Reinforcing Taboos Worries Me

What makes "New Atheism" novel is not its atheism but its desire to hold religious truth assertions up to the same method of higher criticism we hold other truth assertions.

Sam Harris makes mention of this when he says,

"It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization."

It is the willingness to address taboo due to founded worry in the actions of believers that is "new" in "New Atheism". When I investigated Harris's arguments I recognized I agreed with this and wondered why I called myself religious.

Andrew Sullivan, a gay Roman Catholic political conservative (I wonder if the accidents of the Eucharist and material dualism of transubstantiation makes one proud of such incoherent titles), tries to make a case for the defense of faith as distinct from religion by linking to an Economist article decrying the British Humanist Society's campaign to get the non-religious to report with honesty their non-belief.

He seems to only reinforce the deep entrenchment of the taboo against religious criticism. The article seems to suggest that there is a form of bullying even in the most mild form of suggesting that non-belief in one's childhood religion is in reality non-belief. It isn't. It is an invitation to honesty and fact.

The fact that an atheist journalist would dismiss the distinction seems very much evidence of a need to reinforce taboos and It is worrying.

In a related article, the reason this type of acquiescence to taboo is troubling can be seen in the actions of the Republican party and their committed anti-science efforts with legislative power.

Not criticizing privileged myth encourages ignorance and pretending that religion and faith are somehow distinct is dishonest.

The danger of apostasy

It seems to me that most people maintain whatever religious association they have not because they experiment with their theology to test its veracity against reality but because the shared ideas that make up that theology allow for social acceptance.

I think it is why people like me who call for proof of the claims made by their former religions are seen as mean-spirited, hostile, bigots or crazy.

We've broken the rules of polite social engagement.

A recent article in the New Yorker detailing Paul Haggis's apostasy from Scientology is a great object lesson in what transpires between people when the metaphors that make up belief are questioned for their reality.

The apostate's sanity or honesty are called into question despite the objective evidence one has to justifiably infer a religion's theology is bunk.

For example, I've come to see that a post-enlightened world of common descent, quantum mechanics, and the double-helix of our DNA does not afford much space for the interventionist god of abrahamic theism or the unmoved mover of classical theism. I therefore think it is silly to call myself Christian or Spiritual in any substantive way.

The metaphors that make up the definition of Yahweh, Jesus or spirits are unconvincing in the discoveries science has provided.

I don't think many modern believers if challenged would argue for supernaturalism when faced with naturalism's victories either.

Of course there are the Pat Robertson followers who will seek to understand god's "to do" list by analyzing natural disasters (e.g. The Haitian earthquakes as god's vendetta against Voo Doo or the snow-storms hammering the US East Coast as god's retribution against the gays) but the pre-enlightened "experimental religion" of Jonathan Edwards is resigned to the cultural scrap-heap of faith-healers and Tarot card readers.

I doubt anyone who has built their career on the observation of Christ-centered teleology will be named President of Princeton, as Edwards was, anytime soon.

Most modern believers see a god concept as a form of self-help to navigate a world that involves modern institutions (evidenced most notably in the work of Rick Warren).

These modern institutions rely on both methodological and metaphysical naturalism for their invention (e.g. the germ theory of disease as a basis for inoculation rather than spirits as a source of affliction) and therefore avoid supernaturalism as a cause.

The supernaturalism for most functioning believers in a modern world has regressed to a personal philosophy that allows emotional spikes to be framed by terms that offer a short-hand method for admitting them or justifying them.

For example, in my former experience as a Calvinist Christian, sin was a reality evidenced by the lack of perfection I experienced in either my thinking or behavior which in turn motivated a theological practice towards better behavior. I couldn't however point to a generator of sin because it was a function of my soul and therefore a product of a non-investigatable entity. Thus sin operated more as metaphor in explaining the basic reality of what I've come to see as biological and brain functions rather than being basic unto itself.

The result of metaphors like sin become theology and theology offers easy access to a social group and belonging based on the shared belief that the metaphor is basic. I don't begrudge this. It feels good to count on a society that will agree with you and always love you.

It does suggest however that a belief in unseen agents (e.g. "God" or "gods") is a function of emotional experience rather than testable ideas and therefore it seems to be more about wishful thinking to navigate one's inner life rather than understanding what makes up our shared external world.

I also think it is why when one admits apostasy towards a given religious tradition it often invites both aggressive and passive hostility from the people with whom the apostate once shared religious belief.

A person who sees theology as metaphor, and admits its usefulness is in providing comfort for those believing in the symbols of that theology, seems to be behaving like a bully telling another their organizing ideas of reality are of no deeper substance than "Goodnight Moon".

I of course believe that all theologies are of the same essential substance as fairy-tales, and don't mind believers who wish to admit this, but also find the need to justify these stories in ritual as ineffective to any real moral or intellectual aims.

The difficulty however is that believers who will dismiss the efficacy of their theology when faced with real circumstances modernity has tackled (e.g. antibiotics as first-line therapy for Streptococcus rather than the laying of hands by elders and the anointment of oil) will not admit the subordinate nature of their metaphor when considering reality.

They insist that their metaphor is real.

I've offended many people in my short time as an atheist because I've challenged the assertions they feel to be real as real in any meaningful way outside of their feelings. I once was concerned that I needed to apologize for this unintended offense but now see it as the inherent danger of apostasy. Now that I admit the function of religion as a natural phenomenon I can understand why I make so many of my former friends uncomfortable and, while sad for the friendships I seem to have lost, I no longer worry about what I could have done to change the outcome.

" . . . 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.

Why "faith" once one understands "evidence"?

Dr. Coyne has a great post at his blog "Why Evolution is True" where he criticizes a recent column by The Templeton Foundation (religious think-tank) supported Elaine Ecklund and her hypothesis that Ph.Ds are more religious than observations suggest (even observations one would derive from her data and methodology if they weren't being financed by an institution whose purpose is to defend and promote religion).

Readers of this blog know that I used to identify as a Christian but that was before I engaged atheist arguments or understood how science worked.

My last two years have led me to see that my religious assertions were not real because they relied too much on emotional pleading rather than testable data.

I've come to see that the religion I once asserted could offer emotional uplift but that phenomenon was more in line with aesthetics.

It might have an ontological interest (the branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being) but had no physical reality and therefore the moral conclusions that it claimed were mercurial and self-focused.

It stopped working when I found myself in dialogue with people using their religion like a ventriloquist's dummy to assert whatever emotional bias they might prefer. This sometimes could be wonderful like my friends who spend their time serving the poor or it could be awful when powerful and privileged people argued for things like "Biblical Capitalism" or how Jesus would support George Bush and his pro-war stance.

My doubts with my cultural religion have led me to doubt all religious assertions because I've not seen how any supernatural claims operate as real.

They aren't any more real than one's preference for the uplift found in an artistic genre or culinary category.

I am okay with that if folks want to share their experience with their imagined worlds but no longer find experimental supernaturalism as anything more than an act of imagination and therefore it is dangerous because it is a disconnection from reality.

It can't help us understand what it means to be a living human being in a physical world that demands we cooperate and make choices to sustain life because it defers to a realm that is subjective in its foundation rooted in qualities that can't be observed in an independent frame outside of the person asserting the necessary qualities.

An open question that I'd love to get a response -- why is there an insistence (like Ecklund's) to demand empiricists concern themselves with supernatural assertions?

When one has moved passed a faith-based way of knowing for the more testable world of empiricism (evidence) is it fair to dismiss faith's validity? Why? Why not?

What benefit does religious faith (defined here as a belief that invisible/non-material forces affect reality) have for someone who understands and is curious about how observable phenomenon affect reality?

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 Gratitude of Apostasy: A Testimony

I never intended this blog to become another atheist report from the culture war front. And I never intended to piss anyone off. It has become a first-person report on belief and I've hurt the sensibilities of old friends and colleagues. I'm not disappointed with these consequences. I find them invigorating and I've taught myself that popularity is less sustainable than being skeptical when truth claims are asserted.

And I hoped to start writing as a way of showing my ability to think with expectation that future employers might consider me a good idea guy.

What has happened is that I've lost my faith and I think most employers would read this and be afraid that talking to me would resemble a journalistic interview with Bob Dylan from "Don't Look Back".

My original intention was to write as a way of reporting on my confusion. My hope was that if I expose my inner life on the 'net I would wrestle with it myself and become more conscious. I've discovered that much of my confusion has been driven by my willingness to compartmentalize my mind as a way of keeping popular truth commitments a "live option".

The most shocking thing I discovered is the evidence for my default arguments were thin yet my instinct would default to them. Inviting evidence has humbled me and made me change my mind.

I started writing as a professing Christian and free-market capitalist but challenging my preconceptions has led me to obtain with comfort a Christian Atheist theology in the Altzizer/Price tradition and Democratic Socialism in the European tradition.

Owning up to these ideas frightens me because I can hear the shouts of friends and family (and my instinctive former self) but the evidence I've examined thus far makes them more reasonable. I might change my mind again if new evidence is presented. What I experience with believers in god or free-markets however are not evidence based arguments but appeals to outrage or emotion. And I don't like those choices. They are manipulative and bullying.

I have been told I seem fickle, crazy or mean.

Many friends who wish to assert intimacy announce to me that, "I don't read your blog because it angers me," and I'm amazed that they don't comprehend the consequence of that statement. If you don't like what I write here then you don't like my honest ideas and if that is the case then it might be more honest to admit that we have little in common. While we might be friendly with one another we don't have the mutual respect to assert intimacy with anything other than nostalgia and good-will.

I find, now that popularity is not my ambition, basing my free time in nostalgia and good-will is unsatisfying.

The good news is that humans have evolved to be social animals where ideas are sustenance and many psychological ecosystems exist to feed the mind.

While old friends wrestle with their own ideas and battle with their own confusion relative to my desire to be expressive and have announced their disappointment with me or have drifted away, I've found new friendships.

Some smart men and women have read my comments here or on sites like Common Sense Atheism and Debunking Christianity and have introduced themselves.

They've shown kindness and empathy. It feels good just like kindness and empathy felt good when I would "go along to get along" in my MBA or Mega-church but now the good feeling is founded on a commitment to reason, not popularity.

Yesterday one of these folks extended his hand in friendship and since we live in the same metropolitan area we are hoping to meet up.

I'd like to share here what I wrote to him. It is not meant as argument but rather exposition in the tradition of Christian testimony. It seems honest and a necessary piece of information to provide context with my direct criticisms of religion and the American exceptional philosophy bound by Capitalism.

So as a Thanksgiving post I provide my apostate testimony as an act of gratitude that I've come to like myself by knowing my mind.

AN APOSTATE'S TESTIMONY

I was raised Roman Catholic but left the faith in my early twenties and started seeking a more satisfying spirituality. I experienced a bit of Buddhism, 12-step-recovery (both for my drinking and the abuse I suffered at the hands of my parents' drinking) finally drifting into the Mega-church movement in 2003. I was taken by the contemporary nature of the Willow Creek style service and loved the people. I also began using my creativity within the church, leading drama ministry and teaching acting techniques to lay-people so we could put on dramatic pieces as augmentation to the Gospel message.

I never investigated the truth claims made in Church and instead used Christianity as a more universal form of "self-help". I didn't care if the historical assertions, ontological arguments or biblical criticism were sound and true, my loneliness was lifted and people were nice so, I started to tip-toe towards an Evangelical apologetic disposition.

I met my wife on-line and our shared Christianity motivated our courtship. She's beautiful, smart, kind and courageous so, I thought this was more miraculous evidence that I was "saved" (because I am not all that handsome and can be kind of a jerk).

Once married, we attended her church, an Evangelical Free denomination that practices expository preaching.

I had never surrendered to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy until then and had never read the bible in context with a narrative exegesis.

The fundamental presentation made me start questioning if the the book was inspired or if it was just myth.

The inanity of the scripture and the inability to confront these oddities by the small group we attended frightened me that I had duped myself into believing that a good feeling equaled a verifiable truth.

I also went through a job crisis around this time and suffered a depressive break which landed me in the hospital and diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder/depressive disorder leading to medication.

As I started dealing with my mood disorder I started seeing the placebo effect religion had in helping me navigate it earlier.

I also saw how this was a choice to modulate my biology and therefore I questioned the spiritual presuppositions I took away from the experiences I had.

I was concerned that Christianity was no different than other cultural artifacts that can engender feeling but were not evidence of anything other than our ability to think about a material world (e.g. theater, music, sports).

This concern coincided with behavior I faced that left me confused.

I had a former bible-study leader assert to me after election day 2008 she knew Barack Obama was a Muslim terrorist because "Jesus, told her in her morning quiet time."

I had another leader from a church I once attended and the father of a good friend of mine send me a word document via email exposing Barack Obama as the anti-Christ with detailed descriptions how President Obama has broken each of the Ten Commandments.

I engaged in an intense conversation with an Elder from our E-Free Church and his wife regarding the Intelligent Design conspiracy (they both are ID supporters) and was encouraged to investigate the literature on ID and the arguments of William Lane Craig.

I did both.

I discovered that the Discovery Institute is a theocratic organization whose aim is not science but politics and I was disgusted by the self-serving nature Judeo-Christian belief could engender.

My bias towards religion as delusion was deepened when I read Craig's debates and found his culture insular and his scholarship arrogant.

His debate with Bart Ehrman led me to investigate Dr. Ehrman's writing which led me to Debunking Christianity, Common Sense Atheism, Robert Price, The New Atheists and now a desire for critical thought and honest discourse.

I empathize with what sounds like loneliness in your journey. I've felt it too. It has made me angry and my anger has been complicated by the frustration that who I thought were my friends may have only earned that title due to a shallow definition of friendship I embraced as a way of elevating the endorphins Christian worship produced.

Peace to you and thanks for reaching out. I don't feel so alone.

Be good to yourself.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

The steady honesty of Atheists

My blog roll features blogs I read on a daily basis. One of them, Why Evolution is True is written by University of Chicago Professor Jerry Coyne. His honesty in laying out the debate between faith and atheism relative to science and evidence has helped inform my atheism. A noted Christian who happens to be a scientist (Karl Giberson) has devoted most his time criticizing Dr. Coyne at BioLogos (the alternative to the Discovery Institute established to ameliorate the tension between Francis Collins' scientific and Evangelical Christian sides) and The Huffington Post.

Dr. Coyne does not shy away from the criticisms and I love his intelligence and spunk. His latest blog response to Dr. Giberson's work and what seems like the continued practice of accent fallacies is quite good.

The money quote from Dr. Coyne,

"But to many atheists, the middle ground is not a “reasonable” position. It enables superstition, thereby denigrating or watering down true science (example: the fine-tuning and humans-are-inevitable arguments, and the NCSE’s refusal to admit that evolution is “unguided”). And accommodationism provides tacit approval and support for all the bad stuff that’s done in the name of faith"

Join me in proclaiming your Holy Evidentialist nature

I've really pissed people off with my willingness to "come out of the closet" as an atheist. I've confirmed this week the loss of a couple of friends due to what seems their Roman Catholic commitment and the discomfort my outspoken disbelief brings. One friend said that my criticisms of the current Pope's collusion to child rape seems like I am shouting in his face that his mother is a whore. I don't understand the accusation and an atheist I respect said, "Well if his mother is a whore, it isn't your fault." (I think it's reasonable to make that moral assignation with the Catholic institution based on the evidence we have).

It is a tough realization to see friendships driven by nostalgia rather than shared values but that isn't the most startling thing I've discovered in my new atheism. The most startling thing is the willingness of the religious to shape their belief with a subjectivism that seems to put them in very close proximity to atheism.

The most common response to the assertion that I am an atheist is that others could never be because they just have to believe.

When I say that my perspective is driven by a lack of real evidence to the character the religious claim in god, the response is that a person doesn't need evidence because they "feel" god is real.

I can respect the psychological draw to the numinous but doubt that these devoted "feelers" deny the power of evidence in the rest of their lives. In fact, the evidence of my worth to them in my actions keeps me as a respected and moral person despite the doctrinal commitments their faith demands to see me guilty of eternal sin or, at least, as Matthew 10:14 says, covered in the dust from their feet.

But that isn't the case. Most believers still like and respect me (except for the aforementioned Catholic friends who see my honesty about my disbelief as a source of persecution).

It seems that the rule of evidence the Enlightnement gave us as a gift IS a respected value of god believers but isn't applied with my level of incredulity or skepticism. And that little application seems the only difference between their religiosity and my atheism.

So, I would like to call a truce and invite all subjective believers who want to believe in their feelings of god yet still respect my moral ground (in opposition of their religion's doctrinal commitments) to join my church of St. Evidence of the Numinous where we can all be Holy Evidentialists. I allow you to believe your god is real because you "feel" the need to believe that belief and as long as your need to "feel" this belief doesn't lead you to conclude that those who don't share your "feeling" will be tortured for eternity or are enemies of the imagined person you believe to be true or claim your "feeling" should apply to everyone then, you can join me in proclaiming your Holy Evidentialist nature.

For everyone else, your mother is a whore.

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.

Heaven, Hell and the Behavior of God

As we enter Autumn here in Chicago and contemplate Winter, I thought a post about death and imagined suffering appropriate.

This past year for me has been one of existential grumbling. It started with our economic melt-down and gained momentum when I was asked by a friend if I've ever heard a faithful person use the concepts of Heaven and Hell as anything more than a carrot or a stick.

I've discovered that the contemplation of this type of blunt suffering is a specific branch of theology known as theodicy. Theodicy looks to justify the behavior of god.

David Hume in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion says it this way, "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then evil?"

True believers rationalize all sorts of answers to defend their faith and justify their god or gods. There are many and they range from the concept of free will to the concept of impotence. None of these theories however provide me a workable answer to my friend's question regarding the use of Heaven and Hell. A person's imagined concept of each, based on my experience, has been nothing more than either a carrot or a stick to get people to behave in the face of fearful unknowns.

I recently have entered dialogue with a true believer regarding the concepts of god and afterlife who said that, "looking at it without the lens of Christianity- simply by looking at the vast expanse of the universe and realizing our very small and tiny place in it---you must admit that we are not in control."

I agree with him and in observation see this recognition as why we invent concepts like Heaven and Hell; to control our fear in the face of randomness.

Scientists that deal with randomness call this pre-supposition, the availabilty heuristic and it is a fallacy derived from our ability to conceive outcomes.

The theory of the availability heuristic states that simply, "if you can think of it, it must be important." For example, A person argues that cigarette smoking is not unhealthy because his grandfather smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and lived to be 100. The grandfather's health could simply be an unusual case that does not speak to the health of smokers in general

The availability heuristic provides good explanation for our attachment to Heaven, Hell and the Behavior of God. We manifest our personified understanding of a better self in an imaginary relationship with a character in a book (e.g. Jesus, Allah) and then we take actions against fellow humans to protect these imaginary relationships (e.g. The Inquisition, 9-11).

To be frank, I find most of theology to be unjustifiable rhetoric and all of it ignores the exclusivity of its own claims or, to be direct, the historical injustices done in the name of their exclusivity. At a certain point it seems like it has the same importance as discussing what color light saber cuts better, blue or red?

History shows that the enlightened thinker Denis Diderot was correct when he said, "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled in the entrails of the last priest."

There is nothing unfalsifiable or self-evident in the claims theologies make and they rely on a non sequiter.

Major Premise: The universe is a chaotic environment beyond the control of sentient beings

Minor Premise: Humans are sentient beings

Conclusion: God is in control of human beings

This is an argument from ignorance. Thinking people realize they can't control the randomness of the universe and therefore assign meaning to it by creating a more powerful personified "other" who can control it for them.

They place this imagined "other" in control to minimize the conscious understanding they have of their own death. This imaginary relationship then defines their sense of courage and morality which, by definition, delegitimizes all other relationships that don't share their imaginary one.

I can understand the psychological motivation to do such a thing and even accept it as a human need to order our consciousness but, reject the implication that this type of fear ennobles the imagined "other" we create.

The concepts of Heaven and Hell extend from this imaginary relationship. They only serve the one imagining the relationship because they serve to ennoble the imagined "other". This service often comes at the expense of intrinsic life (e.g. The Inquisition, 9-11).

Superstitious revelation becomes the weight-bearing mechanism to leverage the unknown. These superstitions contradict the virute they purport (e.g. "It takes courage to recognize that we need a God").

No, it takes courage to realize no one is coming to save us yet, our common welfare demands that we submit to the self-evident truth all people are valuable regardless of their race, creed, sex and sexual orientation.

They matter because they live and they will die. Their worth is not predicated on how they give god his/its glory.

Theology and religion deny the self-evident truth all people are created equal. They demand sanctioned attitudes, beliefs and behaviors to legitimize intrinsic life and, by doing so, create violent seperation between us.

They are products of our imagination to minimize our fear and therefore will be fearfully defended (e.g. The Inquisition, 9-11) when someone attributes them to be what they are, imaginary.

I've lived within the world-view faith purports and now, am living outside of it.

I feel a greater sense of morality knowing that my exercise of kindness, accountability, respect, and love extend from my humanity rather than some imagined divinity. For me, Heaven is simply a metaphor where I find the authentic freedom to live my life and let others live theirs.

Unfortunately, true believers take ritualistic actions where this metaphor's possibility becomes obscured due to the haggling over its meaning.