Don’t confuse people for their religion

Earlier this morning I got into a small facebook argument about conservative Christians and sexuality when one of the people involved said:

“it’s important not to confuse these people with their religion.”

I can provide the full discussion for anyone who wants to make sure I’m not taking this out of context, but the way I understood what he was saying was that an individual (or group of individuals) who claim to be X should not be confused with X when they don’t actually follow X.

For example earlier this week a crazy lady tried to attack a painting saying that it was homosexual and evil for showing two women with their breasts exposed. Now this lady is crazy, there’s no doubt, but she claims her motivation is her religious views. There are plenty of conservative religious people (across all faiths, but primarily Christianity and Islam) who view the human body and any form of sexuality as evil.

When the person in the afore mentioned facebook argument said not to confuse people for their religion, he was saying that although these people claim their views on sexuality are Christian and are rooted in the bible, they’re not, and as such we should not confuse these “Christians” for being “Christians.”

But that just begs the question: What is a person’s religion if not the sum of their personal beliefs?

A group of “Christians” who would ascribe to said crazy lady’s views on the human body would undoubtedly say that they were Christians and that anyone who did not view the body as evil were not “true” Christians. The term Christian is essentially a useless term as it means whatever anyone wants it to mean. (Which royally pisses me off because any attempt at making words useless and thus making it harder to communicate concepts/ideas just reeks of 1984 style new-speak; but I digress)

If group X claims they belong to religion Y, and that their beliefs come from religion Y’s holy book, book Z, but nobody in group X has read or cares to read book Z, then isn’t their religion just whatever group X wants it to be?

Sure, their sexually oppressive version of Christianity might not be what Christianity is to you, but it is their version of Christianity and they’re going to call themselves Christians.  Are they wrong? They sure as hell think you are. Who’s right? Well nobody since it’s all “just a matter of faith and interpretation.”

In reality you can’t “confuse people for their religion;” whatever they say their religion is, that’s their religion. The 9/11 hijackers were Muslims, so too are the Muslims who say what the 9/11 hijackers did was despicable and un-Islamic. Abortion clinic bombers and the Westboro Baptist Church are Christians, so too are the liberal, gay-friendly, pro-choice Catholics. They all claim the same meaningless title to describe their radically different faiths. This in turn just inhibits our ability to discuss them and the views they have because the moment you use the term “Christian” to talk about the Westboro Baptist Church, another “Christian” with a different definition will jump up and scream that you’re generalizing and mis-representing the “true” Christians like them. (But I guess for some people muddying the water and making it harder for us to express ideas by requiring extremely specific, legalistic language is a good thing. Personally, whenever someone tries to inhibit the discussion of ideas, that’s a sign that they’re automatically wrong.)

How else are we to discuss these people if not by the meaningless title they choose to call themselves? Should we adopt an ever expanding system of Christian 1, Christian 1a, Christian 1b, etc? That would be impossible to keep track of, and yet again everyone would argue about what classification they get. Perhaps if we copied how we classified various animals by Life-Domain-Kingdom-Phylum-Class-Order-Family-Genus-Species and created a similar system for religious belief? Maybe then we can stop confusing lions for mammals and Christians for Christians.

What does atheism have to offer?

Earlier this evening I met up with a group of fellow atheists for a round circle discussion. While there I got to meet the hosts of the A Matter of Doubt podcast and one of them asked a very simple question that honestly stumped me for a bit:

What does atheism have to offer?

That question really made me stop and think, and at first I couldn’t really come up with any serious answers other than “Well, we have the best comedians.”

But really, what does atheism have to offer? Well there’s a lot it doesn’t have to offer:

A reward after you die, the ability to see lost loved ones, a large community safety net, a constant feeling of belonging, etc. Instead atheism, at least on its face, appears to offer a first class ticket to be socially ostracized with no happily ever after. That’s a tough sell!

But after thinking a bit more on the matter, and discussing it with the other people in the group, there is one very important thing that atheism does not offer: certainty.

And you know what? That is perfectly fine for me. “I don’t know” are three very humble yet powerful words. Unfortunately uncertainty scares people. One of the greatest draws for religion is the false sense of certainty is asserts, backed up by nothing but the tenacity of the belief. If I can only will it hard enough, it will be so. I feel a big part of growing up and achieving maturity is gaining the understanding that “I don’t know” is a good phrase, that it is ok to utter it.

As we discussed this question further, I realized there was something that atheism offers that religion does not.

Responsibility

(Now depending on the person, if they shy away from responsibility or not, it could be yet another mark against atheism)

With atheism comes the realization that you are responsible for your own actions. You have no excuses for misdeeds, and no salvation from consequences. You cannot blame things on the work of the devil, and you cannot be forgiven by proxy from a god. There are no bailouts or handouts. There are some theists who would say that atheism is a free ticket to do all the horrible, wicked things you want, when in reality it is exactly the opposite. With atheism you can’t commit evil and then wash your hands of responsibility by asking an invisible man for forgiveness.

Which brings me to the next thing atheism offers:

Freedom

With this great responsibility comes great freedom. You are not born evil. You are not somehow sinful and broken. Your life is not planned out for you, it is not a test that you must pass. You are you’re own person, responsible for your own actions, and free to make your life what you want it. If you ask an atheist who used to be religious, chances are they’ll tell you that when they left religion they felt a great sense of relief. I know I did. Suddenly you no longer have heaven and hell looming over you, no supernatural puppet masters, no self-loathing. You are free, you are in control.

God’s middleman

This is a really basic concept, but it was something that I wrestled with for a while when deconverting from Christianity. The night I became an atheist I laid in bed for several hours pondering hell and eternal damnation. The thought of letting go from the ledge and dismissing the intense warnings and threats of hellfire terrified me. Two realizations comforted me and led me to take the plunge. The first was that I must be able to trust my own reasoning skills. Without them I’m not my own person. The second realization was as follows:

Everything we know about religion and gods, we are told by other people.

 

Think about it. Who told you about god(s)? Your parents? Your friends? Where did they hear about it? Their pastor/priest/rabbi/imam/shaman? Who told them? Another person. But what about the books? People did. People claiming to talk for god(s). That’s all it ever was; one person claiming to know the mind of a supreme all knowing, all powerful super being that created the entire cosmos. All the books, the art, the music, the buildings, the dogma and doctrine, all of it comes from someone who heard about god(s) from someone else, who in turn heard from another someone.

Ultimately, if it were possible to follow the chain of he said/she said’s all the way back, you would come across a single person or group who started the rumors game.

What about this person? What credibility do they have? These are very serious claims they are making. They purport to know the mind of this supernatural being. Entire societies, gender roles, ways of living, eating, procreating, and dying are structured around the claims made by individuals like these. I say that makes it extremely important to determine if they’re telling the truth. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so what is their evidence?

“Just trust me…”

Seriously, that’s it. Sometimes they’ll throw in a little incentive like “or you’ll burn in eternal hell-fire!” Sure there are stories of miracles, but these miracles are never documented outside of the story books claiming them, nor are they anything beyond what would impress the local population of that time and location. Water to wine? Multiplying fish and bread? Walking on water? (I’m using christian mythology because that’s what I’m familiar with. There are plenty of other examples from other religions) Those are miracles? Why not something like curing amputated limbs, or transporting people to Alpha Centauri, or dividing by zero? And while you’re at it, just so their can be no confusion or doubt, make sure it’s well documented by a large variety of independent sources.  Unfortunately the people who were around when these belief systems were invented didn’t ask for such evidence. They were quick to believe and slow to doubt.

One of the hardest things to wrap your mind around is how just so many people could be so wrong, and yet so sure they’re right. This was another thing I struggled with. “Look around you! Look how Christianity is everywhere! Look how many people believe! It can’t possibly be based on a lie! It’s unthinkable that it could all be wrong! Surely its ubiquity must attest to some level of truth?”

People who are surrounded by Islam think the same thing. So do the people who are surrounded by Buddhism, Toaism, Judaism, animism, voodoo, etc. The people who were surrounded by the worship of Thor felt the same way. As did those who grew up in ancient Egypt with Ra. Your location, your cultural preferences, they are not the world. For ever million believers who think like you, there are just as many equally fervent believers of another faith. They make the same justifications and rationalizations that you do, but they change the name of the god(s).

The problem is that the system reinforces it’self.  One person starts a rumor, then more people spread it, and then more until it spreads exponentially.  Eventually everybody in a location knows the rumor and it becomes common knowledge, common truth. Children are then raised in a society saturated in the rumor and it’s taken as a given, a natural existence.  The more people who believe in the rumor, the more the individual believer feels secure in their belief.

No matter how many people believe something, no matter how many books are written, buildings built, and songs sung, it all goes back to that one individual, god’s middleman.

“Just trust me…”

Atheist or agnostic?

One of the more superfluous debates going on within the atheist community has to do with the use of the term “agnostic.” When I hear someone say “I’m not an atheist, I’m an agnostic,” they usually do so because they’ve mis-defined both terms. Before I tell you how they’ve mis-defined these terms, let me ask two questions that are at the heart of this issue. With these two questions we can find out what you are.

Do you know whether or not god(s) exists? Yes or no. Do you believe god(s) exists? Yes or no.

If you answered yes to the first question then you’re a gnostic. If you answered no, then you’re agnostic. If you answered yes to the second question, then you’re a theist. If you answered no, then you’re an atheist.

This leaves us with four possibilities.

• Gnostic theist
• Gnostic atheist
• Agnostic theist
• Agnostic atheist

The first two, the gnostics, are intellectually dishonest. You may feel a strong gut emotion one way or the other, but there is no objectionable way you can know. Gnostic atheists are the irrational people who claim to know there is no god(s). The hypothetical person I mentioned earlier, who rejects the term “atheist” in favor of “agnostic”, is making the mistake of defining “atheist” as “gnostic atheist.” They recognize that they can’t know for certain whether or not god(s) exist, so they say “agnostic”, entirely forgetting  the second question.

Agnostic and atheist are not two different viewpoints; they are separate answers to separate questions.

I’m not really sure a pure agnostic could exist. The first question is pretty cut and dry; I have a hard time imagining someone saying “I don’t know” in response. As for the second question, I guess the only time one could say “I don’t know” in response would be while they are in transition between yes or no. If you’re losing your faith, or gaining a new one, then I could see someone temporarily being in a state of either gnostic agnosticism or agnostic agnosticism. Most of the time, however, this is not what the person claiming to be an agnostic really means.

What is faith?

Today I went to the dentist. As I sat in the chair I looked over and saw a painting of a young woman with the title  “Saint Apollonia” and a little caption stating something to the affects of  “St. Apollonia is the patron saint of dentistry. She refused to give up her christian faith, so her torturers pulled out her teeth one by one. When she still refused to recant, she was burned alive.”

This got me thinking, what is faith? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary faith is:

1. allegiance to duty or a person

2. firm belief in something for which there is no proof

3. something that is believed especially with strong conviction

#2 is very important to remember, “for which there is no proof.” Theists often say “well it doesn’t matter, it’s a matter of faith.” That really is a conversation killer. But what does that say about the nature of faith? When in the face of reality you must resort to saying “it’s a matter of faith” you are basically admitting “I have no idea how this logically makes sense, I have no evidence to support it, but I like it and I’m going to believe it’s true despite the facts….”

That’s disgusting. Lets apply this approach to other aspects of life. I’m going to run a red light at a busy intersection, but don’t worry, I have a strong faith that says nothing will happen to me. I’m going to stare at the sun for hours, but I’m strong in my faith that I won’t go blind. I’m going to put a loaded gun to my head and pull the trigger, but I have a strong faith that I’ll be fine. I’m not going to wear my safety belt in the car, but I have it on faith that everything will be ok if I get into a crash.

People who believe things on faith and disregard facts ascertained by logic and observation are the types of people that get snuffed out by the cogs of evolution. If it were not for the good graces of other people who employ things developed by observing facts (ie. Medical science, physics and seat belts, etc) the people who relied on faith alone to make decisions would die off. (I sometimes wonder why we keep them from fulfilling their ridiculous desires…)

It blows me away how some people can argue against logic and reason. One example given in this wonderful video (the inspiration for this post) is how a christian could argue “Well, we all could be brains in a jar, or in the Matrix, and observation is circular, if you want to describe ‘red’ you have to point to it’…” True, but as the video points out the christian has already disproved his own argument about how logic and observation are inferior, for he his trying to have a rational, logical argument with the atheist. Secondly, (again, as the vid points out) look at where the two have gotten us.

Faith, on one hand, produces nothing. It is a flat statement of authority. Logic, reason, and observation (the very foundations of SCIENCE) have produced the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the electricity you use to heat your food, the computer to are reading this on, and the medicine that heals you when you become sick. Just about everything you touch and do in your life has been created by science, by people observing, testing, improving. Yet despite the fact that they use the benefits of science every day, some people still claim that this is inferior to faith.

Since when has this arrogant and extremely aggressive ignorance, nay, sheer stupidity, become a virtue? Why, in a society as technologically advanced as ours, with weapons capable of destroying all life on the planet, do we hold up this behavior on a pedestal?

Ask yourself this, would you apply the same attitude of faith to aspects of your life other than religion? Would you leave your money out on the sidewalk on faith that it would be there in an hour? Would you not pay your bills on faith that the utility company will do nothing? There is strong evidence based on observation that your money would be gone and the utility companies would shut off service, just like there is strong evidence that god did not create life, nor create the world in 7 days with dinosaurs and talking snakes.

So go ahead, apply an attitude of “faith” you have with religion to other parts of you life. See what happens….