El Gringoqueño

Yes, I know. Atheists are offended by that. Let me taunt you again. If you disagree with that statement, you are NOT an atheist.

Let me set you up with a bit of background. Perhaps we can agree on this, no? Would you say that as an atheist, God is no more "real" than say, Zeus, or Odin, or the Flying Spagetti Monster? Yes, you say?

Okay good. We shall continue.

Would you also say that religion, belief in an afterlife, or plain old "fear of God" stuff is just right out. Let’s face it, as an atheist, you don’t believe in that crap. Life is biological. When you’re gone, you’re gone. There is no higher calling than living your life to the fullest, not like a jerk, but fullest, being a good and productive human. It just makes good sense.

You also hate it when people say that without religion there would be no morals. Why not, you ask?

You reply, leaping forth from the fuente of Kantian thought, only that which can be applied universally is truly moral. You understand that the concept of universal morality and the golden rule are practical and lead to a good and solid foundation. Without this practical morality your own lifetime would have been marred with warring and fighting and disease and misery. Pay if forward, you say. Morals make good sense. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now there’s a moral framework you can get behind.

One more thing, and this is important, so pay attention. You say that life is more precious for you than it is for a "believer," because, to an atheist, there is nothing after. Life is the greatest gift, the only gift you will truly ever receive. Life is all that you will ever have, and death takes away EVERYTHING.

Are you still with me? Do I have it mostly nailed down? I don’t want a straw man here. I want an atheist that can stand up and take it. But you know the strangest thing?

I agree with you.

But I still say there are no atheists in foxholes.

What?! Haven’t I been listening? Bear with me here, I’m going to spell it out. Here it is:

If life is all that you have and all that you will ever have, what the hell are you doing dying in a foxhole? I ask you, atheist, what is so important that you would be willing to give your life for it? I’m baffled. You profess to no god. You patently disavow any sort of celestial reward. You cast off the yoke of religious dogma, superstition, and tradition. For what do you die? Are you stupid? Crazy? Crazy like a foxhole, maybe. I’m on to you though.

A steadfastly rational practical atheist might reply that he is risking his life for a stable future, for enlightenment, for an end to suffering. I shoot back, but YOU aren’t going to be around?  What would the point be?

Maybe he will talk to me of acceptable risk and potential reward.  Sometimes it just doesn’t work out, he would say. Don’t kid yourself. There is no acceptable risk in war. Why sacrifice yourself for oblivion then?

Nobody will live this life as well as you, for you are you and no one else. No one else will enjoy it like you. No one will smell it, taste it, touch it like you. No one can live it as you live it, experience consciousness as you experience it. This fact is not selfish, it is reality, the only reality you will ever know.

But why do you die in this foxhole, atheist? May I dare offer an explanation?

Perhaps, there are no atheists in foxholes, because by the very fact that you are willing to die for something you believe in, something bigger than yourself, you nullify your atheism.

You’ve already proven yourself a practical maverick thinker, not prone to group-think. You’ve shown yourself to be a rational being of the first order. You have seen through all the veils the world has pulled over the eyes of your brothers. You’re the only one that actually sees the truth.

Why are you in the foxhole, then? Perhaps you are not only NOT an atheist, but the most pious of us all. By giving your life in a foxhole, you are faithful to your fellows. You make a commitment knowing the outcome is uncertain. That is faith, my friend. You have faith. Perhaps "true-believers" are not even fit to tie your sandal strap. You are such the atheist that you may as well wrap around and come out the other side transfigured and clothed in divine white.

So I ask you:

Do you believe in justice? Is absolute justice worth dying for? Do you believe in love? Is absolute love worth dying for? Ultimate empathy? I submit, dear atheist, that you are nothing of the sort. Not only are you not an atheist, but you are as the righteous of history, a hero of the first order, a savior of mankind.

Amen I say to you, brother.

Jesus: Mother Teresa was a great lady. She was a great and wonderful person. I say this because it makes me sad to see she was not happy.

I guess I knew it. I’d heard her cries in the darkness. She was tortured.

She was tortured by what though? What was it that was eating her up inside?

Host: Audience? I see that Jesus is pausing for us to ponder his question. What do you say, audience? What was Mother Teresa tortured by?

*audience member struggles to his feet*

Yes, you, hold on, here I come.

Audience Member: *out of breath* Yes, I think she was tortured by her doubt. She had lost her belief and was trying to gain it back.

Jesus: Well, that’s what she writes in her letters. But let me ask you… *smiles* because I like asking these questions. In what had she lost her faith? What was this "belief" she was trying to get back? Belief in what?

Audience Member: Ummm

Host: Let’s ask someone else. You there -

Audience Member 2: *grabbing microphone* I, um, think she had lost her faith in you? She wasn’t sure if she believed in God? Maybe she lost her belief in prayer? Maybe Satan had gotten to her.

Jesus: Maybe we’re getting closer, but we’re still a long way off. Let me do my best to answer this question. From what I can tell, all Mother Teresa lost was her belief in orthodoxy. Since orthodoxy was the foundation of her spiritual life, she found that when she lost her way with regard to the objectification of her faith as put forth by the Catholic Church… sure enough, she lost her faith, her belief in the way. It all got tossed by the wayside because she had never stripped it down enough to recognize it in its nakedness.

Orthodoxy is like paint. Sometimes it’s pretty, serves a function and works well enough. But sometimes it covers up some deep rust, scars in the structure and foundations. When we can’t strip away the paint and check out the undercarriage, give it some maintenance, we’re doomed to catastrophic failure. ‘Cause paint, although nice, doesn’t keep the ship from sinking.

I like to be certain about the root of things.

You like to be certain, right?

Audience: *in unison* Yes Lord!

Jesus: *laughing* That just reminded me of a movie. Sorry *stifles guffaw*. Where were we?

Certainty.

An older priest went on a sabbatical to spend some time with the Missionaries of Charity. He had been in a spiritual crisis, and upon meeting Mother Teresa, asked her to pray for his clarity. She laughed at him and walked away, refusing with a flip of her hand. Baffled and confused, the priest asked her why? Why wouldn’t she pray for him. He sought clarity.

I know what she thought. She thought to herself, "clarity is a pipe dream, honey. There is no clarity. Don’t you think if anybody had clarity, I’d have it? Clarity is something I’ve sought my whole life. And it has eluded me."

That is just so sad, my friends. You complicate everything. You complicate and sour those very things that should bring you joy. You codify and organize and arrange - until you’re left with these tasteless, joyless morsels. Ughggg who can eat that stuff.

God = Love

Equal as in the same. What is love, but empathy, caring. Love is not mimickry. Love is not rules. Love is not "going through the motions" out of stubborn devotion, out of some misguided duty to ME. Men, how would it make you feel if you found out your wives were faking orgasms?

Not too good, huh.

Well, I don’t feel very good when you do the same. Do you bear the stench of the homeless old man, because he is Jesus, putting up with him for your chits in heaven. Slog your way through the unpleasantness to get to the creamy filling.

*sarcasm* Lovely.

Personally, it doesn’t do a thing for me, and it shouldn’t for you either. It’s a waste. It wastes my time, and it wastes yours.

Love is empathy. Empathy is projecting yourselves, getting outside of your mortal shell and into the hearts of others. I don’t want you to help the dirty, miserable, craven, pathetic, misguided, or criminal. I want you to LOVE them. What does love mean. Love compels you to help them.  You should be passionate about that.  Love is acceptance. Love doesn’t judge. Love isn’t proud. Love doesn’t despair. Love is a force multiplier. Love is infectious. Love is sincere. Love is binding.

In that connection, that connection of love, within its tendrils as they intertwine amongst you all, between rich and poor, between self-righteous and humble, between the smug and the doubtful is where I dwell.

Let me tell you what you will do, people. Here it is. You will do this because it will make you happy. It will bring you joy.

Connect with each other. Reach out to your enemies and love them, especially those that would hurt you, fear you. Love them more, because they need it. Love them not as a sacrifice, but as a joy. Don’t worry about the outcome. Outcomes will take care of themselves and beside you don’t love for the outcome of it, do you?

And if you’re looking for me, know that I am Love, that it is in your true and sincere devotion to one another that I exist.

And if you fake it, it doesn’t work.

I will still love you though.

Host: We’ve got a nice show lined up today. Jesus’s publicist informed us that he’s looking to get the word out on the nature of prayer. Seeing as how so many of us pray and how little we understand of His will, we’re looking forward to him revealing something… anything today.

Host: Before we get to that, though, let’s take a break. We’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere. When we come back, Jesus will reveal the intricacies and nature of prayer.

*Commercial break*

Host: Welcome back everyone. Before I bring out Jesus, he requested a little exercise. He said, ‘I want everyone to pray I come out today.’ So, folks, fold your hands and bow your heads. Pray that Jesus comes out of the green room to join us today.

*hush falls over crowd*

Host: Let’s get some help from home too. Come on everyone, let’s get this prayer circle going.

*Jesus comes bouncing out from backstage with a gallop*

Jesus: Here I am. That was nice. I’m feeling pretty spry today. *jogs in place* Feelin’ good. It’s a beautiful day. Everybody’s focused. Nice.

Host: Okay, everyone, He’s here. You can stop praying now.

Jesus: No don’t stop on my account. You go right ahead, keep it up. What is it that you envision? What do you want? What is it that you want to make manifest?

Host: Um, Jesus, you’re already here.

Jesus: I know, but it feels good. Let a guy bask for a bit. Okay, ya’ll can stop praying now for a little bit and listen. First - and this is a big one - I want to tell you all what prayer isn’t. But first, I’d like to address something that’s been kicking around for bit in my mind.

Jesus: Some of you have asked yourselves and others, why it is that God hates amputees. Yeah, that’s right, amputees. Kinda arbitrary, no? How come in the history of creation no person has ever had a limb grow back? People pray for it, right? Even lots of people at a time pray for it? "Please, Jesus, give back my son’s arm." These are noble prayers. Look, they say, it’s not for me, even. Give back my son’s arm to him. That’s a powerful sentiment, for sure. If there was ever a prayer that I could answer it would that one.

Jesus: Problem is, I can’t

Crowd: *murmurs*

Jesus: Look, grumble all you want, but I don’t answer prayers the way you think I do.

Jesus: Ask yourself this: How come the miracles that happen, or the prayers that get answered, with regard to sickness are always internal medicine? Cancer? You all say, "His cancer’s in remission! praise Jesus, our prayers were answered." Does that mean I killed the vast majority who do, indeed, die? I don’t work like that. It’s not a lottery, a look, "I got 2 get out of death cards here, and whoever prays the hardest will get them." Bah! It don’t work like that, folks.

Jesus: No, so called, "miracles" and "answered prayers" are always about something that science doesn’t understand fully yet. It seems magical because you don’t understand it. The cancer is gone - praise Jesus! I say to you, the cancer is gone, get on with your life. Use it!

Jesus: And prayers? Your prayers were answered the moment the doctors and nurses went about trying to treat you. Yes, you heard that right - answered. Your prayers are always answered. Who answers them?

Host: Well?

Jesus: Haha, I was hoping someone in the audience would finish that thought *winks*. I was waiting too. Okay, moving on.

Jesus: What is prayer? Let me ask the audience directly. Anybody care to give it a shot. You, you there on my right, you look like you have something to say. Go ahead and stand up and tell us your name, where you’re from, and what you think prayer is.

Guest: *stands up* Um, my name is, uh Carl, and I’m from Baltimore. I, uh, think that prayer is a conversation with God. Prayer is, um, when you pray? You’re looking for some, um, direction, um, some help with something?

Jesus: Sounds good to me. You’re right to a point, but there is something missing there. When you say conversation, you’re saying dialog, right? Has God ever talked back to you?

Carl: Yes, God reveals himself to me through my prayer.

Jesus: You sound pretty sure about yourself Carl. What does he say? Frankly, I can’t get two words out of the guy. He’s been pretty surly ever since the whole Inquisition thing. Okay, I’m gonna ask some more questions. How many? That depends on you guys.

Jesus: What is a church or congregation? When people speak of the body of the church, what are they talking about?

Jesus: *pause*

Jesus: *whispers* You! You are the body. The Bible mentions this body all the time. The body of Christ, the body of the church, two arms two legs comprising one body, etc. etc. etc. You’ve got that, right? Well, what do bodies do?

Jesus: *pause*

Jesus: *whispers* They take action. The body is the vehicle of action. Nothing happens if the body doesn’t get out of bed and heave its lazy-ass self down to breakfast and get out the door *kicks at the air*. Get moving body!

Jesus: So what do we have now? We have a body that is sitting around in silent meditation, praying for some sort of intervention but not doing anything. So again, what is prayer? WHAT IS PRAYER!

Jesus: *stops, sighs* Look, did you guys eat breakfast this morning? Me, I like to get some nice eggs and bacon…(don’t tell mom about the pork) really gets me going… Ya’ll need to wake up… but I digress.

Jesus: I’ll tell you what it is. It is a call to action. Prayer is a call to right wrongs, to make manifest dreams, to inspire, to act. When you pray, and you can pray for sure, you are concentrating on making manifest a dream. You are perhaps inspiring others to make it manifest. You are spreading an idea. You are inviting change. You are infecting others and yourself with your desire.

Jesus: And who answers these prayers? Anyone? Who is it that answers prayers. There is only one person that answers prayers. There is only one end to a prayer. WHO!?

Jesus: Wake up, People!

Jesus: You.

Jesus: You are the answer to the prayer. You are all the answer, my answer, each one individually. You answer the prayers, because you are my body. You are my arms. You are my legs. You are my sole force of action and goodness in this world. If you don’t do it, nobody will, if you don’t get out off your asses and make something happen, nothing happens. Nobody will grow those limbs, nobody will save that child, nobody will cry for justice. You say that God is an angry God, that God doesn’t care, that how could a person believe in a God that could allow such misery and suffering in this world, that the horrible arbitrary things that happen in this world are just that… horrible and arbitrary. What a cruel fate, to have been cast out into all this misery. Oh boo-hoo, get over the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It’s easy to criticize - hardest thing to do in the world is to create.

Jesus: *whispering* But, my brothers and sisters*, you have the power. You have the ability to ease suffering. You have the ability to right the injustices. You have it. You see, prayer isn’t an end in and of itself. Prayer is simply a beginning. Prayer is call to action. I’m praying for you all now. I’m praying that one of you will find a way to grow back an amputated limb.

Jesus: Oh will you look at that, my leg fell asleep. *stomps it on the floor* Oo, that smarts. Needles.

We sit in our room blind, attempting to divine the dimensions by bouncing bowling balls off its narrow confines.

There are tons of people out here on the internet writing about their beliefs or beliefs in non-beliefs. There are a million and one smug self congratulatory posts titled thusly, "Why I became an Atheist" "Why Christianity Sucks" "Why believe in something I can’t see, taste, touch, or smell have no direct evidence of is totally silly and you’re all morons for even considering it." I can just see the smug little faces. Go ahead and read this www.godisimaginary.com There’s lots of great stuff there… all of it true. You heard that right, it’s all true. God is imaginary. It is a concept that exists in our imagination. God is a word that exists on paper and in our mouths.

If God is just a word, why capitalize it then? Let’s start there, shall we? Why capitalize the word God? If I don’t, have I blasphemed? Will He/She (there I go again) be offended?

There is a short answer to it all, but I’m not going to give it up so easily. The short answer encompasses all of the rhetoric, the atheists, the religious-ists, the believers, the followers, and the reverent. Perhaps all but the reverent will be offended in some way.

The atheist will retort, how dare you say, sir, that I believe in something which is patently false!

The religious-ist will decry, you are a blasphemer, you malign my faith, a rich tradition with a long history. How dare you!

The believer will say, come child, let me show you the WAY. You are lost and must accept Jesus as your personal savior, or ye shall rot in the fiery torment of hell. God bless you.

The follower will ignore me and continue on his way, busying himself with his good-hearted folly.

The reverent, however, will smile a deep smile and ask, "What did you mean by that?"

And it is there within the question, among all things, that we begin.

Why are we here? Were we created by an intelligence or did we just happen to be. Is our existence wholly a happenstance, contemplated by us only because we happen to exist in it?

"Why are we here" - and deeper, "what is life" are two questions that have no answers. I’m afraid everything you’ve heard up to now is a lie or wrong, or both. We do not know what life is. We do not know why we are here. Maybe there is no reason. Maybe life is a gift from an unknown hand. Maybe it’s just a gift.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I always say.

Maybe life is an opportunity to explore existence. Yes, yes that is it. Life is an opportunity to explore existence, because without it, how could we possibly explore? Life seems pretty essential to exploration if you ask me.

To presume to know is the ultimate sacrilege, the ultimate sin against the cosmos. Scientists, who in their purest form are the most reverent among us, will say we ultimately know nothing, that what we don’t know even about gravity would fill a thousand million libraries. Gravity is something with which we are familiar, but it may as well be magic for all we understand of it. Think about it. Two objects always exert an invisible force on each other. Why? Why the hell is that the case? Well, it just is, you say, and take smug refuge in your equations and mathematical proofs:

          m1 m2
Fgrav = G -------
          d^2
  

But why? That mass one and mass two are attracted at all by an unseen force is, to me, mind boggling. You speak to me again of strong forces and weak forces and atomic forces and quarks and matter and anti-matter and particle accelerators. Like a Jehovah’s Witness you pull out scientific journals and research that "proves" you know more than I do, that you know the "Truth."

But really, truly, you do not know the first thing about anything. It is all imaginary.

Well, you say, I guess you’re right. I don’t know why yet, but we have a good idea how to use it. It yields useful results and allows us to navigate the stars and harness its force to keep buildings from collapsing.

There, there, there, I say, right there! You got it, man. You got it. It is how we use it, not what we have or whether or not we ultimately understand everything or even one thing, but how we use a thing.

Do we care about our gift? Do we challenge it? Do we take refuge in certainty or fly from it out amongst those that would work without a net?

So I say to you, you religion fetishists (that includes you too atheists), you know nothing, yet you presume to know fundamental truths. Shame on you for your lack of reverence. Reverence for the Truth, whatever it ultimately turns out to be is the essence of God. Here’s another equation for you.

Ttruth = TGod

Equal they are, the same thing. In the end, they cancel out and are irrelevant though. What you call a thing is just as good as anything else as long as you are reverent, because God is but a word, a concept of something the encompasses all of existence. Our understanding of existence is pitiful, so is our understanding of God (or whatever word you use to describe the everything of existence, the I Am, the All, Creation). In the end, though, they are just words.

So stop fighting over them, okay?

I don’t know why I seem to get the word "sin" under my skin. I guess it comes from seeing it misused so frequently. "Sin" is something bad. Religions tell you to stay away from it. Don’t drink, don’t fornicate, don’t do drugs and don’t use the Lord’s name in vain. Those are sins and they are bad. If you do them, then you are bad too. Don’t be bad. God hates bad people. If you are good, he will love you.

There are others for whom "sin" has become so tied to orthodoxy as to become meaningless. What do I care for this "Sin" of which you speak from your fundamental superstitious little perch? Your sin has no meaning to me. And of "sin" in its general sense? Well, let’s just live and let life shall we? Good - bad… it’s all relative. To each his own.

As usual, my personal opinion differs greatly from either of these viewpoints. Consider the following questioning of some omnipotent sort, someone to whom we look when we are unsure if what we have done is okay. Call it an inner voice, some sort of reverberation, a kind of internal therapist.

Us: Lord, have I loved enough?

Him: Why don’t you wish to love more?

Us: Oh dear God, have I been patient enough?

Him: Why don’t you wish to be more patient?

Us: Am I forgiven?

Him: Will you let yourself be?

Us: Did I do the right thing?

Him: Why do you think you’ve done the wrong thing?

I imagine it’s sort of like this therapy session. We ask those questions, but we really know the Truth. We can never love enough, we will never be patient enough, will never be able to completely accept forgiveness, and if we wonder if we’ve done the right thing, we probably haven’t.

So, "Sin" that thing that seems discrete, quantized, measurable - isn’t. It is immeasurable, a fabric stretching through all time and space in every direction. It is a condition of our very existence.

There is no such thing as "good enough." You will never be impeccable. You will never reach your potential. You will never fulfill your perfect design.

Everything short of that is, my friends, sin. Welcome to the club with an extremely inclusive membership.