The God Question, Part 3

Now, at 46, I find myself lost in limbo. Intellectually, I cannot fathom that anything but evolution has gotten us to this point. Science is our savior and also the destroyer of faith. Genetics, the human genome, and a myriad of other scientific breakthroughs have taken us to a place where we know almost everything about the origin and history of our species. When I compare this knowledge to Biblical myths, my rational mind cannot accept the theocratic dogma as anything but an interesting story.

But I’m also a moral coward, and cannot let go of the faint possibility that something exists beyond the death of our physical bodies. While I have absolutely no faith in the Bible or the Koran- I’m not ready to declare myself an atheist. Call it hedging my bets, but I just cannot make that leap with some of the weird things that have been recorded regarding near-death experiences and that haunting sense of déjà vu I sometimes get that I’ve been somewhere else in another place and time.

Without an afterlife, what is the value of our lives? Why should we go through the motions of being our brother’s keeper if we aren’t accumulating tickets to Heaven? If there isn’t some tangible reward for good behavior, why bother? This is a question that haunts me as I vacillate between god versus nothingness. Do the horror and atrocities of two thousand years of religious hypocrisy outweigh the threat of damnation that has kept most of us walking the straight and narrow path for centuries? If we all woke up tomorrow and declared that God and Heaven are myths, would we become a civilization of murderers and thieves?

I can’t answer that question, but I’m relatively certain that we would not, as a species, degenerate into a horde of barbaric misanthropes, ala Attila the Hun. While it is true that the Bible (at least the New Testament) has a code of ethics that we would all be wise to follow, there is something beyond the Ten Commandments that is instilled in most of us, some innate understanding that human decency is part of our genetic code, and without it, we have no future and no chance of sustaining the human race.

Several months before my dad died from cancer, he told me in a moment of candid honesty on the golf course, that he didn’t believe in God, Heaven or Hell. His revelation didn’t surprise me. He had never been very religious, despite a strict Catholic upbringing, and he was always one of the most pragmatic people I had ever known. His statement also didn’t make me feel any better or worse about his impending death. It did make me realize that we are all lost when it comes to the question of faith and the possibilities of life just coming to an end.

So, my long search for spiritual truth has led me to the brink of intellectual freedom and the fear of a life that will end abruptly, without conscious transition to another dimension. I am paralyzed. Secular humanism is the factual light at the end of the tunnel, yet I find myself trapped in a self-imposed purgatory, caught between the truth of science debunking the religious fantasy and the fear that there is something beyond the light.

I’m very uncomfortable in this place, but I’m stuck here for now.

Limbaugh Crawls Back Out From Under His Rock

Eight years of shitty Republican governance sure goes by fast when your chilling on Oxycontin and getting pinched for the illicit possession of Viagra in a third world country. I guess all of those illegally acquired prescription pills must have sent you into the mother-of-all hibernations. Or perhaps you went on a little eight year journey in search of your soul, and of course, came up empty-handed.

What in the hell got you to crawl back out from under that rock? Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House? Harry Reid as Majority Leader in the Senate? Was it watching televised same sex marriages take place in the Northeast while you were sporting a three Viagra erection?

No, of course not. It was the election of Barack Obama, and gasp- not only is Barack a Democrat, but he’s black, and he’s from the Daley-fueled infernos of Chicago!

Limbaugh and his band of nutty neocons finally have the highest of all political figures to chat about and malign. The thinly-veiled racism of Rush has come back with a muted flourish now that he and his fourteen million Neanderthal listeners can dig their pressed, white sheets out of the closet (of course, one-third of all Republican males were already in there) and call once again for the White Male Revolution.

Rush Theater is back in business, and the lobotomized right-wingers are lining up in droves to buy tickets. He even looks like the old Rush, fat as hell and fun-tanned. I guess the brief version of the slimmed down bozo came to an end when he discovered that Oxycontin gives you the munchies worse then getting high in a rusting Cavalier while sitting in the parking lot of the local Pizza Hut.

After a brief monologue of unadulterated, narcissistic self love, Rush opens his new production to the mad applause of five hundred white males in cheap suits, nine sheep, and a shady-looking character named Doctor E. Rection.

Act One: “I hope he fails (President Obama).”

Rush wants the country to die a slow, four year death, because unemployed white guys don’t have anything better to do than to listen to Rush Limbaugh. Higher unemployment means higher advertising rates for all of the pharmaceutical companies who target his audience of flaccid, heart-troubled goobers.

Act Two: The Emasculation of RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

Thirty days into his chairmanship of a party that is crawling around the front yard looking for that lucky Budweiser pull-tab, Steele had the misfortune of telling CNN Host D.L. Hughley that Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush immediately went on the offensive and twenty-four hours later had Steele groveling at his feet. I guess this Republican Icon's new moniker should be “Rush Limbaugh of Nazareth.”

Act Three: “Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill."

This comment was made in reference to the proposed health care revisions anticipated by the Obama Administration. Senator Edward Kennedy is fighting a debilitating battle with brain cancer, and Rush Limbaugh is a compassionless prick.

“Rush is da man!”

“Rush is Right!”

The production ends with loud roars of applause as the genetically challenged audience gives their God-King a standing ovation while collectively wondering if Avacor makes a magic pill that will repopulate the pubic hair on their itchy, wrinkled ball sacks.

Keep up the good work, Rush. Keep talking and keep loving yourself. The Tony Awards are only three and a half months away…