149. cathect

I go up and down in an elevator every day, usually multiple times. It’s really a marvel of engineering that we take for granted, all of the complex machinery and programming that goes into making sure that it runs smoothly and efficiently. As I’m being whisked up or down, I can’t help occasionally wondering as the numbers change how safe it is. My rational brain tells me that it’s perfectly fine, that these things run every day without a hitch, that regular maintenance and inspections are performed on these elevators, and that the chances of an accident and the car plunging down the shaft to our collective doom is slimmer than a heroin-riddled New York ballet dancer. However, my lizard brain whispers from its dark corner in my mind that this is exactly what everyone thinks in the horror movie right before the cord breaks and every dies.

That’s the difference between faith and assessment. You could say that there’s a certain amount of faith behind stepping on an elevator or boarding a transatlantic flight. The elevator could malfunction. The plane could still fall from the sky. There’s always risk, but there’s also science and probability that allow us to measure those risks and take educated leaps.

This afternoon on NPR there was a story about ritual and belief, starting with an anecdote from the author about sitting in a yoga class and thinking positive, empathetic thoughts for Michael Joel Hall, the yoga instructor who was violently beaten earlier this week along with his boyfriend.

As we sat there repeating a simple combination of Sanskrit words, I imagined our voices floating out the window, down the street, and into the hospital room of Hall (whom I’ve never met). After six minutes, we stopped. Though reason told us our efforts did nothing to speed Hall’s physical recovery, a resounding feeling of accomplishment nonetheless lingered in the room as we made our way out.

I probably don’t need to editorialize too much about this as it’s probably not too hard to imagine what I think about this. Exercises like this are largely masturbatory and serve only to make the user feel good. Scientific studies have been carried out to examine and measure the effects of prayer and meditation on subjects, such as the Mayo Clinic’s famous 2001 double-blind study that found that “intercessory prayer had no significant effect on medical outcomes after hospitalization in a coronary care unit.”

It’s what Freud called magical thinking, and what we can more broadly refer to as superstition, to believe that anything we do can have a significant effect on an outcome or condition. Furthermore, it’s supreme arrogance to think that a God or god who created the universe and human beings should arrest the laws of nature for your convenience or welfare. If you pray for a parking spot, doesn’t that imply that someone else should be denied that same spot? Or if you think that God helped your team win a football (or any sport) game, don’t you then believe that God was against the other team?

I don’t have a problem with people thinking nice thoughts about others, or believing that there’s a God out there working everything for your benefit. If it makes you feel better, great. What you believe is your business, and it’s none of mine to police or tell you what to think. However, we run into problems in two areas when:

1. you try to force or share unbidden your personal beliefs with or on me;
2. that magical thinking extends into the real world, with real world implications.

Take, for example, the case of Carl and Raylene Worthington, a couple who allowed their 15-month old daughter, Ava, to die. Do I think these people are monsters? No. They are probably very nice, albeit tragically negligent, people. Their church took the following passage from the Book of James literally:

Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

The Oregonian described the scene this way: “As the 15-month-old girl struggled to breathe, church members anointed her with oil and pleaded with God to provide a cure. But Ava died March 2, 2008, of bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection. Antibiotics could have saved her life, the state medical examiner’s office said.”

Antibiotics could have saved her life. I can imagine that scene in my mind, and it looks pathetic. Those deluded, weak-minded Christians look pathetic. Mourners in Aurora praying before the memorials of loved ones gunned down by James Holmes look pathetic—desperate people looking for a magical solution to their desperate problems.

Believe what you like, but just as believing that the laws of gravity can be suspended just for you won’t keep you from falling off a building if you jump, you cannot abdicate your intellectual responsibility to face facts.

This is the beginning of a much broader conversation, but it concerns me that there are members of our government who use (or at least claim to use) prayer as a form of decision making on very important issues that have consequences for real people. It worries me that we have a man who believes the earth is no more than 6,000 years old and that God lives on a planet called Kolob who wants to be president of the United States. It worries me that presidents have turned first to men like Rick Warren and Billy Graham rather than policy advisers or scientists for council.

And, of course, it worries and infuriates me that we have politicians trying to ram through legislation that would deny me and millions of other GLBT Americans constitutional and civil rights and liberties based on Bronze Age beliefs and teachings. And that millions of people take that shit seriously.

142. varlet

I forget sometimes what an absolute bastard John Calvin was. For how much Protestants laud him and his theological contributions, his reign of holy terror in Geneva during the sixteenth century was comparable to any of the Catholic inquisitions or the holocausts of fascist regimes. In 1531 he had thousands of religious nonconformists burned at the stake (that is, for believing differently from what he was teaching). In 1547, he had an atheist named Jacques Gruet tortured for a month and then beheaded for alleged atheism.

There’s the tragic case of Michael Servetus, a physician Calvin had burned at the stake for heresy—namely, denying Trinitarianism and infant baptism. Servetus could have been spared his fate, except that Calvin took a personal dislike to him. According to descriptions, it took half an hour for Servetus to die, and it was an excruciating death. The Calvinists built his pyre of half-green wood that took a long time to burn. They also placed a wreath of sulfur on his head. Yet even as he was burning slowly to death, he still cried out to God for deliverance.

Compare that to the remarks made this past week by our friend Pastor Charles Worley, who thinks that gay people are so revolting that they should all be locked up in a concentration camp until they all “die out.”

We’re presuming he believes that homosexuals somehow breed more homosexuals, which anyone who took biology in middle school knows is absurd. However, given his folksy grammar and inability to pronounce words properly (or formulate logic), I rather doubt that Pastor Worley made it past the third grade.

In a way, the GLBT community should be thankful for someone as patently mean-spirited, ignorant and offensive as this man because he’s the poster child of the anti-gay movement. While others like Tony Perkins, Michele Bachmann and James Dobson manage to craft their homophobic rhetoric with the silver tongued glibness of a smarmy politician, Worley wears his bigotry on his sleeve for all the world. “The Bible’s again’ [sic] it [homosexuality], God’s again’ it, I’m again’ it, and if you got any sense, you’re again’ it!” he said in his sermon. He’s proud of being a bigot, and he wants everyone to know it.

And—here’s the important part—he thinks God is pleased with his bigotry. His is the God of the Old Testament who decreed death for such crimes as murder, rape, kidnapping, cursing a parent, blasphemy, idolatry and witchcraft, but also adultery, bestiality and sodomy. A woman could be put to death for not “crying out while being raped,” but also for being found to not be a virgin on the night of her wedding. This is Worley’s God—a pagan god of wrath and judgment.

This is what Worley and the rest of the anti-gay crowd have in common with John Calvin and his merry band of inquisitors: hatred of anyone different from themselves. They have made God in their own xenophobic, ignorant, intolerant and bigoted image, quick to label sins and mete out the severest of punishments. They desire to enforce their Talmudic and draconian views on the entire world, bringing believer and non-believer alike under the iron fist and rule of almighty Jehovah. Of course, in this theocracy they would be the ones ruling in God’s stead, making a heaven on earth for themselves—or, in our case, a hell.

This is what enables parents like mine to reject their gay sons and daughters. In the case of my parents, they refuse to accept me as I am, which is just as much a rejection, choosing instead the version of the son they want to have or believe that God gave them. As much as they claim to love me, this is the same spirit that leads parents in countries where extremist religion is dominant to kill their own children rather than let them live in opposition to the religion they were born into.

And the ironic thing is that in doing so, they violate the very commands God gives them in the Bible:

• Judge not, that you be not judged. (Matthew 7:1)
• Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)
• Do not resist the one who is evil. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:39)
• To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? (1 Corinthians 6:7)

If they truly believed what’s in their holy book they’d expend that energy they’re currently wasting in spreading anti-gay propaganda and legislation on saving us wretched sinners, not condemning us to hell every other minute. Instead of sentencing us to death, they’d let us live our lives in the knowledge that someday we’ll stand before God and give an account for our sordid time on earth, and that they led quiet, humble lives of devotion to God. But with every sermon like this, with every heretic burned at the stake, they testify to the fact that they truly believe that the only judgment we face is here on earth, in this life and not the next. In trying to make this world into a theocracy, they prove that they’re storing up plenty of treasure here instead of the next.

There may well be a God after all. I don’t know. Lack of evidence does not necessarily equate to non-existence. However, if there is indeed a Sky Father, it is a negligent and uncaring deity who allows its followers to run rampant as they do. Frankly, it’s people like them that facilitated my rejection of God and religion. If it weren’t for their hypocrisy and uncharitable behavior I might still be a Christian today as I’d have no reason to question what I believed.

So Pastor Worley, Michele, James, and this charming little southern belle… thank you for saving me from Christianity.

129. appertain

appertain, verb: To belong as a part, right, possession or attribute.

It’s days like this that it seems entirely possible to make a career just out of covering the insane things that John Piper says and does. Because if the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church isn’t hating on gays, he’s hating on disaster victims:

It wasn’t all that long ago that Piper, in his officious capacity as proxy head of the Baptist General Conference (the Protestant Pope, if you will), was ascribing blame for a tornado that struck downtown Minneapolis on 19 August 2009 to a gathering of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America that was voting to allow openly gay pastors to serve. (They voted in the affirmative.) Here are a few choice words from what he had to say that day:

• “The church has always embraced those who forsake sexual sin but who still struggle with homosexual desires, rejoicing with them that all our fallen, sinful, disordered lives (all of us, no exceptions) are forgiven if we turn to Christ in faith.”
• “The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin.”
• “Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture.”
• “Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality.”

The very notion that Piper thinks he has the god-given right to chime in on every matter, that people actually listen to him, and that he thinks that people should listen to him (on pain of excommunication, or the Protestant equivalent thereof) is offensive enough. It’s as obnoxious as the tendency for actors and other celebrities to take to the media to share with everyone their important opinions on everything from politics to the horrors of genocide.

Tell ya what: When you live in a regular house like the rest of us instead of your McMansion or McCondo because you give the lion’s share of your multi-million dollar fortune that comes from pretending for a living, then maybe your opinion will be worth something.

Now, to be fair, more recently there have been actors who participate in and support charity work—and not just for the sake of humblebragging either.

Brad Pitt (an outspoken atheist), for example, actively supports local and global charities (including the ONE Campaign, Alliance for the Lost Boys and the Mineseeker Foundation), worked to build housing for New Orleans hurricane victims, and is on the forefront of promoting green and sustainable housing (because he’s actually somewhat knowledgeable about architecture). He’s also vocal about promoting fact-based scientific education, advancing medical research (including research into embryonic stem-cells), and curtailing religious propagandizing.

Ellen DeGeneres has used her visibility as a talk show host and comedian to promote gay rights, and supports organizations such as Feeding America (formerly Second Harvest), Malaria No More, and Project Zambi, a foundation that provides support for African children orphaned by AIDS. She was recently made spokesperson for JC Penny, which prompted the formation of the group One Million Moms (a subsidiary of the homophobic and ironically-named American Family Association), who threatened to boycott the store (yes, all 40,000 of them) but succeeded only in bringing more visibility to the issue of gay rights and homophobia. Thanks! The group recently attacked the Archie comic and Toys R Us for a comic featuring a gay marriage, and just yesterday launched a boycott campaign going after Hardee’s for a “sleazy” ad that they call “an affront to all decent men, women and children!”

You know what I call an affront (aside from actively promoting hate, homophobia and bigotry)? Preaching at victims of a natural disaster.

In his most recent blog posting, John Piper had the following things to say to us, and to the people of Maryville and Henryville:

• “If a tornado twists at 175 miles an hour and stays on the ground like a massive lawnmower for 50 miles, God gave the command.”
• “Perhaps God chose Job for that deadly wind because only the likes of Job would respond: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).
• “This is a word to those of us who sit safely in Minneapolis or Hollywood and survey the desolation of Maryville and Henryville. “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Every deadly wind in any town is a divine warning to every town.”
• “God’s will for America under his mighty hand, is that every Christian, every Jew, every Muslim, every person of every religion or non-religion, turn from sin and come to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus rules the wind. The tornadoes were his.”

And lest Piper come off too judgmental (if such a thing were possible):

•  “But before Jesus took any life in rural America, he gave his own on the rugged cross. Come to me, he says, to America — to the devastated and to the smugly self-sufficient.”

Did you catch that? “Before Jesus took any life in rural America.” Then he has the effrontery to defend his homicidal Jesus for killing 40 people in Indiana—including a 15-month-old infant who was sucked up into the tornado as it killed her parents and two siblings.

This is the consequence of having a toxic worldview, let alone a toxic theology: Namely, that we are all wretched, disgusting sinners in the hands (and at the mercy) of an angry god. And if you’re on the “right side” of this god (which comes at the cost of opposing science, human rights, and apparently human decency), you have the privilege of telling everyone else how terrible they are and that they need to “get right with god.” And Piper and others like him (my entire family included) thinks they’re doing the human race a favor by “proclaiming the Truth” (yes, capital “T”) and the “good news” of Salvation for all of us rebellious, profligate degenerates.

It’s like they’re trying to make atheists of us all.

122. exoteric

exoteric, adjective: 1. Suitable for or communicated to the general public; 2. Not belonging, limited, or pertaining to the inner or select circle, as of disciples or intimates; 3. Popular; simple; commonplace; 4. Pertaining to the outside; exterior; external.

---

This morning I posted the following on Twitter: “If children aren’t allowed in an R-rated movie, children shouldn’t be allowed into churches where they read from an X-rated book.”

Having read the bible cover-to-cover many times (and in different translations!), I feel I can speak with authority on this subject. My parents were shocked when they found out that I’d read Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles as an eight-year-old. That actually began my long love affair with banned books, although I hadn’t known that it had been banned at the time. In places it’s pretty sexually explicit, so why my parents—as Evangelical Christians—had that book I’ll never know.

However, if you bother to look closely at the bible you’ll find x-rated material throughout, yet this was a book my parents encouraged my sisters and me to spend as much time reading as possible (which is partly why they objected to me reading Martian Chronicles, because it wasn’t the bible)! Here are a few sexually explicit examples (parents—you’ll want to send your children out of the room now):

• Lot’s daughters get him drunk and rape him multiple times after they flee Sodom. (Genesis 19:30-36)
• David commits adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of his soldiers, and then has Uriah killed when he finds out that Bathsheba is pregnant with his [David’s] child. (2 Samuel 11:3-5)
• Amnon, one of David’s sons, becomes infatuated with his half-sister Tamar (different Tamar) and rapes her after pretending to be sick and asking to have her bring him food. Tamar’s brother Absolom finds out about this two years later and kills Amnon. (2 Samuel 13)

That’s not to mention all of the other instances of rape, incest, mass slaughter, genocide, infant and child sacrifice, and horrific mutilations that are scattered throughout the “holy scriptures.” Eli Roth, James Wan and Wes Crave shouldn’t bother making torture porn—they could just adapt the bible.

Today I got into a discussion with a friend of a friend on Facebook who posted the above picture along with this caption:

Then Jesus prayed this prayer: “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding the truth from those who think themselves so wise and clever, and for revealing it to the childlike. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way!”
— Matthew 11:25-26

As a rule, I try not to go after people I don’t know unless they try to start something with me. However, as much as I dislike children, that picture really disturbed me, and I shared that sentiment with him: “This makes me extremely nervous, seeing children who are not yet able to cognitively grasp what or who it is that they’re worshiping, or what they’re doing, and are basically parroting their elders.”

He responded: “I can see where your concern is coming from. On the flip side, I look forward to fathering my children in such a way some day, that they “parrot” my worship. If their parents are godly men and women whose lives produce fruit to go along with those postures of worship, these kids are on a very healthy pathway towards understanding worship in a way most adults do not.”

I look at that picture and see myself as a child, eager to please my parents and adults and to fit in. As children we’re genetically conditioned to imitate our elders. It’s how we learn.

But how, exactly, is this not brainwashing? When you raise a child in a vacuum, tell it that there’s a benevolent god up there who loves us, listens to our prayers and takes care of all our needs (even though its parents work hard to put food on the table and clothes on everyone’s backs); but will nevertheless throw us into a fiery pit for all eternity if we fail to properly worship the son he slaughtered because of his failed experiment on humanity—how can you expect that child to ask questions? To grow as a human being?

And when you tell that child that the earth is 6,000 years old, and that dinosaurs and humans co-existed (even though most of the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period, and modern humans appeared on the scene c.60,000 years ago), how can you expect that child to think freely when you’ve taught it from birth that the bible is the authoritative, infallible word of god, and that every word is absolutely, unquestionably true?

It’s ironic that Christians believe that every fetus has a right to life, yet when that child is born they immediately want to take away its right to think to “save its soul.”

Religious freedom is a hallmark of American society. However, in preserving parents’ freedom to express their religious beliefs, I fear that we place children in intellectual (as well as physical) peril. Many religious groups refuse life-saving medical treatment on the grounds that it interferes with god’s prerogative over life—notably, Christian Scientists. Last year a couple in Oregon was jailed for six years after their premature newborn son died of staph pneumonia when they refused medical intervention. In 2010, a 15-year-old Jehovah’s Witness in the U.K. refused a blood transfusion and died as a result.

Religious parents claim the right to raise their children as they see fit. To be fair, most children raised in religious homes grow up healthy and well-adjusted. And I acknowledge that these parents are concerned for the spiritual well-being of their offspring. But how many of those children will:

• … grow up thinking the earth is 6,000 years old?
• … vote against same-sex marriage and believe that homosexuals are evil?
• … go to school board meetings and demand that Creationism or Intelligent Design be taught?

You cannot be raised in a religious home and be a freethinker. I’m sorry, it’s not possible.

121. depone

depone, verb: To testify under oath; depose.

---

‘Atheism’ is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a ‘non-astrologer’ or a ‘non-alchemist.’ We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.
— Sam Harris

---

A few days ago there was a story circulating in the news about a U.S. Army soldier who has been petitioning to be classified as “Humanist” instead of “Atheist” on his official records and dog tags. The Army’s rationale? It’s the same difference as putting “Catholic” instead of “Christian.” And I can kind of see their point from an administrative angle. If they start to recognize one group as being unique then they’ll have to start recognizing all as unique. Then it starts to become a free-for-all, with everyone focusing on their differences instead of working on building unity and cohesion.

However, Maj. Jay Bradley also has a valid point. It would be one thing if the term atheist had as concrete a definition as Christian. But it doesn’t. In a post-9/11 world (especially in the military, from the stories I’ve read), if you hold a belief other than Christian, you may as well be a terrorist—or a child molester, or a serial rapist. You run the risk of being seen as anti-American. If you don’t believe in god, you’re turning your back on tradition, on all moral values, and on everything that is good and decent.

“Smoked newborn baby, anyone?”

As Sam Harris said, it’s unfortunate that we still need labels to differentiate ourselves from theists, or that anybody still cares—just as it’s unfortunate that anyone still cares that some of us love someone of the same sex and want to share a life with that person. But that is not the world that we live in.

Atheism by itself is not a philosophy. It is simply a non-belief in god(s). It doesn’t tell you anything about what a person believes, and that leaves much open to being misconstrued or misinterpreted (per above). Atheism can be expressed in a number of different ways, of which humanism is one, though probably the most prevalent.

“Humanism is a philosophy that guides a person,” Bradley said in an AP article. “It’s more than just a stamp of what you’re not.”

So why should anybody care about this? Certainly, no one forced any of us to become atheists or agnostics. You could argue that we’re all actually born atheists; that belief in gods is forced on us as children before we have the ability to choose for ourselves. And some of us are fortunate enough to be born into secular homes. For most of us though, it became our choice to leave our churches and communities of faith. But is that reason enough to compel organizations like the Army to recognize Humanists? Do atheists and other nontheists deserve secular “chaplains” (or whatever the equivalent might be).

To the latter question, I think that yes, secular soldiers and other personnel need a point person to be able to go to regarding personal matters, without danger of being proselyted to or even judged. When you’re at your neediest and most vulnerable emotionally, it’s imperative to have a safe place to go for help and advice. When an atheist soldier has just lost a friend in combat, can a religious chaplain be relied and called upon to speak to that soldier’s beliefs—that that friend is truly gone?

It’s not that I think that a religious chaplain would unscrupulously take advantage of a moment like that to try and convert anyone. However, at his/her core, that chaplain truly believes that another life awaits us after death. They want to offer and share the peace and comfort that they find in that belief. An atheist “chaplain” will see it differently.

But lest we think this a military issue, many Christians are overall wondering what the big deal is, or wonder why atheists object to any forms of religion being expressed in society. (Well, many Whites didn’t understand what all those Negros were raising a fuss about, having to sit in the back of the bus.) Many even feel attacked (oh, the irony) by the presence of atheists, and can’t see that what we want is a society where everyone is free to practice their beliefs without imposing them on others. I wish soldiers didn’t have to declare their religious beliefs on their dog tags, or that they have to decline to participate in platoon prayers (and no doubt get some grief over doing so, or are eyed warily afterward).

A friend of mine works in an industry that draws and employs many conservative (=religious) people, and doesn’t feel secure being “out” as an atheist there. I wish she weren’t afraid of retaliation.

In some ways, this is similar to the debate that’s going on over same-sex marriage; over whether gays are made second-class citizens by denying them the legal right to marry while offering alternatives like domestic partnerships or civil unions. In some ways. In other ways that’s a whole other discussion.

However.

This is fundamentally a matter of affirming personhood, and of a rancorous and frightened majority desperate to hold onto the status quo attempting to silence a growingly vocal minority. It is about people standing up and declaring who they truly are and what they believe, without having to put up with the prejudice and proselyting of the “faithful,” or with radical Christians attempting to shove their fundamentalist religion down the throats of vulnerable children.

I wish we didn’t have to identify as atheists; but as long as we have powerful Christians like Pat Robertson, Rick Santorum, “Porno” Peter LaBarbera, Tony Perkins, the American Family Association, James Dobson, Rick Warren and David Barton, we have to.

And loudly.

120. screed

screed, noun: 1. A long discourse or essay, especially a diatribe; 2. An informal letter, account, or other piece of writing.

Yesterday I found a blog post linked on Twitter entitled, “Why I love church even though I am an atheist.” It is a fascinating read by a girl who was raised secular and is drawn to the community, the ceremony and the sense of celebration that often surrounds the proceedings of the church.

As an ex-churchgoer, it was curious to read a piece like that since I can’t stand any of the things she finds fascinating, such as the “worship(=song) set,” the “worship band,” or the screens which the words to the songs are projected on, etc. Now, mind you, I used to participate in all of those things! I played piano, sang in the band, and even led “worship” occasionally. Now I’m trying to find the words to express exactly how I feel about the whole institution, which I find blitheringly chintzy, uninspired and even (dare I say it) mildly cultish.

Imagine: a couple hundred people gathered together in a large room, all facing forward, some of them with their eyes closed or hands raised in the air (some of them rocking back and forth or absently swaying side to side), mindlessly singing some bland, tuneless rock ballad (with the obligatory upbeat “gathering songs” to get people “in the spirit to praise god”) off projection screens, often with abstract or nature-inspired artwork on the slides that somehow aesthetically pairs with the words to the songs, which often make Lady Gaga sound like freaking T.S. Eliot in comparison.

I left all of that behind, and gladly, when I became an atheist—so why would a nonbeliever (indeed, the author of that blog does not believe in god) even want to participate?

In the post she wrote this:

I honestly have no qualms interpreting celebration of divine creation as celebration of existence—and at the end of the day, biblical preaching is by and large about living a moral and kind lifestyle—something I personally think is crucial to happiness as an individual.

Now, I get that. I get what it is that she finds in a church service, or in the community of friends she has there. There is something indescribably warm and inviting about going to church every week, finding where your friends are sitting (or walking in with them), and then participating. It’s the same kind of feeling of communion you get at a sports event or at a concert (not a Classical concert, mind you—that has the same formal, dusty feel as a Methodist church service).

But when you’re singing phrases like:

• I am full of earth / You are heaven’s worth (David Crowder, “Wholly Yours”)
• A loud song I sing, a huge bell I ring (Waterdeep, “I Will Not Forget You”)
• Still the greatest treasure remains for those who gladly choose you now (Phillips, Craig and Dean, “Come, Now is the Time to Worship”)
• I could sing of your love forever, I could sing of your love forever, I could sing of your love forever, I could sing of your love forever (Delirious—yes, that is the name of the band, and whoa, get this, the title of this song is—”I Could Sing of Your Love Forever”)
• I feel like moving to the rhythm of Your grace / Your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place (Casting Crowns, “Your Love is Extravagant”)

… how can you honestly take any of that seriously as an atheist!? Or as a rational, thinking person!? C’mon! You’re singing what amounts to love songs to a totally fictitious person (God and/or Jesus—take your pick), and I get the impression from some of these lyrics that (so long as you’re not paying any attention to what you’re actually saying) everyone has a massive hard-on for Jesus by the time the sermon rolls around.

Again, I get it. Tess has friends in the church. She goes to bible studies where they cook each other dinner. “I love to be inspired,” she writes. “I love sharing my life with others, and supporting them with their endeavours and being supported in return. These are important aspects of my church experiences and I have not managed to find other groups here at university that fill those roles in my life.”

I’ve written about this before—about the appalling lack of community for and amongst atheists. Again, I think this is partly what’s at the heart of the planned building of an “atheist temple” in London. Now, I highly doubt that anyone would be singing songs of praise to Richard Dawkins, to Bertrand Russell, or to the Flying Teapot there. I doubt there would be atheist “services.” After all, atheists don’t have religious beliefs. We have no creeds that bind us together. Certainly we believe things, and many of us hold humanist values and believe in the vital importance of critical thinking and the scientific method.

And that’s part of the problem—there is really nothing binding atheists together, nothing to draw us together. Belief in god and reverence for hearing the bible taught brings Christians together every week. That is something they all have in common. Atheists? Well, we all seem to come from such vast and different backgrounds that there is little commonality amongst us, aside from non-belief in god(s). Most of the ways that we express our non-belief tend to be rather individual—through personal study or research, writing (such as I’m doing here), volunteering and humanitarian work, or activism to promote non-theism or to attempt to quell the growing lobbyist influence of Christian conservatism.

But don’t forget our favorite activity: shredding and mocking fundamentalist Christians.

In the midst of all this, and the lack of any organized atheist community, I can see how the church might be attractive to an atheist who hasn’t experienced the more sinister side of Christianity or the abuse and rejection of Christians. This is something we seriously need to address as non-theists.

After all, what is attractive about atheism?

110. scattering

“The purpose of satire, it has been rightly said, is to strip off the veneer of comforting illusion and cosy half-truth. And our job, as I see it, is to put it back again.”
— Michael Flanders

One of the most fascinating creatures in mythology is that of the golem, an animated anthropomorphic being in Jewish lore created out of inanimate matter (traditionally clay) and brought into being by a sorcerer or rabbi who inscribes the word emet (אמת, “truth”) on its forehead, or by a tablet with the word inserted in its mouth. The golem is described as being but a shadow of Man (who himself is but a shadow of Almighty God), without a soul and unintelligent but perfectly obedient to the will of the one who animated it. Usually in golem tales there is an element of hubris, with the creation turning on its creator who realizes the error of his ways in the end, or it begins to attack gentiles or other Jews, the point being that god alone has the wherewithal, wisdom and right to create life.

On a similar note, last week I finished watching the anime series Fullmetal Alchemist, which centers on two alchemist brothers who are trying to restore their bodies after a disastrous failed attempt to bring their mother back to life through alchemy. *Spoiler alert!* The main antagonists in the series are beings known as homunculi, human-like creatures created out of the failed attempt to bring someone back from the dead through alchemy. These beings resemble humans but do not possess souls and thus have human-like consciousness but cannot experience emotion.

One of the purposes of this blog is to attempt to synthesize the experience of becoming an atheist after over twenty years of living as an Evangelical, fundamentalist Christian. My earliest recollections involve church and my parents’ faith practice, of reading from the bible as a family or praying together. In some ways, leaving Christianity was like ending an incredibly dysfunctional marriage. However, beyond that, I haven’t talked too much about my parents, who I cut ties with on Christmas Day this year, or the effect our upbringing had on my two younger sisters and myself.

Some who read this blog know my family does not approve of or accept me as a gay man, insisting that gays are broken heterosexuals, and I think that had my parents known about me as a teenager that they would’ve attempted to get me into reparative therapy. However, I want to stress that my parents were never intentionally abusive or cruel, nor do I believe they are bad people; and I believe they genuinely love me, but their theology has shaped (and warped) their views on the world and humanity in a particular way.

My sisters and I grew up in a fairly strict home. We were homeschooled, and a significant portion of our education had a heavy Christian slant. A few weeks ago I cleaned out my old bedroom at my parents’ house and found notebooks, papers and books from those years. Reading it as an adult made me wince. It was such blatant inculcation. For a long time we weren’t allowed to watch television, and even then our watching was closely monitored, our viewing restricted to wholesome, educational programming. While I am thankful to have been exposed to as much classic black-and-white films as we were, we grew up in a cultural vacuum. We spent a lot of time at church volunteering or at different programs (yes, we did AWANAS, and both my parents were leaders).

A peculiar phenomenon of Protestant culture is the morbid fear of pride and self. My dad’s life verse comes from John 3:30, “He [Jesus] must increase, but I [John the Baptist] must decrease.” Consequently, my parents were always afraid of their children becoming conceited or prideful, and our upbringing reflected that. Again, I don’t want to paint my parents as monsters, but we were rarely praised or affirmed. We were punished, and punished often, sometimes for the smallest of infractions. There was one instance where my dad got carried away with a spanking when he thought I’d cursed god. I hadn’t, but he insisted that I had taken god’s name in vain. I still hate my father for that.

There were also a number of occasions where they threatened to send us away to work at the farm of a family friend in Nebraska for misbehaving—along the lines of, “maybe you’ll appreciate what you have here.” This threat was never acted on, but when we were little the thought of being shipped off was terrifying.

As adults, my sisters and I confronted our parents about the fact that we rarely felt loved, accepted or safe growing up. We’ve each manifested this in different ways. All three of us threw ourselves into various pursuits to work for the approval of our parents. My younger sister is a ballet dancer and in her teen years developed anorexia for which she has gone through years of therapy to overcome. While probably not related to our home life, my youngest sister has bi-polar disorder and has substituted a dog for having a boyfriend.

As for me, I pursued music performance, partly to fulfill an aptitude for it but also to win the approval/attention of my father who is a professional trumpeter and college professor, going so far as majoring in music composition for a career in music (which never went anywhere). Despite all of that, I’ve still never felt like any of it’s been good enough.

For a long time I’ve struggled with depression, and for a while wondered if I might have bi-polar disorder too. It’s much more likely though that I’m dealing with something known as borderline personality disorder, a veritable clusterfuck of a diagnosis, consistent with my home life growing up and a lot of the behavioral traits I’ve manifested over the years.

However, I’ll cover that next time since this Starbucks is closing.

G’night, everyone.

103. sucre

Let dreamers dream what worlds they please;
Those Edens can’t be found.
The sweetest flowers, the fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.

We’re neither pure nor wise nor good;
We’ll do the best we know;
We’ll build our house, and chop our wood,
And make our garden grow.
— Richard Wilbur, Candide (based on Voltaire’s work of the same title)

The past few months I’ve had chats that begin like this, or include questions like these:

• “Can you be good without God?”
• “Without absolute truth, you can’t really believe in good and evil.”
• “Doesn’t that just mean that you define what’s ‘right’?”

The first thing that pops into my head when dealing with questions like these is—did I sound like that when talking to atheists back when I was a Christian? Not that I really ever recall talking to nontheists that much, but I’m sure that discussions like that were had. There were several times when we went out witnessing or having “spiritual conversations” with non-Christians, and I’m sure that something like that came up.

This brings up the issue of what I actually believe now as a non-theist – as a post-theist. In blog post 99, I expressed my frustration with the current flavor of atheism, which can best be described as neo-atheism: the sort of aggressive, in-your-face, denialist movement that has characterized atheism as more of a negative worldview than a positive one. It’s the kind that loudly denies the existence of any supernatural being under any circumstances, and seeks to destroy all belief in god or gods the whole world over. It’s also the kind the kind that has no qualms insulting the religious faithful by calling them weak, small-minded, superstitious, gullible, and… well, you get the picture. [Insert insult here.]

And, of course, the two high priests of atheism – the Anti-Popes, if you will – are Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Or rather were, since Hitch is no longer with us. But their voices defined the movement in ways that few others have. Their vehement, shrill and oftentimes rude confrontations with monotheists (and fundamentalists specifically) and their call for all people to throw off the shackles of belief in favor of reason, science and intellect has been persuasive for many, and off-putting for others, including many atheists.

So some of us are left wondering: All right, now what? Rather than stand and define ourselves against a whole belief, what do we stand for?

Well, for starters, the first Humanist Manifesto, followed by the second manifesto (more fleshed out and developed than the first), is a good starting point. As the authors of the second manifesto wrote in their preamble, “Traditional moral codes and newer irrational cults both fail to meet the pressing needs of today and tomorrow. False ‘theologies of hope’ and messianic ideologies, substituting new dogmas for old, cannot cope with existing world realities. They separate rather than unite peoples.”

Religion, as I have come to realize (and let me be clear—I’m talking about the extremist and fundamentalist varieties that I’ve known, that I grew up with, and that most people associate with “religion”), is a distinctly anti-human enterprise. It puts human beings at the bottom of a hierarchy of importance, existing at and for the pleasure of a supernatural deity. It grants other human beings who supposedly hold the “Truth” permission to use and abuse others for their own benefit—or, for the truly devout, for the sake of “God.”

Why would I want an “absolute morality” like that—of a beneficent, celestial dictatorship? Hitch was fond of calling it a celestial North Korea in his talks, where “the real fun begins after you’re dead.” (“But at least you can fucking die and leave North Korea,” he says in that video. “Does the bible or the Koran offer you that ability? No!”) Why would I want to pattern my life around such a system in terms of what I do and don’t do?

But that’s getting sidetracked slightly away from the original question: “Can you be good without God?”

The answer is: Yes. Millions of people do it every day. Is the only reason that you don’t rob, cheat, rape, lie and murder because of your fear of divine punishment? And is that the only reason for a theist to do good—because God’s watching? If so, that’s a pretty bankrupt morality, in the opinion of myself and other nontheists.

Morality seems to be a strictly human invention. While there is a rudimentary morality among some of the higher primates, the rest of nature seems to be a completely amoral place. It’s survival of the fittest. “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” as Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote. Our human morality seems derived from our deepest, most tribal, and most primal being that values getting along and cooperating over total anarchy. As tool-wielders, and through trial and error, we’ve worked out a code of immutable “laws” for human survival:

• Don’t kill other humans.
• Don’t steal from other humans.
• Being selfish is bad.

It seems to come from our ability for empathy, which evolved from emotional connections that were necessary to form bonds with other members of our tribe. We learned to see things “from the other chimp’s perspective.” We realized that if we don’t like the other guy beating us up, he probably doesn’t like me beating him up either. And it’s that ability to see through another person’s eyes that gives us our “moral” code.

I see morality as being essentially a complex equation of sorts. Most of the calculating we do automatically, as one segment on “chimp morality” shows on an episode of WNYC’s RadioLab that was about morality. In fact, if you want to really know what I believe about morality, stop reading this and go and listen to that. Then come back and read.

It’s a sort of three-dimensional cost/benefit analysis, where various potential choices are compared side by side, and the possible outcomes are weighed against each other. The solution is usually the one that does the least amount of harm to everyone, and carries the most benefits for everyone involved. It starts with the individual, then moves outward to others in the immediate circle of influence, and then goes further and further out until we can look at the potential benefit/harm done to something as large as the planet.

Doesn’t that sound like a better alternative than blindly following what your 3,000 year-old Bronze Age holy book tells you to do? Such as if it tells you to stone your wife to death for adultery? Or cut the foreskin off a newborn baby boy? Or tells you that homosexuals are disgusting perverts who are going to hell and deserve the abuse they get?

My morality boils down to the line from the closing song of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide (lyrics beautifully penned by Richard Wilbur, which is itself an adaptation of the last chapter of Candide’s novel): We’re neither pure nor wise nor good; we’ll do the best we know. Play nicely with others, treat them how you want to be treated, and leave the planet better than you came into it. What reason do I have for believing this? Absolutely none, aside from my own deeply-held convictions.

Supposing these ancient “moral codes” are merely humanity’s first attempts at describing what it means to be human? Explore and examine how we can live together in community? To try and put these deep and primal desires within us into words? We don’t really need a god to have handed those down to us.

Could I be a selfish bastard and try to get as much as I can from life while I can? Sure. But would it make me happy and contented? Would others benefit from my selfishness? No, they wouldn’t. (“What does that matter,” my theist friends will postulate, “if this is all there is?”) My humanity allows me to look at it through the eyes of my neighbors and decide what the best course of action is.

I don’t know if there is a God or not. I can’t disprove it any more than I can prove it. I take the last verse of “Make Our Garden Grow” to heart: Let dreamers dream what worlds they please; those Edens can’t be found. Ultimately, we don’t know, and speculating only makes things more complicated. It’s fun to think and argue about; but if there is a personal god out there, from the sort of universe it brought into being I think it probably considers belief in it—and all of the myriad of locks and fences we’ve built—pretty pointless.

Even ungrateful.

“Go outside!” it seems to be saying. “Get some sun—but in moderation! Enjoy nature! Enjoy yourself. Enjoy each other. Do good work.”

The sweetest flowers, the fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.

We’re neither pure nor wise nor good;
We’ll do the best we know;
We’ll build our house, and chop our wood,
And make our garden grow.

93. sisyphus

Quick aside here from NaNoWriMo.

My friend Jenny just posted a link to an article on Ye Olde Facebook that was posted by Rachel Held Evans entitled “A Non-Zero-Sum Conversation Between the Traditional Church and the Gay Community“, which I guess is a re-post of an article written by a guy named Richard Beck. I thought about commenting but then decided to write my own quick rebuttal before plunging back into the writing fray.

For those who don’t care to read or explore either of these authors or their articles, let me sum up briefly. The thrust of the piece is that the gay community and the trad Christian community have mutually compatible interests in promoting acceptance, even in the face of fundamental differences in belief. “Both groups share a mutual concern in treating others with respect, love and dignity,” Beck writes. “We share an interest in the Golden Rule. We both want to be treated well.” He also rightly observes that trad Christians have an obligation as Christians to display kindness, hospitality and generosity – three things that the church lacks in spades.

He continues:

“The game isn’t zero-sum; it’s non-zero-sum. Fighting doesn’t have to be the only thing we have in common. There are significant areas of mutual concern, locations where we can drop our fists and partner together on important Kingdom work . . . Imagine how the conversation would change between the traditional Christian and gay communities if traditional Christian communities became, say, known for their guardian angel and anti-bullying programs and initiatives, often partnering with local gay advocacy groups to get this work done.”

This is a lovely, Utopian image where everyone gets along and is able to put aside their differences and work together to build a world based on peace and love. It’s a sentiment that many of my Christian friends express (including my two best friends, Mark and Emily) in their continuing work in building a church that fosters such a worldview, and is open to discussion and bridging that conversation with the trad Christian church in bringing about real and tangible change in how Christians and gay (and really anyone who is of a non-believing persuasion–Jews, Muslims, atheists, Hindus, etc.).

Well, forgive me for not jumping on the hippie bandwagon (to be sarcastic for just a moment) but I have experienced first-hand the “openness” of the fundamentalist church. And I can say that without hesitation that my friends will be fighting an uphill battle both ways to start that conversation; and maybe that says something of their love for people, and their willingness to not give up.

The problem with the trad Christian community and why I think this Utopian world will never come about is that their beliefs about the Bible and about this world will always prevent this. It’s why Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, James Dobson, Peter LaBarbera and the rest of the anti-gay crowd can say the things they do and still sleep at night. They honestly believe that they are doing homosexuals a favor by “proclaiming the Truth” (and yes, I am using the capital T there purposefully) in order to free them from their “lifestyle of sexual bondage,” which I think was something like the phrase Bachmann used once.

Underlying their actions is the fundamental Christian belief that this world is not all there is, and that a better world awaits those who love and follow Jesus after death. Amongst the Evangelicals is the additional caveat that you have to “proclaim him as your Lord and Savior.” Just try doing a search for “how to become a Christian.”

“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” – Romans 10:9 (NASB)

It’s this eschatology that allows them to believe that the only thing that matters is getting to the right side in the afterlife. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS EXCEPT FOR JESUS. That “nothing else” includes sexual orientation, because obviously God created us all with a heterosexual orientation–right? So what does it matter if you have to live 70 years in total misery or loneliness if at the end of all that you have an eternity with Jesus?

[hold for laughs]

It’s this view that will not allow any sort of conversation between gays and trad Christians, and I don’t know that Richard Beck or Rachel Held Evans really understand that. I have the sense that they grew up in much more generous Christian denominations that were more life-affirming and dignity-affording. Then again, maybe they do and like the pacifist protesters getting beaten down in the film Gandhi they know what they’re in for.

All I know is that until trad Christians back down from their position of biblical literalism and inerrancy, there can be no conversation, for to even back down would be to waver in devotion to the Word and to God, which means jeopardizing their eternal security. My own parents would rather hold to that notion: that if I continue to “live as a homosexual” that I will one day suffer an eternity in hell while they enjoy a blessed eternity with Je-sus. (No, my parents are not Southern televangelists, but it’s fun to make them sound like they are.

It was partly because of this that I became an atheist in the first place (and I’ll be devoting my 100th blog entry to the reasons why I am an atheist). Jesus supposedly stood for love, affording dignity to all persons and speaking out against hypocrisy. And yet his followers resemble more the men who allegedly put him to death, and are putting gays to death every day in one form or another. They will continue to fight against gay marriage and equal rights for gays. They will oppose anti-bullying measures because it “encourages the proliferation and tolerance of homosexuality in schools.” They will rail against the teaching of evolution, ignoring all evidence that contradicts and disproves creationism.

Because the bible told them so.

90. spittle

I am taking a quick break from NaNoWriMo-ing to post some additional quotations from Emma Goldman, the Russian-American writer, feminist, anarchist and atheist. The following is from an essay that she wrote in 1913 titled “The Failure of Christianity.” Once I am done with NaNo, I want to dive into her writings a bit more as this is precisely the sort of thing I need to be reading in order to purge my mind of the dangerous nonsense I was brought up with as a child and young adult. Enjoy.

---

Christianity is most admirably adapted to the training of slaves, to the perpetuation of a slave society; in short, to the very conditions confronting us to-day. Indeed, never could society have degenerated to its present appalling stage, if not for the assistance of Christianity. The rulers of the earth have realized long ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the blood of the people. They know only too well that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a more powerful protection against rebellion and discontent than the club or the gun.

No doubt I will be told that, though religion is a poison and institutionalized Christianity the greatest enemy of progress and freedom, there is some good in Christianity “itself.” What about the teachings of Christ and early Christianity, I may be asked; do they not stand for the spirit of humanity, for right and justice?

It is precisely this oft-repeated contention that induced me to choose this subject, to enable me to demonstrate that the abuses of Christianity, like the abuses of government, are conditioned in the thing itself, and are not to be charged to the representatives of the creed. Christ and his teachings are the embodiment of submission, of inertia, of the denial of life; hence responsible for the things done in their name.

I am not interested in the theological Christ. Brilliant minds like Bauer, Strauss, Renan, Thomas Paine, and others refuted that myth long ago. I am even ready to admit that the theological Christ is not half so dangerous as the ethical and social Christ. In proportion as science takes the place of blind faith, theology loses its hold. But the ethical and poetical Christ-myth has so thoroughly saturated our lives that even some of the most advanced minds find it difficult to emancipate themselves from its yoke. They have rid themselves of the letter, but have retained the spirit; yet it is the spirit which is back of all the crimes and horrors committed by orthodox Christianity. The Fathers of the Church can well afford to preach the gospel of Christ. It contains nothing dangerous to the régime of authority and wealth; it stands for self-denial and self-abnegation, for penance and regret, and is absolutely inert in the face of every indignity, every outrage imposed upon mankind.

Here I must revert to the counterfeiters of ideas and words. So many otherwise earnest haters of slavery and injustice confuse, in a most distressing manner, the teachings of Christ with the great struggles for social and economic emancipation. The two are irrevocably and forever opposed to each other. The one necessitates courage, daring, defiance, and strength. The other preaches the gospel of non-resistance, of slavish acquiescence in the will of others; it is the complete disregard of character and self-reliance, and therefore destructive of liberty and well-being.

Whoever sincerely aims at a radical change in society, whoever strives to free humanity from the scourge of dependence and misery, must turn his back on Christianity, on the old as well as the present form of the same.

Everywhere and always, since its very inception, Christianity has turned the earth into a vale of tears; always it has made of life a weak, diseased thing, always it has instilled fear in man, turning him into a dual being, whose life energies are spent in the struggle between body and soul. In decrying the body as something evil, the flesh as the tempter to everything that is sinful, man has mutilated his being in the vain attempt to keep his soul pure, while his body rotted away from the injuries and tortures inflicted upon it.

The Christian religion and morality extols the glory of the Hereafter, and therefore remains indifferent to the horrors of the earth. Indeed, the idea of self-denial and of all that makes for pain and sorrow is its test of human worth, its passport to the entry into heaven.

The poor are to own heaven, and the rich will go to hell. That may account for the desperate efforts of the rich to make hay while the sun shines, to get as much out of the earth as they can: to wallow in wealth and superfluity, to tighten their iron hold on the blessed slaves, to rob them of their birthright, to degrade and outrage them every minute of the day. Who can blame the rich if they revenge themselves on the poor, for now is their time, and the merciful Christian God alone knows how ably and completely the rich are doing it.

And the poor? They cling to the promise of the Christian heaven, as the home for old age, the sanitarium for crippled bodies and weak minds. They endure and submit, they suffer and wait, until every bit of self-respect has been knocked out of them, until their bodies become emaciated and withered, and their spirit broken from the wait, the weary endless wait for the Christian heaven.

– Emma Goldman, ‘The Failure of Christianity’ (1913)