I had an interesting conversation with Lane yesterday. Lane teaches two of the classes I'm in, and we've found that we are not only fairly close to each other in age, but that we also have similar political views. The latter puts us in a very small minority at MCAD; it's been nice to have a bit of moral support, as it were, when engaging in such discussions with others in his classes.

Anyway, our conversation yesterday was not about politics, but about religion; more specifically, about Christ and the Bible. Lane isn't a Christian, strictly speaking. He considers himself one because he was raised to be a churchgoer and he thinks that Jesus was probably a nice guy. He also thinks that Christians have done some wonderful things in the world, and that the world would be a far worse place without religion in general than it is now. Unfortunately - and most significantly - he doesn't accept Jesus at His word. He doesn't believe that Jesus said the things that He's recorded as having said ("For all I know, it's hearsay."), and he believes that the Bible is full of contradictions and scientific inaccuracies, and has been translated into too many translations to be accurate. At best, it was not taken literally, but figuratively and poetically, as a beautiful piece of writing.

He felt that while most people start out talking about Jesus, that's the middle part of the story, and one needs to go back to the beginning [No argument here]. He couldn't reconcile the fact that, according to the Bible, God had created us with our desires and our ability to sin, and thus should be held responsible for our sins. He felt emotional outrage over the sacrifice of animals as a cornerstone of pre-Incarnation theology, because he believed that it made no sense to kill animals for something they didn't do, and that the Temple should get the majority of the animal's remains, rather than the remains going back to the family who gave them up for sacrifice [Don't know about that detail; I need to look it up]. He didn't believe that what Jesus did on the Cross was really a sacrifice, because He ends up "coming back." He felt that other people have lived that experienced worse torments than Jesus did, and that if it were really a sacrifice, that He shouldn't have been able to come back. Finally, he had trouble accepting that a loving, reasonable God would punish people eternally for not doing one particular thing in the duration of their comparatively brief lifespans.

It's nothing new; I've heard these arguments before. I don't mean to sound flippant when I say that. I appreciated the fact that Lane had obviously thought through these things, and I think that finding these concepts outrageous and difficult to believe is understandable. Having said that, I don't think it would be accurate to pin these arguments on that alone.

One of the arguments he raised against the accounts of Jesus's words was that "it was hearsay, for all I know." Since it was not a part of his personal empirical knowledge, it was suspect at best, and probably unverifiable. For a man who has earlier professed to an interest in military history, this strikes me as a profoundly hypocritical claim. There are standards for dealing with historical documents; we have numerous scientific fields that deal with sorting the truth from the forgeries. I pointed out to him that if he took such an approach to a historical record like the Biblical account, that he would need to apply it equally to everything he'd ever been taught. He said that he did. If I can be blunt, I didn't believe him.

I mentioned the fact that with something like the Bible, one has to consider context. We can't just look at the Bible through our modern filter and expect everything to immediately make sense to us. We have to examine historical context, the cultural context of the ancient Jews and the ancient world in general. We have to examine each literary type - the books that compose the Bible are not all histories, and they are not all poetry - and take them on their own terms. Not to mention the simple fact that the way in which we do historical research does not assume that people are lying right off the bat. If a written account can be corroborated with evidence consistent with the time of its writing, we really have no reason to discount its content. The Bible has been held up to more scrutiny than any other set of historical documents, and has held up through every inquisition.

Frank the Trucker came into the store tonight. I mentioned Lane's disputes, and he asked, "Why is it that everyone has those same arguments? Is there some kind of manual that they're working from?" [As it happens, there is.]

Again, with all due respect to Lane and to others who have these arguments - again, I'm not saying that flippantly - I think it has less to do with chinks in the armor of the pro-God arguement than it does with having a prideful heart and being unwilling to submit oneself to God. That's not to say that intellectual dispute plays no role, or that these questions shouldn't be answered, but I think that it's very easy for someone who is already predisposed to be resistant toward God (and let's face it, even if you've been raised in the church, you're very likely to be that way) to come up with excuses not to take the step and put yourself into God's hands willingly. Not necessarily an easy thing to do, but easily a necessary thing to do.

Hey, I made a pithy quotable! All I need now is an acrostic, a quote from The Message, and a jokey anecdote to loosen the congregation up, and I'm ready to hold service!

Okay, enough. I've gotta go; we're closing in a few minutes. I have more to say on the subject, but thus far, you've got the gist of it.

Last minute thought - Lileks found an intriguing matchbook cover; I'd like to tell you that it's partially true. The tragic part is that the one who is demanding you is not the Bettie Page model that you're working from.