burden of the believer

So I wanted to weigh in with a pro religious institution blog,...don't worry the blog hasn't been hijacked, I just felt after I read God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens, that he left out some really important elements that blur the debate,...and I enjoy complicating an already insanely complicated issue so, let the blurring begin

I had a conversation with someone recently who revealed to me that bringing up a child in a church that has an existing community acting as a support system that at least on the surface purportedly shares his belief system helped take the burden off of trying to weed their way through social friends hoping to find couples that shared similar morals and values with him and his wife. It was help they needed when she came home with the baby and it took all their energy just to keep up, and through the church community help is what they got. It boiled down to helping their brothers and sisters in faith, and for this help they got to welcome a new recruit into their religious community.

Religion as an institution brings people together to celebrate a commonality of spirit in a very compartmentalized society. Similar to war, people from drastically different backgrounds can find themselves sitting next to each other at a sunday sermon and surprisingly find that we're not so different afterall-WOW who would have guessed a former hells angel would have bought the same spritual ticket that i did? neat o! there is something beautiful about this meeting of the minds,...I only hope that this meeting of the minds doesn't hinge on leveling judgements about those who DIDN'T buy the same ticket that they did, as I witnessed more times than i'd like to recall.

Peace of mind, I was just told today that when i change the way i look at things those things change. I thought to myself, wow what a slick bumpersticker that would be.
I'm imagining this car moving forward now I can move forward and BAM!

The world is a complicated place, religious institutions act as a funnel for all the insanity of living in this sped up consumer existence. Pouring all the murky world's problems into a divine bucket and sifted from this bucket is perspective, a divinely sifted perspective on the world. When you have a divine bucket to trust at your disposal who would want to wade into the murky world and try to sift out perspective on your own? The bucket knows best,...

Scientists who are believers,... If science has proven anything its that what we know today most likely will be improved upon if not completely shattered tomorrow. Leap frogging our way into the void even the most rational minds i'm sure seek an absolute an answer to it all. That's the seeker in all of us. To pull up short and say i could go on, but why? This is a testement to the human spirit, to imagine the vastness of our ignorance is stupefying even to the most educated of individuals. So why not stop drop to your knees and say "well,...just in case I believe."

the power of placebos never ceases to amaze me,...