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Being like Jesus

There’s an incredible number of Christians who are taking it back to the basics and focussing on simply living like Jesus.

In fact, there are many who no longer call themselves Christian but still hold the example of Jesus as their guiding light.

This is a vast improvement on the traditional religion, which is entirely built on the teachings of Paul, with a dash of colour from a couple of other writers who were popular at the time.

Pualine theology “works” as a religion very well, which is why it’s stuck around for a couple of thousand years, but despite any beneficial effects from its efforts to address existential questions, it’s mostly been the source of destructive divisions, wars and genocides, hatred and bigotry. But yes, there has also been a constant thread of loving, caring and empathetic people who’ve managed to cherry-pick their way through scripture to create something that’s more universally embracing.

But my point here is about focussing on Jesus, and just living by his words and example.

Here’s the thing – “the elephant in the room” – ignored, probably because most people don’t know what to do about it; we have absolutely no idea what Jesus actually said or did – none – zilch.

Yes, we have the gospels, but that’s it. No other written records apart from a few other gospels that generally aren’t taken seriously.

The gospel writers were not eyewitnesses. This is common knowledge and beyond dispute. We can only guess who they were.

Perhaps these stories were from oral traditions, or there may have been an earlier source document that Mark used, or maybe Mark was the source for the others. It’s all speculation, because there simply isn’t enough evidence to know.

Then there’s the simple fact that these gospel writers were already immersed in Pauline theology – they were writing from that doctrinal environment.

So there is absolutely no way we can honestly and genuinely say we know what Jesus said and did. It’s all assumptions.

This leaves us in a very awkward place.

The apparent teachings of Jesus are really good stuff – I’ve got no argument with that – mostly. There are a few things that are pretty sus and have to be heavily processed through various theological gymnastics, but it is a good basis for life. Plus there’s obscure references to eastern philosophies thrown into the mix if we care to look. But even that can be just confirmation bias.

Perhaps we need to stop, and take stock of this ancient religion entirely. Do we really need it? Is it possible that despite its popularity, it’s basically redundant? Do we have the guts to admit it hasn’t been the amazing cure to humanity’s woes that it promised to be?

Are we brave enough to even ask these questions?

 

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Christian Universalism sucks

Embracing Universalism was part of my deconstruction journey.

It was the only thing that made any genuine sense and had an ounce of integrity in relation to the foundational premises of Christian theology.

Sure, I knew all the traditional reasons why not “all” were saved, but no matter how I juggled theology with my personal sense of justice, forgiveness and love, any concept of hell, and all that entailed, was more like the work of a psychopath than a loving god.

So Universalism was the obvious solution, and there is plenty of scripture that can be cherry-picked to support it.

Recently, I’ve had a long conversation with a couple of Universalists, which brought to light the problem that I’d always wrestled with about the whole topic.

Universalists are just a group with another set of dogma that sounds much more loving, and yes, it does paint god in a far more gracious and loving light. However, it’s still based entirely on yet another set of interpretations of ambiguous scriptures (which is the basis of every single denomination, sect and movement in the Christian ecosystem).

But what I’ve consistently found, and what I was also guilty of, is the level of patronising arrogance displayed by its supporters!

This isn’t, however, obvious on the surface and you have to dig a bit deeper to uncover it, and when you do, they can get quite nasty, but in a loving, passive aggressive way!

You see, god is sooo magnanimous and forgiving that eventually, everyone will discover how awesome Jesus is and how he made it possible for god to love everyone and save them all. They no longer speak in terms of judgement and condemnation, but the infinite love of their god.

They embrace that sense of superiority that most Christians have and take it to a whole new level. No matter what you believe, or how you behave, ultimately OUR god will have the last say and take you in no matter what. You’ll end up being transformed by his “presence” and love, whether you want it or not.

Our god will eventually give you no choice, and if you challenge him/us on that point, you are just ignorant and we’ll have pity on you and settle back in a smug confidence that you’ll see we were right all along.

All communication becomes reduced to this arrogant, patronising smugness, wrapped in a veneer of pseudo love, that ultimately, is just as ego-feeding as all other forms of religion.

Then they get upset because you challenge them on the point that they are still assuming THEIR god is the only true god, and their entire premise is nothing more than gaslighting.

So yeah, nice try guys, but no cigar.

It’s still the same dogma and subjective beliefs, just wrapped in nicer packaging.

 

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Poking Religion

Lately, I’ve been doing social media posts that don’t hold back on the foundational theologies and doctrines of Christianity. As most people know, I’ve been very public about deconstructing my beliefs and the processes behind this.

One thing that I’ve found fascinating is how any attack on a person’s religious beliefs is usually taken as an attack on the person themselves.

This is understandable because of how powerful religious beliefs are. They govern our whole world view – from how we see ourselves, others, the state of the world, and our eternal destiny, so when someone challenges the very foundations of those beliefs, we can tend to get very defensive, because we’ve invested our lives into them.

Many don’t notice that in all my controversial opinions, I never actually attack the person, and go out of my way to make it clear that although I may find their beliefs completely untenable, I also completely understand why they believe them, and respect their sincerity with genuine empathy (mostly… I have my moments!), remembering only too well that I’ve been there myself.

I also try to make it very clear that underneath it all, the real enemy is dogma – the absolute conviction that our beliefs are the incontrovertible truth and everyone else is absolutely wrong. There are many of course, who are willing to concede that there’s room to accept various interpretations of traditional views and biblical writings, as long as they don’t undermine the foundations.

Religion thrives by claiming its inherent and inerrant truth.

But I often get challenged by people claiming that I’m also being dogmatic about my opinions, which on the surface sounds legit, so really, it comes down to looking at the substance of various claims that religion presents, and my own stance on dogma.

The whole idea of challenging dogmatic thoughts/beliefs/religious systems is not to promote yet another “truth” and replace them with its own dogma. It’s about helping people to see that all religious/spiritual and philosophical beliefs are subjective. There is absolutely nothing that can be proven to make any one system the “winner”.

If people ask, I happily present my personal views and why I find them to be the most viable. I’ll even engage in deep discussion as to why this is the case, and also have a Facebook page where I present my ideas.

But I do not hold my views as dogma, because there’s no way I can prove them! They feel right to me at the moment, but I’m also evolving and growing, constantly looking at “life, the universe and everything” to see what I can glean to broaden my outlook, and most importantly, to bring unity and love to the world.

So if you’ve been offended by my provocative poking of sacred cows, it could be that you’re far more locked in dogma than you realise.

Most importantly, unconditional, universal love is the end game, and sometimes we need a bit of a kick to break through our thought patterns to achieve this.

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The “religion of love” illusion

I often see people talking about the dreadful (and even evil) things that evangelicals and fundamentalists believe and practice in the name of God, supported by the bible.
And I agree!
The problem is – we THINK the bible doesn’t support all those horrific things, and that it actually espouses a life of love.
But it doesn’t.
It’s a hodgepodge of ambiguity that has been cherry-picked to justify anything humanity is capable of.
It’s awesome that the loving bits are generally recognised as what Christianity should be, but that’s at the expense of the huge amount of scripture that says otherwise.
We have become so use to twisting and manipulating the bible that we’re almost incapable of seeing how absurd the whole thing really is.
Instead, we fight over interpretations, and who are the “real” Christians – and who is led by the Holy Spirit – and who is deceived – endlessly – for two thousand years – and we are still no closer to the unity we dream of – possibly further than ever – driven by the latest and greatest eschatology, exegesis, and whatever tools we want to make the cherry-picking work!
It’s worth noting that even our desire to simply embrace the teachings of Jesus, carefully avoids many of the harsh divisive things he apparently said.
It’s also worth noting that the texts we use to refer to “what Jesus said” are not even reliable sources anyway. We don’t ever bother to ask how a scribe followed him around endlessly transcribing every word, accurately, on parchment, with ink, balancing his little table, often at night. How often do we stop to consider how absurd that is? And don’t get me started on oral traditions!
It’s a complete mess, and yet we go on and on and on trying to make it work.
You’d think we would have realised by now that it’s time to question everything, and actually learn from history. But that’s unlikely, when our whole identity is built around a 2000 year old religious institution.
This is not to invalidate the work many have done over the centuries to promote unconditional love using the bible as a backdrop. It’s all about recognising the complete and utter subjectivity of a religious belief system that has dominated humanity for 2000 years.
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Religion – definitions

In my last blog, I talked about the differences between Spirituality and Religion in basic terms only. It’s purpose was to clarify what I personally mean when I use the words so everyone is on the same page, although many did like the descriptions.

But the definition of religion needs to be unravelled much more. People are always at cross purposes when talking about it, and unless they take the time to explain the semantics etc, it’s often a lost cause. Even Wikipedia struggles with it: “Religion may be defined as a cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, world views, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements. However, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion”.

So once again, I have to provide my own views so at least there is no confusion when discussing this broad subject.

The word religion is often used in derogatory ways these days, however I try to avoid any judgement attached to it and use it as an overall term for various belief systems. So here are a few qualifiers I add to the word and what I mean when I use them in reference to Christianity.

 

Traditional

As the name suggests, this is a system of theistic beliefs that have been built up over long periods of time to create a complex set of dogma that are regarded as sacred traditions and essential to maintaining those beliefs.

Fundamentalist

This is pretty much the same as conservative evangelicalism and embraces literal interpretations of scriptures (although still guided by doctrine and dogma) in an attempt to maintain the purity of “faith”. It is also very much into defining who’s “in or out”, setting clear boundaries around salvation and acceptance by God. It is often the most aggressive form of religious expression.

Institutional

This is very similar to traditional religion but is more defined by the power structures and politics that shape and control the traditions. It takes the traditional beliefs and uses them to justify a complex, and often global, network of “branches”, along the lines of a business.

Liberal

Liberal christianity contains far less dogma and is open to allegorical and metaphorical interpretations of scripture, often embracing mystical and eastern philosophies. It rejects literal understanding of scripture based on the type of hermeneutics used to interpret any ancient literature.

Mystical

This is an interesting approach to religion that has persisted throughout Christianity’s nearly 2000 years. It could be said to be “above” the constant battles of other forms of religion and most of the profound wisdom teachings over the centuries have come from the more mystical interpretations of scripture. It’s very hard to pin down any specific definition but Wikipedia has a whole section on it.

Pentecostal

This could be considered a sub-group of fundamentalism and is defines by extreme physical demonstrations of faith, such as speaking in tongues, prophesy, various types of “trances” and ecstatic states, miracles (mostly physical healing) and a high emphasis on evangelism.

Charismatic

This is very similar to Pentecostalism but tends to be part of more traditional church structures, such as the Catholic Charismatic Movement etc.

 

There are of course, many smaller sub groups. Often these groups refuse to be labelled and many believe they are the true representation of the original church, or variations of that idea. A lot of them would be classified as cults.

 

So there you have it in a nutshell. If you use the word “religion” in any conversation, be aware that any of the above could be assumed by your use of that word.

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Proof of God!!

You can’t prove god exists, and I can’t prove he doesn’t!

Sure, there are all sorts of philosophical angles you can take on the issue, but in the end, no one can prove anything.

What you CAN do is present theories based on subjective observations. They can be beautiful and quite functional theories that meet some of our emotional needs, but they are theories none the less.

You can present ancient writings from other cultures that express everything from of wisdom writings through to the nature of various divinities, but you can’t “prove” that this god is actually real.

You then have to ask yourself what “proof” is. What I find extraordinary is so many christians saying that if you can’t see the “proof” in everything around you then you are [insert derogatory name here]. But of course, if it’s not obvious through examining all the evidence, then it isn’t proof at all. Proof, by the very nature of the word, means there is no ambiguity or doubt. The worst “proof” offered however is the bible. Irrespective of however one may interpret the writings in the bible, they are still subject to the same demands of proof. As I say, if the bible was indeed proof, there would be no ambiguity and everyone who read it would be convinced. The bible is like any other sacred writings – full of interesting cultural stories – myths and legends, various types of wisdom, justifications for cultural traditions etc… everything except “proof” of god.

I just recently saw a video from a highly qualified physicist who claimed that the theories about the big bang being caused by quantum fluctuations, that are pretty much universally accepted in the field, are proof of god! Sorry Mr Professor, they are simply proof that there is a greater level of physics that we don’t understand yet.

And as for atheists (yes, you don’t get away unscathed either), you can dismantle theology entirely and present absolutely convincing arguments for the non-existence of a deity, but at the end of the day, you still don’t know. At best you can only really call yourself agnostic, simply because you don’t know what you don’t know!

Having said all that (as I often do, lol) feel free to believe whatever you want, but the moment your beliefs turn to dogma and become “truth” you have slipped over into self delusion, and that’s a topic I’ll leave for another blog!

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Apologetics

In a conversation that came out of my previous blog – Fatal Paradoxes – I casually stated that I knew all the correct theological and doctrinal answers to my own questions: that I had found the paradoxes of faith to be insurmountable and thus fatal. The other person asked if I could provide some examples of these doctrines that I used to be so confident about.

I quickly started looking through old notes and looked up some of the old books etc. What I found was rather scary in some ways!

You see, despite being a deep thinker and questioner all my life, I was also a bit gullible and easily followed those who sounded profound and wise, well at least in the context of christianity.

http://www.digitalfreethought.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/apologetics.jpg

 

My “go to” source for apologetics was C.S.Lewis. He was arguably the greatest apologist for the faith. He came from a rich academic heritage, was extremely well studied in religion and philosophy and very persuasive at presenting what seemed like irrefutable logic.

So as I was digging around to remind myself of all these “theological answers to the paradoxical questions of faith”, looking at Lewis and many other’s works, and thinking “where’s all the good stuff… you know, all the arguments that caused all my doubts to fade?”. I kept looking until I realised I had already found it. There actually wasn’t any profound and persuasive apologetics after all! Even the great Lewis (who I almost worshipped) was simply a product of the culture of his time, lacking in any real diverse understanding or depth from other cultures, and operating in a philosophical environment that reflected the limitations of scientific understanding of the time.

I scratched my head a little more thinking how arrogant I was for coming to that conclusion, and surely the basis for christian faith is more solid than this?!

But I realised that once you’ve “un-seen” the integrity of the faith, you can’t go back. Once the confirmations biases are revealed, the paradigms seen for what they are, the logical fallacies exposed, the role of psychology and science explored, the assumptions about the veracity of the bible and how it all hinged on that, then there really is no going back. The entire foundation of the christian belief system becomes at best, a fascinating adventure in Jewish history, or completely irrelevant, or at worst, an incredibly damaging belief system that was responsible for more hatred and bloodshed than any other. The truth is probably a mix of all these. And yet it persists – and many beautiful, genuine, loving people embrace it and bring life to others in the process.

But for me and countless others, there are far greater truths, and far greater questions that christianity fails miserably to answer, and the apologetics I thought were irrefutable are nothing more than opinions based on assumptions.

What strange and foolish creatures we are!

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Fatal Paradoxes

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0_zBYWparsA/0.jpgI used to ask a lot of questions. I was one of those kids!
This has been the bane and blessing of my life. As a result, the platitude that “God’s ways are higher than ours” or “who are we to question His thoughts” etc, left me absolutely stone cold.

Even though I tried my best for 40 years to reconcile all the contradictions in doctrine and, more importantly, in the bible itself (and I had all the correct theologies and doctrines, all biblically based), I finally had to admit defeat and declare them irreconcilable – fatally flawed – logical fallacies… all leading to the complete dismantling of biblical theology and reasoning, although I still believe there are some gems of wisdom there, as with any “holy” writings.

This is a short summary of the most glaring issues (provided by a friend)…

So, God is the God of Love according to the Bible:

  • Love is patient – God gives up on us.
  • Love is kind – God drops us into a swirling fire pit of violent demons.
  • Love does not envy – God calls Himself a jealous God.
  • Love does not boast – God needs constant praise and adulation.
  • Love is not proud – God rejects our earnest inquiry and reminds us how lowly we are.
  • Love is not easily angered – God has wiped out most of humanity and many many people groups and individuals time and time again in His anger.
  • Love keeps no record of wrongs – God will make us answer for every single sin committed during our lifetimes.

Yes, I know how to “whitewash” or circumvent all these arguments with the best bible college answers, but to do so is to avoid the simplicity of the statements, thwarting any attempt to apply reason and/or logic to the issue.

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The Inner War – 2

In this blog I present why Christianity is such a great religion and why it truly was my “salvation”.

In my previous blog I presented the premise that Christianity, and most other religions, claim that we are broken and in need of an external deity to “save” us.

This is a very sound premise when we observe the state of the world and humanity as we see it. We all behave in ways that are counter productive to ourselves and everyone/thing else. We constantly live in judgement of ourselves and every other word and deed of our fellow humans. And then we react out of that judgement.

This judgement can be destructive, but it can be helpful in practical ways. To judge a situation we may find ourselves in, in a healthy objective way, gives us the power to make decisions that benefit us all. But in saying that, we never have enough information to make truly objective and beneficial judgements, let alone the best responses to those judgements.

Deep down, we know this to be true. We know that our limited perspectives cause problems. They always have, no matter how hard we try.

Thus we assume that an external deity is the only solution. A deity who knows all, sees all, understands all, and can communicate this to us. This deity must be able to somehow provide the ability to make good judgements and empower us to respond  to those judgements with wisdom.

Perhaps then, the Christian solution of Jesus is the most elegant one humanity has embraced. It provides the external influence of a deity in a way that makes it very personal and empowering. We set the scene with the moshttps://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h5Bo960Ken4/UIGRKKPI4wI/AAAAAAAAA8M/csOFC-9a72E/s1600/word-and-spirit.jpgt powerful deity of all – Yahweh. He, through the Jews, presents the foundation of the all powerful, all knowing God. Then this God comes to us physically as a human, identifies with us in every way, embraces his humanity, recognises our deepest needs. This God then sends himself as a “spirit” to live in us, become “one” with us, in the greatest demonstration of love imaginable. This spirit repairs that which is broken and allows God to “live through us”.

As we embrace this Holy Spirit and surrender ourselves to it, we become more God-like. The oft quoted “more of Him and less of Me” is a proud declaration of our willingness to change for good, recognising the apparent brokenness that we can never escape by ourselves. As we “grow in faith and love” we build a personal relationship with the Spirit inside us, listening, worshipping, loving, obeying

This truly is one of the most empowering religions created, when properly understood. It can take the “least of us”, and give us life and love, hope and security. So basically, it works, and can work well.

So why am I no longer a Christian? Why would I walk away from something that gave me purpose and life and saved me from despair?

Partly it’s because I saw the dreadful hypocrisy in the church, partly because of the drastically conflicting doctrines within Christianity that have caused hatred and war, still to this day. Partly because there were questions it is unable to answer. One of most potent reasons was the ever raging “inner war”.

And then, there’s “The Word”…

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The Inner War

Traditional Christianity (and most other religions) teach us that we are broken- fundamentally flawed and need to be fixed/saved/restored/born again…. https://tjc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Stephen_What-Must-I-Do-to-Be-Saved.jpg

They teach us that there’s a war going on inside and outside us for our souls/hearts/spirits. “We wrestle not with flesh and blood” is a common cliché we throw around. The devil is a real adversary. Our mind is deceptive and untrustworthy. We are easily deceived by “the world” or “the devil”. You know the story!

It is however, the wrong assumption, creating the wrong solution, and ultimately achieving nothing. In fact, it is worse than that. It creates a deep sense of worthlessness that only an external deity can resolve, causing an outflow of religious dogma that has divided us, created wars, hatred, bigotry, genocide, etc. In fact, this theology is the foundation for just about all that is wrong with the world!

Now that sounds like a rather audacious statement, and I know there are many wonderful loving people who embrace christian theology and endeavour to bring love to the world as best they can. But even these beautiful souls are shackled by the lie that they are worthless without an external deity who forgives and empowers them to do good.

I’ll be opening up this a lot more so take the time to think about it as rationally and objectively as you can. Feel free to make comments, just remember that they are moderated though, lol!

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