TGIF?

As you can see in my ‘About me’ section, I work in mortgage. And I am not sure if you’ve seen the news, but times are getting a lil tough.

As such, many of my co-workers have more free-time on their hands during the course of the day. And, as is commonly the case, that means forwards.

I was recently forwarded a joke from a pretty darn good blog.

(Read the joke or this rant may make little sense.)

For the lazy who didn’t click the link: It’s a gay joke, basically a newly damned person is lamenting being sent to Hell and Satan is trying to improve his spirits. Satan notes that all of the stuff that was ‘bad’ in life was A-OK in Hell. With the punch line adding that Fridays are gonna be kinda tough.

While I laughed at the joke, it raised an interesting question for me.

Why is this joke equating being gay to being a sin?

When I raised this question to the person who forwarded it, they were surprised.

“How did you come to be so OK with the issue?”

Being a straight fella myself, I had the usual gay-phobia in my younger years. It gets to be a catch-22. You know little-to-nothing of gay men, yet you are unwilling to interact with them, so your phobia feeds on itself.

I prided myself on being very culturally sensitive and diverse, yet failed to include gay/lesbian people in my life. After much thought, I decided my stance was hypocritical and worked on changing my ways.

Then I started working in mortgage.

Not sure if this rings true for every mortgage company, but many of the places I have worked with have been pretty gay-friendly.

Any gay issues I may have had were tossed-out the window as I realized these guys were just that, guys…Who just so happened to like other guys.

(Luckily for me, gay men find me as attractive as straight women do, so there were no awkward situations/advances.)

Which brings me back to the joke.

Is being gay a sin?

Folks will say that the Bible clearly says being Gay is a sin.

While that may be true, I am not a fan of literal interpretations of the Bible.

If the Bible were meant to be interpreted literally, there would be no need for Pastors to sermonize. Church service would simply be a 1-hour weekly reading session.

The Bible is not the ‘Word of God.’ It is man’s (and woman’s) take on God’s word. It is full of stories and parables that are meant to fuel thought and nurture contemplation.

Eye for an eye, is a euphemism, not a rule.

So is being gay a sin?

I just don’t know. And since I don’t know, I cannot damn a person for being gay.

There are two big issues that arise when thinking about the issue.

Is being gay a nature or nurture thing?

I lean pretty heavily towards folks being born gay. It’s a natural thing. I have met too many folks who had terrible times growing-up or simply living, while trying to ‘fit the mold’ with regards to ‘normal’ sexuality for me to think it’s a lifestyle choice.

If someone is simply being who they were born as, how can they be damned?

Then there is the question of big sins versus little sins.

Is one sin worse than the next?

Is murdering someone worse than lying? Is adultery worse than stealing? Is being gay worse than being a drunk?

To be honest, I do think of some sins as being worse than others…If you are a murderer, I am gonna think far less of you than most folks, who I know have told a lie at some point.

Am I right? Probably not.

A sin is a sin. So why make gay men out to be the devil, when everyone else has a laundry list of sins to account for themselves?

Is being gay a sin?

I don’t think it is.

But the bigger point is that it simply doesn’t matter. Because we are all sinners.

Like Jesus said, “Let those who are without sin cast the first stone.”

So until someone can come to God with a clean slate this whole finger-pointing exercise is moot. More time should be spent tending to your own house before broadcasting the short-comings of your neighbor.

Wow, all that from a joke. I really need to lighten up.

I've tried God, and it's a lot like chicken

For many people religion is a “savior,” but for far too many people religion has proven to be a divider.

Whether it’s: gays, abortion, Blacks, Jews or Muslims, many an argument against any/all of those parties have been based on religion.

For the most part, when I say “religion” I mean Christianity, the overwhelming favorite of western spiritual thought.

I didn’t rail on the Christian right in my last post, but they are gonna take a beating in this one. As I blame Iraq, hate crimes and the shame that every woman has to endure by simply walking into a Planned Parenthood on the Pat Robertson’s and Pat Buchannan’s of the world.

On the whole, conservative Christians got it wrong. They make me embarrassed to admit that I am a Christian. In my mind, they are as bad as the Taliban in their strict, self-serving and erroneous interpretation of religion.

They aren’t right. And they have no right to proclaim that they are.

Quite frankly, the average white picket fence having, we-are-all-welcoming-as-long-as-you-conform-to-our-narrow-perception-of-the-Bible-Christian disgusts me. In much the same way a “you are all Western Infidels” radical Muslims disgust me. At least Muslims will offer a visitor tea. You are lucky to get anything more than a look down the nose from the average conservative house wife, if you don't "fit the mold.".

Some of you may be thinking, Disgust? Really? Isn’t that a strong word?

Not at all.

These people disgust me because they are judging, damning and killing each other (all religions guilty here) in the name of a God that we all have in common.

For me, it’s pretty simple.

God is like chicken.

We’ve all heard the joke and the punch line is: “It tastes like chicken.”

So why, would anyone expect a world as diverse and unique as ours to be held to one set of standards, one set of ideals and one version of God?

Just look at chicken, in the American heartland, Chicken Pot Pie looks a lot different from Hoisin Chicken in China or Tagine in Morocco. Though it is all derived from the same base to serve the same purpose…

Sustenance.

Chicken sustains the body and God sustains the soul. (I know, I sound like that book series here.)

Is this an oversimplification? Perhaps.

But we’ve had thousands of years to complicate the matter. So I figure a little simplification is due.

Chicken, much like God, is something that all people can identify with.

And who’s to say that the God of Islam is any different from the God of Christianity or Buddhism?

I am saying that they aren’t.

In much the same way cuisine, in this case chicken, carries regional/cultural nuances, it only follows that perceptions of God would do the same.

The idea that every person in the world has to follow one set of ideals set forth by one God just isn’t feasible or even culturally astute.

God made man is all shades, interests and even multiple sexes. So why dumb-down such an obviously complex being to “My way or the highway” thinking?

If people could get their head around the idea that God really is one being, perceived is different ways, I think the world would be a much better place. A lot of differences might be quelled. The main tenets of all major religions share the same basic ideals, only strengthening the concept that God is one being, read many ways.

But sadly, religion of division, my main issue with organized religion, will continue on. As men and their misinterpretations/pride/unwillingness to change will keep everyone mired in the “us versus them” rhetoric that keeps the pews filled, tithes coming-in and guns aimed at each other.

All the while, I can only imagine God looking down at us head-shaking, thinking:

“Is it really all that difficult? Why can’t they get this right?”

Dogma had alot of stuff right.

This was going to be one of my patented rants about so-called “Bible Thumpers.” You know who they are: The Jesus-fish bumper-sticker having, “God Bless You” phone call ending, uber-judgmental types, who “really figured life out” once they started going to church…

But I am not gonna do it.

If someone has found a place in life that they are ok with their relationship with whatever God they believe in, I am not going to knock it. I will just say, “Good for you…but it ain’t for me.”

What I am gonna do is explain why I’ll never be one of them.

For the most part, I am not a fan of organized religion. I love the idea, but I think on the whole it is too easily corrupted by human influence.

Chris Rock, playing the 13th Apostle Rufus, had a line in the movie Dogma that really illustrates my point:

“He (referring to Jesus Christ) still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the shit that gets carried out in His name - wars, bigotry, but especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it…I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant.”

I have always thought of religion as a just-in-case scenario. I’d have to classify myself as an Pseudo-Agnostic: One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God…to that end, I also believe it is impossible to know that there isn’t a God.

So, just-in-case God exists, I better get on-board with this religion thing.

My first memories of church where like many others, unquestionably believing whatever was told to me a Sunday School or in the parts of sermons I wasn’t sleeping through. I then attended college where I stopped attending church and came to my Agnostic realization. But since graduating and dealing with the real world, I have moved away from my Agnostic stance and back to Christianity. There is simply too much amazing stuff in this world for everything to be hap-hazard and random. And really, if you live your life by the standards laid-out by Christianity (or any other major religion) you end-up living life as a pretty alright guy.

Really there's nothing to lose. Not a bad situation.

My background explained, I’ll get into my concept of religion and why organized religion is not for me.

I see religion as a very individualistic situation. It’s your mind, your soul, your decisions. So what does meeting with people once a week for an hour really do for you?

I understand the sharing of ideas and attempting to gain a greater understanding of whatever religion/religious text, but when it comes down to it, when you die and face judgment, You are all-by-your-lonesome.

No Pastor to back you up, no Mom to take blame, no church members to share burden.

That being said, I think it’s important to ponder religion. Religion came about as an attempt by man to explain: The “hows” and “whys” of the world.

I am not advocating living willy-nilly and throwing religion and morals to the wind. I am just not sure that paying tithes and being preached-at for an hour a week makes you a better candidate for the afterlife.

It’s what you do that really matters.

For most people church is misunderstood. Going to church regularly doesn’t automatically make you a good person. Being a good person does. And it is possible to be a good person without ever having heard of Jesus, Abraham or Mohammed. Religion is an active, not passive endeavor. It requires research, thought and contemplation...please note that nowhere listed there was the word judgment.

My issue with church comes from those church-goers who think they have accomplished something special by going to church. The air-of-superiority that comes along with being “saved,” is my biggest gripe with organized religion. Being judgmental is so counter to the major tenets of Christianity that is amazes me people don’t see their hypocrisy.

I was raised in the church, and am a better person for it. But when I strayed away from the church, I luckily ended-up surrounded by good people who were educated and religious. We ended-up sharing/debating our ideals, in much the same way a Pastor would sermonize their beliefs.

What I came away with was a better understanding of religion and myself. The overwhelming concept that I garnered from these conversations was that “no one has it figured-out.” That realization really wrecked the house of cards that had been built around religion for me. My Pastor, although very smart and learned in religion, was still just a man, like me, and therefore was fallible. He was the exception to the rule in that he never purported himself to be anything more that a man who was called to God, who was trying to figure the world out just like everyone else.

Which is really what it is all about.

Being religious isn’t about tithing more, or baking the most cookies for the bake sale so that you can note the good deed in the yearly Christmas letter, while noting how good God was to you this year as a(n implied) result.

It’s about living a good, honest, pious life. Religion can offer a roadmap of how to get there, but the onus is on you to make the journey. One great thing is that there is assistance along the way, (churches, books, people) but it’s important to remember these can be distractions as much as aid.

All-in-all the journey is yours alone and no one but God can meet you at the goal.