By Morris Dean
Last week's column provoked a reader named Kyle (a pseudonym) to pronounce of me that I have been hoodwinked by Satan, who "uses Education [capital E], as well as many other things [unfortunately, he didn't name them], to blind us to God's Truth [capital T]."
And Kyle is praying for me—and not only for me but also for "all" of my friends. He prays that we will all [collectively or individually?] "realize how much God loves [us] and that He sent His son, Jesus, to die in [our] place so that [we] might have eternal life with Him."
Aren't you just dying to have eternal life with Jesus?
The language was so familiar, I assumed that Kyle was quoting one of his church's promotional brochures. But, no, he said it was "from [his] heart, from God."
I didn't get it immediately, but while I was lying in the day-op center early Monday afternoon, waiting for eye surgery to repair a detached retina, I realized that God really does exist. Really, really.
My wife and Nurse Mary Lynn noticed my distraction. "Is something wrong?"
"No, no, I'm fine," I said. "I was just thinking about someone's telling me that Satan uses Education to blind me to God's Truth."
Mary Lynn snickered. "I grew up in southeastern North Carolina. I'm very familiar with that type of person."
That moment might have been the moment I got it: It takes a certain type of imagination for God to have a place to exist. Take away those imaginations, educate them, and there's nowhere else for God to be both conjured and believed real.
I too can conjure gods and fairies and unicorns, but I don't believe they're real. I know they're figments of my imagination, or of the novelist or poet I'm reading.
But in the imaginations of southeastern North Carolina, God certainly does exist. God is real there. And Jesus. And Satan. And the Holy Spirit.
And Education in those imaginations is the tool that Satan uses to prevent the rest of us from really having God and Satan in our heads too.
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Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean
| Please comment |
Morris, you may be onto something in that it takes a special kind of imagination, or education - or lack thereof - to believe in God. Yesterday I was scanning the radio news stations and heard someone praising God for the rescue of the three women who had been held captive the past decade in Cleveland. Yet no one raised the question of where had God been all those years it took for them to be freed. I was reminded of the old baseball joke: "If a hitter praises God when he hits a home run, shouldn't he blame God when he strikes out?"
ReplyDeleteRight on, motomynd. I believe that you are one of my friends for whom Kyle is praying.
DeletePeople want something or someone to believe in to make their life worthwhile. They need to believe in themselves, take blame for their actions and inaction. A teenager is killed committing a crime and the parents blame God. They need to look in a mirror, and see the real cause of the child's actions.
DeleteBelieve in whatever makes you feel good, BUT, open the eyes and see who controls each persons fate. People need to own their actions, not blame "God".
Sharon, well said! Morris, perhaps "Kyle" can learn something from Sharon's post.
ReplyDeleteYes, Sharon said it very well indeed. Perhaps "Kyle" can learn from Sharon's post, if he is not too heavily barricaded from Learning [capital L].
DeleteLet me throw a little pepper on this piece of meat you are chewing. While there are believers, with little education and strange ideas about God and what their God wants from them. There are also highly educated people, whom you might find yourself in a corner if debating them on the subject. Be careful about your pride in knowledge--a hundred years from now we could all look like stupid apes throwing our feces against the wall. (Moto a course would be doing it from his Rocker-cycle)
ReplyDeleteKonotahe, I having a little difficulty understanding why you should be uneasy at the prospect of taking any sort of factual stand on anything to do with God. I think that all we're doing here is discussing the merits of a few of those "strange ideas" you allude to. Satan's "using Education to blind people to God's Truth," for example. You REALLY don't want to take a stand on that?
DeleteYou miss understand. You have lumped religion with believing in god. In turn you say it is the haven for the uneducated. There are many beliefs and they all believe in a god of some kind. However, I believe when you speak of 'God' it is the god of the bible that some Christians beat people over the head with. So maybe the debate should be about the bible. Why pick on Odin, a god, and besides that, Moto has booked a seat at that table.(smile) Education is not evil nor are 90% of the other things religions claim their god has labeled sinful. My main point was, being educated, does not always provide enlightenment. Although most of the people back up in those hills maybe uneducated, I think their belief system is triggered more by environment, than lack of education. Oh, and I think your cousin is full of it, education can provide the wrong facts--but 'God's Truth' provides no facts. At least if you are going to hell, you'll be able to read the map.
DeleteKonotahe, thanks for returning to the conversation. You say that I "have lumped religion with believing in god," but I don't believe I have. I even re-read the column to see whether that can be inferred, and I don't think it can. But even if I did "lump religion with believing in god," I'm not sure what difference that would make.
DeleteYou also say that I say that religion is "the haven for the uneducated." I don't believe I say that either. That actually seems to be "Kyle's" position, since he imagines that Satan (who seems to really, really exist in Kyle's mind) USES education to trip people up from seeing the Truth. Just because Kyle seems to be admitting that HE isn't educated, that doesn't mean that there aren't people of education (whatever that is—we haven't defined it) who believe many of the same things—or at least the same sorts of things—that Kyle does.
No, I agree with you that "education" doesn't make anyone proof from religion, whether it involves belief in gods or not.
As for trying to define "education," I think we just need to focus on the distinction between "knowledge with evidence" and "belief on faith [without evidence, but on someone else's authority]," as I tried to outline in a previous comment (which you seem to be overlooking).
I submit that Kyle has zero evidence that either God or Satan exists. Kyle has no objective validation that any prayer he has ever uttered was even heard, let alone answered. Yet Kyle continues to believe, on faith, and even to such an extent that he pities and prays for me (and all of my friends, including you, I assume). That's rather extraordinary, isn't it?
Do you really still think that you and I have something to debate here?
Well, maybe debate is not the word I was looking for--it was just there and easy. I have no more of a problem with those who believe in a god or devil, than I have with people who believe in good and bad. If I find a tree and call the tree my god, there is no harm it that. The harm comes from me deciding what my god wants from me and others. If Kyle had just said he believed in God(any god),then that would have been that, but he and others believe their Tree wants something in return for their belief. In this case it is to bring more people to the Tree.
DeleteIt's not unlike starting a car on a cold morning. The engine slowly turns over and you pat the dash saying: "Come on please start." When the engine does catch--you say, "Thank You." Why do we do that? Do we really believe the reason the car started was because we prayed to it?
You and I see religion much in the same way. The difference is I don't totally discount the IDEA that there maybe something out there. It is fun to let your mind wonder about these things, Not so unlike what we are doing now.
Kono, as you so often do, you make a great point about the many highly educated people of strong belief. Does that mean they may be right, or are they merely proof that some people - no matter how highly educated - still fall prey to superstition or the value system they were raised with? Or is it proof there is no connection between higher education and intellectual and honest thinking? Many folks at sporting events waving foam fingers, choking down hotdogs, and who are so drunk they can barely stand, are very highly educated - does that mean they are likely to think beyond what someone, or some book, or some computer, tells them to think?
ReplyDeleteSociety tends to reward people for being "smart" if they say what the majority thinks. Just as society rewards people for blending in and not making a stand that puts them at odds with the masses - the age-old "get ahead by getting along" route to social and financial success. Society loves to watch rebels and malcontents on the little and big screens - they don't want them living next door. Even today, and even in Cali - using that as an example since most people, rightly or not, regard it as a bastion of liberal thinking - if a politician dared say "I only go to church, and say I believe, because I need the votes," could they win an election?
Kono, since you raised the point, what do you think? Will the stupid apes of today find there really is a long-haired man sitting in the clouds deciding the fate of even the smallest sparrow? Will proof emerge that a great being did create humankind in his image, and only one universe and one planet on which his progeny could live, and then he put the whole thing on autopilot and took off elsewhere? Part two of that question: where did that great being go, and why? Or will it be revealed that the mysterious great power is a thing called nature, and it all started with an unknown spark, and it is what it is because that is the way nature works?
Moto, mi amigo, is knowledge no more than faith? You believe you know something because a book and people tell you something is true. I am not saying there is or isn't a God. What I'm trying to point out is the God people believe in to day was not the god that has always been believed in. In the future a corporation maybe looked upon as god. But, just because you don't believe in the gods of today does not mean there is not a god you could believe in. What this god is or what this god has done or not done or if this so called god has anything at all to do with our being will depend on what you believe. Maybe knowledge is a god. Edger Casey believed that all knowledge was available if a person could tune into it.
ReplyDeleteThe question of is there a God and the belief in a religion are not the same. We all in someway, make gods of our own. Yours just happens to have two wheels. (Big smile) PS- There is a religion that believes nature is god. The Wigins or something like that.
Konotahe, in general we believe in things for either of two reasons: We have evidence to support them to some degree or other of confidence that they are true, or we don't have any evidence and believe "on faith"—sometimes because some authority or other (the Bible or our priest) told us they were so. In other words, knowledge based on evidence and reliable inference is radically different from taking things on faith.
DeleteKono, is knowledge no more than faith? That throws a very interesting sort of inverse spin on the original point Morris seemed to be driving at - that being, if I followed correctly, that faith was more likely the domain of the less knowledgeable. Since many long-accepted scientific "facts" are often ultimately proven wrong, and most long-accepted beliefs of faith are never proven, maybe there is more commonality between the staunch believers in science, and the firm believers in faith, than either side wishes to ponder.
ReplyDeleteAs for your "Wigins" I am guessing you are referring to the Wiccans? That is actually a rather bizarrely interesting sect. It is reportedly loosely based in pagan beliefs and rituals, while at the same time blending in what might be described as early "new-age" 20th century beliefs. It seems to be built around the worship of god and goddess, sun and moon, so yes, it does seem to harken back to a time when just about everyone accepted that nature ruled, even if they didn't worship it as a god. Of course, don't most people still do the same today, at some level, even if they try to believe humanity has triumphed over nature? We watch the sun rise, and we know we still at least have a chance at another great day of life - what could be more inspiring or reassuring than that?
As for my two wheeled beast being a god (yes, very big smile): I had never considered that, but may have to. It certainly has the capricious character of a god who will watch millions of people die in unnecessary conflict, yet save a kitten from a snake.
Once more I leave our conversation with happy thoughts of kittens. Can't ask for better than that.
ReplyDeleteSomething you said in the other post about saving sayings.
We should have a day of saying(once would be enough) I'm sure everybody has that one saying they hold dear.
My comment is not up for debate.
ReplyDeleteI beleive if folks get comfort in believing in god. good for them. If folks get comfort in not believing, good for them as well. Don't push your beliefs on me.
Steve, I grant people their right to believe what gives them comfort if it's comfort that they seek, I won't debate you there. But I appreciate it when they acknowledge that that is their reason for believing and stop putting me in the wrong or pitying me for rejecting their comfort blanket because I don't need it.
DeleteI also come to the defense of vulnerable people whom these "comfort believers" would badger and make uncomfortable in an attempt to get them to believe the same things the comfort believers do. There's little comfort in that.
Very well said Steve---you too win a kitten.
ReplyDeleteOur cat rescue effort is currently caring for 19, counting indoor cats and out. When you give a cat as a prize, just send us the address and we will make sure the winner receives their award...
ReplyDeleteMoto, that is going to make the move to Cali a spot on the Funniest Videos.
ReplyDeleteKono, yep, have thought of that, figured I would title it something like "Cat House on Wheels" and be ready for a million hits. The real problem is finding helmets and goggles to fit them. To say nothing of riding gloves. For some reason people seem to think only dogs like to ride shotgun...
ReplyDeleteGood title...maybe you can sell a little along the way, sight unseen. Those truckers will buy anything.
ReplyDeleteKonotahe, Well...you caught me red-handed. OF COURSE, I selected the come-on title in the hope of roping a few folks in, but perhaps overlooking the fact that some readers (like those truckers you mention) would not get past the title but just drive on with the mistaken assurance that another authority—namely Moristotle & Co.—has spoken up for God!
DeleteActually, I have a case in point. I asked one of Nurse Mary Lynn's colleagues (whose email address I happened to have) to please forward to Mary Lynn the link I was providing. I included the caution, "Lest you become troubled at the title (depending on what you yourself believe), note the '...' at the end; the title is continued in a subtitle."
Mary Lynn's colleague replied: "I'll be sure to pass it on! I would never be troubled by God. I owe all of my blessings to Him."