This is why I avoid mainstream news. If this is MSNBC’s idea of something important enough to poll, then I have absolutely nothing in common with their target audience. Angels? Angels? Come on…seriously? Kids outgrow the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, and Santa…why do so many adults not outgrow the belief that invisible, mystical beings are roaming about the earth, doing shit for people? Oh, wait–it’s because a heavily edited version of stories written by ignorant Bronze Age desert tribesmen says it’s so.

I understand the whys of religion; why they still exist. Religions are a way to believe that our lives are “special” and serve a purpose greater than whatever we believe our purpose may be on earth. They’re a way to absolve ourselves of responsibility for our own actions because when we fuck up, we can say it’s because Eve ate the fruit and Invisible Sky Daddy got pissed, so we’re all sinners now. It’s a way to make sense out of bad things happening to good people (“It’s part of god’s plan, but we’re human, so we can’t understand”), and a way to feel like we have some control over what kind of things happen to us. If we please Invisible Sky Daddy and do what he told us to do, we’ll be rewarded; if not here on earth, then in heaven. It’s a way to hold onto the hope that things can get better when they’re very, very bad (there’s a reason that gospel was so popular with slaves in the south). It’s also a way to satisfy the need to “belong” to a group. If you think about it, there’s really not too much difference between two troops of monkeys and two different religions. Troop A will protect its territory and its members, and fight with Troop B for dominance. So will Christianity, and Judaism, and Islam, and…there’s really not that much difference. What I don’t understand is…why? Why does a human life have to serve a greater purpose than simply living ours the best way we can? I’m a biological accident (ask my parents…heh), and I’m one among something like 6.4 billion, but that doesn’t mean my life isn’t important, or that it doesn’t mean anything. In the grand scheme of things, it’s entirely insignificant, but to the people in my life, it is important, just as their lives are important to me. I have a moral compass and don’t need the fear of reprisal from some invisible being to make me behave. Nobody needs to tell me “Thou shalt not kill,” because I already know I don’t have the right to take someone else’s life, any more than someone else has the right to take mine. I figured out as a young child that stealing was wrong, and I wasn’t afraid of $deity’s wrath, either. I figured it out because when Kelly and Darrin took my toys and wouldn’t give them back, that sucked, so it wasn’t a great intellectual leap to decide that maybe it would suck for someone else if I took their stuff. Didn’t hurt that the time I was five or six and stuck a colouring book in the bag as we left the store, Dad found it when we got home and made sure I’d never do it again by packing me and said colouring book into the car, driving all the way back to the store and making me tell the manager that I’d taken it. That was far, far worse than any spanking he could have given me. A spanking…I’d have forgot that in time, but having to look up at the store manager and say, “I stole this”…that, I’ll remember my whole life. Dad wouldn’t even pave the way for me, either; he got the manager and made me tell him what I’d done. I don’t remember what the manager said to me, only how hard it was for me to say the words. I suppose there are people who’d say Dad was cruel for doing that, but I learned that first time, and I learned for life. When John was around that age, he stole money from his brother’s piggy bank and spent it on (something she didn’t remember). His mother gave him hell, but replaced Terry’s money herself and didn’t tell Terry. Mistake. He was a little kid, sure, but old enough to learn. John was killed when we were 28, but in all those years, he never learned that if it isn’t yours, you mustn’t take it.

Anyway, I digress (as I am wont to do). My point is that in order for (e.g. Christianity) to be do-able in the 21st century, one must cherry-pick the bits that still apply. Interpret the Bible literally, and we wouldn’t be wearing easy care poly-cotton blends, I wouldn’t be looking forward to the lobster, shrimp and scallops (and smoked salmon, though that’s not a shellfish) that came all the way from Nova Scotia yesterday (and oh, I am looking forward to NOM-ing all of it!), I’d have slaves, and co-wives, and I’d have to marry Pete if anything happened to Patrick. This is not the desert 2000 years ago, and we know so much more than they did back then. It’s time to grow up…we don’t need angels anymore, or $deity, or fear of retribution to make us behave. I don’t, at least, but I surely do wish the rest would catch up with those of us who outgrew obedience to daddy by the time we were adults. Sure, I love my dad, but I have my own mind and my own morals, and I’m an adult, capable of logic and reason, and of understanding that it’s okay if human society doesn’t know everything yet. Five hundred years ago, if you went to a doctor for a headache, chances were pretty good that he’d prescribe leeches, since it was probably that you had too much blood in your head. Now, we have aspirin and Tylenol for minor headaches, CAT scans and MRIs if doctors suspect it’s something serious, and lots of options in between. It doesn’t have to be a choice between “an explanation for everything” and “we know nothing”; it’s okay if we know some stuff, but haven’t figured it all out yet. “We don’t know why” doesn’t have to be “God did it,” and if a child recovers in a hospital and doctors can’t figure out why, that doesn’t mean we should be looking for angels in the corridors. It just means we don’t know…yet.