Skepticism, and Purging Wrong Doctrine

While atheism is a tenable position (the lack of belief in gods, NOT the faith statement that there are no gods), its conclusions leave a lot to be desired emotionally, and effectively end the spiritual journey.  This statement has been the beginning idea for my current spiritual wandering.  But in searching for a way out of this cycle of despair, I’m realizing that often times skepticism pulls me back in.  Skepticism is easy.  Anytime something looks bright, shiny, and new, skepticism is there to remind you of its faults, so that it is no longer attractive.  And with skepticism as my dark passenger, when will anything seem worth the effort that I’m trying so hard to put into it?

I’ve been attending a Quaker meeting for about a month now, and it’s been a mercurial ride.  Some days it seems absolutely meant to be, others I feel embarrassed to be there, like I’m fooling myself on purpose.  Since I generally don’t believe in counseling (skepticism again), I try to self-reflect on what makes things pleasant or unpleasant for me.  In the pleasant times, I feel like there really is a way out of atheist despair, something that is concrete enough to not be ridiculous, but open enough to allow me to wiggle around within it.  In the unpleasant times, it’s like I’m back at Baptist church, or college, where there was a lot of showmanship, but very little acknowledgement of the difficulties with the consistency of what was being preached.  There are a lot of issues I’ve been thinking about, and would like to write about when I can formulate things a little better (the issue of primary authority is a big one), but for the time being, I’m realizing that I have a lot of baggage from the faith of my youth.  Ideas that need to be purged so I can move on from them and listen to/for whatever might be out there trying to talk to me.

Hell is first.  The issue that started my departure from Christianity is still real to a lot of people I care about, including my mom.  She said to me recently that she sometimes thinks about being in heaven without some of her kids being there, and it makes her sad.  Well of COURSE it makes her sad.  It’s a terrible thought!  The God of love allowing His own creation to suffer forever over a faith decision sound like a petulant child that gets his toy taken away.  Except for the universalists (among the few that seem to be taking the Bible’s original language seriously), hell is such an essential doctrine of most Christian groups that it would be hard to define them without it.  And yet it’s such a simple issue to dispose of, in my opinion.  If we make a few assumptions (there is a God, God loves humanity, God wants to be reconciled with his creation, and God is all-powerful), eternal hell is gone.  But people don’t seem to want it that way.  They cling to a silly notion that the free will of humanity (because going to hell is MAN’S decision, not God’s) is so strong, that even God can’t override it.  God really really wants us all in heaven, but NOPE, human free will wins, so people stay in hell by choice.  While this idea makes me angry, I need to purge it.  It’s already done its damage to me, and it continues to do damage to the people that believe in it, and I need to let it go.

Second is the sin nature.  The dreary religions tend to focus a lot of time and energy on what they perceive to be the negative aspects of humanity.  Because Adam and Eve screwed up, every person for the rest of time is a despicable, vile creature, only allowed to take a breath because God is so loving, unless you don’t accept a very narrow faith structure, then it’s back to hellfire once this life is over.  I don’t think the idea of sin nature is helpful to anyone.  While protestants have largely avoided Catholic guilt by emphasizing faith salvation over works salvation, the damage is still done.  People are still being trained that they are inherently despicable.  I reject this is manipulative baloney.  I much prefer the Quaker notion of there being the light of God in everyone (even there is no God - at least this belief gives us a positive starting point).  I need to purge my anger over sin nature, and have sympathy for those that embrace it, not anger that it’s still around.

Lastly, for now, is exclusivism.  Many of the world’s religions are not exclusive.  They don’t claim that their way is the only way to heaven, or nirvana, or whatever the end result is.  But in our society, exclusivism is everywhere.  Dozens of denominations within Christianity, all claiming to be the using the Bible as their authority (yet somehow all arriving at different conclusions), believe their way is the only way.  That God is so concerned with the details that unless every line of the creed is fully embraced, it’s not quite enough to earn Christ’s forgiveness.  I can’t count the number of times I heard a youth pastor tell me that if someone really believes in X, they aren’t really a Christian because they haven’t fully accept teaching Y or Z that is clearly spelled out in the Bible.  The idea that God, if she exists, is such a stickler for theology seems absurd on its face.  Exclusivism divides people who would otherwise be a community.  It creates “us” and “them” over something as silly as an idea conflict.  I’d like to imagine that God is not so immature.  Even this week, I’ve seen adults who should know better make reference to “the world,” as if the world is something separate from themselves, and they are above it.  I need to purge exclusivism.  I need to give away its power to make me angry so that I can search for the light without old wounds being allowed to distract me.

I write these things out knowing that a lot of my friends and family believe in them.  I don’t intend to insult anyone.  I wrote in my first entry that this blog is for my benefit, and it’s still true.  I’ve spent enough time being angry about religion, and I’m doing my best to let these things go.  Sometimes that means spewing the angry out so it can’t come back in.

My goal going forward is to find ideas I can accept, not just focus on things I reject.  To this end, here’s a rare piece of positivity that I wrote to a friend on Facebook, who put out a general question about what beliefs mean to us:

“I think beliefs should be few and simple. Most things can be known, and don't require belief. But if something must be believed, it shouldn't hurt other people. If it does, a person should find a way to abandon the belief for something more loving.

For me personally, abandoning beliefs in exclusivism, hell, Bible worship, being-special-because-i-was-born-in-a-certain-place-or-with-certain-preferences..rejecting these things have allowed me to start over, which is one of the best things I ever did.”


To you, the reader, what ideas might you be needing to purge?

Learning to Speak Another Language

Beer church (Wednesday night at 8pm, Horse Brass Pub, come on down!) has been a great learning experience for me over the last few months.  It’s a lot of fun to not only talk through my religious journey with an ever-changing variety of people, but also to listen to theirs.  In this setting, evangelism is not the goal, so a lot of the usual pressures of multi-faith discussions are taken away.  Souls aren’t for sale, and so people aren’t treated like prospective customers (try openly confessing to not wanting to be an atheist anymore - the sales pitches are plentiful!).

Something that has been striking to me recently is how language plays such an important part in our personal religious journeys.  The phrases and concepts people use are so different, but so often the same.  In my Baptist culture growing up, there was a lot of focus on the pessimistic interpretation of the Bible and of the world.  Ideas like original sin, depravity, hell, the need for salvation - lots of “I’m bad but God is good.”  Buddhist culture is quite the opposite.  When I attended a Buddhist meeting earlier this year, one of the few things spoken from the pulpit was “you are already perfect.”  Quakers, the liberal branch of which I’m beginning to align myself with, almost never speak of things like sin, hell, and depravity.  They speak of light, community, and peace.  Because they believe in ongoing revelation (a trait they share with the Mormons), they aren’t stuck worshipping a dead book, and this frees them to spend their time listening for truth instead of obsessing over every hermeneutical detail.

What I appreciate about liberal Quakers is their acceptance of different forms of language.  If words like God, Christ, Jesus, etc.. make you uncomfortable, don’t use them!  Many of my Quaker friends frequently refer to holding someone in the light, as opposed to “I’ll pray for you.”  For people like me who have a lot of baggage tied up in the “old language,” it’s freeing to be able to express positive will towards someone without having to fraudulently refer to prayer.

Another thing that has stood out to me at beer church is that no matter what name is given to our religious identity (yesterday we had 2 Thelemites, a conservative Vineyard member and his family, an agnostic, a Quaker pastor, and whatever I am), we all seem to want the same thing.  We want to make sense of ourselves, our lives, whatever “other than me” might be out there, and we want our understanding of these things to make our lives better.  I think it’s important that we recognize this commonality in each other.  My struggle is to remember that this is also true of those who still believe the things I have rejected.  No matter how narrow or mean I may find their beliefs to be, they hold their beliefs for the same reasons I’m looking for mine, and it does me no good to write them off.

To close for today, the Quaker pastor that attended beer church last night gave me some great advice for recognizing if a church community is right for you.  “Just stand up and yell FUCK! If they still accept you afterwards, you’re in the right place.”

On Being Willing to Believe

There are times when the desire for connection with the divine is so strong, it almost becomes a physical object.  This divine is not the same for everyone.  What I want it to be is so different from what I recognized as divine so long ago.

I’ve realized that if I can’t be certain of the spiritual things, at the very least I can discern what I want to be true, and see where that takes me.  I want there to be an eternal consciousness that involves me, both during this life and after.  I want there to be meaning to this life - to the words that are said, the actions that are done, the bonds that are created between like-minded people.  No matter when my life ends in this body, let that not be the end of me.  I want peace, but not just peace, an inner delight in the people and world around me.  I want to know, and to be known.

In my silence at West Hills Friends this past week, the sentence that kept coming back to me was, “If I want to believe, I have to be willing to believe.”  It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but being willing to believe is harder than it sounds.  It takes an active rejection of the need for logic and evidence, and an acceptance that maybe, just maybe, an experience of something divine can occur in spite of its nonsensicality. Maybe the connection I want won’t be found in words or holy books, and it certainly isn’t likely to be found in a burning bush or the physical presence of a god, which would take away the need for faith at all.

I’m embracing the idea that my search and discovery of anything divine can be my own.  It doesn’t have to fit within a denomination, it doesn’t need a label, and it doesn’t need a guide.  It doesn’t have to include the word God, or extend to the Bible or Jesus or anyone else with claims to be holy.   I’ve begun to FEEL the things I’ve been looking for, even if I don’t always know what those things are.  This struggle against faith is no longer a matter of which system has the best answers to the questions, or which proof for the existence of a god is most likely to be correct.  My most recent intuitions are that these things are valuable tools that ultimately help one to realize that they don’t matter.  The adventure is in the journey, not in the conclusion, which is likely to never come.

The Spirit of the Quakers

I came to the realization recently that if there’s one group of people whose faith system I could see myself embracing someday (and perhaps have already begun to), it’s the liberal end of the Quaker tradition.  I’ve gotten closer to a number of these folks recently, and there are a few common themes among them that are attractive, and more than that, they don’t have any of the “deal-breaker doctrines.”  Most of them don’t believe in a literal, eternal hell.  None of them think gay people, or gay relationships are an abomination, and most importantly, they’re all accepting of a recovering atheist asking a lot of questions during a meeting.

I’ve agreed with the social focuses of the Quakers for a long time.  As a 95% pacifist, their belief in peace works for me.  Their wide array of beliefs about almost every doctrinal topic also works for me.  They don’t have creeds, so there’s no list of things a person must adhere to, or else be kicked out.  A few of them are barely even theists, and yet the Quaker tradition holds incredible meaning to them, and fills whatever semblance of spiritual need they can identify.  The stirrings in me recently have been a lot like the last sentence.  A friend loaned me a book called The Spirit of the Quakers last weekend, and it includes a brief history of the church, along with a lot of quotes and journal entries from dozens of people.  A few of these quotes stopped me cold - I’d not read anyone say the things that are in my head so clearly.  A recovering atheist doesn’t meet many people in the same situation, and the sense I get from many in the current and past Quaker church is that the Quaker tradition, with its silence and sometimes vague notions about God, can be the last hope for those that yearn for belief, but simply can’t find it via their intellect.  I’d like to share 3 of the quotes that I’m in love with this week.  I’ll be attending a Quaker home meeting on Sunday nights for awhile, and it’s quotes like these that let me know I’m in the right place at the right time:


“You say, ‘But with the best will in the world, I can’t get to the point of believing in God.’  Well then, if you want to believe in him, if you feel something great behind it all and not just words, well, work for God, and you will see not only that it comes to the same thing as believing in him, but something infinitely more alive, more real, more powerful which fills you and satisfies you more than anything you might vaguely imagine under the name of ‘real and living faith’- a reality, a life and not words.

Pierre Ceresole, published 1954

“I begin to recognize that ultimately it is not for any intellectual reason that I believe in God, nor even possibly as a result of my emotional state, but simply from the growing sense that when I call he answers.
I don’t find it easy to write this, but I also need to overcome the sense that you will find what I say fairly ridiculous.  However, it seems worth the risk, because the alternative is rather bleak - that there is, after all, no converse with God, because we do not begin the conversations.  All I want to say is that once the conversation begins, once does not want it ever to stop.”

Tony Brown, 1984

“It began to dawn on me that I had at last found what I had been looking for all these years.  But not in the way I had expected to. I had expected, or at least hoped, to find an idea, an interpretation of Quaker faith that I could then put into practice. But it came the other way around. I found a practice, and out of this arose the faith. Not that I produced the faith myself, for the practice was and is a matter of opening myself to what is already there, receiving what is offered, responding to what is revealed to me. The faith was produced in me by something much deeper in me than my conscious ego, but something that made itself by twinges of conscience that told me that all was not well with me.  As I responded to these and allowed myself to be shown what was really going on in my life, I became aware of the self-deceptions that made me think that “I”, this conscious ego, was the centre of my being and my world - and aware of the truth, that my life was rooted in a reality way beyond my ken, but a reality that I could nevertheless trust. I had to use the word “God” to signal this other-than-me which gave me my being, though I was aware intellectually of the impossibility of using the word in a logically consistent way. Paradoxical though it may be, I had to say that God was the source of my new-found freedom and joy.”

Rex Ambler, 2002


The Spirit of the Quakers by Geoffrey Durham can be read for free on Google books.

When she screams

You are my reflection , and
Today, I’m embarrassed by my appearance
Your rage is so easily projected
While I can’t seem to let mine come out
Neither way is healthy, but health is for the lucky.

You are my success scale
And so often I’m failing
Losing a game with no score
Made worse because I know the rules
While you just want more of my attention

To reason with a child is
To sweep the floor with a pressure washer
I’m answering questions you’re not asking
And missing the easy answers you need

On these days, it’s easy to feel like
I love you more when you’re sleeping.
But these are feelings, and feelings are illusions.

May these days be fewer, and our language become the same
May we both be happy with what we see in the mirror
And may you never know your parents’ guilt
Until the day you feel it yourself, and I can finally apologize.

Does Truth Matter?

Last night I attend a presentation/book selling event featuring a Multnomah Seminary Professor and a local Buddhist monk.  They have presented together on many occasions, attempting to bring people together in peace to discuss issues that matter to both of them.  There wasn’t much deep substance spoken (it was only 45 minutes, after all), but one of the questions from an audience member really hit home for me, and I think it’s an important question to ponder.  She asked, paraphrasing:

“I can understand mathematical truth, and I can understand scientific truth, but when you use the word “truth” to describe Jesus and faith and spiritual things, what does “truth” mean in this context?”


Talk about a million dollar question.  The presenters vaguely stumbled around the question, but didn’t really answer it.  It’s not their fault.  It’s a huge question.  But as I think about faith issues, I find myself torn between two different desires.  I desire to follow evidence where it leads, and be ok with whatever conclusion the evidence leads to.  But I also desire to find comfort in life, and in the spiritual conclusions that I reach.  Most of the time, I don’t think both of these things are possible.  As the Buddhist monk pointed out in the presentation, for fundamentalist Christians, there is a huge, unmovable piece of the discussion that simply is beyond question (the book of John, essentially).   In my opinion, this unmovable object prevents the fundamentalist from following the evidence where it leads, because if it leads away from this object, either the evidence must be wrong, or some kind of faith-speak must be used to whisk it away like evidence doesn’t matter.  (well…if we could really know all the answers, we wouldn’t need faith, and we obviously need faith, therefore it must not matter much if we can prove things).

But on the comfort side, faith, even if it’s unbelievable, provides really pleasing answers.  Faith tells me what I want to hear, and asks me to quit worrying about whether or not it all makes sense, because I can live my day-to-day life without worrying that my brain might turn off one day and never come back.  Heaven, eternity, these sorts of things.

So what is a person to do?  Some have chosen to pursue the evidence, in all its gritty little details, exposing exegetical truths that don’t matter to most people.  For these people, every single truth matters, and either supports the person’s faith, or supports their reasons for rejecting it.  Others decide the truth of the matter isn’t as important as the ability to let go of the need to solve the puzzle.  For them, the embrace of forgiveness and eternity is reward enough, and it includes the promise of even more after death.

So does it matter what’s true?  And if it matters, should unmovable objects be allowed to exist?  And if the truth doesn’t matter, would it be so hard just to say so?

Falling Down/Starting Over

I lost my job last week.  It was unexpected, but there were two weeks between when I knew it was likely to happen, and when it finally happened.  During those 2 weeks, I barely slept, barely ate, and lost 14 pounds.  Terror is my new least favorite emotion.

It’s amazing where the mind goes when things are falling apart.  As I laid in bed, wishing I could sleep but knowing I couldn’t, something interesting happened: I prayed.

In my younger years, when something outside my control was weighing me down, I would pray for help.  It was all I could do.  This felt much the same way.  I may not have believed anyone was listening, but I NEEDED someone to be listening, and it felt good to ask.

When I was going through pre-marriage counseling, Mark McLeod, who officiated our wedding, helped me get over one of my worst childhood memories by painting a mental picture.  He asked me to close my eyes and imagine the situation as it happened when I was 12.  He then asked me to imagine Jesus lifting a curtain and shining a giant light into the room, taking it all out of the darkness.  This imagine helped me take the sting and misery out of the situation, and move on from it.

In these last few weeks, I’ve tried to imagine my life as a trail in the woods, with the hand of God pushing back branches so I could see the light at the end.  This image brought me peace.

I don’t know what this all means.  I don’t have the energy to re-assess my stance on God and faith right now.  But I think it’s important to acknowledge that when the shit really hit the fan, I turned to the comfort I used to know, and it made a difference.

In the short term, we’re moving back to Portland.  We’re down a car, and soon to be without health insurance.  Once in Portland, Sarah, Taylor and the baby we’re expecting in January should be able to get on the Oregon Health Plan.  Sarah has a good job, but she’s self-employed, so there aren’t any benefits.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do.  I’ve interviewed with another company in the same industry, but I’ve never really had a dream job that I wanted to chase, so I’m hoping to find inspiration.  Somehow this experience has greatly strengthened my marriage.  We’ve talked about the idea of me staying at home with the baby and taking Taylor to and from kindergarten, which starts in 2 weeks.  Part of me likes the idea, part of me is afraid I’ll hate it, and feel like a failure all the time.  I never expected to have to make these decisions.

Why I Am Not an Agnostic

Why I Am Not an Agnostic

Since I started using the term atheist for myself, there have been a few incorrect responses that have come back to me (and to be honest, most people aren't brave enough to discuss the issue with me, so kudos to those that are!).  Here are a few of them:

"Atheism is the same as religion, it's just faith that there is no God instead of faith that there is."
"Atheists are all so pissed off all the time"
"You're not really an atheist  - I think you're an agnostic"

The last one has been said to me twice, despite my repeatedly assurance that I'm pretty sure I know what I am more than someone else does.  In any event, the first and third statements both relate to definitions, and the misunderstandings people have about them.  (I'm saving #2 for another time)

To start with, let's define agnosticism.  Agnosticism is the philosophical position that the question of the existence of God(s) cannot be known.  This is NOT the same thing as saying "I don't know," or "I doubt it but I can't say for sure," or " I'm on the fence."  To be a true agnostic requires a whole lot more philosophical insight than most people have, and those that have it tend to not be agnostics.  Why?  My theory is that it's silly to give up on a question just because the answer hasn't been found yet, and philosophers aren't quitters.  How many philosophical or scientific answers have been found long after religion and society decided to attribute the answer to the supernatural?  It wasn't too long ago that famine was considered God's punishment, but then science came along and not only gave an explanation for it, but in a lot of cases, taught us how to solve it entirely.

So why quit on the existence of God?  If you've got a reason, I'd like to hear it.

An atheist, on the other hand, is not someone who "believes" there is no God.  An atheist simply lacks the beliefs in any gods.  There are prominent atheists, Penn Gillette being one, who will proudly state that they DO believe there is no God, but even he makes the distinction between actual atheism, and something that goes further than atheism.  But if the word atheist is being used, it should not be assumed that the people has made a faith statement that is equally unprovable as saying God exists.  I view it like this:

Belief in God | Lack of Belief in God | Belief in no God

The first is theism (or deism if you prefer your faith a little bit less attached), the second is atheism, the third is something else that probably has a name, but I don't know what it is.  For me, the visual is even simpler:

Belief in God   |          

I'm to the right of the line.  Nothing more, nothing less.  I don't believe there is NOT a God because I can't prove that point any more than I can prove that there is.  Being to the right of the line also does not necessarily make me anti-God or anti-Christian (I should point out that with one exception, most of you are just as atheistic as I am.  You just happen to believe in one more god than I do).  The search for meaning and value in life leads a lot of people to faith, but that doesn't mean that everyone who chooses not to take that step thinks faith is stupid and meaningless.

Quite the contrary.  As I hope I've made clear on this blog in the past, I think religion has tremendous meaning, and is undeniably understandable.  Truth value aside, faith provides answers to the most important questions, and to hold onto those answers, even in the absence of valid reasons to do so (or proof if you like that word better - there's not much difference in my opinion), makes a lot of sense.  Why would someone WANT to live their life in uncertainty?  I sure don't.  But I've discovered that faith is not something a person can choose to have, and it's usually not something a person can choose to let go of.  It's there or it isn't, and while knowledge and personal relationships influence a person's faith status a great deal, in the end I think it's largely outside a person's control.

In closing, if there's one thing I'd love to see in the theism vs. atheism discussion, it's the correct use of words, in their correct context.  If someone says they're agnostic (and this is a broad generalization), they're probably not educated enough in philosophy to know what they're saying, and are more than likely an atheist who doesn't have the courage to admit they're not a believer.  I'd go so far as to say that by definition, an agnostic IS an atheist.  After all, if you don't think the question has an answer, you're certainly not a believer, which by default makes you an atheist.

So let's say what me we mean and mean what we say.  If you're an atheist, don't be afraid to say so.  As I've learned, there are a whole lot of religious people that will still want to be friends with you, can have faith conversations with you without taking your atheism personally, and will support your journey even if your conclusion isn't the same as theirs.  And if you're a believer, find out what your atheist friend means when they say they're an atheist.  It probably isn't as mean and nasty as you imagine.

Friends in Lonely Places

I’m coming to realize that one of the most untrue things I was taught as a child is that people are fundamentally bad.

My work sometimes takes me away for weeks at a time, and during those times, I have a lot of choices.  Choices about what I eat, what I do with my evenings, etc..  For each of the last 2 summers I’ve been sent to one of the plains states to handle hail claims for 21 days in a row, usually about 12 hours per day.  At night, if I choose to let it be, life can be awfully lonely.  Last year I spent the evenings of my first week in Rapid City by myself in the hotel, mindlessly watching crap on cable and trying to cling to my normal life via Facebook.  In the second week, I happened to meet a roofer who was in town chasing storms.  We got along pretty well, and started to hang out in the evenings, mostly on the weekends.  We talked about UFC, our families, sports, politics, a little of everything.  He called me Obama’s boy, and I accused him of exploiting cheap Mexican labor.  It was fun.  But above all, it was a connection - another person to share that brief section of life with, and keep life from being lonely.  Through not much effort, I had made a friend, and we keep in touch still today.

This year was no different.  Right off the bat here in Colorado, I met a roofer who lives in town with his wife and 3 kids, one of whom is adopted from China.  As 2 of my siblings are also adopted, we had something in common right away.  Glen has a PhD in audiology, and after selling his private practice, decided to become a roofer.  It got him outside, he got to meet lots of people, and he didn’t have to hassle with health insurance cuts and Medicare issues.  Over the course of the 3 weeks I’ve been here, I’ve probably had dinner with Glen and his family 5 times, and got together on jobs many more.  I introduced his teenagers to the UFC, and told him about my wife, who studied audiology in college.  I’m sincerely sad to be leaving him tomorrow.  Were we living in the same town, I’m sure our families would be great friends.

These experiences have made me view life a little bit differently.  It seems that no matter where I am, I can always find someone to share the human experience with, and it makes my life better.  People are the same in so, so many ways, and if we’re willing, they can enrich our days simply be being there to share the time, and the occasional beer.

I’m not very good at self-awareness, but I’m learning that as much as I’ve always believed myself to be an introvert, I’m really not.  I’ve gotten good at making friends, and I’m proud of myself for it.  This past year I’ve made at least a half-dozen solid friendships through OneGeorgeFox, a few more through work, not to mention my annual catastrophe companions.

Over the last few weeks, it’s become clear that in a few years, my best friend since I was in diapers is going to move away.  I’m not very happy about it.  I can’t blame him - after all, I moved away in 2006, not necessarily intending to move back.  But it still sucks.  He’s always been there, and you can‘t replace 30 years of history.  My hope is that my new awareness for great people lurking around most corners will help fill that void, and that transition won’t be as awful as it sounds.  But it certainly makes me appreciate people - not on an individual level, but as a collective.  People, on the whole, are amazing.  And given a little bit of effort, and a little bit of patience, we can all find a few people to make this life better, simply by showing up and letting them be a part of our experience.

When I talk to Taylor on the phone, she tells me that I’m the best daddy in the world, and she “misses my lips.”  I miss hers too, and hopefully after I get home tomorrow, I’ll get to see most of yours as well.

Cassie from Columbine

I spent  part of today at the Columbine memorial in Littleton, Colorado.  Littleton is great little town with above average incomes, beautiful parks, and roads with shoulders big enough to park 2 cars wide.  You’d never expect something so tragic to come have from here.

The school itself seemed harmless enough.  Giant parking lots all around it, a massive park next to it, where today a national softball tournament was being held.  The screams of teenage girls and metal bats were a strange contrast to the memorial.  But it’s good to know that life goes on for almost everyone.

The memorial has plaques with quotes from parents, students, and a president, most of which just make you think to yourself, “Dammit.  Just.. Dammit.”  There aren’t words for these kinds of events.  There’s no good place to aim our blame.  Certainly no parent could have performed so poorly as to prompt this behavior.  Music, movies, bullying..plenty of people are involved in all these things, and almost none of them turn violent.  Perhaps that’s why sitting there at that memorial hurts so much.  There’s nothing I can DO to change anything.

My daughter Taylor is in love with a band called Flyleaf.  One of their songs is called “Cassie,” which is about one of two students who was killed at Columbine after being asked if they believe in God.  Those 2 plaques especially made me hurt.  I don’t know quite why.  I thought about what it means to be a martyr, in a sense.  Would those girls have been spared if they had lied?  Is the world a better place because their amazing stories are around to tell?  Nobody really knows.  I kind of doubt anyone has changed their religion because of what they did.  But somehow it feels like it matters - the act of dying after professing faith in God.  Their parents probably don’t feel that way, but if given the chance, I doubt they would have answered any differently.

I don’t have any good conclusions about life or faith.  I just felt a lot of things today, and I’m glad I felt them.  I find that most of life is spent with a non-descript feeling, partly sorrow, partly doubt, sometimes a little bit of hope.  Faith might be in there somewhere.  It’s hard to tell.  But for today, I’m pondering those students, that teacher, those killers, and the words my daughter loves so much:

All heads are bowed in silence
To remember her last sentence
She answered him knowing what would happen
Her last words still hanging in the air
In the air

Do you believe in God
Written on the bullet
Say yes to pull the trigger
Do you believe in God
Written on the bullet
And Cassie/Rachel pulled the trigger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-EBHBZJAmw&feature=related
Or, if you prefer your sorrow a little bit louder:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwJIW-6bTt0&feature=related

An Honorable Death

When I’m bored, I watch documentaries.  I’ve watched documentaries I shouldn’t admit to watching (doc about the world air guitar championships, anyone?).  Last week I watched a doc in which a filmmaker set up a camera pointing at the pedestrian walkway on the golden state bridge (It‘s called The Bridge, and it‘s streaming on Netflix if you want to watch it).  He had it set up for 2 years for the purpose of filming, and then investigating suicide jumpers.  All in all, I believe he captured 8 people jumping from the bridge, 7 of which died.  He was too far away to be able to stop them, but once they jumped, he’d find out who they were, then interview their families, trying to dissect suicide to see what we can learn about it.  Suicide is a fascinating issue.  I deal with it at work on occasion, and have experienced it within my family.

Tonight I had dinner in Boulder with my Uncle Kirk, who is awesome.  He has a PhD in geology, and his house powers itself.  Cool, right?  At dinner, were got to talking about death, geriatrics, health care, that kind of thing, and it brought up something I think is worth discussing.  To put it bluntly, the question goes something like this:

Wouldn’t it be preferable for the very elderly or the very sick to give the people in their lives a break, and take their own life?  Or conversely, is all the money and effort we put into extending the human life really worth it?

If you spend much time reading history books, or watching nature shows, you’ll notice a pattern.  The tribe does not allow an individual to allow the group to perish.  If wolves are chasing a herd of buffalo, and they don’t catch one quickly, one of the strong buffalo will gore the weakest one right in the ass, causing it to fall on its face, and allowing the wolves to kill it while the herd escapes.  In nomadic tribes, the elderly knew when they were doing more harm than good, and would wander off into the woods to die so that the tribe could keep moving.

In today’s society, we’re obviously not nomads, and technology has come a long way.  But are we so different?  Sure, when grandpa breaks his hip, it doesn’t mean it’s time to get him a blanket until he dies like it used to.  But have we gone too far?  Have we become a culture that worships human life, even if that life drags down the lives of everyone else?

My uncle told me that almost every friend he has is either dealing with the recent death of a parent, or is suffering because of the extension of a parents’ life.  Whether it be the parent has dementia, and requires costly hospitalization, or the parent has alzheimers and the child selflessly offered to let the parent live with the child - in either case, the child’s quality of life is being dramatically lessened, and for what gain?  Is this what we want for our children?  Do I want Taylor to spend her retirement money paying for someone to change my bed pan, or to pay for a half dozen rounds of chemo so she can watch me be in pain for a few extra months?  Do I want her to live the rest of her own life remembering how terrible the end of my life was?  I’d like to think I’d put her interests ahead of mine, but I don’t know what that means.

I’m not sure if I think the sick and elderly should commit suicide to ease the pain of their families, but I don’t think it’s all that crazy an idea.  Historically, people knew when it was their time, and took it upon themselves to do the right thing.  But with modern technology, combined with the ridiculous cost of health care, at what point is suicide the morally right thing to do, if only to stop dragging down the rest of one’s family?

Refuge

Tonight I attended the evening service at Metropolitan Community Church of Portland in support of my new friend AJ Mendoza.  AJ is entering his senior year at George Fox, and is the president of a student group on campus called Common Ground.  Common Ground is an LGBTQ and straight ally club, formed to support LGBTQ students on campus, and raise of the awareness of LGBTQ issues.  He gave his testimony about realizing he was gay as a teen, and how he dealt with those feelings as a member of a Pentecostal church.  After coming out in high school, he went back into the closet when he started at George Fox, and found the closet much smaller and more painful the second time around.  When OneGeorgeFox started to form, AJ developed Common Ground parallel to, but separate from, 1GFU, and come out of the closet once again, this time in a much more condemning environment.  You can check out Common Ground here: http://www.facebook.com/commongroundgeorgefox

But AJ’s testimony wasn’t what had me getting emotional.  MCC is what most people would call a “gay church.”  The large majority of its members are gay and lesbian people, most of whom appeared to be attending with their partners.  I know a few of them, but most of them were strangers.  Unlike bigger churches where it’s easy to blend in and hide, when you show up by yourself to a gay church, people notice.  And people hug.  A lot.  It was awesome.

When they took communion towards the end of the service,  the couple in front of  me spent most of it in each other’s arms, faces buried in shoulders.  It wasn’t hard to see what church meant to them.  I tried to put myself in their shoes - a Christian, inter-racial gay couple.  Separately, each of those identifiers mean something different.  The identifiers of being Christian and gay usually mean the two are not the same person.  I thought of how in everyday life, a Christian person may have a hard time gaining acceptance from gay culture.  And a gay person will likely have a hard time finding acceptance among Christians.  How hard it must be then, for someone who is both.  Not being fully accepted by the gay culture because they cling to the faith that has caused so much damage to the gay community.  And not being accepted by the Christian community because they were born a certain way.

But here they were, in a place where all of the things that make them different are accepted and embraced.  It was as if when they’re at church, they don’t have to look over their shoulder to see who might be judging.  When they’re at church, they can enjoy songs and sermons about the God they love, and they can do it next to the same-sex person they love, and nobody thinks it’s strange.  Church seemed to be their refuge, and I found that powerful.

It’s moment like these that fuel my fire to figure this faith thing out.  I might not be able to enter into faith intellectually, and if we got deep into theology, I’d probably disagree with them on most everything, but the fact that there ARE gay Christians inspires me.  Who else has a better reason to reject the Christian faith than gay American Christians?  Who has been treated worse?  But they’re around, and they’ve found a way to hold onto their faith despite the beating they’ve taken from their spiritual brethren.  More than any theology, to me, that speaks to the power of their faith, and the impact it can have on someone.  And isn’t that what we want?  Not to arrive at a perfectly logical set of faith statements, but to find the place where we can finally let go.  Let go of our fear of dying, our anger towards those who have wronged us, our desire to be fully known and fully loved.  Isn’t that really the point?  Those amazing people have found their place, and they give me reason to think someday I might too.

http://www.onegeorgefox.org/
http://www.mccportland.com/

Beer Church

Tonight I attended the greatest church on Earth:  Beer Church

Legend has it that beer church started 5 years ago when a guy named Wally invited some friends to the Horse Brass Pub to talk about stuff.  The next week they went again, and each invited friends, and so on and so forth.  For the last five years, a mixture of people have shown up to the Horse Brass each Wednesday night at 8 to talk about religion.  There’s no creed, no denomination requirement, no judgment, and except for my diet coke chaser, no non-alcoholic beverages.

As is my way, I was the first to arrive.  I found Wally, introduced myself, and for about 20 minutes, I had him all to myself.  Not knowing anything about each other, he asked me what my current status is.  Now, when most people ask this question, they’re asking if you’re single or not.  Wally wanted to know my religious status.  Fair enough.  I explained that currently, I’m a discontent atheist.  I went through my story of working backwards from fervent Christianity, ditching hell, then finding no need for a savior if there’s nothing to be saved from, then no good reason to continue believing in God at all, to accepting the term atheist.

After my testimony, I asked Wally what his situation is.  He’s a “recovering fundamentalist.”  He is still very much Christian, and claims to hold a “conservative” interpretation of the Bible.  He talked about his wife of 30 years, and how he misses her right now because she’s on a 5000 mile bike trip, riding 100 miles per day.  We talked for awhile about hell, and his view of it.  Wally believes in hell, but not necessarily in the way most people do.  Wally said there’s no scripture that says the decision to accept Christ or not has to come during this life, so it’s entirely possible that people can make that decision after we’re dead and in the presence of God.  Even then, he says, people will reject God, and will have chosen hell, which is nothing more than separation from God.  He believes those souls will be annihilated, and he thinks he can back it up with scripture.   Interesting!

Others arrived, and we talked about such broad topics as capitalism, utilitarianism, public schools, the role of faith in voting.  It was great.  I don’t have a lot of wisdom to impart on anyone following beer church, but I definitely that feel that this kind of gathering can do nothing but good for people.  To be able to put down our sensitivities, our need to be right, and just listen to other people, and accept them as human beings, no matter what their opinions - that is great.  I told a Christian that I’m an atheist while having no idea he was a Christian, and he didn’t argue with me at all.  We left as friends, and I’m certain I’ll be back again soon.  This was the perfect church for me.  A diverse group of people who aren’t interested in anything more than a good conversation, and some beer.  Amen!

In Defense of Moms

As with most holidays as specific as Mother’s Day, the interwebs are full of praises for moms - our own, other peoples’, surrogate moms, it’s a nice thing.  My mom doesn’t have Facebook, so I can say what I want.  What I want to say is - let’s stop making life more difficult for moms.  They don’t need anyone’s help wondering if they’re doing a good enough job.

Since I starting blogging, I’ve made it a point to read other peoples’ blogs (after all, it feels pretty shitty to pour your heart out and not have anybody read it).  What I’ve found is that a LOT of women are writing about motherhood.  And more than that, they seem to crave the support of other moms.  Maybe I’m not very observant, but there’s not a lot of ink on paper regarding fatherhood, or the need of dads to be supported by other dads.  One reason could be that men aren’t as inclined to express their emotions, but I don’t think that’s the reason.  I think it’s because for dads, the bar is set very, very low.  If we pay our kids any attention at all, we’re doing just fine.

A lot of this I blame on traditional religion.  Even the modern, liberal Christian still holds to the structure of the man as the spiritual leader, who is to “be Christ” to his wife.  I haven’t quite wrapped my head around that one.  In this relationship, the man is supposed to represent the savior of the entire universe, while the woman represents the person that needs to be saved.  How can a woman possibly be an equal in that situation?  Some might not see it this way.  They’ll say that yes, the Bible says the man is to lead his wife, but it’s not one-sided!  The man is supposed to cherish his wife!  Isn’t that great!  Doesn’t seem that great to me.  No re-arranging of the hierarchy makes them equals.

Fortunately, not at all women are willing to be reduced in this matter.  I’ve enjoyed reading what the women at http://deconstructingchristianimages.blogspot.com/  have to say.  These are Christian women fighting to maintain their equality in the face of traditions seeking to deny it to them.  I applaud their efforts, and hope they will inspire other women to take their power back.

This week we were confronted with Time magazine’s ridiculous cover regarding attachment parenting.  Even the local sports station was talking about.  We were essentially forced to take a stand on something that is absolutely none of anyone’s business.  Is parenting so easy that we’re allowed to hold up and knock down one parenting style over another?  Are parents so invested in their kids these days that most parents even have a considered parenting style?

My own mom was certainly not a feminist.  She, like many Christian moms, accepted her role as the spiritually subservient half.  It wasn’t until she finally divorced my dad that she seemed to take her power back.  It was a good change for her.  But it shouldn’t take divorce for a mom to find her power, take back her equality, and stand up for herself.  I’m optimistic that an evolving society will take down the obstacles to moms feeling good about themselves, and their success as parents.  There are certainly some great leaders out there.  Specifically, I’ve been made aware of the “mommy wars” by Beth at http://putdowntheurinalcake.com/ , and learned that I should probably be more angry than I am about these issues by Sophia at http://abortiongang.org/ .

Moms are under a lot of pressure.  Even without the religious or societal expectations put upon them, taking pride in their parenting is hard work.  I, for one, will be working on taking those pressures away.  The pressures that come through subtle comments that differentiate the roles of mom and dad, the jokes I tell, the way I raise my daughter.  It’s my hope that someday, if she becomes a mom, the efforts we make today will make her job easier.  I think the reason we’re so anxious to thank our moms on Mother’s Day is that deep down, we know exactly how hard we’ve made it to be a good mom, and take pride in the journey of motherhood.

Jealousy

These are the nights that faith would be nice.  The nights when something seems wrong, even if nothing is.  When reminders abound of friendships lost.  When the beautiful weather is drowned out by a screaming child or a barking dog.  I’m not prone to loneliness.  But tonight I am.

In writing these things about faith and religion, I’ve allowed myself to think and feel whatever seemed right.  On the thinking side, I’m not sure that I’ve gained any wisdom or appreciation for religion.  The process seems to be the same, no matter which one a person chooses.  There are uncomfortable questions, and there are answers to those questions.  People pick the one that suits them, and for the most part, they feel better.  The mind calms the emotions.  On the feeling side, I feel like I understand religion’s appeal, and have lost any idea that religion is irrational.  It most certainly is not.  Religion allows people to let go of the worse kinds of doubts.  Why am I here?  Where does my mind go when I die?  Am I relevant to a Creator?  For the person that feels the answers to those questions, faith is immeasurably valuable.

I can’t find them.  The answers.  The feelings.  I can’t trick myself into believing or feeling something that my mind doesn’t think is true.  I’ll probably write on this another time, but I’m starting to think that faith is outside a person’s control.  Think about it - what would have to happen for you to stop believing in God, or Jesus, or love, or whatever you hold hear?  And even if those things happened, do you think your faith would just disappear?  Or would you find a way to make sense of what happened within the context of your faith?  Disbelief is the same way.  I have no idea what it would take for me to believe in God.  Even greater, believing in a personal God.  And multitudes greater than that, believing in the Judaic vision of God (the Christian God, Jesus, Allah, etc..).  These are the religions of the world that claim there is one, personal God, and that God loves me more than I can imagine.  Wouldn’t that be amazing!

But that’s not what I feel, and it’s not what I know.  And I can’t decide if I should be jealous of the faithful, or suck it up and accept what I think is the truth.