Hi God, It’s Me. Ha!

Um. The Simpsons. Probably Copyright. Oops.

Religion sucks.

Having a weird name with a weird pronunciation sucks some times.

Ring, ring.

“Hello.”

“Hi, I’m looking for Mee-Kah, My-kah, Miiiiii-fuck, I have no idea.”

“That’s me.”

The story goes that my father, once I was born, claimed that the Book of Micah spoke to him. Given he was a pretty bad drug addict at the time, I don’t put it past that loquacious Bible to spout out baby names.

As a kid, my mom would tell me:

“Don’t tell people that your name is Hebrew. Tell them it’s from the Bible.”

Made sense, after all the Bible told my father that was my name.

I’ve known that I was Jewish since birth. I think technically is was about 8 days past my birth then this bearded dude put a spoonful of booze in my mouth and cut the tip of my dick off. But, it could have been sooner, perhaps when my parents complained about the cost of the hospital stay.

(I hope you didn’t laugh at that, you anti-semite.)

Religion is weird. The most Orthodox of the Jews don’t do anything on Saturdays. They don’t press buttons on elevators, turn on ovens or drive. But they hire Gentiles to do it for them. I guess God forgot about that loophole.

Somewhere along the line, we decided that religion, which is really about follow ten pretty basic rules and being a good person, would be buried under an enormous amount of ritual. It kinda makes sense, since humans seem to love repetition and habit as ways to provide comfort. Our brains require stereotyping to function properly. don’t believe me? The next time you see a chair, don’t believe yourself.

I win.

Back to the ten rules. If you haven’t read them, here are the Cliff Notes. Murder. Bad. Stealing. Bad. Being Bad. Bad. Then the rest cover all the plots of the Twilight movies. I’m guessing Moses was getting paid by the letter, given it could have just been — “Hey, would you like that done to you? No? Then don’t do it. Dummy.”

If the very basis of monotheistic religion exists in that fundamental belief — being good, then why do so many of the ideologies and rituals require people to be so bad? To be exclusionary, when the basic tenet of believing in God is that we are all basically good, regardless of all the other bullshit, just seems really, well, wrong.

I know that right now, you are thinking to yourself that I should get back to my stupid name. No? Oh, the whole Chosen People thing. Well. Fair enough.

Technically its the Treasured People according to that chatty Bible, which seem to mean that Jews have to live with another seven rules called the Noahide Laws, which include things like outlawing eating living flesh (I guess no Jewish zombies get to go to Heaven), and state that anyone that follows these laws are rad and can go to Heaven too.

But honestly, what the fuck? Laws on top of laws? Religion sucks.

This past year, the Catholics did something I thought they would never do, hired someone to be Pope that believed in being good over all the pomp and circumstance of an organization that once owned 10% of the known world. Yeah, dude, the whole fucking world. They have slipped on the list, now only owning approximately 177 million acres of land. That’s one big church.

Yet here is this guy from Argentina who is now a major figure in the largest religion in the world that is actively working on just being good, and showing his followers that being good is the best thing they can be.

Here is his basic message:

Go do good shit. Stop being mean. Save your money. Share where you can.

The fact that people are amazed that the Pope would say these things to the point where he was named Man of the Year by both Time and The Advocate, is kinda sad.

Maybe Karl Marx was right in saying:

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

Perhaps we are so busy and caught up in being right rather than righteous that we have forgotten the basic reality of life.

Be good. Don’t be mean. Share where you can.

Being Jewish is something that I didn’t chose to be, but it has become much of what I am, and how I define myself. I, as my high school english teacher admonished me, wear it on my sleeve.

I have been told that I couldn’t date a daughter, failed a driving test, and have had many other instances where my name has created a judgement of me that was just fucking wrong. Even my tattoos create a better image of me than my name (Yes, dammit, Jews can be buried if they have tattoos. We just aren’t supposed to get them in the first place. oops.).

I have never listened to my mom, and when asked I was stand straight and say, “My name is Mee-ha. It’s the Hebrew pronunciation.”

I never listened to my teacher, and have Hebrew tattoo’d on my forearm. And when asked what it says, I say “It says being a good person matters most.”

Religion is a horrible construct of man that creates an environment that by definition is exclusionary and ritualistic. I don’t go to synagogues or churches. I don’t study the Bible, no matter how much it spoke to me during my party days. I don’t believe there is a dude in the sky that sits in judgement or in love. I don’t think that because you are different than me, we are not both of distinct value.

I, simply, close my eyes and say “Hi, God. It’s me, Micah.”

And I talk about my day. “Today, I tried to be good. I think I did about a B+. I did call Jeffrey a dumbass. But only because he was (who listens to Birds in Row 32 times?!??!). I also downvoted every Capt. Picard meme on reddit. But thats a good thing.”

Religion might suck, but being good doesn’t. Try it. You might be surprised.