Groups

I've decided I'm going to read through my textbook from the course I took in the fall at Canadian Mennonite University called Introducing Jesus: An Overview of the Christian Bible. 

I was distracted by a lot of things and not in a good place mentally or emotionally for most of that term so I didn't get as much out of the course or the textbook as I would've liked to. 

The textbook is called The Bible: An Introduction, second edition (2014) and it is written by Jerry L. Sumney.

I am inspired to do this because as I explained in my post a few days ago ​Directionless, I have no idea what to believe any more or how to live my life. 

I've been reading a lot of different self-help and theological books over the past few years, mostly from a Christian perspective but also some neuroscience perspectives, Buddhist and Stoic perspectives, and some North American sociological and economic perspectives, and people just writing based off of personal life experience. 

As I said in Directionless maybe there's no point in trying to come up with some definite, universal right way of living, objectively, or subjectively in terms of my individual life purpose. But if I'm not reading, if I'm not reflecting and writing, and trying to think about how to best live, what sort of direction I should be headed towards, then I find myself simply living a life following my emotions around which ultimately leads me to spending most of my time alone in my bedroom indulging in sensory pleasures and keeping entertained by TV and internet media, or working some manual labour job that zaps my spirit.

It's obvious to me that what brings meaning in life is connection with other human beings, is being part of relationships, communities, groups.

Why then would I read the Bible, or a textbook about the Bible? 

Yes the Bible is a book that a lot of people look to for guidance and meaning so that in itself should lead to connection and relationship with other people but does it's content also provide guidance for the best way to live? 

I was brought up to believe in God, and the Bible without really questioning it so this is why I turn to this particular book and philosophy first. How can one understand any philosophy if they don't understand the one they were brought up with?

​I used to be able to give answers to these questions without really thinking but now that I've done a lot of questioning and doubting and feeling hopeless and directionless about life, I think I'm at a better place to be able to fairly and critically think about and ask these questions.

Right now my emotions are directed against wanting to believe in the Bible, in Christianity, in a "Father-like" God, in a "Christ/Messiah" - the reading and intellectualizing I've done on these subjects, along with the pain I've experienced from not feeling understood, accepted by, not fitting in with people who claim to believe in these things, being pressured to do things I didn't want to do in relation to religion by various authority figures in my life, being in relationships and groups and projects that weren't actually fulfilling for me, hearing peers'/friends' (or former friends') frustrations with Christian theology's negative impact on their lives, as well as all the abuse and violence I have learned about throughout history that has been done by groups of people who believe these sorts of things has put me in a place opposite to where I had been from 2017-2019. 

During this period I had come to a place where I was strongly in favour of the Bible, in Christianity, in Jesus' divinity and infalliability in his teachings, in a loving God, for being the answer to bringing joy, peace, wholeness, fulfillment to individual lives and to the world as a whole, and I was thinking about devoting my life to being a leader in a church to spread this kind of message and philosophy.

​So I think I am actually in a better place with where I'm at now to be studying this topic. I have nothing to lose anymore by coming to conclusions that the Bible and thinking associated it is just garbage, is just the result of messed-up group-think and psychological unwellness that has carried on for thousands of years now in many different forms, and groups, around the world. (I've started reading The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World (2018) by Catherine Nixey which is contributing to my thinking on this).

To be honest though, I'm hoping that I'll find the opposite is true, that there is meaning and hope in the Bible, and in the Mennonite tradition I grew up in, and this phase of doubt and anger at Christianity and the church is just a necessary struggle to help me grow and mature and relate to people better. 

So I am biased with these kind of hopeful feelings but I think this is counteracted still with my strong emotions of anger, frustration, and disgust with the religion of Christianity.

I've only got two pages into re-reading the first chapter of this textbook this morning but I'm already at a fundamental question that I need to answer for myself before I can continue on. 

The book asks the question with a subtitle on pg 4 "Why Standards?: why does there need to be a "canon", an agreed upon selection of writing to be authoritative, to judge one's own actions and beliefs by? 

The answer the book gives is that without standards, groups cannot exist. And along with standards, there must be boundaries for groups to exist; there must be something to determine what constitutes someone being a group and what does not. 

The question the textbook does not ask, to take it step further, is "Why Groups?" This is the fundamental question I am thinking about that I think is central to the both the rationale behind religion, specifically the Christian religion because "the church" is a fundamental group one is part of if one calls themself Christian.

There needs to be standards and there needs to be boundaries for groups to exist but do groups need to exist to have meaningful, fulfilling human lives? 

My instinct to this question is yes, groups are needed. 

From my experience with groups like my family, friend groups, sports teams, workplaces, churches, etc in itself, no matter what activity or function the group is doing, being part of a group in itself brings me joy and fulfillment. And the reason my life kind of sucks right now is because I'm not currently participating in many groups as I used to for various reasons (except mainly my siblings and immediate family group chats and video calls). 

And a lot of people are mentally suffering with isolation because of COVID-19; groups have been broken up, physically at least.

But then don't "groups", along with boundaries and standards, inherently lead to all the bad things that exist in the world too: exclusion, discrimination, war, racism, sexism, every other -ism? 

If there are "in-groups" this also means there are "out-groups."

Would there be more peace if we didn't attach our identities and our fulfillment in life to being part of groups, whether they be religious, ethnic, or otherwise? 

Would it be better if we all just roamed free as individuals and interacted with each other without setting or defining any standards or boundaries?

​This article among other demonstrates that "boundaries" are important in relationships, but if our world did not have groups, and therefore did not have authority figures and positions of power, would setting boundaries in relationships be needed? 

If all human beings didn't have groups, didn't have tribes they identified with - even gender groups or sexual orientation groups, or racial groups - would no one person have any power over another person and all people would just relate to one another on level ground?

These are the questions I am pondering right now that I feel I need to answer before I can commit myself to studying any religious writing or teachings, re-entering or formally joining any new groups of any kind.