Things You Will Know, Or Not

One of the great joys that occurs on the completion of 68 orbits around our star is that I have had the time to reflect on a host of issues, theories, beliefs and paradigms.  And I have reached some conclusions based on logic and fact and science and math that give me great peace.  I would hope you will learn these truths as well, that you will know, not believe, but know certain things that are extremely clear when the cultural scales fall from your eyes.  Sometimes learning these truths is painful.  Sometimes some are so unwilling to see the truth they will attack the source of truth, much like Galileo was attacked and Copernicus was attacked and Newton was attacked and Darwin was attacked.  But each discovery, each theory confirmed by millions of observations becomes fact.  Undeniable.  Fact.  Not alternative fact.  Not a belief.  A fact.

So here is my list of things I hope you will know as I now know them.  Things that may be different from what you once thought, but things you will know based on science and math and logic.

There is no god.  Never has been.  Humans have invented thousands of gods to explain reality, to provide purpose and meaning, and each group of humans has believed their god is the right god, the only god.  They are all wrong.  There is no god.  God is an invention made by human beings, not a supreme being discovered by human beings or self-revealed to human beings.

There is no life after death.  For that matter, there is clearly no life before birth.  We die like every other life form on the planet.  We cease to exist.  We stop having consciousness.  We end.  I think it must have been funny to Billy Graham to discover at the instant of his death that there was nothing else.

Morality is not something imposed or prescribed on us from some set of mystical beliefs, or via some supernatural being or recorded in some kind of holy book.  Morality is individually adopted.  Atheists are as moral as Hindus, or Buddhists, or Christians or Muslims.  In fact, atheists are probably more moral than most believers.  Everyone who establishes their own moral code based on the belief that there is a god who ordained right and wrong has just empowered themselves to do horrible things to others in the name of their god.  All religions have done this.  Christians do it now to homosexuals.  Muslims do it now to anyone who is not Muslim.  Those acts, by my morality, are immoral.  But believers believe them to be moral because that is what their god said.

All the arguments for a creator are merely circular arguments.  If it took a creator to design such complexities as we observe on our planet and in the universe then by the same logic it would take another being to have designed that creator, and the creator of that creator, and on and on.  If one argues that The Creator randomly sprung full grown with creator abilities, then we must allow that life on earth, including humans, must have randomly evolved the same way.  Any effort to force schools to teach such folly as creationism must be blocked at every turn.  What happened before the Big Bang?  We do not know.  Yet.  But we will.  Basing what we know to be true on science and logic and math does not mean we know everything right now.  It does mean we are not willing to assign mystical and mythical attributes to those things we do not yet know.

90% of all life forms ever on the planet are now extinct.  Therefore, we can become extinct.  We can die from a variety of causes and if we do not care for our environment we will kill ourselves, if we do not curtail our conflicts we will kill ourselves, if we do not curtail our numbers we will kill ourselves.  We are not likely to become extinct because we were eaten by some beast that feeds on us.  We will extinguish ourselves unless we realize that extinction is a real possibility and act immediately to postpone such an event.  Sending a few of us to another planet to live may preserve the species, but we are not able to do that yet and it won’t be any fun for those of us left behind.  Plus my fear is we will send those few with a Bible.

Now that I know all these things, I mean know it, not believe it, know it, I am free to live my life as best I can.  Number one in my moral code is do no harm.  My number 2 is do unto others as I would have them do to unto me.  That influences how I drive my car as well as how I treat people who are hurting and are without power.  That includes homosexuals and transgender and all the possible sexual identifies and preferences.  That includes all men and all women.  That includes all races.  That includes all nationalities.  That means I want everyone to have an education, to have food, shelter, clothing and medical care.  I won’t wall anyone out.  I won’t support depriving others of the technological benefits I have, like electrical power and internet.  There is no such thing as a human being on planet earth that is an illegal alien.  We are all indigenous.

Once I know these things political decisions become very easy, and most of our conflicts become either tempests in teapots or immoral.  Weapons that can be used to kill people are immoral.  Polluting the atmosphere is immoral.  Ordering groups of people to not use contraceptive devices is immoral.  Ordering groups of people how to regulate and control their own reproductive system is immoral.  Insisting that my religious views become law is immoral.  Standard stuff like stealing, assault, murder, etc., remain immoral.  Doing immoral acts for money is truly immoral.

Doing harm to others is immoral, especially if one is doing such harm in the name of some non-existent deity.

Arrogance of Belief

I feel the need to apologize to everyone I know and interacted with while I considered myself a Christian.  I was arrogant.  I had no patience for conservative Christians who supported military over human needs, I had no patience for believers of other religions, and atheists just amused me.  I said public prayers.  I gave a lot of money to the church.  I raised my kids in the church.  I was present for thousands of sermons, thousands of Sunday school lessons, hundreds of Sunday and/or Wednesday night services, lots and lots of choir rehearsals, tons of time serving on church committees, and hunks of time attending community services around Thanksgiving, Christmas, Good Friday and Easter.  I was a member of several “Prayer Warrior” groups quick to respond when the need arose for prayers.  I acted as lay leader reading scriptures in church.  I helped with communion services.  And I do not think I ever missed a covered dish lunch or supper.  Man, was I a Christian or what?

I was arrogant wrapped in the shroud of my belief.  I knew, really knew I was saved, my prayers were answered, and I made excuses for God when they weren’t answered.  I knew humble Christians, but I was not one of them.  Because I had a life-line to a supernatural being I figured I must be a super human being.  Blessed.  If I am blessed, and if God is on my side, then who the hell are you to assume a position different than my own?  I must be right.  I knew I was right even when I argued with other so-called Christians.

But no.  I was wrong.  And that has been a truly humbling experience.  Admitting I was wrong, admitting that all I believed was folly and superstition, and admitting that I thought somehow that I was superior because I was a believer is deeply shaming.  I am sorry.  I really am. 

Now that I see I was communicating with imaginary friends in the hopes of going to Never-Never Land I have been set free.  I can be a good person because I choose to be, not because I am fearful of some eternal punishment.  I can be open to discussing the scientific vanguard.  I can be open in interacting with others who are on the same path.  I am not defensive, I am not arrogant any more.  If you have facts you want me to consider I will consider them.  Please do not be offended if I point out that your facts are beliefs.  If Zeus appears to me on the road to Houston and asks why I am persecuting him, I will likely recant, but I know that will not happen.

What is obvious to me now is the arrogance of other believers.  Those who believe they know, who believe they are in contact with a supernatural being, who believe the Bible, and if not literally, they exempt from belief those passages proven wrong by science.  (Of course, if one can exempt any passage from belief, why not exempt them all?)  I laugh when they say they will pray for me because I know that is like saying they will sprinkle fairy dust on a graven image to make me immortal.  Those believers who firmly think God chose Trump, God supports adultery, sexual predators, bigots, misogynists, liars, and greed-driven people are not only arrogant, they are steeped in foolishness, stupidity and hypocrisy of the highest order.  I now fluctuate between laughter and tears at their positions.  And yet to challenge them reaps the same wrath as though they speak for God. 

Science will win.  Math will win.  Biology will win.  Chemistry will win.  Archeology will win.  Psychology will win.  Believers will lose in this debate because they have no facts.  Yes, I know arrogant atheists, or if not arrogant, patronizing.  But as humans we are capable of logic and questioning, and facts will ultimately win the day.  In that I can admit I do not know all the facts but am eager to learn more.  And that is humbling.  And if nothing else sets me apart now, it is that I am willing to learn more.  Not true of the blind, arrogant believer who already knows all he or she ever wants to know.  For them I feel sadness and pity as they deny their capacity for learning, cooked in the juice of their own arrogance.

Dear Creationists and Fundamentalists

Did you hear that the Episcopalian Diocese of Washington DC adopted a gendered language resolution so that they will stop using gender specific terms for Father, Son, etc., and use gender neutral pronouns?  Ha!  You right wing Christians must be blowing a gasket.  Imagine trying to update the Bible to the 21^st Century!  Blasphemy!

Of course the Bible cannot be updated to current knowledge, science, understanding and culture.  To do so would admit it is flawed and not a divine holy book.  If God dictated and or inspired this book and there are boo-boos, then all of the book is now in question.  Burning bushes?  Red Sea?  Resurrection?  Water into wine?  Yaadaayaadaayaadaa.  Why if we can change any of it, we could change all of it and at that point it has no meaning and no authenticity.  But there are problems in the Bible.

Have you decided which creation story is the right one, the holy one, the one you believe?  There are two, you know.  One in Genesis 1 and the other in Genesis 2.  In Genesis 1 God takes 6 days to separate light and dark, land and sea, make all the animals and all the plants, then makes man in his own image.  God takes a nap on the 7^th day.  Genesis 2 God does similar things, but when it comes around to making man He forgets to make a female.  He made male and female plants and told them to be fruitful and multiply, male and female animals and told them to be fruitful and multiply, but He forgot to make a female human.  Duh.  Silly God.  Now he has to knock out Adam and steal a rib.  He can’t make a female from scratch evidently.  Now he has it right.  Which creation story is true?  Smart God in Genesis 1 or dumb God in Genesis 2? 

And while we are at it, dear Creationists, how do you account for the fact that God made us in his own image and gave us dominion over everything, but placed us on a planet where trees and turtles out live us, we can only live on about 15% of the planet, and our legs and spines are designed in a way that they give out about the time we are 60 because of gravity?  I won’t mention when breasts give out.  Why don’t we have gills?  That does not sound like intelligent design to me.

I for one applaud the Episcopalians.  They should keep going.  I think they should re-write the beatitudes to condemn misogyny, racism and slavery.  They should take out all those references to homosexuals and should just say abortion is OK and a fundamental decision assigned to all women.  They should clearly say the earth is round, the moon orbits the earth and is not a light source, and the earth orbits the sun, and they should make clear that carbon dating is a valid scientific process so the earth is way more than 10,000 years old and dinosaurs and humans were never alive at the same time.  They should recognize that evolution is a reality.  I think they should re-write the technical specifications of the ark to include the tech specs for the internal combustion engine, light bulbs, computers, rockets, cell phones, microwaves, etc.  The Bible is touted as the only source of wisdom we need and yet it really is pretty well stuck in the Bronze Age.  They should make it clear that free enterprise is based on greed and should be avoided.  They should also re-write the story of Jesus so he does not have to die at the hands the Romans and Jews, and therefore there is no need for us to remember him with cannibalistic rituals.

I am so glad I am not a creationist or a fundamentalist.  I would hate to profess a faith so full of ignorant beliefs and be laughed at by everyone with at least a high school diploma.

And yet, if one claims to be a Christian and is not a fundamentalist, and believes the Bible has errors, how can one be a Christian?  The Bible is either holy or holey.  So, I avoid that claim as well.