On soap and boxes.

I had a lengthy conversation with two of my former students last night. One approached me for advice on how to structure her first semester at Berkeley so as not to overload herself, and I, having taken 6 years to finish college, had some input and experience as to how not to overload ones self on class. The other was dragged into the conversation because she was headed to UCD and I could provide even more detailed "advice" as to my opinions on classes, and how to go about enjoying the first fall quarter. The problem is, one conversation turned to politics, the other religion. Both opened up rather large cans of worms, as they had forgotten I keep a pretty big soapbox under my desk. The problem was, I found an underlying theme to both conversations, something rather troubling.

The first of these conversations went south when I linked a year old video I had been watching to interrupt our conversation. When she responded with "I don't think he [Obama] is that well spoken" I sorta scoffed. I then linked her to plenty of eloquent and inspiring speeches that make one warm and happy inside from listening to them. She then consented that he was pretty well spoken, but she still didn't know what he was going to do to change America. She was rather doubtful that many Americans would change, and somehow the conversation got hooked on the tragedy of September Eleventh, 2001 (I hate the term 9/11). She insinuated the hope Obama was pushing smacked of the false hope Bush forced down our throats in his attempts to fight a War on Terrorism. I explained to her that, at the time, the American people needed something to lash out at. In times of chaos, economic turmoil and pain, a country needs an enemy. I then linked her to a few quotes to make my point. The first was this:

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

This was followed by:

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve.

Anyhoo, the first quote is attributed to Herman Goering, the second John Ashcroft, a key supporter of the patriot act. Both were the right-hand men of their respective leaders. It's a parallel many have seen, but these kids hadn't been subjected to liberal brain-washing yet. I told her that this is why we have history majors. But the point I made in this tangent was that a state in turmoil needs an enemy for its people to focus on so as not to be distracted with domestic matters. What better outsider for a god fearing people to hate than those who don't share their religion?

My second debate/rant of the evening was over homosexuality, marriage and sin. I was alerted to the Mormon church's support being thrown behind amending the California State constitution. Now, I don't have television, and sadly don't get to watch the Daily Show, but I'm sure many late night comedians jumped on this. It's too easy to say: "Sanctity of Marriage?Sorry buddy, I know things change, but Hypocritical much?" However, as the laughter died down, we returned to the issues of religion, sexuality and eventually race. I then turned things on their ear by ranting that slavery only existed because people used religion to rationalize it being ok: GOD created the negro inferior to the white man. This then led back to our topic of homosexuality with GOD saying that homosexuality is a sin. I was told by a very bright and open minded young lady that, though she disagrees with homosexuality, she has nothing against homosexuals being that they are people like everyone else. I had to step back up on my box to correct her, saying that yes, homosexuals were people, in fact they weren't homosexuals, but rather homosexual people. The word homosexual shouldn't be a noun, but an adjective. We went in circles for a while debating whether or not homosexuality is a sin, and I'd like to re-state my argument against it being a sin.

There's a site out there that details passages from the bible which explicitly state that homosexuality is a sin. Fair enough, the bible is the word of God and is infallible, right? These passages are from the book of Leviticus and from the Epistles of Paul (1st Corinthians and Romans). A book of the old testament and letters of an evangelical, albeit one of the most influential evangelicals, still a man with his own agenda. Now, my take on Christianity is that the whole idea, the reason why it's not just Judaism 2.0 is that in Christ folks were offered a new covenant. One not with a vengeful and overbearing god, but with a forgiving and loving one (ok, same god, He just had a change of heart I guess). This means we continue to learn from the old testament, but it is not taken literally. in fact most of the old testaments laws and rules were thrown out. It's not the place of anyone to pick and choose what's right and what's wrong. It is in the Gospels that the "good news" is spread and that's where Christians find their slalvation. 

Here though, we have a disconnect between the prophet and the church. Nowhere in the words of Christ can you find him condemning homosexuality, only those who come after him. Neither God, nor Christ, but man. Paul. The church. The majority of the new testament is made up of the epistles, and they mention sin more than any other portion of the bible. It's kinda ridiculous. I think it's from these letters that all the catholic guilt is derived.

Regardless, the whole idea of labeling a type of people as sinful seems to me to be an amazing idea. Condemning a lifestyle that is part of what people are condemns the people themselves as sinful. No matter what sins you can accomplish, you can be absolved of them... but those people, those ones over there? They ARE sin. What you can do is nothing compared to that. Think about it. The whole idea behind the teachings of "let you who is without sin cast the first stone" and how that meshes up with condemning other people who have nothing to do with your life, and obstructing them from the same rights that you enjoy. All this based on the rantings of one terribly homophobic man who was influential in building the christian church. Not the religion mind you, the Church. The idea behind it comes back to the outsider, the enemy. "Look at them, see them live in sin, see them BE sin. Just don't look too hard at me" - my hatred, my malice, my warmongering, and my greed.