A Different Kind of Summer Camp

Hello Muddah. Hello Faddah.

It’s summer and all across America and around the world kids are attending summer camp. They are playing ball, swimming, hiking, canoeing, and sitting around campfires singing silly songs. It’s all great fun for the younger set.

And most of them are also engaging in other mandatory activities that may or may not be so fun. They are praying and listening to their camp counselors spew forth religious propaganda. Yes, most summer camps in the U.S. are sponsored by churches or other religious organizations, like the Boy Scouts.

Most Boy Scout camps are not as aggressive about promoting religion as church camps are, but the Boy Scouts of America still forces its members to sign a Declaration of Religious Belief.

I was a Boy Scout when I was about 12. While in my early and mid 20s, I was also a scout leader. It was fun. We hiked and camped and had other social activities. But at no time did we pray as a troop or otherwise engage in religious worship. We all recited the oath, pledging to give service to God and our country. But nobody really thought much about it. I went to church back then, too. And I really didn’t consider what the meaning of the pledge to serve God was about; it was just a phrase. It was just something we recited as scouts.

The summer following my college graduation I worked as an assistant program director for a summer camp sponsored by the Indianapolis Boys Club. The Boys Club has a secular mission statement. Yet every Sunday during camp the camp staff took turns being preachers. We held a church service in our shelter house. And all the boys had to attend.

I was always uneasy about hosting mandatory church services. When it was my turn to be the preacher of the week I spoke on ways of controlling anger. I didn’t mention God at all. Even though I was raised a Christian, I felt it was inappropriate to force the campers to sit through a Christian church service when some of them might not have been Christian.

I wanted to attend summer camp when I was a kid, but I never got to. A close friend of mine and I begged our parents to send us to a summer camp sponsored by our church. But my friend’s dad said it cost too much. So we settled for taking turns spending the night at each other’s houses or pitching a tent in the back yard.

Church camps and bible camps are just another way for Christian evangelicals to assimilate young people. Although there are fun activities going on, the main purpose of the camps is to solidify a child’s relationship with the church.

But there is at least one organization that is starting to intrude into the dominance of bible-oriented summer camps in America and in the UK. Camp Quest was begun in 1996 in Ohio. It now operates six summer camps in the U.S. and Canada. And this year it is sponsoring a humanist summer camp in Great Britain.

According to its Web site, Camp Quest’s purpose is “to provide children of freethinking parents a residential summer camp dedicated to improving the human condition through rational inquiry, critical and creative thinking, scientific method, self-respect, ethics, competency, democracy, free speech, and the separation of religion and government guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.”

It does not indoctrinate people into atheism. It welcomes all young people regardless of their religious persuasion. But it does cater to those who hold to a naturalistic, not a supernatural world view. It stresses scientific inquiry over supernatural explanations of the world.

The Center for Inquiry also offers a summer camp. It is taking place currently in Holland, New York. Called Camp Inquiry, its purpose is to foster scientific inquiry in children and to allow them to discover for themselves that myths of all kinds do not hold up to rational scrutiny.

These alternatives to church-sponsored summer camps also teach kids about ethics and morality. The teach them to be upstanding citizens who respect the rights and beliefs of others. Yet they are still far outnumbered by the summer camps that indoctrinate kids into the religious world, which is too often dominated by bigotry, judgment, shortsightedness, and the hampering of scientific thought.

What we need in this country are more institutions like those sponsored by the Center for Inquiry or Camp Quest. Those who donate to good causes might want to consider adding a secular summer camp to their list of charities.

Miracles Made Me Agnostic

According to the bible, Jesus performed many miracles during his ministry. He is said to have walked on water, healed lepers, restored the sight of the blind, calmed a storm, expelled demons, and most miraculous of all, brought his friend Lazarus back from the dead.

Some of these miracles were performed using nothing but hand gestures, such as when he calmed the storm; others required the use of props, such as when he restored the sight of a blind man by spitting on dirt and then rubbing it on the blind man’s eyes. And it isn’t quite clear why Jesus didn’t just heal his friend Lazarus before he died. He knew Lazarus was sick and he mourned his death. He even wept. Was it all just theatrics to prove to his followers he could do it?

The Old Testament has its share of miraculous stories, too. With no miracles in play, how could Jonah have survived for three days in the belly of a fish? How could Noah have built a boat big enough for a pair of every animal on Earth and how could he have then rounded up all these animals, especially the ones living in Antarctica and in the Arctic?

As a child, I didn’t have much trouble believing these bible stories. But then as I matured, reality set in. I knew that not every story in the bible was literally true. How could it be? But I figured that Jesus’ miracles must be true. They were related in the New Testament and more directly concerned my eternal soul.

But it seemed to me that the demon stories probably were about epileptics. And the stories about his walking on water and calming storms were probably the result of writer embellishments. Still, I thought I had to believe them in order to be a good Christian, so I told myself they must be true.

Then, one bright Sunday morning the pastor of my church, in his sermon, cleared it all up for me, at least momentarily. He said it was not really necessary to believe all the bible stories in order to be saved. He said it was ok not to believe the story of Creation in Genesis or the stories about Jonah and Noah. He even said it wasn’t necessary to believe any of the Jesus miracles except one: The Resurrection. He said that Jesus died for our sins and that we needed to believe he was resurrected and ascended into Heaven. Publicly accepting that Jesus is the Savior, plus being baptized, is all it takes to assure oneself of everlasting life with God. Believing all that other stuff is optional.

So there it was, my way out of my dilemma. I didn’t really have to believe that Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead or that he drove the demons out of the possessed. The stories of the bible that had me confused and doubtful no longer had to worry me. I just wouldn’t believe them. According to my pastor, I didn’t have to.

But then it hit me. And it didn’t take long. If a belief in Jesus’ miracles is optional, except for the biggie, the dying on the cross with subsequent resurrection, then why was that particular miracle necessary? Yes, I know it is the centerpiece of His legacy of our salvation. But if that miracle is true, then why stop there? Why shouldn’t all the others also be true? I mean, it’s in for a penny, in for a pound, right?

If I am going to believe in one miracle, then I must believe that miracles are possible. And if they are possible, then why not believe in all the lesser miracles related in the bible? So I was back to square one. If I had to believe in the Resurrection to have my soul saved, then I sort of had to believe in all the miraculous stories in the bible, including the Creation, Noah and his ark, Jonah inside the fish, ad infinitum.

But then I recognized the corollary to that scenario. If believing in the Resurrection sort of forced a belief in all the other biblical miracles then not believing in one or two miracles that I knew were impossible meant that I didn’t have to believe in any of them, including the Resurrection.

That led to years of confusion, because I really wanted to believe in the Resurrection. I wanted to have an eternal soul that would reside with God. But I also knew that the Creation story was a myth, and so were all the other Old Testament stories. I mean, most of them have been scientifically disproved beyond reasonable doubt. And even most biblical scholars believe that some of Jesus’ minor miracles, such as driving out demons, probably didn’t really take place.

So how was I supposed to reconcile my disbelief of most of the biblical miracles with the mandatory belief in the Resurrection? You see my dilemma?

But after much thought and consultation with those who were smarter than I with regard to the bible, I gradually came to understand something. It doesn’t matter what I want to believe. It doesn’t matter what I actually do believe. The only thing that matters in the end is what is actually true. Believing something or not believing does not change the truth.

I also learned something else. Nobody knows what the truth is with regard to the eternal soul, life after death, or our final destinies. Oh, there are lots of people who claim they know the truth, but their “truth” is based only on their beliefs. And, as I have come to realize, beliefs don’t matter. Belief does not equal fact.

So today, I am a proud agnostic. I stand with those who have also figured out that, no, you don’t really have to believe in something. Since nobody knows the ultimate truth, we are proud to acknowledge the fact that we don’t know either. We also know for sure what religious folks may never figure out, that they don’t know the truth either; they just don’t realize it yet.

GPS: It Knows Where You Are

The advancements in consumer technologies never cease to amaze me. Take the GPS devices for example. These little units have become commonplace over the past few years as their prices have become more affordable to the average American. But what they do, and how they do it, is nothing short of amazing.

Let’s take a quick look at how these little gadgets know exactly where you are and where you’re going.

GPS stands for Global Positioning System. The system relies on a series of satellites. There are 24 of them in operation at all times. They orbit the earth twice per day, circling 12,000 miles above Earth’s surface, each of them in a different orbital path.

Each satellite has on board an atomic clock, accurate down to billionths of a second, and all of the clocks have to be perfectly synchronized. Each GPS device has a quartz clock, which is far less accurate than an atomic clock, but the clock in the GPS unit is synchronized using signals from the orbiting satellites once every second. So you can say that the GPS device has a virtual atomic clock.

Your position is pinpointed using a process known as trilateration. It’s similar to how they determine the epicenter of an earthquake. By measuring the distance to the epicenter from three different locations, you can tell where the earthquake occurred. That’s because if you draw a circle around each seismograph station with the radius of the circle representing the distance to the quake, the circles will intersect at only one place. That’s the epicenter.

So a GPS needs to get signals from at least three different satellites. The distance to each is calculated based on the speed of light and the time it takes for the signal to travel between the satellite and the GPS. A sphere around each satellite with a radius of the distance between it and the GPS will intersect with each other at the exact location of the GPS unit.

The distances are updated once per second, so any movement of the GPS can be calculated. The position and motion of the GPS is then placed as an overlay on a road map. The computer chip inside the GPS makes all these calculations almost instantly.

So, to determine your exact location, the computer chip and software in the GPS has to take into consideration that the GPS is moving and every one of the satellites it is tracking is moving at high speed as they circle the earth. It has to synchronize its internal clock every second using calculations from three satellites. And then it has to place this computed location on a map so that the map moves to keep up with the motion of the GPS. It also then has to select the best routes, calculate your speed, and estimate your time of arrival at your destination.

In addition to all that, the clocks in the satellites have to be updated and synchronized with an earthbound master station to make sure that they are always synchronized with each other. This all has to be done taking into consideration the effects of the atmosphere on radio signals.

It all results in the computation of your location within about five feet of accuracy. How cool is that?

Ten Things You Missed by Skipping Church

Did you neglect to go to church this Sunday? Do you feel guilty because of it? Well, don’t worry. Here is a countdown of the top ten things you missed by not going to church. They don’t all apply to all churches since each denomination has its own idea of which part of the bible is most important, but you can pick out the ones that seem to apply to your church and go with those.

10 – They sang hymns, the same ones they’ve sung a hundred times before. So pick out your favorite and sing it and you’ll feel better.

9 – Perhaps you missed out on communion. So go get a cracker and some grape juice and pretend to be a cannibal like they do at church. Oh, and don’t forget to bless it or it will just remain bread and juice. The carbs go away only after the blessing when the cracker turns into flesh and the juice into blood. There are no carbs in flesh and blood.

8 – They prayed for the sick. The preacher probably didn’t read about the scientific study they did a couple of years ago that indicated that intercessory prayer made absolutely no difference in whether the people prayed for got any better. But there’s an hour to kill and praying takes up time.

7 – Maybe you missed out on the kids’ church segment, where a church volunteer or the minister calls all the kids down to the altar and tells them a bible story. If it will make you feel better, go gather up a dozen kids from the neighborhood who also missed church and tell them a biblical fairy tale. I’m sure their parents won’t think you’re a pedophile.

6 – They almost always do church announcements. These are important because they let you know when the next food service will be. Call the church secretary on Monday to get the low-down. You don’t want to miss that upcoming chili supper or fish fry.

5 – You probably missed the minister or one of the church elders whining about needing money to repair the roof or build on a new wing to the church. Or maybe the church bus needs repairs. Whatever they need money for, you can thank your lucky stars you missed out on the guilt you would feel for not having contributed to the cause this week.

4 – If you go to a Holy Roller church, you most certainly missed out on the wailing, dancing in the aisles, and speaking loud gibberish. Just calm down and go to a ball game and pick out a team to root for. At least that way you will be screaming and wailing for something you can actually see.

3 – You probably missed the call to the altar. That’s where the preacher calls on members of the congregation who are not yet members of the church to come on down and pledge their allegiance to the Lord. You can still meet them and welcome them to the church community next week. They’ll probably be there for several more weeks before realizing that joining was a bad idea, because now they’re being called on to volunteer for stuff.

2 – Of course, you missed the sermon this week. That’s ok; I’m sure it was something about the bible. Just open your bible and pick something at random. There are only so many stories that can be retold with a new twist. If the verse you picked at random wasn’t this week’s topic, I’m sure it will eventually come up. A sermon is just a way that your preacher has of telling you what the bible means. If you interpret your random selection differently than your preacher would, take heart in the fact that a preacher in some church, somewhere, is preaching a sermon that is more favorable to your interpretation.

1 – And the number one thing you missed out on by skipping church this week was the offering. So take a dollar out of your wallet (You know that is what you always give, right?), and go give it to a bum on the street corner downtown. He’ll use it for beer, but at least he’ll be happy for a minute. The same dollar in the church coffers would only go to help pay the church’s electric bill to keep the church open for another week. But as you’ve just seen, you don’t really need church to be religious; you just need to hold on to your delusions by going through the motions at home.

Faith is Stupid

I’m writing this on a Sunday morning while millions of Americans are getting ready to go to church. Some go because they feel obligated. Others go because it’s just a Sunday morning habit. There are those who go because they are afraid not to; hell is a scary place for those who believe it exists. Still others go because they actually enjoy going for whatever reason. And a few go just because it is spiritually uplifting.

I’ve gone to church quite a lot in my life. I was dragged to church when I was a child and I hated every minute of it. I went to church voluntarily when I was between 10 and 13 years old because all my friends went, and we sang some cool camp songs about Jesus. I didn’t go most of my adult life, but I did go almost every Sunday during the 1990s. I felt the need to be close to family after my dad died.

I probably went for the wrong reasons, though. I enjoyed going to church because the family was there, but also because they usually had a social gathering after the service where cookies and coffee were served. I went because I loved the beautiful architecture of the building. I went because I loved some of the music. We sang standard hymns. Some of the world’s best music is wasted on Christianity. And I went because the preacher was a good speaker and he stayed completely away from the fire-and-brimstone drivel that I used to hear as a child.

I got baptized when I was in my 40s while attending our church. It was the First Christian Church, Disciples of Christ. I must admit, when I got dunked, I felt nothing but wet.

I also prayed when I went to church, along with the preacher and everybody else. At least I assumed they were all praying. I also prayed right before bed almost every night, if I thought about it. Down deep, I knew I was wasting my time, even though I went to great pains to make sure I was praying correctly, according to what I had learned in church. Even as a kid, I wondered what good prayer would actually do.

A preacher at one of the churches I attended when I was younger said that God knows your needs even before you ask. Even then my question was, “Well then why should I bother asking?” If God’s will is always done, then praying for something that is not his will is futile and praying for something that is his will is unnecessary.

I stopped going to church about seven years ago. We got a new preacher whom I didn’t much care for. Some family members had stopped attending that church because they went elsewhere. But most importantly, they almost never served cookies and coffee after the sermon anymore. Plus, in all the years I attended, I never really felt the presence of God. And I tried to.

I had always believed in God’s existence. I believed that Jesus was God’s son. I wasn’t too sure of the miracles of the bible. I always knew that the stories of Creation, Noah’s Ark, Jonah and the big fish, and all the other Old Testament stories were just fables. But I thought that most of the New Testament stories were probably accurate.

But when the minister of the Christian Church told us one Sunday that believing in the miracles of Jesus was optional to our salvation, except for the miracle of his resurrection, I discovered a problem. If you have to believe in the resurrection, which is a miracle, then why not believe in all the miracles? It’s in for a penny, in for a pound, as the old adage goes.

But if you don’t believe in every one of them, then why believe in the resurrection? There were a lot of miracles that bothered me. I knew that most of the stories about people being possessed were really stories about epileptics. I came to realize that many of the Jesus miracles were allegorical. So it was only logical to draw the same conclusion about the resurrection.

My conclusion, based on years of thought and research, is that almost every story in the bible, both Old and New Testament, are allegories. They are fables. They never actually happened. And as a science teacher, I’m a little ashamed to admit that I once believed some of them.

I never really thought much about religion after I stopped going to church as a kid. Everything I learned about religion as a kid scared me. I didn’t want to believe that the End of Days was upon us. It frightened me that the biblical prophecies were being fulfilled in my lifetime. I tried not to think about it.

Thankfully, I got over my fear as I realized I had been misled as a child. I was being taught by people who didn’t know. They only believed. And there’s a difference.

One of my relatives recently admitted that he was having a crisis of faith. He wanted me to help him decide what to have faith in. I told him that faith was stupid. He looked horrified at my remark. “You have to have faith in something,” he told me.

But why? Faith is the act of treating something as factual whenever it is not backed up by any facts or empirical evidence. I told him that believing in something without evidence is childlike, as a child would believe in Santa Claus. Having faith isn’t something to be proud of. It means you have left reason behind. It means that believing in something because you would like it to be true is more important than believing in the truth.

There is one truth out there when it comes to life’s meaning. But nobody knows what that truth is. If you have faith, you go around thinking you know, and you’re never afraid to tell others about the truth you know about. But you don’t really know any more than I do. Having faith is stupid because it means you have abdicated your responsibility for yourself. You have put your life into the hands of whatever deity you believe in, whether he’s real or not. It’s a cop out on life.

The thing is, when you place yourself in God’s hands, you’re really placing your life in the hands of the earthly entity that you believe is the conduit to God, and that’s your church. Throughout history, churches have been proven to be corrupt. Plus, it means you no longer have to think too much for yourself because your life is now being guided by God, aka, your church.

I have four brothers. Three of them are willing to discuss faith and religion. One of the three is more religious than the others, who tend to be fence sitters. The other brother is highly religious and refuses to discuss it with the rest of us. He just says, “I’ll believe what my church tells me.” He is a smart guy, but he has given up his rational thought processes; he let’s his church think and speak for him. The rest of us wonder if he believes down deep that if he engages in our conversation that it might weaken his faith. Is he afraid he might be convinced through logic that his faith is stupid?

What do we really know about God? Well, the short answer to that question is nothing. In terms of empirical evidence, nobody can prove or disprove his existence. If he does exist, nobody knows anything at all about him/her/it. Is God a male, a female, or none of the above? Did God create the universe and establish all the laws of physics in the beginning and then sit back and watch it unfold, or did he create everything in its place to be virtually unchanging? Does God want us to worship him or is he above needing to be acknowledged by mere mortals?

Every church will have some answer to these questions, but they will all be different answers depending on whom you ask. So that means you have to pick one. And since your immortal soul is in jeopardy if you pick the wrong one, good luck. That’s the dilemma you face if you are Christian.

Do you pick a Holy Roller church whose members get off on speaking gibberish and bouncing off the walls like pin balls? Do you pick a more dignified church that tends to bore you to tears? Do you choose to be Catholic or maybe Eastern Orthodox because they’ve been around the longest? And what if you’re wrong about your choice?

Don’t bother asking God. He won’t give you even a hint. You’re on your own. And if God were a fatherly being who loved and cared about each and every one of us, he wouldn’t let us flounder in the dark.

Maybe God does exist. I can’t say otherwise. But I can say with almost complete certainty that the god of the Christian bible is a fairy tale. People tend to believe in him because they are afraid not to. Their church stokes that fear. But personally, I don’t believe in fairy tales anymore. Can you say the same thing?

The Year of Whose Bible?

When the 2010 congressional elections are held, the more intelligent people of Georgia might want to consider replacing Rep. Paul Broun with someone who won’t make that state a laughingstock. Just as the Kansas board of education made that state a laughingstock eight years ago when it kicked evolution out of the school curriculum, Broun isn’t doing his state any favors with his idiotic suggestion that the year 2010 be proclaimed the Year of the Bible.

Does that mean the year 2009 isn’t the year of the bible? Broun must be horrified. And maybe he would be even more horrified if some of the Jews in Congress pushed through a resolution making 2011 the Year of the Torah. Maybe we can celebrate 2012 as the Year of the Koran. And maybe we could set aside 2013 as the year of the We-Don’t-Need-No-Stinking-Religion bible, like maybe one of the books by Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris.

Broun says he wants to recognize the Good Book because it played such a pivotal role in shaping the laws of our nation. The bible had almost nothing to do with the formulation of our laws. Only two of the Ten Commandments were made into laws. If for no other reason than that Broun obviously doesn’t know his history very well should the good people of Georgia give him the boot. He is one of those who claims in error that this country was founded on Christianity, and we should honor that heritage by proclaiming 2010 as the Year of the Bible.

In a TV interview, Broun was reminded that the writer of the Declaration of Independence and signer of the Constitution of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was not a Christian. Jefferson firmly believed that government had no place in religion and religion had no place in government. Jefferson even wrote his own bible which redacted every miracle from the New Testament.

Jefferson wasn’t the only one of the Founding Fathers who was not a Christian. Although most had a belief in God, many were deists, believing that God existed but was not personally involved with any mere human.

Most of the founders are probably spinning in their graves at the idea that a member of Congress is suggesting that we all celebrate the Christian bible next year. If Congress makes such a proclamation, it would fly in the face of the First Amendment. It would definitely be an act by government preferring one religion over all the others.

But Republicans in Congress who have lost their credibility, thanks to eight years of Bush and Cheney, are apparently reduced to introducing meaningless resolutions that do nothing to help the economy, remedy the health care crisis, or promote education in this country. They have no new ideas so why not just pass a resolution asking everyone to read their bibles?

Depending on which poll numbers you believe, somewhere between 16 and 20 percent of all Americans say they do not subscribe to any religion at all. And although that is certainly a minority, it is a sizable one. It is also the fastest-growing minority in America. We have apparently reached a tipping point regarding religion, where millions of atheist, agnostic, and freethinking Americans are starting to come out of the closet.

The introduction of such a resolution in our Congress is a slap in the face to the growing number of us who are not Christian. Thankfully, it has a slim chance of actually passing. Surely Congressman Broun can find something more meaningful to do with his time than to piss off those who don’t share his religious convictions.

All Bubbles are Equal

Wars are fought for many reasons, including territory, politics, oppression, and religious differences. Throughout history religious differences have been a major excuse for declaring war. More people have lost their lives in the name of God than for almost any other reason.

Our war against terrorism is really rooted in religious differences. The terrorists are religious fanatics who use their religion as an excuse to attack innocent people.

The fanatics we’re dealing with now are Muslims. They follow a very strict and oppressive form of Islam, but they twist its meaning to suit their own selfish agendas.

But Islam is not the only religion that has fanatics, either now or in the past. Christianity has also had its share of them, and some have been just as treacherous and deadly.

Fanatical Muslims talk about jihad, meaning holy war. Some are willing, even proud, to die for the cause of their religion. That is why the terrorist groups have no trouble in recruiting suicide bombers. They believe to die in a jihad secures their place in the afterlife.

But, although early Christians were persecuted, once Emperor Constantine converted himself to Christianity for political reasons, it was the Christians who did the persecuting, the plundering, and the oppressing.

If the term jihad makes Christians feel uneasy, the term crusade must send chills down the spine of Muslims. The Crusades were campaigns fought by Christians against the Islamic nations. The Crusades were a series of five wars fought over a 200-year period beginning in the 11th century after Pope Urban II exhorted all Christians to take up arms against the infidel Muslims.

Then there was the Inquisition, which brought imprisonment or torture to those Christians who were judged to have committed heresy, or to converted Jews and Muslims who were not Christian enough in their new way of life.

Christians have invaded new lands, such as Scandinavia and the Americas, and have sought to spread their Gospel to the infidels. The ones they could not convert, they enslaved or slaughtered.

Even within Christendom itself there have been fighting factions. Witness the unrest that once plagued Northern Ireland for decades. It was unrest fueled by the religious intolerances of Catholics and Protestants in that region.

One must be very careful not to judge a person solely on what religion he chooses to believe in. Just as all Muslims are not terrorists, all Christians throughout history have not been crusaders, oppressors, and marauders.

It is interesting to note, however, that what compels the religious fanatics to take up arms and riot in the streets is the same motive that compels some fundamentalist mainstream Christians to proselytize. They have a staunch, deep-seated conviction that their religion is the right one, and that their god is the true one. Other gods are false; other ways are evil.

Modern Christian fundamentalists don’t take up arms. They are stealthier and more clandestine in their attempts to win converts. They lure kids into the fold with games and ice cream cones and then tell them fables from the bible. They scare them into believing in their version of Christianity by telling them if they don’t believe they will go to hell. Then they send their young recruits out to gather their friends into the flock. And much of the time, all this is taking place in the tax-supported public schools by groups such as the Good News Club.

The people of this planet, if they belong to a religion at all, belong to one of about four or five major belief systems. Among those are Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism.

One can view each major religion as a giant bubble on the surface of the earth, unable to combine into a single larger bubble. The occupants of one bubble realize that the other bubbles exist, but they do not really understand what it’s like to be inside any bubble but their own. They can’t see the whole picture. Their own bubble is right and righteous; the other bubbles are flawed or imperfect. And woe be to those who live outside any bubble, for they are surely lost sheep.

Sometimes, the residents of one bubble try to expand their own by devouring neighboring bubbles or by seducing another bubble’s residents to come over to the good side. That attitude either leads to war, or at the very least causes ill will between bubbles.

We might all do well to step outside our own little bubbles and look at the world from a different perspective. View it from a perspective outside of any bubble. View it from the perspective of an alien who knows nothing of religion.

One might then come to the conclusion that all bubbles are equal. And if all bubbles are equal, what would be the point of having bubbles at all? Perhaps the worldview taken by a religion, any religion, is just as flimsy as the film of a soap bubble.