My poor opinion of Christianity

I came across the blog of a young man who is studying Catholic theology and challenged his assertion that suffering is invariably a lesson from God. He replied with a polite but paternal note in which he did nothing more than reiterate the point I had challenged. I wrote a second time asking him to explain what he thought God’s lesson was for starving infants and abandoned dogs. He then accused me of showing contempt for God (or at least his version of God) and for himself (I had no intention of being disrespectful), and suggested that I not visit his blog again. I apologized for having caused offense, not because my challenge was unreasonable but because I expressed it bluntly.

I respect the right of the blogger to hold any opinion about anything as long as that opinion doesn’t cause him to infringe upon the rights of others. But what is his rationale in demanding that I show respect for the opinions themselves, and did he believe that he was doing as much for me? I daresay he would argue that my opinion was sacrilegious, and that reciprocity was therefore impossible.

I was not taken aback so much by his unwillingness to address my questions as by the vehemence of his response. His blog was about love and peace, and I assumed from this that he was loving and peaceful. This tendency to take people at face value is a failing in someone of my age and experience.

…I have a great many objections to Christianity, regardless of the version offered. I have made several attempts to be a Christian, it is true, but this was not because I assented to Christianity intellectually, but because I wanted the comfort it promised; and it was this attempt to squash my intellect that eventually defeated me. I might as well have tried to squash a coiled spring or a slab of foam rubber, objects that have infinitely more patience and tenacity than I.

Even so, I might have overcome my intellectual reservations if only I had seen Christianity delivering what it promised. Namely, if Christians have the guidance of the Holy Spirit, why isn’t this evident? I have known people who were strong and people who were weak; people who were honest and people who were crooks; but I have never observed that Christians were stronger or had more integrity than non-Christians. If anything, I’ve wondered if they were as good; my speculation being that Christianity might appear most attractive to those who are weakest of character.

The “defense” of Christians about why the guidance of the Holy Spirit doesn’t enable them to stand out as moral examples runs along the lines of, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven,” but this doesn’t address the argument; it ignores it. In regard to the really bad things that Christians have done (inquisitions, religious wars, frightening children, burning heretics, etc.) I have heard Christians offer that atheists are just as bad (Communists being the example given). That Christians would attempt to mitigate the behavior of their fellow Christians by pointing out that it is no worse than that of the very people who they consider the lowest of the fallen strikes me as extraordinary. It also misses the point. Atheists don’t claim the benefit of divine guidance, and there is a vast difference in Christians persecuting people in the name of God versus atheists doing it in the name of Communism. I have yet to hear of a single atheist killing anyone in the name of atheism.

I don’t believe that the failures of Christians to live up to their own teachings is entirely their fault, and this leads me to another serious flaw of Christianity, namely that it is not grounded in reality. I’ll give an example. Jesus commanded those who are robbed of the jackets to offer the robbers their coats also. Does anyone live this way? Should anyone live this way? I see signs in church parking lots that read, “Unauthorized Vehicles Will Be Towed At Owner’s Expense.” What if, instead of towing cars, churches followed the spirit of Jesus and gave two parking spaces to everyone who took one parking space? What if, instead of calling the police when their houses were being burglarized, Christians helped the burglars carry heavy objects and gave them more than they had intended to steal?

There is practically no end to my objections to Christianity, and I don’t recall that even one of them has been answered in a manner that made the least bit of sense to me, this despite my very great desire to embrace the Christian faith. Yet, I have known many people who, though not Christians, expressed a great admiration for Jesus. Have they actually read all of the things he supposedly said? The part about abandoning your family and following him, or selling everything you own to buy a sword, or hiding the truth from those whom God doesn’t want to save?

There is the Jesus of the Bible and there is the Jesus of popular culture, and the Jesus of popular culture is kindly, patient, tolerant, peaceful, and forgiving. The Jesus of the Bible might have taught some of these virtues on occasion, but he was inconsistent in his teachings. He was also bad-tempered, humorless, prone to sweeping generalizations, intolerant of sects other than his own, disrespectful of his mother, had an adolescent zeal for offending his elders unnecessarily, insisted on teaching in parables even though his own disciples couldn’t figure out what he meant, and often acted contrary to what he professed to believe. Of course, most Christians seem to hold that Jesus meant for very little of what he said to be taken at face value. Well, okay then—I’ll leave it to them to interpret the words of their verbally challenged deity. Unfortunately, they can’t agree among themselves as to what he intended.

Out of mind, out of body; out of body, out of mind

I see my new neurosurgeon tomorrow to hear her thoughts about a spinal biopsy. Peggy is sick with worry and can’t understand why I am not. I tell her that my biggest fear is pain; my second fear is disability; and my last fear is death. I still have hope that I can stop the pain. The other two fears may or may not be realized, but pain is the only one I don’t think I can handle, yet it is the only one I am having to handle.

Permanent and unalterable pain would, in all likelihood, lead me to suicide. I should imagine that Peggy could better survive my demise if it wasn’t voluntary, and that is one reason I fear a fatal illness less than I fear pain. In the face of unalterable pain, a fatal illness would be a godsend. In the absence of a fatal illness, I might feel it necessary to continue my life on Peggy’s account alone.

I just hope I have time to finish editing my writing. When everything has been added to my blog, I will create a synopsis. Whether I am gifted at recording my life on paper, I cannot say, but there it is, the exemplary and the shameful, the trivial and the profound, the sane and the crazy, the boring and the entertaining; a quarter of a century worth. Very little will be left out; it will just be cleaned up for the sake of readability. I entertain little hope that anyone will be interested in it, and I can’t even think of a compelling reason why they should be, but such considerations are of no great importance; only the work is important.

If I had the wherewithal, I would seek publication, but that would mean taking topically oriented portions of what I have written out of journal form and putting them into chapter form. Next would come working with others to make my work saleable. I do not say that this is a low end, it is just not an end that I can see my way to accomplishing.

I’m tripping today, and I haven’t even taken any mind-altering medications since last night. I don’t altogether like the feeling because it’s too near the outer edge of control. I’ve been here before, and I know that all I have to do is ride it out as if I were a surfer…. I feel tired, cold; every thought and every fact seems equally and unbearably profound; every object looks equally distant. It is a very old feeling; it puts me in touch with my childhood, as if what I feel now, I felt then, and what I felt then, I feel now; as if time hasn’t moved, as if my whole life is happening at once, and I’m observing my life through eyes that aren’t entirely my own.

I think my present state comes from being too inwardly focused. I’m not taking on projects, not seeing people, not exercising, and not leaving home except to run errands; my mind is feeding on itself. I am tempted to stop surfing, to lie back and see what will happen, how bad it will get, and then to see what lies beyond how bad it will get. When we come to an intersection, are we really free to choose which way we go?

Do-It-Yourself acupuncture, fun with pain, fun with drugs for pain

I went to the acupuncturist eight times. Seven of those times, I saw no improvement. After the eighth, my shoulders felt better for a few days, and I could only think of two possible explanations. One was the acupuncture; the other was that the pain had gotten so bad that I had stopped doing almost everything. To test the first theory, I went to the acupuncturist one last time and asked him to do whatever he had done on the previous visit. This treatment didn’t work the same magic, but I took careful note of where he stuck me, ordered a box of needles, and have been doing acupuncture on myself. There seems to be a slight improvement, but since I am experimenting with other self-help approaches, I can’t pin it down (ha) to the acupuncture.

One of the humorous aspects of pain itself and the narcotics that relieve it is that you become a complete idiot. Yesterday, I got out the dogs’ collars, leashes, and poop bags; put on my windbreaker and bicycle helmet; and went for a walk. Pretend you are taking an IQ test, and you are asked to identify something that doesn’t belong in the above sentence. Right! But I didn’t find the correct word or words until I was halfway down the street, at which point I sheepishly returned home and put on my cap. Also yesterday, I was frustrated by not being able to find my keys. After a few minutes of furious looking, I discovered them……in my hand.

An updated account of how things have played out

When I last updated, the diagnostic neurologist had referred me back to the internist for cancer screening. The internist ordered a vertebral biopsy, said it could take a week to get it done, and told me to expect a phone call from whomever he referred me to. Unknown to me, he faxed referrals to three specialists (he apparently had doubts about which one was appropriate). When I received no call, I called the internist’s office repeatedly—or rather the internist’s office answer machine—to ask what was happening. I finally learned that two of the specialists had declared the procedure too risky (I have no idea why despite my best efforts to find out) and that the third specialist was insisting upon an open incision instead of a needle biopsy. I got the name of the third specialist and called her office. I was told that no referral had been received, so I commenced more calls to internist’s office. His referral clerk finally called back, and insisted that the referral was faxed a week ago. And so it goes, and so I wait… A procedure that was supposed to take one week won’t be done in two.

My dealings with doctors and their employees have led me to be more surprised when things go well than when they get fouled up, so I am far from childlike naiveté. Even so, having to struggle continually just to get people to do what they said would do, what they were hired to do, is awfully wearying. Clearly, if I had not badgered the internist’s office, I would not have heard from anyone. I have no doubt but what sick people die because they get lost in the shuffle and lack the strength to fight their way to the top. My problem is that the longer I have to put up with all this bullshit, the more obnoxious I am tempted to become. I can imagine calling twelve times a day to rub myself in their faces for being such fuckups. I don’t do this only because I know it would hurt rather than help.

My father had a spinal tumor removed in 1955. The surgeon told him that there was a greater chance of death than of recovery, but Dad said he didn’t really care as long as he escaped the pain. For months he had only been able to sleep standing in a corner propped on crutches. I always thought of my father as emotionally weak. Now I am in awe that he was able to keep from blowing his head off. Doctors then were even more reluctant to provide adequate pain relief than doctors today.

I took three different pills last night to knock myself out, yet I awakened five hours later in pain. I took a Vicodin when I got up, and wish I had something stronger, although I hate taking any narcotic because of the side effects and because the more I anesthetize myself now, the harder it will be to anesthetize myself after I start having surgeries. I had to get the Vicodin from the diagnostic neurologist—my surgical orthopedist just told me to go home and apply ice. I wish for him that he will someday feel the pain that I am experiencing.

It is hard for me to accept that I am but one patient among scores to my many doctors, and that most of them really and truly don’t give a rip. If they see me at all, it is only as whatever body part they specialize in. I can call their offices all I please, but I rarely get a real person, and when I do finally hear back, the caller is often someone who knows less than I did before I called. Then when I go in for an appointment, the typical doctor is in a hurry to get rid of me. I don’t take this personally. That’s the problem; the system is impersonal. No one means to behave badly; they’re just not rewarded for behaving well. The more patients, the more money and the more praise from their employers. The average doctor visit lasts six minutes.

Even so, I can’t say that all this has been a totally negative experience because it has given me a greater appreciation of my strength. Even with Lexapro, there are days when I am obsessed with suicide, and find a strange comfort in fantasizing how I would accomplish it (my latest plan is to make a paste of my medications and wash it down with cognac). Yet I know I won’t harm myself, at least not until I’m pronounced hopeless, and maybe not then. My reasoning used to be that it would hurt Peggy too much. That is still true, but I have also learned that good can—and already has—come from my suffering, and that it would be a mistake to block that good.

I used to be too willing to blame other people for their pain, to think that all they needed to do was to exercise, or think positively, or clean up their diet, or stop taking so many prescription drugs. Now, I see that it’s not the Army Rangers who are the toughest of the tough but the people whose lives might appear to be a complete mess. City buses invariably contain old people with walkers and bent up people in wheelchairs. With all my pain and disability, I look at them, and I don’t know how they do it. Their bodies are shriveled, yet their spirits keep moving. I can still walk, and see, and hear, and use my arms for something other than pushing a knob on a motorized wheelchair. No one has to shave me or change my underwear or cook my food. What I can no longer do is a loss, but what I can do is a miracle. There are times when several minutes pass during which I don’t think about how much I hurt, and I am more grateful for those minutes than I used to be for my entire life. There truly can be redemption in suffering, not that I would wish for another moment of it if I had the power to choose.

Buford Stewart and the unpardonable sin

I cursed God when I was twelve. I was delivering newspapers on my bicycle, and I remember the exact spot where it happened. By this time in my life, I was having serious misgivings about Christianity, and my recollection is that I let loose on God out of frustration. As I saw it, God had given Gideon not one sign but two really impressive ones, so I figured he could give me a sign too. Even a mediocre sign would do, I said, but the heavens remained silent, and my anger waxed hot. The curse was hardly out of my mouth before I remembered the Bible verse about the unpardonable sin, and there came into my heart an UH-OH feeling that would torment me for years.

“Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation” (Mark 3:28-30)

Now, you would think that God would have gone to great pains to spell out just what constituted the unpardonable sin so that nobody would stumble into it accidentally, but he did not. Some think the sin is apostasy because, as they argue, an apostate wouldn’t ask forgiveness, and that would be the reason the sin was unpardonable. Others think it’s cursing the Holy Ghost, but why would God forgive a person for cursing two-thirds of his august being but not the final third? And why hold this one sin above all the others anyway? If God can’t forgive it, then he is not all-powerful; but if he won’t forgive it, he isn’t all-loving—or so it seemed to me.

In any event, I spent the next several years in mortal terror. Not everyday to be sure, but a lot of days. I would go through periods when my own certain damnation was all I could think about, but just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, the fear would lessen. I couldn’t see living that way indefinitely, but I couldn’t see telling anyone what I had done either. When I was sixteen, I screwed up enough courage to drive out in the country to Buford Stewart’s house, Brother Stewart being a preacher whom I regarded highly. I posed my problem in what I hoped would pass for intellectual terms, something on the order of, “Brother Stewart, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the unpardonable sin, and I just sort of thought I would drive out to your house at nine o’clock on a Tuesday night in the hope that you might be able to tell me exactly what a person would have to do to commit it.” I don’t recall what he said, and I have no idea if he ever figured out where I was really coming from.

Brother Stewart died several years ago, and I miss him—or at least I miss knowing that he still walks upon the earth, for I hadn’t seen him since I was eighteen. He took me along on a revival to Kentucky once, to the area below Bowling Green. The families in whose homes we stayed were poor, and he and I were often obliged to sleep in the same bed. One night, he rolled over and put his arm around me. I knew he was sound asleep and thought himself home with his wife, so I lay real still—so as not to embarrass him—and he finally turned the other way. A poor man himself, he still turned down a pay raise so that the money could be used to “advance the gospel,” and I was mightily impressed by that since I knew there was no way I would have turned down more money, whether for the sake of Jesus or anyone else.

But what stands out in my mind most about him was how kindly and uncondescending he was to kids like myself—and how much he loved cornbread and buttermilk. As a boy, I could no more understand why a man would get all worked up about something so plain and omnipresent as I could understand why pigs loved slop. Now I too love cornbread and buttermilk, more than almost anything else, even more than things like lemon meringue pie and banana pudding made with vanilla wafers, and I often think of Brother Stewart when I eat them. Alas, like Father Abraham, I have moved to a heathen land where the people know not how to make cornbread the way God meant it to be made, neither do they know how to eat it, and I must therefore make my own. Selah.

May the Good Lord bless you, Buford Stewart, wherever you are, and may he be a far better God than your Church of Christ theology allowed you to imagine.

After death

Peggy fears being dead because she doesn’t know what awaits. I don’t fear being dead because I envision death as an everlasting sleep. There is irony in our divergence. Peggy was never a religious person. True, she was taken to church three times a week as a child, and was sent away to a Baptist College that required chapel and Bible classes; but religion never held any interest for her. She neither embraced nor rejected it—she simply didn’t think about it.

My parents were haphazard church-goes. If my father was in one of his religious phases; my family went. If he was in an atheistic period; we stayed home. Everyone but me, that is. I’ve belonged to four churches, visited scores of other Christian and non-Christian groups, and was even a non-resident editor for American Atheist Magazine. What I’ve never been in regard to religion was uninterested. If I don’t think about it so much anymore, it’s only because I’ve turned over every leaf and run out of leaves.

Yet, of us two, the one who never entertained questions about God fears death, and the one who has been consumed by the search for God has no such fear. Does this mean then that I am so sure that death is a state of non-being that I will admit no doubt? No, I could be wrong, but then I could be wrong about a lot of things that lack evidence. I could be wrong in thinking the earth is older than 6,000 years, or that polar bears and hummingbirds were divinely cursed because of an unfortunate incident involving a snake and a fruit tree. I could even be wrong in denying—as a branch of my early church believed—that an angry god will condemn to everlasting flames anyone who uses more than one cup for the “Lord’s Supper.” By the same logic, I must admit that my garage could be inhabited my invisible space aliens. After all, I can’t prove that it’s not.

I only fear being in pain while I’m still alive. The longer I hurt, and the more death looms as a real possibility, the less I fear it for itself. I would regret leaving Peggy, and I grieve in advance for all the other good things I would lose; yet I know that such grief is for the living, that the house of the dead is empty.

Here is my account of how things have played out

Here is my account of how things have played out current to yesterday. Most of it is actually true.

Early in 2006, an orthopedic surgeon operated on my left knee and made it worse.

I went to a yoga instructor because yoga is good for worse knees.

I went to an internist because yoga made my shoulders hurt.

I went to an orthopedic shoulder surgeon because that’s what the internist told me to do.

I went to a physical therapist because that’s what the orthopedic shoulder surgeon told me to do.

When physical therapy didn’t help, I went to a massage therapist who made my shoulders even more worse, and who told me to go to a dermatologist about some “funny looking moles.” (Ha, ha.)

I went to an acupuncturist because the more I read about shoulder surgery, the more scared I got—and because I remembered how my last joint surgery turned out. The acupuncturist stopped just short of offering me a money-back guarantee that he could “heal” my shoulders. $550 later my shoulders were worse. “That means the treatment is working,” he explained. “And what would it mean if they had gotten better?” I asked. “It would mean the same thing,” he offered. “WOW!” I said, scarcely able to believe my luck.

I then went back to the orthopedic shoulder surgeon who said, “Alas and alack, you have new symptoms that could mean you will need spinal surgery before you have the two shoulder surgeries; I am sending you to a neurological diagnostician.”

The neurological diagnostician ordered an MRI, a CAT, an EMG, an IRA, a thousand shares of Eli Lilly, and a nerve conduction study.

The radiologist who read the MRI and the CAT said, “Alas and alack, this man might have metastatic cancer in his fifth cervical vertebra.” He and the neurological diagnostician jumped up and down waving their arms in the air, squealing like little girls, and screaming, “Oh, gross!”

When they calmed down, the neurological diagnostician sent me to the internist whom I saw in the first place. “I thought you’d be back someday,” he grinned while rubbing his palms together in a manner reminiscent of a mortician I used to know whenever he had sold a rosewood coffin. The internist ordered a WBC, an HGB, an HCT, an RDW, a MCHC, an LDL, a PSA, and an XJ6. Everything but the XJ6 was a blood test so it’s not like I had to drive all over town to get them done—which was pretty much what I had been doing.

Meanwhile, I finally got in to see a dermatologist, and he presented me with a clean bill of dermatological health. He obviously missed class the day they taught new doctors to refer their patients to other new doctors in a permanent circle broken only by a patient’s death or insurance cancellation. This was the same day when all the new doctors hugged, cried, and knew they were full-fledged members of the medical fraternity.

Then I returned to the internist whom I saw in the first place to ask if he was happy with my blood tests and his vintage Jag. He said, “Alas and alack, you might indeed have cancer, but then again you might have osteonecrosis.” “DEAD BONE!?” I screamed, putting the root words together. “Dead bone,” he repeated sadly. “Worse yet, my XJ6 won’t be here in time for the weekend…. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, I’m sending you to a neurological surgeon for a biopsy.” I told him I was truly sorry about his XJ6. His eyes moistened with gratitude, and I patted his hand.

He then became thoughtful, turned pale, and upchucked some sturgeon eggs. “Please excuse me Mr. Thomas, but rotting bone marrow smells SO GROSS that even thinking about it makes me want to puke.” “More than ‘want to’ I would say, Mr. Doctor Man.”

That was yesterday. I am now waiting for a call from the office of the neurological surgeon. I’m told that I won’t hear anything until he hears from insurance, and that this could take a week or more. I am excited about having a bone biopsy because the anesthesiologist will give me Vercid before I am stabbed in the back with a humongous needle, and Vercid is an entertaining drug even if it does make me say things that I later regret.

Many doctors have made many monies, but no doctor has helped my shoulders, and now my back hurts too, and I might be dying—but I doubt it because I still have upwards of two million dollars in insurance coverage, enough to keep me alive at least until early January and maybe into February. My savings might be in the pockets of Wall Street bankers, Exxon Mobil executives, Communist China, and the military industrial complex, but, by god, I’ve got insurance, and if I’m lucky my everything will get well by itself before it’s all gone.