Okay, I got in another pie fight. I'm a believer. I'm not a firm materialist like so many folks around here are. I don't like having my beliefs being reduced to "invisible sky fairies" along with all of the other believers (for one, it is an insult to those Pagans who may really believe in that). That's why I'm here in this diary, now on to some musings I've been having lately.
I've gotten a hold of a new book recently, and it is helping me see how I (and a lot of Christianity) have fallen into the trap of materialism. "The Secret History of the World" by Mark Booth is an interesting book I was led to at the Borders in Anchorage. I was hanging by the metaphysics rack with a local shaman and was contemplating the notion that NOTHING happens by chance. After picking a book up out of the astrology section (on the names of stars and the significance of constellations) I was checking the section on Orion. Then, I decided to head over to the history section....then it happened.
The first purchase my eyes made as I laid them on the US History section was on Booths book. It had the Eye of Horus on the spine. Too weird. Back cover bullet point "The Green King". I'm hooked and I haven't even opened the cover. Zoom to the section on "The Death of the Green King" and the narrative I had just finished on in the previous book continued.
For any who are curious here is a brief outline.
So I bought the books and went to contemplated them.
Starting in the Preface:
The Secret History of the World is a rude gesture in the face of the know-it-alls- who make up the intellectual elite, the control freaks who decide what it is acceptable for us all to think and believe.
Okay, attention gotten (I'm one of those said control freaks, in recovery).
continuing:
These days the scientific, materialist view is dominant. Sadly, to talk of about any form of spirituality is to risk be mocked as a bit nutty.
raises hand Okay, full nut here I guess.
Booth lays out the notion that we have two basic ways of looking at our existence. Matter before mind (physical elements and then thought) or mind before matter (thought and then physical elements).
If we live in a matter before mind universe it is an objective, material universe that is not aware that we even exist. Our lives are a series of facts and statistics experienced in a timeline devoid of any ultimate meaning.
If we live in a mind before matter universe we live in a subjective spiritual universe that is reflected and expressed in a physical way in our material universe. (This one kind of spooked me). Everything we experience is part of a story, nothing happens at random and all of our actions take on deeper meaning/consequences. The thought that created matter has a purpose and we are part of it, we are a reflection of that thinker, to some extent we can have similar thoughts with that thinker because he desired it to be so. In this universe our lives become a spiritual interaction.
Booth also goes into how Christianity has waved the white flag in the face of materialism and is no longer holding it at bay. Christianity as most of us know it has been co-opted. Instead of taking the narrative stance of the latter universe Christianity has taken the DEAD LETTER approach to living. Do this, don't do that. Why? Because a spiritual universe frightens Jesus right out of them.
I have Christians ask me all the time. You think you can actually hear God? And, you think that God actually wants to say something to you??? And say things like, "If God wants to heal my sister from cancer he'll guide the hands of the surgeon and give wisdom to the oncologist." Wow, no wonder we're toast. The spirit is constrained by the material?? Don't go out on a limb there "believers".
We've reduced God to a new car and the "Word" to an owners manual.
Materialism suits the brick and mortar church on the corner pew sitting church pastors to keep this type of materialism up, it provides them a good job and often a good home. Materialism works good for the televangelist who wants to build a new "holy land" in Florida, or a full sized Noah's Ark. It works well for the WWJD baiting politicians who think they can count on your vote 'cuz they gay-bashed somebody this week (didn't Jesus say that his kingdom was not of this world).
Do you know who materialism doesn't suit? People who believe the words of Christ! Don't tithe to the big church on the corner, give to the least of these his (Jesus) brothers. Don't send money to the TV dude, send it to Haiti. Don't vote for the person who "has the vote of Jesus" hear for your own damned self who you should vote for.
(Note to self: Don't get in obnoxious flame wars with atheists on religious threads)
As believers, we need to realize that our lives are a spiritual interaction and NOT a material one or we are going to be absorbed (like Christianity) into the belly of the beast.
P.S. Update: After years of soul searching, navel gazing, prayer (usually shouted AT God), meditation, and solitude this I know about myself, what morality I have does not stem from me. I do not do "good" because of how it makes me feel or because I like to do it, I do it as part of a spiritual interaction between me and my creator. That may be crazy but that is how I tick. Being an elitist (in my own mind) I naturally think that other people are like me. I am still working on not being such an ass.
I still struggle but I'm working these things out with time, and goose eggs on my virtual noggin.