{"id":128,"date":"2013-10-22T23:39:56","date_gmt":"2013-10-22T17:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/?p=128"},"modified":"2013-10-22T23:39:56","modified_gmt":"2013-10-22T17:39:56","slug":"the-honeymoons-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/2013\/10\/22\/the-honeymoons-over\/","title":{"rendered":"The Honeymoon\u2019s Over"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h2>\n
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Any other sprinters out there?\u00a0 I used to be a sprinter.\u00a0 I\u2019d jump into new projects and commitments with joy and zeal, until I encountered difficulty, discomfort, resistance or boredom.\u00a0 I\u2019m not like that anymore.\u00a0 I have stamina, discipline, willingness and tolerance for setbacks and dry spells.\u00a0 I\u2019ve found these are necessary for many worthwhile activities.\u00a0 When I joined my church last November, our minister said (as he does at every new-member ceremony):\u00a0 \u201cWelcome, but you\u2019re really a member when you become disappointed with us, and stay anyway\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I joined, I had no problem committing my time, energy and money to what they were doing in the community.\u00a0 I still don\u2019t, but this morning\u2019s sermon ended the honeymoon.\u00a0 Our minister spoke about prayer.\u00a0 Not just prayer, but an idolatrous, \u201cwhat-harm-can-it-do-if-I-bury-a-St-Joseph-statue-to-help-sell-my-house-in-a-depressed-market-ahead-of-other-equally-needy-sellers?\u201d prayer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That\u2019s right.\u00a0 Our progressive, liberal minister, worried about selling his house, succumbed to the \u201cwhat can it hurt?\u201d rationalization and actually voted with his $8.95 by buying a St Joseph statue (pictured).\u00a0 He buried it and said the prayer.\u00a0 Everyone laughed, including him.\u00a0 He told it like, \u201cI know it\u2019s silly!\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s not just silly.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to say I was horrified, but to object in this liberal environment just makes me look humorless. But this is one way that bad ideas in religion survive.\u00a0 They are packaged to appear innocuous.\u00a0 Cigarette advertisers have nothing on religion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written about prayer before.\"248925_2107369046414_2283475_n\"<\/a> \u00a0The problem with prayer boils down to \u201chow do we relate to the powerful, but unfair, figures in our lives?\u201d\u00a0 My view is that, even if God exists, it is wrong to seek his aid because he doesn\u2019t treat people fairly.\u00a0 Further, should my request really jump to the top of the list?\u00a0 I can\u2019t find a way to pray that is consistent my other values, like social justice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I ran this by two Unitarians today.\u00a0 They saw my point, but said, \u201cThen why do you come to this church?\u201d\u00a0 Their question sounded odd in a Unitarian hall.\u00a0 Unitarians like to say everyone is welcome, but the sectarianism is there.\u00a0 We are more inclusive than other churches, but not entirely inclusive.\u00a0 For one thing, we don\u2019t like exclusivity, even in the realm of ideas.\u00a0 I asked these people how they would react to a person who thought that 2+2=4 AND 2+2=5.\u00a0 I never get over being surprised, but they gave the standard Unitarian answer:\u00a0 \u201cI would respect their right to believe it.\u201d\u00a0 My reply was, \u201cThey can\u2019t believe it.\u00a0 If they embrace contradiction, they lose all credibility.\u00a0 The next time we meet them, they could say the opposite and we would have to embrace that, too.\u00a0 Claims should make sense or we can\u2019t even communicate without willful ignorance.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They nodded.\u00a0 It seems that Unitarian-style tolerance includes ignoring obvious problems with ideas.\u00a0 Now, it\u2019s obvious that certain problems bother some people and not others.\u00a0 This is a matter of values.\u00a0 I admit that many people embrace contradiction, but I don\u2019t accept that it is tolerant or loving to ignore it.\u00a0 In areas other than religion, it is a crime to ignore contradictions.\u00a0 When we do our taxes, we can\u2019t turn in two different versions and say they are both correct.\u00a0 We shouldn\u2019t hold our beliefs about God to a lower standard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, my view is that our minister is openly holding a contradictory position.\u00a0 On one hand, he is a tireless and effective worker for social justice.\u00a0 He is rightly proud that he has officiated at many gay weddings, including the first one in Iowa.\u00a0 On the other hand, he won\u2019t repudiate prayer.\u00a0 He said something like this:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Did saying the St Joseph prayer help sell our house?\u00a0 I won\u2019t say yes or no.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He went on to say that prayer might have something to it, no matter what we believe.\u00a0 I can go along with that.\u00a0 But we must part ways with gods who play favorites.\u00a0 And that means we shouldn\u2019t give credence to prayer or say it is harmless when the implication is that it will somehow divert power to our pet project.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Any other sprinters out there?\u00a0 I used to be a sprinter.\u00a0 I\u2019d jump into new projects and commitments with joy and zeal, until I encountered difficulty, discomfort, resistance or boredom.\u00a0 I\u2019m not like that anymore.\u00a0 I have stamina, discipline, willingness and tolerance for setbacks and dry spells.\u00a0 I\u2019ve found these are necessary for many worthwhile […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}