In celebration of Lent, I decided to read Christopher Hitchens' polemic, God is Not Great. I always liked Hitch's writing, for its intellegence, lucidity and wit, even when I did not agree with him (his support for US adventurism in the Middle east, for example). As the world knows, Hitchen's primary thesis is that religion is fake, and belief in religious all faiths has caused a great deal of suffering in the world - for centuries.
It is very hard to argue Hitchens' latter point - there are just too many examples to chose from where competing religious groups pummeled each other to death in the name of - whomever. The Crusades. The Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestants in Europe. The genocide of Native Americans led, in part, by missionaries (and in Africa, etc., etc., etc.). Of course, Christianity can claim its share of martyrs as well - at the hands of the Romans or "pagan" believers. Oddly, Hitch gives Buddhists a pass, more or less. (His chapter on Buddhism mostly draws on Brian Victoria's work. It's an ok thing to draw on, but left me a little surprised that Hitch actually did not know that much about Buddhism's imperialist misadventures.) Levels of tolerance or lack thereof exist everywhere there are belief systems, which is to say - everywhere.
I am a pagan (or as my sister has said, "a heathen," though, honestly, I don't know the difference). To those rude enough to inquire (and in New York, there is nearly always someone who is) I say I am a Presbyterian Buddhist. This induces one of several reactions - either the knowing snort of someone who gets the joke, or a serious look of incomprehension by someone who doesn't get it, but does not know what to say. Both reactions, actually, are sufficient to inaugurate a change of subject.
This past weekend, I was visiting my sister in Georgia. In honor of the occasion (and including that my younger sister would be visiting too), I was informed that we would go to church on Sunday, and that I should bring appropriate attire.
I didn't really care. I parted ways with the church some time ago, but I would still go to church with my mother when I went home to visit. It was win-win - it made her happy (win) and it made my dad happy that he was off the hook (win). And I had decided, after years of college-age rebellion (mostly on the basis of Christian hypocrisy - one of my best friends was gay, and the Presbyterians, in spite of a committee report that suggested that gays were as qualified to be ministers as anyone, refused to turn that into a policy), that I was neither being a hypocrite myself, nor was I making a testament of faith - I was making my mother happy. She knew my position, worried about my lack of faith, but was nice enough to not say anything. Just like you can't win an argument with someone of faith, a person of faith can't win one with an unbeliever, either.
I came by my religious skepticism honestly - through a small book in my father's collection on world religions. Up to that point, I only knew of Christianity and Judaism, and I loved Greek myths, Norse myths, and fairy tales (you could say my interest in paganism started very early). The book, a pretty dry tome, actually, acquainted me with basic tenets of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism - stuff I had never heard of before. I don't remember many of the specifics that were in the book (I later did more investigating on my own) but I was impressed that there were competing faiths, and, importantly, that they all thought they were right.
In later years, my father and I had several talks in which he claimed a skepticism, if not outright denial, of religion that would have made Hitch happy. Unlike Hitch, he didn't begrudge people their beliefs; he did, however, rage about the intolerance that then, and certainly now, seems to be on the rise. To him, no belief at all was better than hypocrisy. And no amount of belief could justify cruelty to others.
For myself, I never understood the mutual exclusivity of Judaism and Christianity. When I was a kid, we had the son of an orthodox rabbi in my elementary school class for awhile. I thought he was way cool, especially that he got to have most of September off. We even took a field trip to his house to see the tent in the back yard for Sukkot. We had ice cream at the end of the visit!
I tried to convince my mom we should celebrate Jewish holidays.
"We don't," my mom said.
"Why not?" I said.
"Because we're Christian," she said.
"But Jesus was Jewish," I pointed out.
At which point the subject was changed.
Back to church in Georgia. White walls, white people, wooden pews, choir, two (count 'em) ministers, a reverend and a doctor. The sermon was about how gen-Xers have turned away from god. Examples included the guy who shot a bunch of civilians in Afghanistan and the guy who shot the kid in Florida and was not arrested. If only they had known god, they would not have engaged in such violence.
Really? REALLY? For all anyone knows, both of them are church regulars. In any case, I do not feel any sympathy for a pair of individuals with little in common except an obvious penchant for violence, because they have not found god. What they did find was access to firearms, and they felt no obligation for discretion in using them.
The doctor might have made a few more points, but I had stopped listening.
Later, my sister expressed her dislike of the sermon, saying it was self-serving. (I would like an example of a sermon that is not self-serving in this era of continual marketing.) And anyway, it's not their regular church, which is smaller, less wealthy and more integrated.
So why didn't we go there instead? Maybe next trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment