For love or Jesus?

Having religious differences in a relationship is something that many people are familiar with. Some find ways to work around it, some find it a complete and utter deal-breaker. Some friends of mine got engaged last weekend, they make a fabulous couple and are very much in love, but their differing of core beliefs kinda makes me nervous. The guy in the relationship (for privacy sake, we'll call him Scott) most certainly has Jesus at the center of his heart, and his whole reality is based on a faith in the Christian God. God empowers him, challenges him, gives him a way to find all the answers he needs in life. However, his new fiancé Tracy is not exactly a polar opposite, but is very agnostic. She was raised under the Christian faith, but developed her doubts as she got old enough to make her own decisions. In fact, she and I have had many long conversations about our religious pasts because they're so similar.

I guess I have two questions: 1) Has Tracy in fact decided to fully accept Jesus into her heart and truly declare herself a Christian? 2) If not, then will Scott be able to live with the fact that his wife doesn't share in his Christian faith? No I haven't asked them these questions myself because they live in Michigan and I don't see or talk to them that often; and yes, they will probably read this blog and it will spark more long phone conversations, but I guess that's half the point :)

My grandparents are in a similar situation, except not nearly as concerning. My grandpa drives my grandma to mass every Sunday, he sits in the car and reads the paper while she holds hands with other Catholics, sings songs about God, takes communion, and professes the Creed. Neither of them seem to mind the other's position, considering they've been married for 50+ years now. I wonder if Scott and Tracy will be able to settle into such a neutral lifestyle, or if it will eventually eat away at them and the love I know they have for each other.

They've been a couple for several years now, and they've always known and talked about their differences and been very accepting of them. In this kind of relationship, in the long run, it seems that it's the more agnostic/atheist person that is less concerned about it. They seem to be of the mindset, "Sure honey, I'll go with you to church, and I'm happy you have your faith," even though they really don't have it in their heart to join them. And it always seems that it's the more religious of the two who is the most concerned about their partner not joining them in their united life in Christ. Because a Christian marriage isn't just about two people as a couple who buy a house and have kids – it's supposed to be about living a life for God and Jesus together, and teaching those ideals to your children, and those are very serious and deeply-rooted things. It's not always as simple as "Ok honey, I'm off to church, enjoy your paper while you wait in the car."

Prayers on deaf ears

Recently a close friend of mine was experiencing a matter of life and death. The suddenness by which it appeared to her and her family was only equaled by its potential for utter heartbreak. However a strange side effect happened to me that I wasn’t expecting. Someone came to me and asked that I pray for her about this situation, and since they know that I’ve been going to church weekly, they asked that I tell other people and ask them to pray about it too. It was a very dire request, and it took me off guard. This person said, very sincerely, to please ask as many people as I could to pray for our friend and her family. Which got me thinking very hard about prayer. And needless to say, I’m confused.

It’s been told to me many times that God has a plan for all of us, for the earth, for the entire universe. If this is true, then we are silly indeed if we think we can change this plan – or even more audaciously, if we think we can ask God to change his plan for us measly humans. And to me, every time I hear someone praying for something, they’re asking for something they want to happen. It’s not necessarily a selfish request; in this case, people were praying for my friend and her family to avoid deathly catastrophe. But every time, a prayer is us asking God, “Please, let this happen.” Now correct me if I’m wrong, but God already knows whether he’s going to allow someone to die or not, since we’re all living out his plan, right? So us asking him is rather futile, because whatever’s written in his plan is going to happen, no matter what. If the person lives, God didn’t really answer anybody’s prayer, because he already planned on letting that person live. And if the person dies, God didn’t ignore anyone’s prayer, because he planned on killing that person anyway. It’s almost like the prayer falls on deaf ears, because why should God care what we want, he’s the big boss with the all-knowing reasons behind everything, why on earth should he change his grand plan just because we ask him to?

And it also seems to be the belief among all peoples of faith that the sheer number of people praying for one specific thing will effect how God will answer. I think it’s already apparent that God’s going to follow his plan no matter what. So whether it’s one person or 10 million, if God wants that person to kick the bucket, there ain’t nothing we can do about it. If all 7 billion humans on earth prayed every day for 10 years for an amputee to suddenly sprout a new leg on their own, it would still never happen. And that’s a lot of prayer power right there.

If a person dies, people quickly forget that God completely ignored their earnest requests for keeping this person alive and healthy, because they immediately start praying for God to provide comfort to them and their family. When again, God already knows whether or not that’s going to happen. OR… if this person lives, people walk around wide-eyed and reverent, claiming that it was a miracle and a sign of God’s faith. God didn’t do anything different than what he already had planned, we’re just the ones going up in arms about it either way, as if we actually had something to do with it. We’re so freakin’ melodramatic.

What I’ve also been told is that God wants us to pray, because he wants us to attempt the communication with him. To keep up the personal relationship. If we were to hear God’s side of the conversation, it might be kind of heartbreakingly ironic: “Aww shucks guys, I really appreciate the communication. I still let them die anyway, but thanks for the effort!” That’s the cue for Buddy Christ to appear and give us all the thumbs up.

People's explanation for what prayer is seems to change to fit the situation. God answered your prayer because God is faithful and he answers prayers. Or he didn't answer your prayer because there must be a lesson you're supposed to learn. It's all part of God's grand plan, but let's ask for something else we want and hope God answers because he is faithful and he answers prayers. It seems strangely circular. And futile. And I don’t get it.

Will blog for food

I’m a little torn on how I feel toward homeless people. Everyone’s seen them standing at the freeway offramp, or at a stoplight on the center median, holding the stereotypical cardboard sign with some phrase describing their hardship written in a sharpie (one question always comes to mind: where did they get the sharpie?). Some are old, some surprisingly young, some have their pets with them, some have their children, some are Vietnam vets, others recently lost their jobs. However, despite their apparently destitute situation, I’m always hesitant to hand out money or sympathy whenever I see such a person.

I currently work two careers to make my living and to fuel my ambitions for a prosperous life. I’m at a desk for 50 hours a week doing commercial graphic design, and for my fine art career I probably spend another 30 hours at home painting or hustling at art events. I’m constantly up into the wee hours of the night to get my artwork done, when many times I’d much rather just go to bed. But I do what I must to progress my career(s) forward. Hell even when I was a kid, my dad and I used to collect aluminum cans in alleys, take them to the recycling center, and he'd let my brother and I have all the money that we earned. So I can’t help but feel a little resentful when I’m driving home after just having spent 10 hours in an office earning a living, and I see a perfectly healthy looking man standing on the street corner with his cardboard sign, holding his hand out. I can understand if someone has just lost their job and are having a hard time, but I know for a fact that there are a multitude of programs out there to help people off the street. Shelters where they provide you with food, clean clothes, an address so you can apply for jobs. Or if they have the drive, they can start their own career working for themselves – just as I’ve done with my fine art career. I can’t help but feel many homeless people are there because they either choose to be there, or don't fully understand how to be anywhere else.

I made this silly little chart showing what I think are different categories of one's acknowledgment of their poor situation, as well as their understanding/desire for how to get out of it.


I bring up the homeless issue on this blog because it’s always the poor and misfortunate that are the supposed to be the recipients of our charity in many religions. And I’m all for helping people on hard times get back on their feet again. Soup kitchens, unemployment programs, food stamps, shelters – to help them in their time of destitution to get back on THEIR feet. Not to sustain them indefinitely. I feel the same thing is being done when I reach into my pocket and hand someone my spare change. I’m perpetuating their lifestyle of pan-handling. I’ve seen too many immigrants come over to this country with the shirt on their back – not even speaking our language – who work their asses off and prosper very nicely. So I know it can be done.

Though I guess there may be certain incentives to a homeless lifestyle. Standing at a busy intersection all day, being passed by 20 cars a minute for 10 hours – that could be 12,000 cars. And if only 1% of them stop and give that guy $1, that guy just made $120 cash. The tax-paid equivalent of that could be $144. And he just stood there, looking unhappy. Some people sweat all day with a hammer in their hand or pushing groceries across a barcode scanner and don’t make that much. This is not to say I think at all that being homeless is an easy, lucrative lifestyle. I can only imagine the extent of disease, drugs, and prostitution that are part of that way of life. But you'd think that would be even more of an incentive to climb out.

I do feel that many sidewalk wanderers are not mentally stable. And perhaps this is what prevents them from having the drive to move out of their situation. Perhaps the sane ones in the shelters trying to clean up and get their life back together actually DO, so we don’t seem them anymore. In college I helped a friend of mine film a documentary in LA on homeless people, and we interviewed several people on the street, and then several more in a shelter. And my sentiments were pretty much dead on. The grungy people living by the dumpster at 7-11 made me feel like I was talking to a cross between Jim Carrey and Hannibal Lector, and many people in the homeless shelter were folks who had lost their jobs and their homes and were earnestly trying to get back on top of their life. But there are also great numbers of people who don't know any other way of life, so their pit of despair is invisible to them.

So all in all, I agree with what many religions say about helping the needy and the poor. And I think helping the wretched souls of the world doesn’t need to hinge on any religion, just the desire to extend a hand to those who need it. However I’m all about teaching people to fish so that if they choose, they can realize their own ocean of potential – rather than handing them anchovies the rest of their life.

My last blog post :(

Since the Rapture is happening this Saturday, May 21, and I doubt I’ll have time to write another post until then, looks like the earth will be destroyed and I won’t be around to write another blog post here. And if I survive the apocalypse, then all the Christians will have been sucked up to heaven and no one will be around to share their ideas about Christianity with me, so I’ll have nothing to write about. Or I’ll be whisked away up to heaven too and all my ponderings about God and the Universe will finally be answered. So thanks for reading, commenting, and supporting my search for the divine.

This potentially alarming (and fucking ridiculous) prediction comes from Christian radio host Harold Camping, who used his civil engineering background to feverishly compile calculations from the bible to arrive at this Saturday as the end of times. Or, as my friend Gary put it, he’s “cherry-picking random numbers from the bible, multiplying, adding, dividing, and hockey-pockey-ing them willy-nilly, until they come up with this date.” Camping claims this prediction to be 100% accurate: “I know it’s absolutely true, because the Bible is always absolutely true.” To see for yourself, here is the scientific method by which Camping predicting the date:

1. According to Camping, the number 5 equals "atonement", the number 10 equals "completeness", and the number 17 equals "heaven".
2. Christ is said to have hung on the cross on April 1, 33 AD. The time between April 1, 33 AD and April 1, 2011 is 1,978 years.
3. If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of days in a solar year, not to be confused with the lunar year), the result is 722,449.
4. The time between April 1 and May 21 is 51 days.
5. 51 added to 722,449 is 722,500.
6. (5 × 10 × 17)² or (atonement × completeness × heaven)² also equals 722,500.
Thus, Camping concludes that 5 × 10 × 17 is telling us a "story from the time Christ made payment for our sins until we're completely saved."
7. 722,500 days from Christ’s crucifixion would be this Saturday, May 21, 2011.

This prediction has become noticed by enough people around the globe to become the next official moronic prediction about the end of the world, among countless others proven to be false as the dates harmlessly came and went.

For the record, Camping self-published a book in 1992 called “1994?” in which he predicted, with 100% accuracy, the Rapture would occur in September of 1994. After that date came and went, he revised his theory by claiming to have made a mathematical error. And after that, someone else predicted the Rapture would happen on December 31, 1999, and when that didn’t happen, a bunch of other nutters predicted any number of other dates that they pulled from a large orifice on their body located between and below their hip joints.

Either that or the Rapture did actually happen on one of those dates, and, to quote Gary again, “no one noticed, because the only person who went missing was some random hermit in rural India.”

Oh and by the way, if I’m still here on Sunday, and the earth hasn’t been shaken to pieces by earthquakes, then I will be sure to write another post here soon. Whew! I knew you were scared there for a second.

The US as a Christian Nation?

It’s common these days to hear Christians proposing the idea that the United States was founded on Christian beliefs, and we are in fact a Christian nation. Rather than give my immediate opinion on this idea, I’d like to bring up the most common arguments used, and respond to them with some facts about the founding of the US and see what conclusions can be drawn.

Argument: Our nation’s motto is “In God We Trust”. It's even printed on our currency.
Response: The original motto of the US in 1776 was “E Pluribus Unum,” which is Latin for “One From Many”. It wasn’t until 1814 that Francis Scott Key first mentioned the phrase “In God We Trust” in the last (and rarely sung) stanza of what would become our national anthem. It was used on coins as early as 1864 (almost a full century after the founding of the US) and has gradually made its way onto all of our currency since. In 1956, at the height of the cold war scare and communist witch hunt, the US adopted the phrase as our national motto in order to differentiate ourselves from communism, which usually promoted Atheism. This has also had the unfortunate side effect of linking Atheism with “evil communists”, which is no more true than the Pope being Jesus reincarnate.

 You know what else is on our currency? “The Great Seal”, a very pagan symbol with a pyramid and an eye peeking out of a glowing triangle. The phrase “ANNUIT COEPTIS” appears there, which some argue is a reference to the Christian God, however the phrase is taken from Virgil's book IX of the Aeneid, "JUPPITER OMNIPOTES, AUDACIBUS ANNUE COEPTIS”, which translates as “All-powerful Jupiter favor [my] daring undertakings.” The Roman supreme god Jupiter is at the heart of this phrase, not the God of Abraham.

Argument: We are “One nation under God”, as it’s said in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Response: The original Pledge reads as follows: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

In the 1940s, a number of Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to say the Pledge at all, claiming that the pledging one’s allegiance to a flag represented idolatry. The hand-over-your-heart gesture was actually added after WWII, because the original outstretched arm solute used for the Pledge too closely resembled the Nazi salute. It wasn’t until the 1950s that “under God” was proposed, failing several times until it was brought up to the Eisenhower administration. Eisenhower, ironically enough, had just been baptized Presbyterian a year earlier, and thought it a wonderful idea. He introduced the final successful bill that added the phrase to our pledge.

Argument: Isn’t the US founded on Christianity?
Response: The 1st Amendment to the Constitution states very clearly: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Thomas Jefferson interpreted this with the explicit phrase “separation of church and state”. The word “God” does not appear anywhere in the entire US Constitution. The Declaration of Independence mentions the phrase “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God”, which in no way specifically indicates the Judeo-Christian God.

The Declaration also has the phrase “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.” The phrase “all men are created equal” is very much against literal bible doctrine, as the bible teaches from Genesis a very top-down hierarchy: God-man-woman-animal. And Catholic dogma even inserts priests between God and man. And “their Creator” does not specifically reference the Christian God, and could be interpreted as the earth, nature, one’s parents, or any thousands of other gods. And the fact that the word Creator is capitalized doesn’t indicate a deistic reference, any more than the capitalization of the words Right, Life, Liberty, and Happiness do.

Also many of our Founding Fathers were deists, freethinkers, and some even outright attackers of Christianity. Even their graves, tombs, and monuments have no references to Christianity whatsoever.

Argument: The statue of Moses outside the Supreme Court building shows that the US was founded on the 10 Commandments.
Response: The two tablets Moses holds are actually blank, and he sits next to Confucius and Solon, and this is all on the East side of the building, representing great law givers from the Eastern part of the world. On the rest of the building are 17 other notable law givers, including many notorious pagans, even Mohammed holding the K’oran. And on the actual entrance to the building is a scene of pagan figures that represent Order, Liberty, and Authority.

In fact most government buildings are designed after Roman and Greek styles, with pagan statues and references all over the place. And the statue of Moses is more reference to Judaism than Christianity, since his events took place well before Christ.

Conclusion: based on these very brief responses to common arguments, I conclude that the United States is in no way founded on Christianity. In fact it was founded with the deliberate and very specific absence of any religion for the sole purpose of preventing our government from interfering with our unalienable right to practice or not practice any religion we choose. I feel that all references to God added into our practices and doctrine are very baby steps in ultimately violating this covenant, which history has proven countless times only results in the removal of religious freedom. As counter-intuitive as it seems, keeping a 100% secular government absolutely GUARANTEES that no one at any time will EVER be able to change how you worship.

For a more detailed read on the subject, read this guy's blog on The US Not Founded on Christianity. He also has a great entry called Pagan America, which gives an overwhelming number of direct pagan references in US government. There are so many in fact that it's a wonder people don't think we're Greek, Roman, or Egyptian, or wonder why our motto isn't "In Gods We Trust."

Poor black kids

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel a weird vibe every time see happy white American folks doing mission trips to African villages and coming back with a photo album full of themselves hugging poor little black kids? It’s almost like the act itself and the visuals are of a token value. These missionaries feel so good about showing up in a foreign country, dressing the kids up in what always seem like private school uniforms, teaching them about Jesus, taking lots of happy photos, then coming home and sharing it with their church amidst crying squeals of cuteness from the congregation. It almost has the air of visiting a bunch of cute little abandoned puppies.

Or like it’s some kind of rite of passage as a Christian. You may already love Jesus, and you may help out in your local soup kitchen, but you’ve reached the ultimate state of showing God’s love when you visit Uganda and hug a village of poor black children for a month and post all the pictures on your Facebook.

I’ve never been on one of these mission trips, so I don’t know exactly what goes on over there. I don’t know the state these villages are in, nor these children, so I don’t claim to know anything about the work they’re doing there. I’m sure they provide food and medicine and clothes and hope and all that wonderful stuff. I’m just relaying the tone of the act itself as I perceive it. It seems so… stereotypical.

In America, right here within our own borders, about 50% of the impoverished and destitute people are white. They’re human beings, and they may not even be Christians yet (and hence in need of being “saved” like the African children), but they’re starving. And neglected. And maybe fatherless. And living in the same set of clothes for years at a time. And they’re not a 15 hour flight away to the Sudan. I wonder why you don’t see many Facebook photos of college students taking a mission trip to Kentucky and hugging lots of poor dirty white kids? Or what would be even more ironic, to see photos of a cleanly-dressed black man during his mission trip to Tennessee with 8 raggedy, dirty white kids grabbing on his leg and smiling.

Celebrities aren’t helping the stereotypical sense of this foreign aid either. How many African kids has Angelina Jolie adopted? Like 800? Madonna tried to start a private school for African impoverished girls (only to have the designated $3.8 million vanish into thin air, as well as the hopes for the school itself). And every time I see a gossip magazine in a grocery store checkout line, it’s Sandra Bullock and her little African adopted baby, fresh from the village with a necklace of colorful wooden beads around the boy’s neck, as if to make sure to say, “Just in case you didn’t get it, MY NEW BABY IS FROM AFRICA!” Hell, judging by the look on the baby’s face, even HE seems to be growing tired of the stereotype.

Let’s also not forget some big reasons why many countries in Africa are so freakin’ destitute and volatile to begin with. Residual effects of colonialism (usually by European countries) created many unstable tribal relationships, causing constant civil violence and unrest (anybody watch Hotel Rwanda?). The World Bank has caused much governmental restructuring by the incessant amount of loans to African countries and the financial slavery that inevitably results. And the abundantly valuable natural resources such as oil and diamonds are exploited by other wealthy nations, which drives a lot of the African working class into slave labor and war (a big reason why many including myself hate and boycott the diamond industry).

So instead of showing up to help in the African villages stamped into poverty by other parts of the world, maybe the entire world should just leave Africa alone for a few decades and let them be a nation by themselves. I think the African people are more apt to cope alone than any other country. They were, after all, the first modern humans on this planet capable of rational thought, and their ingenuities enabled them to survive the worst of odds and spread across the globe over the last 150,000 years. If they can do that, surely they can sort out their own tribal differences, establish their own sovereign forms of government, clean up their own drinking water, sell their own diamonds and maybe become a first world continent. So maybe the whole world should help by just chillin’ on Africa. Perhaps then there won’t be as many poor villages in such desperate need of happy white missionaries.

The testimony of a redeemed lesbian (oh, and drug addict)

Last week at church, we had a guest speaker come up and give her “testimony” about how God changed her life. It was relevant to the group they have called “Celebrating Recovery” that helps people break their depilating addictions: drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever. This girl looked about in her mid twenties and talked about how, since she was 13, she became involved in alcohol, drugs, and sexual promiscuity with both guys and girls. She continued to say how these things tore her life apart, she was homeless, a junkie, a miscreant, hated her life, etc. She went on a roller coaster with having God in and out of her life, until finally something clicked and her relationship with God helped her overcome her addictions and become “a fully redeemed woman through the blood of Jesus Christ.” And good for her, because she’s obviously not lying in a gutter somewhere dead, or an empty shell of a person trudging through addiction, but she’s living her life and happy and fulfilled.

However I was confused mainly about her dealings with lesbianism. She continued to relate her same-sex relationships with her falls back into her degenerate lifestyle. I agree that excessive anything can ruin your life, especially drugs of course, and even sex. But I honestly don’t think homosexuality is inherently a doorway to degeneracy. I personally don’t think they’re related at all, and I think there are equal proportions of healthy and toxic relationships among hetero- and homosexuals everywhere. Nor do I think promiscuity itself is wrong either – if people are single and consenting, go for it and enjoy yourself. It’s the addiction and abuse that are the additives for disaster.

Now of course her opinions are very biased because of her religious perspective, since the bible admonishes homosexuality and promiscuity in so many ways. She openly renounced her promiscuity along with the substance abuses, however she was rather vague on the lesbian part. She never openly renounced her homosexuality, and several questions started running through my head. She knows her own self more than anyone, so perhaps she’s accepted that she is naturally a lesbian and can’t change that. If that’s the case, then I think if she wants to adhere to Christian morality, she has two choices, both of which I feel are ultimately disastrous:

1) She can attempt to pursue a normal relationship with a man, get married, have kids, etc. But you can’t stay married to someone you’re not in love with or attracted to, and it just sounds like the breeding grounds for a fabulously dysfunctional and abusive family  – a scenario probably all too typical among closeted homosexuals trying to lead a “normal” life.

2) She can attempt to maintain a life of celibacy, which I think goes against the grains of general human nature. We are physical creatures bent on one purpose: to reproduce. Hence our inherent sexual nature that only kindles when intentionally suppressed. It’s this kind of deliberate suppression of a desire that leads to a destructive binge.

I’ve asked this question before, and always seem to get different interpretations, but I wonder if homosexuality is really supposed to be admonished by the Christian faith, any more than eating shellfish or wearing two different materials of fabric. If all sins are the same in the eyes of God, then every Christian alive today is going to hell. Unless some of those old laws don’t apply anymore, which of course is up to an individual’s own interpretation of the book they came from. I honestly think this girl should listen to her heart, embrace the fact that she wants to be in love with a woman and not a man, and find a solid relationship with a woman who empowers her. I think she can still love a woman and love Jesus at the same time, since he did, after all, make her this way right?