Do the Hadza need Jesus?
My roommate has a subscription to National Geographic. When I was younger my father got a subscription to it, but I would only look at the pictures. Now I actually read the articles. One article in particular from the December 2009 issue struck my interest.
It's an article about a man who went and lived with the bush people known as the Hadza for two weeks. His portrait of them is of a content and happily ignorant people. They're unsentimental and don't get caught up in things like thinking about the future or setting up social hierarchies. Everything is shared between everybody and they have little personal possessions.
In particular this statement got me thinking,
"The Hadza are not big on ritual. There is not much room in their lives, it seems, for mysticism, for spirits, for pondering the unknown. There is no specific belief in an afterlife—every Hadza I spoke with said he had no idea what might happen after he died. There are no Hadza priests or shamans or medicine men. Missionaries have produced few converts."
Christianity's main message is salvation. That message fits so well with civilized life. Social interactions are messy. It's easy to throw life out of balance and get lost inside any number of different excesses. The mechanics of daily modern survival require constantly looking into the future; What'll happen to me tomorrow, twenty years from now, eighty years from now, after I die?
Jesus works with that system, Jesus is good for that system. What about for people like the Hadza though? Will they be eternally punished for their sins because they don't care to think of what happens after death? How can a people without possessions benefit from the Sermon on the Mount?
Christianity's form of salvation is great because it doesn't work on a tally system of good deeds and bad deeds. It's more about going in the right direction and having God make up the difference. But it also has issues because of the damnation factor. Damnation puts people into two groups; saints and the hell bound.
The general consensus among Christians is that in order to be saved, one must be in some sort of relationship with Christ and God. But that leads to the problems of people who've never heard the gospel or people like the Hadza who can't understand the importance of the gospel. Are they a special circumstance when it comes to salvation or are they just out of luck?
Minimalizing to the Essentials
Lately I've been thinking about all the time I spend doing things that just waste time. I waste so much time doing activities and spending time with people that don't give me any real satisfaction.
Over the break I was at a friend's apartment. I had an ok time, but at one point in the evening I realized that I really didn't enjoy being with those people. We weren't interested in the same things in life. They had different priorities and being around them just left me feeling empty.
It's much the same feeling I get when I waste an afternoon surfing the internet or watching television. Time is precious, so why would I waste it doing something ethereal and pointless. I have all these things that I would like to do but I don't because I find it easier to sit my butt on a couch and not do anything at all. How much would I get accomplished if I cut those things out of my life?
There's a movement of living called minimalism. In this movement people attempt to cut down to the important things in life. This is different from asceticism in that it doesn't require descending into poverty. Rather it focuses on utility and quality. A person living a minimalistic lifestyle will not purchase a bunch of different objects or tools that can do the same job. Rather they choose one tool that can be used to do a job effectively. There's little room for nostalgia or hoarding things. If it doesn't serve a purpose right now, whether practically or easthetically, then it goes out the door. Additionally they will cut out activities and pursuits that are not of prime importance to them.
A minimalist would not try to own all at once an expensive home theater system, apartment, sports car, motorcycle, lake house, personal garden, and every gaming system known to man. It would be far too much to enjoy. Rather the minimalist will pick those things that are most important. If the man is not interested in maintaining a yard or spending a lot of time inside, he won't buy a large house. It'd be a waste of time. It'd be more practical to rent out an apartment in the city or purchase a condo. The minimalist owns his things, his things do not own him. I think that is something worthwhile to pursue.
So far I've cut out a lot of my video game playing and television/movie watching. I haven't bought a game or a movie in a while. I enjoy films, but I don't ever feel like watching a film more than a few times anymore (with a few specific exceptions). Now I focus on doing more activities that I find much more rewarding, like writing or spending time with special people. Over the past year or so I've slowly been heading my life towards this lifestyle without actively seeking it. Now I'm being a little more proactive, but still have a ways to go.
Here are some examples of minimalistic design in a house.
Interview with Noah in Defense of the Christian Faith
Noah is an electrical engineering at UTD. I met him at a party of a mutual friend and was impressed with his intelligence and strong stance on Christianity. I decided to interview him on his stances and allow him to address some of the issues raised in the previous interview. The result is lengthy but interesting and I believe worth taking the time to read.
Interview with David on Science, Religion, and the Loss of Faith
Original Audio can be found here. I sound pretty bad in this, with lots of stuttering. Wouldn't recommend listening to it, but it's there if you want it.
Landan: Ok, I'm here with my good friend David and I've been doing a series on the relationship between science and religion. David is someone who used to belong to the Christian religion until he moved to atheism. So I think he can bring a unique perspective to this topic. So...David
David: Yes.
Landan: In high school you seemed really devoted to your faith. What prompted you to start down the road of religious skepticism.
David: That's a funny question. It was actually started at Ouachita Baptist. Umm...there was a guy, Bart Ehrman, who wrote "Misquoting Jesus". It was talking about biblical inaccuracies, translation problems, and the different kind of manuscripts that they found. And so I prayed before I started reading the book. I said, 'God I will never deny you as king and I just want to know the truth, so guide me through this process'. And at first it was, ok I'm a Christian Humanist. So I evolved from fundamentalist to Christian humanism, where I derived my morality from reason. And then it eventually devolved into pure humanism, which is purely atheistic in its nature
Christianity and Evolution Make Strange Bedfellows
Christianity currently finds itself in the midst of an interesting transition. Young people have shown a greater willingness to leave behind their parents' religious traditions than they have in the past. This is due in large part to the growing minority of the non-religious and an increased social acceptance of atheism (source 1, 2 ). Still, the majority of children who grow up in evangelical households will maintain their Christian identity, although often in a form that looks significantly different than that of their parents'.
In order to deal with the conflict between growing social pressures and keeping their faith, many Christians have responded by claiming a belief in both evolutionary theory and Christianity. This approach has been especially popular among Christian intellectuals and scientists such as Kenneth R. Miller and Francis Collins. The Catholic church itself has taken a stance that permits if not welcomes those who are staunch believers of evolutionary theory (source).
Science and Religion: Complementary or Opposites?
I'd like to do a series on religion and it's relation to scientific findings/reasoning. I know that many consider this topic long dead, but I feel that there's some new perspectives and questions I can bring to the discussion.
There's questions that I've wanted to ask for a long time, but have been afraid to ask. I want to explore these questions head on. I have so many great resources available from both sides of the theistic spectrum and I hope to use those to come to a better understanding of this issue.
This is a topic I'm very passionate about. Ever since I first encountered this site (warning: this site may be disturbing to your beliefs) during my junior year of high school, I've come to realize that this issue is not as simple as I was led to believe by Sunday school teachers or my parents.
I have an inclination towards religious belief and that's a good part why I've continue to identify myself as a Christian. However, I've found that my ability to participate in religious activities such as prayer and the reading of scripture has begun to decay over the years. There's been several periods where I've gained some respite and been able to participate in religious disciplines with some amount of fervor (just look at some of my earliest posts on this blog). However, at this point in my life I feel that if I must stop an make a careful examination of my beliefs, the beliefs of the people around me, and ask the questions that have been buried in the back of my mind.
I hope this discussion will be enlightening and constructive for everyone who reads this as well.
Authenticity Redux
I've written on Authenticity before.
I feel that the church is missing that a lot of times. This isn't a pointing of fingers either, I'm part of the problem as well. There's something about Church and being around other religious people that makes me afraid to open up. It's as if my salvation depends on the validation of the people around me rather than on God.
My Dad was talking to me recently about how he had visited one of the older people's Sunday morning classes. I guess he was expecting little drops of wisdom from them. His thinking was that they'd lived life longer, had more experience, so they must be wiser. Unfortunately, all he heard throughout the whole class was canned responses. There may have been correct doctrine, but it was separated from feeling and experience.
Scientific Proof that Prayer and Meditation is Good for You
I was listening to NPR today and this little nugget of a story came up. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104310443 Basically they scanned very religious people's brains while they were praying. Apparently those who set aside time for prayer on a consistent basis become more compassionate and even have better immune systems. interesting quotes from the article
- "You can sculpt your brain just as you'd sculpt your muscles if you went to the gym," he says. "Our brains are continuously being sculpted, whether you like it or not, wittingly or unwittingly."
- "It's called neuroplasticity. For years Davidson, who is at the University of Wisconsin, has scanned the brains of Buddhist monks who have logged years of meditation. When it comes to things like attention and compassion, their brains are as finely tuned as a late-model Porsche."
- "Just two months' practice among rank amateurs led to a systematic change in both the brain as well as the immune system in more positive directions,"
Water
One of my favorite directors, Andrei Tarkovsky, understood the power of water. It constantly changes it's form, never the same. Film can capture it's essence in a way that no other medium can.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXyKlqS07tc]
I love the rain. There's something innately divine about it. Almost all religions give water some sort of significance. It's the force that gives us life. We are dust and water, but more so water.
Jesus describes himself as the living water. Whenever I think of Christ in terms of water, I think of a raging river or a downpour of rain amidst a thunderstorm. It's forceful, carrying you along with it. I was baptized at the age of 16, almost 17. In my denomination it's generally considered that 12 is about the proper age to commit oneself to Christ. I put it off. I'm not sure why.
My baptism was largely uneventful. It was on a Wednesday night. A handful of people were sitting out in the pews. My dad baptized me in the baptistery. The water in the baptistery is stagnant and unmoving. That's not to say it isn't clean, but that it's lacking in force. It's a just a big bathtub filled with the blood of Jesus. I went in and came out. Several people came up and hugged me while I was still wet. I didn't feel a whole lot different, just a little more grown up maybe. If anything I became a worse sinner right after my baptism. A couple of months down the road and I came across ideas I didn't know how to explain away. I got into situations I didn't know how to handle. All along my pride was pulled behind me, obscured from view.We're all constantly being washed clean again. We need it.
Whenever it's raining I feel like God is close by. Sometimes I like to go out and let the rain pour over me. It soaks into my clothes and into my skin. It drips from my hair onto my nose and cheeks. The sound of thunder seems to be the voice of God. Somehow rain can assuage all the doubts that seem to keep my faith in a constant state of tension. I stop thinking and I just stay there in the moment. Nothing but me and water.
Confession
"We love those who know the worst of us and don't turn their faces away."
- Walker Percy
I'm currently reading Augustine's Confessions (link). It's basically a book where Augustine describes his life of sin before he became committed to God and the way that he was saved from sin by God's grace.
In the forward of my Oxford Press copy it talks about how the work was intended as a way to shut up a lot of those who were critical of him in the Church. He put his whole life and all his shortcomings out there for all to see.
In the college class on Sunday at church we wrote down on note cards the sins that we struggle with , the places where we find ourselves struggling the most, the people we find cause us to struggle the most, etc. I was sitting fairly closely to the guy next to me. I wrote down single word descriptions that might not mean much to a wayward glance but still conveyed a lot of meaning to myself. I angled the card on my leg so that it was facing away from the guy sitting next to me. I really didn't want him to see anything.
Maybe there's something to all those churches that have people go confess to their priests (though there's definitely problems in that model as well).