~~~~~~~~~~~

The writer’s impulse, when an occasion comes to pass which begs for words, is to do what we do: write.

Since Friday’s devastation in Paris, I have white-knuckle-tamped it down.

I have tamped that impulse down, despite my heart aching, my amygdala firing, my fingers itching to type.

I forced myself to wait, to honor the horror, the panic, the unclarity.

I needed to grasp the magnitude of the recent terror.

So I read, and watched, and walked, and wept at all of the blood: France, Turkey, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia.

(Good God, there’s even a wiki page dedicated to listing terrorist attacks in just 2015! Just 2015!)

To learn and listen, I leaned my attention into political and religious and military perspectives.

This morning, though, I heard the voice that was missing in my store of reflective sources: the voice of an anthropologist.

It dawned on me, as I was listening to Dr. Scott Atran, an American and Frenchman, that in these inhumane times, it was right and good to sit at the feet of an anthropo-logist: anthropos is the Greek word for ‘human.’

Dr. Atran is no newbie or outlier to the study of terrorism: in fact, he just recently published a well-reviewed book entitled Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)making of Terrorists. He’s been on the University of Michigan faculty, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, France’s Center for Scientific Research, the Ford School of Public Policy, and a consultant to the UN Security Council.

No slouch.

You know what this anthropo-logist does?

He anthropologizes, he makes human, the terrorists.

He studies all that might compel someone to strap on a suicide vest, to bombard innocents with bullets, to strike contagious fear into the entire world.

Of all of Dr. Atran’s insights, here’s what grabbed me most: he maintains that these terroristic attacks are really, at root, not born out of religious fervor.

Islamic extremists?

Not the point.

Dr. Atran (self-described as non-religious) says that the greatest predictor of terroristic action is–get this–whether someone has a close group of friends, or, say, plays team soccer.

Soccer, people.

Most terrorists, he says, are between 18-24, and have had little to no religious training.

When they are taken in by terroristic groups, these young men are, he says, born again, in a manner of speaking, into extremist views.

It’s not the religion that pulls them in though.

It’s about a desire for communal identity and glory. Connection. Friends. Being part of something of import, bigger than they are when they stand alone.

In fact, says Dr. Atran, it’s about familial identity.

I know of no political movement or territorial movement or even transnational movement — that is, no large grouping of human beings that don’t consider themselves in terms of brotherhoods or sisterhoods or fatherlands or homelands or motherlands.

He’s right.

Powerful movements band together, around genetics to be sure, but also around concepts that bind people together as if they were family. Think sorority, fraternity, fraternal organizations (Elks, Masons, Eagles, and so forth): even former incarnations of insurance companies for my denomination (Lutheran Brotherhood)!

When you combine a powerful narrative of family under the notion of monotheism (the idea that there is only one God–a belief held dear by Jews, and Christians, and Muslims), then there can be, Dr. Atran says, a danger of creating powerful and all-inclusive notions of the Evil Other, in order to protect the Good Family tribal identity.

However, make no mistake: he is not bashing monotheistic religions here.

Dr. Atran says that secular groups have the same thing going on in their traditions.

But if you think about it, these secular ideologies, all modern secular ideologies, all the isms: fascism, communism, socialism, anarchism, colonialism, democratic liberalism, are all variants on this monotheistic theme, however secular they are in appearance. They’re salvational Messianic ideologies which believes the world must be saved and should be saved whether they like it or not, and that’s what drives us. (Emphasis mine)

Janine di Giovanni, Newsweek’s Middle East editor, says the same sort of thing, but directly in light of Paris’ decision to lob bombs in Syria as answer for the violence of 11-13.

I think that it’s very complicated, launching airstrikes like this as a retribution, but also as a way of wiping out ISIS…[b]ecause, the other thing is, that you can’t wipe out an ideology. You might be able to suppress them militarily, or you might be able to cut off some of their lines, but you can’t suppress the key message they’re spreading. (Emphasis mine)

Here in the States we are in the throes of election fervor.

Ideologies are palpable these days.

Every candidate, every party, every activist is doing their best to ‘convert’ others to their ideology, their ways of thought, their principles, their policies-in-action.  Our way is right, the other way is bad, wrong, misguided, dangerous, and must be disparaged and beaten (note even the etymology of the word ‘beaten’ here, which ties the root to actual violence).

Fact is, we don’t know what to do with tranquility.  Nobody, for example, goes to movies where there is no strife, no contest, no conflict.  Here’s Dr. Atran again:

In addition to dealing with fear and revenge, there’s something which I like to call sort of the principle of enmity. Human beings are most mobilized when we have enemies. Just look at novels. Look at the news. No one’s interested in happy, good-feeling cooperative things. I mean, people — when they’re tired of war and they’re tired of conflict and competition, then they’ll go back on it. But what really drives interest and passion is competition and conflict.

We’re conflict junkies.

So what are our options, when plain old peace isn’t satisfying, disturbing though that might be?

Dr. Atran asks it this way:

Hermey: Hey, what do you say we both be independent together, huh? 

Rudolph: You wouldn’t mind my – red nose?

Hermey: Not if you don’t mind me being a dentist.

Rudolph: [shaking hands with Hermey] It’s a deal.

I love that line, “What do you say we both be independent together, huh?”

Makes me grin every time I make my family hunker down to watch Rudolf in the Christmas season.  “Independent together!”

Makes me grin every Fourth of July too.

“What do you say we both be independent together, huh?”

Today is Independence Day, a day when US citizens celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the announcement of the separation of the 13 colonies from the British Empire, now bound together as one nation.

We were independent together!

It’s a motif that weaves itself through our country’s history and traditions and self-image: We Built This was a tremendously successful campaign of the Republican Party in 2012, even if built on an out-of-context soundbite offered up by President Obama.

It appealed to a wide swath of the electorate: I don’t need government or anybody else! I have bootstraps, and I’m pulling myself up by them.

I built this! I am independent!

Hermey would have loved this line. Right before the quote above, he tells Rudolph, defiantly: “But I don’t need anybody: I’m…I’m independent!” Rudolph is all in with that noise: he’d just gotten mocked and shunned and may never again see the doe he’ll love forevermore anyway.  As Hermey wasn’t exactly getting the warm fuzzies at the Elf Factory, the two of them bonded together…um, independently.

See, campaign motto aside, we aren’t at all independent. (For starters, somebody else made those bootstraps you’re wearing.)

But more than that, we aren’t made to be independent.

Jewish scholar Martin Buber wrote a stunning book called “I-Thou.” In it, he writes of two different ways of being with another: An “I-It” (or “I-She,” or “I-He”) and an “I-Thou” way of engagement.

In the first mode (I/It [or She or He]), each of us (independently) sees the Other as an object.   The Other is completely separate, is a tool, is an external, is something that serves a purpose for the Self.

In the second mode (I/Thou) we see that our existence is tied to that of the Other’s.  There is a relationship between the I and the Thou, and because of it, something new is created.  Transformation occurs.

In both ways of being in and with the world, the Other can be inanimate (a rock) or another living being (a cow, say. Or a person.)

Buber, of course, wants us to consider leaning into the latter, the I-Thou dynamic.  He famously wrote, “All actual life is encounter.”

This “encountering” notion is key for Buber, because in these encounters with an Other, we open ourselves to encountering God.  Separate Its become intertwined Thous.

When this happens, Buber says, we experience a revelation of God.  We are not meant to be alone, but rather to experience the Other…who, in turn, sees us, encounters us, also as a Thou, and not an It.

Paul, the Jew-become-Christian, understood this concept when he wrote this in 1 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 12:1-31

12Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. ²You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. ³Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. ⁴Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;⁵and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; ⁶and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. ⁷To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ⁸To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

¹²For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.¹³For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.¹⁴Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰As it is, there are many members, yet one body. ²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” ²²On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,²³and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; ²⁴whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, ²⁵that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

²⁷Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. ²⁸And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. ²⁹Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

We have need of each other.  Eyes need heads, and hands, and feet, and even body parts that we don’t mention in polite company (unless you are Julian of Norwich, who not only mentions such places, but gives thanks for them).

Here’s another way of thinking about it.  Last week I got a tipoff about this site: Better Living Through Beowulf.  The link was to this page: No Room in This House for Two “I”s.  The author, Robin Bates, uses this entry to reflect on suicide bombings in Kuwait and shootings in Charleston and grace and shared encounter.

He quotes the Sufi mystic, scholar, and poet Rumi, who wrote the following verse:

A man knocked at the door of his beloved.
“Who are you, trusted one?” thus asked the friend.
He answered: “I!” The friend said: “Go away,
Here is no place for people raw and crude!”
What, then, could cook the raw and rescue him
But separation’s fire and exile’s flame?
The poor man went to travel a whole year
And burned in separation from his friend,
And he matured, was cooked and burnt, returned
And carefully approached the friend’s abode.
He walked around it now in cautious fear
Lest from his lips unfitting words appear.
His friend called out: “Who is there at my door?”
The answer: “You, dear you are at the door!”
He said: “Come in, now, that you are all I—
There is no room in this house for two ‘I’s!”

Reflecting on this poem, Mr. Bates writes:

I am struck by the misery of living in separation. Dylan [sic] Roof and the Isis bomber were rawer and cruder than most, but all who shut themselves against divine love experience suffering….

It is worth adding that people like Dylann and other people prone to inflicting great harm are often isolated.

But Mr. Bates goes on with more hope than he leaves us in those two sentences:

The sectarian hatreds in the Muslim world and the racial hatreds in our own country block entry into the presence of God. Sometimes it seems like we will be always be lost inside our individual fears.  In the face of that despair, however, the president assured us that, with grace, “anything is possible.” Or to borrow from another president speaking at an even darker time, we will enter the house of the beloved once we stop warring against “the better angels of our nature.”

Grace. True enough: it does take grace to live interdependently.

Buber would say that it is grace to live so as well.

And here, just when I thought I was such an independent thinker to come up with the pithy blog title, “Happy Interdependence Day,” I discover that I am hardly the first.  Here’s a great site with more or less the same title, with great ideas to do just that, to live with grace by celebrating our interdependence.

I will put money and (sinful, I’m sure) pride, however, on me being the only one ever to weave together Rudolph, Buber, Rumi, and Paul, with a cameo from Beowulf.

Happy Fourth, all.

1.  I do not believe that people who do not believe in my notion of God–or any other notion, for that matter–are going to hell.

2.  This conviction translates into really, honestly, having no drive to convert anyone to Christianity away from some other framework of belief.

It should also be said that I like being a Christian, I think that there is much to be said for Christianity, and I am not afraid to talk about what I think Christianity is about and what it can offer to the table.

But I have no compulsion whatsoever to “save souls for Jesus.”

I don’t even understand the notion, and frankly it makes me start to hyperventilate.

Suffice it to say that I’ve never been asked to serve on an evangelism committee.

Engage in mutual conversation? Yes.

Engage in conversion for the sake of conversion?

No.

I trust in grace entirely.

And I trust that I may have it wrong.

3.  I do not believe that there is such a thing as an atheist.

The word, in Greek, breaks down to mean no-God: a-theist.  Someone who is an atheist is someone who believes that there is no God.  (An agnostic, then, breaks down to mean “someone who doesn’t know: a-gnosis).

I am in line with Luther and Tillich who believe that a person’s god is that in which or in whom you place your ultimate trust.

That can change, from moment to moment, but generally we all have some guiding principles, the most central belief(s) that shape and inform who we are.  It could even be that our god is ourselves, or our trust in reason, or science, or, to take it a different way, my children, or in yet down another path, an addiction, a relationship for which we’ll sacrifice all things, a pursuit after money or fame, and so forth.

That is: there is nothing innate about the word “God” that necessarily implies something “supernatural.”  In fact, strictly speaking, the notion of a supernatural god is decidedly not Jewish, and therefore not Christian.  It is Greek, however, and that influence undoubtedly shaped the early Church…and everything that came after.

That said, I know that the word has a commonly understood meaning, namely one who does not believe in a specific “supernatural” god who is worshiped through rituals and actions.

I’ll work with that, then.

Even so……

4. The question is less whether god exists, and more which god is it in which you believe?

This is not a minor point.

Often, when I hear people tell me that they don’t believe in God, I ask them what they understand God to be, and it turns out that I don’t believe in that God either.

So before conversation begins about God, in any way, shape, or form, the conversation partners have to have a common working definition about what they are talking about!

Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps, the Pope, and I…we all have very different notions of God.  That shapes what we think about following God.

Often, I’m discovering, those who argue against Christianity argue against a notion of God that many don’t hold anymore: a God who looks awfully Zeusian.  I’m all for indignation, but before I get my undies and innards in a knot, I’d rather make sure that we’re in agreement that we ought to be arguing in the first place, and in the second, that we’re in agreement about what we’re arguing.

Again, even self-identified Christians can’t agree what God means.

5. This is all to say that a Christian is not a Christian is not a Christian.

Regardless of the group being considered  (women, blacks, gays, Muslims….Christians) we run into problems when we speak of  the “them” as a monolithic group.  Not least of all, en masse-speak furthers stereotypes and misrepresentations, and reveals more about the teller’s lack of knowledge and nuance than it reveals about the subject of the teller’s telling.

The same, of course, is true of atheists: i.e., an atheist is not an atheist is not an atheist.

6.  I like atheists.

Not all atheists.  I don’t like all Christians or all Democrats either, for that matter (I do tend to like all my family, thankfully, but you get my point).

But often, atheists pose valid questions, and keep people of other faiths engaged in their claims.

And remember, my husband was killed and my son suffered a traumatic brain injury, a trauma that affected more than just his beautiful brain.

There is reason to raise questions about God.

I get that.

I respect that.

7. Yes, I did say “of other faiths.”

Atheists have faith in their belief system, as do Christians and Muslims and Jews and so on and so forth.

Faith is trust in something that is not provable.  One cannot prove that there is a supernatural God.  One cannot prove that there is not.  One might be able to prove that there was a big bang (though there are different “denominations” of beliefs about that within the scientific community) but one cannot prove what happened immediately prior to it, or how whatever happened was there to have something happen to it in the first place.

They have faith.

_____________________

That’s the background for the intent of this blog, which is really about the rising angry rhetoric from atheist fundamentalists.

Yep.

Religious Fundamentalism is not just for Christians or Muslims anymore.

Atheists got game here too.

Let me throw a couple of links your way, an increasing array of articles written with such vehemence, such vitriol and misunderstanding that I am moved to put a few thoughts to the blog.

http://www.politicususa.com/en/the-second-oldest-profession-lying-for-christ

Note the title, here: “The Second Oldest Profession–Lying for Christ.”

It’s an interesting piece, a glowing review of Bart Ehrman’s recent book Forged.

It’s true that Ehrman is a well-trained biblical scholar.  His M.Div. and Ph.D. are from Princeton, he studied under a premier scholar of Greek, Bruce Metzger, and now he teaches at the University of Chapel Hill in North Carolina.  He has served in the leadership of the Society of Biblical Literature, the reigning professional association for biblical theologians.

All of these facts make it all the stranger that he writes what he does.

For example:

Ehrman provides an example from these early days, the New Testament’s letter to the Ephesians:

• “Fasten the belt of truth around your waist (6:14);
• The gospel as “the word of truth” (1:13);
• The “truth is in Jesus” (4:21);
• “Speak the truth” to your neighbors (4:24-25); and,
• The “fruit of the light” is found in “truth” (5:9);[3]

The problem, after all this truth-talking, is that the author of Ephesians is as dishonest as the day is long. As Ehrman says, it’s ironic that the author of Ephesians is lying about who he is, pretending to be Paul of Tarsus. That he is, in fact, a forger. A liar.

Jeepers.

That’s quite a way to begin a conversation.

The author of the review explicitly calls Christians liars (not to mention the implication that we are prostituting ourselves, following on the heels of the fabled “oldest” profession in the world), and the author of the book, Ehrman, calls the author of Ephesians a forger and a liar.

There are a number of ways to go about responding.  I’m not interested in doing a point-by-point refutation, but I do think it’s worth noting that not all biblical scholars believe that Ephesians is pseudographical (namely written by one person in the name of another) and in noting that many believe that what to us, now, smacks as plagiarism was then a form of honoring a teacher.  You can read a bit more about both claims here:

http://bible.org/seriespage/ephesians-introduction-argument-and-outline

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/vox/vol01/pseudepigrapha_guthrie.pdf

These are but two online links (volumes about this matter have been written, not that one would know that to read Ehrman) to discover information that points out that it’s hardly as simply as forgery and lying…and scholar Ehrman ought to know better than to suggest that it is.  Ironically, his blithe dismissal of an extended conversation in the world of biblical scholarship suggests his own proclivity to telling untruths.

(I’m not the only one who is concerned about Ehrman’s approach.  Here’s just one person who has similar objections: http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/review_of_bart_d_ehrmans_misqu.html)

But Christians are not only called liars amongst atheist extremists, but hypocrites who “cherry pick” our own beliefs.

Take a look here:

http://www.alternet.org/story/152210/progressive_religious_believers’_big_hypocrisy:_cherry-picking_the_parts_of_religion_they_like_and_ditching_the_rest?page=entire

This author directs her attention not only to the conservatives, but rather to the progressives, who, although well-intentioned, still miss the fact that they arbitrarily pick and choose what parts of the Bible they like.  Listen:

See, that’s the thing about “looking into your heart” to decide which of your religion’s cherries are the good, tasty ones that you should gobble right up, and which are the nasty, rotten, poisoned ones you should avoid at all costs. Believers tend to conveniently overlook the fact that other believers are looking just as deeply into their hearts… and are coming up with the exact opposite answers to these questions. Some people sincerely believe that God intends marriage to be strictly between one man and one woman — others sincerely believe that God intends marriage to be between any two people who love each other and want to make a lifetime commitment. Some people sincerely believe that God created women and men as equals, to live their lives as they best see fit — others sincerely believe that God created women and men with radically different roles in life, and that women’s divinely ordained role is to be subordinate to men. Etc. Etc. Etc.

And there’s no way to find out which of them is right.

Trouble, is, it’s not like that–or at least not consistently.

The Bible is also known as the Canon.  It comes from a word meaning “yardstick.”  It’s the check to make sure that something is “measuring up.”

But there is indeed another phrase called “The canon within the canon.”  Lutherans, for example, we’re all over Paul.  We love Paul.  And we tend to read more Pauline inspired texts than, say, James.

The author is right, that there is a danger of cherry-picking.  Three things, however:

1. This is why I love being a systematic theologian.

We get to consider the texts, recognize that there are inconsistencies to them, and then say, “What is an appropriate framework for interpreting what this says and what this means?”

It’s like a constitutional lawyer.  Or a parent.  “I know I said you could stay up late last Sunday night, but not tonight!  This Sunday night Mama is watching Masterpiece Mystery! Now Go To Bed!”

It’s called thinking. Not hypocrisy.  Not cherry-picking.  Thinking.

2. One “cherry-picker test” is to note what cherries is a person going after.

A cherry picker is going to find the best of the offerings.  But generally, Jesus offers instead some bitter crabapples.  “Take up your cross.” “Sell what you have.” “Those who lose their lives will save them.”

At least among a fair portion of Christians, we follow the idea that we are to act on behalf of the poor, the oppressed, the hungry…even if that means that we give up something that would benefit us.  We believe we might just be called to, how did the author put it? Oh yes:  pick “the nasty, rotten, poisoned ones” that others might “avoid at all costs.”

3.  Atheists have the same quandary and quagmire.

An atheist is not an atheist is not an atheist.  At the end of the day, an atheist makes a choice.  What is the rule of thumb?  Is it consistently applied?  Why or why not?  Are there allowable exceptions to rules?  Who choses when that might be?

It behooves all of us, Christians and atheists alike, to be aware of our moral code and how we have come to it and whether we apply it uniformly or, well, cherry pick it.

Then we have gleeful Ding-Dong-The-Witch-Is-Deady articles, like this one:

http://www.alternet.org/belief/151947/goodbye_religion_how_godlessness_is_increasing_with_each_new_generation/?page=entire

Read this:

Most large Christian sects, both Catholic and Protestant, have made fighting against gay rights and women’s rights their all-consuming crusade. And young people have gotten this message loud and clear: polls find that the most common impressions of Christianity are that it’s hostile, judgmental and hypocritical. In particular, an incredible 91% of young non-Christians say that Christianity is “anti-homosexual“, and significant majorities say that Christianity treats being gay as a bigger sin than anything else. (When right-wing politicians thunder that same-sex marriage is worse than terrorism, it’s not hard to see where people have gotten this impression.)

On other social issues as well, the gap between Gen Nexters and the church looms increasingly wide. Younger folks favor full access to the morning-after pill by a larger margin than older generations (59% vs. 46%). They reject the notion that women should return to “traditional roles” — already a minority position, but they disagree with it even more strongly than others. And they’re by far the least likely of all age groups to say that they have “old-fashioned” values about family and marriage (67% say this, as compared to 85% of other age groups).

While it is true that the Roman Catholic tradition has not welcomed gays and lesbians into their pulpits, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has, as have the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the United Church of Christ members, some Mennonites, the Metropolitan Community Church….

And while it is true that some Christian traditions encourage “traditional roles,” Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, UCCers, Presbyterians, and on and on would scratch their heads at this claim.

The author would be advised to read Diana Butler Bass’ recent book entitled Christianity for the Rest of Us, or to learn about the Emerging Church movement, and get caught up to speed on the dynamism and progressivism that is becoming the norm; is and has been the norm for many years.

Interestingly, one can make the case that there is a strand of atheism that is positively evangelical.  Take a look at this:

http://www.daylightatheism.org/2009/12/happy-holidays-atheism-is-growing.html

Note the euphoric emphasis on material success (not a hallmark of progressive Christianity, which instead emphasizes the call to give up for the sake of the other), and more interestingly this line:

These people are the low-hanging fruit whom atheists can reach. We need to deliver a strong, effective message that belief in God is not necessary for the things human beings care about – that nonbelievers can justify morality with reason and conscience, and build a secular community without reference to faith. And given that our audience’s sympathies are already leaning in that direction, we should continue to make the case that religious belief is archaic superstition, contains many immoral rules, and has no solutions for the ethical problems humanity faces today. Let the theologians and mystics continue to carp and complain that atheists are being disrespectful, that we’re not acknowledging the magnificence of the emperor’s new clothes. We don’t require their consent, and they’re not our target audience anyway. The continuing growth of atheism throughout the world is all the encouragement we need to speak out.

“Low-hanging fruit whom atheists can reach?” “Build a secular community?” “The continuing growth of atheism throughout the world is all the encouragement we need to speak out?”

Jeepers.

All they’re missing is “Go out to all the world, and don’t baptize in atheism’s name!”

If one really is an atheist, then I’d expect one to have the kind of conversionist’s bent that I do.

Rod Liddle, a British BBC journalist, recently produced a documentary entitled “The Trouble with Atheism.”  You can see it here: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/trouble-with-atheism/.

It’s worth the 47 minutes to watch it.

He makes an awfully persuasive case for the religious extremism of some pockets of atheism, and is concerned that it is picking up steam.

Additionally, he interviews leading atheists and leading scientists and even a theologian, John Polkinghorne, who is both a scientist and a theologian.

He’s interested neither in saying that there is a God, nor that there isn’t.

He is interested in saying that Dawkins (note here some assumptions about Christians and the uniformity of belief) and others who assert with no hesitation that Christianity is “stupid” or “wrong” and that atheists are “right” and “they have no doubt” are, well, arrogant.

So, again:

I like the questions that many atheists raise.

I appreciate entertainer Penn, to a degree, who in this article writes with articulate humility that he doesn’t know…although later he states, “I’m not going to use faith to fill in the gaps.”

But if he doesn’t know (and who does, really?) that’s exactly what he is doing.  Using faith to fill in the gaps.

It’s what we’re all doing.

These sites below show how atheists can raise really good questions, and do it in a way that doesn’t demean Christians, or any other faith group.

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/atheism-religion/index.shtml

http://blog.onbeing.org/post/5800224899/sam-harriss-scientific-fundamentalism-couched-in

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/new_humanism/index.shtml

http://blog.onbeing.org/post/86951938/theres-a-new-power-in-america-atheism

And if you’re into longer literary interludes, check out this book called The Divinity of Doubt: An Agnostic Probes the God Question.

Upshot?

My problem isn’t with atheism per se.  If it were, I wouldn’t be the advocate for ecumenical conversation and cooperation that I am.  I recognize that I might be wrong, and others (atheists included) might be right.

And that’s o.k.

I trust in grace entirely.

My problem is with the haughty atheist contingent which demonstrates the very vim and vigor and contempt and arrogance and ignorance of the Christian extremism they ostensibly detest.

And so when I read the articles like I do above, I think of the quote that I have read to Christians with the same purpose, a quote from Czeslaw Milosz from his book The Captive Mind.  It is from “an Old Jew of Galacia,” who said:

When someone is honestly 55% right, that’s very good and there’s no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it’s wonderful, it’s great luck, and let him thank God. But what’s to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100% right? Whoever say he’s 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal.

Regardless of one’s faith, I believe that this old Jew might not be wrong.

That’s before Stonehenge.

Before the Great Pyramid.

Wowza.

___________

Every Thursday, I enjoy an hour-long phone conversation with an OMG-er in Texas.

Interestingly, we often end up agreeing on many things, but how we get there sure differs.

That’s o.k.

I think that our well-considered differences create a good measure of mutual respect.

Yesterday, he taught me about Göbekli Tepe, an astonishing recent archeological find in Turkey.

Take a peek at National Geographic and the Smithsonian for mind-bending photos and facts.

Upshot is, researchers believe that Göbekli Tepe may well be the first (discovered) “human-built holy place,” according to the chief archeologist, German scholar Klaus Schmidt.

Not only that, but the discovery completely messes up the standard, working assumption that farming pre-dated civilization.

As the Smithsonian Magazine puts it (see link above):

Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies.

National Geographic puts it otherwise:

We used to think agriculture gave rise to cities and later to writing, art, and religion. Now the world’s oldest temple suggests the urge to worship sparked civilization.

So there is no evidence of homes there, no evidence of a water source, no hearths.

It was a mecca.  A gathering place.  A sacred space for a shared religious belief system.

Drawn together for the purpose of worship, it appears that our ancestors learned to live in community.

The mysteries of Göbekli Tepe are much better detailed in the links I placed above than I could begin to capture. Read those to get your goosebumps about the expert opinions and perplexions on the find.

As an aside, I checked on youtube for more linkable clips about this discovery.  Be warned that one will either find a grainier review of the information and pictures found on the links from the Smithsonian and the National Geographic above, or sensationalized documentaries that make reference to the “Biblical Era” of the Garden of Eden and Noah’s Flood as if a) these “events” are historically traceable; and b) as if the majority of biblical scholars believe these events to be historically, literally “true.”

That subject matter alone is bloggable, but for now it would serve only as a distraction from the point I want to make here:

It appears as if humans need community, and humans need God.

We aren’t meant to be, or at least aren’t wired to be, autonomous, either from each other, or from some “greater power,” if you will.

Recently there was all sorts of hullaballoo about neurologists discovering a “Godspot.”  Turns out it isn’t just one “spot,” but rather an array of brain firings that also go off when one engages, for example, political or moral thought.

NPR did a fine review of science and religion, and danced with this godspot notion. One story concerned an man who developed “temporal lobe epilepsy” after he underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor.  The gentleman, who was Jewish, suddenly saw visions of the Virgin Mary.  “Why would the Virgin Mary appear to me, a Jewish guy, lying in bed looking at the ceiling?” he laughed.  “She could do much better.”

Turns out that it’s worth wondering whether mystics and charismatic leaders also have experienced such “seizures.”  At the very least, some scientists figure, their temporal lobes were in overdrive.

But the author of the NPR article, Barbara Bradley Haggerty (who wrote a book entitled Fingerprints of God), asked Orrin Devinsky, director of New York University’s epilepsy center, the following:

Does the fact that we can track spiritual feelings in our temporal lobe mean that there’s nothing spiritual going on?

“No,” he says simply.

Think about a man and woman who are in love, Devinsky says. They look at each other, and in all likelihood, something fires in their temporal lobes.

“However, does that negate the presence of true love between them?” he asks. “Of course not.”

So does the fact that we can track religious expression for 11,600 years–some estimates suggest that it is closer to 13,000–mean that we are simply meant to, or at least are wired to, worship…together?

Perhaps.

Wowza.

Quite coincidentally, yesterday I stumbled upon King’s words taken from “A Time to Break Silence,” 1967.

Listen.

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves.  For from his view, we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

For all sorts of reasons, this speech ought to be read these days.

For the moment, however, it seems to me that King’s words are relevant in this present political stew of animosity, this cultural brew of distrust, this morass of ill-will in which we all sit.

Regardless of what Sarah Palin asserts, maps with crosshairs targeting the “brothers [and, in a painful nod to Gabrielle Giffords, sisters] who are called the opposition” hardly demonstrate the nobility of King’s vision.

Now, this is not about Ms. Palin per se.

It is about what it is to be Christian and politically and religiously engaged these days.

Stunning is that sitting at the table with Martin Luther King, Jr. on that occasion in ’67 was Abraham Heschel, Jewish theologian.  (With the deepest respect for one another, the two of them collaborated against the war, poverty, and hate. Being has a fine program on Heschel here in which, among other matters, his friendship with King is explored.) And in his speech, King references Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, and Muslims!  From a Christian in 1967!

Here is what he writes:

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing — embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate — ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.”4 Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.

Let me be clear: I am a fan of righteous indignation.  And righteous indignation, to be really of the righteous variety, involves action–and at times, political action.

But one can demonstrate righteous indignation without crosshairs, without disavowing compromise, without Hitler-ified photographs of government officials, without screaming voice over voice.

If one does rely on such forms of engagement, be not then surprised that the rhetoric is not only contagious, but effective–for that is what rhetoric intends to do, is it not?  Sway opinion to move toward action?  And should we be stunned if the action is of the ilk of the rhetoric?

Really?

(Let me be clear: the shooter in Tuscon clearly had psychological troubles.  I am not denying that, and believe that while deeply tragic, his actions raise painful awareness of the plight of those with severe mental illness.  That said, I am saying that, crosshairs or no, the culture of violent rhetoric breeds, surprise surprise, violence).

Certainly in this day of rapid informational exchange, of culture rubbing shoulder against culture, of globalization discovered locally, of ecumenism branching ever more into inter-religious dialogue, people come to see that the way that they have done things all along, and perhaps even reflexively, might be wrong.

Humility is what I’m talking about.

The trick, it seems to me, is to be humble while being grounded, while understanding one’s belief, and one’s reasons for this belief.

Relativism is, after all, still a belief.

I do not oppose tenacity.  I am not against assertiveness.  I do not rebel against someone saying, “But as for me and my house….”  In fact, these are the people who are most interesting to me, those who know their identity and live out of it.

But if these same people are myopic in thought, are haughty in belief, are vitriolic in speech and action, then I become wary.

I can not tell you how many conversations I have with people who disavow the Christian Church because of the Loud and the Few within it who employ hostile and arrogant rhetoric.

But we are not all like that!

The Spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., is alive!

But I have said often, as of late, fear trumps reason, and it often trumps the sort of love of which Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke.

So then the question is, how do we engage those who push away, those who incite anger and defensiveness in an attempt to intimidate and manipulate?

Those of you who are psychologists, I need your help here.

I have a theory.

I know a little of brain research, and the sort of brain research that tells of the role of the amygdala, the fear center of the brain, the fight or flight core.

In families where there has been abuse, or in a person who has suffered some sort of trauma, the amygdala is on hyper-alert–and can even be lushly full of neural connections, precisely because it has had to adapt to the context.

Some say that in order to calm the amygdala down, not least of all when it is supremely anxious and reactionary, a chemical reaction needs to occur to short-circuit the over-active thing.

What is needed is touch.  Calm.  Assurance.

I am of the mind that our culture has an over-active amygdala.  So much fear, anxiety, and defensiveness courses through our society.  It is as if we are living in a culture of abuse, or that we collectively suffer a form of PTSD, and ourselves turn into a communal hostile force.

I wonder how King’s words can speak to us, can calm our cultural and societal amygdala down, can remind us that regardless of whether we are Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and so on and so forth, our Great Traditions do all speak of love and compassion.

Isn’t it interesting that Jesus said on that first Maundy Thursday that we are to love one another?

He didn’t say that we are to like one another.  That’s too much to ask.

But to love one another, in the sense of which King spoke, and in the sense of agape, of selfless, giving love, now we might have something.

It takes work.  It’s tough to love those who are yelling at you.  But if one stops to realize that they are afraid of something, that their amygdala is firing, one is summoned to love them despite.  Perhaps were we to collectively love them, we could show them another way? We could help to set a terribly different cultural tone?  A one where we do not forfeit righteous indignation, but we do away with crosshairs and hate-inciting untruths and nuance?

The danger, of course, is that it would be terribly easy to allow abusive behavior to continue in the name of loving-despite.

That’s not what I’m proposing here.

Instead, I’m proposing that those of us whose amygdala is not yet on red-alert, do not succumb!  It is possible to not be dragged into the morass of reactive anger and hate.  It is possible to demonstrate both reason and love.

Insofar as one does, one has a fighting chance to embody the spirit of MLK, Jr., the spirit of which he said, “Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.”