Religion – Creationism and my doubts

I realize that discussing or writing about religion is like dancing on the edge of a razor, as many take their religions very seriously, and do not like having those religious view challenged in any way.  But, while I respect your right to hold those beliefs, I feel in no way obligate to be silent on mine.  That said, let’s proceed.

How many religions are there in our world today?  Well there Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity (in the broad sense), and Islam to name the big ones.  There is even still paganism today, and yes paganism is a religious theology, not the Satan worshipping occult that many would have you believe.  I will be concentrating my writing on the big three, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as that is where I have spent the most of my time researching, with the major focus on Christianity.

How many Christian know that all three religions stem from the same tree?  Judaism sprang for Egyptian slaves about 1500 years before Jesus.  Christian from the dead of Jesus, and was codified about 300 years after his death.  And Islam actually came forth from Judaic and Christian theologies in about 800 AD.  Yes, the Muslims do believe in Jesus and the Virgin Mary, just not the same as Christians.  How many Christian know that the Old Testament of their Holy Scriptures or Bible is really little more than a collection of writing predating Jesus, and actually contain the holy book of Judaism?  Yes, the first 5 books of the Old Testament are actually The Five Books of Moses, or the Jewish Torah.  Even Muslims believe the Torah is a Divine Book, though they believe it was modified after Moses’ death, so all three of these religious philosophies sprang from the same soil, like it or not.

So let’s look at the very foundation of three of the largest religions in the world today, The Book of Genesis, and the story of Creation…

There are researchers around the world trying to valid The Book of Genesis as a factual record of the creation of our universe. I know that there is a search for evidence of the great flood, and some claim to have found evidence of the remains of Noah’s Ark on Mt Ararat.  There are those arguing Intelligent Design, claiming that the human race is so special and different from all the other species on this planet, that it would be statistically impossible for mankind to have developed here by accident or by some normal and natural process.  I could almost let this go were not for one simple problem, I’m a skeptic. I have yet to find any situation where there is something that exists for which no proof of its existence can be found, except for the idea of God.  So, I got to thinking, how would I go about finding evidence to support God?  Certainly if God was any more than a manmade phenomenon there would be proof somewhere, and if the Bible is God’s Holy Scripture, you’d think it would be in this book.  For me Genesis became the key.  First there is the question of the creation of the universe, excuse me, heaven and the earth.  Heaven and earth are supposed to have been created in 6 days, as he rested on the 7^th.  Some have told me that they believe or accept that days were not really days but geologic periods covering the millions of year that we now know the planet has existed.  Problematic for the logical thinker in me, but something I might be willing to accept, if not for the more a interestingly problem, in those 6 days he only created those things that were good and that he liked but nothing that displeased him which he destroyed and replaced.  This is problematic because, we do know today that dinosaurs roamed this planet some 65 million years ago and, other then in the fertile minds of some, there is no evidence that dinosaurs and mankind ever co-existed.

But what became the most important problem for me, when did Adam appear.  Even putting the dinosaur issue aside, the paleontological record would seem to indicate that the human race has been around for a couple of hundred thousand years.  BINGO, the lightbulb went off over my head…  The begats!  Surely if there was any credence to Genesis, Adam would have dated way back.  So I ran the begats, from Adam to the first individual who can be successfully dated in more modern history, Abram or Abraham as he was renamed in his 99^th year.  Every piece of information I can find puts Abraham on Earth sometime between 1400 and 1300 BCE.  So by starting there, and dating the begats backward, we place Adam’s arrival at somewhere around 5000 BCE.  So whether or not you can rationalize day 1 thru 5 as varying geological or paleontological era, we can place at least the end of day 6 to approximately 7000 years ago, long past the records of mankind’s exist.  There is today evidence of mankind in China 9 to 10 thousand years ago and some 400 thousand if you include the discovery carbon dating of the Peking Man.  There is evidence of mankind’s existences dating back at least 20 thousand years in South, Central and southern North America.   All of these defy the story as told by Genesis.  And yet, Genesis believed to be the true and accurate story of our creation by millions.  To make it even worse, I have asked some faithful Christians if they can explain these discrepancies, only to be told that “The Good Book” is the only true book of God and that he deliberating place these thing on Earth only to test our faith.  COME ON, REALLY???  So this God of benevolent love and peace, or anger and vengeance, depend on where you are reading, would also lie to us to test or loyalty.  Sorry, I don’t believe it.

With this very first book at the foundation of three religions so fatally flawed and inaccurate, I cannot place a great deal of value in anything that comes after it.  The Torah, and everything created or written after it, is a creation of man, and I believe God, as we know it, is also a creation of man in an effort to explain at the time that which was inexplicable.

I will close again with the idea that, I neither believe nor disbelieve in God.  Whatever created the universe as we know it today is completely beyond our mortal explanation or understanding?  That may change someday, but for now, my just as comfortable with the possibilities that the human race, no matter how great we think we are, could be nothing more than a cosmic accident.

I try to live a clean and honest live, do what is right because it is right, not out of fear of retribution or punishment in the afterlife, or fear of a vengeful God.   When my time comes to depart this plane, I am willing to accept whatever happens…

Your comments or questions are welcome, even though I may well ignore some of them.

Conservative Turning Point

So last we left the conservative in me, it was the very late 70’s to very early 80’s and my life was slowly beginning to come around and things were getting a little better economically.  Not great but better.  As I struggled, I just couldn’t understand why it looked like I was the only one struggling.  I was beleaguered trying to come to term with my religious views, and found that many of my conservative views were tied to fundamental Christian teachings.  I thought I hated homosexuals, though I’d never really known any gays, because I was supposed to, didn’t the Bible teach that homosexually was a sin and an abomination before God?  I was very much anti-abortion, buying many claims that it violated the 6^th commandment, at the time thought to be “Thou shall not Kill,” a notion still held by many today, even though it has been discovered and acknowledged that the old Hebrew was translated incorrectly, with the actual translation being “Thou shall not Murder.”  Anyway, at the time, I agreed that it was morally wrong.  And finally, I was very much against the welfare system, but that was more of an economic motivation.  Why the hell should I have to pay anything to support children and family that I didn’t create, and why didn’t these people keep having children they could support?  I found myself hating more people than I liked, but that is something to be discussing in my next religious confession.

So I found myself buying into the idea that we shouldn’t be paying our hard earned income on taxes that on all these entitlement for citizens who didn’t caring enough to try their hardest to make it in a difficult world – like say me?

Until my first child was born, I was perfectly happy to be one of the conservative realm’s pawns.  It was easy, and it made sense.  I wanted more of my money to do with what I wanted, and I didn’t want to be told how to spend it.  I was working hard; everyone should work hard, right?  Then two things happened that started that process of introspection.  One, my first child was born, and two, she was born with a serious genetic problem.  If you have never experience the terror of having a pediatrician come and tell you that there is a problem with you newborn child and she may not make survive, I hope you never have to experience it, but I can tell for me, it was the beginning of a complete re-evaluation of my life, my views, and my values.  I have seen combat, been shot at, and been shot off and landed on an aircraft carrier, so very frightening events.  But, I have never been so terrified as I was during the first couple of weeks of my young daughter’s life.  She had undergone two surgical procedures before she was 24 hours old, and a total of five in that first week.  After 5 weeks in the NICU, she was finally well enough to come home, and the additional pressures of raising a child with special need began to exert themselves.  That was when the self assessment began to occur.

While we had an exception support network from our family and friends, the work environment was stressful.  I had been a hard worker for the previous seven years, with a work ethic that had me doing just about anything that was asked of me, and had been recognized with a few promotions in the company.  That work ethic came with a cost that I had not recognized until a few years after my daughters were born.  Yes, we did it again about two years later.  However, that cost I spoke of was an employer who now expected me to take on any activity they deem necessary, an expectation that quickly created normal work week in excess of 60 hours a week, for a salary barely adequate to a 40 hour work week.  That was sort of okay, I was working hard to support my young family, but two events (really more) began to create doubts in my mind.  The first occurred when my manager began to require me to take vacation or sick time for any of my daughter’s many appointments, even though I was covering much more than my 40 hours a week.  When I questioned this policy, I was told that the company does not offer comp time, and any activity that required my absence from the office between 8 to 5 required me to use my personal time off options, and that I was still expected to complete my weekly work load, that is what is expected of salaried personnel.  I accepted this for awhile; after all I had a family to support and a young daughter with expensive special needs, I felt trapped by my circumstances. 

The next event opened my eyes to exactly what my employer had in mind for me, and that they felt they had me trapped right where they wanted me.  As part of my take on any challenge mentality, I had begun to move into the information technology arena from my finance position.  I discovered that I really enjoyed the challenges of using and implementing technology to solve problems, and I decided I wanted to pursue the technology arena as a career path.  While this employer was more than happy to allow me the “honor” of taking on additional responsibilities and the associated additional unpaid hours in the IT group, they continually balked at and thwarted any attempt of a full scale move into that group.  Needless to say, as my hours increased and I saw no possibility of moving in the direction I really wanted to go…  My performance began to suffer, as I began to balk at taking on even more hours and even tried to reduce some of my workload.  Soon after my change in attitude, my performance evaluations began to suffer even thought my functional responsibilities include that of; accountant, data analyst, programmer, and desktop support tech and systems analyst, with an associated 70 plus hour work week.  Not to mention missing most milestone events in my young daughters’ lives.  The poor performance reviews began to take their toll, and a performance improvement plan was put in place, even after discussing the situation with the VP of Human Resources.  While acknowledging that my workload was a bit much, I was informed that there was really much call for what I did outside of the company, and that I should just be happy that I had a job.

Time for change and a personal assessment became the order of the hour.

The very first realization of this personal assessment was that I was being extremely undervalued.  The hard part of this realization was that it was not my employer perception of my value, as much as it was my own views of my worth.  I realized that my own views of my worth allowed others the opportunity to exploit my talents to my own detriment.  If I did not chance how I viewed myself, and become my own champion of my talents and worth, no one else was going to do it for me.  With this new understanding, I began to explore opportunities outside of this employer, and discover a wealth of positions paying far greater salaries for more reasonable weekly workloads.  When I informed the VP of HR that I would be leaving the company for another opportunity that paid almost twice what I was currently receiving, and was exactly within the direction I want my career to take, the shocked look on his face was almost worth the experience.  I have never regretted my decision to move on, and I have not had an employer since who has ever shown me the disrespect of undervaluing my worth to any organization.

The outcome of this initial introspection, and the success I have achieved with it, led me to an additional realization that it was time for me to start analyzing the rest of the views, opinion, and values that I had been holding onto for some many years.

I’ll start sharing those analyses in my future posts.  We’ll explore the first of my religious challenges in my next post.

I do hope you enjoy my writings, or at least find something interesting within, but consider this a warning…

Many will hate it, and I’m okay with that too.

Your comments or questions are welcome, even though I may well ignore some of them.

Developing the Conservative in Me

By the time I was old enough to begin developing any political interests, my parents had already divorced.  Since I was screwed up enough by that event in my life to be labeled a problem child, I served out the remaining couple of years of adolescences in the custody of a very domineering godmother and her family.  Don’t get me wrong, I do and always will appreciate what she did for me, she didn’t have too…  But, it was a very conservative environment, and one couldn’t help but be influenced by it.  My godmother and her husband were very supportive of Nixon administration, even though the wheels began to fall off of that bus shortly after I left to go into the Navy in 1973, and were even stronger supporters of the conservative movement started in the Goldwater years.  I guess it not hard to understand that some of that conservative element would rub off on me.  So, let’s just say that indoctrination is much easy with our youth than enlightenment, and that works as well for some of my liberal counterparts of the era.

After my service in the Navy, and participating in the real end to the Vietnam War, my political views were really pretty raw.  I say the real end to the Vietnam War because most history books will tell you that we end the war and left Vietnam in 1973.  NOT TRUE!!!  You’ve all been told that hostilities in Vietnam had ended in 1973 with the signing of a cease-fire, and that all U.S. Troops left the country.  Again I say, Not True.  Suffice to say, I know, I was there.  Those who know me know some of my stories, but, I’ve moved on and do not talk about my military experiences unless there is a damned good reason, so I not going to change that policy here.  The only thing you need to know is what effective it had on my political views.  I turned 18 and eligible to vote in 1973, so I missed the ’72 election.  Being exposed to mostly conservative views before I turned 18, I probably would have voted to reelect Nixon.  But, coming home from Vietnam with those experiences, and the recent debacles of the Nixon administration, I had a less than favorable opinion of the Republican Party.  When I did get my first chance to vote, being a disillusioned young conservative, I cast a protest vote for Jimmy Carter.  Beside, everyone knew that after Nixon, there was no way Gerald Ford and the Republicans weren’t going to get another term.

Well, for a young conservative, that couldn’t have been a worse choice.  At the time, young and inexperienced in the ways of politics and the economy, Jimmy Carter came off to me as one of the worst things that ever happened to The United State of America, and I have helped to elect him!  Argh!!!  So, I embraced my conservative Republican side, and jumped at the opportunity to elect Ronald Regan in 1980.  While I was still searching for my spiritual center, not religious and conflicted but still looking for God, I bought into the fundamentalist view that homosexually was an act of choice, and that abortion was a sin.  On the political side I bought into Reaganomic, after it appeared to be working, and neo-conservative viewpoints of the era.  I was a young man, struggling to make my way in the world.  After getting out of the service, I struggle to find and keep jobs, which I blamed on Carter and his lousy handling of the economy, and of course the “liberal” idea of affirmative action.  I bought the conservative view that affirmative action was nothing more than a liberal hand out to people who didn’t work to have to work to succeed.  After all, I was struggling and no one was there to help me out.  And what about all those mothers sucking the system dry with their welfare claims, why should I be made to pay, when I did have a job, for their mistakes.  I’d spent a several years growing up in a house with single mother struggling daily to make ends meet, and a dead beat Dad who did little to help.  Sorry Dad, but you know that’s the truth.  My Mom never went on welfare to make things easier.

Finally, it took me many years to come to the realization that I was a very bitter young man.  I’d never got any help to do anything in my life.  Mom could never help out, she was still struggling to take care of my sisters, 4 and 6 years younger than I, and Dad all but refused to help.  Actually he all but disappeared from my life at that point.  Two things that stand out in my youth at lead to this bitterness; first, at about age 11, while arguing about me, I learned that my Dad was not my Father.  I spent many years believe I was the sole reason that for my parents separation and divorce.  The second was a little activity that took place when I was about 13.  I was living in Connecticut with my Dad and the bitch my stepmother.  I was a better than average student, but didn’t really apply myself; I got decent grades, usually B’s, without really working that hard.  I was already pretty messed up mentally by then, so I didn’t see any real benefit in trying too hard.  Dad and the bitch my stepmother would ask me almost weekly what I wanted to do when I grew up?  I’d was really sure at the time, but, I’d come up with something or another, to which the return response would be, “Well you know you’re going to have to get better grades to get into a good college to do that…”  The message I got was, “you’re not good enough.”  Something I was already having re-enforced routinely, I wasn’t in Connecticut by choice, and I knew very well that neither my Dad nor stepmother wanted me there, interfering with their new life together.  So, after several months of this badgering about my future and never any reason for the comment, I finally responded one day, “Well then I just won’t go to college!”  The immediate answer from Dad?  “Great, then I don’t have to pay for it!”  It wasn’t until years later that I realized that this was probably his plan all along and the way he justified it.  I wasn’t his real son anyway, right?  Bitter?  Hell yes I was bitter!  While it still hurt to think about it, and writing it out here hasn’t been a pleasant experience, but, I’d like to think I’ve move past that bitterness.  Throughout the decades, he’s never really done anything to change my views of him, but, that fodder for a later post.  Maybe.

Anyway, never really getting a hand up, or hand out to help me, I brought into the conservative viewpoint hook, line, and sinker.  That, and in the early ’80, with Regan in charge of the country, my life was beginning to turn around.  Beginning to succeed by my own guile re-enforced the conservative notion that, if I could pull myself by my own boot-straps, everyone could do it, if they really wanted it enough, right?  I didn’t realize it until just recently, just how perfect a candidate I was for the conservative movement.

Next time for the conservative confessions, I’ll start discussing where things started to change, but the next post will be on my religious enlightenment.

I do hope you enjoy my writings, or at least find something interesting, but you’ve warned…

Many will hate it, and I’m okay with that too.

Your comments or questions are welcome, even though I may well ignore some of them.

I was raise a good Catholic Boy

Let me just that at this point in my life, I neither believe nor disbelieve in God.  The existence of God is neither provable nor disprovable.  I simply do not know, and I can live with that concept.  I have come to understand that this is so much about this universe we live in that we don’t understand.  Knowing this, I am comfortable with the possibility that the human race is a happy cosmic accident.

All of research, and I have research religion, particularly the Christian religion fairly extensively, I have come to the following conclusion:  “Faith is the ability to believe in something in the absences of evidence.  Blind faith is the ability to believe in something in defiance of evidence.”

I was raised a good Catholic boy (well, okay I wasn’t really that good) on the south side of the Silicon Valley.  Every Sunday was in the pews for an hour or so, sit, kneel, stand… sit, kneel, stand… repeat about every five minute until done.  Occasionally, would come the elbow in the ribs, or the slap on the back of the head from Dad, as I got fidgety or nodded off.  Come to think of it, the frequent thumps on the noggin may explain some of my current day daffiness…  rattling a youngster’s brain pan that often can’t be good.  Then there was the Thursday catechism class, boy that was real fun.  I’d rather have gone to the dentist, and he was a masochist.  But, I was doing what my parents wanted and expected of me, and not really in a position to complain.  Besides, up the age of about eight life was pretty good.  Then things pretty much went to hell in hand basket.  Mom and Dad marriage had begun to unravel and as such, the lives of my sisters and I began to unravel with it.   So, to say the least, the church thing became a bit (understatement) more inconsistent, and out the window flew my Father’s dream from me to become an Alter Boy.  Now that I think about it, give all news about Catholic Priests in recent years, it’s probably a good thing my Father’s dream was never realized.

From about nine to about 16 I really did try couple of times to get with the program.  But, by the time I was seventeen, I had pretty much decided that Catholicism was not for me.  The end of The Godfather in 1972 really tore it for me.  I do realize now, as I did at the time, that this movie was a dramatization, but in the end where Michael is in the church for his nephew’s baptism professing his belief in God and denouncing evil, while the murders, he ordered, of where occurring brought home for me the what I had begun to understand and believe is the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church.  The idea that you could do anything you want all week long, and then be forgiven of all sins before God on Sunday morning… absolution to be had for a couple of pray and no real repercussion, no matter how heinous the sins.  The only explanation to be offered for my conundrum, don’t try to figure out the ways of God, which is too complex for mere mortals to understand, instead just except that this is the way of the Lord. 

Guess what?  That doesn’t work of a kid who has always wanted to know why things are…  and, anyone who was ever told that the why is because I said so, usually proves to be incapable of supplying an coherent answer.

From 17 until I was in my earlier forties, I tried, off and on, various Christian denominations.  I figured there are so many different versions of Christianity that maybe someone had answers to my question.  Not one of them could answer my questions.  I always received basically the same answer, God is who he is, and if you believe strongly enough and give all your glory to God, you don’t need an explanation.  I have never been one to successfully suspend reason to believe in something.  I believe, even if I don’t necessarily understand the explanation, there is a logical and supportable explanation for everything in the universe.  No one has ever presented me with that explanation for God.  Every answer I have received has a requirement to suspend knowledge and just accept that which defies explanation.

I have also come to understand that there is a component of all Christianity that goes back to a serious concern I have Catholicism, and the Christian version is even more troubling for me…  Christians are not perfect, just forgiven.  I have been told by many Christians that as long as I accept Jesus Christ (another issue for me) in my heart before I die, I will be forgiven and accepted into heaven.  The logical side of me says that this means, I can be an absolutely despicable and evil asshole for my entire life, and as long as I accept Christ in my heart in my final moments, it’s all good.  I just can’t reconcile that concept in any meaningful way.  Couple this way the idea that the Holy Bible is the one true word of God, and yet there are so many dozens of Christian sects that claim as their own, believing only those components which they feel support their particular brand of Christianity.  How can it be the one true word, and interpreted so differently by so many people?

It has become my view that religion requires blind faith in order to be successful, and there are most apparently billions of people around the world willing to give that level of commitment to their religions.  If you are one of those billions and that makes your life work for you in your life, I really am happy for you.  But, I would recommend that you read no further, because you will not like what you read in the posts that follow this one.

I will be alternating religious and political posts as I make my confessions.

I do hope you enjoy my writings, or at least find something interesting, but you’ve warned…

Most people will hate it.  I’m okay with that too.

Your comments or questions are welcome.

Confessions of a Recovering Catholic and Conservative

Some friends and I have an undisclosed location in the ether where we gather and discussion whatever we want.  This safe place came into existence because some of us had been encouraged to leave the site where we all met.

So the other day we were discussing a thread on that old site and a particular neanderthal’s conservative's posts in that thread.  I commented that the poster was an asshole, and explained why I thought that way, finishing my comment with, "I know he’s an asshole because, wait for it…  I use to be one of those assholes."  One person asked me for the story of how and why my political views change.  As I was groping for the words to explaining this conundrum, I realized just how convoluted that story was to tell.  I don’t know if you are going to find this interesting, helpful or entertaining, but here goes…

These are the journals, adventures, and confessions of a recovering Catholic and conservative.

If these posting piss you off, get over yourself, this about me and my journey not yours.  If you don’t agree with me, I don’t care…  I’m not telling you to believe or worship as I do, I’m telling how and what I believe and worship, and that is the beautiful thing about this country, I’m as free to believe what I want as you are to your beliefs.  I’m free to write about it and you’re free to read it or not.  So, if I piss you off with what I write here get over yourself or GO AWAY.

That said, I don’t not hate anyone who may be practicing and particular theological belief, nor do I wish you any harm nor bear you any animosity.   It will become obvious that I disagree with theological belief, but, I will never tell you that you are out rightly wrong to hold them.  I will be happy to enter civil discussion as to why I have come to the conclusion that those beliefs are wrong, and listen to real evidence as to why I might be wrong.  In the end, we can simply agree to disagree, and I can live with that outcome.

Politically, my views are probably going to extremely exasperate individuals on both sides of the spectrum.  I am a moderate.  I tend to lean to the left side of the spectrum on social issues, and to the right on fiscal issues.  On the social side, if someone is participating in social activities not intended to deliberately inflict physical, economic, or emotion harm on someone else…  well then, I don’t see any reason for citizens or the government interfere with such activity.  On fiscal side of things, I tend to be conservative in the sense of the root meaning of conservation, not the current fundamentalist view of conservative.  On matter anyone’s view, we have limited resources with which to address the need of social and human life.  I do not have issue with spending resources to deal with these problems.  But, I do want to see every effort made to spend those resources wisely and effectively.  I also understand that the realm of problems we face is so large that we do not have ready resources to fix every problem at once.  As such, there need to be a serious effort made to prioritize these issues, so as to benefit as larger a portion of society as possible.  As the highest priority issues are resolved, we can then move on to those at the lower end, with the understanding that even the higher priority made not be in a position to be fiscally addressed.

As with the comment before this last paragraph, that said, I don’t not hate anyone who may be practicing and particular political belief, nor do I wish you any harm nor bear you any animosity.   I hope It will become obvious that I disagree with political theories on both sides of the spectrum, but here, I gladly tell you when think you are wrong, but will not condemn you for your views, for I was once like you.  Again, I will be happy to engage civil discussion as to why I have come to my political, and listen to why you’ve come to yours.  In the end, we can still agree to disagree, however unless someone can actually convince that I wrong in my view, I will continue to champion them, as the fate of future generations will be affected by those actions we take in ours.

I call myself a recovering Catholic and Conservative because, like the alcoholic, we tend to easily slip back into old patterns and habits.  To have come to this place in my life is a journey which requires constant daily attention.

So now begins…  The Confessions of a recovering Catholic and Conservative!

Your comments or questions are always welcome, but be aware, I may just ignore them.