A short post might have been:

"I want to see more love and more art."

That says it all to me.

You've reiterated your main points, here are mine. "Secularism" is another "religion" in that the basis for secular morality is accepted on faith just like any religion. I reject the basis of your morality as completely as you reject the basis of mine. You can belive you're right, as believe I am right, but you cannot rationally claim that your views are grounded in reason and mine are not (which is what I believe you are trying to do).

Gabriel Garcia Marquez leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I haven't written him off forever or anything, but as much as I enjoy the surreal, his stuff generally doesn't do it for me. I much prefer Borges. "Ficciones" is more bang for your buck than almost anything I've read.

i want more jeffs in the world.

I have been following these posts and something I can see is that we all like to believe our positions are based in reason or logic, because if they are, they hold more water. I couldn't figure out what it is about the Word of God position that bothered me, but finally, lightning struck and I am still standing:-)

Something I recall from my Reason, Rhetoric and Argument class is the list of fallacies we had to learn. When you say "because" and then "he said so", especially if he is an authority figure, as in God, then this is a fallacy, it is a claim to authority and a tactic used by all to rationalize something they cannot rationalize otherwise. The argument, without that fallacy, does not hold water if another premise is not used, preferably without resorting to arguments based in fallacy.

Andy, to claim your argument is based in reason is not correct. To claim you have thought out your response and find it is a logical position -- to claim ownership of your position as a position and not an absolute truth -- for yourself is perfectly acceptable in most rational circles.

And this is why I have never bought the word of God argument.

Yes, please, more Jeffs in this world.

Aleksandra

Aleksandra,

What you said is all well and good, except you misunderstood what I was saying completely. I would never argue that my position is ultimately reasonable. I was arguing that it is impossible to have a completely reasonable worldview, and that Jeff's position is not more reasonable than mine. I believe we’re both using reason, and that we’re both taking leaps of faith. I'm not saying those leaps are arbitrary, but I’ve been over this already.

And here's another vote for "more Jeff's in the world"! :) I think many of us, no matter what our "religious" beliefs, want the same things, deep within our souls.

I understand your emotional state around these issues. One of the most frightening experiences I ever had was, in the middle of a conversation about the possibility of the ordination of women to the ministry (I attended a private religious college, several centuries ago), watching a young man I barely knew jump up and begin to pound on the table in barely suppressed rage, ranting: "a woman's place is in the home, a woman does not have any other desire than to be a mother and wife..." (how can he presume to know what a woman's place is, what a woman thinks or wants??) and more in that vein. That was the first time, so many years ago, that I understood that reason and logic have very little to do with it. Fear does crazy things to people. And fear in the name of religion, or any other idealogy, is perhaps more potent, having some sort of "legitimacy" to it. All I pray for (in my feeble, fumbling understanidng and belief in a higher power--having rejected my judeo-christian god) is that somehow, ignorance can be pushed back, bit by bit, and as we get to know the other (I like Deepak Chopra's ideas), we might fear the other less. Hurray for your wish list!!

For the record, my fiance is a paralegal, and I'm encouraging her to go to law school, which has been her ambition for some time.

oh andy, i don't think kati's comment was a pointed attack at you. from all that i've read of your comments, you seem to be an intelligent, fairly even-handed man who has a strong belief in his religion. i think you recognize that there are flaws in all of our belief systems, and you are doing your best to work out the kinks in you mind and heart (of course, i am inferring this all from words on a computer screen. aruguably, the most impersonal form of communication we could possibly have with one another).

what i take away from both kati's and jeff's statements is that we should take a step back from words printed on the pages of the bible and start looking at the humanity of our country. take the time to see people as individual beings rather than abstracts and stereotypes. have our hearts dictate our emotion toward one another, rather than the bible. take away our religion, our gender, our race, our sexual orientation, and look at our humanity. our need to give love and to receive love. our need to fill our world with color and electricity and vibrance. our need to give respect and receive respect. our need to hope for a more peaceful future for ourselves, for our families, for our children. look at those things, even if just for a moment, instead of arguing about the validity of the bible.

that's what i take away from their posts. or maybe i'm just projecting...

Jeff,
You are changing the world with your beautiful, brilliant wife. You both change it in your writings, your art, your music. The butterfly effect, remember? Yours and Keri's words make me (and many others) think, and feel, and change, and create, and in turn, the things I think, and feel, and create can have an effect on someone else. The rhythmn perpetuates...

I want to be more like the ocean. No talking. All action...No talking. All action...

Andy,

I can appreciate that I may have misunderstood, but obviously something in what you've written on this subject these last few days led me to believe what you tell me I misunderstood, which actually gives me hope, because you do demonstrate the possibility that everything we read or hear or see can be misunderstood and is open to misinterpretation. This is exactly the idea I am trying to express. Words, be they God's, mine, or yours, may be misinterpreted, and therefore room for discussion, error and questionning the belief of what we read or see or hear needs to exist if humans are to ever reach harmony or truth or whatever anyone wants to call it. Jennifer says it well.

Perhaps I should reveal that my background is literary theory and discourse analysis, which means I try to understand what I hear and read, but it also reveals how the fragility of words and meaning. When I read your posts, I read a lot of defensiveness, more specifically in your recent reference to your fiancee and her being a paralegal (or your encouraging her to be a lawyer). Please don't feel you are being attacked, because you aren't. This is in the spirit of trying to understand all the different sides, and for some, it may be a mission to expose the danger of one side versus the other.

The only thing I find dangerous is those who close their minds to the possibilities, be it being wrong or misunderstanding or being blind or whatever leads us down a path of bigotry, war, especially pre-emptive war, murder, intolerance, but worse, lack of openness to other's right and freedom to choose their own God, or not at all.

The way I see it, this is about freedom, within or without, religion. Unfortunately, George W Bush is blurring the lines and creating a climate of fear that fundamental rights and freedoms will be compromised, something that is already happening in the USA. And something that seems to be happening in Canada, the way Paul Martin with caucus members who choose to criticize the powers that be.

To have strong faith is admirable, and to defend it when it is under attack is normal. But to argue so to impose one's beliefs or degrade one's lack of belief in the same God or idea or philosophy or art, for example, is deplorable.

Aleksandra

Aleksandra,

Yes, I have been a bit defensive. I felt like I was parachuting behind enemy lines when I commented on the “Jesusland” map. Although obviously it turns out that there are people posting from all over the spectrum. My comments about my fiancé were meant to be a defense, not defensive. It’s not that I felt personally attacked as much as I was trying to demonstrate that, although some Christians may fear gender equality, it does not have to be that way and often isn’t. I was offering myself up as an example of a Christian who does not have problems with women who work.

But it is hard not to sound defensive when one’s views are compared to those of the Nazis and the Klan. I realize that those comparisons were made in all honesty and were not meant as personal attacks, but somehow that doesn’t help. It puts a fire in me. I want to start typing and explaining why I think Jeff is wrong about Christianity.

I agree that it’s easy to misread a text. I believe in humility, and I’m willing to say that I don’t know if I have made the right decision on November 2nd. Our country is facing complicated moral choices, and I know some Christians who voted for Bush and some who voted for Kerry. I respect both of those decisions. I also don’t believe that I “know” that Christianity is true. When I tell you I have faith that it is true, that means I believe it is true and I strive to live as if I knew it were true. But that’s not to say that I don’t have evidence. Certainly, another person could interpret the evidence differently, and then either one or both of us are misreading the text. But of course I’m going to act on my beliefs, as all of you are acting on yours.

Hi Jeff, I came to your blog through Keri's and I just wanted to say that I enjoyed reading your post, and I followed the comments with interest.
I feel very similar to you. I don't feel eloquent enough to reply in more detail but I know what rings true for me.