What is a double dog?

If it was anything less than the ultimate double-dog dare--no wait... it was the double-dog dare--I'd be cool. I'd be chilling, probably playing Civ III (alas, I'm too poor for the new Civ IV...) while waiting for Ann to get home, but he (that is, Jason) just had to break out the double-dog--excuse me, the double-dog--and I don't even like dogs!

So since he'll probably get nothing in his comments but people agreeing with him, let me be the lone dissenter--but allow me a few introductory qualifications:

1) I do not believe the bible is completely inerrant, yet at the same time I do believe many--not all, but many--of its supposed errors and contradictions can be quite readily explained through close reading and scholarly research.

2) I do not believe the bible was written by God. It was written by men perhaps inspired by a higher power, but it certainly has the idiosyncratic footprint of a humanity fucked up, albeit with good intentions.

First things first: It is silly to expect the bible to be written in such a precision as today's books are written. First of all, it was written by probably hundreds of different men over a span of probably 5000 years (give or take a couple of hundred or so) and completed just under 2000 years ago. Think about that.

Go ahead. Think.

Think hard. That's a lot to swallow. That's a long, long fucking time ago, in a place and culture that might as well be on an alien planet. Hell, even the historical time period covered in the bible spans many diverse cultures alien to one another. But even the foreignness that these cultures and societies would experience with one another pales in comparison to the foreignness we would experience with any of their respective cultures.

Now think of this. Firstly, books today are primarily written by one person who has a birth certificate, social security number, a paper trail a couple of miles long, etc. In other words, most people today who write books are historically validated because we do that kind of thing nowadays. Secondly, books written today are scrutinized by a small army dedicated to making them errata free--and even then most books lucky enough to be published still contain a handful of errors which sometimes might not even get fixed when they get to paperback. And thirdly, books written today are written and edited by contemporaries who know one another. In other words, the writer is in a relationship with the publicist who knows the editor who hires the lawyers and the proofreaders who knows the compositor who knows the printer so on and so forth. These people all have the benefit of calling one another up on cell phones, doing lunch with one another, e-mailing one another. In other words, they are not only contemporaries but have the advantage of instantaneous feedback on whatever it is that's going on in their lives, which is, in this case, putting together a book that is as well-written and close to error-free as possible.

And now this: the people who compiled these ancient writings are not historically verifiable. They were much more worried about getting enough food for their tribe or warring with a neighboring clan to bother with birth certificates and the like. Hell, up until very recently, people didn't even keep track of something as simple as a birthday, if for no other reason than the infant mortality rate was so high, people just thought they were lucky they lived that first week. (BTW, the only reason we know when Shakespeare was born was because the church recorded when he was baptized, which by custom was three days after one's birth because even then the infant mortality rate was exorbitantly high. So as late in human history as the sixteenth century, people didn't care about birthdays nearly as much as living on after one was born. And Shakespeare had a stable home, town, and country. Imagine a nomadic tribe in the desert 5000 years ago. How stable is that? But I digress). Also, it's not like these people, even as late as Jesus' day, could walk into a Barnes & Noble (NOT FUCKING BARNES & NOBLES!!!!! Sorry, had to get that off my chest) and just buy a couple of books from among thousands. These people had stones and rocks, and later ink and papyrus. And they only had a handful of originals, if they had any copies at all. This is all they had, mind you, for thousands of years while the bible was being recorded by hundreds of men who didn't know each other and could call one another up and say, "Hey, did you get that tablet I sent you regarding your contradiction on tablet 42?" (Forty-two! Ha!) Now, mind you, the Old Testament was written by a solid group of people who handed the tablets (and later scrolls) down very, very carefully from one generation to another, which is why you have a lot less contradiction in the OT than in the NT. Nevertheless, the Jewish priests did not have the benefit of calling up their fellow scribe who wrote whatever down however many hundreds of years ago. It's when you get to the NT that you really see all these supposed errors and contradictions, but we'll get to that soon enough.

Like now. The New Testament is compiled from thousands--yes, thousands!--of various scrolls, some of which have holes, are illegible, ruined beyond repair, etc. And yes, many do contain contradictions. So scholars went with the ones that matched the most, laid aside those that didn't quite fit theologically or that just were obvious forgeries. It's a fascinating undertaking to look at all of this editing, redacting, compiling, and canonizing--but that would go beyond the scope of this post. To get to the point, you pointed out some--what you feel, I'm sure--are blatant contradictions in Paul's conversion experience. You cite three passages: two from Acts and one from Galatians. Let's look at this idea of yours.

It is pretty much agreed upon by most scholars that, of all the NT books, Paul's letters were the first to be written, probably around 40-50 a.c.e. (And BTW, I'm going off of memory here, so I might have some dates wrong or mixed up, but I feel confident enough to write this without looking any of it up, so I'm pretty sure I'm at least close to historical accuracy, but you are more than welcome to fact-check me.) And of those letters, only about half are agreed upon as authentically Pauline. Remember, we're talking about a culture far different than our own, and in those days it was very common to evoke the name of a famous person in order to lend some credence to what was being written. So many in the infant church, seeing that Paul was a rising star, would invoke his name in order to get people to buy into what was being written. So many of the "Pauline" letters preached to the masses on Sunday mornings are just some dude's ideas, and he was using Paul to get his opinion heard. So Paul really isn't the patriarchal misogynist, lay-down-the-law-of-the-church type dude we all make him out to be. But again, that's for another time in another place. However, most scholars do contend that Galatians was in fact written by Paul. So out of all your examples of Paul's conversion, the one in Galatians is probably the most closest to the truth (even though it's not so much an example of his conversion so much as an explanation to the Galatian church of his street cred with respect to the gospel as he knew it).

And this is where we get to the point of people not being contemporaries--or at least not knowing each other. I find it hard to imagine one of your background not knowing that Paul did not write Acts. You say, "from Paul's own mouth" when speaking of what's written in Acts, and I found that quite disconcerting. You did clear some of this mess up at the end when you mentioned that some "claim that Luke wrote the book of Acts," but even that evidences your lack of knowledge when it comes to who wrote what NT book, when it was written, to whom it was written, and why (not that I'm an expert, mind you... like I said, I'm going off of memory from stuff I learned a while back, so I might have some things mixed up, but I'm pretty sure I'm close to what the latest scholarship is in a nutshell). It's pretty much agreed upon that whoever wrote Acts also wrote Luke beause they are the same book that got broken up when the canon was being compiled--in other words, Acts is Luke Part Deux. But no one is clear on who wrote any of the gospels. John probably wrote John, and Mark was probably written first--soon after Paul's epistles--but that's the best scholars can do. And all of these gospels were written after Paul's letters, the one attributed to Luke decades after Paul penned his epistle to the Galatians. (And BTW, Paul was writing these letters to individual people in individual small churches in individual circumstances. He probably would not want these specific letters to be universally applied, and he certainly had no idea that they would be canonized and thus scrutinized to death for thousands of years, else he probably would've been much more careful with what he said and how he said it!)

So, what do we have? We have an authentic (as best we can determine) letter, followed decades later by an anonymous book traditionally attributed to Luke. Which one am I going to give more credence to? I think that's obvious; I'm going to go with the account in Galatians. But to accuse Luke (we'll just call this author Luke for argument's sake) of lying is just silly. These two writers probably never even knew each other, they were writing to different audiences with different agendas for different purposes, and their writings are separated by decades at best. Furthermore, Paul was quite the charismatic young up-and-comer in the infant church. Everyone knew about his past, and his new vocation just stunned people. And, taking into account the idea that telephones, radios, books, newspapers, magazines, television, the Internet--you know, the places we get our information--didn't exist back then, people made up stories, told tall tales, exaggerated. It's always more fun to embellish, miss this fact, gloss over that one, not hear this one but exaggerate that one. So, taking into account that the letter and the book were not written by the same author, they were not written with the same intent or purpose, they both had a different audience with different issues, the two authors probably never even met, they were separated by decades of time, the writer of Luke had no media from which to gather information and instead relied on hearsay, and people back then were storytellers first and fact-checkers later (remember, this is a completely different culture!), the accounts shouldn't be expected to match up except by those who don't really know what they are reading. It's like when my tenth graders tell me that Shakespeare is dumb. They can't understand the Elizabethan language, and because of their lack of understanding and need for immediate gratification, they spout off these crazy notions which only expose their lack of education. That's what reading your last post was like: "Mister [that's what my students call me], Shakespeare is so dumb!" Not that you are uneducated; you are obviously a very intelligent dude (you're a fucking Hughes for crying out loud), but in this area of knowledge I believe you are lacking some information, which I am trying to lay out in the briefest way I can without skimping.

So there it is. Most of your posts I agree with. Fundies suck (most of them, anyway). People should know this about them. But where you do such a good job of investigating and researching and validating and exposing these claims against them like the Pulitzer-seeking muckraking journalist you could be, you do an equally bad job of writing about a book you spent your youth being hit upon the head with but never really examining. I find it continually amazing how many people bad-mouth the bible but probably can't even name ten books it contains (it's like when Stephen Colbert was interviewing a representative who introduced legislation to have the Ten Commandments posted in federal courthouses, and Colbert asked him to name the Ten Commandments, and he couldn't even name four!!!). Not that you are that uneducated about the bible; I'm sure you're more educated than most. But I thought you knew more about it than what you have shown in your most recent post. And like I said, I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination. I might know more than the average person, but I am far from an expert. I just wish you'd put all that investigation and research you put into your fundie diatribes and perhaps incorporate them into your bible diatribes. You really do such a good job with them, exposing their hypocrisies and such. I can tell you put a lot of time and thought into them, and it shows by your consistent readership, the mark of a good writer.

So let me know what you think. I've tried to cover as much as my brain would allow me to recall. I think most of what I wrote is somewhat accurate, but you are more than willing to check up on all this stuff I just glossed off the top of my head. I'd like to know if I'm wrong so I can correct my thinking and ideas. After all, I have more of a stake in this stuff right now, at least for the time being.

Something to think about, to chew on, to ponder. That's all.

All while I was feeding the kids and washing the dishes and feeding myself and playing with the kids and giving them baths and puttig them to bed, I was thinking of some things that I wanted to add to my previous post. I was hoping to get some writing time in between the kids going to bed and "The Revolution" on the History Channel, but that didn't happen. So today I am hoping to get some more things down that have been on my mind.

One thing is that I'm thinking my brother might take offense or be affronted by some things that I wrote yesterday, and I'd like to predict what some of those offenses might be and ameliorate some of those points so as to quell any possible firestorms that might begin to brew.

Number One: A) He might think I'm worried about his salvation or B) that he's not saved or C) that he's wrong for being gay or D) that it's wrong to not believe in God--or at least a higher power or E) that I'm judging him or F) that I don't think highly of him or G) anything along those lines. Answers: A) Not at all, if indeed there is such a thing, B) I despise that "Sunday school" terminology and think the whole idea is a bunch of hooey, C) While I don't think being gay is natural, I'm certainly not going to say it's wrong or that he and other homosexuals should not have the same rights and privileges and liberties and freedoms as heterosexuals, D) it's not wrong; I just think it's poor judgment, E) Not my place, not my job, not my desire, not my right, and not my idea of a dialogue, F) I think very highly of him, except for his taste in movies, G) I used to be such a fundie asshole that I dread I might still have some lingering fundiness, and it is my desire to simply offer alternative ways of looking at Jesus and God, because fundies and the church en masse should not have cornered the market on Jesus and his teachings--though they have and it's a tragedy. I think of a recent comment on one of Jason's posts which read, "My brother is gay and he's afraid to be himself because of jesus christ. He's diagnosed with a mental disorder because of it. I'm fed up with organized religion and their negative brainwashing. I hope its not too late for my brother to escape his religious prison." Jesus, as recorded in both the canonic and the gnostic (to my knowledge) gospels, never said anything about homosexuality. The Apostle Paul did, but he's not Jesus. I've said it before and I'll say it again, people have fucked up Christ's teachings for so long that people have come to think that Jesus is responsible for more than he actually is. He was just a dude who lived 2000 years ago. An important dude, for sure, but it's not his fault some people in this world cannot come to terms with their homosexuality--it's our repressive society's fault and their misguided notions of Christianity. And yes, organized religion does suck and it is a prison; with that I agree. But because human beings--given their quest for power because of their deparavity and lack which ultimately cause fear and repression--latch onto a zealous Jew and claim to have an in-road or some kind of handle on him (read: the Church) organize themselves and condemn homosexuality, should we then say, "Oh, fuck Jesus"? Certainly not! We should say, "Fuck these people and their religion!" Stop throwing Jesus under the bus. Or at least redirect your anger to its proper place.

Which leads me into something I've been thinking about, something I think I already might have written about, but I'm not sure. Anyway, people get angry at God for so many things. And thus they say, "Fuck God!" And they proceed to not believe in him anymore, or they follow another one altogether. That's fine, but it does show a lack of understanding about responsibility. The first misunderstanding is that people think God does this or Satan does that or some Force made me do this or that. No: people do things and are responsible for their own actions. People do most of the fucking-shit-up in this world, and most of the problems we have in this world, when you boil it all down, can be traced to an individual looking out for himself and not for you. "That's fine," you might say, "but what about tsunamis and hurricanes and flu epidemics and all that?" Once again, the problem lies in the supposition that this shit shouldn't happen. Well, it should because that's the type of world we live in. The universe thrives on explosions and destructive forces. If we fall victim to them, it's not God's fault--it's no one's fault! We're just on this spinning ball for the briefest of moments. We're a blip on the history of the Earth, which itself is a blip in the Universe's history. People step on ants when they walk down the street, and you don't see ants blaming God for that, and neither should we blame a higher power when an earthquake rips across the bottom of the ocean and creates a wave that tears up an island. Perhaps, instead of using our higher faculties to blame a higher being, we should use those higher faculties to not live so damn close to the ocean, or build cities below sea level. And if we're going to build cities beneath the sea level, then we should do a better job of protecting that city. All the money we sink into this insane war in the desert would have easily paid for better levy systems in New Orleans. Or, how about we not contribute to global warming, which changes weather patterns to create stronger hurricanes. So once again, we have to lay at least some of the blame on ourselves for these natural disasters. Don't blame God, and certainly don't blame Jesus. He was just a teacher-dude that thought he was doing the right thing.

So when people go blaming God for the shit in their lives, I just think it's all a bunch of bologna. Blame people; don't blame God. I'm oversimplifying for brevity's sake, by the way....

So I didn't want to write that, but I did. And I think I did because it leads me into my next point, which is that people lose faith in Jesus or God--or a higher power in general--when they look at the world and see all this shit and say something along the lines of, "How can there be a god when there's all this shit in the world?" or "God doesn't exist becasue if he did we wouldn't have all this shit in the world" or "God is something that science and reason and logic prove every day that doesn't exist; so therefore, he doesn't exist" or "God is a human construct that people conjured to give them security and purpose; he is just a figment of our imagination." All of these and probably more are some reasons people just decide not to have faith anymore. I think that's sad. I think it's sad because the only alternative is to believe in humanity itself--or at least your own person--and that's a travesty because human beings are depraved animals in desperate need. More on that at another time.

I still didn't yet get into what I origianlly wanted to write about, which is a defense of my writing to my brother in general about his atheism. It's one thing for Joe Schmoe to be an atheist; it's another for someone you love. And it's not like I'm trying to save him or that I'm worried about his soul or that there's something wrong with him. It has nothing to do with any of that at all. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that for a while I thought about that, too. I mean, there are times when I think that there is no such thing as God or even a god or goddess. I sometimes really think that he is a construct of our overactive imagination. The more we learn about our universe, the less important and relevant he becomes. But then I always come around to thinking that he's more than just this god of the gaps. But those reasons I'll save for another time. The point is I only sometimes play around with the idea of there being no more than just us and the universe; I never actually commit to the idea of a godless universe. Even if it's not Jehovah, I still think there is a higher power. And it has nothing to do with my upbringing, either. My worldview is so different from what I was taught during my formative years that many wouldn't even consider me a Christian at all; my belief system would be deemed heretical and unorthodox. What always comforts me in this regard is that that is exactly what got Jesus killed--so much for upholding the laws and orthodoxy of the church.

I just try to follow the teachings of Christ. That's it. If he never rose from the grave, alrighty then. If he wasn't God, alrighty then. Even if he never existed at all and he's just some conjured up superhero for a small sect of Jews that history seemed to eventually favor, alrighty then. It doesn't bother me. It's like at the end of Big Fish, when the doctor tells the son the real story about his birth. You can still learn important things from these stories, even if they never happened and are embellishments on what really happened.

It's very liberating, actually. I remember when I was at Eastern and I was zealously speaking about Jesus with a good friend of mine at the time. I forget what the topic was exactly, but I was on fire. My audience--one person!--was captivated. Soon, one of the employees, my old boss, actually (I worked in the cafeteria one summer), who went by the name Doc, sat down to listen. I always liked Doc. He and I had many good conversations over that summer. He just sat there and listened to me as I pontificated on this or that about what I had just learned about this or that. After a few minutes Doc had to get back to work; he left the conversation as he had entered it: silently, not a word spoken save this smirk on his face. I remember when the conversation was over she told me she was impressed with some of my ideas and I gave her a lot to think about (which reminds me: that's all I want to do, to give people something to think about and chew on and ponder, because I love it when people do that to me, and I just want to return the favor). As we were walking out of the cafeteria, Doc came up and asked me, "Tom, what if you were to die tomorrow, and you found out that everything you had just talked about was wrong?" I didn't even have to think about it; I didn't bat an eye. I confidently said, "Dude, I'd breathe a long sigh of relief because if someone or something out there exists after I die, then they surely can give me all the answers, because that's all I want to know, the truth!" Doc couldn't believe what I had just said, and quite frankly, neither could I. It was the first of two epiphanal moments in my life.

Most Christians uphold this proposition that Jesus being God is a fact. They say his resurrection is a fact. They say God is a fact of the universe. According to the Apostle Paul, if Jesus only died and didn't rise from the dead, then their (Christians') faith is in vain. If you don't subscribe to this doctrine or that doctrine, then you are heretical and outside the Communion and your soul is in dire straits, hellbound for all eternity. This is what was taught to me growing up. And I reject it all. Yet I still have the nerve to call myself a follower of Christ? Absolutely. I can explain why, but not now.

The second epipanal moment of my life was after I was married and my first son was born. We were living in Gilbertsville (yea Zerns!) and I was on my way to my old church, Moutain View Chapel. I always have and still do respect greatly the pastor there, even if we completely disagree on some fundamental (yea puns!) issues. Nonetheless, at this point in my life I was still at a crisis. Too many questions hurled through my mind, all of which could be summed up along the lines of: How can I be a Christian if I don't believe most of what I was taught to believe? You see, I always dug Jesus. He is the ultimate rebel. And I love rebellion. He was a rule breaker, and I love breaking rules. He stood up for what he believed in, stuck it to the fundies, created a new world order without trying, and was a total feminist. So I wanted to follow this man, but this church thing kept getting in the way. These Christians kept dogging me. I was tired of these loser Christians, yet I couldn't stay away from Jesus. And somehow, something clicked that I can't explain. As I was driving southbound on 100, turning right onto the road that leads to Wal-Mart where the Red Lobster is, it all became crystal clear! Tears started welling up I was so overcome with jubilation and relief. Fuck these Christians! That's what was going on in my mind! And fuck all this belief system worldview crap I've been mistaking for the real thing! Jesus lived and died 2000 years ago, man! We can't even get a story straight that happened the day before, and we're going to get it right after 2000 years? He said and he said and he said and he said and he said for 2000 years? Ever play whisper down the lane? Things are gonna get fucked up and distorted after a while! So if this didn't happen and that didn't happen, so what? The core of the story doesn't change. This fucker, whether or not he existed, whether or not he was god, thought he was dying for me. Whether he was or not, whether he did or not, it doesn't matter. He thinks that he was doing it, and that's as good of a person as any to follow.

You gotta follow some idea in life. No one goes through life believing nothing. There's this dude with a whole lotta love and a whole lotta wisdom and a good teacher and he changed people's lives for the better... you gotta believe in something, and he's as good as any. Lao-tzu, Buddha, Mohammed--whoever. These were great dudes with a lot of great thoughts and great philosophical ideas flowed through them. Jesus was different than the others, yes, and that's why I do his thing and not the others'. But that's another story for another time.

So what I'm saying is this. Xianity is a huge idea that got fucked up over time and became Christianity. People fucked it up. Over time people began to follow people and not the teacher, making a gross mistake which fucked people over big time. It's my contention that if people would see Jesus as an actual, living breathing fleash-and-blood person and not some idea that is loaded with all sorts of shitty baggage that speaks of the shittiness of other people, they'd be more sympathetic to him. That's all. I just don't think people give this guy credit because they're so overcome with anger at the fuckedupness of the church and many Christians. You don't have to be a Christian to follow the teachings of Christ.

And it's not like I want to change people's ideas. It's not like I want to change Jason from an atheist to a deist. If he does, he does. If he doesn't, he doesn't. I just want to present alternative ideas maybe he and whoever else has the patience to read this blather might not have thought of before. I have many books on my bookshelf written by atheists arguing for atheism because I want to be well-informed and open-minded. Like I said, my goal is dialogue where people learn new shit they never thought of before. People will change if real dialogue is taken seriously. How they change and to what degrees they change is not for me to control or to decide. It's not my goal to change people's minds toward this idea or that idea. It's my goal to present ideas, learn ideas from others, have them learn from me, and let change happen within them and me as whatever spirit or consciousness moves.

And I will respond to the first post's comments Jason answered, the entry he entitled, "Brace Yourselves... This is Long" because I need to take back some things I said, especially the part about being a Republican. How can I be a Republican if I'm registered Green? As this is too long, I'll stop. I'm sure I'll have to retract, redact, and rewrite once people start poking holes and flaws into my random thoughts that I only have a chance to write down when the kids are napping. None of this, by the way, is spell-checked or edited. It's pretty much free-flow from the time I put the kids to bed to the time they wake up. So I apologize in advance if I said somethign poorly or wrong.

My kids are napping and Ann's at work so I finally have some time to write

So my brother had this quiz on his blog and I thought it'd be fun to take. I predicted I'd be either an emergent/postmodern or a classical liberal, and judging from my results, it seems to me the quiz is pretty reliable. Jason scored a modern liberal (That's John Shelby Spong's pic, by the way, next to Jason's results. I have three of his books and highly recommend him as a writer and thinker, for he has definitely helped shape my worldview.), which I would've guessed for him, with emergent/postmodern a close second; so again, the quiz seems to me to be pretty reliable. I thankfully scored a 0% on the fundie scale. I used to be a fundie and have worked hard these past few years to shed that abominable skin.

Here's what my results are:

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern.
You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.
Emergent/Postmodern - 82%
Neo orthodox - 61%
Classical Liberal - 57%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan - 57%
Modern Liberal - 46%
Roman Catholic - 29%
Charismatic/Pentecostal - 25%
Reformed Evangelical - 25%
Fundamentalist - 0%

I was thankful to see that the emergent/postmodern score was so high for him. I've been worried for quite some time about some of his thinking. I keep meaning to write about this and engage in some dialogue (online, that is, but if there's enough time and alcohol, in person would certain;y work) with him, but because of my former fundie skin, I feel sometimes I come across as a judging proselytizer when really I'm just trying to be an informed educator. And I don't want to ruin a good relationship. I certainly don't want to argue or bicker. I want to have an engaged dialogue, an exchange of ideas that might somehow lead to some enlightenment--for both of us, because I certainly have a lot to learn. You see, many of my brother's hang-ups and issues I too went through, though at a much earlier stage. Many of the things he bemoans about the church and religion and all that sound so familiar to me because I've been there and done that. So many of the questions he has insufficient answers to I have already worked out myself. I spent years reading some of the great thinkers, philosophers, and theologians, and still spend time engaged with some amazing professors and teachers I have been blessed to know and be with. Unfortunately I think he spends too much time sifting through fundie propoganda just to root out its errancies and hypocrisies and not enough time reading quality thinkers and writers. He also probably spends a lot of time reading liberal and secular humanists who tell him what he wants to hear without challenging him at a deep, spiritual (not Christian, mind you, just spiritual) level. So between the idiots on the far right and the ideas of the far left, I think he's missing some key components to a deeper understanding of this thing we call life. But aside frm all of that, I think the biggest difference between us, and probably why we have arrived at some differing conclusions (not that these conclusions are written in stone, forged and forever to not be altered; we are both too open-minded and critical to say we have it once-and-for-all figured out) is because I never had to deal with homosexuality. That's a monster of issues waiting to fuck you up for many a year if you grew up in the environment that we did. So I envy him not. I'm sure it fucked him up and tore at his soul for a long, long time. It's a hell I hope to never endure, and I applaud him for coming through such an ordeal as sane as he is. He's certainly got a good head on his shoulders. One caveat, though, and of course it cuts to the heart and soul of things: where I never lost sight of the idea that some higher power existed somewhere and in some form, it seems that he has come to the conclusion that none exists.

Now this idea is relatively new in human history, and was en vogue not too long ago--in human history terms, that is. Reason and science have done much to undermine the human spirit (let alone spirits at all) of which any higher power must be, as this higher power certainly does not dwell among us--at least according to our discernable senses. And many a person has fallen under the spell of this deicide. I wish not to tell anyone what to believe or how to believe. I wish not to judge anyone, nor to condemn anyone. It's not my place for any of that shit. But I do wish to say, in the simplest and kindest way I know how, to show my brother that there is an alternative to atheism, that the world does not have to be carved up into Jehovah vs. Nothing. Seeing his score on that quiz tells me that there is a window here for that type of discussion, but I could be wrong. I think that Jason would resonate with the emergent church and its ideals; I for one cannot get enough of it. It might be a little too postmodern for me (I've been labeled a romantic postmodernist, a kind of oxymoron, but one that I like), but that's the age we live in, and I cannot help but be affected by the current wave of postmodernism in our meta- and subnarratives (culture and subculture, if you will) and react to it as best I know how.

So my kids just woke up from their naps. I have to go. They're hungry. I didn't know where I was going to go with this, and I'm not even sure if it goes anywhere at all. I just know that my brother has been on my mind a lot and I want to be a good older brother because I was such a shitty one for so long. I read his stuff and I want to say things, but I don't know if I'm welcome to as I've gotten burned in the past and I don't want to relive that pain again.