Theology needs to be “worked at.” Christianity has a lot to offer if you work to understand its past, its present, and its future. Theology is in context.

When I was finishing up my Ph.D. dissertation at Stony Brook, we had a great set of priests who didn’t buy into the latest bullshit, but concentrated on a synthesis of faith and intellect all tuned to Gregorian chants and some beer parties.

Fast forward to the Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa’s Newman Center, staffed by a gang of fire-breathing Jesuits just back from Central and South American Liberation Theology. Well, that was my heydey of involvement with organized religion. I even read Milton’s Paradise Lost. It was a lot like being in an academic department, just with a bit more ceremonial wine and bread.

Nowdays, all of us, including my priests from Stony Brook and Manoa, would be burned at the stake of religious conservatism and rank stupidity. So I have bailed out on all that jazz. Zen and the art of walking the dogs to the back of the mesa on a Sunday morning suits me just fine. Not to mention the dogs like it, and that counts for celestial brownie points.

Its actually kind of depressing to see how these industrial morons have dumbed it all down and sold it out to the same sort of fools that are taking over Asshatistan.

Peace be with you, and have a great Thanksgiving.

So Bruce, where did you work in BombTown?

Sadly most christians (maybe a few actually named Christian) forget that there is a simple rule that most major organized (and a few disorganized ones too) follow: do unto others as you would have them do to you. Or words to that effect. Seems that the ‘religions’ conveniently forget that when yelling about their relative largesse, merits, and oh so important, “better than the next guy.”

Give me a Zen moment riding down the trail in relative peace and quiet over the Sunday morning gymnastics of a Catholic Mass anyday. I gave up on organized, mainstream, Western, profit-driven religions two-and-a-half decades ago….and I don’t think I’ll go back. Unless ‘their God’ - as opposed to who else’s God? - can figure out a way to deal with nasty goatheads killing the Zen buzz with a dreaded hissing sound.

There are lots of churches out there trying to study and live up to the teachings of Jesus. The church will survive, but it must put up with those intent on merely pushing their own petty agenda. They do this all the while raking in the dollars. After all, there are bills to be paid and non-thinking people to be milked.