When I was a kid, I grew up in a very formal, Roman oriented church. Every Sunday would be a god day. We would all jump into the car and drive to a huge church full of wooden benches. There were so many rituals that we followed, primarily because they were rituals and everybody followed them. So, I followed them.

Quite often, I would sit or kneel or stand and just watch the guy up in the front. I was trying to figure out what made him the boss. Of course, he had different kinds of flowing sheets covering him, the colors depending on some type of traditional time period. Every Sunday, the same ritual would be followed and I had most of it memorized. Jingle a little bell here, stand there, sit here, kneel there, move your hands around your shoulders and head in a specific manner. All of it was just procedure. And yes, it all had meaning; but what did it mean?

And even more important, what did all of this mean to me? How did this relate to god stuff? What was god stuff, really? What was god? Was there a god?

So, once I was away from the influence of my parents, out on my own, I began to take a serious look at it all. Boy, what a can of worms that was. I saw the fluff that all of those traditions were. I saw the flowing sheets covering a mystical boss as just what they were, flowing sheets and trinkets. The jingling of that bell was pretty, but it was just the jingling of a bell.

I don't know if I am atheist or agnostic or, just what the hell I am. I know I'm not Muslim. I know I'm not Christian. And there are hundreds of demonstrable reasons for that! Anybody that wants to get into that, I would enjoy educating you. What I do know is that I'm only going to get one life. I'm not going to accept what other people are demanding that I adopt as my understanding of god stuff. I've already listen to too much of it. And most of it is all garbage. Again, anybody that wants to get into that, I would enjoy educating you.

So what am I left with?

Me. And you, the reader of my post. You and I have shared a moment. My moment was created in the past. The recent past, yes. But now, you are reading these words which is your moment. Hopefully, some of the love that I have for friendship and other people like me, will filter into you. And that's a lot better than alla akbar, agnus dei, or or avodah.

As for the God stuff bosses and them being pedophiles, the only thing that I can find wrong with it as a philosophy is that it violates its own tenets. It certainly doesn't violate mine.