Atheist Holidays

"Why do atheists need holiday symbols anyway?"  The quick answer is that we don't (at least I don't think so).  I think that sort of symbolism is largely the province of the religious, so using "me too" symbols during the holidays is a bit intellectually dishonest, not to mention just plain absurd.  Along this same line are those atheists who think creating an atheist church is a good idea.  I know that I don't speak for all atheists, by any stretch, and considering that I have only been such for about a year, it would be pretty arrogant on my part; however, I think it's safe to say that most of us who take a more scientific viewpoint of atheism are irritated by attempts to turn a mere rejection of deity into a pseudo-religion of some sort.  It's hard enough to refute the pervading canard that atheism is a religion when the USC has apparently ruled it as such (in actuality, the USC ruled atheism a religion so that atheists could be afforded the same protections as the religious, not because atheism expresses any tenets of religious belief).

Corollary to the previous paragraph's point, I get annoyed by those who think that I, as an atheist, should not celebrate any "Christian" holidays.  Rejecting the Christian religion and its god does not mean that I do not agree with the overarching themes of family togetherness and the spirit of giving.  Being an atheist does not mean that I am a nihilist.  As a human being, I appreciate the opportunity to spend time with my family and friends, give them gifts, and eat good food with them.  I no more need to believe in a god to participate in the holidays than a dog needs a shovel to bury a bone.  Christmas is nothing more than an amalgamation of various European winter solstice holidays, but with a thin veneer of Christianity, so most Christians also reject most of the "religious meaning" of Christmas--they just pretend that there was never any other significance other than that assigned by them.

Merry Christmas and all that...

Hiatus

To my loyal followers (that means me, mostly), I have been on vacation and have been neglecting my blog as a result.  I intent to dream up some new material here within the next day or so, but my efforts must mostly be directed at procuring new employment. Not only have I lost my zest for the place in which I am working and the company for which I am working, I have only six more months before my employment ends here.  Nevertheless, fear not, as I will return with something new for my readers posthaste.

Authentically Fake

Since I've come out of the proverbial atheist closet, it seems my encounters with the churched have increased in both intensity and vitriol towards me.  Of course, this means I tend to see more logical fallacies directed at me.  The first is inevitably the straw man fallacy, followed by the no true Scotsman fallacy, then followed up by poisoning the well fallacy.

"Well, since you're an anti-God, America-hating liberal..."

or something similar is how most of these straw men are built.  I find this hilarious, since nowhere have I expressed values or beliefs that coalesce with the progressives of today.  Even more entertaining is the proposition that I am an "Obama-lover;" admitting my lack of belief to myself did not mean that I lost my scruples.  I still think the progressive agenda is largely misguided, since progress for its own sake makes no sense, not to mention that it begs the question, "Progress towards what?"  While admittedly, I do agree with the progressives on many things, e.g. the rights of gays, drug legalization, I disagree vehemently with the progressives on matters such as guns and fiscal policy.  Without taking too wide a deviation into politics, suffice it to say that social policy is almost never overturned once introduced into American society, so I see little merit in fighting those battles; in contrast, fiscal policy is a never-ending war--one that progressives lose fairly consistently (meaning their fiscal policy always results in chaos, collapse, or catastrophe when implemented).

"You were never a true Christian"

After establishing my non-progressive bona fides and my identity as a former Christian, I'm told that I was never a Christian.  I grew up in the church, gave when I could, sang in the choir, sought God, and prayed regularly.  "That's the problem," they tell me, "you spent too much time going through the motions, and not enough time communing with Jesus."  To that I say "hogwash;" if one does not pursue the requirements of Christianity, how can one call one's self "Christian?"  As far as the esoteric aspects of being Christian are concerned, I would spend hours praying and trying to feel Jesus, trying to communicate with God.  Perhaps I was merely going through the motions, but then I believe that's all any Christians are doing; it's a grand masquerade whereby all of the "saved" wear these façades of faith.  It's The Emperor Has No Clothes, only it's the entire congregation pretending to be clothed in absolute faith, and no one can risk exposing that none of the others really has faith at all, lest their own pretenses be exposed.  That's not to say that many aren't sincere in their desire to believe, it's just that most of Christianity is a giant dick-measuring contest, substituting pretenses of "faith" for penises.  I learned the lingo, I lived the li(f)e, and I aspired towards the "faith of a mustard seed" (perhaps that's why the author of the Gospels set the bar so low, because human intelligence contravenes blind faith), so to assert that I was not sincere in my former religion is to be intellectually dishonest.  I always wanted to serve God and live like Jesus; in fact, I was outright jealous of those people for whom faith came so easily.  I lamented that I had no (sorry) "coming to Jesus" story of my own, no poignant anecdote to share with others why I believed.  Suffice it to say, I indeed may not have been a "true" Christian, but then neither were any of the others, nor are any so-called "Christians" of today; in this case, I believe there are no true Scotsmen.

"You think you are smarter than God."  

Yes, that's it.  You've nailed it.  You've caught me.  I believe I am smarter than an entity that I do not believe exists (non-sequitur much?).  Don't get me wrong, most of the time I feel like a fairly bright guy, but intelligence has little to do with my release of my religious beliefs, at least not the way Christians assert it.  Christians assert or insinuate that my disbelief in religion is due to a "haughty hubris" that believe I am smarter than God, and by making this accusation they can dismiss my argument (ergo the well-poisoning...also another straw man).  While I do believe that those of higher intelligence tend to be more likely to be or become non-religious, it has nothing to do with believing one's self to be "smarter than God," it has to do with the fact that smarter people tend to be more curious, and curious people ask questions that transcend the ability of the Bible and church leaders to answer; in other words, it's not "I am sooo smart, and smart people don't believe in God, therefore I cannot believe in God," but that the inherent curiosity of those with above-average intelligence leads them down roads which draw them away from religious belief.  It's not that there aren't brilliant religious people, just that brilliance among the non-believing is more common.  

Arguing With Christians

Well, it seems I am locking horns more and more with the faithful.  What's interesting is that the moment they discover I am an atheist, the gloves come off.  I've rarely experienced a more judgmental group of people than the sharers of my former faith.  "You just weren't a true Christian,"enter the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.  It seems they have difficulty accepting that I could ever leave Christianity.  It makes me glad that Christianity carries no death penalty for apostasy à la islam.

Another interesting facet of these arguments is that Christians almost without exception assume that I am a big-time liberal democrat.  It's funny, because although I do agree with a few of the democrats' views on the social issues, I disagree with them vehemently on most issues, particularly those pertaining to the role of government--e.g. gun rights, welfare, affirmative action, and budgets.  Nevertheless, straw men are particularly easy to deconstruct, so keep on preaching, Christians!  On an almost daily basis, you reinforce why I am no longer Christian.  

And, There Was Nothing...

So, I've been reading about the origins of the universe, and although I do not totally comprehend all of the concepts, it seems that a universe springing from "nothing" is not as far-fetched as it seems.

Particle physics seemingly allows for both matter and energy to spontaneously emerge, provided conditions are right.  Although I believe the catalyst is unknown at this point, the Big Bang seems to have provided these ideal conditions.  The Big Bang resulted in the high temperatures necessary to create the numerous interactions between particles from which all matter can trace its origins.

I need to learn the math necessary to understand this completely, which means that I may alway be at least partially in the dark.

More to follow later, but this is where I am right now.

You Have No Control Over Whether Or Not You Read This Post...

Since I no longer believe in the "Divine Will of God," it stands to reason that I am curious about the nature of the universe, fate, origins, and even my own thoughts.  Because there is no soul upon which I can hang my own person, I began to ponder at the nature of my own consciousness.  While I was still Christian, I had been introduced to causal determinism by a friend of mine, but since I was Christian, I had no cause to explore what this meant.

"The laws of chemistry and physics do not change in the human brain," is how this friend of mine once explained determinism to me.  Although determinism has larger implications than mere human physiology, the fact that I may not be driving the bus of my own consciousness really antagonizes my ego, and so I have spent the last few weeks looking for a loophole I could exploit to say that I - my consciousness - am more than a collection of chemical reactions.

My uncle is a very successful surgeon in northern Alabama, in addition to being a very smart guy (of course, the latter is usually a prerequisite for the former), so I inquired about his thoughts on the matter.  He responded that he believes that conscious thought occurs at a subatomic level, and thus the Uncertainty Principle guarantees that we have free will.  Although I do not have the same level of scientific education as my uncle, I do not agree with his thesis, here's why:

If consciousness occurs at the chemical level, then the laws of chemistry and physics dictate those interactions (within the brain), thus consciousness is deterministic.

If consciousness occurs at the atomic level, then the laws of physics and chemistry dictate those interactions, thus consciousness is deterministic.

If consciousness occurs at the subatomic level, then the laws of physics dictate those interactions, thus consciousness is deterministic.

If consciousness occurs at the quantum level, then the laws of physics dictate those interactions, thus consciousness is deterministic.

Granted, we do not fully understand quantum physics yet, but that does not mean that the behavior of quarks is not dictated fully by laws that are every bit as inviolable as the laws of gravity.  Moreover, I highly doubt that consciousness occurs at this level; since lower forms of thought occur at the chemical level, it stands to reason that conscious thought lies within this realm as well.

Assuming for a second that I believe that consciousness occurs at the quantum level, I do not believe Heisenberg or the Observer Principle give us any leeway for free will, because I believe that every action in the universe is dictated by laws, regardless of whether or not we are able to count on the accuracy of our observations concerning those laws.  Of course, I am not a professional scientist and my scientific education is limited, so my opinions are merely those of a curious layman.

Determinism poses interesting problems for religious belief though.  Using the Christian model, interpreting the "will of God" to mean that God "saves" whom he will, and assuming a universe with immutable laws, one can therefore infer that God established beforehand whom he would "save."  Of course, this is consistent with Calvinist theology and demolishes Arminianism - in addition to pretty much all other religions which base treatment in the afterlife upon one's deeds in life.  For Calvinism though, it is much more problematic, since it exposes God as being unjust, unfair, cruel, and capricious; since one has no choice whatsoever how one behaves, it further compounds the issue of "accident of birth" --meaning one has no choice where one is born, because one now has no choice regarding the decisions one makes either.

Faith Is The Evidence of Things Unseen--In Other Words, Nothing

Since I've become an atheist, I find myself more frequently embroiled in arguments with the "faithful" concerning the nature of my <ahem> "beliefs;" as though something about the nature of religious belief requires that all others must espouse a system of belief too.

"I lack the faith to be an atheist."  I've already encountered this argument a number of times since I began arguing from an atheist perspective.  Being an atheist requires no faith, since one is not trying to assert anything beyond what is observable.  Faith is only required when trying to assert that some invisible, all-powerful being exists and created the universe, etc., etc..

During my Christian days, I argued that atheism was "no different than any other religion."  I then proceeded to construct an elaborate straw man, in which I argued that atheism was a religion, and science--evolution in particular--was its canon.  Of course, this argument never held up when I endeavored to argue with atheists, since--as I stated in previous blog posts--there are no unifying atheist beliefs.  Still, I persisted with trying to make atheism into some sort of religion, analogous to any of the other religious beliefs I prided my self in deconstructing.  Now that I find myself on the other side of the argument, it's amusing to see exactly how absurd my arguments actually were.

For the Christian (probably for many other belief systems as well), one's faith is how one identifies within the Christian community.  Public acceptance of certain tenets of belief often determines how others within the church perceive one another.  In other words, if you espouse beliefs that diverge from what is considered orthodox within a particular faith group, you are viewed as less Christian, whereas acceptance of the group's orthodoxy means you are a good Christian.  In short, the religious--Christians in particular--cannot imagine one being bereft of faith.

Christians, in order to make their arguments more effective, tend to deliberately conflate science and atheism.  Although atheists usually respect science a great deal more than do our religious counterparts, we usually refrain from replacing religion with science (I am sure there are a few kooks out there claiming science in lieu of belief).  Mankind does not need religion; it is, as Marx said, the "opiate of the masses."

Science is, as I like to say, a system of doubt.  Science is nothing more than the summation of human knowledge about the natural world, which has derived from both observation and the postulation that agrees with those observations.  Science is not merely agreement with scientists; for example, many scientists believe that the planet is warming and is thus on a collision course with destructively high temperatures, and that man is largely responsible for this phenomenon.  Unlike evolution, for which there are years of research and thousands of peer-reviewed papers to validate, catastrophic AGW is based on dubious premises and the subjective research of scientists trying to prove their beliefs instead of just following the evidence where it takes them.  If science were a religion, then by the reasoning of most Christians I should be a heretical atheist (is such a thing possible?); however, because I am not religious, I can accept that which makes sense to me, and ignore that which does not.  I can keep the baby and the bathwater, or I can throw either or both without fear of losing regard in the eyes of my ideological peers.  It takes no faith to believe in that which I can experience or read and understand for myself.  

Atheists Can Be Assholes Too...

In retrospect I probably would have left religious belief years sooner, had it not been for the attitudes of many atheist types--specifically the “evangelistic” atheist, the pretentious atheist, and the “God-hater” atheist.  Before I go into the characteristics of these types, let me first say that the only belief shared by atheists is a lack of belief in any deity.  Since religious people tend to group all atheists together, I feel that it is imperative that I first dispel the notion that there is some gestalt core of atheist thought; atheists are united only in their lack of belief in God or religion.

Of the different atheist types I describe above, I think the most annoying is the “God-hating” atheist.  For whatever reason, these tended to be white, male southerners.  (I suspect that among atheists in this group there is a higher rate of recidivism or, shall I say, the existence of recidivism at all.)  I call these the “God-hating atheists” because in my conversations with these gentlemen (admittedly, most of these conversations took place while I was still religious), invariably their lack of religion was couched in terms like “my father was religious and he was abusive, therefore religion causes fathers to be abusive.”  (Incidentally, this statement is a perfect example of denying the antecedent, because, while religion may have indeed been a contributing factor, one has to consider that there is probably another cause.)  My father too, was religious, and some of his abuses can be attributed his beliefs, but my father was also insecure and had come from an abusive home; I do believe that he would have been less inclined to follow suit had he not been religious, but since the other underlying causes are far more likely to have caused his behavior, it would be disingenuous for me to lay the blame solely at the feet of his religious beliefs.  I digress.  These anti-God atheists always bothered me because they were not even convinced of their arguments.  Despite them possessing the superior factual position, I was always able to soundly defeat these men in arguments--if only because they tended towards facile and intellectually dishonest positions (e.g. “Jesus never existed,” despite sufficient evidence to the contrary--his claim to deity is another thing), or positions they could not support (e.g., “The Bible is a lie,” which is true, but the onus is upon the speaker to prove).  They also rejected most of the other edifices of their childhoods, which cast shadows of doubt upon the sincerity of their atheist positions.  In short, they didn’t believe themselves, so it was difficult for me to take their positions seriously.  I think atheists of this stripe tend to come across as tepid and incredulous, and thus weaken the position of atheism in the eyes of those with whom they discourse.  

The pretentious atheist, like the God-hating atheist, wears his atheism as a badge of honor.  I’ve always been regarded as a pretty smart guy, and encounters with these atheists always frustrated me because I hated having my intelligence questioned because of my belief in the God of Christianity.  I believe it’s a slight variation on the “poisoning the well” logical fallacy, because there are many highly intelligent people who do espouse belief in some sort of religious system.  I do believe that high intelligence often leads people to atheism (simple: smarter people tend to ask questions, and religion’s answers lead to more questions that end at the corner of bromide and question-begging), but it’s laughable to assert that a lack of belief in God causes high intelligence, which seems to pervade the thought processes of these individuals.  A.Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear weapon program, is a devout muslim, so only an utter fool would question this man’s intelligence.  Furthermore, although many of the smartest people I have ever met have been atheists, I’ve also known some stupid atheists--I mean really stupid.  

The third atheist type, the evangelical, is my least favorite (author’s note: while I realize that the term “evangelical” is a Christian one, I am claiming poetic license).  This atheist is the most ardently anti-religion of any of the types mentioned in this blog post, although he chooses to employ similar methodologies as the religionists he decries.  I think that the absence of a Christian-style (or any, for that matter) deity becomes self-evident to the intellectually curious, if given enough contemplation.  I do not think there is any shared characteristic which causes once-believers to cast off the shackles of religion, so these “There Is No Reason For The Season,” and similar campaigns by atheists seem more designed to raise the hackles of the religious than designed for outreach.  Also, the anti-religious campaigns such as those endeavored by Ms. Ahlquist of Connecticut seem more designed to garner local notoriety and Barnum’s “15 minutes” than to combat any over-proliferation of religious expression in the public square.  Stridency such as that I’ve described smacks, in my opinion, of a lack of confidence in one’s position; it certainly does nothing to promote the cause of leading people away from whatever myths they might subscribe to.  Such cocksureness on the part of the evangelical atheists always irritated me, and thus kept me from introspection regarding my beliefs. 

Granted, I am new to atheism (though I’ve self-described as an agnostic for much of the last year and a half), but I think we should stay away from being directly confrontational, at least not on the same scale as the religious.  I’d like to present my own view of being non-religious as it was presented to me, not by being as raucous and outspoken as the religious (particularly Christians) whom we love to decry.  Individuals must be confronted on a one-on-one basis, and they must be shown why each of their beliefs is non-factual or illogical.  I think we gain no new...ahem...”converts” by smashing their beliefs in the public square.  Christians in particular gain “brownie” points for adhering to their beliefs in the heart of overwhelming opposition and damning evidence, so being “embarrassed for Christ” is almost a badge of honor amongst Christians.  I became an atheist because I found the “truth” of the Bible to be ephemeral, not because a bunch of pretentious jerks in Seattle put up billboards and signs insulting my beliefs.  Many of the things I had been taught as “fact” seemed to contradict one another, and the answers to my questions left me feeling cheated.  In my childhood I was only regularly exposed to one atheist, and I think he was too young to answer the questions that niggled at me.  Finally, in my adulthood I was exposed to friends of my own age demographic who steered me in the introspective direction I would need to discover for myself the truths that demonstrate the Christian religion as farcical as any of the others I’d grown used to lampooning and discrediting.  My atheist friends were not the nihilistic monsters that Christianity had told me they should be.  I became an atheist because the atheists who inspired me to look away from religion were unlike the stereotypes ascribed to them; pretentious, “God-hating,” evangelical atheists confirmed the stereotypes I’d been taught.  If all atheists, regardless of what their other beliefs might be, were to present themselves as contrary to the scary, belligerent Christian stereotype, I think more people would be inclined to listen to what we have to say.

Heretics and Hypocrites

People who take an ideology too seriously tend to irritate me, whether it's the overzealous (and bigoted)  hillbillies of the Westboro Baptist Church, or the equally bigoted atheists protesting the slightest mention of religion--regardless of context--in the public square.  The former made me feel embarrassed to profess any beliefs we might have in common, and would likely have expedited my departure from religious belief, had it not been for the sanctimonious intransigence of the latter.

In my observation, Christians seem to have a tendency to believe that the "small is the gate and narrow is the road" verse (Matt 7:13, to those that care) pertains to them and their beliefs only.  To that end, the Christians are highly critical of anyone whose Christian beliefs diverge from their own.  I can recall two conversations from early in my transition from believer to non-believer which were crucial in my conversion from Bible-believing Christian, to disenchanted nonbeliever.

Christian views of evolution vary from outright rejection to incorporation into creationism ("Intelligent Design" and its variants).  In my most recent period of belief, I was on the far end of Christians who did believe in evolution as a mechanism of God.  With this premise in mind, I found myself in a conversation with a man who believed, as I did, that the schools were full of "liberals" who were polluting the minds of our children.  This gentleman said that schools had no business teaching students "cockamamie theories like evolution."  I asked him how much he knew about evolution.  He said it was enough to know he did not believe in it (what is startling about this statement is that it is a reflection of sentiments that pervade much of the Christian community).  His explanation why was that dinosaurs and mankind had coexisted and that the Earth was only 6,000 years old.  "Any fossils," he said, "that lead men away from the Bible must have been put there by Satan to trick mankind."  When I calmly told him that such an assertion was not logical and that I subscribed to ID, he told me that the Bible did not support my beliefs--which is tantamount to calling me a heretic.

Most Christians believe that homosexuality is a choice, and therefore a sin (because the Bible describes it as so in both the Old and New Testaments).  With this assumption, it is not hard to see why they try so hard to "rescue" gays from their sexuality.  I've always been curious about homosexuality, not--as I am sure some would assert--in the sense that I wanted to experience it for myself, but simply because I had always wondered what mechanism could turn a man away from women.  My personal compulsion to "chase" vagina is very strong, and I work every day to suppress it so that I can remain faithful to my wife and family (to that end, I have a 100% success rate, if you really must know).  Having said that, I have never been able to understand why a man would go after another man.  I made no choice in this regard; it was imprinted in my DNA that I should be attracted to females and the very thought of diverging from this compulsion is repugnant to me; the homosexuals I know tell me that it is the same way with them and women--the very thought of being with a woman repulses them.  In a conversation with one of the deacons from my Church, he revealed to me that it is extreme sinfulness, in this case "self-love" that leads gays to defy God.  I told him that I disagreed that this was the case, and I explained my position.  He calmly told me that God disagreed with me and that I should read my Bible for guidance.  I followed his advice, but I was still unconvinced: I remember thinking, "How could God allow these people to be born with such a deficiency that they're already on the path to hell?".  It really makes no sense to me that a "loving" God would stack the deck against his "beloved creation."  For my unwillingness to accept trite, illogical answers to my questions about God and gays, I was viewed as a heretic.

Though the WBBC rednecks are indeed bigoted freaks, and--believe it or not--regarded as such by most of the Christian community, they are also among the most hypocritical of any group claiming the Christian moniker (treating their fellow believers as heretics simply because they do not subscribe to their hatred).  Sadly, they do not differ as much from their Christian "brethren" as we'd like to believe.  In many of the churches I attended the hypocrisy was so rampant that it was hard to figure out who was really whom.  At one church I attended, one faction reviled another faction so much that they would avoid each other.  I don't know from whence these hatreds derived, but as a former Christian, I do not understand how these prejudices comported with Christian ideology.  Jealousy and hubris were also put on display every week during the weekly worship service; as this person's daughter or that person's wife would perform her song, dance, or whatever "look-at-me" display she had decided upon, the snickers and murmurs within the congregation were palpable.  I was no better, in fact, I think I was worse in some ways, probably because I knew that these displays were nothing more than ego-waxing of the highest order, just disguised as "giving glory to God."  The ubiquitous manger scenes around Christmas amount to nothing more than the congregations of local churches trying to outdo one another.  Christians can claim no moral superiority over non-believers when Churches are nothing more than covens of hypocritical false piety.

Aggravating atheists: next post.

Religious Abuses of Children (No, Not Priests This Time)

Richard Dawkins has said that religious parents who impose their beliefs should be arrested for child abuse.  While I don't subscribe to this notion, I do believe that religious belief can make parents more draconian in their punishment regimens than they would be otherwise.  Religious beliefs are not usually, in my opinion, "abusive" towards children, though there are a few exceptions.

"Spare the rod and spoil the child," so says the wisdom of the Bible; however, I think most Christian parents see "rod" as a metaphor for discipline or correction.  This commonly accepted nuance missed my father.  My dad had a tendency to apply the rod--which happened to be a 3/4" oak dowel--first and ask questions later.  I can remember welts that covered my backside, from the back of my knees up to the top of my buttocks (I'm not trying to pick on my father per se, because although most Christians have moved away from beating their children, his literal interpretation of this verse was the rule of thumb for most of American history).  Do I know if my father would have been as tough on my backside if he'd not been Christian?  No, I do not.  What I do know is that my dad was a pretty good dad otherwise, and I suspect that had he not believed that refraining from whipping my ass for the smallest mistake would lead me straight to hell, he would have probably reserved swats for more dire infractions.  He thought he had to beat me to save me from hell...

Hell.  The Lake of Fire.  Hades.  Eternal Torment.  I mentioned in my previous post that this was what led me to "salvation" in the first place.  I was a five year-old kid when I said my first "sinner's" prayer.  A virtual baby, not to mention a baby with a highly overactive imagination and a predilection for worrying.  So, on top of the specters that my imagination already subjected me to, my unknowing and well-meaning parents introduced me to concepts that would add more bogeymen to my already packed-full closet of nightmares.  The worst nightmare I had in my childhood was one where I walked into my kitchen and the gates of hell opened up, and Satan in his demonic horror reached out to grab me--with my mother and sisters on the couch less than ten feet away, oblivious to my plight.  I had many nightmares of this same variety: demons popping out from underneath my bed, family members languishing in hell, the devil's voice taunting me, demons hissing, etc..  I likely still would have had nightmares, given my imagination, but there was something particularly horrifying about my nightmares having eternal implications.  I think it would not have taken me until I was 14 to get over my constant nightmares if I had not had such a strong belief in demons and the afterlife.  I had cause to believe that my nightmares were real, and that the only way I could protect myself was through prayers or reading my Bible.  I spent many nights lying in bed with my heart pounding, just waiting for the dawn to break.  Maybe this isn't child abuse in that it wasn't deliberate; he didn't mean for me to have so many fearful, sleepless nights, but the consequences were the same regardless of my father's intent.

Of course Christianity isn't the most pernicious of religions with regard to its treatment of children.  Hindus often value cattle above their own children, and those who practice Asian ancestor-worship can be pretty harsh towards their offspring.  Of course the religion that wrote the book on child abuse is islam.  Muslims marry their daughters off at ages as young as nine in some countries, and to men old enough to be their grandfathers.  Young girls are subjected to clitorectomies, often performed in ritualistic fashion by unqualified, non-medical religious leaders, or even the girls' own female relatives.  If a young woman makes it to puberty, she has to worry that she might be "honor" killed--which is startlingly easy to do: be in the wrong place at the wrong time, wear the wrong clothes, be too "westernized," and her father and brothers might strangle, shoot, or even decapitate her for bringing dishonor to the family.  Little boys get a bit more freedom, but must dodge the affections of men in a pederast culture which says that any boy is fair game until his facial hair grows in (but sex between consenting men is just gay, therefore unacceptable and punishable by death).

It's absurd that an innocent child should be held to account for religious beliefs that they do not even fully understand.  A child should be allowed to be a child and discover the world for themselves.  If a set of religious beliefs is so fantastic, then it stands to reason that at some point that child will accept those beliefs and subject himself to that religion.  It's not fair to children that parents must torture, abuse, or even murder them in pursuit of their religious ideals.  Children are born without religion.

(Note **The occasional spanking for behavior that infracts a set of carefully defined parameters understood by the child is acceptable and a useful parenting tool, in my opinion.**)

Passing Thoughts...

I really tried for years to hold onto my faith.  I am sure that my religious friends and family are exceedingly disappointed with me.  They should not be.  This blog is just a collection of the various thoughts, niggles, quandaries, and conundrums that eventually led me away from faith.  I never believed in Santa Claus, and I had the Tooth Fairy thing figured out by my 7th birthday (though I kept up the charade until all of my baby teeth had fallen out--didn't want to lose that gravy train).  I had nagging doubts that persisted well into adolescence, but puberty was a pretty compelling distraction that kept me from thinking about these issues until the flood of reproductive hormones abated somewhat.  Even after puberty, I remained firmly ensconced in Christianity because that was the demographic I had grown comfortable with.  This is not to say that I did not try to believe; I wanted to be just like those of the faith for whom faith came so easily.  I wanted to be able to say "look what God has done for me, isn't He great?" with the same level of sincerity as those I most admired, respected, and loved.  I felt both hypocritical and guilty; the latter because I knew I didn't believe the words escaping my lips, and the former because I knew I was lying.

Christians who read this blog will probably casually dismiss me as having never "truly" been "saved."  Setting aside for a moment that I don't believe that such a thing exists, and that Christianity is nothing more than a masquerade of piety, I wanted more than almost anything (except to find my soulmate, which was my #1 priority) to be just like them.  I wanted to have the faith that "moves mountains."  I sincerely wanted it.  I went through the motions in the hopes that (in the words of my father) I could "fake it until I made it." I memorized Bible verses, volunteered at my church, tried to "witness" to people, and (at least in my adulthood) pursued friendships with others of my faith.  This is not to say that I did not have lapses or that I was a perfect Christian or that I steadfastly pursued Christian ideals, by any means; my adolescence and religious adulthood were marked with vacillations between periods of faith pursuit and apathy, the latter usually due to frustration with not having found "my place in God's plan."  The point is that I really wanted what I thought God wanted from me.  I really wanted to plot my course in accordance with God's plan, and I envied those Christians for whom this act came so easily.

I was raised in an exceedingly religious home, thus I was never given a chance to discover "truth"--whatever that may be--for myself.  Religious faith was mandatory in my father's home.  We were made to go to church every Sunday, regardless of what else was going on.  I was "saved" when I was about five or so.  My mother more or less coaxed me through the prayer of salvation after explaining to me why I didn't want to go to hell.  I ended up repeating this prayer about three more times in my childhood, the last of which was around 18, after which I elected to get baptized.  I'd love to say that I believed there was no God even back then, but so strong was my father's faith that I can no more imagine a childhood not believing in God than a childhood without peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. Belief in God was a given in my household.  I had reservations and issues (many of which I am addressing in this blog), but voicing them was usually met with BS explanations or can-kicking ("you'll understand when you're older").  My father's circle of Christian friends was also a very strong incentive to remain "in the flock."  The people my father surrounded himself with were such that I had no desire to not be among them.  Intentional or not, the environment of my childhood was very conducive to the brainwashing I received.  I cannot imagine how much more difficult my childhood would have been if I had expressed disbelief; as it was, the questions I occasionally raised were oft met with frustration bordering on irritation.  

Calvinism, which is the theology underlying my father's Christian--thus, my former--beliefs, relies exclusively upon the sovereignty of God with regards to salvation.  In short, I grew up in the "once saved, always saved" school of eschatological thought.  This meant that who was "saved" was ultimately up to God, best expressed in the verse "Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated."  The alternative school, "earn your way to heaven," I believed was less consistent with the teachings within the Bible.  This may be because I was brought up in the competing theology, but in Calvinism's defense, the theological "sovereignty of God" perspective sets Calvinist Christianity apart from not only Arminian (the "earn your way" camp) Christianity, but all other religious faiths (almost all religions are religions of works: Catholicism--confession, confirmation, etc.; Buddhism--chant, burn incense; islam--kill infidels in jihad).  I believed my religious beliefs set me apart from other faiths because I believed that it was totally up to God whether or not I got to go to heaven.  The problem was that I never felt "saved."  Even as an innocent child, I felt that I was destined for the Lake of Fire.  I thought that being "saved" should confer some sort of certitude upon me, yet it never did, ultimately leading me to believe that I was hell-bound anyway.

Being consigned to the furnace of hell left me free to explore the boundaries of my faith.  This ultimately led to me seeking for answers to the questions that had plagued me for so long.  I did read the  "Case for..." series by Lee Stroebel, and this enabled me to remain in faith a little bit longer, but these books were exposed as being little more than sophistry (thanks to Dawkins and Harris), albeit well-crafted and sincere sophistry.  I remained sort-of Christian for about two years after my faith really began to slide.  Being the type of person to challenge the thoughts and beliefs of others just for the fun of it, I decided--in the hopes that I might rejuvenate my faith--that it was high time I read what antagonist authors might have to say about my beliefs.  So I rounded up the usual suspects (Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris) and read what secular thinkers had to say about faith--Christianity in particular.  I figured that if my faith were "true," then I would easily be able to demolish the arguments presented in any of those books, just as I had frequently demolished the arguments of the various Mormon and Jehovah's Witness missionaries that had been unfortunate enough to find my doorstep (somewhat ironically, I believed that my tearing down of other faiths strengthened mine).  Besides, I had been arguing faith with my good atheist friend (he's a biophysicist now) for years, and we'd usually fought to a draw (only because I refused to accede to his points).  I had also smashed up a rather petulant atheist recently, so I figured my faith could take the onslaught.  

I first watched "Religulous," by Bill Maher.  To this day I do not agree with much of Maher's politics, but I respect the treatment he gave the people in his movie.  It was easy enough to calmly refute some of the points he made, since much of what he was saying was misrepresentation, but many of the people in the film made rather asinine statements.  I remember feeling embarrassed that I shared these peoples' beliefs.  I had grown embarrassed to tell people that I was Christian or express Christian beliefs, and I hadn't even noticed it happening.  The beliefs I was supposed to hold sounded ridiculous to me coming out of the mouths of my fellow believers.  Still, I wanted to rebuild my faith, so I tried to tear it down so God could rebuild it.  I found that all three secular authors expressed the same concerns I'd had with my faith, if only considerably more vociferously.  How could God expect mankind to "find" him if every clue he had supposedly left behind for us led us away from him?  It makes no sense that God would give us a universe to explore and a mind to comprehend that universe, yet the more we use the latter to comprehend the former, the more we move away.  Needless to say, I tore down my beliefs and was sorely disappointed to find that there was no God to rebuild them for me.  

Negative Imagery

Intelligent Design.  The idea almost sounds plausible--that God used the process of evolution to “design” nature.  That is, if you set aside that it is a negative theory, it almost makes sense.  The problem with it is that ID does not seek to ascertain the how regarding, for example, evolutionary divergences (e.g. how lizards became birds); ID simply seeks to fill the holes between each presently inexplicable transition with God.  God becomes the glue in the places where science has not yet ascertained an answer.  It’s sort of like describing how the Taj Mahal was built by describing what didn’t happen: “Ha, the evolutionists were wrong about this theory, so ---GOD!”  “Piltdown Man, so ---GOD!”  “Missing ‘missing links,’ so ---GOD!”.

Mankind was created in God’s image supposedly, but if so, why is this body riddled with so many flaws?  Christians like to say that it’s because of the sin introduced to the world by Adam eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (setting aside that it’s pretty cruel for a supposedly loving God to tempt his creation in such a fashion; “Hey, you can play in the garage, just don’t touch the jigsaw that I am going to leave running;” what “loving” parent does that?).  So, did Adam immediately sprout an appendix and tailbone (A perplexed Adam: “Damn, where’d this almost tail come from?  Shit!  I shouldn’t have eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil; of course, I didn’t know that doing so was ‘evil’ until after I ate it.  Who, by the way, is Joseph Heller?”)?  Additionally, if you’re going to create a being, why not create that being to the utmost?  Humans have good eyesight, but a falcon’s is about 10x more acute (actually eyesight itself is curious, since the messages are actually delivered upside-down, then rearranged within the brain to match reality).  Our hearing is a fraction as sensitive as that of a cat or deer.  How hard would it be for our “designer” to give us the hearing of a cat, on top of the vision of a hawk?  Why can’t we fly?  He’s God, after all, he’s all-powerful.  So we got the best brains the designer had to offer; why not go all out?  Why shortchange us?  Why not give everyone brains capable of comprehending the space-time continuum?  If I am God, and the universe I have created inevitably leads back to me, then why would I prevent my creation from discovering this fact?  No, instead I only bestow my most beloved creation with a mid-grade intellect, only capable of digesting the most rudimentary truths (a few lucky ones bestowed with better minds get to peel the onion back a little further).  

Then again, maybe God didn’t want us to think too highly of ourselves and try to become like God, because he made that mistake once before (Oh, wait, God doesn’t make mistakes).

Perfectly Flawed

Christianity likes to posit that the Bible is the “inerrant, inspired Word of God.”  For starters, I would just like to ask simply, “which Bible?”  There are several denominations of Christianity which only recognize the King James Version of the Protestant Bible.  The Catholics use one Bible, the Orthodox Churches use another--except for Ethiopian Orthodox, which uses yet another version.  The Catholics believe that the Protestant exclusion of the so-called “Apocrypha” is heretical, and the Protestants view the inclusion of these books the same way.  Setting aside the different versions of the Bible, there are about twenty English translations alone, and the different translations themselves can be problematic, as subtleties and nuances often get lost in translation, often changing context or meaning sufficiently to dilute the intended message.  I digress; which version and translation is the Word of God?  They clearly cannot all be, if only because of the “heresy” of including certain books and excluding others.  

When Pope Damascus convened the Council of Rome, God himself didn’t show up to guide the assembly process to determine which books were canon and which weren’t.  The assemblers used simple scholarly and logical criteria to arrange the books into the Bible (e.g., which of the books seemed to agree).  There was no “divine inspiration” at work, otherwise, presumably--giving God the benefit of the doubt, we’d have ended up with one complete, congruent text; but what we got instead was a collection of tales and fables intermixed with a little history, most with questionable and ambiguous lessons in subjective morality.  How do we know that the books in the Bible are those that God wanted in the Bible?  The Christian’s answer is “because the Bible says so.”  Hunh?!  So, once again we find that the rules of logic do not apply to God, because this is brazen question-begging, and of the worst sort because it is a self-sustaining (i.e. circular) argument (to be fair though, the muslims are much worse, “The qur’an says that muhammad was the perfect example for mankind, and the qur’an is perfect.”  Who wrote (dictated, revealed, whatever) the qur’an?  “Muhammad.”  Duh...).  Also, to borrow from Sam Harris, it is strange that God would create both the Bible and writers, yet make many of those writers better than himself.  If such a book as Dante’s Inferno, or a play such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream cannot claim “perfection,” then how can the linguistically and logically flawed Bible?

Setting aside for a second that any book claiming perfection cannot, by definition, have multiple versions, there are numerous flaws in the Bible.  The greatest flaw in the Bible is the so-called “virgin” birth of Christ.  The virgin birth is usually called up on to lend credence to Christ’s claim to fulfillment of prophecy, thus his claim to deity.  However, when the original Greek is examined, the virgin birth never happened; either by haphazard translation or deliberate mistranslation, the Greek word for “young woman” was altered in translation to “virgin.”  The word used is never translated as “virgin,” except as it is used in the book of Mark (which is believed to be the basis for both Matthew and Luke).  It is puzzling that the author of Mark chose to use “young woman,” if “virgin” was what he intended to convey.  It seems that the use of  the wrong word (calling back the previous paragraph) would tend to challenge the notion of the Bible’s perfection, at the very least, at most, the deliberate mistranslation of the word should go down as one of the greatest hoaxes in human history.  Corollary to this point, the Bible traces the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph; if Jesus is “virgin-born,” then how is Joseph’s bloodline relevant?  The short answer: in order for Jesus to fulfill the messiah prophecies, he had to come from the “House of David.”  So, Jesus can either be from the line of David, or virgin-born, but not both.  Again, the Bible fails in its alleged “perfection.”

Next, we talk about errors in "creation."

Getting to the Heart of the Matter

One of my favorite questions has always been, “what happens to those who never know Christ or the story of the Bible?”  Even in the innocence of my youth I think I would have appreciated an honest answer.  Parents tend to find themselves overwhelmed when their children ask questions that they are not equipped to answer.  Instead of the intellectually honest “I don’t know,” Christian parents like to bullshit their children.  Any answer is a good one, as long as it leads the child to accepting the “truth” of the Bible and Christianity.  The answer I was given was “God knows the heart.”  This is totally unsupported by scripture; it is simply a “feel-good” bromide, usually fed casually to the children of believers in order to placate their curiosity.  For the truly curious child though, this is a recurring question, as this answer makes no sense and is not found in the Bible (For it is with the heart that we believe and are justified, but it is with the mouth that we confess and are saved--not much room for flexibility there).  

The fact of the matter is that anyone born into any faith has no chance, because faith, by its very nature, is mutually exclusive.  If I had been born in Saudi Arabia, I would have been born a muslim, thus rendering my apostasy from faith punishable by death--not just my acceptance of atheism, but any change of religion is punishable by death.  This makes the proposition “God knows the heart” problematic for muslims who never hear the message of Christ’s salvation, since the “heart” tends to value its own self-preservation.  So, in order to make this proposition work, we have to modify it to say, “God knows the heart, so if they weren’t under the threat of death and were exposed to the message of salvation, God knows whether or not they would accept the message of Christ.”  Each religious faith poses its own unique set of parameters that must be overcome for us to apply the “God knows the heart” metric.  Hindus must overcome their fear of being reincarnated as a mushroom in order to accept Christianity, Buddhists must overcome a fear of not finding enlightenment or attaining nirvana, and Shinto Japanese must overcome the possibility of pissing off their ancestors.  

Granted, I am being a bit disingenuous by not including the typical scenario posed by the astute young child: “What about those people in the Amazon or in deepest, darkest Africa who’ve never been and will never be exposed to the message of Christ?”.  Setting aside for a second that I cannot find any direct reference in scripture carrying an exception for those people, what about them?  The “God knows the heart” metric must be carried to ridiculous levels to make sense.  First, these people must surpass illiteracy, ignorance, and often bizarre tribal practices before this metric can be applied.  In other words, many of these tribes’ practices are so alien (animism, human sacrifice, polygamy, polyamory, etc.) to modern Christianity that overcoming those practices would involve a rejection of their entire lifestyle.  So what Christians really mean is “God knows the heart and what these people would do regarding the message of salvation if they were exposed to the pristine conditions available in Western civilization,” which, as I said, is completely unsupported by scripture.  It’s a feelgood assumption Christians make because they do not like the idea that--by default--the Bible excludes people who do not know salvation.

Old Testament God vs. New Testament God

Today’s item of discussion is the paradoxical nature of God as he is presented within the Christian church.  

One of the most egregious fallacies in Christianity is the presentation of God, in which he is shown to be this loving, caring deity, yet also as a jealous, angry deity.  These characteristics could not be more disparate. 

The God of the Old Testament (OT) was clearly a vengeful deity, more interested in fulfilling the interests of his “chosen” people than in demonstrating the love attributed to him by modern Christianity.  This is a deity who either destroyed directly, or gave license to his people to destroy, large swathes of people whose only shortcoming was not being of the Hebrew tribes.  Would a loving God destroy two entire cities full of people by raining fire upon them?  Alright, fine, they were a disgusting lot of brutes who did horrible things to one another.  What about the children?  What about the infants?  Slaves who were not there of their own volition?  What about the people of Jericho?  Why were they so bad?  It’s difficult to believe that a people sophisticated enough to  build a city with insurmountable walls could be so barbaric as to deserve annihilation.  I think it is far more likely that the Hebrews just wanted the land (assuming the story isn’t a fabrication), and killing its occupants was the quickest means to that end. What about the Passover?  How could God kill an entire generation of firstborn children and still claim the moniker “loving?”  What had those children done, besides being born Egyptian (not to mention that this is likely another fabrication)?

Now in the New Testament we learn that God is a loving God.  The love of God is demonstrated in the person, Jesus Christ.  Now what really makes this confusing is that a recurring theme within the Bible is that God is unchanging.  If God is unchanging, then why the departure from the OT God of fury, fire, and brimstone?  “It’s the transcendence of the divine.”  Oh, that old canard again.  So God, who supposedly created logic as a means by which we can learn about him and his nature, is immune to the laws of the logic he created?  How are we supposed to learn about God and get closer to him if we cannot use the laws he created for us because those laws take us away from him?   

This is another of the reasons why I can no longer believe.  A paradox this powerful could only be the work of a human mind.  A perfect deity without flaw would not commit such a blatantly obvious fallacy.  Any deity claiming the worst of human nature, e.g. jealousy, anger, hatred, cannot--by definition--be “love.”  There is no way to reconcile this.  

"Mom, dad, heaven is boring...can we go to the movies instead?"

If I had to think of one item from my former faith that irked me the most, it was the concept of heaven.  The very premise of heaven always struck me as manufactured.  What is heaven according to Christianity?  Well, it's where Christians (and presumably pre-Christian Jews) will spend eternity praising God.  I'm sorry, but who in the hell wants to spend eternity "praising" someone else?  I can think of a thousand things I would rather be doing than waxing some deity's ego, a million things, for starters: having sex with my wife, playing with my kids, learning to play the piano and guitar, playing video games, driving cool cars, riding motorcycles, eating good food and ice cream, philosophizing with the greats of old, playing baseball with Babe Ruth, having a Q & A with both Hawkins and Einstein.  Any one of these things would pique my interest more than walking on golden streets and "basking in God's glory." At least the muslims came up with an afterlife that sounds sort of interesting (minus the doe-eyed boys bit--yeah, I can pass on that), though unless I had an industrial-strength prostate, I think I would get tired of banging out virgins (not to mention that my wife would not be pleased with me), and there are far more interesting things to eat than grapes (I wonder if muhammad would have said "chocolate ice cream" instead of friggen' grapes, we already know he wasn't smart enough to include bacon).  

I just came up with way more interesting things I would have included in my heaven had I been the author of the Bible.  No, instead, Christians have to languish under a vague and restrictive set of rules in the hopes that they're on God's "nice" list just for the dubious honor of spending eternity in worship. Oh.  Joy. Of course, this begs the question: what happens to those on God's "naughty" list?  Oh, they go to hell.  Yeah, your loved ones who rejected God, no matter how "good" they were as people, get to spend eternity separated from God...and you.  So while you're waltzing around heaven on golden roads, everyone you care about (at least those who reject Christianity) is roasting in hell with the devil and his minions.  It makes no sense that a person who lives a good life and serves others, yet rejects Christianity, would burn in hell, but an evil, selfish person (like my father’s wife) who accepts Christianity would go to heaven.  

I know, I know, "the transcendence of the divine."  I'm sure any Christians reading this is screaming "How arrogant, to think you know better than God.  The Bible says that the reward in heaven will be greater than we can imagine."  Well, if you must know, I think that the authors of the Bible simply lacked the imagination to come up with a better afterlife, so they kicked the can down the road in the hopes that someone else would come up with a more compelling carrot.  Moreover, if I am arrogant--and I accepted your notion of God--he made me this way, he made me with an inquisitive mind.  

"If I am wrong, then I die, but if you're wrong, you go to hell."  Ah, Pascal's wager.  Let me turn that upside-down on you.  You had one chance, and if you're wrong, when you die you will have wasted your life.  I'm not talking about any good you may have done in the name of your faith; I am talking about living your life in service of something nonexistent, paying for a church to continue to exist solely as a vehicle to propagate your fallacious beliefs, and holding yourself to artificially high standards of morality--for nothing.  Here’s the kicker too: there is far more evidence for my point-of-view than yours; I have hundreds of years of scientific research to corroborate my POV, you have a ~2000 year-old book written largely during the Bronze Age by men with less learning than my 1st grade daughter.  

Oh, while you’re singing praises to God and enjoying your vague unimagined treasures, your friends and family are wood chips in God’s big furnace o'fury, but you’re not supposed to care.

Introduction

Just an introduction.  I am a recent atheist.  I grew up in a very religious family, one where departure from my father’s orthodoxy was not permitted, thus my progression from religious to non-religious took many years.  I needed time to deprogram before I could rationally evaluate the tenets of the beliefs I grew up with.  It was not easy for me to give up religion, simply because it meant giving up assumptions that I had held to be true since my childhood.  The next blog post will likely be the rather long story of my journey away from faith, but today I am reaching out to the world to see who else might have similar experiences or might be grappling with their own beliefs.  

The intent of this blog is to provide a forum for those of non-belief or wavering belief to discuss contemporary topics related to the atheistic purview.  All are welcome regardless of belief status, but trolls will be blocked.  If a poster can rationally support a position, then that poster will be welcome.  Posters who cannot discuss amiably and respectfully will be banned.