My friend Hemant Mehta (FriendlyAtheist) had a great interview with blogger Nancy Duke on the Chicago Coalition of Reason billboard, atheism, and religion.  The questions gave away her semi-hostile position, but I feel like Hemant did a great job answering in a positive way:

ND: What is ChriFSMas?
HM: Christmas for the Flying Spaghetti Monster followers.

ND: Are you equating Jesus to a Flying Spaghetti Monster? That doesn’t sound like a “Friendly Atheist.” In fact, it sounds a little mean.
HM: Well, the ChriFSMas thing is just a play on words, but there is a FSM movement where the argument is: There’s as much evidence for a Flying Spaghetti Monster as there is for any other God. So, why not worship the former and not the latter? It’s tongue-in-cheek, but I think it makes a good point. In any case, I think Christmas is a good time for everyone to give presents and spend time with loved ones. It’s not limited to Christians.

Oof.  She’s clearly looking for a fight.  An interesting exchange came near the end:

ND: One more question and then a few quick hits to wrap it up. You mentioned that after research, you couldn’t find evidence to support any of your previous religious ideas. But isn’t that the point? Isn’t faith supposed to be based in a belief of not needing evidence, not needing proof? It wouldn’t be faith if you needed evidence and facts, because that’s called science. So, why use science or atheism or anything else to debunk religion when religion is based on embracing something you cannot prove, i.e. faith?

HM: Yes, relying on faith is the opposite of relying on evidence. However, I was always taught my beliefs as if they were facts. I don’t know of any Christian churches that say, “We believe Jesus resurrected after three days but we don’t actually know that for sure.” No, they say it as if it were true and proven and factual.

I discovered at 14 that my beliefs, which I always believed were factual, were just ideas that people of my faith shared and there was no good reason to believe any of it was true. I guess I discovered that my faith was indeed faith. And I decided I wanted to rely on things that were evidence-based and actually factual. That led me to atheism. It doesn’t say that God doesn’t exist, but atheism says that there’s no good evidence for God’s existence, so why bother believing in one. To me, that’s honest.

Bewildering image and caption:

---

Facts are fun! …
Sometimes.

This meme is what we need to combat in America, and Hemant does a good job explaining why he dismissed faith.  It’s not a reason to belive something is true.  It’s funny that both sides are saying “there’s no evidence for this belief!” but meaning it in completely opposite ways.  It is central to our arguments that people need reasons to assert something as true.  If they don’t accept that basic tenant of thinking, literally any belief is acceptable.

A big distinction that I make time and time again is that we’re never looking for proof – we’re looking for a reasonable amount of evidence to support the level of belief.  It would be a positive step if churches did what Hemant suggested – admit their own uncertainty and instead use stories as non-authoritative metaphors about life.

I’m a bit puzzled – and concerned – that Duke had a small clipart of someone pointing to a chart with the caption: “Facts are fun! … Sometimes.”  What in the world is that supposed to convey?  In context of the discussion – it was right next to the above blockquote – it wasn’t saying that sometimes the world isn’t as we wish it to be.  No, it seems to be dismissing the very value of facts when assessing a worldview.  “Facts are great unless they contradict my beliefs!”

How do you respond to such brazen disregard for logical thinking?

[Update:] You raise the point that this might be a Poe, especially given the “Keeping democracy intact since 1912″ slogan. If it’s satire, it’s remarkably subtle. I’m looking into it. What do you guys think?

They thought their God was testing their faith. They didn’t want to show their lack of faith by going to a doctor. So the child died of untreated diabetes.

When she was on trial last Spring she explained her thinking:

Leilani Neumann told the jury in her husband’s trial that she thought her daughter’s March 2008 illness was a test of her religious faith and she didn’t take the girl to a doctor because that would have been “complete disobedience to what we believe.”

Leilani Neumann testified for nearly five hours Tuesday, describing the events leading up to her daughter’s March 23, 2008, death on a mattress on the floor of the family’s rural Weston home as people surrounded her and prayed. Someone called for help when she stopped breathing.The mother said that she and her husband believed their daughter’s deteriorating condition may have been the result of a falling out with another couple, and called them once the girl was unconscious and persuaded them to come pray for the girl.

“I asked her if she loved Jesus,” the mother testified. “She might have said yes. I know for sure she was acknowledging it. What sounds came out, I don’t remember. She was making noises. … My focus definitely was to pray.”

“We thought even the lifelessness was something that she would come out of,” the mother said. “Everything for us is about faith. It is about trusting in God. We either believe in God’s word or we don’t.”A pediatric expert on diabetes told the jury Monday that even right before her death, doctors might have been able to save the girl’s life had she been brought to a hospital.

I think everyone can agree that this kind of faith is dangerous. They had “biblical” faith — they put their trust in God and not in man. And, as usual, God failed where humans could have helped.

Believers constantly say they need to rely upon God, but why would anyone put their trust in a God who has failed, over and over again? Granted, it’s hard not to fail when you don’t exist, but you’d think that people would stop relying on someone so notoriously unreliable.

Shortly after I became a Christian, I saw a book about Jesus at the library. I couldn’t get enough of Jesus, so I brought it home and began reading. Excitement turned to horror as I realized it was arguing there was hardly any evidence that Jesus even lived, much less was a miracle-working god who rose from the dead. I was appalled. But I was also a little shaken. I never realized someone could question the existence of Jesus. Could my new found belief be wrong?

After much prayer and counsel, I decided to stop reading the book. I was convinced it was Satan trying to attack my faith, and I took that as evidence my beliefs were correct — if Satan was trying to convince me I was wrong, then I must be right!

I didn’t have any doubts about Jesus for another decade.

I was a fool.

Doubt Can Be Scary

Doubt can be frightening for a believer. It can be so frightening that some people suppress any doubt, no matter how much counter evidence they are presented with.

But you’re different, aren’t you? I know that because you’re reading this essay. You know you’ve been wrong in the past, and now you are beginning to question some things about your faith. You’re not as certain as you used to be.

Perhaps you’ve been scolded about your doubt. People of faith rarely look at doubt as an opportunity — instead, they see it as a danger. That’s why they talk about ”battling” doubt. They fear it. They tell you to pray to God and ask him to remove your doubts, to read your holy book until you believe it again, and to learn to doubt yourself instead of “God” (by which they mean whatever they teach about him).

Pullquote: Doubt shouldn’t be feared and battled. If we love truth, it should be embraced.

You’re not stupid. You realize that would be brainwashing yourself, just like people do in every other religion. What you want is evidence. And that it is lacking is causing you to doubt.

You are being given an opportunity that few believers get. You are actually searching for truth. While many say they are searching for truth, really they are searching for an experience, a community, and/or comfort. And that’s why you’re different — you want the truth, even if it’s not what you want to hear.

Doubt shouldn’t be feared and battled. If we love truth, it should be embraced. Here are 10 ways a truth-seeking theist can embrace doubt.

1) Accept that doubt can be good.

Doubt is not evil — it is a tool for discovering truth. That you are doubting is a good sign. It means you’re thinking critically and not simply accepting things because someone says so. As Peter Abelard said, “By doubting we come to questioning, and by questioning we come to truth.” If we love truth, we must embrace doubt.

The only reason to fear doubt is if you fear truth. Fundamentalists of all stripes fear doubt. Is this a coincidence?

2) Be open-minded.

You don’t want to defend faith — you want to believe whatever is true. Seek the truth, no matter where it leads you.

When people speak, listen. When others challenge your beliefs, consider they might be right. In other words, be humble. There’s no reason to think we’re right about everything, so why act that way?

3) Learn to love truth, not being right.

Truth is beautiful. Unfortunately, none of us possess the entirety of truth. That’s why we see arrogance as a vice — nobody likes a person who think they are always right. We all know people like this. Don’t love being right and telling others they are wrong — love seeking the truth. This requires humility and skepticism.

By doing these things, you’ll be well on your way to embracing and using doubt instead of fearing and repressing it.

4) Learn to ask and consider hard questions.

People of faith fear hard questions. That’s one of the worst things about faith.

Hard questions lead us closer to truth. It helps us break out of false paradigms and shows us inconsistency in our logic. Hard questions should be encouraged and embraced — not feared or condemned. If those around you don’t want to think through hard questions with you, perhaps that is a sign you’re asking the wrong people for answers.

5) Look for historical and/or experimental evidence for claims of your religion or philosophy.

Look especially for evidence for supernatural claims. If this evidence is not accepted by any scholars outside your religion, then chances are it’s not reputable. Now ask yourself if you would accept a different religion’s supernatural claims with this kind of evidence. Bonus points if you look into evidence for other popular religions.

6) Pray to your god for a week. Then choose another and try again.

You probably have some doubts about prayer. Fortunately, there is a way for you to know if your God answers prayers or not. Follow these directions:

1. Pray to your god for a week. Make your requests specific and something that could only come about through supernatural intervention. I’m not talking about getting a front row parking spot, which happens to us all every now and then. I’m talking about regrowing limbs, people coming back from the dead, walking on water — things that are impossible on our own.
2. Keep a record of all your requests and mark the ones that were answered (if any).
3. Next week, pray just as fervently to a different god (like Baal or Zeus) and keep track of your requests.
4. Then the week after, don’t pray at all — but still write down your requests.

Does prayer to your deity really work? The evidence (or lack there of) will be before you.

7) Read your holy book.

Yes, read your holy book, but also look at it from a viewpoint of an outsider. Then read up on the history of the book from secular scholars. Ask yourself if this book is really written by God, when history shows it to be written by mere men.

Have you read any other holy books? If not, now is the time to learn about them. Every religion has millions of followers who believe it is the only true religion, and that their holy book(s) are inspired by God. What makes yours any different?

8) Find other doubters.

When you start embracing doubt, you’ll discover many fairweather friends — they love and support you when you think like they do, but when you start questioning, they begin to back away. Forget these “friends.” Seek out those who are comfortable with doubt and view it as a friend instead of a foe.

If you can’t find any locally, there is a thriving community online. Participating in blogs, forums, and social networking can be helpful to doubters.

9) Read widely.

Pullquote: Read other subjects and expose yourself to different viewpoints. You can only be better for it.

There’s nothing like reading other perspectives to encourage doubt. That’s how I began having serious doubts about my Christian beliefs. First, I began questioning whether the Bible was accurate about the age of the earth. Then it was about if it was right about how animals was created. Then it was Adam and Even. Then Noah’s Ark. I kept going from there. But it all started out from reading outside my perspective.

Too often we only read from authors we already agree with. I remember once, when debating with some doorstep Mormons I asked, “Don’t you guys ever read outside your own religion?” Their reply was, “Why should we, when we know we have the truth, and others are still looking?”

Narrow reading will only confirm what you already believe. If we’re always right it wouldn’t be a problem. But who of us are right even 50% of the time? As Dale Carnegie said:

If you can be sure of being right only 55 percent of the time, you can go down to Wall Street and make a million dollars a day. If you can’t be sure of being right even 55 percent of the time, why should you tell other people they are wrong?

Reading people on our side is satisfying, but why not branch out a little? Read other subjects and expose yourself to different viewpoints. You can only be better for it.

10) Always ask yourself, “How do I know that?”

Pullquote: The more extraordinary a claim is, the more extraordinary evidence there must be in order to believe it.

This is a powerful question because it gets at the root of belief. On matters of religion, you will probably find there is nothing to stand on but “faith.”

Here’s an example of how a thought conversation can go when asking yourself this question:

I believe Jesus was born of a virgin.
…Hang on a minute. That’s an impossible event. How do I know it really happened?

Well, the Bible says so.
…That’s true. It does say Jesus was born of a virgin in the later gospel accounts, though not the earlier ones. How do I know the later accounts can be trusted about such an extraordinary claim — made almost a century after it was claimed to happen? Are there any contemporary witnesses? Is there any positive evidence for it?

No, but it’s in the Bible, and God himself wrote it. That’s amazing evidence, isn’t it?
…Well, maybe. But how do I know God wrote it?

Hmm. The Bible says God wrote it, but that’s what all holy books say. So that’s not a very good reason, is it?
…Afraid not.

Unless a belief has positive evidence, then it usually isn’t worth believing. And the more extraordinary a claim is, the more extraordinary evidence there must be in order to believe it. By asking “how do you know that?,” the burden of proof is put on the asserter.

When the answer comes down to “faith,” there’s a problem. Why put your faith in one belief over another? Based on faith alone, why believe in a god at all, much less a very specific version of him? What are the chances you are actually right about such a belief, especially since there is no evidence?

So doubt isn’t something to fear. It isn’t something to repress and fight against. It is something to be embraced. It is a powerful tool to find truth, and I hope you’ll use it.

Science has always reserved its greatest accolades for those who prove what came before to be wrong, and every scientist in the world knows the best way to become famous is to prove everyone else wrong. Nevertheless, pseudo-scientists always argue that scientists have some vested interest in preserving the current order (and thus dooming their careers into obscurity when they could have become famous Nobel prize winners).

This argument has never made any sense, but that doesn’t stop them from making it. So, one more example won’t make any difference to them — people who advocate a bad argument that runs counter to evidence are not dissuaded by more evidence.

The point is, if a scientist found evidence against evolution, he would have every incentive to publish it and argue against evolution. If they could make their case, then they would earn their place in the history books, along with Kepler, Copernicus, Darwin, and Einstein.

If evolution isn’t true, we don’t want to believe it. We don’t have unreasonable faith in evolution — we accept it because of the massive amounts of evidence for it, and how it allows us to predict future findings (which often come true). If new evidence comes up that shows we were wrong, then we’ll happily believe the new theory.

Empire of Miracles

He healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out demons, and said, Behold, I am coming quickly!

Jesus Christ?

Not this time. The Lord’s good buddy Oral Roberts, of course.

The Oklahoma-born Charismatic faith-healer Roberts had queues of thousands of sick waiting for his healing touch. He also raised people from the dead. Hundreds of them.

He received his commission from the Lord directly — Jesus appeared to him countless times in person. Oral dropped out of Bible College to travel America in the ‘40s, setting up folding chairs under giant circus tents for revival.

And a circus it was. There was weeping and shouting and a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on, as demons and diseases departed from the masses. “I personally laid hands on more than 1.5 million individuals who had all manner of sickness and disease,” wrote Roberts in When You See the Invisible, You Can Do the Impossible.

“I also engaged the demon spirits in tens of thousands, calling to them, ‘come out you foul tormenting spirits of Satan’…. people saw healing for the first time since the days when Jesus and his disciples publicly healed the sick…”

“All of us in the ministry could talk … of certain dead ones being raised,” the big O told 5,000 at a conference in 1987. His son Richard said that same year, “dozens and dozens of documented instances of people who have been raised from the dead.”

Baby, We Can Talk All Night

Pullquote: Oral said God would kill him if the sum fell short of $8 million.

Add to those marvels his gift of prophecy — but perhaps the greatest blessing of the Holy Spirit was giving Oral his name. Tremendous oratory skills granted him a different kind of power than other brilliant speakers like Hitler.

That power included bilking the public for country clubs, Beverly Hills properties, vacations via private jet, fancy cars, horses… his school has faced dire financial problems, but the Roberts families have not — his daughter-in-law once spent $39,000 in one clothing store!  (Allegedly, Oral now maintains a humble salary in his old age.)

Once, Oral told his public that God asked him for $8 million. Oral said God would kill him if the sum fell short. The prophecy came true, of course — Roberts made over 9 million and did not die.

Not long after Roberts learned that God wanted him to be rich, he also had a vision of a 900-foot-tall Christ telling him to build a City of Faith, a medical center/prayer/faith healing school, to add to the university he’d previously prophesied and built. His own personal Jesus may have loomed large, promising a cure for cancer, but the medical center shut down quickly. No cure in sight so far.

The university with the giant praying hands towering into the sky goes on, though it’s riddled with the usual money-funneling scandals. There were bizarre allegations against Roberts’ son’s wife for wee-hour conversations with teenage boys — and cell phone bills of $800 per month.

Tragedy, not Triumph

Pullquote: “I’m coming back … and I’m going to get my rightful place. I’m going to rule and I’m going to reign … when I get back from the other side.”
Oral Roberts

Further woes included the death of son Ronald in 1982, found shot in his van. It was rather uncertainly ruled a suicide and swept under the rug. Ron was an openly gay antiques dealer, says the LGBT community, including MCC, the “gay” church. The Roberts’ deny this. His suicide was blamed on army trauma from Vietnam.

Sadly, Oral’s daughter Rebecca died in a plane crash with her husband. A grandchild also died just after birth.

As of this writing, none of these have been raised from the dead.

The “documented proofs” of Roberts’ healing touch vanish under scrutiny. Many who appeared on his shows with testimony of cures died hours or days later, but these unimportant details were never aired. It has been said that a little hope never hurt anyone, but I beg to differ. I also vote we start charging these con men with murder, because thousands of hopeful believers turn from treatments that could help them.

If there are any doubts of Oral’s intentions, one need only listen to his own prophecies of returning with Christ in the clouds. “I’m coming back … and I’m going to get my rightful place. I’m going to rule and I’m going to reign … when I get back from the other side.”

All that said, Oral is distinguishable from most other televangelists. He was, as far as I can tell, never caught with his pants down.

Lorette C. Luzajic writes about all kinds of interesting people at Fascinating People.

The Virgin Mary has been discovered on a griddle in a Las Palmas restaurant and has been attracting worshippers. This is the caption for the above photo:

Lucha Libre wrestlers Renegado and Mr. Tempest look at an image of the Virgin Mary said to have appeared on a griddle at Las Palmas restaurant in Calexico. “I follow Our Lady of Guadalupe,” Mr. Tempest said after the viewing. “This is amazing. It’s a true miracle.”

There’s nothing like the absurdity of wrestlers worshipping a dirty cooking griddle.

(Photo: Todd Krainin)

Church officials are also not going to offer the communal wine during Mass. During the service, parishoners accepting Holy Communion drink from the same cup.

It’s not the only thing that will change during the service. The church said things can be done differently during the peace offering, when members greet each other in the pews and shake hands.

“At that moment, you don’t have to make bodily contact,” Gonzales Taylor said. “You can merely acknowledge the person next to you and offer the sign of peace verbally.”

They have faith that God can raise the dead, heal the sick, and embody a cracker — but he won’t he keep his children from infecting each other with disease as they worship him?

Oh, right. The real world kicked in when they think their own lives are in danger.

Yet some still hang in there:

Chris Coxon goes to church with his family at least twice a week, and said the swine flu won’t keep him away from worship.

“I would say there is a little bit of faith involved,” Coxon said, laughing. “The good Lord will take care of us one way or another.”

He sure will — one way or another.

Just like if he wasn’t there at all.

The tribe had no creation myth. They didn’t believe that the world had been “made” at all. They didn’t talk or think of such things.

When he told them he had “found Jesus” after his step-mother committed suicide, the tribe burst into laughter. “She killed herself, how stupid,” they replied. Instead of his experience causing them to accept his god, they found it amusing.

Listen more about his story in this video:

I generally try not to believe weird things. But my strangest belief is that someday we’ll be able to store our memories digitally and transfer them to other bodies (like our own, regrown). That is, if we survive that long!

So what’s yours?

Part 2 of the Pillars of Faith series.

The Wesley Family

John Wesley was a social activist, evangelist, denouncer of “witchcraft” and a man who claimed he had raised the dead.

He was born an Anglican in 1703. The family lived in a rural village in England, where they were in the ministry, helping orphans and widows. Poverty was rampant given the sin of contraception — John’s mom was one of 25 kids and John had 18 brothers and sisters!

In 1709, the rectory where they lived caught fire, possibly set by disgruntled arsons who opposed the family’s social work. John was trapped, but managed to escape. To praise God for his life, he studied theology as a young man, and started a group called the Holy Club, dubbed “Methodist” for their structured method of bible study.

The “Whole World is my Parish”

John loved the Anglican church. Yet he opposed the exclusion of ordinary people from worship, and his opinions barred him from preaching. So he made the world his pulpit, preaching in fields and squares. John’s brother Charles helped spread The Word with a hymn we all know by heart: Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, as well as some 6000 others!

A Heretic

Pullquote: He railed against unbelief, slavery and predestination.

As an ingenious organizer and motivator, John trained and challenged “exhorters” to evangelize prisons and beyond. Advocacy for social reform drove Wesley’s work. He railed against slavery in the New World as “that execrable villainy,” refuting the still-popular idea that Africans were “lucky” to be taken from their heathen countries and brought to work for the white man. He wrote freely of heinous tortures of slaves by Christians.

Wesley also believed sinners could repent and be saved by faith. He thought Calvin’s predestination theory — that God handpicks a few souls ahead of time — was blasphemy, and Christians in non-evangelical traditions were “almost-Christians.” Sound familiar? Today these ridiculous ancient wars still wage over who should interpret God’s infallible word. “The doctrinally significant omissions are a sure mark of the apostasy of John Wesley,” writes Rev. Angus Stewart in the British Reformed Journal. Many believe Wesley was a “heretic” and preached a “false gospel.”

A Sorcerer Against Witchcraft

Pullquote: John Wesley believed in witchcraft because he practiced it himself.

Many don’t know that Wesley was quite the Pentecostal. He revved his audiences up into “holy laughter.” He worked them into a frenzy of holy spirit possession, beating the ground, speaking in tongues, or having convulsions. He used the Bible to predict the future by opening it randomly. He saw signs in the weather of God’s wrath or blessing. He predicted through dreams and visions. For all that, he railed against “witchcraft,” opposing the moderate laws that were  moving away from the gendercidal atrocities of previous centuries.

“Most of the men of learning in Europe have given up all account of witches and apparitions as old wives’ fables…. The giving up of witchcraft is the giving up of the Bible. With my last breath I will bear testimony against giving up to infidels one great proof of the invisible world, witchcraft … confirmed by the testimony of the ages,” he famously wrote.

John believed in witchcraft because he practiced it himself, unlike most of those accused, tortured and killed before him. Stephen Tomkins wrote that John believed in his own powers to perform miraculous healings, and was certain he had at least once raised a man from the dead! He also exorcised “demons.” All of this hocus-pocus began when John was young, and was certain a poltergeist was haunting the rectory. The demon was named Old Jeffery.

A Doubtful Ending

Perhaps we should not judge another for his contradictions. But in 1766, as an old man, John wrote, “I do not love God. I never did. Therefore I never believed, in the Christian sense of the word. Therefore I am only an honest heathen…!” Even in today’s progressive climate, it’s still difficult to address doubt honestly, and impossible to address it without repercussion.

Wesley lived until he was 88 — his last words were “God is with us.”

Lorette C. Luzajic is a full-time freelance writer in Toronto. She blogs at Facinating People.

By Johnny Bradford

I write this essay almost thirty years from the day of my birth, married to a beautiful wife and the father of three amazing children, and consider how fortunate I am — fortunate not to have been born in Sub-Saharan Africa, or born during the Black Plague in the Middle Ages, or born in Communist Russia, or the Nazi state of Germany during the early 1900’s.

My present circumstances are shared by many others in this developed world. But what differs me from many others is this: I do not attribute this position of fortune to the work of any supreme being, creator/designer, or god. Instead, I was the result of chance — of good fortune — that my great-grandparents survived the First World War and gave birth to my grandparents who equally survived the Second World War and gave birth to my mother and father who by chance would find one another and fall in love and give birth to my siblings and me. Calculating the mathematical probabilities that were involved in that particular egg being fertilized by that particular sperm are near impossible. But still the religious faith of millions would allow this to be explained as “God’s will.”

Although raised in what is described as a “Christian home” and having once professed Christianity, I can no longer align myself with that worldview. The move from self-professed Christian to confident atheist has been far from easy and my new-found perspective on life and the universe has been formed and cemented over the last two years, although the journey was begun at least four years ago.

Hell

Pullquote: How could a loving God send billions of humans to a place of eternal torment for simply not believing in his existence?

My journey started when I began to wrestle with the idea of hell. How could a loving God send billions of humans to a place of eternal torment for simply not believing in his existence? This paradox cannot be defended or explained. In fact the bible only supports this punishment: 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9 speaks of God “inflicting vengeance” and non-believers who will “suffer … eternal destruction.”

I realized hell was fear-based propaganda. This questioning and further reading led me to the liberal interpretation that if Christ died for all, then it really meant all. Certainly no god I wanted to believe in would be happy to send millions to endless torture for the sake of unbelief.

From this unorthodox view of Christianity, other beliefs began to unravel.

Hypocrisy

I noticed Christians behaved the same way as their non-believing “hell-bound” counterparts. Dishonesty, adultery, divorce, judgementalism, and hypocrisy were as rife within the Christian community as they were outside of the walls of religion.

It seemed that people, including myself, were happy to pick and choose which parts of the bible were applicable — which were perfect. We chose to ignore the parts we didn’t like or didn’t understand. We steered clear of the command to stone people to death who committed adultery, or who were heretics, or who were homosexual, or who worked on the sabbath. We also happily agreed with the bible’s lack of objection to slavery for the better part of 1900 years.

The Horrors of the Bible

Pullquote: Many of the worst atrocities in ancient “history” were recorded in the Old Testament.

I began noticing the horrors of the Bible. Many of the worst atrocities in ancient “history” were recorded in the Old Testament and then seemingly ignored when questioned in favor of a more palatable god of the New Testament. Such events as the flood, Abraham’s disgusting willingness to slaughter his son, the plagues, the 3,000 Israelites killed on Moses’ command after they had built the golden calf, the genocide of every living being as the Israelites moved across Canaan, and many many more.

The people killed after Moses came down from the mountain is particularly disconcerting: imagine you are in a tribe and your leader leaves. You have a party and make a god just like every other people-group at time did. Moses then returns and says he’s spoken personally with God and here’s some stone tablets to prove it. In a fit of rage — because the people are partying — he orders 3,000 to be killed!

Who would then question him? Who would now dare to speak out against him or this god he has communicated with? Today this bears a striking resemblance to the likes of Hitler or Stalin: kill anyone who questions your authority and make an example of them — order through fear-based tactics.

Killing His Only Son For You

What could God prove by sacrificing his “son”? It makes no sense that the Almighty God would have to kill himself to redeem the world from the judgment of himself.

There’s no surprise that according to the story Jesus rises again. There’s no mystery or drama — if he doesn’t, he’s not God.

But what did all this blood and gore achieve? Apparently it would break the curse of sin, which was dumped upon humanity by one man who God made and was given an impossible task: Eden was set up for failure.

I also found it bizarre that a created being “the devil” should wield such power — why banish him from heaven to cause humanity such misery, instead of destroying him and all other rebels and give the world a chance?

The Man-Made God

Pullquote: Christianity has served its purpose and must now be discarded along with all other religions.

As the holes began to appear in the fabric of my Christian faith I struggled to find reasonable answers from books, the bible or Christians I knew. It was only once I began to allow myself to seriously question the validity of what I had always been told did I begin to find the freedom to think clearly and objectively.

One of the final issues I wrestled with in this journey was God’s love. Calum is my son — I created him. I do not demand that he love me. But with God this is the case — in fact it’s the rule above all others (”Love the Lord your God…”).

Upon further reading of the bible, the Christian god seems to be self-obsessed, egotistical, power hungry and moody. If one looks at humanity over the ages, these qualities are found in dictators and tyrants not loving fathers. Consider the many disasters of late: God can either do nothing to prevent these or he chooses not to. This implies that he is either impotent or evil.

These thoughts led me to the conclusion that this story of a creator god and his plan for humanity is man-made. It served a purpose for a time, just like the Aztecs had the sun-god, the Greeks had Zeus and others, the Romans had theirs, and the Chinese had a religious system for thousands of years.

The story that tells me God is interested in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death is not one I can believe or live with while maintaining my integrity.

The truth, as far as I can see, is this: Christianity was the best we humans could do to make sense of reality at a time when we had no concept of physics, chemistry, biology or medicine. It has served its purpose and must now be discarded along with all other religions.

Turning to Science and Reason

Pullquote: I can now confidently affirm the equal implausibility of all religions.

Since making the decision to cease believing in the Judeo-Christian god, my focus has moved away from biblical inerrancies and theological issues toward seeking scientific rational explanations for the world. The theory of god cannot be disproved, but neither can an invisible flying purple unicorn that inhabits the outer rings of Saturn.

All people are atheists. They declare disbelief in many gods, be it Ra, Allah or Jehovah. I, as all atheists have done, have gone one step further to state that I do not believe in the existence of any god.

Unfortunately, the war over whose god is right has raged for centuries and the ill-effects of religion are only too clear in history and the present climate. It now seems incredibly arrogant to me to suggest that the billions of people who have had and will have similar experiences when contemplating Allah, Krishna, or Buddha are in fact wrong and the Christian god is the only true god. I can now confidently affirm the equal implausibility of all religions.

We know that the earth is considerably older than the bible suggests. This is based on evidence and our growing understanding of physics and space/time.

We know that humans in the form of homo erectus have been living for 150,000 years. Through the theory of evolution we can study the effects of change and adaptation over billions of years that bring us to today.

The outstanding lack of evidence for the worldview depicted in the bible is disturbing, yet Americans continue to campaign for it to be taught as truth in their science classes. The argument raging between intelligent design and science/evolution can only be entertained because of the dangerous alliance between church and state in the western world — especially the USA.

Morality

No one need believe that a man named Jesus was born of a virgin and was the son of god to appreciate his moral teachings. And yet he was not the first, nor the last, to propose such actions.

The bible is not the source of morality. Without it we know how to live and treat each other. The fabric of society will not suddenly fall to pieces if the religions of the world were to cease. Through thousands of years of trial and error — the rise and fall of many civilizations — humanity has known or learned how to treat others. And we will continue to learn as our ethics progress.

Hope

Pullquote: Atheism can give us a passion to live.

Some believe the life of an atheist is hopeless. On the contrary, I have a passion to live — this is the only life I get; I have a passion to experience, to have adventure, to explore this planet; I have a newfound openness and curiousity about nature and the make-up of this world; I refuse to settle for less, to live wastefully, or to be mundane; I am hopeful that I can make positive impacts in the lives of others, that I can raise my children to question everything and suck the very marrow out of life; I have no fear of death other than its finality and this drives me to experience all that I can before I pass away and cease to exist.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,” Henry David Thoreau said, “to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Johnny Bradford is a recovering Christian pastor in Scotland.