By Calladus

Originally posted April 2007, in the Calladus Blog

I was pretty active in church as a teenager (that was a long time ago now). We had Lock-Ins (where the youth group would spend all night at the church), retreats, summer camp, conferences. It was pretty good being a teen in the church.

I once attended a youth conference at Texas Christian University that was interesting and fun. There were a lot of teens there – it felt like thousands. We would have speakers in the main auditorium with all of us in attendance, and we also had some smaller groups with speakers.

I was in a smaller group that had a speaker who was traveling across the country to tell his story. This speaker was very eloquent, and the message was one of salvation. He was a young-ish man, perhaps late 20's – who exuded “coolness” from his sunglasses, pony-tail and motorcycle to his ripped physique. I don't recall much of the actual message, but I do recall this gentleman relating his past.

His past was sordid, divorced parents, abusive father, ran away from home when he was 14 and lived on the streets until he was 17. Drugs, alcohol. But he became self-sufficient, and by the time he was 18 he had got his GED and a job and started taking night school at the local community college. That didn't make him happy because he started partying. Oh, and he was an Atheist. And then he found God and started his journey of evangelism.

I wasn't sure, back then, what an Atheist was – but I was sure that I didn't want to be anything that caused me so much sin and unhappiness. Mr. Cool made it very clear that Atheism led to despair, and God led to happiness. He wasn't ordained, he didn't have any religious training, he was still in college at the time so he wasn't even degreed. All of his credibility came from his dramatic salvation.

This has become a cliché.

There are a lot of influential, even powerful Christians in today's evangelical groups whose sole credibility comes from a “dramatic transformation” from evil to good, from Godlessness to Godfullness. And the more “dramatic” the salvation, the more credibility that they have.

Speaking as an Atheist now, I call “B.S.” I smell a rat. Something is not right here.

In “More than a Carpenter” Josh McDowell lays out his “credentials” by stating his past non-belief and sinful life. Ron Luce talks about his broken home and drug and alcohol abuse as a young teen. Ray Comfort (of banana fame) saw church as a sort of joke.

This sort of dramatic salvation leads to a common response when I tell believers that I'm an Atheist. “Oh, I used to be Just Like You.”

This has also become a cliché.

There are two things wrong with gaining credibility through personal transformation – the first is that since the transformation is by definition a personal experience it is difficult, no impossible, for an outsider to know just how dramatic that transformation truly was. How can anyone tell how much of each story is exaggerated, overblown or mis-remembered? If an extra detail that never happened means the difference between credibility and obscurity for the speaker, does it get added on in a moment of hubris which is then recorded for posterity? Do the extra details become an albatross around the speaker's neck, or do they become an unearned “badge of honor”?

The second thing wrong with the belief that Godlessness equates to unhappiness and sin is that too frequently it doesn't! I know a couple of Atheist teens and have read the writings of several more. I know quite a few adult Atheists, and read about Atheist families. Many, most even, are happy, well adjusted, and no more prone to drugs and drinking than any other Southern Baptist.
Sometimes it seems to infuriate a few religious people that a non-religious family can grow together in a happy, loving environment.

And lastly, when someone says to me, “Oh, I used to be Just Like You.” I let them know that I used to be Christian, and am now an Atheist. This only momentarily derails a believer – they quickly shore up their faith by deciding that I was either hurt and became angry at God, or that I was never 'really and truly' a Christian, or that “bad” Christians drove me away from the faith.

Christians seem to rejoice in simple, black and white answers.

And that has also become a cliché.

Labels: Christianity

By Calladus

"Igor, would you mind telling me whose brain I did put in?"
"And you won't be angry?"
- Young Frankenstein

At one time, I believed that (Christian) religion was required to experience ‘God’s Love’, which is often identified with an uplifting feeling of acceptance and comfort, or of reverence and awe. Religious people often say that they can feel God’s presence in their lives. They can feel forgiveness. This blinding moment of transcendence, of rising above and outside of yourself is often the defining moment in many ‘born again’ Christian’s lives. While I was Christian I experienced this feeling, and was amazed and humbled by it.

I no longer believe that you have to be Christian to experience this sensation of the divine.

I started thinking about this again when one of my friends recently told me that religion was difficult to give up because she needed the feeling of spirituality it gave her. As an American Indian, she enjoys rising above her consciousness and communing with others in her sweat lodge.

Here is a somewhat edited version of what I told her:

When I was a Christian, there were several occasions when I experienced the feeling of God’s divinity, when I felt like God was watching over me with warm loving acceptance. That feeling was one of the reasons why it was so difficult for me to leave Christianity. The bible was self-contradictory and spoke of an evil, mean, spiteful and jealous God. Religion didn't make sense – where was this feeling of acceptance and love and forgiveness coming from??

I finally read about how people of other religions, or practices, also create this feeling of transcendence, Bodhi, Satori, Nirvana or enlightenment in themselves; Monks from Tibet, Masters from India, or from elsewhere in Asia where they worship ancestors or animal spirits instead of God, sweat lodges, even fasting. Throughout history people have found different ways to attain these feelings, this insight, or 'god' feeling.

Since most religions are mutually exclusive, the feelings can’t all be coming from one god. Either there is a multitude of gods, or it is all in our heads.

The field of Neurotheology is currently a ‘borderland science’ that is still hotly contested. Religious results seem to be inconsistent when magnets are used to stimulate the brain – perhaps because individuals all seem to be ‘wired’ somewhat differently. In other cases there are firm results that show a connection between brain and religious experiences in people who experience seizures, or when electrical stimulation is applied directly to the brain during brain surgery. An experiment involving Nuns has also shown that a variety of brain locations seem to be affected during the recreation of religious feelings.

I find it very plausible that religious experience is created in the software of our minds as it runs on the wetware of our brains. I think this way because after I became Atheist, I was able to re-achieve transcending feelings of awe, of acceptance, of being comforted, and of reverence.

I don’t think that feelings of Nirvana come from outside of us because the feelings are not created by a common cause. Fasting in a sweat lodge, singing in mass, inspired group visualization (i.e. preaching) and meditation can all bring people to achieve these feelings.

Religion isn’t the answer because these feelings can be achieved in mutually exclusive religions.

I've managed to recreate these religious feelings as an Atheist by using music while meditating. Classical music will do it for me. Oddly enough, so will Van Halen's "Jump". It's the same feeling of love, peace and acceptance that I got when I was Christian, only now I know that I’m the one making it happen.

Sam Harris was, unjustly in my opinion, criticized by non-believers for his position on meditation in his book “The End of Faith.” Non-believers were upset that Harris seemed to be edging into ‘woo woo’ areas; especially since he seems to be saying that meditation can be used to discover new things.

I don’t think Sam Harris is talking about using meditation in order to somehow psychically gain new knowledge. I think that the experience of transcending one’s self can be profoundly life-affirming, even life-changing. Perhaps it is a necessary part of being a whole person. This experience allows us to find new insight into our lives. I think that although it may feel mystical, and magical, it's really just happening inside our heads.

What this means to me is that it is possible to be a spiritual Atheist, not in some pseudoscientific paranormal sense, but in the sense that ‘mind’, the software that runs on the brain, has the capacity to achieve a different level of awareness of itself.

(original post)

Labels: atheist, Christianity

By DocMike

Evangelical leader James Dobson said, yesterday, that Obama was "distorting the Bible" when he made the following statements in a speech:

Obama asked, "Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount?"

Dobson said, "I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology," adding that Obama is "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter." He went on to say that Obama should not be referencing "antiquated dietary codes and passages from the Old Testament that are no longer relevant to the teachings of the New Testament."

Isn't this typical? It's okay for Dobson and other Christians to distort the Bible to fit their world view; for example calling certain parts "antiquated" and "no longer relevant" while claiming other parts are still completely relevant. I wonder who decides which is which...

In my world view, the entire book is antiquated and irrelevant!

I especially like the phrase "traditional understanding of the Bible." I guess that means don't use your own mind (or reason) to figure out what it says or means. Just ask Uncle Jimmy. He'll set you straight on the "real" meaning. After all, we're all too stupid to figure out what the sky-daddy was talking about. Right?

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Labels: atheist, Bible, Christianity, comics, Evangelical, humor, religion

Tomorrow, May 1st, is being promoted by Christians as the National Day of Prayer. So they all get together and pray for... what? It's hard to believe that nobody has ever prayed to end the war or feed all of the starving children or end poverty or rid the world of all suffering, etc. And if they have (and they surely have) and we still have all of these things (and we certainly do), then how the hell can they still believe prayer works?

It's the same old thing. The Bible-God just can't lose! If Christians pray for something and they get it, they thank him for answering their prayers. And if the thing they prayed for doesn't happen, they excuse him with something like, "It wasn't God's will" or "God has his reasons." (I wonder what his reasons could be for allowing innocent children to suffer through sexual and physical abuse, starving, and disease.)

And if their god is going to do whatever the hell he wants to do anyway, then why the hell pray in the first place?

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Labels: atheist, Christianity, humor, National Day of Prayer, religion

By Dr. Zachary Moore

In Cobb County, Georgia, the same mecca of rationality that declared all biology books must be labeled to protect the dear, innocent children from the dangerous message of evolutionary theory, a couple faces a murder charge stemming from the deadly discipline used on their son, inspired by the teachings of their unique Christian church.

Sonya and Joseph Smith, of the Remnant Fellowship Church (also of the "Weigh Down Workshop" weight-loss plan), followed along with the church's policy of physically disciplining children with strikes from foot-long glue sticks. According to this article:

On Oct. 8, 2003, emergency crews were called to the Smiths' home in Georgia after the couple reported Josef was having trouble breathing. He died the next day at an Atlanta hospital.

Sonya Smith told police that on the day he died the couple had disciplined Josef with a series of glue-stick whippings, delivered in increments of 10. She said the boy was locked in a closet and made to pray to a picture of Jesus affixed to the ceiling. He was monitored in the kitchen via a camera in the closet.

Laura Boone, a 17-year old who used to babysit for Remnant families, testified about what she saw when hired to work at a Remnant church function:

"There were more than 20 kids total there," she said. "All the adults were getting ready to go into the worship room, and Josef Jr. was crying really hard in the corner. I asked his dad what he wanted me to do, and he looked right at me, and he hit his fist into his hand really hard."

Boone said Smith Sr. told her to hit his son, "Hit him hard," she recalled Smith telling her.

"I just told him I didn't feel comfortable hitting his son," she said. "So, he took Josef in the little room next door, and we could hear Josef crying really hard and his dad hitting him."

Boone said Josef returned to the nursery area still crying but with no visible marks on his body.

That was the last time Boone or her friends accepted a baby-sitting job at Remnant or for a Remnant family, she said.

The church seems to be an odd weight-loss group/fundamentalist Christian cult of some sort:

Like other members, Steve Miozzi and his wife joined Remnant after taking a Weigh Down class at their church in east Cleveland, Ohio. He said he and his wife were initially enthralled.

"You walked into the church, and you thought this is what heaven must look like," said Betsy Miozzi.

Everyone was thin, their teeth white, the children well behaved, and many appeared to be financially successful, she said. And everyone was "lovebombing" the couple, she said, using the church's terminology for friendly embracing of new visitors.

But when Steve Miozzi sought help on how to deal with an 11-year-old boy misbehaving during worship services, he said he was told by church leader Ted Anger to beat the back of the boy's thighs with a glue stick. If the boy didn't behave he was to keep repeating the procedure, and if the boy continued to misbehave he was to put him in a room with nothing but a Bible, Miozzi said.

Miozzi says that when he visited the Brentwood church for worship services, there were "glue sticks sticking out of diaper bags" in the aisles.

Anger dismissed Miozzi's account last week, saying he never prescribed a specific way to spank a child.

"I didn't sit there and give people manual instructions about discipline," Anger said. "It's always been about teaching principles. It's about putting the parents back in control with love and boundaries."

Child discipline is not what Miozzi says prompted him and his wife to leave the church.

They left after three years because of a church philosophy that he said did not allow any questioning of church leaders. The strict obedience to their authority "destroyed my personal relationship with Jesus Christ," he said.

Also, he said, he was taken to task for not losing enough weight.

But according to Remnant's leader, Gwen Shamblin:

Spanking a child is very different from hitting a child. Hitting is not spanking. Hitting is inflicting pain in anger. Spanking is a reluctant feeling that is necessary, and it does hurt the parent more than the child.

Spanking is a time-tested, ancient teaching from the Bible… Every child is different, and some parents in the Remnant, all they have to do is give the child a disapproving look, and some children are strong-willed. Teaching and constant direction in the form of both positive and, very occasionally negative, reinforcement is the most loving way to raise a child.

Call it what you want; I think it's clear that if you cause a child's death, you've done something immoral.

Labels: Christianity, violence