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=> Re: to my sem*i*nary pal...

Re: to my sem*i*nary pal...
Posted by Andy Younan (Guest) jonah2164@yahoo.com - Tuesday, December 9 2003, 3:29:35 (EST)
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Farid ol' buddy,

Here I am, sitting in Berkeley thinking you'd forgotten all about me, and out of nowhere I gets an e-mail from our mutual fiend saying the opposite. Imagine my excitement: it's been, what, six months? How're the wife and lawsuits?

Anyway, enough ceremony:

>...drowning in his own semen...

I know you're better than that, Farid.

>We've had some heated emails sent back and forth and you've always been the gentleman...even when I refused to be.

You're wrong. You were always very good to me. After all, telling something the truth - even if they're too stubborn to accept it - is one of the most virtuous acts of all. You have what you think to be a great and obvious truth, and you wanted to tell me...and any rhetorical device you used, however crude, at times, was for my own good. How else to shake someone out of a stupor, eh? I thank you, as always, for your concern.

> That's just your Mesopotamian backgrond showing through and it tells you how good a thing it is when all that Judo-Christian shit can't smother it. But...like Paul Younan, another decent man gone wrong,

Never heard of him, but I like his name.

> you've chosen to believe a handful of incompetant Jew fishermen...and we all know fishermen "never lie"...and so you believe in a resurrection...when you can't even handle an errection without making a holy fuss about it.

Ok, that's a LITTLE better than the "drowning in semen" bit. But not by much.

>You have your reasons I'm sure.

Indeed.

> I'm writing to you on an open forum because I expect you to live up to what you told me in all seriousness once...that you and each of us should live up to Christ's example...follow in this tough and thorny path. Well Christ wasn't anonymous and he wasn't afraid...I'll give him that. You...who have no Roman centurions to fear...who are surrounded on all sides and drowning in Christians and upheld by Christians and murdered for by Christians...who have nothing to fear from anyone for stepping out in public with your "believes"...are nonetheless afraid. If you tell me you haven't the time to waste, I'll remind you of Jesus...who had a whole lifteime to throw away. If you say people like me aren't worth the effort, I'll remind you of Magdalene. If you tell me about swine and pearls...I'll tell you about what the Jews did to our history and how I forgive them for it for they never knew what they were doing more than when they knew enough to steal from us and how can I blame them for it?

Blah blah blah blah. Come on. When have I ever turned down one of your requests?

> But again...you have your reasons and how much of it has to do with a child's fear of the dark I'll leave to you to figure out if you want to.

...for once. I'm glad. I never bought your brand of psychoanalysis...telling me I'm afraid of death so I invent Hell and call myself a sinner to make myself feel better.

>I should share with you what it was that clarified things for me. I put it to you once when we were out for dinner on John Nimrod that any decent human Bean would have rushed to help Jesus, there on that hill about to be murdered. And if that proved to be impossible...would hardly have agreed to benefit anyway once he'd been killed. But it was your answer when I asked you, point blanke, if you would release him if it were in your power..even if it meant no Eternal Paradise but a rotten grave instead that cleared it all up for me. Being a decent man underneath it all, you said you would save Jesus. But, there was the hesitation in your voice.

Hmmm...let's cut through some of the crap before I get to that:

>You and many others of our own people, are indeed decent and kind. Coming from the illustrious Heritage we do, its in us even when we won't show it. We've been degraded by this Jew religion not elevated. The fearful, scared-of-the-dark Jew in you...that is never a comfortable fit...wanted badly to say, "Fuck Christ...how else am I going to avoid rotting". But the better side...the part of you from BetNahrain, fought through and no matter how afraid of death...which is another way of being afraid of Life, you've been made to feel...you would shatter all your comforting illusions...risk perdition...the dark and dank grave...even court uncertainty because something deep within in you of the decent man you are under the Christian fright-wig said, "I would set him free".

Blah blah blah...

>You're inherently a good and decent...even brilliant man.

Silly. I'm a simpleton at best. You're just trying to set up "the crowd" so they expect too much from me. Very clever of you.

> If only Life and Honor didn't scare you so.

I thought you'd leave the psychobabble to me? Anyway, let's get started...

Being the nerd I am, I was hoping you wouldn't mind indulging me and letting me at least define what we're talking about.

We've gotten through the Resurrection thingy - a fun little ride, if I recall - and at the end I gave you my reasons and you said they were stupid and I said I don't care if you think they're stupid and that was the end of that. No need to resurrect that one. Arguing about what may or may not have happened a long time ago is boring, anyway. What do you think: did Socrates drink hemlock or sherlock or some other poison? Or did he exist at ALL? Or was he really a SHE? I'll leave that one to the Germans, if you don't mind.

The other history thingy is boring, too...you know...would Christianity have survived if Constantine blah blah blah and the Inquisition blah blah blah and the Crusades blah blah blah blah. I don't care. Also, the whole "objective history" myth is SO 19th Century. You know...hermeneutics and all that.

No, the interesting thing is the one you're so proud of: the whole "Christianity redefined," or, as you call it, "Christianity as it REALLY IS!!!" bit. We can talk about that, if you want.

So, your bit is this (correct me if I'm wrong): Christianity is, at core, about the murder of an innocent man and the benefits that are given by accepting his death. Right? And this explains the only things that have ever happened in Christian history: the crusades, the inquisition and blah blah blah.

I've got to hand it to you: it all fits together quite nicely.

Before I go on, I have a couple requests, if you could be so kind:

1) When I use the Bible or some other churchy thing to explain something, I'm doing so because they are authoritative voices in Christianity, not because I think they PROVE anything. They tell us what the whole thing MEANS; they don't work as evidence. OK?

2) Please please please don't go the route of the Evangelicals - those Christians you detest the most, I suspect - and start telling me what I believe and what it means to me. Here's the average conversation I've had with an Evangelical:

Me: "I'm Catholic."

Evangelical: "You worship statues."

Me: "No I don't."

Evangelical: "Worshipping statues is against the Bah-bil."

Me: "I know. I don't worship statues."

Evangelical: "Yes you do. You also worship Mary."

Me: "No I don't."

Evangelical: "Yes you do. Worshipping Mary is against the Bah-bil."

Me: "I know."

And so on. Anyway, I know you won't be telling me what is or isn't against the Bah-bil, but you do, on occasion, slip into the "you believe this whether you know it or not" attitude.

That said, there are a few flaws in your bit:

1) If you're going to interpret Christianity fairly, you've got to interpret the whole thing - down to the last jot and tittle. And you're missing a few important tittles:

A) Christians believe that Christ is God. Not "a god" or "a godly man," but God. The second Person of the Trinity - all three of whom are equally God; "The Word was in the beginning with God and the Word was God" and all that. This has been the belief of Christians since the beginning - the very first heresy, in fact (first Century) denied that Christ was a man.

B) I've told you before that I don't believe that goodness or justice were invented by Christianity - some people seem to, but not Catholics (remember all the Virtuous Pagans in Dante?). Christianity - as a moral system - is not here to invent the wheel (that was done in Iraq a long time before Christianity). It is here - again, in its moral capacity - to be the clearest possible expression of morality - one that ANYONE can get, if they're open to it, and not just the philosophers and Great Ones (among whom you reign supreme, if I may say so). What could be clearer than this: "to be a good person is to love others, and look, God has shown us what love is by dying for us. Oh yeah: also, love means self-sacrifice."

So those are two points I'd ask you too keep in mind when discussing Christianity. And another thing:

2) God has died for me. I benefit from that death - both by the clarity of the example he gave me and by the grace that comes forth from his death that strengthens me to do all I do. How does that make me a bloody savage? How does accepting a gift - even a great gift (which means a gift bought at a great price) ruin a conscience?

There's a girl at school here in Berkeley whom I'm friends with. Nicest girl I've ever met. She was going to Rome this Winter, and had her ticket bought and everything, but then, when she found out I was going to be ordained a deacon on January 10th, she CHANGED HER TRIP TO COME HOME EARLY to go to my ordination. This all without my knowledge. When I found out, I was overwhelmed. Imagine: leaving ROME (a city you can appreciate even without being a Pagan) to come to DETROIT (the #1 most dangerous city in America) for someone as silly and inconsequential as me. How should I react to that? Would I have stopped her if I knew she was going to do this? HELL YES I WOULD HAVE. But now what? Reject it because her gift to me is causing her inconvenience and pain (if you've been to Detroit you know what I mean)? Should I not pick her up at the airport?? Even worse: what if I ACCEPT this? Does that destroy my conscience? Will I go around from now on DEMANDING that people change their vacation plans because I feel like going out and getting a spot of tea?

Anyway, that's all I have for now. I'll be praying for you, as always, Farid. You were always a better man than I. It's just this whole "fear of religion" complex that messes you up at times. I won't try to psychoanalyze it, though.

Your TV pal,

Andy



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