On the big guy upstairs

Maybe it was being told by an angry nun that I was evil and going to hell for being involved in a food fight before Sunday school. Or getting my ass chewed out by a priest before Confirmation because I admitted to not going to church EVERY week [except during CYO basketball season since our coach took attendance]. But at some point I stopped taking comfort in the earthly aspects of religion. Being inside a church no longer felt like a sacred, holy place but rather a venue by, for and of men. I wish it were otherwise but you can't fake it, or at least, I won't. But I know how much comfort and strength faith gives to those who let it into their hearts. And there's no question that I believe in God and that my strength of character is the result of my Catholic upbringing. Still, I am firmly in the camp of the religiously ambivalent.

Having said that, I have lost count of how many lefties in NYC I have verbally dropkicked over their lack of tolerance and abject ignorance as to the role religion plays in the lives of people who don't give a flying fuck about carbon offsets or fair trade coffee. There is something positively deranged about people who feel intellectually superior to those of deep faith. The enlightenment, by contrast, has brought forth innumerable secular lunacies and death on an epic scale that make the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition pillow fights by comparison. And there is ample research to indicate practicing Christians are far less apt to buy into supernatural phenomena, conspiracy theories, astrology, feng shui, reincarnation, karma and the rest than are atheists or agnostics. Needless to say, I found this video highly enjoyable as a rebuttal to the imbecilic prattle about Sarah Palin on the part of the, cough, reality-based community.