The Fillet Skillet: Religion and Christianity

Sam Harris

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 07:30:27 GMT

I found this short article-discussion thing on ABC Online's front page.

When people say this kind of thing, I muse as to whether people like Sam Harris ever take a step out of their white homes in their predominantly white countries looking at things from their white perspectives. It's not that this particularly offends me, but when people say overarching comments like "I think religion is the most divisive and dangerous ideology that we have ever produced" I genuinely wonder if they have properly thought that statement through in its entirety.

Let me say straight up that I haven't actually had the chance to read more than the blurb of his book "Letter to a Christian Nation" so I might get some things wrong here. Feel free to correct me.

I think religion can be and is a divisive thing, yes. Surprised? You might be. Jesus himself said that "All men will hate you because of me..." (Matthew 10:22a) and that he didn't come to bring peace to the Earth, but a sword (Matthew 10:34).

I'd read that entire chapter before you think Jesus is some kind of warmonger, although I'd like to suggest that Matthew chapter 10 puts a bullet in the idea that Jesus was soft, or, as I've heard him described, a "pussy". But that's not what I'm talking about right now. The point I'm trying to make is that Sam Harris, who mostly directs his attacks at Christianity, isn't actually helping with the divisiveness thing. I think he is far more divisive than any Christian I've ever met. And I'll tell you, I've met my share.

I don't know if he "hates" Christians or religion or what have you, I've never met him. But I do think that he is what Jesus was talking about in those verses I mentioned earlier.

Why?

Because religion has been with us from the start. In fact, the vast majority of people (the overwhelming majority) are followers of some religion or other. It's only in the predominately white, western nations that Atheists and Agnostics actually make up any significant part of the population. I just find it difficult to understand what he is basing his statements on when he says what he does. It all seems to be about the western Christians (or more specifically, American Christians) and not the Church worldwide.

It just seems to me that he is taking what makes up a very small percent of Christians and applying it to the entire Church and by extension, to every person who holds any sort of religious belief. I feel that this is terribly unjust.

I think what it comes down to is differentiating between the cause of division and the makers of it. There's no division for the people who like Jesus or are indifferent to him and he even loves the people who hate him. Jesus isn't the maker of the division, it's the people like Sam Harris. But the division is, in the end, about whether religion or Christianity or whatever is a good idea, which, for the case of Christianity, boils down to Jesus. The people who make the division are making it over him, so he is the cause of it. I think that's what he was trying to get at.

Jesus is why people are divided, but Jesus isn't the one actually going about and doing the dividing. Does that make sense to someone other than me?

Sorry if that came out all disjointed and/or repetitive. This is mostly an exercise in trying to get my thoughts in order. It might not be so wise to be doing that on the internet, but I don't have any paper right now, and I thought some of you might be interested.

What Happened With Third Day

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:17:33 GMT

(I wrote this a couple of months ago mostly for myself to get some things straightened out in my brain. Sorry it's so serious, you might be able to tell all my creative energy is being zapped away by other things. But hey, at least I'm not talking about the election!)

For the longest time I just couldn't listen to Third Day, a southern rock/gospel band. What happened was on a live album of theirs the lead singer made a joke by saying something to the effect of

"I'd just like to say that our President was RIGHT, there were indeed WMDs in Iraq... because we have found one!"

At this the audience cheers and then laughs when it turns out he is implying that their lead guitarist is a weapon of mass destruction.

I just found it gross, you know, that someone would say that. It brought back all the things that made me resist that war in the first place; that a country would blithely ignore the established higher power of the UN and invade another country.

The US President went on to justify it with Bible verses and religious rhetoric and then we were told not to get angry about it because we were supposed to accept the established, higher power of our leaders because they had been installed by God.

After that the American Religious Right seemed to be mad at me, because I didn't agree with them. Everyone else seemed to be mad at me because I was a Christian and therefore associated with the American Religious Right. I got pigeon-holed with these people and I didn't want anything to do with them. Or at least that's how I felt about the entire business.

So I just didn't listen to Third Day for a long time. It just made me mad and upset. I felt like the the words of praise for God were just some smoke-screen for all those things that got me angry, and that if I listened it meant I was supporting it all somehow. It wasn't a conscious boycott or anything, but whenever they showed up in my iPod I just couldn't stand to listen to them and think about all that stuff over and over.

But then I realised that doing that was exactly the same as those people who took the stupid action of selling their European cars or canceling their European holidays because the French vetoed the Security Council's decision on the war. The idea that driving a new "patriotic" American car instead of a "soft" European one would help the people dying in Iraq was absurd - and so was how I avoided Third Day.

I've still got those problems I had, but I'm not going to attach them to some band whose lead singer made an off-colour remark on a CD. In the end I think I'll be better off for it.

Do you think I can connect with the Religious Right in some way where it doesn't dissolve into a fight over politics?

I'll do my best, and with God's help I'll do better than that. Because, I suppose, it's not just my enemies I'm supposed to love, but my friends as well.

What I was going to write before I discovered this retarded new format

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 10:03:58 GMT

Yes.

Not having to go to school every day has had some interesting consequenses for me recently. Although I'm a notorious over-thinker, all this free time has put me into overdrive. Thus spawns the following that I wrote a couple of days ago before I went to sleep one night.

"It has just come to my attention that they play heavy metal in heaven (or should that be Heaven?). Whererever people got the cute little angels playing melodic harps image from I will never know (actually I do know, the Bible but the Bible never aludes that cherabim (sp?) are cute or that the harps are anything less than awe-inspiring). I think that the heavy metal played in heaven is beautiful even though I don't like heavy metal music. It is the sort of heavy metal that doesn't make old people screw up their faces (which is a heavy metal I've never actually encountered but this fact should probably go to prove that this is really divine).

Also I think that cherabim-as-Romanesque-Valintines-Day-Cupid-pixies is totally wrong. I think they are more like stars. No, not flaming balls of gas surounded by planets but like the star people in C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle but a bit more molten and not so electric (though not devoid of electricity... actually they are quite electric in my mind but not like our electricity. It's the sort that feels good when you get shocked. Which is a kind of electricity that I've never... you get the picture). Anyway, heavy metal and lava-ish electric angels. That's about all I have to say. I'm quite serious. Thankyou.

Oh, and public transport comes to Bonogin in Heaven."

I wasn't so serious about that last one. But seriously, who here (who's given to thinking about this sort of thing) actually bought the clouds-and-pearly-gates-St-Peter-with-a-naughty-and-nice-list-harmonious-choirs-of-cupids-with-rosey-cheeks steriotype? When I think about Heaven it's not 'lalalalalalalala' but more like 'YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!'. If you know what I mean.

I suppose when you're talking about this sort of thing it's hard to articulate your feelings.

I hope this isn't freaking too many of you guys out but yeah. Is this making sense to anybody else because it's just the feeling I get from reading the Bible and from what limited knowledge I have of God. So there you have it. Theology a la Rohan (shoud I even venture there?).

In other news I, um... hmm. Never mind.

Planet Shakers, Planetshakers or PlanetShakers?

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 02:13:17 GMT

Yes faithful readers I have eturned from my annual pilgramige to PlanetShakers... or is that Planet Shakers... or Planetshakers... hmm

See my problem is that even the PlanetShakers (for that is what I will call them and it) crew don't even know. Whenever I go to put one of their albums on my iPod the names that are automatically downloaded from the net are always different and the logo/name that the PlanetShakers people put on the front of their CDs is spelled 'planetshakers' but that isn't how they spell it on the rest of their promotional material. Then when I went to the Brisbane arts centre this week it had on a TV screen telling you where the conference was "Planet Shakers - Great Hall" which only confused me more. Then when I went to ask various delegates and volunteers... ok I didn't ask. But mabie I should have. Then I might get a straight answer.

But besides that I had one of the best weeks of my life (conference weeks anyway). Besides not getting nearly enough sleep and getting partially deaf from all the super-loud music the atmosphere was so excellent I'm not even going to try and describe it because you just can't describe stuff like that in words and not sound like a religious nut. Anyone who's actually been to a thing like that would know what I'm talking about. Oh yeah, if you haven't realised yet PlanetShakers is a Christian Youth conference with praise and worship and really penticostal preachers. Reggie Dabbs is a huge, black champion and I don't think I've ever heared anyone read the Bible quite like Chris Hill.

I had a tummy-bug halfway through though and almost had the squirts (just think about it if you don't know what the squirts are... it'll come. Then stop thinking about it). Call it a satanic attack or (more probably) something I ate, I thought about sitting a couple of rallys out but instead I went anyway and I felt better as the rally went on. Call it divine healing or just me getting over it, it cleared up like that *clicks fingers*. The point of this story is that I didn't get the runs while I was jumping up and down in the praise session. This made me very thankful because that could have had tragic consequenses for everybody concerned.

One thing I didn't like about the conference though was the lines. People were so pushy. Whatever happened to "the last will be first and the first shall be last"? Sure it's great to get excited in the sessions but I don't think that we as a group were being a very good witness to the poor ushers who had to deal with us all.

On a different note I got my uni course and it's a uni life for me (yo ho ho) but in the short space of time between uni starting and me not having my P's it will be very difficult to co-ordinate my once-simple life. Good grief.

Oh yes, Jeshua you poor uninformed child, an Emo are those kids who walk around listening to Simple Plan (shudder) with black hair and studded black belts. Kinda like goths but there is a fine distinction. Goths have been around for a long time and are committed. Emo's are just in it for the hairstyles. "Hey lets all be different and dye our hair black and wear black and listen to depressiong music... together... with all those other guys doing it." Don't tell me you don't have Emo's in Darwin? All the more reason for me to move back there. Ah Darwin, the festy tropical paridise of my childhood. How I long for your humid embrase.

Signing off now...