I had to do a class at Christian Academy of Louisville last Friday. It was just a one day stint . . . and it wasn't even my first time in the place, as I did a full week's worth of classes there a couple of years ago . . . but it is the last time I will ever set foot in that building. Your first hint of what's wrong with the place comes when you look at the books on the shelf. The one that really caught my eye was The Battle for Truth by David A. Noebel. I really wanted to "borrow" a copy to bring home and read (and share with all of my friends), but my secular humanist heart wouldn't let me steal it, alas. I guess everything isn't permitted without God, after all, Fyodor. I tried to do the Google Book thing so that I could at least share a little bit of the thing with you, but those Christians play it close to the vest. Fortunately, the Louisville Free Public Library does possess a copy, and I will attempt to pick that up and give you a taste sometime in the near future. In the meantime, here's a little sample from one of the inaptly named Noebel's other tomes, Mind Siege: The Battle for Truth (co-written by Tim LaHaye, and yes, inaptly should be a word). Roll the tape: "Long before the 55 million children in our American school system are old enough to understand or examine humanism for themselves, already they are convinced it is scientific. After all, their teachers told them Darwinian evolution is scientific; that the philosophy of naturalism is scientific; that moral relativism is based on Einstein's theory of relativity; that "scientific socialism" is based on the social sciences; that society and law are evolving along with the human animal and hence are scientific; that all left wing, environmental, collectivistic, statist policies are firmly based on the physical and social sciences and not on the myth of religion; and finally, that everything related to the Bible is prescientific gibberish. If you were served such an educational smorgasbord, we bet you would believe that humanism is scientific, too. Honest educators must answer one question: Is it education or brainwashing to teach young people that something unscientific is really scientific? Until educators in the public school system awaken to the fraud they are perpetrating, humanists will continue to dominate them and force them to disseminate unsupported and unscientific dogma." Wow. If only I had known. But I have heard the ringing of the Lord's Alarm Clock--which sounded curiously like the trampling out of the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, so I'm guessing that John Steinbeck is God, not Eric Clapton as previously supposed. My great grandfather was not a monkey, by golly. Down with Darwinism! Down with secular humanism!
At one point in my class on Friday I asked if any of the students had heard of the Zen Buddhist koan, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" One boy responded, "No, I'm a Christian." I didn't ask him if Christian was a synonym for stupid, but I did suggest that he needed to get out more often. That's the thing that kills me. I am sure that you don't have to be stupid to be Christian. I mean, C.S. Lewis was okay. But why are so many of the Christians I meet stupid? Not to mention mean spirited and closed minded? I am sure that there are just as many stupid, mean-spirited, and closed minded Muslims, Buddhists, Jews . . . you name it . . . which can only lead me to the conclusion that for the most part, religion has a stupefying effect on the human mind. It's like that foam insulating material sprayed into the attic in that people use it to fill up all the empty spaces and obscure any doubts that they have about the universe. It keeps them warm and cozy during the long, dark tea-time of the soul, and it enables them to hand off any doubts to the "it's beyond our ken." (Which seems to me to be the equivalent to Scotty telling Kirk, "Cap'n, the engines . . . they kin na take the strain!")
What really kills me is the way that so many of the Christians I have known are so quick to criticize and condemn others. They are so sure that they are right and everyone else is wrong . . . so sure that they are saved and everyone else is damned. You know, I've read the Bible. In fact, I am on my second time through (with Q, and let me tell you we are seriously bogged down in I Corinthians. I think we should be finishing that book up sometime around the turn of the year at the rate we're going now). And there is some terrific stuff in there. My personal favorite is the line attributed to Jesus: "Judge not that ye not be judged." I would seriously like to have that painted on every single wall of Christian Academy of Louisville. I wonder what old Jesus would think about the folks at 700 S. English Station Road? I'm guessing that he'd feel a bit queasy . . . and go back to hanging out with whores, thieves, and drunkards . . . you know, the way he did way back when? Oddly enough, I don't recall any stories in the Bible wherein Jesus made those people feel like shit. The secular humanists probably edited all of that out. (You know how those unscientific bastards are.)
4 comments:
C.S. Lewis is NOT okay.
He's a big jerkstore who somehow overcame his natural, God-given skepticism to toe the party line with such zeal that he wrote a whole book about how we're all sinners. inherently. which is NOT true.
jerkstore.
Something tells me you won't be visiting the Creation Museum anytime soon, Brother K :)
One of the main reasons I felt like I never belonged in the religion I was raised was that I was uneasy about the arrogance of the belief that ours was the only one true religion, all others were damned. Also, I railed against being told that I should question nothing, just toe the Biblical line. I couldn't accept that, not even when I was 6 years old... and as I got older I felt more and more that "organized religion" was the antithesis of what I believed in my heart that religion should be. Then I became a Buddhist (or to use the Dalai Lama's beautifully simple definition of Buddhism, my religion is kindness) and found a spiritual home.
So. As a Buddhist, I want to comment on your statement: "Religion has a stupefying effect on the human mind" and share one of my favorite quotes by Shakyamuni Buddha: "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simpy because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find anything that agrees with reason and is condusive to the good and benefit of all, then accept it and live up to it."
I think that all religious practitioners, whatever their chosen path, could benefit from this advice... I feel that we all need to be responsible for our beliefs, and not just sit back and have them spoonfed to us.
-mek
Hey, mek . . . I say, "Go, Shakyamuni Buddha!" That's my kind of "religious dogma." Alas, all too often there is a distance between the best minds inhabiting a religious system and the mass of practitioners, as we have both found, but it's always inspiring to find a leader who really does know what it's all about.
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