Ben Folds Five's "Mess" to an #AtheistEar

"And I don't believe in God
So I can't be saved
All alone, as I've learned to be
In this mess I have made."

It's a little bit embarrassing to admit this, but the first time I heard these words, I had to pull my car over to the side of the road and weep.

I remember that sensation of shock. It felt like my organs turned into liquid and drained down into my legs. My arms felt weak, and once I was safely stopped with my hazards on, I turned the music off and sat limply in the driver's seat with my eyes closed until the feeling passed.

Then I played it again.



(Lyrics are available here.)

This happened in England, in 1999. My friend Neil had given me a pirated cassette copy of The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner with a hand-written label. I probably still have it, though I bought my own copy as soon as I could locate one. The whole album spoke to me, and I've written about that before. But this song, with this chorus, was like a lightning bolt.

I can point to that moment in my tin-can Mini, pulled over and weeping on the A-10, as the moment when I realized that I didn't believe in God, and hadn't for some time. I still did not publicly acknowledge this until much later.

One good question I've asked myself over the years is why it took so long for me to realize I was not a believer any more. Part of that answer lies in my environment. My family was a strong influence on my beliefs as a child, of course, and after I joined the Air Force in 1994, I was surrounded by people and groups bent on ensuring that I conformed to some broad notion of American Protestantism. They didn't seem phased by the contradictions inherent in insisting that military members follow a Bronze Age pacifist whose central message was "love thy neighbor;" in fact, they didn't seem to care what anyone actually practiced or believed, as long as they "believed in something."

As a kid, I had actually been more of a fire-brand type of believer than most of those in my church and family. They worked hard to curb my more outrageous fundamentalist tendencies, and as I grew up, I began to recognize the worst parts of myself that religion brought out in me. Much of my book (available on Amazon, if you haven't read it!) describes the drawn out process I experienced of recognizing the corrosive influences of my religious faith, and the uncomfortable realization that the Truths I had never questioned didn't hold up to a rational examination.

But despite the slow trajectory of my departure from the faith of my childhood, I was still conditioned to react with disgust and aversion to the idea that I might be an atheist. So, I went along with the confirmation classes required to baptize our first child, and paid lip service to the military leaders who insisted on maintaining my "spiritual fitness." (Strictly speaking, that term came into fashion after I left the service; it was a vague, universal notion while I was in, but mostly nameless.)

Societal pressure from outside was only part of the answer, though. The other part was purely internal. For at least that decade prior to Reinhold Messner's release, I clung to the notion that there had to be something intelligent running the universe. I couldn't figure out what it was or ought to be; I couldn't see it through all of the conflicting descriptions attributed to it by humans. But without it, I felt lost.

Without some kind of God, I realized, I was the only one accountable for myself. And I couldn't handle that.

"All alone, as I've learned to be, in this mess I have made."

The most common reaction a religious person has to discovering that I don't believe in the supernatural is to accuse me of "hating God." Christian theology is built entirely on the idea of salvation: of God taking the responsibility of our "sin" off of our shoulders for us, and they see that as some kind of great gift. They don't understand why anyone would turn down such an amazing gift, much the way someone deeply invested in a multilevel marketing scheme can't understand why anyone would turn down the amazing opportunity they are offering.

What I realized in that car that day was that I couldn't hate something that didn't exist...but I was terrified to accept that there was no Eternal Being out there responsible for my mess. I was scared and angry to face facts.

That heavy moment passed, though, and I realized that without a mystical Savior to push my mistakes onto, I needed to sort out my own mess. Despite what a childhood in Christianity had taught me, I knew better. I knew wishing and believing wouldn't accomplish anything. So after I had spent the previous decade telling myself I was spiritually searching for answers, I spent the following decade owning the answer and fixing my mistakes.

It's a work in progress, clearly. But once you accept the hard truth, you can make progress.

You save yourself. That's how you get saved. But you're not alone; that's why I'm here.

Tori Amos's "God" to an #AtheistEar

Tori Amos made a huge impression on me with her debut album Little Earthquakes in 1992. There were a lot of challenging ideas in her songs, and she often used the ideas and imagery from her religious upbringing to address topics like rape and depression in ways that were unheard of at the time - especially from a pretty pop piano player.

In the years since, Tori has earned a reputation for being more mystical and less grounded. She still addresses deep topics, and she can still be shocking, but as she and her fans have matured, her work has been more nuanced, and (to her critics) confused and un-directed. Some of this is no doubt due to the backlash she received from those who did not appreciate her attacking their points of view, and her attempting to be more inclusive and less divisive.

But among her most direct jabs at the God she grew up with is this song from her 1994 album, Under the Pink. Take a look at this candidate for Atheist Anthem:

(Lyrics available here.)

The bulk of the song is a repeated rebuke:

God, sometimes you just don't come through
God, sometimes you just don't come through, babe
Do you need a woman to look after you?
God, sometimes you just don't come through

The verses don't really add a whole lot to that, unless you project more meaning onto Amos's meandering lyric than I do:

Well, tell me you're crazy, maybe then I'll understand
(Come down and tell me what you mean now)
You got your nine, nine iron in the back seat just in case
(Inside, inside, what you doing?)
Well, heard you've gone south, well, babe, you love your new four wheel
(Hey, what do you know? What do you know?)
I got to find, find, find why you always go when the wind blows

Meandering or not, her point seems to be that the omnipotent God she was raised to revere doesn't seem to perform any better than random chance. Or, if he does exist, maybe he's busy playing golf in the Bible belt?

The satire here is more playful and less intense than her breakthrough hit, Crucify, which was really less about religion and more about breaking free of the baggage that we carry trying to please others. In neither case does she outright abandon the notion of God - that ineffable Being that permeates everything. Instead, she seems to reject only the interpretations and versions of God that are forced on people through organized religion. And that, my friends, is a very different thing.

Personally, I don't begrudge people their personal journey to find whatever it is they think they're looking for. I'm not going to mock Tori here for her leanings towards whatever spiritual  fulfillment she might have found. But when it came time for me to admit that the version of God I was raised to believe in didn't exist, I ultimately couldn't find anything else to replace it.

That was scary.

"My magic feather helps me fly...
not physics!"

This song helped ease that fear a bit, by making light of the damaging legendary being that I had been raised to fear. To some extent, that line - "why you always go when the wind blows" - helped me realize that the fear I felt was going to be there regardless of what I believed. Pretending that there was Something would not make the vast Nothing of the universe any less vast, or any less empty. I was using God the way Dumbo used his "magic feather" to fly; he didn't need it, because his ears could generate lift. But he needed something to give him the confidence to leap.

Once I realized that a "Magic Feather" was all the idea of God was to me - indeed, all it is to most people - I found that I was okay without it.

"When the Saints Go Marching In" to my #AtheistEar

I have been wracking my brains all month, trying to think of the ultimate "Halloween hymn" to talk about today, and it hit me: for all that Halloween has been (literally) demonized by evangelical Christians, the actual Christian holiday - All Hallows' Day, or All Saints' Day - already has an almost universally recognized theme:





(Lyrics available here...as if you needed them!)

 This version is by two of the most New Orleans-ian of New Orleans artists: Dirty Dozen Brass Band with a guest appearance by Trombone Shorty. The video is a bit sea-sickness-inducing, but the audio isn't bad, and the band is phenomenal under any conditions.

As a kid, I picked up on unspoken levels of discomfort whenever this song was brought up in my rural, white, evangelical church or around my family. On one hand, this song expresses the same sentiment as "I'll Fly Away" does:

O when the saints go marching in,
O when the saints go marching in,
O Lord, I want to be in that number
when the saints go marching in.

As a Southern Baptist kid, I noticed that two lines of questions would lead to uncomfortable conversations: "What exactly are 'saints' supposed to be?" and "This song is so exciting; why don't we sing it more often?"

According to what I was taught by adults in my Southern Baptist church, "Saints" refers to anyone who has accepted Jesus as their savior. It's just a word for those who are Saved in the Baptist sense of the word. What I didn't learn until years later was that the catholic churches had developed their own mythology around the idea of "saints" which Baptists considered to be non-Biblical, and therefore, evil.

(As an atheist, whenever I run across the stories about these Catholic saints, I marvel at what horrible people they were, and at the way their horribleness was turned into mythology... but that's fodder for another series of posts.)

In high school, I began dating a girl who was Catholic, and I got to learn all over again from my church how Baptists are supposed to feel about Catholics - while at the same time I had my girlfriend as a resource for sorting out Baptist myth from Catholic reality. Baptists told me that Catholics prayed to dead people; my girlfriend explained about the Catholic concept of "intercessory prayer." Baptists told me that Catholic "saints" were not usually Saved, and therefore were actually un-redeemed and not truly Christian - which meant they were, in fact, following Satan. My girlfriend balked at that twisted logic coming from people who reject orthodoxy.

And yes, there were Bible verses about false prophets produced as "clobber texts" on both sides, which were meant to prove that one side or the other was Right(eous), but only served to confuse the issue. Looking back at all of this controversy as an atheist, I recognize that I was stuck in an impossible position between groups that were in violent disagreement over bullshit.

Each side believed they were right, and by maintaining their disagreement, they were making themselves part of a tradition that dated back to the First Century, and a schism that developed between the earliest Christians; a schism between those who believe in orthodoxy, and those who believe in personal revelation. In other words, it was the religious equivalent of arguing over the superiority of Star Wars vs. Star Trek - and no one wins an argument like that.

As to my other question - "Why don't we sing this exciting song more often?" - that turns out to have a very simple explanation that no one wants to admit out loud: Race.

The very similar song, "I'll Fly Away," was written by a man named Albert E. Brumley in 1929. It was one of those songs recorded by dozens of groups and performed frequently on the AM radio stations which grew up across the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. In contrast, "When the Saints..." was not credited to a composer; instead, it was included in our Baptist Hymnals as a Negro spiritual.

Of course, as written, there is nothing in the text of "When the Saints..." that is overtly controversial. "When the sun refuse to shine/I want to be in that number" and "When they crown Him Lord of all/I want to be in that number" are essentially the other two verses of the song. The implicit core desire expressed by the lyrics are a yearning to be included. I think that was the source of discomfort that no one wanted to discuss, because the origin of the Southern Baptists is rooted firmly in exclusion. They split from their Northern brothers before the Civil War in a disagreement over whether black pastors could be ordained as missionaries.

Growing up in a post-Civil Rights era version of the Southern Baptist church, I was surrounded by adults who had not yet figured out where their traditional beliefs fit in America's new political reality. And hearing "When the Saints Go Marching In" apparently reminded them, even if it was on a remote, subconscious level, that they belonged to a community built on excluding fellow saints... saints who wanted nothing more than to be included in that number.

By their nature, Baptists occupy an uncomfortable eschatology. (They try to believe literally in what the most allegorical of books says about the End of Times; so that leads to a lot of cognitive dissonance.) The core of their belief system is inherently prone to heresy, which they can't combat, because they consider personal revelation and conscience to be the basis of spiritual salvation. That means that their own core beliefs don't allow for an "authority" in the church to determine who is or is not a "real, true Christian." They do claim to follow the literal, inerrant text of the Bible, but as I pointed out above, that doesn't allow them to authoritatively resolve even the most central and basic arguments stemming back to the earliest Christian churches. And that means that they have no foundational, scriptural basis for excluding anyone who claims to have come to their faith through personal revelation.

In other words, anyone who says they are a saint, is a saint. That causes a problem for Baptists who don't want to count someone as a saint. Rather than deal with the discomfort of including people they have long worked to exclude, they have a history of projecting their discomfort on the music itself.

"When the Saints..." is a very deeply black song. Being a negro spiritual, it was forged in a community of oral history by people who were being deprived of inclusion in humanity itself. As simple as the text is, it speaks very powerfully of people who want a promise fulfilled - the promise that if they work hard and follow the rules, they will someday be free. It's morbid to consider now how many of them only had death to look forward to. And whether white evangelicals want to admit it or not, this song is a painful reminder of their historic role in maintaining the system that put those people into that forge.

Sadly, I've seen how the discomfort from that painful reminder gets transformed into a reason to continue to exclude. They don't want to be called racists... but they can't seem to square inclusion with the things they do and teach.

White evangelical culture has a long history of demonizing black culture - and pretending that this has nothing to do with race. Consider the example of Sketch Erickson, as the Slacktivist describes here. Then watch that Dirty Dozen/Trombone Shorty performance again, and connect the cultural dots. I think now that the awkward relationship my church family had with this particular song had a lot to do with where they drew their personal line between what is divine and what is not.

And demonizing is what Halloween is all about, isn't it?

This was always the most uncomfortable time of year for my church community. On one hand, you have the unavoidable historic fact that All Hallows' Eve is a Christian feast day... for the wrong kinds of Christians. On the other hand, you have the celebration of evil spirits being glorified in the secular culture, especially when it uses that historically black music.

As modern Americans, we weren't supposed to believe in evil spirits anymore, which always added to the confusion. (I'm still confused by the logic that Christians use that, "There are real witches ... real because they believe in magic, even though I don't, because magic isn't real.")

So our churches would attempt to reclaim the holiday by refusing to have Halloween celebrations, and instead have Harvest Night, or some similarly innocuous sounding alternative... which accidentally imitated the pagan festivals they were trying to distance themselves from in the first place.

As an atheist adult, I look at this holiday with a mix of amusement and pity. I feel bad for the people who work themselves into a frenzy over the "Satanic" nature of the holiday - which seems pointless, considering there is no Satan. And I feel some sense of schadenfreude that the people who are most worked up over the whole thing are battling demons of their own making.

But mostly, I feel like dwelling on the afterlife is a huge waste of time and energy - especially if we can't swallow our pride and address the schisms that we've created for ourselves out of all of these misinterpreted myths.

Michael Jackson's "Thriller" to my #AtheistEar

(Apologies for the mix-up in posting earlier; and apologies if you didn't see this one coming, but...)

Those who have read my book know my personal connection to this song, and the violent act it drove me to commit. Here is the full 13:47 minute experience for those of you who may have missed it:




(Lyrics are available here - but, wow, they're silly.)

And if you'll promise to go read the much improved version in the book, I'll share this excerpt from the original blog post recounting the 6th grade field trip in which this song was my downfall:

One of the girls in my class was the daughter of an extremely wealthy construction mogul in the area, and he sponsored a field trip to his house for our class, complete with a fleet of limousines for the students. Looking back, this makes no sense; I have no idea what the educational value was in tramping about on his huge estate looking at his antique car collection and his enormous pool. But, there we were, and on the way back to the school, someone discovered the radio.
There were several of us in the car: my friends Robert and Scott, and the class bully, Todd. Upon discovering the controls for the radio, they promptly tuned in a Top 40 station. I protested... arguments flew... and I accused them all of loving Satan. This may be where the break-down in civility occurred.
Somehow I ended up pinned to the back seat by Scott, while Robert cranked the volume. "I love this song," he crowed. It was "Thriller". You have to understand that in my mind "Thriller" represented everything that was wrong with our society at that time. It was about zombies (the undead, a tool of Satan), it encouraged dancing (think "Church Lady"), and worst of all: Michael Jackson was a Jehovah's Witness!!!
Yeah, lame. But I was so mad that I leaned up and bit a chunk out of Scott's sternum.
In retrospect, it was extremely stupid, and for so many reasons. But until it happened, I didn't realize what a completely unreasoning dogmatic prick I was growing into. Receiving four swats from the principal of the school (I pleaded with him that I was defending the faith while he tried valiantly not to laugh at me) was a wake-up call.

That wake up call I referred to was the beginning of many years of growing realization that the people who were filling my head with their religious dogma, trying to keep me on the so-called straight and narrow, didn't really believe all of the things they told me.

Sure, they said I should gird my loins with the Sword of Righteousness... but if you actually try to cut anyone with a sword, you will be the one who is wrong. If I follow through and violently defend what I have been told is a core tenet of my faith, I will be in the wrong.

Think about the implications of this, not just for a confused middle school kid who thinks he's standing up for his beliefs in a silly scuffle, but for people who do much more serious things in the name of their faith. People like Eric Rudolph, or Shelley Shannon and Scott Roeder - people motivated to commit infamously violent acts, which church communities like mine frantically denounced after they occurred. I see those people following what they see as the logical, defensible action demanded by what they believe is right.

I can't blame their church for their choices, any more than I can blame my church for the bite on my friend Scott's chest - but I also didn't arrive in that limo on that day fresh out of the ether, with no influences and no teaching.

The lesson I eventually derived from this experience was that I couldn't trust people who tried to tell me that without their message of "peace" I would have no moral compass. I couldn't rely on the Bible as a rule book, because that's not what it is. I learned to listen to my own conscience, and eventually tested my own moral code, keeping only the parts which were sound.

It would be too easy to claim that learning this is what made me an atheist - but that's not actually true. If anything, it made me a Baptist in the tradition of Roger Williams (you know, the guy so opposed to organized religion that as soon as he founded the First Baptist Church*, he left it because his conscience wouldn't let him stay in an organized religion). Biting Scott because of a Michael Jackson song forced me to re-examine my conscience, and put that in the center of my moral code.

Of course, following my conscience meant always being honest with myself, and following evidence instead of wishful thinking, no matter how uncomfortable it made me or those who cared about me. That's why I eventually had to admit to being an atheist. But the way I see it, my intentions are the same as the people who unwittingly set me on the the path that lead to violence. They didn't intend that, and I learned the lesson.

In the end, we all have to struggle to find our way, keep our head, and do the right thing. As the song says:

'Cause it's a thriller, thriller night
And no one's gonna save you from the beast about to strike
You know it's thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for your life inside a, killer, thriller tonight, yeah

*Fun fact: I'm descended from one of the original members of that church. See my post on Mightier Acorns about him!

Lb4Lb#9: Yours, Mine, and the Truth

There's three sides to every story:
Yours
Mine
the Truth.
- Cupid's DeadSometimes we're just too clever for our own good.

Extreme is a band that has suffered from straddling a line between down-to-earth and over-the-top. They clearly had the chops and the musicianship needed to rule the earth, but they wanted something else. And what they wanted was something that you can't come right out and ask for: your fans have to figure it out on their own.

I'm a hapless romantic
St-t-tuttering p-poet
Just call me a Tragic Comic
'Cause I'm in love with you
- Tragic ComicI'm one of the many fans and critics who consider their best effort to have been the album entitled (somewhat ambiguously) III Sides To Every Story. It was their third, following up their breakout hits More Than Words and Hole Hearted. If the world was a fair place, then III Sides would have been the homerun the band needed to hit. It showcases one of the world's best guitarists without being a "guitar" album, and it blends thoughtfulness, spirituality, and humor in a wickedly funky metal confection.

The band tried to pull off something really difficult with their concept. After all these years, even a fan like me isn't entirely sure what the message was, or what it all really means. I know that there are parts that I really get, and others I don't. I'm never entirely sure I'm comfortable with what it says.

Mr. Goody Two
Do you really thing the world
Can be Black, White, and Jew?

...Mr. Music Man
Don't turn your back on me?
Cause I'm the one with the gun
- Peacemaker DieAt first glance, this bold and disturbing stance seems obvious. Clearly, since this is a concept album about politics and belief, and since the first "side" of the three - Yours - was not meant to reflect the band's own opinions and beliefs, you can't take this bravado and swagger at face value. For these songs, they ought to be painting a picture of the Other Guy - the one we're supposed to be against.

This world ain't big enough for two
And I've got my sights on you
- WarheadsOh, yeah - that guy is an aggressive jerk. That's YOUR side, alright. Not mine. I know people like him, so "Your" side is about him, right?

That works to a point. But then you see something of yourself in that Other guy:

"Make love/not war" sounds so absurd to me
We can't afford to take these words lightly
or else our world will truly Rest in Peace
- Rest In PeaceWait a minute - I hold to that sentiment myself. Even though the threat of Soviet-inflicted Armaggedon is even less likely now that it was in 1992, I know that we can't afford to neglect our own defense. Maybe these guys consider me to be that Other guy? And yet, I'm also far from the Warhead described in the opening track.

This second-guessing goes on throughout the whole album; what are these songs trying to tell me about the band? Or about myself?

Picture a world without any color
You couldn't tell one face from another
I can't understand why we fight with our brother
- Color Me BlindJust when you think you've got it figured out - which side is which - they throw in something that doesn't fit. Are they hippies? No, because why would hippies put Color Me Blind on "Your" side? Maybe they're trying to show that both "sides" have some balance? Maybe they're trying to show that there's common ground between the "sides"?

But then there are the chilling moments, where you see something horrific and alien in the Other side. I still get goosebumps from the sick feeling of being inside the mind of a violent extremist as the band plays a sample of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech over the repeated leit-motif of "Peacemaker Die." I know exactly where the gunshot is, and I still jump when I hear it. If I identified with "Your" side up to this point, I would be suddenly forced to realize something horrible about the person that "Your" side describes.

All the world's
a masquerade
made up of fools
and philosophers
Were it to rain
on our charade,
all washes away,
except for our true colors
- Stop The WorldHow many listeners were put off by this inherent confusion, I wonder? And how many missed the larger point because they either took the lyric at face value as something the band really believes, or pushed away from what they took to be criticism of their own beliefs? Judging by the sales figures, a lot of people didn't get it.

Which is sad, because there is a lot of goodness here. I suspect the disappointment from the way this album was received led to the frustrating compromises the band made on their next release; a so-called "grunge" album that their more loyal fans saw as a "sell out" move. I'm just glad they had the courage to take this risk, and give us this album first. It must have been a real conflict to decide to do so.

And conflict is really what this whole thing is about. While the conflict on Your side is harsher and more threatening, Mine is more open and accessible. This side is the questioning, sentimental side.

If I had one wish
It wouldn't be hard to choose
Seven Sundays in a row
'cause that's the day that I spend with you
- Seven SundaysI think we can all recognize the hopefulness and futility that comes from trying to sort out our place in a world that seems downright crazy. We all think we're just good, average folks trying to make our way through; we all want to rely on someone stronger and smarter than us to pull us through; and we all want to escape from the glad-handing charlatans trying to take advantage of us.

But even here on what should be common ground we have a problem to sort out, because of all of this religious imagery and language. Seven Sundays could be a sweet song for your steady girl - or it could be about a relationship with God. And that duality gets more overt when you compare it to the aggressive R. Lee Ermey father that opened the album. Just what exactly are they trying to say about God?

Oh Daddy please
Take me with you, where you going
Oh Daddy please
Come find the time, come watch us growing
- Our FatherI used to only listen to the halfway point of this album - something which has changed, or I wouldn't rightly be able to call this a "pound for pound" album. I used to get mad or bored with the more religious and heavily orchestrated songs from Our Father on - but now I don't.

I would get mad because it sounded (in my younger days) as if the band were urging me toward some kind of religious answer. I would get bored (later on), just dismissing this section as an attempt to deal with Daddy issues. Now I see that, like the other sections, we have the same mix of conflicted points of view that we saw in the first half.

So I start off every day
Down on my knees I will pray
(for a change in any way)

But as the day goes by
I live through another lie
if it's any wonder why!

Am I ever gonna change?
If I say one thing then I do the other
It's the same old song that goes on forever
- Am I Ever Gonna Change?After years of listening, pondering, wondering, supposing, and rethinking, I still don't really have any answers. But I do think these guys were onto something 20 years ago. I think there is an important lesson here and that it still applies. I don't pray, but I recognize that prayer is an externalized form of meditation. We humans keep looking for answers outside of ourselves; we keep hoping to change others - whether their minds or just their behavior - as if that alone would make everything better.

But the world keeps spinning, and I keep getting sucked into the same arguments with the same kinds of people. Anger begets anger, frustration breeds contempt, and no one ever feels like their "side" is fairly represented.

Maybe the real solution to the puzzle is to let someone else have the last word.

Am I ever gonna change?
I'm the only one to blame
When I think I'm right, I wind up wrong
It's a futile fight that's gone on too long.

Going to Pet the Rabbits

NOTE: This is about me and my discovery of something about myself. It is not intended to be an attack on anyone or their faith. If you read this and choose to be offended, I'm not going to take responsibility for your choice.

I sat in a church this morning for the first time in many years.

It was a memorial service for the little daughter of a friend - a girl who had a degenerative condition which was expected to take her by age two. She made it almost to seven.

I can't imagine the kind of strength it must take to care for someone with a condition like that. I've known a number of people who have carried that burden, including my friend Karen, who didn't develop her condition until she was in her twenties; her mother had to watch her decline from a healthy young woman until she passed away last February. When I think about it all, it hurts; and I'm weak, so I don't often think about it. But my friends who are in that situation don't have the luxury of simply turning away and going back to a life like mine - they need to be strong and face it every minute... and they need to draw that strength from somewhere.

So I sat in a church this morning for the first time in many years, listening to my friend's pastor.

Being a memorial service, it was all about the family's comfort. The songs they used happened to be mostly familiar to me, because I grew up with them; "Amazing Grace" and "It Is Well With My Soul" were featured. The first verse of the latter one is particularly appropriate, and I was struck today by how Zen it is:

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
by Horatio Spafford

That part, at least, is a universal comfort; attaining peace in the tempest is a skill that everyone should learn - and the elemental imagery of the water here is striking. As I listened, I thought about how important that Idea was to me growing up, and how I've held onto it. That, at least, was something good and honest that could help my friend grieve, I thought.

But I sat in a church this morning for the first time in many years, listening to my friend's pastor talk about Heaven.

And I started to feel angry and creeped out. Because listening to him speak, and toss out all of those Great Truths that pastors must keep in their repertoire, I bristled at the undercurrent of what he was saying.

It wasn't just that he kept referring to God and Heaven as if they are real things - like I said, I grew up with that stuff, and came to terms with it long ago. I think of it as the poetic license that grief and comfort require of religion. It was something else. Two things, actually.

First, I felt like this service was being used against me. My very presence was being co-opted by this man to accuse me - not personally, but as part of the group. He took the liberty of declaring that "we are all here to affirm what we know to be true - that there is a God and He is in control" - things that I don't know to be true, and do not affirm. This was a lie, and what's more, his body language and use of repetition and verbal sleight of hand showed me that he knew it was a lie.

This pastor didn't know me or what I believe. His descriptions of Heaven, and his logic for "proving" its existence, while being tolerable in the context of comforting the family, were cheapened by his assertions. His repetition of that idea, and his flowery and alluring descriptions of the things that the little girl would now be doing in Heaven - that all rang even more hollow.

It reminded me of Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" - the pastor was George, spinning the fantastic story of a promised ranch full of puppies and bunnies, and I felt like Lenny. If you take a moment to review the plot summary, I'm sure you'll understand why I say I felt creeped out.

As for the second thing, the thing that made me angry, well that's more complicated... and it has more to do with my "atheist conversion experience."

Remember, I already expressed immense respect for the strength required of people who have to deal with something as painful as what my friend has dealt with. Raising ANY child is a challenge and a non-stop roller-coaster of fear, risk, and heartbreak - interspersed with just enough joy to make it worthwhile. But for these parents, that joy can be bitter and elusive - and even a victory can be tragic.

To do what they do - to survive and thrive as my friend has done - is a pure triumph. We cheapen these things in our culture with our perpetual tabloid stories and Lifetime or Hallmark "disease of the week" movies - but these are quiet, epic heroes who are doing the impossible. I don't blame any of them for leaning on something that I don't believe in. In the past I've made the mistake of referring to their faith as "a crutch," but it really isn't that. A better analogy would be to compare it to weight training or long-distance running; rather than a prop to support them, it is conditioning for facing reality in the long term instead of the short, escapist bursts the rest of us can get away with.

Look again at the first verse of "It Is Well With My Soul" and tell me which is easier - to look objectively at yourself from the middle of your pain and simply "decide" to accept it, or to tell yourself something comforting and poetic that helps you move past it? Most healthy and otherwise happy people I know can't face the prospect of a vast, cold, empty Universe that doesn't care about them; how do you expect people under tremendous pressure to cope without giving that Universe a name (God) and convincing themselves that despite all evidence to the contrary, there is hope and love and joy in it?

There is - but it's hard to see unless you work at it.

So, no - I don't balk at all when people need to draw strength from these ideas, and I don't think it would be helpful or kind to "correct" them when they tell me (and affirm to themselves) that it came from Jesus or God - or the Magic Feather they clutch in their trunk. The truth is that wherever they think they're getting that strength, it's coming from within themselves - and being humans, it is an amazingly deep well. (Doctor Who says so all the time!) So why am I angry at the pastor for playing into this helpful world of hopeful poetry?

My own break with Faith came when I realized what a logical cheat God was. Well, not God, but those speaking on His behalf. (Poetic construct that I believe Him to be, none of my anger is really ever directed at "Him" anyway.) Those pastors love to tell us that everything good comes from Him, and is solely to His credit. Without Him, we are not capable of anything at all. And what about all of our failures and sins etc.? That's all on us. Me, specifically. Or you.

(Today, I heard the pastor lay blame for the tornados and flooding going on in the Midwest on our wicked ways. Very comforting, indeed.)

The important idea here is, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try - or even if you don't try at all - God gets all the credit for your "goodness" and you get credit for the bad stuff... right down to horrific weather phenomena. It's a logical trap designed to prey on those who need to tell themselves that there is a source of strength outside themselves. To defy the pastor is to put the source of their strength at risk; to question his logic is to risk their faith in themselves. So the pastor tells them their own strength is an unreliable and dangerous flaw, and that they should trust in God - and someday, we'll have a ranch where we can pet the rabbits. Just like Lenny.

As I grew up, and realized that maintaining my faith meant I was expected to surrender to this double whammy of self-denial, I balked. Obviously, I assumed at first that it was just my sinful pride talking, right? Except... I came to understand that the source of my "slackerdom" stemmed from distancing of responsibility from myself, and placing it in this God who seemed not to take care of my homework or my auto maintenance and bills without a heck of a lot of assistance from me.

But I don't mean to trivialize this concept. I watch people suffer through these awful things in life all the time. They call on their God all the time, and sometimes, when they stop crying and dig down deep, they find something inside themselves that gets them through. Sometimes it's just a matter of letting go - of becoming the water, if you will - and they can cope. Then they thank God for it.

You can believe that is God, if you want to, and if it helps you get through whatever you're facing, who am I to rip that away from you? But it still bothers me because denying our successes and only claiming our failures robs us of something vital. It denies that we have that strength in the first place, and by taking away that faith in ourselves, we are weakened.

So I sat in a church this morning for the first time in many years, listening to my friend's pastor talk about God, and about her strength, and I realized that I, as a non-believer could see something in her that no Believer really sees. They pay lip service to her, but then steal her credit and attribute it to God - a construct meant to put a happy face on a cold, brutal Universe.

And while they were doing that to her, I realized that as a non-believer, I can see what is really divine.

Are Christians Right? (Or Vice Versa?)

This one was written Monday, December 03, 2007, as the 2008 Presidential campaign was beginning to ramp up. I had barely heard of that young senator from Illinois at that point, and figured the race would be between Senator Clinton and one of these Republicans; my concern was, how bad would the GOP candidate be, and would we be stuck with her?

Let's recap some recent events, just so we're all on the same wave:

*My mom sent me a hoax chain email about atheists trying to ban Christian broadcasting. Here's a link to one site with several religious-themed urban legends. Here's the Snopes take on the tale.

*MA Governor Mitt Romney, tired of facing concerns about his fitness for U.S. President, plans to give a speech defending his Mormon faith to the nation some time this week, as AR Governor Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, has emerged as a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination..

*A British teacher in Sudan is convicted of insulting Islam because she allowed her students to name a class teddy bear Muhammad.
Nov 30 - story from NPR.org (note the Muslim organizations speaking out)
Dec 3 story of her pardon (note the Muslim organizations speaking out)

Now, listen: there are number of conclusions about me that people draw when they hear me talk about Christianity in a political context. The first misconception is that I either have something against all Christians, or that I will automatically oppose anything a Christian supports. In reality, I admire much about the various Christian faiths and the many good things they have done over the last 2,000 years. And the vast majority of my family belong to what many would define as "fundamentalist Christian" churches. I may disagree strongly with some of the conclusions they draw from their scriptures and the world around them, but I still love them.

Sadly, many people who identify themselves as Christian - especially in the realm of politics - misrepresent Jesus Christ and the teachings he left behind. Whatever you believe about his divinity (and I refuse to take a position on that publicly) you have to admit that he essentially advocated the Golden Rule and extremely liberal attitudes towards tolerance and forgiveness.

The second misconception is that I know nothing about Christians or their varied beliefs. Bear in mind that until I was 17, I was a Southern Baptist, and a rabidly devout one at that. Not devout enough to ignore the questions that eventually led me to abandon any kind of public faith, but devout enough to enjoy regular Bible study and Christian radio from early in my childhood. Dr. Dobson, in fact, used to be one of my favorite speakers, and I was a regular listener to his "Focus on the Family" program. To this day, I still recommend much of his advice for parents on maintaining fair and consistent discipline.

The problem I have is not with the faith of the people who are lumped together and called the "Christian Right". Rather, it is with the parties that cynically pull on their political puppet strings, turning their deep feelings over complicated issues like abortion into hot-buttons on a huge Voter Vending machine. That distress is expressed better in this Essay by Garrison Keillor. (You can also preview 4 chapters of his book, Homegrown Democrat here.) However, unlike Mr. Keillor, I feel that the Democrats are just as guilty of fueling that fire and pushing those same buttons; and I feel it is just as wrong for them to do so as it is for the Republicans to do it.

I am also deeply offended by the consistent equation of the Christian Right with something called "moral values" - a phrase purposely calculated to imply that anyone daring to disagree with their collective political positions must be "immoral". (Ann Coulter has made a career out of stressing this concept.) Maybe I don't know what the compromise solution is when it comes to issues like abortion, but I do know that solution will not be achieved by declaring anyone who varies from the party line to be a murderer. Nor will it be accomplished by insisting that one persons' rights are superior to another person - however many cells that person may have.

And since I always seem to hear them mentioned in the same breath, I have to say that the close association between abortion and the other hot-button "moral values" issue, gay marriage, is positively un-Christian. I don't care how grossed out you might be by the thought of two men on their honeymoon or raising children together, it has nowhere near the same "moral weight" as the debate over whether removing a first trimester fetus is murder. It is more accurate to compare homosexuality with another Biblical sin that called for death by stoning: the consumption of shellfish. The near constant association of homosexuals with a variety of grotesque sins is uncivil, unfair, and is the opposite of what Jesus taught. You remember that silly old line of his... "love your neighbor as yourself"? One thing about Jesus, he usually put it pretty plainly.

So what does any of this have to do with email hoaxes, Republican presidential candidates or Muslims in the Sudan? Well, it's all about the idea of tolerance.

Republicans in particular have fought hard to introduce intolerance as a guiding principle of our society over the last twenty years. They've lobbied to make "multi-culturalism" seem like the next communism. They've yanked hard on the previously mentioned puppet strings of the Christian Right, and they've used their media platforms to push the buttons sure to cause outrage in otherwise non-political middle-Americans. "You good Christian people are under attack from people who are different from you," is the consistent message.

The "atheists are trying to ban Christian broadcasting" bit is not just an old hoax, it is also easily disproven by a quick Google search (which brings up the link above, and can also turn up the the official FCC denial). And yet, the hoax persists, because people are primed to believe that "others" are trying to steal their rights. Growing up, we used to hear similar claims that Christianity was under attack all the time; from Communists, from atheists, from Catholics... and from Mormons.

And now Mitt Romney wants to ask for the tolerance of the Christian Right as he tries to set himself up as the defender of their conservative values. I almost find it funny; except that the only way to prove himself is to "out-conservative" the other candidates. Which brings us to Huckabee; as a Baptist minister, he has a wordless counter-argument working in his favor among that segment of the base. He doesn't have to pay more than lip service to the puppet strings and push buttons, thus risking total alienation if he faces the Democrat nominee later on. He only has to stand up and not be Mormon.

And I have the distinct displeasure of having to face my own biases now, because he is the only candidate stumping for the one real solution I see to many of our long-standing economic and political problems: the FairTax. Do I overlook all of the positions on which I might disagree with him? Do I assume that his lip service is just that; or do I risk supporting a candidate that will really try to enact ruinous policies in the name of his religious beliefs... like Bush has? I have been asked already: how can you seriously consider supporting a Republican after the last six years? I don't have an answer for that; how much tolerance do I show to people who believe things that I don't? Where is the line between sound judgment and reactionary bias?

Which brings me to the Muslims in the Sudan. Here we are in the midst of a quandary about how much tolerance we can muster for the religious beliefs of our leaders, and the Sudanese give us yet another object lesson on the dangers of intolerance. Certainly, with "Mohammed" being the single most common given name for human males, the offending Teddy Bear couldn't possibly be named after anyone other than the Prophet; and for such tenuous "crimes" there were strident calls in the country for the execution of a foreigner who was there with the intention to help.

Fortunately for Ms. Gibbons, President Bashar saw reason - after two Muslim Members of Parliament traveled from the UK to plead her case. Muslim groups in America and England spent that tense week expressing outrage at the violent reaction, and condemning the conviction publicly. The result was a small victory of reason over fanaticism, and illustrated the point that Muslim groups have been trying to make since 9/11: that a small percentage of Muslims acting badly have given the other billion an unfairly blighted image. Much the way self-proclaimed Christians behaving badly in 15th century Spain, Nazi Germany, and the antebellum South give the other billion a bad reputation.

That's a long way to travel to get to the title question, and I thank you for wallowing through this far. So what am I asking? You tell me. How far do we go when we claim to be tolerant of different points of view? Do we tolerate even intolerance for fear of looking hypocritical?

The whole circus makes me wonder, too, how real these alleged demographics are, anyway. We've been told about the Christian Right being "owned" by the Republican party for so long, I think Christians need to ask themselves: do you really belong in that box? Do the values demonstrated by the right reflect the values taught by Jesus? Do you really know?

I think about it a lot, and I haven't got a good answer. But I think it's a great question.

What Makes Me Gay

Originally posted Friday, November 10, 2006, this little piece still makes me giggle at my own wit... which is pretty gay. My hope is that, if YOU are gay, you will recognize that the intent is to mock the clueless way supposedly non-gay people have stereotyped and demonized you - and, in their cluelessness, me. If you are NOT gay, the intent is to make you wonder.

Current mood:Super (thanks for asking)

I am not a homosexual, and yet people feel compelled to tell me with alarming frequency that I am Gay. What prompts this sort of thing? Well...

1) I don't like football. Nor do I care for professional wrestling, NASCAR, hunting, or even fishing. I do, however, enjoy all manner of music, and even a bit of theater. This, I am told, makes me Gay. I first learned this from a football player -- of course -- who told me that being in choir was gay, and that a real man played football. I questioned his logic, since choir brought me into close, occasionally intimate contact with a variety of lovely young women, while football offered the prospect of showering en masse with a roomful of men.

Years later there was a major scandal in our state involving "hazing" practices on many of our varsity teams. A few of the teams had forced new players to participate in highly illegal and certainly immoral acts with livestock and with each other.

Conclusion: football is "gay".

2) I love my wife. This beautiful woman, whom I often refer to as "my lovely bride", is the central focus of my existence, my business manager, my lover, and of course, my best friend. I will emphasize one of her most obvious features: she is a female. Yang to my yin, if you will. Most assuredly NOT a man.

And yet, when I mention -- or even hint -- that I feel this way about my spouse, my fellow men tell me (you may have guessed): how very Gay I am.

Pardon me for asking, but isn't being "gay" supposed to have something to do with activities between males? Or, at least, two or more persons of the SAME gender? After all, the subject usually comes up when I'm making excuses for not going out "with the fellas", drinking, watching football, or other "manly" activities. Somehow, preferring the company of my wife -- a person of the opposite gender -- to that of my male counterparts is what they are pointing out as my fatal flaw.

Conclusion: marriage, between a man and a woman, is Gay.

3) Then there is Grandpa. Grandpa would come to our house, and my parents would hover about, making sure that his Archie Bunker-esque comments were edited for our wee ears. But Grandpa felt that there were Things We Should Know about the world, so we could effectively gird ourselves with the whole armor of God. (Ephesians 6:13) So, when mom and dad were busy, Grandpa would pull us aside and "warn us" in extremely cryptic terms about the evils of the world.

"Never cross a brown horse with a white horse, son," he said once. I was confused. "Isn't that how you get an Appaloosa, Grandpa?" I asked. He made and exasperated noise, sounding rather like Foghorn Leghorn trying to talk the chicken hawk out of eating him. "No, son, you misunderstand me..."

He often suggested haircuts, though my hair was never any longer than you see it in the Superman picture to the left. And of course he cautioned against earrings of any kind. "You don't want to get too light in the loafers, son" he would say. Whatever THAT was supposed to mean. I ran to the bathroom to weigh myself, but I wasn't even sure what would count as "too light". So I changed into sneakers.

As near as I could figure, before someone actually explained what a "homosexual" was, being gay meant growing your hair out, piercing your ears, and walking around hating Jesus. So, basically, I thought it was a big word for "pirate". I did have one question about Grandpa's definition, though.

"What about Jesus, Grandpa? He had long hair. Was HE gay?"

After the choking and spluttering died down, Grandpa explained that Jesus didn't actually have long hair. All those pictures you see were just propaganda made up by Satan. (Also known in Grandpa's world as "the Catholic Church".) You see, they were all shepherds back then, and of course, they knew how to shear sheep. So, undoubtedly, he kept his hair shorn in a nice, brisk, 1950's era flat-top like any respectable Southern Baptist preacher. He appeared to be so relieved to have come up with that explanation, I didn't even ask about all of the kissing going on between men. Or why Jesus never got married.

Conclusion: Jesus was secretly Gay.

Summary: while I am not a homosexual, I am definitely going to hell. Which is fine with me, as long as they don't let in any football players!