Last Sunday, in the baleful, relentless May rains of Massachusetts, my wife, two year old daughter and I went to the neighboring town to try out their 9:00 Catholic mass. We've been church shopping since our move from California, trying different parishes in neighboring towns.
We arrived drenched in rain, at about 8:50. The church building was small and plain. Inside, the congregation filled the pews and spilled into the aisles, where children of all ages were doing their best to behave. Near the altar were the musicians. They had guitars, a synthesized bongo drum, and voice. They were practicing their bits with the microphones turned off. There was confabulation between neighbors and parents. The priest and the altar girls were near the front entrance of the church, lighting candles and inspecting each other's vestments.
We sat in the last pew. My wife and I couldn't help but notice that the average family size in this little church must have been three children. We saw some families arrive that had five or six children. Many of the families were young. The human energy in this little refuge from the gray rain torrents outside was palpable. And loud.
- - - - - - -
We've begun looking for a Catholic church to regularly attend for many reasons. The most pressing reason is our two year old daughter, who can now speak in short sentences and recall events from a few weeks before. Her memory is astonishing. If we want our little girl to be a part of the culture from which her parents came, now is the time. Up until now, not going to church seemed logical if only to avoid the sheer hassle of her infantile months. Hardly a young lady at two, she is at least manageable, and more importantly, impressionable.
Going to church is unusual for me. I was raised Catholic, in a very conservative parish. I grew up believing, then later disbelieving. Then still later, believing alternative things, only to find them dry and unfulfilling. Religion hardly seemed like my vocation; it was more like a club where all the members would nod their heads at the same things, followed by donuts and coffee. And sometimes, not even that. Much of the time growing up in the Church, I was simply there. Nothing else was apparent, or possible.
To this day I have troubles with many facets of the Catholic faith, taken in parts. I'm just not sure what to think about the Church's absolute stand on homosexuality, celibate male priests and the role of the laity. I'm suspicious of some of the notional aspects that any religion tends to promote.
But now I am 43, and part of me thinks it'd be nice to go to a good old fashioned Latin mass, with the works: Gregorian chants; the priest standing towards the altar; the mighty pipes of the organ; frankincense wafting from the gentle chain-swinging of the priest's brass thurible. At my age, all that seems comforting in its solemnity. It respects my past, and my culture's origins. My craving for the Old Ways is like a boomerang fulfilling its 30 year trajectory, hitting me in the back of the head with a thud.
"BANG! I told you I'd be back someday."
The truth must be told, since I'm on the topic of an institution that promotes The Truth. The truth is that I'm not sure if I am looking for God, or simply taking refuge in aesthetic. It's a very old aesthetic, going back to my youngest days, and to my civilization's beginning. I now go back to tap into a deep well whose surface remains quite parched. I cannot deny my daughter these waters, though seldom do they quench my sorrows and pains. It's the sound of their trickling that suffices for now. I want her to hear the waters that I once heard so well in early morning masses. I want to give her the opportunity to drink from that well. I want to give her something richer than I alone can provide, in spite of my doubts.
"But why Catholic," one of my coworkers asked me. "You guys sound like you'd love the Unitarian Church I go to. It's so inclusive and it puts all religions on equal ground."
That does sound very egalitarian. But somehow, a smorgasbord of religions sounds too postmodern for me. It is odd, but at this point in my life I feel like a salmon who must swim back upstream to spawn -- for my daughter's sake. It may not be logical. But it is necessary. And putting all the religions on a lazy susan and spinning it in front of her is not what I want to do to her.
In these times, finding certainty can be an obsession. Religion offers the possibility of an eternal order that includes you, where you can feel protected and safe. For all the detractors calling religion irrational, looking for order and the Creator's love might be the most rational thing in the world. I take no umbrage at other people's faith, as long as it does not impinge upon my own -- or lack thereof. Unlike in my twenties, when I felt the need to shake-off a Catholicism that I felt was imposed upon me, in my forties I respect people's quest for certainty and solace.
- - - - - - -
Back to last Sunday, at the little New England church. It's 9:00. People have quieted down. The rain can be heard pounding on the roof and dripping on the outside of the stained glass windows. The building feels like a sanctuary in this weather. Then the music begins. The priest and the altar girls make their procession to the altar. Though somewhat stale, the words of the mass fall out of my mouth in familiar tones. It's all still there, deep inside of me.
In front of us is a family with a little girl, the same age as ours. They make faces at each other during the mass, fiddling with their sweater buttons and flipping the pages of the missals. I remember doing these things. I remember my father would sit in the pew, holding his missile a certain way in his hands, partially scrolled with his thumbs crossed to hold it shut. I remember doing the same thing as him, trying to be like him.
Maybe I've conflated God with religion, religion with aesthetic, with community, with culture, nostalgia and a father's need to do right by his daughter. Maybe none of those things have anything in common with each other. That is never far from my mind, and is a barrier to faith for me.
Faith is a mysterious thing. I don't know that I have much left in me. That's sad. But maybe for my daughter, I will simply have to take faith on faith.
"The truth is that I'm not sure if I am looking for God, or simply taking refuge in aesthetic. It's a very old aesthetic, going back to my youngest days, and to my civilization's beginning."
This is not "just" aesthetic. Rituals this old and well-worn use music, poetry, theater, smells, tastes, group chanting and physical movement to work on your psyche, to transmit wisdom that cannot be elucidated any other way.
I have no idea if I "believe" in God, and it's not a question I give much time for. It's beside the point. But I go to as traditional Jewish services as I can find which allow women equal roles in the service (and sometimes some that don't, but I couldn't settle for just that). I can't stand Reform synagogues (sorry, Joe) for the same reason that Unitarian church felt dry to you.
Sometimes I experience the presence of God but mostly I am satisfied that I stood with my people (those with me in the flesh and all the generations past) and spoke to Him in the language of our ancestors, using the same words and gestures and ritual implements we have used for that purpose for 2500 years. (I can't say for sure the music is that old but it's pretty damn old too.)
Communication with the divine is not a book discussion group or a business meeting.
You've made me think back to my childhood and realize that for a child, even before she or he is capable of giving much thought to ultimate questions, religion is a sensory experience. Holidays and services are magnificent works of collective, four-dimensional art, multisensory environments for a child to be blissfully immersed in. There are smells, sounds, tastes, and also a sense of solemnity and mystery, and of anticipation and orchestrated crescendo. And holidays are aligned with the seasons. All of this strongly appeals to a child in a sensory and emotional way. It speaks directly the the soul, which is less concerned with the concept of "God" than with the experience of mystery, power, awe, and beauty. Life is poorer without that. There the Unitarians may be missing the point.
To a child, also, Bible stories are mainly just great stories.
Unfortunately, I felt pretty much the same way as a child about churches I visited, and Christmas, and even Hallowe'en, as I did about the Jewish holidays that were my own heritage. When it came to holidays and mysteries, I was like -- the more the merrier!
I think aesthetics shouldn't be the be all and end all of faith, but superior aesthetics can assist one in attaining a state of concentration and peacefulness necessary to prayer, while inferior aesthetics can be a distraction and interference to finding that state.
I know this is very secondary to the deeper themes in your post, but finding a Latin mass isn't quite as hard as it used to be - still rare, but they're out there. Here's a couple sites which may be of service:
http://www.ecclesiadei.org/region01.htm
http://www.holytrinitygerman.org/
I went to a Reform synagogue, but we had an exceptionally great, warm rabbi, Jacob J. Weinstein (scroll down to or "find" his name), who radiated the humor and humanity and compassion of the tradition (and also marched with MLKing). We had Sunday school, with very vivid telling of Torah stories and celebration of festivals. Most of all, we had an amazing cantor, who was (unbeknownst to us kids) a famous composer of Jewish liturgical music, Max Janowski. We had a professional-quality organist and choir. Max's melodies came roaring out of the choir and organ loft and bathed us all in a passion that we didn't understand but felt directly. I can still hear and sing his melodies to Hebrew prayers.
I'm not sure entirely what to say to that, but I feel I ought to say something. Doubt, I understand. Caring more for your kids than for yourself, that too I understand. Not finding anything satisfying in post-modernism, I can well relate to. But some of the rest of the stuff I've a hard time grasping. Maybe I'm just wierd. Based on the consensus here, I probably am.
The best place to begin might be to explain my religious background.
I come from a Protestant tradition that abhors ceremony to a degree that is almost unheard of today. It's more like the old Presbyterianism which would overthrow the King and make war rather than wear the clothing of the old catholic mass. I grew up completely without ritual, without ceremony, withouts forms, without creeds, without recitation, and even without music that was more than a few generations old - and I grew up believing that all of these things were ungodly, vain, divisive, and a barrier to worship.
To use your words, these things were not the water, but the dim image of the water as painted by a mortal hand. They were sometimes pleasant to look upon, but you could never you them to slake your thirst. It's like the difference between listening to a new age tape of a rainstorm, and going out in a rainstorm and turing up your head to the sky.
I'm not sure listening to you quite what I'm missing. Through attending many forms of worship, I've come to appreciate ritual as an aesthetic which can be beautiful, and I can now )(I confess) recite the 'Apostle's Creed' without a bit of (I now believe largely inappropriate) bile rising in my stomach, but mostly I've still little sympathy for ritual.
In fact, in some ways, I've even less sympathy for ritual now than I did as a child. As a child, I prayed these really elaborate flowery prayers - "Father God, maker of the Heavens and the Earth, we come to you as...blah blah blah." Little mini-sermons. People loved them. People gushed, "Oh, you say the most beautiful prayers...blah blah blah." I hated that. I found myself saying prayers with other people mostly in mind as the audience. I hated that. I had to unlearn how to pray in order to regain any immediancy. Now I say stuttering, awkward, little prayers as one who doesn't know what to say, because I don't - all the old forms are meaningless blather if I'm not saying them for the right reasons and addressing them to the right 'namespace'. Now at least, when I say them, they feel like prayers.
I guess I'm saying that I've developed a certain aesthetic preference for minimalist aesthetics, maybe even the anti-aesthetic. I don't want to have a special effects dependent religion. I don't want to be part of an orachastrated worship. I don't want to be an audience, and I don't want to have an audience. I want to be a celebrant. I don't want to see, hear, smell, or taste the worship. I want to BE the worship. The more satisfying the aesthetic, the greater the danger you'll be tempted to never opening the wrapping.
The church is in New York City, but Tim Keller is one of the best. Great stuff here
And here
Sister churches in Boston here:
CHRIST THE KING
meets: Sundays,
99 Prospect St.
Cambridge, MA
English Service 11:00 AM (10:00 AM in summer)
Portuguese Service 6:00 PM (7:00 PM in summer)
phone: 617-864-5464
e-mail: rick@ctkboston.org
and here:
CITYLIFE CHURCH
meets: Sundays, 11:00 am
Sheraton Boston Hotel
Prudential Center, Copley Back Bay
Boston, MA
phone: 978-921-5003
e-mail: su1@quik.com
I have no idea what God thinks of our religions. I imagine him having a copy of the Summa Theologica tacked to his refrigerator. Total crap, but kind of cute.
But religion is a sad thing without aesthetic, community, and culture. Without that you've got the anti-cultural philistine Wahhabists, who paint over ancient frescos with whitewash.
The old Nicene Creed and other liturgical artifacts are the most beautiful things I remember from my childhood. Where else was I going to learn about beauty as a child - from progressive educators, or Captain Kangaroo?
"I grew up believing, then later disbelieving. Then still later, believing alternative things, only to find them dry and unfulfilling."
There is ample scientific evidence for the existence of the human soul but it is not well known and not well publicized. For an excellent summary of this research written by a lawyer see:
http://www.victorzammit.com/book/index.html
That's a beautiful post, Cicero. Thank you. Long life and good health to you, your daughter, your family and all in your congregation.
And don't be ashamed to let God speak to you and your daughter in ways that can't be reduced to verbal formulas. Medicine doesn't have to be dry or sour to do you good. Drink up! Take, eat, enjoy!
-
Off-topic, I'd like to apply for administration privileges, so I can turn links like those in #6 from HK_Vol into links like (link) (link) when they get in the way rather than having to ask someone else to do it. Or for that matter, (link) in #8 from believing, even though it's short. The rules on linking seem to be less and less respected.
Yehudit,
The American idea of what a "Reform synagogue" is, is very different from the Canadian implementation/ experience of same. I don't know why this is, but it seems to be so. The Canadians I know who spend time in the USA (often Florida) and visit Reform synagogues there appreciate individual programs etc., but often find the atmosphere et. al. too different to feel really comfortable there.
A lot does depend on the rabbi - but also on the congregation. The most barrenly religious place I've known was a conservative synagogue, and it went through several rabbis but nothing changed. The problem was a mean-minded, excessively political congregation that no rabbi could fix. The Sufis were/are smart enough to tell stories about finding the right followers, and there's a lot to that.
David...
I think it's time to take care of that, too.
You guys sound like you'd love the Unitarian Church I go to. It's so inclusive and it puts all religions on equal ground.
I belonged to a Unitarian church for about a year. You could believe in no, one, or many gods, but there was only one way to vote. Finally couldn't stand it any more. We're Lutherans now.
Raised and confirmed a Catholic, I grew up going to church a couple times a year. But the ritual was the best part about it. Today, most Protestant churches are more about social gatherings and "feel good Christianity" than worshiping the Lord. Just look at how people dress in church. It's like they're ready to go hiking right after the service is over. My wife, raised a devout Episcopalian, is totally fed up with all Protestant churches. Their worldliness, their lack of emphasis on ritual and prayer (they've removed the kneelers from her old church -- might be too hard on the old folks) their mandatory "volunteerism".
But we deeply appreciate the Catholic emphasis on ritual and traditional belief. My wife is very knowledgeable about the Bible. We want to find a church that actually cares about Bible study. Real study. She has a real personal relationship with the Lord (more than I can grasp). She has a problem with the Catholic emphasis on Mary, the rosary, and, of course, Mary's Immaculate Conception. But I explain to her that those are not the cornerstones of the Catholic faith.
What is the cornerstone is that Jesus died for us. And that he was physically, bodily, resurrected. If you read good apologetics books (Moreland, Craig, Blomberg) you will believe, rationally believe, that the fundamental miracle of the Christian faith (Christ's bodily resurrection) is an actual, well-documented, event in history. It really happened. God intervened in the natural world 2000 years ago. God became a man. 50 days after his death, God became the Holy Spirit during the Pentecost gathering of Jesus's followers. The Trinity is a mystery beyond what we can fully understand, so the reverence and mystery in a Catholic service is very appropriate.
If you come to a Catholic service with these thoughts in your mind, you can be uplifted in knowing that we still celebrate our connection with the Lord. That he is a personal God. And that we can worship him in a deep and profound way. And a good church can help in this connection.
Cicero, quoting a friend not giving his own opinion: "You guys sound like you'd love the Unitarian Church I go to. It's so inclusive and it puts all religions on equal ground."
#11 from Karl Gallagher: "I belonged to a Unitarian church for about a year. You could believe in no, one, or many gods, but there was only one way to vote. Finally couldn't stand it any more. We're Lutherans now."
When I attended a Unitarian service in Sydney, there was a bunch of Muslim guys there with Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) tapes, recruiting for Allah. Not bothering with any feel-good interdenominational happy talk either - they left that to the Unitarians - just getting straight to work winning souls for the One True Religion.
There was no sense that the Unitarian guys had any feeling that this was their church or that they might have religious opinions of their own. Their role was to be passive wallpaper, for more dynamic, committed people to come in and set the agenda. The Unitarians would no more dispute right of way with true believers than tree moss disputes right of way with lions.
Apparently, the day was an occasion for celebrating the oneness of religion - but only Islam had sent a team to do something in what was in effect unclaimed religious space and time. While that Muslim phalanx was there, all other religions could not have been on an equal footing.
The agenda setters didn't do too well though. First, food laid on for them wasn't halal, even though it was supposed to be, and there was a general lack of embarrassment over that: incompetence was clearly so normal there that it was good news that there was something to eat at all. Second, they could do nothing about a general cud-chewing lack of interest in religion or God. "Going to church", Sunday ritual, wooden pews, a slightly sing-song preachy noise and so on, OK. Prophets and stuff ... I'd say (shrug) but that would be more engaged than anybody was. Preaching to them was like tossing raw meat to lichen.
I didn't go again.
"The American idea of what a "Reform synagogue" is, is very different from the Canadian implementation/ experience of same. . . . The Canadians I know who spend time in the USA (often Florida) and visit Reform synagogues there appreciate individual programs etc., but often find the atmosphere et. al. too different to feel really comfortable there."
I think outside the US "Reform" often means "not Orthodox" and is often closer ritually to what we call "Conservative." But I know Conservative (and Orthodox) shuls can be unpleasant if the clergy and/or congregation make it so.
Interestingly, the Reform movement is circling back around to more appreciation of traditional forms and using Hebrew, as congregants feel the dryness as well. This may also be part of the reaction against the "assimilation" (meaning total abandonment of one's ethnic heritage to fit into a bland cliched version of "America") of the 1950s.
Yehudit:
Like many matters about faith, this may be too sensitive of discussion to be aired pubicly with strangers, and if so, I apologize and you can feel free to ignore me without comment.
I've known quite a few Jews over the years, counting some of them with friends. Their since of heritage has ran the gambit from the barely their to the dominating factor in thier lives. Despite this, or maybe because of this, I've never really understood what 'Jewish' means, nor do I understand how modern Jews feel themselves as Jews or what that means to them. Reading the (to me) 'Old Testament' - my only major exposure to a Jewish work - doesn't really illuminate the question. It explains something about what people may have thought before say, 100 AD at the latest, but very little about what it means now. Several things you've said in this thread have only heightened my feelings of confusion.
"I have no idea if I "believe" in God, and it's not a question I give much time for. It's beside the point."
How can this possibly be beside the point? What is the point in being a 'called apart' people, if you are not called apart by God? If some man from Asia named Abraham wasn't personally called out by God, then what's the whole point? Why persist in being a separate people when from the Pharoahs on, all this does is cause people to fear and mistrust you? If this covenant is only made among yourselves, isn't there a certain ammount of hubris in it? If you don't "believe", how can you count yourself of the line of Abraham no matter how much of his blood flows in your veins? Isn't "belief" the defining attribute of Abraham - not say the shape of his nose or the color of his skin?
"Sometimes I experience the presence of God but mostly I am satisfied that I stood with my people (those with me in the flesh and all the generations past) and spoke to Him in the language of our ancestors, using the same words and gestures and ritual implements we have used for that purpose for 2500 years."
I'm so confused. Are you a 'Temple' Jew? How can you say you experience the presence of God, and say you aren't sure if you believe? What do you mean, that lets you say these two seemingly contridictory things, because I cannot grasp the distinctions you are making. What should I be reading? From what understanding comes your sense of continuity of ideas?
Sincerely,
Clueless About Jewish
#13 David Blue:
Thanks for the report on the Yusuf I. missionaries and their Unitarian reception (if that's not too enthusiastic a word).
"[L]ike tossing raw meat to lichen" is a fine phrase. I'll steal it. Should I attribute it to you?
It's not only the best that lack all convictions; but passionate intensity is where you find it (my apologies to Yeats).
My dearest hope is that Cicero and family -- along with enough others -- will help stir some passionate intensity for bedrock human values, some of which were espoused by the Catholicism of my experience in the prior century, that help to create a world I woudn't mind coming back to. That world is not the Ummah, as far as I can understand it from its proponents.
That world is also not the world I see on MTV, or hear on many shortwave Christian radio stations; nor the world where pontiffs ram through thousands of canonizations in a bogus attempt to make their faith "relevant". We'll see what Benedict (née Ratzinger) achieves.
From afar, I cherish Cicero's daughter's ceremonies of innocence. She will need resilient strength. As will we. If the best culture the next few decades holds is Aquinian, I can live with that.
Nort
#16 from Nortius Maximus: "Thanks for the report on the Yusuf I. missionaries and their Unitarian reception (if that's not too enthusiastic a word)."
(smile) I'm glad I got something out of that day. It didn't seem useful at the time.
"[L]ike tossing raw meat to lichen" is a fine phrase. I'll steal it. Should I attribute it to you?
No. That would make you less likely to use it, and it's a phrase that needs exercise. Besides, having the taste to appreciate it makes you a good owner. (As in: "cute kittens free to good owner.") It's yours.
"It's not only the best that lack all convictions; but passionate intensity is where you find it (my apologies to Yeats)."
Yup.
"My dearest hope is that Cicero and family -- along with enough others -- will help stir some passionate intensity for bedrock human values, some of which were espoused by the Catholicism of my experience in the prior century, that help to create a world I woudn't mind coming back to."
My hope is: one more kid that's happy and knows who she is and where she comes from. It's not enough to have ancestors and cultural forebears that had a secure identity and cultural/religious roots. Mama may have, and poppa may have, but God bless the child that's got her own.
"From afar, I cherish Cicero's daughter's ceremonies of innocence."
Good for you too.
Afterthough: Nortius Maximus, I know your remarks in post #15 are addressed to Yehudit only, but let me give it a try.
Later: this try turned into a disjointed rant. Which I'm going to post anyway.
-
Judaism and communal orthopraxy.
Think of a priestly people without the priesthood of all believers.
From Moses, the prophets did this, and the priests did that, and the people were called to be a people and to follow rules and customs. The people as a whole have a relationship with their God, but an individual Jew may just have a relationship with other Jews, and that's acceptable.
Moses' lack of belief was an issue. Joe Average's lack of belief was not an issue. As long as what God called into being endures generation after generation, His will be done.
From the ground up, or from the God down, this is an orthopraxy, concerned with right action, not an orthodoxy, concerned with right belief.
Here are God's commandments. They are blessings. Give thanks for them, and hasten to obey them. That is Judaism. Be frumme - that is, observant, following the commands. That is communal and ethnic survival. By the sweat of (following) God's commandments, the Jewish people will live.
In that context, belief should be natural. If you do believe: great, how jolly for you!
But there is no special reward for this. There is little to no concern with an afterlife, because the point is simply to obey God's commands, collectively as a people and also as individuals. To the extent that an afterlife is raised as an issue at all, Jewish doctrine is that God will do what's right, however he chooses, and good people, the righteous, will be taken care of. Good people as in conduct. Believing stuff doesn't entitle you to anything at all.
Nortius Maximus: "Isn't "belief" the defining attribute of Abraham - not say the shape of his nose or the color of his skin?"
Physical characteristics are irrelevant. God says: "Do this." Abraham does it. Now we're rocking.
Re: Yehudit: "I have no idea if I "believe" in God, and it's not a question I give much time for. It's beside the point."
Nortius Maximus: "How can this possibly be beside the point? What is the point in being a 'called apart' people, if you are not called apart by God?"
You seem to me to be assuming that "what do I think about this?" is an important question. A Jew isn't always obliged to regard that as an important question.
Whether you have mezuzot on your doorposts is a typical example of an important question. There's a commandment on that.
Food is important. There are lots of rules on that. And it's yummy! (Or should be.)
Observing Pesach is really important. That's not only a command, but there's an awesome, supreme penalty for not following it: you can cease to be connected to the Jewish people. (That is: drift away and be lost. This is not about a threat of excommunication.) That connection, or the lack of it, matters.
-
On the naturalness of the Jewish approach
This would not have been considered strange in the ancient world. (Many things about the Jews were considered strange, but not this.) Piety to the Greeks was (among other things) to pour a libation to Apollo at the proper time and not to stint the god his share. To ancient Romans, the alter of Victory had to be supported by the state, and the Vestal virgins had to remain (... guess). It was not a question of proving one's faith. Divine law - including conformity to taboos - gave refuge to flotsam and constituted community.
Suppliants: "Respect the gods, they direct the ship of state."
King: "I stand in their shadow."
Suppliants: "Fear the anger of Zeus, god of suppliants.
Child of Palaechthon, Lord
Open your heart, in friendship hear
We are suppliants, exiles
We are calves tracked by wolves
Over crags, a death chase
We need a herdsman and you've appeared
Hear us"
- Suppliants, Aeschylus, trans. James Kerr (free translation for the modern stage)
A priestly writing in Ancient Egypt (which I can't be bothered looking up at the moment) says that if you say the God's name (in the right sense, in prayer, not in a taboo sense) in your heart but not aloud, God does not hear it. The point of this was not that the Gods of Ancient Egypt were deaf, any more than saying the gates of repentance are opened at Yom Kippur means they are closed the rest of the year. The point was that you play your part in the temple of the cosmos by doing stuff. The sun has its daily rounds, and the Nile had its yearly flood, and if you want to be connected and embedded in the insecurely founded by nevertheless divine order of reality as the Gods are, you too need to go further than just having an opinion.
At this point, give or take incomplete records from Mesopotamia, we have hit the vanishing point, the furthest horizon of Man's relationship to the divine. We do not know definitely of any more primal, earlier, authentic, original tradition, compared to which this kind of thinking could be a later innovation or corruption. If you insist on going back and back for an ultimate truth beyond this, like Professor Eddie Jessup in Altered States (1980) (link) - and I know that hunger - all you get to is a time when there was nothing evolved enough to be called human in the Nile Valley, and then a time where science tells us there was no life at all, just matter and energy hurrying about in space.
Connection: good. Ritual: good. Community: good. There is no contrary and better or deeper opinion to be had, unless you think you hear better counsel from mindless fundamental particles, having purely mathematical relationships to each other, hurrying nowhere in particular, for nobody, till universal heat death ends all.
Take your daughter to a good church. It will only benefit her. Do not deprive her of it, any more than you would deprive her of hugs.
-
An answer to what us in a sense an unanswerable charge of absurdity
I haven't really answered Nortius Maximus' question. He asked for something to add up logically, neatly, and I've pointed in a different direction, one that is religious but not neat and logical.
Why should the heart of man be made like this? Why is mankind well-suited to be formed into lasting communities collectively (not necessarily individually) devoted to gods?
(Devoted in ways that are quite practical and expensive and hard to fake - really devoted, in other words, whether this or that individual feels obliged to express "faith" at a given point or not.)
And why these fantastic efforts we put into the care of our dead? (Or in cases of hatred, defiling the dead?) Why fight or threaten to fight to see that Ajax is buried or not buried? Why is this concern as universal as humour, why should it be part of our species specs?
A perfectly reasonable answer is: the ultimate truth is meaninglessness, mere Chaos. There is no ultimate reason why our psychology, including the psychology of religion, should not be asinine.
Two-Face: "One man is born a hero, his brother a coward. Babies starve, politicians grow fat. Holy men are martyred, and junkies grow legion. Why? Why, why, why, why, why? Luck! Blind, stupid, simple, doo-dah, clueless luck!"
- Batman Forever (1995)
Victor Von Doom: "That's terrible news." [crash!] "I'll get a second opinion."
- Fantastic Four (2005)
First world correspondence chess champion and Australian chess teacher C.J.S. Purdy said that sometimes it's best to cut short your struggle for the best or a good next move like this: "Either this is right, or I'm insane. And if I'm insane, I'm not going to win anyway."
Works for me.
#18 David Blue:
'T'weren't me. That post is attributed to celebrim. :) And it's 4 AM here, so I'll read it later. :) * 2
#5 Celebrim
You're still a Protestant in the same way I'm still a Catholic. You will probably be most comfortable in the tradition that you grew up in, which appears to abhor ritual. Based on your writing, I can't imagine anything else coming close to being fulfilling for you -- even if you dispensed with God altogether, shunned Protestantism and became an atheist. You would still eschew ritual in whatever path you take.
And for me, the same roots to my childhood beckon. I've spent lots of time looking for rituals that fulfill, because mine was a childhood of ritual. It's a real V-8 moment for me, with me striking my forehead and exclaiming, "Duh! It's the Catholic Church, stupid." Looking and looking and looking for what I started out with all along. Silly me.
I think my essay is also about confronting one's religious origins and finding safety there in spite of the rationalizations we might have concerning its flaws and drawbacks. There's no place like home, in the deepest sense.
I don't know if you are a parent, but when one has a small child, these questions become most pressing.
Thanks for your thoughts.
#19 from Nortius Maximus: "'T'weren't me. That post is attributed to celebrim. :)"
Aargh!
I was noticing that even after previewing with what seemed like care I'd left in a bunch of little errors such as "if you want to be connected and embedded in the insecurely founded [should be but not by] nevertheless divine order of reality..." and I missed something much bigger.
I "console" myself by thinking that when the Jews who browse here at Winds of Change call me out on all the clear, provable errors that may possibly be found in my understanding of Judaism, the mistakes I've noticed so far may look like nothing by comparison...
Anyway:
'Cicero': "It is odd, but at this point in my life I feel like a salmon who must swim back upstream to spawn -- for my daughter's sake. It may not be logical. But it is necessary."
I think it's wise to follow that instinct. Very wise.
And a Jewish mother who may be an atheist herself, but who as if guided by instinct painstakingly educates her children in the same culture and religious knowledge that her mother gave her? Wise too. Very wise to follow that "instinct".
Like burying our dead with dignity, or being silly sometimes, these things may not be logical but they are necessary.
They are human.
We should bet, with our actions, that there is a point to being human, and that there is a point to doing the things that are proper and in some sense that we may not be able to pin down necessary for (many) humans. We should bet that it is not in the end all absurd, and that our species is not simply ill-made and mad.
"Think of a priestly people without the priesthood of all believers."
Yes, that's an important insight. I forget that my requirement to be a royal priesthood is part of the new covenant. But, the Jews no longer have either a priesthood or a royal line. I guess I was kinda assuming that Rabbinical Judaism was closer to a priesthood of all believers by necessity, instead of assuming that the priesthood mentality would survive the destruction of the priesthood.
"In that context, belief should be natural."
Christianity tends to take the other tack. In the context of belief, obedience should be natural. If you don't obey, it's pretty clear that you don't believe. If you don't believe, it's pretty unnatural for you to obey. But I suppose you are right. There is an implication function here, and implication functions aren't reversible: if you believe, then it implies that you will obey, but if you obey, it doesn't necessarily imply that you believed. Or at least, it doesn't imply what you believed. Clearly, Yehudit believes in something very powerfully, his "I am satisfied that I stood with my people...and spoke to Him in the language of our ancestors, using the same words and gestures and ritual implements we have used for that purpose for 2500 years."
I guess this is my Protestantism again, but I find priesthoods to be wierd. The whole faith in a priesthood surviving after the priesthood is no more is even stranger, but that isn't to say that I find it absurd.
"We should bet that it is not in the end all absurd, and that our species is not simply ill-made and mad."
Pascal observed that that was a very good bet. If you lost, you were no worse off than you were before, and if you won then you won everything.
Or to phrase it as my faith sees it, even if it is all in the end an absurdity of absurdities and that our species is fallen and insane, that somehow all these particular absurdities somehow may free us from that.
"And the dust returns to the earth as it was, And the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; All is vanity!... Furthermore, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil."
It seems to me that we are just arguing over the details of that.
celenbrim,
All my books are packed, but one of them notes that a Jew may argue with G-d (note that most of the major Jewish figures did), and may even doubt G-d. That's Ok, too, as Judaism leans on both faith and reason. What a Jew may not do is ignore G-d. In support of which, note the derivation of "Israel"...
As for following the rituals, etc., that is important but not as important as study of Torah (think of it as bible study plus). There's another quote that goes "...but the study of Torah is equal to them all [good practices, deeds, etc.], because it leads to them all."
Which could be reprased as "It's OK to struggle with this stuff. Keep wrestling with G-d and man, and follow the path even as you question it sometimes. Your understanding will improve, and you'll become a better person - as long as you don't quit."
An excellent introductory book for non-Jews is "The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism", by Prager & Telushkin.
JK: In that, Judaism and Christianity are in full agreement. I think you are mistaking the emphasis of my confusion. I'm not confused over Yehudit's doubt. Doubt is I think a natural condition of man.
"I believe, Lord. Be helping me overcome my unbelief."
I fully sympathize with his doubts. It's the following part where he says that belief is beside the point that I was confused by. I was trying to take off my Christian lens and see the scriptures as he saw them. I was trying to understand if this was a general feature, or something unique to his view. Fortunately, we seem to have several people here better students than I am.
I am aware that the study of the Torah has become (by necessity) the central act of worship of modern Judaism (and by modern, I mean since about the 4th century C.E.). In that, like our sometimes doubts, we have something in common. The reading of the scripture, while not the central act of worship of Protestantism, is nonetheless far more central than it is in Catholicism where the central act of worship is the priestly mass. Both faiths embrass universally literacy, if not, as David pointed out, universal priestliness.
I'm not sure I agree with your quote though. Is it merely the study of the Word which is equal to them all, or is it rather the acceptance of the Word as truth? You cannot leave out that part where the Qoheleth first admonishes us to begin with, "Fear God.", as is found in many other places also in the scriptures.
And I that here perhaps we can begin to speak of my confusion regarding Yehudit's lack of belief in a common language. Do not the scriptures say:
“And now, O Israel! what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul." - Deuteronomy 10:12
Do not the commentators say that in this is the whole basis and structure of the Mosaic law? The gospel also speaks to me and says,
"One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus replied, "The first is this: 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." - Mark 12:28-31
Can there be either love or fear, without belief? Is this not the essential element which binds together love and fear and makes them meaningful? Believe He is, and then the rest follows. Believe not He is, and your fear and love is placed somewhere else, and that thing is first in your heart. If you fail - collectively or individually - in that first commandment, what does it matter that you are connected to Judah in flesh? How much profit is there in keeping the flesh clean for God, if the spirit within is unclean?
I know how I have been taught. But I do not understand how y'all have been taught. I may pick up the Prager, but based on some of the comments on the Amazon site I'm willing to bet that I'll actually find the work owes as much or more to Christian apologetics as it does to traditional Judaism (some of the answers which trill some of the readers would be utterly banal to any Christian student), and I wonder how much his writings actually reflect the understanding of the Jewish community as a whole. I'm not sure I want someone that is described as 'pandering' to me, famous for making common cause with people I'm typically and making cause with, except for one chapter which is likely Karaist criticism of Jesus as the Messiah that I've encountered before, if what I'm aiming at is understanding of how other people think and not just a reaffirmation of what I already believe.
Marcus: I'm sorry if I appeared to ignore you. It's easy for me to get caught up in these things.
I find that one of the real weaknesses of Protestantism is that it tends to lead to a false doctrine of salvation through correct doctrine, as if we could know enough to be Holy to God. Talk. Talk. Talk. And often, if you aren't careful and stray from the right spirit, fight, fight, fight and divide.
Thanks however for your kind words. I really think it was an excellent essay, and I think it speaks to alot of the problems many people are going through in a post-Christian society. I think you are handling it better than most. I agree with David in that the swimming upstream sounds wise.
"I don't know if you are a parent, but when one has a small child, these questions become most pressing."
I have two 9 month old daughters, so yeah, these questions have become a little more pressing in the past few months. In that much at least, however different are mode for approaching God may be, we are the same.
An excellent introductory book for non-Jews is "The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism", by Prager & Telushkin.
As a non-Jew, I found Herman Wouk's "This is My God" very readable and understable, though I believe it may have originally been written with young family members in mind.
I like celebrim's fine post. Sometimes Protestants like to chide the "smells and bells" of Catholics and Episcopalians. But almost any competent historian or philosopher will tell you that ritual is important. Ritual is one way of maintaining tradition (Jaroslav Pelikan says that tradition is the living faith of the dead, in contrast to traditionalism, the dead faith of the living).
Overall, I think Religion has two aspects: the beliefs, and the community. I'm almost positive that if I were to go to a Presbyterian church anywhere else in the country, I'd be welcomed - as we do to those who come here. Even those who come from other continents.
The "flowery prayers" are usually the ones we say when we know others are listening. Somehow, I seriously doubt that God needs flattery. But one thing rituals do is connect us with the past, with the generations of believers that came and went before us. I think it's when the ritual becomes the End, rather than the Means, that we lose sight of the real End.
#24 from celebrim: "I'm not sure I agree with your [#23 from Joe Katzman] quote though. Is it merely the study of the Word which is equal to them all, or is it rather the acceptance of the Word as truth?"
No, it's study - actual doing, fulfilling a commandment, and no "mere" about it.
I can't underline sufficiently (or at all - we don't have that html tag) that that's the scale of values in Judaism. Fulfilling commandments is it When you stray from that, in ways that seem natural or inevitable, you stray from the spirit of the thing, you lose your grip on it. You may think: all these works are pointing to justification, to what it takes to get into Heaven. No they don't, they point to fulfilling God's commandments, which is all the end that a good Jew needs. You may assume, without even being aware that you are doing so, that the real point of this or that is the beliefs that underlie the action, the prayer or whatever. But no: it's not all about you, or your beliefs, or your reward, it's about fulfilling God's commandments. These workers are not thinking how they'll spend their wages, or watching themselves in the mirror, they are just working, joyfully, because they regard toil in God's service as a blessing.
Many Christians seem to find it hard or even impossible to "get" that singlemindedness. Their attention wanders ever back to them and their beliefs and their reward, and they can't get beyond that or really understand let alone believe that good Jews routinely do, but it is so.
Study and discussion are among the commandments.
"And the dust returns to the earth as it was, And the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; All is vanity!... Furthermore, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil."
celebrim: "It seems to me that we are just arguing over the details of that."
Yes we are. And that's a very good thing to do. Friendly discussions, such as we are having, are ideal.
Another good way of doing this is to park two students opposite each other with a text, and have them argue with each other over it - wrestle over it as it were.
I once saw a list of things it was considered desirable for a Jew to do on Shabbat. The spirit of the list was: do this, but if you can't, at least do that - OK, if you can't do that either, at least do this, and so on down the list. It was startling how low anything like individual, private devotion came down that list. Merely showing up on the grounds of the synagogue came much higher.
Judaism is a communal and an active religion. By the sweat of the commandments, the Jews live.
That's fine with the rabbis, who believe: doing the right thing for the wrong reason can lead to doing the right thing for the right reason.
I think that's wise.
Re: #22 from celebrim: I liked this post very much.
I have a nit to pick. (grin)
#22 from celebrim: "I guess this is my Protestantism again, but I find priesthoods to be wierd. The whole faith in a priesthood surviving after the priesthood is no more is even stranger, but that isn't to say that I find it absurd."
This is only a small nit to pick, because even if there was not a Cohen left in the world not a stone left of the Temple (not even the Wailing Wall), Judaism would keep going.
The kohanim are not "no more" - they even get called up at synagogue. There are still Cohens (and Levis). They have nothing to do till the Temple is rebuilt, but latent existence is still a sort of existence. It's not quite clear in many cases who the hereditary priests are, because when they got to America, some Jews lacking in English and fleeing persecution just got given "good Jewish names" such as Cohen by well-intentioned, uncomprehending immigration personnel. Not all "Cohens" are real Cohens. But there are rabbis who still care about things like this, just as you will occasionally get a Cohen rabbi who does something like studying all the sacrifices, just in case thrice daily prayers for the restoration of the Temple should be answered.
The priestly people still exist, even after thousands of years. There's been a pause. OK, it's a long pause. But faithfully the Jews abide!
The great majority of Jews today would be against rebuilding the Temple and restoring the sacrifices anyway. But opposition is not indifference.
None of this is or can be central in Jewish life or worship given modern circumstances. It's peripheral. But so's an elderly grandmother who's not giving up her room in the house or her place in the family to some stranger, because she's still there and not going away.
Nobody has torn up the framework of divinely ordained Jewish worship and set something entirely new in its place, so as to make the old issues irrelevant. Or rather, Jesus of Nazareth did, or tried to, and was told "no way!"
Which is loyalty or insanity, depending on how you see it. Personally, I admire the antiquity, faithfulness and staying power of the Jews no end.
David: At times there, you seem to be addressing someone else with an argument you'd saved up to make to that person.
"No, it's study - actual doing, fulfilling a commandment, and no "mere" about it."
Good. Then we are in agreement. I don't see why you need to go further.
I think we are possibly only in a semantic misunderstanding. When I see the word 'study', I see in my mind the image of reading and pondering something. I see in that the possibility of being a reader of the word only, and not a doer of it. I see in that the possibility of studying and rejecting the Word. But if you also do the word, then you are not merely studying it but living it and abiding faithfully. It seems you see 'study' to mean something more.
The rest of your comments in that section I won't comment on, because they seem to be motivated by a certain degree of angst and misunderstanding, and general slurring not becoming of you, and I don't want to enlarge on that. Suffice to say that I find it strange that you'd feel the need to tell a Protestant heir of the Puritans about the joy of toiling in God's service.
Perhaps I'm not the only one that needs to do some reading.
If you want to deal with what I actually said, I'd be happy to discuss it. Otherwise, perhaps we should move on.
"Yes we are."
Good. Then, again, we seem to be in agreement. The debate therefore as if we are not in agreement is misplaced.
"The kohanim are not "no more" - they even get called up at synagogue."
Now this I did not know, but knowing it doesn't provide me with understanding.
"The priestly people still exist, even after thousands of years. There's been a pause. OK, it's a long pause. But faithfully the Jews abide!"
A long pause indeed. Still abiding in faith in the Almighty God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not a bad way to live one's life, nor is it I think entirely a futile one even if you have (as I see it) your doctrine wrong. Contrary to some claims, Christianity readily recognizes that through such peity Jews have in aforetimes received salvation. Perhaps, it may be that some still do. I am in no position to judge.
"The great majority of Jews today would be against rebuilding the Temple and restoring the sacrifices anyway. But opposition is not indifference."
And here I get to a real area of confusion. It seems to me that there are two broad areas of contention between Judaism and Christianity. If there are more, I'd be courious to know what they were. Those two obvious areas are, the identity of Messiah Jesus, and the fact that I claim a Gentile to have dispensation under a new covenent to not abide by certain commandments in the Mosiac law - for example and most obviously in the modern world the food laws. Now, these things seem to me to be reasonable things which a pious man, faithfully devoted to following all of God's commandments and careful not to fall into error, might disagree with me over. That isn't to say that I feel I'm wrong, but I can at least understand his objections and see thier merit.
But, here is the thing: from what dispensation does a Jew believe he no longer has to follow the laws regarding sacrifices and offerings? I read the same text that you do, and there are a great number of these commandments. I read further that these commandments are essential to a right relationship with the Creator God under the Mosiac convenent, and that without them the sin is never forgiven from the people individually or the nation collectively. We could list a very large number of scriptures to this effect. As far as I can tell, for nearly two thousand years, the sins have been piling up and no offering has made by the high priest to cleanse them, no scape goat released, no libations poured out, nor any of the other requirements of the law fulfilled. Now, you are right to say that God desires right hearts more than he desires the burnt flesh of animals, and that an offering made without faith is of lesser value. But this does not change the requirements of the law. It is not enough to say, "Well I love Thee My God, but... its just a little too much trouble you see to do your commandments. I'd like to pick and choose you see." I believe in the Authority from which comes my dispensation and the covenent under which I may have a right relationship with the Creator. I accept that you do not. But where is your dispensation that would let you do the same thing for which you would condemn me? How can you oppose the commandments, and where is the joy in following them which you describe so passionately? Perhaps I completely misunderstand you, and in any event I readily admit I do not understand how Jews rationalize this - as it seems to me - apparant contridiction.
"None of this is or can be central in Jewish life or worship given modern circumstances. It's peripheral."
Peripheral? It's the central rite of the Jewish faith. When did God abolish it?
"Nobody has torn up the framework of divinely ordained Jewish worship and set something entirely new in its place, so as to make the old issues irrelevant."
In this, limited knowledge that I have, I disagree with you and agree with the Karaists. Perhaps, again, it is my Protestant antipathy for evolved tradition. But to me, indeed someone does appear to have torn up the framework of divinely ordained Jewish worship and set something entirely new in its place. The Mishneh and the Gemera does not seem to me to have any existance whatsoever before about the 2nd century of the common era. This version was not the same as that which existed in latter centuries, some many centuries long debate and development took place which seems to show to me that the tradition was more the result of a whole cloth creation than the simple setting down of existing tradition, and that even so extent versions are contridictory and lack internal claims of divinely granted authority. And, that even if the Talmud had been ordained and divinely inspired at the time of Moses, under whose authority was the oral tradition committed to paper? It seems quite clear to me that the most simple explanation is that the creators of the Talmud did so in responce to the fact that the central rite of thier religion having been removed, that a new central rite and theory of religion had to be created. Under this theory, the mere study of the laws regarding temple sacrifice was as good as doing the thing itself.
But this creates for you a contridiction. Didn't you just tell me that you "can't underline sufficiently" the importance of "actual doing, fulfilling a commandment"? Under what authority did the Rabbi's claim that merely thinking about obeying was as good as actually obeying, and how does this fit into the Jewish tradition as you understand it and have just related it to me?
"Which is loyalty or insanity, depending on how you see it."
I see the rejection of Christ Jesus by the majority of Jews of His time as neither quite loyalty or quite insanity. But that is beside the point, except that I want to make it very clear lest anyone think otherwise that I have the utmost respect for the Jewish people. The very fact that it was given to the Jews to judge and reject the Christ, proves to me if nothing else does, that they were the fittest to do so and most worthy to recieve the Messiah. No other people deserved the chance to accept him. Christ came as a Jew, was recieved into a Jewish family, and all his first followers were Jews. No other people would have fared better in such a test, and so no particular shame can fall on them for that which is not common to all of man.
The Christian tradition is that God, having ordained a new covenant, moved to make things upon the Earth to happen such that the old covenant could not be fulfilled. He has arranged the world in such a way since that time, that no more effective arrangement for preventing the restoration of the old covenent could be devised - or at least, I cannot imagine one.
#29 from celebrim: "David: At times there, you seem to be addressing someone else with an argument you'd saved up to make to that person."
Sorry. I didn't mean to do that. Perhaps it's just my klunky prose, at least in part.
David Blue: "No, it's study - actual doing, fulfilling a commandment, and no "mere" about it."
#29 from celebrim: "Good. Then we are in agreement. I don't see why you need to go further."
OK. Sorry.
#29 from celebrim: "I think we are possibly only in a semantic misunderstanding. When I see the word 'study', I see in my mind the image of reading and pondering something. I see in that the possibility of being a reader of the word only, and not a doer of it. I see in that the possibility of studying and rejecting the Word. But if you also do the word, then you are not merely studying it but living it and abiding faithfully. It seems you see 'study' to mean something more."
Sorry. I wasn't trying to push an eccentric or uniquely personal notion of the word "study". My comments weren't meant as an attack.
#29 from celebrim: "The rest of your comments in that section I won't comment on, because they seem to be motivated by a certain degree of angst and misunderstanding, and general slurring not becoming of you, and I don't want to enlarge on that."
Thank you for not enlarging on that.
I'm a little bit in a quandry here. It seems I need to make yet another peace offering, but by saying sorry in this case, I'd be tacitly agreeing with the negative implications you are putting on my motives. I've found once people start on this course, they keep going and`going: each effort to turn away wrath with a soft answer gets construed as an admission of some sort of bad motive or invisible offence that warrants further attacks, and the cycle repeats and escalates.
Still, with the understanding that, to avoid escalation, I am not admitting to the slurring, unworthy conduct or undesirable motives you just brought into what seemed till now a friendly chat, sorry.
#29 from celebrim: "Suffice to say that I find it strange that you'd feel the need to tell a Protestant heir of the Puritans about the joy of toiling in God's service."
Sorry. I should not have done that. And thank you for leaving it there with a gentle "suffice it to say".
#29 from celebrim: "Perhaps I'm not the only one that needs to do some reading."
And of course, the beat goes on. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that you were the only one that needed to do any reading.
#29 from celebrim: "If you want to deal with what I actually said, I'd be happy to discuss it. Otherwise, perhaps we should move on."
I seem to be in a bit of a dilemma again: on the one side looms tacit agreement with your initial speculation on my motives - that I was talking past you to someone else - and on the other there's volunteering for the sort of discussion it seems you'd be happy to have. Anything's got to be better than the second option.
-
David Blue: "Yes we are."
#29 from celebrim: "Good. Then, again, we seem to be in agreement. The debate therefore as if we are not in agreement is misplaced."
There was a friendly, cheerful and unguarded - apparently foolishly unguarded - digression from the thread on Cicero's beautiful post on taking his daughter to church. It was not, on my part, what you seem to think of as a debate.
What you seem to think of as the right way to conduct a convivial argument, I think of as the verbal equivalent of pulling a dagger to support a point of doctrine during the chatter outside church after a child's first attendance.
I do not want more of this, "misplaced" or as you may think, well-placed.
I am not interested in a fight. I get nothing out of beating anybody.
Which should not be taken as implying I think I could have beaten you, or as chest-beating in any way, or as any sort of invitation to more of this.
I hope we can leave this unexpected and unwanted clash here. I do not want it to carry over to any other thread at Winds of Change or anywhere else.
Let the record show: I want peace, and forgetfulness. I offered both on this occasion. And at this point, nothing had to go any further.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to do that."
Ok. No problem.
"It was not, on my part, what you seem to think of as a debate."
My bad. Perhaps the word 'debate' was ill chosen, as it seems to you to mean something other than what I meant. You said:
"And that's a very good thing to do. Friendly discussions, such as we are having, are ideal.
Another good way of doing this is to park two students opposite each other with a text, and have them argue with each other over it - wrestle over it as it were."
I thought that that is what we were doing. If my wrestling seems to have become too competitive, I apologize.
"My comments weren't meant as an attack."
I wasn't sure what to take them as. I thought I had made the point that the word 'study' had too much passivity in it. I then got blindsided by what seemed like a rant against Christian passivity. Perhaps this would be understandable in the context of me defending passivity, but, well, either I really wrote something confusing that needed clarifying, or else, well, I wasn't sure. You've made alots of apologies (far more than were necessary), and you've said much about what you weren't doing. I still have little insight into what you thought you were doing.
"What you seem to think of as the right way to conduct a convivial argument, I think of as the verbal equivalent of pulling a dagger to support a point of doctrine..."
Well, I assure you that my comments were never meant as an attack either. Still, it would be nice to know what specificly you are refering to so I can avoid doing it again. JK says, "So and so believes X...", and I said, "I believe so and so is wrong, because..."
"I do not want it to carry over to any other thread at Winds of Change or anywhere else."
I do not see how it could. I never was angry as much as confused. I'm just trying to get an understanding of the nature of faith as percieved by people whose practice of faith is very different than my own. I recognize that all my readings of the scripture are informed from a Christian perspective. This leaves open the possibility that of radically different approaches than I am used to. If I challenge you with a text, I very much sincerely want to know if you read it differently than I do. As I said before, these are surely sensitive issues. But, trying to investigate them here is far easier than face to face with all the additional emotional and physical baggage that carries, and I respect the opinions of the posters here.
I hear the need for faith and see only the acts of
dogma.