A Religious Upbringing

I recently had a sad and interesting exchange with a girl I met on Google+ after she heaped praise on a post I shared. I then shared her praise since I'm a huge narcissist and gave her the pseudonym "Kitty Pryde." The following is a small part of her story.

This is what I can tell you in regards to my personal life and how I am who I am today. As a child I was molested by several "friends of the family" and at least 1 "family member" ( I think I have managed to block out a lot). Growing up we didn't go to church, but believing was expected. After enduring the molestation during my childhood, there was absolutely no way in this lifetime that I could begin to make myself believe that some magical invisible being was looking out for me, a 5 year old child whose innocence was being ripped away by full grown "god fearing" adults. I became vocal about my non-belief when I was in high school. This was probably because of all the teenage rebellion hormones :-) but it really wasn't until then that people at school were asking because I had refused to participate in a traditional "religious" ceremony that occurred the Sunday before graduation. At this point, I had never had to discuss it with my family because in a sense, I was invisible. The woman that birthed me took no interest in me and simply took care of my basic needs . My sperm donor was living his life and I saw him once a year, on my birthday.
Fast forward to my early adult life. I ended up in a relationship with an extremely abusive individual who enjoyed using me as a punching bag. He kicked me down a flight of steps, repeatedly kicked me in the stomach, ribs, and back and I had a miscarriage. I walked away with bruised ribs, a busted up body and no baby. My family was VERY supportive (sarcasm). They told me that I had gotten exactly what I deserved because I knew what kind of guy he was. My mother's (I hate to use that word) mother told me that she would pray for me but I wasn't worth her breathe. I remained in the abusive relationship for a few years because, believe it or not, I genuinely thought that he loved me. Why did I think this? Because he told me that he did. I had never heard those words uttered to me EVER. The guy was still fighting me like I was his MMA sparing partner, I had finally had enough and left him (only after he raped me).
One day, I was visiting mother dearest's mother and they were having a religious discussion. I had learned very long ago not to speak until spoken to . They were talking about how good this magical being was and all the he had provided for them, yadda yadda (let me just say that at this point, mommy dearest's mother was completely blind in 1 eye, partially blind in another eye and insulin dependent, living in squalor). Then someone asked when the last time I had gone to church and I stated that I had absolutely no reason or desire to believe that some invisible person was ever or had ever been looking out for me, so I had not had a purpose to go to church. This opened up the flood gates. I asked them if they found it strange that all of these stories in the bible talks about all this healing, yet they sit with some of the worst health conditions known to man. I  then asked why has none of the "miracles" ever been repeated. I was taught in high school science that there is a logical reason for everything and outcomes should be able to be repeated, or better yet, history repeats itself. I asked why there had never been another virgin birth, why no one other than David Copperfield could turn water into wine and walk on water. I then asked how they could really believe that a snake was talking (that one there really threw me). At that point, I had 4 grown women yelling and screaming and crying asking for forgiveness on my part "as she knows not what she is saying." I was then told that I had not been through enough for their god to show himself to me  My response was, "If having my childhood snatched from me multiple times, being raped, being beat close to death among EVERYTHING else I had endured in my life, wasn't enough then HE/She/That is something I don't need revealing themselves to me. Mommy dearest scolded me and told me that I was extremely disrespectful and she had no idea where I got that mindset from. She said,"You weren't raised like that." I kindly responded to her,"Wrong, I was raised like that. Life and fucked up experiences taught me that. You taught me that it is completely possible for a woman to give birth to a child, take care of its basic needs and never let that child know what it feels like to be loved, cared about, valued, or even desired." She looked like someone had just verbalized her deepest, darkest secret. I knew from a very early age that she didn't want me, she didn't like me. She catered to my older sibling. My older sibling wanted for nothing. They played sports, mommy dearest was at every game. They had things at school, she was in the front row. She did none of this for me. I learned how to cope. I learned how to survive and get through.
Mommy dearest's mother died, I did not go to the funeral for a number of reasons. 1) I knew that it would be very religious and more importantly 2) She didn't like me and the feeling was mutual and 3) I found out about her death on Facebook (yes, you read that right).  Everyone completely stopped talking to me. Which was okay by me.

A bummer right? Somehow she turned out okay, and I'm thankful for that. Thankful to who? Well, definitely not God. Theists hardly have the market cornered on bad people, but the hypocrisy of it and sometimes the excuse of it is especially despicable. If you have any comments for "Kitty," I'll be sure to pass them on. Hell, she might even still read this little blog.

Inconsistent Foundations

I wrote in my last post how a newly popular Christian apologetic argument is claiming that God is needed as a foundation for logic. I was trying to classify the argument and the best I could come up with is simply a bundle of talking points I’ll label the Foundation Arguments. What strikes me as particularly fallacious about each example of this type of reasoning is that they clearly don’t take into account the entirety of the deity they argue for. Let’s go over a few.

God is needed as a foundation for logic.

And yet God, as many Christians define him, is omnipotent, omniscient, and eternal--qualities that break logic in several different ways. Examples follow.

• An omnipotent God can’t both make a stone so heavy that he can’t lift and then lift said stone.
• An omniscient God can’t know what is it like to learn considering he has always known all, yet he must know what it is like to learn in order to know all. 
• An omnipotent God can, by definition, commit suicide; yet an eternal God, by definition, cannot die.

I've heard excuses for all these and they all suck. The closest a logical deity can get is mostly powerful (quasipotent?) and mostly knowledgeable (quasiscient?)

God is needed as a foundation for morality.

And yet God, as many Christians define him, violates his alleged good nature regularly in both their holy book and day-to-day life. The lives taken by Yahweh/Jehovah in the Torah/Bible include almost everyone on earth at one point. He is a vengeful, jealous being who allows for cruel and unusual punishment. Outside of myth, Christians must accept that God either causes or allows asymmetrical suffering for every form of life.

God is needed as a foundation for beauty.

And yet ugly things exist. If God is responsible for desirable aesthetics, he is also responsible for the undesirable. Reality isn’t all sunsets and kittens, we also have excrement and maggots.

The Alleged Divine Requirement of Math.

Is it just me or have apologetic arguments become more vague and confusing than ever before? I’ve been seeing the claim that atheism can’t account for the laws of logic and mathematics because they need a foundation in the divine. Upon asking the apologist why they think this is so, the responses vary. Most often they say something about logic and math working on faith because we can’t show why they work. In their minds, this makes atheists have faith in something thereby putting theists and atheists on equal ground. In their minds, it actually gives them a 1-up on atheists in that they can define a source for their faith...which just so happens to be what they have faith in, God--thus showing that their minds need more regular maintenance. This is where we can offer a tune-up.

Math works. I need no faith that math works, I can show that math works. This is evidential, which is right in the unfaithful’s wheelhouse. I don’t even know how to classify the argument that the apologist makes here. Asking why math works is like asking why are we here. It’s assuming a purpose that can only be prescribed by an outside agent--meaning it will only by compelling to those who already believe there is a god. In reality, there need not be a why.

If it’s not an argument of purpose, maybe it falls under the fine tuning umbrella. Are they saying that since the universe is comprehensible enough for us to discover math and logic, that God must have made it as such? If so, this can be dismissed as easily as other fine tuning arguments. We can only have a discussion about math and logic as we define them because they are meaningful; if they weren’t meaningful, we wouldn’t be having the discussion. It’s the anthropic principle at work. More than this, their line of reasoning is actually worse than the standard fine tuning argument of the universe. It’s at least conceivable that the universal constants that make life possible could be different yet aren’t, lending to the necessity of a designer or a multiverse or something to explain it. In the case of math and logic, I can’t see how anything could be fundamentally different. I don’t understand how can a concept like addition may be voided. Does the apologist really think a deity is needed for quantities to be countable? Seriously, what is the alternative? If things exist, said things can be counted. This gives us numbers which gives us math. Does this argument distill down to "why are there things?" If so, this brings us full circle to an assumed purpose.

These attempts to redefine faith as a property of atheism is simply an admission of their own weakness. Apologists, by definition, strive to defend their religious beliefs without relying on blind faith, but when it comes down to it, all their arguments are founded on just that blind faith. Apologists rationalize backwards in an effort to conceal their initial assumption, which is a passably convincing argument only to those indoctrinated to overlook the assumptions as such. I doubt apologetics were ever meant to convert the atheist, but rather to retain to lapsed church-goers. Who else would buy this shit?

You, Give Atheists a Good Name.

A case could be made that atheism is seen more positively today than it has ever been seen in the last few millenium. This is an awesome statement...which is also kind of sad when you consider how negatively atheism is still perceived  I’ve spent most of the last week thinking of public relations strategies that could raise both good will and public awareness for atheists, and I’m clearly not the only one. There are billboard campaigns in many major cities that are doing a great job of thrusting us into the public conversation. I don’t know if this tactic makes people talk about atheism positively, but it certainly makes people talk about it. Regardless, that kind of campaign is beyond the scope of my modest blog. Here I’ll offer a couple grassroots efforts that individuals can use to give atheists a good name.

Publicly donate in the name of atheism. When checking out at my local grocery store, I was asked to donate one dollar to fill-in-the-blank charity. I complied as I always do, not so much out of the goodness of my heart, rather because I don’t want to seem cheap hording an extra dollar after just spending fifty on Coke and Sour Cream & Onion chips. I was then presented a paper graphic prompting me to sign my name for the wall of donators. Seeing no reason to claim this small credit personally, I signed “an atheist.” For the low cost of a dollar I helped a charity and bought an advertisment for a positive depiction of atheism. Sure, it’s not much, but it’s a start. Considering I’ve had three other opportunities to repeat the process since, it’s a bigger start.

Passively ID yourself as an atheist during good works. I used to take part in Habitat for Humanity. For those who don’t know, Habitat is a charity that seeks volunteers to help build houses for those who couldn’t otherwise afford one. I found it a rewarding way to get a little excerise outside, socialize with other nice folks, and learn a pick up some construction tips. I haven’t tested this yet, but it occures to me that these single-serving friends might be surprised to know I was an atheist--mostly because those in attendance typically found the charity through church. Now, starting conversations with “hi, I’m an atheist” is undoubtably weird, but passively identifing myself as an nonbeliever could be a great PR move. I could wear a t-shirt about atheism, for example. A shirt that is purposfully offensive to religion would be counter-productive, but a low-key shirt that shows I’m just not that into church? Maybe I should make one...

This is just a start. I’d love to hear any ideas my readers might have. Please let me know in the comments and I’ll highlight the best ideas in an updated post.

Of Course I Care

“If you could meet any historical figure, who would it be and why?” I was asked this question by a friend the other day when we were both feeling especially hypothetical. It’s one of those probing questions that come up every once in while to gleam insight about someone that regular conversation would never gleam. It also prompts me to use the word gleam, which is an awesome word. Gleam.

Anyway, my answer was and is “Jesus.” My friend, a Christian, likewise answered Jesus. He wanted to meet the son of God and be blessed, forgiven, and/or taught by him. My friend assumed my reasons for meeting JC were similar. He didn’t know that I was an atheist. Setting the record straight, I said that I wanted to meet Jesus to know who he really was--expressing my skepticism of the bible. My friend was a little taken back but evenutally followed up with another question. “As an atheist, why would you care about meeting Jesus?”

It’s a good question considering many nonbelievers are fairly tuned out of religion in general. To me, the baffling question is “how can anyone not care?” There are really only two options, both of which are extremely compelling in their own way. The first is that there is a god. I started off talking about JC, but really the possibility of any god should be a topic of interest. If it’s true, it means we live in a world not confined to the material where literally anything is possible. It’s kind of like living in a Tolkien novel that may continue after death. If I believed, I imagine I would pursue the ins and outs of doctrine and the historocity of miracles with even more rigor than I explore secular ideas.

Option two is that there are no gods. Initially this seems mundane, but consider that if this is true, it means the vast majority of humanity, past and present, base their lives around some variation of a wildly ambitious lie. They effectively believe that magic is real and that stories as fantastic as the most outrageuous fiction are historically accurate. In a psychological, sociological, anthropological, neurological and just-plain-logical sense--that’s incredible...and a more than a little unnerving.
We all argree that one of these options is true. So to the apatheist too apatheistic to even know or care that he or she is an apatheist, I ask again, how can anyone not care?

Explanations

A natural explanation is always better than a supernatural explanation. This goes for theories, hypothesises, guesses, hunches anything--if it relies on the natural it is preferable by the sheer fact that we know that the natural exists and don’t know the supernatural exists. This will remain true until we have proof of miracles, repeatable experiments in clear violation of natural laws, or something to confirm that magic is real.

This may seem obvious, but the religious rarely apply the rule to the claims of their church. For instance, Christians often claim the best evidence supporting their faith is the empty tomb of Jesus Christ.* This is really the linchpin of Christian apologetics. While whether or not there ever was an empty tomb as described in the bible is debatable, if we assume the resting place of JC was revealed to be empty--there are so many better explanations than resurrection. Examples follow.

• Early Christians could have removed the body to propagate the resurrection lending validation to Christianity.
• Authorities could have lied about the true location of Jesus’ tomb to keep Christians away.
• Secretly Christian authorities could have kept the body for themselves in hopes Jesus’s reputation for healing was valid postmortem.
• A bear inside the tomb could have eaten Jesus’ body.
• Aliens could have removed the body just to mess with us.

There are good reasons why these scenarios are unlikely, but I find them all more likely than the divine reanimation of Jesus’ corpse. Each explanation, outside of the last option, we know could happen. They are consistent with our experience of reality. We have evidence that the man we now refer to as Jesus existed. We have evidence that this man had followers with an interest in spreading his word. We have evidence that government employees sometimes act outside or against their duties. We have evidence that religious motives can drive people to lie and break the law. We have evidence that bears exist and eat any available meat when hungry enough. Some of this evidence is not ironclad, but it’s something. This is enough to show that the above options (outside the alien bit) are possible, if not probable.

The problem with positing a divine resurrection is that we can’t even say that it is possible. We’d need evidence that both God exists and that the dead can rise, neither of which we have. In fact, brain activity returning days after brain death is contrary to everything we know about neuroscience. The heart beating again after rigamortis sets in is in direct conflict with biology. This brings me back the the alien option. Clearly an alien moving JC is excessively unlikely, but is it possible? Well, just as we don’t have evidence for divine resurrections, we don’t have evidence of intelligent alien life, but there’s a difference. Aliens are not in conflict with science. There’s nothing that prohibits life starting and evolving on another planet. Because of this, an advanced race with seemingly no motive for abduction taking a religious leader is possible while said religious leader getting up and walking away from a crucifixion is not.

*In my experience, apologists most often refer to the empty tomb as evidence supporting their faith, more so than even eye witness accounts of Christ risen. It’s as if they realize that accounts of witness could be fabricated yet believe there is still an empty tomb somewhere sealed from 2000 years of tampering that we can use as “exhibit A.” This obviously isn’t the case. There are plenty of natural explanations for eye witness accounts that are more valid than divine resurrection by the same rule referenced above--most notably that they are, in fact, fabrications.

Music Shmusic: The Sound of Science

This is a throwback to a track from one of my favorite albums. It has nothing to due with atheism, but it has a bunch of science references so...enjoy?