If i try to tell a story i get bogged down..

if i try to make any cohesive, comprehensible point, i get bogged down.

so many thoughts re: religion and christianity in particular, re: culture and community values, class warfare

to the theist, the question of god seems to be the most important of all, the most important that could be. everything else hinges on it. to the atheist, it is an ancillary question, a curiosity really, rather than anything important — at least, in her heart, this is the minuscule relevance of it. one must allow for the topic’s peculiar importance in western cultural and, most importantly, political life.

to the theist, god is more than important, god is the foundation of all importance. to the atheist, the myriad things which the theist explains or interprets in terms of god are instead explained or interpreted through myriad scientific and humanistic factors. what is important fades into the realm of the subjective, and it varies as much from day to day as it does person to person and society to society. the question of the existence of the god of the hebrews fails to excite more curiosity than the question of the existence of the ghosts in bobby mackey’s.

yet, it is asserted, that this god has a claim on my life and my identity narrative. does this demand some response on my part, affirmative or negative? rather — countless forces, principalities and powers, make a claim on my life — country, family, municipality, race, class, gender, not to mention the gods of many peoples, and on — i want nothing to do with responding to all of them. if i must, i would deny them all at once — three times, and be absolved of identity.

indeed, to the millennial freethinker, at a certain point it seems that in no way could a god such as the christian god be particularly relevant. not at least to the meaning of life, for instance. for clearly this is a god of humanity — the god of the hebrews, of the roman church, of christendom. the god of the heavens and the earth, it is said. but do we not know the heavens and the earth better now than we did two, three four thousand years ago? have we really given ourselves a chance to appreciate our profound and mind-boggling insignificance in the context of what we know about the universe, let alone in the face of the expanding void of all that we do not know? any god concerned with us humans is no god of the universe.

putting aside the question of god allows one to regain the native sense of wonder and awe, of real joy in observing the world and asking questions. one sees the world anew, clearly, as if a light had been turned on in the darkness. this vision of the world is, i believe, vast and beautiful, it is a true good news, a gospel to share — this is what i want to do.

listening to zealot: the life and times of jesus of nazareth by reza aslan

religion always is, and always has been, a political (politicized and politicizing) institution.