This is a piece I wrote some time ago. I don't remember if I have posted it here before, but if so, here it is again. I have posted some of the information before, such as the course I took in college on "The Bible as Literature."

Okay, so, in the interest of full disclosure, where am I coming from?

My family was not particularly religiously oriented. Which is to say, although we did go to church from time to time, we didn't go that often, and we didn't belong to any particular church. My father never said much about religion. My mother was a bit of a questioner and seeker, and she read a fair amount about Eastern religion and philosophy. Standard sermons bored her spitless.

When I was about ten or so, I did attend a two week "summer Bible school" at a church a few blocks from where I lived. My sisters and I wanted to go mostly because a lot of other kids in the neighborhood were going, and getting us out of the house would give mom a few hours of peace and quiet. There, I learned to recite the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm and a few things like that. I believed in God (a vague sort of presence) about the same way I (a precocious ten-year-old) had previously believed in Santa Claus (a somewhat more specific image, perhaps).

In my first freshman philosophy course at the University of Washington, among many other things, we examined the various philosophers' arguments for and against the existence of God, or a "Prime Mover." This turned me into a hard-charging atheist. In later years, I mellowed a bit when it finally sank in that there is an incredible amount about the Universe (or "Creation," if anyone insists) that we don't know and probably never will know. But I definitely didn't become a believer. Agnostic, perhaps, but not a believer.

I know quite a bit about the Bible. Early on, when I was an English major at the University of Washington, I had room for an English elective in my class schedule. As I said, I'm not particularly religious, but just for kicks, I signed up for "The Bible as Literature." The father of a girl I went to high school with was teaching the course.

Professor Paul Trueblood made it quite plain from the start that this was a course in the Bible as a work of literature—and we would not—repeat, not—be discussing it as a religious text. We read the Bible as if it were an anthology of short stories, novelettes, essays, and poetry. We didn't skip around, reading a verse here and a verse there, we read it in whole chunks, right through, the way you read any literary work.

There were a few people in the class who tried to initiate religious interpretations and discussions. When this happened, Prof. Trueblood gently but firmly steered the discussion back to the literary aspects of whatever we had just read.

Having taken this course made me something of a reef on which a number of proselytizing Christian soul-savers foundered. When they would quote a verse or two from the Bible in an effort to prove the point they were trying to make, I was well equipped to interrupt them and say, "But that's not what that verse means. You're taking it out of context." At which point, I would lecture them on what the passage was really saying.

I was dangerous! I knew too much about the Bible!

Interesting to note that a few months after I told one of my tormentors that I had taken the "Bible as Literature" course in the U. of W. English Department, the fundamentalist church he belonged to filed suit against the University in an attempt to get the course removed from the catalog, claiming that the University was "teaching religion." The state Supreme Court eventually ruled that Prof Paul Trueblood, and subsequently, Prof. David C. Fowler, had scrupulously avoided religious discussion in class and that it qualified as a straightforward literature course. The fundamentalist church lost, and the course listing stayed in the catalog.

Taking this course also set me in good stead for discussions with clergy of various denominations, and I've enjoyed a number of good, interesting discussions and debates with them.

Thirty-six years ago, I married a woman who had been raised in the Lutheran Church (one of the more liberal branches). She was, and is, involved in a number of church activities. Although she was raised in the church and has been involved with it one way or another all her life, it seems our beliefs are very much alike. I tagged along with her to church, and also became active in church activities. So much so that I served for some six years as a member of the church council. And she and I find that we are not the only ones in our particular church who believe pretty much as we do. No one is dogmatic. And pretty much everyone is willing to question and discuss. I don't know anyone in the church who maintains that the Bible is the "inerrant Word of God." As Pastor Shannon said once, "The Bible is not The Boy Scout Manual. You're not necessarily going to find answers here. You're going to find questions!" She's cool!

Do I believe in God? Well, I certainly don't believe in the Cranky Old Man in the nightshirt and beard sitting up on Arturus 12 who hurls thunderbolts at sinners, marks the fall of every sparrow in His ledger book, and keeps a list of who's naughty and nice.

Do I "believe" in science? Yes. I've always been something of a science nut. I'm quite interested in all aspects of astronomy and cosmology, including the possibility, expounded by the latest speculations in String Theory, of parallel universes and multiple dimensions. Fascinating stuff! I believe the "theory" of evolution is the most reasonable explanation for how we all got here, and other biological phenomena. I am not in the least flummoxed when a scientist says, "I don't know." Or when a scientist says, "What we believed up until now is not quite accurate. In the light of new data. . . ." If scientists don't know, then who does!?? Certainly not someone (even if he or she does have a cable television show!) with no evidence whatsoever, who attributes all phenomena to a SuperSpook beyond the clouds whose will he or she claims to know.

But do I eschew all possibility of there being a spiritual dimension to Life, the Universe, and Everything? No. There may very well be.

I find it perfectly acceptable to say, "I don't know."

Or, as Iris Dement puts it, "Let the Mystery Be."

There are two sorts of people whom I find annoying in the extreme. One is the hard-charging fundamentalist Christian who, even though I go to church, he or she considers my church not "Christian" enough, and winds up hell-bent on saving my soul. That's when I rip them apart with the fact that, invariably, I know more about the Bible than they do. After they've given it the old college try, they wander off with their tail between their legs and mutter something about they will "pray for me." I find them pompous and full of the Sin of Pride. Talk about "holier than thou!!"

The other is the hard-charging, dedicated atheist who, come hell or high water, is going to save my soul from those brain-washing, mind-stealing Christians. SCIENCE, by God, says there IS no such thing as God (science says no such thing!!), and they will argue until Sunday breakfast over the issue, then nail your shoes to the floor in case you were planning to go to church.

Each is as bad as the other, and each is basing his or her beliefs as much on faith as the other (although the atheist will have a foaming-at-the-mouth fit at the word "faith.").

They don't know how alike they really are!

Neither of them KNOWS. NOBODY knows for sure.

But each will stomp, scream, throw things, and insist vociferously that they are absolute right.

As far as I'm concerned, "A pox on both their houses!"

Don Firth