Single celled organisms

At the risk of sounding confused or uncertain about my convictions, i have to say that the idea of God makes perfect sense to me. It does not surprise or puzzle me, i am human, humans thought up God with their big brains; the thought of God is comfort food for the brain. An alert Christian will interpret these thoughts as cries for help. In my case they are not, it is ancient man meeting modern man, the past overlapping with the future.

Evolution: now that was a concept that was not an easy wrap for my brain, but i finally saw it and then i saw what really didn't make sense. God, the deity, left alone, makes sense; religion and the books of the bible do not. The bible, for me, only creates questions such as: which came first, the chicken or the egg? History and science come much closer to answering the question of why humans are here on earth, even though we may not like it's conclusions.

Recently, i heard a discussion about Sherlock Holmes and his popularity. Apparently, it is overwhelmingly distraughtful to people for things in life to occur which we cannot find answers for; therefore, this man who has the capability to come up with answers using only his intelect and powers of observation, is a comfort to us. Sherlock Holmes could be the equivalent of Jesus, now that i think about it.

But back to God making sense: the human spirit that forms from fellowship in most small tight knit churches, that is God, that makes sense. Praying during a football pep rally in high school, makes no sense. Religions not doing everything in their power to stop wars, makes no sense. Asking priests and nuns to suppress normal sexual urges, is asking for trouble, and makes no sense.

God is the collective good in the universe, but it is only there for show; a reminder that we come from great things and capable of wonders.

Judgement Day

I have nothing against churches today, two of my kids are church goers; before my daughter started driving, i was the one that got out of bed sunday mornings in January to drive her there. But looking at religion as an institution, what it has become: i look back on the Spanish Inquisition, for example, which began in 1478 and was not completely abolished until the early 1800's, and i ask myself: what was that about? certainly not about God. And back in 2002 i wonder why Religion as an entity concerned with human life and morality, did not go to then pres. Bush and say: there must be a better way. Sacrificing young lives, except under the most dire conditions, is wrong. This is not 1941, we were not dealing with Hitler. Recently, i heard W. in an interview, asked what he regreted, said he regreted not finding weapons of mass destruction......Really, that's what comes to mind?

From my church going experience, i almost want to say that for most church goers, fellowship is put before worship, but i don't know that, it just looks that way to me, and i don't see anything wrong with that. It would, though, indicate something about the theological aspect of worship: you'd think God's presence would create an unmistakeable force, the holy spirit, that would bring one to our knees every time we opened ourselves to it. I just think people would be in awe every time they walked into church and be overwhelmed. 

I think churches do a lot of good, of course, but as for the future of religion.....
Young people are getting away from it because they see that homosexuality and gay marrige is not as horrible as Religion makes it out to be, as is abortion and evolution. Intolerance is not cool.

Youngsters are getting smarter, wiser, thinkier, and worst of all for Religion, they
are making up their own minds about these issues. These kids, more and more know someone, maybe even have family that are atheist, gay, single parents, Jewish, Muslim, whatever, and they can see that these are normal people, no better, no worse, just people like them.

Eventually, people will see that we will always need some form of religion, but that the negative side of religion is people judging people, and themselves; and i'm talking about just people, wonderful, ignorant, smart, selfish, good, evil, people.

Burning Question

If taking a close look at the bible convinced me that it was anything but inspired by a deity, the one belief of Christianity that put the final nail in the coffin for me was this whole idea of Hell.

Let's talk about Hell; let's take a look at this idea from God's point of view: so, God is working things out, He created mankind, He loves mankind, mankind good.
A&E made one little mistake, they were tricked actually, but no one said life was fair, so now all mankind has to suffer. "Yes, I like that; I don't care that they were the only two involved--besides Satan who will be dealt with--everyone suffers for their trespass from now on.

Let's see, no more everlasting life, that's out; they can just grow old, diseased, and die; I know.... pain during childbirth, a little something for the ladies, teach them to listen to Satan!

But, I don't want people saying that i'm a Schmoe; ok, ok, ok, ok, there will be salvation for those who follow my commandments, but those who don't will burn in Hell for all eternity. So it be written, so it be done."

Wow, eternal damnation, suffering, and torture in a pit of fire.  Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is tough love.

What did i do to deserve that? Oh, humanity inherited this punishment from A&E.
I cannot refuse my inheritance, i have no choice?

So much for free will.

Well, making Satan mayor of Hellsville, now that was a stroke of genius. Speaking of the devil, it can't be easy being him; he must know that he will not win in the end. It's written in the bible:  God will destroy Satan.

Who goes up against God, for heaven's sake?

Author! Author!

People have been using spoken language for 50, maybe even 100, thousand years, believe it or not. And these days, with more people learning science and history,
few people would doubt archaelogical findings unless one imagines that these
scientists are under Satan's control, or that God made the earth appear older to weed out the fair weather faithful.

The bible puts creation at about 4000 years before Christ. That's interesting because evidence of written language goes back about 6000 years. That would make A&E the first writers, actually just Adam, it looks like women were not allowed to write books of the bible.

The need for record keeping and accounting propelled the advancement in written language. It looks like God waited for people to invent written language to inspire the books of the bible. To me, one of the most interesting unanswered God questions is about why God chose to inspire the bible when he did?

I think the first spoken word was "huh"; it just seems that in any language it is understood as an expression of amazement, or with a different inflection, the sound that a ? would make.

It looks to me like the more advanced writing became, the more people played around with it, and eventually scholars began to make stuff up to write.  The flood, the tower of Babel, and the two versions of the story of creation are prime examples. I just love the story of the tower of Babel; that term, by the way, is not used in the bible. The people were not just building a tower, they were building a city that was to be named Babel, hence the reference to the tower of Babel by readers.

So, God saw what the people were trying to do: build a tower to reach the heights of heaven. God said: if i don't do something, there's no stopping them, so he made up different languages, downloaded them into their brains, the people became dumbfounded, and just gave up and left. Yeah, but if i'm a Babelite, these are people i know and work with, if they, all the sudden, started speaking a strange language, i don't think i would give up that easy; i think i would try to learn their new language, teach them mine. This ploy that God used to stop the people from building didn't work anyway, didn't people go to the moon, and why didn't God stop that?

God the Almighty created the universe from nothing, what more do we need as proof of his power and perfection. God does not fail. This God of the bible does fail, and as evidenced by the story of Abraham and Lot, God plays cruel games with people. The God of the bible seems more human than anything else.

If a deity does exist, there is absolutely no connection to the God of the bible, a God that so obviously came from the imaginations of mankind.

Oh, and let's not forget the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the message is clear: God hates gay people-- pure evidence that the writers of the bible were homophobes.

Far be it from me to imagine what a true deity would be like, but i will not believe in a human-like god. And i will not accept the claim that God-of-the-bible is given human qualities for me to relate to, i don't think i need to relate to a deity, or understand it, or even know it's name; a deity would be all powerful and divine, i would trust it, and if asked, worship it, no questions asked.

The Argument

Religion and God: never had a good discussion with a Christian on that subject. The few i've had have left me so dazed that i seldon will let myself be drawn into them; God forbid it turn into an argument.

I cannot argue with a Christian because they always have that wild card that trumps everything else: God can do anything, anything at all, think of anything--think the impossible--God can do it. Yes, with God everything is possible, and it is not for us to even question why God did the things he did that is written about in the bible.

What i find ironic is that it is precicely that arguement--the Almighty's power--that is the source of my strongest conviction against believing in His existance.
God the Almighty, according to the bible, created perfection in Adam and Eve; then they did the worst thing they could possibly do: sin. It is the fault of an angel
--another of God's creations--gone bad. Satan the angel, goes for the weakest link, the woman, Eve, knowing she would be the easy target and that she would bring Adam down with her. This story is so obviously written by a guy, a married guy.

Wild card number two: free will. The power to make our decisions independent of our maker and defy, if  need be. You'd think God would have been one step ahead of Satan, and made people that were perfect without that innocence that Satan took advantage of. How could a perfect being go bad? Satan knew A&E had free will and tricked Eve, knowing that women will always want more and can never pass up an opportunity to exercise their free will.

Free will is God's kryptonite because it takes away God's power to control us.
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of the comic book superhero,
Superman, had to deal with the same problem; they created a nearly indestructable hero, how do you create suspense there? They had to give the bad guy a weapon, kryptonite. The writers of the bible cleverly gave Satan free will to work with.

It seems that the writers of the bible had their own ideas as to the powers of a
deity. One could argue deism, but to have created a universe, nay, multiple universi, only to abandon them and their living inhabitants, a bit whimsical for
a God, it seems to me.

Galileo Galilei went against church teaching and supported heliocentrisim, which was proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543, which states that earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. The church placed Galileo under house arrest for herecy; Copernicus died before the church could get a hold of him. But it is nice to think that earth and mankind is the center of the universe.

I don't know about today, but back then the church punished you for thinking outside the box; unfourtunately, they had that power then. I know that in my father's religion we were strongly discouraged from reading anything but their own publishings, and they published tons of books, magazines, and tracts.

According to my logic, if i am confident in my convictions, in my religion, then i want you to read, investigate, and question all you want. Think outside the box, and try to prove me wrong. Go ahead, do my job; you will come back more convinced that i am right than if i had been quoting chapter and verse to you.

In my father's religion, the arguement against exploring is that anything that they do not publish is heavily tainted by....you guessed it, Satan.

Looking at the Bible

I was one of the faithful, i had a relationship with God, i believed the bible story.
I liked having God in my life, there was always someone to talk to; Jesus, on the other hand, i could never really talk to him. In some ways it was like my relationship with my little, gay half-brother H. I feel that H. resents me like i
resent Jesus for being the perfect son.

For me to have stayed faithful, would have been very simple.

I was asked to do one thing: to have faith in God, and i had no problem with that. Then i studied the bible; i haven't read the whole bible, i've read enough, been lectured about the rest. What i did was study this book called The Holy Bible.

To have kept my belief in God all i would have needed to hear was: God is good,
He created everything; think about anything, anything at all, He created it. That's all it would have taken, i would have worshiped God forever.

But that's not what happened.

He came out with a book, and all i had to do was really look at this book to know that God was a fictional character along with his antagonist, Satan; all made up by human imagination over the years and eventually written down by scholars. There is human wisdom in this book, but it is wisdom that had been around before. God did not all the sudden give us the idea that murder was wrong. People did think before the bible; there were philosophers around with some pretty good ideas.
This book did have one thing that was fairly new: it's insistance that we worship Him and only Him; it really hammers home that point, the first two commandments is just about that: it really does not want you to shop around.

I think the Roman emperor Constantine recognized the fragility of early Christianity, hence the first council of Nicea in 325 A.D. Constantine saw
Christianity coming apart at the seams because it could not settle the dispute over whether Jesus was God or the son of God, the most basic of dogmas; if your religion doesn't know that, something is not right. He got a bunch of Bishops together in Nicea and he ordered them to just pick one and go with it! let's get our story straight and stick with it. And that's how Chritianity got it's big break and became the religion it is today. Constantine saw the value of the influence that religion has over people; an influence powerful enough that people are willing to die for their religion. This comes in handy to start wars.

Implications and Inspirations

Writing is hard work, for me anyway, so there must be a pretty good reason why i would decide to exorcise my spiritual demons in this way. Well, i was inspired by a very nice lady who asked me outright if i was a Christian.

A very long time ago i did lie about it, one time, and that one time was enough to convince me that that was not going to work for me. After that i would try to avoid the subject or give a vague answer. I have no idea how this Christian lady worked that question into what we were discussing, but there it was; surprisingly, i did not dread, and i was not uncomfortable being honest. So, this very nice lady asked me a few more questions and then declared that Satan had gotten a hold of me and that she would pray for me.

It's not the first time i've been told that, it's just the first in a long time. I wrote last time about when i was 16 and i quit going to church, my father predicted that i would fall in with Satan; of course, i disappointed him even on such a likely outcome. Some would say i didn't disappoint him, but i meant in providing him with more tangible proof that i had gone to the other side.

Then when i was in my twenties, i swear this one member of dad's congragation would come into the shop just to tell me that my father was very disappointed that i had gone over to team Satan.

It doesn't bother me because Satan does not exist for me. What bothers me is the implication that if you are not a Christian, then you are evil. The arogance of the implication that there cannot be good without God.  Not to mention, in my father's religion, the impudence of calling it "The Truth"; as in: are you in the Truth or some other religion? Are you in the Truth or in with Satan?

Of course, people will say that the insane do not know they are insane, same with the possessed..... Fair enough.

Sins of the Father

My mother grew up a Catholic farm girl in San Juan del Rio, Durango and remained Catholic when she moved to Matamoros. I wish i had asked her what she thought about converting to dad's religion when we moved to Texas and what happened to her in that religion that made her abandon it. I don't remember much about it, i was about 15 yrs old then, i was mostly wondering if that fuzz on my lip would ever turn into something.

It was17 years later, it might have been during the same conversation we had about death, that i asked her if she knew what a cult was and i told her that it was the opinion of some people that dad's religion was on the verge of being a cult. This did not faze her, and she let me know that she was not convinced of that. I told her that any religion that tries to control who you marry and what you read is highly suspicious.

Mom stopped going to church with dad, but she never abandoned God. I kept going to the services with dad, just the two of us, nearly a year, i guess. At 16 yrs old, i think that leaving that church and abandoning dad to his theology was the first challenge, of any importance, that i would have to deal with, to become the person i set out to be. I knew, at that age, that i did not want to be the person that my father was trying to mold; it's one thing to have taught me his trade, i'm grateful for that, it's quite another to force me to adopt his beliefs without question. When it was clear to me that i was expected to end my education upon my high school graduation, (and even that was frowned upon by dad) and was strongly discouraged from reading anything that was not published by his church, i knew that i was expected not to question.

I'm not sure what could have caused me to have such an epiphany (if i may use that term) at that moment in time, but i knew then that i did not want to be closed minded. The questions were starting to form, and one led to another; what i read in the bible did not make any sense, but my conscience did not let me be critical of the book inspired by God, not until that first step was taken. It took a long time, by teenager standards i suppose, because i could not find a way out; i was not a natural rebel like my older sister; i could not confront my father because
confronting him was tantamount to facing God Almighty to question His logic.  In the end, out of desperation, i turned to my mother and pleaded my case; i hope that the reason that she decided to help me was that she knew it was not Satan at work, like my father would reason, and not just another opportunity for her to make dad's life miserable. She told me one saturday: just don't come out of your room in the morning until your father leaves; and she told him that i would no longer be joining him, that i had my reasons. He yelled at her that she would be sorry for aiding and abetting Satan's latest project!

Yes, dad predicted my moral downfall, but i don't know if he ever got any satisfaction out of that prediction. Mom mentioned the incident one time, not long before she died, it made her laugh. It was a couple of years after i quit going to church that i had my first real beer, not just a stolen sip, and it was another couple of years before i started drinking with any regularity, that didn't last long. Tried pot the first time when i was 18, it was ok, but i think i'm giddy anyway. I brought books home from school and read them, i was in plays, i went to UIL play competition one year; i was a geek, for heaven's sake! My mother knew that, i don't think dad did.

Good Fences

Last saturday we went to visit my son at UNT where we hung out a little bit on the
perimeters of the campus; there are some colorful businesses around there, and in downtown Denton. It's refreshing to see the diverse ethnicities, fashions, and hair styles that walk around there in contrast to the JCPenney maniquins around here. Nothing wrong with Penney's or Wal-Mart, for that matter, it's just refreshing to see people that do not go that route.

It is National Coming Out Day, as it has been on Columbus Day these past 22 years. Seems like as good a day as any to come out myself; yes, i've been a closeted non-believer for the past 25 years, at least. As a non-believer living on the north-west corner of the buckle, on the bible belt, i relate to the closeted homosexual. I wonder if my little gay half-brother, H., is out? ...Probably, i don't think it's something he can hide; we don't talk.

One of my regrets in life is having practically come out to my mother: it was probably just a few months before she died of cancer at age 69, and it would be the one and only time we talked of death. I have always thought of myself as having been in denial of her impending demise almost to the day it happened, but somewhere in my subconscience something must have been trying to tell me. During that conversation, in which i learned that she had made peace with her god, i confessed to being on the fence concerning the whole god issue. My honesty was rewarded with an all too familiar quiet disappointment. I wanted to tell her something important about myself, but at the same time that i'm glad i got to tell her, i know it was selfish and thoughtless. I told her that i based my beliefs on scientific findings, like that would be of some consolation; and with a deep sigh she said, well, knowing you, you'll accidently fall off on the good side.

The Odd Couple

My earliest recollection of God is when i was 5 or 6 and still living in Matamoros; one of my friends who attended sunday school put the idea in my head that Santa Claus lived with God in heaven. Since i didn't attend sunday school, i'm not sure if he was repeating what the teacher told him or was interpolating, but it made sense to me, and i could picture the two old, white-bearded men like a biblical version of Jack Klugman and Tony Randell. It was the first time i can remember being conscious of the Almighty watching my every move.

Putting the two together helped me reconcile with old St. Nick whom i had previously had misgivings about because of the whole unpracticality of his annual romp across the planet. Giving him a partner like the Almighty cleared things up for me. Until, that is, dad moved us to Texas in 1968 and Santa did not visit our home any longer and i found out that he did not visit other kids from other religions as well. When dad told me that we didn't celebrate Christmas because Jesus did not tell his followers to comemorate his birth, but his death, i was living in a different country with a different language in a town where where i was the only Mexican in the school; the issues with Jesus and Santa probably did not have the effect that it otherwise could have. In Mexico Santa showed up because we were Catholic; here we were Christian, but because of a different translation of the Bible, Santa passed us by; confusion was my middle name, but i went along for the ride because i was a kid. All i knew was that it was no longer enough to believe in God and that Jesus is his son, to be considered for a reward on Christmas.

Then dad told me that Santa was not real anyway, but i was already numb by then, so that nugget of information just sat there like odd looking stone that you kept in your little treasure box along with that tiny compass that broke off a cheap pair of binoculars that you got at the state fair for being good. And many years later you remember the experience of having truth turned into lie with just a few words and i realize that i was given a gift then: the gift of possibilies; that things are possible, in this world, that i may not have considered as easily, without that gift.

Santa Claus and God: all the sudden Santa was not real;  were they such an odd couple after all?

Being able to consider the alternatives to all our Truths, no matter how improbable, is all it takes to begin the search for what is most probable; for the truth may not be known in our lifetime, if ever.

Consequences

There doesn't seem to be any adverse consequences to living life on whatever terms one has decided to adopt for oneself. I suppose most just adopt the beliefs of their ancestors, living life basicly as their parents did without doubts or original thoughts; it worked for them, why rock the boat?

The name of my blog "Truth or Consequences" is mostly paying homage to my favorite game show as a kid. I remember, on one show, Bob Barker brought out this mat that was layed on the floor, and eggs would bounce off this thing without breaking. The game they played with it was pretty lame, but that mat was fascinating.

But, i am thinking about modern times when i say that there doesn't seem to be any adverse effects to deciding what we are going to believe and living by that, because Aztec priests used to practice human sacrifice, in case you missed Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. We now know the truth: human sacrifice is a waste of time;
i just wish Pres. W. Bush had known that....

I suspect that if we knew what the truth was, and all those questions about
life--it's meaning and where we're going in the end--were off the table, life would be less fatiguing. I think there would be fewer wars, and all the time spent preaching and arguing about the details of our "Truths" could be spent
accomplishing projects that could be useful for society....like that mat that you can bounce eggs off of.

Truth

One of the most interesting subjects concerning humanity, and it is uniquely a human concept; to all other animals, i presume, things are what they are and nothing else. When man evolved sound and words to accomodate thinking, truth was there to greet them, but then people could not satisfy their hunger for truth, so truth's brother was born: Truth, borne of man's arrogance and impatience to know the things beyond their science and the desire to know the unknowable.

Therefore, truth's brother is not the evil Lie, but the well meaning Belief, a.k.a. Faith. When man does not like what truth has to offer, they turn to Belief, who will tell them what they want to hear.

This, then, is my Belief and how i came to it; truth is all around us, some of us may cross paths with it on occasion, some not at all.... ever.