The Meming of Life » “Values and beliefs with which we don’t agree” Parenting Beyond Belief on secular parenting and other natural wonders

Hemant Mehta posted about a godless guy named Dale McGowan who filled out a design form with a Christian design firm about creating a web site called “Foundation Beyond Belief,” an organization that will focus on humanist generosity and allow for charitable giving from atheists. The “Christian” design firm responded that McGowan’s godlessness goes against said Christian’s core values, and their firm would not be a great fit for designing the site. Godless McGowan responded in kind, and walloped the guy with a brilliant response.

“Thanks so much for your reply. I must agree, we would be a very poor fit — but not because you are committed Christians.

Our foundation is dedicated primarily to the encouragement of charitable giving among the nonreligious but will be supporting both religious and secular charities. I would only want to work with someone who shares those values of generosity and openness, who sees the importance of reaching across lines of difference. Thanks for letting me know that you don’t agree with such values.”

I like McGowen. He has YouTubed a couple videos about parenting as non-believers. His efforts are bridging the gaps between belief and non-belief in other respects. I think he’s doing important work.

When I was a believer, I thought that the meaning of Christianity was to get in with the other guys, get toe to toe with the other religions and varieties of beliefs. Why? Because Jesus taught about it, and I was a follower of Christ. I believed that if Christianity was so great, than nothing could stand in the way of its greatness. The older I got, the more I heard the opposite recommendations. I wasn’t supposed to act like the good samaritan. I wasn’t to go in bars or in evil doers homes. Those things could threaten my faith.

Politically, I was told the opposite of what I believed. I thought being like the good Samaritan was giving to the poor, giving out welfare, putting clothes on people who were in need, which includes the lazy, the filthy, the poor, and the idiot humans — for which there seem to be many. The more I looked at the church, the more I heard the message, “Don’t support welfare. Don’t support the lazy.” Yeah, the poor will always be among us, but then again, it’s easier for a camel walk through the needle. I hated all the contrasting messages.

Now I know what I believe. I believe in giving as much as I can. I believe in it more than giving all my money to the lazy CEOs who don’t need another dime, because a trust fund or life lottery spoiled them with too much already. Do I give my money to some asshole in a $20,000 suit or an asshole in a gutter?

I choose the gutter.

Futball

Yesterday I went to the U.S. vs. Honduras and the Costa Rica vs. Mexico soccer games at Soldier Field. My buddy Terry took his employees as a group outing. When one ticket became available, he called and asked if I was interested in going. I went and I had A LOT of fun. They picked me up in a white limo near my house, and the car was full of Michalob cans and drunk Mexicans. There were four white guys. The rest were latino. There was one Guatamalan, I qualify myself as Puerto Rican, and the rest were Mexican.

I can’t tell you how many people came up to me and spoke Spanish first. The limo driver asked me what my nationality was. He guessed South American or Italian.

The U.S. game was great. U.S. won 2-nil. The two goals were beautiful. One was in the 45th minute, the other in the 90th minute. It was weird, because the seats weren’t filled up for the game, but there were tons of people walking around.

Apparently Mexicans bought the hell out of those tickets, because for the Mexico game, almost every seat was filled with a green shirt. The number over the loud speaker was 55,000 people in attendance. And I bet there were only about 7,000 watching the U.S. game.

What Soldier Field didn’t anticipate was how many drunk people take over the stadium at 9 p.m.. From 4 to 9, a lot of Mexican were tailgating like they’d never tailgated before. Needless to say, they were sloshed.

It pissed me off that the Mexican fans were out of control. When Costa Rico took corner kicks, they would douse the player taking the kick with beer and drinks. It was bad sportsmanship and the Mexicans should feel ashamed at that kind of behavior.

Otherwise, I was glad that I was a “Yes Man” and went along, because otherwise, I would have missed out on a great time.