“It is my fervent wish that all Americans begin treating each other as Christians. However, I refuse to be held responsible for the consequences.” –George Carlin

I’ve always held a very skeptical view of religion. Even as an eight-year-old I was asking questions too difficult for the Sunday School teacher to explain. And in that period of time when you grow old enough to realize that Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy are fanciful stories the grown-ups tell you to make you behave, I somehow lumped God and Jesus in that same category.

My perspective was finally set just a few years later. I was in the Gifted & Talented program as a kid, and was free to study any subject I wanted. Over the span of a school quarter, I picked a topic, researched the hell out of it, and gave any sort of presentation I wanted about it.

One time I picked Egyptian mythology. I’d read a lot of the Greek and Roman myths and those stories always made me laugh. Stupid Greeks — you can figure out math, science, astronomy, geography, geometry, literature, philosophy, but you live your lives according to the whims and legends of fictional characters that hurl thunderbolts and drive sun-chariots across the sky. So I was eager to learn about a more obscure mythology.

After that, I moved on to Norse, American Indian, Celtic, and other mythologies. All the while, I couldn’t shake the obvious question: why are those “mythologies” but ours are “religions”? Because there’s only one God (oh, and Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, and Mary, and Noah, and Abraham, and Thor, and Loki…) instead of many?

Is it because the super-powers are more subtle? Well, I don’t know, is slaying giants with a sling any less comic-book than wielding a magic hammer? How does healing the sick compare to casting love spells? What’s living in the belly of a whale against springing forth from the brow of a god?

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