by Charles Kluepfel
1/13/. Early Misgivings
How a child's idea of truth can exceed an adult's
If God is everywhere, how can
... Church be God's home?
... God be present specifically in the Eucharist?
Summary
- If the God of the Bible were a moral God, he would not demand that "His only begotten, innocent Son" be punished for everyone else's sins. (Having him crucified is punishment). He would just forgive everyone else without question. This God is purported to have invented the rules, but this rule is obviously unjust. Thus the God of the Bible is no true God.
- If it's objected that God's ways are not our ways, that we just don't understand, then how can we ever even recognize a good God as compared to an imposter, such as Yahveh apparently is? We are told that "By their fruits you shall know them" but also that we cannot understand God's ways, so we can't judge his followers' fruits. This method cannot possibly lead to truth. If I believed in Satan, I might even say that the Bible was the invention of Satan, written to deceive the multitudes of the world.
- The liberal religionist will say that the God and Jesus story as presented in the bible is a metaphor--a work of art. The trouble is, a work of art does not interpret itself. Art is not open to refutation the way statements purporting to truth are, and therefore cannot present absolute truth. This sets up various religions, including the Catholic Church, to say that they are the sole art critics who can review and interpret the religious corpus to arrive at truth, again, making religion a mere invention of man, like any other work of art.
I was brought up as a Catholic in a Catholic home. I went to Sunday School, and, later, to "Released Time", getting out of regular public school an hour early one day per week to attend religious instructions (catechism classes). Nowadays, instructions for Catholic kids attending public school is called CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine).
I was taught that Jesus was a wise and wonderful man, who, in fact, was God. He loved the little children and performed many miracles. He turned water into wine, fed many people with a few loaves of bread and a few fish, and healed sick people. He even raised the dead, and finally arose himself from the dead
He taught everyone to love, and to tell the truth, so he himself would never lie about who he was (God), or what we need to do to get to Heaven.
There were some disturbing features, however. Jesus died a painful death. And he did so because of us. Our sins put him up there on the cross to suffer and die in agony. Why? Because God, in his infinite wisdom, decided that punishment was needed for all the sins of the world, but the punishment was to be inflicted on his own sinless son. Even then this did not make sense to me, but my parents assured me that the priests and others in charge of the Church knew what they were talking about - after all, they were the experts, and it is not ours to question the experts.
But is not a child's idealistic sense of justice more finely tuned than any "experts'"? Does not the Bible even recognize this fact in
Mat 18:3 and said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
(Yes, I selectively say that the Bible is not all bad; it is part of our cultural heritage, much as Shakespeare is; as an amalgam of various philosophies, it has some memorable, "punchy", pithy sayings).
Other things that did not quite make sense to me were Jesus's crying out on the cross "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" I thought he was God. Who is he talking to, and why doesn't he know the answer since he's omniscient (a term learned in the later grades). Also, the Bible covers Jesus's childhood in a rather cursory manner, but still manages to inform us that he "grew in strength and wisdom." How could God, who never changes, grow in wisdom? The omniscient cannot become more omniscient.
But again, don't question the experts.
Out of duty, I followed my parents' religion, and attended church regularly (it, the physical building, being presented as God's house). In my late teens and early twenties, however, I experienced what might be called a spiritual awakening; a feeling of awe at the universe, and a love of God. I found various transcendental ideas exciting, including Martin Gardner's "Mathematical Games" column on the fourth dimension, including a tongue-in-cheek description of a Church of the Fourth Dimension (it's sometimes difficult to see the tongue in Gardner's cheek, and I missed it), and a few years later an actual description of Salvador Dali's Corpus Hypercubicus. Naturally, I applied all these transcendental thoughts in a manner consistent with my Catholic upbringing, imagining transubstantiation taking place by God moving his finger through our three-space from out of the fourth dimension.
Thus this "rebirth," as the fundamentalists would like to call it, delayed any rational restraint on my religious life, or recognition of the limitations and faults of organized religion, or of the Catholic Church in particular, despite the misgivings I had had originally.
It was only later that I would come to appreciate the nature of religion as mythology. My interest in skepticism vis-à-vis such things as UFO's, parapsychology and astrology, led me into areas closer to religious skepticism. Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible was a good start. My subscribing to The Skeptical Inquirer led gradually to a subscription to Free Inquiry. (Click here to review skeptical magazines). Steve Allen's book on The Bible, Religion and Morality, came at a time of my complete break with the Catholic Church. No longer could I see the Church as a seeker of truth.
Why would Jesus, the purported founder of Christianity, seek to hide the truth from many people, by speaking in parables, when so many could be brought to understanding by speaking plainly:
Mat 13:10 Then the disciples came and asked him, "Why do you speak to them in parables?"
Mat 13:11 He answered, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
Mat 13:12 For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
Mat 13:13 The reason I speak to them in parables is that 'seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.'
Mat 13:14 With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: 'You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
Mat 13:15 For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn-- and I would heal them.'
Mat 13:16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.
Mat 13:17 Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.
The speaking in parables, and the requirement to take the "Gospel truth" on faith, are two sides of the same coin. God is said to want us to believe on faith, rather than evidence, but why should this be? If one thinks about it, one sees it is only the story that has been built up to explain away the lack of evidence, and treat this as a positive factor in the Biblical stories, rather than the negative begging of the question that it is. To say that God is testing our faith is really another way of saying "testing our credulity." Any perfect God would make his presence clearer. Imagine: God so loved the world that he gave his only son to hide his saving truth from those who most want to know that what they believe is in fact the truth.
Once one begins studying the history of the Church, we see that Paul (Saul) was the true founder of the new religion. And what was Paul like? ... a seeker and speaker of truth, or the consummate politician:
1 Cor 9:20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law.
1 Cor 9:21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law) so that I might win those outside the law.
1 Cor 9:22 To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.
1 Cor 9:23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.
Jesus was a Jewish preacher with no intention of breaking with Judaism, and certainly no claims to be God. The above quote from the Bible purporting to be a quote from Jesus, is actually just a rationalization of why the Jesus tradition was so replete with the literary form of the parable - a tradition that was handed down through story-telling during the first century CE.
Divisiveness - People vs. People
or
Sex and the Single Catholic
Usually when we speak of the divisiveness of religion, we refer to situations like the former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, or Palestine. We think of the Crusades and the Inquisition, the trials of Galileo and Giordano Bruno. Indeed the fighting of Eastern Orthodox against Muslim in Bosnia is most heart-wrenching, and the alliance of the Muslims with previously hated, and persecuting, Catholics is ironic at best.
However, when I was growing up, people all around us, right there in Queens, NYC, people were classified by religion. Already as a child you are told who are potential mates (marriage being the only acceptable sexual outlet), based on religious affiliation. I am sure that potential good relationships were spoiled by a misguided focus on religious considerations.
Case in point: After having graduated from college (1965), around the year 1970, at the height of the "sexual revolution" among the "Woodstock generation", I had a date with an attractive young lady. During dinner, among other discussions, I inquired as to whether her being Jewish and my being Catholic would be a problem with her. She said no, but I am also sure that even bringing it up as if it could be a problem was a mistake. Later, while waiting for a movie to open we stopped in a bookstore. The lady bought Lady Chatterley's Lover, which purchase any guy without blinders would have taken as a hint that some serious relationship-building might take place. Later, I declined an offer to come into her home at the end of the evening. I did not get another date; the religion issue was raised as now being a problem. One can see how well it was a problem, though not in the way that I had assumed when asking the question at dinner.
In later years, some friend said "well, you may have been spared some disease." This reminds me of a letter someone wrote to the New York Times recently (the mid-nineties). It claimed that condoms are not the answer for AIDS. The claim was that condoms had a 1/6 failure rate, implying that once every 6 condom uses a person got pregnant or either partner acquired any sexually transmitted disease the other might have. The letter further went on that the AIDS virus is many times smaller than a sperm cell, implying that the mode of failure of latex condoms was the passing of cells or viruses through pores in the material. Even in the liberal Times, no answer letter was published, despite the known major mode of failure of condoms, being incorrect use, or, worse, not using one on a given occasion. This ties in with the misinterpretation of the 1/6 failure rate. This figure means that one out of six couples claiming that condoms are their method of birth control, over the course of one year (with an unspecified number of sex acts), has a pregnancy. But these couples also report that on occasion they were so caught up in the mood that they did not use the condom. They did not report broken condoms, and there is no need to suppose leakage through pores in the condom.
And "religious leaders," and the attitudes among the American public fostered by years of religious indoctrination, certainly do whatever they can to make a hostile environment for the development of new contraceptives. They also like to portray AIDS as God's means for punishing homosexuality. I can only imagine the difficulties homosexuals experience. In the New York Times for September 23, 1995, I see presidential candidate Phil Gramm quoted as saying "remember that there is only one person who has ever lived whose values we would be willing to see imposed on America. And when He comes back, He's not going to need government's help to get the job done," obviously referring to Gramm's own version of what "He" values. I have a Bible-believing Baptist neighbor who would punish homosexual behavior with jail sentences. Fortunately, he feels that, as we do not live in a theocracy, he does not support the death penalty for homosexuality as called for in the Bible (Lev 20:13). He backs up his biblical-based belief on this matter with health concerns, but if the rationale is that this behavior can lead to disease, then how about jailing all cigarette smokers? Cigarette smoking causes more health problems, including deaths than does homosexuality. I don't think Jesse Helms would go along with this one. I might find myself incarcerated for aggravating a cholesterol problem by eating Milky Ways. No - I doubt that health problems are their real concern - the Bible is the real source of their inhumane ways - unhealthy habits produce their own punishments, and everyone has the right to decide for himself how unhealthy a given behavior is. An interesting quote can be found in "The Lessons of Syphilis in the Age of AIDS," by Robin Marantz Henig, in the November/December 1995 issue of Civilization:
Indeed, the appeal of using VD as a means of controlling debauchery colored the opinions even of scientists who were working toward its eradication. In 1943, penicillin was shown to be a highly effective cure for syphilis, but many prominent physicians had misgivings about the cure, believing it might encourage extramarital encounters: "Mere treatment of venereal disease is certainly not the answer," wrote Dr. John Stokes, a leading syphilis researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1950. "And were it the answer, and were venereal diseases wiped out, it is now clear that the accomplishment would have heavy costs in the social, moral, and material life of man. A world of accepted, universalized, safeguarded promiscuity is something to look at searchingly before it is accepted."
Despite the religious problem in my growing-up years, I did eventually marry a nominally Jewish girl. We were both virgins when we met, I at age 30 and she at age 21. Needless to say we had difficulty consummating our relationship, due to lack of experience. A gynecologist came to the rescue by suggesting a lubricant.
Also, at the time of our marriage, in order for a priest to agree to perform the ceremony, I had to agree to do all I could to see that any children be raised as Catholic.
Unfortunately, my wife did eventually convert to Catholicism, by my "good" example, or, more precisely, by our decision to have a child eight years into our marriage and her desire to have a family united in religion. Of course, people grow, so now that still leads to conflicts, including my wife reminding me of promises made to "bring the child up Catholic." (By the way, you can see from the length of time before our child, that I had a way of rationalizing away some Church teaching).
My agnostic friend said I still should investigate not only skeptical literature, but the ideas of religionists, and I do so in some of the following chapters: "False Advertising" includes a review of Hans Küng's Why I Am Still a Christian; "Friends' Helpful Caring," a review of a more fundamentalist Protestant apology; "Surprised by 'Truth'?" reviews a book making the rounds in Catholic apologetic circles, having 11 chapters on people who converted to the Catholic faith; "Defending the Church" weighs some fundamentalist Christian ideas, expounded by streetcorner preachers in Times Square, contrasted against the beliefs of the Catholic Church; "With Friends Like These..." weighs a Baptist's responses to Dennis McKinsey's Biblical Errancy themes. At the end I still find Christianity wanting.
