Moment of Sincerity

I run for several reasons, none of which involve my health.

For one thing, running is useful when late. I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie that I didn’t run to. This was especially the case during a ten-day visit to Paris where I was often running to movies, from other movies. (If you’re wondering why I would be doing this during a ten-day sojourn in Paris, you should read David Sedaris’s chapter, “The City of Light in the Dark” in his book Me Talk Pretty One Day.)

For another thing, I often run for lack of teleportation. That is to say, teleportation has not been invented yet, to my knowledge, and it is sometimes unacceptable to me to think about how much time I am wasting in getting from one place to another. By running, I can speed up the interim period, and then pretend that it never existed.

Here’s why I bring this up.

I’ll just say it bluntly: religion terrifies me.

Now, I’m not talking about Islamic fundamentalism or the far-right-Christian-Conservatism-Pat Robertson religions. I’ll assume all that can be picked apart and logically looked at as movements completely entrenched in politics and economics. Cultists and Wiccans (the fastest growing religion in the world!) can easily be written off as wackos and even be really fascinating. Just six years ago, over 60,000 Moonies were married at a mass wedding in Seoul’s Olympic Stadium. People from over 150 countries attended. That’s just plain amazing. Day-to-day religion is what really gets my skin crawling.