I recently ran across this quote by John Ortberg and really liked it:

Faith is not simply holy beliefs. Many people, when they think about Faith, think, "I believe that God exists, or that Scripture is accurate, or love is the greatest virtue." But, at its core, faith is not simply the belief in a statement; it puts trust in a person. ...What do you do when you trust somebody? You take a risk. It could be small, or it could be big. I go to a restaurant that you recommend. I read a book, because you tell me that it is good. I tell you a secret, and then I see if you keep it confidential. I invite you to be a partner in a business deal. Are you going to burn me? I ask you to be my friend. Are you going to betray me?


When I trust you, I take a little piece of myself—my stuff, my money, my time, my heart—and I put it in your hands. And then…I’m vulnerable. Then you respond, and I find out whether or not you are trustworthy and dependable. I give you the gift of my trust, and you give me the gift of your faithfulness. When that happens, trust grows deeper. This is key—what it means to be a person. We were made to trust. It goes on forever.

There can be no intimacy without trust. "

Topic to WRite On

I would be curious to hear people's comments that might shed light positive or negative on why Senator Obama doesn't where the US Flag pin.

A little Break

I am going to be taking a week or so off to study for finals. So, don't think I am ignoring your posts. I will read but probably won't have time to respond to posts. Read you in a few.

Living questions

I've been reading this book with compiled writings of Henri Nouwen - "Spiritual Direction". One of the beginning chapters is titled, "Who will answer my questions?"

I absolutely love what he says in this chapter. He has a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke (not sure who he/she is):

'I want to beg you as much as I can...to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves...Do not now seek answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer...Take whatever comes with great trust, and if only it comes out of your will, out of some need of your innermost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing.'

Nouwen goes on to say:

"When God enters into the center of our lives to unmask our illusion of possessing final solutions and to disarm us with always deeper questions, we will not necessarily have an easier or simpler life, but certainly a life that is honest, courageous, and marked with the ongoing search for truth. Sometimes, in living the questions, answers are found. More often, as our questions and issues are tested and mature in solitude, the questions may simply dissolve."

These two passages have been some of my favorites lately. And I LOVE this book. Would highly recommend it!

Peace

I'm here!

No highly insightful blog from me as of yet. Just wanted to let you know I'm here and reading along. Thanks for sharing and opening back up the blog Paul.

What is up with the Pope?

I don't know how to process the Pope?

Some people say he is the single most powerful person in the world! He spoke at the United Nations this past week. While at the UN he stated that he believes strongly in religious freedom. What exactly does that mean for him? Is he saying that any religion or belief is game? It almost feels patronizing when someone of dogmatic belief states that he/she believes everyone should have the freedom to believe whatever they want [even though they are totally wrong].

How does someone who thinks his words/edicts carry the same weight as if God himself --as if the spokesperson for God here on earth--get to speak to the UN anyways? My guess is that if I met a guy on the street who claimed that he spoke for God I would classify him as delusional, but for some reason the Pope doesn't get this title. The Pope believes that when he eats bread during communion it turns into the real flesh of Christ and vino the real blood of Christ. The convincing proof for this? No one walks down the street saying these beliefs out loud. Why not?

So many people have beliefs that others don't hold to. If we restricted people of faith from saying anything this would most likely be a quiet world or at least U.S. In the case of the Pope, however, his very identity is that of the Pope and everything he says is 'coming from the Pope'. This is much different than say the Catholic believer who works for some organization that feeds impoverished children. The identity within which that believer functions is as an employee of the organization not an employee, if you will, of God. So when this person go to speak before congress on the issues facing America regarding starving children she will be heard as the advocate for children not a Catholic who is weighing in on this issue.



Here is a quote from his speech I found interesting.

"The victims of hardship and despair, whose human dignity is violated with impunity, become easy prey to the call to violence, and they can then become violators of peace,"

This sounds touching possibly insightful, doesn't it.

First of all, shouldn't the Pope have a talk with God about violating peace by sending billions of people to hell. Second, how can one be a violator of peace when that peace is in the context of economic depression or oppression? Maybe they are the adjudicators of oppression? What is peace under false pretenses? Isn't it just a quiet hell?

Now why does he feel this way about these oppressed people? Is it because he cares about protecting himself or is it because he cares about the victims of hardship and despair? Of whom does he speak in this quote? Most likely Islamic radicals, but alas, we know based on evidence that many violent activists have been highly educated. Let us hope that he doesn't forget about violence between Christians in certain African nations that he claims to have a heart for.

The Pope doesn't believe contraceptives should be passed out for fear of stopping one of God's children from being born [with AIDS]. He says he has concern for Africa. Do his actions really speak to this? Does tying the hands of the nuns who work with the people to prevent the spread of AIDS work to attenuate abject poverty and suffering?

The Pope advocates for peaceful strategies for addressing conflict. Is this based on reason or faith? If on faith, why should I listen to him when someone says the exact opposite also in the name of faith. My point here is that when you make edicts on how the world should work and those edicts are based on faith in a random religion many questions arise about the validity of what this person has to offer everyone. Also, I can't help but wonder that the reason this man is given the time of day has nothing to do with anything substantive he has to offer (aside from power over a certain group of people) but the fact that he represents a religion that is intimately connected to the recent history of much of the world manhandled by the Catholic church. So what is this opportunity to speak at the UN? Some sort of concession? Why do we give such credence to the words of the Pope?

Is it possible to blog incorrectly?

I'm not a blogger, but I thought that I would add to the conversation since I was invited. I would characterize myself as a Christian with strong faith, but weak follow-through (in that, I have the tendency to make my own decisions and trust that I know what will make me happy/fulfill me). But I have a hard time with conversations about God or faith that remain abstract. I have to ground it in my life experience. So, I thought I would share something that I wrote recently for a course assignment. We were asked to write our personal manifesto (a public statement of intentions and principles). The process was difficult for me (though one I highly recommend) since I felt that declarative statements are hard to commit to. And though I am supposedly an adult now, I feel a bit unformed. Right now I feel it is important to define myself not in opposition to something, but for something.  The structure of it reflects my fragmented thoughts, but hopefully it will add to the conversation. 

Whom can I ask what I came to make happen in this world? (P. Neruda)

1. The self is already collective.

Art is a social practice, the space between otherness and connection.

Who is my neighbor?

For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. Matthew 25: 42-43

My life is wrapped up in the least of these.

Will you enter in?

Will you be passersby?

Will you walk alongside?

Will you let yourself be carried?

Remember:

Melissa, from the trees beneath the trees

The smile from the man crossing the street (you are not invisible)

Sitting quietly next to Megan

Listening to Mom talk about her quilts

"... you and me both involved. We (with a capital W sometimes include(s), other times exclude(s) me." (Trinh T. Minh-ha)

2. We are authors of our own lives.

Art: experience is interpreted.

Forms, signs, objects, and actions produce relationships, create subjectivity.

One day the stories inside us will become a public resistance that will remake the world.

3. Place: City

Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Jeremiah 29:7

And when you change the landscape is it with bare hands or with gloves (P. Neruda)

Just to Clear a Few Things Up

I have invited quite a few people to view this blog and I am not sure where it will go, to be honest. I welcome all and hope that many fruitful discussions or posts will be generated. My hope is that this blog will propagate the use of reason to look at how we live our lives and what we choose to guide our lives. For many reason seems sterile and boring, possibly useless, but I can't say that I agree. If you are new to the blog you may wish to look at the past blogs just to give context, but I don't believe it is absolutely necessary.

I started this blog over a year and a half ago. The blog was pretty intense to begin with and within a few months I declared a moratorium and closed access while I adjusted to my forming self. My last blog in April of 2007, which declared the moratorium, declared that I had not reached any form as of yet as the caterpillar in its cocoon. Well, I am not a butterfly as of yet but I am pretty close. Many may be confused by my past posts, but know that now I am much different than in the past as can be seen by my attempt at describing myself in the sidebar.

I do encourage you, however, to peruse through my posts from last year as they capture the movement of a person from a moderate religious world view (I know some of you hate that word) to a world view that is very much less focused on the necessity of an existing God as a guiding force in this life.

My hope for this website is that we use reason as the starting premise for discussions. If you want to include less rational discussions or popular figures as centerpieces for discussion this is fine but please be sure to explain what the point is. If you find yourself to be one who finds less value in rational thought, well, then I suppose you can still post, but I don't, frankly, see the point of discussing something that is not arguable.

The Moderate View

I myself over the years have been what many would term a moderate Christian (some maybe think liberal). I had specific beliefs about Christ and salvation but not to the degree that I could bash or exclude someone else's belief. I had faith that Christ was real and that somehow even though many contradictions in God's nature seem apparent in the Bible somehow everything works itself out according to God's plan. I even believed that belief in evolution was amenable to belief in God, more specifically Christianity. I was actually quite proud of my moderation in belief. I felt my response to the world was just, tolerant, rational, and seeded in common sense. What was to dislike?

I have to wonder now, though, whether the moderate belief system is actually more dangerous than the most extreme of beliefs. Why do I say this? Well extreme systems of belief are easy targets for hate or dislike. On the other hand, some of the greatest people I know and best friends I have practice moderate forms of belief in God. So...what's the problem. Let's love the moderates.

The issue goes back to faith. Even the person with moderate beliefs will acknowledge that a large component of what they cling to or believe in is seeded in faith. So, of course, the insidious conflict arises from faith. Due to the nature of faith, if I accept these most tolerable, loving, congenial, philanthropic individuals and the faith they hold to, I must also accept the faith of very intolerable, extremist, non-loving individuals. Accepting these moderate versions of faith would take the wind out of the sails of my arguments against those extremists who use faith as their very weapon against reason to uphold their ideals of intolerance and violence.

How do we deal with faith?

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.
-Martin Luther -

Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has.
-Martin Luther-

Reason is the enemy of faith.
-Martin Luther-

In the last year, several leading voices in the world of atheism have put forth best-selling books to the general public that attempt to coerce people to embrace a world without faith, a world without religion or at worst a life in that same light. These include the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. They claim to have had a positive reception by many people living in the closet afraid to proclaim what they really believe most often out of fear of the implications for family and relationships. These authors have varying takes on the what they would hope for the world in regards to religion. Dennet and Dawkins yearn for a world absolutely without religion or faith. They believe it does more harm towards enlightenment and progress than good. Sam Harris has a more nuanced desire for a world without Dogma. Although he denies the supernatural nature of spiritual experience he does not deny the experience itself. Hitchens although a self-proclaimed anti-theist who hates everything about religion would hate to see the ultimate demise of religion and faith as this would be an end to a source of satisfying his needs as a contrarian. Ultimately, though they all agree that faith is the antithesis to progress and actually is something very dangerous to us all, even those who are part of the faithful.

All of these men are what people would label as very extreme. Why do people like this make it to the top? Are they the cream that rises (they most likely believe so, i.e. Brights) to the top? Part of the reason for their popularity is that people respond to extremism. Moderation is boring to be quite frank and doesn't really challenge a person to reflect. Moderation--perhaps tolerance is a better word--is more likely to induce sleep or the closing of a book than to illicit a visceral response. This is why hyperbole speaks so much more to our senses in a poem or in the words of Christ than the mere status quo drivel of age old dogma. I, myself, have endured a number of heart wrenching confrontations with reality all of which, I believe, made me reflect sincerely on my beliefs. Not because they were slightly contrary to my belief or a permutation thereof, but because they turned my belief system upside down. Often times, my reactions were "how dare you say such a thing" or "you don't understand where I am coming from" or "do you realize the implications of what you are saying are for me?" or "if you have experienced what I have you wouldn't be saying such things". All though these emotional responses are real they don't lend anything to the truth--one way or another--to what I believe or to what someone else claims to believe. All this means is that I am ready to put up a fight. An example based in the tangible world would be of an adopted child. The adopted child may be raised to believe he/she is the real son or daughter of his/her parents. In this child's mind, his family is no different than the next. His parents are real and conceived him just as any other child. They are connected by blood. At some point in time, the parents may decide to let the child know the truth of their child's past. The initial reaction might be quite emotional and even reject what seems impossibly true. The reaction might be fear of losing the essence of his existence. Might he feel as though his identity has in an instant become nebulous or less tangible. Is the child to actually believe that he is the product of people in his past of which he knows nothing. This emotional reaction does not speak to the truth of the situation. Once these emotions pass, a more rational peaceful affect will arise which can take the facts and finally process them for what they are, truth or fiction.

Of course the nature of the facts in this situation moves one more easily towards truth. What about when it is our faith that is questioned? What if your faith is exposed as the adopting parents? How many people can honestly set their faith aside for even an instant to see if its dissenters hold water? Wouldn't the very nature of doing this mean you didn't have faith? But what is the reason we can't lay the faith to the side even for an instant? Is it because of fear of the implications of doing such a thing? Is it the fear of the consequences if you decide not to pick it back up? If it is fear, then is it really faith we are talking about?

What is our initial feeling when someone tells us something that is totally contrary to what he have been told by people we love? Do we not feel angry, driven to fight? Is this reaction bad? I am not sure this reaction can be avoided. The reaction itself, however, speaks only to the truth of your emotions or feelings, not the challenge. What do you do then? If you place faith aside to consider the questions honestly, you are a blasphemer. If you don't place faith aside to consider the question you can't know if you are being honest with yourself. It is almost as if faith itself is a virtue. How so? What does it achieve? If you embrace this virtue what are you left with? Where do you draw the line? How do you hold others of contradicting faith accountable?

Many people of faith are quite reasonable. Some are highly reasonable. In fact, they may not see themselves as anything but reasonable. Despite this, however reasonable one may describe oneself, where faith begins reason may end or at best be perverted. In the end, I fear, as difficult as it may be to swallow, faith may not be amenable to reason. Even the reformist Martin Luther himself--trained in law and theology using reason to assimilate his ideas that formed the foundation of the reformation--seemed to know this hard to avoid truth. Some will find this difficult to hear because the truth of it is quite painful. It is a claim that the faithful are without reason if not all of the time at least some of the time. Where does that leave a person? Wondering if they have really thought things through.