While I have never been a spiritual person, I have always been tolerant of others spirituality. Quite honestly, it is amazing to me that so many people can blindly believe in religion (take your pick). I’m not mocking, poking fun at, or trying to depreciate the value of religion to believers. No, I am simply declaring my own awe. To me, faith is a talent. Some people have a knack for it and others don’t. I would be the latter.

I’ve had my fair share of religious encounters, and by “encounters” I mean believers preaching to me about faith. To these people, believing in God is about as simple as riding a bicycle. Sure, you’ll fall off a couple of times and you’ll get lost on a road in a unfamiliar neighborhood, but you’ll eventually peddle your way back home. Its a beautiful sentiment, a sentiment I wish I could hold on to in times of crisis. And believe me, I understand why religion and faith exists - to guide people through life. I’m glad that people have God because I honestly believe that some people truly need him, or Buddha, or Muhammad, or hell (wait, that’s an inappropriate word to be using in this context, isn’t it?) Zeus for that matter. Yes, if I were to ever give an acceptance speech for a prestigious award I’d chime, “I’d like to thank God and the 10,000 other incarnations of God for cutting violent crime in the U.S. by 50% for 2009.” If gangsters didn’t have God… oh boy… I mean, someone has to reign in the killing some time. Don’t they?

And I am thankful that belief reminds people to be kind to one another. Of course, it pains me a little to know that people needed some old dude to write down the 10 Commandments so they could remember how to be kind, but it works. Who am I to buck the system? Oh wait, I like bucking the system. Sorry, I just confused myself with someone else. <— Apparently this is why people need 10 Commandments, they must forget who they are and why they are here. Perhaps the vast majority of the general population is suffering from some form of Alzheimer’s? You know, I wake up every day and try to be a good person simply because its the right thing to do. Not because I am afraid of some entity peering down through chalky white clouds, waiting for me to sin so I can be banished to Hell for all eternity. No. I just like to be good. It makes me feel good. It makes others smile. My Mother always said that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile. I don’t know whether or not this is true, but I reason that I am saving people all over the world from facial exercise. Facial exercise people! Smiling is like natural botox.

Other people need God because they are afraid of Death with a capital “D.” I understand completely. After all, I’m a non-believer. Let me tell you, the prospect of laying down for a dirt nap for all eternity isn’t very appealing. But then, it scares me to think I have a soul because then I’ll never truly get to sleep. I have to reason that if there was a goal to my fleshy existence and I was simply moving from one phase to another that surely, yes surely, my soul has a purpose too. Its like retiring from a white collar job with an excellent 401K only to find out that you’re going to have to come out of retirement to work the door at Wal-Mart. I’d arrive at St. Peter’s pearly gates and groan, “You’ve got to be kidding. Ok God… I get it! Jokes on me! Ha Ha.” I like sleep. I really do. If God does exist I hope we can work out some arrangement where I can sleep the first 1,000 years and then awake in the after life. Perhaps I can be encased in a glass box and animals from the nearby meadows can scamper over to my body while I wait for Prince Charming to…… well, that’s never going to work now is it? But seriously, death is scary. I get that. I just don’t see what’s so horrible about having a finite existence. I think it would make people appreciate their lives on Earth more if they didn’t believe in Heaven. It’s like marriage, everyone knows there is an escape clause. So, if you screw up the first time that’s okay, you’ll get another shot. What a terrible philosophy!

Of course, some people need God simply because they deal with pain and suffering. This is perhaps the greatest argument for faith because I cannot see or imagine a better way of dealing with hardship. I recently came to the conclusion that I need some sort of talisman or good luck charm to hold on to because my life, as of late, has been extremely difficult. Sometimes I feel alone. Sometimes I feel like I’m not being listened to. Sometimes I want an objective shoulder to lean on. I can see the allure of faith. It doesn’t require any material possessions. It simply exists all around you, in everything you do. I want that kind of peace. I want to believe that everything will work out as it is supposed to and all I have to do is continue to participate - God will take care of the rest. But there’s this little voice that creeps up from inside of me that challenges, “People need faith because they are weak.” In my opinion, religion is a patriotic opiate that keeps people from challenging authority. I imagine the government shoving their hands up the asses of every citizen in America and using us for a puppet show at the local library. For some people, this is a perfectly acceptable way of living. But it isn’t for me. I never wanted to fall in line. I never wanted to believe what everyone else believed simply “because.” I need proof.

This isn’t to say that I disrespect those who are religious. I’ve had many good friends throughout my life who are deeply religious. In fact, my girlfriend has an enormous amount of faith. No… I’m just jealous. I wish I could turn off my thoughts and fall in line and simply go with the flow for the sake of my own sanity. I felt this way when I announced my homosexuality too. Why couldn’t I just be like everyone else? Its like selecting myself to go before a firing squad or be hung or bolted up in a stockade. Who wants to endure this communal shame?

Yet, to deny my sexuality would have proven detrimental. So, I suppose that believing in God without truly “believing” would have been equally destructive to my self image. The one thing I truly believe is that believers should believe entirely, they shouldn’t be made to feel guilty or manipulated into belief. No amount of water-boarding in Guantanamo Bay 8 weeks from now could make me believe in God any more than I do at this very moment. Belief is something that comes from within, not from without.

So, until I find my spiritual self I have chosen to believe in the power of a charm to bring good luck. After all, if I believe it works that’s all that really matters, right? Isn’t that what faith is?