Disclaimers and Caveats

I am amazed at the number of advertisements on television for prescription drugs.  Early in the ad there is always announcement of hope and positive change.  Near the end the ad always lists the possible negative side-effects, most of which sound like you may fall apart and die.  I assume the pharmaceutical companies are required by law to list these possible side-effects as disclaimers and caveats to avoid being sued.  In other words, after the positive promotion, the truth of the matter must be revealed.  (And I am not even going into the question of why pharmaceutical companies promote drugs that can only be attained by prescription.  Save the ad money and reduce the prices!)

What if churches had to do the same?  Suppose before the end of every sermon disclaimers and caveats were required to be announced.  What if it was made clear that believing something to be true does not make it true?  If so, a preacher might have to say the following:

After hundreds of studies there is no evidence that prayer makes a difference for sick or dying people. They will get well or die at the same rate whether they are prayed for or not.

There is no historical evidence that Jesus actually existed.

There is no historical, factual, scientific evidence that Jesus was a deity.

There is no historical evidence that the gospels were written near the time of Jesus’ reported death.

The creation story in Genesis is blatantly false.

Abraham was a fictional character.

Moses was a fictional character.

There is no historical evidence that the Jews were ever slaves in Egypt.

There was no required Roman census prior to Jesus birth, if he was born at all.

Herod died 4 years before Jesus birth, if Jesus was born at all.

There is no empirical evidence that heaven exists, that hell exists, or that there is life after death.

(There are many more fallacies and contradictions that could be listed, but the above is likely sufficient.)

Now, let us pray and pass the offering plate.

Seems to me if I am misled by any organization for any reason there should be consequences, especially if they seek my money.  If a scam artist steals my money I have legal recourse.  What if I give my money to a church then discover that it is a scam?  Should I have legal recourse?

I wonder how long organized religion would survive if every congregation had to listen to these factual disclaimers and caveats.  Seems to me that church membership would decline greatly leaving only those people who prefer false belief over fact.  Such groups already exist in the KKK, American Nazi Party, Fox News, and some wings of the Republican Party. 

More interesting would be if a political candidate announced he or she was a Christian how long that claim would be made if people started laughing. 

Yes, churches should begin every worship service and every Sunday School Class announcing these disclaimers.  Elsewise they can be sued for false advertising and people could get all their tithe money back.

Christianity First

If one more person tells me to put Christ back in Christmas I am likely to take his or her head off. How in the world can people live with their hypocrisy? How about putting Christ back into Christianity first? The dominant political thinking in this country now is to protect the rich, promote the rich, and give the rich tax cuts. Seems to me Jesus had something to say about that. The dominant political thinking in this country now promotes the end of health care for children and poor adults. Seems to me Christ had something to say about that. The dominant political thinking in this country supports robbing Social Security and Medicare so that the rich can have tax cuts. Seems to me Christ had something to say about that. The dominant political thinking in this county now is to tolerate the abuse that showers down on Blacks, women, Muslims, Hispanics, gay, transgender, etc. Seems to me Christ had something to say about that. The dominant political thinking in this county is to ban Muslims and Latinos from coming here. Seems to me Christ had something to say about that. Meanwhile, the support of the dominant political thinkers stands behind pedophiles, bigots, sexual assaulters, climate change deniers and liars.

If there is a God he or she better wake up his or her followers before they destroy not only this country but the late, great planet earth.

Followers of Christ appear to have shifted from an agenda of love, tolerance, support and caring to an agenda of me first, anger, fear and bigotry. Any one wrestling with his or her faith during this time of year has but to look at the followers of Jesus, watch what they are doing and saying, to see what is in their hearts. It ain’t pretty. Give me an atheist who cares for the sick, promotes the poorest among us, cares for those who are cast offs in our society, and supports humans regardless of their physical characteristics or belief systems over the so-called Christians I see today.

You want Christ back in Christmas? Put him back in Christianity first.

Non-Believer’s Christmas

I am not sure how to prepare for my first Christmas as a non-believer.  I know I love the trees and tinsel and lights.  I love Christmas carols and Christmas movies.  I will give gifts to family and loved ones, not because of the Magi but because atheists are good people.  I have hung lights all over the house.  I would pay to sing Messiah again.  But it occurs to me that all the superficial decorations, celebrations and gift giving are just that.  Superficial.  I will likely be extolled to remember the “reason for the season”.  We know it was a Roman compromise to celebrate Jesus’ birthday on what was already a “pagan” holiday and that Jesus, if he existed at all, was most likely born in March.  Doesn’t matter.  (Funny that we conclude anyone who believes in a deity different than our own favored deity is a pagan or an infidel.  So sad.)

Does it matter that I now know there never was a decree from Caesar Augustus to take a census anytime near the birth date of Jesus?  That was just made up.  Does it matter that I now know that Herod died 4 years before Jesus was born?  Does it matter that it is impossible for a heavenly body to hover over a specific city, and if it did planet earth would be toast?  A helicopter perhaps, but not a star.  Does it matter that believing Mary was a pregnant virgin is such a stretch, no pun intended, and that I simply cannot imagine insemination by a spirit?  Miracles, miracles, miracles.  All believable for simple folks with no knowledge of what lightning is or how to make stainless steel.  Most of the events in their lives were mysteries, if not miracles.  Does it matter that upon deep reflection it occurs to me there was really no reason for God to father a human child, though many other “gods” of that era did so.  Especially if the sole purpose of that son whom he supposedly loved was to grow up and die a terrible death.  Goodness.  What an awful thing to do to a son one claims to love.  But the answer is, yes it does matter.  I find it sad much as I found it sad when I learned Santa was a myth.  But it is all mythical.

But I am not bah humbug about the pageantry of Christmas.  I just view it as secular, the very thing I used to rage against.  Yes, I can sing “Away in the Manger” and know it is a myth just as I can sing “Rocky Raccoon” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” and know the same.

OK, perhaps I will survive my first Christmas as a non-believer.  Just please don’t ask me to honor the reason for the season as I now believe we all really know it is for commercial, retail success. 

Happy Holidays!  Or, Merry Christmyth

Religious Folly: the Bible Museum, the Ark Encounter

The Hobby Lobby $500 million dollar Bible Museum is to open today in Washington DC.  This is the same company that fought all the way to the US Supreme Court arguing that based on the religious beliefs of the owners they should not be required to offer health insurance that included contraceptives for women employees.  They believe contraceptives are a sin.  Unbelievably the current conservative Supreme Court ruled in Hobby Lobby’s favor and exempted them from the federal law mandating such coverage as part of the Affordable Care Act.  Evidently, it is OK to discriminate if you are a certain flavor of Christian.  That is one of the most moronic and oxymoronic positions I have ever heard.  Why not fight providing drugs for HIV to single people?  Premarital sex is a sin.  Why not fight providing mental health coverage for divorcees?  Divorce is a sin.  Why not fight any mental health coverage because it is caused by the infestation of demons?  Nope, the only issue for Hobby Lobby was contraceptives, which are not even mentioned in the Bible. 

Once again, fundamentalists stake out turf that is pure lunacy. 

I remain flabbergasted that people take the Bible literally.  In what state of mind must one be to argue that if it is in the Bible it is true and believable?  First, those folks are clearly in denial of all the science we have discovered and developed since we started saying “AD”.  The earth is not the center of our solar system or the universe, it took billions of years for earth to evolve, dinosaurs and humans were never on the planet at the same time, there was no great flood and no ark could hold the 2 million species present 4,000 years ago, etc.  The Bible is not a science textbook.  The Bible was written by humans, not God.  The Bible wasn’t even “official” as we know it today until about 400 years AD.  On and on and on.  No way can a thinking person believe this book is somehow literally correct.  And, if one can simply say I know these passages are wrong but I follow these passages, then clearly this is not a holy work.  Can’t have it both ways.  I suggest that everyone who believes the Bible is a literal truth should give up all the other accoutrements science has provided since 400 AD:  cell phones, air conditioning, automobiles, microwaves, air travel, computers, and on and on.  To be in denial of science should require the forfeit of the fruits of science.

Meanwhile, opening a museum to outline the history of the Bible seems OK as long as we all understand this cannot be a holy book because of all the errors recorded between the covers.  Surely a god would not make so many mistakes.  (My favorite boo boo is God supposedly created all the animals, male and female, but when it came to humans He forgot to make a female until Adam asked for one.  Give me a break.  You must be ribbing me.)  So, it is a work of fiction, concocted by humans and handed down to establish the church as an authority and the threat of hell as a punishment. 

And the Ark Encounter in Tennessee is a fiasco.  Though it is run as an amusement park it seeks tax exempt status as though it was a church.  Why does God need to be tax exempt?  Meanwhile, the whole format is fiction, flying directly in the face of known science.  There was no flood.  There was no ark.  Both would be impossible.  And I find some comfort in knowing it is all allegory because it describes an incredibly mean and hostile deity willing to destroy his creation if humans do not do as he asks.  Pretty funny since he gave us free will in the first place.  Poppycock and balderdash.

Millions and millions of dollars have been spent by Zealots and Pharisees to enshrine their own particular religious beliefs even though they are clearly false.  We should stop protecting such entities and enterprises.  If we find a flaw in a textbook, we correct it.  Not so, evidently, with the Bible.  The flaws become sacred and are held in high regard by people who abandon their brains for the sake of their hearts.  And such beliefs will not help us solve the problems of this century and beyond but will continue to serve as divisive practices triggering conflict and war.

Please, just let it go.  Spend those millions of dollars on helping people, not extolling your own particular archaic, non-functional, non-fact-based belief system.  Abandon folly for reason.

Believing is Not Logical or Scientific

In my childhood home there was a great adult conspiracy to nurture the belief in Santa Claus.  We talked about him, read stories and poems about him, wrote letters to him, saw cookie crumbs, half-empty glasses of milk and gnawed carrots on December 25^th at the crack of dawn.  I believed.  I was young, I was told to believe, the culture supported my belief and the evidence at my disposal supported my belief.  I do not know at what age it occurred to me that it was really impossible for a fat guy in sleigh pulled by flying reindeer to deliver gifts all over the world.  Scarier to me was that he knew whether I was naughty or nice.  Such surveillance is truly creepy.  Once I began asking questions, the jig was up and as he oldest kid I was conscripted to perpetrate the myth.  That did not mean that I stopped loving Christmas or my parents.  I just knew better than to believe in Santa.

I have had many doubts about many beliefs since my childhood.  I was told by our leaders when I was a young man that communism was a monolith and if one country fell under its dark shadow others would surely fall as dominoes.  We know that is not true now, but I believed it then.  I believed America was the very best place to live in all the world.  I believed that as a nation we did not do evil things, we did not renege on treaties, we did not plunder other nations for profit, we did not begin wars.  I know now those were false beliefs as the historical evidence is clear.  That did not mean I stopped loving the United States or its government.  I just knew better than to believe political mythology that was self-serving and seek the larger view.

We know humans once believed the earth to be flat.  They once believed the earth was the center of the universe and solar system.  They once believed the earth was only 6,000 years old.  On and on until some began to ask questions and gather data.  Now we know the earth is round, the sun is the center of our solar system, and the earth is about 4.5 billions of years old. 

And even as I say all the above I know there are adults somewhere who still believe in Santa, the domino theory, the greatest country in the world theory and the earth is flat, the center and young theory.  I look at them all the same way.  It is a pity they do not know.  Worse, they do not want to know.

But belief only stands until we challenge it with evidence, fact, science and/or logic.  We can believe in cookie crumbs and gnawed carrots until the reality of the belief sinks in.  At which point we know it to be myth.  We have some quasi beliefs and quasi evidence around ghosts, UFOs, Big Foot and the like.  Surely one day we will have concrete evidence, but until such a day I will remain a skeptic having learned via Santa that true fans and converts should not the source of a reality check.  Those who believe what skeptics scoff will seek and/or create evidence where there is none, or will allow to pass as evidence that which is not.

I could spring from this juncture to politics, economics, history, etc.  My intent from the beginning was to spring to the topic of religion.  And so I shall, after a brief aside.

I believe I am loved.  I know people who claim to love me and by their actions demonstrate that they do.  I also know people who claimed to love me and at some point stopped.  Ouch.  I know people who are mad at me, and people who are offended by me, people who are afraid of me, and people who are amused by me, etc.  But yes, I believe in human emotions as I can see them and observe them.  Feelings can be measured and observed and are not the subject of this epistle, so no sidetracking or rabbit chasing.

Religion for me is the organized beliefs currently not grounded in logic, reasoning or science mutually shared by a group of people.  Beliefs are taught, not discovered.  Such beliefs typically include reasons for being, moral codes, supernatural beings, explanations of both beginnings and endings of the universe, etc.  Such beliefs are typically recorded in some perceived sacred text.  Such beliefs are not rational (beliefs were not discovered via telescope, microscope, etc.) and that a believer has a difficult time perceiving non-belief, therefore evangelical or missionary work on the part of the believers is common.  Just as a 4 year old will scream, cry and/or lash out in anger at the suggestion that Santa is not real, a religious believer will threaten eternal torture and display similar behaviors aimed at non-believers.  Believers not only absolutely believe their belief is true, they believe everyone should believe as they believe.

Those who ardently hold religious beliefs are some of the most challenging humans of all as logic does not drive them, belief does.  By my definition, religion is not logical.

If the Chinese, for example, found a way to treat all our drinking water with a chemical inducing total amnesia and were able while we were all asleep to confiscate all Bibles written and digitized what might happen?  Would we awake and “discover” God again?  Would God make an appearance?  Would we re-write the Bible?  Of course not.  That belief would disappear, and other folks would write new sacred books answering the questions they long to have answered and are too impatient to wait for science to discover.  If we forgot all we knew about electricity, we would discover that again.  The same is true for all our scientific knowledge.  Our religious beliefs, once forgotten, are gone forever.  There were generations and generations, thousands and thousands who believed in and worshiped an entire pantheon of Greek gods, then Roman gods and before all of them Egyptian gods.  Not so any more.  Most everyone is an atheist when it comes to Zeus.  We do not believe he is real or that he ever existed or that he merits our love, devotion, prayers or money.  He is now officially a myth.  Students learn about him in school under the rubric “mythology.”  However, suggest to a believer of a current religion that their belief is a myth and one will likely be confronted one way or another.

It seems as rational to me to think that no being can hear the prayers of close to 8 billion people as it is to think that no Christmas fat guy can keep a list of all the children in the world and their behavior.  Though believers believe that to be true and that both beings, Santa and God, act on their lists.  I find that almost humorous.  It seems rational to me that a God capable of creating the universe could develop a plan to save folks from sin other than killing his own son.  It seems rational to me that if there was life after death we would have evidence of that by now.  It seems rational to me that if there is a heaven or a hell we should be able to discover the coordinates, or at least some parallel universe if that is where everyone who has ever lived now resides.  It seems rational to me that if we somehow exist forever it is either with no memory of this life, therefore it does not matter, or we would spend all our time attempting to get in touch with those we loved and still live.  If I am conscious after death I will not forget my children.  How could I?  I assume the same is true for my father and mother, now deceased.  And yet, I have not heard a word.

The above is just logical to me. 

Worse, is to unwrap the psychology of these gods in whom folks believe.  Seems there is a god credited with creating earth and creating men and women in his image.  That is still a mystery.  Was this god transgender?  If he created humans for this planet why didn’t he give us gills as 75% of the planet is covered in water?  In fact, he placed us on a planet where only about 25% of the planet is capable of supporting human life.  Why would he do that?  Why would he apparently punish his first man and woman by cursing all other future humans?  How mean is that?  How forgiving is that?  Why would he get mad again and destroy all life on the planet except those in a boat?  That is exceptionally cruel and intolerant.  Why would he send his offspring here to save us, then kill his offspring?  Especially if his plan was to reanimate his son, why die in the first place?  I can think of a jillion other things he could have done that would in fact be much more impressive.  Why just catching fire and levitating off the cross would have created a stir.  Why did he send his son before we all walked around with cameras?  Why did he send his son to an illiterate area of the world instead of China or India who were much more literate and advanced?  Why would his sacred texts take hundreds of years to codify?  Why would he allow humans to write it at all?  Why not just carve it in stone and hide it under the ark?  Why would he allow so many historical atrocities to be committed in his name?  Why would he want us to remember him using a cannibalistic type service?  If he knows all and sees all why didn’t he have his son come right out and address the coming worldwide issues of race, slavery, sexual identity and nationalism?  What is wrong with this guy?  And if he wants us to think of him as our father, then does that mean we are his sons and daughters and are as much at risk as his own son?  Scary.

We know the account of his creation of earth and life are wrong in terms of sequence and time line.  So can we trust anything?  And why did he create cancer?  Why did he create greed?  Why did he create fear?  Why did he create lust?  And on and on.  Seems if I were going to put a life form together I would eliminate the attributes that are most destructive to that life form.  I guess this god just wants us to suffer.

Where is he?  We can measure sunshine on a cloudy day, we can measure oceans currents well below the surface, but we have no clue where god is.  I know where he is not.  He was not with those who have lost their lives on any crash of an airliner where the passengers knew they would crash.  He was not with those who died in storms, and tsunamis and earthquakes.  He is not in the hospitals where everyone prays for healing.  He is not with those who love him and set out on the highway never to return.

Or, he was with all those people and did nothing.  In our law, that is called negligent homicide.  If he could save people from death and did not, he is guilty. 

Or, if death is desirable why such a fight from the most religious when it comes to suicide, abortion, etc.  Why not have a big garage sale and all of us head to never-never-land.  Seems one cannot have it both ways:  dream of a life everlasting in heaven but fear and avoid death, god will not help you avoid death, but will damn you forever if you get there on your own.

Looks to me like religious belief will go the way of flat earth.  We will learn what many have already figured out.  You get one life.  It is short.  It is unpredictable.  Live it the best you can serving others not yourself.  You will die like all living things die and return to the stardust from which we are all made.  Heaven, hell, eternity, etc., are all myths.  Now be a good person because you choose to be and not because some supreme deity has you under constant surveillance.  And, save your money.  We have enough temples and churches to last until our sun goes nova and we all die.

Surveillance and Thought Police

I really enjoyed the TV series, “Person of Interest.”  Great fun.  The premise, if you are not a fan, is that everyone is monitored all the time everywhere and a super computer informs the good guys when bad things are going to happen.  Rescue ensues.  It is a little creepy to think about being monitored all the time, but the premise is not new.  Orwell’s 1984 may have spawned movies like “Enemy of the State”, “Minority Report”, “Colossus:  The Forbin Project,” “Eagle Eye,” “The Net,” and others that follow the same theme.  Big Brother is watching all the time.  Spooky.  Close the drapes.

And yet we rely on surveillance footage to stop crime.  Even cops wear cameras to monitor the bad guys and the cops.  One cannot go to a convenience store or an ATM without being recorded.  Even couples engaging in a little PDA at athletic events may find themselves on the big screen.  Our phones and our cars can be located by GPS.  (I am so grateful I was not tracked or monitored to that extent while I was dating in high school and college.) 

That is our issue, privacy versus security.  Clearly, if everyone were monitored all the time we could dramatically reduce crime.  On the other hand, do we really want to live in a nation where everyone is always on candid camera?  I do not wish to live in such a state.  We even set up cameras in the woods to track game, zombies, Big Foot and other creatures.  Amazing.  Is my computer spying on me?  Should I turn off my web cam so if I have to scratch I can do it in private?  Or should I simply acquiesce to universal voyeurism?

I have serious concerns about these issues, and I suspect you do too.  It is not enough to say only bad guys and folks with evil intent should fear monitoring or searches or whatever practice invades privacy.  One is not known to be a bad guy until the monitoring.  So we are all suspects until proven innocent.  And how many of us could literally be monitored our entire life and not have a police record?  I stole bubble gum from a convenience store when I was in 3^rd grade.  Thank goodness the statute of limitations has expired, though such a confession may make me a candidate for future surveillance. 

For now, our only surveillance is of behaviors and speech.  I can be monitored in many ways, but my thinking, my beliefs, my feelings, my fantasies and my nightmares are not subject to scrutiny unless I make such thoughts public.  A world where not only are all my behaviors recorded but my inner most thoughts and processes are also monitored is a truly frightening place.  Worse, I might be held accountable for a thought that never became action.  Is that not scary?

Welcome to the concept of God.  Jesus made it pretty clear that if you think a sin you have committed a sin.  Wow.  Check out Matthew 5: 27-28, Matthew 15: 17-20, Mark 7: 20-23.  Yep.  If you think it you have sinned.  God is the thought police.  I have a real problem with that sort of totalitarian scrutiny.  I would never support such scrutiny of humans by humans.  How could I possibly support such scrutiny by a deity?  Worse, it is not just the scrutiny, but if one does not seek forgiveness for a thought one may be burned in hell for all eternity for his or her thought sins.  That’s a considerably worse sentence than 5 to 10 in the state pen.  Such punishment, such risk, such surveillance does not sound like the behavior a loving deity to me.  It is the ultimate fascism.

And I have a hard time loving or even believing in a supernatural being who would practice such atrocities.  Why give me free will if I am to be damned for eternity just thinking about what I might do with that free will?  God bless Jimmy Carter who confessed he had sinned because he had lust in his heart for another woman.  Holy cow.  Why wire humans to be sexually attracted to each other then send us to hell if we simply think, “what if?”

Sounds to me like such a deity is mean spirited, controlling and totalitarian.  I do not see the love in this, I see fear mongering.  If God knows all my thoughts why should I even bother to pray?  He knows.  So why doesn’t he answer?  Oh yeah, he has a mysterious plan for each of us that we seek to stumble on because he won’t just come out and tell us.

Really?  Worship such a being?  Pray to such a being when I am damned before I start?  OK, the fervent among you will argue that once forgiven by God we are eternally forgiven.  But that makes no sense.  Is that a license to lust forever?  I thought the commandment was you are forgiven, now go and sin no more.  So sin, seek forgiveness, sin seek forgiveness is an eternal loop we cannot escape instituted by a being who is determined to be worshipped using fear and punishment as the motivator.  And if one wants to argue he loves all of us, then why did he allow his own son to die a horrible death?  If he is willing to allow that, what chance do I have?

Nope, such a being is more like a child’s nightmare, a fairy book fable designed to scare us all into being good all the time.  I choose to be good out of love, out of respect, out of integrity, not fear.  I will screw up.  Perhaps caught on a camera when I do.  But I refuse to believe that there is a supernatural being who is monitoring all my thoughts. 

Jesus, give me some privacy, will you?  Or, if you are monitoring, how about granting some of those wishes for a change.

God Bless Texas

I journeyed to our County Courthouse to renew the registration sticker for my truck.  Yes, I live in Texas and yes, I drive a truck.  The clerk was ever so polite and in just a few minutes I left with a new registration sticker-enclosed envelope.  Our county Tax Assessor/Collector is a new person, replacing a wonderful lady who held the post for years and years.  Evidently our new gal wants to make an impression, so the envelope that held my sticker looked very different from the previous county-provided envelopes.  Emblazoned in large print across the left side of the envelope was the phrase, “God Bless Texas.”

And for a minute I am speechless.  Is this still America?  Do we still believe the government, any government, should not promote religion?  Do we still believe it is unconstitutional to spend tax payer money promoting religion?  Is that our America?  Or have we become a land where the rule is think like me, or you are wrong, and I can ram my thoughts down your throat using your tax own dollars?

Suppose the envelope said, “Allah Bless Texas”?  Or Ra or Zeus or Baal?  Would people who believe in God be horrified?  Yes.  Suppose the envelope said, “Atheists for Texas”?  In other words, this kind of democratic blasphemy only happens where the majority are so ensconced they cannot even picture a minority point of view.  Or worse, they can picture a minority point of view but believe the minority to be “wrong” so they proceed anyway. 

And if one believes there is a god and that he or she can bless a state, why not include the entire nation?  Does God recognize state boundary lines?  Why not request a blessing for the planet?  Why not check in with the Harvey/Irma/Nate victims and see if they feel blessed, or the children who just lost insurance, or the folks who will die today from gunshots, or all the folks now sleeping under a bridge, or the children dying in the cancer ward, or the children who will be abducted this year and sold as sex slaves, or the folks who are dirt poor while working two jobs.  They are not going to feel blessed.  If such a prayer, and it is a prayer, only works for some and not for all, should we print it?  So, if god does not answer such a requests, should we print it, or does it become some sort of false promotion? 

There are profound reasons for separating church and state.  No secular government should ever endorse one religion over another, or religion over no religion.  A person’s most intrinsic right should be the right to believe as he or she chooses.  For the state to ever indicate there is a good choice in the belief arena is to indicate all other choices are bad choices.  And the state has absolutely no right to imply that.

Our biggest beef with the Muslim community in the Mid-East is that they want Sharia law to govern the state.  We see that as blasphemy while at the same time many promote making Christian law the law of the state here in the US.  There is no difference in this sort of blasphemy, this sort of state intrusion into our precious, sacred internal belief structures.

I do not think Monica did this with mal-intent.  I think she did it out of ignorance of the fact that not all in the US or even Jackson County are God-believing people, or even believe in the same God she professes.  I think for equity we also need envelopes that say Allah bless Texas, Buddha bless Texas, Atheists bless Texas and Zeus bless Texas.  If that strikes horror in the minds of some then you know how I felt when I read the current envelope.

And then I pass the electronic sign outside our school district offices and read, “Prayers for victims of….”  And once again I am thrilled to know my tax dollars are promoting someone else’s religious beliefs.

The History of God

And the Swedes seem to have confirmed that humans have been on the planet about 350,000 years.  Way longer than the 100,000 year estimate of before.  So, on this Sunday morning that has a huge impact on my religious thinking.  So, for the first 10,000 years of humans there is no evidence of that the god of the old testament revealed himself.  Nor for the first 20,000, the first 30,000, the first 40,000, the first 50,000, and on and on until we get to about the first 346,000 years  when the real god revealed himself to a nomadic, illiterate group in the mid east.  God did not reveal himself to the Chinese.  They could read and write.  He revealed himself to a people who had to have an oral history.  He revealed himself to Bronze Age thinkers.  He revealed himself to a group that referred to their homeland as the land of milk and honey, but it is the only land in the mid east that has no oil.  India already had gods,  China already had gods, many in the mid east already had gods.  Why did this god wait so long to reveal himself and why did he choose the Israelites.  He could have chosen the Greeks who already had a wonderful pantheon of gods.  Nope.

And I wonder, if the collective memories of humanity were wiped out, if we lost all our knowledge and all our books and all our hard drives and thumb drives and servers and clouds, would we "re-discover" god?  Seems highly, highly unlikely. 

Think I will avoid church today.  I know they will not discuss these issues.  They will engage in a cannibalistic ritual ("this is my flesh, this is my blood") and ask for money since the all-powerful all-knowing miracle-working creator god always seems to need money.

And to all the Christians in Puerto Rico:  If you believe god will take care of you, that having Jesus in your life is all you will ever need, that even as he cares for the sparrow he will care for you, why the hell are you mad at Trump?

Is God a Dictator?

I am beginning to feel very uneasy.  Evidently God watches me 24/7.  Worse, he judges me.  Even worse, however he judges me will be carried out for eternity.  That is very scary.  That is the ultimate police state, the ultimate dictatorship, the ultimate control.  Why would he do that if he loves me?  Why would he do that if he wants the best for me?  Why would he do that if he designed me to be imperfect, to have needs and urges and addictions he does not approve of?  Why did he set me up for failure?  If he is watching all the time why doesn’t he intervene?  Why not tell Eve, “Don’t touch that apple!” as she reaches for it?  (And why are humans still being punished for that screw up?) Tell Hitler that Jews are good people who just don’t know him yet.  Tell Trump that deities do not recognize borders or walls?  Why does he sit there and just watch us screw up?

Though evidently if I give up all that I have and all that I own and totally follow him it will all be OK.  Probably not right now because I will have nothing, but for all eternity I should be OK.  Even North Korea does not ask so much of its citizens.

So yes, he must be a tyrant, a big brother who knows all, sees all; otherwise he could not judge us for all eternity.  It is the ultimate Aldous Huxley and George Orwell nightmare.  Add to that the fact that he is guilty of negligent homicide every day, promotes human sacrifice and cannibalism and I am really getting spooked.  I get it that Jonah wanted to hide and ended up in the belly of a whale.  I want to hide too.  What critter will swallow me for attempting to avoid the ultimate surveillance?  I don’t think tinfoil on my head will do the trick.

Or, perhaps, there really isn’t a big dictator in the sky monitoring every move of 7 billion people, and such a being is like the bogeyman, created to scare some into doing the right thing.

"The Eyes of Jesus are upon you,

All the livelong day.

The Eyes of Jesus are upon you,

You cannot get away.

Do not think you can escape them

At night or early in the morn --

The Eyes of Jesus are upon you

Til Gabriel blows his horn."

Facebook Religion

It has been a terrible time in Texas and Florida for many, many people.  And though there are wing-nuts out there who, like Pat Robertson, believe natural disasters are God’s way of punishing the pagans, it is very interesting to me to try and detect what people really believe.  One of the ways for me to do that is to read posts on Facebook, even if it gives me an ulcer and high blood pressure.  I’ve read the following recently:

“A lot of sirens this morning. I don't like it.  Praying!!”  Really? Praying for what?  The sirens indicate something bad has happened, so praying something bad does not happen is pointless.  Praying for the safety of the first responders.  That makes sense, but I am not aware of heavenly intervention in times of disaster.  So why pray?

“If you woke up feeling blessed give God an Amen.”  And if your spouse washed your clothes, set the alarm, snuggled before arising, made the coffee and made your breakfast give him or her the amen because you are truly blessed.  On the other hand, if you await being rescued after having lost all that you own, you are hungry, thirsty, sick, wet, hot and tired and prior to the storm you prayed for God to protect you then you may not feel so blessed.  Some might argue being alive is a blessing.  Perhaps, but that does not help explain the 44,000 people who committed suicide last year, twice the number of homicides.

“Jesus, I can’t make it on my own.  I need you in my life.  Today.  Tomorrow.  Forever.  Amen.”  Co-dependency is really hard to escape, especially if it is with a paranormal being.  Do you feel Jesus in your life?  Do you know that is likely delusional?  It is very sad if you perceive you cannot make it unless a fictional, imaginary friend helps you. 

“Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something, when the Bible clearly says you can do all things through Christ.”  Unless you were trying to walk on water during Harvey or Irma.  Unless you were trying to hold your roof on during the storm.  Unless you were trying to get your spouse to come back.  Unless you wanted your team to win.  Unless you wanted your candidate to win.  Unless you wanted to save everyone you love from cancer.  Unless, unless, unless.  In fact, do you know someone who was able to do something because Christ helped them?

“God will open doors no man can shut.”  Unless you were on the German Wings flight and the co-pilot locked the door and took the entire plane down with him.  God chose not to open that door.  Unless you were on flight 93 on 9/11/2001.  Unless you were trapped in an elevator as flood waters rose.  God seems to be very reluctant to open doors.

“God is with me.  I walk without fear.”  That is why I have dead bolts, an alarm system, and a permit to carry a concealed firearm.  So much malarkey.  People live in fear and when the boogey man comes and they plead to God for succor, they become victims anyway.

“If you lose everything but still have Jesus, you still have everything you need.”  As long as that “everything” includes air to breath, food to eat, water to drink, shelter from the storms.  If not you will die.  So if you lose electricity and your house then even with Jesus you are still in big trouble.

I could go on and on.  The bottom line for me is that these platitudes do more harm than good for the Christian faith.  They are clearly flawed logic and not Biblical.  Even those that are Biblical based are in fact mostly BS.

So if you pray to God for help in the storm and you lose everything, what does that mean?  If you pray to God for help in the storm and you drown what does that mean?  If you pray to God to steer the storm out to sea and it hits you dead on, what does that mean?  Is God taking a nap?  Does God simply choose not to intervene when he surely could?  Does it mean God has a secret plan that includes the death and suffering of thousands?  We are talking about the same being who was willing to have his son executed.  What could we possible expect from such a being? 

If I had the power to eradicate cancer I would do so.  If I had the power to steer storms out to sea I would do so.  If I had the power to save all those dying of hunger and thirst I would do so.  If I have the power to save hundreds of thousands of human beings from earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes, etc., I would do so.  The question is, what does it say about a supernatural being who has such power and chooses not to use it?  I say he is guilty of negligent homicide.  Or more likely, he is just an imaginary friend.

Is God in Control?

Not that much on Facebook inspires me, but I saw one of those postings from the ever faithful that extoled me to trust in God in difficult times because God is in control.  Really?  That pretty well boggles my brain.

If God is in control, do we have free will?  How could we?  If God decides who will do what to whom whenever how could we argue we have free will?  If we have free will, then how can God be in control?  Are each of us in control of our own actions and our own reactions?  If so, God is not in control.

If God is in control, why do we have difficult times to begin with?  Why doesn’t he or she simply make life smooth and easy?  If he or she is in control and the hard times in my life are the direct result of God’s will then why would I worship such a being who has wrecked such havoc on me?  That is not a picture of a God of love but a picture of some being with a mean and punitive streak.  More, why would I trust him or her to end the havoc when he or she caused the havoc?  Does God delight in my misery?  If God does not cause or allow the havoc, then God is not in control.

If God is in control then does he or she simply choose to ignore the prayers of millions who beseech him or her for some cause, some loved one, some release from pain and misery?  If it is within his or her power to do so and he or she chooses not to do it, we are back to a mean and punitive God.  If bad stuff just happens then God is not in control.

So, if God is in control I see no conclusion possible other than he or she is mean and punitive and not a benevolent God of love.  God is some being to be feared and avoided.

If God is capable of being in control but simply waits in the wings to step in, then what determines his or her decision to step in?  Is it just for the folks he likes and who profess their love for him or her?  No, I see far too many of the faithful beset by terrible things while pleading with God for succor.  I see far too many godless scoundrels doing very well.  If he or she can step in and exercise control like he or she did with the Red Sea, the walls of Jericho, the water into wine, the demons out of the pig, etc., etc., then why doesn’t he or she do more of that these days?  Somehow seeing Jesus’ face on a pancake is not awe inspiring.

If God is not in control, why would we worship such a simple spectator anyway?  He or she must enjoy our pain and our death.  The violence that can wash over me watching professional sports, or clips from the front line in war time leave me feeling sick.  God must love all that as he or she has a full time view of all that misery.  We are all going to die so God gets a front row seat.  Superman, a fictional character, has a nobler mission and accomplishes more honorable tasks than God. 

It makes very little sense to turn to God when times are difficult.  He/she either caused those tough times, allowed them to happen, uses some unknown criteria to decide whether to intervene or not, or is helpless to do so.  In which scenario do we turn to God for help and believe he or she will provide or can provide such help?

I can think of no reasonable answer other than God is not in control.  If God is not in control and/or could be but chooses not to be, why would we trust in such a God?  Perhaps, man created God and not vice versa.  I would love to believe there is a Superman God who will swoop in faster than a speeding bullet to save the day when times are tough.  But there is no such God.  We even make excuses for his or her lack of existence by saying that all this pain is somehow part of his or her plan which we do not know.  If God plans for me to have such pain I have a hard time worshipping him or her while he or she is guilty of such cruelty. 

No, God is not in control.  It appears to me that if God is in control he or she is evil.  It is easier and more logical to conclude that we are in control of what we believe about God. 

A New Biblical Translation

There are at least 50 English language versions of the Bible, and many more if one looks at translations of a portion of the Bible.  That is amazing.  It occurred to me to check this out when a “friend” on Facebook said to me that there is only one infallible word of God.  And I thought, “Really?  Then why do we have so many translations of the Bible, assuming that it is the infallible word of God?  Which version is infallible?

And then it occurs to me that the revisions occur because language use changes and because our translation tools improve.  Newer versions are likely more readable, more understandable and more accurate.  Isn’t that funny, as in funnydementalism?  If we are told God’s word is infallible and not subject to challenge, don’t we need to know which translation that person is following?  Doesn’t the very fact that we need newer translations imply that the older translations are somehow (blasphemy?) fallible?

And if that is true, if we update the Bible based on new use of the English Language and new knowledge of translation skills, why not update the Bible based on other new knowledge.  Knowledge we have gained since the Bronze Age could be used to replace and enhance the limited knowledge base available when the Bible was written?

For example:  We believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but in reality we know that there was nothingness, then the big bang, then everything including time.  When we say “heavens” we are including all the celestial bodies we can observe with a full understanding that from another perspective earth is part of someone else’s heavens.  After the big bang there was no total darkness as stars formed and galaxies formed and planets formed around stars.  The bang separated darkness from light.  Day and night are irrelevant concepts from a universal perspective as every orbiting body faces toward or away from the nearest star at some point.  If not, then there is no separation of day and night on such a planet.  On earth, day and night are separated only because the earth orbits the sun and spins on its axis.

I could go on and insert what we know about the growth of our oceans, the emergence of life forms, the millions and billions of years of development on our planet, even the constant movement of the so-called firmament, etc.  Why don’t we update the Biblical translation with our current scientific knowledge and not just our translation knowledge?

And while we are at it, why don’t we update the Bible with our current social science knowledge.  Why don’t we tweak verses so that we know slavery is bad, so that we know treating women as second class citizens is bad, so that we know totalitarian rule is bad?  Why don’t we address sexual identity and preference instead of assuming the Bronze Age perspective?  Why don’t we update medical knowledge regarding homosexuality, gender identity, abortion?  Why don’t we praise curiosity and discovery and not just strict adherence to dogma?

I suspect if someone wrote a new translation of the Bible that was historically, socially and scientifically accurate we would have a much smaller book and a lot less social conflict.  

Cracks in my Faith

I created this blog a year ago, though I have some fundamental friends who argue only God can create.  All I know is the idea emerged in my brain, I named a blog after the idea, and something was here in cyberspace that was not here before.  In the past year I have written 36 posts, or about 3 per month.  If you are reading this I thank you and encourage you to interact with me via comments.  Or, you can become a follower and get notices when I write another post.  But, for me to seek “followers” somehow seems hypocritical or at least oxymoronic.

So a year later I see very deep cracks in my faith.  My family was Christian.  My father was a Presbyterian minister.  When I was a kid if the church doors were open we were there, and we had to obey and listen and learn.  I was “saved” in junior high and have been regarded as a man of faith ever since.  As a principal and as a school superintendent I would offer a blessing before faculty meals.  I did my best to follow the tenets of my belief in my practice as a public school administrator.

And then I retired and had a lot of time on my hands.  I was totally rattled, totally, when the German Wings airliner went down in the French Alps killing all 150 aboard.  You remember:  the co-pilot locked the pilot out of the cockpit and aimed the plane straight down from 38,000 feet.  Passengers and crew had about 9 minutes knowing they were going to die.  9 minutes is a long time.  I assumed all or almost all of them were frantically praying for an intervening miracle.  They called on the God who parted the Red Sea and made it Flood for 40 days, and created the world and the universe and arranged to have a virgin conceive and arranged to raise people from the dead and turn water into wine and feed 5,000 from a loaf of bread.  They called on Him or Her to save them from a maniac.  But, he chose not to.  Can there possibly be a scenario where a loving creator allows that many of his creations to die all at once in a horrible explosion?  It hit me suddenly and hard:  No God who claims to love us would allow that to happen.  Not that tragedy and many more.

So my faith cracked a little.  Then I started reading believers and atheists.  Guess what.  The atheists make more sense.  Believers simply say I believe, I believe there is a God, I believe there is a God that loves me and hears my prayers, and I believe he can turn a deaf ear and let me live in pain or die horribly because that is his plan, but I do not believe he has evil plans.  At this point I am ready to say that if you do not recognize this as BS then waterfront property in Kansas is going to look good to you.

The cracks got wider.  There is no way a sane, thoughtful, educated person can read the Bible and conclude it is true.  I took a yellow marker and started reading.  I highlighted every passage I knew conflicted with a scientific or historical fact.  I played along with angels in skies and bushes burning and chiseled stone tablets, but could not allow a 7 day creation story when we know so much more.  I could not allow the logic of creating all life on this planet then simply watching 99% of all those life forms become extinct.  I could not allow that God created man in his own image and gave him the right to subdue the earth, but made sure that only about 15% of the planet is available for this chosen life form to survive on.  Something is seriously askew.  Either my beliefs are false, or God is mean and a practical joker.  If 75% of this planet is water and He wants us to thrive, why don’t we have flippers and gills?

And then I started listening, really listening to the believers.  What I had always heard for my entire life now sounded more and more like pure crap.  We never walk alone?  God will never give me more than I can handle?  Our prayers are answered, each and every one of the more than 7 billion prayers that float silently somewhere, will be answered.  But when the answer comes it may not be what we want and it may not come at all.  Really? Then why pray?  Because I have faith God hears me.  Yeah, but you have about a 33% chance of getting what you asked for and a 33% chance of being ignored, and a 33% chance of getting something you do not want at all.  Given these odds I would recommend not praying as a much more reasonable approach.  Guess all those folks who died on the German Wings flight got exactly the opposite they prayed for.  All of them.

Though people say the Bible is God’s word it would at best be a dictation from God through the ears to the hands of humans.  Errors arise.  If a bunch of uneducated men from the Bronze Age write it, even with good intentions, then there will be even more errors.  If God actually wrote the Bible He made a lot of mistakes.  I mean a lot.  The inconsistencies, the varying accounts, the falsehoods are all over the place.  So, if it is the literal word of God, God is a moron.  If not, if it is truly human error we observe, then why read any of it?

So let’s talk timeline.  The oldest Jewish writings are circa 1400 BCE.  The oldest writings that are Biblical in nature are from around 800 BCE.  But Hindu writings dating from 1500 BCE are preserved, Gathas writings from1500-500 BCE, and the Rigveda from 1700 BCE.  Most amazing is that we have the Sumerian Gilgamesh from 2000 BCE.  In other words, the existence of the Jewish and Christian written story seems to begin around 2,800 years ago.  The Hindu story begins about 3500 years ago, and the Gilgamesh narrative is the oldest still at about 4,100 years ago.

So, let’s say there is one God and He/She created everything, why didn’t He or She reveal himself/herself to humans all at the same time?  Why allow various gods and deities and demigods to claim a foothold?  And if there is something divine about the Jewish narrative we have inherited, why is it the last one to begin if the God was first on the scene? Leads one more and more to proclaim that man made god, not the other way around.

And if it is blasphemy to suggest that the God of the Old and New Testament is a human invention, God could settle all that in a heartbeat.  Just show up!  Perform some miracle and identify yourself.  There are enough cell phone cameras to document the event and we could settle all this once and for all.  No more religious wars, no more money raising campaigns, no more killing of pagans.  We would all know.  There is more anecdotal evidence of UFO’s than there is the presence of a god.

That won’t happen because a central tenet of the believers is that God works in mysterious ways and we are not privy to his plans.  So anyone who claims to know God’s plans is crazy.  Therefore, it takes an enormous amount of faith to believe that this God really exists and remain sane.  More so that he has a plan.  Even more so to accept him as loving as we view the pain and misfortune all around us.  Why is childhood cancer part of his plan?  That is just mean.

It gets even harder for me when I attempt to juxtapose the notion that God is love and that he loves us as his creation and his children, and yet he is very willing to let us die, and he is very willing to cast us into an eternal hell if we do not do as we are told to do.  That does not sound like love.  That sounds like punishment and damnation.  And anyone who crosses God gets dead including Pharaoh’s army, folks in Sodom and Gomorrah, everyone at the time of the flood, etc.  Not so much love for humans in any of those settings.

And God holds a grudge.  Poor Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge.  They were told not to, but they did it anyway, much as my kids do.  But not only did they pay a severe penalty (they were kicked out of the house and forced to change their wardrobe and get a job) but from then on child birth was going to hurt like hell.  How mean a parent is that?  Even worse, that punishment extends to today and covers all of us long after Adam and Eve are dead and gone.  That is just not ethical.

And what is this BS about God opposing homosexuality and abortion?  The out and out punishment for divorce stated clear as hell is death by stoning.  Homosexuality and abortion are much more muddy references.  And why didn’t Jesus address those issues directly while He was here?  As an omniscient son of god surely he knew conflict was coming along these lines, as well as along the lines of slavery and gender equality.  But no, he spoke nothing about future issues that currently tear us apart.  Not so omniscient to me.  In fact, he spoke in ways that assumed slavery and women's subservient role were present and would last.  That is not what I would expect from a God of all time.  That is a God of the past, a God of the status quo, a God of 2,000 years ago.  I am of the opinion that looking to the Bible for guidance on science, as in archeology and astronomy and physics or for guidance on human relationships and culture as in marriage, divorce, child rearing, abortion, race relations, gender issues is as nuts as looking to the Bible for hints on computer repair or even internal combustion engines.  This book addressed issues from centuries ago and is obsolete in all those areas and more.

I am now nesting with the thought that God is an imaginary friend whom many have abandoned as they matured intellectually.  Heaven is more like never-never land, a mythical place that does not really exist, and the same is true for Hell.  Man invented God to solve some problems and answer some questions, but now that we grow ever closer to solving a lot of problems via science and math, we do not need imaginary beings to help.  We live.  We love.  We die.  If billions of people have transcended earth to another place and/or dimension that we call heaven, should we not have heard from at least one or two of them after they were gone?  What are the coordinates for heaven anyway?  Nowhere in the known universe, unless like the Klingon war birds heaven is cloaked.

And why would we be expected to give an all knowing, all powerful god some of our money?  Surely the Almighty can handle His own PR efforts.

Easter: Mytherious Ways?

Holy week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.  Wow.  One would think spectacular things would happen on the religious front this week.  Doesn’t look like it.  Looks more like bombings in Syria and brinkmanship around North Korea. 

Saw a post on Facebook this morning that asked everyone to pray to God to cure those who have cancer.  Said if you agree to like and share.  Right.  Like that will make some kind of difference.  Why not pray to extinguish all cancer?  Why not ask why God allowed cancer in the first place?  Especially childhood cancer.  Seems to me if He allowed it then there is no reprieve from it.  Same is true of all terminal illness.  And so I get to thinking about Easter and the nature of god.

Why did God develop a plan to save humans from sin by conducting a torturous death of His son?  What kind of nonsense is that?  I am the Great Almighty God and I cannot figure out a way to forgive sins other than nailing my son to a cross?  What is wrong with this picture?  Why does the Almighty need to conduct a blood sacrifice?  Why must we gather cannibal-like and eat his flesh and drink his blood?  Good Lord that is barbaric.  Why not just say if you love me and pray to me and do good works and obey my laws you will be saved and go to heaven?  Why all this melodramatic torture?

Are we to assume that the measure of God’s love for us is killing his own son?  (I assume God was capable of stopping the execution, Jesus asked him to, but he allowed it; therefore he did it.)  Is that our model?  Should I kill my son so that my daughter knows I love her?  What kind of god would structure it that way?  I do not feel his love for me via the death of Jesus.  I am horrified.

On the other hand, if God knew all along this was a temporary deal in that Jesus would die and then presto-chango come back to life then is it really a sacrifice at all?  If I give all my wealth to the poor knowing that three days later someone is going to reimburse me, have I made a sacrifice?  The crucifixion and resurrection make no sense at all no matter how one slices it.  There had to be a better plan available.

Unless the entire story was concocted to appeal to Bronze Age thinkers who were accustomed to sacrificing animals (sometimes humans!) as part of their religious practices.  Was this merely a myth circulated to appeal to other pagans who believed that killing something helped them in their relationship to whatever god they worshipped?  If that is the case, no wonder Jesus went beserk in the temple seeing money changers selling sacrificial animals.  One wonders if Jesus identified with the animals.  On the other hand, has God been enriched by the death of His son?  I would say yes.  (As George Carlin pointed out, God the Almighty is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient and capable of anything, but he needs a lot of money.)

Can this be possible?  Can it be that the son of god died in a horrible, torturous execution, and was buried?  A stone was rolled away and guards sedated or terrorized.  Women talked to an angel.  He rose from the dead.  He appeared to his closest followers who at first did not recognize him.  He allowed the one with doubt to touch his wounds, but does not allow anyone else since then to do so.  In fact, he requires that his followers believe with no real evidence.  He literally floated up into heaven.  Is heaven “up”?  Jesus raised Lazarus, God raised Jesus, but no other follower in modern times has ever been raised.  And if he is still alive why doesn’t he make guest appearances somewhere other than tree trunks, shrouds, and waffles?  And most of the people who talk to angels, ghosts and aliens are institutionalized.

No.  I cannot buy it.  I cannot respect, much less love, a god who would do such a thing to his own son.  I cannot fathom a resurrection for some but not for all.  I cannot believe when some are given evidence but not all.  I cannot believe there is a god so stupid as to develop this plan, or so vicious as to carry it out.  The leap of faith required to buy all this is not a leap of faith.  It is sky diving without a parachute.  It flies in the face of all the logic and science we know to be true.  It must be a myth.

Therefore, if there is a God, he/she works in Mytherious Ways.  And that is very sad.

National Atheist Day

I somehow missed National Atheist Day yesterday.  Lots of innuendo there.

But, there were some great quotations on-line:  (gathered from Goodreads, Ask Atheists and Brainy Quote)

• “We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” — Richard Dawkins in “The God Delusion"
• “To you, I'm an atheist. To God, I'm the loyal opposition.” — Woody Allen
• “Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money!” — George Carlin
• “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” — Edward Gibbon
• “Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?” — Friedrich Nietzsche
• “The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.” — George Bernard Shaw
• “Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.” — Napoleon Bonaparte
• “Atheism is a non-prophet organization.” — George Carlin
• “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” — Isaac Asimov
• “To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?” —Christopher Hitchens
• “Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” — Douglas Adams in “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”

Prayer for the Inevitable

I suppose one way to demonstrate that prayer works is to pray for the inevitable, and then when it happens say, “See.  God answers prayers.”

In addition to a broken arm I learned that my Mom has stage 4 pancreatic cancer and more cancer in her lungs and liver.  So, shall I pray and ask God to simply remove all the cancers, restore her broken arm, and reduce her age from 89 to 69?  Nope.  No point in such prayers.  Those prayers would be asking God for a miracle, a biological miracle.  Seems God is only willing to do that when it serves his/her interests as in suspending the laws of biology so that a virgin got pregnant and marketing Jesus’s powers.  Mom will die, and will die soon.  Prayers others have offered in her behalf have been that “she passes without pain” and support for the family in our grief.

We will grieve.  No way around that.  The process has begun.  What would support for us in grief look like?  The end of grief?  No, that somehow discounts our love for Mom.  Less grief?  How does one measure level of grief?  If I bear the grief and life goes on is that the work of God or is that the fact that I know grief, I know it is coming, I will find things to celebrate about her life in her death.  That is my doing, not God’s.

And comfort her in her death?  If God did that why would we need Hospice?  Why would we need powerful pain killing drugs?  No, God is not going to comfort her in her death.  Modern medicine and Medicare funded support services will do that.  She will not suffer because we will make sure she has the right drugs, not the right God.

So, if Mom is going to die, she is going to die painlessly, our family will grieve as we need to, what in the world shall we pray to God for?  All these things are inevitable.  Prayer for the inevitable is a total waste of time and mockery of belief.  Prayer for a miracle is pointless as those do not really happen.  If they did, everyone would believe. 

I know.  God has a plan we are not privy to.  Part of the plan is very clear:  everyone dies.  What a great plan!  Wish I had come up with that.  So, I guess cancer is part of God’s plan too, just like car wrecks, handgun deaths, heart attacks, strokes, war, plagues, etc.  All those things are necessary if the plan is to create a life form that must die.  So, why create life that will end?  If there is a God he/she clearly does not operate in the realm of logic and reason which evidently he/she endowed us to have.  Makes so much sense.

Thanks for your prayers.

Missing Church

I did not go to church Sunday, the first day of the New Year.  I simply could not go.  I could not stand and recite a creed I no longer believe.  I could not participate in a sacrament that grows ever more ludicrous and barbarian to me.  I could not hear one more sermon based on a book of fantasies.  I just couldn’t in good conscience go to church.

And yet, I am sad.  I miss being there.  It is the people I miss.  The men and women and boys and girls whom I only see on Sundays.  They are good, likeable people, though I believe they talk to imaginary friends and live in never-never land.  I miss the music.  I love Christmas carols even if the Christmas story has become a fairy tale to me.  I miss singing in the choir.  I miss my friends.  And in many ways I miss the routine, the liturgy.  I love to sing the Doxology, I just do not believe the words anymore.  I love to sing the Gloria Patria but do not believe the words anymore.  When I go, I go to sing.

And singing what I do not believe is not a problem for me.  I sing,” Up on the Housetop” and “Here Comes Santa Clause” and “I am a Rock, I am an Island”, etc., etc.  It is the music, not the belief system that I endorse.  If I could only sing music that fits with my belief system I would have to sacrifice most of Bach and Beethoven and Wesley choral music.  I would have to sacrifice Christmas carols.  I would have to sacrifice most patriotic music.  I would have to sacrifice many tunes from Broadway musicals.  On and on.  I believe it is OK to sing songs with fantasy lyrics or lyrics that are based on a false belief system.  I am not endorsing the belief system, I am singing the music.

If members of the church knew I had lost my faith would they ask me to leave?  Would they pray for me?  Would they grow hostile?  I am not sure.  Some would be angry.  Some would be scared.  Some would be supportive.  I simply do not know. 

But until I can sing again I will not go.