Pray as you go, religion on the move.

I am not a religious person. Nor am I spiritual or inclined to any particular aspect of higher power worship. I'm a secure atheist, comfortable in my knowledge that there isn't a god and probably not anything after you die. And unlike many of my ilk, my godlessness is personal and not to be spread over forums or in the streets

I'm also comfortable in thinking that perhaps people should be left to their own devices, to make decisions based on where they find succour. Not everyone is ok with being left floundering around wondering what it's all about. A lucky few Christians feel heaven like they do their dinner or a fuzzy little kitten. It's tangible and real for them, just as much as my void is for me.

I believe that should be respected.

I was raised a Christian, Presbyterian to be exact. When I hit 13 I went through a phase of trying anything and everything. I ended up at an O.T.O. shop, was invited to a Golden Dawn spring rite. I met members of the Temple of Set and church of Satan. I spoke with Wiccans, Baptists, Catholics, Buddhists, Hari Krishnas and various other flavors of spirituality. Portland seemed to be the Mecca for every imaginable belief and gave a curious girl insight into how the rest of the world lived.

That diversity contributed to my atheism.

I also think it’s what created my tolerance.

It also and most importantly, created this sense of respect. The thing all of those religions had in common was a sense of morality and decency at their core. How else do we, as animals, learn how to treat each other? The socialization process tries to answer this problem through elaborate types or steps. But simply, we learn about how to behave by watching the world around us. If that world is filled with moral guidelines and a colorful punishment, surely we absorb some of it?

My own early childhood wasn't filled with fanaticism or with any particular hatred for a group of people. The Lovejoy protesters were always at the other end of town. Sure, I’d go have a look every so often. I liked watching their faces red with rage that someone disagreed with them. I wondered what it was like to feel something so strongly, to be so insecure that you had to force yourself on people in disagreement. But they were present, even when I was across the street, over in a place that I would never feel I belonged in and would never visit. So with my detachment from the worst, my opinion of what Christian values lends to children is actually rather positive. Lately I've been wondering if what it can lend my adulthood is just as valuable.

I was doing some tedious work this morning, filing off course CDs into various folders as a hard archive. I thought perhaps I might like to hear a sermon and found one easily enough. Pray as you go has one per day. But they're not just readings from the Bible, they're also hymns and the priest speaking to you about what the passages mean. It’s mini church for the masses, a way of using technology to preach and soothe. It’s an anonymous and safe way to consider the lessons behind the Bible. What you get from it is simply what you take. What they offer is what they have. And even if they can’t give you a god, or a sense of something beyond, they do tell a good story.