Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Go read Dennis

He illustrates perfectly why I'd be Unitarian if my wife wasn't a UMC pastor.
Posted by idiosynchronic at 4:13 PM

6 comments:

iamcoyote said...

That was a great post, idio. Thanx.

July 30, 2008 at 5:59 AM
snark said...

I think I've had a personal crisis of faith. Although calling it a crisis seems inappropriate since I'm not much troubled by it.

I don't believe there's a God.

I don't even believe in any higher whatever whatever that links us all together. I don't believe any aspect of our consciousness survives the death of our physical bodies.

Now I know this would cause some ripples in the water of certain aspects of my family life so I'll do my best to raise my kids in the church of my family trying to do as little damage to them as possible until they are old enough to decide for themselves what to believe. I thank my family for doing the same for me. Having attended 12 years of Catholic schooling I must say that my family did not shove religion down our throats. Sure we went to mass on Sundays and we had religion class at school but that was really it. More emphasis was placed on just being good people then on any form of religious dogma. No one was ever villified or stigmatized because of what our religion told us. It was a very positive religious experience. And I can't thank my parents enough for that.

But I just don't believe there is anything more to it than some good guidelines for teaching your children how to be good people. And it pains me when I think of all the bad things it has been used to justify.

July 30, 2008 at 7:21 AM
iamcoyote said...

Wow, snark, interesting. Welcome to the club. I remember going to church every Sunday as a little kid - I only had two years hard labor in the Catholic school myself, and though they taught the basic story and the rituals (way more important than the word o' Jesus, btw), they didn't push on how people should live their lives. I think it's easier to drift away from the Catholics than, say, a Baptist, whose whole existence is monitored and judged and enforced. They're in it for the indoctrination of the next generation. Icky!

July 30, 2008 at 9:35 AM
snark said...

It's not exactly a new thing. I've just more recently found myself shifting out of the "it can't hurt to believe" into the "organized religion is a bad force in the world" mentality.

And stories like an 84 year old guy going to his church to watch them erect a new steeple and getting crushed to death when the crane lifting it topples over on to him make you wonder what kind of God it is that people are praying to also.

July 30, 2008 at 11:47 AM
idiosynchronic said...

I certainly hear what you're saying, Snark.

I'm in a similar boat. The cheap, shallow and uneducated theologian in me theorizes that if an intelligence shaped life, it long ago lost control over the events and circumstances or never had control to begin with.

The Christ, the Buddah, and Mohammed (to name only a few) saw that humans could do better and attempted to teach us to better love each other while on Earth, but we've seen how we've fucked that up after the teachers have departed.

July 30, 2008 at 2:24 PM
iamcoyote said...

You know, the Unitarians seem to be a pretty cool alternative - if they truly see Jesus as a philosopher to follow rather than venturing into the mystic, I'm all in. IMO, the only thing left that's redeemable about organized religion is the sense of fellowship and community; or, politically, a ready-made infrastructure which the religious right exploited to the 'pukes' benefit. That's why I got into the blogs in the first place, was to build a more equitable liberal community, without the god bit. I suppose it's worked, though with unintended side effects.

July 30, 2008 at 6:34 PM

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