Replacing God

DISCLAIMER: I have succumbed to an existential crisis in my fifties much like Leo Tolstoy, but unlike him this did NOT lead me back to god.

In the beginning, there was God. I wholeheartedly believed in him. I worshipped him and he became the center, the anchor of my universe. God became all-in-all, or at least that’s what I told myself. Then came existential crisis number one in my thirties.

I was majorly depressed and struggling mightily with feelings of abject failure. God was nowhere to be found. I decided to end my life. I wanted to replace God in the center, on the throne of my life. I pulled up anchor and set sail for the afterlife, only I didn’t succeed. The ultimate failure was my inability to die 24 years ago today.

I felt like God showed up in a big way that next year. My whole life turned around. I purchased my first home, a brand new custom-built one with four bedrooms and two full baths. I believed God arranged a miraculous adoption two months later and I became a dad. Life had done a one-eighty in a matter of eight months!

A year or so after my second adoption (another miracle), I was no longer flying high. I began deconstructing my faith and my marriage at the same time. Existential crisis number two, still in my thirties. I realized that part of my depression and feelings of failure were due to my marriage and career path, if you could even call it that.

I didn’t have grasp of the wheel of my life. I “let go and let God,” as the popular Christian slogan goes. I was not living intentionally. I had no grasp of that concept. I fully believed that whatever happened to me, good or bad, was God ordained. It was easier to blame him for my lazy complacency. I think I began to realize this in my late thirties. My religion was no longer making me happy. I began to wonder if it ever had. I soon realized, after leaving the church, that ritualistic, religious abuse was a major part of my depressive episode in 2000. It contributed to my awful self image. It always had.

My spiritual journey led me away from church and traditional Christianity. I later found replacements for God, including The Universe, Consciousness and The Higher (or Divine) Self. I turned to modern philosophers who embrace Christianity AND New Age Spirituality, like Eckhart Tolle. I embraced his “Power of Now,” present reality focus. I realize that our control is limited to our thinking, unconscious mind and our ability to control it with “presence.”

That gave me some peace, some of the time.

It hasn’t been lasting. And where I found myself meditating or praying out loud, sometimes to the cosmos, I began to wonder what was so different. Did I look or feel any less insane, whether wrestling with God verbally or shouting my displeasure to the stars??? Wasn’t I just replacing one spiritual practice for another? Replacing God?

So now that I’m facing existential crisis number three in my mid-fifties, I’m left wondering what does any of it matter? The sun rises over the good and the evil just the same. Likewise, the rain falls on both without discretion. I’m paraphrasing Christian scripture here. There is no greater purpose.

This landing squarely in nihilism makes the most sense to me. How arrogant is our species to believe that we are so much more highly evolved? How arrogant is humankind to believe that we are created beings, special and important to our creator, be that a Demiurge or the Almighty? It’s pretty damn arrogant, if you ask me. Our species just evolved on this planet like every other living organism. We aren’t special. We weren’t placed here for some divine purpose.

Life is basically meaningless. This is what Leo Tolstoy realized in his fifties. It’s what I’ve come to realize. I’m done replacing God. He is not the center of anything, not the Universe, not my life, and concepts like Source, Consciousness or Divinity are just as imaginary as “he” is. I won’t be returning, like Tolstoy, to the religion of my youth. I’ll just live out my days on this planet until I am no more.

This is the 24th anniversary of my suicidal episode. If you are struggling, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, just dial 988.

Christian Nationalism Built Upon Assumptions

In an article written by David L. Holmes for Encyclopaedia Britannica (see The Founding Fathers, Deism, and Christianity) he starts, “ For some time the question of the religious faith of the Founding Fathers has generated a culture war in the United States. Scholars trained in research universities have generally argued that the majority of the Founders were religious rationalists or Unitarians.”

The Age of Enlightenment made ideas like Deism, a natural God who does not interfere in the affairs of humankind, and THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE, popular in the time when our nation’s founders were being reared overseas. These same ideas shaped many of their political ideals, like renowned Deist Benjamin Franklin, when they colonized America.

Most of them did attend Christian churches, such as Christ Church in Philly, Pohick Church in Virginia, United First Parish Church in Quincy, Mass, Old Meeting House in Boston and Trinity Church in NYC (source here). The majority attended offshoots of the Church Of England, like the Anglican and Episcopal denominations. Others were Puritans, Quakers and Catholic. Not all of them practiced Orthodox Christianity and very little of it looks like American Baptist, Methodist or Pentecostal denoms today. In fact, if most Protestants stepped into an Anglican mass, they would probably think it was Catholic.

It is very important to remember that the revolution they fought was against a tyrannical king who was coronated by THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND! In effect, the revolt was not only against the crown, but against the very church that propped up his government…CHRISTIANITY! Our Founding Fathers were explicit in their disdain for a religious monarchy where the Church ran the state by coronating its leader. There was no separation of church and state nor freedom from religion.

So how any half-educated person in 21st Century America believes they were bent on forming a theocracy over here is literally insane! They didn’t leave one Christian monarchy just to establish George Washington as the Christian monarch of America. No they used Enlightenment era ideals and deist language, “their Creator,” instead of Almighty God. The Constitution uses that language and never mentions Christianity, or names the Creator or quotes any Bible passages. If the founders of this country wanted to establish a national religion, don’t you think they would have done all three things? Why leave England, then lead a revolt against their God-ordained king? Why not just institute The Church of America (be it Anglican or Episcopal) and deem Washington our nation’s monarch?

They didn’t like that system of government…not one bit! They fought a revolution over it and setup a Representative Republic because they believed in equal representation for everyone in the colonies. Every American was given the right to worship how they wanted freely without their government ramming religion down their throat or one church anointing their leader. This is just historical fact!

And it’s gaslighting by America’s fundamentalist leaders and their political think tanks, like Heritage Foundation, that would have us believe otherwise. They are selling the myth that the religion of 18th century, students of Enlightenment lines up perfectly with their 21st century Christianity and it doesn’t. They further promote the lie that our Founding Fathers established America as a Christian Nation. They did not.

Christian Nationalism, with its roots in genocide, xenophobia and racism, is built on an absolute lie. Look at how the Puritans who landed at Plymouth in 1620 treated indigenous people. They were even ruthless with other Christian believers—Quakers and Baptists—because they believed they were of the pure faith. Christian Nationalist are extreme, cult-like brutes of that same ilk. They believe only American fundamentalism is the true religion and they are hellbent on cramming it down our throats. And like the Puritans, they feel it is Manifest Destiny to rewrite our history and implement their theocracy over this nation. It’s pure bullshit! Our forefathers are rolling over in their graves.

Kristi Burke touches on some of this, including Manifest Destiny, in her new series on Christian Nationalism.

I think it is very dangerous, to allow a cult of one branch of one sect of any religion to rule over America. I see it no different than if the Taliban were to overthrow our government and institute (religious) Shariah Law over all of us. I call the Heritage Foundation and their ilk THE XIAN TALIBAN! Their fundamentalist views are just as barbaric, savage and unAmerican. They must not be given power over us.

A Post for Believers Everywhere!

This YouTuber really resonates with me, this video in particular. I've written here many times about Praise. I even sat down and for several months wrote a manuscript whose working title was "Man of Praise," because I thought that was my purpose on Earth. It was a well-written piece on Christian virtue, humility and worship. A book on being a man of faith. It was so inspiring to my ex-pastor's father-in-law, that the retired pastor wrote a forward for my book. It was nearly ready for publication. But then my world crumbled and I deconstructed my faith, much like Kristi Burke.

I'm dedicating this blog post to my two sisters, Heidi and Keely, who cling to their faith in God, the faith that we were raised in, and the belief that this "Heavenly Father" has our best interest in mind always. No judgment, but this is the religion of privilege. Look what Father God has DONE FOR ME! Yes, but what about babies who cannot survive outside the womb? Why did Omniscient, Almighty God "knit them together in their mother's womb" to begin with? He just needed another angel? What about children born to impoverished parents in abject poverty without clean water or enough food for their bellies? People all over the world are born into unimaginable suffering. Is "Abba" not concerned for their wellbeing? He clothes the "flowers of the field" and cares about the sparrow, but not these human beings He created?

This flawed theology is covered in Kristi's video. She takes offense at so many things in fundamental Christian theology, but omits the one thing that's always stuck in my crawl--blood atonement/human sacrifice. The most holy book ever written is replete with it. Humankind is meant to worship, but also to suffer. The original sin that He created and put on us, knowing we couldn't resist temptation, could only be removed with the blood of a "perfect" human being, Jesus, his son. This was foreshadowed in the story of Abraham and Isaac in the Judaic scriptures. Was that a literal command? "Abraham you cannot love me unless you kill your baby boy that I promised to give you, so that you could 'father my people?'" What kind of love or devotion is that? Kill your own child because your bloodthirsty deity demands it??? Sadistic AF!!! And barbaric...and not even an original idea. But I digress.

In the video she challenges other facets of the all-knowing, all-loving Daddy in the sky. She covers our purpose in Creation. She questions God's fragile ego that he needs constant praise and words of affirmation. She gets angry that it is coerced out of us for fear of damnation and the shame that evokes. Don't get me started, I grew up Catholic. SHAME IS REAL! (I may need a Brene Brown video after typing this! LOL!). This leads to mental health issues, like it did in me many years ago. Yeah, she covers that, too. The "white privilege" of American Christianity, which I've already touched on, she touches on in a roundabout way. I mean, from the beginning of Scripture, God chooses a select group of people, right? It creates the US v. THEM mentality that permeates society today! Why am I blessed (chosen, privileged) when so many other innocent children on the planet suffer? They weren't chosen, too? And that's LOVE??? She questions the idea of "free will," of God's "omnipotence," and inconsistencies in the Bible, like the slaughtering of women, children and animals because God's angry, impulsive and vengeful...and He didn't choose them!

I wholeheartedly believed this idea, at one time years ago, that my sole purpose on Earth was to praise this magnificent Being, who was so benevolent that he put me on Planet Earth and left me to my own devices. As Kristi begs the question, why does God need praise? Why does He require it? Why is suffering and eternal punishment the retribution for not getting on one's knee and bowing down to Him? Why is that so important to the Almighty Creator of heaven and Earth???

It seems like a wholly human idea that some dude millennia ago cooked up in his human brain. It doesn't make any sense. It never really did. But from an early age, I was brainwashed to believe it made perfect sense! I went to Mass every week in a church filled with the iconography of bloody, human sacrifice--from the crucifix hung above the altar, to the bleeding, pierced heart with a crown of thorns around it, but a golden crown on top in the stained glass! Were my parents and the Catholic church trying to scar me for LIFE?!?!?!

Shame was the message. "LOOK WHAT YOU MADE GOD DO!!!"
"You should feel ASHAMED!"
It was my sin, my fault, my flawed nature that caused all that iconography around me.
I was five or six before the shame hit me.
What kind of guilt is that to put on a small child?
What kind of Joseph-Mary-and-Jesus kind of child abuse is THAT???
Not to mention all the actual child abuse that was going on behind the scenes!!!
THANK GOD my parents got us out of that faith tradition before I BECAME A STATISTIC!
As I wrote in my last post, A Faith Journey, I really wanted to become an altar boy. We left just before I was able. WHEW!!!

Once we got into Protestant versions of the faith, I was told I could have a "personal relationship" with this bloodthirsty, psychotic Being. GREAT!!! I was shamed and scared straight again, when I was shown some 70's, low-budget version of "Left Behind." If I didn't get baptised and right with God, despite already being "sealed" as a child of God from birth and my baptism in the Church, I was gonna deal with severe consequences here on Earth, being ruled by an evil AntiChrist! And if that didn't scare me straight, I'd suffer eternal damnation! Like I think they literally believed I could lose my salvation. But I said the prayer, I got sprinkled and dunked! I did "all the things!" Not good enough??? MORE SHAME and scare tactics. THANK YOU RELIGION for that!

But as I matured in my faith and bought into this idea that I had a "perfect Dad" up in heaven, I leaned ALL THE WAY INTO IT. Read my previous post, linked above, or just scroll down to the next headline. I WAS ALL-IN! But then something broke in me.

All that time in church, believing, doing all the things, like getting baptised a THIRD TIME (in the Holy Ghost, even!!!), and taking on all that shame and ritualistic abuse...and what did I have to show for it? NOTHING!!! I was a barren, wannabe dad with a worthless degree that I had hardly used in the 13 years I had it, I was used and abused by leaders in the church (by the Church, itself) for a dozen-plus years and I was exhausted! I tried to end my life in December of 2000. The weight of all that guilt, shame and responsibility (I was a leader in church and ministry for years) was just too much to bear. I wasn't happy in my marriage, in my life or in my chosen career. I wanted OUT!

Sad that the relationship I had fostered with this imaginary Being wasn't enough, didn't make me feel worthy or good enough, but only made me feel shame. I felt like the biggest phony and a miserable failure at everything, even my religion!

Like Krisi, I had to deconstruct everything I believed about the world, about life, about God, theology and religion. It all seemed so pointless. But deconstruct I did and came out the other side. I still have the scars to prove I went there...got the T-shirt. But what did I really gain other than trauma and emotional scarring? VERY LITTLE! I had the praise and adoration of my parents, but it left as soon as I left the church and divorced my wife. I had the praise and adoration of my fans inside the church and the ministries in which I was involved--Tres Dias, Vida Nueva, music...

I felt very used, abused and taken advantage of. Here's deeply committed Chris, playing drums for free in a church that pays many of it's musicians. Here's Chris, giving up time with his wife and two small children, to spend his Wednesday and Thursday nights in youth ministry or rehearsal, and then giving up half of his Sunday, and for what? That little bit of respect and adoration? For my parents approval???

That didn't fill my soul with anything of eternal value. I felt victimized by it all. No wonder I wanted to give up and say "WHAT'S THE POINT!"

Well, child of God, the point is that He loves you. He's proud of the victim you've made of yourself. Keep bowing down to Him and getting shit on by His people. Keep sacrificing what's most important, the investment in your adopted children, and keep giving freely of your time, gifts and talents. That makes Daddy God so happy.

FUCK.
THAT!!!

Daddy God needs to find another sucker! DOYLE OUT!!!

And so the shame and abuse of the Church, at the hands of "God's chosen," drove me far away and made me question everything and deconstruct. It was catharsis. I found real healing--body, mind and soul cleansed of the BULLSHIT!

There's no reason to subscribe to any theology. The word itself means the STUDY OF GOD! It doesn't mean TRUTH. It means trying to make sense as a human being of things we will never fully understand. And faith is trusting in it with ZERO EVIDENCE! NO PROOF! Just believe and He will be happy with you. You'll have peace and rest ONE DAY...in eternity...down the road. Right now, though, just join in Christ's suffering and it will all be worth it. You have an eternity to bask in the reward for your good behavior. Don't expect shit here on Earth, in reality...just believe.

NOPE! Not good enough.

Faith and belief in goodness should change your life in the NOW! It should make a difference on Planet Earth. Not some bullshit bank account that you're building up equity in for the future, for eternity. We don't even know if that's real, if it exists! A wise person once quipped that religion is the "opiate of the people." Not unlike the Kool-Aid served by Jim Jones to his followers in Guyana, fundamental Christian theology is for the weak-minded who can't think, judge or discern for themselves. Just keep drinking the Kool-Aid. It tastes good. It will help you.

And this isn't to cast judgment on those who believe. I understand you. I WAS YOU! I'm just saying that I put reason and logic to it and it doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny. In fact, it borders on the ABSURD! But you have to taste it and see for yourself. Maybe you like Kool-Aid. Who am I to stop you from drinking it. Freewill, right? Your choice. If it kills you, but you enjoyed the flavor, then that's on you. I don't pretend to have all the answers. I just know what I know. I don't pretend to know what's beyond, in the realm of the supernatural, in the supposed spiritual dimension that exists in the darkness (dark matter?) all around us. Scientists don't even know what dark matter is. They can't prove it anymore than they can prove what black holes do or how the Big Bang was activated. New discovery in recent years, thanks largely to James Webb Space Telescope, has the science community baffled and questioning everything.

QUESTIONS WON'T KILL YOU! They lead you to discovery.

QUESTION.

EVERYTHING!

A Faith Journey

Dan Barker said, “I was living a delusion.” He made this declaration on the Oprah Winfrey show as one of her guests back in 1984. He'd been a fundamentalist Christian preacher for 17 years before becoming an avowed athiest. That's what earned him a spot on Oprah's popular talk show.

When she questioned who was in charge during those 17 years of ministry and why he even believed back then in God. “The reason was my own personal psychological feeling that I was in touch with the higher mind I prayed every day I saw suppose answers to prayer.” I can relate to this, but let me go back to the beginning.

HOW IT STARTED

I was born into a Catholic household and baptised as an infant. I have godparents. I went to parochial schools and took Communion. I went to Confession. We left the church after mom and dad's "conversion," before I was able to become an alter boy or go through catechism and Confirmation. But I really wanted to, first, be an altar boy and ring the little bells during Mass and then to one day become a priest. I was so devout at a very early age (5 or 6), that my mom made me vestments because I liked to play like I was presiding over Mass in our basement "sanctuary." I'd feed my sister, Heidi, soda crackers, as Communion wafers, and grape juice, as Communion wine. I was deep into it.

That didn't change when we left the Catholic church and became Independent Baptists. I was again baptised--fully dunked this time as a pre-teen--and not only immersed myself in baptismal water, but also in Sunday School, VBS and youth group. My parents became high school youth group leaders, so that in 7th and 8th grade, I was hanging with the cooler, older kids.

That grew old and uncool by the time I reached high school. We returned to the Catholic church part-time so my folks could get the tuition discount at my parochial high school. I lost interest in my faith and going to church.

SELLING OUT

We moved to Tallahassee a week after my high school graduation and my parents found a new version of Christianity they liked better in a Charismatic, full Gospel church that believed in miracles and speaking in tongues and stuff like that. Again, I got baptised, dunked a second time, so that I began to call myself a CATHO-BAPTI-COSTAL!

I was baptised into a wide range of Christian orthodoxies. But that last one happened as I was reaching adulthood and seemed to help me make sense of life, so I bought in fully. I mean I "sold out to Christ" as they would say in the 1980's. I burnt all of my secular albums and tapes and immersed myself again in youth group and ministry. I became a youth leader, a men's leader, a drummer for the choir and various "praise teams." I bought in 100%.

I got married in that Charismatic church, where I'd met my wife and where I'd start my family in 2001. It played a very instrumental part in my life for over 18 years.

QUESTIONING THE NARROW INTERPRETATION

When I entered college to expand my intellect and my horizons, I decided to minor in religion. It interested me. Our assistant pastor was a professor of Old Testament Studies. He intrigued me, as a Bible-believing academic. I never enrolled in one of his classes, but I did take an elective called "Intro to New Testament." It was taught by a Jewish professor. Talk about opening my eyes to other ways to look at Jesus and his Gospel.

I'd say I grew up with a pretty narrow, fundamentalist interpretation of the Scriptures. I mean, my dad started reading Hal Lindsey and end times "prophets" like him. He took a very literal view of the Bible, and so did I.

College and life brought me to newer, broader understanding that wasn't so rigid or literal. Like, I understood science and the Big Bang Theory, so I already knew that Genesis was not a literal account of how our Universe began. I started trying to reconcile my long-held faith with scientific discovery. It was like trying to fit God into a non-religious context. It wasn't easy.

EMERGENCE

Back when I started this blog in 2005, I was raising two daughters and working closely with meteorologists who studied hurricanes and climate change. I had fully embraced science and was leaning heavily away from fundamentalism and my upbringing. I was extremely curious about the Universe and other, more liberal interpretations of the Bible and Christian theology. There was a growing, online community of Emergent Christians, who I joined on message boards and whose blogs I read (before podcasts became so popular). I wrote of The Emerging Ooze in May 2005.

That curiosity about differing views on Christianity led me to philosophers like Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen, a gay Catholic priest. This was the spiritual path that led me to considering Eastern mysticism, where I found many parallels to the teachings of Jesus. I even read some outlandish ideas about Jesus as an Eastern Mystic, somehow inspired by the "three wise men," who were also "from the East." I considered how Jesus' teachings and healing ministry align well with the Gnostics of his time, that might be the desert dwellers he lived among during his "desert period."

LEAVING IT COMPLETELY BEHIND

After quitting the church where we got married and started a family five years earlier, we started a "home group" of sorts of about four or five families who were about the same place in their Christianity and faith journey. That didn't last long. We met a few months, sharing meals, conversation, prayer and taking up a communal offering that the host family was supposed to use to meet a need in the community.

We moved out-of-state to be near my family. We occasionally attended church with them or the church where my wife worked, a Lutheran church with a progressive, older pastor who loved Henri Nouwen. We had several conversations about faith and the church, but when the denomination split over the issue of "gay priests," I lost all respect for him, the denom, the faith...

I began questioning everything, even the existence of God.

I took aim at the heart of Christian orthodoxy--blood atonement. WHY IN THE HELL DID AN OMNIPOTENT GOD HAVE TO RESORT TO HUMAN SACRIFICE?!?! That practice predated Judaism by a long time. And you mean to tell me that an all-knowing deity couldn't come up with a better concept, a plan for humanity??

According to Google A.I., "Human sacrifice was practiced in many societies beginning in prehistoric times, but became less common in Africa, Europe, and Asia during the Iron Age. In the Americas, human sacrifice continued to be practiced until the European colonization of the Americas. Today, human sacrifice is extremely rare and is treated as murder by secular laws."

That made no sense to me...that an Iron Age practice was being carried out (human and/or animal) in Judaism until the time of Christ and that the Roman crucifixion of a convicted criminal was viewed as the "ultimate" human sacrifice, once and for all humankind.

God couldn't come up with a better way, a more humane and moral way to "save us?" He needed to rely on ancient practices dreamt up by mere mortals or "lesser gods?"

MY NEW AGE SPIRITUALITY

I use the term "New Age," sorta tongue in cheek. It was a dirty, demonic word in my parents' home. LOL! But the spiritual teachings of gurus like Eckhart Tolle and Mooji became more relevant to my faith journey. They blend a liberal view of Christian teaching with Eastern mysticism and other traditions to come up with a universal set of truths, like being good to others and loving oneself.

I no longer believe in the Biblical version of "Father God," a very patriarchal and archaic system of keeping people in check, namely women and minorities. If there is some deity out there, it possesses both feminine and masculine qualities and could give a shit what gender you identify with--as in maybe you are both, just like He/She/It. The Divine, as I see it, and you can find Jesus say the same in the Gospels, is WITHIN!

If you believe in created beings shaped in the image of their deity, then this isn't a totally demonic or foreign concept. Christians believe they are the "bride of Christ." They believe bride and bridegroom to be one. Therefore, I don't see how the idea that we all have the Divine, or are one with Source, is in any way heretical.

I try to tap into my "I AM energy" all the dang time. I find it deep in the core of who I AM. Or as Tolle, would say, "the essence of my being, the conscious mind."

This allows me the freedom to trust in scientific discovery. I don't have to fit God or theology into my belief in science. I don't have to limit a deity to dark matter. I don't necessarily believe in God, per se. Something existed before the Big Bang. We all came from SOMEWHERE! Maybe that's "the Source" as many gurus call it.

Popular astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about “the god of the gaps,” referring to believers whose faith takes over where science leaves off. He sees that as a diminishing god and labels believers as ignorant “because the god of the gaps principal is like a philosophy of ignorance. Science is a philosophy of discovery.”

I'm all about discovery. That's what my faith journey is about--being curious and STAYING OPEN TO POSSIBILITIES!

You don't need a theology to learn to be a good human being. Tolle reminds us that we are, indeed, BEINGS AND NOT DOINGS! We live our lives like Human Doings most of the time. But you don't need to DO anything to be accepted as you are. No one has to shed blood for you to find goodness and morality.

As Barker puts it in the first video, up top, “There can be an objective scientific basis for morality outside of the supernatural outside religion based on the value of human life, based on the fact that life is preferable to non-life; making a hierarchy of value systems, which has nothing to do with receiving an edict written in stone from a God. I am free with the rational mind to determine a hierarchy of values which suits me fine...I have control of my own mind now.”

Like him, I look back on my prayer life and my "relationship with God," as a figment of my imagination. I created a cool, laid-back dad-god who I could converse with casually and who I could depend on to take care of me and look after me like a father. It was very convenient. I just couldn't understand his sense of fairness and justice, like when it came to disasters or death.

I was just watching the aftermath of Hurricane Helene the other day, and one victim who was spared thanked God for watching out for him, when the rest of his neighbors were drowned in a flood. Well, what about them? God just didn't care? He doesn't care about babies suffering and dying a horrible death? He didn't care about millions of Jews, his supposed people, being murdered or burned alive in the Holocaust? Too many inconsistencies in his form of justice...and in the Bible, for my taste.

Who was I really praying to or conversing with? Myself, I presume. It was a psychological construct meant to soothe my soul and help me make sense of this chaotic world that just randomly exploded into existence some 14 million years ago (or maybe not--the James Webb Space Telescope is casting doubt on our entire cosmic model). Like Barker, I had the best intentions. I was attempting to connect to the "higher mind" for my own betterment and the good of those around me.

I'm still trying to connect to that "Universal consciousness," as the gurus call it. That "higher mind" might just exist universally, on some vibrational frequency "out there," that most just haven't tapped into. I don't pretend to know.

These days, you'll find me just conversing with "the Universe." I'll be out on my beach putting my intentions out there and speaking positivity, trying to find my vibration on that frequency. I tell the Universe, whenever I go out there to practice my "New Age" spirituality, that "I'm open to possibilities." I'm still curious and ready for the next adventure.

Waxing political...a common sense rant

I haven't posted much political content this year. I've been more focused on my health and reconnecting with an old flame. But with the recent conviction of Donald J. Trump and all the fanfare on social media, I felt the need to say something on this blog.

I was walking home from the grocery store on my island and ran across a work pickup with this window cling on the back of the cab. "Impeach Biden," is a ludicrous slogan (and pipe dream) meant to disparage the current president, the one who won the 2020 vote legally and fairly. He's NOT the one who interfered with the election! The other doofus is. He's not the one under investigation for criminality inside and outside the White House. There aren't even any TRUMPED up charges against him upon which to base an impeachment trial. That's what makes this window cling ridiculous. It is pointless and holds no merit.

IT IS IRONIC, THOUGH...

Ironic in the fact that the FORMER president actually underwent TWO impeachment hearings in the halls of Congress. Not once, but twice. No trumped up charges, only allegations supported by eyewitnesses and mountains of evidence. In my eyes, the douchebag WAS impeached.

He was also charged in a civil suit of sexual assault. He was convicted of paying off porn star Stormy Daniels after an illicit affair with her while current wife, Melania Trump, was pregnant with his child. Michael Cohen, who handled the hush money payoff, testified under oath that when he asked the former president if he was worried about the wife finding out, the orange buffoon's response was that he wouldn't be on the market long. His own wife, like every woman (or person), in the raging narcissist's life is 100% expendable. Once they aren't providing his "narc supply" (the goal of every narcissist to get their ego needs met), they are of no use to him. He just didn't want Ms. Daniels selling her story to a publisher, the press or the highest bidder. It would look bad for him.

NOT WITH HIS FOLLOWERS...

Nope, the slimy, curmudgeonly MAGA(t) masses who lap up his drivel and love every assault, sexual or otherwise, didn't think it looked bad at all. Cheat on your wife. Pay off the porn star. Laugh it off with your typical locker room vernacular. They just love their felons! I mean, their Christian Nationalist/Fascist Dictators! They'll continue to buy his Bibles, his hats, his lies and financially back his campaign for re-election this year. MORONS!

The 34 felony convictions did not bother them one iota, many of them Bible-believing Christians. The assault on our Constitution, the assault of women (multiple), the locker room talk, the illegal business dealings (his CEO is a convicted felon, too), the attempted coup to stop the peaceful transition of power and his inability to quote even ONE SCRIPTURE from the Bibles he's selling all points them to the logical conclusion that he's a moral guy, a Christ-like person.

UMMMMM...

Excuse me while I puke! Didn't Jesus take a bullwhip and kick people out of the Temple, turning over tables and tongue-lashing the "bible salesmen" of his day? Peculiar. Aren't there New Testament Scriptures, and I'm thinking primarily in that last book, about the anti-Christ and how easily he dupes Christians and the ignorant, heathen masses in the "end times?"

Stupid memes like this have been circulating on social media to compare what Trump is going through (the justice system) to Jesus Christ (persecution as a leftist rabbi)

Yeah, the orange one doesn't favor Damien from The Omen films at all.

On the contrary, his duped minions have taken to social media in the weeks since his conviction ON 34 FELONY COUNTS to compare their evil cult leader to Jesus Christ, Himself!!! NO LIE! If I've seen the comparisons once on Facebook, alone, I've seen them a gazillion times! Excuse me, the stomach bile is in my throat again.

That, in itself, is blasphemy. Do these dolts even OPEN their Bibles??? I haven't opened one in years and I can see it plain as the nose on my face!

I've seen this one posted over and over to Facebook. I see it in my news feed and I immediately SNOOZE the person, at the very least.

You don't ADD TO or TAKEAWAY from the "inerrant word of god," so the fundamental faithful say. Yet, here's this known snake oil salesman adding the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence to the Holy Book. I mean, it makes perfect sense, since Christianity started on these shores all those years ago. Oh, wait, no that was the Middle East in about 80-120 A.D.

Christianity started as a Messianic sect of Judaism in the first century. The Bible was codified by the CATHOLIC CHURCH in the fourth century by a council of bishops (SHHHH! Most American Christians don't even know this and think the Catholics are heretics and demon worshippers!).

We are NOT a Christian nation, so Marjorie Taylor Knitwit can sit down with her nationalist dreams and STFU! Many of our founding forefathers were DEISTS, not necessarily Christian. They didn't set up our republic as any one religion. Pretty sure they mandated the separation of church and state, meaning religion has no seat at the table and governments can't interfere with religious practices. The two are to remain separate, but don't tell that the mega-church-pastoring, 501(c)3-protected billionaires who preach politics every week!

Religion is the opiate of the masses, it's been said.

History is bound to repeat itself.

We don't need to return America to her 1930's self. That's where the MAGA(t) morons get their moronic slogan--from 1930's Nazi propaganda when Hitler and the KKK were still popular among WASP-y Americans. They were duped back then, during the worst depression in history, that we were a great nation. Women, black citizens and those in the gay community didn't find it so great. History is written and rewritten by the rich, white elites in power, the same ones who've ALWAYS held the power. And if we don't learn from it--if we don't even know where the MAGA slogan came from--then we are doomed, as the prophets foretold.

Just quit with the Jesus comparisons, already! And quit shoving your narrow-minded, mega church mentality down all our throats. I could out-quote the Bible to most of you, ignorant hypocrites, buying Trump Bibles and backing the convicted rapist and felon! Jesus would label you a "brood of vipers."

I just think your ignorant, opiate-addicted, easily duped FOOLS!

There is no choice, in my mind, but to rebut and rebuke fascism in any and all forms, and support the guy who's been about our republic his whole life, dedicated his life to it, in fact. He's old. He's a career politician. SO F-IN WHAT??? You want four years of that convict and lunatic with the wispy, orange combover and spray tan???

ARE PEOPLE REALLY THIS STUPID?

Sorry, unfortunately, I know the answer.

Divine Feminine Energy

I was watching an Eckhart Tolle video where he was reading from the Tao Te Ching. In the excerpt he read, "Master" was a feminine energy which I translated to be "an enlightened one" or Enlightenment, itself.

It reminded me that in Judeo-Christian Scripture that "Wisdom," as a persona is often a female. So I began to wonder if this was a theme carried throughout spiritual thought.

My research was nowhere near exhaustive, not by any stretch, but I did find common themes.

Take the Indigenous People. They perpetuated the idea of "Mother Earth." And this divine feminine energy is also found in Paganism and other nature-centric religions. It's definitely inherent to Hinduism--Tridevi, or three goddesses, is a term used to describe the three main female deities. Then, there are the goddesses of ancient mythologies. Again, I'm not compiling an exhaustive list, just providing some wide-ranging examples of feminine divinity.

Anyone familiar with this blog, knows that I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home, rooted in Catholicism and later becoming Protestant.

The idea of feminine divinity was NOT celebrated in my home. In fact, the "worship of Mary" was one of my father's main criticisms of Catholicism. He was raised in that Church.

These are ideas I've begun considering and even embracing in the latter half of my life. It's no coincidence that humans on this planet owe their life to their mothers who incubated and delivered them. So why is it such a stretch for many Christians (dare I say MOST), to embrace the idea of a feminine deity?

I don't hold those chauvinistic ideals anymore.

I clearly see the dominance and utter devastation the patriarchy has wrought on society, and particularly in Western philosophy and religion.

It's evident in our politics and policies in America. It shouldn't rule our religion, as well.

It appears to me that the divine feminine energy has always been present, I just hadn't realized it. I knew the Biblical Proverbs that spoke of Wisdom as "she," but the Pauline Epistles make it real clear that women should not have a voice in churches.

It's well past time that we shake off the bonds of patriarchal religion and societal norms and embrace the divine feminine energy. It's a thing of wonderment and beauty.

I haven't waxed spiritual in awhile, so I felt this post was needed. Thanks for stopping by and entertaining my ramblings. 

Gratitude. Presence. Spirituality.

Haven't posted in awhile. Life happens. 2020 is different, though. We've faced a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. America has lost almost 180k lives to it. Our president has failed us. He's about to be voted out in a few months. There's been racial unrest with rioting, protesting and over-policing, which just fuels more of it. We're about to see history unfold as two potential hurricanes form in the Gulf at the same time. California is largely on fire and I'm facing the move of a lifetime. Life happens was kind of a muted understatement :)

But here we are nearing the peak of hurricane season. I'm no longer living on the Gulf coast so I'm well out of harm's way. I find myself at my Dad's house in Indiana, starting week three. This is supposed to be my transition to Colorado. I feel as if I'm in a holding pattern.

Even with all the unrest and upheaval this year has thrown at me, particularly the last 5-6 months, I'm relatively peaceful and calm. Facing the negativity and ritualism of my father, I'm relatively positive and making progress.

How is this possible?

Gratitude. Presence. Spirituality.

I've found a path to more mindfulness, more peace, by looking inward and diving below "the unconscious mind," as Eckhart Tolle likes to say. He's my spiritual guru. I've digested more of his videos in the last month than I can count. He preaches presence and getting past the clutter of "the thinking mind." It has helped me a lot. I'm finding a spiritual discipline that didn't exist in my past life as a seeker of Truth.

I mentioned my father's ritualism. He's part of the tribal cult of religion. He believes the Bible to be the inerrant word of God. For him, it paints a picture of God's design and dominion over humankind, the earth and it's history. He trusts that the spiritual, dare I say mythical, guide book was transcribed by men who were mere conduits for the voice of the divine. It's as if God couldn't write it all down for us, as he did for Moses on the mountain, so he began with the Old Testament scribes, and they captured it precisely and perfectly as God intended. No errors, no omissions or translations. Purely the essence of God's wisdom captured in a man-made book.

That's the biggest myth of fundamental Christianity. But Dad's faith is built on that, so I have to allow him his beliefs. He doesn't want to hear otherwise. There's no room for debate.

Take Creation v. Evolution, for instance. He doesn't believe there is room to believe that God set into motion the evolutionary process that took millions of years and still continues to this day. No, the myth says that there was a literal creation that took place thousands (not millions) of years ago and it happened in a literal week. You know, because God is bound by time and space and put "himself" on a tight deadline. The book says it, so it is so. No wiggle room.

Where I diverge from his ritualism is that I see the Bible as a book of myths and stories pointing to a larger Truth. The same Universal Truths we find in other spiritual guidebooks and paths--from Eastern to Western cultures and religions. I don't believe in God's will superimposed over history, or that "he" spoke the Bible into existence and men merely transcribed what they heard, as if on dictaphone. On the contrary, I believe the oral tradition passed down for generations to Abraham, Moses and Jesus, were largely based on myths, like the story of creation. It helped to make sense of the world to nomadic, tribal people in times before the written word. The Bible, then, is man's writing of history to explain the why questions. Once the oral traditions and ancient myths were captured in writing, it's like they were set in stone...by God. But it's humankind's way of explaining the unexplainable God, not the other way around. The myths point to larger Truths, like guideposts. That's why I see spiritual writings as guides and not rulebooks.

Religion, tribalism and ritualism seem rooted in ancient times. Truth is transcendent. That's why you find kernels of it in all religions. There are enough similarities in the major religions to see a pattern and to be able to discern the essence of the divine.

I guess it comes down to having a more humanist view of God than a deist one. I began years ago, and it's documented in this blog, seeing the divine in other human beings. I look for it there. Even Jesus said we'd find him when we helped others--fed them, clothed them, gave them a drink of water. I think that is God finding God. We have the divine spark within us. That's not blasphemy or heresy. That's in Jesus' own teaching. It's evident in a lot of spiritual writings. It's what Tolle calls our "essence," part of "the Universal Consciousness." I don't care what you call it, that resonates with me.

Getting in touch with who I really am at my core--my essence--is where I find the most transcendent peace, or what Jesus called "peace that passes understanding." To get there, I have to escape the clutter of my non-stop thinking mind. I don't have to make sense of the totality of life or how we got here. The why questions are becoming less and less important. I'm finding a new ability to let what is just be. It is what it is. I'm not playing some karmic game with fate or God. I'm finding peace in presence. I'm also finding more gratitude for what is, for abundance, for blessing in my life--deserved or undeserved, I no longer place a value on it. Let's face it, the blessings in my life are invaluable. That's why I recognize it as abundance. And the same goes for trials and challenges--they don't come as retribution for past sins or where I may have misstepped, taking that zig when I should've zagged. That's more judgment and attributing the minutia of life to God-level consciousness. God's not up there playing a game of chess with me. No, as I said at the start of this post, "life happens." It's how we deal with the unexpected complexities of life that matters most.

So far, I've survived 2020. I haven't gotten infected with the COVID-19 virus, to my knowledge. The one test I had done came back negative four weeks ago. I haven't succumbed to the panic over the viral pandemic that went global back in Dec/Jan timeframe, but only really grabbed our full attention in late March. I didn't die from homelessness. I survived much of this year with my girls--my lifeline. I found some new meditation practices that have become part of my daily spiritual discipline. I've actually used this year of upheaval to grow and adapt.

This blog post really focused on spirituality and religion, but that's only because I've been smacked in the face with my ritualistic past because I'm living with "old me" in the form of my Dad. I love him dearly. I'm just glad I evolved past his tribalism and stranglehold on the Truth. We've largely avoided discussions on this topic, to my great surprise (and with great effort on my part). I don't discuss politics for the same exact reason. My sanity is largely in-tact, but not just because we've avoided these hot-button issues, but because I continue to practice gratitude.

Here's what that looks like in the mornings--
I'm often up before sunrise, as I am today (typing this at 4:36 a.m.). I'll take my freshly brewed Cuban coffee outside (weather permitting) and greet the sunrise with gratitude. I might thank the Universe for the sun's energy, it's life-giving and sustaining force, it's warmth, it's light. It's really that simple. I don't take everyday things, like the sun coming up over the eastern horizon, for granted. I say thank you...to God, to Life, to the Universe, the planet...I am grateful. I might, then, turn my attention to the things that thrive on photosynthesis like the grass under my feet (I try to ground myself, barefoot, to the Earth) or the plants and trees around me. There's an abundance of life all around me, so that even if I didn't have a penny or a roof over my head, I could still be grateful for abundance. There is abundant life on this planet that we just happened to be fortunate enough to be born onto. I'm grateful for that...for life on Planet Earth. Then I bore down into more personal areas, like my health, my daughters, my family, etc. It's really not that difficult. I try to start everyday with gratitude. I absorb the positive energy of the sun (which I can do even when it's not visible, on cloudy, rainy days) and try to radiate that positivity outward, in the form of considering and praying for others. If the focus is merely inward, it's not really gratitude, it's narcissism. I want to be a blessing on the Earth and vibrate on a higher frequency than I ever have before. I am noticing a difference in just a few weeks of practice.

Ok, I've rambled on long enough. Peace, my friends. Be blessed.

Humanism v. Monotheism in the Context of Individual Rights

Defining Terms and Values

hu·man·ism noun

an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.

The Humanist values what it can see, think and feel. They value the cognitive capacity of human beings to rationally consider all sides of an issue without the aid of religion or what I call “magical thinking.”

mon·o·the·ism noun

the doctrine or belief that there is only one God.

The monotheist, and for most Americans this translates Christian, values only what is taught in Holy Scriptures as “the law” or “the word of God.” It sees the world in terms of black-and-white, us-and-them, right-and-wrong, saved-unsaved, heaven-or-hell, righteous-sinner… There is no gray area where life is actually lived. It is filled with “magical thinking.” The fact that you have to conjure up some image of what this deity looks like—in most opinions, male—acts like or thinks like is where imagination comes in, thus “magical thinking.”

Let’s apply these terms and values to the debate on abortion and individual rights.

Liberal-minded Christian with Humanistic Leanings

As a liberal-minded Christian, with Humanist leanings, I can say with near certainty that the core of the “pro choice” stance is human dignity, liberty and Constitutionally-protected rights. It is not about the life and death struggle, the tug of war between mom and baby. It’s about the inalienable rights of the woman who has already survived the gestation period and several years on planet Earth. How do the rights of an embryonic life form, with nothing more recognizable than a heartbeat, trump the rights of a living, breathing human being? Have you seen what the fetus looks like when there’s a detectable heartbeat? It resembles a blood-red jelly bean.

Conservative-minded Christian View

As a conservative-leaning monotheist, which I once was, I can say with near certainty that the core of the “pro life” stance is the belief that life is God-ordained and begins at the moment of conception. It’s not even a question about women’s rights or even the health and well-being of the mother. It’s merely the fact that a life has been conceived in a woman’s womb, that sacred space where they believe God miraculously breathes life into the cells of this fertilized egg, a zygote.

I’ve batted for both teams, so to speak. I don’t speak from a limited understanding of the issue, of what’s at stake. I see both sides of the coin. But it does, indeed, boil down to a matter of individual rights, and whether you default immediately to the fetus/baby’s side or to the woman/mother’s, you have to choose who’s rights are more at stake here.

The U.S. Supreme Court has spoken, nearly 50 years ago. But it wasn’t so many years before that, women were fighting for equal rights, and black women for equal rights was only a decade older than Roe v. Wade! 

So let us look at equal rights, shall we?

EQUALITY

The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….” which, at face value, seems to be like a wholly monotheistic ideal. But is it really?

At the time this declaration was penned in 1776, chattel slavery was a widely-accepted practice in the American colonies. Brought to the colonies by the Dutch in the early 1600’s, one could argue that the very republic was built on the backs of non-white slaves. That fact alone stands in complete contradiction to the opening assertion of the Declaration. Were not the slaves endowed by their Creator?

Slavery was an institution supported by the Church and justified by Scripture. In fact, nowhere in Scripture is this concept of equality for all found, certainly not equality for slaves or women. Off the top of my head, the Book of Hebrews is the only place I can recall where equality is preached at all! And there, it is equating the Christian to the Jew as “God’s chosen,” “his children,” “joint heirs” in the promise of Abraham. I would argue that even that Scripture is only saying the Christian male and Jewish male adherents are equal in God’s eyes.

Even the Creation Story itself doesn’t promote the myth of equality. God created Adam from the dust of the Earth. Eve was created out of Adam. From Genesis forward, I don’t see a single shred of evidence where women share an equal footing with men. That patriarchal system, established in “the beginning,” was by God’s design. It influenced the very men who wrote the sacred texts, the bishops who canonized The Bible and the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

Even the founding fathers of our nation didn’t all share the same views on monotheism v. humanism. This concept of equality that they immortalized in the Declaration was a myth. It wasn’t supported by Scripture, even though it has very religious overtones, and it wasn’t even practiced in the colonies by the men who wrote it. They believed women inferior, slaves inferior (lower than livestock) and any non-white inferior to them. So what was this equality they spoke of? An ideal? An unrealized goal?

I would say, yes.

Women, slaves and non-whites had to struggle for equality and most didn’t achieve it until the last half of the 20^th Century. It wasn’t achieved in 1776 with the Declaration, nor in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation, nor even in 1920 with the success of the suffrage movement and adoption of the 19^th Amendment. The dream of equality, heretofore just a myth, is just now being realized in the 21^st Century, and not just for women but for “all Men,” gay, straight or otherwise.

Is this a God-given right or a human right? I’d argue the latter.

Left to well-meaning monotheists, this right would never have been endowed upon anyone but the white men who codified the rules, enforced them, preached them and interpreted them. We’ve only seen cracks form in the patriarchal system of control handed down to us from Abraham, and later Moses from Mt. Sinai.

Humanists would argue that we haven’t gone far enough. Their view is that monotheism and patriarchy have done enough damage, run their course. Let the idea of inherent human dignity be the sole driving force behind equal treatment under the law—no God required.

That’s at the heart of the abortion debate—human rights.

I don’t feel that the woman’s right to chose what to do with her pregnancy is anybody else’s business. Like “all Men,” she has bodily autonomy and unless that fetus is grown in a test tube, it certainly depends on the “host,” as some have labeled pregnant women. They are not merely hosts. They are living, breathing life-support systems. They can determine for themselves if a pregnancy is wanted or unwanted. They can make this medical decision for their own bodies and fetuses, just as any human being has a right to bodily autonomy.

Granting women this right, which took from 1776 – 1973 (grasp that span of time for a moment), is a logical step towards this ideal which our forefathers set out in the Declaration. That is nearly 200 years to realize this dream of equality for a woman to be given equal treatment under the law. Are we now to repeal what took 197 years to establish?

Patriarchy, bred of monotheistic ideals, would certainly answer that question with a resounding YES! The establishment would have us believe that the Supreme Court made a mistake. The most outspoken of those on the far right would make a case for a theocracy—a system of shariah-like law practiced in other monotheistic states.

The humanist in me must reject such magical thinking. God did not descend with his scepter in hand and “bippity, boppity, boop!” life was created miraculously in a woman’s womb. It took a man and a woman, and not necessarily in an act of loving, consent. Still, biologically-speaking, two humans of opposite sex had to join forces to conceive. Life, for a humanist, is not a God-ordained miracle. It is biology. Period.

In that sense, the human beings involved in “pro-creation” are ultimately involved in bringing this life to fruition or choosing to end the gestation period. Even in that case, the male co-conspirator doesn’t have more say over the gestating than the women who bears the sole responsibility. Her body equals her choice.

Their religious-sounding, monotheistic rhetoric aside, the 56 men who declared this myth of equality, even while holding women and slaves in submission, couldn’t foresee a time when abortion would strike at the heart of this myth. But now that the myth, the ideal, has been realized it can’t be stuffed back into it’s 1776 packaging. We won’t return to an 18^th, or even a 20^th, Century mentality, no matter how hard the right pushes us in that direction.

White Privilege Breeds White Nationalism

If I could start any non-profit I wanted tomorrow, I think it would be an educational program to treat middle-aged (and older) white males in denial. Their disease? Denial of white privilege. It's an epidemic that seems to only affect that demographic.

Disclaimer: I'm a 50-year-old white male who has benefited from white privilege my entire life.

My co-patriots would like to claim that I'm a guilt-ridden, self-loather who thinks reparations are in order and we should all self-flagellate. Sure, make me a victim in this scenario. But isn't that what "they" do? If you listened to all the alt-right propaganda, it's people like me, in the media, on the streets, waging a war against whiteness! Their way of life, their race and even their gender are under attack!

Poor little white dudes.

The predominance of white privilege has shown it's ugly face throughout history, but I don't need to prove it's existence. To me, it seems as obvious as the nose on my face. To others who've benefited from it THEIR WHOLE LIVES, it's become a "dirty word." We don't like to face our own prejudices and shortcomings. I get it. But denying it's existence would be like spiders denying that they benefit from webspinning, or lions denying their royal jungle lineage. To further this metaphor, white men have existed at the top of the cultural food chain for so long, we even mold our deities in their image. Have you seen most portrayals of Jesus Christ?? I grew up believing that Jesus was a fair-skinned, blue eyed Westerner with a British accent.

Anthropologists best guess


Fighting the denial of the blatantly obvious would be the mission of my non-profit. I would force my target demographic--men who look like me and a lot less like the Jesus pictured above--to look into the mirror and get real with themselves.

In thinking on this idea yesterday, I had a moment of real gratitude. I said thank you to the Universe for my health, my intellect and my good looks. Yes, I'm a frumpy, aging, white man with graying brown hair, wrinkles around my green eyes and a gray goatee. But I could walk into any establishment, even after a long period of unemployment, and talk my way into a job. No one would bat an eye as I sauntered into the building because I fit the model of "normal" in our white-bred, Chrisley Knows Best society.

All I'm asking of my Wonder Bread, milk toast brethren is to walk a mile in someone else's shoes; consider for one minute what their world might look like if they looked like confused, Arab Jesus (see photo above). What would their middle class American suburban experience have been like if they'd been born with brown skin, a disability or even as the opposite sex of their OWN race? Because even white women have been marginalized throughout world history. EVERYONE EXCEPT WHITE MEN HAVE!

But to accept that truth would be to accept all the baggage that comes along with it--from patriarchy to slavery to abominations of every sort (think Hitler and Nazism). We've got a barbaric past. But why own any of that when you control the narrative? See my post last year in the wake of "kneegate" in the NFL.

Men, since the dawn of time, have controlled the narrative. We wrote all of the ancient, sacred texts, the basis for our morals and laws. Then, we made all the rules, we enforced the rules and we protect that patriarchy with a fierceness not even matched by the Spartans (or the Nazis). And because we were simply born into the ruling class--dominant gender, dominant race--we believe we get to continue making all the rules, writing the white-washed narrative and keeping everyone else in the margins. That has been our man-given right since the dawn of time, right?

And all I want is for my brothers all of white mothers to own up to it. Well, that's the first step, anyway. I really want them to go further and consider what this world has been like for people outside their Truman Show bubble. Understanding breeds compassion and empathy.

Denial of white privilege breeds the opposite. In today's American political climate, it's given us the resurgence of white nationalism. It's that militant side of white America who is ready to take up arms to stave the non-white onslaught. You know, all those rapist Mexicans that want to steal our jobs! Too much? Sorry, not sorry. Those are the outlandish claims being made (mostly on Fox News) by the alt-right.

"They" are so worried that someone else is going to usurp white control of everything and take with it all the power, the pen and the privilege. They will rewrite the rules and the narrative--this mythic, monolithic "them" (non-whites). Diversity of skin tones, gender identity and ideas scares the ever-loving shit out of the white aristocracy, especially those on the alt-right. They literally feel that they are in the fight of their lives. The world has turned against them--their government, the media, the people they've oppressed and marginalized for eons.

Maybe they SHOULD be scared! Maybe it'll make them re-evaluate their stranglehold on society and all of it's "norms." But, sadly, it hasn't. It's made most of them dig foxholes in their mostly white, cookie cutter, McMansion suburbs. It's forced them to drag us back, as a nation, into the white ages of Cleaver-land. I'm talking 1950's black-and-white sitcoms, where Father Knows Best and you can Leave It To Beaver.

Life was so much easier for whitey back then, wasn't it? We didn't have "the blacks" rioting and burning down their own neighborhoods and scaring us half to death. We didn't have "the gays" pushing some gender-twisting, liberal agenda down our throats. We didn't have "the gentler sex" demanding equal pay or speaking out (think #metoo). We didn't have "the godless atheists" challenging our WASPy ideals and core beliefs. It's SO scary being a white person these days!

The threat to white privilege has caused this huge backlash and talk of border walls, national (meaning white) security and bringing God back into the classroom. And it's not just non-whites under attack anymore. We have to dominate and control our women, once again, by rolling back advances like abortion rights (Roe v. Wade), voting rights (women are incarcerated, as well) and affirmative action (it benefited women, too). We have to continue to marginalize the voice of gay, white men, even, save their voice be heard and their "chosen lifestyle" be normalized (think recent PBS show, Arthur, debate). Everything non-Christian, non-white, non-male is in the crosshairs because White Privilege Breeds White Nationalism!

It's akin to someone's most deeply entrenched personal issue becoming exposed. The defenses go up immediately. Fight or flight in full effect. Same goes for WASPy, white America. They are deeply afraid of exposing their sacred right (think Manifest Destiny) and having it trampled. Because you understand that to give ANYONE else rights (think #blacklivesmatter) is to somehow diminish THEIRS! Anything that threatens their centuries of control is to be pushed back, demonized and utterly defeated.

I don't feel guilty about it. I didn't make these rules and I certainly don't defend them. My white ancestors were not slave owners. They were immigrants from all parts of Europe, some who were literally despised when they got here (think Irish potato famine refugees). I've totally enjoyed and benefited from my white man card and all the privileges it served up to me. But I wasn't raised to despise anyone who didn't belong to the club (membership certainly has it's privileges). I was raised in a multi-racial, middle class, Midwestern city neighborhood. I walked to school and/or played with neighborhood kids that were African-American, Asian-American, European-American...notice these all have qualifiers. We are all immigrants from somewhere else...NON-natives. So PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU MY WHITE BROTHERS, get over yourselves!!!

Let's end white nationalism today and embrace all cultures, all Americans and even those trying to become Americans. Let us willingly lose our privileged status, the us and them labels and be more courageous. Get out of your foxholes, lay down your defenses and embrace diversity. It is about to be 2020 for God's sake! Let's let go of 1950's stereotypes (ding, ding, ding...it wasn't THAT GREAT back in the old days!) and fully embrace the moment we live in. It's not scary. It's exciting. Change is good. Lay down the crack pipe. Let love rule!

Precedent Setters, the Church v the Court

As I blogged last week about Roe v. Wade, the precedent-setting Supreme Court case from 1973, I believed my case for upholding this nearly 50-year-old ruling was airtight. Well, arguing the points on Facebook did little good to convince anyone. The anti-abortionists on the right cling to their argument equating the medical procedure--for whatever reason--as murder. This is the reason states who are now trying to outlaw abortions are not even allowing exceptions for cases of rape, incest and mother's health. Regardless of what stats, logic or legal precedent you throw at them, it always comes back to "life begins at conception."

The basis for Western morality are the Judeo-Christian Scriptures (Torah/Bible) which were written by Middle Eastern Jews and canonized by European Bishops (the Bible anyway) centuries ago. Wikipedia says, "Which books constituted the Christian biblical canons  of both the Old and New Testament was generally established  by the 5th century, despite some scholarly disagreements, for the ancient undivided Church." To be clear, that was 16 centuries ago or SIXTEEN HUNDRED YEARS! There has been a lot of evolution, science, social change and reinterpretation of the text in that vast expanse of time. Laws that govern current Western culture, still largely based on the moral code of these ancient texts, is revisited and reinterpreted all the time. But let's be, again, very clear that we are talking about a law book canonized 1,600 years ago.

Anti-abortionists want everyone else to buy their theory that this ancient law book trumps all other laws and sets precedent for all time over our current system of governance. That is simply insane!

The precedent for current-day America was set by American judges in the last half of the 20th Century. It was nearly 50 years ago, in my lifetime, that the debate was settled and precedent set--for current day, not 5th Century Europe and certainly not 400 BC Judea! The social norms and mores of those times are mostly irrelevant to the world we inhabit, halfway around the globe, 16 - 26 centuries removed.

That law book, which is a religious artifact, does not set precedent. Our democratic republic is quite simply NOT a theocracy. The separations put in place to protect government from becoming such, are spelled out just as clearly in our Constitution as the right to privacy. The 14th Amendment that protects that right, and served as the basis for Roe v. Wade, was instituted in 1868. So the anti-abortionists, want to erode the protections our forefathers laid out over 150 years ago and wipe away the precedent set by a nearly 50-year-old Supreme Court ruling. Why? So we can return to the barbarism of animal sacrifice and demanding virginal blood be apparent on the marital bedsheets?

They don't merely want to roll back the 1973 protections. They want to return America to the pseudo-safety of the 1950's, of shaming women into having babies that were the products of non-consentual sex, of women remaining silent and knowing their place, of back alley abortions and non-sterilized coat hangers, of putting woman at risk and removing their liberties as equal citizens! It is asinine and insane!

We can't let them lord the control of 5th Century Bishops over our country, our mothers, sisters and daughters any longer! The Supreme Court has spoken, our American forefathers have spoken and the precedent has been set for nearly 50 years. Your ancient religious text doesn't trump that. It's precedence was outdated by the time the Bible was canonized. It's relevance for modern Western culture lacks any real viability--as most of it's taboos on sexuality and women's rights have been long shattered. There will be no dragging back of my America to the dark ages! Not for my generation, not for my daughters', or their daughters' either. Period, end of story.

My latest abortion rights rant

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose whether or not to have an abortion

This is the hot topic these days with Bible belt states pushing back against what has already been established as constitutional in this country--a woman's right to choose what she does with her body and the fetus developing inside of it. The debate for the pro-right, pro-religious agenda, "pro-life" side ALWAYS comes back to "life begins at conception." But now we have ultra-right leaning states pushing even further in attempting to call masturbation murder, as if God ordained every sperm out of every male body on the planet to be the next human baby. That's absurd!

But the "life begins at conception" argument is NO LESS absurd. Not every egg that receives the fertilizing sperm and becomes an embryonic cell is meant to become a contributing member of society--some of them don't even develop into multi-cell organisms, others don't make it past the first month or first trimester, some will develop abnormally with major deformities and become babies who have to be cared for all of their lives or become wards of the state, while still others will become rapists, arsonists, terrorists or serial killers. My point is that NOT EVERY LIFE CONCEIVED is destined for a productive and healthy existence on planet Earth! And what's even more important, we are reaching critical mass on this planet--just ask the polar ice caps!!

And even if you believe that God ordains EVERY SINGLE life from conception, then you believe that he condones rape, incest and sex slavery! Each of these evils produces children.

What's more, if your belief is that every woman who conceives should be forced to carry the baby full-term, and it survives the 10-month ordeal, will you also support this child by paying to improve public education, housing options, transportation options, providing free public health care and higher education??? No, I didn't think so. That'd be socialism.

But get this--we DON'T live in a theocracy or an autocracy, where one diety or person in power gets to "play god" and decide which women can abort their pregnancies and which can't. Most would agree that rape, incest and other abuse victims should be given that right. So if some are allowed and some aren't, that's where my problem lies. It's as stupid as the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. It's okay to be gay in the armed forces, just hide who you are (and go kill people!). Who are WE (collective population), or THEY (god or government leader) to say who is OK and who ISN'T???

Our government, even approaching 2020, is still by-and-large run by powerful, wealthy, white men (who are insanely rich on the corporate tit) and so I'd ask (for my daughters' sake), WHO ARE THEY to tell them what to do with their bodies or their fetuses. Are any of these "sugar daddies" gonna help my girls through the pains and emotional rollercoaster of pregnancy, or the anguishing pain of childbirth, or the 18+ years they will need assistance in raising my grandchildren?

All human beings have rights and one of those rights, recognized by the courts, is bodily autonomy. The University of California Santa Barbara defines this right as such:

Bodily autonomy is defined as the right to self governance over one’s own body without external influence or coercion. It is generally considered to be a fundamental human right.

Since the planet does not NEED any more babies and even those conceived in the womb are not guaranteed to survive or to be contributing members of society, then there's no need to assert a divine will or manifest destiny to every living embyo. Therefore, we should default, first, to this basic human right, that ALL humans, even women, have autonomy over their own person. Secondly, we have the 14th Amendment and the 1973 Supreme Court decision. As arbiters of the Constitution, they get to tell us, as society, what is allowed and what's not. And last I checked, abortions are allowed.

Before you try and box me into some stereotype, I AM PRO-RIGHTS! I believe in human rights, women's rights, gay rights, voting rights, right to die, right to work, etc., etc...EVEN gun rights, though they should be way more restricted than say voting rights or driving privileges. I believe people have the right to do what they want to with their bodies, to love and marry who they want to, to copulate consentually and either have the babies as a result OR NOT, to smoke pot (it's a plant not a drug) if they want to, to own and shoot guns if they want to...it's not our place to infringe on people's rights for ANY REASON, especially not religious-based reasons!

Quit fighting what's been a social norm (and a legal right) for nearly HALF A CENTURY! No one wants to return to coat hangers or to fight battles over individual rights that have already been won, whether they be civil, women's, LGBTQ+ or otherwise! We WILL NOT return to the 1950's in this country, so please take your seat and enjoy the ride.

Anti-Christian Believer

I haven't expressed many religious views in some time and that was partly the basis for this blog which began in 2005 or thereabouts. And as I was showering this morning, I thought about the deconstruction of my faith that has been occurring in spurts and starts ever since that time. So let's talk about that, shall we?

MONOTHEISTIC MYTH

Some of the world's great religions--Christianity, Islam and Judaism--purport this mythic creative being who is so above our human consciousness so as to be nearly incomprehensible. But is "he" really?

On counterpoint, the humanist idea purports this idea of the fully realized self--the perfect human, if you will. But is that idea really so different? Allow me to explain from my own personal upbringing.

The God of my childhood was certainly created in human image and explained to me as a loving, yet militantly disciplinary parent. I mean, uber-militant, like say your prayers or risk hellfire. Scary, right? Juxtaposed to his sense of fairness and justice, was the loving father figure who, once in his good graces, couldn't lavish enough love on you. As I grew to understand this concept of a perfect being of the most perfect love, I realized God possessed both masculine and feminine characteristics. I mean, even the Bible describes him/her as a mother hen gathering us like chicks under her wings.

But in all those descriptions, meant to put God in terms we could understand, he/she is merely the perfect parent or fully realized human--God in our image.

Is that so different than the humanist view of a supreme being? To me, this idea purported by monotheism that he is something more is a vain attempt to explain how and why we are here.

INTELLIGENT DESIGNERS

The argument of the intelligent design community is a full spectrum away from the randomness of the chaos theory. But let us be honest. Isn't it just as plausible that aliens of a far more advanced reality designed our universe as it is that a God creature did it in a mere six days? And what's so intelligent about a black hole anyway? Did those designers say, "Yeah, this is great and all, but you know what this galaxy needs? A huge vacuumous drain!"

I'm only halfway joking, here. If I am supposed to believe there is this incomprehensible being "out there" somewhere looking over this intelligent design he created with a word, why can I not consider him/her and alien being. Maybe she's an alien mother hen that exists in another realm---a highly creative chicken with a sadistic sense of humor.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN

My deconstruction of my faith has caused me to become very anti-Christian. Especially in today's polarized social climate, I have very little tolerance for the bigotry, sexism and homophobia of ultra-right-wing Christian expression.

My own Christian experience ran the gamut from Catholic to fundamental Baptist to the zaniness of Pentacostalism. I minored in religion at Florida State University to try and make sense of it all. What I came away with left me convinced that they are all basically full of shit. And the crazy part is that the Protestants don't seem to understand that the book they so highly value was given to them by Catholic Bishops from the 4th - 6th centuries, who couldn't have been any further removed from the Christ figure if they were meeting on Neptune, instead of Europe. And these bishops had an agenda. Why do you think some books were in and some were out? Because they picked what fit with their worldview, theology and bias. And the world--Catholics and Protestants, alike--have been lapping it up like it's water from the fountain of youth ever since. We don't even question it, not even when it clearly contradicts itself, at least I was raised not to question it.

My father, to his credit, did question the authority of the Pope and the Catholic Church. That's why we left and became Baptists in the late 1970's. He had what he describes as a conversion experience in a charismatic Bible Study that led him to a spiritual retreat called Cursillo. Just before we moved to Florida, however, my mom got very interested in the Charismatic movement in the Church, an outgrowth of the hippie church movement of the late 60's. She and my dad read a book called "Walking and Leaping" by Christian author Merlin Carothers. Once in Florida, they sought out a church that was "filled with the Spirit" and that's how we became CathoBaptiCostals, term I like to think I coined in the mid-1980's.

I always said that this upbringing gave me a well-rounded view of Christianity, but it really didn't. It was all pretty much based in fundamentalist ideology. It just took very different approaches to the foundational salvation message. It wasn't until college and even into adulthood, when I first encountered liberal Christians on Internet message boards, that my fundamentalism was even challenged. I'd never considered Christianity from a liberal or humanist worldview. I didn't know those kinds of Christians existed, or at least I never validated their brand of Christianity. I looked down upon such blasphemers as fake Christians.

When I go to church now, which is infrequently, I surround myself with these liberal types, who believe in justice, equality, inclusion and such. But I go to that church with a very anti-Christian mindset. I just don't trust Christians very much anymore. I totally get why a large portion of the world hates and distrusts them.

I still want to believe in goodness, in love, in fairness and justice, I just don't believe that it all starts with this other-worldly being who we cannot really comprehend. It'd be just as reasonable to assert that it started with highly evolved beings from another galaxy or whatever.

The theology and the book it is loosely based upon don't interest me as much as the result. How does your belief define you and make you treat others? Are you a decent human being? Are you a responsible, charitable and compassionate inhabitant of this planet? Do you make others better by your being here? The results, the actions, are what speak the most to me.

Well, I've run out of steam, so we can discuss this more later...

#40Notes40Days

It's Lent and the exercise is pretty self-explanatory.

I wrote myself the first note on Ash Wednesday (yesterday) after finding this challenge, created by "The Fat Pastor" a couple years ago. My church had posted it to their Facebook page and I was inspired to get creative myself, updating the graphic (above), and starting my note-writing campaign.

Yesterday, I took time to identify the other 38 people I would write. Well, to be honest, I ID'd 36 with a couple of lingering question marks, most notably today's recipient. It'll come to me, I'm sure.

I was inspired to write this blog post after reading this about Day One of #40Notes40Days. And I'm also glad to see it gaining traction again this year on Twitter:

I know I was late to the game on this one, but even if I inspire a couple of people to write some thoughtful, encouraging notes on HALF the days, I'll be happy with my effort. So cheers to the Fat Pastor and to Lent!

Blog Birthday in April

Hard to believe, but in April this blog will be seven years old.

I know I haven't been a consistent blogger. As you'll notice in the timeline on the lower right, there are missing months where I did not blog at all. No apologies. Life just gets in the way of writing sometimes.

But this has always been a great place for me to vent, to get creative, to share personal feelings, failures and accomplishments. All told, I'm pretty proud that I've stuck with it this long, since the average shelf life of most blogs is less than six months.

Over the next few months, leading up to that anniversary, I plan to do some looking back and share some of my favorite blog posts. This space serves as sort of a road map of my spiritual journey the last seven years. The road I began travelling back in 2004-05, down the path of rediscovery and emerging spirituality, led me far away from my Catholic and Pentacostal roots. Well, maybe not THAT far away, but certainly in a new direction.

For anyone who has followed my ramblings, thanks. I appreciate your interest and longevity. For anyone who has just stumbled upon this blog, welcome. Pull up a chair and click through some of the posts from 2005-2011. You might chuckle, maybe you'll even stop to ponder, but whatever you do, leave a comment. Blogs are not for stalkers. They're for conversation. You don't have to be a blogger yourself to leave a comment. Anyone can do so, even anonymously.

Thanks, again, for taking a minute to read. Ciao!