Herd Mentality

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Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
- Charles Mackay

We have nothing to fear...

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Up until recently, I don't think I fully appreciated the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." The statement is technically not 100% accurate. We have other emotions to fear besides fear. But, it makes a good point. Lately, I've seen our country get into a whole heap of trouble based on letting our emotions run amok. Greed caused the real estate pricing bubble. Greed caused the banking crisis (predatory lending practices). Herd mentality causes dollars to chase dollars creating stupidly wild swings in our markets (real estate and stock markets). When stocks are on the way up, all stocks rise- regardless of the merit (or lack of merit) of particular companies. People can't pour their money into the market fast enough. Same with real estate, as people were buying and "flipping" properties sight unseen. When stocks are on the way down, we trample each other running for the exits. Some great companies' stocks are "on sale" right now, beaten down by the lemming-like exit from the market. Fear is exacerbating this crisis as we all are holding onto our wallets tighter now (where just a few months ago we were all spending like drunken sailors on shore leave). Banks, who were giving loans to anyone who could fog a mirror, are now afraid to lend to anyone, including each other.

Last night Obama touched on another emotion that we need to be careful of as we navigate through this crisis. That emotion is anger. I hear people saying we should not reward those who got us into this mess, implying we should allow the banks to go under to punish the stupid, incompetent and greedy managers who ran them into the ground. I hear people saying "Where's my bailout?" when they hear we are going to help people stay in their homes. What we cannot lose sight of is that no matter what the reasons were are in this mess, we are all in it together. There's no place for anger when it comes to working on solutions. Sure, we're tempted to let the banks that made stupid decisions go under. But, what happens to our credit system when too many of them fail? We all suffer. Of course, we don't want to help out the guy making $50,000 a year and living in a $500,000 home. But, if we allow too many homes to be foreclosed on it hurts all of our property values and we all lose.

Fear is an emotion I am all too familiar with. For many years fear had me in its grip. I have largely overcome fear by the use of one technique- living in the moment. What I finally realized is fear is all about the future. Fear is anticipatory. It's never about what is happening, it's about what could happen in the future. Part of the solution to this crisis is to stop the hand-wringing and the worst case projections and get on with our daily lives. The media has been complicit in this fear-mongering. Every night on the news we hear about how bad things are and how there is no bottom in sight. The reality is most of us are still employed, still living in very nice homes, still live one of the best standards of living on earth and are in no real immediate danger of starving or being homeless. Sure things are bad, worse than they've been in a long time. But, as a friend of mine often says "It ain't Auschwitz". Let's keep things in perspective. "Bad" is a relative term. Compared to to the best of days, these ain't them (economically). But things could be a whole lot worse. And, if we keep living in fear, it's likely they will get a whole lot worse. Housing prices are falling at a record pace. But, no one seems to remember they were rising at ridiculously high rates just before that. Even a non-economist like me could see several years ago that home prices could not keep rising at double digit rates every single year forever. Whose going to be able to afford the homes? (BTW- did you catch the fact that the personal savings rate has shot up to higher than it's been in six years?). Economically, for every downside, there's usually a corresponding upside. Higher savings rates means more Americans are living within their means which means they'll be better positioned to spend at a sustainable rate in the future. Housing prices had to (and must) adjust so real people can afford homes. When home prices get back in line with what people can really afford (without gimmick mortgages based on prices continuing to rise), then we'll see people buying homes again. Lower home prices means more people will be able to afford homes.

While fear thrives on living in the future, anger thrives on living in the past. I love the saying "Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past.". There is no point in pointing fingers now (except to make sure we don't fall into the same traps again). While we're in the midst of a crisis and working on getting out of it, withholding help that could be beneficial to all of us to spite those we feel got us into this mess is the very definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Yes, some of the economic stimulus and "bail outs" will reward those very people whose greed and short sightedness created this crisis. But, what is the alternative?

I think Obama did a great job last night of laying out for the American people why we are where we are and what we need to do to get out of it. One of the things I really admire about him is his "cool" and I hope the American people follow his cue. This is not the time for fear. This is not the time for anger. This is the time for taking a sober assessment of exactly where we are now and what we need to do to make tomorrow just a little better. If we can all do that, we will pull out of this stronger for the experience. That is what I choose to believe.

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Science as Religion- Music Friday

I had to share this one today.

The Death of the Mythic God

I just finished reading what is possibly the most heretical book I've read to date (and that is saying a lot).  The title certainly is up there on the heretical scale.  However The Death of the Mythic God (subtitled The Rise of Evolutionary Spirituality) doesn't really claim G-d is dead, quite the contrary.  But, what it does say is our myth of G-d, our Big Old Man (can you say Zeus) in the sky no longer serves us well.

This book is really two books in one.  The first half is about the death of the mythic G-d and the spiritual crisis we are facing because, as the Christian church and others cling to this outdated notion not only does it impede our ability to get along across religions.  But, it is creating a crisis of faith within Christianity where people are being to told to ignore their common sense and science and just have "faith" to believe in the unbelievable (in the 21st Century).  As Marion points out, many of us are kind of stuck in an in between world, not wanting to abandon the faith of our youth but no longer able to buy into the mythical worldview.  Then, there are those who have simply walked away finding "religion" irrelevant, superstitious and irrational.

Who is this "mythical God"?  A separate "being" who lives in the sky (the people who wrote the Bible literally believed Heaven was just above the canopy of Earth).  He intervenes in human affairs based on our petitions.  People with a mythical worldview take their myths literally.  The world was created in six days.  Jesus was born of a virgin.  These things in themselves are not so problematic. But, they also see themselves as good a nonbelievers as evil.   They believe God is on their side and it's their responsibility to convert the goal to their beliefs, even if they have to use force to do it.  We see this today among Christian (not so much with the force anymore) and Muslim fundamentalists.  People at the rational level of consciousness (and above) see the world as one.  They may or may not believe in the mythic sky God. But, they are on a collision course with fundamentalists. 

The second half of the book addresses the levels of consciousness, mostly using the color coded progression from Spiral Dynamics made popular by Ken Wilber.  I found a lot of it to be review.  However, Marion did add some new insights for me.

Marion points out that a shift in consciousness was required to solve some of the social dilemma faced recently.  A literal fundamentalist view of the Bible not only allowed discrimination against African-Americans, women and homosexuals but actually justified it. Only when people began began bringing a rational level of consciousness to the Bible could they see that these things weren't justified at all.

Perhaps the chapter I found the most important in the book was the one titled "Acceptance of the Death of God".  This can be a traumatic event for many of us.  I can recall being absolutely terrified as some of my old concept of G-d went away (even though I was absolutely terrified of the first concept, also).  I found this passage particularly pertinent:

Christians go to church on Sunday as if entering a time warp, putting the modern rational worldview aside for an hour or two to submit to the old mythic worldview.  Then they reemerge into the rational worldview by which they operate their lives and professions during the week.

That is, if they still go to church (emphasis mine), for many do not because they are tired of this weekly regression and the irrelevance of the mythic worldview to their lives.  Many of those who continue to go to church have entered the fourth stage of dying [Kubler-Ross stages]- depression and mourning.  They miss the way things were and are bereft.  But they see no way back.

Others have gone all the way- into the final stage of acceptance.  They have finally accepted the new situation and no longer go to church.  They have accepted the rational worldview and the death of God.  For them, the dying process is complete and they are lost to a Church that still clings to the old.

I've been fortunate.  I've found a "progressive" church that is not totally immersed in the old mythology.  I still have to to do some "translation" as  Daniel Helminiak called it in the Transcended Christian, especially when it comes to the music.  The lyrics of some of those hymns just, ooh!  But, I think for the most part I've made the transition and been able to accept the "death" of the mythic God and can still make the transition back to church on Sunday mornings.  However, as Spong and other point out, Christianity still must change or suffer the risk of dying out completely.  I don't think the next generation will make that time warp every Sunday morning and the numbers are starting to reflect it.  Even among those who call themselves believers and church attenders, attendance is dropping rapidly.  The "unchurched" (those who haven't attended in the last six months) now outnumbers the number of Roman Catholics (listed at 62 million and wildly inflated since it includes all those ever baptized Catholic).  The church is commissioning studies to figure out how to save itself.  According to Marion, no matter the surface issues, the heart of the crisis is difference between those who still believe in the mythical Sky God (and the myths of the Bible) and those who not.  Unfortunately, the response of most churches to this criss is to cling more tightly to the past and belittle those who cannot by saying they don't have enough "faith".    It generally offers no leadership to those in mourning for the los of their god and offers none to replace the one who has died.

Marion goes into great detail as to who the mythic God was and even argues that Jesus never believed in the mythic God and actually was trying to pull people along out of that level of consciousness, which was necessary for mankind and is still a level that children must pass through.  He gives 12 characteristics of the mythic God and, for each, shows how Jesus taught a different view of G-d.  Wrapping up the first part of the book, Marion gives us a little perspective on the G-d who replaces the one that died.

As I said, the second part of the book deals mainly with the levels of human consciousness although it also goes into the nature of the universe.  I particularly liked the chapter on the consciousness of the "greens" because everything I've seen about "greens" before was about how highly evolved they are. Marion also points out some of their shortcomings, one being that they think all levels of human consciousness are equal and should be "respected".  When a red is coming at you with a baseball bat or a nuclear, you cannot take the time to "respect" their level of consciousness.  You have to defend yourself.  When a society is mutilating women or stoning them for minor infractions, it's OK to say that society is not as evolved as it should be and to do something to protect human rights.  Honestly, the last part of the book felt kind of like an add-on to me and while it was "OK", it was not what I bought the book to find out.

Overall, I'd give the book 3 out of 5 stars.   Some chapters were really great and others were just "so-so".  They just didn't seem to fit in with what I thought the main theme of the book is I did like it enough to order Marion's earlier book "Putting On the Mind of Christ".

Metanoia

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Yesterday, during his excellent sermon (which the stupid iPod failed to record again- doh!), Mike mentioned "repentance". Repentance is one of those really loaded Christian words that triggers a lot of negativity for some of us. To me, it invokes images of forced conversions. Repentance is something you do to avoid punishment. Repentance is looking back. Regret. Guilt. Not such a great word.

However, what repentance really means is to have a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of being. Repentance is literally becoming a new creation. But, the word I prefer to repentance is metanoia. According to Wikipedia:

Metanoia in the context of theological discussion, where it is used often, is usually interpreted to mean repentance. However, some people argue that the word should be interpreted more literally to denote changing one's mind, in the sense of embracing thoughts beyond its present limitations or thought patterns (an interpretation which is compatible with the denotative meaning of repentance but replaces its negative connotation with a positive one, focusing on the superior state being approached rather than the inferior prior state being departed from.)

Wow. I don't remember writing that Wikipedia entry. Actually, these are almost my exact thoughts while Mike was speaking yesterday. While the definition of repentance and metanoia may be exactly the same, the connotation (at least for me), is completely different, which is why I prefer the latter word. Metanoia implies a looking forward. A resolution to do things differently. A breaking beyond old boundaries.

I don't do a lot of repenting these days. Repenting, as it's been taught to me, is the "second arrow". When we first make a mistake, that is the first arrow (fired into ourselves). The second arrow is when we start to beat ourselves up for the first arrow. The third arrow is when we beat ourselves up for beating ourselves up. I try to keep the arrows to a minimum. Mistakes are going to happen. They happen daily. Several times a day. Sometimes I'm fairly pleased with my progress. Sometimes I'm amazed at just how slow it is. But, whichever it happens to be, I try not dwell on my stumbles. I review them in my mind, try to determine how I could have handled that situation better and resolve to move forward and try to do just a little better next time. Instead of viewing mistakes as something to regret and to fret over, I try to view them as learning opportunities, observing how my mind works and reacts to certain situations and training it to react better the next time around.

Hell- Why it matters what you believe

My buddy Bob and I got a pretty good conversation going on Hell stemming from my article on Islam and the commonalities between religious fundamentalists of various religions.  Bob, accused me of being a fundamenalist about the issue of Hell because of my "certainty" about the non-existence of Hell.  Of course, at first I bristled at the idea of being any sort of fundamentalist. Then, I kind of settled into it and accepted that, on some issues, I may be a fundamentalist.  But, even beyond that, Bob brought up the idea that it really doesn't matter what we believe about Hell.  Now, that I don't believe at all. And, I'll tell you why.

First of all, just a quick aside on the issue of Fundamentalism.  Ironically, I'm currently reading a book that discusses Spiral Dynamics which is the notion that individually and collectively people evolve from one level of consciousness to the next.  These levels (in this particular system) are color coded.  As I was reading the book and trying to put myself into one of the boxes, what I realized is that I am on different levels on different issues and operate on different levels depending on the situation.  In fact as you progress up the hierarchy, you don't actually abandon earlier levels, you transcend and integrate them.  That's a different post. But, what I realized is some people thinking they are "evolved" make the mistake of thinking nothing is right or wrong anymore.  No values are better than any other value. It's all a matter of perspective or cultural bias or whatever.  We hesitate to call the stoning of adulterers "wrong" because that's just "their way" (besides our own Bibles say it's OK to stone some people).  Well, it's simply not true that all ideas, values, traditions have the same merit.  Some things are better than others and when we have a conviction about something, it's OK to have that conviction.  I am very confident that G-d does not send people to eternal conscious torment as punishment for "sins" against Her and if saying that makes me a fundamentalist, I'm OK with being a fundamentalist.  Respecting others doesn't mean I have to accept all of their opinions or say they are just as likely to be right as I am.  I respect others' right to hold a different opinion.  I will fellowship with them.  I will not say they are not "saved" because they don't agree with me. But, of course I think I'm right.   And of course, I think my way of thinking is more "evolved" than theirs.  I'm sorry if that offends.

I've spent a lot of time on the blog backing up why I believe what I believe.  So, I won't reiterate it all here.  In a nutshell, there is scant evidence of Hell, period.  The Old Testament doesn't mention it even one time.  Sheol (properly translated as the grave) is a shadowy underworld where there is no notion of torture mention in the Old Testament.  When G-d cursed Adam & Eve, not a peep about Hell.  In all of the threats and promises in the Old Testament, not a word about Hell.  Only in a few passages in the New Testament can we even begin to find anything about Hell.  Then when I studied the origins of this concept, I found out they were pagan and came from the ruling class to keep the common folk in line.  Look it all up for yourself.  But, ask yourself, if you hadn't been taught that the New Testament says people are going to be tortured, would you believe it?  What if you have been taught to misinterpret those passsages?  Are you open to that possibility?  Bob asked me if I were open to the possibility I'm wrong.  Sure. But, why would I believe it?  There's almost zero evidence for it and a ton of evidence against it, including most importantly, the nature of G-d.  Frankly, even if the Bible clearly taught the existence of Eternal Conscious Torment, I'd have to reject it.  But, thankfully, the Bible does not.

Finally, to the point of this post.  Why does it matter?  Bob wrote this:

I think that the question of hell begs the question of why do we need to know? What difference does it make whether hell exists or it does not exist? Here are a few scenarios:

Fundamentalist A sez that the existence of hell motivates them to preach the gospel.

Fundamentalist B sez that the existence of Hell creates an untenable picture of God.

Both use the bible to support their positions.. each believe that thy are correct.. nothing changes because it is not about hell.. it is about something else.

Fundie A doesn't need hell to exist to motivate them to share their faith.. they just need to have love for people.

Fundie B doesn't need hell to not exist to see God as a love.. they just need to understand the cross.

Feel free to deep six these thoughts.. not sure that they make sense to anyone but me.

Shalom, Bob

Concerning Fundy A, I agree with Bob.  If he needs the existence of Hell to motivate him to share the gospel, he is seriously missing the point.  I believe Jesus was telling us to bring heaven (justice) to Earth, to bring G-d's Kingdom to the here and now.  I do not need to be motivated by the threat of Hell to share this with my neighbor. People without the knowledge of G-d's love and His desires for all of us to accept that are already living in Hell.  They don't have to die to go there.

Concerning Fundy B, the fact that the belief in Hell creates an untenable picture of G-d. Well, I agree with Fundy B.  For the first several decades of my life, the belief that G-d would send me to eternal torment tormented me in the here and now.  Oh, I supposedly had escaped the flames.  I went to church, said my prayers, tried not to sin, confessed when I did sin, got baptized, spoke in tongues as evidence of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. The whole thing.  But, I knew in my heart it was a lie.  As much as I wanted to love G-d, I could not love someone who wanted to torture me and only let me off of the hook because He tortured His Son instead.  I loved Jesus.  Oh, I adored Jesus.  But, G-d?  G-d who could only bear to have me in His presence because He could not see through the blood covering me?  This was not a G-d I could love, it was a G-d I could only fear and resent for even creating me to have to live with this horrible lie.  I wished I had never been born.

As much as possible, I pushed this out of my mind.  The though of my brothers and sister being tortured if they died because they had not said the right words and been dipped in the pool were thoughts I could not bear to think too often.  Then, it happened. It became personal.  My uncle was murdered.  The rumor going around the family at the time was that he had been thinking about joining the church.  In fact, he called me just a couple of days before he was murdered and left a voicemail.  Unfortunately, I did not speak with him between that time and his murder.  So, I don't know what was going on.  As far as I know, he died "in his sins".  This was more than I could bear.  G-d was torturing my uncle because he had not joined the church in time.  That's what I had been taught.  This was when I could no longer avoid and say "it's just a mystery".  I was forced to confront the issue head on.  

Compounding matters, my uncle was gay.  As a gay man, he would not have been accepted in any church I knew about at the time.  I know he "loved the Lord".  But, what is a man to do when he loves G-d but is rejected by the church?  These "good people" who reject divorced people, gays, alcoholics, etc. etc. because of what their book tells them, think they are doing G-d's bidding.  Do they even consider the fact that they are also condemning people to eternal torment?  But, hey, if G-d's going to torture them, they deserve it.  Right? My heart aches every time I think of my Uncle Michael because I blame his death largely on the lifestyle he was living at the time of his murder, a lifestyle I attribute largely to society's and the church's treatment of gays.

So, why is this issue of Hell important in the here and now?  I believe that people become like the god they serve. If their god is petty, they'll be petty.  If their god is unforgiving, they'll be unforgiving.  If their god creates throw-away people, they'll see some people as throw-away people.  I don't have statistics on this.  But, I wonder how many churches that teach eternal conscious torment are also open and affirming to gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered people. I wonder what their emphasis is on bringing peace and justice to Earth now to all people when they are just waiting for G-d to throw those people into a fiery pit.  The issue is also important because there are some people who simply cannot reconcile a G-d of infinite love and mercy and grace and justice with a god who not only tosses aside a huge chunk of his daughters and sons, he locks them in the basement and gives them just enough breath to feel the pain He plans to inflict on them forever.  People who cannot reconcile this and cannot get beyond this teaching either reject Christianity all together, accept the fact they are going to Hell or live a lie and pretend to love G-d because they have to.

I have found among my more sensitive Evangelical friends what seems to me to be a growing trend, the "I don't know.  We can't know.  It's a mystery.  I'll leave it up to God" stance.  I find very, very few people who will adamantly defend their belief in Eternal Conscious Torment.  Right now I can't think of one.  Of course, I have a theory on that.  I think it's their way of compromising and avoiding what is an unbearable dilemma for them.  A couple of thousand years ago, mankind was not as evolved and the world was a much bigger and more scary place.  It was easier to think of others as truly other.  Even a few decades ago most of us hung out with other Christians (or white people or straight people or whatever).  The idea that G-d was going to send masses and masses of "others" to Eternal Torment wasn't something you really didn' have to think about.  Now, most of us have a Hindu living down the street or work with a Muslim or know a gay guy or two.  We cannot openly declare that G-d is going to torture all those people but OTOH, we cannot reject a "clear" teaching from our infallible Bibles.  So, we toss up our hands and chalk it up to mystery.  A fair position to be sure.  I see it as a way station.  One I was in for a long time. But, it was never a place I was comfortable being in.

Bob's right about this though.  I cannot "prove" Hell does not exist, not even using the Bible.   I think properly translated and looking at it from the overarching message of scripture, it's pretty clear the Bible teaches all will be saved (particulaly Paul's letters and most especially the book of Romans).  But, it would be a waste of my time to try to prove it to someone who doens't want to see it.  As much as it would be a waste of their time to try to prove their position to me.   That does not mean the issue is not important and it doesn mean, for me, that I have to chalk it up to a mystery.  If G-d is the kind of G-d who would do such a thing, I want to know.  If the point of this life is simply making that one decision and escaping the flames, I need to know.  It'll impact how I live my life and how I treat others.

BTW- the picture for this post is my Uncle Michael.  He sent it to me not too long before he was murdered.  My conversation with Bob yesterday reminded me of him again and again I wept for him over 20 years after his death.  He is my constant reminder of why this is so important.

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Life in a Glass House

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The issue of Islamic Fundamentalism is on my mind this morning. I recently posted the recording of Dr. Durrani, a Muslim doctor who spoke to our church last August. A couple of people have warned me about Muslims trying to act "moderate" or tolerant and to watch out for them. Others have told about trouble passages in the Koran. "You've got to watch those Muslims because they've been taught it's OK to lie to infidels to get their way." I watched Kite Runner this weekend and Ty and I were both struck by the brutality of the Taliban (stoning adulterers at halftime of a soccer game), raping young boys (while pronouncing death the appropriate penalty for bein homosexual). But, as I watched that, I had to remember that there are stonings and people being struck dead in our very own Bibles.

What is easy (and convenient to forget) is that radical Islam is not so different from Christianity (and Judaism) just a short time ago. The practices we find so brutal and even incomprehensible were done in the name of YHWH and God by Christians and Jews. The stoning of the adulterers at the soccer game was hard to watch. But, we read over passages in the Bible promoting stoning without batting an eyelash. The Taliban guy ranting about the sins of the adulterers said something to the effect "The punishment of throwing stones at them is appropriate because by committing this sin, they have thrown stones at Allah's house.". How is that so very different from what we hear from Christian pulpits today saying God will send people to eternal torment for their sins? Give me a few hits with a rock versus being tortured eternally any day. Forced conversions to Islam and trials for heresy? How about the Inquisitions and the forced conversions Christians have done all across the globe? Troubling passages in the Koran? How about selling your daughter in to slavery as sanctioned in Exodus or putting someone to death for working on the Sabbath as Exodus 35:2 reads or the entire book of Leviticus for that matter?

I've been told that the moderate Muslims, the tolerant Muslims are really just covering up for the "real" Muslims. The same could be said for moderate or progressive Christians. Are the real Christians the Fred Phelps and the Pat Robertsons or are the real Christians those who do not use the Bible to condemn women, gays, blacks, Jews, etc?

At one time, Islam was known as a religion of peace and tolerance. And, I believe it is still- at its core. There are those who have hijacked the religion (IMO) to suit their own purposes, just as there are those still hijacking Christianity. Progressive Muslims must speak out against their intolerant fundamentalist brethren, just as Progressive Christians must do within our faith tradition. But, I will not take part in condemning all of Islam because of the actions of their less enlightened vocal minority. Those who live in glass houses...

Peace,

Brian