Miss USA, pandering to supersition as a positive virtue or, an example of why I write "atheist screeds"

I have been accused of being hateful towards religion. I think the accusations may be fair. I do hate certain aspects of religion. My hatred stems from the time I spent believing the presuppositions of Evangelical Christianity and how this belief led me to enable sexism, bigotry and willful ignorance under the guise of complementarianism, Just-World Theory, and Biblical Inerrancy.

I started to doubt the virtue of my former faith and began to consider the positive intent within atheist arguments when I investigated the recent public conflicts regarding Darwinian Evolution and the preferred Christian "alternative theory" of biological diversity known as "Intelligent Design" (ID).

I investigated this conflict as a bible-believing-Calvinist-Christian and came away a depressed agnostic.

The arrogance and unscrupulous dishonesty practiced by my fellow Christians in defense of their "alternative theory" led me to doubt the doctrine of the Holy Spirit where, "The Holy Spirit has come to glorify Christ and bring attention to Jesus. He does this by empowering believers in the areas of evangelism and discipleship." I had always believed that salvation in Jesus provided a moral sense via The Holy Spirit which would provide wisdom in discerning fact from fiction.

Upon investigating the "ID" arguments I came to doubt a Holy Spirit as real. I didn't see any of the gifts of the spirit displayed in "ID" enthusiasts and, in fact, saw a contradiction to many of them. Where my religion said a believer should be wise, insightful, prudent, and knowledgeable, I saw frightened in-groups demeaning science because it challenged religious assertions with experimental fact.

When I understood the conflict between atheist scientists like Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins and pious Christians like Al Mohler and the leadership of my home church, I became frightened.

The atheists had a deeper commitment to evidence outside of their preferred bias than any Christian I knew. The atheist scientists practiced a truth-seeking method where they humbly admitted, "I don't know" and then allowed the probable facts to lead them towards a functional truth consonant with reality.

Religion didn't work this way. It asserted the truth and demonized opposition to this assertion in defense of the assertion. The confidence in demonizing contrary assertions were supported by additional "Gifts of the Holy Spirit" namely, "Piety"; "Fortitude"; and "Fear of the Lord".

I submitted myself to learning the theory of evolution in the face of this confusion and, continue to try to grasp its meaning. I have come to learn that life's diversity does not need a supernatural agency to explain its reality. My considerations have also led me to see the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as a superstition which keeps someone safe from the discomfort of ever having to change their mind, while ensuring the believer feels they have revealed knowledge which provides superior intelligence.

A Christian can be certain they are correct about what life is without ever having to defend this certainty or have it tested by evidence.

I was honest about my experience as a Christian and came to admit that the religion offered me the benefit of self-righteousness. This benefit was endorsed by a community of similar self-righteous people who could be blinded to their self-righteousness via the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It wasn't they who were operating in the revealed knowledge of the world, it was the Holy Spirit moving within them. So bold assertion with an obstinacy to objective investigation was not cognitive bias but rather a holy commitment to god's saving grace.

I don't think this seemingly destructive idea is perceived as destructive by those who hold it. I think those defending Jesus against science believe they are pursuing something positive. The recent Miss USA pageant reminded me of my days in the Christian faith and why I am such a staunch critic of religion today.

The ignorance and lies of Christians defending "alternative theories" to evolution are not what make me an atheist today. I am glad I no longer have to identify with a group of people who seem to hide behind emotional appeals to privilege as a means of avoiding the hard work of understanding the real world but, my atheism is more complex than my fear of this type of in-group.

My fear however does motivate my criticism of religion and it is due to my unique understanding of the theories, like the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, that animate religious thinking. The Christian women in the Miss USA video are probably not aware of their ignorance of reality, nor the consequences towards social ill their anti-evolution and anti-science stance provides. My experience within the Church indicates they think their opposition to Darwinian Evolution is a positive thing because it allows them to evangelize for Jesus. Jesus is the only answer to every question.

I see that religion allows a person to be proud of their pandering to superstition as a positive virtue and therefore I choose to be a critic of their belief.

Faith defeats Intellectual Humility

Dr. Coyne has a good post where he exposes the arrogance of Intelligent Design (ID) theory once again.

I am often a critic of religious thinking and I realize that makes some of my friends angry but this post by Dr. Coyne exposes the danger of how too much religious faith presents a problem to knowledge and explains my criticism (in a way).

One of the leading proponents of ID is William Dembski and he gets biology wrong again so he might cherry pick observations in service of his preferred religious belief.

Dembski seems like a nice guy but his credulity is beyond reason.

For example, he is the father of a severely autistic son and for the sake of his supernatural commitment he allowed himself and his family to be duped into an emotional manipulation by a faith healer because this superstition was recommended efficacious by his faith community. He admits the damage this choice did but demands we all continue to follow his fideistic commitment to lesser degrees when wrestling with reality.

He wishes we all would be subject to his level of credulity and ignore the foundation of health science rooted in Darwinian evolution for the sake of Christianity.

William Dembski is an engineer and a fundamentalist Christian and a smart man but he is not an evolutionary biologist yet feels he has the authority to try to falsify known science for the sake of Jesus. He is either a cynic or a dupe animating the Intelligent Design community's political campaign to over-turn Darwinian evolution because it defeats the notion of a personal creator god. He fails with facts, intellectual charity and reasoning but believes he is right (and is well-funded in this belief) due to the emotional benefits Jesus belief brings.

It is obvious to me that his assertions have no intellectual humility because he wishes to be an authority on a subject he has no formal training in simply because he has made an emotional commitment to a creation myth with societal privileged protection.

It frightens me because it undermines the course of intelligence in intellectual humility which can make us all better for a faith commitment that makes the believer feel good despite its dubious claims on reality (like Mr. Dembski's experience with the faith healer and his son).

It also angers me because when I challenge the theological assertions by believers (e.g. The phenomenon of an invisible intelligent agent known as "The Holy Spirit" that becomes part of a human's reasoning faculties when an acceptance of Jesus is entered) I am told that I don't know the theology I am citing. My inexpert stance obviates my criticism despite the fact I am simply relating the theology taught to me when I was a Christian but Christians have no problem avoiding the intellectual charity they demand of critics when looking to challenge ideas that hurt their thesis.

Humility before the Facts or Religious Shell-Games

Eric Macdonald at Choice in Dying has an excellent post that illustrates why I get angry with religious people in their doctrinal certainty and why religious leaders like Al Mohler seem immoral to me. 2 things I disagree with Dr. Mohler in regards to his latest post on the dogma of atheism.

1. He distorts Sam Harris's thesis towards religion by painting him as a person who seeks to eradicate religious liberty. It is a lie about Mr. Harris's thesis against the moral sustainability of competing religions and Dr. Mohler offers no attribution to support it. His slander defeats his premise that the new atheists engage in scientism by necessitating an unattributed assertion to support his conclusion.
2. Darwinian evolution offers a theory on the diversity of organisms and not abiogenesis or cosmology. He conflates scientific terms to make his claim and relies on what seems a non-sequiteur to damn Dawkins with scientism when the theory Dr. Dawkins adjudicates Christianity as false is mute on the subjects Dr. Mohler claims.
   

When I was a Calvinist Christian I would have been cheering Dr. Mohler's authority without any knowledge of my ignorance or possible immorality. As I have moved to disbelief I find Dr. Mohler's position immoral and am sad that he has influence over people who will be confused to the difference between biology (Darwinian evolution), chemistry (abiogenesis) and physics (cosmology) while claiming perfect knowledge in the bible.

I also can infer from my experience that the hardened certainty Dr. Mohler asserts and the epistemic pride his ideas will engender will not lead to the shame it should. The "faith" that will be felt by the believers in the depravity of atheists will be justified in the moral good evidenced by their obedience to their thought-leader with no comprehension how he needs to misrepresent facts as a means to proclaim absolute truth.

" . . . moving my perspective from religious de-bunker to religious skeptic"

I wrote in a recent post that I am moving my perspective from de-bunker to skeptic.

First when I was a de-bunker I thought I was practicing skepticism. I wasn't.

I was practicing angry resistance towards a former set of beliefs that once were my core truths which I came to see as contradictory to their claims because I came to see these core truths needed to operate in half-truth or lies to assert absolute truth.

I was pissed off at myself for my credulity and ashamed at what I saw as unintended arrogance wrapped in undeserved piety.

I was also pissed that my set of beliefs put me in relationship with people who were active lobbyists to deny scientific truth, racial bigots and lobbyists for institutions claiming honest inquiry which upon investigation were revealed to be spin doctors for Judeo-Christian theocracy.

So I unofficially joined the skeptics community listening to podcasts like Point of Inquiry, Reasonable Doubts, The Bible Geek, and Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot. And joining blog communities at Debunking Christianity, Why Evolution is True, and Common Sense Atheism.

The problem that I've encountered is that my anger-fueld rhetoric is unsupported by an advanced understanding of nuanced theology or philosophy yet I tried to engage arguments that had a facility for these things and just fed my anger.

I became burnt out.

Last weekend I listened to the latest Point of Inquiry podcast where Joe Nickell was interviewed and he spoke of his work with Skeptical Inquirer magazine and made a distinction about being a skeptic of supernatural claims vs. a debunker of supernatural claims.

A skeptic accepts with neutrality the supernatural claim made by the believer and then designs tests to estimate the probable validity of that claim while the debunker comes to a supernatural claim with a bias that assumes all supernatural claims are derived from idiotic special privilege.

Nickell said that he once was the latter but has found the former more enjoyable and one need not risk epistemic contradiction to claim atheism or agnosticism towards supernaturalism while entertaining a real joy in investigating and learning the basis for the supernatural assertions.

The question is not if supernaturalism is real but what drives people to believe it is real.

Becoming a skeptic allows me to admit that biblical literalism, Reformed Christian theology, and Roman Catholicism fascinate me. I don't think the claims made by any of those entities are phenomenologically true but am open to vetting arguments from those that do and then investigate if the assertions made have the truth stated.

I find this position is less stressful without me abandoning the epistemic breakthroughs I've made as I've become a Calvinist Christian apostate while allowing me to enjoy being a student of the supernatural, theology and philosophy.

I might even avoid stepping in unintended arrogance or undeserved piety in atheism, unlike my experience as a believer.

Prophecy as Post-modern Adventure

I enjoyed a new novel over Christmas Break.

"Confessions of God: The Gospel According to St. JohnThomas Didymus" is a post-modern romp that is 1/3 mystery, 1/3 conspiracy theory and 1/3 Joycean epiphany.

It isn't an easy read but one that enchanted me.

The novel is broken into eight books with a prologue and epilogue and centers on the ruminations of JohnThomas Didymus who operates as hero and pseudonymous author.

It begins with the hero's stay in a mental hospital travels through an alternative Christian resurrection story down to various theories on the unification of reality and finally lands on an apocalyptic first-person perspective wrought with subjective meaning.

The novel reads like post-modern scripture and renders an implicit argument to the effect that deep religious certainty is best held within advanced autism and solipsism.

The choice of the author (who shall remain nameless here but for disclosure's sake is a colleague and friend) to attribute the authorship to his hero is an essential creative device in amplifying the novel's theme.

The theme is best stated by the author in Book 5 "The Temptations",

"Life and existence are a riddle

But a good riddle

Is a good fiddle

You may want to play to any tune which suits your fancy."

The nature of religious conviction is exposed as the hero journeys by way of religious epiphany towards ontological certainty. Didymus embodies hints of St. Paul in his sense of glorified persecution, Mohammad and Joseph Smith in their revelatory convictions and St. John of Patmos in his yearning apocalyptic.

There is even a hint to the technical Christian philosophy of men like Alvin Plantinga or Richard Swinburne and New Age theoretician Deepak Chopra in the author/hero's insistence that his scientific scholarship while non-falsifiable remains valid due to its inner conviction to its personal meaning. Our hero/author explains while speaking of himself as both observer and reporter,

"He lived dangerously on the edge of mental chaos at which he was free to expand unlimitedly beyond mere synthesis; explore new conceptual approaches to old problems, armed with a magicians hat which imposed no binding pre-conditions of logic in the divergence of his mind to infinity."

Men like Swinburne and Plantinga misuse the mathematics of Bayesian theory to argue from probability the likelihood of miracles without giving assent to the necessary zero-probability of miraculous priors. Chopra speaks of Quantum events as if small-scale physics is related to the numinous feelings he packages. "Confessions of God" uses the musings of its hero to contextualize the category of serious modern theologies and exposes them all as a complicated self-deference.

I enjoyed this book and if you are given to choose fantastic entertainments that conceal their ideological arguments in technical craftsmanship like David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest"; the magical realism of Salman Rushdie; or the films of Darren Aronofsky then I think you will enjoy this book too.

Strong recommendations for "Confessions of God" as an intelligent expose on how religious certainty begins and ends with self-centered conviction.

Christmas is Pagan Fun

My friend Pat Foltz asked me recently how I am navigating Christmas now that I am a full-fledged apostate and my wife still enjoys belief.

We are doing well. We haven't put up or decorated our tree because Jackie and Griffin will be heading down to Richmond, VA this weekend to assist Jackie's mom who is receiving treatment for cancer and needs help to remind her to rest. I will be following on the 23rd so the effort to decorate seemed lost on us.

The heart of Pat's question however is not concerned with secular obligations but rather religious significance.

I don't know how to answer because even when I was a believer I never took Christmas as serious Christianity. It didn't feel like the rest of what being a Roman Catholic Christian felt like. The distraction of gifts, Rankin-Bass specials and school-breaks drained the occasion of the guilt thrust upon us at weekly Mass and monthly Penance.

I don't know when it was when I decided that the manger story wasn't true but I think it must have been when I was about 13 because it was that time I started to think about what I might be when I grew up.

Being "grown up" was when people were out of college and were around thirty years old so I thought it strange that when Jesus was about that age the Kings that came to honor him at his birth wouldn't get ticked off at Pontius Pilate and come back to keep the savior from being crucified. Why shouldn't they come sweeping down from the hills like Han Solo at the end of Star Wars and rescue Jesus unless the "Away in the Manger" story was not really real.

I mean they gave him gold right so why wouldn't they step in and tell Pilate to back off.

When I was about 13 I also started thinking about sex, a lot, and the idea of Mary being a virgin seemed stupid. It seemed like a bad punishment that not only did she have to give birth but she would never be able to have sex afterward because she gave birth and we as good Catholics should find this mutilation somehow good.

I also knew that when I grew up I wanted to be a comic book writer and when I considered the baby Jesus story it seemed more like one of the comic book origin stories I knew rather than anything we might have learned in history class.

Christmas has never been as serious or real as it's seasonal counterpart, the Easter story, and the rational narrative forced by Good Friday's Stations of the Cross. Noel is a gauzy holiday that allows for fantasy and desire.

I think the religiosity of this time never seems to have lost the essence of the pagan holiday Saturnalia it appropriated and that tradition's aim to force lawlessness as celebration. Saturnalia was the winter break the pagans practiced with unashamed gluttony and when the early Christians were making their pitch to get converts they enticed the masses by telling them they could keep this holiday due to the fact the savior was born at the same time (you can almost here Sarah Palin interrupting an orgy with her patented "dontcha know" as punctuation to this fabrication).

I think the spirits of Saturnalia still live in Christmas and why the holy day distances itself from the either/or tribalism associated with Christianity's central themes of sin, death and Hell. No matter how much Bill O'Reilly jeers at the war against Christmas what he doesn't get is that the season's essence is pagan, not Christian, and any overt focus on Christianity diminishes the holiday's purpose. And its why I think I still enjoy going to church during this time and singing all of the religious songs ("Do you Hear what I Hear" is fun because of the echo effect in it and "The Little Drummer Boy" has a cool melody against a rhythmic friction).

Christian theology is of course immoral. The idea that we are born sick and need to take responsibility for a human sacrifice to be cured is incoherent. But Christmas exempts itself from these themes. It tells us that we should celebrate our lives amidst the death of the deep winter (especially those of us who dwell in the American Mid-west) and that it is more than okay to indulge our appetites and wants.

Christmas as a profound anti-Christian tradition can be evidenced by the fact the New England Puritans rejected Christmas and refused to celebrate it because the day was a threat to the biblical traditions they embraced. They saw no scriptural justification for it and defined it as idolatry. I think they were correct. Christmas isn't about Christianity and it's why I find the holiday joyful.

This year we get to introduce Griffin to Christmas while we celebrate his Mom Mom's gradual recovery from cancer and these things seem consonant with the feeling of life I've always equated with the holiday.

So, this Christmas I will sing in full-throat the joy of the season while possibly being defined a hypocrite by my more pure Christian friends. The pagan in me however will be in harmony with the pre-Christian seasonal belief that life matters because of the living and it can't be enhanced by dwelling on death.

The Narcissism of Believers

Wikipedia defines Narcissism as, "the personality trait of egotism, vanity, conceit, or simple selfishness. Applied to a social group, it is sometimes used to denote elitism or an indifference to the plight of others."

I have found this trait more and more evident within religious believers as I progress in my Christian deconversion.

Theists want their personal beliefs endorsed because they "feel" them to be true and when these heart-felt superstitions are challenged for the consequentialist immorality they invite (see William Lane Craig's defense of genocide), the theist demands counter-conclusions to trump theirs. They want to hold a rationalization "pissing contest" rather than enage in a conversation rooted in deliberative thinking and falsifiable evidence.

They seem to be saying that they have conclusions for the questions and if you don't then they win.

It seems they do this so they can feel safe within their belief and to insulate themselves within their social group's mores as a defense against dissent.

Michael Egnor (a fellow of the Discovery Institute - the PR organization that tries to deny biological evolution for the sake of Judeo/Christian creationism and theocracy - see their aims articulated in "The Wedge Strategy") offers excellent evidence of this obsessive psychological quirk towards certainty when he creates a "strawman" argument against "New Atheism" at the Discovery Institute Web-site.

Egnor writes,

"But what about arguments for New Atheism? Casual perusal of New Atheist discourse reveals recurring themes. The New Atheism Cliff Notes: 1) There are no gods 2) Theists are IDiots 3) Catholic priests molest children. Surely there's more to New Atheism. Some old atheism (Epicurus, Lucretius, Hume, Russell, Quine) was pretty profound. New Atheism should be even better. Reason, Modern Science, Brights, etc . . . I want to learn more about what New Atheists really believe. So I'm asking Moran a few questions, although other atheists (Myers, Coyne, Novella, Shallit, etc) are invited to reply on their blogs, and I will answer."

His questions,

1. Why is there anything?
2. What caused the Universe?
3. Why is there regularity (Law) in nature?
4. Of the Four Causes in nature proposed by Aristotle (material, formal, efficient, and final), which of them are real? Do final causes exist?
5. Why do we have subjective experience, and not merely objective existence?
6. Why is the human mind intentional, in the technical philosophical sense of aboutness, which is the referral to something besides itself?
7. How can mental states be about something? Does Moral Law exist in itself, or is it an artifact of nature (natural selection, etc.)?
8. Why is there evil?

First off, Eignor's unwillingness to enable comments at his blog post indicates he does not want to know what "New Atheists" believe. Rather it indicates a desire to preach to his choir with a false definition of "New Atheism" and declare victory a priori based on his social groups preferred superstition that "goddidit".

Secondly he is dishonest. He does not disclose that he is a Roman Catholic in his post nor does he offer his position on atheism relative to this bias. Instead he exposes the equivocation theists embrace by illustrating that multiple (and competing) religious world-views have wrestled his questions with their unique theologies. He aligns himself with religious views he would deem either atheist or heretical (and atheist arguments -- further equivocating by asserting atheism has a metaphysical ground, it doesn't). He does this to intimate consensus for his strawman. He states,

"I'm not expecting a treatise on each. Theists don't have all the answers. I don't expect New Atheists to have them either. But each metaphysical tradition -- Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, animist, old atheist, heck, even Scientologist and Raelian -- has addressed at least some of these questions, for better or worse."

I find his challenge and the series of questions evidence of how theists are unable to consider worldviews other than their own.

I have read the "New Atheists" with appreciation. I have enjoyed the work of Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Victor Stenger, PZ Myers, Daniel Dennett, Opehlia Benson, Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins.

I find no ideas where the "New Atheists" are offering a “New Atheism” with a catechism or set of conclusive answers.

Egnor’s premise for asking these questions rests on the belief that the "New Atheists" are offering a definitive belief system. He is equivocating on the “New” qualifier. The “New” in “New Atheist" refers to the strategy of social engagement today's atheists employ. It refers to the willigness to embrace the taboo that one must give automatic deference to religion and ignore consequentialist arguments against it. That is the only thing "New" and if one reads Thomas Paine one would have to argue that this "Newness" is not "New". The "New Atheism" should only be seen as a tactic to thaw the cognitive biases left over from the Cold War where covert military strategy sought Christian iconography to rally public sentiment against a dangerous "other" (e.g. "In God We Trust" on our money and "Under God" in our pledge). If one didn't assert theism then one was a godless communist.

The only "doctrine" inherent in "New Atheism" is a desire to observe a secular society and evidentialist arguments (see PZ Myers frontal assaults on Chris Mooney's accomodationist atheism or the recent debate between Coyne and Myers on what would constitute as evidence for a deity).

Critical thinking is not conclusion and that’s where Egnor gets everything wrong.

Claiming an allegiance to the "New Atheists" does not preclude an organizing doctrine to a certain world-view nor an obsessive need towards conclusion.

That type of divine command grounded in pre-suppositional dogma is the epistemology of theists, not atheists.

I am sensitive to the "New Atheists" and might even consider myself one because I am sick of having to give religion a pass but am more interested in the “Christian Atheism” of Robert Price than Sam Harris’s neuroscience. My preference comes from my interest in literature and mythology over experimetnal science. Therefore my answers to the questions would not stem from a “New Atheist” belief system (because there isn't one) but rather simple atheism which only asserts the disbelief in god(s).

This is why Egnor’s challenge serves as a strawman because it attempts to challenge an epistymology (New Atheism Metaphysics) that doesn't exist. He has his preferred superstitious answers to these questions which revolve around his version of god and/or the discredited notion of Intelligent Design (AKA "God of the Gaps"). He doesn't want dialogue but rather he wants to assert his superstitions as superior due to their well-rationalized conclusions.

He admits in his challenge that any religious answer to this is nothing more than psychological preference by offering the diversity of theological method used to answer each.

None of these questions has a conclusive answer and the “New Atheist” position would not be a definitive answer but rather a suspension of superstition as “the answer”. "New Atheists" ask that we apply critical thinking to continue the human conversation regarding ethics rather than deferring to dogmatism and sacred texts to assume authority. Egnor projects his bias onto his opponent and only succeeds in staring at his own reflection as evidence that the world is as how he sees it.

For the record, here are my answers to his questions (I'd love to read yours because, unlike Egnor I am interested in critical thought and have thus enabled comments):

1. I don’t know. Let’s use the scientific method and critical thinking to continue to try to figure it out and let’s leave religious presuppositions out of policy decisions so we don’t create legal inequality between belivers and non-believers.
2. I don’t know. Let’s use the scientific method and critical thinking to continue to try to figure it out and let’s leave religious presuppositions out of policy decisions so we don’t create legal inequality between belivers and non-believers.
3. I don’t know. Let’s use the scientific method and critical thinking to continue to try to figure it out and let’s leave religious presuppositions out of policy decisions so we don’t create legal inequality between belivers and non-believers.
4. I don’t know. Let’s use the scientific method and critical thinking to continue to try to figure it out and let’s leave religious presuppositions out of policy decisions so we don’t create legal inequality between belivers and non-believers.
5. I don’t know. Let’s use the scientific method and critical thinking to continue to try to figure it out and let’s leave religious presuppositions out of policy decisions so we don’t create legal inequality between belivers and non-believers.
6. I don’t know. Let’s use the scientific method and critical thinking to continue to try to figure it out and let’s leave religious presuppositions out of policy decisions so we don’t create legal inequality between belivers and non-believers.
7. I don’t know. Let’s use the scientific method and critical thinking to continue to try to figure it out and let’s leave religious presuppositions out of policy decisions so we don’t create legal inequality between belivers and non-believers.
8. I don’t know. Let’s use the scientific method and critical thinking to continue to try to figure it out and let’s leave religious presuppositions out of policy decisions so we don’t create legal inequality between belivers and non-believers.

The Christian Delusion (A Review)

I just finished reading "The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails" and found it to be very valuable. I recommend it to all who read this blog. Here's a review.

The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails (TCD) is a necessary source-book for anyone who values the individual liberty found in questioning superstition for the sake of critical thought. It exposes the fallacy that Christianity's divine command authority is necessary for individual betterment or societal progress. It identifies Evangelical Christianity's superiority claims in the areas of personal transformation, theological/scriptural veracity, and ethics for the superstitious group think they are. It arms truth-seekers with intelligent answers rooted in sound scholarship that can defend them from pseudo-intellectual-Christian-apologetic-razzle-dazzle.

A truth-seeker must face a culture dripping with Christianity when assessing Evangelical "truth-claims". These "truth-claims" operate like intellectual pollution compromising healthy reason and mutating it towards emotion-laden-group-thought, devoid of logic, intellectual honesty or material ethics. American Christian Culture is aimed at end-times exceptionalism where the highest understanding of morality is obedience to whomever the masses deem the absolute authority.

The elevation of superstition to a divine commander stands in the way of individual freedom and honest scientific exploration. We see these threats realized today when Evangelical Christians deny constitutional freedoms to homosexuals and obscure useful science in the name of their divine commander, dressing up creationism as Intelligent Design. We are facing crucial times where Biblical Inerrantists, Christian Reconstructionists, and Dominionists in the state of Texas are looking to over-throw the aims to Liberty offered by the Enlightenment in favor of the Calvinist Doctrine of Total Depravity. America is in a struggle between reason and faith and too often the side of faith is given credence as good while reason is demonized. Presuppositions to invisible kingdoms indicate a healthy humility but genuine curiosity as to why reality is the way it is with an aim towards progress is considered arrogance.

This is the context in which TCD has been born and it lives up to its necessary birthright by defending enlightened thought with well-researched argument. It also does this in a way to invite the reader into a non-threatening conversation prior to exposing Christianity for the collection of neurotic lies it is.

Loftus has done an exceptional job of gathering a cross-reference of experts who strategically dismantle the Christian heuristic and show the reader how the religion's revelations are both artificial and banal.

The genius of the book is in its structure so kudos to Mr. Loftus for his editorial guidance.

We are taken on a narrative which first shows us that the "born again" experience is not unique to Christianity and can be easily explained without an appeal to the supernatural. This is a wise choice in addressing the Christian Delusion because so often Christians claim their religion true due to anecdotal evidence that over-values life-transformation as proof of an in-dwelt Holy Spirit. Essays in cognitive science and perception help expose Christianity as a constructed choice in alleviating cognitive dissonance and therefore no better than any cognitive bias that allows emotional comfort in the face of randomness.

We then see how using the Bible as a transcendent document ignores its inefficaciousness in explaining reality or providing a clear understanding of the human condition. The former is evidenced in the objective description of the pre-scientific (and wrong) cosmology attested to in scripture and the latter is shown by the exposition of the sectarian Christain wars that have haunted human history.

We then make a turn and the book's tone goes from invitational to confrontaional. This shift in perspective is exciting to readers (like this critic) who have had to endure the propaganda and lies Jesus-followers dress up as scholarship. You see how Yahweh is a moral monster, how Christians have only childish answers to the inevitable suffering animals endure, how the Jesus legend is not unique, why the Resurrection is unbelievable, and how Jesus operated within a tradition of failed apocalyptic prophecy. All of these arguments use the Bible as reference, allowing the text to expose Christianity's ad hoc fallacies.

Finally we get arguments which bring us back to the thesis of this critique. The ultimate value of TCD is its ability to arm the reader with knowledge and insight to counter claims that Christianity is essential for morality and progress. This reader was delighted to be armed with retorts to each of the dog-eared Christian assertions that morality depends on religion, Hitler's atheism (rather than his Catholic Christianity) caused the Holocaust, and Science depends on Christian presuppositions.

We've seen explosive progress within modern civilization over the last 250 years which one can reasonably claim was caused by people who chose to offer empirical proof rather than divine revelation as the final arbitor of truth. The American Christian Church threatens to over-throw this progress for the sake of the safety superstitions seem to offer. They want to replace the hard work of thinking with the easy comfort of faith. TCD helps one see how this type of drive as both fallacious and dangerous. It offers intelligent argument in the face of ignorant righteousness.

I don't like Buddy Jesus

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.

(B. Dylan "With God On Our Side")

A friend recently confided in me that he thought my writing here is bullying and hypocritical. He suggested that my examination of faith is cruel. His theory is that deep down, no matter how mature we may be, we are all essentially children needing a Santa Claus to help buoy our hopes. He told me that my analysis of faith amounts to a mean-spirited "Humbug".

I concede that my ideas regarding belief are blunt but, I find the psychology of faith fascinating and often wonder what 14 years of Catholic education combined with 7 years of Evangelical Christianity have done to me. I like to slice open my mind and probe.

I'm not a delicate surgeon and have little bed-side manner.

This is all done because as I grow and view the world, I find I am changing my mind when it comes to belief.

I still believe in belief or, that our brains find solace in it and I think my friend is correct; we all desire to imagine a transcendent possibility beyond ourselves. And most would say this demands theology, doctrine, orthodoxy but, I don't.

I guess I am unorthodox because I don't know what I believe but admit I am awed by the love I feel for my wife as she sighs her way into consciousness every morning.

Is that God? I don't know.

I've heard the term "Agnostic Christian". Maybe that is me.

My theology was once intricate and arcane but now it is simple - to love and be loved. I no longer wish to defend exclusive claims to universal truth based upon shared cultural stories. I find that type of truth divisive. It seems stupid to me.

I admit now that the stories I claimed as truth are incoherent to me and the only reason I agreed to them was because it afforded me popularity, today I crave authenticity.

The stories of the faith I was given demand a level of self-hatred that I no longer consider sane or useful. The theological concepts of Original Sin and Atonement seem products of primitive minds living in a bloody and dangerous world. I don't know how the insistence that I am corrupt and depraved and worthy of an eternity of torture is an animating idea towards mature awareness. And I really don't want to accept that it is my fault that god sacrificed himself to himself so that I might be able to know Heaven and be released from the generational crime perpetrated by mindless innocents in a garden 6,000 years ago.

None of that makes sense and all of that is what the faithful have sought to convince me of with religion and theology.

I do believe the stories we share can help us deal with the mysteries of life but, this past year I've seen that the stories people tell can often times contradict the morality they claim. I've experienced arrogant and ugly attitudes and behaviors supported by exclusive and presupposed truth. I was afraid of it at first, then disgusted, now I am just tired.

That's not to say I don't enjoy the company of my believing friends and for the most part find them incredibly good people. I count many Evangelical Christians, Catholics, Observant Jews and at least one Buddhist as good and trusted people. They are part of my network of "go to" folks.

Unfortunately some of their doctrine is also upheld by another segment that embodies hate, and fear. These are old acquaintances who embrace a "Buddy Jesus"; a tough god with wrath in his hip-pocket; a thick muscled deity who assures them the hatred they harbor against the disobedient is a revelation into his Godhead. They are the ones who are certain that God is on their side. I fear these folks because I believe that, without our secular protections, they'd become drunk on their religious fervor and, like the Calvinists they are, would enjoy burning me, my liberal friends, and the loving homosexual couples I admire. To these people, Christ is not the Prince of Peace but is the Ultimate Fighter ready to kick the tail of those who defy inerrant Biblical theology. They anxiously await his re-arrival clothed in bloody robes at the end times slicing in half those that are disagreeable.

They are the "Prayer Warriors" who told me they were certain Barack Obama was a Muslim because in their scrupulosity God told them so.

They are the Christian Right who whooped it up with Rush Limbaugh's endorsement of Sarah Palin because she humbly upheld the sixth commandment and boldly violated the ninth.

They are the ones who lie for Jesus to ensure the supernatural trumps natural science with their endorsement of Creationism masked as Intelligent Design because it is essential to an open education that all sides are considered; all the while claiming ignorance of Howard Ahmanson, RJ Rushdooney and Dominionism.

And they are the ones who, for the sake of tradition, demand their First Amendment rights extend into every area of society including depriving homosexuals their 14th Amendment rights.

I'm stuck. I like my civilized friends who happen to hold storied faith beliefs but, I can no longer honestly identify with the darker members of their body who allow belief to justify unexamined righteousness.

Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in his essay, "The Christian Witness in a Secular Age" that the church,

" . . .must be embarrassed when it calls attention to itself as a proof of the powers of God. For the very pretension of virtue is yet another mark of the sin in the life of the redeemed,"

but I fear the believers in "Buddy Jesus" would discount the good theologian's admonition as evidence to his sinful Marxist politics and support of the UN. Professor Niebuhr, Dean of Union Theological Seminary and author of The Serenity Prayer, wouldn't be on the side of the righteous. "Buddy Jesus" would consider his pacifism disgusting when he claimed in his wise and paradoxical Christian Realism,

"religiously inspired good will, without an intelligent analysis of the factors in a moral situation and of the proper means to gain desirable ends, is unavailing."

I am looking to avail myself of desirable ends. I have come to doubt it will be found in religiously inspired good will and if that makes me a bully well, please just don't burn me at the stake.

Fear, Hate or Hope

I just finished seeing the new documentary on Lee Atwater entitled "Boogie Man". I love the way it picked apart the Republican political playbook. It is pretty simple, you spread fear with wedge issues and get third parties to promote the fears then deny the racism, hatred and fear you spread. And if cornered then you act like a Patriot and proclaim you are a victim of the elite media. It was simultaneously funny and nauseating to watch Tom Delay flash his creepy grin and say Lee Atwater's downfall came because he spoke the truth. Wow! No wonder Atwater got brain cancer. His polluted mind must have forced the grey matter to rebel and create a tumor just to hobble any chance of biological integrity in the face of such moral degradation.

It is hard to believe people believed this crap but I am reading a book by Reinhold Niebuhr entitled "Moral Man & Immoral Society" where he argues that individual desire for good gets clouded at a collective level due to social pressure. A reasoned person could hold fast to their sense of right but, "The individual character of conscience does not preclude the determination of most moral judgments by the opinions of the group. Most individuals lack the intellectual penetration to form independent judgments and therefore accept the moral opinions of their society. Even when they do form their own judgments there is no certainty that their sense of obligation toward moral values, defined by their own mind, will be powerful enough to overcome the fear of social disapproval."

The documentary's revelations had even more punch for me in light of this quote and because yesterday I engaged in a conversation with an old friend who is very conservative and a fan of guys like Hannity and Limbaugh. She is the type of person who believes America is some sort of New Israel where an Evangelical theocracy must happen as our birthright. It makes sense because she travels in circles that keep her well-connected to fellow Country Club Baby Boomers who have attached their narcissism to an odd form of white, wealthy bible living. Many seem to do so to reconcile the guilt left-over from multiple divorces and probably the joys found in mid 1970s key parties.

To be fair, they honestly feel a sincere sadness over abortion issues (and enjoy their money) so the Republican's pro-life, low-tax pledge becomes for them God's party. I share my friend's faith but not her politics nor her skewed historical perspective. It is hard to ponder Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson as willing members of a mega-church prayer group or the fact that all of the founding fathers ignored the pleas of real bible believers like the Quakers to abolish slavery at our founding. Our Judeo-Christian founders ignored the biblical pleas of a brotherhood of man because of course it wasn't economically expedient. So much for our history as a Christian nation eh?

After my conversation with my friend I could see how our historical collective moral blindness is alive and well and still at least partially wrapped in Atwater's cloak of fear.

She started spouting off to me messages that I had heard on evening newscasts during the pre-election hype but dismissed as silly. Maybe it is because I live in Illinois and a major city but I thought the belief that Obama is a Muslim, or a terrorist or a Socialist were ideas too absurd to motivate any type of acceptance. That was until I heard the raw fear in my friend's voice, "He's a Muslim!" "He believes we have 57 states. That's because there are 57 Muslim territories!!" "They hate us!!" "If he is a Christian, why did he change his name to a Muslim name?! Hussein!!! Hussein means sword!!!" "He said we would be a Muslim nation!!!" I couldn't believe it and strongly disagreed but didn't break through at all. Today I received an email about how Barack Obama had an American name Barry but changed it to Barack in college because he is a Muslim and no media is reporting this. I wrote back that in March Newsweek had done a cover story on this.

I am saddened by this continued fear that passes as faith and courage in our country. I also am humbled by President Elect Obama's intelligence to craft a communications strategy that obviated the Atwater plan by employing direct courage, calm and hope. There are generational dynamics at work here that Boomers won't get (primarily because their self-centered minds convince them of their right to be the authors of all social experience) but, the pragmatist X and pluralist Millennial generations don't take too well to fear. The former because they had to live with enough of it as latch-key kids watching their divorced boomer parents leverage it in their self-centered campaigns for love and approval and the latter because it is irrelevant to their sense of specialness.

Atwater admitted as he was dying that he didn't stand for anything and didn't believe anything he peddled. He also said that his strategy to use hate and fear to win elections damaged our country's collective integrity. Most conservatives who subscribe to Atwater's form of politics will be, as Niebuhr illustrated, blind to Lee's amoral power-lust because it interferes with the moral rationalizations that allow their comfort. I wish my friend would get this but anything that opposes the social construct she has created only seems to reinforce the strategy of fear and makes me duped by the conspiracy theory.

My hope is the hope that President Obama won with becomes a continued strategy for public discourse. I hope we empower our individual minds to question messages of fear and find a way to bend the collective mind to "hope".

But Niebuhr also said, "Power is poison" so, the Democrats could fall victim to the same hate that defined Atwater. At the very least we can all recite another Niebuhr classic when the going gets too hateful, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."