Nobody's perfect. Well, there was this one guy, but we killed him....

I have been thinking a lot about religion lately, and I'm not sure why. A large part of my brain still tells me that it's bunk. God is right up there with unicorns, in odds of existing. There are a hundred reasons mankind would make up a god and no real reason to believe one exists. But still, it's in my head. I come across articles like this, and this, that make me think maybe it's possible to believe in God without being a Christian. The reason I don't want to be called a Christian, even if I end up believing in Jesus in the end, is the same reason I don't want to be called bi, even though I like both guys and girls; too many people have their own definitions for the label. I think Ghandi said it best when he said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

My family is, if you go back far enough on my father's side, Amish. I think that must be mapped into my brain because big shiny churches with flashy gymnasiums and sound systems just strike me as being too Earthly, too materialistic, for God. Spend the money on charity and get yourself one room full of pews with an altar at the front. Let people come in who want to talk about God, and stop trying to lure kids in against their wills with basketball games and rec rooms. I think religion and prayer should be solemn, and I think trying to make it fun is a little undignified. But then, I don't believe people have to be Christian to get into Heaven (assuming Heaven and God exist). In my world, God doesn't discriminate based on geography, and if you boil it down that's what it comes to when you say a person has to pay lip service to Jesus to get in. (After all, what's worshiping but paying lip service?) It's saying that Hindu children raised in India by Hindu parents, taught from birth that Hindu beliefs are the immutable truth, are going to be sent to Hell through no fault of their own while Christian kids raised by Christian parents in the US will get into Heaven. It's luck of the draw and it sucks and it's not how my God, if I had one, would act.

My God also wouldn't make gay people and then send them to Hell. Either he wouldn't fuck with them that way, or he's that callous and then doesn't really give a shit who we want to fuck. And don't give me the Loving Father BS. My mother loves the hell out of me and only has 2 kids, and she doesn't care what movie stars I think are hot, yet God has billions of children and is deeply concerned with who wants Brad vs who wants Angelina. I don't buy it.

That brings me to a book. A friend of mine went out a got me a book, and then hand-delivered it to my house, that really helped her out. This book gave her something she really needed, and I thought "Great, I'll read it and see if it doesn't help me out, too." And I think I got maybe 3 pages into it, which made me sad because I had high hopes, even after I recognized the author's name. But I couldn't get past the intro because the basic premise seemed to throw me off. The book said that God had planned for that moment to happen, for me to be sitting their reading that book (did God know I was going to be on the toilet at the time, or was that just a surprise?), and that God planned for me to heed the words in the book. God designed that moment of my life.

And.... that's when he lost me. Right there, right away. Because even though I can kind of believe in a God who cares how people are, and even though I can sort of nod at the notion of a God who might hear me if I pray, I can't swallow the idea that God cares about every moment of my life, or every opinion I form, or even every choice I make. Because what a colossal waste of time that would be for God! I mean, there are tides of corpses washing ashore in Japan right now, nuclear plants are popping like popcorn, and God cares what I read on the crapper? Sorry, I can't buy it. I'm more of a blurry vision, cynical, sort of theologist. I believe that God (again, if there is one) waits until you're dead and then sort of takes in the whole picture, not the individual moments. You know those pictures they do where it looks like a vaguely pixelated photo of someone but when you look closer it's a thousand little photos of them? I think God looks at the overall collage, not the thousand little photos. Stole gum once? Cured cancer? Never baptised? I don't think it's a hard call for God to make, and I don't think he's sending cancer-guy to Hell. But I do think that some sins are bad enough, over arching and far reaching enough, to be noticed individually. I think some sins become character traits and for that reason color the whole collage. And I think, in a religious sense, that Pride is the worst.

Not Pride as in "I did a really good job on that; I'm proud of it" but rather the Pride that leads people to believe that they can speak for God, that they know His plan and that they share His opinions. No one, even preachers, knows God's plan. And I have the greatest respect for those people who honestly can say, "I don't know why God made this or did this, but I have faith that He has His reasons." And I have no respect for those who say, "God doesn't do those things and He wouldn't approve of it." But then, that's the Amish in me. They believe that hard times are God's way of making us strong, and that His complications and contradictions are to keep us humble and remind us that we can't see His mind.

I don't like mean set your ass on fire God. I like loving just be nice to each other God. And hopefully someday I'll find him. But not today, and not in the book my friend was so nice as to give to me. Too bad no Quakers are Prideful enough to take it upon themselves to write a book about God. Oh, Irony, thou art annoying.

it IS judgment

Imagine you hear some one say this, or imagine someone says it to you.

I have friends who are bad mothers. I don't judge them for it at all, but I can see they are bad mothers.

What if the person said it about you. Would you feel unjudged? Or would you feel very much judged and very much insulted? That is exactly what it's like when religious people say they don't judge gays, even maybe have gay friends, but that they still know gay people are living sinful lives. What they're really saying is that they do judge, but they know they aren't supposed to. Or maybe they aren't clear on the meaning of the word judge. Remaining friends with someone, even though you know deep down that they or their life are bad or wrong or sinful, isn't the same as not judging. Not judging means not forming an opinion either way about it. Like this:

I trust that God has a plan for everything and everyone, and that I am in no way on a level to be able to know or understand God's plan. If HE sees fit to let me know why some people are gay, He'll tell me. But until then I will just trust that God knows what he's doing and it's not my place to try and figure out what that is. Gay, like blond or freckled or tall or left-handed, is just a human variable that I can't understand. A human variable so inconsequential as to not be worth an opinion at all.

That is what it's like not to judge. And for the record, I judge people all the time. I shouldn't, but I do. And I do know some people who are bad parents, at least in my opinion. And while I try not to judge them to be terrible people because they lose their tempers or feed their kids crap or neglect their kids or whatever, I still admit freely that I am judging them as parents. I believe most people do this. Maybe it's easier to use spouse as an example. How many people who are absolutely morally opposed to adultery have friends who have cheated on their spouses? And they still stay friends. But they also still judge, not just the behavior but also the person capable of the behavior. The thing that makes being gay different from cheating or being a bad parent, is that being gay doesn't necessitate a victim.

It just can't be right.

I just read this on facebook; it was a friend's status update.

Your name is a strong and mighty tower! Your name is a shelter like no other! Your name... let the nations sing it louder, 'cause nothing has the power to save but Your name!!!

This is part of my problem with modern Christianity. This belief (and even if the friend who wrote this on facebook doesn't believe it literally, there are people who do) that it's the conversion, the worship, the praise in God and Jesus itself that matters. Not doing good or being good or trying to make the world a better place for day to day life, but the singing and praying that really counts. I once met a woman who told me, in all seriousness, that the true message of the Bible is to believe in and worship Jesus. She said this because when she told me that our boss (a Jew) and a coworker (who was Hindu) *gasp!* didn't believe in Jesus! My response was that they could still be good people and probably be rewarded for that, but she was quick to point out that it doesn't matter what or how you are, if you don't believe in Jesus you will go to Hell. In other words, a Jewish person who devotes their entire life to bettering the world will go straight to Hell while a serial killer who finds Jesus and repents in prison will walk through the Pearly Gates unhampered. Because it's the name, the worlds, that matter. I've even been told that the problem with churches these days is that some of them put more value on being a good person than on praying and worshipping and sucking up to the deity. That they do a disservice by encouraging people to do charitable works and improve the world more than to sit in a church and play mindless yes-man to God.

Down With Cup Cake Haters

How dare you not teach about cup cakes in science class?! Are you anti-cup cake? Are you threatened by the cup cakes? Do you ignore the existence of cup cakes?

How about when I go to a restaurant and there aren't any cup cakes on the menu? They are clearly violating my right to cup cakes. They are giving preferential treatment to people who hate cup cakes. I won't stand for this kind of anti-cup cake behavior!

When I go to the grocery store, I see aisles and aisles of ingredients for other foods, but only maybe one or two aisles containing cup cakes or cup cake ingredients. This is discrimination!

By refusing to coddle, suck up to, and fear the cup cake lovers of the world, you are discriminating against cup cakes and those who like cup cakes! If you are not for us, you are against us! There is no neutral area, no room for ambivalence. It is either all cup cake or no cup cake, and we cannot let it be no cup cake!

Replace cup cake with Christianity and you will see how absolutely stupid stuff like this strikes me.

Why University Scientists Refuse To Discuss Religion

The War On Christmas

Walmart Ratings For Christmas Displays

Just for a week

I know people who budget their tithing like I budget food, as an unavoidable indispensable expense. There are people who sometimes struggle with bills, who don't buy their kids a lot of fancy new toys, and who don't drive brand new cars with low insurance deductibles. These are ordinary people who think that giving to the church is the same as giving to charity, who believe that putting money in a collection plate will better the world. And maybe it does, but like with any charity, the middle man takes his cut.

Tithings pay for the parsonage, and they pay the pastor so he can do things like feed his family and not have to take a full time job in addition to his church duties. Tithings are a good thing in that they keep the church up and running, and the extra goes to charities and that's good. But imagine if, just for one week and maybe not all on the same week, everyone who gave at least $10 to their local church instead gave the money to save children from Malaria. How many deaths could be avoided, and really, how many churches would go bankrupt? My guess is that the pastors would still get paid, and the churches would still stay open, and all the bills would still get paid, and a LOT of insecticide-treated mosquito nets would get handed out. And isn't that precisely what Jesus would want people to do? To save actual human lives and put off replacing the hymnals?