Why I Chose Batman Over God
Introduction
My departure from Christianity happened for many reasons, but there are a few that I find particularly interesting, and I’d like to share them with you. First I’ll give you a snapshot of my religious experience to give you an idea of my perspective, and then I’ll go through three major issues that I have. But you can skip straight to them if you’d like. I’d like to note at the start too that this type of writing should be prefaced by a substantial list of disclaimers, which I consider to have been accomplished by this sentence. As such, consider the following to be officially disclaimed.
When I was twelve I discovered that episodes of Batman cartoons were uploaded in multiple parts to YouTube. I would open a video and then wait forty minutes for the 5 minute clip to load through our dial-up internet. I still remember the first scene I watched, which was from The Batman S4E5. This was the first superhero content I’d seen, and it mesmerised me.
Around this age I was also baptised in the holy spirit. This ritual entails first being briefly submerged in water to symbolise killing your evil self, and then offering your body to be possessed by the third entity of the Holy Trinity, simply called ‘the Spirit’. The ritual was considered successful if the Spirit begins communicating through you, commonly known as ‘speaking in tongues’.
In my case, the possession was successful, and I was happy to be able to feel the Spirit uttering words using my mouth. I was a little disappointed in the rather small vocabulary of the Spirit, but I nevertheless enjoyed participating in prayer circles where we would hold hands in a circle and let the Spirit speak through us. This often went hand-in-hand with pleas (in English, oddly) for wealth and health.
As I progressed through my spiritual journey, I learned that all was not well in the spiritual realm. A great war was being waged between the holy armies of the Trinity, and the demonic hordes of Satan. This war was taking place constantly, with Angels and Demons slashing each other with swords (firearms presumably had not been invented or were highly regulated in the Heavenly Kingdom). I personally never witnessed this, but I was assured that people had glimpsed past the natural plane and seen the battles.
At any rate, I hardly had to see to believe when the work of the demons was so apparent in day to day life. The unfathomable hatred of the dark forces was constantly born out through minor colds, ACDC, pictures of scantily-clad women and the Greens. I learned to play my part in the war by constantly rebuking various devils and ensuring that I didn’t provide any opportunities for them to bind themselves to my soul — one of their favorite manoeuvres.
Considering the high-stakes, you will be glad to know I had a weapon, and not a small one either: being baptised in the Spirit, I was able to channel the literal power of God. This is a big deal, as God is infinitely powerful and also hates the devil and communists. At any time, as long as I hadn’t sinned enough to sully the connection, I could act with the full force of the creator of the universe. In retrospect, its lucky that I didn’t command the moon disappear or anything like that.
This close relationship with the eternal God certainly damped my enthusiasm for most superheroes, since there was really quite little difference between me and them. Except for Batman. Unlike Superman or Wonder Woman or Spiderman, he had no supernatural abilities, relying instead on gadgets, money and insane core-strength to fight evil in Gotham. I was facinated by the concept.
Although there was no Superhero content around our household, I was able to consume a large quantity of comicbooks by deceitfully telling my mother that I was going to read classic literature in the library, but as soon as I was alone I would immediately go to the comicbook corner.
My interest in the Caped Crusader continued unabated through my teens, and in my mid-twenties I realised this fictional character had added more value to my life than God had. Here’s why.
Batman isn’t real: The value in moral evolution
A quick note before I start. I no longer believe that God (esp, in the Christian sense) exists, but that’s beside the point. In this comparison, I compare God as presented by my Christian community, and compare it to Batman as presented by the Batman universe.
Imagine you approach someone dressed up as batman, at a batman festival, who owns every comic book, game and movie under the IP ever produced. You say, “I have bad news for you. Batman isn’t real”, to which they will answer, “I know”.
In contrast, Christianity largely relies the fact that its lore and heroes are real. One popular argument is that since Jesus was historically real, it forces a choice between Jesus being real or crazy. Other repeated declarations like “He lives, so we have hope” and “We feel your presence” highlight the reliance on factuality. There is a sense of logic in in believing a story because its real. It certainly makes it easier to justify.
The problem this introduces is that if its right because its true, then everything that’s true is right (excuse the association fallacy). Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. Since Jesus was real, and the Bible is true, the statement is also true. We should endeavour then to act in accordance with Jesus. Generally this is a good thing, and results in promotion of ideas centralised in kindness, love and mercy. The other edge of the sword though is that other ideas of intolerance, pride and violence are also right, since they are also true.
Let’s consider the case when King David murdered Bathsheba’s husband to justify their affair (an affair in which Bathsheba had little or no say). God punished David by killing Bathsheba’s son, which made David feel super sad. We would look at this now as a completely unfair an inadequate method of punishment. But, because God’s character is unchanging and infallible, it is cemented as an example of good and fair justice.
There is a panel from an old Batman comic, which uses a racial slur and depicts Batman apparently intentionally using a Chinese man to cushion his fall. We can look at this today and say, well, that’s fucking racist, and now we know better. Batman is our made-up story and it is allowed to evolve along with our understanding of ethics.
The reality is that Christianity also evolves, but it is always doing this with a hand tied behind its back. Introduction of various biblical contracts and interpretations allow enough wiggle room for modern Christians to allow women to speak in church, mental health can be taken seriously and men are even sometimes allowed to kiss other men. But every step of progress is a struggle as modern Christian theology grapples with the rigid confines of a story that is real.
Batman isn’t good: The value in imperfect heroes
In Batman: Hush, Poison Ivy seduces Superman, and Batman must try to stop him destroying the city. During their fight in a sewer tunnel, Batman says that the only reason he has a chance is that deep down, Superman is a good person, and Batman is not.
Batman’s imperfect character has long been one of his core traits. In his drive to do good, he is often depicted taking paths that are morally questionable, and often pays the price for it. This allows the authors to tell stories that explores issues in a way that other mediums can’t. Particularly, in a way that Christianity cannot.
When Jesus was taken into the desert and tempted by Satan, he remained unmoved. In fact, he lived an entirely perfect life. Similarly, from before time began to after time ends God has been and will be faultless. This might intuitively make God a logical leader to follow, but He is useless as a means of assisting us make sense of the world.
The stories we tell should let us explore the world in an abstract way; poking, prodding and testing ideas and possibilities before making decisions in the real world. Another way of thinking about this is to imagine looking at a map in order to find the best route to a friend’s house. You might look at several roads, way up the pros and cons based on the distance, stop lights and peak hour traffic. That is, you explore a set of possibilities and observe the consequences of each decision in the conceptual space so that you can make the best decision when you begin the drive.
When our hero is a God that never makes mistakes, we are robbed of this ability. The route is pre-set. The ultimate example already exists, and it must be followed. When our only story is a God of perfection, the best we can do is try to become like God, rather than become good people*.
We are humans and we learn from mistakes more readily than perfection. The journey to become perfect often leads to avoiding and ignoring mistakes. If our heroes and stories are to make us better people, they must make the mistakes that we can’t. They must show the pain of travelling down certain roads, the reasoning that leads to unthinkable acts and explore moral conundrums. And I hold that Batman can tell these stories far, far better than God.
*Note to Christians: No doubt you may be verging on the sin of wrath, as I am apparently forgetting one of the core premises of the gospel: we are imperfect, but by God’s grace, and his grace alone, we can be perfect through forgiveness by way of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. To which I say, that this is great for dealing with our past, but useless for making our way into the future.
Batman isn’t strong: The value of understanding limitations
It can be quite funny to watch Batman fighting in team-ups with other heroes, who are almost always far more powerful than he is. The fight scenes are usually accompanied by choppy scaling of villain abilities, where they seem to magically power down a few hundred levels as soon as they find themselves facing Batman. The fact is, although its not explicitly stated, a defining trait of the Batman character is being ludicrously weak.
In stark contrast, God’s portfolio includes imperviousness to death, creating life, making a LOT of bread, summoning storms and seeing the future. In fact, the Bible claims that there is nothing God can’t do: he is all-powerful.
Much of the Bible revolves around humans overcoming their weakness by tapping into God’s unlimited power. This sets up an unbalanced situation for most problems encountered in life. It teaches that we are already equipped to deal with any issue borrowing from God’s strength (or knowledge, or virtue, etc. ).
Starting with an assumption of strength leads to ignorance of our limitations. Without understanding our inability, we are ill-prepared for everything. Unawareness of our mental limits can lead to burn-out. Unawareness of our emotional limits can lead to anxiety. We feel helpless and unheard because we are unaware of how shockingly terrible we are at dealing with conflict. With the false assumption of strength, we don’t know what we should be working on, how we should be growing. The challenges in life become more unexpected, confusing and harmful.
This ignorance is perpetuated by the Christian story. Take the famous snippet from the Bible, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”. Or from the book of Isaiah:
“….but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength….
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.”
Hot fucking tip: If you are growing wearing and fainting (literally or figuratively) it is a sign the you need to stop and rest. Sentiment like this is dangerous because it sets a stage where we are focused on our relationship with Jesus (in order to get that sweet supernatural energy) instead of looking critically at our physical and mental health. When our model is a God of ultimate strength, self-awareness is unnecessary.
Batman’s character is constantly forced assesses his ability and work out ways to make up the difference when facing off against powerful enemies. Regardless of the existence of God, Batman’s story provides a better model for dealing real-life problems.
And Lastly…
The fact that Jesus could have conjured up a batmobile and done mainies down the Galilee main street, but didn’t, is undeniably not good for the argument for God.
More seriously though, these three points a have a common thread: The story of God, real or not, isn’t a useful story. At the end of the day we live in the real world, and the stories we use to guide our lives need to be useful in that capacity. After all, stories were created for mankind, not mankind for the stories.