{"id":908,"date":"2013-08-26T06:06:06","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T13:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=908"},"modified":"2013-08-25T21:50:32","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T04:50:32","slug":"my-level-of-faith-is-doubtful-but-optimistically-realistic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=908","title":{"rendered":"My level of faith is doubtful but optimistically realistic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Free your mind And the rest will follow –Free Your Mind\/En Vogue<\/p>\n

Precognition my ear.
\n–One Way Or Another\/Blondie<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Doubt.<\/p>\n

Wrote a song about it.<\/p>\n

Wanna hear it? Here it goes!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

People often possess an unfortunate combination
\nof trust and gullibility. When your religious belief system
\nincludes a mandate to accept without doubt that your God has a plan
\nfor you and that you shouldn’t question it even if you
\ndon’t know what it is<\/em> because it’s all too great and
\nwondrous for human understanding, then I wonder how much that lack
\nof questioning effects other aspects of life.<\/p>\n

Ineffability my ear.
\nIt isn’t only religion that asks us for faith–politicians and
\nmilitary leaders often try for it as well. It doesn’t work well for me. If you want me to follow your plan, you’d best tell me what it is and also allow for
\na good long question and answer period. Especially when the plan
\nappears to sometimes include distasteful items like the
\nInquisition, Crusades, suicide bombing\u00a0 and more than a smattering of
\ngenocide and the burning of “witches.”<\/p>\n

It’s particularly irksome if you believe in an omnipotent supreme
\nbeing–if s\/he wanted absolute faith, s\/he could presumably have built it
\ninto us instead of making faith into some sort of heavenly litmus test. It is easier to understand not questioning a despot or
\nmilitary leader. They are typically well armed in addition to being
\ncranky about the appearance of dissent. I suppose the deities do have the threat of some sort of Hell…or smiting. Does smiting influence people these days?<\/p>\n

So I’ve decided that if I ever launch a religion of my own, it will be a cult of Doubt. If more people questioned…everything…I have a hunch things would be a lot better.<\/p>\n

And there won’t\u00a0 be a deity.<\/p>\n

There will be Doubt and Common Sense.<\/p>\n

And Whimsy.<\/p>\n

I’m still working out the commandments, but #1 is:<\/p>\n

Thou shalt not be a douche.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Catchy, right?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Question authority, don’t take “it’s part of my ineffable plan” as a valid response, and trust your hunch that if something is fishy it may be because someone left a dead trout in your trunk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Instead of sacramental wine, we’ll have IPA. Some potential congregants are fussing about that, but I pointed out that following rules is not going to be a big thing in the cult of Doubt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Except for not being a douche.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Commandment #2 will be that if people keep calling you an asshole, there’s a chance you might be. You should probably read commandment #1 again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Oh!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I forgot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There will be a lot of profanity in my cult.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And really good music.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Welcome all non-douchebags.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If I have my own religion, can I use the phrase “don’t question my authoritah, it’s part of my ineffable plan” when my boss wonders why I’ve done something?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Free your mind And the rest will follow –Free Your Mind\/En Vogue Precognition my ear. –One Way Or Another\/Blondie Doubt. Wrote a song about it. Wanna hear it? Here it goes!   People often possess an unfortunate combination of trust and gullibility. When your religious belief system includes a mandate to accept without doubt that … Continue reading My level of faith is doubtful but optimistically realistic<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hmmm"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-eE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7945,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=7945","url_meta":{"origin":908,"position":0},"title":"Nothing comes from nothing","author":"Michelle","date":"October 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Nothing comes from nothing, Nothing ever could. 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I just like dogs\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Imaginary Conversation"","block_context":{"text":"Imaginary Conversation","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=18"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8011,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=8011","url_meta":{"origin":908,"position":4},"title":"What have I done for me lately?","author":"Michelle","date":"October 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"And I'm doing nothing wrong Riding in your car Your radio playing We sing up to the eighth floor A rooftop, in Manhattan One in the morning When you said something That I've never forgotten When you said something That was really important --PJ Harvey\/You Said Something Don't run back\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1993,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=1993","url_meta":{"origin":908,"position":5},"title":"In between days..nights..days","author":"Michelle","date":"October 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Running over the same old ground. 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The same old fears. --Pink Floyd\/Wish You Were Here \u00a0 Whatever gets you through the night is alright. --John Lennon \u00a0 As someone who is slow to both fall asleep and wake up, I spend a lot of time in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}