On a suggestion from
@TheMonkey lets get a philosophy & religion thread going. The goal of this thread will be a home for cordial, respectful and rigorous discussion of the former.
To get things started, what philosophic or religious ideas, authors or theories resonate with you?
Thanks for making space for this. I’m not a theologian nor a serious student of philosophy, so I am here to learn from others and gain from our shared and differing perspectives.
I was a pastor’s kid growing up in rural Oklahoma, so my roots are from an evangelical upbringing. We followed the Kenneth Copeland style pentecostal “word of faith” movement. Some similarity to Polds because they spoke in tongues, but less restrictive and more about the prosperity gospel. I left that in the mid-90s for a more contemporary Christianity.
The last 20 years or so, I have been deconstructing my faith and recently building it back. As one of my spiritual heroes, Richard Rohr says, you spend the first half of your life building the container. Then the second half, you fill it up. In other words, I realized I was empty.
Along the way, I began to frame Jesus and Christianity differently. I realized Jesus—if he existed—came around at the ideal moment in history. It was the transition from tribalism to civilization under the Roman Empire.
Up to this point, Judaism was all about tribal survival. Their laws emphasized keeping their people and their culture intact. What you eat, how you clean, who you marry and have sex with, etc. can determine if you live or die and how you propagate people. Also, there were countless other tribes ready to dominate, kill, and/or assimilate your tribe at any moment. So, you had to fight and kill in order to ensure your people had resources and would survive. This is why the God of the Old Testament seems so violent.
All of this was about to change.
Jesus's teachings were about the “abundant life.” It was no longer about taking from others so you could live. We all can live together. But we need to love and forgive in order to do so. It’s no longer about preserving a tribe. It’s about loving your enemy, because that is the only way to break the cycle of violence. It’s not about sustaining the rule of patriarchy and a holy lineage. It’s about no longer seeing a race, gender, or social class as being better than others.
I also came across the teachings of a French philosopher and historian, Rene Girard. One of his principles is called the Scapegoat Mechanism. He believed that every ancient society had to use this to survive. Basically, violence would begin to build in a society. Eventually, it would create instability and threaten their ability to survive as a group. The leaders would choose someone—usually a peasant, diseased person, or foreign wanderer—as a scapegoat. They would claim this person was the cause of all the violence and calamity. Everyone would turn against the scapegoat, who would be punished. Sometimes exiled or killed. This would unify the people until violence builds back up again. Then the cycle repeats.
Girard believed Jesus was the perfect scapegoat. At the same time, his story is the first one told from the perspective of the scapegoat. He is seen as innocent and not the reason for the calamity. But he becomes a willing scapegoat. Voluntarily sacrificing himself so the people can finally live in peace. Forever, if they accept his gift. But if they reject him and decide they don’t need his sacrifice, then they choose selfishness and violence with one another. And the cycle continues.
So, I see Christianity as a form of placebo. But it is one that works if we accept it. It is a story that can help us reset our society when things go astray. It gives us a way to view life and principles for living it. But many have distorted it into a magic fairy tale that gives them assurance, control, and privilege. They use it to create winners and losers, insiders and outsiders, us vs them. They miss the point and accomplish the opposite of what Jesus set out to do.
