A Long Weekend...

I had quite the weekend.

I went to Columbia to celebrate my brother's 23rd birthday. I've gotta tell you, I love visiting my family. I saw my entire family (mom, dad, brother, sister, brother-in-law, two dogs, and two cats), saw the new Indiana Jones movie, ate good food, and just generally had a great time.

When I pulled into town, I'm walking towards the door and my brother greeted me. He said, "Hey, it's my birthday, so I want you to agree to something before I tell you what it is. Call it my birthday present." Of course, I agreed. Before I knew it we were sneaking into Faurot Field at 11:30 at night to sit on the 50 yard line and drink a beer. Though it was incredibly stupid, I had a great time breaking the law with my brother for his birthday. It was a good beer, we didn't hurt anybody or anything, and hey, it's just a misdemeanor, right? Totally worth it.

What I didn't enjoy this weekend was my family's discussion of religion. I think it's important to point out that I'm the youngest, so there is an instant condescension when they talk to me, but particularly in religion. They're pretty fundamentalist Christian in their attitudes, which means there is no room for debate. They're right. We're terrible people, Jesus was God who came to die for our sins so that we could be redeemed, every other religion is completely worthless, etc. It's really hard for me to deal with.

I really want to rant right now, but I won't. It really hurt me to tell my sister about my hard-fought-for religious beliefs and have her tell me that she thinks I'm wrong and feels sorry for me for holding them. I hate that kind of pejorative talk, like I haven't thought long and hard about what I think is the truth.

In reality, I think that kind of Christianity is very hurtful. It condemns over 3/4 of the world who don't believe in Christ. It takes a lot of hubris to think that just because you were born into a particular set of beliefs that everyone else is wrong. How does that fit into the view that God is all-loving anyway? Besides, God seems WAY too big, too beautiful, too loving, too mysterious to be completely described by the Christian Bible. It's like worshiping the Bible if you really think that it's got God figured out. Idolatry. No good.

I really hate what Christianity has turned into these days. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and some time writing about it in my other journal. I'll be posting that tomorrow, though. Something to look forward to!!!

Findings in the Ambulatory...

Yesterday was an amazing day. I went on a trip with Drury's Asian Culture Society to visit the Nelson-Adkins art museum in Kansas City, where we had lunch at Bo-Ling's Dim Sum restaurant, observed centuries of masterful artwork, and enjoyed the downtown life. It was incredible. Part of the fun was spending six hours in the car with a good friend and a German international student, from whom I gained lots of different perspective from (in a very good way), but part of the fun was looking at all of the religious exhibits in the museum and having lots of time to reflect on it all.

I learned something interesting while circling around the ambulatory in the medieval Christianity exhibit. Very fitting, I know. I was walking around looking at all the different Jesus paintings, portraits, sculptures, etc, and I noticed something: None of them are alike. Every artist puts his own unique touch to Jesus, be it his skin tone, hair line, or even just his facial expressions. No two Jesus portrayals are the same. Every generation paints Jesus through their own cultural lenses. To some, Jesus is black, others thickly Jewish, others completely caucasian. That led me to another point in my mind.

Every culture not only creates their own rendition of Jesus aesthetically, but also theologically. Every single person seems to encounter Jesus differently. Again, no two Jesus relationships are the same. There is no "correct" way to interpret Jesus. Granted, there are probably some wrong ways to go about it, but in the same way that no two friendships are the same, there is no orthodox encounter of Jesus. That gave me a special sense of relief. I can stop thinking about necessary and sufficient conditions for personal belief in Jesus, because it is about the particularities that I bring to the table, not about some generalization of humanity that matters most in faith. Very cool.

One thing that never seems to change is the message of love, of dedication to something beyond ourselves, of personal growth. I wish more people would start with the idea that everyone deserves to be loved unconditionally. From there, particular conceptions of Jesus get incredibly interesting and we can discuss them in an "envelope of friendship," as the new Emergent Christianity movement says. Life is good.

More on Christianity...

We talked about Christianity in my Philosophy of Religion course today, and I realized that every time we start to talk about Christianity in a philosophical or analytical context I experience a physical (and I'm sure mental) change. My muscles tighten, I get a lump in the pit of my stomach, and I just want to scream and run out. This, I think, stems from a few things, but it really upsets me that I can't rationally talk about this faith. I get very emotional about it in a very negative way.

I think that I feel spiritually abused by Christianity. For years people told me it was absolutely the right path and any other path was invalid. Now I think differently. For years people told me that if I would just pray to Jesus and God for answers, I'd find them. I never did. If I just lifted my prayers up to God he'd help. Then I watched one of my closest friends die a very painful death of cancer after we'd prayed until we could pray no more, leaving behind two daughters my age.

Christianity never helped me change my habits, so I kept feeling like I was doing it wrong or I was broken somehow. Through the years of putting all of my faith in God and the continual feeling of neglect, I couldn't help but think that it was because I was a spiritual failure. Everyone else got it, so why couldn't I? What was wrong with me? But I was continually told that Jesus loved me and there was no other path, so I tried harder and harder until I went to college. There I learned that there were alternatives to original sin, brokenness, the feeling of being God's unwanted child, and John's arrogant Jesus.

Now, hearing people preach the same path that caused me so much anguish and talk about Christianity's validity and truth claims makes me physically sick to my stomach. It makes me angry, I get distraught, and I also get scared.

This is what runs through my mind when we talk about Christianity:

I begin with something like, "Here we go again. Who could believe this? This is ridiculous! It naturally creates hierarchies, oppresses people by citing the Bible (which, I might add, is in no way justified as being the inerrant word of God!), and for the most part doesn't create people whose primary goal is to love and help each other. Why do people board this sinking ship?"

Then my past creeps up on me. "What if I used to be right? What if I really do need to be saved through Jesus Christ to enter heaven? What if my studies are only helping me rationalize not being able to do it right? What if I am broken and need grace? What if Christianity is the only way and God really was just ignoring me? What if it really is right and I'm going to spend an eternity in Hell?"

Then I get scared. There's no way of proving any of it, but sure enough some people will preach it as perfectly valid in every way because their pastor told them God said so. What if they're right? I don't want to believe it, but what if it's true? Even if it is true, I don't think I can go back to being who I was. It's too painful to continue to pray to a God who promises to listen and doesn't, who doesn't help the people who worship Him, who tells us to love Him and spread the message that He's supreme but never seems to love us back.

I'm through with it. I think we all need to work out our own salvation. I'm tired of waiting for God to work it out for me. We've gotta do some things for ourselves, no matter how painful it is and no matter how painful it is to look back on who we were once.

A Major Struggle...

Okay, so I know I have lots of people who have a Buddhist perspective who actually read this blog, so I'm asking for your help. I'm really lost and confused and it's all Buddhism's fault! Here's my dilemma:

I think Buddhism makes a lot of sense. Logically, I can follow it and it doesn't seem to be as contradictory as other things. The idea of anatman is both the most attractive thing about it and the thing that makes me hate it at the same time. I think it's attractive because it captures my intuitions about my Self. If I have a soul or Atman, what the hell is it? How do I define it? What is it made of? Where is it located? I can't explain any of these things. For me, all I can say exists is me as a body and as a thinking substance.

Also, we've been talking about personal identity in my classical problems in philosophy course. From everything we've studied so far, I can make no claims that I have a personal identity separate from everyone else that is distinctly me throughout time. Only a body separates us and makes me me and you you. From that vantage point, it seems like anatman makes sense as well.

Even still, I can't be at peace with it. Here's why:

I feel like by accepting Buddhism, I'm accepting a worse notion of human nature than original sin. If all life is impermanent and suffering, then our existence is a cosmic accident. We are a result of some accidental craving and clinging and the solution to the problem of humanity is to attain Nirvana. It seems like it belittles not just my inherited bad nature, but my very existence to a problem. Thus I enter Nihilism and it seems like everything I do is worthless. All I'm doing is perpetuating the human problem.

Everyone keeps telling me that Buddhism is happy and compassionate, but it doesn't seem that way to me. It seems like it's telling me that I'm worthless and I need to be dissolved. It's really hard for me right now because Buddhism makes more sense to me than anything else I've studied thus far, but in order to fully accept it I feel like I have to become a Nihilist and believe that there is nothing of value. We're all utterly meaningless and worthless in this big cosmic accident.

On a side note, I hate the thing that religions do. They make it so if you disagree with them, you appear to be stupid or eternally damned. From Christianity's perspective, if I don't accept I'm going to hell. From Buddhism's perspectives, if I don't buy into anatman, I have wrong views and am craving and clinging. Dammit!

A lack of phronesis...

I was driving around last night just to clear my head (a terrible way to do it, I know. I would have ridden a bike, but you can't really let your mind go on a bike like you can in a car). Anywho, I was pondering life and my obsession with my quest for religion. Why do I think about it all the time? What grounds do I have for this search?

I realized something weird: I've never really had a first-hand experience of God. I've never felt like God has answered a prayer, comforted me from a third-person perspective, or anything mystical like that. My experiences with the divine always lie in nature, in the things I see on my bike rides, in sunsets and such. I just have a hard time believing that there isn't anything out there after I see such things, so I quest on looking for whatever "it" is.

I think the notion that I've never experienced a third party entity revealing itself in my life (and believe me, I looked for years with sincere devotion) has led me to believe that God is somewhat removed from my life at least. Either God is removed from personally interacting in my life, or I have an Atman that I haven't realized yet. Any thoughts? Personal experiences?