If I Could I would

Both in the company of others and alone, I talk to myself aloud quite a bit. This habit is only perpetuated by another idiosycracy: i nourish my mind by creating and contemplating hypothetical situations and my hypothetical courses of action.Sudoku and crossword puzzles have never excited me,hence, the mind games.I’ve always been ambivilant on my decision if i hypothetically could be reborn- born again as a religious zealot, that is.Today I hopped from one side of the imaginary fence to the other.

I watched Jesus Camp today, a documentary about an Evangelical summer camp for kids. As a Portland raised, agnostic, environmentally conscious and politically aware gal, this film is more frightening than The Shinning.But from there point of view of those kids, Life is Grand. There was creation; they are individual and unique gifts from god,all put on earth with a purpose. Global warming is incorrect leftist jargon; they need not bear the weight of terrifying environmental issues because the earth is soon to end in an Apocalypse, and in the meantime, god put resources here to be used by man.There is destiny; they have faith that any negative obstacle in their lives is both not their fault and happening for a reason. There is an afterlife; they live this life in the flesh assured of an inner strength and courage of their spirit within. They are loved by God; just imagine having the most omnipotent being in existence as your support system.Your parents could be unfathomably nutty and it wouldn’t matter because the Big Daddy upstairs is the best papa, ever. And a terrific listener at that. AND the best part is, even though you’ve sinned ( birth), you are forgiven. Don’t even sweat it- some guy named Christ already died for your sins. As long as you worship that guy, you’re pretty much saved. The second best part: you are better than most of the world because you are enlightened by the Truth. Jesus is your homeboy, and that makes you special.

Ya know what? I’m a little bit envious of the cushy life of those evangelicals. They have strength, courage and wisdom handed to them on a silver platter in a drive through McBible window while the rest of us suckers have to build character through doubt and learned self-reliance and esteem through experience. Our misdoings are ours, not a detour in a greater destiny and punished, not pardoned) but old white men with beards in municipal court.

I don’t believe in the our culturally stereotypical concept of the judeo-christian God ( however, I do believe in the concept of omnipotent and divine balance, which is as close to god as I come.) I don’t rule it out because in this infinite universe, the existence or occurrence of anything has some fraction of probability, and therefore, possibility. But i don’t believe because it doesn’t make much sense , to me. In the end, what I’m saying is i wish the opposite, that God made sense, and the idea that god ( as culturally defined) not existing made just as little sense.Yeah.