31 Days Blogging Challenge

October 6 - Total Random Stuff I'm taking the 31 days blogging on a single topic challenge from Write 31 days.


October 1 - Playlist Update "Hallelujah"
October 2 - Why Breaking Up With Jesus 
October 3 - First Steps
October 4 - The Secret
October 5 - Drunken Ramblings
October 6 - Total Random Stuff
October 7 - Scumbag Brain
October 8 - Morality and Identity
October 16 - This Space Intentionally Left Blank 

This Space Intentionally Left Blank

I've rejected multiple titles for this blog post:

Failure

On Suddenly Discovering Things Were Not As They Seemed

Stumbling Toward Wholeness

Thawing

I'm just full of half formed, tangled ideas that I can't completely articulate right now. And that's okay. I'm in a place right now where it feels like things are moving: energy, thoughts, relationships. That feels less okay, even though on some level I think it's progress.

I'm not sure why I thought that participating in a 31 day blogging challenge while actively doing deep trauma work was going to go smoothly (or happen at all), but here we are.

I have several half formed thought experiments from the last week that I'm going to try to finish editing over the next couple of days and put up in the blank spots from October 9 - 15. Today's post is just more about acknowledging that I'm very much in a holding-the-space kind of place.

Morality and Identity

I was reading this post a while back in which the author posits that the central identity of the self isn't memories but instead moral choices. It made me start thinking about my own morality, and how that's changed over the past year.

I don't know how objective I'm capable of being. Objectivity is not really part of the basic human skillset. You generally have to move into one of the prestige classes to get it as a class skill. (Yes, I know I'm throwing out nerdy gaming terms as if they actually apply to real life.) But I'm going to try to be objective over the next few posts and explore how, if at all, my morality has changed since becoming a non-believer.

So, these are the basic areas I'm going to try to cover:

Sexuality and Gender Identity

Trans identity
Same sex relationships
Monogamy
Birth control
Sexual ethics

Social Justice

Poverty
Private charity vs. public policy
Supporting the Church
Crime and Punishment
Drug Use

Life Issues

Abortion
Euthanasia
War
Self Defense

Scumbag Brain

My brain apparently only has two settings on the old self-esteem spectrum. On the one extreme is the "Worthless" pole. I tend to second guess myself a lot. I don't feel confident in decisions. I can really berate myself and start feeling like I'm not (nor will I ever be) good enough. I'm too fat, I'm too old, I'm too clumsy. Whatever you can think of, I've probably been paralyzed for a while trying to think my way out of it. But then, on the other hand, when I think I'm honestly evaluating the feedback I've gotten from other people, and I start to feel okay about myself, then that's when my brain kicks into high gear and I get the other scumbag brain attitude treatment. "Who the hell do you think YOU are?" "Why are you being such a know-it-all?" "G-d you're so embarrassing." Had one of those panic attacks earlier in the day and it was really unpleasant.

Total Random Stuff

I wonder if other ex-believers, especially women, feel that their maturity has been somewhat stunted while they were still in their belief systems? I have a pretty clear history of taking a subordinate role at least in my career path. I'm often pretty sure that there's got to be a more adulty adult in the room, and I tend to defer to them. I don't really think that's my personality, but I dunno. Just something I'm wondering about tonight.

Yesterday I had dental work done in the morning, and a thing at my school for their program grant review by Rutgers. So, I just got home and crashed. Today I spent the day figuring out that no, I do NOT want to work at that inpatient behavioral health unit. I know an n=2 is no more useful than an n=1, but maybe psych nursing just isn't my bag. I want to help, but maybe that's just Survivor's Mission. 

Drunken Ramblings

Yep, I'm admitting it, out loud even. Sometimes I drunkblog.

Here's the random crap:

I wrote a letter to Papa Frankie. I actually mailed it. To. Vatican. City. This is probably the only time in the history of the world that some random unimportant woman from the middle of nowhere Oklahoma could actually write a letter to the Vicar of Christ and have a snowball's chance in hell of getting an answer, so there's that.

I got a new therapist. She's with Trauma Dynamics of Denver. They're involved in the Phase II trials of the MDMA study by MAPS. I hope it helps, because I am really done with all this top-down processing bullcrap.

My Beloved is awesome. Even though I no longer believe in souls, I believe he is my soulmate.

Finally, I'm trying really fucking hard to figure out why I'm not a homeless, drug addicted, dead prostitute. I have an ACEs score of 9.

Just let that sink in, will ya?

The Secret

No, not that abysmal movie nor the idiotic philosophy behind it that is just like Prosperity Gospel but with less Jesus and more woo. I'm talking about the real secret. The secret that all the grown ups kept from us when we were young. You know the one. At least, I hope you do. You may not know. But that's why I'm here. I'm going to tell you the secret.

There are no grown ups.

None of us know what we're doing for certain. We are all just doing the best we can with the information we have at the time. If we're smart, we gather all the information we can, and we try to keep in mind the fallacies that our species frequently falls into, and we double and triple check with peer review, but we still don't KNOW.

This includes world leaders. This includes religious authorities.

Earlier this week that stupid "Pay $5.99 to Facebook or ALL your information becomes public, on, and copy and paste this stupid, meaningless blurb on your wall to prevent "them" from doing this." thing was going around for the nine millionth time it seems. And one of the people who posted it was the priest from the ECC church we sometimes, if we feel like it, attend for mass. I laughed till I cried.

Yes, apparently I'm staying awake nights and going through existential angst because of things I was taught as a small child by people who cannot consistently remember Snopes exists.

First Steps

I was having a conversation with Eldest Son earlier this week. He asked me what "gay" means. I answered his question by saying that when two people are in love and they want to stay together forever and make a family we have different names for those couples depending on who the partners are. If they are a man and a woman then we call that relationship straight. I used his father and I as an example. I said that if those two people are both men, or both women they call those relationships gay. He thought a minute and then said "Is gay bad?" I said "What do you think?" He said "I think it's weird, but I don't think it's any of my business." I said I didn't think it was any of my business either. He asked "But why do some people think it's bad?" I said that some religions thought it was wrong, that G-d had forbidden it. He asked "Why do they think that?" I told him that I didn't know about other religions because I just didn't know enough about their beliefs and their holy texts to say, but that Christians look to the Bible for their morality and that there were a few passages, mostly in the Old Testament, that seemed to say that being gay was offensive to G-d. He interrupted me at this point and said quite forcefully "The Old Testament? But G-d killed off thousands and thousands of the Egyptian's children in the Old Testament! That's supposed to be moral??" He seemed quite outraged. I was taken aback, and we wound up the conversation after that. 

It reminded me of when I was around his age. In my church growing up we were all encouraged to read the bible.Every year I got a little check card that was supposed to help me read the entire bible through in one year. Something like this, if I recall correctly.

I remember that I got awards for reading the bible through about eight times while I was growing up. The first one was when I was about eight years old, but I missed a couple of years in high school. 

Thinking about what my son said, I remembered when I was really young and I had read disturbing things in the bible and I would ask my parents about it. Their advice was always the same: to talk to our pastor, Brother Williams. As I remember him, Brother Williams was a very kind, soft spoken man. He wasn't a fire and brimstone preacher. We got those a lot, in the semi-annual revival meetings. We would bring in some preacher and he would scream and pound the pulpit. Brother Williams wasn't like that, but in retrospect it was pretty insidious. He would read the passages and give a sermon that used a lot of pleading and exhortion. It was like he regretted telling us this ugly truth, but he was compelled because it was in the Bible and he just didn't want us to not have this essential information.

Brother Williams always seemed patient and kind to me. He never told me to stop bothering him with my questions about the bible. I had a real problem with the Old Testament and G-d's actions throughout. I remember I kept saying that things didn't seem fair, like the bears that ate the children for teasing Elijah. That was an especially hard conversation because at the time I was being bullied at school rather mercilessly. I had to somehow reconcile the fact that I was supposed to forgive any offense, no matter how bad, seventy times seven (which I was instructed did not mean 490 times, but forever) but that G-d himself had the option of sending motherfucking bears to eat kids for calling a prophet bald. When I pointed out that wasn't fair I got told, ever so gently, that it didn't have to be fair, G-d can do what G-d wants because he's G-d.

So looking back over my life, it seems that the things I'm wrestling with now aren't new. They certainly aren't new to human discourse. These are big questions that people ask, especially about fundamentalist religions. And the answers I was given are pretty classic thought stopping answers designed to shut down dissent and bring the questioner back into line. 

I still wonder when Eldest Son read the Old Testament. 

Why Breaking Up With Jesus?

Why use the language of a shattered relationship instead of simply saying that I don't believe any more? Penn Jillette, of Penn and Teller, famously says that he is not an atheist because Christians treated him badly, he is not an atheist because he's angry with G-d, but rather that he is an atheist because there is no G-d. That's the story of a lot of unbelievers, but it's not my story.

I was steeped in Christianity before I could speak. I converted to Catholicism over two decades ago. For me, this is the ending of a relationship. Sure, it's ending because I'm convinced *now* that it was a fantasy, but it's still something ending. And I'm experiencing that end as a loss.

There are many unbelievers who experience leaving their former faith as personal freedom. The pain for them comes from the way they are treated by those in their circles who still believe. Again, that is not my story, that is not my experience. For me, I am as supported now by my close friends and family as I ever was before. The Christians who would have turned their backs on me and rejected me for this have already turned their backs on me and rejected me because I wasn't the exact right kind of Christian for them. And as far as personal freedom, I already do pretty much what I wish and what I believe is right. Again, as Penn Jillette has famously answered the hypothetical question "If you don't believe in G-d, what keeps you from raping and murdering all you want?" with "I already rape and murder all I want. And the amount I want is zero. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

I was staunchly pro-life as a believer, I am perhaps even more so now that I believe that there is nothing more beyond this life. At least as a believer I could console myself with the fact that somewhere was a Love and a Presence who was keeping track and who would make everything right in the end. I was a pacifist before, I am as much or more so now that I believe that when we kill someone we destroy them utterly, not just destroy their body yet leave their true self remaining somehow. My sexual ethics are unchanged. I still believe that sex is best, most fulfilling within the context of a committed relationship where the participants are honest, vulnerable and intimate with each other on every level possible. I still believe that someone else's sexual preferences become my business only at the point that they want to have sex with me. I still believe that sex is only ethical between persons who are equal in power and control, whether that power and control is seen through age, experience level, intellectual ability, emotional maturity, or any other factor.

So, sorry to disappoint everyone, but I won't be running around naked fucking everything that moves, toking up, swigging rum, shooting people in the face and screaming "FREEDOM!"

The loss for me is the Fantasy Jesus who was with me through every difficulty in life, who knew me better than I could know myself, who loved me more than I could love myself. That intimacy, and that felt sense of belonging is unimaginably hard to give up.

Playlist Update - Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah

Hallelujah.

A friend posted this song on their Facebook profile a few days ago. I can't stop listening to it. It's like Leonard Cohen crawled inside my head and just started writing. I've listened to several versions, and I've added the Leonard Cohen live from London version to my "Kickass Songs" playlist. Point of fact, I've made a new playlist called simply "Hallelujahs."

Weirdly enough, even though this song resonates so strongly with me, I think I'm putting my own spin on its meaning just because of where I'm at right now. Every version seems to emphasize a slightly different point, and not one of them is an exact match for my interpretation, though the original by Leonard Cohen is closest. I'm considering slightly tweaking the lyrics and recording it for myself.

<voice over> Blessed be You, Oh L-rd our G-d in Whom we live, and move, and have our being.

I've heard there was a secret chord

That David played and it pleased the L-rd

But You don't really care for music, do You?

It goes like this:

The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall then the major lift

The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Well your faith was strong but you needed proof

You saw her bathing on the roof

Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you

She tied you to her kitchen chair

And she broke your throne and she cut your hair

And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Now maybe there's a G-d above

But all I've ever learned from Love

Is how to shoot at Someone who outdrew you

And it's not a cry that you hear tonight

It's not some pilgrim who claims to have seen the light

It's a cold and it's a very broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Oh yes, I've been here before

I've seen this room and I've walked this floor

You know, I used to live alone before I knew You

And I've seen Your flag on the marble arch

But listen, love is not a victory march

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Well there was a time when You let me know

What was really going on below

But now You never even show it to me, do You

I remember when I moved in You

And the Holy Ghost was moving too

And every single breath I drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

I’ve done my best I know it wasn’t much

I couldn’t feel so I learned to touch

I’ve told the truth

I didn’t come here just to fool you

And even though it all went wrong

I will stand right here before the empty Throne

With nothing, nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

If you imagine that this rendition sounds raw,  angry, and conveys a sense of betrayal, you're right.
And if you imagine that "hallelujah" is bitter, tastes like ashes, and is roughly equivalent to "fuck you", well, you're not wrong. 

Saudade

"Saudade (European Portuguese: [sɐwˈðaðɨ], Brazilian Portuguese: [sawˈdadi] or [sawˈdadʒi], Galician: [sawˈðaðe]; plural saudades)^[1] is a word in Portuguese and Galician (from which it entered Spanish) that claims no direct translation in English. It describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return.^[2] A stronger form of saudade might be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as a lost lover, or a family member who has gone missing, moved away, separated, or died." - Wikipedia

I fell asleep tonight at seven. When I woke up, I felt disoriented. I looked at the clock and the time didn't make sense. I couldn't remember when I fell asleep, whether it was the same day, the next morning, or the next evening. Before I figured all that out, I picked up the phone to call my mom. I haven't done that in probably fifteen years or so. Mom died twenty years ago. It doesn't devastate me any more, it was just one of those things. One of those "Huh. There's that feeling again." things.

I'm going through huge changes right now. I went back to school to bring my RN license current. Then I graduated and started job hunting. I have to make a decision this week about where to work. I've got a good offer on the table (turned down a couple of not-so-good offers), and then there's the job that I think I really want. They should make a decision in a couple of days, and my gut feeling is that I will get the offer. Then I have to decide where to work. It's not easy. Trade-offs. And I just wanted to talk to my mom.

After I woke up more completely I realized that it's not just my mom I miss. There are other significant friendships that have disintegrated over time. One of my three best friends from college, Janet, decided six years ago that I was demon possessed. Because I have PTSD. And then there's Dawn. Oh, Dawn.

Dawn and I became close just a year before I left Oklahoma. We'd known each other for years before, since our babies were, well, actual babies. But it wasn't until I started losing weight that we started working out together and became close friends. We had a lot of differences, but we had a lot in common, and I thought there was a strong foundation of mutual respect between us.

After I moved away, Dawn went through a lot of stress. I tried to be as supportive as I could from seven hundred miles away. Then a few months afterwards, from my perspective, she totally flipped out. The friendship limped along for a few months after that, but it was mortally wounded. As I wrote months ago, I am no longer capable of living with subtext. 

The last time I went back to Oklahoma to visit, I tried to get together with her to discuss things openly, and I was firmly rebuffed. So, that's that. It's hard to know I'll never get answers. From my perspective, my former friend is not perceiving or dealing with reality. From her perspective, well, I don't know her perspective because she won't talk about it. But my guess is that her particular flavor of fundamentalist Christianity has explained her problems in the typical narrative of sin and oppression. And somehow, I got implicated in that. Somehow.

Right now, I am missing all the people that I thought I had a certain type of relationship with, but it turned out that I actually didn't. And I can't help but question my part in it. I mean, you know, if one person you meet is an asshole, well, yeah, they may be an asshole. But if everyone you meet is an asshole? Dude, it's you. You're the asshole. If all my friends are crazy, does that mean I'm the crazy one? 

Times like this are when I used to pray. Seems kind of silly to pray when you don't even know if there's anything out there to listen. 

Therapeutic Letter to My Younger Self

Dear Tracey,

Hi. I wanted to introduce myself. I'm Traci too (spelled differently) and I'm actually you, but I'm from the future. I know that right now there is a lot of really confusing stuff going on in your life. There are people who are scary and who are hurting you, but you can't get away from them, and you can't even feel how angry you really are. There are other people who are nice and loving, but they do confusing things you don't like and you can't stop that. There are bullies at school, and you don't have a lot of friends.

I know that you feel really bad sometimes. I know that a lot of the time, you don't feel anything at all. I know that you spend a lot of time hiding from the world and reading because it's just a lot nicer between the covers of a book. You'll enjoy reading for a long, long time, even when the world around you is a whole lot less scary. And that's the really important thing I came to talk to you about: it does get better. A lot better.

One day, you'll leave. You'll move away, and you'll go to college. It won't be like a fairy tale, where everything's magically okay instantly, but over time, you'll learn how to deal with the scary, ugly feelings. And once you've felt them, they'll change. They'll be easier to bear. They'll even go away. When you do leave, you'll start finding people who get you, who understand and speak the same language. They'll value and love the same things you value and love.

When you're older, you will have resources that you don't now. When someone hurts you now, you haven't got a lot of choices. But that will change when you're older. You'll be able to walk away. You'll be able to call the cops if the situation warrants that. The world isn't perfect, people still suck sometimes, but you'll learn to trust your instincts. You'll be able to protect yourself, and you'll be resilient enough to deal with the occasional bad stuff that happens.

One more thing I want to talk about is G-d. (I leave the "o" out because some Jewish friends taught me that it was about respecting the name of G-d.) G-d is really scary and confusing to you right now. They tell you that G-d loves you, but that you are so bad that G-d is going to burn you in hell forever and ever. They tell you that the reason your eyes don't work properly is because of demons. They've told you that you have the devil inside you and that you're bad. And I know that's why you keep going up at Altar Call every time. Look, that stuff just isn't true. It's not. Your eyes don't work because of normal human stuff, and they're not going to get fixed for a long, long time because the people taking care of you are stupid and bad. That's all there is to it. And I'm so, so sorry. I wish I could take you away and help you now, but I can't because I don't exist yet. I will though. You will grow into me, and then together we'll fix this stuff.

And I don't think Hell is real either. We are finite human beings who live an incredibly short time on this planet. There isn't anything that you could do in one short human lifetime that would warrant an eternity of suffering and punishment that never, ever ends. I mean, a good parent (take my word for it) tries to always make the consequence fit the misbehavior. That means that if you yell and scream at your parents because you're angry and frustrated, a good parent will put you in time out. It's like sitting in the corner, only you go to your room without playing, and you just sit for a bit so your mad gets smaller and then the thinking part of your brain comes back online and you can problem solve. The amount of time in time out varies, but it's generally equal to one minute for every year old you are. So right now, if a good parent gave you a time out, it would be for seven or eight minutes.

Similarly, if a kid destroys something on purpose, a good parent will make them make restitution. That means that you replace what you broke. You might have to do extra chores to earn the money to replace the item, or you might lose your allowance for a while. But the point is, that there's an end to it, and it's proportional. You do something a little bad, you get a little consequence. You do something really bad, you get a big consequence. There isn't anything bad enough that humans can do that deserves an eternity of torture. So, you can ignore Jimmy Swaggart and his stupid Red Album. I know it still scares you. I know. But that will get better too. I promise.

I don't know if there's really a G-d. But I do know that the world is a really nice and beautiful place and it is full of things that are so pretty they will make it hard for you to breathe, just looking at them. I know that people hurt each other. Some people do it accidentally, and some really bad people do it on purpose. I know that other people help though. There are people who literally just love everyone so much, they dedicate their whole lives and their fortunes to making the world a better place. And then there are the people who do smaller things to help make the world a better place.

One day, you'll find someone who loves you so much, and you'll make a family together. And he will be a good, kind husband and an awesome Daddy to your kids. And you will be a good, good Mommy. You'll recognize when your kids need help, and you'll get it for them. You'll protect them, and you'll have people that you are related to. You'll have a tribe made up of your own family and your friends, and it will be wonderful. You will one day know people all over the planet who understand you and like you. And you'll like them too. You'll be there for each other. It's all out there waiting for you.

For now, just hang on. Dream your dreams and know that The Middle of Nowhere, Oklahoma isn't the end of your story. It's ugly, and harsh, and full of the dumb. But one day you'll escape. It will be in stages, but it will happen. I have to go now, but I'll write to you again. You can write to me too. I'll get your letters. I'll read them. I love you so much. I think you're brave, and resourceful, and so very, very smart. You'll be okay. I wish I could do more, but the nature of time makes it impossible. Just know that I think you're awesome. Listen to that, and not the ugly words that you hear sometimes from people that suck, okay?

Traci

Therapeutic Letter to G-d - Part 2

So, last time we were talking about the improbable fact of your existence. And how it just doesn't seem overwhelming.

There are things that I have experienced that seem like they were miraculous though. I don't have sufficient data to prove anything in a court of law, but they're convincing to me, most of the time. So, I'm stuck with "you might not be real, you might be real, if you're real, I have significant problems with some of the stuff you do, if you're not real, is the religious experience mostly good or mostly bad", pretty much. Really complicated.

Sometimes I want to just yell at you, and I do. I think it's important, whether you exist or not that people yell and scream and be honest. I'm sick to death of pretending that I have to be so fucking perfect, and only feel the acceptable things. Well, you know what? What happened to me was unacceptable. So if some unacceptable feelings come out of it, tough. If you exist, and you're G-d, and you set this stuff up the way you did, then you can just freaking DEAL if people get hurt and are mad at you.

Another thing I really hate, I hate the way people use you as a giant, cosmic multi-tool. "Oh, you're sad? Jesus." "You're angry? Jesus." "You have a difficult relationship? Jesus." "You want to know what to do with your life? Jesus." It makes me so frustrated. A lot of people use you to avoid dealing with their own shit because Magic Happy Fun Time Jesus is going to just take care of that anyway, so why put any effort out? It's really annoying. I see it in politics, I see it in interpersonal relationships, I see it freaking everywhere.

I don't know if there's a part three in there somewhere. Maybe. I don't know if this gets less complicated. I don't know if I can come back. There's a whole hell of a lot of "I don't know." in my identity right now, and I think I'm just learning to sit with that. Yeah.

Therapeutic Letter to G-d - Part 1

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I don't even know if you're real any more. Honestly, I guess I never "knew", but I sure thought I could and did know. I felt emotions, saw connections, and had a community. Sure, when I was a kid most of it consisted of "I am so bad and the fact that G-d loves me anyway is nothing less than a miracle.", but it was something. Now, I don't know if there's anything beyond human need and imagination.

The things that happened to me in your name were awful. And I'm not sure I buy the explanation that I've been offered: that you value free will so much that you will allow humans to do anything they want to each other without any interference from you. I mean, if that's true, dude, you have one hell of a free-will fetish. And the amount of evil allowed by that requires a hell of an explanation. Especially since that wasn't your MO in the bible. I mean, you intervened all over the place back then. Sending BEARS to eat children who teased your prophet?? Dude. That was over the top, no? Although, to be fair, if some fucking bears had shown up to eat Sherry Mattheson when she kept pushing my head in the toilet when I was in fourth grade, I would have thought that was awesome at the time.

New Testament You didn't really slow down any. Water into wine, miraculous healings all over the place, tongues of fire, and REAL speaking in other languages, none of that stupid emotional babbling that the Pentecostals claim is the Holy Ghost; you were bending the laws of reality all the time then. What happened? You can't spare one lousy smiting for a pedophile? (Okay, granted, given the scope of the problem, you'd probably be spending hours and hours smiting all over the damned place, but still!) And besides, you're the one who claimed that if anyone put a stumbling block in the way of a child it would be better that they be drowned in the sea with a millstone hung around their neck. Pardon me for wanting to see some millstones.

The real problem I have is with prayer. We're told to do it. Do it all the time. Pray without ceasing. And we're told, specifically, BY YOU, NO LESS, to ask for what we want and what we need. We are told specifically to ask to be healed. And yet, people are still DYING because they asked to be healed and you didn't do it. What about that fish and serpent, bread and stone thing that Jesus brought up?

I've read through the whole bible eight times so far. There's a lot of confusing crap in there. I've asked for guidance, prayed for guidance, and studied more. I've talked to Muslims too. There's a whole lot of confusing crap in their scriptures. It's almost like they were written by finite, fallible human beings over centuries in different places with different agendas, and then ascribed to you instead of, you know, being inerrant and all.

I think pretty much every group of people in every place and time have had a concept of a divine creator and ruler. And a whole lot of them claim that they, and only they, have a lead on The Truth! That's just not possible. It's not possible for every single little splinter group of humanity to have the one and only truth that everyone, everywhere, everywhen has to believe or suffer the consequences. I guess it's kind of like the Highlander: There can be only one! (or none, I suppose none is a logical option.) And what a person believes is correlated most strongly with the community one is born into. That's a damned inefficient way to disseminate The Truth, innit? Of course, then we have war. Brutally efficient way to distribute The Truth, but kinda opposed to any kind of decency at all.

(to be continued)