Yoda Eat Your Heart Out

Perfect faith is for perfect people,
the ultimate snake oil fantasy
teaching us only disappointment in our quest
for something more.
Do or do not do?
Please.
We are all only constantly trying,
with the crushing weight of possibility
ahead of us
and the achievements and failures in our past spurring us
onward
to embrace what is and imagine what might be
to believe,
imperfectly,
in our own fragile strength
to live with grace and to fall with dignity.
It is not a simple thing, and it isn’t simply done.
But it is certainly worth a try.

Been in a writing mood lately, and some of it I’m actually proud enough to want to share with the general public. Odd how anxiety attacks seem to spark poetry like nothing else in the world. Had one a couple of weeks back when I was out of town and my car needed emergency repairs and the bank was overdrawn and stress levels were just generally intolerable, so I went digging through the web to find the old poem I used to do for Verse reading back in High School.

Amazing how time can change the way you look at something. I mean, I got it as a teenager… kind of necessary when you’re performing it every week, analyzing the levels to make sure that every last shred of gut-wrenching emotion hangs in your voice… but I didn’t really understand the whole rage and shame against your own self-pity and bad decisions aspect.   So we’ll start with someone else’s work to kick things off, because it’s a damned good piece on what it means to love unconditionally in an abusive situation, and how difficult it is to trust your instincts when you’ve finally said goodbye to that chapter in your life.

The Pink Dress
by Diane Wakoski

(c. 1970, from her anthology Emerald Ice)

I could not wear that pink dress tonight.
The velvet one
lace tinting the cuffs with all
the coffee
of longing. My bare shoulder
slipping whiter
than foam
out of the night to remind me
of my own
vulnerability.

I could not wear that pink dress tonight
because it is a dress
that slips memories like
the hands
of obscene strangers
all over my body.
And in my fatigue I could not fight away the images
and their mean touching.

I couldn’t wear that pink dress,
the velvet one you had made for me,
all year, you know.

I thought I would tonight because
once again
you have let me enter your house
and look at myself
some mornings
in your mirrors.
But
I could not wear that pink dress tonight
because it reminded me
of everything
that hurts.

It reminded me of a whole year
during which
I wandered,
a gypsy,
and could not come into your house.
It reminded me of the picture of a blond girl
you took with you to Vermont
and shared your woods with.
The pretty face you left over your bed to stare
at me
and remind me
each night
that you preferred her face to mine,
and which you left there to stare at me
even when you saw how it
broke me,
my calm,
like a stick smashing across my own
plain, lonesome face,
and a face which you only
took down
from your wall
after I had mutilated it
and pushed pins in it to get those smug
smiling eyes off my cold
winter
body.

I couldn’t wear that pink dress tonight
because it reminded me
of the girl who made it,
whom you slept with
last year while I was sitting in hotel rooms
wondering why I had to live
with a face
so stony no man could love it.

I could not wear that pink dress
because it reminded me
of how I camp on your doorstep now,
still a gypsy,
still a colorful imaginative beggar
in my pink dress,
building a fire in the landowner’s
woods, and my own fierceness
that deserts me
when a man
no, when you,
show a little care and concern for my presence.

I could not wear that pink dress tonight.
It betrayed all that was strong in me.
The leather boots I wear to stomp through the world
and remind everyone
of the silver and gold and diamonds
from fairy tales
glittering in their lives.
And of the heavy responsibility
we all must bear
just being so joyfully alive
just letting the blood take its own course
in intact vessels
in veins.

That pink dress betrayed my one favorite image
-the motorcyclist riding along the highway
independent
alone
exhilarated with movement
a blackbird
more beautiful than any white ones.

But I went off
not wearing the pink dress,
thinking how much I love you
and how if a woman loves a man who does not love her back
it is, as some good poet said,
a pain in the ass.
For both of them.

I went off thinking about all the girls
you preferred to me.
Leaving behind that dress,
remembering one of the colors
of pain
Remembering that my needs
affront you,
my face is not beautiful to you;
you would not share your woods with me.

And the irony
of my images.
That you are the motorcycle rider.
Not I.
I am perhaps,
at best
the pink dress
thrown against the back
of the chair.
The dress I could not wear
tonight.

I’ve held back on talking about this for a few days to let this whole thing stew. Sometimes my knee-jerk reaction to political speeches ages over time. I read the people who disagree with me, and I find myself agreeing with them. I wanted to make sure that this wasn’t one of those times.

It’s not.

What I really think was a well-intentioned attempt to explain just what it means to be down and out when you’re not in Beverly Hills or a San Fransisco mansion on Billionaires Row turned into the sort of thing you say at the water cooler, not in the board room. People keep trying to contextualize it, or soften it up, but the simple truth is that being an executive means that you emphasize the best qualities of the people you lead, and are very specific about the bad– the only reason you mention them is if you see a problem that you are ready to address.

As a candidate in the primaries, this is not his task. This is a job that parents and educators need to address with young people, and that adults who may find themselves falling into the sort of security blanket isolationism Obama is talking about need to figure out for themselves. I have to wonder what the ramifications would be if he said something along similar lines that “everyone knew was true” about Ahmadinejad. After all, he says things about us that I’m sure resonate with Iranians, and even some Americans. Doesn’t it make sense for us to be just as honest when we look at the world stage?

As pundits, sure. We can say what we want at the water cooler, and elect leaders who we feel understand what we’re saying and can translate our sentiments into strong foreign policy. As leaders? No. You don’t look to the CEO of a large company to say that the problems with the company stem from the ineptitude of the workers. This may be something that everyone in the board room knows is true, but it’s *not* the way to move forward and inspire better performance in the future.

The correct response to this question should have been, “I like to think that it’s a vanishingly small number of American voters who look at race as a deciding factor when they choose their candidate. My campaign is not about racial differences, it’s about speaking to the needs of every American.” End of story, no thesaurus needed.

Consciousness and belief formation are complex topics, but I’d like to take a shot at tackling them here. As a rule, we all tend to assume that people who say things which support our core beliefs are fundamentally like us, even though they might not be at all. Likewise, we tend to assume that people who say things that contradict our core beliefs are fundamentally *not* like us, even though that might not be true, either.

I recently had someone tell me that the statements, “I’m not convinced that there is a God out there, but I don’t rule out the possibility that one exists” and “I’m an atheist because I do not believe in God,” were mutually exclusive. That I myself was guilty of the kind of irrational faith that I question and even occasionally ridicule when I run across it in others.

I can only respond that they absolutely are not contradictory. I don’t personally believe in a god or gods. I have no reason to believe that they exist, in no small part because any such belief about the nature of such a God would be completely arbitrary.. an accident of what sounds best. This does not mean that I utterly rule out the possibility of a god or gods, it just means that I don’t see any evidence to suggest that such god or gods exist. The difference is what ontological arguments are all about. More on that here.

It’s possible that there may very well be a god or gods that set the whole shebang in motion, but our human presence here on this pale blue dot is utterly unimportant to that god or gods. It’s possible that there may very well be a god or gods, and our human presence here is essential to some greater plan for the whole Universe. It’s also possible that any number of scenarios in between these two extremes could exist, but that doesn’t make the ontological argument compelling to me. It just means that these are possibilities. I don’t see any reason to believe them, but they are possibilities. Just like Russel’s teapot and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

As a former (and, I might add, rather devout) theist, I freely admit that the existence of a supreme guiding intelligence is far more compelling than the existence of an Invisible Pink Unicorn or any other variation thereof. But, and here’s the crucial thing here, I have no *reason* to believe that any of them do exist. I can theorize that the world would be a more perfect place if they did, but that doesn’t make supernatural forces suddenly pop into existence. It doesn’t negate their presence if they do exist. It just means I don’t see a reason to believe that they do.

Even Dawkins doesn’t rule out the possibility of a God. He just states the rather ordinary truth that imagining that the Universe exists solely to give rise to and direct the course of human history is creating God in man’s image in a rather severe way.  (If there is a God, I suspect He’s even more partial to hydrogen and helium than He is to beetles.)

Show me evidence of the nature of God tomorrow in a way that no two people can disagree on, a way that meets the traditional definition of God as a supernatural force intervening in human affairs in a way that simply cannot be explained any other way, and I’m a believer. But I don’t find the God of the Gaps a compelling one. “Miracles” as I have seen them so far are simply the holes in our understanding, made clear by the blinding insights of some scientific genius, rendered mundane on close scrutiny, or left decidedly unknown. While it’s technically possible that a God or Gods would care enough about our speck of dust in the Milky Way to intervene directly in our affairs, but not care enough to clarify the “Thou Shalt Not Kill” rule by sweeping away some of the more prevalent confusion about precisely which Will should or should not be done… well, it strains credulity for me.

And as far as the whole “fundamentalist atheist” thing goes–to the best of my knowledge, I have not ever slapped down anyone’s speculation as long as it’s framed in those terms. I have simply pointed out the reasons why I don’t find that speculation compelling. It’s when speculation is presented as incontrovertible evidence for a Truth which cannot be questioned even though it’s completely arbitrary– an accident of geography, and utterly interchangeable with myths from another corner of the globe which would be just as incontrovertible for precisely the same reasons if the person preaching that truth had been born in a different spot or to different parents… yeah, that’s when I get a little slap-happy.

But that’s alright. A True Believer can take it and dish it back, and it’s all in good fun. I know I certainly did when I was a True Believer, and anyone who can’t take the heat isn’t really committed to a spiritual quest, IMO.

I’ve been asked that a lot lately… I certainly don’t fit the model that the GOP traditionally targets when they build their ads.  I’m pro-abortion, generally against religion (or at the very least, against the concept of faith in others to define what is inherently unknowable, particularly when that faith in others is used to drive policy or fused in any way with the military), anti-war, and pretty open-minded when it comes to love and the different ways that people choose to express it. 
Why on Earth would I want to vote for someone who is “strong on terrorism”, pro-sanctity-of-marriage, has religious nutjob preachers endorsing him, and who probably sprinkles ground up hippy on his breakfast cereal?  Why?!?

Well, for one thing, I’m thoroughly disillusioned with the Democratic nominees.  Clinton and Obama both have policies on board that I don’t just disagree with, but I think are actually outright *dangerous* in the economic waters we’re surfing at the moment.  Just because we have computers doesn’t mean that we’re immune to the possibility that China and India will wreck our economy.  They have computers too, now, and they work for much less money.  Some of them even speak English.  Some of them have Masters degrees.  A cheap, bright, and well-educated workforce is damned difficult to compete with, and I don’t think that either Obama or Hillary really sees this economic reality for the threat it is.  McCain was the only candidate who had the balls to tell the people in Michigan, “Sorry, those jobs aren’t coming back.”  I respect that.

(But then, I work tech support in a call center, so perhaps I’m a bit over-sensitive to these issues.)

Next, let’s talk health care.  Hillary and Obama both think that the solution to the problem lies in relying on the government to provide an essential good, and trusting the government to run it efficiently and fairly.  I’ve been on both sides of the fence with this one, as the rising costs of health care for employers do inhibit economic growth and force employers to cut back on their work force, or at the very least, cut back on the benefits that they provide to that work force.  When our contract goes up for renegotiation next year, we will very likely be striking over the rising cost of health care and our company’s desire to pass it forward… so yeah, I can see the benefit there.  I don’t particularly like the idea of striking– it makes those smart, young, desperate Indian job-seekers seem more and more like a better investment than home grown disgruntled wage earners who complain about being paid cushy salaries, relatively speaking.

But then we run into the crucial problems that I simply cannot ignore.  The first, and most compelling, is quality.  I have a very hard time believing that our federal government will manage health care for the entire nation better than it does for our troops, and the VA’s approach to health care does not inspire confidence in me.  I could phrase it more strongly than that, and probably should, but I’ll be nice out of respect for the underfunded people who work there and try to do their job well.  Likewise, I look at our public school system, and I can’t help but notice that health care in the ghetto might be a bit… well… I think chaotic is the word I’m looking for here.  I seriously doubt that either candidate is prepared to look at the *real* cost of introducing potentially millions of people into a system that currently just tough it out until it gets so bad that they need to go to the hospital, and I’m truly skeptical that the reduction in bad debt at those hospitals would actually result in lower costs to the government.  So, we have a sharp increase in demands for services, and a whole lot of new jobs, being paid by the government, who are paid by the taxpayers, and the rise in demand will lead to a rise in costs, which leads to a rise in taxes, which leads to recession…

Not a good recipe, given the current value of the dollar.  Wall Street is nervous, and I think we should be.  I’m by no means an expert on anything having to do with the economy, but this seems like a no-brainer here.  The economy is not doing well, and introducing new stress factors into something that is already a bit cracked is a Bad Idea.

And then there’s the whole euthenasia arugment… I’m in favor of a person’s right to choose death with dignity when they have a debilitating and fatal condition that will end in excrutiating pain.  I’m less in favor of it if the government perscribes it as a means of reducing the burden on health care costs.  But that’s an aside that isn’t really my main objection– it’s just an ethical consideration worth noting.

And then, finally, there’s the war.  Why would I support McCain, when I am– in all fairness– a peace loving hippy?  Well, partially because I don’t trust Obama or Clinton to hire people who plan for worst case scenarios.  I expect that they will hire people who do what the people want them to do and sell it well, as indicated by the opinon polls.  My general opinion of the American public is not high enough for me to be happy with that option.  McCain, on the other hand, seems pretty solid on his foreign policy.  He gets it.  The world is filled with assholes that do Bad Things, and some of those Bad Things are either potentially dangerous to American interests or so utterly deplorable that we cannot afford to look the other way and still expect to sleep well at night.  (Hello, Darfur??)

Nothing would please me more than the secure knowledge that we could pull all of our troops out of Iraq today, and wind up with a better situation tomorrow than we have today.  The very real possibility that we would wind up with a worse scenario tomorrow than we have today if we followed the opinion polls on our presence there (both at home and in Iraq) makes me want to leave this to experts who have a very nuanced and careful approach to the issue.  I trust McCain to look for those individuals carefully, and not give a damn whether or not they look pretty or speak eloquently.

4,000 soldiers, and everyone else who is directly and indirectly impacted by America’s approach to the war on terror (roughly 6.6 billion people, in other words) deserve this from our next President.  And that’s why I’m voting for John McCain.

The thing I like the most about this is that you get to keep your before tax dollars and use them when you retire. Of course, with numbers like these, I might not live that long, but it’s a good dream…

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He’s baaaack. He’s run in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004, and his Olympics style effort to be the Energizer campaigner, regardless of whether or not his ideas have any hope of making it to the White House, continues. I confess, I voted for the guy in 2000. A lot of the things he has to say make sense to me. What I like about him is his ability to cut through the crap and say the unpopular thing. It’s unpopular to say that spending 3.8 million dollars in a single month working on your image to get elected to political office is a criminally irresponsible waste of resources, but it’s reality. It’s unpopular to point out that choosing to buy the new gadget with a “stimulus” instead of paying off the old debt is not healthy for the economy, but it’s reality. It’s *exceedingly* unpopular to point out that the Western world is flatly incapable (through force, through occupation, or through spending) of moving Islamist rhetoric to the comfortable middle ground of tolerance for economic practices which *do* threaten the traditional way of life and government that provide fertile ground for raising new generations to believe in enemies of their faith, but it’s reality.

In 2000, I was only barely applying what I had learned in economics and history to the decisions I made in the voting booth. I was six months pregnant, and I was disillusioned with the realities of life five years out of high school… for some reason, I had dropped out of college earnestly believing that just being smart would generate wealth in my life. I knew I would find my niche without tying myself to a curriculum that I didn’t enjoy studying.

What I didn’t see was a job market that reflected those beliefs. I saw a world that, as Hobbes pointed out, was nasty and brutish, and not at all promising. Ralph Nader spoke to the idealist in me that wanted it to be different. Where privilege was not so much a privilege as it was a right. Where the evil capitalists that made life hard were overthrown by the forces of “reason”.

Eight years have changed me a lot more than they have changed him… understandably. When I look at his blog, I see a guy who is still pointing to the right problems. Multi-million dollar silver parachutes for corporate executives when workers on the front lines can’t afford to keep up with the rising cost of living do hurt the economy, and the current political culture is not doing anything to change it. The difference is that I no longer feel that it is government’s responsibility to stop it from happening. It’s on the backs of the people that these changes need to occur, or not at all. If corporations choose to cut wages to the point where workers cannot pay the bills, then those workers will find other jobs. If those jobs aren’t available because corporations have cut the costs in such a way that private industry can’t compete, then the economy will suffer. If corporations don’t realize that loyal and well paid employees produce better work and better profits, then this is ultimately a problem for the business schools to address. They’ll do it effectively, or the economy will collapse, and not an ounce of assistance from the government will change that, either way.

So, Nader, I must respectfully decline your offer to cure all of our social ills. I agree with you on many issues, but I don’t think your solutions are SMART enough. They may be specific. They may be measurable. But they are neither attainable, realistic, nor are they timely… and frankly, I doubt they ever will be. Nasty, brutish, and short, this life is what we make of it. The government can’t solve it for us, and it frequently makes things worse when it tries.

Two legendary men, both equally mythical… And I know I’m not making any friends here with this, but I just felt like going off on a rant. This one goes out to anyone dealing with loved ones who expect them to accept the Truth of Christ’s sacrifice for our sins.

We have only the vaguest of records of the man from the actual time in which he lived. The Gospels were compiled at least 60-90 years after his death, and the authorship of parts of the New Testament is certainly under question if not conclusively proven to be false (Paul did not write all of the letters attributed to him, more on that further down). We have many, many reasons to doubt the authenticity of the synoptic records as “historical” documents.

Dear Tacitus may mention that a man called Christus was put to death by Pontious Pilate for getting the masses all riled up, but this does not in any way demonstrate that all of the stories surrounding him (Yeshua, not Tacitus) are true. There are no records of the dead rising from the grave or walking among men outside of the Gospels. (I’m thinking Roman soldiers would have written home about that sort of thing.) There are no records of the sun going dark from noon until three, or of stars not following their accustomed patterns at the time of his birth. (The Romans certainly would have mentioned either event.) Heck, his birthday wasn’t even “established” until four centuries after his death.

There is not a single book in the Bible that has not been extensively rewritten and edited by multiple hands. Paul himself may have been only a pen name for Marcion. “Paul” quotes from the Greek OT, even though he was claiming an education from the Pharisees (Hebrew, not Greek). The epistles, written only (only! I have a hard time remembering what I had for lunch last week, much less what I was doing and saying twenty years ago) one generation after the death of Christ, do not support the Christ story. In some cases, they flatly contradict the teachings in the Gospel. Additionally, some of the quotes that Paul cites in them come from versions of the OT that were not published until after his death. Neat trick, that.

To regard the books of the Bible as anything other than a set of stories meant to give identity to a minority culture, which provides some insights into possible historical conditions in the history of Judea– but more insight into the cultural history of the region– is to take a very liberal approach to what one considers an acceptable source for research. Anyone who desires unquestioning acceptance of the “historical” Jesus, or maintains that their “knowledge” of Christ is any more accurate than our knowledge of the Green Man, Lord of the Forest, symbol of the rebelliousness and the power of youth, Robyne Hude, needs a reality check.

They can start with the links below:

holy smoke
truth be known
refuting missionaries

Link

The following is a rant with a response, from one of my favorite sparring buddies on gameknot. Reading the above link will help it all make sense, as will the understanding that jd (a medical doctor) was arguing against immunization of pubescent girls for HPV. My response (written about a year ago), follows.

8 out of 10 women in the US will have acquired an HPV infection by the age of 50.

Fact. www.cdc.gov

I’m not sure how vaccinating anyone against it is trying to bring down the roof of civilization, nor do I see what elites or liberals or God has to do with it.

It’s a disease, it’s widespread, and we’re trying to stop it. Why is this bad, exactly?

As far as the stats on kids having sex go, and sexualization of kids, and Brittany Spears walking down the school halls claiming to be innocent and sucking on a lollypop… Whatever. Yeah, we’re all messed up when it comes to sex. Education is about the only way out of it that I see.

Teach the kids that it’s better to wait, and that safe sex is necessary if they want to enjoy their thirties and beyond… yeah, those are good things. I wonder how many of those Ivy League beauties went through abstinence only programs?

jdh71
13-Mar-07, 23:06

…

***I’m not sure how vaccinating anyone against it is trying to bring down the roof of civilization, nor do I
see what elites or liberals or God has to do with it.***

You missed the point. Perhaps your obvious knee-jerk reaction resulted from lack of readin the entire piece.
The point was mainstream pornography is attempting to sexualize our young women at younger and younger
ages. I do not have a daughter, but it still bothers me. There is a price to pay, and none of these ideas and
experssion come from conservatives, so . . . connect the dots Kem.

Also, just a point of fact while we’re talking facts, there are around 100 HPV viruses. The vaccine protects
against only ~4~ - it’s not a panacea and no gaurantee against HPV, genetial warts, or cervical cancer. The
propaganda hype has been amusing.

Vaccinations have a pretty good theretical model for why they work, and on one level vaccines do exactly
what they are supposed to, on another level there is a strong association with vaccines and auto-immune
function, as well as, known toxins as componets in the vaccine. Do your homework on vaccines . . .

…and my response to that was:

jd

First off, if I comment on a piece, you can be sure I’ve read it. I don’t cringe at Freud and Kant, and an online article like that one is hardly difficult reading for an even semi-literate adult not suffering from ADD.

As far as doing my homework on vaccines, I’m not anywhere near as well informed about the relative merits or drawbacks of everything out there, obviously. I never claimed it was a panacea for anything. It’s a preventative measure, though. I assume that it’s effective at lowering the risk, and that’s about all I expect from a vaccine. Risk levels of 8 out of 10 are scary and unpleasant. We should be doing what we can, everything we can, to decrease those numbers. As I’m sure you’re aware, there’s a fairly bitter debate going on in the lay public over whether or not x vaccines cause autism, whether or not it’s okay to simply skip vaccinations, and whether or not Stay-At-Home-Moms who spend a lot of time reading online stories “proving” the link are smarter than their doctors.

I tend to side with the doctors. If you’re telling me that HPV vaccinations have known risk factors and negative side effects that outweigh the benefits of potentially reducing those odds, I’m listening.

I didn’t get the connection between wanting to vaccinate a known problem at the earliest ages when we *know* kids are starting to experiment sexually (and hello, I have a six-year-old, of course that scares the begeezus out of me, and of course I want her to wait until she’s mature enough to handle sex!) and an effort to make a buck off of our fantasies.

Sex is weird. The fact is that our culture is warped when it comes to sex… mind-bendingly so. I don’t dispute that. What I do have a problem with is the very thinly veiled accusation that the Godless liberals are all responsible for this. Last I checked, God-fearing conservatives seem just as likely to be in the spotlight for that sort of thing, and they’ll shell out the cash for it as readily as the next person.

Look. Sex sells. As a culture, the idea of going where no man has gone before and being responsible for the transformation of a good little girl into a lifelong nympho addicted to his lovin’ has a lot of appeal in a fantasy context. Fantasies are larger than life… thus, the pseudochild, hovering on the edge of innocence, just waiting to be explored. No pressure to perform (after all, she doesn’t know any better than you), no cellulite or jaded cynicism or tendancy to get on you for not mowing the yard when it’s 90 frelling degrees outside.

Just sexual fulfillment, and a desire to be taught more about it.

Who in God’s name doesn’t want that (at least in the fantasy world… in the real world, things like jobs and cars and ability to cook, clean, and pay bills do register as very important!… and having a certain amount of carnal knowledge to bring to the relationship equally so!)

Point me towards a man who isn’t at the very least theoretically interested in sex whenever he wants it with a worshipping mistress and no responsibilities, and I will show you a man you shouldn’t trust any farther than you can comfortably spit a dead rat.

The fact that that the sex industry exploits this tastelessly doesn’t do anything to decrease the numbers at the cdc website. Arguably, it does the exact opposite.

All the more reason to take every possible preventative measure.

The logic in this article seems pretty similar to the logic used by people who don’t want kids to have access to condoms or confidential medical care. An “accident” made more likely by burying one’s head in the sand and trusting our kids to be good little boys and girls… just like their mommies and daddies, right?

Heh.

Talk about a fantasy world.

Off to church this morning, so this seems like a good morning to go mining through some of my old writing. I wrote this about two years ago, in answer to a friend of mine who was exploring whether or not it’s possible for a strident atheist to really respect someone who believes in God. Seems like an appropriate topic to explore before heading off to listen to a secular-humanist friendly service. I should mention here that my feelings about my ex-step-mom are no longer quite so extreme. She’s a good person who made some bad choices. “Worthless” was maybe a bit harsh… more my resentment of the whole family situation with the constant arguments and general dysfunctional mess that surrounded me every summer. I’ve had some time to process that now, but I’ll leave the original writing as it was.

There is a certain high to be had in thinking of the Universe as a Divine Creation in which a Plan of some sort that is being fulfilled right now, and that there’s a special Place for each one of us. It’s instant ego gratification, and it makes people feel good, even when there isn’t a shred of evidence to support it. I’ve met some pretty “deeply spiritual” people who were, frankly, a pain in the ass and a major burden on every person around them. My step-mom being one of them. Yuck. Even though she was pretty worthless as a human being (and it takes an awful lot for me to say that about someone), she was very “high on Jeezus”. Get her in the same room as a bunch of other like-minded Assholes for Christ, and the conversation was every bit as “out there” as anything I’ve had on a spaced out afternoon. People who invoke God are operating on a different level of reality for the sake of entertainment, and in the process, they cause some very real and measurable damage to their thinking cap.

There’s a lovely bit in Thus Spake Zarathustra where Nietzsche talks about the camel/herd mentality that theists engage in. Life is hard, life is suffering, only God can set you free. I’m sure you’re familiar with the mantra. Bow your heads, you ill-tempered, foul-smelling beasts of burden, and let God use you for the purpose for which you were intended. (Whatever that means.) [As opposed to the Buddhist perspective of life is suffering, get over it, which I like a lot better. But I digress...]

Not everyone is into the herd mentality, but it’s absolutely undeniable that a lot of people take comfort in conformity. They wouldn’t know what to do if they didn’t have someone spoonfeeding them their daily routines. The hard things in their life could no longer be passed off as trials and tribulations, but would instead need to be considered as serious problems that needed to be solved.

There’s a nasty roadblock here, in that in some instances, solving that problem wouldn’t really be an option– I’m thinking illiterate black mother with luke-warm IQ and no professional skills or technical understanding of the world watching as the last remaining strings of her safety net get filed away by corporate America. I mean, if God is out there, He might see your suffering and have mercy on you. He might send you someone who loves you– a good man (or woman, for that matter) who would make all your economic troubles go away. But, if God’s not out there, than you have to deal with the fact that the only way you’re going to attract that good person and keep hold of said “Savior” is to become the sort of person who good people find attractive. i.e., self-sufficient. Scary. Unthinkable in some cases– like, say, rural and heavilly Catholic/Pagan South America, where education and socio-economic mobility as an answer to a person’s prayers just aint happenin. It all boils down to hope. Imagining a world without God is a real buzzkill for a lot of people, one that could potentially lead to depression and possibly worse (emotional and/or physical abuse of loved ones as problems with reality are projected onto them… up to and including suicidal despair.)

I’m not saying false hope is a good kind of hope to have, but it’s better than no hope when conditions are desperate and survival isn’t really a given.