Divination Through Spaghetti-o's

As a black man, sometimes I get this feeling that I've returned to the days of rising colonial expansion. Back in the day, they used to shoot whoever wouldn't convert to the religion brought to the heathens from the missionaries. "Savage" they'd call you...

What about God is a bargaining chip? What about God is a political statement or even delineation? I find it strange that every conversation I have, when dating, is first highlighted with not just a question about my religious faith (I'm more than non-denominational... I refuse to take a side.) but a judgement about my ability to be a good person. Sure, we're trying to decide who is right for us... but if its not an answer you're used to hearing, why the sudden need for clarification.

So far, I've had five dates end abruptly after I say "I'm agnostic." Two of them were because those fools decided that atheist and agnostic mean the same thing (they don't) and two decided that I wasn't "what they were looking for" and we parted ways amicably. But the last told me, angrily, "A black man without faith? I hope you're ready for what comes ahead." Am I about to be hit by a bus? Is the entire Spanish Inquisition Squad from Monty Python around the corner?

Some of this is my own bad judgement. I should be looking for people I relate to instead of qualities that I can identify with (for me, that's been a tough distinction.) And I'll be the first to admit, agnosticism as a bent is fairly difficult to admit to people... how can you say that on the matter of the most extreme of belief systems you are undecided to the point of defining yourself as "non-committal." I mean, the guy who invented the word used to sharpen his teeth so he would have fangs and tried to levitate lakes while high on LSD. Sometimes I have to wonder, Am I really crazy? Is that why I just can't say "God exists and I believe" out loud without laughing?

Or maybe I think that God is undefinable. Maybe I hold that the older mystics and elders thought that just saying God was expelling breath and to say the name of God was to know the universe, and I just don't know the universe well enough at 27. Maybe I think that God is really a Dog. Maybe I think God is in water like the older proto-Native American tribes who worshipped rivers and blocks of ice as evidence of God made real. Maybe I think that God is nothing at all but still real, existing outside of my ability to sense.

Or maybe I just Think and hope one day I know the answer, but until then I'll just concentrate on making life livable for my friend's new babies (congratulations, dude) by fighting the good fight. Yeah... maybe.