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|  I have two eyes. They're not perfect and I have glasses but they work well enough. Although we all have varying degrees or levels of sight, we have even more drastically polarized levels of perception. It's a nice sentiment, especially among church folk - that judging is reserved for God but 'thou shall not judge' can be perceived quite differently for many people.
We make judgments on a daily basis and we need to in order to make informed decisions. We decide what is important and what is not, what we should and should not do. The later being the premise for 'hypocritizing'. We have for ourselves judges and lawyers, policemen and authority figures who are judges and arbiters keeping order in our society. We have to rate to make choices about schools, professors, significant others, friends and fashion.
This is particularly an issue for Christians, if they claim to obey the word and not judge they dig themselves a hole. Firstly obey the word in such a manner is making a sort of judgment that this part of the Bible should be carried out this way. It's also a declaration of what is right and what is wrong. This sort of decision making used throughout the Bible leads to the perfect polarization of life. This is bad, this is good - there are grays and you should avoid grays altogether just in case. We pretend to not judge, to not see and perceive but we are so much more aware in the light of the "law" what is good and pleasing to God and what is not. We make the best judges. Some churches or christians push the notion that "dating non-christians" is bad. This is a very clear judgment call with a very strict criteria - it even comes with reasons why! So long as we think we're better than someone else, which we all do on some level, we will judge. When we hit rock bottom and are swimming in our own shit, then we probably won't judge. So where are you?
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There is a disorder called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Andihidrosis and as the name suggests it's an inability to feel pain, stress and temperature. At first it sounds really great - thinking about it you would love it if stubbing your toe didn't hurt or stomach aches and headaches didn't exist. When a child is diagnosed with this condition, they are usually found to be quite happy infants. They don't feel the need to cry because they never feel that anything is wrong. Then things take a turn for the worst when they start teething and now they chew up the insides of their mouths and their tongue because they simply can't feel it as their mouths become a gory scene. Hot stoves can be touched, falling down the stairs is fun and running head on into concrete walls is of no consequence. They can't sweat in hot weather because they don't feel it's hot and there is a prevalence of a limited mental capacity. They usually don't live past 3 and it's rare for them to reach 25.
So why am I mentioning this disease? Sunday was someone's idea for an international day of prayer which most churchy churches will participate in. This brings me to my point: religious freedom. Of the major religions of the world, religious freedom is most whined about by Christians. In the biblical context, no one complained about having religious freedom - it was expected that there wasn't going to be the sort of religious freedom for Christianity that there was for the established Jews or Greeks. Constantine screwed things up by trying to make Christianity mainstream and in all honesty, it's not meant to be a mainstream religion. North American Christianity is boring, dull, fake and overall disliked by most - because an unsuppressed Christian becomes apathetic and lazy. We fill our lives with Christiany things because we lack the realness that is the testing of faith by persecution. The oppressed Christians ought to pray for us slackers who find retarded things to fill their "spiritual lives". We don't feel the pain, the stress, we're free and we'll die soon because we're living a dead bliss.
We don't need another sermon, another praise night, another conference, book study, new song - we need the anti-christ. We need the fanatic atheist. We need to feel something real because our attempts to make things real are like a cutting at the wrists. Commonly misunderstood as a suicide attempt, wrist cutting is usually an attempt by emotionally drained people to feel something because they can't feel anything. It's time to live.
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If I talk about Church in most social settings these days, I am met with much hatred, bitter resentment and overall dislike. The word church has come to be associated with many forms of corruption and just plain doing it wrong. Growing up, saying you were going to church meant saying that you weren't cool enough to have some sporting practice or game on sundays. Church isn't actually so corrupt apart from ourselves though, and here for part 1 we will delve into our first real world example.
The Automotive Industry
Started out as a great thing, save on horses buy a car! Mass production meant that everyone could conceivably own a car! Salvation was here. But then, everybody started to drive - not only people who wanted to. There would be drivers who drive because they have to drive to get from A to B but they hate it and thus suck at driving -accidents. In the same respect anyone could sell cars - and they'd do so for gain and to get you in a new car. That's comparable to some evangelical or preacher trying to re-Jesus you. Nobody likes salesmen. They try to be such nice people, they really don't know much about cars and they hide the truth of the matter to get you into your car. Then there's the service side of things, the mechanics and advisors. Most people get angry at them because they tell them what's wrong and what they need to fix - the fix you Christians. But they only set out to fix car owners but the price is often high and people get angry cos the salesmen never told them about the high costs of owning a car or the high price of being a Christian. Then there's your lot boy. He knows which cars are good and which ones suck, he knows how much money is being made on certain cars and he can give you straight advice about things because it doesn't benefit him to sell or not sell you a car. So here we have this auto industry which is like a plague on our economy because it's driven by more more more cars when there really isn't that need. This more attitude of getting people in cars quickly is like quick evangelism with a testimony, bridge illustration and a few gospel tracts. It's no wonder people are opting to ride the bus or bike to work with these pushy salesmen scamming you and high hidden costs in repairs. Who would want to go to a church that says it's easy and great to become a christian and then pile on the rules and regulations enforced by social condemnation. So it's not God's fault church is F-ed. It's just people, somewhere along the lines we stopped regulating the quality of christians. Paul used to do this talking about those doing it wrong but I guess people began to focus on as long as the gospel is being preached aspect.
Well I guess I could go further into that analogy but I'll stop for now. Part 2 will be even more fun with a different real life example.
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|  I have a midterm tomorrow which affords me lots of time to be distracted by such things as xanga. Thanksgiving just passed, I don't eat turkey but I know the drill. It's a time to be thankful for what you have instead of being greedy and materialistic looking for more. But perhaps that's like telling a kid who stuffs their face with candy to brush and floss their teeth instead of stopping the stuffing of the face with the candy. Being thankful is easy when you have something, and the old cliche is that you always have something because there's someone worse off than you. This is all true but no one ever thinks like that. Thankstaking is saying, thank you for what you don't have or what you had but no longer have. Thankstaking doesn't make much sense. I guess it starts with nirvana, the nothingness of it all. Nothing is owned. I mean things are yours because they are in your house which is your house because you have the keys and somewhere it's written that you or your parents have possession over that piece of land which is part of the city because it's in it and part of the country because it's in it and marked by flags and protected by soldiers so that no one questions that that is theirs. But nothing is really owned. If an earthquake splits the earth and swallows your house, no one can do anything about it, you can't sue the earth or press for charges you can just hope you've paid someone money to insure your house's value. It's not yours, it's just given to you temporarily until you die and pass it on or someone takes it from you. Thankstaking, I have everything and nothing. It's a release, a living memento mori, a thankfulness not for what you've been given but what has been withheld from you. Because it's not all about that.
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|  I've recently been thinking, reflecting in an anecdotal way drawing from my episodic memory. Remember killer bees? They were advancing up from south america and would soon reach much of the U.S. and then Canada. I remember learning about killer bees a lot, overly aggressive african bees who wouldn't leave you alone even if you jumped into a pool. They're supposed to wait around for you to come out and then you're dead meat! But what happened to that? I was looking at this stamp box dating 1999 some fancy canada post stamp for that year. It looked so nice I was reminded of the doomsday we were all sort of afraid of. Somehow because the numbers didn't fit right that nukes might accidentally go off. But if we actually think about it, if the computer thinks that it's year 1900 instead of 2000 that doesn't mean it's time to fire a nuclear missile, it just means that some taxes might get mixed up but we probably didn't have computer records for things in 1900 anyways. Now we have the 2012 doomsday because the Mayans who went extinct know more than we do about the end of the world. Sure this could be true but maybe by 2020 we'll look back and think that was a pretty ridiculous speculation. We need that sort of SARS, Avian or H1N1 flu to keep us aware that we all die someday. So in light of that we don't really live. I know so many people who are terrified of bees now. They run hide and try to escape as an innocent bee explores his world. Bees make delicious honey and help flowers have sex - they're not evil harbingers of death. I guess fear unites us though, global warming and going green is driven by fear that the world is going to die because of pollution. There may be truth in this but people will most likely kill people before they kill the world. Heck, we might even kill each other over such a trivial matter. Cyclists getting run over by cars and retaliating with weapons doesn't seem that unlikely. War on terrorism? They're most likely not coming back to terrorize the same way - it'll probably be some techy terrorism next. Fear keeps us moving, on our feet and focussed. When we're not afraid we're too free and that can be dangerous. So I wonder if anyone ever figured out what "the fear of the Lord" that leads to wisdom is. And not just some half-rate sugar coated washed down version of "reverence". Fear - is it that old school fire and brimstone?
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