i am nodding my head in vigorous agreement.

and mauro, i think lots of “christians” are a lot like you, they go to church for the community and family and social activism, but are less invested in the articles of their faith/creed. studies have supported that for many decades now, real “belief” is declining. and that’s a good thing, as far as this atheist is concerned. we’ll see if we can finally let go of desert fairy tales from 0000s of years ago, now that technology and science have freed us of the need for them. probably not, but i do have a lot of hope in the young, who now can find out all the different opinions about what to believe all on their own, with just a couple of google searches and some clicking.

to whom i pay homage several times a day.

desert fairy tales, i cling to them. i’m an easterner now, and that intersection of sand, salt water and sunshine that we call beach is where i want to live out my days, but i’m a native of the southwest, and thanks to parental multicultural leanings, we kids grew up amid a heady swirl of hopi, zuni, navaho, biblical, and to lesser extents, african and mohammedan mythologies. i am still irrationally attached to them all.

that said, social activism is the only reason why i’m still [just barely] associated with a church, and social activism and community are the main reasons why my parents belong [wholeheartedly] to a church.