Musings and collection japery
Ummmm.... minor funny: I once heard of a plot in a church where collection was taken on a large brass plate about the size of a dustbin lid. It was calculated that if everyone gave even a small amount, but gave it entirely in coppers, then the combined weight would flatten the verger before he even made it halfway back to the altar. I'm not sure if it was ever pulled off, but it sounds well worth a try.

I have real trouble with the idea of god. Every rational part of me says that there is no such thing, but the fluffier aspects of my personality are sometimes just so dazzled by the wonder of anything actually existing that it does feel like there is something behind it all. Sometimes it just feels like it would be nice to have someone to thank. However, it's pretty obvious that what we feel to be true and what is actually true are nothing like each other in many cases.

Perhaps this warm fuzzy feeling comes from the fact that I feel very lucky to have the life that I have, and that I generally feel very loved. People who can maintain their faith in the face of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune strike me as, by turns, admirable and offensively stupid. I think that the unpleasant nature of reality for many people and the various stories of divine persecution in many texts is what most turns me off the idea of faith. It seems clear to me that if god does exist as described he is a petty, spiteful, whimsical, violent, grudge-bearing tyrant who does things that we wouldn't forgive in our dearest friends. If you can accept this and still worship god simply on the grounds that he is great (as in mighty) then fair enough, but as many people have said, any god that created this reality and does half the things described in religious texts isn't worth worshipping. The fact that we imperfect beings are allegedly dumped into this reality and adjured to be as perfect as possible is so utterly incomprehensible as to be contemptible. As it was neatly put "We are created sick and commanded to be well." Bah!

(Edited to put (not particularly) funnies first)
(flimflam_machine, Fri 20 Mar 2009, 17:02, Reply)