tjtoaster's blog: "Losing my religion"

People have been bugging me to finally write this down so here goes. None of the religions out there are working for me, so I have decided to start my own. Feel free to convert, since you are getting in on the ground floor, you have to bring your own pillows. Basis of faith: This is simple, to join you have to already be familiar with some theology. Everyone has to bring their holy book and we start from there. Our faith is in the blind men and the elephant vein. (See previous blogs for full description)We are all praying to the same God, but our limited, human minds can only see one portion of the totality that is God. Hopefully, together we can get a better picture. This is not just a One God theory, but SAME God theory. Why is it on the news whenever they talk about the leader of Israel they use the word “prime minister’? That is an English word, I doubt they use the same word over there. It is because they are translating the word into something the viewer can understand. That is how religion works, faith was given to people in a way they understood. If you talked to a person from the Midwest and someone from the Middle Easy, you would talk to them differently because they are from different cultures. That explains some differences between theologies. We need to open discussion to see how these religions can be understood in a modern time and our current culture. Ritual: Honestly, current religions are too tied to traditions and rituals. I am not saying that ritual isn’t important, but when it gets to the point that you do it so often that it loses meaning, what is the point? People go to mass or temple and do rituals that they have no idea why. The person up front says to do something and they do it. I don’t believe that God listens to some people more because they sing, or listen to someone else because they kneel reverently for half the hour. In my religion, there will be rituals and they will make sense. It won’t be the same exact ones every time so that it becomes automatic, we are going to mix it up. I want when one of the rituals comes up you think, “Awesome, I love doing this one.” One such ritual will be smacking someone with your pillow. When a certain bell is rung, selected individuals get to smack someone with their pillow. You can’t tell me you won’t show up to service if you get a call the night before and are told that when the third time the bell rings you get to haul off and hit someone with your pillow. Service: Call it service, mass, or temple, whatever you call it this is building where we meet. The main floor will be open with pillows littering the floor. Along the outside wall will be couches and benches for people to sit. There will be chairs since some people like to have that arm rest divider between other people. The important thing is that people be comfortable. The only thing we ask is that you don’t make too much noise with the bean bag chairs. There will not be a podium where the spiritual leader (me at first, but others later) talks down at the masses. If you pictures a current church, think of an open floor with seating along the sides, and the service leader sitting on the steps. God is everywhere and has seen you naked, why are you dressing up to go worship? Show up in your PJs, I plan on it. Why would anyone wear a suit and tie to talk to God? We can be informal here. Now if you are one of those people that wear a tie to bed, feel free to dress comfortably, but it is in no way required. Services will be a relaxed setting, we are coming together because we want to, not because we feel we have to. While it seems like you get to show up in PJs and lounge around on pillows there will be pretty heady topics discussed. We will be delving deep into spirituality and religion. I think a relaxed, comfortable setting will lend to that better. Contact is not just allowed, but encouraged. Not in a weird creepy way, but if you are with a spouse or significant other, feel free to hold their hand or stroke their back. This is a place where we are expressing our love for God and fellow man (or fellow humans for your PC fuckos.) However, please keep full body massages to the corners. While kissing is okay, making out is a little excessive, this is informal, but not that informal. Guiding rules: Yes, there are rules because without rules you have anarchy. While I am okay with a little chaos to mix up the order, you can’t have a system based on anarchy. Every religion has rules whether it is 10 commandments, 5 pillars or whatever. Here are mine 1. Be good to yourself 2. Be good to other people 3. Respect me as your Lord That is it. Everything can be broken down into those three simple rules. And the “respect me as your Lord” doesn’t mean ME specifically, it means God for those of you who think my ego is that big. Those are the rules in a nutshell. Thou shall not steal, thou shall not kill, those fall under “Be good to other people.” See how easy it is? Just be good to other people and they will be good to you. There is a reason that “Be good to yourself” is first. You can’t be good to other people if you are not good to yourself first. You have to love yourself before you can truly love other people. If you don’t respect yourself, no one will respect you for you. This is a lot to take in, so I will not give you the big points in the religion. Those may blow your mind, but here is what is important so pay very close attention. God wants you to be happy. I will say that again for the cheap seats, God wants you to be HAPPY. Life is not supposed to be spent feeling guilty and miserable, you only get limited time on this planet/plane of existence/whatever you are supposed to make the most of it. Life spans are limited so that we appreciate the time we have. If you are not living your life to the fullest, you are going against God’s plan. Experience is what is important, not money. The guy making six figures but never enjoys it is far worse off that the barista who saves up her money and travels the world. At the end of your life, if you don’t have stories, you are wrong. And if your stories are, “Well this one girl kissed one of the guys at work, while she was still sleeping with some other guy from work on the side.” Seriously, those are not life experience stories, that is injected drama. Know the difference. And if your stories all start with, “I was so wasted…” Unless you have many stories and can put a different country right after that, you are living wrong. Be good to yourself, live well, enjoy your life. That is God’s plan. However you should not live in a way that hurts other people. Don’t forget, you also have to be good to other people. Sins: Yes there are sins, but sins are more intent than action. If you steal a loaf of bread to feed your family that is one thing, stealing car stereos because you don’t want to make an honest living; that is a sin. Intent, not action. Sex is not sinful. Again I repeat for emphasis, the ACT of sex is not sinful. The intent can be. If a person (male or female) just goes looking for sex with any willing warm body that is a sin. That violates “Be good to yourself.” However, if you meet someone and have a real connection should it matter if it the first date or the 20th? Be good to yourself, and be good to other people, that should guide that. If you, or the person you want to be with wants to wait until marriage, then you wait. That will be in line with the top two rules. Also remember that everyone joins the religion from another faith so if that is their following, we do not try to make people stray from the path they are on. The purpose of the religion is to show you how wide your path really is. The seven deadly sins are not sins. Most things are not inherently sinful, unless taken to excess. You should love food, you should enjoy eating, but when taken to excess it becomes gluttony. Lust is not a bad thing per se, you should feel lustful for your spouse of 15 years. That doesn’t mean sleep with anyone who lets you, that would be sinful, but lusting after the one you love who loves you back is not a bad thing. Greed, wrath, they all have their place. You should want stuff, you should want to work to get that stuff, just excessive greed is bad. We need wrath, can anyone imagine if post 9/11 we just said, “Turn the other cheek” or “love thy neighbor”? There are times when you should want a little payback. Terrorist bomb and embassy, we should kill them, but not kill everyone like them, just the ones guilty. Muslims are not bad, Muslim extremists are, just like Christian extremists. The KKK is just as bad as some of the other terrorists groups, they just work on a much smaller scale. How is taking a day off a bad thing? Why is taking it easy wrong? In my religion, the services are based on sloth, so how can it be sinful? Spending all day in your jammies watching TV is not bad. When you do that for a couple months straight, you are not living. If you are not living, you are not being good to yourself, and therefore going against God’s plan which violates rules one and three of my religion. Moderation is the key, not just in life, but in my religion. Final thoughts: So what is it called? It is MY religion. Not just mine, but your religion as well. When someone asks you what your beliefs are, just say, “I have ‘my’ beliefs.” When asked what church you go to say, “I go to ‘my’ church.” Religion is individual, just like your relationship with God. And that is the entire point of this religion. To help you develop your own personal relationship with God. Don’t agree with what I am saying during service, that is fine, those are just MY beliefs, you are supposed to find your own. This is faith based, meaning you should not believe just what you are told to. You have to listen to what people say and think about it. Then listen to your own faith and see what you believe deep down. Please do not bring your agnostic/atheist “logical” arguments. Everyone knows them and we are tired of hearing about them. I know that some people have given agnostics and atheists a lot of grief for their lack of belief and they lash out at those who believe with the same lame arguments. If you have no belief, don’t show. If you do, you will always be welcome. And if you already believe something but have questions, feel free to join us. If later you decide to return or find another church, please feel free to continue on your individual spiritual path. I was able to make my first conversion when I assured her that women would not be required to sleep with me. This isn’t a cult. She lives in Canada, so technically this is already an international church. Now you can say, “My church is international.” If you are interested, we need to find a place to meet. Grab a pillow and join me on this spiritual journey.

Don’t think that only agnostics are going to take a hit, I am going after everyone on this one. We are going to break down my problems with all religions. Jehovah’s Witness will be first. They don’t celebrate Christmas, birthdays or any other holiday. Passover is a huge blowout from what I hear though. As far as I am concerned, that is their business. I know as a kid it might suck not to get presents when all your friends do, but it must suck to be Amish from an outsider’s point of view as well. You should be able to practice your religion however you want so I have no issue with their take on holidays. It is all about religious freedom. However, their belief that the world has only been around 5,000 years and change is my big problem with them. How can you have a belief that science blatantly disproves? You can say that God created this rock already 50 million years old, but explain fossils, why would God create something that immediately disproves the belief system? Why would God create the remains of dinosaurs that never actually existed? Now everyone is going to feel really silly if some scientist comes out and says that they forgot to carry the nine with the carbon dating machine and the earth is much younger than previously thought. Until then, I have an issue with the religion. I would have no problem if they said, “With current technology we see that the planet is older than what was originally preached, however the rest of our beliefs hold firm.” I will even take a shot at Catholics, they are too ritualized. They don’t speak as much Latin in mass as they used to, but still. I feel like I can lump most Christians in one group in the theory that they need to reexamine some of the lessons they have been preaching. Some rules are two thousand years old and just not current. It is a different world. Not that I think they should rap in church or dispel the ten commandants, but let us just take a minute to look at the bible with fresh eyes. I picked it back up and feel like I am getting a much different lesson than what I was taught in church. My Islamic friends, first you need to get your own shit straight before you move on. This whole Shiite/Sunni thing has got to end. I think the most respected learned men in the Islamic world should go on the Hajj together and at the end sit down with their respective Korans. If they are not all identical, they need to get off their high horse about how the Koran is the direct words of Allah. It might have originally been written down my Mohammad, but when the printing press was invented you introduce an error possibility. I think that it should be an Islamic council that goes around dismantling the extremist madrasses (sp?) and correcting what they are teaching. Don’t think Mormons are going to escape my sights, there is an LDS friend that I speak to and we have really good conversations. I take issue with the fact that the LDS church didn’t allow blacks into the priesthood until seven years after civil rights. SEVEN years!!! And I just don’t believe that suddenly it occurred to the head of the church to allow black into the priesthood. There is no way it went on for years without someone raising the question. There is a lack of accountability in that decision for me. How I have seen others brush aside the issue bothers me. It is like some of them think their farts don’t stink. I also don’t agree that 12 men (even if they do pray on it) get to decide who is going to be a prophet. If it was a real search for a prophet, they would be scouring everywhere looking for signs of who God has selected to be His prophet. Like the way the Buddhists do for their own holy men. As for the Jewish, give up on the messiah, you missed that boat. I am not saying that you missed the Jesus boat; you missed the boat on any Savior. If someone in today’s day and age turned out to be sent from heaven either we would have him locked up or the government would be trying to lock them up. Sorry, it is too late for saviors. Everyone is right, everyone is wrong. No religion has it all the way right, and the people that do think that are farther from the truth then they think they are. It is like the more right you believe yourself to be, the more wrong you actually are. This brings us to agnostics, they bug me the most. It isn’t the whole, “I believe, I just don’t believe in any of the established religions,” crap they spout. Most agnostics will admit they have a belief in God, but none I know are actually doing any kind of religious exploration. I used to talk to this one guy about it; he has all the nonbeliever logical arguments against organized religion but no actual belief. I would ask him what it he believes and he would tell me how he disagrees with what the Catholics say about this and that. Each time I would have to tell him I didn’t ask what he doesn’t believe, but what he DOES believe. He never had an answer and he wasn’t looking. I know some agnostics that can talk about some passages in the bible but don’t know much past that. Yet they will base their entire arguments off what limited knowledge they have. Which is pretty much what the Christian fundamentalists do too, just on the opposite side of the argument. Atheists I get though. They don’t believe and I can’t fault that. If you don’t believe that is cool, just don’t give me crap about the fact I do. The one issue I do have with atheists is the ones who live mediocre lives. If there is no afterlife, and this is all there is, why aren’t you living life to the fullest? Why are you living in your crappy town, working your crappy job? Move to Paris for a year, get out there and live the best life, full of experiences because once the lights go out, that is it. So that is today’s rant, not too mean spirited, just what has been floating around in my head. Before you send me a messed up comment, know that I pulled some punches and if you post stupid comments you agree that I get to unload with both barrels on you. Your comment is consent to make you look stupid and make you cry. Any intelligent and respectful comment will be fully considered of course. Have a good one, and may you be as blessed as I have been, no matter what you believe. Because when it comes down to it fate, luck, karma, God, if they exist, they exist whether you believe or not.

I admit I am in new territory this week, and I must say I am very disappointed in you people. A couple blogs ago I mentioned that I didn’t remember the passage in the bible that says that being gay is a sin. None of you told me, so I am disappointed in you. Someone told me a couple months ago in a discussion, but I didn’t write it down. I had to find out another way, so you people let me down. “You shall not lie down with a man as with a woman, it is an abomination.” That is the quote from the bible. When I was told it, I first said that I needed to see it in context. I am a pretty decisive guy in action, but when it comes to cerebral pursuits I prefer to get all the info before making a decision. So I read the passage and the ones around it and then I let it sit in my head for a couple days. I don’t live in a black and white world, so this wasn’t a simple black or white issue for me. After letting it settle in my head for a couple days, here is what I have come up with. First let’s have fun with the “rules.” The loop hole arguments: re-read the quote. Somehow I don’t think most of you did. I will bet that no one read that it basically says that lesbians are in the clear. If a woman lies down with another woman, she is in the clear. These are pretty specific and if God didn’t see fit to say that women can’t lie with women, who am I to question it? The only thing it says is that women can’t present herself to animals to mate with them. While it does say that men can’t lie with women while on her period, it seems that it is only wrong for the man, but doesn’t say it is a sin for the woman. Also threesomes aren’t forbidden as long as it isn’t a mother and daughter together. There are a few more digressions, but there is no need to be crude, or intentionally offensive. Here is the ultimate loophole, what if you aren’t Jewish? These were rules given to the Israelites from Moses, so unless you are an Israelite you are in the clear. Now we can say that the Old Testament applies to everyone, but if Christians can eat bacon, then not all of God’s Commandments transfer over. Also no one else has to observe Passover, so if every non-Jewish practitioner is sinful for not observing Passover, what is one more sin? Maybe it is only a sin if you are Jewish. Just a thought. Now for my personal thoughts, while the above is entertaining, here is what has been going through my head the last couple days. I have an unshakable faith in God. God exists and loves us as his children. I believe that, I believe in an all knowing, all powerful and mostly and all loving God. And I have taken a few days to think about this. One thing that annoys me is how some people take one thing about anything complex and make that the basis of their entire argument. The bible is almost 900 pages, I am not going ot let one sentence dictate my entire belief system. But here I read in clear black and white what many say is proof that homosexuality is a sin. If we use the assumption that the bible has been altered or influenced by man, then who cares about one sentence? However, if we act under the presumption that the bible is truth, and that Leviticus 18:22 is the word of God this brings us to a different situation. I believe in God and I love the God that has blessed me with so much. I don’t make a big deal about my spiritual beliefs because I think that they are personal. But for this blog I think it is important that I state my beliefs so you know how serious I am and how serious of a thing this was for me. So you have to understand that what I am about to say I do not say lightly. Regardless of what the bible says, regardless of bullshit loophole arguments, if God truly does think that homosexuality is an abomination, then I respectfully disagree. I got in a heated argument with my Battalion Chaplain over ten years ago about this issue and I have not changed my position. Some of you will laugh at this, someone said I was open minded last week. I had to correct them, I am not open minded, in this issue I admit I am not too much open to changing my mind. Even in the face of God. Homosexuality is not an abomination, and the all loving God I believe in doesn’t think so either. If you got a problem with that, bring it on.

Has anyone heard the fable of the blind men and the elephant? Blind men are asked to describe an elephant, one feels the body and says, “An elephant is wide like a wall.” Another feels a leg and says, “No, an elephant is round like a tree trunk.” Still another feels the ears and the last feels the trunk. “Elephant is wide and flat.” “No an elephant is like a snake.” So each one is correct from their own perspective, but they are missing the full picture. Even if you put them together it still wouldn’t equal an elephant. Try to draw a wall, a tree trunk, a large flat pancake and a snake. If you connected those images you would have a messed up picture. Now what if you had a bunch of blind men? Now you have a bunch describing legs, but is that the same leg, or different legs? Or what if each blind man felt more than one part? Without someone sighted to track their progress you might end up with multiple descriptions of the legs. How would you draw a six legged elephant? What if they gave descriptions of four legs, but all they had felt were the two front legs? What about if they missed something, like the tail? This is how I see religion, the totality of God the creator is so vast, our limited human minds cannot conceive it all. Our minds have a hard time wrapping itself around the size and complexity of the cosmos. It is said that our brains can conceive of the universe, even the multi-verse, but not the Omni-verse. (I don’t have the time to get into it right now, sorry) If we can’t understand that, how can we understand everything about God? It seems that people of science like to rely on science for answers, and people of faith use religion. The reasons why are as individual as the person, what I don’t understand is why they can’t get the two ideas together. It is like my cupcake theory, most people laugh, but it makes some sense. I walk into the room holding a cupcake and say, “Look at what I have created!” Most people at that moment say that I didn’t make it out of thin air. And my answer is, “Prove it.” Since you were not there at the moment of the cupcake creation, you can’t prove that I didn’t create it, and the cupcake in my hand is proof of the creation. You can’t dispute the cupcake exists, so I must have created it. That is the impasse that I see religion and science at. Science knows the process of creating cupcakes, they can narrow down the ingredients, know how those ingredients work together (eggs are the binding agent, without them cakes crumble) and determine through trial and error the complete process of mixing and heating to make a cupcake. Even if I used a process, didn’t I still create? Were there no cupcakes before me? Of course I can only make cupcakes, as much as I like myself, I am not a God. But this does demonstrate that it is possible to “create” utilizing a “process.” God snaps His fingers creating a big bang. Then stirs the cosmos, mixing ingredients and adding a touch of heat. With a little push, there is life on one tiny blue orb. I had a discussion with a guy about how we are too complex to be created. (Some would say we are too complex to be an accident) and he had a good logical argument about the odds of life and some other stuff. Here is how I see it. If I had several HUGE bundles, one each of cupcake pans, cupcake paper inserts, cake mix, oil and eggs. Each one had explosives in the center and detonated them all at the same time. Or I had multiple bundles and had some detonate at different times. If we had an infinite number of each, would we at some point get edible cupcakes? You can work out the math, but there has to be a number of cupcake pans that would survive the explosion, some papers would have to land in some of them (of course some oil could line the inside and still a decent product) in the air the mix, eggs and oil would combine and land in a good pan. If we took the pans and baked them, there would have to be edible cupcakes in some of them. Of course this is a hypothetical, given the infinite scale, however it is an interesting thought. What I try to illustrate is this: Isn’t it possible that science is able to explain how God created the universe? Maybe they aren’t two separate things. I have been reading the bible and the more I read, the more I see how some religions are off base. What they preach isn’t in the bible, or is a poor translation of it. For example God didn’t destroy Sodom and Gomorra, and is for sure wasn’t over homosexuality. Did that twist your noodle a little? Good, now pay attention because I am going to kick you some knowledge. Three men approach Abraham and he makes them his guest. One of them is God and he talks of the wickedness of the two cities. He pledges not to destroy them until after he has seen this for himself. Abraham asks in the most humble way possible that if God can find 50 good people in Sodom if he will spare the whole city, and God agrees. To shorten the story, Abraham is able to get that number down to 10. (Remember that because it is important.) God stays with Abraham while the other two men (angels) go into the city to see for themselves. (Another important fact.) Lot takes the two men in as his guests and insists that they stay with him and not in the city square where they want to sleep so they can better observe the people of the city. Here is where it takes a bad turn. Men in the city come to Lot’s door and demands that he bring the strangers out so they can have sex with them. Now I can see how the shortsighted would think, “that means gay is bad” but if you think about it, that isn’t the case. You don’t destroy a city because a couple gay dudes knock on your door, it is because the society is so bad that this kind of behavior is allowed. Let’s say some people visit friends in a small town. How wrong must the people in that town be to allow its citizens to go to the host’s house and insist on being allowed to rape the visitors (no matter if they are male or female.) The fact that behavior was so accepted in that city proves how depraved the society was. The angels protected Lot by pulling him back into the house and blinded the men so they couldn’t find their way in and said that they were going to destroy the city. (Almost seems like self defense.) Lot went to his friends and family and said that they needed to leave with him. They declined, had they left they would have lived. Here is one of your points to remember, had they not been attacked, the angels would have met Lot’s extended family and found at least 10 good people. That would have saved the city according to God’s deal with Abraham. Lot fled with his wife and two daughters, he was told to flee to the mountains. Lot asked if he could hide out in a village which was much closer. He might have done it because he was tired, or just lazy. I like to think that he did it to protect the village from being destroyed. There was going to be a lot of death and destruction raining down from the heavens. All they had to do at that point is not look back. Was Lot’s wife turned to salt because she took a quick glance back, or did she linger to watch too close to Ground Zero? Either way, stupidity is terminal, and when agents of God tell you to run, you run! One more thing to point out is that God saw that his agreement with Abraham was not met. What does this mean? God didn’t destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorra, and they were not destroyed for having gays there. It was the society that was wicked, not the sexual orientation of some of the citizens. Don’t believe me, check it out for yourself. Too many people are arguing the wrong things about the bible, get the facts first. Someone did tell me the passage in the bible that is supposed to say that homosexuality is wrong. I didn’t write it down, but they quoted one line. I need to see it in context, if anyone knows the passage, can you send it to me? I have droned on long enough, what it all comes down to is that we all get only one part of the whole picture. Often people have bad information or haven’t actually looked at the information. How many people think that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorra? Oh and by the way, I haven’t embraced any new faith. My beliefs are the same, I just decided that I was ready to see for myself what was really said and I have the ability to think for myself and not just go off of what someone else tells me. That is what works for me, I’ll explain my spiritual beliefs in another blog if anyone cares. Thanks for actually reading this all the way to the end. I know it was a long one. Feel free to comment. I am open to other opinions and ways of thinking, provided they are actually an exchange of ideas. Anything stupid will be deleted.