Experiencing the Schizophrenia of Christianity Essay

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion, asserts Albert Einstein. It should transcend a personal god and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious genius arising from the devour of all things, natural and spiritual and a meaningful unity. Buddhism dish ups this description. If on that plosive consonant is each religion that would cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism. dapple other physicists and mathematicians love Lao Tzus Taoism, most Chinese twinge both and add Confucianism. For thousands of years, these constitute been the three philosophies of China.While Judaism, Islam and Christianity also make its way to China, these religions did not bear as often fruit because of their insane nature. Unfortunately, some(prenominal) an(prenominal) in the West still suffer from dissolve minds due(p) to Christian indoctrination. in that location argon many factual stories in the int elligence activity today about the Christian crisis, but fiction writers also possess their own adaptations or interpretations of these stories. For instance, in the short story Sixty-five one million million million Years, Father Hennessey portrays the schizophrenia of Christian clergymen and Christianity in general. Father Hennessey is the main office or protagonist of the story.He found himself lured into a kind of begrimed appetite for some of the things he was privy to there were sins his parishioners witnessed that seemed nearly kind to him, not as temptations, but as something close to entertainment, amusement. He became preoccupy with the sexual defenses of Mr. graham, the most popular teacher in the local proud school, who taught math along with light. whole meal flour is also kindly, softhearted, resourceful, passionate about his work, a dedicated and devoted educator. But he is childless with his wife of 25 years, a woman who is several years older than him .After a 15-year old girl, a remedial math student, came to see him regularly, he started to experience sleepless iniquitys with sexual tension. He keeps seeing himself reach for her. She waits for him to tell her the answer to a problem, but he cant do it because he has to use all his mental resources to keep from grabbing her and trying to kiss her and implore her to let him have her. Father Hennessey finds whole meal flours mental curse entertaining, and Hennessey, in the beginning, always looks forward to Confessionals with Graham.He was guiltily aw ar that this was because of the fantastic absorption that had taken hold of him concerning the details of the story. on that point came a point that it preoccupied his mind so much that he couldnt administrate mass properly anymore. He also couldnt listen attentively to other confessions since Grahams story always distracted his mind. There is also a 15-year old son who regularly confesses to Hennessey. He has close-cut flaxen hair with a crooked nose and a round head. He also suffers from Rheumatoid Arthritis, spending much time in bed, see books, as a result of his condition.His condition also resulted in fingers that were convoluted and curved slightly with the arthritis, but they were beautifulin their strange dissension from the hands one expected a fifteen-year-old boy to have. Hennessey finds out much later that he is the twin brother of Grahams obsession. Their make is mentally ill and has been confined in the hospital since their father left(a) them. The twin siblings have been living by themselves at home without any supervision. The young boys mentally-ill mother keeps asking the boy legion(predicate) doubting questions about divinity, so he goes to Father Hennessey for the answers. But he fails to answer them.Father, the boy asks during a confessional with Hennessey, the dinosaurs lived here for millions of years. Weve only been here for a little fraction of a second in legal injury of evolution. What was God prizeing? The boy explains that the Bible is ignorant of dinosaurs. Saint Peter didnt k right away about the dinosaurs, Father, he says. But Hennessey doesnt take him in addition seriously. He feels that the boy might be less than sincere, and that this was all at his expense. But the young boy is persistent. He visits Hennessey regularly at his confession booth Hennessey not knowing that he is the twin-brother of Grahams obsession.The boy even calls up Hennesseys housekeeper to ask about the priests character or behavior, which the boy seriously doubts. Unfortunately, Father Hennessey fails to sustain Graham and the young boy. Instead of healing the mental illness or sexual perversion of Graham, he makes it worse. Instead of answering the questions of the boy correctly, he gives a carry answerfaith. There is no perfect answer, son, Hennessey says, except faith. He considers them as forms of entertainment like watching interactive television . Hence, he makes both of their lives worse.Graham becomes perverted with his student, committing adultery with her nine-fold times, even on campus, where they are caught in the gymnasium equipment cabinet, and he is terminated from work. He also ends up in jail for contributing to juvenile delinquency and loses his career. The young boy couldnt help his mother who is mentally ill, and in turn, the mother couldnt help her daughter, who ends up with a sexual relationship with Graham. Father Hennessey had internal conflicts that split his mind or made him somewhat schizophrenic. Consequently, he also failed himself. wiz night, he was very troubled, and What disturbed him most that night was that he had bypast through everything in these last few weeks only in terms of himself. He also began to wonder if he were not becoming unhinged. These problems are actually consequences or reflections of much more serious problems in the Catholic Church. abouttimes, it isnt Graham or the youn g boy who develop much(prenominal) problems it is the priest himself who develops sexual relationships with parishioners. Sometimes they rape them or molest them, as the thousands of cases broadcasted in recent television news reports.Thats why many Americans are now turning to Asian philosophies such as Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism which are in harmony with science and psychology, unlike Christianity which is in conflict with science. For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory, asserts Niels Bohr, a Nobel-prize physicist acclaimed for the Bohr model of the atom and his contributions to Quantum Mechanics, (we should study) those kinds of epistemological problems with which already thinkers like the Buddha and Lao Tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great drama of reality. This is the answer that both the boy and Graham were seeking from Father Hennessey. The elementary questions that the boy asked can all be answ ered by the three philosophies of China easily. The boy wanted to reconcile science with religion. He needed answers to scientific questions that contradicted the Bible or showed its ignorance. Graham would have had a clear answer from a Buddhist too. Although he visited Hennessey to confess his sexual perversions, he was really seeking a solution to his illness or his obsessive compulsions.He wanted to heal it or halt rid of it, along with the suffering that he was experiencing. Buddhas First formal virtue asserts that life is dukkhaimpermanent, uncomfortable, sometimes even painful and deadly, like go a wooden cart with uneven wheels or hearing a screeching uneven potters wheel turn. Lao Tzu explains that the jolting cycles of life, moving up and down, are the result of natural forces in the universe, which are now understood partly by physicists as gravity, space and time.It creates polarities in everythingmale-female, good-bad, day-night, up-down, mania-depression, life-dea th, white-black, desire-aversion, happiness-sadness, economic boom-busts and so forthwith infinite degrees in magnitude, along with multiple combinations in proportions. The Chinese call this Yang and Yin, respectively. The Second Noble Truth therefore asserts that dukkha or the impermanent cycle of suffering is caused by the physical existence of Yin and Yang, such as Grahams aversion and desire, as state in Rodney St.Michaels book Sync My World. Consequently, the Third Noble Truth then says that to manage dukkha, one must pull off the polarities of Yin and Yang, or in Grahams case, aversion and desire. Finally, the Fourth Noble Truth asserts that to extinguish these polarities, one must follow the Middle Way or the octuple Noble Path. To make a long story short, one of the eighter from Decatur guidelines in this path is meditation. Desire and aversion, for example, are caused by imbalanced hormones and neurotransmitters.By practicing breath meditation daily, Graham could biolog ically alter his brain chemistry to neutralize the imbalance in his system. There are also many other suggestions that a Buddhist could give to Graham, such as what to think when desires start burning him. Buddhists would also explain to him the concept of karma, or the principle of cause and effect, which explains all the possible consequences of ignoring his problem.As for the young teenager, Lao Tzus Tao Te Ching, explains that the force, acting as God or nature, creates everything in polarities such that some are monstrous dinosaurs and some are cute lambs. Some are carnivores and some are herbivores. Everything lives and dies and goes around in a cycle. nation should never expect anything to last, whether it be marriage (which normally only lasts 10 years), jobs, prosperity, happiness or anything good. Incorrect expectations cause mental anguish, but managed expectations get to relative stability.One must realize also that the darkest period of night is the time yet before sunrise, so any bad fleck will eventually turn good, even if death itself has to trigger it. In the end, while Hennessey failed, his experience changed him He stood in the shadow of the church, and looked up. It was a make he had a moment of being frightfully informed of it as mere stone, the work of human hands, stone and brick and mortar and wood. He became aware or enlightened of the fact that the Roman Catholic Church is mortal.It is not the divine house of God. He is not a divine worker. There is nothing supernatural in what he is doing. Hes just human. The doubt of the boy made him doubt himself and the Church. But now he has the chance to change everything. And slowly but surely, America is also realizing that they now have a chance to do the same. Works Cited Bausch, Richard, Sixty-five gazillion Years. NarrativeMagazine. com. St. Michael, Rodney. (Including citations from Einstein and Bohr). Sync My World Thiefs Honor GA SK. Raleigh Lulu, 2009.