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This is to the Christians complaining about “Prayer Shaming.”

We should talk.

Here’s the thing: We atheists don’t believe in God…but we generally tend to assume you do. Yes, there are people who think you’re faking across the board, and we all have to admit there are some pretty damn obvious fakers among you, but we tend to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you when you claim to believe in God you’re telling the truth.

Now, because we atheists don’t believe in God we tend to think that your belief in God is…well we’ve argued about what to call it — whether we should call your belief deluded, insane, fantastical — what have you, but the basic diagnosis is that you’re wrong about reality and don’t know it. So…different atheists do different things about that perception. Some of us insist loudly that you’re wrong. Some of us insist that your beliefs are sensitive parts of your identity and should be handled with kid gloves. And then there are people in between.

One common analogy we atheists use to explain our disagreement consists of the kids who believe in Santa Claus (although many atheists are too polite to use that analogy, it seems pretty accurate based on what I’m hearing). Should we tell them, and attack the security and comfort they find in their rich imagination? Or should we be sensitive and compassionate, and allow them the peace of their illusions — in spite of the potential consequences of them believing something false about the world?

I’m an antitheist — and no, that doesn’t mean I hate theists. It means that I don’t think it’s healthy to sugarcoat the fact that I think you’re wrong about God’s existence; I think the fact that you’re wrong about God’s existence is too important. Sure, there are harmless beliefs out there; God is not one of them. Like — if you “believe” in the force, you’re harmless…unless you think it’s a virtue to have faith that it can drive your car. So…for me, the “Jesus take the wheel” approach to life seems to cross a line, which is part of why I’m trying to give you the straight-up truth as well as I can see it.

There are people — many of them atheists — who think that I’m ruining your lives by puncturing holes in your fairy tales (I probably just offended a bunch of them by calling what you believe “fairy tales”). But even if they don’t use the words “fairy tales” because it’s cruel in the way that telling a young child Santa doesn’t exist is cruel (OK, sure, for some of them it’s worse, but follow the train of thought), they think it’s a fairy tale, too. They just won’t call it that for fear of hurting your feelings.

Just about all of us think that what you believe is imagination and fairy tales. We just differ in how delicately we think people should handle that fact.

Now, as an antitheist I have to admit that in spite of my attempts to believe that you actually believe in God, that assumption can make things pretty darn confusing. Because, if I’m going to take you at your word, I have to think that you believe in a great, big God of the universe. This God is HUGE. MASSIVE. And extraordinarily good, and beautiful, and the rest, in absolute, imagination-defying terms.

Here’s the thing. If you really believe that…if you really, really believe that…then do you get so offended every time an atheist raises their hand and says that maybe that’s just not true? Think about it from my perspective. You’re claiming to believe in GOD…and yet when I, a puny human being, have the nerve to throw a bit of criticism God’s way, instead of wringing your hands anxiously about how big, bad God is going to throw me into eternal torment if I keep this up, or letting God take the heat, or explaining with evidence that prayer works, you do the equivalent of plopping down on your ass and crying like a little….yeah.

It’s not very convincing.

I mean, if you really believed this, why does it bother you so much? God’s wrath is going to torment me in the afterlife forever, supposedly. Isn’t that enough?

Unless…you’re not really sure.

Now, to be sure, your complaints will prompt several atheists to handle you with kid gloves. But you’re doing absolutely nothing to convince us that your God is real. On the contrary. You’re treating your God like He’s paper-thin glass. Like he’s delicate and can be shattered by a single human being uttering he doesn’t exist.

Honestly, now…why would you worship something that pathetic?  I mean, some atheists may say to be nice to you, but it’s not because they respect you, so much as that they feel sorry for you.

You may not like this. But best as I can tell, from putting my metaphorical finger in the wind and getting a feel of the sentiment, that’s the impression. And people like me start thinking that if your illusions are so bloody flimsy, maybe we should keep pushing harder to expose the reality underneath, because it might just be possible. You believe in a weak God, from my perspective. A very weak God. Maybe if I push a bit harder, you’ll believe in no God and embrace a secular humanism.

You see, when you complain about us, um….”prayer shaming” you, you imply to us that we have the power to make you ashamed about praying to God, and indicate that this somehow deals a profound blow to Christendom. But if you really believe in God — honestly, why is that an issue?

I’m serious. I hate to sound like your Sunday Morning preacher here, but…do you believe any of this?

Even Paul was like, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.”

And then the Jesus y’all claim to follow wholeheartedly said, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

I mean…Paul and Jesus just exude a, “We got a badass God on our side” attitude. Prayer shaming? No, no shame there. Like…God’s on your side. Why on earth would you complain if you believed it? On the other hand, if it’s a delicate myth you gotta protect…that makes sense.

See what I mean? When you complain about this criticism you’re playing into our narrative. You’re not saying that it’s about a God that’s powerful; you’re saying that it’s about a myth that’s fragile.

You’re hinting that maybe, just maybe, the concentration on prayer is something you can be shamed for…perhaps something you know isn’t doing anything or is a way to simply circle the wagons of partisanship, more than something that is real.

Is that rude?

Maybe, maybe. You might have a point there.

But it’s also, best as I can tell it, the plain, simple truth.  I can pretty much guarantee you that even the atheists who won’t say that are kinda thinking the same thing — and in reaction many are simply dismissing you as sensitive about a myth and looking instead towards responses that seem more productive because they have to do with what’s um…actually there.

I’m just the messenger.

Just so you know.

Thanks for reading.

[Photo courtesy of CJS*64 A man with a camera under CCL 3.0]

Recently, Jim Bob Duggar wrote an open letter to fathers (nevermind the mothers, it seems — the father is the person who is supposed to be the one in charge of the whole household) that has some heartbreaking content. He says that his wife was on birth control pills, but that they weren’t aware that the pills could cause a miscarriage.

What isn’t heartbreaking, and is pretty disconcerting, is that after the miscarriage, they decided to “give this area” to God and see children as His gifts. Which, once it’s translated out of Christianeze, means that when Jim Bob wants to have sex, they have sex, and always without birth control because the child (in spite of it being a direct result of Jim Bob deciding to have sex) is a gift from God. And yeah, it’s when Jim Bob wants to have sex that sex is had. As his wife once put it:

[Wives should] be available [for sex], and not just available, but be joyfully available for him. Smile and be willing to say, “Yes, sweetie I am here for you,” no matter what, even though you may be exhausted and big pregnant and you may not feel like he feels. “I’m still here for you and I’m going to meet that need because I know it’s a need for you.”

I have some experience with this theology, having been brought up in a similar tradition. And, this business about children being a gift from God is dangerous bullshit, for at least a couple reasons.

First, it takes the decisions as to whether or not you’re going to have children out of your hands and puts them into a standard decided by an imaginary being who has no grasp on the reality of your situation.  Jim Bob specifically states in his letter that he and his wife decided not to wait until they were “financially able” to have children or until they “had all [their] ducks in a row.”  No. This was a blessing from God, who was in control of all those circumstances — so, the message goes, you can and should ignore all those circumstances and trust in God, letting him plan your family.

What I hate about this message is that it lays a guilt trip on families that are not as well off as the Duggars, or families in which a pregnancy might result in severe health problems and risks for the mother.  It portrays them as not accepting God’s gift — giving them the false idea that if God didn’t want them to have a child, He would keep them from getting pregnant. I also hate that it basically drafts women into service to have children, regardless of their personal desires or their personal goals. The great God and Ruler of the universe is trying to give you this gift of children, the message goes. Who are you to refuse?

Second, the child is looked at as the property of God for the entirety of His life. Admittedly, this might not be so bad…if God had a better opinion of children. But as it stands, the Bible’s attitude towards children is fairly disturbing. There are places in the Bible that say that parents who spare the rod hate their children, that folly is in the heart of children and the rod is needed to drive it out, that tell parents to “not withhold” punishment with the rod if they want to save the child’s soul from death, that state that a rod and reprimand brings wisdom but an undisciplined child is a disgrace, and that even state that disobedient children must be stoned to death.

And even the idea of a child being the property of an imaginary being that is being given to the parents is problematic. The subtext of thinking of a child as a gift for you seems to — and actually often does, in practice — take away the child’s autonomy in disturbing ways. In Jim Bob’s scheme, this child is here to, perhaps, make the parents look good or God look good, and to serve God — not to be its own independent person. And this is dangerous, because when the child is empty of their autonomy, when they are seen as valuable property instead of individuals in their own right — well, bets are off. You can treat them however you please — for the good of God. You might even, as the Duggars did, hide the fact that your children were molested by their older brother, because ultimately their lives are not their own…they are gifts to god-fearing parents from God, so they’re there to make the family and God look good.

So the prayer of Jim Bob: “Lord, help us to love children the way that you love children, and Lord we want to receive each one as a gift from you” — is fairly disturbing. God is absolutely brutal in the way He views children as, basically, foolish people whose disobedience deserves death. No — don’t love children like that, and don’t see them as owned by God or gifts from Him. See them as individuals in their own right, to be treated with respect and dignity. Your job as a parent, it seems, is to teach them the skills they need to live healthy lives. It’s about them. It’s not about God, and it’s not about how much of a personal gift they are to you — the pleasure they bring you is a side benefit. Fundamentally, child-rearing, it seems clear to me, should be about the healthy, the care, and the love of children.

Something that, obviously, Jim Bob Duggar could probably learn a bit better.

Thanks for reading.

Right after the Paris attack it seemed like most Christians were posting #prayforparis on social media. And it was a beautiful thing, supposedly –even a lot of atheists were saying that we should take a small break from criticizing religion. #Prayforparis, they said, showed that Christians had a heart and that they were grieving; we should leave it alone.

Among these atheists who said #prayforparis should be left alone by atheists has been Hemant Mehta, my fellow blogger over at The Friendly Atheist.  He had a few choice words for any atheist who dared criticize the hashtag:

The hashtags people were using in the wake of the massacre included PrayForParis and PrayForPeace.

Now, I’m assuming I agree with most of you that prayer doesn’t fix anything here. It’s not going to solve terrorism, it’s not going to bring anyone back to life.

So when someone on Facebook or Twitter uses it, we get angry. You just want to yell at the screen, religion played a role in the massacre; religion sure as hell isn’t gonna fix it.

But I have a hard time when atheists tell other people how they should grieve. For a lot of religious people, praying for Paris is literally all they can do. It’s the only thing they know how to do in a time of crisis.

It’s helping them process the carnage and disaster. And that’s the thing. It’s about them. It helps them. Yeah, it doesn’t help the people in Paris, but there’s not much your relatives in the U.S. can do about it. So they resort to prayer.

So when we respond by telling them “Your prayers aren’t helping” or something of that nature, it’s insensitive and it’s probably gonna backfire, because instead of focusing on the victims, now you’re making it all about you.

I don’t quite take that stance. It doesn’t mean I don’t understand grief. It means that I think that it’s healthy, even in the face of grief, to be skeptical, and to think about how the ways we deal with grief may have longer-term consequences.

And indeed, it turns out that the empathy of #prayforparis didn’t necessarily…seem to go very far. Indeed, many of these Christians, in the wake of the #prayforparis frenzy, were considerably cruel — enough Christians are opposed to accepting refugees from war-torn Syria that the House of Representatives, due to enormous pressure from its constituency, has a veto-proof majority regarding restrictions on immigrants that would effectively bring the number of Syrian refugees down to zero, according the the director of the FBI. As CNN puts it:

FBI Director James Carney has expressed deep concerns about the bill, two U.S. officials tell CNN. Comey has told administration and congressional officials that the legislation would make it impossible to allow any refugees into the U.S., and could even affect the ability of travelers from about three dozen countries that are allowed easier travel to the U.S. under the visa waiver program, the officials say.

These are refugees from war-torn areas, remember. Many of them came into Paris to escape persecution.  How heartless do you have to be to turn them away?

What happened to the beautiful spirit of #prayforparis? Isn’t this a beacon of empathy that we should respect?  How could that same empathy be so shortchanged when it came to looking at things here, in the United States?

And most of the Republican candidates — Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal (who recently dropped out), John Kasich, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, and Donald Trump — are against letting refugees in altogether. This is due, largely, to the pressure of those on the religious right. How strange. Weren’t these the nice, kind people who were praying for Paris? The generous people with the hashtag and the changed profile pictures and the flowers and the outreach and support?

A clue is found in the more “liberal” side of the viewpoint among the Christian right. The only two Republican candidates who will allow any Syrian refugees in. Unsurprisingly, Jeb Bush and, more surprisingly (until you find out the terms) Ted Cruz. On one condition.

We filter them to find out whether they’re Christian.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3MpOqSLTK8[/youtube]

You’d almost think that #prayforparis is, at least for some people, a drive to return back to a stronger, better insulated Christianity in a time of crisis…provoking exclusionary responses like this (an observation that, it seems, would be cordoned off as unhealthy by influential atheists like Hemant Mehta).

To illustrate this in a more everyday example…I dunno if you’ve ever experienced this, but it’s happened to me repeatedly. You’re in a conversation with a Christian, and eventually you make a point that’s not so easy to refute. They think for a second, and then they say something that seems like care, like that they hope God touches your heart, or that you’ll stop rebelling against God, or that they hope you’ll one day know the love to be found in Christ before it’s too late. And if it’s in person, they may lean in, touch your hand or shoulder, and say something like, “I’ll pray for you” before they leave the conversation.

Now, a lot of them, like the Christians with #prayforparis, may not actually pray. But those that do…what are they praying? Usually — and I know this from being a Christian for a few years — it’s something along the lines of, “Jesus, please touch Peter’s heart so that he’ll come to you. Help him see the error of his ways, Lord God. I just love him and care about him and I want him to see your glory and your love before it’s too late, dear God. The beauty of your sacrifice and your holiness. Cleanse his heart from hatred and animosity, and open it up to your wisdom and truth please, Lord. In the name of your Son, I pray, Amen.”

Or something like that. The wording may vary depending on your denomination — Christians who read this can quibble about the “proper” wording in the comments. But from my perspective it’s basically the Christian talking to themselves, saying that they’re right, I’m wrong, and God’s attitude underlines how important it is for me to realize it.

In other words, prayer is the best tool many Christians have in their arsenal to highlight the importance of Christianity above all other concerns and contexts. For these Christians, prayer takes secular situations and gives a more Christianity-centered view of them.  What this means is that many Christians can take something as disturbing as death and, by putting that death in a Christ-centered scheme, they can be reassured that God is making everything OK. One of the things that comforted me as a Christian was the realization, for example, that God was on His throne and completely in control of situations, no matter how traumatic what happened was. And He loved me. Here was the most powerful force in the universe, and He was going to make it alright. Christianity became most prominent in my life when I was struggling.

But this also has a downside, oftentimes. As many Christians become closer to this God through prayer, they naturally distance themselves from those who don’t believe or oppose their God, making these other people part of a kind of outgroup. When they’re praying for the outgroup, they’re comforting themselves with the knowledge that God is supreme, and they may want them to come to Christ — but they assume that coming to Christ is the greatest good. Where before there may have been a friendship in which they could discuss, rationally, the existence or nonexistence of God, prayer now separates them from the outgroup, to an extent, even as it binds them closer to Christianity and increases their yearning that the outgroup would join them.

Because of this outgroup-creating property, prayer often insulates and exalts a Christian view of events.  When a prayer addresses a situation that involves the outgroup of the church, it often has the effect of underlining the fact that the outgroup is the outgroup, creating further separation. Sure, the rhetoric may be loving, caring, etc. in Christianeze. And it may be tear-jerkingly heartfelt. But it is also, more often than not, a way to insert Christian bias (and thus partisanship) into situations that no other sacrament in Christianity can rival.

And that is how #prayforparis, in the minds of many Christians, is completely compatible with “don’t let any non-Christian refugees in.” In a way analogous to how a Christian crusader’s prayer for a predominantly Christian city that had just been attacked by Muslim forces prompted more — not less — animosity towards Muslims, so #prayforparis, for many Christians on the right, seems to inspire an anti-Muslim sentiment or sense of vengeance — a too-often militant Christian response to what is falsely seen as a representative Muslim attack on Western soil.

This is why I think that the rhetoric of #prayforparis, heartfelt as it may be, may also be somewhat dangerous for the Christians among us with a crusader-like mentality. I wish that more Christians realized that this incident does not need to be bathed in exclusively Christian sentiment. Rather, there needs to be an openness in attitude, a sense that more than a prayer that is held captive by a strongly, often militantly, Christian worldview, situations like Paris need empathy for all involved — for the Muslim as much as for the Christian.

Muslims don’t believe as Christians do (or as I do, for that matter). What we need to do is look past the prayer that insulates the Christian tradition to the clear fact that we are all part of one humanity — what matters fundamentally is friendship with the other human beings we are with.  I cannot help thinking, when looking at the Christian right, that if there was more of a focus on empathy for all, regardless of nationality, more than a focus on insulating Paris with a Christian-crusader type of attitude with prayer, there would be more support for refugees.

There is something valuable in the motif of #prayforparis — a sense of empathy that we as atheists, as Hemant mentions, would do well to respect and, in turn, empathize with. But we shouldn’t so strongly cordon off criticism of such prayer that we fail to encourage the realization that this empathy needs to break beyond the barriers of many Christian traditions. It needs to be associated with people regardless of their creed, without any problematic limitations from the prejudices  of an imaginary God.  In these sensitive times, if we want to avoid yet another manifestation of the crusader’s spirit, we need to realize that refugees need our love more than they need our religion, that they need our respect more than they need our demonization, and that they need our friendship more than they need our prayers.

Thank you for reading.

I’ve often wondered why so many white people care about racism against black people.

Nobody asked me to be black. I didn’t become black in order to “trick” anyone into feeling guilty. I was born this way, into this country, at this time.  It is true that my experiences have shaped the way I see the world; it is also true I have researched the ways that black people are treated in this country and become appalled. But I discovered this situation I found myself in, and that’s why I care about it. Makes sense to me.

But when I see white people care about racism, I find it intriguing. Why would anyone who isn’t black care about racism against blacks? Honestly. I’ve occasionally claimed that I wished I were white so that I didn’t worry about fighting against racism. I’d loudly proclaim that there was no such thing as racism, and any facts to the contrary would prompt me to feel a bit smug and superior, I speculated. I’d probably just argue that any inequalities would happen because many black people were lazy. I mean, why would I give someone else a leg up when I’m doing perfectly fine myself? If you’re as cynical about human nature as I often am, that’s what you’d probably expect.

I was thinking about this recently, and then it dawned on me. I care a great deal about marginalized groups that I am not in. I care about women’s rights, about children’s rights, about lgbtq rights, about minimum workers’ rights, about immigrants’ rights…and the list goes on. And while some of this care, to be dead honest, might be because I’ve been shamed into it, a lot of it, I know, is sincere. I’ve shed a tear or two, at some point in my life, about each of these issues, and I can feel that my care is honest. I care. But why?

And as I thought about it, the answer wasn’t necessarily all pretty. I mean, empathy was part of the answer, but there was still something a bit…off about it. At the same time it opened the door into why many white people might be so naturally inclined to be attuned to my situation, as well.

It’s like…a room that’s closed off. And everyone tells you not to go in that room — that it’s ugly and dark and the door shouldn’t be open. Let’s call this the Room of Marginalized Groups. But when you walk past it, you begin to suspect that’s not true. Maybe you walk past once, and you see a bit of light under the door — and you begin to suspect it’s not all dark. Or you walk past another time, and you hear someone playing a beautiful piano concerto behind the door, and you begin to suspect it’s not all ugly. You begin to get curious and suspect that either the others are lying or ignorant. Eventually you open the door…and it’s nothing like you were told. It’s just another part of the world, with its history and heritage and so on. And the reason the door was closed had to do with stupid rules and traditions, not with the reality of the situation.

So that’s an answer. We care about marginalized groups because we know society is lying to us about them. We want to see the beauty in the places society tries to close off from us.

That explains a lot about why we’re fascinated with these marginalized groups. It’s a beautiful thing.

But then…there’s a problem.  This guy named Slavoj Zizek hit upon it with a joke:

A man who believes himself to be a grain of seed is taken to the mental institution where the doctors do their best to finally convince him that he is not a grain but a man; however, when he is cured (convinced that he is not a grain of seed but a man) and allowed to leave the hospital, he immediately comes back very trembling and scared – there is a chicken outside the door and he is afraid that it will eat him.

“Dear fellow,” says his doctor, “you know very well that you are not a grain of seed but a man.”

“Of course I know that,” replies the patient, “but does the chicken know it?”

The point of the story is that, sooner or later, finding out the truth of the marginalized person changes you. It changes the way you relate to the world. Perhaps before, like the man who thought he was a grain of seed, you thought you were superior to what lay behind the Door of the Marginalized. And now you know you aren’t, and neither is the rest of society. You’re “cured.”

But there’s a problem.

Just as the man is worried that the chicken won’t recognize the person is no longer a seed, the newly enlightened person may become worried due to the (usually accurate) reality that most of society will still think that those behind the Door of the Marginalized belong there.

And the realization that society is not as enlightened as you are can force you to make very tough choices and sacrifices, and that’s where, I think, the going gets rough.

For example — take the movie Remember the Titans. Coach Boone is the first black coach of a half black, half white football team in racist 1971 Virginia.  His white assistant coach, Coach Yoast, initially has doubts about the black coach, but eventually begins to respect Coach Boone (who goes on to lead his team to a perfect season).  The door was opened up. Coach Boone defied all stereotypes. Coach Yoast ventured into Boone’s world, admired him, went to bat for him. Eventually, he let his daughter spend the night at Coach Boone’s house.

That night, an angry group of white people drive by and throw a brick into Coach Boone’s house, with a threat on it (it’s unclear at first whether the brick was a bomb, which heightens the sense of danger surrounding the incident). Coach Boone shows the brick off to the media the next and announces he won’t be intimidated; he is determined to kick down the door of racism that is forcing him to be a second class citizen, and will go on living his life the exact same way.

But Coach Yoast is uncomfortable as Coach Boone defies would-be attackers to the press. This was more than he bargained for. This was The Next Step.

His marginalization and Coach Boone’s marginalization was beginning to merge.  It’s a frightening time for Yoast, and he pulls Coach Boone aside on a stairway to express his concerns.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aviqy5lttOA[/youtube]

This is what I hear from some white people when I start getting serious about speaking out. The injustice bothers them, because they are part of our same humanity. But then there’s also the fact that we can talk loudly in places where they want to save face; we have less to lose. So they protest…do you really have to talk so loud? We like you. We admire you. But when you act belligerant, when you speak out strongly, it makes things more difficult. It makes things tougher. You’re making it harder to affiliate with you; it’s making us look bad.

And I get it.

I totally do. I get it. I’ve been there regarding other marginalized groups. You’re not racist. But other people are, and you have to deal with them day in, day out. You go, perhaps unwillingly, from being a spectator to a participant, from being the lawyer representing the client to being locked up in the jail with them.  But it bothers you when they rattle the cages, especially since you know that you could step out from behind them any time you pleased.

It’s a difficult transition. And I can see that very few people are willing to take it to that next level.

One reason is that, admit it or not, (going back to the black-white dynamic as an example) the white person perhaps enjoys being white. They enjoy the privileges that being white affords them in general society, and are hesitant to give that up. They care about black individuals, don’t get me wrong — like a rich man might care for a beggar enough to give him some money. But the care given highlights a hierarchy that the privileged person often can’t help but feel.

And I get that, because I feel it — when I give a beggar $5, I do it out of genuine concern. But that also makes me appreciate my nice, warm bed a little more.

Most marginalized groups will pick up on this dynamic.  So, no matter how much you connect to them, the likelihood is high (and I’ve noticed this is a shock, too) that you will almost always be resented by the marginalized group, because even when you bend over backwards to care for, say, black people, you’re always doing it from a better position — the fact that you’re reaching backwards underlines the fact that you’re reaching backwards.

This position creates a catch-22. The white person who really tries to help blacks will be resented by blacks for the inescapably superior position in society they have, and resented by whites for catering so much to the marginalized concerns of black people. You’re resented by blacks and resented by whites. It’s hard as hell.

Most white people didn’t sign up for this part of When Things Get Tough. Most of them only signed up for appreciating black people, getting to know them. And that’s awesome. But then the backlash…many aren’t prepared for that.

So…from that angle, a lot of it makes sense. And I’ve heard, from white people caught in that Catch 22, the anxious urging for an answer as to what to do about it.

That’s really a hard one.

For Coach Yoast, the moment came later in the film.

During the movie, it is learned that Coach Boone will be fired the first game his team loses. Coach Boone has been winning all season, and this is the regional championship game — the game before the state championship. The referee is making bad calls on purpose so that Coach Boone’s team, the Titans, will lose.

Coach Yoast has a choice. He knows (based on a conversation at the beginning of the clip) that if he says nothing, Boone will be fired, he will replace Boone as Head Coach, and he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

On the other hand, he can expose that there is a conspiracy behind the calls. It might get him into trouble, too. He could lose his career and reputation over it. And he won’t be Head Coach or be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

He hesitates. It’s a lot to sacrifice. And then he turns, sees his daughter in the stands upset about the bad call, looks back at the game, and gets the courage to walk over to the referee and threaten to go to the press if the game is not called fairly (about 2:15 below).

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QezX4y-M1_0[/youtube]

And I think that he made that decision because, perhaps, he saw the future. The way things should be for the next generation. It was about what he wanted to accomplish, where he wanted to go, and the fact that he was invested in the team more than he was in his privileged position.

He used his privilege to lose his privilege.  And, in the (admittedly somewhat fictional) story, he never gets into the Hall of Fame. But he had a lifelong relationship with Coach Boone.

And thinking about the story, which rings true, I keep hitting upon the word “love.”

“Love” is a stupid word, in ways. It’s manipulative, vague, and ill-defined in the English language. But when you see it, that’s the only thing you can call it, really. I think what distinguishes it from other emotions — like courage, bravery, empathy — is that if you love a group of people, there’s no ego attached to it. You can brag about how you feel courageous, or brave, or empathetic.  But you can’t brag about love, because when you say you love someone you’re admitting that there is something valuable about the other person, not yourself.

It’s also beyond your control; it’s not really something that you can force. It’s just something you feel that can get you to do courageous stuff without feeling courageous, that can make you empathize — not as charity but as a need within yourself. It’s…completely and totally about someone else.

If I knew how to create it, I would tell you. But I don’t have a concrete way to make it, although I think that’s the answer to racism. I know it starts with knowledge, seeing the beauty in other people, common goals. But that spark lies…somewhere beyond it.

And it’s also a beautiful way to be more a part of the world.

But then there’s the hard part — the realization that even if you love someone, there’s no guarantee that they’ll love you back, or trust that your love is real. Especially if someone’s trust has been broken time, and time, and time again. Most members of marginalized groups have experienced people intrigued by them at first…and then have those people treat them like a tourist spot or a beggar they pass when times get rough or (perhaps ironically) when they don’t receive the trust they think they are deserved. Black people, for example, have experienced this cycle for 400 years. So the trust is especially hard to earn.

And on top of this is the unfortunate truth that we all have one life, and we have to decide how we’re going to live it. Is it worth it to trust, in spite of being let down time and time and time again? Is it worth it to love strangers at the expense of missing out on privilege? Trust doesn’t guarantee that you won’t be irreparably hurt, and love doesn’t guarantee you respect, influence, or that you’ll pay the bills.

So these are really tough questions.

I don’t have the answers for you.

But you do.

Thanks for reading.

[Image courtesy of Backbone Campaign under CCL 2.0]

Christians, you are free to post #prayforparis in solidarity with the Paris tragedy.

We atheists are free to criticize you for posting #prayforparis.

The attack was meant to suspend honest dialogue on religion. Regardless of where you fall in the debate, I hope we can agree we shouldn’t further the terrorists’ cause.

Usually I stick to print because  I come across better in writing then in speaking, but on this very sensitive issue, I thought it might be prudent to tried to talk to you in person a bit more.

Every Thursday night.

From the time I was about 6 until I was about 16, we gathered in the living room. “We” was gradually growing; my parents had seven children, and the last four — the ones born during the height of our involvement — are 18 months apart. A new baby was an almost yearly occasion, filled with excitement and deep joy. And that babe was brought into the room, as well.

It was a deeply profound, memorable time. We did various things for it, but the best part was when we did Character Sketches curriculum. Glossy, clean pages, filled with pictures and exciting stories. Each “Sketch” was a feature of model character, like “Loyalty” or “Responsibility.” And adding to the theme of the character was a story of a bible character — like Mordecai or Saul’s son Jonathan.  And then an animal was used to further illustrate how that theme looked or paid off in nature.

We were homeschooled, so our family spent the entire day together; we were very close. And the Thursday night gathering was intimate, beautiful, something we looked forward to every week. We sang songs from the hymnal, trying to approximate the four-part harmony in each one. We prayed together — it was a close, intimate moment with God. And we talked about each sketch, with pride in our most perceptive insights,  pointed excitedly at the pictures, and were completely and thoroughly engrossed in each one. And, to be sure, they were beautiful principles — loyalty, responsibility, and courage (the focus of each respective volume of the curriculum) are still deeply embedded features in my character to this day. I’ve tried to explain to my parents, who think sometimes that they failed because I became an atheist, that the characteristics of loyalty, responsibility, and courage are what drove me to humanism; that my atheism is evidence that they taught me those principles well. They don’t believe me, but it’s something I am sure of.

The most beautiful parts of those Thursday nights were when my father let me read a sketch. I respected my father and the principles in the book enormously, so when, one day when I was 12, he let me read one of the Character Sketches myself, I couldn’t stop smiling. It felt like an amazing privilege, and to this day, regardless of what I think about Christianity, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that this family moment is beautiful in my mind.

After this, we would all stand up, and my father would smile a playful grin. We would march by each of our bedrooms in our house, saying “To the room, to the room, to-the-room, to-the-room, to-the-room” in a joking, laughing, mock military cadence. And we would go in, read for a few minutes or so, and go asleep, feeling deeply loved and part of each other.

One thing.

Character Sketches is the curriculum for the Institute for Basic Life Principles, and the Institute for Basic Life Princheaded upwas, until very recently, headed by Bill Gothard, who violated every single principle in that book.

I don’t talk about this often, because I don’t know what my audience for it would be, exactly. Atheists probably wouldn’t understand this connection, for the most part. And Christians would probably call me childishly bitter. These may be legitimate criticisms. But if you don’t mind…could you look past all that? Just for a moment? I’m going to be honest here.

Bill Gothard’s week-long Institute for Basic Life Principles Institute seminars have been attended by over 2.5 million people. Among them are the Duggar family (whose close affiliation with Gothard led them to cover up their son, Josh Duggar’s, sexual abuse of his younger sisters) and Sarah Palin, who once said that her city of Wasilla (which she was mayor of at the time) met Gothard’s standards for a “City of Character.”  He also seems to have had several strong connections to presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.  His organization has had an estimated worth of $80 million dollars.

And I think I hate him.

And that’s saying a lot, because I try to respect people. The list of people I hate is short. I don’t even hate Hitler, as much as I’m disturbed by what he did. Yeah, it’s that bad. I can’t stand Gothard.

Bill Gothard had these seminars that were a week long — we went to both the Basic and Advanced seminar; each were about 25 hours long.  We went with close friends of ours — people we took classic piano lessons with from a young woman in the movement who lived with her parents (waiting for a mate) about a half mile down the street. When we got together we often played piano, had arm-wrestling matches or push-up contests, went to Bible Bowls, laughed, joked, and discussed homeschooling. Part of the reason we did this so much is that Gothard said that television was evil. For about two years, I believe — from when I was about 8 to 10 — we put the TV in the attic. Instead of TV, we read, played games, played piano, hung out with our friends — that type of thing. Yes, that’s part of the reason I don’t know a lot of shows growing up. When the TV did come down — until I was about fifteen we had very strict rules on what we could and couldn’t watch.

So yeah. Bill Gothard said TV was bad, and our family put the TV in the attic. He criticized rock music, and our family focused on gospel and acapella (till I was about sixteen). He also said that even much of Christian music was too “breathy” and sensual, so we stopped listening to artists like Amy Grant. He criticized dating, and my parents said that all the children would have arranged marriages (again, until about sixteen). He said women should wear dresses, and my six sisters all wore dresses. He said husbands should open car doors for their wives, and if my father forgot to open the car door to let my mother out my mother would just sit there until he did. He said that memorizing Romans 6 was the magic cure for lust, and to this day, even though I’ve been an atheist for three years who hardly reads the Bible and am done “struggling” with lust, I can quote half of Romans 6 to you, verbatim (along with around 200 or so other Bible verses). He said parents should not have birth control, and my parents had four children 18 months apart (stopping only when having another would potentially kill my mother).

And, most memorable of all, there was Gothard’s advice on discipline. My own experience closely mirrors that of someone else, an anonymous man (not me) who related what happened to his parents — although, thankfully, my own parents did not engage in anything close to the sexual abuse he describes, or break any bones.  As the person describes it:

The stipulation was that we had to hold still and submissively accept the beating, and we had to stop crying and be silent and not make a sound. This was a specific part of Gothard’s beating protocol, found in one of his pamphlets: the silent, limp submission to a beating was his metric for a “repentant spirit.”

My experience exactly. If we cried, we were told, thanks to Gothard, to not make so much noise, to quiet down, to just buck up and take it. And we often would keep getting spanked until we did. Fortunately, frequent spankings would develop calluses. It was a bit annoying when it bled through and kinda stuck to your underclothing, but after a couple days it hardened up and the beatings weren’t bad. Sometimes, I think, my parents may have realized this; dad would spank on the calves, instead, then.  That gave you big welts so that you didn’t want to wear shorts, and it kinda hurt for a couple days afterwards when you wore jeans (or, I assume, stockings) because it would rub up against the swollen spot.

And the spankings, due to Gothard’s strong standards for submission, came often. My experience echoes this one — like him, I can’t remember what I got spanked for every time, but I can remember several instances — for awhile it was rare that I didn’t get spanked every day:

It’s hard to dredge up specific examples of behaviors that resulted in beatings (I’m going to use the term “beating” rather than “spanking,” because that’s what they were), because frankly my recollection of the events leading up to the beatings are hazy. However, punishable offenses included: Not getting a chore done on time, or to the required degree of perfection (chores included dusting, vacuuming, taking out the trash). Arguing or fighting with my siblings (to clarify, I have an older sister and younger brother), and I mean trivial things like arguing over which record we were going to listen to or who got to play with which stuffed animal. Arriving home late from a friend’s house, arriving home late after school, not getting out of bed promptly in the morning, complaining about going to church. The list is endless.

…[Eventually] punishments extended to include: making a salad incorrectly, accidentally dropping a dish or a milk bottle, getting the bathroom floor wet during a bath, not setting the table for dinner quickly enough, forgetting to put clothes in the laundry basket, putting a book back on the bookshelf in the wrong place. In other words, any trivial perceived imperfection became grounds for beatings.

One of the worst beatings of my life was administered by my mother around nine years old when we were making chocolate chip cookies. I was given the task of running the hand-held mixer, which I was happy to do because then I might get one of the detachable beaters with cookie batter on it after. I was standing on a stool, and I turned to ask my mother a question. Being an absent-minded kid, when I turned I unconsciously lifted the mixer out of the batter and cookie dough flew all over the wall. My mom went livid and slapped me full in the face, knocking me sprawling off the stool. She then dragged me bawling upstairs and beat me with the 3/4″ dowel rod for almost 30 minutes.

And although we were expected to be silent for the entirety of the beatings, the same was not true of our parents. The ultimate authority Gothard encouraged similarly impacted this individual’s family — as did frustration from parents trying to follow Gothard’s guidelines:

[While spanking me] they would yell and scream and bellow. They would tell us what bad, awful, evil, horrible, sinful children we were. In the beginning, there was no pretext of spiritual context; later on as I got older and the beatings continued, my father began making attempts to pray with us after a beating, as if it was a spiritual exercise. For the most part, however, the beatings took place in an atmosphere of apoplectic, psychotic rage, especially when my mother was administering them. It was terrifying. To this day [he is 44] I have nightmares about it.

All of that. I was screamingly told I was sinful, bad, evil, selfish over and over, as I got beat. And then I was prayed with, occasionally. And we’d go relax and things would be good again. You got used to it after awhile. You also began to believe everything that was said about you, and went back and forth between believing you were evil and you were basically a good person.  And the hardest part is the environment was there all the time. I was homeschooled; there was no “break” in which I could go to school. 24/7, from six to sixteen, this was a major part of life.  The worst part of it was sitting outside the door and listening to my youngest sisters experience this (thankfully, most of it stopped by the time they reached their teens, and for some even earlier).

My parents never broke any bones, and I know they genuinely care about me.  We had a lot of genuinely happy moments and made many beautiful memories. They’re sorry for what happened.  I’m not terribly angry at them, though. I’m angry at the program they were following that told them the lies driving them to the abuse — abuse they thought was love. No, Gothard never told my parents (or other parents) to do this…directly.  He couldn’t. But the control he preached, the stern sense of order, the statement kids should not whimper when spanked…these cues were part of an intense pattern of control woven by Gothard.

So, it was hard, but we followed it wholeheartedly. We told other couples in our church about the program, and they came and followed much of it wholeheartedly, too. We’d have Friday night get-togethers at our house in which my parents would teach singles in their twenties what they had learned from Bill Gothard.

To this day, I have many friends who grew up in the movement. It’s a profoundly unique experience. Other people think they know what it’s like from the outside, but they have no idea. There was, I remember, a deep, profound feeling of close familial connection there. Yes, what Gothard was teaching was hard sometimes. But there was trust that it was right, and that it would make your family beautiful.

Fast forward fourteen years past sixteen (sixteen was when my parents began to significantly waver from Gothard’s teachings — it was more of a gradual loosening of the rules than a distinct decision), to when I’m 30 years old. It’s 2014, and although I’ve left Christianity, I still am attached to my parents, I care about the experiences of my childhood (because they deeply affected me), and I’m already disturbed that my parents have been following a lie. Maybe my childhood screwed up views on things that I’m having to adjust — and likely will continue to adjust for much of my life — but at least the teachers were sincere. They were trying to help us.

It’s March 9, 2014. An article has been written a couple days earlier, on March 7th. And the headlines broke me:

There are a lot of terrible commandments to choose from.

There’s the one to cut off a woman’s hand if she touches a man’s genitalia during a fight; the commands to kill men, women, and children; the command to stone disobedient children; the command for wives to submit to their husbands “in everything”…and so on. But there’s one that takes the cake, and it came straight from Jesus’s mouth. In fact, perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this commandment is that it was presented by Jesus as the greatest commandment. In other words, if a Christian is looking through the Bible for the commandment they were to most pay attention to…this is it. This is the one.

When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Now, liberal Christians will come in here and say that what Jesus meant was the nice, kind God. You know — the God who didn’t command men who had sex with men to be stoned to death, or command the wiping out of entire tribes — men, women, and children. But that doesn’t really seem to hold water here, for one simple reason: Jesus is quoting the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 6:5. In context, it says:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

There is no mistaking this. This is the same God. The commandments that God gave them then, in the Old Testament, were to be followed. And in case you may still be insisting this isn’t the blood-hungry God of the Old Testament, the very next verses are about the most disturbing parts of the Israelite conquest:

When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

In case you need me to spell out the obvious — he’s talking about taking over things that belonged to other people. Plundering them. Why are they able to take the “good things” and the “vineyards and olive groves” that they didn’t plant?

Because the Lord their God, whom they loved, brought them into an occupied land and told them to slaughter all the people there. And they did it because they loved this God with all their heart, soul, and strength.

And then a threat, if they don’t do as they’re told.

Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the Lordyour God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. 

Why? Because this is what those who don’t fear this God you need to love deserve. And then, what do they get as their reward? Lots of killing:

Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors, thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said.

Now, that’s just the nuts and bolts. This total, complete dedication to God undergirded the entirety of the Old Testament. It was the reason people were to be obsessed with following the horrific law of the Old Testament. It was lauded and praised and led to unspeakable destruction. The other commands are bad, as well — but this one hijacked every part of your being — your emotions, the core of your identity, and the entirety of your intellect is to be devoted to the Old Testament God. And, as Richard Dawkins put it:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

I think this is clear when it comes to the God of the Old Testament because, um…I’ve read about Him. But I realize there may be doubters, so here are thorough references for each charge.  I think the evidence is clear.

Why did the Isrealites commit such disturbing crimes in the Old Testament?

Because they loved its God.

And Jesus is saying the GREATEST commandment of all is to love this God. This God did not have them love their neighbors. No. This God had them slaughter their neighbors and anyone who didn’t sign up for his misogynistic, homophobic, homicidal, racist agenda.

Loving this God is the absolute worst thing anyone could do. Let alone sacrificing the entirety of your intellect, your emotions, your very sense of identity to such a being, making you an essential zombie to its fictional whims.

It’s a horrifying commandment.

And the worst thing about it is that, because Jesus said it, it is repeated in church. Constantly.

If you wonder why fundamentalist Christians can be so upsetting so much of the time, this is why. They are commanded to love a God who is far worse than they ever were, as most of them refrain from genocidal rampages.

And not only love this being, but be completely and wholly invested in this being. What this means is that if a conflict in their mind, in their heart, in their sense of identity or instinct even hints that maybe loving this nightmare of a fictional being is a bad idea…they have to disown that part of themselves. They are commanded to be God zombies, and to twist themselves in knots in order to fulfill the definition.

Worst. Verse. Ever. No contest. Nothing else even comes close.

And this total investment in God makes the second commandment a nightmare, as well:

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

A nice, beautiful verse, at first. Except when you ask the question: “How is the Christian expected to love themselves?”

They aren’t really, because they are supposed to love God with all that is in them. The entirety of their being. They’re completely and totally invested. I mean, how do you love someone? With your emotions? Well, ALL your heart is invested in God if you follow the greatest commandment. You have to love them through God — which means that God’s love is the one you’re showing them.

The same God who is the nightmare we were just talking about. That God’s “love.”

Yeah.

And lest there be any mistake, Jesus says of the second commandment, “And the second is like it” — meaning that the love of the neighbor is like the love one has for God. As it would be — if all you are is invested in God, then all your love is done through God. Otherwise — how could the commandments be similar? There is, I submit, nothing loving about committing genocidal acts, or stoning people to death for non-offenses.

Add to this that this “Love your neighbor as yourself” business is also from the horrendous Old Testament law — Leviticus 19:18 — right before a chapter on sexual sin that includes the infamous Leviticus 20:13: “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” 

Obviously, this definition of “love” has been seriously fucked up by its connection to the first commandment.

Now. It is true that The Great Samaritan story is based on the “neighbor” portion of this verse, in Luke 10:25-37.  And yes, the “Love your neighbor” part does get people to do decent things.

But the disturbing aspect of these good-intentioned acts is that they are too often through the eyes of God.  And that is how Jesus can say that “Love your neighbor as yourself” is a commandment that “all the law” — in its horrendous detail — can “hang on.” Love for other human beings — the most beautiful thing we have in this world — is effectively hijacked by this commandment, as it commands you to love through a horrendous God.

To use a concrete example..I remember that when I was a fundamentalist Christian, I wanted to do certain things — like celebrate the identities of lgbtq people, or cheer when women took a more active role than Paul prescribed, or stop worrying about people being sinners, or reject, wholesale, the God of the Old Testament. But I couldn’t. God was in the way. I could love them…but up to an extent, because I loved God more.

First I had to love God, then I had to love people. My love for God boxed my love for people in — or, rather, boxed in the ways I could care about people and see them as they were instead of who a nonexistent God said they were. And I don’t think this is just me, or just fundamentalist Christians. When you have the God of the Bible who you have to love as a first priority…that takes or cordons off ways that you could be loving other people who don’t fit in His guidelines.

Eventually, I simplified things. And now I have a new “command” I follow — although it’s not so much a command as a personal choice that I and many others have committed to. It’s worked out better, so far, although sometimes it’s harder than others.

Here it is:

Love people.

Just love people.

Here’s to hoping it catches on.

Thanks for reading.

It was a dark and stormy night, after work — I had just finished my shift at a writing center, and he had finished his at an oil company. We were sitting back, relaxing, discussing politics as we often do, and eventually we came around to religion.

My roommate runs ten miles a day (we’ve been on a couple runs before), is 24 years old, makes six figures, is saving up to buy a farm (which is why he lives in the same cheap-rent place I’m in), rides horses through downtown Fort Worth (open invite for me to join him sometime), is very well read, doesn’t really ever use his car…and is a liberal Catholic.

We’ve talked about all those other features of his life (and corresponding ones in my own) at length. But all conversations that last longer than an hour eventually come around to religion, and we have both complimented each other on how we extend each other’s thinking in this area, in spite of very strong disagreements. Sometimes we end on decent terms, sometimes we end conversations in frustration, and sometimes it ends in laughter. But we’ve talked quite a bit, and one of the things I talk about is blogging about atheism — he’s an occasional sounding board for ideas I have for blogs I write (like this one).

So, anyways, it’s another late night, and it’s raining like crazy. There’s no TV in the background, because the storm has knocked the satellite signal out. And we’re hanging out in the living room, talking about my atheistic outlook and his religious one, and eventually he asks, “So, why do you blog? Because you said you blogged a lot before you got paid a cent doing it. Is your goal to make everyone an atheist?”

Well…there’s a lot to it, I told him. I don’t want to give a one-word answer, because that would be a bit inaccurate. But, to try to answer head on…I said that the best any of us can do is work to create the best world we can, based on what we know. So, based on what I know now, I think it is generally better for people to become atheist than to remain Christian. Just my view.

But I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong a great many times before about a lot of things, so chances are high that there are things I’m wrong about now. I don’t know what they are, though, but I’d like to know, and I’d like to leave the door open for people to convince me to be right on whatever goals are misplaced or whatever views I have that are inaccurate.

Incidentally, this was also my attitude when I was a Christian, I continued. I spent countless all-nighters on hundreds of message boards for several years, trying to convert atheists and agnostics because I wanted as few to go to hell as possible. But as the conversations progressed, I began to grow interested in their arguments. I began to evaluate, more and more, whether their arguments made actual sense, and I found, increasingly, that they did. And when that happened, I had to do an about-face and change the entirety of my opinion. And that change prompted many other changes in my thinking. Every day, I still am finding out ways that the way I thought yesterday was wrong in some way or another.

But I would have never found that out if I hadn’t tried to contribute the best picture I had of the world to other people and embraced the discussion and arguments that came as a result — if I had never engaged in that discourse with the sincere desire to get to the truth as much as I possibly could.

So who knows? I’ve been wrong about many things before; I might be wrong about my thinking that getting rid of God is necessary to promote a humanism that would ultimately make the world a better place for people. But I don’t see strong evidence that I am wrong on that point, so I tend to argue (sometimes fairly strongly when I think I have a strong point) that getting rid of God will make the world a better place, while at the same time inviting disagreement and dialogue.

And I think that’s the best I can do — or anyone for that matter.  The best we can do, I argued, is to try and make the world a better place based on what we think will make the world a better place, while being open to the possibility that we are wrong. So it’s not like I’m trying to ram atheism down people’s throats, as much as I am straightforwardly trying to argue — based on arguments that have convinced me — that atheism is a primary step to a healthy humanism. I’d like to present what I’ve learned that has led to this conclusion, you can present what you’ve learned, and we can compare notes. And if I’m convinced I will change, hopefully, to an opinion that’s less wrong and forward it. The understanding is that you will do the same, because the end goal is not to “win” regardless of the facts, but to follow the truth, wherever it leads.

So yes (I continued), I do write, in part, to convince people to become atheists, but it’s not that simple. Being straightforward, yet thoughtful, about my opinions is what convinced me to leave Christianity, and it continues to shape my stance on God’s existence today. So I’m not trying to force you to have my opinion, so much as I’m trying to explain my stance in an understandable way and allow you to explain yours, as well. And I’ve been wrong many times before, so this is not about our egos. This is about trying to follow whichever path is right.

And then I added to this something else — a deeply personal (and communal) reason I blog. There was a time I wondered if my blogging was selfish — did I blog in order to convince myself that I wasn’t alone in my thinking, or to convince other people that they weren’t alone in their thinking? Was blogging centered on myself, or on helping other people?

After thinking about it, I think that both reasons are both same thing. A lot of what I write about are things that deeply bother me, personally.  So I write about them and, ever since I started doing this, I have been regularly surprised at how they tend to bother other people, as well.

So I write to tell other people that they’re not alone, that what they think is, so far as I know, on target, and they echo that message back to me, oftentimes. There are criticisms, too, and those are helpful…but then there are also the people who take what I write and share it to their friends or close family members because I finally have come up with a way to express the exact way they are feeling to a third party. That’s a real difference I’m making, on a person-to-person level, that wouldn’t happen if I didn’t spend this time writing. So that really motivates me as well.

So, I told him, that’s why I hesitate to simply say I write to make people become atheists. In addition to my intention to engage in a discourse focused on following what is true and in the best interests of humanity, I also blog to connect to a community, and to allow for mutual encouragement in that community…while at the same time trying to be open to ways I can revise my thinking, with a constant view towards being less wrong, so that we can further work to make the world a better place.

That’s what I told my liberal Christian roommate. It was about a 15 minute monologue to a short question, but I finally got to the end of it. After a pause, I asked him whether I got my point across.

He leaned back in the sofa chair, thought a bit, gave me wry smile, and said, “Hmm…that sounds good, Pete. Makes sense.”

And we sat there for a few moments, enjoying the storm, before we started talking about God again.  But I thought that was a good conversation, so I thought I’d share it with you, in case you’re wondering, too, why at least one blogger spends so much time on the Internet writing about atheism.

Thanks for reading.

It really bothers me when people say that the doctrine of “you send yourself to hell” makes any sense, as if actions that go against a moral code have automatic consequences.

I mean, in the real, everyday world, actions don’t have automatic consequences.  People don’t automatically get punished for stealing, killing, and lying. Sometimes people steal, kill, lie…and that’s it. That’s all that happens. There’s no automatic natural horrific consequences for it. Which is precisely why WE have to intervene to make the consequences for various reasons — to deter behavior, to satisfy a need for revenge, to reform the offender.

Again, in the real world, the discipline we engage in to punish crimes are our doing, not the natural product of some “just so” natural reaction of what they did that we have nothing to do with.  We can’t just do cruel things like electrocute someone nearly to death and say, “well, that was the natural consequence of them stealing my pencil.” No. You’re responsible for the punishment you choose to fit the crime. They didn’t do it themselves; you chose to electrocute them. How the hell does God get off the hook?

I mean…breaking it down a bit more…suppose someone steals five sticks of gum from a vending machine. Under the Christian concept of sin, they’ve sinned.  The natural consequence for sin — any sin — is eternity in hell, right (which, regardless of what the Ray Comforts of the world say, is outrageous)?  And you’re saying they are doing it to themselves? So what is, say, six months in jail and a $250 fine? It’s still less than they actually deserved. And besides, it’s not your fault you sentenced them to six months in jail. They brought it on themselves. It’s a good thing you stepped in and gave them less than they deserved.

You see? There’s really no punishment that would be too extreme, because the punisher never comes under any scrutiny; they just get admired for the fact that they didn’t do worse. Even life imprisonment for the slightest offenses would be mercy. It would have to be. When you do something wrong in the Christian scheme of things, you automatically deserve the worst possible punishment (times infinity, as hell would be forever) onto yourself according to the “you send yourself to hell” mindset. So the punisher is always able to say that the natural consequence you brought on yourself for the bad thing is far worse than anything they could ever do, and then they can call the gap between that unimaginable torture and what they actually decide to do, “grace.”

And through it all, the punisher is never responsible for the punishing they do — they are only glorified because of how much they stop short of doing infinitely worse. The punishment isn’t their fault, only the “grace.”  The punished are the ones bringing the punishment on themselves.

This thinking can lead to worse and worse punishments for even the smallest infraction. And the greater the punishment, the more the wrongdoer feels guilty…because they did it to themselves.

As a result, there’s  a high incarceration rates in the United States, child abuse based on verses saying to “punish the child with the rod and save his soul from death,” horrific punishments for infidels and heretics (past and present), persecution of the lgbtq company in many countries, and dangerous attitudes towards “evil” foreign powers. If you think someone deserves eternity in torment for something they have done, you can do anything to them and think it’s grace because you’re giving them less than the even worse fate they actually deserve.  And you never have to think about whether the punishment actually makes sense, because you’re not responsible enough for the punishment to answer for it; the person brought it on themselves.

Here’s the logic that needs to happen to break it up in this imaginary theology: People don’t send themselves to hell. God sends people to hell because he doesn’t like some of the things they do.

You don’t like it? Yeah, I didn’t either. That’s one of a zillion reasons I think the whole thing is a load of bull.

Now, the punisher (be it God or another human being) is responsible for the punishment. Which actually makes a lot more sense.  The punishment doesn’t just “happen” on its own — it is a subjectively conceived consequence.

In other words, now the punished person does not automatically deserve any “natural moral consequences,” and we can think about why the punisher is punishing and whether we approve of that reason. We can demand to know what the punisher (be it God or a human being) hopes to accomplish by punishing someone. Do they want revenge? Do they want to reform the person? Do they want the person to become a contributing member of society? See — now instead of blindly handing out what’s “naturally” deserved, we can start thinking about why we’re actually doing the punishing in the first place.

When we open up a space to ask these questions, we are able to demand to know (or otherwise investigate) what others hope to accomplish with a punishment, and then gauge their answers. So when someone sentences a person for life in prison for marijuana possession, for example, they now have to answer to onlookers; “they put themselves in prison” isn’t good enough — no, the punisher decided to put them in prison, so his judgment is under scrutiny, too.

Evaluating sentencing based on what it’s supposedly trying to accomplish can uncover unsavory motives, like funding for-profit prisons, that would otherwise be camouflaged or invisible altogether due to, “they did this to themselves” logic. We can analyze the people who have an interest in having someone behind bars, you can see if putting someone behind bars accomplishes worthwhile goals (yes, in some cases it may be worthwhile for the family to have a sense of vengeance in the case of murder, for example), and you can make punishment actually…well, make logical, rational sense.

Again, please notice:  what I’m talking about here is the fundamental, exact opposite of “you send yourself to hell” thinking. Here, the punisher — be it God or another human being — is seen as having a rationale for the punishment they give to an offender, and we onlookers can have a vested interest in looking for and evaluating that rationale instead of stopping at “the offender did it to themselves” thinking.

And you may find that the more you look for justification from punishers (both in the theological world and…the real one), the more you begin to see that “God”…really…doesn’t…have a good one.

I mean, what is the justification for sending someone to hell for eternity? There’s no opportunity there for reform. As far as revenge — Is God really that revengeful? If so, do you really want to serve such a vengeful God? And if it’s for the safety of his own holiness and perfection…how well does it sit with you that he so “perfect” that he can’t stand to have these people in His presence? What is so unbearable about these people for him? Do you really want to follow a God who is so stuck up?  And as these questions start swirling in your mind, God may often make less and less sense (and the American legal system too, for that matter).

The thing about this is that as God makes less sense, people start coming to life. They develop more complexity and depth, because they don’t just naturally deserve eternity in hell. I mean, there’s something really positive and beautiful that happens here when we look for the justification in a punisher’s actions. And then, if we don’t like that justification or the justification is based on a cause-effect principle that simply does not work, we can actually create more effective punishments (relative to our goals) and thereby improve our sense of justice, based on reason and evidence and empathy (for both offender and victim) instead of “just so” thinking.

If we go based off, “You brought it on yourself” thinking there is really nowhere to go in improving things — because you can’t improve a punishment that you are not responsible for; it simply is there, as a natural consequence.  To improve punishment, you would have break down what improvement would look like by introducing goals for justice reform that focus on what a punishment is meant to do or accomplish — which means you and your intentions would be an admitted part of the punishment.  You can’t do this if ignore the fact you’re punishing an offender and instead claim that you’re giving grace for anything short of sentencing the offender to the “natural consequence” of eternity in hellfire.

To put it another way: if it is possible to improve — if it is possible to use the justice system to accomplish goals we hold in common as a society — then the just-so “you brought it on yourself” thinking, by insulating the punisher from criticism, actually makes it much harder to accomplish these goals.  In order to accomplish our goals as a society we need to take responsibility for those goals and for the punishments and steps we implement in order to approach the goals, and we can’t do it if we hide those in charge of punishing offenders from criticism and say that punishments are solely the offender’s fault.

I realize this stance may be controversial from several sides of the debate. But my sincere interest here is to ensure, as much as possible, that as many people as possible get to live fulfilled lives. What I see is that millions of people live behind bars (especially here in the US, which has the highest incarceration rate in the world) in a wasteful system due to punishments for crimes (like the aforementioned life sentence for marijuana possession) that drain society of resources (as the average inmate costs $30,000 a year) and ruin the only lives that individuals have gotten. When I ask people to justify this wasteful system, the rationales seem directly connected to what the prisoners actually “deserve” — a clear consequence of “they brought it on themselves” thinking — instead of what is actually rational and what meets our goals as a society. Those latter questions seem completely obscured, and that is the direct result of the “you send yourself to torment” reasoning.

Meanwhile, the for-profit prisons, as well as homophobia, racism, and other factors influence our decisionmaking regarding crime. We might see this — and we do see this — when we are focusing on how to accomplish certain goals. For example — if your goal is for everyone to go the speed limit on a highway, you have a vested interest in making sure you pull over people who speed.  Racism can get in the way of this — pull over people according to race instead of driving habits, and you have more people speeding faster. So the goal — ending speeding — can give people a vested interest in making sure racism isn’t getting in the way. But if the focus is on what speeders deserve, or if you think that speeders “bring tickets on themselves,” the person handing out tickets doesn’t have to answer near as much for the “punishment” of the ticket, which allows him to be racist in ways that may actually make speeding worse and then say that the driver “brought it on themselves.”

This reasoning, I think, starts with God. When people say “people send themselves to hell” they initiate a way of thinking that impacts their view of justice in general by hiding the punisher from criticism.  No, God is the one who, in this fictional theology, is sending people to hell, and this fictional being needs to be scrutinized, just as the authorities in our everyday lives do. We need to focus on the goals that a punishment is seeking to accomplish, and then ask ourselves whether those goals are worthwhile, and whether the punishment is accomplishing them. If the answer to either of those questions is “no,” there’s a problem with the punishment (and perhaps the punisher — like its nonexistence) that needs to be remedied.

Hopefully that makes sense.

Thanks for reading.

[Image via PSParrot under CCL 2.0]

I don’t get it. I don’t understand it.

How can Christians smile in my face, say they care about me, and then enthusiastically worship a God who, they think, may rightfully sentence me to eternal torment?

I can’t make that make sense in my mind and still think that they are loving people.

I’ve tried, because some of the people closest to me believe this. But I can’t figure it out. And every time I feel I’ve come close, I get shivers down my spine because I’m afraid of what I see.

Because what I see is that they are selfish enough, many of them (depending on theology — proof this belief exists is here, here, and here — rebuttal of the layman’s “you send yourself to hell” argument is here), to think that I deserve to burn in hell for all eternity due to the judgement of God…while joyfully worshiping this God  because they’re going to heaven due to being “saved.”

In many cases, although it bothers me, I can handle it.

But when it’s the people who have been the very closest to me…I get frustrated.

Because here’s the thing — I left Christianity partly because I cared too much about strangers spending eternity in hell. Strangers — as I didn’t know many atheists when I left. And the way I think now, even if God DID exist and WAS condemning people to hell…I tend to think that I would STILL care too much about people to bend the knee.

So as more time goes on, I become more puzzled.  I don’t understand these Christians. I don’t get how they can smile in my face and then walk right out and worship a God who says I deserve eternal torment. It’s always in the back of my mind when I’m talking to them, even when we smile and say we love each other…this person thinks I may be going to hell forever because of God’s judgment…and they worship this God anyway.

I’ve tried to get over it. I’ve gone over and over and over it in my head. But it still hurts to spend time with people you love, people who you want to be accepted by, who think you’re going to hell. It really does. More than this post could ever really say.

I don’t think I’ll ever be OK with it.

I wish this had a short, sweet, happy ending, or I that could draw it out into a resolution, but that’s really it. It hurts, I’m not OK with it, and I don’t think I ever will be.  That’s basically it. Life keeps going. So…yeah.

Thanks for reading.