The Trouble with (most) Christians

The thing that bugs me most about Christians is their tendency to see things in black and white terms.  It’s always good versus evil or right versus wrong or us versus them.  There is no intermediate ground.  For instance, there are only evil people or good people even though half a second of thought makes it clear to most anyone that we all do good and we all do evil.

I am an agnostic.  I feel no need to defend my position (or to try to convert anyone) but as soon as a hardcore Bible thumper finds out, they want to debate the issue.  More importantly, they always feel I am “against them” or their god.  I am not.   I arrived at my own belief system with much “fear and trembling” just like, I hope, they did.  The fact that I am agnostic does not mean I am anti-Christian.  Why is that so hard to see?  It’s hard to see because Christians see everything as good versus evil…and naturally, they’re the good.

Having those endless, unwanted debates has made me see other irrational or illogical things they do too.  First and foremost, they ignore facts.  If I throw out a fact like “most of the scientists of the world believe in evolution” then the response is usually “that’s not true”, although it is a verifiable fact.  (As an aside I want to say that evolution does not disprove god or vice versa.  Often a Christian will try to make the debate about evolution).

The other thing they do in a debate is decide what conclusion they want to reach then twist and turn facts so as to arrive at the conclusions they seek.  I have had debates where the existence of dinosaur bones was explained as a false history set in place by god just as Jesus turned water to wine – the wine having a history (aging, etc.) even though it was newly made.  Never mind that using one mythical story to support another is illogical.  The point is, that is not following facts to their logical conclusion.  That is twisting facts in any way possible in order to arrive at the conclusions one wants.

I don’t want to remove religion from the world.  The Catholic Church feeds more people than any other organization in the world.  I don’t even care if they go on having a belief system based on myths and legends.  I just want them to leave me alone or bring something to the table when they don’t.

I don’t like Stan

You always see guys like Stan in movies or on TV but it never crosses your mind that there might really be people like that.

My wife’s phone is supplied by her work so mine is on the same network.  When her company switched to AT&T, I naturally switched also.  We decided to take this opportunity to get our son a phone also.  My wife scoped out their plans online then we went to the AT&T store.  The minute we walked in the door we were accosted by Stan, clipboard in hand.  He asked what we were looking for and, before we could answer, he asked her what her plan was and what her name was.  I cut in and told him that we just wanted to look at phones right now.  He wanted her phone number and she explained that she wasn’t getting a phone, she had one.  He wanted to know what her phone was.  She told him.  He still wanted a number.  She gave him mine.  He had this obnoxious habit of being in your personal space.  It was claustrophobic.

As we went to the phones he wanted, again, to know what plan we had.  My wife, exasperated already, explained that WE had NO plan but that her company had a plan and we were switching me to that plan.  My wife works for a prominent local company so he wanted to know what she did there.  She answered only vaguely – an answer I knew meant that it was none of his business – and we ran him off long enough to look at phones.  He was disheartened when we told him we wanted just basic phones.

He went to his computer and looked up plans and phones.  When she explained that she’d seen free phones online, he pulled up the page and the free phones were on the top of the page.  He scrolled down and she told him to scroll up, please.  He ignored her.  She asked again.  Finally one of the other employees explained that the free phones were discontinued phones, could be ordered (they didn’t have any in the store) but that accessories , like chargers, might be hard to find.  Fair enough.

Stan had now moved to the website of our former carrier, and wanted her to log in to get the account number, a necessary step to change my phone over.  He was talking faster and being more insistent by the minute.  My wife explained that she did not know her password as she never visited it.  He asked her to take a seat in front of the computer and try to log on.  She did but was unable. Undaunted, he said, ”why don’t you call customer service?  It’ll only take 2 minutes”.  She informed him it never took just 2 minutes to call customer service.  He was standing over her shoulder and he was actually getting impatient with her!

She said, “You know what?  We have to go pick up our son.  Why don’t we do this tomorrow?”  I winced.  I could see she’d had all she was going to take.  Stan countered with, “How about I set you up with two phones with temporary numbers then…” She cut him off and said ,”No.  We’ll come back”.  Before letting us go, he insisted on giving us his card and circling his name.  I couldn’t help but think that surely he knew we would never do business with him.  Was he that thick?!  On the way out I said, not quite under my breath, “I don’t like Stan very much.”  Except, I think there were actually some expletives involved.

Once in the car, my wife used her phone to look up the location of another AT&T store – one without Stan.   She said we would go there tomorrow and get phones.

But the story doesn’t end there.  Today, Stan called me and wanted to know when we were coming in!  I told him I didn’t know; we were busy.  He said, “You have my information, right?”  I assured him I did.  He added that he wondered what he needed to do to “get us onboard”.  I hung up.

Stan aside, we don’t even want to be with AT&T but it makes the most economic sense for our family.  Ironically, we ended our phone service at our home with them about the same time we found out my wife would be getting her work phone through AT&T.  We had wanted to cut ties with them because they donate heavily to the Republican party.  Again, it came down to the best deal for us.  We ended up getting our phones at another store and learned why Stan felt the need to be so aggressive.  There are strip centers on every corner of the intersection and in three of the four there are AT&T stores.  Three stores within blocks!

I can’t wait for Stan to call me again so I can tell him I went across the street.

Resurrection of a deity? $30.00.

Three years ago, my then-new wife and I took in my 8-year-old grandson. His father, my son, had a great number of personal problems that he is still working his way through.

When we got the boy he was, to put it kindly, rag tag. He had nothing but a bag of clothes and gum disease. He was an insecure kid who was thankful for every crumb you gave him, be it attention or material.

Now, just 3 short years later, he is a typical, indolent spoiled American kid. If you offer to buy him something, he wants it “super-sized”. Ask him if he wants to go get a coke and he’ll say, “Can I have an ice cream too?” Ask him if he wants a toy and he wants two. In point of fact, he has more money most of the time than things to want. He goes to the store looking for something that will cost all the money in his pocket. Don’t get me wrong, I love him dearly and admit my part in his transformation, BUT…

His first Christmas my wife bought him a video game console and my mother-in-law gave him a TV for his room. He also, of course, got an entire wardrobe and everything he had asked for. By his third Christmas it was difficult to find something he didn’t have, which leads me to Easter.

I noticed, on his first Easter with us, the habit of my mother-in-law to lavish gifts on her other grandchild and asked that the whole gift-giving thing be kept under control – eggs, baskets and maybe a little candy seemed sufficient to me. We don’t really need another holiday where we lavish gifts on our children; at least that’s what I think.

You would not believe the 3 day argument I had with my wife and mother-in-law! In the end, his grandmother took me aside and said, “Now don’t be mad…”. She had done exactly as she wanted (and exactly as I had asked her NOT to do) and he had a ton of loot. Of course it was not a pretty holiday.

Which leads me to this year, and the title of this piece. This year my wife and grandson went to grandma’s without me. Because of personal issues of her own, his grandmother was unable to shop for him. When they arrived home he quickly announced that he had $30.00. I asked, in front of wife and grandma, where he got 30 dollars. I asked 3 times and never got an answer. After grandma was gone I found out she had given him 25 and his uncle had kicked in another 5. When I confronted my wife, her best argument was that everyone does it – and that I should tell grandma, not her…and that she thought it was ok (she gave him a tennis racket and a can of balls).

Now I realize I am more sore about putting my foot down and having it stepped on than about the sorry state of spoiled American kids but I’ll work through that myself. What I want to know is, am I wrong? Should I give this boy more than he needs or even wants because everyone else is doing it?

Not that I seem to be able to stop it, of course…

Yes, we can…but will we?

The American people, it would appear, are on the verge of electing the self-avowed candidate of change.  They are tired of the way Washington has been run and scared for their futures.  They are prepared to seek a different path.  And not without good reason.  The environment is fouled, the economy is in the dumper and the price of energy is, well, unaffordable.

 

We have taken the  first step.  We have become engaged, informed and involved.  And yet that is most certainly not enough.  Barack Obama cannot save us.  No one man can.     

 

We have long decried the power plays of President Bush.  We have complained that he had too much power to follow his own agenda, ignore Congress and the will of the people.  It would take pages to list his excesses.  We have shouted from our collective rooftops the fact that this is supposed to be a system of checks and balances; that no man should have such absolute control.

 

And now we wait for one man to save us.  He cannot.  We must save ourselves.  I try not to be the pessimist, but I wonder if we will.  An example:

 

A decade ago, business as usual changed in American manufacturing.  Leveraged buyouts, mergers, competitive pressure from overseas and greed were some of the factors that brought about that change.   Almost overnight American workers were admonished to produce more with less.  For less.

 

To be fair, it was necessary.  It was necessary because we had made unwise trade agreements but nevertheless, it was necessary if we were to compete.  In my workplace, we were told, “get on the train or be left behind”.  Most did, but you could draw a line separating the people who could not or would not adapt from the ones who did.  That line was around 50 years of age.  Some people were just too old and too inflexible to change.  They got left behind.  They were forced into retirement, fired or quit.  They simply could not make the shift to a new work paradigm.   If we are to thrive as a nation, we cannot afford that kind of reaction.  If we are to survive as a people, a world, we cannot afford that kind of reaction.

 

The world is changing, one way or another.  We are in a perfect storm of change.  The economy, the environment and the emergence of India and China guarantee it.  We cannot now stand idly and wait for the President, or the “other guy” to fix things.  We must make hard decisions – unpopular decisions – and do our part.

 

 

Another example:  There are still people who do not believe in global warming.  Not only do they not believe it is man-made, they don’t believe it at all.  When I pressed some friends on the subject, their reasons became clear:  They simply did not want to change the way they did things.  Believing in global warming would force them to change.  The conversation grew animated and my friend’s wife told me that she DID NOT want to turn the water off while brushing her teeth – there was such a thing as comfort.

 

Please believe me, these are normally reasonable people.

 

We must lay aside our good for the greater good, on a larger scale still.  Every state (and their leaders) do what is good for themselves, but not what is good for the nation.  Or even the world. 

 

Third example:  A dozen states in the U.S. grow corn, much of it for ethanol and all of that is subsidized by the government.  Ethanol is a boondoggle.  It takes more energy to produce it and move it than it creates.  This is a fairly well known fact among the energy aware.  And still we produce corn for fuel.  We do it because it is good for the economies of states like Ohio.  But it’s bad for America.  Will Ohio admit that and do what is good for America?  How about what is good for the world?  An unanticipated consequence of using corn for fuel instead of food is the fact that nations on the other side of the world increase destruction of forests so they can produce the food that we are not. 

Producing ethanol (which is not profitable anyway) is causing rain forest to be lost. 

 

Think about that for a minute.  Producing ethanol is causing rainforest to be lost.

 

We have spent the last 2 decades driving inefficient vehicles because we felt the need for the status symbol.  There really is no other reason for most people to drive an SUV.  We waste what belongs to us and excuse it by saying “I paid for it” or “We don’t want to alter our comfort level”, all the time destroying the only world we have.  We are not only the only animal on the planet that creates trash, we are the only one messing our nest.

 

But there is hope.  In fact, all kinds of hope.   We are also the only animal who can reason out this problem and take action.  The question is, are we going to wait and see if Barack Obama will save us or are we going to do it ourselves?

give me hand

I work nights.  After a couple of hours of sleep, two guys came to deliver some furniture: an older, black man and a young Mexican.

The old man chatted me up, said how nice the furniture was, asked about my job, where it was, how the drive was at night…

 

When they got ready to leave, I signed the delivery papers and put out my hand.  For one second, half a second, his face looked startled and maybe even horrified.  But just for an instant.  Then he turned his head and touched my fingertips and hurried out.  Clearly he had not wanted to shake my hand.  From the look on his face, he hated the thought of it.

 

I couldn’t go back to sleep for a long while after that. 

I don’t like dogs

I don’t like dogs. It’s not that I hate them, I just don’t like them. Some people, if not most, don’t like cats. Many don’t like rodents, be they guinea pigs or rats, and most detest snakes. I don’t like dogs.

In my mind’s eye I can see all (both) of you wearing stunned, then hurt, then suspicious looks. “He doesn’t like dogs?! That’s…UnAmerican!!”

And in a sense, it is UnAmerican because God knows, Americans love their dogs. They spend billions of dollars every year buying, grooming and caring for them. They take them on vacation (and pay extra for their rooms) and when they expire (finally), they bury them in pet cemeteries, complete with headstones and flowers.
And that’s cool. You want to spend your hard earned bread that way? Go for it.

That’s not my argument. This is:  People let their dogs do things they wouldn’t let their kids do. Here’s an example:  I was at a private hunting retreat with 6 friends and my wife, for a weekend. We don’t hunt; it’s just a chance to be together and have fun, drink a little and escape parenting. Since the owner brought his dog last year (2 dogs this year), everyone else felt it was ok to bring theirs. Maybe they even got approval, I don’t know. Anyway, we spent most of the weekend inside with 6 dogs. The one that greeted us at the door weighed in at 95 pounds. The remainder were from small to medium-sized animals.

The first evening, I was sitting on the couch watching most everyone else play Rock Band. Then, in comes the herd. The big dog proceeded to put his face in my face, then two of the smaller dogs climbed onto the couch and crowded up next to me. Finally, a 3rd dog climbed onto the back of the couch in an attempt to crowd one of the others out. At this point I got up and moved to a barstool. One of the other, non-playing guests assumed my seat and began snuggling and baby-talking the dogs. No one else seemed to notice.

When my wife and I arose the next day, I opened the bedroom door and there was the giant dog, nose to crotch, so to speak. He escorted us into the kitchen where people were relaxing with coffee while 5 more dogs scurried from place to place. There were more incidents, including nearly breaking my neck because of a tethered dog’s reaction to another dog, but I think I have made my point.
None of these otherwise gracious and caring people would ever allow their kids to behave that poorly. And I’m not sure I really blame the owners. They are no different than the average American, after all. Simply stated, we now have a culture that allows dogs greater rights than children.

So I don’t like dogs, ok? I like my space. If I am in your home and you have one, great, but please, make it behave at least as well as you would your child.

No-Brainer

Whenever presidential elections roll around I often feel like I know just what the next president ought to do.  This is pure vanity, of course.  I have no idea the intricacies of the job.  There are so many factors that I am unaware of, so many things kept from me by my government, that an informed opinion isn’t really possible.

 

Also there’s a lot of stuff I’m not interested in.  Still, there is the occasional no-brainer.

 According to the New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, 3^rd edition, a “no-brainer” is “Something that is absurdly simple or easy and requires little thought.” 

 

I think I can handle that. 

 

So what are some things that seem so obvious that any mook ought to immediately say, “Yeah, America oughta do that”? (The implication, of course, is that these things are obvious and yet are NOT being done.)

 

Ok, how about normalizing relations with Cuba?  Anyone see a downside to that?  Other than garnering votes from the Florida, anti-Castro crowd, what possible reason could anyone have for ending 50 plus years of ostracizing these poor people? 

The original reason for the embargos and travel restrictions was to topple the Castro regime.  Does anyone think just a few more years is gonna do it?  And who is suffering?  It’s certainly not the Cuban government.  If Americans could spend vacations on their beaches  (and of course, some do.  You just have to leave from Canada or Mexico), spend money in their shops and, not incidentally, show them what the rest of the world is doing, well…I can’t see any down side, can you?  They might even decide they want a little democracy too.

 

Seems like a no-brainer to me

 

All in the Response

   Mindful that media exposure is greater than ever before, I still can’t help but wonder when the last time this country was in such a terrible state.  This mess (obviously) began on 9/11, in ‘01.  Until then it looked like Bush was going to spend his presidency giving out checks and taking vacations.

   Of course America has had eye-opening tragedies before.  I personally remember JFK’s assassination.  Also the murder of Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King.  Before my time there was the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  All these event have tragedy in common of course, but also that feeling of “This can’t happen in this country!” 

 

   The difference in then and now is in the response.  It would be fair to say that Bush’s response to Sept. 11 has done more to ensure the outcome Bin Laden desired (chaos and the downfall of America) than the initial act of terrorism did.  Strong words to be sure but just think about it:  The economy is in near collapse with a mind-boggling deficit, the country is totally polarized, there’s absolutely zero respect from the rest of the world and the war is draining the last bit of life out of us – a war in response to 9/11, against a country that had absolutely nothing to do with it…at least according to a Republican Congress committee’s findings.

 

I won’t belabor the point by talking about civil liberties, gas prices, unseen body bags, etc, etc. since we’re all living this nightmare this very minute.  What I will do is ask what we’re going to do about it.  The Dem’s are on top now.  Will they wander aimlessly (their normal response to governing), will they fight endlessly with the Republicans (their usual response) or will we finally stop trying to do what’s best for our parties and do what’s best for America?  I guess the question is really, “Can we get along long enough to keep the ship of state from sinking?”, because I don’t think either party can do it alone.

 

I wish I felt more positive.