides have a long way to go on that issue.

Unfortunately, the Koran too often envisions a return to the world of the Old Testament, with its tribal warfare and blood feuds. On the other hand, the Holy Book of Islam correctly protests the New Testament’s deviation from strict monotheism and its over-reliance upon apocalypse and asceticism. Muhammad rightly presumed that the human race needs to find its holiness within the routines of daily life, and not on a mountaintop awaiting the end of the world.

What I’m saying here, perhaps naively given this planet’s political realities, is this: wouldn’t it be wonderful if the followers of Jesus and the followers of Muhammad could interact in a bold yet positive way leading to a higher synthesis of who or what God or Allah is, and how we humans can best relate to the Ultimate? And while we’re at it, shouldn’t the discussion be opened to others beside the men from Nazareth and Mecca? The Buddha certainly has powerful things to offer, and lets not forget about Moses, a family man himself. (And yes, female voices would have to be added too). This discussion would require some incredible levels of maturity, open-mindedness, and security about who we are and where our next meals (and our oil) are coming from.

Well, it probably ain’t gonna happen in my lifetime. But I can dream, can’t I?

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:00 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Thursday, December 26, 2002

◊ Keeping Theology Out of the Water

Religion ... Science ...

In honor of Christmas yesterday, which I spent with a stomach virus (bah humbug!), I’ll present a quote from Christian theological writer Sallie McFague: “The picture of reality coming to us from contemporary science is so attractive to theology that we would be fools not to use it”. I’m not sure exactly what aspects of science Ms. McFague finds so theologically attractive. Evolution? OK, most theists have made their peace with Darwin, but it’s kid of messy, not terribly attractive. Quantum physics, with all its sub-atomic randomness and indeterminacy? Einstein couldn’t believe that God would play dice with physics, but more than a half century of research shows that something dice-like is indeed being played in the heart of every atom and even in the so-called empty voids of space.

Nevertheless, on the cosmological level, the past 50 years have been kind to theists in need of physical evidence, given the general acceptance of the “Big Bang” as the physical origin of the Universe. If everything started in a “singularity”, a grand event where conventional physics don’t apply, it isn’t such a great leap of faith to posit God as the metaphysical cause behind the Big Bang (albeit, this still is a leap of faith). Although the evidence for the Big Bang didn’t become clear until the 1960s (with the accidental discovery of cosmic background radiation by Bell Lab researchers), Jesuit physicist Rev. Georges Lemaitre was pushing his view of the Universe unfolding from a “primeval atom” since the 1930s, with Vatican consent. The Church always liked the Big Bang, so much so that Pope John Paul II warned cosmologists not to go looking for the cause of it.

Hey, JP2, what are you afraid of? I’d guess that he’s afraid that physicists will eventually demystify it. Until about 250 years ago, priests and preachers could captivate their audiences by refering to lightening as a sure sign of God’s anger. Then along came Ben Franklin and other electrical researchers, and the preachers lost a wonderful attention-grabbing device. But then the Big Bang came along, and the churchmen found a replacement for lightening (albeit, a less angry one). Various cosmologists are now working with theories that would put the Big Bang into a grander scheme, making it not so special or unexplainable after all (via superstring theory, loop quantum gravity, quintessence, chaotic inflation, etc.). If experimental evidence turns out to support their paradigms, there may have been plenty of Big Bangs and plenty more to come, all as a part of some huge natural process where there are countless Universes (some like ours, some not).

That doesn’t necessarily mean that there isn’t a God who is bigger still. But church leaders and theologians should know better by now not to embrace or condemn what the scientists are doing based on what lends the most drama to their sermons. Because once the scientists throw out the mythical bathwater behind things like lightening, shooting stars, and Big Bangs, the preachers and theologians will then have a hard time keeping the theological “baby” from going out the window with it.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 4:51 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Saturday, December 14, 2002

◊ Archbishop Myers on Sex

Religion ...

I was reading a review of a pastoral letter about sexuality recently issued by Catholic Archbishop John Myers. It was the same old mumbo jumbo about the horrors of abortion, homosexuality and extramarital sex. OK, there are some grains of truth in it; our society is turning sex into another service industry, just another economic transaction. But as to whether the Roman Catholic approach is any healthier … that is surely a problematic issue, given the unhealthy sexual practices engaged in by many of the bishops’ own men (i.e., priests). Archbishop Myers said at one point in his letter that it might seem like a bad time for another pronouncement upholding standard Catholic teachings on sex. He was right about that.

I was once a devoted Catholic, right in Archbishop Myer’s own diocese (Newark, NJ), and I’m glad that I was. But I’m also glad that I’ve moved on. I wish the Roman Church well, even though I think that it is tied too strongly to pre-Enlightenment social presumptions (although it does have a point that despite science and social progress, everyone has a fundamental dark side that still needs to be dealth with). It’s sad to see what the Big Church has come to. I hope that Archbishop Myers’ letter is just another example of how things are always darkest before the dawn.

PS, it seems that Rome has finally yielded a bit to the voice of the people by accepting the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston. I had once crossed paths with the good bishop. About 25 years ago I attended a diocese convocation in Arlington, VA, where Law, then the bishop of some backwoods diocese out in Missouri, gave a presentation regarding Catholic spirituality. I recall that Bishop Law spoke slowly and very deliberately, but remained quite abstract and academic. I think that he lost the audience; after he finished, he asked for comments and questions, and the most significant question raised was about where his diocese was located in Missouri.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 4:02 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Monday, November 25, 2002

◊ Me and Jesus in No-Mans Land

Personal Reflections ... Religion ...

As indicated on my web site, I believe that Jesus of Nazareth had a plan for Judaism (and correspondingly had no intention of founding a new religion). Lately I’ve been wondering — what would the consensus be amidst modern Judaism regarding Jesus’ plan? Would such a consensus accept Jesus’ vision as a Jewish one, or would it deem Jesus beyond the pale, beyond what could reasonably be considered “Jewish”?

OK, I know that’s a very loaded and contentious question. Maybe I need to qualify it a bit. If, hypothetically speaking, Jesus of Nazareth were a man (and not the Divine Messiah) who was attempting to reform Judaism from within, and furthermore, if his plan for Judaism was 1.) to de-emphasize the particulars of Mosaic law, 2.) to make it easier to join by de-emphasizing blood lines, 3.) to de-emphasize the reverence for Palestine or any other particular piece of earthly soil, 4.) instead emphasize inner spiritual development through relationship with God, 5.) thus leading to higher standards of ethical behavior and “radical kindness”, would that be termed non-Jewish? Did the Jews eventually discount Jesus because he went too far, or was it more a question of historical accidents and circumstances? Note that I pick my words carefully here; when I say de-emphasize, I don’t mean ignore or disrespect. I certainly DO mean being ready to leave such things behind at some point, but only after study and analysis and appreciation of what they once meant (I’m not the “Eternal Student” for nothing).

I guess that there’s a reason behind my wondering about this. Obviously, the question reflects my own current views. I grew up in the Catholic / Christian world, but no longer feel at home there. My mind still draws me to Jesus, but in approaching him, I seem to be pulled away from Christianity. Am I becoming some form of semi-Jew or quasi-Jew or honorary Jew? Or am I just stuck in the no-man’s land that divides Judaism and Christianity, a place in history occupied briefly by Jesus’ brother James and the early non-Pauline Jewish-Christian communities?

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:53 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Saturday, November 23, 2002

◊ Holiday Reflections

Religion ... Society ...

I’ve noticed that the Christmas Season has begun. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but decorations are going up on the malls and Main Streets and people are already buying Christmas trees and putting up lights. It seems to get earlier every year. Here are some personal reflections on “The Holidays”:

1.) The retailers obviously want the season to start as early as possible, because it’s good for sales. When people wait until mid December to buy gifts, as they did back when I was a kid, there’s more chance that bad weather will interfere and thus some gifts just won’t get bought.

2.) Because the season starts so early, it ends pretty abruptly now. I see lots of Christmas trees on the curb on the morning of January 2nd. Back when I was young, it was local Christian tradition to » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 11:47 am No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

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