Christian Commentary II: Happiness vs. Joy

(The remark in bold is a comment by an atheist friend of mine, and my response follows.)

"I'm glad that Christianity has made you happy. However, your statements about how people of other religions are innately unhappy while Christians are innately happy, fulfilled, and helpful to others is a dangerous generalization and stereotype that reflects your biases, not reality."
 
That isn't exactly what I'm saying. I never said anything about being happy. I did mention joy. Joy in the Biblical sense is more synonymous with peace and hope than pure happiness. Obviously it goes beyond those and is not entirely separated from happiness - else we wouldn't need a different word - but it doesn't just mean being happy. I can be - and often am - unhappy with my life at times, due to stress or pain or what-have-you, yet I still feel joyful. I can still praise God, for the work He is doing on me in my present tribulation and for the promised outcome once it is over. There is joy in resting in the knowledge that nothing can separate us from the love and care of God, and that all things - even the evils of this world - can work together for good to those who love God and follow in His purpose for their lives.
 
As to the other, once again I fear you missed my point. There is nothing about a Christian that makes him/her innately more happy, fulfilled, or helpful than somebody else. It is true that being a Christian and truly seeking God's will should produce the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) as a "by-product" if you will of having Christ working in you. But the rest can likely be attributed more to personality, and it is of course silly to think that Christianity has a unique difference in inborn personality of its members. I know many decent, loving individuals who follow Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism (I only know one Buddhist), and I would call them generally happy and helpful, and at times fulfilled. I would say this about many Christians, too.
 
What I said was that I know people of other religions who still struggle with sin and suffering despite going through their religious instructions. When I compare Christianity with anything, I think not only of the abstract knowledge of both I have, but also specific individuals that embody the religion. I follow this general rule: "But when we are comparing Christians in general with non-Christians in general, we are usually not thinking about real people whom we know at all, but only about two vague ideas which we have got from novels and newspapers. If you want to compare the bad Christian and the good Atheist, you must think about two real specimens whom you have actually met. Unless we come down to brass tacks in that way, we shall only be wasting time." - C S Lewis, Mere Christianity
 
Christianity is unique in one important area: it has the concept of grace. You won't find that in abundance anywhere else. (Please note the following descriptions do not contain a full account for brevity's sake.) 
 
Take Buddhism. According to Buddhism, evil is in the world because of human desire (see The Four Noble Truths). A Buddhist is on the path to nirvana, i.e. the "puffing out" or "extinguishing" of desire. "Sin" in Buddhism has to do with violence and greed. If you sin in Buddhism, you contribute to the evil, and there is no teaching of forgiveness or grace for personal cleansing; you must pick-up, continue on, and should you ever achieve nirvana you will no longer care (or rather, it will no longer affect you). 
 
Take Hinduism. Karma is the primary effect of goodness and sin. If you do good things, karma will reward you in this life or the next reincarnation. If you do bad things, you are stuck with them as well and will be punished. The goal of Hinduism in many ways is to do more good than bad so karma stacks in your favor. 
 
Take Islam. Islam is very much about earning your way into heaven. You do what is right, right being defined as obedience to the teachings of their Prophet, and the closer you can control your actions to match up with the laws, as well as the more you contribute to the spreading of Islam, the better your place in heaven. Punishment is strongly enforced in Islam as well for those who fail to live up to the standards. 
 
Take Judaism. Judaism begins to attain the idea of forgiveness. Jews must follow a strict code of conduct for purity and uncleanness, and sinners must make sacrifice to God to have their sins "pushed back" or "overlooked" for a time. Sin is punished heavily, but repentance and sacrifice will earn one's place back into the favor of God. 
 
Now take Christianity. There is a code of expected conduct, which serves the purpose of showing that nobody can live up to it on their own - except Jesus, who died in sinners' place so they could be free from sin's bondage. The goal of Christianity is to have a relationship with God, not follow a to-do list of morals, and sins are forgiven in faith. Grace is God loving you when you are an unlovable, selfish being, and forgiving your sins even though you do not deserve it. This is the one I know of personally, and I can tell you that the experience of forgiveness is amazing and humbling and life-changing. But even outside of my own experience, I can intellectually discern the differences in the religions. I may be biased in which one I choose still, due to my upbringing and position on the globe, but the religions can be objectively divided as to their differences, and if any of them are true, only one of them can be (their core beliefs are not interchangeable).

Christian Commentary: Is Christianity a Controlling Doctrine?

I had a discussion on Christianity with a few friends of mine about a year back, all of whom were either atheist or agnostic. Surprisingly, I found a few of my answers to their questions saved on my computer the other night. I've decided to share them on here in hopes they might be of benefit to someone. Even if you disagree--I'd love to continue the conversation. :)

The answers are kinda long, so I may spread them out over several notes. The bold parts are the questions, and the rest is my answer.

"Christianity has the hallmark of a doctrine meant to control people, that is get them to act ethically and morally as they see correct, not as a group of people 'making up a deity.' It is making up a social construct over hundreds or even thousands of years to get people to do what you want them to do."

This is so far removed from the teachings of every great Christian that I can only imagine you get this notion from the stereotypical (and unfortunately, not altogether untrue) image of the church. I'm sadly aware that most people's view of Christianity consists something of nuns with rulebooks and rulers, church (and political) leaders shouting out what is sin and what isn't and demanding everyone follow, and thousands if not millions of church-goers giving lip-service to those rules and then bad-mouthing or snub-nosing anyone who doesn't.
 
Christianity as taught in the New Testament is not a controlling doctrine at all. Let me clarify that statement before I am completely jumped on.
 
First off, yes, the Bible does call for certain moral standards of living. It also says that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," and that getting to Heaven is "not by works" but through the "gift of God's grace." The Bible is clear that no one can live up to the moral standard proposed therein. Jesus came to say that it doesn't matter how good of a person you are, how often you help the poor and needy, or how many times you go to church: we all have vices, which we may regard as insignificant next to our virtues or other vices, but which separate us from the absolute holiness of God. We all deserve death. Christians believe that God became a man, suffered as a man to death as payment for our sins (since we deserve death), and in rising from the dead made it possible for us to change. The point is that salvation then comes not through anything you do, but through faith in Christ. No amount of morality on your own part will save anyone; a Christian believes Jesus works through us to make us moral despite our selfish selves. 
 
Peter, Paul, Luke, and John expound on this following the Gospels, talking about how Christ frees them from the Law. The servitude to God which is so often expressed in the Bible is clearly written of as an offering of gratitude. It isn't necessary for salvation, but to "be saved" means to have Jesus working in your life, and that means a birthed desire to change and be more like Him. The basic idea is, "Since Jesus Christ has given me everything and enabled my freedom when I did not deserve anything but death, I will show my love by doing everything I can to follow His commands and trust to His mercy for my inevitable shortcomings." But the Bible is clear that this CANNOT be forced on others.
 
This is all personal revelation and change stuff, though. If you want to look at the actual teachings of Christ, they discourage a controlling method as well. Christ warned, "Do not judge others, lest you be judged." He instructed us to act towards others as we would like others to act towards us (not how others DO act towards us, or based on what we feel they "deserve"). When He told Peter that he would have to suffer and die for the ministry, Peter's response was to point to John and say, "Lord, what about him? What will he have to do?" Jesus's response was, "...what is that to you? You must follow Me." The point of all of these things is that Christianity is a personal religion in that all of the "control" is between you and God; no Christian is to cast judgment on anyone who doesn't "live up to" the same standards he feels obligated to follow, especially if the other isn't a fellow Christian.
 
I'd like to give a quote that sums up the true Christian perspective on controlling others: "One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting every one else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons - marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning" (C. S Lewis, Mere Christianity).
 
At the end of the day, Christianity is about a personal relationship with God, not a list of moral rules to be followed to "earn" your way into heaven or out of hell. That is what heaven and hell are: one is getting to forever enjoy a relationship with your Creator, while the other is being forever separated from that relationship. It was never about punishment, but choice: if you choose God, He accepts and brings you to Him, and if you reject God, He accepts and puts you where you will never be bothered by Him again. We are halfway in-between now, dependent on God but able to choose whether to go to Him or to reject Him. Eventually God will cut the strings of dependance, and those who clung to Him will get to stay with Him while those who followed their own way will get their own way.
 
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Please note that I am not denying that "Christianity" can be and has been used by people to gain or keep power and control. The church throughout history has been rather good at this. But you can say the same thing about capitalism, democracy, socialism, communism, education, welfare, and any other program designed for good but ran by people. There are always bad apples, and they will inevitably spoil the affair through greed, selfishness, and other vices. That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended - civilizations are built up - excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down. They are trying to run it on the wrong juice. God has designed the human machine to run on Himself. This applies to Christianity as well, in the sense that at any point the church (or churchgoers) attempt to run the show without directly relying on God, the machine begins to conk. Since every Christian is an imperfect person, the machine has little hope of running perfectly.
 
And now we come to morality. Morality, especially Christian morality, raises in a good many people's minds: something that interferes, something that stops you having a good time. In reality, moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine. That is why these rules at first seem to be constantly interfering with our natural inclinations. When you are being taught how to use any machine, the instructor keeps on saying, "No, don't do it like that," because, of course, there are all sorts of things that look all right and seem to you the natural way of treating the machine, but do not really work.