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My Search for Meaning, Part 2

Before I get to the meat of this overlong soliloquy, I want to share a few juicily germane excerpts of The Daily Show's new Earth (The Book). It's a cover-to-cover NSFW giggle-fest. Enjoy:

"The manner by which life originated and developed on Earth was a matter of some debate for us. Scientists believed it required a long, slow process of natural genetic change called evolution. As evidence, they pointed to every bit of relevant data ever gathered. Many others rejected the notion that man descended from monkeys as distasteful, believing instead that life--and the cosmos itself--was created by one or more gods. As evidence, they pointed to themselves believing it."

"As the millennia flew by and man grew ever more sophisticated, the idea that the world was controlled by a cast of invisible emotionally unstable supernatural beings grew laughable. Instead, the world was actually controlled by one invisible emotionally unstable supernatural being, known hereafter as God."

"[M]ythology, the name we gave to every collection of crazy nonsense stories besides our own."

"Abraham's devotion earned the Jews the title of 'God's Chosen People,' and nothing bad ever happened to them again."

I don't care who y'are, folks, that's funny right there.

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Cue John Williams:

The should-be-embarrassing truth is, almost everything you need to know about my personal search for meaning is symbolized by that thirty-second snippet of that silly little space opera for children. From the time I was old enough to think I felt something indescribably transcendent when I looked at the stars, or when I heard a passage of beautiful music, or when I beheld inspired art on a canvas or a stage or movie screen--even while stuck on a crowded freeway. This could not have happened by accident, I thought, and because I thought that and had no saner option at the time, I accepted the crazy fundamentalist nonsense stories of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Carl Sagan's Cosmos changed all that. Once evidence for evolution was presented to me both clearly and confidently, my faith in Genesis toppled like a tower of late-night Dirty Jenga bricks. Suddenly it all made sense. God used "natural" selection as the engine of creation. Genesis was simply a metaphor for...well...something, TBD, with the real truth revealed by our latter-day sciences. Yet learning about the cosmos, even evolution, did nothing to diminish my humility and awe at the grandeur of the universe or its stunning improbability. On the contrary, my knowledge enhanced it.

When I walk outside at night and look at the sky, my eyes find the constellations I learned to recognize way back in my bright-eyed childhood. They haven't changed, of course, no matter how much I have, and the right-hand V in the great W of Cassiopeia still points toward M31, the galaxy in Andromeda, a whirling swarm of stars almost three million light-years away. In one pixel of light, how many planets am I seeing? How many civilizations, each as wondrously rich as our own? How many cultures have lived and died, trilling their radio swan songs into the darkness? The light from those stars has taken so long to reach our eyes that the whole galaxy could be long gone by now. It's literally impossible to say.

To think the "meaning" of existence is that God put all that diversity and beauty and majesty out there for us to enjoy from the vantage of our one little chunk of a planet humbles the very concept of "preposterous." We're so arrogant, it seems most of our religions claim God demands our admiration. Like He needs it. Like He cares. Like we matter. Honestly, humans, get over yourselves. We're less than the lint on a quark hugging a molecule itching the leg of a microbe on a flea compared to anything of scale in this universe, and we're fools to think anything else.

Of course, Christians believe that with God's omnipotence and omnipresence comes infinite caring. I guess that's one way to rationalize it. Hell, maybe it's even true. But when I look at the night sky, I don't see the thumbprint of a Creator trying to win our affection. I see an implacable ocean of energy, the merest whim of which could instantaneously erase us from history at any moment. But it's there, right? It's all there. And it's just barely possible that we're the only mortal intelligence out here who can fully appreciate it, so where does that leave us? What do we do with all that awe and reverence?

What, after all, is the point of religion? For some, it's to ease the crippling realization of our own mortality. Gentle Reader, I don't want to die any more than you do, but any mortal human who claims he or she knows what comes after death--even those who were whispered that information by an alleged deity or who read about it in a popular book--well, they're selling you something, even if that something is shallow peace of mind. I don't know what comes after death. It's probably nothing. But doesn't that just tell us that whatever life means, it had better mean that now?

If God doesn't need us to love Him, why are we here? If God doesn't answer prayers, or if prayer represents our arrogant attempt to persuade God to vary from His perfectly preordained plan, then why do we do it at all? If God's ways surpass our understanding of simple decency and fairness, what good is He?

I can't answer those questions for you. I can't even confidently answer them for myself. But if I accept the idea (by no means proven, by the way, no matter what Descartes contended) that I and you and everything we know exist in the face of truly overwhelming odds against that existence, then I have to contemplate the Grand Cosmic How of it all. I have to ask how it could possibly be that the catastrophically entropic particulation of Big Bang expansion energy somehow wound up looking like Mount Rainier or my uncle Leon. I understand some of what the New Atheists (Dawkins, Hawking, et al.) say about the universe's ability to create without consciousness, but it somehow rings hollow to my limited ears and mind.

Am I saying I "feel" Something Out There? Well, yeah, I guess I am. Of course, "feeling" is not science. It isn't proof. It isn't even trustworthy in the context of ordinary human interaction, let alone the great mysteries of the universe. It isn't the kind of thing I can lay on a table to persuade you, and it sure isn't the kind of thing I'd feel good about forcing down your throat in a Crusade. It gives you the freedom to believe whatever you want, 'cause I could be wrong. I probably am. If there is a God, even I'm not conceited enough to think I know anything about Him.

But I am conceited enough to say you don't, either.

You don't know who or what God likes or dislikes. You don't know what kind of sexual behavior He prefers. You don't know how many days or years it took us to get here. You don't know whether God inspired your favorite book. You don't possess absolute metrics for right or wrong, good or bad. You don't know when life begins. You don't know whether we remain conscious after death. I don't, either, so we should really quit acting like we do, don't you think?

So what the hell is the meaning of life? One of my favorite quotes is from Robert Louis Stevenson, who said, "To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life." I guess if life does have a meaning--and I'm actually not a hundred percent sure it does--then I think Stevenson's on the right track. It ain't much, but it's believable. In a more poetic vein, "When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice." That's the Cherokee ideal.

I think much of what we need and seek in life is reflected in the faith we choose. I have no proof Amanda loves me and always will. I have no proof I'll always love her. But I need love, so I decide every day to believe something for which there is and can never be proof. The only difference between my belief in love and a fundamentalist's belief in a global flood is mine has a tiny little chance of being true. At the very least it's impossible to disprove, much like the Flying Spaghetti Monster or a deist God.

When I occasionally find myself in a church, I look around and wonder what people get out of it. They give up sleep and a Sunday morning at home in comfortable clothes to come sing dorky songs with grandiose lyrics, join in prayer for things they know they probably won't get, exchange pleasantries with people they'd generally ignore in other circumstances, and possibly share mediocre potluck food. Occasionally they open a popular book and read nonthreatening passages out loud, an activity they'd usually characterize as "über gay." Then they rush home to cuss at the TV through a violent, meaningless game of football while eating junk food and downing a few too many beers. So what's the point? Why do they go to all that trouble?

I think the point of church is, was, and probably always will be family. I think it's about letting people into your kin circle that haven't necessarily proven they deserve it yet. It's an act of faith and sharing. And sometimes, just every now and again, I miss it. Oh, not every church. Certainly not the Kingdom Hall or your average Wonder-bread Protestant church. But I can still clearly remember, even feel, the chill down my spine as the congregation rose for the Hallelujah Chorus. Rembrandt's "Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee" is as thrilling now as it was in 1863. The book of Job is one of the greatest things ever written by anyone anywhere, in any language. I believe it was a major influence on Hamlet, one of our other greatest things.

So here's what I want from a religion. I want it to make me a better person. That's job one. I want it to allow me to be completely honest, even to object when I believe it's mistaken. And I want it to make me happier. It may not sound like much, but if you think about it, perhaps you'll agree those are three giant, whoppingly difficult things to achieve. Christianity makes us happier till the day we can't believe it anymore, which for me came around age thirteen. Buddhism makes me a better person, but it still claims we reincarnate, which is really just a wild swinging guess designed to obfuscate the melancholy of death. Islam hasn't been honest about itself or much else since the early fourteenth century. Judaism's just Christianity for people stuck in the 500 BCs instead of the 100 ADs. Paganism promises outstanding sex but also requires chanting, which is pretty much impossible to take seriously. Still, the sex.

I need a religion that sees and expresses the poetry tucked inside all of life's prose. I need a religion that's sex-positive, which includes total acceptance of my gay friends. I need a religion that's humble and open-minded enough to accept new scientific discoveries as they're found, including the overwhelming evidence for evolution. I need a religion that's sane enough to admit it doesn't have a direct can-phone line to God. I need a religion with a sense of humor, ideally mine. I need a religion that doesn't take those weird verses in the Bible, or the Qur'an, or the Bhagavad Gita, seriously. (Gods with animal heads, even otherwise cool gods like Anubis or Ganesha, Lord of Beginnings, are right out. Scare tactics like the threat of hellfire and invisible demons in the sky are similarly obnoxious and juvenile.) I need a religion that inspires great art but doesn't suppress any unorthodox art, especially mine. I need a religion that values marriage and family but doesn't hold a grudge when things go south. I need a religion that thinks but seldom judges. I need a religion that notices when I'm absent, perhaps even misses me, but doesn't come snooping around my house to see what drove me away from the flock. Also, I need a religion that avoids the use of bizarre, outdated metaphors like "washed in the blood of the Lamb" or, for that matter, "the flock."

Basically, I guess what I'm asking for is a church that acts like Facebook, only live and in person. I don't know, Gentle Reader... Any suggestions?

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