anyway.

Have you read "God and I", Teresa Nielsen Hayden's account of her excommunication from the LDS back in 1980?

I'm thinking about your dad's reaction versus what you said to me about Drifter's Escape a year ago.  The "every day you have to make that kind of choice" thing.

Maybe it's better to talk about it non-public.

yrs—
—Ben

Thanks Vincent.  I really enjoy reading the stories you tell about you, your dad, and the church.  I think it's awesome in a way that I can't really seem to articulate properly.

-Eric

Vincent,

I don't know about you, but for me, I'm looking forward to celebrating the day when the amount of time that I've self-identified as an atheist is greater than the amount of time that I spent as a Mormon.

I don't know when the precise day will fall, but I'll plan a party sometime in 2009.

Oh, and arguing with nobody in the shower?  Been there.

Guys? I've been an atheist for as long as I can remember, and I argue with nobody in the shower too.

I was raised secular humanist and I've become sort of vaguely theistic.  I, too, have arguments with nobody in the shower.

yrs—
—Ben

Nobody's a jerk.

Thanks for that, Vincent.  I've never been religious and I was not raised in a religious environment at all but I recognize my father in yours insofar as he respected the integrity in not just making a decision but acting on it rather than accepting the default result of inaction.  I think I could do practically anything and make my father proud as long as it really was *something* and I had a reason.  Which is actually a higher bar to set than some might think.

I got in a fight with Nobody and we haven't spoken for years. I was all, like, "What are you doing in my shower?"

And Nobody answered, so I was like, "Get the fuck out!" And then Nobody got out of the shower.

I heard he was dating Jen. They fucking deserve each other.

Wow. That's so familiar. I'm not LDS, I'm Catholic, but still. It makes me wish I had a way of officially resigning Catholicism. Then I wouldn't feel so guilty, I think. I think your dad was on to something.

I've actually not argued with nobody in the shower. I tend to have those arguments in my car. Mayhaps its the Canadian influence?

(incidentally, I just typed zombie and think that option is awesome.)

The other day, while in the shower,
I argued with a higher power.
It told me that it couldn't be;
I wish it would stop bugging me.

I was just with my family for two weeks, over Christmas, and I didn't go to church. My parents didn't ask me to. I didn't come to pray with the family at night, and no one asked me to.

I still identify heavily with LDS theology. If you ask me about the nature of God and eternity and all that, I'll give answers like I used to give in Sunday school. But I don't think I believe in the Mormon church anymore.

But I don't know. And now that no one is asking I'm not sure if I'm going to have the stones to push it.

I was baptized Episcopalian, went to Episcopal schools, got confirmed in the Episcopal church, and I'm an Episcopalian now. Also no arguments in the shower. But I did fall away from the church in my adolescence—I almost said, "from my faith," but I didn't really have faith at the time. The thing is, I came back.

Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor at New Republic when I interned there (and who told me, "Sydney, you're an old person's idea of a young person"), once wrote:

In one of his discourses Kierkegaard says that it is easier for somebody who is not a Christian to become a Christian than it is for somebody who is a Christian to become a Christian. I am always at a disadvantage toward my own tradition. I am not only quickened by my intimacy with what I have been given, I am also dulled by it. I lack the wakefulness of the stranger. I should conduct myself toward the tradition to which I have fallen heir like an actor who has played a scene poorly: I should go out and come in again.

Thanks for sharing that, Vincent - I didn't mean to imply any 'beef' in the other thread, I was just thinking out loud. You're right about Nobody. We fight in all sorts of places, and I hate it when he's sometimes right.

My US citizenship and my marriage are the only memberships I have in anything that don't eventually expire.

(No wait, that's not true. My PADI card doesn't. But shit, it ought to. I can't remember a damn thing.)

Seems like membership in a church should literally lapse after a certain point. Then you'd get all kinds of cool junk mail like when your domain registration is due. "Hey D. Baker, transfer your faith to Matt's Church of Coolness for only 9.99 a month!"

And my church would indeed be cool, but Vincent and others would argue that I wasn't charging enough, but I'd hold out until the second edition before I raised the rates.

Hey, and thanks, Bakers, for that thing I got.

Well, it's strange. When I think about looking at Mormonism with fresh eyes, as though it were all shiny and unfamiliar, as Sydney recommends-by-proxy, all I can think is how credulity-breakingly strange it is. How unlikely and how like 19th-century scifi. It reminds me of Jules Verne, like if a religion were founded on A Journey to the Center of the Earth.

But then Brand's post makes me sad.

Strange. Now here's me tipping my head to one side again, over my own reaction to things.

I haven't argued with nobody in the shower since ... Wanna know when? Since Ron closed the GNS and Theory forums.

Interesting stuff.  My church doesn't really have a membership roll that I'm aware of.  Since my father is the pastor and I'm the worship leader, I figure I'd know if it did.  You join by expressing your committment to the pastor and then becoming involved.  You leave by... um, well, leaving.  It's generally respectful and polite to say you're leaving but it hasn't been an issue.

Given that I've never really known any other way to organize things I'm always somewhat bemused stories about church leadership squabbling or worrying about membership rolls.  It's way out of my frame of reference.

As for arguing with yourself in the shower... I do that all the time.  Out loud.  It wigs my wife out sometimes.

Following Sydney's suggestion of looking at Mormonism as if it were new, I do admire the populist streak in Smith's early ideas.  If you set the wayback machine to the early days of the church, the idea that any random Joe can become a god places value in the common man that I can appreciate.  Further, the notion of forming a community with pooled property and finances seems downright hippie to me.  (I mean that as a compliment!)  Embracing alternative sexuality is an interesting experiment and ballsy, fourteen-year-old-brides and lies-about-polygamy notwithstanding.

Although, yes, Jules Verne indeed.

Hey Vincent, do you have any opinion of Reform Mormonism?  (www.reformmormonism.org)

Yeah, when I think of what I admire about Mormonism, it's the utopianism. I'm a hippie.

Here's Reform Mormonism, linked. I've never heard of them before tonight.

Vincent, I don't really know that much about Mormonism aside from bits and pieces gleaned from you and rumor. Can you describe the religion as you see it?

I consider wrestling with God to be one of the great pleasures of my religion.

Here's a playlet that might take place in my shower (and probably should. I got stinkpits.):

God: So what's the concept of "God" that you've got have to do with the nature of the universe?

Me: Well, it acts in a way that seems to my intelligent mind to be similar.

God: So you think God is an intelligence?

Me: (Sensing a trap) No, I think that intelligence is a corner of God that I can recognize. One of the Fingers. But the thing that has whatever it is that I can partially recognize as intelligence, is God.

God: Why can't you accept that the universe just has attributes that you misidentify as intelligence, but is really massively complex in ways you can't understand? That the intelligence you see is just a projection?

Me: The way that I interact with the massively complex is by forging metaphor. I can understand an intelligent phenomenon.

God: So God is a made up thing for you. A metaphor.

Me: Of course you are. I've got to be able to settle for that if I'm going to contain a concept, if I'm to be able to relate to it at all. I mean, "Creator of the Universe" implies that you're like "Creator of a Really Good Cake", but I put a little asterisk by it that says, "Whatever you're thinking, think bigger in every dimension, and in more dimensions than you're thinking." You're a concept that I have so that I can have the concept. But you're really just a marker, like saying "Adonai" when what's written is "yhvh".

God: Doesn't that seem kind of weak, saying "Well, I can't understand God, so I'll make up a concept that I can't understand and call it God?" Aren't you just making something up because tradition, ignorant of the philosphical tools we now have, but possessed of the same curiosity and neurological mandates, dictates my existence?

... and so forth.

Now, off to the shower to argue for my own existence. Wish me luck; we're supposed to be playing Mechaton in 2 1/2 hours, so if I don't exist, it's gonna really screw up the score.

My problem with "looking at religion with fresh eyes" is this: which one should I look at? Do I go shopping around? Do I give higher credence to the one I already know? If there is one particular God who is only properly worshiped by one particular denomination of a particular religion, how do I figure out which one it is? And why did God leave all those others floating around to confuse me? That's really not very nice or fair.

- Christian

Elliot, who is six, told me yesterday that when he says the pledge of alliegence in his 1st grade class, he doesn't say "Under God", he says "Under Ra, since Ra is the sun, and without the sun, there'd be no life on Earth anyway, so why not just worship the sun?" His logic is clear to me.

In Delhi I had a Sikh holy man tell me that the sun (Lord Surya of the Hindus) was vastly over-rated. Plants, he explained, were the umbilical cord of the world, and we should owe reverence to them and their humble support of all life and their connecting roll between mineral and animal. The sun is all flash and glory, and is only suitable to be worshiped by warriors, tyrants, and priests seeking to enhance their own status.

I think he and Elliot could have a fascinating debate on the subject.

Meg and V,

That just makes me smile. You are extraordinarily blessed in the way of children.

And WHERE, pray tell, Mr. Robins arguing on behalf of this not-present holy man, would the plants be without the sun? Sheesh.

Larry:

Mushrooms.

yrs—
—Ben

Christian:
My problem with "looking at religion with fresh eyes" is this: which one should I look at? Do I go shopping around? Do I give higher credence to the one I already know?

Yes, you should, frankly.

Remember the quote I trotted out was "I should conduct myself toward the tradition to which I have fallen heir like an actor who has played a scene poorly: I should go out and come in again."

You cannot be born into any tradition than the one you were born into; you cannot choose different parents, a different skin color, a different native language. If there are any religious ideas in your tradition—and every culture has some, even if only "whoever has the most expensive car is the best human being" or "sacrificing virgins is fun"—you should give them an honest chance, not because they're the final truth but because they're the only fragment of the truth you will ever have the chance to know fully, to be steeped in as a child and to grow up in.

Now, if you give the faith(or the family, or the country, or whatever) you were born into an honest chance, and it is just plain abusive and wrong, or it simply doesn't work for you personally, thenyou have to go find another. But don't think of it as "shopping" or something easy like that. Think of it as a long journey through a dry land, looking for the one oasis with room for you to settle.

Cutting ties with the religion of your birth is a tragedy, like cutting ties with your mother and father, or emigrating from your homeland: sometimes necessary, sometimes the only thing you can do to survive, sometimes the gateway to great happiness, but always in and of itself a loss to mourn.

And Christian again:
If there is one particular God who is only properly worshiped by one particular denomination of a particular religion, how do I figure out which one it is?

No idea. I don't think it works that way, though. I think some religions are substantially more right about God than others, but in the same way that "2 + 2 = 22" is more right than, say, "2 + 2 = fish!" If you decide to say "2 + 2 = 50," I suspect God will give you the points for effort (aka "grace"). We're all in trouble if He grades us on results.

And why did God leave all those others floating around to confuse me? That's really not very nice or fair.

I would say it's a bit cheeky of you to blame God for human stupidity, divisiveness, and cliquishness, but then God created humans in all their stupidity, divisiveness, and cliquishness, so you can blame Him for the confusing array of religions if you like, as well as for childhood cancer, genocide, and bad traffic. Go for it if it makes you feel better; He's used to it by now (viz. the Book of Job). But I've never seen a satisfactory solution to the Problem of Evil, and I don't advise wasting much energy fighting with God about it. My personal approach is to try to be thankful for what's good and right and beautiful in the world, and then chip away at the evil in front of me as best I can.

My father discovered the LDS church just before I was eight years old. The rule became, you live at home, you attend church. Since I wanted a University qualification, it seemed a reasonable trade off - so I had some 15 years of it.  Although I actually tried to be interested in religion (I went to one of the LDS Church schools at aged 15) I just couldn't do it. It fascinates me from a humanistic and historical point of view, but I just don't have the God gene. My wife does and I respect that - we can discuss and I don't need to use the shower. She isn't an active church goer (of any church) but my father's discussions on LDS church have scared the bejesus out of her (and she also has brain cancer, so I'm there with you on the "please Universe" business as well).

What interests me is this attitude of suspect corruption - I can't say I have *ever* come across that except for my brother who worked for the head office and whoah, did he see some serious ostentation (a.k.a hideous waste of tithing). Again, my father managed to explain that away in the most surreal fashion. I was recently amused when my sister, who works for the Civil Defence here, says they consider LDS "unreliable".

Me - I've settled on calling myself an ignostic (no, that isn't a spelling mistake, look it up in Wikipedia). I cannot deny "God", but when the world comes up with a definition of what "God" is, then maybe I can decide whether I believe in him or not.

Christian says:
If there is one particular God who is only properly worshiped by one particular denomination of a particular religion, how do I figure out which one it is?

The good news is, having rejected your own native religion, you can then go on to reject many others on the basis of their shared problems. The problem of evil bumps me out of Mormonism? Yay! I don't have to look at any religion that asserts a powerful and benevolent God. I've already examined them all in principle.

Ha ha! I said that just to provoke Sydney.

"His hands were shaking."

In context, that's one of the most powerful sentences I've read in weeks.

You know, Vincent, back when I first met you and started reading your blog I remember getting a lot out of your just writing about life.  Then my attention drifted, and you moved more into your role preaching Forge theory to the Gentiles, and I kinda forgot what that meant to me.  And that just brought it back.  Thanks.

I'm not saying I have a problem with the direction your blog's gone or even that it's your writing that changed rather than the particular quality of my reading attention, btw, so please don't read that into it!  Just thinking.

The question of God's existence is much more interesting to me than an answer, frankly. Maybe that's just sour grapes; maybe since I can't have an answer I say I don't want one. But it seems like God is a concept that helps me to look at things I don't understand and remember that my understanding isn't required for them to exist; that there are whole realms of coherent phenomena (quantum physics, evolution, pi...) that I can't understand because I lack the philosophical tools to do so and perhaps lack the psychophisiological apparatus to develop them.

God is a straw man, a reminder of how easy it is to anthropomorphize phenomena we don't understand. If I keep pushing my definition out to the limits of my comprehension, I keep from making an idol.

Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
- Sir Arthur Eddington (1882-1944)

Ninja Joshua: It's an interesting perspective, but it strikes me as suspiciously similar to "it's not the destination, it's the journey." To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, screw that, I want to get somewhere.

Vincent: I stand unprovoked. In fact, that sounds like a really reasonable approach to choosing among religions, if you're in the somewhat unhappy position of having to choose in the first place.

Richard:
and she also has brain cancer, so I'm there with you on the "please Universe" business as well....

Fffffffuck. Did I read that right? That's awful. [pause] I just said a small prayer for the two of you. I have no idea if it does any good, even assuming God does exist (please, God, exist!), but it can't hurt. Take care of each other.

NinJACN,

I am tracking you 100%, man.

Ed: none taken. Thanks!

Sydney, if I imagine that I'm going to get to Camelot, I'll be disappointed when I wind up in Firenze. But if I was seeing where I could go, I'd enjoy the cuisine and learn some great things to do with mushrooms.

Also, C.S. Lewis believed that the almighty God - Creator of the Universe, the Voice in the Whirlwind, the Whisper in the Night, Shield of Abraham, Master of Creation, The Word, The Breath of Life, The Faceless - was a dude, made of mud and blood, a person of whom a statue was made that he could face while he prayed for divine intervention. I don't think he has much to offer me theologically.

Our God (C.S. Lewis's and mine) wasn't "just" a dude, you know, Joshua. One of the great attractions of Christianity for me—not proof or anything, mind, just part of the appeal—is the idea that the infinite and uncontainable loved humanity so much that He became one of us, for a time and for all time. But I've discussed the Incarnation elsewhere on this site, so I'll leave off theologizing now.

If I believed in God it'd be the monist God I associate with (modern American) Sufism: we are all always God, everything is; no need for God to incarnate in Jesus, God is incarnate always in everything. There is nothing but God.

^Yep, me too.

Vincent, there's a substantial tradition in Jewish thought (which copulated wildly with Sufi thought a thousand or so years ago) that holds the same perspective.

Sydney, why didn't the Universe stop functioning when God was incarnate, then? If God isn't the prime coordinating force in the Universe, what is? Or, perhaps phrased better: If the prime coordinating force in the Universe isn't God, what's God?

It's no sacrifice of God's if there's a fraction of the infinite that becomes mortal while God rests on high and doesn't infuse creation; a fraction of infinity is still infinity.

"When God began to create the heaven and the earth" is never ended in Torah; it never says, "And Earth was Done, and God clapped the dust off His hands, and said, 'Phew. Now I can kick back.'" Creation is an ongoing process.

N.B.: I never said Jesus was "just" a dude. I said that he was a dude. A physical thing. The point isn't that he's just some guy; he can be the most superspectacular human in existence and that still doesn't approach Godliness. He can be completely without sin, turn vitamin pills into amphetamines, and walk on lava. He could know the answers to all of life's problems. He can converse with angels and command them. He can shit cr??me brul??e and sneeze risotto, and I would hire him, but I wouldn't call him God.

Moses wasn't God. Eliahu wasn't God. The Ba'al Shem Tov wasn't God. And whatever the crackpot Lubavitchers think, Manachem Schneerson wasn't God. The ability to work wonders, lead people, heal the sick, and give hope are not Godly attributes any more than the ability to eat breakfast.

(Dammit! Those accents were funny! Why can't Anyway hack Unicode?)

NinJ "...and remember that my understanding isn't required for them to exist;"

Interestingly, coming to grips with that exact sentiment on a personal level really made life and dealing with people a helluva lot easier.

With regards to Jesus being a "dude".  He pretty much was.  Most all of our sense of Jesus as "The Christ" was inserted into the tradition by Paul.  Evidence is sparse, but a case can be made that other followers of Jesus (such as Peter and James) did not emphasize his divinity to any similar degree.  Its entirely possible (plausible even) that Jesus never claimed divinity, but rather that it was claimed for him.

Its super crazy fascinating (and not a little bit scary) to realize exactly how much of the global religion known broadly as Christianity (in all its many flavors) was essentially invented in the mind of one guy...Paul.  And on the basis of his self testimony of being struck blind on the road to Damascus the church(es)accept that these things he invented are actually divinely inspired and not a work of fiction.  Today we'd call that guy a wacko cult leader but because he wrote 2000 years ago (and wrote well enough for his writings to be considered among the highest works of ancient literature by Greek scholars) we call him an Apostle.

Funny that.

But the fact that 80% of the New Testament was written by Paul or his followers and therefor may be either divinely inspired or the fevered ramblings of the world's first wacko Christian Cultist (take your pick) has never been a faith shaking issue for me.

All churches are the invention of man, and man is fallible.  So while uncovering and documenting the numerous fallicies man has made can be really entertaining, its hardly a surprise and therefor doesn't faze me much when it comes to my relationship with God.

I prefer my faith undiluted by church dogma silliness.  That way the only mistakes I have to worry about are my own.

NinJ "...and remember that my understanding isn't required for them to exist;"

Interestingly, coming to grips with that exact sentiment on a personal level really made life and dealing with people a helluva lot easier.

With regards to Jesus being a "dude".  He pretty much was.  Most all of our sense of Jesus as "The Christ" was inserted into the tradition by Paul.  Evidence is sparse, but a case can be made that other followers of Jesus (such as Peter and James) did not emphasize his divinity to any similar degree.  Its entirely possible (plausible even) that Jesus never claimed divinity, but rather that it was claimed for him.

Its super crazy fascinating (and not a little bit scary) to realize exactly how much of the global religion known broadly as Christianity (in all its many flavors) was essentially invented in the mind of one guy...Paul.  And on the basis of his self testimony of being struck blind on the road to Damascus the church(es)accept that these things he invented are actually divinely inspired and not a work of fiction.  Today we'd call that guy a wacko cult leader but because he wrote 2000 years ago (and wrote well enough for his writings to be considered among the highest works of ancient literature by Greek scholars) we call him an Apostle.

Funny that.

But the fact that 80% of the New Testament was written by Paul or his followers and therefor may be either divinely inspired or the fevered ramblings of the world's first wacko Christian Cultist (take your pick) has never been a faith shaking issue for me.

All churches are the invention of man, and man is fallible.  So while uncovering and documenting the numerous fallicies man has made can be really entertaining, its hardly a surprise and therefor doesn't faze me much when it comes to my relationship with God.

I prefer my faith undiluted by church dogma silliness.  That way the only mistakes I have to worry about are my own.

NinJ "...and remember that my understanding isn't required for them to exist;"

Interestingly, coming to grips with that exact sentiment on a personal level really made life and dealing with people a helluva lot easier.

With regards to Jesus being a "dude".  He pretty much was.  Most all of our sense of Jesus as "The Christ" was inserted into the tradition by Paul.  Evidence is sparse, but a case can be made that other followers of Jesus (such as Peter and James) did not emphasize his divinity to any similar degree.  Its entirely possible (plausible even) that Jesus never claimed divinity, but rather that it was claimed for him.

Its super crazy fascinating (and not a little bit scary) to realize exactly how much of the global religion known broadly as Christianity (in all its many flavors) was essentially invented in the mind of one guy...Paul.  And on the basis of his self testimony of being struck blind on the road to Damascus the church(es)accept that these things he invented are actually divinely inspired and not a work of fiction.  Today we'd call that guy a wacko cult leader but because he wrote 2000 years ago (and wrote well enough for his writings to be considered among the highest works of ancient literature by Greek scholars) we call him an Apostle.

Funny that.

But the fact that 80% of the New Testament was written by Paul or his followers and therefor may be either divinely inspired or the fevered ramblings of the world's first wacko Christian Cultist (take your pick) has never been a faith shaking issue for me.

All churches are the invention of man, and man is fallible.  So while uncovering and documenting the numerous fallicies man has made can be really entertaining, its hardly a surprise and therefor doesn't faze me much when it comes to my relationship with God.

I prefer my faith undiluted by church dogma silliness.  That way the only mistakes I have to worry about are my own.

Ack, something screwy just happened.  The "Sweet Success" message came up and then an error with a "retry" box.  Apparently "retry" really meant "post yet another duplicate copy"

Sorry 'bout that

I can't really argue with you there, Ralph. I mean, there have been smart people in the past who said things that help us navigate our lives, and that seems like the core purpose of religion to me.

But often, that reverence veers dangerously toward idolatry; that the line between God and a thing - a person, a statue, a name, a philosophy, whatever - gets hazy enough that we start worshiping ourselves, and that way lies a total loss of observation in deference to navel gazing.

Josh, Vincent, (Meg,)

The concept you're referring to as "of Sufism"? Look up "panentheism." I think that's the word you're looking for.

It figures large in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, apparently.

Argh. The Saint Paul thing again. Everyone, read the Gospel of John—attributed to followers of the Disciple John, not to Paul: its first line states explicitly, "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Word (Logos) being Jesus.

Joshua:
Sydney, why didn't the Universe stop functioning when God was incarnate, then?

Why do you keep being able to hear when you look at something?

The Trinity idea in mainline Christianity that so many people find baffling boils down, for me, into the idea that God is one being with many functions—the Father underlying reality, the Spirit moving within it, and the Son as a kind of divine spotlight focused on a single point within creation. All of which are equally and entirely God in the way that each and every one of my cells contains a complete and identical set of my DNA. The difference between my internal organs all being me and the Trinity is that God exists on such a higher level that each of His three "functions" has a complex identity which we humans would associate with a whole person.

From a certain point of view, a sacramental observance, or even a miracle, can be seen as a focal point, an especially focused example of a generally profound truth.  Jesus multiplies loaves and fishes; God creates all good things, and the teachings and way of Jesus bring spiritual plenitude. Sunday is the Lord's Day (or Saturday is the Sabbath)—all days are holy, but by this observance we can see what a "holy day" *is*.

From that point of view, whatever the ontological truth of Jesus as God Incarnate, believing Jesus is God Incarnate doesn't deny that the universe in general is one with God, Sufi-style; Jesus as God Incarnate is a focal point by which one can see the the whole universe as full of the incarnate presence of God.

So "inasmuch as you do this unto the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me."

I don't know if that particular way of understanding things has a distinct name in theology or how widespread it is, but I think it's not unknown in Christian theology.

Wikipedia on Monism, Pantheism and Panentheism. My religious inclination, would I admit to any, would be toward Pantheism (God = everything, vs. Panentheism's God = everything + His own transcendent self).

The concept you're referring to as "of Sufism"? Look up "panentheism." I think that's the word you're looking for.

No, I pretty much mean modern American Sufism, with a particular focus on The Dances of Universal Peace, dance master Samuel Lewis, and Hazrak Inayat Khan. My mother was a Sufi co-ordinator in Sab Diego for most of the '80s, and has been a practicing Sufi for 25 years. I sing Sufi songs to our kids all the time.

First Law of Trinitarian Theology:  Any comprehensible explanation of the trinity turns out to have been condemned by the church as a heresy at some point. :)  I'm guessing what you're expressing, Sydney, is some kind of modalism or Sabellianism.  Just a guess though and that's not intended as a criticism of what you expressed as a personal way of understanding things, I'm just nitpicking.

Meguey: don't know if this is the place to do it but I'd love to hear more about American Sufism and your family's connection with it sometime.  I know little about Sufism and don't know much about the status of Western Sufism compared to the Sufism you find in the Middle East and whatnot. Thanks for the links.

I feel obligated to point out that it would be hard to make a case for the infinite nature of God had Jesus not been Incarnated. God is infinite, which means that God encompasses EVERYTHING - human existance as well as things outside/unknowable to human existance. But God can't exactly encompass human existence without having been human, and if God is limited then God isn't infinite.

Heh. Fun with logic.

Whether or not "Jesus the dude" = "Jesus the Second Person of the Trinity" is totally a leap of faith. But then again, ANY religion at its heart requires a totally illogical leap of faith.

Islam: The Quran is WORD FOR WORD accurate and was given to Mohammad by the Archangel Gabriel? Prove it. (How do we know Mohammad didn't just pull the Quran out of his ass?)

Israel: You're God's chosen people, whom God has shepherded throughout history? Prove it. (How do we know the Israelites weren't just tremendously egocentric?)

Christianity: This guy who nobody in power liked got put to death, and a bunch of people told us he's God, so it must be true! Prove it. (Anyone ever played a game of broken telephone?)

...I would go on, but sadly my knowledge of non-mainstream-western religion is woefully inadequate.

Sydney Wrote:  "Argh. The Saint Paul thing again. Everyone, read the Gospel of John—attributed to followers of the Disciple John, not to Paul: its first line states explicitly, "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Word (Logos) being Jesus"

Heh, sorry Sydney I don't mean to make you go "Argh" but you should investigate the original origins of the texts. Its fun stuff. There's lots of evidence that the Gospel of John was not (could not) have been written by the apostle John who would have been an eye witness to the events.

Such evidence includes the fact that other gospels attest to John being uneducated while the gospel was written in a very literary form of Greek and expresses some high theological concepts...so even if one argues that John dictated the gospel, its clear the actual writer took some hefty liberties.

Another interesting tidbit is that John refers several times to Jesus and his followers having been banned from the Jewish places of worship...something that did not become standard Jewish practice until many decades after Jesus had died...making it likely that the book was written sometime much later by someone who was familiar with the practice of banning Christians but didn't realize that wasn't the case at the time Jesus was around healing people.

Another fun fact is that none of the early church fathers who are fairly well known from the first century make any reference to the Gospel of John at all, the most likely reason being because it hadn't been written yet.

Most likely it was a later reimagining of the earlier gospels purposefully designed to claim an early origin for later theological thought... Thought that had already been dominated by Paul's refocusing of Jesus's life onto his death and divine origin and resurrection.

Interestingly there is a case to be made that the very phrase you cited and references to the "flesh" as part of the sacraments were actually added even later than the main text by a copyist seeking to once again "update" the gospel to retroactively provide a original foundation for traditions that had developed long after all those who knew Jesus personally were dead.

Sorry for the side bar.  I find this stuff extraordinarily fascinating.

Digging into who actually wrote the gospels, when, and what personal politics and theology they were trying to support reveals alot about the nature of man in general and the early church leaders in particular.

The New Testament is pretty useless at telling us who Jesus was...but its great at telling us who the early church leaders wanted him to be.  And to me...that's WAY more important to understanding faith.

Personally I think if church leaders spent less time trying to claim divine origin for every word and more time decoding the agenda behind why certain versus were written the way they were, modern Christianity would be a much more sensible religion, and much more appealing to a broader range of people

Israel: You're God's chosen people, whom God has shepherded throughout history? Prove it. (How do we know the Israelites weren't just tremendously egocentric?)

I'm afraid this is not a central issue in the practice of Judaism. It has little bearing on how one lives one's life, nor does it illuminate the mystery of our place in the Universe. The nature of the phrase "Chosen People" is a tertiary and abstract concern.

"Shepherd" is a phrase that marks yours as a Christian perspective. The sheep don't wrestle the shepherd and win. The sheep don't base their interactions with the shepherd on contract.

Let me throw you a meatball: "I am The Lord, your god. You will have no gods before me." First commandment. It's before "No murdering," and "Respect your ancestors."

Ignore the first sentence, and pay attention to the second: "You will have no gods before me." It doesn't say they don't exist; it says that to worship anything other than the primary motive force in the Universe is to worship a fiction, i.e. something you made up, i.e. your own mind. Now, the first sentence: "I am the Lord, your god." Note that I don't capitalize "god" there; it's a descriptive word there. So, "Your god is the Lord," is another way to say it.

This is a sentence to distinguish a tribal group from other groups. What this says, here? This says "You are Jews." This is a statement of identity. It's also a heading: "If you're a Jew, do the following: don't fuck your sister and stuff." The other nine commandments don't take much of a leap of faith: they're a list of socially damaging behaviors.

I dunno, Joshua.

"We are special because we made a compact with God hahah fuck everyone else" seems pretty core to Jewish belief in my experience of it.  Now, some people (like you, or my friend Rav Naomi) manage to find other, positive, messages, and to fuse it with humanism in ways that are deeply meaningful and useful to you personally.  But that doesn't change the fact that the core beliefs are entirely about the superiority of The Race over all others.

yrs—
—Ben

The point, Ben, is that whether or not you believe the racist horseshit has little bear on your actual practice of the religion. It might be a perspective popular with a certain set, but it's not like the rest of the religion doesn't work if you don't fall for it.

For what's it worth, most Christian and, I assume, Jewish theologians would argue that the Bible/Tanakh does not allow for monism.

The opening verse of the Torah says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." The idea here is that creation was "created/made" & not "begotten". Parents... err, "begat" child, while an artist/craftsman "create/make" works/objects. In other words, the opening verse implies that creation holds a nature that is separate from God.

Christian theologians would also point out that Jesus, on the other hand, is said to be God's "begotten son". This implies that Jesus somehow shares God's nature.

And Ralph (& others), as someone who also studied Biblical scholarship, the God's-honest-truth is that there is no way to say who wrote the gospels and when. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to push an agenda. And that isn't some relativistic post-modern opinion or some deceptive technique to cover up a lack of evidence—-there simply isn't enough evidence to say it one way or another. There are very convincing arguments on both sides of the aisle.

Tim, you can infer a Monist perspective from the arc described by the different perspectives on God across the story in the Tanakh.

God starts as a dude in the second Creation story (the one with Adam and Chavah). He "walks" around the Garden, has conversations, does stuff. Midrashim aside, it's pretty clear that God is one of the Elohim, all the gods.

In the course of the story, God becomes increasingly abstract: a voice in dreams, the burning bush. God lives on Sinai, then in the Ark. God is no longer a person, but a force. Still, God is the Lord of the Israelites; they carry the Ark around into battle so that He can see what's going on and throw thunderbolts.

Eventually, God becomes Master of All Creation (and, naturally, has always been so). By the latter parts of the Tanakh, God is an entirely abstract entity. At this point, you can see the God mentioned in the first creation story, "At the beginning of creating the Heaven and Earth" where there's "Chaos and void" and God is only "ruach" (wind, breath, spirit). This story's tacked on by the Priestly writer, and, as I understand it, almost certainly a much later addition to the canon.

So what you can infer from this is an ever-expanding view of God: originally the home god of a clan, eventually God of the Universe. Originally, a single, personal entity, eventually a vast and incomprehensible one suffusing all creation.

Most Jewish mystical traditions (all of which have grown up since the canonization, whatever they might believe) hold that God is not [i]inside[/i] the Universe, but bigger even than that. I consider that to be a silly thought; it means that the Universe is just bigger than we thought by exactly one God. (...which may make the Universe infinite. I dunno. This gets pretty uselessly abstract at this point) The point is that God becomes less and less of a localized entity and is more and more all-knowing and all-making.

Pedantry break first:

Ralph: "There's lots of evidence that the Gospel of John was not (could not) have been written by the apostle John who would have been an eye witness to the events."

Yep, got that, hence my reference to "the Gospel of John—attributed to followers of the Disciple John." There's no pure first-generation eyewitness testimony from Jesus's own disciples; even for the literate ones, it wasn't a culture where you wrote down (or blogged up...) everything that matter, just everything you couldn't be sure to remember.

Ed Heil, part 1: "Any comprehensible explanation of the trinity turns out to have been condemned by the church as a heresy at some point."

Agreed. In fact, pretty much any single, coherent explanation of the core elements of Christianity—not just the Trinity, but the Incarnation, Grace, etc.—becomes a terrible trap for the mind if it is taken as "the truth" rather than "an explanation." C.S. Lewis was rather good on this, I think (unsurprisingly), saying that each of his explanations was a bit of scaffolding to be used if it helped understand and discarded if it didn't. We need to cultivate humility to avoid becoming attached to our own explanations and conclusions at the expense of the great truth which—like the precise location and velocity of an electron—is ultimately beyond all human knowing.

Ed Heil, part 2: "Jesus as God Incarnate is a focal point by which one can see the the whole universe as full of the incarnate presence of God. So 'inasmuch as you do this unto the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me.'"

That's beautiful, and beautifully put. Thank you.

Sydney,

Thanks for the response.  Seeing that you're advocating "A for effort" salvation, I can't really quarrel much with that :)

I have a different question for you, though, an honestly curious, non-cheeky one, even if it sounds cheeky. So bear with me.

You said a prayer for Richard's cancer-stricken wife. Now, the way I was brought up (Lutheran of the North Germany variety), our Faith isn't really about staying on earth as long as we can, being healthy, not getting hurt, getting rich, etc. It's about the salvation of the soul. Everything else doesn't matter or is even blasphemous to focus on. You mentioned Job, but there's also Jesus talking about the eye of the needle, etc.

So why is it that so many Christians pray for earthly/material things such as health or good fortune? Doesn't that ... miss the point?

And I really mean that in the "I don't understand" way.

Christian,

Because these are the things people want, and we pray for them so long as they are in God's plan. Only the most extreme schools ever say that you must be miserable and short in this world in order to be happy in the next. Mormonism, for example, lays claim that you can tell the value of a religion by how happy it makes you in this life as well as the next one.

Of course, I've also prayed for the opposite. More than once when I used to go around with my father the Bishop to give blessings to folks in illness and trouble we ended up giving a blessing to someone that they would pass quickly and without further pain.

My father, talking about one of those that was particularly upsetting, said something to the effect: "It isn't that God wants us to be happy now or then, he wants us to be happy period. We pray for what we think will make us happy, and he responds with what actually will."

Thanks for the question, Christian; and Brand, thanks for the help answering (I had deadline hell). I just want to zoom in on one bit:

"It's about the salvation of the soul. Everything else doesn't matter or is even blasphemous to focus on."

As I understand Christianity (indeed, the whole Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition), this idea goes badly wrong starting with the word "everything else."

Sure, the "everything else" shouldn't come first: To go all Paul Tillich for a moment, making ourselves infinitely concerned with finite things is a guarantee of disaster. Everything in this world is a gift from God; but if we put the gift in the place of the Giver—if we make a God of money, or shiny cars, or sex, or our country, or even our children—it is like filling in your well because you trust in your bucket to save you from thirst. Idolatry isn't bad just because it offends God (though it must strike Him as painfully ungrateful): It's bad because we put weight on things of this world that only God can bear.

But the things of this world are a gift from God, and if you understand them as gifts—look at Vincent's family blessing at meals in the other thread—they can be stepping-stones to God, not bricks in the wall between God and you. You can find a little bit of God in stamp collecting, or sex, or patriotism, or your children.

Even Jesus wept when His friend Lazarus died—and Jesus had already prophesied Lazarus would die and that He would resurrect him. Jesus feasted at the wedding at Cana and lent a hand when they ran out of wine; He let Mary annoint His head and wash His feet; His last gift to His disciples before His death was bread and wine, and in many of the resurrection narratives the Risen Lord eats with His friends as well. The body is good; being alive is good; just don't mistake them for the be-all and end-all of the goodness that is out there.

Anyone who claims that the Gospels were written by their respective authors is just plain wrong. The gospels were oral traditions of communities that weren't even written down until the second century or so. They were named for the various apostles because they were communities which those apostles were said to have founded, but all of the Gospels were written far after the apostles themselves had all died.

Also.

When I picked out "the Jews are the chosen people of God" as an example Jewish belief, my intention was more to point out something inherently impossible to prove - not to name that as a central point of Judaism. It just so happens that with Christianity, THE most important part of our faith is simultaneously the most impossible to prove. My intention was simply to point out that ALL religion represents an illogical leap of faith made because something resonates as true to you and NOT because of any inherant logic in a given belief.

That being said, look at Zionism and the political policies of Israel. If that's "we're a superior race" at work, then I don't know what is. Not ALL Jews are Zionist racists, but there's a significant number of them with enough power to make it an important phenomenon.

Brand, Sydney,

Our Christian backgrounds must be quite different. My church was a solemn place, one of humility. It wasn't dark or sinister; but "happiness" had no place there. Sure, we would sing songs about God being love, and giving us shelter and hope, but it wasn't the cheerful kind of happiness there, it was calm, respectful, and humble, ultimately based on being awed by the Greatness of God.

In fact, when I went back a few years ago with my father, after my grandmother died, they actually had musicians in the church, with drums and guitars and so on. It was an attempt to make the service more "modern." At the end of the performance, people applauded.

My dad and I are not religious people. But we were appalled.

Applauding in church? That just felt wrong. So wrong that, even though I'm not a believer, I visibly cringed. I'm not sure I can explain this properly, but you shouldn't applaud people in God's place. It's there for us to be humble. Not unhappy or miserable, but just ... not focusing on any of those earthly things.

So yeah. That just to give you the basis for my background.

To tie this in with what I said earlier: It's okay to appreciate God's earthly gifts. It's not okay to ask for more. That's not humble, it's not respectful, it's not what prayer is for. If there's anything to pray for, even for other people, it's to ask God to take care of their souls and to express your Faith that He is doing whatever is in His plan.

Another aspect to this is this: We've been given the mission to take care of the needy, to share, to love our enemies, to shed wealth. So whenever I see someone who's rich thank God for their fortune, while they enjoy a life of luxury, I want to wring their necks (which, I know, is not very loving of me). Celebrities do this all the time, and again, it's appalling.

I wrote a limerick about this once, back in the kill puppies for satan days:

"Old sir, I'll be perfectly level,"
Said I when I met with the devil.
"My experience's found
It's the other way round -
The root of all money is evil."

Mormonism (Utah Mormonism, at least - can't speak to any other kind) is lousy with "thank you God for making me rich" Amway fuckers.

I, on the other hand, think applauding in church is awesome and cool, especially when it's during the congregational sharing time and someone shares a great joy. Here's another thing that's very key to my experience of god-ness and church:

Recognition of the interconnectedness of all things.

So, when I applaud in church, I'm not appplauding the earthly endeavors only, I'm also applauding the spiritual journey of that person, and celebrating the Interconnected Web of which we are a part.

We don't often applaud in our church—and it can break focus in the ritual if you do it often—but music and song are absolutely, absolutely essential. When my daughter was about 18 months old, she would cry out angrily "Mo singing!" whenever they stopped.

"Wundergeek" (and I'm sorry, I don't remember your real name): "Anyone who claims that the Gospels were written by their respective authors is just plain wrong.....

Yes, yes, we know. The disciples were all or mostly illiterate, the Gospels are oral tradition written down later, and—with the possible exception of the Gospel of John, which may be as early as 90 AD from what I've read—they were all written down after 100 AD, after not only the apostles they are named for had died but as the first generation of Christians was dying out altogether, and in fact [i]because[/i] they were dying. I don't think anyone in this particular discussion has ever claimed or implied anything else. There are Biblical literalists about, but not, I think, on Vincent Baker's blog.

In any case, "oral tradition" does not mean "false." Obviously there had to be distortions and errors of transmission introduced between the eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus and the original writing-down, plus copying errors and editorial insertions in the centuries since. But if people made the same sweeping judgments about the unreliability of, say, African or Amerindian oral tradition that they do about 1st century Christian tradition, they'd be pilloried as bigots. People in general are quite capable of remembering and retelling a story with a high degree of consistency about essential themes and select details if they cared intensely enough to pay attention in the first place—quick! Ask any geek to tell you the plot and select dialogue from [i]Star Wars[/i]!—and preliterate cultures are, by force of necessity, even better than people like us.

Ah, forget to "preview" and got caught with the wrong formatting tags. My apologies to everyone for that, and for being irritable.

"Mormonism (Utah Mormonism, at least - can't speak to any other kind) is lousy with "thank you God for making me rich" Amway fuckers."

Ah, yeah, Amway arose in my neck of the woods and community (West Michigan Dutch-American Reformed folk).  Our bad.

Setting aside discussions of the relative accuracy of oral tradition over generations, the key point here is that when they finally did get written down...who did the writing?

Literacy in ancient times was strictly in the hands of the elite or those sponsored by the elite, which basically means everything that got written down (or not) was subject to the personal, political, and theological agendas of the people doing the writing or the sponsors they were catering to.

One can pretty much trace the increasing repression of women in ancient society by the disappearing and revising of their place in early Christian texts.  Texts that were cornerstone texts in one era were considered heretical and eliminated from canon in the next because of the high position they gave women in the church.  One can trace the denegration of Mary Magdeline from independently wealthy high status business woman (which she most likely was) to prostitute in the same way.

Point being there's a lot of things in the New Testament that are attributed to Jesus and the disciples that represent more the state of affairs centuries later and the agenda church leaders wanted to pursue than anything Jesus or the disciples actually said or did.

Once Jesus's divinity became church doctrine, many oral traditions of what Jesus and the disciples actually did were altered and reimagined to place added emphasis on Jesus as the Christ.

The whole "In the beginning was the Word" text was almost certainly a very late addition to John written in a time where there was some debate over whether the father, son and holy ghost were seperate or 3 in 1.  Someone wanting to lock down the 3 in 1 interpretation then inserted this text so that going forward there would be gospel support for the new church doctrine.

Similarly the whole "Take and Eat in Rememberance of Me" part was added in much later when there was arguement over which church rituals should be encoded as high sacraments.  They needed a scriptural basis for making Mass the centerpoint of church ritual, and so text was conveniently added to support this position.

Today, when its so easy to simply cross check one version with another to realize that changes have been made its hard to believe, but back then when only a handful of people could even read it didn't take long before folks accepted that the scriptures had ALWAYS said that.

That's why I say that the New Testament tells us more about what the early church fathers wanted us to believe about Jesus than it actually says about who Jesus was really.

I am so deeply, formally Christian and, yet, so not Christian when it comes to the content of my beliefs that, well, it always sort of bowls me over.

I really like Sydney's quote way back up referencing Kierkegaard, because conversion continues to be the defining moment of religion proper for me.  I am not saying you can't have that moment within a faith in which you were raised, but without it, the religion is never more than a nice social network (which is nothing to shake a stick at, btw, there is tons to recommend that being mighty cool...we are social apes).

That conversion moment defines religious experience, the point at which you recognize, with all the intuitive intimacy that term suggests, the spiritual forces with which you will (gladly, eagerly) then take up a spiritual path to better relate to them.  Two big factors there: recognition and practice.  It's that reflexive moment.

I like Duns Scotus for this—the act of the will selects the level according to which the intellect makes its determinations.  In other words, the rational follows the will, the call that 'selects' the sort of world in which you live.  Any argument from reason botches it, it replaces the sincere act of will with the relations that follow from it.

The sincerity of the heart, if you will, over the order of the mind.  Reason does not get you faith (as Pascal cleverly demonstrated with the whole wager thing).  Faith (of whatever sort) brings with it its own reason.  And, I would argue, without eradicating the fruits of other reasons.  Such faith tends to have a knack for 'reading between the lines' and extracting messages, suited to the times, even from old texts.

It's why you can have very progressive Christian people, very progressive Jewish people, finding in the Bible a more progressive Jesus or Jahweh than is 'literally' described by the accounts we have.  Moreover, for them, the spiritual dimension of it all isn't just 'in' the text, it's in their *present* relationship with J/J.  Now, the difficult thing, is that this means that there is something more complicated than just tradition going on here, more than just 'respecting the past.'

I'll never forget the story a teacher told me about his friend who, while near death during the Vietnam War, felt a great big Nothing and, when he recovered, became a full-on no-self Zen practitioner.  I like it because it reminds me that not everyone has the same conversion experience, that if you have it, well, there is no point trying to shoe-horn it into a path that just won't honor it.

I think in most cases these days, there is probably some fairly well-established path to accommodate most any conversion, what with the internet and all, but I like to remind myself, too, of a time when this wasn't the case, when someone could only go heretic or prophet to do that, most people probably doing neither and instead just suffering.

And, too, I like to remind myself of those who can't participate in the community of their heart openly because of social violence (be that Christianity, Islam, Wicca, Santeria, Buddhism, Judaism, what have you).  That's a sort of cruelty that is darn near intolerable.

I think what bothers me more than anything else is how difficult it is for so many to make that distinction, to distinguish between respecting their own conversion and respecting another's conversion, as if one must be 'the *one* and *only* true conversion.'

(*sigh* didn't mean to get carried away, yet still just a little too in love with my own fevered products to delete them...time to go grab some lunch and stop talking to nobody;)

Christian,

As I was brought up, its okay to pray for more food, especially coming out of a family that started off blue collar and had periods where having what we wanted wasn't a daily event. That's asking for continuation, for protection, and maybe for comfort. (Asking for comfort is something I go back and forth about, and find the acceptability of highly contextual.)

Thanking God for being rich, otoh, is right the fuck out. Though my dad would never have said fuck, he did once give me his unvarnished opinion of a man who in testimony meeting (a Mormon meeting in which you get up and tell each other about how you believe in God) talked about how blessed he was and how he knew God was real because he had a big house. I don't think I've ever seen my father so close to spitting in rage.

As you say, I think the key is humility. If you're asking for something because you really don't know if you can get it but do really need it, because you really need help going on, because you really are lacking... then asking God for what you can not assure yourself of is humble. You are saying "though who art greater than I, please bless me." The other side of it is asking for things you think you deserve, thanking for things you already have because you're so awesome, or thinking that anything you've gotten is about you rather than about God's mercy (or God testing you)—that ain't humble.

Ian,

That's in Mormon theology too. There is a saying that we pass around like the home-made brownies at convert baptisms, "We're all converts. Those born into the church usually have a harder time at converting."

In Jewish tradition, there's a commandment to revere the convert because they usually know more than those who came to it the easy way.

Brand,

The difference I (used to) see is that to me, the church emphasized the eternal afterlife. Even if you were suffering here, it wasn't God's job to give you protection, only to offer you an eternal life in heaven after. In other words, it's about saving your soul, not your body. The pure knowledge that you will be in heaven forever should be enough to make you endure life's hardships, so asking to have it easier seems to display a lack of faith that you'll soon have eternity at the side of Jesus Christ. Does that make sense?  I can see that more in what you said about praying for someone to pass quickly, for example.

Also, Sydney and others, I don't mind clapping in church anymore. Especially any church other than the one in my hometown.  When I go to my local UU church, there's modern music and clapping and even dancing in the aisles, and it's damn cool. I'm just trying to explain where my feelings about prayer and worship come from.

- Christian

Christian,

Yea, I can see it. It's the same with a lot of the Calvinists I used to hang out with. There's a ferocity in that view that I can respect, even if I can't believe it myself.

I like the idea of existing eternally somehow, in community and in harmony with those I love and with the saints of all centuries. But I honestly don't give it a lot of thought. That Christ chose to incarnate as a human being, and live a human life—from birth to death, with the wedding party at Cana along the way—I take as a sign that God values our human existence and takes it seriously. However brief it may be in eternity, it MATTERS.

Ben: "We are special because we made a compact with God hahah fuck everyone else" seems pretty core to Jewish belief in my experience of it.

Wow, what's your experience been? Where does that "fuck everyone else" come from? Because really, in Jewish belief, it's the Jews that get fucked more than the gentiles. Gentiles only have to follow the seven Noahide laws; it's the Jews who get 613 laws to follow.

Wundergeek: That being said, look at Zionism and the political policies of Israel.

Are you aware that Zionism is a secular movement, and that most Israeli Jews are not religious?

And that Arab Israelis enjoy privileges as citizens of a western-style democracy that Arabs don't enjoy anywhere else in the middle east? That, expressed as a percentage, there are more Arabs in the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) than there are blacks in the US Congress?

I don't mean to defend Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, which I find appalling, just as I find American treatment of American Indians and blacks appalling, just as I am appalled by a wide variety of horrible ways that ethnic minorities have been treated by a wide variety of nations throughout history. Portraying this as something specific to Judaism, or Israel, or Zionism, is absurd, and trying to tie it in to the Jewish notion of the Chosen People is pretty shaky.

Avram, thanks for clarifying the (apparently challenging) confusion that a lot of folks feel about the modern state of Israel and the Jewish religion.

All these hemming and hawing over validation by a religious hierarchy is pretty foreign to me.

I will now be uncharacteristically sincere. Don't even attempt to read sarcasm into this.

Long before my time, my very WASPy grandparents stopped attending Zion Lutheran Church out of protest for my father and his brother being kicked out of the choir for not being able to sing. The funny thing here is, they really CAN'T sing. My dad's painfully tone-deaf. Well, irrelevant—my grandfolks had been good dutiful donors throughout the years, and this very un-Christian thing was too much. What's a little odd to me is that they didn't shop around for a congregation that was more to their liking; they just stopped being regular church-goers.

However, at no point did they stop considering themselves devoted Christians. Religion was still hugely valued by them, as evidenced by large cash gifts for Confirmation, and the great pride for my cousin who became a pastor.

Any hypocrisy or contradiction in this state of affairs didn't seem to even enter into the picture. And why should it? It's very much in keeping with the Lutheran tradition that clergy are not somehow more special than laity (ministry is just, you know, their job) and that you get your forgiveness directly from God without intermediaries.

I don't see the point in losing any sleep over rightness of affiliation with a religious organization that would even wield the threat of excommunication, which cudgel I see as evidence of spiritual invalidity. That's strong evidence of cult behaviors. I mean, as if any human agency even has that ability! That's just preposterous.

Avram, thanks for bringing up the Noahide laws. Not enough Christians are aware of those, which is unfortunate, because they instead co-opt the Jewish laws as their own. Then wonder why Jews chafe about it! In particular, worship of the Trinitarian Deity can generally be considered a violation of these.

I'd like to interrupt this conversation to say: Tiny Monkey!

I wasn't pointing to Zionism as a unique phenemenon, certainly. I was just holding it up as a strong example of "superior race" philosophy within Judaism. Yes, you can have secular Zionists, but there are also religious Zionists too.

That doesn't mean that Judaism is the only religion that's guilty of it. Christianity has certainly had its moments - the Crusades being one. One could make an argument that the war in Iraq is a modern Crusade, but you'd have your work cut out for you since this war is not as clear cut as all that. And I suppose that from some angles, Wahabist (sp?) Islam could fit that criteria as well.

I was merely making the point that this thinking exists, not commenting on the prevalance or validity of it.

Except that you seemed to be deriving Zionism from the religious belief that Jews are a Chosen People.

And how exactly is Zionism a "superior race" philosophy? Zionism is the belief that the Jews should have a nation, just like the French have France and the English have England and the Greeks have Greece. In other words, it's not the belief that Jews are superior, but that they're just like all the other nations.

...Yeah, I believe I'm going to close this one up. Thanks everybody! Anna, Avram, anyone else, if you really want to argue about Zionism, I'm sure you'll find someplace better.