oh em gee, or something like that

as i sit here, waiting for another hour to pass, so (hopefully) some of the humidity will dissipate, and i can fire up the grill for some easter vittles, i figured we’d discuss something benign and non-controversial…

…religion.

to help with the visual, the shirt i’m wearing as i type this…

faith – not just a hit song for both george michael AND limp bizkit (which you can’t say about many other tunes) is an interesting thing. in all the definitions quickly and readily available (keep in mind i have a meal to prep soon so i didn’t do a super deep dive here) the phrase i expected so see was nowhere to be found. that phrase being “suspension of logic”.

i was raised in the methodist church and confirmed as a full member at the age of twelve. in my earlier life i attended church (and sunday school) on sundays mornings, m.y.f. (methodist youth fellowship) on sunday evenings, as well as other days if we were doing a special event, and was the athletic director for “youth club”, the precursor to m.y.f., with the cutoff usually being junior high (junior high and high school kids were in m.y.f., first thru sixth grades were youth club); and i was in the latter before i was old enough to join the former.

i had the enthusiasm, and the drive, and enjoyed all the social interaction, but always basically lacked faith. actually, i shouldn’t say “lacked”, but rather kind of had what i would consider a well-timed “reaganesque” view of religion. whereas the gipper described relations with the soviet union and gorbachev as “trust, but verify”, mine with the church was quickly turning to “listen, but question”.

fun fact – while reagan died in 2004 (age 93) and yelstin (gorby’s successor) died in 2007 (age 76) gorbachev actually lived until 2022 peacefully and quietly, passing at the age of 91…

and that’s really what i think separated me from a lot of the family and our friends.

for example, the notion that there was a boat constructed that housed two of every animal, including just the two humans (noah and his wife), but has since just been lost to time so there’s no remains of said vessel is more than a little preposterous, and that’s excluding the obvious factor that we’re all basically incestuous cousins all born from noah and fam.

if i take a pic of miss gypsy sleeping behind me right now it’s normal and non-surprising and even cute…

but travel back to biblical time, take a pic of someone, and show it to them on the screen, and you would instantly be elevated to the position of village wizard. so if someone came in claiming to be the son of god, you bought that shit. but he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, so by the doctrine of the church, that’s why we have no tomb, no corpse, no remnants of what is (arguably) the most significant figure in all of human history. same with moses, noah, etc, etc, etc…where are the graves? the ten commandments? there’s no physical evidence of really anything in the bible being real outside of geographic locations, and yet a huge portion of humanity takes all this as (literal) gospel and truth and stories that you lead and live your life by with ZERO tangible proof. and why?

faith.

all the teenjus years aren’t in the bible, but he allegedly had some and was suddenly an adult. there’s actually a great book i read called “lamb, the gospel according to biff, jesus’ childhood pal” that i highly recommend. while it’s pure fiction (which, let’s face it, the bible probably is, too, but…) and i wish they’d used a less annoying name than “biff”, it’s still a great book and basically has him traveling around, absorbing various religious doctrines, which explains why christianity is such a “mash-up” of other faiths, rather than just saying (probably more accurately) that they just stole from the other faiths.

i always tell an old family friend the only difference in our “religious beliefs” is three words, which i mentally tack on to the end of any bible story…”or maybe not”.

that, simplistically, is the difference between faith and logic. if you can hear stuff out of the bible and add “or maybe not” to the end of the story, casting doubt on some (or all) of the factors of the story, than you may have lost some of your faith…and that ain’t necessarily a bad thing.

the only fiery pit in my future is my grill, and it’s time for me to go tend to that now. happy chocolate jesus day, every body!