This is the continuation of a conversation between myself and a friend who is an atheist/naturalist.  He and I agree on Batman and beer. We disagree on issues of religion and whether or not Chis Evans made a good Captain America. We’ll be trading questions and answers on our blogs regarding issues of atheism, naturalism and religion. Yesterday, I addressed a few side-issues in Lance’s post regarding “good.”

Now, to the main point… I originally asked “Can you describe the “good” religious faith is an obstacle to?”

You wrote… “good is what’s beneficial to us as a species”

I would agree. Yet, you have not accounted for why it would be good for humanity to survive. You assume we ought to.  In other words, at the root of your definition of “good” is an assumption about the basic value of human life; that it is worth preserving. This assumption is not arrived at by way of reason.  I would suggest that it is, in fact, the root from which reason grows and without which reason becomes every inch the terrifying tool religion or economics can be.  The brick mill owner who enslaves his workers has every reason to do so in light of the profits cheap labor helps him bring in. He does not offend reason by enslaving people.. his end is profit and cheap labor simply makes sense.  What is offended is a basic assumption of what people are worth or what people are for. People ought not be valued only for their utility. The life of a child ought not be compromised for the sake of profit. Reason does not tell me this; I assume it. And without that assumption, I can reason myself to just about anything.

You pointed out a handful of the atrocities humanity has perpetrated upon itself in your post.  All of these things are tragic for the very reason that they are a departure from basic value. In other words, if the Crusades were tragic or wrong (and I agree they were), it is because the freedom to choose is of value and was corrupted/compromised/broken.  Likewise, if Kamikaze piloting or the attaches on 9/11 are tragic or wrong, it is because human life is of value and was corrupted/compromised/broken.

If I do not make an assumption about the basic value of human life, then the only reasonable way to evaluate the goodness of Kamikaze piloting is whether or not it helps win a war. You are suggesting that, regardless of it’s strategic impact, something about using flying planes into populated areas is bad. Yet you’ve not given me a foundational reason to think so. You’ve assumed that life should be more important than that.

Alongside the travesties you cited, consider some even greater and more pervasive atrocities propagated by the species we ought to preserve…

…a species that compromises the quality of life of some for the simple or even sick pleasures of others (ex. cheap labor, indentured servitude and sex slavery.. est. 27million people worldwide).

…a species that allows half of it’s population to live in destitute poverty (est. 900mil. people without access to clean drinking water).

…a species that often takes the best of its fruits and uses them for the worst of it’s intentions (nuclear, chemical warfare).

…a species that largely disregards the well-being of the planet upon which it lives, even to the detriment of its own survival.

…a species that seemingly invents ways to hurt itself (smoking, fast food,.. Ke$ha).

What makes such a species worth preserving?

In an early episode of Battlestar Galactica (the greatest show in the history of television), one of the cylons asks a powerful question to the commander of the Galactica.  After years and years of war between cylons (created by humanity) and humanity, the cylon asks if humanity  has ever asked itself why it deserved to survive… poignantly, the commander does not have an answer.

Note that I am not at all pointing at a Divine Source for value; only that there seems to be something more basic than reason by which we come to understand, albeit incomplete, what “good” is.

Your example of helping a blind woman without having been told to contains the same assumption. You wrote… “Nobody and no deity needs to tell me that. I can figure it out for myself.” But you didn’t figure it out. “I should help blind women” is not a conclusion you came to after years of study and careful consideration of societal norms and/or cost-benefit analysis.  Something about passing up on that opportunity would offend the basic value you and I both stand on when we critique our world. We refer to the same basic value.. the same universal good.  It is when, for whatever “reason,” be it economic, religious or otherwise, one of us deviates from such that basic thing that we start to use see actions as “bad” or “wrong.”

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Question:  You wrote…“whatever is helpful for the greatest number of people is what’s good.” I honestly don’t understand this and could use an example of where or how you see this played out.  It sounds like the kind of thing that could spell trouble for minority groups like the elderly, who make up only about 8% of the earth’s population and take a great deal of money, time and energy to care for. Can you please elaborate?

Much of the CMY(K) project is focused on a conversation around doubt or a lack of faith. That conversation can certainly be internal but is just as often external. In fact, few of the songs on the EP’s are written about friends who no longer  consider faith possible.  Keeping with that theme, this will be the first in a series of blog posts that will actually be a conversation with one such friend.

I’ve known Lance Johnson since I was fifteen years old and consider him a good friend. We share a great deal in common including a love for comic books, a discerning taste in beer and a half-joking distain for bad pop music.  We also share many of the same critiques of popular religion, though from different perspectives. My critique of popular religion stems from the assumption that Something True can be found or revealed in life and that bad religion makes that a harder process. Lance, as an atheist, assumes that there is no “Something True” to be discovered or revealed and that all religious effort in that direction is misguided at least and destructive at worst.

Truth is not taken or grasped. It is received.

It is not seized in strength.  It is received in humility. More than that, it is received in vulnerability and intimacy.

And, being received, it is still not possessed so much as it possesses… though even that is an insufficient image… because the Truth does not possess… it inhabits the depths of the one who receives it.  More like a pregnancy. And pregnancy changes everything… your posture, your tastes, your chemistry, your social life, familial life, financial and emotional life… It changes everything.  It seems to me that Truth… the Truth of God, always enters the world this way.

Then, with great effort and pain, we give birth to Truth.  Truth is not passed along without some effort, some sacrifice and some pain. It is not like sharing a recipe or like (as some would equate truth-telling) giving directions.  It is not data. It is a living thing.

But that is still not all. Because just as a woman must care for a child she has given birth to, we are responsible for the truth(s) we birth into the world: Who it is received by,  how it is received and in what context. Because not everyone can care for a child or know how to handle one, just as not everyone can care for the Truth or know how to handle it.

I fear that much christian teaching is treated more like cursory information than like a pregnancy.. Which is why it seems that we are largely unchanged by the “information” we pass along.

That God exists is True, but it must be more than information…

That God lived among us and as one of us for a time must be more than information…

The teachings of Jesus during that time must also be more than information…

His death.. His resurrection.. must be more than information..

It must change us entirely. And only then, when our entire being and way of life is altered can the things we say about Him be the kind of Truth we mean when we say the word.

I’m pretty sure I’m not going anywhere today. I mean, I’ll go for a walk with my family this morning and then across town to the studio later.  But I’m pretty sure I’m not headed anywhere celestial…

…because I’m pretty sure it’s not Judgement Day.

I’m trying to be funny.  Funny is how I deal with things like embarrassment or sadness. And I’m definitely fighting off a bit of both embarrassment and sadness today.

I’m sad for the folks who believed Harold Camping had discovered something that even Jesus said he didn’t know.  I suppose it’s not at all funny (in fact, it’s downright heartbreaking) to believe something so strongly as to be happy facing ridicule over it only to find out it was untrue.

I’m also sad for Harold Camping because, regardless of whatever good he’s done in his life, this will be the most prominent moment of his public legacy.

I’m embarrassed that such a thing gets more attention than IJM’s rescue of 500 slaves last month… More attention than the 1000 clean water wells the Blood:Water Mission recently celebrated… More attention than the hundreds of thousands of child-sponsor relationships facilitated by Compassion International and the 1-million-plus children whose lives have been dramatically changed because of those relationships.

I’m saddened and embarrassed that this stunt will color the way my faith is seen by those who already find it odd… because I think (better yet, I know) that the christian faith is made up of far more substantial stuff than this.

So, perhaps today isn’t Judgement Day the way Harold Camping thought it would be… But for those of us who haven’t quit calling ourselves ‘christians,’ (even when it means standing arm-in-arm with Camping and his sect as part of the family) it sure as hell is something very like a day of Judgement.

Today is a day when it really does cost something to say I believe in Jesus Christ.

Because believing in Jesus means believing some pretty odd things to be true. And today, many of those odd things I believe are tangled up with things that are equally odd and tragically untrue.  The challenge is to continuing believing these odd things regardless, rather than throw out all oddities from my worldview in exchange for something much safer.

These odd things I believe make me the person I am. They move me to make art.. To be a better husband and friend.. To keep working, in the name of Jesus, for the rescue of children from extreme poverty… To keep working, in the name of Jesus, for the rescue of people from slavery and indentured servitude.. To keep loving, in the name of Jesus, the actual neighbors I live among,.. To, in the paraphrased words of St. Peter “Live such a good life that, though they mock me, they would yet see my good works and glorify God.”

So even though the Judgement doesn’t show up today the way Family Radio has described it.. It has shown up the way it has for christians since the first days of our movement.  And I hope, as I am judged, right alongside brother Harold, for believing some very odd things, that I will be found faithful to the things I believe and to the person those beliefs make me into.

Harold Camping’s stunt makes my job harder. But it’s still my job and I am still honored to do it.

Here is the original video blog (vlog) I’d planned on posting before writing it out…

I cannot possibly imagine the kind of catharsis Bin Laden’s death brings about for those who lost loved ones either on Sept 11, 2001 or during the subsequent military actions.  I don’t at all blame some among us from feeling some sense of release.  Were I among that number, I too would feel a great sense of relief today.

And yet, the christian narrative is one in which we await and long for the complete restoration/reconciliation of all things to God. Any other “solution” to brokenness is second best and a form of brokenness itself.

Bin Ladin’s death is one more death in a long chain of violence that began long before his birth and will continue long after his death.  I hardly expect anyone in my social setting to sincerely lament his passing. I do not. But celebrating his death (or any death, really) is revealing of a profound misunderstanding of the nature of war, the nature of evil, the nature of violence, the nature of death and, I believe, the heart of God.

Nothing has been won.
It is only another loss that can, for now, help some of us to feel better about the losses closer to us.
But that’s not a victory. It’s a compromise.

Death ought always be greeted with a sense of sobriety.  Because, though it may feel good (and that is fully understandable) death does not heal. Death does not solve.  Death does not fix. Every death is a reminder of brokenness.  As a christian, I must hope for and celebrate something better than this.

I recently took part in a panel discussion entitled “Conversations With My Inner Atheist.”  The stated purpose of the discussion was to “normalize the faith struggle,” During the conversation, a few ideas shone through.  One of them was the idea of “chutzpah.”

Chutzpah
Chutzpah means having the guts to face God and say “I disagree.”  We see it in the book of Job, a few of the Psalms and the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Which is to say, it’s not a frequent thing but it is certainly part of the mix. Chutzpah is part of a healthy practice of faith.

I am not suggesting a life of complaining at every scrape and bruise.  But one in which, when it sincerely hurts or when it really does stop making sense, we carry our complaint to God like an offering; we sit in protest before Him just as we would in reverence. We plead, we cry, we shout and pace. We return over and over until either the mountain has moved or our hearts have changed.

A good friend, currently in a brutal season, said about his prayer life, “It’s mostly about yelling right now.  But that’s still prayer, right?”  Yes…Yes it is.

Job railed against God, calling Him unfair and unjust. In the end, his conceptions of ‘fairness’ and ‘justice’ were crushed under the weight of a broader, deeper and more comprehensive knowledge of God. I believe part of the writer’s intent with Job is communicating that we do not come to such knowledge without putting our best argument on the table, especially when we believe we are “right” and God is “wrong.” That’s chutzpah.

Bad Analogies (cuz that’s all I’ve got)
Chutzpah is one path to wisdom, which famously begins with “the fear of God.” This is not a fear in which one cowers timidly, but one of deep awe; one that many of us only come to by fighting God… and losing.  Think of it like the first time we get thrown around by waves at a beach; we learn a bit about the power of the ocean and forever look on it with greater and deeper respect.  Or the first time we challenge a professor in class and find out that she is not only far more knowledgable, far better read and more passionate about the subject but also that she is deeply interested in guiding us to wisdom, not just putting us in our place. Chutzpah leads to a knowledge that moves beyond concept to relationship; a knowledge that cannot be gained in study, but only in engagement. In some cases that engagement can last for years.  But disagreement is still a way to engage; a facet of relationship.  And just as we come to know one another in part by disagreeing, we come to know God.

Wisdom from the West Wing
During the first season of the West Wing, Leo McGarry challenges the White House Staff that “If we’re gonna walk into walls, I want us running into ‘em full speed.”  If they were going to find their limits, they should do so in such a way that they would plainly know. Again, the path to wisdom  begins, in part, by knowing where we end.  I’m convinced that many of us carry deep resentment towards God because we’ve not honestly aired that grievance or pain.  We settle for an untested, unsettled and distant ‘belief’ in a God whose goodness is something we’ve quietly or begrudgingly agreed to, like a math equation, but not something we’ve come to know.  Our perception or interpretation of the events that cause us grief might be wrong (or even right) but we never truly know because we do not carry our complaint to God and speak… we lack courage… we lack chutzpah.