This, I Believe...

I do not believe that this planet and all that is in it was created in six twenty-four-hour days, or that the Great Flood covered the entire planet, but likely enough of the then-known world to be catastrophic and place itself firmly into legend.
I do not believe that there is some finger-pointing, parent-figure god in the sky who watches us and intervenes in our history.
I do not believe that this god allows my family member to be healed and lets someone else's die because I had more people praying for mine.
I do not believe that God diverts natural disasters away from my interests, which would necessarily mean toward someone else's.
I do not believe that natural disasters, accidents and disease are some sort of divine punishment. I also think that it is quite odd indeed that this god only seems to punish those who have pissed off the right-wing fundamentalists. When your god hates all the same people you do, you have successfully created this god in your own image.
I do not believe that anyone who requires bloodshed to forgive wrongdoings is worthy of my attention, much less my adoration.
I do not believe that virgin births occurred ever before the dawn of artificial insemination. Virgin birth is a biological impossibility. Even with artificial insemination, we still need both egg and sperm to make the magic.
I do not believe that Jesus restored physical sight to someone who had either been born blind, or who had physiologically lost their eyesight.
I do not believe that Jesus physically fed thousands of people with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish.
I do not believe that Jesus died as atonement for our 'sins' so that this bloodthirsty man in the sky could then restore us to some pre-fallen state that we never had.
I do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead in any physical or literal way.
I do not believe that heaven and hell are physical places of eternal reward and punishment after death.
I do not believe that this god is waiting, recording our every thought and action, to judge and reward or punish accordingly.
I do not believe that the Book of Revelations is some sort of fortune-telling, end-of-the-world-tell-all book, but rather a wartime novella.

I do believe that there is an order to the universe that we have only just begun to understand.
I do believe that the mystery at the heart of our faith is our attempt to define and describe this order.
I do believe that natural disasters, accidents and disease occur as they have from the beginning, and that they suck. We need not add insult to injury by suggesting that they were intentionally sent by some malicious deity.
I do believe that the very idea of bloodshed for forgiveness is repulsive to modern humans, and that it is no surprise that the culture that created that theology is one for whom this was normal in human dealings.
I do believe that, while virgin birth was a pre-requisite for being a deity in their world (See also the virgin births of Krishna, Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Lao Tzu, Buddha and such mythological figures as Hercules and Prometheus, as well as the miraculous birth narratives surrounding many of our own country's founding fathers.), it is a biological impossibility, and not to be understood in any literal sense.
I do believe that the same goes for the stories of miracles. I believe that they are to be understood as demonstrating the kind of power that people attributed to Jesus. They are not to be understood in literal terms.
I do believe that the idea of the death of Jesus as atonement for 'the sins of the world' is ridiculous at best, vile and repulsive, at worst, and altogether unbelievable at any rate.
I do believe that the resurrection is to be understood metaphorically. I believe that something happened in the life of Jesus that people couldn't understand or grasp, but could see something of the sacred revealed in him. I believe that the descriptions of what we have come to call Easter are those people's attempt to explain how, even though he was executed, Jesus was somehow alive to them. His spirit lived on in the hearts and minds of the people to whom he is called Christ.
I do believe that a literal heaven and hell as reward and punishment after death are as ridiculous as any other damn thing that we have imagined, and serve only to engender divisiveness and righteous, judgmental conceit.
I do believe that we can call ourselves Christians today, and do so with integrity, only if we are willing to leave behind those theological constructs which have proved to be destructive and unhelpful, and seek constructively to define and describe the experience of this extraordinary life in terms that make sense outside of the first-century Judean worldview and thought patterns. The life of this Jesus, whom I call Christ, radically broke with the conventional wisdom of his day (which regularly had him sideways of the law, and eventually landed him on death row) and dared to show a love for his fellow man that crossed all barriers. Following him is, I believe, our highest call. We are asked to love others as we love ourselves, not only in theory, but in practice as well. This is a difficult challenge indeed.
I do believe that the Revelations were written about the specific war and circumstances in which the author was living and trying to make sense of the events around him.
I do believe that the world will end. Our sun is a star with a definite life-span and it will die at the end of its course. I also believe that there is a real chance that this planet, if it harbors recognizable life, will look very different by the time that happens, unless we cease the bickering, excessive consumerism and threats of nuclear war, and begin to heal ourselves and our planet.
I do believe that it is ours to be kind and compassionate to our fellow beings and good stewards of this earth, not out of fear of some divine retribution, but because it is meet and right so to do.