And then we made God in our own image.

This comes out of an ongoing collection of observations and theories I have been working on regarding social theory and religion.


Humans seem to be incredibly concerned with relationship. We go to great lengths to build and maintain a complex relational network for ourselves of which there are differing types, degrees, and functions of relationships to other sentient beings. With this the construction and maintenance of a relational network is driven by the selfish (value neutral) understanding of necessity. In other words a person or being is orderly introduced into my relational network to serve a specific need I have. Now this seems very awful and self centered. It may not be awful but it is self centered. But since relationship is a two way street I am also fulfilling a specific need for the people that are fulfilling certain needs for me. With this relationship is give and take, but never is it give without a any take at all.

Relationship to a spouse or a close friend fulfills a relational need for intimacy - to be known on many different levels with many different shared experiences. The spouse or close friend also has their needs met in some way and this is their reason for maintaining the relationship. If there was never to be any benefit to having relationship with a specific individual why would one seek that relationship in the first place?

Relationships between coworkers fulfill a need to navigate a vocation more successfully. These coworkers might be close friends as well, but at the very least the relationship serves an isolated need within the workplace. Both persons then agree that a professional relationship is beneficial to the both of them while in the workplace.

A teacher student relationship might fulfill the need for knowledge for the student. For the teacher the relationship might bring purpose or meaning to their life in addition to a paycheck. If there was no knowledge to be gained for the student why would the student strike or maintain such a relationship with the teacher. In the same way if the student offered no feeling of purpose or meaning for the teacher and that teacher was also not receiving a paycheck or any other form of benefit why would that teacher care to teach that student?

Within my relational network I have all of these things. I even have relationships with bartenders, cashiers at the grocery store, and baristas at cafes. I may not know anything about them other than the service they provide for me, but I have found their service and the familiarity thereof to be beneficial. In the same way they might remember my name and nothing else about me, but they benefit by being relational to me within isolated moments of interaction because I, at the very least, contribute to their paychecks. If these individuals stopped being beneficial to my needs I would more than likely abandon all form of relational loyalty to them and find different bartenders, cashiers, or baristas that I did benefit from in some way.

Now this is not the most romantic of observations, but if we are honest we see evidence that from the most intimate relationships down to relationships we define as mere acquaintances it is a fundamental agreement of mutually fulfilled necessity that motivates the construction and maintenance of relationship and, in sum, relational networks.

But what happens when human relationships and/or relational networks are not sufficient to meet certain needs?

Some people get pets. Some people form imaginary friends. Some people have God.

Surely this is where the theist could make an argument for God. And in some ways I have already written most of the argument for them. Yes, of course, there are needs we have that sometimes cannot be sufficiently met by other people. This is because we all have a God shaped hole that only God can fill by having relationship with Him. Augustine says it well: "...our heart is restless until it finds rest in you [God]."

This is a real argument and in some ways, on the surface, seems plausible. Let us for a moment say that indeed we need relationship with God and our failed attempts to completely fulfill our needs within human relationships further proves our need for relationship with One who is all benevolent, all powerful, all knowing, all everything good. That sounds great to me for this God is conveniently very beneficial to me.

But here is the question: Why does God want to have relationship with us? Does he need to have relationship to people? If God needs anything then surely God is not God. What is the benefit for God to have relationship with me? If God is God then he receives no benefit from having relationship with me because he is not lacking anything. Therefore there is no mutuality and therefore no relationship.

It could be said that God does not need humans and yet desired to create us and desired for us to know Him. But then wouldn't God's desire imply a lack of something? One does not desire something that one does not want or need. Again, how could the God of the universe want, desire, or need anything if He is self sufficient and complete in perfection of everything?

All that said it is still possible that God exists and it is beneficial to us to know Him. But if God does not need anything from us because He is self sufficient then He can not be concerned or emotional as to whether or not we choose to know Him despite our supposed gain.

So if God is not concerned about whether or not we know Him or, for that matter, how we choose to know Him then we can choose to know Him in any way that we find most beneficial. With this we can operate on the idea that God is simply a Being to be used to fulfill our needs. Again this God is conveniently very beneficial to me.

This unlimited benefit also seems to be the understanding of all theists. In other words despite numerous different theologies of God, every differing theologian and the community he associates with conclude God to be ultimately beneficial. The kaleidoscope of differences of God and the creeds thereof might cause conflict or disagreement, but in the eye of the beholder, regardless of where he or she lands within the kaleidoscope, God is always beneficial. If God was not beneficial in any way then it would not be compelling to believe in God at all. Somehow millions of people in our world and millions more throughout history have found the opposite.

If this has any validity to it then we can make God into whatever we desire, need, or want God to be. It follows then that it is not God who creates us in His image, but rather we create God in ours.

To be continued.

The Ethics of Belief and Intellectual Honesty

This should be a swift kick in the ass to us all regardless of how or what we believe.


" It is not only the leader of men, statesmen, philosopher, or poet, that owes this bounden duty to mankind. Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race. Every hard-worked wife of an artisan may transmit to her children beliefs which shall knit society together, or rend it in pieces. No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.

It is true that this duty is a hard one, and the doubt which comes out of it is often a very bitter thing. It leaves us bare and powerless where we thought that we were safe and strong. To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances. We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely what to do, no matter what happens, then when we have lost our way and do not know where to turn. And if we have supposed ourselves to know all about anything, and to be capable of doing what is fit in regard to it, we naturally do not like to find that we are really ignorant and powerless, that we have to begin again at the beginning, and try to learn what the thing is and how it is to be dealt with--if indeed anything can be learnt about it. It is the sense of power attached to a sense of knowledge that makes men desirous of believing, and afraid of doubting.

This sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when the belief on which it is founded is a true belief, and has been fairly earned by investigation. For then we may justly feel that it is common property, and hold good for others as well as for ourselves. Then we may be glad, not that I have learned secrets by which I am safer and stronger, but that we men have got mastery over more of the world; and we shall be strong, not for ourselves but in the name of Man and his strength. But if the belief has been accepted on insufficient evidence, the pleasure is a stolen one. Not only does it deceive ourselves by giving us a sense of power which we do not really possess, but it is sinful, because it is stolen in defiance of our duty to mankind. That duty is to guard ourselves from such beliefs as from pestilence, which may shortly master our own body and then spread to the rest of the town. What would be thought of one who, for the sake of a sweet fruit, should deliberately run the risk of delivering a plague upon his family and his neighbours?

And, as in other such cases, it is not the risk only which has to be considered; for a bad action is always bad at the time when it is done, no matter what happens afterwards. Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence. We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to, and the evil born when one such belief is entertained is great and wide. But a greater and wider evil arises when the credulous character is maintained and supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons is fostered and made permanent. If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done from the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest. What hurts society is not that it should lose its property, but that it should become a den of thieves, for then it must cease to be society. This is why we ought not to do evil, that good may come; for at any rate this great evil has come, that we have done evil and are made wicked thereby. In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.

The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs. Habitual want of care about what I believe leads to habitual want of care in others about the truth of what is told to me. Men speak the truth of one another when each reveres the truth in his own mind and in the other's mind; but how shall my friend revere the truth in my mind when I myself am careless about it, when I believe things because I want to believe them, and because they are comforting and pleasant? Will he not learn to cry, "Peace," to me, when there is no peace? By such a course I shall surround myself with a thick atmosphere of falsehood and fraud, and in that I must live. It may matter little to me, in my cloud-castle of sweet illusions and darling lies; but it matters much to Man that I have made my neighbours ready to deceive. The credulous man is father to the liar and the cheat; he lives in the bosom of this his family, and it is no marvel if he should become even as they are. So closely are our duties knit together, that whoso shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

To sum up: it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it--the life of that man is one long sin against mankind."

William Clifford, The Ethics of Belief (1877)

See http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/w_k_clifford/ethics_of_belief.html

God Has Breath

“All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God might be competent, equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17


Jordan and Cheryl have been working tirelessly all day in their garden. It is only the seventeenth day of the second month of the year, but they know that a good harvest demands hard work on the front end of growing season. Jordan and Cheryl very much love each other. They met because their families lived in the same area and occasionally the whole of each family would visit the other. This was because Cheryl’s father raised sheep and Jordan’s father grew vegetables and fruit. Both families had an agreement to trade meat for vegetables and fruit. The families started meeting when both Jordan and Cheryl were very young. Jordan, a year older than Cheryl, always enjoyed playing with her during these gatherings. As they grew into young adults they realized that their fondness of one another was so great that they could not think of marrying anyone else. Their courtship was happily supported by the patriarchs of both families with the understanding that their economic agreement would only be strengthened by the flesh bond of their children. Jordan and Cheryl understood this too, but their feelings towards one another superseded the value of trade. They simply loved one another. After their marriage they were blessed with a son and a daughter. They named their son Jack after Jordan’s father and their daughter Jill after respected family member on Cheryl’s side. After the nuptials Cheryl moved onto the land belonging to Jordan’s family. Here they were given a plot to call their own. Jack is now four years old and Jill is just short of three. As their parents have been toiling in the garden Jack and Jill have been playing in the neighboring field belonging to Jordan’s brother.

As the sun begins to settle below the earth Jordan calls it quits for the day and joins his children to play as Cheryl heads into the house to prepare dinner. It starts to rain and Jordan thinks that he is indeed a very blessed man.

As they sit to a good meal the rain outside intensifies. The pour is greater than anything Jordan or Cheryl have ever experienced and they take their children to the window to watch in amazement. Jordan fears for his garden, his livelihood, and is frustrated that the rain is starting to flood his hard work. Still he understands that this is the way things are. Rain happens. Knowing these things are out of his control he decides to enjoy the great spectacle with his children.

Jack and Jill are getting tired and Cheryl prods them from the storm to their beds. She kisses them goodnight and tells them that they are beautiful children of God.

Exhausted from a long days work Jordan and Cheryl follow their children to bed knowing that they have much work to do in the morning due to the storm still falling outside.

As they sleep peacefully it rains violently.

Jordan and Cheryl are awoken by the sound of the door bursting open and almost before Jordan can leap from his rest water cascades over his feet. The torrential rain that solaced them to sleep still pounds the roof and he knows he must try to block the impeding rush of water before his house is completely flooded. Jack and Jill are both crying in the background, frightened by the sounds of chaos, and Jordan pleas with Cheryl to grab the children while he looks out the broken doorframe to assess the downfall that shows no sign of slowing.

As the water rises to his shins, Jordan realizes that he has a decision to make. He can stay and attempt to protect his house and his plot or he can seek higher ground with his beloved family in order to protect their lives. Jordan is a sensible man. There is only one reasonable choice.

With Jack on his back and Jill clung to Cheryl’s neck, man and wife, forsake their home and their land and trudge through the sheet of rain and, at this point, knee high swells.

As they splash onward Jordan thinks of his land. It was good land. It was fertile land. It was also land nestled in the plains of a great valley. The high ground is not only out of sight because of the rain drenching visibility, it is out of range because it is two days journey away.

Jordan hollers at Cheryl to grab anything floating in the water that they might be able to use incase the water rises too deep for them to walk – surely swimming while holding two children would only last so long. The water rises above Jordan’s waist. He is feeling weary.

Cheryl is scared, but doesn’t voice this. She thinks about their home and their lives. She is scared simply because she loved her life so much and the water that slops just below her bust line is threatening the idea that she will once again share a nice meal with her husband and two children. She thinks about death. She believes in God as her parents taught her to and silently, but desperately, pleas with God to spare her family so that they might have one more meal together. Even if only one more, she would be grateful. She would at least have the chance to cherish her children better and to love her husband more passionately. That is all she would want. This is what she prays for. The water rises above her breasts. She moves Jill to sit on her shoulders.

Jordan swings his son up to sit on his shoulders as well and then ties a tree branch he grabbed while Cheryl was deep in intercession around his chest using a leather lace from his clothing. He commands Cheryl to hold onto the branch so that they won’t lose each other in the water. He continues to march forward with the flood breaking at his sternum and at this point he is all but towing his family floating behind him. The rain continues.

An hour passes and Jordan can not tell how much ground they have gained granted there was no ground left measure by. His exhaustion tells him they must have made it farther than they really had. The water has reached his lips and his children and wife are almost entirely submerged, clinging to the branch. Jordan swims more than he walks. The rain continues.

Jordan frantically looks all around him for a place of sanctuary but he can not distinguish anything. He wonders if they are still heading towards the high ground or if they have gone in circles. He wonders if this is how he will die. He has thought about death before. His father would tell him stories of old of valiant men giving their lives on behalf of their family or their land. Jordan does not feel valiant. He only feels rising fear as the water is now above his head. He sinks until his feet hit ground and he leaps up to the surface. He frees himself from the branch that is more harm than help at this point, and continues to sink and leap all the while attempting to keep his son above the surface. He yells for Cheryl to do the same and each of them hold their children as high as they can into the ungodly night sky.

The waters current becomes strong as the wind whips. Jordan looks to his left where his wife and daughter were just minutes ago, but he no longer sees them. He calls for them, but only the sound of pounding rain responds. The water is much too deep at this point for Jordan to simply hold Jack above the surface. Jordan pleads with his son to hold onto his neck as tight as he can and he promises him that it will be okay as they struggle through the unknown searching for Cheryl, Jill, and safety. It continues to rain.

Days pass. Jordan, Cheryl, Jack, and Jill are all dead. Their lifeless bodies have been beaten by floating debris and broken against the rocks of the high ground that they weren’t able to reach in time. It continues to rain.

Some miles away Noah captains an ark that carries his family and seven pairs of every species of animal safely across the waters. God had given Noah the fore warning about the meteorological might that He would exercise. God had told Noah that the earth was so corrupt that He wanted to blot out all life except for Noah his family and a few animals. God said this was because Noah was a righteous man – the only one worth saving. He told Noah to build an ark and gave him instructions on how to do so. As Jordan and his family watched the great storm in amazement out the window of their humble home Noah was escorting giraffes, tigers, snakes, and all other species of animals along with his family onto the only rescue boat in the entire world. It continues to rain and Noah thinks that he is indeed a very blessed man.

why the protestants have stopped protesting

"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes the the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God."

"Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason."

"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians."

-Martin Luther


Certainly the father of Protestantism, who was very much concerned about faith, knew full well that reason and faith could not coexist. As I have found this to be true, at least in some cases, I will continue to choose reason over faith.

It's ok, slap your wife.

By Mohammed Jamjoom
CNN
CNN) -- Husbands are allowed to slap their wives if they spend lavishly, a Saudi judge said recently during a seminar on domestic violence, Saudi media reported Sunday.

It is OK to slap Saudi women who spend too much, a judge has told an audience.

Arab News, a Saudi English-language daily newspaper based in Riyadh, reported that Judge Hamad Al-Razine said that "if a person gives SR 1,200 [$320] to his wife and she spends 900 riyals [$240] to purchase an abaya [the black cover that women in Saudi Arabia must wear] from a brand shop and if her husband slaps her on the face as a reaction to her action, she deserves that punishment."

Women in the audience immediately and loudly protested Al-Razine's statement, and were shocked to learn the remarks came from a judge, the newspaper reported.

Arab News reported that Al-Razine made his remark as he was attempting to explain why incidents of domestic violence had increased in Saudi Arabia. He said that women and men shared responsibility, but added that "nobody puts even a fraction of blame" on women, the newspaper said.

Al-Razine "also pointed out that women's indecent behavior and use of offensive words against their husbands were some of the reasons for domestic violence in the country," it added.

Domestic violence, which used to be a taboo subject in the conservative kingdom, has become a hot topic in recent years. Groups like the National Family Safety Program have campaigned to educate the public about the problem and help prevent domestic abuse.

Saudi women's rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider told CNN that Saudi women routinely face such attitudes.

"This is how men in Saudi Arabia see women," she said in a telephone interview from the Saudi city of Dahran. "It's not something they read in a book or learned from a friend. They've been raised to see women this way, that they're less than a person."

Al-Huwaider added that "I'm not surprised to see a judge or a religious man saying that - they've been raised in the same culture - a culture that tells them it's ok to raise your hand to a woman that this works."

Another Saudi judge, in the city of Onaiza, was the source of a separate recent controversy: he twice denied a request from the mother of an 8-year-old girl that the girl be granted a divorce from her 47-year-old husband.

Last month, after human-groups condemned the union, the girl was granted the divorce.

Racism

thanks to http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/ for posting this.

I'm not gay, I'm metrosexual. I'm not metrosexual, I am a man.

The term Metrosexual was coined by British journalist Mark Simpson in the early nineties and was reserved to describe single straight men who were concerned with their own appearance and would consequently be highly fashionable and cultured. Today the term has a looser meaning and is applied to straight men who exercise any type of effeminate behavior.

There have been many times in my life when I was mistaken as gay. Out of fear of being perceived as such I would emphasize that I was not gay, but metrosexual. Metrosexuality is that nice little subcategory for us effeminate, heterosexual men to find safety and still cleave to our manhood. It is our way of saying, "Look I am still totally a dude, not a gay fag." The problem is that we are simply trying to imply that we aren't unmanly like homosexual men are perceived to be, and that the world of "manly" men can still let us play in Guyland.

Just recently I was telling a woman co worker how I couldn't wait to go home and take a bubble bath and apply a facial mask. She said, "Isn't that kind of gay? What does your fiance think of that? You are very metrosexual huh?" I simply said, "Yeah, I guess." What I wanted to tell her, however, was that there is nothing unmanly about bubble baths or peel off facial masks that make you feel awesome. But since our social construct defines these things as unmanly I had to resign to my little subcategory: Metrosexuality.

The way that masculinity has been socially constructed requires men to seek utter power, dominance, or control. Because men have never allowed women to fully participate on a level that could threaten their power, dominance, or control it is not women, but other men that they must compete with for hierarchical position. In order to do this men will label other men as womanlike in order to take away manhood and consequently power, dominance, or control. This is exactly what I am doing when I emphasize that I am not gay- I'm just a little metrosexual.

Perhaps If our social structure was egalitarian then I wouldn't be worried about being a little bit "girly". I wouldn't even care if people thought I was gay. In an egalitarian society I could be a man because I AM A MAN and not because I am not "girly". In an egalitarian society there would not be metrosexuals because heterosexual men who enjoy fashion instead of football, wine over PBR, shoegaze rock versus Nickelback would not need to create a subcategory for themselves that says, "Ya but at least I'm not a queen."