Pathways to Atheism

Atheists are a diverse bunch.  We really only agree on one thing, which is agreement on a non-thing.  In every other way we won't necessarily agree.  Likewise, we come to our non-position from many directions.  Social pressure to believe in the prevailing religion is so strong that for most of us deconversion is a gradual and personal process.

Family ties:  some of us had the good fortune to grow up in freethinking homes.  As religion is ubiquitous in society (currently), this is the best way, because children will have the option to convert if they want but won't feel they'll go to hell if they do.

Skepticism:  this was my pathway.  After developing critical thinking towards New Age nonsense, I realized the religion of my childhood was no more believable than homeopathy or alien abduction stories.  Some people are just naturally more skeptical, and I think I was as a child but social pressure to believe was so intense I went along with it.  I just didn't think too hard about the blood of Christ or the hallucinations in the Bible.

Reading the Bible:  The more you know the Bible and the more you know about it, the more you see its problems.  This is why churches have "Bible Study" and selected brief readings during services: if you read it without "guidance" you would reject it.  This is also why so many pastors have become atheists.

Seeking:  Before I discovered skeptical thinking, I was a "seeker."  I investigated the world's religions, and read some of their holy books.  The only one that appealed to me was the Tao Te Ching, which is not very supernatural or personal.  I had also taken two Anthropology courses in college, which put the culture I live in into perspective. I've known others who have looked into other religions, too.  I suppose some seekers settle on one religion as being "true" but the conclusion I came to is that they're all based on folk tales.

Meeting an atheist:  If you've never known an open atheist, it may not even seem like a viable option for you.  Even worse, churches teach falsehoods about atheists (aside from the Hell-threat).  At the time I fully embraced non-embracing of religion, I had only met two "out" atheists in my entire life, and I was about 28 at the time!  I'd known a few wishy-washy deists and some befuddled agnostics, but only two people had told me they just didn't believe in any god.  Meeting one atheist could be all it takes to self-identify when you realize your disbelief is not so unique.

Science (?):  I wonder how many scientists become atheists after starting their careers.  Richard Dawkins deconverted long before he chose his career path.  I'm not familiar with enough others to know if this is common.  It would certainly be difficult to reconcile astronomy or evolution with the stories of the Bible, but there are many scientists who are believers.  The power of rationalization keeps many believers in the pews.

Here are some ways we typically don't become atheists:

Anger toward God:  If a Christian's prayers are not answered, or something unexpected happens, they may feel some anger toward God, but self-blame is so hard-wired into the theology that the typical Christian turns that anger towards themselves.  They will decide they didn't pray for the right things, or that they are too ignorant to know what's best.  They soothe themselves with trite consolations:  "In the end, it's God's will."  "He needed another angel in Heaven."  "One door closes, and then another opens."  If you don't believe in any god, it's impossible to become angry with one.

Bitterness:  We aren't bitter about life, though we are sometimes bitter and angry about being fooled by religion.  People who have been in cults may feel they were robbed of life experiences during that time, and who could blame them?  But that won't turn someone against God.  People who are angry with one religion or bitter about the way they were treated by their church will find another religion, denomination, or parish if they feel put-out but still believe.

Disillusionment with church leaders:   The Catholic church's pedophilia problem is just one of many problems endemic to a group of people with virtually unlimited power over another group of people.  Mega-church leaders and televangelists have been caught with their pants down in sex scandals, too.  I have known a lot of Christians who are forgiving toward these "fallen" leaders, or at least rationalize their behavior as being individual weaknesses rather than an indictment of belief.  One Catholic friend converted to the Greek Orthodox church after the pedophilia charges came out.  Hypocrisy is something the believer can live with.  The only thing they can't live without is belief in a deity.

Defacing the Gideon Bible

I was on vacation last week, and during some spare time I decided to deface the motel room's Gideon Bible.  I have done this a few times, but this time I consulted The Evil Bible for passages about genocide and slavery.  If I were a better artist, I'd have added some cartoons.

July 6 Links

Ball State hires Guillermo Gonzalez, notorious Intelligent Design "scientist."  Great going, Ball state!

TedMed talk:  could sugar cause insulin-resistance, not obesity?  A scientists is betting his career on a question that challenges conventional medical wisdom.  I love scientists!

Another TedMed talk:  Are zombie doctors taking over America?  Rather utopian goals to fix primary care, but worth a watch.

Cult leader gets life for killing boy he thought was gay & woman who couldn't conceive.

Got rain? This may be why. Jesus & Jesus do the Rain Dance:

June 29 Links

Former President Jimmy Carter blasts religious leaders for treatment of women and girls.

Anti-Islam American blogger not allowed into Britain.  I have to admit, what she says is more like "hate speech" than anything I've seen on atheist blogs.  Still, you have to wonder about the U.K.'s laws.

Baptists are boycotting the Boy Scouts, thus proving how silly and bigoted they are. Perhaps this is why they have been conducting fewer baptisms.

PBS interviews an author and survivor of the Exodus pray-the-gay-away "ministry."

National Geographic asks, How much do you know about science?

Victor Stenger radio interview, mainly about the history of science, which is apparently the topic of his latest book:  God and the Atom.


Video of the Week "God's Loophole" by Garfunkel & Oates (lyrics NSFW):

John Lennox... who?

I'm continuing to follow the online debate about the Ball State course offered by physicist Eric Hedin (latest update here).  His "honors" course syllabus, and a course in the Astronomy department require a book by John Lennox called God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?

It didn't take long to discover (heh) that he is heavily on the side of Godly doings in the design, or creation, or running the universe.  The conservative D.C. rag, the Washington Times, ran an interview with him in 2011: 
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/not-your-average-read/2011/aug/3/john-lennox-peter-singer-stephen-hawking-genesis/

Summary:  This guy shared the stage with Behe and Ross in Alabama, at a conference called In the Beginning.  Blech!  He appeared (briefly) in that Ben Stein movie about the poor downtrodden Christian teachers who promote creationism (Ex-pe-LL-e.d), and he believes in God because he doesn't like the alternative:

“[p]erhaps there is a subtle danger today that, in their desire to eliminate the concept of a Creator completely, some scientists and philosophers have been led, albeit unwittingly, to re-deify the universe by endowing matter and energy with creative powers that they cannot be convincingly shown to possess. Banishing the One Creator God they would then end up with what has been described as the ultimate in polytheism – a universe in which every particle has god-like capacities” (pg. 51).

Excuse me?  The One Creator God?  Who would this be? Yahweh?  Allah?  Zeus?  A really really big turtle?

Oh... there must be something to create something, despite what Hawking and Krauss say:

“Which simply shows – as I said in my book [God and Stephen Hawking: Whose Design is it Anyway?] – that nonsense remains nonsense even if a scientist says it.”

Hawking, who in 2009 retired from holding Isaac Newton’s old chair at Cambridge, also said that heaven is “a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

Lennox quipped in response, “Well if you want a one liner to answer it, atheism is a fairy story for people afraid of the light.”

Is this really someone who will give the atheistic viewpoint a fair shake?  Let's take a look at his website:  http://johnlennox.org/

About:  He has written a series of books exploring the relationship between science and Christianity and he has also participated in a number of televised debates with some of the world’s leading atheist thinkers...
i.e., he debates only against atheists because he's a theist.  His website has a section on apologetics. 

He is a mathematician, not a physicist, biologist, or even a theologian!  His next appearance (in a few hours) will be at the U.K.'s national prayer breakfast, and next month he will be in Ohio at something called Xenos Summer Institute (which promotes "home groups" -- sounds creepy and cultish!)

The debate in the Hedin story involves many threads, but there has been no voice claiming that Hedin is not teaching creationism.  Requiring that students purchase this book is a pretty good sign.

Speaking of debate, check out Lennox debating Dawkins (long):

June 22 Links

Just a few links, none about the pray-the-gay-away Exodus group closing its doors, though.  You should have heard about that already!

In Oklahoma, a Christian claims that the state's Native-American themed license plate violates the First Amendment.  Really?  A Native American Methodist begs to differ.  Interesting case.

Huffpo reports on Christian wife-spanking.  Sadly, Christians are not innovative enough to be kinky.  This is treating a wife like a child.  Barbaric

Christians vs Atheists in charity volleyball!

An Indiana Methodist church kicks out boy scouts because of the new stance on homosexuality.  Really?  So why was John the "disciple whom Jesus loved?"

Gene Roddenberry will get his wish to have his ashes go to space

Video of the week:

Russell Brand on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show, teaching the experts a few lessons:

Why this blog has no advertising

At one point I decided to make a few pennies off this blog, especially considering the number of libertarians who land on my doorstep due to someone linking it on a libertarian Facebook page.  I'd love to make money off of them!

But I made the mistake of reading the terms of service.  You have to promise not to do anything that could be construed as hate speech.  Now, I don't consider what I do to be hate speech, but someone else might. Here is google's definition for youtube:

Hateful Content is videos, comments or channel information which contain "Hate Speech". "Hate speech" refers to content that promotes hatred against members of a protected group. Protected groups include, but are not limited to, race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity.

Sometimes there is a fine line between what is and what is not considered hate speech. For instance, it is generally okay to criticize a nation, but not okay to make insulting generalizations about people of a particular nationality.

I don't hate Christians, really.  Some of my best friends are Christians... really! I don't promote hatred toward them, or most believers, though I'm annoyed with the more reasonable ones for not speaking up against the dangerous ones more publicly.  As for the dangerous ones, is it hate speech to say I hate the child abusers I've written about on this blog?  They are a protected group by virtue of their religion, but shouldn't butt-fucking priests, faith-non-healing parents, and organizations that torture teenagers be exempt from that protection?  I think so.

And what kind of speech would "promote hate?"  And what is hate anyway?  It's a feeling, not an action.  Promoting violence would definitely be something I could see google prohibiting, whether motivated by hate or otherwise.  That's the real risk in unrestrained "hatespeech."  I would never promote violence, though I might make a few rhetorical suggestions about the appropriate punishment for child abusers.

Can garden variety atheist ranting be construed as "hate speech?"

Apparently it can.   Dusty Smith, of the "Cult of Dusty" has posted a chilling video about his experience being deemed hateful by google.  He's stopped advertising other people's crap on his channel and now advertises his own T-Shirts to make some money.  He's an atheist in Mississippi.  He has my sympathy, and I could use a couple of new shirts: