Category: Atheism and Religion

Highway to Heathen

I can’t point to a single event or a specific moment in my life where there was a “POOF!” and a cloud of smoke, and suddenly I was a non-believer. My path to atheism was a gradual one guided by a sense of skepticism I picked up very early on from somewhere. My immediate family was a sort of baptist/methodist mix without being too concerned about the denominational differences or showing up for church on a regular basis, but most of the indoctrination I was exposed to was through children’s programs at the fire-and-brimstone Baptist church/school my cousin’s family attended.

My earliest religious memory is of sitting in a room full of kids where an adult explained that we were all going to die unless we accepted Jesus into our hearts. The whole thing seemed kind of fishy to me, but I figured, hey, they’re adults and I’m just a kid – they must know what they’re talking about. We were asked to raise our hands if we hadn’t been “saved”. I wasn’t sure, so I raised my hand just to be safe, and was ushered into a smaller room with another adult who gave me some words to say in prayer. I clasped my hands and repeated what she’d said, and was then told, “Now you will live forever through our lord Jesus Christ.” It seemed just a little too easy to me. I mean, given the size of the reward I was earning, it seemed like there should have been more work involved; I had won the eternal lottery just by saying I wanted a ticket! But I figured, “Hey, they’re adults and I’m just a kid – they must know what they’re talking about.”

A few years later, my cousin and I spent a week during the summer riding our bikes every day to the same church to attend “Bible School”. Bible School consisted of some guy standing in front of us and using cheesy stage magic tricks (“GOD has blessed me with the power to separate these two metal rings!”) to keep us entertained while he railed about the evils of modern society. He told us rock music was evil, a tool of Satan, and I wondered, “How could that be? Music is just a thing, it can’t be good or evil!” But I figured, “Hey, he’s an adult and I’m just a kid – he must know… wait, y’know what? Adult or not, I don’t think this guy’s as smart as he thinks he is!”

(The next day, a boy in a Cub Scout uniform got up in front of the group and announced that he had gone home and smashed all his rock records. I remember thinking, “Moron!”.)

On Christmas eve, 1980, my Mary Baker Eddie Christian Scientist grandmother had a stroke. She and my grandfather believed that illness was not for mere mortals to trifle with; if you’re sick, just say your prayers and God will heal you if that’s His will. If not, well, He works in mysterious ways and He’s decided that it’s your time. But certainly don’t go see a doctor or take medication or vitamins or change your diet, because those actions would be attempts to thwart God’s plan for you. The extended family had to get together and drag my grandmother to a hospital for treatment. While this crisis was underway, I frequently heard my parents say of me, “He doesn’t really understand what’s going on.” But I did. I understood that my grandmother’s life was at risk, and that the religion from which she took so much comfort was in reality a self-destructive force in her life. But I figured, “Hey, she’s an adult and I’m still kind of young – hmm… now I’m convinced there’s a lot less to this “adulthood” thing than people would have me believe!”

When her husband, my grandfather, fought a long, losing battle against cancer in the early 80s, the scenario was much the same. He accepted medical help much later than he should have and only because the rest of the family refused to take no for an answer. I of course have no way of knowing whether he would have lived for significantly longer if his beliefs hadn’t gotten in the way, but I’m convinced that his suffering could have been greatly eased, and sooner than it was.

I think that truly by the time I graduated high school I had become an atheist, only I didn’t realize it. Ironically I still thought of myself as a Christian, even though I was at best cynical about the existence of any sort of divine being. I suppose I was a “just in case” Christian, a living embodiment of Pascal’s Wager. I went through the motions of a Christian wedding ceremony because our families expected nothing less and I knew of no alternative. I wanted to declare to the world my devotion to this woman with whom I was (and remain) deeply in love, and if that declaration had to be wrapped in a thin veneer of God for propriety’s sake, so be it. Likewise my children were baptized (one following a long sermon about what percentage of one’s income should be tithed to the church!), but all through the ceremony I couldn’t help but feel that my time would have been better spent playing with them than watching someone pour water on their heads.

In the last few years, as I mentioned in my last entry, my non-belief has crystallized and become more open and outward. The rise of fundamentalist power and influence has me genuinely frightened, and I can no longer in good conscience go along passively allowing superstition and myth to rule unchallenged.

Heresy 101

I recently joined the Atheist Blogroll and an aggregator called Planet Atheism in hopes of attracting someone outside my immediate family to stop in once in a while to read my occasional blatherings here.

The Blogroll owner asked me to write a brief entry to announce my membership there, which was this post’s intended function. However, as I set out to write it, I realized that though many of my posts here have criticized religious fanaticism or opined on church/state separation, I’ve never actually come out and openly said:

I am an atheist.

I’ve been an atheist for quite some time; to some extent I’ve always had an atheist streak. I’ve lived a life of quiet disbelief, going along with the religious folks around me because I saw no need to stir up trouble. Passively blasphemous.

In recent years, though, I’ve seen murderous fanatics crash planes into towers and blow themselves up in crowded places. I’ve seen theocratic-leaning fundamentalists grabbing more political and financial power than should be available to someone who thinks the end of the world is coming any day now, and that’s a good thing, and we should strive to make it happen sooner. I’ve seen a relative trying to instill her beliefs on my children against my wishes.

I don’t stay so quiet anymore.

So, as I was saying, hello to the members of the Atheist Blogroll, which I’ve just joined.

At least this overlong introduction/announcement has given me two more topics to write about in the near future: Why I am an atheist, and what it means to me to be one.

The Righteous, Behaving Badly

A trio of news items this week lend support to my theory that the folks screaming the loudest about other people’s morals or lack thereof are the ones with closets full of skeletons.. usually skeletons dressed in leather and handcuffs.

Exhibit A, and the mildest of the bunch: James Oddo, New York City Councilman, whose participation in a Norwegian “Daily Show” style fake news interview came rather abruptly to a halt:

Now, to be fair, I couldn’t find many specifics about this guy’s politics. But he’s a Republican, the party of the Christian Right and “family values”. Are threats of physical violence and shouts of “get the fuck out of my office!” acceptable to this crowd? All he had to do was say, “I’m sorry, this interview is over. Please leave.” Better yet, he could have just played along.

Exhibit B: Gary Aldridge, Liberty “University” graduate and cohort of the late and unlamented Jerry Falwell, was found dead in his Alabama home back in June. It’s not his death that lands him on this list, though, it’s the circumstances surrounding it, as revealed by the autopsy report released this week:

The decedent is clothed in a diving wet suit, a face mask which has a single vent for breathing, a rubberized face mask having an opening for the mouth and eyes, a second rubberized suit with suspenders, rubberized male underwear, hands and feet have diving gloves and slippers. There are numerous straps and cords restraining the decedent. There is a leather belt around the midriff. There is a series of ligatures extending from the hands to the feet. The hands are bound behind the back. The feet are tied to the hands. There are nylon ligatures holding these in place with leather straps about the wrists and ankles. There are plastic cords tied about the hands and feet with a single plastic cord extending up to the head and surrounding the lower neck. There is a dildo in the anus covered with a condom.

Apparently God hates gays, nudity, and premarital sex, but I suppose the Bible doesn’t specifically rule out rubber-leather-bondage-asphyxiation fetishes, so those are okay.

(But honestly, if a scuba suit and a rectal dildo or two among consenting adults is what you’re into, then go for it – but please spare me the details. The breathing thing, though? Kind of important. Try to remember that good respiration trumps a good orgasm every time.)

Exhibit C: Now we turn to a man whose hypocrisy is just the filler in a big ol’ casserole of evil: Christian Von Wernich, a Roman Catholic priest who used his position to support a brutal Argentine military dictatorship in the 70s and 80s. Convicted of complicity in 7 murders, 31 torture cases, and 42 abductions, Christian says his efforts were justified because those people were all possessed by the devil.

Fundie Fun for the Whole Family

This week from the land of Oz, which apparently has its own share of Bible-thumping perverts, comes news of a pastor who found a creative new way to teach his teenage daughters their scripturally-prescribed duties to their future husbands… by having sex with them on multiple occasions. Yes, according to the article on news.com.au, this inventive educator took it upon himself to instill the required traits of subservience and acquiescence into his 13- and 15-year-old offspring by nailing them to the ol’ Meat Cross on at least seven occasions in locations ranging from the back of a vehicle to a shed to their grandparents’ house.

(He must be from one of those denominations which hasn’t yet officially recognized altarboys as the approved receptacles for the Holy Seed.)

One could certainly argue that this guy is just a pervert who twisted scripture to provide an excuse for acting out his perversion, and his actions do nothing to invalidate any particular biblical tenet, and I would agree. (Half of what’s in most holy books invalidates itself without any outside help, but that’s another argument entirely.) It is certainly possible that this man would have found some other way to justify his behavior had a close-enough line or two from some religious text not been available.

There is of course the larger question of how he might have behaved in a society free of the sexual repression that religion has foisted on us, but that, too, is outside the scope of this writing.

What really bothers me about this event – beyond that outrage at the actions of one individual, beyond the frustration at seeing God (in whatever form you care to choose) invoked once again to justify blatant wrongdoing, is summed up near the bottom of the article (emphasis mine):

Judge Lovell gave full credit for the man’s guilty pleas, saying he was genuinely remorseful and had a good chance of rehabilitation as his wife and the church remained supportive.

Supportive? Does that mean they just think he made a simple mistake and it’ll be okay now that he knows better? Or do they really believe he was doing God’s work?

How to rationalize anything

The “how could [fill in deity name here] let bad things happen to good people?” debate has been raging ever since the first time the Spirit in the Funny Shaped Dead Tree Over There failed to protect Og from a serious woolly-mammoth goring. It’s not a debate likely to be settled in my lifetime, and my little read-by-nobody blog isn’t likely to add anything significant to the conversation.

Still, I feel compelled to share some details of an exchange I had this weekend because it illustrates why I often am dumbfounded at the way people use their belief systems to rationalize anything.

I was at a party this weekend where someone opined, “Boy, God sure was watching over those people on that bridge in Minnesota.”

Excuse me? “Watching over which ones, the five or more who died, or the dozens who were injured?”

“No,” she said, “those kids on that school bus – they all survived. God protected them.”

“If he’d really been watching over them,” I said, “That bridge wouldn’t have collapsed.”

This is where it became disturbing:

“But it’s a good thing that bridge collapsed! Now we’ll fix all the other ones.”

Okay, first of all: No, we won’t. We’ll make a lot of noise about it for a while, but in the end, nobody will want to pay for it.

Secondly. and more relevant to my current tirade: You’re telling me that this all-seeing, all-knowing, wise, omnipotent God of yours needed to think of a way to say “fix your bridges” and the best he could come up with is, “Hmm, maybe I should let some people die. Yeah, that’ll work! Especially if I put a busload of kids in harm’s way!”

He works in mysterious ways, indeed. If all such tragedy can be ascribed to him, then the real mystery is whether he’s one cruel, twisted bastard or just hopelessly inept.

The Sound of One Hand Clapping

Kudos to the 23 year old man who today cut off his own hand as a sacrifice to the Hindu goddess Kali. Yes, that’s right, kudos: you’re to be commended for maiming only yourself in your zealous pursuit of holiness in the eyes of your imaginary friend. In these days when sacrifice in the name of religion is so often accompanied by a BOOM, it’s refreshing to hear about a fanatic who doesn’t try to share his love of Holy Mutilation with others.

Buried in a Matchbox

Sure, I’m a week behind in jumping on the “Talk about Jerry Falwell now that he’s dead” bandwagon. I debated posting something the day the news debuted, but didn’t. I could claim the delay was “out of respect for the dead” or some such nonsense, but honestly, what really factored into the delay were a) my addiction to Lord of the Rings Online, and b) that I was really, really sick of hearing about his death by about day 2.

Falwell was a human being and as such, I will not celebrate or glorify his death in any way.

Just because I’m not actively glad he’s dead, though, doesn’t mean I will ever celebrate or glorify his life in any way, either.

The man was a hateful, bigoted, sexist, bloated, bloviating theocrat who built an economic and political empire on the beliefs of the gullible. A snake oil salesman with his own Home Shopping Network. The intertubes this week have been jam-packed with choice examples of Jerry quotes where he blames the world’s woes on women, jews, liberals, gays, Teletubbies, and basically anyone and everyone else who doesn’t believe the world is 6,000 years old and the national anthem should be changed to “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

My favorite quote of the week (and the inspiration for the title of this entry) was uttered by Christopher Hitchens during a FAUX Noise interview on Hannity & Silent Bob: “If you gave Falwell an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox.”

There’s little to say about him that hasn’t already been said, so instead I leave you, oh search engines who are the only ones reading this, with a song in honor of the angry, jealous, vengeful God in whose name Falwell preached his hate.

Left Behind Wal-Mart: Eternal Fracas

So the “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” game mentioned a few times here has shipped, and Wal-Mart is under fire by critics of the game for stocking it. Personally, rather than having it pulled from the shelves, I’d rather see the game fail miserably on its own merits or lack thereof. Wishful thinking, I know – these days, slapping a Christian theme onto a mediocre product is a sure way to boost sales. Just look at the success of Mel Gibson’s “The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre” movie a few years ago.

As one of the responses here a while back pointed out, the initial articles about LB:EF were incorrect: rather than being rewarded for killing non-believers, you do in fact receive a penalty of some sort for killing instead of converting them. How to recover the points lost for the taking of a human life in the name of God? Prayer. Yes, your in-game units have to say their prayers, apparently a time-consuming process which diverts them from other work.

So I was incorrect in implying that the message of the game is “It’s okay to kill infidels.” In reality, the message is “It’s okay to kill infidels so long as you put aside time to pray for forgiveness later.”

The Semantics of War (… and no sex till 30!)

The talking heads have this week become engaged in a bizarre, twisted parody of a Bud Lite commercial. Civil war! Sectartian violence! Civil war! Sectartian violence! Tastes great! Less filling! Pundits on both sides are popping out of the woodwork with their own favorite definitions for the term “Civil War”, tweaked of course to fit their own personal viewpoint on what’s going on over there.

Now, I’ll be the last person to criticize those media outlets which have actually had the courage to step out of lock-step with the administration and its chosen terminology for doing so. My problem with the way this has unfolded is that the debate over semantics is overshadowing the actual news that feeds it. Hundreds of civilians dead every week, basic services still not restored in many places, thousands fleeing to neighboring countries, and American soldiers (who should never have been sent there to begin with) still being injured or killed on a daily basis while the Saudis and Chinese grow richer from the amount of money we’re borrowing to pay for our little Middle-Eastern excursion… and we tune in to the network news for the latest round of to-may-to vs. to-mah-to?

For all their faults, at least the Bushies provide the comedians with plenty of material. I can’t wait to see the Daily Show and their ilk get hold of the latest memo from the morality-through-ignorance “abstinence education” folks over at Bush’s Department of Health & Human Services, which recommends sexual abstinence until age 30!

For the 90-plus percent of Americans in the 19-29 age bracket who are sexually active, this is the point where you’re supposed to say, “Oops! Too late!” For the rest of you: I’m sorry about your condition, and I hope medical science finds a cure for it in the near future.

Today is Susan’s birthday and I won’t say how old she is, but I will reveal that, should we have the energy after a big steak dinner and the nightly chore of getting the kids into bed, any activities might engage in will be sanctioned by the Bush administration. Well, that is, unless they’ve also issued guidelines on positioning, or prohibitions against… oh, never mind.