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 else.

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 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.  What would you call that thing? 

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.

Host (talking over applause): Welcome back to our show.  Jesus popped in just a few minutes ago, so we dropped everything and decided to give him some air time. He seems hot to talk to us, so let’s hear what he has to say.

Jesus: Dude! Long time no see. How’s it been going?

Host: It’s been going okay. We’ve been fielding a lot, and I mean a ton, of questions about belief, faith, do you exist, etc. Are you some sort of CGI character or a slick video edit?

J: Hmmm, I could be, but you know it really doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter at all.

H: Okay, as always, you’ve got our attention. (audience buzzes with concern, whispers).

J: I’ll explain, don’t worry. Let me give you a heads up with what I’ve been thinking about for the past couple of months. And I’ll list them.

1. How is believing in Santa Claus any different from believing in me?
2. Does God answer prayers?

It’s kinda daunting when I put it like that, huh? I know, I know. You people sometimes think you’ve got me. Look, Jesus is like Santa Claus. I get it. I really do.

There are millions and millions of words written about why prayer doesn’t work, why miracles don’t happen, and why the breath of the universe has abandoned you on this insignificant blue world in the middle of nowhere.

I know it. I really do.

So, let me ask someone in the audience. Why am I different from Santa Claus?

Man (man gingerly raises hand): Hi, my name’s John, and you are different from Santa Claus because I can actually see you sitting there and you have saved me.

J: It’s nice to be recognized, John, but how do you know I’m me? I could just be a guy in flip flops in off the street from the local soup kitchen looking for some audience swag. How do you know who I am?

Man: You have a photo ID?

J: Nope. Let me help you guys out. You don’t. You won’t know it’s me. You can’t know it’s me. And you know what? It’s all right. Nobody expects you to. The short answer to the question: Why am I different from Santa Claus, is I’m not. We’re no different.

Host (palpable silence from the audience): Um, we’ve done enough of these to know you’ve got something up your sleeve… what is it, Jesus? Santa Claus doesn’t exist. How can you be no different from that?

Jesus: I’m just not. Look, let’s wade right into it, into that place you all fear to go. When we listen to those that would try to derail your faith, or explain away their own by saying that prayer doesn’t work, that the things for which you hope don’t come true, that miracles don’t happen, you will notice a pattern in their logic.

Want to know what it is?

H: YES YES YES… tell, us Lord!

J: Whoa, fella. It’s not that special. The straw man here is that everybody atheists and believers alike are looking for magic. You’re both looking at the same sweat stain of the Virgin Mary or weeping crucifix and saying alternatingly, ‘It’s proof that God exists’ or ‘It’s a hoax therefore God doesn’t exist’, and then there’re the fish eyes. Yikes, the depths to which you will all sink just to hold onto plausible deniability.

You’re all missing the point.

There is no magic. There are only knowns and unknowns, laws of the physical universe that you understand and those that you don’t. There is no Santa Claus. There is no God. Once you can throw out those two things, you can start to see the truth, see past the hoax, clear the fog and see for miles and miles and miles.

Once your mind is cleared from looking for me in the wrong places, you will be truly free. Miracles happen, if you look closely enough. Divinity is all around, in the smallest places, in the greatest places. Someday I promise you that spinal cords will be repaired. Someday I promise you that you will be able to grow back limbs, cure the blind the deaf. In fact, you’re already light years beyond where we were 2000 years ago.

It’s a miracle I tell you.

You have cars, efficient agriculture, civilized society (although you still have a ways to go), airplanes, space travel… the list goes on and on. I mean - get this - you people are actually considering plans to nudge asteroids on probable courses with your planet! It totally blows my mind. Do you know what a miracle that would be, and you’re starting to think about it!

Yeah, sure God doesn’t answer prayers, like Emeril, "BAM!" you’ve got new car. Congratulations. If you want that, get your ass to the Price is Right.

No, prayer, is more of a dream. If you dream something hard enough, you’ll get off your ass and make it happen, or talking about it will inspire someone else to do something. Or if you’re just around the hole enough, one day you’ll sink a hole in one.

Magic is either nowhere or everywhere. I know I just said magic doesn’t exist, but I had to kill it before I brought it back to life (little technique I like to use). Is it magic when a baby is born, when a flower blooms, when a cloud bursts? Just because you understand how something works, doesn’t mean that it is not special or mysterious. If you understand absolutely everything about a thing… you understand it so well that you find yourself contemptuous of it, take a step back and look with new eyes.

So here we are full circle. I wager no one in the audience would say they believe in Santa Claus. 

Except me.  I believe in Santa Claus.  I see him all the time in the mall. I see a ton of Santa Clauses, men who spend months perfecting their beards, honing their Santa Claus skills just to bring some joy to children at Christmas time. You adults know perfectly well where the presents come from, right? You’ve abandoned your simplistic view of Santa Claus, the guy with the flying reindeer who shoots up and down chimneys on Christmas Eve.  Why won’t you let your belief grow with your minds?  Santa Claus is alive and well.  I swear.  I know him.

Santa Claus is everywhere and he’s spreading. He started out as just a good man or a bunch of good men, they were real people who grew into legends who inspired others who then took that spirit, drank it in, imbibed it and became him.

And he’s here, alive in this room with us today. He died, but he’s here.  He came back.  And his love is everlasting.

Peace my brothers and sisters.

From the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States 

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

From the Declaration of Independence of the United States 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

Why do I bring this up?  Recently the debate has been raging about what rights are afforded to undocumented workers or illegal immigrants, sometimes inhumanely referred to as "illegals."  The heart of the debate, if it can be said to have one at all, is that only citizens are afforded the rights granted by the Constitution. 

If you are not a citizen, then you are out of luck.

The power of the Constitution comes neither from the government itself nor the People.  James Madison seems to agree with me.

"Because if . . . [An Unalienable Natural Right of Free Men] . . . be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: It is limited with regard to the coordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents. The preservation of a free Government requires, not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained: but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the greater Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are Slaves — James Madison, June 1785.

What he is saying is that the People are capricious, and since the government is an extension of the people then it too is capricious.  It [the government] cannot be trusted with our most important gifts of creation.

I think some clue to the whole puzzle of where our rights come from, how they apply, and to whom they apply is contained in the Declaration of Independence.  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…"  Unalienable: non-transferable, unable to destroy, eradicate, or remove.  That is to say, if you are human you have these rights whether you want them or not and no one can legally take them away.  Of course if someone uses force to subject you, no legal order gives them authority, and we the People of the United States with the authority of the Constitution, shall protect you and restore to you your proper rights. 

The Declaration of Independence, in my mind, can be seen as the spirit under which was formed the whole of our union.  It was the mission statement, frame of reference, or inspiration from which all the founding documents flowed. 

These rights we have as a person are in all ways incontrovertible.  The mention of a Creator, I believe, is simply an acknowledgment of "other than the ways of men."  It could have easily said, "You, by the fact of your birth in the Universe, have the following rights, none of which is granted to you by us, our representatives, or their agents."  We the government are not the authority giving  you these rights, we the government of the people simply acknowledge them and pledge to protect them from others that would seek to subvert these rights.

In short, we didn’t invent these rights, we just protect them. 

It bears mentioning again.  The government IS NOT the authority for your rights as a human being.  It took a while, but the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution is the part that finally spelled it out.  We’d spent nearly a century assuming, but no longer, the XIV was going to nail it down with railroad spikes.  Let there by no doubt.  "…nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

There is no distinction there for citizen/non-citizen.  We the people of the United States recognize that the rights of man are not beholden to the whimsy of the public or the government.  The People and by its extension, the government, have no authority to grant, rescind, or amend these rights. 

Again, the Constitution and the government and its laws protect these rights but neither grant them nor bestow them.

The next time you hear some shill talking about the Constitution not protecting illegal immigrants or granting to us something it does not grant to them, be wary, for if the Constitution has the power to NOT grant rights to those other people, than from where does the authority for your rights come?  The Constitution?  I don’t think so.

To keep these rights from illegal immigrants is to subvert your own rights.  I don’t know about you, but MY rights do not come from the Constitution.  The Constitution simply exhorts you/us to protect these rights that are bestowed upon us by "other than man."  You have them because you exist.

To fight for the rights of illegal immigrants is to fight for your very own rights.  I, for one, have no interest is granting authority for my liberty to the US Government.  I hold it on my own as a person.  The People have pledged to protect those rights whether you be natural born or an alien, for it is the people we are, a people who love liberty, a people who wish for none to be subjugated under the unlawful heel of tyranny or injustice. 

Unalienable rights apply everywhere in the world in all nations, but it is only within our borders that they are protected by the Consitution.  It is only here where we have the authority to enforce these rights as a people.  The day that we apply a different standard to visitors, tourists, people of other nations living in working in America than we apply to our own citizens is the day that we subvert the true intent of the Constitution. 

We’re back in a new chat with Jesus. Welcome back everyone, and Jesus - how have you been?

J: Not good, not good at all. I’m a bit distressed with this organized religion thing.

I: What do you mean? I thought that was an invention of yours.

J: *looks askance at interviewer*

I: *defensively* What?

J: Look, I was the original anti-established organized religion guy. Geez, I came here to tear down the temple, remember? My goal was to tear it all down and - well not so much tear it down as re-purpose it - wait.. let me think for a bit.

Okay, here’s a good analogy. Let’s try this on for size.

Let’s talk about warm chocolate chip cookies, shall we?

I: Oookay… I’m listening

J: Good, let’s think of the institution of the Church as a big warm chocolate chip cookie. Let’s think of them all, all the churches like that - all big warm chocolate chip cookies. The Catholic church, the biggest Christian denomination founded in my name has this huge honking warm gooey chocolate chip cookie and it’s going stale. They’ve stirred and baked this enormous cookie and what do they do with it?

I: I’m kinda lost with the whole cookie thing.

J: Sigh, cookies? Cookies are love, dude. Cookies are love. You’re killing me.

So you’ve got this huge cookie. What are you going to do with it? I’ll tell you what I did with it. I starting breaking off pieces and handing them out to people.

Breaking - it - apart. You got that?

Every time I went to temple, I’d shove some pieces of it in my pockets to take to the sick, outcast, and the forgotten. The tough thing about it was, I couldn’t sneak much out, but to some of the people living on the outermost fringes of society, a crumb of the stuff was pure gold. It made me feel really good to be able to brighten their days and bring them some morsels from time to time.

I: Did they really have cookies back your day?

J: Again, love, dude - love. Cookies are metaphors for love. The church is supposed to be a manifestation of love, therefore it’s like a cookie, best eaten with a glass of warm milk.

So I’m all, ‘Tear down this temple and I will rebuild it in three days’, but that’s not what I said. I said to tear it down and feed it to my hungry brothers and sisters, then we would return and rebuild it in three days. It’s another metaphor. Love and cookies work best when shared freely. Cookies, when kept to yourself, just get moldy and nasty. It gets stale and old and rotten, then you spend all your time trying to keep it from getting nastier, preserving it, putting it in the freezer, protecting it from harm. If you’d just eaten it when it was warm you would have always had fresh cookies. You see it’s not ABOUT the cookie, it’s about sharing the cookie, using the cookie.

The problem was that when I spoke about these things, you all whipped out your little notebooks and wrote down: "Must make cookies. Cookies are sacred. Cookies are the key to everlasting salvation." And you all went off and made little cookie shrines in my name (like I hadn’t seen that before, sheez). Look, it’s for e-a-t-i-n-g. *mimes putting a cookie in mouth, chewing*

But when my hungry brothers and sisters came to taste the cookie, you brushed them off saying, "No, no, no, you mustn’t touch the sacred cookie. That’s one of the blessed mysteries of the church and you went back to the fabrication of more cookies on display under glass."

You can see how it’s a little frustrating. I was the original destroyer of organized religion. I’m not for it. I wasn’t for it. I was a disruptive force, a sacrilege, a heretic, and a subversive influence.

I like to think I was the mad subversive cookie baker.

And I’d hoped you’d all get giddy with cookie baking and serving and just go crazy dishing them out to the corners of the world. Some of you did, God bless you, you got it, but there’s a whole bunch of you who didn’t. I hoped that you’d search out the most lost, the most hungry, the most unloved and offer them a piece of your cookie, and say, "You look hungry, here’s a plate of warm cookies and milk. Best eaten now. We can always make more. Don’t waste your time preserving them."

Get to it man, get to it!

"How do you call yourself?" I asked extending my hand.

He mumbled something.  I couldn’t make it out.

"Could you say that again?"

"Escgael," he said again as I leaned in.

"Eh?  What was that again?"

"Esdasel."

"Could you write it down please?"  I handed him a pen and paper.  I watched him write out E-Z-E-Q-U-I-E-L. "Ah, from the Bible - the Jewish prophet.  Interesting.  Cool."

He smiled.

"Okay, now that we have that out of the way, I’m James o Jaime en español.  Pleased to meet you.  So, Ezequiel, first I want to ask you why you came down today?"

"I always come down."

"Okay, did you come down for a particular reason?"  I always ask this because I’m not sure if a particular inmate is coming to the session for religious study, general chit chat, or just to get out of the general population for a respite.  I can go all religious if need be, but I prefer to weave it all together in a more secular way.  But really, it’s all the same to me.  Me da igual. 

"I’d… like to look for… Jesus." 

"Why?"

He shrugged.  Look I don’t know, maybe.  Maybe I felt I was supposed to say that.  Or maybe I was trained to say that.  Or maybe it felt good to say that.  Or maybe I’d like… I dunno.

"What do you want to do?" I asked him.  "What would you rather be doing right now?"

"I’d like to be out of here."

"Yeah, but if you were out of here, what would you be doing?  What do you like to do.  What would you like to do with your time?"

"Paint cars."

"You mean like in an auto shop?  Hmmm, that’s interesting."

We talked, or rather, I talked/asked him about painting cars and his talents and what he liked to do.  He was a quiet kid.  He didn’t say much.

"Hey, you ever see that show on MTV, ‘Pimp My Ride’?  It’s this show where they take an old beat up car and turn it into a work of art.  New seats, new rims, tires, interior, rugs, sound system, televisions, computers, new dash etc.  They always put a super fine paint job on it too.  You want to do something like that?"

"Yeah."  He smiled his eyes twinkling.  He was still a kid of few words, but he had these twinkling eyes.  I’d have to pay attention to his eyes for clues to his thoughts.

"So, how might you paint these cars?  What would you paint?" 

"I don’t know." 

"How about some clouds, and ‘Mi bendición’ with a Puerto Rican flag with a cool metallic ice?"

"Yeah."  His eyes got wide again.  It’s like I could read his thoughts before he even knew he had them.  I could see him dreaming about his beautiful paint job.  I watched reflections in his eyes of some big aluminium rims, sweet Pirellis, neon in the undercarriage, an awesome fade on the side panels with a Puerto Rican flag waving in the cool tropical breeze.  It was like a big piece of sweet candy and I could see it tasted good to him.

"It’s like art, you know?" I offered.  "One of the things that we share with God is the need to create.  It’s one of the things that takes us back to the divine, compartimos ese trato con Dios.  He was sitting there all alone and he had this big nothing, but a lot of love.  He could do no other thing than create… everything.  So great was his love, he created us.  That’s what it’s like when we create.  When we create we are doing the same thing that God did.  We are fulfilling the same need.  We are sharing in the divine."

Ezequiel nodded.

"So, guess what," I added. "Lots of famous painters throughout history created paintings on all kinds of places, walls, poles, town squares, floors, ceilings, carriages, you name it.  They painted everything.  Maybe you do this painting on the car that says, Jesus es el salvador or mi salvación, Jesus.  Whatever."  I thought maybe I was getting corny now.  I pictured in my mind a typical heavily modded import with a rosary and crucifix hanging on the rear view mirror.  Painted on the exterior I saw a big mural of La Señora de la Providencia, an image of the Virgin Mary, with an infant Jesus resting on her lap painted big and fat on the hood.  I saw chrome, lights, a crucified Christ on the door, and a cloud-like father figure emerging from a heavenly scene. 

It’s not my taste, for certain, but I loved it.  I see some of the graffiti here and I must say I am in awe of the talent of these kids.  While I wouldn’t own a Jesus-pimped car, I have to say I’d love to look at it.  I’d love to drink it in, enjoy the art, appreciate the expression.  I would stand in awe of such a creation.

I shook Ezequiel’s hand before we left.  It was a pleasure to meet you, I said.  I told him that I dreamed of the car he would paint.  I told him I dreamed the dream as if it was my own.  I wished I could paint that car the way I dreamed it.  But, I told him, I’d probably screw it up.

It was up to him to do it right, because the world needs that car.