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Unbecoming Levity: "Why I am an atheist"

Published

on May 19, 2007

. 1 Comment

From Unbecoming Levity, incidentally one of the most recent members of Planet Atheism, comes a brilliant — and beautiful — post, Why I am an atheist.

As deconversion stories go, this is one of the most enlightening I’ve seen, and, while the specifics are different, some parts almost echo my own experience. The following, for instance, could apply perfectly to me:

It became clear that God is a product of man, and he still exists as a go-to for those questions that still are not answered and to comfort us. Through a god and afterlife, we are eternal, our consciousness the manifestation of an immortal spirit that will rejoin its loved ones who have passed on before when we die. The God hypothesis makes us live forever. And further, it addresses the common lament that life is not fair, God will mete out justice. If an awful, evil man becomes powerful and lives a long happy life hurting others, we can take solace that after death, he will be brought to account for his transgressions. The God hypothesis makes life fair. This is why the God hypothesis exists–to make us feel better. It is a comforting idea, in my opinion. But that doesn’t make it true.

Really, go read it. You won’t regret it. And send the link to any theist (but inquiring) friends you happen to have.

Jerry Falwell dies

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on May 15, 2007

in christianity, current events, fanaticism and religion

. 3 Comments

As I’ve just read in A Load of Bright, the man who once said:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”

about 9/11, and:

AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals.

is dead.

My feelings about this? The world is better off without him. I’m sorry if this offends anyone; apparently, someone recently dead is always to be “revered”. But I’ll save my compassion for those who deserve it, for those who actually try to make the world a better place, instead of a worse one.

Still, while I believe that Falwell was (much like Robertson, Dobson, Jack Thompson, and others) a disgusting human being, and a source of fundamentalism, intolerance and bigotry, I won’t actually cheer his death. Unlike what his followers believe, I’m convinced that this life is “it”, and, far from making our lives pointless, it makes them precious.

Besides, there are surely many waiting to take his place, and they will always have power, as long as there are people who want to be free from the responsability of thinking and deciding for themselves, who can’t deal with their lives and so need to believe that “hey, this is not the real thing, this is just a test,” and who want to be told that their own prejudices and bigotry are actually “moral” and “holy”, because, hey, the big guy in the sky hates all of ‘em too.

What will make the world a better place is not the death of the Jerry Falwells of the world, but, instead, the loss of their power and influence, because people begin to actually think for themselves. People shouldn’t be “good” simply because there is no charismatic bigot currently inciting them, but because they see those bigots for what they really are, and want nothing to do with them.

Pope threatens pro-choice politicians with excommunication

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on May 9, 2007

in christianity, current events, freedom and religion

. 2 Comments

News here. Of course, he’s talking about Catholic politicians (which may not actually be Catholic themselves, but who live in heavily Catholic countries — which handily coincides with his visit to South America).

While to any non-theist (or even simply non-Catholic) the threat of excommunication is as frightening as the idea of Santa Claus not liking you, if most of the populace is Catholic, the fact that a candidate (possibly attempting a re-election) has been excommunicated (“and by His Holiness the Pope himself!”) may influence polls and election results enough that anyone who’s been considering lifting some ancient and draconian abortion ban may end up not doing it.

What, you thought the Vatican only pulled the strings of kings and kingdoms during the Middle Ages? Think again…

"The Bible is the origin of morality"

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on May 9, 2007

in bible and christianity

. 6 Comments

If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

– Deuteronomy 25:11-12

Lovely.

Abraham and Isaac

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on May 2, 2007

in bible, christianity and morality

. 6 Comments

The story of Abraham and Isaac, in the Old Testament, is one of the best known in the Bible. Abraham and his wife can’t have a child until old age, then miraculously they have a son, and then God tells Abraham to sacrifice his long-awaited child, which he accepts without question. At the last possible moment, God tells Abraham to stop, as it was all just a test, and to sacrifice an animal instead.

Incredibly enough, Abraham’s actions are considered “good” by most Christians, even though we probably value human life quite higher than we did thousands — or even hundreds — of years ago. However, due to precisely the latter fact, many people explain that part of the bible as “not literal”, “just an allegory”, or “simply a moral lesson”.

Vjack of Atheist Revolution addresses that contradiction: even if that is just “an allegory”, it’s an allegory to what? Certainly, in modern moral terms, there’s nothing to learn from a father ready to kill his infant child. Besides, many Christians don’t believe it to be “just an allegory”: many fundamentalists, especially in America, believe in the Bible (with all its absurdities, atrocities and contradictions) literally.

As for choosing which parts of the Bible to take literally and which ones not to, I have addressed it in the past, such as here. In short: if you accept that the Bible is the inspired word of God, then, for a human to decide which parts come from God and which don’t, or to decide which are literal and which aren’t, is an act of supreme arrogance, it’s believing you “know better than God”.

But what about the morality of this tale, itself?

Continue reading ‘Abraham and Isaac’

Bligbi: "If it wasn’t for Hell, I’d kill you but that doesn’t make me a bad person"

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on April 23, 2007

in atheism, christianity, morality and religion

. 3 Comments

Remember this Atheism FAQ entry, Without belief in an afterlife / fear of hell, how can people be moral?? The common argument (which theists keep using, without even noticing what it really says about them) that an atheist doesn’t have any reason to be moral, since he doesn’t believe in heaven or hell? In other words, that there is no morality without the supernatural, and that “morality” is simply not doing things due to fear of punishment?

Bligbi has said shortened that argument — and its implication — in a simple, brilliant way: If it wasn’t for Hell, I’d kill you but that doesn’t make me a bad person.

Religion, Doubt, and Freedom

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 31, 2007

in christianity, religion and truth

. 30 Comments

A reader called Matt commented the following in another post:

I don’t hate God, but I’ve suffered an insane amount pretty much my whole life and I’ve had lots of hateful thoughts about God combined with bad feelings which I can’t necesarily help.

I’ve been a christian whole life and feel like I’m worst off than most. I felt religion and spirituality had alot to do with my pain (combined with my anxious shitty mental disposition) so have often felt let down and bitter, feeling like religion f’ked me up, but God did nothing to help, feeling like would have been better if never thought about spiritual, religious things relating to God.

Obviously life isn’t fair, one might say as great as God is, he isn’t perfect? I mean who decided to make this earth-even God got mad with it and wiped it out with a flood (in the Bible).

I also feel frustrated with the thought of people going to hell, I mean God (and parents having sex) makes us (much of who we are is not what we choose), how can God condemn his own creation at it’s expense; mind, body, spirit and environment we’re raised in? And what about a bit more responsibility for looking after your creation, I mean what do they call a father who doesn’t look after his kids; dead beat dad? or someone who doesn’t look after their pets? Oh but God gave us free will(did I ask for it?), well my free will is to not have free will if that helps me have a life.

It’s says in bible that God so loved the world that he gave his only son, I’m not disagreeing, but I also think he had a obligation to save us from sin or ultimately hell (God can’t stand sin being so holy). Ok he can’t stand sin so the unsaved soul doesn’t get to go to heaven with him, but wouldn’t it be more loving to not make hell such a horrid place, unless your like an evil tormenting demon. I honestly don’t think Ive ever done anything to deserve eternal burning flames of hell, and if I was a horrible person (honestly how much control does a person have over the type of person they become? -being a product of genes and environment - a born psychotic or abused as a child?).

Maybe their should be like an in between house, where don’t live in heaven or hell, or maybe could just obliterate the unsaved soul so that cease to exist I know what I’d prefer if not going to heaven.

I’m not saying God isn’t good, but right now i feel somewhere along the line that God did the deed and we’re paying for it. But if you really want to hate someone hate Satan, according to the bible his messing things up was very deliberate and selfish unlike the loving God.

Matt: the fact that you have doubts and are courageous enough to admit so and write about them is a step in the right direction. Christianity, like most religions, certainly works a lot by creating guilt (“God loves you! How can you doubt him / not love him back, you monster!?”) and fear of eternal damnation. But, if you have admitted that many parts of Christian theology don’t make a lot of sense, that they even paint God as a somewhat cruel being, why not go all the way, and check every premise that you’ve been taught, or that you’ve always believed in without question, up to and including the very existence of a god?

I’m not trying to “convert you to atheism”, or anything like that (atheism isn’t a religion, anyway). But think about it: if something doesn’t survive honest questioning and investigation, what does it say about that something? If you can only keep your faith by not ever thinking critically about it, what does it mean? I’ve been there, too, years ago: religion, to me, was something I was afraid to think about, to point a flashlight at, because I’d always known — maybe by instinct — that it would all begin to unravel if I did so. So I spent decades of my life afraid to think about religion, just “believing”. Until, one day, enough was enough. As I said, if my beliefs only survived because I was too afraid to think about them, what did it mean? That they were probably wrong, of course.

Even if it turns out there is a god, if he would actually punish you with eternal torment because of honest doubt, because you dared to question and use your mind, then he would be an evil, sadistic monster. If, on the other hand, there turns out to be a loving, benevolent deity after all, he will surely prefer honest doubt and sincere truth-seeking to blind faith and robotic worship, to turning off your mind.

Above all, don’t be afraid. You may be told that “you soul is at stake”, and that doubt leads to hell. But don’t be afraid to question, to express your doubts, and to not be satisfied until you find an answer, even though you may be told that you already have an “answer” and that you shouldn’t ever think about it any more. There’s something else at stake, something I believe is infinitely more real and important than any dubious, unseen, undefined “eternal soul”: your happiness. Your intellectual honesty. Your sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Your respect for truth and reality. Your freedom from fear and guilt. Your life.

All of those are real. They exist, and affect your life, without question — unlike most of the claims of religion, which are far from self-evident at best. And anyone who tells you that the above are meaningless, that your happiness isn’t important, that life is just a test, that you should “hate the world” and your life, and that the only thing that matters is whether you are “saved” from hell, that an unseen “god” owns you and you owe everything to him… anyone who tells you that, is not your friend. “Hell” does exist: it’s living life in pain, guilt and fear. It’s hating yourself for the “sin” of using your mind. It’s believing that you deserve damnation.

I’ve never written about this particular topic before, so I’m probably not the best assistance you (or anyyone else) can get, but if you (or anyone else) have any questions about this, please comment, and I’ll try to answer them as well as I can. Threats of eternal damnation / emotional blackmail, to me or to Matt, will be deleted, though.

Christianity without the Bible, part 3

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 27, 2007

in bible, christianity and religion

. 24 Comments

NOTE: You might want to read part 1 and part 2 as well.

From a comment by micah:

Why couldn’t belief in God come from something other than the bible? One doesn’t have to believe the biographies of George Washington are completely true to think that George Washington did indeed exist.

Expanding a little on my reply over there…

For a general belief in “a” god, no. But for Christianity, well, you can’t redefine terms. Much like you can’t say “I’m a vegan, but I eat meat,” you can’t say “I’m a Christian, but I think Jesus, if he existed, was just a man.” Both of those contradict the main point of the definitions!

Now, if you DON’T contradict the definitions, and believe in the divinity, sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus, and accept him as your savior, but refuse the Bible… well, there’s a problem, since there’s nothing else about Jesus from even NEAR his time. The 4 gospels were written decades after his death (and contradict one another, but that’s another story), but non-Christian literature only started to mention Jesus centuries after his death, and at a time when there were already many, many Christians; in other words, it was second-hand (or third-hand, because the only thing those Christians had was the gospels, and oral tradition) information at best.

So, how do you know whatever Jesus was, did, or say, without the Bible? How do you know he even existed?

Unless you’ve had a “vision” or dream of Jesus (and we know how reliable those are…), either you use the Bible, or you make up your own “Jesus”. I really don’t see any other possibilities here.

A damnable doctrine

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 25, 2007

in atheism, christianity, quotes and religion

. 4 Comments

I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.

– Charles Darwin

Religious "moderates"

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 22, 2007

in religion

. 4 Comments

One of Sam Harris’ main points in his books and newspaper columns is this: that religious moderates protect religious fundamentalists. By “protect”, he doesn’t mean that the moderates actually try to actively defend them, but that they have effectively made it so that religious beliefs (of any kind) are “uncriticizable”, something that must be “respected” (unlike any other kind of beliefs).

Some atheist bloggers agree with Harris; others disagree. For the record, I agree with him on this one. He’s not “blaming” moderates in the sense of “Muslim moderates are guilty of 9/11″, or “Christian moderates are responsible for abortion clinic bombings”. He’s saying, however, that the moderates give an appearance of “niceness” to those religions, and that, as I said, because of the moderates, you can’t, these days, blame religion for anything without being seen as a bigot of the worst kind. Religion, apparently, is above rational discussion, above criticism.

There’s also a third kind of believers: the liberals. Those are the most harmless ones, I guess, though they are so mainly because they don’t take their religion seriously; as Harris says, they actually don’t really know what they believe, and have never thought about it; they just like the feeling of going to church, and of “belonging” there.

Want to see the difference between the three? I’d say it’s easy.

A liberal might say “yes, the Bible says that gays should be killed, but how do we know that that part was realy inspired by God? My God is a loving God, and I’m sure he loves everyone, no matter their sexual orientation”.

A moderate would say “gays should not be full citizens; God doesn’t like them. It says so in Leviticus, and Paul repeats it later: homosexuality is an abomination.” If asked, he will say that gays shouldn’t have the same rights as everyone else, though he won’t actually advocate violence against them… though, if any occurs, he won’t condemn the perpetrators, or shed any tears.

A fundamentalist — a true fundamentalist, that is –, would kill homosexuals. The Bible commands so; who is he to question the word of God?

Now, you may argue that those I call “moderates” are really fundies, and those I call fundies are psychos, nutcases, etc.. But… what is really the difference between the 3 examples?

The difference is how seriously they take the Bible. Just that. If it’s just “stories”, from which you can learn something, but shouldn’t be taken literally, you’re a liberal; if it’s a moral guidebook, you’re a moderate. If it’s the absolute, literal word of God, and you really believe that doing the work of God is more important than obeying man’s laws… you’re a fundamentalist.

I’d also add that many moderates, in my opinion, would like to be fundamentalists, if they had the “guts” to do it. If they didn’t enjoy their lives or their freedom (that is, not being in prison) so much. The Bible really tells believers to be fundamentalists in every way. That’s why, in my opinion, moderates never really criticize fundamentalists… even after acts of terrorism!

After all, what can they do? They can’t fight them with scripture, since scripture is really on the fundies’ side! It’s the moderates who are disobeying part of it… and I’d guess that many of them feel ashamed of doing so.