Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
21 April 2009
15 December 2007
i still haven't found what i'm looking for...
good morning everybody. i am having a big holiday party tonight and as such do not have much time, sadly, today to share with you. but, in the holiday spirit, i wanted to attempt to put to bed, once and for all, this whole religion thread that i've been on.
i'd like to think that i am big enough to admit when i'm wrong. not that i'm wrong here, folks, but i feel like i've been a little too vituperative and i'd like to soften, just a bit, my position*. and here it is: i have really good, lifelong friends that are religious. my parents are deeply religious. i have people in my day- to- day life that are religious. most of my best friends' parents are deeply religious.
i respect them, i respect their decisions. i disagree with them on a host of things, but i respect them as people and celebrate their freedom and celebrate their individuality. but both christianity and islam** leave a really bad taste in my mouth, one that i cannot help and one that i do not apologize for.
i blame religion for way more of the world's problems than solutions. i do not like how it makes people act, what it makes people do, what people get away with using it as a guise or justification, and how other people use it to further their agendas and increase their own power. fundamentally when i look at it, i see way more bad than good***.
i try really hard to be a good person. i don't need religion to do this. if it helps someone else to be a better person, that's great, i guess. i can't argue with that. unfortunately i just do not feel like that is the predominant case. in fact, i feel like the converse is usually true.
i will take my comments off the air. see you again soon.
~lee.
*interesting to me that in a sense this whole dialogue has helped me work some things out in my own mind. and i'd like to thank myself for that.
**judaism, interestingly enough, i've never really been bothered by. i grew up in a heavily jewish section of atlanta and spent a lot of time around it. i actually think that a lot of it is pretty beautiful-- that, of course, is not to say that i don't find fault with it. but in general, it doesn't raise my ire the way that both christianity and islam do.
***additionally i do not like green eggs and ham, goddamnit.
i'd like to think that i am big enough to admit when i'm wrong. not that i'm wrong here, folks, but i feel like i've been a little too vituperative and i'd like to soften, just a bit, my position*. and here it is: i have really good, lifelong friends that are religious. my parents are deeply religious. i have people in my day- to- day life that are religious. most of my best friends' parents are deeply religious.
i respect them, i respect their decisions. i disagree with them on a host of things, but i respect them as people and celebrate their freedom and celebrate their individuality. but both christianity and islam** leave a really bad taste in my mouth, one that i cannot help and one that i do not apologize for.
i blame religion for way more of the world's problems than solutions. i do not like how it makes people act, what it makes people do, what people get away with using it as a guise or justification, and how other people use it to further their agendas and increase their own power. fundamentally when i look at it, i see way more bad than good***.
i try really hard to be a good person. i don't need religion to do this. if it helps someone else to be a better person, that's great, i guess. i can't argue with that. unfortunately i just do not feel like that is the predominant case. in fact, i feel like the converse is usually true.
i will take my comments off the air. see you again soon.
~lee.
*interesting to me that in a sense this whole dialogue has helped me work some things out in my own mind. and i'd like to thank myself for that.
**judaism, interestingly enough, i've never really been bothered by. i grew up in a heavily jewish section of atlanta and spent a lot of time around it. i actually think that a lot of it is pretty beautiful-- that, of course, is not to say that i don't find fault with it. but in general, it doesn't raise my ire the way that both christianity and islam do.
***additionally i do not like green eggs and ham, goddamnit.
11 December 2007
this is getting out of hand...
so here i sit-- i'm even listening to an xmas album, albeit a my morning jacket one, for christ's [ha!] sake-- feeling like little steven on the sopranos doing pacino in godfather III. they keep pulling me back in!
i should explain: for the last couple of days-- this is going to feel good to get off of my chest-- for the last couple of days i have been feeling bad about the couple of columns i wrote a little while back concerning religion, people's religions, etc... well, not feeling bad* as much as feeling misunderstood and that i didn't quite explain myself fully.
for the record, i have no problem with people's religions, up to a point. inasmuch as i don't care, for instance, what kind of music you're into. pulling up next to me at a red light in your car, blasting some dreadful, tuneless horror, adding to the cacophony of things in any given day that i don't want to hear, well that's something different altogether now, isn't it? that's how i feel, basically, about religion.
when someone quietly tells me they go to church on sundays and then leaves it alone, it's like telling me you're an ashlee simpson fan. and i'd never, in good conscience, through the course of a conversation, tell a teenage girl that ashlee simpson-- though she does-- totally sucks and has no redeeming value whatsoever**. nor could i ever look a hardworking dude in the eye and tell him that i think limp bizkit almost singlehandedly destroyed all music as we know it and in the future must be stopped at all costs. i mean, i just couldn't do it***. someone's awful taste in music is totally their own concern and none of my goddamn business.
force me to have to listen to it and you're on your fucking own, on the other hand. watch out.
bringing me back to silvio dante's bad michael corleone impression... my ire had just about calmed when i saw this. for the most part it's hilarious-- let's watch two republican nut jobs try to out- christ each other-- but it got me to thinking: this republic has stood for the better part of 250 years and this is, in a huge respect, is as far as we've gotten? a bunch of people blasting shitty music next to me at a stop light?
~lee.
*insert hilarious catholic guilt joke here. c'mon, you know you wanna.
**i'd be wrong, anyway: the redeeming value is inherent in that teenage girl's appreciation of her [pp. 202. the republic, plato].
***how 'bout those for cliched examples, huh?
i should explain: for the last couple of days-- this is going to feel good to get off of my chest-- for the last couple of days i have been feeling bad about the couple of columns i wrote a little while back concerning religion, people's religions, etc... well, not feeling bad* as much as feeling misunderstood and that i didn't quite explain myself fully.
for the record, i have no problem with people's religions, up to a point. inasmuch as i don't care, for instance, what kind of music you're into. pulling up next to me at a red light in your car, blasting some dreadful, tuneless horror, adding to the cacophony of things in any given day that i don't want to hear, well that's something different altogether now, isn't it? that's how i feel, basically, about religion.
when someone quietly tells me they go to church on sundays and then leaves it alone, it's like telling me you're an ashlee simpson fan. and i'd never, in good conscience, through the course of a conversation, tell a teenage girl that ashlee simpson-- though she does-- totally sucks and has no redeeming value whatsoever**. nor could i ever look a hardworking dude in the eye and tell him that i think limp bizkit almost singlehandedly destroyed all music as we know it and in the future must be stopped at all costs. i mean, i just couldn't do it***. someone's awful taste in music is totally their own concern and none of my goddamn business.
force me to have to listen to it and you're on your fucking own, on the other hand. watch out.
bringing me back to silvio dante's bad michael corleone impression... my ire had just about calmed when i saw this. for the most part it's hilarious-- let's watch two republican nut jobs try to out- christ each other-- but it got me to thinking: this republic has stood for the better part of 250 years and this is, in a huge respect, is as far as we've gotten? a bunch of people blasting shitty music next to me at a stop light?
~lee.
*insert hilarious catholic guilt joke here. c'mon, you know you wanna.
**i'd be wrong, anyway: the redeeming value is inherent in that teenage girl's appreciation of her [pp. 202. the republic, plato].
***how 'bout those for cliched examples, huh?
30 November 2007
it's easy...
so it turns out i wasn't at my desk bringing you the cheese and the skinny this morning. nor did i bring you any news at all, let alone all that was fit to print.
there is a very good reason for this-- me and the wife took a long walk down to the social security office, kind of where the tenderloin meets union square, in the first of a three- pronged offensive* to change her name officially to mine. also we had some returns to do at bloomingdale's.
i have been thinking about yesterday's column and thought i would try to say something nice about religion, people's religions, etc., and i came up with this: i was very honored to give the second reading at one of my best friend's wedding's church service a couple of weeks back [i've mentioned this wedding several times now] and i wanted to share with you the beautiful reading i was asked to give.
a reading from the first letter of saint paul to the corinthians
brothers and sisters:
strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.
but i shall show you a still more excellent way.
if i speak in human and angelic tongues
but do not have love,
i am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
and if i have the gift of prophecy
and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;
if i have faith so as to move mountains,
but do not have love, i am nothing.
if i give everything that i own,
and if i hand over my body so that i may boast
but do not have love, i gain nothing.
love is patient, love is kind.
it is not jealous, is not pompous,
it is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick- tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
it bears all things, believes all things
hopes all things, endures all things.
love never fails.
the word of the lord.
now that's not so bad, right? and john lennon reiterated it well, i think, a little later on when he summarized and said, "all you need is love". and that's all i'm saying, people. there's nothing you can do that can't be done. nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
~lee.
ps. i am off to go see i'm not there with the wife in a minute and i couldn't be more excited. hope you all are staying warm out there.
*the other two prongs? her driver's license, and then all her credit cards. after that she's mine!
there is a very good reason for this-- me and the wife took a long walk down to the social security office, kind of where the tenderloin meets union square, in the first of a three- pronged offensive* to change her name officially to mine. also we had some returns to do at bloomingdale's.
i have been thinking about yesterday's column and thought i would try to say something nice about religion, people's religions, etc., and i came up with this: i was very honored to give the second reading at one of my best friend's wedding's church service a couple of weeks back [i've mentioned this wedding several times now] and i wanted to share with you the beautiful reading i was asked to give.
a reading from the first letter of saint paul to the corinthians
brothers and sisters:
strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.
but i shall show you a still more excellent way.
if i speak in human and angelic tongues
but do not have love,
i am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
and if i have the gift of prophecy
and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;
if i have faith so as to move mountains,
but do not have love, i am nothing.
if i give everything that i own,
and if i hand over my body so that i may boast
but do not have love, i gain nothing.
love is patient, love is kind.
it is not jealous, is not pompous,
it is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick- tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
it bears all things, believes all things
hopes all things, endures all things.
love never fails.
the word of the lord.
now that's not so bad, right? and john lennon reiterated it well, i think, a little later on when he summarized and said, "all you need is love". and that's all i'm saying, people. there's nothing you can do that can't be done. nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
~lee.
ps. i am off to go see i'm not there with the wife in a minute and i couldn't be more excited. hope you all are staying warm out there.
*the other two prongs? her driver's license, and then all her credit cards. after that she's mine!
29 November 2007
jesus fuckin' christ...
goodness.
between this ridiculous lil' tidbit and the poor british teacher who's going to jail, i was most of the way through a rather hostile polemic regarding organized religion, referencing john lennon and benjamin franklin and christopher hitchens and amerigo bonasera with the whole "i believe in america" thing*, and how i'm going to rename all of my cockrings muhammed and that jesus as an idea i guess i don't mind but i don't want to hear another fucking word because seven times outta ten anybody actually referencing jesus is just going to wind up saying something hilariously antithetical to what they say jesus said...
...turns out i was just hungry. i took a dinner break and now i'm cool.
i've missed you badly, however [talking to you, d--], and will be at my desk first thing tomorrow morning to bring you the cheese, the skinny, and all the news that's fit to print. until then: word is born, and keep your unit on you.
~lee.
*plagiarizing sarah vowell. yes, i know.
between this ridiculous lil' tidbit and the poor british teacher who's going to jail, i was most of the way through a rather hostile polemic regarding organized religion, referencing john lennon and benjamin franklin and christopher hitchens and amerigo bonasera with the whole "i believe in america" thing*, and how i'm going to rename all of my cockrings muhammed and that jesus as an idea i guess i don't mind but i don't want to hear another fucking word because seven times outta ten anybody actually referencing jesus is just going to wind up saying something hilariously antithetical to what they say jesus said...
...turns out i was just hungry. i took a dinner break and now i'm cool.
i've missed you badly, however [talking to you, d--], and will be at my desk first thing tomorrow morning to bring you the cheese, the skinny, and all the news that's fit to print. until then: word is born, and keep your unit on you.
~lee.
*plagiarizing sarah vowell. yes, i know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
