Church Month

April will be church month for Christians this year.  Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter and any other day of that week that needs an excuse to celebrate the most bizarre belief system on the planet.  There should be a “Mayday Monday”, a “Testing Tuesday”, a “Wallowing Wednesday” and a “Seriously? Saturday” to make the week complete.

Christians will give homage to a loving, all-wise, all-knowing god who could not figure out a way to save humans from sin other than sacrificing his own son.  Clearly this is one of the worst cases of child abuse and negligent homicide on record.  Christians will cry real tears as they recall Jesus committed suicide for their sins and we wonder why he just didn’t climb off the cross and end childhood cancer.  I am oh so grateful that since he and his dad chose for him to die it was on a cross elsewise Christians and their churches would be adorned with guillotines, firing squads, hangman nooses, large axes, etc., instead of the more subtle reminder that the cross was an instrument of torture and death.  None of those other death methods would look good hanging around the necks of the faithful.

And before he left, Jesus instituted a cannibalistic ritual via the Last Supper.  This is my body.  Eat it.  This is my blood.  Drink it.  So gross.

Riding an ass into Jerusalem cheered by a crowd who does not have a clue what is going on seems oh so similar to Trump rallies where they chant, “Lock her up” or “AOC sucks” or any other ignorant expression.  The same brilliant people will be chanting “Give us Barabbas” soon enough.  So the tradition of blindly following the crowd without engaging their brains may easily have begun with those folks 2,000 years ago, carried on today by the faithful who think Trump is a god-send.  Of course, Trump will be playing golf at his own facility during all these morbid celebrations, gaining personal wealth at tax payer expense while self-serving preachers rake in even more money.

All of this belief system hoorah occurs without one shred of evidence that any of it really happened.  I am so amazed.  I guess the only good news is that this cult is shrinking world-wide and is only growing in areas with the lowest levels of education.  Perhaps there is some hope that humans will be able someday to think their way out of preposterous belief systems.  Until then, I buckle down for Church Month.  Let the mythological depression begin and the hallucinatory rejoicing commence.

Hard Hearts. Closed Minds. Locked Doors

The Methodist Church needs a motto Change.  Open Hearts.  Open Minds.  Open Doors.  Bullshit.  The Methodist Church just voted to ban LGBT marriages and clergy. 

Time for a new motto:  Hard Hearts.  Closed Minds.  Locked Doors.

I’m done.  I am officially pulling out of the local Methodist Church.  I will no longer give money to such a shallow, hateful place.  This vote reflects all that is wrong with the conservative movement in the US.  It is mean, hateful, and divisive.  Unless one is lucky enough to choose Methodist approval for one’s source of sexual arousal one may not be a full participant in the church.  That is just wrong for a group who claims Christianity and illustrates the growing threat of religious fundamentalism in the US and the world. 

Not that Jesus even speaks to the issue of LGBTQ.  Only Paul addresses the issue and at best Paul is thinking like other Bronze Age thinkers ignorant of psychology, biology and science in general.  This is the same Paul who condones slavery.  The very thought that something written 2,000 years ago should be literally followed today is total nonsense.  The Bible was written by men, not God.  The Bible was not meant to be a scientific book, a sociological book, a psychological book, or even a history book.  To take it as such is pure ignorance and a rejection of all that we have learned through science.  Methodists who support this position should be required to surrender their cell phones, computers, microwaves and all modern medicine.

So sad in a world that so desperately needs inclusion and love that a major church rejected the opportunity to model such.  I’m done.

The Problem of Discussing God with Christians

I feel no need to convert Christians to atheists, though I do believe if they could really take out their faith and look at it they would abandon the notion of a god, and I am willing to provide prompts for Christians to engage in that sort of self-examination.  What I have learned, however, is that Christians really do not want to talk about whether there is a god or not.  They so desperately want to believe in such a supernatural being that even the first tentative step toward logic can end the discussion.  I have wondered why.

Belief is such a powerful state of mind that even confronted again and again with evidence to the contrary believers will hold on to their beliefs.  We have seen this phenomenon historically as Copernicus declared that the earth orbited the sun and had the evidence to prove it.  Did not matter.  He was tortured.  We have seen it when archaeologists declared the earth to be about 4.5 billion years old and believers opened a museum depicting dinosaurs and men sharing the planet at the same time.  Believers will go to great lengths to hold on to their beliefs.

I suspect there is great fear and possible great pain that accompanies actually accepting something that is contrary to a previous belief.  As a preacher’s son I grew up in the church and when in my 60’s I began to question the existence of a god I found it very painful and very scary.  I also found it shaming.  Have I really been talking to an imaginary friend all this time?  Have I really given that much money to a group that makes stuff up?  Am I really willing to lose friends because I now know what I did not know before?  How about the alienation of family members?  Wouldn’t it be easier to just keep my mouth shut and pretend?

But I also suspect there is something deeper going on here.  Christians talk about never being alone, god is on their side, he is always with them, he wants the best for them, all things are possible with him, etc., etc.  Even though I know all that is poppycock and balderdash it must be incredibly comforting to humans who fear actually living a life alone within the boundaries of their brains and accepting events as natural phenomenon rather than a grand plan.  And for some it must be terrifying to know that death is death, you die and you are done.  I am no longer afraid of being alone or of dying and feel kind of silly that I thought there was some being who was in here with me and that I would somehow have consciousness beyond life.  Yes, we made god in our own image and fashioned him to meet our needs.

This fear, this need for security, is so great that pondering an alternative is impossible for many.  Accepting that death is final must be equally scary.  I have no desire for heaven because it appears to me that if there was such a place all the things I’d want to do would violate the rules, and I have no fear of hell because I know there is no such place, no GPS coordinates, no parallel dimension that houses billions of specters without form or substance.  How does one punish a being with no corporeal body?  At any rate, I quit.  I have given up offering my prompts for discussion or even hinting that there is no god.  Should someone ever ask I will be delighted to explain a host of reasons why I know there is no god.  Until then, I will seek to tolerate those who believe they have spoken with this being and that he has told them they are right. 

There are few things worse than a human who believes he or she has a god’s blessing.  With that belief people feel empowered to commit the most heinous acts against each other.  It would not be so bad if Christians really made an effort to follow the guidelines for living established in the New Testament, but they do not.  I hear no Christians in this neck of the woods arguing for open borders because we are to welcome the stranger, or arguing that there are better ways to spend billions of dollars when people are hungry, homeless and without medical insurance.  Not happening, so the hypocrisy of Christianity continues.

But if you want to know that Christians will banish you to their hell just point out any of the above.  It seems to be impossible to discuss god with Christians so I should just quit trying.

And yet, sharing truth in the face of false beliefs is a human imperative or we will never advance.  If the best we can be lies in the past and in false beliefs then when we kill ourselves by destroying the environment of the only planet where we can live, or an asteroid hits us, or the Yellowstone volcano erupts, I wonder if believers will have a quick insight that if human extinction is part of their god’s plan what is the point of worship and belief?

But it is pointless to point that out to believers.  And that is the problem.

It's a Miracle!

My daughter gave birth this weekend to a precious baby boy for whom I already feel a lot of love though I just met him.  As two sets of grandparents and nurses gathered around the happy but exhausted couple holding their newborn I heard the word over and over.  It’s a miracle.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I am thrilled that mom and kid are healthy, ten fingers and toes, etc.  But I somehow missed the miracle part.

Miracles are extraordinary positive events manifesting divine intervention in human affairs; events that cannot be explained by natural or scientific laws.  Yep, I missed that.  I missed it somewhere during the nine months she carried this baby and gained weight and bought fat clothes and waddled around and lost sleep and had a hard time breathing.  I missed it during her 17 hours of labor, the pain reduction meds, all the dilation effacement discussion, the OB/GYN delivery, the crew of nurses who measured and cleaned the infant, and the cutting of the cord.  It all looked to me like biology at work supported by a team of medical professionals.  Nothing mysterious happened.  There were no angels in the hallway.  There were no shepherds.  The heavens did not open.  Stealing someone else’s’ line, I did say, “This is my grandson with whom I am well pleased.”  In fact, all I observed was one wise man.

As I looked at all my daughter endured coupled with all the support she got I see nothing miraculous at all.  In fact, if I see anything, it is the curse of bearing children.  This is a long, painful, tedious event that causes women to be shape shifters and scream in pain. 

If the Bible is to be believed, and I do not think it is, then all this happens because Adam and Eve sought knowledge when god told them not to so they were kicked out of the garden and destined to have such agony in childbirth.  OK, so god was mad at them and punished them, though his response seems pretty juvenile to me.  “I’m kicking you out of the house and I’m going to make you hurt.”  Well, I guess it is better than what he did at Sodom and Gomorrah and what he did to almost everyone with the flood.  Still, how long is god going to hold this grudge against Adam and Eve?  How many generations does he have to punish?  How can we call him a loving god when he is so mean?

And if childbirth for humans is part of god’s grand design he did a terrible job.  Chickens and gold fish have it better than human females.  Why women cannot just lay an egg, keep it warm and wait for it to hatch I don’t know.  We have this long term, painful ordeal while we still think we are up a few rungs on the evolutionary ladder from birds and fish and reptiles.

Nope.  This was no miracle.  If it is a product of divine intervention then god should keep his hands out of it because he is just making it worse.  If there is a miracle it is the epidural.

Religious Conservative Idiocy

Right-wing Christianity has become a political movement, not a religious group.  The following beliefs held by religious conservatives should trigger cries of blasphemy from true believers:  

Fertilized eggs are human beings.  We should protect the lives of the unborn.  It is OK not to protect the lives of the children who are born.  We can separate them from their parents, cut their health care, cut the funding for their schools, cut their food stamps and even allow their deaths while in detention.  Protect unborn children, to hell with children who are born.

I am pro-life and pro death penalty.

Jesus said it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.  But I believe Jesus wanted me to be rich.

Jesus said give all that you have to the poor and follow me.  But I believe Jesus wanted me to accumulate material things.

Jesus said love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Unless he or she is Black, Mexican American, Oriental, gay, transgender or poor.  Then those neighbors need to move to another zip code.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but cut the taxes for the rich.

Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, but wants us to build a wall to keep the Samaritans out.

Jesus said love your enemy.  But I have a God-given right to keep my weaponry to kill anyone who is my enemy.

Jesus said blessed are the poor in spirit but we should cut spending on mental health

Jesus said blessed are those who mourn but we should make fun of losers.

Jesus said blessed are the meek but we should elect a narcissist.

Jesus said blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness but we should elect someone who hungers and thirsts for money and power.

Jesus said blessed are the merciful but we should elect a bully who is willing to hurt people to get his way.

Jesus said blessed are the pure in heart but we should elect a consummate liar, an adulterer, and a sexual assaulter.

Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers but we should elect someone who holds rallies to arouse one group against another and we should build walls between us and neighbors.

I see no way to claim to be a conservative and a Christian.  If god chose Trump then god is an idiot who supports all the worst human traits.  The truth of the matter is the Russians chose Trump and we are in desperate need of an exorcism.

Happy Holidays

Christmas is just days away and I sit pondering the Christian belief system that provides the foundation of this mostly secular event.  Perchance I am wrong, or short-sighted or miss the point, but here is how it looks to me.

Christians believe there is a supreme being that created everything, including humans.  This being not only wired us for all our aptitudes but with all our appetites, and subjected us to a host of ills like cancer, ALS, etc. The being must have created these ills as well since they believe this being created everything.  Thanks a lot, god of cancer, ALS, Alzheimer’s, etc.

Meanwhile, this being allows for a place called hell where humans who are not forgiven will go for all eternity.  Humans banished to hell get there by overdoing the appetites we were given by the supreme being.  If we sin, we will go to hell, unless we ask the being to forgive us.  So, the being creates the possibility of sin, endows humans with a desire to sin, judges us if we do sin and sends us to hell forever.  If that doesn’t sound like the meanest trick in the book I do not know what is.

But, the being decided to provide a solution for the propensity to sin that the being created in humans in the first place.  Now this being is supposed to be all knowing, all smart, sees everything, etc.  But no one told him, her or it if he, she, or it just cleared the books of the notion of sin and allowed us to simply prosecute and punish bad deeds there would be no need for the remainder of this whoopla.  Nope.  He wants a hand in it.  So brilliant being that he or she or it is he, she or it decides that if he just kills his own son then humans can be forgiven for sin.  Is that right?  He created sin.  He created out desire to sin.  He created hell for when we do.  And his solution is to allow his only son to die.  Oh yeah.  This is a smart being.  Duh.

And Christians believe that.  Worse, they believe a virgin gave birth to this god/man son.  Really? They believe a star somehow hovered over a village.  Really?  Any star that close would fry the entire earth.  They believe other entities sent by the being flew in the air and sang.  They told mere humans not to be afraid.  Really?  You are a simple shepherd keeping watch over your flock by night when emissaries from a supreme being appear in the sky over your head, singing, and tell you not to be afraid.  Holy cow.  Why not just send a neighbor up the trail to say the being has a son, come and see.  Nope, not this being.  He, she, or it loves the melodrama.  So typical.  Create fear then say do not be afraid.

Christians also believe the son of the being was perfect, without sin.  Well, why didn’t this being just make all of us that way?  Is that too much to ask since he is creating everything anyway.  Think of all the pain and guilt we could have avoided if he had just made us really in his own image like he made Jesus.  No, this being seems more interested in the stupid plot that says I made you want to sin, you sin, I send you to hell, unless you love me and my perfect son, whom by the way, I am going to kill.

And the folks that believe this stuff think I should say Merry Christmas?  That is as daft as believing the earth is flat.  Christmas in fact is a very dismal, very scary time because according to the belief system if it had not happened we would all go to hell.  Worse, we have to support the illogic of a being who is willing to have his son die a torturous death after an impossible birth and be merry that he was born while knowing his fate.  Not for me, thank you very much. 

Happy Holidays.

Smug and Sad

I am a newly admitted atheist.  There are a range of emotions I have experienced as a rookie non-believer that in many ways surprise me.  Feeling smug and feeling sad are among those new feelings.

Fourth grade at Christmas time and I knew Santa was not real.  So did others in my class.  But many believed him to be real and looked forward to the gifts he would bring and looked forward to setting out cookies and milk for him to consume when he entered the house on Christmas Eve.  I felt smug.  I knew those other kids were fools and simpletons and that someday their eyes would be opened and they would see that Santa as portrayed in poems, and movies and songs was a mythical figure.  Yes, there was evidence he was real:  the cookies were gone, the milk consumed, and presents appeared under the tree.  But I knew that evidence was the result of an adult conspiracy to perpetrate the myth.  In hindsight, when I believed in Santa I should have been totally freaked out that some strange man would enter our house undetected in the middle of the night.  Scarier still is that he watched me all year, all the time, to determine whether I was naughty or nice.

But I digress.  Santa is not real and I felt smug in that knowledge when surrounded by peers who still believed.  I did not puncture their bubbles or pour out their Kool-Aid.  I waited, confident that they too would know someday.  I was smug.  And I was right.  Despite what one may see on the Hallmark Channel, few adults believe in Santa.  I did not shift from a belief system that supported the existence of Santa to another belief system.  I discovered the veracity of the fact that Santa was a myth.  Moving from belief to knowledge is, or should be, part of ongoing human evolution.  But I really do not care if you believe in Santa or not.  I will not attempt to persuade you to reject that belief.  I will not engage in arguments to demonstrate that his existence is mythical based on science and what we know of reality.  I would only do so if someone engaged in an effort to convince me that Santa was real.  Otherwise, I believe you have the right to be wrong and that I have the right to be right.  Smug.

I feel the same way about those who hold religious beliefs; who believe that there is some sort of supernatural entity behind some curtain who knows all things and created all things and is capable of a personal relationship with well over 7 billion humans.  The science denying such a notion is obvious.  The human experience confirming the lack of divine intervention by such a being is profound.  The very notion that there is in each of us an eternal, ethereal consciousness called the soul is pure wishful thinking based on ego.  I had no existence prior to birth and will have no existence after death.  If there was a part of me that was eternal it would not have had a beginning. 

Human cultures are rife with gods and always have been.  From Hunab-Ku of the Mayans, to Ra of the Egyptians, to Zeus of Greeks, to Mohammad of the Muslims, to Jesus of the Christians there are a multitude of so-called divine entities, prophets, demons, and supernatural beings.  Humans have created these gods in their own image to answer questions about our existence, explain phenomenon, and provide some respite from fear of the unknown.  No faith believes in the existence of the deities of the other faiths, so everyone is an atheist when it comes to religions other than their own.  For Christians specifically there is no tangible evidence to support that Moses, Abraham, or Jesus ever existed.  The Bible is so riddled with both false and inconsistent information it becomes unbelievable.  No, there are no god or gods any more than there is a Santa.  But I will not attempt to persuade you to reject your beliefs.  I will only do so if you attempt to convince me Jesus is real, god is real, Zeus is real, Ra is real, etc., etc. I know what you believe is false and know what I know is true.  Truth should always trump belief.  Smug.

And yet I remain sad.  I watch the funeral of President George HW Bush in the National Cathedral and feel sad.  Not for Bush.  But for the millions of us who believe erecting such an edifice was appropriate.  Those who believe that the robed religious leaders are somehow tuned into a supreme being, that the Armed Services choir and orchestra playing religious music is OK.  That we had the gall to stamp “One Nation Under God” on our currency.  Might as well have said one nation under Zeus.  We present ourselves as fools and charlatans.

I am sad that for many of the people I know and love my lack of belief upsets them deeply.  I have been unfriended on Facebook and have been told unless I believe as they believe I am not an appropriate friend.  Amazing.  It saddens me.  In fact, it adds proof to my lack of belief.  If all those who are close to me would simply pray for me, or pray that I would have a sign like becoming blinded on the road to Houston or receiving stone tablets from a mountain, or even getting a divine email, then if there is a god I should be converted.  Not gonna happen.  If that many believers request something from their god and noting happens how can they remain believers?

I am sad at the loss of friends, family, loved ones.  I am sad that this commercial, secular time of year must be wrapped in myths like virgin births, stars hovering over villages, choirs of angels singing, etc.  I know it is all nonsense.  And yet, there are those who are more committed to those beliefs than they are to Santa.  That saddens me deeply.  Why we cannot simply enjoy a holiday season that emerges from the notion we give to each other because we care for each other without all the messy ridiculous religious crap I do not know.  And I shop downtown and note that the City Council is broadcasting religious Christmas Carols through speakers on the sidewalks paid for with my tax dollars.

Christmas time.  Smug and sad.

Not yet mad.