Ten+ Years

This sounds all-too-familiar...

2011-01-17T14:37:00.000-08:00

Rachel Held Evans takes heat for being true to her convictions.

"It seems that Al Mohler is fine with Christians loving God with their minds so long as they reach the same conclusions that he has."

He's not the only one, of course. But Rachel's on the right side of history here. Al, and all the others like him are, thankfully, a dying breed. Of course, there'll always be literalists and fundamentalists who hold only to a very strict interpretation of the first two books of the bible, but their numbers are dwindling. The internet, with all its information (and misinformation) continues to grow exponentially, and with it, people like Rachel who prefer to think for themselves and not just accept everything their church tells them, have not only easy access to much more knowledge and research and facts than ever before, but also access to other like-minded people. That's huge. Besides just being a support in general, when you're wrestling with heavy questions about your faith and how to reconcile it with scientific fact, it helps tremendously to know that you're far from alone.

Honesty

2010-08-10T13:57:00.000-07:00

How NOT to win the best Christian attitude award

by Rachel Held Evans

I don't know this woman, but I love her. I love her honesty. I had similar questions when I was still part of the faith. But you can't ask those questions, as a 'good' Christian. Others in the group will not approve. You could lose friends, or be considered 'suspect.' Your faith and motives will be called into question. For all of evangelicals' talk about loving 'truth' and 'honesty,' when you really start to get honest with them about some serious doubts or disagreements you may be having, it suddenly seems like they're not so in love with the idea of 'honesty' anymore. The truth, it seems, really does hurt. A lot. Anyway, Rachel still has her faith. She was/is somehow able to reconcile her faith and her doubts. I wasn't. But good for her, and more power to her. She's someone I feel like I could talk to, and have an honest dialogue with without feeling condemned or judged, or being told that my faith was never real in the first place. I've got a lot more respect for her than I do for all the 'good' Christians who give shit to people like her. Maybe they don't know what it's like to have doubts. Maybe they're too afraid to ask the hard questions, or answer them honestly. If that's the case, then that's their problem. I say- Go, Rachel! Don't let the small-minded people get you down. Keep on keepin' on.

Scientists- what do they know, anyway?

2010-06-24T18:01:00.000-07:00

Every once in awhile, thankfully not that often anymore, I hear some fundy or other bitching about how you can't trust the scientists- those evil, atheistic, god-hating, evolution-pushing, liberal, evil... scientists. Because they believe in things like evolution and global warming and that the earth is billions (!) of years old. Hogwash, right? Flat-out bullshit, even. They have an agenda to push, just like everyone else, I'm told. Peer-review? Let's see, if I'm out to send the world to hell with my Doctrine of Darwin, then of course I'm going to have my articles reviewed by my peers- because they'll agree with me! We believe the same things! So that proves that peer-review is a complete joke!

That's the kind of crap I have to listen to sometimes (thankfully not often) when I'm around a group of fundies talking about how you can't trust the scientists. They'll also mention how everyone worships something;- the Christian worships God, the scientist worships Science. See? In some ways, we're not so different. Whenever I hear people talk like that I just want to grab them by the collar and shout in their face, 'Don't you get it?! Are you really so stupid?! What about...' and then list off a bunch of things that Science has given us, but God hasn't.

For example, what about:

Computers/Internet- Such a great tool for disseminating (mis)information to the masses. Christians everywhere sure like to take advantage of it to preach the gospel, yet did Jesus give us the knowledge or technology to create computers and digital information? Nope. Science did.

Forensics- (or Forensic Science, you might say...) How many previously unsolved murders have finally been solved (and are being solved) due to forensics? How many innocent people have been freed from jail due to the wonder that is DNA? No, it's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good, and getting better all the time. But did Jesus discover, or even tell us how to discover DNA? Nope. It was first isolated 1869 by Friedrich Miescher, a Swiss physician, but then in 1953 Watson and Crick really kicked things off with their discovery of DNA's double helix structure. To the best of my knowledge, their discovery was in no way a result of prayer, hidden bible codes, or from God or Jesus telling them, 'Look over here...'

Medical Science- Everything from oh I don't know, aspirin, to blood transfusion and organ transplants. Science. How diseases work; the fact that bacteria (some, but not others) can make us sick, and how we fight against that bacteria. Viruses, too. I'm pretty sure when Jesus told his followers to go out and heal the sick, he never mentioned antibiotics. Yet every Christian I know is quick to pop an aspirin or go to the doctor, even while they're praying for healing, when things go south health-wise. Funny how they trust in prayer, but seem to trust in medicine even more. Chemotherapy? Science gave it to us. Maybe God didn't want us to get better, and that's why he never told us about any of this stuff. He did curse us, after all. Maybe by taking medicine Christian are going against his will. Oh yeah, not just drugs and pills and stuff, what about birth control? Science! And not just birth control, but fertility treatments? Can't have a baby? Don't worry, science can help! It's not always guaranteed, but I do know that your odds are better than with prayer.

Air Travel- I know so many Christians who have some sort of weird fascination with going to Israel. I hear about churches that organize trips there for there members who can come up with the dough to pay for a plane ticket, I know a few personally who've gone, sometimes several times; I guess it gives them a boner to hang out where Jesus hung out or something. But since the majority of the world's Christians live in other countries (and many of them separated by an ocean) it's a little impractical to pop in for a Sunday afternoon visit. Science to the rescue! Airplanes are slightly complicated devices. You have to know a lot about a lot to build and fly one of those babies. Physics, aerodynamics, weather patterns... y'know what, maybe chariots weren't such a bad idea after all. Or even camels; at least they're ready-made. Throw a saddle on one and kick it in the behind, you'll be there in no time.

Bridges, skyscrapers, the printing press (would've been a tad bit inconvenient to leave Gideon bibles in all those hotel rooms without that, eh? Thanks, Jesu... uh, Gutenberg!) clothing... for a god that hates nakedness as much as Yahweh apparently does, you'd think he could've at least shown Adam and Eve how to make some decent clothing instead of letting them sew some fig leaves together. Nope, too busy kicking their asses out of the garden, I guess. And while it's true that the printing press and clothing are not exactly marvels of modern science, they are completely un-supernatural, i.e. man-made, using natural materials which we had to figure out on our own, with no help whatsoever from God. Figuring out how to make paper, for example, or actual clothing as opposed to leaves and animal skins- that takes knowledge. How do you get knowledge? You could try using the scientific method, which according to Wikipedia, '...refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.' Or, you could ask someone who already has that knowledge (God) to show/tell you, but he seems quite unwilling to share any of it. So all the fundies out there can label me however they want, but until God actually starts speaking up and sharing some of his infinite wisdom and knowledge, I'm sticking with science.

Same Old Shit...

2010-04-12T21:42:00.000-07:00

Now see, this really irritates the crap out of me. Ok, I found this blog, williamlehman.net, via nakedpastor.com, via friendlyatheist.com. A quick read through and I see his third post down, entitled, 'The New Atheism & Christianity.' So I read that one with a little more interest. He starts off by saying,

'First off, it’s not really new. It’s a new way of saying the same old thing. It’s a new way of excusing pride & selfishness for rational thought.'

A new way of excusing pride & selfishness for rational thought. Right. Because all of us who call ourselves atheists really know in our hearts that out of all of the gods that humanity has ever believed in, one of them, and only one, actually does exist. His name is Yahweh, but he is commonly referred to as 'God' not 'god' and although he happens to be genderless he prefers to be referred to as being male when one uses pronouns. Why won't we just admit it? We're not a-theists; we're really a bunch of closet theists, but because of our 'pride & selfishness' we don't want to bow down and acknowledge god's glory, or even existence, so we call ourselves atheists and talk about science and reason and logical, rational thought and we try to use all that as a shield against God's everlasting love because we really just want to revel in our sin like pigs in mud. It's true, it's all true!! We worship science! We bow down at the altar of our minds and pray to Rational Thought and/or Logic to show us the way, oh if only we'd just admit it! And it's because we're all made to worship someone/something, right? We've all 'gotta serve somebody,' so it's either going to be God or something else, and because of our stupid pride and selfishness some of us choose door number 2. Or 5, or the Red Pill, or anything, anything but God. Did I mention that this really irritates the crap out of me? Every nonbeliever out there has heard this same old spiel a million times. It really irritates me that fundamentalist believers cannot admit, ever, that some of us really just cannot believe in the god that they believe in. We just cannot do it and still be intellectually honest with ourselves. Pride and selfishness have nothing to do with it. Intellectual honesty has everything to do with it. In the same way that the believer cannot believe that God is really lying to them and will send them to hell on judgment day, and bring the atheists into heaven (because he prefers people who can think for themselves and decide to choose their own path over a bunch of groveling brown-nosers who only ever came to him in the first place because they were afraid not to) - in the same way that the believer cannot believe that their god would lie to them in that way, us non-believers cannot believe in a god at all. It's quite simple, really. There's not much more to it than that. We don't just pick and choose what we believe, like we're constantly accused of doing. Belief doesn't work that way. It's not a Chinese buffet.

Anyway, he goes on a bit more about the label 'atheist' and his issues with it, all of which I pretty much think he's wrong about, but I'm not going to bother talking about here because all I really want to say is that his particular post is part of the reason why I go back and forth about calling myself an atheist. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I guess by definition I am, since I hold no belief in any god or gods (the same way Christians are atheistic about all other gods but their own). When I first stopped believing in God I tried out a bunch of different labels- Atheist, agnostic, humanist. I wanted to identify as something new, something other than what I used to be. 'I'm not a Christian anymore, so what am I?' I don't believe in God, so I'm an atheist. But 'atheist' is a hugely misunderstood label (although a lot of people are working hard these days to change that). So is agnostic, for that matter. So is just about anything, really. You call yourself something and then anyone who doesn't call themselves that same thing, or something that could be grouped in the same category, is now a 'them' to your 'us.' I didn't then, and still don't now, feel like explaining myself to someone who didn't identify the same way or who didn't understand why it was that I labeled myself as whatever. So even though by definition I am an atheist, and still sometimes will identify as such, way back then I finally settled on 'human being' as my label. Because who could argue with that? Who's going to misunderstand that or disagree with it? There is no 'us vs. them;' we're all in the same boat with that one. There's nothing to debate there. No, 'They're not real human beings,' or 'You only think you're human, but you're really not,' bullshit. Sure, there are vile, sick people who we think of as less-than-human because of some monstrous thing or other that they've done, but in the end we're all part of the same group, all capable of doing incredible good or incredible bad, and everything in between.

The author of the post does go on to say a couple things I kind of agree with-

'Many so-called Christians want to fight it out with the atheists about if there is a God, historical data, and silly philosophical questions. The best way to fight atheism isn’t knowledge... It’s in how we love. If we truly love, the fighting won’t matter.

It's so true- many Christians, 'so-called' or otherwise, all they seem to want to do is fight it out with the atheists (as well as anyone else who's not part of their 'us'). I'm tired of that shit, myself. Ok, then- Can't we all just get along? Well, no actually, I don't think we can all just get along. But that doesn't mean we have to argue and debate about it all the time, either. Seriously, I would rather sit alone in a windowless, empty room and watch paint dry on the walls than argue and debate with a believer about all things 'God.' It's partly why I never talk about that stuff with anyone; it seems that all most believers want to do is argue and debate about it, and it never, ever ends. And no matter how much we try, we can't convince them that it's really not our foolish pride that's keeping us from believing in their god. Arguments never change anyone's mind, anyway. Have you ever been in an argument where you and the other person both feel very strongly about your position and the other person says something and then you just stop, slack-jawed and say, 'Wow, you're right- I never thought of it that way before!' (or vice-versa)? Nope. Doesn't happen. And it's certainly never going to happen in matters of whose god is the 'real' one or whether or not there is even one real god. So while I'm not averse to having an adult conversation (most likely with an adult beverage or two in hand) with someone who is honestly curious about why it is I don't believe in the things that they believe in, and am not convinced by the things that they're convinced by, I'm definitely going to have to pass on the debate part of it. Because if you don't mind, I have some paint I have to watch dry.

God is pro-life? Really?

2010-03-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

Seriously, God hates abortion and the abortion providers are all heinous murderers and it's just one mind-numbing holocaust? A simple Google search will tell you that annually there are 40+ million induced abortions performed worldwide.

40+ million.

Every single year.

(And that's separate from all the non-induced abortions, the miscarriages and whatnot. I haven't even checked on those stats. I'm guessing it's not quite as high, but maybe it is, who knows? Either way, there's a lot of those too, but since God is in charge of those deaths, it's deemed ok. He's in control.)

And if you're an all-powerful creator of the universe who loves each and every soul, every single one, and are heinously grieved at all the bloodshed, what do you do to stop this holocaust? Simple- nothing. Not a goddamned thing. It's kind of easy to understand how some nutcases out there reach for the gun and take matters into their own hands- I mean, somebody's got to do something, right? God hates the baby-killers, but he's not going to strike them down with lightning or cause them to have a heart attack, but they must be stopped so send in the crazies with guns! I guess that's how he works though, right? Through his people? He doesn't speak directly- he speaks through his people. He sends prophets and leaders and preachers. He doesn't sit down at his desk in a cottage by the Dead Sea, pen in hand, and write the Bible himself, he tells other people what to say and they write it for him!

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: I'm told that abortion is pure evil and an abomination and that God hates it and it must be stopped. Yet, worldwide there are more than FORTY MILLION performed every single year (don't forget the miscarriages!) and he himself does nothing about it. So what sort of conclusions should I draw from this? Here's what I come up with:

A. God actually likes abortions and doesn't want them to be stopped.

B. He doesn't give a shit either way. Let the humans figure out what to do about it on their own.

C. He hates abortion and wants it stopped, but for whatever reason can't intervene. That's not to say that he's not omnipotent, but maybe he just designed things to work that way. A hands-off approach, or something.

D. He hates it and wants it stopped and can intervene, but chooses not to. You know, for his own secret reasons. He seems to do that a lot anyway, so why not? (Or maybe he is intervening, through his organizations like the National Right To Life Committee and Operation Rescue (but not the crazies with guns. Or maybe with them, depending on who you ask) but it appears that they're not doing a good enough job. Maybe got to crack the whip a little bit harder, things are getting urgent here.

E. There is no God.

Those are the options that I come up with. There could be more, depending on how you look at things, but whatever. I'm going with those. And, because I'm a God-hating-Evil-Atheist-who-just-wants-to-have-lots-of-sex-with-random-strangers-both-before-and-after-I-get-married-and-who-doesn't-want-to-answer-to-a-Greater-Authority-than-myself- (except the police, maybe) -etc.-etc.-etc...

I choose E.

A runaway train car full of people is barreling down the tracks...

2010-03-03T18:14:00.000-08:00

Y'know that age-old ethics question/thought experiment- the one that they ask in Ethics or Philosophy 101 classes (or maybe they don't, I don't know; it's been awhile for me) - the one that goes something like this? There's two sets of railroad tracks, one with a runaway car full of people that ends in a steep cliff, and one that continues on safely and unobstructed- except for a single person tied up on them. You're there watching and there's a switch that you can flip- if you do flip it, the train will switch tracks and run over the guy who's tied up, but it'll save the many who are in the runaway car. If you don't flip it, you'll spare the guy who's tied up, but allow the many in the car to go over the cliff. What do you do?
Obviously it's not a realistic situation; it's just a thought experiment designed to get people thinking and asking/discussing ethical questions about tough situations. But have you ever noticed (and I admit that this was not my original observation- I first saw it in the comments section on some other blog- Friendly Atheist, I believe) that noone ever asks what you would do if there was no man tied up on the tracks? Or if the runaway car was barreling towards the man, but the the car was empty, so that flipping the switch to send it over the cliff would (presumably) hurt no one? No one ever asks those questions because you don't have to- the answer is obvious. Any sane person would flip the switch. And any sane person who didn't would rightly be labeled as a psycho, or something similarly heinous. A very, very evil person, in other words. Anyone except God, that is. I mean, he's everywhere, right? Always has the opportunity to 'flip that switch,' as it were. Sometimes he does. Sometimes not. It's all very random, though (fits very nicely with probability and coincidence, no?). When something crazy happens, like a window washer falls from nearly 50 stories up and survives, it's considered a miracle, God saved him hallelujah isn't he powerful and loving amen?! But then you've got got things like the Haiti earthquake. I know, I know, they're part of the wages of sin and the end times and all that, but couldn't he have at least sounded some sort of siren or something? Maybe told a Christian or prophet or missionary living in Haiti what was about to happen so they could warn everyone else and lives could be saved? Then he could get even more of the glory that he seems to crave so much- 'Hey everyone, I had no idea that we were about to get hit by a devastating earthquake, but God told me so I could tell you all, isn't-he-amazing-praise-God-hallelujah amen!!' But nope. Never happens. He never flips that switch. Except when somebody survives something that seems unlikely, then, oh wait, I guess he did flip that switch so let's all sing his praises.
Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway) I've heard all the bullshit excuses that people use to try and stick up for him- how he's God, so he makes the rules and who are we to question anything he does or doesn't do? But those are just that- bullshit excuses that people use to try and rationalize God's actions and explain what's really not explainable (because it's a logical contradiction). People don't allow for the possibility that maybe God is evil or a tyrant or shows favoritism or whatever- the only option is that he's Perfection personified, so whenever there's that switch that needs flipping, then whatever he does is Right- if he flips it and saves a life/lives, glory hallelujah; if he lets the guy/car full of people die, again, glory hallelujah. For the life of me I don't know how it is that the stupidity of that sort of thinking isn't blindingly obvious to any mature adult. And yet, I will be (and have been) criticized for stating such things- 'My heart has been seared as with a hot iron/I hate God/I just want to live my life for myself and not him/I've been deceived by the devil (or just my own damn brain, with it's logical thinking*) etc, etc, etc.

*Somebody actually said to me once, and I've also heard it said in a more generic setting (church sermons) that 'God doesn't have to bow or conform to Man's logic.' In other words, he doesn't have to make any sense to us whatsoever. I don't think they realize that by using that logic, he doesn't have to let Christians (even the True, Faithful ones) into heaven. He could let all the Atheists and Infidels and Muslims and Mormons in, and send all the 'true' worshippers to hell, and noone could argue with it. Doesn't matter that it would be illogical and make God out to be a liar; that's only if you use 'Man's logic.' Using 'God's logic' he can do that; he can be a liar and not a liar at the same time. No logical contradiction there! Why should there be? It's only with 'Man's logic' that that scenario wouldn't make any sense.

I hope you can see my point of view here and understand why it is that I no longer believe.

Hope vs. Prayer.

2010-01-26T21:03:00.000-08:00

Been wanting to write about this for awhile. Hope vs. Prayer. What's the difference, really? I do think hope is better, because if whatever you're hoping for doesn't come to pass, then at least you can move on, or try to, without all the questioning. When you pray, you're praying to someone, someone who can, if he so chooses, grant you your request. Hope is just hope. If what you want to happen doesn't happen there is no 'Someone' to ask why not. You can ask yourself or your friends a rhetorical 'why,' but it's just that- rhetorical. You're not really expecting any answers. But when you pray for something- something really big and non-selfish say, and it never happens, you're constantly wondering and asking and guessing as to why not. Especially when others around you seem to be getting 'smaller' things they asked for. Just what is the point of praying, anyway? The bible clearly tells us to. Jesus clearly told us to. But why? Seems like God's just going to do what God wants, never mind what we want or how in line with his will what we're asking seems to be. If we ask for something that we are 100% sure is in line with his will and that we are 100% sure he would want, and it doesn't happen, then we're left thinking that, well, maybe we were just wrong about that thing; maybe we were being selfish all along in asking for it (you'd think god would be a little better at communicating things to us- 'no, you're being selfish here, or asking the wrong way, or whatever. Here's what you need to be asking for...' etc.). Or he didn't answer with a 'yes' because he's got other, super secret reasons, reasons that he'll one day reveal to us when we're with him in heaven, because right now we're just not ready to know them. Well, why can't he help us be ready to know them then, so we don't have to wait until then? Well, he's got his own super secret reasons for that too, and we'll just have to wait for that as well, right?
I remember reading a quote somewhere that God answers prayer in one of three ways- yes, no, and wait. I don't remember where I read it, but it was attributed to Christianity.com (though I'm sure many others have repeated it). Ok, so let's think about that- yes, no, and wait. I guess those are really the only three ways he could answer prayer; the answer is either going to be yes or no, and if it's yes, it's either going to come shortly after the prayer is offered or it's going to take a really long, unknown amount of time. And if it never happens, then the answer was no, right? Seems pretty simple, I guess. The tricky part is- how do you know- really know- who it is that's answering your prayers? I mean, if it's yes, no or wait, I could just as easily pray to the 100 year-old tree in my back yard, or to my dead ancestors, or the flying spaghetti monster, right? The answer is going to be the same- yes or no or wait. Now, while it may seem just blatantly obvious to you that of course it matters who you pray to, because my dead ancestors are just that- dead, and the tree is just a tree and the FSM doesn't really exist, it's not so obvious to those who don't believe. It goes back to what I said in a previous post- just who is this 'God' guy anyway? By definition we can't detect him with any of our physical senses, or any other way, for that matter, except 'through faith.' I know, I know: gravity- we can't smell, taste, touch, hear, or see it, right? No, we can't, but neither do we have to take it on faith, because we can detect it through science. We see it indirectly; we see it's effects on things- things fall to earth, earth rotates around the sun, etc. Gravity is a (very basic and very well understood) part of the known physical universe. By definition, God is not a part of our physical universe (even though he's said to inhabit it). He's 'outside' of time and space, as they say (whatever that's supposed to mean). And he's not at all well understood. I hardly need to provide any examples of that; it's practically part of Christian doctrine- 'my ways are above your ways,' he knows everything, we know (comparatively) nothing, etc. Believers everywhere freely admit that they know very little about God's ways. Of course, it's usually in the context of 'he's so infinite and amazing, it'll take us all eternity to understand him.' Sort of like an ant trying to understand algebra or something. But still, you'd think Almighty God could make himself a little more understandable to his puny, ignorant creation. With all the arguing and disagreements among different branches of Christianity (not to mention those who don't identify as Christians, but who still believe in God) why can't God just step in and act as referee? Straighten everyone out. But it's not just the different branches of Christianity who disagree with each other, with each group saying the other aren't 'true' Christians- Christians in the same group don't need to travel very far to find other like-minded Christians that they disagree with on something 'big.' I've heard some Christians say that they're for the death penalty because of their faith in God, while others have said that they're against it because of their faith in God. Seems like a pretty big issue to me, one that God might want to show up and straighten everyone out on, just so they're all on the same page about it. But anyway, I'm getting off track here. Back to prayer. I suppose there can be more than just 'yes, no, or wait' as an answer, because after all, what if it's not a yes-no question? What if it's more along the lines of 'Where should I go to college?' or something like that? I remember many years ago, when Janelle S. was looking at colleges, trying to decide where it was that God wanted her to go to. She narrowed her choices down to two- ENC, and some other one- I can't remember the name, but I think it was in Pennsylvania. So she prayed about it. She told me that since she'd applied at about the same time, she was praying that God would let her know by whichever one she heard back from first being the one she was supposed to go to. Sure, now it seems like maybe not the best way to figure out what school God wants you to go to, but really, how else was she supposed to decide? 'Yes, no, wait' doesn't apply here. And she can't really expect the school to send her a letter saying 'God told us he wants you to come here and not go to that 'other' school.' So it seems like a perfectly reasonable way for a believer to figure out what God wants for her. He does send 'signs' after all, doesn't he? The thing is, if you were a graduating high school senior involved in the Nazarene church pretty much anywhere in New England who was heading off to college in the Fall, it was pretty much a given that you were going to ENC. You just did. Everyone did, right? And everyone wanted to. And why not? This was long before Facebook and Myspace; hell, this was way before even email became mainstream, so going to ENC was how you stayed in close contact with all your friends, acquaintances and loved ones, everyone you'd gone to camp with and quizzed with for the last several years. And Janelle wanted to go to ENC. Probably expected she'd hear from them first, being that MA was much closer to Maine than PA. But she heard from the other school first. I remember the look on her face, too. It was sort of a surprised letdown. She really wanted to go to ENC and thought for sure God wanted her too as well, but now it appeared that he wanted her to go to the other school, much further away from friends and family, which would be difficult to deal with. Obviously, in the end she ended up going to ENC. I can't remember what the process was for her changing her mind, and her reasons for it, but somehow she managed to decide that no, it was really God's will that she go to ENC instead. Imagine if she'd gotten the letter from them first all along, as she probably expected she would. Obviously that would have been a clear sign from God that she was supposed to go there! Obviously! But she didn't get that letter, so she had to look for other 'confirmation' that that's where God really wanted her to go to college. I'm not passing judgment on her in any way- everyone does stuff like that in one way or another, believers and non-believers alike. We look for, and find, patterns and meaning and signs where there are none, and in the absence of a literal road map for life, straight from God's printing press, believers need to find confirmation somewhere.
So since God's preferred method of answering prayer is never a direct, spoken answer straight to our ears, but is often vague and made through 'indirect' means, what then (again) is the point of praying (besides the fact that we're told to)? If the 'yes, no, or wait' template could just as easily be applied to prayers made to anyone or anything (real or made up) in the universe, why even bother? Seriously. I recall hearing awhile back some preacher or other talking about how prayer isn't so much about asking for stuff, as it is about just communicating with God, and how it's supposed to be transformative- meaning that we should pray simply because it brings us closer to God. Well maybe it does, and maybe it doesn't, but if that's the main purpose of prayer, why does the bible tell us specifically to ask for things? Like I mentioned in one of the beginning posts, that verse in Matthew or wherever, where Jesus got really specific and said whatever you ask for in his name, you shall receive. Enter all the name-it-claim-it folks telling you all you need to do is just ask for money and healing and whatever, followed by the apologists who have to parse what Jesus really meant from what he actually said (even though he's said to 'say what he means and mean what he says').

Thank goodness for all the apologists to come along and explain the gospel for me because if I had to think for myself, I just might get it 'wrong.'

***

Years ago, shortly after I fully left my old faith, I had this bumper sticker that read, 'Nothing fails like prayer.' I wasn't trying to be confrontational or offensive with it, it just really struck a chord with me. It rang true. Still does, actually. Because when you're told to ask for things, and you do ask for them, and they never come to pass, that sounds like a failure to me. 'Maybe the answer was just no,' you say? Maybe. Or maybe the answer just fell squarely in line with the laws of probability. Come up with any scenario you like: 1000 Christians with a gravely ill child, whom modern medicine may or may not be able to save. They all pray fervently for their kids, and some make it, and some don't. Well, maybe God decided to 'take home' the ones who didn't make it; who are we to judge what he does, right? Well, if he were to actually communicate with us, the way he expects us all to do with him, and offer up some sort of reasoning as to why he chose the ones that he did to either live or 'come home,' then maybe I could say 'Fair enough,' and go along with that. But the communication never, ever happens, does it? It's always one-way. One way you could look at situations like that would be to say that 'Well, that's just how God works, and he's got his reasons, etc., etc.' And many people do look at it like that. I've heard some believers, when pressed with similar troubling scenarios (usually taken from the headlines of the evening news) and asked, 'Why would God allow this/ do this/etc., say something along the lines of 'I don't know, but I plan on asking him when I see him (face to face, in heaven). On the surface, I really appreciate the apparent honesty- a believer is actually genuinely troubled by the way God 'chooses to work' in a particular situation and has plans to take it up with him in heaven. But then I think, what in the world makes anyone think that God is going to explain everything in heaven? He's gone this long without a single word of explanation in any form, so why does everyone think he's just going to open up and explain everything after we're all dead? What could possibly give anyone that idea? Just think about how long humanity has been inhabiting this planet- anywhere from 6,000 years (if you're a young-earther) to (last I checked) around 200,000 years. And think about all the brutal, shocking things that have happened to innocent people throughout all that time; things that make even believers ask 'Why, God, why?' A thousand years may be just a day to God, but to us, it's a thousand years, one single day at a time, and if you happened to have been born a black person in Africa or a Jew in Europe during the wrong period in time, then you had many, many days of asking God why, with no answers forthcoming (unless they were from other people, trying to explain why God does things the way he does). But I'm supposed to believe that he's just going to open up and explain everything at the end of time, once all the believers are in heaven and the unbelievers are in hell? No. I do not buy it. Not for one. lousy. second.

Ok, getting away from the yes/no/wait aspect of it, there's the other part of it that I wanted to talk about. Years ago I used to live in the same building as this one guy; we were part of the same church/fellowship and would often run into each other in the hall. Now this guy, I'll call him Mark, he had some sort of physical handicap- a degenerative disease, I guess. I never asked him or anyone else what it was, and noone ever told me so I have no idea what it was called, or his history with it, but basically he was almost completely paralyzed (someone told me that at one point in his life he had been able to at least walk). He could move his head and hands a little, so that if you helped set him up just right he could use a keyboard, feed himself, and brush his teeth, things like that. But other than that, he was pretty much dependent on others for just about everything. Nicest guy in the world, too. Never heard him say a bad word about anyone, and he was almost always cheerful. Not bitter like a lot of us might be. He was, however, sexually frustrated. Noone ever came out and said that, of course, especially him, but it was the truth. Nearly every time I would pass him in the hall, or see him at church, or generally just cross paths with him (which was quite frequently) he'd almost always ask me to lay hands on his head and pray for him because he was dealing with impure thoughts about women or some such thing. Almost every single time. And it's not like he would single me out as the one to pray for him (because my prayers were stronger than other peoples') I'd often see lots of different guys laying hands on his head and praying for him. It got to the point where I actually started going out of my way to avoid running into him, as awful as that sounds to say. It's too bad really, because like I said- nicest guy in the world. And even though noone said it, everyone understood his plight- he didn't have the options that any other able-bodied person would have for dealing with his situation. That's gotta be tough to deal with. Sure, everyone else thought that if they 'gave in' to their 'sexual thoughts' that that would be bad, and they'd have to pray and ask forgiveness for it, and so they would, and everything would be fine- until the next time, when they were again overwhelmed by their raging hormones. Mark didn't even have that option. He didn't have any option to deal with it, other than just keep hitting up his friends for prayers. Many, many times per day. Every single day. Surely- surely - that would be a prayer request that God would honor, no? I mean, of all things to ask for, and since he's so against any actions, any thoughts about sex or anything sex-related, you'd think he'd answer Mark's prayers and 'help him to do better.' But he, apparently, never did. Some might argue that he couldn't actually 'make' Mark not think about sex anymore because that would somehow violate his 'free will.' Bullshit. Mark clearly did not want to think about sex anymore because he believed it was wrong and God didn't want him to since he wasn't married. He was asking for help to not think about sex anymore. But help never came, for some reason. Believers can try and dress it up any way they like, say that God has his own secret reasons, or say that he is helping (just imagine how much worse Mark would have been without God's help) or pull the old 'free will' trick, but the fact of the matter is that Mark prayed countless times per day (and others did the same for him) and yet there was no noticeable difference for him. He was still battling the same old battle. Nothing ever changed. That's pretty depressing, when you stop to think about it. I mean, it's gotta be hard enough just being in his situation, but then when you're constantly so torn up over some thoughts- not actions, not things he did or even said, just some lousy thoughts- and you pray and pray and pray and pray, and nothing ever changes, even in the slightest little bit- you really gotta wonder what the hell God is doing while Mark is suffering (and yes, I call that suffering). So now, you take a believer who's observing this situation as objectively as possible, someone who's trying their damnedest to know/do what's right, know the 'truth' about life and all that, and they look at Mark and his situation and see all the prayers go (apparently) unheeded- what exactly are they supposed to think about all this? Obviously many (most, even) find some way to rationalize it all away and say that God really is listening and really does care and all that, but some might look at it and start to doubt God's everlasting love and best intentions for us. Some might even conclude: 'If that isn't a case of failed prayer, I don't know what is.' And of course, those people will likely be ridiculed and vilified (in a godly way, of course) by the true believers, because as we all know, prayer doesn't fail. God doesn't fail. It's our limited human understanding and knowledge of God that fails (which I guess is why we're supposed to pray in the first place, right?)

No doubt some believer or apologist will read all this and conclude that I just hate God/want to sin/was burned by a 'fake' Christian/etc., etc., etc. (absolutely anything except that maybe what they believe/I used to believe just doesn't stand up to a little scrutiny and critical thinking). The far more simple truth of the matter should be pretty obvious to anyone with a little intellectual honesty: Hope vs. Prayer- what's the difference?

Just a thought...

2009-12-10T20:48:00.000-08:00

So God (and Jesus) is 'everywhere,' right? I mean, he's available 24/7 so anyone, anywhere in the world who wishes to speak to him can do so at any time, right? That's what they say. And he wants a 'relationship' with us, right? Wants us to talk to him, to pray? So why is it that when people pray, they tend to close their eyes and bow their heads? Sure, sometimes they'll look upwards ('towards heaven,' I suppose, even though heaven isn't 'up') but generally it's eyes closed, heads bowed. Ever wonder why that is? Some might argue that bowing the head shows humility, and closing ones eyes frees one from outside visual distractions. Here's what I think: If you're in a group of two or more and you bow your head and close your eyes and start 'talking to God,' it's called prayer. But if you don't close your eyes and don't bow your head, and you start 'talking to God,' it'll look like something else altogether- like you're a child talking to his imaginary friend. Same if you're by yourself in a public place and you start praying out loud (eyes open, head not bowed) - is it 'prayer,' or is it just you talking to an imaginary friend? Seems like an odd way to have a 'relationship' with someone. I mean, if Jesus came to earth as a human to bridge the gap between us and God, if he's God in human form so that we can really know who God is (like I mentioned in the previous post) what the hell kind of relationship is it that we can't just talk to him like we talk to each other? Imagine being in a prayer group where everyone kept their heads up and eyes open- I think the main thing distracting anyone would be just how much it looks like they're just talking to an imaginary being.

Just a thought.

Just who is this 'God' guy, anyway?

2009-11-17T10:42:00.000-08:00

Have you ever really asked yourself that? Ever really thought about it? Just who God is? What does it mean when you say 'God?' To whom are you referring? I asked my brother that one time, and he started with all the usual stuff- 'He's the creator of the universe...' etc. etc. But I'm not talking about what he supposedly did. I mean, when you close your eyes and pray to God, who do you think of? What do you see? When you tell others about 'him,' who is the 'he' that you're referring to? Since he's A. invisible, B. intangible, i.e. doesn't have a physical body, C. no longer speaks to us in a human voice, D. no longer manifests himself in clear, obvious ways, like he's said to do in the bible, many times over, and so on... So he has all these 'attributes,' and things he's done and continues to do- created everything, is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-that. And we humans can (and should) - supposedly - have a relationship with him. Ok, so who is he really, then? Think about it, I could tell someone about you guys- someone who's never met you before, doesn't know anything at all about you, never even seen a photo; I could say, 'This is Chuck, I've known him for x years, this is where he lives, what he does, what he's done, etc.' I could attempt to draw a sketch, so they could get some idea of what you look like. Admittedly, my drawing skills are not very good, but even so, I could go so far as to hire a sketch artist and have them draw you based on my description, so that the person I'm describing you to could picture somebody based on the description. True, they would actually have to meet you in order to say they know you, but still, they could get a decent idea of who you are. Even in the case of someone that none of us has ever met, or will meet, such as George Washington, we can still get an idea of who he was, based on stuff he wrote, and stuff that was written about him, but most of all on the fact that he was a human being, just like us, and anyone who's spent a certain amount of time on this planet and has seen enough things in life generally knows what people are like. Not so with 'God.' And I know exactly what the counter-argument is: 'Jesus was God in human form, so we can know what God is like, through Jesus!' Wrong. Flat-out wrong, and on so many levels it's hard to know where to start. I'm told by Christians, and used to tell others the same thing when I was a Christian, that you can have a relationship with Jesus, yes you can. A relationship? The kind where he never talks to me, or anyone else? Even modern Christians would look with a great deal of skepticism on someone who claimed Jesus actually spoke to him in an audible voice. Much more so if they claimed that he told them something ridiculous like, 'I want you to give up everything and be a homeless bum, so you can better witness to homeless people.' Or especially if he said to do something psychotic, like, 'Kill your firstborn child.' Although I don't know why that would be so outrageous, since Jesus is supposedly God incarnate, and God himself told Abraham to kill Isaac. The fact that he changed his mind at the last second is irrelevant; he still told him to kill his son, and Abraham had the knife lifted and was ready to go.
(On a side note, since we're on the subject of the Trinity, I remember one time in church listening to K talk about the Trinity, and how so many people have tried to 'figure it out' (how can he be 'one god, in three persons,' and all that, etc.) and he mentioned a quote that he'd heard before: 'It's been said that if you try to understand the Trinity, you'll lose your mind. If you try to deny the trinity, you'll lose your soul.' In other words- 'Just believe what we tell you to believe. Don't try to make sense of it, don't try to refute it. Or else.' Am I wrong? Because I really don't think I am.)
Getting back to the relationship with Jesus... So he never talks to us, at least not in an audible voice. Ok, so he speaks to our 'heart,' then? What if he tells me something different than what he tells you? What if he tells me that he wants me to move to Hawaii and be a surfer and drink fu-fu drinks with little umbrellas in them? I already know the answer to that- 'He doesn't work that way.' Of course he doesn't. Because whenever he tells someone something that greatly differs from the general 'accepted' idea of how he works, then he just doesn't work that way. It's all so convenient. It makes it so easy to put everyone in a box, or label them as the kind of person 'who thinks they are, but ain't.' It also drastically cheapens the idea of what a 'relationship with Jesus' means in the first place. I can have a relationship with him, but only if it fits with a particular set of beliefs and practices? And if it doesn't, then I'm just plain wrong, or 'deceived.' Or a deceiver. That's a good one. The idea that I really 'know the truth,' but I have some sort of hidden, evil agenda, so I 'deny the truth' and try to lie to others too. I'm just another puppet of the devil, I guess. But anyway, back to this relationship idea, and what I was saying before about how we can get an idea of who some people are even if we've never met them before, and never can meet them. I still maintain that we can't get to 'know' God based on Jesus and the idea that he 'was God' in person. What do we know about Jesus, anyway? Not as much as some people would like to think we do. He himself (allegedly) never wrote any books. Noone ever sketched out any pictures of him. Much of his life before the last few years is almost completely unknown, and what was written about him was written long after his death. But never mind all that, let's just say that everything in the bible that's written about him is 100% accurate (why not, right? Since mortal men didn't write it anyway- God did, so they say). Even with all that, we still can't get a 100% clear picture of who God is just based on that. You know why? Because Jesus is like a cloud, or a Rorschach test- different people look at it and see different things. People look at Jesus and see what they think they should see. There was a line from that DeGarmo & Key song, Radical, 'He's got hair down his back.' Of course he did; because they were Jesus rockers with long hair themselves. Then when the Christian metal scene started out in California and the kids who used to like that kind of music started getting flak from the older generations in their churches for listening to that kind of music, well, wouldn't you know it, that's exactly the kind of music they figured Jesus would listen to these days if he were around now instead of 2000 years ago. You go into a Lutheran church in northern Maine or Minnesota and you're likely to see one of those old-school painting of Jesus on the wall where he's very pail and white with medium-length locks, not too long, not too short. In southern churches he's more dark-skinned. I've been told that in China, he's more Asian-looking, and so on. And the Christians who are fed up with the hypocrisy they see love to quote the verses where Jesus is telling off the Pharisees, or overturning the money table- 'cause Jesus was a badass, just like them! People look at Jesus and see who they want to see. With so many people having so many different ideas about who he is, why couldn't he make things a little more objective? It's like I said in a previous post, why couldn't he have come in say, the 20th century instead of when he did? Then we could at least have photos of him, put a name to the face. Instead, we're left to close our eyes and see- nothing. We're allowed 'no other gods before him,' yet I have to ask- before who? It doesn't do any good to say things like, 'the one who created everything.' That still doesn't tell us anything about who that 'one' is. The Flying Spaghetti Monster claims to be that one, and he has the added bonus of having an actual image that we can picture in our minds. So could I picture in my mind the FSM and say, 'I don't know if that's what God looks like, but I'm going to worship the God who created everything and picture the FSM'? How do we know that God doesn't look like the FSM? Without any kind of idea of what to go on, we're totally left to our imagination, so I don't see why not. How can it be blasphemy, if we're still worshiping the 'one true god?' If I close my eyes and pray to 'the god who created me and everyone and everything, whoever you are,' but picture something specific, is that ok? Can I even ask that question, or am I in danger of going to hell for it? And why do I have to ask other people? Why can't I just go to God himself and ask him directly? And why can't I expect an answer when I do?

Here's a thought- how about we just forget the whole idea of groveling before an invisible, practically unknowable deity who hides himself from us in many ways, and go on living our lives until he sees fit to make himself known in a way that's plain and objective and obvious to everyone?

Coincidence?

2009-10-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

"I don't believe in luck or coincidence."

-- Steve Camp

I don't remember exactly what song that's from, but I used to listen to a lot of Steve Camp's music in my late teens and I can still hear that line playing in my head. I can also recall sitting in church and, on more than a couple of occasions, hearing pastor so-and-so yelling about how there's absolutely no such thing as luck or coincidence. Nope, absolutely not.
I can kind of buy the part about luck- I don't actually believe that 'good' luck is some sort of good fortune that some people inherently have, and 'bad' luck is some sort of misfortune that other people just inherently have; it's all coincidence, really. If I happened to find a $50 bill on the ground one day, then I might say it was my lucky day, but it was really just coincidence that I was the one who happened to find it, and not someone else. It's so easy to find myriad examples of coincidence in everyday life that it's kind of hard to understand why so many Christians flat-out do not believe in it. It's kind of an issue for me here because it doesn't seem to be just a few believers here and there who deny it; in my experience, I find that it's very pervasive in Christian thought. (I didn't just 'happen' to find that $50 right when I needed it to pay for some unexpected expense- God blessed me!) I think it's because they think that it takes away from God being 'in control' of things. It makes him seem even more 'hands off' than he already appears to be. If things 'just happen' by luck or coincidence, then God isn't exactly out there watching over us, intervening when he deems necessary. And then from there, it's only a small step to, 'Well, maybe he doesn't even exist.'
Well, for the coincidence-deniers, I have a few examples of things that appear to me to be one hell of a set of coincidences.

Have you ever noticed that it always seems like the way things just happen to be is always the way that God just happens to work? Or, the way things are in the real world is just how God 'chose to do it?' For instance, the Bible was written thousands of years ago, in Middle Eastern countries- a time and place where women had few, if any, rights at all. God 'just happened' to choose that place in time and geography to inspire men (of course, men) to write his word for all of humanity for all time? And also considering when and where it was written, doesn't it seem like a really big coincidence that God, even though 'he' is supposed to be genderless, 'just happens' to want us to refer to him as being male? Father, Son, Holy Spirit? Why not Father, Mother, Holy Spirit? Why not just Holy Spirit 1, 2, and 3 (or even just the Great Triune Holy Spirit, since 1, 2, and 3 seem a little impersonal)? Considering the anti-female environment of the time, seems like it would've been a great way to show off his power if he'd have included a female element to his persona- 'Dare you challenge my God status? I'll show you...!' and then proceed to call down fire upon their heads or some such similar display of his God-status. (Considering all the people that he killed/had killed in the old testament, it's not like anyone can say he would've been above doing that sort of thing.) I just think that since he wanted us to refer to him with a gender, it would have added to his stature to have included the female gender as well, since of course people would have challenged him on it and then he could really show off his/her/its power and shut all the naysayers up. But, funny how he chose not to do it that way. Funny how he only chose men to be his prophets, and forbid women to teach or have authority over men. Funny how it was the woman who sinned first and led the man to sin too. Funny how it's women who get to bear the pain of childbirth, and not men. So God designed women to be the ones to give birth (though it supposedly would've been pain-free, had Adam and Eve not sinned) and not men? Women who have to go through monthly periods and hormonal changes, and not men? And funny how it was the Son who was the only one who could save humanity, and who himself only chose men to be his disciples. Doesn't this all seem like a bunch of crazy coincidences to you? It does to me. Some might mention the book of Esther, and say she held a place of esteem in God's eyes. Hell, she got an entire book of the Bible named after her. Mary, mother of Jesus; she was well-thought of, as were plenty of other women in the Bible. And the fact that Satan is not a female. (I guess he's technically genderless, having been an angel and all, but in common culture is generally thought of as male.) As for Esther and Jesus' mom and all the other women that modern Christians point to to show that the Bible isn't misogynistic, so what? Taken as a whole (in context, you might say) the Bible is clearly male-centric. As you would expect it to be, considering when and where it was written. As for Satan not being explicitly female, to me that's just a good example of the Bible having been written in a dynamic process, over time- which is to say, a group of guys didn't just get together one day and make up a story and then another group of guys put it together and called it the Bible. Just because us nonbelievers don't accept the Bible as being 'true' doesn't mean we think it's 'just a made-up story' (though I've heard that misconception before). So, looking at the Bible and its history as a whole, I see a whole lot of 'coincidences' in the way God 'chose' to do things. Believers tell me he wants me to believe in him, and the 'evidence' is overwhelming if only I'd consider it with an open heart, but the way God 'chose' to do things sure makes it easy to think that the Bible was just a product of its time and place. Why couldn't he have done it some other way? Some other way that was far more compelling and believable?
Daniel over at Unreasonable Faith had a post awhile back entitled 'How would you reveal yourself?' It wasn't a post, per se, but just a question to his readers- supposing you were an all-knowing, all-powerful (all-that...) deity, and you wanted to reveal yourself to your human creations so that they could know you and choose whether or not to worship you- how would you go about doing it? Never mind the 'Well you're not God, so it doesn't matter,' and 'God is God so whatever way he chose to do it was the Right way,' b.s.- it's a legitimate question, one that should be considered if believers want unbelievers to consider the merits of their faith. Funny how the god of the Bible chose to reveal himself- speaking first thousands of years ago to tribal people- paper hadn't even been invented, for crying out loud! They were writing on papyrus and who knows what else? The ten commandments? Stone tablets! Was that really the best way to go about revealing himself to his creation? I suppose it had to have been, since he's perfect and wouldn't have done something less than perfect. (Or would he?) Fast-forward to the new testament- the old law has to go, it's time for a change; it's time for grace to come in the form of Jesus (which makes me wonder- why was the law even there in the first place? If it was working, why change it; if it wasn't, why bother with it to begin with?). So Jesus comes in, does his work, then charges his disciples and followers with spreading the gospel. I remember in the early days of my faith, long before the internet came around with it's e-mail and instant messages and whatnot, a common question was what about those people who live in far-off lands who haven't heard the gospel? Are they going to hell for not being given a fair shake? After all, if they've never heard of Jesus, how can they be blamed for not believing in him? Then the preacher would point to that verse (in Romans, I think) about how noone was without excuse because all you had to do was look around and you could see Creation, so you just *knew* that there was a Creator (and somehow you were also supposed to know that his name was Yahweh, as opposed to Allah, or whatever). But that brings up a couple of interesting questions- if everyone is without excuse and already 'knows' that there is a creator (called God, named Yahweh) then what's the point of sending out missionaries to lands near and far, preaching the gospel everywhere? That's a whole lot of resources that could be put to other, better use. So why did he did tell us to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations and peoples? And if the ultimate goal is to preach the gospel to all nations and peoples and bring everyone in the world (or at least as many as humanly possible) to a saving knowledge of Jesus, why send Jesus to earth to die for everyone's sins and start the Christian church 2000 or so years ago? The printing press hadn't been invented (and wouldn't be for quite some time) so it's not like you could just go around handing out Bibles to everyone in town. Mass transportation? Sure, a herd of camels. Or you could put a few dozen people on a ship and go to sea for a few weeks before reaching a far-off land. It just seems like if you're an all-knowing deity and you have a fallen race of people, and you want them to have a 'relationship' with you- it seems to me like there would be a better way of going about reaching that goal than the one laid out in Christianity and history. Maybe send Jesus in the year 2000 instead, when the internet is humming along nicely, and air travel is taken for granted? Why not? It's only a couple thousand years later. And since a thousand years are like a day with God, no big deal, right? Could it be, could it just possibly be, because 2000 years ago when Jesus was around doing his thing, people were a lot less knowledgeable about how the natural world worked, and also a lot less skeptical? So when you said that someone walked on water or rose from the dead, it didn't seem totally far-fetched because after all, people could be possessed by demons- something that we don't see any real cases of today, by the way. (Imagine if the illusionist David Copperfield were to go back to that time and perform some of his tricks. He'd be thought of as divine for sure. Or at least having a lot of 'supernatural' powers.) In the old and new testaments God routinely manifested himself in dramatic, unmistakable ways, performing obvious miracles even before the eyes of nonbelievers- but not today. Suppose Jesus never lived at that time and instead showed up in the 21st century and started doing his thing? What then? It'd be a lot harder to pull off, considering some of the things that the world's greatest magicians can do, but on the other hand, if you can just say the word and restore someone's sight- if you're God in human flesh, in other words, then it shouldn't be a problem. And why restore just one person's sight? Why not cure blindness in everyone? Why not heal amputees? Now that's a tough one- somebody survives, say, an 'incurable' deadly brain tumor that absolutely noone realistically expected him to, and everyone thanks God for saving him. But no amputee has ever had their missing limb 'supernaturally' restored. What's so hard about that? Salamanders can do it like it's business as usual. Does God like salamanders more than us? Only relatively recently has medical science been able to do something like that, and even then it's not a 'new limb', it's an artificial, man-made one. How many decades of diligent medical research by thousands of people, and how many millions of dollars have been spent to be able to arrive at that technology? If God would have just built in the ability in us like he did with salamanders, humanity could have saved countless hours of study and millions of dollars- time and money that could have been put to other uses.
Imagine if only Jesus had shown up in the 21st century instead- we do have a whole lot of gullible people nowadays, but we also have a lot of naturally-minded scientists and skeptics, people who want actual, testable proof of stuff before they accept it as true. Jesus could step in and heal some blind people and walk on water and shut up all the skeptics. Turn them into believers, even. Instead, God chose to manifest himself in human flesh 2000 years ago and work 'through' ordinary men who had to write his words on papyrus manuscripts. A quick google search turned up a page over on the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry mentioning 'a fragment of the gospel of John that dates back to around 29 years from the original writing.' A fragment? Again, why not just show up in modern times and write on easily copied paper, or post on the internet for millions (billions, even) to see, and not have to worry about piecing it together thousands of years later from fragments nearly lost to history? Or why not just send him at the beginning? If Jesus coming in to save all of humanity was God's plan all along, why bother with the Law in the first place? Clearly it wasn't working, which is why he had to send Jesus and do away with it. I know, I know, he didn't do it that way, so the way that he did do it must have been the best way because his wisdom is infinite and that's the way he chose to do it; if the way that I mentioned was the best way then he would have chosen that way, etc. etc.
Step back for a minute and look at the bigger picture; look at all the things I've just mentioned, take a minute and think about it for yourself and see what you can come up with as well. Doesn't it seem just a little bit odd the way that he 'chose to do things?' Commanded that the gospel be spread far and wide, yet he starts his church at a point in time when animals are the predominant mode of land transportation. Radio and television? So far off in the future that if you were to describe them to someone in that day, they'd think you were bonkers. Maybe even demon-possessed. Yet they can reach far more people and far easier than the way things were two thousand years ago. And speaking of things being more primitive back when Jesus was around, take it a little further and go back to the garden of Eden- why create a race of people so primitive, with absolutely no knowledge of science or physics or anything of the sort? Knowing that they're going to sin and then have to deal with diseases and such, why not just create them fully advanced, with all the science and medical knowledge and technology we have today? I mean, he was nice enough to equip our bodies with an immune system so we could fight off diseases and such once we got kicked out of the garden, why not go whole hog and give us an advanced knowledge of medicine like we have today- the kind that lets us build robotic limbs that can feel. But not only did he choose not to do anything like that, but he didn't even bother to tell us about that immune system, a little bit of knowledge that would have been handy to know sooner rather than later so we could've started working on making vaccines and saving lives. But getting back to my point, if he'd have created us, say, 20 years ago or so, all fully advanced and whatnot, then, instead of having to piece the Bible together from ancient texts, scattered about and buried in clay jars and such, it could be written electronically and printed and distributed on a massive scale. And we could also trace back human history to the very beginning so much more easily! We could say, 'Sure, God created humanity just a couple decades ago! In fact, let's walk over to where the garden of Eden is right now and look at the angels with the flaming swords, preventing us from getting in.' Would sure make things much easier to believe, wouldn't it? But, the way he chose to do it instead coincides nicely with something you'd expect to see if there there is no supernatural intervention in the world, making it very easy to believe just that. Yet I constantly hear from believers that they 'don't have enough faith to be an atheist;' that it's just so obvious that the way things are laid out in the Bible and taught by Christianity is the way things really are, and anything that contradicts it is just plain wrong (or worse, a flat-out lie). Well it's not obvious to everyone. Do you really think that out of the entire time-line of humanity, out of everyone who has ever not believed, that every single one of those nonbelievers really 'knew the truth,' but chose to ignore it? That not one of the millions of nonbelievers (or people who believed in a different god or faith) over the years had actual intellectual and logical reasons for not believing? Because that's what the Christianity I used to be a part of says, and what the Christianity that I'm still surrounded by now says.

Some might say to me, ''Who are you to judge God? Who are you to tell him what he can and cannot do, should and should not do, what's good or bad. He's God, so if he does something and calls it good, then it's good, no matter what 'we' think or if we like it.' I've heard those arguments before. To those people, I say, 'Who are you to tell me what God wants for my life, what he says and doesn't say, likes and doesn't like, is like and is not like, and then tell me that it's not you saying it, but him 'saying it through you?' Throughout history 'God's people' have had a reputation for getting it wrong (and never admitting to it when they know they're wrong) so how do they know they've got it right this time? It goes back to what I said before- I can think for myself and decide for myself- 'they' don't get to decide for me. In fact, I wish 'they' would just shut their pie-holes and let God speak for himself.

Creationistic Hoo-Ha

2009-10-05T20:45:00.000-07:00

Daniel Florien over at Unreasonable Faith recently wrote a post entitled 'Creationism In the Jaws of the Lion' (very much worth reading; it's not a very long post) and it echoes exactly something that I was planning on talking about here at some point anyway, so I might as well do it now, while it's fresh in my mind. I've mentioned a couple of times that, when I was still a believer, I was having questions that I wasn't getting any satisfactory answers for. This is one of those questions. And it's not a bogus question, either, some abstract thought experiment to 'prove' that God doesn't exist (Do [insert made-up word/nonexistent entity here] exist? No? Then that's proof that there's no God, because if there was a God, then such and such would exist!) It's not like that at all. Awhile ago I mentioned that at one point towards the end of my faith, I decided to read the Bible from start to finish as if I'd never read it in my life, as objectively as possible. It's amazing, absolutely amazing, the kind of perspective you gain when you do something like that. No preconceived notions about anything, no making excuses for difficult problems that arise. And one of those problems that I had was that I used to think (had always been taught...) that life was 'designed' (and by only one Designer, of course); I remember going on a hike up Katahdin one time with a group of guys from church, and was talking with one of them on the way up and I said how it just seemed so obvious to me- there's design, there must be a designer. I mentioned how every single animal has some sort of defense mechanism against predators; even if it's insignificant, they still have one (looking back, I don't see how that's any sort of evidence for the existence of a deity- so animals have a defense mechanism for avoiding being eaten- so what? All that really proves is that they don't want to be eaten by predators). Well, putting aside the fact that probably not every single animal has one (I don't want to make definitive claims here and say that no, not every single animal has one- sheep come to mind; if you consider the cold to be a predator, then I guess they do, but that wool doesn't really do much to protect against wolves and coyotes) there's still the problem of death by 'design' and the struggle for survival. If we're to take Genesis literally, as mainstream fundamentalist Christianity teaches, then there was no death anywhere in the world until after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. None. Everything was 'designed' to live forever, and supposedly would have if only the First Couple had just listened to God and not ate the fruit. But if nothing died, what would the carnivores have eaten? As Daniel points out, 'If lions were designed, they were designed to be killing machines.' I actually read somewhere that Answers in Genesis and their creation museum teach that some dinosaurs that we know to be carnivorous, were actually vegetarian (before the Fall)! Really! (I think they said that animals like the T-rex used their strong teeth and claws to crack coconuts.) So before the fall, there were no carnivores? Everyone and everything that eats ate plants and veggies? What about sharks? Squid? Barracudas? All vegetarian? Well, I guess if you take Genesis literally they'd have to have been. Granted, God did say he gave us all the seed-bearing plants as food, and as I recall, Genesis doesn't mention that food being for sea creatures, only 'every living thing that walks on the ground.' So maybe the sea creatures could be carnivores, but not the land animals. But still- the Creationist camp (Intelligent Design, as they prefer these days) teaches that death entered the world through Adam's sin- before that, no death. But then there's this problem: plants are living things too. Not in the way that people and animals are, but living nonetheless. And plants die, so which is it? Well, I guess we'll have to 'clarify' the no-death teaching to mean death of sentient beings, or humans and animals, as we know them. Plants don't count, since God did say he gave them to us as food (even though the bible also says 'death entered the world through one man...'). But what counts as 'sentient?' The bible doesn't exactly clarify such things. Are mosquitoes sentient? Bacteria? Who knows?
Ok, let's set aside the whole idea about plants dying, and fish being exempt from the 'no death' rule- let's just talk about land animals. They weren't supposed to die, but according to the ID'ers, it appears God designed them to eat other animals, and in turn, be eaten by other animals. Take a field mouse and an eagle, for example. The eagle has eyes that are 'designed' to be able to see the mouse hiding in the field up to a mile away. But the mouse has fur that generally matches the color of it's environment, to better hide from predators and not get eaten. Lots of other animals have their own unique 'designs' for catching prey/avoiding predators, from color-changing octopuses to the cheetahs that can run 70 mph to the owls that can see so well at night to the razor sharp teeth and powerful jaws of the great white shark that can cut a seal in half with one bite. So even though death supposedly wasn't part of God's original 'plan,' he outfitted all the animals with the tools they'd need to catch food/avoid getting eaten- so after Adam's Fall, they could fight for their lives, literally. Yet it's not a perfect system, as the mouse sometimes gets away, and sometimes gets eaten. Seems God wanted life to struggle for its survival. All of this, and so much more, makes so much more sense in the light of unguided natural evolution. Yet, can you be a Christian and accept evolution? Not with the Christianity I was part of, which is why I mentioned earlier that it wouldn't even matter if I did come back to some sort of faith- I'd be labeled as one of those who 'think they are [Christians] but are not.' I do know of some Christians who can reconcile evolution with their faith; not sure how many of the ones I know personally do because it's never come up in conversation, but I've come across many others through their writings online who do- one example being the author of The First Morning blog over there in the links section. These are people who have the same faith in Christ as the folks I used to count myself among, yet they also accept the findings of modern biology, and other sciences. Yet, according to those in the ID community, there can be no reconciliation- those people are simply 'deceived.' And folks like myself, who don't believe at all, are part of a vast, Left-wing conspiracy to suppress the truth, because we hate God. See, we promote evolution, not because a multitude of science supports it, but because we know that 'according to the Bible,' you can't believe in both God and evolution together, and we want to eradicate God from society completely. So we've infiltrated many branches of science- not just biology, but paleontology, geology, physics, and astronomy. We've infiltrated them worldwide, and over many generations, not just passing down our teachings to the next generation, but completely brainwashing them to believe whatever we say. And of course, we control all major universities and science publications, filtering out as many God-believing teachers and professors and their research papers as we can. Why? Because we hate God. (That's what Ben Stein, Ken Ham, Phillip Johnson, and others would have you believe.) You'd think the fact that there are those people who do believe in God, and even identify as Christians, would kind of shoot that idea down completely- they don't hate God, they worship him. So see? We can all just get along and work together to continue teaching and promoting science- us atheists without saying, 'God did it,' and the Christians saying the opposite. Oh but wait, I almost forgot- those Christians who believe in evolution have been 'deceived.' Probably because they just accepted what the atheistic college professors taught them without question. Well here's a question- if someone who identifies as a Christian who accepts evolution- and there are many- who reads the Bible and sincerely prays for God's guidance, fellowships, goes to church, 'seeks truth' in everything, and does all the other things that 'real' Christians do- if someone like that can be 'deceived...' then how is it that they are the one who is 'being deceived,' and never the other way around? You have two camps of people who are the same in every way, except one accepts evolution, and the other does not, so naturally the ones that do are just plain wrong. It's inconceivable that it could be the other way around.

Getting back to the idea of 'design...' Creationists would have us believe that we're 'designed'- and that it's blatantly obvious. It used to seem obvious to me. Our bodies seem to work just right to do the things we need and want to do, so they must have been 'designed' by a 'Designer,' right? And when they don't work 'right' it's because we live in a fallen world and those are just the effects of sin, the decay that started after Adam and Eve decided to disobey God. At first glance, it seems so obvious. But then when you start to think about it a little more critically, it doesn't seem so obvious at all. What would things have to be like for us to think that we weren't designed? Suppose all humans were normally born with just one eye, with no eyelid or protective cover, on the tops of our heads, so that we had to 'look down' in order to see ahead of us. Suppose that we had only one ear, but without the 'ear' part that channels the sound into our heads- just a hole somewhere in our heads for hearing purposes? Suppose also that we had two arms, like we do now, but only one hand, and that hand had only two fingers (and no thumb)? And the arms were straight, with no elbows to bend? Suppose also that we had no nose to smell with or breath through, but only our one mouth. And suppose that one of our knees bent in the opposite direction that they do now, so that walking would be so different from what we know it as today that you really couldn't even consider it 'walking?' As long as we humans could have adapted well enough to survive as a species (and we probably could have) then you could still say, 'Oh wow, look at the wonderful, amazing design, there must have been a Designer!' It absolutely does not matter what our bodies, as a species in general, are like- we could all have no skeletons, like jellyfish, but as long as we could adapt to survive as a species you could point to that and say, 'designed!' But we do have skeletons (internal, as opposed to external like other species) and we do have two eyes, in the front of our heads, and knees that bend in such a way as to facilitate walking and running, and all that. So don't you ever wonder why God designed us in the way that he did, and not some 'other' way? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? The way he chose was the best way for us, of course. If it wasn't, he would have done it in some other way. Right? I mention all this, because for me, and for a lot of other people, it's not so damn obvious. Seems like he could have done things different, and better. The reason we have things like birth defects and failing eyesight is because of 'the fall?' Eagles have some pretty amazing eyesight; 'the fall' doesn't seem to have affected their eyes all that much. Surely God could have designed us in the same way so that we too could see so well. Maybe also given us excellent night vision like cats and owls have. And instead of protecting our most sensitive organs inside of a skeleton made of bone, which can break relatively easily, surely he could have given us a skeleton made of steel, which can withstand much more force than bone. Or maybe originally, before the fall, our bones weren't breakable. Maybe the fact that bones break is simply a result of the decay that entered the world through sin. Another thing that seems not very well thought out to me is the fact that our trachea and esophagus are so close together; and since we take in food and air/oxygen through the same hole(s) in our head, our nose and mouth, and since we can't breathe and swallow at the same time, it's actually very easy to choke to death. If I was going to design a living being, I'd make it so that they can breathe and swallow at the same time, so that if some food or foreign object got stuck in their throat, they'd at least have a couple of days to try and remove the blockage before they died of thirst. Hell, I'd make it so they could eat and drink and breathe all through different parts that didn't conflict with each other; that way if they got something stuck in their throat, they could survive for a very long time before suffering any ill effects. But, I'm not God, and since he's supposedly perfect and has infinite wisdom, I guess his way was best after all, right? But since choking is such a real threat for all humans, and presumably has been ever since the fall, the least he could have done was given one of his prophets divine instructions for performing the Heimlich maneuver, instead of leaving humanity to wait until the mid-1970's when Henry Heimlich first published his article outlining the procedure. Surely many thousands of lives could have been saved over the years had people just known about the move.
Can I even say any of this? I mean, basically I'm calling into question God's wisdom, saying I could have thought of something better- me, a lowly human being with (very) finite wisdom, thinking I could have built a better mousetrap. Is that blasphemy? Am I losing brownie points with every question I raise, edging myself even closer to the pit of hell than I already am? I certainly don't think so. I think anyone and everyone should be able to ask any questions they want of God, without being afraid that they've crossed some line, without being afraid that, 'Oh now you've gone and done it, you asked the 'wrong' question and done made him mad.' And I think we all deserve honest answers to those questions, answers directly from God. Not from people, claiming to speak on his behalf, saying, 'Well, that's just how he chose to do it, and since he's all-knowing, all-powerful, infinitely loving, etc., etc., etc., it must have been the 'right' way, so you have no right to question, doubt, or say otherwise.' That is not an answer. That's just saying that 'however things happen to be, that's how God chooses to work.' Which seems like an awfully big coincidence to me (not to mention a major-league cop-out). And since most Christians I know emphatically do not believe in coincidence, that last saying is what I'll be talking about in my next post.

Those damn Bereans...

2009-09-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (Acts 17:11 NIV)

Not the most often quoted verse I've heard, but I did hear it quite a bit. It was usually in the context of, 'Don't believe something just because that's what you were always taught. Do your own research to find out for yourself if something's true.'
Yeah, great, be like the Bereans; they're so damn respectable because they do their own research and read the bible for themselves and think for themselves and don't believe something just because Paul said it was so... Well in my experience, that's a respectable position to take only if you come to the right conclusion. The right conclusion, of course, being that the main tenets of Christianity are true, and in a literal sense. If you come to just about any other conclusion, no matter how honest and careful, and 'in pursuit of the truth' your research is, you're just plain wrong. And not only are you wrong, but your motives are probably suspect too: you hate God, you 'don't want to answer to anyone but yourself,' you want to live a sinful life, you want to 'believe what you want to believe,' etc, etc... It's absolutely unthinkable (unpossible, even) that maybe you simply looked at all the available evidence for and against Christianity, you looked with an open mind and 'an open heart,' and came to the logical conclusion that the 'for' evidence just wasn't strong enough to warrant belief. That there are too many other, better explanations.
Or (possibly even worse) you read the bible, go to church, maybe teach Sunday School... you call yourself a Christian, but you take a far less literal interpretation of the bible, like Bishop Spong, like a lot of (most?) Unitarians, or other 'liberal' branches of faith. You do all that because you're like those noble Bereans who thought for themselves, but because you didn't come to the 'right' conclusion, you get no respect for thinking for yourself. I guess I can kind of understand that, though- it's hard enough to really respect someone when you strongly disagree with them, but then throw into the mix the 'us vs. them' and 'we must battle because we're in a spiritual war' mindset of fundamentalism and it's pretty much a lost cause.
But this really isn't about the whole 'liberal vs. conservative' Christian thing (well, kind of it is, because I just think it's so ironic and stupid to argue about faith- something that, by definition, can't be proven- 'my faith is the one true faith, not yours!' If you could prove it, it wouldn't be faith, would it? And, if you have faith, you don't need evidence; if you have evidence, you don't need faith). It's about me, going from mainstream fundamentalist* to atheist, due to being like those noble Bereans and thinking for myself.
I can remember more than a couple of occasions being in church and listening to pastor so-and-so rail against the people who, when you ask them why it is that they believe the things they believe, they say, 'Well, that's just what I was always taught,' or, 'That's just what I've always believed.' And pastor so-and-so would rant and rave and yell about what a stupid position that was to take- you should never believe something just because 'that's what you were always taught.' And he'd be right- you shouldn't. But I think he needs to take it a step further and say that you should also learn how to think critically. Churches tend to not do that very often (I think it's because if you learn to think critically, as well as think for yourself, you might just end up disagreeing with them).

Here's what I find ironic- I was 'always taught' that the bible is the inspired, infallible, authoritative Word of God. I was 'always taught' that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit. I was 'always taught' that Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a perfect and sinless life, performed miracles, died as an atonement for the sin of humanity, was resurrected and went back to heaven to be with God, and that we can have a personal relationship with him. I was 'always taught' that the creation account in Genesis should be taken literally-that Adam and Eve were the literal first two humans and that all life today was present, more or less in the same form, at the beginning. Death came afterwards, as a result of Adam disobeying God, the flood (and Noah's ark) was a literal event, etc., etc. That's what I was 'always taught,' and that's what I had always believed. I didn't necessarily believe it because that's what I was taught (except maybe at first, when I was much younger); I did do my own research- read the bible, studied apologetics, etc. but then after awhile, after I started having more and more difficult questions and was not getting any satisfactory answers, I managed to also learn how to think critically, and think for myself. Sort of like those Bereans. (I can hear the argument now, because I've made it myself- 'What's all this crap about thinking for yourself? I think for myself and I happen to believe all that stuff you no longer believe. All of us already do 'think for ourselves.' Well, sure, all of us do 'think for ourselves' to a point- some people think the rapture will be pre-trib, others post-, and still others mid-. Sure, everyone thinks for themselves, and mainstream fundamentalism doesn't have any problem with that at all until you start to disagree with some 'established' idea, and have solid reasons for doing so, i.e. I don't believe there's going to be a rapture because, based on logic, evidence, and critical thought, I can honestly no longer believe in such things.) Yet I don't hear anyone mentioning Acts 17:11 when talking about people like myself. Not once has anyone ever said to me that even though they disagree with me 100%, they still respect the fact that I came to my own conclusions about the bible/god/jesus/etc.

A lot of people who are critical of atheists/atheism like to say that we just 'don't like God' or what the idea of God means for our lives. My problem isn't so much with God, as with what people say about him. Lots and lots of statements are made, many specific, some broad and vague. Some people, after doing all kinds of research and study and investigating, can reach some sort of agreement with those statements. I can't. And it doesn't involve any ulterior motives of any kind. I studied, prayed, researched, examined, asked questions, prayed some more, studied some more, and all of that. I was a Berean, you might say. I just happened to come to a different conclusion. Obviously lots of people disagree with it. They strongly believe that I'm 'wrong.' And I respect their right to believe that, but it is my honest conclusion, for my life.

They don't get to think for me. They don't get to decide for me.

*Mainstream fundamentalist- some might say that's an oxymoron, that fundies are in the minority, and therefore not mainstream. Well, the specific church that I attended for many years was very mainstream- a 'mega-church' even (though this local church was relatively small compared to 'sister' churches in places like California. But around the time I left, they were doing 3 Sunday services, with, I believe, a total membership of around 1000 people, and (I've been told) an annual budget of around $1 million). This particular church (the whole branch, not just that local church) identifies strongly with Answers in Genesis, the ministry that started the Creation Museum. (Tell me that's not fundamentalist.) So... mainstream fundamentalist. In any case, I'm not here to argue semantics.

Still here...

2009-09-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

Just been busy. I have no idea who, if anyone, reads this. And I'm not supposed to care, since, like I said in the intro, it's just a letter to some friends/online journal, but since I do post comments on other blogs occasionally and leave this URL as a link, I figure other people might stop by once in awhile. So, just thought I'd let you know, it's far from being over. I have a whole lot of stuff that I want to get written down here still. If the topic interests you at all, do the RSS thing, or check back once in awhile. I'm hoping to get a little busier with it in the next few weeks or so.

2009-08-05T18:02:00.000-07:00

So that's it- those were the two big things for me. Those two things, more than anything else, really led me to walk away from my faith. There were definitely other things along the way, no doubt, but it's been a really long time and I can't remember any of the specifics. Whatever other things there were have gotten mixed in with all of the other issues I've been thinking about since then.
So all of the following posts are going to be along those lines- a mix of all the stuff that's been going through my mind since that time; stuff I've thought about and re-thought about, problems I have with what I used to believe and problems I have with accepting what Christians try to tell me nowadays. Basically, why I can never be a Christian again. Read on, if you're so inclined. It's not going to be elegant writing, that's for sure; I'll probably repeat a lot of stuff, because I tend to do that. I'll probably jump around to totally different topics a lot, repeat myself some more, and generally not explain things the way I'd like to. But at least I'll have said all the stuff I've wanted to say to you, but never could; and hopefully, by writing it down here, I can finally stop thinking about it so damn much. (But mostly I just hope I can answer some of the questions you've had over the years, without raising too many more.)

Turning Points (II)

2009-07-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

"Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted you."
-Mark 11:24 NASB

That verse played a key role in changing the direction of my life. I know, I know, you gotta take the Bible as a whole, not just pick one or two, or even several, verses and try and make something from that, believe me, I know. But this verse had been giving me some trouble for awhile. Don't remember exactly when, or why, since I'd no doubt read it countless times before and never had a problem with it, but for some reason it started really sticking out to me and not making much sense. After all, how many times have you heard that Jesus 'says what he means, and means what he says?' I've heard it countless times, and it's usually said in a forceful voice and with an air of authority, like the speaker is a politician's right-hand man on the campaign trail-
'Candidate A says what he means and means what he says, and you can take that to the bank!'
They say it like he just speaks in an Everyman's language, plain and simple and direct, no way to misunderstand the words or the meaning behind them. So what to make of this verse, then? It's pretty plain and simple and direct. Ask, and you shall receive, right? Well, obviously he wasn't talking about anything and everything, like he's just some spiritual Sugar Daddy, waiting to hand out new cars and winning lottery tickets, right? Obviously. But I knew that. I didn't read the verse that way, because I knew better than to take things out of context, picking a verse here and there to support the things I wanted the Bible to say, like the so-called 'Name-it-claim-it' folks. I knew better than that. But I was still having trouble with it because what about the other stuff; the things that God probably does want for our lives, the things that Christians everywhere ask for in all sincerity in their prayers (whatever those things might be)? That's what I was having trouble with. Especially since over in Matthew 18:19 it says, 'Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven.'
So what about that? He tells us in his plain and simple and direct language to ask. Just ask, and you shall recieve (or, 'it shall be done'). Either way, when taken at face value it simply isn't true. And remember, I'm not talking about asking for 'worldly things.' I'll get into some specific 'things' later, but for now just think about some of the things that you might pray for that maybe seem to be answered with a 'yes' and maybe they don't. But there is no 'maybe' in the verse. There's no 'no' in the verse. It's just 'ask, and you shall receive.' And it was really starting to bug me. I couldn't seem to figure it out. So, one night on a Wednesday- I had stayed home from church for some reason- I happened to be listening to the radio call-in program 'To Every Man An Answer' (similar to The Bible Answer Man, where you call in with questions about the Bible and Christianity) and decided to call those guys and ask them about it. So I asked them my question, making sure to note that I was ruling out any sort of 'name-it-claim-it' b.s. I just wanted an honest answer to the question of 'why?' Why does he say ask and you shall receive, and yet countless prayers go unanswered. All I remember the guy saying was that 'Jesus wasn't giving us carte blanche to ask for whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted it.' He said some other stuff besides that, but I think I stopped listening at that point. What a letdown. What a huge, huge letdown. I don't know exactly what I was looking for for an answer, but I was hoping for something with a little more substance than 'he's not giving us carte blanche to ask for whatever we want, whenever we want...' Of course he wasn't. Obviously he wasn't; I knew that. Tell me something I don't know. That was the purpose of the call- to maybe give me a little insight, help me see things differently, and maybe understand a little better. It might have been better if he'd just said, 'Y'know, I don't know, that verse really stumps me too.' I seem to recall them offering up 'I don't know' as an answer at times to other peoples' calls (not, however, for 'interpretation' issues). And that's fine- you don't know, just say so. I can appreciate that kind of honesty. But I really don't like attempted answers that really don't answer anything at all. This phone call was a very long time ago, and so my memory of all the details may be a little foggy, but I do recall him giving me that answer quite readily- no long pause, no 'hmmmm.... let me think...' And he (as I recall) sounded quite confident too; pretty sure of himself. I suppose part of that is just the radio business- you kind of have to be clear and confident and ready to go when it comes to a national call-in show. Voice is everything in radio. To be fair, when he was done 'answering' my question, he did ask me if that helped me, and I did say yes, even though it really didn't. I suppose I could've said no, and pressed for more. I'm not sure why I didn't. Maybe I realized deep down right then and there that it wouldn't matter. What else could he say, really? I'd spent enough time pondering it on my own, and he and his co-host offered up their thoughts, so what more could be said? Afterwards, I spent a lot of time thinking on that phone call and what they'd said, and how I'd felt about their answer.

And I came to this conclusion: 'Why should I listen to these clowns?'

I don't mean to say that they're just a joke, by calling them clowns, but that's what I felt at the time. And really, why should I listen to them when it comes to these types of questions? Why should I listen to them or any other 'expert?' This isn't rocket science we're talking about here. Hell, it's not even science. It's, 'what do you think it means?' It's not like I was trying to figure out Fermat's Last Theorem, or some other advanced math problem, where there is a hard-and-fast, right-or-wrong answer, as well as a method for finding it; it's not even like I was asking for relationship advice for my troubled marriage. Even that would be different because even though there are no absolute right-or-wrong answers in relationship advice because everyone's is different, a lot of people have experience that they can draw on, and offer useful advice. But this wasn't about anything like that; it was about, 'What do you think he meant?' So why should their opinions be any more valid than mine? Sure, they may have studied the Bible, and it's history, for many more years than I have, but the Bible doesn't change (for better or worse). The verses are exactly the same when he studies them as they are when I study them, so when I read the Bible with an open mind and an open heart and come away with a different take than him, or you, or pastor so-and-so, what makes anyone else more 'right' than me? My brother likes to say, 'There's only one way to interpret the Bible- the right way.' Ok, so what exactly is 'the right way,' and what if my interpretation is different than yours? If we have differing interpretations, and if they both can't be right (although both could be wrong) then how are we supposed to decide which one (if any) is the right one? I've heard Chuck Missler say that 'we use the Bible to interpret the Bible' (yeah, he's quite good at talking a lot of utter nonsense). My experience and my observation is that 'the other guy' is always wrong. Always.
Since even Christians can't agree with unanimity on everything the Bible says, how is it we're supposed to be able to know what this 'right' way is?
Here's what I think- anyone who believes that there's only one single 'right' way to interpret what the Bible is saying is deceiving themselves.

I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say on this later, but I just want to sum up by saying that that phone call was a turning point for me. It made me realize that when it comes to matters of faith, my thoughts and opinions and ideas are no less valid than anyone else's. It helped me learn how to think for myself. Never mind asking, 'What do you think about such-and-such?' It's 'What do I think?' Other peoples' thoughts and opinions are valid and can be helpful in forming my own, but the bottom line for me, especially when it comes to intangibles like,
'What do you suppose Jesus meant when he said...,'
the bottom line for me is that I can, and will, decide for myself.

Turning Points (I)

2009-07-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

There's a book I have listed over in the sidebar called, 'Losing Faith In Faith,' by Dan Barker. You might recognize the name, as he was apparently a big name in evangelical Christianity in the late-60's and 70's, but that was before my time in the faith, so I'd never heard of him until after I left my own faith and found his book. It's a book that I highly recommend, to anyone. I've already read it twice, and am working on a third time. He's a lot more well-spoken than I am and says a lot of the things that I want to say, only better. His de-conversion process took place over a five year period, one that he describes as, 'painful.' I think my own took place over a period of about 2-3 years, and yes, it also was painful. Very much so. I imagine that it's similar to going through a difficult divorce, since, in a sense, that's kind of what it is. It also leaves us ex-believers in kind of an odd spot- people who've always been atheists tend to wonder how we could have ever believed in the first place, and old Christian friends (as well as other believers) well, they tend to have a whole laundry list of reasons why we no longer believe- everything from, 'we never did' to, 'we still do, we just don't want to own up to it and bow down to God.' It's really, really hard for anyone who hasn't gone through this to truly relate or understand. I don't expect you guys to be able to fully understand- simply because you haven't gone through this yourselves- but hopefully I can at least give you an idea. I did not just wake up one day and say, 'Enough of this crap, it's over.' Or, 'I'm tired of doing what God wants me to do, it's time to do what I want to do.'
I can't remember every single thing that led me to where I am now, entire conversations I've had with people, the way some people apparently can, but there's two main things that really stand out in my mind that really had an impact on me and my thought process, and still do to this day. These two things, I think more than anything else, led me to where I am today. Ironically, the first one was during a sort of bible study at church. It was actually some sort of class- I can't remember exactly what it was about, but the main church out in California (I want to avoid too many names, but I'm talking about K's church here, not the Nazarene church) they have some sort of bible college going on. And apparently, they offer the curriculum for sale, minus the college credit, at a reduced price to other member churches- the idea being that you could get the education of the classes without going for whatever degree was being offered. Good for folks who couldn't actually make it out there to attend, or who weren't interested in a degree, but still wanted the opportunity to be able to study under some really smart guys (being that they were college professors, and all). In the end though, as I remember it, it was basically just a bible study. They had several different courses available and one or another was picked out to start off with. I think they figured on meeting up once a week for 6-8 weeks or something like that, but I actually only ended up making it to, I think, two before I called it quits- I was living in Union at the time (at least I had a car by this point, so no more hitchhiking, or I wouldn't have been able to make it at all, since it was at night and I had to work the next day) and since I was already coming up on Sundays anyway, I really didn't have the extra time or gas money.
So here I am, in this 'class,' with maybe 5 or 6 other guys. I can't remember exactly what the subject was about, the 'nature of God' or some such thing, but that particular night we were going over something from Romans about how Jesus was 100% God, yet also 100% man (human) at the same time (sorry, I really can't be bothered to look up the exact verse(s). And everyone was tripping on it, like, 'How can this be? I don't get it, I just don't get it!' There was a lot of discussion, a lot of going back and forth, slapping of foreheads, and they were talking about how you could 'practically hear the fuses blowing' in their heads. And they totally relished it too! They seemed like they were having a really great time, not understanding. Me, I'm just sitting back taking it all in, watching, listening. That's just how I am; I'm not much of a talker. But it kept going on and on, they were stuck on that one passage, really making a big deal out of it, like they'd never read it before in their lives. And at one point, I just remember thinking something like, 'Why don't you just ask him to explain it to you, then? Why don't you just go to the Guy that wrote the book and ask Him?' (Not those exact words, of course, but that's the gist of it.) I didn't say that, of course, since that's not how I am; that's also not 'how things work'- you don't just pull up a chair and invite Jesus to join the discussion you're having about him. So I just kept on listening and watching, and I don't remember thinking too much about it afterwards. It really didn't seem like that big a deal at the time. I'm not sure when it did become a big deal, but at some point, it did.
I don't know why it never occurred to me before, or, if it did, why it never meant as much as it did then and does now. I don't know how other people can think about it and it doesn't seem to affect them like it did me. I guess it's all part of the 'mystery of God's ways,' as Dan Barker said in his book. Except that it's not, anymore. Not for me, anyway. Think about those words for a minute-

'Why don't you just ask him to explain it to you, then? Why don't you just go to the Guy that wrote the book and ask Him?'

To this day that is one of the biggest problems ever that I have with my old faith. Isn't one of the core teachings of Christianity that you can know God? Know him personally? Have a relationship with him? It's practically one of the foundations. Take that away, and you're basically back in the Old Testament where the average guy definitely can't talk to God directly, but instead has to go through a high priest
or Moses, or whoever. I remember hearing countless sermons railing against the Catholic church because of having to confess to the priests and all that- 'No,' they said. 'Jesus took all that away! You don't have to go through anyone anymore, you can go straight to the Lord himself (through Jesus)! Except that, really, you can't. Can you? I mean, that's what they say, but when it really comes down to it, it doesn't work that way. When it really comes down to it, those guys in that class were left to themselves, slapping their foreheads and talking about fuses blowing in their minds. Why not just ask God to explain it all, make it simple? Make it so we can understand? (No need to say it because I can hear it now, because I've heard it countless times before- 'But He has made it simple! He has made it so we can understand!') But there they were, asking themselves. Arguing and debating and going back and forth and back and forth, trying to figure it all out. There was no clear answer for them (not that they seemed to mind- 'All we know is that, yes, he's 100% God, and 100% man at the same time, but we don't know how or why or...' Can't explain it, we just know that it's true.'). I don't pay much attention anymore to theological discussions within the church, but I would imagine that people are still trying to figure out that idea, as well as countless others, just like they always have been, just like they always will be.

There was a post over on Unreasonable Faith recently, that I think sums it up perfectly. Just a photo, and I'm normally not too keen on these 'Demotivational' poster ripoffs, but I think this one is worth it-

It's always, always, always humans doing the talking. One of the commenters on that particular post had this to say, in response to a comment by someone else-

'You’re right… God could come to us in the form of a man… we’d probably kill him, but then he’d rise from the dead… oh wait… that all happened and people still don’t believe. God has given us every reason already to believe in him, even outside of Jesus, we see the existence of God in nature...'

But, by a really strange coincidence... that was a person who posted that comment! God may have been speaking through him (or he may not have been) but it was still a person doing the writing. Along those lines, think about how the internet has changed the volume of debate- before the internet, you had to to write books, or newsletters, or hold public debates, or whatever. Now, you've got countless- countless- blogs and newsgroups, forums and chatrooms, where all people do is debate one side or the other. People. Debating. About God. God's not doing the debating. The people are.
Us nonbelievers, sure, we have to speak up for ourselves, make our own case, because really, who else will? We don't have an Ultimate Authority who will speak for us. But have you ever really wondered what God's doing while all these countless debates are going on in his name? I picture him sitting on the edge of a chair, rooting for his favorite commenters on his favorite blogs/forums/chatrooms, pumping his fist in the air and saying, 'You tell him! You tell him!' I don't mean to sound flip or sarcastic, but really- from the Christian point of view, what is the point of it all? Why should anyone have to go to bat for God? Speak for him? Defend him? Can't he speak for himself? Or is it that old, 'He's speaking through his people' bit? Funny, though, how God always speaks through people, and not directly to people. Funny how he always uses their own voice, or their own pen, or their own word processor, to speak through them. Funny how he speaks through them, unless or until they're found to be telling lies, like Mike Warnke was, or until they're found to be a closet homosexual, like Ted Haggard is. Funny how God chooses to work that way, eh?

I remember seeing an interview not so long ago that Bill Maher did with Mike Huckabee, and he asked him something along those lines, about how God speaks to us. Huckabee answered pretty much the way he had to, the way everyone does when pressed on such matters- God speaks to our hearts, our souls, it's the 'still small voice,' it's the child's laughter, it's the quiet time by the stream, etc., etc., etc. Because whenever someone says that God actually speaks to him or her, like has a conversation with them or something, they are rightly looked on as nuts, even by Christians. God just doesn't work that way. (Of course he doesn't work that way. Why would he? It would certainly clear up a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding, wouldn't it?) So then what of all this talk about 'relationship' and knowing God personally and intimately? I still remember the whole, 'It's not religion, it's a relationship,' argument. Religion is all those other belief systems, the ones that don't include the God of the Bible (or do but add lots of man-made rules, like the Catholic church does); we're all about relationship, specifically one with Jesus. But what does that even mean if you can't actually talk with him? Ask him questions and expect real answers? With God, it's always a one-way conversation.
'You can know him personally,' they say. 'He can (and should) be your best friend,' but when you need real answers for real problems (including doubts about your faith) what you get is a 'still small voice;' one you can't even hear with your own ears because he 'doesn't work that way.' And even if you did hear a voice, who could you tell? Because even Christians look on that sort of thing with a great deal of skepticism. All you're really left with is prayer and talking to other believers, asking them what they think. Which leads me to turning point number 2. But that's for the next post. For now, I just want to say one last thing. Possibly, my tone here has come off a little strong; a little 'anti-God'. Some Christians reading this may think so, and vice versa, if there's any unbelievers reading this, they may think just the opposite. Let me be clear, this post, this blog, is not some sort of 'attack' on God, the idea of God, you, your faith, anyone's faith. A lot of Christians tend to look at any statement of unbelief as such-

I'm listing off reasons why I don't believe, so therefore it's an attack on everyone who does believe.

Not at all. Like I say in the 'About Me' section, this is just an '...online journal where I try and clear my mind of all the thoughts, doubts, questions, and other bullshit that has been building up...' And that is what all of these posts are- honest thoughts, doubts and questions that I've had now for over 10 years. And one thing I've learned over the years, is that for all peoples' talk about respecting truth and honesty, a lot of it is just that- talk. The truth hurts. A lot, sometimes. Everyone says they want the truth, and they don't seem to mind when other people get offended over hearing it, but when you start saying things like, 'How's this for honesty- I'm not a believer anymore. In fact, I can't believe anymore,' all of a sudden things are different and you find that maybe folks don't appreciate honesty as much as they'd like to think they do.
So this is just my place to be honest. I hope you'll understand.

So... what the hell happened to me? (III)

2009-06-22T23:50:00.001-07:00

Sometime not long after I came out as an atheist to my brother, we were talking about it, and he mentioned to me that one of the members of our church thought I'd turned away for 'sexual reasons,' i.e. God forbids sexual immorality, I want to be sexually immoral and fool around with the ladies, so I basically convinced myself that there is no God- so now I can do as I please, yay! He never said who it was that said that, and I never asked, but I really hoped it was someone who maybe just didn't know me very well, and not someone I thought of as a friend, because I was pretty pissed about that and would have ended up having a whole lot less respect for that person than I did previously. I can't say we wouldn't have been friends anymore over that because we probably wouldn't have been anyway- most of my old friends from that church and I ended up parting ways shortly after it became clear that not only was I a godless heathen but probably would remain so. The reason I bring that up is because it falls into a category of 'reasons' that us ex-christians (as well as those who never were) hear all the time- that we just want to do what we want to do and don't want to have to answer to anyone but ourselves. We no longer believe because we want to smoke and drink and have all kinds of sex with all kinds of people, not just one and only after we're married. Yeah, we hear that kind of stuff a lot. It used to really, really bug me. Now I just find it slightly annoying, like a fly buzzing near you at a picnic, but not so close as to be worth your time trying to squash it. I have my own little theory on why that's such a popular excuse for losing/not having faith. Well, surely it's not 'my own' little theory, as I know other people think this too, but I'm going to express it slightly differently than I've heard it in the past. I think the reason people say such things about us is because it lets them off the hook- I lost my faith because I wanted to, see? Because I wanted to have sex before I got married. Or because I wanted to look at porno mags. Or because I was listening to the wrong music, or reading the wrong books, or hanging around with the 'wrong crowd,' or or or... It all comes down to that, doesn't it? I no longer believe because I was either doing something I shouldn't have been doing, or I wanted to be doing something that I shouldn't have been doing. This way, it's all my fault. This way, as long as they just keep being faithful and not do the things I did, as long as they try not to want to do them, as long as they 'do' the right things, and 'not do' the wrong things, then they won't lose their faith like I did. It's about the things you do, not whether an idea is true, or believable, or not; it's because 'I don't like the idea of an Ultimate Authority.' So it starts with little things here and there, then works its way up to bigger things, then next thing you know, I'm a full-blown, God-hating, Angry Atheist. 'I was tired of having to submit to his authority, so I managed to convince myself that he's not real, now I can do all the things I wasn't allowed to do before.' Sort of along those lines is another argument that I hear a lot, that kind of goes like, 'I know what's right,' or 'I know what's really true.' Which is to say that I really know in my heart that what I believed is really true, I'm just denying it for my own selfish reasons. Really. My question is, 'How stupid do these people think I am?' Seriously. How freaking stupid? Because what they're saying is that I really know that God is real and is going to come back for his faithful someday and unless I repent before it's too late, I'm going to end up in hell for all eternity. I really know that, yet I continue living as if I don't. A person would have to be beyond crazy to really believe that- know that- and yet pretend like he really doesn't. I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I'm not that incredibly stupid either, that I'd try and pretend all that was a lie when I really knew deep down that it was true.
Ok, moving on, let me back up a little bit to the idea that I left God for 'sexual reasons'. Wrong on so many counts. For one thing, I didn't really mind the idea of having to wait until I was married. That's just the way it was, and had been, for me for so long, that I just took it for granted. No big deal. And I was never in many relationships, serious or otherwise, so it's not like I had temptation following me everywhere I went. And let's be honest here, if what I really wanted to do was fool around with the girls, I would have done what a whole lot of other believers have done and still do- I'd have gone ahead and done it- had an 'oops' moment, or 'messed up,' or 'stumbled,' or whatever else they call it nowadays, and then would have (honestly) felt bad about it afterwards and prayed about it and promise to never do it again. Until the next time. Seriously, how many honest-to-god, truly faithful Christians have you guys known over the years who've either gotten pregnant, or gotten someone pregnant? I've known a bunch. I'm sure you've known even more. It's not like it's a secret in the church; happens quite a bit. And it's not like the people who do it are not absolutely serious about their faith- I think most of them are. I sure was. Which is why I never got into trouble like that. Because I believed in what I said I believed in, enough so that I didn't do the things I wasn't supposed to do. It's also why I titled this series of posts the way I did- 'What the hell happened to me?' I wasn't trying to be funny with it. That's just how I look at it; my loss of faith- it's not something I 'chose to do'- it's something that happened to me. I was certainly not expecting it. I had other ideas. Godly ideas. Once I became a Christian, I never, ever imagined I would turn away completely. Couldn't imagine it. I just couldn't imagine not believing. And I didn't want to, either. Things were going pretty good for me towards the end- living with the Jesus People out in Chicago- I loved that time in my life! I still miss being there. Besides the living in Chicago part- such an awesome city- I was also meeting people from literally all over the world on a regular basis, two weeks vacation every year, Cornerstone Festival every year- sure, we had to work it, obviously, but depending on your job, it could be lots of fun. I remember being on garbage detail one year and having a total blast. And there was always plenty of time off to catch shows and do whatever. Like I'd give all that up, plus everything I honestly believed in, just so I could 'get away with' fooling around with the ladies. Please. During my time out there I knew two guys, regular, long-time members of the community, who left their wives for men, as well as one guy who cheated on his wife with a man. That guy ended up staying with the community- he wanted to work out his faith and they were willing to let him. His wife divorced him, of course, but she stayed there too! Slightly awkward, I'd imagine, but the point is that if all I really wanted to do was fool around, I'd have done it and somehow kept on with my faith. Other people have done it. But it's more than that. A lot more. But by now you're probably wondering when I'm just going to answer the damn question- 'what happened?' Truth is, there is no short answer, which is why I started this blog. But the shortest answer that I can give right now goes like this- I want to know what's true and what's not. Just like you, just like everyone. I don't want to believe something if it's not true, or if it's just not believable. Just like you, just like everyone else. So when I started having more and more questions and was getting fewer and fewer answers, especially good ones, I decided that I was going to go on a 'relentless pursuit of the truth' (sounds so good, doesn't it? So noble). That I was going to ask the hard questions and not take some bullshit answer; 'I don't know' could be acceptable, depending on the question, but not something that used twisted logic or forced reason, or even outright lies or misrepresentations of the facts (not that Christians have ever been guilty of that...) If I came to the conclusion that something I'd believed was wrong- that conclusion being based on brutal honesty, logic, reason, evidence, and a sincere desire to know what was really true- then I'd stop believing it. No matter what. And vice-versa. I didn't care about 'doing the things that I wanted to do;' I cared about what was really true. So I wasn't going to discard something that I'd believed in up to that point if I could find a satisfactory answer for it. I'd been having some issues with difficult verses in the Bible and even more issues with stupid reasons given for those verses, so one of the first things I decided to do at this point was to read the Bible from beginning to end- as if I'd never read it before in my life. No ideas about it, no preconceived notions of any kind; just read it as objectively as possible, as if I was an alien from another planet. Some might argue that that's not possible, that everyone has their biases. And it's true, everyone does have their biases, but I think being aware of those biases goes a long ways towards keeping them in check. Besides, having been a believer for ten years at that point (despite recent doubts) I'd say, if anything, my biases were for, not against, the Bible. But for or against, I still think it's possible to put aside bias and read any book or idea fairly objectively. So that's what I set out to do. And I know some (many) people will say that obviously, obviously I was not at all serious about my 'pursuit of the truth,' because God is truth, and since I turned away from him, it just proves, at the very least, that I wasn't looking very hard. Well, ok, just take a minute to think about that statement- 'God is truth, therefore...' See, that's part of the problem I was having. If you want to know whether something is true or not, you can't just start with the idea that it is true, and work your way back from there. (Never mind the fact that the statement 'God is truth' doesn't actually mean anything in particular.) A Muslim could just as easily swap out 'Allah' for 'God' and say that because a person rejects Allah, and instead chooses Yahweh, they were never really serious about knowing what's true and what's not, because if they were, they would have turned to Allah instead, because Allah is the one and only truth. I'm not just throwing out straw-man arguments here, I've actually heard these arguments put forth- both to me, and to others in my place- the idea that if we really cared about what was true we'd have 'come back to the Lord' because he is Truth personified; there is no truth apart from him. I think part of the problem is that, for many Christians, they just take it the wrong way when someone says or implies that they might be wrong- surely they're not wrong. I mean, they really care about what's true- they went on their own 'relentless pursuit of the truth,' and found it, so therefore everyone who disagrees is, by default, wrong. And obviously, if they're mistaken in some particular matter of faith, of course they'll change their mind about it and stand corrected- if in fact they are mistaken, which isn't very likely. But they know- really know- that what they believe is true. So it's the 'other guy' who's wrong. Or who 'doesn't care about what's really true.' Or just plain hates God. Etc, etc, etc. Always the other guy.

A long, kind of rambling post, I know. Let me try and sum things up a little.

1. Yes, I really, honestly did believe. 100% born-again, truly faithful.

2. Started having problems with my faith- honest questions and doubts that I wasn't getting any satisfactory answers for. Questions and doubts that have nothing whatsoever to do with my desires for female attention, and everything to do with whether what I used to believe is actually true or not.

3. Decided to re-examine Christianity as a whole, and found that I could no longer believe in it. Too many things just don't add up for me, some of which I'll talk about later.

4. I honestly and truly no longer believe. No, I don't 'know in my heart' that what I used to believe is really 'the truth'- that's why I'm an atheist.

So... what the hell happened to me? (II)

2009-06-22T22:11:00.000-07:00

I hardly know where to start.

So why don't I begin with the line I ended my last post with- "Reasons why I no longer believe the things I used to believe, and why I'll never again be able to." That last part is very important. My sister-in-law once told me that I'd "come back." I didn't have the heart to tell her that it wasn't going to happen. Not too long ago, I read a transcript of an interview with Pastor Rick Warren, who said about William Lobdell, "We'll get him back." Us ex-Christians hear that a lot, and I'm kind of surprised by it- on the one hand, a lot of believers know in their hearts that we'll never come back, and so don't bother with us anymore, but on the other hand, there's a lot of believers who are convinced that we'll someday "see the light" and come back to our old faith, come back to Jesus. I can't speak for anyone else (other than to say that for the vast majority of us, it's highly unlikely) but speaking for myself, I want you to know that I will never again be able to believe the way I used to. It's just not going to happen. And there are many, many people who will hear those words and just think (know) that it's because I'm a 'hard-hearted' atheist; that it's because my conscience has 'been seared as with a hot iron;' that it's because I 'hate God' and don't want to submit to him; or any number of things along those lines. I find those types of comments very frustrating and annoying. None of that is even remotely true (well, almost none- it is true that I'm an atheist). But I also want you to know that even if I did come back to a faith or belief in God, it still wouldn't matter. It wouldn't matter because I'd still be on the outs with the vast majority of the believers I used to be a part of; not just those specific individuals that I used to go to church with, but the entire branch of Christianity that I considered myself a part of. I'd be too liberal to be considered a 'real' Christian. The pastor of the church I used to go to (I'm just going to use 'K' from here on out any time he comes up) used to like to say, "There's 3 types of people in the world- those who are [Christians] those who ain't, and those who think they are, but ain't." And it always used to get lots of laughs from the congregation, but think about that statement for a minute- "...those who think they are, but ain't." What a bullshit thing to say. Blatant hypocrites aside, if you can have a whole segment of people who are living their lives as best they can according to the tenets of their faith and conscience, thinking that they're being faithful to Jesus and can call themselves Christians, but really are not Christians, then how can anyone really know for sure if they really are one or not? How can he be so damn sure that he's really one? And just who is it that gets to decide who is and who 'ain't'? Yeah, sure, Judgement Day and all that, the truth will be revealed and all the wolves in sheep's clothing will be exposed for who they really are, but we all know that here and now there's a lot of judging going on- you hang around with the wrong crowd, you go to the bar (or worse, the wrong church- read: UU or other 'liberal' church); maybe you smoke the wrong kind of plant (not that there's a 'right' kind for Christians to smoke, but tobacco is looked down on a whole lot less than weed- cigarette smokers generally don't have their faith called into question solely because of their cigarette smoking) or are too sympathetic to the gay community- you'll find yourself being labeled one of the ones who 'think they are, but ain't.' That would be me, if I were to come back to a belief in God. Are you familiar with Bishop John Shelby Spong? He's not very popular with conservative evangelicals, but I've read a few of his books and find him to be a breath of fresh air. He is probably the kind of Christian I would be, were I to start calling myself that again, except wait- is he really a Christian, or does he just think he's one, but will someday wind up in hell? I think I'm starting to get ahead of myself, though; I'll talk on this more later, but the thing is, my views on a lot of things have changed. I don't see things as black-and-white as I used to anymore. I can't help it; I can't just 'decide' to change how I see things any more than you can. And my views are a lot more liberal than they used to be, which puts me at odds with the branch of Christianity I once called myself a part of- conservative evangelicals. Anyway, to sum up- no I won't (can't) 'come back,' and even if I did, I'd be too liberal to be considered a 'real' Christian anyway, so it wouldn't matter.

So... what the hell happened to me? (I)

2009-06-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

That's pretty much the big question, isn't it? Especially since I never actually told you myself. It's not that I didn't want to. But it's really hard to talk about. Really hard.
Y'know, I never really knew Clark all that well, but I'm sure if we got together we'd have a whole lot in common, a whole lot we could talk about. Chuck, I remember you saying that trying to talk to him about the Lord was like talking to a wall- he'd just clam up and not say a word. I can totally relate to that. I totally understand. I do the same thing. I rarely get asked about it anymore, but when I do I usually just say I don't want to talk about it, end of story. Judy, I told you a long time ago that I wanted to get together with you guys and try and tell you what happened, how I went from There to Here. And I really did want to, I really did. But I quickly realized that I just wasn't going to be able to do it. Besides just being so difficult to talk about, it's also hard to really put into words, to find the right words to say. Even if I could sit there and talk uninterrupted, without breaking down (not at all likely) there's no way I would be able to effectively communicate everything I wanted to say in one or two or even ten sittings. Because it wasn't an overnight process. It probably lasted a couple of years. Hard to say, really. Besides being a long time ago, I didn't exactly keep notes- "Ok, here's Doubt #1, I better jot it down for future reference..." Lots of Christians have doubts at one time or another; most get past them and keep on believing. So how do they do it, and why couldn't I? Or better yet, how is it that I was able to take what I believed and look at it with a more objective, skeptical eye (almost like the way that Christians everywhere look at every other belief system that's not theirs with a skeptical eye) decide that I could honestly no longer believe it, and move on? What the hell did happen to me? Did I ever really believe? (I hear that one a lot, and find it very irritating.) Of course I did. You guys know I did. But maybe you've heard lots of different things from lots of different people and over the years maybe you have asked yourself that very question at times. Maybe you've had a thousand other questions that you've been dying to ask. Of all the people from my past, I've been wanting to tell you guys more than anyone else. (Ben too, and of course, I did tell him- he was the first, and we had a bunch of conversations about it all afterwards, but now that I've had plenty of time to think about things and mature a little bit, I think I'll send him a link to this blog too. I'm sure I didn't explain things quite the way I really wanted to in those early days.)
Shortly after I realized that I wouldn't actually be able to explain things face to face, I thought I could maybe write it in a letter and mail it to you guys from wherever I happened to be living. That way I could take all the time I needed to write it; read it and reread it again months later and make any changes I wanted to, and then when I finally felt like I had said everything I needed/wanted to say, I could mail it out. That was about 10 years ago (told you I procrastinate a lot). So now with the internet being what it is today, I thought it'd be best just to put it down in this blog. Slightly less personal than a handwritten letter, I guess, but a lot more likely that it'll get done.
So this is my letter to you guys. I've been writing it in my head for the last 10 years or so. I'm writing it with only you in mind (and the kids, of course; no doubt they've wondered too) but feel free to share it with anyone who might remember me from those days who you think might have questions that could be answered here. As it is, despite the very personal nature of this, I'm not keeping it 'secret' from public view- I've told one or two select people about it (no one from my past, although that could possibly change) and I link back to it whenever I post on a related blog that I read. Going from Christian to Atheist is not an easy experience, and I think maybe it could be helpful for some people who may be finding themselves in that position.
No doubt there are plenty of people who might come across this blog- and I can think of many from my Christian days- who will just look at everything I say and rattle off a list of 'rebuttals,' reasons why 'I'm wrong,' reasons why I'm just full of it; honestly, those people can go pound sand, for all I care (which is partly why comments are closed). I'm not writing this for them, I'm not here to convert anyone to my way of thinking; everything I write here, I write only to you guys, as if I were speaking to you directly, telling you all the things I've wanted to tell you. My plan, my hope, with this is that I can maybe answer some of the questions that you've no doubt had. I'm not exactly sure that's even possible, but I'm going to try. You may end up with more questions than you had before, I don't know. You can feel free to ask anything you'd like after you read it, but I'm pretty sure I won't want to talk about it anymore- and I'm going to try and cover everything here so I won't have to. This isn't going to be some sort of 'time-line' history; I've read other ex-Christians' stories and they read like a short story- plot, detailed conversation, point A to point Z. Even if I could remember all that stuff, I doubt if I'd want to put it all down here like that. There were two big turning points that I want to tell you about, but other than that, most of what I'm going to put here is just a bunch of questions that I had then, and still have now, that I've not gotten any satisfactory answers for from God's people; questions, doubts, random wonderings. Reasons why I no longer believe the things I used to believe, and why I'll never again be able to.

What is this?

2009-05-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

This, this blog/journal thing, this '10 plus years', is, first and foremost, a letter; a letter to some dear old friends of mine. People I've known for over 20 years now, which is longer than I've known, and stayed friends with, anyone (excluding family). It's a letter to try and somehow explain what the hell happened to me; what happened to my faith. I used to be a true believer. A faithful, bible-believing, bible-memorizing, evangelical Christian. Now I'm an atheist. I've always wanted to try and explain to them how that all came about. I know they weren't exactly expecting it. Hell, I wasn't expecting it. They didn't even hear it directly from me, which I was glad for at the time. (It's really, really hard to come out as an atheist to your Christian friends and family when you've been a Christian yourself, especially if you've been one for many years.) For a very brief time, I wanted to try and sit down with them and explain everything. But I quickly realized that wasn't going to happen. Not because of anything that they would say or do, but because for one, I'm not what you'd call 'good with words'. There's no way I could effectively communicate all the things I wanted to say in person over a couple hours or so. Even over several meetings of a couple of hours. Even if they didn't ask a single question and just let me spill my guts the entire time. I'm just not that good at communicating things. So then I thought that I'd write them a letter (this was about 10 years ago, before blogs and the internet are what they are today). With a letter, I could take as much time as I wanted, and even wait a month or two after it was written and go back and read it and see how I felt and make any changes I felt were necessary, and then wait some more and then read it again and maybe finally mail it out. And I've been wanting to write that letter for about 10 years now (it's really hard to get started). So maybe this will be that letter. Maybe now, ten-plus years after losing my decade-long faith, I'll finally be able to tell my good friends the things I've been wanting to tell them, and explain why I'll never again be able to believe the things I used to. Or maybe not. My plan is to write it all down, say everything I've been wanting to say, and then at some point, send them a link to this place so they can read it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to write it, but as for letting them know about it, we'll see when the time comes.

The writing- that's the other part of what this blog is all about. It's been over ten years, and I can never seem to stop thinking about it all- the questions, the doubts, all that crap. I'm pretty sure it's like that for everyone who's gone through this sort of thing. So hopefully, just writing it all down somewhere will help me get it out of my head and maybe I'll stop thinking about it so much.

I can't imagine many people will find this blog worth reading, but then again, in the early days of my loss of faith, I would have. I would have loved to read stuff like this, and in fact did- I was on some Yahoo! group for ex-Christians (I'm pretty sure it no longer exists) that really helped me a lot. It was like therapy. So that's why I link to it when I post a comment on some other blogs that I read. Maybe someone is in the same situation I was in many years ago and might get something out of it; or not, who knows?

Here's what this blog is not: it's not a place where I try and change anyone's mind about anything. I've made my peace with life and death and the universe, with Knowing and not knowing; let others make theirs as they see fit. I'm not offering up arguments to try and refute Christians or convince anyone that what I believe is the right thing to believe. I don't give two shits about all that. There's a million other places on the web that cover all that and more. As I mentioned earlier, all this really is is a letter to some friends, about me; so if you're going to spend any time at all reading this, it's best to think of it in that light. And because it's mostly a letter to some friends and I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything (not even them) comments are closed. If you really, really feel the need to contact me about something, you can email me at: myowndamnpath@... (well, I'm not going to tell you where at exactly, but I'm sure you can guess. It's pretty easy to figure out. And if you're the owner of a blog I commented on, then you obviously already know). Keep in mind everything that I mentioned above, and also that I have a low tolerance for bullshit. Another way to contact me would be to comment back on whatever comment I made on whatever blog, which is probably how you heard about this in the first place.

A couple more things...

I'm not on any sort of timetable with this thing; new posts could be very infrequent and random. I have no idea how or when this will wrap up, but when I get to the point where I feel like it's my last post, you'll know. Also, things may seem a little jumbled at times, i.e. just random thoughts being posted randomly. It's just stuff I need to get out of my head. I'll probably go back and review it all at the end and and rearrange it better, and probably even delete some stuff along the way.