Freedom to hate (2) Jan 21, 2014
One of the things I really enjoy about being a new atheist is that I finally have the freedom to hate whoever I want, for whatever reason I can fathom.  This may sound shallow and pessimistic, and maybe it is.  But as a former Christian, I was taught to love my neighbor, love my enemy, and if somebody was a jerk, to turn the other cheek.  If I even thought about hating someone, it was equivalent to murder.  So basically my feelings were suppressed and invalidated. 

Coming out of the proverbial closet has given me a freedom to feel however I want to feel, and it's surprisingly refreshing.  I don't have to pretend.  I don't have to take the high road or feel bad about committing almost-murder.  I can hate whoever I damn well please, and it's awesome. #religion
Deconversion topics (1) Dec 24, 2013
If I were to summarize why I abandoned Christianity in a few concise ideas, here's what I would point to: 
  1. Homosexuality.  Gay people aren't gay because they want to be gay; they're born that way, as are animals.  If God created people, he created gay people.  But God doesn't like homosexuality.  So either God made a mistake, or homosexuality disproves the existence of God.
  2. Evolution.  It's not a debate; we have fossils.  And unless God had the foresight to bury animal bones under specifically measured layers of dirt in order to trick future humans into believing something else, the creation story isn't true.  That means the Bible isn't completely true.
  3. New information.  In light of, or as a result of, the previous points, I realized I was at a disadvantage concerning new information.  There are only so many ways the Bible can be interpreted, so new information either agrees with it or contradicts it.  Homosexuality contradicts it.  Evolution contradicts it.  It's concerning how difficult it is for a person to change their mind about something.  I realize this cuts both ways, but at least I changed my mind once.
I realize these are ridiculously one-sided arguments (hello internet!), but they were essentially the focal point of my deconversion. #religion
The Bible and slavery May 18, 2013
Whenever the Bible's stance on slavery comes into question, it's usually based on a few verses in the Old Testament that essentially say, "Cut your slaves some slack every now and then," and some verses in the New Testament that essentially say, "If you're a slave, be a good one."  As a Christian, I learned to respond to these objections with such statements as, "Slavery was a fact of that time period," or "At least God supported fair treatment of slaves." 

However, upon further consideration (and insight from some light reading), here's an observation:  The Bible is often considered the focal point of modern ethics.  I mean, without the Bible, we'd all be murdering and raping each other.  The fact that slavery is absolutely and unquestionably wrong is evident to all modern people.  No one these days (aside from some groups in the Middle East and Africa) believes it's even remotely acceptable to own another person.  There's just no doubt about that anymore.  Yet the Bible, the pillar of morality and righteousness, doesn't really make a stand either way. 

If the Bible is considered to be the ultimate set of moral laws handed down by an all-knowing God, why didn't the author have the foresight to condemn a ridiculously evil practice like slavery?  He covered murder, theft, and coveting asses, but the ownership of one human being by another human being was simply accepted. #religion
Atheism part 2 (4) Apr 4, 2013
Continued from part 1. 

(I realize this is a little brief and a lot of details are missing.  I could probably fill a book with all the nitty gritty, but I'm intentionally keeping it brief simply to get it out there.)

Switching from faith to doubt opened a lot of unexpected doors.  If the Bible wasn't true, maybe God wasn't real, and maybe the ideas and practices expressed in the Bible were simply outdated tribal ideologies invented by a primitive people who thought the earth was flat.  Or maybe not.  Regardless, I felt free for the first time in my life to investigate other ideas.  I promptly read a bunch of books about science and reason and found myself agreeing with everything they said.  It felt good to have an open mind for once, and it felt good to allow my mind to be changed by rational arguments that were supported by evidence. 

When I first considered calling myself an atheist, it was a difficult proposition.  Even before I called myself a Christian, I at least believed in a god.  Making the switch from god to no-god wasn't trivial.  I was hesitant at first, but the more I thought about it and admitted it to myself, the more comfortable it felt. 

One of the first major changes I had to make was to get out of my church responsibilities.  I had stopped leading a Bible study a few months prior, but I was still attending, and I was also still attending church.  There's probably nothing more ridiculous than being part of a religious organization while actively not believing in its tenets.  I experienced this firsthand, and I couldn't take it for long.  It probably had a little to do with the fact that I was keeping my new beliefs hidden, and so in a sense I wasn't being completely honest.  I finally found the courage and proper moment for a "breakup speech" with my Bible study.  It was awkward and difficult, but entirely necessary.  Leaving church wasn't as hard; I just stopped showing up.  No one noticed. 

I was momentarily content with keeping my atheism relatively private, but it soon became apparent that people would continue associating me with Christianity unless I told them not to.  I sent an email to my family, essentially "coming out" as an atheist, and I was pleasantly surprised by the mostly positive reaction.  People didn't necessarily agree with me, but they at least respected my choice. 

One of the most satisfying things about becoming an atheist is not having to shoehorn new information into old beliefs.  If some astrophysicist discovers that life arrived on our planet via an asteroid impact, I don't have to figure out a way to mash that into my current belief system.  I can examine the evidence for myself, then believe it if I want, knowing that nothing I do or think will have eternal consequences.  That's a good feeling. 

One interesting problem I'm currently facing regarding my atheism is that I've held a number of opinions about topics like creation, evolution, homosexuality, and the Bible, and I went to the trouble of writing these opinions down and sharing them on the internet where they will exist for all eternity and beyond.  It's weird and uncomfortable to look back at some of the things I used to think and believe, wondering how I could've been so naive and narrow-minded.  But I guess that's life.  I could simply delete the things I don't like, but instead I'm keeping everything the way I originally wrote it, as a reminder that things change. #religion
Atheism part 1 Mar 31, 2013
About a year ago, I came to the conclusion that I'm an atheist.  That statement will come as a shock to people who know me and haven't heard this, since it came as a shock to me as well.  I've been a Christian my whole life, and not just a Christmas and Easter Christian or a Sunday morning Christian.  I've been an everyday, Bible-believing, Bible-reading, praying, worshiping Christian since I was in high school, and even a little before then.  I've read through the Bible on more than one occasion, I've led Bible studies and discipled younger believers, and I've led worship in various churches and groups for many years.  Suffice it to say, I was a Christian, like for real. 

I was into my faith to the point where I developed doubts, which is completely not a bad thing.  I'm of the opinion that if you have no doubts, you haven't completely investigated your faith.  Apologetics filled in some of the gaps, so that on the continuum between faith and doubt, I was on the side of faith.  I read and studied all kinds of things that provided more knowledge and insight into the historicity of the Bible and the evidence supporting a young earth, among other things.  The fruits of my labor were that I knew what I believed and why I believed it, and I could defend my beliefs in the face of questioning and criticism, even though it rarely resulted in either side changing their mind. 

One of the early turning points in my deconversion actually happened at a Bible study I was leading.  One of the members (who had training in geology) mentioned that it was really no longer an option to believe in the idea of a 6000-year-old earth, since there's too much evidence regarding the carbon dating of rocks and things like that.  He mentioned it almost in passing, and it really hurt my young-earth creationist leanings.  But like anyone who believes things that contradict reality, I rejected his "opinion" and relied on the fact that God would make sense of it all someday. 

There's an interesting psychological phenomenon that occurs when a person tries to believe two contradictory ideas at one time.  It's called cognitive dissonance.  I found it relatively easy to assuage my cognitive dissonance by using faith, or hope in a future change.  For example, I knew from experience that miracles were either impossible or exceedingly uncommon, but I had faith in the existence of a being who could bend the rules of the universe, so miracles were possible by definition.  This worked for a lot of things. 

Despite my best efforts, I gradually came around to accepting the theory of evolution (and with it, an old earth), which directly contradicts the creation story in the Bible.  I specifically remember having a conversation with my wife where I told her I didn't believe the creation story anymore, and she said she was already there and didn't see it as a problem.  It was a huge problem for me, because it meant I was cherry-picking what I deemed worthy of believing in the Bible, and there's really no guideline for things you should read as literal versus things you should read as figurative.  If you're going to make the claim that certain things in the Bible either aren't true or aren't meant to be taken literally, where do you draw the line, and who gets to draw that line?  Why take any of it literally?  Or figuratively, for that matter? 

As simplistic as it sounds, this slippery slope was indeed quite slippery.  The idea occurred to me that if some parts of the Bible weren't true, maybe other parts weren't true as well.  Maybe miracles didn't really happen.  Maybe this Jesus guy didn't rise from the grave.  Maybe -- and this was a tough idea to stomach -- God didn't exist. 

Oddly enough, I had been seeing a Christian counselor around this time for various reasons, and he suggested to me that all the work and effort I had been expending to have a relationship with God might actually be completely misguided and that my interpretation of key Bible passages might not be entirely accurate.  This was obviously pretty discouraging, but it served to reinforce what I was already feeling:  There's no single way to interpret the Bible, and everybody can't be right.  And even if everyone could agree on the correct interpretation of a cobbled-together, mistranslated, 2000-year-old document, there's no way to prove any of it.  On the faith-doubt continuum, I switched over to doubt. 

Continued in part 2. #religion
Sterquilinus Sep 15, 2011
Sterquilinus was the ancient Roman god of the fertilization of farming fields, a.k.a. the god of poop. #religion
Harold Camping's prediction (13) Mar 29, 2011
Harold Camping, a radio evangelist and preacher, has predicted that the Second Coming of Christ will happen on May 21, 2011.  That's fine and all, but I feel the need to hold people accountable when they make claims like this.  If he's right, the world will end, or all Christians will spontaneously disappear, or something tremendous and unmistakable like that will happen (if so, repent and believe!).  If he's wrong, we humans, as a collective group of intelligent, logical people, should all agree to never listen to him again.  It's that simple.  It's not like predicting the weather, where meteorologists say there's a 20% chance of rain or something.  The end of the world is a little more important than the daily weather.  As such, people who make predictions about the end times should be rated according to how right they are.  So far, everyone ever in the history of everything is ranked 0.  We'll see if that changes. #religion
The new NIV Mar 15, 2011
The New International Version of the Bible is one of the most common translations used by Christians in America.  It's been around since 1984, and is my personal preference both because of its readability and because of its familiarity (I've been using it since I was a kid).  Just recently (i.e. late 2010) a fairly substantial update was completed and pushed to several digital Bible tools like Bible Gateway, and it went largely unnoticed and unannounced.  Print versions are expected in March 2011. 

Why it's a good thing:  Language changes over time, translation tools change over time, and archeological evidence and scholarly knowledge grow over time.  To ignore these facts puts everyone at a disadvantage, especially when you're depending on 400-year-old language to guide your faith in 2000-year-old facts. 

Why it's a bad thing:  It was sort of secretive and subversive.  Even if the updates and changes are a good thing, most people don't realize they're using a different translation than the one they've been using for over 20 years.  This becomes apparent in small group settings where one person is using a printed copy of the NIV1984 Bible and another person is accessing a digital copy of the NIV2011 Bible with their phone and they can't figure out why their translations don't match. 

How it could've been better:  (a) Announce it, or (b) change the name.  The TNIV (Today's NIV) was released in 2005 and was met with swift and universal criticism, which is most likely why it didn't really catch on.  But the NIV2011 essentially uses most of the changes from the TNIV and adds a few more, but still calls itself the NIV. #religion
Einstein on religion Jan 10, 2011
Albert Einstein on science and religion: 
Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.
And a National Geographic article about the same. #religion
Leap of faith (2) Dec 3, 2010
I think it's pretty normal to have doubts about God, the Bible, and Christianity.  Certain people just seem to be better at ignoring those doubts, much to their credit.  And when a person has doubts, the standard procedure is to ask questions and do research and keep poking and prodding until at least some of those questions are answered.  But I think a skeptic will reach a point where, regardless of how many of their questions are answered and how good the answers are, even if all the questions are answered and they're answered well and the person becomes the smartest, most answer-filled person on earth, it still won't be enough to fully understand God and be completely sure of everything.  And when that point is reached, as much as this is a crappy "Christianese" response, that person will need to take an illogical, irrational leap of faith in believing in a God that's beyond our understanding.  If we're on the edge of a cliff and God is on the other side of the valley, I personally don't think anyone will ever have enough building material to make a bridge to God.  At some point, a leap is required. #religion