Divorce, lust, terror and plunder: The position of the religious doubter.

There was a fascinating exchange awhile back between Rollingforest and Ms. Jack, Tim and Hermes regarding the appropriate response to one who doubts his or her religion. I thought I would bring it before ye denizens of this site front and center for my own edification. I am going to paraphrase select positions  referenced, but I will try to be true to their essence (but please comment if you feel you are being unfairly attached to a particular viewpoint):

Rollingforest appeared to advocate from the position of intellectual authenticity. I.e. when one truly disbelieves the religion, then its dictates no longer have any hold on that person.

Jack argued that a commitment to a religion is like marriage. And like in a marriage, when one has doubts as to its utility, one owes it to their commitments and covenants, and perhaps an abundance of caution, to maintain a practical commitment to flesh out the doubts before moving toward divorce.

Tim approved of the marriage analogy and mentioned that many who claim Christianity or Mormonism may be having emotional affairs with other world views.

There is something about both of these positions that piqued my interest and raised some strange things about religious belief that I have been wrestling with. I think that Rollingforest’s position represents a modern position that a religion only has purchase on our lives insofar as we believe it to be true, and we should follow our own authentic beliefs wherever they lead. Furthermore, if for some reason we are no longer convinced of a particular proposition of faith, we are either free to, or even compelled to abandon that faith. The falsity of some proposition frees us of any commitment because the commitment is based on a falsity. An example of a modern exponent of this approach could be Walter Kaufmann.

Jack’s analogy is an interesting take on another approach. The Bible is filled with marriage/sexual analogies of God’s relationship with his people and his people’s relationship with other religions. Idolatry (i.e. worshiping a god other than Jehovah) in religion is the complement of adultery in marriage.    However Jack’s appears to be a more neutral approach than that of the Bible,  i.e. she refuses to assume a priori that there is only one true partner and you should reject any partner when you find out that they are not it.  When one finds oneself in an unhappy marriage for any reason, we should should consider practical commitments as we sort out what is the best way to go with our head and heart.  William James strikes me as a modern adherent of Jack’s approach. (see the “Will to Believe” here and a summary here.)

Tim’s position seems similar, recognizing that some may caught in marriages that make it hard to leave, and recognizes that leaving may lead to a rejection of the correct relationship, but advocates honesty or authenticity so as not to “make a sham” of both relationships.  The “be hot or cold approach.”

Looking to the Bible I gather a stronger position, which I might call the Aaronic approach to religious pluralism. The Biblical approach assumes, a priori, that there is only one true mate.  When it comes to religion the Bible doesn’t recognize divorce or even choice of mate.   The chosen are betrothed to Jehovah or Jesus and straying is adultery. It assumes that those who are given the truth through scripture or revelation who stray to other views are always in error when they look elsewhere for spirituality.

The starkest description I can think of this attitude is found in Ezekial 23 (CAUTION: Rated R content)

Here God compares Jerusalem and Samaria to two young prostitutes who are seduced away by their foreign clients.  In the allegory the women and their children are brutally killed for their indiscretions.

“This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Bring a mob against them and give them over to terror and plunder. The mob will stone them and cut them down with their swords; they will kill their sons and daughters and burn down their houses.
“So I will put an end to lewdness in the land, that all women may take warning and not imitate you. You will suffer the penalty for your lewdness and bear the consequences of your sins of idolatry. Then you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD.”

Now, I don’t think we can imply that the Lord will be as angry with those who choose secular humanism as those Hebrews who sacrificed their children to idols (oops, except those that believe in abortion), but it pretty clear that “tough love” is the route the Lord is taking here.

I bring this up to point out that, to the Bible, casual flirtations with the wrong view may cause the Lord to “get medieval” on you.

There is a lot more to talk about here, but I will leave off here for now.

Where does the person straddling more than one viewpoint fit within your faith system?

Apocalypto Action Figures

To whom it may concern,
Deseret Books

Dear Sirs,

I suffered great alarm while visiting your bookstore yesterday. It was seeing the action figures you sell based on Mel Gibson’s hyper-violent movie, Apocalypto that caused me such distress. As I remember, Apocalypto was an R rated movie making it quite clear that it was not intended for the audience of young children. So I’m uncertain why you would be selling action figures to children that might peak their interest in such a movie. Having read many reviews of the movie, I am quite resolved that no child should be exposed to such a violent and gory depiction of Mayan life. I am appalled that you would be involved in marketing it to children.

Most disturbing is that you make the Mayan temple the center piece of this toy set. If you have not seen the movie, you may not be aware of what happened at Mayan temples. It was the location of a brutal religious ritual in which slaves had their hearts cut out of their chest and their heads tossed down the steps of the temple to the cheers of a bloody thirsty crowd. Why would you think this is something children should be re-enacting as a form of play?

Perhaps you made a hasty purchasing decision. From the numerous pictures of Jesus on the walls I take it that you are a religious bookstore. I understand the great interest many Christians took in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”. Perhaps you are under the misguided impression that Apocalypto is another film with religious significance. If some vendor convinced you of this in order to sell these toys to you I can assure you that you have been taken in by con-men. I’ve been in a number of other religious bookstores, and while I have seen a great deal of them selling “Passion of the Christ” merchandise, I have never seen any of them selling anything associated with Apocalytpo.

In fact, I don’t remember seeing anything related to “Passion of the Christ” in your store. Perhaps you sold out of it so quickly that you thought you could have equal success with Apocalytpo based merchandise. If this is the case, then you are shameless hucksters and I will encourage a boycott of your store to all of my friends. I find it disgusting that you would offer such violent imagery up to children to line your own pockets with cash.

Please pull these toys out of your inventory and clarify this situation to me at your earliest possible convenience.

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To my readers who may be unfamiliar with the context of this please check out this posting.