Some thoughts on the Pope's visit to America

Sadly, THIS is my idea of a compelling theology.

The Pope is visiting America right now, and all the TV channels are covering it, which means that when I make my daily phone call to my dad, I have to talk about it for a few minutes. The truth is that I haven't been a practicing Catholic in over a decade, and I haven't been a believer... ever. I went along with it for the first few decades (!) of my life to humor my parents, but I'm done now. Way done. You know what they say: "You can take the boy out of the church... and, all things considered, you probably should. Quickly." No, seriously, this current Pope seems like a nice guy, way nicer than the last couple of Popes, especially that one who looked like the Emperor from Star Wars. But, to me, he's still just a guy in a pointy hat. Hopefully, he can use his (unearned) position of (imaginary) power to do good in the world and inspire others to do good in the world. That's the best you can hope for with something as silly as the Papacy. Non-Catholics often think of the faith as a weird, bizarre cult with all kinds of spooky rituals, but the truth is that growing up Catholic was extremely boring. John Waters has written with as much humor and honesty as anyone about the "Catholic kid" experience. He can remember sitting through mass and fantasizing about the roof of the church caving in. That still makes me laugh, because I had very similar thoughts as a kid. Our church, in fact,had these big ceiling fans hovering over the congregation, and I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if one came plummeting to the floor. That's how boring Catholic church really is.

You might be the new Jesus and not even know it

Lookin' good, Mr. J! Lookin' good.

I heard this theory once that you should treat everyone you meet as if he or she were the Messiah. I don't believe in the Messiah, but it's an interesting idea anyway, even if it's hopelessly impractical. And, hey, I'm wrong about a lot of shit. I might be wrong on the "Messiah" thing, too. Maybe another one's just around the corner, waiting to fix everything that's wrong with the world. Think of all the people you encounter on a daily basis. Think, furthermore, of all the people you've ever encountered in your whole life. That fat kid in your third grade glass. The barista who served you coffee yesterday. The homeless guy you pretend not to see on your way to work. Any of these folks could be the Messiah. Imagine if one of them turned out to be the Savior of All Mankind, and you were shitty to them, as if they didn't even matter. Then wouldn't you feel like a dope?

Perfect example: In the train station parking lot today, there was this woman -- Caucasian, late middle-age, dark hair, sort of dressed up, if you're trying to picture her --  who walked in front of my car as I was leaving. Not directly in front, I should point out, but close enough that we could see each other's faces. I slowed down, of course, but the woman must have thought I was still going to run her over because she kept waving at me with a distressed look as if I didn't see her. A guy I'm presuming was her husband was with her, and I'm sure she complained about me to him immediately afterward. ("Harry, did you see that? That guy was a maniac! He almost killed me! Good thing I waved!") In truth, I was burned out at the end of another unsatisfying work week and just wanted this lady to get the fuck out of my way so I could get out of that goddamned parking lot and go home. She got to wherever she was going, and I left, cursing her under my breath because she delayed me getting back to my shitty apartment by five seconds. What if this woman were the Messiah? Maybe she is.

But, then again, maybe I'm the Messiah and just don't know it. Wouldn't that be wild? The real Joe Christ. (Much respect to the late filmmaker who went by that name.) I don't have any magic powers, though, and I haven't as yet been inclined toward any world-saving activities. If I'm the new Jesus, I'm a crappy one. Sorry about that.

Ed Wood's BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY: 'No Atheists in the Grave' (1971)

As late as 1971, Ed Wood's wartime experiences continued to influence his fiction.

NOTE: This article is part of my ongoing coverage of Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

"Maybe it's just fatigue, or maybe it's the indignities of war, or maybe ... it's something else."

-Paul Marco (Max Casella) in Ed Wood

"The indignities of war" dramatized in Ed Wood.

The story: "No Atheists in the Grave," originally published in Hot Fun magazine, Vol. 2, No. 2, from Calga, February 2, 1971.

Synopsis: Reverend Dr. Paul Carstairs, an Army chaplain, is 48 and has been working in combat conditions since World War 2. In some unnamed jungle battleground, he is currently ministering to the men of Charlie Company, many of whom are severely injured and under constant threat of enemy fire and cobra attacks. Paul's superiors urge him to retire, and the chaplain has been giving himself the same advice since 1965, but he cannot give up his work. The pressure, though, is clearly getting to him. 

After watching his friend die and refusing to offer any solace to the man in the last moments of his life, Rev. Carstairs has a meltdown in front of the entire company and accuses them of being hypocritical sinners who consort with whores. He punches a corporal who tries to calm him down and then is knocked out by a sergeant. The superior officers insist that this is the end of the line for Carstairs, but then Charlie Company is rocked by incoming mortar fire. Naked to the waist, Rev. Carstairs risks his life to salvage the bodies of four soldiers who died in the attack. He tells the colonel that "there just aren't any atheists in the grave."

Wood trademarks: Warfare; the military; mental breakdown; prostitutes; alcohol; anti-drug message (particularly marijuana); ghoulish reference to bodies in the grave; snakes (both metaphorical and real); the Devil; religion; issues of faith.

Excerpt: "On liberty, every one of you go out and swill the booze. And play with any jezebel-whore who accosts you on the street. You mingle with the dead and dying and laugh in their faces. You kill what is considered the enemy and bring back trophies, yet you get the big hit and you lay here sniveling like some mother's child."

Reflections: Hot on the heels of "Hellfire," here is another story which reminds us of the trauma Ed Wood carried with him from his days as a Marine in World War 2. It cannot be coincidental that the protagonist of "No Atheists in the Grave" is about the same age Ed himself would have been in 1971. Eddie's own patriotism and religious faith were unshakable, even after decades of setbacks, but this story gives him a chance to vent some of his frustration and bitterness before the sentimental, feel-good ending. 

In this respect, "No Atheists" plays like a miniature version of the Old Testament's Book of Job. In Ken's Guide to the Bible (Blast Books, 1995), author Ken Smith finds an upside to Job's pointless, God-induced suffering: "It motivates Job to spend many chapters of his book uttering the most bitter, cynical, and devastating damnations of God to be found in the Bible." Later, Smith observes: "Job, far from remaining faithful, has become the Old Testament's most eloquent rebel." 

On a smaller scale, the same thing happens to Rev. Carstairs. In his delirium, this man of the cloth belittles the power of prayer and calls out the men for their two-faced indiscretions. Naturally, this cannot be allowed to continue for long, and Carstairs is quickly silenced. He's a good "company man" again by the end of the story, and even at his lowest point, he refuses to take solace in the demon marijuana.

Next: "To Kill a Saturday Night" (1971)

See, this is why I'm an atheist...

I kept seeing this dumb ad on every website, so I had to fix it. You're welcome. (The one on the left is the original, by the way, in case you weren't clear on that.)

Ravi Shankar and George Harrison: Their obscure, late-career masterpiece

Two friends, captured decades apart: Ravi Shankar and George Harrison

I have written of my atheism on this blog several times in the past, but I wouldn't want people to get the impression that I think I have the universe figured out or that I'm not awed by nature. On the contrary, I am sometimes overwhelmed by the beauty and complexity of this world and of what lies beyond it. 

Some of my favorite art has been created in service of religions to which I do not subscribe, and sometimes this very art -- particularly music -- makes me wish that I were a believer, too. That's the experience I had when listening to the little-known album Chants of India (1997). 

I didn't go out looking for this album. I'd never heard of it until I (more or less) accidentally found it through a YouTube search, and even then I didn't know exactly what it was. I just wanted some relaxing music to listen to while I worked, and I prefer longer videos because they're more practical for such purposes. (I didn't want to go looking for new clips every four or five minutes.) I saw a YouTube video of something called Chants of India that ran for 1 hour and 3 minutes, so I clicked on it and went to work. Soon, however, I began to notice how truly beautiful this music was and stopped what I was doing to investigate.

As it happens, Chants of India was recorded by world-renowned sitarist Ravi Shankar (1920-2012), the most famous Indian musician of the last century. A great deal of his popularity outside India was due to the fact that his music was strongly advocated by the Beatles, particularly George Harrison. Shankar and Harrison formed a long-time friendship, and the two organized the famed Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. Over a quarter-century later, George produced and sang on Shankar's Chants of India LP. 

Despite the participation of a Beatle, the album is not currently in print as far as I can tell. At the time of this album's appearance, George had not put out a studio album under his own name in ten years; he died only four years after Chants of India's under-the-radar release. Shankar would live another 15 years, but Chants was his last major professional collaboration with the ex-Beatle. Why it's not instantly available on iTunes in 2013 is beyond me. Still in all, one track in particular stands out: "Prabhujee," a devotional hymn whose lyrics translate as:

Oh Master, show some compassion to me. 

Please come and dwell in my heart.
Because without you, it is painfully lonely.
Fill this empty pot with the nectar of love.
I do not know any Tantra, Mantra or ritualistic worship.
I know and believe only in you.
I have been searching for you all over all the world.
Please come and hold my hand now.

When I first heard the song, I didn't know any of that because the lyrics are all in Hindi. I didn't even know who had recorded it. My thoughts during that first listen were of a traveler who had spanned a great distance, crossing a vast ocean, and had arrived safely at the shore. I felt that this journey was a metaphor for life itself and that the shore was the afterlife or one's ultimate destiny. 

Knowing that George's own life was nearly over when this was recorded gives the song a special significance, as does the line about hand-holding, since it beautifully (if unintentionally) echoes the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and gives that up-tempo Lennon-McCartney rock number an unexpected religious significance. 

I was also struck by the fact that "Prabhujee," while not tied to any particular era in music, was so similar to the music being made by contemporary bands. Specifically, the song combines the slow, sweeping grandeur of Sigur Ros with the keen melodicism of Arcade Fire. In fact, if I were describing this song to someone who'd never heard it (as I am doing now), I would say, "Imagine Sigur Ros covering an Arcade Fire ballad and stretching it waaaaaaaay out."

Here is the song that so impressed me. I hope it impresses you as well.

Roy Rogers and the deafening silence of God

Roy Rogers: a cowboy's prayers go unanswered

"The dust has won."

-Roy Rogers

His name seems to be rapidly fading from the public's fickle memory, but for many decades in the middle of the last century, Roy Rogers (1911-1998) was a towering American icon. Together with his (third) wife, Dale Evans, and his trusty horse, Trigger, Roy Rogers appeared in a series of television shows and movies that sold viewers—mainly children—a kindly, simplified version of the West in which there was no such thing as moral ambiguity. Good and evil were clearly delineated in Rogers' world, with the former always triumphant over the latter. If we think of Roy at all these days, we probably remember him smiling as he and Dale sang their signature song, "Happy Trails to You."

Funny, then, that Roy Rogers should also have recorded one of the bleakest songs I have ever heard in my life. Its name is "Dust." Give it a listen.

I accidentally stumbled upon this track several years ago in a four-disc compilation of vintage cowboy music innocuously titled Songs of the West. A whole disc of that set is devoted to Rogers' songs, but "Dust" stands in sharp relief from the others. Far more typical of Rogers' music output is this almost unbearably wholesome ode to domestic bliss entitled "Lovenworth."

How could the same man record both "Dust" and "Lovenworth" in a single career? The two songs would seem to be mutually exclusive, yet there they both are on that same CD. I've only made it all the way through "Lovenworth" maybe twice, but I've listened to "Dust" dozens of times. The song, likely inspired by the severe, disastrous dust storms of the Great Depression, paints a far more realistic version of the West than Rogers usually offered. It tells the story of a cowboy trapped in a hopeless dust storm and begging God for mercy. Or, rather, it presents this man's plight and then leaves him stranded somewhere on the plains. There is no relief at the end of the song, no happy ending to comfort the listener.

The following lyrics from "Dust" are among the most dour and hopeless I have encountered in the English language.

The cattle and the sheep,
Bedded down to sleep,
Seem to realize their fate.
The vultures in the sky
Know the time is nigh.
Will they fly away or wait?

Even the livestock have adopted the narrator's fatalistic attitude. These words could have come from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, had that novel been turned into a musical. This is followed by the cowboy's direct appeal to God.

Oh, Lord, please ease my pain. 
Oh, Lord, where is your rain and sunshine?

God's answer, at least in this song, is not forthcoming. The cowboy returns to describing his miserable, purgatory-like fate in the dust. ("Can this be eternity?") This is followed by a bridge which rewrites and thus subverts "Home on the Range," perhaps the most beloved and comforting of all cowboy songs. In "Dust," the range has been transformed into a desolate wasteland.

Here was a home where the buffalo roamed,
Where the deer and the antelope played.
Here was a place where the cattle would graze.
The corn and alfalfa once swayed.

The cowboy will reprise his prayer later in the song, but again there will be no response. What is interesting here is that Roy Rogers was a devout Christian, while I define myself as an atheist, and yet we have both dealt with the same basic issue. We have both grappled with the deafening, even maddening silence of our supposed creator. Does he exist? If so, we want proof. Theologians may argue that God need not communicate directly with us to prove his existence, but I think that as human beings we have a fundamental need to express ourselves to others and to know that others have heard and understood us. And, yes, this includes God.

I realize this post may have been a bit of a downer, so here's a track from the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street which may or may not tackle the issue of our desire to have proof of God's existence. It's called "I Just Want to See His Face." Enjoy.

Forget the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Let's talk about the Lava Monster.

A terrifying creature made of lava

Atheists and those who believe in evolution often use an absurd fictional deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster (or FSM) to underscore their basic point about the absurdity of religion and its creation myths. While I wish these people well, the FSM is of almost no use to me as a metaphor or allegory and has had very little impact on my beliefs, religious or otherwise.

I am much more concerned about the Lava Monster. Let me explain.

I want you to picture, reader, a village built in the shadow of a large and terrifying volcano. Within this volcano dwells an enormous, terrifying creature made of hot molten rock. At any time he desires, this Lava Monster can demolish the village in whole or in part. In fact, he has done so on several occasions, and his powers seem to be without end. Summoning the awesome forces of nature at his disposal, the temperamental and unpredictable beast can create or destroy at will, however he sees fit. The villagers are well aware of the Lava Monster's existence, and the majority of them live in fear of the creature and seek to appease him by holding ceremonies in his honor and following an arcane and complicated set of traditions supposedly "approved" by the Lava Monster. The worshipers of the Lava Monster feel they know his wishes because he has directly communicated these wishes to them in no uncertain terms. The motivation of the villagers is simple: they don't want to be incinerated by rivers of hot molten lava.

Got all that? Good. Now I want to ask you a few basic questions:

1. How likely is it that there would be widespread disagreement among the villagers about the Lava Monster's wishes? 
2. If the Monster had very particular desires and could easily communicate them, why would he allow the confusion to persist, especially when that confusion has led to deadly sectarian violence among the villagers?
3. Would it be possible to live as a non-believer in this village? How?
4. Would there be any need for the villagers to advertise or proselytize on behalf of the Monster? How could you possibly forget him, when the evidence of his power is all around you?
5. Assuming you do know the will of the all-powerful Lava Monster and carry out his wishes, what is the moral basis for your behavior? Why would you feel morally superior to someone who disobeyed the Monster's commands?

I don't know how long the Lava Monster has gestated in my imagination. Maybe since childhood. I do know, though, that whenever I think of an omnipotent God, my mind inevitably returns to the story of the Lava Monster. It is that fifth issue which particularly troubles me. If God is real and omnipotent, then obeying his wishes is merely common sense and has nothing whatsoever to do with morality. There's nothing righteous or lofty about giving a bully your lunch money or carrying out your boss's orders at work. You do it to preserve yourself, which is something we all do every day. I don't touch hot stoves, for instance, but that's because I don't want to burn my hand. If you choose to touch hot stoves and repeatedly incur severe burns as result, that may make you foolish but it does not make you immoral.

Virginia Woolf

Have you ever read the Old Testament? You should. In my amateur estimation, it's the work of literature which has most affected the course of human history and led to the civilization we now know. Professional historians may disagree. In any event, the main character in this multi-book saga -- for the Bible is truly a collection of books, like The Hunger Games or the Harry Potter series -- is an all-powerful deity named God, and he is a complex and ambiguous character at best. "I read the Book of Job last night," observed Virginia Woolf, referring to one of the works which make up what we call the Bible. "I don't think God comes well out of it." She is astute in this observation. The character of God, as he is portrayed in the Old Testament, is temperamental, insecure, jealous, vengeful, and capable of incredible violence. In brief, even if God were real, you might not want him running the universe. You'd probably want someone a little calmer and more rational at the helm.

Again, I do not claim to have any answers. I don't know how the universe functions, but I'm sure there are underpaid scientists working on the problem now. I hope they're getting enough sleep at night. If we are lucky, we have five senses with which to take in information and one brain with which to process that information. And that's all we'll ever have. Think about everything and everyone you have ever known. Remember every experience of your past, both major and minor. Everything you can recall about them was conveyed to you by your senses and processed by your brain. Your brain and sense organs are imperfect, yet we must rely upon them. I'll never truly know what it's like to be you. You'll never truly know what it's like to be me. We're all just guessing. What frightens me are the people who are certain they know how it all works. I can cope with uncertainty, but certainty scares me.

This post was not meant to settle anything but rather to raise questions and provoke discussion. Have at it. And don't touch hot stoves. You'll burn yourself. That I think we can all agree on.

No voices in the sky: On my atheism

 Is the sky just the sky?

"Some people say the sky is just the sky, but I say why? Why deny the obvious child?" - Paul Simon ("The Obvious Child")

I am an atheist.

I say that with neither pride nor shame. I don't feel like I've "won" something by declaring my atheism or that I'm "smarter" than you are if you're religious. I don't feel like I've moved on to some more advanced level of thought by giving up a belief in an omniscient, omnipotent creator. I will not quote The God Delusion at you. Relax. Everything's fine. I'm not about to get all Richard Dawkins on your ass. And I'm not going to link to a Ricky Gervais or David Cross monologue either. Yes, I've heard what Gervais and Cross have to say about religion, and I've found humor in their words. But there is more than a touch of "I know better" smugness to these comedians, and that's a trait I'm trying to avoid.

A factory producing atheists.

I come by my atheism naturally, having been raised Catholic. I think the Catholic Church might be the greatest manufacturer of atheists the world has ever known. Have you ever sat through one of our masses? It amuses me that some people think of the Catholics as a weird, mysterious cult with bizarre beliefs and sinister rituals. In truth, an hour spent in a Catholic church on a Sunday will likely be one of the most boring experiences of your life. I should know. I attended them for over twenty years. Once you've gone to, let's say, a year of Catholic masses, you've heard everything the church has to say. The rest is just repetition. Years and years and years of repetition. 

It's been a decade since I was a practicing (though non-believing) Catholic, and I can still recite some of those prayers. The same few readings from the Bible are trotted out again and again. These readings represent a tiny fraction of that book; the rest simply goes uncovered. As a kid bored out of his mind in church and wishing the ceiling would cave in just for variety's sake, I wondered why we never got to hear about David and Goliath or Cain slaying Abel or even about Noah's ark. Later, thanks to Ken's Guide to the Bible by Ken Smith, I learned there was all kinds of juicy stuff in the Good Book: sex, violence, and just general weirdness. You'd never guess that from attending mass. 

Even the homily, the portion of the service in which the priest gets to divert from the text and speak directly to the congregation, is apt to be boring. As a Catholic kid, you hope that at least the priest will throw in a few good jokes along with the message. Some priests are genuinely funny, engaging speakers, but many are dull and rambling. And then there's the music! Oh, dear lord, the music in a Catholic mass is the worst, most dispiriting stuff you've ever heard in your life. Every song becomes a dirge. It blew my mind to learn that other religions had "catchy" music. Much of what we know today as rock and R&B music, after all, has its roots in the church. When I hear a gospel group like the Soul Stirrers, it makes me want to believe.

It's important for you to know that we were a Catholic family, but it was Catholicism with a small c. I know there are some horror stories out there, but I didn't experience any of that. I was never molested by priests or beaten by nuns. I only ever attended one year of Catholic school -- kindergarten -- and my memories of it are positive. We had a young, pretty teacher, Miss Smith, and my strongest memory is that she once played us "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen because it was the Detroit Lions' theme song that year (1980). Isn't that weird? The first time I ever heard Freddie Mercury was in Catholic school. You can't make this stuff up, folks. My older sister got as far as second grade in that institution, and she grew up to be healthy, normal, and well-adjusted. After that, we both attended public school.

Who's down with CCD?

Catholic kids who don't go to Catholic school are expected to attend something called CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine). It's basically "Catholic night school," and you go once a week. Now this I truly hated. I just felt it was pointless and juvenile, and eventually I refused to attend. With great reluctance, my parents agreed to this. It was literally the only argument we ever had about religion. My parents were admirably open-minded about all of it. They had pretty left-leaning political views and thus disagreed with many of the Church's policies. 

Truth be told, religion hardly ever came up as a topic of discussion in our household. We attended the services both on Sundays and on holy days, and we observed Lent, but that's pretty much it. We didn't pray before meals, and there were no crucifixes or images of Jesus on our walls. My mother inherited the religion from her mother, who was from a family of Sicilian immigrants. My father was raised without religion but converted to Catholicism in order to marry my mother. To this day, twenty years after her death, he still attends the masses out of loyalty to her. 

I personally attended the masses with him until 2001 when I moved to Illinois and started living independently. Since then, I've been a full-on atheist. The only time I ever set foot in a church is when my community band plays a concert in one. Some of the buildings are magnificent, by the way, and have terrific acoustics. The church I attended for 20 years, though, was just a utilitarian, barn-like structure. You'd probably call it ugly.

But we're avoiding the bigger issue. Did I ever believe? I don't know. Maybe a little when I was very young. In fact, when I was about 8 or 9, the topic of God actually did come up in a discussion with other neighborhood kids, and one boy said something dismissive like, "Everyone knows God is just some imaginary fairy in the sky." I remember getting briefly defensive about it, but it didn't last. By the time I was an adolescent, I was a confirmed non-believer. I attended the services strictly out of obedience to my parents. My sister, somehow, managed to talk her way out of them, and I was envious of her for that. Ironically, she went through the Sacrament of Confirmation, and I didn't. I did get First Communion in, though.

God: A class act all the way!

Here's the bottom line: I think it's much more likely that we created God than the other way around. I think as human beings, we hate and fear what we don't understand. We couldn't deal with a universe that we could not comprehend, so we came up with a creation myth to explain it away. We've been elaborating on that myth for centuries and arguing (sometimes with deadly consequences) over the specifics. 

In a way, it gives us some freedom. The bigger issues of life are all sorted out in our minds, so we can focus on living day to day. Religion handles the big stuff, while we cope with the details. And it works! Some of the happiest, best-adjusted people I know are religious, while I am neurotic and insecure. It did not surprise me to learn that atheists are, in general, better-informed about religion than the average, God-fearing citizen. It's because atheists think about this stuff a lot, while believers simply accept and move on with their lives. There are many times when I wish I could join them. And I will admit that in moments of extreme fear and anxiety, I pray. Still to this day, I have the nervous tic of making the sign of the cross when I experience relief.

There is clearly more to be said on this issue, and this is far from the last word. If there is sufficient interest among my readers, we can discuss why I feel there is no moral basis for worshiping an omnipotent deity. But I think I've said enough for now. I'll leave you with the lyrics to "No Voices in the Sky" by Motorhead. The song was written by lead singer Lemmy Kilmister, an avowed atheist.

Nobody gives a damn about anybody else

Think everyone should feel the way they feel themselves
Rich men think that happiness is a million dollar bills
So how come half of them O.D. on sleeping pills?
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, you all know what I mean
What's the use of a cry for help, if no one hears the screams
No one hears the screams

No voices in the sky, confusion blinds the eye
Can't take it with you when you die
No voices in the sky

The ones who dedicate the flags to make you brave
They also consecrate the headstone on your grave
Ritual remembrance when no one knows your name
Don't help a single widow learn to fight the pain

Politicians kissing babies for good luck
T.V. preachers sell salvation for a buck
You don't need no golden cross, to tell you wrong from right
The world's worst murderers were those who saw the light