Religiousness

disclaimer: don't read this if your feelings get hurt easily or you think your religion is superior to other religions and get all huffy and puffy about it...

Looking below, I haven't blogged since January. I'm not sorry this time, I just counted and played 63 shows since Jan 9, my last post, or a little more than two shows every three days, if you're a geek like that. It's been a fantastic winter playing with Frogs, The Sessh and Ape Tit and now that the weather is warming up on this Easter weekend, I'm starting to think about summer festivals and our yearly tour to New Orleans, leaving later this month. I had a wonderful Easter brunch with my parents, on the rare occasion I get to take time to visit with them in person. During my busy schedule I always make sure to do one thing, and that is meditate. Whether for 5 seconds or 30 minutes, I try to spend some time every focusing on nothing but breathing. It's part of being a Buddhist, and if you try it you'll find that oftentimes you're not really breathing, and specifically, not breathing out as fully as you can. It's like we spend part of our lives in partial hyperventilation. Try checking your breathing next time you're driving home from work.

Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion. I was raised as an Episcopalian, a word I had to spell check just now, and after serving as an acolyte (alter-boy) I became skeptical in my teens. Now I'm a firm agnostic, and have trouble accepting any of the scientific impossibilities involved with Christianity. We know the human body is irrecoverable once lifeless, and furthermore, accounts of Jesus weren't written until 60-200 hundred years after his death. Could you write an account of Abe Lincoln's life in 2012, without use of computers or even a good number of people who could read and write walking around? I think the view that only followers of Jesus, or Allah or Gumby for that matter, get into heaven accounts for some of the worst historical events ever recorded. If you're enemies are all going to hell, who cares how they die?

But there is another movement which concerns me, as much as narrow-minded Christians, extremist Muslims or unwavering, militaristic Zionists. It's atheists who have a strong, yet completely non-human view of god which is equally as destructive as any of the above listed groups. They are doing the exact thing they sometimes preach against, the active conversion of others to their viewpoint. People need to decide what they think on their own, a billboard stating "God Doesn't Exist, Stop Worrying About It" doesn't help anyone. Just like I don't think anyone has it truly figured out, I don't think atheists are correct in their assessment. Yes, the burden of proof should fall on someone claiming something DOES exist. If I came to you and explained that purple aliens, or Zeus or Satan DOES exist, I better back it up. But to aggressively claim you have proof that something unprovable doesn't exists is complete BS, as well.

Atheists miss the point. To say that something unobservable is real, or not real, is an egotistical move. What are you, a god scientist? Is there still oil under the surface of the ocean, thanks BP, in the Gulf of Mexico? Was Osama in Pakistan? You don't know jack, Jack, and to think that life is anything but the case would be to really bum out Plato who said:

"The only thing I know is that I don't know jack".

But don't we feel something more, as human beings, than simply our flesh and bone desires and day-to-day monotony? Next time you're drowning your morning-after hangover with a latte, staring at the foam patterns, getting all philosophical about why exactly we do this alcohol-driven evolutionary dance of work and sex called life week-in and week-out, ask yourself if you're not really inquiring about the existence of something more. I would also argue that the self-confirmation of that "more" is what keeps us alive, what keeps us from going lemming-status out the airplane or bus door on some days. We have to relish that with art and music, food and sex, love and compassion and find that "more" and instead of thinking this a hedonistic exercise, enjoy what this life has to offer, instead of conjecturing what the afterlife might hold for us. Find the beauty herein and overlook the ugliness, find the godliness inside. Then, instead of telling others about it, show them, walk humbly and help others. Jesus, Buddha and Allah, "the compassionate and merciful" one according to the Qur'an all taught this.

It's us humans who keep putting our egos in the way.

http://www.mormon.org
http://www.televisiontunes.com/South_Park_-_Hippitus_Hoppitus.html