Mother Talkers

Right off the bat

by Little Miss Patriot

Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 11:37:03 AM PDT

Let's jump into something religious.  Oh, calm down!  OK, look, breathe, that's right, find your center or your third eye, I'm not crazy, and not out to drive you crazy.  Just a UU who thinks a lot about my relationship to the Big Whatever and studied the Bible a lot in my youth, emphasis on studying, really getting into the nuts and bolts of it.

And yesterday in Salon.com they had an interview with Elaine Pagels, who wrote a fascinating book on the Gospel of Judas, recently unearthed.

I gagged at The Da Vinci Code, I'm a snob, I know, but otherwise apochyphal texts intrigue me because it seems like any glimpse further into the beginnings of Christianity opens up the meaning of what we already have.  But I was really struck at how the message of this Gospel of Judas was so similar to some ideas I'd been working on in my own gray matter, and I wanted to share.

So here's my thought:  I'm not interested in the "cult of personality" surrounding Jesus.  Divine?  Why, he was fabulous!  But that's not why I can't stop thinking about his message.  

I'm into the Message, not the messenger.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Turn the other cheek.  Seek out the disenfranchised and be their friend.  Take care of each other, including the poor and ill.  Forgive your enemies, no matter what, even if they kill you.  Because the final and most important part of the Message is "Death is irrelevant".  Wow! Talk about blowing your mind!  That s%*t is RADICAL!

But I'm as inclined to get sucked into the cult of personality surrounding Jesus as I am Martin Luther King, Jr., who, BTW, had pretty much the same message and got the same answer from the world.

If you don't quite know what I mean about cult of personality, my favorite example is the holy relic in Rome that was given to Pope Leo III in 800 AD by Charlemagne, who claimed to receive it in a vision from an angel-- the Holy Prepuce, or Holy Foreskin.  No lie, look it up!  And it's supposed to be able to do miracles! I mean, is it appropriate to utter "for Christ's sake!" at this point? Ugh, I just put myself off my breakfast.

It may just be me projecting, but my thought is that Jesus is thinking, "Well, we've wandered a bit from 'love your neighbor' there... Can we get back to the point now and stop fussing about my, well, former point?"

Being into the message more than the messenger might seem like a subtle point, but its effects are far-reaching. For example, there is a traditional idea that Jesus "died for our sins", that is, God can't abide our less-than-perfect souls in heaven and requires a blood sacrifice to cleanse those sins from us and make us pure so we can come into His presence. Rather than the goats of Jesus' day, sacrificed by each person in the temple, this idea says that Jesus himself was the final sacrifice, substituting himself for all the goats to follow. Now we pray to him instead of sacrificing a goat. (Sounds like he saved the goats more than us, doesn't it? Sorry, bad joke.) There are a couple of different versions of this, but they all end up with our souls being "cleansed" by Jesus' blood.  

But for me, focusing on the message, it's a completely different story.  Here is a man who, possibly because he was divine, had a radical message for the world concerning how we should live. The message was intensely unpopular because it threatened the status quo, honored the poor, and emphasized a personal relationship with God that didn't require the bureaucracy that had developed around the Judaism of that time.  (Hence throwing the money changers out of the temple.) It also spoke out against Rome, and while Jesus was somewhat cautious in this regard ("render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"), he certainly wasn't pro-Rome. And, to make a fascinatingly detailed story really short, they killed him for it. But, and this was the best part, he came back to show us that death is irrelevant.  What are you so afraid of if you stand up and tell the truth?  Death? Bosh! Look, death doesn't matter, get it?  (But you know, I don't think we did. Humph. Foreskin, indeed.) When the message is important enough, risk all, even gladly give up your life. This is how he saved us from ourselves, he delivered the message that could save us, even at great risk to himself.

And now, finally, we are here, at this article regarding the Gospel of Judas. Let me just chuck some quotes at you:

[The Gospel of Judas (GOJ)] suggests that Judas Iscariot was an intimate, trusted disciple, one to whom Jesus revealed the secrets of the kingdom, and that conversely, the other disciples were misunderstanding what he meant by the gospel...And also the idea that he handed over Jesus to be arrested at the orders of Jesus himself. This wasn't a betrayal at all. In fact, it was obedience to a command or request that Jesus had made.

[OK, but, what else would the Gospel according to Judas say, right? Couldn't help but point that out.]

[Regarding the persecution of Christians and the whole lion situation...] The only answer that most Christians agreed was right was to say, "Yes, I'm a Christian." You defy them and you go heroically into the lions. So we've always thought of Christianity as a religion that glorifies martyrdom. Now we realize that we've had that impression because the people who weren't in favor of martyrdom had their writings buried and burned and trashed and ridiculed. And they were called cowards and heretics.

So the Gospel of Judas is a kind of protest literature. It's challenging leaders of the church. Here the leaders are personified as disciples who are encouraging people to get killed, to "die for God," as they called martyrdom. This gospel is challenging them and saying, when you encourage young people to die for God, you're really complicit in murder.

[Wow, that last bit is really a message for our times, isn't it?]

Why did Jesus die? What does it all mean? In the New Testament, the gospels say he died as a sacrifice. Paul says Christ, our Passover lamb, was sacrificed for us. Why? Well, to save us from sin.

But this author is saying, wait a minute. If you think God wants his son to be tortured and killed before he'll forgive people their sins, what kind of God do you have in mind? Is this the God who didn't want animals to be sacrificed in the temple anymore? So this author's asking...why are we saying that God requires his son to die for the sins of the world? So it's a challenge to the whole idea of atonement...This author suggests that God does not require sacrifice to forgive sin, and that the message of Jesus is that we come from God and we go back to God, that we all live in God. It's not about bloody sacrifice for forgiveness of sins. It suggests that Jesus' death demonstrates that, essentially and spiritually, we're not our bodies. Even when our bodies die, we go to live in God.

[Hmmm, sound familiar?  This is where I really started to get excited about this.]

That's really all I wanted to say.  I'd had some thoughts, I didn't have anyone to share them with, and then I read this article and discovered I wasn't the first one to have these thoughts.  And then I found MT, and a group to share them with.  I encourage you to go find Ms. Pagels' book, Reading Judas, and if you'd like to read more of the Salon article, go http://www.salon.com/...  (If you're not a subscriber you'll have to watch a short ad.)

I kind of wish I'd written about other things first so you wouldn't think was some kind of religious nut.  I do fancy myself an armchair Biblical historian, but that's about where it ends.  So I hope you won't jump on me for coming right out of the gate with something that could be quite controversial.  I have a lot of kid stories, too, but you know, I don't have that many grown-ups to talk to about stuff like this!

Please, comment, discuss!

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  • Very timely (0 / 0)

    With this being the Holy Week for Christians, this is a timely topic. As a Christian/Leftie-who-isn't-up-for-any-particular-church, I appreciate your post! By focusing on the message that you describe, "we come from God, go back to God, live in God," I really get so much out of Easter. Every other day of the year I find that remembering this message takes a lot of the fear out of life.

    Thanks for diving in!

    Mother of Avery 02/04 and Tobias 08/07

    by jenna on Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 12:27:40 PM PDT

  • I'm rather a (0 / 0)

    Deist with gnostic tendencies...I believe in the message, too.  In fact, I understand God to be the Universal Truth or whatever term you want to use.  While my beliefs wouldn't mesh with that of most traditional Christians, I don't see them as being that different...after all, St. Mark described God in pretty similar terms.

    I also believe we work our way back to this Truth in the end.  

    by tjb22 on Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 01:10:17 PM PDT

  • Very interesting (0 / 0)

    I, too, read the article in Salon last night and it was most interesting to me, especially in light of the book we're reading in my Sunday school class right now [liberal Baptist church] called The Last Week: what the gospels really teach about Jesus' final days in Jerusalem. It's by Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan, and I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in this topic, particularly what liberal Christians and Christian scholars [those guys and gals who teach at non-fundy seminaries and fine universities] think about Jesus.

    Anyway, the book takes Christ's life day by day that last week. We did Friday this week, so we had just talked about the  idea of substitutionary sacrifice [that is, the idea that Jesus HAD to die so that we could be "saved"]. Don't want to spoil the surprise but the authors say "nope". Their position is that Jesus' death was not a divine necessity, but rather a human inevitability -- that is to say, he died because of how he challenged those in power [like the things you said].

    Still haven't gotten to Sunday in the book, so I am eager to read Borg & Crossan's take on the resurrection.  But their take on Judas is that Mark's gospel constantly emphasizes that Judas was "one of the twelve" -- that is, regardless of what he did, he was part of the inner circle, a trusted follower of Christ.

    I know these topics aren't everyone's cup of tea, but I am really jazzed myself. Too bad I have to leave town in a minute and won't be able to check back in until much later tonight.

    Mom of twins, DD and DS, born 12/96

    by Lisa in Austin on Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 01:41:04 PM PDT

    • Human inevitability (0 / 0)

      I love that turn of phrase, you hit it right on the head.

      It's the idea that Christ, like MLK, was on a collision course with death BECAUSE of his message.  Inevitable.  Because we humans are who we are.  Human inevitability.  Geez, that's almost haiku!

      And yet neither man flinched, neither man ran from this collision.  They faced it head-on, because the message was so important.

      That's it, right on the nose!  I'm going to find that book, it sounds really good.  Refreshing that there are many voices rejecting the "washed in the blood of the Lamb" mantra and really taking a hard look at Jesus.  

      "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

      by Little Miss Patriot on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 03:24:41 PM PDT

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      • It's funny (0 / 0)

        that you mention "washed in the blood of the lamb" because we were discussing in Sunday school how much of our theology we get from the HYMNS we sing. And how, once we all started getting deeper into scholarly writings [rather than the type of preachers that are on TV], those songs all seem so wrong.

        Still, for me, there is something familiar and comforting about singing some of them. I'm not nuts about the blood songs, but I'll Fly Away gets me everytime, even though I don't believe I will literally fly away someday!

        Oh, and if you end up liking that book, Borg has several others, including "Meeting Jesus again for the First Time," "Reading the Bible again for hte first time," and "The Heart of Christianity." My parents and in-laws would think he is heretical but I think it's just a more intellectual and scholarly approach to faith. Don't know where you live but in Austin they are available at the public library.

        Mom of twins, DD and DS, born 12/96

        by Lisa in Austin on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 07:54:49 PM PDT

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        • I'm down here between Kyle and Buda (0 / 0)

          There is a great song I heard once, I think on KUT, about a guy who was raised in the protestant church and loved singing all the songs, but then grew up and became a Buddhist.  And now he loves being a Buddhist, but he really misses gospel music!  It was called something like "Gospel in the Ashram" or something, it was so cute!  It got to me because I LOVE all those songs, too, even though like you said, most of them don't make any sense, really.

          "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

          by Little Miss Patriot on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 03:11:25 PM PDT

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  • Howdy (0 / 0)

    Well, I'm a heretic myself so I'm not sure my opinion counts. I am not religious but I respect Jesus as a great philosopher and I wish that more people would remember the message as well. I think I would like Jesus and he would like me, even though I don't worship his God.

    Whenever people talk about Jesus dying for our sins, I think of all the other people who have died for them. 3,000 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died for our sins, too. Hundreds of thousands more have died for my freedom, through American history. I only wish it had stopped at only one death.

    by shenanigans on Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 04:27:18 PM PDT

  • grin.... (0 / 0)

    I quite enjoyed having something to tease my Catholic husband with this morning. Holy Foreskin indeed! snort! Thanks for that!

    Mum to DD, born 6/04 and DS, born 4/06, and no more!

    by aussieyank on Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 05:05:21 PM PDT

  • I'd go with (0 / 0)

    This might be the place for it, but Street Prophets is really the place for it.

    by lonespark on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 07:25:17 AM PDT

  • Elaine Pagels (0 / 0)

    She's just great. I read The Gnostic Gospels and really enjoyed it. It made me understand how Christianity could be a slave religion, personal and private, encouraging independent thought.

    I'm not religious at all, so my opinion may not count here, as Shenanigans says, but I love learning about religion. And my husband was raised by a Methodist preacher scholar, so we have some fun time thinking about this stuff. He was just telling me about Paul, the apostle who actually never met Jesus. Is it true that he was just good at organizing stuff, and didn't like women or sex? No wonder there is such homophobia in institutionalized Christianity these days: the organizing apostle was possibly a little wacky.

    by tarantula on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 09:28:19 AM PDT

    • Actually (0 / 0)

      Paul is more than just a little wacky.  Before I rant, I was raised Southern Baptist, which is "Paul's" denomination.  They just eat him up with a spoon over there.  But he was insane!  

      First he was Saul, a Roman citizen who was active in the persecution of Christians, possibly as a lawyer (although in my Sunday School they made it sound like he actually chucked Xtians at lions).  So, no, never met Jesus, he was born something like 10 or 20 years after Christ's crucifixion.  I tried just now to get some backup info but couldn't find any quick enough, so I'll just give you my impression after all these years-- he was a maniac.  First a maniac persecuting Christians and then just as maniacal after his conversion for the Xtian side.  (He was converted thru a vision in the form of a bright light on the road to Damascus, that's where we get "see the light" from.  Jesus reportedly said in this vision, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" but I like to think of it as Jesus saying, "Dude!  What's your deal?!") Think of if Jerry Falwell suddenly became a Democrat Secular Humanist and joined "our" side, but was still exactly Falwell, now saying we're losing in Iraq because "under God" is in the pledge of allegiance.  Just because he's ours wouldn't cure him of being a total nut job!  Well, that's Paul.  Didn't want women to wear jewelry or cut their hair or, you know, SPEAK-- I think he would have made a rule that no women could be within 50ft of him if he could.  Real problem with women.  And this after many of the first churches were matriarchal, following the tradition of Mary Magdalene-- we have Paul to thank for squashing that.  And a real bossyboots, the reason we have all his writings was he wrote to just about every church and told them what they were doing wrong.  (The NT book "Philipians" = letter to the church at Philipi, etc.) Real fun at the church picnic, I bet!

      I'm not sure about the homophobia (most bible-quoters on that use Leviticus, which is Old Testament) but Paul is definitely responsible for the misogyny and repression of women in the church.

      Talk about the message, Paul really got his hooks into Christ's and most of the twisted bits you see now come from him.  I have this little fantasy that when Paul got to the Pearly Gates and asked for Jesus, Jesus replied, "I'm sorry, have we met?"

      [Woo-hoo, this is fun!]

      "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

      by Little Miss Patriot on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 10:50:57 AM PDT

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      • This is (0 / 0)

        very fun stuff. And I'm so not a part of it, having no religious background, that I never know how much to say and not offend. It's very fun to hear what religious insiders think of their own religions.

        by tarantula on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 11:49:25 AM PDT

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        • Hell hath no fury (0 / 0)

          Than a good little Southern Baptist girl who is told that Paul said women couldn't be preachers...

          An outside view is good, too, tho!  

          So you're someone I could ask-- there's a guy who wrote a book (sorry, can't remember details) who's saying that we should have a bible or compartative religion course in high school, not to indoctrinate, but because our culture is so overwhelmed with references that come from the bible, maybe we should educate people on it.  OK, I'm not saying this well.  I know what he means, though-- I had a friend raised by atheists who said it sucks when people say "part the red sea" or "burning bush" or "see the light" or whatever and he doesn't know what they're talking about because he wasn't raised with bible stories.  He doesn't miss the religion, but he misses the cultural references.  

          So, what do you think about that?  

          "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

          by Little Miss Patriot on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 03:19:57 PM PDT

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          • These things (0 / 0)

            ("part the red sea" or "burning bush" or "see the light") already are part of our culture. Just watch a Charlton Heston movie on Easter. There's no avoiding religious references wherever you go; they're as hard to avoid as Sponge Bob Square Pants.

            I think comparative religion in college is just fine (it was for me), perhaps even better than in high school, because then kids are out from under whatever fundamentalism (including secular fundamentalism) that they've grown up with. But I don't have any highschool kids, yet. Maybe I'll change my opinion when mine are older. It's not an important issue to me, but I do think maturity helps people stay open minded, unlike language acquisition.

            by tarantula on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 04:01:39 PM PDT

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            • So what do you (0 / 0)

              think about it?

              by tarantula on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 04:02:43 PM PDT

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              • I have no idea! (0 / 0)

                I understand my friend's frustration; and the other point the author being interviewed made was that since religion is such a huge factor in foreign politics we shouldn't be ignorant about it, and I understand that.  But I think it's kind of dangerous territory, and without stringent oversight could be easily abused.  

                That said, I and a friend started a bible study group at my public high school.  It was interfaith as much as it was all Christian denominations.  We were in a town of nearly all Greek Americans, so we had Greek Orthodox priests come to speak as well as Presbyterian, Baptist, etc. Before that I lived in south Florida where interfaith alliances with Jews and Christians were critical to a peaceful society.  I know the benefits I got out of both, and I remember how difficult it was to get my HS group going.  We had to have a teacher there to make sure we turned the lights off after, but he literally wasn't allowed to speak (he passed notes to someone else if he had a comment or question).  It was a fight to get it started and it struggled (and this was in the 80s).  We weren't trying to indoctrinate anyone, which would be the fear, we just wanted to get together and talk, like this diary entry has done, and it seemed like no one wanted to let us.

                So I see the point of doing it, and the importance of encouraging student-aged kids to think about these issues, but think it's dangerous and could be used for ill.  That might be a line in the sand we need to maintain.

                "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

                by Little Miss Patriot on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:14:46 PM PDT

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              • and you're saying (0 / 0)

                that kids won't miss out on the cultural stuff because it's everywhere anyway, even if they don't necessarily know the story it comes from?  That's reassuring.  (See, having grown up with it myself I can't know what it's like not to have done.)

                "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

                by Little Miss Patriot on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:16:25 PM PDT

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                • I am an atheist, (0 / 0)

                  my DH is agnostic.  We will try to find a comparative religion course for them at a young age since it is indeed important to know the stories that shape cultures and politics. However, to us, they are mythologies and not the inerrant word of anyone. I think once they stop believing in Santa Claus we can use that as an analogy for other peoples belief in their gods/goddesses.

                  Mom of two - Sally (4-02) and Sam (8-04). Sam has a central I.V. line & a g-tube.

                  by GiGi on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 07:14:42 PM PDT

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                • Raised by atheists (0 / 0)

                  I was, and remain one today, so I miss out on a lot of that stuff too.  My 3 year old came home from preschool yesterday and told me the story of Passover... well, at least part of it.  I survived, though.  I wouldn't mind it being an elective class in public school, but I'm not sure it's something that should be required.

                  Katherine, mom to two boys 7/00 and 1/04

                  by pat of butter in a sea of grits on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 09:57:28 AM PDT

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                  • Oh, how cute that must have been! (0 / 0)

                    My son is 2 1/2.  So, did your child get it right?  Do tell!

                    "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

                    by Little Miss Patriot on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 03:13:05 PM PDT

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                    • Well... (0 / 0)

                      I don't know the story so I'm not sure!

                      It wasn't a complete rendition, I don't think. He talked about baby Moses being found in a basket in the river by Pharaoh's daughter who took him to a palace.

                      He did not tell the part about the angel of death passing over the houses with lamb's blood on them (the part my husband told me last night ... he was raised Catholic and had 12 yrs of Catholic school).

                      Katherine, mom to two boys 7/00 and 1/04

                      by pat of butter in a sea of grits on Thu Apr 05, 2007 at 10:39:11 AM PDT

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                      • Yeah, and that would be the "Passover" part (0 / 0)

                        It's hard with kids, some of the key parts of the Bible stories aren't exactly G-rated.  How do you explain to a little boy (and probably your first-born) that God killed all the firstborn little boys?  Little scary, that!  

                        "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

                        by Little Miss Patriot on Mon Apr 09, 2007 at 01:11:04 PM PDT

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                  • There's a great book (0 / 0)

                    by David Sedaris called "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and one of the essays is about him taking French (one of those classes where you can only speak French) in a class filled with international students, and they all try, in terrible broken French, to explain Easter to a student from Morocco.  It's hilarious!

                    Here, I'll excerpt (this is all the students chiming in):

                    --"It is a party for the little boy of God who calls himself Jesus and... oh, shit..."
                    --"He calls his self Jesus and he die one day on two morsels of lumber..."
                    --"He die one day and then he go above my head to live with your father."
                    --"He weared of himself the long hair and after he die, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples."
                    --"He nice, the Jesus."
                    --"He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today."
                    --"Easter is a party for to eat of the lamb.  One too may eat of the chocolate."

                    And then later, Sedaris adds--

                    "Nothing we said was any help to the Moroccan student.  A dead man with long hair supposedly living with her father, a leg of lamb served with palm fronds and chocolate; equally confused and disgusted, she shrugged her massive shoulders and turned her attention back to the book she kept hidden beneath her binder."

                    "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

                    by Little Miss Patriot on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 03:22:49 PM PDT

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      • I, too, was raised Southern Baptist, (0 / 0)

        From an early age, I always referred to Paul as "The Patron Saint of Male Chauvamists". I was always amazed at how much emphasis sermons tended to place on the teachings of Paul instead of the teachings of Jesus, particularly when many of those teachings were diametrically opposed to one another, in my opinion.

        by LynneK on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 06:05:11 AM PDT

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        • Yeah, what's that about? (0 / 0)

          I never understood why they glommed on to Paul.  Might be interesting to research how that all started.  

          "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

          by Little Miss Patriot on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 09:20:29 AM PDT

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        • I haven't found anything yet (0 / 0)

          except this interesting blurb with the headline

          SOUTHERN BAPTIST PASTOR SAYS SHE DISAGREES WITH THE APOSTLE PAUL

          http://www.wayoflife.org/...

          So I can't find anything that says how this Paul-love-fest got started, but that shows us how ingrained it is!

          Found an interesting site, faithfuldemocrats.com. Pretty cool, actually.  

          Oh, and I found the quote where Paul says women should shut the F up, 1 Timothy Chapter 2.  Oh, yeah, and Paul's reason is apparently Eve.  We really need to dig some dirt up on Adam, this has gone on far too long!

          In my reading today I'm reminded of how often Paul contradicts himself (schitzo!), including saying in Galatians that now that we have Christ there are no more divisions, "no male and female".  Oh, unless you're jewelry shopping, apparently.  Or you want to speak.

          And speaking of the Paul fascination, there used to be a line in the bylaws of the Southern Baptists that said that "the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ" (which means if the Bible contradicts itself, go with what Jesus actually said on the subject, over say what Paul or Luke said).  

          In 2000 they got rid of that line.  

          SBC hearts Paul!

          "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

          by Little Miss Patriot on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 09:48:41 AM PDT

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          • What I always found amusing (0 / 0)

            is that Eve gets blamed for believing a convincing lie, but Adam is pretty much let off the hook because all he did was eat what the wife fed him. Was Adam constitutionally incapable of saying, "I'm not eating that! God told us not to!"

            by LynneK on Thu Apr 05, 2007 at 03:10:00 PM PDT

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            • LOL! (0 / 0)

              I keep thinking about my dad, who eats whatever my mom puts in front of him without arguing.  This has worked out quite well for him because she keeps him trim & healthy, whereas on his own he'd live off fast food.  (Well, not now, he's been eating good food for nearly 50 years, so Mickey D's would taste pretty gross to him.)  And it has contributed to domestic harmony, since arguing with my mother isn't generally advisable.  

              So I kinda hate to pick on Adam for that, because it almost seems like men can't win for losing!  Listen to the wife, get blamed, don't listen to the wife, get blamed...

              But you are so right on your main point, which is, you can't pin all this on her, he was not only capable of thinking for himself, he was supposedly the superior half of this union, or so they say, and yet he didn't show the brains God gave him!  And then to just turn around and blame it all on her, why, that's the sort of thing you'd see in today's political arena!

              "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

              by Little Miss Patriot on Mon Apr 09, 2007 at 01:21:20 PM PDT

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  • I've been fascinated by this (0 / 0)

    all this kind of stuff, since becoming a UU. Strangely, I've developed a whole new fondness for Jesus and his message - one I never had having been raised Roman Catholic. I grew up in NY State and had lots of Jewish friends - so I can make lots of jokes about guilt. ;-)

    I haven't read any of the books, but watched, with total deep attention, the History Channel's special on the Gospel of Judas that aired in November, I think. And I was pissed off! Why, at no time in my Catholic upbringing, had anyone taught me that "The Bible" as we all know it, is essentially made up of just four apostles' writings - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And that one guy in France several hundred years ago made that call - so as to control the populace better.

    I'd heard about the apocrypha in my twenties, but never really made the connection mentally.

    My major thing, I guess, is that people know these other gospels exist, and that Jesus' message can be interpreted in many ways - and yet the STILL choose to be Catholic or Baptist or what have you. I just don't get how people think it's acceptable to buy into what are essentially interpretations made by some guy (and in Paul's case, apparently, a freakin' lunatic). That history now shows that Jesus didn't set out a lot of the laws that govern Catholicism and Christianity - but men, simple humans, made a lot of it up because that's what they thought Jesus wanted. Or, in all honesty, in the case of Catholicism - to control the masses. Catholics in particular still buy into rules made up by some politically minded Pope somewhere along the way, or some nutty ArchBishop.

    To me, it's like WTF??!! I don't know Islam very well, but am totally confused by the whole burka thing. Especially women who've been non-Islamic, and then buy into covering everything but their eyes. Was that rule made by Allah? Or Mohammed, who himself was just a man, I think? Or by some zealot along the way? Oppression of women certainly wasn't Jesus' message, I'm pretty sure.

    And essentially, Christianity and Islam started at the same time, in the same place. Judaism is the older one, right? Most folks, at the time of Jesus and Mohammed, were either Jewish or Pagan/some derivation of that, right? Anyone feel free to chime in. I'm no religious scholar of any sort.

    Hope this makes sense. I'm not sure how to end my post now.

    "the "well-informed citizenry" envisioned by our framers has degenerated into a "well-amused audience." Tad Daley, Alternet - interview w/ Al Gore 05/22/07

    by cgiselle12 on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 09:20:46 AM PDT

    • Hey! (0 / 0)

      I had to get on here to find out my friend is a UU?  Whadya know???  Sister!!!

      I just recently read an interesting novel about heresy in the 14th century and the Catholic Church's reaction to it called "The Good Men". It was interesting because it gave the Church's view, too, which was basically that if they let people believe whatever they want and splinter off into groups, the Church would disintegrate.  And in their defense, some of the doctrine that various heretic groups came up with was even nuttier than Church doctrine (these "Good Men", who were poverty-sworn travelling preachers like Jesus, also were forswearing to ever touch a woman, ever, even accidentally while passing the salt-- so you know, you kinda can't blame the Church for wanting to corral people away from just thinking any dang thing).  Now, there is no call for torture and execution of heretics, which was also what the book was about-- where do you draw the line to protect the Church?

      But yes, if you really want to know Christianity you have to study it, really study it, because when people turn it into just the surface stuff, or interpret it for you, it loses all of its real power.  It's kind of like iambic pentameter in that way-- if you just read the Shakespeare lines without ever delving into the scansion and what it is telling you, then you'll never get all the rich beauty out of it.

      And you hit it right on the nose, you can't just stop at the regular Bible.  Not all apocrypha is filled with divine secrets, some of it just didn't paint the "right" picture of Jesus.  I think it might be the Gospel of Thomas that tells some kid stories, like Jesus making birds out of mud, making them real, and setting them free.  Well, the Church I guess thought that was too frivolous for the Savior, but I think it's darling!  What happens if you can do miracles and you're 6? But anyway, that's the point.  If you  read everything, the accepted and rejected parts, and take away from each what you will, you'll build your own story of Jesus that will really mean something to you, instead of just taking what you're told.

      And the UUs are the PERFECT place for that!!!  

      Hmm... On the Islam/judaism/Xtianity thing, I think you're a bit turned around, I'd be happy to post a primer but to get it right I'll need to do a little reading myself.  All three believe in the same exact God, though, so keep that in mind!

      The burka and scarf covering, as I understand it, are CULTURAL (like it's cultural for American families to have a big family meal after church, but it's not in the bible or anything).  They stem from Islam in the sense that Mohammed calls on BOTH genders to be "modest".  (Being Christina Aguelera and shaking your thang everywhere isn't going to get you closer to God, in other words, which may have some validity to it.)

      But whether it's cultural or religious, what I really think is so amusing is that it is NOT intended to reign in the WOMAN, but rather is a reflection of the inherent weakness in MEN.  Men, who can lose their train of thought while staring at our lovely hair; men who can't seem to remember that our eyes are in our FACES, not our chests; men who, if they saw you driving a stick shift, might be driven to all kinds of lustful fantasies, what with the stick and two pumping legs, oh my...  It's all about how men are such babies that they can't handle their lustful natures, so the women have to cover it up so the men can finally get some work done.  

      This is why many women who cover themselves don't see it as repression.  If anything, it's empowering-- I have so much sexual power that I have to cover my hair or risk sending every man I meet to utter distraction.  It's saying that EVERY woman can "stop traffic", and who doesn't want to feel like that? I wish our society said EVERY woman was totally hot!

      Of course, I'm not Middle Eastern or Islamic, and my take is, "You're men, man up!  I have a great rack, deal with it!  Eyes up here, Steve!"  But I can see where people can live with it.  

      And for anyone who has ever lived near the beach, those burkas have to keep out the sand, especially during a common sand storm, and for that, I probably wouldn't give mine up either.  I just would want one in white, especially as the planet heats up.  Maybe that should be our "help our sisters" cry-- not to strip them of their burkas but to make them in a color that doesn't absorb so much heat...

      "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

      by Little Miss Patriot on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 10:52:49 AM PDT

      [ Parent ]

    • Oh, Criminey! (0 / 0)

      I just wrote, if I do say so myself, a lovely little primer on those three religions-- and the page refreshed and ate it before I could post!  And now I have to go clean the house and deal with my boy.  I'm so bummed!  Well, I'll try again tomorrow.

      In the meantime, Wikipedia is a great place to do research.

      "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

      by Little Miss Patriot on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 11:37:35 AM PDT

      [ Parent ]

    • Just saw the bit about (0 / 0)

      "how people know these other gospels exist, and that Jesus' message can be interpreted in many ways - and yet they STILL choose to [pick one version and insist that it's right]."

      There's a long tradition in the church that could be called "intelligent design of the Bible", which says that God himself directed the authors of the bible on what to say, and directed the church to put certain parts in and leave certain parts out, and so the "official" bible is "God's bible" and is to be considered the "only Bible".

      But I mean, you'd have to believe that God was circumventing free will to believe that, and I don't.

      "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

      by Little Miss Patriot on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 03:07:55 PM PDT

      [ Parent ]

  • another great link (0 / 0)

    I took this quiz the other day and turned out to be pretty darn UU - and my birth religion, Roman Catholic was #27, bottom of the list. Wonder what my still Roman Catholic folks would say! Ha!

    http://www.beliefnet.com/...

    this is a fun and thought provoking quiz! it takes about 10 minutes.

    "the "well-informed citizenry" envisioned by our framers has degenerated into a "well-amused audience." Tad Daley, Alternet - interview w/ Al Gore 05/22/07

    by cgiselle12 on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 10:11:07 AM PDT

    • I was just going to send you there (0 / 0)

      That is a great site, not just for research, but for that quiz.  Everyone should take it.  You just answer the questions about what you think about this or that and then it tells you what denomination believes like you do.

      Of course, everyone is welcome at the Unitarian Universalist church, because they say, "What you believe is your business." And so when I first started UU in my college town, I often went with my Buddhist friend and my Catholic friend, because they really do accept everyone.  They do talk about God, but it's understood that it's a Fill-In-The-Blank God, that is, I say "God" and you fill in "Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster" or whatever "God" you believe in.

      (You know all this, I'm just catching up our other readers.)

      "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

      by Little Miss Patriot on Wed Apr 04, 2007 at 10:57:12 AM PDT

      [ Parent ]

      • I loooove b-net! (0 / 0)

         Message boards, yay!
        The quiz annoys me, though.  It is not possible to answer the questions as a hard polytheist.  I'm not quite sure it works well for any traditional religions, but it annoys me that you can answer all the questions as, say, a Hellenic Reconstructionist, and never be informed that there is a community for you on the site.  

        by lonespark on Thu Apr 05, 2007 at 12:14:50 AM PDT

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  • Incidentally (0 / 0)

    I was trying to find this diary again for two days and I couldn't due to the extremely non-specific title.

    by lonespark on Thu Apr 05, 2007 at 12:15:28 AM PDT

    • oops (0 / 0)

      Yeah, this was my first one and I'm so used to my blog that I just wrote that sort of title.  I'll do better next time, but I don't think I can change this one now.

      "You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons." Jean Renoir

      by Little Miss Patriot on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 10:35:34 AM PDT

      [ Parent ]

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