At least December 21 is a Friday...

I often wonder what it is with those of us from Christian cultural backgrounds and our apparent obsession with apocalyptic scenarios?

When I was a kid, Hal Lindsey was writing books and making films like "The Late Great Planet Earth" about how the Last Days of the Bible were upon us. I was enamored with reading Jack Chick's tract comics and in particular, his "Crusaders" series (which I still have and read on occasion. What... they are fun reading).

Christians had started making inroads into making their own films, some better than others, but other than Billy Graham's "The Hiding Place," my favorites were always the after Rapture movies. Years later the "Left Behind" books would become quite popular and Cloud 10 Pictures would make their "Apocalypse" series of films (my personal favorite, "Judgment" with Corbin Bernsen, I kind of like the creative story idea  of God being put on trial for his crimes against his creation, by his creation).

Then we had the end of the world on December 31, 1999 at midnight when every computer was destined to crash and the underlying technology of our time would cease. The biggest thing that happened as far as I could tell, was that the Sunset Strip was completely without traffic and people, it was a ghost-town, till midnight. Once the world did not end, Sunset was its usual traffic nightmare and I saw my first accident of the new "millennium" (which did not really start until January 1, 2001) by 12:30AM.

Now the western disaster fascination with the end of the world has taken hold on the end of current b'ak'tun of the Mayan Long Count Calendar that ends in just under three weeks on December 21, 2012. Mayan mythology says nothing about the world coming to an end, at most it requires the beginning of a new cycle; the b'ak'tun (about the scariest part of that might be that it is the beginning of b'ak'tun number 13, ooooooh).

There is no Planet X about to collide with or knock Earth from its orbit. The Earth, Sun and the super-massive black hole, Sagittarius-A*, at center of the Milky Way Galaxy align every year on or about December 21^st. Sure, they are not always on the exact plane of the Milky Way, but I would not be to concerned, they are not this year either, last time was 1998. So I would not suggest quitting your job or making any other questionable decisions, at least not based on the publicity machine of the disaster mongers.

So lets get together and have a great party and celebrate the beginning of b'ak'tun 13, after all, it is Friday night and like the song says; "Everybody's working for the weekend."

To my friends in the Middle-East

To the nations of the "Arab Spring," you have a lesson before you that may be tough to accept and learn;

You can be authoritarian and dictatorial and make sure that such offensive expressions are not made, at least publicly, or you can have the Freedom to use your own judgment, knowing that their will always be those out there who will misuse and abuse those Freedoms.

This balance just comes with the territory of Freedom, I find ALL good things can be misused.

As Americans, we walk a fine line between freedoms and responsibilities. This fine line is not easily understood by us, little less by those who are not Americans and definitely not those with an axe to grind.

This current issue in the Middle-East, for example, likely a response to a hate-filled, intentionally offensive, anti-Muslim film, "Innocence of Muslims," made by an Egyptian born man living in the US, if Wikipedia is correct.

As an American, I have to accept his right to make the film, no matter how offensive, as a protection of the First Amendment section on Free Speech. As an American, I realize that this is one of those places where rights are proven to come with great responsibilities, as we have seen as of late and, sadly, many people forget or just outright ignore.

To the Muslim world, I ask for your understanding, that to step on his right to make the film, due to its likely intentional offensive nature, is as egregious as the Reverend Roy Phelps and his "church" and their protests in, I think, inappropriate circumstances has also been declared protected by the same First Amendment.

Hateful people will use good things to dark ends. To destroy the First Amendment to keep it from being misused would begin the toppling of the Freedoms and changes that many Middle-Eastern nations protested for so shortly ago and continue the degradation of the great experiment in Democracy in the US.

The hypocrisy of judging

When I watch television or read the news, I am so often saddened to see just what a judgmental people we have become. Sure, we have always judged one another, but as of late we seem to be seriously more vicious in our attacks.

We judge one another on a wide range of areas, race, gender, orientation, religion, financial status, education, clothing, speech, body-language, etc...

I take a lot of heat from my Christian friends (yes, I still have some, the ones that know its not personal). I am often accused of being anti-Christian, I am not. I tend to ride them tough since they are the dominant religious group in the United States. Riding Muslims hard would work if I lived in Saudi Arabia or some place that is an Islamic state, but in today's America the point would be completely missed by most.

Here is an example of one aspect of where Christianity is failing I think:


I will be the first to admit that I have some serious issues where it comes to the Westboro Baptist Church (frightening that the church's homepage is the "GodHatesFags.com" site). Surprisingly, my biggest issue with them is not their strong dislike of homosexuals or their completely tasteless tactics of protesting, but the use of their children in their protests. Hate is something that has to be taught, Denis Leary put it so well:


What chance do these children have to be anything more than their parents? I do not even want to think about the pain and anguish that one of their children will go through if they grow up and find themselves to be LGBTQ.

What does the Bible say about judging and the law

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One of the most famous quotes from the Christian Bible on this subject is the King James Version of Matthew 7:1; "Judge not, that ye be not judged", but look at what follows it.

7 Do not judge and criticize and condemn others, so that you may not be judged and criticized and condemned yourselves.

2 For just as you judge and criticize and condemn others, you will be judged and criticized and condemned, and in accordance with the measure you [use to] deal out to others, it will be dealt out again to you.

3 Why do you stare from without at the very small particle that is in your brother’s eye but do not become aware of and consider the beam of timber that is in your own eye?

4 Or how can you say to your brother, Let me get the tiny particle out of your eye, when there is the beam of timber in your own eye?

5 You hypocrite, first get the beam of timber out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the tiny particle out of your brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:1-5 (AMP)
My experience is that this is proven true by the realization that what we dislike and hate in others, hence judge as wrong, are nothing but the reflection of what we dislike and hate within ourselves. No, I am not accusing the members of the Westboro Baptist Church of being homosexual (gay men everywhere are breathing a large sigh of relief).

Some say that we dislike and hate what we do not know and that causes fear, but I think that is more a response to our sense of lack in knowledge and experience and most people hate having fear within themselves.

People like the members of Westboro and sadly others who are just looking for justification for their distrust of anything different often use the Law of Moses and the Levitican Code as their weapon of choice.

They almost always pick and choose which parts are valid, the parts that address themselves are overlooked; their favorite foods (bacon, ham, shrimp and lobster), the availability of cheap cool clothing from Walmart (mixed threads), cheaper meats (non-Kosher), touching the skin of dead pigs (football), etc. My personal favorite is that I have yet to meet the Christian man who has the balls to put his wife out during her monthly menses.

It has become the common belief that the Law of Moses is there by God's direct intent, literally the will of God, but Jesus tells us that is not necessarily the case:

8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

Matthew 19:8 (KJV)
So we know that parts of the law are there by the knowing of Moses, not by God's decree, how do we determine which is which?

The answer is a few chapters away, Jesus not only tells us the basic framework for all the law , but gives us a direct key to its implementation:

35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Matthew 22:35-40 (KJV)
emphasis mine
If you apply the Law through the filter of Love, you will never use it as a tool of destruction against another, how would you honestly bludgeon your brother to death in the name of love?

Big and little "T" truths

In recent months, there has been an increase in the number of people asking how traditional religion and scripture can have any relevance in their lives since it has so many archaic ideas that do not translate into their day-to-day lives, the one most often asked of me is slavery.

This is the answer I gave on Facebook in a discussion on this exact topic, thanks to Chris DeMarco for starting and hosting this thread:

As a student of Comparative Religion and having read many scripture of many differing religions, including the Bible and Quran, one of the things that becomes obvious is that scripture must be placed into the context of the cultures in which they were written.

The Old Testament was written in the cultures at the end of the Bronze Age, including Nomadic, Judaic (as in the kingdom) and Egyptian amongst others. The New Testament is written from the cultural view of the Roman Empire and the Quran from the 7^th Century culture of Arabia.

Many followers of these religions think the rules and regulations that are handed down are the laws by which man is to live by for the rest of time, no. They are all examples of what constitutes a moral and ethical life in the times and places they were written.

For example, the slavery references are for their day. Today most of the world finds slavery to be abhorrent, but how one treats their slaves in a world where it is common-place, can be done ethically or not. When you place these "laws" into culture and time, they make sense, to a degree. Outside of their context, they seem primitive and they are.

Of course one day, the things we think of as "normal", moral and ethical may well be fairly primitive to our descendents, will we attempt to enforce our cultural ideals onto their world? We'll see when the next Religious Avatar comes along and creates the next great religion.

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What most people are unaware if, is that there are two kinds of truth. Truth with a capital "T" is the ultimate Truth, it is the non-changing Truth, no matter what happens. Truth with a little "t" is the truth that changes, based on time, place and situation.

For example, Truth with a capital "T" is that you are a spiritual or energy being having a corporeal experience in a physical body.  This Truth never changes, it truly is eternal.

An example of truth with a little "t" would be that you are having that corporeal experience in the Roman Empire, with slavery is part of your daily existence.  How you treat those slaves in a moral and ethical fashion becomes truth with a little "t" because slavery will cease to be acceptable in the world that you live in, it is changed.

When looking at religion or scripture, remember that the Truth is always in there, even when it is obscured by the truths of the time and place it is written.

Science vs. Religion

There has recently been a resurgence of the argument between those of a Religious bent and those who are more Secularist.  When I was a kid it was purely a Science vs. Religion argument of Evolution vs Creationism, in recent years, the moderate religionists have re-framed the argument as Evolution vs Intelligent Design.

As far as I can tell, Intelligent Design is basically Creationism expressed in such a way as not to refer to a specific religious character, the God of Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed.

This is hardly a new concept in the ongoing battle of Science vs Religion.  In the Christian world, this has been going on since the Second Century with Tertullian vs. Origen.  At some point it was decided; that which could be seen or studied would be in the realm of Science and that which could not would be the realm of Spirit and by default the Church.

As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Abrahamic creation narrative.

Wikipedia: Creationism
We could go on and on with the history of the observed conflicting with the beliefs in many cultures and religions throughout history, not really what I want to do, but Wikipedia offers a good place to start here.

A Different Perspective

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I look at this "battle" and cannot help but giggle since I see the need for one or the other to be right and the other to be wrong to be nothing more than an expression of the Ego.  What if there was a way for both to be right?

When I read Moses' creation story in Genesis I am truly impressed with just how close his history is with what Science says in the Theory of Evolution, not bad for someone who lived 3200 years ago.

Science and Religion are not really in conflict, because in fact their true subjects of study are completely different and not at odds.

Science is the study of how the Universe is put together, the laws that apparently underline those structures and how they interact with one another.  Science is the realm of actual history, what actually physically happened and how it occurred.  If you want to insert the concept of God into Science, it only would be "How he did it."

Religion is actually the study of why.  Why would a Benevolent Deity go to all this trouble, what is the point?  The historical questions that often get written about for these explanations most often are based on tribal mythology and allegorical explanation, not fact.  Now many Religionists are going to take offense at this, I have attacked the inerrancy or the infallibility of their Scripture.

So to me, and those like me, Science explores how this amazing thing we call reality is structured and put together, Religion explains the why and seeks to help me to re-engage with that higher part of myself called Spirit.