It’s not always the religion but it’s always the religious

There are several things that have me thinking again about the religious and religion. I’m thinking that I had a ‘My Name is Earl” experience yesterday because karma certainly waved a lot of flags at me.

First, the billboard that you see above is one of several being posted around New Orleans by an atheist organization. They’re easy to spot and quite visually arresting. I’m certain this thread will evoke the meme of “atheist proselytizing” which is just about the most ridiculous impossibility I’ve ever heard. But, bring it on.

Second, the deliberate torching of a mosque site in Tennessee and the seemingly complete oblivion of some people that frequent this blog to the issue of religious freedom. I’m getting tired of being accused–unjustly– of calling people bigots in blog threads just because I don’t think you ask people to defer their constitutional rights based on some one’s feelings. (Also, when you repeat bigoted memes, people here will call you out on it without necessarily calling you a bigot.) Thanks for the links that compare us to Obots!! Makes me really glad I put in all that time here to give us all a place to civilly discuss issues.

Then there is this tidbit. I found out that a christian group is insisting on using the Confluence as their new website name despite BostonBoomer and I asking them to reconsider. (Here’s the tweet I intercepted through some kind of karma: “Excited about the launch of the Newfrontiers USA blog, the Confluence. Details to follow soon.” Here’s the info on the person tweeting: Name Seth Hoffman, Location Portsmouth, NH, Web http://www.sethho…)

Karma wasn’t done with me yet, however, as it’s Southern Decadence here. For those of you who don’t know about our unique Labor Day celebration, you can find out more here. Let’s just say it’s one of the biggest celebrations of gayness in the country and one of my favorite things to do each year. The usual group of cross dragging, bull horn bearing bullies are here shouting horrible things to every one on Bourbon Street and the police are basically saying it’s a free speech thing. They’re just making sure the bull horns don’t go louder than the noise ordinances allow. You can go to the WDSU site and watch them ooze and shout hatred if you’d like.

“I’m coming out of the closet New Orleans,” said Bible Believer member Ruban Israel. “I’m in love with Jesus Christ, and his blood is not HIV positive. They have the freedom to be anything they want to. All we ask is for the same freedom to stand here and tell them they are an abomination before God.”

Some people said they find their message offensive and think action by the city is long overdue.

Then Karma took me to another channel where the discussion was all about Stephen Hawking and his new book. Hawking has basically said that a Creator is a redundancy. The universe is perfectly capable of self-creation; a very Buddhist notion, I might add.

God did not create the universe and the “Big Bang” was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book.

In “The Grand Design,” co-authored with U.S. physicist Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking says a new series of theories made a creator of the universe redundant, according to the Times newspaper which published extracts on Thursday.

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist,” Hawking writes.

“It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”

The final thing Karma threw at me was a nearly year old issue of the Shambala Sun I found while cleaning. As an atheist with a Buddhist practice, I subscribe to the magazine. It was the copy with an interview with Huston Smith. He’s the author of the widely acclaimed work ‘The World’s Religions: Our Greatest Traditions’ published in 1958. Smith is a devout Christian. He is, however, responsible for helping the west understand the ‘other religions’ of the world. He devoted ten years each to not only learning about but practicing Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. His huge volume has been split into smaller books and I urge any of you with issues with Islam to read his book. So here’s what he says about Islam in the SS interview and please, remember this man is a Christian who practiced this religion for 10 years.

“The world overflows with glorious expressions of spirituality,” Schuon told Smith when they met, [dkat note: Frithjof Schuon is a Swiss author who studies and writes about the world’s religious]”but if you want to be in my fraternity, my tariqa, I urge you to become a Muslim.” The World’s Religions presented Islam in an inviting way, but Smith had admitted that its holy book seemed impentrable, writing, “No one has ever curled up on a rainy weekend to read the Koran.” But once he joined Schuon’s tariqa, he came to hear whate he now calls the Qur’an with new ears, understanding the sublime poetry that adherents say is its gift. Smith became a sufi, attracted to prayng with the body through dance.

Smith emphasizes that his embrace of Islam was not limited to Sufism. “Ecstasy is only one mood, and Sufism is only one mode of Islam, and neither exhausted its appeal for me”, he recalls. To the extent possible he followed the five pillars of Islam, answering the call to prayer five times daily for twenty years. It pains him to day, he says, to see the Islam he discovered through spirituality obscured by ideology. For him, the daily greeting of the Islamic world, As-saamu alakum, says it all: “Peace be upon you.”

Which leads me back to my run in with Karma yesterday. There are many things in religion that I find quite troubling. Most of the ‘holy books’ of religions were written in a time of barbarism and they certainly reflect that. I remember first reading about the great religions in my fifth grade social studies class and thinking that Buddhism was the only one that seemed to make sense to me. I guess it’s not a surprise that my inner spiritual growth route took that flavor.

I hate organized religion and the religious but I’m a highly self reflective and spiritual person and I always have been. I see them all as a struggle of primitive man trying to explain things that he does not understand on the surface. Underneath the surface is the organized religion part which has turned believers into irksome missionaries and bomb wielding terrorists and religious institutions into witch burners, inquisitors, and usurper of native traditions.

I’ve had terrible experiences with Christians. My first was being held down on bleachers by two senior boys in high school, splayed cross-like and told that I need to develop Christian humility and really understand Christ. The next appalling event was the stalking of my children and the treatment of me when I ran for statewide office by the local Catholic Churches and big barn Evangelical and Baptist churches.

While Seth Hoffman, true believer (per his twitter profile: husband, father, Jesus follower, coffee addict, music lover, pug owner) , thinks it’s not a bad idea for people to do a google and possibly come up with the wrong site, I shudder at the thought of having hysterical Christians over here harassing us for not finding homosexuality an abomination, for thinking our pro choice stance means we support baby killing, and frankly, trying to tell those of us that are not believers or embrace other religions that we’re going to hell. You can google the organization. They are charismatic and they are missionaries. (Believe me, I miss my French Quarter balcony some times where I used to emphatically water the flowers at the kinds of people that show up for Mardi Gras and Southern Decadence ready to damn us all to hell and have us embrace their beliefs.)

But, is this the religion or a subsect of the religious that simply embrace religion like they would crack, a bottle of Vodka, or anything they can abuse to make their lives less miserable and their selves less inward looking?

There are crackpots in every religion. It truly makes me want to avoid any one I know that’s actively involved with an organized religion. But just as most Presbyterians and Episcopalians are probably not out there shouting ‘whore’ at any woman walking Bourbon street right now and bombing family planning clinics, there are also Muslims that are not contemplating turning the US into an Islamic Republic through terrorism. There are parts of every holy book that are beautiful and inspiring. There are also parts that are horrifying and are used in horrifying ways. The deal is that we embrace a secular society that tolerates religious expression. All of them. I’m appalled that we haven’t internalized that yet. I’m not defending any of them. I’m defending each person’s right to practice them. I’d rather have an Episcopalian church as a neighbor or a Sufi Mosque than whatever it is Ruban Israel subscribes to but it’s not my right to tell him where he can do his thing. It is my right, however, to say that his beliefs offend me to no end. His adaptation of religion isn’t the only religion that offends me. If I could chose my neighbors, I’d take Steven Hawking.

Steven Hoffman and New Frontiers USA appear to have moved into the neighborhood. (Evidently, they aren’t tolerant of our ‘sensitivities’ and appeal. Do I have to announce my snark font here?) We’re just going to have to see what kind of neighbors they turn out to be.

Spirituality should free us. Not enslave us or cause us to enslave others. Perhaps that’s the karmic lesson I learned on the journey yesterday that started with that Butterfly McQueen ad that you see above.