Nietzsche, eat your heart out.

So last night I got into an argument about religion with Hunky Bartender. Many of you have probably had similar conversations with self-assured, slightly hysterical undergrads (the fact that he is two undergrads’ worth of age notwithstanding):

Him: I hate religion! And religious people! God doesn’t exist! People who say God exists are stupid!

Me: Well, actually, I’m religious. (Sentence I didn’t add: And judging by your logical debating skills, not to mention your creative spelling, I am significantly smarter than you are.)

Him: ::fluster:: ::fluster:: Well, see, that proves my point! You’re the exception that proves the rule, because you’re smart but still religious! That… that proves my point! All other religious people are stupid and narrow-minded!

Me: If only they could attain your level of broadmindedness… the world would indeed be a better place.

So: that is the questionable argument against personal belief in God. Here, PYT’s friend Leah gives a significantly more thoughtful, and very interesting, account of why she does not believe in God. (Note: it does not rest in any way upon my IQ, for which I am grateful.)

================

UPDATE: Broken link above fixed. If you tried to click through earlier and couldn’t, please try again.

The Village Jesus

Having wanted to attend services at Judson Memorial Church in Washington Square for a while, I finally went this past Sunday. The services are hosted by the United Church of Christ, a church whose governing body has approved gay marriage and gay pastors (eat it with a fork, Catholics!). Part of what draws me to Christianity is my well-documented fascination with Jews; it follows logically that if the greatest author, the greatest comic book creator, and the greatest philosopher were all Jewish, then the Supreme Being must be a hebe as well.
But I was a little disappointed on that score; the good people of Judson were far more interested in organizing for the protest march later in the day; the readings were almost entirely from Eliot Weinberger’s "What I Heard About Iraq," with two thin passages from Luke. The pastor talked about empires and defying Caesar, but what of it all? Doesn’t religion recognize all empires as the garbage of history, the very dookies floating in cosmic toilet, awaiting the divine jiggle of the handle?
I’ll probably go back; it was an informal, un-stuffy place, and too many questions remain, specifically about this meek inheriting the earth business. From where I sit, I’d say the meek will be lucky if they escape with their limbs intact. Same goes for the peacemakers. They’re up against God, after all.

Words fail me….(No, really.)

Scary photo of an actual eating establishment somewhere in Georgia. Thanks, Technodyke, for making us laugh so hard that fountains of coffee sprayed out of our nostrils. 

A Personal Question to My Atheist Friend

I used to think that Jews for Jesus were kinda neat. I mean, Bob Dylan was one, right? They ranked right up there in my book with the Unarians. Then this weekend at Coney Island, a helpful Semite for the Son handed me a pamphlet that made it plain to atheist fools such as myself that, if Darwin was so hot, we should all be checking out the growth of chairs as they developed into sofas. Yep, that was the argument, and with that single pamphlet, the Jews for J.C. bought a one way ticket on the express train of my estimation straight to the festering shithole  of Pat Robertsonland. I didn’t point out that, aside from this amorous couple, sofas tend not to reproduce. Really, I was surprised to see a group of people who are probably regarded warily by the hardcore Baptists spouting the same line as those toothless Bible-belt cretins, emerging from their reeking hovels and blinking their eyes at the sunlight that shouldn’t be there because the Rapture was supposed to have happened by now. It just validates my sinking feeling that the war is over, the bad guys won, and the entire U.S. of A. is now the extended campus of Bob Jones University. I’m reporting to the local representative of our divine God-Emperor tomorrow for my regulation armband and Bible with the Song of Solomon ripped out.  See you at the book burning, gang.

I believe I’ll wear this to church next week.

I believe I’ll wear this to church next week.

I believe I’ll wear this to church next week.

** sigh **

Apparently, my church has only rubber balls.
I am very pissed off right now.

MY CHURCH HAS BALLS AFTER ALL!!!

Okay, okay, I know I was taking a blogging break, but I was just so excited after hearing this news that I had to tell you guys about it.

See, one of the things that regular readers of this here blog will remember is that – in addition to being big scary homos – Book Stud and I are also spiritual sorts. She is a practicing Jew; I am a practicing Christian. (We say practicing cos we’re not particularly good at it yet, but we are trying.) We have a tendency to have conversations with the Big Guy, and thank him for the good things in life. And make annoyed faces and mumble incoherently when He pisses us off.

(And yes, I’m firmly convinced that God is a boy, because if He was a girl, the universe would make a whole lot more sense: high heels would never have been invented, Barbara Bush would have been born infertile, and there would be no cockroaches or low-fat ice cream in the world.)

My particular journey started with the Roman Catholic Church. Eight years of Catholic grade school. Three years of Catholic High School. A lifetime of being terrified of stern nuns and even sterner priests. Except for Sister Alexandria, of course, my fourth grade teacher. She was from Argentina, young, dark and lovely, and something of a rebel. She used to wear a bikini and run along the beach after school. She also brought her guitar to class all the time and would teach us hippie songs when we were supposed to be studying algebra. (Thus the beginning of my lifelong incompetence at algebra.) Sister Alexandria may have been my first girl-crush, come to think of it. Sigh!

Where was I? Oh, yeah! By the time I was eighteen, the "thou shalt nots" and institutionalized intolerance endemic to the Roman Catholic doctrine had so turned me off that I stopped going to church entirely. When my father died, I went to his funeral; I went into a church for the first time in ten years, and even then it made me extremely uncomfortable.

Long story short, another dozen or so years went by, I moved to New York, and – through a co-worker – was introduced to the Episcopal Church. (Catholic Lite, or as my mother calls them, Left-Handed Catholics.) It was like Catholicism that made sense in all the important places… as much as any kind of Christianity makes sense – I mean, come on, it’s kind of a screwy story all around, but the message is what counts, right?

Anyway, for those of us in the GLBT community who were raised Roman Catholic, and who loved the ritual and liturgy but despised the backward-thinking and shortsightedness of the "modern" Catholic Church, the Anglican and Episcopal Churches offered a unique compromise: The ritual and liturgy of the Roman Church – a liturgy that allows you to feel connected to 2000 years of tradition – combined with common sense about gender and sexual orientation, women’s rights, abortion, etc. It was like the "Reformed Judaism" of the Catholic Church!!!

With the Rev. Gene Robinson was ordained as the American Episcopal Church’s first openly-gay bishop – a man who has been in a loving relationship with another man for many years – all hell broke loose in the Church. The American Episcopal Church – a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion – was seen as a lose cannon branch. While the majority of the British Anglicans accepted the decision of the American branch, a large percentage of the worldwide Anglican Communion – particularly those branches in Africa, South America and a scattered few congregations in the American South – went absolutely apeshit.

Now, follow me here. Because the roots of the American Episcopal Church are so very British, they tend to run the church like a sort of helter-skelter democracy, as designed by Jeeves & Wooster. There is no Pope. (Thank God!) Instead, they hold a conference every three years – The General Convention – to vote on any changes in the Church. Like Parliament in the U.K. and the government of our own country, there are two legislative houses that do the voting on policy changes. One consists of 230 bishops (the House of Lords) and the other is comprised of 800 random members of the church, both lay-people and clergy (the House of Commons).

The other important issue that these two bodies vote on is who will be the new uber-bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church. The uber-bishop is called (giggle giggle) the Primate, but I just can’t say that because I see a big hairy gorilla wearing a mitre hat and then I just lose it altogether. PRIMATE? Whose idea was that? Okay, okay…back to the topic at hand.

This weekend, the General Convention voted in a FEMALE bishop as Primate, and a very outspoken, gay-friendly, liberal, scare-the-pants-off-Pat Robertson one at that!

Katherine Jefferts Schori – currently serving as the bishop of the Diocese of Nevada – will now serve as the head uber-bishop of the American Episcopal Church. Why does this scare conservatives and freaky Christian fundamentalists? Because in her own home diocese, same-sex unions are already blessed openly in the Church. In addition, in her very first press conference after her election was announced, Jefferts Schori , when asked by a CNN reporter if she thought homosexuality was a sin, had this to say:

"I don’t believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us. Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender."

Later, the General Convention voted on a request by the Archbishop of Canterbury (the giant mitre-capped gorilla of the British Anglican Church, and ostensibly the "uber-uber-bishop") to call for a moratorium on the further ordination of GLBT bishops. The vote came back as a resounding "NO!" – a clear thumbing-of -the-nose at the more conservative members of the Anglican Communion, and a very good sign for the last item on the General Convention’s agenda: whether to officially approve the blessing of same-sex unions.

More good commentary can be found here and here and here and  here and here and here and here. But I’m thrilled that I can now say:

My church has big brass balls!

MY CHURCH HAS BALLS AFTER ALL!!!

Okay, okay, I know I was taking a blogging break, but I was just so excited after hearing this news that I had to tell you guys about it.

See, one of the things that regular readers of this here blog will remember is that – in addition to being big scary homos – Book Stud and I are also spiritual sorts. She is a practicing Jew; I am a practicing Christian. (We say practicing cos we’re not particularly good at it yet, but we are trying.) We have a tendency to have conversations with the Big Guy, and thank him for the good things in life. And make annoyed faces and mumble incoherently when He pisses us off.

(And yes, I’m firmly convinced that God is a boy, because if He was a girl, the universe would make a whole lot more sense: high heels would never have been invented, Barbara Bush would have been born infertile, and there would be no cockroaches or low-fat ice cream in the world.)

My particular journey started with the Roman Catholic Church. Eight years of Catholic grade school. Three years of Catholic High School. A lifetime of being terrified of stern nuns and even sterner priests. Except for Sister Alexandria, of course, my fourth grade teacher. She was from Argentina, young, dark and lovely, and something of a rebel. She used to wear a bikini and run along the beach after school. She also brought her guitar to class all the time and would teach us hippie songs when we were supposed to be studying algebra. (Thus the beginning of my lifelong incompetence at algebra.) Sister Alexandria may have been my first girl-crush, come to think of it. Sigh!

Where was I? Oh, yeah! By the time I was eighteen, the "thou shalt nots" and institutionalized intolerance endemic to the Roman Catholic doctrine had so turned me off that I stopped going to church entirely. When my father died, I went to his funeral; I went into a church for the first time in ten years, and even then it made me extremely uncomfortable.

Long story short, another dozen or so years went by, I moved to New York, and – through a co-worker – was introduced to the Episcopal Church. (Catholic Lite, or as my mother calls them, Left-Handed Catholics.) It was like Catholicism that made sense in all the important places… as much as any kind of Christianity makes sense – I mean, come on, it’s kind of a screwy story all around, but the message is what counts, right?

Anyway, for those of us in the GLBT community who were raised Roman Catholic, and who loved the ritual and liturgy but despised the backward-thinking and shortsightedness of the "modern" Catholic Church, the Anglican and Episcopal Churches offered a unique compromise: The ritual and liturgy of the Roman Church – a liturgy that allows you to feel connected to 2000 years of tradition – combined with common sense about gender and sexual orientation, women’s rights, abortion, etc. It was like the "Reformed Judaism" of the Catholic Church!!!

With the Rev. Gene Robinson was ordained as the American Episcopal Church’s first openly-gay bishop – a man who has been in a loving relationship with another man for many years – all hell broke loose in the Church. The American Episcopal Church – a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion – was seen as a lose cannon branch. While the majority of the British Anglicans accepted the decision of the American branch, a large percentage of the worldwide Anglican Communion – particularly those branches in Africa, South America and a scattered few congregations in the American South – went absolutely apeshit.

Now, follow me here. Because the roots of the American Episcopal Church are so very British, they tend to run the church like a sort of helter-skelter democracy, as designed by Jeeves & Wooster. There is no Pope. (Thank God!) Instead, they hold a conference every three years – The General Convention – to vote on any changes in the Church. Like Parliament in the U.K. and the government of our own country, there are two legislative houses that do the voting on policy changes. One consists of 230 bishops (the House of Lords) and the other is comprised of 800 random members of the church, both lay-people and clergy (the House of Commons).

The other important issue that these two bodies vote on is who will be the new uber-bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church. The uber-bishop is called (giggle giggle) the Primate, but I just can’t say that because I see a big hairy gorilla wearing a mitre hat and then I just lose it altogether. PRIMATE? Whose idea was that? Okay, okay…back to the topic at hand.

This weekend, the General Convention voted in a FEMALE bishop as Primate, and a very outspoken, gay-friendly, liberal, scare-the-pants-off-Pat Robertson one at that!

Katherine Jefferts Schori – currently serving as the bishop of the Diocese of Nevada – will now serve as the head uber-bishop of the American Episcopal Church. Why does this scare conservatives and freaky Christian fundamentalists? Because in her own home diocese, same-sex unions are already blessed openly in the Church. In addition, in her very first press conference after her election was announced, Jefferts Schori , when asked by a CNN reporter if she thought homosexuality was a sin, had this to say:

"I don’t believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us. Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender."

Later, the General Convention voted on a request by the Archbishop of Canterbury (the giant mitre-capped gorilla of the British Anglican Church, and ostensibly the "uber-uber-bishop") to call for a moratorium on the further ordination of GLBT bishops. The vote came back as a resounding "NO!" – a clear thumbing-of -the-nose at the more conservative members of the Anglican Communion, and a very good sign for the last item on the General Convention’s agenda: whether to officially approve the blessing of same-sex unions.

More good commentary can be found here and here and here and  here and here and here and here. But I’m thrilled that I can now say:

My church has big brass balls!

MY CHURCH HAS BALLS AFTER ALL!!!

Okay, okay, I know I was taking a blogging break, but I was just so excited after hearing this news that I had to tell you guys about it.

See, one of the things that regular readers of this here blog will remember is that – in addition to being big scary homos – Book Stud and I are also spiritual sorts. She is a practicing Jew; I am a practicing Christian. (We say practicing cos we’re not particularly good at it yet, but we are trying.) We have a tendency to have conversations with the Big Guy, and thank him for the good things in life. And make annoyed faces and mumble incoherently when He pisses us off.

(And yes, I’m firmly convinced that God is a boy, because if He was a girl, the universe would make a whole lot more sense: high heels would never have been invented, Barbara Bush would have been born infertile, and there would be no cockroaches or low-fat ice cream in the world.)

My particular journey started with the Roman Catholic Church. Eight years of Catholic grade school. Three years of Catholic High School. A lifetime of being terrified of stern nuns and even sterner priests. Except for Sister Alexandria, of course, my fourth grade teacher. She was from Argentina, young, dark and lovely, and something of a rebel. She used to wear a bikini and run along the beach after school. She also brought her guitar to class all the time and would teach us hippie songs when we were supposed to be studying algebra. (Thus the beginning of my lifelong incompetence at algebra.) Sister Alexandria may have been my first girl-crush, come to think of it. Sigh!

Where was I? Oh, yeah! By the time I was eighteen, the "thou shalt nots" and institutionalized intolerance endemic to the Roman Catholic doctrine had so turned me off that I stopped going to church entirely. When my father died, I went to his funeral; I went into a church for the first time in ten years, and even then it made me extremely uncomfortable.

Long story short, another dozen or so years went by, I moved to New York, and – through a co-worker – was introduced to the Episcopal Church. (Catholic Lite, or as my mother calls them, Left-Handed Catholics.) It was like Catholicism that made sense in all the important places… as much as any kind of Christianity makes sense – I mean, come on, it’s kind of a screwy story all around, but the message is what counts, right?

Anyway, for those of us in the GLBT community who were raised Roman Catholic, and who loved the ritual and liturgy but despised the backward-thinking and shortsightedness of the "modern" Catholic Church, the Anglican and Episcopal Churches offered a unique compromise: The ritual and liturgy of the Roman Church – a liturgy that allows you to feel connected to 2000 years of tradition – combined with common sense about gender and sexual orientation, women’s rights, abortion, etc. It was like the "Reformed Judaism" of the Catholic Church!!!

With the Rev. Gene Robinson was ordained as the American Episcopal Church’s first openly-gay bishop – a man who has been in a loving relationship with another man for many years – all hell broke loose in the Church. The American Episcopal Church – a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion – was seen as a lose cannon branch. While the majority of the British Anglicans accepted the decision of the American branch, a large percentage of the worldwide Anglican Communion – particularly those branches in Africa, South America and a scattered few congregations in the American South – went absolutely apeshit.

Now, follow me here. Because the roots of the American Episcopal Church are so very British, they tend to run the church like a sort of helter-skelter democracy, as designed by Jeeves & Wooster. There is no Pope. (Thank God!) Instead, they hold a conference every three years – The General Convention – to vote on any changes in the Church. Like Parliament in the U.K. and the government of our own country, there are two legislative houses that do the voting on policy changes. One consists of 230 bishops (the House of Lords) and the other is comprised of 800 random members of the church, both lay-people and clergy (the House of Commons).

The other important issue that these two bodies vote on is who will be the new uber-bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church. The uber-bishop is called (giggle giggle) the Primate, but I just can’t say that because I see a big hairy gorilla wearing a mitre hat and then I just lose it altogether. PRIMATE? Whose idea was that? Okay, okay…back to the topic at hand.

This weekend, the General Convention voted in a FEMALE bishop as Primate, and a very outspoken, gay-friendly, liberal, scare-the-pants-off-Pat Robertson one at that!

Katherine Jefferts Schori – currently serving as the bishop of the Diocese of Nevada – will now serve as the head uber-bishop of the American Episcopal Church. Why does this scare conservatives and freaky Christian fundamentalists? Because in her own home diocese, same-sex unions are already blessed openly in the Church. In addition, in her very first press conference after her election was announced, Jefferts Schori , when asked by a CNN reporter if she thought homosexuality was a sin, had this to say:

"I don’t believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us. Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender."

Later, the General Convention voted on a request by the Archbishop of Canterbury (the giant mitre-capped gorilla of the British Anglican Church, and ostensibly the "uber-uber-bishop") to call for a moratorium on the further ordination of GLBT bishops. The vote came back as a resounding "NO!" – a clear thumbing-of -the-nose at the more conservative members of the Anglican Communion, and a very good sign for the last item on the General Convention’s agenda: whether to officially approve the blessing of same-sex unions.

More good commentary can be found here and here and here and  here and here and here and here. But I’m thrilled that I can now say:

My church has big brass balls!

Jews moseying en masse…

… no, it’s not the beginning of a questionable joke, even.

Sven came into town for about 24 hours this weekend (future RNs of the world, take note! You will forever have wonky schedules from this moment forward!), and through a bizarre fluke of google, she found us a brand-new activity: the Adventure Rabbi.

Rabbi Jamie Korngold was in from Boulder, CO, where she takes people on all sorts of fascinating-looking retreats into the wilderness to pray, and has outdoorsy weddings, b’nai mitzvot, etc. She was doing a three-hour wander through the park, complete with Shabbat service. I am now seized with total adoration, in part because this is a very appealing and wonderful idea and in part because jockiness + spirituality = H-O-T-T even in rabbinical form.

Sven and I meandered along with the group, chatted with the mohel in the group, and tried to sort of keep up with the tunes Rabbi Korngold used for the songs; our improva-davening was only mildly successful.

This was all followed by a lovely evening of compiling and then devouring chalupas and all the tequila in the house; the long-awaiting meeting between Sven and KH, during which the expected hole in the space-time continuum did not open up; and a hot and sunny morning playing very intense Scrabble games.

Life = good.

Is Ann Coulter on crack?

Ann Coulter’s new book is apparently full of very-educated stuff like this:

"Throughout this book, I often refer to Christians and Christianity because I am a Christian and I have a fairly good idea of what they believe, but the term is intended to include anyone who subscribes to the Bible of the God of Abraham, including Jews and others."

Later in the book, she asserts her claim that while Jews are Christians, the Episcopalians appparently are not. Man, wait until Book Stud’s mama finds out about this!

Senate to anti-gay nudniks: Ahem. We don’t think so.

Read it for yourselves. Then go hug your favorite queer folks.

OK, I’m hoping someone out there in blogland can answer this one for me. Putting aside all the bile, vitriol, and (understandable, I think) personal fury I’ve got running on this one, I’m trying to work out exactly what the argument against same-sex marriage is. As far as I can see, it breaks down by two categories of people:

1) Those who ascribe a form of religion that teaches them that homosexuality is a sin, and who therefore wish to legislate that belief.

2)…I don’t know. Everybody else who disagrees. And here I am genuinely asking – if you are personally anti-same-sex marriage, or if you have argued with family members who are, etc. what sort of threat is same-sex marriage meant to be, exactly? How does it affect man/woman marriage? To the best of my knowledge there’s no quota system whereby, say, if I get married to another woman, a straight couple somewhere must get divorced to keep the balance, so…? Is the idea that if same-sex marriage were legal, many straight marriages would break up so one or both the parties could go off and marry someone of their own gender? Really, help me – what is the argument here? I won’t bash you or yell or say anything disrespectful in response – I just desperately, desperately want to understand this.