Get Over the God-o-Meter

I usually like Beliefnet.com, but I don't like this: The God-o-Meter, which runs on Beliefnet. The God-o-Meter basically tracks how religious various presidential candidates are, ranking them in oddly contrived categories from 'Secularist' to 'Theocrat' and posting articles about the candidates' religious outreach efforts.

The God-o-Meter is obviously a small symptom of a more serious disease: Our country is obsessed with how religious our politicians are. Any one who had the unfortunate privilege of watching the Compassion Forum, knows this all too well. At the Compassion Forum, Hilary and Barack sparred over who had talked to God the most times, who could say Christ more, who was the saved-est, etc. It was an unfortunate event, because it had less to do with their political merits than there appeals to popular religious sentiment.

The problem with this preoccupation is that there is simply no hard-and-fast correlation between being a religious person and being a good leader. Otherwise put, a secularist might be more Christ-like than a self-proclaimed devout Christian. Afterall, Minister Jim Haggard fucked boy prostitutes and free based meth, while Warren Buffet is one of the world's biggest philanthropists and is an atheist/agnostic.

Also, does all this scrutinizing of our leaders' religious beliefs really leave any room open for religious minorities? I don't think so. What would Joe Lieberman talk about at the Compassion Forum - how he doesn't believe in Christ but sure likes Passover? I'm sure that would bode well.

I definitely have an affinity for religious folk in some contexts. For example, I'd like a wife who will encourage our child to have a bar/bar mitzvah. But as far as my president, boss, mailman, or illegal lumber dealer goes, i just want them to be good at their job.

Ghost (cue Unchained Melody)

Now that we are about a week into Pentecost, I thought it was fine time to give my props to the Holy Spirit. The Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost - is one of the biggest mysteries of the Christian faith, but I like to think of it like a family. A family is one unit, but it's made up of several intergral parts.

The Father is like the breadwinner of the family, be it the dad or the mom. The breadwinner likely "runs the show" at home, because of his/her financial stake in the family. The breadwinner is also more absent, distant.

The Son is like the stay-at-home parent. The parent that stays at home is a representative of the breadwinner, like Jesus was a representative of God, the Father. The stay-at-home parent is the bridge between the rules of the breadwinner and us children (humans) that are always messing it all up. The one that puts his/her arm around us as says, "trust me, I'll take care of you."

But the Holy Ghost. Well, that's where the mystery comes in. What role does it have? I could make jokes about how the Holy Ghost is the crazy, fun uncle of the family, but that doesn't really fit.

I think the Holy Ghost is like the love of the family. Think about it. The Holy Ghost is supposed to be the spirit of God, the part that changes our hearts, that moves us. And that is exactly what love in a family is. No matter how strong or weak a relationship between children and parent(s) is, love within a family has a strange, overriding power to move us. What else explains how families can fight like crazy, but still love each other at the end of the day? How we put up with stuff from our family members that we would dare let friends get away with?

The Holy Ghost is my favorite of the Holy Trinity. It is the one that I feel closest to, because even when I'm not praying regularly or feeling particularly in tune with God, the Holy Spirit will come knocking on my heart's door and say "just checking in." And in a way, I think the Holy Ghost is God's gift of free-will at its finest. By talking to us through our hearts/conscious, the Holy Ghost is saying "This is what I want you to do, but I'm not going to force it on you, I'm just putting it out there." Then it's our choice to follow that instinct, or to ignore it. And usually, that tingle in my conscious is saying "Love that person" in one way or another. Either by suggesting I be nicer to someone, or to include them, or to make them feel special, or to stop thinking bad thoughts about them.

Yeah, the Holy Spirit is a badass. Sure, It doesn't get as much glory - It didn't create the world; It didn't come to the world in himan form and sacrifice Itself for everyone. But, Its the one that gets to take all of the love that God created for the world (abundant, infinate love) and deliver it to all of us. At the end of the day, that's a pretty great job for 1/3 of a Diety.

Don't Make Me Hate God, You Gay-Bashing Bigots!

Props to the conservative California Supreme Court for putting politics aside and legalizing gay marriage! Nothing more refreshing than a long sip of Sanity.

Of course, the Court has its critics. Many many critics. Many many critics who prefer to drink Gayhateorade, instead of the more refreshing Sanity. These critics hate two things: 1. Reason; and 2. God. Well, fine, they also hate gay people, but that seems to go without saying.

Rob Dreher, in his post on Crunchy Con, provides us with a stunning demonstration of how these critics hate reason. Dreher, using the good old institution-of-marriage argument, says that just because it cannot be shown that dude-dude or chick-chick marriage hurts dude-chick marriage does not mean that institution of marriage argument loses any force. States Mr. Dreher:

I think the most common, and superficially common-sensical, questions that comes up in discussions of this issue is, "How does Jill and Jane's marriage hurt Jack and Diane's?" The idea is that unless you can demonstrate that a gay marriage directly harms traditional marriage, there is no rational objection to gay marriage.
But this is a shallow way to look at it. We all share the same moral ecology. You may as well ask why it should have mattered to the people of Amherst, Mass., if some rich white people in Charleston, SC, owned slaves. Don't believe in slavery? Don't buy one. Similarly, why should it matter to the people of Manhattan if the people of Topeka wish to forbid a woman there to have an abortion? Or, conversely, why do the people of Topeka care if women in New York City choose to abort their unborn children? Don't believe in abortion? Don't have one.

Ok, Mr. Dreher, its true; the argument: if you don't like slavery don't buy one or if you don't like abortion don't have one or if you don't like polygamist rape cults don't join one is not satisfying. But guess what else: none of these arguments are predicated on an invalidatable claim like gay marriage hurts straight marriage. Slavery is bad because its dehumanizing - that seems verified. If abortion is bad, its cuz its murder. Polygamist rape cults are bad because they're rape cults. On the other hand, Mr. Dreher argues that gay marriage is bad because it hurts straight marriage but acknowledges that there is no proof that gay marriage does hurt straight marriage. Thus, unlike with slavery and polygamist rape cults, the arguments against gay marriage have no backing - thus giving credence to the statement Mr. Dreher fallaciously rejects: if you don't want a gay marriage, Rob, don't marry a dude.

Oh yeah, the second thing that critics of gay marriage hate: God. These folks make God out to be a real bastard; the kind of bastard that doesn't want people who have spent their whole lives together to get special privileges to see each other in the hospital; the kind of bastard that would rather kids stay in an under-resourced foster care system than be raised by a loving dude-dude or chick-chick couple.

Or maybe its that these critics love the wrong God. Put otherwise, maybe its me who hates God. Maybe God is a real bastard towards gay-folk. In that case, I'm not sure how down with God I am. Judaism is based on a covenant with God; that means that there was a reciprocal agreement between Abraham and God to enter into a unique relation. Abraham could have chosen to remain pagan, but instead chose to engage with God. But, look, if God is that much of a prick, I'd rather opt out. My faith is not unconditional, nor should it have to be. To me, faith means that I can suspend reason and the need for verification in order to become inspired by something transcendent, not that I suspend reason to give into something lower. A philosopher once said that God is projection of the best parts of humanity, but to Mr. Dreher and his fans, God becomes a projection of human bigotry. If that's what God is actually like, then no thanks.

But if God is the kind of god who does things like free the slaves from oppression in Egypt, then I'm in. This God endows me with hope, not prejudiced cynicism.

The long and short of it is: Gay-marriage-bashers, stop trying to make me hate God.

Marketing religion

I was listening to a segment on my local NPR affiliate yesterday (don't act surprised that I listen to NPR) and the guest was Mara Einstein, the author of Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age. She talked about the ways religion has been marketed in the past and, particularly, how religion is marketed in the our modern world. She made reference to the sale of religious products (e.g. how you are forced to walk through the "book store" to enter any Kabbalah center), branding (e.g. the myth about how mega-church preacher Joel Osteen swears he didn't want to become a rock star preacher, but only did it because it was his father's dying wish), and about how some groups dumb down religion to draw people in to buy products/services that might make them feel better, but don't require any commitment from people.

I agree with the fact that religion must change with the times and find ways to appeal to new/young audiences to survive. I think a lot of why people try to "convert" or recruit people to their church/religion/faith is so that their ways of worship and religious institutions don't die. But, there is a limit - and some of these practices go over the line. For example, the Kabbalah Centre (which teaches a faith that is only very mildly similar to the actual faith of Kabbalah) holds Seders and services for special occasions at expensive hotels, and charges exorbinant rates, that likely include a profit. The "Church" of Scientology requires that members pay money to achieve rank-like levels within the organization (You have to give a hand to Scientology though. At least their website looks legit...the other religious websites linked are all full of ads for stuff you can buy.) Additionally, most (if not all) televangelists are loaded (what ever happened to the Christianly vow of poverty for church leaders???).

These examples make it pretty clear that when profit is involved (or large profit-like salaries for church leaders), the religion has crossed the line. Having participated in several legitimate religions/denominations, my impression of a church's outreach is a "we're here to serve you" mentality, not "come pay us for something that you haven't even fully bought into yet." Usually, anything that the church offers is free, or at the most with a "suggested" donation (e.g. the monthly devotional brochures that you could pick up at the back of my church could be ordered by subscription, but if you wanted them for free, you could just keep coming to church every month,) Heck, the non-denomination, young, chic church I attended for a while made a disclaimer every week before passing the collection plate "this is only for those who call this church their home. If you are just visiting or trying us out, we don't want your money!"

Ultimately, by taking a "hit" on some of these services (coffee before service, devotional pamphlets, etc.) legitimate religious organizations are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing - using their monetary resources to spread the word about God and what he's all about. By selling these services, whether it be a fancy Shabbat dinner, books, or bottled water (that I guarantee is Detroit tap water), the church is telling its followers that God is for sale. Only those who can afford Him get to experience Him.

Me thinks these religious organizations stink a little of humanism, and not divinity. Incidentally, read this fun web page entitled "How Cults Work."

Do the Wright Thing

So if you search 'Jeremiah Wright' on YouTube, you get a bunch of videos of Wright's most incendiary sermons with bizarre neurotic commentary scrolling across the screen, criticizing Wright's views. One video says Wright should not be considered an American. The video linked above, ends by leaving the viewer with this question: 'Black Liberation Theology? or just revived Black Supremacy?' Profound, huh?

Now what the fuck is 'black supremacy?' According to this poster, it's speaking critically about race relations in America.

The funny thing is: would this poster going after Jeremiah Wright really feel better if Jeremiah Wright was preaching 'liberation theology' as opposed to 'revived Black Supremacy?' Are the bigots out there who go around calling black preachers 'black supremacists' really cool with militancy as long as it only rises to the level of 'liberation theology?' Seems unlikely. At the end of the day, whoever posted this probably doesn't like black people who talk about being black.

This is not to say that I agree with everything that Wright says. The poster points out, albeit smugly, that Wright was probably wrong, for example, about saying that Jesus was a 'black man.' Jesus was probably not black. Though, also probably to this poster's dismay, Jesus was probably not white. And certainly wasn't Aryan. He probably looked like, I don't know, a middle Easter Jew.

Fine, so Wright's not perfect. But there's nothing wrong with Wright's anger. Are country does have a history steeped in racism that anyone who truly loves this country should want acknowledge and improve upon. If, on the other hand, every time someone starts to speak about white racism he is himself labelled a racist, then our racial dialogue will consist entirely of white folks talking to white folks about black folks. That doesn't hold much promise.

Don't know which religion you are? Take a simple quiz to find out!

I just the Belief System Selector quiz with surprising results. I was pretty skeptical of it, because it only had 20 questions with about 5 answers per question and many of the answers seemed to be clearly leading to one particular religion or another. I mean, how can a computer figure out the essence of my internal soul with so few data fields?

There were several questions where I felt that my answer diverged from Christianity - I didn't answer the typical "Jesus is the way to heaven" type answer. I thought for sure that the computer was going to think I was Taoist (I only identified 72% with Taoism). An yet...my top 3 matches were:

#3 - Unitarian Universalism (90% compatibility)
#2 - Liberal Quakers (97% compatibility)

and...

#1 - Liberal Christian Protestant (100%)

Is my belief system so obvious? Have I been indoctrinated? Do I think I'm a free-minded person when really I'm just buying into a pre-established belief system? Well, being a self-proclaimed free-thinker, I prefer to analyze my results in a different way. The miscellany of [Liberal] Christianity.

Editors note to those who want to take the quiz for themselves: It will try to make you think you have to register at the end of it to get your results, but if you click on "Click HERE to go directly to your results" in the yellow bar at the top of the screen, you can bypass all of the solicitations. Have fun!

According to SelectSmart.com's Spiritual Belief Systems quiz, my #1 belief match is LIBERAL CHRISTIAN. What do you believe? Visit SelectSmart.com/RELIGION

Hasta La Vista, Baby Jesus

Check out this totes awesome combination of The Terminator and the story of Jesus on YouTube. The great thing is that, like other potentially-offensive-though-not-offensive uses of the Jesus story in pop culture, like The Last Temptation of Christ, this parody is partly so awesome because it can be enjoyed so guiltlessly. While there maybe some controversial images, ultimately, nothing in the video makes any kind of slight or joke about Jesus or Christianity. So enjoy sans guilt!

The Problem of Evil

There is a really interesting discussion on Beliefnet today about the problem of evil. The problem of evil is: how can we reconcile the belief in an all powerful, all knowing, and good god with the fact that there is so much evil and suffering in the world? The discussion was prompted largely by the natural disasters which left thousands dead in Burma recently.

I think its a incredibly tough question and one that is impossible to reconcile, as attempts to reconcile are pretty unsatisfying

It is first of all easy to try to attribute a 'greater purpose' to the violence in the world. Maybe God is trying to teach us something or accomplish something with all this evil. But this just begs the question. If God is really all powerful and good, can't God accomplish things in a better way than through evil. It's hard to imagine that God was thinking, "how do I teach the world a lesson?" and the most efficient answer he could come up with was "the Holocaust" or "a devastating cyclone" or "AIDS babies." Or something. If God is so powerful, God can think up better ways to teach the world.

'Free will' also has some appeal as an answer to the problem of evil. In some sense, this answer sthe problem pretty well. Afterall, if even omnipotence is limited such that God cannot create a rock that God cannot pick up, then maybe God also cannot give people free will but stop them from making bad choices. Still, 'free will' doesn't really cut it. First, even if God gave us free will, God didn't give us infinite capacities. We may have free will, but we don't have the free will to fly or to grow 100 feet tall, or to mind read, or to make Jason Mraz music palatable. We only have free will within our capacities. Maybe God should have not given us so much capacity to be evil. Also, even if God gave us free will, there is no reason God can't intervene to stop our use of free will. If America can intervene to stop that Nazi's, surely God can also intervene to stop the Nazi's. If this seems silly, maybe what really seems silly is the idea of a literally all powerful being.

A third possibility, which I find the most troubling, is just to surrender to the mystery of God. This is kind of the lesson of Job. Who are we to understand God anyway? But, if we really can't understand God in even basic ways, then what does it mean to say God is 'all powerful' or 'good?' If we say 'God is good' and then God seems to let something bad happen and we say 'God is still good, but only a mysterious kind of good,' then we are really just saying, 'God is by defnition good' and that is a tautology. Plus, where's the mystery about whether its okay to let thousands or millions of people die if you can stop it? Seems an easy question to me, and I'm not even all-knowing.

At the end of the day, there is no way to reconcile how God can be all powerful, etc, and allow evil to happen. Fortunately, we don't really need God to be all powerful, all knowing, etc anymore. We can explain lots of things and solve lots of problems without appealing to God. But a lot of people do need their relationship with God. It is a unique relationship for a lot of people, myself included. Maybe this isn't a relationship with an all-powerful God.

Or even an entirely good God; hell, the Bible if full of people criticizing God. Abraham gets in an argument with God about Sodom and Gemmorrah and wins!

But some of us need god for is the unique relationship (some of us find that unique fullfillment in other equally valid ways) and that relationship maintains itself despite all the evil.

Loving against all odds

Two days after I took my Constitutional Law II (Equal Protection) final, Mildred Loving, a lesser-known icon of the Civil Rights Movement passed away. Mildred (a black woman) and her husband Richard (a white man) are famous for fighting for their right to marry each other. They fought all the way to the Supreme Court, which struck down miscegenation laws as unconstitutional in 1967's Loving v. Virgina.

The story of the Loving's courage to fight for what they believed in is inspiring. But one of the most poignant parts of their story is to hear what life was really like back then. When they were being sentenced for violating VA's Racial Integrity Act (for being married and of different races), Judge Leon M. Bazile said to them:

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He
placed them on separate continents," Bazile said. " The fact that He
separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix."

It makes me feel lucky to live in this day and age, and not that one. But it also makes me realize how far we, as a society, have yet to go before we stop blaming our irrational prejudices on God. God does not cause us to hate. On the contrary, he gave us love, unlimited amounts of it. We're the ones who are using love as a weapon against those we hate.

I had never heard about Loving v. Virgina before I came to law school, but I have a feeling that it is going to become more an more commonly known as the gay civil rights movement gains momentum. Contrary to Judge Bazile's opinion, I think that if God didn't want us to be equal and to love each other, then he wouldn't have made us and put us here in the first place. To use an old expression: God don't make no junk.

RIP: Mildred Loving (1939-2008)

Divine Fast Food

A few weeks ago, as a treat for living through the Illinois Earthquake of 2008, I treated myself to Sonic's Cinnasnacks for breakfast. Eating their delicious, fried, cinnamoney goodness served to confirm a suspicion I've always had - that God owns stock in Sonic.

But today, when I discovered that Cinnasnacks are gone, I realized I had been tricked by Beelzebub. Or maybe he's the CEO of Sonic.

Divine Justice

In Biblical times, God brought the Sodomites to justice for their repugnant behavior. As it is written in 2 Peter 2:6. ". . . and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, [God] condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly . . ."

Similarly: Today I tried to get "It's a Small World Afterall" stuck in someone else's head and now I have it stuck in my own head.

Even in this chaotic modern world, Divine Justice reigns supreme.

Totally Redeemed!!!

On the other hand, check on this totes Reagan-hottie on Mr. Kupelian's cite (see post below if you don't know what I'm talking about). Totally redeemed!!!

Bad Sins Like Body Piercing

It's election year, so religion and morality are big talk these days. There's some good talk. And then there are people who think that the election of a democrat will usher in the Last Days (in a bad way!!!). Doomsayers like this. To Mr. Kupelian and his probably numerous followers, liberalism is synonymous with sin.

But what sins? The best sins.

Mr. Kupelian lists the following, amongst others: homosexuality, tattoos, mainstream transsexualism, body-piercing, witchcraft, abortion.

Lets play make-believe for a minute and pretend that Mr. Kupelian's judgments are dead-on. God actually is pissed off by body piercing and homosexuality and God is right to be pissed off by these things. Here's what I still don't get: why are these conservative folks so bent out of shape about these "hedonistic" sins in particular?

Even if it is a sin to be gay, being gay can't be the worst sin. Even if you really hate the shit out of gayness, there's gotta be sins worse. No matter how much your religion hates gay sex, it must hate murder more. There's no two ways about it.

On the other hand, maybe the Mr. Kupelians of the world focus on gay-love and not murder because everyone already knows murder is wrong, but people are beginning to condone homosexuality. After all, 2% of our states (i.e., just Massachusetts) allows gay people to visit their partners after hours in the hospital. Maybe that is why such a disproportionate amount of lip-service is given to some sins that can't be the worst sins.

Still, there are tons of other sins that must be worse than homosexuality, that are given very little attention. There is a lot of discussion about why gays shouldn't be so goshdarn gay, but when was the last time you read one of these conservative-types railing against, I don't know, sex trafficking. Even if being gay is bad, dealing in sex slaves must be worser, right? But Mr. Kupelian probably doesn't write much about that. It's not even in one of his polemical sin-lists.

Some things Conservatives think are sins I can understand getting really bent out of shape about. If you really think abortion is murder, then it makes sense to get up in arms about Roe v. Wade.

But its hard to imagine that homosexuality, not to mention body piercing and tattoos, are up there with the worst.

Now, witchcraft, on the other hand, that's some scary shit.

God and Proactiv have a lot in common

As a practicing Christian, I find myself cringing fairly often at much of what gets attributed to God. One of the top things I think Christians get wrong most often is the whole "Great Commission." ("Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Matthew 28: 19-20)

This is exemplified in ways we've all heard about: Jehovah's Witnesses/Mormons going door-to-door, Jews for Jesus handing out fliers at the Metro stations (which really pisses off my Jewish office-mate), and one of my favorites - Campus Crusade for Christ college students trying to convert people on Panama City beach during spring break. (See above picture of people exercising their freedom of [hate] speech on the National Mall on Independence Day.)


Not only are these attempts at "conversion" [cringe] by total strangers not effective (its like the telemarketing of the Divine), but they seem to tippify the activity that I feel like Christians do better than almost anyone else -- try to make themselves feel like they are better than everyone else. I mean after all, if you are painstakingly serving God during spring break while everyone else is scantily clad, drinking beers, and indulging in general hedonism, then you MUST be further ahead in the line into heaven right? There seems to be an implicit air of paternal judgment in those interactions. (Incidentally, in my opinion judging each other is the thing Christians do most often to displease God. There are MANY verses telling us not to judge each other. e.g. "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." Luke 6:37. I mean...dang...its pretty clearly a no-no.)

I struggle with the Great Commission, because I don't think everyone needs to be Christian, and I don't want to convert everyone. I don't want to get into all of it now, but I believe we all - even atheists - are "chosen ones". I think God finds the way that he knows will best speak to each of us, and he uses that method to say "Hey what's up...make sure you're treating each other well." I'll write more on my hippie theology later. The point I want to make now is that I'm fairly sure that when God was creating ways to help others reconnect with him (think: spiritual control-alt-delete), ambush-style proselytizing got crumbled up and thrown at the garbage Michael Jordan jump-shot style like all the other bad ideas. That being said, I have had a few instances where a friend wanted to know about my religion and how it affects me and why I do it and so on. In these circumstances, I do think it is important to be honest and share. Who knows, maybe this person is trying to reboot spiritually and needs some help.

So, this past summer while in the shower (where all my best philosophy comes from), I came to a brilliant realization that made it all very clear -- God is like Proactiv. Other than the fact that Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson love it, Proactiv is God-like in its miraculous powers. But you don't just go and tell your roommate that she needs Proactiv. Your suggestion implies a judgment that she has bad skin. You just use it. You let her see that you use it. In casual conversation you mention that you are an avid user. And eventually, she might grow more curious. She might ask you questions about it. You might mention how she can order it. Eventually, she might try the 60-day free trial for herself. Maybe it will work for her.

Maybe she won't be interested, and that's fine. You have to respect that. Maybe she really believes in the powers of Neutrogena skin-care products. Maybe she's using special herbal supplements to try to zap her zits. Maybe she doesn't really care, because she's happy with herself just as she is. Cool.

But one thing's for sure, she's not going to be interested in anything you have to offer if you insult her or silently condemn her complexion.

No judgment. No pressure. I just think that's how God wants people to find Him...and our skin care regimes.

The God of Fresca or Just Fresca?

Whenever I get fast food, I drink Coke or Pepsi. Why then, today, if not by the grace of God, did I drink Orange Fresca at Subway? Was it the God looking down on me, knowing that Coke would leave me feeling bloated and that only Orange Fresca could wash down the garden patty? Or am I reversing the causality: Was the Orange Fresca so refrescaing that I felt a near-religious serenity with each sip, and thus associated God with the entire experience?

Or possibly, God has abandoned us and we are left naked and alone in this infinite and chaotic universe. There is no rhyme or reason to what pop we choose to drink at any given moment.

Or is God present everywhere, such that when I thought it was Fresca alone washing down my meal, it was Fresca with an extra-ingredient of 'God' syrup?

Or did the Fresca transubstantiate into the fizzing body of God's only son as a drank it down?

That motherfucker works in mysterious ways and I sound stoned out of my gord.