You don't have to hate religion to be an atheist.

For some reason, it is incomprehensible to some atheists that I find the "debunking" of religion to be a waste of time and energy.  Many of those same atheists have accused me of protecting churches and a few have even accused me of being christian.   I've heard that sort of rhetoric before...primarily from Fox "News" and it's viewers.  It's a dangerous rhetoric and one we should avoid, but that's another post.

Trying to debunk religion is an exercise in futility.  Atheists already know god doesn't exist, so there's no audience there.  Christians are going to be nothing but offended when you tell them that believing in an imaginary friend at their age is a sign of mental illness, and you lose that potential audience as well.  I realize that there are christians out there who cannot have an informed, intelligent discussion about religion.  It's my experience that there are also atheists who are incapable of that very same thing.  If you come to my Facebook page and the first thing you say in your comment is "you're an idiot," I'm going to ban you because I don't argue with anyone who has the maturity level of a toddler.

Atheists aren't convincing christians not to be christian any more than christians are converting atheists to christianity.  Either you believe or you don't and most people come to those conclusions on their own.  I'm absolutely aware of the atrocities that are carried out in the name of religion.  But I also understand that religion is just a tool with which human beings carry out atrocities on each other.  I was lucky enough to be raised with a christianity that was all about social justice, acceptance, and loving my neighbors.  I was also encouraged to think for myself and question the things I was told.  I never heard the world "hell" in church once in my whole life.  I'm not a christian because I don't believe in god, but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate what I was taught in church.  I wasn't taught about some old dude on a throne throwing people into hell.  My idea of god was akin to my idea of Santa Claus: "Santa" was the spirit of Christmas (not spirit as in physical spirit, but in the feeling, the desire to give gifts and be with family).  God was an abstract idea and it was easy for me to dismiss.  I'm not protecting the church in any way.  I just understand religion differently than a lot of people do.

The only thing I'm interested in protecting is my own right not to believe.  In the US, every citizen has the right to worship as they please.  Period.  The minute we try to interfere with a religious groups' belief (and I've seen at least one semi-prominent atheist call for the eradication of fundamentalist religion), we start to dismantle the right we have not to believe.  I don't give two shits what anyone else believes.  It's none of my business.  It's also not anyone else's business what I don't believe.  And that's exactly how it should be.  Yes, there are people who want the US to be a theocracy.  It is our duty as secularists and followers of the Constitution to make sure that doesn't happen any more than it already has.

Education is our greatest weapon.  Keep putting up the billboards.  Fight to keep intelligent design and creationism out of schools.  Fight to keep prayers out of school functions.  Keep fighting to make our government secular, but stop attacking religion and the people who believe in it.  You aren't helping.

Consider the LGBT movement.  The one thing that has helped that movement more than anything in the past few years is the humanizing of that community.  The more that the LGBT community is shown to be just like the straight community in terms of how they live, the more that those outside the LGBT community relate to them.  Atheists need to take a page from that book.  As long as we act like assholes, we'll be seen as assholes.  Period.

All I'm saying is that I'd rather the burden of acceptance be on those who hate us than on us.

I'm American too, Motherfucker.: Atheists should be better than Christians, not jus...

I'm American too, Motherfucker.: Atheists should be better than Christians, not jus...: "Over the past couple of months, I've joined a few atheist and humanist groups on Facebook with the hope of finally finding people who think ..."

How I realized I was an atheist

I figure I have some friends who, since I post my blogs on Facebook, might wonder why I'm not a Christian since I used to claim to be one.  For one thing, everyone in my hometown was Christian and it wasn't so much an issue of being afraid to say I'm atheist, but that Christianity was all I knew or rather, the Christianity I grew up with in my church and my mom's family, is the only Christianity I knew.  Lucky for me, I wasn't raised with Hell fire and brimstone, but with values of forgiveness, love, and social justice.  I'll come back to that in a bit though.  After several years of questioning and dancing around the issue, I realized that I was indeed an atheist and that there was no point in keeping up the charade (for the most part...I haven't told my family, nor do I see a reason to.  It's more trouble than it's worth on my part).

First, I never even questioned it until I was in college.  It just never occurred to me.  If someone claimed something that I disagreed with, I more or less decided that they just didn't know what they were talking about.  A little arrogant, perhaps, but I've always had confidence in my ability to reason and understand things.  I can't know what goes through other people's heads, so my own abilities and knowledge were the only things I had to go on.  I also took Christianity as more of a philosophy or a way of living than religion which brings me to my next point, the nature of belief.

I had no idea what it meant to believe in something.  I literally did not understand belief.  Then I saw Jesus Camp.  That was the first time I'd ever seen true belief.  That isn't to say that the people I knew growing up didn't truly believe, but I was raised in a church and family that encouraged questioning.  I was encouraged to think.  At no point was I ever expected to accept something that didn't make sense.  I just assumed that everyone thought like I did.  I realize that not all Christians are like the people in Jesus Camp, but those who are the loudest and proudest in the media right now are.  Those are the people we're dealing with.  They have been indoctrinated and brainwashed.  They know that if they question what they've been told that they may be shunned completely by their communities.  That's a difficult thing to face.  I never faced that and I didn't know that sort of thing existed (Honestly.  I grew up outside of a small town with no cable and no internet.  If there were people of that persuasion around, I didn't know them or they kept it hidden).  After seeing what true belief meant, I realized that I'm not capable of it.  I'm just not hardwired for belief.

Third, my questions actually started within Christianity itself.  I questioned things I was taught and I accepted the most reasonable conclusion I came to and I accepted those answers as a part of my Christianity.  For example, one of the biggest questions I had was about the condemnation of Judas Iscariot.  If Christ had to die in order for Christianity to exist, I didn't understand why Judas would be condemned to hell for betrayal.  To this day, that makes no sense.  Even considering that he committed suicide (a topic never covered in my church), it still didn't make sense because of the idea of the greater good.  If he was sorrowful for his friend's death, which by god's own prophecy at the time had to happen, then surely god would forgive him.  Then I came across other ideas about Christ's arrest.  One idea I came across was that Jesus asked Judas to turn him in because he had an in with the Jewish authorities.  I saw Jesus Christ Superstar, which made Judas more human and I think painted him in a more sympathetic light (I mean, Carl Anderson was awesome).  I also had issues with the idea of Satan.  If god is both omnipotent and omniscient, the why in the hell would anyone, especially his right hand man, er, angel lead a revolution against him?  If your opponent knows your coming and is all powerful, you're going to lose.  Period.  So either the story of Satan is wrong or the image of god is wrong.  I also remember watching a Dateline special at Easter that questioned some of the events of the Bible.  Does it matter if Mary was a virgin or not?  Does it change Christ's message?  Those were the questions I started with.

I also realized that a person's religion has more to do with geography than god.  Christians are Christian because they are born in Christian households and most likely, in predominately Christian communities.  If the community isn't predominantly Christian, then the religion is most likely accepted.  I would imagine that it is exceedingly rare for a Christian to be born in a place that it is unacceptable to be a Christian, compared to the membership as a whole.  I also don't believe that there are very many 'born again' Christians or converts who were raised without Christianity or religion in their lives.  Even if their parents weren't religious or were members of a different religion, Christianity is still around, especially in the US.  There are churches everywhere.  Our politicians are very outwardly religious (they won't get elected otherwise).  Religion is on tv, on the radio, online, especially social media sites where a person can easily see what their friends believe.  If you're born in Iran, you're Muslim.  If you're born in India, you are most likely Hindu.  In Israel, you're most likely Jewish or Muslim, if your parents are Palestinian; there's a chance you'll be Christian, but you probably won't follow Shintoism or Buddhism.  If you are born in Greece, you'll most likely be Christian, but you won't be Baptist or Catholic.  You'll be Greek Orthodox.  This is an undeniable fact.  Most theists are born into theist families and they most often stay in the religion they were raised in.

The final factor for me was the religionizing (because I can't think of a real word to describe it) of American politics, particularly after Bush the second took office in 2001.  I doubt I really need to elaborate on that too much.  Unless you live under a rock, you know.  I will say that the use of scripture to deny people legal rights in this country has gotten out of control and needs to be stopped.  The Constitution is the governing document of this country.  Period.

Admitting to myself that I was an atheist was liberating.  God is an oppressive idea and that idea is used to oppress people who are too afraid to question what they are told for fear of being shunned by their communities or of going to hell.  God was bad for my psyche.  I'm prone to guilt and disappointment in myself without the added pressure of a god.  I also don't need god to be a good person.    

Atheists should be better than Christians, not just like them.

Over the past couple of months, I've joined a few atheist and humanist groups on Facebook with the hope of finally finding people who think and see the world the way I do.  At first, that's what I thought I'd found, but it wasn't long before I began seeing the same sorts of behaviors and rhetorical devices used by Christians (and by Christians, I am generally referring to the ones in the media these days: Biblical literalists and those who don't understand context or facts or what the word "theory" actually means).  What bothers me even more is the number of people in these groups who think that it's okay to behave like that.

Atheists are the most distrusted and probably the most hated group in the US.  No one is denying the lack of love coming our way.  But acting like children or mimicking the behavior of those who hate us isn't going to further our goals or win us any favors.  We have to be better than those who hate us.  We have to be more respectful, more mature, and less incendiary when we speak.  There are two behaviors in particular that bother me: the "religion is bad and here are some quotes that prove my point" argument and incendiary language toward theists.

The first is the frequent "this is why ______ religion is bad" posts.  Generally, this sort of post is reserved for the Bible, but ever since the tragedy in Norway (weirdly enough, considering that the perpetrator was Christian), the subject has been Islam (apparently even atheists like to jump to conclusions).  First of all, they're preaching to the choir, so to speak.  I don't see the point in littering the news feed with things that most of us are already aware of.  Secondly, exactly what is being accomplished by it?  We're already atheist.  They aren't convincing any of us to not be members of those religions.

The "Islam is bad" issue is one that really riles me up.  For one thing, Muslims and Christians are still human.  They come in many flavors and mind sets, so equating all of Islam with terrorism is hateful.  All Christians are not Biblical literalists (I am aware that I often say "Christians" when I mean Biblical literalists...it's a difficult thing to get around without making it complicated).  Many Christians have the same views of social justice that atheists do and we really shouldn't be alienating people who are on our side.  For example, there are two churches in Louisville that refuse to perform any marriages until gay marriage is legal.  I don't see a need to alienate them because I disagree with Michele Bachmann.  Secondly, I'd like to leave the Islamophobia to the racists.  Extremists are extremists regardless of their beliefs (or lack there of).  I don't want to be associated with extremist atheists (though I am having difficulty thinking of any off the top of my head) anymore than all Muslims want to be associated with Osama bin Laden or all Christians want to be associated with Pat Robertson or Lou Eagleton.  You can't have it both ways.

The second issue I have is with inflammatory language like "magical sky daddy" or "imaginary friends."  Really?  Do we really want to go there?  Oh, because some Christians say hateful things about us, we should do the same thing to them?  I'm sorry, but I thought we weren't in kindergarten anymore.  Now I know that a lot of atheists would ask how those things are hateful.  They're hateful because we are attacking something that a person takes very seriously.  Faith is a deeply personal thing and when we use language like that (as opposed to asking questions or simply offering another side to the issue), a person of faith is going to take it personally.  And anyone who uses that sort of language KNOWS THAT.  Otherwise, there's no point in saying it.  We say things like that precisely because we know how that person will feel when we say it and to claim otherwise is disingenuous at best.

Secondly, Christians have the right to believe in god.  They have a right to take the Bible as literally as they want and we, as followers of the Constitution, should protect and respect Christians' right to believe, whether they return the favor or not.  Frustrating as it is, if we want to gain any ground with Americans, that's what we have to do.  It sucks.  There's no denying that.  But we have to be better.  Period.

Finally, when we use that sort of language, people shut their ears.  And not just Biblical literalists.  Atheists have a reputation for being assholes (see the paragraph about all Muslims not being terrorists).  I, for one, am not an asshole and I would like for the rest of the country to realize that the majority of atheists are, in fact, nice people.  Our reputation is part of the reason that it's difficult for us to get support.  Take the WTC memorial cross.  Should that cross be there? Absolutely not.  Should the president of American Atheists have said the thing about god not stopping 9/11?  Again, absolutely not.  It was irrelevant to the case and it made us look like assholes.  That case is about representation.  If all beliefs aren't equally represented, then none should be represented.  That's what he should have said.  He could have stated the numbers of Jews and Muslims who died on 9/11 who won't be represented by a 17 foot monument.  He could have mentioned that the cross has been in a church for quite a while and suggested reasons for it to remain there.  Those are the sorts of things that would have helped his position, not his personal distaste for Christianity.  (see The Daily Show clip that has some atheists upset with Jon Stewart: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thu-august-4-2011-dick-durbin)

The bottom line is that we all, atheists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Pastafarians, etc., have the exact same freedom to worship (or not worship) as we see fit.  We have the same freedom of religion.  It is none of my business what anyone else believes nor is it anyone else's business what I believe.  We are equals.  Period.  Whether or not we respect someone's choice to believe, we must respect their right to do so, especially if we're fans of the Constitution.  The correct attitude is one of ambivalence.  I don't give two shits what anyone else believes and that's how it should be.  

Who's a terrorist?

http://www.towleroad.com/2011/03/watch-teabaggers-attack-muslim-americans-in-orange-county.html#more

The Rape of the Poor

http://www.thenation.com/article/158282/how-build-progressive-tea-party

The above article really addresses something that our country severely lacks: accountability.  I wish that I were better acquainted with the details of our tax system, but sadly I am not, nor do I really have the time to research those things at the moment.  What I will say is this: the wealthy are not paying their fair share and our esteemed congressmen are doing their best to help them do that.

My mother works for the food stamp office.  This year, all state employees were forced to take six furlough days (six unpaid days off).  Workers like my mother do not make very much and at the same time, do not qualify for the benefits that they are helping others receive.  They have to live beyond their means without any savings in order to survive.  The kicker?  Our Commissioner of Agriculture, candidate for lieutenant governor, and former University of Kentucky basketball player (the best thing you could possibly put on your resume in this state), Richie Farmer, took his staff on a tax payer funded vacation to the Caribbean.

The elected officials of the state of KY are currently so busy trying to prove that their party believes in god more than the other that they've completely neglected to take care of the very people who elected them.  Who can we turn to if we can't turn to our leaders and representatives whom we elect?  Politics have become entirely too profitable and it is the poor who are suffering because of it.

Well, Holy shit.

I wrote a letter to the editor of my hometown's newspaper and he said he's going to print it.  I'm genuinely shocked.  I love Kentucky, but even our most liberal Democrats (outside of Louisville, that is...I LOVE John Yarmuth) are practically Republican and the Princeton Times-Leader (my hometown's paper) reflects that conservative nature.  Anyway, here's my letter.  It really gets to the heart of what I have such a problem with: the use of scare tactics to incite voters and and the complete disregard for facts that is currently plaguing the media. 

"Every time I come back to Princeton, I am disappointed by the contents of this newspaper. Not the actual news stories that pertain to the area, but by the guest commentary. While home for Christmas, I read a piece of guest commentary about the ACLU and communism. What is the point of bringing up the brief support of communism of a man who died in 1981? Not only did he change his mind as information of Stalin's regime made it's way to the US, but it was more than 70 years ago! It's a red herring at best. The whole point of the article was to scare the conservative base into being against anyone and anything associated with the ACLU. The problem with that is that the ACLU has the correct stance on religion in government and schools. I realize that's probably hard to understand in a religiously homogenous place like Princeton, but in Louisville, where I live now, it's absolutely necessary. If there is a faith, there is probably someone here who follows it and it would be inappropriate to have administrators of one faith leading children of another in prayer. I doubt any of you would be happy to have someone of another faith (Islam, anyone?) leading your child in prayer. You can't have it both ways. It is neither the schools' nor the government's job to teach the people about faith. That should take place in the home and no where else. And, as much as this may pain some of you to know, the ACLU will defend your right to worship as you please if someone else tries to infringe on your rights to do so.

There is no journalistic integrity in propaganda and fear mongering, which, unfortunately, is mostly what I see in this paper. I don't care if you're conservative or liberal, but printing deliberately misleading pieces that serve no other purpose than to incite people with scary words to get them to vote a certain way is both irresponsible and disingenuous. Perhaps the paper should focus more on facts and leave the commentaries of people who've never heard of Princeton, much less have anything to do with it, to other papers. Over the past few years, I've heard line after line about small town values from every conservative pundit and politician out there. I'm proud to be from a small town. I would not be who I am had I not grown up in Princeton. Having said that, I'm also proud that I moved to Louisville and met all the wonderful city folk that I have who, believe it or not, have the same values and feelings that anyone from a small town does. We're all human and not that different when you get down to it. There's nothing wrong with being from a small town, so long as you don't let it keep your mind small as well."