I Am Legion

So a few days after the devastating Japanese earthquake (apparently the hard work of prayee McGee over here), I reluctantly/fervently got embroiled in an end of the world debate with two of my co-workers.

One of them, I'll call him Francis (because I've always wanted to rename someone Francis), was convinced that the quake, along with the mass deaths of birds and the Mayan 2012 calendar, was proof that SOMETHING huge was about to happen.

Now, let me state upfront that I like Francis. He's a great guy, funny, and really good at his job. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't lose a thimble of respect for him as his argument jumped from one disconnected myth to the next before ultimately ending in a rather heated defense of aliens building Egyptian pyramids; "They have hieroglyphs of aliens on the pyramids!" he raged.

My other co-worker, Alphonso St. Drucker III (not his real name), took the opposite position, or what I called, the Sane Approach. Al (for short) argued that the earthquake was no more a sign than any other natural disaster that we've seen this year alone, let alone since we've been recording such things. He laid out, in a lengthy email, the literal HUNDREDS of people -- mostly apocalyptic Christians -- who've unsuccessfully predicted the end of days. But the real capper happened with this paraphrased exchange:

Al: They're all myths. You can't apply myths and made up stories to the world we live in.

Francis: Well how do you know they're stories? You weren't there to witness them.

Al: Do you honestly believe that Noah's Ark was an accurate story?

Francis: Well, no but by that standard you'd say the whole bible was made up?

Al: Precisely.

I'll admit this to you now -- I came a little bit when he said that.

Not because I was touching myself (lesson learned HR department, let's move on please). No, it was because with one word, I found that I was not alone at work. It's a strange isolation to be Black and atheist. To a very large degree, believing is one of the cultural cornerstones of the Black identity. It goes without saying that without church there would not have been the Civil Rights Movement. Watch any Black comedian and within 10 minutes you'll get a joke about loud preachers, sticky-fingered parishoners and some foul-mouthed old lady in the pews. I can probably count on one hand how many Black people I've eaten with who do NOT pray before grubbing. Long story short, Black folks are religious.

I don't want to get in a whole big thing here (you know -- like devote an entire blog to it or anything) but my lack of faith has often put me on the outside of mainstream Black culture, a perch I've learned to love as I've gotten older. But that doesn't make it any easier, especially working for and with Black folks who can be judgmental and even fearful of non-believers. Quick story: I overheard two co-workers discussing dating and one said she ALMOST dated an atheist. The other woman literally recoiled saying "Keep them away from me!" So you kind of see where I'm coming from.

Needless to say, within minutes of the debate's end, I was calling Al asking him to come to my office. Once inside, I shut the door and opened the floodgates of my heathen soul. And he did the same.

And thus the opening minutes of this year's most unlikely romantic comedy "Struck by Lightning."

Seriously, though, we do snicker a lot now. Shooting each other looks and rolling our eyes when co-workers say things like "death always comes in threes." It is positively gay, but I'm not complaining. At least I've found someone, right?

Uh, What? Um, Okaaayyy . . . .

Unlike like the rest of the civilized world, I do NOT have HBO.

I haven't always been without it. In fact, I've had HBO longer than I've been having sex, seriously. But, with the advent of Netflix and the invention of credit card debt, I had to make some hard choices over the last several months including the cancellation of my near and dear friend, HBO.

One of my weekly pleasures has been watching Bill Maher's Real Time mostly because he's the only prime-time atheist who says a lot of things I think. Though, I have to say he has a venom in him I don't always understand.

Nevertheless, I now troll for Real Time clips on youtube and podcasts and I bumped into this amazing piece video of a fellow atheist who has more in common with Sarah Palin than Richard Dawkins. Enjoy.



Amazing, no?

So on one hand, I am totally in Bill's corner that our media (be if liberal or FOX News) is not critical enough of religion. As an atheist/agnostic, I know that American society is generally a faithful one. Now, the media seem critical of parts of religion -- especially those parts that lead to murder, incivility and molestation -- but overall its all in when it comes to believing.

On the other . . . you know what, I don't agree with old girl at all. I was gonna give her props for thinking outside her atheist box and note media bias, but Bill's point is stronger. No one in media, or anywhere else for that matter, questions the need or validity of supernatural faith.

However, there is one thing she apparently believes that I DO think is true. I believe President Obama is an atheist. But that is for another post.

O' Heavenly Dog

When it comes to blogging some days are better than others.

And yesterday, my friends, was a good day.

I recieved TWO gifts -- one intentional, the second unintentional.

Let's start with the first one:

A good friend and regular Thirdsie Badasschick (a confirmed Catholic by the way) sent me an email pointing me toward what is either one of the best joke sites I've ever seen or one of the best business plans ever concieved.

Enough with the drumroll, it's http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/.

It's a kennel service for people who are saved but for pets that aren't (not only do they shit on the carpet but they don't believe in Jesus either). That's right, in the event that you get raptured, you can rest assured your precious parakeet will be well taken care of in your eternal absence (though I assume if you're given audience with the almighty creator of EVERYTHING I would assume the last thing you would think about is your fucking poodle and if she's ripping up the couch, but hey I'm a heathen so what do I know).

So just who will be taking care your filthy, graven-image worshipping pets? Filthy, graven-image worshipping Atheists, that's who. As the site says: "Each Eternal Earth-Bound Pet representative is a confirmed atheist, and as such will still be here on Earth after you've received your reward." I'm a sarcastic prick so it's hard for me to read that sentence without hearing the snark dripping off of it but the site swears it's legit.

Now, you must be asking your self, how much does this service cost?

$200? $100? $50?

Uh, actually it's $110 -- peanuts for those who don't need bank accounts or even movie theaters (which hardly seems like heaven). And since I doubt you get a lot of bars in heaven and can't call the service from cloud nine, potential customers have to pay up BEFORE they get raptured.

But don't worry, even though there are no phone numbers on the site (hey if I can't call Apple about my ipod, why would I need to call athiests about my chihuahua?), the site does have a gaurantee: "For $110.00 we will guarantee that should the Rapture occur within ten (10) years of receipt of payment, one pet per residence will be saved."

So not only do they babysit your pets, they babysit your money, too.

Ah man. It doesn't get any better than that.

Or does it?

Sorry, kids, I have to go to bed, but I'll be back tomorrow (maybe the day after tomorrow) with that other site I teased you with.

Death Sucks

I lost my father two months ago.

Well, he's not lost. He's actually in a very classy, muted black urn sitting in my closet at the bottom of a white Macy's shopping bag.

Not exactly the beautific afterworld one might imagine, but for a man who never expressed (at least not to me) any clear location of where he thought his soul would end up, I suppose taking residence next my shoes and a half-full bag of guinea pig bedding is just as fitting as any ending.

Truth is, my father isn't in that urn. He is not dust, collecting dust. I know that as sure as I know my father wasn't in the stilled body that lay on the gurney on that horrible day in May.

So where, pray tell, is he?

That depends on what you believe. Or more precisely, what I believe. Not an easy task when tagged a non-believer. Not that I believe in nothing, a common misnomer for us heathens. Truth is I believe in many things, even things I can't see -- love, gravity, black holes, radio waves, the goodness of humanity -- I just don't buy many (OK, all) of the world's religion's viewpoints and thus, I am a "non-believer."

As I said in my last entry, death is one of the biggest tests of one's committment to non-committment. And on May 25, 2009 my test came in the form of a brutal pop quiz entitled: "Where's Your Dad Now?"

Well, were I a christian, I suppose I would believe he was in heaven. Indeed, many at my father's service (hold on, I'll get to that), spoke of my dad being in heaven, or at least "looking down." I admit, heaven is a great idea. An endless sky cruise for the great people of the world. Assuming you're not Hitler or R. Kelly, admission is pretty much gauranteed by most folks' reckonings. And honestly, not even Hitler's cousins think he's in hell. No one goes to a funeral where the minister/pastor/guy at the podium says "too bad he was a galatic asshole who's now hotfooting it in hell." I mean, no one looks down and says "I wonder if mom is looking up at us now."

Still, my father was not a hypocrite and he read the bible, so he knew there was only one real way to get to Christian heaven which is ACCEPTING JESUS CHRIST AS HIS LORD AND SAVIOR (that sentence just begs for all caps, right?), an act I'm sure my father never did. Now, I can't be sure that he NEVER did this, much in the way that I can't be sure he NEVER stuck a cat in the microwave, but it just feels wrong.

(Honestly, my plan was examine each of the world's religious views of the afterlife, but the closest any of my family got to one was Christianity and since we all know how that turned out, I'll save you some reading time.)

So, back to the question at hand -- where is my dear old dad if heaven is only for Christians? And what kind of service do you have for a non-believer?

First question first: I don't know where my father is or even if he still "is." I know physics dictates we are all energy and energy cannot be destroyed which is only reassuring had my father been a light bulb. Alas.

The worst part is, I know he isn't here anymore. I cannot call him, email him or laugh with him again. But I do hear him, like a song in my head that is both with and without sound. So perhaps that is something. But I hold no illusions that we will reunite on cloud nine for glasses of Coke Zero and Snyder pretzels. I mean, it's possible but at this point it feels more like self-deluding fantasy than a real occurence, but hey, I never thought we'd have a Black president either.

As to the question of what kind of funeral do you throw for an athiest (actually he claimed Agnostic)? Simple, you throw a kick-ass party. So that's what we did. We invited his closest friends, co-workers, family -- everyone who loved him -- and we ate, drank, laughed and shared stories at a restaurant. Yes, there were tears but they were outweighed by the smiles and hugs. Gone were the dour processions, the ghoulish open caskets and too-long renditions of "His Eye is On the Sparrow." We replaced them with a digital slide show, the "Star Wars" theme song on replay and an open bar.

Even if he went nowhere, I like to believe we sent my father off in a way that made sense of the man he was. Fun, a little crazy and very loving.

If There is a God, He Looks Like . . .

Danny Glover.

Yes, Morgan Freeman is a good choice but I have to believe God has a really kick-ass dental plan and wouldn't let his teeth look like his dentist is employed at Shawshank.

Apparently my oldest daughter agrees, or at least, THINKS God should look like Danny Glover.

How do I know, you ask?

I blame Black History Month. Or at least the Black History Month posters in her school that cause her to ask questions about Martin Luther King and Whites Only water fountains.

Well, it all starts with racism. Or at least, my definition of it. Even in this age of Obama, and the fact that we live in a predominately Black area, my wife and I still feel it necessary to tell our daughters about good ole' USA-Prime racism.

So last night, as I was reading "The Story of Ruby Bridges" to my two girls, the question of racism came up.

My eldest asked why the little girl wasn't allowed to go to school with the other children.

"Because back then White people didn't think Black people should go to school with them."

"But she's not Black, she's brown."

"Well, that's what we call ourselves."

I won't bother you with the back and forth about the actual color of people but you might imagine it took some time.

And then, from left field, she asked "what color was God when he was a man?"

CUE THE RECORD SKIP

First off, that's a clear Christian concept. Not angels, not the la-di-da big poppa in the sky idea. No, that was a question born of a Christian agenda. One I suspect she got from hanging out with her friends across the street -- you know the Jehovah's witnesses.

Instead of tying her to a chair and interrogating her about this new wrinkle in her growing theology, I asked simply:

"Do you mean Jesus?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he was brown like you and me." Now, I don't know that he looked like Mekhi Phifer or Kanye West, but he probably looked more like Barack than Barry Manilow.

She chewed it over a minute and then replied:

"Good."

Well, I can't argue there.

Self Portrait

Everyone . . . my calling card.

One of my friends (Badasschick) sent me a link to this website called The New Humanist, a UK magazine thats been around since 1885. It's a mag for "free thinkers" of which, apparently, I am one.

I mean, how could I deny it when the image above so clearly captures all of my various idiosyncrises and tics?

Logic? Check.

Reason? Check.

Sarcasm? Well, duuhh!

Large ears and glasses? Only on Tuesdays.

Honestly, I don't know that I like the idea of throwing myself in with such a dorky looking gang, but considering the alternatives, I guess I don't really have a choice.

HEATHENS!! They're . . . EVERYWHERE; sorta

Apparently, I'm not alone.

In all my travels, I have yet to meet someone else like me -- A Black American raised without any specific religious faith or practice. However, according to a new Pew report, 16% of Americans consider themselves "unaffiliated" with any faith. Were the Right Wing nuts actually right? Is the progressive secular "movement" really taking over this great, faith-based world of ours?

More importantly, how can my blog sustain any of its niche cool if there are 48,568,033 fellow heathens fucking up my property value?

And while getting company should bring me comfort, it oddly does not. Don't get me wrong, I do like company (even if my wife is a little "company shy"), but if there are 50 million people like me what does that say about "me?" What does that say about my specific outlook on life as a person raised with no faith?

Unwilling to let my individuality go without a fight, I did what very few people do -- I actually READ a Pew report.

What I found was very reaffirming.

So what does "unaffiliated" mean? Pew says "secular unaffiliated" is described as "those who say that religion is not important in their lives." Hmm, OK. The report goes on to, uh, report another subsect called the "religious unaffiliated," or "those who say that religion is either somewhat important or very important in their lives."

Huh? So unaffiliated is based upon how important religion is to you? I eat food everyday but if you were to ask me how important carbs are to me, I might be an unaffiliated eater. This Pew guy seems less than accurate.

Out of the 16% unaffiliated only 1.6% are TRULY unaffiliated a.k.a atheists. 2.4% are agnostic. So . . . .yeah, no big news here, at least not for me.

The media, even the usually level-headed Bill Maher, saw this report as ground-breaking but it only confirms what I know to be true. Even as people pick up, try on and put down various spiritual hats, they still feel compelled to wear them. Mostly due to the fact that they've been wearing hats since they were children. But what about those without any baby hat-wearing experience (OK, this analogy is getting out of hand)?

The MOST interesting, though least shocking stat, was that "black Americans are the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation. Even among those blacks who are unaffiliated, three-in-four belong to the 'religious unaffiliated' category."

As I said before, when it comes to Black America, I am a dying breed. And if my reluctance to pop my eldest daughter's "God" bubble persists, I may really be the last dragon after all. But as Yoda says, "there is another" -- my 3-year old who has yet to ask about death or draw pictures of her dear old dad taking a dirt nap.

Bless her heart.