Dinner from Hell

I just got back from dinner with a priest. Let’s take inventory. He said I was damned to hell. I said he was arrogant. He said my search for god was insincere. I said he was a hypocrite. He said I was stealing from the church. I said he was Satan.

Yeah, that about covers it.

Philosophy 'Of the Forest'

A delightful, good-humored lady at the dog park tonight, after being told by her husband that my dog was named after a philosopher-novelist, looked at me, sized me up and down, and commented, "Well, I do always see you reading a book!" 'A book' was pronounced with some level of disdain. Ha!

Her dog, if you're curious, is named after a lost American Indian Tribe. That was her husband's idea. If it were up to her, he'd have a Roman name meaning 'of the forest.'

She continued, "Well, I don't know much about philosophy, but I do know that God spelled backwards is Dog." (Her husband, with a big grin on his face, interjected, "And vice versa!") "And as a friend of mine once told me, your dog will love you, even if your feet stink and you don't love Jesus." Amen to that.

My Trip to Christendom

Tell me all your thoughts on God,
‘cause I'd really like to meet her,
And ask her where and who we are.

Tell me all your thoughts on God,
‘cause I'm on my way to see her.
So tell me, am I very far? Am I very far now?
-Dishwalla, "Counting Blue Cars"

--

I’ve been writing now for several months and I’ve made more than a few allusions to God and religion, but I don’t think I’ve ever spelled out my own personal thoughts on the subject. From my perspective, a person’s thoughts on God are important and I will almost invariably raise the question during the ‘getting to know you’ stage. The interesting thing, I think, is that I’m not at all concerned with whether or not they believe in God, per se. I’m more concerned with how they reached their conclusion.

Some people, I’ve found, believe whole-stock what their parents taught them. Others feel quite the opposite. Still others had religious awakenings later in life, high school or college maybe. Some others are still searching. Some others never began searching. Some concluded that they cannot know. A few have concluded that he does not exist. A few have concluded that they are to love him with all their heart. I’m probably none of these, but here’s my story.

I was raised in an Orthodox Christian home. We went to church every Sunday. I attended Sunday school after my church grew large enough to have one. At some point in time, I even taught Sunday school. When we first started going to Church, the congregation was about 50 people on any given Sunday. It may have doubled or tripled in size by high school.

From 3rd grade through college, I had a Catholic education. In elementary and middle school, it was an order of nuns whose name escapes me at the moment. In high school, the Christian Brothers. In College, the Jesuits. Even my law school had a religious affiliation at some point in the not so distant past.

When I got to college, among the other freedoms I enjoyed, I decided that I didn’t have to go to church anymore. I didn’t particularly care for it growing up. Religion, to me, became a solitary, intellectual exercise, as opposed to a communal, celebratory one. I turned to philosophy to answer the question of God’s existence once and for all.

I read all of the arguments. Aquinas. Anselm. Origin. Augustine. Pascal. Descartes. Kierkegaard. I wasn’t particularly moved by any of them. Perhaps it was my stage in life, but I was drawn more to the skeptics – Hume, Freud, Frauerbach, Marx – and finally the existentialists – Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre. It was with Sartre that I closed the book on the question of God’s existence. He basically argued that it didn’t matter. Whether or not God exists, one must still choose how he is to live his life. That is to say, God does not function, as most would want him to, as guarantor of one’s actions. Good is good and bad is bad, regardless of whether or not God exists. Put in another way, wrong did not become right because God proclaimed it so. There was, of course, the alternative position raised by Christian existentialist Dostoevsky that if God does not exists, then all is permissible. I, however, sided with Nietzsche who argued that even if God did not exist, human artists could invent the good by which we were to abide. The task then became to create an ethics.

That’s in part why the clubhouse was first created – to help me figure out how to live life, to answer life’s big questions. But, as it’s evolved, I’ve tended to avoid the big questions, as such, and, instead, cut and paste little truths from my every-days so that the entire project will speak something true about the whole of my life. Still, the big questions invariably creep in every now and then, especially the question of God’s existence, which I shelved some seven years ago.

My most recent awaking came when I entertained the startling possibility that I went about the problem of religion all wrong. I went about looking at it from the outside-in. That is, if God exists (out there somewhere), then I will believe in him (in here, in my heart). What originally followed from this is that I was to find out if God existed in the objective world. But suppose I were to look at it in the inverse, from the inside-out. That is, if I have a subjective religious spirit (in here), then what does that say about him (out there)? Interestingly enough, the impetus for this inversion of my thought process was a line from a Miller Williams’ poem – “I let him do it because it made me feel good/ To have somebody think that way about me. / It had nothing at all to do with him.” – about a woman cheating on her husband!

This is, of course, what Descartes was up to centuries ago when he argued that our notion of god is a priori (literally, ‘prior to’ experience) evidence of his existence. It was his thumb-print on our souls, if you will. The fact that I don’t “believe” in God is secondary to the fact that I have a religious spirit, the Cartesian thumb-print. What I’ve noticed is that some people do not have this religious spirit. Others do. I wondered, then, if I was actually more similar to a theist than non-theists, and whether or not, as a consequence, I’d feel more at home in a community of people with religious spirits. In a word, maybe I should go to… church.

Vow of Poverty

Warren E. Buffett, the world’s second richest man (pictured left, eating ice cream), is donating about $30 billion dollars to a charity run by Bill Gates, the world’s richest man. That alone is funny enough. I certainly laud Mr. Buffett for his generosity, but when I got to thinking about it, I can’t help but suspect that it may have been a wily business move by the man in second place. Think about it. Mr. Buffett has all but COMPELLED Bill Gates (pictured right with a pie in his face) to make an even larger donation to Buffett’s charity! Honestly, Bill, are you going to sit there and be outdone by little Mr. Buffett and his paltry $30 billion dollars? Heck no! I give it about a week before Gates donates $50 billion to Buffett’s foundation. I’m not sure where this will end, but you know Paul Allen (pictured left, smashing a guitar), the guy in third place, is getting restless.

Where Are You, Snakeman?

I’m sitting in a coffee shop, writing, and listening to Itunes. I’m relatively new to Itunes, but the other day, I noticed that when I’m in a public place, I can browse through other Ituner’s music libraries. That’s a neat feature. Right now, there are 4 other people using Itunes. Brannon has foreign music. The music is so foreign that I cannot even venture to guess what country it’s from. Iceland? Uzekistan? No clue. Then there is Burgeoning, who has his or her library password protected. Lame. Then there’s a fellow by the name of Johnathan Byrd, who only allows 5 people to view his library per day and he’s reached his limit. I wonder to myself how long John has been here. Finally, there’s a person named Snakeman.

To be honest, when I click on Snakeman’s library, I’m a little concerned what I might find. Maybe some primitive beats, chanting. Maybe some death metal. Certainly there would be more than a few references to Satan. I remind myself not to listen to anything backward for fear of what it might do to me. Regardless, I’m quite sure that I’ll find something that might make it difficult to sleep tonight. This knowledge notwithstanding, I open the door and go in.

Immediately, I don’t recognize anything. But I see that there are 3,433 songs. This, for those keeping score at home, is 25.21 gigabytes of data. If I were to sit in this café for the next two weeks straight and listen exclusively to the songs in this library non-stop, I will not have heard every song, because there are 15.2 days of music in this place. I continue to look for the elusive devil music.

At this point, I feel something like guilt. Here I am, standing in this guy’s living room, not announcing my presence, rifling through his stuff, attempting to get some clue into her persona. I see what magazines he subscribes to. I go take a look to see if he made his bed this morning. I notice what brand of toothpaste he uses. I let the cat out. I leave the snake just where it is. I put on his slippers and help myself to a bowl of cereal and sit down in his easy chair. I put my feet up on the coffee table and turn on the TV. Hey, everyone, look at me, I’m the Snakeman!

As I’m having my fun, scrolling through his playlist, the name Billy Collins jumps out at me. I think for a moment that it’s the name of the lead singer for the Smashing Pumpkins. From what I recall, the Smashing Pumpkins weren’t Satanists, but I imagine that Billy may have fallen in with a bad crowd after he left the bad. His solo stuff must be pretty sinister. Oh no wait, that guy’s name is Billy Corgin. Nevermind. OH! Billy Collins is one of my favorite poets. This must be another Billy Collins. But when I click on the song, sure enough, it’s my Billy Collins, the poet, reading his poetry. What the heck? Snakeman, I don’t even know you!

I practically jump out of my seat to look around the place to see if I can identify Snakeman. Who here would listen to poetry in Itunes? Who here is trying to project the image of a snake-wielding tough guy, but who all the while has a warm chewy center? I’m scanning the crowd for a leather-clad dude with an anchor tattoo who’s wearing reading glasses and a beret. No luck.

I listen to Billy read a poem I really like – Litany. He explains what made him write the poem, cracks a few jokes, and reads it. I don’t care much for his voice and less for his delivery. He sounds full of himself. I can’t stand him. I hate the poem. I’m made to feel like I’ll never buy one of his books again. I’m tempted to go home right now and burn the six or so I’ve already purchased.

Snakeman, what kind of twisted person are you to ruin one of my favorite poets for me? And, why? Because I tried on your slippers? Because I left some crumbs on your carpet? I want to find you now and apologize. I turn to the man sitting to my right. “Snakeman, I’m sorry I let the cat out. I didn’t know he was an indoor cat. I’m sorry I messed up the order of your magazines. I didn’t know you were particular. I’m sorry I rearranged your speed dial settings. I wanted to see if you’d notice. I promise never again to change your alarm clock to PM. I just thought you might appreciate some more sleep. And I promise to never ever change all of your TIVO settings so that it records only the Golden Girls 5 times a day. Don’t you like that show? Don’t you think that little old lady is a riot? Well, I thought you might. And as for moving your mattress to the balcony, well, I don’t really have an excuse for that. I was bored, I suppose. But, like I said, I’m sorry. For everything. And don’t get up. Here are your slippers back. I’ll let myself out.”