I'm not celebrating a birthday today.
I haven't really been too caught up in all the mythology surrounding today for some time now. I try to have a nice time with family and friends this time of year. I don't get too carried away with gift giving these days since I don't like being told to buy gifts for people on a certain day of the year. Plus I think it's sort of ridiculous to go around shopping in the same old tired stores you can go to any day of the year and buy the same items you can get any other day of the year.
Oh, I did give a bottle of wine to each of the three administrative staff in my office, and my kids and girlfriend will each get a couple of nice gifts too. I've come to view December 25th much like I view Thanksgiving Day. It's mostly about a day from work, enjoying family and those I love and taking a day to relax and cook... and then everyone opens a couple of gifts.
Oh, I know that Christmas is supposed to be about giving because, as legend has it, it's the day God gave his greatest gift to the world. It's a nice sentimental thought and, I suppose, has served some useful purpose down through the ages, not the least of which is to prop up the economy and put retail stores in the black for the year.
"Jesus saves, but Christians spend." That was a headline in the paper a couple of days ago. I remember back in my Christian days how every year I would bury myself in credit card debt (again) just to be the "giver" I was expected to be. I mean, every year it seemed that love and caring was measured in the dollar value of the gifts I gave. Especially to my ex-wife, who, upon opening her gifts would usually ask, "how much did it cost?" If the number wasn't sufficiently high, or if I failed to match her spending on my gifts, disappointment ensued. It was a crappy way to spend a day.
This December 24th and 25th were really OK. Charissa and Cameron were with me. So was Marcela. They all had a way of making the experience joyful without it being tied to anything -- except being together. We ate, we went to the mountains, we ate out, we watched TV, we talked, Charissa baked cookies, we ate more, we opened meaningful gifts. It wasn't at all about quantity. Or religion. It was about what we mean to each other and about our humanity and our compassion for each other and those we care most about.
I don't know when the "holiday season" grew ten heads and became a monster no one can control. I don't know how it became the norm to stand in line for 24-hours just to get the latest technology (that will be obsolete a year later). I don't know why our consumer society becomes even more manic and consumptive and wasteful at the same time it's supposedly at it's most spiritual and reflective. If there is a god, I doubt this was the divine plan. How could it be.
What I do know is that I have made this holiday work for me somehow. Maybe for the very first time. It's snowing. I have classical music on the radio. I'm alone at the moment (a brief but welcome transition from my house to Marcela's) and drinking a lovely glass of wine.
Enjoy the day.
C
Monday, December 24, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Thoughts from Albuquerque on a beautiful day
I like this town. I like the food. I like the people. I like that the biggest mountains are on the east side of town and today they're covered with snow. I like that Santa Fe has some of the best restaurants on the planet and it's less than an hour drive away. I like Route 66 and The Library and The La Posada hotel. I like green chili and this town has some of the best I've ever tasted.
I like it especially today because driving around and doing business in a town other than Denver gives me a chance to clear my head and think about a question that seems to dog me most of my waking moments. (I'm a chronic multi-tasker. I am a sales professional who constantly thinks about religion on the side. I hope my employer doesn't find out.)
The question is: Why do I think about religion so much? Why, after spending most of my life in it, and spending another major portion of my life getting over it and then out of it, does it STILL bother me so much? Why do I get so agitated about it? Why does it drive me completely nuts? Why am I writing about it now, when there's so many other things to write about? My therapist has wondered the same thing. So have some of you, I'm sure.
I think maybe it's because I'm still trying to figure out how to be non-religious in a very, Very, VERY religious world. Religion is EVERYWHERE. It's pervasive. It's, shall we say, omnipresent. Of course in the US, it's mostly Christian. In other places it's mostly Islam or Jewish or Hindu or fill-in-the-blank. In Utah it's mostly Mormon. You name the place, I can find you a religion that dominates the scene, and the culture, and the politics.
I've made a rather surprising realization lately that what irritates me most about religion is not religion per-se. I like cathedrals. I like classical music, most of which religiously inspired. I like looking at Russian Orthodox icons. I like reading liberal Christian theology. I like the history of religious ideas, and customs, and rituals. I like reading about the latest discoveries in Nag Hammadi - the scores of gnostic gospels that have been recently discovered. I like the idea of religion - that all of them were invented to answer mankind's deepest questions about ultimate reality (because these are really important questions). I think as philosophies and even art forms, religions are wonderfully creative things.
I think the problem for me comes in trying to understand why so many people bypass (almost automatically) "religion as idea" and go directly to "religion as truth." Or more accurately, "TRUTH." Why isn't there more critical thinking going on about religion? By the masses, not just philosophers and skeptics? Why aren't there more agnostics and atheists in the world? Why isn't there more doubt? Why is it that few people want to experience the richness and adventure of ambiguity? What's going on with the wiring of most people that leads them to practice the religion of their upbringing or choice as if it were really and actually true? Or TRUE?
I know there are all kinds of sociological and psychological and scientific reasons for this. I personally think it's an evolutionary development and that there's an actual gene that lends itself to belief in the supernatural. But still, it makes me wonder. And it makes me frustrated and sometimes mean and cranky thinking about it.
Because I understand completely that my secular humanism has marginalized me to an extremely outer circle of humanity. I'm so far out of the mainstream on this issue that I'm a planet you can't see. Most people, throughout history, have been religious. I have chosen, instead to be non-religious. And if I'm right about this - and I think I am - I have an awful lot of work to do to live authentically this way. And an even greater task to convince an impossibly large number of people that they're wrong. That's a lot to think about.
Still, it's a beautiful day in Albuquerque.
I like it especially today because driving around and doing business in a town other than Denver gives me a chance to clear my head and think about a question that seems to dog me most of my waking moments. (I'm a chronic multi-tasker. I am a sales professional who constantly thinks about religion on the side. I hope my employer doesn't find out.)
The question is: Why do I think about religion so much? Why, after spending most of my life in it, and spending another major portion of my life getting over it and then out of it, does it STILL bother me so much? Why do I get so agitated about it? Why does it drive me completely nuts? Why am I writing about it now, when there's so many other things to write about? My therapist has wondered the same thing. So have some of you, I'm sure.
I think maybe it's because I'm still trying to figure out how to be non-religious in a very, Very, VERY religious world. Religion is EVERYWHERE. It's pervasive. It's, shall we say, omnipresent. Of course in the US, it's mostly Christian. In other places it's mostly Islam or Jewish or Hindu or fill-in-the-blank. In Utah it's mostly Mormon. You name the place, I can find you a religion that dominates the scene, and the culture, and the politics.
I've made a rather surprising realization lately that what irritates me most about religion is not religion per-se. I like cathedrals. I like classical music, most of which religiously inspired. I like looking at Russian Orthodox icons. I like reading liberal Christian theology. I like the history of religious ideas, and customs, and rituals. I like reading about the latest discoveries in Nag Hammadi - the scores of gnostic gospels that have been recently discovered. I like the idea of religion - that all of them were invented to answer mankind's deepest questions about ultimate reality (because these are really important questions). I think as philosophies and even art forms, religions are wonderfully creative things.
I think the problem for me comes in trying to understand why so many people bypass (almost automatically) "religion as idea" and go directly to "religion as truth." Or more accurately, "TRUTH." Why isn't there more critical thinking going on about religion? By the masses, not just philosophers and skeptics? Why aren't there more agnostics and atheists in the world? Why isn't there more doubt? Why is it that few people want to experience the richness and adventure of ambiguity? What's going on with the wiring of most people that leads them to practice the religion of their upbringing or choice as if it were really and actually true? Or TRUE?
I know there are all kinds of sociological and psychological and scientific reasons for this. I personally think it's an evolutionary development and that there's an actual gene that lends itself to belief in the supernatural. But still, it makes me wonder. And it makes me frustrated and sometimes mean and cranky thinking about it.
Because I understand completely that my secular humanism has marginalized me to an extremely outer circle of humanity. I'm so far out of the mainstream on this issue that I'm a planet you can't see. Most people, throughout history, have been religious. I have chosen, instead to be non-religious. And if I'm right about this - and I think I am - I have an awful lot of work to do to live authentically this way. And an even greater task to convince an impossibly large number of people that they're wrong. That's a lot to think about.
Still, it's a beautiful day in Albuquerque.
Monday, December 10, 2007
I don't know how to quit you
Starbucks, I mean. I absolutely LOVE Starbucks. My favorite is the grande, sugar free hazelnut, non-fat latte. I used to drink it with soy but it stops me up like the Hoover Dam. At my age, a latte and a slice of pumpkin loaf is WAY better than grape nuts.
If only I didn't have to watch the righteousness of the righteous on display at every Starbucks I walk into except for the one near where I work that has the best female (I'm referring to the patrons) viewing of any drinking establishment I've been to, bars included.
You've seen it too. A group of suburban, waspy looking WASPs, swarming around their mochas and Bibles, dissecting a passage from one of the Gospels, deep in purposefully audible discussion, looking for all the world like the scribes and Pharisees they roundly criticize. If you stomach hanging around long enough you'll get to hear them pray. Loudly once again. Like Pat Robertson on the 700 Club. Complete with furrowed brows.
So far I have resisted the temptation to walk up to their table and point out the obvious. That the Jesus they pretend to follow roundly condemned public displays of spirituality. I've wanted to SO many times, but that would be too obvious. One of them would surely and solemnly, but in the spirit of love, suggest that I was infringing on their Constitutional and God-given right to practice their religion as they pleased. Would it be wrong to beat this person over the head with his NIV? Probably.
I suppose I could just lead the sleepy crowd around them in a round of applause. But that would be rude. And obvious.
Maybe I should start looking for a Seattle's Best. It's Seattle, for god's sake. Liberals must gather there.
If only I didn't have to watch the righteousness of the righteous on display at every Starbucks I walk into except for the one near where I work that has the best female (I'm referring to the patrons) viewing of any drinking establishment I've been to, bars included.
You've seen it too. A group of suburban, waspy looking WASPs, swarming around their mochas and Bibles, dissecting a passage from one of the Gospels, deep in purposefully audible discussion, looking for all the world like the scribes and Pharisees they roundly criticize. If you stomach hanging around long enough you'll get to hear them pray. Loudly once again. Like Pat Robertson on the 700 Club. Complete with furrowed brows.
So far I have resisted the temptation to walk up to their table and point out the obvious. That the Jesus they pretend to follow roundly condemned public displays of spirituality. I've wanted to SO many times, but that would be too obvious. One of them would surely and solemnly, but in the spirit of love, suggest that I was infringing on their Constitutional and God-given right to practice their religion as they pleased. Would it be wrong to beat this person over the head with his NIV? Probably.
I suppose I could just lead the sleepy crowd around them in a round of applause. But that would be rude. And obvious.
Maybe I should start looking for a Seattle's Best. It's Seattle, for god's sake. Liberals must gather there.
Stop Worrying. The 2008 Presidential Race is Over.
God has spoken. It's Mike Huckabee. So now all of you Evangelical Republicans (sorry for the redundancy) who think Arkansas is the source of all evil can relax and make your summer travel plans to the Ozarks. I know you've been dying to go.
Mike (a creationist big government compassionate conservative and former Southern Baptist preacher), has declared that his rise in the polls is due to nothing less than "the same power that helped a small boy with five loaves and two small fishes feed a crowd of five thousand." In fact, thousands of good Christian Americans (sorry, I did it again) are at home on their knees praying that once again, something small would be made big. Huckabee said it. At Liberty University no less! So it must be true. Iowans believe him, too. So there. They're "salt of the earth kind of people."
And dumb as posts. Lemmings. The rest of the field doesn't stand a chance.
Hillary (too Clintonian), Obama (too educated), Thompson (too slow), Giuliani (too married), and Romney (too Mormon) can all go home, along with the rest of us, and await the coming theocracy.
I'll be around...
C
Mike (a creationist big government compassionate conservative and former Southern Baptist preacher), has declared that his rise in the polls is due to nothing less than "the same power that helped a small boy with five loaves and two small fishes feed a crowd of five thousand." In fact, thousands of good Christian Americans (sorry, I did it again) are at home on their knees praying that once again, something small would be made big. Huckabee said it. At Liberty University no less! So it must be true. Iowans believe him, too. So there. They're "salt of the earth kind of people."
And dumb as posts. Lemmings. The rest of the field doesn't stand a chance.
Hillary (too Clintonian), Obama (too educated), Thompson (too slow), Giuliani (too married), and Romney (too Mormon) can all go home, along with the rest of us, and await the coming theocracy.
I'll be around...
C
Christians and Tragedy
I'm always impressed with the gleeful response of Christians who survive a near-miss. Especially when guns (or, for that matter, inclement weather) are involved.
Witness the recent shooting at New Life Church in Colorado Springs. The survivors "prayed and asked God for protection." Guess what? They lived! The security guard who took down the shooter "prayed to the Holy Spirit for strength and guidance" and low and behold, her first bullet did the trick. She also took the time in her news conference a day later to inform the press corp that "I am single and looking for God to bring me the right husband." Maybe the free advertising will bring her a few interested parties. Nothing like exploiting the pain of someone else to do a little fishing for a mate on the side. (Sickening.)
What about those poor Christians who were less fortunate? The family of two teen-age girls who tragically died? Did they lack the wisdom, faith, or foresight to ask for divine assistance? Was it somehow all in God's perfect plan that they were slaughtered on their way out of church?
Of course not. That's just stupid. Not to mention silly and wrong. But that's what you would think if you listened to the glowing reports of the living.
We prayed. We had faith. We survived. We're alive. God is great. Those who died are in a better place. Blah, blah, blah.
When are these zealots going to realize that their verbal drivel does nothing more than reveal how small-minded and petty and immature and self-centered they really are? It certainly does nothing to impress the world with the supposed glory and power of their mythical god.
C
Witness the recent shooting at New Life Church in Colorado Springs. The survivors "prayed and asked God for protection." Guess what? They lived! The security guard who took down the shooter "prayed to the Holy Spirit for strength and guidance" and low and behold, her first bullet did the trick. She also took the time in her news conference a day later to inform the press corp that "I am single and looking for God to bring me the right husband." Maybe the free advertising will bring her a few interested parties. Nothing like exploiting the pain of someone else to do a little fishing for a mate on the side. (Sickening.)
What about those poor Christians who were less fortunate? The family of two teen-age girls who tragically died? Did they lack the wisdom, faith, or foresight to ask for divine assistance? Was it somehow all in God's perfect plan that they were slaughtered on their way out of church?
Of course not. That's just stupid. Not to mention silly and wrong. But that's what you would think if you listened to the glowing reports of the living.
We prayed. We had faith. We survived. We're alive. God is great. Those who died are in a better place. Blah, blah, blah.
When are these zealots going to realize that their verbal drivel does nothing more than reveal how small-minded and petty and immature and self-centered they really are? It certainly does nothing to impress the world with the supposed glory and power of their mythical god.
C
An Introduction...
Welcome to my blog! After a careful mapping of my personal genome about seven years ago I discovered what I had long suspected... I do not possess the religion gene.
Believe me, I acted in every way as if I did. I grew up a fundamentalist Baptist (sorry for the redundancy), was president of my youth group, went to bible college, graduated from seminary, and became a senior pastor of an evangelical church. I listened to (dreadful) christian radio, read Swindoll and Dobson, and voted Red without even looking at the names. I felt guilty when I lusted and inadequate when I prayed. I mean, if there was ever a person who really "wanted" to be religious, it was me.
And then at thirty-five I woke up, got rational, and decided after a seven year intellectual voyage that atheism and evolution are for smart people who think about themselves and the world around them.
And now I have REALLY joined the twenty-first Century and started my very own blog.
There is, obviously, much more to know so if you are interested please ask.
Mostly, I want to know what you are thinking... about politics, religion, (and the inextricable joining of the two), Bush's war, the campaign, the threat of Theocracy in the US, and whatever else you care to share.
I'll be around....
C
Believe me, I acted in every way as if I did. I grew up a fundamentalist Baptist (sorry for the redundancy), was president of my youth group, went to bible college, graduated from seminary, and became a senior pastor of an evangelical church. I listened to (dreadful) christian radio, read Swindoll and Dobson, and voted Red without even looking at the names. I felt guilty when I lusted and inadequate when I prayed. I mean, if there was ever a person who really "wanted" to be religious, it was me.
And then at thirty-five I woke up, got rational, and decided after a seven year intellectual voyage that atheism and evolution are for smart people who think about themselves and the world around them.
And now I have REALLY joined the twenty-first Century and started my very own blog.
There is, obviously, much more to know so if you are interested please ask.
Mostly, I want to know what you are thinking... about politics, religion, (and the inextricable joining of the two), Bush's war, the campaign, the threat of Theocracy in the US, and whatever else you care to share.
I'll be around....
C
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