****DISCLAIMER**** I may offend some people in this post, particularly those with very strong feelings towards religion or spirituality. Please know I do not mean to offend anyone and this is merely my own brain thoughts, which you are free to challenge and contradict any time. ****END DISCLAIMER!!****
We interrupt our regular programming with a word from our blogger with regard to a different topic. It seems fitting right now, as this blogger does not deserve to call herself a live music blogger, because of two reasons. No. 1. she failed to go see Clouds, The Wonderstuff and Jesus Jones in September. Whattaloser. No 2. she failed to blog about a gig she saw in the same month, being Charlie Mayfair at the Zoo. Being too distracted by alcoholic beverages and good company is no excuse not to be able to say at least something about the band, other than enjoying it. She has failed herself.
And that concludes THIRD PERSON.
I've noticed something about the place that I work, which I sort of noticed a little bit throughout the years but it has become increasingly obvious the more I meet people in it. It's an observation more than anything, but something I initially found quite astounding. First I should explain what I do. I am a public servant working with disability services. At the moment I am working with families and children between 0-6 yrs old, after a much longer stint working with adults in the same department. Basically, i provide behaviour support services to people with disabilities, their carers and family members.
Anyway, a bit more about me and my views on stuff. I was brought up in a pretty normal family (or dysfunctionally normal, no family is normal), with pretty good values, ideals, and mostly learnt how to treat people in life and good and bad. My dad was brought up roman catholic by a very god fearing woman (Nonnie, may she rest in peace) and my mum was brought up in a christian household. Throughout the years, from what I know, Dad increasingly found reasons not to keep his faith, and has undertaken what I see as a lot of soul searching and researching, to find himself more atheist than catholic. I get the sense he is still searching but finds much skepticism in religion as a whole. He never put those values on to me in any way, and we have only discussed the ideas he's found in my later years when I've been mature enough to understand them.
Mum has always considered herself a christian, and far as I know, will sometimes pray, but doesn't go to church or do any of those christianly things christians do. She is the one who encouraged us to pray at night, but never made us go to church (thank ... deity). From what she's told me, she still believes something is out there and there is something to believe in, but as for the christian church, way of life and more specific beliefs, she does not really ascribe to it, at least anymore. I kinda get the sense she is uncovering those things Dad did when he began to doubt what had been instilled in him so long ago.
So that's my parents, and now me. I went to Sunday school, mass with Nonnie, school sundays, and lutheran schools for my whole education. This was all driven by my parents, but one thing they did not do, was baptize me or my brother... that I had to actually request for myself when I was about 7 years old. I felt so proud deciding I wanted to be christened, but I can say now that it was driven by 2 things: 1. The repeatedly told idea that those who weren't christened would not go to heaven and would be driven into the fiery blazes of hell, and 2. Presents.
My parents tell me they did not want to christen us until we were old enough to make our own decisions. I'd so love that to be true but I get the sense it was probably just laziness on their part. My sister got carted off to the water basin before she was a 1 year old and could decide for herself, in the middle of an aged care village's usual Sunday service.
Anyway, it wasn't until highschool that I began to question the whole thing. I began to wonder what the hell this book was talking about and where it came from and why it says you are supposed to do all these weird (to me) rituals and marrying lots of people was okay in one chapter but laying by another person of the same sex was not in another. And that the world was really quite young but here I was learning about billion year old dinosaurs. It just didn't make sense. And people's ideas that well, a day in god's world was like millions of years in our world! But that didn't make chronological sense! Anyway enough about evolution and all that stuff. I just questioned the whole idea. And while I have some fond highschool memories, some of the teachers did not help. There was the teacher who went on a giant rant about homosexuality being wrong and evil and even pretending that you are homosexual is a sin. I didn't really know anyone who was gay, I was pretty sure I wasn't gay, but something made me get up and walk out of that classroom. Then there was the one who made up a parable about someone having a friend who wasn't christian, who lead the protagonist down a dark path, concluding his speech with "So just be careful who your friends are". Around a similar time when I wasn't sure if this whole thing was for me, some motivational wanker came to school to tell his born again story, and wanted us all to write private questions on a piece of paper and send them to the front of the hall. I wrote down something like "Is it wrong to question some of the ideas and stories in the Bible, but still want to be a christian?". Lo and behold he pulled it out and answered it. His answer was rubbish, and basically consisted of "you shouldn't question God. You should trust God wholly and know him..." and all this talk about knowing god and not questioning anything because that is bad. Thanks, dude.
The best part was the teacher who gave us a logical standpoint for christianity. It was basically, if you believe, and you're right, yay heaven. If you believe, and you're wrong, well you go to wherever you actually go when you die. If you don't believe, and you're right, you go to wherever you go when you die. But if you don't believe, and you're wrong, you go to hell. So logically, you might as well believe, as chances are higher for you to not go to hell. What!? Oh well, I better just believe. Might as well.
But even THAT did not sit with me. You can't MAKE YOURSELF just cast all of what you've decided you know to be true, aside, to throw yourself into a gamble on life. Okay, maybe you do it if you like the values a religion epouses, the peace and sense of mind, and the ability to trust something higher than yourself. But you know, I really WISH I could do that. But there are values of christians that I know still hold today, that I cannot agree with. Homophobia of course is a big one, and just general discrimination. The idea of the beginning of life is another big one. The idea of praying instead of talking to someone, pinning your hopes and dreams on an abstract being instead of making change through actions and self will, thanking god for a medical miracle instead of a doctor.
At the end of the day, I can't trust and know someone I have no evidence even exists. I can however, trust and know myself. I don't need a carrot of 'heaven' dangling above my head to strive to be good. I would like to be good and do good things just because, not because I have a deal with an invisible magician.
I do think that something has created this world and us to have feelings and will and amazing mindpower. But whatever created it, to me could not be a person or being- some have the view that God is an energy force, like Star Wars always said. That makes more sense to me. But in that sense, however people have interpreted this energy force, created all these different religions, and psychology tells me that people created religion to satisfy that need to have spirituality and a sense of purpose. By that nature, I can't ascribe to a religion. I have no drive to.
Ok. Got that out. Phew.
So the point is. Apart from one student doing placement, I am fairly certain I am the only person on my team at work that isn't a christian. And by christian I mean, go to church, help run youth groups, do church study groups; active, participating christians. At lunchroom conversations and meetings etc. it would invariably come up; people's weekends are generally filled with christianly things. And it was a similar story in my previous role. Including fellow psychologists who had the same lesson taught to them about religion being a self created facet. (NOT A FACT! BLOOPER REEL!)
It came up in conversation with one of my colleagues who asked me if I went to church. When I said no, and they asked why, I said I didn't consider myself a christian. I started to explain away myself, but later realised that was just as bad as pretending I was a christian. I made that decision myself for good reason and I should not change my values or reasons to make someone else like me better.
The thing is, I do have christian values in a sense. I am in this job because I have always wanted to do something to help others, apart from my long repressed wish to be a rich and famous actress. I wanted to help people with disabilities for a long time too. I have pretty firm beliefs in equality and humane treatment for all living creatures, which ties into my recent foray into vegetarianism, and I can be fairly easily incited into rants when prompted about poor handling of issues of disability, mental health, homophobia, child abuse, animal rights/welfare, capital punishment poverty, etc. As I'm sure most of you reading will do as well depending on what you're passionate about.
But when I see that most people in my job are active christians, I wonder why this is the case. The 2006 census listed 63.9% of Australians identifying themselves as christian, and I get the feeling that number is probably decreasing more than increasing (I could be wrong, I'm just speculating, feel free to counteract any of these opinions). So 6 out of 10 of my team members should be christians. But I'm the only 1 out of 10 who is non-christian.
I read an interesting article "The History of Disability: A History of "Otherness", by QUT researchers Jayne Clapton & Jennifer Fitzgerald, which talked about the religious model of disability. Initially seen as a result of evil spirits, as unpure/unwhole or of sub-human status, people of disability were either left with their families in survival roles, or became homeless, and often ostracised in both cases. It quotes:
"Religious communities, often within the local precincts or parishes, responded to these groups of people in various ways. These included the promotion and seeking of cures by such actions as exorcisms, purging, rituals and so on; or providing care, hospitality and service as acts of mercy and Christian duty to "needy strangers".
The article then goes on to talk about the shift from religious to the medical model of disability, in which priests were replaced by doctors, and speculation with reason, and as such, people's lives became defined by a medical label. Disability was seen as a low rung affliction, and people 'afflicted' were seen as unable to live a normal life, requiring removal from society. Enter institutionalization, designed for people to be placed and taught to become 'normal' productive members of society; while their 'normal' family members could live their 'normal' lives as these working members of society. After the 1970's this view shifted to a community care based view, however that view of people with disability as being 'lesser' and 'flawed' than others was maintained. It is in this care system, where this quote comes most relevant:
"Lack of access to adequate material resources perpetuates a charity discourse which depicts certain people as in need of help, as objects of pity, as personally tragic, and as dependent and eternal children. It is a discourse of benevolence and altruism; and like with the responses of early Christian communities, this discourse serves a complimentary relationship between perceivably helpless people as instruments for good and virtuous works of mercy and compassion by the more "privileged" members of society."
This quote really hit me. While we have moved slightly to a rights-based model of disability, involving acknowledging that a person with a disability is a complete valuable person who deserves the same rights, quality of life and opportunities as everyone else, we still have a HUGE way to go to actually achieve this in society. And part of the reason why it will still take a long term, in my opinion, is because the concept in this quote is still quite real and within our society, in and out of Christian communities.
Similarly, on Q&A a few weeks ago, there was a question raised, being:
"A university study concludes that religious people are more generous, more altruistic and more involved in civic life than their secular counterparts. They are more likely to give blood, money to a homeless person, financial aid to their family or friends, a seat to a stranger and to spend time without someone who is a bit down. If religion contributes so positively to society, why then are we so quick to distance it from politics and don't want it influencing our policies and society in general?"
Let's leave the question of religion in politics today. There was only one atheist on the panel, Cristina Rad, who responded by questioning the quality of this research. Which frustrated me! You're the only atheist in the room, don't waste time questioning the research! My question is: Why? And what about the people who are not christian? Why do you have to be christian to be these things, and what is it about being christian that makes people more likely to do them? Why do you have to believe in something to help people out? Is it because there's that promise that if you do right, do good for others, then you will get to heaven? That there is this person who told people to be this way as they are watching and needs to like you? Is that why? Am I barking up the wrong tree here, am I looking at it wrong?
And if I have it right, is that really altruism?
Altruism is described as concern for the welfare of others, and in it's purest form, giving up a value or benefiting someone without any expectation of compensation or benefits received back, either directly or indirectly. (thanks wikipedia) And christianity as well as other religions, teaches this concept quite largely, which is fine. But in teaching it, is it really purely giving without expected payoff? If you're taught you have to be altruistic to be a good person/go to Heaven/gain good karma, well is it so pure and innate?
Having said that, helping people out and making a difference, christian or not, brings such joy when it happens, you truly do feel really good about yourself for a lasting period of time. You feel like a better person and that you've achieved something. When I achieve some success at work, I am totally buzzed, and get the job satisfaction I wait in anticipation for. Instant payoff. So it's not really helping someone without something in it for you. You get back a bit of a warm fuzzy and slightly smug feeling. Thus... you saw it coming... is THAT true altruism???
WHAT IS TRUE ALTRUISM???
DOES IT EVEN REALLY EXIST??????
Maybe Nietzsche was right when he said that there is no such thing as true altruistic actions.
I think as people, we do have some innate drive to help people who we consider less fortunate than ourselves. Some part of it is in our nature. And it is FANTASTIC and amazing and also NECESSARY that many people have a passion to help others in need and do it on a regular basis. But I do think that it is worth a look at the reasoning behind why (at least some) people do these things more than others, particularly if it continues to facilitate the message that you and I are better/more privileged than that guy and those people, and thus we have an obligation to provide them with as much help as we can afford. And whether you believe that a good life leads to good riches in heaven, or that you just become dust in the wind after death, or that you become sheep in the next life, that's wonderful, as long as whatever you do comes from you, and not someone else's rule or demand.
I think it's time to shut up now.
