Why won’t Quinn be baptized?
The easy and obvious answer is that we don’t subscribe to the christian
mythology, so it doesn’t make sense to indoctrinate our child into it.
The real question is: why not? Well,
here it is: the work that my
friends have taken to calling my “rant against christianity.”
This essay is an attempt on my part to once and for all answer the
question of why Quinn will not be christened.
(Note: this is Joe writing. Mary
agrees with me about not christening the baby, but I won’t presume that
she’d word her reasons exactly the same as me.
I know she agrees with the basic concepts I’ll be using here, though.)
I’m sick of people asking me this; I’m even sicker of people not
asking but just making snide remarks; and I’m sickest of the people who
ask, but then don’t want to hear the answer.
So here’s the deal: This
essay is going to be long. It’s
going to be in-depth, and it’s going to challenge you to think for yourself,
instead of clinging to the bedtime stories you were read as a child.
It’s also going to ask you to dredge up some probably-long-forgotten
world history. You’re going to
have to spend some time with it. If
you can do these things, great – we can do business.
If you can’t, or won’t, then you might as well stop reading right
now. If you do that, though, you
forfeit all right to ever mention this topic to either of us again.
If you aren’t going to at least try to see our side, we aren’t
interested in discussing this with you! (NOTE: if you don't really
care about the reasoning, and just want a quick explanation of how Quinn will
be raised, skip on down to the last paragraph.)
One last thing before we begin: it’s
not my intention to insult anyone here. I’m
not attempting to tear down your beliefs in any religion.
I’m merely explaining why I can’t support the idea of
indoctrinating my son into christianity. I’m
going to be pretty blunt about what I think of the religion (and more
importantly, why), though… so don’t take it personally!
Part One
When examining my reasons for disliking and distrusting christianity, they can
be broken into two general groups: logical reasons, and ethical ones.
We’ll start with logic. My
problem here is that I have a hard time aligning myself with an
organization/belief system that has so many inconsistencies.
Christianity is riddled with contradictions, arbitrary mid-stream changes
of dogma, and actual deceptions. I’m
going to offer a few examples here (well, more than a few, but I’ve got so
many favorites it’s hard to choose! And
this is my rant, damnit!), but this list is by no means conclusive. Volumes have been written about the logic gaps in the
christian faith (both in details and in philosophy), so if you’re interested,
it’s easy research to do. Drop me
an email and I’ll point you in the right direction.
The ones listed here are some of the better known, though I bet most of
you have never heard any of this before. That’s
ok, don’t take my word for it… do your own research.
I’m even including internet references for many of them.
Some of these are more important than others, but taken together they can
give you a glimpse of the overall fabric of the faith – and it’s full of
rips. None of this is theory or opinion either; it’s all
verifiable fact.
We’ll start with one of the most
important falsities: the idea that christianity was a brand new, unique
religion. Christianity actually
takes most of its beliefs and practices from the ancient pagan religions of
Europe and the Middle East that came before it.
The best illustration of this is our holidays; they’re almost all
rooted in paganism. For the sake of
brevity, we’ll just discuss the origins of the two most important christian
holidays – Christmas and Easter. Christmas
has its roots in Yule, the pagan celebration of the winter solstice, around
December 21. This is the shortest
day of the year, and was celebrated as the birth, or rebirth, of the sun god,
because the days start to get longer again.
It was always a time of great merriment and gift-giving, and most of the
traditions we follow to observe Christmas today, from Christmas trees to
mistletoe and holly to (obviously) a Yule log, predate christ by thousands of
years. Jesus’ birthday,
conversely, was celebrated on January (or, by some accounts, April) 6 for the
first 300-odd years after his death, until the Roman Emperor Constantine decreed
that it be moved to coincide with the pagan Yule celebration.
Easter comes from the ancient celebration of the vernal equinox, around
March 21. This holiday was named
Eostara, for a Germanic pagan goddess. It
celebrated the themes of "rebirth" and "resurrection" that
come with spring – the earth becoming alive again. A couple of the items sacred
to Eostara, and in keeping with the themes of fertility, were rabbits and
eggs. So... Christianity's most sacred holiday takes its name, theme,
and customs from an ancient pagan goddess. I'm
fuzzy on how celebrations that predate christ by, in some cases, thousands of
years, serve to point to the truth of christ. The way I see it,
christianity adopted pre-existing holidays, and the original (so I think you
could say "true") meanings of those holidays were so strong that,
despite the early christian leaders' best efforts to stamp them out, the
meanings have been maintained to this day.
And I have to wonder about the veracity of any religion that claims to be
a brand new spirituality that will save all the people who convert to it... but
then goes on celebrating the same things.
Continuing with the fact that christianity just stole most of its most important principles from earlier beliefs, consider the story of the Egyptian god Osiris. “The details of Osiris' myth are complicated and, to us moderns, silly. But the core of the myth is familiar: the God is killed and (eventually) resurrected, after which he becomes immortal and goes into the beyond to be the God of the dead. Osiris' followers knew their fate after death depended on the morality of the life they led before death. The ancient Book of the Dead pictures resurrected believers standing in the presence of Osiris as their judge. If they could recite a list of their good deeds in life, Osiris rewarded them with eternal life." (http://home.earthlink.net/~pgwhacker/ChristianOrigins/PaganChrists_Isis_and_osiris.html) Sounds familiar, eh? Truth is, dozens of religions predating christianity have mythology involving a god being killed, and then resurrected.
Another thing to realize is that the scripture of christianity, the New Testament, was very much a product of its times. This, for example, is why the Jews traditionally shoulder some blame for the crucifixion, when in reality that makes no sense at all, as the only crime anyone was ever crucified for was treason against the Roman Empire. This is also the reason the early church leaders went to such lengths to align their “new” faith with the older, more popular religions. Because of this, the collection of works that coalesced into the New Testament was compiled more on the basis of political effectiveness than on historical accuracy. The early church fathers responsible for this basically handpicked the books of the bible from a much larger collection of hundreds of different, often contradictory, works. In 367 C.E the Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria proposed a list of works to be included in the New Testament. This list was ratified by the Church Council of Hippo in 393, and again in 397 by the Council of Carthage. These councils “created” the New Testament by committee, cavalierly ignoring many texts with much stronger claims to accuracy. The “winning” texts that made it into the bible were not necessarily the ones that had the strongest claim to truth, but rather the ones that would serve the cause of spreading the message. Many of these were also subjected to censorship, mistranslation, and intentional modification. One important fact that mustn’t be overlooked is that, in C.E. 303, the Roman Emperor Diocletian had ordered every scrap of christian writing be destroyed (he was a pagan looking to stamp out the new religion). When Emperor Constantine ordered that new versions of these documents be created, it allowed the church leaders to alter them as they saw fit, and this was probably the point where most of the crucial alterations were made, and Jesus assumed his current status. Of the 5,000 early manuscripts of the New Testament that we know about, none predates the fourth century. The New Testament is essentially a product of the fourth century clergy making every effort to spread the religion. As much editing as was done, though, there was even more outright exclusion. As an example, in 1958 Professor Morton Smith of Columbia University discovered a letter that contained a “missing” fragment of the Gospel of Mark, in a monastery near Jerusalem. This fragment hadn’t been misplaced, but rather intentionally censored at the instruction of one of the most venerated of early church fathers, Bishop Clement of Alexandria. This fragment of Mark was apparently being used by a Gnostic sect known as the Carpocratians to justify some behavior Clement didn’t approve of. In the letter found by Professor Smith, Clement instructs his underlings to deny that portion of the gospel, saying, “…Such men are to be opposed in all ways and altogether. For, even if they should say something true, one who loves the truth should not, even so, agree with them. For not all true things are the truth, nor should that truth which merely seems true according to human opinions be preferred to the true truth, that according to the faith.” (Smith, Secret Gospel, p. 14ff) In other words, he tells his followers to only subscribe to the portions of the Gospel that the church tells them to, and to deny the rest of it even though it was all written by the same man! Clement goes on to discuss what is in the “secret” gospel, and then instructs his followers, “…To them [the Carpocratians], therefore, as I said above, one must never give way, nor, when they put forward their falsifications, should one concede that the secret Gospel is by Mark, but should even deny it on oath. For, not all true things are to be said to all men.” (Smith, Secret Gospel, p. 16) You can read the full texts of Clement’s letter, as well as the portion of the “secret gospel” that Clement refers to, here: (http://www.gnosis.org/library/secm.htm) One note, though – when reading the text of the gospel, you’ll find what seems to be a reference to homosexuality between Jesus and Lazarus. Most modern scholars agree that this isn’t correct, but rather that the passage refers to a typical mystery school initiation – a ritualized “death” and “rebirth” into a new belief system. This was a popular ritual at the time, and was used by many esoteric sects in the area. (Of course, if you consider that this suggests Jesus was aligned with a mystery school, the ramifications are much more significant than if this was mere homosexuality.) Many more early christian texts have been found, some of which align much better with known history of the region than the bible does – including some that were written by the same authors as the “accepted” gospels. These books also present views of Jesus and christianity that, in some cases, cause big problems for the church, explaining their exclusion in the fourth century. We know them today as The Gnostic Gospels, the Nag Hammadi Scrolls, The Apocrypha, and so on. An excellent library of them can be found here: (http://www.gnosis.org/library.html) One of the more astonishing ideas they present is that Jesus was never crucified at all, but that an imposter was instead. In Jesus’ words, “I did not succumb to them as they had planned… And I did not die in reality but in appearance, lest I be put to shame by them… For my death which they think happened, happened to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death… It was another, their father, who drank the gall and vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another upon whom they placed the crown of thorns… And I was laughing at their ignorance.” (The Second Treatise of the Great Seth) An astonishing idea, but one that has been remarkably persistent throughout history. The Koran maintains this very thing today: “…In fact, they never killed him, they never crucified him - they were made to think that they did.” (Koran 4:157) Typically, texts that propose this claim that the substitute on the cross was Simon of Cyrene. Whether this particular claim is true or not makes no real difference; the point is that the New Testament is just a small, arbitrary selection of a vast amount of written material about Christ – and much of the excluded material has more historical veracity than the included works do.
Even among the accepted books of the New Testament, there are significant contradictions. Take, for example, the story of Jesus’ birth and family origins. From childhood we’ve been raised to assume that the gospels all tell the same story of a couple on the road, no rooms available, a manger, three wise men, etc. However, only two of the gospels – Matthew and Luke – actually mention anything about Jesus’ origins or birth at all, and they are flagrantly at odds. According to Matthew, Jesus was born of wealthy and fairly powerful parents – an aristocrat if not rightful heir of the line of David, via Solomon. (Gospel of Matthew 1:17) From Luke we get the legendary “poor carpenter” description. These aren’t small differences; they’re referring to two completely different people! And on it goes: Luke has baby Jesus visited by shepherds (Gospel of Luke 2:1); Matthew has him visited by kings. (Gospel of Matthew 2:11) Luke has Mary and Joseph (no jokes please) making a hard journey to Bethlehem (for a census that history suggests never happened), where Jesus is born in a manger. (Gospel of Luke 2:1) Matthew claims that Jesus’ parents were well-off residents of Bethlehem all along, and Jesus was born in a house. (Gospel of Matthew 2:1) This is just one example of hundreds of places where the gospels of the New Testament completely contradict each other. Now, the church teaches that these gospels are the unimpugnable word of god, but as Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh say, “how can they be unimpugnable when they impugn each other?” And this was the best compilation of work the early church fathers could put together to advance their cause? Apparently they couldn’t find four volumes out of hundreds that were in agreement! Of course, I’m not the first person to figure this out. This problem first arose on a grand scale for the church in the nineteenth century, and gave rise to a movement known as “modernism.” By the nineteenth century, scholars were systematically applying strict research rules to historical study for the first time. No longer would our idea of history come from a vague synthesis of whatever works the historian cared to peruse; now, scientific methods would become the norm, and a picture of history would be built on evidence. This scared the hell out of the church, which relied on unquestioning adherence to dogma, because they knew full well that the bible could never withstand such scrutiny. “In his best selling and highly controversial Life of Jesus, Ernest Renan had already applied scientific methodology to the New Testament, and the results, for Rome, were extremely embarrassing.” (Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, p.188). The church’s solution to this was to recruit an elite force of scholars, trained in the scientific methods of the day, who could defend the literal truth of the scriptures. This backfired, though, because the more critical study that was applied to the scriptures, the more inconsistencies and implications were found, and the more scholars abandoned their cause, and the adherence to dogma, altogether. These folks, and the movement they spawned, became known as Catholic Modernism, and posed the most serious threat to the church since Martin Luther.
And, lastly, my favorite little factoid that makes all of christianity just seem completely illogical to me: have you ever heard of the Council of Nicea? A good bit went on at this council, convened in 325 C.E. by the Roman Emperor Constantine, but the most significant thing, and possibly the single most significant occurrence of christianity ever, was this: Jesus was voted a deity, instead of just a mortal prophet. Yep, for the first 300 years of the religion, Jesus wasn’t even a god! He was voted one, by committee… and the vote wasn’t even unanimous! It took place because, once again, to compete with the prevailing pagan religions, christianity needed something they had, and that was a god that had actually walked the earth. This quote sums it up: “The Council of Nicea officially elected the trinity…The Council of Nicea officially made Jesus the Son of God instead of just a prophet... The Council officially changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday… It wasn't until Constantine converted to Christianity and declared it the official religion of Rome that Christianity's dogma and doctrine began to congeal. There were at least two more councils convened. The largest was the Council of Trent in 397 CE. However, the influence of Christianity and its internal struggles led to the ultimate fall of Rome. Christianity decimated Constantinople (today's Istanbul) in a bloody war over dogma and doctrine. Christianity survived, in mass, because it changed itself - morphed - in order to gain converts. For example, it changed the celebration of Jesus' birth from January (or April, depending on which reference you use) to December. They did this because the pagan religions had huge parties on the Solstice. By moving the celebration of Jesus' birth to December they were able to compete with the pagan party, effectively being able to say, "We have a big party, too." By altering doctrine, dogma and holidays Christianity was able to convert people more easily. Of course the sword ultimately became the greatest conversion tool for Christianity - just like the Roman Empire. Ironically, you can basically say that the founder of modern Christianity is Constantine - a pagan emperor of Rome.” (Blair Scott, http://www.alabamaatheist.org/awareness/debates/debate009.htm) While new evidence indicates that Constantine never really converted to christianity, considering he was never baptized ‘till on his deathbed and probably too weak to protest, there’s no question that his tolerance of the religion in the name of keeping peace in the Empire allowed christianity to gain its first strong foothold. More on the Council of Nicea, including the exclusion of certain works from the New Testament like the Gospel of Thomas (which had been perfectly creditable up to this point), can be found here: (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A307487) Fascinating stuff that gets into Jesus’ wife and family (and of course he was married, it was unthinkable for any respectable man, especially a teacher, to not be married in those days.) That stuff is beyond the scope of this article, though…
…So let’s move on to my final logical issue with christianity, which deals with the fact that much of christian philosophy just doesn’t make sense when applied to humanity. First of all, I flatly reject blind adherence to the dogma of someone who would presume to tell me what to do, or how to live. Did you know that “orthodox” literally means “correct teaching”, while “heretic” means “one who chooses”? I’d much rather be a heretic! There’s an endless diversity to this world, and I completely mistrust any group that claims their way is the only right way. How does that even make any sense? And this idea of punishment or retribution that everyone’s scared of just seems absurd. I mean, the christian god is portrayed as having unlimited forgiveness… but screw up one lifetime, and you’re doomed to suffer for eternity in hell? (Hell, by the way, takes its name from the Norse goddess Hel, who was the queen of the underworld; but unlike in christianity, the Norse underworld was just the spirit realm and was not a place of torment and punishment.) It makes God sound like the ultimate bully! Think about it – God is supposedly all powerful and all knowing, but if that’s the case, why would he create people he knows are going to choose to be “sinners”, and then make them spend eternity in hell for doing what he, in a sense, created them to do? In the words of Carl McColman, “it makes God look like the emotional equivalent of a two year old.” I have to think that the ultimate creative force of the universe is a little wiser than christians seem to think he is! It seems more likely that this is just a scare tactic perpetrated by people who make their living as clergy to keep their flocks obedient (and financially generous – did you know the catholic church will still sell you an “indulgence” for your sins? But why not? It’s the 21st century, after all; “personal responsibility” is an anachronism!) Another thing that’s always fascinated me is the way christian dogma’s changed over time. I mean, this is supposed to be the divinely-decreed law of how we’re supposed to live as humans, but if that’s the case, why all the flux? For instance, “On 22 June 1633 Galileo was forced to kneel in front of the Inquisition and recant his belief in the Copernican Planetary System and the motion of the Earth. He was condemned to life imprisonment, ostensibly for having disobeyed a 1616 injunction by Cardinal Bellarmino "...not to defend or teach the Copernican doctrine..." (http://www.hao.ucar.edu/public/education/sp/images/trial.html) This is how the church rewarded one of the most brilliant minds we’ve ever seen (the sentence was commuted to house arrest for life, but still…), but they were obviously forced to admit their mistake when the Copernican and Galilean models of the heavens were no longer possible to refute. Thus, in 1922 the church admitted to dealing unfairly with Galileo. But wait… according to the doctrine of papal infallibility, it’s impossible for the pope (or those acting on his authority, like the Inquisition) to make a mistake! And yet, by their own admission, a mistake was made! An example a little more applicable here is the policy on christening – it used to be clear-cut that a baby was born with original sin marring his soul, and it was important to baptize him as soon as possible, before he died and ended up being denied entrance to heaven. This obviously raises some pretty serious implications about humanity, and the church has back-pedaled from it considerably. But how can they? If god decrees the laws of the christian faith, how can they ever be in error? And what justification does any human spiritual leader have for changing them? Yet, they change all the time, so most people seem to regard christening in a “better safe than sorry” manner. Personally, I think if you actually believe that a baby this innocent has been born evil, you have some serious issues; one of which is that you need a good old fashioned ass-kicking for believing that people are inherently evil, ‘cause it’s people like you who are part of the problem in this world. Also, it brings us to the last point I want to mention about illogical philosophy: the flat-out unlikelieness of christian mythology, and the believers’ apparent willingness to believe things for no better reason than because someone told them they should. This reflects either an inability to think for yourself, or a, uh, tilted perspective, to find the mythology believable. I mean, really, suppose you’d never heard the story and some guy just came up to you on the street and told it to you. Burning bushes, parting seas, and the evilness of an entire species somehow wiped clean by nailing a guy to a tree? You’d eagerly agree with anything he said, and edge away searching for help!
So, that covers the logical problem I have with deciding to believe heart and soul in an organization/mythology with so many inconsistencies (both accidental and intentional) in its history and philosophy. The accidents I could almost overlook, but the frequency of intentional alteration by humans of what is portrayed as god’s word is something I’ll never get past. Regardless of what you believe happened 2,000 years ago, the truth is that everything christianity has told you about it is suspect; and a lot of it is demonstrably false. That’s not for me, or my family.
Part 2
The other main reason I choose to distance myself from christianity is its ethics, or rather its lack of ethics. Organized religion has caused, or been used to justify, more violence, pain and death in this world than any other single thing, and no religion is more guilty of it than christianity. Remember the Thirty Years War? Maybe you don’t, but it was one of the great conflicts of early European history… and it was almost entirely about religion. Thirty years is a hell of a long time for people to be fighting, killing, and destroying in the name of a loving god, no? (Funny thing was, these people were all “christians”, consisting of the catholics, lutherans, and calvinists.) And how about the Great Witch Hunt in Europe? In the 16th and 17th centuries, almost 100,000 people, mostly women, were tortured and horrifically executed for “witchcraft”. Really think about that number: one hundred thousand human beings. Now think about this: the vast majority of these people weren’t witches at all, but were accused of the craft either by mistake, or by an enemy. Of the true witches that were burned… well, do you know the origin of witchcraft? Before christianity demonized it, it was (and still is) a spirituality rooted in the deep natural cycles of the world, and in healing. Witches (or “wise women”) were herbalist healers, midwives, etc. Imagine being one of these women – you’ve dedicated your life to the study of complex healing rites and herbal medicine (the best thing going at the time, and apparently pretty effective.) You’ve helped countless members of your community, and you live a quiet life near the outskirts of your village. But one day, the villagers all basically go apeshit about having a witch living in their midst because some christians whipped them into a frenzy, and a mob shows up at your door with torches and pitchforks. You’re given a sham of a trial where you’re submitted to everything from immersion torture to the rack, until you say what they want you to say: “I’m a witch, I worship satan.” You don’t, of course, you never have; don’t even believe in him. May have never even heard of him! But that is apparently what you have to say to make this stop, so you do. And they do stop, and you’re happy about it… until you see the big bonfire being built, with the stake in the middle. Really put yourself there; how would that feel? To be roasted alive? Your hair would probably go up first, in a flash of foul smoke. Surrounded by the worst thing you’d ever smelled, you’d probably experience the worst pain you’d ever known as your scalp melted to your skull. It would only be the worst for a few seconds though – until your body properly caught. The skin of your legs and torso would blacken and split; you’d feel your own fat popping and sizzling inside you, then melting and running out. The last thing you’d see through the smoke and embers, before your eyes burst in their sockets like overcooked grapes, would be the witch-hunter clergyman, in full ceremonial garb, with a satisfied smile on his face. Christianity has arrived in your village.
Align myself with an organization responsible for this? No.
And that was just the witch-hunts! Consider
the rest of the Inquisition! And
then, consider christianity’s “final
solution”, the thing Hitler would model his genocide on centuries later –
the Crusades. The Crusades were a
series of holy wars, waged from 1095-1291 by the christians against, well,
pretty much anyone non-christian. Muslims,
Jews… no one in Europe was safe. Death
toll estimates range from 1.5 to 5 million people.
Remember, this was a noble and holy undertaking.
We’ve all learned from movies and fairy-tales how romantic it was;
knights in shining armor setting out on holy quests with specific instructions
from their lords – “kill everyone who doesn’t look or think like you.”
From an account of the 1099 invasion of Jerusalem: “…a western Army entered Jerusalem on July 15, 1099. A bloodbath ensued
with the Crusaders cutting down all before them. A few Muslims escaped by buying
their safe exit from the city.
The Jews took refuge in their chief synagogue and were all burnt within it.
Muslims were killed as long as the blood lust lasted. In the words of a
Christian witness:
"Our men
followed [the city's defenders], killing and beheading them all the way to the
Temple of Solomon. There was such slaughter there that our men waded in blood up
to their ankles....Soon our men were running all around the city, seizing gold
and silver, horses and mules, and houses filled with all kinds of goods.
Rejoicing and weeping for joy, our people came to the sepulcher of Jesus our
Savior to worship and pay our debt....Our men then took counsel and decided that
everyone should pray and give alms so that God might choose for them whomever he
pleased to rule over the others and govern the city....The living Saracens
dragged the dead outside the gates and made heaps of them as large as houses. No
one ever saw or heard of such a slaughter of pagan peoples, for funeral pyres
were formed of them like pyramids and no one knows their number save God
alone."
The massacre impressed the world. Many even among the Christians who
participated were sickened and shamed by the brutality.” (http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc1/lectures/21crusades.html)
Proudly indoctrinate my son into an organization with such a noble and
storied past? No.
I have a pretty serious ethical problem with aligning my family with a
group that’s responsible for so much evil and suffering, not to mention
general bad ideas. I mean, the
official christian position, in this age of over-population, is that birth
control’s still a sin! There
probably aren’t too many folks in this country delusional enough for that to
make a difference, but globally? Yeah,
I’d say you could pin the lousy lives and/or sad deaths of many poor children
worldwide on the christian doctrine that birth control is bad.
Overall, these are just a few examples of the cruelty christians have
afflicted on people throughout the centuries, in the name of their “prince of
peace”. I could go on for pages
about this stuff; the above examples are just a few that stand out as
spectacular. What I take from this
is that, while it’s not necessary to align with an organized religion to do
great and wonderful things, it really seems to help if you want to do great and
terrible ones!
All
this ultimately results from the complete intolerance of christianity.
If there’s one principle that christians really have adhered to,
instead of just preaching, throughout their existence, it’s been this:
if you aren’t like us, you are bad.
“Bad” has varied in form from “you require burning at the stake”
to “you poor, misguided child… I’ll pray for you so that god won’t send
you to hell for not thinking like me.” Well, I heard
a great analogy once: everyone is seeking the ultimate, divine spirit.
Call that God, the Great Spirit, whatever; that's what everyone is looking for.
Think of this ultimate divinity as a clearing in the woods. Many different
paths lead to this clearing. Some trace winding routes through upland
forests. Some are in the deep, dark lowland marshes. Some follow the
spines of high ridgelines. Depending on which one you follow, your journey
can be easy or hard. You could face difficulties ranging from cold, wet
weather to hot, dry, windy conditions on exposed cliff faces. But, no
matter which path you take... they all go to the same place. I like that
metaphor, 'cause it's what I think about religion: No one can say with
certainty that their way is the right one. None of us know. I
know christians feel that they’re right, but here's the thing:
the buddhist on the other side of the world is just as sure that he's
right. Now, who is any of us to say he isn't? We can't; we don't
know. I have to admit that I'm fascinated by all the inconsistencies in
christianity, and its followers' almost complete lack of awareness of them, but
it's not like any of that bothers me. To each their own. The
thing I really take exception to about christianity is its arrogance.
Of course, like I said, adherents of any religion secretly feel they're
right, but christianity is so damn sanctimonious about it! And most
christians that I've met, no matter how good of people they are, tend to look
down on you either haughtily, or with pity, when they find out you don't share
their beliefs. That drives me up a wall; and it makes me not want to align
myself with them just for that reason, regardless of my beliefs. I mean,
in my area, a local church is co-sponsoring a missionary trip to Tibet, to
convert the buddhists! Like the Tibetan buddhists haven't been through
enough in this last century! And here come these self-righteous buggers to
try to stamp out the last vestige of one of the most beautiful, peaceful, and
tolerant religions/cultures the world has ever seen! And I'm sure they'll
use the standard bribery tactics that worked so well in Africa and the Americas:
"look, we bring food and medicine for you! Education for your
children! Just throw away your most precious beliefs so we can feel better
about ourselves, and all this can be yours!"
Geez, it’d be like someone bribing us to baptize Quinn by offering to
pay college tuition or something!
As someone who's been fascinated by history and different cultures all my life, it really bugs the hell out of me when someone thinks they have the right to impose their culture, their history, their beliefs, on others. I think one of the most basic truths we need to realize about being human is that there's an endless variety of ways to live. Thank goodness for it; it's what makes the world so fascinating. And unlike a lot of people, I don't believe that the strife today is a result of these differences. It's a result of intolerance for these differences that is the problem. So, to out-of-hand dismiss the thousands of years of wisdom of another culture, just because it isn't what we learned when we were growing up, just seems plain wrong.
Not only do I not believe there’s only one right path, I’m not sure we’re capable of understanding true spirit at all. Are you familiar with the Chinese religion of taoism? The tao is a concept too abstract and mystical to adequately be put into words. The word itself means "way" or "course" and basically refers to the ultimate reality - what we in the west might call "spirit", "deity", "god", etc. One of the root principles of the tao is that , as soon as you try to put it into words, you've distorted the true concept of tao, which is beyond the limits of human thought and language. It's similar to the scientific principle that states that we can never really observe something in its natural state, because the mere act of observing it has an effect on it. That's why the tao is depicted with that cool swirly yin-yang symbol, which embodies meaning that can be almost grasped when meditated on, but never consciously mastered. At least, that's the theory... I'm certainly not saying I'm a taoist. But that one concept does sort of ring true with me - the idea that mere mortals would have a hard time ever really grasping the true nature of ultimate divinity, the creative force responsible for the entire universe. It makes sense to me that that one might just be a little over our heads. I mean, we can't even really grasp string theory! So, I can't fathom feeling that you're better than someone else because you hold different ideas.
And
that, in a large and sprawling nutshell, is the second reason I can’t
embrace christianity, and will not force it on my child – we’re talking
about a religion that preaches love, forgiveness, and understanding; but
practices intolerance, punishment, and ignorance.
So, if you’ve come this far with me (and I’m aware that’s
unlikely), you’re probably wondering by now, “well, that’s all great, but
how will this kid be raised, if not christian?”
He’ll be instilled with tolerance for everyone and the decisions they
might make, as long as no one’s being hurt.
He’ll get a balanced education in spirituality, rooted in the actual history
(not just the mythology) of the world’s religions, from christianity to
paganism. The overriding emphasis
will be on love and goodness for their own sake, not just to seek rewards
and avoid punishment down the road. Above
all, it’ll be drummed into his head to always maintain an open mind, and a
willingness to learn.
Now, does that sound so bad?