4 posts tagged “atheism”
The following is an article I just finished writing on another website I am on called Newsvine.
Well... At the risk of being ridiculed all to hell by my friends and enemies here at Newsvine, I am going to do it yet again!! Yes, I have once again changed my mind about one of the most fundamental questions of mankind. This time I believe for good. Let me just come out and say it. I am NOT a Christian!! I really have not been a Christian since my late teen years. I have always known deep down inside of me, down deep where true knowledge resides, that Christianity and all other organized religions are bullshit. But the pull of the religion of one's youth is a very powerful draw. Sometimes it's like a black hole sucking me back in and so there have been a few times in my life, up till now at the age of 35, where I have fallen back into old ways of thinking. I'm not sure if anyone can truly understand this phenomenon unless they too were raised in a religious family.
I was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition and have chronicled this in other articles I have written. When your entire family is telling you that you are wrong, and that your eternal soul is in jeopardy, no matter how much you know in your heart it just isn't true, there are times in life that you begin to wonder, especially at those times when your life doesn't seem to be proceeding exactly according to plan. You start to wonder if maybe they are right after all? Maybe if I could just learn to have faith, if I could just learn to accept what they have accepted so easily, maybe if I too could just learn to believe, then maybe I too could find happiness and peace.
So there have been a few times in my life when I have tried this. And sometimes it does seem to work. For about a minute. Sometimes I have been able to lie even to myself, to convince myself, "yea, you can do this, you can believe this crazy shit if you just try hard enough."
So, in this last go round, my girlfriend and I started going to this local contemporary, seeker-friendly mega-church, and we actually liked it. They didn't preach hellfire and brimstone and the music was great! Contemporary music played by a terrific contemporary band.
Then I started to write articles here and to argue with Atheists, but what I was really doing was trying to convince myself. That's what I always do here on Newsvine, I am more having a conversation with myself than I am with anyone else. I am more trying to convince myself than I am anyone else.
But after awhile I had to ask myself, "What the hell, exactly, is it that you are doing? Why are you lying?" And I realized that this is what I was in fact doing. I was lying!! Lying more to myself than to anyone else and a person can only lie to themselves but for so long. A person can lie to others all they want, lying to oneself does not work out so well, if a person wishes to remain sane. And true to oneself!!
To hell with it all!!
I have told myself that from now on, I am going to remain true to myself and to no one else, not to anyone in my family, only me!! I know what I believe in my heart is true for me, and I don't have to convince myself of anyone else's truth.
Shakespeare said, "This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
And so I felt the need to write this article to try to explain myself and to apologize to anyone and everyone who I have come into contact with over the past few months in the context of Christian belief. Most notably Iarnuocon and Adam. I am NOT a Christian, have never been, I only fooled myself into believing that I could be. I can't. I have tried and I can't lie to myself any longer. It's one of the worst things a person can do in this life.
I am still trying to figure out exactly what it is that I DO believe, in the wake of my absence of faith and I will write more about it in the future. I have an insatiable need, an insatiable desire to know the truth, not the tired ol' dogmas of the past.
The following is excerpted from a recent email conversation I had with an Aunt of mine, who is still very religious to this day, although not a Southern Baptist, she is a member of the Church of God, a church who teaches that one must speak in tongues in order to be saved, even though she personally has never spoken in tongues. These are my excerpted words to her over the past few days:
Wow, for someone who says people shouldn't discuss politics or
religion, you went right ahead and did so anyway. ha ha. I never agreed
with people who said that anyway. I don't know why people get so hung
up about religion and politics. They act as if their beliefs are so
cherished that to even discuss it is somehow dangerous. People are
scared, I believe, they are afraid to talk about these things because
their beliefs ARE so cherished and they are afraid of upsetting the
apple cart so to speak, afraid that their cherished beliefs might need
some fine tuning after all.
I
love discussing these things and am on several different websites
online where I do just that, with complete strangers. I love it!!
I
NEVER said though that I know everything or that I have answers to
anything. I don't know anything, actually, even when it comes to
religion, that's why I call myself an Agnostic. I'm neither a believer
nor an Atheist. I just don't know. I do know though that a lot of
things I was taught to believe as a child are, without a doubt, not
true. I can't prove it to you though, and I know that you do still
believe in a lot of those things. I just know in my heart and soul that
God is real, but the God I was raised to believe in is no more real
than Santa Clause. But you knew that about me anyway, you and I have
discussed these things years ago.
I don't know why people have a
hard time talking about these things without getting upset or getting
their feelings hurt. Especially family. I should be able to talk about
these things with family, but in actual fact, there is no one in my
family I can talk to about these things. Everyone in the family, on
both sides, has their minds made up about these things already and what
they believe is literally Gospel. It's hard to talk to family about my
doubts when they are all obviously concerned for the destiny of my
soul. I could show you some things I have written, maybe you and I
could actually talk about these things without getting angry with each
other.
Gene and I have been discussing religion a bit, and I just
still can not understand how a person can go through life, essentially
believing everything he was taught as a child, about God, Jesus and the
Bible, and yet live the life he is living. I'm not saying he is a bad
person, not at all, I'm just saying he is not living a Christian life,
but he believes every word of the Bible, therefore he must know that
according to his belief system, he is going to hell, unless he repents.
To me, to live your life in such a way that you "know" is sending you
to hell...well.. that is the definition of insanity to me. Me... I
don't believe in hell, and he just thinks that is hilarious, he can't
wrap his mind around how somebody could not believe in hell, yet the
life he is living, he is going there just the same as I am, for my
unbelief. So what exactly makes someone like him a better person than
me? If we both died today, is God gonna look more favorably on him
because he believes and I don't? I don't get it. That's why I'm
agnostic.
Anyway, I said all of that because you got me thinking
when you said that I don't know the answers either. You're right, I
don't, but doesn't it seem that the ones that are so sure they DO know
the answers are the very ones who are screwing up this world so badly?
You
say you don't get me. Not too many people do. Do you know how lonely it
is, knowing that not a single person in my entire family understands
me? The ONLY person who I think does understand is Jackie(my
girlfriend). Her beliefs and mine are pretty much in sync. She wasn't
raised in a religious household though.I almost feel as if I was raised
in a cult of sorts, raised in a bubble. You asked me why I can't be
grateful for what I have and why do I dwell on things that do not
matter? Donna, if what you say is true that I'm going to hell for my
beliefs, then it DOES matter. It matters a great deal, don't you see? I
AM grateful for everything that I have, most especially my kids and for
Jackie, because in the way of material possessions I don't have much.
But that doesn't preclude me from thinking about spiritual questions. I
am a very spiritual person, I just do not believe the way you believe,
and believe me, I don't get you either, I don't get Gene, I don't get
my Mom, I don't get anyone in my family, as they don't get me. I think
about existential questions all the time, you ask me why, and my answer
is that I have no other choice, that is how I was built, it is who I
am. I could no longer stop asking these questions than you could stop
believing in Jesus. What if I asked you why can't you just be grateful
for what you have, why do you have to go to church and believe in
Jesus, someone who lived and died over 2000 years ago? I am a very
spiritual person, sometimes I think I'm more spiritual than a lot of
Christians I know. Gene claims to believe in God and Jesus, yet I don't
think he has given his beliefs more than a cursory glance, he has never
asked questions. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you believe
the way you do? Maybe for you, it doesn't matter. For me, the truth
matters a great deal. I can't just believe in something because it
makes me feel good, I have to know the truth. For you, believing in
Jesus makes you feel good and it makes you feel better about where you
are going when you die. I don't care about feeling better, I care about
the truth. And I have asked myself a LOT of questions over the years.
I
just think religion is largely a function of geography, there are lots
of other religions in this world besides Christianity and they can't
all be wrong, they can't all be right either. I think they are ALL
wrong, every one of them. As far as Gene saying he believes and thinks
he has time, well the Bible also says that the devil himself believes.
Faith without works is dead. That's why I said living life the way he
is, the way you say you have in the past, the way we all have, is the
definition of insanity, basically playing Russian Roulette with your
soul. If I believed the way you guys do, I could NEVER live anything
other than a Christian life, to live otherwise makes no sense, I would
be afraid to go to sleep every nite, for fear I would die and go to
hell. But there is no such thing as heaven and hell, it's all make
believe.
I am not trying to persuade you from your beliefs, at all!!
Not one bit. I am just trying to get you to understand where I am
coming from, why I believe the way I do. Christians are so ego-centric
about their religion, that they come off as superior about their
beliefs, as if their beliefs are better, or the only right way. No one
in the family feels the least bit of gumption about proselytizing their
beliefs, I get emails all the time from different family members
telling me about Jesus and how much he supposedly loves me, wanting me
to hear the good news, so why should I feel ashamed for letting my
beliefs be known? I have lived in the dark for far too long. And I am
no longer ashamed of who I am and who I am not.
People talk about
the Gospel, about the good news of Jesus Christ. To me, I have never
understood what the good news is. What is the good news? That I am
going to hell because I don't believe any of it? What exactly is the
good news? That most of the world is going to hell because they are of
a different religion? I don't get it.
You act as if these matters
don't matter. That we shouldn't worry about them. They DO matter. Look
at the last 8 years if you don't think they matter. That's exactly what
those in power want us to do, not think about these things too much, so
they can go on and rape our country and the world as they have been
doing. They don't want us to think, don't you see? And the Church
doesn't want us to think either. But I think, and to ask me why would
be like to ask me why I breathe, because I have to. It's who I am and I
can't help it.
But I am not trying to persuade you away from your
beliefs at all. I have thought about that in regards to my Mother, I
asked myself what if my Mom told me tomorrow that she too was no longer
a Christian, how would I feel? And for some reason, I think, I would be
sad, not because I think she would be going to hell or because she
would be wrong, but because being a Christian is who she is, it's who
you are, and to lose something that large about yourself is a tragedy.
Trust me, I know what it's like to lose your religion, I lost mine a
long time ago. It can be terrifying but it's also liberating. I don't
have to worry about the destiny of my soul any more, about heaven and
hell. I can now just let you guys worry about that for me.
I don't
need anyone in the family to believe the way I do, I just need at least
someone to "get me", to understand where I'm coming from. I was born
with an analytical brain, I think too much, but I can't help it, it's
in my genes, it comes from my father. I just can't see how God could or
would send me to hell for using the brain he supposedly gave me. It's
interesting to note, that the vast majority of all the greatest minds
who ever lived were Atheists, people like Einstein, Mark Twain, I could
go on and on. Dad asked me one time what kind of garbage I was reading
to make me think these things, and I said, "Oh, just people like
Einstein, you know, the smartest man who ever lived, and Mark Twain,
the most respected man who ever lived, who wrote Huckleberry Finn." I
don't read a bunch of New Age mumbo jumbo, or Atheist handbooks, I read
the greatest minds who have ever lived, the ones we were told to read
when we were in high school and college. Why is it that most of 'em
were Atheists, yet I'm the crazy one in the family? I have come to the
conclusion that the more educated a person becomes the less religious
they necessarily become. But like I said, I still do believe in God,
just not the way you believe in him, I can't believe in a God who
rewards and punishes based on something which a person can't help
anyway, their belief. I have asked this before and I'll ask you now, if
Jesus died on the cross for my sins, why do I have to believe it? What
does my belief or lack thereof have to do with it? I don't get it. It
makes no sense to me at all. Is his love not large enough to encompass
those of us who just can not find it in them to believe? Belief is not
a conscious choice.
I told Gene that I'm a good person, that I love
my kids and Jackie and my family and that I work hard to give them a
good life, I don't drink to excess, I don't party, I don't do anything
bad at all for which I'm trying to justify my life through a lack of
belief. I'm a good person and I can't see how or why God would punish
me for simply not believing in him, if he does in fact exist. Gene said
that not being a Christian doesn't mean I'm a bad person, it just means
I'm going to hell. Well thanks, is what I thought. You guys say these
things so nonchalantly, I don't even think you realize what it is you
are saying. So in your religion, a lot of good people are going to
hell. Sorry, I just can not buy that.
Re-read your last email to me, what you and Gene are basically saying to me is this:
"since you don't believe in the Bible, you are going to hell when you die, but hey, don't worry about it, it's all just stuff that doesn't matter anyway, why can't you just be grateful for what you have in life?" Do you not see how insane that statement is?!
You said you didn't know what it was I was searching for in life. I
am searching for the Truth, whatever that is. I can't just believe
things because I was raised to believe certain things, because I have
been told to believe certain things. It's not how I am made internally.
I have to KNOW things for myself. I am a seeker, I love knowledge, I
love learning, always have. I love to read and read voraciously. I just
read 3 books from the library in the past 2 weeks. I just finished "For
Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway and rented the movie from
netflix with Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. I am almost done now with
"Catch-22" by Joseph Heller, probably one of the funniest books I have
ever read. The term catch-22 wasn't even in the American language until
that book. I just love to learn, love to think about things. There was
a time when I was an Atheist, but I'm not any longer. Just because I'm
not a Christian doesn't mean I'm an Atheist. It is precisely because I
DO believe in God and his infinite love that I can NOT believe that the
Bible is his word. I just can not. I just can NOT believe that God
would order his people, the Jews to annihilate men, women and children,
to kill entire groups of people, simply because the land was supposedly
their "promised land." No, I think people do those things and then they
try to use religion to justify the terrible things they have done. That
is what the Jews did and then tried to ascribe their genocidal behavior
to God's imperative. Why more people can not see through these lies is
beyond me. Just like it is precisely because i DO love this country of
ours that I have to oppose our President and the terrible things he has
done. I believe that we are all a part of God and that is the only
thing Jesus was really trying to tell everyone. He said he was a Son of
God, as we are all Sons of God, he also said, "These things you see me
do, these and many more things like them will you also will do." He
wasn't claiming to be anything that we are not, he wasn't demanding our
worship, that was all lies put on Jesus' lips by the Church afterwards.
Jesus preached peace and he preached against the religion of his day,
he preached against false piety and he preached living a simple life,
for all these reasons, he was killed, just as many people have been
killed for their beliefs throughout the ages. I believe we are all
"one" and the sooner more people realize that, the better off we will
be. It is not rich vs poor, them vs us, republican vs democrat, it's
all just us, and we are killing ourselves on this planet because of the
things we believe and don't believe.
I
believe that God is infinite love, where there is love, there can be no
hate. There are only two basic emotions in all the world, love or hate,
God is not hate, God is love. So I can not imagine him punishing me for
eternity simply because I do not believe a particular myth or story
about him. I once heard a story that all the religions are like people
who have all had the chance to gaze upon God but every one was given a
different part of God to gaze upon, some the feet, some the head, some
his garment. Obviously this is metaphor. But what religions have done
is that they all think their particular view of God they have been
allowed to see, is the only true nature of God. Those who saw the feet,
think the feet is all of God, those who saw his garments think they saw
the totality of God as well, and we are all arguing fighting and dying,
fighting over whose view of God is correct when we need to realize we
ALL have been allowed to gaze upon God. I probably didn't tell the
story too well, maybe you've actually heard it.
There is a comedian
named Julia Sweeney who used to be on Saturday Night Live and I just
love what she said, "It's not you God, it's me. It's because I take you
so seriously that I can't believe in you." It sounds funny but I think
it is a very profound statement. And I totally agree, It is precisely
because I believe so much in God's love that I can not believe in the
Bible. But anyway, I think if God exists, he loves me even if I don't
believe in him. I think he feels compassion for me, I think that he
understands me as no on earth does, and I don't think that if I die in
my unbelief that he is going to punish me for all eternity.
In other
words, I think God's love is unconditional, he doesn't place conditions
on his love for us the way people do. It's not believe in me and then I
will love you, no he loves us regardless. As I said, I think THAT was
the good news of which Jesus preached. He said that we didn't need the
church in order to talk to God, that we each were a part of God, his
children and had access to him at any time or place. Obviously, this
rankled the religious establishment and they killed him, as they killed
many other people just like him. Did you know that Jesus was not even
the only one to come along and claim to be the Messiah? In his day
there were tons of people making that claim, each with their own set of
disciples following them. he was also not the only person in history to
be crucified. Crucifixion was the Roman form of execution back in those
days, like the electric chair or the gas chamber today.
I don't
really pray in the traditional sense I guess. I meditate a lot, not in
the traditional sense of that word either, though. I don't sit in a
trance and go "Om!!!" I just think a lot about things. When I come home
from work I look up at the night sky and contemplate the stars and the
universe. In this way, I talk to God every day. I don't think one has
to kneel beside their bed to pray or pray in any traditional sense. My
own inner conversation with myself is how I pray.
No, Donna it
doesn't sound off the wall, what you suggested, (to pray) it's been
suggested to me a hundred and one times. The thing is, I've already
done it. Many many times!!! And I've read the Bible backwards and
forwards too, been there, got the t-shirt!! ha ha And the answer that
keeps coming back to me is that the Bible is NOT God's word!! That the
Bible was written by fallible and sometimes even evil and capricious
men. God tells me that Jesus was a real man who walked the earth, who
preached a spirituality so novel for his day, that he was killed for
it. God tells me that he is love, that he loves each and every one of
us, with no conditions and no strings attached. He tells me that I am
NOT going to hell. Hell was made up by evil and capricious men in order
to keep people scared in order to keep them in line for the purposes of
empire. Do you realize how rich the Catholic Church became over the
centuries? They needed something to keep people scared, and when the
concept of hell no longer worked, they resorted to torture and burning
people at the stake. God asks me what his holy purpose would be in
sending his own creation to a hell of everlasting torment? When I say,
"Well, I've been told it's to satisfy your sense of justice, that you
are a just God." He asks me why his justice could not just as easily be
served by annihilating me, why would he have to subject me to
everlasting torment? He says that Christianity makes a mockery of who
he really is. When you really sit down and think about these things,
you realize that none of it makes sense, and then you realize, it's all
make believe. Yes, God exists, and we are all a part of him. To send
any part of God to hell would be to send God himself to hell. It makes
no sense.You would never do anything to harm your own child, I could
NEVER hurt one of my children, no matter what they did, why do we then
think God would or could do so?
And most of all, when I pray, God
tells me to just relax, that everything is perfectly fine and as it
should be. God tells me that I am NOT the product of my bad decisions
over the years, that I am NOT my job, that I am NOT how much money I
make or don't make, but that who I am is defined by how much I love.
And that's it and that's all. The rest is just all make believe, fairy
tales.
And there ends what I told my Aunt the past few days. I wish I could tell this to more of my family members but most of them don't understand.
In closing I am going to leave you with a poem I have come across that speaks to me more than anything in the Bible. I love this poem, written in the 1920's. It's called The Desiderata:
Desiderata
-- written by Max Ehrmann in the 1920s --
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
And here we are today, and you STILL believe this cockamamie
story. Why? Well because that's what your mom and her mom and her mom
etc has always believed, that's the way they were raised to believe and
the way you were raised to believe. Who needs an education when you got
Jesus, right?
I think that you can boil down the gist of religious belief down to just one short little phrase. "you gotta have faith." That's really all they are really saying. And I must say that I've heard this all before. I was raised in church and all of it's dogma. I have said before that I know all the arguments for and against organized religion, or in our case Christian belief. It just doesn't do anything for me anymore. It has been a really long time, a REALLY long time since I have ever heard anything new come out of a Christian's mouth. That is not meant as an insult. It's just that they have become so predictable, it's as if they are all reading from the same script. The problem is that the script is lifeless and meaningless to me, and no amount of re-reading or re-hashing the script is going to make me "get it." I've been trying to "get it" for over 20 years. I just can't and don't.
I would like to ask those of faith just one question though about this faith of which they speak so fondly of. If it's all just a matter of faith, then the object of our faith doesn't really matter. That's what you are really saying, if if you think about it. A muslim would say it all boils down to faith also. Faith that there is only one God and his name is Allah. See the problem with faith? A person can have all the faith in the world, faith in a lie can't turn falsehood into truth. It just can't.
For me, I think I am slowly getting past what I see are the negative aspects of religion. In other words, instead of focusing so much of my time, worrying, fretting and doing so much thinking about what I believe NOT to be true, I am instead going to focus my time and energy on discovering what I DO believe to be the truth. Instead of focusing on negativity, I'm going to focus on the positive. We do that by reading, living, loving, talking with people, listening to the world around us, taking part in the great conversation of life that has been going on for thousands of years, since civilization first began, and man started to question his very existence. We do that by slowing down and listening. Instead of focusing so much on what I don't believe, I'm going to be still and let the universe tell me what the truth is. I am pretty darn sure what the truth is not. Christianity is NOT it. It is a counterfeit to the real truth, as are all organized religions. They all have little snippets of the truth, that's what makes them so alluring, but when you actually bite down into the meat, you realize that the meat is moldy and rotten. Sometimes it looks pretty on the outside but on the inside there is nothing but death and decay. I want life, I crave love, I desire understanding, I need wisdom, not the tired ol' dogmas of the past.
I truly do believe that there was a man named Jesus who walked this earth for 33 years and I do believe that he preached a message of love. A message so groundbreaking for the times in which he lived, that he was killed for it. His message was ultimately changed and altered over the years by those seeking empire.
John Lennon once said that, "Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." There was even a song in the 70's by the Doobie Brothers, "Jesus is just alright with me."
Awhile back, I got into a little brouhaha with a fellow blogger, with me being accused of being a religious zealot for quoting Jesus. Anyone who knows me, knows that to be one of the most ridiculous statements one could make about me. Especially, if you have read my last blog entry entitled, "What you don't know won't hurt you."
Anyway, it was asserted to me that if one quotes Jesus, he is necessarily being religious because the religious text of the Bible is the only place one can quote Jesus from. I guess this person doesn't know that Thomas Jefferson had his own version of the New Testament that he came up with called the Jefferson Bible, in which he excised any mention of the miraculous and left the rest, in effect taking out the religious aspect of it. I guess this person doesn't know that it is possible, as Jefferson did, to greatly admire the historical figure Jesus, and yet not buy into the religious trappings that grew up around him after his death. As Lennon said, "It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."
It was also mentioned to me that Jesus never wrote anything down himself, that the only place one can find the so called words of Jesus are in the Bible, written after his death. Well, once again, I guess this person doesn't know that the man Socrates never wrote anything down either, not believing in the power of the written word, and that the only way one can read the words of Socrates today is through Plato, written after the execution death of Socrates. So I guess one can not quote Socrates and I should stop reading Plato's dialogues.
Personally, I greatly admire a lot of what Jesus said, just as I admire a lot of what Socrates said, just as I admire a lot of what Henry David Thoreau said. I admire a lot of humanity and I throw Jesus into that mix of humanity as well. Jesus was a man, just like the rest of us. He was a very wise man who in the end, got himself killed. He could have renounced his beliefs and saved himself, but he felt that would be disingenuous to his message to do so. Likewise, Socrates was a wise man who in the end, got himself killed. He, likewise could have renounced and vowed never to "corrupt the youth" any longer, yet he chose to stay true to his beliefs, no matter where it may lead. These and many other traits of both Jesus and Socrates are highly admirable, and it has nothing to do with religion. Yes, Jesus had some beliefs that we today, living as we do after the Enlightenment, would find ludicrous. Jesus was a wise man, yet he was also a product of his times. So too, Socrates, if you read the Phaedo, you will find some pretty crazy beliefs related to the after life, beliefs that modern man has all but abandoned. Does that mean that we should no longer admire Socrates as a great and wise man? Of course it doesn't. He was one of the wisest men of the times, yet he was still a product of the times.
The quote from Jesus that got this person all in a tither was what he had to say about hypocrites. Both Socrates and Jesus hated hyprocrisy and both spent their lives rooting it out wherever they found it. Both payed for that with their lives. If anyone does not believe that Socrates hated hypocrisy, should read the Dialogues of plato. Socrates was a veritable smart-ass, and reading the dialogues, I couldn't help but laugh at many occasions. Jesus wasn't so much a smart ass but was matter of fact and told it like he believed it.
One can see Socrates smart ass nature in that his stated goal was to seek out those people who considered themselves wise and to show them and others that they in fact were not wise, by asking questions and using their own words against them. Socrates was a master at this. He was not trying to show that he himself was wise and everyone else not wise. He believed that the only mark of the wise was that they knew that they themselves know nothing. He said, "As for me, all I know is that I know nothing." He hated those pretentious and haughty teachers, most of whom accepted money for their teaching, who thought themselves wise, in a word, he hated hypocrisy.
In the Euthyphro, Socrates asked such questions as, "Is that which is holy loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?" This was all to show Euthyphro that he did not in fact know what was holy and what was not holy. The following is the final exchange of Socrates with Eughyphro, and personally, I love it, it is one of my favorite exchanges in all of literature.
"Soc. Then we must begin again and ask, What is piety? That is an enquiry which I shall never be weary of pursuing as far as in me lies; and I entreat you not to scorn me, but to apply your mind to the utmost, and tell me the truth. For, if any man knows, you are he; and therefore I must detain you, like Proteus, until you tell. If you had not certainly known the nature of piety and impiety, I am confident that you would never, on behalf of a serf, have charged your aged father with murder. You would not have run such a risk of doing wrong in the sight of the gods, and you would have had too much respect for the opinions of men. I am sure, therefore, that you know the nature of piety and impiety. Speak out then, my dear Euthyphro, and do not hide your knowledge.
Euth. Another time, Socrates; for I am in a hurry, and must go now.
Soc. Alas! my companion, and will you leave me in despair? I was hoping that you would instruct me in the nature of piety and impiety; and then I might have cleared myself of Meletus and his indictment. I would have told him that I had been enlightened by Euthyphro, and had given up rash innovations and speculations, in which I indulged only through ignorance, and that now I am about to lead a better life. "
Euth had realized that he had met a man much greater intellectually than himself, and like the famous Charlie Daniels song, "He knew that he had been beat." So he demures to another time, for he is in a hurry he says. Read the last response of Socrates again, and see what a hilarious smart ass Socrates was. "Oh come now, I was hoping you would instruct me." I love it. How both loved and despised Socrates would be today, trashing and blowing to bits all the pretenders to knowledge and wisdom.
Nietzsche said about Jesus that, "In truth, there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross." Those are my sentiments about him as well. I am not a Christian in any sense of the word, but I greatly admire the man Jesus, if for no other reason, than that he was willing to go to his death for his beliefs. I detest what his "disciples" and those after him, in the form of the Catholic church did to his teachings. I believe that the pure and child like message of Jesus was twisted and bent all out of shape, beyond almost any recognition by those who wished for empire. And when this empire merged with the Roman one, well it was almost unstoppable. But just as one can can find nuggets of gold amongst the silt and dirt or rivers, one can still find nuggets of truth and wisdom in what Jesus said. All you have to do, is do as Thomas Jefferson did, take away the miraculous and realize that all that stuff was added by overzealous and less than admirable men. I greatly admire the man Jesus, the man, and I do not worship him any more than I worship Socrates, or Plato, or Henry David Thoreau, whom I also greatly admire.
Both Socrates' and Jesus' entire message can be summed in just a few word respectively. Socrates was "Know Thyself" and "The Unexamined life is not worth living." Jesus message can be summed up thusly: ""A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
That's it.
"2,000 years ago one man got nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be if everyone was nice to each other for a change." Douglas Adams, British comic author and radical atheist (1952-2001)
One last note. I think it is a sad state of affairs in our world today that we no longer value philosophy and the pursuit thereof. Socrates believed that we all could be philosophers and that it was only the philosophers who could truly attain happiness and serenity. When I first started college I wanted to take a course in philosophy, as it very much interested me, but my father talked me out of it ,because he had recently taken a course in it and found it dry and without any merit. Too bad for me that I listened to him and I regret it to this day.
Also check out Socrates meets Jesus It is quite humorous yet enlightening, although I do think that whoever originally wrote this little exchange has confused what Jesus actually believed and taught with what the church taught after him. I, myself, have always viewed Jesus as the original and ultimate hippie and I truly believe and told my family as well, that if the real Jesus were to walk into most churches today, he would not be recognized for who he is, and would most probably be looked down upon as some type of homeless vagrant or some such.
All of this is not to say that I am an Atheist. I think a lot of people, a LOT of people, Christians and Atheists alike, get confused and tripped up on this one little simple matter. When I first told my family, many years ago, that I could no longer call myself a Christian, one of the first things they asked, is why I no longer believed in God. I had to explain to them that this is not what I was saying at all. Just because I'm not a Christian does not mean I'm an Atheist. Muslims and Hindu's are not Atheists. Quite the contrary. I DO believe in God, just not the God of the Bible or any other sacred book. "Well there is only one God." They will say to me. Yea, and according to a Muslim his name is Allah. I do believe that we each have a soul, I believe that our souls are each tied to one another, that we all are truly one, that one day when we die, we go back to that oneness. In this, I think Buddhism is the closest to the truth. I believe that we are spirit because when I sit and think about who I am, who anyone is, the thought occurs to me that we just simply can NOT be just a product of biology. That we just can NOT be a product of mere chance. When I sit and contemplate consciousness, if you have never done so, I implore you to try it, just sit still and quiet and think about yourself. Can you even fathom the possibility that one day you will be no more? I just can not fathom it. Just think about what makes you different from all the other people on this earth, what gives you the consciousness to know who you are as a separate entity from all others, the consciousness to even ask these questions. It's your personality and everything that you are all lumped together. In a word, who are you? When I do these things, I can not fathom the possibility that I do not have a soul. The thought occurs to me that there has to be something else that makes me, me, something other than just some proteins fashioned in just such a way as to form DNA, the blueprint of life. There has to be more to life, who we are than this. I believe that we are spirit, or soul, first and that this spirit is eternal, that it is co-eternal with the universe and that the sum total of all that there is, all of our individual souls along with the rest of the universe is "God". It's us, folks. We are God. We have control over our own lives. We have the power to choose, to create. And this power is more.. well.. powerful than you could imagine. It's what self help gurus are talking about when they talk about the power of positive thinking. It's what Christians mean when they say God answers prayer. He does, in so far as we are able to bring forth our own true and possibly hidden desires.
I once read a fantastic series of books on just this subject by Neale Donald Walsh entitled "Conversations with God." I can't recommend the books highly enough. Reading these books about 10 years ago, was truly a turning point in my life. Since then, I have been able to call forth my own experiences in life, not always good. Realize that whatever we tell the universe or God that we want, that's what we get. If we are mired in negative thinking only negative outcomes will come. That's why Christians will say that you have to have faith when you pray that what you ask for has already been granted. There's nothing mystical about it. It's just the power of positive thinking. I could write entire blogs detailing how I have been able to do this myself. But then there have been times that I have forgotten all this and have fallen back into negative thinking myself and the outcomes have always been negative.
One last real quick story. The last couple years of my life have been pretty rough. I lost a really good job and got divorced from my second wife all in one year, 2006. I embarked on a new career path, truck driving and did that for about a year and a half, but the pay was not that great. The last company I was working for was actually a temp agency, but the company they had me contracted out to, Caterpillar ended up being a pretty good set up for me. It was really close to home and I was home every day. But I was not making much money. An older guy there and I used to joke, "But you're what?" And I would say, "Close to the house."
After this past New Year, I knew that Caterpillar was going to be cutting back and that they would probably not need me anymore. I began to think about what I was going to do. I worried about it for awhile and then I finally said, "you know what? I'm not even going to worry about this any longer. I know that God has something really good in store for me and that no matter what happens here, I'm going to be alright." I just felt in my bones that I was about to embark on a new and exciting chapter in my life, that God had something in store for me. This was the language that I put it in, since I was speaking to those of a Christian bent. I did feel though that good things were in store.
I decided to follow my life long dreams and to try to get into the health field. I had always wanted to be a Doctor but for several reasons, I gave up on that dream, while life happened. I decided to apply at UNC Chapel Hill hospital for a position as an operating room attendant, thinking that it was probably a long shot, as I had almost zero health related experience, but I just knew good things were in store. My mom and some other family members prayed for me, while I just remained calm and "in the zone." A couple weeks after I got an interview I was called with a job offer. I'm now working at UNC Chapel Hill hospital in the operating room, am getting ready to move up this way with my family and am going back to school in the fall to be a surgical technologist, payed for by the hospital.
I knew that God had good things in store for me, or as I really knew, I had the power to call up whatever experiences I so desired. This has happened too many times in my life to count. My mom would say it's because God answers prayers. I haven't the guts to tell her the truth. It's just the power of positive thinking. Realizing that we are spiritual beings in complete control of our lives.
I would like to recommend an article that a fellow Voxer and friend in my neighborhood, snowy, sent to me. Desiderata It is basically some of his life story and how he came to his beliefs about life and the universe and our place in it. I have been feeling kind of in the dumps spiritually recently and reading his story really spoke to me and as I told him, I think years from now, I will look back on the reading of it as a turning point in my life. It really is that powerful.
The following is a slightly edited article I wrote for another website, awhile back, probably some time last year. I hope that someone can get something out of it. Maybe there is someone out there who actually feels the same way that I do. Maybe!! One can hope, right?
This has been a long time coming, but bear with me, I have so much I want to say, all jumbled up in my head, that I will try my best not to get it all jumbled up on the screen. Ok, where to begin?! I think I will begin by making a most unbelievable statement of fact. And that is, that I know not a damn thing about a damn thing. And maybe the even more shocking thing is that no one knows a damn thing about a damn thing either, although more than a few think they have everything all figured out. Some, supposedly have been able to do what no one in the entire history of civilization has ever been able to do, and that is to figure out in their own minds the ultimate questions of mankind and have been able to compartmentalize these answers into pretty little sound bites, which allows them to criticize and look down your noses at those who either have figured things out differently,or like me, haven't been able to figure @!$%# out.
What the hell am I talking about? I am talking about the fact that although no one likes to talk about it, no one knows @!$%# about @!$%#. Ultimate questions such as Is there a God? Is there a loving God? Where did we come from? Why are we here? Is it Evolution or Creationism? Democrat or Republican? Liberal or Republican? For the war in Iraq or against it? Abortion or no? Gay marriage or no? I could go on and on. But you know what? I just don't have any answers to any of this @!$%#. But there are plenty of people who think that they do.
Oh, how I wish that I too could be a believer. A believer in anything. Like the old Poison song says, "Give me something to believe in." I have been without anything to believe in since my late teen years, when I learned that nothing is as it seems to be, or as I've been told they are. And believe me, no pun intended, this unknowing on my part, is becoming unbearable. It burdens my soul, as it seems few could understand. Am I really alone in these feelings?
The God question -- Is there a God above who created all this and who loves us and wants a relationship with us? You know what? I don't friggin know!! But oh God, how I wish that I did. I wish that I knew without a doubt, one way or the other. Because the not knowing is killing me. Throughout my life, I have gone from one extreme to the other on this issue. I have been an Atheist and a good God fearing, Church going man and everything in between, but in the end, I just can't figure any of this @!$%# out. None of it! I just don't know! And no one else knows any of the answers either. Is there a God? Those of you who say categorically no, I am reminded of what the Priests attorney said at trial in the movie, "The Exorcism of Emily Rose". "Is it a fact that....... No, it's most definitely not a fact, because facts leave no room for possibilities". So is it a fact that there is no God? No it's not, because it leaves no room for possibilities, because there is no one on this earth who can tell me that there is absolutely no possibility of there being a God. In the end, all one has is faith, faith in the negative, faith that there is no God, you don't believe in God, but you don't know for sure, any more than those who say there is a God. So is there a God? I haven't the foggiest idea.
Let me give you a little religious history of Phaedrus. I was raised in Church pretty much, in the Southern Baptist tradition. My great grandparents, whom my sister and I were very close to. were very devout and faithful church goers and believers in the Word of God. My father professed to believe, but was a very nominal Christian. He would much rather be out riding his Harley with his friends on Sundays than be at church. He was very occasionally at church, but my sister and I were there 'religiously'. I was a very good boy growing up, I even won a brand new Bible in Jr Church one Sunday for being the quietest little boy in the pews during the sermon, out of a couple hundred kids. 4th through 6th grade I attended a local Baptist affiliated school, and I have to say that those are some of the fondest memories that I have of growing up, although there were also things we were taught that disturbed my young mind and it was Thomas Paine that said that any religion that has anything in it which could bother the mind of a young child can not possibly be true. We were told by one teacher that Elvis Presley was most definitely in Hell. I got demerits one time for betting on the Superbowl. We were told that Christians should definitely only vote for Reagan. Yes, I'm a child of the 80's, born in 1972. During the summer between 6th and 7th grade, when I was 11 years old, my parents got divorced, and I was devastated. The divorce was very ugly with both parents putting my sister, who was only 6, and I continuously in the middle, using us to get back at the other. This had to have had a profound impact on me to this day. The next year, 7th grade, I found myself back in public school and I was terrified. I went from the sheltered domain of a private school, back to the domain of drugs and gangs and the unknown. At my middle school, where 12 years olds went to school, we had race riots several times. I just kept to myself, kept my head down and stayed out of the fray. No one really bothered me. I had few friends, but they were close good friends. I studied hard and maintained an A average. During my Jr High years, we really didn't go to church all that often any more, and from things I was learning in school and from my own reading, I was beginning to doubt my Christian upbringing. But at this time, it was all kept locked away inside. I would never tell anyone, it would devastate my grandparents if I told them I thought church was a hoax. At this time, I also started to listening to 'evil' hard rock music, such bands as Guns N Roses and my favorite Metallica. My mom would beg me to go to church and I would flat out refuse. We would have loud arguments and I would tell her that "Metallica was my church" I was sincere in saying that as well. The lyrics that Metallica sang really spoke to me and showed me that I wasn't the only one who felt these things, not the only one who though religion bull@!$%#. My mom threw away my Guns N Roses - Appetite for Destruction tape (yes, I said tape. Ha ha) one day and I was furious. She would point to all the skull and bones on the covers as proof of their demonic influence. I thought she was crazy. One nite she slammed my bedroom door and said, "Fine, if you don't want to spend eternity with me in Heaven then fine." She slammed the door, crying, and I looked at the shut door incredulously, not believing I had just heard what I had just heard. None of what she said made any sense to me. It was all nonsense, as if we were speaking different languages. One time while in College and living at home, I was about 19, I wanted to go to a Metallica concert with some friends in Nashville, I was living in Knoxville at the time and I was told that if I went I would have to find a new place to live. I didn't go. So at the age of 20, desiring more than anything to be on my own, to be able to do what I wanted to do, to be my own boss, although my dream was always to be a Doctor and I was pre-med in school at the University of Tennessee, I joined the United States Navy, originally walking into the recruiter's office desiring to be a Hospital Corpsman But they convinced me that since my test scores were so high that I qualified for the Navy's most prestigious enlisted program, the Navy Nuclear Propulsion program, and at that point all the typical recruiter lies began. I walked out signed up for a 6 year commitment, the next 6 years of my life being a combination of some of the greatest times of my life and pure hell. I was more miserable in those 6 years than I've ever been in my life, I also had some of the greatest fun and met some of the greatest friends I've ever had as well. Somehow, I made it through to the other end of enlistment, no worse for wear and with an honorable discharge, no small feat let me tell you. But in the Navy, I met people from all walks of life, from rich families, from poor families, from the North, from the South, East and West, some even from out of the country, such places as Ghana and Africa, Republican, Democrat and everything in between. It was at this time that my eyes were opened to just how big this world really is and that just because people are different or have different beliefs does not make them bad people. I never understood Catholicism and had a Roman Catholic friend explain to me for the first time one time, why he was Catholic and not Protestant. I was soaking up all this new information like a sponge. But I still found myself floating back and forth between belief and non belief. During the last 4 years, after 2 years of intensive nuclear power school, I found myself traveling all over the world. I've been to France, Spain, Greece, Malta, Israel, United Arab Emirates and let's just say that my eyes were opened to the vastness of this world and the people that inhabit it. I came to the conclusion that religion is largely a matter of geography, that if I had been born in Jebel Ali, UAE, I would most probably be a Muslim. I also met some of the nicest Islamic people you could ever meet. This was in the mid 90's before 9/11 and all the fear that that instilled in people. A friend and I were in a cab one day and this cab driver from India offered to take us to the desert and show us the camels and the camel racing track and introduce us to the young pre-pubescent riders and their families. Looking back, if this had been after 9/11, I would have said no thanks, for fear of being kidnapped and having my head chopped off in front of a camera. But these were simpler times I guess. These were some of the nicest people I've ever met. I got to sit on a camel, and then the family invited us into their little hut for some hot tea. It was the most god awful liquid I've ever tasted but I pretended a good game.
All that is just a little historical background. Over the years, I have vacillated back and forth between belief and non belief so many times that I should be dizzy. I know my loved ones around me have certainly been dizzy watching my shifts between doubt and certainty. My last wife, who was not brought up in a religious household at all, told me that I was messed up psychologically because of my religious childhood and I can't help but believe that. Hey, there's something to believe in, huh? There were times that I would be reading the Bible and Christian books and going to church, and I was happy, exstatic that I had finally found some peace, but she would say, "Yea, well let's see how long this lasts." And invariably, it would last a few weeks before doubt would set in again, my scientific and rational and analytical brain would win out and I would be at ground zero again, with nothing to believe in.
Over the years, I have also had many heated arguments and discussions with both my mom and my sister. My sister ended up marrying a Baptist preacher. Her and I couldn't be more opposite. I'm surprised we come from the same parents. She can't understand my unbelief, and I can't understand her unquestioning belief. Neither one of us makes any sense to the other and by the end of these conversations, with either my mom or sister, they end up hanging up on me crying, undoubtably worried for the destiny of my soul. I guess they don't want to see me burn in hell. That concept just doesn't make any sense to me. It's as if I learned the entire language, I know the language, the words and syntax and everything, but it's all just mumbo jumbo to me, just a bunch of words, memorized words thrown together that somehow makes sense to some, but is just gibberish to me. I can't make heads or tails of any of it.
I have told my mom and sister than I just can not understand, that God could make me the way he did, with the analytical, rational brain that I have, that if I have tried so hard, Oh, I have tried so hard, God must know that I have tried so hard, but in the end, if I can't bring myself to believe, then I can't understand why or how he could send me to an everlasting place of torment, a place of torment that makes anything man has ever done to man, including the holocaust look like a walk in the park. I also can not understand what my belief ultimately has to do with any of it. If Jesus died on the cross for my sins, why do I have to believe it? Does God not understand how truly impossible that is for some of us? How excruciatingly, heart rendingly hard that is for me? I have tried. Oh God, I have tried. But I just can not bring myself to believe something that I don't. I just can't. I told my family that belief is not a choice, you can't will yourself to believe what you don't. God knows, if it was a choice, I would choose to believe. I would love to believe. My heart and soul yearns to believe. I ache to believe. Life would be so much easier if I could just @!$%#ING believe!!!!!!!! But damnit I just can't. So I don't know what to say. Such is my life and the agony of my soul!!! I wonder if any of you can understand anything of what I'm talking about. Am I really alone? Everyone else seems to have things all figured out. I don't. I don't know jack. I really don't even have to know anything, I would settle for belief. Just give me something to believe in. I don't really care what it is. If I could be certain that there is no God, I think I could rest a whole lot easier. But I'm not certain of that. For whatever reason, my soul keeps coming back to feeling that there has to be someone out there. That this can't be all there is. That we are not just our Biology. It just doesn't make sense that we are all just a great big cosmic accident. But the converse doesn't make any sense either to me.
I like to quote music and movies quiet a bit, because I tend to think there is a lot of wisdom and truth in art, wisdom and truth that comes from outside of ourselves. Here, I would like to quote Forrest Gump:
"I don't know if momma was right, that we each have a destiny, or is it Lt Dan, that we are all just floating around, accidental, like on a breeze. But think... I think.. maybe it's both.. maybe it's both happening at the same time."
I don't know about you, but that statement makes me cry. Maybe it is both? Why can't it be both?
I know all the arguments for and against God, for and against religion. I know them like the back of my hand, ad nauseum. I have read and read and read. Searching for the answers that I just can't seem to find. I have yet to find what I'm looking for, I don't even know what it is that I'm looking for, but I know I'm looking for something, why, I don't know. So what I want to know is, how does one come to a belief? How does one know anything at all? How can I come to believe in something!!
I think it was Socrates who said that he knows only one thing and that is that he knows nothing. Maybe Socrates would understand where I'm coming from, but not knowing may be the truth, but it is not very satisfying. My soul aches for something to believe in. I have called myself an agnostic over the years, but I'm to the point now where I don't even know enough to be able to call myself that.
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