Am I an atheist now? I refuse to say. I don’t think you can label someone like you can label milk- 1%, 2%, whole. Our beliefs are in constant flux and constant clash so we can’t be defined by what we “believe” or “don’t believe”.

I’m writing this because I haven’t written anything of the like in a long time. Last year religion was the focus of my education. Of my life even. Now, after transferring to Chapman, it’s a non-factor. I decided to walk to the “interfaith center” today having not been to church in months and the doors were locked. So this is my church session.

I don’t think you should define yourself by what you do or don’t believe but here are some thoughts…point-counterpoint style.

I focus on my problems with Christianity simply because it’s the religion I know best.

DISCLAIMER TO CHRISTIAN FRIENDS: just don’t read this note. My intention is not to upset or unsettle anyone but I know I will if you hold fast to your deep-seeded beliefs. Or if you’ve completed sold yourself into Christianity as a “born again”. In reading stuff like this you’ll either eventually abandon or alter a lot of those beliefs after really reflecting on their magnitude or decide I’m an agent of the devil or something.

Here’s some thoughts…

Man was made in God’s image.

It’s more like God was made in man’s image.

Talk to different people and they’ll all be equally convinced they have an accurate understanding of “whom” God is. We personify an abstract idea in the form of a personalized deity to make sense of the unexplainable.

God’s listening to my prayers…God’s protecting me…God’s upset with what I’ve done…

In using any of these phrases we’re applying human traits to a supposedly omnipotent intangible being. God is an idea. A concept. Not a he. Not a father.

We of course have the personal authority to make God whatever we want. And we do. We make a concept a more forgiving and caring version of our father, a better, more understanding version of a husband…etc.

The Bible is the authoritative word of God

It isn’t. It simply CANNOT be no matter how you slice it. I’ve argued and debated this point with Christian professors and when faced with any argument that devalues the “divine authority” of the bible, it always comes down to “you’ve just gotta have faith.” I’ll get to faith later but as far as the bible goes…

Even IF the majority of the things in the bible really did happen, which we of course have no way of knowing for sure, a modern English bible would not contain God’s words.

The modern Christian bible is comprised primarily of scrolls found in different parts of the world at different times. We don’t know WHO wrote them. Books were not signed off on by single authors as they are today. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The original copies were written by unknown people, whose works were then copied time and again by scribes, who, aside from the inevitability of making errors, of course had the freedom to add or take away whatever they decided to at the time.

One of the primary backings for the belief that the bible is “flawless” and perfect come from verses in the bible itself which claim that every word is true. And then there’s the “phenomenon” that the bible flows together perfectly. It doesn’t. But even this is explainable by non-divine means.

The collection of writings that was eventually translated into your modern bible were reviewed, among many other possible candidates, and compiled into the Christian canon at a meeting that if I’m remembering correctly, was put together by the Roman Emperor Constantine in what seems an obvious and shrewd way to organized a disorganized empire under a single belief system. A system he never himself converted to until on his deathbed.

Read the bible. Take from it what you will. But don’t base your life on it. There are so many other great books out there.

But enough of that…

Jesus is the only way we can be redeemed and find salvation.

First of all WHY do we need to be redeemed, forgiven, and cleansed? If we were created by an all-powerful, all-knowing (again, human characteristics) God, why are we “flawed?”

Do you ever ask yourself that? Why would God create something and then require it to undergo a system of guilt-driven redemption to regain its favor?

But again, assuming we are fucked up by nature and in need of redemption. Why Jesus? Why does God need to (depending on your interpretation) become a person/send his son down from heaven, and allow him to be brutally murdered to pay the price for our sins? If these are the rules and God is omnipotent, they were in fact created by God itself.

If you do believe that you are saved because of your relationship with Jesus then ask yourself this- does this really mean every single person who doesn’t have that relationship will burn in hell forever because you didn’t get to them in time to tell them about Jesus? If so, that really sucks for all of our Jewish, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic, Mormon, Hindu, and retarded friends.

God loves us but if we don’t get it right and go through the son he let get murdered for our sake he’ll mercilessly throw us into a pit of fire for all eternity. But if we do we’re on permanent vacation in an infinity star resort after we die.

Yea right. Bullshit.

I know virtually every Christian has a different take on the heaven/hell concept. But when it’s purely imaginable you can do whatever you want with it decide who is or isn’t going to be on the guest list.

I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

I don’t. I was a Christian since before I have memories, and depending on how you choose to define Christian, I still am one today, but I’m lying to myself if I say I have a relationship with Jesus. That’s like me saying I’m dating Angelina Jolie. That’d be cool but I’m not. I’ve never even met her.

It’s a one-way relationship. It’s therefore not a relationship. We can talk to him every day but he never responds. If he does it’s in a dream or through some subconscious, immeasurable way. Last night I had dinner with George Bush and his family on a balcony overseeing a play. The secret service guy almost shot me with his silenced pistol but was just messing with me and I was about to get one of Bush’s daughter’s phone numbers until I realized she had really bad teeth so digressed. That happened in a dream too.

When we do suddenly find answers after long periods of prayer, fasting, etc…it’s not because Jesus decided you’ve been dedicated enough that he’s going to throw you a fricken bone here (Austin Powers reference). It’s because you’ve meditated enough on your circumstances to find joy in your life and a solution to your problem.

This could have something to do with “God.” I don’t know. It could also just be the power of our mind to come to effective solutions and conclusions when we dedicate large quantities of thought toward something specific. Or maybe, just maybe, they’re the same thing.

I’m going to heaven when I die.

You’re going to the morgue when you die. Then you’re going to get buried. (Or cremated.) After that WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENS or if ANYTHING HAPPENS. We cling to this notion of a paradise awaiting us (as do many religions) because it’s a comfortable illusion.

We’re scared of death because it’s an end of life. We want to live. And when we’re willing to die for something it’s because we want that something to live more than we want ourselves to live.

If the accounts of Jesus are true I think he was a brilliant man. Even if he was simply claiming to be God, he changed the world for the better. He preached doctrine that was peaceful and infinitely better than the then (and still) popular notion that you need to murder all of your enemies in the name of God (as later made popular by the Bible itself). Regardless of who or what he was he died for something bigger than himself. That’s big in itself.

I’m a sinner.

By definition- yes. I am a sinner. But what is sin? Sin is a word that is fluidly defined based on whoever the pope happens to be.

I’ll focus on one type of “sin” for the sake of time. My favorite one- Sex.

It’s a sin to have sex until you enter the sacred vows of marriage but we have priests raping kids. Why? Because people have sex drives. Even priests. In convincing populations of people that every time they fuck someone, touch someone, or even touch themselves, that it’s disgusting and wrong in “God’s eyes” you’re creating a value clash that results in a lifetime of sexual frustration and anger.

Why would God make us horny if it’s wrong to act on anything? That’s sick. That’s like, the Saw puppet sick. People of course need to be responsible and I’m not suggesting societies just run wild, but sin is a concept created to keep people under control.

We’re wild by nature. Look at kids. So yea, we’re, in terms of the invented word sin, sinners.

Guilt is a powerful powerful tool. Link that with a punishment reward system (heaven/hell) and you’re golden. Put on a costume, throw some water around and you can convince populations of people that it’s a sin to walk too fast.

Fear of sin and hell keeps people in line. Anticipation of reward and heaven makes people think outside themselves. And it’s perfect because, just like with Santa and his elves, people believe they’re under constant surveillance. They believe that God’s allowing children to get kidnapped and murdered but he’s keeping tabs of how many times you’ve jerked it to a porno. Or in girls’ cases, dressed in a way that makes guys wish they could see the rest of you.

It’s retarded. Try to be a good person. But don’t deprive yourself a fun life because you think everything’s wrong to do and that God’s watching ready to take off the belt. He isn’t.

I could keep going but my laundry’s done.

It’s hard for me to write a lot of these things and I don’t usually openly voice them. It’s scary to do. Of course there’s the tingling notion that maybe I’m wrong in which case, I may be fucked for all eternity. That would of course suck.

But God has not given us a spirit of fear. If this is true, who has?

I stood in the Wal-Mart parking lot and looked down at my size three Buzz Lightyear sneakers.  Bright red lights danced on and off in unison with my frantic rapping their souls on the pavement.  I had just asked my mother how you got into heaven.  Her face lit up like a lawyer who just thought of a brilliant objection. 

“Well Nico, a long time ago God sent his only son named Jesus to be a living sacrifice for your sins.  He was killed so that your sins may be forgiven.  Thanks to Jesus, you can be forgiven of all the sins you’ve committed and will ever commit.  All you have to do is accept Jesus into your heart as your lord and savior and you’ll go to heaven.”

  I slipped my hands so far into my deep pockets that I looked like a six-year-old amputee to the average passerby.  My head nodded in a manufactured gesture of understanding like the quarterback on scholarship who arrived to his statistics class late and had to sit in the front row.  I had already learned that when someone passionately explained something it was best to pretend to understand where they were coming from.  I had expected my mother to say I had to be good to get into heaven.  After all, that was Santa’s policy.  Instead I had to say these magic words,

 “I want to accept Jesus Christ into my heart as my lord and savior.”  I said them.  I was saved that day.

As the years passed communions were taken, baptisms were performed, prayers were said, sins were forgiven, re-acceptance of Christ occurred, and re-re-acceptance of Christ occurred, but then a real awakening happened.  The poor kid ruined my Christmas.  Every elementary school class has a poor kid.  That’s just the way it is.  In the harsher public school districts he called the poor kid, in international schools he’s called the Latvian kid, in private schools…he doesn’t’ go to any private schools.  Anyways, the poor kid may have less than all the other kids but he knows more.  The poor kid knows how to fight.  The poor kid knows what sex is.  The poor kid knows the truth about Santa.  Our classes’ poor kid was named Kenny.

***

 Kenny looked down into his mom’s bloodshot eyes as she focused on advancing the dull euphoria that grew with each soothing sip of Southern Comfort she drank. 

“Mama, how come I didn’t get one of them Nintendos for Christmas?  All the kids in my class got one.  How come I didn’t?”

 Kenny didn’t get a Nintendo for Christmas, not because he was particularly bad, but because his father held a job like a broken glass holds water. 

“For Christ’s sakes Kenny we eat god-damn bologna sandwiches for dinner.  You think we can afford fancy toys for you.”

“What are you talking bout mama?”

“Kenny, your daddy lost his job at the mill…again.  That’s why you didn’t get a Nintendo.”

“What’s pa’s job got to do with Santa?  I mean…huhhu… he don’t sure aint no elf.”

“Kenny do I have to spell it out for your stupid ass?!  Santa aint real!  Do you really believe some fat fella that lives in the North Pole spends all his time makin shit for your poor ass?!”

            Kenny’s mother was rarely nice, but she was never this mean.  Kenny sensed something was wrong.

“Where’s pa?”

“Kenny, your father is a loser.  It don’t matter.”

            Kenny felt a feeling of discomfort grow as he juxtaposed his mother’s now visible tears with her hysterical laughter.  Though she was laughing like a relentless studio audience, Kenny could tell by the way she perched her body limply against the corner of the room that her cheeks were not graced by tears of laughter, but were professing she was the victim of something terrible.  Kenny stepped through the narrow corridor and into his parents’ room.  It looked as if it had been ransacked by an amateur thief.  The opened and empty dresser drawers stuck out as if someone had been forced to flee the house in an effort to escape a police raid.  The small TV lay upside down, defeated, crying a static mumble as if calling for help.  As Kenny inched slowly toward his mother he felt a small tap on his bare toe and heard an echoing rattle as a small ring of gold skid across the wooden floor like a hockey puck.  He bent down and picked it up.  It was his father’s wedding ring.

“Where’s pa?!”

“You’re dumber than you look Kenny.  He’s gone dammit.  Your worthless daddy left us.”

Kenny stood there looking into his mother’s relentless tear-filled eyes.  He felt a whirlwind of emotions that he couldn’t even begin to make sense of.  He was looking into his mothers’ eyes but he saw nothing.  He felt everything and saw nothing.  He turned and slowly left the room, suddenly feeling weaker than he had ever felt.  He stepped outside of his trailer and into the brisk, welcoming dusk toward the woods.  He felt his pace quicken as if to keep up with his racing heart that vibrated his chest.  When he had walked into his home that afternoon he had an unshakable faith in something beautiful, now as he exited the rusting steel sardine can he had something he never knew he should fear: the truth.  The truth about life.  There was no Santa.  There was no father.  There was no good.  He had invested all of his hope in an apparition.  He had indulged in the sweet honey of ignorance for nine happy years.  Now he was being mauled by the bees of reality.  Kenny thought of Santa.  Instead of being filled with the warm sensation that made his toes tingle and his dimples come to life, he was taken over by an equally powerful and contrasting feeling of emptiness.  He felt his heart relentlessly beat shame through his veins.  His toes and fingers began to tingle.  Not in a comforting fuzzy sensation, but in a loathsome and lonely chill.  His arms shook subtly.  Not in the way they shook before he tried to hold a girls hand or cheat on a test, but in a dark blend of his shameful physical admittance of his vulnerability and a burning rage that grew like a conflagration, spreading through his body leaving his neck bulging like a bodybuilder, his jaw tightened like a statue.  His eyes quickly transformed from open expectant windows of hope to narrow, critical slits in his head.  Their purpose of being ambassadors to the world around them changed to being a blockade keeping out all that could alter his emotions.  Kenny’s body slammed against the earth like a soldier becoming a statistic.  He felt every muscle in his arms and shoulders tighten as he clenched his invisible foe and stuck it with the new dark power he had summoned.  His mouth opened like the jaws of a serpent as he fell on to his back and let out a screeching noise that was a mix between the final breath of a torture victim and the cry of a child being kidnapped.  As Kenny lay in the tear soaked soil alone, his only companion, the hopeful orange sun abandoned him through the barren, leafless trees.  Even the sun had lost her will to shine on him.  He imagined his frozen breath as his soul leaving his body.  Finding somewhere better to live.  Anywhere was better than here, better than now.  Santa’s Elves did not see Kenny that night.  Kenny’s father did not see Kenny that night.  No one saw Kenny that night. 

***

As I walked into class the nest morning I noticed several kids gathered around Kenny’s desk.  I inched closer to see what all the commotion was about. 

“Santa aint real,” declared Kenny in a cold matter-of-factly tone.

 I was always up for a debate.

“Whatever, you don’t get presents because you’re bad and you don’t believe.”

“No!  I don’t get presents because I’m poor!”

Kenny shoved me as he stormed out of the classroom and down the hall. 

“He’s gonna be in trouble.”

My friend Nelson looked me in the eyes dutifully.

“Should we tell?”

“Probably…it’s no wonder he’s on the naughty list.”

We giggled as we approached the teacher’s desk to tell. 

When I got home I couldn’t stop thinking about what Kenny had said.  I had always found the story of Santa as “peculiar” to say the least.  But I did get some nice presents under the tree every year so I had no reason to ask questions.  I guess that’s the social contract of folk religion.  Soccer season began and I forgot about my quest for truth until late September when I started seeing Christmas lights lacing the windows of my overzealous neighbor’s houses. 

One day, while my mom went to pick up my brother in the morning and I waited for Mrs. Long, our neighbor, to come pick me up, I aborted my traditional practice of brushing up on my “Mario Kart Racing” skills and decided to search the house for Christmas gifts.  I looked under beds, in closets, and in the basement.  The basement is where I found the first round of wrapped lies.  As I hesitantly lifted the large Rubbermaid container, like an explorer afraid to open a cursed chest, I found my proof that something was off.  I regained my breath as I quickly closed the Rubbermaid, placed it back exactly where it was, grabbed my JanSport backpack and rushed out the garage door and into the honking silver beast of an SUV.  I was silent on my way to school that day.  When I got home Mom had some questions to answer.               

“Mom is Santa real?”

“Why do you ask?  Did someone say something at school?”

No strait answer.  A sure warning sign of a lie. 

“Yea, Kenny said Santa’s not real.”

My mom was used to hearing stories about Kenny.  He was all that was wrong with my generation. 
            “Nico, there’s a lot of theories about Santa.”

Over-explanation…another sign of a good liar.

“I personally believe that Santa only comes to those who believe in him.”

Makes sense.

“Okay mom.”

I didn’t really care whether Santa existed or not.  As long as I got the presents, it didn’t really matter.  Besides, if my parents really were big liars it wouldn’t be smart to call them out on it.  I mean if I did they might not get me presents anymore.  But contrary to all my reason, and my mother’s credibility, like a detective that won’t let go of his hunch despite the chief’s tirades, something kept nagging me to get to the bottom of things.  I decided to take a less direct approach.  The next day as I boarded the carpool and sat down, I opened the morning’s conversation with a question directed to the driver. 
             ”Mrs. Long?”

“Yeees Mr. Nico.”

“Umm…is….what if…about Santa…”

I detected a quick look of fear in Mrs. Long’s eyes through the rear-view mirror.  It was the look of a murderer hearing about the re-opening of a long forgotten and never solved murder case.  I had to be very careful in the wording of my question.

“What…what are your views on Santa?”

“What do you mean?”
”I know this sounds silly but this kid in my class…”
”Kenny.  I heard.  Katherine told me.”

Katherine was her daughter.  My dad was right.  She did grow up to be a “hot mama”.

Look Nico, don’t worry about what Kenny says.  Just be good and you’ll be taken care of come Christmas time.”
”Um…I’m aware of that…It’s just I question Santa’s…realness?”

Mrs. Long turned on the radio as she ended the conversation,

“I’d recommend talking to your parents if you have any more questions.  We’re almost there.”
We weren’t almost there. 

After seeing Kenny kicked out of the class for ridiculing the teacher for lying to everybody about Santa, I decided I had to know the truth.  That day I approached my mother again.  This time I took the Tyson approach and went for the kill.
”Mom tell me the truth about Santa.”
There was a long pause.  I’m not sure who it was more uncomfortable, the victim or the culprit. 

“If you really want to know the truth, here it is.  Your father and I get you presents every year, and we put them under the tree while you’re asleep.  But every year there are a few presents we honestly don’t know where they came from…”

Thanks mom.  Leave a little hope to cling on to.  I affirmed this “phantom present” theory the next day with Mrs. Long.  I didn’t know about the Mom network back then. 

            By the time it was time for mom and dad to tuck us in for bed that Christmas eve I knew the whole truth.  I wanted in on it.  I demanded my parents let me help them put the presents under the tree.  They didn’t.  I wanted to share in the thrill of harmless deception.  They said I would have to wait until I had kids.  I told them I was impotent.  They told me I wasn’t allowed to watch “Friends” anymore.  I did anyways.  I affirmed and reaffirmed my parents I wouldn’t “ruin” the secret for my younger and more naïve brother and sister. 

            Santa wasn’t real.  Was God?  After all I had just as much, if not more faith in Santa as I did in God.  I mean Santa left me proof of his existence every year.  God never gave me presents.  Couldn’t God be an even bigger lie than Santa, a secret that is carefully protected and passed on from generation to generation?  After all, God did make people be good, like Santa.  If they “accepted Jesus into their hearts” and “chose to live their lives striving to be more like him and fleeing all ‘sin’ he’d let them into this magic gold city in the sky”.  If you didn’t follow his rules you’d burn in a lake of fire forever and ever with no chance of redemption.  Too bad for Yoshi and Shakar, my Buddhist and Muslim friends.  The more I learned in Sunday school the more God seemed like Santa.  A great guy, who might not be what he seems.  I chose not to ask any questions though.  The reason being, every Christmas started to suck more than the last.  I’d tell my parents what I wanted and if it was within reason I’d get it.  The thrill died with the myth. 

It made sense to me that there had to be a God to make me but the whole thing about heaven and hell and Jesus just didn’t make sense.  I preached it though.  If people asked me about heaven I’d give them my memorized response.

“If you want to get into heaven all you have to do is believe in God and accept Jesus into your heart.  Oh, and if you want to play it safe get baptized too cuz we’re not really sure if you get into heaven if you’re not baptized.”

I still didn’t know what it meant to accept Jesus into my heart but it would be stupid not to.  If the people who said Christians were wrong were right and nothing happened when you die, so what?  If every one else were wrong they’d have to go to hell forever.  I witnessed to people every once and a while and every once and a while a friend would start going to church with me.  My mom called it planting seeds.  I could bring a friend to church and if he accepted Jesus later on down the line he’d owe me one once we got to heaven.  Even though since I’d been forgiven of everything I’d ever do, I didn’t have to be good to get into heaven, I was still good.  Not because I wanted to be a good Christian, just because it seemed like the right thing to do.

            I looked down the line of high school seniors and administrators.  Ah, my fellow classmates.  These were the friends I played soccer with, went to the movies with, and did crack after second period with.  Just kidding about that last thing.  These were the girls that would one day regret not going out with me.  These were the teachers that enjoyed their power over me for three years.  I suspected several of them of never having graduated from high school themselves.  As speaker after speaker talked about whatever they talked about, I secretly contributed breath after breath to blowing up a beach ball my rebel friend Justin had smuggled in.  It had a large penis drawn on it in sharpie.  I did not know this.  I laughed with each breath as I considered the irrelevance of the consequences of my actions.  I looked impregnated as I blew all I had into the ball while trying to keep it under my cardinal red gown that they charged me sixty bucks for.  I did not like that.  I saw a teacher approaching out of my peripheral vision.  She was coming on fast.  I could see out of the corner of my eye that she was not amused at my gang’s final stabs of defiance.  I quickly closed the blowhole and served the ball high into the crowd of classmates.  They played keep away from the teachers.  My business teacher looked like a frustrated kid losing a monkey in the middle game as she angrily chased it back and forth.  Finally some overachieving National Honor Society girl murdered our short-lived fun.  I’m not sure if it was her razor sharp nails or her death stare that did the deed, but the party ended with a loud pop.  As I walked out of the doors of the convention center and into the hectic traffic that was uncharacteristic for my mediocre town I lit a cigar.  Ok…now what?  That cigar led me to ask a lot of questions about my future.  I was finally free.  Free of parents and teacher’s rule.  I never had to take another class or listen to my parents again if I didn’t want to.  What should I do with my life?  What do I believe?  What religion should I be?  Should I even be a religion?  These questions led to books.  These books led to thoughts.  These thoughts led to actions.  After coincidentally seeing a movie called “Peaceful Warrior” I started looking at things in a different way.  I started taking time to be alone.  I started going on long runs through the town and the humid air in the middle of the night.  I started meditating.  I started writing.  I started forming my own beliefs in place of my parents’ beliefs.  Many of them were the same, but some of them had changed.  I began thinking that maybe all religions are linked.  I felt God in a lot of different churches in a lot of different places.  I realized I didn’t know what would happen when I die.  Maybe I go to heaven.  Maybe I’m reincarnated.  Maybe I become something I can’t understand.  I decided my life was my life.  I stopped doing things and not doing things just because someone told me that was “the right” way to live.  I decided to make my own decisions and fully accept the consequences.  I held myself, and no one else, accountable for what I decided to do or not do.  Though this scared my parents I felt closer to God and truer to myself than I ever had.  I decided, along with my kid brother, to be confirmed in the Catholic Church.  I won’t lie this is largely due to our exposure to the movie “Boondock Saints”.  I don’t live based on what the Catholic Church tells me to do, but I did want to be able to identify with a religion.  After all, I don’t want people to say I’m an atheist. 

This is where I’m at now.  I’m staying open to everything and accepting nothing I don’t understand.  Just because I don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not true, but I’m done pretending to truly believe that which doesn’t make sense to me.  I have decided to live each day with purpose.  I have decided to make each breath count.  I have decided to find what I want in life and get it.  So long as I don’t profit at the expense of others I see nothing wrong with fulfilling my “earthly” desires.  I try be happy, but I now see that happiness is an emotion.  It is a state of mind.  It is not something that you can own.  You can feel it but you can’t depend on it.  I feel the same way about romantic love.  The only thing I feel is absolute and will never change no matter what happens in this life is the presence of God.  I don’t know how to define God, but I know there is God.  I feel God in the absence of all things, and in the absence of all things lies the only thing that matters.