John 19: Personal Sedition and Its Consequences

Following the episode of Pontius Pilate's compromised integrity, the established community's reactivity to the message of radical love and authenticity culminates in an execution. This execution was nothing special within the context of the Roman Empire. Thousands of men were crucified for the crime of sedition, the public torture and capital punishment serving the additional purpose of dissuading other would-be insurrectionists. The Jesus character in the gospel of John is someone special, but the means of his execution is by no means unique for the time.

Like other gospel authors, the author of John can't resist telling the story so that some quips from the Hebrew scriptures seem prophetic. By the time the gospel of John was written, it was already part of Christian culture to look at their Jewish sacred texts and imagine that the earlier authors were writing about Jesus, which is to say that they imagined that the texts were about them. When the followers of a messiah claim that words written centuries ago were about the individual they revere, they are essentially asserting that they have special knowledge. "We are enlightened enough to know who these words really refer to. Everyone else is ignorant. We are special; you are not. You should listen to us, but we have no reason to listen to you."

If I looked back at something written in 1555 and decided that those words were actually referring to a twenty-first century individual, most folks would think I was a bit off my rocker. Except that, people do exactly that with the predictions of Nostradamus. Though the prophetic accuracy of Nostradamus has been debunked (along with much of his legendary biography), some people somehow think that a person living five centuries ago could see into the future and write actual predictive prophecies. At least with Nostradamus, he presumably had some idea that he was writing predictions of the future. The early Christians took things a step further and imagined that many different authors from centuries past were unknowingly writing about a particular individual, who just happened to be the legendary founder of their sect.

Thus, portions of the passion narrative in every gospel wind up being a somewhat cobbled together string of short excerpts from various authors within Hebrew Scriptures, interpreted as a sequence of events which then appear to have been prophetically predicted. It's a clever way to tell a story that legitimizes one's beliefs, and it also seems to have enough depth of meaning without digging any deeper than the appearance of prophetic fulfillment. Once you realize that what happens in the story seems to be the fulfillment of prophecy, there might seem to be no reason to look for a deeper meaning than that.

One way of seeking deeper meaning in the story is to reject the idea of a singular historical messianic figure and instead consider the personal application in our own lives. If the Jesus character here continues to be an exemplar who represents us, what does this story say about us? That we should placidly go to our death at the hands of angry and fearful religious conservatives who abdicate their violent desires to a cowardly, complicit government? Maybe not. Perhaps a more metaphorical approach will continue to serve us.

Crucifixion was the punishment primarily for sedition -- a crime which the Roman Empire considered to be worthy of public humiliation and torture, as a means of control as well as a means of execution. We know how poorly capital punishment works as a deterrent, and yet we're still strangely committed to that idea as a society. We can't really expect that the Romans could have been any more enlightened about its efficacy that we are. Sedition is rebellion against an authority, attempting to upset the balance of an existing power structure or social order. That is the explicit crime for which the Jesus character is executed. We know that the story doesn't end with the Jesus character's death, but he is effectively removed from participating fully in community in the same way he had been.

In our own lives, growth sometimes means committing acts of sedition, not against an actual government, but against some established social order or authority in our lives. Claiming our own personal power and creating a life that aligns with our deepest, most noble selves sometimes means upsetting some patterns that other people find comforting. When we act in a way that seems to threaten other people's sense of security -- especially if those people believe they are in positions of power over us -- those people are likely to react. Few people know how to manage their reactivity in a healthy way, and even fewer people are willing to do it, even if they know how. That means that our own growth and empowerment sometimes evokes fear in other people, because it seems like we're upsetting an order that they find comfortable.

Their reaction toward you may begin gently, with some effort to kindly guide you back into the patterns they find comfortable. They may escalate into threats about what will happen to you if you continue to upset the status quo. Eventually, some kind of violent reaction might close the door on your participation in that social structure. This doesn't necessarily mean that people will kill you or even physically harm you for outgrowing an established way of being, but emotional violence can still be devastating. People might kill a relationship by cutting off contact, by sowing rumors, or all sorts of other social and emotional executions. It isn't at all pleasant, but other people's reactivity is not your fault. Some relationships can heal again (which we'll consider as the gospel narrative continues), but they won't ever be quite the same. Once you leave a particular orbit, you can't quite forget all that you know from seeing things from a broader perspective.

We get into habits. It's easy to do, and it saves us having to consider every moment carefully, which could mentally incapacitate us. When we grow into a more intentional way of aligning with our deepest life-affirming values -- our personal guiding principles -- we inevitably have to examine some of the habitual ways we participate in our social structures and relationships. Living into a vision of a best possible version of ourselves may mean adopting some radically different behaviors than what we've habitually done in the past. This is not just an internal shift. When we change the dance, everyone on the dance floor with us is affected. Ultimately, we strive for our commitment to integrity and intentionality to improve the well-being of everyone around us. But change is unsettling for people, and they may not be ready for improved well-being if it means changing familiar and comfortable patterns.

Our decisions can be based on other people's anxiety. In fact, we often decide what to do based on how we think other people will react. We may be afraid of rejection, of being "unacceptable", or of losing a sense of belonging. We create limitations for ourselves based on what we think other people can handle. We play it safe. We might understandably choose the safety of familiar and comfortable patterns over the riskier path of personal empowerment. Many people seem content with conformity.

Or our decisions can be based on our own sense of self. We can prioritize our own deep values -- our own vision of a best possible version of ourselves -- over and above the anxiety of people around us. It's true that pursuing a path of greater integrity to our deepest, most noble selves might get us metaphorically crucified for sedition against an established social order. It's also true that alignment to our deepest life-affirming values creates greater wholeness not only for us, but also for the people around us. There is always more to the story than mourning what anxiety destroys.

When we dismantle our own irrational fears and live toward a vision of a best possible version of ourselves, we will necessarily connect with other human beings. We may end up finding new people to connect to, and we may connect with people differently. One way or another, though, we need connection with other human beings. It's scary to feel unwelcome, but there will be new places of welcome that we can't discover if we stay entrenched in old habits. It can be painful to be the object of other people's anxiety, but we are capable of experiencing pain and emerging on the other side of it.

Most importantly, our willingness to risk doesn't necessarily mean that we'll lose something. Sometimes, our journey toward greater integrity will actually inspire people around us rather than making them anxious. Sometimes, our commitment to our deepest values will make our bonds with other people stronger. Rather than compromising our sense of safety and familiarity, we might create something new with the people who are already a part of our tribe. It's up to us whether we're willing to risk losing comfortable patterns in order to build something better in our lives.

John 12: Loving and Hating Life (and considering the donkey)

After the story about foot-anointing as an unabashed act of appreciation, the chapter continues with several short scenes interspersed with passages from Hebrew scripture. The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) more frequently suggest that Old Testament words predicted things about Jesus, but here even the authors of John suggest that Jesus did certain things as a "fulfillment" of prophecies. Especially when we remember that the gospel of John was composed more than 50 years after a historical Jesus would have lived, this raises a few questions. We'll take the remainder of the chapter in two large chunks over the next couple of weeks. First, John 12:9-26.

To begin with, we find the Jewish priests having more murderous thoughts, now focused on Lazarus because his resurrection had understandably impressed some people. Why it didn't impress the Pharisees is unexplained. I suppose it is the plot of a number of horror movies that when a person comes back from the dead it isn't necessarily a good thing, but we have nothing in the biblical text to suggest that Lazarus was doing anything untoward after he returned. Actually, the biblical text doesn't suggest that Lazarus did anything, period. Was this passage just to paint the Jewish leaders in a poor light?

Obviously, every saga needs a villain, and the Jewish leaders are the villains of the gospel of John. In our lives, we also face people who can't see the good that people do because they are focused on undermining some sworn enemy. The Pharisees in the biblical myth have a hard time honoring the good things that Jesus does because they are afraid of something about him. The same thing happens in workplaces, families, and perhaps most blatantly in American politics. As human beings, we are bound to eventually face someone who can't appreciate our accomplishments because they are too busy trying to tear us down. Hopefully, we attend to our principles well enough that we don't fall into that pattern of behavior. There's really nothing of value to be gained from tearing other people down.

When we try to tear other people down, it is a testament to our own fear. We may be afraid that other people are going to be fooled by someone, which is to say that we believe that other people are less intelligent and more gullible that we are. We may be afraid that people will ignore us and pay attention to a more impressive person -- that we will not have our emotional needs met. We may be afraid that someone is going to get more money than us, that we will suffer financially if we don't tear someone else down. All of these fears are understandable, and still these fears sabotage our own happiness more than anyone else's.

A more emotionally mature response is to live with integrity despite the attention or apparent benefit someone else receives. From the flip side, when people's fears and hostility is focused on us, the emotionally mature response is to recognize it as a symptom of their own fear. We can remain connected with people who attack us if we want, but we should be aware of our own tendencies to be provoked. We don't want our attempts to remain engaged with hostile people to wind up knocking us off our intentional, principled path. In every situation, the important place to begin is with clarity about our own deep values and clear guiding principles. From there, we can act with integrity. There are times when the best response for us may be to ignore the reactive hostility of others.

The exemplar of the story in John certainly seems to ignore any perceived threat from the Jewish leaders. He leaves Lazarus unguarded and makes a grand entrance into Jerusalem. Now, this "triumphal entry" scene happens in every gospel narrative, but it does make a lot of sense to be celebrated by the crowds once news spread that someone had been raised from the dead. We have mentioned that the authors of John probably at least knew about the other gospel narratives, since the gospel of John was the last among the biblical gospels to be written. So, perhaps the reference to Zechariah 9:9 in verse 15 is intended to correct a somewhat ridiculous assertion by the authors of Matthew.

See, the authors of Matthew were so insistent on demonstrating how Jesus was the fulfillment of scriptural prophecy that they wind up suggesting some odd things. In the version of this scene in Matthew, the authors interpret their "prophetic" text to mean that the messiah will ride two animals, and so they insist that Jesus rode two donkeys into the city. This ridiculous assertion isn't repeated in the other gospel narratives, and it's just possible that the authors of John included an uncharacteristic indication of prophecy fulfilled to correct the silliness of the triumphal entry scene of Matthew.

The discrepancy is telling, however. It becomes obvious at the very least that the authors of Matthew didn't bear witness to the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. This event isn't recorded anywhere else outside of the biblical gospel narratives, which are not independent of one another. Gospel writers often copied previously written passages without any change of detail, which means that they offer no additional support or credibility. The ludicrous scene painted in Matthew of Jesus riding two animals suggests that the authors were willing to invent details in order to match with their interpretation of prophetic scripture, and this in and of itself damages the credibility of the gospel narrative overall.

Perhaps the authors of John realized something along these lines when they included Zechariah 9:9, quoted a little more sensibly. Even if there was a historical Jesus who made a blatantly messianic entrance into Jerusalem, this kind of behavior might be a bit suspect. If the symbolism of a display is going to be interpreted as a fulfillment of prophecy, the prophecy would have to be pretty familiar to people. And if a prophecy is familiar, anyone with the ego to do so could "fulfill" at least some prophecy if they wanted to, especially if the prophecy involved something as simple as riding a donkey into the city. Was the Jesus of the gospel of John trying to demonstrate a fulfillment of prophetic predictions? Or was his action coincidentally supported by scriptural words that seemed prophetic after the fact?

Well, the process taken in Matthew demonstrates that at least some prophecy mining was taking place. The authors looked for texts that seemed to contain a messianic prediction, and they invented stories about Jesus that fulfilled those texts. If this were not the case, the gospel of Matthew wouldn't have suggested that Jesus rode into town on two animals. Even if we assume that the other gospel writers took a different approach, what is the point behind mentioning Jesus riding a donkey? If it is to show that he fulfills a messianic prophecy, one must ignore the hundreds of thousands of people who rode into town on donkeys before and after this event. If the point is that Jesus was humble, riding on a donkey instead of a more majestic mount, one must ask how well the character of Jesus was supposed to know Hebrew scripture. If he knew that riding into town on a donkey would be construed as an indicator of the messiah, how humble could he have been?

The gospel of John even subtly acknowledges that these sorts of messianic claims are problematic, and the authors suggest that the followers of Jesus didn't put all this together until after the fact. What is the difference between "remembering that these things had been written of him" and hunting down scriptural texts that seem to fit? If Jesus was an actual person, and if people had actual (fallible, inaccurate) memories of him, how much easier would it have been to find scriptural references that aligned with him than with anyone else? My guess is that once you've decided that someone was a messiah, it's not difficult to track down some supporting texts that match that person's identity and life, especially given that human beings can be very flawed in their perceptions and very creative in their memories of events.

This is one problem with "authoritative" texts. When a document is lifted up as authoritative, it becomes unquestioned. And if you can twist the words to mean what you want them to mean, you can hide behind an unquestionable text rather than having to be personally responsible for what you say and do. The only thing that can give a text authority is alignment with reality. A text doesn't become true just because we agree with it. While we can play match up between people and prophecies as much as we like, the truth is that we could find correlations between anyone's life and the ancient prophecies of some culture. As entertaining as that may be, it's a distraction from living our lives with intention and purpose.

The story actually moves on quickly to the Jesus character speaking about death and purpose. We may not agree with his metaphors, but the authors of John seem to have Jesus say essentially that a person's life is worth more after it's over. When a grain of wheat dies and is buried, it brings forth abundant fruit that would have been impossible if that grain of wheat had remained whole. Likewise, people who cling to their own life and well-being will suffer loss, while people who release their grip on life and well-being find something eternal and wonderful. Then, it is asserted once more that those who follow the example of Jesus will be rewarded.

Alright, so perhaps there is something to the whole "riding a donkey means you're humble" imagery. If the messiah of this story knows how great he is and still chooses to ride a symbolically humble animal, maybe following the example would mean that we recognize our own human frailty and weakness even as we acknowledge our own personal strengths and greatness. Sure, people were making a spectacle and calling him royalty (and he didn't tell them to stop), but he didn't take advantage of their adoration either. He received it humbly and gracefully, by the account in John. We can endeavor to do the same perhaps, balancing honest and authentic self-awareness of our strengths and power with honest and authentic self-awareness of our weaknesses and dependence on others.

What does it mean then that if we love our life we will lose it and if we hate our life we will gain it? This phrase also appears in all four gospels, although in different contexts. The authors of John seem to support the concept of eternal life, which we must take as a metaphor. The phrase, "abundant life" seems clearer and more useful. If someone "loves" life in this sense, it would seem to be equivalent with a fear for one's safety, an unhealthy longing for security and safety that becomes the priority over and above one's principles. "Hating" life would then indicate not being worried or fearful about one's safety and security, which would free one up to live with authenticity and integrity to deep guiding principles regardless of other people's reactions. When you stop being afraid of the consequences, it's easier to embody justice, equity, and compassion in your life, despite the resistance others may express. And if more people honored their principles over their own safety, perhaps it would become clear how much our deepest values coincide with one another.

This is what is must mean to emulate the Jesus of the gospel of John, to be committed to one's principles so deeply that integrity is more important than safety, which brings us to one additional possibility for the mention of riding a donkey. The donkey may be symbolic of peace. Certainly, the reference to Zechariah 9:9 makes sense with this interpretation as much as the interpretation of humility. If the presence of the donkey in the story is intended to suggest valuing peace over conflict, then we have another suggestion at what it might mean to emulate an idealized self-differentiated person of integrity. Even when we are more committed to our principles than we are to our own safety and security, this doesn't mean we should be brash and hostile to others about our beliefs and values. The value of peace might help temper our interactions, and is obviously a better frame for our relationships than fear. Our lack of fear about other people's reactions need not mean that we are unnecessarily provocative. Our part is to live intentional lives of integrity and to model gentle fearlessness.


As a postscript, I should be clear in this that there are still people in some places in the world who face very real fear for their safety on a daily basis. I'm writing from the context of United States society, in which a lot of our fear is misguided and irrational. For some, it is a much more challenging prospect to allow one's authenticity to take priority over one's safety. I'm not promoting rash, irresponsible public action. Unlike the apparent glorification of martyrdom in this passage from John, I think we have greater potential to make a difference in the world while we are living in the world. We just need to be honest about how realistic or unrealistic our fears are. If we are afraid that someone is going to put a bullet in our heads if we quietly act for justice, equity, and compassion, we should be thoughtful about how we live out our values. If we are afraid that someone is going to embarrass us or that we are going to lose a bit of popularity or even wealth if we live with integrity to our principles, it's important to put those fears in perspective.

Isaiah 29: Creating the Future

Human creativity (and our fear of being wrong about anything) make prophetic passages like Isaiah 29 potentially dangerous. Not all prophecy is prediction about the future, but this chapter clearly is intended as such. Whether the authors are predicting a literal future or are figuratively depicting a hopeful future is up for debate, but it is clear that the chapter is intended to predict a future that is different from current reality. 

We have some funny tendencies when we hear or read prophecies. Whether the predictions are coming from a financial "expert," a passage of ancient text, or the horoscope, we have a tendency to want to apply those words as directly as we can to our own lives, so that we can draw conclusions and make decisions that are in line with what is "supposed" to happen -- or even "destined" to happen. Even many people who would never put stock in a fortune teller or Tarot card reader look into the Bible and believe that they read "promises from God" about their personal lives. Entire religious communities take verses out of their original context and misapply them as personal promises relevant today. Jeremiah 29:11 is a prime example. It reads,  "For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope." This is not a personal promise to all believers, as a casual reading of Jeremiah reveals, and yet many people seem greatly comforted by this "personal promise from God," misappropriated though it may be.

Our creativity may become doubly engaged when we place confidence in prophecies. We begin to interpret exactly what is meant by the words, and we may begin seeking out ways to cause the prophecy to be true. If a horoscope tells us, "You will receive a gift today," we might be sure to check the mail and keep all of our appointments. If we don't actually receive a physical gift, we might start thinking through the day to discover what the intangible gift was. Perhaps it was the moment when someone sat and deeply listened to us, or perhaps it was the kind person with a full cart of groceries who let us go ahead of them with our three items. Most likely, we can figure out something that we would consider a kindness if we have been engaging with people all day expecting to receive something. 

Some predictions are more vague, however, and place things a bit more in our control. What if, instead of passively receiving a gift, I told you that you would find a treasure? Now, the responsibility is even more on your shoulders to make the prediction true. Even if you find a quarter on the ground, you can prove the prediction correct. The question is whether you are more likely than usual to find a quarter on the ground if you are expecting to find a treasure. It may be that once you hear such a prediction, your subconscious is more attuned to finding something even if you aren't consciously seeking it out. Prophecies are sometimes even more vague than that, though. Instead of telling you that you will a treasure, I might say, "A portion of your wealth will spring up from the ground." You could interpret that in such a way that finding a quarter makes it true, but your mind might also do a great many things with that statement. Maybe you will invest more in fossil fuels. Maybe you will plant a garden, so that you spend less on groceries. Maybe you will be entrepreneurial and leave your job to start a palm tree farm. 

Of course, you may be thinking, "I wouldn't do anything at all. I don't believe in your ability to make such predictions." Fair enough. The trustworthiness of the source certainly would seem to be an issue. This is why biblical prophecy is so problematic. The empirical trustworthiness of the Bible is fairly low when it comes to prophecies. The problem is that people have proclaimed that the source is infallible, and therefore every bit of biblical prophecy that seems not to be true is interpreted as symbolic or yet to come. Each of these has its own pitfalls.

Interpreting biblical prophecy as symbolic is a convenient way of not having to address inaccuracies and false predictions. Perhaps it is convenient that there is no way to verify the symbolic meaning. If a hundred people point to a hundred different events as the "fulfillment" of a particular passage of prophecy, there is no way to determine which of them, if any, is "correct." We have to rely on how much we trust the person making the claim, and we have to decide whether the claim makes sense to us. We are relying on our own emotions and intellect to draw these conclusions, not the source of the prediction. There is no way to take the event back to a biblical author and say, "Is this what you meant?" In reality, biblical authors making predictions were probably either (a) commenting on events relevant to their own people in their own time, or (b) forecasting vague hopes for the future in order to quiet the minds of powerless oppressed people with wavering faith. 

When we interpret biblical prophecy as "yet to come," we run into even more problems, however. Just like the person who would decide to start a palm tree farm if told, "A portion of your wealth will spring up from the ground," people can start looking for ways to make prophecies true. Or, at least, they can behave as if their interpretations of the prophecies are true -- as if all of their actions have foregone conclusions. Isaiah's prophecy that all peoples would stream to the "holy mountain" Jerusalem for wisdom and guidance from Yahweh was intended to offer comfort and hope to people, not to inform geopolitical decisions thousands of years into the future. Yet, there are some who continue to believe in the inevitability of this prophecy. If the interpretation is that this prophecy has not yet come to pass, this interpretation directly influences the way one views and deals with modern Israel and other nations in the Middle East. There is thus a dangerous potential for a misappropriated ancient text to inform military and political decisions, perhaps even overriding a clear sense of what would bring the greatest good to the greatest number of people. 

Thus it is that Isaiah 29 is a dangerous piece of writing, not because the authors were malicious, but because they were wrapped up in their own ethnocentricity, and twenty-first century readers misapplying the words to themselves find justification for closed-mindedness and self-aggrandizement. Consider, 

And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
    all that fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her,
    shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.
Just as when a hungry person dreams of eating
    and wakes up still hungry,
or a thirsty person dreams of drinking
    and wakes up faint, still thirsty,
so shall the multitude of all the nations be
    that fight against Mount Zion. (Is 29:7-8)

In verse 2, Isaiah identifies Ariel as Jerusalem, and for twenty-first century people, this might be interpreted as the city of Jerusalem (although probably only the Jewish and Christian portions of the city!), the nation of Israel, or the whole of Christianity. Enemy nations might be interpreted literally or figuratively, but the gist of the prophecy is that what seem to be powerful foes will disappear like a dream. This will happen because of something Yahweh does -- because of a supernatural will -- and thus can be beyond the explanation or understanding of human beings. What would you decide to do in your life if you believed that everyone who could possibly oppose you would eventually just disappear? This could be a very empowering idea. However, some opposing forces can help us maintain our integrity. We could become quite bull-headed, failing to see the long-term consequences of our actions, failing to see how what we decide affects other people, if we took this mandate to extreme.

The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,
    and the neediest people shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
For the tyrant shall be no more,
    and the scoffer shall cease to be;
    and those alert to do evil shall be cut off --
those who cause a person to lose a lawsuit,
    who set a trap for the arbiter in the gate,
    and without grounds deny justice to the one in the right. (Is 29:19-21)

Again, this seems quite nice. The neediest people shall have reason to celebrate, and there will be justice. The problem is that very few of us cast ourselves in the role of villain in our own story. We believe that we are the one in the right. We believe that we deserve to win our lawsuits. We are the meek and humble sufferers who will eventually be lifted up. And if that is how we cast ourselves, that means that the people who find fault with our way of thinking are the scoffers. Those who keep us from doing what we want (and from forcing others to do what we want) are the tyrants. If we have a promise that those scoffers and tyrants will be taken care of, then we have no reason to listen to their perspective now. If we have confidence that justice will eventually be done, then we can obviously (egotistically) trust that we will be exonerated.

Please bear in mind, I am not attempting to interpret the words of the authors of Isaiah as they intended them to be interpreted. I am not even attempting to provide an interpretation that is viable in light of the entirety of biblical scripture. I am simply demonstrating the way that prophecy can be twisted and manipulated into self-legitimizing "promises," based on what I have personally read and heard from believers. It is important to understand that there is no viable way to talk someone out of a belief or "debate someone into reasonableness" when they have confidence that their personal scoffers, enemies, and tyrants will one day vanish into nothing because of God.

One more short verse, the final one of the chapter: "And those who err in spirit will come to understanding, and those who grumble will accept instruction," (Is 29:24). This is, for some believers, a blatant promise that one day everyone else will understand things as they do. It is confirmation that they are right, and that everyone who has a different interpretation of reality is erring in spirit or grumbling, but only temporarily. Perseverance without questioning one's perception is thus made into a virtue.

I've alluded to a couple of problems with thinking that we know the future, but let me clearly state the three biggest ones that seem to emerge from trusting biblical prophecy as yet to come. Then, I want to propose a better option. The first big problem is that we can be thoughtless about our own actions and beliefs if we believe that we know the future. This even counts for thinking that we know about an afterlife. If we believe we know what's going to happen, we have less reason to be thoughtful about what we do and believe right now. When we are willing to examine our own beliefs and actions, we have the opportunity to grow. When we grow, we get better at being the kind of people we actually want to be. If we don't grow, we stagnate.

Second, we stop listening when we think we know what is going to happen. If we believe that we know the way to eternal life, we stop caring what anyone else thinks about it. If we believe we know the way to happiness, we stop listening to anyone else's ideas. Once we think we know what is going to happen, it seems like the only reason we have to listen to other people is to tell them that they are wrong if they disagree with us. We need other people. It isn't that case that other people are just useful tools for us to gain knowledge and can be discarded once we know all we need to know. First off, we never know all we could possibly learn from other people, but beside that, we need relationship one another as human beings. We need connection with one another. When we stop really listening, we stop connecting.

Finally, we might stop making a difference when we think we know what is going to happen. Belief in an afterlife is one of the greatest detractors to justice and equity in the world. If you believe that good people (whatever your definition of that is) will go to heaven for eternity, you have less reason to make sure that their life here on earth is worth living. "Those people may suffer now, but they'll be able to celebrate for eternity if they just believe as I believe." What drivel! Even the belief that God is going to take care of things here in this reality is a bit demotivating. If God's will will be done no matter what, then we have no reason to act. If we believe that God will take care of all our enemies and scoffers and tyrants, then we are probably under the impression that he will do that when he's good and ready, and we need not worry our little heads about it. Meanwhile, we can also just wait for God to take care of all the other problems we see around us. Hunger, violence, slavery, disease -- they seem like insurmountable challenges, and it's understandable why we would just want to believe that one day, they will supernaturally disappear. Human problems won't just go away. We have to act, to whatever degree we are capable, if we want to see a better world.

Since prophecies are so problematic (particularly since so few risky prophecies ever turn out to be true), and since we cannot know what's going to happen, we have to base our beliefs and our actions on something different. Believers and non-believers alike can do this. If there is an afterlife, you don't know anything about it. You might think or hope or believe some things about it, but you honestly only know about this reality. You don't know the future. You might be able to make some reasonable predictions, and you might hope for some less reasonable things, but you honestly do not know the future. Recognizing that is the first step.

One thing we can know is what we value. As I have repeated many times, we all have a deepest, most noble self that reflects our innate truth, beauty, and creativity. We also heap on a pile of lies and fears about ourselves, other people, and the world we share. We have to dismantle those fears and lies and recognize what we really value -- the principles that we most want to guide us. We can't know the future, because we haven't created it yet. And we can't create the future we most want unless we know what we value most.

This is the point at which our defensive mechanisms kick in and we get sarcastic. "What I value most is for all the idiots to just leave me alone." "What I really value is a warm day with a cool margarita when I can just kick back and relax." "I want to create a future where I keep my paycheck instead of paying more taxes than all those other people." When your mind starts in with those defensive routines, recognize them for what they are. You're trying to protect yourself from realizing what really matters most to you. If you recognize what really matters most to you, you might have to do something about it. You're trying to protect yourself from dreaming big. If you dream big, you might get disappointed or hurt.

Even though they had no control over how twenty-first century narcissistic believers would twist their words, the biblical prophets knew how to dream big, and they knew what they valued. They were products of their time -- more than 2500 years ago in the case of Isaiah's authors -- so their values may look a little different from ours. We can be just as bold, however, in casting vision for what could be. Casting vision isn't the same as claiming to know the future. Casting vision is saying, "This is what I wish the world were like, and this is what I'm willing to do to move it a little bit closer to that vision." Powerful vision isn't based on our fears or lies about ourselves and other people, and it isn't based on our defensive routines. Powerful vision is based on our deep guiding principles -- the things that we most want to guide our behavior and decisions, even though we often let other things get in the way.

Guiding principles aren't complicated. For me, the idea that all people have inherent worth is a guiding principle. I don't always carry that idea forward into my life as well as I would like, but my values are all tied back to that principle. As I cast vision for the future, that principle is at the heart of what I envision. Your guiding principles don't have to match mine, but whatever they are, your guiding principles and your values are what empower your vision for the kind of world you want to create. We cast vision and create a better world by starting in our own lives. If you envision a world with greater compassion, what needs to happen in your life to start making that a reality? If you envision a world where clean water is available to all, what do you need to do to move things in that direction?

What principles do you most want to guide your life?
What do you value most deeply?
What would a world built on those principles and values look like?
What can you do to allow your life to embody that vision?

We do not know the future. We create the future. We can choose to create a future based on our deeply held values, or we can continue forward on auto-pilot. I know which one seems most compelling to me.

Isaiah 25-26: Being Special

As with many biblical prophecies, there are significant aspects of Isaiah 25-26 that are obviously based on cultural bias, and there are other assertions that are simply not true. In Isaiah 25, for instance, the authors claim that Yahweh was "a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat." By the end of the chapter, there is the snide claim, "The Moabites shall be trodden down in their place as straw is trodden down in a dung-pit," which is rather interesting considering the status of the Moabites as poor, distressed refugees who needed shelter (Is 15:1-16:4). It is somewhat ironic to call the Moabites proud while remaining blind to the inherent pride of considering one's own people to be specially chosen as worthy by the only real deity among a sea of tribal gods.

Beyond that, it is a rather frustrating empty promise to suggest that God will make life easier or smoother for the "righteous" person. Everyone faces difficulties in life, but some of the people who face the most insurmountable problems are also people who go to church every Sunday and do their best to live by what they are taught there. Some "righteous" people have very challenging lives, and some "unrighteous" people would seem to have very easy lives. It is one of the great problems of capitalism that many people who gain wealth via the suffering of others have rather enviable lives. And what does it really mean to be righteous? Contrary to what many Christians have been led to believe, morality is not exclusive to religious people. Atheists and Humanists have abundant reason to behave ethically and morally, and many do. Should we assume that their way is made smooth by God because they are righteous? More likely, the accurate interpretation of "righteousness" as it is used here should be: "people who sincerely believe what we believe."

Some believers will claim that the important symbolic predictions of these chapters have been proven true, not that nations have literally streamed to the "holy city," Jerusalem, to learn from God's wisdom, but that Christianity has spread throughout the world. The same narcissism that characterizes the ancient Israelites' self-identity as a chosen people has now become a self-characterization of many Christians. That Christianity has spread throughout the world is undeniable. However, it is also true that Islam and Buddhism have spread throughout the world. There are Atheists in every nation, too, whether they organize publicly in groups or not. The ethnocentrism of this passage conveniently ignores that those things which are true about its claims regarding Yahweh are true of a great many belief systems.

For instance, it is suggested that, although Yahweh is busy destroying cities in wrath, punishing them for calling on different gods (never mind that only the Israelites were his chosen people, and they weren't exactly creating a righteous society), those who patiently trust Yahweh to come through will be rewarded because Yahweh will eventually act on his will. Whatever might be commended in this assertion might be commended of patiently trusting in anything. If one prays for rain, it doesn't matter to whom one prays; eventually it will rain. When it rains, one is likely to attribute that to whatever god was the focus of one's prayers, but rain happens because of natural processes, not because of supernatural causes. One's perception of why or whence the rain comes does not change the fact that rain is a natural phenomenon that will happen whether anyone prays for it or not. Anyone who survived the warfare to which Isaiah's authors were responding could attribute that survival to their gods, but the more likely explanation would have been luck, or possibly some kind of privileged circumstances.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of these passages that lingers in the minds of believers today is the assumption that God works through human warfare. Armies were the practical means through which Yahweh was supposedly laying waste to cities, after all. There was no supernatural event or even extreme global weather patterns; when the authors of Isaiah say that Yahweh leveled a city, they mean that a foreign army leveled a city. Yahweh gets the credit for military successes. What this also means, however, is that military victors get credit for being Yahweh's instruments. When people go to war, the outcome is not based on the moral standing of the peoples involved in the eyes of a supernatural. When people bomb cities, the death and destruction is not ordained by God. Violence is a human decision, the consequences of which rest squarely on the shoulders of the human beings who made that decision. And violence always has consequences. There is no possibility that all the "evil cities" in the world can be destroyed and everyone left will go streaming to the "righteous cities" that remain, but even if that were a possibility, it wouldn't be because human beings raised armies and went to war.

Biblical prophecies are fraught with hazardous assumptions, and many of those assumptions still infect the minds of some believers. It is one of the problems of believing in supernaturals that people do not stop with mere belief in a supernatural, but must also believe that they have a special relationship with the supernatural -- that they are somehow special, superior to the people around them. Human value is not quantifiable. One person or group of people is not worth more than another. Human beings have value because they are human beings, not because of their special circumstances with regard to wealth, skin color, sexuality, or belief in a supernatural. Human beings are capable of making ethical and moral choices, regardless of their religious affiliation or lack thereof. Human beings are also capable of making unethical and immoral choices, regardless of their religious affiliation or lack thereof. No one is special in that regard, or if you prefer, everyone is equally special in that regard.

That is really the thrust of these chapters of Isaiah, after all. People want reassurance that they will be alright. People want some kind of hope to which they might cling. People want confirmation that they are special and beloved. People want to believe that their city is strong and impervious, because their supernatural protects it. The problem is that the sort of hope and reassurance Isaiah offers is inevitably short-lived, or else it requires a great deal of cognitive dissonance. The promises made did not come to pass, and the interpretation of events does not stand up to scrutiny. If we wish to be honest and we wish to have sane and responsible beliefs, we need something else on which to place our hope. We need a different source of reassurance. While we could simply believe that we have a special elevated status above other human beings because a supernatural said so, this sort of belief does not really serve us if we want to participate in building a better world (or, as some believers might phrase it, if we want to participate in building the kingdom of God).

On what can we hope? Where can we find reassurance in the midst of personal or societal trials? Next week, we'll take a look at one possibility.

Isaiah 21-22: When Judgment Hits Close to Home

I had begun to write about the historical relevance of some of the statements in the oracles in Isaiah 21-22, but it struck me that none of that really matters in our lives today. Ancient history is interesting, and it's worth noting that predictions like, "Within a year, according to the years of a hired worker, all the glory of Kedar will come to an end," simply didn't happen. Kedar isn't around anymore as a nation, but it didn't happen within the span of a year, and this prophecy is very clear that what's intended is a literal one-year-in-the-life-of-a-laborer period of time. If nothing else, a glimpse at history helps to explain what the author(s) may have meant, but it doesn't necessarily prompt us to change anything about our lives.

The gist of the whole series of oracles against the nations is that the people of Judah looked with judgment on all the other nations who were worshiping the wrong gods, engaging in unclean cultural practices, and -- most of all -- posing a military threat to Judah and Jerusalem. Words of condemnation against those nations were comfort to the Israelites, and prophecy against people who were living differently offered hope to those Israelites who were suffering while living faithfully. We all need words of comfort sometimes, and one easy way to provide an illusion of comfort is to degrade someone else. That isn't real empowerment, even though it might make us feel better in the moment.

Here's the real kicker, though: When you get to Isaiah 22, the pronouncements are no longer about other nations. Suddenly, the prophet is condemning Jerusalem and some specific leaders who were not living exemplary lives. It's all well and good to criticize the people who aren't behaving the way you want them to, but it stings a bit sometimes to be honest about how much our own actions line up with our beliefs.

We get distracted sometimes by minor things, by pettiness, by things just not going the way we want them to. Particularly, we get distracted by our fears and by the false beliefs we've developed about ourselves, other people, and the world we all share. Pronouncing judgment on others is not going to get us very far toward the kind of world we most want to create. Even pronouncing judgment on ourselves isn't going to create the lives we want. Shame is not a solid foundation for anything.

What matters is that we recognize one another as human beings capable of doing amazing things. We are capable of taking personal responsibility in our own lives and recognizing the limits of our control over other people. We are capable of setting healthy boundaries that define what we stand for and still allow for connection with other people who think or believe differently from us. It feels powerful to stand against other people, but the real power is in standing for other people. This is not always easy to do. We have to understand our own guiding principles, and we have to be willing to allow those principles to actually guide us. In our own lives, we can model what it is to live courageous lives of integrity and intentionality, not to shame or condemn anyone else, but to provide empowerment and hope. As a wise person has said, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

So when we write our own oracles, let's not compose oracles against others or against ourselves. Let's cast vision for a best possible version of ourselves and live into that vision to the best of our ability. Let's look at other people as potential partners in creating a better world, even though sometimes fear presents an obstacle. People have inherent worth, and we can build some pretty incredible things on that foundation. The more we are able to stand in the face of other people's fear (and our own fear) and have a calm sense of integrity to our guiding principles, the more we are able to transform our own lives and the lives of people around us.

It may take a bit of practice, but we can nurture our lives and the places in which we work and play toward well-being in every dimension. This is what we get to practice, then: (1) Know what you stand for. (2) Stand for it. Take care not to stand for something based on fear, and be sharp about the temptation to phrase things so that your hostile stance against something or someone looks like a committed stand for something. Maybe talk through things with someone else who is committed to living intentionally and purposefully. Then, keep standing.

Mark 15: Sifting Through the Crucifixion Narrative

Continuing for another couple of weeks with the Passion story as it is related in the gospel of Mark, we read of the crucifixion event and some connections with the Hebrew Scriptures made by the early church. It  bears repeating that there is very little evidence of a historical Jesus, but we wouldn't necessarily expect there to be. There is very little evidence from the first century of any single person who wasn't a powerful political or military figure, or a historian who wrote about important political and military figures. The Christian cult is mentioned in a couple of historical documents, but in these reports historians repeat what the early church believed about Jesus, rather than verify their story.

Even if there were more evidence of a historical Jesus, this would not necessarily validate any particular story about him. That a person names Nunzio exists is one kind of assertion; to say that Nunzio is manager of an Italian restaurant is another kind of assertion; and to say that Nunzio never buys wine for his restaurant because he can just turn water into alcohol whenever he wishes is yet another kind of assertion. To prove that Nunzio is a real person does not thereby lead to the conclusion that Nunzio can turn water into wine. Even to prove that Nunzio seemed to turn water into wine on one occasion does not necessarily conclude that he could do it again, or that he could perform any other amazing feat. With regard to Jesus, there is simply no way to prove the claims of the gospel narratives.

This is not a glaring indictment for most believers. Many people would say that accepting the gospel narratives requires faith, and they believe that their lives are improved by that faith. I have suggested that believing in a historical Jesus or that such a person performed miracles is rather shallow when one considers the minimal impact such belief could have in an individual's life. To believe in unicorns or dragons matters not at all (save that one may be a target for those who would take advantage of such gullibility), until one decides to quit one's job, leave one's family, and go hunting for unicorns or dragons. Then, it matters a great deal. Belief in what Jesus symbolizes -- belief to the extent that the values represented by the Jesus archetype permeate one's life -- would seem to be more vital than belief that Jesus actually existed.

Thus, when reading the Passion story in any of the gospels, one might do well to push past the question of whether something really happened and look to the symbolism as one would look at any other mythological tale. What is the wisdom being communicated? Where does one find oneself in the story? If the story is about Hercules slaying a hydra, does one identify most with the heroic role, with the role of the nephew Iolaus, with the townsfolk who were victims of the danger until someone heroic came along, or with the naysayers after the event who minimized the accomplishment? Can one learn something from every character in the story about oneself, or about what a best possible version of oneself might look like? This would seem to be a more valuable approach than blind belief that someone accomplished something unique a long time ago, and that the intangible benefits are available to anyone who just believes the story.

For the early church, it was important to set Jesus up as a unique messianic figure connected to Hebrew Scripture. This was possibly an unfortunate misinterpretation of the intentions of the prophets, particularly Isaiah, who cast vision for every individual to live into the ideal of compassionate justice. When the words of the ancient scriptures are made to be about a single person, it rather lets everyone else off the hook for living into that ideal. Several of the quotes and details of the crucifixion story are thus attributable to attempts on the part of the early church to affirm that Jesus was a unique fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy. The mythologizing of the story can be seen in the wine mixed with myrrh which Jesus refuses, the fall of darkness over the land, the casting of lots (gambling -- rolling dice) for his clothing, the presence of criminals alongside him (although this would certainly not be unusual, since criminals were crucified in droves in the Roman empire), and the words that Jesus speaks, which are a reference to a psalm of lament.

An interesting feature of the story is the tearing of the temple curtain from top to bottom. Many have interpreted this as a symbol that the separation between God and man was no more -- that people did not have to go through priests and sacrificial rituals to connect with the divine. Others have suggested that this is a symbol that God no longer lives in houses made by human hands, which would have been a significant concept in the first century. In any case, it was certainly an indictment against the religious power structures of the time, and it was a call to a change of perspective.

The burial scene is intended to provide enough details to make the resurrection event convincing, even though that event is a bit odd as it is told in the earliest version of the gospel of Mark. The verification that Jesus is dead, the traditional appropriate Jewish treatment of the body, and the heavy stone rolled across the tomb entrance are to make resurrection reports credible and impressive. Normally, a poor man crucified as a criminal would have been tossed in a mass grave, and whether he was still there or whether he had gotten up and walked off somewhere would be very difficult to determine. Like the other seemingly historical aspects of the story, hanging one's faith on whether things happened exactly as a gospel narrative suggests is a rather shallow reading. The real value is in determining the application in one's own life, and there are more worthwhile applications that mere belief in an event.

When I say that it is unfortunate that the early church appropriated Hebrew scripture to assert that Jesus was a unique messianic figure, I mean that it is very difficult to reclaim some of the ideas of those writings if one believes that they applied specifically to one particular person. Lament psalms were meant to be available to a community and to any individual who experienced the kind of suffering and pain reflected in the poem/song. Connecting a lament psalm to Jesus takes it somewhat off the market for personal expression, because, from the perspective of believers, no one suffered or felt pain like Jesus.The lament becomes about Jesus' suffering instead of our own, and our own suffering is made insignificant by comparison.

Except that our own suffering isn't insignificant. Comparing it to someone who has suffered more might seem like our preoccupation with our own pain isn't legitimate, but that doesn't keep us from feeling the pain. It just gives us reason to feel guilty or ashamed about feeling our pain. One big lesson that we could take from understanding how the gospel writers and the early church made use of well-known Hebrew scriptures is to reclaim our experience. The original intent behind much of the prophetic writing in the Old Testament was for individuals and communities to be more intentional in their behavior and to have more integrity to their values. These ideas are not unique to the Old Testament. This has been a challenge in many cultures from many different perspectives throughout human history. Seen as such, the Hebrew scriptures become one resource among many resources to influence individuals toward living in a way that contributes to holistic well-being in their own lives and in the lives of their communities and neighborhoods. We need to experience our own suffering without being ashamed of feeling pain, and we need to recognize our own role in influencing our realities.

There are two symbolic results of the crucifixion that bear acknowledgment -- truths that the early church recognized and expressed as well as it could in the culture of the first century. First, there is that image of the curtain being torn in two. There is no separation between the divine and humanity. Since whatever we call divine is intrinsic to humanity, we can connect with those qualities within ourselves whenever we wish. We might become more skillful at introspection, but we are never denied access to our deepest, most noble self and we do not have to go through any particular ritual actions to connect with ourselves. God is a word people use to refer to a deep part of themselves, but we do not have to follow any linguistic protocol to connect with that part of ourselves that we could characterize as divinity.

Second, there is the idea of forgiveness. In the context of a covenant relationship between a supernatural and humanity, human beings had to somehow account for the things they did that were out of alignment with what their supernatural wanted. This is what the Jewish sacrificial system was largely about: staying in alignment with the values of their supernatural. It became something of an obsession in Jewish society. Keeping oneself pure, remaining personally in step with religious law, became more important than risky acts of justice or compassion. People were perhaps apt to disconnect from real, deep community because they didn't want to be scrutinized. Even today, a lot of people are more concerned about what they have done wrong, what other people have done wrong, what people might be thinking about doing wrong, or what wrong motives they may have had for doing something that seems quite good on the outside. It is also much easier to stay in a judgmental frame of mind when you're focused on how people are failing.

The early Christian church solved this issue, but most of them didn't seem to realize it. By inventing a dying and rising messiah figure who eliminated the need for ritual animal sacrifice, the early church essentially said, "We don't have to worry about sin anymore." This is not to imply licentiousness (although some people in the early church apparently did take it that way), but rather to say that the best thing to do when you fall short of your ideal is to get up -- hopefully with the help and embrace of a loving community of people -- and take another run at it. The idea of sinfulness is laced with shame, and it winds up not being incredibly helpful. If we were to accept that we have nothing to fear from getting something wrong, we might get past the self-obsession with where we might spend an imaginary afterlife and focus on things that matter right now -- like how we are in our relationships with the people we encounter every day.

Even for people who want to believe in the historical validity of the Passion story, then, there are these two big things that can transform the way we do life. We are not separated from whatever it is we call divine, and we are capable of making mistakes and moving on. There are often consequences when we fall out of alignment with our deep guiding principles, but those consequences don't have to come with shame or insurmountable guilt. We are human beings. We are not perfect. We will disappoint one another because we will have expectations of one another that go unmet. That's life. Our real work is not to try not to do anything wrong and to do whatever we can to make up for all of the mistakes we make. Our real work is to bring our capability into full engagement in the communities where we live.

This doesn't mean permissiveness with regard to harmful behavior. It means focusing on what will create greater well-being rather than what someone has done wrong. We never just do harm to one person; our harmful acts always affect ourselves and a whole network of people -- often even people that we will never meet. The idea behind grace is not that we shrug our shoulders and say, "Ah, well, I'll do better next time," but instead to direct our focus away from our own "eternal destinies" and toward how we can positively influence the world around us right now, in this moment. This is how we move beyond our fears of scarcity, fears of embarrassment, fears of insignificance, and fears of powerlessness and move into transformational relationships with the people around us. Whether the Passion story sources that kind of focus for you or whether you draw inspiration from somewhere else, we are capable of building incredible powerful connections with other people when we are willing to set shame aside and bring our authentic selves forward.

Isaiah 18-20: Visions of a Different World

The oracles against Ethiopia and Egypt in Isaiah 18-20 are more of the same kinds of prophecy as other proclamations against nations around Judah. The author of these passages predicts that Ethiopians will bring gifts to Yahweh's temple in Jerusalem, and that Egyptians will be plagued with infighting, drought, and eventually a harsh king. Later, the author claims, Egypt will experience mercy from the Israelites' supernatural, and several cities will be dedicated to Yahweh. Egypt and Assyria will be alongside Judah, reconciled and claimed as Yahweh's chosen people. The short passage that follows depicts Isaiah's sign-act of walking around naked for three years, interpreting that act to symbolize the captivity of Ethiopia and Egypt.

Scholars have a difficult time with these oracles, because there is no apparent place in known history that can match up with the implied events of the prophecies. Some aspects and details may seem to have relevance, but then other details would be out of place. This limits the application of the text as a historical testament of events or as an accurate forecasting of events that were yet to happen when the oracles were written. Since it's obvious that some editorial work has been done to create the existing versions of the book of Isaiah, some scholars attempt to rearrange passages to get a more accurate or sensible account. None of this work has any bearing on whether one can find meaning in the passage for life in the twenty-first century. If passages like this are about historical events, then their usefulness is exclusively past tense, since the events they describe either happened or failed to happen centuries ago. If one insists that the predictions are simply to demonstrate the power and authority of the Israelite deity, one must take into consideration that it's not clear that all of what is predicted here ever came to pass. In addition, a reader who already has a theistic bias doesn't need a passage about ancient nations to serve as evidence for God's power and authority, and a reader who doesn't have a theistic bias won't be convinced by the vague (and in some cases inaccurate) predictions of this passage.

A we've seen before, there are some problems with assuming that God is responsible for military conquests and natural disasters. Although the authors of Isaiah and other prophets had their reasons for seeing their supernatural as head over all nations' war efforts, they didn't understand the ramifications of their claims. They saw their society as unjust, with the wealthy and powerful neglecting their responsibilities toward the poor and disenfranchised. They saw their society as immoral, offering disingenuous religious sacrifices while they maintained systems of greed and self-indulgence. A foreign army at their doorstep was a clear indication to these prophets that Yahweh was unhappy, and that he was going to use whatever means were at his disposal to effect the  curses for disobedience proclaimed in the Sinai covenant. These same prophets trusted that Yahweh would also gladly bless the Israelites, if the people fulfilled the supernatural's expectations.

One cannot maintain a view of a god worth worshiping and also insist that such a deity was at the head of every military and ordaining the decisions of every government. It was fine motivation for change that the Israelites saw Yahweh behind their exiles, because in doing so they understood something about how their society had failed its own people. They also had the luxury of seeing their god behind their return from exile. In our time, we would have to see God as the one who ordained the many genocidal acts of the twentieth century, some of which continue in parts of the world today. We would have to see God as the true commander who ordered atomic bombs to be inflicted upon thousands of non-combatants in Japan. If God is the kind of deity depicted in Isaiah and other prophets of Hebrew scripture, all atrocities of war can be justified by a simple acknowledgment that the people who suffered or died did not live up to the demands placed on them by a supernatural.

The authors of Isaiah weren't necessarily off-base regarding what they wanted for their society, and even for their neighboring societies. This passage on Egypt has some pretty favorable predictions for what Yahweh will eventually do for that nation. The view of society's potential presented in Isaiah places justice, equity, and compassion high on the list of desirable qualities, and it sees these qualities as attainable by a people, particularly the people in charge. The authors may have been displaying a perspective that their supernatural was superior to every other nation's, but they were equally critical of their own people for failing to live by the standards that supernatural had set for them.

Israelite understanding of their agreement with Yahweh was not unlike other treaties between unequal powers in the Ancient Near East. The more powerful entity essentially tells the less powerful entity, "This is what you're going to do, and this is what I'm going to do." Basically, if the less powerful nation does everything that that the powerful ruler demands, then they get the benefits of the arrangement. However, if the less powerful nation fails to do everything the powerful ruler demands, then the curses of the treaty were valid responses by the ruler. There were perhaps phrased in colorful and symbolic terms, but essentially the ruler would take military action against the disobedient weaker subjects. That's how Israel and Judah saw their relationship with Yahweh. The supernatural said, "Here are my demands. Meet them and live prosperously; fail to meet them and die."

Through all of this proclamation of doom though, there is an undercurrent of hope. Isaiah 19 forecasts a future in which peaceful relations and unity exist between nations, at least between Egypt, Assyria, and Judah. This is a bit humorous, considering Judah's insignificance as a political power. Egypt was the seat of the previous empire, and Assyria was the seat of the current empire. Perhaps the prophet was hopeful that Judah would be the seat of a future empire; such a vision of the future is certainly suggested by other passages in Isaiah. Of course, that never happened, and it isn't likely to happen. The basic gist of that future alliance, though, was that justice and peace would be the rule rather than the exception. The vision of an empire ruled by Yahweh was that it would be the sort of place any person would want to live: where no one would go hungry, and no one would be afraid (Micah 4:4).

The values are a bit inspiring. The way the authors of Isaiah thought it would happen is a bit disappointing. They didn't think that people were actually capable of creating such a reality. They asserted that their god would make it so. Perhaps one could say that, just as Yahweh was seen as the primary actor when a foreign army swept in, Yahweh can also be seen as the primary actor when people make decisions that lead toward peace and justice. The tendency, however, is for people to abdicate responsibility for creating peace and justice. If we do not place the responsibility on a supernatural, perhaps we place responsibility on the government to make the kind of world we most want to live in. We may laugh at the suggestion, but that doesn't change our expectations.

There is, of course, another way of seeing the covenant promises and curses without assuming the existence of a supernatural. However the ancients thought of their world and society, they understood intuitively what characteristics and practices helped a society thrive and what characteristics and practices tore a society down. That their supernatural does not exist has no bearing on the value of justice, equity, and compassion. The view toward a world in which people are safe and have enough is still an inspiring vision. Human beings have to take responsibility for their actions in order for our reality to approach that vision.

God is not at the head of the military; human beings are. God is not in control of who has wealth and power; human beings are. God doesn't commit war atrocities; human beings do. God doesn't effect genocide; human beings do. God cannot respond compassionately to the world; human beings can. God is not capable of creating justice and equity; human beings must.

Whatever our vision of the world is, we are responsible for moving toward that, even if our only sphere of influence is our own lives. When we set aside fear, I suspect that most of us want the same kind of world, and I suspect that we value the same sorts of things that the prophets valued: justice, equity, and compassion. Aside from irrational fear, why wouldn't we all want to live in a sustainable world where no one went hungry and no one was oppressed? If that is our most noble vision for the planet, that is what we are called to create. We aren't called by some supernatural outside of ourselves; we call ourselves by the values we hold. When you set aside fear, what is your vision for the world? What will you do today to bring your life a little bit closer to that vision?

Mark 13: Days of Future, Past

Mark 13 contains several biblical passages that have fueled speculation about the "end times" throughout Christian history. Part of this speculation arises from assumptions about when the gospels were composed, and part of this speculation arises from a human desire to feel special. If you believe that you are among a select group of people who know an incredible secret, that can be very psychologically persuasive. Even for people like me who believe that there is no supernatural, it helps to have reminders that all human perception is limited -- it helps to know what would convince you to believe something different. If you don't know what would convince you to revise your beliefs, then your beliefs are more likely to be incongruous with reality. That is what happens to some people who believe that Mark 13 is describing something about their circumstances rather than the circumstances of people in the first century.

The Jewish people during the days of Roman occupation didn't like the Roman Empire very much. They staged rebellions every so often, and these rebellions were led by "messiahs" -- men who people thought would fulfill a prophetic role and establish a Jewish kingdom that surpassed all other kingdoms. Jesus was just one of a number of messiahs running around in the first century, but if the portrayal of Jesus in the gospels is anywhere close to an accurate depiction of an actual human being, he was not the typical militaristic messiah that people were becoming accustomed to seeing. Most messiahs collected a militia and struck out against Roman authorities. Eventually, as one might imagine, Rome became rather weary of this, and under the military leadership of Titus (who would become emperor), the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE. Literally, the stones of the temple were pushed down a steep hillside so that they could not be easily used to reconstruct the place.

People were scattered, some forcefully relocated and some fleeing to the hills. The historian Josephus reported that 97,000 Jews were captured or enslaved. Prior to the Roman attack, Caius Caesar had intended to have a statue of himself erected in the temple in Jerusalem (this was perhaps the desecrating sacrilege -- a term that refers back to the book of Daniel), but historical records suggest that he died before it could be installed. Another Roman emperor may have followed suit, or there may have been some other Roman religious paraphernalia installed at the temple. It is clear that Roman authorities pilfered the temple treasury, and that some of the Jewish sects known collectively as Zealots retaliated against what they saw as abuses of Roman rule. This chaotic environment was the norm of first century Jerusalem, but particularly during the period between 50 and 70 CE.

Logically speaking, the gospel of Mark, with its reference in chapter 13 to the destruction of the temple, must have been written after 70 CE. At least the version that we now have (and there are no extant complete copies of Mark that lack this "little apocalypse" section) must have been completed after the destruction of the temple. Some evidence (internal monetary and administrative terminology) suggests that Mark was written in or near Rome, which would make a great deal of sense in the aftermath of the siege of Jerusalem. The book also appears to be written to an audience of people already converted to Christianity, since is assumes familiarity with the Old Testament and includes themes of mature discipleship and comfort. If one insists that this biography was written in the midst of persecution, then this could push the date of composition to the end of Domitian's reign (89-96 CE), but its use by the authors of Matthew and Luke would limit the latest possible date for the document's completion to about 92 CE.

With that in mind, then, Mark 13 offers a contextualization of the destruction of the temple within the framework of Christian identity. Thus, all of the words about upheaval, persecution, fleeing to the hills, and false prophets or messiahs are about first century realities. You may have noticed the words, "this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place" (Mk 13:30), and you may have noticed that included in "all these things" that was supposed to happen before that generation passed away was that the Son of Man would visibly descend from the heavens, send forth angels, and collect those who were chosen for salvation from across the planet. This, as you may be aware, did not happen.

Attempts to reconcile this failure of prophecy with a belief that the Bible is absolutely true has caused a lot of people a lot of problems. Some believers interpret a different definition of "generation" and are still expecting a major supernatural event. Some believers want to include themselves as part of those who suffer persecution, assuming that public admonition or even ridicule is equivalent to being beaten in synagogues and tried before political authorities. More often than not, in developed nations, some Christians proclaim messages of hatred and judgment or try to deny people equal treatment under the law, and then wear the subsequent "persecution" as a badge of honor. Mark 13 is not talking about so misrepresenting the Christian message that you suffer adverse consequences in your society.

What can we derive from this collection of passages intended for first century people in a situation we will never experience? Consistently throughout the last two thousand years, people have predicted the end of the world, some of them Christian, and some of them thinking that they were following the advice of Mark 13, attending to the secret signs around them. No predictions about the end of the world have come to pass. Perhaps people are profoundly unskilled at interpreting signs, or perhaps people cannot actually make risky predictions about the future with any sort of accuracy. It even says right there in Mark 13:32-33 that nobody knows when this supernatural event will happen. The value in this chapter is not about how to predict things to come.

Rather, the value in this passage is recognizing that people need hope, especially in extremely dire circumstances. One reason that religion thrives is because it offers people hope. Sometimes they still take that hope and infuse it with anxiety, which is understandable given the level of anxiety in our world. Let's assume for a moment that there will not be a massive supernatural event in which all of the elect are gathered from across the world by the Son of Man. Let's assume for a moment that human fear is the biggest threat to our well-being -- our own fear and the fear of people around us. Fear is, after all, the underlying motivator of all of the first century upheaval as well as the upheaval we continue to see in the world. How do we respond to our circumstances if we have no firm grasp of the future? How do we respond to fear if we cannot trust a supernatural to eventually rescue us?

Sometimes I feel like I'm repeating myself, but this just seems like the best place to start, and I don't hear a lot of other people saying it. We have to recognize who we are, at a deeper level than our fears, at a deeper level than our daily struggles to make it through traffic and get a certain number of tasks done and pay our bills on time. We are human beings of inherent value who need connection with other human beings. And other people are human beings of inherent value who need connection with us. We are, at our core, loving beings -- even though our fear gets in the way. What we long for is the same thing that everyone else longs for: wholeness and well-being in every facet of our lives. We want to be able to express ourselves as individuals, and we want meaningful relationships with other people. We want our lives to have purpose, and we want hope that what we do will make a difference.

The remarkable thing is that we can create these things in our lives and in the lives of others. We can't know the future, but we can know ourselves. We can express ourselves authentically, and we can connect with other people. We can create meaning by reaching beyond our fears and recognizing what matters most in our lives -- who we most want to be in the world. We can help others create meaning in their lives, too. We create hope for ourselves and other people every time we recognize how little actions make a big difference in someone's life. Every time we recognize commonality or offer a simple smile to a stranger, we bring forward a little bit more the best possible versions of ourselves. With a little intentionality, we might be able to bring our deepest most noble selves forward even more. Whatever future that creates, we'll be more deeply satisfied with the journey.

Isaiah 17: Prophecies and Perspective

Again we find a biblical prophecy that is a bit of a challenge, since Isaiah 17 proclaims some events that have not, as yet, come to pass. Damascus, a city that this passage claims will be a heap of ruins, forever deserted, has been a major city since the second millennium BCE; even today, it has a thriving population and occupies an important cultural and governmental role. There are those who believe that they must defend biblical prophecy, claiming that what Isaiah predicted has simply not yet happened, but that someday it will. This is a convenient way to ensure that no prophecy can ever be demonstrated to have been false -- only to be yet forthcoming. The problem, of course, is that most people who want to put stock in prophecies also want to be able to distinguish between true and false prophecies.

Simply saying that a prophecy hasn't come true yet opens the door for all sorts of prophecies to seem warranted. We can say anything, really -- couched in the framework of a prophecy -- and it can have as much merit as prophecies from the Bible that haven't yet been fulfilled. Of course, there isn't much that we can do with such prophecies. Vague predictions with no time frame don't allow for intentional responses.

"Capitalism will fail."
When? How? What shall we do?
"I don't know, but someday it will fail."
Utterly useless.

Or even more ludicrous and yet equally warranted by these standards:
"Kangaroos will one day rule over men and usher in an era of peace."
Well, peace isn't bad, but I don't know that I want to be ruled over by kangaroos. Maybe we should just kill all the kangaroos now, just to be on the safe side.
"Ah, but the prophecy will still be tentatively true. It will just be something that hasn't happened yet."
But someone else predicts that dolphins will rule the world.
By our loose standards of prophetic veracity, of course, both can be true.

What may be more helpful is to consider what the authors of Isaiah may have been experiencing and what they were attempting to convey. As we have already seen in Isaiah, Rezin (king of Aram) and Pekah (king of Israel) threatened Ahaz (king of Judah) because Ahaz wouldn't join their coalition against Assyria. Isaiah attempted to encourage Ahaz, but the king of Judah was a bit weak-kneed. Isaiah's message about this particular crisis has been, "These rulers won't even exist in a short time." That much was true. Of course, the Assyrian Empire outlasted Ahaz, and Judah remained a vassal state. The people of Judah weren't taken into captivity by the Assyrians -- the people of Israel (the northern kingdom) were.

So, perhaps this passage from Isaiah is really just encouraging the leader(s) of Judah that Damascus isn't going to be a threat to them, whoever is on the throne. Certainly, if taken as a prediction against Damascus, one would think that it would have some bearing on the current events when the "prophecy" was written. After all, if we take the book at face value, this prophecy was intended to be heard by the people alive at that time. It wasn't intended for people thousands of years later, even though some theologians continue to come up with justifications for reading multiple meanings into the ancient texts. As it reads, this chapter of Isaiah is just false. A more generous reading, however, can recognize the intended message that people have a difficult time with perspective. Understanding the passage as a message of hope also explains the bravado of the last couple of verses, "All who stand against us shall be eradicated!"

That which is immediate to us seems urgent to us. Sometimes, that perception is accurate. Certainly, a car veering into our lane is something we should respond to as quickly and safely as possible. Quick fixes are not the ideal approach to a lot of our problems, though. We make better decisions when we manage our anxiety and consider consequences and ramifications beyond the immediate moment. We make better decisions when we are clear about who we are and what we stand for, rather than reacting to what seems like the largest threat in the moment to just make it go away and stop threatening us. The message of this passage, in part, is to recognize that what seems urgent to us in this moment may not really be all that important in the larger scheme of things.

For the ancient writers of this text, this passage is part of a call to faithfulness and righteousness. Since the people's perception of practical reality was directly connected to their supernaturalism, all of the turmoil of war surely may have seemed like the consequences of their own spiritual behavior. It was unthinkable for anyone at the time that all of the circumstances they experienced were purely the result of human beings motivated by human emotions. If we recognize divinity as an intrinsic characteristic of all people, this passage may suggest something else to us. We have no reason to fear that we're going to be decimated if we do not respect the right supernatural in the right way, but we do have some things in our lives that we could improve -- for ourselves and for the people around us.

Consider Isaiah 17:7-11 reworked:

"Someday, people will realize their innermost beings, and they will be aware of their deepest, most noble selves; they will not react to their irrational fears, the anxieties that often seem urgent, and they will not foster a sense of entitlement, the illusion that they know how everything should be. By then, it may be catastrophe that awkens them to themselves; it may be that transformation has to emerge from crisis.

"For you have forgotten your deepest, most noble self,
and have not remembered the best possible version of yourself;
therefore, though your life has some pleasure in it,

and you measure up to some external sense of who you should be;
though you appear successful by some standards,
and your coping mechanisms do their job;
yet your success will be empty,

because your deep guiding principles have been abandoned."

This passage is intended to call people back to a sense of identity -- a sense of integrity with their own claims about who they were. We still need such exhortation. We are still threatened by crises, and we are prone to react to our anxiety without any real sense of our guiding principles. We just want the sense of threat to go away. If we begin now to invest time in understanding ourselves, we can engage in the process of transformation before catastrophe requires it of us. We can become more adept at recognizing our deepest, most noble selves -- the deeply rooted guiding principles that undergird our potential to grow toward the best possible versions of ourselves. We can be more intentional in our responses to the anxieties of life.

Of course, if we are content to have really honed reflexes, to be able to react to any seemingly urgent threat that rears its head, to use someone else's definition of success in our own lives --  we can do that too. We can assume that every fear we have is true. We can be oblivious to the principles that could guide us toward a more deeply satisfying life. The point is that we have a choice.

Isaiah 13-14: Beyond Provincial Depictions of Divinity

The next segment of Isaiah contains many proclamations against the enemies of Judah, as well as some brief comments about what the kingdom of Judah can expect. Some of the "predictions" are so vague that one cannot really assess whether they were made before or after some historical event, and some of what the author of Isaiah predicts clearly never actually transpired. Based on this, then, it may be that these proclamations amount to wishful thinking expressed during a time of turmoil, rather than (as much of biblical prophecy is) "predictions" written down after the facts are known. For now, we will concentrate on a lengthy proclamation against Babylon and its king, with a hopeful prediction about Judah inserted in the middle, and two short proclamations against Assyria and Philistia.

These proclamations are supposedly sourced by Yahweh, the Judeo-Christian version of God, who is unchanging (based at least on Malachi 3:6 and James 1:17). So, what of God's character is revealed in these proclamations? To begin with, Yahweh is going to send a multitude of warriors from distant nations to execute his anger and destroy the world. A day of judgment is announced, at which time every person will experience physical and emotional anguish. The entire earth will be destroyed and every person who has ever missed the mark will be destroyed along with it. The stars, including the sun, will stop shining (and the moon will stop "shedding its light" too, but we won't go into the science of that). In order to punish people whose lives are characterized by wickedness, tyranny, and arrogance, Yahweh is going to destroy everything through a divinely commissioned army. This army of God will slaughter infants (who have had no opportunity to be wicked, tyrannical, or arrogant) in front of their parents, plunder the houses of the conquered, and rape the women they encounter. Suddenly, it seems that God was overly enthusiastic when he said he would destroy everything, because it turns out he was just talking about Babylon. But when God's army is through killing men, slaughtering babies, raping women, and plundering the houses of Babylon, the place won't be fit for human life ever again: "It will never be inhabited or lived in for all generations" (Is 13:20). We're talking about the modern-day country of Iraq, just to be clear. Surely, it's not considered a popular place by a lot of people, but it's still teeming with human life.

Despite destroying everything (or just Babylon) with his immoral army, Yahweh will spare Judah. The people of Israel will settle comfortably back in their own land, and people from other nations (who somehow escaped the total destruction) will flock to Israel to be slaves. Indeed, Israel will own the other nations as slaves. Instead of behaving any differently from the people who oppressed them, the people of Judah will take their oppressors captive and rule over them. That is, whatever is left of them once the army of God sweeps through slaughtering babies, raping women, and destroying every man alive. This never happened, of course. Yet, does this sound like any sort of god invoked in the twenty-first century? Unfortunately, in some peoples' minds, this isn't far from the totalitarian deities many people still envision choosing sides in war, promoting violent solutions to international problems, and justifying collateral damage in the name of power or prosperity.

If there is any doubt about the sort of deity depicted in these proclamations, Isaiah continues with Babylon's king. The king of Babylon is taunted, primarily because he will eventually die and is thus as weak as any other human being. It's odd how a person can say, "You are no better than us," in a way that sounds so similar to, "We are better than you!" Predicting that an imperialist nation will be overthrown is not a risky prediction. Such has ever been the case, and it will likely happen again, even though people now build empires a little bit differently than they did thousands of years ago. Notice that the king of Babylon goes unnamed in this proclamation. This is either because there was no way to know which king of Babylon would eventually be overthrown, or because the author of Isaiah was attempting to rob the ruler of immortality by refusing to record his name. The name of the Babylonian king overthrown by Cyrus was Nabonidus, incidentally. I mention this because, if the authors of Isaiah had recorded the ruler's name, and if this portion of Isaiah could be reliably dated to a time prior to Nabonidus' rule, then this would perhaps be a more convincing prophecy. As it is, the author(s) of Isaiah simply indicate that all of the disgraced ruler's sons should be executed--not because of their own wickedness, tyranny, or arrogance, but because of who their father was.

This, then, is the kind of god Isaiah promotes: a god who commands the slaughter of infants (provided they are not Israelite infants), a god who demands the execution of people based on the actions of their parents, a god who condones rape and humiliation of women (provided they are not Israelite women), and a god who approves of slavery (provided the slaves come from nations other than Israel). Obviously, the people of Judah had reason to hate the Babylonians who conquered them and took them into captivity, as they had historical reasons to hate the Philistines. It would have been natural for a human representative of Judah to curse Judah's enemies and make hopeful predictions about Judah's future. If one wishes to be biblically sound in one's depiction of Yahweh, though, then this Yahweh is a localized, nationalist shill for Judah, not a monolithic deity for all people in all places and times. Yahweh clearly wishes brutal harm upon nations who are behaving as Judah is given permission to behave, the only difference being that Yahweh likes Judah. This is not congruent with the idea of a supernatural being who supposedly created the universe and cares about everything in it. Moreover, the proclamations are false on a number of accounts, which either means that the Israelite god lied or was mistaken, or that the Bible is not a reliable source of information. Most likely, there was no supernatural entity involved in the proclamations at all, and the human being(s) who wrote these passages was a bit off base (historically and morally), as emotionally-based human predictions often tend to be.

Biblical proclamations like these in Isaiah are obviously based on subjective personal preferences rather than objective data. Surely, some people have a feeling that continuing along the same trajectory is eventually going to be harmful or beneficial, and they just can't articulate why they think things will have a particular result. That does not amount to divine insight from some external supernatural source. The more we learn about human psychology and physiology, the more we can accurately predict what people will do in various situations; that doesn't mean that an action was foreordained or destined. It means that people are prone toward some patterns of behavior that can be scientifically analyzed. The authors of Isaiah weren't performing any sort of scientific, objective analysis, though. They were simply writing down what made sense to them and what they hoped would happen. Their recognition that empires get overthrown was strongly colored by their emotional reaction that they would enthusiastically gloat when this particular empire was overthrown. Of course, they couldn't have known that the conquerors would be any more pleasant than their current oppressors, which may suggest that the whole thing was written after Cyrus the Great swept through Babylon.

It has been said before, and it bears repeating: the problem with claiming to know what God is going to do is that such a claim is completely unfalsifiable. Of course, any "prediction" made after the fact is immediately dismissible. "I knew God would send an army to overthrow this empire," is a rather shallow statement once the army has done its slaughtering, raping, and pillaging. Even then, one would be hard pressed to demonstrate that the army showed up because of a summons from God rather than out of very human motivations. The armies that overthrew Nabonidus certainly weren't worshipers of Yahweh, and there's no evidence that they ever converted. Cyrus the Great was a respecter of various religions, and he mentioned gratitude toward the Babylonian gods specifically. Yet, nowhere do we have evidence that Cyrus acknowledged Yahweh. Announcing ahead of time that God is going to send an army to overthrow an empire is perhaps a more risky prediction, but once again, a person has no way of demonstrating that the impending army has any connection to the desires of a supernatural being. Unfalsifiable assertions are dangerous because they give people the impression that they have knowledge when what they actually have is hope. Hope is not knowledge.

We might hope that we are more important than other people. We might hope that we benefit and other people suffer. The authors of Isaiah seemed to have these kinds of hopes. We might even have the ability to make an educated guess about how to manage things so that we actually do benefit while other people suffer. What we do not have--what no person has ever had--is compelling objective evidence that a supernatural caused things to work out a particular way, or even wanted things to work out a particular way. When we assume that we have supernatural justification for our actions, we get into some dangerous territory. We might ignore the actual objective data available to us in favor of our subjective hopes and wishes.

The objective data that we have about systems of human interaction and the influence that people have on other human beings suggests that no person is actually more important than anyone else. No person deserves to benefit from the suffering of others. Morality--discerning what is right and what is wrong--is not based on identity or caste or income or title. If slaughtering an infant is immoral, it's immoral for everyone, no matter the circumstances or the cultural identity of the infant. If rape is immoral, it's immoral for everyone, no matter the circumstances or the cultural identity of the victim. If oppression and slavery are immoral, they are immoral for everyone, no matter the circumstances or the cultural identity of the oppressors and subjugators. Our own personal hatred does not justify immoral behavior against people who seem like Other--it doesn't even justify condoning or ignoring someone else's immoral behavior against people who seem like Other to us. The slanted ethnocentricity of biblical morality as depicted in Isaiah is simply unjustifiable.

I have proposed elsewhere that we locate divinity within rather than without--that many of the characteristics we ascribe to divinity are actually human characteristics. The problem is that sometimes the characteristics that are ascribed to a supernatural represent the very worst of human behavior. Surely, whenever a person believes that some communication with a supernatural has occurred, that person has only connected inwardly in an unfamiliar or unexpected way. Unfortunately, sometimes that inward connection is shallow. We get that we hate our circumstances and the people we blame for creating those circumstances, but we don't get that our hatred harms us more than it harms anyone else. The Babylonians weren't overthrown because the Israelites hated them or because a provincial god hated them. The Babylonians were overthrown because of human desire for power (which is largely rooted in fear), but that desire had nothing to do with the Israelite exiles. If we want to understand ourselves well, grow in emotional maturity, and be the best versions of ourselves possible, we have to reach a little beyond shallow comfort or imagined collusion with beings who don't exist.

What can we do then? If there is no external divine being and no supernaturals, we have only what we can know on which to confidently base our beliefs. We can hope for anything we like, but we are only justified in believing that which has objective evidence to back it up. Some people say that there is no objective truth, which is a polite way of never having to say that another person is wrong and a convenient way of never having to change what one believes in the face of evidence. Claiming that all truth is subjective is cowardly and dishonest. We are capable of better than that. We can know some things about the universe, about our world, about human beings, and about ourselves. More than ever before, we have access to an abundance of empirical evidence about reality. We may not always like what the evidence suggests, but if we try to base our lives on refusals of what actually is, where are the boundaries to that subjectivity? There are certainly some things about which the most honest answer must be, "I don't know." Problems arise when people decide to fill in those gaps by pretending to know something that they don't. Again, this is simply dishonest.

We can reach deeper within ourselves. We can be courageous in the face of new data that could warrant a change in our beliefs. We can examine what we believe and what we fear, and we can weigh our beliefs and fears against what we can know of objective truth. We can refuse to accept laziness and irresponsibility as excuses for not engaging in self-examination. We can be more emotionally mature in dismantling irrational fears and recognizing what we actually want. We are capable of growing into the best versions of ourselves possible, and we can transform the lives of countless others as a result. This is not a supernatural aim and it requires no divine endorsement. It is simply what is possible for willing, reasoning human beings. The question is: are you willing to be the best version of yourself possible?