By Incongruous Circumspection ~ T he other night, I was talking to a gentleman about nothing and everything. We spoke of current events, the economy, Israel, taxes - you name it. Then, the conversation led to how I treat people in positions of authority. I lamented the fact that many people I know tend to view their bosses as a sort of master and become "yes" individuals, losing all sense of creativity or individuality. As in the book, "The Five Dysfunctions of the Team", you see that this is not only bad for the individual's career, but the company they work for will suffer. Disagreement is paramount. Differing viewpoints that can and do lead to constructive disagreement. The company that relies on god-like management is a company that will be caught up in slow or stagnant growth, or fail altogether. I mentioned how I treat my job differently and used the unfortunate words, "I don't respect authority very well." To that, this gent...

By Incongruous Circumspection ~ I know. Shocking. Actually, it's not really that big a deal. As a child of a fundamentalist and crazy Mama, my brain told me she knew everything about me because she wielded such heavy-handed power and control. If I was fifty states away from her, I would still feel as if her watchful eye was hovering above me, waiting for me to screw up, just to give her the chance to bring that boar-bristle, hardwood brush down on my head (thankfully cushioned by my wavy and thick locks). But she never did. I kicked my own arse by telling her about all my infractions when I would get home. She didn't even have to ask. I just did it. It felt cleansing. Like admitting all your impure thoughts about ice cream during lent, to a priest. So, naturally, I thought that all parents of all children kept track of everything their kids did and learned. I know now that most of those fundamentalist parents lived in a state of denial, while their kids hi...

By Incongruous Circumspection ~ I n the fundamentalist teachings I grew up in, we were taught that we were sinners. Vile, filthy sinners. Everything that we did in life that would be considered good by human standards was worthless. We were nothing without God. God had killed his son, Jesus Christ, because there was obviously no other way he could forgive us of our sins, without Jesus' blood lovingly washed over them. (Ah...the fixation on blood to clean stuff. I won't get into how asinine that idea is.) Unfortunately for us, God just killing his son and running the blood all over the place to do it's cleaning work, wasn't enough. We still had to say we believed in the whole idea. If we didn't, we went to hell. Yep. An eternal slow cooker, thrown into a bunch of fire, along with all these scary spirits called demons. Never mind that only the privileged few that could read or simply be in the right spot at the right time to hear the truth caused billi...

By Incongruous Circumspection ~ T heology, the foundation of any religion, is easily spaghettified by any generation that needs to twist it into the status quo. Sometimes, the old guard fights back and recruits young-uns to wave the banner flag for their cause, becoming more shrill as the rest of humanity moves on. The following is a typical conversation one might have with a layperson of Christianity, where there is no "winning" the argument because, after all, theology can answer everything. Skeptic: If you claim that we can look at our bodies and see God's handiwork, because of the perfectly functioning systems, all working together, why is there cancer? Believer: Because, when Adam and Eve sinned, destruction started to happen in our bodies, due to the curse ( jargon ). Skeptic: Wait! Two things. First, if sin is what causes cancer, then, when we are without sin, in Christ (jargon tossed in here for effect), why do we still get cancer? Second, if ...

By Incongruous Circumspection ~ A good friend of mine leaned back in his chair and said the following profound statement: "[God] made an appearance for 'Doubting Thomas', why not me?" Francesco de' Rossi's painting 'The Doubting of St. Thomas' (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Recently, I have been engaging friends and strangers in conversations about proof of the existence of the god of the Bible. Of course, nobody I have spoken to has ever seen him and thus have to resort to axiomatic arguments. "The Bible proves that God exists because he said he wrote it and thus, he did." My counter to that is simple. Many holy books and religious leaders say the exact same thing. They state that their religion is true, even exclusive to other religions. Sometimes, they even go as far as the writers of the Bible and say that you're a fool if you don't agree with them. I find these written statements to be quite presumptuous on the writ...

By Incongruous Circumspection ~ P icture this: I'm a teenager, rebellious as all get out. I can't stand my mother because all she does is sit in her room, doing her nails, twirling her hair, and complaining to my dad that she doesn't have enough powder on her puff. On the other hand, I love my dad and feel sorry for the way she treats him. He works hard for the family and yet gets zero credit from the woman he loves. And he loves her deeply. He's told me so. Her shenanigans fall off his back like water on a duck. But I'm not going to say anything. I'm Jewish and the year is 31 CE . I am well aware of Jewish law which states that, should I give my parents the evil eye, they can drag me down to the temple and have me stoned while they watch. I want to live. But something is curious about this point in history. I hear there is this man named Jesus, traveling the countryside, winning converts to this new way of thinking. Everyone around here is ...

By Incongruous Circumspection ~ I f the Holy Bible , as we know it today, formed by counsels of men (no women), with agenda of their own, with simple majority votes for what to include and what to discard, were the Scriptures referred to in 2 Timothy 3:16, we would expect that those said Scriptures would make sense. After all, if the Bible is God-breathed, wouldn't we expect that nothing in those pages would ever contradict itself? Bible in candlelight. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) In simple terms, we can declare that a contradiction proves a fallacy. If a statement about something is true and yet another statement about that something contradicts the first statement, one of those statements must be false. It doesn't necessarily disprove the something being statemented, but it does prove that the two statements are both false until one of them can be proven true, rejecting the other. Unfortunately, the Bible cannot, as a single organism, be declared to be contradict...

By Incongruous Circumspection ~ A week ago, my one-year old daughter dumped a scalding hot thermos of coffee down the front of her shirt. It was entirely my fault and I was devastated. Luckily, her burns were only minor with two small spots where it burned through to the fourth dermis layer. It has healed quickly and she is on the fast track to recovery. Unfortunately, the lasting effect is that we have to monitor the worst areas for the next two years so they don't get sunburned. Then, we're home free. The doctors do not expect any scarring, which is the most important factor to me. The outpouring of support we received was phenomenal. Relatives called from all over the country, friends contacted us from overseas. Inquiries were made to relatives of our relatives to check up on their little granddaughter. It warmed me from the ends of my rarely clipped toenails to the tips of my graying locks. But, my wife did receive one letter that made me fall out of my ...

By Incongruous Circumspection ~ A fter openly moving out of Christianity and becoming an agnostic, concluding that the Bible is nothing more than a fascinating mess of paper and ink, I have been asked the following question again and again: "Why do you bother talking about God or the Bible when you don't even believe in it?" Actually, it usually doesn't come in the form of a nice question but rather an angry command to quiet my voice. Of course, I won't pretend that what I write has much of an influence outside of the few who read it, but you would think, by the potency of the words coming at me, I was akin to the Anti-Christ. I'm not going to lengthily address the question of why people might do this because the answer to that is quite simple. When someone is wholly devoted to something that completely defines their life, or more importantly, defines their life after death, anything that questions the logic of the crumbling pillars that props that...

By Incongruous Circumspection ~ M essage: The rhetoric of the day from fundamentalist Christianity, the American religious right, and others is that the god of the Bible, whom they serve, hates homosexuality. Some say that he even hates homosexuals themselves. They have good reason to. It says so in the Bible. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. - Leviticus 20:13 Other passages in the New Testament section of the Bible condemn homosexuality, as well, even stating that you will not be able to get into heaven if you're gay (We won't mention drunkards, idolators, adulturers, fornicators, thieves, etc. You're all going to hell too.) So, the logical conclusion for a Christian is to say that god hates homosexuals, wants them dead, and even better, the issue is reiterated in the New Testament, validating the issue. I would argue that you are wrong - dead wrong. First of all, as ...

By Incongruous Circumspection ~ A dam and Eve sinned in Genesis 3. They ate the cumquat fruit that was forbidden and it says their eyes were opened, meaning they realized something - they were naked as the noonday sun. Oddly, nakedness had no meaning to them until they disobeyed God, who tempted them, even though he doesn't tempt mankind, until they sinned. Thus they frantically sewed hula skirts together with fiberglass rope and created the first Scottish kilts for men. When God came back to the garden, knowing everything, and yet not being able to find Adam and Eve, he cursed all he could find to curse and then made proper pantaloons for Adam, and a pastel blue, triple breasted, plain dress for Eve. Adam was also given a button-down, long-sleeved shirt with crisscrossed threads clasping the collar shut, in lieu of a button. For undergarments, Adam was allowed to wear none whereas fashioned for Eve was a burlap petticoat and large elastic granny undies. Adam was allowe...