When they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
July 02, 2008 - 2:56 a.m.
I get a lot of friend requests on MySpace from musicians I never heard of. I assume they think I can somehow help their careers. I'm not really sure how they find me. I pretty much always turn them down. Today I got a request from Ellis Paul. He doesn't need for me to help his career. I'm pretty sure I couldn't help his career. How did he find me? I am guessing some mutual friend, perhaps someone reading this suggested he friend me. Oh yes, I didn't turn him down.
Most of you my Gentle Readers followed that with no trouble, the rest are saying, "Who the hell is Ellis Paul?" He's a musician with more than 10,000 space friends and Kevin So write a song about him. Who is Kevin So? If you want to know that's why god invented Google.
So who is this god guy? Gal? Thing? Yes I am actually going to write about religion instead of writing that I’m going to write about religion. Can you follow that? Good! Things tend to get murky when discussing theology.
I know I write about religion fairly often but it is always difficult. I know I'm going to offend people and sometimes they are people I care about. On the other hand it is something I think about often and I shouldn't be afraid of expressing myself. Isn't that the entire idea of keeping this diary?
There is a great discussion in Tom Stoppard's play Rock 'n' Roll comparing the Plastic People of the Universe with other dissidents. The other dissidents are like heretics and the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia are like inquisitioners. Inquisitioners love heretics, they justify their existence. The Plastic People weren't even playing the same game, they were pagans. That is what happens when people argue religion, they aren't playing the same game.
I was talking to an recently acquired online friend today. She didn't know I was an atheist. We were having a moral argument and she said that she could prove she's right and that she'd get her bible to find the right passage. What a perfect example. To her that was sufficient proof of her point. What she thought of as the official rulebook says she is right. The problem is that I playing by a different set of rules. She isn't my friend anymore. It seems that I'm going to hell since I am not asking Christ to save me from that fate.
That is one problem with talking about religion. Now the more ecumenical believers don't think I'm going to hell, if they believe in hell at all. This group includes most of my friends. The problem about talking about religion with them is different. If I am not being punished for not following their religion, and they aren't being rewarded for following it, what is the point of following it? God isn't demanding it so why do it? I mean people don't go around paying taxes that the government isn't collecting.
This is where I start offending people.
When I discuss it with people they will usually say things like it satisfies personal needs. It makes them feel good. I accept that and I don't try to dissuade people from doing what makes them happy. The thing is that the truth is that baseball does exactly the same thing for me. The difference is that I know that baseball is a game and people for the most part don't realize that is what their religion is. They are following rules that aren't divine, that they don't think were created by god, and don't have consequences if they break them. People get shocked that I'll eat ham on Yom Kippur. The fact is that is no different than me not saying, "No Met has ever pitched a no-hitter" after the first hit by an opposing team. It goes against my personal rules and I'd be disappointed if I forgot but I know that is all. The only reason it is important is because I make it important. People forget that when it comes to religion.
Gella was happy when I told her that if I got married the food would be kosher. The reason it would be is not because I think being kosher is important but because Gella and Melissa are important. It is exactly the same reason I wouldn't get married on a Sunday the Jets are playing at home. Not missing a Jet home game is important to Alan.
It is hard to talk about religion but it should be easy to respect other people even if you don't respect their beliefs. People are more important than philosophical debates.
At the same time the friend was dropping me because I'm an atheist I was talking to another friend about religion. She sings contemporary Christian music and teaches at a vacation bible camp. We have no problems with each other. When I said goodbye I joked, You keep your faith and I'll keep my skepticism and you'll get to heaven before me. She responded by saying that she'll see me there. She won't because it doesn't exist but I didn't press my point. It is difficult, not impossible to talk about religion.
I think I'm going to end this discussion here. I could move it to a slightly different place but I'll save that for my next entry. Religion is moving to the front of the queue.
Instead I'll talk about Obama. To be more precise Obama disappointing me. To be even more precise Obama disappointing me about religion. You didn't really think I was going to totally drop today's theme did you?
This is in today's NY Times. Obama Seeks Bigger Roles for Religious Groups. He thinks that Bush didn't go far enough in having religious groups perform government functions. He wants more of it. Didn't these people ever read Thomas Jefferson? What happened to the wall of separation? Keep religion out of government and government out of religion. Is that such a difficult concept? It protects everybody.
So Obama the Progressive is against the DC gun control laws and for the NRA's reading of the Second amendment. He is to the right of the Supreme Court on the death penalty and wants to expand it to non-murderers and he thinks we need more faith bases initiatives.
I stress that none of this is going to stop me from supporting him but once he's President I'll fight him tooth and claw on these issues.
I think what gets me mad is that Hilary would have been pilloried of she had taken these positions and Obama is given a free pass. I never understand how these things develop. I do know that it isn't a good thing. The fact that nobody would challenge Reagan led to so many of the problems we are having today. Bush was elected because his flaws were dismissed while Gore's and Kerry's magnified. Obama is a thousand times better than Bush or Reagan but if you let someone think they can get away with things they will. When Bill Clinton was asked why he had the affair with Monica Lewinsky he said, "Because I could." Try and find the middle ground between reflexive criticism and blind faith. Thinking is a good thing. I have never really been totally happy with any presidential candidate, except for McGovern they were all to conservative for me. That doesn't mean they are all the same. I have felt in every election there was a huge gulf between the candidates and that is as true this time as ever and Obama lies on the same side of the gulf as I do.
Oh yes. For extra credit. Whose quote am I riffing on in the title of this entry?
Abbie and Anthony and Gene and Isabel and a lot of friends I won't name - July 07, 2008
Cinderella and Other Myths - July 06, 2008
Give Me That Ol' Time Atheism - July 05, 2008
In Congress, July 4, 1776 - July 04, 2008
A Complex Desultory Philippic. - July 03, 2008
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile July 02, 2008
