5 posts tagged “truth”

Why Christians Should Vote to Legalize Same Sex Marriage

For the purpose of this article I am going to adopt a distinctly conservative Christian perspective and write for a distinctly conservative Christian audience.  I want to put forth the idea that even if you believe homosexuality is morally wrong, a sin even, you should still vote for its legalization.

Freedom vs. License

"Freedom and fear are at war. Freedom is not, "being able to do whatever you want to do." That is license. If you have license, rather than authentic freedom, your house is built on sand and will collapse. Authentic freedom is the power to do what we ought to do; the power to choose the good, the true, and the beautiful. That will vanquish fear every time. If your concept of freedom is really license, fear will come out on top every time. Freedom has to be united with truth. There is no freedom outside of the truth: No authentic human freedom outside of the truth. "If you are truly my disciples, you will abide in my word. You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." True freedom is rooted in God."

- Fr. John Corapi

As Fr. Corapi says, Freedom is not license, it is more along the lines of personal authenticity.  If God is both Truth and within you, then when you are acting the most authentically and genuinely, you are acting in God's will.  Interestingly enough, this does not mean we should forsake license, for license and Freedom are tightly intertwined.  If it weren't for license, we could not genuinely choose to do what is right, for we would do it automatically.  This is why God gave us free will.  He allows us to sin so that we might learn, grow, and come to the truth in a very personal and authentic way.  There can be no authenticity, and no Freedom, without license.

The opposite of Freedom is fear, and the opposite of license is restriction.  When a society implements restrictions on its citizens, it does not only prevent its citizens from acting authentically, it acts out of fear itself.  Even though our intentions are good, restricting the public to do only what is morally right harms everyone.  The people may choose the right thing, but for the wrong reasons.  They follow truth, but they do so disingenuously.  We are teaching them to act a certain way out of fear of the consequences.  And we ourselves, who put the policy in place, we are acting out of fear as well.  We are afraid that we can't trust people, and that if we don't exert some pressure on them, they won't choose the right thing.

When God looks at us, does He have these fears?  Well, His heart is probably breaking all the time, seeing us choose to bury our true selves and choose against His will.  But He does not intervene and force us to change our minds.  He honors His gift to us of free will, and He lets us make mistakes.  He does not act out of fear that He will lose us.  In fact, one of Jesus's most persistent messages was "Be not afraid."  Fear blinds us, keeps us from the truth.  And out of fear we impose God's will on the people in our society, when even God himself will not do that.

The Purpose of Law

Contrary to a lot of current thought, the purpose of Law is not to uphold or enforce morality.  Law is about enforcing the minimum standard of action necessary to be a functioning member of society.  It is about preservation of society, putting restrictions on license where necessary in order to prevent its citizens from harming each other.  Other than that, it should allow its citizens as much license as possible.  If you look at many of our current laws (against murder, theft, drinking and driving, etc), we make acts illegal when they harm someone or infringe on their rights against their will.

Morality calls us to a much higher standard than the Law. Christian morality is about rejecting sin in all its forms and transforming yourself inside and out to become more and more like Jesus Christ.  And, as I stated in the last section, we cannot force Christian morality on members of our society without denying them the chance to choose it freely.  That's what makes morality such a wonderful, lofty, and praiseworthy ideal.  It is not something you are forced to do, it is something you choose to do.

Given everything that has been said thus far, as Christians it is our duty to emulate God and allow people to sin, as long as that sin does not harm another person.  It may break our hearts to see people shun the truth, but we have to let them.  From the standpoint of the Law, we need to allow same sex marriage.  To vote against it is to act out of fear, and to thereby distance ourselves from God.

Calming Leftover Fears - Definitions

In order to get ourselves to a place where we are emotionally ready to permit same sex marriage on a political level, we need to address two major fears that plague our hearts.

The first is that by legalizing gay marriage, we would be corrupting an institution that God created.  I know this is a sensitive issue, and I will try my best to treat it fairly and gently.  We must admit that the word marriage is full of different meanings on different levels.  Traditionally, marriage has not always been meant as a spiritual union in the eyes of God.  There has always been a social aspect as well.  Marriage has been used as a political tool to unite warring factions or countries.  It has been used in order to barter out a better life for your family line.  It has been used as a financial safety net.  Even today, people marry for all sorts of reasons.  They marry for money, for lust, or for social status.  Some people get married for love, but do not associate themselves with any religious tradition at all.

This does not in any way detract from the beauty and profundity of the Sacrament of marriage in its religious context.  It is as if we can talk about marriage on two levels.  There is the social/political level, and the spiritual/religious level.  The social/political level has changed many times over the centuries without affecting the spiritual/religious ideal of marriage.  And so it is today.  Allowing same sex marriage affects the social definition of marriage, not the religious one.  As a Christian, you do not have to recognize same sex marriages as being approved or sanctioned by God.  It is in the name of the State only.

If this proves to be too difficult of a place for us to reach, then perhaps we need to take another route.  Many have stated that they are just fine with civil unions, as long as gays aren't allowed to marry.  But what is a civil union other than the social/political level of marriage?  Although, if we insist on keeping the word marriage solely in its religious context, then we must be fair in how we treat it on a social/political level.  By this I mean taking the word marriage out of State hands entirely.  Everyone would get civil unions, and then if they chose to take the extra step of getting married, they can do so through their Church.

But it is imperative that we maintain equality between same sex couples and heterosexual couples.  When Jesus dealt with sinners, whores, and thieves, did he not treat them as equals?  Isn't that what allowed him to get through to them?

Calming Leftover Fears - The Children

The other major fear has to do with what our children will see and be taught with regards to homosexuality.  We do not like the idea that schools and/or the media will be telling our children that homosexuality is okay and perfectly acceptable.

Before we go into ways to ease this fear, let us explore for a bit the root of it.  When it comes to our children, we want nothing to corrupt them.  We want the best for them.  And because we are Christians, we want them to grow up with those same values, that they might find their way to God as well.  But this leads us to be fearful of letting anything "unclean" touch them.  We are afraid that the power of evil is too strong, too tempting, and that if our children are exposed, their weaker minds will be enveloped and there will be nothing we can do about it.

But children can smell our fear.  And they react in one of two major ways.  They either adopt the same fears, or they rebel against them and challenge them.  As we discussed earlier, fear is not truth.  Truth is Freedom.  Some children sense this on a deep level...that the actions we take are spawned from fear, and so they reject any truth that they might express.  Either we perpetuate the feeling of fear, or our children take their lives in a radically different direction in order to reject it.

There is a better way.  Do not be afraid to talk to your children.  Do not be afraid that they won't turn out how you want them to, or that their lives won't be as happy as the lives you imagine and want for them.  Trust God.  By working on your own inner state, you can better help them grow up in God's love. 

If you adopt the frame of mind discussed in this essay, talking to your children about same sex marriage is not as confusing as many, including the National Organization for Marriage, have made it out to be.  By showing your acceptance of it on a political level, you do not give off the same fear, and children are less likely to rebel.  You can then explain to your child what I explained in this essay, that marriage for Christians is something even more deep and spiritual and religious than society's definition.

Should your child still grow up and choose to marry someone of the same sex, the other thing that legalizing same sex marriage will do to help you is that it will drastically change the homosexual community.  With marriage and finding someone to love seen as the end goal of any life, even a homosexual one, your child will grow up seeing examples of gay men in loving, committed relationships.  They will see gay women caring for each other and their children.  If your child does end up to be homosexual, wouldn't you rather they choose this sort of life as opposed to one of promiscuity?

This brings me to another caveat to adopting a position free of fear.  We must maintain a sort of "detachment" from the outcome.  If your child does happen to be homosexual and to choose to marry someone of the same sex, you cannot take it personally.  It may break your heart, but to force your child to deny what he feels is truth makes you look fearful and your child will not respond.  To give your child a chance at Freedom, authenticity, and Truth...you must let him make his own choices.

Conclusion

In summary, the Christian life is about transforming ourselves and emulating Christ, who is God in human form.  In order to become like God we must follow Freedom, authenticity, and Truth...and we must lay aside fear.  It is difficult, and there is much resistance. The path is indeed narrow.  It is hard to give up what we think keeps us safe.  But to do so shows that we really do have Faith and Trust in God, that we are willing to let Him shape events and to adopt His perspective rather than merely our own.  In our own struggle towards Freedom, we must surrender our fears about the paths of others and strive, by example, to be a light to the world, should they choose to see it or not.

*As you may have guessed, I am by no means conservative.  I tried to adopt that perspective for the sake of the argument.

Just some reposting of things I said on a messageboard.  Random thoughts.

What I was trying (and probably failing) to say was that Truth is not a fact or a collection of facts. I need to be careful here because my thought is somewhat experimental. Sure there are true facts, but I don't think they touch (at least directly) on the essential, eternal heart of reality.

What I am proposing is that the heart of reality is not something you look at. It's something you look through. This is why I said Truth is a perspective and in that sense subjective. Because you can experience the heart of reality (God, if you want to call it that), in your own subjective experience when your perspective aligns with that of Truth. And the experience seems to be an experience of experiencing (heh). That is, when you feel God (or truth, or reality, or true aliveness), you actually see things differently. It is the perspective that is experienced, and that is so powerful.

Perhaps this is what is meant by putting on the mind of Christ.

Again, disclaimer, these thoughts are rather experimental and not to be considered an entire philosophical system. Also note that I mention nothing about how truth changes.

Language on its own doesn't mean anything. Words are symbols pointing towards something that is much more real. When two people who speak different languages meet for the first time, neither can understand the other. Each seems completely different from the other. In fact, if you had never been exposed to any languages other than your own, you might think they were living in some other reality or something. All you hear from them are a bunch of meaningless sounds that may even feel offensive.

But then you both look at an object. Say, a tree. You say the word "tree" and he says "mti." You start to understand each other, because you share a common experience. The tree is not the sounds "tuh ruh eee" it is the object in itself. Can you say anything meaningful about the tree without using words? No. We need language to help us describe reality and share our experiences.

So too, with two different religions, only here there are layers upon layers of meaning, as the experience we are pointing towards is grander and more basic and even ineffable. Each religion is based in the shared human experience of the divine (whatever they may call it). They are just trying to describe it in the best way they know how. All the stories and the mythologies and the ideas are pointing towards that essential experience.

Is there any belief out there that is warped so much that it is against eternal truth? Sure. But I think it's important to note that even the worst ideas have a seed of truth in them, and that all is not lost.

How do we know what's in line with truth? That is a very very good question. If I answer it simply, it won't be complex enough. If I answer it with complexity, it won't be simple enough. It seems to me that it springs out of love. Love can be mislead and perverted, but the love underneath it is still true. If you learn to look for the signs, it will become easier and easier to see it.

Anytime you are shut down, closed, fearful, worried, prideful, possessive, etc...your love is buried deep and trapped within you. But when you are relaxed, open, giving, humble...your heart pours out and your perspective opens and you can welcome everything and everyone, and come to know truth. In both cases, it's still there. Perhaps you are just waiting for the right key, or perhaps it will take a wrecking ball to get through to you.

Similarly, any idea that promotes fear or pride, any idea that divides us into an in-group and an out-group, is a love buried underneath varying degrees of worry for the self. Sometimes it's on a very subtle level. And sometimes all it takes is a slight shift in perspective, and what once was an oppressive idea becomes a liberating one.

Someone asked me to explain the power of metaphor, so the first thing I did was run over to Laura's blog and look it up. ;)

I found her post on Joseph Campbell, and linked them to it (I hope you don't mind!).  Then, I stumbled on this documentary about him and I just had to share it:

Beautiful.

I've often had a love/hate relationship with formal logic. 

It makes things simple and easy.  I love that.  I rely on it like crazy for computer programming, and it's a wonderful tool for being able to argue and debate with effectiveness and clarity.

But there is a point where we take it too far, I think.

If you can find one premise that is invalid or unsound, you can dismiss the whole argument and its conclusion.  That's how the game works.  In programming terms it's like this:

if ( A && B && ( C || D ) )
  conclusion = true;

If A is 0 (false), then we don't care about B, C, D, or the conclusion.  Because obviously the conclusion is false.  Why bother with anything else?

Toss the whole thing out, move on.  Right?

But humans are not computers.  What if by thinking in such rigid terms we come to dismiss the whole thing as an untruth, even if there is some truth to it?

I'm not saying this as best I can, so bear with me.  The way I deal with a philosophical argument (especially the classical type, dealing with how to best live one's life), is to start by looking for what *is* true about it.  Look for the truth in it.  Ways that it could be said differently, the overall point or goal (which isn't always the conclusion), what the person is really trying to get at, and why they are presenting the argument in the first place.

The more I learn about the world and the viewpoints in it, the more I realize that our time is better spent trying to collect what is valuable from each in order to improve our own worldview rather than trying to find ways to dismiss another's viewpoint as illogical and inconsistent.

What is missing from many people is the ability to synthesize.  Formal logic is necessarily a tool for analization, as it breaks things down into their simpler parts in order to declare a simple truth or falsity label to the whole thing.  That's great, and necessary, but incomplete.  We need more than that.  We cannot progress without synthesis.

It reminds me of something one of my philosophy professors said one time:

Undergraduate students need a lot of handholding.  It's all about understanding the argument. 

Grad students are like attack dogs.  They understand the argument and immediately look for ways to disarm and dismiss it.

Once you move out of these two phases, you can then start to come up with original thought.

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