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Why I am An Atheist: Science is better than Faith

12 Feb

Since I am recently talking about The God Virus, it bears mention that religion is not the only viral idea out there. In my youngest years the “god virus” (to use the metaphor) was not the only viral idea I was exposed to. I was also infected at a young age with a high regard and respect for science and for logic. For a long time I thought these two ideas, the religious idea and the scientific and logical idea, were in no conflict with each other because, naturally, Truth cannot contradict truth.

Throughout my life I have been driven by the search for answers. Not just any answers, but answers that make sense, answers that I can understand well enough that I can competently explain and defend to another person. According to the evangelical religious tradition in which I was raised, it was my duty to “witness” to anyone that I could to bring them into the fold of Christianity so that they would be saved. But I had a problem….even at the point when I most deeply believed, when I tried to speak the ideas out loud I felt a conflict, like there was something unfathomable that was just not right. I didn’t really understand this thing that I was trying to convince others to believe, and I could just imagine all the ways in which a non-believer could shoot down every argument I had in my arsenal. This bothered me immensely. I had to resort to just parroting what others had told me, or just skip the theology completely and just invite my target to come to church with me. My lacking witnessing skills guilted me tremendously, and I prayed fervently that God would grant me boldness and tell me what to say.

So, in my search for sensible answers, I dug into apologetics books by authors like C.S. Lewis, Josh McDowell, Ravi Zacharias, and Max Lucado. Without going into the details of each one, I found the following pattern nearly every time: I would read the book and it would bolster my faith and make me feel good about what I believed. Then, a week or two later the doubts and uncertainties would creep in again and I would read another apologetics book and feel good again…then go back to doubting again in about a week. I ran to the apologists and gobbled up their encouraging words, but didn’t really examine the arguments they were using. I so wanted to believe their conclusions that I didn’t really care if their arguments made sense or not. So when I tried to explain to myself what I had learned from them later I remembered the conclusions and good feelings, but still couldn’t reconstruct the arguments behind the conclusions. So back into doubt I would slide. After several cycles of this I started to get really frustrated. 

Little did I realize, I had two conflicting viruses vying for dominance in my mind. I wanted verifiable, scientific, logical answers and I just was not getting what I needed from the previously mentioned apologists. Then I got into creationist literature, including my heavily anti-evolution home-school biology text, and thought for a while that I found what I needed. That science really did support the Bible and Christianity.

I found bits of the truth about evolution and creationism later in college, with the help of Astronomy 101 which explained to me about the Big Bang, and showed me a timeline of the universe including that of life on Earth. That piqued by curiosity and lead me to read more on my own. I was furious at first and felt I had been misled on clear scientific matters by Christian authors I had trusted in the name of God. I gave up on the apologists and creationists and started perusing the science section at our small local library. That is where I found the book form of Cosmos by Carl Sagan, and River out of Eden by Richard Dawkins. And I was hooked.

Cosmos (book)

I started checking out all the books in the local library I could find on both cosmology and evolution. I would bring them home read them guiltily in my room, hiding them under the covers when my parents knocked at the door for fear of their disapproval (I was a bit paranoid perhaps?). This was my rebellion, searching outside the family religion to find my explanations in science. Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins and other science writers I discovered didn’t simply rush to a desired conclusion. They actually explained each step in the progression of their arguments in a way that I could grasp, slowly building up to the conclusion while I followed along. And it made sense, and still made sense a week later (though I usually had to go back and review.) I was actually learning new things when I read, unlike when I read the apologists, and the new understanding I found was intoxicating. The more I learned, the more my former supernatural beliefs fell away in favor of natural scientific explanations, all the way back to the origin of humanity and the origin of the universe. I could see that there were still gaps in scientific knowledge of course, but science had replaced the supernatural explanations so many times in the past. I couldn’t see any sense in posing supernatural explanations for what we didn’t know yet. To insert “God did it” anywhere in the natural world just made no sense.

The viral idea that truth cannot contradict truth lead me to embrace science and reason over faith.

Happy Darwin Day!

 
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Posted by on February 12, 2012 in Atheism, Skepticism, evolution, Why I am an atheist.

 

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The “god virus” and American Culture

11 Feb
In the environment where I grew up, ideas of patriotism were mixed in closely with those of Christianity. It was “one nation under God” and after I came to disbelieve in God it took me a while to stop seeing the American Flag as a Christian symbol.
American flag

Not a Christian symbol.

In the book The God Virus, Darrel Ray use a model of a “virus” to describe how religious ideas “infect” people and attempt to gain control and then spread to others. In case you are unfamiliar with the concept of the meme you can think of it this way: Meme theory compares ideas (or pop song hooks, or jingles, etc) with viruses that infect the mind, duplicate themselves and then try to spread to other minds. For instance, when you get a song stuck in your head, you might start singing it out loud within the hearing of others who might get the tune stuck in their heads. If you have ever heard of a YouTube video going “viral,” you have seen this metaphor at work.

Like a biological virus, a meme does not have thought or intention of its own. It’s almost a tautology that the better the idea is at spreading in a population of minds, the more successful it will be. The “virus” only “cares” about replicating itself and staying around as long as possible–it does not necessarily care about the happiness or well-being of the host mind. How often has your mind been infected with a pop tune that you absolutely despise?

English: A simplified diagram of the Hepatitis...

In Chapter 3 of The God Virus, Ray talks about the ways that “god viruses” try to gain a safe and secure place in society by integrating themselves with the broader culture. I have long thought that religion and culture were inseparable, but this book has caused me to question that notion. If a religion can so integrate itself with a culture, to the point where it is impossible to live in that culture without being affected and controlled by it, an environment can be developed where few people would be willing to question that virus for fear of repercussions both external and internal. For a contemporary example of this, take a look at Saudi Arabia, and some other Muslim nations, where violation of religious rules comes with strict civil penalties.

For the past few decades, the Christian virus has worked really hard to get itself inseparably coupled to the American culture and way of life. Hence the difficulty I had in my earliest years as an atheist with decoupling Christian ideals from the meme of the American Flag, as I had seen the two memes meshed together so much that I had come to associate them. Even today, there are powerful forces trying to equate Christian religion with American life, from attempts to place Ten Commandments plaques and statues in courthouses, to GOP presidential candidates practically falling over each other to prove their Christian credentials. In recent news, the Catholic Church is attempting to enforce its religious directives on the lives of the employees of Catholic-affiliated hospitals, schools, and charities, under the guise of the American ideal of religious freedom. (I doubt that the Catholic hierarchy cares nearly as much about religious freedom in the countries in which it is fully entrenched, but fitting right in the metaphor, the virus will make concessions in specific environments if that is what it takes to survive.)

Ever since Europeans landed on the American continents, the god virus tried to mesh itself with the newly developing cultures, and with some success. In various colonies, religious tests for office or even for full citizenry were established. Baptist minister Roger Williams, the originator of the phrase “wall of separation between church and state” and founder of the state of Rhode Island, recognized that there were serious problems with meshing civil law and religious life. And for this, he was banished from the Puritan colony of Massachusetts. I was told repeatedly as a child that the Puritans and other non-Anglican groups came to America for religious freedom, but in large part it looks like they came to try and do the same thing to other religions that the Anglican Church had done to them in England. After all the worst enemy of a god virus is a competing god virus, and no virus is totally secure in an environment where all virus can compete freely.

Roger Williams statue in visitor center of Rog...

A civil sword (as woeful experience in all ages has proved) is so far from bringing or helping forward an opposite in religion to repentance that magistrates sin grievously against the work of God and blood of souls by such proceedings… Religion cannot be true which needs such instruments of violence to uphold it so. -Roger Williams (source)

We should not be surprised that religious groups are jockeying for control of the American political system, nor that religious groups that were once vicious enemies due to theological differences are now banding together to reach for power. And it is not only legislative and judicial power that are being targeted. Recent claims that America is a “Christian Nation” imply that one cannot fully participate in American life unless one accepts and acknowledges a particular Christian version of the god virus. Difficulties and dangers faced by people who dare to be openly atheistic in certain regions of the country (see Atheism in America for examples) testify to the non-official power that religion can get in a culture. Religious freedom is a beautiful ideal that allows everyone to follow and be influenced by a religion if they wish, or also to avoid religious influence if they do not wish. But an environment of full religious freedom hinders the efforts of individual god viruses to gain dominance and maximum conversion of a population. Therefore we should expect these grabs at power by religous groups that perceive themselves to be in a place to obtain it.
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Posted by on February 11, 2012 in Atheism

 

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Being an atheist does not mean you have to be alone.

05 Feb

I came across an article this weekend which highlight very well the difficulties with being an atheist in the United States, particularly in the small towns. I don’t have so many of these difficulties over the past few years, as I have been fortunate enough to be able to surround myself with sympathetic friends and an atheistic social circle. However, it was not aways like this for me, and I still remember the days when it was really a big deal to be able to tell anyone I had doubts about the existence of God without expecting an argument or a pitying, judgmental look. So for the last couple of years I lived with my parents I mostly tried to keep my mouth shut while these heretical ideas simmered inside of me, and the inability to express my thoughts and feelings made me very irritable. I have the strong feeling that this is where the stereotype of the “angry atheist” comes from: try living in a community where you have to keep who you are and what you think silent for fear social repercussions or other consequences, while being constantly bombarded with the message that those who think like you are, at best, abnormal, flawed, and “sinful.” It’s not a pretty picture.

I count myself as being very fortunate. When I was accidentally outed to my parents it caused some conflict, though the repercussions were not nearly as severe as I feared they could be. The worst that happened at my home was a few heated arguments and a creeping feeling that I was no longer fully accepted for who I was. It felt as if my family thought I’d gotten into something horrible, like I was an alcoholic or something as bad, because I had stepped out of their religious box in my search for the truth. But at the same time I was participating in an email list for ex-Christians, where I learned the story of one teenaged member of the list who was essentially kicked out of his home and denied unsupervised contact with his siblings because of his admitted godlessness. So I will count myself lucky.

About the same time I was discovering atheism, I was also discovering a wealth of information and support via the Internet. Websites like Meetup.com were just getting started, and that gave me the opportunity to meet with other people who thought as I did face to face. My dream of saying the word “atheist” out loud without fear was coming true. Since then I have found a priceless community of other atheists as well as people who prefer other labels but still see the world in essentially the same way.

Being an atheist does not mean you have to be alone.

I benefit a lot from living in a moderately sized metropolitan area, where it is easier to get in touch with other people who are interested in things like atheism. For people who live in smaller towns, things can be much more difficult. In the article Atheism in America, Julian Baggini tells the stories of a few atheists who live in smaller communities, which very often center their community lives around their church.

An atheist in Festus, Missouri, for example, has to deal with being brought up on the weekly prayer lists at his wife’s church even when he went with her weekly to be accommodating. If he wears his “scarlet A” t-shirt in public, he notices mothers pulling their kids closer as if he might be some sort of danger to them.

A man who was reunited with his family at the age of 46, having been a separated “GI baby” was first embraced by his family, but then rejected after he told them he told them that he was an atheist.

I don’t quite understand what it is about religion with some people, that for someone to express disbelief means that they are tainted and to be distrusted. I am currently reading the book The God Virus by Darrel Ray, who explains that for people in whom religious belief has fully taken hold, the “virus” will cause them to protect that belief at all cost…even at the cost of shunning people they love who might threaten it. I’m still thinking about and evaluating this idea, and I have to admit at times this model fits some of these circumstances.

But to me, the main lesson to be learned here is that atheists need community. Being the lonely atheist in a very religious town or family is no walk in the park. This is why I care about forming community, just simple social groups, for atheists where they can speak their minds and not be judged or feared for it. We are out there, everywhere, and the challenge is only how to bring us together. Meeting together with like-minded people is not a religious thing, it is a human thing. We are social creatures, and we all need community where we can feel at home.

If you are interested with meeting face-to-face with other atheists, check out Meetup.com, and use the search terms “atheist” or “atheism.” That is a great place to start, and as I find other resources on how to get in touch with local atheist groups I will post those as well on my “Atheist Activism” page.

 
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Posted by on February 5, 2012 in Activism, Atheism

 

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How could a 12-year-old girl deserve hell?

29 Jan

WARNING: Things will get a bit personal in this post.

I will be talking about my experiences with religion as relates to my self-esteem and self-confidence. Will I be blaming all my insecurities on religion? Well, no, though I think there are areas where religious messages I received as a child took advantage of and exacerbated my natural insecurities. It’s probably only in very recent years that I’ve realized how much some of these messages have messed with my head.

Lets start at the natural starting point, the Christian sum-up of the human condition: Romans 3:23 : “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Yes, I know there is context around this one, but this verse was very often quoted on its own so I will leave it that way. Feel free to look it up if you like.)

So, what could a 12-year-old girl (as this is about the time I started really paying attention to this) have done to “fall short of the glory of God”? This is the message I was just starting to absorb, right in the midst of developing my personal identity. I would think and think and try to remember what I had done wrong so I could confess it, because believing you had not sinned meant you were a liar and full of spiritual pride. (see 1 John 1:8) Oh, there it is. It’s just inescapable…it was almost a relief to be able to name some way I had sinned because then I would at least not be guilty of pride. Oh, and if you didn’t feel bad about your sins your repentance wasn’t genuine right? So my religious reflections were often reflections on my guilt and unworthiness.

I can just see Christians out there saying “Wait, no! You misunderstood the message!” But really, I was only absorbing what I was told and carrying it to its logical consequences, and could you blame me for taking what I was told both seriously and literally? I didn’t have a lot of extra-curricular activities growing up, so I spent a lot of my time in quite thinking and reflection and when I thought of these messages I got from church I could come up with no other conclusion.

I was told that I shared the blame for this. Something that supposedly happened 2000 years before I was born? It makes no sense. But what a guilt trip!

But, you might say, Jesus took care of that right? “God loves you!!!” Still, the idea that “God loves you” doesn’t help confidence if it is coupled with the idea of “you are sinner and deserve punishment.” What is it when someone says they love you but also tells you that you are unworthy of love? I knew I would never really measure up. And just about every Sunday morning, this message would be reinforced. Both in the weekly altar calls and in testimonies from others in church services who talked about how when they tried to take control of their lives everything fell apart and nothing was right until they tearfully came crawling back to God.

I determined I would never make their mistakes.

In the midst of trying to erase my doubts about God, I was being filled with doubts about myself. My own ability to succeed and thrive, and to get though Middle School with my sanity intact. I never did well socially at school, partly to do with my fear of doing anything wrong or breaking any rule (to step out of line was sin!). And also partly because my parents didn’t have a lot of money and it violated my sense of fairness and justice to beg them for expensive designer clothes as some of my friends advised. I feel the need to mention that my religious upbringing was not totally bad. While I never understood the stupid status games played in Middle School, and was never popular there, I found plenty of acceptance among my mother and her group of friends from church. They didn’t care if I didn’t wear makeup, or curl my hair, or wear the tight jeans that were in vogue at the time. When I was a teenager, I got along much better with adults than with my own peers. This was, no doubt, one of the factors that kept me from sinking into serious mental problems.

As you can see, the issues I had with the Christian theology was with the message itself and not with the people. The people, at least the mature ones, were generally wonderful. But this message: That I messed up because I was inherently evil and depraved and not because I was immature and still learning how to behave? And that my guilt is tied to some act of independence and rebellion that my first grandmother once committed? I now know that when a child tells a lie or behaves selfishly it is not because they are evil, but because they are immature.

This concept of sin gets in the way of personal understanding of why we do what we do, and how we change ourselves when we do things we do not like or that have bad consequences. Modern psychology (and honest reflection on one’s own mind for that matter) reveals that quite often we just don’t understand the real causes behind what we do–we do it, and then come up with the rationale after the fact. This is why people so often make the same mistakes over and over and over. It takes a lot of work and self-reflection to overcome the negative patterns. Merely attributing the wrong to “sin” and being sorry for it and resolving to repent is not good enough, and only results in believers getting caught in a cycle of “sin,” guilt, and repentance, and keeps them chained in whatever religious tradition they happen to be in.

And you know what? It’s ok to trust your own reasoning, because your mind is not depraved and sinful. The human brain is imperfect–since we are always stretching it beyond its evolutionary purpose (survival and reproduction). So we should always we willing to consider that we could be wrong. It takes courage and self-confidence to risk being wrong. But it is not a sin to be wrong, and if you find out you are wrong you can always change your mind. Don’t like your behavior? Don’t be mired in guilt, but try to understand your patterns and behaviors so you can make changes. And get help if you need it…this stuff can be hard. There are real solutions to these problems.

And one final point: there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that could make a 12-year-old child deserve hell, whether literal or metaphorical. For a trusted adult to teach a child otherwise is, frankly, abusive.

EDIT: Just to make sure I am absolutely clear on this point, no one ever personally threatened me with hell when I was a child or teenager. I did have experience one or two pastors and sunday school teachers who seemed to be fascinated with “hellfire and brimstone,” but the fact that my parents openly rejected that sort of fear tactic lessened its impact on me. However, even when it was not discussed, hell was always a part of the Christian belief system I was raised in, always lurking in the background as what was waiting for you after death if you did not commit your whole heart and soul to Jesus. So it was always an issue, even if it was not discussed often. 

Here is the talk from Dan Barker from Skepticon IV. If you do not know Dan Barker, he is a former Evangelical Christian pastor and missionary who is now an atheist. His talk is not exactly what I am saying in the post, but it is very closely related and he says it so well. :) (If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, the main point starts about the 20:00 minute mark.)

 
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Posted by on January 29, 2012 in Atheism, Morality, Skepticism

 

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Congratulations to Jessica Ahlquist

12 Jan

I can hardly imagine the pluck and bravery of this young woman. Especially in high school, where such action can and does result in serious social consequences, there are still people out there who put themselves on the line to defend their values.

In this case, she called on the ACLU to challenge the unquestionably sectarian “School Prayer” posted on the walls of her high school.

Seriously, schools should stick to education and not erect religious barriers up between the students. Nothing says “you are just not one of us” like a declaration that your school promotes a religion you don’t believe in. And every student deserves to belong in their own school. And, yes, it is unconstitutional for schools to give endorsement to religion, for good reason.

Ahlquist said she is proud of her decision to fight for what she felt was right.

“Even if kids in school hate you, even if there are nasty comments all over the Internet, it’s important to just stand true to what you believe in,” Ahlquist said.

From: Student who challenged Prayer Banner speaks out

If you appreciate this young woman as much as I do, you can show your support in a concrete way by contributing to Jessica’s scholarship fund.

EDIT: Actually, as the ChipIn widget does not show properly on my blog, here is a better link for Jessica’s scholarship fund: A fundraiser for Jessica Ahlquist

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Posted by on January 12, 2012 in Activism, Atheism

 

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“Has Obama waged a war on religion?: NPR”

09 Jan

I found this NPR story posted on a friend’s wall in Facebook today, and though I’d pass it on. In light of recent blog posts and discussions on the state of religious rights in the United States, I think this is quite relevant. As typical, NPR takes a middle ground and is quite respectful to the religious and secular views expressed.

Staver says as rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people make gains, religious conservatives are having to set aside their convictions. A Christian counselor was penalized for refusing to advise gay couples. A court clerk in New York was told to issue same-sex marriage licenses, despite religious reservations. A wedding photographer was sued for refusing to shoot a same-sex wedding. Staver says these people aren’t trying to impose their religious views on others.

“What people of faith don’t want to do, however, is be forced to participate in something that literally cuts to the very core of their belief.”

Boston says of course religious believers want to impose their views on the world — witness the fight against same-sex marriage. But he says under the law, people can’t discriminate based on their religious beliefs, any more than a restaurant owner can cite the Bible in refusing to serve black customers. He says the solution is simple.

“If you don’t want to serve the public, don’t open a business saying you will serve the public.”

I think Boston has it right. Religious people have every right to make their own choices regarding who they will marry, whether or not they would have an abortion in any given circumstance, whether they will take birth control, and so on. What they don’t get to do is make these choices for other people who may or may not share their convictions. Especially At least not with the blessing and funding of our secular government (what you do in your personal life is your business).

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/08/144835720/has-obama-waged-a-war-on-religion

 
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Posted by on January 9, 2012 in abortion, Activism, Atheism

 

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Why I am an Atheist: The superfluousness of the soul

07 Jan
Souls

It’s perfectly natural to think of ourselves as something separate from our bodies. I’d bet that a major factor in the starting of religions thousands of years ago was the uncanny sense that we each have a “self” floating somewhere behind our eyes. Surely our vast range of emotions, mental capacity to contemplate the universe, empathy and communication with other people, and the whole of our personalities are evidence of a special spark of the supernatural inside each of us that goes beyond what is possible in the mere physical world.

Yet, even before I gave up my belief in Christianity, I concluded that the whole concept of the soul was totally superfluous.

A number of things that I learned in my college classes regarding philosophy and psychology caused me to question the existence of immortal and immaterial souls. It was in a class on psychology at my Nazarene University that I was first exposed to the concept that some people think that the mind is identical to the brain, with no soul needed. Being that this was a Christian university, the idea was quickly glossed over and was apparently only mentioned for completeness, but the idea stuck with me. It shocked me.

The same semester, in an introductory philosophy class, we discussed Descartes and the ways he tried to figure out how an immaterial soul could influence a physical body. Descartes thought that the soul interacted with the body though the penial gland. Everyone in the class thought this was funny, but the question was interesting. And it got me thinking: How would an immaterial soul interact with an influence human flesh? Did it even make sense at all?

Back in Psychology, the professor had the class watch a video recreation of the story of Phineas Gage. This particular event sticks out in my memory, not least because one of the students in the class fainted when the metal bar shot though Gage’s head up through his cheek and out the top of his head. (The prof warned us this could happen, and had happened before. I heard this was the last time he showed the video in class.) The most amazing thing about the Phineas Gage story is not that he survived, and was conscious and coherent even in the minutes right after the rod blew through his brain. It was the way this injury totally and irrevocably changed his personality and his character (though I have also read since that the changes were not fully documented and may have been exaggerated). If both his personality and character changed due to a physical injury, that must mean those things are contained in the brain and not in an immaterial soul.

And it’s not just Phineas Gage, but look at all the people who take drugs that affect mood, personality, and a range of other mental characteristics. What about people who lose their memories due to a blow to the head? Assuming there were an immortal soul, does that mean that when we die we lose all of our memory since memory is stored in the brain and dies along with our body? If an immortal soul lives on, but without our memories or personality, then what would that even mean? Would that thing that survived my death even be me at all?

What about animals? It’s clear that our mammalian relatives have emotions and personality. Chimps, for example, have been observed to show compassion and empathy towards one another and even at times towards members of other species — impulses once thought to be the domain of humankind alone. Yet I still hear from time to time that the thing that separates humans from animals is that we have souls, and they do not. What sense does it make to try to prove our uniqueness by claiming that they don’t have something that we cannot even clearly define or prove we have ourselves?

I mentioned above that I stopped believing in immaterial souls while I still was a Christian, which may be puzzling to some of my readers. But the thing is, Christianity has never had a hard-line, consistent, explanation of what is supposed to happen to our soul after we die. Some Christians believe that the soul goes directly to heaven or hell after death. But others believe that after you die, you “sleep” until the resurrection at the end of time. So when I no longer believed in the soul, the second option made the most sense to me. However, I eventually gave up all those beliefs using the same type of reasoning that lead me to doubt the soul.

I think that the concept of the soul is a wonderful metaphor for who we are inside, even if I don’t believe such a thing literally exists. We can use the concept of the soul just like astronomers use constellations, even though the stars that make up these shapes really have nothing to do with each other. There is not really a lion in the night sky, or a hunter, or a bull. Constellations are intuitive and useful, even if not actually real. Such it is with the soul.

My disbelief in the soul did not directly lead me to atheism, but it was a step in that direction. The same method of thinking that lead me to conclude that the soul is superfluous and probably made up was the same type of thinking that lead me to conclude the same about God.

 
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Posted by on January 7, 2012 in Atheism, Why I am an atheist.

 

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Answering “A Christian’s Response to Homosexuality”

01 Jan

From http://lifeofafemalebiblewarrior.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/a-christians-response-to-homosexuality/

There are three passages in the Old Testament (Gen. 19: 1-13; Lev 18:22; 20:13) and three in the New Testament (Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; I Tim. 1:10) that have traditionally been read as prohibiting homosexuality.

In this post, I will look up each of these passages and give my own response, followed by a general conclusion at the end. Like I have made clear in my post Why I am an Atheist: Secular Morality vs. Divine Command, I do not give any credence whatsoever to Biblical authority on anything much less morality. However, given that I am interested in what Christians believe due to my early immersion in the religion, and the fact that these controversies are affecting people’s lives even today, I feel a desire to respond.

Gen. 19: 1-13: I see no prohibition about homosexuality here. Maybe only a prohibition about allowing guests who have entered your home to be gang raped by a mob. But then, Lot seems to have little scruple about sending his virgin daughters out to be raped instead (I guess he felt he would have to send out someone?) I see this not as a message to modern Christians that homosexuality is immoral, but a message to everyone today that the morality in the Bible is just plain twisted.

Lev 18:22: This is an Old Testament law against male homosexuality (it says “do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman”) though I notice it says nothing about lesbians.  Couched right between the rules against adultery and bestiality.

Lev 20:13: Essential the same as Lev 18:22, but with slightly different wording. And followed by specific instructions not to sleep with animals, see their siblings naked, or “take” their brother’s wife (Though wasn’t there a rule requiring the brother to sleep with his deceased brothers widow so the deceased brother would have an heir? I’ll have to look that up later…).

Rom. 1:26-27: Really not sure how to interpret this one. It sounds like it says God made people gay because they were degenerate sinners? I just have to quote the whole passage here… I remember this passage from Bible quizzing, but come to think about it I’m not even sure who Paul is talking about, unless it is just people who don’t believe in what he is preaching. But that doesn’t make much sense because being an unbeliever does not cause one to be attracted to members of the same sex. It sounds like just an inflammatory rant against those who didn’t believe his message. Not only are the disbelievers gay, but also they lack all natural affection, and are generally evil.

1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

1:23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

1:26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

1:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

1:29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

1:30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

1:31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

1:32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

And it also seems strange that Paul would condemn homosexuality as “unnatural” when he also said that the “natural man” was evil.

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10: Paul lists below those who will not “inherit the kingdom of God” (presumed to mean, these people don’t go to heaven? The phrase “kingdom of God” is not really defined very well anywhere in the Bible.)  Besides, what does it mean “effeminate”? Some people have translated this as “homosexual” but I have to wonder if this is due to their own prejudice more than what the word actually means. Perhaps an “effeminate” man doesn’t fit into the clear-cut gender roles required by Paul’s Christianity? Similarly, I don’t get what “abusers of themselves with mankind” is supposed to mean either and if this has anything to do with homosexuality or not. I’ve heard masturbation referred to as “self-abuse” but I see it as no such thing. Could Paul’s ickyness towards sex be what is really being revealed here?

6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

6:10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

I Tim. 1:10: Meh, pretty much more of the same…lumping gays (I guess) in with sinners, murderers, and menstealers (??).

1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,

1:10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;

1:11 According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

From what I can see here, it looks like the Old Testament law prohibited homosexuality, along with other abominations like the eating of shellfish (Leviticus 11:9-12) and the wearing of mixed fibers (Leviticus 19:19). These laws should be irrelevant to the modern Christian since they are supposedly no longer under the Old Testament law. Or so I have heard. As for the New Testament passages (All coming from the same person in fact, assuming that letters to Timothy are not forgeries as suspected by many scholars.) I don’t see much here besides Paul’s distaste towards sex, especially when coupled with his admonition to his followers that it is better for them to be celibate and not to marry. (1 Corinthians 7)

In conclusion, regarding gay marriage, I see nothing in the Bible prohibiting it at least for modern-day Christians who are supposedly no longer “under the law” as Paul put it. I see assumptions but no declarations that marriage is between men and women. Though if you really look at the Bible, this “one man, one woman” notion is scarcely to be found. Also there is nothing saying that other sexual “sinners” like fornicators or adulterers should be restricted from marrying or doing anything else really. Regarding Paul’s libelous lumping in homosexuals with murderers, liars, and other sorts of seedy people, I only see his own prejudice and ever more reason why notions of “Biblical authority” should be tossed into the historical trash-bin of really bad ideas.

EDIT: I have been trying very hard not to edit posts after I have already published, because I always seem to think of one more thing to say after I have published. But it’s a point I have to make:

NONE of these passages that speak badly of homosexuals or lumps gayness in with murder and lying has anything to do with Jesus, or was attributed to Jesus. They were all either Old Testament passages or were written (or at least attributed) to Paul, who never met Jesus in the flesh and only made a very untestable claim to have had a vision of Jesus. 

And now I will go back to my intention to make no further edits to posts after publishing.

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Posted by on January 1, 2012 in Atheism, Morality

 

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Why I am an Atheist: Secular Morality vs. Divine Command

31 Dec

What makes an action good or bad (or neutral)? Atheists are asked by theists, quite frequently, where we get our morals. However, I think that the Biblical theist has a much harder time when it comes to morality than the atheist. This dilemma for the theist is most elequantly stated by Plato as Euthyphro’s dilemma: Is something morally good because it is commanded by God, or is it commanded by God because it is morally good? (my paraphrase. Click the linked text for further detail.) Unlike the Divine Command theory of morality, which states that moral duty comes from God’s or a god’s command regardless of how an act or belief looks in light of secular reason.

The Biblical story that is most cited in discussions about secular morality vs Divine Command morality is the one where God commands Abraham to kill his one and only son as an offering. If you are not familiar with the story, I recommended the illustrated version of The Brick Testament here: God Demands Child Sacrifice. So, if God were to tell you to kill your child, what would be the proper response? According to Divine Command theory, which is championed in the Bible, it is to not question God’s will but to do whatever it is he said. (That Isaac was spared at the end is irrelevant, because Abraham clearly fully intended to carry out the command and was considered righteous for that reason. ) According to secular morality, which is generally followed in modern cases such as that of Andrea Yates, the proper response if you think God wants you to kill your child (or anyone’s child!) is NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT! And it appears that most Christians that are put to the question actually agree with secular morality on this one.

The modern version of the Divine Command theory that I encounter most often comes from self-proclaimed “Biblical” Christians who believe in the authority of the Bible as the final say in all matters of morality. To an unbeliever like me, who does not trust the men who wrote the literature that came to be included in the Bible, nor the counsels of men who determine which of these writings would be considered as authoritative scripture, this assertion is absurd to the highest degree. However, there are plenty of people who, for whatever reasons, still consider the Bible to be a source of authority.

A recent prime example of this is found in the political debate over the issues of homosexuality and gay marriage. Conservative Christian politicians like,  every single GOP primary candidate, is pounding on this issue that homosexuality is a “sin” and that gay couple should not be allowed to marry or raise kids or adopt kids for really no reason whatsoever other than what they believe religiously. (Or, to be more accurate, what they think their voters believe religiously.) All of the studies that have been put forth to say that kids raised by homosexuals are harmed in some way have been exposed as the crap that they are, as pointed out most eloquently by  Al Franken (see Sen. Al Franken Slams Focus On The Family During DOMA Hearing and watch the video). The motivations here are purely religious and political. This is what it looks like when a “Biblical” idea of morality is put ahead of human happiness and autonomy, and above the wellbeing of kids who would otherwise be adopted into a loving home.

This example of how “Biblical” Christian morality to be out of step with modern society and rational morality is one more reason why I am now an atheist.

For further reading on the contrast between theistic moral beliefs and humanism, and a talk on why secular morality is superior to “Biblical” morality, see the links below.

American Humanist Associations Consider Humanism Campaign

Atheist Community of Austin: The Superiority of Secular Morality

 
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Posted by on December 31, 2011 in Activism, Atheism, Morality, Skepticism, Why I am an atheist.

 

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Sunday school is for religion, not public school

29 Dec

I saw this story in the Friendly Atheist and thought I’d pass it along.

Battling anew over the place of religion in public schools

But in some corners of the country, especially in the rural South, open prayer and Christian symbols have never really disappeared from schools, with what legal advocates call brazen violations of the law coming to light many times each year.

At a school assembly here in South Carolina on Sept. 1, a preacher described how Christ saved him from drugs, telling his rapt audience that “a relationship with Jesus is what you need more than anything else.” A rapper shouted the Lord’s praise to a light show and most of the audience stepped forward to pledge themselves to Christ while a few remained, uncomfortable, in their seats.

Such overt evangelizing would not be unusual at a prayer rally, but this was a daytime celebration in a public school gymnasium, arranged by the principal for sixth, seventh and eighth graders.

Uh huh. Overt sectarian proselytizing to an immature, captive audience, curtesy of your local public school officials. There are so many reasons this should not be allowed.

See the Friendly Atheist’s commentary here.
Christian proselytyzing in public schools is becoming an epidemic.

 
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Posted by on December 29, 2011 in Atheism

 

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