Jarred's posts with tag: religion
I usually try to make concise and well-structured posts in my blog. This will not be one such post, however. I have decided to try and capture the stream of consciousness that has been going through my mind since reading Larro's post on atheism and secular humanism and the brief conversation we had in the comments on that post. As I said, I have no problem with atheism or secular humanism. It's a point of view, and while I don't subscribe to that point of view myself, I don't see any reason to object to it or the fact that some people do subscribe to it. To be honest, it's really none of my business anyway. For the longest time, I never really understood atheism. It simply did not make sense to take a hard-line position that there is no god. (To some degree, it still doesn't make sense, as a negative is ultimately impossible to prove with absolute certainty.) Then as I began to read some atheist literature, I began to understand that this isn't necesarily what it means to be an atheist. I came to understand that atheism is often simply the position that due to lack of proof or sufficient evidence, there's simply no reason to believe that there is a god. As I read more about this, I realized that this is a position I can totally respect. In many ways, it makes a great deal of sense to me. As I said, I'm not an atheist. I do believe in a god. (Of course, I could spend several more posts clarifying and expounding upon that statement, as my understanding of what a god is is radically different than the understanding popularized in our society by Judeo-Christian religion.) This is because my own life experiences and other factors have given me personal reasons to believe. I suspect that many of my atheist friends would look at my experiences and reasons for believing and still not be convinced. They'd probably suggest a dozen different reasons they'd interpret everything I've experience or hold to be true differently. And that's perfectly okay. I'm not responsible for what any other person -- atheist or not -- believes. They don't have to believe the same I do. In fact, I ultimately have no motivation to get them to believe as I do. (Though I have to admit that I think it'd be nice at times.) There are no dire consequences for their disbelief. There's no hellfire to save them from. And their lack of belief (or differing belief) is ultimately no threat to my own beliefs. So why get bent out of shape? Instead, I prefer to find common ground. And in my experience, there's a lot of common ground to find there. We both seem to have concerns about making a better lives for both ourselves and people in general. We often share many of the same values. We often have similar goals in life. There are just too many reasons to build bridges and work together for common goals to get bogged down in who believes what and who doesn't. Now, I will note that there are times that individual atheists can get on my nerves. For example, I am rather annoyed when some atheists paint all theists as unthinking idiots. (After all, reasonable people really can come to different conclusions.) And I have to admit that it's no fun when some atheists occasionally start talking about "religion" and begin to describe things that bear absolutely no resemblance to my religion at all. (One of my criticisms of many fundamentalist Christians and atheists alike is they both seem to have implicitly agreed that those two views of the world are ultimately the only two that exist.) And there are other things that individual atheists sometimes do that get under my skin. To me, however, these are "people things" rather than an "atheism thing." Many of the things that some atheists do that get under my skin are things that some theists do too! (And yes, it gets under my skin then as well!) So I'm inclined to not hold the actions of some people against an entire worldview. It's just not my style.
For the past few years, Fred Clark over at Slacktivist has been doing an in-depth critique of the book Left Behind by LeHay and Jenkins. I began to read through this review about a month ago and have enjoyed Clark's analysis, which has covered literary, theological (Clark himself is an evangelical Christian), and political perspectives alike. Yesterday, I ran across this installment, where Clark takes a step back from the book's plotlines to discuss one of the concepts touched upon by the book, evangelism, in a broader context. Primarily, he speaks of a shift from evangelism as hospitality to evangelism as a sales pitch, expanding upon a familiar (or at least familiar to anyone who's been involved in the evangelical Christian community) metaphor: ...it is not "one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread," but rather one fat man trying to convince another fat man that he's a beggar in order to close the sale on another loaf. The rest of of the post goes on to talk about how this approach to evangelism amounts to a sales pitch with little or no product to go with it (in fact, the title of my post references another great comment made by Clark). I highly recommend reading the whole post, as it's quite insightful.
Today, the following email was forwarded to me:
Merry Meet,
The National Day of Prayer is this Thursday May 1st. Our Coven has been watching and listening to the media on this and we decided to organize a group prayer meet to create positive change in our country though our Pagan perspective. This is also to enhance the day of prayer as Pagans and to show our faith and religious morals since many right wing groups want to make this a Christian day of prayer only.
If anyone would like to join us our group and others from our area will be at the Ontario County Court House, (27 North Main Street, Canandaigua, New York 14424) May 1st, ironically Beltane, at 7PM. Please bring a friend and a self contained candle to light as we silently pray for our country and for positive change. Signs are welcome so long as they are relevant to the topics of the day and are not vulgar or inflammatory to other religious groups.
Parking in the back of the court house is free and plentiful.
We look forward to coming together as a community and be counted as part of the solution.
Blessed be,
Shelly O'Brien and Heidi Gleber
High Priestesses- Coven of the Sacred Pentacle
Local Coordinators Fingerlakes Pagan Pride
First, let me say that for those who are close enough to the Canandaigua area to participate and are inclined to do so, I would highly encourage you. I suspect that this could be a great experience for many people.
I have to admit, however, that a National Day of Prayer makes little sense to me. To be honest, I tend to think of prayer -- even corporate prayer -- as a deeply personal thing. The idea of setting aside a "special" day to honor it and practice this spiritual discipline in a highly visible manner seems a bit odd and foreign to me. (I also tend to wonder how Christians in particular reconcile the National Day of Prayer
with Christ's exhortations against "public religiosity," which even address prayer specifically.) Personally, I don't think I would feel comfortable participating in such an event because of how I see prayer, though I support everyone who feels differently and honor their right and choice to participate.
I also wonder if we might want to be careful about setting up religiously segregated prayer groups for the National Day of Prayer, as well. If we are to take a day to celebrate prayer as a nation, it seems that we should do so as a nation rather than as separate groups within the nation.
Now, I realize that not every Christian, Jew, or Muslim would be willing to pray alongside Pagans. (Heck, some of them are quite unwilling to pray alongside certain members of their own faith!) But some of them are, and it seems like it would be wise to use this opportunity to build such bridges. I think a group of people from radically different faith groups praying together would be a far better statement -- not to mention a powerful act -- than splintered groups of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, and other faiths doing their own thing.
Who knows? Maybe that'll be part of next year's National Day of Prayer events. To the folks gathering to pray in Canandaigua, I wish you the best with your gathering this weekend.
I'm going to start this post with a fair warning to everyone. This post is going to be full of deeply personal and intensely raw thoughts and emotions. If that's something that may bother you, you might want to stop reading you. If you're one of my Christian friends who may be hurt by what I have to say, you might want to stop reading now, though I hope you push on through. In some ways, I'd like to apologize for hurting you, but I don't know how to do that without also apologizing for saying what's on my heart and mind, something that I absolutely refuse to do. So I hope you find a way to forgive me anyway.
If you think you might have somehow contributed to what I'm about to say, please don't take it personally. It's nothing personal about you. In fact, in many ways, it's probably not about you at all. It's about everyone and everything.
Over the past few days, various events and conversations have gotten me thinking about Christianity and homosexuality. I've discussed the matter with many people and heard many others' thoughts on the topic, so now it's time for me to express my own.
Regardless of whether it eventually comes to see homosexuality as a moral and acceptable expression of human sexuality, I doubt I will ever trust evangelical Christianity.
My experiences with and observations of evangelical Christianity suggest that it is and always will be about "us versus them." The list of who qualifies as "us" and who qualifies as "them" may change over the years, but the underlying mentality remains the same. Those who fall into the "us" category become embraced while those who fall into the "them" category remain outcasts, worthy of contempt, condemnation, and even discrimination.
I am someone who for numerous reasons has likely taken up permanent residence in the "them" category. Even if gay people are accepted, there are other things that will put me in the "them" category. Indeed, I suspect that as long as there is a "them" category at all, I'll be firmly entrenched in it. And I've made my peace with that, more or less.
What I haven't made my peace with is the idea that politically, our rights as individuals and groups depends on which of those categories belong to. What I haven't made peace with is the suggestion that part of the human rights process is convincing such people to redefine their categories to move us into the "deserving of rights" one.
What about those who will never make it into the "deserving of rights category"? Shall we tell them (or more accurately, shall they tell us), "Sorry, I guess you're just out of luck?
To be honest, the fact that there are "us" and "them" categories in evangelical Christianity at all was one of the major reasons that I left the religion. I knew too many of "them" to be comfortable thinking of them as "them." And the idea that them being "them" could even possibly make them undeserving of rights would've driven me to froth at the mouth.
So I have to admit, I get pretty annoyed and even hurt when people suggest that getting our rights is still a matter of getting a bunch of intolerant people in an "us vs. them" religion to move us into the "us" category. Because quite frankly, it feels like a betrayal to those of us who will remain in the "them" category long after we've run the gay rights order. It almost feels as if we'll be told, "well, you're okay that you're gay now, but there still may be other reasons to discriminate against you."
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