Faith

My brother the born-again had a good laugh over Jake going to Catholic school. “They’ll make a Christian out of him yet,” he said, or something like that. How little he knows my son! More likely he’ll have the other kids doubting their faith by the end of the school year.

Me, on the other hand? I suspect I’m a true agnostic, inasmuch as atheism feels as much an act of faith as believing in God. Yet the only concept of God which has ever felt right to me is a God who is absolutely foreign and unknowable yet also deeply personal. Some thing inside me which I can never fully understand. Some thing I can talk to, appeal to, yet God only knows if it hears or understands. My God, I suppose, is synonymous with all that is mysterious.

This concept runs afoul of all religious absolutism.

On the drive home, I listened to a radio call-in program with a Brother Something-or-other who has predicted the Rapture to occur in 2011. (Yes, he had an exact date, but it didn’t register with me.) After that, he said, the Salvation Era in our world will come to an end, and the Earth will be transformed into a realm of punishment. Et cetera. Anyway, what really caught my attention was one fellow who called in. Brother So-and-so said, “Caller, what’s your question?” and this dude said, “I have no question. I am beyond questions. I accept everything without question.”

Even Brother Looney who thinks the world will end in two years didn’t know what to do with this guy. “Thank you for sharing,” he said, and quickly moved to the next caller.

I’m not sure why, but I have a fondness for these people who live with absolute certainties; they’re precious, just as cloudless, smogless summer nights are precious. But that fondness ends when these folks try to inflict their certainties on the rest of us. If they would only keep their absolutism to themselves, they would be a delight for those of us who live our lives on spiritual quicksand.

D.

Coming soon to a hotel near you

So I had this idea last night to write something truly preposterous and call it The Holy Tome. I could lead with a creation myth or two, create a God whose arbitrariness and cruelty rivals any of the extant deities, perhaps tell the story of a Chosen People whose criminal pettiness makes the rest of us seem noble, throw in whole chapters of “begats” . . .

Out of curiosity, I’ve been searching the Barnes and Noble website for other Bibles. Who knows, maybe someone’s been there and done that already. That’s when I found this gem:

The Bible: The Complete Word of God (Abridged): love the title. I admit to a plummeting disappointment when I realized this was a humor CD and not the screw-up of some dumbass publisher — somehow, “The Complete Word of God (Abridged)” is a much funnier joke when it’s accidental rather than intentional.

Anyway, I then started wondering what other Bibles I could find. Out of 48,315 items (!), surely there would be more gems. In the first few pages, I found Bibles of various size and vocabulary level; I found Green Bibles and TruTone Bibles, children’s Bibles and New American Bibles. Only when I got up into the thirties did I find a bit of irreverence, such as The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, which I first heard about on NPR and still strikes me as a potentially fun read. Another one with promise: Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible:

Along the way, he grapples with the most profound theological questions: How many commandments do we actually need? Does God prefer obedience or good deeds? And the most unexpected ones: Why are so many women in the Bible prostitutes? Why does God love bald men so much? Is Samson really that stupid?

Yes, Samson is really that stupid.

I hope they paid James Earl Jones well for James Earl Jones Reads The Bible. Compact Disc – 14 CDs, 19 hours. Is the New Testament covered, too? Because I would really, really love to hear Darth Vader say, “Jesus, I am your Father.”

You wouldn’t expect something entitled Bible Illuminated, The Book New Testament to be about vampires, but dig the cover:

Okay, I’m well into the 200s and finally finding a bible for vegetable growers, another for marijuana growers, and yet another for bodybuilders (penned by Arnold Schwarzenegger, no less). I’d like to know more about Grindhouse Experience Presents: Spaghetti Bible, but sadly, there’s no description.

Ugh. I’m getting tired. I’m up to #330 (The Barbecue Bible) and HONESTLY I don’t think I’m ever going to find The Orgasm Bible.

This is enough religion for one evening.

D.

The original weapon of mass destruction

It’s Blog Against Theocracy Day (weekend, really), the blogosphere’s chance to sharpen the line between Church and State.

The Ark of the Covenant burned scorpions and spiders, zapped unauthorized ark-touchers, won battles. When the Philistines captured the Ark and placed it in Dagon’s temple, the statue of Dagon was found the next morning toppled and shattered, and the people in the region were afflicted by plagues of mice and hemorrhoids. The Ark was one bad-assed WMD.

When the Babylonians ransacked the First Temple, the Ark disappeared from history. Like fragments of the True Cross, lots of folks claim to have the Ark — from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Axum, Ethiopia, to the British Israelites who excavated the Irish Hill of Tara. But to my knowledge, the Ark’s trail of hemorrhoids and destruction came to an end sometime around 586 BCE.

Google “Ark of the Covenant” and you’ll find Jewish sites and Christian sites, all manner of people of faith who believe implicitly in the historicity of the Ark. But like so much of the Old Testament (from Solomon on back), independent archaeological evidence is lacking.

Folks who believe in coincidence and innuendo can buttress their faith with the flimsiest evidence. A stone fragment inscribed with the phrase “Bet David” (House of David) validates their belief in King David, and if King David was real, so too Solomon, the First Temple, the Davidic line, Jesus, and all the rest. And some folks don’t even need a chunk of stone:

But it should be noted at the outset that the question of historicity has been safely shunted aside. The historicity of Noah’s Ark cannot be asserted. But the historicity of the second Ark most definitely can be. If the Ark of the Covenant never existed, nobody would have told a pointless story about David dancing in front of it. Even if Noah turns out to be fable, David can never be anything but fact.

If you want to believe in the Ark, be my guest. It’s a free country, thank Flying Spaghetti Monster. (Some time ago, I overheard a conversation between two patients in my waiting room. Both had come in holding their copies of the New Testament so it was only natural they should strike up a conversation. “How about the Shroud?” said one. “Think it’s real?” The other fellow said, “Absolutely.” “Sampling error and contamination error,” said the first one, to which the second fellow said, “Amen.”) But I invite the nonbelievers to entertain the following question:

If the Ark did not exist, why would anyone invent it?

Perhaps this mythical WMD was a story to frighten enemies of the kingdom. Back then, the real thing would have to have been powered by God. God’s might could have been the great equalizer, the hole card which made a losing hand a winner. If the people believed it, they would not lose hope. And if the enemy believed it, they might be that much less inclined to attack.

Funny, isn’t it, how poorly mythical WMDs serve their governments? Then, as now, superstition will only carry a government so far. Eventually, the people or their enemies call out the Wizard of Oz. Eventually, they say, “Show me the money.”

Or, in this case, “Show me the hemorrhoids and mice.”

D.

Al dente be

Today is Flying Spaghetti Monster day. To celebrate, this Pastafarian has built an FSM statue and received permission for it to be displayed on the courthouse lawn of Crossville, Tennessee.

Read about her stirring spiritual journey . . .

Tonight at dinner as I was staring down at my spaghetti and meatballs I was startled to discover that the remains of spaghetti sauce took the shape of It, the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

It came to me then, that in only a few short weeks, on March 21, is Day of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, followed by six weeks of spaghetti fasting. The six weeks ends with huge festivities on May 1, the Day of National Prayer. It occured to me looking at the holy image of It that stared up at me from my plate that this is indeed a Sign. I sense that I am supposed to build the image of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and display its holy appendages on the Courthouse lawn of my hometown, Crossville Tennessee. There its blessed presence can help all the world celebrate Day of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the six week fast.

See her build and install her glorious FSM!

Learn how to build your own!

Happy Spaghetti Fast, folks.

D.

Hell always sounded more interesting anyway

I mean, really, how horrible is this?

The Vatican has added seven new deadly sins:

accumulating obscene wealth*
polluting the environment
genetic engineering
drug dealing
abortion
paedophilia**
causing social injustice

I get nailed on genetic engineering: 1983-1997, here and there. I dabbled. None of my victims lived to squeak talk about it. Of course, they already had me dead to rights on Lust,

“Be gentle with me,” I said. “I’m a lot younger than you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she purred. “You’re an animal.”

Raquel was twenty-seven, I was five. She changed my life forever.

When it comes to losing one’s soul, a child can do a lot worse. Anyway, it occurred to me the Vatican had left out a few deadly sins. I would add,

Destroying families by stealing from trust funds, wrecking their mortgages, etc.

Ripping off pain meds from the people who need them.

Not bathing for weeks before seeing your doctor.

Bumping into and knocking over handicapped people in public places because you’re too caught up in your own personal drama to notice there’s a LITTLE WOMAN WITH A CANE RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU. (That one really pisses me off.)

Care to add a few?

D.

* From the comments at the Sydney Morning Herald story, linked above:

Did i just read that the Vatican have made accumulating obscene wealth a sin ?
Hmmmm, thats exactly what i thought the Vatican have done for the last 100 years.

Hmmmm, 100 years? But, yeah, that was our reaction, too.

** Um. Ditto.