From: S
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 8:07 am
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Oh that totally makes sense. The differentiation of religion and faith. Faith, I think, is what I'm having issues with. And faith does matter considering the Catholic/Quaker/Presbyterian upbringing I've had. Well I've got a few more big qualms with Catholicism, but I'm only technically Catholic on basis of my baptism as an infant.
Wow, I definitely like the Jewish idea of sin more than the fire-'n-brimstone, damned-for-eternity bull that (some) Christian churches will give you.
See, Christian praying I have a problem with. Which obviously causes issues, as you have stated the importance of it in the Christian faith. Not in every denomination, Quakerism is a notable exception. But with a lot of Christian churches, praying is a semi-public, group thing. People will even bring prayer requests and it goes through a pastor/priest who leads everyone to pray for so-and-so's request. Yet Jesus talked about how prayer was a private thing. Outside of Quakerism, prayer has always felt awkward to me because, on the one side there is the sense of community, but on the other there's the whole introspection and private nature supposed to go with Christian prayer. Friends meetings are the only sort of service I've found that can really reconcile that for me.
That distinction between killing and murdering makes sense.
So really, Jesus wasn't--or wasn't just, depending on beliefs--a martyr in the symbolic sense of "dying for your sins," but also in a more literal sense in that this guy was way too outspoken and further threatening the lives of fellow Jews. Good guy but too mouthy and not divine, yeah?
The views on hierarchy are similar to what I believe/agree with. I lost all interest in Catholic mass as soon as I was old enough to really think about religion. Going through priests and bishops and cardinals and a pope (I think I may have missed a step or so in that ranking) really bothered me. Certainty in matters of faith an religion seems foolish to me as well, not to mention the certainty in a hierarchy.
Also, this is a more Christian question again--hey, I grew up around a lot of Christians from a lot of really different denominations. But anyways, what is up with Paul's letters and stuff? I mean, it's not divine writing, it's not telling the story of Jesus, it's not really interpretation and commentary. Yet people quote those letters and take them seriously--they are in the holy book even, I guess. But what makes them so special? Why not, say, Andrew's scribblings to people chatting about the years he hung out with Jesus?
Though I understand perfectly well, especially given the oddly specific nature of my question, if you answer is just "I dunno, I'm not a Christian."
Well, hell. At least Jews are willing to say "Gd said so" when it comes to dietary laws rather than attempting to explain it with nonsensical arguments more confusing than the original question.
The not breeding dogs thing is really interesting. Back in biblical times, I doubt it was bad--outside of divine law--to breed dogs for profit, but if you consider it now, there's certainly a dark side to breeding. My state is particularly bad about puppy mills and I know that at some, some terrible things go down, not to mention near-retarded dogs as the result of so much inbreeding. I'm just drawing bizarre connections, but strange coincidence, that.
I think you're making my faith in Christianity shakier than it already was. Not necessarily a bad thing, I suppose.
I think there'll always be a bit of me that's Quaker, but damn.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 9:50 am
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Oh I so look forward to these letters now. This is a good discussion. :)
You have basically summed up my feelings on Jesus: Good guy but too mouthy and not any more divine than you or I are. While I could insert a diatribe on prophets in the modern age, I'll save that for another email.
How do I feel about Paul's letters... well as I feel about much of the Tanakh (Torah, Nev'im - the writings - and Kethuvim - the prophets): Other than the first four books of the Torah (note: Deuteronomy was written by Moses, and says so in the first verse), everything else was written by men. As such, I never take it too seriously. That to me is a fundamental problem with Christianity: they took the writings of a man and ran with it as if it was written by Gd. If it WAS written by Gd, it would be as cryptic as Torah is but it's not. It makes mortal man logic because it was written by a mortal man. "Divinely Inspired" is not the same as "Written by Gd". I happen to think Harry Potter was "Divinely Inspired" but I wouldn't start a religion based on "the Order of the Phoenix". I also find it interesting that the Book of Jubilees is not incorporated into Protestant versions of the Bible, that the Gospel of Mary Magdelene and the gospel of Judas were also pitched by the Nicene council. Jews acknowledge the forgotten books of Eden as apocryphal texts and it is POSSIBLE to read the Psalms of Solomon in certain Yeshivas.
I will admit that I have a VERY limited knowledge of the Quakers so I can't speak to them or their belief structure as a whole. Senoy has a good grasp on their history better than I and RC is currently a practicing Quaker. However I come from a staunchly Catholic grandmother, have several Mormon friends, and used to be an Evangelical Christian in the same vein of Billy Graham.
Faith is a rough one and I honestly don't have any advice on how to deepen your faith. It's such an individual concept and from what I know of my Gd, She really doesn't give a darn how you classify your faith, who helped you get to faith, just that you have a belief in Her and want a relationship with Her.
My qualms with Catholicism stem from the C&E Catholics who think they know it all and spread these weird concepts around as Vatican doctrine. As I have a couple of friends who went to Catholic seminary (one dropped out, ran off to be a hedonist for a few years, and is happily married now), I've been able to really dig into the meat of Vatican II and find out that the priests I grew up with really didn't know heir ass from a hole in the ground when it came to the official church doctrine. I also find it amusing that there was a poll in Italy in 2008 where they asked the Catholics who they pray to and Jesus was #7 on the list. You'd think that the son of Gd would be prayed to more often but nope!
Prayer is weird because there is no format to Christian prayer. You basically say "Lord Jesus we ask of you to do this menial human thing for us and we pray for your guidance" and whatever else they want to tack on. To me that has always been presumptuous. Why are you assuming you need relief from this situation or that you know best what you need right now? Maybe this is your challenge. You prayed for strength; these are the weights to make you stronger. What do you do when you want to build muscle at the gym to be stronger? You add weights. it kind of appalls me because there is no structure and people seem to abuse it in order to get what they want. Prayers in Judaism are very different. Most of us who have been around the Jewish Gd a lot understand that you can never pray to smite people. And beyond the basic blessings, you'll see little old Jewish ladies spend their Shabbat prayers recapping Gd on the lives of their relatives. For us, Gd is not this distant genie who grants wishes but more of a parent figure and we commune with Gd as such.
A lot of the views on sin go back to the Jewish belief on the afterlife ("Olam ha'ba" lit. the World to come). Now there is no one clear doctrine on what happens after death. Gd never says in Torah what happens after you die. The ideas of the afterlife (in both Judaism and Christianity) are purely a man-made construct. Now this is because of one glaring reason (in Judaism, at least): Gd didn't want you all hyperfocused on what happens when you die. You're going to be okay. You're my child and I love you. Don't worry about it. You worry about RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, where you are. Most of our mitzvos are not commanded because we will go to hell and burn in fire if we don't do all of them. They're general "good deeds." A good chunk of them deal with how to humanely treat animals, how to be nice to your fellow man, how to work volunteer work to rebuild the world, and so on. At the end of the day, Gd tells our prophet Jeremiah that Moshiach (the Hebrew messiah) will not come until the Jews have built Olam Ha'Ba on earth. Until we are at peace and love one another completely and treat each other well, our Moshiach is JUST out of reach.
That doesn't stop Jews from pondering what happens after you die though, as it wouldn't stop any person from pondering a life cycle event they find so perplexing. The prevailing opinion is that all people - Jew and goy - die. We go up to Ghenna, just outside of the pearly gates, and the angels use fire to cleanse our souls of all of our misdeeds. This takes up to 12 months but only 12 months if you're REALLY a horrible human being. During that time you are shown two videotapes (or maybe Gd has upgraded to Blu ray now LOL) of your life: One with all the things you did RIGHT, and one of all the things you did WRONG. Non Jews have 7 laws to follow, Jews have 613. Now, my OWN addition to this is that Gd only care if you ate a cheeseburger but were you good to the world. After you're cleansed, you go on through the pearly gates where you are in Gd's audience. If you are a Jew, you are sent back at some point to allow you to complete all of the 613 mitzvos. There's no clear doctrine on what happens to non-Jews, but an argument I heard recently is that they are sent back until they figure out how to get to Judaism and observe all the mitzvos.
Now here is where people get up in arms... Hitler. Amon Goethe. TRULY evil people.
The argument I hear about that one is that Gd is always making new souls. All day long Gd is making new souls for new people. There is no finite number of souls created and Heaven is not over crowded because souls are always being sent back. In the case of Hitler, it's said that he went to Ghenna and after his 12 months there, he was simply blinked out of existence and a new soul was created to replace him. See, Gd doesn't make mistakes and everyone starts out with the same blank slate. But there's free will and a lot of it, so if you make choices on earth that permanently disfigure your soul, Gd just erases you and starts over. No pain. No torture. You just simply cease to be.
If you spend your whole life in violent revolt of Gd but are generally a good person, when you pass through the gates, the presence of Gd tortures you a little. This is why we strive to do mitzvos - it prepares us for the symphony of Gd's presence. That's why I always feel so sad for people who are violently opposed to a belief in Gd. I just can't understand it. Gd is there, everywhere. In the eyes of a child, in the purr of a cat, in the blow of the wind, in the tap of rainfall. I dunno... it just bothers me.
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