Time to Get Serious

All right. I’m back from work, I’ve had dinner, and I can respond to this properly.

I figured out I was not Christian any longer by reading The Tao of Pooh right around the time I was confirmed as a Presbyterian in my teenage years. Quite the silly thing to have change my brain around, but what it basically did for me was show me that many things I was thinking and observing at the time were very much aligned with Taoism, which just made me realize that I just wasn’t a dedicated Christian. I didn’t end up a dedicated Taoist–or beatnik, or Zen buddhist, or agnostic, or whatever–but it just served as a first step to get out and explore on my own rather than listen to some guy at the head of some hierarchy surrounded by rituals.

Now twenty or so years after that, I’ve altered my thinking quite a bit, and here’s where I’m at: I don’t really think about either spirituality or religion. It’s not that I think either is inherently bad–though Cuntler had good points on that matter previously (sigh; that felt weird to type)–but that it just doesn’t matter to me (it may matter to others and I get that). There’s just SO MUCH in THIS world that we don’t know, that we’re still learning, that we do to ourselves, that is right in front of us and that WE cause and that WE can solve, it just feels useless to me to really worry about anything else. This also goes along with the dangers that beliefs can bring; that is, when I accept something as an unquestioned default, I create a blind spot to potential harmful behaviors to myself and others, or perhaps getting stuck in a rut somewhere. This doesn’t matter if it’s religious in nature or not; dogma is dogma and whether it’s God or gluten or Six Sigma or Mercury in retrograde or YOLO it can still do damage. Some of this came from an article Penn Teller wrote a few years ago for NPR’s This I Believe segment, titled “I Believe There Is No God.” It can apply to more than just religion, though–just focus on this world, because right now, it’s the only one we have.

However, there are still so many lessons to learn from the various holy books, theologians, philosophers, and even Cuntler (well, okay, that’s stretching it). Many of those books are amazing historical records and capture all the early stories that were handed down generation to generation–one of the best classes I had in college was a class on the bible taught by a holy land archeologist. Learning about what those actual tribes of people were doing at those times and why certain things were written–and included or not included throughout the various editions–was very illuminating. How these societies emerged and grew, any of them, is our story in one way or another. Many of the lessons kept people alive and together and growing, and are still important today.

In fact, my grandfather was a Mennonite minister. My mom grew up in many different poor Mennonite communities as they moved from place to place as needed by the church. He didn’t draw a salary and they lived off of the care and grace of those communities. I have friends involved or employed in the social justice side (Jesuits) of Catholicism that work to lift up the poor and unfortunate in our communities. These are things directly out of the bible, and I wish these were the lessons spread around rather than those of exclusion and control.

Which leads me to my last point: religions are neither the cause nor the salvation of religious assholes. Assholes are assholes, whether they’re religious or not. The same dickbags and -baguettes who would bully you in youth group are the fucktard atheists who only care about being RIGHT over a few pints of beers and will get belligerent regardless of if you have a point or not. Religion or dogma or philosophy, like so many things, are just surface coverings made of words and costuming, but when stripped down to actions, to a more basic nature–money and power, perhaps–it’s all the same no matter the stage.

To me, we are all just so limited and, well, dumb as individuals, and to even think I have the answers is pure hubris. I can’t even conceive of a great many things in this world, solar system, universe, that most certainly EXIST, that to think that I could comprehend anything that is greater than all this is just foolish. And that, to me, is somehow comforting.