Sloganeering vs. Thinking – Part II

 

            In part one of this series, I shared how recently, while traveling to a town nearby to make a pastoral visit, I noticed some bumper stickers on a car in front of me.  They read:  “Eating Meat is Murder”; “Every Religion is Just Another Cult with More Members”; and “Reproductive Rights are an American Value.”  I engaged in an imaginary conversation with the young college man driving the car.  Today, we take up his second bumper sticker….

           

            “I notice that your second bumper sticker – “Every Religion is Just Another Cult with More Members” – is a novel definition of religion.”

            “I am not sure I meant it as a ‘definition’.”

            “Strange then that you would use the equalizer ‘is.’  But anyway, have you ever looked up the word ‘cult’ in the dictionary?”

            “Don’t think I have.” 

            “So, you are writing your own dictionary of words and giving them your own meaning?”

            “No, I am simply pointing out something about the nature of religion.”

            “Ever studied world religions?”

            “That’s not my major at the university.”

            “I see.  But you still feel equipped to pronounce on the subject?”                             

            “Well, I think what the bumper sticker says is pretty obvious.”

            “Yes, yet again, this presumption of the obvious and the making of a slogan of it.  Never bother you that the great majority of people don’t think it is obvious, including the writers of dictionaries?”

            “Okay (sigh), what do the dictionaries have to say about the word ‘cult’?

            “According to the pejorative meaning that you attach to it, the word describes something to the effect of an organized group under an authoritative leader who exercises dominion by mind control, psychological manipulation, and charismatic show.”

            “Well, isn’t that exactly what religion does?
            “How so?”

            “By telling people what they can and cannot do.  Isn’t that a type of mind control?”

            “Sort of like proclaiming that people cannot eat meat because it’s murder?”

            “Er uh... I’m not trying to control peoples’ minds!”

            “Okay, I take your word for it, but then neither does genuine religion seek to control peoples’ minds.  Quite the contrary, Christianity, for example, insists on just the opposite and extols what we call self-control.”

            “What’s the difference?”        

            “Self-control is the human response to the awareness of reality and the revelation of truth and the conforming of human life to that knowledge.  The goal of self-control is the freeing of the human person from simply responding to urges – whether urges springing from the interior life or urges aroused by outside influences – so that the person can intelligently and joyfully give himself to the truth.”

            “But here is where I really disagree with religion, especially the Catholic religion:  there is no such thing as truth!”

            “Interesting that you should say that with such vehemence…”

            “Why?”

            “Because you’ve already let slip at least four huge exceptions to that declaration.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Well, either you’re a liar or you really believe in the ‘truths’ that 1)  Eating meat is murder; 2)  Religions are cults; 3)  Reproductive rights are an American value; and 4)  There is no such thing as truth.  The last one being a most extraordinary contradiction, in that what you are proposing denies the validity of the very proposition by which you state it.”  

            “You’ve cornered me again, but I don’t quite get the last point….”

            “Put simply, it’s this:  if there is no such thing as truth, then the statement just made cannot be considered a statement of truth that there are no truths.  In other words, the statement denying the existence of truth contradicts itself.”

            “All right, all right!  But how do I know that religion, yours included, has what you call truth?”

            “Well, first of all, you’re going to have to get serious….”

            “But I am serious!”

            “You ,‘serious’?... by plastering ‘truisms’ on the bumper of your car and then turning right around and denying the reality of truth?  That’s not being serious.”

            “Gosh! You’re relentless….”

            “So’s the truth.”

            “Okay, let’s say I’m serious, now what?  There are so many voices out there claiming to speak the truth.  Which one do I listen to?  How do I know which one is telling the truth?”

            “That’s for you to begin to seriously investigate.  But I can assure you that a false voice will eventually contradict itself just as you have.  If you’ve learned anything from our conversation, you’ll see that you can – your own voice can – deceive yourself; so you must be willing to be honest, to potentially deny your own immediate preference for the sake of the truth.”

            “So I shouldn’t think…?”

            “No, not at all.  Now you must begin to really think.”

            “Give me a starter….”

            “I recommend that you begin to carefully and rationally consider the only One who ever claimed to be the Truth Itself, and lived His life – and went through death – in a most worthy testimony to what He claimed.  Like I said before, He is either a liar (or crazy), or His claim is true.”

            “Who is this?”

            “Jesus Christ.  And so, young man, you have a lot to think about.”