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Apr. 23rd, 2011 01:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarflameI've been thinking tonight about the anger and bitterness that confront Christianity on the internet, and the scorn it's met with in intellectual circles, and wondering why I don't relate to that negativity better. Even when (perhaps especially when) I doubt my faith, it's still beautiful to me. It's still a positive thing, a light in the darkness. I'm trying to figure this out.
I don't like Jerry Falwell, I hate the right wing politicians that are trying to limit access to birth control and keep gay people from having rights. But I feel like saying Christianity is bad because there are assholes using it to justify their assholery is like saying science is bad because it gave us carcinogenic pesticides, nerve gas and the atomic bomb. How many people have tortured innocents in the name of psychiatry, especially during centuries past where people could be locked up on bullshit charges and tortured and experimented on - that doesn't make psychiatry bad. It was just misused. Assholes are bad.
I understand there is a provability factor here when we're talking about science/psych vs religion.
But...I feel like Christanity is mostly good, even if it were to be (theologically) "fake". I think many people coming together in faith for beliefs is beautiful, not sad (Yes, this includes other faiths). I think prayer, meditation, study, worship and so on are generally very good things, mentally purging and stress reducing. I think examining your conscience and trying to adhere to high moral standards is generally a step in the right direction for most people. Though I don't know, it definitely SEEMS that charitable giving and volunteerism within the church (and all belief systems - I just mean organized religious charity and volunteering) constitute a huge percentage of the overall giving and volunteerism that happens in the world.
Sometimes I think (with young people especially) there is a trendy, media-conception type superiority you're just "supposed" to have towards even taboo words like bible, Jesus, etc, that goes WAY beyond the genuine, understandable defensive reaction some people have because they've been hurt by other Christians or even by Christian institutions - it's this embarassment factor wrapped up in total ignorance to the faith, like you have to really be a real douche bag nowadays to admit to something like going to confession. What I'm saying is even people who know next to nothing about confession or why anyone would want to do it, with no real life connection of any sort to Catholicism, feel this way as a knee-jerk reaction because our society tells them they're supposed to.
This "crutch" thing, too, I have known at least two people who thought religion in general was some kind of pathetic, laughable, horrible (dun dun DUN!!!) CRUTCH...to which I say yeah isn't that about a million times better than drugs, alcoholism, (insert self destructive alternative crutch here)? The 12 Step program is one of the only methods that's ever been shown to really work in treating addiction and a big part of that is the whole higher power spiel. Is that somehow...wrong? I really don't think so.
This NPR story references plenty of other stories and makes for a pretty extensive amount of reading (that is easily picked through for what you deem the interesting parts) on why prayer and meditation make us better able to focus and happier, and how our brains are wired for religious experiences to a degree - among other things.
Once I got to be a teenager, I wished I had been raised with some religious education and identity. It seemed to be a rich heritage like having a strong cultural identity, something deep and personal to add to your sense of self that is missing for most American youth, who are raised without ethnicity or faith and have things like television shows to make gifs out of and feel like they belong to something when arcane 70s/80s/90s references are understood...
I also think that the vehement degree to which the separation of church and state is enforced has made for this weird gap in our educational process where we can't teach judeo-christianity as part of social studies or history from even an objective or skeptical perspective because that's seen as "preaching" to public school kids... but it's a HUGE massive crazy part of social studies and history, man! I mean we are rigorous about teaching kids Egyptian burial rituals and Greek mythology, and at least give alternative religions and the major faiths in other countries a passing nod, but not the basic tenets of the Judeo-Christian faiths or course of church history? When they live in THIS society? That is a pretty bizarre ignorance handicap to leave kids with in the name of not offending anybody. The King James Bible used to be in Literature books just like Shakespeare (meaning, not held up as anything sacred or hallowed but included due to historical relevance and for cultural context clues) and it's still just as referenced and just as relevant in popular culture, but there are gonna be millions of middle schoolers who don't know anything about the character Judas but what Lady GaGa is telling them.
Anyway. Slightly off topic, but segueing smoothly enough, I am feeling really good about involving my kids in and teaching them about Lent and Holy Week and Easter right now. As I've talked about before, I basically refuse to tell them certain politically charged and hard to live with things, doctrine-wise, that I struggle with myself. But I find that those things are only an issue in some kind of large scale, media-drenched debate sort of way. We definitely don't hear about the evils of homosexuality or shunning anyone at our church. These are beautiful, meaningful masses and when you participate in them, you're doing it with millions of other people around the world, just as they've been done for thousands of years. Which is...really awesome, any way I look at it. St Louis is such a sincere and personable place to be.
I love that my kids can and do sit through Mass well, and even appreciate it and feel moved by parts. When I took them to see Seraphic Fire, the guy at the door tried to warn me that it really wasn't for kids under 10, and I was like Ha! They did great, too. Isaac got fidgety towards the end and that was really it. I hate the idea of my kids being so fried from big screen 3D IMAX movies and playing on the Wii that they can't pay attention to anything slow-paced or subtle.
Sidenote: I've realized that part of my new irritation with Protestant..ism? is that it makes Christianity seem ridiculous. With the stupid quirky joke lines on the signs out front (God sent the first text message - THE BIBLE! Be an organ donor - give your heart to Jesus!) and the horrible "contemporary Christian" music and the spoofs of pop culture things and the "down to earth, right there with you" trying too hard thing, meant to draw in a secular audience, just...UGH MAN UGH! All of it is so dumb and even embarassing. You just don't get any of that within Catholicism or Orthodoxy. I love VBS for my kids because it's fun and free and they make friends, but really whether it's the "Australian surfer" themed week of Jesus or the "Christianity to the XTreme" year (all with appropriate dorky tshirts, worksheets, posters, snacks and flyers that all come in a big sealed box you order), I don't really expect them to have some transformative spiritual experience.
I think that sort of Protestant marketing is probably a lot of the automatic cultural youth stigma against Christianity, actually. They make it seem so STUPID and lame, with the best of intentions...how can anyone - especially unexposed people on the outside - take that kind of crap seriously? I have to look past it, with all my history and desires...
This is just me thinking out loud. The whole entry. Stream of consciousness. I don't have a big point I'm leading up to. I just really enjoyed being at church for the 3rd time this week, tonight, and am looking forward to going back tomorrow, in this satisfying "feeding my soul" sort of way and have been seeing a lot of hate everytime I get online.
I don't like Jerry Falwell, I hate the right wing politicians that are trying to limit access to birth control and keep gay people from having rights. But I feel like saying Christianity is bad because there are assholes using it to justify their assholery is like saying science is bad because it gave us carcinogenic pesticides, nerve gas and the atomic bomb. How many people have tortured innocents in the name of psychiatry, especially during centuries past where people could be locked up on bullshit charges and tortured and experimented on - that doesn't make psychiatry bad. It was just misused. Assholes are bad.
I understand there is a provability factor here when we're talking about science/psych vs religion.
But...I feel like Christanity is mostly good, even if it were to be (theologically) "fake". I think many people coming together in faith for beliefs is beautiful, not sad (Yes, this includes other faiths). I think prayer, meditation, study, worship and so on are generally very good things, mentally purging and stress reducing. I think examining your conscience and trying to adhere to high moral standards is generally a step in the right direction for most people. Though I don't know, it definitely SEEMS that charitable giving and volunteerism within the church (and all belief systems - I just mean organized religious charity and volunteering) constitute a huge percentage of the overall giving and volunteerism that happens in the world.
Sometimes I think (with young people especially) there is a trendy, media-conception type superiority you're just "supposed" to have towards even taboo words like bible, Jesus, etc, that goes WAY beyond the genuine, understandable defensive reaction some people have because they've been hurt by other Christians or even by Christian institutions - it's this embarassment factor wrapped up in total ignorance to the faith, like you have to really be a real douche bag nowadays to admit to something like going to confession. What I'm saying is even people who know next to nothing about confession or why anyone would want to do it, with no real life connection of any sort to Catholicism, feel this way as a knee-jerk reaction because our society tells them they're supposed to.
This "crutch" thing, too, I have known at least two people who thought religion in general was some kind of pathetic, laughable, horrible (dun dun DUN!!!) CRUTCH...to which I say yeah isn't that about a million times better than drugs, alcoholism, (insert self destructive alternative crutch here)? The 12 Step program is one of the only methods that's ever been shown to really work in treating addiction and a big part of that is the whole higher power spiel. Is that somehow...wrong? I really don't think so.
This NPR story references plenty of other stories and makes for a pretty extensive amount of reading (that is easily picked through for what you deem the interesting parts) on why prayer and meditation make us better able to focus and happier, and how our brains are wired for religious experiences to a degree - among other things.
Once I got to be a teenager, I wished I had been raised with some religious education and identity. It seemed to be a rich heritage like having a strong cultural identity, something deep and personal to add to your sense of self that is missing for most American youth, who are raised without ethnicity or faith and have things like television shows to make gifs out of and feel like they belong to something when arcane 70s/80s/90s references are understood...
I also think that the vehement degree to which the separation of church and state is enforced has made for this weird gap in our educational process where we can't teach judeo-christianity as part of social studies or history from even an objective or skeptical perspective because that's seen as "preaching" to public school kids... but it's a HUGE massive crazy part of social studies and history, man! I mean we are rigorous about teaching kids Egyptian burial rituals and Greek mythology, and at least give alternative religions and the major faiths in other countries a passing nod, but not the basic tenets of the Judeo-Christian faiths or course of church history? When they live in THIS society? That is a pretty bizarre ignorance handicap to leave kids with in the name of not offending anybody. The King James Bible used to be in Literature books just like Shakespeare (meaning, not held up as anything sacred or hallowed but included due to historical relevance and for cultural context clues) and it's still just as referenced and just as relevant in popular culture, but there are gonna be millions of middle schoolers who don't know anything about the character Judas but what Lady GaGa is telling them.
Anyway. Slightly off topic, but segueing smoothly enough, I am feeling really good about involving my kids in and teaching them about Lent and Holy Week and Easter right now. As I've talked about before, I basically refuse to tell them certain politically charged and hard to live with things, doctrine-wise, that I struggle with myself. But I find that those things are only an issue in some kind of large scale, media-drenched debate sort of way. We definitely don't hear about the evils of homosexuality or shunning anyone at our church. These are beautiful, meaningful masses and when you participate in them, you're doing it with millions of other people around the world, just as they've been done for thousands of years. Which is...really awesome, any way I look at it. St Louis is such a sincere and personable place to be.
I love that my kids can and do sit through Mass well, and even appreciate it and feel moved by parts. When I took them to see Seraphic Fire, the guy at the door tried to warn me that it really wasn't for kids under 10, and I was like Ha! They did great, too. Isaac got fidgety towards the end and that was really it. I hate the idea of my kids being so fried from big screen 3D IMAX movies and playing on the Wii that they can't pay attention to anything slow-paced or subtle.
Sidenote: I've realized that part of my new irritation with Protestant..ism? is that it makes Christianity seem ridiculous. With the stupid quirky joke lines on the signs out front (God sent the first text message - THE BIBLE! Be an organ donor - give your heart to Jesus!) and the horrible "contemporary Christian" music and the spoofs of pop culture things and the "down to earth, right there with you" trying too hard thing, meant to draw in a secular audience, just...UGH MAN UGH! All of it is so dumb and even embarassing. You just don't get any of that within Catholicism or Orthodoxy. I love VBS for my kids because it's fun and free and they make friends, but really whether it's the "Australian surfer" themed week of Jesus or the "Christianity to the XTreme" year (all with appropriate dorky tshirts, worksheets, posters, snacks and flyers that all come in a big sealed box you order), I don't really expect them to have some transformative spiritual experience.
I think that sort of Protestant marketing is probably a lot of the automatic cultural youth stigma against Christianity, actually. They make it seem so STUPID and lame, with the best of intentions...how can anyone - especially unexposed people on the outside - take that kind of crap seriously? I have to look past it, with all my history and desires...
This is just me thinking out loud. The whole entry. Stream of consciousness. I don't have a big point I'm leading up to. I just really enjoyed being at church for the 3rd time this week, tonight, and am looking forward to going back tomorrow, in this satisfying "feeding my soul" sort of way and have been seeing a lot of hate everytime I get online.
