The Seventh Day

Genesis chapter 2 “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.² And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made ³ And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”

I’ve had an emotionally rough week, so rough that I had no desire to write. Lieve mentioned a day of rest.

I thought about the Sabbath. Although most Christians observe it on Sunday, Jews observe it on Saturday, and Muslims observe it on Friday, how is the day of the week that God began creation, from which we would calculate a seventh day, determined? Considering it didn’t create days and nights until the fourth day (Genesis 1:14-19), which calendar was it using? Most Calendars begin the week with Sunday, although I’ve seen some that begin with Saturday or Monday. Did it set to work at 0800? GMT?

The answer seems clear to me, Genesis 2:4 “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens”. Days are not twenty four hour periods, hours not being created until the fourth day. The word day is used as in “Back in the Day”.

So which day is really the Sabbath? Jews worship on Saturday. Muslims and Catholics have worship services every day. Baptists have Services routinely on Sunday and Wednesday. In Romans 14:5-6, Paul says “⁵ One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.⁶ He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks”. Although he most likely said those words in Latin, seeing that he was speaking to Romans.

The name that you have given to the period of time you reflect upon your relationship with God and its creation is inconsequential.

At one point this last week, searching for what makes me different from others, it came to me. My relationship with God. That is not to judge the relationships or the significance of those relationships that others have, it is merely saying that mine is different, perhaps unique, and from what I can see, that is the way it is supposed to be.

God speaks to all of us, how we interpret its will is individual to each of us. It does not tell us what we want to hear, but what we need to hear, so most folks don’t hear it at all.

I am taking this day to rest, reflect, and explore some curry and bhindi masala.

Religions

This is a BIG subject, which I will be addressing over a couple of weeks, with the direct support of Lena Winfrey Seder and perhaps you. Yes, I’m asking for your opinions and insights, you can leave a comment here (if you request I will not publish your comment or your name).

The subject I want to address is religion in general, and the similarities in teachings and structures, as well as the differences.

I do not believe that we all worship the same God. By that, I mean that our reasons for seeking God may be the same, but what we choose to believe defines God can be exceptionally different. What we believe God wants from us, and how we should praise God, are often diametrically opposed to other people who profess a belief in God. Almost everyone agrees that “God is Love”, but love means different things to different people, and is expressed in different ways.

I will start by saying that I was raised Christian, subset Baptist, subset Southern Baptist. I had the great fortune to have a minister who was an intellectual scholar of the Bible, and who inspired the members of his church to thoroughly understand scripture. Not by telling us his interpretation, but by laying out several interpretations, comparing them and expressing his own views and biases, and encouraging us to interpret for ourselves. Thank you Dr. Colton. As a result of Dr. Colton’s teachings, I investigated several other religions in my youth, various branches of Christianity, Eastern religions, and pagan practices. In the end I found that I eschew organized religion, which typically follows a charismatic local individual. I follow the teachings of Christ in an “organic” manner, and to provide a label for those that wish to categorize me, I refer to myself as a Zen Baptist.

This chart reflects the relative sizes of world religions. I was rather surprised by many factors, I suspect that Communism in China has skewed the numbers for Taoism and “Chinese cultural religions”, but these numbers are representative of several sources.

Relative memberships of world religions

You can see that “Christian” is the largest group, and within that group are some exceptionally diverse denominations.

Denominations within category “Christians”

There are many people, including myself, who don’t consider Catholics to be “Christians”. “What?” you ask, “How could the Catholic Church, founded by Christ and led by the apostle Peter not be Christian?”. There are several reasons, I will point out just a few here. Christ said in Peter’s presence, “Call no man Father“, then the Catholic church decided to call it’s priests “father”. Christ taught that the individual’s relationship with God is one on one, yet the Catholic church requires confession to a priest, who has the power to absolve your sins. Christ denied any importance to his mother, yet the Catholic church reveres her as a saint. This does not sound like the doctrine of Christ.

This of course is my opinion, and will no doubt piss off many of my friends and relatives. My point is this, just because something is called “Christian”, doesn’t mean that it fits some universal definition of “Christian”. The members of the Westboro Baptist Church consider themselves Christians, but I’m pretty sure a website titled “GodHatesFags” is an indicator that they know little about Christ. Mormons have written their own version (not translation but different ideas) of the Bible, as have the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Following this line of discussion, just because an individual describes themselves as belonging to a certain denomination does not mean they fit the definition of a member of that church. This goes beyond little things. I met a girl at a dance, and we dated for several weeks before I met her father. He was the minister of a church that saw dancing as a sin. She had not told me this, so when he asked how we met…well that was the end of our relationship. Not to pick on Catholics, but they tend to stand out as the religion least likely to be adhered to. They have very strong doctrine about birth control, and many if not most Catholics ignore it while considering themselves “good Catholics”. I’ve known people who have totally removed themselves from the church and still consider themselves to be Catholic.

I am using Christianity in this article as an example, because at the root of all of this, Christians are just humans with a particular set of beliefs. There is nothing genetically or psychologically different from any other sample of humanity as a group. So when I hear people say “Christians are this” or “Religion is responsible for that” I feel the need to correct them. People do things, there are good people and bad people, and those people may belong to a religion, or they may not. Since thirty three percent of the world is Christian, it would seem natural to expect Christians to be responsible for about a third of the bad things out there. No religion is a monolith.

Religion in general, and any religion specifically, is not responsible for the actions of people who wave the flag of a religion. It has been my experience that those who justify their actions with religion are likely to have little to no understanding of the religion they’re talking about.

With Lena’s assistance I intend to look at the second largest religion, Islam, next week, and I would greatly appreciate the input of anyone who understands their own religion and can contrast the public impression of their religion for future articles.

Understanding our similarities helps us appreciate each other, understanding our differences helps us appreciate ourselves.

Chapter two of this series, “Islam” can be seen here.

God’s thumbprint

Sunday again.

There is an opinion that religion is for the weak minded. I find such moral cynicism, the idea that faith is foolish, to say a great deal about the arrogance and insecurities of the person speaking. It seems important to such people to recite names of famous or popular well educated people that are atheists. Faith is not a democracy, and despite my charitable hope that everyone will experience the love of God, if they choose to turn away, I will not chase them. I think of Christ’s words in Matthew 10:14 “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.”

Faith does not require proof, but I can see evidence of a creator. Evidence that we are not merely an accident.

The Earth, Moon, and Sun create a spectacular set of relationships. Due to the inclination of the Earth/Moon orbit in relation to the Earth/Sun orbit, eclipses are relatively rare. The amazing part is that they happen at all. The Sun is about four hundred times larger than the moon. The Sun is also about four hundred times farther away than the Moon. Therefore they appear to be about the same size in the sky, and on those occasions that the moon passes directly between the Earth and Sun, the moon cleanly eclipses the Sun. This will not always be true. As the orbits decay, the relationships will cease to hold their ratios. But today, when our technology has advanced to the point that we can understand why it is happening, we can witness eclipses. Keep in mind that our Moon is roughly one quarter the size of the Earth, a planet/moon ratio seen nowhere else in the universe (so far) and you can understand why I call this phenomena “God’s Thumbprint”.

There is the fact that the number of petals on a flower follow the Fibonnaci sequence, a pattern discovered in the 12th century, f_n =  Phi ⁿ / 5^½ where n=0, a sequence that converges on phi and is reflected in the architecture of not only plants, but also human structures.

None of this is “proof” of an intelligent creator. Statistics indicate that anything is possible, that the Brownian motion that disperses molecules in the air could result in all the oxygen moving into another room. It hasn’t ever happened, but an adequate experiment would require an infinite number of tests.

This brings me back to the myth that atheists tend to be of greater intelligence. Atheism requires faith, the faith that God does not exist. What I have found, is that people of extraordinary intelligence (for example, Albert Einstein) tend toward agnosticism. Unable to prove or disprove the existence of God, and unwilling to acknowledge faith, they adopt the view that God is unknowable. In Einstein’s words, an “attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being”. Einstein regularly acknowledged God in a non religious sense, he refuted quantum mechanics with the phrase “God does not play dice“, expressing his own faith in an orderly universe.

While I believe in God, I make no claim to understand it. I feel God, I have faith that all things work towards a purpose of which I am a part. I have no hope, or even desire, to know what that purpose may be. I lack the level of faith required to be an atheist.

An outwardly orderly universe built out of chaos. That is God’s Thumbprint.

 

 

 

 

Sunday Sermon

I do not often preach, I prefer to share my religious beliefs by example. I will work scripture into a discussion, and point out misinterpretations of various religions. I’ve studied a variety of disciplines, and have settled into my own set of beliefs and philosophies which I refer to as Zen Baptist.

I had a wonderful minister in my life, Dr. C.E. Colton. As a child at Royal Haven Baptist Church in Dallas, TX back in the early 60s, I was in awe of him. His manner of speaking appealed to me even as a five year old child, and still in my twenties when I returned to Dallas. He seriously pissed me off at my Grandfather’s funeral in the 90s, at which he came out of retirement to speak, but I never lost respect for him and struggled to understand the conflict, which may have made me a better person. He passed away in 2003 at the age of 89.

Dr. Colton was a scholar, and wasn’t just a polyglot, he was fluent in the languages he understood. He would pause during a sermon, and explain that the original Aramaic or Greek words had a different meaning at the time they were written than at the time they were translated, and/or the English word has a different meaning today than at the time of the translation. He brought the otherwise boring Sunday morning activities to life, challenging us to understand what we were reading. Then he bestowed upon me the lesson that would guide my life, through the radical 60s and my days as an Intelligence Specialist, as a husband, father and friend.

In the midst of a sermon, he related a story from his days in college. He had a question about a concept, and approached one of his professors to further his understanding. His professor had said “Well, I have my own opinion, which I will discuss with you later. What you should do is go speak with Dr. Jones, as he is considered an authority on the subject. Then when you understand his point of view, ask him who holds an opposing opinion and is as well versed as he. Understand that person’s position, then make up your own mind. After that, come talk to me and we can discuss it.”. Most people apply their own prejudices and find it impossible to believe that those words came from a Southern Baptist minister.

As a teenager in the waning years of the Viet Nam war, I was filled with revolutionary ideals. I was always thoughtful about the direction (or lack thereof) of the organizations I supported. A careful listening to the song “Volunteers” by The Jefferson Airplane fertilized the idea that many of my fellow “radicals” were just there for the party. Today more than ever that is true, as any protest brings out “the crazies”, every wing nut in the vicinity waving their own flag, suffocating the original cause.

I studied various branches of Christianity including Catholicism, dabbled in Judaism with a best friend and a couple of Jewish step brothers, studied the Hindi and Buddhist teachings, and explored several “New Age” beliefs as well as Wicca. I investigated the relationship of religion and the “new religion”, Science. In the 80s I had reason to understand Islam, as well as people of Islamic faiths. Eventually I found that I was a Christian, in the sense that I believe and attempt to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. I do not attend a church, as I have yet to find one that teaches and adheres to the teachings of Jesus Christ now that Dr. Colton is gone and I live in New Jersey. Since around 1996 I have been a Zen Baptist.

Christianity is based on Christ, AKA Jesus of Nazareth. He brought a new message, and the story of his life is called “The New Testament”. The “Old Testament”, the beginning of the Christian Bible, is very similar to The Torah, the religious text of Judaism. When someone claims to be a Christian, and quotes the Old Testament as supporting their beliefs, they are most often confused about of what their religion consists. Jesus was exceptionally clear about speaking in parables, and yet so many “Christians” choose to interpret his words literally.

To me, the Old Testament is to be seen as a parable itself. God spoke to people who had no way of understanding the process of creation. So he gave the story as a series of seven days. Paying attention to that story reveals there was no measurement for time for the first few days, so it seems far from likely that they were strictly measured twenty four hour days. The description of God, “a spirit on the water” (Genesis 1:2) is the most in depth description in the entire book, yet God’s physical appearance is described by humans every day.

The New Testament is arranged so that the first four books are the same story, told by four different people who were present. How can you see that and not recognize the overall massage is that we should not take every word literally, each disciple interpreted the event differently and they were there. The important messages are repeated, over and over, hoping to work past individual interpretation, and the translations that would spread the word around the world.

The message is, Love each other.

I invite you to examine the book of Matthew, fifth chapter verses 43 through 48:

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Dr. Colton would, among other things, point out that the word translated as “perfect” is closer to meaning “complete”.

The other quality that Dr. Colton taught was to teach in small segments. Let the information roll around and soak in. And finish the sermon in time for everyone to get home in time to watch the Cowboy’s game. They are after all, God’s team, why else would the sky be blue and white?

It may not be recorded in the Bible, but I believe Jesus had a sense of humour, and laughed well.