First up: Life the Universe and everything!

I'm new to blogging so I'm gonna recycle an older blog I wrote for my page on myspace. this is just a way to get started. I promise I am not trying to "convert" anyone. So here it is. My first attempt on this site.

I have been asking myself some questions these days as I get older. Sleep was restless and sporadic tonight so I finally just got up. There is a forum that I post to back in the town I was born in that the local paper has online. We discuss politics and religion and the best bar b q and which side of town was the best back in the day. I enjoy politics and sports and religion. Yes I admit it. I'm a political junkie and a sports nut and I like to ponder the big questions. Even the biggest questions (Will Bama finally beat Auburn this season?), (Can the Braves pull another division title out of the hat after some time as a middle of the pack team?) But tonight/morning I was thinking about religion/life after death/before death. Quantom pyschics (what I"ve read which is very little.) and I wanted to write some things down. I do this from time to time to clear the mind and seek clarity. So here is my disclaimer: This is a self serving ramble through my own thoughts. You will not find in this post the following so please don't be mad at me if you decide to keep reading my ramble: You will not find: Salvation, Biblical loyalty,The one true way to God/Goddess,Enlightment,Jesus or Budda. You will not find: Reductionism,Scientism, Hopelessness or a way to grow back you hair and shave off those unwanted pounds. This is my story of why I am not an Atheist:
Some years ago I was reading or thinking or something and I looked down and saw a bug crawling across the floor. For some reason it got me to thinking about some things. I thought about my Grandparents who have gone on to meet their maker. I thought about the people I had known who had died and the relationships I've had and the unique "life" that all of those folks expressed while on the earth. I thought about War and poverty and hope and justice and injustice. I thought about someone like Hitler who had murdered so many innocent lives and who had wrought such destruction and sorrow. I think about Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Thresea and others who lived and died with passion and purpose to life. Then I looked at that bug and thought "is that all it means?" All the hate and hurt that Hitler brought to the world? The innocents that died in his concentration camps. They just are dead? and dead is dead? Like squashing a bug? Thats all their lives and mine amount to? It just didn't compute. The "they live on in our hearts" just didn't get it for me either. Atheism (to me) had no reason to live. (I'm short but still felt I had a reason to live.) If I were truly an athiest then why would I have any reason to respect others rights? I know about the good of society but I mean on a deep down level of good and evil? If dead is dead then how do you judge Hitler? Do you judge the lion for killing the zebra? On a very deep level how could you give value to life if it is simply a random firing of sparks in a mass of gray matter that goes into oblivion at the moment of death? All the good and the evil and the love and the hate utltimatley is swallowed up in ....nothing! Now you may say that we have to have laws to have a society. I agree but I'm talking about personal worth and the worth of others. I wish I could be more articulate with this but I'm kind of burned out these days. I'm not hearing "angelic" voices or sure of my journery into the light. I don't know for sure if there is another place. But I know that my spirit and my soul cries out for it. I know that I have prayed and meditated and thought through issues relating to my faith. I admit it sometimes seems like a random crap shoot. I admit that people like Richard Dawkins shake my sense of comfort and security in eternal hope. I admit I am not comfortable with organized religion. Although anyone can set up straw men and knock em down and call the complete religious impulse silly at best and dangerous at worse. For me both my insanity and sanity have come from the religious impulse. Raised in the hard narrow fundie religion of my Grandmother I have seen the excess and guilt that old time religion can bring. On the other hand going out by myself and praying to my God actually led me out of the darkness of religion and enabled me to open up to other possibilities and to explore the deep parts of myself. But this is not about religion (although on some level it's always about sex,religion and power isn't it?) Thank you Mr. Freud. I just felt like rambling today and I am also attempting to open up my own spiritual compass. I have felt unanchored recently. But I still go on and I find hope. I find God in the details. When I ponder if there is a God, Thats God! I have become much more holistic in my old age. (not that 50 is really old age right? ) Anyway, if you have read this self serving rant then I thank you. I remeber a book by my favorite author. As all "Constant Readers" will. It is called "Bag of Bones" and I recall Stevie K. quoting another writer I believe. (Sorry it's been awhile) Somthing about "Bad paraphrase follows" No matter how much I write and describe a character or a life. No matter how brilliantly in the end compared to the real life of a living breathing human being. The character is just a "bag of bones" So I offer this to you and to me today but compared to my journey and your journey this short statement is just: " A bag of bones" Peace!