Read the Bible is not a good answer…

My friends and family have a wide variety of beliefs; I for one have an “interesting” set of beliefs myself. This post is not about my ever changing and growing “spiritual” philosophy or ideas because the moment I post any such thing, the next day I may have learned a new bit of info, or seen a new truth in person that would alter or annihilate the previous days writing. Today, I will write about the answer I get from most Christians “read the bible.” As if they assume, once I tell them I am an agnostic who lives his day to day as if I were an atheist, that I have never read the bible (or any religions text) and that I must be too heretical to heed the word of god.
**Let me clarify something, I am agnostic as that definition is the closest to my beliefs based on my logic, which like any logic of man can and probably is faulted. I am an atheist in my day to day life style as I do not pray, request of even consider god in my life decisions and actions. For all intents and purposes I am atheist, but due to the nature of a higher power being unknowable at this time, I am classified agnostic. That is all you will hear about my philosophy at this moment.**
First I will state a truth; I have read the bible 4 times in my life, granted they were different versions. I first read the King James Bible in middle school, as that was what was given to me at my Lutheran baptism when I was a baby. Next was the English Standard Version in the first year of high school, as that seemed to be more contemporary and easier to read kind of English because let’s face it, KJV is just as bad as Shakespeare at times. Next in 11th and 12th grade was Young's Literal Translation (revised) because I personally don’t speak any ancient language and when I read “literal translation” I figured “hey, this is about as close as I’ll get right!?” And finally about 5 years ago I read through Thomas Jefferson’s bible, I grant you that counting this is a bit of a cheat but I think this gives a very good basis for the philosophy that the New Testament tries to convey, so I do count it among my 4. To be honest, it’s my favorite of all of them!
So, I have read the bible a few times even if you don’t count the Jefferson Bible.
Now, on to my contention: Saying “read the bible it will answer (insert question here), and you will understand” is assuming that first of all I am lazy and do not do my research before asking questions, I take that as an insult. But let’s just say that you don’t mean to insult but are just trying to convey that the answer is in this book, just in case I wasn’t aware, still no; the answers are not all in there because my questions were derived from that very book you are referring me back to. Questions like, if Jesus died for all our sins of the past, present and future (Hebrews 10:12-14) how come original sin is not included in that forgiveness? How come once he died we didn’t get a blank slate and all revert to the way Adam and Eve were without shame, pain and labor of childbirth, seemingly endless life, and without the knowing that came from eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil since that’s what lead eventually the first murder by Canaan? If you can find the answer to that question in the bible, not some parable about how humans need to learn how to come close to god because we have free will and choose faith, but an actual logical answer then I will admit that my studious reading of the bible, and the non-canonical books of the Apocrypha, bore no fruit and I should try again. I’ve waiting for that answer since 8th grade by the way; it was one of my first legitimate questions. I say legitimate because like all young men, I was/ am an idiot and sometimes asked ridiculous questions just to prompt the expression of exasperation that seemed to please my pride as I too suffer from its ill effects. Proverbs 29:23 makes my point here; I wish to retain my honor and thus, my first legitimate question is just that, I have yet to hear an answer beyond “read the bible.”
Next was a question that came to me in a dream once. I was about 16 and I wondered how come there is a bible in the first place? Is it a book of history, parables and educational tales, a book of premonitions or is it the word of god? I asked a Christian friend this question this was her answer to the best of my memory “it’s all of those, it is god’s word that tells the history of man, teaches him how to live a good life and get into heaven and tell the future of humanity so we know the god does have a plan.” The next few days were a blur in school, I only thought of her answer; geometry and English class took a back seat to this mental debacle. I thought about what I had read in the bible, what I had seen in life and noticed a stark contrast in the main point about it being god’s word. Why try to tell the prophets, who wrote god’s word, anything if we as human beings can never understand gods plan? Why give us mere mortals who now know of both good and evil reason a taste of further understanding and yet create us with a lack of ability to comprehend it all? Finally (its sort of a three part question) why create man with the ability to comprehend imperfection if it wasn’t expected of them to stay that way? Again, there pare parables in the bible about man being unequal to angels which may have the potential for understanding, but that’s still leaves me wanting in the sense that why make man, give him a book and never expect him to truly understand until they are in heaven when they no longer needs its lessons since heaven itself is perfection? You may say it’s not for us to know gods reason for this just like it’s not for the lower level employee to question and know what the board of directors and CEO are doing, fair answer sure but how come it’s not for us as mortal humans to know, especially when you give us an “answer” in the bible but are intentionally vague about it? That’s like the CEO giving out books to all the workers knowing that they would never understand it. The bible will not answer this question either, please cite this answer if it does...

The fish out of water

Last week was my first week at my new job. It started out as expected, the first day was pretty boring, the second a little less and 3rd….you catch my drift. By the end of the week, I had done a personal favor for one of the employees (hacked into the root account on a Mac) and been invited to lunch (free!!) by one of the sales guys for the radio station. So you would think, hey sounds great right! Not so fast…
I work for Salem Communications, a for-profit Christian/ Conservative communications company specializing in Radio, publishing and spreading the “good word.” I took the job because all I do here is fix computer, domain and network problems…no need for a religious creed to do that right? I mean, I figured that since I am going corporate, I would probably dislike much of what any corporation would be doing so what’s the difference between working for a Christian radio company verses some PR firm Red Bull or Real Estate broker who made millions on the housing bubble. It’s all the same to me in that respect. So I took the job, decent pay, benefits and the people seemed nice enough…no complaints
Then on Friday, the sales man invited me to lunch. I was a bit turned off by his demeanor but figured this is how you get liked at a new job; you go to lunch with the veterans. Like all great sales men, he waited till I had said yes to tell me it’s at a church about 45 minutes away, there will be a speaker (there’s at least 30 more minutes at this thing) and then the 45 minute ride back. The whole thing ate 2.5 hours out of my day, got to love a Christian sales man. The food wasn’t anything to write home about, or even here for that matter. But let’s not dwell on such matters let’s focus our attention on the man who spoke, a man named Edward M. Kobel, President and COO of DeBartolo Development; he likes to be called “Ed” by his flock at Calvary Chapel in St. Pete.
First let me tell you the ride over there was the sales guy talking about how he started in business, how much he made doing that and how much money he has right now. I tell you, this guy liked talking about money. Then we got there, we walked in, and again the idea of money struck me none the less due to the 45 minutes of “this is how I became rich enough to live on a golf course in one of the 3 wealthiest zip codes in central Florida.” It was very nice inside, marble floors, a play area for the kiddies, a resting area with wall jacks for laptops, a nice statue… Then we walked up to the sign-in area, where I got a name tag, was asked for my business card and proceeded to fill out a survey. The survey had three questions; I lied about all of them. We sat, we ate and then Ed took the floor.
Ed seemed like a smart guy, energetic but not overbearing, well-spoken but not scripted clean cut but still realistic looking. He seemed like a genuine guy, who just happened to have a lot of money. Nothing to hate the guy for, so he is successful go him! My issue comes with how he got there, the message he delivered and the portrayal of the Christian he says he is.
Ed is the son of Edward J. DeBartolo, Sr. who was pretty much the guy who invented your local shopping mall. I suppose that is a lot to live up to! But his life was estranged from his father; he grew up with his mother, a life that was not easy from the way he made it sound. In fact, it seemed like he and I had something’s in common about how we grew up. He joined the military, he left the military, started working for his former Colonel…and then he branched out on his own. He got into real estate using his GI money to get an initial investment property which he and his military buddies fixed up cheap and flipped in, in his words, a month later for a large profit…this seemed to be his game and he was a self-admitted shallow and greedy slum lord. He met his wife, and at the behest of buddies in the real estate business, he became a Christian, lost a large sum of money and faced bankruptcy, he struggles through it (an admirable quality) and began to rebuild. He then re-united with his father’s other son, who gave him the keys to DeBartolo Development. And that ladies in gentlemen, is how a millionaire is born.
It may shock you that I take some issue with this situation I was in, and this man that was speaking. But let me illuminate my particular view point. I was in this grandiose church, surrounded by a bunch of networking Christian business men and women listening to a guy who says he’s a Christian, is a millionaire, has a lesbian daughter that he says “turned her back on G-d,” and gives to the Christian based charities.
First of all, have you ever been the only person in a room surrounded by a bunch of people that have the same delusions about mythical supernatural beings? I can now say that I have. I was the only atheist in that room. I was a total fish out of water, which I found ironic. Ed told a joke, about his early days in with the other real estate fellows before he was a Christian. He said he used to come up with excuses why he didn’t want to go to church, and one of the things was that he was “caught up on the whole Darwin thing.” Everyone, I mean every single delusional soul, laughed at that one. For a minute there, I thought that Dave Chappell had shown up based on how loud these people got.  Of course, I didn’t get the joke at all, completely over my head. I felt like I was missing out on something really funny having to do with Darwin, I know the Beagle is a funny word but couldn’t account for the laughter I was surrounded by. So, I sat there dumbstruck…I later came to conclusion, they must think that Darwin is as crazy as I think they are!
He talked a little about being a slumlord, and that’s how he got his foot in the financial world. It was like; everyone around me instantly forgave him for how he must have treated his tenants or what kind of code breaking, cheap repaired P.O.S. he sold to some sucker looking to get ahead himself. They instantly looked past the fact that he was a total sleaze who got ahead doing questionable legal and certainly immoral things.
You know, I am not one to judge, I have done things in my past I am not proud of. I should have been in prison a couple times by my count. However, I do not go around portraying myself as a self-righteous business man whose prayers have been answered by the invisible man sitting on a cloud. I am not the one who is granted passage through the pearly gates of life (of course there are not gates in death) because of hypocritical judges who become rich even though their precious bible rich will not go to heaven. Just sayin’…

a lesson learned through a hard head...

As it is, I am a person who prides himself on the fact that I don't rely on many people to live; thus it is difficult for me to accept that sometimes people are worth the chance to trust them. I learned over the past few days subtle facts of life, and relationships, that mean trusting someone with my reliance and that it is okay to ask for help when you need it.
Living the life that I have and getting as far as I have so far has lead me to a few quirks about my character and have impacted my world view in numerous ways. One way being, I have always felt that asking for assistance was synonymous with my lack of ability and ending in a resultant failure. I just recently found this one woman who, as amazed as I am, seems to really like me. I convince myself every time that I am with her that I should brush logic aside and my emotional connection is real and emotional thoughts are actually right this time. I sometimes forget that when I am not looking into her eyes that she may actually care about my wellbeing and wants to help me any way she can whenever I need it. She write things that make it seem as if she were idealistic, I’ve never had the chance to relax and just hope for the best so my idealistic nature has been whittled down to a microscopic size. Whether she knows it or not, she is changing me making me into a better person. She says that I am “awesome,” once even commented that I am “…a god among mere mortals, in intellect, finesse, and skill.” Whether or not she was simply trying to hype up my own ego, as if that needed any more inflation, I took her for her word that she truly thinks this highly of me. She doesn’t realize the impact she has on my composure and will when I am near her, she probably has less understanding of how much her words mean to me. I push my emotional attachment to the back of my mind and hope I don’t blurt out something that my lower mental framework is trying so desperately to push above my intrusive cerebral foundation. I wish I knew a way to convey the utter astonishment her existence throws to me. For someone to honestly convey those kinds of thoughts about me, makes me believe her world view is possible and that that rosier outlook on the world may not be so contrary to my realistic point of view. I hope she read this and sees that it, in this short time I’ve known her, she has helped change my life with such simple acts as telling me that she thinks I am a great guy. As selfish as this is, I hope I do not mess this up.