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"Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" Today I found myself driving behind a car that had a rather interesting bumper sticker. The sticker simply said, “THINK.” And in place of the “ I” was an upright “Jesus Fish”. I found this amusing after all of the drama that has played out recently through the Citizen blogs regarding Muddle, his employment and the anonymous Judas (who does not remain as anonymous as they might believe) who somehow succeeded in getting Muddle canned for the most absurd reasons imaginable. There are a couple of ways this sticker can be interpreted. In one way it could mean something along the lines of “Think Jesus” or “How Would Jesus Think?”. I prefer to believe that it means that the owner of the sticker-bearing vehicle is a Christian who has thought long and hard about why he’s a Christian and what it means to be a Christian and who holds the seemingly unpopular belief that, just because he’s a Christian, doesn’t mean he ought to stop using his brain. “There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. “The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility… “In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that - and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison - you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” This is where the “Holier-Than-Thou” syndrome comes into play. The more a Christian refrains from drinking beer and smoking cigarettes – and even, I suppose, from shoplifting and sleeping around – the more superior he feels to the beer-swilling, cigarette-puffing kleptomaniac with a smattering of STDs. There is something to be said, when you’re a Christian, for “keeping away from all appearances of evil”. Which would, of course, include the beer and the pot and so on that one usually thinks of as “Un-Christian” and even “low-class”. Steering yourself away from a negative reputation is not necessarily a bad thing and it is failing to do this exceedingly well that Muddle may be guilty of, if “guilt” is the right word and if he’s “guilty” of anything at all. To my knowledge, Muddle is not even guilty of any “surface sins” apart from a fondness for good microbrews and the tendency to utter an occasional, very mild expletive. But being fond of microbrews is not the same thing as funneling a twelve pack of Bud down your throat until you fall down the stairs and pass out on the landing every night. And mild expletives for the sake of humor are not the same thing as a constant stream of four letter words for the sake of having nothing more intelligent to say. Apart from these oh-so-horrendous “sins”, Muddle has presented himself as nothing less than a devoted husband, father and grandfather. (With a big, giant brain.) And, more than that, a devoted husband, father and grandfather who has been through a string of absolutely nightmarish events. To think that the true guilty party – the Pointed Finger who decided they could no longer bear to obsessively check on what Muddle has posted next – could be so prideful as to deliberately damage the life and livelihood of such a man is truly disturbing. It is not clear to me whether or not this person actually sought to accomplish what they accomplished. It was accomplished because a group of non-thinking people congregated together at a computer with the sole intent of finding some sort of “damning evidence”. These people who triumphantly wrote down a list of Muddle’s bad behavior were somehow blind to the fact that the “portrait” that is painted of Muddle – if you read all of his posts in one sitting, that is – is quite the opposite of what they claimed it to be. Rather than a beer-swilling foul-mouthed un-churched curmudgeon, what I saw when skimming through the posts and blogs was an exceptionally well-educated man who has spent his life thinking deeply about what he believes and makes an attempt to get his point across (as respectfully as possible) to anyone willing to listen. Argumentative, yes. But isn’t that what philosophy majors are taught to be? Curmudgeon…. Well, perhaps that as well, to a degree. But if that’s the case, he’s in good company anyway as Lewis himself wasn’t usually the most affable and social of fellows. And a true curmudgeon isn’t in the habit of making jokes whenever he has the opportunity. It is an amazing thing to me to see how the thinking Christians – like my friend with the THINK. sticker this afternoon (I hope) – are constantly being repressed by the non-thinkers. Is it because the thinkers are so outnumbered? I fear that this is the case. But, on the other hand, it is the non-thinking Christians who get so violently angry about their beliefs. It seems to me that the ones who have thought their way into their beliefs are calmer, certainly more rational, and are far less likely to slither behind your back to your employers and tattle on you for not believing the same thing that they do. In those cases of disagreement, someone who’s thought their way into religion will usually state their arguments clearly and then shrug their shoulders when it falls on deaf ears. Those that aren’t quite sure why they believe what they believe are the ones who are quickest to condemn everyone else and don sandwich boards with the word “Repent!” painted on them. “But you know, Bart, some philosophers believe In my humble opinion, it is the Christians who have fought and thought to come to their religious conclusions that are more worthy of respect than the ones who have had theirs handed down to them like second-hand socks. The latter don’t know why they believe what they believe, just that they were told to believe it. “For the Bible tells them so.” But they never stopped to think why it is they’re listening to what the Bible tells them to do. To them it all boils down to attending church on Sundays, memorizing a few key passages in the Bible to spew at people in sticky situations, and that drinking is bad, mmmkay? And to think, one of these people succeeded in inflicting so much damage to an innocent, thoughtful, caring and Christian person. They are like the evil twin of the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke. And it is during times like these that I cross my fingers and hope that such a thing as karma really exists. simpleton's blog | login to post comments
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