True believers tend to only see things that they think support their arguments and for conspiracy theorists everything (no matter how apparently irrelevant or mundane) is imbued with great significance.

And it’s difficult not to see some religionists in these dimensions. For certain factions whenever something bad or ominous happens it’s because you’re not following God’s divine plan (whatever that is).

The Catch The Fire Ministries website concluded that the dire floods experienced in Queensland, Australia, were… erm…. Well read for yourself, Daniel Nalliah writes:

Then at once I was reminded of Kevin Rudd speaking against Israel in Israel on 14th December 2010. It is very interesting that Kevin Rudd is from QLD. Is God trying to get our attention? Yes, I believe so.

[...]

Australia’s Rudd urged Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and open all its nuclear facilities to UN inspectors.

Apparently God doesn’t want the United Nations to know what Israel’s doing with Nuclear power (and arms?)… who knew, right?! And pity any one known to anybody who makes suggestions to contrary.

Curiously – if these evangelical groups are to believed – words irritate God much more than actions. Kevin Rudd’s supposed mistake was talking about Israel. Similarly what really bothers God is not that homosexuals exist, or that they serve in the US military, but rather that people are talking about them! Times were so much easier and less doomsday-esque back when people weren’t allowed to ask or tell.

And how does God show his displeasure at this? By knocking birds out of the sky, apparently.

A comment on the SFGate.com coverage of Cindy Jacobs’ comments by MattySF is both amusing and telling of the kind of ‘leaps’ (of faith and logic) sometimes taken.

This woman is totally on to something. I looked it up and gay marriage was legalized in Canada on July 20th, 2005. Just a month later, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. I mean, you can’t dispute that because, ya know, there are um…the French Canadians….and uhhh, Louisiana has a lot of French culture in it. Oh, and the French LOVE THE GAYS! So uhhh, yeah. In summation – gay marriage leads to hurricanes which is all because the French love the gays. It’s the lord speaking to us, people!!

Happy Sunday!

I made the mistake of waking up to television news earlier in the week. Ordinarily I dip in and out of the news stories as the television plays in the background. But there seemed to be one story dominating that morning, a push to legalise gay marriage in Australia… or at least broach the subject in a parliamentary setting.

Only… as the day progressed the outcome looked very bleak indeed. It seemed the subject of ‘gay marriage’ was just a window dressing to more widely held misgivings about gay people. Newspapers carried opinion pieces on how gay parents would never be a suitable parallel to heterosexual parents. Politicians ducked and weaved, doing the slippery slide for which I suppose they’re celebrated, avoiding questions, avoiding declarations. Gay people aren’t as important as ‘community consensus’ and none of them seemed too sure what that was exactly. I was particularly disillusioned with a transcript of a doorstep interview with Malcolm Turnbull which seemed to suggest there was no benefit in doing anything until everyone within the community was on board with the idea.

More closely to home a tiny little opinion poll at the bottom of the website for Federal Member for Gilmore Joanna Gash actually suggested this region was surprisingly liberally minded. This frankly took me a little by surprise. But home town pride was short lived as a local church leaped into action. They were apparently horrified that the media would have a field day with the results. They sent out an instruction to their entire congregation to remedy the survey results. Apparently it was part of their ‘righteous mission.’

Despondent, I sent a message to a friend. He expressed something I was reluctant to think – let alone say. “Religion is stupid,” he explained. “I’m sorry but it is.” I smiled a little reading it. The truth was despite not being a religious person myself, despite not having a religious affiliation, I had always been a big proponent of religion. I saw some of my friends taking part in religious practice and could see it as a largely positive influence in their lives. I wanted them to have that. In truth I was secretly fascinated by religion. I clung to the edges of the subject and explored different traditions and theological ideas, if at a distance.

But I was feeling increasingly uneasy by it all. Religion seemed too abstract, too malleable. Like reading a painting it was all too subjective. God can be – and is – anything you want him (her? it?) to be. The word of God is whatever text you want it to be, whatever translation you want it to be. It is as literal or as allegorical as you choose. It is a product of the time in which it was produced or a volume of timeless unwavering universal wisdom. And, of course, and perhaps most sobering, your unique point of view is (if you’ll forgive the pun) ‘gospel’ and all those other wretches are just terribly mistaken…

Of course there are others who have put it more succinctly and eloquently than I ever could. I think particularly of former Archbishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway, who was himself largely disenchanted with the way homosexuality was treated within his own tradition. In a talk titled ‘Shaking the Kaleidoscope’ he explains:

There isn’t a real divine broadcaster, there isn’t a real God; religion is a work of the human imagination. It is a work of art, like a great opera, like a great fiction system. So all this revelation that we’ve been receiving, all this talk that we’ve been doing, is us talking to ourselves. But that does not reduce its meaning or value, it’s good talk, it’s powerful talk, it’s meaningful talk, it’s us telling ourselves stories, offering ourselves narrative to try and explain the mystery of our own existence.

I think too of authors of fiction who tell me emphatically that the way to get to ‘truth’ is through fiction. At face value this statement seems silly and flawed. I imagine they mean that one can explore themes and issues through the course of their stories. So in this way Harry Potter might be get you to truths about friendship and loyalty and courage even though Mr. Potter himself never existed. But I worry this kind of ‘truth telling’ could work equally well in promoting propaganda. So how do we evaluate the ‘meaningful talk’ of religion, and how and when do we use it?

And yes, frankly, who is using it…?

At the present time (certainly in this country) we seem to have one section of the population telling another section of the population what they can and cannot do. The fact that these orders are coming not from law enforcement agencies but rather religious institutions is of particular concern. Remember: religion is opt-in. The term ‘coercive religion’ is used to describe religions that exert pressure on their congregation, but you might equally use the more informal term ‘cult.’ It is also bothersome that certain religions want to dictate how non-followers live their lives. Can you imagine the outrage if the Catholic Church started ordering Islamic people around? Perhaps it is time to defend the rights of secular non-religionists with the same rigor that religionists protect their own rights.

Happy Sunday!

In some ways I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but in others I’m quite guarded. I feel like there were compelling reasons to be so guarded growing up but I just know now that I can’t shake them off completely. There’s a part of me that still wonders all the time if I’m “allowed” to do certain things, if I’m “allowed” to want the things I want, if I’m “allowed” to be the person I am. It’s funny in some ways because my background wasn’t particularly religious but the parts that were I absorbed really quickly and unthinkingly – to the extent that I used to think if something bad happened (say, bullying for example) it may have meant I had done something wrong and God was punishing me. And in an odd way a part of me still thinks this way long after I stopped believing in a God. Like when I have to be somewhere and my car doesn’t start I’ll automatically slip back into a “What did I do THIS TIME?!” kind of thinking.

I actually have a great interest in religion despite not being a believer. I wholeheartedly believe everyone should have the right to choose whatever resonates with them. But by the same token I am acutely aware of how damaging my personal experiences have been to me, how religious ideas informed a particular world view that left me in turmoil for years. I still struggle to understand a theology of sin that suggests your only redeeming feature is your capacity to be loved by a supernatural being. I don’t know how a person can feel good about themselves within those parameters. Isn’t that just the worst kind of codependency?

I want to feel good about myself. I want to be proud of myself. I want to be able to operate as a human being without feeling guilty. There’s a lot to unlearn. There’s a lot to shake off. I hope I’ll get there one day.

Something has really been pissing me off lately. And actually it’s something that I haven’t ever really had much emotional investment in until very recently. Because I always thought it was a legal construct, a formality, but actually within the last week I think it’s affecting people’s psyches in ways I certainly hadn’t considered. I might write about this some more in the future – but I tell you all this just to explain that the video I’m about to quote wasn’t the one I went looking for, though I thought it embodied something worth sharing…

YouTuber 1938Superman made a video titled Milgram Religion. The video is about 25 minutes long. He makes a lot of points within that time, but there was one I wanted to really focus on here.

1938Superman:

I put it out as plainly as I could. Your religious views are yours. Other people who don’t believe what you believe shouldn’t be subject to them. That’s most of the reason your religious views shouldn’t be involved in making laws, because your religious views govern the people that believe that religion, while the laws are supposed to govern everybody. And you wouldn’t find it very favorable if someone who had different religious views than you was having their religion infused into the laws and you had to follow the philosophies and rules and laws of their religion or you’d be arrested. By our own legal process you would be forced to follow them. You wouldn’t like that.

I wonder if this mentality doesn’t hark back to times when we didn’t have the kind of racial and religious diversity we see today. Times when a ruling monarch actually did set the religious standards and they were enforceable in this way, that there was this meshing of religion, law and power. I imagine in some special instances – say, Vatican City, for example – that this is probably still the case.

I am always slightly bemused when people tell me “Australia is a Christian country.” Even if you resist the urge to take this literally, to think that this piece of dirt has a religion (and that it has nothing to do with Aboriginal mysticism), it is usually cited as an excuse to enforce a kind of social norm. And, actually, we see this all the time in Australia, even in more secular pursuits. The Melbourne Cup, for example. If you don’t place a bet on this celebrated horse racing event or have a drink on this day, you’re clearly “UnAustralian.” (Never mind the terrible social consequences such an attitude might have on those suffering from gambling addictions and alcoholism.) You’ll be harassed if you don’t participate in this ritual, but you won’t be arrested – and that’s kind of the point, I think.

This is what is at the heart of the separation of church and state, this understanding that certain things apply to certain people in certain contexts. And religion is tribal, religion is ‘opt-in’. You are initiated into a tradition in one fashion or another. You choose to do certain specific things and identify as part of a specific group. Other people identify with other traditions and participate in other rituals.

I think Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence, talking to Rachel Kohn on The Spirit of Things, makes this point well.

Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence:

As Rebecca was saying before, you say a certain food isn’t allowed and it creates some kind of desire. Within the Torah we’re given a whole slew of animals, many of which are not readily accessible, but others which are, like a pig or a camel, that we’re not allowed to eat, and meat with milk that we’re not allowed to eat.

On the verse that I referred to before, it says you should be holy, and that meant you should separate, so Nachmanides says if you’re walking past a butcher’s shop and you see this huge pig hanging up there, you’re not supposed to say ‘How revolting, how terrible, how could people eat such things?’ You’re supposed to say, that you know, ‘This is food and God has provided in the world, but it’s not for me to eat’ and I’ve got a measure of self-censorship in that.

Here eating pork is not in and of itself a bad thing necessarily, those keeping Kosher are motivated by the commitment they made within their tradition. You’ll note the expression “self-censorship” here. You could perhaps argue that the act of consuming certain foods and not others here is of less importance than the commitment to the tradition that the act represents.

I understand that proponents of specific religious traditions may wish that everyone should embrace their particular tradition. (Many of the world’s religions are deeply rooted in proselytizing traditions.) Though such a push would result in less authenicity among religious practitioners because to participate authentically within religion requires faith and commitment.

I’m reminded of the remark of Twitter user @NZAfro:

I hate it when people say they pray for me. I ask them not to! I’m atheist, that’s like eating a chicken to help a vegetarian!

Happy Sunday!

I recently mused over the word play of a local church sign. The puns were so cringeworthingly awful that I couldn’t help but laugh. “The Best Vitamin For A Christian is B1,” it exclaimed. And during another week, “Give the devil an inch and he’ll become a ruler.”

Today’s message me wonder. It read:

Silence is often misinterpreted but it is never misquoted.

[ad#adsense250]The links between the other messages and Christianity seemed obvious. This one had me slightly baffled. You can never misquote Jesus’ silence? Something about the church’s response to systematic sexual abuse within the clergy? Perhaps the local Presbyterian church reached a conclusion similar to that of my friend Daniel. He ultimately decided that God answered prayers in the same way a piece of cheese did. Of course I’m being silly. God answers all prayers it is just that sometimes the answer is no… or [the sound of crickets chirping]

One group of people who will not go quietly however are New South Wales HSC students. Religion students are crying foul at one of questions that appeared on their final exam, which apparently baffled many students and reduced some to tears.

The thing that interested me though was the subject matter of the offending question. According to ABC News online:

She [McAuley Catholic College student Lauren Priest] says the question began with a quote and then asked students to assess, in relation to the quote, how Christianity is a living religious tradition in the life of its adherents.

Call me a conspiracy theorist if you must, but has the Department of Education done a deal with the Bible Society? It seems interesting that such a question should coincide with the Bible Society’s “Jesus: All About Life” campaign.

I don’t know what this quote was, or who was quoted. I’m not even familiar with the curriculum for this subject. But, wow, if students at a Catholic College can’t make a case for Christianity as a living religious tradition… that’s kind of “interesting” – don’t you think?

Happy Sunday!

You may have seen the banners (especially if you’re in New South Wales). “Jesus: All About Life,” they read. It is an initiative of the Bible Society, in conjunction with marketing company Taurus. Although I didn’t know that at the time. I asked my mother (a dedicated Anglican) if the signs were something to do with her particular church. She told me that it was actually an initiative across ‘all the churches.’

I looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and said, “Well, at least the ones that believe in Jesus.”

But the general idea and hope is to produce dialogue among those faiths that incorporate Jesus as a central figure – Catholicism, Christianity (various denominations) and Judaism, I suppose.

Daniel Willis, CEO of The Bible Society, talking to Rachel Kohn on The Spirit of Things:

Well I’m saying people don’t know what Jesus said and here is the opportunity, in this campaign, to put out there the actual words that Jesus said. Because when you look at what Jesus said you find he’s actually a very radical person. He was counter-cultural. [...] So what we’ve ended up with I think over the centuries is the message of Jesus being clouded by movies, by what other people have said, by what the church has added to it. And when you get back to what Jesus said it actually makes sense and it under girts the values we all want.

[ad#adsense250]This was a major stumbling block for me. I am not a biblical scholar but I am reasonably convinced Jesus never said anything to the effect of ‘the shetland pony was an absolute cinch’ (as he does in a Jesus: All About Life radio ad). Whether you treat the Bible as literal truth, as allegory or as fiction, it is important to appreciate the distinction between ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ (an invitation to speculate) and ‘What Did Jesus Do?’ (as recorded within these texts). That Willis freely acknowledges that without a understanding of the Bible many artistic, literary and pop culture references are lost on individuals while feeling he has license to further cloud ‘the message of Jesus’ within the context of this campaign is perplexing. But it seems to be a broader trend within Christian traditions, one that sees this kind of embellishment as permissable if it exists within a generally accepted narrative and understanding of Jesus.

And even the tagline ‘All About Life’ is open to interpretation. In what ways is Jesus ‘All About Life’? Does Jesus’ supposed relevance to life relate to him as a historical figure, as the key to ‘salvation’ in the Christian tradition, as a ‘personal’ figure? If you accept the idea of a ‘personal Jesus’ over a historical one, suddenly the popular tendency towards speculation and embellishment makes perfect sense.

Writer and former religious reporter, Tom Harpur:

I can’t prove to anyone Jesus Christ or Muhhammad or whomever never existed. And in one sense, it doesn’t really matter because the average Christian has a mythical Christ that they’re talking about anyway. You take ten people coming out of a service anywhere on a Sunday and ask them what their picture of Jesus is. And you’ll find it is not exactly something that can be replicated because everybody has their own personal Jesus. This is a creation of the religious imagination. Not that they have been brainwashed, but taught, or however you want to put it by a religious tradition into thinking a certain way about it. But I mean, Christ in you, Paul says. How can a historical person be in you? I fail to understand.

I don’t have a personal Jesus. Like Harpur, I struggle with the historical Jesus. And I wonder what the ‘word of Jesus’ might do for me, as a non-believer, that modern morality cannot? Perhaps the emphasis on Jesus (as opposed to God) is about highlighting the New Testament in favour of the Old Testament (with its burnt offerings and slavery). I once suggested that the Harry Potter books had as much to say about life as the Bible did. I was being flippant at the time, but there is a great truth here. Any compelling work of literature encapsulates themes and ideas that relate to life and morality and personal and societal values. Modern texts have a modern frame of reference and perhaps a greater understanding of the complexity of modern life, as well as a broader sense of community values. Certainly the bible’s relationship with women, homosexuals, slavery and human sacrifice is a far cry from modern day morality. And at the point where you selectively embrace teachings of Jesus have you not in effect elected a ‘personal Jesus’ over a historical one?

And why Jesus, why not God? I mean it’s all well and good to say this is not about ‘the church’ and rather about Jesus but there is clearly a proselytising element to this campaign.

Happy Sunday!

Sometimes I find myself poking around things for reasons I can’t begin to understand. And it only just dawned on me recently what I was trying to do in regards to one such poking session. Because actually all the paranormal and religious stuff in the world is fascinating. It really is. It is great fun. I can read about the Marian apparitions (in Portugal, and much closer to home), extraterrestrials, ultraterrestrials, resurrections, immaculate conceptions, ghosts, flying humanoids, flying saucers, UFOs (as either Unidentified Flying – or Falling – Objects)… and what not. I guess you either fit that stuff into your worldview, or you don’t. I think despite all the time and energy I’ve poured into such things, I don’t think they have a place in my worldview. I just don’t believe. (Mulder would be so disappointed.)

But I’ve noticed that I keep asking questions about these things, not because I am particularly interested in knowing the answers but rather because I’m trying to get inside other people’s heads. I’m trying to engage them in their process – not the artistic process that I seem to be forever talking about, but their thought process.

One of the things that really intrigued me when I started listening to people talk about their religious beliefs was how they would (for want of a better expression) ‘cherrypick’ from different traditions. This was really apparent in self-help literature, the likes of Wayne Dyer would dedicate entire tomes to collecting and meditating upon the virtues and teachings of various spiritual figures. Some religions, notably the Bahá’í Faith, seem to try very purposefully to emulsify a lot of different traditions. But in individuals it seems to happen much more organically. An individual who was brought up as an Episcopalian might come to draw heavily upon Sufi mysticism for inspiration.

But even those who identify themselves categorically as being a proponent of one religion seem to emphasise certain teachings over others, certain books over others, certain passages over others. This surprised me, though I don’t know why it surprised me. Maybe now would be a good time to try and deconstruct my own thought process on this subject.

I think one of the things people need to appreciate is that my experience of God is that I don’t have an experience of God. I can’t trace back to a particular time when that energy, that entity, was made known to me in any way that wasn’t purely intellectual. Certainly I’ve heard a lot about God, but I haven’t had any visceral emotional experience that I would associate with that idea. I haven’t been blinded in the desert, regaining my sight later; hell I haven’t even felt transcendent singing a hymn. I guess to the extent that I haven’t had this experience – and I don’t know how to cultivate this experience – I figure my whole understanding of God would be completely dependent on religious texts. (I guess I forget that other people have had these experiences.)

The other thing to note is that religion has a history of creating splinter groups anyway. This is why we have denominations in the first place. People who might agree in principle that God exists and that Jesus existed, and was in some way related to God, don’t necessarily agree on other things. Indeed these differences are considered significant enough to form separate groups. And I guess that is the crux of what I am wondering… how do you negotiate between these things? A friend assures me that the Bible has a lot to offer the world and that might be true. But which parts? Which things do you embrace and which things do you relinquish as being more relevant in another time or another context? Which things do you take literally and which do you decide are parables and metaphors? Does the bit about loving your neighbour take precedence over the tips for dealing with your slaves? How do you arrive at this hierarchy of understanding?

This one passage in Revelations stuck in my head after Julia Sweeney alluded to it in Letting Go Of God. I asked two Christians about the passage independently and was a little bemused that they both gave identical responses. “Isn’t that a Jehovah’s Witness thing?” they responded. A third party assured me that the passage made more sense ‘in context.’ The passage itself seemed baffling to me, but honestly the passage didn’t intrigue me nearly as much the response to the passage. What made people convinced it was a ‘Jehovah’s Witness’ thing? It came from the same religious text they were using, but it was filtered in such a different way… and in a way that was somehow understood by two people who described themselves in the same basic way but who had never met or discussed the notion.

I guess I’ve just come to realise that any religious understandings are remarkably complex and nuanced. And I’ve never actually had that be conveyed to me from anyone before. I do wonder why.

EDIT: What appears above was written several weeks ago. I actually have since had the good fortune to hear a talk given by the former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway at the Sydney Writers’ Festival (albeit in podcast form, some time later). Mr. Holloway is a fascinating individual, I hope to be able to read some of his work in the future. I found his Shaking The Kaleidoscope talk very comforting on a lot of different levels, but mostly I found it illuminating on this particular subject. His talk offered a framework for religious belief that helped me contextualise some of the thoughts I’ve articulated above. I’d love to pontificate on his talk and perhaps I will at another time, but it really helped me immensely.

Meaning…

• Sesame Street Podcast
• Money, Mission and Meaning: Passion at Work, Purpose at Play
• “The Hunger for Depth and Meaning” Talks on Christian Meditation
• Compass (ABC TV)
• The Meaning of Life… dougnuts
• Don’t Waste Your Life (Desiring God)
• Inside CNET Labs
• CAG Foreplay
• APM: Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett
• Meaning of Words on The Moncriesff Show on Newstalk 106-108 FM
• Living Dialogues: Thought-Leaders in Transforming Ourselves…
• Purpose-Centered Life: A Plan for Authentic Living
• Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day
• Prayer at Rumayla: A Novel of the Gulf War
• Mysticism, Meaning and Life: Classic Sinai Podcast (Judaism)
• Inner Perspectives: Guideposts for the Spiritual Journey
• Free Talk Live (News & Politics)
• whollyscrap’s Podcast (TV & Film)
• Birth Download (Health)
• The Secret Beyond “The Law of Attraction”
• Shaman Drums, The Rhythm and Sound of Healing
• Afternoon Thoughts from IamACIM.com (A Course In Miracles)
• Tajweedpodcast’s Podcast (Islam)
• The New Man: Beyond The Macho Jerk
• The Meeting House Videocast (Christianity)
• A Course in Miracles (ACIM) – Truly ‘Extreme’ Spirituality
• Jabez: Conceived in Pain, Delivery in Victory (Literature)

The first page of podcast search results in the iTunes directory for the word ‘meaning.’ I guess best summarised as below.

• Literary/linguistic/educational/scientific meaning;
• Religious/spiritual/metaphysical/self-help/self-improvement ‘meaning’;

In short, the meanings we derive from things in our environment and the meanings we attribute to ourselves. And I suppose if I am being honest it is the latter that prompted the search in the first place. I’m sure you’re about as sick of hearing me bang on about this in this humble blog as I am sick of hitting my head against the table or the writing the wall. One of those… I forget which.

I guess what I’ve been wondering lately is… why do I even care? If this is all there is (and there’s a good chance it is), why should that bother me? If anything it is practically permission to go out and be completely hedonistic. Why not ‘live it up’ while we are indeed alive? I haven’t even studied philosophy at university, I don’t even have the academia to back up this kind of existential angst. Though perhaps therein lies the folly. Perhaps had I bothered studying philosophy I would have some sort of framework with which to hold these nagging feelings at bay.

Over the previous two days I’ve written two drafts at this blog and have decided to publish neither of them. The reason for this is because I feel that I am actually repeating myself. In the last year particularly I found myself without a religious membership but posessing a great interest in religion as a subject matter. In some ways my religious experiences (most of which are already documented elsewhere on this blog) were unpleasant and sometimes just exploring those and the logic behind them was carthatric. In other ways I just wanted to understand why people believe the things they believe, the psychology of belief itself, and the politics of organised religion.

However I feel as though I have plateaued. My whole philosophy and belief system has crystallised in recent times and I feel that when I write about religion now it isn’t so much to explore so much as reiterate. So I would like to include a brief overview of my own understandings here and now for your benefit as much as mine and until the desire strikes me again I think I shall retire the religiously themed blog entries.

My Religious Manifesto

• There may or may not be a God, but if he/she/it exists, he/she/it doesn’t appear to communicate directly with humans.


• Because of this lack of deity-to-individual communication religion relies heavily on religious texts. These texts are archaic examples of ‘inspired literature’ that often have no obvious correlation with modern life. Interpretation and embellishment of such texts has understandably become a theological art.


• An individual’s religious understandings are shaped primarily by their own conception of their deity and associated religious figures. If you start out with the presumption that ‘God is good’ this will influence how you approach questions such as ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ and ‘Does God love me?’ The same is true if you started out with the presumption that ‘God is vengeful.’


• The question ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ is an invitation to speculate. Another theological art, perhaps? We do not know what Jesus would do. Even if treated exclusively as a literary character his behaviour is somewhat erratic. He is just as likely to be the ‘Prince of Peace’ as he is to condemn a Fig tree.


• Religions often reflect the values and expectations of the time in which their respective religious texts were conceived in, but not always. This is a difficult thing to resolve. Slavery is now illegal, however the bible not only endorsed the idea but provided helpful tips for dealing with your slaves. Discrimination is illegal in a lot of places but most religions are completely incompatible with and intolerant of other religions. Because one religion is the ‘true’ one, all others are wrong; because one idol is the ‘true’ one, all others are false idols. Homosexuality is no longer illegal in many countries, though still a sin and a ‘threat’ in many traditions. How does an individual negiotate this hierarchy of authority? Who gets top billing?


• Until very recently your personal religion was often determined by your family’s religion which was determined by your nationality and your geography. When we were entrenched in our own local geography (we didn’t travel or communicate with those of other nationalities) organised religion served a very useful social function. It was a normalising instrument. If you were born in Afghanistan you were probably Islamic. If you were born in Brazil you were probably Christian. If you were born in Vietnam you were probably a Buddhist. If you operate from the presumption that your religion is the only true one, isn’t that a new strange form of racism? And do you truly believe your deity would say, “Oh, we like the British, the Americans and the Australians, we’ll make them Christian. Not so crazy about the Japanese…”?


• I am not suggesting anyone should have to give up their religion. Quite the contrary, I wholeheartedly believe everyone should be able to believe and practice what they feel is ultimately true for them. I would however ask that all people be sensitive and aware of the issues that surround their personal religion and religion in general. I would hope that we can cultivate a respect of all of humanity and a desire to operate in ways that benefit the social good of all, not merely those that share our same outlook. I believe in defending religious freedoms, but I emphasise that your ability to oppress other people (because you think they are wrong or sinful) is not a religious freedom.

I used to think the central flaw of religion was that it was discriminating and exclusive, though I’ve come to believe the real problem is that it is unchanging. We hear a lot about waning church participation numbers and attempts to encourage additions to congregations through charismatic performances and multimedia installations, but at its core the general lore of religion doesn’t change. And in a lot of ways, short of a visit from a deity or religious figure (say, a ‘second coming’ of Jesus), it really cannot change. All it has to work with is its remarkably old and confusing religious texts and its people’s attempts to make sense of those texts. I cannot think of another area of life that is still being governed today by the information and understanding we had several thousand years ago. Imagine if we decided to shun modern day medical procedures in favour of whatever the popular cure of the day had been back then (probably death, leeches, or some sort of human sacrifice)? As people we have grown and changed. Our world is different. Our religious texts haven’t grown and changed with us. I suppose for Biblical Fundamentalists that is desirable.

I just desire to work with what I know to be true, rather than merely what I hope to be true. I know the reality of my fellow man. I know the reality of the environment I live in. I know the reality of the technology with which I am sharing this message. It just makes more sense to me to deal with what is here and in front of me.

Random things stick out in my mind. No, really. I realise if I constructed the narrative of my life it wouldn’t be an accurate record of what actually happened but rather the key clutch moments that were important enough to me to commit to memory. Though my memory is far from reliable. My mind filters and stores information based on how it relates to earlier experiences and other personal prejudices.

Somebody asked me a really innocent question recently. At the time I sort of smiled politely and gave an official-sounding somewhat defensive response. Our conversation ended and we went our separate ways. And suddenly I was filled with such resentment and anger. How dare they ask such a question?! What are they insinuating?! Were they just trying to bait me?!

I lost sleep over it at the time. I sent this person a handful of lines expressing my anger. The particular technology I employed allowed me to delete those same lines the next day before they were viewed by the recipient. The truth was by this stage I was beginning to understand why I was so angry and it had surprisingly little to do with the question or the person who asked it or even the person the question pertained to. It did have a lot to do with my fears and a few negative experiences from my past. And the more I thought about it the more I had to admit that there were a few negative experiences that I haven’t made peace with.

I came clean with the person who posed the question. I told them pretty much everything. I admitted that I had a fear that people were making really unkind assumptions about me based on a little information and a lot of prejudice. And the experience that kept coming to mind was not the most offensive demonstration of a particular prejudice but it was the one that affected me the most. It was a very long time ago in the scheme of things. The person who said those things and I talked extensively about it the time. It should be water under the proverbial bridge. But as I told the person who posed the question, ‘It happened a lifetime ago but it still burns like it happened thirty seconds ago.’

But what does this mean? I mean, the person who said the things that are etched into my brain weren’t addressing me individually, they were just expressing a theological disposition they had. They were quite upset that I had been hurt by the remarks. They went to great lengths to discuss what they meant exclusively for my benefit. They meant me no harm then and they still do not. Even at the time random third parties were talking to me on the sidelines seemingly dumbfounded at the problems I had with the content. This did my head in, actually. I felt blindsighted. I didn’t see this coming and then BAM! There it was. This diatribe about some aspect of my being. And I wonder, who else feels this way? How many other people are smiling and talking to me and then going home and thinking these sorts of things about me and other people I care about?!

Wild insecure baseless speculations aside, I don’t expect a lot of people I consider friends do actually share these opinions. At least, intellectually. There are still moments when I seem to lash out at people and exclaim things like, “But, of course, THIS is what you really mean… right?!” I guess I’m just scared. I learnt that a lot of people were actually quite fickle and I decided to be as open and transparent as I could be at the start of a relationship so if it was a problem it would at least be a problem before I felt emotionally invested. I just want to know the people who are around me are people who love me and will support me. Is that so much to ask? Probably not. And yet that is only part of the overall equation. It isn’t just about having these people in your corner, it’s also about choosing to believe that they are in your corner. This is the other dimension of faith; the part that doesn’t relate to the paranormal or the religious. It is the collection of smaller assumptions you embrace about your daily life. Its choosing to believe that if you drive on a road that the cars going in the opposite direction will stick to their side of the road. Its choosing to believe that if you leave your home today that an acorn or the sky or an atomic bomb won’t fall on your head. Because at the moment I am not being critcised or chastized by my friends, I am just plagued by this anxiety that it could happen. I am waiting for some unseen axe to drop.

And this is actually something the new age and self-help literature understands quite well. You choose to believe good things will happen not because they necessarily will (you’re probably not clairvoyant) but because this will have a bearing on how you feel, and this will in turn affect how you act. You make different choices when you’re feeling optimistic than you do when you’re feeling anxious. You react differently. You are more resourceful.

So this is something I have to work on. It is something that I am working on. I thank you all for your patience and support and love.