In light of the attacks in Paris this week, I wanted to post some thoughts. Many people are blaming religion, saying that religion is the problem, that if we get rid of religion the world will be a better place.
Much of what I am seeing comes in response to many religious people saying things like pray for Paris. Many are responding back that religion IS the problem. As a non-religious person, who does not believe in any God's, I'd like to agree with that, but I can't. No, religion is NOT the problem, it is a symptom of the problem, it is how the problem most often finds expression, but if we address the symptom, and not the problem, we fix nothing. The problem is rigid, dogmatic, black and white thinking and it exists outside of religion too. Peter Boghossian has written an excellent book that was titled "A Manual for Creating Atheists" Although I understand that from a marketing perspective, I really wish it didn't have that title but perhaps instead "A Manual for Creating Thinkers" as I think that is what it really helps to do. It helps people question faith, dogma, things that they have accepted without too much thinking. It encourages people to question why they believe what we believe, to challenge our dogma, our rigidity. We ALL need to do that, not just those who are religious. And if we don't do that, if we just blame religion for the worlds ill's we miss the root of the problem. And dare I say it, science also shows we most people tend to be religious and if we do away with all religion, we also miss the good that non-dogmatic, evidence based, thinking, religion could potentially offer.
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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. It's been a while since I posted and I realized that I need to consolidate some things here from another site I have. So here is the first item, an article on my Reality Check.
I was raised in a conservative Christian home, by good parents, in a good church around lot's of good people. I had fully embraced Christianity, I believed, I prayed, I repented, I asked Jesus into my heart. I also studied, I led Bible studies, had people encourage me to enter the ministry. Now I am an atheist, so what happened? I have to say that it goes to the fact that I studied the Bible, my faith, and I kept questioning. Even with that it was a very long road out. Sadly many people who believe in God read the Bible about as much or in the same way that most people read terms of service agreements online. They either don't, or they just skim them, reading the highlights. The highlights in Christianity are all the nice, loving stuff, they skip the rest. Some of the things I questioned where if the Bible is the inherent word of God, why are there so many contradictions in it? They start right off the bat in Genesis and run through the whole book. I mean did God Create animals first and then people (Gen 1:24-26) or Adam first and then the animals (Gen. 2:18-20)? Did he create male and female together (Gen. 1:27) or female later from males rib (Gen. 2:22)? That's just two examples in the first two chapters! Further how can this book be the infallible, inherent word of God, not only when it is filled with clear contradictions but when it is translated from ancient extinct languages over thousands of years when we can't even say that our own history record is infallible over the past few decades in our modern times? But what really got to me as I studied wasn't even all that. I mean of course the Bible is the infallible, inherent word of God because God is in control of everything and He ensures that His word is perfect regardless of our weak, sinful human perceptions of it. I mean the wisdom of God is foolishness to man, right? So all I have to do is check my sinful human brain at the door and just believe by faith. What really got me as I studied was the character of God. This “loving” God routinely commanded or caused the death of tens of thousands, including young children and infants.
This a few samples of many. I could go on about many other areas but one that troubled me the most was: Forgiveness In Matthew 18: 21, 22 Jesus teaches us to forgive not seven times but seventy times seven if someone wrongs you. That is a very good teaching, but God doesn't hold to his own teaching. According to Bible teaching someone could be, well say like Hitler, have a death bed conversion, believe, accept Jesus, be forgiven and be saved. Someone else could lead a good life, one of service and kindness, not believe, not even hear of Jesus and never be forgiven. Instead of being forgiven even once, let alone seventy times seven times, they would be tortured forever after their death with no hope ever of forgiveness. Just for simple unbelief. This would mean that most of the self-aware, conscious humans that God ever created would be cruelly tortured in Hell forever with no chance of redemption. Much to my great shame I knew this teaching for years and was still believing that I was loving a real God who was “worthy of my love”. Amazing, how could anyone believe that? Especially for many years, decades even. Yet millions of smart, intelligent, capable people do. You may be one of those. There are proven reasons why this happens but those will be for later posts. As time went on I knew that this God wasn't worthy of my love AT ALL but I kept believing due to fear, not love. After many sad years I finally got to the point where I knew I wasn't fooling God, I simply couldn't love such a vile God, and I would rather burn in Hell than serve such a God. In my study for a short time I followed a belief called Christian Universalism which teaches that God will redeem ALL of of his creation including the most wretched sinner. That felt good for a while but those teaching that still taught the infallibility of the Bible. I could clearly see that the Bible is not infallible, so that all fell apart for me too. Still as I looked at this world and see what it is I had a longing for something better. I felt there had to be something better, there had to be a loving God that will shelter us in his loving arms after this life. I think that longing is part of why most people cling to their beliefs. That is understandable. There is a chapter in the Bible often called the love chapter, it is 1 Corinthians 13 and it like many passages it is quite good. Years ago I learned to replace the word love in verses 4-7 with the word God to described the character of God since “God is Love”. It would read thus:
That was helpful for a while, the problem was it just didn't fit with the character of God described in most of the Bible. What finally did it for me though, what finally made me an atheist was not science, or evidence, or facts, (which all point to the reality that there is no god) it was the hard realization that if their really was a kind, loving, caring compassionate, and just God simply by the characteristics of those virtues there would be absolutely zero belief needed or required to know that such a God is real. Let me say that again. Simply by the characteristics of those virtues, kindness, love, compassion, justice, there would be absolutely zero belief needed or required to know that such a God is real.
Reality Check. Look at the world, open your eyes, clearly, such a God does not exist. That reality check made me an atheist. At last. It made me realize there is no perfection here and there is no after life that holds the promise of perfection either. It also made me realize that if we are going to have a better life, it's got to be this one NOW, as there is no other. That is one reason why I came out of the closet as an Atheist. (Actually I prefer Humanist as it is a positive affirmation being pro-human, rather than negative, non-theist, but Atheist is a bolder statement.) So why do I want to make bolder statement? Why not just quietly live my life letting people be content in beliefs that give them hope in a world that often has very little hope? Whats the harm in that? The harm is that many Christian beliefs are putting the world in danger, or are working to limit the freedom of others. For example: Many Christians embrace the problems of this world, political, ecological, social, etc. as signs of the soon return of Jesus Christ. I know I was one of them. We need to wake up, realize that is NOT going to happen, there is no magic God genie in the sky to save us. If humanity is to have a future and not wipe ourselves out by self-fulfilling prophecy we must do the work ourselves to continue advancing and creating a better future. I hope some of my musings on this subject will help some wake up and join us in building a better future for those who will follow. It will include a blog with thoughts along my journey of humanism and a list of resources I have found helpful and you may as well. Sincerely, David Mitchell Blood BTW: The photo at the top is of me at the Reason Rally in Washington D.C. On March 24th, 2012. It is when I firmly decided I needed to come out and rock the boat a bit. With me in the photo are Deanna Joy Lyons to my left and Rich Lyons to my right. Rich is a former Pentecostal preacher he and his wonderful wife Deanna Joy are hosts of the Living After Faith Podcast, a wonderful resource. To Rich's right is Sarah Morehead of Recovering From Religion another great resource for those coming out of faith. 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 saw a post on Facebook that said: "If someone has to set aside reason and logic in order to believe something, then no amount of reason and logic is going to change their belief." I get what they said but do not totally agree with this, which is why I came up with the revision you see imaged here. The reason I don't agree with the above statement from Facebook is that "setting something aside" implies intentional action. But most peoples beliefs are not arrived at because they "set aside" logic and reason or anything else. There are many reasons people believe things that are in fact unbelievable when you look at the belief through the lens of logic and reason. Key among these are:
It is for this reason that although it sounds completely backwards and idiotic on the surface, if we want a more logic based world rather than one ruled by false and often damaging beliefs that we have to appeal to peoples emotions first. Or as I have often heard in sales training "Facts tell, stories sell" But as the title of this post suggests rationalists often seem to fear emotion, or at least appealing to emotion to help spread rational thinking. (And yes I'll admit that sounds backwards) I know some people have criticized Seth Andrews of The Thinking Atheist for making videos that are "too slick and emotional". But I feel that Seth gets it, that we must appeal to peoples emotions if we are to free people from harmful dogma and false beliefs. I saw evidence of this again this morning as I watched a video of Mark Lynas on his conversion to supporting GMOs. Mark is an author and frequent speaker around the world on climate change science and policy, earlier in his career he was an outspoken opponent of GMO's but as he looked at the science he found that he was wrong. But now there is a challenge, his opposition to GMO's appealed to peoples emotions and fears that was very effective, and the facts aren't much changing that. Emotions are very strong, people will do and believe completely stupid and illogical things because of emotions. If we are to create a world where people understand that, and can step back and take the time to evaluate things more rationally, we have to appeal to their emotions first! And no, this post is NOT a good example of doing that! LOL! |
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