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“If there is no God, why spend your whole career refuting that? Why not stay home?”

The question was, famously, put to Christopher Hitchens at a debate with Frank Turek. It keys into a major perception of anti-theists — that all we do is argue against religion out of some ego-driven craze to merely rub in people’s faces that they’re wrong. This stereotype is particularly disturbing because it implies that we are against religion just for the sake of being against religion — there is nothing in the wider world we care about. It puts us in terms of being against religion without thinking that, possibly, we could be for something.

The reality is that we are anti-theists because we are pro-other things. But, for better or worse, it is easy for others to define us based on what THEY are in favor of. So, for example, if you are pro-truth and others are pro-lie, every time you speak up for the truth the pro-lie people will see you as speaking against lie. This makes you against them, in their minds, so that your “anti-lie” identity becomes more apparent than your “pro-truth” identity. Now, if you’re not all that pro-truth, you might say, “OK, lies are not so bad” and be seen less negatively. But if you are strongly pro-truth, you may be forced, in a place that loves lies, to speak against lies much more often. The real answer, then, to anyone who asks you, “Why do you spend your whole career fighting lies?” is not primarily, “For the sheer joy of it,” but more, “because I am pro-truth.”

And because you’re primarily pro-truth — it’s not like you’re fighting lies all the time. Perhaps much of the time, you’re just living your life, a life that happens to embrace the truth. Sometimes lies might bump against that, prompting you to respond. That doesn’t mean that fighting lies (or religion — which is pretty much the same thing) is all you ever do.

That’s more-or-less how Hitchens responded — first by pointing out that defending atheism didn’t make up his whole career, and then by describing what he was for in stating his motivation to fight against religion:

It’s not my whole career for one thing. It’s become a major preoccupation of my life, though, in the last eight or nine years, especially since 9/11, to try and help generate an opposition to theocracy and its depredations internationally; that is now, probably, my main political preoccupation — to help people in Afghanistan, in Somalia, in Iraq, in Lebanon in Israel resist those who sincerely want to encompass the destruction of civilization and sincerely believe they have God on their side in wanting to do so. I think maybe I will take a few moments to say something I find repulsive about especially Monotheistic, Messianic religion, with a large part of itself it quite clearly wants us all to die, it wants this world to come to an end you can tell the yearning for things to be over, whenever you read any of its real texts, or listen to any of its real authentic spokesman, not the pathetic apologists who sometimes masquerade for it. [He then discusses several examples from Christianity, Islam, and Judaism]

So when I say as a subtitle of my book that “Religion poisons everything”, I’m not just doing what publishers like and coming up with a provocative subtitle. I mean to say it infects us in our most basic integrity: it says we can’t be moral without Big Brother, without a totalitarian permission, it means we can’t be good to one other, it means we can’t think without this, we must be afraid, we must also be forced to love someone who we fear – the essence of sadomasochism, the essence of abjection, the essence of the master-slave relationship – and that knows that death is coming and can’t wait to bring it on. I say that this is evil. And though I do some nights stay home, I enjoy more the nights when I go out and fight against this ultimate wickedness and ultimate stupidity.[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqK4TM97ZCE[/youtube]

There are reasons, then. It’s not like he’s against religion just to ruffle feathers. He’s against it because he has concrete values, and religion actively attacks those values. But because the values are a positive aspect of his life that he embraces, he’s not always fighting against religion — his fight against religion is incidental to the values he personally holds.

I’m making this clarification because I have heard, way too often, that anti-theists are obsessed with religion. No, that’s not the problem at all — the problem, all too often, is that religion is obsessed with insulting atheism, in various ways. And it strives to restrict the arena for us atheists to fight back for our values if they don’t conform to the dictates of the religion.

There are many atheists who are content to accept the arena the religious give them, debating religion only according to the rules of a religion.

I am not one of them. And it’s not about selfishness — it’s because I know that this arena is there to insulate religion from criticism.  I want the arena for criticism to be widened, because I think religion (albeit some forms more than others) needs to be challenged much more than it is willing, oftentimes, to be challenged.

But of course that doesn’t mean that I’m always talking about religion every time I’m around religious people. I said as much in a recent blog post:

And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have close relationships with religious people. Most atheists have religious friends, family members, business partners, and acquaintances. Some of the people who hate religion the most even have very religious spouses. And these people often talk about religion in ways that seek understanding and respect the person without accepting compromise and respecting the religion itself.

I certainly don’t discuss religion all the time in talking to religious people — there’s more to people than that. Often, I talk about work, how their family is doing, funny stories, life goals, movies and tv shows, and the like. When I’m around the people close to me, and for many religious acquaintances, talking about religion doesn’t take up a lot of my time — although I do usually discuss religion when it comes up, and, in Hitchens’ words, doing so in public forums is a major preoccupation of mine.

There are a lot of reasons why I have this preoccupation, but they boil down to the fact that I don’t think faith is a healthy variable to use when making decisions. If you do things based on faith, as opposed to reason and evidence, you’re likely to have beliefs that there is no way of proving false, no matter how outlandish and harmful they are. Yeah, I know that some religious people think that’s a naive view of faith but, in spite of their protestations, their definitions of “faith” consistently seem to inevitably include a bit of a leap into a realm in which you’re just supposed to believe some things about the world and other people, regardless of evidence to the contrary. I’m not in favor of this tendency — I think that trying to find and stick to the truth as much as possible is crucial when attempting to solve the problems and construct the morality that will best serve the real lives of people today. And that’s what I want to do, primarily — solve the major problems and construct the morality that will best serve the lives of people as they are, rather than as we imagine them to be. At least, as much as possible. Doing otherwise can produce negative consequences when our imaginations hit upon the way the world actually works.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imY-vSn0b18[/youtube]

They say there are 27. There are actually 28 (the last one was a kinda-sorta joke). They’re ridiculous, and probably hardly worth responding to, but I’m gonna set it all straight, anyway.

*clears throat*

Here we go…

• Why is it so hard to be on time? Like, why does five to ten always become twenty to thirty?
  • Wat? Um…that’s a stereotype, partially due to the negative actions of one being generalized to the whole race. So when a white person was late to work, it was overlooked; when a black person was late, people were like, “Ahahahah — black people are always late. So typical.” That’s a side-effect of racism — anything remotely negative one person does automatically reflects on the whole race.
  • If you are constantly treated as a second-class citizen, and if you are dealing with greater challenges than everyone else you work and socialize with, then it is more likely that you’re going to be dealing with some bullshit (like getting pulled over for a DWB) and be late. Combine this with the fact that your lateness gets more noticed than a white person being late, and the stereotype gets exaggerated.
  • A lot of this reference doesn’t refer to work and events you have to be on time at. It refers to events that start around a certain time. Now, as a black person with a bunch of white friends here in the South, I’ve had countless times when white people have said an event starts at about six and I’ve showed up at 6:03 and been looked at strange by the host because they weren’t expecting anyone to really come until 6:30. I learned quickly, that I had to clarify whether 6:00 was 6:00 or 6:00-ish. And I adjusted. I could see why they did it — the host made it convenient for everyone. If you came in at 8pm, you could still join people — it was a come-and-go event. White people did this all the time, and no one said shit about it. But when black groups do it, it all gets recycled into the stereotype that black people are always late.
• If my dab is on fleek, am I lit?
  • The phrase “on fleek” only become popular in 2014 due to a popular Vine video, and the basic meaning of the phrase is that something is “on point” — just right, perfect. A point of pride. And the vine video was done by a black woman named Peaches Monroee, talking herself up and showing body positivity (albeit in an obviously joking manner). Now, if you know anything about black culture, you know that black women have gotten the worst of it when it comes to denigrating their looks. So when Peaches Monroee put up a video saying proudly that she looked good, being body positive, that shit took off like a motherfucker. And the fact that it’s a joke gives it a double meaning — like, you know people think you don’t look good, but you’re not going to give a shit and am going to act like someone who thinks they do look good. That’s what made the term so attractive (and funny) at first. And then the definition of whiteness (aka Ariana Grande) went and put it in a song, and it became even more well known. And I ain’t even mad. You’re gonna take a term that made us black people take pride in the face we look in the mirror after centuries of y’all telling us we’re literally ugly as sin and make fun of it?
  • “Lit” has a double meaning. It can me getting high and drunk, but it also means having a good time and feeding on positive energy. It’s more contextual. So I don’t know. Are you excited, having a good time? I can’t read your mind. You know if you’re lit or not.
  • On the other hand — if your dab is on fleek — then you’re a pretty decent dancer and should probably be “lit,” whether you are or not.
• Why is it a problem if I like anime?
  • It’s not. I mean, it was white people’s domain for awhile, but then Soulja Boy came out saying he liked anime, saying he was a fan, and that was followed by RZA of the Wu-Tang Caln. Samuel L. Jackson plays the voice of a black anime character in Afro Samarai. There’s is interest among black fans in finding black characters in anime, and strong correlations they see between Samarai culture and African- American culture. You can read it here — where several black anime fans are interviewed (none of them say they were disparaged for it by black friends). It doesn’t really seem to be a prominent thing, really, among black people (though it may be a surprise to white people). [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROheAdg3JTY[/youtube]
• Why do black people look at your shoes before they greet you?
  • I’m not as familiar with this one, but apparently there’s a common saying that shoes can determine the level of wealth. I thought this was something known universally, but I had no idea it was a prominent thing predominantly black people did constantly. Seeing as how I haven’t really experienced this, it seems like a ridiculous question to me.
• Why are we more likely to engage in the new dance trend than we are to be involved in politics or opening a business?
  • Wat? Seriously, wat? Wat? Are you…are you suggesting that black people are not involved in politics? Wat? Man…wow. Politics is what we DO. You’re seriously gonna say that in 2016, when Obama is president and Black Lives Matter is so influential? When black people have recently marched by the thousands and even RIOTED IN THE GODDAMN STREETS to fight against racism and force political change? Wat? I can’t…I’m a bit dumbfounded. When the black vote, despite enormous attempts at disenfranchisement, is the vote that everyone knows is going to make or break an election these days? When it was US who ended segregation, forcing reluctant heads of the nation to take action? And you DO know how hard we worked to end slavery, right? Like…where is this question coming from? I don’t even…wow. Just wow. How ignorant can someone be? I just can’t with this question. Whole new level of ignorant racism.
  • The stereotype is ridiculous. But besides that — since when did dancing and politics become mutually exclusive? I mean, have you tried dancing?![youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUcgH1lbNxI[/youtube]
• How did watermelon become our thing? Like, everybody should love watermelon?
  • Why are you saying, “Everyone should love watermelon?” like everyone doesn’t? I have met as many people who didn’t like watermelon as people who didn’t like Pizza. Zero.
  • Watermelon became “our thing” because everyone DID like it. Do your goddamn research. As The Atlantic notes, slave owners fed their slaves watermelon and expected them to like it:
    

    Slaves were usually careful to enjoy watermelon according to the code of behavior established by whites. When an Alabama overseer cut open watermelons for the slaves under his watch, he expected the children to run to get their slice. One boy, Henry Barnes, refused to run, and once he did get his piece he would run off to the slave quarters to eat out of the white people’s sight. His mother would then whip him, he remembered, “fo’ being so stubborn.” The whites wanted Barnes to play the part of the watermelon-craving, juice-dribbling pickaninny. His refusal undermined the tenuous relationship between master and slave.

  • After the days of slavery, black people — who obviously had very limited employment options due to severe racism — began selling watermelon, and did a damn good job at it. Southern whites, resentful that a symbol of their power over black people became something the black people had turned into a symbol of their own entrepreneurship, started to get jealous and resentful, so they turned black people and watermelon into a racist stereotype, making a symbol of black entrepreneurship into, as The Atlantic notes, a symbol of “uncleanliness, laziness, childishness, and unwanted public presence.”  Wow. Way to go, white people.
    And that’s where the stereotype came from.

.

• Why do you get upset when I don’t like a black celebrity? Race aside, some people are just terrible.
  • It’s hard for me to believe a black person asked this question. First, we often don’t. But this is complicated, because the reason why you think a black celebrity is “terrible” says a lot more than the yes-or-no question of whether or not you like them. For example, a lot of white people liked Beyonce, as long as she didn’t seem as proudly white — with blonde hair, and that whole “Illuminati” suspicion. But when she came in and embraced her cultural heritage in the song “Formation” with lines like “I’ve got hot sauce in my bag” — white people went apeshit. Rush Limbaugh said that the song was indicative of the “cultural decay and social rot that is overtaking our country.” Woah. A black person being proud of her heritage does all that? So…if you don’t like the style of the singer, that’s one thing. But if you start talking, as white people too often do, about how you don’t like them for racist reasons (like, you can’t stand Nikki Minaj’s immodesty but remain a die-hard fan of Brittney Spears) — don’t look at me weird if I start suspecting that racism is behind your double standards. So if we’re upset, take a step back and ask yourself, “Did I say some racist BS when I talked about why I didn’t like the celebrity, or was it honestly just about my personal preferences.” And if it’s racist BS and we call you out on it, don’t come cryin’ to us.
• Why do we call each other the n-word, but get vehemently upset when a white person uses the n-word? It drains my soul to hear that word, and I just don’t understand how people who have any understanding of history can use that word.
  • Wow. Wow. Wow. I…wow. Did a black person ask this question? Like…OK. I don’t hardly know where to start. This is, like, preschool stuff.
  • In a way, this is a weird double-speak. And I hear this. White people will complain about not being able to say the n-word one minute, and then argue that no one should say the n-word the next.
  • Considering history: white people said “nigger” for the longest time (like over 320 years before it really became remotely officially improper for them to use it in public). In case you didn’t know, it was a really bad, destructive term, and black people couldn’t escape it or the stereotypes it represented. So we embraced it to change it, calling ourselves “nigga’” which means something completely different — it’s a term that we can control and even use as a compliment. So we took the word and transformed it. The word has done untold damage to us that we’re trying to recover from when white people had it, so we don’t want to give it back to white people because they’ll mess it up again.  This change from “nigger” to “nigga” is a stroke of genius to linguists and to scholars of black history and culture — black people have managed to take a word that was used to control their image without their consent, change it, and use it to control the way they are looked at and look at themselves. All that is to say — don’t use it, white people. You had it for about 320 years, and it was a disaster. It’s our turn now, for those who want to use it. Why do you want to use it so bad? Are you really that anxious over black people defining themselves?
• Why is my natural hair, the hair that grows out my head, seen as a political statement?
  • This is a question for white people. Not to say black people don’t wonder this or make it a political statement; we do. But more than this is the fact that most white people seem to SEE it as a political statement. It’s kinda a result of the way white people see black hair, not something we completely made up ourselves.
  • Black hair has been denigrated by white people for years, so black people tried to make it look more “white.” Due to stereotypes and white-based standards of beauty, it became an increasingly brave thing to do (and it still is) to wear your hair “naturally.” But if you’re proud of the way you look, you can fight against the racist beauty standards. That’s the whole point. The reason we our proud of are hair is because it has seemed offensive, to a lot of white people, to not only grow your curly black hair out but be as proud (or prouder) of it as a straight-haired blonde would be. It’s an act of rebellion, but only because white people have had so much power over beauty standards for so long. I mean, my entire existence as a black person who thinks they have a right to exist in the South is, I’ve found, a political statement, whether I want it to be or not, because of racism. So, again, this is really a question for black people: Why are so many white people so racist when it comes to the way black people look?

• Why do you think people with white skin look better than people with dark skin?
  • This is a bit insulting, isn’t it? Just to say that most black people think this…
  • Why do you assume that most black people think that? Maybe it’s you. Are you really that much of a mind-reader?
  • The people who DO think that…four hundred years of having our looks systematically denigrated in American society has made being proud of our skin an uphill battle. It’s not rocket science. But a lot of us are proud of our skin, in spite of continued racism (including the racism in this video).

This is a story I’ve been trying to talk about for months. But every time I think about it, my mind goes to a very dark place. I don’t want to repeat that period in my life.

Here’s the thing I’ve found though — talking about my experience is a way to control it. I don’t want the fear of this moment to continue in my life.

When I first became a Christian, I felt worthless.  I grew up in a home in which my parents had great faith in who I was and what I could do, but at the same time I knew, because I was told, that I didn’t deserve to be happy. I deserved eternal pain. And every day that I lived without feeling that pain I was filled with guilt that transformed into overwhelming gratitude to a God who graciously granted me every breath.

My life wasn’t mine; it was God’s, and I was apologetically grateful to Him for it. When I made my formal decision to commit to Christ, it felt like the biggest, most momentous decision I’ve ever made. Tears, smiles, clean worthiness, and this deep yearning to know who I owed “thank you” to for my every breath.

So, to get to know this God, I prayed for hours. I memorized hundreds of verses. I couldn’t get enough of Christian music. I did Bible Bowls, and won seven of the ten I attended (second place once, fifth twice). I was going to be a Pastor.

I wonder now, sometimes, why it took me so long to see I was wrong. It wasn’t like I passively believed any of it. To defend and enrich my faith I read apologetics, and to save others I argued with people who disagreed with me at almost every opportunity. With how much I was digging into Christianity, why didn’t I leave?

I’ve had a lot of time to think about the answer to this question. I think part of it is that Christianity was honed to be my focus. My parents were afraid that the world “out there” would make me stray from Christianity if I were exposed to it too early. So I grew up in an environment in which the Bible was strongly encouraged, because my parents didn’t want me to go to hell. They homeschooled me to reinforce it; I never set foot in a classroom until I was 17.

And part of it was that I believed the Devil existed — he was a real force embodying every evil and deceptive force in the book to cruelly drown me in hell’s torment.

While the Devil was trying to destroy me, God was warm and protective, and He cared. I just had to trust Him, and learn how to trust Him more. I could doubt, but doubt was there to increase my faith, challenge it, and make it stronger.

I was only safe from Satan while I was on God’s side, so I was fighting hard against Satan because he represented everything I was told was evil in the world because it was supposedly destroying the eternal lives of a world I loved. That viewpoint can give you razor-sharp focus — tunnel vision that made me determined to believe every fantastic story and promise and threat in the Bible.

Satan was dangerous for other people, too, and I when I was a teenager I thought that Christ was their only hope, so I decided to be a preacher.

But when I started going to college, I noticed that preachers spoke to the choir, most of the time — and the secular humanities professors were dangerously pulling people away from the faith. I’m not sure it really occurred to me that they might be right. I was bewildered and frightened by the thought that these people were ripping people from eternity in paradise to one of eternal torment. So decided to leave the choir and enter into the opposing lines and become a university professor at a secular university, instead.

I fought for Christianity every step of the way — while I got my Bachelor’s in English at a state school and then through my Master’s in English at a state school. All this time in a secular environment was challenging me and my faith, so I decided to go to a respected Christian university for my Ph.D. program in English (which I’m still in). The Christian university was more liberal than I had anticipated…

I want to reiterate that my dedication to Christianity had been strengthening through the years. Yeah, I struggled intellectually — but emotionally and foundationally I still deeply loved God and was warring against the Devil to save people from hell.

The more I learned, the more I felt that a laughing Satan was determined to bore into my skull.

Many secular people are arguing these days that atheists should join interfaith groups in order to make the world a better place to live.

I disagree. But before you jump in with straw-man arguments, let me clarify.

Of course I’m not saying that atheists should not work with people who happen to be religious in order to make the world a better place. No one is saying that. Atheists work with religious people to make the world a better place all the time, in work, in education, in government programs, and a host of other environments. No one — even the most rabid anti-theist — really seems to disagree that we should do this. 

And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have close relationships with religious people. Most atheists have religious friends, family members, business partners, and acquaintances. Some of the people who hate religion the most even have very religious spouses. And these people often talk about religion in ways that seek understanding and respect the person without accepting compromise and respecting the religion itself.

Finally, I’m obviously not saying that we shouldn’t talk to religious people about religion. In fact, arguably, the most “strident” atheists are in conversation with religious people regarding atheism more than people who are just kinda “meh” about their atheist stance. No one remotely prominent in the anti-theistic crowd seems to really be saying this dialogue should stop.

Because no one is arguing against working with people who happen to be religious, developing relationships with them, and talking to them about our objections to religion, I tend to wonder what people mean when they insist that atheists should join with faith groups, and when they speak against anti-theists who refuse. Where’s the problem?

Best as I can tell, the problem according to the powers that be is that, even as we work with religious people and develop relationships with religious people, we atheists are generally not nice enough and inviting enough to the “religious” part of someone’s identity — either because religion isn’t going away any time  soon and we need to make peace with that, or you supposedly can’t have a strong relationship with a religious person without respecting their religion, or religious people are doing good work and we should support it, or many forms of religion just aren’t that bad and should be encouraged instead of demeaned, or some combination of these reasons.

And that’s where we disagree. Because I think religious thought that is based on theism is more dangerous than atheists more friendly to religion imply.

For me, the concept of God or gods is problematic because it has a stranglehold on the identities of people, and does not usually have to answer to reason for the definitions it assigns.

It’s really dangerous to have an instrument labeled “divinity” that can define who people are and what they deserve, regardless of hard, tangible evidence to the contrary. That definition from God takes away people’s ability to really define themselves — which is a problem when you’re trying to encourage a society in which people care about the real versions of each other, not how well they measure up to a made-up definition by a divine being.

Then there’s also the fact that I am uncomfortable using God to coerce people into doing things, no matter how good or bad those things are. I think that even though honesty may not produce the results we want immediately, encouraging people to follow a rational way of looking at the world will, in the long run, benefit humanity much more than a lie.

When people tell me that I should focus on becoming more “interfaith” and less “antitheistic,” I think they’re saying — when I get close to nailing it down — that I should be OK with holding back criticism of religion while I forward the interests of a religious organization. While I think I understand that sentiment, I also think it’s a bit shortsighted. Yes, partnering with a religious organization can do good practical things like put bread on the table for hungry people. But they do that to earn respect for their religion and, through that respect, gain power over the identities and lives of people.

And several times, in real life, this respect has resulted in very concrete efforts to gain such power. I mean, on the issue of same-sex marriage alone, there are several well-known examples of religious discrimination in charities — here, for example. The Salvation Army has a well-documented history of discriminating against same-sex couples.  The Illinois branch of Catholic Charities, which “provides foster care and adoption services for roughly one out of five children in the state of Illinois” even sued for the right to discriminate against same-sex couples.

I don’t know why I just now heard about this, seeing as the story broke in October and, apparently, underneath most people’s radars. It didn’t make a significant splash in the national news.

It should have.

I have repeatedly expressed concerns about Hillary Clinton compromising too much. This is just one of many examples. As the Wall Street Journal reported:

Hillary Clinton voiced anger over a State Department decision to make U.S. passport application and oversea birth forms gender neutral by scrapping references to “mother” and “father,” worrying that the change would provide partisan fodder for Fox News and conservatives such as former Alaska gov. Sarah Palin, a newly released email shows.

Sarah Palin?! Who cares about what Sarah Palin, Fox News, and other conservatives think? They should not be polled for Civil Rights decisions, at all, period. And yet, she clearly did, as the public email below shows:

That’s outrageous. And what is that about her saying that she won’t defend that decision? And disagreeing with it?

And the result?

About a half hour later, her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, replied:  “Reaching out to folks to find out.”

The new language was quickly dropped.

The following day, Ms. Mills sent to Mrs. Clinton an Associated Press article headlined: “State Department steps back on gender-neutral parentage, won’t replace terms ‘mother,’ ‘father.’”

Those are real consequences.

Let me be absolutely clear here.

Because Clinton thought the position of Fox News, Palin, and far right conservatives was more important than the position of so-called “nontraditional” families, she had the language taken out.

This wasn’t back in 2004, when she famously talked against a Constitutional Amendment to make same-sex marriages legal, citing personal beliefs.

This was in 2011. 2011, when support for same-sex marriage was at 53%.

2011, when she was Secretary of State.

It is as much a part of her record, in my opinion, as anything she did while in this office. It is one of many examples of her compromises on Civil Rights that she seems poised to continue.

The change was not proposed and then rejected.

It was made. And then rejected, not by the Republicans, but by Clinton herself. She effectively turned progress backwards. Because, in her opinion, it was impractical.

I don’t know what to say. It’s not just this one incident. It’s her theory of governing, in general, that’s off.

We are at a crucial moment in our nation’s history. We cannot afford to drag our feet out of fear of Trump or Palin or any of their ilk. Which is why I think Clinton supporters should probably think long and hard about the future they want for this country.

Thanks for reading.

Need editing? Email your project to [email protected] for a quote.

It’s OK for white people to say that they wish they were black. It’s seen as self-deprecating, an act of appreciation for a culture that doesn’t get enough respect. There’s supposed to be a certain degree of shock value to it — like, perhaps, you’re a greater person or have a deeper sense of appreciation for culture than most people because you want to be black. And then there’s also curiosity as to what life is like for someone else. That last bit — we all have that, to one extent or another.

But if you’re black, you’re not supposed to want to be white. It’s seen as a bit uppity, as if you think, inside, that you’re “better” than the default of how society sees you in your black skin. And it’s seen as an indictment of whiteness — it introduces the idea that the difference between you and I is skin tone. It forces white people to face the fact that being white is better than being black in society.

And black people don’t like it, either, oftentimes, because admitting that it’s better to be white takes our eyes off being black. Many of us are interested in enriching or combatting the picture of “blackness” in the United States, and looking wistfully at white skin doesn’t help.

But what about me? My opinion might be silent…except white people ask me, often (perhaps hoping to be reassured that white privilege is a myth) “Have you ever wanted to be white?”

Here is the truth:

When I was a kid I hated my skin so much that one day I scrubbed my face hard for several minutes to make it lighter. It gave me embarrassing dark spots on both cheeks for months; unfortunately, I still have the scars as a reminder every time I see myself in the mirror (or take a selfie).

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlVBg7_08n0[/youtube]

“The final line in ‘Same Love’ is “I’m not crying on Sundays”. I cried every Sunday for nearly a year in high school and afterwards. In apology to God, with guilt, with shame. I was out and proud to the world, but I had been battling Christian rhetoric inside of me for a long time. After suffering with my diagnosed bipolarity for awhile, a suicide attempt, and the war within my head and heart, something had to change.”

The words above are from Mary Lambert, a survivor of Mars Hill Church. The pastor who made her cry is Mark Driscoll.

No, this wasn’t even one of those churches that hated gay people. The preacher said to love gay people — just not to partake in the sin yourself, as Mary Lambert states on her blog.

A friend brought me to an Evangelical church in high school, known as Mars Hill, where I fell in love with the music and the bands that played on Sunday evening. The pastor was funny, charismatic, and made the bible seem simple. I was sad that my gay friends were going to hell, but the pastor said that I could still be friends with them. “Love the sinner, hate the sin” was the accepted rhetoric.

And that was good enough, until Mary Lambert fell in love and saw how cruel that doctrine was.

When I fell in love with my first girlfriend, I recognized my sin immediately. She was also Christian. When you’re 17, and you feel like a freak already, and you’re in love with a girl, and high school is a battlefield, you can’t stand to let another part of your life down. I remember making a conscious effort to accept my sin. My recognition allowed me to repent daily. I prayed often, apologizing to God, but accepting that this is who I had always been and always would be. I still went to Mars Hill. I was never hated on, never felt rudeness from the community, but the sermons were difficult to hear.

That’s terrible. It’s the experience that led her to write the song “She Keeps Me Warm” — a beautiful lyric she wrote in the space of two hours that brought Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, upon hearing it, to tears.

Mary Lambert appeared before the Seattle hip-hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis last year to sing lyrics [to “She Keeps Me Warm” that] she scrambled to write in two hours to be included on their second album.

“I kept telling myself, ‘Play it cool, play it cool,’ ” Lambert said.

She thought it went well: The pair teared up during the performance and Lewis asked her to record it immediately.

I can hear the love mixed with pain in: “I can’t change/even if I tried/even if I wanted to/my love, my love, my love/she keeps me warm/ I’m not crying on Sundays…”

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Mary Lambert wasn’t the only one whose heart Mark Driscoll broke. Underneath his Sunday morning encouragement to “love the sinner, hate the sin” was a rampant hatred for gays and lesbians, as was exposed in a 141-page conversation he had under an alias on the Internet. And besides that, there is a website dedicated to those hurt by Driscoll’s tactics. In the words of The New York Times while he was still preaching in August of 2014:

He has been accused of creating a culture of fear at the church, of plagiarizing, of inappropriately using church funds and of consolidating power to such a degree that it has become difficult for anyone to challenge or even question him. A flood of former Mars Hill staff members and congregants have come forward, primarily on the Internet but also at a protest in front of the church, to share stories of what they describe as bullying or “spiritual abuse,” and 21 former pastors have filed a complaint in which they call for Mr. Driscoll’s removal as the church’s leader.

The full scale of what Mark Driscoll did is jaw-dropping — you can read more about it here.

Under this tremendous pressure, Driscoll resigned in October of 2014. The church leadership (which, if stories are to be believed, he had a lot of control over), say they didn’t want him to go — but there was tremendous pressure from others to do so, so he left.

Also, just a month ago, a lawsuit was brought to Driscoll:

A lawsuit was filed against Driscoll and former Mars Hill executive elder John Sutton Turner by four members of the now-defunct Seattle church, accusing them of “a continuing pattern of racketeering activity.” The suit claims the two solicited donations for specific purposes and then used that money for other things.

I used to like Mark Driscoll when I was a conservative Christian. I’m an atheist now, and as I look back I can see how deeply damaging his teachings are, and how churches too often give undue authority to a pulpit minister who has at least just as many, and often more, problems in his character as most in the congregation.

I normally write from a strongly anti-theistic viewpoint, but doing so here would not be fair to the quotes I gave of Mary Lambert, who is still religious and wouldn’t want their words turned into a message against Christianity as a whole. It also wouldn’t be fair to many people who were hurt deeply by Mark Driscoll and share their experiences, but still passionate about Christianity.  Besides, it’s not primarily atheists this piece is written for; y’all aren’t going to church anyway. This is mainly to encourage you to warn people who are.

Tell your Christian friends in Phoenix about Mark Driscoll — and don’t be afraid to tell your Christian friends when you think their pastor is being too domineering, controlling, or cruel. I mean, yes, I would prefer them not to go to church at all…but some Pastors are worse than others.  So if you care, don’t be afraid to bring up warning signs, even if they decide to stay Christian — at least they may go to a less unhealthy church. You don’t have to be on a mission to deconvert — the most beautiful parts of living are often embodied in sensitively considerate, kind relationships embraced in the moment with people we care about who are, in one way or another, not who we are.

It’s just what love looks like sometimes.

Thank you for reading.

Feeling guilty about sin after church on Sundays?

I’m an ex-Christian atheist, so I’d obviously prefer you to leave religion altogether. But when I look at my history as a recovering Sunday-morning-guilt-session addict, we both know that this may not happen right away. So, I’ll propose a baby step.

Stop going to church. Seriously. Someone needs to say it. You’ll hear everything but that from religious people, so consider this a second opinion to their ridiculous advice (pray harder, go to church more, etc.) that only seems to be making the problem worse.

Need reasons? I have a bunch, but here are five.

1. You already suspect that the Bible doesn’t know what it’s talking about.

The idea that a bunch of desert dwellers, war-hungry tribes, or random people 2000 years ago had the entire universe figured out and should be followed is not only ridiculous — it’s dangerous. The people who wrote the Bible were limited to the confines of their culture. No, that’s not a big stretch, even if you’re a Christian. It’s likely that your church already will excuse the genocides in the Old Testament and the misogyny of the New Testament, for example, by saying that they’re based on the way people did things in that period — including the parts that supposedly came from God Himself. News Flash: That’s the whole book. It’s all based in a different culture, place, and time. It’s time to stop being “convicted” by a book written by people who didn’t know near as much about the way things work as we do today.

2. Your pastor is just a random person — who died and made them the boss of you?

It slowly dawned on me, sitting in church, that my pastor was no one special. He was just some guy. Why should he be in charge of my life? Why should he decide how guilty I feel about the things I do? The world is bigger than him. So I decided not to give him a hallowed 45-minute platform to tell me how to live my life every week. Life was better after that.

3. God just isn’t that into you (cause He isn’t real), and if you stopped going to church so often you’d realize it.

God is not real. There’s really not very good evidence for His existence — but most people who go to church every week are told so strongly and insistently that He IS real that they forget this. Spend some time away from church and some serious thought on whether God is real away from church, where the pressure to believe in God is much less, and it may be easier to walk away from your guilt. Maybe ask yourself: If you had never gone to church and this was the first time you heard about this, would you believe it, or think it’s ridiculous? Might save you from dedicating your life to something that’s not real.

4. You’re going for the people? News flash: the people are not the religion. You can party with the people without sitting through the guilt sessions.

You like the people there? Awesome! The people and the church aren’t the same thing. Y’all can still hang out, if you want. All the fun — just none of the guilt trips of going to church. Plus you could widen your circle of who you hang out with — it will do wonders for your guilt to include some non-Bible-Thumpers in the mix. Just the same, though, if your friends are those really rare people who talk about the Bible frequently — maybe branch out. Try seeing other people.

5. You’ll recharge your batteries better if you replace guilt sessions with “whatever I want to do” sessions.

Sunday is often seen as the period that refreshes you, recharges your batteries. So why would you want your batteries recharged thinking about guilt? Why not refresh it by doing something else — something relaxing, like sleeping, or taking a jog or hike, or even working to bring in some extra cash (if that’s your thing). Show yourself that there is a larger “you” than the you who goes to church, and that can diminish your guilt by giving you a deeper sense of belonging to the framework of your existence.

Thanks for reading.

[Featured image via Gealx under CCL 2.0; changes made]

When it comes to taxes, I’ve noticed that the thing most Fundamentalist Christians tend to resent most is the whole giving money to the poor deal. It’s not fair, they tend to say, for us to take money from a rich person and give it to a poor person. It’s stealing.

I’m not a Christian now, but I’d be lying if I said that this attitude (and its obvious inconsistencies with scripture) wasn’t one of the things that made me an ex-Christian. These same Fundamentalist Christians often have absolutely no qualms about taking billions of dollars from the rich for national security to fund expensive wars — in spite of “turn the other cheek” maxims from their supposed leader.

But spend a dollar of that money to help a poor single mother with kids (especially, it seems, if she happens to be non-white) and those Christians are all up in arms, talking about the immorality of the decision.

It’s not, they say, that they don’t think the poor need help.

They just don’t want to be forced to do it.  It’s unbiblical, they claim. Rather, they want to give money to charity.

I have my skepticism about charity. And not just as an ex-Christian — I was skeptical as a Christian, too. It seemed as if churches were competing with each other as a public relations scheme. Yes, the people caring for the poor did care about them — I’m not saying they didn’t. But the way they did so seemed to resemble the attitude of, “Hey, look at us! We’re amazing — look at how much we’re giving grace to the poor!”  And because it was about them and their image — that image often influenced who they would help, and who they wouldn’t.

Now, Fundamentalist Christians will insist that this isn’t the case — that they’re helping people in order to genuinely help them out. But their insistence that this has to be choice as opposed to something they’re forced to do via taxes speaks to a disturbing narrative of control — they want the church, it seems, to be in charge of which poor people get to eat, and which don’t. And even if that’s not explicitly said, many times poor people recognize this and see that going to church will get them more help than not going to church.

As an atheist, I do not think it is a good idea for the question of whether the poor are fed to depend on whether or not they believe in God or follow the decrees of the Bible. And several times, in real life, this discrimination has happened and does happen. I mean, on the issue of same-sex marriage alone, there are several well known examples of religious discrimination in charities — here, for example. The Salvation Army has a well-documented history of discriminating against same-sex couples.  The Illinois branch of Catholic Charities, which “provides foster care and adoption services for roughly one out of five children in the state of Illinois” even sued for the right to discriminate against same-sex couples.

But do I really need to go on? We all have heard religious organizations insist that “religious freedom” means doing with their organizations as they please, so that their insistence that religious charities take over for government services seems to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing for them to have authority over those least fortunate. And I’m not saying this just because I’m an atheist. As the last paragraph showed, there are many instances in which the church has actually done this. It’s not theory. It’s happened.

Add to all this that, regardless of what the Fundamentalist Christian tells you, the Bible nowhere says that taxes to help the poor are somehow unjust. It says just the opposite. Like here, in Romans 13 (emphasis added):

The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.

So yeah — this seems pretty clear. Rulers are there to help people do the right thing. They are there to punish people who do bad things. That’s why you pay taxes.

That seems pretty basic. But I think some Christians might need it spelled out, so I’ll do it.

First, read this:

Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Luke 6:30

Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Matthew 5:42

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Matthew 19:21

[Jesus speaking]: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Matthew 25:31-46

Now, based on this (and several similar scriptures) here are a couple reading comprehension questions:

Is helping the poor the right thing to do?

Is not helping the poor the wrong thing to do?

If you didn’t answer “yes” to both questions, it seems to me you need to go back and do some more reading.

So taxes aren’t unjust if they help people do the right thing and keep people from doing the wrong thing, according to the Bible. Which means that if helping the poor is the right thing, and not helping the poor is the wrong thing, then laws that force you to help the poor through taxes are no more immoral than laws that that force you not to murder. I mean…if you weren’t murdering/were helping the poor without condition already, why would you get pissed off when someone makes a law forcing people not to murder/forcing people to help the poor?

Doesn’t make logical sense.

Now, this isn’t my book. I’m an atheist. I don’t have a stake in this.

It’s yours, Fundamentalist Christians. And the way so many of you ignore it here is part of why I suspect the whole thing isn’t as serious as you pretend it is. It’s time to stop trying to hide behind your Bible to avoid giving no-religious-strings-attached help to poor people.

If you’re going to be a Christian who doesn’t want to pay taxes to help the poor then, to borrow from Stephen Colbert, you have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as you are, or acknowledge that he commanded you to pay taxes in order to good things — like making sure that the poor are helped without condition.

And then admit that you just don’t want to do it.

Be an honest hypocrite.

Thanks for reading.

[Image via Quinn Dombrowski under CCL 2.0]

I used to go to church in North Richland Hills, TX (in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex) and I still live in the general area, so I know that Christianity has strong roots here.

I also know that there is a small group of atheists here in the Metroplex. Some of them have been very vocal in other areas, as in the tradition around here of opening council meetings with a prayer. In almost every instance we have been stonewalled, and our grievances have gone unheeded. But usually they at least let us say why we object. So I thought the battle was against us having a theocracy — I did realize that we had to fight for the right to even talk about decisions to make city governments theocracies. That sounds un-American, to put it mildly — an unsettlingly thorough shutting down of free speech.

But that’s what happened yesterday evening. North Richland Hills City Council voted 4-1 to put “In God We Trust” in a “prominent location” in the new City Hall.

And they didn’t allow any of the residents who came to the meeting to talk about it.

As someone who has gotten a speeding ticket and had to go to the old City Hall a few years back to take care of it, I’ll say it is unsettling to go into a courtroom and see that on the wall. Even for a speeding ticket. I feel as if someone might discover I’m an atheist — maybe someone will recognizes me, and this might negatively affect me. I want the courtroom to be as focused on business and as unfocused on religion as possible.

And more than that — what about the employees who work there? What does this say about the possibility of electing a non-Christian judge or hiring a non-Christian clerk? It’s thoroughly upsetting, from several angles that need to be discussed.

What’s worse is that it wasn’t like no residents wanted to talk about it. Some of them did — among them the Metroplex Atheists, who include my friend Randy Word.

Some residents expressed anger that they were not allowed to speak before the vote….

Councilman Tim Barth said he understood that some people believed this was a “slippery slope to a theocracy.” But he voted for the resolution, saying that the Declaration of Independence has at least four references to a supreme being.

“I think it is an acknowledgement of our history from the very beginning and the principles that make this country great,” Barth said.

Residents came to object to their City Hall endorsing one faith above others. The Council members knew they were there.

They knew why they were there.

They shouldn’t have passed the resolution anyway, but they could have at least listened to them.

But they didn’t even allow them to speak.

The vote was 4-1. The one dissenting vote, Council member Scott Turnage, objected.

“City Hall is intended to be utilized by people of all faiths, even by people who have no faith at all,” Turnage said. “I’m concerned what message this sends to those people or even an employee of the city who may be agnostic or even an atheist.”

Duh.

And what about the whole idea of saying “In God WE Trust” when some of that “We” are atheists who clearly don’t trust in God? Isn’t that insulting? As Randy Word pointed out:

Randy Word said after the vote that some residents are not Christian or have no belief in God, so that the mottos “effectively is a lie.”

“It’s exclusionary, it’s discriminatory,” Word said. He said he wonders if people who disagree with the motto will be treated fairly.

This is shameful. This is un-American. This is squarely against free speech; it’s government working against as opposed to for the people.

Thanks, Council member Scott Turnage, for standing up. We need more like you.