I saw the documentary about that! In end he wanted to, or did, join in the festivities. Anyway, if you're writing a story about a snake handling christian, then I'm all for researching the motives and rationale for doing that, how it affects daily life, how people who don't do that, etc. If you don't understand their pride and prejudices, then it's just a token "snake guy" with no content. However, if you're writing an average "Christian" and there seems to be none, then you can make up whatever you want. One group thinks he's from space! So, your character can be a guy who does not attend church, considers himself very pious, and thinks Jesus is a spaceman badass who inented weed so we can all smoke it, and your art probably refelcts someone's truth.
About the Snake Handlers: I'm an anthropology major and we studied them, or rather we studied a group of snake handlers from the 1950s. There's a film available via youtube.com called "Holy Ghost People" that I think the person who started the thread might find interesting. It's an ethnographic film that basically just shows one of their services: singing, dancing, preaching, and handling snakes. You know, all pretty standard... The Snake Handlers are actually a variety of fragmented congregations that don't all have exactly the same beliefs or practices, so you should keep this in mind if you decide to write about them. I believe the group in Holy Ghost People are from West Virginia, but I'm not positive. The verse is from the New Testament and says that people who have the Holy Ghost will handle snakes and speak in strange tongues. The people in the film do both of things as a kind of test to see if they really have the Holy Spirit within them. They believe the Holy Spirit can enter one's body, so they only handle snakes, speak in tongues, preach, and sing when they are moved to do so. Handling snakes is actually not as dangerous as it sounds. People still get hurt doing it, but they pick up rattlesnakes out of boxes and fairly quickly drop them again. One person is bitten in the film because he is holding the snake for much too long while he talks to the congregation about faith...a bit ironic, I suppose. I'm sorry to go on and on. I wrote a paper about this group in my anthropology class, trying to come up with an anthropological explanation for why the people would do this. I don't think my final explanation was all that satisfactory, but I argued that handling snakes was a kind of rite de passage, that people had their own personal reasons for connecting to the snakes and that the Holy Ghost meant something a little different to every person, and finally that their meetings were such a separation from reality that the people were able to create their own standards of practice. Like I said, I don't think this even begins to explain it, but see what you think! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nX0irC4Bgs
If you look at it from an atheist perspective it loses complexity. Recently, I watched on the US movie channel, Turner Classic Movies, a great Peter Sellers film called Heavens Above! that illustrated the point well. Sellers was a minister who really believed everything Jesus said and came to a new town and convinced many to follow Jesus' teachings. This destroyed the lives of rich people, of merchants, and those who enjoy condemning others. Eventually, the town and church errupted and people wanted to kill him, and the church, in the end, invented a sadly amusing technological solution for him. It's a must watch. The reason the obfuscation of Jesus' teachings exists is because he was basically a communist and an extreme humanist. Meanwhile, the OT allows many negative impulses to be entertained as if they're "godly" and that is excellent for sociopathic leaders to employ to further their goals. What Jesus would not allow that. Edit: Link to film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057134/
Wow. That is... I mean, on the one hand that is highly unfortunate, but on the other... it's kind of hilarious. Mostly b/c I'm envisioning it maybe differently from what they may have meant... I just pictured this kid who's been told to ask himself "What Would Jesus Do?" and he takes it super literally and so when someone starts a fight with him he goes "Don't mess with me, I'm Jesus!" Because this is what he thinks Jesus would do. Is it OK if I use this in a story?
Really? Do you really know why people believe what they believe? What makes someone left-wing or right-wing? My dad is an old-school dispensationalist who believes in war and possibly the death penalty and thought invading Iraq was the worst idea he'd heard in a long time. My brother thinks it was necessary and so are concealed-carry handguns, I think it was crap (and so are concealed-carry handguns), and it's pretty hard to figure out what my mom thinks because she doesn't like to argue. I don't think my brother thinks what he thinks from evil motives, though. He honestly thinks that if everyone at, say, Virginia Tech was carrying concealed handguns, they would have taken out the gunman and innocent lives would have been saved, and he's passionate about the innocent lives part, and see, I happen to know him well and he's not faking. I think we all need to give each other a little more credit for genuine belief (or disbelief) and genuine disagreement. That's actually what I believe should be the real idea behind tolerance. I don't like that word, no one wants to be tolerated, I prefer the idea of respecting each other. (Although I don't doubt there are many cynical people out there who *are* simply using scriptures of various kinds. And some of them certainly do call themselves Christians.) It sounds as though you and I believe a lot of the same things politically speaking, though we may have different reasons for doing so. Although I would add that Jesus was a pacifist and anarchist (which makes the "communist" sharing idea wholly voluntary, which was of course the problem with big-C Communism) and also that he was God. That's what I believe and I base my life on it. The movie sounds great, I'll have to see it.
Although this is coming a little late I feel I should clarify a few things. Depending on how you interpet the Bible, you can argue for or against many things. That's one of the reasons why there are often many denominations of many religions, not just Christianity. The scriptures are often vague, and more than a few times contradict themselves. The commandment that places a taboo on killing, specifically number six, is but one of over 600 laws that were given to the Hebrews after Moses came down from Mount Sinai, they are all in the Bible as well, many of them are easily ignored by Christians, and for good reasons. The OT commands, among other things, the death of witches, people that work on the Sabbath, and unruly children. This is why church leaders cherry pick the Bible during Sermons and why the ancient Hebrews, in their wisdom, decided to revise many of the rabbinical laws with extra-biblical literature like the Talmud and centuries of scholarly debate. The sixth commandment is often translated as "thall shalt not kill" but according to the closest translations of ancient texts, a more likely wording was "do not commit murder", with an emphasis on premeditation. In cases of war the commandment simply did not apply, and is often excused or allowed for other cases where kiling might be commanded by Yahweh, etc. Moses himself commanded the Israelites to commit genocide against whole tribes and cities of "uncircumcised fellows", i.e. gentiles. If you are a close follower of Christ, yes, it would seem that he placed a high emphasis on peace and nonviolence, and would be opposed to killing, even as a kind of punishment. However, Christ himsefl also said that he would not change the laws of the OT, I believe his words were not even a "jot or tiddle" of the laws would be changed. If that's the case, Jesus is very complacent with the laws concerning the selling of slaves and your daughter, among other things. He is also okay with "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" because he makes not even an attempt to revise it.:redface:
I would be honored. When I'm doing my work it's important to keep a type of "poker face" so that you don't shut people down before it's your turn to provide feedback, and it was tough in this situation. All the kids were well dressed in uniforms and looked well fed, healthy, etc. The school had near military order and I figured the religious ideas were strong, then that. I had to force my jaw from dropping. After that I was extremely suspicious about what was going on there.
Wow. What's your work, then? What do you think was going on? I guess I assumed it was just the kid's own imagining of what Jesus would say. I'm not familiar with that type of school but have heard of them.
When I said "communism" I meant the real kind which has never been done. About the closest is a Jewish Kibbutz. The kind of "communism", which as none at all, that gave it a bad name, was Leninism. He proposed that communism isn't possible unless it's world wide and so military dictatorship is needed first. It worked for him because he was dictator. Then, it became a great way to trick people into wanting communism while foistng oppression on the. A great modern example is Nort Korea where the guys is a hereditary king but is called a communist. Interestingly, communism has had the same problem as Christianity as both require than aggressive power hungry people not be in power, which they most certainly don't want. Knowing: I don't know why people like Pop Tarts over English Muffins because that's too idiosyncratic, but it's fairly easy if they support a doctrine and do the opposite. President X says he's a Christian but supports war, death penalty, etc. It's obvious that he either: 1. Totally ignorant, or... 2. Says he's a member of the religion because it's socially acceptable and a form of capital to buy votes. The 1 is doubtful because it doesn't make sense based on his high functioning life. So, 2 is the easy and correct answer because if he actually believe the universal super being was watching him, there is no way he'd do anything do follow orders. A person who doesn't follow their religion but endorses it is just a pragmatic social chameleon. If you read the Canterbury Tales Chaucer talked about and made fun of such characters in the 1400s!
I work in psychology. The kids were in a high crime area and with people you go two ways with belief. The first and easiest is to maintain you bias and the second is to challenge them and suffer Cognitive Dissonance, which can create physical and mental pain. But, suffering that is essential to challenging erroneous ideas you have about life. So, my guess is that high crime areas are in part perpetuated by the people believing that violence is the way of the world and of course Jesus has to fit into that. To admit that 90% of the people in your community and family do not even come close would be quite painful, so the adults teach the children what I told you they said, and I'll bet keep the facts from them.
Hey, you don't have to call him X, I didn't like him either. I just have to disagree with your black-and-white interpretation, though. You don't seem to accept the idea that someone could sincerely believe that God is OK with war as long as it's in a just cause. I know people who do. I know them well, I grew up with them, they're not faking it. Yeah, some of them aren't too smart, but some of them are, including my brother. He's a computer genius. I can vouch for his sincerity in believing in a supreme being. And he was convinced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that we might get nuked if we didn't invade and that we were justified in invading even just on the basis of what Hussein had done to the Kurds. (Which, btw, was genuinely awful stuff.) To my brother, God wanted us to invade because God wanted us to protect the defenseless in both Iraq and America. I can and did argue with that, but I cannot argue with it on the basis of "You can't think this and really believe in God." I cannot exclude the possibility that Bush is very much like my brother. I also don't exclude the possibility that his faith had a lot to do with respectability and votes, and it's certain that he did use it politically. And, too, we've never had a president who didn't believe in war. (We've had ones who didn't like it. That's different.) It can't be done, really. In a certain sense violence is the way of the world--at least of a world, according to my worldview, in which humankind is sinful. Civilisation exists to curtail that violence, restrict it to hopefully peacekeeping forces like the police and the military; they are empowered to do physical harm so as to make sure no one else does. But it doesn't go away. There has always been war. Nations always have and always will act chiefly out of self-interest and they don't stop at violence, they don't even think of it. A nation with a pacifist leader would quickly be overrun as the other nations took advantage. Coercion is necessary to the way of the world. That's the way I see it and I think that the way of the world is not the right way. The way of Jesus is the right way. The way of Jesus can get you killed. It got him killed. But God raised him from the dead. This is the reason, the only reason, Jesus' teaching "works". Pacifism is a nice ideal when you're in a place where things are peaceful, but in a war zone it's another thing. And voluntary sharing can lead to voluntary poverty and that's another thing as well. If you follow Jesus for real you are extremely vulnerable. You can't use force to protect yourself, you can't use money or authority or social position to protect yourself. "I send you out as sheep among wolves." The only reason you can do it is that you're trusting in Someone else's protection. But almost no one does this. I think the reason why is obvious. It's scary as anything. You have to trust really radically. This is part of why I can't accept your "either he follows orders or he's faking it" idea. It might even be because he's trying to follow orders that he's blinded to what the orders are. Suppose someone really trustworthy took you to the edge of a cliff on a cloudy day and said there was a net down below, stretched across the whole canyon, hidden in the mist. Would you believe them? Then suppose they told you to jump off. That's why it's easier for people like you, who don't believe in this supreme being and his orders, to see what the orders really are. You have objectivity. It's a hard thing to have on the edge of a cliff.
This is where you're wrong. What Jesus said wasn't a group of suggestions, they are laws. If you believe he's real and he's the supreme judge of you in the universe. Human laws reflect the divine and are black and white, especially when it comes to severe crimes, and most of us don't break them because we know they'll be handled accordingly. Again, people don't seriously try to follow the "Creator of the Universe's" laws don't really believe. Back to my previous points, that's why there's so much variation.
I think you're right about the black and white laws, but sometimes it's difficult for people to see what that is - hence where all the variety of interpretations come from. It's not that the Bible is not black and white - I do believe it speaks truth and anything that contradicts it is not true (I mean, Jesus is God, or He isn't God. He can't be both God and not God, for example). But I think what a lot of people do is that they take things out of context. They forget the cultural and historical context, they also forget the context of the entire passage. They take one verse and says, "Well the Bible says that!" But the truth is, for those who follow the Bible, they must believe that the Bible is coherent and consistent - therefore other parts of the Bible must support it too if you wanna claim "The Bible says this." And personally I also believe in the theory of a "spectrum of interpretation". Not just for the Bible, but for ANY written text - there can be variation only to a certain extent. Language does have meaning (or we wouldn't be using it) and therefore the word "black" cannot be interpreted as "bright" - "black" can be a number of things, from darkness to shadows to evil spirits to death to cancer to plagues to rats - but they're all related. If I start interpreting "black" as "holy angels" - I'd need something else on top of this to support my argument. In the end, I do believe there're examples of the "average" Christian. Jesus called us to love one another - by that, the world will know we are His disciples. And 1 Corinthians 13 makes it clear what love is. I'd say, when in doubt, follow the greatest commandment, which is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and strength etc, and to love your neighbour as you love yourself. And then refer to 1 Corinthians 13 for what "love" is according to the Bible, and then, by God's grace and strength, do your best to live by that. That's a real Christian in a nutshell. And sometimes, we make mistakes, we make wrong judgement calls. That's why it's by grace and forgiveness (the core message of the cross). Maybe supporting a the invasion of Iraq was good, maybe it was bad, and both parties have perfectly good, moral and valid arguments for and against it. One could use "protect the innocent and stop the forces of evil" as an argument, and the other use "Do not murder, submit to your authority for God has placed them over you." It's all true. But I think that's where God's wisdom must come in - not man's wisdom. But I think people get divided too easily on these matters - they should simply live by "Do not judge someone else's servant". They should remain united in Christ (as they all call themselves Christians) and say that, God alone will decide in the end, and we must simply act according to our conscience. As Paul says, "If one of you doesn't want to eat meat because it damages his conscience before God, then you, who are stronger because you know it's not salvation by deeds, should not make your weaker brother stumble by eating meat in front of him. Do not cause your brother in Christ to sin." (this is a paraphrase btw) So if one does someone truly because they think it's the right thing, we can hold on to what we think is right but we shouldn't condemn each other. Just let God be God, and God alone is judge. The only time I do support division is when the core message of Christ gets blurred. If one says "Jesus is not God" but calls himself a "Christian" - then I insist that he is not, because in order to follow God you must go through Christ, believing that Jesus is the Son of God and one with the Father, thus also God as part of the trinity (still 1 God - no, I don't pretend to even remotely understand this concept!). If we differ on the identity of God, then we do not follow the SAME God. Then, I feel division is necessary, because you can only have 1 head, not 2. That's my 2 cents. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're wrong in saying there're many interpretations, and it is sad that, it's true, people do often live according to their own bias and interpretation, even taking the Bible to defend their own sins. And it does make it difficult for anyone to recognise when someone's a true Christian or not. It's sadly true, and I don't think that should be the way. Christians were meant to shine before men - live as light and salt - and because we're often all too quick to condemn each other, we're not shining as we should. And often, I have found, sometimes non-Christians live more wisely than some Christians, even real Christians, which is again, a sad truth.
Yes, but Biblical laws--and indeed, almost any laws--rarely translate perfectly to real life. Many Americans died in WWII, but had we not entered it, it is possible we would live in a world with no remaining Jews, homosexuals, or Gypsies. Would Jesus really have been in favor of turning the other cheek in such a circumstance? Shouldn't we protect and love our Jewish neighbors? Loving an enemy as we love ourselves becomes extraordinarily difficult when our neighbor is a homicidal maniac, and in this case, do we not have an obligation to step in & protect our other neighbors from his wrath? It's a question of interpretation, values, and priorities that ultimately cannot be solved no matter how intensely or thoroughly the Bible is read. I don't believe you are correct in your last assertion. The Christians I know genuinely do try to follow God's and Jesus's laws; they just disagree on what these mean and how best to apply the principles.
I'd pick another project. Your target audience is going to be very small, I believe. Many people who are in one religion, simply don't care to learn about someone else's religion. For that matter, a lot of them don't want to learn about the true history of their own religion. And for people like me who are not religious, they most likely aren't going to care about it either. I'd walk away from this one.
Thats not true though - plenty of people love learning about religion, even atheists. My friend and I go to each other's places of worship, have visited hindu temples, buddhist temples, pagan sacred places, synagogues, mosques etc It's fascinating to learn about, and many people do.
The Life of Pi was a fiction novel that tried to cover different religions. Consider giving that a look. I couldn't finish the book myself.
It's probably just my experience, growing up around people who seemed afraid to look outside the window, because it might challenge their belief systems.
A lot depends on what their belief system is as well - I live in an area with a high pagan/buddhist population.
Well, yes. I happen to agree. In a way it's nice to see an atheist holding Christians to a high standard. I do hope that when you do it in the course of your work you do it in such a way as to get a sympathetic hearing. I meant your black and white interpretation of human nature, actually--as I said, the fact that you don't give people credit for sincerity. What you say has a great deal of logic to it, and if life and humanity were logical it would be true. Jo makes a good point about WWII. It's clear from the Bible (I can't cite chapter and verse, but it's in there--I think it's in the prophets, which is a part of the OT not very friendly to dictators--I recommend the book of Amos) that you're not supposed to stand by while evil is being done. And sometimes it truly seems like the only option to do something about it is to fight. I believe that to be untrue but I feel the force of the argument--it's the best argument for the Just War theory *ever*. I can only look to the example of the people in the French town of Le Chambon, the place my novels are about, who resisted Hitler without violence and saved thousands of Jewish people, and say that that is my ideal. I think they were doing what Jesus said for real, and I think they did have supernatural protection--they could have been wiped out anytime. Other villages were (mostly in the occupied zone, though); but in Le Chambon only one Nazi raid ever turned up any Jews--out of hundreds. I believe "love your enemies" and "give to anyone who asks of you" to be laws, yes. But mckk is right about the varieties of interpretation possible. After all, Jesus also said "you must eat of my flesh and drink of my blood" and "if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out." You do have to, at some point, wonder what's a metaphor and what's not. And is "turn the other cheek" literal or metaphorical, and does it apply only to personal fights or does it apply to nations? I actually don't feel like you can build a pacifist case on "turn the other cheek." I build it instead on "love your enemies"; I do not believe that you can love someone and kill them. I don't wish to cut off debate about these things, and to me that's the likely effect of assertions about people's motives. I want to talk about this stuff. I'm delighted at the chance to talk about it, actually, and with people coming from all points of view. This is great.
Firstly, human nature isn't that complex and that's why we can learn from history. Since recorded history people people keep doing the same things over and over. Plus, "actions speak louder than words" and that's the way to determine if a person believes what they say. All of this and more is how writers create characters. War: From what Jesus said, in the walk another miles comment, the idea would be to absorb the enemy and teach them to be friendly by allowing them to invade. That would take the angry energy out of them because their would be no war. But agiain, my point is that there are no religious people and everyone is doing what they want and far less consistently than they brush their teeth. So, Jesus could screaming "Stop killing people!!!" and some covert murder would come along and say, "Yes, he meant, don't kill people spiritually. Killing their bodies is fine," and all the other murderers would shake their heads. Side note: I wish the OP would chime in.
"Religion" has everything to do with people's internal struggles in confronting the world: in that way, it's a division of psychology. It might not be immediately apparent, because there are all kinds of physical churches and synagogues and mosques, and lots of ritual, but essentially it comes down to "belief," which is a short step from "fantasy." No question, there is something about human nature itself that is not content with experiencing the world as it is, and needs to overlay an invisible series of rules and regulations for guidance. So-- rather than seeking out an accounting of how these urges have played out in the formulation of "faith," you might want to look to the core of the issue: what is it that causes this lunging for "faith" in the first place? The answer to that inquiry is bound to be somewhat universal, across all cultures and times.
I agree. Unless we believe in magic religion has to be an expression of psychology and its overt qualities speak to the covert qualities of believer.
I think the puzzle of religion is that it is certainly psychological and related to the self, but it's more than that. Religion relies on a collective spirit, something the sociologist Durkheim termed "collective effervescence." The esprit de corps means these things take on their own life, and, if I'm being very cynical (which, 9/10, I am), a religion is group of people who all share the same hallucination! If I become a nun and don the attire, the entire Catholic and, in fact, most of the world will know of my role in the church. Symbols are legible by a larger society. I may have my own reasons for being a nun, and perhaps to me, a nun symbolizes devotion or hard work, although it could denote virtually anything to me personally; perhaps it is defiant of me to become a nun because my entire family were Protestants, for instance, and when I wear the garb, rather than obedient, I feel independent. But when I don the garment, the society will see me as a nun with a specific role in the church. A big question is how the self reconciles with the society, which, after all, is just a giant group of "selves." Durkheim proposed that that is why we invented the supernatural: society is both within and without us, and we need to reconcile this complex division.
While this comment has much veracity and stereotypes are powerful, any writer seeking to fully seduce the reader into the story must have a general knowledge of their characters' religious systems. How many 'schisms' are exhibited in Islamic theology (Shia vs Sunni)? Or, Buddhism (Theravada vs Mahayana)? Or, Hinduism (Vaishnavism vs Shaivism vs Smartism vs Shaktism)? Or, Christianity (Protestant vs Catholicism)? And each sect can be further subdivided (Catholicism into Orthodox vs Unorthodox)... 'ad nausem'. Point of fact: There are over fifty different types of Baptists congregations. They don't read the Bible with the same understanding or they wouldn't have their own individual and distinct denomination. No two people see their religion EXACTLY as others even if they sit next to one another on the same pew. Religion is a personal experience no matter which spiritual system your MC is drawn to. Each religious sect has a "statement of belief" it's members collectively agrees to observe. Alas, we are but human and frequently fall 'short of the mark'. Such is life. Allegro's caustic comments towards other posters throughout this thread underscores how easily religion can get weird, even with people of best intentions. Can you imagine how garbled religion will mutate when someone of devious intent proclaims himself/herself (EEO folks) God's personal gift to mankind and the ONLY ONE with correct answers? [i.e. Jimmy Jones, David Koresh or Warren Jeffs - sorry these examples are all from Christianity; I'm equally certain other systems have their fair share of deviants]. In conclusion, for a quick overview of each system do some research at Wikipedia... then refine and specialize in the appropriate systems for your writing. Remember, religion evokes both the best and worst in people. Both types are fair game in literature. Who is OP(ie)?
