SEASONED WITH REASON - When Frustration Reigns

Lately, in the past month or so, I've been struggling again with anger towards the religious, particularly Christianity because that's the religion with which I'm confronted most often. The subject has come up on this blog before, probably because one of the issues of being Atheist is dealing with religious folks who refuse to respect our philosophies, even while they demand we respect and even adopt their beliefs.

On days when I'm not feeling as enlightened as I like to feel, it infuriates me.

My husband and I have seen Religulous, Bill Maher's documentary about the dangers of religion, twice. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Maher addresses the three most popular organized religions, mostly, and challenges each in turn. He makes really good points. He also challenges those of us who are not religious to be more vocal, more public about it, which give me a lot to think about.

I strongly believe that most religion is dangerous. Why do I say "most"? Because there are a few religions that don't interfere with a person's reasoning capabilities. Wicca and other Nature religions are good examples. I was Wiccan for awhile, and most of the Wiccans and other Pagans I met saw "god" and "goddess" as metaphorical. Their religion is based on a reverence for Nature, and scientific inquiry doesn't threaten their religious beliefs. Wiccans don't have an ancient book that they consult to determine how to live. Their "doctrine" is simple: harm none. They are led by their conscience.

When religion demands that we circumvent our ability to reason and think, then it is dangerous. What remains a continuous dilemma for me is how to cope with how I feel about, say, Christianity when people I love and interact with regularly are devout Christians. I've always considered myself a reasonable person, open to new ideas, respectful of people and their right to believe and think whatever they want.

However, I'm getting weary of Christianity being shoved down my throat everywhere I turn, even here on this blog, where Christians are filling our comment section with anti-Atheist drivel. The difference between me and the average Christian, including the ones that I love and respect, is that whatever I believe, I neither expect, nor demand, that everyone I encounter bow down and worship my lack of belief in god.

I spent a couple of months hanging out online at the Atheism boards on Beliefnet. What was the discussion about most of the time? Christianity. Not Atheism. Rarely did any issues regarding Atheism or Secular Humanism come up. Why? Because there was a constant barrage of Christians with delusions of grandeur preaching their gospel as if we'd never heard it before, as if we'd be inspired by their retelling of stories we've heard and debunked a thousand times, and miraculously turn to Jesus. Even the board moderator supported the idea that there is evidence of god's existence while continuing to assert that he is an Atheist.

And here I am, feeling the need to talk about Christianity. I am weary of defending my lack of belief in what, to my mind, is the same as the Cinderella story. I don't want to discuss the existence of Jesus anymore than I want to delineate the reasons why a pumpkin could theoretically be used as a vehicle. At the same time, I don't want to be the kind of person that steps on the toes of others, and I'm still trying to figure out how to stand for my own beliefs without doing what Christians do to me on a regular basis. I don't want to be, as my five-year-old niece might say, "ugly" to people, especially the people I love who are deeply religious.

But I also don't want to back down and let the Christians win by default. They have a right to believe what they wish; they don't have a right to demand and insist we all believe like they do and run our country, our society, our world into the ground with their religious fervor. I am trying to find a way to be vocal, to be public, to be a voice of reason without letting anger and frustration propel me in a direction I don't want to go.

It's a discussion I'd like to see explored more here so we can learn from each other. We all have to live in this world, and we will always be faced with Christianity and its persistent adherents. Most of us want to be liked; most of us want to be accepted. We want to play nice and get along. But we don't need to back down and play quite so nice with people, whatever religion they are, who are hell bent on stepping on the rights of others. Read more!

Religion and Politics: A Match Made in ?

by Denise Beck-Clark

The great thing about Blog writing and reading is that they stimulate thought. The Blog written by Jim Aiken relates to something I’ve given a lot of thought to over the years: the relationship between religion and politics, and, specifically, how it impacts on personal relationships.

My late mother, who identified herself as “a Democrat,” was married to a man who believed that Ronald Reagan was too liberal. I would always ask her on the phone, for this was when I was an adult, and didn’t see her much in person, how could she even be in the same house with someone with such views, no less be married to him, my belief being that a person’s character and his/her politics are inseparable. Her answer: We don’t talk about politics. Now I realize that there was another reason that explained the feasibility of their relationship: they weren’t religious. I never realized that before, but I do now. If either one of them had been into God, they couldn’t have stayed together. But just their political beliefs were avoidable.

It often happens that people with certain religious beliefs also have certain political beliefs. But this is not always true: there are many Democrats who have a strong belief in God. What separates them is the desire to impose their beliefs on others. That’s also where religion becomes pernicious. What would it matter if most of the world had strong religious beliefs if they didn’t condemn me for not having them. Religion, when it is done sincerely, can have very positive effects, viz., a Mother Teresa. Unfortunately, so many people get more caught up in imposing their religious beliefs on others than in the beliefs themselves, to the fanatical extreme of incarcerating or killing people who don’t agree with them.

But I digress. Recently, something interesting happened with a colleague at my job. Though she is a strong believer in God, she and I were becoming quite friendly, being aware of and tolerating each other’s differences. Until one day recently the talk turned to politics and she started to rant and rave about “those Democrats.” I said to her, “Betty, I am one of those Democrats.” Since that day our friendship has cooled. It was as if we could tolerate the one major difference, but add to that the political thing and it became too much. Oh, we are still friendly, we still talk and like each other superficially, but we know this friendship can only go so far; ultimately, there’s too much about each of us that the other doesn’t like or approve of.

Is there a conclusion here? Yes, and I think it’s the same one that Jim was given as advice by people who responded to his Blog. Above all, most of the time we do what is practical. It’s practical for Jim to smile at his mother’s neighbors so they will look after her. It’s practical for me to be friendly with my colleague at work. It was practical for my mother to be married to her husband. It’s when people’s actions go beyond the practical and focus more on principle that the stakes get higher. So the real problem is when people act on principle; that’s when relationships, be they of a personal or a societal nature, become strained and people get hurt, individually or en masse.

On the other hand, there’s an argument to be made for acting on principle, but that’s another essay. Read more!

Dealing with Believers

To paraphrase Lady Astor, I don't mind what people believe, as long as they don't shout it in the streets and frighten the horses. Other people's beliefs become my business only when they make them my business.

My mother is 86 years old. Her neighbors are not only friendly and nice, they're helpful. They mow her front lawn. We did a garage sale together this summer, and the guy helped me move a couch. Once when Mom fell down, I ran next door and got the neighbor lady, who helped me get her back on her feet.

This month (October 2008) they have a "Yes on 8" sign on their front lawn. For those outside California, Prop. 8, if passed, will outlaw gay marriage.

They're Mormons.

They haven't tried to convert me, so up to now it has been none of my business. But now ... now I don't dare speak to them.

If I see them in the front yard before the election, I will walk on as though I was preoccupied and didn't notice them. That strategy only needs to work for a few weeks.

After the election, if Prop. 8 fails, I'll be ever so nice to them, and the status quo ante will reassert itself. But if Prop. 8 passes, how will I deal with these nice, helpful, vicious, bigoted savages when I see them?

Confronting them won't do any good. Religious people are mostly impervious to rational argument. Alienating them won't help Mom at all. But if I smile and say hello, I'll leave them with the very mistaken impression that I like them. That I accept their hatred of gay people as a normal and unremarkable part of the social fabric.

I have no answer to this question, and if Prop. 8 passes I'm going to need one. Read more!

Help! I Want To Believe!

by Denise Beck-Clark

It dawns on me that one thing more alienating than being Jewish in this Christian culture is, well, besides being a Muslim, being an Atheist. What poor timing: now, when this country seems to be at an all time high, at least since the 1950's, in its religiosity, what a time to come to the realization that I am, after all is said and done, an Atheist.

Writing these Blogs has caused me to have a revelation: I am, indeed, an Atheist. Prior to now I called myself “Agnostic,” but I understand that this was based on confusion. For, vis a vis the identity of God, I’ve been confused, all my life! I was raised by non-religious Jewish parents, who, when, I asked as a child, “What is God?” answered, “God is all around us. God is in everything.” They didn’t say “there is no God.” Nor did they call themselves Atheists. But I definitely was not raised as a believer in A God.

Because I grew up believing in “God as a Force,” this stopped me from calling myself an Atheist. Now, however, I’ve come to understand that when we talk about “God” we’re talking about the anthropomorphic God. God as the Father of Jesus. God as the Creator, Protector, and All Powerful Being that loves everyone unconditionally. God as the old man with a white beard and long robes, or, in whatever persona people picture this Being.

All my life, until now, I have found it reasonably acceptable to believe in God as a force because to define God as a force allows for stuff like synchronicity, and for believing that there’s energy out there that never dies but instead is re-formatted and re-cycled and provides, at times, a certain unity and logic to things. It’s God as Karma, God as a lesson, God as an explanation. But now I know that this is not the same as the God that people love and pray to.

I have found believing in God as a force to be mildly comforting. But I know that this comfort is nothing compared to the profound solace that is brought by the belief in God as an All Powerful Being who will love me unconditionally and have my best interests at heart at all times. It’s this latter belief that really helps people, and I sorely miss it. Because when the going gets rough, as it so often does, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have this Being to turn to with absolute faith and trust, which would allow me, like a child trusting her all-powerful loving parents, to believe that yes, Denise, everything is going to be just fine. You’re one of God’s children and God is always looking after you. How comforting! No wonder so many people are believers.
Read more!

The Devil Went Down to Georgia

by Dale McGowan
Author/editor, Parenting Beyond Belief

I read to Delaney's first grade class yesterday. She had prepped me for my visit like a military operation, reminding me at least five times of the exact time and S.O.P.

"There's a chair you sit in, and I'll sit right by you," she said. "You have to bring three stories, but don't be sad if we don't get to all three."

I promised to hold it together.

She nodded, then ran upstairs to rummage through her books. Five minutes later she was downstairs, beaming.


"First, you'll read this one," she said, handing me Rosie's Fiddle, a great version of a classic folktale. "Then Crictor, the Boa Constrictor, and then"--she held up a finger, eyes closed-- "IF there's time...you'll read Pete's a Pizza."

"Ooh, good ones," I said, only really meaning it about Rosie's Fiddle. The other two are nothing much, but Rosie's Fiddle is the kind of story that can keep a roomful of six-year-olds perched at attention on the edge of their buns.

The operation commenced at 1330 hours.

"If Rosie O'Grady ever smiled," I read dramatically, "no one but her chickens had ever seen it. She was as lean and hard as a November wind..."

The story goes on to describe the solitary Rosie playing the fiddle on her porch at night.

Folks said Rosie could fiddle the flowers out of their buds. They said she could fiddle the stones out of the ground. Folks said Rosie O'Grady could outfiddle the Devil himself. And that was a dangerous thing to say.

Oh...shit.

I flashed forward through the story in my mind, a version of Aarne-Thompson taletype 1155-1169 (Mortal Outwits the Devil). The tale has taken many forms through the years, but once a Russian folktale put a violin in Lucifer's hand, the fiddling faceoff became the preferred choice, from Stravinsky's L'histoire du Soldat to The Devil Went Down to Georgia. And Rosie's Fiddle.

"What's the Devil?" one kid piped up.

Shitshitshit. I looked at Mr. H, Laney's magnificently gifted and cool teacher, whose smile was unperturbed.

"It's a kind of a monster," offered another kid.

"No," said a third, "the Devil is the one who curses you if you do something bad."

Aw shit. Stupidly, this hadn't even crossed my mind when Laney selected the book.

I turned the page to reveal a drawing of the Devil, horns and tail and dapper red suit, standing at Rosie's gate with a golden fiddle. They exchange pleasantries, then he gets down to bidness. "I hear tell you can out-fiddle the Devil himself," I said with a growling Georgia accent, for some reason.

Soon the inevitable challenge is made, and Rosie mulls it over:

Now Rosie wasn't any fool. She knew what the Devil would ask for if she lost: it was her soul she'd be fiddlin' for. But Rosie had a hankering for the Devil's shiny, bright fiddle.

I see all of this as great folklore. But I also knew that if I'd walked into my daughter's classroom and heard another parent reading a parable of the Devil casting about for human souls, I'd have laid a poached egg.

The kids were riveted -- it is quite a compelling story -- and Mr. H didn't seem the least bit troubled. But I was glad to pick up the second book, leaving the world of Faust and Charlie Daniels in favor of a safe, dull story about a pet snake -- pausing for only a moment to remember whether the damn snake offers anybody an apple.

Read more!

Atheist Alliance Convention 2008- and Guilt Lessons

This last weekend of September was spent in the harbor on The Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. Aside from a couple who took it upon themselves to try to convert all whom they saw wearing "Atheist" on badges, the event was quite lovely.

From Bobbie Kirkhart, to Ellen Johnson, I was fortunately surrounded by super-star women in the Atheist community, and at the helm was now retired Alliance President, Margaret Downey. At every turn, nothing but positive influence, and positive reinforcement that the freethinking community is alive, well, and filling up convention halls.

On Saturday, the 27th, I was even more honored to meet up with some people who wanted to participate in the Godless Grief workshop. There were some lovely people who had experiences to share, and on couple whose daughter even worked on making a film about their growth as Atheists much later in life.

An interesting comment was brought up during the workshop- it was about loss and guilt. We have to remember that guilt is one of the few emotions we feed to ourselves, and often rather than an emotion of conscience, and consciousness, it's an emotion of self-defeat. It's a natural response when we feel helpless, or at fault for an event, and it can be consuming if we don't realize there are lessons learned by it.

For example, if you have accidentally killed a person in a car wreck, the natural response is remorse, and a sense of guilt. It is also the only emotional response we seem to grab onto as a self-punishment, rather than one that teaches us about our own humanity. After time passes, and after you have confronted the people, or even yourself, about your feelings, you can either realize what lessons you have gained from the experience, seek some forgiveness - again from others, or within, and understand that your guilt is now something that has taught you that you have love for your fellow man, rather than apathy. That makes you a better person, a stronger person, a more HUMAN person.

Some people carry their guilt as a badge- like the great Scarlett Letter for all those around them to see. For years they struggle with the concept that they are to be punished for something they've done, and when others don't continually admonish them, they do it to themselves. In fact, that's a self-perpetuating form of guilt, and doesn't help you grow, or learn, or understand that even if you are at fault for something in someone else's life, you live a life of serendipity, and you aren't going to impress upon the world how much self-torture you are enduring. That's only something you understand. Only you can see your pain in this, and only you can decide if you deserve this.

You have the right to feel sadly, and to feel remorse, and you can know that if you at least acknowledge you were wrong, and can learn, you can help yourself learn forgiveness. It doesn't discount the event, and it doesn't mean you are no longer remorseful, or feel for those who have been directly affected. But it does mean you can give yourself enough kindness, and love, to say you are as human as the rest of us, and at some point EVERYONE hurts some one else. Maybe the events aren't as dramatic as causing someone else to die, but it can be just as painful for someone to lose a friendship, or a marriage, or even contact with family members, and all of these events bring guilt.

Others seem to discover that you can at some point take yourself from the equation, learn to forgive yourself, and start to see the event with objective eyes. For instance, in the car wreck example, if you realize the car had bad brakes, or your loved one didn't wear a seat belt, or there were underlying medical conditions you may not have known about, you can learn to readjust your thoughts to not fully bear the loss as entirely your fault. It isn't saying "it's someone's time" like the religious like to spout on about- it's saying, "I did what I could do at the time, with the amount of knowledge that I had....and did all I knew how to do." That's self-acceptance, and can be a form of forgiveness.

I am going to have a full chapter on this in the upcoming book, but the final guilt lesson- it's okay to feel GOOD after a loss. That seems to be a well of guilt for some. When a spouse dies, for example, and it's been the right amount of time- that only YOU will feel- and you're ready to date, or enjoy yourself with friends, or even laugh again, there's nothing to punish yourself for in doing so. You deserve to be happy. You are living, in the moment, in the now, and in the reality that you have the capacity to love, laugh, and be yourself. You, as a human, and as a living breathing person, have the right to enjoy moments. Maybe they are small at first, but you are entitled to them. And, you don't need to tell yourself that you don't get to have these moments simply because someone in your life is no longer there. They had time to laugh when they wanted to, and now they are gone. It's an honor of the memory of someone we cared about to laugh at what once made us happy.

And, you deserve to be in the now. The now is only guarantee we have. Enjoy the sound of the world behind you, the feel of the chair below you, and the smells, or textures around you. You are alive. Enjoy that. It's you being you, and no one can punish you for that except YOU. And why? Why punish yourself for being alive? It's something we have for such a short time. Guilt won't help you get through your day. It will only feed the idea that you don't deserve to live in the now. In fact, YOU DO. It may be painful some days, but that reminds us we are human.

And humanity is the power of free thinkers everywhere. Read more!

What are we?

by writerdd

I am a spirit, I have a soul, and I live in a body.

That's what I was taught in Sunday school when I was a child. In a way, I no longer believe that today. I've come to see that the body is what I am. ("You are what you eat" has become more than a catch phrase to me.) Without a body, a soul or spirit cannot exist. There is no non-corporeal being that inhabits my body like a house, or a temple, giving it life. I'd figured this out on my own quite some time ago, a short while after I stopped going to church in the 1990s. When I read Francis Crick's book, The Amazing Hypothesis, I dind't find it amazing at all to consider that there is no spirit of life, breathed into my by a god, animating my mortal flesh.

But that's not to say that I'm a soulless being or a spiritual zombie like a vampire. We humans certainly do have souls, something that makes us different than other animals, something unique and amazing and wonderful. This soul may not be a literal force, and it may not be something that can carry on after the death of our bodies, but it is very real. We all feel it. We all experience it. We all know that we are more than just a hunk of meat.

So what is this thing we call a soul, or a spirit? I believe it is consciousness, the very thing that gives us the ability to feel and experience at all. It is nothing supernatural, metaphysical, or paranormal. But it is still quite mysterious. No one can even quite define what consciousness is, just as no one can quite define what a soul is. I don't think that's a coincidence. In the future, I imagine, that scientists will be able to give us much better explanations for how our minds work, but I don't think I'll get to find out in my lifetime. I can live with not knowing. I don't have to make up explanations about ghosts in the machine. 

Religious people may use the terms soul and spirit in a way that I don't like. But the word breath was once used in the same way. It was beleived that our breath was, quite literally, our spirit, and that it was the very breath of the gods put into our earthly flesh to give us life. After all, when we stop breathing, we die. Today we know that is, at best, a metaphor. I hope to be able to use the modern words soul and spirt in the same way: as metaphors that capture the essence of what it feels like to be alive and human. At least until someone figures out a better way to explain what we all experience with words that are easy for everyone to understand.

Descartes and my Sunday school teachers may have been wrong, and we may now know that there is no separate, ethereal being dwelling inside our flesh, but in a way I still do believe.

I am a spirit, I do have a soul, and I live in a body.

(Oh, and I changed my hair.) Read more!