Nonsense

Even the Christians can't agree. Yes, homosexuality is a sin. No, it's not a sin, it's just the way some people are born. God hates fags. Jesus loves everyone. Jesus is God. The bible says, hate the sin, love the sinner. No, that's not even in the bible, that came from somewhere else. The bible says a man who lays with a man shall be put to death. But that's the Old Testament, so it doesn't count. Well, it sort of counts. Wait, I'm not sure . . .

If even the Christians can't agree, then how are the rest of us supposed to take them seriously with regard to their beliefs?

If the bible is the One Universal Truth, then why is it so damned cryptic and confusing and open to interpretation? One would think that if something were meant to be The One Universal Truth, a guide by which the average person is supposed to live, then it would be crystal clear and devoid of contradictions or ambiguity. It wouldn't be so hard to understand - so hard, in fact, that apparently only scholars and preachers really understand it, and the average Joe has to attend bible study classes in order to try to figure out what it all means (and really, what they're getting in bible study is a spoon-feeding of their particular sect's interpretation of hand-picked bible passages; go to a bible study for a different denomination, and you're likely to get a whole other interpretation). If it were the One Universal Truth, it would not have spawned a thousand different religions. One would think.

Here's another thing: Christian selfishness. I am sick to death of signing onto Facebook and seeing threads, or overhearing conversations at school as I wait for my kids to be let out, centered around requests for prayers for the most selfish, trivial things. And yes, even your husband's job loss, or your daughter's upcoming surgery - even my husband's cancer - are extremely trivial things if one looks at them in the context of a worldview. And isn't that what we should all be doing, looking at things from a worldview, and not just telescoping in on the things immediately surrounding us? If there are people who really and truly believe that there is power in prayer, that there is some All Powerful Entity out there listening and taking an interest in the human race, then shouldn't those people be putting their prayer power to more altruistic use? How about praying for an end to hunger, an end to violence and war, an end to babies dying of horrible diseases, an end to catastrophic "acts of God"?

My theory is that people tend to pray for things that are, in the end, safely in the hands of fellow humans. They pray for new tires for their car, or money to cover Jimmy's braces, or that their dog Spot's broken hind leg heals, or that Susie's surgery goes smoothly, or that mortgage interest rates go down, because really, they know that these are all things potentially controllable by human forces. It's safe to assume that those things will work out, thanks to human involvement (and if they don't, it's all part of God's plan). Does anyone actually pray that there be no more deadly earthquakes or hurricanes? I doubt very many people do, because they probably realize the futility of it, and that just might shake their faith a little.

I know, I sound pissed off, don't I? I guess I am. It's a constant irritant to me, this whole religion thing, this whole god thing. People who live their lives according to some ambiguous book, by principles they can't even fully explain - all in the hopes of scoring enough points to get into Heaven in the afterlife. I mean, if you're going to adhere adamantly to certain principles, at least be able to back them up - the whys and wherefores - in a concise manner. Otherwise, your credibility just goes pretty much to the dogs for me.

And the picking and choosing. The self-proclaimed "Cafeteria Catholics" (and I'm sure there is an equivalent in every religion). If you're just going to go with what works for you and forget the rest, why bother with religion at all? I am here to testify that one can be a good person of high morals and values for its own sake, and not for the sake of any religion.

The afterlife - now there's a golden carrot if I ever saw one. I'm thinking there is no afterlife. And therefore, we should take the utmost care of the here and now. We should be taking care of one another, taking care of the planet, loving and accepting one another, reaching out, accepting. Gosh, just imagine a world like that! Sounds like Paradise, doesn't it?

A Social Experiment

A fellow mom from school and I have been engaged in a dialogue about our opposing beliefs with regard to God, Jesus, religion, and the like. We have now made a deal: I have agreed to read The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, and she has agreed to read The New Atheism by Victor Stenger. We swapped books at school today when we were both there picking up our girls. Fortunately, we were both laughing; I was worried that it might be an uncomfortable exchange, but so far I think we're both pretty good sports about the whole thing.

Can a devout Christian and an ardent Atheist find common ground and even forge a friendship?

Stay tuned.

Sunday Morn' Discussion

Great article in my local paper this morning: Does Religion Make Us Better People? (You know I can't pass up an opportunity to get all fired up about this sort of thing.)

My take? No, religion does not generally make people better behaved. In a lot of cases, it makes people behave pretty badly, in fact. There seems to be a whole lot of self-righteousness, intolerance, prejudice, and hypocrisy going on in circles of faith. There seems to be an underlying attitude of not being compassionate, of not being altruistic, of acting in one's own self-interests first and foremost and not that of fellow human beings', of not taking steps to make the world a better place for everyone. Of course, that is a generalization and doesn't apply to everyone. I'm sure there are fine, compassionate, upstanding Christians, just like there are fine, compassionate, upstanding Agnostics and Atheists.

What really chaps my hide is this notion that without God, without religion, without the Ten Commandments, for crying out loud, there would be no morality. And I've been personally confronted with this notion a number of times. I've been asked, incredulously, to my face, "If you don't have God, where are your morals?" It's ridiculous and utterly insulting to proclaim that without God, a person is without a moral compass. It's also ridiculous to assume that a person who has God and/or religion at the center of their life is of higher moral character than someone who doesn't.

I find it interesting and pleasantly surprising that, so far at least, the majority of the commenters to that article seem to be non-believers (right here in the conservative Republican, Mega-church heartland). Maybe our numbers aren't as small as I thought.

So what do you think? Do you think religion and/or God makes people better people?

I am Heathen

The other night, my kids participated in a variety show put on by the school they attend. The show was great, the kids were all amazingly talented, cute and enthusiastic. I didn't stay for the entire show; after the kindergartners performed (i.e., the twins), it was already getting late in the evening, so I took Finn and the twins home, while Michael stayed with Lilah to watch the rest of the grades (i.e., Joey) perform. When Michael got home later, he told me that one little girl's solo performance had consisted of singing a very Christian song - I believe it was Here I Am to Worship (I could be wrong, but it was something with that or a very similar title). I was dumbfounded.

This is a public, secular school. At first I was highly irritated because I just don't think stuff like that belongs in a public school setting (even an after-school activity; if it's an activity or event sponsored, hosted, or otherwise the responsibility of the school, I don't believe that religion should play a part). I'm sure the little girl was talented, and I'm sure her performance moved many an audience member, but still. My knee-jerk reaction was "Keep it at church." However, I understand that, despite the constitutional separation of Church and State, there's also the constitutional rights to freedom of religion and freedom of expression, and there's no way the school could have forbidden her from performing that song without committing religious descrimination.

Then I started looking at it from another angle: what if a kid had gotten up there on the stage and recited a poem about there not being any God?

I'll just take a stab in the dark and guess that people would have generally been outraged. The school may have even gone so far as to not permit it, or at least discourage it, because it's just way too inflammatory. I bet parents would have been aghast at the "programming" the poor child had obviously been the victim of; after all, there's no way a kid could have opinions like "there is no God" without some adult feeding that to him or her.

I'm just guessing here. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe a performance like that would have been as welcomed as the Christian performance. But I'm betting not.

God and Christianity are socially acceptable, it's as simple as that. Atheism, and even Agnosticism, are not.

I have this underlying feeling of separateness, of disconnect, from a lot of my peers, because I am not on the same page as most of them when it comes to God. I don't believe in God. I'll spare the entire chronology, but there was a time when I did believe in God (mostly because that's what I was told to believe). But gradually over the course of my adulthood, my belief has been replaced with non-belief. And I am completely fine with that. Despite what some people might think, I am not an empty, lost soul.

It seems, in my mind, to be an issue that gets in the way of potential friendships. I can be happily conversing with someone, say, a fellow mom at school, while we wait for our children to be dismissed at the end of the school day. And then the God-bomb drops. References to church, and prayer for this or that, and gifts from God ensue. And then suddenly I deflate, knowing that we can never truly be friends, because God clearly plays such a big part in their life, and I assume (through experience) they would be horrified if I blurted out that I don't go to church, I don't pray, and I don't believe in God.

Here's what I want people to know about me:

• I am a person of very high morals. I believe in honesty and loyalty and kindness to my fellow human beings. Not because I am concerned about where I may end up in the afterlife (I don't believe there is an afterlife), but because it just makes the world a better place to live in. This extends to my belief in equal rights and treatment of all people; everyone, no matter their skin color, sexual orientation, or intellectual ability, deserves dignity, respect, kindness, and the right to marry whom they choose, for crying out loud.
• My rejection of religion and the notion of God was not precipitated by any negative experience I had. I just grew to view it as nonsense over a period of time. And nothing anyone can say or do is going to convince me that there is a God, so don't even try.
• I am pro-choice AND I am pro-life. That is to say, I think it is a dangerous thing to take away a woman's reproductive rights, or power over her own body or destiny. However, I value human life, deeply. And I wish more people made better use of the choices they have.
• I am not raising my children to be Atheist. I am, hopefully, raising them to think for themselves. They know that I don't believe in God. And they know that other people do. The only thing I have emphasized to them is this: "Don't believe anything just because somebody tells you that's what they believe."

I respect that people have their beliefs, that those beliefs may differ from mine, and that faith (or absence thereof) is a very personal matter. At this point in my life, I personally find religion and the notion of God to be ridiculous, and find myself becoming quite offended by some of the manifestations of God in certain people's lives (like crediting God for helping them afford braces for their kid, or for finding a way to get a much-needed new roof on their house, or for making sure little Jimmy got over that pneumonia, or even for being responsible for my husband beating cancer - all while Haiti gets leveled by a catastrophic earthquake and there is massive loss of life; really? Was the God they believe in just snoozing on the job, or does He play favorites?) Nonetheless, believe what you want to believe - whatever gets you through the day and all that. I just get tired of being inundated by it all the time. It's not my bag, baby.

And I wish I felt the same freedom to openly express my views on God and prayer and church and religion - and still be accepted as a good, decent, moral, upstanding person. My close friends know where I stand, and I do tend to cut loose with this stuff in my book club when our discussions center around religion. But out in the world at large? Thrown into conversation with people I've just met or have only a casual acquaintance with? Imagine if I put in my FB status something about my true views about God. Hmmm, maybe I should try that as an experiment.