Just Keep on Waiting

I let my mom and mother-in-law guilt me into going to my old church this past Father's day. Deep down inside though, I think that's my last time going there; although, I haven't voiced this to my family, yet.

Certain elements of the pastor's message really irked me. For starters, he stated that the sort of people who want results before they can ever be convinced would have a hard time being Christians. Christians need faith, he asserted. And he defined faith as trusting and believing without any results or evidence. If you need evidence or results, Christianity isn't for you because you don't have faith-- that is, according to the pastor's sermon.

I was also bothered by how he constantly insinuated that Christians have happier marriages and home life. He frequently suggested that believers always had "blessings" following them while disobedient Christians and unsaved people would always have trouble as their constant companion. I particularly take issue with that idea. Having been Christian, I don't see that trouble has followed me now that I am atheist. In many ways, my life has become far easier. Yes, I still have problems . . . but that was true while living as a Christian, too.

I think what bothered me most from his sermon, though was his key point-- his encouragement to "just keep waiting". He encouraged the congregation to just keep waiting for Jesus to return . . . just keep waiting for God to turn around a situation that seemed impossible. Just keep waiting for God to reward you for your faithfulness.

Just keep waiting.

Then, he gave an analogy of a school child waiting for a bus. That child never leaves the bus stop until the bus comes-- even if the bus seems to be running late. Just keep waiting-- that bus is sure to come.

For as many times as my kids have missed the bus, this was a poorly chosen analogy.

The bus has passed by my house without me hearing it. So, I still send my kids out. The bus (of course) will never come. At some point, I've need to understand that we've missed the bus. At that point, I must take matters into my own hands.

But, you may say-- Ah, the bus did come . . . you just missed it.

Well, there have been a few occasions where I know I was on time for the bus, but it never came to pick up my kids. (Sort of like in Waiting for Godot).

Buses do break down, you know. This has happened one or twice. We also had a situation where the bus driver stepped off the bus between stops for some reason. He twisted his ankle while going down the steps, fell and tore a tendon. He couldn't finish his route. Another bus never came; I had to take my kids to school myself.

You know how I found out the bus wasn't coming? I looked at the clock and compared it to the time the bus usually arrives. That time had long passed and I realized I needed to take matters into my own hands.

Influencing people to mindlessly wait for anything is regressive at best. Discouraging the desire for supporting evidence is folly and worse than being regressive.

It's actually quite dangerous.

Wits' End

About a month ago (from this post), my daughter plainly and flatly told her older cousin that we simply don't believe in god in our household.

At first, I got rather worried, but then I came to the realization that her cousin (my niece) probably won't make a stink of it. And so far-- she hasn't.

However, that incident forced the question of whether remaining a closeted atheist has any real benefit.

Summer vacation began and my kids started spending their days at my mom's house. The kids surprised my wife and me one evening by telling us that my mother was trying to make them memorize bible versus.

Now, we're strongly considering putting them in a secular summer program. But, something like that will be hard to find in Jesusland and we don't have tons of cash to spend on summer camp.

The question of whether remaining a closeted atheist comes up again. My wife becomes a bit flustered about having to hide what we really feel; I worry about how sick my seventy-four year old mother will become if we told her. I worry about how our relationship could fall apart just near the end of her life.

Then, both my mother and mother-in-law start really putting social pressure on us to come to church-- at least for Father's day. We didn't make Mother's day . . . my mother-in-law was quite cross. There was no gift, gesture, or convenience that made up for our missing church. Her daughters skipped church to cook her an amazing meal to eat after church service. She almost didn't come over to enjoy it out of disappointment at our absence from service.

And again-- we wonder if staying in the closet is even worth it.


I grow tired of the default expectation that everyone is a Christian. I grow tired of people compelling us to participate in an activity that-- for me-- feels like a waste of time.

I don't want to make other people stop being a Christian-- I just want them to stop trying to make me into one. Ah . . . but there's the problem. The very nature of being a Christian for many believers, is to faithfully spread the Gospel. These ideas are not mutually exclusive and poses a difficult problem for those who want to simply be left alone.

I'm at my wits' end.

Sad News . . .

I' recently watched a news report about an infant who died due to being left in a car during the summer-like heat.

Annually, kids (and pets) seem to die needlessly because they were left in a parked car that became way too hot inside. People sometimes have a lapse of judgment and leave dependents in the car for an extended period of time. Perhaps they forget the baby was sleeping in the back seat. Maybe they don't think they will be gone too long and didn't think the heat would become deadly. Maybe they plan to come right back after running just for a second, but something distracts them. Perhaps they are did something outside of their routine. Maybe they were keeping someone else's child and they haven't quite adjusted to retrieving the child from the car after getting out. These may sound like lame excuses. Some of them probably are. But, some of them just happen because people are . . . well . . . human.

In this specific report, a married couple goes to church one Sunday morning. I don't know the details because I was not there. I can only imagine, though, that as they got out of the car their hands were full. Maybe they were running late and their absence was holding up service. I say this because the husband was the church musician. Whatever the case, the husband sees another church member who is heading towards the church building. The husband asks this fellow church member to bring his baby in for him. Maybe he yelled it across the parking lot. Maybe he just asked as he hurried past to get inside for service, not waiting for an answer.

Regardless, this church member claims that he did not hear the request to retrieve the baby from the car.

So, the couple goes inside and unwittingly leaves their baby out in the church parking lot closed up in the car. The temperature reached an unusual high that day, too.

I honestly don't believe this couple wanted their baby to die; I'm certain they are distraught about this. If they could turn back time, I'm sure they would have done things differently. I'm sure the couple would have ensured the safety of their child if they knew what was about to happen on that fateful day.

I'm so sorry to hear about their loss. Despite the fact that as parents they were totally responsible for their child, I cannot look down on them or pass judgment on them. This seems to happen every year to someone in the United States. New parents can go through a lot of stress which can cause a lapse in judgment sometimes. I have two kids. And while I've never left one of my kids in a car, I can see how some parents (and even grandparents) can make some poor parenting mistakes.

What adds more frustration to this sad news (in my opinion) is what some of the interviewees said. After calling this an awful tragedy (and I agree with that part), they say, "Well, God will work it out . . ."

I can't help it . . .

The poor baby died in a church parking lot; What is left for God to work out?!

Happy New Year!!!

Remember ever wondering if back in 1999 that Y2K was going to be the end?
Ever hear some of the preachers saying that the apocalypse was going to unfold in 2000?

Some preachers were even telling their members to buy property with water on it because everything was going back to the stone age -- the time of tribulation was at hand!

I was still a devout Christian back then. I went to church on New Years Eve of 2000 because I was convinced that church was the safest place to be just in case Y2K was the end.

Never mind that the other side of the planet had already celebrated Y2K many hours before we would here in the U.S. and nothing seemed to happened to them!

Anyway, our pastor always "prophesied" that things would only get worse and more people were going to die than the previous year. He seemed to do this on any New Years Eve church service. I guess he did it to calm down all the jubilation people expressed when the clock hit midnight. Yes, the church service would go way past midnight. We wanted to be in god's presence when the New Year began. Service wouldn't let out until 3:00 AM many times. They would even serve breakfast afterward -- not for free, though.

And particularly with Y2K, once we all breathed a sigh of relief that a mass computer crash didn't usher in Armageddon, people went into a celebratory frenzy -- Pentecostal style!

But our pastor still managed to work in his "prophesy" of the same bad news that he gave years before.

Wow! What a killjoy! What an awful way to bring in any new year!

But now I say, lets party like it's 1999 everybody! Especially since we've made it all the way to 2009!

Looks like Y2K didn't kill us after all, huh?

Whoot! Whoot!

Good Riddance!

Relative to this blog post, I recently admitted that I sometimes miss God.

But far more often I say to myself, "Good riddance"!

I'll never miss getting up in the morning to get dressed and go to church. What a demoralizing process that was! If you can't fit your monkey suit, people call you fat at church. If you're late, people say you don't try hard enough. If you haven't been to church in a while and you're trying to get back into the habit, people ridicule you for staying away so long.

And in my world, church wasn't just on Sundays. Even sinners go to church "on Sundays". But saints of God went to church every night of the week! Prayer service, Missionary Service, Bible Study, Youth Service, Evangelistic Service, Choir Rehearsal, Sunday School, Sunday Morning Service, Sunday evening prayer, and then Sunday Evening Service.

*Whew*

And that's just your reasonable service!

Then you've got tithes and offerings -- 10% of your gross income plus a free will offering.

Building fund pledges . . .
Bake sales, hotplate sales . . .
Sowing seeds to the Man of God . . .

I was so broke!

I was behind in my bills and I was in deep debt. I was borrowing money from my relatives to pay my tithes!

I didn't get out of debt until I stopped paying my tithes!!!

That window of Heaven never opened up for me to pour out great blessings.

So, I had to open my own window . . . to climb out and escape!

Then, there was confessionals to the pastor and the risk of being excommunicated or "dis-fellowshiped" if you crossed the line too many times with breaking church rules and morality.

And the constant emotional beat downs . . . wow!

You'll never be good enough to serve God.
You can never truly please God.
God isn't pleased with us.
We can never do enough for God.
We're not ready for heaven yet.

Geez . . . if I'm not ready for heaven with all this stuff I'm doing . . . how will I ever be?!

Why am I doing all this if I can't get to heaven like this? What is all that "grace" stuff for, anyhow?

This fear is agonizing. Tears steam down your face and you beg God to have mercy on you.

Only God and the preacher know for sure what your status is concerning heaven. And neither of them seem to ever let you know if you're doing things right.

But they can be crystal clear when you're doing things wrong. That's seems to be 99.9% of the time.

I don't miss any of that one little bit.

Good riddance!!!

Soon and Very Soon . . .

What if another century goes by and Jesus never returns?

What about another millennium?

Two?

What if during that time, a cure for cancer is found? What if cloning technology allows us to make genetic material from scratch and clone humans? What if we eventually map out DNA in all life and then discover how to turn off the aging and "death" signal to our cells? What if mankind eventually achieves immortality?

What if our conscience could be uploaded from our minds and one day downloaded into a new clone of ourselves -- allowing us to not only live forever but also move forward into time?

Okay, that last one might sound far out.

But think about it. What if Jesus never comes?

I know what some nearby Christian is thinking, "What if he does come? Then you'll burn in hell!"

When I read comments like these from Christians on message boards across the Internet, I get the feeling that they relish the idea of non-Christians burning in hell for eternity.

This eagerness and enjoyment sounds sick, vengeful, and evil to me. If you can't wait to see me burn in hell, then you should wonder whether or not you're saved.

Ah, I digress.

Growing up in church, we often sang a song:

Soon and very soon, we are going to see the king.
Soon and very soon, we are going to see the king.
Soon and very soon, we are going to see the king.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! We are going to see the king.

And after converting to Pentecostalism, we were bombarded with the idea of Jesus coming at any moment.

Could that moment happen right now while I'm writing this?

Could that moment happen right now while you're reading this?

Has Jesus come and gone already and I didn't even get to finis . . .

People have been waiting for Jesus for a long time. Some argue that the disciples expected Jesus to come in their lifetimes. And since Jesus obviously hasn't . . . well . . . I guess that would be the end.

In the Pentecostal church I once attended, people felt certain that Jesus would come in our lifetime. That was back when I was a teenager. Well, sure it's still my lifetime. But, people didn't think the pastor of that generation would fall ill and die after reaching just over eighty years of age. People thought he was too close to God and too important of a spiritual leader for him to die before Jesus would come.

I've read a saying that circulates on the Internet among other skeptics:

Today's Religion is Tomorrow's Mythology

How long until Christianity becomes commonly known as mythology in the United States?
Not very soon, I'm afraid -- especially since Jesus' 2000 year delay is still considered soon.