Recurring Themes

Yesterday, my day went like this:

Breakfast of coffee, peanut butter toast (topped with honey, of course!), and 3 reasons/chapters ("Believing in my god makes me happy," "Better safe than sorry," and "A sacred book proves my god is real.") in Guy P. Harrison's 50 reasons people give for believing in a god. All of that reading made my breakfast longer than usual, so I decided to move past religion/nonreligion for the day and get some business taken care of!

Easier said than done.

While listening to the new Guster cd, Easy Wonderful, I realized that SIX of the sixteen songs (on the deluxe version) have religious themes. It's crazy. I've been a Guster fan for years now (saw them live in Portland, ME last summer) and there are usually 2-3 songs on each album that have something to do with religion. But six ("On the Ocean," "Stay with Me Jesus," "Bad, Bad World," "That's No Way to Get to Heaven," "Jesus and Mary," and "Jonah")?

The song that I'm right now most in love with is "On the Ocean." Not only is it deliciously poppy and harmonious, I also find it full of striking parallels to what I'm figuring out right now.

Am I asleep? Is this a dream? Oh my God, what have I done, anything?
At 23, you walked out on me. Oh my God, where have you gone, anyway?
On the ocean, I think we're taking on water. A storm is on the way. But I will hold on anyway. (Chorus) [Keeping the faith in spite of rising doubts]
10,000 leagues under the sea. Oh my God, what have you done, anything? [Sinking deeper. Continued denial that the boat of faith is flawed]
29 years I've wandered around. There's no beauty here, no emerald town. I shout aloud, "What will be forgotten, everything?" [Disillusionment with the church and the religion as a whole?]
(Chorus....)
I close my eyes and there's someone beside me. Hand in hand, we can only speak in tongues. She's pulling me along.
Falling down a trail of crumbs behind me, my head's in her hands, but everything, it still feels wrong. This isn't what I thought, so can I just go home? ["Close my eyes"- praying with someone. But he doesn't feel it. He can't believe it and just wants to renounce it.]
(Chorus)
Am I asleep? Is this a dream? Oh my God, what have I done, anything?

Other than the surprise attack of thoughts on religion by Guster, I was also assailed by Glee last night!

Who else watched that episode? No matter where you stand, can you not admit that that episode (titled: Grilled Cheesus [!]) was awesome?!?

Basically, the episode begins with Finn opening his George Foreman griller only to be amazed by the image of Jesus on his grilled cheese. He then eats half of the sandwich, and saves the sacred half, praying to it throughout the episode (the things he prays for are so funny, but telling of what an average high schooler like Finn would want: a football win, a chance at fondling his girlfriend, and his old quarterback position back). Throughout the course of the episode, Kurt, the witty, stylish gay glee club member, learns that his dad has had a heart attack and is in a coma. Other glee club members try to comfort him with messages of spirituality, but he won't have it. He's an atheist. Teachers get involved, blaming Will Schuster, the glee director for allowing religious dialogue and songs in his classroom. Friends pray over Kurt's dad. Kurt goes to church with his Christian friend, Mercedes, who was the example of what a loving, comforting, open Christian looks like. By the way, if anyone knows of a church that will sing a gospel rendition of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," let me know and I'll tack it to the ICHE!


It really was a very well done episode, tying humor, music, drama, and religion (it was very fair- I read an article where Ryan Murphy said that he made sure that in the script for this episode, for each anti-religious statement there was one pro-religious statement made) very successfully. I think it made every viewer think about where they stood and why, which is always a good thing.

I have to share some of the quotes from the episode. If you haven't already stopped reading to watch it on hulu, please do!

"Asking someone to believe in a fantasy, however comforting, isn't a moral thing to do. It's cruel."- Sue Sylvester, in a scene where she opened up to the school counselor, Emma, about why she is against religion. I read that Murphy considers this philosophical scene to be one of the best he's ever made.

"It was sort of cool, feeling like I had this direct line to God. Now I just feel like everybody else, you know, like we're all just floating around in Space. I don't like that." - Finn, after realizing his Cheesus was nothing more than a Foreman fluke. It resonates with me because I've felt like that when I've consider loosing the power of prayer, and the relationship with Jesus. That feeling of being special and having a unique connection to God keeps a lot of people claiming his name.


"I'm very impressed with everyone's Sunday best. It's very Christ chic."- :) Kurt, as he was entering Mercedes' church

Glee did, in my opinion, a good job presenting the atheists (Kurt and Sue), the agnostic (Emma?), the Jews (Rachel and Puck), the Christians (Mercedes and Quinn), and those who just didn't know or maybe didn't care, but wanted to help out in some way (Will, Finn). It was definitely an episode to talk about.

Later, I checked out websites like:
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/
http://de-conversion.com/
and happened upon some other religious blogs.

So there you have it, a day that was anything but religion free. But that's okay. I'm finding I can't get enough of thoughts on religion lately...