14 posts tagged “religion”
I’ve been in a discussion with an online acquaintance about the evolution of God from the beginnings of Judaism to today. The point I was trying to make was that the God of the Old Testament, the God of Abraham, has changed pretty dramatically over the years so that the God most Christians claim today cannot be the same God.
An example I was using was the battle of Jericho when God told Joshua how defeat the Canaanites at Jericho. The Israelites obeyed God’s strategy and when the Jericho walls fell, they killed every man, woman, child and beast (except for a spy and her family). Following the battle, one of Joshua’s men took some gold and silver from the city, something expressly forbidden by God (I find it rather odd that He would permit the slaughter of every living thing in the city, but not permit the taking of gold or silver). In retaliation, God permitted the death of 36 Israelites attempting to capture the city of Ai and then directed that the thief be burned to death.
So I asked my online acquaintance, the following question when he told me that this was, in fact, the same God he now believed in as a “born-again Christian”:
What I'm trying to understand is, given certain facts about the bible, how does someone of faith discuss them?
His response was:
I think that a person of faith has to ultimately realize that there are things beyond our comprehension, to some extent. That's what faith does. It takes what we see as limitations and makes us ponder the bigger picture.
I find that to be an entirely unsatisfactory answer. It’s as though he’s saying, “Ignorance allows me to believe whatever incongruent and inconsistent notions I want.” So, my question is, is this an accurate portrayal of faith? Does faith allow an individual to believe in an incongruent being with no hint of doubt in that being?
I’m going to abandon the Socratic method on the issue of the evolution of Christianity. Attempting to lure you into my way of thinking by asking just the right questions now seems rather sneaky and disingenuous. Instead, I’ll simply lay out my position up front and then respond to comments, issues, complaints.
- The Christianity of today is markedly different from the Christianity established by the writers of the New Testament.
- The God of Jesus’ time and the writers of the New Testament was a God with attributes that most Christians would not accept today (a far more human God, both physically and emotionally, than Christians generally assume today)
- The path from the Christian God of 100 AD to 2009 AD is defined purely by human interpretation and intervention in religious concepts (e.g., Papal decrees, Martin Luther, John Knox, etc.)
- The only explanation for the difference is that man, through interpretation, decree or warfare, has changed it
- If this is the case, then the God of today is a man-made fabrication, based on the God of Jesus’ time but reinterpreted and translated over time
- This does not assert that the God of Jesus’ time is man-made (something for a different discussion), only that today’s God is man-made
The latest thing I’ve been thinking about a lot is slightly out of the realm of language and religion. It has to do with the evolution of religious concepts within a particular religion. Really, it’s not outside the realm of language. Language is the vehicle by which totality of evolutionary changes in religious concepts is carried. But that’s a different issue than I’ve been considering lately. My recent focus has been on what the evolution of religious concepts means for the religion.
Let’s imagine for a moment that thousands of years ago a religion came into existence and we’ll also imagine that the religion’s God-concept was rather unique for its time. (For this excursion, I’m not interested in the details of how the religion came into existence or how it came to spread. I’ll talk about that more in the future.) Let’s say that the God-concept is of a being, an entity that’s identified as male. This entity shows distinctly human qualities of anger, vengefulness, jealousy, love, a desire for recognition and a willingness to reward for recognition or cause suffering for lack of recognition. This God identifies itself with a particular and small group of people (it just so happens that it’s the people who came to believe in the God) and not with all the other people. This God has no qualms killing (i.e., punishing) those who would threaten the small group of believers and will punish the group of believers for their sins by causing military attacks against them or starvation from the ruination of crops or suffering from plagues of disease.
You may recognize this God as the God of the Old Testament, of the Torah. It’s the God of Moses and Abraham; the God of the great flood and the exodus from Egypt; the God that caused the people of Israel to wander for 40 years in the desert because they hesitated in their belief that they could defeat the people who populated the land God told them they should take; the God that caused seven plagues to afflict thousands upon thousands of Egyptians who likely had never heard of the Israelites. He was a God prone to acts of conspicuous intervention (bringing down the walls of Jericho) and non-intervention (the slaughter of all the people, men women and children, in Jericho). A God with particularly small thoughts (the only way to control the people he populated the earth with was to kill them all in a great flood) done in a big way (you have to admit that raining for 40 days and nights with enough water to completely cover the Earth is pretty spectacular). A God who didn’t hesitate to punish someone in an extremely severe manner for a relatively minor offense (turning Lot’s wife to a pillar of stone for the disobedience of looking back at Sodom’s destruction). This was the beginning of the God Christians now worship.
My guess is that most Christians would argue that the God they worship today is not exactly the same God as the one described in the Old Testament. (Actually, we’re probably all over the map here. There are Christian sects that hold that the Bible, all of the Bible, is the infallible, divine word of God. The evangelicals that believe the earth and the universe is no more than 6,000 years old based on a literal reading of the Old Testament might be one extreme. The other extreme might be some new age interpretations of the stories in the Bible. How we got to the point where there are so many interpretations of something that started at one point is very interesting and related to where we’re headed here, but not directly. It’ll be another discussion. For this discussion, we’ll avoid the extremes. In fact, for the sake of argument, we’ll be Protestant, taking the position of the majority of Christians in the United States. This by no means claims that Catholicism is an extreme. In my mind, the extremes of Protestantism tend to define the extremes of Christianity. But those aren’t the Protestants we’re going to be for this argument. I’m not going to identify the position with any particular denomination, though I certainly believe the denominations are important. And I don’t mean to say I’m taking the position of a “non-denominational Christian.” I find that claim to be a rather ludicrous attempt to place themselves above the problems of various Protestant denominations. What they don’t realize is that by believing that they’re ‘non-denominational,’ they’ve made themselves into a denomination. I’ll have more to say about denominations in a later post.) When asked why, they may respond with:
“There have been events in the history of our religion that have served to more clearly define how we understand God. In fact, the totality of the Old Testament with its writings from prophets and the reports of God’s actions show the growth in our understanding of God. Ultimately, the teachings, life and death of Jesus gave us the greatest clarity on the nature of God.”
“The more we learn about the world, the more we understand the nature of God. The ancients understood very little of the world.”
“The God of the Old Testament is unsophisticated because the people of the Old Testament were unsophisticated people. We are much more adept at logical thinking and can see that some of the things the ancients believed are not possible in a being with the core nature that God must have.”
So, I have a few questions:
1. How would you explain the difference in what you now believe is the nature of God and what the Old Testament says of the nature of God?
2. If, for example, someone believes in a God that intervenes and another person believes in a God that doesn’t intervene, do they not believe in two distinct Gods?
3. If the God that Jesus believed in was the Jewish God (since Jesus was Jewish) and the God that we profess is our God today has different traits from the God that Jesus believed in based on the teachings of Jesus, do we not believe in a different God than Jesus?
Whatever responses I get will form the basis of the next post. If I get no responses, I’ll use the ones above as representative.
I had a comment on my Faith and Certainty entry that was essentially, instead of “I have faith that X,” try “I act as though X is true.” For the observer, and we all are, the indications that someone has faith in one thing or another is found in how they act. A person’s thoughts are only meaningful to others when they are observed though the thinker’s actions.
This would seem to be an effective way of translating a very private thing into something that would be meaningful to the external observer. I can place my spare change on the dresser which is an act as though gravity is true and won’t allow the quarters and pennies to float away, and it could be said that my action was an indication of my faith that certain things will happen due to gravity. Or I can set my alarm in anticipation of the sun rising the next morning and that’s an act as though the earth spinning on its axis is true. I guess that could be translated to “I set the alarm having faith that the sun will rise tomorrow.”
But, is ‘acting as though X is true’ necessarily the same as ‘having faith that X?’ When I put my change on the dresser would anyone really say that that action indicated faith in gravity? If I were a dunce and had no knowledge of gravity, would I act any differently? Probably not, and this would mean that acting doesn’t necessarily indicate faith. And does faith necessarily result in acting a certain way? I don’t think so. Someone can proclaim profound faith and their actions wouldn’t reveal that faith in any way. For instance, there are those who claim faith in a young earth based on a literal understanding of the bible. Except for their statement that they have this faith, you may never realize it in their actions. It would be difficult to imagine someone saying, “they act as though the earth is 6,000 years old is true.” What would acting like that be like? Yet, we can’t deny that these adherents of a young earth have faith in the bible being the literal word of God.
All this gets to is that in at least some cases, having faith and acting as though something is true aren’t necessarily the same. We can talk about faith and it means something different, even if only slightly, than observing someone’s action.
What about language? Can the use of language be considered an “act as though something is true?” Certainly. This may be the only way that we know that a young earth adherent believes in the literal truth of the bible. They are, in fact, very vehement in their assertions regarding the truthfulness of the bible and falsity of reported scientific findings. So, yes, their act of linguistic vehemence could be an indicator of their faith. But now we get into a quandary of people acting as though any number of things is true. After all, people can say or write just about anything and claim it to be true. How would we treat statements of con artists and swindlers? I don’t think those with religious faith will admit their belief is as easily pliable as that.
Let’s replace X with a religious concept and see what that gives us.
1. Tom has faith that God created heaven and earth in six days.
2. Tom acts as though God created heaven and earth in six days is true.
For me, statement 2 is rather tough to imagine. What would acting in that way look like? Or how about these statements:
3. Tom has faith that God exists.
4. Tom acts as though God’s existence is true.
Again, I’m not sure what the action in statement 4 would look like. Going to church? What if Tom is an agnostic who accompanies his faithful wife to church and goes through all the same actions that she does in church to keep her happy? He may act as though God’s existence is true (because he’s a considerate husband), but we can’t say that’s his faith.
So, where have we gotten? I think we can say that how a person acts is a good indicator of their faith . . . but not the sole indicator. I think the whole point of the comment was that so called mental states are only meaningful to others when they're indicated by action. While I agree most of the time, I think one can equate what's being said about a mental state with one's own private experiences or reports of other people's mental states that makes what's being said about a private mental state meaningful. For instance, it's perfectly meaningful to me when you say "I believe in God" even though your actions could mean any number of things including that you believe in God. And understanding that you believe in God doesn't necessarily mean that I expect you to act in a certain way. I don't have a problem that you're making an observation of a private mental state and I understand it to be such. My concern is this--what is the nature of that private mental state and how does it compare to other private mental states, such as certainty that 1+1=2.
Wittgenstein would roll over in his grave.
This story for my writing group is based on a historical event, commonly known as the Battle of the Braes. It was the last major action of the highland clearances and is often referred to as the last battle on British soil. I got the idea for the story after reading a news report of the battle in which the author marvelled at the vehemence of the women who participated. So I started thinking about this story as from the viewpoint of one of those women. In the process, it developed into a story about this one woman's belief in God. This is the revision after incorporating the inputs from my writing group.
MAIRI’S BATTLE
18 April 1882
“They’re here! They’re here! Comin’ roon the brae!” the cry pierced through gaps in the door slats and the cloth covering the open window. Mairi pushed open the door, standing in the damp April air and watched as neighbors left their crofts and headed toward the road.
Mairi knew it would happen, but it still came as a surprise. She had hoped it would all disappear, like the mist that creaps in from the sea and then, one day, dissipates to blue skies and pony-tail wisps. She hoped Laird MacDonald would take mercy on them, seeing how wretched and poor their lives were. It would be the right thing, the Christian thing, for him to do, like when Christ took pity on the masses and fed them on the shores of Galilee.
For weeks, now, the crofters refused to pay their rents to the Laird’s factor unless they were given permission to graze their animals on the slopes of Ben Lee. In response, the Laird sent his factor and the Inverness sheriff to serve eviction summonses. Mairi’s husband, Peter, and the men from the surrounding crofts, Norman Stewart and Alexander Finlayson—two trouble-makers—set upon the factor and sheriff forcing them to burn the eviction documents. There was whisky and fires late into the evening that night as the crofters celebrated their victory.
Mairi knew they would come back. Still she prayed. She prayed for the Lord to deliver her family from the poverty that was her heritage for so many generations, she almost believed there was nothing God could do to change it. She prayed for the Lord to share his Grace with the Laird MacDonald that he might understand and take pity on those beholden to him. She prayed that the crofters would remain righteous in God’s eyes by turning the other cheek.
When it appeared that each of her prayers had gone unanswered, she prayed a prayer of contrition and apology. It wasn’t her place to question God’s plan. Everything was His doing. This was God’s design. The Laird was wealthy because God willed it. Her family was poor and hungry because God determined that to be their status in the world. How could she question the architect of this world, the One who gave her her husband and children, the One who painted the glorious Skye sunsets and who caused the northern lights to billow in the night sky? Mairi thought she may have offended God with her selfishness, and she finished her prayer with tears.
So, when she stood in the doorway and saw her neighbors leaving their crofts for the main road, she folded her hands and bowed her head. “Dear Lord, help them to see your plan and know their place in it. You are truly a great God from whom all things emanate. We all are humble and give thanks for what we have. Amen.”
As she finished, Peter came round the side of the house, a wood pitchfork in one hand. He stood with Mairi for a moment, watching, and then quietly said, “MacLeod says constables are comin’. From Glasgow. About fifty. The Laird must have hired them to run us off.” He fell silent for a moment, then continued, “I have to go, Mairi.”
“No, dinna go, Peter. No.”
“Hush woman. I was there at the beginning. I’ll be there at the end.”
“There’s only trouble there, Peter. Someone could get hurt. You could get hurt. Then where would we be?”
Peter remained silent.
“If it’s the constables, you could be arrested.” Mairi’s voice began to crack. “Think of this, Peter. If you don’t go, if the Laird hears that we weren’t part of this, he might take pity on us and leave us alone.”
Peter looked at Mairi with dark eyes and shook his head.
“What if this is the Lord’s will, Peter?”
Peter kicked a stone, then looked to the distance where already a crowd gathered. “Then I suppose I should get on with earning my passage into Hell.” Peter began walking toward the road and the growing band of crofters.
Mairi lifted her apron and held it to her face, in part from shame over Peter’s blasphemous comment, and in part to catch the tears of fear now streaking her cheeks.
She imagined being put out of her home and being sent to a seaside village where Peter would need to learn fishing and the women waited on shore to clean the fish or waded out into the low tide muck in search of clams and mussels. She’d been told the smell of raw fish never leaves you, though you get used to it in time. Her two boys, Niall and Ailean, eleven and nine years old respectively, would be forced into someone’s employ to help put food on the table every day. Worse still, they could all be put on a boat and sent to Canada or the United States. She’d heard rumors that life in Canada could be difficult with short growing seasons and bitter cold winters. In the States, foreigners were looked upon with disdain and treated as outcasts.
Those fears were soon forgotten, though, when from her periphery she saw Niall and Ailean running to join Peter.
“Niall, Ailean, come home, now!”
They did not stop, nor look back.
“Even if they could hear ye Lass, they wouldna come home.” Old Anna approached from behind the house. She carried a large walking stick and a cloth bag at the end of a leather strap that she had over her shoulder and across her body. The bag was filled with something weighty.
“Anna, they shouldna be going. This isn’t something for bairns.”
“I’m thinking ye couldna stop them.” Anna leaned on the walking stick slightly out of breath. “They want to be men, and men they’ll be today.”
“No!” cried Mairi. “They’re too young!”
“Mairi, when yer protectin yer hame, no one’s too young.”
Mairi looked after Peter and her sons and began to sob.
“Here now, Lass.” Anna put her arm around Mairi’s shoulder. “They’ll be fine, I warrant it. I’ll tell ye what ye can do. Why don’t ye come with me, and we’ll go and keep a watchful eye on those lads o yers, eh?” Anna squeezed Mairi’s shoulder.
Mairi nodded.
“Ah, fine. That’s grand. Here now, carry me bag if ye will. I’m no as young as I used to be.”
Anna lifted the strap over her head and handed it to Mairi. Mairi nearly dropped it, it was so weighty.
“What’s in here?” Mairi asked while opening the mouth of the bag to look.
“Some wee stones I gathered in the field.”
Mairi quizzically looked at Anna.
“There of no use in the field now, are they.”
As they walked toward the road, Mairi was conflicted. She wanted to rush to where her boys were, but she felt obliged to stay with Anna who was laboring with the soft, uneven ground and the slight incline. To make matters worse, Anna did not talk in her exertion, leaving Mairi to fret unabated. At one point, Mairi asked Anna if the constables would carry guns. All she received in reply was Anna’s heavy breathing and a wave of impatience from her free hand.
The crofters, men, women and children, arrayed themselves along the short stone fence bordering the road. Four men and one woman crossed the fence and now stood on the road facing in the direction from which the constables would approach. As Mairi approached the forty or so crofters she began to hear murmurings and an occasional raised voice. Nearly all gathered had something in their hands—a rake, hoe, pitchfork, a walking stick, or stone. It frightened Mairi.
“I don’t see Niall or Ailean.” She stopped thirty feet from the crowd.
Anna took a step or two past her unaware they were stopping, then leaned heavily on her stick and looked back at Mairi. Between deep breaths she said, “Well, come on then. Ye’ll no find em back here.”
Mairi was becoming more frightened by the apparent attitude of the crofters and didn’t move. “I canna see them, Anna. Can you?”
“Lass, let’s go look together.”
“No, no. I want them to come to me. To come away from that . . . that . . . rabble. Can’t ye see?”
“Aye, I can see well enough. Yer afeared, aren’t ye, Lass?” Anna shook her head and stepped back toward Mairi. “Give me the stones then. I’ll find yer bairns and shush them back to ye.”
Mairi helped Anna lift the leather strap over Anna’s head and onto her shoulder.
“Mairi, the future of yer hame, yer life, is going to be right here, on this road. The Laird’s hired men are coming to take it all away from ye. Will ye no stand up for yerself?”
Mairi said nothing, looking past Anna as though she hadn’t heard a word. Anna turned, shaking her head, and trundled to the back of the crowd. Soon Niall and Ailean emerged from the crowd slowly and dejectedly walked toward Mairi. Ailean stumbled and fell from watching behind him and not on the ground he was walking.
“What are you two doing here? This is no place for young lads.”
“Others are here, Ma,” said Niall pointing back to the crowd.
“Well, they shouldn’t be. This is not a Christian gathering. This is not the sort of thing Christ would have taught us. No. I’ll no have my bairns straying from the teachings of Christ. Do you hear me?”
Before the boys could answer, one of the men in the crowd shouted, “There!” and soon all eyes, including Mairi’s, were focused down the road where a lone horseman rode out from behind a rise. The rider trotted a short distance, then stopped. He stayed there for several moments before wheeling his horse and leaving from the way he’d come, disappearing around the curve and behind the rise.
To a soul, the crofters remained silent while the rider was in sight. As soon as he disappeared, their murmurings started again, but at a noticeably higher decibel.
“See, now,” Mairi said, her voice betraying relief, “he spied us and thought better of it. It’s all over. We should be to hame, now.”
“What about Da?” asked Ailean.
“They’re all staying, Ma,” said Niall.
“It’s over,” Mairi raised her voice, “and that’s the last I’ll say of it. Ye’ll go hame now and say yer prayers thanking God for his grace and wisdom that kept us all safe.”
“Look!” shouted Ailean pointing back down the road. “Look, Niall.”
From behind the same rise, the rider reemerged. This time, men on foot followed. From this distance and in the muted light, Mairi could still see their dark uniforms with dark caps. The crofter’s murmuring stopped again.
It was now coming to pass, and the fear gripped her by the throat. Marching up the road in navy uniforms with brass buttons was her misery. They were the harbingers of homelessness. On their belts were truncheons of destitute lives. On their caps were badges of cold-heartedness. Mairi began to feel the desolation deep into her soul.
Still, her soul was buoyed by the thought that this was all part of God’s plan. Recognizing that her destiny was unfolding before her, even though she had no notion of what that destiny held, was a small comfort. These constables could be, instead of the messengers of misery, the instruments of God’s will come to ensure God’s will come to pass.
Nevertheless, she feared them and the destiny they brought. She feared finding a new home. She feared going hungry and watching her bairns starve. Most of all, she feared the possibility she could be put on a boat destined for a different and foreign land.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone turn and run away, toward the crofts of Balmeanach. With her eyes, Mairi followed his flight until he disappeared behind some buildings. When she looked back, Niall and Ailean were no longer in front of her. They were nowhere to be seen. Mairi panicked and moved closer to the road to try to find them. When she reached the stone wall, she saw them. They were on the road with their father, Peter, facing the oncoming constables.
“Niall! Ailean!”
The boys looked at her, then at their father. Peter patted Ailean on the head. They stayed with him.
“Peter! I dinna want them there!”
Peter looked at her and frowned.
“Fine young men ye raised there, Mairi,” said Anna tanking Mairi’s arm. “Their Da will keep them from harm.”
“He shouldna have to,” said Mairi. “They shouldna be there.”
“Och, let them be, Lass. Ye’ll remember wha they done here wi’ pride, ye will. They’re good, brave lads, sure.”
Anna moved back toward the bulk of the crofters. Mairi looked to the approaching constables who were now close enough she could make out the determination on their faces. Then, from her right periphery, she saw more people from Balmeanach climbing the hill toward the road. To her left she saw movement among the stones on the slope above the road. Now the constables would be outnumbered and it only served to build Mairi’s dread.
The crofters were silent as the constables approached. Mairi wondered what they were thinking. With more coming up from Balmeanach and those on the hill, she began to worry even more that this confrontation would become a conflict of high emotion rather than a meeting of reasoned coolness. She looked back to Peter, Niall, and Ailean, and became even more fearful. Looking for strength, she folded her hands, bowed her head, and silently prayed.
Dear Lord, I know you’re a just and merciful God of Grace. And I know this may all be according to your plan. But, Lord, I feel like we’re the Israelites and the constables are the Egyptians. Ye helped the Israelites. Ye parted the sea and when they were safe ye crushed their enemies with the very thing ye saved them with. Will ye save us like you did them? What have we done, how have we sinned so, that makes us less worthy of your salvation than the Israelites? Dear God, do something. Keep my family from harm. I beseech ye.
The constables stopped short of the gathered crofters. Their eyes, edgy, almost frightened, their heads constantly moving as though they expected something to happen and wanted to see from which quarter it started.
The crofters began drifting down the stone wall until they were abeam the constables. Peter, Niall, Ailean and the other men blocking the road moved closer as well. Mairi followed from behind the stone wall.
“Yer no welcome here!” shouted one of the men standing next to Peter. “There’s nothing for ye here. Go back to where ye come.”
From the front of the constables, the sheriff replied, “We’re no here for a welcome.”
“Then go hame!” shouted someone from the wall.
“Aye, off with ye, ye buggerin bastards!” shouted someone else followed by a chorus of “ayes” and grumbles from the crofters shaking their sticks and raising their fists.
The constables’ unease was now palatable. Many removed their truncheons from their belts and held them at the ready. Mairi could see that some began moving into a stance she could only imagine was in preparation for an attack.
The sheriff dismounted his horse and reached into his coat breast pocket pulling out a folded paper. He kept watch on the crowd as he unfolded the paper and prepared to read.
“The Laird Alexander MacDonald and the magistrate of Portree have issued a warrant for the arrest of Norman Stewart, Alexander Finlayson, Malcolm Finlayson, Peter MacDonald, Donald Nicholson, and James Nicholson . . .”
Mairi heard her husband’s name and panic swelled in her breast. She could feel her throat constrict and her breathing quicken. Where was God, she wondered. Where was his compassion and justice? Certainly he could not be looking down on the misery that was about to be inflicted with a dispassionate heart. Certainly, he would not loose the wolves on his flock.
From the crofters, someone yelled, “Ye canna fool us, ye’ve come to hump our sheep.” The crowd burst into laughter.
“Ye’re all the shite in the field.”
A woman followed, “Nay, they’re the worms under the shite.” More laughter.
“Ye’ll nay take a one, sae help me,” Peter replied to the sheriff. “Ye can drag yer bloody arses back tae Glasgow.”
“Oh God, no, Peter. No,” whispered Mairi. She saw Naill standing next to his father. He now held a stone in his right hand. Ailean had backed away.
“Ailean! Ailean! Come here!” and the lad began making his way to Mairi all the while keeping watch on the formation of constables. When he reached Mairi, she could see the fear in his eyes and when she stroked his hair, she could feel a tremble. She took his hand and held him close to her.
“Wheest, child.”
The crofters were tense, waiting, it seemed to Mairi, for an excuse to rush the constables. The constables were tense as well, fearing what appeared to be the inevitable pain of sticks and stones. The crofters began shouting at the invaders. There was Anna shaking her walking stick in their direction and shouting, “Go hame, ye buggerer of boys!”
Mairi saw the sheriff turn toward the constables behind him and then point to the men blocking the road, including Peter and Niall. The sheriff then stepped out of the way and a dozen or so constables, truncheons in hand, began walking toward the men the sheriff identified. Apparently, that was all the crofters required. Stones started flying toward the constables. A few crofters hopped up on the stone wall and began swinging their sticks and tools at the police. Mairi saw movement on the hillside and looked in time to see several large stones rolling toward the massed constables.
The din was tremendous. Mairi couldn’t make out what most were saying, but she could tell it was being said in anger. She looked down at Ailean who was now hugging her side. It’s not right, she thought, it’s not right. These uniformed men, these strangers who’ve never seen any of us before, have been sent to do the bidding of the one who does know us. They’re the hired tools of a coward. No better and not much different from oxen yoked to do their masters’ labors.
As she watched in frozen horror, the clash between crofters and constables became more involved and pitched. Crofters clambered over the stone wall only to face truncheons being swung wildly in an attempt to keep crofters at a distance and to deflect incoming sticks and tools. Mairi saw crofters being hit by truncheons and staggering away. Moments later they were ready to rejoin the fray. She saw constables backing away from the pressing crowd. It appeared the crofters were gaining the advantage. Then she saw Anna stumble away from the crowd. Mairi went to her.
“Are ye hurt?”
“Aye,” whispered Anna as though she was out of breath. “A wee bit. A bastard got
me . . . before I could get . . . one of them.”
Anna turned her head away from Mairi. Her neck was brilliant red and a small trickle of blood escaped from her ear. Mairi hissed, sucking in air.
“Striking a woman. Have they no decency? It’s no too bad, Anna.”
“That’s no why . . . I left,” continued Anna. “I also got hit . . . in the chest. Knocked the breath . . . from me.”
Mairi helped Anna sit on the ground. When Mairi knelt to clean the blood from Anna’s ear, Anna brushed her away and pointed to the road. Mairi saw a desperate struggle between the men on the road and the constables.
“Peter won’t . . . give up yer hame . . . without a good row,” said Anna.
Mairi looked up to the road and Peter who was struggling against the grasping hands of the constables. She stood. A truncheon lifted above the fray. It swung down. Niall fell to the ground.
“No!” Mairi shouted and began running toward the fighting men. “A dhiobhail!” She hadn’t spoken Gaelic in years and now the first thing out of her mouth was to curse the constable as a devil.
Niall crawled away from the brawl. Mairi rushed to him. He was crying and holding his left shoulder. Mairi helped him away from the road. When they stopped, she tried to cajole him to stop crying to no avail.
Two constables now had Peter on the ground and one was striking Peter with his fist. Mairi looked down, then moved Niall to the side and picked up a potato-sized stone. With all her might, she hurled it at the men holding Peter. When she’d thrown it, she yelled, “A mitic an deamhan!” [You son of the devil!]
Her stone fell short of the men, but one saw her throw it and nodded toward her and said something to another constable.
“Yer a poofter!” shouted Mairi. “Aye, you, ye clotheid.”
The constable took two steps toward Mairi and stopped.
“Cha toll?” she taunted. “Pog mo thon!” [No? Kiss my ass!]
Mairi picked up another stone and threw it at the stopped constable. He caught it before it could hit him. He shook his head, dropped the stone, and turned back toward the brawl. Mairi shrieked in exasperation.
The crofters who had been blocking the road, including her Peter, were now being drug back to the main body of constables who were still fighting off crofter sticks and stones. The arrested men were handcuffed, yet struggling against their captors. In short order, the constables and their captors were enveloped in the main body of constables. When they were all together the constables slowly began backing down the road they’d arrived on with the shouting and harassing crofters in pursuit.
Mairi lost sight of Peter. She left Niall and Ailean with Anna, who was still sitting and panting, and followed the crowd. She picked up a stone and was preparing to throw it when she realized that Peter was somewhere amongst the constables and her stone might hit him. So she dropped the stone and instead shouted, “ Yer mither’s a salope and yer the gowk from her wame!” She saw another woman pick up a stone to throw and said, “No, no. Our men are in there.”
When it became apparent to Mairi that Peter was going to be taken away and the gathered crofters weren’t going to affect it, she stopped following and watched the crofters and constables drift slowly down the road, still in contact with each other. Soon more and more crofters fell out of the crowd and the pace of the constables quickened.
Mairi still seethed with anger at the whole situation—the Laird and his lackey factor, the sheriff, and the hired constables. How dare they come into her space, her home, with ill intent? They were invaders. She hated them all. They were vile thieves.
Mairi turned away from the retreating army and returned to her boys and Anna. Both boys had stopped crying, though Ailean still gulped large breaths of air. Mairi brushed back his hair from his face, then with her thumbs, wiped the dirt streaks on his cheeks.
“Where are they takin Da?” Ailean asked.
“Awa, lad,” she whispered. “Dinna fash yerself. Yer Da will be back soon enough.”
Mairi turned to Niall who was still favoring the shoulder that had been struck.
“Ah, Niall. Are ye hurt bad, dear?”
Niall shook his head.
“Can ye lift yer arm?” she asked helping him raise his arm from his side. “Good. It’s no broken then.”
“I’m proud of ye, Mairi,” Anna said pulling herself to her knees. “Ye stood up for yer man and yer hame, ye did. Against them coofs.”
Mairi looked back down the road and muttered, “Ifrinn an diabhuill . . . a dhia, thoir cobhair.” [Devil’s hell . . . God help us]
“God dinna help them like us, lass,” said Anna. She lifted her arm toward Mairi who took it helping Anna to her feet. “It’s the Laird he helps. The Laird and them like him.”
“Anna, wha now?”
“Aye, wha now.” Suddenly Anna looked frantically toward the crofters that were now trudging back. “Have ye seen Angus?”
“Aye, I did. He was fine.”
Anna looked back at Mairi and smiled. Patting Mairi’s cheek, Anna said, “Aye, wha now. I guess we go hame, go hame and wait. Will ye be alright, then? Just ye and the lads, there?”
Mairi nodded.
“Come on then, lads,” said Anna. “Let’s tak yer mither hame so ye can wait for yer Da’s return.”
In the quiet walk home, Mairi relived the day ending in the anxiousness she now felt returning. Her husband was gone, taken by the agents of a greedy, powerful, uncaring man. The Laird had taken her man, her boys’ father. She and the boys could manage the croft for a short while, but soon those same agents led by the Laird’s cousin, the Factor, would come to put her out. She and her boys, and what they could carry, would be sent to a fishing village or put on a boat to Canada. How would Peter find them when released from custody? How would they ever find each other in a foreign land? She had no answers. No convenient comforts to ease her fears. Answers abandoned her when she needed them most.
He abandoned her . . . or she abandoned Him. I didn’t matter. He wasn’t there. He didn’t protect her or her family from the calamity they now faced. He had to know what was happening to them and He turned a blind eye.
When they arrived at the croft, Mairi said farewell to Anna, assuring her again she would be fine, and sent the boys inside. She stayed outside the door in the cool, damp air and watched her neighbors and villagers stream back from the scene of the battle. Some remained defiant, boisterous to those for whom it did not matter. Most, though, were silent. Mairi thought they were contemplating the ramifications of the day and their futures that were already rather bleak. Most were barely able to eke enough from the rock-strewn, spongy soil to pay their rent, let alone have some money left over for fish or coal. The Laird would certainly be harsh in his retribution for their insolence, and they walked as though they knew it.
It was when Duncan MacPhee passed that her soul blackened into obscurity. Duncan was the most God-fearing man she knew. Many said he should be the reverend rather than the sot they had. As he walked past Mairi’s croft, she could see blood matting the hair on his head and in his beard. Here was a man who, of all men, had no sin. He lived day-to-day by God’s word. He prayed night and day. If God would love and protect anyone, it would be Duncan MacPhee.
Yet, here he was trudging back from the confrontation with the constables and on his head a sign that God had not been with him, had not protected him. Could it be Duncan was also being punished? Could God not forgive him this once for all the years Duncan had been his most devoted servant? As the Lord’s devoted servant, Duncan suffered like every other crofter. Diseased crops, starving beasts, and a demanding landlord plagued Duncan no less than it did, say, David Conroy who drank too much, whose every sentence contained curse words and who routinely disappeared leaving his family to fend for themselves. His life and Duncan’s life were equally hard. How could that be?
Did God not care? Could he not see this part of the world to know the pain and suffering they were enduring? Had he washed his hands of men only to intervene in the world to punish? Is there not a better way, a more compassionate way, to deal with our misery? Can He not think of anything better?
Mairi took a deep breath and turned to go inside. She stood next to the fire for a moment, then said, “Lads, come here. I dinna know when yer Da will come home. It may be soon, or maybe no. I’m sure the factor will soon call and charge us to leave. So, we need to be ready. I’ll be relyin on ye two to help. Do ye understand me?”
Niall and Ailean nodded.
Mairi looked into the fire and continued, “Aye, we’re on our own now. There’s no one to help. We must do what we have to. Rely on no one or nothing.”
This is from a website (answersingenesis.org) I stumbled across the other day. I was dumbstruck. The effort it must take to be this ignorant of facts is astounding. For me, nothing is quite as fearful as ignorance parading as religion.
Although the Bible does not tell us exactly how long ago it was that God made the world and its creatures, we can make a good estimate of the date of creation by reading through the Bible and noting some interesting passages:
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God made everything in six days. He did this, by the way, to set a pattern for mankind, which has become our seven day week (as described in Exodus 20:11). God worked for six days and rested for one, as a model for us. Furthermore, Bible scholars will tell you that the Hebrew word for day used in Genesis 1, can only mean an ordinary day in this context.
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We are told God created the first man and woman—Adam and Eve—on Day Six. Many facts about when their children and their children’s children were born are given in Genesis. These genealogies are recorded throughout the Old Testament, up until the time of Christ. They certainly were not chronologies lasting millions of years.
As you add up all of the dates, and accepting that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to Earth almost 2000 years ago, we come to the conclusion that the creation of the Earth and animals (including the dinosaurs) occurred only thousands of years ago (perhaps only 6000!), not millions of years. Thus, if the Bible is right (and it is!), dinosaurs must have lived within the past thousands of years.
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The Bible tells us that God created all of the land animals on the sixth day of creation. As dinosaurs were land animals, they must have been made on this day, alongside Adam and Eve, who were also created on Day Six (Genesis 1:24-31). If God designed and created dinosaurs, they would have been fully functional, designed to do what they were created for, and would have been 100% dinosaur. This fits exactly with the evidence from the fossil record.
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Evolutionists declare that no man ever lived alongside dinosaurs. The Bible, however, makes it plain that dinosaurs and people must have lived together. Actually, as we will soon see, there is a lot of evidence for this.
God sent two of every (seven of some) land animal into the Ark (Genesis 7:2-3; 7:8-9)—there were no exceptions. Therefore, dinosaurs must have been on the Ark. Even though there was ample room in the huge ship for large animals, perhaps God sent young adults into the Ark that still had plenty of room for them to grow.
Well, what happened to all the land animals that did not go on the Ark? Very simply, they drowned. Many would have been covered with tons of mud as the rampaging water covered the land (Genesis 7:11-12,19). Because of this quick burial, many of the animals would have been preserved as fossils. If this happened, you would expect to find evidence of billions of dead things buried in rock layers (formed from this mud) all over the Earth. This is exactly what you do find.
By the way, the Flood of Noah’s day probably occurred just over 4,500 years ago. Creationists believe that this event formed many of the fossil layers around the Earth. (Additional fossil layers were formed by other floods as the Earth settled down after the great Flood.) Thus, the dinosaur fossils which were formed as a result of this Flood were probably formed about 4,500 years ago, not millions of years ago.
A common defense of religious conviction is the use of the conviction itself as a defense. “It’s part of my faith.” “I take God’s existence on faith and that’s all I need.” “At some point you just have to have faith that God exists.” What does faith mean in a religious conversation and does it differ from what it means in other conversations?
Does faith that gravity will keep you rooted to the earth mean the same thing as faith in the existence of God? No. The faith that you won’t fly off the earth is a belief based on the incontrovertible evidence of the effects of gravity. Because of your knowledge of the laws of gravity and based on experiential evidence that so far, with each step you’ve taken, you’ve not flown off the earth, you are certain that you won’t fly off the earth with your next step. It’s akin to saying that you have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. What if the possibility existed, no matter how great the odds, that at some point in your life gravity takes a holiday sending you spinning into space. If you knew that possibility existed, could you still say that you had faith that you wouldn’t fly off the earth with your next step? It would be related to saying “The odds that with my next step gravity will take a holiday are so great that I’m not really worried about it.” Certainly you wouldn’t say that if the odds were 50-50. Even at the astronomical odds of it happening you might say you have faith that it won’t happen, yet may not be willing to say that you were certain it would. In this case, the difference between faith and certainty would be the existence of the aberration in the law. Without the aberration you could be certain. With the possibility for the aberration, you could still have faith that your next step will be into that mud puddle, but you couldn’t be certain.
So, does that mean that certainty and faith are different? I think clearly they must be. By most common uses of both words, if you’re certain of something, faith isn’t necessary and if you have faith in something, certainty isn’t possible. For example, what sense is it to say “I’m certain the sun will set tomorrow, I have faith in it”? Having faith that the end of the day will happen seems to be a weakening of the certainty that it will—as though you’d never seen a sunset happen and that lack of evidence would throw the certainty into some realm of doubt. In this use, faith would have some measure of doubt inherent that wouldn’t be there with certainty.
However, some might say that their faith is all the certainty they need, essentially saying that their certainty is grounded in their faith. This seems to me a rather queer thing to say, but let’s look at the defining phrase, “all the certainty they need.” This seems to imply that the degree of certainty here is something less than, say, the certainty that your name is what it is. The certainty allowed by the faith is “good enough for them,” as though there’s good enough certainty, better certainty and best certainty. That’s understandable. We all do that sort of probability calculus with certainty all the time. We often say, “I’m fairly certain that . . .” to mean that the odds of something happening in our estimation are pretty high. It’s a statement of confidence.
Is it a misuse of the word “certain”? Of course not. Does the certainty in this use mean the same as the certainty that 1+1=2? Not at all. We often use the word as a sort of emphasis. We know the strength of certainty that the addition tables are immutable. When that lesson is learned it’s a certainty for us. There can be no doubt. So when we use the same word in a context in which there could be doubt but we assess the probability that something else may happen as very low, the use of “certain” becomes a signpost for what probability we’ve attached to what we’re talking about. Once again, though, I don’t believe this is the meaning those of faith would admit to when saying that they are certain in their faith.
In order for their faith in God’s existence to be meaningful, for their certainty that there is a God, those who profess it must believe that their faith and certainty are beyond doubt. Others may doubt, but for them it is a certainty—no less certain than that the sun will set and that 1+1=2. This, I’d submit, isn’t false, it’s meaningless.
First, imagine if I said, “I’m certain that 1+1=2, but John doesn’t believe it.” Now imagine me saying, “With recent discoveries I’m certain that there’s life on other planets, but John doesn’t believe it.” Is the first sentence the sort that the theists would say is closest to their certainty in God’s existence? Does John’s disbelieve make sense? Not really. The fact of the matter is that 1+1=2 and for someone to say that John doesn’t believe it is just another way of saying that either John hasn’t learned his addition tables or John is mentally incompetent. Imagine changing the statement just slightly to “I was certain that 1+1=2, but I don’t believe it now.” This absolutely doesn’t make sense. But, if we exchange “1+1=2” with “God exists,” it suddenly becomes very meaningful supported by numerous instances of that very thing happening.
What’s different? Obviously something about the nature of the certainty changed. In the one case, losing certainty made no sense, while in the other, it made perfect sense (passing no judgment on the speaker). The certainty means something different between these two statements. What’s different is that in the second statement, “I was certain that God exists, but I don’t believe it now,” the possibility that the essence of the subject could change was inherent in the use of the word “certain.” In other words, the certainty entailed an embedded probability that was later determined to be inordinately high. That’s not possible in the former use of “certain” with the addition sample.
The point of all this was to say that when a person says that their faith makes them certain, what they’re really saying is that their faith establishes for them a high probability that what they’re claiming is actually the case. Inherent in it is the possibility, for them a very low and perhaps unknown probability, that what they’re claiming could be wrong. It’s an unintended agnosticism.
More to follow.
I wrote this quickly last night and sent it out to my writing group. I've received one response and it was about what I expected. I thought I'd see what you thought.
THE ROLE OF IMAGINATION
Why do we say
that bluebirds sing
when they couldn’t tell
a whole note from a quarter?
Why do we think
that geese mate for life
with an obligation to fidelity
more determined than our own?
Why do we think
a tree craves rain
and the grass wants sun
and the blooms on hostas
reach for the sky?
Why do we say
that squirrels are nervous
and hogs lazy
and goony birds goony?
Do we want all things
to think like us,
to feel what we feel,
to be in our image?
And why do we say
God loves us?
It may come as no surprise to some and a disappointment to others, but I’ve stopped reading The God Delusion. I have to admit that I grew tired of the condescending attitude, sometimes approaching the level of grade-school name calling, of Mr. Dawson against those who hold religious beliefs. In my mind, it seriously detracted from the arguments he made. It was like he was consciously attempting to pander to the segment of the world who enjoys the banter on programs like The Jerry Springer Show. That’s not intellectually satisfying or compelling and certainly not socially appealing. The book would have been much better had the emotional whitewash been stripped out. But then the book would be half its size and publishers wouldn't be interested.
That being said, I can't say that my leanings have changed. Certainly, Mr. Dawson’s book is polarizing for those segments of the population who are looking for polarizing arguments on the subject. Virulent atheists will see it as a landmark work. Evangalistic Christians, whose intellectual curiosity has been blunted by faith, will declare it flat out wrong. For the rest, I doubt the book will change anyone’s mind. It hasn’t changed mine. God is still a human invention propagated with language and evolving as our language evolves.
Richard Dawkins idolizes Darwinian natural selection. I think that’s fair to say. Everything is a result of our innate motivation to survive as a species or is the result of a misfiring of genetic material. Religion and belief in a God is, according to Dawkins, a mutation of a genetically engineered response. At some point in our development as evolving beings, something misfired and God and religion is the result. This grossly oversimplifies Dawkins’ argument, I know, but it will have to do for this discussion.
Something bothers me about the argument. Initially, it makes sense to me. It places us squarely in the middle of the rest of the natural world, no better or no worse than any other bit of complex carbon-based entity. It’s where I think we belong. Why should I believe that I’m any more important than any other living being on this planet? Is it because I have complex thought processes that allow me to rationalize that since I can have thoughts of superiority, I must be superior? Is it because over the millennium humans have developed a complex method of communication that allows them to convince those with similar methods of communication that a superior being has designated humans as the “recipients” of the natural world making it subservient to humans? (I can’t help noting that this sort of argument, divine designation of humans as the preeminent being in the universe, is a pretty crafty way of arguing for our own survival.) Is it because we’ve become particularly capable of manipulating the environment in ways that are beneficial to humans that makes us believe that the natural world must belong to us?
But, Dawkins keeps going back to Darwinian natural selection as though it were, and I hesitate to say it but here goes, God. It is the ultimate explanation for why everything is the way it is for all life on Earth. Doesn’t anything that fits the bill as an “ultimate explanation” sound like God? And therein lays my difficulty. Dawkins seems to be no less dogmatic about his God—Darwinian natural selection—than the various religions are about their God(s). It’s just that Dawkins’ God has some existence in scientifically proven phenomenon. While I can’t claim to have scientific evidence to support my claims, it seems to me that Dawkins falls victim to the same sort of generalization error that our language seems to encourage.
The meaning of words seems to encourage us to believe that eventually, everything can be traced from singular, immutable facts or truths. That’s what drove the philosophy of Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein. At some point of linguistic analysis, we will ultimately point to what a word’s meaning refers to. That’s how we think we learn language. We point to an object, a fact, and name it. It gives us the idea that everything is reducible to the facts to which they refer. The natural inclination is to try to reduce these facts to a single, overarching theory that will explain them all. For Dawkins, that inclination leads him to accept and postulate that Darwinian natural selection is the “law” behind all living beings even going so far as to explain deviations from the “law” as misfires in a flawed biological being. It’s a tidy and convenient explanation supported by scientific evidence.
But, I find it a little too tidy to explain things like imagination, emotions, philosophy or other critical thinking endeavors, music, etc. And I think the reason that it’s a little too tidy is because science, as well as religion, has been duped by the very language we created, to believe there’s an ultimate meaning, an ultimate explanation for why things are the way they are.
What gets glossed over is that language and meaning changes with the user, culture and time. All these changes impact and reflect our views of the world, including how we investigate and report phenomena with science.
