Some good stuff from Christianity

Another long absence from the blogosphere, and I apologize for my neglect.

Thought subjects lately:

*strategies for making it through until I finish school and get a job

*strategies for finding a job

*Strategies for losing weight

*Strategies for meeting women

*religion

*things I need to do.

*God, it's nice being on the beach...like better than being in the cold...wow, look at those weird birds dive bomb the ocean...I bet that's what pteradactyls looked like a million years ago.

*Wow, Route 666 really is a terrible movie, and for God's sake, why did LDP (Lou Diamond Phillips) agree to be in such a shitty, shitty, movie, and why the hell don't they make Young Guns 3? And what exactly is the relationship between Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, and LDP? Aren't they brothers or something?

*Statistics is like magic. It is a powerful force whose mysteries are beyond me. I seek to learn to wield it, and I sit at the feet of my Jedi Master's. Ordinary Least Squares regression is the light saber of the policy world.

I was thinking about Christianity today. I was thinking, in the megolomaniacal way that I do, about what it would be like to run for office, and I wondered if I would be honest about not being a Christian. Anyway, that just sets the scene for the following thoughts about Christianity.

I think it's useful to divide Christianity into three different conceptual pieces (and no, this is not an analogy to the Trinity). These pieces would be Christianity as a set of ethical principles, Christianity as a system of stories and symbols used to express a particular understanding of human existence and human nature, and Christianity as a set of beliefs about history and metaphysical reality.

I find the first two "pieces" of Christianity to be quite powerful and useful. That is why I kept calling myself a Christian, even when I had stopped subscribing to virtually every aspect of the Christian "creed." I think the aspect of Christianity that makes claims about supernatural historical events and metaphysical reality (by which I mean a heaven and a hell in which all humans will exist after they die) is not very useful, because its claim of authority is based upon a claim of its factual, historical accuracy, and I don't believe in that factual, historical accuracy. Neither do I believe in dragons. I do, however, believe in Bigfoot, for he is not a supernatural creature, but simply an undocumented semi-intelligent bipedal primate who inhabits wooded and mountainous regions of North America, smells very pungent, and makes very strange sounds (which have been recorded....google search bigfoot sounds, and you'll soon be a believer too).

On the other hand, I believe that Christian Ethics are quite profound. By Christian ethics, I mean what I interpret to be the ethical upshot of the New Testament. Christian Ethics may seem old hat by now, because they have so infused our culture. And I don't mean the distortion of Christian Ethics that emphasizes "purity," sexual or otherwise. Of course, ritual purity was a big part of the ethics of all of the cultures that inform the new testament (greek, roman, jewish), so yes, it shows up. But the real upshot of the Gospels and the Epistles is an emphasis on the equality of all people in the eyes of God. It is the belief that all people have access to God (in that they are holy, individual beings endowed with the Light of God), while at the same time, all people are sinful little pieces of worthless shit who are equally in desperate need of God's mercy and Love. The ethical upshot of this understanding of human nature is that all people, by virtue of their being human, have dignity and value, and so must be treated with a substantial amount of both respect and equality. This is opposed to the Roman ethic, where respect and honor were NOT guaranteed by one's humanity, but were either earned through accomplishment or through birth.

Now, obviously, the actual practice of the Christian religion through the centuries failed to embrace this ethic, and thus killed a lot of people. But, I think we can trace our modern love of liberty, respect, and equality (i.e., constitutional democracy) at least in part to this "revolutionary" ethic. I don't want to overemphasize the "uniqueness" of this perspective, but Christianity is particularly good at it, I think.

I need to get ready for class, so I'll continue with Christianity as Existential Framework later.