Guilt and Innocence: A daily primer

The definition of "open-minded" is still up for debate...

Here are some humorous, alternative textbook disclaimer stickers, so you can take the law about disclaimer stickers on textbooks into your own hands.

I especially like the last one.

Because there's nothing like gambling to ease the pain.

Now that "Pope Deathwatch 2005" (I will coin that phrase if it kills me), has passed us by, you can amuse yourself durring the incessant C-SPAN coverage of bizarre catholic rituals performed in a dead language with Popapalooza 2005.

Katie, Dave, and I are betting on Ratzinger, but there's also a strong suspicion that the church will go back to an Italian pope.

(Link given to me by my token catholic devotee herself.)

The things the internet drags in...

I was on a Thesaurus.com page looking for a synonym to "spiritual" to describe How We Are Hungry (though you will note I gave up and used "spiritual-esque:), when I noticed a Google ad for a service claiming to alter your DNA so you can prepare for ascension.

Out of desperate curiosity, I clicked on the link. Scanning the page, it seemed rather like a satirical page, until I noticed that there's actually a Paypal link at the bottom and remembered that whoever is running this site has actually invested money in buying a Google text ad.

Well, I guess there has to be a service for those people for whom Jesus-scented candles and better tasting communion wafers just aren't enough...

Scratch and Sniff Religion

In my earlier post about the new recipe for communion wafers, I basically implied that I don't think religion should enter the marketplace. Well,  the same thing applies for candles that smell like Jesus..

From the article:

"We wanted people to be able to experience Christ in new ways and to be able to read a bible and have that scent and that candle as a reminder that he is with us all the time."

"You can't see him and you can't touch him," says Bob Tosterud. "This is a situation where you may be able to sense him by smelling. And it provides a really new dimension to one's experience with Jesus."

What is America's problem? Do we have to fall for every single gimmick like this?

Furthermore, do they not teach the bible story about Jesus and the moneychangers in the temple, anymore? That was always a favorite of mine, and this is why I think these weird religous products are absurd. Also, to my knowledge hygiene was not that great in ancient Judea, so I doubt anyone is getting an authentic experience of the scent of Jesus.

The Body of Jesus: Now with 15% More Flavor

Body of Christ gets new improved flavor.

Ninety master bakers from the island of Funen have taken up the challenge to experiment with new recipes for the holy flesh

Is it just me, or is this an absurd, slightly blasphemous idea? This may be just be me speaking from my non-christian viewpoint on things, but isn't this supposed to be about a religious tradition, not snacking? How the hell do the transubstantiationalists feel about this?

I really just find it creepy when religion and capitalism start to mix. Some things, I think, just don't fall into a market model method of thinking.

As the Copenhagen Deacon said,

After all, the bread should symbolize the body of Jesus, and the wafer shouldn’t be getting all the attention. Just imagine if the pastor at the altar would say ‘This is the body of Jesus Christ. Would you like that with chocolate, vanilla or strawberry taste?

Sunday Afternoon Malaise

There are just some days when I am an irrationally rage-filled person and I think this is one of those days.

I woke up early and went to the Unitarian Universalist church in Columbia with Erika, today. It was so nice to go to church and to have that sense of tradition and familiarity, because even though this church is so far away from every other church I've been to, there's just that je ne sais quoi that Unitarian churches have for me. They're my homes away from the world, in a way. That place I can go to get away from all the pettiness of the rest of my life.

Since it was the first Sunday of the month there was a potluck lunch, which was even more amazing than potlucks usually are, since we never get to eat home-cooked food. We went and toured the building a little, and while the building is much bigger than any of the churches I've gone to, it seems like the congregation is small enough that I wouldn't feel too lost. Also, I was asking the woman who gave us a ride home if they did some of the more pagan aspect of things and she gave me the impression that they are more traditional, which makes it seem more like the traditional church I grew up with in New Orleans, which might be a break from the slight new-age feeling that my church at home can have sometimes.

Still, in spite of how much I liked going to church, I was just still angry. Angry about all the little stupid things that build up in relationships with people. I sent Barry a whiney IM and went to talk to him for a while and just kind of talked myself in circles all afternoon, which seems to be all I do lately. I wander from topic to topic and I can't focus on any one thing and I seem to lose all my points in the details.

I just never feel fulfilled. There's just always this tiny, little, seemingly inconsequential thing missing from my relationships here that sends me into these tailspins. Then I drag unassuming people into them and feel guilty afterwards.

I want something substantial and real. But I guess that's like searching for the needle in the haystack...

An Interview with Jim Wallis of "God's Politics"

I'm aware I'm breaking some blogging rule about no more than one post involving religion a week or something, but I'm on a roll.

From Alternet: AlterNet: On God's Side, "Jim Wallis talks about 'God's Politics' and values – by which Wallis doesn't mean hate, greed, and war-mongering."

I can't remember if I first read about this book on Slate, or saw Wallis' interview on the Daily Show, but even though I have yet to read the book (I loathe purchasing hardcovers, even if I had the time for recreational reading), I am completely in awe of this man. He seems to have the most level headed, respectable, tempered idea of the ideal balance between faith and politics in public discourse.

Honestly, this man just seems to have the best ideas about both. I really can't wait to read this book.

Bush's campaign against Jesus.

Okay, I just can't resist posting this. It's too funny:

Mad Magazine: W's campaign against Jesus..

Flaming Chalice? Not so much.

Sometimes I think I forget just how different Columbia, MO is from Lakewood. Maybe it's not the places themselves, entirely, but just the difference in the make-up of people. Maybe I put more effort into finding similar-minded people at home. Maybe here I'm just too grateful to have anyone I have something in common with around, even if we can see things so differently.

It just struck me last night, how placid I've become about faith and politics. I don't wield either as much of a weapon anymore, but as something I know and I'm semi-reluctant to share. See, Katie and I decided we wanted to go to Hitt Street, as usual, but we've become spoiled, so we went to see if Barry would drive us there.

Of course, he was wrapped up in his new computer game of choice, so we had to beg a little. We used the, "But, Barry, you wouldn't want to make us walk across campus, in the dark, alone at night" excuse, and then Katie bursts out with, "What Would Jesus Do?" I was caught completely off-guard, because in my mind, some things are just better left untouched. Regardless, finally, Barry agrees to drive us, but for some reason, no one quite drops the WWJD, thing, which I had tried to deflect into some historical inaccuracy.

So, we get to Hitt Street and we're walking through some twisty back hall of the Pershing Area commons and I have no idea where were going, and, to tell me to keep going straight, Barry says something along the lines of, "Be straight, not gay," and in response I just kind of give him this look which I hope to mean, "You're not being very funny." Then Rachel says something about that not being tolerant, and Katie, because I'm now convinced she has a death wish, says, "Yeah, what would jesus do?" Barry starts to say something, but I, in mortal fear have reached my limit of sensitive topics and proclaim that we are done with talking about what jesus would do and we're going to talk about something else.

But truthfully, the extreme non-confrontation about religion is something entirely new for me. I used to be the feisty one who would just not let sleeping dogs lie, but now for some reason I'd just rather not talk about it. Even that night, when I was talking to Barry and Delmar kind of cornered me about creationism, I didn't even try to argue. I remember just thinking that I wanted the whole conversation to be over.

It seems backwards, because I love talking about religion. I love discussing it and poking at its intricacies and reading about it. I seriously considered being a UU minister at some point, but here I just want to stand to the side. Maybe I just sense that people are too emotionally involved here, or that I am too drastically outnumbered to pick any real fights with anyone, but sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm not losing bits of my faith and myself because I am so quiet.

If I'm being silent, am I really just being a traitor to my faith? Or have I just learned to be more tolerant? I can't tell the difference.

Are we evolving into creationists?

This New York Times editorial, God and Evolution, suggests that perhaps the belief in a higher being increases our chances of survival from an evolutionary perspective.

Kristof writes, "Imagine if, as a cosmic joke, humans have gradually evolved to leave many of us doubting evolution."

While I find this most amusing for the irony of the situation, from my experience it has always seemed that there are some people who naturally need religion in their life in some form and some who don't. Truthfully, if this weren't the case I could never have seen the Unitarian Universalist church coming about. For us, we need some sort of spirituality, something to ease that gnawing need for knowledge of something beyond the material world, but we don't fit into the structures of normal churches.

However, I found it hard to believe that a belief in God something that is favored by the process of evolution. But if that's the case it means bad news for Democrats. We're not the most god-fearing bunch.

Look! Apocolypse is Cool!

This is a completely self-indulgent link, but I need to make a point. Once upon a time I tried to convince my newspaper staff that doing an article on apocolpyse would be interesting and cool, but they all told me I was crazy and that furthermore there was not enough to write about apocolypse.

Oh, were they wrong.

Apparently there is a publication called REVELATION that is devoted solely to the end-times. So there disagreeable Spectator staff.