Tag Archives: spiritual

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Questioning Christian

He’s only been on WordPress for a month.  His blog-site is definitely Christian, and he has found a bunch that definitely aren’t, so he came up with Five Questions For Non-Believers – how original.  Actually, it was Five Questions for…. You Know.  Wouldn’t say Shit if he had a mouthful, and apparently can’t even type the word Atheist.

1.  Would you say you are Convinced that God or gods do not exist, or simply that you don’t Believe that they do? (Two very different statements. The first applies to Knowledge, the second only to Belief)

1. Yes, to both. I have never been presented with sufficiently convincing evidence to cause belief. I am convinced that God/gods does not exist, in the same way, and to the same degree that I am convinced that fairies, genies, Bigfoot, unicorns and the Loch Ness monster do not exist.  I can not offer Absolute Proof, because a negative cannot be proved, and there is no Absolute proof of anything.

I  usually refrain from admitting that, because some smart-ass Apologist will spin it, use it as a wedge, and claim that I actually know that God exists, and have a little bit of belief.  No, I don’t!!

2. We’re you ever at one time in your life a Believer in God or Gods, and if so… which one or ones? (Mind you, I’m not asking at this time why you left, just did you previously Believe)

2.(Were – not We’re) No! Even 6 and 7 years old in Sunday school, and later in church, I heard pretty stories, but the ones that began, In the beginning sounded just like the ones that started, “Once upon a time.” It wasn’t till I became an adult that I was surprised to find that most others took them seriously.

3. Have you ever had any Experiences that might be described as “spiritual” or “supernatural” that others might see as “experiences with God”? And if so, what did you think of them at the time… and what do you think of them Now? (I apologize for the “3 in 1”. They seem linked to the same question, yes?)

3. No. In a naturalistic universe, I don’t even know how anyone could demonstrate or prove anything Supernatural. Spiritual is a word with too many definitions, and no real meaning.  Most such experiences can be shown to be neurological, or hormonally induced.  Even those that can’t are not justified in having “God” shoehorned in as an explanation.

4. How do you view those who do Believe in God or gods? Are they ‘brainwashed’, ‘stupid’ or just wrong? (I know the first two are ‘loaded’, but I’m looking for your mindset as well as what you perceive ours to be)

4. The more rabid the believer, the more likely they are ruled by desperation and egotism – the belief that they are so important in the cosmic scheme of things that they will not just wink out when it’s all over. It’s the constant fear of inevitable, inescapable, impending death.

“Brainwashed” is a loaded term, but Sunday schools do a great job of constant mental conditioning of impressionable children.  Very intelligent people believe many incorrect, unprovable things – and not all of it is religion.  It is far easier to convince someone of something, than it is to convince them that they are in error about it.  I don’t regard them as “wrong,” but, despite many requests, I still have not been shown proof that they are right.

5. What Evidence or Experience or Arguments would lead you to believe in God or gods generally… or Christianity specifically… if any? (Mind you, I’m not asking “Why you don’t believe”. I’m asking what would lead you to Believe)

5. The correct answer is, “I don’t know.” Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The Christian God – the God of the Bible – suffers from so many definitional contradictions as to be impossible.  Were He to exist, He would be an immoral asshole.  Richard Dawkins had 14 rather scathing adjectives for Him.  If He exists, He knows exactly what it would take to convince me that He exists.  Since He has failed to present such evidence for over 2000 years, either He does not exist – or – He is far less concerned with my acceptance of your claims than people like you are.  😯

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It’s Not My Problem

 

Normally, I’m Joe Niceguy, willing to go a little out of my way to help others.  Like Bart Simpson, I don’t give up till I’ve tried at least one easy thing.  I recently read an article by a female columnist about this.  I basically agreed with her – until she got to whining about motorists who won’t let other drivers in.  There’s definitely two sides to that story, but then, she’s the one who got all upset about people who claim that they are spiritual, and believe in God – but don’t go to church – as if one has anything to do with the other.

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She made me think of the times and places where you just can’t be nice.  You have to present folks with a problem to solve or they don’t learn nothin’.  Too many of them are too self-centered and/or dumb to learn, even when presented with a problem – but I keep tryin’.

When I first moved to this burg, you could hold street dances on the main road from my place out in the sticks, to downtown.  Nowadays, especially during that oxymoronic “rush hour,” bumper-to-bumper volume of traffic creeps along.

As I go down the hill from a set of traffic lights, towards the daughter’s place, there’s always a line at a stop sign at a side street, hoping to get out.  I occasionally let one, or two, into line, and then laugh at numbers three and four who think I’m going to sit there all afternoon.  If they went a block further, to the cross-street with the lights, they could get in.  Think ahead – without your ego and sense of entitlement.  It’s not my problem.

We left town the other day, and pulled onto the Superhighway.  A half-mile from the overpass bridge, there was a warning sign that it narrowed to one lane for road work.  A quarter-mile further, there was another warning sign, and yet, when we got to the spot where the right lane disappeared, drivers in the inner lane were cutting off drivers in the go-through lane.

I saw in my rear-view, a semi that couldn’t move over, since he couldn’t accelerate to match traffic speed, because yahoos were using the down-ramp, exit lane to the plaza, to rush ahead of him and cut back in, before cutting off more drivers up ahead.  I slowed my line almost to a stop and let him in, then snuggled up to his tail, and let the rest of the blind car drivers behind him figure it out for themselves. It’s not my problem. The fact that I didn’t get a wave, a flash of headlights, or a honk, soured it a bit for me, but I soon restocked my niceness.

A couple of blocks past the daughter’s place, the four-lane road narrows to two lanes.  Bumper-to-bumper, and at a complete standstill, I watched a driver come roaring up the inside, to the barricade.  Then, despite the fact that I couldn’t move, he bitched at me, because I wouldn’t let him in.  “My lane ends.  Where am I supposed to go?”  Exactly!!  Think it through!!  It’s not my problem.

At my Jeep-part line in the auto plant, there was a large chute next to my press where I dumped the cut-off edge trim and knockouts to feed into a grinder on the floor below, for recycling.  Because of increased production and normal deterioration, the grinder increasingly stopped working.

One day, the line’s material handler rolled over on his forklift and told me that the grinder had stopped working again, and not to feed the chute.  Then he disappeared.  I started throwing my stuff on the floor, quickly building up a huge pile.

My inspector/packer asked me why I didn’t just pull over a wire basket and put my scrap in it.  If I made it my problem, it would quickly become always my problem.  Worse, it would always be a problem.  If the fork-lift driver didn’t think to supply the basket, and objected to having to clean up the mess, he could complain to a supervisor.

Made aware of the mess, the supervisor could direct the maintenance department to get the grinder running. If maintenance couldn’t get the grinder running, they could pass the buck back to the supervisor.  If the grinder needed a capital budget for repair or replacement, the supervisor needed to chivvy management.

If I accepted responsibility, and performed the extra labor, none of that would happen.  It’s not my circus.  They’re not my monkeys.  My problem is that too many of these airheaded dipsticks don’t learn from experience.  Niceguys finish last.

Okay, now it’s your turn to bitch.  Come on, you know you want to.  Everybody works with or sees this shit.

True to form, I leave the old year with a rant, but I want to wish all of you the best in the coming New Year.   😀

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Jesus Loves You

I have a brother, almost three years younger than me. When I was seven and eight, he was only four and five, and almost a full-time job for my mother. In the summertime, in my little town, even full of tourists, I was free to get out from under foot, and go wherever I wanted, as long as I didn’t get into trouble, and was home for supper.

Roll out of bed in the morning, pull on a bathing suit instead of underwear, shorts, tee-shirt, runners, a towel around my neck, and I spent large portions of my days at the beach. With almost two miles of warm, white sand, I attended different sections on different days. One day, about two blocks off the main street, I saw something intriguing. Six or seven twenty-somethings marched out onto the sand. Two of them were toting a pump-organ. The rest had shovels, bamboo poles, a rolled-up banner, and a bunch of books.

Watcha doin’? They were a Christian outreach group for youngsters, labelled C.S.S.M. – Children’s Special Service Mission. We’re having a meeting. Go gather up all the kids. Me like a damned fool, I did it. They put up the banner on the poles, dug trenches and piled the sand behind – instant pews. Got a kid to pump the organ. Evangelism lite – handed out songbooks – a few hymns, a bit of sermon, believe in God, obey Jesus, a little homily. 40/45 minutes, we were done, same time, same place tomorrow.

The seeds of individualism already growing strongly, along with cynicism, I didn’t see this as missionary Christianity. I was just fascinated with the social aspects. The next day, and the next – two weeks on the beach, I put up poles, strung the banner, dug the pews, pumped the organ, and helped them carry stuff to and from the beach.

Soon there were afternoon get-togethers – hikes, scavenger hunts, badminton games. Although we had a net, and acres of sand, apparently volleyball had not been invented. I learned discriminatory thinking. An item for ten grains of sand in the scavenger hunt didn’t mean only ten, very carefully counted, grains. Lean down and pick up a handful – there must be ten grains there!

Then, before the town got all pissy about them, we cleaned the driftwood off the beach, and had evening campfires and sing-alongs. Silly camp songs, a few hymns, an uplifting story, roast some marshmallows, a quick benediction prayer, and off home you go kids, it’s getting late. I was part of a group!

Next year, they came back. Same hymn, different verse. I was ten, and it wasn’t a bad way to spend two supervised weeks. The following year, they returned again. I was eleven, they were nice, and I was learning interpersonal relation stuff.

On the day they left, I had my Dad drive me to the cottage they used, to say goodbye. At a time when two dollars would gas the car for most of a week, my Dad dug out and donated $5.00, to help repay for all the things they’d done for me and given to me. By the time they returned the next year, my Dad said that he should have put his hand in his pocket, and just left it there. They had spent $10 on paper, envelopes and postage, beseeching him to donate more, and more, and even more.

The next summer, I was 12, going on almost mature. I hadn’t even thought about them coming back. I headed downtown one July Saturday. I was just in front of the Baptist Church we infrequently attended, a block off the commercial district, when a sedan and a station wagon rolled in and parked in front. Out piled most of my old faces, along with a couple of new ones.

Hi! How are you? How was your winter? You’re looking good! Hail-fellow-well-met! These people remember me. They missed me. They love me! We’re so proud of you! Oh, what for? Well, we heard that, over the winter, you were baptised here at the church.

There were three Smith families in town, no two related. One had an only-child son, with the same first name as mine. They religiously (every pun intended) attended the same church we occasionally hit. It musta been the other “John Smith” – and the shades came down, and the lights went off. They couldn’t dump me on the sidewalk fast enough.

If you’re donating money, they can’t get enough of you. If you jump through all their strangely-shaped hoops, recite their magical words, and make their particular mystical gestures, you will be adored and supported. If you have the temerity to tell them that you have opinions about other ways of living your life, these Good Christians will treat you like a fur-ball the cat hacked up, and Jesus will be the only one who loves you.

I’ve met some very Spiritual Christians, loving, forgiving, inclusive, acceptant. These weren’t them! Sadly, I’ve met many of their compatriots over the years. Christ drove the money lenders from the temple, but the “business” of religion marches on.