Uncouth PerspectivesNot on the rug, man.

I have been thinking a lot about the stories we tell ourselves.

The tumultuous economy has affected many.  For a while I thought I might be untouched, but things are looking a lot more shaky than they were.  This affects me in very interesting ways.  Most of the problem is not actually my personal situation, though it is scary.  Mostly, people are just a lot more grumpy and cynical.  It wears.

Where I have been most affected is my plan to finally finish my Master’s degree in Religious Studies.  I finally got myself ramped back up to get it finished and now with pay cuts and bleak times ahead, I just can’t justify taking on the loans I now need to take on to get it finished.  I’ve paid for my school as I’ve gone along and taking on debt is just not appealing right now.

A good friend told me that I didn’t need an advanced degree to be legitimate.  While I’m not trying to get my Master’s in Religious Studies to legitimize anything–I’m doing it because I want the knowledge and the experience–it got the meat juices flowing.  Unless there is specific knowledge you are trying to get, degrees are mostly part of myth–a right of passage myth.  By going through the steps and the process, you prove you can participate in the process of advancing in society.  Note that I am not saying the degree process is false or wrong, but there is a mythical element to it.  While our educations provide foundations, it is our experience and our ability to learn from that experience that generates the bulk of our knowledge.

How many people define themselves by the degrees they have?  Or, more to what I’ve been thinking about, how many people look down at themselves because they don’t have degree X.  Or aren’t doing Y and so failure is the only thing in sight.

We all have an idea of who we are and who we want to be.  There is going to be a natural difference between who we think we are and who we are (in sum of our experiences).  It’s often too easy to overlook a bad deed or a poorly worded retort.  Let’s face it, it can be awful hard to admit “Wow, I really screwed that up and was not very nice.”  Most of us seem to learn to apologize, but I’m too aware of how many people seem to not understand there is a difference between just saying the words and meaning them.

I’m curious what happens when we let these ideas of who are or who we want to be get to mythical proportions.  It seems like it would be too easy to swing into grossly arrogant or pitifully depressed.

I know this happens to me, for example, when I think about past relationships or where I think I should be right now in my life with romance.  I always assumed that I would get married (once) and have a rich and happy partnership.  I feel like I have a lot to offer.  People around me like to be supportive and tell me what a great husband/father/potato I would make–I want to scream at them to stop saying that, because it just makes me feel worse about it all.

I’ve learned a lot about myself and how to be a good partner through the failed relationships I’ve had a long the way–and that’s also not sailing they are all failures just because they ended… but I’ve definitely had some failures.  But a lesson I am coming to see is how I struggle with myself because of the dichotomy of how I see myself versus how I really am.

But it’s not just pining about relationships.  Romance is just an easy go-to.  I think this happens with all kinds of things:  education, careers, personal achievement goals, whatever.  It’s important to have something to strive for.. and it’s incredibly important to hope.  But it’s also important to remember what those things are and not get so caught up that we forget either who we are or what we are doing.  Sometimes it’s good to just be yourself.  Sometimes it’s good to just enjoy the journey.

Ah, but the truth is, it’s always good to dream.

So I first saw this amazingly offensive campaign in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miULdI-qocg

Then these billboards apparently started popping up.

I only bring this up in light of Dr. George Tiller’s murder. While I’m not going to touch either side of the abortion argument, I have a strong sense of hypocrisy when I look at the contradictions in messages.

Murder in the name of God is not something unknown.  In fact, not only does it happen, but it appears to be quite condoned in (“Western”) religious texts.

For example, in a form of genocide, as recounted in the “Old Testament”:

16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:

17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:

Deutoronomy 20:16-17

Or perhaps this individual encouter, as recounted in The Book of Mormon, in which Nephi murders Laban:

10 And it came to pass that I was constrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban; but I said in my heart: Never at any time have I shed the blood of man. And I shrunk and would that I might not slay him.

11 And the Spirit said unto me again: Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; and he also had taken away our property.

12 And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands;

13 Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.

…

18 Therefore I did obey the voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword.

1 Nephi 4:10-13, 18

The point here is that, going by religious texts, murder and killing is not something outside of the realm of (“Western”) God’s will.

So what kind of hypocrisy is it so show images and make statements which imply that someone who doesn’t believe in God will kill?  I’m much more concerned by someone who feels a moral obligation to kill.  Take, for example, the writings of another famous abortion doctor killer, the Reverend Paul Hill:

The scriptures teach that when the government requires sin of its people that they “… must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29b). No human government can remove the individual’s duty to keep each of the Ten Commandments: these duties are inalienable. When the government, thus, will not defend the people’s children—as required by the Sixth Commandment—this duty necessarily reverts to the people. You don’t need the government’s permission before defending your own or your neighbor’s child. If the people’s children will not be defended by the government, they must be defended by the people, or they will not be defended at all.

And if you want your fellow citizens, and the government, to recognize this duty, you must assert it.  The outrage is not that some people use the means necessary to defend the unborn, but that since most people deny that this duty exists the government will not perform it on the people’s behalf.

If you haven’t read it, I highly encourage you to take a moment and read his article on why, how, and the aftermath of shooting and killing Dr. John Britton and his escort, James Barrett: http://www.armyofgod.com/PHill_ShortShot.html

But, here, let’s look at the truth of it.  Being Christian, for example, doesn’t make anyone more or less likely to kill any more than being an atheist or agnostic does.  Individual people make individual decisions and justify them by whatever means they want.

I think we should put more emphasis, as individuals, on our own value on life than on defeating our enemies.