I found out about her on TED talks (http://www.ted.com/, a brilliant international forum where the best minds of the world are invited to give a 5-30 min presentation on a topic of their expertise), where she performed the first 20 minutes of her 1 person show/monologue, "Letting Go of God" as I recognized her name from the movies Pulp Fiction and Beethoven's 4th.
Letting Go of God is a humorous monologue by Julia Sweeney chronicling her search for God. She begins in the Catholic church, the religion her family raised her in, and takes a Bible study class. What she learns there leads her to new questions, and in search for answers she explores meditation, Buddhism and New Age gurus, then describes what she learned from the sciences and from sharpening her critical thinking skills. She discovers that to accept the truth leads to surprising revelations. She concludes by sharing how this effects her family.
She raises many great issues and gives insight into the world's religions in a humorous and entertainment manner, and I highly recommend this show to others.
Excerpt on Mormons:
Full monologue:
I'd love to hear some TL Christians'/Catholics' opinions on this show, especially about the part where she speaks about the downfalls of the bible. No offense to any religion, but I personally believe that a higher being, God, if you will, does in fact exist but I also believe that all the religions in the world have gotten it wrong and individuals should connect with this higher being (praying, meditating, etc.) free of all bureaucracy, hierarchies, and traditions. Instead of priests/monks/etc. teaching useless traditions and inaccurate texts. People should congregate to discuss religious philosophy and "priests/monks/etc." should be intellectuals with extensive religion and philosophy backgrounds guiding the thinking of others.
Edit: I didn't post this in general because knowing the shitstorm it would cause there, so please be civil in my blog and refrain from offending others.
People should congregate to discuss religious philosophy and "priests/monks/etc." should be intellectuals with extensive religion and philosophy backgrounds guiding the thinking of others.
Isnt that how it is right now? What is religion except tradition and text? the text is the philisophy. You apparently just disagree with the institutions that train and qualify these "intellectuals"
People should congregate to discuss religious philosophy and "priests/monks/etc." should be intellectuals with extensive religion and philosophy backgrounds guiding the thinking of others.
Isnt that how it is right now? What is religion except tradition and text? the text is the philisophy. You apparently just disagree with the institutions that train and qualify these "intellectuals"
The Bible might possibly come under the last one or number 3, but the Bible is anything but a "rational investigation", seeing as it's based on pure faith and belief.
I'd love to hear some TL Christians'/Catholics' opinions on this show, especially about the part where she speaks about the downfalls of the bible. No offense to any religion, but I personally believe that a higher being, God, if you will, does in fact exist but I also believe that all the religions in the world have gotten it wrong and individuals should connect with this higher being (praying, meditating, etc.) free of all bureaucracy, hierarchies, and traditions. Instead of priests/monks/etc. teaching useless traditions and inaccurate texts. People should congregate to discuss religious philosophy and "priests/monks/etc." should be intellectuals with extensive religion and philosophy backgrounds guiding the thinking of others.
Edit: I didn't post this in general because knowing the shitstorm it would cause there, so please be civil in my blog and refrain from offending others.
I'll watch the video when I get the chance and make a full response. However, briefly on this:
but I also believe that all the religions in the world have gotten it wrong and individuals should connect with this higher being (praying, meditating, etc.) free of all bureaucracy, hierarchies, and traditions. Instead of priests/monks/etc. teaching useless traditions and inaccurate texts. People should congregate to discuss religious philosophy and "priests/monks/etc." should be intellectuals with extensive religion and philosophy backgrounds guiding the thinking of others.
This is actually a very serious and shallow generalization of say, for example, the Catholic church. Are you seriously going to try and put 2000 years of philosophical and theological tradition into a pinhole that says that this "bureaucracy" propagates inaccurate text?
There is a modernist trend, whether in the New Age guruism (or whatever you'd like to call it), or the New Atheism, that says that organized religion is deducible to some Westboro Baptist Church nonsense. That, everyone takes the Bible literally and that this entire, massive body of people (over a billion believers around the world) is like those "God Hates Fags" protesters in the U.S. Then, people look at this without recognizing the gross reductionism and say it is absolutely correct. And they are right, Westboro and other forms of hate are absolute nonsense. However, this doesn't mean that the same claims made towards this denomination are necessarily accurate and extendible to the whole of traditional, organized religion. Regardless, people take the minute criticism, extend it to the entirety of the Christian or even Islamic tradition, they throw it to the side and pursue some sort of religious fad like New Ageism.
To give you a better picture of how far the reductionism goes, I say this. A more rigorous debate around the merits of Catholicism, as an example, would revolve around arguing why the substantially developed philosophy of St. Augustine, and especially St. Thomas Aquinas (which was further carried on by 20th century philosophers like Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritan and Mortimer Adler, as well as many many others). Another figure who is an incredible writer is Luigi Guisanni, who is just a lay priest. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if many people haven't heard these names. Modern religious criticism instead wants to poke holes at fragments of the Bible to try and make an overarching argument against traditional religious belief.
I write this, not because I am some kind of ardent Christian. I write this out of a sincere frustration in going through hollow texts both in the New Age and Atheist texts. There were better atheists (ie. Albert Camus, Nietszche) and better Eastern philosophers.
PS. I'd like to add, if you think that, priests for example, are largely uneducated people propagating inaccurate texts, you should do more research and recognize that Catholic priests have to undergo a standard education in philosophy and theology. This involves an overarching education in ethics, epistemology, metaphysics and so forth.
Discussing religion on the internet is difficult. It's almost as hard as playing MW3 on the internet and not getting called a fag by a 13 year old kid.
I can understand why people believe in religion but i could never understand people's affection for catholicism.
The idea that you need to suck up to this (obviously human) bureaucracy seems beyond ridiculous. Dare i say, an obvious con.
This obvious scam of the church saying they have the key to the kingdom of heaven seems to be falling apart these days. Most western christians don't acknowledge the church as anything serious or have actively turned away from them when it became clear that they had enabled the rape of children.
Religion itself isn't going anywhere but the church will only become more obscure as time goes on. When people think of god they don't think of a bunch of old men in robes planning how to let their members get away with pedophelia to save name.
The church has always been 20 years behind on modern morality but that won't be what seals it's fate. Their inability to stay relevant to modern society is inevitable. Their inability to stay relevant to the teachings of the bible is their own doing.
The church will have to turn to Africa for the kind of followers they are most interested in.
"candh" is pretty much right. People tend to look at the stupid members of a religion and generalize, because they disagree with that religion. And I hate to say it, but many modern Christians are not very well educated on their own book and beliefs (this is the major failing of the modern Church). Throughout history Christianity has had some brilliant minds (Augustine, Aquinas, Athanasius, for example. You can even add Calvin and Luther. The Catholics might disagree on the last two tho ). People should really READ the religion they are criticizing. It's 1 am where I am, so I don't have time for the video, so I'm not going to bash it. I would just encourage people to read the works of religion they so despise.
Just want to put this out there, most Christians are not Christian "because they are afraid of death". I don't know a single person who is a Christian because of this. People really need to stop saying it.
Fear of death is rather the inspiration for the creation of many religions. Also who needs to judge religions by the "stupid" members; judge them by their foundational texts and sacred scriptures. In a debate between bin laden and any moderate muslim it is bin laden who has scripture on his side.
On January 16 2012 17:13 MoreFaSho wrote: Discussing religion on the internet is difficult. It's almost as hard as playing MW3 on the internet and not getting called a fag by a 13 year old kid.
Now THATS impossible!
OT: Saw this a few years back after reading about her in one of the richard dawkins books (maybe it was a documentary, dont really remember). Pretty good, easily recommended.
'"It is easy," said Marx, "to be a saint when one has no wish to be human." But did Marx think therefore that it is easy to be human when one does not wish to be a saint?'- Jacques Maritain
On January 16 2012 19:07 Jerubaal wrote: '"It is easy," said Marx, "to be a saint when one has no wish to be human." But did Marx think therefore that it is easy to be human when one does not wish to be a saint?'- Jacques Maritain
This is the kind of grade-school philosophy that is supposed to convince people of the value of religion?
I've never heard of her before. I find her much more interesting to listen to than say Richard Dawkins and some other people. I was actually on my way out when I started the video, but I couldn't stop listening to her story until I had gone through all the parts.
As for your question about her stance on the Bible, I have often met people who shared similar experiences when actually reading through it. I personally don't find the Bible to be all that troublesome as a Christian, but I can certainly see how a lot of people could.
I think if you really want to dig into all the texts like she wanted to, you would be well off to seek assistance from others in doing so. It is not an easy task to try and figure out the context and meaning of all the texts that you will find in the Bible. But when taking the help from historians, theologians and other people who've dedicated their lives to understanding the background and the actual meaning of all the texts, I find it actually gives you a really strong foundation to stand on when thinking about your beliefs as a Christian. It is very encouraging to see that the Bible can actually hold up as true under scientific scrutiny.
I'll try to give my own short comments (how I understand them) on the subjects she covers (on the Biblical stuff) Though many of them are not as problematic if understood correctly. She has grown up in a very ignorant church that does not seem to have a good understanding of many of the subjects. Even if some of them are tricky, and I do understand her concern. But she also points verses that can be picked out of context and missunderstood. The bible should be read as whole, and the Old Testament has a different standard than the New Testament because of two different covenants. Some of the themes she covers: - Dual Creation story + Show Spoiler +
The bible orignally were not divided into chapters and verses. If you put a break between chapter 1 & 2, it can seems as two different stories. Though, actually it simply sums up what just happened in Gen 2:1-4 and Gen 2:5 and onward goes back to the 6th day, and shows the first day of man, not a double creation, but a more close up look. Typical verses that are argued as a contradiction, but if you look closer, there is none, and need to be understood out of how it is formulated and read.
We do not know the exact how these things happened, but the drunk Noah is a wierd verse indeed. There are theories that suggest that the changes with a world wide flood made, afterwards, wine came with alcohol, something that was Noah did not know, and ended up drunk. Julia calling him a drunkard, while its written once is greatly exagurated.
When we come to how God regrets what he has done, is also the only place in the Bible it is written. Old Testament gives a picture of God, where the rules are different. God gives punishments here and now, for sins of men as they deserve (unlike the new testament, where Jesus takes the punisments of men), not to mention he has warned them for a long time (over 120 years while Noah built the Ark) that this will happen, unless they repent. So when he regretted, he did it out of the Grace thought, that he, even if men deserved it after ages of dissobidience, God did nothing wrong in what he did, but STILL he wished he did not do it, out of love. Thinking "Even if they deserved it, I shouldnt have done it, I should have given them more chances." Also giving humans an example to follow, dont be to quick to punish, even if it is right. We see this in a similar manner in the preface of the destruction of Sodom & Gomorra.
This is a classical dispute even today, though hugley misunderstood. No where in the text does it say that Isaac was a child. Christian tradition has somehow connected the verses to the former verses that tells us about Isaac as a child, but rather Jewish tradition connects these verses with the later verses, that tells us that Sarah (his mother) died. If you do the math, you will end up with Isaac as about 30 years old.
I do not know much about this verse, though mens evil and stupidity is clearly not something God agrees upon. Only because it is described in the bible as a story, does NOT mean it is the moral of the bible, or that God supports it. If God would intervene as Julia wants into mens choises of stupidity and evil to stop it, he would have to do that all the time. That is not how God works. Every man has a choise, and has to pay the consequences.
Laws given into a spesific culture in a spesific time. Many of these laws, spesificly the cleaning ones, are to protect the Jewish people from different things like plagues, pests, sins, infections that really was a threat. Though I agree there are loads of wierd ones. Though if we get insight into the spesific culture and time, we probably would get more light on the matter
- Mythification of the early history & the Exodus story + Show Spoiler +
They are not written as myths, but as history facts. They are written with names, ages, when they die compared to each other and family trees that can be traced all the way trought the Old Testament. All these theories about it beeing false cannot be prooven any better than what the text implies. There is a saying that "History is written by winners" So why would Pharao leave such a KO (whole egyptian army got drowned in their escape) in their wall of records in the middle of their Golden age.
She is taking all the rebuking examples of Jesus, and gives the wrong impression. You can do that with any person of history, highlight all his questionable sides and paint a picture totally wrong if you do not take Jesus' whole life into consideration. Some things she is acusing Jesus of are simply not true. Others need to be understood correctly
- Family value, abbandon them no? hate (Luke 14:26) + Show Spoiler +
One of Jesus strongest examples, though a contrast on the importance of loving Him. Though not hate in that sense as we understand it, greek has many words, this is only twice in NT to explain a relation to something else, and can be misunderstood in transation. Amplified Bible explains it: "in the sense of indifference to or relative disregard for them in his compraison with his attitude toward God" Same word is used in John 12,25: "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."
It has to be understood with culture. Women were not educated. When Paul says that women should be quiet, he says that because the women tended to make noise during church asking eachother or their men, during the meeting. So Paul says, if you have questions, ask your men at home afterwards, they will explain what he (the preacher) meant.
It is true however, that the Bible indicates a difference in task and calling between men and women, but not in value.
She is taking a lot of texts out of context. She is telling alot of lies, that are simply not true. She does not know a lot about Jewish culture or tradition and the context it is written.
(This next reason can be misunderstood as a stupid argument, but it is true, ill try to explain it) She does not read the Bible with Christian eyes (with the Holy Spirit of God) and cannot understand many of the verses she is quoting for that reason. They can only be undersood if you are a believer filled with the Spirit, if you happen not to be, you will most likley not understand it, because you do not have a loving relationship with Lord Jesus. Paul often states that scripture needs to be understood with the Spirit. Paul himself is the living example of this, how he at one time he is a zealot warrior for his own Jewish faith, persecutor of christians, with the SAME scripture, and then after he meets Jesus at Damascus (Acts 9), his WHOLE view changes, because the Holy Spirit shows him how to read the scriptures. (this can only be experienced, and is not to be understood as blind faith or ignoring truth, but an live experience while reading, where understanding is given) So Paul, builds most of his theology out of the same scripture he has been using all along, but with this experience of Jesus in his life. The experience changed his life, and experience that even many nominal christians does not have experienced (new birth John 3), including Julia in her past it seems, out of how she describes her views out of scripture and God.
EPT
). People should really READ the religion they are criticizing. It's 1 am where I am, so I don't have time for the video, so I'm not going to bash it. I would just encourage people to read the works of religion they so despise.
