Spirit Seeker

Every once in awhile, I turn on the TV and hear a televangelist talking about “Prosperity Theology.”  According to the Wikipedia entry ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology ), Prosperity Theology preaches that God will reward faithful Christians with financial prosperity. While this seems wrong on so many levels, I appreciate the aspect of hope that this message inspires.  Think of it as liberation theology.  Instead of Jews escaping slavery like in ancient  Egypt , modern Christians can be free of poverty through their faith. Let me begin by reflecting on my financial life.  I did not want for anything as a child.  My family lived in a middle-class suburb of Chicago .  We did not live extravagantly but we always had food to eat and clothes to wear. There were times when money was scarcer and we shopped at discount stores and bought clothes at the area thrift store (my childhood self cringed at the thought).  As I grew into adulthood, I wanted to continue living the

No one can say that I'm not willing to take on the big questions, like what is the meaning to life.  I may lack concrete answers and yet, I'm willing to make them up.  Oddly enough, a poem called "To Find the Future" inspired me to tackle this subject. The poem is located on the website:   www.sacredpoems.com To Find the Future What is it that guides you To search and pursue change Sorting out the pieces And how to rearrange What is it that drive you To seek that which is lost Uncovering the treasure But then what of the cost Perhaps it is your purpose Perhaps a chosen road But not without some challenge And to carry a heavy load So break the chains that bind you Throw caution to the wind It’s time to find the future As life begins again Author: Unknown I'm at a point in my life when I'm re-evaluating what gives my life purpose and meaning.  For that past 13 years, my top priority has been to be a lovin

While driving back from a short vacation, my father (biological, not heavenly)  asked me how I define spirit.  I view spirit as the relationship that we have with others and ourselves.  It is something that goes beyond the boundaries of our bodies and yet is intimately connected to this body.  Mystical experiences are moments when we connect closely with the spirit within. Earlier this summer, I travelled to a campground near the beaches of Lake Michigan.  I had spent the night there with my friends from church.  It's the only time I ever tried sleeping in a lawn chair while inside a tent.  It didn't work too well for me.  Anyhow, the next day we ate breakfast and visited the nature center.  A clever, young raccoon figured out how to maneuver a bird feeder stand that was rigged to keep critter offer and used it to his advantage. We returned back from the nature center and packed up our tents.  I looked over at my motorcycle and up in the sky and the approaching rain clouds to

Grief, ugh, what is it good for... I remember visiting a Catholic church 2 years ago and talking to a woman about the grief I felt over getting divorced.  She shared that she had been through divorce years previously.  She said that, for her, God disappeared during the divorce and that God was waiting for her on the other side.  My interpretation on her wise words is that things will get better even though we cannot see that when we are inside the storm of grief.  I shared that story because there is some truth in it.  I am exiting the eye of the divorce, grief storm.  My life isn't perfect but I feel significantly happier and more stable than I did during the separation and divorce process.  It's been one year since our divorce was final. The question that you may be asking yourself is, "Did Colin find God on the other side?"  I found something, although I'm not sure that I would call it God.  I experience more moments of joy and simply feeling okay.  I don&#

I do not pretent to speak for all Unitarian Universalists (UU's).  I want to learn what UU's have in common and see where I fit in to that picture. My ispiration for this post is a sermon that I heard a few weeks back by a former member of our congregation (she has since moved to a different UU congregation). It's easy to talk about what I don't believe.  There are a number of miracles in the Bible and other religious texts that may have metaphoric meanings.  For example, Jesus may have resurrected Lazarus from a spiritual death, but not a biological death.  As much as I like zombie's, I'm not buying it.  I also have a problem with blindly accepting what other authorities claim to be the truth.  Just because you have a white collar around your kneck, it doesn't mean that you're insights into spiritual truths are any more or less valid than my own. I appreciate the education that priests and ministers go through.  I can seek my own education to, thank y

While listening to a sermon at the Unitarian Universalist (UU) church that I attend, I heard that one of the core UU beliefs is that people are inherently good.  This is the opposite of what some Christians and others believe that people are inherently evil or tarnished with original sin.  A third possibility is that people are capable of both good and evil, which is true even if it sounds too random. The questions is, with all things equal, will people choose to do go or bad? I believe that people are inherently good and that they choose to do good things most of the time.  I have held this belief for most of my life.  If anything, I believed that everyone else was pretty good, while doubting my own goodness.  (There's that low self-esteem popping up).  Through a series of circumstances, I began to doubt humanities propensity to be good after watching people in my life do some really horrific stuff.  Does this throw my belief out the window?  It certainly makes me question the i

What are my thoughts on prayer? Prayer plays a small role in my life. Over the past twenty years, I've found praying to be a waste of time.  What does prayer achieve and who or what does one pray to?  There have been a few opportunities where I was asked to pray.  I attended a Christian retreat, called Via De Cristo, where I was a prayer/chapel keeper, of all things.  This is quite a job for an atheist to fill. There was some value and intent to my prayers that weekend. We prayed for each of the the presenters before they took the stage.  My verbal prayers focused on encouraging the speaker and helping them relax before speaking in front of a group.  It's strange but I could say nice, intimate things in prayers that I wouldn't say otherwise.  Why not say those things outside of praying? Recently, I began experimenting with prayer again.  This time it is solely for my own purposes.  I tried praying on my walk from the train to my office.  I realized that I do not know ho

If there is an omnipotent, loving god then why is there suffering in the world? Perhaps this is the question someone who plays the victim or pessimist.   The truth is that there a lot of good things that happen too.   Some of my Christian friends tell me that good things are a blessing from God and bad things a God’s way of testing us. A few evangelist preachers claim that catastrophes such as tornadoes and floods are God’s way of saying that she is angry at all the sinning going on.   I refuse to address that last point because I think those individuals are full of crap.             There are numerous events and actions that cause suffering.   Watching a loved one move away or die may cause sadness.   Being sick with a severe cold or discovering that one has cancer can be trying.   People suffer as a result of divorce, job loss, or home foreclosure.   As mentioned earlier, floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes contribute to the suffering of many people.   If we examine these eve

This is the start of my new blog, Spirit Seeker.  I chose the "GodlyAtheist" as my URL because I enjoy the paradoxical nature of it.  In some ways, the title describes the paradox contained within my own mind.  I have considered myself an atheist (non-believer of a god) for most of my adult life.  Given the choice, I prefer to go with scientific explanations rather than anecdotal stories or ancient tomes.  The godly part of my brain focuses on two areas.  The first part is based on questions that I have about Christianity that relate back to my Catholic upbringing and understanding the Christian perspective of my friends and others around the world.  In some ways I "get it" and other ways I feel like I don't have a clue.  The second part of my godly focus is a current experiment that I'm doing with praying to a god.  I begin the word god with a lower-case 'G' because I can't tell you which god that I'm praying to.  It's not a Christian or