God Is Busy, Can I Help You? ~ The Devil

More than 1 interpretation . . . 

I bought this t-shirt at a First Nations pow-wow last summer. I loved it so much that I got one for my son and brother-in-law. What intrigues me is the ambiguity of shirt´s message:

1. At first glance, it looks blasphemous. God busy? How could we say this? I remember Jim Carrey´s character in the film Bruce Almighty. He got to step into God´s shoes for a few days, and found out that it was not an enviable position to occupy. Billions of prayers came to Jim Carrey in the form of millions of emails, then in voices in his head. But, as many people believe that God is all-powerful, answering a billion prayers at the same time is easy as pie.

2. This shirt is anti-Devil. He is wearing diapers, the ultimate insult for an evil spirit of Satan´s stature. He is unable to help as God helps. He is just a ridiculous, cartoonish-looking figure.

3. Again, anti-Devil. It shows that the Devil is a liar. He is always trying to impersonate God, to take over his position. God is never busy, never distant. However, Satan would like us to believe that God is far away, unable or unwilling to help. Thus, we can seek the Devil instead. But this is all BS.

4. I really believe in the Devil.  He is more powerful than God.  And God is literally too busy.  So I´m taking over.  Got that?

5. I am the Devil. God has appointed me, on his behalf, to help you. To say that I am the devil is simply a metaphor, a figure of speech. It shows my humility, my recognition of being a fallible, weak human being, prone to waywardness and wandering. However, even in my fallen state, I am willing to lend a helping hand, on behalf of the Almighty. Of course, I´m glad that I can still look buff, a Satanic version of The Rock or Vin Diesel ; )

There may or may not be a real devil. This shirt is just poking fun at religion, trying to get a rise out of people who take their faith so seriously that they can´t get a good joke.

So, religiosos out there, don´t put a contract out on my head. This post and its photo are all in good fun. Always challenge yourselves. Always use your brain. Look at things from different perspectives.

In conclusion, what can we say about the Devils. Here are a few options I can think of off the top of my head:

1. Fuck the Devil. He´s the source of all misery in the world.

2. Who cares about the Devil. Don´t waste your time mythologising about the source of evil in the world. The real dangers are human ignorance, and ultimately, human greed.

3. Bless the Devil. He keeps us on our toes, keeps us from being lazy, keeps us alert and always ready to fight. We needs our enemies just as much as we need our friends.

Use your imagination, folks, and don´t get your panties in a wad!

Cheers,

Bjarte Harvisen

harvisen AT gmail.com

A Take On Jesus: “Armageddon Days Are Here Again”

In my current agnostic path, I think back to my university years when Ioved this rebellious song, “Armageddon Days Are Here Again” – The The, from the 1990 album “Mind Bomb”.  Still relevant today.

But remember: all religions and their followers bow down to the Ultimate Religion on Planet Earth: Money-Worship.  The bottom line for all philosophies, including the fundamentalist, militant “New Atheism” is Gain.  Supposedly most religions and their founders were trying to wean their people away from greed.  But now, religion is simply a tool for profiteering.

Highlights I love:
- Jesus' name has been "hi-jacked" to the point that, if he were to return, he'd be in shock 
- "If the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today, he'd be gunned down cold by the CIA"
- God is NOTHING that we imagine him/her/it to be, and no one has a monopoly on him/her/it

Here’s the Youtube video:

And the lyrics:

Are you right here Jesus? (response) Ah
Buddha? (response) Yeah
Muhammad? (response) Okay
But all right friends, let’s go

They’re 5 miles high as the crow flies
Leavin’ vapour trails against a blood red sky
Movin’ in from the East toward the West
With Balaclava helmets over their heads, yes!

But if you think that Jesus Christ is coming
Honey you’ve got another thing coming
If he ever finds out who’s hi-jacked his name
He’ll cut out his heart and turn in his grave

[CHORUS:]

Islam is rising
The Christians mobilising
The world is on its elbows and knees
It’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds

It’s war, she cried, It’s war, she cried, this is war
Drop your possessions, all you simple folk
You will fight them on the beaches in your underclothes
You will thank the good Lord for raising the Union Jack
You’ll watch the ships out of harbour
And the bodies come floating back

If the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today
He’d be gunned down cold by the C.I.A.
Oh, the lights that now burn brightest behind stained glass
Will cast the darkest shadows upon the human heart

But God didn’t build himself that throne
God doesn’t live in Israel or Rome
God belongs to the Yankee dollar
God doesn’t plant the bombs for Hezbollah

God doesn’t even go to church
And God won’t send us down to Allah to burn
No, God will remind us what we already know
That the human race is about to reap what it’s sown

The world is on its elbows and knees
It’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds
Armageddon days are here again

Cheers, 

Bjarte Harvisen

Contact me at

harvisen AT gmail.com

Moving Away From Christianity

I am still in the middle of my re-assessment of Jesus and Christianity.

A little background: last year I was trying to establish a new religious "movement".   It was basically to allow people to follow Jesus without being part of the corrupt churches, whether Evangelical or other Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox or the sects.  I had concluded that the churches were disqualified from calling themselves Jesus-followers because they had done the opposite of the Great Commandments of loving God and neighbour.  Christians had been involved in Empire-building, with all its money-worship and violence, since the time of the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine, who had hijacked the Christian faith for his own political purposes.  Indeed, there has hardly been a time in history where the faith has NOT been hijacked. 

Two notable instances of doing the opposite of Jesus' teaching on love were:

(1) The Genocide of First Nations (indigenous peoples) worldwide since 1492, when Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Americas.  This process has continued with the marginalisation of native peoples wherever Christians go.  Even Christian evangelism and charity to the "Indians" is basically a pious form of bullying and arrogance.

(2) The 2003 Iraq War, where most Americans, especially the Evangelicals who supported President George W Bush, to attack and destroy a nation on false pretences.  Every day at my work, I meet Iraqi refugees, some of whose relatives and friends have been killed over the past 10+ years in Iraq.  Then we hear stories of American soldiers wearing Scripture references on their uniforms, doing their dirty deeds "in the name of Christ", to the point that non-Christian soldiers feel disgusted to be in the same units. 

Last year, I wanted to base a movement of Jesus' "Messiah-ness" and call it the "Messianic Liberationists".  So I examined all the Scriptures from the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible to highlight how Jesus was the true Jewish Messiah.

After all the initial excitement before and during the start of this Messianic Scripture venture, I ended up disappointed instead.  This was because:
- many of the New Testament citations on the Messiah seem to be either misquoting or downright twisting the original meaning.  For example, the Messianic verses of Isaiah 9 seem to be pointing out a fallible man, and yet at the same time some sort of god-like hero.  Confusing.  And the New Testament citation of Isaiah 9 takes the original verses completely out of context.
- many Old Testament Messianic quotes have never come true.  Christians excuse this by saying that Jesus will fulfill these during his Second Coming.  Hmm, I wonder . . .
- many Messianic verses are, well, rather boring. 

The whole Messianic Scripture Project ended up being anti-climactic.  However, it wasn't until this year that I started doubting the Bible.  It all began when I thought, "Gee, if the Church is not really the 'Chosen People' due to its association with 'Empire' from the time of Constantine until now, then, weren't the 66 books we have in the Christian Bible selected by a committee set up by Emperor Constantine?"  Indeed, this selection of the Scriptural "Canon" (or "Standard") that became our Christian Bible was basically a political manoeuvre on the part of Emperor Constantine and the Roman Empire.

So recently I have gone back and re-examined the foundations of the Christian faith, and after much study and thought, have found it wanting. 

I'm in the middle of a few interesting books:

- Thom Stark's The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries To Hide It), Wipf & Stock, Eugene, Oregon, USA, 2011. (link)

- Randel Helm's The Bible Against Itself: Why the Bible Seems to Contradict Itself, Millennium Press, Altadena, CA, 2006. (link)

- Bart D. Ehrman's Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them), HarperCollins, New York, 2009. (link)

- Vincent Bugliosi's Divinity of Doubt: The God Question, Vanguard Press, 2011. (link)

- Sam Harris' Letter to A Christian Nation, Random House, New York, 2006. (link)


I watched some interesting films about Jesus:

- Director Ron Howard's "The DaVinci Code" from 2006, starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou  (link)

- "The God Who Wasn't There", a documentary from 2005 (link)
- Bill Maher's 2008 "Religulous" (link)

- the 2001 film, "The Body" with Antoni Banderas and Olivia Williams (link)

Of course, my Evangelical friends would say to me: "No wonder you're doubting your faith!  You're reading all these books from unbelievers!"

The common Evangelical belief is that the world is divided into:
- THE GOOD GUYS, i.e., Christians
- THE BAD GUYS, i.e., everyone else

Thus, Evangelicals are afraid to read the works of "unbelievers" when it comes to matters of religious, philosophy, or metaphysics.

So basically, Evangelicals are stuck in their worldview, with no hope of escaping, unless something earth-shaking happens to them.  Otherwise, they will not do their research, except in apologetic sources that confirm their faith. 

Of course, the scariest thing to an Evangelical is to lose their faith. 

For me, I'm not afraid.  I already made up my mind last year that I refuse to go to a Heaven that is primarily populated by Evangelical Christians.  Why would I like to share sacred space for all eternity with the same people who supported the destruction of Iraq and other nations, and the ongoing genocide of First Peoples?  Why would I want to hang out with people who worship money while pretending to honour the Creator of the Universe?  And why would I like to live somewhere where I'd be in constant debate with Christians, because, by and large, they refuse to use their brains?

Well, Jesus himself said that "by their fruits you'll know them", and by God, these Christians are the last people on earth that I'd like to follow.  30 years of being part of their tribe is enough.  I'm on to bigger and better things now.

Of course, there are always the nice ones.  The truly helpful.  The ones who really love their neighbours.  So I will eagerly get along with Christians, but please, please, pretty please, don't ask me to re-join.  Be content that I keep quoting from the Bible, from which there is still a lot of wisdom that I can apply to life.

Thanks for reading,

Bjarte

Email me at


harvisen AT gmail.com

Contemplating the Meaning of Life

Here I am at the local library near my house. Our baby is sleeping in his stroller. An Asian woman beside me is chattering on her cell phone as she watches an Asian soap opera on the computer. My old Christian friend comes chatting with me before he heads off to his father's funeral. I'm dying of thirst. Ah, that chocolate-vanilla mix of almond juice in my thermos is so refreshing.

I've been missing blogging. I was trying to think about writing well-prepared posts before I published them, instead of incoherent rants and chaotic meanderings that leave the reader in the land of Confusion. However, life's been busy, and I might as well GOMA (get off my ass) and express myself.

Life is sometimes cool.
Sometimes like Heaven.
Sometimes like Guantamano Bay.
If you open yourself up,
life can take you places you'd never imagined.

I have a good family life now, after experiencing the trauma of divorce in the late 2000s. New family, new life. It took me six years to reach this point, but by the grace of Beyond, I did it. Thank You, Beyond.

Oh yeah, if you're wondering what "Beyond" is, I'll let you in on my little secret:

"Beyond" is like the "Higher Power" of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is a belief that there is something greater than humanity.

I decided in the last couple months to unshackle my belief system. After toying with horoscopes, the concept of reincarnation and the paranormal as a kid, I converted to Evangelical Christianity as a 13 year old, Grade 8 high school student. I faithfully attended church for 30+ years, giving 10% tithes of my salary, and following what the pastors told me. I eventually ended up as a missionary in "Communist" China for a few years. The messy family break-up and the abduction of my child are what forced me me to return to Canada.

In many ways, that whole experience helped shake me out of my Evangelical worldview, slowly but surely, painful moment by painful moment. Of course, I had many joys and exhilarating experiences amidst the hard times too. But I have become disillusioned by Western society on the whole, and by my Evangelical sub-group in particular. Having experienced so many cultures and worldviews, I became suspicious of the Western monopoly on "reality-as-we-know-it".

I'm always hanging around Chinese people, here in Coast Salish Territories, in the Greater Vancouver area of the Canadian province of BC. It's funny, but modern Chinese culture is like a mirror image of Western culture. At their worst, both "cultures" (although I realise that they are both amalgamations of thousands of cultures) are arrogant and chauvinistic, xenophobic and bullying, historically revisionist and culturally/economically/politically dominant. At their best, they offer creativity, innovation, openmindedness, inquiry, curiosity, etc. One of the most obvious features is that they are all so sure of themselves.

Self-assurance is the mark of a dominant culture that has quashed smaller cultures and worldviews. The "Han" Chinese have it in spades. But I cannot blame them, because they're just throwing the arrogance we Westerners have back in our faces. 

Back to faith. Basically, reality is reality. Research will eventually tell us the truth, as long as we have the time, resources and appropriate "leads". Unfortunately for me, I believed in Christianity without doing much research. I met a heart-felt need as I was struggling with my parents' separation and our woe-beladen broken family.

In a way, I don't regret it. I learned a lot. It actually gave me some tools with which to critically analyse Western culture. Evangelicals call it "the world". It was a good thing to be taught to be suspicious of "the world". Little did I know, but these same Evangelicals and their faith ancestors were the very ones who built "the world" as we know it today. They built the Matrix. At their core, they don't worship the "Beyond". They worship the material, money and what it can buy. They, along with the rest of us Westerners, are stuck in the dominant economic view of life and the world. The Golden Calf is the true idol that occupies the minds of Christians and non-Christians alike in the West. And don't laugh, non-Westerners: you too have bought into this mythology. Money is your god also. 

Mammon-worship has become global in recent years. The irony is that so many cultures are asserting their national and religious identity, but they are Westernising at an alarming pace. Because Westernisation = globalisation. The West colonised the planet, and although it seems that Westerners are decreasingly in the "driver's seat", the world culture that is evolving is Western culture. 

Why do so many people worldwide want to become Christians? The answer: economics. If the West is the best, they damn well want a piece of the action, a taste of the same success.

No matter that it destroys the environment that sustains humanity and all the other creatures. No matter that it actually destroys our very souls. Money-worship knows no bounds, except when Mother Earth starts fighting back, as she has been in recent years.

Where is God in all of this? I don't know. If He is all-powerful, plus 100% good, where is He? I just watched The Dark Knight Rises yesterday on DVD. Batman himself couldn't bare to see his city destroyed. He knew he had the power to do something, and he did it. Is God any worse than Batman? Again, I don't know.

I don't know if there is a God. Or gods. Or a "Force" like in Star Wars. If there is a God, then I'd say He's pretty remote from His creation. Maybe the Deists are right: like a clockmaker, God wound up the planet and let it go. 

Even if there is no God, there still is life that pulsates in every living creature. The earth is alive. There is something "Beyond" human beings. We are not "it". We pretend to rule the planet, but we're doing a pretty lousy job of it. To worship ourselves is to worship assholes. I'm sorry, there's no way around this statement. We create gods in our own image, but in the end, our economics, politics and social structure all reflect a deep self-worship.

I don't have all the answers. As I learn more, and live more, and experience more, I have more and more questions. No matter. That's what life is all about:

THE JOURNEY . . . .

In the beginning was Communication
It spoke. Eventually, we listened.
We rallied, we ranted, we raged and repented.
We bounced, we baited, we travelled.
We walked the path
The path of eternity
That brings us back,
Inevitably,
To where we started,
Though with new eyes,
And hopefully, new hearts . . .

Love y'all,

Bjarte Harvisen

Feel free to drop me a note at:

harvisen AT gmail.com