Theology

Odin’s Eye – Life after Christianity

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

 

Happy Thor’s Day

People ask me now what I do on Sundays.  Well I work when I am scheduled.  When I have the day off and it’s football season I watch pregame and whatever game I am watching.  I do homework or just relax. I find that I get more rest now than I ever did as a Pastor/Christian on the so-called day of rest.

There is of course a more serious thing to address here isn’t there?  What has happened to me now that my faith in Christianity is gone?  Well, I don’t go to church and I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about sin anymore.  I don’t obsess with other people’s behavior.  I pretty much actually follow the golden rule better than I ever have before.  I leave people alone and expect them to do the same for me.

The bigger question for many of Christianity would probably be – in rejecting Christianity, have you rejected Christ?  Well, that depends on whether you feel Jesus of Nazareth was just a historical figure or the Messiah.  I am not sure and it’s because of the accounts of his life.  I don’t reject Jesus as a historical figure or even as a revolutionary figure.  I just think like Paul Bunyan and John Henry, some people have added some tall tales to his life.  My point is that all the gospels are written by sympathetic believers and it is a reasonable criticism that they might have embellished the stories to prove what they wanted to prove, including the story of the resurrection.

Truth is, I like Jesus; I like his style.  I know it may surprise people but I still read the Bible but not with the same eyes I used to read it with.  I just think it contains truth with a small ‘t’ but I don’t think all of it is Truth with a capital T. Yes, I know someone once remarked that Jesus either is a liar, a lunatic or Lord.  The problem I have with that observation is that Jesus might not be seen as a liar or lunatic if the disciples hadn’t probably added a bunch of stuff to make him seem so.

Faith:

So what do I believe?  I believe in some form of higher power. Whether that is a god, gods and goddesses or the Force I couldn’t tell.  I don’t know enough to say and probably never will.  Like I said before I think it is unreasonably to say on the one hand there is no God and on the other hand it’s also equally unreasonable to think you know for sure what the divine is and how he, she or they work.  I just don’t buy either extreme based on a reasonable look at what humanity knows. I am learning it is far more relaxing to be comfortable with this ignorance. There is little I can do to change it, so I might as well live life as fully as I can.

Now, the one thing I will tell you is that if you are a Christian, I am not saying you are stupid or going to decry you for having faith in it.  I mean I had that faith myself for decades and I consider myself a reasonable human being.  Faith has that effect and so I get the struggle because I have struggled with it too.  I am not going to decry you for it or even make fun of you.  I get it.  For me walking away was years of agonizing frustration of wrestling with something. I simply could not have faith in something that to me didn’t make sense anymore.

Religion:

As a former and now retired pastor, I can say I miss some elements of religion but not many. I miss the fellowship of being with people.  I like gospel music for the vocal harmony of it.  I was never a fan of the pageantry and the rituals.  I did like putting together service that I hoped would inspire people.  I did enjoy preaching. The Pagan Pulpit every week will do the same for me, so I guess I am still good with it.

Putting aside the religion and the nonsense, I actually have been able to focus not so much on ‘avoiding sin’ and living with less sin; but rather, I have been able to focus on what I want to build in my life.  While I can agree with some that religion has done some great things, I also can see that it can also be used to justify some of the most evil acts in history.  It has also allowed those who believe a particular religion to look down their noses and think they are superior to others who are not of their faith.  Worse yet is trying to order society so that others are forced to follow their religion’s ethics even though they might disagree.

Theology:

If there is a god, gods or whatever, I think the theology of special revelation is the last place we want to look to discover what that divine power(s) is like.  Mostly this is because any revelation of the divine, if it actually happened, has to pass through the filter of human beings.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe we are good as a race.  People tend to look at humanity as evil but the vast majority of humans are just trying to make a life for themselves. I think if a person goes bad, it’s just that – they went bad.  They didn’t start that way.

No, it is not our lack of goodness that make special revelation problematic, it’s the fact we are prone to mistakes and such revelation has to be preserved over the centuries and like a game of telephone, the story gets edited and changed over time until the story we have is no longer what actually happened.  Too much humanity gets to play with special revelation and through ignorance, good intentions and yes the occasional person who uses religion to control, changes are made and the original revelation is lost.  Assuming, it wasn’t completely made up in the first place.

Spirituality:

Yes, I do meditate.  But meditation is not exclusively Christian nor is it exclusively religious or a matter of faith. I am not looking for any personal special revelation when I do it and a lot of other people don’t do it for that reason either.  Meditation is simply the act of clearing the mind and calming the emotions. It allows you to think much clearer and so it is what I do a lot to calm myself down and think.

What I don’t do is pray anymore.  I mean looking at it you see so many people using prayer to ask for stuff. They ask for wealth, fame and love for themselves.  It is very rare for people who pray to be truly selfless in their prayers.  If I ever do pray again, it will be like Esmeralda in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I remain the happy outcast,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

Odin’s Eye – My Faith as It Stands Today

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Odins Eye 001

This will normally appear on Thursday; that is Thor’s Day but this opening week of The Grey Wayfarer it will be Friday; that is Freya’s Day. Odin’s Eye, as a post, is about faith, religion, theology and spirituality. Mostly is all of those things as they stand in my life and how I relate to these things. My struggles with religion and faith are pretty much a constant. For most of my life I have struggled with them. My faith as a Christian literally has teetered on the brink several times in my life and only recently have I decided to be truly honest about it and walk away from the religion known as Christianity. For the last few months I have been what I truly am, which is a Deist, a Humanist and a Pagan. More on all three of these as Odin’s Eye continues in the weeks ahead, but for now know that I am no longer a Christian and it has very little to do with recent events.

My Walking Away From Christianity

I want to change people’s perception here about what happened about my faith, because I have been accused of walking away from Christianity because of what Christians have done toward me recently and my observations of Christians. Well, I would be the first to say that has something to do with it, but it was not where the struggle began and one should not look at the followers of a religion to assess whether or not a religion is true. The truth of a religion should be tested in its claims and whether or not such claims can be rationally verified. Experience is no good here because I can tell you every religion has people experience something that ‘verifies’ the religion to the one who had the experience. History is no test either. History will show you that religions all make historical claims but are they verified by outside sources and multiple witnesses? Also, just because something is historical, does not mean that it automatically reveals who God, the gods or the divine reality truly is. Nope we are left with one tool to assess truth and that is reason. There are few things that sets humanity above the rest of the animal kingdom and one of those is the use of reason to assess truth.

I have spent a long time as a Christian trying to mesh its claims with rational investigation and I now can say that some of the claims of Christianity have no rational proof for their claims of truth. Because of this, you take a lot in Christianity hoping it is true, but not really knowing if it is true. Over time through various studies I developed four major objections to the theology of Christianity, for which I could not rationally come to good conclusions. It was these that caused me to walk away from faith, nothing more and nothing less.

Now recent events where Christians have acted toward me in very non-Christian manners may have caused me to walk away faster, but in truth I was already showing my backside to the Christian faith long before then. Not trying to be insulting there, just facing facts. My leaving the faith is my own decision and I am blaming no one for it. There really isn’t ‘blame’ here; just a decision to be honest where I stood. I don’t perceive of my walking away from Christianity as a tragedy from my point of view, although I am sure many Christians would see it as such. To me, I simply became more honest and truly myself. I stopped hiding my failures behind notions of sinfulness and started facing them honestly as a man should face them in this world. I didn’t change, so much as I found my true self. I am a rational human being and there are four things that I cannot reconcile with being rational human being and being a Christian.

My Four Theological Objections:

  1. The Bible cannot be rationally verified to be God inspired. The Bible makes a claim to be inspired but it never proves it and there is no empirical proof that the Bible is any different from any other book in the world. If you believe the Bible is divinely inspired, you have no evidence for it, you just believe it to be true.
  2. Sin is a completely man-made made up concept. There is nothing in the world that tells you are a sinner. Some preacher came along and told you that you were a sinner and then offered you a cure. But let’s be honest there is no person alive who hasn’t done something they regret or was ‘bad’, so any snake oil salesman can play into that and say you are a sinner and then sell you the cure. They really don’t prove sin as a concept really exists or that it is the problem you actually have. They just reinforce your assumptions. They don’t prove those assumptions are true, they just play on them.
  3. God’s answer to sin is to torture his only son and kill him, this is an answer that doesn’t make a bit of rational sense as God could easily just forgive us without all this. Either the God of the Bible is a sadistic fuck or not too smart if this is the best he could come up with to solve the ‘sin problem’. There is the additional problem of how much of a sacrifice and torture is it, if you know with certainty that you are going to be healed from all injuries and rise from the dead in the end?
  4. The Bible presents God’s justice as a little suspect, especially when you consider the doctrine of Hell. I mean you get all eternity roasting in a fire because you did a few bad things. I mean we might understand with people like Stalin and Hitler, but grandma who never hurt a fly but never accepted the gospel of Christ because she didn’t buy it, gets the same punishment as them? Even the Bible’s own standard of justice makes this suspect – ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth.’ I mean making God mad is such a high crime that I must spend eternity in hell for it? How is that the punishment fitting the crime? Yeah, I could go all day. If you don’t consider this a problem, you never have really considered the doctrine of Hell or it’s implications for those you love that have not accepted the gospel.

I spent many years trying to reconcile these things and couldn’t. Now either this speaks to my lack of ability to do so, or they are just not reconcilable because the whole thing is made up by humans for whatever reasons. I am not saying I am infallible but I have asked my questions of some of the smartest people in Christianity I know and you know what their answer is? The same as I can get from any preacher – ‘you just have to take some things on faith.’ Yeah, so you’re saying faith is a cop-out to any question too hard for you to answer? Sorry, that is no longer acceptable to me. If Christianity is genuine and true, it should be able to answer my questions. That is something I have maintained since I was twelve.

Personal Stuff

Yeah, there is personal stuff too. But that isn’t my main reasons – they are listed above. So where I stand each week will be reflected on in Odin’s Eye. It was not however all the personal stuff that cause this ‘crisis’ of faith. Rather the personal stuff was probably caused by my struggles in finding and accepting the truth about myself and where I really was because of these four things. Uncertainty breeds uncertainty and in that uncertainty shit happens.

Faith:

I believe in something out there. I am a deist, not an atheist. I think atheism and deism actually can get along because we’re both saying ‘ we can’t really know’. The difference is, I think it’s just as bold a claim to say ‘there is no God’ as there is to say ‘there is one and we have him (or her) all figured out and here is our religion for you’. Sorry mankind is a little too ignorant to make such universal claims either way.

Religion:

Yeah, it’s all man’s attempt to understand God. But like all things man does, it is prone to mistakes and error. Can you find truth in religion? Yep, but I don’t think any of them are The Truth or give us THE Truth. For that we need to turn to reason as our way of finding the truth.

Theology:

If we are going to understand God, I think revealed religion is more of a problem than a cure. We have to conclude that if we are going to understand the Creator, we are going to have to look at his creation including mankind to figure him out. Not the specifics of what certain men have written that says He, She or They are a certain way. The Creator gave us reason, not religion. Perhaps we should use it.

Spirituality:

I still meditate on these things and think about them. I just haven’t made a lot of ‘progress’ by not writing about them. Time to change that by doing so each week in Odin’s Eye.

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

The Rabyd Skald – Introducing ‘The Grey Wayfarer’

/ Ed Raby Sr / 2 Comments

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A little history first about me and blogging. 

I have been blogging for long time.  I started my first blog when my kids were little and I was in my first church as a senior pastor.  Basically at the time, it was me trying to put my theological studies degree to good use as most people in the church can’t think at that kind of deep level when it comes to God. So, I started being the Rabyd Theologian which endured its 2.0 and 3.0 versions.  I found I liked to write fiction as well, particularly fantasy, urban fantasy and science fiction. So, I began to add that into the mix and I have had several blogs along that line.  I have written blogs on weightlifting, hiking and other subjects.  Very few survive to this day.  My goal with every blog is for it to be my last one because it lasts and that is true of The Grey Wayfarer as well.

My two most recent blogs I had to delete because they represented a time in my life of forbidden love, lust, anger and pure rage. They were blogs where the Wolves definitely were more in charge than the Ravens.  This comes from an expression I use that has become part of my personal canon: “It’s OK to feed the Wolves, but listen to the Ravens first.” I will be going into this expression more as time goes by on this blog. “Of Wolves and Ravens” is actually the title of my Tuesday posts which will be centered on this new philosophy and applying it to life.

Other people were also misinterpreting my writing and twisting my posts to mean things they did not. One of the most amusing was taking some of my fictional works as factual which they were not. They may have represented heart-felt fantasy but they certainly weren’t real or based on real life events.  I also commented on my personal life a lot which caused some people to be agitated because they disagreed with my observations. This all culminated in one commentator blasting me in a comment – it was bombastic with a lot of name calling. I also realize both blogs represented a chapter in my life I would wish to just close and move on to better ones. The situation was not constructive to positive change for me, so I talked with my wife and I deleted both blogs. We dealt with the person involved as a couple and so far things seem to be stable since.

The problem has been for me that without blogging my life seems very much adrift. I am struggling with school and even though my marriage seems better, I seem to be losing track of what I ultimately want for me and my marriage as well as other things. My struggles with faith have come to a standstill and several emotional issues are just not being resolved.   I am not writing about these things and so I am not making progress. Blogging has been my personal therapy for a long time and without it I am not sure what I am doing with my life. #True Story

Some have argued a private journal might be good substitute, but I have tried that before so many times and I get about a day or two into it and hate it.  I give up pretty quick and then I am stuck.  There is something about posting things on a blog and making them public that drives me to hit my deadlines and do what I need to do.  Maybe it’s ego or some desire for recognition or perhaps a kind of accountability.  Whatever it is though, it keeps me making progress, so it can’t be all bad.  The one thing I do know now after doing this for a while is that I know what kind of blog I need and one that I will stick with and keep writing posts for every day.  So without further ado – The Grey Wayfarer

The Grey Wayfarer

I have been doing this for a few blogs now where a title for a type of post becomes the title for the new blog. Or a concept from one blog inspires the next. My theology blogs became a theology tavern of sorts in All Things Rabyd.  The theology tavern concept became Raby’s Tavern (deleted).  That blog had a kind of post called The Rabyd Microphone which became a blog by the same name (also deleted).  One of the fictional series I was doing on the Rabyd Microphone was The Grey Wayfarer.  It was steeped in Norse Mythology and was an allegory of what I was going through each week.  I enjoyed writing it and to be honest the title sticks with where I think I will be the rest of my life.  I like it, so it has now become the title of this blog.

“The Grey” part has meant a lot of things over the years but in this blog its my reflection on the depression I suffer from time to time which I call ‘The Grey’.  More recently it reflects my desire to be neutral and open to all ideas and opinions.  To evaluate not as a good person or bad person but just as a human being.  Someone walking The Grey of life, so to speak.

“Wayfarer” is something I consider myself these days from a spiritual point of view, although I would love to do more real life walking and hiking as well. But mostly. I just consider myself a pilgrim and a seeker on a spiritual journey these days.  To be honest, I don’t know if I want to stop being a pilgrim or seeker. I think the moment you think you have arrived and discovered THE TRUTH is when you are blind, lost and not moving in life.  I simply wish to be the ever wandering pilgrim, ever searching for truth, knowledge and wisdom in the world.

‘The Grey Wayfarer” also reflects some of my favorite characters of fiction and mythology. Gandalf the Grey being known as the ‘The Grey Pilgrim’ for starters.  Odin from the Norse myths though is my particular inspiration as a grey pilgrim wandering the realms in search of knowledge, accompanied only by his wolves and ravens. Yes, that is the image that is the inspiration for this blog and for my life these days. Being mindful of the expression – “Not all who wander are lost”.  That includes me because more than the blog title, I consider myself ‘The Grey Wayfarer’.  I am not lost, but I do wander.

Probably the best way to get across what you will be seeing here on this blog is to give you the rundown on the schedule for the week.

Sunday – The Pagan Pulpit. I kind of miss putting together a religious service and now that I am no longer a pastor or even a Christian, I don’t get the chance.  For those of you familiar with The Rabyd Microphone before it was deleted, this will combine some elements of the original Pagan Pulpit, the Rabyd Poet and The Rabyd Record.  So it will have songs, a poem (maybe written by me), a meditation, a quote from an ancient text and a sermon with three points. Kind of just an inspiration to start your week, if you’re a deistic humanist pagan like me.

Monday – A Skald’s Life – Foundational Virtues. – A discussion on the Virtues of Honor, Courage and Truth.  Much like the journal posts of the past although I have dropped the idea of roles and now will be focused on virtues setting my goals instead.  I consider these three of the Nine Noble Virtues to be foundational and merit that kind of discussion.

Tuesday – “Of Wolves and Ravens” –  Basically taking an issue and examining from the standpoint of the Wolves (Need and Want) and the Ravens (Thought and Memory).  A philosophical post basically looking at issues and hopefully generating more light than heat.

Wednesday – A Skald’s Life – Business Virtues. – Much like Foundational Virtues but a discussion on the virtues of Self-Reliance, Industriousness, and Hospitality.

Thursday – “Odin’s Eye” –  I am a trained and educated Biblical Scholar and Theologian.  A retired pastor with 20 years experience.  What to do with that now that I am not a Christian or a pastor?  I am going to write on four subjects each week with this post – faith, religion, theology and spirituality.  Part of this will be me working though my personal struggles with religion and faith.  The rest we will see each week what happens.

Friday – A Skald’s Life – Self Virtues. – Like Foundational Virtues and Business Virtues but dealing with the virtues of Discipline, Perseverance and Fidelity.

Saturday – The Grey Wayfarer – My one fictional element of this blog because I need to write fiction. This is an allegorical fantasy serial story of a man from the modern world who finds himself in most extraordinary circumstances.  The idea will be to reflect on the Nine Noble Virtues (NNV) in a different way as well as get my creative juice flowing.  It will be steeped in Norse mythology, so that should be fun as well.

The Rabyd Skald – This is a post much like The Microphone was on The Rabyd Microphone – it can drop at any time and can be on anything.  It’s basically a catch-all if something doesn’t fit into the weekly routine. Most posts will drop at 10 AM.  This one could be anytime.

This weekly routine will start on October 7th.  Before that I will be doing all three A Skald’s Life posts to set my goals from October 2nd through 4th.  On October 5th, I will do the first installment of Odin’s Eye to kind of set off where my struggle with faith and religion currently is at; as well as recap briefly how I got to this point. On October 6th, I will introduce The Grey Wayfarer fiction serial.  After that the normal schedule will commence.

Now, one final word on the nature of these posts and the blog as a whole.  This is new blog, and while it has at its roots the substance of the old blogs and its trunk is hopefully all the aspects of what makes good writing, it is its own tree, so to speak. Where its main branches, tributaries and twigs end up is anyone’s best guess. I have come to the belief that the best blogs are a good blend of organization (pruning) and organic growth (freedom). You never know down which branch the best flowers and fruits will be discovered.  A balance of reasonable inquiry and creative discovery is what I am going for here.

A word on feedback – I welcome it as long as its constructive.  I welcome comments, likes and even criticism.  Name calling; however, is never accepted.  I have in the past, once I cleared a particular commentator, let people comment away; because I trusted they had a basic understanding of manners and respect of others’ opinion including mine.  Recent events have caused me to institute a complete approval of every comment instead now.  Sorry for the inconvenience this may cause, but you can also follow my page on Facebook and comment there.  I might edit any comment too, so be advised.  This is my blog and I will protect and honor those who respect that fact.  Otherwise, be prepared to be silenced, censored or even blocked.  I welcome opinions, not being an asshole.  You can cuss and swear ( I certainly will do so from time to time including the f-bomb) just don’t make it personal.  This is an adult blog as far as content and expectations of how people will comment on it.

Oh, one last thing (really this time).  New signature:

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!