Moral progression and other delusions
I just finished I Don’t Believe in Atheists, a recent work by Chris Hedges (War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, and Losing Moses on the Freeway). If you haven’t picked up anything of his, they’re usually about the same thickness as a Rob Bell pamphlet, but packed with much more engaging and provocative material (and a serif typeface).
The title is a bit misleading, and I think it probably fooled those who were looking for talking points. It is really a book about the misconceptions and delusions (that all humans share), which lead to different forms of radicalism.
Though it becomes quite evident when you read Hedges, I’ll mention that it is important to recognize his background. He is the son of a Presbyterian minister and graduate of Harvard Divinity School. He was a war correspondent for almost twenty years, writing for NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Times.
I Don’t Believe in Atheists is centered around one major premise: that we cannot progress morally as a species, and that the only way to avoid war is to avoid radicalism, which is to recognize the lack of absolutism in this world and acknowledge our fallibility.
Hedges hooks you in the beginning with “The God Debate” and how fundamentalists—the Christian Right and New Atheists—are united by the very practice of their opposition to each other.
They are in show business, and those in show business know complexity does not sell . . . They don masks. One wears the mask of religion, the other wears the mask of science . . . One distorts the scientific theory of evolution to explain the behavior and rules for complex social, economic and political systems. The other insists that the six-day story of creation in Genesis is fact and Jesus will descend from the sky to create the kingdom of God of Earth. These antagonists each claim to have discovered an absolute truth. They trade absurdity for absurdity. They show that the danger is not religion or science. The danger is fundamentalism itself (32).
A third of the book centers around this science/religion/God debate and its usual utter simplicity. Hedges used the remainder of the book to expand on his original premise, bringing in his education and experience. Instead of paraphrasing, I’ll just present sections that I have found to be worth serious contemplation and meditation, or just say things particularly well.
The concept of sin is a stark acknowledgment that we can never be omnipotent, that we are bound and limited by human flaws and self-interest (14).
Any form of knowledge that claims to be absolute ceases to be knowledge. It becomes a form of faith (20).
The new atheists, like all fundamentalists, flee from complexity. They can cope with religion in its most primitive and abusive form. They are helpless when confronted by a faith that challenges their caricatures . . . The Bible, which they are so fond of attacking as incoherent, was never designed to be a coherent book (34).
We are not saved by religion. We are saved by turning away from projects that tempt us to become God, and by accepting our own contamination and the limitations of being human (79).
Where rigid, formal obedience to law allows the adherent to avoid ethical choice, the truly moral life grapples with the inscrutable call to do what is right, to reach out to those who are reviled, labeled outcasts or enemies, and to practice compassion and tolerance, even at the cost of self-annihilation. And all ethical action begins with an acknowledgment of our own sin and moral ambiguity (92).
When Jesus attacks the chief priests, scribes, lawyers, Pharisees, Sadducees and other “blind guides,” he is attacking an authoritarianism as endemic to Christianity as to all institutions and ideologies. The story of Christ’s death is a reminder that what is sacred in life always appears to us in flesh and blood. It is not found in abstract ideas or utopian schemes for human perfectibility. The moment the writers of the gospels began to set down the words of Jesus they began to kill the message (94).
Human evil is not a problem. It is a mystery . . . The forces of darkness are our own forces. If we fail to name or acknowledge these forces, they will destroy us. Acknowledgment means accepting that our encounter with evil is permanent and perpetual (156).
Those who place their faith in a purely rational existence begin from the premise that human beings can have fixed and determined selves governed by reason and knowledge. This is itself an act of faith (160).
Wisdom goes beyond self-awareness. It permits us to interpret the rational and the non-rational . . . those who remain trapped within the confines of knowledge and pedantry do not commune with the larger world (162).
Those who focus only on human communication, who are unable to step outside the realm of prosaic knowledge, sever themselves from the sacred (164).
Detachment without withdrawal, Ecclesiastes writes, is one of the secrets of wisdom. Death awaits us all. We must give up on the notion that one is rewarded for virtue, that we can save ourselves from our human predicament or that we can morally advance as a species (172).
The ancient Greeks held in high esteem the command they believed came from Apollo: “Know thyself.” To know ourselves is to accept our limitations and imperfections (184).
On indiscriminating love
This reflection was originally written for my home parish newsletter.
During Communion at a parish near the U.S. Capitol Building, the rector tore piece after piece of a loaf of bread as he distributed it to the group circling the altar. As he did this, crumbs tumbled onto the raised platform.
One of my friends turned to me with trauma in her eyes, “that is Christ’s body all over the floor!” she said horrified.
From ‘Please Tell Me Why . . .’
“This is America, where a white Catholic male Republican judge was murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year old Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean-American combat surgeon, all eulogized by our African American President.”
This is an excerpt of Mark Shields paraphrasing Alan Ginsburg in this article.
Living in Excess
I pick seats near the front of the plane so that I can get off quickly in case there is little time to catch my connecting flight. I get an aisle seat because I like to be able to get to the bathroom without making one or two others get up; likewise, I enjoy the awkward moments before those on the inside seats work up the nerve to ask to get out. I don’t mind moving—it’s nice to stretch—but I would feel strange asking a complete stranger if they need to use the potty.
It gets better
I would drive around the winding country roads of Clark County, thinking about how easy it would be to end it all; with just a jerk of the wheel, my black Mazda pickup and I could plummet into the ravine. There are more people out there struggling with their sexuality, and they struggle in silence. We hear about the fortunate ones who find the opportunity to step forward and say truthfully, “I am transgendered/a lesbian/bi/gay.” We also hear about the unfortunate ones who don’t find that opportunity. They wallow in sadness until they just can’t take it anymore.
Raymond Chase hung himself in his dorm room at Johnson & Wales University. He was openly gay, and there was obviously a lot more hurt inside than he showed outside. He was 19.
Tyler Clementi was pushed over the edge when his roommate filmed and posted footage of him with another young man online. He was 18.
Billy Lucas was bullied at school—told that he was a piece of crap and that he didn’t deserve to live and that he was gay. He was 15.
Asher Brown was accused of being gay in school, some of the kids performed gay acts on him as a mockery. He was 13.
These young men died within the last three weeks.
They died feeling very alone and unloved. As the media has been giving more coverage to these kinds of stories, I’ve been reflecting on my own—looking back to when I was tempted to end what I perceived to be a problem without a solution. I thought to myself, “If I just kill myself now, I’ll be remembered for being a good Christian boy who could play the piano and had good grades. I’ll never have to tell anyone, and my reputation won’t be stained by this ugly part of me.”
I didn’t tell anyone about that until I came out, and if I had gone through with driving my truck off of that cliff, no one would have ever known. “They might not know that it was suicide,” I thought.
How many more are out there that hate themselves and cannot reconcile being transgendered, bi, a lesbian, or gay and being a part of our, or any culture?
Recently I posted to Facebook this video. It’s Ellen Degeneres’ response to the recent suicides. Along with it I invited anyone struggling with sexuality to talk to or write me. I remember wishing that someone would have made a similar offer when I was really struggling. No one did. There aren’t enough safe spaces around to hear those things, and it seems to me that there should be.
The following is copied from a blog called Talk About Equality. There are some powerful posts on this blog, and I encourage you to read them. The list contains a few organizations that are trying to change things so that these young people don’t feel like they aren’t worthy of life anymore.
- The Victory Fund is running an online campaign to support Chris Armstrong and put a stop to Andrew Shirvell’s cyber bullying.
- There is an online petition up at Change.org, started by friend of T.A.E. Julielyn Gibbons. Sign it now.
- On October 5th, the Safe Schools Action Network has organized a National Day of Action.
- The Trevor Project is a wonderful organization which provides support to LGBT Youth considering suicide.
- The Human Right’s Campaign has an online petition targeted at the Secretary of Education. Sign it now.
- The Pacer Center has declared October National Bullying Prevention Month
- Check out Welcoming Schools. A great resource for safe schools.
- Dan Savage has launched the It Gets Better project. Record a video or spread the word.
Check them out. Spread the word. National Coming Out Day is on Monday, October 11th. Make yourselves available to those who might be struggling. Most importantly, if you are struggling with your sexuality, know that it gets better.
My, aren’t WE clueless?
Before reading on, please take the U.S. Religious Knowledge Quiz.*
How did you do?
The most striking portion of a recent article in the New York Times (Athiests Outdo Some Believers in Survey on Religion) and the Huffington Post (Religious Literacy: Americans don’t know much about religion), to me was that:
“The U.S. is one of the most religious countries in the developed world, especially compared to largely secular Western Europe, but faith leaders and educators have long lamented that Americans still know relatively little about religion.”
How exactly can we be defining our country as the most religious, when a survey of 3412 people with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percent shows we know quite little? Many of the questions highlighted in the article are of history:
In what century the Mormon religion was founded?
Why was Martin Luther important?
Some of the questions are more fact-based:
What is the first book of the Bible?
What is the name of the holy book of Islam?
Because each participant was asked to which religion s/he considers her/himself to be a member of, the numbers were divided into how knowledgeable each religion is. I’m not sure how I feel about making that determination (since Episcopalians are grouped with all protestants—a very diverse group, but the results are worth looking at anyway:
Athiests and Agnostics scored the highest with an average of 21 correct answers out of 32 questions.
Jews and Mormons followed right behind with averages of 20 correct answers.
Protestants averaged 16 correct answers.
Roman Catholics were right behind averaging 15 correct answers.
Essentially the survey turned out to be a more formal version of Jay Leno’s “Jay-Walking.” I’d encourage you to read the article and study for the rest of their results.
I suppose that while this is something to think about, it is important to note the many fallacies of the study. The groupings are horrendous and show the ignorance of those who made them. They obviously don’t understand religion and are using strangely surface and sometimes trivial questions. That being said, it is quite sad that so many did so poorly.
*Note: the quiz linked to above is different from the one mentioned in the article.
