The Belief That We Shouldn't Believe

I was watching Penn Gilette arguing with Kevin Pereirra on Attack Of The Show last night.

Penn is a seriously militant atheist. His book, "God, No" is out now. His argument is that everyone is an atheist. Everyone, even the devoutly religious, are atheists who have deceived themselves. He says he is not anti-Christian. He is, instead, anti-faith. He doesn't believe there should be any kind of religious beliefs of any kind, including Islam, Buddhism, Judeaism, etc.

His arguement is that if we all believed in a god, like we say we do, we wouldn't need to stop at stoplights, or lock our doors, or protect ourselves, or work to feed ourselves, because a benevolent god would always stop everything bad from happening to us all the time.

At least, that's what I think his argument was. The problem is, that it was also a lot of wordplay and mind games where he would twist things around. It wasn't a very..... compelling argument. I'll put it that way. I am always inclined to listen to anyone's argument because I myself have struggled with doubts and I'm willing to hear you out if you think you've got it all sorted.

I really, really would love to get some comments on this one. Do you have any thoughts or arguments as to why or why not anyone should have faith or religious beliefs?

Creative Inventory Q&A Part 7

Does nature influence your creativity? How so?

In a word, yes.

But this sounds very similar to the question about whether or not there is a certain element that draws me.

I am a Taurus, and Earth-sign, and one that is definitely influenced by nature. Sometimes I am exasperating to others because I simply must stop in the middle of whatever it is I am doing to go and examine those roses over there, or the leaves of that tree, or the texture of those rocks. I am often compelled by Nature to stop and take in the beauty all around me.

I am always stunned by the amazing detail that is in the Earth. It's one of the things that leads me to believe in a Creator God and not just billions of years of accidental explosions - although I do have elements of the theory of evolution that I believe whole-heartedly. I just don't believe that it all came from nothing and will some day all return to nothing. (Call me crazy, it helps me feel like I have hope and a purpose on this waterball of a planet we call home.)

Side tangent - sort of. Often Christian ministers will remind their flocks that God is their Father, and the perfect father; the one who nurtures, and loves unconditionally and never fails, so unlike many earthly fathers, especially in our modern society. But I always had trouble finding God to be a heavenly Father because, well, my father was about as close to perfect as can be. I love my Daddy, and I don't think he has ever let me down yet. He isn't God, but he was unselfish and supportive through our entire upbringing. It's hard to replace that earthly father with God if you don't really have a reason to. It was at this point that I started identifying God as more of an Artist and source of true inspiration for me. Now of course, I recognize all the elements of Christian faith, but it was when I began to seek God for a facet of His personality that I could actually identify with, that I began to have a real relationship with him. God does fill gaps in our lives - He just doesn't fill the same gaps in everybody's lives.

Nature brings me  to my knees in wonder. Just as an example of how I draw inspiration, I will mention that I've always been a bit of a collector and still to this day I have a collection of stones and seeds and dried flowers lined up on my kitchen windowsill. The different textures, colors and patterns have incited different landscapes in my stories, specific details in my paintings and probably most importantly, make me smile during the day.

I thank God for the beauty and detail of his marvelous Art Project. Nothing brings greater joy to this artist's soul than knowing that He made it to help draw my best ideas out of me.

A Moment of Thought

Today a poor bird flew into our picture window, broke his neck, fluttered to the porch floor, closed his eyes and died..

And yet somehow, the Holy Spirit used this to bring to mind a Bible verse that seems to be just for me.

Matthew 6:26

"Consider the birds of the air; for they do not sow, nor do they reap, or stow away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them (and provides care for them). Are you (precious children) not even more valuable (to your Heavenly Father) than they are?"

The Joy of Marriage

Alex and I spent the most amazing weekend together. I would definitely place it as the best weekend of 2011 and in the top 5 of our marriage together. I am a bit sad that it's Monday and our beautiful weekend is over, but I have stored its memory into my heart to think back on fondly in the coming future.

To begin with, we attended a marriage retreat with our church, Southgate, which took us all the way to Roseland, IN (best known for its rediculous nonsense involving a 3 person town council where 2 of the 3 were a married couple bent on owning that little town), where we checked into the Comfort Suites Hotel for one single night. We had dinner at the Ho Ping House, which isn't the best place to eat, but wasn't terrible. Later we discovered that we had accidently left our leftovers in the refrigerator in our room.

There was a guest speaker, who's message detailed the 5 things that cause couples to break up - in his experience. Communication, finances, sex (a lack of), unfaithfulness and a lack of faith. And we heard from several couples in our congregation and watched a couple videos, and I started to feel very secure and delighted in my marriage.

To begin with, I was fortunate enough to marry a talker. Sometimes he talks to a fault and I get annoyed because I am actually not much of a talker. I am more of a thinker. Our communication is pretty much.... excellent. If anyone is at fault for bad communication in our marriage, it definitely isn't Alex. (It would be me, bottling up my anger and irateness, which is what I do, which is what he is trying to change.) And Alex was fortunate enough to marry a red-headed spitfire. Not all women are as adventurous as I in the bedroom. Lucky, lucky man. ;)

Our finances are better now that I'm working again, and it would take wild horses to drag either one of us away from the other toward unfaithfulness. And we have a very Christ-centered marriage. The Fearsome Five things that break couples apart are of NO consequence in this marriage!

But what made me feel secure was to hear different couples, many who have been married for many years, say that they felt the strains of marriage very early - some just 2 to 3 months into their marriages. They felt like 'Good God, what the hell did I sign up for? And who is this stranger I'm married to?' And I just want to say that on May 19 Alex and I will celebrate 5 years of marriage and I have never once felt that way. My husband really and truly is the same person now as he was when we were dating and engaged. He has never changed on me, or shown a side of himself that I wasn't aware of before we tied the knot. I am as happy and in love with my husband now, 5 years later, as I was on our wedding day. Yes, we've had fights and arguements, some that lasted for hours, even days. But our marriage is so strong, and I feel so secure in it, with Alex.

Of course, we don't have any children either.... but let's cross that bridge when we come to it. :)

Adult Time

This isn't one to read in front of the kids! You've been warned!

I am a big supporteer of the sexual revolution. No, not the damn hippies and their free love. I am a big supporter of Christian movements to bring sex out of the shadows and red-light districts and finally show young people that not only is sex a perfectly wonderful, natural part of life, but they can also enjoy it!

I found 'Porn for Christians'. Awesome. A woman name Susie Bright does a podcast of sexual content for Christians. I'm going to dowload a few and give them a listen. Alex and I are going to be reading a book called "Sexy Christians" by Ted and Diane Roberts and I can't wait to start it.

I'm not a prude in any way. Growing up, I went to Baptist school, which I have repeatedly bitched about, because we still thought boys had cooties and called sex 'it' when we were in the 7th grade. My own mother, who made some very bad choices growing up in the 60's and 70's regarding her sexual behavior, trapped me in a car and forced me to read Dr. Ruth's book out loud on a day trip to see her therapist. My experiences with coming of age and learning about sex were terrible. I was afraid of sexual behavior, and not just because I knew if my mom found out that I had been kissing boys or holding hands, she would immediately jump to the worst case scenario. (She demanded to know if I was pregnant when I returned from a 3 month stay in Africa with a stomach virus and chronic dysentary. Thanks for the support Mom.) No one should grow into adulthood fearing their sexuality. It's just plain wrong. Sexuality makes us what we are - capable of establishing an intimate relationship with another being - so close that you are literally occupying one space.

The Christian faith does NOTHING to help young people develop their sexuality and learn how to make good decisions regarding sexual behavior. They hide it. They say it's only for grown ups and married couples. They build up unrealistic expectations around sexuality so that when two young people who have just tied the knot jump into bed together on their wedding night find out that it kinda sucks on the first try, they're disappointed and think something must be wrong. The 'powers that be' in the Church say its 'special' and 'beautiful' and fail to mention that there will be times that he's going to have trouble getting it up, and she's going to be dry as a bone and unresponsive. Know what else? Staying 'pure' until marriage does NOT guarantee a happy, healthy marriage, and it definitely doesn't guarantee that you'll stay together for the rest of your lives. Silly religious people.

Christians have stigmatised romance novels, masturbation, erotic films, pornography, sex games and toys. I LOVE THEM ALL!! Guess what? I use them - frequently - in my very healthy sex life with my husband, and we both enjoy it! It cuts down on disappointment, arguments and hurt feelings. I'm pretty proud of it - can you tell? And I don't hide it.

So maybe this isn't conversation you want to have with me while the kids are playing in the same room, but let me tell you, I can't wait to share what I read and hear in these so-called 'Christian' sex books. And if it's more of the same religious crap jargon that we've been fed for years, I will let you know - and loudly! I am not ashamed of sex. No one should be, unless you are doing something that you are ashamed of. In that case, well, I can't help you.

SEX IS NOT A SIN.

Saying and Doing

A few months back I was trying to enter a business arrangement with a small company where a friend worked. I thought things were going really well, but in the end, they fell apart. The owner of the company did some very strange things, including telling me after our first meeting that I was no longer permitted to speak to her directly and needed to carry things out through her assistant. She also strung me along, promising a presentation, assuring me that she was interested, etc. only to have a receptionist call me at the last minute and cancel the presentation for the employees and ask that I never set foot in their place of business again. I called another friend who had been approached by this same woman for web design and she assured me that she was treated in the same way. In fact, it seems that a lot of people have been treated badly by this woman - she had a tendency to approach people for things and when she couldn't aquire them for free, or if it might cause the IRS to question her business practices (which I assure you, were questionable) she would quickly turn into a nasty bitch.

Later, I saw on Facebook, a comment about this woman on the profile of the friend who worked there. This was the comment: "Ohhhhhh! You work for So-and-So?! She's wonderful and she looooooooves Jesus!"

So she loooooooooves Jesus, eh?

Give me a break.

A lot of people can say that. And maybe she does looooooooove Jesus. But loving Jesus and then treating people like they're vermin pretty much cancels out the 'loving' part.

I thought we were supposed to follow two great commandments? You know, I believe Jesus DID say the greatest commandment was "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength" but then he added something. He said "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Go ahead. Love God all you want. But if you can't treat other human beings with the same love you've been shown - or if you're doing something that you know is wrong and in turn, it causes you to treat others poorly? - what good is loving God?

You know what the number one thing I heard that the world hates about 'Christians'? It isn't that we believe in unreasonable hocus-pocus, or that we turned a philosopher into a god - it's the attitude of self-righteous arrogance and hypocrisy that 'Christians' walk around with. It's pride. It's bigotry toward those who can't see the truth in the same way that they do.

Believers, we were not given an option on who to love. We don't get to choose to 'love' the people around us that we hold most dear. The people we were commanded to show love to are those that hate us, those who are our enemies, those who are not worthy of loving.

Don't walk around claiming to love Jesus if you haven't even figured out how to be nice to the poor girl at the cash register, or the harrassed server at the restaurant.

And for God's sake, take that damn Jesus fish off of your car.

In Need Of Refreshing

I got an unwelcome shock this morning when I got a message from the bank saying that our mortgage payment is increasing by just under $100. You can imagine my panic! I'm still not working, although the Woodwind and Brasswind DID offer me employment a month ago. They just haven't been given the greenlight to start the next training course for their catalog telephone reps. from their corporate offices in Oregon yet. I don't know when I will be actually receiving a paycheck. I also lost 2 piano students this month - down to 8 - and had to request 6 more months of forebearance on my student loans. Yikes! 2011 is starting out with a lot of demands!

But I've had 19 sales total on my webshop, and a lot of interest and questions and people offering promotions, and that makes me feel very hopeful that my handmade business may actually turn into something worthwhile someday.

I also had to remind myself that one of God's names is Jehovah Jireh - God my Provider!

Without getting too weird and overly-spiritual, I had this thought this morning. A lot of evangelical Christians have forgotten that God has many, many names. I love the Hebrew names for God, and almost no one preaches sermons about them anymore! Yahweh (God's proper name), Elohim (God with Authority), El Shaddai (mighty one), Adonai (master) , El Elyon (most high) , Avinu (Our Father), El Roi (God who sees me), and many more! All describe a different facet of God's character, and show us what we believe in. There are also many Anglicanized descriptions, such as Jehovah-jireh (provider), Jehoveh-nissi (my banner), Jehoveh-shammah (God is there) and four or five others that I can't remember at this exact moment.

I struggled for so many years with this terrible description of God that I was force-fed at a fundamental Baptist school. It left me feeling conflicted because it offered none of these facets. I was just expected to recite a prayer and be good for the rest of my life as a means of 'fire insurance'. But what was I supposed to do when I was sick? What about those years that my mom was sick and close to death and I was sinking into depression and becoming suicidal just like she was? Was I just supposed to be good and hope for the best when I was struggling with finances and going to school full time and working two jobs? What about the friends I had who were Catholic or Mormon? Was I seriously supposed to tell them they were going to Hell for believing in the same Jesus I do, but not the same way? And what about the Holy Spirit? Isn't the Holy Spirit what Jesus left us with? Why do we ignore the Holy Spirit when He is our Comforter?

Don't get me started on the idiots who quote Scripture at a situation like it's the be-all-end-all to everything in life. I have a whole tangent for that.

I have been studying God's 'names' because they describe his character. And as a being created in His image, I want to know who I am supposed to be! If you have noticed my profile description, it reads that I am who I am, and I am still learning who that person is. I no longer accept the traditional way of being a Christian. People say Christian are bigoted, irrational, judgemental and radical. Yep, that's putting it mildly. I don't want to be associated with those kinds of Christians. I don't even call myself a Christian anymore. I am simply a Believer, and I'm leaving it at that. I don't have all the answers, I can't rationalize everything, and I don't blindly follow some ancient religious hocus-pocus. But I do know that I have been saved from myself if nothing else.