I grew up believing certain things where true. But I also saw that many of those things didn't make sense. So I questioned and that led to growth and new views of life.
And I realize as this new view developed that many hold fast to it just like many I knew held fast to my old beliefs and they are stuck in a "we are right, they are wrong" mentality, and the truth most likely is that we are all wrong. Certainly not to the same degree, as some stopped asking before others, so some are more wrong than others, but when we stop asking we all become wrong none the less. We may be tempted to believe in certainty, certainty is easy. We may be tempted to just believe, but believing without questioning is dangerous, it allows you to be taken advantage of by those who wish to control you. Resistance to change "knowing we are right" keeps us from growing and becoming our ever developing best. Here's a few words from Mark Manson: "Instead of striving for certainty, we should be in constant search of doubt: doubt about our own beliefs, doubt about our own feelings, doubt about what the future may hold for us unless we get out and create it for ourselves. Instead of looking to be right all the time, we should be looking for how we're wrong all the time. Because we are." Imagine if everyone had stopped asking questions and doubting thousands of years ago? We could still be in caves. This to me is the basis of the growth of humanity and especially of the scientific process. Don't accept anything as rock solid certain. Always ask questions, always doubt, and always keep moving forward to be better and ask better questions.
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It looks like I haven't posted in a while, I need to do this more. But today on my birthday I am reflecting back on my life a bit. Yep that picture is me 53 years ago, I was a cute little thing, although I did look a little pouty when this picture was taken! Like everyone else my journey has had it's up's and downs, but I am thankful for the family and society that I was born into, that gave me my start. Sometimes I look back and wonder how my parents ever managed to provide for us the way that they did, both are gone now, but both lived well into their 80's. While I am thankful for that, and know that out of the whole universe and of all of time how lucky I am to have been born to the family I was, in the society I was, at the time that I was. BUT, I am also thankful that I was able to go a separate way from my family, and the beliefs that I was raised with. I am thankful that I had the courage to be able to question and challenge the beliefs I was raised with. This has made my life even better and richer in every way. And thus I have a challenge for you. Beliefs are really not very good if they can not stand up to sincere challenges and questions. Don't settle for unquestioned beliefs, question everything, it's amazing how much richer that can make your life. The best part of my life by far has been since I got the courage to challenge and ask questions of my life, it taught me that I can stand on my own two feet, thus I still see my best days as being ahead. And I intend to get the most out of it, in my own way. Remember the wisdom of the ancient philosopher Socrates "The unexamined life is not worth living." Make your life worthy of living, challenge and put to the test your beliefs, see if they hold up. I don't know about you but I only want to believe that which remains after my beliefs have been put to the test of evidence, reason, and logic. David I saw the above meme on my Facebook wall yesterday (without the red X) and had to respond. Of course this is the classic Pascal's Wager which assumes if there is a God, he is a really stupid one that can be fooled by people hedging their bets, but my initial response was this:
“If there is a god who is just and loving it won't matter, if a god would send someone to eternal torture simply for not "loving" him, there is nothing in me that could cause me to love such a god or want to spend eternity with such a vile being.” Then I was called lost and blind, etc. Blind? Really? I'm the one who is blind? I had to get a bit more serious and responded with this: “For most of my life I believed as Steven, Allen and millions of others do, breaking free of that was the hardest thing I ever did, but I am so glad that I did. I have no intention of arguing or getting in a debate, but perhaps I can ask a few questions to remove the blinders of faith from your mind. If you are a loving and just being who created a life that is self aware would you not even more than a mother giving birth do everything to care for, nurture, and protect that life? Would you not be more real to them than the earth beneath their feet, the sun in their face, or the wind in their hair? Or would you remove yourself from them, except for communicating in ancient writings (and “feelings”) that you love them but they will tortured by fire forever if they don't love you back? And that brings the question of what is loving or just punishment? Certainly that is different for different crimes, but I know of NO crime where a just, let alone loving punishment would be the eternal torture of hell fire, let alone for someone simply not believing something such as they by birth are deserving of such a punishment if they don't believe. Such a belief is to me now deeply offensive and vile, I am ashamed that I ever believed it. Sadly I did. Do you really have a grasp of what that belief means? If not, I recommend a video called Burn Victims it should be very hard to watch, it should make you sick, it should, I hope it does. A couple years before this video was even made I had asked myself the question it asks and I knew that even if real, and even if it meant I myself would go to Hell, there was nothing in me that could love or serve a god who would send ANYONE to eternal, never ending torture for ANY reason. I hope you are moral, decent, just, loving, and compassionate enough to reach the same conclusion.” Please, my friends if you believe there is a “loving” god who would send anyone to eternal Hell for ANY reason, please wake up and realize how blind you are, and how far from anything remotely “loving” or “just” such a belief is. It is sick, deluded, cruel, and very blind for any compassionate, just, or loving being. Some recent events which have shaken the atheist community (I'll get to that in a moment) have oddly made me ask myself why does the atheist movement even exist, is it that people are angry at God, or is it something else?
I mean there is not (that I know of) a strong movement focused on denying that the Earth exists, or space, or gravity, or DNA, or many other things that there is clear evidence for. So is it that the Atheist movement exists simply because there is no clear evidence for God? That is part of it sure, but not I think nearly all of it. That alone I think is not sufficient to make atheism the strong vocal movement that it is. I mean if God isn't real, but people believe he is, so what, what's the harm? Here is the root of the harm. Because there is no clear evidence for God that means that ALL of religion (a very powerful, persuasive force that dominates human life privately, socially, politically, culturally, economically, basically at every level one can imagine) is based on myth, deception, to be blunt a lie. The quote above by Michael Ende also explains it very well. A belief that is not based on solid facts is a lie. The very idea of faith or belief is actually based on NOT having evidence, if you have evidence it isn't faith, it's knowledge. As the Bible says in Heb 11:1,6 Faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen. 2 Cor 5:7 tells people to walk by faith not sight Jn 20:27-29 says that it is more blessed to believe without seeing. To believe without seeing, in fact to believe counter to what can be seen, is to believe a lie and to be easily manipulated. Even further while religion teaches in words that “thall shalt not lie”, it teaches people much louder by actions that they MUST lie (or withhold truth) to fit in and be accepted, or just to keep peace. I'll give a couple examples of how that happened in my life. First, as a child I in a very religious family I had been taught that sex was sinful and something NOT to be talked about. This message was so clear that I hid that I was being sexually abused, because I feared what might happen if it became known, far more than I did the abuse. This is why much child sexual abuse remains hidden in religious culture, it is why priests and other leaders can so easily get away with sexually abusing children. From that I was still intensely curious (as most all humans are) about the human body and sex, like most kids I could not get my questions answered or interest satisfied through family, church, or school, but while most young kids get their questions about sex and the body answered by other kids or pornography, neither of which are good sources, I was more fortunate in that my family regularly went to libraries (this was long before the Internet) Through library books I learned a lot, and much of what I learned did not agree with the beliefs of my parents or church. I longed to be able to be open and honest about this but knew I could not, so I kept it hidden, in essence I lied about what I believed that was different from what my family and church believed. I had to, to maintain a peaceful relationship with them. I hope you can agree that these lies that I (and millions of others) became ensnared in by religion are deeply harmful. My life would have certainly been far healthier if I had had confidence that I could have been open and forthright with what was happening in my life and what I believed, rather than hiding it. While it may not be so directly expressed often, I believe that exposing the harm of this sort of built in deception is a big part of the root of what atheism is really all about, and why it's important. And thus when one of the top leaders in the movement is caught in a lie (all too common in religion and politics) it really shakes the community up. This is what happened with Teresa MacBain. Teresa is a former Methodist Minister who lost her faith and came out as an atheist at the American Atheist Convention in 2012. It was a dramatic coming out and she captured the attention not only of the atheist community but of the press as well with TV appearances and articles in mainstream media including the New York Times. She quickly became a sought after speaker and a voice for the atheist movement, she went to work as Public Relations Director for American Atheists Inc, moved from that to become the Executive Director of Humanist of Florida Association, than moved again becoming the Director of the Humanist Community Project at Harvard all within 18 months and all while being the Executive Director of the Clergy Project! Now that has all become undone, because it has been revealed that she lied on her resume about her educational background, she does not have a Masters Degree in divinity as she had claimed. Consequentially she has been fired from her position at Harvard, resigned her position with the Clergy Project, has lost speaking engagements, and respect in the atheist community. Her star has fallen more quickly than it rose. My initial question was why all the ruckus, and I quickly came to her defense. Largely because I have heard people bragging about how they lied on their resumes to get their positions for many years. I will say that I have never directly lied on a resume, but neither have I applied for positions that I am not fully qualified for, using one. I was once basically given a position that I wasn't qualified or trained for based on other qualities I have, and I was in way over my head, one of the biggest disasters of my life. For other positions I have certainly done my best to make myself look my best on resumes, that is what they are for. That people lie on them is not a shock, that people pay a price when caught is not a shock either. For me the answer of why all the ruckus came with the realization that exposing lies and deception are deep at the hart of what the atheist and closely intertwined skeptic community is all about. It is painful to realize that someone rose to celebrity status very quickly at least partially based on deception. Now the question I think we must ask is how really best to respond to this and where do we (and Teresa) go from here? I have seen a couple reasons, there may be more, that people say Teresa can not be trusted in a leadership role in the atheist community. One is a claim that she still hasn't come totally clean, that she likely had to lie to get the position of ministry in the Methodist Church that she had before becoming an Atheist and who knows how far back this practice of deception goes? Teresa has a response to this which I feel it is important to share here, hopefully to help set the record straight. It is: -- Anyone who knows anything about the Methodist church knows that this isn't possible. The process for a pastor transferring from another denomination (which is what I did) is to go through a 1 yr (approximately) period of review and additional training. This is the program I attended. It's called "Course of Study". It's a 5 year intensive broken up into summer sessions. In Feb. you receive pre-course work. In July, you attend classes, 8 hrs a day for 30 days. Then you have post course work that is due later in the year. I completed 1 yr of this program. Several reasons exist as to why I couldn't complete the other years, but I won't go into that now. The Methodist church is very, very strict on it's assessment, review, and annual follow-up. Everything is checked, re-checked, and then evaluated annually. My falsehood began after I left the ministry. It had to do with education on my resume. That's it. I don't want to mis-lead anyone again with false information. Any former Methodist who reads that paragraph would immediately jump on you. (or at least send you emails to correct) I accept this explanation but given the history and role of deception in religion, I would still not be surprised or shocked if some forms of deception goes back a long ways in Teresa's life. After all as I have shown above religion is built on myth, deception and lies, it is built on “faith” which is the denial of what we can see, to accept what we can't, deception is at the very root of religion. Exposing this is I believe at the root of Atheism, but we must remember that it was also intertwined into the root of the lives of those who come out of religion including Teresa, myself, and millions of others. Falsehood, deception and it's entanglements are what those who come out of religion are struggling to escape from, if it was not all based on lies, deception, and manipulation, there would be no cause to break free from it and seek truth. From her own story Teresa was taught very early on as a child to not ask questions that challenged faith, that is at least being taught to not seek truth, it is also being taught not to be honest about having doubts and questions. That is what religion does to people. Another reason some say that she can't be trusted is that she only showed contrition after she got caught. This is true, but personally I know of no one that has ever volunteered that they have been lying without having been caught first. I have known of many even when caught who have stood their ground, double downed, made excuses, blamed others, etc. It is rare to see someone accept responsibility, even step at a time as more becomes known, in the way that Teresa has done, and I think she is to be commended for taking responsibility for her actions. My feelings on this have gone back and forth over the last few days, but as the dust settles what it comes down to for me is this. Did she do wrong? Yes absolutely. Should there be consequences for that? Yes. Was her rise to leadership all based on deception? Clearly not, that would not have happened without the skills and talent that she has developed over many years. To be frank it bothers me when I see people so willing to ostracize someone not for outright blatant evil, but for common human failings, like preachers that pound the pulpit screaming against the evils of some sin, I wonder what they may hiding. Lets remember that all humans are multifaceted, as we remember their failings, let us also remember their strengths. Will Teresa again have a prominent leadership role in the Atheist/Humanist community? I don't know, I hope so. But her star is not likely to rise as fast this time as it did the first. Why do I say “I hope so”? First because Atheists don't hold that humans are perfect, we know that we aren't. But at least on the Humanist side of the community we do hold that we can strive to become better, that we are of value and worth the effort. Stories of redemption, of becoming better, are powerful to all people, not just the religious. Teresa's story is such a story, from breaking free of the entanglement of religion to taking responsibility for her deception. Second, because in the short time that she has been part of this community Teresa has shown tremendous leadership, great skills, and a great ability to connect with people, it would be a waste to see that talent and skill lost to the leadership level of the atheist community. Which does bring up another point, one of degrees and leadership in the atheist community. As Sam Mulvey points out in an excellent must listen to response to the Teresa MacBain situation on Ask an Atheist starting at 39 minutes into the show. “If Atheists worship at an alter, it's the alter of secondary education.” I totally agree. For several years I was a nonbeliever before I came out and started getting active in the atheist community. It was not the reasoning and intellect of Ivy League educated leaders such as Richard Dawkins that persuaded me come out of my non-believing closet to join the Atheist community. It was the stories of people I could relate to that I felt a kinship and common background with that persuaded me that there where people like me involved in this movement. And that I needed and wanted to be part of it. People like Seth Andrews, Rich and Deanna Joy Lions, Jerry Dewitt, and yes absolutely Teresa MacBain. If the atheist movement is to help free tens to hundreds of millions of people from the snare of religious deception, to move from single digit percentages of the population embracing it, the reasoning and intellect of Ivy League educated leaders is important yes, but it's not what will have the biggest impact. It is the stories and people that people who are still trapped in religion can personally relate to that will make the biggest impact. The stories of people like Seth Andrews, Rich and Deanna Joy Lions, Jerry Dewitt, Teresa MacBain, stories from people like you, and people like me. The root of atheism is exposing deception, Teresa's has been exposed and she has responded contritely rather than defensively. I do not believe that she should be rejected for a failing that is common to humanity from paupers to presidents. The community is aware of this now, it has been exposed to the light, let us move forward, let us work on rebuilding trust, understanding that Teresa is a person who is no more perfect than any of us, but is also a person with skills and talents that many of us do not share and that the community has already greatly benefited from. Let us not ostracize her for being human. I believe that for Atheism to not just exist, but to thrive and more effectively root out and and expose the deception of religion, we must not only expose deception, we must also remember that even those who have participated in deception also have good qualities and strengths. We must hold them accountable AND embrace them for their good and bad as fellow travelers on the tumultuous journey of life. I posted this video by Tim Minchin called Thank You God to my FaceBook wall because I love it and he really nails it. It starts out with Tim saying that people come to his shows expecting him to mock God, but he isn't going to do that anymore because someone came to him with proof of a miracle from god and then he sings this song about the miracle called Thank You God, which is of course a total mockery where he completely nails it.
Someone that I believe is a believer in god "liked" the post. I had to respond, which I am reposting here (with a bit of editing . Minus the persons name as it could have been a great many people and the reply applies to a great many people. Really?, I am very surprised that you liked this post. I thought you where a believer. Am I wrong about that or did you actually listen to it? OR did you just see that it was titled “Thank You God” and like that? No offense but the first thing I thought of when I saw that is of good, kind, decent people who say they like/believe the Bible. They like the highlights, the nice words, sure. I did too. For most of my life. I think most decent Christians read the Bible like most people read terms of agreements online, they scan them, or don't read it at all. Or they read it with blinders on, only seeing the good stuff about love, they have to. But if good people would take their rose colored religious glasses off and really read the Bible, the whole thing. Really deeply think about what it says, that there is a god who created us, knowing full well that any, some, many, or most would not believe in him and that because of that not just one, but some, no many, well actually most of his children that he “loves” so much would be tortured in Hell for all eternity, I believe EVERY good, kind, decent person would reject it. We "lowly, horrible, fallen, sinful" humans let the worst criminals off FAR easier than that for the worst possible crimes, things that are certainly FAR FAR WORSE than not believing someone who says "I love you so much that you better believe in me or I'll burn and torture you forever". When the reality of that core message finally sunk in after most of my life as a Christian I knew I could not possibly love such a God EVEN IF he was real. EVEN if it meant I myself would GO TO HELL, I knew I could not LOVE such a god. You seem like a really nice person to me, please let the reality of the bible message sink in. One new tool I recommend that should challenge believers to the core is a video called Burn Victims. It is very hard to watch, stomach churning, IT SHOULD BE, people who believe in god need to ask what kind of God am I serving? Thankfully as our understanding of life and the universe grow it really makes much more sense without any god. I don't mean to offend and I am working on how to best process things myself but it hurts to see people I like, good decent people, some of whom I have known personally for many years, not just through Facebook like I do you, believe and justify loving the Biblical concept of god, which to me is utterly vile. I am very still much processing how to deal with friends who believe in this god as this reply states. I understand many reasons why people believe, I did myself for most of my life. I also understand first hand how difficult it is to face the fact that something I had been taught from childhood was about love, is actually about fear, control, power, and hate. It was hard to face that the only reason I had still been believing for years was not because God's love is so compelling, but because I feared burning in Hell if I didn't believe and love this god. That's a TOUGH road to travel. Although the result is that I am much, MUCH happier and at peace with, accepting of myself and the world than I was as a Christian. Generally if people are content in their personal beliefs I don't want to just come out and offend or confront them. If they are not telling others how they MUST believe or live their lives, I am basically just letting it go. Even though I believe the world would be much better off with more thinking and less believing. And even though it really does hurt to see good, caring, decent, people that I care about believe something that is now so clearly VILE and hateful to me. I was thinking about my family today and wanted to share this. My parents loved me and I loved them very much, I miss them greatly. But as I grew I embraced many different ideas and values from them and it was clear that they had trouble accepting that. Today as I am a non-believer and they where both strong Christians until they passed, I am sure that they could not have accepted that at all. In fact I had become a non-believer before mom passed, and I decided not to burden her with that as she had been hurt enough by other things, so I accepted and loved her as she was. But it would have been wonderful if I knew that could have gone both ways. As children grow they become their own people, and that often doesn't fit with the expectations and dreams of the parents. Often as kids come out as gay, they get thrown out of their homes, in fact that accounts for more homeless youth than any other thing. When children develop different political views it can split families. If children in religious homes change religions or reject religion altogether it it can and does often tear families apart. The same happens if a child falls in love with the wrong kind of person, due to race, religion, social status, etc. Often in these situations it is said that we “love” you but until you change to fit our views of what is right, you can't be part of our family. That is not love. I am not saying that if a child is doing something demonstratively harmful to themselves or others that that is to be accepted, but that is different. I am saying that no matter how different the values, beliefs, or dreams, and ideas of your child are from what you where expecting, accepting them as they are is the greatest gift you can give them. It is the power of love. Peace, David Blood The evening of November 17th 2012 I started feeling like I was catching the flue or something, so Sunday I just took it easy and stayed home and rested, I was feeling worse by Monday but had to work. Short week I figured I could make it three days then have four days off for good bed rest and kick this thing.
After work on Wednesday I started with the vomiting, Thanksgiving Thursday was in bed all day with very little to eat, certainly NO turkey!, Friday morning I had problems with my eyes so I went to the Dr. and got something for that. Came back home. Then on Saturday morning I had a rash on the palms of my hands, I called the VA, informed them of my concern and also that I already had an appointment for Monday morning at the hospital. They said as long as I could hold down liquids that I should be fine until then. Sunday morning the rash had spread, I was not holding down liquids, and got a friend to take me to the VA hospital's ER. Eight days later I finally got released from the Hospital, still not feeling great, but certainly better. The discomforting thing is that the Dr. is still not certain about what put me in the hospital in the first place! This leaves me with a couple reflections that I want to share. The first is the need for comprehensive and universal health care for ALL. This came totally out of the blue, the Dr.s don't understand it. Fortunately, thanks to my service to the country I am covered by the VA. But what if I wasn't? Eight days in the hospital would financially destroy millions of un-and under-insured in this country. Obama Care is an important first step, but I hope it is only a first step toward real single payer universal health care in this country, so that if people are facing a health disaster they are not also faced with a financial one at the same time. Secondly, while I sincerely thank all those who have been praying for me and I know you are sincere in your good intentions, one of my reflections is that I felt no divine healing or hand of God. Again this came totally out of the blue, the Dr.s don't understand it. What I felt is that if there is no God that makes some sense, it fits, it's just one of those things in life that happens and that you (hopefully) get past. (personally though, I'd rather win the lottery!) BUT if there is a loving, caring, compassionate god, something like this makes no sense at all. It's an experience that re-enforces for me the reasons I stopped believing, things like this and the doctrine of Hell simply do not fit or make any sense with the concept of a loving, compassionate God. Things like this just make more sense without the supernatural. In real life stuff just happens sometimes, and sometimes there is just no explaining WHY. The important thing is what we do with the stuff that happens. Hopefully we use it to help make life better. What I did very clearly sense though and am very thankful for was the hard work and dedication of Doctors, Nurses, and other support staff at the Bay Pines VA hospital working to restore me back to health. I'm not there yet, but certainly much better. I am very thankful to ALL of them. |
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