Penn Jillette and His Non-Belief in God

Penn Jillette said it better this morning than I could have:

"I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond Atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

"So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The Atheism part is easy.

"But, this 'This I Believe' thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, 'This I believe: I believe there is no God.'

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, 'I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.' That's just a long-winded religious way to say, 'Shut up,' or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, 'How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do.' So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

"Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

"Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have."

Check out all of the related stuff at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557.

Also, check out his (and Teller's) brilliant show, "Bullshit!" at: http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/home.do. Hilarious, refreshingly direct, and absolutely proper and needed skewering of the self-righteous, ignorant, pompous, and the downright stupid.

"Personal Prayer, Wednesdays, Noon to One"

I saw this modest little sign outside the church across the street from my bank. As I waited for the light to change, the questions started coming:

Okay, on its face it's pretty clearly a way the church, Presbylutheranian or Bapmethodicist or some such, is reaching out to folks, trying in yet another way to get them into the pews, through the doors. It's another way the church is trying to increase the foot traffic, because every good salesman knows that if you can get them in the door, they're more likely to buy. Of course, the next corollary is you never let them out the door without buying something, but following through on this maxim of sales is outside the scope of this particular little rant.

So, they want folks through the doors. What business/enterprise doesn't? But I question the time, right in the middle of the day, right in the middle of the week. First, they're losing the entire working demographic. An early morning or evening time would play to the working portion of the populace, regardless of age. It also take out any kids who might go, or who would be taken by their parents--the kids are all in school. That leaves a pretty small slice of the populace, to my mind the idle rich, the idle poor, and the elderly/retired. That time is good for them, but I don't think you're going to get much turnout from the first two groups.

And if the time has been contemplated, actually thought through, and assumption that I am making, what does it say about those who will conduct it? I mean, they spent probably $100 or more on a big custom banner to hang from the steps out in front of the church, so there had to have been some kind of formal decison process involved. Is this because the elderly/retired will be running the show? Are they opening the doors, making the lemonade and putting the cookies on the plates? What kind of staff or execution team do you really need to conduct a "personal prayer" session, after all? I'd think it would just be the pastor himself, alone, or maybe a lay minister or two to ride backup.

So the pastor sat and thought this up, or approved its execution, and the time was set. Is this the only time the pastor is available for personal prayer, for organized and dedicated personal prayer? One day a week for an hour is all this guy can do; it's all he will do? Right there I have a problem with this--the message tells me that the pastor, the guy who's in charge of the God Stuff at the particular institution, just doesn't have a lot of time to invest in personal prayer. Sure, I'm guessing he's a pretty busy guy and all, but I'd think that he be able to do a lot better than just one hour out of the 168 available in a week. You know, that's 0.6% of the available time for the pastor to conduct communication with God and the folks Up There with his parishoners, and the folks they hope to just pull off the street with this bold offer. That's not a very positive number in favor of the church's dedication to personal prayer.

And say I go in, I actually note the date and the time, I make time for the event, and I go in to partake. What exactly is it all about? I haven't gone in, so I don't know, but imagine that there would be someone in there to help moderate my praying for me/with me. Does this mean I get a hand to hold as I pray, or that someone does it for me, on my behalf? Is a prayer more powerful if two people are there? Is there some kind of boost in the signal strength to God if there is more than one person involved? And do I get special prayer message handling and routing if I've got a lay minister or the pastor himself mumbling out my pleadings along with me? This is what seems to be communicated in this event: 1) Prayer is more powerful/more effective if more than one person is doing it, and; 2) You can't really do it alone, if you want to do it properly, with a chance at being heard.

So, what I'm hearing is that if I want to pray, just kneeling by my bed in my little bedroom at home is not as good as going to church and kneeling in the pew or at the altar, and doing it in the presence of an ordained man of the cloth. So what's the point of doing it at home? Prayer or any kind of communication with God isn't right or good enough if it comes from outside the church, eh? Is there a better signal from the church, some kind of divine dampers and signal modulators that get a better beam up/down/out to where God is waiting with his celestial ham set and his Radio Shack Realistic plastic headphones?

This setup also tells me that my prayers aren't good enough on my own; I've got to have a church-guy (or even gal, but that's a whole 'nother can of ecclesiastical worms) right there with me, holding my spiritial hand, yabbering the words along with me. This setup tells me that my own prayers aren't right, aren't in the right format or don't strike the right harmonic tone with God in order for them to make it into his Holy Input Queue. My prayers aren't of the proper tone or caliber unless I have the Church Guy chiming in, right? Is it really that way, that I can't get into heaven, or at least get my message into heaven, metaphorically or in reality, without the direct intervention of a human, mortal member of the clergy? I've got to have a fully trained and vetted arbiter and assistant to make my wishes and desires valid for consumption? What's the point of even praying at all, if the only place that works is the church? Do I save it all up, to let it all come hanging out when I get to the church? Do I have to keep notes to myself so that I can remember all of the things I have to address when I get to the right place to pray, at church?

What if I'm a troop deployed out in Hells Half Acre, Iraq, and the closest Christian church is in Damascus? What am I to do then, when I really, really need to be doing some praying, and some praying that I really, really need to have the Big Man Upstairs listen to and think about, on my behalf (but then again for close to 2100 troops, and the 15,000 or so wounded, it doesn't look like any prayers are getting through).

When I was a kid, before I started to ask questions, I did the ol' kneelin' by the bed thing, my hands clasped in a perfect Magic Moments (TM) pose of childlike innocence and uncomprehending reverence, and I mumbled my rote-memorized prayers every night, right down to the "...if I die before I wake, I pray The Lord my soul to take..." (yeah, even as a kid I was most definitely cowed and had questions about someone/something taking my soul if I were to just up n' die in my sleep--great stuff to teach to kids, eh?) So, as a child, I should've been doing my praying bid'ness in the church? But how would I know that? How would I be hip to that guidance, that requirement? Am I damned and unheard in heaven because my parents wouldn't take me to church so the properly ordained arbiter could perform his prayer expediting? Am I damned because of my parents' ignorance or bold selfishness of not taking me to church for the proper procedure? Or was it because I was so young and pure and innocent that my prayers could get through?

Let's explore that last one. It seems the best answer, addressing the purity and innocence of the child with all of the best qualities of the deity. I don't know, but it seems to be the correct answer. Why damn a child, or at least ignore his/her little pleadings because of things they know nothing about, and also have no control over? Now, that just wouldn't be fair, would it? But is God fair? We're told he is, but there's more than enough evidence to show he's ruthless, capricious, and downright cruel. But, I digress.

So, if you're truly pure and innocent, you can get through, or at least have a better chance of getting through with your prayers for peace and love and better Christmas presents and the soul of your dead doggie and all of the other stuff folks pray about and for. What about a 20-year-old virgin? That's innocence and purity, sure. There aren't many, I'm sure, but there's got to be a few. What about the truly virtuous, the lifelong tea-totalers and non-smokers, who never swear and who go to church and pray and worship and give to charity and help the poor and less-fortunate, the ones who do everything the right way, who live the truly Christian life. Again, there probably aren't too many genuine examples--plenty of false and hollow ones--but they are out there, if you can find them. Do their prayers carry more weight than those of a pickpocket, or or a cop who falsified evidence to put a known criminal in jail? The scales would seem to tip in any number of directions, depending on your interpretations. The thief needs the help, so you'd think he'd go to the front of the line, assuming his mumblings were genuine and honest. The cop might be a harder sell, doing a clearly wrong thing, but for all of the right reasons, a good person doing a bad thing. He might be at the bottom of the list. But what about the Pure Christian. His/Her prayers might carry weight because of the moral authority behind them, years or decades or uninterrupted service, servitude, and unadulterated good deeds and sincere worship. That seems to make sense. But those are also the folks who likely have the least need for what The Lord, for what God is offering, redemption and salvation and help and leadership and mentoring and comfort and spiritual sustenance. The super-believer needs it the least, so why should their prayers go to the front of the queue? The most wretched and wicked needs the help more, so I'd think they'd be heard first.

But then again, The Big G, as Frank Zappa once described him, is omnipotent and omnipresent. There is no head of the line with him, no line at all. All prayers go into the Holy Hopper and are instantly processed by God. No waiting, and no stratification, right? One would have to argue this is the case. And if so, then why again do I have to go to the church down the street on WEdnesdays at noon to let my prayers out?

Once again, I have so many questions, and no amount of logic makes it clear or helps me out. And no human offers concrete answers. I ask God to come on down and help me through it, but there's no reply at all.

Intra-Christian Conversion is Okay?

I've got a buddy, whom I've known for about 10 years, and recently over lunch he told me so proudly, with a clear sense of triumph how after being a lifelong Roman Catholic he'd converted to the Russian Orthodox church. Apparently he'd had some kind of personal/organizational problem at his church, then with the diocese, which as it grew became a much larger crisis of faith, him actually questioning church doctrine and dogma. Nothing was resolved, and both sides just got more stubborn and intransigent as it went on--naturally--leaving my friend no choice but to abandon the church in which he'd grown up, gone through confirmation and first communion, had his first marriage and then finally an annulment, and all of the rest.

So where to go? This guy is an extremely dedicated religious guy, someone who takes the spiritual and mystical aspects of his faith extremely seriously. This stuff is absolutely central to who he is, and how he lives his life. This is a guy who takes huge solace in his faith, and who conceives of his personal identity in its terms. So what is a guy to do who's just gotten so pissed off at the hardheaded leaders of his Roman Catholic church that he's actually voluntarily abandoned their faith?

Well, you convert to Russian Orthodoxy, apparently. My friend went on and on, a bit much I thought, over our burritos and refried beans, about the history of Russian orthodoxy, the laydown of the priests and churches, the organization, all of it. This is a guy who'd done his ecclesiastical homework, researched his as-close-to-Catholic options, and felt he'd made the best religion purchase decision available to him, given his choices. He was very stoked about his new home, and talked about it, a lot. He was happy, and the church was happy to have pulled in a new member, especially someone who'd abandoned another branch to choose their way. His new wife was happy, and the kids were happy, too, at least they were supposed to be happy about it all, but didn't really know enough to make an informed and independent decision.

Okay, so my buddy is happy. He's resolved what clearly was for him a huge, tragic, and massive disruption to all aspects of his life and his faith. The need for this kind of stability and centering being so central to him and his entire outlook, this was something that had to be resolved, and he'd gone out and gotten it done. Okay, that's good that he's happy now, having found a new spiritual home. On the strictly personal and human level, it was a good thing that he found what he was looking for.

But the cynic and the free-thinking intellectual in me asked (of myself) this question: Did he leave the One True Religion, or did he finally make it to the One True Religion? Yeah, he's still within the larger bounds of the Holy Trinity and God and Jeezus and all of that; he's still in da house with Christianity. But that has never stopped the truly committed, the ones who are really, really down with God and Jeezus and all from criticizing other sects and branches and variations of belief. The big umbrella of Christianity, thanks to Martin Luther, has always been big enough for many, many, many committed folks to claim sole ownership, and issue condemnations and withering recriminations against all others. So, did a personal dispute which led to a voluntary withdrawal from Roman Catholicism start him on the path to damnation? Or was that God's own, special way of waking him up to the One True Faith, of getting him to leave a wrong path and step onto the true path to redemption, salvation, eternal life, and blah blah blah? And take along a mortal woman and two mortal children, unable to make the steps themselves? If the former is true, then why would God allow him to deviate, to actually leave the one true path? If the latter is true, then why aren't more people flocking to Russian Orthodoxy, regardless of their religious points of origin? Did he get saved with his move, or is he damned to hell?

Catholicism is not for me, and hasn't been since I was ten, actually going through the confirmation classes. My childhood memories of the Catholic church are about a complex series of highly choreographed words and movements. Sit, stand, sit, kneel, sit, kneel, stand, kneel, walk and kneel, stand some more, then some handshaking, all with the monotonous drone of never-changing ceremony drubbling through. So it was I landed in confirmation. Then I started asking my own questions of the priests. They'd been through all of this youthful inquisitiveness before, and had their stock answers, but I just kept asking questions, kept questioning their answers, kept at it: If Adam and Eve were the first humans, then aren't we all the descendants of incest? If that's the case, then God thought incest was okay, and condoned it, so why is it wrong now, why does the church condemn it when God forced it to occur with his actions in the first place? If Adam and Eve were the first humans, then why are their Australian aborigines and black Africans and Aleut Indians and all of the other cultural, societal, and racial differences in the world? I mean, a mere 6000 years of human history couldn't possibly account for that kind of wide species differentiation (I wasn't using these terms, of course). If Moses and his family were the only survivors of the great flood, then aren't we all--once again--the genetic products of incest? If Jeezus rose from the dead, what did he do in that period when he was re-alive and his ascension to heaven? Why is there no record of that? Are Buddhists and Muslims and Daoists and Rastafarians and all of the rest automatically condemned because they're not Catholic/Christian, and if so, why would God allow this to happen to them? If God cares so much about me, why won't he talk to ME? And on it on it went.

I had a million of these, and just kept asking. Finally, the main priest said, pulling me aside and talking to me in his best man-to-man, sighing in his most controlled exasperation, "You've just got to believe, you've got to have faith." That was his endgame, and he never had any more answers, or attempted any more answers for me. I was a 10-year-old asking what I thought were important questions, questions that were important to me then and still, questions that I'd never really stopped to think had been asked millions of times before. But for me they were new, and they just kept coming. The priest told me to just memorize the confession of faith, say all of the prescribed words when I was told to, what to do and not to do during the communion, and I'd be fine. His message was a cooperate-and-graduate one, and even at age 10 I knew he was putting me off. He didn't want to take the time to answer my questions or discuss any of this with me, but just wanted another warm body in the pew. All I had to do was yammer out the doctrine, and as far as he was concerned I'd be a good Catholic. Just give in to the conditioning, and you'll ease right on into being a good Catholic, like so many untold millions before. Even at 10 I could see I was being put off and relegated and that the priest's words and actions did not match up with what had been put out in church about love, acceptance, how much everyone cared for and about me. This was my first encounter with corporate hypocrisy, although I didn't know the word at the time. I was being told to just shut up and do what I was told, and the tacit message was to stop asking questions.

At age 10 I came to a conclusion: there were two possible answers. First, there were no good answers to the questions I was asking, and I was being told to just shut up. That didn't give me too much faith in the church, and it certainly didn't convince me that was where I wanted to spend a lifetime of Sundays. Second, there were answers to the questions I was asking, but no one involved wanted to take the time to provide them. They were either very complex or something else, but for whatever unknown reason I was not being provided with the information I was honestly and sincerely seeking. Again, that didn't place the Catholic church too well with me. After all, this was about making a life choice, about formally accepting a religious faith as your one-and-only, about taking it all in, accepting it, giving onself up to the faith and the deities, the whole package. This was something important--that's what the priests and the parents were hammering into us--yet none of them were willing to take the time to sit me down and go through all of my questions with me. Either I or my questions were not important enough, and I was being pushed aside and put off. That didn't place the Catholic church too well with me either.

I went home and talked to my dad about this, told him I wanted out of confirmation. I went through all of my questions and thoughts and concerns, all of the observations I'd made, all of the things that I saw and heard which led me to question what I was being told. All of my friends were doing it, and they ended up finishing, but this was definitely not a peer pressure issue. I told him I didn't want any of it, that I truly didn't believe, and that the priest has not helped me at all. And God bless my dad, a lifelong Irish Catholic, he listened to me, paid attention to me, we talked one on one together, and he agreed with me.

So, a highly structured religious organization such as Catholicism was and is not the thing for me. And what I know of Russian Orthodoxy, I can say that this one also is not my religious cup of tea. Way too much structure, rigidity, doctrine and dogma. But it is for my buddy, and he's happy where he is. Regardless of all my ranting and questions, this is undeniably a fantastic thing for my friend. He's happy with where he is and what he's doing, so that's a good thing, no matter where you come down.

So, is this not a manifestation of God's will? Does it not please the Supreme Being that one of his children has had a crisis, has sought release and relief and refuge, and has found it, regardless of the final resting point? Isn't that what the larger God Concept is about, finding one's way and achieving peace and happiness? That sounds like the desired endstate of most religions to me. So is he okay that he went from one to the other, and is happy now with where he's landed?

But I can't help but wonder if he's saved himself or condemned himself, and how in the world any of us are to know if these choices are right or wrong. I'm still waiting for the priest to answer this question.

God, the Absent Father

As I drive I'll often hit the scan button, for that mindless yet moderately entertaining roulette of what the airwaves will randomly deliver. Usually I'm just looking for some music that I haven't heard 18,000 times already--thanks, classic rock and oldies whatever--and usually I'm disappointed. Nothing but commercials, that and what Clear Channel and the other mega-media conglomerates have determined to be my optimal musical listening range. Can't wait to get that XM into the new car and be free of these bastards.

And so it was on the way to work the other day the dial stopped at one of the FM Jeezus channels. Now, a quick aside: How is it that within the last five years or so all of these Jeezus channels have popped up on the FM band? It's not like fidelity, stereo separation, and sound quality are primary concerns of the average Jeezus listener, given the fact that the shitty church acoustics and paternalistic drone of the inevitably male speaker give away the program instantly. So, it's not hi-fi or channel separation. Me, it looks an awful lot like each market has got a Jeezus station or two or five--four in my metropolitan market--that are either one or two digital clicks away from the most popular stations, and those stations that are most in the need of dramatic, high-contrast, good-and-evil differentiation. Amazing it is that there's a Jeezus station right next to the only classic rock station in our local marke. And there's another Jeezus station about .5 Mhz away from the cluster of vile secular humanist public radio stations down at the low end of the dial. And another up at the far end, where the popular shock jocks and all the news stations live.

Me, I see the right-wing neo-con fundamentalist shadow government at work here. These are the folks who want to remake the USofA in their own Christian image, and are very determinedly and doggedly and highly orginzationally doing just that. They've got vision and organization and money, and they're making it happen, while we atheists just sit around and observe and complain. They're slowly crowding out what they don't like, and when that doesn't work quickly, they're coming at it from the side, right next door, offering that contrasting message, lurking--wow, just as a pedophile would do--right where they know their target folks will be going for something other than what they are offering. When they succeed in changing the Constitution to declare the USA a Christian Nation and the national re-education camps start going up and the forcible conversions and deportations begin as the introduction to the full-on Christianization of America, that's the day I burn my IDs, erase my fingerprints, and go underground to start burning down churches. Beware, folks, because that's just what these self-righteous, intolerant, racist, and absolutely, totall, fully committed motherfuckers want to do, and anyone who doesn't agree with them is a mortal enemy. After all, eternal life and salvation is at stake, and they're all so afraid of what they've done--and not done--in their lives that life after death is scaring the living shit out of them.

But I digress.

So, my radio hops to a spot, and up pops my 7-second preview of the station. And it's a Jeezus station. I stop the dial and listen a bit, just so I can hear what kind of slanted, factually incorrect garbage they're slinging to their intentionally ignorant demographic today. And that day it was an alleged panel of three (obviously white) men, all learned, all talking about taking God and Jeezus and all of that stuff into your life, and how the Bible is the word of God and all of that rigid, unthinking and unquestioning dogma. Can't ask questions, because none of us are smart enough. Can't ask questions because none of us are important enough for God to answer. He's too busy to bother with mere individual mortals. But wait, if he's omnipotent, it would be a cosmic blink to manifest for every single mortal and answer a question or two, to appear and show the robes and the beard, see the Heavenly Host. If he's all that, and that's what we're told, it would be a piece of cosmic cake to pop in and out of mortal lives to reinvigorate the belief system. And if we're not important enough, then who is? Why am I not important enough? I'm the guy who doesn't believe; I'm the guy who needs it most. If God and Jeezus and everyone else up there are so into me, as we're constantly told, then why am I not important enough for a manifestation? Why do the biggies in the church get the attention? Why does the Pope get to be the representative on Earth? He's just a man, like me, after all.

And then came the bit that really snagged me. One of the smart Jeezus guys shifted the conversation to note that all of the major atheists in history, and he rattled off Marx and Stalin and Lenin and Napoleon and Freud and Mao and Hugh Hefner had all had self-admitted horrible relationships with their fathers. First, I noticed that all of the names that he mentioned were easily dislikable. The vast majority were immediately recognized commies, the perfect demographic for America Heartland to sink its hate right into instantly, without question, hesitation, or any form of questioning (although Marx was primarily a socialist economist, but who the hell knows that?). And Napoleon was Frech, more instant hatred. And Freud was a Jew, and one who experimented with and explored the workings of the mind, the imagined, and the hidden. What better kind of guy to focus some hate upon? I mean, just check out this hateful, twisted offering, just the kind of stuff these guys were playing to: http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-mindcontrol-freudianism-oxford.html. And of course, the last example is Hugh Hefner, the father of American pornography. Yeah, the guy is a sad and sorry doddering old man now, but he's the guy who opened up New Frontier America to women without the constriction of their clothing. Never mind that Playboy and its business operation have always been and remain rather tame and tasteful, given what's on offer out there now. The Jeezus guys couldn't mention Larry Flynt or much more aggressive and graphic other industry names, as those would be lost on the mainstream listener.

So, said Smart Jeezus Learned Guy, what was true to see from his study was that their failure to have a relationship of care and love and respect with their own fathers was why they could not conceive of and open themselves up to the father-son, father-child relationship that is required for believe in God. Strongly implied was that the reason they had gone on to be such ugly, hateful, harmful national and international icons of everything anti-Christian was because of this. Because they had no experience in a positive paternal relationship, then they had no context in which to embrace the proper (Christian) relationship with God.

Goddamn that was some clever stuff! It smacked me right between the eyes, a holy and sanctified two-by-four--bam!--right in the forehead. So, since I'm an atheist, by their definition my relationship with my father is broken, incorrect, wrong, and not what it should be, nor has it ever been. Of course, the Jeezus guy's argument also implicates my father in my failure, a cheap shot if you ask me. The simple brilliance of the reflexivity of the argument just floored me: atheists have shitty father-son relationships, so have no basis from which to build the correct person-God paternal relationship. So, as an atheist, I would have to have a bad relationship with my father. How brilliant is that? I have to admit I gained right then and there some respect for the guy who thought this up, yet another ostensibly deep and learned and academic argument for why those who can't and won't and don't believe are bad people, wrong people, broken and abused and emotionally stunted people.

And then I got pissed. Who is this sonofabitch to speak of my relationship with my father? He doesn't even know me, but is passing his own remote judgment, informed by his unwavering faith in something that doesn't exist. No, wait, that's exactly what these folks do anyway, all of the time, so why should I get upset at yet another Christian judgment upon me and my life and my character? Whatever. Same argument and problem, same hollow self-righteousness.

But wait. Let's look at the father-son/God-believer schema once more. So what is the nature of my relationship with God? When has he been there for me? When I've asked for help--with homework, with girls, with revenge and anger, with a broken-down car, and in genuine absolute terror a couple of times in my life--where has he been? I've genuinely needed him and wanted him and asked for his presence and counsel, but he's not been there for me. He's been an absent Father. I've sat and worked through this, a lot, and have asked him to come to me and help me sort it out, one on one, father and son. My dad did this for me when I was small and I asked him for his help. My dad was there for me in Cub Scouts and baseball and football and all the other sports. My dad helped me with my homework, and kicked my ass (emotionally and physically) when I needed it and deserved it for all of the stupid things I did. God has never done any of that for me. God has never punished me, nor has he rewarded me. God has never told me he's proud of me, or has reached down to give me some extra allowance. God has never held open his arms and given me a hug and told me he loves me, and as much as I rail and bitch and curse these motherfucking self-righteous Christian evangelists, I've asked and asked and asked him to come on down and do that. God has never told me that he's happy to see me again and happy to see that I'm happy too. All I'm offered is ignorant, self-important, intolerant, racist, close-minded fools who has appointed themselves as arbiters of the faith, who have appointed themselves interpreters of meaning and value, and use their time to pass judgment upon others. They've appointed themselves as gatekeepers and arbiters and obstacles between me and God, people with whom I have to negotiate and with whom I have to agree before they grant me the access that they control. I don't need or want them, just as I never needed a counselor or other representative to sit and talk things out with my own dad. I want to talk to my Cosmic Dad, and have told him this, a lot. And he's never home. I don't know if he's run off, found someone he likes better or can't handle being responsible for me, but if we're using the father-son relationship here, then I've been abandoned. I've wanted the relationship, I've never wanted it more than now, but he's not there, and never has been.

Beware, those of you out there who have the free minds and courage to question what you hear and what you are told, those of you who ask about the nature of faith and ask for proof. Keep doing it, keep up your courage. And don't let these pompous Christian fools bring you down. You're not alone in your doubt.