God Likes Me! He Really Liked Me!

I Am Nothing!

I don't have a lot of interaction with Christians. A few have stuck with me on Facebook, and most of my family and extended family are believers, but really, I just don't swim in those waters anymore.

Now that I am out though, things look very different when I get that occasional peek back. One thing that really stands out is the verbal and mental self flagellation.  I listen to friends and family drone on about how unworthy they are, how little they can accomplish, their weakness, their waywardness. Phrase after phrase they apply the lash.

Of course, they do not see it as negative speech, because they top it all off with some confession of Jesus.  I get it.  I used to say similar things and I said them with pride!  My favorite song repeated, "I AM NOTHING!" over and over in the chorus.  From experience I realize that pointing it out to them would be... well, pointless.

Free from such negative self-talk, I can only look on now in pity and wonder.  I no longer think of myself as unworthy, nor do I see others that way.  I would question any deity who desired such things to be uttered from the mouths of his children.

It reminds me of the story of Daniel Everett.  He was a Christian missionary who went to live among a tribal people called the Pirahã.  Everett eventually abandoned his faith as he began to realize he was trying to teach this happy, contended people that they were actually bad and in need of a savior.  He needed to give them a disease, so he could offer them a cure.

My wife and I occasionally get books or sermon cd's from believers.  If we will just listen to this tape, or read that book, all of our "questions" will be answered.  I am polite, but rarely do more than thumb through the pages or give a moments listen.  My wife is much more patient and has been slowly working through one of the latest books.  She told me tonight why the book really doesn't "work".

"The author assumes I am needy, or desperate, or broken.  But I am none of those things.  I am happy... so... that approach doesn't work for me anymore."

Rooster's Gourmet Popcorn!

First Round

Last year, Rooster's Gourmet Popcorn ran a contest - whomever gets the most Facebook Likes to their Facebook page inside a week, gets a year's supply of free popcorn. My mind instantly started whirling.... First, I am very engaged on Facebook and might actually be able to pull this off. Second, and more importantly, Jake LOVES Rooster's popcorn! We had stopped in a number of times when going out to a movie, and he had actually put Rooster's Popcorn on his Christmas list!

So, I put it out to all my friends on FB and tried to play it up as a festive happening. On the Rooster's FB page, I started a thread and friends joined in to add their encouragement, memes, and popcorn jokes. I was having a lot of fun promoting this.  Within that few days, we had added well over a hundred likes to their page.

Cherry Cordial and Loaded Baked Potato

A few days after the contest ended, the owner emailed me to let me know we had won. We were thrilled to win of course, but the excitement grew over the next few days as it started to settle in that we were going to get free popcorn... for a year!

And not just any popcorn, if you have never been to Rooster's, they have dozens of flavors available at any given time - cheeses, chocolates, fruity, nutty, sodas, spicy, sweet - it is like the Wonka factory for popcorn.

Coconut and Kettle Corn

Our first flavors were Buffalo Wing and Toffee Pecan. We met the owner and she was as nice as could be. I determined over the next year to post about our weekly venture for popcorn; they were such great people and so kind to feed us popcorn for the year, I at least wanted to do what I could to promote them on social media.

For Jake and I, it was a fun bonding time to make our weekly trek to Rooster's, select our flavors, and take that week's pic. We occasionally brought others along for the ride. Sometimes it was Grandma and Grandpa, or foreign exchange students, or Kathryn filling in when Jake was sick, or the whole family - but mostly it was me and Jake.

Last Visit

Over the year, we became regulars at Rooster's. The staff made our visits fun and the popcorn was great! I want to thank them again, not just for the popcorn, but for the festive year long event this created for my family!

Thank You Rooster's Gourmet Popcorn!

The Bible's Position On Marriage Should Turn Your Stomach

While my wife and I were talking this evening, the topic of marriage came up. We discovered that she did not know that in the Bible, rapists were obliged by God to marry their victim... and the victim was obliged to marry her rapist.

Deuteronomy 22:28–29
28 "If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.

I spent the lion's share of my time in religion not knowing that verse... to be honest, I only became aware of it when I started looking at the Bible objectively some years back.  My wife, having been in the faith her entire life... had never heard it.

 

As with most believers, we were taught an edited view of the Bible.  Unbeknownst to us while we were believers, that kind of twisted scripture is all over the Bible.

Truly, even if we had known about such scriptures, we probably would have found some way to move past them.  Bring these scriptures up to someone who WANTS to believe that the Bible is all that they have been taught it is... and they will find someway to move around a scripture like this and on to one that will make them feel warm and fuzzy.  I read an apologist's take on the above scripture, and his attempt to excuse it was as horrific as the verse itself.

from THE OATMEAL

You will simply never hear a verse like this taught on a Sunday morning.  You will hear about love, you will hear about money, you will hear about God's plan for you.  Your Pastor will carefully guide you around every danger in the minefield of the Bible.

This is why the indoctrination has to start hard when they are young.  Any reasonable adult, without conditioning, hearing the verse above would be horrified... and would see any religion which holds the Bible as the "Word of God" for the morally hobbled entity it is.

But if someone had their childhood and adolescence spent drilled with the message that the bible is not to be questioned... should they, by chance, come across this verse or one like it... they will, most likely, follow their conditioning and stay in the pew.

Book Review: Hope After Faith

Hope After Faith: An Ex-Pastor's Journey from Belief to Atheism is an auto-biographical account by Jerry DeWitt.  I listened to the Audible.com version, which is narrated by the author.

The story is told in the first person and the narration has an easy listening style.  You can tell the author is a professional speaker and the delivery is as comfortable as a conversation over coffee.

The narrative begins with Jerry as a teen, converting to Christ at a Jimmy Swaggart camp meeting. We then learn of his attempts in his early 20's at establishing a revival ministry as a traveling evangelist. Later, with wife and child, he begins to pastor at the congregational level.

What I found interesting is that we don't get to his deconversion until the last fifth of the book. Most of the book takes place during Jerry's time as a believer. During that telling, he offers the perspective as it was for him then. Very often, former believing authors write their memoirs in an almost autopsy-like fashion.  As they are describing their believing days, they process it through a level of deconstruction. Jerry does not do that. When you are reading about his time as a believer, you get a good look into the thinking process of a Pentecostal Christian.

I appreciated his story and his descriptions of how grueling deconversion can be. So often, believers tend to imagine us leaving faith for selfish reasons, or in anger.  Jerry describes a process where he worked feverishly at TRYING to stay in the faith. He TRIED to make it work. I relate completely.

It was disturbing to read the level of ostracization that Jerry had to endure. My family and I have been treated poorly at times, and have had the opportunity to see who are our true friends... but I have never feared for my job or felt such negative social pressure that we would consider moving to start a new life. It demonstrates that the deep religious South is almost a different America.

I first became aware of Jerry DeWitt through some of his talks on Youtube. I appreciated his positive delivery style, and his patience with the believing community.  His attitude and grace when interacting with believers is admirable and an approach I strive to emulate.

I highly recommend the book. Ex-believers will probably relate to a lot of his story, particularly if they have any Pentecostal flavorings in their background. Atheists who have always been such will get a good peek behind the believing curtain. I don't expect many believers would engage this book, but if they did, they would get an honest look at deconversion - which is probably very different than what they were taught to expect.

Facebook Faith #45: We Know Science Too!

A religious friend posted an article this morning.  In it, the author goes into an often used argument that the edge of scientific discovery serves as a proof of a deity.  Not just any deity of course, it proves his deity.  The line of thinking goes like this : "Science cannot account for items like String Theory.  It is beyond our knowledge.  Where man ends, God begins!"

Of course, 100 or so years ago, it was germs, before that, the revolution of the planets.  In ancient times? Hurricanes were obviously from Poseidon.

Wherever the new frontier is in scientific discovery, there you will find the faithful trying to make the case for their deity.

The interesting thing to me about this pattern is that people seem unable to connect the dots in the pattern.  They think it absurd that humankind once attributed lightning to Zeus or the seasons to Persephone.  They feel the church was awful for persecuting thinkers like Galileo and Jean-François Champollion. Yet most religious Americans fail to see their similar absurd and persecuting attitude toward science when it comes to things like evolution or the age of the Earth.

I recently heard a talk by John Dehlin.  He made a similar point when it came to ethics.  He said we all have moral farsightedness.  It is clear as day to us in the modern era that no person should be made a slave and that women should have the right to vote.  Yet one does not have to go far into history to find people who went to prison or endured public rejection for announcing these obvious truths.

Ethics are clear in hindsight, and it is easy to spot an illogical perspective in an outside group. However, when we are in the moment, or when these things are part of our community, we can miss them entirely.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself... and you are the easiest person to fool. ~Richard P. Feynman

I felt that the article was nothing more than an apologetic piece and I commented:

One thing that has become clear to me since leaving faith is the motivation of this kind of apologetic maneuver - quiet any questions within the camp. And it works. It is the same maneuver that quiets questions among the Mormon faithful when genetics becomes a sticky wicket. Eyes are rolled when OTHER religions do this maneuver, but it makes sense for our group to think this way. Our religious stories are true... But theirs are obviously wrong.

That tendency in my faith to move the goal posts was one of the things that helped usher me out.  My Evangelical brothers and sisters would often mock our Mormon neighbors over their belief in the Book of Mormon - when so much of it had been scientifically and historically PROVEN false. Mormon belief, in denial of EVIDENCE, was simply an indication of how deceived they were.  Yet those same attributes of denying history and science to defend religion, when practiced by folks on our team, was an indication of faithfulness and steadfastness.

Ultimately, the article works because it was proclaimed in the religious echo chamber.  The author is convinced of his spiritual reality, writing to a crowd of the equally convinced.  He wants to let the faithful know that science backs them as well.  His argument would not bear up under the scrutiny of a first year science student.... but that is ok, his audience has moved on, content that they know science too.

Why Do Atheists Talk About Religion So Much?

Whenever a conversation starts on Facebook, or some social media site, between atheists and theists, I start a mental countdown.  How many comments before someone chimes in, "Why do atheists talk about religion so much??"  This is usually stated not so much as a question, but as an ejaculation of frustration. WHY CAN'T ATHEISTS LEAVE RELIGION ALONE?

However, for all the angst ridden accusatory interrogations, I suppose at times it may be a genuine question - perplexing the religious folks who have not had much contact with unbelievers. So, for those really needing an Atheism 101 introduction, let me offer my insights - as a fairly new atheist myself.

The primary reason atheists talk about religion is social and political need. As the cartoon demonstrates, religious people make decisions based on religion that affect the non-religious. There is no way to address these ramifications in our daily lives without addressing the root from which they sprang. In a culture where almost everyone is religious, it is simply unavoidable.

Second, most atheists were once believers. As I write, scores of new atheists are leaving the religious life. They are BURSTING with questions, thoughts, and new concepts. In their churches, it was probably the case that all of those questions were stifled. The shackles have been removed, and they want to TALK.

As a believer, I struggled with the concept of Hell. In my evangelical sect, questions about Hell were either shut down, or you got the party line.... but there was no one willing to deconstruct it with me. When an atheist "comes out", they usually have a long list of things they have been dying to talk about - that were not welcome topics of conversation in the church.

Even years later, they are still unpacking.  The Atheist keeps finding thoughts, fears, and prejudices nested deep in their psyche. Moralities that were imparted by their religion now have to be re-evaluated in the light of reason. I had it drilled into me since childhood that behavior X is wrong.  Is it really? Why do I think so? I don't know, I just do. Time for some unpacking.

A third point, I think, is normalization. I want it to be normal for a perspective of "no deities" to be brought up in conversation. Religious people don't tend to notice how privileged their position is. They expect it to be normal that they may go on and on in a conversation about god and churchy things... but feel it unseemly, awkward, or even rude for a position of non-belief to be mentioned. I wish I had a dollar for every time a conversation was laden with presumptuous religious talk, but my mention of atheism was treated as an act of hostility.

Those are my thoughts that I would share with the person asking the question honestly. Honestly though, I am not sure that I have ever really heard the question asked honestly.

Religion Is Violent

Yesterday, religious extremists killed a dozen people in Paris. These zealots felt they were defending the honor of their religion from, perceived, blasphemers.

So today there is a lot of talk from religion’s defenders and critics. Defenders like Reza Aslan will try to distance what happened in his religion’s name from the “peaceful” religion in which he takes part – anyone who doesn’t see the difference, in his view, simply does not know the meaning of the word nuance.

I understand his argument, and I know the frustration of being lumped in with a group you feel does not represent your view. However, ultimately his argument rings hollow for me because he is defending the indefensible. Religion is violent.

There is no religion of peace. There are peaceful people who choose to bypass the violence dictated in their religion. I know peaceful people who belong to peaceful churches... but they do so by ignoring/sidelining/mythologizing the edicts in their holy books.

I believe Reza Aslan when he says that he is both peaceful and religious; but I also believe he maintains that position by choosing to select which aspects of his religion he will deem valuable.

The religion I grew up with commanded that women who were found not to be virgins on their wedding night were to be dragged to their father’s door step and stoned there. In fact, we had many offences listed in our holy book which required us to stone people to death. However, we never did it. In fact, most congregants were ignorant that those edicts were even in our holy text. I once spoke with a pastor who was surprised to find out that his church’s belief statements contained a line which condemned everyone not of their faith to Hell. Often, what the believer believes, and what the religion teaches, are two different things.

Holy texts are drenched with blood. They are filled with commands to kill the outsider and the infidel. They encourage rape, slavery, misogyny, and a host of terrors that can never be categorized under the heading of peace. Yet, through generations of self-talk, selective editing, and avoidance, we have made it common to equate religion with peace… and it simply isn’t true.

Humanity, with its bent toward empathy and compassion, is slowly untying the knot and shedding all that is violent and inhumane in these religious texts.

Until the day when we can shed them once and for all.

Facebook Faith #44: If That Isn't Relativism, I Don't Know What Is

I have been in a Facebook discussion for the past day with a religious friend. During the conversation, he put forth that religious folks have superior moral codes because they have an objective standard of right and wrong given to them in their holy texts. Atheism, he said, was relativistic - using the word in the pejorative sense.

I noted that holy texts are often pretty shoddy when it comes to morality, and in any case are not needed to develop a moral standard. Also, such outsourcing of moral engagement can lead to an atrophying of one's moral muscles.

I then addressed the concern of relativism. I am parking this here for cutting and pasting purposes since this argument comes up.... a lot:

Relativism is relative. If you are saying my moral code is still being refined... yes, guilty as charged. If you are saying I am wishy washy... no, not at all.

In fact, though I don't try to shove religionists noses in it... I submit that it is they that lack sufficient moral grounding. For them, wrong is not always wrong... go back to slavery. Is it wrong? Most religious folks would say yes. So then, the Judeo-Christian god was wrong when he sanctioned it??

Errrr... ummmm... well, ya see.....

Is rape wrong? Sure it is! So then, the Judeo-Christian god was wrong when he told the Israeli soldiers they could rape young captured girls, right??

Errrr... ummmm... well, ya see.....

How bout genocide? Stealing? Extortion? Infanticide? Killing new brides??.... we could spend all day generating the list... All wrong, right? These should all be fairly clear to even someone with an adolescent moral code.

But the believer will often get into an apologetic two-step because they have to come up with a way to keep the Deity innocent, instead of just calling wrong, wrong.

If that isn't relativism... I don't know what is. 

Actually though, I am glad when believers get uncomfortable and want to play a game of theological twister... it at least shows they have a problem with it. I talked with a believer last night who said he had NO PROBLEM with any of it... his god could do WHATEVER he wants.

Brrrrrrr.... I'll take the relativist over that dude any day.

Facebook Faith #43 Feelings and Coincidence

"I know I have relationship with God because there are too many things that I can't explain as random in my life. I will often pray and get a different answer to what I was thinking. I can go on, but the point is I feel God in my life."

This was an explanation I saw given on a friend's FB page this afternoon. There is rarely a time when discussing faith with a believer, that it does not come down to feelings and coincidences. They may start by trying to offer proofs, or rational arguments; but it soon becomes clear that those approaches only work when discussing faith with other believers. The pokes and prods of the skeptical tend to clear those away without much effort.

What the believer is left with is some variant of the above. Their faith is founded on feelings they have, or a litany of too good to be chance circumstances. I understand. As an Evangelical, I had those too.

And again, if you stay within in your faith circle, that will probably be enough. However, once you look over the fence, once you examine life outside your tribe, you discover every other faith rests on those items as well. The pagan, the Mormon, the Catholic, the JW, the Calvinist, the Universalist, the Jew, the Muslim, etc... They can all point to times when their deity met them in some transcendent moment, when circumstances were too perfect, when Heaven touched Earth.

One of the things that started my walk away from belief was a recognition that these divine moments were not unique to my faith. That which should have been exclusive to my "correct" belief, was being experienced across faith lines.

Coming to that realization was a little like finding "The Great and Powerful Oz" was really just that man behind the curtain. Booming voices and balls of fire lose their wonder after that.

However, what replaced the wonder of spiritual experience was an awe of the natural world and the wonderful souls around me. I discovered that man behind the curtain is a layered individual who is worth getting to know. It turns out that reality is much more satisfying than smoke and mirrors.

The universe is huge and old - and rare things happen all the time.
Lawrence Krauss –  A Universe From Nothing