What Christianity is Really About

Got into a debate on the nature of "Satan" earlier today.

The problem with a literal interpretation of an ancient document is that ancient storytellers found their audiences were totally okay with an explanation of a current system/problem/etc. happening "a long time ago, before any of us were around."

That sufficed for their explanations, because writing either didn't exist or hadn't been around for very long (depending on the culture you're looking at).

For us, here, now, it does NOT suffice, because as a species we have developed methods of recordkeeping which extend far beyond an individual lifespan, as well as finding evidence of events and creatures which predate our entire species.

The issue of "Satan" (a word which simply means "adversary," and is not capitalized in the oldest versions of scripture) becomes moot if you treat the "adversary" as a literary figure rather than a literal being.

Literarily speaking, "Satan" represents bestial human instinct.
To kill or be killed. Fight or flight.
Survival as one's highest achievement.

This base instinct is the adversary of higher existence (what we in our limited vocabularies call "God"), because higher existence strives to overcome simple survivalism (inherently selfish) in favor of acting in the best interest of others (inherently selfless).

Higher existence could only communicate with base instinct in small amounts, and most of the time this communication was misinterpreted by multiple peoples as favoritism of the "gods".

When different people groups with different interpretations of higher existence began to interact, base instinct caused them to fight and kill one another, believing that the other's interpretation of higher existence posed a threat to their survival.

Fast-forward a few millennia.
Higher existence, having been unable to overcome base instinct no matter how many times it revealed itself, interjects directly into our existence with a direct example of how we can each overcome our selfishness and achieve a utopia of selflessness.

As expected, many to whom it is revealed joyfully accept this new way of being.

Also as expected, those who had clung to the ancient misinterpretation rejected the direct revelation, preferring to stifle the example, and hope their barbaric action would terrify the acceptors to a degree which would prevent them from spreading the revelation.


Fast-forward a few more millennia, when humanity has moved beyond hunting/gathering, beyond simple architecture, beyond the printing press, beyond industrialization, beyond digitization.

We now have more information about ourselves and our world than ever before, yet some still hold to the ancient, literal, misinterpreted revelation of higher existence.

Thus, hypocrisy run rampant.
Thus, haughty, judgmental people guilty of the very things they condemn in others.
Thus, a world confused and infuriated by this group of people claiming to have THE TRUTH, yet showing zero signs of having achieved anything which is impossible without "their" truth.

The Passion of the Christ

First time seeing it: Horrified at the level of detail, but understanding it to be realism.
...then horrified again that I was in a movie theater with TODDLERS and SMALL CHILDREN, whose parents had FORCED them to watch this bloodbath solely on the hearsay of it being a "Christian" film.

Second time seeing it: This is just torture porn, in the strictest sense of the term. The film is centered around watching a human being slowly and brutally murdered, and there is ZERO narrative outside that center.

Overall, Ben Hur was a much better Crucifixion/Resurrection movie.
We FELT the injustice and brutality of Christ's death because of the genius of IMPLICATION and actual CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT instead of blood and guts flying all over the screen (a screen we are forced to keep our attention on because of the subtitles).

Also, Ben Hur actually has a STORY.

In all cinema, in all STORYTELLING, every event included in the plot must serve a purpose in the overall narrative.
Even documentaries must choose from a huge list of events, and present them in the order which will create the greatest dramatic effect.

Where previous films had included scenes of Jesus' torture as an increase in dramatic tension leading up to the climax (the actual crucifixion), we got there after a long series of ups and downs, each release in tension preceding a greater increase.

The Passion simply threw us into the rev-up to the climax, stretched that rev-up out for so long the tension threatened (or perhaps was designed, stupidly) to distract the audience and take them out of the story, and hoped we stuck around long enough to see the final resolution.

“The weakest possible reason to include anything in a story is: ‘But it actually happened.’”
-Robert McKee, Story

That a film revolves around a particular religious tradition is no excuse for incompetent storytelling.
That there are so many well-written films about Jesus makes The Passion's glaring flaws that much more obvious.

Not Quite an Adult

Lately I've been realizing how slow my mental maturation has really been.

Mainly through stuff I'm responsible for, which intimidates the crap out of me.

I only started taking care of housework without hesitation a few years ago.
My parents tried to get the "if you don't do it, it won't get done" mentality into my head from an early age, but it wasn't until I was actually on my own (including out of the dorms) that I started just taking care of housework because it needed to be done.

Car maintenance stuff still intimidates me, and I couldn't tell you why to save my life.
I'll do six laps around a mechanic's place before deciding to go have lunch instead of getting my oil changed (and this when the dipstick is almost DRY).

Money issues feel waaaay beyond my ken (yay archaic saying of the day), especially around tax time.

If it took till age 22 to take care of housework without problems, how long before I can take care of our household finances without feeling like I'm jumping in the deep end without a floaty?

40s? 50s? Will we have grandchildren running around before I can just HANDLE shit?

Even as I read books about how my generation is taking longer to reach levels of maturation our parents and grandparents hit earlier and earlier in life, it still feels like everyone else has their shit together and I'm just treading water on my best day.


Especially as I get ready to graduate with my B.A. after spending nearly a decade (god I'm old) floundering around three campuses.

Suddenly all the good-student responsibilities, which I picked up within seconds of starting kindergarten (and nearly lost before taking a year off from college), aren't going to matter anymore.

What good is knowing the precise studying and preparation rituals to succeed in test-taking when you're looking for/working at a job?

What good is knowing MLA/APA/whatever-the-fuck citation format when you'll likely NEVER write another essay as long as you live?

I'm also torn between two modes of thought when it comes to career-hunting (given that I, unlike what seems like everyone else, didn't choose my career by age 12).

1) I find a job that takes full advantage of my writing abilities.
Advantage: Uses the skills I expounded upon and developed in college.
Disadvantage: Could make me hate myself by turning the art into work.

2) I find a job that in NO WAY uses my abilities.
Advantage: I don't have to worry about #1's disadvantage, and could practice my art for art's sake in my spare time.
Disadvantage: Because of that advantage, I end up hating life because all my attention and desire is focused on evenings and especially weekends, when I CAN practice my art.


All this while most people are saying that the first job out of college is usually #2, mainly because you have to pay bills before you can do anything else.

Men, Women, and God

Ours is not to reason why, our is but to do what our moms/girlfriends/wives tell us.


God calls whom He will to the roles He will, then He qualifies them to fit the roles to which He has called them.
End of story.

This happens on an INDIVIDUAL level, not a socio-economic, nor an age, nor a racial, nor a gender level.

To apply archaic sexism to life here and now is the exact same mistake the Pharisees made when trying to apply the nitpicky details of Mosaic law to Christ (aka "straining at gnats").

God has not changed since He first revealed Himself, but humanity has, and with our maturation as a species has come a more mature understanding of God.

Thus we who say "God is love" are not hampered by the tales of atrocities committed in God's name in the Old Testament, nor the sexual repression common (and in some cases government-enforced) in the first century A.D.

God is love, He qualifies whom He has called, and any attempt to enforce rules written two thousand years earlier in humanity's spiritual maturation process just gets in His way and turns people away from Him.


Thus...
I do not lead our household. My wife does not lead our household.
We are walking through life at the same pace, trying every day to stay focused and keep each other focused on God.

In astronomical terms, God is the Sun, and my wife and I are Pluto and Charon, orbiting about each other as we stay in orbit around God, always making every effort to orbit closer and closer to Him.

"The business of America is business."

"If a businessman does what he thinks will keep his business making money, it is good for his employees and by extension his society."
-TV news personality

For small businesses, the statement is easily self-evident.
We applaud small business owners who help their communities by providing goods/services and employment.

For corporations, it's a whole 'nuther ballgame.
Corporations seem to help communities by building factories or offices and hiring locals en masse.
Of course, as we saw with General Motors, the corporate jobs become a part of the booming community's foundation, so when the inevitable layoffs come (once again en masse), the community founders in a sea of unemployment.

A businessman who "does what he thinks will keep his business making money" by cutting employees' wages to ludicrous levels, denying health insurance or other benefits, or simply laying off huge numbers of people, all the while making record profits for himself, does a huge injury to the community, and to society.

Especially when all of the corporate businessmen get together and realize they can enrich themselves dramatically by universally adopting the above policies.

Which is what has happened.
Thus the economy sinks, unemployment skyrockets, and even those who HAVE jobs can't get by without federal aid or incurring debt.
All while those corporate businessmen rake in huge profits year after year and just keep getting fatter.

Occupy the Faculty Lounge

Seems the Occupy Wall Street crowd is also going after colleges.
It seems like what's being demanded is simply a return on the investment.

We've created a culture in which college is treated as the only possible path to a happy, fulfilling adult life.
I've been told on several occasions that "it doesn't matter what your degree is in, just GET ONE."

Especially by my parents.

My mother graduated in 1978 with a BA in Music Education.
Her first post-graduation job was as a secretary for a branch office of Coca Cola.

She had never been a secretary, never worked for Coca Cola, and didn't know anyone at the branch.
But she had a degree.

Her competition was a lady who had several years of secretary experience, worked for Coca Cola at another branch office, and had several friends at the office my mom was shooting for.
But she had no college degree.

My mom got the job.


Now to me, that sounds like a horrible business practice, hiring due to an arbitrary education which (on the outside) has little or no connection to the actual job rather than due to experience and promoting within the company.

But that story and many others have been dangled in the faces of my generation since we were kids, that the time and [massive amounts of] money required to get a degree will pay for themselves eventually.


I don't think the government should be responsible for arbitrarily handing out high-paying jobs to Gender Studies majors, but more of the federal budget should definitely be funneled into Pell Grants.

College tuition has risen drastically in the last twenty years, while Pell funds stayed stagnant.

More incentives to wait to start college would help as well, especially for kids who aren't mature enough to handle living on their own right out of high school.

Internships, work-study jobs that expose students to the real world while helping them earn general education credits, and on-the-job training from actual companies would all help that process.

Waiting longer and being pickier in choosing school and degree would help lower the number of college dropouts.
Or, God forbid, the kid learns from these programs that he/she doesn't actually need to go to college.

Also, colleges should be required to make public their graduation rates, not just enrollments.
Too many schools have turned into freshmen factories, trying to get as many people in the door without any kind of support for them once they're in.

I wouldn't mind some counseling prior to enrollment as well, if only to ask the prospective college student "Why are you here?"
Some need to be reminded that they are adults, and should make decisions based on their own thoughts and feelings rather than peer or parental pressure.

SSSSSMOKIN'!

I spent three years watching my girlfriend's mom gradually succumb to cancer because she smoked cigarettes for 37 years.

She had two tumors on each lung, and was pronounced "in the clear" after three surgeries and months of radiation and chemo.

A month later she started having headaches, and a tumor was discovered inside her brain, having metastasized from her lungs.
She had seven brain surgeries, another year of chemo and "cyberknife" (aka hyper-intense radiation) treatments, and in the end she died in her living room as her mother (my then-girlfriend's grandmother) tried to help her take pain pills anally because her throat no longer functioned.

She also had lupus and rheumatoid arthritis BEFORE being diagnosed with cancer.

I married her daughter three months after her death.

The thing which blows my mind is that several of this lady's relatives, who ALL saw what she went through and KNEW why she was forced to experience it, have since STARTED SMOKING.

I understand that if you've had the habit for years/decades it can be a struggle to quit.
What I don't understand is the people every year who, with all of the above type information available to them, START smoking.

There's just no excuse for that kind of stupidity nowadays.
We don't have TV/radio/Internet commercials for cigarettes, especially ones like they had in the 50's which encouraged "good" smoking, or the little pamphlets which detailed the health benefits of smoking cigarettes.

I should probably specify that I'm mainly going after CIGARETTE smokers.
Usually, pipe and cigar smokers are at home or outside when they smoke, and because more work went into producing what they are smoking, they tend to consume less (and produce less second-hand smoke).

Cigarette smokers, on the other hand, are MASS consumers, plowing through quickie after quickie, day after day, and polluting the air the rest of us were using before they showed up.

I've never heard of a two-pack-a-day CIGAR smoker.



Now, how should this play out on the legal end?
Keep cigarettes legal, legalize marijuana, and charge users of both out the wazoo in special sales taxes, production taxes, etc.
Do so, knowing that no marijuana user worth his/her/its salt is going to go farther away for it than their own backyard.