Some people will tell you that there’s a lot of good in religion, and even if it’s not really true, it’s a benign and harmless delusion.
Meet the evidence to the contrary.
A leap of faith that sent an Arizona family bound for the South Pacific in a sailboat has returned them in an airplane after a harrowing ordeal at sea that saw them adrift and nearly out of food in one of the remotest stretches of ocean on the planet.
[Note: I’ve disabled comments on this post due to spam. Let me know if you’d like to have commenting turned back on again, and I’ll be happy to oblige.]
The interesting thing about gambling on the supernatural is that the supernatural, by definition, has no objective, reality-based constraints. As soon as you can objectively measure and/or test something, and can determine whether or not it is likely to be true, it ceases to be properly supernatural, and becomes a question that can and should be answered through the use of the scientific method. Stick to the supernatural, and all bets are equally baseless.
For example, let’s suppose that there exists a supernatural predator who preys on the spirits of the gullible and incautious. Such a predator might groom his prey for the harvest, much as the American farmer fattens his turkey for Thanksgiving. He could manifest himself as a god, and attempt to lure believers to himself by various apparent (or genuine) miracles, and a pretense of spreading love, mercy and forgiveness. In the afterlife, anyone who sincerely believes in this god becomes god’s lunch for all eternity, or for at least as long as it takes the god to slowly gnaw away at your soul and devour it.
I’ve been thinking about Christianity and polytheism. Not the more obvious polytheism you find in the Trinity, but rather the many different and incompatible beings that believers worship under the polymorphic title of “God.”
For example, one of the gods that believers worship is El Shaddai, the Almighty God. He’s a Biblical character, and he’s characterized by his omnipotent power. This sets him apart from, say, the lesser Jehovah, who gave Judah the land of Canaan but was unable to give him the plains “because they had chariots fitted with iron” (Judges 1). El Shaddai stands apart because he is truly almighty and his will is irresistible. Whatever he says, that’s what happens, just because he said so.
I was listening to Christian talk radio on my way home last night (ok, I admit it, I do that a lot), and the topic was gay marriage, or more generally homosexuality. It was kind of bizarre. They were trying to grapple with the fact that Jesus is losing the culture wars, especially in the arena of gay rights. It’s no longer cool to demonize gays, which means that believers at long last are beginning to realize that their attacks on gays do more damage to the church these days than to homosexuals. And they were groping, adrift, trying to find some way to reconcile their religious dogmas with the fact that homosexuals are not actually evil, immoral, or corrupt.
And they found it. Sorta. They decided that it was ok for Christians to tolerate homosexuals because Jesus used to hang out with prostitutes and tax collectors.
This, in Christian circles, is “progress.”
I happened to tune in to Christian talk radio during the drive home last night, and they were all abuzz about the Royal Baby. Apparently, the British and American press have been referring to it as the Royal Baby since before it was born. And that’s supposed to prove that it’s always been a baby, and not a fetus, or zygote, or fertilized egg.
Thought for the day: Jesus said, “You must be born again.” Is that why so many legislators are trying to push the government into women’s vaginas?
I said it again the other day, but then I had second thoughts. “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion,” I said, but is that really true? Have you ever thought about the full range of opinions we’re implicitly endorsing by saying everyone is entitled to believe whatever they believe?
While I’m currently snowed under (literally and figuratively), here’s some interesting reading, from Religion Dispatches, on George W. Bush’s first “faith czar,” and his praise for Obama’s faith-based initiatives.
John J. DiIulio, the first director of George W. Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, has taken to the Washington Post to laud President Obama’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. In it, he cutely claims to like Obama’s director of the faith-based office, Joshua DuBois, better than “Bush’s first ‘faith czar.'”
Less than a year into his own tenure, DiIulio resigned in disgust, and complained about Bush staffers who sought to dole out favors to religious conservatives rather than serve “compassionate conservativism.” He notoriously coined the term “Mayberry Machiavellis” to describe Bush insiders, who, in relation to faith-based legislation, “winked at the most far-right House Republicans” in attempting to pass legislation for the faith-based office. That bill, which went nowhere, was drafted because Bush staffers thought it “satisfied certain fundamentalist leaders and Beltway libertarians.”
It’s an interesting read, especially in light of frequent accusations that Obama is somehow anti-religion (whilst simultaneously being Muslim, Nazi, Socialist, and Communist, hmmm).
The name “Islam” means “submission” or “obedience,” but move over, Mohammed, the Christians are about to take obedience to a whole new level with their program to raise up ministers of the Gospel—on four legs.
A program offered at one Wyoming church gives dogs with their owners the opportunity to spread comfort and the message of Christ.
The eight-week Canines for Christ session will be at Ascension and Holy Trinity Church, at 334 Burns Ave., beginning Jan. 19, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Canines for Christ is a Christian-based, animal-assisted therapy ministry. Dogs and their owners work together to train the pets to visit places that include hospitals, nursing homes, hospice facilities, special-needs facilities and cancer centers.
Yeah, friendly, well-trained dogs are a great way to overcome people’s natural wariness around strangers, and make them more vulnerable to your attempts to exploit them in their weakness. Still, believers are always preying on the young and/or the helpless, so this program doesn’t change much. I can’t help wondering, though, what will happen when the revival comes to town, and the minister lays his hands on the sick and shouts, “Heal!”
Thought for the day:
And we agree with all of the above.