xtcian

It is a shame about the UNC swim test. I'm on what I like to call the 5 year program at UNC... I was slated to graduate yesterday with the rest of my original class, but 4 years of 12-hour semesters means that I still have another year to go. Maybe I'll be finished in December, we'll see.

A couple of my friends that hadn't taken the swim test decided to take it together, and, even though I'm not required to take it since I'll be around for another year, I decided to take it with them. We've been joking about the test for years and I wanted to take it because, as you said, Ian, it's tradition.

After we all passed it, we met some of our other friends at Linda's and swapped swim test stories. It's disappointing that we might be one of the last groups that gets to do that.

I really enjoyed your post today... and I agree that ALL religions have an equal chance of being true. I don't really align myself with any one religion in particular. I don't know why things happen or what may be waiting after I'm gone - and I like it that way.

A pointillist picture made up of thousands of dots that come into focus when we're not trying? Sounds good to me.

did you know that you can actually get a degree from chapel hill for arguing about the color blue? i am living proof. philosophy major. concentration in metaphysics and epistemology. i did my senior indpendent study thing on whether or not color exists, no lie.

i remember doing these long ass logical proofs for the existence of god in dr. schhchellsesssngr's class. i think that was his name. anyway, that class was enough to make your head explode, especially when hung over at the crack of eleven. suffice to say i am personally way way done with trying to rationally figure out anything related to gods and all the unprovable shit that goes along with religion.

i agree about all religions being equal, people should just pick their particular brand of crazy and be done with it. i just generally in favor of people doing whatever feels spiritually right to them as long as it doesn't affect me, with zero explanation necessary.

my personal taste runs toward a kind of polytheistic angle with multiple gods for different purposes, like the santa god of presents, the parking space goddess, the various saints of various things explained on botanica candles, and such. basically i don't crave the ritual per se, i crave the magic/supernatural infiltration into everyday life. especially when they offer material rewards. and i'd like the gods to be cool, too, not boring. either very shiny and glittery or with vibrant bold colors. minimal human-animal mixing though, i have never found that very appealling.

and i also crave the community part where people are really hard core bonded due to the religion/ethnicity. i miss that about growing up irishcatholic (one word). you lose your tribal identity a bit when you cast off your religious upbringing. that's mostly been replaced in my life by the house music community, but still it's not quite the same.

I can't swim. I am very glad Evergreen had no swim test. I probably would have transferred to escape it.

I am one of those who never took the swim test. In '93, when I graduated, I waited until the last week or two of class and then called the registrar's office. They said no problem. Either it was pretty common, they didn't believe me or no one ever wrote it down (looked closely at your transcripts lately). Maybe I missed out...I'll never know. At the rate my five-year old son is going, he may never learn to swim. At that point I may wish that UNC still required it.

I think religions spend too much time arguing over the details and rituals, when it's mostly the same point - Be Good. I'm a Methodist, but feel that God wouldn't care if I decided to go to another church. It really bothers me to see people do things in the name of God, when it is really for themselves. I think a lot of politics within religions have corrupted them. Nevertheless, there are still a lot of good people doing good things for the church. Unfortunately they make a lot less noise than your average TV Evangalist.

This is not to say I can't appreciate and enjoy the ritual aspects of religion as well. I just try not to let it get in the way of what really matters.

I guess I'm agnostic. I was raised in the Baptist Church and got an extra heaping helping of religion. I really enjoyed the service.. the traditions you mention. But I just couldn't get around the things about the 'church' that I didn't like.... the politics of religion.

I do not attend church now save the occasional family holiday. When I do go, I think how I really miss the ceremony of it all. I think maybe i should start going again.
Then the politics of organized religion raises it's ugly head again and.....

I don't know why people just don't conclude that evil isn't so bad. That's how me and my homie Nietszche see it. Evil gets a bad rap, suckiness of mean people notwithstanding.

Swim test? For college?!?! That should have been snuffed out decades ago. Although I suppose it's important to actually know how to swim. Maybe it saved lives.

xuxE-i think i had that same logic professor -- or someone with a similar name, at least. i took "logic," by the way, to get out of college calculus. i thot it was akin to, oh i don't know, basketweaving?? somehow i ended up in an advanced logic course without having taken the initial logic course. [thanks, helpful college counselor!] god. what a mess i was in that class.

the low point for me was when our class of roughly 12 folks seated around a table [i could not hide!!] were going around the room debating some obscure point and, when it was my turn, i said, wearily, "i have nothing intelligent to add." i remember the professor kind of nodding in agreement. sigh.

and as to organized religion-i would say that the history and tradition aspect of it is very important to me. and, i am one of those folks who'd rather believe there is some sort of divine wisdom afoot -- that "it" isn't all "on" me.

maybe that makes me a mental weakling. if so, so be it. i need the help!

of note, because my husband was raised irishcatholic in that way that was mentioned... we are raising our daughter a catholic, tho i grew up a methodist-lutheran... so... the catholic side of all of this is still, well, foreign to me. but marriage and raising children is much about compromise, right?

and who knows who is right on the religion question, anyway? it really is up to the individual... i think spirituality-religion is more a state of mind than a building you visit each sunday morning...

Religion is like swimming in that you can't get anywhere unless you practice. Thus, I embrace the descriptor "a practicing Catholic."

My religion doesn't always give me definitive answers that stand up to my own cynical scrutiny, but it helps me formulate the questions within a framework that intelligent people over several millennia have found vastly worth exploring.

Also, I'm into ritual too, and mystery, and awe. Feeds me soul. Or whatever that part of my brain is. ;-)

I heard something interesting on New Dimensions radio a few weeks back. Can’t recall the guy’s name but he said that many liberal agnostics/atheists have values that came from the religious traditions without even being aware of it. For instance, helping the poor, or believing in the concepts in the Constitution.

It seems to me that he’s right-- that we carry more from the past than we’re conscious of. Morality and ethics certainly don’t seem to be inherent in people. Therefore, to take in the benefits of religion and then to turn around and disregard religion doesn’t make that much sense.

I’m not saying that people should be religious if they don’t want to be. But they should give religion its due respect. I think that religion has become a joke for many people. Too bad that we have prosperity evangelism and other such twisted forms of religion out there these days.

Good post today, Ian. I've been thinking alot about this lately, too. Like Kevin, I grew up Baptist and spent most of my adult life totally freaked out about it. I think that Christianity has failed us as a society, in a way, because it's totally hung up on rules and exclusion. I know a lot of people who spout the idea that if it doesn't feel bad, then it must not be God. But I've been doing a ton of meditating and Buddhist readings and am starting to feel that it IS all the same. Lots of people are misguided, and mean, and that's too bad. But really, that's their own suffering in action.
I was doing this meditation last year when I'd been losing everything around me- my health, my mom, comfort foods (from food allergies)- and I realized that anything on this planet that you can turn to can be taken away. My partner could leave me, I could lose my job, I could lose my whole family and all my friends. So sticking with that and focusing on the breath, I discovered that until the moment I die, I have my breath with me. It's like your breath is your constant companion no matter what. And then this weekend, I was reading Tict Nat Hahn (sp?) Living Buddha, Living Christ- and he was talking about how that's what spirit is- breath. It's like the energy of life that's in us all. So when you said that spirituality for you was watching Lucy take her first breath, I thought that was really cool.
Sorry to ramble on- I was home alone all weekend and haven't talked hardly at all!

Anyway, I found a church where I can feel that way and sing the songs I grew up with and have that community of really awesome people working to make the world a better place- so that's why I started going back to church.

ian it sounds like you may be a candidate for my religion. i call it apatheism.

or betsy i guess you could say that religious people should give non-religious people their due respect - maybe people ARE naturally moral and ethical and some people along the way decided to slap a god on top of that.

but if what you are saying is true, it would definitely take a lot of the pressure off the jehovah's witnesses, because if all the athiests and agnostics are actually ALREADY religious and they just don't know it, no need to keep knockin on doors.

plus, didn't the morality infusion in religion they are talking about come kind of late in the game ala christianity? i think all the centuries before that it was pretty much a "please-god/goddess-let-my-crops-grow" type thing, not a "follow-the-righteous-path-this-way" type thing. and even the old testament was pretty laden with the code of hammurabi eye-for-an-eye stuff which is definitely not the christian golden rule.

lee - you might also like j. krishnamurti.

Thanks xuxE. I just googled him and will def. check him out. I might need to borrow your philosophy degree to get it though:-)

I'm also down with your idea of having different gods for different occasions. I think the hindu, and even catholic, tradition of having a different god to turn to for different reasons is helpful for intention-based meditation.

Thought provoking stuff today. Good way to start the week! After several years of being non church goers, we are now Methodists although we came to it simply because we liked the beautiful church, the diversity of the clergy (two white women and one black man) and the focus on missions and organized children's activities. Being on Franklin street near many a good Sunday morning coffee and breakfast place didn't hurt either. It could've been any denomination really as long as it "felt right". We went back because we needed the community sense and the ritual and the organized time to be thankful and contemplative. In our busy lives I know we wouldn't do it otherwise. I also think it will be important for our kids as they age to have other adults who will reaffirm being kind, helpful and loving as important values. After working with teenagers for a while I realized that other adults have to be there for kids as they grow up and figure out the world because talking to their parents isn't always "cool".
Like mcf though, in my belief system, you don't have to go to church or "be" any one thing to be spiritual or religious.

Oh, and as one example, my oldest daughter sang with the preschool choir yesterday in church for Mother's Day and it was beautiful!! They were singing this song called "My God is a great Big God" and when they got to the "Big God" part they were supposed to raise their arms in the air but one little girl in front kept lifting her entire dress up with each "Big God" part. See what you miss if you don't go to church!

I'm a recovering Catholic who's now an Atheist. Nuff said.

As for the swim test, I went to University of Iowa where we had a requirement to take four semesters of P.E. I took six overall, some strenuous (raquetball, tennis) and some a bit more dubious (rock climbing, table tennis). But like the swim test, I think it's great (and I could lose a few pounds) and would be upset if they dropped the program.

Neva, that's hilarious! Big God, indeed!

I find the expression "recovering Catholic" (see above) to be insufferably smug and childish.

Signed,
The Recovering Cynic & Latter-Day Biotch

I'm a scientologist, a level 1, and proud to live near a street called l. ron hubbard way. I'm kidding obviously (though I wouldn't be surprised if a few people out there in xtcianville believed me) -- actually some members of the sea organization go to my friendly neighborhood starbucks, and never fail to freak me out with their terrifyingly intense, cheerfully hostile and focused energy.

seriously though, what about the cultural and political aspects of religion? the role faith plays when people have little else, be it money or social status or access to science and/or popular entertainment? I don't think faith and knowledge/material comfort are mutually exclusive, I just grew up in a culture that didn't value faith over knowledge (to say nothing of materialism.) I also think that while there's (to varying degrees) the desire inside each human being to understand the world and our place in it (nature), how we do this is almost always shaped by our environment and our experience (nurture.) I grew up amongst mostly (reform) jewish people, "white christian ethnics", asians, latinos, and african-americans. the sense I got was that people's families were mostly culturally religious, in an effort to keep community ties and cultural identity (and eat amazing holiday food!) in a city no one's parents were originally from, a city that brought us all together (on the 1 train) and kept us all apart (across class lines) as "new yorkers". (perhaps it was also to remind us that though we may live in a somewhat wild godless manhattan, to, if I can quote alan, be good.)

I can't speak to revelation, but imagine it feels something like art. I also agree with ian in that there are certain things so big we shouldn't purport to know, and should just be cool with that. religion at its purest (like art) should ideally provide more questions and no answers, which just seem like another form of crowd control.

ps -- anne d., a lot of people were severely traumatized by their catholic upbringing, and I'm not talking about sexual abuse, though that's obviously a part of it. to minimize their experience and frame it as if they're somehow "wrong" for trying make light of the situation, even if it offends you, seems thoroughly unchristian, and more about supplication (to man, not "God" or "son of God"), than belief.

for the record, kidding about being a scientologist, not the existence of l. ron hubbard way. which, frighteningly, does exist.

love the seurat reference! too bad about the swim test. that was a fun afternoon preceded by a good 3 hrs downstairs at franklin st bar & grill.

oh yeah, and just in case you didn't see this about the heels' football program last wk....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12618190/

swim test=santa claus

Hi CP (see several posts above): The term "recovering Catholic" is an arch reference to "recovering alcoholic," a phrase that originated in clinical literature and now is part of popular terminology.

Alcoholism is a disease. That is why I find the analogy a cheap shot.

I am not a cradle Catholic and therefore missed my opportunity (ha ha, talk about cheap shot) to be traumatized by the Church as a young'un. Obviously it is terrible that any person suffers abuse or trauma at the hands of people representing any faith, in the name of that faith.

As for being "unChristian," it's true that I am not always good at turning the other cheek and allowing people to beat up on people or things I love. In that regard, I'm a bit more "Old Testament." And like most of us, I'm a work in progress. :-)

- Anne

anne d. --

I hear that, though in the zeitgeist the term has come to mean something entirely its own, regardless of its (no pun intended) genesis, which as you say is arch. (btw, I think we agree on this.)

regardless, you're alright by me (you're Old School, friend, own it.) to call into question your faith (which I have no doubt that you love) and imply that you were being unchristian because you voiced your offense at the manner in which you felt that thing you love was being denegrated was uncool of me, and just this side of rude, which I often can be. (in my world, both growing up and now professionally, it's actually sort of encouraged.) anyway, what I'm trying to say is I apologize.

I think everybody owes it to themselves to try my creed for at least a week: There is ultimately no point to anything in the universe, everything is permitted, we are no better than animals, and when we die we're dead. It's consider it liberating, and I say once you give it a try--a serious try--you won't settle for anything else. Except Prozac perhaps. Now go forth little grasshoppers.

I prefer ostensibly impartial agenda of "Meaning of Life TV" (http://meaningoflife.tv/) over "Speaking of Faith."

Speaking of la Grande Jatte, anybody else been to its topiary incarnation (invegetation?) in Columbus, OH? Here's a photo
http://www.sculpturecenter.org/oosi/sculpture.asp?SID=656

Oliver...would you consider it liberating if, for instance, your girlfriend had sex with your best friend every night for a week and said to you, “What can I say, I was just following your creed?”

i think it's liberating to stand against the mainstream dogma and oppressive religious institutions that constantly try to ensnare our culture and fuck with our lives.

and i think it's especially liberating after you've been nearly suffocated growing in one of the authoritarian religions in question.

it can seem almost impossible to un-do the internalized messages you are taught, the ideas that you are helpless, unworthy, and innately bad, and only through (insert religion X) are you redeemable, which is how a lot of the dogma gets it's psychological power.

so i think the negativity when you liberate yourself is to be expected, and hopefully it's something you just work through to get to the other side so you can make some more positive choices. emphasis here on choice - being able to choose freely what spiritual path you really want to be on, instead of being coerced by threats of damnation or cultural peer pressure.

but i guess it takes a long time to fully recover from it, because for myself, even though i've removed catholicism from my life completely, i still totally regret the time in my youth spent unwittingly goose-stepping along with the flock. it still pisses me off to think about folks marching into mass and proclaiming it the one true church, a church which puts women down, condemns homosexuality, limits access to birth control and wages war on abortion rights, and they do it with all the self righteousness that comes with believing these positions derive from an actual all-knowing supreme deity.

i'm not saying they are the only folks in our culture with these points of view, all i'm saying is that i consider myself a reasonably smart person and the catholic church is the one who messed with my head in all these areas, so ima personally point the finger at them. and that would be the middle finger.

and i also call for a celebrity death-match, pope vs. gloria steinem.

X -- well said. I hear that too, loud and clear. my apology to anne was for being obnoxious to her, who I don't even know but seems well-intentioned.

Great post today - any time you can weave Stackhouse, the swim test & agnosticism in one post... The more I hear people talk about their religion & religious beliefs, the more I'm convinced that most people are culturally Jewish/Catholic/Methodist and religiously agnostic. For me, being Jewish is on par with my wife's being Irish - it's the culture, history & traditions that I take away from organized religion... and, as you say, that can be a great thing.

I think it’s liberating to not only take a stand against religious dogma but to also stand against the mainstream media bias against spirituality. The media can’t make the distinction between a person’s genuine thirst to know themself (beyond their physical/mental form) and crackpot New Age magical-thinking nonsense. The media lumps it all together and pokes fun as if all spiritual inquiry was claptrap and for people who are lost and stupid.

The peer pressure I see these days is to not be on a spiritual path at all.

Liam! You might like to read Manly P. Hall's book *The Secret Teachings of All Ages.* Like the stolen rug in the Big Lebowski, he really ties the room together. You can also visit Hall's personal library in HellA when you're sick of all the sunlight.

honk!

Betsy, with regard to your question, I'm married, but do you know something about my wife that I don't? So far as I know she's a good atheist, and I trust her to look after my interests along with her own. This tends to lead us to doing our fornicating with each other. Just because everything ultimately is permitted doesn't protect you, penultimately, from being born a place where most things aren't. One has to look out for one's reputation. If I'd been born in the right place at the right time I could be slaughtering Saracens or whipping slaves while making friends at the same time. Such is not currently the status quo in the lower 48, and being a child of this place and era I'm very glad I don't have to do such things to get by, thanks be to easy credit and to third world sweatshops. If I were lost at sea in a life raft I don't have know that I'd resort to cannibalism any sooner than you. I suppose we could have a contest. Who's coming along for the voyage?

BTW I disagree that the media is anti-spiritual. The idea of life after death is assumed or given lip service in almost every context in which death arises. It can be irritating to the more enlightened of us.

Ahem, the form says it wouldn't show my e-mail address, yet it did, please remove it.

Also to Anne D.- Calling oneself a "recovering Catholic" may seem smug and childish but since you weren't raised Catholic you're hardly qualified to comment. If you had been raised a Catholic and were forced to adhere to the ridiculously strict and oppressive tenets of the Catholic faith, you might feel differently. I was lucky in that I was never subject to the advances of any priests/clergymen but plenty of people were. Instead I was taught (by clergy, not my parents) that nearly every thought I had that wasn't about God or the church was naughty, dirty and punishable by eternal damnation. Catholic guilt still weighs heavily on me and for that I am deeply resentful, so pardon me if I call myself a "recovering Catholic" but that's what I am.

CP: Thank you for the apology, and I apologize too for being defensively ornery. It's this damn New England rain miasma we've been stuck in for 40 days and 40 nights. Or something like that. Bah.

Ken: Of course I didn't have your experience of being raised Catholic (I said as much in my reply above). I grew up Congregational (UCC) and loved it, even taught Sunday School as a teen, but ultimately found the services and the philosophy too matter-of-fact and cool and detached; still, I have nothing but fondness and respect. I needed more drama and ritual, I guess, in my faith; the majesty of the Mass and the sacraments and being able to kneel in prayer have proven to be right for my spiritual personality. However, I am anything but a docile, unquestioning Catholic sheep. Baa.

I'm sorry you were oppressed by religious people. OTOH, my husband and most of my dear friends in our parish were raised as Catholics, and they have positive memories of growing up in Catholic schools and parishes from the mid-1940s on. In fact, my husband still misses the pre-Vatican II Latin rite.

Just goes to show that "YMMV" and we ought to beware of generalizations. For every disaffected Catholic (substitute religion of one's upbringing) there is a passionate convert, it seems. Peace.

Hey Ken - You'd put your email address in the "author" field, but I have since removed it. Should still be bot-and-spam free.

Hey Ian- Thanks, I'm an idiot. I knew it was likely something I did.

And Anne D.- Like I said, I was never molested by Catholic clergy or anything approaching that and was very active in the church (altar boy, CCD, lay reader, Youth Groups) through high school. It was when I went to college and started immersing myself in theology that I came to realize how distorted my Catholic education was. Doing Pre-Cana with my wife five years further highlighted the particularly virulent strain I was infected with, apparently by CCD teachers, I guess because the priest we had for Pre Cana and our officiant at our wedding was/is quite cool. Maybe the fact that I grew up in a very upper-crust, conservative town (Glen Ellyn, IL in DuPage County) that affected me. Oddly enough, it wasn't my parents at all.

D'oh, pressed "Post" too early. Bottom line, I apologize, Anne D., if I came off like a foaming anti-Catholic pitbull. I mean, I am one but usually don't let that show to strangers. I'm glad you've found the faith to be accomodating.

"Alcoholism is a disease. That is why I find the analogy a cheap shot."

Alcoholism deserves treatment as a disease, I think it's reasonable to say, but we identify it by behavior, and I believe physicians consider it formostly psychological--even if changes happen in the brain just like they do with all psychology presumably, and even though there's some evidence that some people might be biologically somewhat predisposed to alcoholism. The shot wasn't cheap, but it was insensitive to the stigma that goes along with alcoholism, in particular among religious folk. From my point of view, a behavior and the psychology that predisposes it is either adaptive or maladaptive depending on your environment, so applying "disease" to the psychological tendencies that lead to alcoholism comes off as euphemistic and even somewhat misleading speech to me. It's sensible rhetoric, because alcoholism is stigmatized--whether because of religion or because alcoholics are pathetic and cause a lot of grief and harm, or both. But to the embrace the idea is to think simplistically and in black-and-white. To the extent that people's religious dogmas predispose them to think about things simply like this, I think we're retarded in addressing serious social problem. Bush's war on science is a tragic example of this very thing. Millions of people are dying in Africa because Bush he appointees people who are in a conflict of interest between their religious ideology and their science and who are typically notably underqualified (if not unqualified) and who are willing to go lend scientific auspices to lunatic inhumane policies like making "abstinence education" our nation's virtually exclusive means of addressing AIDS.