response to Gideon in lieu of content!

Greetings, my few, my happy few, my faithful readers. I have stayed up past my bedtime typing this up. Friday and Sunday this week will be my days off, so Amber, Pearl, Mom, I will attempt to call you then. Love! Hugs! Miss you!

In the meantime, I am still working hard and remaining in good spirits. Our downstairs neighbor Stan, who has five dogs, is interested in giving us one. Dave has taken up walking Stan's dogs for a very reasonable fee. And Stan is desirous of giving us one of those dogs. Namely Blue, with whom Dave has subsequently fallen in love. (He woke up calling for Blue yestermorn, at which point I decided it was best to surrender to the inevitable--fortunate my inclinations already lean in the direction of a dog-plus-cat household!)

But here, here is a comment which surely exceeds the 4096 character limit, or whatever it is. Here is my response to Gideon, in all its silly detail.

Ah! mes amis: je vous aime toujours. Bonjour, bon aprés-midi, et si je ne vous pas rencontrer plus aujourd'hui, bon nuit.


Oh, don't worry about my constitution--the deli counter is toughening up this egghead faster than you can say "it's 9:15 and I want you to shave me a pound of prosciutto!"

(My new least favorite meat. I already disliked the taste, but it's a bastard to slice, too. Sticky, falls apart at the slightest touch, and must be laid out in neat layers separated by little plastic sheets. Which sucks when there's a line. But enough shop talk!)

Lorena is one of those online people I consider a friend. Though it is often said that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", I try really hard not to have enemies. So although, because of events for which I was largely not present, you seem to be the enemy of my friend, you are not my enemy. Make of that what you will! I have neither banninated nor baleeted anyone other than an obvious salebot, which you are not, and hope to keep my streak alive.

May I ask why your blog is now disbanded?

As for Lorena, please, since we are clearly of such differing views, I prefer not to discuss her further. It would only annoy us both. Your participation in this intention would be appreciated greatly by me!

Instead, hoping you do not mind, I will apply some of your points in re: deconverts to myself, and see what happens.

I will even take your words out of order, a great indignity!

The whole idea behind faith is that it gives one HOPE. After spending half of my life as an agnostic, by golly, I just don't see a lot of friggin' hope in the religion that she's chosen! Three score and ten, then... nothing!

For purposes of discussion, I tend to default to my dad's definition of religion. It is from the Latin, res legiones, namely: chosen things, the things one chooses to guide and shape one's life.

So, you find the atheist-materialist viewpoint a hollow and hopeless one. Many do, and seek organized faiths or DIY spirituality to fill in the gap! Christianity gives you hope and makes daily life meaningful and filled with wonder; for this I am glad.

But I'm telling you, this is not the case for everyone.

Christianity is a symbol set, a storyverse, which can be used in many ways and for many purposes. Yes, it is unfair to characterize the whole storyverse in terms of the negative and destructive interpretations laid on it by some controlling or narrowminded individuals. Or by the negative perspective of it that I, for example, grew up with, through a combination of circumstantial confusion, blurring of emotional value loads, the occasional unconsciously malicious individual, and good old-fashioned "failure to communicate."

Nonetheless the wicked "false" Christianity is my default, and the one rooted deep in my unconscious mind. Any other version comes up just as artificial, contrived, ineffectual, as any other organized-religious symbol set. And even moreso contrived and less effectual than any symbol set I've made for myself and tried out in practice.

The "believe, and you will see" dictum applies with equal efficacy to any well-constructed eidolon (definition 2). Meaning, an ideal which has been given form in the mind to the extent that one can interact with it as one would the memory-reconstituted presence of a human being not physically present.

I am not interested in an eidolon to which I give the name Christ. As for other deconverts, I cannot speak for them, though I suspect many would agree with this description.

To me it is more hopeful to say, "I suspect, I deduce, I imagine, but I do not know" than to cobble together an answer out of a much-disputed document and thunder "I know!" This brash certainty, with only the textev and the otherworldly pipings of my pet eidolon to back it up. This is how I see it. I would rather be a naked fool than a fool dressed up in that.

like many of those hardened infidels she's taken up with, are simply whiners that didn't get what they thought they should have, so, now they're mad, and they're taking their ball and going home.

Oh, the emotionally charged language you use. It makes me think you are reacting emotionally, based upon your experiences with those bloody-minded people who refuse to re-convert. Even beyond a certain person repeatedly banninating you, you must have been ill-treated elsewhere as well, to be so angry. You have my sympathy. (yes! I can do that!)

I am curious. I must inquire. What is it that, in your perception, the "hardened infidels" believe they should have gotten, that we have fled the faith because we did not receive?

For me--and my experience is by no means characteristic!--it began with deliverance from demons, and continued with relief from self-loathing and constant panic. These things I obtained over the course of a mere decade or so, after a paltry half-decade or so of prayers did not provide noticeable relief.

But ah! that is another story, and by no means all of my own little story, which again is entirely non-representative. So let us leave it for now, and go on to more pertinent matters.

(Yes. This is how I talk when I'm tipsy. In person, as well.)

So, to return to the topic at hand. As you see it, deconverts in general are merely selfish and immature. We are persons who demanded a particular response from God or from then-fellow Christians in a time of crisis. And, having failed to receive the response we desired, we have with petulance and spite decided to quit the faith and become its enemies.

It reminds me of C.S. Lewis, something he wrote in "The Problem of Pain." I do not recall it exactly, but the sense of the passage was this:

Some people wish to hold the universe hostage to their own unhappiness. Everything--time, seasons, the grace of God--must cease, until their private hurts are soothed and their objections answered. But instead of bringing the rest of the world to a halt, these people exile only themselves. They become prisoners of their own selfishness, cut off from all love and all hope because they refuse to receive it.

I didn't put that paragraph in quotes because, as I said, I don't recall the passage exactly and it is an extreme paraphrase. But it does seem to sum up the Christian view of why most deconverts leave the Christianity. And more specifically, the way that you, Gideon, seem to me to perceive the deconverts with whom you have thus far had conversation.

It is of course a narrative viewpoint. A metaphor, which can only be answered with other metaphors. Equally powerless to un-convince the convinced. But I will try to explain nonetheless.

It was like trying to divide numbers by first converting them all into fractions, before I knew how to do long division.

It was like trying to assemble a mechanical device using instructions poorly translated through Korean from Japanese, by persons who barely spoke either Japanese or English. (Both of which are notoriously idiomatic and difficult to learn!)

It was like driving a stick shift, when one only knows how to use automatic, down an icy road in winter, when one's car had a trailer which is not securely attached to the rear of one's vehicle.

It just seemed like a bunch of effort wasted on a thing which had no purpose, except to give other human beings a convenient lever by which one could be steered into directions of their choosing.

There was no God in it, except in the sense that there is "divinity" in any endeavor worth pursuing.

Perhaps that is petty, selfish, shallow. I am very happy to say that I guess, I deduce, I choose to believe for the purposes of hope and meaning in everyday life--but I do not know.

In case they or you or anyone hasn't noticed, there isn't any "evolution" going on in society, in fact, society's going down the head rather quickly! So much for this progression that humanists are always barking about. Oh, sure, now and then some little ray of light shines through, in some individual act of benevolence or kindness, but, overall, this world is surfing downward in ever-tightening spirals.

What a very cynical and depressing view of human life! Please, allow me to quote my big sister Amber, as quoted by my little sister Pearl on her Myspace:

"I live in a time when I don't have to worry about being shot with a poisoned arrow or raped six to eight times a year! My food is kept at the temperature I want in a box in my house! I have indoor f@*#ing plumbing! By the standards of most of human history I am a queen!"

This is not progress? This is not "evolution of society"? Trade increases, and war becomes increasingly distant from the lives of individuals! Yes, there are many places in the world--such as Afghanistan or the Sudan--where such progress has yet to take place. But it is no longer universal. There are, in many many places in the world, "salt and pepper on every table, and none account the cost." Salt--necessity, what humans need in order to live. Pepper--luxury, what humans desire in order to make the necessary things of life more enjoyable.

I do not share your view that humanity is gradually becoming more depraved, more ruled by instinct, less able to live in civilized society. In contrast, I think humanity in general is developing higher standards of behavior. By the measures we use today, yes, many actions by currently living persons seem barbaric and intolerable, which in previous centuries would have been "business as usual." But the fact is that now we have our modern standards for comparison. You and I presume, for example, that rape of any person for any reason is morally reprehensible. That the killing of any person, whether of one's tribe or social class or belief system or otherwise, who does not present an immediate threat to life and safety, is murder and thus unacceptable.

These and other comparable things are relatively new concepts for humans. We are just now as a culture, to say nothing of the species, getting used to them. I look at murder statistics for Chicago, which represent something like reality, and see a present triumph. How many times in human history have there been so many cities with so little violent death, and that so well accounted for? I look at shows like Law & Order and see a triumph of ideas. If this flawed but very human thing is the ideal towards which our system of justice strives, then perhaps it will become more effective as time goes on, prevent more needless suffering, deter more human evils.

I am not entirely surprised that you, who believe the doctrine of Original Sin, can look at humanity in its present condition and see only hopelessness. But I sympathize, because there are a lot of things which are still totally messed up, and a lot of people who are doing horrible things to other people and getting away with it. Still, I am glad your religion provides you with hopes. Because I see ample cause for hope in the supposedly bleak outlines of my everyday, "impoverished" life.

I have nothing to sell, friend Gideon. You get what you pay for, in this life or any other which may or may not exist, for certain values of the term "exist". And the only coinage that matters in any of them is attention--the hardest thing to pay. As Robert Ruark said, "Do not give up something of value unless you have something of value with which to replace it."

Thus, if you want to pay attention to the Christian story and the shape it gives to your life, do it! If you want to pay attention to something else, do that! By no means should you abandon anything that is working for you merely on my say-so.

I ask only the same consideration.