Genesis 25 - Genesis 45

Today's reading covered the stories of Isaac, Jacob, Esau, Rachel, Leah, Joseph and his jealous brothers. Some highlights:

26:7 - "When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister, ” because he was afraid to say, “She is my wife.” He thought, “The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful.” - This is the third time this wife-sister swap thing has happened, because Isaac's father Abraham did it twice in yesterday's reading. And each time, their wife was taken or nearly taken by the ruler, and each time it was eventually uncovered. I don't know why they keep doing it!

26:13 - "The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy." - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph have each become very wealthy in these stories. Clearly, wealth is portrayed as something desirable which all should aspire to. I found this interesting because eventually, God will say that it is harder for a rich man to get into heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle! Generosity among friends and brothers seems to be preached here early on, but selflessness and philanthropy to people you don't know doesn't. The protagonists pursue their own wealth and are concerned with enlarging their fortune, and that is viewed as okay.

Chapter 27 - Jacob's fooling his father and stealing his brother's blessing made me scratch my head, because it seems to me that is a dishonest thing to do. He is lying, stealing from his brother, and dishonoring his fathers intentions; three things the 10 Commandments teach are sinful. But Jacob is viewed as the protagonist and the good guy. This seems to be the first instance since Adam and Cain that the main character of the story has messed up, unlike Abraham and Isaac who seemed to be perfect every time God tested them. However, Jacob would be forgiven by Esau upon their reunion in 33:4: "But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept."


28:12 - "He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it." - In the footnotes, it said that the "stairway" could also be translated as "ladder." I presume this is the origin of the term "Jacob's ladder".

28:22 - "of all that you give me I will give you a tenth." - Is this the origin of tithing?

29:8 -“We can’t,” they replied, “until all the flocks are gathered and the stone has been rolled away from the mouth of the well. Then we will water the sheep.” - This immediately reminded me of Jesus' tomb, and I think there are enough symbolic similarities here that it classifies as official foreshadowing rather than just a coincidence. Jesus is often referred to as a shepherd who cares for his flocks. Only when Jesus rose from the dead (which was only discovered when the stone was rolled away from the tomb) were we saved; only then could the flocks be watered and cared for.

Chapters 29 and 30 - The Bible really is sexist. Rachel and Leah appear to be in a jealous sibling rivalry competition for who can bear the most children, and that's all they long for in life. Child rearing is portrayed as the sole purpose of women. However, this was just the culture of the time, in almost all parts of the world, including the parts described here. The Bible never specifically says that this is good, it says that this is the way it was, and this is what happened. Most of the Old Testament is telling a story, and those stories tell messages which have implications for us. But it doesn't mean that everything which happens in those stories was good.

32:22-31 - Also too long to post, but essentially Jacob just has a random wrestling match with "a man", implied to be God, in which he injures his hip. I'm not sure why that was thrown in there, because it doesn't seem to tie in to anything else that was going on. My only theory is that perhaps this is figurative, that "wrestling with God" means he is disconcerted about something (probably his looming reunion with his brother) and grappling with his inner thoughts, consulting God about what to do.

Chapter 34 - I found it interesting that Simon and Levi killed all the Sechemites, rather than just the leader, after the leader violated their sister Dinah. Didn't Abraham implore God to spare the righteous and only punish the guilty? So then why are these supposed protagonists, who were supposedly acting in the right, kill everyone instead of just the man responsible?

38:24 - "About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.”Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!” - Whoa now. Remember when I said the Bible was pretty sexist? Well, here's another example. It's ridiculous that Judah can sleep with a prostitute without problem, but that women ought to be burned to death for selling themselves!

42:22 - "Reuben replied, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood.” - This was a reference to much earlier in the book, from yesterday's reading, where God said to Noah after the flood that there will be an accounting for every man's blood. I quoted it yesterday, I believe, so I just took note of the reference. Clearly, God's message was passed down a few generations to Reuben.

45:5 - "And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you." - This struck me as interesting, because it adopts a consequentialist moral framework. Joseph views it as Gods will that lives be saved, that the total number of people who die be minimized whether or not he was the one who killed them, rather than concerning himself merely with actions themselves. I have a post coming up about this in my other blog, but essentially this is just early evidence of God's plan. Joseph remained true to God even after he was sold into slavery, and slandered by the Pharaoh's wife, and thrown in prison for over two years, and as a result not only did he become wealthy and powerful and receive a personal reward, but he had the reward of saving thousands of lives and being reunited with his brothers and family. Joseph's story is a reminder to us that even in our darkest days, when we are despairing because things are going poorly, we should have faith that God has a plan for us and remain faithful to Him.

Genesis 2 - Genesis 24

Covered lots of famous and hugely important stories today in a mere 24 pages, from Adam and Eve to Cain and Abel to Noah to the Tower of Babel to Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot, Isaac, Rebekah and Ishmael. As such, I suspect this entry will be longer than most days' readings. I'll break down my thoughts as they arose, citing scripture (in italics) when necessary to provide context for my thoughts. Naturally, all quotes come from Genesis, so I'll just denote Chapter:Verse.

2:3 - "Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done." It's kind of amazing to think that this one sentence has formed the calendar and workweek as we know it for centuries. I noted that it doesn't yet include instructions, however. Perhaps that's coming (like in the ten commandments), but as of yet just because God rested on the seventh day doesn't mean we have to. After all, the work we're doing is a lot less tiring than the work he was doing!

3:1 - "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?" - Today, this isn't the case - scientifically, snakes are no more intelligent than other animals. Dogs, pigs, and dolphins are thought to be among the most intelligent, if memory serves. But then again, crafty isn't quite synonymous with intelligent, and the text implies that it was really the Devil working through the serpent anyway, so I don't see much of a contradiction here. As for the snake actually speaking, very often in the Bible I interpret "speaking" to just mean "communicated" - you can speak to others and get your point across without necessarily using verbal language. The snake could have just tempted Eve by reminding her of the tree in some way; what was "said" could just be her inner monologue, which was inspired when the snake somehow jogged her memory. Or, maybe the snake just literally spoke to her - it's God's world, he can have talking snakes if he wants them!

3:8 - "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden." - I don't think this necessarily means a humanoid God actually taking a stroll through the forest; it could just be a simile for his presence, and the fact that Adam and Even tried (in vain) to hide from that all-knowing presence.

3:16 - "And your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." - That's the origin of women being subservient to men, I suppose, although there are plenty of other instances of that in the book. I do not believe women should be subservient to men, or that men should rule over men. But I would note that this, also, is not phrased as a commandment. Man is not commanded to rule over woman. Rather, it is phrased as a prediction, or the reading of a verdict stating what will happen. God tells us what shall be, not necessarily what should be. That is a critical difference for those who would interpret this passage to mean that women must be subservient to men just because of original sin.

3:19 - "you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." - This reminded me of Buddhism, regarding the cyclical nature of life and how things return to the state they used to be. Overlap among religions is something I will be talking about a lot on this blog.

1:26 - "Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,'"

3:22 - "And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."

11:7 - " Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” - I took note of the repeated use of the first person plural pronouns of "us" and "our" here, as if to suggest that the God which was speaking was only one of many Gods in whose likeness and image mankind was being made. Indeed, the footnotes tell me that for the first quote, the Hebrew word Elohim was employed, which was in the plural form. I'm not sure what this means. Christianity is supposed to be monotheistic, but here it is suggesting multiple Gods. Why? Also, I thought God's (or the Gods'...) fear that man would become too much "like us" by living forever tied in nicely with the binary of divine immortal perfection and  humble mortal fallibility I described in my "Core Essence of Religion" post the other day.

4:7 - "if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it." - I just found this to be another example where figurative language is clearly used in Genesis. Obviously, it is not to be understood that sin was actually crouching, in the literal sense of the verb, at his door. It just means that it was tempting him and nearby, trying to get him.

4:9 - " Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” - I almost laughed at this, because what I see here is the first kid who ever talked back to his parents! "Am I my brother's keeper?" is clearly a rhetorical question; he's not genuinely wondering if he his, he's trying to illustrate that it's not his job to protect his brother or know of his whereabouts. He's giving God some Biblical backsass!

4:17 - "Cain made love to his wife..." - whoa whoa whoa, where did she come from? So far we've only been introduced to four characters: Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel. It never said that Eve had a daughter. If she did, then Cain must have married his sister, and if she didn't, than Cain must have married his mother! Either way, it supports the notion of incest as acceptable (although, understandably more acceptable when there are no other options and an entire race of people needs to form from you!)

5:3 - "Adam had lived 130 years" - Let the string of incredibly long lifespans begin. People who live for 900 years may make modern audiences raise a doubtful eyebrow, but I say why not? Technically, there's nothing impossible about it. Biologists don't recognize "old age" as a cause of death - it's always just that your age weakens your immune system so that you get sick, or that certain body parts just give out and you die from organ failure or something. But thousands of years ago, we have no idea how the human body functioned, what it could endure, what people ate or what ecosystems could sustain. If humanity's average height can increase in just a century, I don't see why big changes in lifespan couldn't happen alongside it. And besides, it was only temporary, because...

6:3 - "Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with[a] humans forever, for they are mortal[b]; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.” - That's almost exactly the maximum observed age of living humans today, so this is an impressively accurate restriction for a document that's thousands of years old. However, then it says in Genesis 11:11 that Shem lived to be 500 after that decree, and eventually Abraham would live to 175, so that might be a contradiction. Maybe He was just referring to the days of most people, but he made exceptions for people who were either grandfathered in to the old lifespans or who were really important like Abraham? I dunno.

6:19 - "You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you." - Seems to contradict with...

7:2 - "Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate" - So which is it, 1 pair or 7 pairs? Also, this is the first time I recognized the recurrence of the number 7:

1. It was on the 7th day that God rested. (Genesis 2:3)
2. God commands that Noah take 7 pairs of every kind of animal, and 7 pairs of every kind of bird (Genesis 7:2)
3. God tells Noah that the rains will come 7 days from now (Genesis 7:4)
4. The floods ended on the 17th day of the 7th month of Noah's 600th year (Genesis 8:4)
5. After the first time, Noah waited 7 more days before sending out the dove a second time. (Genesis 8:10)
6. When the dove returned with the olive leaf, Noah waited 7 more days before sending it out again. (Genesis 8:12)
7. When Abraham is forming the Treaty at Beersheba with Abimelek, he sets aside 7 ewe lambs from the flock. (Genesis 21:28)

I'll add to this list as more instances of the number 7 arise. I'll do the same for the number 40, which is another significant Biblical figure

1. It rains for 40 days and 40 nights during the great flood. (Genesis 7:4)

9:2-3 - "The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything." - This, along with Genesis 1:26-30, are often cited as the reason it is okay humans kill and eat animals. Which is perfectly fine with a meat lover like me!

9:4 - “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it." - We can't eat things alive. Got it.

9:5-6 - "And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind." - A political nerd like me noted that this seems to be the first instance of the right to life being enumerated. People are accountable for not taking the life of other people. And the last bit reminded me of Islam, with the whole "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" thing.

9:13-17 - "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth. 17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.” - Sometimes, God needs twice as many reminders. Thank God for that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI

10:21 - Apparently, the sons of Noah's son Shem were referred to as "Semites." Is that the origin of the term? If so, I never knew that, and found it interesting.

14:23 - "I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.’" - Origin of Republican adversity to welfare, perhaps? lol. But seriously, the virtue of self reliance does seem to be stressed here.

18:23-33 - This is too long to copy and paste, but it's basically the whole back and forth between Abraham and God involving the countdown from 50 righteous people to 10 righteous people, where Abraham asks God to spare the good people in Sodom and not to give them the same fate as all the rest, and God complies. Early evidence that despite his harsh Old Testament reputation, God was just and sympathetic all the while.

Chapters 18 and 19 - both of these chapters stress hospitality as a virtue, both by Abraham and Lot. This would be passed down for millennium, especially in the Islam world.

19:5-8 - "They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them. 6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” - Since this happened in Sodom (the root word of Sodomy) and is the first mention of gay sex, I presume this is the origin of the Christian objection to homosexuality. If so, and if this is the only instance, I'm unpersuaded by that argument, because it never says that homosexuality itself is what was wicked. In context, Lot had just allowed three strangers into his home, and now a crowd of locals was gathering to rape them! The rape is what was wicked, far more wicked than the homosexuality of it. He asks them to not do anything to these men, not because they are men, but because "they have come under the protection of my roof", so he has a responsibility has a host to protect his guests.

19:26 - "But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt." - I've always found this to be one of the most odd, obscure, and actually kind of funny Old Testament punishments. I understand that she was punished for disobeying God's orders to not look back, but why a pillar of salt? The only reason I can come up with is that Sodom was located in the "Valley of Siddim (or the Salt Sea)", which is what they called the Dead Sea since it has so much salt in it. The element Sodium also sounds like Sodom, so there must be some connection in Hebrew between Sodom and salt.

20:3 - "But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.” - This is the first official confirmation in the Bible that taking another's wife is immoral (although it was hinted by the Pharaoh in Genesis 12).

23:8-16 - Again this is too long to post, but this back-and-forth negotiating of the price that Abraham would or wouldn't pay for Sarah's tomb reminded me of the generosity dance that we often do with our friends over who pays for something, just to be polite and make the offer.

Chapter 24 told the story of Rebekah and the water jars. Honestly, I don't think that's a bad method for anybody to find a wife! See who's kindest when they're not expecting anything in return!

24:22 - "When the camels had finished drinking, the man took out a gold nose ring weighing a beka" - a nose ring, huh? I had no idea the tattooed cashier at my local shopping mall was making a religious statement rather than a fashion one.

Genesis 1

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use...The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go." - Galileo, in a letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

I'd hoped to get in the swing of things a bit before expressing too many of my baldfaced opinions, but today I realized that would be impossible. Genesis 1 is certainly one of those parts of the Bible that I've read before, certainly a controversial one, and certainly one I've developed opinions on before today. So this first post will pretty much just be an editorial.

The first thing that comes to mind regarding Genesis 1 in modern discourse is the creationism vs. evolution debate. The second thing that comes to mind is the new earth vs. old earth debate. I've had opinions on these issues long before today's reading, and I'll articulate them here. These opinions also have huge implications for how I will be reading and interpreting the Bible, so I guess it's good to get this out in the open now.

It is not possible to prove any opinion on these matters without making assumptions that the opposing party would object to. Scientifically, proving the age of the earth requires the assumption that the laws of nature as they apply now, also applied in the same manner billions of years ago. There are also some discrepancies in some of the tests, such that the same piece of matter will be deemed far older by one scientific test than another. On the opposite side of the coin, proving anything using the Bible requires the assumption that the Bible is anything more than the fairy-tale myths of ignorant shepherds who lived thousands of years ago. And there are dozens of discrepancies and contradictions in the Bible as well. Some of these contradictions I will address in future posts, but even Genesis itself has a serious contradiction in it's first two chapters, which I'll address later. So proving either opinion is not yet possible.

(I'd contend that it is impossible to truly know that anything is true, but that we can believe things without knowing them. We can only have different degrees of belief, because pretty much all knowledge requires some basic assumptions. However, if our degree of certainty on a belief is sufficiently high, we may refer to this belief as something we "know" in common, everyday language. Determining where that bar of "sufficient certainty" lies can be a very subjective, dicey matter. But I digress...)

On issues where a proof is not possible, we ought to believe whatever possibility has the most evidence in its favor. To me, it seems that an overwhelming amount of evidence points towards evolution being a perfectly valid, reasonable, substantiated, and likely possibility. And it also seems to me than an overwhelming amount of evidence suggests that the earth is far, far older than 6,000 years. Fossils, radioactive dating, astronomy, biology, geology, and tons of other scientific methods provide several independent lines of evidence that the earth is millions if not billions of years old. This evidence is the same sort of evidence scientists use to make hundreds of important, uncontested conclusions in fields like healthcare, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, or energy policy, conclusions which advance our knowledge and better our lives. I see no logical secular reason why anybody would object to this evidence. But thousands of people do anyway. Why is that?

The reason is what we refer to in the formal logic world as "a priori axiom." That is, people have decided what is true before they are confronted with the evidence, such that they will only accept information which is compatible with that presumed truth. Christians worldwide have adopted the worldview that every verse of the translated English Bible should be understood according to it's literal modern interpretation, a priori axiom, even though it written thousands of years ago, in a different language, in an entirely different context. It is a worldview that I believe to be errant, self-contradictory, and illogical. And because it is illogical, I believe it is a worldview that must be abandoned if the church is to survive and God's real word is to be spread.

Those who point to gaps in the fossil record or the inexact nature of radiometric dating as evidence that centuries of scientific study and mountains of research are entirely false are doing themselves a disservice. The pretend that just because no living human ever observed the Big Bang, or observed macro-evolution in action, and it is impossible to prove those things objectively, that one should not believe those things. But in doing so they discredit their own faith, because no living human has ever observed the birth of Jesus Christ or Noah's Ark, either, and nor can those things be proven. They hold the scientific world to a higher standard of knowledge than they apply to themselves, and in so doing encourage others to discredit Christianity as hypocritical.

500 years ago, a similar debate was happening between the Church in Rome and men like Copernicus and Galileo. For over a millenium, the church had adopted the geocentric astronomic model of Ptolemy, which said that the sun, moon, stars and planets all revolved around the Earth. They accepted this model because it seemed compatible with a literal interpretation of the Bible: Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30 all read "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." But when men like Copernicus and Galileo math, a telescope, and years of careful study to show that this probably wasn't the case, they were ostracized, censored, and arrested. Others were even killed for saying so. It took the Catholic Church until 1757 to suspend its ban on heliocentric writings (including those of the great Isaac Newton), and they only relented because it had been essentially proven. Today Christians all over the world know for a fact that the earth does, in fact move, both by rotating on its axis and by revolving around the sun. The verses which said it could not be moved are now understood figuratively, such that the world is eternal, or that it cannot be moved by a mere human, or that what God has done cannot be changed, etc.

Furthermore, a literal interpretation of Genesis would be wrought with contradictions. In Genesis 1, it says that three days, evenings, and mornings passed before the sun, moon, and stars were formed, but the sun, as our only source of light, is a necessary prerequisite to the existence of morning, day and light! Genesis 1 also says that the plants and animals were created before man and woman, and that man and woman were created on the same day. But in Genesis 2, according to the Yahwist tradition, it says that Adam was created before the plants and the animals, and that woman was created after that. Of all the parts of the Bible for fundamentalist Christians to take a stand on a literal interpretation of the text, you'd think they'd pick text that isn't contradicted by itself (under a literal interpretation) within two pages.

So what's wrong with a figurative interpretation of Genesis 1? Why can't God saying "let there be light" be equivalent to God setting off a Big Bang that created the sun and gave us light? Why can't God "separating the light from the darkness" be understood to mean "God created gravity, such that the earth would revolve around the sun and rotate on its axis so that half the time we'd be in light, and half the time we'd be in darkness?" And why can't the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh "day" be viewed as a means of explaining to man, even early Christians who could not have understood complex evolutionary science or mind-boggling numbers of years, the order in which things were created, rather than the duration of time it took to do so? What is so heretical about the idea that just because God created the earth, animals, birds, fish, trees, and humans doesn't mean he created those things in their present form? Genesis 1:22 says "God told the creatures "be fruitful and increase in number, and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase in the earth", and that he did this before he created man. So why can't his creation of mankind on the sixth day mean that on the sixth day, he set in motion the process by which man, in its present form, would eventually arise? That he created the laws of nature and the universe which he knew would go on to form humans through him?

Something you'll hear me say constantly on this blog is that "science provides the how; religion provides the why." The book of Genesis was written to tell us why the earth was created - because God decided that it be so. I do not believe it was written to tell us how, by what means, God formed that earth. It is neither a specific timeline of how long it took for everything we see today to take it's current shape, nor a detailed play-by-play of the tools God employed during that time. Rather, it is a simplified and concise account of what God has done, and a reminder that all things which happen on Earth ultimately stem from Him.

Living the Word

Okay, I lied...one more post before I begin :) The two entries I just posted came from a special I did on another blog called "Religion Week", where I wrote exclusively about religion for an entire week. Since the blog is usually political and philosophical, I began by discussing politicized religious issues like abortion, homosexuality, and the teaching of evolution. Then I analyzed several atheist videos I'd found online in order to debunk what I viewed as logical fallacies or historical inaccuracies therein. And finally, I concluded with those two posts to express my thoughts on what God is, rather than what God isn't. I was proud of the depth of thought included in the weeks writings, and contentedly moved on to other topics.

That was almost exactly one year ago. Over that time, I've gone to church often, prayed often, and had several more "God moments". But what I haven't done is make a consistent effort to apply God's messages. My religion week touched on deeper subjects than most Christians ever consider, but it fell short in the sense that I didn't keep thinking those things, and didn't remind myself to act accordingly in my daily life. On a blog that dealt mostly with politics, I treated religion the same as I'd treat any of my political opinions: a controversial issue that you could have "all figured out", express your thoughts, and then move on to the next thing.

But that's not what being a Christian is about. On issues like "how high should taxes be?" or "should marijuana be legal?", that approach works. You can express your opinion, and then once you've gotten it off your chest, you're done. The holder of a belief as comparably trivial as a political opinion has no further responsibility for action once his position has been articulated. But with faith, you can't just say it; you have to live it. Christianity isn't just an opinion, it's a way of life. It isn't just a series of premises that you either accept or reject as you would an argument in a formal debate, but rather a way of thinking, a foundation upon which all your other thoughts should build off of. My blog posts tried to address it as a "one and done" deal, instead of a lifelong process. Even though I stand by the content of those posts, my approach was off the mark.

When I was on my mission trip in Guatemala, lots of the people there would ask me to share my "testimonial". "When did you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord?" they'd ask. "When were you saved?" I wouldn't know how to answer those questions, because that's not the perspective I'm used to. To some people, God reveals himself all at once in a dramatic, sudden, life-altering epiphany. But I don't think that's the case for most Christians. It certainly wasn't for me. To me, discovering God, understanding his Word, and accepting the fundamental tenets of our faith was a much more gradual process. I can't cite a specific date, or even a specific year, where it all just suddenly clicked. My testimony wasn't much of a story, because it lacked a plot! And although there are absolutely many times when I'm just in awe of God's vast universe, I'm hesitant to place too much retroactive significance on those moments just so I can tell the world that THAT, definitively, was THE MOMENT that I was saved.

The point is, your understanding of God never stops growing, and your faith never stops deepening. To pick any one particular unit of growth as the one in which you're "sufficiently Christian" is kind of silly to me. Belief doesn't have to be absolute, it can come in degrees. When I posted my series of religion blogs last year, I tried to lay out my faith as a set of absolute opinions, rather than as an ever-growing perspective that I would add to with daily practice. And when born-again Christians ask fellow believers to tell a story about "how" they were saved, they put undo pressure on people to retroactively remember things differently than they actually were, or to condense the complex conclusions derived from many years of prayer and rumination into a neat, easily explainable story line of events.

How does this relate to the book I'll start reading tomorrow? I suppose it's just a rather long, roundabout way of explaining my approach to this project. God hasn't communicated his message to me in grand epiphanies before, and although anything is possible, I don't expect him to do so now. Whatever I learn from  this beautiful book may not always be clear as soon as I've finished - it may take awhile to sink in. It may require a second or third reading to fully understand, and I may understand it only in degrees, rather than all at once. There may be some days when I'm too tired, distracted, or preoccupied to fully hear what God's trying to tell me at that moment. I'm only human. Similarly, the opinions I express in the immediate aftermath of my reading may not be the same as the opinions I wind up with several years from now. When I'm all finished, I may not be as inspired and clearheaded as I'd imagined I'd be when I decided to take on the project. I may be confused or conflicted. I have no idea what awaits me, so I'm not going to set out some mold that I have to fit beforehand. All I can do is read it, think about it, and then live it. The rest is up to God.

God Moments

Although I said last night's post would be the last of the religion week, in reading it over again I feel it was lacking something. It was a very deep, with long words and complicated sentence structure. Some readers may have enjoyed that style, but there are perhaps more effective ways to convey God's beauty and majesty.  Emotion and feeling can be just as powerful a means of knowing as can reason and logic. So rather than trying to use high brow language to dissect the meaning of the "mystic emotion", I'll instead try to convey that emotion.

I'd like you to look out your window right now. I know not what you see, but when I do it I see my front yard. Every day I pass by that front yard without giving it a second glance. I don't stop to notice the millions of leaves on the trees lining my road, or the billions of blades of grass in my yard and my neighbors yards. I don't notice the worms, flies, insects, bugs, squirrels, rabbits, or other animals which inhabit those lawns. Each of those leaves, grass, and organisms are broken down even further into parts, which are broken into cells, which are broken into atoms. There is a specific organization, an immaculate order, to everything. Even the non-living things are fascinatingly intricate. The pavement on my driveway consists of bits and pieces of thousands of rocks from all over the world. The clouds above have trillions of little water droplets, each with innumerable little hydrogen and oxygen atoms. There is more that exists in your field of vision each time you casually glance out the window than you could ever fully appreciate if you studied it for a million years. Turn your gaze inwards, and examine each and every object in your house, each specially crafted tool for any purpose. You'll find you have matter from all over the world, which wound up in your dwelling through an enormously complex sequence of events. And this is just in and around your house. Now think of all the places you've been in your life, and all the things you've ever seen, and multiply this quantity by that figure. And this is just sight! Think of every song you've ever heard, and know that each was produced by many specially and intricately crafted instruments, with many musicians with many hours of training. Every bird you've ever heard chirp, every tiny, unnoticed rumble of the refrigerator. Why stop at sound? Ponder every smell, or taste, sensation on your skin that you've ever sensed in the entirety of your life. Ponder, if you can, the summation of every component of anything you have ever perceived. This is an incalculable, infinite sum, yet this figure is infinitesimal when compared to all of existence! You are but one of over 6 billion people on earth right now, each with an equally immense perception (depending on their age). Speaking of age, this counts only those humans who are presently alive, to say nothing of every human that has ever lived. Time is infinite. And why stop with humans? Each animal, going back to the beginnings of the earth, has seen and heard and smelled and felt an equally long list of other things. The beginning of the earth was at least 4 and a half billion years ago. Each of those years had 365.2422 days, each day had 24 hours which had 60 minutes which had 60 seconds, and in each of these seconds there was an infinitely larger existence than you could ever possibly perceive in a lifetime. And why stop at Earth? The earth is only 1/9th of the planets in this one solar system, which is a millionth at most of all the solar systems in the galaxy, which is another millionth at most of all the galaxies in the universe, and scientists are beginning to suspect alternate universes. Space, like time, is infinite. Even these simple scientific rules that we humans claim to be able to understand, when placed in context, are utterly baffling in magnitude. It is futile to even attempt to wrap ones mind around all which has ever existed or will exist.

I began that lengthy paragraph trying to convey an emotion, or a feeling. When faced with the above realizations, what feelings do we have? Awe, certainly. Wonder. Amazement. Perhaps fear. But mostly, I feel humility. I feel humble because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I am an infinitely small and insignificant part of existence. I know that every other human who has lived or ever will live is too. I know there exists that which is greater than I, that which is beyond my wildest comprehension, that which is superior to human value and beyond human capabilities. I know there exists that which is superior to mere mortals. I know, in other words, that there is a God.

That emotion is what gives me my faith, and I am overpowered by this emotion when I hear a beautiful song, see a beautiful photo or landscape, or am by myself under under the stars late at night. I call these God Moments, and whenever I have them I'll try to post whatever prompted it on the blog.

My Thoughts on the Core Essence of Religion and Christianity

"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible." - Albert Einstein

I've spent a lot of time this week staving off attacks on Christianity and religion in general; in other words, writing about what God is not. So to close out my Religion Week, I'd like to instead talk about what God is. Since the end of the world did not arrive yesterday, I suppose it's time for all those nut-jobs to reconsider their religious beliefs. And one question they, or anybody who is doing some religious soul searching and deep contemplation on religious issues, might ask is "What is God? Yeah yeah, I know, he's the creator of Earth and the universe, and he gave his only son to save us from our sin, I've heard all that Christian mumbo jumbo a thousand times. But what does that mean? What does he, or she, or it, consist of?

I too have wondered this. And as a devout Christian, I have never been more sure about any other question. I haven't the faintest idea.

It is with utter certainty that I confess my uncertainty. I have pondered God and religion for hours and hours and hours, and all of my thought on these subjects has led only to one simple conclusion: I do not possess the mental capacity to comprehend them. I cannot fathom a form of being which lacks matter, time, and location. The entirety of my brief window of consciousness has been spent in an existence which abides by these unchanging rules; it is impossible for any of my senses to perceive, for my mind to contemplate, that which exists beyond those constraints. No amount of logic or faith, scientific study or bible study, could grant me this ability. And while I have never entered the mind of another, I don't think any human could have possessed, can possess, or will be able to possess this power either. Even the words we think and write are an entirely human creation, each one describing human ideas, human emotions, human sensations. Communicable language can only describe concepts which are perceivable to those who are communicating. How, then, can we possibly use words to describe that which is beyond our perception?

“Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends.” - Albert Einstein

Yet I am a Christian. If I cannot fathom God, one might ask, why do I worship him? Well, for precisely that reason. If I could truly and wholly comprehend the nature of existence itself, there would be nothing that existed beyond my comprehension. If I possessed infinite knowledge, nothing would be beyond my reach, because nothing is beyond infinity. I would have no shortcomings. But I do have shortcomings. I don't know everything. I get confused. Not only that, I am a sinner. I am mortal. I cannot describe God in words. But I can think of one word which I feel best describes the core essence of my faith. That word is humility. And recognizing the disparity between what I am and perfection is the most humbling revelation imaginable.

Humility, in the religious sense, has two connotations. The first is simply putting others before oneself. This is the most basic, fundamental, and universal moral precept of nearly all the worlds religions. The Golden Rule--treat others as you would like to be treated--is found not only in the Bible but also in the Torah, Quran, and most other major religious texts. Genuine selflessness is venerated by every culture on earth: this is a human value, not specific to any religion, and I find that heart-warming. It gives one hope for the future of humanity.

But that moral compass is shared even by many atheists. The most noteworthy aspect of humility in our quest for the core essence of religion is not found in our interactions with other people, but in our interactions with God. At the pulpit, preachers beseech us to seek forgiveness for our sins, and refer to humility as it relates to recognizing our moral shortcomings. This is wise, for we sin, but we must also have humility in recognizing our intellectual shortcomings. Humility is the opposite of vanity, and it would be vain, nay, brazenly arrogant, to assert that we possess the mental might to comprehend all of existence. We must recognize that we are not only morally bereft, but intellectually inadequate. We must concede the existence of that which our puny monkey brains cannot comprehend, that which is superior to us.

“The scientists’ religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.” - Albert Einstein

“Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.” - Albert Einstein

This recognition establishes a binary. On one side of this binary is imperfection, sin, ignorance, mortality. This side we associate with ourselves, with humanity. On the other side is perfection. Divinity. Undying, eternal, all-knowingness. That which this side is associated with, I call God. Due to my own mental inadequacies, I cannot pretend to understand God or God's nature. But my brain is powerful enough to recognize those shortcomings, and identify what lies beyond its own limits.

 “The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books—-a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.” - Albert Einstein

What then, convinces me that no other human is capable of comprehending God? Merely that one of the smartest men of all time couldn't do it either. And because he was smarter than I am, he could explain this concept of religion much more succinctly and effectively than I can. It is for this reason that I've utilized some of his explanations above.

The reader may have wondered why I opened the post with another of his quotes. I waited until now to get back to that, because I hope the above will help the reader better understand the context of that line. If the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it's comprehensible, then the most comprehensible thing about the universe is that it's (at least partially) incomprehensible. Which makes those parts which are beyond our comprehension worthy of wonder. Einstein referred to these moment of awestruck admiration as "the mystic emotion"; I call them "God moments".

“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.” - Albert Einstein

“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling” - Albert Einstein

Thus, Einstein explains, as best as it can be explained, the core essence of religion in general. But my title also spoke of Christianity, specifically,  andisn't there a lot more to Christianity than that? What of Christ? What of the Bible? Where does that come in? I am a Christian because I believe Christ was the fusion of the two sides of our binary, the window through which we can see God. Christ was perfect, yet born in humble circumstances. Immortal, yet he once died. Divine, yet human. He was the one and only exception to the rule, a perfect human, which makes him the ultimate role model. His divinity is unattainable for us, and yet we must strive for it even though we know we will fall short. We must accept that the world is not perfect even as we try to create a more perfect world.

What of creation? If God is perfect, and God created the world, then how is the world imperfect? Again, I cannot claim to know the "reasons" or "motivations" behind God's "actions", if such narrow human concepts can even apply to God's workings. But in a way, isn't our world actually made perfect by it's imperfection? A "perfect" world, as most would imagine it, free from all suffering or conflict or trouble, would actually be an awfully boring place to live. Pleasure would be devalued if pain did not exist, and if there exists no ugliness than beauty does not appear so radiant. Our binary resurfaces everywhere. No human could even imagine a world as perfect as the one we live in, complete with all the hardships it contains. It is perfectly imperfect, or imperfectly perfect, or...whatever (it is possible to overthink these things!).

What of an afterlife? Again, I don't pretend to know what, specifically, awaits me. But I do not expect a naked baby angel playing a harp on a cloud with a golden gate. I speculate that whatever existence awaits me (or my soul, or however you define my identity) after death is one equally incomprehensible to human minds as is the nature of God itself. And if there is some sort of afterlife admissions office, I reject the notion that I can now, with my limited human perspective and knowledge, identify who "gets in" and who doesn't.

I will close this post with one final quote from the genius it has centered around. I started off searching for the core essence of religion, but Einstein gave a better definition of it than I could ever articulate:

“The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men."

Procedure, Bible Version, and Other Details

Okay, so here’s how this is going to work. Regarding the subject matter of my blogs, they will include pretty much anything that comes into my mind while reading. Because I’m used to thinking about modern religious issues, the material will probably extend to current day applications of what the text, rather than just the text itself. The title of this blog, "the meditation of my heart", comes from Psalm 19:14, which reads, "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer." I ask that of God regarding this blog, which will not shy away from addressing these important and controversial issues. As with all such issues, the answers are sometimes not clear cut, and will require a subjective interpretation. Just because the Bible is an important and authoritative text doesn't mean everyone agrees on that interpretation, it's meaning, or its practical implications on our lives. That means I have to express opinions on those matters which may offend some readers who disagree. In such cases, or any time you'd like to chime in, I invite you to leave a comment. I would be happy to reply as soon as I see it.

Regarding my religious beliefs as they stand now, I would classify myself as a Lutheran, but that’s not very descriptive of what I really feel. I’m also not completely attached to that title; that denomination could change. Later tonight, I will post a couple of my old blogs on religion to get you caught up on my views as I’ve articulated them most recently.

Regarding the version of the Bible I’ll be reading, I've chosen the New International Version for two main reasons. Firstly, it is one of the two bibles my family owns. Secondly, it is viewed as a good blend of accuracy and readability. On most charts it is smack in the middle between the "word for word" translations (like the King James Version) and the more "dynamic" modern English Versions (like the Good News Bible). Specifically, it’s classified mostly as a "thought for thought" translation that both keeps the original meaning and also expresses that meaning in the language of the times. When I take out specific, important passages for examination, I will consult the King James for more exact word order and more traditional scholarly perspectives.

Regarding my timeline, I've mapped out my summer, and subtracted days which I'm not sure I'll have time to read due to an exchange program to Germany, and discovered that I have about 55 days in which to accomplish my goal. The New International Version I’m using is 1284 pages long, which means I’ll need to read about 24 pages a day (or one page an hour, coincidentally) to finish the Bible before the summer ends. That seems a reasonable pace to both finish on time and leave time to think about the text I read as I read it. Right now, I plan to do my reading and blog posts in the morning, but that could change based on my daily schedule (and discipline at waking up!) If I miss a day, I can always just read double the next day.

That’s all for now – I’ll repost my religion blogs from last year soon, and then tomorrow it’s time to start!