sinking ships

I am genuinely concerned that, in order for our global civilization to survive, the "elites" of the world will be forced to cut the tether that holds up the poor. If it does not, or cannot, I am even more concerned that the civilization, in all of its parts, will collapse entirely. When the choice is between "ethics" and survival, the former is almost always abandoned for the latter. 

So the question I want to ask is this: if you had to choose between the downfall of our entire civilization (and a return to a global "Dark Ages") or the abandonment of the poor, needy, sick, dying and uneducated, what would you choose? 

the fallacy of "one"...

The Western tradition has a long and complicated history with the number "one". Western, post-Latin/post-Roman cultures in Europe and the Mediterranean were so dependent on the primacy of the number "one" that "zero" (or "zed" if you're un-American... I jest) wasn't even fully incorporated as a number until after the twelfth century! As Americans, we are philosophically indebted to this Western dependence on both the number and the concept of "one", but what you may never have thought of was how much this conceptual dependency has shaped our culture, our values, and our way of life. I hope to explore this concept a little. Some will surely read this and accuse me of far too much leisure time. Others may peer deeper and, in seeing a legitimate critique of Western values, accuse me of sinister machinations. (I should be so lucky as to become a banned writer that some might take me so seriously!) Yet others still may see what I've written and understand that my attack on "one" is a valid attack on a cancerous falsehood, eating away at our cultural integrity. Allow me to be more direct.

- One has become a symbol of rootedness. For so many of us, we have one home town. One home. Sometimes this is a matter of fact. Some people will die within a hundred yards of where they were born (figuratively and, in some rare cases still, literally). Their narrow geographical experience is not to be judged, perhaps admired in some respects or pitied in another. But, indeed, many of us have lived in more than one home in our lives. Even more than one city. Some in more than one country. Yet we still limit ourselves to a belief that we have but one home! This can cause us to remain loyal to provincial particularisms that limit who we are able to be. By abandoning the "one" of "home", we abandon our "rootedness" to a single place... we can allow ourselves to be more open to the rest of the world (anywhere from new and unknown neighbors, to distant and foreign cultures).

- One has also limited our sense of family. True, a human being can only have one pair of biological parents - but they are still a pair. No human has been spontaneously or - as the phrase goes - "immaculately" conceived. Even in biology, nature shows us the fallacy of "one". But we think of ourselves as having one family, usually that of blood-relation. But how deceptively conventional this kind of thinking is! How often have we said, "He is like a father to me" or, more colloquially, "My brother from another mother"? We have families of our own choosing, all as important as the families not of our choosing, and even here this is no one family. The limitation of family that "one" creates is similar to that of the home: it lends our frame of mind to artificially constructed loyalties: a father abuses his children and, as the saying goes, "But what are you going to do? We're a family." We might be better served to think of our family as much larger than our kinship, but to see a mother and a sister in every woman, a father and a brother in every man. We must be broader than our narrow loyalties!

- One has affected our sense of self, especially in relation to the "other". We say, "I am an individual" or, more appropriately, "I am just one man." But this, too, is an artificial convention. Do we know - truly know - that we are simply one? Might we be closer to being "zero" or anything other than "one"? And in such a non-"one"-ness, might we be more than ourselves? Perhaps closer to something more infinite? Of course we are! But we must abandon, first, the fallacy of "one"! Easier said than done.

- We cannot lie to ourselves and say that this concept of the "one" has not destroyed other relationships as well. Let us not forget what it has done to marriages in the modern (or "first") world! What am I talking about? Divorce! Our growing innate skepticism with "one" has destroyed conventional marriage! But it is good that it be destroyed. Conventional marriage is predicated on "one"! One husband, for one wife. Indeed, "two shall become one flesh" - if ever there was a wrong-headed denial of reality! It is a shame that Paul never learned proper arithmetic, that he should not have been so deluded as to repeat the falsehood that two are made one - or worse yet, that three may be one! No, the weight of responsibility that is placed on the spouse - to be the primary (if not the sole!) provider or satisfaction, comfort, fulfillment for the other - is a crushing weight, one deserving of the discard is has so richly earned, as evidenced by the present divorce rates... and even more by the drop in registered marriages! There is no healthy relationship which is predicated on "one". This is true for non-married couples and, yes, homosexual couples as well. The "one" is a relationship cancer, even among our "best" friends - as though any of us had but one of those.

- But what of the so-called "Ideal Marriage", this laughably ill-conceived marriage to an eternal God? Can this relationship be the refutation of my criticism? Is this where the "one" retreats to, but not one step further? Hardly! One god can no more satisfy the insatiable human being than can one parent raise her, one lover fulfill her, or one home hold her. Let there be many gods, or none at all! But what of this "One God"? No, he does not exist - even to his followers. The reverent Jewish adherent holds fast to a "burning bush", but does she not also deify her Torah? Is not the Pentateuch an immanent extension of her unnamed and unthinkably transcendent YHVH? And in between, was there not a Temple of stone and cedar, and also a Talmud to mediate? But the Christian is no better. What Christian is a monotheist? He is a tri-theist as he has not one god, but three (and a poorly understood third god at that!). The Catholic is the only half-honest Christian, since she admits - even if not admitting - that she is still a polytheist! The dutifully literal Muslim, he may come closest of all to the non-existent monotheist, but his Prophet smells too much like a Christ for me.

- But we should not give our philosophers a pass either. The "first principle"? The "unmoved first mover"? An "absolute" or an "essence"? "The meaning of life? "The truth?" What are these claims, questions and systems if not products of the great artificial convention called "one"? We cannot fix a single moment in time or a single point in space. There are many meanings and no truths. "Facts" are constructed, agreed upon. We have moved, thankfully, beyond the narrow dogmatism of "foundationalism". What more might we be able to achieve once we have moved beyond the "one"!

a dogmatist's rules of engagement

A Dogmatist's Guide for Engaging a Critical Thinker:

A. The first rule for any dogmatic believer, whether your belief(s) be religious, political, economic, social, racial or cultural is this: you are right! But because you are right, you - and people like you - are a target for evil people in the world that are jealous of your clarity and wisdom. These jealous people, we'll call them "critics", want nothing more than to steal your peace and joy from life. But they can only do that if you allow them to make you doubt that you are right... so never doubt it. 

B. You have every right to whatever beliefs, opinions, or values that seem best to you. But because your beliefs are the right ones to have, you have a special right to tell everyone you come into contact about these beliefs - in fact, it is your duty to spread the truth to them! In the course of sharing your beliefs, you will run into a lot of people that already believe like you do. Make sure that you surround yourself with those people - they're the key to your strength and convictions. 

C. Sometimes, however, you'll run into people that have different beliefs. They believe just as much in what they think is true, but - of course - it isn't true because it isn't what you believe. If you're feeling generous, you can tell them how much you respect their beliefs, even if you don't agree with them, and they will probably tell you the same thing. But never forget, you are right - not them.

D. Every once in a while, though, you will run into someone that asks a lot of questions. People like this are very dangerous. When you try to tell them about your beliefs and how they are the right thing to believe, they will ask you all kinds of questions that you don't necessarily have the answers to. Don't panic! You're dealing with a "critical thinker", or a "critic" for short. Here's how you deal with a critic. 

1. A critic will ask you, "How do you know what you believe is the absolute truth?" Remind them that you know it because you believe it (duh!). Remember, if it wasn't true you wouldn't believe it because you only believe things that are true. 

2. The critic might then ask you, "But what if you're wrong?" You see what (s)he's doing? (S)he's trying to steal your soul by suggesting that you could be wrong! Refer to point "A": you are right. Simply remind the critic that a lot of people believe what you believe. You couldn't all be wrong! It is more likely that these critics, as an extreme minority, are the ones that have something wrong with them that, they can't simply accept the truth that is so obvious to most people. 

3. The critic may then ask you, "Ok. Well, where did you personally get these beliefs from?" Here are the acceptable answers to this question: your parents or family members, your place of worship or religious leader, your local congressman, one of your favorite television talk-show hosts or news pundits, one of your favorite musicians, an author or a radio show host. 

4. (S)he will ask you, "Where did that person get their information from?" This answer is much easier: a really old book, collection of writings, or a single document. This can be anything from Paul's Epistle to the Church at Rome, to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, to Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence", to Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto. The best answers are always the oldest writings, though, so use those first to discourage any further questions by the critic. 


5. The pestering critic, not knowing that it is rude to continue asking questions and disturbing you, might point out information in other books - sometimes even older than the one(s) you cited - that seems to make your belief seem unoriginal or even wrong. They might use statistical data, facts, or research. This can be very intimidating since you don't have anything like this to support your beliefs - not that you need them, because you don't! (S)he might then ask you what you think about that information and if that makes you wonder if you're as convinced as you were when you first started talking, pointing out contradictions or things that don't seem like they can be real. Remember, you cannot be wrong: you are right! But, you cannot win this fight. The sinister critic has baited you and is about to spring the trap! Whatever you do, do not try to answer his/her questions anymore but simply try to end the conversation. Here are the best ways to get rid of the critic. 


6. Appeal to his/her sense of reason and propriety: tell the critic that "this isn't the right time or place to have this conversation." If you can use the word "venue", do so - it will make you sound really smart to anyone else that may be listening. Also, it doesn't matter if your excuse is true or not - you're not trying to engage the critic anymore, you're simply trying to evade and get away. You now know that you're in a fight you can't win, which means that there are no rules for how you behave anymore. 


7. If that doesn't work, accuse the critic of being a bad person. Tell the critic that (s)he is "being a douchebag" or "a bitch". Oh, sure, they'll respond by saying that they're only trying to have a civil conversation with a friend or acquaintance, but don't let their hurt feelings stop you. Keep going on the offensive!


8. Tell the critic that you never wanted to have a conversation anyway. All you wanted to do was tell them what the true beliefs were. What the critic doesn't understand is that it is stupid for this process to be a two-way road. There is only one way: the truth! And you, not (s)he, that knows what the truth is so you should only be the one that can talk and make claims. But they went and ruined that chance! Not to mention that you don't care what they think anyway, because if it isn't what you think then it isn't true!


9. The critic will be offended or bewildered by your responses. Now's your chance to turn up the heat! Tell the critic that (s)he is a "traitor", a "heretic", and/or a "Communist". Remind them that they are what is wrong with your life and the country you live in. Tell them that they are probably going to "Hell", especially if they don't believe in it. That will teach them to question your beliefs! 


10. If it doesn't, threaten physical violence. Tell him/her that you are going to "kick their ass!" Most critics are physically puny people that can't defend themselves anyway, so this is the best way to shut them down completely. Even if they're not, most critics don't believe in "fighting" or "physical confrontation" which makes them losers. This is how you know they don't live in the "real world" like you do. Almost every critic will leave the conversation at this point. You've done your job - what needed to be done to defend your beliefs. 


11. If you feel that you have to get one last word in, make sure you tell the critic that you will pray for him/her so that they'll find the truth that you have. 


With these steps, you will finish every fight over opinions, beliefs and values that a critic starts - even if you don't "win" it. There is, however, one very serious danger in arguing with a critic: critical thinking is like a disease. When you come into contact with a critical thinker, there is a chance that they may get some of their disease in you without you noticing at first. We know this because almost every single critical thinker was - in the beginning - a very dedicated dogmatist that was infected with critical thinking while arguing with a critic. This is why, if you feel like you may be getting affected by a critic, you should just jump to step 10 and threaten violence. This limits your exposure and the chances that you'll ever become one of them. 


I hope you use this information wisely and always remember: you are right, they are wrong.

a few things recently on my mind...

I just wanted to take a moment to post a few of the ideas/questions that have been floating around in my head for a few months. Some of them are ideas that hit me randomly while others were provoked by readings or classes. 

- Hospitality is responsibility without the "should". In other words, hospitality is what happens when "responsible" behavior is performed without any sense of obligation. In this sense, hospitality is superior to responsibility.

- Why is it that, in the so-called "Abrahamic" monotheistic traditions that God can control (and does control) everything in nature, but cannot seem to control you and me? In the scriptures, God controls the rain and the produce of the Earth. He can make "she bears" come out of the woods and maul blasphemers. He can "number our days". We even see that he can make entire nations behave in ways that he desires. But yet he cannot force us to conform to his standards? I know that in my more devout days I would have found it preferable that God would override my will and force me to do whatever it was he wanted. As it turns out, however, he either cannot or does not. Why are the proverbial "you" and "I" so different from anything else? 

- It seems to me that Jesus, during his ministry, was tapping into a mass cultural fear of deus absconditus among Jews in the first century CE - having not produced a prophet of note in 400 years. His "yoke", and the advent of his "kingdom" on the coat-tails of John the Baptist, were a powerful response to this collective cultural fear. 

- The continued cultural significance (and I hesitate to call it "popularity") of Jesus - even two thousand years after his death - speaks not simply to his uniqueness in history, but to how insecure and "homeless" we humans feel here on Earth. Our need for him is not so much soteriological, but psychological - we continue to feel a deep-seated, primal need to be rescued from ourselves and healed from our self-inflicted wounds. The kind of "saving" that Jesus can provide will never be achieved, but always longed for. The messianic expectancy is a hope for healing, but never a fulfillment. In this sense the telos is forever without an eschaton. The justice of the messiah, too, is kairotic (based in kairos time) and not in chronos time. In this sense it cannot ever "be".

interview with a seminarian

My wife works with a lady that is enrolled at Dallas Theological Seminary and, as part of her coursework, she is interviewing a number of individuals with various worldviews and religious values to write a paper on the findings. This person asked my wife if she or I would be willing to answer a few interview questions and help contribute to her research. After reading over the questions, I thought it would be a fun exercise in reflection and contemplation and wrote down my answers for her. I also thought it would be interesting to post those questions and answers here. 

As a note of disclosure, I would like to say - up front - that the some of the statements expressed here are facts, some of them are my own inferences from the facts, while others still are simply opinions.

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1. How would you describe your religious background and church involvement?

I would describe my religious/church background as both long and complicated. From a very early age I was exposed to the Christian tradition from a variety of different denominational perspectives - mostly Protestant in orientation - ranging from Four Square to Baptist, Methodist and Non-Denominational, Charismatic, Word of Faith and Reformed (Calvinist). I have some firsthand experience with Catholic liturgy but my experience
with the more traditional or orthodox (i.e. Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Eastern Orthodox) is very limited beyond that. My involvement in those churches has also ranged dramatically from one-time visitor to full covenant membership.

2. To you, what is God like? Describe God. (and if you do not believe in a [god], what is important in life?)

 
I imagine that this is difficult for anyone to answer outside of a traditionally dogmatic worldview, but I have to confess an ambiguous and ill-defined relationship to the divine. In other words, I'm still answering this question for myself and would suggest, perhaps at some level, that we all are regardless of the level of comfort we have achieved with our
conceptualization of God. In my own conceptualization, I might be most comfortable coming to an understanding of the divine that does not exist wholly outside of the natural Universe. I am not only comfortable with this idea of the divine because of my skepticism about the existence of the purely metaphysical (i.e. the realm of the supernatural), but also because of the implications of seeing the divine as removed from the physical
world. Perhaps too often our appreciation of "heaven" and "hell" have led us to neglect the "here and now". Moreover, the fundamental Christian fascination with the "hereafter" seems altogether incompatible with both the narrative of the Gospels as well as the apocalyptic visions formulated in the aftermath of the - alleged - Ascension. Simply put, every time I read the Bible Jesus seems to be talking about the Kingdom of the Heavens being established here on earth. Furthermore, outside of a few vague and ambiguous
references made by Paul in his letters, I see very little evidence of this "rapture" and "going to heaven" when one dies. I see a Resurrection that happens on earth (presumably on earth because it happens after his "return"), talk of "thy Kingdom come" (again, presumably here), a "New Jerusalem" descending from the heavens to earth, etc.

In my days of heterodox Christianity (and some might say "heretical") I visualized an idea of the divine as more akin to how the Hindus understand the Brahman, or akin to how Spinoza described the ocean of the divine and our individual selves being absorbed back into it after death. I am also comfortable with a thoroughly non-metaphysical understanding of the divine with respect to the Universe. Perhaps our eternal life is evident in the cyclical and recycling nature of the Universe with regard to matter. The atoms that make up our bodies assemble and disperse, never being "created" anew nor destroyed... simply changing form and phase forever. It seems more likely to me that the God so many of us were raised to believe does not exist - or exists in such a way that is so radically different from our traditional understanding that we - were we to ever meet "him" - would wish that he did not exist at all.

3. What do you think is important or unimportant to God?
This question relies, perhaps unjustly, on the suggestion that the divine has any kind of will at all. A will implies a need - or, at best, a want - and it seems to be that the God of the Christian tradition is so perfect and so satisfied that he has no needs or wants, thus no will either. I had considered, for a moment, that perhaps what was important to God is what
is important to all living beings: to continue existing. But, again, this is incompatible with the Christian understanding of God since God is incapable of losing his existence. What I imagine is unimportant to the divine is less contingent on what/who God is since I believe it would be true in any case. Whether God is the Christian God or a natural phenomena or non-existent, I do not believe that the divine concerns itself at all with our social convention: language, custom, law, morality or religion. To suggest that the
divine has "a dog in the hunt" among human customs is - at best - superstitious and - at worst - dangerously narcissistic.

Let us, for a moment, imagine that the "glory of God" is reflected in his creation, as so many texts in the Tanakh suggest. I would ask, then, where one might find evidence of God's premium on morality and obedience to "his law" in the behavior of his creation? Does any natural behavior suggest that there is a moral imperative inherent to us? Does Hurricane Katrina apologize for murdering so many people, destroying so many homes? Indeed, do we even call it murder when nature steals life from humans, animals or plants?
Indeed, do we even suggest a theft of life as though nature has no superseding ownership of it? The natural world acts without regard to Christian morals and, in the aftermath of breaking those morals, it continues to act with impunity! We call these things tragedy, but we do ourselves a disservice: nature's behavior is just. Yet it is not just because it does what it *should* do (as though it is ordained by the divine), but it is just simply because it does what it does. The world builds up energy, stores it and releases it as it requires. This, too, is how humans are. We build up energy, store it and release it. Whatever conventions we decide upon about an equitable or "ethical" way to go about this business is ours alone. To interject the trump card of divine imposition onto these ethics and conventions is inappropriate and counterproductive.

4. What do you think it takes to be straightened out with God?

This, again, suggests a Christian supposition that "we" are not already "straight"; that there is some kind of a "should", a metaphysical ideal, to which we do not adhere to. This may be the case, but it also may not be the case. The tension built up in the dialectic between determinism and free agency is not a settled one, but even if it were, we cannot suggest that God "is in control" and yet free him of his responsibility for our "sinful" state. In other words, God cannot receive all of the credit and none of the blame. He must be blameless of our sin - and yet admit to limited or no control over the world we live in - or claim control and be blamed for it! Or, at least, this is what the non-contradiction of Aristotelian logic insists on. Heraclitus might suggest differently.

It may very well be that our existence alone is what is required to be "straight" with God. Perhaps he has ordained our condition and confined us to a physical world to quarantine us from the rest of the supernatural realm? Perhaps you and I are those rebellious spirits that the Revelation speaks of and we have been cast to the earth - as though the earth was
God's washing machine - to be laundered and made wearable again by the divine? Perhaps you and I are the "devil". If we are to believe the Bible, we must already consider that we are the "Satan", since - as Paul reminds us - we are the enemies of God and, even in this condition, God saw fit to leave his place in "heaven" and inject within us the cure for our sinfulness in the form of Jesus. These ideas might seem outlandish and heretical, but they
must be considered and explored as diligently as the apostles explored the heresy of a transcendent YHVH made immanent in human form. To suggest that God does not want the mind to ask questions is laughably absurd! If God is who the Christians say he is, then he is undaunted by ontological investigation. If he is threatened by it, then he is not God and you needn't fear him.

5. Describe what the term "Jesus Christ" means to you.

Jesus Christ or, more appropriately, Y'shua HaMashiach conjures up a number of images, ideas and emotions in my imagination. Because of the cultural context in which I was raised, the personage and the narrative of Y'shua is - at some level - inescapable. I think that this must be true of most people that share our culture insofar as we all are forced to come to some kind of comfortable understanding of him. I have two distinct modes of reference to him: 1. The devout and reverent child and, 2. The classically skeptical historian. The first mode of reference should be fairly obvious to understand. The second may require some explanation. As a historian, I get no mileage out of the traditionally reverent attitude that used to define my relationship to Jesus so acutely. I am unable to look past the blatantly obvious holes in the narrative that forms the synoptic gospel tradition, nor lay down the methodological and disciplinary perspectives that challenge (for me, successfully) the Gospels' credibility.

It would be a cliche to refer to Jesus as a "good teacher", and I hate cliches as much as I hate platitudes (which are related but different). In the historical perspective, Jesus was a teacher - obviously. He taught... that's what he did. I do not, like some, believe that I see any kind of morality in the teachings attributed to him in the gospels. He gave almost no direction on questions of either absolute or relative morality. What I do see in his teachings is a particular emphasis on the creation, maintenance and reparation of ethical relations between people. One needs look no further than Matthew 5, 6 and 7 for a robust synthesis of these ethics. I believe that he also provided the oppressed peoples under his ministry a
path to assert their dignity and value without resorting to violent behavior (which, he rightly understood, would only worsen their situation both in the short and long term). His, mostly misunderstood, directives on "turning the other cheek", "giving the coat as well as the shirt" and "walking the extra mile" are historically specific teachings on how to endure the Roman occupation in a Jewish cultural context. Treating these teachings as ahistorical and removing them to the realm of universally divine truths only obscures his intentions in teaching them - while also opening them up to grave misinterpretation.

I respect and admire Jesus and he stands out in my historical imagination as a paragon of human ideals - whether real or fabricated by tradition. To the best of my abilities I try to remember that he was a historical figure that was wrestling with a complicated social situation on the ground. To the extent possible, I try to remove the mythological aura that surrounds him, an aura that - I believe - cheapens him and his contributions to human
development. His beauty, to me, derives from his humanity and the brilliance that is attributed to him, not the suggested divine narrative that is superimposed over his collection of teachings. To this perspective, many Christians have answered that - as C.S. Lewis once brilliantly summarized - "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." What I mean to say about this argument is that it is a brilliant syllogism: the truth of this claim relies totally on the assumption that Jesus *actually said* that he was/is the Son of God, which cannot be verified (independently or otherwise). The credibility of the passages that suggest he claimed this, within the oldest copies of the
Gospels, is also suspect with respect to literary device, epistemological analysis and historiotextual evidence brought to light by the discovery of the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls. In other words, we can't be totally certain that Jesus claimed to be the "Son of God", no matter how much we want to believe it. And because we can't be certain, the possibility of
who/what/how Jesus is/was is as open-ended as any other question of significance.

6. From your perspective, what are the major problems of churches
today?

Where to start?! I might say that the largest problem of "the Church" and individual churches is the unwillingness to entertain, sanction or explore heterodoxical interpretations of Jesus and the divine. Many of the ideas I've expressed in the previous questions would be - at best - unwelcome at church and - at worst - would be treated with hostility (and, in some extreme cases, with violence). Churches, from my experience, rely too much on dogmatism, assumption, indoctrination and hierarchical reverence for authority and the authoritative treatment of source material. Partly because
of the nature of church leadership - and partly due to the rich abundance of churches in America - there is no avenue for respectful dissent within a church. If you have a doctrinal difference with the leadership, you are expected to either change your beliefs to match those of the leadership (and the church's statement of beliefs) or encouraged to leave fellowship. For most churches, it would be wholly unacceptable to challenge the
interpretation and doctrine provided by the pastor and the elders (if elders exist). Most programs funded by the church are intended to reinforce the doctrine of the church - none funded to engage the doctrine in scholarly criticism. This, also, I believe comes from an epidemic of insecure pastors, many of whom treat their churches as capitalistic markets and fear having any shadow cast over them that might insinuate a lack of divine
discernment. Simply put, if anyone successfully challenges a pastor's interpretation of scripture the people may think that he doesn't have the Holy Spirit leading him and may leave the church and take their tithes with him. Furthermore, the superstitiously false belief that one can have no education, no understanding of Hebrew/Greek (and not seminary Greek, which teaches a bastardized form of Greek that intentionally dismisses any pre-Christian meanings to the vocabulary and relies too heavily on ultimately
insufficient Latinisms to provide directional quality to definitions), no highly
rigorous historical/literary training, or a broader knowledge of anthropological and sociological research, and can interpret the texts of the Bible without any error via the "Holy Spirit" is both ridiculous and, to me, disgustingly outrageous. In other words, interpretation by revelation is no interpretation at all... it is ignorant opinion masquerading as exegetical discipline and has produced some of the most mind-numbing and repugnant doctrine ever conceived.

Moreover, American churches have become too invested in the socio-political framework of American culture. Advocacy on social issues, translated to political activism, has become the modus operandi of more churches than not, particularly evangelical churches in the so-called "Bible Belt". The perpetual harping from the pulpit on "issues" such as abortion,
homosexuality, immigration, healthcare and the laughably alleged "moral decline" of America is a major problem for the church-at-large. While individuals such as Pat Robertson or Jerry Fallwell may immediately come to mind in the imagination, they are simply caricatures of a much more pervasive and entrenched attitude among evangelical ministers and their congregants. The credibility (say nothing of its relevance) of Christianity
is in a crisis phase, whether Christians want to acknowledge it or not. In generations and centuries past, the institutional quality of churches (particularly among denominations) was large enough to steer Christianity in one direction or another and navigate it into evolving cultural relevance. Now, in the aftermath of a democratization process in America, churches are so isolated, fragmented and generally unaccountable that the cultural compass is no longer in the hands of capable, august and deliberate leaders but the vulgar mob. Doctrine is not judged on the merits of the scholastic rigor that produced it, but by its popularity and exposure on Fox News. This is another degenerative issue for the church to address.

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Feel free to ask questions or comment as you see fit.

now taking requests

In a recent online conversation, my friend Terry told me that he was "troubled" by my opinions on Saint Paul of Tarsus. He asked me to specifically cover three things in a new blog post: my stances on the "divinity of Christ", the "Apostleship of Paul", and my thoughts on "New Birth" so that we could discuss this in greater detail. Without further ado. 


1. Addressing the "divinity of Christ" is not as simple as it seems. For the overly-pedantic mind like mine, this question is much more difficult than it would be for most. I want to try to deconstruct this question into two sections and then attempt to reassemble it into a coherent form. 

• In order to determine whether someone/something is "divine", one has to come to an understanding (or agree someone else's understanding) of what "divine" actually is. For most people, "divine" means "supernatural" or "metaphysical". This idea is predicated on the assumption (because it is currently an unproven hypothesis) that there is anything that exists outside of nature or the physical Universe. Cutting straight to the point: no one knows that the divine is actually real at all. Many believe it is, but none of us knows with any degree of certainty. In the strict linguistic sense of the word, we are all agnostic (Greek for a-gnosis, meaning "without knowledge") to the potentiality or actuality of the divine. Because I admit to a current state of metaphysical agnosticism (a state that all humans share whether we like it or not), I cannot therefore admit to knowing whether or not anyone in history had any connection to - or shared any kind of relationship with - the supernatural. It would be hypocritical and contradictory for me to admit otherwise. There is, however, a concept of the "divine" that exists within the framework of our own physical and natural universe. This concept of physis was explored by many of the ancient Greek philosophers and came to approximate a meaning of "that which comes of its own power" or, crudely, "nature." There are a number of modern philosophers and poets (such as Friedrich Holderlin and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as - in my opinion - Baruch Spinoza) that came to understand physis as the divine. Crudely stated (again), this worldview allows for no genuine possibility of a metaphysics or a "supernatural" as the natural is sufficiently "super" on its own. I cannot attest to the divinity of nature, but I can say that my experience with the natural universe lends me to a profound sense of humility, reverence and awe. As I heard a pastor say once, "Who can stand at the shore of the Pacific Ocean and feel anything but humility?"
  

• Another problematic element I have with a question of the "divinity of Christ" is the fact that there isn't really any one consensus on who/what "Christ" is. The Greek word "Christos" simply means "anointed." The word "anointed" means "to smear" (presumably with oil). The etymologies of these words are, as one can see, unhelpful. The conventional meaning of "anointed" is "chosen, consecrated, set apart" (again, presumably by YHVH, the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" and, subsequently, the Israelite, Hebrew-speaking peoples of the Jewish/Yahvist tradition). Terry's question also relies on a Christian belief that Jesus of Nazareth "is" christos. Not only that he is christos, but that he is "the Christos", meaning that he is the one and only "anointed" one. The idea of anyone being a "christ" or the "Christ" is tied directly to the concept of the divine. What one believes about the former has an ipso facto relationship on the latter. As I said of divinity, humans exist in a current state of agnosticism with regard to divinity and, therefore, we must also exist in a current state of agnosticism with regard to the "Christhood" of Jesus. Again, that doesn't necessarily dictate what one believes - by way of assumption - about the Christhood of Jesus, but only what someone knows. I fully expect people, particularly believers in Jesus, to argue with my definition of knowledge or challenge my claim that no one can know with any degree of certainty that Jesus is divine. While respecting the claims that many Christians "know" what they "believe", I wholeheartedly disagree and make the counter-claim, respectfully, that confusing knowledge and belief diminishes the inherent value of both.
  

At the end of the day, I have to say that I am unable to make any claims to knowing that Jesus is christos, the Christos or that he had any particularly unique relationship to the "supernatural". What I can say is this: Jesus is unique in history and the human imagination. As I've said before, I cannot imagine that there is one person in the Western tradition since Jesus that has not been forced to come to an understanding of him. We've all had to "come to grips" with Jesus in one way or another without any regard to religion, creed or culture. All great thinkers since him have been forced to comment on his teachings and the narrative of his life, including founders of other religions. The teachings attributed to Jesus in the synoptic gospel tradition are, bluntly, inescapable. In a philosophical sense, they reach back to the most ancient of Judaic principles of justice as an ethical relationship of how "the other" makes a claim upon and appropriates "the self", while not being strictly decalogical. In this way, Jesus has earned the epoch-dividing status that we have given him.

My personal appreciation of Jesus is to give him the title of hypso-anthropos - highest among all humankind. 

2. Terry's second request was for me to explain my opinions on the "Apostleship of Paul". This, too, requires some preliminary explanation. 

• The word "apostle" comes from the Greek apostolos, meaning "one who is sent out", with the context of Christian missionary work to a particular region or country. In this sense I can only answer: of course Paul is an apostle. In terms of numbers and metrics, Paul was the most successful missionary of the Early Church period. Some have also argued, I think successfully, that Paul single-handedly built the Christian religion as we know it.
• Terry's question of "Paul's Apostleship" as I understand it, however, comes with an underlying stigma of Paul's exceptionalism, his preeminence in Christian thought, and the authoritative quality of his writings and commentary on the overall meaning of Jesus as "the Christos". The number of churches that he founded are, alone, enough to indicate that he is both a brilliant writer and a powerful rhetorician. However, to speak of his "Apostleship" in the aforementioned way - I believe - is inappropriate. 
• Unlike most Christians, I do not regard the teachings of Paul as "inerrant" or "authoritative". In a purely Christian context, I would say that "Paul is not Jesus." I do not agree that Paul's writings were "dictated by the Holy Spirit" or that Paul was so devout and close to God - or the Resurrected Jesus - that he was incapable of interpreting the divine incorrectly or erroneously. Without a doubt, there are passages in Paul's writings that can hardly be argued with; they appear to be "self-evident" insofar as they have come to define an entire school of human thought that goes, mostly, without question. His teachings on "love" in 1 Corinthians 13 come immediately to mind as an example of this. But I, like Friedrich Nietzche, find that much of how Paul interprets Jesus is "hopelessly wrongheaded". His claims that Jesus was "sacrificed" on the cross for the "sins" of humanity (or, worse, for the "sins" of only the "elect") and that the power of human regeneration is found in the mystical power of Jesus' blood, transformed the paradigm-shifting message of Jesus into a new religion of mystically metaphysical phantasmagoria. I see Jesus' "gospel" as a counter-culture revolution against the violently oppressive dominion of human ego-centrism. Jesus' teachings (regardless of his ontology), crudely stated, free men from the thralldom of the "self." This revolution of the self - against the self - empowers a kind of reconciliation with - and a "rebirth" into - the "divine". I see Paul's "gospel" as one that pits the human and the divine against one another, relies on an over-emphasized concept of human "sinfulness", and requires a slate-clearing sacrifice in order to appease a "just", yet vengeful and bloodthirsty god. The fact that this sacrificial appeasement, in Paul's theology, was the "plan" or "idea" of the god is certainly unique, but I believe it is more a mechanism born from the limitations of monotheism than anything else. In the polytheistic mythologies, the god of vengeance and the god that helps orchestrate the "redemption" work against one another. Paul's monotheistic belief in YHVH does not allow for this narrative, so the One True God must be both the unintentional antagonist and the determined protagonist at the same time.
  
• The Christos of Paul's writings is a Greek hero: the superhuman, yet tragically-fated, figure whose divine parentage empowers an endurance and personal sacrifice that will save his people from impending doom. Perhaps the most unique Pauline twist to this classical Greek tragedy is, of course, his adaptation of the Jesus' alleged resurrection, which transforms the classical tragedy of Jesus into the classical "comedy" (from the Greek komos-oidos, meaning "song of happiness") of the Christos. Crudely stated, Paul brilliantly adapted the traditional narrative of Jesus of Nazareth into the Christian religion. And, as if that wasn't enough, Paul further alienates the "Jesushood" of his Christos by absolving his Greek converts from having to adhere to any of the cultural traditions that Jesus, himself, observed: circumcision, kosher dietary customs, the Jewish calendar and holidays and, yes, even the Tanakh. 
• By the time the apocalyptic Revelation of Jesus Christ was composed, the transformation from Jesus-as-Jewish-Rabbi/Mashiah to Christos-as-Greek-demigod was practically complete in the Greco-Christian tradition, as evidenced by the description of the Christos in chapter 1: 

"[I saw] one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength." - Revelation 1:13-16 (for comparison with ancient Greek gods, refer to images of Apollo, Zeus, Helios, etc.) 

• The very fact that the Christos is introduced by the author of The Revelation as the "alpha and omega" is indicative of the deliberate identification of Christos as a Greek personality. Some may claim that I'm "reaching" for this next point (a criticism I would accept), but identifying Christos with the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet (rather than, say, the Hebrew equivalent of aleph and tav), places the figure of the Christos as the "beginning and the end" of Greek language, linking the figure of the Christos with the critical element of Greek cultural tradition.
• Moreover, Paul, in his writings, seems particularly concerned with "his gospel" - and his position as the preeminent apostle to the "Gentiles" - being maintained in the churches he established. This is highly suggestive that there were rival interpretations of Jesus that were common and spreading at the same time as he was preaching to the "Gentiles" (see Romans 2:15, Romans 11:27-28, Romans 15:17-21, Romans 16:25, 1 Corinthians 15:1, 2 Corinthians 11:4, Galatians 1:6-9, Galatians 2:12, 1 Thessalonians 1:5, 1 Timothy 1:11, 2 Timothy 2:8).
  

I expect, at this point, that some might be ready to accuse me of all kinds of apostasy, blasphemy and heresy. I think that would be unfortunate, albeit understandable. What readers should take away from my opinions about the "Apostleship of Paul" is: that I think Paul sincerely believed he had figured out the "mystery" of Jesus; I believe that he correctly adapts Jesus' ethics into his system of theology; I believe that he offers some brilliant and poetic adaptations of Jesus' narrative into a systematic theology of the Christos; I believe that he is mostly mistaken and that he - whether intentional or not - transformed Jesus the Jewish Rabbi into Christos the Greek demigod, and the paradigm-shifting message of Jesus into a re-imagined pagan mystery religion.

3. Terry also asked me to explain my thoughts on "New Birth". This appears to be much more straightforward than the previous two topics. In John 3, Jesus is having a conversation with Nicodemus about his "ontology". 

• During this conversation, Jesus tells Nicodemus that one must be gennao anothen in order to perceive the "kingdom of God". Nicodemus, making the same conceptual mistake as every Christian theologian I've ever known, thinks that Jesus is saying "born again" or "rebirthed". He asks, wrongheadedly, "How can one climb into his mother's womb when he is already old?" Jesus' response is not particularly kind. Yet every theologian, biblical translator, pastor and Christian layperson I've ever known has made the same mistake in translation! Jesus is not saying "new birth" or "born again" but "regenerated" as indicated by the root words themselves: gennao, meaning "generate" and anothen, meaning "another" or "anew". 
• My reading of this passage is that Jesus is telling Nicodemus that, unless he radically reorients his life, he will be unable to perceive or participate in the "kingdom of God" that Jesus represents. As is thematic throughout the synoptic gospel narratives, Jesus is showing people how to "repent" (Greek metanoeite, meaning to "change the direction of one's thinking" or "reorient one's mind") from their self-oriented existence and be "regenerated" into a new kind of human that is able to dwell (from the Greek ethos, meaning "habit, character, nature, disposition, custom, way of dwelling") ethically (also from the Greek ethos, meaning "habit, character, nature, disposition, custom, way of dwelling"). It is on this point that I can provide an example of how Paul interprets Jesus correctly. In his letter to the Romans (12:2) he instructs the members of the church to "not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..."
• This regenerated human being, according to Jesus, looks very different from how we are used to behaving. It doesn't intentionally insult others, it harbors no anger against others, it regards interpersonal relationships and tranquility as more important than ritual or religious conventions, it does not "resist evil" people, it is detrimentally charitable, it is non-violent, it recognizes no person as an enemy, it is not publicly religious or pious, it is not materialistic, it is not judgmental, it does not insist on its own way. It is a difficult path that relatively few will ever be able to take up. Paul correctly reinforces this message when he writes to the Philippians (2:3), "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more significant than yourselves."

So, to summarize my opinions in response to Terry's questions:


1. Is Christ divine? It depends on what you mean by Christ and what you mean by divine. I can't claim that I know whether or not Jesus was divine, but I consider him to be hypso-anthropos, highest in humankind. 
2. Was Paul an apostle? Yes, but that does not mean he was always correct about Jesus. In fact, his metaphysics of Jesus were dead wrong. I believe he correctly interpreted the ethics and metanoeite of Jesus, but I believe his interpretation of Jesus' metaphysical ontology resulted in a mystical pagan mystery religion based on sin, atonement and blood sacrifice, coupled with an marriage of the Jesus narrative and pagan Greek mythology. 
3. What does it mean to be "born again" or to have experienced a "new birth"? In the context of John 3, it means nothing because Jesus isn't saying that. He's talking about regeneration and "repentance" (in the form of reorienting one's mind and worldview) from a self-oriented life to a new "ethical dwelling" that values the "Other" over the "Self". 


I imagine that this post has either given you, the patient reader, incredible "tired head", angered you terribly, or has - in a miracle of miracles - provoked you to thoughtful contemplation. Whatever the case may be, I am interested in your thoughts, comments and responses. 

As always, leave the light on. 

should i be surprised?

Yes, this is actually "for real". Click here for the link. 


Should any of us be surprised by this? I am absolutely dying to hear some responses to this.

martin luther on "faith"

Martin Luther is quoted as having once said the following on "faith":

"Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding."

There is an obvious linkage between Lutheran attempts to reform the Catholic Church and modern American Protestantism. His ideas, writings and values - whether understood or not - cast a large shadow over the various Christian sects (or "denominations", if you prefer) in existence and this opinion is certainly no different. 

There is a strong undercurrent of belief among those "religious" and "spiritual" men and women that insist that all knowledge, reason, sensory perception and even science must conform to what has been revealed by God via his holy "Word." I am curious to know whether or not people of faith believe that Luther is correct in this statement. Must faith be pre-eminent or dominate over all other forms of knowledge? Can knowledge derived from a separate source ever successfully challenge or contradict "faith"? 

I look forward to your responses. 

on the supposed inerrancy of holy scripture

I've been doing a lot of writing recently on empirical criticism as applied to all variety of texts, including religious texts. I got a number of excellent replies and comments (both on Facebook and here at Blogger) with regard to criticism as well as a few private notes on the "dangers" and "intentionally hurtful" implications of trying to apply empirical disciplines to texts like the Bible. I have no shortage of friends, family and colleagues that are frustrated with my critical exegesis of a collection of texts that they consider to be the "Living Word of God." At the end of the day, each person is responsible for what (s)he takes to be true about the world they live in. The important element of critically studying a text is not in reinforcing or undermining a belief(-system), but in "rightly dividing the word of truth" between a tradition of belief and allowing a text to speak for itself.

What I hope to explore in this post is not whether the Bible is truly "dictated by God" but whether it actually claims to be. I will be discussing a particular concept in order to set up the question: Does Paul claim (in 2 Timothy 3:16) that the Bible is inerrant? 

In his second recorded letter to Timothy, Bishop of the Christian Church in Ephesus, Paul writes the following passage:

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness."  - 2 Timothy 3:16 (NASB)

For purposes of transparency and for the reader to be able to read the text on his/her own, here is what the verse says in the original Greek:

"πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος καὶ ὠφέλιμος πρὸς διδασκαλίαν, πρὸς ἐλεγμόν, πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν, πρὸς παιδείαν τὴν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ"

I would like to break each word down and render a translation from the Greek to the English:

• πᾶσα (pas) - All, every one of such a thing
  
• γραφὴ (graphyin) - Any written thing [where we get the English words "graph" or "graphic" from]
  
• θεόπνευστος (theopneustos) - from two words theos (meaning "god" or "divinity") and pnuema (meaning "breath" or, loosely, "spirit")*
  
• καὶ (kahee) - and, also, indeed, even, but [Greek conjunction]
  
• ὠφέλιμος (ophelimos) - profitable
  
• πρὸς (pros) - to the advantage of
  
• διδασκαλίαν (didaokalian) - teaching or instruction [where we get the English word "didactic" from)
• ἐλεγμόν (elegmon) - reproach
• ἐπανόρθωσιν (epanorthosis) - correction, return to a state of uprightness
  
• παιδείαν (paideian) - the training and education of children
  
• τὴν (hon) - the, these [Greek article]
  
• ἐν (en) - in [Greek preposition]
  
• δικαιοσύνῃ (dikaiosune) - rightness
  

Paul, in my reading of this passage, is saying to Timothy:

"All writings are influenced [blown by god] and profitable in advantage of teaching, reproach, correction and training the youth in rightness."

I'm certain that there are those that will disagree with my translation of this passage, this is one of the largest problems with translating anything from the Greek language into English: it's nearly impossible to come away from a Greek translation and say "this is precisely what it says," as there are any number of ways to translate/interpret any number of words within a text. In light of this rendering of Paul's encouraging words to Timothy, I would like to make a number of points that, I feel, go very often unsaid when studying the writings of Paul:

• This writing of Paul to Timothy is a letter, written from one very experienced and well-trained teacher to another relatively inexperienced teacher. In the most modern analog to this kind of letter, we might think of Paul's epistles as "memorandums" or, in political terms, "policy statements".
  
• Scholars know that Paul had extensive, two-way, correspondence with all bishops and pastors that he established in Anatolia, Thrace and Greece. In these letters - most of whom only Paul's end was kept for posterity due to its subsequent canonization - any number of problems, questions, concerns, requests for clarification and reports of church activity were transferred to Paul and Paul sent his responses to either the pastor/bishop in a private letter (as in Timothy) or to the church-at-large (as in his letter to "the Ephesians"). We should always be conscious that there is a whole narrative happening around these letters that we have limited-to-no information regarding. 
• What we do know about the context of this letter is that there was a considerable row between Jewish Christians and Greek Christians over the following "church policies": circumcision, keeping the kosher laws, keeping, teaching and application of the Hebrew scriptures (for more information see Galatians 2:12, Galatians 6:13, Acts 21:15-26, Titus 1:10, 1 Corinthians 7:18, Romans 3:27-28 vs. James 2:17, 26, etc.). This controversy, as evidenced by Paul's extensive discussion of circumcision and "the law" to churches in traditionally non-Jewish cities (like Rome, Corinth, etc.). We know that "men from James" (brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem church, most of which were Jews) went to a number of Greek churches to encourage them to adopt the Jewish traditions that Jesus himself observed (i.e. circumcision, the law and the Hebrew scriptures).
  
• What can be interpreted from this "policy statement" by Paul to Timothy, in my reading, is this: amid the controversy of what to do with all of the Jewish traditions still observed by the Jerusalem church and the Apostles, Timothy (a very young half-Jewish, half-Greek bishop of a large cosmopolitan church in traditionally Greek city) asks Paul how he should settle this highly charged question for his own congregation. 
• Paul's response "splits the baby" with regard to the Hebrew scriptures. He does not encourage Timothy to do as the Jerusalem church and the Jewish-Christian congregations did: which is make the Hebrew scriptures a centerpiece of the Jewish-Christian experience. He tells Timothy that these writings are "blown on by God" (an idea which was well understood by anyone exposed to Greek religious and philosophical culture as "inspired" or "blown upon by the gods") and, as such, they are useful for teaching Christians how to be righteous before God and Christ. 
• What is noteworthy here is that Paul does not say that the scriptures are directly dictated by God and, thus, "inerrant". There is a phrase in Greek that would have directly conveyed this idea. Here it is in the original Greek: "υπαγορεύεται από τον Θεό και δεν σφάλμα [upagopeuetai apo hos theos kai den ophalma]." Paul does not say this. Instead he, essentially, creates a whole new vocabulary word with an ambiguous meaning.
• The last point that should be made is possibly the "touchiest" of all. In the twenty-first century, we are very comfortable using the words "the Bible", "the Word" or "scripture". It is very important, when making claims about the "the Bible", that we understand the following: what we call "the Bible" is a compilation of various different texts, penned (if not actually authored) by a number of different writers, written across centuries of history, in at least two entirely different languages. Modern American readers read the Bible as one contiguous book, in one language as though it was penned by one person sometime in history and chosen by a god-ordained authority/apostle. The books of the Bible were selected in 393 AD at the Synod of Hippo, and chosen by this council of bishops to represent "sacred scripture." In the time of Paul and Jesus, "scripture" only referred to the Hebrew Tanakh (or the "Old Testament"). None of the Gospel narratives or apostolic letters were considered by any first-century Christian to be "canon." 
• In light of this, it is important to understand that if we insist that "the Bible" is "inerrant" we have to answer these questions: Which version of the Bible is inerrant? What texts are included in this version? Are all of the texts "inerrant" or just a select few? If Paul is saying that scripture is "without error", do we take that to mean only the "Old Testament" like he said? Or do we apply that error-less-ness to the decisions made by the Synod of Hippo almost four hundred years later?

In the end, the question still remains for each of us to decide thoughtfully, not capriciously or based on a potentially unfounded tradition: does Paul claim (in 2 Timothy 3:16) that the Bible is inerrant? 

Perhaps the even more important question is this: does it need to be "error free" in order to be "profitable for teaching, reproach, correction and education of the youth in righteousness"? 


I certainly look forward to everyone's comments and criticisms on the subject and hope to hear from you all soon.

you can('t) believe everything you read

In order to keep this post short and sweet, I just want to ask an open-ended question and see where the conversation leads us:

Is it appropriate to read any text as authoritative, or to read texts in an uncritical fashion?


In order to clear any confusion on what I mean by this let me provide some examples of what I mean:

- Reading news articles without stopping to question the sources or the biases (intentional or unintentional) of the author/journalist. This includes news from conservative, liberal and "non-partisan" sources.
- Reading history books without questioning their interpretation of the events, their significance and what they may have left out by virtue of space or limitations. 
- Interpretations of law and political theory. Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, wrote that "we hold these truths to be self evident..." But are any "truths" genuinely self-evident? This question applies to "strict interpretation" of political documents/laws and interpreting thse same documents as "living" and "dynamic."
- Perhaps most controversial of all: spiritual traditions, religious scripture and subsequent commentary. While this absolutely does not only apply to Christian texts and traditions, but to all religious and philosophical traditions. 


I'm interested to hear comments from everyone on this.

Thoreau on Democracy as a Theory of Government

"Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen." - Civil Disobedience, 1849

Here are the questions that this quotation poses to me:
- Is democracy the best possible form of government? 
- If democracy is not the best possible form of government, do we have an inkling of what is? 
- Moreover, can government "work" at all?


Feel free to leave your answer via the comments section. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Influential Quotes and Ideas

In addition to my own musings, I wanted to add - from time to time - some quotes and ideas that I find both thought-provoking and influential. I hope that they will spark some critical discussion with our own selves and with each other.

thoughts on objective reality

In my last post, I attempted to explore and contrast the differences between assumption, fact, belief and knowledge and apply them to the standard of "objective reality." I recently received this comment from a reader:

I'd like to hear more on objective reality. Your "the world is round" comment made me think...is Earth round? Obviously, we know it is round from a extraterrestrial yet intra solar system perspective. But what about from another galaxy? Our solar system is not spherical. It is a flat disc. And our Earth is a non-dimensional speck. Without rambling, I'm just curious as to how objective is reality? And similarly, how universal can truth be?

I want to: a) thank the reader for his question and, b) attempt to answer this question to the best of my ability.

One of the prevalent definitions that I have been working off of for the purposes of this blog has been that of "objective and factual reality." Let me begin by making a clear admission: all three key words in that phrase are highly debatable in terms of conception. Allow me to explain further:

• Objective - the dictionary defines "objective" as "not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased." The definition, however, can be deceptively straightforward. The problem is not necessarily the act of defining objectivity but achieving objectivity. It is my opinion that humans, because of their inherent first-person perspective, are not able to achieve complete objectivity. We all have limited perspectives as individuals and, as a species, our perspective is also currently limited. Whether that will change any time in the future remains to be seen. I do believe that there is a "reality" that is completely objective and free from personal bias and limited perspective, even if humans cannot perceive it. It appears to me that φύσις (physis or, crudely, "nature") is objective outside of νόμος (nomos or "human convention"). In this light one might say that nature, itself, is both objective and real because it does not conform to the biases, feelings or interpretations of human convention.
  
• Factual - this idea, too, is difficult to wrestle with. In modern, English-speaking traditions we understand the word fact to have the meaning of "holding a mirror to reality." From an empirical, and scientific, perspective this makes plenty of sense. There is a conflict, however, when one reads the idea of a fact in an ancient sense. The Latin word for fact - facere - means, roughly, to do or make with one's hands. It is the same Latin root that provides English words like "factory" and "manufacture". The ancient Greek analog of facere is poeio or poesis - the root word for poetry. Tying this with the previous definition, a fact is also a product of human convention because it requires a medium of communication in order for it to be shared between peoples and because it also, generally, requires an agreement between peoples to be accepted. Thus, in order to get to a place where your knowledge of the world is informed by facts, you must first come to terms with the idea of factuality and decide how you intend to deploy the word with language.
  
• Reality - this may be the most troubling idea of all. Every time I use the word "reality" I can feel my professors cringe. I use this word a lot, but I also try to use this word advisedly or, on occasion, by framing it in quotation marks. The English word "reality" has a Latin root in res - meaning "thinghood" or "thingness" - and in the Greek word onto - meaning "being". If that sounds confusing or pedantic to you, you're definitely not alone. How can anyone begin to define something like "being" or "thinghood"? This, of course, is the problem associated with using a word like "reality" without prefacing it with a specific definition.

Even with these logological difficulties with understanding "objective factual reality", I still think it is possible to employ the concept. If we refrain from framing our exploration of reality in a human-centered (anthropocentric) view and allow for a broader Being-centered (ontocentric) view, the idea of "reality" begins to take sharper focus. All of that is a ridiculously philosophical way of saying the following: "reality", as I understand it, is considerably larger than the human being's perspective and experience: unlimited, unaltered and indifferent to our attempts - successful or not - to understand it.

With regard to "how universal can truth be", I can only fall back to a simple answer: truth is only as universal as reality is; which is to say that it is only universal, since truth and reality are the same. How people understand, interpret or communicate truth may be prone to mistake or manipulation, but - again - reality (and truth) is unbiased and not influenced by human convention.

thoughts on the christian spiritual tradition

In a recent post on this blog, I stated two opinions about the nature of belief in general and the Christian religion in particular. A friend of mine sent me a message asking me to explain what I meant by them. His message read:

Can you explain [these ones] to me:
- "Belief, especially religious belief, is one of the only conventions in the human repertoire that will blatantly defy 'reality.' And no, that's not a good thing."
- "I'm not entirely sure that the Jesus talked about in Christian religious traditions is broadly-enough defined. In other words: Jesus is interpreted too narrowly for my tastes within most expressions of Christianity."

I will attempt to tackle these explanations as best as I can and I hope to satisfy the spirit of the request if not the actual request itself.

The first statement that I want to address is the one concerning belief. I've set out to explore - via this blog - the difference between beliefs, values, ideologies and their relationship to objective reality. Beliefs, as I've come to understand them, are based almost solely on assumptions. This is different from my understanding of knowledge insofar as knowledge is informed by commonly agreed-upon empirical facts. (At this point I could digress into a lengthy bit about the theory of knowledge, the Latin etymology for "facts" and classical skepticism, but I won't. Anyone wanting to understand more about how those three items relate to my previous statements can look those up for his/herself.) Let me explain, crudely, the difference between a belief and knowledge. "God created the Universe." This is a belief. "The world is round." This is knowledge.

Because I feel certain that I'll be interpreted this way, let me say very clearly: there is nothing wrong with having a belief. We all have them both despite and because of our expanding knowledge-base as a species. The problem that I have is when people take a belief, which is fine to have in its own right, and elevate it to the level of "unquestionable authoritative truth." It is my opinion that beliefs enrich our lives most when they are kept in their place: as beliefs. Beliefs, however, because they are often elevated to the level of "unquestionable authoritative truth" often cause believers to blatantly deny "reality" - the existence which can actually be confirmed and verified via empirically-derived factual knowledge.

I've gone round-and-round on this point almost two dozen times with friends, relatives and colleagues so pardon me as I return to it. The Book of Genesis is a beautiful collection of texts, narratives and traditions. It was (and continues to be) the basis for a number of traditions - when read literally - that blatantly defy what humans know about the Earth. The "heavens and the Earth" were not created in six, twenty-four hour periods. Humans know this. It isn't a guess. It isn't a belief. It is backed up by consistently validated, confirmed and verified facts. What's more is: these facts were originally discovered by committed and devout Christians whom, after having discovered them, did not become atheists or turn their back on Christianity but allowed this new information to expand and enrich their understanding of both the mundane and the divine. Holding to a literal interpretation of Genesis is every Christian, Jew and Muslim's right. It is, however, a profound example of how a belief leads people to blatantly defy reality. And no, I do not think that it is good for a person to deny a factually-informed "reality" for an assumption-informed belief. Especially when there is an overwhelming amount of evidence in support of one at the zero-sum expense of the other.

Turning, now, to the question of the Jesus and his relation to mainstream American Christianity, I would like to first say that I, personally, believe there is something special about Jesus in human history. This belief is informed by several assumptions: a) he actually existed as a historical figure of which there is almost no extra-Biblical empirical verification that I am aware of, b) his life had any relationship to the narratives and texts which became the canonized New Testament of the Christian Bible and, c) that the authors of the previously mentioned New Testament texts are trustworthy hagiographers and worth giving the proverbial "benefit of the doubt." I feel that it is incumbent on me to state, very clearly, that I do not treat the New Testament as "authoritative", nor do I approach the texts uncritically. In my own exegetical endeavors, I have come to a number of conclusions that would - and have - angered a number of devoutly orthodox Christians. Most Christians I know believe that, while the original texts of the New Testament were penned by men, the words are actually the direct dictation of God. My research on this question has led me to conclude that at no point in the New Testament do any of the authors claim to have been directly dictated to, outside of the Book of Revelation, which has significant - and currently irresolvable - authenticity issues of its own. (Again, there is a temptation to digress into an explanation of Paul's statement in 2 Timothy 3:16, but that will have to wait for another post if anyone is interested in hearing why it is not a claim of biblical divine dictatorship.)

What can be easily agreed upon by both the most devout and obstinate Christian and the most obstinate atheist is this: Jesus occupies an unprecedented place in human history. Major religious movements and traditions - as well as anti-religious movements and traditions - are devoted to him. Nearly everyone in Western society since him (or, at least, the birth of his movement) has been forced to think about him and come to some kind of understanding about him. Very few men, if anyone, have ever occupied this level of importance in human history: with all due respect given to Muslims, Buddhists, Jews and any individual whose religious patron I have not referenced. The claim that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus" set off a firestorm of controversy for a reason! In Western tradition - perhaps in all human tradition - no one is, or has been, bigger than Jesus. As Saul Silver might claim: Jesus is "the apex of the vortex" of Western spirituality.

It is both because of this and despite this understanding that I believe that Jesus is "too narrowly interpreted" for my tastes within most expressions of the Christian tradition. In my personal research into primitive Christianity, I have found that the earliest Christians were deeply divided over the nature of Jesus. Was he only human? Was he human at all? Was he to be understood only as a Jewish rabbi? Was he to be understood as the last of the Greek demigods? Despite the revisionist history that comes with the canonized New Testament, there was no monolithic movement which embodied a set orthodoxy of Christianity before - in the very least - the third century AD/CE. There were Ebionites, Paulines, Alexandrians, Romans, Nestorians and Donatists, just to name a few! The name "Christian" was given to anyone that followed the teachings of Jesus, according to the tradition they were exposed to.

"Orthodox Christianity" in a very real sense - despite the beliefs of many American protestants - is still not a settled question and, in my historical opinion, never has been. Deep-seated divides over what is "legitimate" within Christianity have not, to this day, been settled by anyone. From the earliest disputes between James and Paul to the Ebionites versus the Paulines, to the Pelagians versus the Augustinians, to the Roman Catholics versus the Eastern Orthodox, to the Roman Catholics versus the Protestants, to the Calvinists versus the Arminians... the divides continue, mostly because each side believes that they have an exclusive claim to the truth about Jesus. It is partly because of these exclusive claims - which are deterministically closed-minded about other interpretations about Jesus - that I claim that most expressions of Christianity interpret Jesus too narrowly.

Another reason that Christian interpretations of Jesus, in general, "turn me off" is that even with all of the intra-Christian dissent about Jesus, Christianity as a whole applies the same attitude about interpreting Jesus against "non-Christians." In short: Christians believe that you have to be a card-carrying Christian in order to contribute to a faithful understanding of Jesus. This, to me, is both odious and senseless. I feel that Jesus, according to my belief in his special-ness, is far too large of a personality in human history to be closed-minded about. Let me clarify further: the more solid and inflexible your beliefs become about Jesus, the more narrowly you interpret him - the smaller he becomes. I speak from vast personal experience on this matter. It is my opinion that the more you try to define something like Jesus (whether as a person, an ideal, or simply an idea), the more you attempt to contain him... the more you attempt to limit his being and inspiration. Despite his obviously central role within Christianity, most expressions of that tradition - to me - do far too much defining, limiting and containing for my tastes. I prefer to believe that if Jesus is "the apex of the vortex", then he won't mind any of my attempts to find his inspiration, example and the wonder he represents in "unlikely" places.

Feel free to leave any comments that you feel are appropriate. As always, please leave the light on.