Murray Haar On Religion: Do What You Can Do

Friday, January 6, 2017

Do What You Can Do

Assuming you have figured out how to get food, shelter and transportation, there are three central elements to having a sane life: instincts, skills, and chance. The first two are under our control, the last is not. Instincts are intuitions that we hone from mistakes we make until they transform into wisdom. Skills are competencies we develop over time. But chance or luck happens to us all for good and for bad. We try to manage this trio every day in every way. Some of us are better at it than others. Some of us are luckier than others.

Whatever God is about, God works within the interplay of these contingencies. Near as I can tell, the world, as we know it, is not under anyone’s total control. Nature has no conscience. And it seems clear that in the last 2000 years, increasingly, God has withdrawn his power and given human beings more and more responsibility for running the planet, for good or for bad. Seventy years ago, Dietrich Bonhoeffer enigmatically declared: “... And we cannot be honest unless we recognize that we have to live in the world “etsi deus non daretur” [translation: "as if there were no God"]. And this is just what we do recognize--before God! God himself compels us to recognize it.”

The fact is: We do not know who God is, but we know what God wants. And, what does God want? Near as I can tell, God wants us to care for each other whether we like each other or not. We are called upon to pursue justice wherever we live. God wants us to discipline our desires and appetites. Most importantly, we are cautioned in our scriptures to avoid idolatry. Whenever we do any of this, we have come closer to doing what God wants us to do. Jesus asks his followers, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I tell you to do?” (Luke 6:46) For Jews the Torah (read teaching) is what guides us to live a sane life. What you do is more important than what you believe.

We try to manage our lives everyday, doing the best we can. So, every day, in every way, do whatever little thing you can do to stop the craziness. Say a prayer, help one person, write a letter, shed a tear. That may be, in our time, as close to God as we can get.

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Notes from The Door

Whenever you care for the neighbor in pain, at that very moment, God is real. At that very moment, the Messiah has returned. In every situation where there is pain and injustice do what you can do to stop the pain. Murray Haar
Religion was not created by God but by people. What God thinks of our religions only God can say. If your religion teaches you to love God and to stand with your neighbor in pain, it is a good religion. If it teaches you to hate and to be indifferent, it is a bad religion. Murray Haar
Get Busy livin or get busy dyin (Shawshank Redemption)
The Holocaust teaches us that it is possible to be alive but no longer human. Murray Haar
I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know. Socrates
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good. W. H. Auden
For the most part, Christian pastors and priests are not taught to think but to transmit. They go to a vocational school called a seminary where they are taught how to transmit and proclaim the gospel but not how to teach their people to think critically about what they believe. They do not know how to teach their parishioners that Christianity could be wrong. Pastors and Priests are not prophets; they are religious functionaries who care about people and love Jesus. They themselves are usually nice people, will visit you in the hospital and give you bread and wine but they are not, for the most part, great thinkers. So, to expect them to reform the Church is just not realistic. Occasionally though, pastors show up who can think and believe at the same time and it is in them that there is hope for a reformation. I have met them. They are real and I have hope in them. Murray Haar
We do not believe in the Bible. We believe in God. The Bible is a vector toward God and the neighbor. When the Bible points us toward God and the neighbor, it is true. Whenever it does not, it is not true. We have to learn not only to read the Bible but to argue with it. Then the text will become real. Murray Haar
“In religion, the question is more important than the answer to the question.” A Midrash
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas
“He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.” The Talmud
“We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed.” Joseph Epstein

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Friday, January 6, 2017

Do What You Can Do

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