Holier Than Thou

Christian Evangelicals have this complex surrounding miracles.

Now, first off, I'd like to say that I absolutely do believe in miracles. I am entirely certain that people have been healed of diseases, made to walk again, or see again, or what have you. Planes have been strategically delayed, and cars have been made to start again. Poisons have been purified and bullets steered off course. I firmly believe that these things can and do happen.

However, I don't believe that they come on command. Certainly it seems that despite God's myriad opportunities to wow us, He seems perfectly content to let the world do its thing most of the time. I can't explain it, but needless to say, God is not a lab rat or a dog. He can't be trained, and He doesn't bark on command. You can't wave your hands like a magic wand and expect God to do something flashy for you. (For those of you who still believe that televangelists like Benny Hinn work miracles on camera, just Google "leg lengthening." The people these guys call up for demonstrations, are total plants. People have seen the wheelchairs waiting for the plants that "stand up and walk.") Anyway, despite "God is not a trained dog," the Evangelical church is rooted in physical display. Funny, for a denomination that so vehemently protests science and other such "visible" things, they sure do rely a lot on what they can see and feel. Speaking in tongues is one such phenomenon, as is "being slain in the Spirit," which looks a lot like a pastor touching someone on the head and said person fainting. Every so often, you'll get the claim that someone has cast out a demon, but I can't comment on what that looks like because I've never seen an exorcism.  Either way, there are a nontrivial number of church members, usually well-known pastors or ex-pastors who now function as "prophets" or "healers" or what have you, who go around claiming that God has endowed them with a very Elijah-esque ability to call down miracles at will.

That's at the high level. Go one step down, and go back to speaking in tongues and being slain in the Spirit and what have you. When I was a kid, I always wanted to know what those were like. Did you just start doing something against your will, as if your body was suddenly being moved by invisible strings? Did you just have an overwhelming desire to do the action? Did you blank out and wake up five minutes later with everyone gawking at your words of Godly wisdom? What happened? Needless to say, I always went to the altar when we had special guests, or when it looked like the pastor was going to walk around doing that funny thing where he touched people's foreheads and they fell over.

It took me years to finally get someone to tap me on the head, and let me tell you, it was really underwhelming. Despite my praying, and wishing, and getting into the zone and all that...nothing really happened.

I was disappointed. I expected something transcendental. But I was young, and my legs were tired from standing up...so I figured, okay, maybe that means something. So I let myself sink to the ground. I got a vague curiosity about talking. So I started saying something, and I wasn't sure what it was. I don't think it was much of anything, even for an attempt at the neat babbling thing that the old ladies in church did.

I got up off the ground at the end of the service, and I didn't mention much about it. I went on with my life, wondering if anything had really happened. In the end, I figure it didn't, and I was just hoping really hard and doing what I saw everyone else doing in hopes that it was something it wasn't.

I'm sure that God does sent messages through unknown languages. I'm also fairly sure that they don't happen in 95% of cases. I'm guessing most of the people who fall over in church, do it because they're so psyched up that it seems like a good idea at the time.

This all culminated in the biggest letdown I've had: my friend Amy (not her real name), who I decided I would get healed of a bone issue she had in her hands. Her fingers were stiff and couldn't bend more than maybe an inch in arc, and she couldn't make a fist or even start one. So I was super enthusiastic and prayed as only an innocent believing little kid can, and I brought Amy to the altar at a healing service at church. We cried and prayed and talked with the guest speaker/healer guy and we begged and we tried really hard to be Good Christian People, and I secretly hoped to myself and God that her hands would be healed so that she would get off the fence about whether she was Christian or not, because look! There would be proof.

Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Zip, zero, nada. Her fingers were as straight and stiff as the moment she walked into the building.

Looking back on all this, two things have occurred to me. First off, 99.N% of people who claim they can zap miracles out their fingers, are clearly smoking something. Second, the Evangelical church teaches you to join the "holier than thou" contest of who can do or see miracles, and who can't. It seems like to them, the more faithful you are, the more crazy supernatural things will happen to you. If you can't even faint in church, seriously, how faithful can you be? As a kid, I felt deficient somehow, as if I just didn't believe hard enough. Maybe if I prayed more, or read the Bible more, then next time I brought an Amy to the altar, something would happen.

In the end, I have settled on the idea that Christianity isn't a contest to see who can rack up the most cool showoffy miracles. But in the end, it sure sets up the idea.

Off Topic: Tips on Rental House Hunting

I busted my butt for weeks (months? I forget) to get hold of the house I live in now. I think I got lucky in that there were no particular disasters, but in the end, I should compile a list of the Wisdom I learned from going through the process. For the record, "apartment hunting" and "house hunting" I expect are very similar in the Boston area, so consider this as such.

1. Never assume that anyone is going to do the work but you. And it's a lot of work.

Even if your roommates are the best project buddies ever, work at your maximum. When it comes to houses that can come and go at the blink of an eye, everyone kicking ass is better than everyone thinking everyone else will kick ass and suffering the temptation to apartment hunt tomorrow rather than today. And internet-searching and calling realtors and landlords is much, much more time-consuming than you think it is. People won't call you back, and you'll have to haunt them until they tell you what you need. Realtors will sniff at you for being too (young, unprofessional, not serious enough, whatever they think you are even if you're not). People will lie to you, string you along, and waste your time. And in the end, properties will appear and disappear and you will lose sight of what's going on if you drop the ball even for a little while.
 
2. Do the work today, even if you're not assuming you're the only one on the project.

If you violate principle 1, at least do whatever work you're going to do, today. The market is always cycling, especially in a location where there are more people than there are properties. September in Boston is lease hell, because all the college students are picking up apartments, and properties are flying in and out of the rental market faster than a pack of fighter jets. Get an assessment of the situation today. Tomorrow, get another. And then another the next day. Stay on the ball, and don't wait for the situation to unravel or your favorite property to vanish before doing something. I don't care if you think it'll be there tomorrow, do it now.

3. Force the realtor to show you the property as quickly as humanly possible.

If he can do it tomorrow, do it tomorrow. If he can do it today, do it today. If you can see that house now, get on your bike/in your car/on your feet and hoof it over there. If you don't, there's a reasonable chance that someone who has seen the house before you or who doesn't care about seeing the property in person will pick it up. We lost a sweet three-story place with a deck over that one. We were left standing outside the house and then getting a call of, "Oh, we already sold the place." So don't wait a couple days, see it now.

4. Remember that if you're there, so is your competition, and so you have to think fast.

My housing group was the second in a queue of about four groups looking at the house we eventually rented. When we got to the place, we had the awkward issue of having to stare down the other guys, because they too had that think-fast mentality and were muttering under their breath about checks and rent value. Here are some things you need to know before you walk in the door of the house.
- Are you willing and able to drop money on the house right now if you end up liking it?
- Are you up to speed with yourself and your housemates about what constitutes a good house, what kind of physical integrity you need, what neighborhoods are okay, and all the other safety and security logistics you need to know?
- Is there someone in your mob who can front large sums of money now?
- Have you worked out all possible major conflicts with your housemates, such as pet issues, allergies, and so on?

5. Landlords can and will raise rent between the time you see the house and the time you rent it.

I don't care if this is false advertising or what, but yes, this can happen. Be careful. Make sure you know all the statistics of the place when you sign the lease. Read the lease, talk to the landlord, read the lease some more, and make absolutely sure what you're getting is what you want to sign up for. That sweet $500-lower-than-everyone-else rent price may rise now that the landlord sees how much competition there is for the house.

6. The landlord/realtor will try to make a house sound amazing even if it's a pit of filth. Ignore this. Make your own judgment calls. No one will be offended if you don't call back on a place. Do not rely on "fixer-upper" statements, or the idea that a place will be happy and clean once the old tenants move out.

Realtors especially exist to be pushy. Push back, and don't be afraid to drop them even though they'll whine and wheedle after you. One of my housemates and I checked out a house whose floor was coated with sticky gunk, whose kitchen was flooded with trash and dirty dishes, and whose walls were covered in Sharpie. The lights were dim, the place was a sty even if it weren't so filthy, and well, it was filthy. Someone here clearly didn't care, and if the realtor was willing to show us a property like this, that says terrible things to me. There were holes in the walls, and he said that all the place needed was a little cleaning.

No. Trust your instincts. If the current tenants are living in filth, the house likely has a bug or mouse infestation (or both), and nothing short of a miracle will get cigarette or drug smoke out of the walls and carpet. Also, the more damage that is done to a property ahead of time, the more that the landlord can suck out your security deposit by blaming damages on you if you don't properly document them.

7. Corollary: buck up and don't be timid when dealing with realtors.

You have to be firm. I know they're trying to tell you that this house is really awesome and you should live here, and you feel bad for taking up their time because they could be doing their job somewhere else and actually making money and everyone needs money, but this is their job. Suck it up and turn them down if you need to, and by definition of this process, you will turn them down every time but one.

8. Carpe diem.

If a property looks good, throw down some cash now. Sign the lease now. Someone else will do it if you don't.

9. Use the Internet.

Look at realtors' sites, but also places like HotPads.com will show you properties in your area. There are rental house/apartment search engines, so make good use of them. Different engines will show you different properties, so check several.

10. Realtors often use the same picture for different properties, so see a house in person before you buy it. Also, even real pictures are an artistic lie.

Unless you are moving to Clone-House Suburbia, there is no way the realtor has that many properties with the exact same internal layout, colors, lighting, and that neat palm-frond fan. Don't believe this. Go see a property for yourself. Pictures lie, and they're also taken by people who know what they're doing, in the best lighting and conditions. It's like jazzing up someone with makeup and a good pose and precision lighting, when 99% of the time they just look frumpy.

11. Some realtors/landlords will hate on you for being young and a student, because odds are they've been bitten before by irresponsible types.

If you're a student or a young person (think 18-24) looking for a place, get ready for landlords and realtors to hate on you for being what they perceive to be a high risk. We were turned down once for not being "a family," due to some BS technicality about 4+ person houses having to be occupied by a family or something. This basically boils down to the landlord not trusting a pack of college students not to destroy the house. Probably somewhere down the line, one of their properties got nuked by a bunch of kids who didn't know how to be Real People and who trashed the place, or else they heard horror stories, or else they just decided that any chance of that was too great a risk. Keep calm and carry on, but know that you're not going to convince these folks.

12. Skip the realtor if you can, but don't expect this to be easy.

Houses on realtors' sites will never tell you the exact address of the place, because they don't want you to go to the landlord and rent it under their noses. You'll have to pay a fee to the realtor if you rent through them, but if you can skirt them and go to the landlord, do it. Alas, this was impossible when we tried; we even Google Street View-ed the place, but realtors cover their butts and don't post external images of the houses that give enough detail to peg the building. Sometimes the neighborhood is also inaccurate (remember, Inman Square is not Central, no matter how much they say it is), so your odds of finding it by brute-force searching of the area on Google Street View are very low.

Creative Interpretation

I was sitting in a Lutheran service at college, when I heard a familiar story being told. For those of you who aren't familiar with the healing of the ten lepers, here is how it goes:

Ten lepers approached Jesus one day, begging for them to be made clean. Back in Jesus' day, lepers were thought to be horribly contagious (insofar as people at the time knew what contagion was, but theoretically, if you touched a leper, you got nasty horrible things happening to you), which is now known to be untrue, but as such they were treated as outcasts. If they could be cleaned, and prove themselves to be clean, then they would be allowed to participate in society. Jesus healed all ten, telling them to go to any of the local priests and show themselves to said priest and ask him to verify their being healed and clean. The ten men departed and did so, and found themselves to be exactly that -- except the one man who, being healed, immediately turned around and found Jesus to thank Him even before seeing the priest.

One man came back to thank Jesus, and Jesus wondered out loud where the other nine were. Still, He told the man to go and be well, as he is now healed.

End of story.

It's a funny fact, then, that this is not the end of the story according to the church I'm from.

The version of the story I heard is identical, except that there is another section at the end that is not actually in the Bible at all. I didn't know this until a long time later, because I hadn't closely read the story, but it turns out that my old church amended the tale. In their version, the ten lepers depart, one turns around and thanks Jesus, and Jesus sends him on his way again, wondering where the nine are...and after that, the nine find themselves to be lepers once more, because they didn't say thank you. Essentially, Jesus curses them for their lack of gratitude, which is never something we see Jesus doing at all (ever -- the only thing He ever curses is a fig tree, which he withers as a demonstrative gesture accompanying something He said).

What does this mean, then, that some conservative churches feel the need to turn Jesus into some kind of punishing figure, even when the evidence they want is something they had to create themselves? That Jesus isn't a merciful healer, but instead some sort of divine overseer, rewarding the good but exactly strict justice the moment any mistake is made?

Off Topic: A Primer on Long Hair

As a grad from one of the nerdiest schools you're going to find, I end up meeting a lot of people with long hair. For women, this isn't such a weird thing, but we have a fairly significant quantity of males with long hair of various magnitudes. As such, I wrote a primer on how to deal with long hair.

This isn't to say that all guys don't take care of their hair, by any means, or that all girls do. In the end, there are many on both sides who just sort of ignore it. Without further ado, some helpful tips from someone who has had long hair for 20 years. Note that I have straight hair and, as such, can't give as helpful advice for very curly hair. Wavy hair acts similarly to straight hair in a lot of ways, from what I've seen, but grain of salt and so forth.


1. Cut your hair.

I know this is counter-intuitive. You want to grow your hair out, so you ignore it and let it grow, right? This is incorrect, especially if you have blonde hair. Dark hair is thicker per strand than light hair, on average, so it tends to suffer less damage per unit time, but in the end, all hair will have split ends. Split ends are when the hair shaft divides near the end of the hair, causing a frizzy clump of skinny hair tips that gives your hair a ratty, tangled look. They make the hair weaker, and the longer they're around, the higher up the hair will split. Eventually, you can get inches of split ends, and it's made even worse if your hair deals with chlorine, heavy heat, salt water, or other such abuse on a routine basis. A friend of mine went hiking in the desert for three months and had to get about four inches of hair chopped off because it was utterly destroyed.

The solution to split ends is to trim your hair about half an inch when you see the frizz starting to appear. Don't cut it often, or much -- just go to a stylist or a friend and tell them to take the split ends off. Your hair grows faster than its ends split, so you'll slowly grow your hair out and keep it nice-looking. There's little sadder that can happen to hair, than having a foot and a half of ponytail with the last six to eight inches being ratty split ends.

2.Get a separate conditioner from your shampoo and use it every time you wash.

Conditioner is in no way overrated. When you shampoo your hair and nothing else, you strip off all the oils but put nothing back on to protect the hair. As a result, your hair gets dry, damaged, and brittle. When you brush it, it will break. Those two-in-one shampoos are atrocious -- shampoo strips off oil, and conditioner tries to moisten, and the two do not work well together. First shampoo, then condition. If you have particularly damaged/brittle/dry hair, leave the conditioner on for a few minutes, and consider buying something you can leave in after you wash.

When you wash with conditioner, make sure that you're not over-rinsing it. Notice how, after you shampoo, your hair gets that "squeaky clean" feeling where your fingers cause enough friction to actually catch on the hair. After you condition, you should stop rinsing when your hair feels smooth but not slick -- your fingers shouldn't grab in the hair, but nor should you be able to feel the conditioner either. It's a practice thing, but in the end, that's the magic point where the conditioner is doing its job without leaving a residue.

3. Don't use crap conditioner.

I know it's tempting to buy a two-dollar bottle of conditioner, but up to a point, you really get what you pay for. Six to eight dollars is the minimum for good conditioner on my hair; it probably varies per person, but if you're using a cheap bottle of Pert, it simply won't do much for you. It'll be like you didn't condition, and see above for the consequences.

4. Use a brush.

I know this sounds ridiculous. Still, some people don't brush their hair. Granted, some people's hair is magical and doesn't tangle, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't brush it. Brushing hair flattens the flyaways that form halos around your head after you wash, and it gets rid of shed hairs that are caught up in the rest of your hair. Finger-combing isn't going to get all of them. Even if you're losing hair, brushing softly isn't going to tear out any more; it's just going to remove the hair you've already shed.

There are two different kinds of brushes, loosely: bristle brushes and rubber-nib brushes. Rubber-nib brushes are the most common kind; they have spines that have rubber bulbs on the end. They tend to be stiffer and dig farther into the hair, which means that for most people they're better at getting all the tangles out, but for people with sensitive scalps, they're little torture devices. If you're like me, and pulling at your hair causes you nontrivial pain, you should use a bristle brush, which has thinner and more flexible strands with nothing on their ends. Bristle brushes are less powerful than rubber-nib brushes, but they're gentler. Try each one and see what you think. Most people prefer the nibs, but a few just can't deal.

Brush your hair from the ends upward. This will brush out any tangles without clumping them together at the end of your hair. It can be slow going, but it will do less damage to your hair in the process and make the tangles easier to get out.

5. Tame flyaways.

Fine hair tends to be really fluttery. Chances are that if you have fine hair, you get shorter strands flipping about and giving you a vague halo a la those Catholic saint pictures. What you can do for this is to take some anti-frizz cream or some hair shine liquid and rub a tiny bit on your hands, then run your hands through your hair. That should be enough to keep the loose strands back.

6. Pull back your hair.

I know ponytails aren't for everyone, but find some way to tame your hair when you need to. It will get in your way during sports, on windy days, and so on, no matter how much you like to wear it down. Sometimes it's just worth it to carry a hair tie or two. Get the kind with no metal -- the metal bits on old hair ties will snag strands and hurt when you pull them out of your hair. And seriously, don't even consider using rubber bands.

7. You don't need to go to a stylist to cut your hair.

Friends can trim long hair as long as you don't have a crazy cut. If you've just got hair of a fairly uniform length, all said friend needs to do is flatten your hair when it's wet and trim straight across. Put it in whatever part you like (middle, side, whatever) before the cut is done. If you have wavy hair, this gets even easier, because it's harder to see a slightly uneven cut on curly or wavy hair than on straight hair. Granted, if you want a special cut, you will have to go to a salon unless you know a particularly skilled friend, but odds are if you're an average guy with long hair, just get a friend to snip the ends off once in a while. It takes ten minutes, tops.

8. Consider a hair dryer if you have to look particularly nice.

I know hair dryers are said to completely ruin hair, but this is utterly false. They do some amount of damage, but it's nothing conditioner doesn't fix. As long as you don't over-bake your hair, you'll be fine. Hair dryers prevent hair from looking oily after you wash. When you dry your hair, keep the dryer moving so that no one section of hair sustains too much heat. Take a brush and brush your hair while facing the dryer toward the bristles; this will help it dry faster and look smoother. If you're one of those people that likes curling the ends, you can get a round brush and make some waves at the end of your hair by wrapping your hair around the brush and drying as you pull the brush through.

9. If you have oily hair, only condition the hair that is farther from your scalp.

Don't put conditioner directly near your scalp if your hair gets oily. Your head will naturally condition the roots of your hair, so worry about keeping the length from being damaged and breaking off. Conditioner will only force you to wash your hair more often to keep the greasy look away.

10. Try not to brush your hair harshly while it's wet.

Brushing wet hair tends to break it, so be careful. Combing is better, but long hair tends to resist combs.

On the Age of Accountability (and More Eternal Hell)

There is a concept highly pushed in conservative Christianity, and that is the Age of Accountability. Through no particular Biblical text -- mostly just sane but partial logic -- someone down the authority chain decided that there was a maximum age past which people suddenly become accountable for their sins. I will refer to it as the AoA for sanity's sake, because Accountability is a huge word. The AoA is loosely defined as the point where a person has enough understanding of what is right and wrong to make good decisions and do what is right.

Very little kids clearly have no particular clue. They scream, hit, steal, whatever they want, they try to get. They have no reasonable concept of "moral" or "ethical" or whatever. They know they have needs, and they try to take the most direct path between the need and the fulfilling thereof. You can't really blame them for that, because they're underdeveloped and don't have the knowledge and brain maturity to do otherwise.

The AoA, despite its general definition, is often set at age 12. Why? No other reason than Jesus began showing consciously executed signs of divine knowledge at 12, according to text. We don't actually know if Jesus started exhibiting divinity before that, but the first recorded moment is when Mary and Joseph, through some mishap we don't know, lose Jesus while heading home and have to turn back and search for the missing child. They find Jesus in a synagogue, astounding the local teachers with His knowledge. Beforehand, obviously, there were the singing Christmas angels and whatnot, but this was the first voluntary action we see Jesus taking that is "superhuman." Never mind the fact that Jesus was clearly incredibly mature for His age as a human, and that He had a huge bank of knowledge that no one else could possibly have access to, the AoA is set at 12 from this story.

Ergo, according to Christian lore, at age 12, every human being now has the ability to damn himself.

Okay, when I was a kid, this scared the pants off me, I don't know about you. The moment my 12th birthday hit, it was like a huge weight came down around my shoulders. I now had Responsibility. I didn't ask for it. I certainly didn't want it. Who wants the chance to screw up their eternal fate?

And, in complete, unashamed seriousness, I would much rather die than have that opportunity.

This leads back to eternal Hell. If Hell is permanent, and your state of belief on Earth can screw you forever -- especially if by some shadow of a chance I've done it wrong and some other religion with a Hell figure is correct -- then I would much rather have been killed as a baby when I had no opportunity to ruin it for myself.

Even when you include religious mandate, what is God trying to get at when He gives us commandments? Love your neighbor. Treat him well. Do good to him. Be a nice person.

What is the nice thing to do, when someone is faced with the opportunity to completely destroy their fate? What is the only way to help them?

It's the same thing we do to wounded animals. We kill them. No fancy words -- that's exactly what we do. When the animal is faced with dire suffering, instead of letting it be tortured into oblivion, we do the kindhearted thing and end its life. This is considered humane, moral, and correct. Now this creature is at peace. So, when the difference is between heaven and even the slightest possibility of permanent Hell, the solution is very, direly, simple.

Kill every single human being before their 12th birthday. End the human race in a couple of generations. Everyone goes to Heaven and the world ends for us. This is is the only humane option for us.


There is one contingency plan, if you allow for those who have never heard of Jesus to go to Heaven. This is a big if for some people. If you consider that tenet, the other solution is to completely eliminate Christianity. By eradicating the very religion that is trying to promote salvation, you prevent anyone from losing salvation by gaining knowledge and then choosing to ignore it. If those who never hear, are considered to never have had a chance, then we should never give anyone a chance. The worst life on Earth, even a spiritually unfulfilled and miserable one, is infinitely greater than eternal torture.

When your most humane options become "murder the entire human race" and "eliminate your own religious system," something is incredibly, direly wrong.

And besides, what happens if someone is precocious? What if their brain develops fast and they gain moral understanding at age 10? The age-12 rule is silly and has no real basis in reality or Scripture, while you could argue for a moving AoA due to "innocents going to heaven." The mentally unstable or impaired may not even have an AoA. So in the end, it's a huge crapshoot as to when someone gets the chance to go to permanent Hell, when you have this moving target. Or what happens if someone dies at age 13, after having just a year -- and a year during adolescence, when people make crap decisions and are biologically screwed with regards to good sense -- to sort their entire lives out?

My Issues with Eternal Hell

I have a beef with the concept of eternal Hell.

I don't even mean the Dante's Inferno type of Hell. After all, there is very, very little evidence that Hell is going to be full of fire and brimstone; the "lake of fire" is seen as being a place for the devil and demons, not for ill-fated souls, and it might just be metaphorical for something else. But even if it does exist, odds are the humans won't end up there.

My issue is really with the permanence of Hell. I don't even mind the idea of it existing. Now, there are plenty of people who will bring up a lot of scriptures regarding Hell and its existence, but I want to point out a few Biblical passages also. I'm going to paraphrase here; I will likely return and put in chapter and verse numbers later.


"How many times must I forgive my brother? Is seven times enough?" That was one of the apostles, asking Jesus. Jesus replied, "Not just seven, but seventy times seven." As in, we should forgive people and endless number of times, and not hold their crimes against them. This isn't the same as letting them endanger others, but we have mercy upon them and grant them pardon.

"Forgive your enemies; bless those who curse you; do good to those who spitefully use you." That's Jesus again.

Four men lower a paralyzed man down into a house where Jesus is teaching. "Your sins are forgiven," he says to the man, then tells him to stand up and walk. The man does.

Jesus is hanging on the cross, after suffering horrible torture and finally nailed to a couple of wooden planks to die. It's a most undignified death, saved for thieves and traitors and other kinds of scum, and surely the meaning isn't lost on him. He looks down and says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Notice how, in none of these examples, does Jesus ever put any significance whatsoever on the perpetrators asking for forgiveness.

Forgive your brother, whether or not he asks for it. Forgive your enemies, and they certainly aren't asking. The paralyzed man was probably just confused; we have no record of him saying anything, though his friends had faith -- but we don't know at all if he did. As for the Romans, they didn't care jack squat for this random Jew who the others had decided was clearly terrible enough for the death penalty.

Jesus forgives them. So what's the huge leap between that and forgiving the other poor stubborn people on Earth who just haven't made it to the point of faith yet? If Jesus forgave the Romans, who clearly didn't care what religion He was pushing, what about the people who were raised atheist and simply saw no particular proof to believe otherwise? Jesus was running around throwing miracles like they were candy, and still people didn't believe -- how is modern day life giving anyone a fair shot?

If God tells us to do something, I expect He will do the same thing, only more so. (Worshiping Him notwithstanding, let's all be sane here, I expect God doesn't worship Himself.) If He asks us to forgive someone, I expect He's going to do it all the more. Which basically means...well, everyone. He also tells us to be fair, and just, and He'll do that also. But in the end, whenever that means, whether it's on Earth or in the afterlife, He will forgive all those people He told us to forgive. Because He's God, and He's not a hypocrite.

It seems to be that by the definition of hypocrisy -- of which Jesus accused a huge number of religious officials, so He clearly subscribes to the definition -- God constrains Himself every time He makes a rule for us. He can't violate rules that He set in place, because that would make Him untrustworthy and hypocritical. (A comment on "Thou shalt not kill" -- God is clearly referring to innocents, or people who have not already qualified for the death penalty, because God definitely allows humans to levy the death penalty at least in the Old Testament. We can argue all day about Canaanites and whatnot, but this isn't the point.)

Scripture also says that God chastises those he loves, and he punishes people that he cares for, presumably to let them know the consequences of their actions and correct them. That's what chastising is for -- it's a reprimand, and instruction to do right. Chastising is completely useless if it never ends, because it crosses the line between punishment and cruel vengeance. It's torture for torture's sake; it's straight-up sadistic. It's passive-aggressive ("look what you did, and what you could have done, now sit and wallow in despair forever because you were bad, because you deserve it") and senseless, because once the person has seen the error of their ways, what reason is there for not letting them leave?

In this case, let's think about Hell as a separation from God. No more, no less. It's a calm limbo, where no one is tortured, but where people feel the crucial void between themselves and their creator. They are aware every moment of their "lives" there, that they have fallen short and that they are missing something

You know, this seems a lot like Earth.

Doesn't it seem that way to you? That's what people are trying to make others feel here. However, we have a lot of Earthly pleasures to get in our way, and lots of other people to convince us not to believe, and so on.  By this image, Hell is mostly more of our lives here, only with a focus on the depressing parts, the parts where we feel spiritually unfulfilled and empty. That does suck quite a lot, but in the end, surely someone in Hell is going to figure out that they don't have to do this anymore.

At that point, continuing to rub their nose in their proverbial pee stain is just being mean. If they understand, if the punishment has achieved its purpose of teaching them what they did wrong, if they now decide they want to fix their life...well, why not let them? Jesus never turned anyone away. What's up with this arbitrary deadline of 75-ish years, compared to eternity? At that point, it just seems like God would be saying, "Ha ha, you didn't make it in time, now go shove off." God doesn't do that. He's all-loving and all-merciful, but it seems like people forget the all part of that. It's not "all Christians," it's just all. Everyone. Everything. Every man, beast, plant, stone -- He shaped everything, and God doesn't make junk, and He doesn't throw things away.

A lot of people will start screaming about how human morality sucks, here. Maybe it does, for people who aren't Christian -- maybe at that point, whether the person's morality is right, is a hit or miss kind of question. There are certainly some human impulses that are less than admirable. But in the end, I like to think God gives His followers a sense of right and wrong, and if something is utterly repulsive to us, maybe we should give it a second look and see if we've read it right, or if we're interpreting it right, or what have you.

One of my acquaintances once said that Christianity is scary and depressing, and that it's supposed to be, because we were called to make huge sacrifices and be hurt and tormented for God's sake.

Sacrifice happens. Pain happens. But Christianity is supposed to be the good news, the news that someone has already come by to atone for all our crimes, full stop. That whosoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life, full stop. Not if they do it in a certain way, with certain ritual. Not if they are perfect.

Not even if they only do it before they die.

For God so loved the world, that He sent His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

If Christianity is scary and depressing, we're clearly reading this verse horribly wrong.

The Prodigal Son

The story of the Prodigal Son is given as an example of great forgiveness and mercy. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it goes like this.

A man had two sons that worked the land with him. One day, the younger son came to him and asked for his share of the inheritance early, and his father handed it over. At that point, he hoofs it out of town and heads off to the Wild Blue Yonder to live the good life with the money and resources he has. His older brother stays behind to keep working for their father, not wanting his inheritance early.

The younger man spends all his money on food and prostitutes. His life goes off like a bottle rocket, fast and dangerous, and he burns himself out in a matter of a few years. At that point, he is reduced to sleeping in pigpens, eating scraps given to the pigs and living in the streets. A while later, he realizes that he can't live in the sty forever, and he goes home in shame to his father to tell him what has become of himself and his inheritance.

When he arrives, he begs that his father would let him sleep in the stable and work as a slave, because he expects no more. His father has a different agenda, calling in all the farmhands and his older son and throwing a grand celebration for the younger man. He brings out a big fat calf and kills it for a feast, then puts a ring on the man's finger and nice sandals on his feet, and he rejoices that his son has returned.

Normally, the moral of the story is that the prodigal son was lost and now is found; he went off to live the "good life" and figured out that it's not so good after all, then decided to come home, where he is always welcome. His father is all-forgiving and has no lingering grudge over the man's bad decisions.

This is a charming story, but I wonder from time to time -- did the prodigal son have the right idea? Was it necessary for him to go off, spend all his money, understand what the world has to offer, and then reject it? I'll say, yes. Hear me out for a moment.

Every so often, families spawn children who are just not satisfied with a cloistered life. They want to know what's out there in the Wild Blue Yonder, and they're tired of being held back from doing what they want. Now, for most people, what they want is far more wholesome than wild spending and whores, but the point still stands. Let's look at the two brothers for a moment.

The first son in the story, the older one, is happy where he is. He goes about his everyday life without regret, working the land, reaping crops, slaughtering animals, selling food, so on. His life is relatively uneventful and secure. He likes it that way, and he's not oppressed into it, because his father is a kindhearted person. He's probably very stable and not very adventurous.

The second son clearly isn't pleased with his life. He's a "go big or go home" type. He wants to have wealth, luxury, and satisfaction. Instead of getting married young, as was the custom, he's going to go off and live a commitment-free life, where he doesn't work and doesn't have to support his partners. He is dissatisfied with constancy and security. He's probably a risk-taker.

Fundamentally, both of these are reasonable ways to live. They're the difference between the quiet, hard-working student and the one who parties at the frats all weekend and does just enough to get by. You can get by doing both; I'm not even going to bother on the point of which one is better. Unless you get alcohol poisoning and die, both of these will sustain you at the bare minimum, at least.

But in the end, as it often is with bottle-rocket types, the Prodigal Son realizes that he has screwed it up big time. He has no money and no food. He's reduced to living with pigs, which in Jewish culture are unclean animals. He eats what he can steal from them, and he lives in the dirt all day. His life is nowhere near the lap of luxury that he had imagined. So after a while, he heads home to try to clean things up. I expect that afterward, he doesn't bother trying to live the fast and dangerous life again.

What if he hadn't left? Probably he would have been grumpy and unhappy until the end of his days. Some people just have to know what they're missing, to see that they're not really missing anything at all. Curiosity, and sometimes envy, are powerful forces. He saw the men throwing cash around, buying rich foods, and spending the night with all the whores they wanted, and he wanted that life, too. Had he not tried it, he'd probably have idolized it for the rest of his life, sat around being angry that his father and brother were keeping him chained down, generally folding in on himself and being bitter about his inability to go do what he wants.

Did you ever do something utterly stupid as a kid, but realize that you learned a good lesson from it? Maybe you ate three bags of candy, felt horribly sick and threw up, then realized that this was perhaps a terrible plan and you're never doing it again? Or maybe you pulled your cat's tail, got bitten, and saw that you know, maybe it wasn't worth it to see the cat get all riled up? Yeah. I did that stuff. But you know, I'd have been angry at myself for not doing it, had I not done it. There are things in life you have to experience, just so you can see if they're as good as you think they are. You have to take the risk. You have to see what you're missing. And then, in the end, maybe you weren't missing much. Getting drunk and barfing really isn't very interesting, despite what the frat boys want you to think. I suspect that getting high also isn't, although I haven't tried. Lots of things aren't. But hey, try anything once. After all, I did once dare a friend to eat a betta fish, in exchange for me doing the same afterward. A live one. It was an experience. I don't feel the need to do it again, but hey, it was nifty.

Was the Prodigal Son's decision a good one? Not in the least. Did he learn from it? Yes. Was it probably necessary to his eventual happiness and satisfaction? Most likely. Was he a better man for having gone through something dumb and coming back home to fix it? Absolutely.

In short, I don't think it's the end of the world to be the Prodigal Son once in a while. Just learn from your dumbassery.