The Emotional Charlantism of Christianity: Father John Powell

Everything is a matter of perception - everything! No religion or divine insight exists that overrides this inescapable fact about the human condition, despite claims by "believers" of every stripe to the contrary. 

Even if God exists, it would be perhaps the greatest absurdity, and by far the greatest act of evil imaginable, for such a God to require that most of humanity depend necessarily for its salvation on a "divine revelation" that God decided to share with only a few of his "chosen" children and no one else, and for which the rest of humanity, which consists of the vast majority throughout history, must depend for their spiritual salvation.

 And as if that weren't enough, that same God requires that everyone who accepts the "one true faith," must be willing to adhere to it for the rest of their natural born life, and be willing to fight to the death to defend and advance if need be. 

Indeed, no other idea could ever sow as much discord among humanity as the belief that we can only please an eternal father enough to save our eternal souls, which hang over the eternal fires of hell upon the precarious thread of life, by fighting to the death for an objective "truth" as proscribed by a single religion, and as promulgated by men who's loyalties lay more with the institutional church that provides them with their whole life, than with their God for life everlasting. 

The patent absurdity of this fact about Christianity specifically, and how Christianity is a spiritual ponzi scheme designed to manipulate customers into subscribing to a religion that preys upon deception, was captured in an email that was recently forwarded to me in the story below. As such, I decided to comment briefly on how such emotional manipulation works, and why it is one of the very things that atheists hate the most about Christians who rely on it to dupe people by conflating that their "beliefs" with truth. What follows is a perfect example of the worst kind of emotional manipulation that Christians can come up with to market their religion and their beliefs. 

First -  Tommy is clearly NOT an atheist, because a person who says, "Do you think I will ever find God?" is, by definition, not an atheist. An atheist, after all, cannot both believe that God does not exist, and at the same time wonder if they will ever find the very thing they believe 'does not exist.' That's like saying I do not believe in Santa Clause and then asking if I will ever find Santa Clause.

Second - To say that "God is love" is to use one abstraction to define another. It is to say that God is proved by the existence of the emotion we call "love," which is to claim that atheists either do not know love (or, as Christians see it, they do not know the strongest, purest "love" of all, which only comes from God) or that, if they do know such love, they simply do not understand that such love is, by definition, God. Both suggestions serve only to convince the Christian that they possess something by being theists that atheists do not: true love, or true knowledge of what true love really is - God. 

Since neither idea can be proved any more than that God exists in the first place, as any atheist can see, both suggestions are simply attempts at manipulation, and nothing more. Such subtle emotional manipulation not only enables such Christians to feel that their belief in God makes them potentially emotionally or spiritually superior to the atheist,  it also equates Tommy's experience with "love" as being God, despite the fact that Tommy only had such an experience because of the impending angel of death. God, therefore, is not love, but death, while love was simply Tommy's emotional reaction to his own death.    

Third - I seriously question if such a story ever really ever happened at all, as anyone who seeks to defend them self against such emotional charlatanism naturally should. After all, if I told you a similar story and then asked you to enter your user name and password to your banking account, you would know instantly that this email is a scam (at least I hope you would). But what the Christian often fails to see, that the atheist sees all the time, is that this email is essentially just that - emotionally manipulative marketing. Why else do you think wealthy Christian marketers like Joel Osteen make so much money, by telling such stories?

Fourth - Nothing suggests such an email is simply a spiritual ponzi scheme more than the claims that "this is a true story and it has not been enhanced for publicity purposes" (whenever someone begins a statement "to be perfectly honest,..." it's usually a safe bet that whatever follows is probably a lie) and the request to "forward this email to a friend or two." By definition, these statements alone make this email qualify as spam, regardless of whether it is true or not.

And lastly, for these reasons and so may more, how could anyone ever respect someone - indeed, how could anyone ever respect anyone - who ever read this email and concluded it somehow proved, or even strongly implied, that God must be real?

 

Come, Holy Spirit! - 85 - Tommy's Story

For obvious reasons, this is my CHS today  Thanks!

Father John Powell, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago, writes about a student

in his Theology of Faith class named Tommy:

Some twelve years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for  our first session in the Theology of Faith.  That was the day I first saw Tommy.  He was combing his long flaxen hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders.

It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with hair that long.   I guess it was just coming into fashion then.  I know in my mind that it isn't what's on your head but what's in it that counts; but, on that day, I was unprepared and my emotions flipped.

 

I immediately filed Tommy under "S" for strange....very strange.  Tommy turned out to be the "atheist in residence" in my Theology of Faith course.

He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father/God.  We lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew.

When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final exam, he asked in a cynical tone, "Do you think I'll ever find God?"

I decided instantly on a little shock therapy.  "No!" I said very emphatically.

"Why not," he responded, "I thought that was the product you were pushing."

I let him get five steps from the classroom door and then I called out, "Tommy!  I don't think you'll ever find Him, but I am absolutely certain that He will find you!"  He shrugged a little and left my class and my life.

I felt slightly disappointed at the thought that he had missed my clever line -- He will find you!  At least I thought it was clever.

Later I heard that Tommy had graduated, and I was duly grateful.  Then a sad report came.  I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer.  Before I could search him out, he came to see me.

When he walked into my office, his body was very badly wasted and the long hair had all fallen out as a result of chemotherapy.  But his eyes were bright and his voice was firm, for the first time, I believe.

"Tommy, I've thought about you so often; I hear you are sick," I blurted out. 

"Oh, yes, very sick.  I have cancer in both lungs.  It's a matter of weeks."

"Can you talk about it, Tom?" I asked.

"Sure, what would you like to know?" he replied.

"What's it like to be only twenty-four and dying?

"Well, it could be worse.

"Like what?"

"Well, like being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being fifty and thinking that booze, seducing women, and making money are the real biggies in life."

I began to look through my mental file cabinet under "S" where I had filed Tommy as strange.  (It seems as though everybody I try to reject by classification, God sends back into my life to educate me.)

"But what I really came to see you about," Tom said, "is something you said to me on the last day of class." (He remembered!)  He continued, "I asked you if you thought I would ever find God and you said, 'No!' which surprised me.  Then you said, 'But He will find you.'  I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time.  (My clever line. He thought about that a lot!)  But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me that it was malignant, that's when I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven.  But God did not come out.  In fact, nothing happened.  Did you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and with no success?  You get psychologically glutted, fed up with trying.  And then you quit."

He went on, "Well, one day I woke up and, instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a God who may be or may not be there, I just quit.  I decided that I didn't really care about God, about an afterlife, or anything like that.  I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable.  I thought about you and your class and I remembered something else you had said: 'The essential sadness is to go through life without loving.'  But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them."

He continued, "So, I began with the hardest one...my Dad.  He was reading the newspaper when I approached him. 

"Dad."

"Yes, what?" he asked without lowering the newspaper. 

"Dad, I would like to talk with you."

"Well, talk."

"I mean, it's really important."

The newspaper came down three slow inches.  "What is it?"

"Dad, I love you, I just wanted you to know that."  Tom smiled at me and said it with obvious satisfaction, as though he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him. 

"The newspaper fluttered to the floor.  Then my father did two things I could never remember him ever doing before.  He cried and he hugged me.  We talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning."

"It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me."

"It was easier with my mother and little brother.  They cried with me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice things to each other.  We shared the things we had been keeping secret for so many years."

"I was only sorry about one thing --- that I had waited so long."

"Here I was, just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to."

"Then, one day I turned around and God was there.  He didn't come to me when I pleaded with Him.  I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop, 'C'mon, jump through.  C'mon, I'll give you three days, three weeks.' Apparently God does things in His own way and at His own hour.  But the important thing is that He was there.  He found me! You were right. He found me even after I stopped looking for Him."

"Tommy," I practically gasped, "I think you are saying something very important and much more universal than you realize.  To me, at least, you are saying that the surest way to find God is not to make Him a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love.  You know, the Apostle John said that.  He said: 'God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him."

"Tom, could I ask you a favor?  You know, when I had you in class you were a real pain.  But (laughingly) you can make it all up to me now.  Would you come into my present Theology of Faith course and tell them what you have just told me?  If I told them the same thing it wouldn't be half as effective as if you were to tell it."

"Ooooh...I was ready for you, but I don't know if I'm ready for your class."

"Tom, think about it.  If and when you are ready, give me a call."

In a few days Tom called, said he was ready for the class, that he wanted to do that for God and for me.  So we scheduled a date.  However, he never made it.  He had another appointment, far more important than the one with me and my class.

 

Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed.  He made the great step from faith into vision.  He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man has ever heard or the mind  of man has ever imagined.

Before he died, we talked one last time.  "I'm not going to make it to your class," he said.

"I know, Tom."

"Will you tell them for me?  Will you tell the whole world for me?"

"I will, Tom.  I'll tell them.  I'll do my best."

So, to all of you who have been kind enough to read this simple story about God's love, thank you for listening.  And to you, Tommy, somewhere in the sunlit, verdant hills of heaven --- I told them, Tommy, as best I could.

If this story means anything to you, please pass it on to a friend or two.

It is a true story and is not enhanced for publicity purposes.

With thanks, Rev. John Powell, Professor,

Loyola University, Chicago

PRAYER

Lord, my God, thank You for finding me and keeping me!  Please never let me go.  In Jesus' name I ask this.  Amen.