Letters to the Editor
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May Sara be happy in her life!
I am happy that Sara is exercising her people-given right (from the authors of the United States Constitution and the people on the courts who have upheld it and the people of the U.S. who have not amended or discarded it!)to practice religion in the manner she likes. Her wishes to find inner peace and commit social justice and charity by feeding the poor are noble, and all people, liberals and atheists like me, should respect her choice. We free thinkers and secular humanists can rejoice that there are religious people who are on a persoanl journey and who try to do good works for the benefit of humanity. Be happy that there are at least some people who do not take it as their life's work to impose their strictures on others by legislating what lifestyles are proper, by burning/banning books, by stifling medical treatments, and by going off their rockers by attempting to refute peer-reviewed, accepted scientific theories with fairy-tale claims wrapped in the mantle of junk science. Be glad that there are many religious people who do not subscribe to the ultimate outrage of trying to instsitute a theocratic government of the United States. It is the people who use the front of religion to effect their fantasies of subjugation and control over other people who invoke justifiable outrage amongst us libertarian-leaning progressives. If only the vast majority of religious believers would refrain from attempting to legislate their lifestyles and beliefs on the rest of us, and would have half the tolerance for non-believers as many of us have for them, this ugly flame war between us would be over.
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Responding to one sentence from that tiresome Alex
He writes: "Once you've opened the door to believing in mystical mumbo-jumbo and looking outside the natural world for explanations, anything goes."
Looking outside the "natural world" is a good thing. Welcome to the Post-Enlightenment.
Now I'll STFU.
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Further thoughts from a pissed-off Episcopalian
A few observations directed toward the Christian-haters on this board:
1) All Christian denominations are not the same. Read that sentence again -- all denominations are not the same. They are wildly different.
2) Episcoplians (Sara is, and I am) are not the same as, say, Southern Baptists. Specifically:
We ordain women. Guess what? The head of the entire United States Episcopal Church is a woman. At my church, the entire clergy is female -- rector, deacon, everyone.
We ordain gays and lesbians. The Bishop of New Hampshire is openly gay.
We welcome anyone -- ANYONE -- in our churches. We have several gay couples. I personally was a witness at the baptism of one of these couples (two lesbians) children.
Anyone -- ANYONE -- can take Communion. If you're a Jew, and you feel moved to take Communion, come on down.
Most Episcopal priests do not believe Hell is real.
We believe that doubt and struggle are absolutely central to faith. If you've got half a brain, you're going to realize that Scripture is internally contradictory, impossible, or just doesn't make sense. It's up to each person to decide for him or herself what to believe. We don't dictate anyone'e beliefs.
We don't have a lot of money. Being an Episcopal priest means, basicaly, committing yourself to a very restricted financial future. Lots of clergy work for free.
Finally, we are openly, and very publicly, slugging it out among ourselves about these issues. The worldwide church is potentially going to break up over the issue of ordaining women and being tolerant of homosexuality. The Americans are all for it, with a few exceptions, and the Africans are dead-set against it, and are threatening to leave the Anligcan Communion.
Before you denounce Sara as some kind of Bible-waving fascist, take the time to learn what her church is actually all about. And particularly for everyone droning on about how facts and logic are all that matter -- guess what? You've got your facts wrong. You don't have the data. Do your damn homework.
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congratulations
you are now the 2 billionth person to join the club! please tell everyone! christianity, just like islam, is nothing without pestering and threatening everybody else to join the club.
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David Sugarman
You are awful. I thought that people with allegedly high IQs were supposed to be above the base tribal allegiances you advocate. All people are people, Jewish or not. I am not more predisposed to like someone or "treat them as my brother" simply because they are Jewish. Jews are just as diverse in their good characteristics and bad and any other group, it would be silly to like Jewish people more simply because they are Jews.
PS I'm a "Jew," but not really. My mother's mother isn't Jewish, so technically I am not neither. Jewish enough for Hitler, but not Jewish enough for Jews. Many Jews themselves don't want me in the club. Talk about treating each other as brothers and sisters, and evidence of high IQs.
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dear pissed-off Tyler
No one denounced Sara as a Bible-waving fascist. personally, I think people like her (and you) are pretty harmless, but still silly. Just because you like gays and ordain women, that doesn't mean you aren't still silly about other stuff.
Mostly, I object to the direction Salon is taking. True, they are free to publish whatever drivel they want, and we are free to not read it, but we are also free to state our opinions about it in the letters section (this is what the letters section is for, if you hadn't figured that out.)
When I said I feel that people like Sara are PRETTY harmless, this is what I meant- Sara seems to think that something like human reproduction is a deep dark mystery. It isn't. As a biologist, this is when *I* get to say- "do your damn homework." Humanity doesn't need that kind of superstition anymore.
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my daily bread
because writing about one's spiritual conversions is rather like a Rhorschach test--i think i'll weigh in here with some of my feelings and observations.
(beware: another long and rambling confession follows)
i pretty much belong to the same sort of institutions and traditions that Jefferson and Washington and Franklin, et al. belonged.
however, there was a happy time when i could say with Jews and others that i am not a Christian. however, i have moved on in my seeking and now i would qualify and say that i may be called a mystical Christian. i am not orthodox nor Orthodox. one of the great problems of becoming Christian is the tyrannical monopoly of the orthodox and the Orthodox in access and public confession--to the point of murder, maiming, denial of civil rights and all the other horrors they perpetrate and have perpetrated.
Christianity from the very beginning has been a strange collection of differing and contradictory sects, intolerant and tolerant--just as today still.
however, i would like to state clearly what seems to be true in any "conversion" once one seeks the greater light through whatever window one first perceives it: one of the necessities found is service. so that feeding the poor, taking care of orphans widows and the sick becomes the norm for any spiritual enlightenment.
in mystical Christian states (such as that envisioned by our Founding Fathers) taking care of widows, orphans and the sick will be the goal of the state; the mystical interpretation of "all have failed and fall short of the glory of god..." being that no one can be blamed for their failure in this world--thus showing what hypocrits right-wingers are, since they think they're superior to the rest of us and especially to poorer orders of society.
since service is to my perceptions actually the norm, then being atheist is not an impediment to this service, if the greater light is not anthropomorphized into some anthropomorphic god or goddess, then there is no problem. Buddhism in its origin is a perfect example on the greater world stage. it would seem on its surface that my statement that atheism is a perfectly okay way to seek god is contradictory, but then all statements about transcendence can only be contradictory.
to me, all stories of conversion have interest due to my own seeking and striving, thus that i may compare experiences and verbal formulations.
i also want to state that my personal preference is not for public ritual anthropophagy as a way to enlightenment. i prefer to describe such as one the false metaphysical teachings of the orthodox--without denying that it might serve as a path for others.
it might also be of interest in this context to point out that one of the original resurrected bodies written about was taught in Zoroastrianism--where the resurrected light body that goes up to the god of light is one's collection of good deeds and that is the part of one that becomes undying. so one could say, keep up the good work.