More stories about Elisha fill the next few chapters of 2 Kings. The book of Chronicles does not duplicate these legends, since Elisha was apparently running around Israel and her neighboring countries, Aram and Ammon, and the Chronicler(s) were primarily concerned with goings on in Judah. There is no telling when these stories actually originated, but if they are to be placed in a historical context, they must coincide with the reigns of Ben-Hadad I and Ben-Hadad II, kings of Aram Damascus between 885 and 842 BCE. If these stories are intended to occur historically after the death of Ahab, then they must be placed after 853 BCE, since in that year a coalition of eleven armies (including Ahab’s), fought against the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in the battle of Qarqar under the leadership of Ben-Hadad II. Being legendary in nature, the stories may have originated in later Judaic culture. The stories in these chapters include the tale of Naaman being cured of leprosy, a short legend about a floating axe head, a story about Elisha befuddling an army, and the tale of an Aramean siege that caused a famine so serious that Israelites turned to cannibalism.
Making an axe head float on the water is a charming little story, obviously meant to demonstrate that certain special people, through the power given to them by Yahweh, could create supernatural effects. The story of Elisha blinding, misleading, and restoring sight to the Aramean army is along a similar vein, although the merciful act of throwing a feast for them before sending them scampering home is a nice touch. Along with the other stories in this collection, it conveys the message that violent retaliation is not the only way to deal with those who mean harm. Of course, the value of this perspective becomes questionable when the Arameans later lay siege to Samaria and women are so desperate that they start cooking their own children to survive. Still, by the end of the story, the most unexpected people—namely, four lepers—bring news of salvation to the city, and the guard who doubted Elisha’s prophetic word was killed in the stampede of people rushing to claim whatever provisions the Arameans left behind in their camp.
Of all of these stories, the legend of Naaman’s healing is probably the one most often heard in Christian churches; it just preaches a bit more easily than the whole cannibalism thing. There are many lessons one can glean from this tale. Regarding the nature of Yahweh, this story suggests that he cares about more than just the Israelites, and that he is more concerned with the condition of one’s heart than with elaborate ceremonies. Regarding the nature of people, we might relate to Naaman in our unwillingness to create the lives and world we most want because it seems too simple. We might relate to the Israelite king who interpreted a sincere request for healing as a potential trap or an excuse to incite violence. We might relate to Gehazi, Elisha’s greedy sidekick, in realizing that we are sometimes anxious about what we will get from our dealings with other people that we lose sight of a bigger picture. Gehazi gets punished either for his greediness or for lying to Elisha, but despite the curse that his leprosy would cling to Gehazi and his descendants forever, the king of Israel is chatting with him by 2 Kings 8:1–6, so it must not have been too severe.
One valuable aspect of folklore is that it explains something, perhaps why a certain lineage has lighter skin than other folks or perhaps how political allegiances or animosities developed. Understanding what explanation was initially intended by a story is not always easy, and we more often than not interpret our own messages and lessons without having any real certainty that we have tapped into the original intent of the story. Thus, it serves our understanding to identify the characters with which we most associate ourselves, and we also benefit from challenging ourselves to identify with the other characters as well. When we judge the king of Israel in the story of Naaman for being faithless, suspicious, callous, or whatever else we think of his response to the letter from Aram, we forget that we are sometimes prone to reactivity. From time to time, we hear or read a piece of news and become immediately stricken with anxiety. The story of Naaman teaches us that we don’t have to solve every problem all by ourselves, and that we fail to consider our options creatively when we give ourselves over to anxiety. When we judge the cannibal woman who has eaten her own son, we forget that we are sometimes persuaded by others to do things we would not normally consider doing, that our own desperation and fear can cause us to compromise on values that we believe in deeply, or that our desire for fairness sometimes blinds us to the dissonances between our own actions and beliefs. While most of us have not ever cooked and eaten our own children, we have probably overlooked our own anxiety-driven behavior in order to demand that someone else sacrifice what we have sacrificed, even though our own sacrifice was unnecessary and perhaps even unhealthy.
Still, these are folktales, and the characters in these stories are not real people. We can extrapolate lessons to whatever extent we like, but there is nothing about these folktales that makes them more credible vessels for truth than any other legends. If we are careless readers, we could interpret some strange lessons from the stories of ancient people, as we have seen with other Old Testament tales. While we might see a new perspective in a folktale if we are open to it, the truth of how we can best represent our most noble selves in the world is already at work within us. We experience anxiety and fear and hatred and desperation when we act in a way that is incongruent with what we already know about the kind of people we most want to be. Stories serve as reminders for things we already know, but sometimes forget when we become wrapped up in irrational fear. We don’t want to get so desperate that we consume our own children. We don’t want to be so rigid in our thinking that we resist our own healing. We don’t want to be so caught up in greed that we cause suffering for ourselves and the people around us. When we see these lessons reinforced in stories, it resonates with something we already believe about ourselves and helps us stay oriented in a meaningful direction.
Here’s something to consider, though: We haven’t stopped telling stories. I’m not just thinking of television and film or the anxiety-driven inventions of political activists keeping their respective teams riled up. We tell stories about people on the roads with us, people shopping in stores with us, people working with us. Our minds create a story about everyone we see. More often than not, those stories are ways for us to compare ourselves with other people, and we wind up either judging ourselves as worthy or worthless based on how we measure up to the stories we tell about other people. Just as we subconsciously select which characters to identify with in folktales, we selectively compare ourselves to what we believe about other people in real life, too. And just as we learn something by empathizing with a broader range of characters in a folktale, we learn something by empathizing with the real people rather than using what we invent about them as measuring sticks for ourselves. We are all of equal value, after all.
Although it’s easy to use comparison as a basis to see how we measure up, our value is not based on comparison with anyone else. In fact, our value is not even based on how well we are living by our own standards. Human beings have value, and that value cannot be increased or decreased by anything we do. We can, however live in alignment with our deepest beliefs—our deepest creativity and nobility. This is, in essence, what is meant by "living a life of faith". When we become aggressive or desperate or anxious or overwhelmed, we have replaced faith with fear. Our deepest truths become neglected in favor of lies about ourselves, other people, or life in general.
In folktales of the ancient Israelites, faith was directed outward toward an entity that they believed controlled all of reality, as we’ve discussed along the way. Many people today still express faith in these ancient terms, looking toward something outside of themselves as a source of hope, truth, or justice. Faith does not have to be oriented outward, however. The assertion that human beings have innate value is a statement of faith. Assuming an inner reserve of creativity and nobility is a position of faith. Whatever our statements of faith may be, we will find ways to support our beliefs in life; we will see evidence of what we want to believe. When our actions line up with our deep statements of faith, we gain a sense of being grounded, at peace, in alignment. When our actions are dissonant to what we claim to believe, we experience anxiety, frustration, and desperation. The challenge is to distinguish between those beliefs that are statements of deep faith and those which are based on irrational fears.
Since our beliefs directly inform our actions, we can examine our actions and see our beliefs. If our actions reflect anxiety and fear, if our actions demonstrate a sense of desperation or aggression, then the beliefs that inform those actions are most likely irrational lies that work against a deep sense of faith. If our actions reflect things like acceptance of ourselves and others, calm integrity, or joyfulness, then the beliefs that inform those actions are perhaps closer to our underlying statements of faith. When we nurture beliefs based in lies, we get lives that are anxious, fearful, and desperate. When we nurture beliefs based in truth, we get lives that are connected, deeply satisfying, and inspiring. We nurture beliefs, in part, by committing ourselves intentionally to actions that reflect the beliefs we want to nurture. The more we act in accord with our deepest statements of faith, the more we will immunize ourselves against the irrational fear and anxiety that occasionally threatens that faith.
Stories like those in 2 Kings are intended in part to reinforce a cultural sense of faith. Our own culture is different from ancient Israelite culture. In a sense we define ourselves by many different subcultures, but in another sense those subcultures are becoming more and more global. Our beliefs and actions affect more than just our own lives—none of us lives in total isolation. Thus, whether we act on irrational fears or deep faith makes a difference. It matters how we decide to see ourselves, other people, and the world we all share. So, what do your actions reflect? Are your guiding beliefs leading you toward anxiety and fear? Or is your deepest, most noble self being drawn forward consistently in acts of faith?
Showing posts with label living by faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label living by faith. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Evaluating the Power of Prayer: Is It Magic, Meaningless, or Personally Transformative?
A couple of times in the story of Isaac and Rebekah, the practice of prayer comes up. It will continue to come up frequently in scripture, obviously, so a basic understanding of prayer seems appropriate at this point. Even among religious people, there are different beliefs about the value of prayer. Some people claim that prayer can heal disease, mend broken relationships, provide guidance or comfort. However, there are also medical studies which suggest that people have more post-surgery complications if they know that strangers are praying for them. Whatever the case, any understanding of prayer has to take into consideration the belief system in which it originates.
Most Christians would agree that the God they believe in is omniscient, omnipotent, and loving and compassionate beyond human capability. In light of this view of an external divine being, prayer can have only a few possible interpretations. Sincere prayer can only be magic, meaningless, or solely valuable to the person doing the praying. Public prayer can also be used by people who want to convey the appearance of righteousness and holiness for political reasons, and prayers can be used by people who want an excuse for certain actions or decisions. These distortions are less than sincere, however, and this is an important distinction to make. It goes without saying that the practice of using prayer to manipulate other people’s opinions or perceptions is despicable and abusive.
But why would sincere, effective prayer be equated with magic? Any time people believe that they can have a supernatural effect on the world around them, this is the practice of magic, witchcraft, or alchemy. If God can be convinced to take action by a person’s persistence or faith, this actually places power in the hands of the believer rather than a deity. It is really no different from deciding that if the right color candles are lit and the right incantation spoken, you can make another person fall in love with you, or recover from an illness. Of course, one may believe that God is a loving and all-powerful being who simply waits for the actions of believers in order to have an impact in the world. There’s nothing to prevent a person from believing that the prayers of the faithful can move God to action. But a person who believes in that particular flavor of witchcraft or magic should at least recognize it for what it is.
If there is an all-knowing, loving deity who cares for people, then it follows that such a being would do what it was willing to do, whether people asked for it or not. If God intended to heal someone, it would seem that the person would get healed whether anyone prayed for it or not. So, if prayers are not magic, and if God is completely powerful and loving, then there’s actually no real value to prayer. God will do what God will do, whether believers request it or not. Otherwise, people are constantly at the mercy of those who choose to pray rather than a divine power.
None of this changes when one considers the idea of prayers for guidance. In witchcraft terms, this would be called divination. People have also used astrological charts, tea leaves, Tarot cards, bones, gut instinct, self-help books, and any number of other resources for guidance. It’s natural to want to know what the right answer is before making a decision. But if one can coax an answer from God by fervent prayer, this is really no different from sorcery. Likewise, if God wishes to put a believer’s feet on a particular path, wouldn’t he do so with or without a specific request for guidance? There is nothing loving or compassionate about playing games with people’s fates based on whether they ask the right questions.
There is another option, however. Whether any sort of divine being exists or acts in the world, prayer can alter the perspective and the attitude of the person doing the praying. When people take the time to quiet their minds and sincerely align their attitudes with their values, there can be a profound personal impact. One may not be able to cure cancer with an attitude adjustment, but a person can certainly find peace and guidance from a still moment of contemplation or prayer. There is also the matter of gratitude to be considered. Recognizing and expressing one’s gratitude can be an extraordinary way to align one’s actions and intentions with deeply held values.
The objection may be voiced that prayer must be directed outward, by definition. How can one seek guidance if there is no higher power to do the guiding? How can one express free-floating gratitude without someone to be grateful to? I honestly don’t see the problem with turning inward for guidance, or in acknowledging gratitude without a deity to address. Just as happiness and anger and sadness are emotions that don’t always have discretely defined objects, gratitude is an emotion. One can be thankful without addressing the thankfulness to anyone in particular. And I believe that many people already know the answers to their important decisions, although we don’t always trust ourselves. We want some sort of reassurance, especially when our ideas seem out of sync with mainstream thought. Realizing one’s capability to guide oneself can empower a person to take action even when there are no blatant signs from above to rely on.
In fact, taking action is perhaps the most effective way to ensure that a prayer will be fulfilled. There is perhaps a temptation to wait for an external deity to do something. This temptation is fueled by a perception of an external divine that is wiser than any person and capable of producing miracles with the same ease that human beings breathe. Without an illusory deity to grant wishes, it falls to the individual to act in accord with a sincere prayer. Hopefully, such action will not only be in accord with an ephemeral wish, but also in alignment with deeply held values. So often, people can be their own answer to prayer, if they are only willing to act in accord with what they want and bring forth the power of creation that dwells within every person.
Most Christians would agree that the God they believe in is omniscient, omnipotent, and loving and compassionate beyond human capability. In light of this view of an external divine being, prayer can have only a few possible interpretations. Sincere prayer can only be magic, meaningless, or solely valuable to the person doing the praying. Public prayer can also be used by people who want to convey the appearance of righteousness and holiness for political reasons, and prayers can be used by people who want an excuse for certain actions or decisions. These distortions are less than sincere, however, and this is an important distinction to make. It goes without saying that the practice of using prayer to manipulate other people’s opinions or perceptions is despicable and abusive.
But why would sincere, effective prayer be equated with magic? Any time people believe that they can have a supernatural effect on the world around them, this is the practice of magic, witchcraft, or alchemy. If God can be convinced to take action by a person’s persistence or faith, this actually places power in the hands of the believer rather than a deity. It is really no different from deciding that if the right color candles are lit and the right incantation spoken, you can make another person fall in love with you, or recover from an illness. Of course, one may believe that God is a loving and all-powerful being who simply waits for the actions of believers in order to have an impact in the world. There’s nothing to prevent a person from believing that the prayers of the faithful can move God to action. But a person who believes in that particular flavor of witchcraft or magic should at least recognize it for what it is.
If there is an all-knowing, loving deity who cares for people, then it follows that such a being would do what it was willing to do, whether people asked for it or not. If God intended to heal someone, it would seem that the person would get healed whether anyone prayed for it or not. So, if prayers are not magic, and if God is completely powerful and loving, then there’s actually no real value to prayer. God will do what God will do, whether believers request it or not. Otherwise, people are constantly at the mercy of those who choose to pray rather than a divine power.
None of this changes when one considers the idea of prayers for guidance. In witchcraft terms, this would be called divination. People have also used astrological charts, tea leaves, Tarot cards, bones, gut instinct, self-help books, and any number of other resources for guidance. It’s natural to want to know what the right answer is before making a decision. But if one can coax an answer from God by fervent prayer, this is really no different from sorcery. Likewise, if God wishes to put a believer’s feet on a particular path, wouldn’t he do so with or without a specific request for guidance? There is nothing loving or compassionate about playing games with people’s fates based on whether they ask the right questions.
There is another option, however. Whether any sort of divine being exists or acts in the world, prayer can alter the perspective and the attitude of the person doing the praying. When people take the time to quiet their minds and sincerely align their attitudes with their values, there can be a profound personal impact. One may not be able to cure cancer with an attitude adjustment, but a person can certainly find peace and guidance from a still moment of contemplation or prayer. There is also the matter of gratitude to be considered. Recognizing and expressing one’s gratitude can be an extraordinary way to align one’s actions and intentions with deeply held values.
The objection may be voiced that prayer must be directed outward, by definition. How can one seek guidance if there is no higher power to do the guiding? How can one express free-floating gratitude without someone to be grateful to? I honestly don’t see the problem with turning inward for guidance, or in acknowledging gratitude without a deity to address. Just as happiness and anger and sadness are emotions that don’t always have discretely defined objects, gratitude is an emotion. One can be thankful without addressing the thankfulness to anyone in particular. And I believe that many people already know the answers to their important decisions, although we don’t always trust ourselves. We want some sort of reassurance, especially when our ideas seem out of sync with mainstream thought. Realizing one’s capability to guide oneself can empower a person to take action even when there are no blatant signs from above to rely on.
In fact, taking action is perhaps the most effective way to ensure that a prayer will be fulfilled. There is perhaps a temptation to wait for an external deity to do something. This temptation is fueled by a perception of an external divine that is wiser than any person and capable of producing miracles with the same ease that human beings breathe. Without an illusory deity to grant wishes, it falls to the individual to act in accord with a sincere prayer. Hopefully, such action will not only be in accord with an ephemeral wish, but also in alignment with deeply held values. So often, people can be their own answer to prayer, if they are only willing to act in accord with what they want and bring forth the power of creation that dwells within every person.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
The Morality of Being Willing to Kill a Child Doesn't Change Just Because You Think God Told You to Do It
Continuing with the narrative of the Old Testament story, Abraham and Abimilech make peace, the elderly Sarah gives birth to Isaac and promptly becomes too jealous of Hagar to bear having her around, and Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael (Abraham’s firstborn) out on their own into the wilderness, with God’s blessing. Which brings us to Genesis 22, in which Abraham takes his son Isaac to a mountaintop with the intention of sacrificing him to God. He reportedly does this because God told him to, and thus Abraham is willing to go through with it. At the last minute, a ram caught in a nearby bush (seen to be provided by God) is substituted for the boy, and God makes a promise about the future of Abraham’s bloodline.
Supposedly, the promise God makes to Abraham at the end of this horrifying story is the seventh promise God has made to him, but the promises are all strikingly similar: God grants Abraham a stretch of land (although he doesn’t provide any legal documentation that anyone else would honor), he promises Abraham lots of “children”, and he makes promises about how mighty and prosperous those children are going to be. Since the Jewish people are the ones who scribed all of this after passing it down through word of mouth for generations, one would expect them to be the heroes of the story. The promise by God is obviously intended to be indisputable, except that this story calls into question God’s morality and trustworthiness.
First of all, why did God find this test to be necessary? Abraham had already made a pact with God involving sacrificing animals, and then he made a further pact with God requiring physical mutilation, for which Abraham and his descendents really didn’t get anything further from God for the additional requirements. It is as if an insurance company decided to add an enormous fee onto the premium while offering no additional benefits, simply because they don’t quite trust their customers. Even though Abraham is faithful with the requirements of previous agreements, God decides he needs to be tested. The primary reasons to test people are either because you want to verify they know the material or because you don’t trust them. Abraham obviously knew the content and requirements of the previous arrangements, because he did what God had requested of him. So, this test can only be about God not trusting Abraham, which seems remarkably insecure for an all-powerful deity, but there it is.
Readers of this story may see spiritual lessons about trusting God in difficult times or about God providing what one needs or about God honoring the faithful. Such lessons are much easier to accept if one doesn’t think too much about the motivations of God in the matter. It’s one thing to think of a being as all-powerful and deserving of respect, but the all-powerful being’s behavior in this story is petty and manipulative. Who challenges someone to see if he will kill his own son, just to prove a point about divine might? Later on, Christians would see this story as a mirror of God’s own sacrifice of his son, which is an obvious narrative parallel, except that the God of this story in Genesis seems to have some psychological issues, not the least of which is a profound insecurity that leads him to require further evidence of Abraham’s faithfulness, just so God can renew a promise that wasn’t made with an expiration date.
So, apparently to satisfy his own ego, God commands something immoral, confirms that Abraham is willing to do this immoral thing without question, and then steps in and saves the day. Say what you will about God’s provision or trustworthiness, but the entire situation wouldn’t have existed unless God had contrived it and the sacrifice wouldn’t have needed to be provided if God hadn’t required it. Certainly, there were other gods worshiped in the area at the time, and there are reports of other people sacrificing children. The archaeological evidence of any widespread culture of child sacrifice in the area is scarce, but the Jews certainly accused some neighboring peoples of the practice. To the casual observer, the willingness to sacrifice one’s child is evidence of equal moral depravity, whether a ram gets substituted in the end or not.
It comes down to a matter of blind obedience. Trust without thought can be dangerous, even dangerous enough to put people’s lives at risk. If one believes in a Creator, then surely one must assume that the Creator provided human beings with brains for a purpose. Not to use those brains for rational thought seems like an insult. Beyond that, trusting in an external source to provide a way out of difficult situations abdicates personal responsibility. If one knows that killing a child is wrong, it is ludicrous to lose one’s moral compass for the sake of trusting something outside of oneself. The concept of an omnipotent and all-loving external divine being opens the door for people to stop reasoning for themselves. And if they can pin any horrific behavior on that omnipotent and all-loving divine being, then the mindless faithful and the god are both beyond reproach.
The entire concept of trusting God, even when what he asks seems suspect, opens the door to rampant justification for bad behavior. On top of that, people often wind up with different ideas about what God wants. How does one determine who is right? It would makes sense for believers to rely on their own internal awareness of what interpretation respects other people and acknowledges the innate beauty and value of every human being. Instead, the deciding factor is often which interpretation is expressed with the greatest amount of outrage and conviction. Plenty of horrific acts throughout the course of humanity have been pinned on God, because no one can legitimately argue against God. The truly horrific part is that God did not swoop down and stop any of those actions with a ram caught in a bush. Nor will he. The conclusions believers choose to draw from that observation are likely to be different from the conclusions I come to, but the fact remains that God does not intervene when people do immoral things in his name.
Reading or hearing the story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac may convince you of God’s trustworthiness and the value of faithfulness, but the God of this story behaves in such a petty, manipulative, and insecure manner that I would find him difficult to trust if I believed in him. But where do we turn in the absence of an all-loving, omnipotent divine being? Some people are happy to believe in an external divine being, even one which displays symptoms of severe psychosis, just because there seems to be such a void without such a belief. I would suggest that human beings have value, and that we all possess the means to acknowledge and respect that value, should we choose to be thoughtful and aware. I have written these words before, but they bear repeating: Every person embodies an innate truth, beauty, and creativity, and every functional adult is capable of taking personal responsibility for honoring and respecting that innate truth, beauty, and creativity. That is the divine nature. It is not outside of us, driving us to do immoral things so that it can swoop in and save the day and gain our eternal gratitude and adoration. The divine is that truth and beauty and creativity within us, and we have the power to acknowledge it in ourselves and in every other person.
Supposedly, the promise God makes to Abraham at the end of this horrifying story is the seventh promise God has made to him, but the promises are all strikingly similar: God grants Abraham a stretch of land (although he doesn’t provide any legal documentation that anyone else would honor), he promises Abraham lots of “children”, and he makes promises about how mighty and prosperous those children are going to be. Since the Jewish people are the ones who scribed all of this after passing it down through word of mouth for generations, one would expect them to be the heroes of the story. The promise by God is obviously intended to be indisputable, except that this story calls into question God’s morality and trustworthiness.
First of all, why did God find this test to be necessary? Abraham had already made a pact with God involving sacrificing animals, and then he made a further pact with God requiring physical mutilation, for which Abraham and his descendents really didn’t get anything further from God for the additional requirements. It is as if an insurance company decided to add an enormous fee onto the premium while offering no additional benefits, simply because they don’t quite trust their customers. Even though Abraham is faithful with the requirements of previous agreements, God decides he needs to be tested. The primary reasons to test people are either because you want to verify they know the material or because you don’t trust them. Abraham obviously knew the content and requirements of the previous arrangements, because he did what God had requested of him. So, this test can only be about God not trusting Abraham, which seems remarkably insecure for an all-powerful deity, but there it is.
Readers of this story may see spiritual lessons about trusting God in difficult times or about God providing what one needs or about God honoring the faithful. Such lessons are much easier to accept if one doesn’t think too much about the motivations of God in the matter. It’s one thing to think of a being as all-powerful and deserving of respect, but the all-powerful being’s behavior in this story is petty and manipulative. Who challenges someone to see if he will kill his own son, just to prove a point about divine might? Later on, Christians would see this story as a mirror of God’s own sacrifice of his son, which is an obvious narrative parallel, except that the God of this story in Genesis seems to have some psychological issues, not the least of which is a profound insecurity that leads him to require further evidence of Abraham’s faithfulness, just so God can renew a promise that wasn’t made with an expiration date.
So, apparently to satisfy his own ego, God commands something immoral, confirms that Abraham is willing to do this immoral thing without question, and then steps in and saves the day. Say what you will about God’s provision or trustworthiness, but the entire situation wouldn’t have existed unless God had contrived it and the sacrifice wouldn’t have needed to be provided if God hadn’t required it. Certainly, there were other gods worshiped in the area at the time, and there are reports of other people sacrificing children. The archaeological evidence of any widespread culture of child sacrifice in the area is scarce, but the Jews certainly accused some neighboring peoples of the practice. To the casual observer, the willingness to sacrifice one’s child is evidence of equal moral depravity, whether a ram gets substituted in the end or not.
It comes down to a matter of blind obedience. Trust without thought can be dangerous, even dangerous enough to put people’s lives at risk. If one believes in a Creator, then surely one must assume that the Creator provided human beings with brains for a purpose. Not to use those brains for rational thought seems like an insult. Beyond that, trusting in an external source to provide a way out of difficult situations abdicates personal responsibility. If one knows that killing a child is wrong, it is ludicrous to lose one’s moral compass for the sake of trusting something outside of oneself. The concept of an omnipotent and all-loving external divine being opens the door for people to stop reasoning for themselves. And if they can pin any horrific behavior on that omnipotent and all-loving divine being, then the mindless faithful and the god are both beyond reproach.
The entire concept of trusting God, even when what he asks seems suspect, opens the door to rampant justification for bad behavior. On top of that, people often wind up with different ideas about what God wants. How does one determine who is right? It would makes sense for believers to rely on their own internal awareness of what interpretation respects other people and acknowledges the innate beauty and value of every human being. Instead, the deciding factor is often which interpretation is expressed with the greatest amount of outrage and conviction. Plenty of horrific acts throughout the course of humanity have been pinned on God, because no one can legitimately argue against God. The truly horrific part is that God did not swoop down and stop any of those actions with a ram caught in a bush. Nor will he. The conclusions believers choose to draw from that observation are likely to be different from the conclusions I come to, but the fact remains that God does not intervene when people do immoral things in his name.
Reading or hearing the story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac may convince you of God’s trustworthiness and the value of faithfulness, but the God of this story behaves in such a petty, manipulative, and insecure manner that I would find him difficult to trust if I believed in him. But where do we turn in the absence of an all-loving, omnipotent divine being? Some people are happy to believe in an external divine being, even one which displays symptoms of severe psychosis, just because there seems to be such a void without such a belief. I would suggest that human beings have value, and that we all possess the means to acknowledge and respect that value, should we choose to be thoughtful and aware. I have written these words before, but they bear repeating: Every person embodies an innate truth, beauty, and creativity, and every functional adult is capable of taking personal responsibility for honoring and respecting that innate truth, beauty, and creativity. That is the divine nature. It is not outside of us, driving us to do immoral things so that it can swoop in and save the day and gain our eternal gratitude and adoration. The divine is that truth and beauty and creativity within us, and we have the power to acknowledge it in ourselves and in every other person.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Soap Opera Characters, Bibilicial Figures, and You and Me: Self-Centered People Who Sometimes Forget that Actions Have Consequences (Thoughts on Genesis 16)
Chapter 16 of Genesis is like a scene from a soap opera. Abraham and Sarai believed that God had promised them children. But they were old and didn't see that as a physical possibility. So Sarai suggested Abraham sleep with Hagar, Sarai's Egyptian maidservant. Which he does, of course. Hagar gets pregnant and Sarai gets angry. Come to think of it, this could be an entire season of a soap opera. The point is, actions have consequences, and when we act out of fear, the consequences are not usually going to be things we like.
Our actions reflect our understanding of and commitment to the truth and beauty and creativity within us, as well as our acceptance of the reality of our circumstances. It can sometimes seem like a more difficult choice to acknowledge these things, where a self-serving or violent response might be easier, or at least might more directly yield what we want from a given situation. Wisdom reveals that there are consequences to our actions, however. If we betray someone, why would we not expect them to betray us in return? If we attack someone, verbally or physically, why would we not expect retaliation? Or in the instance recounted in Genesis 16, doesn't it makes sense for someone to run away from mistreatment?
When we choose what seems like the easier path in the moment, reacting without thinking our actions through, we actually make our journey more difficult. At the very least, we open ourselves up to be ruled by fear: fear that we won’t get what we want, fear that we won’t be able to keep it, or fear that someone will seek to harm us because of what we have done. It's hard to imagine the married women I know saying to their husbands, "Hey, why don't you just sleep with my young servant girl." But times were obviously different when this story was originally told. What hasn't changed is the idea that if God has made a promise, it doesn't matter how I go about pursuing it. Mistreatment and dehumanization of other people is seen as sanctioned behavior if a line can be traced back to a perceived divine promise. Honestly, it winds up looking like an excuse for poor behavior by self-centered people.
I have heard people claim something akin to the idea that God has a plan and that imperfect people are used as a part of that plan. So there is no real reason to strive to improve oneself because God can use people just as they are, mistakes and all. There's no real way to argue with that. The Bible is as full of people who do stupid things as the cast of any soap opera, but that doesn't mean other people are supposed to emulate them. It's a nice sentiment that God is watching over people, even the mistreated and abused, but wouldn't it be an incredible world if people who claimed to found their lives on faith actually exhibited faith? Everyone, at some point in their lives, can identify with one of the three people in this little domestic drama, but that doesn't mean we should make the same decisions. To suggest that the end result is the only thing that matters opens up an ethically dangerous can of worms.
Although it requires a little more thought on our part, choosing to respect the actual truth and beauty and creativity at the heart of every person yields much greater dividends in our lives. In a way, it may be a self-focused reason to do what is right, but we ultimately can’t avoid seeking to do what we think is best for us. Largely, it's in the way that we go about pursuing that self-interest. When we have respect for ourselves, for other people, and for the reality of our circumstances, we can create the best results for everyone involved, including ourselves. We wind up creating more strife for ourselves and others when we react out of fear and anger.
Our actions reflect our understanding of and commitment to the truth and beauty and creativity within us, as well as our acceptance of the reality of our circumstances. It can sometimes seem like a more difficult choice to acknowledge these things, where a self-serving or violent response might be easier, or at least might more directly yield what we want from a given situation. Wisdom reveals that there are consequences to our actions, however. If we betray someone, why would we not expect them to betray us in return? If we attack someone, verbally or physically, why would we not expect retaliation? Or in the instance recounted in Genesis 16, doesn't it makes sense for someone to run away from mistreatment?
When we choose what seems like the easier path in the moment, reacting without thinking our actions through, we actually make our journey more difficult. At the very least, we open ourselves up to be ruled by fear: fear that we won’t get what we want, fear that we won’t be able to keep it, or fear that someone will seek to harm us because of what we have done. It's hard to imagine the married women I know saying to their husbands, "Hey, why don't you just sleep with my young servant girl." But times were obviously different when this story was originally told. What hasn't changed is the idea that if God has made a promise, it doesn't matter how I go about pursuing it. Mistreatment and dehumanization of other people is seen as sanctioned behavior if a line can be traced back to a perceived divine promise. Honestly, it winds up looking like an excuse for poor behavior by self-centered people.
I have heard people claim something akin to the idea that God has a plan and that imperfect people are used as a part of that plan. So there is no real reason to strive to improve oneself because God can use people just as they are, mistakes and all. There's no real way to argue with that. The Bible is as full of people who do stupid things as the cast of any soap opera, but that doesn't mean other people are supposed to emulate them. It's a nice sentiment that God is watching over people, even the mistreated and abused, but wouldn't it be an incredible world if people who claimed to found their lives on faith actually exhibited faith? Everyone, at some point in their lives, can identify with one of the three people in this little domestic drama, but that doesn't mean we should make the same decisions. To suggest that the end result is the only thing that matters opens up an ethically dangerous can of worms.
Although it requires a little more thought on our part, choosing to respect the actual truth and beauty and creativity at the heart of every person yields much greater dividends in our lives. In a way, it may be a self-focused reason to do what is right, but we ultimately can’t avoid seeking to do what we think is best for us. Largely, it's in the way that we go about pursuing that self-interest. When we have respect for ourselves, for other people, and for the reality of our circumstances, we can create the best results for everyone involved, including ourselves. We wind up creating more strife for ourselves and others when we react out of fear and anger.
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