The Church of No Preference

The Holiday With No Name

2006-06-10T01:14:00.000-04:00

A Church of No Preference family enjoying some time during "The Mystical Furlough."

This is a time of waste. Call it what you may, sabbatical, recess, vacation, suspension, hiatus, it really doesn't matter, but it has been time for a space-out. At the Church of No Preference, we make time to not do things as normal and tht means ceasing operatons.

You may have noticed the lack of blogging, or bloglessness due to the activity outage, this is normal during the time-out. We do this every year for three to four weeks in the late spring and it provides time to rejuvenate our souls. During this period we highly discourage attendance to church in order to even give the building time to relax.

We have never settled on a formal name for this time of the year, but everyone knows and anticipates this interlude. Mulitudes of descriptions are used. Some are very basic, like "Sabbatical," or "Hiatus," and others are a bit more colorful, such as "Springathon," The Holiday With No Name," and "The Big Breathing Break." This bog entry is just a notice that a lack of blogging has occurred.

During "The Long Dream" an interesting date happened, 06/06/2006 or 666. A small portion of the followers of the Church of No Preference were a bit worried that the world might end due to the 666 date. With a sigh of relief, the world survived the ending of the world and life goes on. That was fortunate that the ending of the world didn't happen during our "Mystical Furlough," because that would have been distracting from the enjoyment of our "Leaf of Absence."

Also a note that I had a small heart attack early during "The Great Goof-Off," and have been taking it easy (what else would I do during "Rebound Recess?") while awaiting the second procedure for stent-izing. I'm doing good. Times like these get one questioning what is beyond death should the slight chance that the procedure goes kerflooey. One wonders if there really is a God or Gods. Or does God pay attention to me as they go messing around inside my heart? Does God intervene in our lives or just let things happen? Or is God just a myth?

I must also mention that the softball league has been suspended during this time and will explain more about this at a later date. So, anyway, party on Church of No Preferentists, "The Nothing To Do Festival" is still in session.

But Seriously Folks

2006-05-19T10:24:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-11T17:05:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-03T09:41:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-01T21:05:00.000-04:00

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.

Letters From the Raptured?

2006-04-27T11:00:00.000-04:00

The flying letter writers being raptured.

The Church of No Preference is bereft of people with dogmatic attitudes. Most people are attracted to be No Preferentists because of the lack of dogma at this church. We have virtually no absolutist believers in Revelations from the Bible (or Revelationists as some call them). Certainly there are members here who wonder if the rapture is a possibility, but none that give us screaming headaches with their repeated dire warnings.

Recently I was made aware of a website that allows Revelationists to write letters to their loved ones to be delivered after the Revelationist has raptured (taken to heaven thus disappearing from Earth). Here is the form letter to be sent out after the rapture.

Dear Friend;

This message has been sent to you by a friend or a relative who has recently disappeared along with millions and millions of people around the world.

The reason they chose to send you this letter is because they cared about you and would like you to know the truth about where they went.

This may come as a shock to you, but the one who sent you this has been taken up to heaven.

If you read a Bible, you will see that after chapter three in the book of Revelation, the church is no longer mentioned as being on earth. (The church are the believers in Jesus Christ, not the buildings in which people meet.)

In the Bible, 1 Thessalonians Chapter 4 verses 16 and 17 tell how Jesus came to take away His church. But, you have to believe the Bible is the Word of God in order to believe this.

I am sure that there will be a lot of speculation as to what happened to all these people. The theories of some scientists and world leaders will have so much credibility that most of the world will believe them.

It will sound like the truth!

But, there is only one truth. And, that truth is that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, came back to earth and took with Him to Heaven all who believed in Him and made Him their Lord.

If you would like to give your life to Jesus Christ and be born again, it is not too late. First you must pray to God saying "Father, I admit I am a sinner, and I will turn from my sin and do good. I believe that Jesus was your son and that He came here to die for me so that my sins would be forgiven. I ask you to forgive me and I will repent of my sins. In Jesus
name I pray."

If you just prayed that prayer and meant it with all your heart, then God will know you as one of His own. You should now seek out others who have also given their lives to Christ, read a Bible daily, and do your best to bring others to Christ.

God bless you.

Those of us who don't believe that this will really happen can at least take heart that that those raptured didn't send a gloating letter to those of us left behind. I'd hate to get a letter along the lines of this;

Dear Left Behind,

This message is to let you know that a friend or relative has gone to heaven and that you obviously didn't. Your friend or relative wishes to convey to you these words, "I told you so!"

They go on to tell you, "You wouldn't believe this place! If only you had listened to me. If only you had listened to the TV preachers. If only you had picked apart the Bible for out of context verses, you'd be up here with me!

You friend or relative hopes your life down there with all the other sinners isn't too chaotic, yet doesn't feel deeply sorry for you as you had your chance, you blew it.

You will hear all sorts of reasons that your friend or family member is gone, don't believe them, believe the TV preachers. Wait. There won't be any TV preachers left, they are up here. Hmmm. Believe this letter!

But, wait! It's not too late for you. You can still get to heaven by believing in Jesus and in this letter. Get going on that and you too can be in heaven. You could meet with your friend or relative again in the hereafter. You may not disappear as your friend or relative did. You may have to procede to heaven in third class, but at least you'll be on the flight.

See you soon, maybe.

Whether the letter is gloating or polite, I'm baffled by the rapture theory. It seems that if you missed the boat on the first try, you can change and catch the next voyage. It almost seems to me that we are allowed to party unending until we get the letter, then turn over a new leaf and we can be sending a letter as well. They should title the letter "This Is Your Last Warning," then we would know to get our lives with God.

Democratic Gods

2006-04-26T13:01:00.000-04:00

...for a new One God!

How did some religious cultures go from multiple Gods to only one God?

Well I do know the history of the Jews who decided that their regional God traveled with them and that God was the only God they followed, ignoring the other Gods that each region believed in. After some time, their God became the One God.

The Christian God and the God of Muhammad are the same God as the Judeo God, athough there is clearly a perception among many within each religion that their particular God is the One God, and that the other two religions have a different One God. Or that their One God has a special relationship with their particular religion and not with the others.

If you were to consider God ideologies in terms of human society political systems then we might be able to make more sense of beliefs in God(s).

It's believed that polytheism is derived from people observing the vast display of stars and planets passing each night. But with so many stars, constellations of stars and planets it must have been anarchy trying to understand the Gods assigned to various portions of the stellar sky. So out of anarchy evolved a more communal society of Gods. Some points in the night sky eventually began to receive more attention, those Gods started to become predominant.

Later, polytheism had a structured system of Gods that had roles in a heirarchy. The Greeks and Romans for instance had a system not unlike a monarchy. They had a top male God married to a top female God. They in turn bore many other Gods with powerful positions, but never to assume the throne. Since Gods don't die, this polytheistic monarchy always had a permanent power structure.

Then along came monotheism. One God to rule all. This might be called a solo everlasting dictatorship in God political systems. Since there is only one God, no other God can assume absolute control.

But somehow it seems humans have missed a political theocratic ideology. Maybe, just maybe there are many Gods, countless Gods in heaven. Maybe, Gods are part of a democratic system and they get together every few hundred of our years and elect a new God to be the One God.

It's quite possible humans have missed the boat on this theory. Is it conceivable that Jews, Christians and Muslims all believed in a One God, but it really was a different One God? The difference being that the Gods had elected a new One God between each religion's formulation.

The God of Moses could have been elected by the Gods way back in the time of the Book of Genesis. The God of Jesus had been elected by the Gods prior to Jesus' birth. Then another God election came along and a different One God was in office to become the God of Muhammad. Since that time, the Gods may have elected several other Gods in succession to be the One God. Who knows how many Gods have won heavenly political campaigns during our human history?

Now I'm sure the democratic heaven is nothing like democracies of human nations, particularily the United States. I doubt that there are political parties fighting each other for power. I highly doubt that huge sums of money are passed around to advertise a God candidate. And I extremely doubt that the elected God is the "lesser of two evils" as American elections have been called.

I can conceive of God Democracy as being very easy going. There may not be a set term limit, the Gods could just suddenly decide to have a party and elect a new God. Possibly the One God just decides enough is enough and calls for an election to name a replacement. And it's certainly possible that the other Gods on occasion must call for an election to recall a particular One God that has abused power.

As I have never heard this God theory before, I can't believe there has been any study to determine if there is any corrollation between what happens on Earth to any particular elected One God. In fact it would probably be hard to determine the line of succession of elected One Gods. They've never been named, let alone understood to have distiguishable personality traits.

I could cite some very loose observations. It's been said that the God of the Bible's Old Testiment was a wrathful God wrecking havoc with floods, plagues, rains of frogs, etc. And it's been noted that the God of the New Testiment was a more understanding God.

The two parts of the Bible may show some evidence of a change of the One God, at least one election took place. There may have been more than one election and the Old Testiment had several One God personalities with a more wrathful nature. The later books of the Old Testiment had a less wrathful One God, maybe the voting Gods were successively electing nicer and nicer One Gods.

Currently several religious leaders in the United States have been publicly surmissing that the One God is wrathful. These leaders have claimed that events like 9/11 and the many hurricanes culminating with Hurricane Katrina are proof that God is mad at America.

From the point of view of democratic heaven it could be they are beginning a recall campaign to remove the One God. There may be an impeachment brewing in the God Democracy.

If you believe this theory and live in the United States it might behoove you to pray to the voting Gods to call for an election to replace the One God. If the currently elected One God is becoming wrathful, it seems time for a new One God, unless you like a wrathful God. Myself, I plan to pray to the voting Gods, I'd rather have an understanding God. I've been working on a prayer that goes something like this;

Oh Voting Gods, I beseech you,
please think of us humans.
We are not perfect, we are not without flaws,
but do we deserve the wrath of God?
We need understanding, we need guidance,
not floods and hurricanes and tornados.
I pray to you Voting Gods to look at your One God.
I pray you see the harm that has befallen us by His hand.
I pray you recall the One God,
and throw the bum out! Amen!

You don't have to use this particular prayer. You can think up your own prayer that you might think will catch the attention of the Voting Gods. But if you want to change the One God to a more favorable God, get cracking on that praying. Pray for impeachment.

Ruminations From the Church

2006-04-25T05:10:00.000-04:00

Take great strides when you walk on water.

We at the Church of No Preference are virtually addicted to sayings, maxims, mottos, truisms, and old saws. We just have this love for ruminating on those things.

To Ruminate;
1 : to go over in the mind repeatedly and often casually or slowly
2 : to chew repeatedly for an extended period
intransitive senses
1 : to a chew again what has been chewed slightly and swallowed : chew the cud
2 : to engage in contemplation

To be clear, we don't chew repeatedly on something already slightly chewed, particularily an old saw. That would be awful. But we do engage in contemplation of old sayings, and new sayings for that matter. Here are some sentences that have gotten our minds nearly blown.

If you could touch everything, you'd have lots of foreign particles on your fingers.

If you can rule the world, then no more power to you.

Cross your fingers, wiggle your nose, raise an eyebrow, breath deeply, twist your hips, click your heels, and if you did all that, I've got some trash in my garage to sell you.

Every new day is a reason to rip off the previous day on the daily calendar.

When life gets you down, scream out your window, "I'm mad as hell and I won't take it anymore." Then take a nap.

Reach for the stars, but be careful not to get charged with harrassment.

You can keep your head high or keep your head down, just be sure to keep your head above water.

Don't forget to bring your brains, they might come in handy.

Where there's smoke there's fire and where there's fire there's going to be a pile of ashes.

God is big!

Nerfballs should be called softballs and softballs should be called "bigger than hardballs, yet a wee bit softer, BALLS."

You're in love when you get that funny tingling in your stomach, or you're on a rollercoaster, or both as love IS a rollercoaster.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me. Well, the names do bug me and please disarm yourself of those stones and sticks.

The world is insane, just ask the news.

So there you have the latest sayings to ruminate upon. Remember, do not chew them repeatedly or at least be sure to swallow them whole. But I suggest that the best way to ruminate these thoughts of wisdom is to lay back in a big cushy sofa with your favorite beverage by your side and partake of them slowly. Stay out of the kitchen while thinking about them, you'll get distracted from thinking rumination to chewing rumination.

Softball, The Game of Meditation?

2006-04-24T11:15:00.000-04:00

The Buddhas manager deeply contemplating a pitching change.

Our second game we played this weekend was against the Buddhist Buddhas. We always have trouble beating those guys for some reason. We just can't seem to rile them up or get under their skin, which in slowpitch softball can be part of the psychological game within a game.

We will be yelling "hey batter, batter, batter, swing!" But when you look at the batter, he just has that serene look on his face, like nothing in the world can bother him. We'll try taunting them with stupid insults like, "Zen are you going to swing?" One guy on our team even tried mooning them (indiscretely avoiding the umpires eyes) and yelling "I got one of your four truths over here!!"

But, nothing works to throw them off their game. I'm always amazed when one of their players hits a homerun and you look into their dugout and no one is up cheering. They just smile for the joy of the moment and return to their meditation. It's unnerving enough to intimidate our team somewhat.

Well we lost the game 15-6, we got zenned. We'll get them next time, later in the season. We might just fight meditation with meditation next time, we'll out-meditate them.
~~~~~~~
On a different note. We began some good natured teasing of Bob Smith, one of our outfielders. See, he has always had this favorite nickname, The Decider. It turns out that this past week before this weekend's games that President Bush decided to name himself The Decider. Here's the quote, "I'm The Decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense."

So poor Bob had his nickname stolen by President Bush and worse still Bob hates Bush. We were calling Bob, The Decider in Chief, Bush Buddy and several other teasing remarks that either I can't remember just now or were too crude to mention here. Anyway, now Bob is steaming and is considering changing his nickname.

Pre-game Prayer

2006-04-23T12:51:00.000-04:00

Pre-game praying, did God or the God's hear us?

This weekend the No Preference Pirates took the field for our first slowpitch softball game of the year. The opening day is usually more exciting due to the fact that everyone starts out equal and tied in the standings. Any team has a chance at this point. It also comes with some pomp and circumstance, you know, music and all the teams gathering for introductions and team photos.

Our first game was against the Scientology Actors. Tom Cruise and John Travolta were no shows. Tom was busy with his wife's birth and Travolta, who knows, making a movie I heard.

It was after the game, which we won 14-7, that I began to ponder about the effects of prayer, specifically the pre-game prayer. Both teams had performed the pre-game prayer. I duly remember our stunning ritual, dancing and a stirring oration by Reverend Wally. I also had seen the Scientolgists observe a few moments of prayer as well.

We won the game, so did God listen to us more than the other team? Were we somehow more deserving of God's plan for an early season win than the Scientologists? Or maybe did God just ignore the whole game and we won because we were the better team that game? What if we hadn't prayed prior to the game, would the other team automatically have won due to our prayer negligence?

I've considered a pre-game prayer experiment this season. We should see if we win when we pray and lose if we don't. But that would be chancing some losses if that experiment were to have some merit, and I don't want to cost our team some losses.

And what if winning is caused not by our faith in God's, God, higher power, etc., but by our fanciful prayer display? Maybe our win this weekend was due to our praying getting noticed among the massive amounts of prayers going out at that moment throughout the world. Did our prayer get priority due to the dazzling show over some kid praying for their terminally sick parent?

This is all so confusing. We might not have had to pray so hard if we had been able to attract former major league catcher Darren Daulton to our church and team (Darren it's still not too late). He could have contributed to the prayer and maybe slammed a homerun to boot. Oh, well, we will just have to debate this pre-game prayer ritual as the season goes on. For now, we walked off the field with an outstanding 14-7 victory, thank God!

The Universe, Just a Bunch of Sims?

2006-04-19T08:45:00.000-04:00

Are those my friends in some God's Sims game?

I think therefore I am, or as a plural statement, we think therefore we are. The singular version is attributed to philosopher Rene Decartes who preferred "I am, I exist." The full argument is more complicated, but today we know it as I think therefore I am.

But not so fast. There are several members of The Church of No Preference that wonder if that is false. They think it is conceivable that we don't think at all, that everything we do or think is controlled by something else. They have come up with a modern name for this state of existence, The Sims, Universe Edition.

The theory is that some very powerful entities, Gods, higher powers, or something we can't even conceive, are really controlling our universe like a Sims game. Nothing we think are our thoughts. Nothing we do are our actions. No one we see and interact with exists as we think (although we don't really think).

Imagine yourself as a Sims character. You walk around, go to work, return home, and perform menial tasks. Imagine as that Sims character your world would seem real. But then imagine that you are controlling that Sims character, you'd never think that the character had thoughts and emotions. You'd never believe the character chooses their actions.

And so it goes with those Gods controlling us. They manipulate us. They make us do strange things. They input odd commands just to see us dance.

But being a Sims character isn't so bad as long as we are ignorant to being controlled. If we were to believe we are being totally controlled, then that would be depressing. We've come to believe in a thing called "free will," and that's what makes life worth living. But alas, we might not have free will, who knows 100% for sure?

If I'm a Sims character in a huge universal game, then the things I'm writing are just God controlled OR they are coming out my brain due to the computer random generator. All our thoughts could be just chance binary choice, zeros or ones, to make up what seems to be complicated ideas.

The Masters of Universal Sims World just keep making me type away. Soon, they will make me do something else. Oops, I feel an urge to quit typing and publish this post. The urge seems so real, yet not in my control. Yes, the urge is getting stronger. It's almost like I'm reacting to a click of a mouse, how odd. My impulse is to now publish and go do a chore. Weird! Bye, bye.

Got Body? Let Nature Take It's Course.

2006-04-18T08:45:00.000-04:00

Buzzards circling, in search of an unusual funeral.

When people die in our society, we've adapted various options for the disposal of the body. Many of these disposal methods are based on long established social and religious beliefs, such as burial or cremation.

The Church of No Preference has no preference to human remains disposal. We understand that traditional choices are popular in our society. Yet we also recognize that new ideas for dispensing with the human carcass are emerging and should garner some discussion as to pros and cons.

The most popular method of burial has begun to have downsides (no pun intended). The cost of cemetary real estate is increasing as the availability of that ground space is declining. Older graveyards are being desired by land developers for other purposes and in some cases the caskets and their gravestones are being relocated to other places. This situation is mostly what is causing people to rethink their cadaver deposition.

Some people donate their bodies to science and the medical field. Some people are trying the new form of permanent laying in state that has sprung up, storage units. The Navy sometimes buries at sea. Other people are having their bodies frozen and some are launching their deadness into space.

We think we have several unique methods being developed by some members here at The Church of No Preference. One member, who we shall call "Ashley," was watching a TV show about forensics and the study of corpse decomposition and had an idea. She liked the fact that decomposition was "giving back" to nature. But in her twist, instead of the dull science of forensics using this method, she believed that giving back our dead bodies to the environment should be a traditional celebration. She calls it a "take wake."

Ashley has evolved a plan written into her will for her cadaver's conclusion. She wants her corpse driven into a lonely desert and dumped. Then she is going to have a video camera set up for time elapsed taping, pointed at her dead body. After several weeks, the camera is to be retrieved and a funeral wake will be held for friends and family. At some point in the wake, the time elapsed video will be played.

Her love of nature shows should be quite evident in the viewing. She's considering hiring someone to add voice-over descriptions, such as;

"Not long after Ashley's remains are placed we see the buzzards circling overhead. They smell food. Diving to the ground the voracious birds begin consuming Ashley's carcass. But they're not the only hungry omnivores in the desert. Soon the coyotes approach. They drive off the buzzards and begin to rip into the dead flesh of Ashley. If you look closely, you can tell which coyote is the Alpha male, partaking of the meat first. Ashley's choice remains go to the strongest members of the pack."

"The flies begin to swarm in. They will lay their eggs in the last bits of Ashley, as well as gain nourishment. Eventually, as you will see later in the program, those eggs will result in the birth of maggots, who will ingest the tiny leftover pieces of Ashley, thus beginning their transformation into flies."

She believes that with quality editing, the video won't last more than a couple of hours. I suspect Ashley will need to have a disclaimer at the beginning of the video, explaining the graphic nature of her own personal nature show. I plan to watch, out of respect for Ashley's wishes. Others may adjourn to another room to pray or perhaps contemplate Ashley's demise, rather than risk a vomiting episode.

Good/Bad Friday

2006-04-14T02:03:00.000-04:00

Jesus returns to reenact Good Friday in Tombstone, Arizona.

Today is called Good Friday by Christians because Jesus was crucified. I've never understood that description. Such a gory occassion should have a name more like Tragic Friday or Bad Friday.

On this Good Friday my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted an explaination about the name of this day. So I made it a Google Friday and went hunting for information. Well, I found the Catholic Encyclopedia, and here is what they say.

From the earliest times the Chritians kept every Friday as a feast day; and the obvious reasons for those usages explain why Easter is the Sunday par excellence, and why the Friday which marks the anniversary of Christ's death came to be called the Great or the Holy or the Good Friday. The origin of the term Good is not clear. Some say it is from "God's Friday" (Gottes Freitag); others maintain that it is from the German Gute Freitag, and not specially English. Sometimes, too, the day was called Long Friday by the Anglo-Saxons; so today in Denmark.

Not a conclusive result. It would seem to be logical to call it God's Friday, as the whole bloody episode could be said to be in "God's hands." But if I were Jesus (and I'm not, at least the last time I checked) then Long Friday seems more appropriate. If I had been crucified (and history shows that Jesus was only one of many) then I would have been thinking "this is going to be one hell of a Long Friday." I know I'd certainly wouldn't say "Thank God, it's Friday."

I've never had a job that gave me the day off due to Good Friday. But usually here in Michigan the weather is improving by now and beginning to feel springlike. It's been sort of a private tradition to accomplish something on Good Friday. I'll tell myself, "Today seems like a good Friday to get a haircut." Or maybe "This is a good Friday to begin some spring yardwork."

But seeing as this year Good Friday coincides with the end of tax season, I'll more than likely say, "Good Friday! It's time to do taxes!" Which in effect makes the day a Bad Friday.

Darn, now I'm a little grumpy, I abhor doing my taxes. Now I want to call today, Grumpy Friday or Freakin' Friday. Of course due to April 15th falling on the weekend, I have a day or two extra to get my taxes done, and I don't HAVE to do taxes today. So I am back to calling it Good Friday, or maybe Procrastination Friday.

At least it's not the 13th, in which case it would be Good Friday the 13th, and wouldn't that seem extra dangerous? Throw in a full moon and I'd probably hide inside all day and night.

The Church of No Preference offers no preference on how one deals with Good Friday, except we do like to say what we would say on any Friday, "Have a good Friday!"

The Statistics Support Us

2006-04-13T13:00:00.000-04:00

In February and March 2002 the Pew Research Council conducted a survey of 2,002 adults. Questions about religious preference were included. The results are below:

Religious Preference	% June 1996	% March 2001	March 2002
Christian	84	82	82
Jewish	1	1	1
Muslim	*	1	*
Other non-Christian	3	2	1
Atheist	*	1	1
Agnostic	*	2	2
Something else (SPECIFY)	*	1	2
No preference	11	8	10
Don't know/Refused	1	2	1
TOTAL	100	100	100

11% said they do not believe in God but do believe in a "universal spirit" or "higher power"; 3% said they do not believe in God or a spirit or power. In a separate question, 1% said they are atheists (those who believe there is no God), 2% said they are agnostics (those unsure whether there is a God), and 11% said they have no religious preference. The no-preference category includes people "who may not be ready to declare themselves atheists or agnostics," Pew Director Andrew Kohut says.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This research shows that The Church of No Preference has much potential to grow very large. Only the category "Christian" ranked higher than "No Preference." We at the church are on a mission to expand our sectless sect. Looking at the chart, it seems obvious that first we must make ourselves known to all the No Preferentists and then to entice the Christians into declaring themselves having no preference.

I've always thought that the main reason Christians don't want to leave their religion is the threat of hell. Well, Christians, I'm here to tell you that hell doesn't exist at the Church of No Preference if you should care to believe that, we have no preference. We promise not to threaten that you will go to hell for not believing so faithfully in Jesus.

We do have members who believe in hell, which they believe is a hellava place to go. And we have members that don't believe in hell. "Hell No, We Won't Go," is a chant they like to use. And we have members that believe Hell is a town in Michigan, which is another hellava place to go.

So you can see we really have no preference about hell. Give us a chance, the above statistics show we are bigger than you ever thought. The Church of No Preference, a place where hell can freeze over, or not.

Invite To Darren Daulton

2006-04-11T13:02:00.000-04:00

Darren Daulton knocks his famous third base line hit.

On occassion the Church of No Preference will invite a person to join us. Sometimes we find an interesting person in the news that we feel compelled to reach out to. We've decided that former major league catcher Darren Daulton deserves an invitation. Please don't assume that this is because we are looking to improve our softball team. Here is some background on Daulton to understand our reasons.

Darren Daulton, nicknamed Dutch was a three-time all-star playing with the Philadelphia Phillies and Florida Marlins over a 14 year career. Since Daulton's retirement he has had a few problems, a drunk driving incident, a jail sentence and a divorce. Yet, he has evolved a mystical mind, now believing in metaphysics.

As Daulton explains , "I didn't have my first out-of-body experience until I was 35. I hit a line-drive just inside the third base line to help win a game. The strange thing was I didn't hit that ball. I never hit balls inside the third base line!" He was overcome with tears. "I told my wife, 'It wasn't me who swung that bat! It wasn't me!' She thought I was Looney Tunes."

Currently Daulton is working on a book about his awakening and thoughts that he plans to title If They Only Knew, which is a reference to his 1993 Phillies pennant winning team. It is expected that he will write about his synchronicity with the number eleven.

As Daulton explains, "Reality is created and guarded by numeric patterns that overlap and awaken human consciousness, like a giant matrix or hologram. They are created by sacred geometry--numbers, the language of the universe, codes of awakening--such as 11:11, which represents twin strands of DNA about to return to balance. Eleven equals balance."

"I'll wake up at night and look at the clock and it's 11:11. I'll turn on the TV and see a baseball game tied at 11 in the 11th inning. I'll look out the window and see a car passing with 1111 on the license plate. The car will turn into a driveway with 1111 on the mailbox."

Daulton can wax philosophically on any number of subjects, "The universe is made of vibrating energy. When energy vibrates fast enough on our 3-D plane, matter becomes invisible. Everything you see is vibrating at a certain level. A dirt clod, a rock..."

What about a rosin bag?

"Sure. A rosin bag is just a mirage of innumerable particles constantly speeding up or slowing down. But the Fourth and Fifth Dimensions remain unseen by most people. Their vibrations are at a lower frequency. When I share my thoughts and experiences with them (former teammates), I tell them there's no way their minds can comprehend what I'm trying to relate. My friends are limited to the five senses."

Daulton quick hits, "I thought astro-travel was pretty bizarre. You do it every night, you just don't know it. I've skipped through time, yup, believe it."

"I just wish people would open up their mind, take their heads out of the sand."

"There is no good or bad. We're all the same, but we're all different. The higher we ascend, the more the same we are."

"Everything just is, so yesterday, right now and tomorrow all happen simultaneously. Your mind creates the reality you live in."

Daulton explains the near future, "The Mayan calendar stops at Dec. 21st, 2012, the date the Mayans believed the world would end. On that day at 11:11 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, those who are ready to ascend will vanish from this plane of existence, like the crew of the Enterprise in Star Trek. I can't wait to disappear. I'd disappear today if I could."

The Church of No Preference hearby formally invite Darren Daulton to come and speak to us and with us. We believe he has already renounced any official religion and thus has met the minimum requirements to join us. We are deeply interested in the date 12/21/2012, so Darren please contact us. Also if you are interested in playing softball. please contact us even sooner.

God's Signature

2006-04-11T10:49:00.000-04:00

Our temporary "God" refused to sign checks.

Judge Refuses God's Signature

Regardless of how he had signed a stack of other documents, from bank records to income-tax returns, a judge rejected a man's request to be allowed to legally sign his driver's license as "God."

Berks County Senior Judge Forrest G. Schaeffer ruled Thursday that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation could require the man to sign his given name, Paul S. Sewell, and said documents he had signed in the past did not prove differently.

Sewell, 40, said he would appeal. Sewell said he is a self-employed bond-enforcement agent and began using the signature because fugitives always prefaced their comments with, "Oh, God," when he captured them.

~~~~~~~~~~

I'm a bit confused. How did they know that this man was a man and not God appearing as a man? The story doesn't explain it, but I'm guessing by the man's statements that he didn't claim to be God, only that he used God's name (in vain, as the judge ruled against him).

But this man could be God, the fugitives called him God. The IRS apparently let him submit his tax return with a signature of God, apparently taking God's payment or paying God's refund. Unless the IRS believed him to be God and decided that God doesn't use money. But the bank thinks this man is God, they accepted God's signature on bank records.

This is what makes believing in God so difficult. If God were to appear as a person, who would believe it was God? The bank might, but not that judge. The fugitives would, the IRS might, but many other people wouldn't buy it. There would be atheists, true believers, agnostics and no preferentists.

At the Church of No Preference we would give God a chance. We would watch as God signed his name for instance to the application to sit in the special pew or sign up for the softball league.

How could we prove it wasn't God? Could we challenge God to perform miracles? God might say, "I don't do magic tricks just because you ask, besides I'm testing your faith."

We might have to go so far as to kill God in an attempt to disprove the person was God. If we killed God and God died, then the person wouldn't have been God. Unless...God after getting killed decided to not return as the person we just killed instead heading to heaven to hang out until deciding to return as some other person. On the other hand if God lived we might think it was God, a miracle that a person lived after our murder attempt. Unless...we are just bad at murder and didn't do the job right.

But we aren't suppose to even attempt this death test due to three of our rules about not murdering. We would be breaking rules and possibly right in front of God's eyes. If God decided to live through our murder attempt, then God could sign the witness statement against us. Oh, what a difficult idea, this disproving God is a tricky business.

Once we had a member who signed God on paperwork, so we've dealt with this problem. Except the situation had a different twist. This member (God) left signature lines completely blank. See God told us that he has so many names that no name would suffice, thus the blank signature line. This could prove unwieldy. If anyone saw the different unsigned documents that God hadn't signed (or had signed, depending on how you interpret it) a usual conversation would ensue.

"Hey, who forget to sign this form?"

"Oh, that would be God."

"God? What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know that guy who might be God, claims to be God, and says he has too many names to pick from."

"Whaaaaat?"

"God leaves the line blank because he has too many names to pick from. You see?"

"And you believe this guy is God?"

"What do you want us to do? Kill him as a death test?"

"Well, I'm about ready to kill him. He hasn't signed any of his donation charges."

We never were able to determine if the person was God. God simply stopped showing up to The Church of No Preference. We will never know. Was God in our midst or were we in the presence of a nutcase?

The No Preference Pirates

2006-04-08T09:46:00.000-04:00

Pirate Plate, ready for the new season.

The Church of No Preference has been active in the church slowpitch softball league for several years. We're having some practices in preparation for the coming season. We're not bad for such a rag tag religious team. We finished first three years ago and the last two seasons we've been close to winning it all. So, we think, but don't pray (we leave things in the hands of luck) that we can finish number one again.

The league is made up of religious sects in two divisions. The No Preference Pirates are in the Non-Traditional Division along with The Unitarian Uniteds, The Druid Trees, The Indian Medicine Wheels, The UFOologist Saucers, The Hari Krishna Krishnas, The Scientology Actors, and The Atheist Thinkers. The top two teams along with the top two teams from the Traditional Division make the playoffs.

The Atheists are our nemesis seems like every year. The other two teams to figure to be in the running are The Druids and the Hari Krishnas, but anything can happen in a religious league, miracle finishes do happen.

The Traditional Division consists of The Catholic Crosses, The Baptist Preachers, The Sunni Sand, The Mormon Mountains, The Buddhist Buddhas, The Shiite Shooters, The Lutheran Lambs, and The Jewish Koshers. The Sunnis and The Lutherans are probably the two top teams with The Buddhists and The Catholics on their heels. I hope we don't end up in the playoffs against The Sunni Sand, they play aggressive slowpitch.

We have some pretty good players. Our pitcher, Dan Corns can really slug the ball, and he gets the ball over the plate. At second base we've got KF Nibla who hits for good average and has no preference about playing shortstop either. I play firstbase or hit designated hitter. Our catcher is kind of odd, but he just seems to do good things by accident, his name is Mack Coffee. The outfield has good power with George Bearbutt, Barley Marble and Bob Smith who we call The Decider.

Rounding out the team at third base is Rock Roy, the shortstop Henry Hawkins, and the designated hitter Sven Nailer and rotating at the other outfield spot are Les Houng and Foley Crump. Several other players get into the game, we play our full roster fairly equally.

The first game of the season is in a few weeks and we had our first practice a few days ago. We were looking rusty, but it was a bit cold and it was tough to get warm playing. Swinging the bat caused some stingers. Our first game is against The Scientology Actors, and we beat them a few times almost every year. They just don't seem to have much concentration on the game. Following them we play the tough Buddhas and then the equally rough Uniteds. The Buddhas have this big fat guy who hits cleanup from a crosslegged position and has led the league in homeruns three of the last five years.

Well, I'll let you know more as the season progresses. If you want season tickets or souvenirs just leave an email to get the schedule until we can get it posted to this website. We don't have many seats at Pirate Park but we do have "lawnchair hill" spots that go on sale the day of the game. Watch for further updates.

Weather Gods

2006-04-07T05:05:00.000-04:00

Approximation of "fluffstone"

The Church of No Preference just loves to have outdoor sermons, weather permitting. Enjoying nature, that was probably created by a God, on a mid-70s, windless. slightly cloudy day in the late morning is heavenly.

These assemblies can turn out to have some unexpected moments. For instance, the time a bunch of squirrels came swooping through our circle and did some type of mating ritual in front of the whole audience. Or when the tree branch dropped on the laps of half the front row, thank God there were no serious injuries. Unless you count Rita, who had a bad reflex action repeatedly throughout the day where her left leg would kick out suddenly and then trip the person walking past her.

The strangest outdoor religious get together that I will always remember was from two years ago just about this time of year. We had invited a drum circle group to perform some of our hip hymns partnered with the choir, it was beautiful and swinging. Soon people began to stand and dance with joy.

About 7 or 8 people were dancing in coordination to the music when suddenly a wind started. In seconds it began to blow harder. Everyone except the music and dancers became distracted by the rising weather. I remember thinking, "Hey, I checked the weather using several sources, it's suppose to be no wind, clear skies."

The music and the dancers seemed to be in a daze as they continued on. Just then, it began to hail, but it wasn't like real hail. It came down slowly, about the size of a persons foot, and didn't have the hardness or weight of hailstones. The objects were sort of like several wadded up dryer sheets.

I noticed that the dancers changed dances and right then those "fluffstones" finished falling. How strange?! The wind began swirling in a circle, somewhat strong, which caused those fluffstones to sweep all around us! Slowly at first and picking up speed. Then it began to lightly rain. The rain had a slighly oily feel, but not unpleasant. Then the rain was real rain. It never fell hard, lightly misting all of us as the fluffstones continued to whirl around. Surreal, I kept thinking.

And then the music suddenly finished. The dancers slowed then sort of swayed. The fluffstones whirled around then up and away to the north as the rain stopped as well. And looking up, there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

How weird at how quick it was over when the music stopped. Everyone began to settled down, sit and talk about what happened. It seemed like a miracle or a sign. All kinds of amazing ideas about what had just occured, but we found out later what was going on. The drums and choir started a new song, and the dancers reacted with joy again. And then the wind started blowing, then harder, then we realized that the dancers and music was combining into a weather dance.

The fluffstones and rain returned. We played in the fluffstones a number of times as the "dance of the weird weather" was performed. We think we had a weather God, or some sort of dance power. Anyway, we never do the Dance of the Weird Weather anymore. That particular drum group wouldn't play our outdoor religious gig again. They feared the fluffstones. We've been taking collections to pay a higher performance fee in order to get them to return. Please send your donations to the e-mail address.

We want to do the fluffstones again, it was miraculous. It gave us a sweet feel.

Reserved Pew

2006-04-06T13:11:00.000-04:00

In honor of the day the Church of No Preference solved church flatulation.

Anyone who has ever attended a church service probably has faced the problem that none want to mention, farting.

Whether you are the one who has the gas build up and are precariously afraid to release that pressure or you are within range of someone who actually has blasted an odor, farting in church is a difficult circumstance. Farting in church is a controversial subject and at the Church of No Preference we've experienced the problem and decided to face it head on, or rather nose on, as it were.

See, we had a member who had a chronic flatulance problem and after many a sermon clearing incidents we felt it became apparent that addressing the situation was more important than suffering the stench.

At first we attemted to heal the member, but we couldn't find anyone willing to lay hands on the person for any length of time. We attempted to use medicines of both the medical field and the holistic type, nothing worked with much success. We were at an impass.

We began to wonder should the member be banned for odorous emissions. It seemed so unkind and unfair. Just because someone can't control their intestinal gas it seems prejudicial to bar them from spiritual communal needs. So we began looking for compromise. We wanted to let the person leave their flatulence and for the rest of us to be able to stand it.

We tried on one day passing out surgical masks, but have you ever seen such a sight in church? It wasn't exactly condusive to serious God talk. Plus the muffled voices of the choir was insulting to the hymns.

Finally it was decided to create a special pew. We would have a bench where that person (and any other members with intestinal pressure on that particular day) would be able to sit in their own pew. We outfitted the section with air suction and blowing air fresheners.

We rejoiced! It was a success. In fact it was so popular many non-farters liked to sit in the peeyou pew. The seating was very modern with many selections of aromatic fresheners, banana mint was a favorite. It turns out we have many preferences of aromas at the Church of No Preference except the aroma of farts.

What Time is God?

2006-04-02T09:12:00.000-04:00

Today's Sunday sermon at the Church of No Preference will be loaded with references to time. Every year on this particular Sunday we devote our preaching as to time because of the change to Daylight Savings Time.

More than a few members of the Church of No Preference don't believe in Daylight Savings Time. Some of them believe that the Time God changes the time, moving it forward an hour today in order to confuse the humans. Some of the No Preferentists believe that Daylight Savings Time is a plot by the government to alter God's time. And finally some members think that Daylight Savings Time just doesn't exist.

For these reasons, our church has three clocks. One clock has been moved forward an hour like we are told to do. Another clock has been left alone and now reads an hour earlier than the DST clock. These two clocks have a label under them identifying them as Daylight Savings Time and God's Time. The third clock has no identification label to accommodate the members that don't believe DST even exists. We try to concede time beliefs to all No Preferentists. We also have a fourth clock that doesn't even move, this is for members that don't think time travels.

You might think that at the Church of No Preference that things are very confused and I wouldn't quite disagree. But we find a way to deal with our confusion. You also might wonder about our religion being labeled a sectless sect, and I might wonder as well. We do have members who have their own God agendas, for instance Barley Marble and his Yam God. So maybe we have sects in our sectless sects. Again we just deal with that confusion, you don't have to understand.

So if you'd like to pray to God today, be sure to include a prayer for resolution about time. "Please God, should we have only one time or do we continue to move it this time of year? Or God, are we just in a time out until the end of time?

Pranksta

2006-04-01T08:52:00.000-05:00

New information and complete proof has been found that absolutely shows that God doesn't exist. God is dead! We can all go home now. Religion is now useless and a complete waste of time and money. Don't bother praying because no one is hearing you.

WAIT! Don't PANIC! The first paragraph is not true! It was all a lie. I had no choice but to say that as the day is April 1st, April Fool's Day. Yes, I know, my sense of humor is deranged. But you see I have an excuse. I was April 1st punk'd earlier today. In fact I was played the fool ever since midnight when the 1st began.

I work night shift and all through my night, little things were not going right. I was dropping things, I couldn't locate things, time seemed to go to fast when I didn't need it to, and time seemed to slow down when I needed it to elapse faster. And the thing was, I had forgot that at midnight it became April Fool's Day. So I'm firmly convinced that I was being fooled all night long.

I think the Romans or Greeks had a minor God whose specialty was playing tricks. I think they named him Pranksta, the God of Antics. And last night Pranksta was concentrating on me. When Pranksta wants to frolic at your expense, you had better watch out. His relentless tricks and stunts can make a grown man drool. Hours later I was still wiping my chin of mouth moisture.

So now you might understand my opening paragraph, I wanted revenge. I wanted to eliminate a God, and that God would be Pranksta, the God of Antics. But how do you kill off a God?

Well judging by all those Roman and Greek Gods that don't exist anymore, you kill off a God by stopping to believe in them. Just ask Zeus or Hermes, but of course you can't ask them because they don't exist anymore.

So hear me now oh lousy God Pranksta, I don't believe in you anymore! Take your tricks and go home! Ha, Ha, Ha, since I don't believe in you, you can't go anywhere, you have no home. Oops! I just spilled my drink! ACKK! Just a minute I've got to clean up the mess.

I'm back. Boy, that was weird. Just after I diss off the Pranksta, I spill a drink. Either I still believe in Pranksta or other people still do. Man, this is going to be difficult. How do you stop believing in a God? It's not like you can turn belief on and off. This may take more time than I thought. So, maybe until I can truly believe that I don't believe, I should at least be nice to the Pranksta, great God of Antics.

Oh, powerful Pranksta, I bow down to your practical joking. Your enormous intellect and massive mischief is to be adored. April Fool's Day is your day for me to respect your stunts and capers. Pranksta, I give you an offering of a joke.

Knock, Knock.
Who's there?
Iwere.
Iwere who?
I Worship Pranksta, the God of Antics.

Now, please leave me alone the rest of today. Please find other people to punk, I beg and pray of you.

A Picture is Worth...

2006-03-31T10:16:00.000-05:00

There is an expression that says that a picture is worth a thousand words. So I've uploaded the above picture from a NASA site and now I'm wondering if this particular picture is actually worth a thousand words. The expression isn't specific whether ALL pictures have the thousand word worthiness, or if only some pictures get that rating. I also wonder does a picture have to stop at a thousand words or can a person continue past that milestone for many more words, bonus words you might call them.

When I grabbed this photo I made sure NOT to find out what this picture is. That way I have to come up with one thousand words to describe it. One thousand words, that is alot of words. This is going to take awhile. How many words do I have so far? Wait a second, I'll count them. OK, the count is exactly 152. That's more words than I expected. Good, this is going better than I thought it would.

Looking at the picture, I'm very amazed at the blurry colors emanating off the object into space. Wow! It's beautiful. I wonder if the object is a planet. In fact I wonder if the object is the planet Earth using a special optical lens possibly from the Hubble telescope. But, I just plain don't know the circumstance behind the picture.

It sure seems like a planet, could it be an outer planet, maybe Uranus? Again, with a different lens. Hold on second, I'm giggling because of the word Uranus. You know when I was growing up the planet was pronounced, your anus. Now they pronounce it, yur a ness. Just too many jokes in science class, I guess. But, I digress.

It could be Neptune, named after a God. And so were the other planets, all except Earth. I wonder why that is? I guess people looked up at the planets and thought they were Gods. I've always thought that was so odd. Gods? These things in the night sky? Everyone knows you can't see God. But back a couple of thousand years ago, the planets were the Gods. Is the above picture a picture of God?

I must interrupt this for a brief moment as I'm watching a rerun of last nights The Colbert Report on Comedy Central and during his comic bit called Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger a graphic displayed a space scene photo and it was refered to as God. What is so interesting to me is that I used the very same photo in my first post on this blog. Isn't that so cool? In fact I asked directly under my post picture, "Could this be the God of The Church of No Preference?" So, both Colbert and I used the same photo and referenced God to that photo.

Now I have to wonder if The Colbert Report have read my blog or was it a case of simple coincidence? Maybe synchronicity or a miracle? But it certainly is weird. I guess that photo is better than the photo I'm writing a thousand words about. It must be because that photo makes people think of God.

I also think of God for the picture at the top. People say that such beauty can only come from God. On the other hand maybe God came from such beauty. God and science are trying to vie for the beginning of the universe, at least as humanity is trying to interpret things. The usual idea is that God created the universe, but I've often wonder whether the universe created God. To ancient people who thought that the planets were Gods, then without really knowing it they were believing that the universe created the Gods.

As I continue to write, in the back of my mind I keep wondering how many words I've written. As that thought flits through my brain, it starts to fester. How many words have I written? Count them now. Well, I could just keep writing and adding to the total, as I'm doing right now. But then that festering thought pops back in. How many words? Count them. No, write some more. No, count them. OK, OK, I'll count them. Hold on a second.

Wow! More than I thought. Guess how many? Go ahead take a shot. The total is 711. But that didn't count the ones in this paragraph, which would now make 742, including the number 742. But hold on, there were four more words added after the number 742 to make 746. But geez, I wrote another sentence explaining all that. Hold on I'll count that sentence and this sentence as well...783.

Well I'm almost finished, at least I'm much closer to a thousand words. I've only got to write, um, let's see, 191 words as of right NOW. The word "now" left me with 191 words, and to explain that I've written more words. Good, I'm getting closer word by word, sentence by sentence.

I should mention that I really do believe that the picture is worth a thousand words, but probably not my words. Somebody better able to put a decent theme together would be better adept at applying a worthy set of a thousand words towards the picture. As I get closer to a thousand words, I find that it is neccesary to count the words as I type, which makes typing more complicated in my mind. Thinking numbers and trying to think of words at the same time is rather confusing. I'm surprised I'm even spelling them correctly.

You know this is getting exciting closing in on a thousand words. It seems so right, so ordered. It has a thrilling feel, like a race being finished. At the same time it is excruciating because I must have exactly one thousand words. This is soooo tense, down to the wire, call it a PHOTO finish? Well, thank God, I've just written and you've just read 1,000 words!

Affirmations and Verses

2006-03-30T04:58:00.000-05:00

Just because the sign is bent doesn't mean the point can't inspire.

Everybody loves a good quote now and then, particularily affirmations that apply to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and God. The Church of No Preference is no different. We collect sayings, post verses, repeat mantras, and generally like to mesmerize ourselves with sentences that seem to have deep meanings.

Look, we're human afterall. If we were God, we wouldn't need a bunch of sentences made up of words meant to make us think, now would we? Well, maybe we shouldn't presume so about God. Maybe God spends the entire day thinking up inspirational lines purely out of amusement. Anyway, below are several sayings that have been recently collected by No Preferentists.

Don't expect to see your inner soul by admiring yourself in the mirror.

Mirages in the desert sure look thirst quenching, but you'll never get to taste them.

If you spend enough time being amazed at the spin of toilet water as it flushes, you'll have to pay a higher water bill.

Sudoku may be fun now, but someday you'll think "it's just a bunch of numbers in boxes."

If you collect chunks of dirt, don't leave them outside in the rain.

If you thought the 1960's was all about drugs, spend a day watching the pharmacy counter.

Tiptoeing a fineline, and walking a tightrope involve balance and concentration, or you could just sit on a fence.

If you can find the truth in advertising, keep it to yourself.

The past is the history of everything, but the future is all we've got.

One is just a number, but two can be a party.

You can have a bunch of marbles that sit around and look pretty or you can make them roll around and have some fun.

Don't count your chickens before they hatch. Count mine before they come home to roost.

Laptop spelled backwards is pot pal.

Facts and statistics can make you more informed and a good contestant on Jeopardy, but that's not in the form of a question.

You can point out other people's problems, but what's your point?

Wise is the saying that makes you think, but don't believe it unless you blink.

We've spent many an hour and day debating and discussing these words of wisdom and some of us now have headaches, but we do it for the seeking of truth. We find doing this much easier than climbing mountains or running marathons, although there is nothing wrong in that.

Some Rules

2006-03-29T11:02:00.000-05:00

Rules from The Sacred Order of Lavatorium

Here at the Church of No Preference we both abhor rules and beg for them. I suppose any organization of people whether a country or a club or a country club must feel the same way. Religions and churches are no different. No matter how much people scream uncontrollably "CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?" people just have ways to not get along. So, groups of people make up rules and laws to force other people to get along and then when those rules and laws are broken more rules and laws are made to make people follow the original rules and laws so as to get people to just get along. Whew! Do you follow me?

The Church of No Preference does have some rules, you know, in order to just get along. Any church to survive has to follow the laws where they reside, for instance most places on Earth have laws against murder, so naturally rule number one at the Church of No Preference is...

Rule Number One; "Hey, Don't Murder." It kind of helps that most other religions also have that rule, it's not like we're the only one. For instance Christianity has that rule as a commandment, although to that religion it is only the sixth rule. So, No Preferentists have elevated that no murder rule to number one, we just have a good feeling about that, in fact such a good feeling about that rule that we repeat it.

Rule Number Seven; "Hey, Don't Murder!" and...
Rule Number Fourteen; "Hey, Didn't We Tell You Twice Already? Don't Murder!"

But now it gets confusing. What constitutes murder? Well, it seems logical to not murder a fellow human. And murdering animals sure seems kind of sick. And how sad to murder little innocent insects. And murdering fish and reptiles seems logical as much as it seems logical not to murder humans, animals and insects. And then murdering birds seems so cruel. And what of fungus and bacteria, seems logical to not murder them. Oh, and plants, we don't want to murder them either. HELP! We are in a logic trap, we can't murder ANYTHING!

So as you can see The Church of No Preference considers rules one, seven and fourteen as very important to follow but we are not sure how to follow them. From what I hear other religions have this problem as well. At least we have no preference to having the debate about murder, here at the church we like debate. Which brings us to rule number two...

Rule Number Two; "Welcome discussion, debate, deliberation, consideration, dialogue, exchange, and the Thesaurus these words come from."

Yes, rule number two is a long rule and tends to be difficult to repeat as a mantra, but our members like the rule, unless a member is the loser in a discussion, debate, deliberation, consideration, dialogue, or exchange. We don't like to inflame a loser during a rule number two event because we don't want to upset that member so much as to make them privately consider breaking rules number one, seven or fourteen. So we have a rule for that.

Rule Number Three; "Be nice, and maybe we can all just get along."

The Church of No Preference truly believes in being polite, respectful, courteous, kind, nice, and the Thesaurus those words come from. We can't fully explain why, but it just seems to work out for the best most times. We think this comes from simple probability, the odds seem to favor being nice. Go with the odds, we like to say. "Gamble on nice and nice will pay off," one member likes to explain rule number three. It sort of sounds like Karma to me, but it does have a good advertising feel to it.

Well, that's three rules, oops, I mean five rules that have been revealed in our convoluted ways. In the vague future more of The Church of No Preference rules will be leaked, I mean exposed, um, unveiled.

I Think Therefore I...

2006-03-27T14:59:00.000-05:00

Above, Buddhist Yam Pot

Here at the Church of No Preference we accept any neophyte with a desire to worship any deity they so choose as long as they renounce all other preferences.

One longstanding member in good stead (completely paid up in dues) came to us with an unusual philosophy. He shall remain nameless and anonymous per his request. He had originally been a Christian with no particular favorite sect, but one evening while making dinner he had an enlightenment, he became extremely enamored by yams.

Somehow Barley Marble (oops, I wasn't suppose to name him) had a vision while preparing a tasty dish of yams. Barley had been handling a yam and noticed a certain "feel" to the yam. He continued to grope the yam and he described the experience to us, "It was a luscious yet spiritual moment of inspiration. I had never felt that way about anything and certainly not other foods such as lima beans or brussel sprouts."

Barley could not stop speaking of his yam, or stop yammering, "My whole spirit was lifted up. Just exploring the length, the texture, the way it settled into my hand, I just can't seem to find the words to express my excitement at how I felt so close to God." He paused for many seconds and quietly said, "I think, therefore I yam."

Those of us hearing Barley's testimony couldn't help but feel a sort of awe and even jealousy. Well, except for a few No Preferentists who giggled and snickered in that sort of way people do to try not to attract attention. I had to shush the members for making comments like "Yams? That doesn't sound like yams he's caressing."

Barley had a transformation despite the lack of total support. He had his yam and ate it too. He believed that yams were God and that by eating them he was taking in God's power and love. His favorite yam dish is Buddhist Yam Pot, pictured at top of post.

Now after many years of his yam devotion, Barley is used to the questions and is philosophical about it. A person may ask him, "Yams? Are you nuts?" and Barley simply replies, "God is yam, yam is God. I eat yams and I yam what I yam, ohmmm..."

President Bush, Unofficial Prophet

2006-03-27T13:29:00.000-05:00

Here at the Church of No Preference we are ready to bow down (or sit in an easy chair) to any awesome statements made by anyone. Recently it has been made known to me of the profound sayings of our President. I can't help but feel woozy at the deep meanings our President has revealed to us.

Unfortunately, President Bush is a member of a Christian sect, Methodist I believe, so he cannot join The Church of No Preference until he renounces his preference. There is a method to our madness, but I'm not sure if there is a method to Methodists.

At any rate, his religously moving pronouncements must be revealed to No Preference members. Please drink in the following Bush prophesies and sayings in all their glory. Here in the church, we call them Bushisms.

"It's time for the human race to enter the solar system."

I've been anxiously awaiting the day humans would be part of the solar system. Oh great diety, thank you for communicating to Bush your intentions of allowing humans this opportunity.

"For NASA, space is still a high priority."

Thank you prophet Bush. I had become concerned that NASA was beginning to explore the ground.

"We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur. "

WOW! This is too deep to even understand. The Church of No Preference will post this on the blackboard next to the pulpit for all the members to emmerse themselves into with deep contemplation.

" The future will be better tomorrow."

But will the future be better the day after tomorrow? Please Bush elaborate more. Help us to understand.

"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future. "

Bush is a time traveler, he is God-like. Quick! Get me an easychair! I must immediately fathom the space/time continuum. Can it be so? George can think in the future and the past at the same time?

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."

We must succeed, this is profound. We must not fail if we risk success. We don't fail if we succeed. We fail if success fails. I'm so confused!

"I stand by all my misstatements that I've made."

And with all the infinite wisdom of prophet Bush, he is as well humble.

Introduction

2006-03-27T10:49:00.000-05:00

Could this be the God of The Church of No Preference?

Decades ago (around two of those), in a barracks (far, far away) began a religion based on a category embedded on dog tags. The category was "religion," the answer "no preference."

As several members of my unit compared dog tags one day, we found that nearly all of us that were good friends had the same words for the category "religion." This seemed to be profound and amusing and so the Church of No Preference was founded immediately. The festivities began at once with numerous toasts with German beer and hits of hash.

As the party wore on, deep meaningful questions arose. Could this ragtag group really develop a church? What is religion? What should we pray for? Who should we pray to? Should we pray at all?

Delaying those questions, we chose to elect a leader who we hoped would be able to answer those questions. Somehow I won (possibly because I had purchased the beer) and was christened Principle Prophet for the Church of No Preference.

I was stunned...and drugged. How, I wondered could I live up to such an important position. I was worried that in the morning after, whether my hangover would cause me to abdicate my newly sworn position. In the stark light of the next day, would I swear off partying (for about the umteenth time) and as well swear off this new religion? But that would be tomorrows problem, for tonight we had to create a church.

We set to establishing some rules. We needed some commandments. Thou shalt party. Thou shalt rock and roll. Thou shalt not disco. We had trouble getting to ten.

We considered the concept of "no preference." What does that REALLY mean? Who could join our church? We ruled (and I toasted) that a person must resign from all other religions with a real name, like Protestant, Catholic, Sunni, Mormon, Sufi, Rastafarian (although we liked the Rasta, man), Confucian, Boodda (you know, the fat guy sitting crosslegged), Hindu, etc. in order to truly be no preferenced. In order to join our sect, one must be sectless.

Getting into deeper questions, we came to some inconclusive conclusions. Who or what would be our God? Trees or a Supreme Being or a fat guy or science or what? Well, all of them or none of them or some of them or a God to be named later was all that we could decide, no preference you see.

As we turned up the volumn on the stereo that was playing Pink Floyd's "The Wall," we knew we were on to something big. This church had promise, at least WE promised. As "Comfortably Numb" descended into our ears with ringing blasts of sound, all we could do was reflect on life, God, the universe, and the ten mile march that was scheduled the next day. We passed out later to dreams of allegance to our new religion.

The next day in my morning stupor, I made a promise to uphold the ideals of this new religion forever and maybe stop partying some other time. It seemed that being named Principle Prophet had ramifications beyond my comprehension. I was branded with a nickname for weeks, an abreviation of my title, PP or pee pee. My fellow congregates would come up to me out of nowhere and say things like "Oh Great Pee Pee, can I have another beer?" Or "Hey Pee Pee, grant me a discharge."

You wouldn't want to hear my answers to those questions as they tended not to reflect a religous attitude. It was becoming clear that our church was losing its bearings. As Principle Prophet I called for another party, a revival. At the revival I chastened the members about their lack of respect for no preference and as well begged for a new title. I was given a reprieve as it was decided that the leader position would be rotated among the devotees. Democracy! The Church of No Preference had developed a decision making process. "Finally!" I thought. Yet, I also wondered "Did I just get coup de tated?"

In the following weeks at repeated rivivals, nothing really exciting happened (at least as far as church matters went) except that it was decided that the leader's title would be changed to reflect the person's image. We had various nicknames such as Pope Poop (another pee pee), The Drinkin' Deacon, and others that I'll probably never remember.

Our membership rose and fell as people transferred in and out of our unit. No one ever quit our sect because we had no preference whether they were "official" members or not. We didn't have any documents to fill out anyway. To join a person simply pledged allegance to no preference. Finally it was my turn to joyfully leave as I was discharging from the Army. I returned to the United States and began to put those memories aside.

On occasion when answering questions on forms, I have run into the inquiry "religion?" And would answer "no preference." This would always make me wonder about the old church. In the subsequent years I've never given up hope for The Church of No Preference to grow to rival the major religions. There must be millions of people answering forms with "no preference."

As founding leader of the Church of No Preference, as Principle Prophet (pee pee for short), it's time to reinvigorate the sectless sect. It's time for a mass revival. It's time to use a tool to spread the word of no preference. The Internet is the perfect worship site. The Internet has the ability to bring together No Preferentists from all over the world. No Preferentists of the world, UNITE! This is the beginning....

Reprinted from 2000.

Coming soon...The Pledge of Allegance to The Church of No Preference.