I'm gonna stick to Christianity alone for this one. But all religions except Buddhism and it's derivatives (e.g. Taoism, Zen), to me, are pernicious (i.e. dangerous).
Firstly, what is the core dogma of religion? Faith. What is faith? It's the suspension of reason and it's stead, belief becomes fact. What happens when belief triumphs over reason? Well, for one thing, you get appx. 700 years of the Dark Ages when human progress actually stopped and people went back to the stone age and later, people who said that the Earth rotated around the Sun were burned at the stakes or excommunicated. You also get the Taliban who will not allow girls to goto schools and behead those who are infidels. [You also get George W.]
Second, this whole Christianity business is NOT new. Horus, an Egyptian god (centuries before Christ), was born in Dec. via virgin birth, had 12 disciples, had his trials in the desert, died and was resurrected on the 3rd day. The same for Mithra, a god (a derivative of Sol) that the Romans worshipped right before Jesus came on the scene. It goes on and on. Btw, none of the New Testament gospels (aka God-spells) were written by an actual eyewitness and all of the gospels are different from eachother. The earliest one having been written roughy 30 years after the death of Jesus, and the rest, about a hundred years after. Continuing on... Why do we have bunnies for Easter? It's because the Persians celebrated the Goddess of fertility named Ishtar and the bunnies represent the fertile return of Spring during their Spring festivals. It goes on and on. I once took Graeco-Roman religion class at college and the professor kept saying, "during the Jesus movement..." so and so happened. I was offended by his description of the only son of god. But then after a few years of my own personal study and research, I realized that he was right. This whole resurrection and salvation business came long before and many many times before Jesus.
Third, can anyone in their right mind believe in a talking snake, putting on all of the animals on a boat before God wiped out the human race?, a man inside a big fish, bringing down the walls of a fortress by blowing on bugles, etc. What's the difference between these stories vs. mother goose, jack and the beanstalk, and Santa Clause.
Forth, many of our founding fathers thought that religion was pernicious as well. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, etc. all considered religion to be dangerous institution that stunted the minds of men. They even wrote about it. Heck, even George Washington, when he was sworn in laid his hands on the Masonic Bible vs. the King James Version.
I heard the most shocking survey recently that most Americans (about half) do not believe in evolution because God created Adam and Eve, not monkeys that became human. We were one of the very few industrialized nations that has such high percentage of people who reject a scientific fact such as evolution.
Fifth, there is no concept of the original sin in the Bible (anywhere). It was created by the Catholic church to scare people into joining the church so that they can have more people to control and to collect more revenues for their pompous institutions including for their wardrobes, palaces, ceremonies, lifestyles, etc. Btw, the Pope, there's nothing in the Bible that requires a Pope. Peter was 'the rock,' the foundation for the movement (per the Book of Acts). But that's it. The ten commandments: the first 3-4 commandments are to love the Biblical god and no one else, "for I am a jealous God." What a jealous God? I don't get it.
Anyway, I understand why people need to believe in a God. It makes life simpler for them (they don't have to think. The Church can think FOR them). Plus, afterall, is this life all that we have? Surely, there must be something beyond this life! Something more sublime, meaningful, and just! So, it's comforting as well.
So, a Jew, 2000 years ago comes to Earth on a suicide mission and dies for our sins so that we can goto heaven if we believe in him (and no one else) and if we are 'born again' through Baptism. Hmmm. Well, I was Baptised twice. So, I guess I'm good. My name is on the list when the door guy up on the pearly gate (I think his name is Jesus or Michael? Don't know who'll be working the door that nite) asks me, "You on the list?" I can say, "Yup. Frederick Kwon. I RSVPd twice!" Response: "Yes, I see your name. Come right in." I'll ask, "How is it in there?" He'll say, "It's awesome! You get to pray and sing to the Almighty all day and nite forever. Believe me, the whole virgin pussy thing that the Muslims get at their place... way over-rated."
P.S. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't discount the slim possibility of a deity of some sort or conscious energy that organizes life and death and the Physics of 'sin' (i.e. one's bad deeds eventually come due for payment and bites one on the ass) and I don't believe that everything is coincidence, afterall, the universe is so vast (actually, infinite) and at the same time, so infinitesmal, that there has to be some room for, dare I say, even 'intelligent design.' Moreover, I do love what Jesus stood for, that is, compassion and love, and I especially like the Surmon on the Mound. But all the rest of it... the fish stories (i.e. Jonah, multiplying fish and bread for the masses), Armageddon, talking snake, a god who makes a bet with satan and makes his follower suffer through murder of all his children, gives him boils then says, "hey kimosabe, we're chill now, OK?" (Book of Job), etc. etc.
... please.
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15 comments:
One's pleasure that -- at last -- a somewhat serious issue has been introduced in this blog, is tempered considerably by the utter superficiality of the treatment.
As theology, or sociology, or philosophy, there is not much here. Or am I missing something?
Pierce, a serious treatment would not fit into a mere blog. It would require pages and pages to outline the chronology of mystery religions from Ur to now. That alone would take at least 12 pages. Then to discuss how one religion grafted ideas and stories from a prior one would also take pages. Then another topic, religions' impact on history and social mores and behavior would be another chapter and so on.
Suffice it to say, I simply touched upon some of my pet peeves about the Bible and religion. Yes, the tone may have been a bit vitriolic and flippant. But a blog is not a dissertation. A blog is a charcoal sketch... perhaps even just an etch-a-sketch and I'm OK with that.
I just wanted to point out that religion retards the mind, leads to primitive behavior, that the Jesus story is not even close to novel and most of the Bible is a sensational fairy tale akin to Greek and Nordic mythology.
Religion retards the mind? Isn't this a bit of a generalization? Have you read, among many other "non-retarded" minds, Bernard Lonergan's "Insight" ? Most religions of any longstanding have produced theological works of deeply respected and extraordinary intellectual brilliance.
"Most of the bible is sensational fairy tale"? Have you studied the bible in any depth? It would certainly seem not. Do you feel this way about all works that use myth and symbol?
"The Jesus story is not even close to novel"? Certainly the teachings of Jesus are quite novel, deeply challenging, and have had an extraordinarily "non-pernicious" effect on many who have really devoted themselves to living according to those teachings.
Your "charcoal sketch" or "etch-a-sketch" approach to such serious issues leaves you open to being perceived as a shallow trivializer of matters that are complex and profound. I have read any number of very well-written and intellectually provocative pieces in blogs. This was not one of them.
If what you are writing is, as you say, a catalogue of "pet peeves", perhaps it would be good to make that clear early on.
Yes, these are a list of my pet peeves on religion. Although probably not all encompassing.
As for reading about Christianity, I have had plenty: Elaine Pagel, Koestler, some CS Lewis, Kierkegaard, etc. Certainly, they were no intellectual light weights. But there is a difference between fundamentalists in the South vs. serious academic scholars and I have no problem with the latter.
As for reading the Bible itself in a serious way. I have. I read it religiously for years up until College. By seriously, I mean, with concordance, cross referencing materials and taking notes on paper and meditating on them for years. I read all of it except for the boring parts like Deuteronomy, Numbers, Judges.
Jesus's teachings and life are NOT novel. Mithra, Zoroaster, Krishna, Buddha all had the same message, that of self sacrifice and love. In the case of Horus, he too declared himself to be the son of god.
Yes, I was to a certain extent trivializing the topic because some of it (actually alot of it is quite farcical). Noah's Ark, jealous god, the Flood (derivative of a Summerian myth- Tale of Gilgamesh).
But to be fair, religion has had a few beneficial side effects which I may blog about later. E.g. on the arts (paintings, architecture, music.)
Perhaps, my main peeve is about how religious people often just concede their reason to faith alone and interpret things literally. When Jesus taught his disciples with parables, he took some of them aside and explained the underlying meaning (the mysteries) to them. Because his parables were multifaceted, that is, one can read them as children do (just the text vs. the subtext, i.e. how some people, for example, read Orwell's 'Animal Farm') or as sprititual texts that have a deeper meaning.
I am not completely against religion. I believe that it does have some benign value. But where I draw the line is when people shut down their capacity to reason and just go fundamental (which explains why half of this country does not believe in Evolution.) In short, the Fascistic aspect and practice of religion is what I am against and I do indeed believe that that is pernicious. The sheep are led astray.
This is some pretty fancy back pedalling here, Mr von kwon!
Wouldn't it have been better not to have made such silly statements in the first place?
One who could validly claim such careful reading and deep knowledge of the scriptures would hardly have made such frivolous fun of (of all things) The Book of Job -- one of the most sublime utterances of the human spirit.
Nor would any really well informed person show such ignorance of the myth of Noah and the flood as to characterize it as "quite farcical."
Your reading of Elaine Pagel(sic),
Koestler, CS(sic)Lewis and Kierkegaard does not seem to have been especially well integrated into any form of serious theology.
And yet, it seems you expect all this to be taken seriously at least to some degree. You can't have it both ways.
Noah's Ark, the Flood story is not farcical. It probably did happen at some point in the past. What is farcical is putting all the Earth's creatures in pairs into a ship. How is that even remotely possible?
The Book of Job? I can see how Proverbs, Song of Songs, the Psalms, and the Surmon on the Mound being sublime. But Book of Job is where God makes a bet with the 'Adversary' and causes misfortune upon misfortune upon a helpless person just to prove to the adversary that Job is faithful despite the misfortunes. This is cruelty! I would wish this type of torture on even my enemies! Several times, Job screams out in sadness and pain, "I wish I were never born!"
So what's the point of this torture? What is the message in this book? I have asked many pastors about this book and none of them knew what the message is. Their implicit, common answer was "God's wisdom is too wonderful to know" for our ant like minds. Hogwash! The only half way decent answer I got was by reading Carl Jung's 'Book of Job' where he attempts to say that God is a demiurge (an unconscious, amoral and destructive force of nature) and that there was no point to the Job incident. It was simply the demiurge acting out what is in its nature.
Pray tell me, what is the message of the Book of Job? Perhaps you can enlighten me and then I can judge for myself whether or not it is as you call it, one of the most sublime pieces of work.
Dear FKNY:
No, the story of Noah is not farcical. And whether or not a flood of such proportions ever took place, the story of the flood is a deeply theological utterance about what the ancient writers felt was God's inevitable faithfulness to those who are faithful to Him. The flood, the ark, and the animals are myth-symbols and not to be taken literally, then or now.
You are quite harsh on the book of Job. Reading your comments on it, I recall the words of very clever students of yore. "This play sucks and makes no sense. Lear is a douchebag. Why are we reading this crap."
The Book of Job is indeed sublime, in just about every way. No translation can really capture its astonishing subtlety, but some are better than others. I have to run right now, but I'll send you a few things you might like to read, so that you beef up your knowledge of this exquisite poem.
OK Pierce, I'll bite. What's the symbolic meaning of the animals on Noah's Ark (since literally put, there's no way that all earth's animals could have fit into a ship) and two, more importantly, what is the sublime message of the torture of Job? Btw, in the Flood story, he wipes out the entire human race because he was angry and in the Book of Job, he kills all of his children, takes away all of his wealth by killing all of his sheep, and gives him boils so that he is bedridden to the point where he wishes that he were never born.
I'm all ears.
Hi. Excuse the interruption. I just stepped across the street to have a lovely pasta at Da Umberto on 17th street. Marvelous place, check it out.
As for the Book of Job. Well, it's been around for 2500 years or so, and as a result a vast amount of scholarship surrounds it.
Like the dramas of Sophocles (whom you cite as one of your favorite authors in your profile) it is work of poetry with strong theological underpinnings.
It does not reveal itself fully in the course of just a couple of readings, the presence of a concordance notwithstanding.
It is a profound meditation on the issues of man, God, and suffering; issues that it did not attempt to resolve fully.
As a good introduction to further reading of the text itself, I would suggest a few entry level sources, which might lead you to even more sophisticated interpretations.
The Jerusalem Bible has a carefully crafted translation, which I would recommend. For instance, it attempts to capture the faux-"folk-tale" language of the prelude.
I would also recommend the introduction to Wisdom lierature on page 723 and the intro to the book of Job on 726. The actual Job text follows on 729-778.
The Jerome Biblical Commentary (
1968, Prentice Hall) has a very enlightening intoduction to Wisdom literature. (Ch. 28, pp.487-494), as well as a fine introduction to the Book of Job (Ch. 31, pp. 511-533.)
Even more interesting is to look at the material on these matters in The NEW (caps mine) Jerome Biblical Commentary (Prentice Hall, 1990). It's fascinating how scripture scholars have gone ever more deeply into the material in the intervening years. Scripture scholarship has exploded since the war, and continues to explode. It's a fascinating field.
See The New Jerome Biblical Commentary: Introduction to Wisdom literature, Ch 27, pp. 447-452; and Intro to Book of Job, Ch.30, 466-488.
You'll notice that the original 1968 entry was the work of Rev. R. A. F. Mackenzie, S.J. He was very famous in the 60s for a number of reasons, some of them not very nice. It is probably he who is mentioned so ruefully in "Eleanor Rigby", perhaps his greatest claim to immortality.
No charge.
I appreciate your lengthy response and effort. But I consider the response a bit of Sophistry. I do not care about the beauty from vis-a-vis the comparative literature aspect of the Book of Job. As far as I'm concerned, the entire Bible is good to beautiful literature (a work of fiction). It's up there with Homer and Shakespeare. I have no question on that nor do I debate it.
The question I have/had for you is WHAT is the message of the Book of Job? For what ethical end did God torture Job? I need the cruelty issue to be addressed, not the aesthetic elements.
As I mentioned before NO ONE has been able to defend or to give me light as to why Job was tortured.
I think you'll find the answers to all of your questions, which are quite valid, if you simply immerse yourself in the material, which is the one thing you seem reluctant to do. With the greatest of literature, there are no easy answers. And the Book of Job is certainly in that category. Hit those books!
As I say to students who ask questions like "Why are we reading Hamlet? It makes no sense."
or:
"Why did you play that sextet from Don Giovanni for us? It's not even music. It's just shit. It doesn't mean anything."
Answer: "We are all born ignorant. In that we are all equal. Some of us choose not to remain that way."
Go for it.
Apparently, this has become a diatribe between me and you. I wonder what the handful of my other readers think about this topic and our discussion.
I'm gonna try to put this issue to rest. My whole point is that if the Bible claimed it self to be a work of fiction, I would have no problem with that. Hamlet, King Lear, etc. does not claim itself to be non-fiction as the Bible does. The Bible claims that the whole book is the truth and therefore, not simply a work of art. Crusades have been fought because of it. People have been burnt at the stakes because of it. The progress of Science was retarded by it. Because the only way to believe that a work of fiction is a non-fiction is to suspend all reason and replace it by something inert (alas comforting) as Faith. My key point on the Perniciousness of Religion is that once Faith replaces Reason, we just end up followers vs. thinkers and when droves of people simply follow (become drones) vs. think, much harm can be created.
All of your arguments so far have been from an aesthtic point of view and offer no answers as to why God tortures Job, eliminates all humanity in a fit of rage with the Flood, claims to be a jealous god and that we shall have no god but he, etc.
If you are claiming that the Bible is a wonderful and sublime piece of art (fiction) then I have no problem whatsoever with that. But if you want me to believe that the Bible is a beautifully embroidered book of symbols and codes and ultimately, it is non-ficition, I want evidence to that end in the form of a logical argument not an aesthetic one.
The argument that the Bible is true because it is beautiful and sublime-- is a non sequitous argument. That argument doesn't hold water with me. It's simple Sophistry.
Again, I do appreciate the beauty of the Bible as literature. But not as a book of non-fiction. To me, it is at best, a book of myths with kernels of wisdom and at it's worst, a series of fairy tales with a nuclear trigger.
Fred,
Do you actually think that anyone claims that the bible is 100% "non-fiction" ??
That would be absurd.
To make that statement suggests that your knowledge of scripture study is even slimmer than I had imagined.
The parables of Jesus, for instance, are no more "non-fiction" than Anna Karenina.
But that doesn't make them any less powerful or "true."
Please re-read two previous entries. There's a wonderful world of knowledge out there. I am quite shocked that you were of the opinion that anyone claimed the Bible was "non-fiction."
Is Oedipus non fiction? Is the Agamemnon non-fiction? I hope I am correct in assuming that you have seen that fiction can be a more effective way to convey truth than "non-fiction." "Non-fiction" frequently is a vehicle for lies and prevarication. But is a grave mistake to equate fiction with falsehood, and this is a point that can be difficult to make with young students. It is, however, a very important one to make.
Diatribe? Not at all. We're just having a discussion.
Now, that's more like it. We both agree that the Bible is fiction. Yes, from that perspective, it infers that there are mysteries, symbols and analogies that one can venture to intrepret. I'm on board with that.
But, believe it or not, there are many people, in fact, I would say a majority of people who are Christians who take the book literally and that a man named Jonah lived in a big fish for 3 days, that all animals did go into the Ark, Jesus raised Lazarus from death, turned water into wine, walked on water, etc.
When I used to go to church, the pastors all believed that these were all true and that it was simply my ant like mind that was at fault for not being able to absorb the great mind of God. "For the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom" and "God, your wisdom is too wonderful for me to understand." They discouraged questions and when I did ask questions despite there preference, they offered no insights.
At a symbolic level, I do understand the concept of the Cruxificion and the Resurrection, the concept of divine expiation for example. But they insist that this all really did happen and to make the matters worse, they all say that Jesus is the only way to salvation since he was the only son of god and is god and is the only one who had ever risen from death.
I often asked the question, so are all Jews going to hell and Gandhi too? 100% of the time, they all said, "That's what it's said in the Bible."
I would be interested in attending a church that is alittle more sophisticated in how they view the messages in the Bible. In fact, it would be wonderful to hear some of your surmons.
I wonder if Joseph Campbell wrote anything on the Bible. I really enjoyed his Power of Myth series on PBS and his type of interpretations are the teachings that I would find useful.
"I often asked the question, so are all Jews going to hell and Gandhi too? 100% of the time, they all said, 'That's what it's said in the Bible.'"
It would seem that you have had the misforune of having your thought shaped by some very ignorant people. 100% ? My word!
"But, believe it or not, there are many people, in fact, I would say a majority of people who are Christians who take the book literally and that a man named Jonah lived in a big fish for 3 days, that all animals did go into the Ark . . . "
Who are the people who have told you this? What is their educational background. I can't think of one educated person I know who would hold such theories.
It's no wonder that your unstanding of scripture and its concomitant theologies seem so confused and uninformed.
It's a pity you have not taken a more critical attitude toward these assertions in the first place. Instead, you have set the entire Bible up a straw man, which easily falls in the face of your
all too facile and specious arguments.
But it's never too late to learn. Remember though: Wisdom maketh a bloody entrance.
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