Religion

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Something about religion is just a mystery to me

The biggest mystery in life to me is still why otherwise intelligent people believe in a god.

I’m not talking about just believing in a creator, or in being “spiritual,” but in all the religious stuff: heaven and hell, angels, demons, formalities, rituals, rules that he will punish you forever with… All the kinds of cliches you see in fantasy novels.

They have no problem believing in evolution and the earth being older than 4000 years and an expanding universe, but they still believe their god made this gigantically huge universe, stuck the earth in some corner of some minor galaxy, had dinosaurs running the place for 165 million years, and then finally decided to have humans evolve in the last half a million years or so.

They will laugh at people who believe in the healing power of crystals or Bigfoot or aliens decorating fields with crop circles, but have no problem believing in a human-like creator who performed many miracles a few thousand years ago, but only in this one small part of the planet.

They will find ways to explain away every inconsistency to themselves that convinces them, yet will laugh at any other religion’s inconsistencies.

I honestly just don’t get it. How can you be a logical, intelligent person who believes in evidence and proof and still be religious?

I know, I know — some people are angry that I implied that belief in religion isn’t “intelligent.” What I mean by that is this:

When I asked this on Facebook, I got hundreds of replies, with most of them saying that it was about “faith” which is different. I agree it’s different. But no scientific advancement was ever made by having faith. Faith isn’t evidence. Faith isn’t factual.

I’m just trying to understand how people who are logical and demand evidence for everything else can make an exception for their religious beliefs. “I make an exception because I want to” is what it sounds like to me.

Some said the universe is just too beautiful and there are things that can’t be explained, and therefore that’s why they believe. But to me, that’s such a jump. “I can’t understand how the universe could be this beautiful. Therefore it HAD to be designed and created that way.”

That’s no different to me from ancient Greeks saying “Lighting is so mysterious. Therefore it HAS to be Zeus shooting lightning bolts from a tall mountain.”

There’s nothing wrong with saying “I don’t know. Maybe some day we will figure it out.”

Some say that religion provides them comfort. I’m not willing to believe impossible things just because they make me comfortable.

My point isn’t addressed to those people who believe in Adam and Eve and a young earth and who deny evolution.

It’s addressed at friends who are otherwise intelligent, logical, and rational who still believe despite lack of any evidence to support that belief.

They deny Nessie and Bigfoot and the Tooth Fairy for lack of evidence but have no problem believing in a god.

That just mystifies me.

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A message from God

“Hi, it’s me, God. I’ve created a gigantically unimaginably huge universe, so large even I have trouble comprehending it.

However, I am only concerned with one small infinitesimal part of it, and then only those creatures who evolved in the last half a million or so years of the planet’s four billion year history, and then I only made an appearance in one small area of the planet for a short period of time where I performed some miracles and then never came back again.

Because, you know, I’m God. I work in mysterious ways.

And of all the trillions and trillions of worlds in this universe, what concerns me most? Whether people on this small planet out on the edge of one minor galaxy love each other in a way I don’t approve of.”

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Ban this book!

Our children should not be reading books filled with sex and violence!

There’s one in particular that is completely outrageous! There’s tremendous violence, incest, and detailed descriptions about the size of male sexual organs and what they can produce. It glorifies and justifies slavery, treats women as property, and encourages readers to believe in fantasy like unicorns and magic. Some readers of this book have been inspired to violence, causing outrageous damage to people and cultures.

I’m talking, of course, about this book called “The Bible.”

Instead, let’s have our children read books that enlighten and educate them. Like Art Spiegelman’s “Maus.”

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How to help Christians who don’t like Satanist prayers

Many governmental meetings start off with a prayer, despite the clear language of the 1st Amendment. Courts have held that this is fine as long as you give equal time to all religions. Not that most places abide by that, of course.

The Satanists in Alaska protested and won, and were allowed to give a prayer at a meeting recently, which caused many at the meeting to leave in protest.

Look, Christians: If you don’t want to hear prayers from religions you don’t like, then the solution is to not have prayers at all at government meetings. You know, kind of like what the founders wanted when they wrote that whole 1st Amendment thing.

Don’t like it? Move to some country where religion is part of government, like Iran.

Please understand: No one is trying to stop you from practicing your religion. No one. You are not under attack. There is no “war on Christians.”

All we’re saying is “Don’t make us obey your religion.” We’re the ones under attack. Every fight is in defense.

Stop trying to make us listen to your prayers, live by your religious laws, and take our tax money to pay for your religion and we can all get along just fine.

So here’s my advice to Christians: If you prohibit all prayers in government meetings, you will never have to sit through one you disagree with.

And if not, then you’ll know exactly what it feels like to be an atheist at these things.

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It’s not Christians we’re ridiculing — it’s unamerican assholes

VP Mike Pence spoke to graduates at a religious college recently and spoke about how Christians are “ridiculed” and persecuted in America.

But that’s not true. People like me don’t ridicule and persecute Christians.  We ridicule and persecute unamerican assholes.60349468_10156489547576872_2389256131710025728_n

When religious people insist on forcing everyone else to live by their religious beliefs in America, they are assholes, and many Christians would agree with that if you mentioned “Sharia Law” to them. But when it’s their own religion, they have no problem in forcing their religious laws upon us.

The reason it looks like Christians are “persecuted,” Mr. Pence, is because they’re the only ones doing this. Jews in America aren’t trying to ban bacon. Muslims aren’t trying to make us all read from the Quran in school. Amish aren’t trying to ban telephones.

Every “attack” we may lodge at these Christians is done in self-defense.

  • They want to take away the rights of women and force us all to live by their religious belief that a collection of cells is a person.
  • They want to force us to say their prayers in our public schools.
  • They want to use our money to place religious monuments in public places.
  • They want to prohibit gays and lesbians from being married because they think their religion doesn’t allow it.
  • They want us all to celebrate their religious holidays and ignore all others or else they claim there is a “war” on their religion.
  • They want the right to discriminate based on their religious beliefs.

All we’re asking is that they leave us alone. None of us are trying to prevent them from living by their own religious codes. We just want to stop them from forcing us to live by theirs.

I have many Christian friends who are wonderful, loving people who try their best to live by the teachings of Jesus and who would never think to force others to live by their rules. The ridicule and “persecution” is not against Christians.

It’s against unamerican assholes like the Vice President.

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The 6th Annual “War on Christmas” contest

Merry War on Christmas, everybody!

Anger drives ratings, as Fox News is well aware. And that’s why they created the War on Christmas. Those poor Christians, being attacked and persecuted and treated terribly — how awful it must be to be a discriminated against majority. All those laws requiring people to never say “Merry Christmas” …  oh wait.

war on christmas

cartoon by Pat Bagley

 

Every example Fox News gives for a “War on Christmas” always boils down to something like “They won’t let us force kids to sing our religious songs!” or “They say ‘Happy Holidays’ which acknowledges that not everyone is a Christian and therefore they are attacking us!” or “They are refusing to allow us to use taxpayer dollars for a religious display.”

So for six years now, I have challenged anyone to give me an example of a real “attack on Christmas,” because every one of these examples is, in reality, fought in defense. You wouldn’t even hear about them if these particular Christians weren’t trying to require everyone to obey their beliefs.

Or else they’ll point out one misguided grinch who complains about a decoration or something as if that was evidence of a vast, coordinated attack. This year, they’re trotting out an elementary school principal who, in an effort to avoid controversy, banned even secular representations of Christmas such as Santa Claus and Christmas trees. She changed her position once people complained, but that was hardly a “war on Christmas” as much as it was someone who understood that religion does not belong in a public school but mistakenly went too far.

And this in no way prevented any family from celebrating their religion in any way they wanted to on their own.

So there’s my yearly challenge: find me one example of anyone trying to prevent people from celebrating a religious Christmas. Just one.

I have a feeling I know what the result will once again be.

(And yes, of course, just to clarify: #notallChristians)

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Your morality isn’t in your religion

Where do our moral beliefs originate?

Religious people will tell you it comes from their god. But then they ignore all the things in their religious books that contradict that (slavery is fine, divorcees should be stoned to death, eating shellfish is a sin…).church lady

Those of us who don’t believe come to our morality by using logic and empathy. We don’t act the way we do because of a fear of punishment in the afterlife we don’t believe exists; we do things because we think it’s right — it’s the way we want to treat others and how we would like to be treated in return.

And so do religious people, but they don’t always realize it.

For instance, if your religious leader suddenly told you to do something that you consider wrong, would you do it? If your preacher pointed to the Bible to justify children getting married at age 14 because the Bible allows it, would you say, “Well, that’s what God wants so I’m going to go marry a 14-year old”?

A better example may be gay marriage. Many preachers argue that this is a sin and that God hates gay people, but many religious folks have rejected that. They ignore their leaders — or they shop around until they find another church that agrees with their views.

See? Your morality is within you. It’s in the choices you make. Sure, your religion may offer you guidance but do you know of anyone who says, “Well, I disagree with this view completely but I’m still going to follow it”? Even a majority of Catholics believe that abortion should be legal.

You don’t need religion to have morality and, if you’re being honest with yourself, you can come up with many religious people whose morality is questionable at best.

And that’s why it is so insulting when religious folks tell atheists that we have no morals, because we came by our morals the same way they did.

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The 5th Annual “War on Christmas” challenge

Merry War on Christmas, everybody!

Anger drives ratings, as Fox News is well aware. And that’s why they created the War on Christmas. Those poor Christians, being attacked and persecuted and treated terribly — how awful it must be to be a discriminated against majority. All those laws requiring people to never say “Merry Christmas” …  oh wait.grinch1

Every example Fox News gives for a “War on Christmas” always boils down to something like “They won’t let us force kids to sing our religious songs!” or “They say ‘Happy Holidays’ which acknowledges that not everyone is a Christian and therefore they are attacking us!” or “They are refusing to allow us to use taxpayer dollars for a religious display.”

This year is even worse, because the Fox News President claims that finally, people can say “Merry Christmas” again, as if Obama prohibited everyone from saying it. (Here, of course, is where we insert the clips of Obama saying “Merry Christmas” multiple times over eight years).

So for five years now, I have challenged anyone to give me an example of a real “attack on Christmas,” because every one of these examples is, in reality, fought in defense. You wouldn’t even hear about them if these particular Christians weren’t trying to require everyone to obey their beliefs.

There are some Christians who apparently are so self-centered that if you say something like, “I respect your beliefs even though I do not share them and sincerely hope you have a happy holidays,” they are convinced that you are out to take away their rights.

So find me one example of anyone trying to prevent people from celebrating a religious Christmas. Just one.

I have a feeling I know what the result will once again be.

(And yes, of course, just to clarify: #notallChristians)

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Gods, UFOs, and evidence

There’s the one thing I always have to wonder about religious people and UFO/alien buffs.

Why is it that out of all the holy books in all of the religions all over the world, not one contains any information that would not have been known by the primitive people at the time?

9781452671536

sometimes they overlap

You’d think one of those gods would have said, “Hey, the earth isn’t flat, and it revolves around the sun. Also, diseases are caused by germs. Everything is made of atoms. There’s an entire other continent across the ocean. Slavery is actually a bad thing. Plus the Red Sox will win the World Series in 2004.”

Nope. Instead we get talking snakes, world-wide floods, people living in whales, angels, devils, and unicorns. It’s almost as if all of these books were written by primitive sheep herders instead of being the Word of God or something.

And the UFO buffs kind of fall into this same category. If flying saucers have been visiting and watching us for thousands of years (because they like building pyramids and stonehenges or something), why has not a single piece of evidence been found? Surely some alien would have dropped something over those years. (If you dropped an iphone forty years ago people would have thought it was some alien technology.) Maybe a piece of a spaceship would have fallen off and we’d have some unusual metal. Or perhaps one of those alien abductors could have said, “Yo, here’s the Grand Unified Theory.”

But then again, as I’ve said before, one of the biggest mysteries to me in life is how otherwise intelligent, rational people will ignore all logic and facts when they really want to believe something.

And ironically, many of the religious folks laugh at the UFO crowd while the UFO crowd laugh at the religious folks despite their similarities.

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Atheists: No room in our tent for bigots

by guest blogger David Silverman

(The text of the speech American Atheist President David Silverman gave at a recent convention)

I would like to open this convention with a statement of exclusion. I’ve been an atheist activist for 21 years and throughout that entire period I have banged the drum of the big tent atheism. I have strived to include everyone in this community, Democrat or Republican, Libertarian or Socialist, conservative or liberal — everyone has been included in our community as far as I am concerned. Reasonable people can have reasonably disagreements about reasonable topics. That’s what it means to be an American. And to be an atheist.

Some have agreed with me and some have not, but I have stood my ground proudly as we at American Atheists represented the broadest definition of atheist, anyone, and that means anyone, who does not have a belief in a god, or as my friend Aron Ra puts it, anyone who is not convinced that a particular god exists.Silverman

I was right to take that position because we are the most maligned and underrepresented religious demographic in the country, and we all need to speak up and be counted as what we are.

People used to come to me with such silly examples. “Come on Dave,” they would say. “We can’t literally include everyone. What about Nazis?”

And I laughed at them. I would say, “Silly detractors, there are no atheist Nazis!”

Those were the days. But we’re living in a very different country and a very different world.

So let me be clear on something: American Atheists is here to do good. We are here to improve the country by improving the lives of atheists and other religious minorities by erasing religious privilege and that means defeating bigotry and prejudice.

Our tent is big, because we need to raise awareness of our breadth and ubiquity.
Our tent is big, because infighting and division can kill a movement. Our tent is big, because our job is big and our work is hard and we need all the help we can get.

But ladies and gentlemen, the events in Charlottesville and elsewhere that have permeated our news over the past few weeks demand that we speak out. That we clarify. That we say, in no uncertain terms, that we will not tolerate intolerance.

American Atheists fights to eliminate bigotry against our community. And we cannot support bigotry from our community. I certainly cannot.

So to be clear (and I can’t believe I need to say this from the stage): If you are a person who believes white supremacy is “reasonable,” if you believe bigotry against other people because of their race or gender or sexual orientation is morally acceptable, if you think good people can march alongside Nazis, our tent is too small for you.

I don’t want your money.

I don’t want your membership.

And I sure as hell don’t want your friendship.

Your cause is not our cause.

Calling yourself an atheist doesn’t make you part of our community. It just means we happen to share one thing in common. And that one thing isn’t good enough.Dave_Silverman.svg

Conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, big government or small government, firebrand or diplomat, you are all welcome here. But white supremacists, racists, homophobes, transphobes, and bigots have no place in American Atheists, and are not welcome at this convention or anywhere near me.

When I became an activist 21 years ago, I thought such idiocy was a thing of the past. I was wrong.

I still believe we have to keep this tent as large as we can, but we must not include those who would destroy our community or the people in it by embracing bigotry or simply turning a blind eye to it.

We must own the fact that some atheists can be bad people. Simply rejecting gods doesn’t make you a good person. It doesn’t make you reasonable.

The fact is that some of these bigots are atheists. Religion doesn’t have a monopoly on bad ideas. Just because vast majority of those who would take away the rights of our LGBT brothers and sisters, women, and the rest of us do so because of their religious beliefs, that doesn’t mean they’re the only ones.

The atheists who side with religious bigots against the cause of equality are no friends of mine. I have far more in common with the Christian who strives for equality than I do with any atheist, no matter how outspoken, who advocates hatred.

I hope that’s clear and I hope the time of Nazis and racists and white supremacists marching in the streets in America passes in short order.

But it’s not enough to hope. This is a fight we all must fight. It is a fight that American Atheists will fight. It’s a fight I will fight. And I hope it’s a fight I can count on you to fight.

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