incoming!
I’m a tad excited. I got myself a piece of hate mail.
Okay, it’s not really that hateful — just a little irritated, perhaps. So I got myself a piece of irritated mail, then.
But can I just call it hate mail? Because it’s the first one I’ve gotten since the book release that’s even close, the very first, and I was ever-so-ready in the beginning to get a lot of them. I was so ready to be pounced on when Parenting Beyond Belief was released that I pre-wrote answers to six different types of complaints I had anticipated — four for complaining Christians and two for complaining atheists. Spent some serious time on them, I did, and they’re cracking good answers, kill-’em-with-kindness type answers that leave the victim with a goofy, pleasant grin, unsure quite why he can’t feel his extremities anymore and entirely oblivious to the rivulets of steaming scat running down his forehead into his tiny little eyes. That kind of answer.
But the complaints never came. Oh, a little here and there, some of them points well-taken, but not much static to speak of. Almost everyone’s been quite decent about the book, even when they disagree with this or that bit.
Now what kind of crap luck is that?
Then I got this:
To whom it may concern-
The book “Parenting Beyond Belief” is ridiculous. I feel sorry for any child raised by atheist parents. I only hope that you can see that raising a child is the absolute best thing for them.
God Bless —
John R______
See? That’s the worst I’ve received since PBB came out, and it’s not even that bad. Just irritated, and a bit confused in the last sentence.
The angriest letter I ever got followed the lockout debacle/media frenzy to which I alluded in an earlier post, the one at the College of St. Catherine in 2003 when, as a faculty member, I invited a nonreligious scholar to speak on the Catholic campus. That letter (one of dozens at the time) told me I was a “son-of-a-bitch,” instructed me to kiss the college president’s (wait for it!) shoes for feeding my family despite my apparent “intentions to sew [sic] confusion in the minds of students at a Catholic college,” promised me Hell — and ended with “Gods Blessings on you.”
I thought sure PBB would draw more such fire. I was even assured by Lisa Miller at Newsweek that I would be “in the crosshairs of the Religious Right” after the article came out. There’s been a bit of grumbling on websites here and there , but that’s it.
Don’t think I’m really complaining. My word, I’m quite relieved that I haven’t had to waste energy in that direction. But I’m puzzled. Relieved and puzzled. Most of my mail looks more like this, which came in less than an hour after the “God Bless” message:
Dale,
This past year:
I read your book.
Joined a Humanist Group
Told my 12 year old it is OK not to believe
And now the cycle of religion is broken and she is free to focus on life rather than afterlife
Life is good and it’s about time. I’m 50. My parents, brothers, sister and wife are believers but I’ve always had strong but quiet doubt.
Now I’m OK with not pretending anymore and I don’t sit back when I need to stand up for myself. I accept my way as what normal should be and urge family to accept my thinking as I accept theirs.
Thanks,
G___
I hope I never stop being moved by messages like that.
labels
[continued from the open shelf]
“What does ‘humanist’ mean?” Delaney asked.
I swallowed. You’d think that, given my current work, I’d have sat myself down at some point and worked out guidelines for such inevitable moments:
CONTINGENCY 113.e
Requests for Definitions
iii. Term: “humanist”
Subset 2: Age 5-6
Children in this demographic cohort who make a direct request for the definition of “humanist” and/or any of its etymological class members (e.g. humanism, humanistic) are to be referred to Article 6, section D of the Humanist Manifesto, except in Arkansas and Hawaii.
Lacking such a road map, I simply answered her question. In retrospect, to my surprise, I even answered it correctly.
“A humanist is somebody who thinks that people should all take care of each other, and that even if there is a heaven or a god, we should spend our time making this life and this world better.”
“Awesome!”
I should note that Laney (age 6) uses Awesome! to signify everything from “I find that rather astonishing” to “That’s something I didn’t know before, and now I know it!” The latter meaning was in play here, I think, the word Awesome! signifying a new piece of the world clattering against the bottom of the piggy bank of her receptive mind.
Later that evening, after she’d been read to and sung to and tucked and kissed, I went back to my study to close up for the night. Scattered on and around the recliner she’d been sitting in were The Humanist Anthology, Tristram Shandy, The Kids’ Book of Questions, The World Almanac, The Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, The Simpsons and Philosophy, Cosmos, and Bulfinch’s Mythology. I reloaded the shelves and went to bed.
One week later, during our afterschool snack-chat, Laney informed me excitedly that there are nine different religions in her class.
“Nine, wow! How do you know there are nine?”
“We’re talking about different religions, and Mr. Monroe asked if anybody wanted to say what kind of religion their family believed.”
I was not surprised to hear of some diversity. There are lots of South Asian kids in the class. Compared to the demographic mayonnaise I had pictured North Atlanta to be, I’ve been thrilled with the diversity here. “And there were nine different ones?!”
“Yeah, nine…” She looked at the ceiling and began to rattle them off. “Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Baptiss, Jewish, Chains…” (“Chains” is probably “Jain,” one of the most benign and respectable religious traditions on Earth). She counted on her fingers. “Anyway, I can’t remember all of them.” She suddenly beamed. “And I was the only humanist!”
I paused for a week or so.
I am adamantly opposed to labeling children, or even allowing them to label themselves, with words that imply the informed selection of a complex worldview. Dawkins hits it right on the head when he refers to a long-ago caption on a photo in The Guardian. The photo was of three children in a Nativity play:
They are referred to as “Mandeep, a Sikh child; Aakifah, a Muslim child; and Sarah, a Christian child” — and no one bats an eye. Just imagine if the caption had read “Mandeep, a Monetarist; Aakifah, a Keynesian; and Sarah, a Marxist.” Ridiculous! Yet not one bit less ridiculous than the other.
That incisive analogy is Richard’s greatest contribution to secular parenting. I completely agree, as (I am increasingly convinced) do most nonreligious parents. Once a label is attached, thinking is necessarily colored and shaped by that label. I don’t want my kids to have to think their way out from under a presumptive claim placed on them by one worldview or another. So prior to age twelve, I won’t allow my children to be called “atheists” any more than I’d allow them to be called “Christians”–not even by themselves. (More on the ‘age twelve’ comment in a later post. Remind me when I forget.)
So my first impulse was to give the usual cautionary speech: Now be careful not to stop thinking. There are still too many questions to ask, too much you don’t know. Someday you’ll be able to make up your own mind on this, but it’s not time yet.
I looked at Laney, still beaming proudly through a mouthful of Nilla Wafers. At the time she had learned the meaning of humanist from me, I didn’t know she had said to herself, That’s me. She was obviously delighted to have had something to say when all the other kids were claiming their tribal identities, and clearly had no idea of the dark chain reactions set off in the fundamentalist mind by the word “humanist.”
“So what did Mr. Monroe say?”
“He said that was cool!” And I’m sure he did. He’s a great guy. No evidence of dark chain reactions in him, nor in her classmates.
“And he asked what a humanist believes,” she continues.
“What’d you say?”
“I said a humanist believes the most important thing is to take care of each other and the world.”
If she had called herself a secular humanist, I would have protested. But what is there about believing ‘the most important thing is to take care of each other and the world’ that requires more time and thought and study? Is she impeding her thought process by declaring this — or is this a value, like honesty and empathy, upon which she can build her search for an identity? There are, after all, both religious humanists and secular humanists. Erasmus and Paine, two great heroes of mine, were among the former.
Humanism has no connection to atheism for her. The definition I gave her even included the option of believing in a god and being a humanist. By calling herself a humanist in the broadest terms, she hasn’t bought into complex metaphysics; she’s simply embraced a concept that even a six-year-old can sign on to. And in the process, she introduced her classmates, and her teacher, to a new idea, and associated it with her smiling, eager, proud little face.
So Laney’s done it again — she’s taken my armchair abstractions and turned them inside out, making me realize that not all worldview labels are ridiculous or harmful for kids. Some can even serve as catalysts for the next stage in a child’s process of finding her place in the world. And the next stage, and the next.
photo by Paula Porter
EXODUS (bookin’ through the bible 8): guest column by Vast Left
[Editor’s note: I’m not the first to come up with the idea of bible study for nonbelievers. In order to give y’all a taste of the many different ways this can be approached, I’ve invited a couple of guest bloggers to each take the book of their choice and run with it. Our guest today is Vast Left, the brain behind the blog “Bible Study for Atheists,” who has prepared a comprehensive look at Exodus especially for Meming of Life readers. The introduction is below, followed by a link to the entire text. Many thanks to Vast for taking on this task!]
______________________________________________________________
The Exodus Is Here
The ongoing influence of Exodus
Hello, Vast Left from Bible Study for Atheists here, taking you on a speed-dating tour through Exodus. King James Version, of course. I may be a heathen, but I’m a traditionalist heathen.
For an explanation of BS4A’s scope and philosophy, please click here. In a nutshell, the approach is to read the Bible through modern eyes, exploring the literal and metaphorical meaning of each chapter. In every sense, it’s a thoroughly irreverent look at the Good Book.
Ready to take a walk on the wilderness side? Then, let’s via con Dios, and read a summary of all 40 chapters of Exodus, specially prepared for readers of Parenting Beyond Belief / The Meming of Life.
PBB online seminars!
Registration is now open for the Parenting Beyond Belief Online Seminars and I’m giddy about it. Here’s the blurb:
THE PARENTING BEYOND BELIEF ONLINE SEMINARS
hosted by Dale McGowan, editor/co-author, Parenting Beyond Belief
Join author Dale McGowan and other nonreligious parents for these fun and informative web events: The PBB Book Club and the PBB Webinars. Information and registration links below.
The Parenting Beyond Belief Online Book Club
One-hour online discussions led by Dale McGowan, author/editor of Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion
Join Dale for a live discussion and Q&A about the book Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, the first comprehensive resource for parenting without religion.
Dale describes the process of bringing this groundbreaking book from concept to release, as well as the consensus that emerged from the book’s 25 contributors on how to raise great kids without religion. The floor is then open for questions from the participants.
To facilitate the Q&A, registration for each one-hour Book Club meeting is limited to 15 participants.
Registration is FREE OF CHARGE, and you do NOT have to have read the book to listen in! Click on the date of your choice to register:
Sunday, January 27 at noon Eastern
Monday, January 28 at 9:00 pm Eastern [REGISTRATION CLOSED]
Tuesday, January 29 at 9:00 pm Eastern [REGISTRATION CLOSED]
Wednesday, January 30 at 9:00 pm Eastern [REGISTRATION CLOSED]
Thursday, January 31 at 9:00 pm Eastern
Friday, February 1 at 9:00 pm Eastern
Saturday, February 2 at 3:00 pm Eastern
The Parenting Beyond Belief Webinars
Dale McGowan, author/editor of Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, hosts a five-part series of online seminars (or “webinars”) addressing the central issues of parenting without religion.
Registered participants log in to a provided website at the allotted time, then dial a provided phone number for the session audio. During each one-hour webinar, presenters can submit questions online, of which Dale will answer as many as time allows.
Each topic is offered twice in a given week, once on Sunday and again on Tuesday, with identical content. Participants can sign up for any number or combination of topics in the five-part series. Registration for each webinar is $18.
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WEBINAR #1: Secular Family, Religious World
Register for Sunday Feb 17 at noon Eastern, or Tuesday Feb 19 at 9 pm Eastern
I often find myself saying I’ve “set religion aside.” Actually, that’s a bit like saying someone who rides a bike to work has set traffic aside. I’m still in it, still surrounded by it, and always will be. One of our jobs as secular parents is to help our kids learn to co-exist with religion, even as they engage and challenge religious beliefs and their effects.
This seminar explores issues of secular parenting in a religious world, including
- -Helping kids to be religiously literate without indoctrination;
-Dealing with church-state separation issues in schools;
-Helping kids respond to the idea of hell and pressures from religious friends;
-Hopeful signs for secular parents in the United States.
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WEBINAR #2: The Religious Extended Family
Register for Sunday Feb 24 at noon Eastern, or Tuesday Feb 26 at 9 pm Eastern
Most nonreligious parents are raising their children within a religious extended family. This can provide enriching diversity but also painful conflict: “Should we just go to church to satisfy Grandma?” “Should we have the kids baptized to keep the peace?” “How can I tell Aunt Ruth it’s not okay to proselytize my son?”
This seminar looks at ways to minimize conflict, resolve disputes, and turn seemingly unbridgeable gaps into benefits for the entire extended family.
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WEBINAR #3: The Art of the Question
Register for Sunday March 2 at noon Eastern, or Tuesday March 4 at 9 pm Eastern
Wondering and questioning are at the heart of naturalistic parenting. This seminar explores ways in which secular parents can use the pivotal moment of the question to build an environment of boundless wonder and fearless inquiry for their children.
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WEBINAR #4: Raising Naturally Ethical Kids
Register for Sunday March 9 at noon Eastern, or Tuesday March 11 at 9 pm Eastern
Morality isn’t magic. It is, and has always been, based in reason. Understanding the reasons to be good can move children beyond simplistic rule-following to the development of active moral judgment—a far more reliable ethical foundation.
This seminar describes the difference between commandments and principles and offers tips for encouraging children to be actively involved in their own moral development.
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WEBINAR #5: Death and Life
Register for Sunday March 16 at noon Eastern, or Tuesday March 18 at 9 pm Eastern
The single most significant and profound thing about our existence is that it ends, rivaled only by the fact that it begins. Death is a hard thing to grasp, let alone accept. Religious notions of an afterlife are of little real help—believers cling just as frantically to life, grieve just as bitterly its end, and have the added burden of worrying about hell.
This seminar presents practical ways to help children begin a healthy and satisfying lifelong contemplation of mortality, using the Inversion Principle and the Improbability principle to flip the whole equation on its head. A healthy understanding of death can help our children envision life itself in an entirely new way—one that religion cannot hope to match for pure, astonished joy.
fearthought
I’m up to my eyebrows in background reading for the sequel to Parenting Beyond Belief (possible names: Still Parenting Beyond Belief; Parenting Beyonder Belief; and Parenting Beyond Belief: The Empire Strikes Back). Likely release date is around December ’08.
In addition to reading huge amounts of useful stuff, I’m doing a bit of reading on the other side of the fence: religious parenting books. Some are very good, like the work of Christian parenting author Dr. William Sears. Some are mixed, including (to my admitted surprise) James Dobson, who serves up some quite sound advice along with his nonsense. Then there’s complete lunacy and even unintentional self-parody, for which we turn to author and televangelist Joyce Meyer.
fearthought
Joyce Meyer
Here’s a passage from Meyer’s “Helping Your Kids Win the Battle in their Mind“:
Satan will look for your child’s weakest area and attack at that point. He will attempt to fill your child with worry, reasoning, fear, depression and discouraging negative thoughts.
Don’t laugh at what she’s placed between worry and fear in the devil’s toolkit unless you turn straight to tears. According to her website, Joyce Meyer (who lives, interestingly, about three miles from my parents) has television and radio programs in “over 200 countries” — a truly remarkable achievement on a planet with 195 countries. Slightly less amusing is the fact that she has sold over a million copies of a book for which this passage can serve as an encapsulation:
I once asked the Lord why so many people are confused and He said to me, ‘Tell them to stop trying to figure everything out, and they will stop being confused.’ I have found it to be absolutely true. Reasoning and confusion go together.
from Battlefield of the Mind, p. 99
Last year she issued a version of Battlefield of the Mind “For Teens,” which I’m reading at the moment.
You can tell it’s intended for teens because of the cool dripping paint on the front cover, and the use of words like “wanna” and “gonna” and phrases like “where your head is at” (which teenagers use all the time, along with “groovy” and “hang ten.” If nothing else, Joyce is clearly hep to the jive.) My favorite sentence: “If you’re like most teens, you’ve probably seen the movie The Karate Kid.” Karate Kid was released in 1984, several years before today’s teenagers were born.
Fewer giggles were forthcoming from passages like this:
I was totally confused about everything, and I didn’t know why. One thing that added to my confusion was too much reasoning.
That’s right: it comes back again and again in her advice, in millions of books and throughout her broadcasting empire. Don’t even start thinking. Most troubling of all is the desperate attempt to make kids fear their own thoughts, right at the age they are supposed to be challenging and questioning in order to become autonomous adults:
Ask yourself, continually, “WWJT?” [What Would Jesus Think?] Remember, if He wouldn’t think about something, you shouldn’t either….By keeping continual watch over your thoughts, you can ensure that no damaging enemy thoughts creep into your mind.
I will defend to the death her right to put these opinions out there, and the rights of her millions of devoted readers to read it and to think it is something other than sad, ignorant, unethical, fearful sheepmaking. I’m just all the more motivated to put out a message precisely opposed to Meyer’s fearthought, one that advocates building up critical thinking and moral judgment in tandem, then inviting ideas into your head without fear that one of them will somehow jump you when you’re not looking.
Now I just need a word for the opposite of fearthought. I’m sure one will occur to me.
Freethought
This excerpt from a post of mine last June (“Rubbernecking at Evil”) shows how different are the planets Joyce Meyer and I occupy — even beyond the number of countries. Compare the bolded passage below with Joyce Meyer’s advice:
About a year ago, [my daughter Erin, then 8] went through a brief period of self-recrimination, literally dissolving into tears at bedtime, but uncharacteristically unwilling to discuss it. The morning after one such nighttime session, we were lying on the trampoline together, looking at the sky, and I asked if she would tell me what was troubling her. “Did you do something you feel bad about, or hurt somebody’s feelings at school?” I asked. “There’s always a way to fix that, you know.”
“No,” she said. “It isn’t something I did.”
“Something somebody else did? Did somebody hurt your feelings?”
“No.” A long silence. I watched the clouds for awhile, knowing it would come.
At last she spoke. “It isn’t anything I did. It’s something…I thought.”
I turned to look at her. She was crying again.
“Something you thought? What is it, B?”
“I don’t want to say.”
“That’s OK, you don’t have to say. But what’s the problem with thinking this thing?”
“It’s more than one thing.” She looked at me with a worried forehead. “It’s bad thoughts. I think about saying things or doing things that are bad. Like…”
I waited.
“Like bad words. That’s one thing.”
“You want to say bad words?”
“NO!!” she said, horrified. “I don’t at ALL!! But I can’t get my brain to stop thinking about this word I heard somebody say at school. It’s a really nasty word and I don’t like it. But it keeps popping into my brain, no matter what I do, and it makes me feel really, really bad!!”
She cried harder, and I hugged her. “Listen to me, B. You are never bad just for thinking about something. Never.”
“What? But…If it’s bad to say a bad word, then it’s bad to think it!”
“But how can you decide whether it’s bad if you don’t even let yourself think it?”
She stopped crying in a single wet inhale, and furrowed her brow. “Then…It’s OK to think bad things?”
“Yes. It is. It’s fine. Erin, you can’t stop your brain from thinking – especially a huge brain like yours. And you’ll make yourself crazy if you even try.”
“That’s what I’m doing! I’m making myself crazy!”
“Well don’t. Listen to me now.” We went forehead to forehead. “It is never bad to think something. You have permission to think about everything in the world. What comes after thinking is deciding whether to keep that thought or to throw it away. That’s called your judgment. A lot of times it’s wrong to act on certain thoughts, but it is never, ever wrong to let yourself think them.” I pointed to her head. “That’s your courtroom in there, and you’re the judge.”
The next morning she woke up excitedly and gave me a high-speed hug. Once she had permission to think the bad word, she said, it just went away. She was genuinely relieved.
Imagine if instead I had saddled her with traditional ideas of mind-policing, the insane practice of paralyzing guilt for what you cannot control – your very thoughts. Instead, I taught her what freethought really means.
I’m more than a little proud of myself for managing to say the right thing. That’s always a minor miracle. I don’t blog about the three hundred or so times in-between that I say the wrong thing.
In the year since that day, Erin has several times mentioned that moment, sitting on the trampoline, as the single best thing I ever did for her. As with most such moments, I had no idea at the time that I was giving her anything beyond the moment itself. I just wanted her to stop crying, to stop beating up on herself. But in the process, it seems, I genuinely set her free.
JOHN (bookin’ through the bible 7)
John 3:16 Guy, a.k.a. Rollen Stewart
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THE GOSPEL of JOHN
If we’re trying to make historical sense of the Bible — and many, many people persist in the effort — the differences between the three “synoptic” gospels and the Gospel of John is a problem best not pondered too much. “John’s testimony is so different from that of the synoptic gospels,” wrote Tim Callahan in Secret Origins of the Bible, “that if his is accepted, theirs must be discarded.” But once you accept the folkloric nature of the Gospels, you can discard all of them as any kind of historical record and just enjoy the variations as evidence of oral handling and glean the occasional meaningful message from it. Liberal Christians do exactly that.
I’ve already confessed a certain affection for Luke. Part of it is familiarity, certainly, but it also includes a really attractive mythic narrative. But the Fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John, the crazy aunt in the Christian attic, is the one that really grabs me by the bollocks:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
That’s the way to start a book about a god, not with a rambling genealogy or by banging on about vague prophecies! Religious moderates are often embarrassed by the weirdness of John, while Born-Agains, anti-Semites and rainbow-wigged endzone dwellers find their raisons d’etre in it. Yes, John has inspired more than its share of grief and ongoing lunacy. But considered as literature, as folklore, I find myself thoroughly grabbed by its metaphors (2:19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up) and its brutal, vivid directness:
6:53 Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.
No wonder “from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him”! And in verse 6:66, no less! If you want passing, veiled references, go back to the synoptics. John makes the gristle of Christ squeak between your teeth.
My favorite gospel story, and the favorite of religious moderates everywhere, is John 8:4-11:
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say? They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
They are asking this of the man who affirmed every “jot and tittle” of the Law of Moses, remember, including Lev 20:10. John describes the scene with this wonderful small detail:
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger, as if he had not heard them.
We’re in the midst of one of the greatest Bible moments here, a wholly uncharacteristic one. It’s more of a Buddha moment, really, and a marvelous piece of scene setting. It’s not the only one in John—“Jesus wept” (11:35) is another. In most of the gospels Christ is drawn with the wooden two-dimensionality of a grade school nativity play. But here, in John, he pops to life.
When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
Jesus straightened up and asked her, Woman, where are they? Has no-one condemned you?
No-one, sir, she said.
Then neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared. Go now and leave your life of sin.
The pace, the detail, the dialogue—none of it would be out of place in a modern novel. And unlike most of the Bible, there’s some genuine, original wisdom in it.
Gospel Hero No. 1: Judas
I’ll close by acknowledging two genuine heroes in John. In both cases, their heroism is interestingly set against the intransigence or cynicism of Jesus. The first is Judas in John 12:3-8:
Mary took a pint of pure spikenard ointment, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.
He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
Why hello there, John. Editorialize much? Methinks he protests too much about Judas’ motives. Even if the dialogue is pure fiction, a graduate lit seminar would credit the character of Judas here and distrust the petty narrative voice. Judas didn’t say the money should have stayed in “the money bag.” He specifically suggested the 300 dinarii—a year’s wages for a laborer—should have been spent, but on the poor instead of on a luxury. And the character of Jesus responds with unworthy cynicism:
Leave her alone, Jesus replied. It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.
Webber and Rice side with me on this interpretation in Superstar. Judas is the conscience and hero of the film:
Christ redeems himself (now there’s a turn of phrase) in 13:34 with a brand-new commandment, and a cracking good one:
A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.
Gospel Hero No. 2: Thomas
I’ll close with my other gospel hero, Thomas, who thought to ask for a bit of simple evidence before believing:
Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord! But he said to them, Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you! Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.
The Incredulity of St. Thomas (1601) by Caravaggio 
Thomas said to him, My Lord and my God!
Then Jesus told him, Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
Oh really. I haven’t seen Joseph Smith’s golden tablets either. Shall I believe in them? Why not? How about the Mohammedan revelations? David Koresh, Jom Jones? This is the elephant in the church: When you say “Have faith,” which unevidenced claim shall I believe? The one I was born into? The one that gets to me first? The one with the loudest proponents or the worst threats? Perhaps the one with the least evidence? The story of Thomas would have been perfect if it ended 23 words earlier.
You can’t really blame Jesus for missing the point of the Thomas story. He was dead on his feet, after all. I’ll stick with Thomas, a biblical hero well worth introducing to my kids.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: John 3:16 Guy, a.k.a. Rollen Stewart, is currently serving three consecutive
life sentences for kidnapping and for threatening to shoot down planes in preparation
for the Rapture. No reflection on other fans of the Gospel of John or others with rainbow
hair, of course. But it IS a reflection on believers in the Rapture.]
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Next week: EXODUS, with a special guest blogger!
laughing matters 3: the bible gal
I taught at a Catholic women’s college in Minnesota for 15 years. Half of my courseload was an interdisciplinary seminar in writing and critical thinking.
Teaching critical thinking at a Catholic college is strange, but only half as strange as it seems. Every official college document, from the Mission Statement to the Catholic Identity Statement, trumpeted the vital importance of critical thinking, open intellectual inquiry, the vigorous exchange of opposing views, etc. So critical thinking was alive and well in writing. Just not in practice. Issues of religion, race, and gender, among many others, had accepted, unchallenged orthodoxies. Unorthodoxy was killed off in one way or another, usually with suffocating silence.
My head eventually began to hurt from the dissonance. To relieve the pressure, I turned to humor, writing the satirical novel Calling Bernadette’s Bluff, the utterly fictional story of a secular humanist male faculty member at the utterly fictional College of St. Bernadette, a Catholic women’s college in Minnesota. It’s still selling the occasional copy after five years, which is nice, and reviews were good. Most of all, it saved me a blown cerebral artery by allowing me to get some things said. And by doing so humorously, I got the same reprieve as Erasmus from the (direct) wrath of the Powers that Were. For a while.
A few months after publication, a couple of students asked if I would like to form a student humanist group on campus, “like the one in your book.”
Like the one in the book? I thought. Surely not.
I reminded them that things in the book went seriously unwell for the group in question, and for the college itself. They shrugged. So we did it. And things went badly.
How they went badly is a good story in itself, eventually involving locked doors, bad press for the college, the first student protest in the school’s history (against the censorious college president), hate mail for me, equal measures of faculty courage and cowardice, and a tenure standoff with the college deans. But that’s another story. This series is about humor and critical thinking.
My tenure committee
In the service of my children’s addictions to food and clothing, I hung around for as long as I could, then gave notice in May ’05 that I would leave in May ’06. My resignation was gratefully accepted by the president. Many faculty colleagues expressed genuine and eloquent grief over my decision, something that warms me to this day.
I had to decide how to disengage with the place I’d worked most of my adult life. I felt tremendous bitterness at the hypocrisy and cowardice at several levels. But instead of giving in to that, I decided to say goodbye with a humor.
I approached the editors of the faculty e-newsletter with the idea of a mock advice column called “Ask the Bible Gal.” After some knee-clacking, they consented to run it. I decided to use it to gently skewer hypocrisies on campus and in religion generally.
You may recognize the influence of a famous Internet satire in the first installment:
ASK THE BIBLE GAL
A Lighthouse in the WildernessDear Bible Gal:
I have a colleague who teaches a Weekend College class on Sunday, thereby working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states that she must be put to death — but am I morally obligated to do it myself?
Mystified in MinneapolisDear Mystified:
Excellent question! If the college administration doesn’t take care of it, then yes, I guess it’s up to you to lend a hand. Just don’t do it on the Sabbath, or you’d be working too! Thanks for writing, and be sure to let me know how it goes!
BG
The next week had this follow-up:
Dear Bible Gal:
Longtime reader, first-time correspondent. I’m writing on behalf of “Mystified in Minneapolis,” a colleague of mine who wrote recently for advice on dealing with a Sabbath-breaker. She took your advice, and – well, let’s just say there’s one less Sabbath-breaker this Sunday, praise God!
“Mystified” would have written to you herself, but at the post-retribution party (you’ll get a kick out of this), somebody pointed out that she had in turn violated the Sixth Commandment against killing! Oh, you should have seen her face, she turned as red as a tomato! We all had a good laugh, then killed her, of course (Leviticus 24:17, “If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death”) – and boy then did we have a problem, since we had to kill the killers…
We want to do this “by the Book,” so here’s the question: what should the last person do? – Stumped in St. Paul
Dear Stumped:
There’s a scriptural solution to every problem. In this case, WWSD: what would Saul do? (1 Sam 31:4). Problem solved! Let me know how it…oops. Never mind :-)! BG
(Saul kills himself.) A dozen faculty members whispered their approval of the satires in passing on campus. Others glared. I felt a little less pressure in my head each week:
Dear Bible Gal:
Each August, I am appalled anew by a festival of sin at the Minnesota State Fair. In case you don’t know about it, images are graven into blocks of butter, a clear violation of the Second Commandment and an encouragement to every type of unholy transgression. I’ve enclosed photos of this past year’s outrage. Can’t these people read?? It’s further proof that we need the Commandments posted in public schools for easy reference. – No Margarine for Error
Shades of MoobyDear Margarine:
May I gently suggest that you read the Commandment before casting stones about unholy oleo! The Second Commandment forbids not just graven images but the making of “any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth.” Any likeness, dear, which means your little snapshot constitutes a first-class ticket to the Ninth Circle! Why, the film The Ten Commandments was itself one gigantic violation! Cecil B. DeMille’s skull is surely the drinking-gourd of Lucifer even as we speak.
As for me, I pray to see the Second Commandment posted in art classes, for the much-needed boost it would give to Abstract Expressionism. – BG
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Dear Bible Gal:
I am a Bible-believing high school senior and feminist, in search of a Bible-believing feminist college. How thrilled I was to hear about the College of St. Catherine, a place that knows the greatest source of empowerment for women is the truth of Scripture!
At least that’s what I thought St. Kate’s was. My faith in that school crumbled on a recent campus visit, when I learned that women actually teach there, despite the admonition of 1 Timothy 2:12 (“Do not permit a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence”). How on earth can a college claim to empower women if it doesn’t even follow the Holy Word of God?! – Real Feminists Aren’t Timothy-Leery
Dear Real Feminist:
You truly dodged a bullet, dear! That darned place has a long history of disregarding all of the powerful feminist Scriptures. I’ve heard they don’t even require women to be silent in church – as if the Apostle Paul didn’t know what was best for women’s empowerment! You want real scriptural feminism? Go to St. Thomas, girlfriend! – BG
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Dear Bible Gal:
At last, after eleven years, our church expansion is completed! Last week the Building Committee voted to inscribe the last words of Christ over the entrance to our new educational wing and coffee shop. But at the meeting, someone pointed out that the Gospels – well, I wouldn’t say they contradict each other, of course, since that’s not possible, but they seem to render the true words in three different ways – in Matthew (“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”), Luke (“Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit”), and John (“It is finished”). Is one of these truths more, you know, true than the others? – Stumped by a Cross Word Puzzle
Dear Cross Word:
Eleven years for one building project! I’d suggest you go with John! – BG
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Dear Bible Gal:
Last Easter weekend my husband and I stayed in the basement suites at the Days Inn in Charleston, South Carolina as part of their WWJD Easter package – “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mt 12:40), just like our Lord! We checked in on Good Friday and “arose” on Easter Sunday. Get it?
My husband – apparently using secular math – blasphemously suggested at the front desk that we should have been charged for only two nights! Obviously he was wrong: Friday afternoon through Sunday morning must equal “three days and three nights” – or else Christ Himself misspoke in the Scriptures! Aack!
Easter’s approaching again, and we’re Carolina-bound. I don’t want him to embarrass me again. Please help me to help him see his error! – Counting the Days Inn
Dear Counting:
Your husband is getting caught in that literalist trap! When the Lord said “three days and three nights,” He was speaking of a metaphorical three days and three nights. I hope that clears things up, and further hope you were charged in allegorical dollars. – BG
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And on it went, for a year. By the time I left, I felt fine.
Many on the faculty apparently had the least desirable reaction of all, the same one they had to all controversy—they wished all the icky conflicting views would just go away, wished for the return to the silent, smiling denial of dissonance that had driven me first crazy, then away.
Perhaps that silent, uncommented dissonance returned after I left, I dunno. But I can’t help hoping that the genie, once out of her bottle, has continued flying around that place, knocking things over and crapping on the carpets.
merry krismas to all
OUR HERO
Oh, how completely I adore this.
I had an interview today with Rev. Welton Gaddy for the Air America program STATE OF BELIEF. Among the questions was the classic “How do nonreligious families celebrate Christmas?” My staple answer usually includes phrases like “Many different ways, there’s no need to all conform to a single expression,” “The winter solstice celebration is as old as humanity,” “Food, folks and fun,” and “Oh, there’s a religious version, too?”
Three hours too late, I learned from a comment on the PBB Discussion Forum that I don’t celebrate Christmas at all, and never have. I celebrate Krismas. As Jacob Walker, one of the namers of the holiday, put it:
Krismas is a secular holiday that celebrates the myth of Kris Kringle, commonly known as Santa Claus. It happens on December 25th of each year, and is also closely associated with Krismas Eve, which occurs December 24th… Krismas is about giving gifts, especially those “from the heart”; it is about the magic of childhood; it is about peace on earth; and it is about goodwill towards humankind, and anything else you wish it to mean that does not involve the Jesus as a savior bit.
Apparently this idea is three years old. Leave it to me to miss it. This is not merely cute; the more I think about it, the more genuine brilliance I see. Here’s more from Jacob:
I loved Christmas growing up. I treasure those memories buy amoxicillin. I treasure the mythology of Santa Claus, Rudolph, Elves, etc. I treasure the idea of giving gifts, the beauty of Christmas lights and the smell of Christmas trees. This is what Christmas was about to me. These are the secular mythologies and symbols that we have made Christmas about.
I really didn’t think much about the birth of Jesus while growing up; it was just another mythology surrounding the time, and I never believed in Jesus as a savior. As I have grown, I have come to believe that the notion of Jesus being a savior, and many of the ideas of fundamentalist Christian churches, and the Catholic church to be detrimental to peace, acceptance and love in our world. So I didn’t want to support them any longer. It also would not be true of me to celebrate Christmas when I really don’t follow what many people consider the MAJOR tenet of that holiday. So I decided to create a new holiday that would support the tenets that I believe are good and righteous.
In recent years there has been a movement by many fundamentalist Christian groups to “pull” Christmas back to being a religious holiday only. I think that is fine. We can have Krismas, they can have Christmas.
(Many thanks to BornAgainHeathen for the tip!)
Six things the religious (generally) do (much) better than secularists
One of the central messages of Parenting Beyond Belief is that there are secular ways to achieve all the benefits of religion. It’s true. I’ve even been so bold as to suggest we do some things better. Also true. It’s time to let that other shoe drop. Here are six things religious believers in the U.S. on the whole do much better than the nonreligious:
1. Give generously
Though the nonreligious outpace the religious in volunteerism once “church maintenance” volunteering is eliminated (Yonish and Campbell, “Religion and Volunteering in America“), when it comes to actual giving of actual money, there’s no contest: churchgoers have us licked. Even outside of church-based giving, the average churchgoer in the U.S. gives 2-3 times as much as the average non-churchgoing American. Obviously there will be notable exceptions, as there are on the other side, but the overall picture of giving by secular individuals needs improvement. [Note: Outdated stats removed 6/1/11]
Part of the solution is the systematizing of giving. That offering plate passing beneath one’s nose has a certain loosening effect on the wallet.
2. Connect their good works to their beliefs
As noted above, the nonreligious are very good about rolling up their sleeves and volunteering. But we are abysmal at making it clear that those good works are a reflection of our humanistic values, so the presence of nonbelievers doing good works is often overlooked. That’s why Dinesh D’Souza was able to write the ignorant screed “Where Were the Atheists?” after the Virginia Tech tragedy. Nonbelievers were present and active as counselors, rescuers and EMTs at the scene, but because they were not organized into named and tax-exempt units, their worldview was invisible. We must do a better job of making it clear that we do good works not despite our beliefs, but because of them.
3. Build community
I’m at work on an extensive post about this, so for now I’ll just point out what should be obvious—secularists are miserable at forming genuine community. We fret and fuss over the urgent need for more rationality in the world, completely ignoring more basic human needs like unconditional acceptance. Most people do not go to church for theology—they go for acceptance. They go to be surrounded by people who smile at them and are nice to them, who ask how their kids are and whether that back injury is still hurting.
Most freethought groups are not good at making people feel welcome and unconditionally accepted. Whenever I walk in the door of a new group, either to attend or as a speaker, I mill around and look at the walls for ten minutes before someone says something. It’s a painful ten minutes for anyone, and makes them less likely to return. Get a greeter at the door to welcome new faces in and introduce them around.
Becca made an observation that I’d never thought of before: This lack of social awareness may be tied in part to the fact that freethought groups are predominantly male, and churchgoers are predominantly female.
Until we recognize why people gather together—and that it isn’t “to be a force for rationality”—freethought groups will continue to lag light years behind churches in offering community.
4. Use transcendent language
There are many transcendent religious words without good secular equivalents. There is no secular equivalent for “blessed.” I want one. And no, “fortunate” doesn’t cut it. I also want a secular word for “sacred.” I want to be able to say something is “holy” without the implication that a God is involved. I want to speak of my “soul,” but do so naturalistically, and not be misunderstood. This list goes on and on.
5. Support each other in time of need
Individuals do a lovely job of supporting each other in times of need, regardless of belief system. But when it comes to the loving embrace of a community, religious communities once again tend to do it much, much better than any nonreligious community I’ve seen.
I once learned that a member of a freethought group I belonged to, a sweet man in his late seventies, had been in the hospital for nine days, and not a single member of the group had been to see him. We all signed a card, someone offered, knowing full well how lame that sounded.
If the man in the hospital had been a member of a church, you can bet he’d have had a stream of visitors to sit with him, talk to him, see him through it. Volunteers would have brought dinner to his wife. I’ve seen this as well. It is heartwarming, and the worst church I’ve seen does it better than the best secular organization I’ve seen. Much.
Yes, they have the numbers, and yes, they have the structure — but I’ll also give them credit for recognizing the need and having the desire to fulfill it.
6. Own their worldview
Yes, it’s easier for Christians in the U.S. to be “out” about their Christianness, because Christians are everywhere. Guess what—we’re everywhere too. Current estimates put the nonreligious at 15-18 percent of the U.S. population. There are more nonreligious Americans than African Americans. Think of that. Coming out of the closet and owning your worldview makes it easier for the next person to do so. So do it.
Need more incentive? Think of the children. I want my kids to choose the worldview that suits them best, and yes, I’d like secular humanism to be one they consider. The more visible and normalized it is as a worldview, the better chance that it will appeal to them. But in the meantime, it would also help if we gave more generously, connected our good works to our beliefs, built communities, learned to use transcendent language, and developed a better collective ability to support each other in time of need.
This is a partial list—I didn’t even touch on inspirational art and music—and I welcome your additions. We are not generally good at these things, and Christians, after millennia of practice, generally are. We could learn a thing or two. Or six.
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A similar post at Friendly Atheist.
GOSPEL OF MARK (bookin’ through the bible 5)
[back to FIRST CORINTHIANS]
[ahead to MATTHEW AND LUKE]
The multiple versions of nearly every major episode in both the Old and New Testaments—the creation of woman, the flood, the wife-sister subterfuge, the Ten Commandments, the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, the names of the twelve disciples, the Sermon on the Mount, the Shema, the Lord’s Prayer, the words inscribed on the cross, and the last words of Jesus before giving up the ghost, among scores of examples, attest to the folkloricity of the Bible.
From Holy Writ as Oral Lit by folklorist Alan Dundes (1935-2005)
quick preface, to cheat my word count limit
I’ve been insanely lucky at times. One of my luckiest accidents was my choice of university, UC Berkeley, which could hardly have been a more perfect fit for me. In addition to a dozen other lifechanging things, I met the other half of my ridiculously lucky marriage there. Most of the best things in my life can be traced to that place in one way or another.
I also studied with a number of professors who left indelible stamps on my life and mind, especially in anthropology: Tim White, F. Clark Howell, Desmond Clark, James Deetz. But one stands alone as the luckiest path-crossing of my academic career: folklorist Alan Dundes.
I’d gladly spend my thousand words talking about this unique, funny, brilliant and beloved guy, but you’ll just have to follow the link. He changed forever the way I look at the human project. Among other things, he made me find wonder and fascination in things that had formerly irritated me about the human animal. Long story.
Anyway, when I tucked into the Book of Mark, it was Alan Dundes who immediately sprang to mind. Mark is a bag of memes, after all, and it was Professor Dundes who first made me love memes.
One of Dundes’ great joys was studying the mutation of folklore during oral transmission – the changes, tiny and great, that inevitably find their way into a story, joke, playground game, nursery rhyme, or legend as it is passed orally from one person or generation to the next. Nothing pleased him more than having four or five different versions of a story in hand, then recreating the original, and he always seemed to value the variants more than the original. The original was mere creation, after all. The variants had picked up the fingerprints of folklore and so were more complexly, richly human.
The Gospel of Mark
THE BUDDY CHRIST from the movie DOGMA
The Bible provides folklorists like Dundes with one of their greatest playthings for reasons made clear in the immensely readable and fascinating book Holy Writ as Oral Lit (1999). I mentioned in the first installment that Genesis begins with two different versions of the same creation story, but as Dundes noted in the quote above, it hardly ends there. The technique in play is another form of midrash, the Jewish syncretic teaching technique I mentioned in an earlier post.
By “folkloristic,” Dundes means the stories of the Bible show clear evidence of passage through many, many layers of oral tradition prior to being recorded at all. This shouldn’t be too surprising: Mark was written no earlier than the year 70, since the destruction of the Temple is referred to (Mt 24), and more likely around the year 85 (see Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle for a brilliant discursion on dating the gospels).
One of the most wonderful aspects of Dundes’ thesis is that he doesn’t remotely denigrate the gospels on these terms. Their inconsistencies are precisely what intrigues and delights him. Loving variety as he does, he is quite impatient with those who insist, despite continuous evidence to the contrary, that the Bible is inerrant and/or consistent. He contrasts what he calls the literalists’ “governing syllogism”
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God Cannot Err.
The Bible is the Word of God.
Therefore the Bible Cannot Err.
(Geisler and Howe, When Critics Ask, 1992)
with his own syllogism:
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Folklore is characterized by multiple existence and variation.
The Bible is permeated by multiple existence and variation.
The Bible is folklore!
(Dundes 111)
Only by remembering that folklore was the love of his life can we see this as the compliment it was meant to be. The Bible is warts-and-all human, not divine, he says. Isn’t that wonderful?
There are two main kinds of memetic repetition in the gospels: (1) Luke and Matthew (written a decade later than Mark) repeat the stories of Mark, and (2) each of the four gospels, including Mark, also repeats different variants of the same story within its own text – often on the same page. The feeding of the multitudes is one example of a single event told in two variants (6:35 and 8:1), followed by a rather awkward attempt to make them appear as two different events – by putting words in the Big Guy’s mouth, no less (8:18-20). Textual analysis this simple and clear doesn’t lie: it’s one story that has drifted into two versions.
5th c. tilework from the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, Tabgha, Galilee, Israel
I could go on with this, but there’s much more to say about Mark.
There were dozens of existing first century gospels. Of the four eventual winners of the memetic lottery, Mark was written first, and Luke and Matthew were so closely based on Mark that the three are called synoptic (“same view”) gospels. So among other things, Mark gets credit for beginning to establish the New Testament’s relationship with the old.
So, with the coming of Jesus, have we decisively thrown that festering stew of the Old Testament Law nastiness onto the dung-heap of bad memes, as so many modern Christians claim? No such luck. Matthew (5:18) makes this clearest (“I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished”), but Mark already hints at the continuing enthusiasm for wretched immoral doctrine. Here’s Jesus himself (Mk 7:9-10) berating the Pharisees for not killing their disobedient children:
You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honour your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’
Oh well done, thou Font of Goodness! Let us hasten to build all human morality on His example.
So why didn’t the early Christians take this golden opportunity to bid the OT farewell? Because the gospels were carefully crafted in fulfillment of OT prophecies, making it necessary to keep the OT around as evidence. But to specifically underline the more reprehensible messages, like child-killing? Perhaps my understanding of Christ’s message of love is insufficiently subtle to grasp His divine strategy.
So long as literalism is alive and dominant, this was, in a very real way, the Last Chance in history to renounce those ideas from the Old Testament that are most reprehensible — to say, “Here is a new covenant AND the old law is renounced.” Instead, God gave those ideas his explicit and enduring Seal of Approval. Once Jesus Christ weighed in both jot and tittle, there was no further way for subsequent Christianity to decisively disclaim any given notion in the Mosaic law. And there, I suggest, is the central problem with religions of the book: they lack a meaningful mechanism for self-correction.
More on this in later posts.
By far the most interesting aspect of the Gospel of Mark is what is missing. The miracles are mild and few, and the story lacks both the beginning and the end we all know. There’s no Zeus-like insemination of the mortal woman, no manger, no wise men or shepherds — none of the things that made Luke and Matthew bestsellers. In Mark, we start with a Jesus who is old enough for his tenth high school reunion. The dying girl he revives (Mark 5) has not yet been exaggerated into a dead girl (Matthew 9:18). Even the moral messages are blander and less compelling than Matthew and Luke.
And there’s another point, perhaps most fascinating of all: Mark 16:9-20 is not present in any of the earliest manuscripts. The original Mark ended with the empty tomb but included no appearances of the risen Christ, no snake-handling or poison-drinking, no appearance to the Apostles, no Great Commission, and no ascension into heaven.
We are left with two choices: If the oldest canonical gospel lacks both the beginning and end that appear in later gospels, either Mark found Jesus’ miraculous birth and explicit conquering of death too uninteresting to include (and the cursing of figs and pigs too interesting to exclude), or those elements — the most theologically important — were later folkloric additions.
Which of those (he asked rhetorically) is 1000 times more likely?
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For December 24: THE GOSPELS OF MATTHEW AND LUKE
Read Matthew and Luke online
Believers on Matthew
Skeptics on Matthew
Believers on Luke
Skeptics on Luke
Followed by:
Dec 29 — John
Jan 8 — Exodus (special guest blogger)
Jan 15 — Leviticus
Jan 22 — Deuteronomy
Jan 29 — Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs (special guest blogger)
Feb 5 — Acts
Feb 12 — Revelation
