Are you there God? It's me, Tiny Robot.

I've been reading again. A dangerous activity, I know.

Let me start off by saying my long-time interest in spirituality coupled with my seemingly intense cynicism has been tugging at me lately. This time of year especially brings questioning to mind as the nation gets crazy with consumerism, political correctness, and religio-neutral holiday greetings. I find it interesting that a nation full of religious folk has much, if not all, of its materialistic tendencies catered to by highly secularized commercial institutions using increasingly ambiguous terms. The words 'holiday', 'season', and 'that time of year' being foremost in current marketing vocabulary.

Now, I personally don't give a damn if a store says "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas" in its advertising or if they feature symbols of all the various December holidays when trying to score a buck (or twenty) off me. Sure, the intensive advertising blitz from September to January for our consumer dollar gets more extreme every year, but I still participate in Christmas giving, as I enjoy giving gifts to loved ones and charitable organizations alike. (I sure don't mind getting goodies, either!) Were I so inclined, I'd give Hannukah gifts for 8 nights, light a Kwanzaa candle, or dance naked under the moon for Solstice/Yule. But I'm not, so I don't; however, I'm not against anyone who does.

Regardless, the religious aspects of "The Season" continue to elude me lately. It's funny that the coldest season is the most venerated, the most decorated, the most complicated. However, I don't think the popular commercialization and de-religification of Christmas has as much to do with my problem as one would think. I believe my skepticism is more deeply rooted than that.

Back to the books... I'm reading E. Pagel's The Gnostic Gospels. It's an interesting look at the documents of an offshoot of early Christianity, a group that called themselves Gnostics who didn't win the public relations war, mainly because the Roman Emporor Constantine "converted" to the other brand of Christianity (the one popular today) and wiped them out. In other words, killed them and burned their books (save for the codicies found 1600 years later in an earthenware jar in the desert). Sure, if things had been the other way around, the Gnostics becoming mainstream while the other veins of Christianity went underground, our society would probably be quite different today; however, I believe my ennui with the status quo and my spiritual (non-spiritual) angst would still be ever present in the back of my mind.

I don't believe the Roman Catholic Church is necessarily hiding anything about how they came to be a powerful institution. I think they stamped out everyone and everything they considered heretical in broad daylight and are damned proud of it. Fine. That's what institutions do -- they do what they can in the struggle for survival. It may not always be right, but what's done is done. Of course there are many conspiracy theories. I read The Da Vinci Code; while an interesting (if poorly written) novel, I don't think Mary Magdalene secretly had Jesus' baby. Even if she did, it wouldn't matter because there's really no way to prove it. There's also no way to prove a lot of things about The Church or about God, god, or gods for that matter. That tricky Faith business is as good as the whole 'bottled water' industry --- a damned big idea that so changes a society that I wish I had come up with it!

Back to the matter at hand. Honestly, no matter what I read, The Bible, the Gnostic Gospels, novels, various commentaries and hermenuetical texts, I keep coming back to the same conclusion: religion was created by people for people, changed when necessary. Religion serves various purposes, yes, but to what extent is it 'real'? That is the question, Gentle Readers. That is the question.

So, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hannukah, Blessed Solstice, and Festivus! to you all (and to all a good night).

[Ed. note: I'm still reeling from the giddy feeling of being able to legitimately use the word hermenuetical in this blog. Nerd-out!]