The only thing that would get me higher Search Engine Optimization on that head line is if I could somehow add the words “illegal immigration.” Alas, not this morning.

Today’s post is brought to you by the Letter P, for “perspective.” According to some interesting reading I’ve been doing of late, perspective has a lot to do with how people look at God (and sex, but that’s further down in the post). That perspective – or perhaps, a lack of it – is what makes some people really, really, REALLY angry at religion and/or people of faith. These people, sometimes called the “new atheists” by atheists of a more polite vein, confuse belief with religion and hop, skip and jump from a little old lady praying the rosary to lunatics killing each other in the name of a god they’ve made to fit their own political, ideological or tribal leanings. Like those in a fundamentalist religion who are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN they know what God thinks, these atheists are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN they know what all believers think. That certainty is what gets humans in trouble, in my experience.

For instance, if I say I believe in God, I am speaking from my own perspective and my own experience of the sacred, which may very well be different from yours. The God I imagine when I say that word may not be the God you imagine when you say that word. A million arguments could be avoided if we just asked each other to define our terms. As a really smart scientist I know has said, “When someone tells me he doesn’t believe in God, I ask him, ‘Tell me about the God you don’t believe in.’ Often, after hearing the description, I say, ‘Well I wouldn’t believe in that God either!’ ” It is all about perspective and experience. (more…)

My backyard corn plant - in the shadows I know, I know.

I’m not trying to commit blasphemy here, but this amazing thing growing in my small backyard garden has had me saying, lately, in good-humor and with a little bit of awe and a heck of a lot of excitement: “I’m like God!”

In case you’re not sure what this picture is of, it is my corn plant (surrounded by other less impressive plants like zinnias and basil and pole beans). And the second picture, up close, is – yes, you guessed it – the beginnings of an ear of corn.

Everyday this plant grows a little taller and the ear grows fatter and it is just amazing to watch. Eat local? You betcha. With thanks given to monsoon rains and Arizona sun and my home-grown compost and some organic corn seed and blessings from above.

One of the things that religious people do, IMHO, is take themselves too seriously. Not all religious folk, mind you, but definitely the extremist kinds. I recognize that to them – be they Fundamentalist Christian, Orthodox Jew or the Saudi Arabian form of Muslim – religion is literally life and death. But to me, a God who could crank up the evolutionary cauldron that resulted in aardvarks and giraffes has to have a sense of humor. It isn’t God who has caused all the problems in, say, the Middle East, it is people’s interpretations of God. And these are folks who seriously need to lighten up.

Ergo, I offer you the GodLovesMEBest videos from the YouTube Channel, a series that bills itself as a “new television satire” examining the craziness of extremist religious views. I watched two of the videos and found them really funny, but then again, I also liked God, Inc. , which some of my friends found really offensive. (more…)