The Book Of Mormon musical

i haven't seen it, but would love to. i recently got the soundtrack to it so i thought i would share some of my favorite songs.

then the main characters get sent to Uganda

Love it!!!

reading about religion part 3 (christianity)

     i grew up in southern california where i was surrounded by christians. my grandparents are methodists, my parents went to church with them but weren't super into it, i was baptized methodist, and have vague memories of sunday school from a really early age. even then, i think my brother and i found a way of playing alone without listening to all the church stuff around us. my parents stopped taking us regularly to church when i was still pretty young and then we only had to go for christmas because it was important to my grandparents. for years we either brought video games to play, or played with the little flashlights that took the place of the candles (and pretended to be in star wars), or we wrote notes on whatever paper we could find instead of listening to whatever the dude in front had to say. the singing part was fun, except i didn't know any of the words or how to find the songs in the book. 

     i had heard the sort of general stories about christmas over the years but only had a vague idea of what it was for a long time. i think i was a teenager when i was in church, passing notes with my cousin when i asked her to explain the whole thing. i was dumbfounded. it made no sense to me. i couldn't understand why anyone would believe that. the more i heard about stories from the Bible, the more confused i was as to how anyone could believe these stories to be historical fact. to me they made more sense as fables: morals to be learned from interesting and exaggerated stories, but not fact to be taken seriously. who would believe that?

     i guess you could say that my parents have become sort of mystics. they don't take doctrine too seriously, or follow it at all, and they feel their personal experience with God is way more important to their spirituality. my mom has told me about a spiritual experience she has when she was 19. since it is her experience, i won't be the one to tell it. but the overall feeling of the experience was the overwhelming realization that God is unconditional love. that's it. she realized there was no need to go to church every weekend and worry too much about what the bible or any other religion had to say on the matter. and as a kid i remember her telling me that all i needed to know was that God was unconditional love. since i felt that from my parents, i knew what that was and had no need to delve any deeper into it. 

     my parents raised me without this idea of heaven and hell to keep me from doing "bad" things. they taught me their ethical views and realized that learning from my mistakes was more important than scaring me into behaving correctly. i don't believe in heaven and hell and, therefore, the idea of "sin" makes no sense to me. we all make mistakes and we all have to opportunity to learn from them to become better people. why punish ourselves with guilt over past mistakes if we have learned from them? this is the main reason why i could never be a Christian. according to Stephen Prothero, in Christianity the problem with the human condition is "sin" and the answer that Christianity provides is "salvation." since i don't see the mistakes i make in life as sins, i could never need salvation. 

     the book God Is Not One goes into a lot of detail on Christianity, and so much of it is confusing to me. i literally wrote a bunch of question marks in the book next to several paragraphs because i just don't get it. lets go all the way back to the 10 commandments. i remember reading them on some weird christian jewelry my mom had tucked away from her childhood and wondering what the hell it was talking about. if you wanna understand my point of view on the subject, you just gotta watch this:  

     the story of Jesus baffles me too. i get that he was a guy with some good ideas who became a spiritual leader. but the details make no sense. ok, you like him a lot, i guess it makes sense that he is "the son of God" or something along those lines. but the story just sounds like one exaggeration after another. and i have never understood the whole crucified for your sins thing. the book says that He was a "savior whose suffering and death paid the price of human sin and offered us salvation." what the hell does that mean? if there's a train of thought there, i can't follow it. so this nice guy was killed by Romans who disagreed with him. how does that lead to the whole sin and salvation thing? obviously i haven't read up too much on this. but that has largely to do with instantly becoming confused and bewildered when i try. 

     and other things confuse me too. the whole garden of eden/apple thing is just strange. why give them fruit they aren't supposed to eat in the first place? and how can eating an apple be bad if it keeps the doctor away? and then the whole apocalypse/jesus returning thing doesn't make any sense to me either. in the book it says, "But the workings of God in human history will not be fully revealed until Jesus returns and the dead are called out of their graves and separated along with the living into the saved (who go to heaven) and the damned (who go to hell)." first of all, this sounds slightly zombie-ish. and then this idea that they aren't separated till He returns to earth. does that mean that everyone who has died so far is just hanging out, waiting to go to either heaven or hell? because i thought they said it was pretty instant, this heaven or hell thing. and where are they waiting, literally in their graves? what about all those people who were cremated and whose ash was blown into the wind? it just doesn't make any sense to me.

   i will never fully understand Christianity. i will never understand the vampire-like practice of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. i will never understand the guilt that so many Catholics have for so many little things. i will never understand how anyone could ever be a Mormon. and i will never understand why christians want to be surrounded by the most depressing religious art i have ever seen. i think there are many aspects of the religion that are very positive and good for those who desire to follow it. but i will never be one of them. i guess Jesus is not my homeboy. 

adorable baby videos #3

Cutest Niece Ever!!!

reading about religion part 2

     the first chapter in God Is Not One is about Islam. it covers many different aspects of it, teaching you what different traditions mean and the history behind it. i came the the conclusion that being a Muslim isn't for me. Muslims follow the Quran, which not only guides their religion but every aspect of their life. there doesn't seem to be any "separation of church and state" which makes me really uncomfortable. i think both being raised in the US and having the parents that i have had has led me to this general desire to have that separation. i'm not a naturally religious person and i wouldn't want the country i live in to be so intertwined with one belief system.

     according to the book, "the word Islam means "submission" or "surrender." So Islam is the path of submission, and Muslims are "submitters" who seek peace in life and the next by surrendering themselves to the one true God… they refer to themselves in many cases as "slaves" of the Almighty… In Islam, the problem is self-sufficiency, the hubris of acting as if you can get along without God, who alone is self-sufficient… the response that Allah demands from humanity is not so much belief as obedience." 

     so it's good for humans to be humble and grovel to God by praying to him 5 times a day and being his "slave." but then, what does that say about God? if being humble is a good thing, would God then be even more humble than humans? wouldn't that mean that he wouldn't want to be groveled to? it seems as though the only leaders who want their followers to grovel and be their slaves are leaders filled with excessive pride. so then, does that mean that to them God is filled with excessive pride? i wouldn't want to work for a boss that treated their employees like slaves or live in a country with a dictator that treated their people like slaves. so then, why would a want to pray to a God that wanted everyone to be his slave?

     i tend to view God as having the best qualities we humans have to offer, that includes forgiveness, understanding, love and humbleness. God gave us free will for a reason, to use it. he gave us emotions to feel them. he gave us bodies to move them, which is part of why i love dance so much. i wanna live my life as fully as i can, doing the things i enjoy best and believing what i want to believe. this is how i was raised and this is how i live.

    i'm not going to go into the controversial aspects of Islam. you can read all you want about suicide bombers and the way women are treated somewhere else. and pretending that fundamentalists of other religions don't also commit terrible acts that offend and hurt others is to be blind to the reality of the world. sometimes it seems as though assholes and psychopaths use religion as an excuse to act in the horrible ways.

     Muslims describe God in both masculine and feminine ways. it's as though God is the ultimate mother and father in one. i kind of like that idea. they see God as being beyond gender. what i don't understand is how they can describe God as being compassionate, merciful, forgiving, generous, loving, powerful, wrathful and just. to me, being wrathful does not mean being just. it's like when the punishment is out of scale with the crime. it makes me wonder if this is how they see their own parents. were their parents the type to be too hard on them when they got out of line? 

     maybe the fact that my parents weren't the wrathful type that punished too hard and too frequently is why i don't understand the idea of a wrathful God. what is the point in that? is it just to scare you into being a good person? shouldn't God be an example of justice so that humans want to act ethically? do we really need the idea of Heaven and Hell to keep us acting like decent human beings? i personally don't believe in heaven or hell, i think both are right here on earth. the whole idea of hell alone perplexes me. why threaten us with physical pain in the afterlife if we will no longer have our physical bodies to feel pain? and why go to hell for an eternity? shouldn't it be at most a temporary punishment so that we can go back and try again after having learned our lesson? this is why i like the idea of reincarnation.

     there are some aspects of Islam that i don't mind so much, and one type that i actually like the sound of and want to learn more about. the mystical side of Islam is represented by the Sufis who are more interested in personal experience. there are two types: the sober and the drunk. as the book explains it, "Drunken Sufis emphasize the mercy and beauty of God, approaching Him in love and ecstasy more than awe and fear. As a result, they worry less about their tradition's legal and ritual requirements."

    there is a great sufi poet named Rumi who challenges you to "gamble everything for love." he says, "there is no salvation for the soul but to fall in Love." and he insists that romantic love is also love for and from the divine. this makes me want to learn more about Rumi and about Sufism. maybe when i am done with this book i will do more research on this. the spiritual journey should always be never ending.

reading about religion

     i recently started reading a book by Stephen Prothero called God Is Not One. the main reason i decided to buy it was that it goes through the 8 most influential religions and explains them and the similarities and differences between them. i've often felt like i didn't have enough knowledge about different religions and have wanted one source that could give me the basics. i wanted to share certain paragraphs from the introduction that i thought were insightful and well written.

     "One purpose of the "all religions are one" mantra is to stop this fighting and killing. And it is comforting to pretend that the great religions make up one big, happy family. But this sentiment, however well-intentioned, is neither accurate nor ethically responsible. God is not one. Faith in the unity of religions is just that--faith (perhaps even a kind of fundamentalism). And the leap that gets us there is an act of hyperactive imagination."
     "... Yet we know in our bones that the world's religions are different from one another. As my colleague Adam Seligman has argued, the notion of religious tolerance assumes differences, since there is no need to tolerate a religion that is essentially the same as your own. We pretend these differences are trivial because it makes us feel safer, or more moral. But pretending that the world's religions are the same does not make our world safer. Like all forms of ignorance, it makes our world more dangerous. What we need on this furiously religious planet is a realistic view of where religious rivals clash and where they can cooperate. Approaching this volatile topic from this angle may be scary. But the world is what  it is. And both tolerance and respect are empty virtues until we actually know something about whomever it is we are supposed to be tolerating or respecting."
     "... One of the common misconceptions about the world's religions is that they plumb the same depths, ask the same questions. They do not. Only religions that see God as all good ask how a good God can allow millions to die in tsunamis. Only religions that believe in souls ask whether your soul exists before you are born and what happens to it after you die. And only religions that think we have one soul ask after "the soul" in the singular. Every religion, however, asks after the human condition. Here we are in these human bodies. What now? What next? What are we to become?"

   each chapter of the book covers one religion. as i read this book, i will probably be writing a lot of entries about my thoughts on the different religions. i want to make sure that if you read these entries, you do not think that i am trying to offend anyone or belittle their religion in any way. i will simply be offering my thoughts on them. i was born in orange county to parents who were Christians but went through a New Age phase and never made us go to church. they believed in spirituality without religion. a part of me has always wanted to learn about other religions out of a curiosity to see if some religion i have never really known about might be something i want to follow. i am rather doubtful that i will ever find a religion that i agree with completely, but i have always wanted to know which ones i am most inclined toward and why. i think we all deserve it to ourselves to get knowledge about the different religions and see what speaks to us. you never know what you might agree with or just find fascinating. be an active participant in your spiritual journey.

more adorable baby videos

further proof that my best friend's baby is the cutest little girl :)

(apparently i talk in a really high voice to adorable babies :P)

just look at this precious little face

such a cute family :)

olympics

found some awesome shit on the internet that should be part of the olympics

1) apparently, this used to be an olympic sport and isn't anymore. all i can say is: why the hell not?!?

and man, that hair is fantastic. that should be a requirement for doing this sport.

2) this is so crazy it will make your brain hurt, and your crotch.

seriously, how can any man do this and have genitals???

3) in general i think more circus acts should be a part of the olympics, because they are just too impressive not to be. but this also has the potential for serious injury, which is why is should definitely be in the olympics!

4) crazy gymnastic events should be added. this one where the three girls are all working together in some Dali-esque human pyramid is a must to add.

and then this one is gonna give the announcers so many inappropriate jokes to make!!!

5) and finally, crazy awesome pointe routines! because there really needs to be a sport that involves pointe shoes in the olympics. and i really want to know if anyone else in the world can do this, because this is insane!