Tonight marked the return of basketball, now in its 7th year maybe? Just a group of guys who get together and hoop it up for a couple hours on Tuesday nights. It's fun. Tonight we had a bunch of 'strangers' join us, cohorts of a guy we do know. As with the first athletic endeavor in any season, tomorrow I will be sore. Tonight I was just rusty and my legs at times felt like they were slowly filling with concrete. As I said, fun.
On the ride home I was listening to a guy talk about the differences in the Christian church, contrasting specifically the 'global north' versus the 'global south'. One interesting tidbit for instance is that in Catholic churches in Africa exorcism is a common service performed, something that we in the global north generally look awkwardly down on, and ultimately can't help but associate with projectile vomiting early teens.
Listening to that triggered a thought that remains far from fully germinated in my mind. But without thinking it through, what dawned on me was that the biggest problem that I have with religion generally, and Christianity specifically is the certainty expressed by the most vocal of its advocates. A couple of weeks ago I was considering a little teaser post about 'what I know' and basically in the truest sense how little that was. Full on knowing is a level of certainty that I reserve for very few things. And I guess that as a general skeptic, 'faith' is definitely one of those concepts that offers to little to grab onto to be certain. Undoubtably it is a leap, as they say, but one that I see no reason to make. Believing without skepticism becomes knowing in my view, and there are far too many inconsistencies to pass my smell test.
5 comments:
The other big issue I have with church is that, throughout history, it's so easy for people to co-opt a religion with the intention of achieving a specific political agenda in its name.
The corner the Republican right has on the Evangelical vote in this country is destroying the world. Not what Jesus would want, I'll wager.
I wish that you guys had a fraction of my faith. I am working on getting my facts straight so that I would be a good resource to bounce thoughts off of. I am starting my Christian studies and hope to be a lifelong learner in that area.
I may have told you this before, but I was close to signing up with the Lutheran Seminary when I was in high school. I was leaning heavily towards that as a freshman, but my experiences at camp and discovery of Iowa State changed all of that obviously. I still have a desire to travel that road, but I don't know if I will ever go down that road.
I trust T-Clog to do right by his faith, but I would also encourage him to remain skeptical.
Some questions to ask someone smarter than me:
Which is it? Was Eve made from Adam's rib or as the equal of Adam. Genesis 1:27 versus Genesis 2:20-22. It makes an awful lot of difference relative to how women are treated over the years. The Adam's rib story seems to be the one that stuck and that makes women seem something less. And in fact, in the rib one, Eve was created after the animals.
Generally speaking there are two wildly contradictory creation stories in Genesis. How come?
Perhaps related, as we've learned from the recent violence that has taken place at schools (I refuse to refer to it as school violence as it seems to be only a convenient venue and not truly integral to the story) one of the most dangerous creatures in this world of ours is a white male with a gun (or guns). They will do unspeakable violence against the most innocent and often without reason.
T-Clog: The bigger problem for me right now has almost nothing to do with my personal faith or lack thereof, but (with all due respect) of how dangerous I see your religion. There are people that are a credit to your faith, to be sure. But there appears to be a far more vocal and numerous contingent of people that are subscribing to some sort of vision of Christianity that helps them justify their fears and bigotry. A large enough contingent that it is swinging votes in this country to politicians who are legislating as though we are in the End Times and have no future to consider. It makes me feel farther removed from my Christian heritage than I have ever felt in my entire life, and getting farther by the day. If I were you, I'd be furious at what small-minded bastards are doing to your religion. And I'd do something about it, from within.
PMix: C'mon! There may be some nutty cases, and even some diabolical individuals, but I think you're going out on a limb a bit by calling white males with guns the "most dangerous" people in the world. Where do you consider yourself safer: amidst Texans, or non-white males with guns in Rwanda...or Iraq?
In the context of human history, white men with guns are far more dangerous than any other ethnic sub-group, by a factor of 10 at least.
As a white male in TX vs Rwanda - sure I'd feel safer in TX. I'd rather go to Rwanda however.
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