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Marriage Rights

Tuesday 21 November 2006

In the Washington Post today I read that many polygamists are fighting for the legalization of bigamy:

Valerie and others among the estimated 40,000 men, women and children in polygamous communities are part of a new movement to decriminalize bigamy. Consciously taking tactics from the gay-rights movement, polygamists have reframed their struggle, choosing in interviews to de-emphasize their religious beliefs and focus on their desire to live “in freedom,” according to Anne Wilde, director of community relations for Principle Voices, a pro-polygamy group based in Salt Lake. (Post)

What an interesting move. Align yourselves strategically with a group you consider immoral sinners in order to further your “redefinition” of marriage while refusing your strategical mentors the same rights you’re fighting for.

The reaction of the famed Religious Right to such a move would be equally interesting. As I recall, nowhere in the New Testament is declared immoral, and we all know that the Old Testament is peppered with bigamists: the first bigamist mentioned is “Lamech” (Genesis 4.19). Don’t know who that is, but some of the heavy hitters of Judeo-Christian tradition were polygamists: Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon all had multiple wives.

One apologetics site explains that

First, there has always been more women in the world than men. […] Second, warfare in ancient times was especially brutal, with an incredibly high rate of fatality. This would have resulted in an even greater percentage of women to men. Third, due to the patriarchal societies, it was nearly impossible for a woman to provide for herself. Women were often uneducated and untrained. Women relied on their fathers, brothers, and husbands for provision and protection. Unmarried women were often subjected to prostitution and slavery. Fourth, the significant difference between the number of women and men would have left many, many women in an undesirable situation (to say the least). (Source)

So because humanity is brutal, God allowed polygamy. Of course, the underlying social evils that, according to this argument, made polygamy necessary are not addressed. Women continued to be oppressed, and wars and genocide continued. But polygamy was a temporary fix.

What about now?

How does God view polygamy today? The Bible says that God’s original intention was for one man to be married to only one woman, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife (not wives); and they shall become one flesh (not multiple fleshes)”� (Genesis 2:24). We see in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, that the kings were not supposed to multiply wives. This most definitely puts Solomon in direct disobedience against the Lord.

Okay, so that’s what God originally intended. But where did he say, “No — on second thought, I think this polygamy thing is not working out”?

In the New Testament, 1 Timothy 3:2, 12 and Titus 1:6 give “the husband of one wife”� in a list of qualifications for spiritual leadership. While these qualifications are only specifically for positions of spiritual leadership, they apply equally to all Christians. Should not all Christians be “above reproach…temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money”� (1 Timothy 3:2-4)?

It’s by implication. The New Testament always uses “wife” in the singular, setting an example.

Whether or not the New Testament forbids bigamy is not my point. What I’m curious about is how, if this movement grows, will the Evangelical Christian community react? Will they go as crazy about this as they have about gay marriage? Will there be moves to go back and revise all the referenda to say specifically that marriage is between “one man and one woman”?

All Saints

Wednesday 1 November 2006

Tonight, Polish cemeteries will look like this:

DSC00035

Undoubtedly, one of the best times to be in Poland. Walking among the candles, hearing an occasional muted pop! as the glass of one overheats and fractures, having your clothes covered in the smell of candles — it’s really one of the most peaceful experiences I’ve ever had.

Unfortunately, we won’t be adding any new pictures this year, for obvious reasons. But more are available at Flickr.

The Omega Code

Saturday 14 January 2006

There are movies out there that are so awful that you just have to recommend them to your friends. Like the old Saturday Night Live sketch in which Chris Farley has everyone trying the rancid milk and rubbing his clammy belly, there are some evils that we simply must share to appreciate.

The Omega Code is one of them. Without a doubt, it is the worst movie I’ve ever seen, yet one film everyone should endure just to see how bad a movie can be.

There is nothing redeeming about this film, and that’s its perverse charm. The acting is awful, sometimes too hot, sometimes too cold, most times just not there; the script is pathetic, ranging from faux Elizabethan nonsense to middle school scribblings; the special effects are neither special nor effective; the cinematography is along the lines of “put the camcorder there and hit the red button”; the soundtrack has all the subtlety of a mix prepared by an eight grader who’s just discovered Carl Orff; the direction lacks any whatsoever; the costumes are late-eighties high school drama club quality.

If someone sat down to plan a worse movie, it would be tough to top this one.

A look at the production credits brings everything into focus, though. TBN Films, as in “Trinity Broadcast Network”–Paul Crouch’s network. Writing credits include Hal Lindsey as a consultant for biblical prophecy.

A-ha! It’s not the film itself that’s important, but the ideology behind it. In short, it’s propaganda portraying the soon-coming end of the world according to a certain fundamentalist Christian interpretation of the Bible.

As a bizarre aside, there is a bizarre theological menage a trios involved in this film that is about as dumbfounding as the film itself. Both Casper Van Dien and Michael Ironside play in The Omega Code and Starship Troopers. Troopers, in turn, was directed by Paul Verhoeven, who was a fellow of the notorious Jesus Seminar, the ultimate liberal theologians club, hated and scorned by Crouch’s TBN. Talk about working with directors of diverging views!

Michael York plays Stone Alexander, “beloved media mogul turned political dynamo,” whose rise to power is never explained. Within a few minutes of the film, however, he’s “named chairman of the European Union,” developed “an inexpensive, high-nutrient wafer that can sustain an active person for more than a day and a revolutionary form of ocean desalination that will bring life-giving water to the driest of deserts,” and won the “United Nations Humanitarian award.”

And there you have it, folks: if you haven’t figured it out already, Alexander is going to set himself up as the miracle-working Beast prophesied in the Book of Revelation.

Initially, “motivational guru Gillen Lane,” played (or rather, played at) by Casper Van Dien, joins forces with Alexander in an effort to make a cliche difference in the world. He soon realizes the evil of Alexander’s true aims and becomes determined to stop him.

Lane's talk show entrance
Lane’s talk show entrance

In the meantime, though, he has some of the choicest moments of the film, often serving up the lines that other characters hang themselves with. For example, Lane suggests that, in order to motivate people, Alexander needs to be someone “to rally behind,” an “archetypal figure to embody the message.” His ultimate suggestion, after mention Martin Luther King and Gandhi, is “a new Caesar,” to which Alexander memorably replies,

Oh, no, no! No, not Caesar! Why man, he’d have to stride the narrow world like a colossus, and we petty men walk beneath his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves. Oh, no! No, I’m not that ambitious.

Yes, your sophomore English serves you well–Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene ii.

"Why man, he’d have to stride the narrow world like a colossus, and we petty men walk beneath his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves"
“Why man, he’d have to stride the narrow world like a colossus, and we petty men walk beneath his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves”

Is this an attempt at high-brow script writing, or is it York improvising, flexing his theatrical muscle, so to speak? I’m not sure which alternative is more frightening.

Yet as the film progresses through the second half, it gets worse. Or better. Or both, if you’re a masochist.

Some examples: Alexander develops technology that “neutralizes” nuclear weapons, unites the world into a single government, with a single-currency, rebuilds Solomon’s Temple, and literally comes back from the dead.

5-Fullscreen capture 12262013 122052 PM
“Gentlemen, we all know the rules to Risk.”

Gillen Lane’s close friend Sen. Jack Thompson, played by George Coe (The Mighty Ducks, Bustin’ Loose), laments,

I don’t know anything about visions. I never had one. But I know about marriage. And I know about family. And I know the worth of a real man will show in the countenance of his wife’s face.

" I know the worth of a real man will show in the countenance of his wife’s face"
” I know the worth of a real man will show in the countenance of his wife’s face”

The director, Robert Marcarelli, introduces bizarre attempts at plot twisting which, to anyone really thinking during the film, are inexplicable plot complications. Characters faced with immanent danger react with increasingly baffling shortsightedness. And most puzzling, the relationship between the purported Bible code (the crisscross, three-dimensional code supposedly hidden in the Torah, a la Jewish Kabbalah) and Biblical prophecy is never explained, though it seems clear to everyone in the film.

This is perhaps the film’s most confusing point. The waters get muddied right at the film’s opening, when Lane, who also has “a doctorate in both world religion and mythology from Cambridge,” is interviewed on a talk show by Cassandra Barashe, played by Catherine Oxenberg.

Barashe: In addition to your many other accomplishments, you seem to be an expert on the Bible code. […] Explain to our audience what this Bible code is, and how it works.
Lane: Well, crisscrossing the Torah is a code of hidden words and phrases that not only reveals our past and present, but foretells our future. […] Most amazingly, in the Book of Daniel, an angel tells him to seal up the book until the end of days. But Rostenburg[, an expert on the Bible code,] may have found the key to unlock it. See, he believed that the Bible was actually a holographic computer program and that instead of two dimensions, it should be studied in three. If this could be achieved, the code would actually feed us prophecies of our coming future. Anyway, the reason I discuss this in my book is because what we want to believe as religion really traces back to myths born out of our collective consciousness.
Barashe: Has anyone raised the question of how people like yourself can believe in these hidden codes within the Bible, and yet not in the Bible itself?
Lane: You mean like, “Jesus loves me, this I know [Looks at the audience with skeptically raised eyebrows], for the Bible [Air quotes, returning his gaze to Barashe] tells me so?” [Looks at the audience as they laugh at his wittiness]
Barashe: Yes, exactly.
Lane: My mother used to sing me that song. But you know what? She died in a tragic car accident when I was ten years old, and I finally realized that her faith in this loving God, her truth, was just a myth. Therefore, myth must be truth.

"We are the higher power!" to applause in middle America
“We are the higher power!” Lane proclaims, to applause in middle America. Highly realistic.

This kind of twisted logic is the basis for the film and snakes its way throughout the whole script. The Beast rises to power by following the secret codes of the Bible, yet we’ve all been warned of it in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation, as other characters make clear. We’re left wondering, “If it was supposed to be so clear to us mere mortals, why did Satan–and that’s really who Michael York’s Stone Alexander is, a possessed megalomaniac–need the secret Bible code to figure out how to bring it all to fruition?”

That’s a question that not only does the film not answer, but it doesn’t even realize it raises it. I suspect this confusion between code and prophecy arises from TBN’s effort to get “real prophecy” into a mass marketed, main-steam film. The popularity of Michael Dorsnin’s The Bible Code and similar books seems to have gotten the writers at TBN to thinking, “Hey, we can use this as a springboard into the Bible’s real code: prophecy!” As a result, it’s a mess.

As a whole, the biggest flaw of The Omega Code is its earnestness. Films usually don’t take themselves as seriously as The Omega Code does, for it not only depicts but is a battle against the wiles of the devil. Yet what the cast and crew end up making, instead of the Biblically-based, thought-provoking thriller they think they’re working on, is a B-movie, and the absolute worst kind: an accidental B-movie. It’s “B” status slipped up unawares, probably just a few moments behind the initial idea was taken seriously by all involved.

Even if the film were made in earnest but intelligently, it wouldn’t be so bad. But not only are we dealing with an awfully written script, but we’re also enduring characters who are simply stupid. They scribble “bug” on a legal pad to let one another know a room’s wired, then proceed to talk in hushed stage whispers that no known listening device can detect. They run for their lives, literally the most wanted individual on the planet, then start ranting about visions they’re having when they finally find someone who’ll help them.

What kind?
What kind?

God bless them all, but they’re freaking idiots, each and every one!

The clear stupidity of the characters lets us sigh in relief, though. In the end, their idiocy transforms the film into a hopeful vision for the future, because if Revelation’s Beast turns out to be half as dimwitted as any one of the characters in this film, there’s hope for humanity.

Unless he starts producing films.

Prayer Warriors

Sunday 21 August 2005

I’ve never understood that phrase, though I’ve read it from time to time. It’s a good enough term for members of the Presidental Prayer Team.

They’re stated goal:

The goal of The Presidential Prayer Team was to enlist 1% of the American population or 2.8 million people, to pray for the President, both this administration and future administrations. This goal was reached on May 1, 2003, just 600 days after The Presidential Prayer Team was launched. Plans are in the works to establish new goals and objectives of the Prayer Team. It is our sincere belief that this effort could radically alter the future of our country as our President and our nation are prayed for on a daily basis.

Further, regarding the issue of whether the effort is “affiliated with any political party, elected official or governmental agency,” we read,

The Presidential Prayer Team is a spiritual movement of the American people which is not affiliated with any political party or official. It gains no direction or support, official or unofficial, from the current administration, from any agency of the government or from any political party, so that it may be free and unencumbered to equally serve the prayer needs of all current and future leaders of our great nation.

But really, will they still be around when there’s a Democrat in the White House? And if they are, will the issues on their pray list be apolitical (i.e., not decidedly pro-life)?

Tele-Guru

Saturday 11 June 2005

American Protestantism has lead the way in using modern technology to spread its gospel. Radio and television have long been the preferred method of evangelism for small Protestant groups (usually “fundamentalist” or “evangelical,” however you want to construe those labels historically) that have the money, and when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Protestantism, though it claims to be a unified body of believers — a great invisible, church, “unified in Christ” — is really the biggest religious market in the world. Sure, they all believe in Jesus, but each group wants you to support its version of Jesus. So, much like Pepsi and Coke battling for your soft drink dollar, Rod Parsley is going head-to-head with Benny Hinn, trying to get you to send your “seed offering” (and you just know what some pervert has done…) to his group.

It seems that America no longer holds a monopoly on commercial religion. Indian Gurus are catching on to the fact that not all spiritual teaching has to be done in an ashram.

As the [Indian] national economy blossoms, the role of the guru as someone who helps his followers find enlightenment is evolving: Many spiritual guides are now smooth marketers with, often enough, a considerable knowledge of how to maximize their commercial appeal.

Many gurus have been forced to revolutionize their practices — packaging and aggressively marketing their religious services to cater to the changing desires of the consumer. Some have adopted the style of Western televangelists to promote their message.

Maybe a Hindu version of TBN is in the offing?

What’s amazing is that these gurus are not only copying the televangelist style, but also the content, offering their own health-and-wealth gospel, it seems:

Personnel departments in big firms are calling on spiritual gurus to help new recruits handle the tensions of modern working life.

Spirituality shops offering “health and wealth kits” are doing good business, and newly created religious channels on domestic television are expanding their reach into millions of homes.

Herb, Rod, Benny, Robert (as in Tilton, as in “The Farting Preacher”), and myrad other American “entrepreneurs” would be proud, I’m sure.

Read the whole IHT article.

It’s the End of the World as We Know It

Wednesday 2 March 2005

In Trinity Broadcast Network’s take on the end of the world, we see at the climax of the film the great battle known as Armageddon. Satan is there in full gargoyle attire, directing the Forces of Evil to destroy all that stands in their way. The bright light of Jesus comes and in a montage we see, among other things, Jews praying at the Wailing Wall.

The Real Video version of the video is available here. If you like B-movies, this one is for you. It’s worth it at least to watch the final minutes, so cue it to 1:29 and make sure you don’t have to urinate…

Huh? A great battle within a few miles and they’re praying instead of running for cover?!

This “oversight” is symptomatic of the general Fundamentalist view of the Book of Revelation and the end of the world. The whole scenario is laughable: the Satan unites the duped world into an alliance with him. Those who resist meet on the plains of Megiddo and fight the greatest battle the world has ever seen, cut short by Jesus’ second coming and the banishing of Satan to a bottomless pit.

It’s Lord of the Rings. But to some people, it’s a sure thing. In fact, you can see the rumblings of it already, with the United Nations or the European Union, depending on which breed of Fundamentalist you’re talking to. Soon, a powerful leader will rise and start working miracles and uniting the world with his…

Wait. Let’s think about it for a moment. It’s the twenty-first century. What’s going to happen if someone starts working “miracles?” Anyone hear of James Randi? What’s going to happen if some world leader starts calling on people to worship him?

As for the apocalyptic battle that rages in the Middle East, the notion that all the armies are going to gather on the plains — when was the last time you saw modern warfare conducted like that?

But that basic logic clashes with what the Bible “clearly” says, and so the True Believers stumble on saying that the end is just around the corner. Yet even Jesus seemed to get his timing wrong. Speaking of the end of the world in Matthew’s gospel, he says,

Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. (23.34-36)

Later, he utters the same thing: “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled” (24.34). So for almost two thousand years folks have been saying, “This generation won’t die without seeing the end of the world!”

But that’s neither here nor there. No man knows the hour and all that, but we do know the signs: rebuilding the temple; resurrected Roman Empire; 666; miracle-working world leader who calls himself a god. Or do we? There’s so much hopeless confusion and contradiction in the various end of the world scenarios that it’s difficult to keep a straight face hearing such nonsense.

No one seems to wonder, “Well, if all the pieces of the puzzle can be put together in such different ways, maybe the puzzle itself is broken. Or our understanding of it.”

I’d say it’s a little of both.

Original Sin :: Salvation, Mercy, and Logic, Part III

Monday 13 December 2004

The discussion of salvation leads naturally to the question of one of the most puzzling doctrines of Christianity: Original Sin.

Simply stated, the idea of Original Sin is that because Adam and Eve sinned by eating of the Tree of Knowledge (interesting that God commanded them to stay ignorant), they plunged the whole human race into a state of sinfulness. Recall that Matthew Henry wrote that “in a graceless soul, [. . . ] is empty of all good, for it is without God; [. . . and] this is our condition by nature, till Almighty grace works a change in us.” How could this have come about, though? By what mechanism could Original Sin enter the entire human race?

What exactly did Adam and Eve do? Two things: a physical act, and more seriously, a psychological act. They physical act, of course, was eating the fruit, whatever that might have been. The psychological act was going against the will of God – disobeying, in other words. Yet for something to affect the entire human race, it would have to be passed on genetically. How could either eating a piece of fruit or disobeying a command naturally affect a human’s genetic makeup? Of course, it can’t affect us at all naturally, but we’re dealing also with a supernatural element in the story of the Fall and Original Sin, so perhaps God somehow altered Adam and Eve’s genetic composition to pass on an Original Sin gene.

Yet this is starting to get ridiculous. “Sin” is a psychological and even spiritual condition. Despite various notions of “physical sin” and other twists, sin is not physical but spiritual and psychological. How then could it be passed on genetically? If it were, it would be discoverable. Imagine the headline:

Scientists Discover the Genetic-Theological Source of All Our Woes!

If it’s not passed on genetically, we are left with the unsettling conclusion that perhaps Original Sin doesn’t really affect us as much as it affects how God views us. Original Sin is a condition we’re placed in by God, thanks to Adam and Eve’s rebellion. Perhaps it could be explained by saying that God withdrew himself from Adam and Eve after the Fall, making it impossible for them to have access to the godliness they needed to live a life free from Original Sin, and that that gap is what Jesus’ sacrifice was intended to overcome.

Payment Required :: Salvation, Mercy, and Logic, Part II

Friday 10 December 2004

This is part two of a discussion on the Christian notion of salvation. Christians and apologists are encouraged to comment.

Willful Expose, in response to the last post, summarized the Christian understanding of salvation in fairly traditional terms. In other words, in terms of justice and omnipotence. She argued thusly:

God is omnipotent in that he is all-powerful, but not that he can “do anything” per se. For instance, God cannot sin, because sin is not in his character. It is because of this same character that God requires payment for sins. That payment had to be someone perfect, and only Jesus could be perfect.

Not to pick on Ms. Expose, but I’m not sure I see the logic behind connecting

  • God not being able to sin, and
  • God requiring payment for sins.

This “requiring payment for sins” is not an attribute of God, then, it’s simply a fact about it. I require my students to make up missed work within two weeks, but that requirement is not an attribute of my character, and therefore I can change it as I see fit. The same would be true of God. He might be perfect, but he doesn’t have to “require payment for sins.”

Further, it’s not logical why that payment had to be from someone perfect, someone “innocent.” If innocence is required, then I would think all the infants who have died in the world would more than make up for it.

Ah, but there’s a rub in that — “Original Sin,” a topic I’ll return to in part three on Monday.

Salvation, Mercy, and Logic, Part I

Wednesday 8 December 2004

The paths to salvation in the Christian religion are almost as numerous as the denominations. Fundamentalists like to talk about “once saved, always saved,” and the moment they assured their salvation by “accepting Jesus” as their “Lord and Savior.” Catholics talk about their “hope” for salvation and the necessity of living a Godly life.

What all semi-traditional Christians agree on, is that salvation, whatever the form, is

  • necessary (It’s often framed in terms of “Original Sin” — the notion that humans have inherited a blemished, sinful soul from Adam and Eve’s rebellion in the Garden of Eden.); and,
  • available only through Jesus.

Coupled with the dual nature Jesus supposedly possessed — completely human and completely divine — this raises the question of whether Jesus was affected by Original Sin.

Quotation marks are not meant, in this piece, to indicate derision but rather semi-direct quotes of traditional Christian formulations.

Catholics solve this problem with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception: the notion that Mary was born free of Original Sin, and therefore did not pass it on to Jesus’ human nature. Protestants, as far as I know, barely discuss it.

It highlights the one of the strangest aspects of Christian theology, namely the convoluted nature of God’s act of salvation. It’s a many-stepped process:

  1. Jesus had to live a perfect life and therefore not “deserve” the penalty of death.
  2. Jesus had to die in an excruciating manner.
  3. Believers have to know of Jesus’ sacrificial death.
  4. Believers have to do something about this knowledge (and at this point, Catholicism and Protestantism part ways significantly).

And all this for forgiveness?

It just seems an unnecessarily complicated method for an omnipotent God essentially to say, “That’s okay — I forgiveyou.” And not only that — it’s conditional. The condition is Jesus. Without Jesus, Christianity says, you’re unacceptable to God.

It seems an omnipotent God would just forgive — simple as that.

“Dad, I’m sorry — I screwed up.”

“That’s okay son.”

The older I get, the more liberal I get in my theological outlook. Once a staunch atheist, I now admit that there are a great many things that are not explainable in a purely material framework, and I’ve reached a point that I can honestly say, “Who knows — there might be a God.” But one thing is for sure — if there is a God, and he/she/it is one tenth of what theists of any and all stripes say about their God, he won’t be doing any damning. He would be too wise, too patient, and too loving for that.

In other words, if there is a God, then there’s a heaven, and if there’s a heaven, we’re all going there.

Faith

Monday 29 March 2004

What is this thing, faith? I’ve been giving it a lot of thought lately. It seems that in the twenty-first century, it is, among other things, faith that science hasn’t figured it all out and won’t, and that will leave room for demons, souls, and other metaphysical entities. It’s a trust that you can believe the Bible, even though there are scores of contradictions in it, and it’s clearly rooted in archaic thinking.

Take demon possession, for instance. In the New Testament, there’s a lot of exorcisms going on, and most of it seems for things like epilepsy:

Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.”

Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.”

While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father (Luke 9.38–42).

Today we look at this and think, “Very clearly the boy had epilepsy.” But that’s not what the Bible says. So we can take a liberal interpretation and say, “Well of course Jesus, even though he knew, would not have said, ‘Your son has epilepsy,’ because no one would have understood him or believed him. He simply healed the boy, and explained in language they could understand.” The other extreme is what my father said once: most of the people in mental hospitals today probably just have demons.

There’s also the question of the soul, which eventually could be shown to have very little to do with our personality and very little room in which to do it. Of course you can’t prove there’s not a soul, and scientists are not out to do that. What you can do, though, is show that all the things formerly associated with the soul—personality, memory, etc.—are in fact chemical reactions in the brain and nothing more.

It’s the question of faith in what, also. I know if I went through the motions, if I pretended to believe, I might eventually believe. But is that “the spirit working in me,” or a result of psychological and sociological phenomena?

Circumcision and the Bible, Part 2

Friday 19 March 2004

Suddenly spring arrives in full force. The snow has just about all disappeared—all that remains is the big mountains of it. Birds are singing outside, and I’d forgotten how the first birds of spring sound. I just lay in bed this morning for a little while listening to them.

Returning to the quote from Romans above: “The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.” When I read that, I think, “You know, Armstrongites have a point: it wasn’t just all love this love that.” And further I wonder if Christians (Catholics included) don’t just pick and choose the things they want to obey.

The problem is in the Bible itself, for after having made such a big deal out of keeping the law, Paul writes in Romans:

Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to men who know the law—that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man. So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God (7.1–3).

This is the kind of stuff that the new WCG points out to the old Armstrongites and says, “See, the law doesn’t count now!” And yet the author of this had just finished going on and on about the law. So the problems arise from people trying to interpret a faulty book that contradicts itself at every turn.

Later, we find this:

What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.

Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.

So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.

Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

All I can say is, “What the hell is he trying to say?!” Paul is supposes to be this erudite but this is just nonsense. “Through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful?” Has he personified sin, like he personifies death sometimes? That’s like saying, “So that black might become utterly black.”

I swear, I try to read the Bible with an open mind, I try not to take preconceptions to it, but it continually shows itself to be nonsense.

Marriage and Faith

Monday 8 March 2004

“Efekt konicowy.” That’s what Kinga’s dad is always talking about, and I’m starting to wonder if there’s any way I can get baptized without lying and saying I believe this and that.

And I find myself asking, “Why does anyone believe in the first place?” What does it give them? Then this morning I read something I’d taken from the internet some time ago:

Once I learned this way of making an examination of conscience. At the end of the day ask, What things did Jesus and I do together? For example, when I called that person who needed to hear from me, it was Jesus acting with me and thru me. But then later, I brushed someone off. Face it, I was acting on my own. Our life is a constant struggle to allow Jesus to take more authority, to extend his rule further in our hearts. (Secularism and the Authority of Jesus)

In this case, Jesus is simply—or even “just”—an ethical ideal. And I think, “Why not just ask yourself, ‘What good things did I do?’” And the answer from this priest would clearly be that “I, of my own accord, did nothing good. The good comes from Jesus.” I find such an attitude insulting to all those people who are not Christian and yet manage to be decent people.

Change of Venue

Tuesday 24 February 2004

The wedding will not be in Orawka. The priest found out how much more (paper) work is involved in a mixed marriage and decided he didn’t want to give of his time to help us. He was very rude, Kinga said — gave her his decision in a single sentence, said goodbye, and hung up, not waiting for her response.

Very Christian.

And people wonder why I’m not a Christian. If it’s true, and Jesus lives in you and all that nonsense, then why don’t we see an effect? Why is the country where something like 97+% of the population professes to be Christian one of the most corrupt in Europe? Why are the rudest, most selfish people those who serve a boss who supposedly gave his life for them?

More on Will and Belief

Sunday 15 February 2004

Peter Kreeft was talking at KC about the logical impossibility of religious pluralism, that all religions are true. “Either Mohammed was a prophet of God or he wasn’t,” he reasoned. I find it increasingly difficult to believe that he said that. As a Catholic, he believes, for example, that even though the host looks like bread, tastes like bread, feels like bread, and would be shown under scientific tests still to be bread, that it’s actually the body and blood of Jesus. That Jesus can be completely two different things.

It’s a question of faith, and I read an article on a Catholic website that took this even one step further. The author argued that only Jesus’ disciples — those who believed — could have seen him after his resurrection. In other words, if Jesus had appeared before Pilate, Pilate wouldn’t have seen him because he didn’t believe. That sounds suspiciously like willful self-deception.

Recall that Pieper writes that the chief obstacle to belief is the question, “Why should man be dependent upon information which he himself could never find and which, even if found, is not susceptible to rational examination?” Exposure to religion is a cultural experience, and it’s not something various individuals have independently worked out as they tried to figure out what this weird Unknown is that they’ve been experiencing. In other words, the seed is sown by cultural exposure to the idea of a crucified and risen god.

I wonder why that Franciscan bloke never wrote back. Perhaps he didn’t receive the email? Perhaps he thinks there’s no point? Perhaps he realizes that there’s no hope for me?

Will to Believe

Monday 9 February 2004

Just before Christmas, I sent a letter to “Ask a Franciscan” on a Catholic website. I’m not sure why. Silly thoughts of conversion that I’ve since (or rather “sense”) put aside. The original letter:

I’m an American living in Poland, and I’ve been thinking about conversion lately. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I’m marrying a Polish woman in a few months (June) and everyone is asking me why I don’t convert. “It’s simple,” I say. “I don’t believe.”

However, I can’t deny a certain pull I feel toward Catholicism – the ritual and the beauty of the faith. I’m an atheist, though, and for more intellectual reasons than anything else. I don’t know that I could ever say, “I believe this faith is true,” but I’m finding myself thinking sometimes, “It would be nice if this is true.” Or even, “I hope this is true.”

So the question is this: is it enough simply to say, “I hope these things are true?” Where does hope that something is true end and faith that it is true begin?

The response:

Thanks for writing and I do appreciate your honesty both intellectual and moral. The Catholic Church has a very strong teaching that a person’s conscience is the ultimate criteria for that person’s decisions and behavior. At the same time, it is important that the conscience be correctly and well formed.

You are correct. You could not be true to yourself if you said, “Well, I just pretend I believe, go through the motions.” You could not do that nor would any real church want you to do that.

At the same time, it might help if I explore the idea of faith just a little bit with you. As Catholics, we believe faith “is a gift” of God…..and that that gift is offered to every person. The reason it is a gift is that faith means that we believe in what we cannot see or fully understand.

Yet, from a purely human point of view, you and I live by faith every day. You believe that when you shop for food, the labels on the cans say what they mean. You don’t have to presume to have every can tested “just to make sure because you never know.”

In fact, society is based on truth for its people. That’s why perjury is such a terrible crime….if a person lies under oath, then there is no way for true justice to be accomplished. No one could trust anyone any more and society would be thrown into chaos.

When it comes to religious truth, we are dealing with great and unfathomable mysteries. But one thing to keep in mind is that a mystery is not something about we know nothing; it’s really something about which we just don’t know EVERYTHING. I’m sure the deepest human mystery you’ve experienced is your love for your fiancé and her love for you. You know what that is but still I’m sure you stand back at times and realize that “this love is bigger than the both of us.” When a mother and father hold their first child, they are stunned by what they hold in their arms and what they feel and experience may not be able to be put into words. In fact, some of our deepest experiences deal with the mysteries of life and death and of our human relationships.

In regard to faith and religion, there are three questions that come to mind:

  • Where did I come from?
  • Where am I going?
  • What am I doing in the meantime?

In a way, the way I answer those question will determine to a very high degree the way I live my life and for that matter why I even care about how I live my life. If I say, “I came from pure chance out of nothing; in time (who knows when) I will go back into nothing; in the meantime I’ll just do what I think is right.” Those are questions, though filled with mystery, are questions your fiancé comes up with a different answer. And perhaps the best way to see what faith is, is to look at it in another person whom you love and admire. What is it that you love the most? She beautiful, loveable, and all those good things. But is there something inside her, her values, her convictions and her beliefs that make you wonder, “Why does she believe the very things I can’t make sense of?” When my Dad married my Mom in 1930, my Mom was an Irish Catholic and she jus his heart. He was a faithful man and he was an inspiration to me and my sister.

So, what I would suggest is that you ask your fiancé just for the opportunity to explore her faith, take instructions and see how it turns out. If after you are finished you are still where you are, then you have in good faith explored the faith and found it lacking. On the other hand, you never know what will happen. It’s still your conscience and you must follow it. I know your fiancé would not want you to pretend.

I liked your expression, “I hope this is true.” But the hope might well turn into faith in time as you learn more about our faith. Remember also, you don’t have to figure out everything…what you are looking for is an understanding of our view of those three questions. What from; Where to; What now?

I do hope this helps. And remember Gary, if you have any more question or issues, please feel free to write back. I’m the only one who answers on this website and I’ll remember your name.

And so after almost six weeks, I took him up on the offer and wrote this back — a desperate effort, I suppose.

Thanks for your answer to my question. I’ve been meaning to write back, but I’ve simply been too busy. And also, I’ve been working on this reply for some time — a little here, a little there.

I didn’t initially tell you the whole story, because I wanted it to be short. The thing is, I was raised in a Christian home; I studied at a private Christian college; I did a year of graduate work in philosophy of religion at Boston University; and I’m constantly obsessed with religion and theology. I’ve read Aquinas, Augustine, and Pieper among the Catholic “greats” and Luther, Niebur, Bonhoffer (sp?), and Calvin among the Protestant “greats.”

This is not to try to brag — “Oh, I’m so well read.” I know in fact I’ve barely scraped the surface. It’s simply to show that, as far as taking instruction, in some ways I don’t need it. To a certain degree, I know more about the Catholic Church and theology than my fiancé does. That sounds a little presumptuous, but she’s even told me, “You know the Bible and theology better than I do!”

I say that in response to your comment that you suggested I “ask [my] fiancé just for the opportunity to explore her faith, take instructions and see how it turns out.” Lately, I’ve read a great deal about Catholicism, its history, theology, etc. I’m currently working my way through The City of God (slow going and I only read a few chapters every few days) as well as Przekroczyć Próg Nadziei, which is the Polish translation of “Crossing the Threshold of Hope.” (I would say it’s probably not a translation in reality, since, as I understand it, John Paul writes his encyclicals and such in Polish and then others translate it into Latin and Italian.) I’ve gone from knowing little about Catholicism to knowing quite a bit, from regarding it as essentially misled (the old Protestant upbringing still lingered/lingers in me though I have considered myself a complete non-believer for years now) to having a great deal of respect of many of its teachings.

In fact, I would even say (and have said, to my fiancé, Kinga, and her family) that if I ever “re-converted,” I would be a Catholic. Indeed, I’ve even defended the Church’s theology to fundamentalist, anti-Catholics! You might say I’m the ultimate debater, able to argue positions I don’t even believe. (To be fair, I wasn’t misrepresenting myself and saying I believed any of it; I was simply arguing that these fundamentalists were misrepresenting the Church and her teachings).

All this is not to brag or anything, simply to show you where I’m coming from. I’m cerebral to the point of — well, I don’t know what. I think too much, I’ve been told; I’m a “classic intellectual,” Kinga says. She wasn’t the first to say that! That always sounded corny to me and I resisted the label, but perhaps everyone’s right. Two examples perhaps further illustrate this: First, and somewhat amusingly, I was voted the “Most Intellectual” senior superlative in high school. Secondly and more of an indictment, in college I went to the school counselor for a while after the unexpected dissolution of a close friendship, and with her help I came to the realization that even with feelings, I think. I think first — analyzing the feeling — and “feel” later!

So, all that out of the way, you see that the issue for me is — an intellectual issue, in short.

You wrote, “Remember also, you don’t have to figure out everything. What you are looking for is an understanding of our view of those three questions. What from; Where to; What now?” I wonder. The thing is, I never think about those things. Honestly. Well, I should rephrase that — I never think of the first two questions. The third — well, we’ll get to that.

Regarding the first question, it’s always dumbfounded me that people can get so upset about the thought, for example, of evolution. “I did NOT evolve from monkeys!” some cry, as if suggesting that somehow affects their self-worth now. My point of view is this: my self-worth comes from me. That’s why it’s called “self-worth.” I don’t see how the prospect of “coming from monkeys” makes me any less valuable or any less human.

It seems we can’t conclusively answer the first. Even if we say we’re created by God, that doesn’t fully answer the question, for the specter of evolution and the “how’s” of it all still linger, with their shadowy, intellectual implications.

The same goes for the second question: where am I going? Again, I can’t conclusively answer that, and neither can anyone else. (What I mean by “conclusively” is “empirically provable,” I suppose.) That is more of a question of faith than the first question, it seems to me.

More important I would say is the third: What am I doing in the meantime? Good question. But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that it’s less what we believe and more what we do.

An improbable scenario: You’re a father, and in the country in which you live, it’s customary for the father to grant permission for the son to live beyond age eighteen. In making your decision, would you really say, “I’m afraid I’ll have to banish you or kill you, son, because you didn’t believe this or that?” Would you even take into consideration what he believes? For that matter, unless he’d committed some atrocious act — say, killing your wife, his mother — would you even consider what he’d done? And in the end, if you had to base the decision on one or the other, which would you chose? Belief or action?

Now of course, this improbable scenario is doubly so because it’s probably a false dichotomy. Neither actions nor beliefs would really come into the picture if you truly loved your son, right? You would want to say even if he’d killed a thousand innocent children, “Well, I don’t want to see him die.”

God — and I’m assuming here he/she/it (and if God is God, I don’t think any of those pronouns do justice) — is supposed to be the ultimate father. In fact, that’s what Freurbach suggested in the nineteenth century, if you recall: God is the projection of our ultimate, perfect father figure. (One of the best books I’ve ever ready is Peter Berger’s A Rumor of Angels, in which he says basically, “Even if God is a projection, atheism/the non-existence of God doesn’t necessarily follow from that premise.”) So if God is only as good as a human father, it seems fear of missing out on some eternal bliss is unfounded, that God would give us chance after chance, opportunity after opportunity.

So part of me is thinking, “What am I even considering this stuff? If God exists, he will certainly take care of me in spite of all my shortcomings and intellectual pride.”

You wrote, “At the same time, it might help if I explore the idea of faith just a little bit with you. As Catholics, we believe faith ‘is a gift’ of God…..and that that gift is offered to every person.” But how does one know that faith is from God and not simply wishful thinking? Self-deception?

One of the most useful and fruitful ways of looking at religion secularly is through the eyes of sociology, and one thing that sociology points out is the importance of plausibility structures: those things that make it easier for us to say, “I believe this.” For example, not many inhabitants of New York City believe in voodoo because there’s not support for it; in Haiti, there’s significantly more plausibility structures. Among the things that serve as a plausibility structure is Mass and the congregational recital of the various prayers. It’s visible and audible backing for our own beliefs. “What I believe isn’t so crazy! How can it be if all these other people believe it too?” Such might be an explanation of how plausibility structures work. (Forgive me if you’re well versed in all this.)

So where does this leave us? Faith in our faith? Faith that our faith is faith in God and not a form of willful self-delusion?

It seems to me faith is a faith in experience — something that happens, which some interpret as being from God. It’s not ultimately a question of logical proofs. It’s a question of experience.

Yet I lack that experience. I’ve never had anything happen that makes me think, “Undoubtedly this is from God.”

And yet I know that going to look for that experience means I’ll find it. It reminds me of what one of my professors said about Biblical interpretation: if you go to the Bible expecting to find something specific there — proof of this or that — no matter how ridiculous it is, you’ll find it. The proof of this is all the Protestant sects that derive the most bizarre beliefs out of the Bible because of their poor exegesis.

But it just brings us back to the willful self-deception question. As the devil says to Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov (probably the best novel ever written in my opinion), “What’s the good of believing against your will? Besides, proof is no help to believing, especially material proof. Thomas believed, not because he saw Christ risen, but because he wanted to believe, before he saw.”

And I’m also reminded of Kirkergaard in Fear and Trembling: “Faith begins precisely where thinking leaves off.”

And Josef Pieper in Belief and Faith: “The obstacle [to religious belief] which must be leaped rather than climbed consists in the difficulty of understanding why man’s nature and situation should be such that he cannot make do with what is naturally accessible to him. Why should man be dependent upon information which he himself could never find and which, even if found, is not susceptible to rational examination?”

So why the draw? Why did I even contact you in the first place? Why am I thinking these things which a year ago — less, even — I would have brushed aside as silliness?

The only answer I can come up with now is ritual. I go to Mass with Kinga, my fiancé, occasionally (only occasionally because we live in different villages), and I find the ritual of it all very enchanting. Hardly a reason to consider conversion, I know. And as I said, the idea is something I sort of hope is true at some level, but which I highly doubt is true

And it seems to me that no matter what I do, it would ultimately be an intellectual game for me. Or an intellectual exercise. A continual effort to justify rationally why I’m trying to believe the things I am, or even more remotely, why I want to try to believe.

All this is why I originally wrote, “I don’t know that I could ever say, ‘I believe this faith is true,’ but I’m finding myself thinking sometimes [. . .] ‘I hope this is true.’” I suppose in asking if that was enough I was more asking from a church law point of view (to which I knew the answer — don’t know why I asked) than a moral/philosophical point of view.

I could go on, but what for? I’ve already turned myself into so many mental knots that it seems of little use, and would simply be a reiteration of what I’ve already ramble. I just thought I’d share a little more of the situation and my reaction to your response.

And the corresponding response? Well, there is none. Perhaps he didn’t get the letter, but why waste my time and risk looking like an idiot for something I don’t even believe?

And why did I even do all that? It’s like admitting I’m gay or something, but the truth is that on some level, I want to believe this nonsense. I’m convinced it’s just that, but I’m still trying. Why? That’s why I can’t figure out. Why can I logically list the reasons I don’t believe and the reasons I can’t ever believe and yet still want to believe? Childlike innocence I’m seeking in some ways. No, not innocence, but naivety.

There is no soul. Jesus apparently thought he was coming back before his disciples died and 2,000 years have passed. Religion arose from a lack of understanding of what happens to a person at death. All these things make sense. And the first two are virtually empirically provable. And yet.

Review: Christianity on Trial

Saturday 12 October 2002

I’m not sure whether the thesis of this book could best be summed up as, “Christianity isn’t all that bad” or “Christianity has made the world the wonderful place it is today.” That depends on whether you’re trying to summarize the intended or actual thesis.

This purports to be basically a book of Christian apology, in a sense: not defending the faith’s tenants, but defending the faith’s acts. It rightly points out that there is a lot of criticism directed toward Christianity that, were it directed toward any other religion, would be construed as bigotry. That’s true enough, and a fair criticism. On the other hand, the book seems to imply that the majority of contributions Christianity has made to civilization are positive – that the scales tip toward the good. That’s fine and good, but it doesn’t provide enough proof of that. We never get any idea if the people and groups in each chapter are exceptions to the rule, or the standard. I got the feeling that the authors didn’t know either, but were trying to pass them off as the latter.

This is particularly noticeable when we consider the two topics conspicuously missing from the book: Christian anti-Semitism and Christian misogyny. The environment, democracy, and science all rightly get chapters, but nary a word about misogyny, and only lip-service to anti-Semitism (“Okay, okay, Luther was anti-Semitic, but look at all the good things he did!”). The closest thing to mentioning misogyny, on the other hand, is perhaps a reference to the (to use their woefully inadequate understatement) “unfortunate” Salem witch trials.

On the whole, I remain unconvinced of Christianity’s virtues through the centuries. It’s a human institution, filled with the hatred, bigotry, and stupidity common to all people.

Still, it did make me realize that condemning the Apostle Paul for his views on slavery is to use an anachronistic morality to judge him. This is a common theme in the book, and somewhat rightly so. We can’t condemn society X for being cruel when it was no crueler than any other contemporary society, even if it is vastly more vicious than our own. We can comment on it, but it doesn’t make them immoral.

XCG Thoughts

Friday 7 December 2001

Last night I spent a lot of time on the internet, and I found a lot of information about the Philadelphia Church of God. I’d found most of it before, but I hadn’t read it. It is, indeed, a cult. It is almost reminiscent of Jim Jones or David Koresh in its horror. From the account of one Sue Hensley:

March 1993 — He compared what was happening in Waco Texas to the persecution that would happen to us.  He told us the Branch Davidians were an example of the persecution coming upon us because they used many of the same terms we did.  David Koresh talked about a “little book,” he said the “lion roars,” he said Christ was the “Key of David,” he claimed his predecessor was “Elijah,” and he preached about the “Millennium.”  Mr. Flurry also brought up Jim Jones & the People’s Temple during his examples of the persecution to come, and he said Jonestown was their “place of safety.”

Regarding the “college” he’s building, Ms. Hensley wrote:

When the announcements were made in 2000 about the land that was being bought for the college, one of the tapes from headquarters told us a great deal of what was planned for the future of this land. They are putting in their own sewage treatment system, so that, if things reach a critical stage, all the members could stay on the property; they would be capable of handling over 7000 people on site. There was also an old airstrip in the property, which they thought could be refurbished and utilized to either “further the work” or to fly people out to the place of safety when the time came. The swimming pool (announcement made in 2001) is also to serve as an emergency water supply in case of fire or other needs. Even the first time I heard these things, it gave me a chill.

And lastly, regarding Flurry’s status:

He has also lately given the ministry some very strict rulings concerning what the ministers should do if a person in the congregation talks to them about something they think is wrong. Mr. Flurry has told the ministers that even if the person is right, they should never agree with the member because it would be disloyal to God’s Prophet.

I used to think that the PCG was just a silly bunch of neo-Armstrongites who were pissed because the WCG made all these changes. On the contrary — they are a full-blown, physically dangerous cult. The WCG was mentally dangerous. Spiritually abusive, even. But it never made statements like this. It never openly compared itself to the People’s Temple. And if Armstrong had been alive to see the Waco fiasco, I’m sure he wouldn’t have compared himself to Koresh. He would have said something ridiculous about it, no doubt, but I don’t think he would have drawn a direct parallel between the two organizations.

The reason is simple: I don’t think Armstrong really ever actually believed he and his group would “flee.” Why would they? That would mean giving up the luxurious lifestyle he’d grown so accustomed to. You can’t buy prosthetic dildos in the desert; Steuben crystal is fairly impractical in the desert; a Rolls Royce doesn’t take well to the desert. He never actually believed it. It was a good way to milk people of their money. Nothing more.

People like Jim Jones, David Koresh, and, apparently, Gerald Flurry, though, actually do believe the nonsense they’re teaching. And apparently, they’re all willing to die for it.

I’ve really got to get a handle on this obsession I’ve had for the WCG and all its splinter groups. It’s really just a waste of time, I know, but I can’t help it. I can’t bear the thought of something sensational happening in, say, the PCG and me not knowing about it. Why? I guess I just want to be able to watch the fallout as it happens.

Ex-Roommate Visit

Sunday 3 December 2000

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Bus Jesus

Wednesday 19 July 2000

On the 86 coming to work today I was witnessed to. I was sitting on the foremost single seat, minding my business, when this women asked me, “Jew have Essus in your heart?” I had to ask her a couple of times to repeat herself, but I finally realized she was asking me, “Do you have Jesus in you heart?” She began to explain to me that he loves me, died for me, is knocking on my heart and keeping me awake at night. She had a little flip-book with several verses on individual pieces of paper. She would read them to me, moving her finger along below each word as if she were a mother reading to her child. (Instead of a full stop at the end, though, she had colons. I’m not sure why.) At one point she asked me if I believed in God. When I told her I didn’t she didn’t really know how to deal with it, it seems. She returned to talking about how Jesus died for me, how he loves me, and so on. She also explained that eventually God would close the door. I didn’t know how to explain that any God with such conditional love as the God she is describing exhibits is not worthy of my love/respect.

She was, in all honesty, sweet. She was doing what she thought was necessary. Of course the question is, was she doing this because she wants me not to go to hell, or because she’s afraid God demands this of her for her salvation? I’m sure she couldn’t even answer that question completely.

Qualifications

Thursday 13 January 2000

Yet another birthday. For the first time in years I won’t be going to work thinking, “I wonder if anyone remembers. I wonder if any classes will do anything?” It was a nice sign that they liked me, and I always tried to be a pleasant teacher whom students actually thought was an okay person. Such was “proof,” I suppose.

Last night, after walking home from class, I was thinking about knowledge — again. I was recalling the interview I had with Rob for the job I now have, and he asked me if I’d be more interested in an editing position or a content-based position (“course developer” is the official title now, I think). I said that I didn’t know enough yet to be comfortable with the idea of being a content person. Muttering to myself as I walked down North Beacon Street, “I know just enough to realize how little I really know.” And I thought of my adventures trying to determine whether any of the New Testament was written in the second century or not as ample proof. I talked to Peter — large guy with earrings and a husky voice — last night after class and he confirmed that there was something written in the second century. (I mentioned 2 Peter and he said that it was a possibility, along with the other Neo-Pauline epistles, “But I really haven’t studied 2 Peter that much,” he said, and I realized, “God, in New Testament studies you could devote a significant portion of your life to studying one single book.”) Anyway, he said that there was something written in the second century, and now I “know.” But to what degree do I know? How can I be sure? What is the criterion for “knowing” versus simply “believing” or “thinking that . . .”? On what authority can I say I know this? Because he told me. On what authority does he have it? Because someone told him, or he read it (which constitutes the same thing as being told something — simply a different form). Someone, at some point in the process, knows it because she has examined the various documents — the scrolls and such — and done textual examination, and through various processes determined that it was second century. She “knows” it in a way different than I now “know” it. But what is the criterion? Expertise? Certainly not.

A good example of this is chaos theory. At one point, all meteorologists and atmospheric physicists (if there be such a thing, which I sure there is) “knew” that there really were no laws governing cloud shape. It was just random nonsense — noise, in other words. Then along comes fractals and fractional dimensions and we start saying, “Well, no, it’s not quite like that. It’s really a matter of nonliner equations.” So did the meteorologists “know” beforehand? Obviously not. Of course the same is true of any scientific revolution. Did people “know” before Copernicus that the sun revolves around the earth? They certainly thought they did. And they could have “proved” it in much the same way that I can now prove that some of the canonized New Testament was written in the second century.

Knowledge at one point was defined as “true justified belief,” but can someone know something and not realize that they know it? They just think they believe it? For example, most Christians “know” that God exists, but some more liberal might admit that they only believe it. If it turns out to be true, it was indeed “true, justified belief.” But they didn’t claim it as knowledge, simply as belief. Did they “know” it even though they only thought they “believed” it?

Something I’ve been meaning to write about: What was the purpose of the Passover symbols? Why put blood on the mantel and doorposts? Could God not discern without this visual aid which houses were Israelite homes and which were Egyptian? Wouldn’t it be a little obvious by the sectioning of the city? I sort of doubt that any of the Egyptians lived with the “defiled, uncivilized” Israelites.