Carv's Thinky Blog I'm an author with a focus on satirical science fiction.

30May/120

“But We Like the Box!”

I've been told on more than one recent occasion that I "think outside the box." I appreciate that left-handed compliment. It's nice to know people pay attention to what I say or write or think. That's the whole point of being a blogger, right? Being different. But it also strikes me that minority thoughts will always be unpopular thoughts. That's the math of it. It's no fun being unpopular. I don't enjoy it. Nobody enjoys it. This begs the question of why I don't just go with the flow, agree with everybody else and make life more pleasant for myself.

Part of it must be simple compulsion. When I play armchair psychologist on myself, I sense I must crave attention; apparently any attention, no matter how negative, will do. I'm unable to find empirical evidence to disprove this theory, though it certainly feels incorrect from inside my head. It's probably the truth, though. I have to acknowledge that possibility.

Having said that, I've been this way for decades. I admire those who question things no one else will, yank them out into the open so they can be subjected to rational thought. Take Sam Kinison's standup routines about Jesus: "Maybe I wouldn't have to [die] if somebody'd get me a ladder and a pair of pliers!" I was shocked to my core when I first heard that joke. It offended me, even after I'd said goodbye to most of my childhood beliefs, because it was a strange new way of thinking. I may find new thoughts uncomfortable, but I fear them far less than our reluctance to entertain them. Humanity's problems will not be solved by reapplying the old ones.

When I watch someone like Christopher Hitchens demolishing religious arguments, driving them twelve feet underground with one irresistible rhetorical punch, it's hard not to feel sorry for folks who accept those ideas as literal truth. (Example: “How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.”) I respect people's feelings. I may not always give as much evidence of that as I should, but I do. I try to be fair to all sides, at least until it becomes obvious my opponents' beliefs are based on nothing that is any more concrete than the wish that they might be true. But y'know, if most people are wrong about something, we need to be told that. We really, truly do. When most Americans were wrong about slavery, John Brown needed to change their minds, even if his words hurt people's feelings. (Example: "'Caution,' sir! I am eternally tired of hearing that word 'caution.' It is nothing but the word of cowardice.") I'll go you one better: Jesus was never afraid to contradict people's long-held beliefs--about religion, ethnicity, morality, or politics. (Example: “Do not think I came to put peace upon the earth; I came to put, not peace, but a sword.”--Matthew 10:34) He trusted the world to catch up with him. Of course, that approach got him killed, so I'm not as ambitious. We should settle our differences with less animosity. Also, I vote no on blogger crucifixions.

I wasn't very old before I realized most people, especially most avowed Christians, were wrong to oppose equal civil rights for gay Americans. I'm pleased to see most Americans have come around to my way of thinking. If you haven't, I hope you will. You may never do that, but then again, some people still regret the vote being granted to women or black people. Some otherwise likable people think the purpose of our universe is to favor them over anyone who is in any way unlike them. That's dumb, even evil, on the face of it, and this time I don't mind being the one who says so.

Right now most Americans are wrong about religion. I don't mean they're wrong to have it, I mean they're wrong about several particular beliefs. I wouldn't make a big deal of it, except I've noticed there are Christian denominations who have no problem demanding their will be done in American government. They want images of the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, Genesis mythology in public science classes, gay marriage banned, and nonbelievers excluded from public office. They scream against Sharia without realizing they want an equally outdated Judaic flavor of it. They want these things so badly that they never even question whether they're desirable outcomes. That's where I and others like me come in. We won't be popular, but we know some things must be said and, whatever the cost, we're willing to say them.

Example: We do not know God's morality. The putative Law of Moses is entangled with so much insanity and nonsense that it's all but impossible God had anything to do with it. It upholds a racist, misogynist, homophobic, pro-slavery, anti-liberty view of the world that can only have come from tribal chieftains. On those rare occasions when Bible morality does make sense, it shares that philosophy with every ethical code before and since. When it makes no sense at all, which is often, innocent people die. God neither wrote nor dictated the Bible. If your only justification for your moral belief is a Bible verse, that belief is no longer compelling.

By the way, I suspect the fact that the Bible is homophobic isn't the real reason fundamentalists are. I think they quote the Bible, rather, to support a feeling they'd have anyway, which is that gay people are oogy. That reason is also no longer compelling. I find Rush Limbaugh disgusting, but that shouldn't keep him from getting married as many times as he likes. His bed is none of my beeswax.

We don't know God's morality. Really ponder that. Let it roll around in your head. We don't really know what God considers good or evil. If the Bible were true, then it would also, by necessity, be true that God prefers Jews to Gentiles, men to women, grateful slaves to abolitionists, genocide to peaceful cohabitation, carnal sacrifice to spiritual meditation, prayer to medicine, inexplicable two-thousand-year salvation plans to miraculous repairs. All of that is clear in the book we've been taught to extol. If God did authorize any of this so-called morality, it says nothing in His favor. So when I see a pleasant Bible verse quoted on a friend's Facebook update, I smile from old habit...but I also can't help thinking perversely that it'd be more interesting if I quoted any of the thousand Bible verses any thinking American would find appalling.

Here are verses you're unlikely to see quoted on Facebook:

"'Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.'"--Genesis 22:2

"Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us--he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks."--Psalm 137:9

“So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go."--Judges 19:25

"Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up."--Hosea 13:16

"Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel."--1 Peter 2:18

"I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."--1 Timothy 2:12

Uplifting, right? That's what comes from making ethical decisions based on a series of books written by people who knew less about the world than most present-day people do. I know I'll never be everyone's favorite guy for saying it, but it needs to be said anyway. Anyone else willing to jump up and take the mic?

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  1. I can’t disagree with a thing, nor do I want to. The old testament is primitive man’s attempt to understand the workings of God–rather like other myth (and I know my use of that word offends many).

    The new testament works until Paul takes over, and I wonder some times if he doesn’t appeal to people more than Jesus himself, mainly because of his broad, sweeping, judgmental statements. I find Paul entirely unconvincing, and I will never, ever worship the bible.

    That’s really the difference, isn’t it? People have come to believe in the bible, instead of an enigmatic, complex, and probably unknowable God. In our attempts to pin God down, we limit who he is to that one text, negating the fact that many books were left out of the collection, that all were written by humans (and not God), and that man, in general, is self-centered, pig-headed, slow to learn, and prejudiced. Thus religion becomes the worship of a book, a fallible book, at that, and we no longer see God at all.

    The bible has some really cool stories in it. So does Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and I don’t worship that book, either.

  2. “In our attempts to pin God down, we limit who he is.” I think that’s my biggest complaint about religion. Most people profess belief in an all-knowing, all-powerful God of Love, but they also believe:

    1.) He wants us to worship Him (because He’d care about that, obviously–His feelings get hurt otherwise).

    2.) He needs our help…and our money!

    3.) He wants to fix our problems, but it takes time. There’s a solution. A wonderful solution, which requires killing His firstborn son and then waiting two thousand years for people to need salvation badly enough.

    4.) He’s perfect, so His plans are perfect–but He’s willing to change His plans if we pray hard enough.

    5.) He’s perfect, so He made Adam and Eve to be perfect…but then they made a mistake, because apparently they weren’t perfect.

    6.) They had the opportunity to make the mistake because God gave them free will–and because He made a magic tree and put it right in the middle of the garden for them to make the mistake on. For some reason.

    7.) God is all-powerful and all-present, but He can’t seem to write His own book or make a public appearance in its support. I mean, heck, even I managed a novel and a book tour. None of this makes the slightest bit of sense. It’s like people prefer a god less capable than even his mortal worshipers.


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