Tag Archives: religion

Life through the Eyes of an Atheist

30 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Other

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Things have changed a little now that some of my friends know about my lack of faith. This post and perhaps more to come are geared a little more toward helping them and others understand atheism.

It seems the popular belief is that atheists are miserable people that have nothing to live for. When many Christians think of atheists, they think of someone who is bound for eternal hell and knows it deep down. They think of someone with a pointless existence, somebody that is just trying to make it miserable for everybody. Some of them think it’s impossible to truly believe that there is no God–that we must be followers of Satan and are actively trying to trick everyone else into damnation and eternal torture.

There are several reasons why Christians view atheists as a sorry lot. Often, when a Christian hears from an atheist they hear negative words. This is quite simply because the atheist is disagreeing with the Christian. Atheists also talk about a lot of other things–you just might not realize that they’re atheists when they’re talking about other things. Another reason is that Christians attribute so much of their happiness to their faith that they can’t imagine how someone without that faith could be as happy as they are. I, on the other hand, suspect that happiness is a little more about chemicals in our brains and a little less about our metaphysical beliefs.

When I was a Christian, I believed that my purpose in life, in fact, the objective purpose of everyone’s life was to earn that ticket into heaven. As I entered into that transitionary period between Christianity and atheism, I often struggled with a seeming contradiction. On the one hand I felt that life was worth living but on the other hand, I couldn’t think of an objective reason for me to feel that way. My life had lost its purpose, but weirdly enough, my zeal for it remained.

I eventually decided (i.e. realized) that there is no objective purpose to life–that we each find our own. Did life suddenly become more pointless for me? In all honesty, I would have to say that yes it did. But life also became less serious and a little more whimsical and fun.

The Christian is never alone. Often the Christian feels the presence of God, Jesus, and even angels. In times of fear, these feelings can be helpful in staving off panic, in gaining a feeling of security. I remember as a child, I would always pray when I was alone and afraid. After praying, I would feel the omnipotent presence of God, and I would immediately feel more secure. I don’t feel the presence of God, Jesus, or the angels anymore, and I am glad for it. I realize now that they were never there–that my brain tricked itself into feeling safer and more powerful all on its own.

Christians pray for various reasons ranging from material possessions, to finances, to world peace. It helps them clarify their goals, wishes, and desires, and it helps them deal with the difficulty of achieving them. If these goals, wishes, and desires do not come to fruition, then they feel secure in that God’s will is being done. Praying also allows Christians to feel like they’re helping others without actually having to do anything.

I no longer believe in the efficacy of prayer and as a direct result of that, I am more confident and have more self-esteem. I believe that prayers sometimes do come true, but I do not believe it has anything to do with anything supernatural. It’s simply the result of self-fulfillment and coincidences. I believe the idea that prayer has a direct effect on our lives (via supernatural means) is a mistake resulting from various interpretive biases (e.g. confirmation bias, placebo effect, etc.). Many of my prayers had come true but now I believe it was I that accomplished those things, and not some supernatural being that is watching over me and doing all the difficult work for me. Realizing that I deserve the credit for my successes and the blame for my failures, rather than God, gives me more self-confidence and a feeling of greater control over the course of my life.

Church provides many psychological and social benefits for the Christian. Being a member of a church provides the Christian with a greater sense of community, frequent fellowship, and the knowledge that they have something in common with a large number of people. As an atheist, I have yet to find secular equivalents for these things, and it is something that I miss. I do periodically go to church with my friends but the large difference in worldviews makes the experience considerably less enjoyable for me.

A lot of Christians have faith, but what is faith? It seems to me that faith is a cultivated optimism based on beliefs that can’t be proven. Faith provides a means for Christians to accept their limited control over their lives and environments while at the same time believing that there is a grand reason to it all. They see the world through these colored lenses and I see it affect their understanding of and explanations for events all the time. As an atheist, I don’t really have anything equivalent to this cultivated optimism and I’m glad that I don’t. I want to see the world as it is and faith seems a little too much like willful self-delusion.

A little note about semantics here: If faith is defined as ‘belief in God despite a lack of evidence’, then I most certainly do not have faith. However, if faith is defined as ‘a belief that concerns questions for which there are no answers’, then I might have faith in various things (although I would not consider it logical). In that sense, faith could be another word for optimism. I consider both optimism and pessimism to be illogical, tainted frames of mind. I do not have faith that the sun will come up tomorrow morning. I have a reason to believe, based on past experiences, that the sun will come up tomorrow morning.

When I was a Christian, I believed that the Bible and my fear of eternal hell were why I tried to be a good person. I was being forced by God, to be a good person. Now that I’m an atheist, I feel a lot more free. I feel free to steal, and kill, and rape as much as I please. But I don’t. I realize now that I try to be a good person because that’s how I am. It had been me all along–not God or a fear of hell. As a result, my morality feels deeper and more personal. Here’s a quote by atheist and magician Penn Jillette that seems relevant:

“The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what’s to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine.” ~Penn Jillette

When I was a Christian, half the stuff I did made me feel guilty. Every time I smoked a cigarette or drank a beer I was destroying a little bit of Jesus’ temple. Every time I drove a car or wore “English” clothing, I was breaking the rules of the church and God. Every time I questioned the existence of God, I was committing blasphemy–the worst possible moral offense, or so I thought. Without God, I have no more of that religious guilt. I still try to be a good person and I feel guilty every once in a while when I do something that I shouldn’t, but a lot of that stuff that caused me to feel guilty years ago, I realize now are neither wrong nor right and it’s a waste of time and energy to fret over the ethics of them.

The Christian is in constant awe of his God and the mighty powers attributed to him. As an atheist, I feel much the same way about the universe. I often look up at the starry night sky and marvel in awe and wonder at the scale, the mystery, and the absurdity of it all. It just blows my mind that things exist, but unlike the Christian, this feeling does not compel me to believe in a supernatural creator.

Supernatural explanations seem to help those that are seeking only to ease their fears but they don’t actually provide meaningful information about our universe. The idea that disease is caused by demons or that it is punishment for some earlier “immoral” action by the victim, was never helpful in treating or preventing illness. In fact, such thinking probably prevented mankind from discovering the true causes of disease for a long time. The natural explanation–the germ theory of disease, on the other hand, has been extremely helpful in preventing, curing, and mitigating the effects of disease for over a hundred years. Evolutionary theory is a lot harder to understand than Biblical creation stories but once you put in the effort and actually learn about it, you realize that it explains so much more about life. Similarly, modern cosmology is a lot more meaningful when it comes to understanding the larger universe, than the idea that God created it all in six days. Saying, “God did it,” has never been helpful in reaching a deeper understanding of any process. As an atheist and a science advocate, I am always seeking the natural explanation. It takes a lot more energy and effort to understand the natural explanations but the result is far more meaningful. I look up at the night sky, out at the universe, and it all makes a lot more sense than it did when I was a Christian. That alone is worth all the social stigma of being an atheist.

I couldn’t complete this post in all honesty without touching on the worst thing about being an atheist–the social stigma. As an atheist, I belong to a tiny minority of people that has metaphysical beliefs that are in diametric opposition to the majority. We face a lot of intolerance and discrimination for it and it can make our social life a little more unpleasant than it needs to be. I hope that with time, atheism becomes more widespread and more accepted and this intolerance will fade away.

I do not believe in an eternal life after death that will redeem me for all the good things I do. I do not believe in an eternal hellfire that will punish those that do harm to me and to others. As an atheist, I believe that this life is all I have and it is my goal to make the most of it.

As an atheist, I do not live in a dark and gloomy and pointless world as you might think. All in all, I believe that I am exactly as happy as the average Christian with a solid faith in God. I am certainly a lot happier than I was as a Christian with doubts.

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The Semantics of my Atheism

04 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by in My Philosophy, Religion

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What really is my position on the existence of God? Am I really an atheist or am I more of an agnostic? The question isn’t as simple as it seems.

I personally dislike the atheist/agnostic labels because I feel that my position isn’t clearly defined by either. I don’t consider myself agnostic because in most cases, I think those who believe in God are making a mistake. I don’t consider myself a pure atheist because in most cases my position would not include the unequivocal statement that ‘God does not exist’. My references to “most cases” I hope will become clear soon–once I discuss the definitions of “God”. If we drill deeper, my beliefs are probably closer to agnostic atheism or atheistic agnosticism than to either atheism or agnosticism. It just didn’t sound right to call my blog, “X Amish Agnostic Atheist”.

My position is quite simply that; the available evidence for the existence of God, as most people would define God, does not warrant the belief in such a being. Note that the above position applies to anybody that doesn’t ascribe to the common definition of God; be they atheists, agnostics, pantheists, Buddhists, or what have you. For a period of time, I actually considered myself a pantheist and there may still be pantheistic ideas out there that I would consider.

My position is also; if you believe in God, as most people would define God, then A) you must have evidence that I do not, or B) your belief in such a God is unjustified. I am of course assuming that my determination of what makes a belief justified or not, is valid, and that I have not made a mistake in the reasoning with which I concluded that the available evidence does not justify the belief in such a God.

Now, on to definitions… With all the different religions and belief systems, God and gods are ascribed many different characteristics. Some of these Gods, I am more inclined to discard as foolish given the ready natural explanations for the things that are ascribed to them. Many cultures have believed in thunder gods and almost all of us consider the notion foolish now that we have a natural explanation for thunder. I am as atheistic about such Gods as most people are willing to unequivocally state that, “Santa Claus does not exist.”

On the other hand, if we consider a pantheistic God, such as; the universe itself is God, then I tend to be more agnostic than atheistic. However, I would consider such a God to be so ill-defined as to be almost meaningless. Is God; mathematics and the all-pervasive mathematics only? If that’s how you want to define God, then sure, I have no problem believing in mathematics.

Now, on to the semantics of the supernatural… According to many definitions of God, he is supernatural, existing outside of time and space, outside of our universe as we know it. We will never be able to detect such a God with our natural instruments and while they will never be able to prove that such a God exists, we will never be able to prove that such a God does not exist (I’m not even going to go into the whole burden of proof issue). I consider such a God; meaningless. If something is in principle undetectable, then it is by definition; nonexistent. Otherwise, the concept of existence is meaningless. Check out my older post about the Nonexistence of Undetectable Things for a more in-depth explanation of what I’m referring to.

Let’s take a break from God and talk about aliens for a moment. Do they exist? Are they out there? I don’t know. On the subject of aliens I am agnostic, but not at all atheistic (I know the word technically doesn’t apply to aliens) because they are detectable in principle. I hope they exist.

What if you were to define God only as our creator? Would I believe in the possibility of that? Sure, if you’re willing to think of abiogenesis + evolution as your God. Oh, it has to be an intelligent creator? Hmm, what about those aliens? Could aliens have created us? Well, not really… it doesn’t make sense that animals are so genetically similar to us if we humans were created by aliens (unless they created the animals from the same stockpile of DNA). Well, maybe the aliens just brought the first cellular lifeforms and allowed evolution to take its course–creating us in that sense. Could I believe in such alien Gods? While I would consider such a God not out of the realm of possibility, I do think abiogenesis is a more likely explanation. While, I believe such alien Gods are far more likely than the Christian God, I’ll remain fairly atheistic about both.

Then there’s the idea that we live in a simulation. Could an advanced species have created computers powerful enough to simulate a universe and could we be living therein? Probably! While such a God is interesting to consider, it is once again, one of those undetectable Gods that just isn’t very meaningful in our natural universe.

So what really is my position on the existence of God? It all depends on what your definition of “God” is.

Why do I call myself an “atheist” then? I don’t believe the evidence for the existence of God, as he is commonly defined, justifies a belief in God. Could I be wrong? Sure, but I think the likelihood of such a God existing, based on our current evidence, is so low that my beliefs are much more like the pure atheist than the pure agnostic. That is why I call myself an “atheist” even though in some cases I am not an atheist.

Atheism vs. Christianity: The Insults aren’t Working

09 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by in Other

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When people believe that their worldviews are epistemologically superior to others (which most do), the temptation is high to disparage other worldviews with condescending insults. Atheists and Christians are equally guilty of this. Members of both sides are constantly attacking each other in an attempt to make the opposition appear ridiculous.

Insult against atheism

Insult against Christianity

Many atheists believe that Christians are stupid and vice versa. This belief is particularly present when in the middle of a heated debate with a member of the other side. Even I am often tempted to insult the intelligence of the other side until I remember that not too long ago, I was on their side.

It is a rather weird anecdote of human psychology that I, 1) Always consider myself intelligent, 2) Am constantly updating my belief system, and 3) Several months later I tend to think of anyone holding any of my old beliefs, as being “stupid”. It’s hypocrisy, I know, and it may just be me but I suspect it applies to many other people as well. It’s something I need to think about before silently or vocally insulting someone else’s intelligence.

Those insults do not help change the mind of the religious person or the atheist. I know this after experiencing both sides. All that an insult accomplishes is to anger the other person and destroy all chance of a continued dialogue. Insults probably do more harm than good.

As hard as it might be to believe, there really are intelligent Christians that wholeheartedly believe in the literal truth of the Bible. I should know–I used to be one. It is a testament to the power of indoctrination, and the atheist hoping to change religious minds would do well to understand this power. The Christian would do well to understand that the atheist is intelligent, and that he is also a seeker of truth, and not intrinsically evil.

Based once again only on my experience on both sides of the argument, here are some tips I have for encouraging a shift in a worldview. They will be written from the perspective of an atheist trying to change a Christian’s worldview.

1) Be an ethical and an intelligent person. Show the other side, by your speech and actions, that you’re not stupid or intrinsically evil.

2) Begin a dialogue. The tone of the dialogue is important. It should be friendly and never confrontational. Give the (truthful) impression that you are also seeking truth and not just manufacturing counter-arguments for the sake of disagreeing.

3) Take it slowly. It took me about ten years of thought to go from fundamental Christian (Amish) to atheist. What you’re seeking is a radical shift in worldview and it’s not going to happen overnight. In fact, if you throw too much “evidence” at the other side all at once, you’re more likely to push the other person away than to change their mind. Judge the other person’s position and level of knowledge and seek only a small victory in any given conversation. If you achieve it, leave it at that and let it ferment in the other person’s mind. Remember, you are trying to undermine years and years of indoctrination.

4) This may or may not be effective for everyone, but it seems to work for me: Guide the other person to the answer rather than giving it to them. I find that it is more effective to ask the right questions than it is to state the answers.

5) Provide well-written and easy to understand resources to help your fellow truth-seeker to understand the more technical aspects of your worldview. For example, several of Richard Dawkin’s books were instrumental in helping me understand evolution and grasping the general idea of evolution was a turning point in my transition from fundamental Christian to atheist.

So in conclusion; be nice. How nice? Pretend that the person you’re debating with is your best friend, your significant other, or your mother. They really are mine.

Matt’s Escape from Religion – Guest Post

03 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Guest Posts

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The following is a guest post by Matt. Matt grew up in Lancaster County, PA where he was a member of a religious sect similar to the Amish. After being directed to this website by a friend, Matt offered to share the story of his own journey from religious faith to what he describes as mental freedom. It is his hope that those still caught up in similar circumstances will profit by his story and find the courage to deal with their doubts or frustrations in a positive and healthy way.

……………………………………….

      Religion was not a large part of my life as a child. My mother paid it lip service but never laid herself open to the charge of zealotry. She sometimes took my sister and me to Sunday school when I was very young. There they passed out candy, which I found agreeable, and there were games and puzzles and songs to sing. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands! I was as dedicated as the next child when it came to the clapping.

We had a huge book of Bible stories that was kept on the bottom shelf of our homemade bookcase. It was filled with gloomy pictures of Jesus holding lambs and blessing tragic children clad in strange clothing. From this book I gained a conception of God as being a stern personage with an enormous beard who existed in an eternal state of washed-out pen and ink colors. I was also of the belief that God lived in the attic above the grape arbor belonging to our neighbors, Sadie and Ivan. I was told God could always see me and that seemed like the best vantage point for omniscience.

Later, my sister and I found ourselves living with strangers after our parents’ marriage fell apart. Their names were Todd and Nancy Rolland, and they were what are commonly referred to as Holy Rollers. They started taking us to church on a regular basis, something we had never experienced before. Nancy’s religion pervaded every part of her life. Their house was situated on a beautiful wooded lot and there was always an army of cats hanging around. When one of these felines showed up at the back door with a horrible case of mange, Nancy instantly declared the cat a direct agent of God whom Satan was seeking to destroy by means of a skin condition. She prayed aloud that Satan and his minions would be bound and that the cat should be delivered by the Power of the Blood. It was that kind of a household.

I was 9 at the time and already an avid reader. Books were an avenue of escape for me that nothing could take away. I read everything I could lay my hands on; The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Hobbit, The Wind in the Willows, Oliver Twist, A Wrinkle In Time, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Arthur Conan Doyle, Greek mythology, anything with even the faintest trace of science fiction about it—I was a machine. At school I tuned everything and everyone out and pursued my own inner life. Teachers would reprimand me for reading while they were trying to teach us Math or the history of the Leni Lenape Indians, a group of people whom had apparently gone in for living in caves and planting artifacts around the state of Pennsylvania. At home I would crawl into bed at 6:00 pm and sleep until I was forced to get up and go to school in the morning. I think 12 hour sleeping jags reveal a lot about the state of mind I was in at the time. Feeling abandoned and deeply depressed, I was the perfect target for philosophies that trade in promises of unconditional love and future rewards.

One night we were taken to a revival meeting at the Rolland’s church, The Worship Center. In retrospect, the name seems very heavy with 70s sensibilities; Jesus is groovy, man! He was presented as the Friend who never failed; the Light in the darkness; the Answer to all problems.

It was the first time I can recall actually hearing and understanding the ‘Plan of Salvation’; how Jesus came down from His Throne on High to redeem the human race from their sinful and fallen condition. And I was suddenly struck by the realization that I was included within the Sinner fold under discussion. Had I ever told a lie? Well yeah, I guess so. Had I ever called my sister a name or had a fight at school? Guilty! Had I ever stolen anything? Of that I was innocent, but by then my own sinful condition had been impressed upon me and when the penitent were called forward to receive Jesus as their Savior I was among those who pressed forward.

An earnest young fellow with lapels the size of a coal barge led me through the prayer of repentance and Salvation. Rising from our knees, he clasped me to his breast and hailed me as brother. I was among the Redeemed now. He gave me a powder blue paperback copy of the New Testament and instructed me to read it diligently. And so I became a Christian.

Wishing to know more about my new-found religion, I took that young man’s advice and read from the Bible before going to bed every night. I prayed very sincere prayers for the salvation of those around me. Such was my zeal that I began to preach the Gospel to other students in Mrs. Donna Shay’s fourth grade class in dear old Clay Elementary school. My classmates listened to my harangues with the patient tact of incomprehension and utter disinterest. Alas, I made no converts in those fallow fields!

Due to circumstances I will not bother going into, I was separated from my sister and sent to live with my Uncle Lester and Aunt Mildred. Their church was the polar opposite of The Worship Center. Lester’s family was Mennonite, a stern and legalistic sect of Protestantism not far removed from the Amish. In these circles one did not go about saying the name Jesus aloud. Indeed, they positively cringed when compelled by circumstances to talk about their faith in any capacity whatever. The path to Heaven was apparently paved in equal parts by obedience to arbitrary rules and by refraining from asking any questions. An example:

“Aunt Mildred, doesn’t the Bible say that to call your brother a fool is to be in danger of Hell fire?”

“Of course it does! Didn’t Sam Martin preach that last Sunday?”

“Right…..right…..but then here, in this verse, God says to this man, ‘Thou fool! Tonight thy soul shall be required of thee!’”

“Yes, it does. I’m glad to hear you’ve been paying attention in church.”

“But…but if it’s sinful to call someone a fool, why does God do it? Shouldn’t He be the perfect example of righteousness?  I mean, I don’t understand….”

“You be quiet, Matt! You think you know everything! You think the world owes you a living! You worry more about how lazy you are and not so much about the Bible!”

Clearly this was an unproductive source of reasoned debate. I had many such doubts. The glaring inconsistencies of the Bible came to me under my own steam and as a result of reading the book for myself without the filter of pat rationalizations which are normally employed to sweep them under the carpet. Why would God give a commandment that forbade killing and then go on to repeatedly command the children of Israel to kill? How could you justify sending a plague that decimated an innocent population because their King had taken a census that displeased the Lord (the displeasure arising from reasons I still cannot comprehend)? Wouldn’t true Justice take the life of the King and leave those who had nothing whatever to do with the census unmolested?

How could you justify putting babies and young women to the sword, as God specifically commanded the Israelites to do? What deeply disturbing impulse causes one to take virgin adolescents into slavery, as God commanded to take place? What were these obviously insane rules regarding menstruating women being ‘unclean’, and how had they come to be included in a set of moral codes in any rational system of thinking? Didn’t God create the women to menstruate? And wouldn’t any uncleanness attach to the Creator rather than the hapless Creation who had no say in the design?

I still believed completely. I just assumed that since I was not an adult I was unable to understand, as I did not enjoy the benefit of that ineffable and all-encompassing wisdom that children assume all adults have. And so I ignored my gnawing doubts and continued on the path to Zion.

Then came puberty. My awakened sexual awareness gave me agonies of guilt that can barely be described. The Bible said that to look on a woman to lust after her in your heart was a sin worthy of eternal damnation, and there I was, Lusting in the morning, Lusting in the afternoon, and Lusting double time in the evenings. I prayed abject prayers of repentance; I swore I would change my wicked ways; I pleaded with God to remove this thorn out of my side and deliver me from evil. Then I would go to the orthodontist and return home to frantic masturbatory fantasies about his healthy and amply endowed assistant. It was a vicious cycle of guilt, shame and despair; followed by tears, lamentations, and a genuine fear of burning alive in hell forever.

I was baptized, upon my own request, when I was 16. I hoped that this step would bring me closer to God and make the demands of my religion easier to fulfill. However, I soon discovered that the religion that promises everything and delivers nothing was not to be amplified or enhanced by simple belief and obedience to its commands. Clearly there was still something lacking.

I abandoned the Mennonite church when I was 22; I felt that while Christianity was clearly true (as any fool could see, just look at the creation around you and try to deny it, Atheists!) I had fallen in among people who were blinded by tradition and unexamined religious dogma. I was looking for something more. I wanted the real and living Jesus; I wanted a church that was alive and aware and basking in the peace which passeth all understanding, which portion is promised to His children in the Bible.

Because Lord knows, I certainly did not have this peace! I was still ravaged by guilt and shame and an overwhelming desire to meet debauched and shameless women. I was a wreck of hatred and anger, bitterness and wrath. My vanity was constantly at war with my self-loathing, and while I presented an exterior of self-assurance I was totally lost within. I was of all men most miserable!

It had become somewhat undeniable that my prayers were going nowhere. I was unable to produce a single instance in which I felt that any prayer of mine had been unequivocally answered.  I gradually stopped praying, or at least abandoned all but the most perfunctory of prayers. I would debate with Atheists on this dazzling new invention they were calling the Internet, but I had stopped going to church except for funerals and weddings.

These pesky online Atheists kept posing vicious and pernicious misrepresentations of my religion disguised as questions about the illogical nature of my beliefs, and I would huffily promise to pray for their salvation once I was too soundly beaten in the ongoing debate to fool even myself any longer about the shakiness of my assertions and platitudes.

And then I set my foot on the path that led me to where I am today. I decided that, while I was a backslidden and unworthy servant of Christ, I was still a Christian at heart and that surely answers to these questions could be found if only I searched hard enough!

I began reading apologetics; I read C. S .Lewis, my old friend from the Rolland days. I read Josh McDowell; I read James Dobson; I read authors whose names I can no longer remember.

And none of it was helping. Suddenly all the doubts I had muzzled for years came snarling forth into the daylight. How can any god who calls Himself eternally Just and Merciful condemn any of his children to hell? Mercy is the quality of sparing those who deserve punishment from the weight of that punishment. The only people who can be shown mercy are those who do not deserve it. Yet the religion insisted that those who did not deserve it would by no means receive mercy, but should be hurled into the Pit to suffer forever!

Those who repented and obeyed the rules were technically spotless and so disqualified themselves to receive mercy. If you are rewarded for good behavior you are receiving exactly what is merited. The people in hell, who did not deserve mercy and were therefore the only ones who qualified for it, were to be denied mercy. It was totally illogical.

Things must be consistent if they are true. If I told you I had a 2 inch tall elf I kept in my pocket, I think you could be forgiven for disbelieving if none of the Elf Snacks you set out for him were ever eaten. The observable conditions would be inconsistent with my claims.  Logic must not only begin reasonably, it must lead to sensible conclusions. IF there is a 2 inch elf, and IF you put out Elf Snacks, THEN those snacks would be eaten. Any other conclusion shows that either I am lying about the elf or I truly believe it but am daft.

If the Bible is true and Jesus is real, why were His followers not demonstrably happier than everyone else who did not have the benefit of divine protection and the peace that all Christians are promised? Jesus said his followers would raise the dead and heal the sick and cast out devils, all in his name. Why is Stephen Hawking still in a wheelchair, then? Why do hospitals even exist? Why do people continue being blind and deaf and halt and lame? Are Christians unwilling to heal them as their God has commanded them to do?

Which is more likely, I asked myself: that Jesus is real and the Bible is true and yet somehow, in TWO THOUSAND YEARS, it was impossible to demonstrate that any of those Elf Snacks had been eaten? There was no evidence for any of the Bible’s claims. Plenty of assertions and insistence that it’s true but that is not the same thing as evidence.

So was it more reasonable to assume that the whole thing was part wishful thinking, and an even larger measure of Control Mechanisms at work? Would the God of Love, the Christ of mercy and forgiveness, the meek and lowly Jesus, REALLY take the time to instruct His disciples to be sure to pay their taxes?????  At the very least it suggested severe tampering by a Priesthood whom, for 1,500 years, were the only people who could read and write. Everyone else had to just take their word that they were receiving, through the priests, an accurate account of what God’s laws and demands were.

Now there’s a system that could never be abused in the service of self-interest and personal benefit at the expense of the Little Guy!

I was 31 when I finally found the courage to say, “I don’t believe a word of this!”

The relief of no longer forcing my mind to ignore the obvious and inescapable was enormous.

After I got out of the Navy at 35 I went down to Myrtle Beach, SC to visit a friend and unwind. I bought the best marijuana available, smoked up, and stayed high for 2 years. It was wonderfully liberating. Weed frees the mind of all the shackles Society’s conditioning put upon us as children. All that horrible Guilt was fast dissipating. My attention was drawn increasingly inward, rather than constantly focused outward in hopes a promised Messiah would come and fix me. I sought professional help to work through the trauma I experienced as a child. I became aware that there was no one inside my head but me; nobody was judging me, condemning me, damaging me—except for me! The Me that had swallowed all these lies, the Me that had invested belief in a religion that is so shaky that for 2,000 years it has required an army of apologists to explain away its contradictory absurdities and rationalize its savage atrocities and Stone Age ignorance.

Where are the apologists for gravity? Or for the freezing point of water? Where are the defenders of the belief that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west? These things require no apologists because their truth is evident to everyone. If there is really a God, an entity that is separate from and watching over us, surely He would be just as self-evident.

I am the person I am because that is who I am.  I believe the same is true of every other righteous, decent person. It’s not because there is a mystical presence that makes us good; We are Good because We are Good.

I have peace such as I couldn’t even imagine when I was bound in the dungeon of organized religion. The love I feel for my brother is no longer stifled by the self- hatred that must inevitably come with rules and laws that make us dirty in our own sight.

I have escaped.

Selah!

The Fears of Death

10 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by in Metaphysics, My Philosophy

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The fear of death is a primal and natural fear. Intellectually, I understand this as being the natural inclination of self-aware agents in a survival-of-the-fittest environment. This primal fear is not necessarily a conscious one. I’m talking about the reflexive behavior that we engage in when faced with danger. Reflexive behavior such as fight or flight.

Even religious people, those who believe in an afterlife for their personal essence, have this primal fear. Animals also have this primal tendency to avoid death. Without this inclination, life wouldn’t have survived in this hostile universe.

There is, however, a second fear of death that afflicts certain animals with high-functioning self-awareness. I’m talking about the existential angst that follows the realization that that which is I will at some point cease to exist. Many religions suppress this fear with the idea of an afterlife in which the essence of a person will never cease to exist. For the agnostic or atheist who has just left religion, this fear of death may have something to do with why life suddenly seems more pointless.

What exactly causes this existential angst, this second fear of death, and how might we suppress it as individuals without deluding ourselves with religion?

Semantics Shemantics

02 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by in Epistemology, My Philosophy

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The statement, “God does not exist,” is perfectly fine when used in normal conversation. Many atheists are heard saying this and they are attacked for it because of epistemological reasons. In the epistemological sense, this statement is not okay because it has not been proven that God does not exist. In fact, it may well be impossible to prove that God does not exist.

Likewise, the statement, “Santa Claus does not exist,” is perfectly fine in ordinary conversation but it’s not okay in an epistemological argument because it has not been proven in the strict sense of logic that Santa Claus does not exist.

When somebody says, “Santa Claus does not exist,” their statement is epistemologically suspect. But what the person really means is, “The available body of evidence does not warrant a belief in the existence of Santa Claus.” The latter statement is fine in the epistemological sense but the first statement is not. The first statement is fine in normal conversation because we are used to taking shortcuts in everyday language. It is the same way with the atheist’s proclamation that, “God does not exist.”

Before you rail on the atheist for making epistemologically suspect claims, perhaps you should consider what the atheist really meant. Before you claim that atheism is an untenable position because it asserts a nonexistence claim, perhaps you should consider what it really means.

Christians and their Delusional Stockholm Syndrome

31 Thursday May 2012

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Let me tell you a story about life on a certain planet in our galaxy.

On planet M there are billions of people. These beings are held captive by an evil dictator. Their dictator forces all the people to constantly praise him and to sing songs for him because apparently he has insecurity issues and needs to have his greatness constantly affirmed by the people.

This evil dictator does more than just force the people praise him. He also developed a seemingly arbitrary but very strict code of behavior that the people must obey. For example, people of group A are not allowed to marry people of group B. People of group C are not allowed to have physical contact with people of group D. Certain foods are off-limits to everybody, certain activities can only be done at specific times of the day, and to top it all off the dictator taxes the people at a ridiculous high rate.

This evil dictator, on top of demanding the unreasonable terms listed above, threatens disobedience and dissidence with torture for the rest of one’s life. Oh but it gets worse! Using proprietary technology, the dictator forces you to live forever so that he can torture you for the longest time possible.

Before you get the idea that we should fly over to this planet and kill the evil dictator you should know that you would receive significant resistance from the captives. These poor people are so deluded that they think their dictator is saving their lives. They believe that without the dictator, evil would run rampant across their beautiful little planet. For these reasons they love their dictator. They don’t love the dictator just because it’s one of his terms, no, they really do love him and they will do anything to keep him alive, in power, and in complete control of their lives.

So apparently, these people are suffering from a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome. This is a psychological phenomenon that we people of Earth discovered a long time ago. It is the strange phenomenon in which captives develop empathy and positive feelings for their captors. Now if only we could send these people a message – a message of enlightenment that tells them all about Stockholm Syndrome. Surely then they would realize what is really happening.

Or maybe not. This story just gets weirder because as it turns out, the dictator doesn’t actually exist. The inhabitants of planet M made him up a long time ago and now firmly believe him to exist despite all evidence to the contrary. The people of planet M go to great lengths to prove to their poor deluded minds that this dictator exists because it makes them feel better about themselves. So convinced are they of the dictator’s existence that they think life without the dictator would be pointless. We have more than just classic Stockholm Syndrome going on here, we have Delusional Stockholm Syndrome.

Such a thing couldn’t possibly happen on Earth could it? Of course not! Now let’s pray to God.

Signs and Tests from God

30 Wednesday May 2012

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Probably all Christians view events in their life through the colored glasses of their faith. They tend to award undue significance to certain events because they think the event might be a sign from God. This behavior is particularly prolific among the Amish, who believe that God coordinates all events large and small. They believe that God causes specific events as signs to help guide you down the right path or as tests of your faith.

For example, if an Amish man started a new business and his buildings promptly burned down, many of the Amish would consider the possibility that the fire was a sign from God that starting a business was not the right thing for that man to do. On the other hand, if the aspiring businessman really wanted to succeed at the business he would be more likely to view the fire as a test – a test from God to see how much he wants to succeed at his business.

I remember when the 2010 Haiti earthquake occurred, several of my Amish friends suggested that the inhabitants of Haiti must be pretty evil for God to punish them like that. I suspect that this kind of shallow reasoning is a result of the flood story in the Bible.

On the other hand, don’t you think that faithful Christians living in Haiti at the time of the earthquake had quite a different interpretation of the event? Don’t you think they would have been more likely to view the quake as a test of their faith?

Every time there is a natural disaster there are Christians who have just lost their homes talking on television about how this test from God has only strengthened their faith. Elsewhere, there are Christians shaking their heads and wondering what evil these people did in their lives to be punished by God like that.

If something bad happens to anyone, the Amish that like the person interpret the event as a test of faith. The others interpret the event as a punishment from God. Nobody seems to notice how ridiculously subjective and judgmental these interpretations are.

Before the Beginning of Time…

02 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Epistemology, My Philosophy

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The word “before” is commonly defined something like this, “During the period of time preceding a particular event, date, or time”.

Let us consider, for a moment, the question; What was before the beginning of time? This question is relevant to many Christians because they believe that God existed before time and that God created time. Their answer to the question is, “Before time, there was God.”

Many Christians also believe that time will end and after that, the good people go to heaven and the bad people go to hell. It is the belief of many Christians that time itself is a small portion of eternity. They might imagine eternity as being a line that stretches infinitely in both directions and that time is only a small section of this line. A section that has beginning and end.

The Christian’s beliefs about time do not make sense and here’s why; Logically, you cannot refer to ‘before the beginning of time’ or ‘after the end of time’. Any statement that does this, is nonsensical – it’s logically senseless.

There cannot be a ‘before’ the beginning of time. The word “before” implies the passage of time but when used in reference to the beginning of time, we are basically asking, “What happened in that period of time before there were periods of time?” It’s a bit like asking, “What is north of the north pole?” or “What was I doing ten years before I was born?” The question is logically nonsensical – it is an example of an invalid question. For the same reason, there cannot be a ‘after’ the end of time.

The idea of eternity is also logically problematic for Christians. Most Christians believe there was a beginning of time, there will be an end of time, and there is eternity. It is however, logically impossible to have all three. You cannot have eternity if there is a beginning of time and an end of time.

It is not uncommon for people to ask what was before the beginning of time, or what was before the universe or the multiverse. It’s not that we don’t know the answer to the question, it’s simply that there is no answer. There cannot logically be a statement that truthfully answers that question, given our definitions of the terms used.

That doesn’t make us feel any better about it, of course, but there you have it.

The Obduracy of Religious Belief

19 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in My Philosophy, Religion

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The Christian belief in the Bible is quite unlike, for example, my current belief in “The Blind Watchmaker” by Richard Dawkins. Back when I believed in the Bible, I thought of it as “truth”. I also believed other books but I would think of them as good stories or as helpful information.

Why the big difference? Why did I consider one ancient text as pure truth and all other ancient texts as just stories? Why did I consider the Bible to be pure truth but other books, that I also believed to be nonfiction, were just informationally helpful?

In the Bible, fantastical stories such as a person living briefly inside of a whale, a virgin giving birth, a snake talking to people, were perfectly acceptable. Why were those fanciful stories acceptable but similar stories in other books were dismissed as myths? If I had read a story in The Blind Watchmaker that claimed a person had lived and survived inside of a dinosaur for three days, I would have been extremely skeptical. I would have asked for some serious evidence to back up this extraordinary claim. Why then, was it perfectly alright for a similar story to be in the Bible?

Some atheists will arrogantly state that they became atheist as a child when they first read the Bible. These people relate the story of how upon reading fantastical stories about talking snakes and virgin births that of course they had to discard the whole thing as mythical… as if the rest of us are just too stupid to get it.

I have a brain capable of critical analysis and I made full use of this skill when reading all but one book. Why did it take so long for me to become skeptical of the Bible? The answer to this can soon be reached once we understand that the Bible is a very significant part of a huge set of beliefs called “Christianity”.

The answers to all of these questions, I believe, can be answered by understanding what religion is and understanding how and when it is taught to a person. But first, check out this post I wrote about belief systems because I’ll be talking a lot about beliefs and belief systems for the rest of this post.

Religion is a set of beliefs that is pretty comprehensive – it pretends to explain everything from ‘why are there mountains’ to ‘how should I live my life’. Therefore, for a religious person, the set of beliefs that is his religion is almost inextricably meshed with the rest of the person’s belief system. Even changing one little belief is difficult to do because it would have ramifications for many of the other beliefs that it is intertwined with. A religion generally forms a large fraction of a person’s belief system.

Secondly, religion includes metaphysical beliefs. Metaphysical beliefs are beliefs that have to do with being and existence, and concepts such as cause and effect. Religion provides answers to such metaphysical questions as ‘why is there something rather than nothing’, ‘what was the first cause’, ‘where did we come from’, and ‘why are we here’. As such, religious beliefs become foundational to the person’s overall belief system. Individual religious beliefs become the axioms upon which the rest of the person’s belief system happily rests. To change these beliefs is almost as hard as tearing the foundation of a house out from underneath the house without disturbing the rest of the house.

The religious person suffers less from existential angst than the non-religious person because his metaphysical questions are answered. If a religious person starts questioning his own beliefs these metaphysical questions pop up and he wonders ‘well, why are we here then’. The existential angst that would be caused by unanswering these metaphysical questions is often on its own, enough of an incentive to stay with religion.

Religion is also a self-supporting set of beliefs. When questioned on one belief, the religious person can always bring out another belief that supports the first one. In this way, everything backs itself up. In logic, this is known as “circular reasoning” and it is a fallacy. In a small syllogism, circular reasoning is easy to identify and to recognize as fallacious but in a very large set of beliefs like religion, it is so easy to miss it.

Children will happily believe in Santa Claus but after learning that Santa doesn’t really exist, it is much easier for them to accept it and move on than it is for anybody to accept that their religion may not be true. Why is there such a difference? I believe it is because of the reasons I listed above. Believing in Santa is only a small set of beliefs, and it answers only one metaphysical question – ‘why should I be good’, whereas a religion is a huge set of beliefs and it answers pretty much all of the metaphysical questions.

It could also be that a child finds it easier to revise beliefs and possibly even to completely rebuild their belief system. After all, their brains are still developing and they are in the perfect stage to absorb massive amounts of information and to incorporate a massive number of beliefs.

In the previous paragraphs I explored several of the qualities of religious belief which have a direct effect on its obduracy. Now it is time to examine the methods that are used to deliver these beliefs to a person’s mind and how these methods also have an effect on its obduracy.

A baby starts off with basically an empty mind when it comes to beliefs about the nature of things. If you start with an essentially empty mind, the mind will accept the first thing that comes to it because there are no pre-existing beliefs to contradict the incoming information. For that reason, it is easy instill any kind of belief system in a child.

It is generally easier to dismiss new information than it is to revise existing beliefs so once a belief system has been established, it is very difficult to remove it even if it blatantly contradicts reality.

Most religious parents teach their children the religion starting at the youngest possible age. Long before the child learns that different people have different ideas about how things really are, long before the child learns that there are many different religions, and long before the child learns anything about critical thinking, the child is taught that its parents’ religion is the only possible truth.

Can you blame a child for rejecting other viewpoints? As the child matures, and if the parents continue to reinforce the same belief system, the belief system becomes more and more difficult to change.

The installation of a religious belief system is quite different from the installation of a secular belief system. With religion, the child is taught that not only is the religion pure truth – it is unquestionable truth. Any question that the child has that could undermine their belief system is quickly rebutted by the parents with reproachful assertions that it is evil to ask those questions. The child is admonished and sometimes physically abused simply for asking the unwanted questions.

Can you blame the person when years later he is still unable to honestly question his belief system when the mere occurrence of such a question feels treasonous and blasphemous?

To educate someone is to provide information, to provide explanations, to provide instruction. To indoctrinate someone is to provide information, to provide explanations, to provide instruction. The difference is, when someone is indoctrinated they are not expected to question what they are learning and in many cases they are not allowed to question or to critically examine what they are being taught. Someone who is being indoctrinated is not given the choice to believe or disbelieve.

Religious parents do not educate their children about religion – they indoctrinate them.