But Seriously Folks

I have to say I'm sorry for the lack of update to The Church of No Preference blog. I do have a good excuse as I was laid up in the hospital getting angioplasty done. This is the simple truth at a blog written for humor.

Laying in the hospital bed prior to the procedure I wondered about the role of God in pre-op. Many people pray to God for a good outcome, which to the patient would be to live or to have minimal health problems. I didn't so much as pray, but to hope for the positive outcome. I've always felt a sense of selfisness or greed to ask God to intervene in my affairs.

Now I'm in post surgery recovery at home and all seems good. I essentially trusted the humans (doctors, nurses, etc.) to do their jobs properly and effectively and that is what has apparently been the case.

Did God intervene in my health problem? Or did God simply let humans do their work? Or even, does God even exist? These are all questions that can't be answered by my circumstances. God never spoke to me. I hadn't prayed so I can't know that God was listening to me. If I had prayed, could I have truly attributed God's intervention or guiding hand? And I have no idea whether my friends or family had prayed, so did that have any influence? What of the person who has no outside prayer support, no personal prayer and has a complete recovery, does God intervene and how would we know?

These are questions of faith. To believe in God, it takes faith to understand that questions of faith probably can't be answered or verified. To not believe in God also takes faith to understand that questions of faith won't be answered. Faith is so tricky and elusive particularily when the faith is in something we can't see and can't prove.

It would be comforting to think that God helped me through my surgery. But it certainly is comforting to know that the humans in the operating room performed their jobs correctly. And they can be thanked in person, but to thank God is purely on faith that God was involved when I can't confirm that.

So, who knows? "Thanks all for your help," is the best thanks I can give.

Chairman of the Gods

Cee E. Oh's boardroom ready to convene a meeting of the Gods.

We have members here at the Church of No Preference that come from the business world. Not surprisingly (at least at our church) they have been debating a God theory and formulating a worship of that theory.

They think the Gods are set up like a corporation. The top God is the Chairman of the Board, they call him/her Cee E. Oh. The Gods that vote in the Cee E. Oh candidate are the board members. And then there are minor gods called investors.

We've been calling this religion, Godsporation, for lack of a better name. The Godsporationists could develop into a seperate church of their own, there is cartainly debate in our church about this. For now the Godsporationists are staying with us because they understand that we are not going to treat them as weirdos or stymie their beliefs.

Godsporationists believe that all the people in the world are consumers of their God's word. Cee E. Oh has spoken, we the people must consume it to be good believers. And like any good business, they have begun to market their religion.

To them a religion doesn't have meaning unless it's emblazoned on a T-shirt. Religion must have slogans, it must sell! I can't say this is my cup of tea, yet what religion doesn't sell itself in some manner?

Without missions or recruitment, without outreach programs, without self promotion most religions would simply die out from reducing membership. At least the Godsporationists are honest about their intentions. They embrace promotion, it's a tenet of thir philosophy. And I have to admit they are growing in their talent at applying business principles to their God business.

I have to giggle at some of their T-shirt slogans, if I believed in a Chairman of the Gods, I'd buy their wears. For instance, here are a few examples;

$ell Your $oul To Cee E. Oh.

Chariman of the Gods, you can't buy a better God.

Invest in God for great future returns.

Cash, credit, layaway, Cee E. Oh will accept your purchase.

Buy the way, to Cee E. Oh.

The Godsporationists have been churning out so many slogans for Tshirts it's hard to keep track of them all. At this point I think they are just breaking even with their enterprise belief system, but I wouldn't put it past them to make a huge impact on society. They've taken a trademarked saying and taken it to heart, "Just do it."

Religious Phone Service

Pray phone, not pay phone.

The latest in cell phone service is "kosher phones." Now not actually kosher, the phones are made without all the extra bells and whistles. By not allowing things like web access, videos or downloadable ringtones, the phones can sort of boast of being clean from the vulgarities of modern life, such as porno or obscene music.

These kosher phones are available only in Israel currently but another phone maker is servicing Arab countries (with an added feature of a compass for finding Mecca's direction) and the United States. These religious phones are finding their niche in the marketplace and certainly other religious phone ideas will probably emerge.

Personally, I want a phone with a direct line to God. I'd call it the pray phone. We could use a version of it here at The Church of No Preference. We would have a phone number here at the church that members could leave messages of prayer and maybe we could answer them, if we decide to even answer the phone. Member could put it on speed dial number one.

I'm sure we'd have a voice menu, maybe like this. "If you'd like to talk to God, please enter one. If you'd like to talk to Jesus, what he would do would be to enter two. If you would like to speak to Muhammad, enter three. If you'd like speak to other prophets, please enter four. If you'd like to not believe in God, hang up."

If a person entered one, he would be directed to the God messaging. "If you believe in one God, enter one. If you believe in multiple Gods, enter two, three, four, and five. If you have a specific prayer, stay on the line and an operator will be with you shortly."

The voice menu would probably be endless as there are just too many contingencies. I suspect that most callers would end up hanging up out of frustration and isn't this somewhat like religion in the real world? People give up on their faith or church frustrated that it doesn't address their needs.

On second thought, the God phone menu might not be such a good idea. We want to provide personal service, not voice automated instructional devotion. And we probably don't want to hire phone answering personnel. But, we will think longer on this idea. I really wish I had a cell phone where God called me, with an organ music ring tone.

softball

United's pitcher delivering to KF Nibla, resulting in KF's winning homerun.

A quick accounting of the past weekends sofball results.

The Church of No Preference Pirates swept the two games. The first game against the Unitarian Uniteds was a hard fought 8 to 7 victory. The Uniteds might be our closest competitor, at least religiously. Unitarians are very accepting of people that come from all different backgrounds although they are primarily Christian. In slight contrast we brag of being a sectless sect and can claim to be even broader in acceptance, but they would probably argue this. So you can see we have a rivalry.

In fact we enticed one of their best players, second baseman KF Nibla to join our church a couple of years ago. KF, who has never revealed what KF stands for, came through in the clutch in the later innings of the game with two consecutive homeruns, one with a man on and the second homer a solo shot to take the final lead in the game. The Uniteds are so jealous yet still upset with KF for jumping ship. We do our best to keep KF from even talking with any of the United players, we don't want some sort of sudden free agent return deal.

The second game against the Hari Krishna Krishnas was a blowout, 15 to 2. I don't know why they even play softball, they barely even try. We practically gave them the two runs in the last inning just to make them feel good. Yet the Krishnas don't seemed to be fazed by losing virtually every game every year. They just dance and sing all game like that's all that's important. We struck out several batters as they danced in the batter's box not even noticing the slow pitched ball cross the plate. So now our record is 3 and 1 and we look forward to next week when we hope to climb into first place.