Those First Few Weeks of School

I think parents, teachers, and students need to give themselves a little grace during that first month of school.

Have you ever turned down your music when driving in a new neighborhood trying to find an address?  What does music have to do with directions?

It is another input.  Another distraction when all of your mental energy is trying to focus.

My classroom is old-hat to me.  But to my new students? Everything is novel.  Where the pencil sharpener is, how I pass things out, procedures for lining up.  Literally, everything is new.  So many inputs. And, unlike the music in your car, there is no button to tune some of it out.

The first month is kind of nuts.  Take a breath.  It'll get better.

No Ulterior Motives

This meme was recently posted by a pastor friend of mine on Facebook.  Beneath it were these comments:

"One day they will wish they hadn’t denied Him!"

"I wouldn't want to be the one that would deny that our Lord does not exist I love my Lord and I know he loves me 💖💖"

In a similar vein, I was chatting with a former believing colleague on a thread who was trying to "reconvert" me.  I was polite but made it clear I just wasn't buying what he was selling.  At that point, he became very angry and launched into a string of personal attacks and finished with the old threat of "You will be dead one day, soon, and meet face to face with Almighty God Himself!" and that he feared for my soul.

This is fairly typical of the believing sect I came from.  Common to their belief is that anyone not of their sect should "fear" their life ending in unbelief.

But I don't.

First, because I believe we are biological and that is all there is.  One day I will die.  All my biological functions will cease.  I will have no awareness after that.  I will be gone.  Contrary to the statement of Augustine, I have no ulterior motives for this belief.

Second, if there turns out to be something beyond this life, I can't imagine it is anything like what they have put forth.  Their take is simply unreasonable and unloving.  Perhaps an eternal, all-powerful being really is that petty and insecure... but in that case, my former tribe will ultimately be no more safe than anyone else.

Rather, if it turns out there is something out there, beyond our moment of death, I think it will be something wonderful... for everyone.

Conservative Religion Never Trusts

I don't believe in any religion but I don't necessarily think they are all harmful. However, I would struggle to find redeeming qualities in conservative religion and this meme is an example of why.

First, there is no humility in their theology. We are right, everyone else is a heretic. I don't care what sect you are from, you have never had a personal one-on-one with a deity (stirrings in your heart and feeling his/her presence don't count). Therefore, ALL of your notions about your deity are secondhand, a telephone game that has gone on for hundreds and thousands of years. Even if there is a central text, there has never been a time when wildly varying sects have not laid claim to that same text. There is a simple reason for this: a text cannot speak. It is subject to the interpretation of the reader and therefore will ALWAYS speak with many voices.

Second, conservative religion is always on a bug hunt for heresy. Not only are they terrified of outsiders, often known as "the world", but they are forever looking for "error" among their own people. Loyalty pledges and behavior rules are a favorite to demonstrate that one is a "real" believer (much like their conservative political siblings who like to judge who is a "real" American).

I grew up in conservative religion. I know the fear of not wanting to be tainted by "the world" or heresy from within.

What I find kind of humorous about this quote is that I consider Hillsong a conservative religion. Similar to my final church home, they put on a more welcoming front and use inclusive language as much as they can, but at the end of the day, they are on the same exclusive road as the pastor being quoted. 

Church is like Baseball

There are a lot of similarities in America between sports enthusiasm and religious devotion. Both have the ability to bring together or divide a community. Each of them can stir up the passions of people for good or for ill.  Devotion and enthusiasm are not good or bad... it just depends on how they are handled.

Have you ever gone to a little league baseball game?  One parent uses sports to teach their kid fair play, good health, and personal excellence.  Another parent is giving different lessons as they cuss out the teen umpire in front of their child.  I have vivid memories of sitting on my glove in the outfield at 7 years old - our game was paused as two dads went to blows over home plate.

We had a family reunion two summers ago in Iowa. One evening we went to a minor league game.  I am not a sports person, but I am always up for a social happening in almost any context.

It was a really nice stadium.  We got the hot dogs, nachos, and pretzels.  The game was close, the family was there... we were having a good time.

However, for a lot of folks in the stadium, having a good time was accomplished differently.  For them, enthusiasm came from dissension. Everything the OTHER team did was awful and everything their team did was great.  A ref was good or bad based on calls for or against THEIR team.  I even saw one dad teaching his son to heckle the other players.

Religion and sports... the good and the bad are all in how you approach the game.

Star Trek Canon and Biblical Theology

Way back in the 1960s, there was this show called Star Trek.  Maybe you have heard of it.

In one of the episodes, Captain Kirk fights with a lizard creature from a species known as the Gorn.  Of course, what those writers didn’t know at the time was that a future Star Trek show, nearly 60 years later, would also want to make use of the Gorn character.

Our present Gorn look and act much different than the Gorn of William Shatner’s day.  60s Gorn looked like a guy in a big rubber lizard suit – because it was a guy in a big rubber lizard suit.  The Gorn of the 2020s look like they were born on the set of James Cameron’s Aliens.  Instead of lumbering behemoths, they are wicked, sleek, and scare the bejeezus out of even the most stone-faced Starfleet officer.

So, how does one explain the difference in the presentation of the Gorn species?

Of course, the most obvious answer is that film and tech have improved vastly in 60 years.  If the writers of Star Trek in the 1960s had access to 21st-century tech, they would not have thrown Bill Blackburn into a rubber lizard suit.

But that explanation does not work for a lot of Star Trek fans.  For these folks, there is a real discrepancy that needs to be accounted for WITHIN THE STORY.  These differing Gorn appear at nearly the same time in Star Trek history, so why do they not look the same?

If you go to Facebook and Reddit, you will see fans developing very intricate explanations that will allow both accounts of the Gorn to remain canon (true within the story).  There are dozens and dozens of theories.  Some vary only slightly, while others have wildly differing explanations.  My favorite so far is this one:

They're not the same species.

Kirk in his recording, says specifically, "... what the Metrons call the Gorn." Not what he, or Starfleet, call the Gorn. But what the Metrons call that species. 

If you apply SNW to the TOS timeline, they know what the Gorn look like and how they behave. I've interpreted Kirk's words as one of puzzlement: "We know what the Gorn are, these aren't them, why the heck are the Metrons calling them that?"

I love that this guy is digging down and dissecting Kirk’s words.  There is no way the original writers meant this… but he is able to use their chance verbiage to design an entire thesis.

Now, most fans are just having fun with this… but there are a few who take this seriously… and angrily.  They have choice words for folks who do not validate their theory and they HATE anyone who shrugs it off as just a story.

Observing this has reminded me of so many theological discussions I have been involved in and witnessed.  Christians are also concerned with canon and how they deal with discrepancies in their story varies on a scale even greater than Star Trek.  How does a God who acts horribly throughout a lot of the story suddenly get credited with peace and love?  How can contradictory ideas and events within the Bible be accounted for?

Some Christians recognize that a lot of the early Bible writers were only a few steps up from cavemen and their God acted like it.  Later, as civilization matured, so did "God".  By the time we get to the later writers, God looks a lot different.  We have moved past the rubber suit.

Other Christians want these discrepancies to work within canon.  They will dig down and dissect the wording.  Books, seminars, and studies exist to keep things canon. They use chance verbiage to develop a thesis. They try to get the story to flow… but they can’t always get it to work.  In the end, there are lots of ways to make the not working… palatable.

And then there are those who take it seriously… and angrily.  They have choice words for folks who do not validate their theories and they HATE anyone who shrugs it off as story.

I get along fine, generally, with those first two groups… but the angry group has little patience with an atheist like me.  Especially when they find out I was once a believer.  It is difficult for many Christians to reconcile a former believer becoming an atheist… while maintaining canon.

Some, like a colleague I once worked with at a ministry, say I am now “possessed by a lying spirit.”  My lack of belief is not really me… it is a demon.  Various canon problems can be solved with this approach.

Others have decided I was never a believer in the first place.  My decades in the faith and ministry simply… didn’t happen.  Their only way to maintain canon is to proclaim that I never really believed.

This approach occurs with Star Trek fans too.  If you get to a really sticky wicket, you just proclaim it “not canon”.  It never happened.

I think I want a shirt that reads, "Not Canon".  :)

Pratt The Raptor

"I know why it's the case, it's because the internet runs on clicks, so if half the country is reading about how brave they are for knowing the earth is flat it's not like the other half is gonna click on articles about how round earth is, they're going to click on lists of 17 things to do when your uncle thinks the earth is flat. Because that's the thing we'd like to learn, that's the ****ing earth shape that's still unknown to us. We fall into a trap of essentially studying bad studying, in hopes that we can Pratt the raptor." ~ Dan Harmon

I love the phrase "Pratt the Raptor." I agree with Dan that many arguments on the net can be pointless and just serve to entangle yourself in a mess that the "Raptor" enjoys.

However, those arguments CAN help turn the studio audience. One of the things that helped snap me out of religion's spell was watching and listening to those conversations when I was a believer. I cringed at the behavior displayed by the apologists of my faith. I was embarrassed by their lack of listening, their passive aggression, their belittling attitudes, and their straight-up insults.

Yeah, you're probably never going to Pratt the Raptor ... but the folks out in the stands are another story.