What's Wrong With Prayer?

Actually, there's nothing wrong with prayer, in and of itself. It's a very personal communion between a person and the supreme being(s) one believes in. No, I have no problem with prayer. However, I do have an issue with the seemingly overwhelming desire some people of faith have to proclaim their particular brand of religion to everyone around them.  I was listening to the radio on the way to work last week and heard a quick snippet of a story about a brouhaha in Forsyth County, NC.

Apparently several years ago the county Board of Commissioners began to invite ministers to lead a brief prayer or invocation to 'solemnize' the proceedings. Well, not too long afterward someone attending one of these meetings apparently wasn't thrilled about the invocation of Jesus at a county government meeting.  The ACLU was contacted and legal hijinks ensued. Recently a Federal judge ruled that sectarian prayer be abolished during these meetings. You can imagine how this ruling was greeted by the theologically inclined in Forsyth county.

As I mentioned earlier, prayer is a uniquely personal choice. Not to put to fine a point on it, but one person's solemn invocation is another's act of heresy. What I am most amazed about is that between those who are in favor and those who are not, nobody seems to have considered the blindingly simple solution. A moment of silence. Those who want to pray can do so, silently to themselves. Those who don't can just take this bit of quiet time to clear their mind of the day's events, take a few deep breaths and focus on the coming meeting. Problem solved! This allows any Catholic, Protestant, Jew or Wiccan to pray as they feel is correct and allows those who don't to sit quietly and prepare for the proceedings.

Unfortunately I doubt this common sense solution would ever really solve the issue. Not because it doesn't allow for maximum inclusion with zero exclusion, but because the pro prayer individuals involved will take it as some sort of affront that they can't have a big, overt mass prayer. As if it's their right to subject a captive audience to a Christian worship service. They won't even have considered, before this issue arose, that some people might not want to hear about their version of faith. That those present might not care or may even find it offensive in some way. Proponents will see even my simple proposal as some sort of muffler on their religious freedom. This is, of course, absurd. All that's being muffled is their ability to push their form of faith on every single person present at a secular gathering.

I fully admit that I have issues with those who are particularly vocal about their own religious ideas. I'm not talking about a belief that comes up in conversation, because it can be enlightening to hear various points of view. I'm referring to the invasive evangelical style where a person of faith feels compelled to bring Jesus into every conversation. Or even more irritating, when someone decides to try and save the poor, misguided 'nonbeliever'. There seems to be this idea that freedom of religion grants those of faith, Christians especially,  carte blanche to shoe-horn overt prayer into all sorts of venues. Usually in a very vocal and intrusive manner. This seems normal and correct to them, of course, because they are very open about it and they can't quite embrace the fact that not everyone thinks of God in the same way.  It's a huge blind spot in their thinking. Some denominations seem to even feel it's a duty of some kind to 'save' the unbelievers among them by making a big sales pitch for God. I doubt many of the faith-full ever really stop to ponder how everyone else feels about this. In America, and I'm sure other places as well, there is this assumption that 'everyone' is a Christian. This assumption is blindingly false. We are most certainly not all Christian. Not to mention that some of us have zero interest in being a passive audience to someone else's beliefs. This doesn't mean I expect all signs of faith removed and hidden. It doesn't mean that I am enraged by a pre meal prayer. That would be stupid. What I do object to is the assumption of 'rightness' about squeezing Jesus or God into other's lives.

As I see it, the place for group prayer services is in a Church, Synagogue, Mosque or other house of worship as well as private gatherings composed of those of like faith. Or even one or a few in a quiet moment in the park. There is no place for it in a public, secular gathering and even less in a governmental setting like a local council meeting. These occasions bring groups of people together whose reason for attending is anything but religious. I know many will rise to the bait and point out that prayers are lead in the houses of Congress. So what? Doesn't make it right. This is a traditional holdover from a time when most everyone in a governmental position of power in the US was either a flavor of Christian or a very quiet atheist or agnostic. I suspect that down the road a bit, this bit of tradition will fall away as it's challenged by those members who don't fit into that 'Christian' mold.

The bottom line is that religion in general and prayer specifically is like a private conversation with your deity, and as such, I don't need or want to listen in. I also don't think it's polite to make a big show of your particular form of faith to a captive, and in more than a few cases, uninterested audience. There's also a level of arrogance involved in the assumption that everyone wants to pray to Jesus at the drop of a hat. Remember that old saying about not talking about religion or politics in mixed company? Company doesn't get any more mixed than a public meeting in America! Then there's my favorite phrase, separation of church and state. This certainly applies to a local government setting like this. Lets all just keep in mind that we live in a nation that's made up of all sorts of beliefs, and we'll all get along much better if we play our Faith a little closer to the vest.

Religious Wisdom from Jimmy Buffett

After posting my last entry, I was listening to a Jimmy Buffett playlist when I was struck by a verse from the song 'Fruitcakes'. Seemed to bear on what I had just posted. So here's the relevant verse that shows Jimmy's lyrical wisdom:


Religion! Religion! Oh, there's a thin line between Saturday
night and Sunday morning. Here we go now.
Alright, alter boys.

Mea Culpa Mea Culpa Mea Maxima Culpa
Mea Culpa Mea Culpa Mea Maxima Culpa

Where's the church, who took the steeple
Religion is in the hands of some crazy-ass people
Television preachers with bad hair and dimples
The god's honest truth is it's not that simple
It's the Buddhist in you, it's the Pagan in me
It's the Muslim in him, she's Catholic ain't she?
It's the born again look its the WASP and the Jew
Tell me what's goin on, I ain't gotta clue

All in the Details

To start off, let me be clear. When it comes to religion, I will often, jokingly refer to myself as a 'non practicing pagan'. Partly that's to indicate that I'm not a member of any particular religious order. It's also, I will admit, a bit of a slap to organized religion in general. This isn't to say I don't respect individual faith, whatever variation that faith follows. After all, nobody will know for sure what's what till we shuffle off this mortal coil.  Having said all that, can someone please explain to me why there has been, and continues to be so much animosity between the various monotheistic sects?! Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Mormon, and the seemingly 150 flavors of Protestant.

Look, I'm coming at this from the outside. I have no Catholic, Muslim, Jewish or Baptist agenda.  But I am amazed at the amount of distrust and friction between all the monotheistic faiths. And I don't get it! Really, I don't. Here's what I see. A whole slew of faiths that all believe in a single God. Correct? So they can all agree there's one God/Supreme Being/Universal Force, right? Sounds like on the most important point, there's full agreement! I mean, it doesn't matter what you call your God. Whether Yahweh or Allah or just God. Like Florence, Italy and Firenze, Italia. Different name, still the same city. So there's obviously no issue there!

The problems seems to start when you get to the Prophet v Son of God level. I'm not going to even pretend I am especially knowledgeable about the pantheons of the various faiths. But as I understand it, one of the big points that seems to set otherwise sane, people's brains on fire is the whole Jesus thing. Was he the Son of God, or simply a prophet? As a purely intellectual exercise in theology, I can see where you might want to debate it and quote this or that relevant passage. But come on, really? This is a huge deal in the grand scheme of faith? Every sect that believes he is the SoG can dig up things to support it and every one that doesn't can dig up just as many references that support the other side. So here's the question that would get me excommunicated, if I was Catholic anyway. Does it really matter, outside of an intellectual exercise? No matter which view you take, you'd have to agree that he's at least on God's board of directors! Does it matter if he's the CEO or only VP in Charge of Human Moral Enlightenment? Either way, isn't he's still your boss! And wouldn't you have to assume that any memos that come from him are at least approved by, if not actually copied & pasted directly from God's original email? Again, seems like it would only really matter to the bored theologian.

Then we get to the real minutia. All the rites, ceremonies and whatnot that are part and parcel with organized religion. We'll leave aside the fact that a lot of these were borrowed from historical pagan ceremonies in the interest of attracting more followers. I just find it hard to believe that God is going to give you the one way ticket to Hell, because you ate the wrong thing on the wrong day of the week. Or prayed in the direction of Melbourne instead of Mecca. Seems to me, the born again pagan, that if God loves His people, then I doubt he's going to strike them down for enjoying bacon on their cheeseburger or not wearing their church approved undergarments. I understand tradition, but when tradition becomes sacred it usually starts weaving wildly towards the edges of reason. Next thing you know we're burning people at the stake because they don't perform their sermons in Latin or don't trim their beards in the approved manner. To me, this seems like having capital punishment for parking in a loading zone.

I realize that there is more to some disputes and animosity than this. As the very accurate saying goes, 'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. And is there any greater power than that over your follower's souls? There have certainly been, and continue to be individuals who use faith as a cloak for the most base of human motives. We've seen that lately in people like Osama Bin Laden, who wave a Muslim flag yet is more interested in anarchy and power than anything theological. And humanity's bloody history provides many excuses for people to shroud vengeance in the righteousness of faith. But there is still a lot of disdain and arrogance well outside these examples. Like those who talk of America as a Christian nation and can barely tolerate any other religion. America is not a Christian nation. It is a Secular nation. And that, in my opinion, is one of the reasons it is a great country and has remained stable for over 230 years. Faith in the personal sphere has much to offer. Faith in the political sphere is a recipe for disaster.

In my personal, and predominantly secular, opinion, I think it's best to follow the old saying about keeping it simple. And in Faith, the 'simple' part is a belief in one Supreme Being. Period. That is the point where all monotheistic faiths meet and agree. It's the point where every Jew can agree with every Muslim and every Mormon can agree with every Catholic. And isn't this single point, the most important one? Is it just human nature to ignore commonalities and focus on differences? Look at the Catholic v Protestant split, almost five centuries ago. Both Catholic and Protestant sprang from the same history, the same stories and the same basic faith. But somewhere along the way a few disagreements on ceremony and flair erupted and soon thousands were dying at the hands of people who they had more in common with than not. Maybe I just don't 'get it'. Maybe there is some plane of enlightenment that I have yet to attain. If so, please educate me. Because all I see are people bludgeoning each other to death over turns of phrase and interpretations of interpretations of secondhand translations.