Checking Out Churches

GOING TO CHURCH has value,and I am glad I started a few months ago. I wish, and would like to have a few more folks in our congregation. One thing seems apparant: I should probably stick with the most "liberal" denomination I can, for compatibility. It may be that, with regard to the conservative, fundamentalist denominations, my disagreements with them and abhorrance of them stem more from politics than religion. It utterly appals me that more than eighty percent of American evangelical Christians evidently still support Donald Trump. It seems to me that they should support Bernie Sanders, AOC, or both. Jesus and Trump? Gimme a break, as they say. I'm not willing to argue with these people, but I am willing to hammer them with facts. Social Security is socialism, facts like that. Donald Trump is a convicted felon. Facts like that. There is simply no way to argue against facts like this, so, I refuse to do it. The twenty twenty election was not stolen from Trump, his claim that it was has always been and remains a big lie; no argument. I am unwilling to accept or respect anybody's beliefs which blatantly contradict proven reality, and embrace demonstrable falsehood. This includes the two most important facts which conservative fundamentalist Christians tend in large numbers to deny; climate change caused by human activity, and human evolution by natural selection. Anyone who denies either of these bedrock scientifically factual phenomena is simply self delusinal, by willlfully, willingly embracing falsehood. Whether and precisely how much social interaction I should have with such people is an entirely another question. As I have mentioned previously; many of them tend to be "wonderful" people; kind, nice, intelligent, and so forth. Religion becomes a problem when accepting its doctrines requires one to deny observable, provable reality, and to embrace nonsense and lies as fact, no matter how nice and kind you are. I find it very interesting that in America the people who support Donald Trump and the people who deny climate change and evolution tend to be the same people, and that they tend to have much less formal education than people who despise Trump, and accept the reality of climate change and evolution. College educated people tend to be against Trump, uneducated people tend to support him. Trump loves uneducated people, and said so, for a reason. Liberals, and college educated people tend to understand and acknowledge climate change and human evolution; less educated people more often do not. And no, all opinions are not equal, and whereas we are all entitled to our own opinions, we are not entitled to our own facts. Thus, there is a certain body of facts upon which everyone should agree, simply because they are facts. Another of these often inconvenient but unassailable facts is the fact that there are thousands of different religions in the world, that all religions are invented by people, and that books, all books, are written by human beings, not gods. Religious people who believe and claim that only their own specific religion that they embrace is valid and true are, it seems evident to me, arrogant, dishonest, self deluded. The Catholic Church, once upon a time, condemned Galileo to house arrest for looking through a telescope. Today, the church pays for and maintains a large investment in science, including astronomy, and owns and operates at least one very large, very useful telescope, with which our knowledge of the universe expands. This proves that any religion can change, grow, evolve. Arguably, those that do stand a much better chance of long term survival those those which do not.

Suddenly Socializing On New Years Day

NW YEARS DAY, I was happily ensconced at home, doing precisely what I had planned to do on this important holiday; sit at home, avoid all human contact, and enjoy the heck out of the day, with a combination of productive activities and pleasant recreational ones.I tried this formula on Cristmas Day, it worked like a charm, so I decided to do it again. Suddenly, at about ten o'clock in the morning, my door bell rang, and it was my good neighbor and friend, Jose, hard working family man from Guatemala. I greeted him, and warmly he invited me to come to his church, which is two blocks from my house, for a lunch time chili cook off, an event in which people sample various chile recipes from various crok pots, and voted on their favorite. I've been to a couple of those before. They're fun, so I told him I would be there. Every true American should attend a chili cook off, with or without an entry. I suspect that every true American already has. It was great timing. The previous day,New Year's Eve, I had undergone, quite successfully, my first ever and last ever colonoscopy, and was primed to return to my normal eating habits following a couple of days of miserable fasting and gut cleansing. Throughout my life I have generally been willing to accept invitations to church related events, but had never been a regular church goer until a few months ago, when I found a little church I like. I stil attend, but only a handful of other people attend my church, so, I am beginning to wonder what I would or will do if and when my little church ceases to function, and goes "out of business". Would I find another church? Or would I reert to my non church going ways? At the moment, I have no idea. For this reason, I am also inclined these days to visit other churches, churches which seem to have enough of a congregation to exist into the forseeable future, just to check them out, to see what's going on, and what the people are like. As we like to say, you never know. I believe, if I am not mistaken, that the "First Assembly of God" church, a nice big, brightly painted white building which seems to include a dormitory, is a Pentecostal church. If so, then there is a good or at least a decent chance that its members speak in tongues, handle snakes, and all that. All that is not for me, that is certain. But the people I met were very pleasant to me, and I am glad I had the chance to meet them. Pentecostals also ten to be, if I am not mistaken, politically, socially, and economically conservative, which is not for me either. Then too, if I am not mistaken, a high percentage of them, nationally, support Trump, insist that the Bible is the perfect, innerant Word of God, believe that the United States was extablishedtobe a Christian country and should be a Christian country now. They are often "Christian dominionists", and, as you might suppose, I have a hard time with that. In truth, I staunchly oppose it. I not only find many of their basic religious beliefs appalling, I find many if not all of their political beliefs even more so. I met and got into a conversation with a very attractive lady a couple of years older than I, whom I would like to see again. We talked about several things, including Social Security. At oen point she suggested that we change the subject, since everybody has their own opinions. I acceded to her request, but made it perfectly clear, that Social Security is socialism, pure socialism, and that any American, right wing or left wing, who receives Social Security is participating in and benefitting from socialism, no matter whether and how strongly the social securitiy recipient hates "socialism" and wants to "keep it out of America", as most conservatives indeed claim that they do. As if socialism weren't already here, everywhere, deeply imbedded, indispensible to all of us... I'm glad I made that point, and I hope to have a chance to make it again... and...again.

Ringing It In

I DON'T CLAIM to live the world's most exciting life. As far as I can remember, I was asleep at the stroke of midnight, the moment 2024 became 2025, another science fiction year. I haven't celebrated New Year's Eve in nearly forty years, as best I can remember. But I had a wonderful New Year's Eve this year. I had a colonoscopy. Seriously. Just like my doctors and everybody else told me in advance, the actual procedure isn't bad at all, its the prep which is horrible, drinking that vile liquid, going to the bathroom what seemed like thousands of times, not eating for nearly two days. It was wonderful when it was all over, and I coud begin eating again. I haven't stopped since. Its probably healthy to have your digestive system "cleaned out" once in a awhile. This was my first colonscopy,and my last. The doctor was a nice young man in his forties, and he asked me, "You're sixty nine, and this is your first?" When I said "yes", he said "better late then never", or something like that. I don't have to do it again for ten years, since I had no polyps, and I can use the home "Colon Guard" method then, which I think I will. I spent my Christmas Day without even a single word of human contact, and I spent New Year's Eve having a colonoscopy, and I enjoyed the holiday season enormously. I have just about decided that being happy, under all circumstances is largely merely a matter of choosing to be. For all appearances, we and the entire world are in a desperate situation, what with all the wars, economic disasters, natural disasters, and so forth. Plus, on top of all that, Donald Trump and his criminal gang, by which I mean him, his associates, advisors, supporters, and the entire Republican party and MAGA organizatsion, is on the verge of coming to power, real power. The only recourse is to pay close attention to anything and everythign they do or try to do, and react accordingly. "Accordingly" will, undoubtedly, for the most part, consist inactive, indeed strenuous opposition. However, on the other hand, it might not. Like I told a dear friend and fellow Trump hater, we must always give credit where credit is due. If, for instance, for some incredible reason Donald trump awakens one fine day and is suddenly a good person, all the better, embrace it. Somebody told me quite recently that Trump has seid something about letting workers, good hard workers, remain in the country, even if they are undocumented, "illegal" immigrants, rather than automatically deporting all of them, all eleven million of them. I hope this is true, that he is reconsidering. If he follows through on mass deportation, it will seriously harm our economy. If he fails to carry out his mass deportation of illigeal Hispanic immigrants, as he repeatedly has promised , many of his most ardent anti-immigrant MAGA members might not be happy. Also, Trump has indicated that he would not sign into law a national ban on abortion. That might not make his ultra socially conservative evangelical religious fanatics happy. Throughout the MAGA ranks there are many who want to completelly ban abortion in the United States, and many more who want to deport all eleven million illegal immigrants. These are not the only issues on which there is likely to be a split in the MAGA Republican ranks. Climate change, the most pressing issue of all, is gaining acceptance by a growing number of conservatives, who want to address it, and yet, Trump has chosen to cast his political lot with the climate denier crowd, which will soon prove to be a serious mistake. The year twenty tewnty five must be the year in which we all agree that we have serious problems, but that if we all work together, they can be solved.