Every once in a while I come across something that makes me especially glad I’m not a Christian anymore.

For example, I recently read an article written for influential pastor John Piper’s website Desiring God that stated what John Piper would want Christians to think about before seeing the movie.

The article, entitled “Seven Questions To Ask Before Watching ‘Deadpool’”, is a jewel of ridiculous nonsense. But Christians actually take the advice seriously — the post on John Piper’s Desiring God Facebook page — which has the odd tagline “Be a dolphin in this culture, not a jellyfish” — is only a day old and has over 1300 shares and 2300 “likes.”

The first question?  “When will I tear my eye out, if not now?” — basically making reference to that verse where Jesus tells the crowd not to lust after a woman — and that it is better to cut your eye out and throw it away than to do so.

The message is clear. You want to cut your eye out (or, worse, go to hell) when you see attractive nudes on the screen? Then don’t see the movie.

Ouch.

The second one is “Am I longing to see God?” — and the basic message here is that you are supposed to be ogling — I mean, focusing on — God, and attractive flesh would distract you from staring at God’s beautiful….presence. In the writer’s words: “I dare anyone to watch nudity and turn straight to God and give him thanks and enjoy him more because of what you just experienced.”

Really? When I was a Christian, seeing that was more powerful evidence to me that there was a God than looking out over the Grand Canyon…but I digress.

Anyways, the third question — I’m glad I’m writing this because it would hard to say it with a straight face — is “Do I care about the souls of the nudes?”

I can’t. Like…this is meant to be sweet and loving, and to say that we shouldn’t objectify people; I get that. But the text seems to imply that it is impossible to care about the inner being of a woman who chooses to be nude when it states: “When we pursue or receive or embrace nudity in our entertainment, we are implicitly endorsing the sin of the women who sell themselves to this way and are, therefore, uncaring about their souls.”  

No, that’s not true. Coerced nudity is never OK, but when a women — or anyone for that matter — is nude, that doesn’t mean they’re selling themselves. They’re just being nude. The Christian obsession with nude flesh is…a bit obsessively disturbing, especially where this part talks about how they woman are “disobeying” Paul’s encouragement in the Bible to stay modest.

Then, “Would I be glad if my daughter played this role?”

WAT.

No. Just no. In the first place, when your daughter is an adult, she’s not an extension of Daddy’s decisions. That’s kinkingly weird.

And second — the thought of putting your daughter in the place of other women is a really weird, incest-like exercise that is a bit disturbing.

The next one is, “Am I assuming nudity can be faked?” — stating that, unlike violence, nudity is real.

This one didn’t even make sense. Like, if it were a cartoon or 3-d image, it would be OK? Is this one of those Christian loopholes?

Then the sixth question, “Am I assuming nudity is necessary for good art?” The question is weird. “Is a TV necessary to have a good time?” is a question that assumes that a TV will help people have a good time, although there might be other ways. Is this an implicit admission that nudity can be art? Weird question. My answer to it would be similar to similarly phrased questions, “No, but it can help.”

Then the last question: “Am I free from doubt?”  If you’re doubting, you should not watch this movie, because it might make you leave Christ!

Myself, I’ve had a problem with doubt for quite awhile, being an atheist and all.

Stay strong, conservatives! And, indeed, Facebook is full of Christian’s posting the link of this article and declaring they won’t see the film. For example:

“Christ would not watch Deadpool – let us be on our guard, brothers!”

“This was a tough read for me, seeing as how Deadpool was my favorite character growing up as a kid, but every word of this article is true, not just for this movie but for everything you watch. That is, if you claim to follow Jesus. I’m going to try harder to walk this walk.”

So sorry you’ll have to miss this flick.  Genuinely. It looks to be an awesome film.

As for me…looks like this infidel is slipping this weekend.

Again.

Thanks for reading.

[Image via Rachel Swallows Falcon’s Ghost Photo Stream under CCL 2.0]

So.

This is, without a doubt, the creepiest moment in the Bible.

Genesis chapter 2. There’s that series where God creates the world in seven days, and then there’s that moment when He he starts thinking:

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

And so he makes women. Stupid mistake, I suppose. I guess even gods forget things sometimes, right? Maybe we should give him a break.

Except…I was kinda kidding there. He doesn’t just go make women. He parades the animals in front of Adam and they check them out for a “helper suitable” for Adam.

According to all appearances, Adam — and God, for that matter — seem to seriously be considering bestiality. No, really. I mean, apologists will say that’s not what’s happening, but the Bible clearly states that these animals were parading by Adam as potential prospects.

That’s really, really kinky.

And creepy, and just plain weird.

Now, I’m reading this, as an atheist, and thinking what kind of messed-up mind could dream this nonsense up. What on earth is the writer thinking? This author is trying to conjure up some basis, some foundation, for the beginning of the entirety of humankind…and he includes a story about Adam and God seriously considering bestiality in their search for a wife. And the wife was just an afterthought. Like, he could have made them all together. It would have sounded fantastical, but it would have been a bit more normal and less fetish-like. Instead, he has this weird passage where the animals are looked at as potential wives for Adam. And Eve was an, “oops — I forgot to make that” for God.

Weird. Unless the writer was a really, really misogynistic asshole who wanted to show that women were a bit of an afterthought and that man had about as much authority over them as he did animals — that, like the animals, women were there to help men (even though they could do it better than most animals — I mean, a cattle can become meat, but can it cook your dinner? No; you need to go get ya a woman for that).

And as if it’s not enough to have the animals prance around while cruising Adam checks them out, the author also has Adam name the animals.

Even the creationists admit that this is a clear power move.

Ken Ham wrote an answer that kinda uncovers this.  For kids! — with a kiddie backdrop and two smiling kids on it and everything:

Now we know that God easily could have named all of those animals. But God was teaching Adam and us a lesson.

You see, as Adam was naming the animals, it became very clear to him that he was completely different from the animals and was a special creation. He was created in God’s very image.

Another Creationism site, Creation.com, further reveals that this act symbolizes power:

Adam had been given dominion over the animals (Genesis 1:28), and God now provided him with the opportunity to exercise this responsibility in a way which established his authority and supremacy—in ancient times, it was an act of authority to impose names (cf.Daniel 1:7) and an act of submission to receive them.

So…yeah.  The symbolic reason for Adam to be portrayed as naming animals was to show that he was different than the animals — above them. Superior.

Why would you choose to portray Adam as looking for a woman among animals that he’s asserting authority over by naming?

This is just bizarre.

And it’s not even the worst part. The worst part is when Eve does finally come along, Adam names her, too.  The woman doesn’t get to name herself. He has to tell her who she is for her…just like he did with the animals, where it was, according to creationism websites, “a way which established his authority and supremacy — in ancient times, it was an act of authority to impose names and an act of submission to receive them.”

So when he names the woman — that’s a dominance move. That’s showing that man can name women and define her just like he should name the animals. He’s in charge of her the way he would be in charge of cattle — she is his “helper,” as opposed to someone worthy of respect and authority in and of herself.

I know I’m repeating myself a little bit. But in my defense, it’s because it’s just so…outrageous. Just…wow.

Now, I don’t believe the Bible is true. But it bothers me that children are taught, thanks to Ken Ham and the like, that women came from this bizarre story that obviously seems written by creatively creepy asshole.

Maybe it’s time to throw away that worthless fable and realize that women are not in the “role” of being mere helpers for men like some farm animal.

Maybe it’s time to remember that the Old Testament is largely a fiction made by ancient, misogynistic desert dwellers and move on.

Thanks for reading.

[Image via lookcatalog under CCL 2.0]

This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,–
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.

Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!

— Emily Dickinson.

No, this isn’t a suicide note. I plan on living for a long time. But, unless we unlock the key to reversing aging, I’m going to eventually die, and my words are still going to be out there.

It’s creepy to think about that.

There’s a friend I have — a soldier in Afghanistan — who died in combat.  In his early 20s, full of life, jokester. Colorful Facebook page. And after he died, the page was memoralized.

There’s a weird puzzle that won’t resolve when I visit the page, especially on a somber day like Memorial Day — you get the sense that this person is too full of life to be dead. Death is something somber and serious, and sometimes I feel somber and serious when I think about his death. But when I visit his page and see his smiles and antics, I smile, which tricks me into thinking that I’ll maybe bump into him again — till I remember that he’s dead. And then, every time, I can’t reconcile the life in the words left behind with the somber visage of death. It just doesn’t make sense.

Then it dawns on me — People will probably visit this blog, and my Facebook page, and other things I’ve written, long after I’m dead, just as I still visit the Facebook page of my friend. How are they going to make sense of all these words I leave behind?

I know that on a certain level it’s illogical to think about these things. When I die, I’ll be dead. Why should I care?

I suppose I care because I’ve found out that I’m not the only person in the world who is affected (and will be affected) by the same forces that cause the experiences I write about.  It’s true, for example, that religion has had a negative impact on my life — but it’s also true that I’m not the only one, and that the forces that negatively influenced me will continue to do so for others.  To impact those forces, I have to figure out how to express those experiences effectively, translating those experiences into words.

In other words, there’s the raw experience of living…and then there are the words we use to communicate what that experience is like — the attempts to make it comprehensible to both others and myself. And I know, in spite of my efforts, that after I’m gone people are going to look at the words and think I’m misinterpreting what happened to me and could have made better decisions in what I wrote, said, and did. They may have a point. But at the same time — understand my situation here. No one asked me if I wanted to be born, and no one save me had the things happen to me that happened to me; you’re on the outside looking in. I’m just here, life is happening to me without giving me a reason as to why, and I am left to make some sense of it all to articulate to you.

As Dickinson put it, the world never “wrote to me” to tell me who I am or how I was supposed to present myself — I’m figuring it out as I go along and experience things. And as I do, people see records of it in what I do and say, making my life “a letter to the world.” If it is flawed here or there, please remember — like the rest of nature, I am largely along for the ride, figuring it out as I go.

So…please, any future readers — and present readers, as well — if what I say seems a bit “off” to you, remember that I’m figuring things out as I go, like everyone else. We think of death so often as this somber moment, as this closed book that defines who a person is. But the truth is that each person is part of a larger fabric of billions of experiences placed within an even larger arena of happenings that constantly affect those experiences, and the resulting collision between the context of reality and our experience within it is something that seems to bring us all together.

In many ways, this connection to the fabric of human experience and the larger context surrounding it is why I see myself as writing about things greater than myself, albeit from the bound context of my own humble experience. Each of our experiences are reactions to very real happenings in the world that give life to what happens in our overwhelmingly massive context of the universe.

I suppose this realization informs what I do, as an atheist, with my friend who was killed in Afghanistan. Instead of cordoning him off into a never-land of heaven, I can see him for who he is — a wide eyed, vibrant young man who wanted to do the best he could for his country, who put his life on the line and yet respected authority enough to go forward and scope out a possible (who turned out to be an actual) suicide bomber after ordering his troops to stay behind until it was safe.

I can think about the raw reality of the scene – the look in the devoted suicide bomber’s eyes, the surrounding dust, the tenseness of the watching troops, the carefree smile he showed while he must have felt a rising fear, the ingredients that made heroism out of a friendly, easy-living and yes, even god-fearing patriotic jokester in one small location of the universe in a specific place of spacetime within the larger context of a controversial war.

I can take that moment for what it is — mixed in with all my doubt about the efficacy of war — informing it, giving it a sensitivity in my criticism. Even his faith is something I can strive to understand as a function of his experiences, challenging my own anti-theistic views and even informing them.

And I guess that’s what I really want people to do with all the expression I leave behind — see it as a way to understand experiences and the forces that created them. Hopefully, instead of merely dismissing me as angry at religion, they will consider the often valid reasons why I have sometimes exhibited anger at religion, as well as all the tender moments I have had with close family and friends who have happened to be religious, and they will take the bits and pieces to enrich and inform their own lives and those of others.

I love existence. I love embracing it, treasuring it, feeling it in my heart and mind, to the center of my bones. This world is sometimes ugly, yes, but even the ugly parts defy simplification upon examination; the universe as a whole seems somehow beautiful in its complexity and, by extension, by the ways it intrudes on and molds my experience.

I used to believe, when I was a Christian, that Adam and Eve ate a fruit in a garden and were punished, creating a horrific Original Sin I would be forever bound to. That was my identity — a human born apologizing for the Original Sin and for the sin my natural self committed — eternally grateful to God for His Grace.

The moment I left Christianity, I had to start from scratch, and what I found has been thoroughly inspiring — for example, I learned for the first time that the hands I typed with are, quite literally, the result of exploding stars. That may sound mundane to some, but it blew my mind to think that I was not born apologizing for my existence — I was part of the fabric of existence, deeply and thoroughly.

So, because of that…I’ve realized that when one of us attempts to give voice to what they think or feel, they are attempting to contribute to the constantly evolving and expanding human experience of defining our relationship to the raw there-ness of outside natural forces.

This universal struggle to situate the raw, intruding there-ness of natural forces into the experiences of our lives — and the empathetic, yet selfish, desire to compare notes as we engage in this effort — is what makes us all part of what we’ve come to call the human condition. I am not attempting to take charge of your life; I’m also animated by our experience in this spinning ball of dust, another member of humanity comparing notes. And so it’s in this way that, even if you’re reading my words across the years or viewpoints, I think we’re all in this together.

Thank you for reading.

[Featured image via Ginny under CCL 2.0]

I was perusing my email today when I saw this:

Now, I should let you know: I’m not a Hillary supporter. I’m a Sanders supporter, and I’m not sure how Clinton got my email address or thinks that I’m supporting her. But I’m a bit taken aback by this.

I don’t know about you…but after reading that email I’m Feeling the Bern…and it seems like the Clinton is, too.

Clinton is going after her millionaire donors and is complaining about not being able to keep up with the $27 average contributions from the Sanders campaign. Wow.

Maybe instead of appealing to the millionaire friends she has, she should set her sights towards carrying out the best interests of the not-one-tenth of 1%. Just a thought.

Anyway…seeing as how that New Hampshire primary is coming tomorrow…I think it would be a good idea to build on momentum and contribute to a campaign, just the same. Thanks for the reminder, Bill.

Looks like it’s time to give just a few more dollars to make sure that the right voice gets heard.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

 

“We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” — Carl Sagan

“We are part of this universe. We are in this universe. But perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us.  When I reflect on that fact — many people feel small, because they’re small and the universe is big, but I feel big. Because my atoms came from those stars [that I see when I look up in the night sky]. There’s a level of connectivity. That’s really what you want in life; you want to feel connected. You want to feel relevant. You want to feel like you’re a participant in the goings-on and events around you. That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive.” — Neil Degrasse Tyson

When I first left Christianity and became an atheist, for a time I thought I had to deal with the grim fact that we are alienated from a thoroughly indifferent universe that doesn’t care what makes us laugh, cry, worry, love, and the rest — a universe that does not care about me at all.

To be sure, this view had its perks. For one, an indifferent universe means I don’t have to worry about some all-powerful mind-reading creepily-judgmental/petty dictator who is obsessed about my every move. We atheists have the freedom to see other people without God’s judgment, to embrace hobbies, to live whatever we consider to be a meaningful life. But WE decide it, not some all-powerful deity. When I left Christianity, I thought that was exhilarating.

And it was. It still is. I am not beholden to the will of God anymore. I can do what I want, love whom I want, and think what I want without an all-powerful thought-police who expects me to love Him with all my heart obsessively spying on my every move. Colors are brighter, music has vibrance to it, and life seems more wide open for an embrace.

God isn’t judging.

If I’m going to be honest about it, though, there also an uncomfortable side to seeing the universe as indifferent. I felt I had to face the fact that we humans were utterly, totally alone in the universe. The universe did not care about us.

As Stephen Crane once put it:

A man said to the universe:“Sir, I exist!”

“However,” replied the universe,

“The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation.”

Now, this sense of living alone in a universe that did not care about me was better than living in one that had an all-seeing thought police in it. But it still felt lonely  — kinda like being suddenly single after a long, problematic relationship that ended partially because you were catfished and the person never really existed in the first place. It used to be that I thought the greatest being in the universe (I mean, yes, He was an atrocity — but I was relatively blind to it as a Christian) loved me, and now I had to suddenly confront the fact that there was no sky daddy; just us human beings on a spinning ball of infinitesimal dust.  It was an opportunity to embrace freedom…and yet I felt loneliness from no longer being the ruler of the universe’s personal favorite (as messed up as that relationship was).

Instead, I now had to deal with a stark reality of nothingness that didn’t care, that was completely indifferent to me. Although this felt much better than a life that had a nonexistent God in charge of its every move, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that sometimes it was a bit of a downer to think I was alienated from a universe that didn’t care.

I’m not the only one who has found this idea depressing. The whole “indifferent universe” idea doesn’t bother ALL atheists, but it’s true that I’ve talked to many other atheists who have great joy in their freedom to embrace that doesn’t have an all-powerful judge watching their every move, and at the same time struggle with the supposed fact they are all alone in the universe.

But I’ve come to think that the supposed “fact” that we live in a universe that is indifferent to us is a bit of a fiction, if you look at it.

How can the universe be indifferent when we are part of the universe and we are not indifferent to ourselves?

There is no magical being to somehow separate who we are from what the universe is — we’re literally made up of the same stuff the universe is made up of, and operate via the same principles the rest of the universe operates by; we’re part of the same process and existence. Sure, we contain consciousness, and most of the universe doesn’t. But that’s just a feature of who we are as part of the universe. It doesn’t alienate us from the universe any more than the fact that a flower contains nectar, or water contains hydrogen, or stars contain heat. It’s just a feature of our part of the universe — a characteristic.

There is a major difference here — in the Christian model of existence, we are sinners, separated from the God of the universe and thus unworthy of our very existence. Once you delete all God and gods from your worldview, there is nothing separating you from the natural processes and existence of the universe.  Get rid of God, along with God’s standards, God’s supposed decision to make you special, and God’s decision to put you in heaven, and all that separation between you and the universe around you disappears.

You literally came from stars. You literally are star residue.  You’re not special enough to be separate from the universe, which in a way is a good thing — you were part of it, and have always been.

This isn’t anything new. Carl Sagan has observed that “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” And that might sound like cute poetry, but he meant it as an actual fact. We are, quite literally, parts of the universe that are wholly made (from top to bottom and inside out) by and out of the stuff of the universe. We aren’t separate from the universe, thanks to the deletion of God. We are part of it.  We are the universe looking at itself.

Another way to look at it — when I delete God from the equation, I take God’s place. I don’t need God to care about and accept me in order to belong in the universe. I already belong in the universe — by myself, without any help from God — because I’m a completely natural, head-to-toe, inside-and-out part of it.

When I realized that, I began to realize that the question of whether the universe cares can’t be answered by just looking at unconscious beings. It includes the entirety of the universe — the animals, the people, even myself. Aren’t they parts of the universe just as surely as the stars whose residue they are from? So…if they care about me, and if I care about me and them…then together, aren’t we the universe caring about itself?

So…I’m a part of the universe caring about something. The universe is not indifferent — as if God’s nonexistence leaves us forever alienated from a universe that doesn’t care about us. No — the universe, after billions of years of evolution, has given rise to a phenomenon of human beings and other conscious beings that have given it the capacity to care about itself.

We are a way for the universe to care about itself. .

And I don’t just mean this in a feel-good way — although it can feel like that at times. It seems to be a clear fact: We are, after billions of years of evolutionary development, a way for the universe to care about itself.

Since I saw that, I’ve been feeling like I belong in a universe much more than I did than when I thought I was alone in a universe that didn’t care about me — and the best part is that I can feel that sense of belonging without losing any of the freedom I had to give up when I was a “sinner” begging for God’s grace.  When someone cares about me, or when I care about someone — even when I care about myself — I see ourselves as part of the universe’s natural fabric, a part of the universe that has, through evolutionary processes, enabled the universe to care about itself. I am not on the outside, looking in. I’m an insider from the start.

So…because I left God, I realized that I’m an opportunity for the universe to care about itself.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D05ej8u-gU[/youtube]

Makes me glad to be an atheist, to be honest. Reality doesn’t have to be beautiful, but in this specific case, and from the angle I’m looking at it right now, it is.

Thank you for reading.

Sample quotes (scroll to the thumbnails for full responses)

When I strive to improve myself or some facet of the world we all share, it’s really not the same as masturbating to Muppet porn… — Ryan H. 

When I die, the way I achieve some level of immortality is through affecting others.  That is my *forever*.  — Sandra B.

Imagine walking up to a complete stranger and asking them “what do you mean?” I can only imagine their confusion…. I think it is a question with no answer. I think it is a question that we use to distract ourselves from the real experiences of living. — Paul W.

My existence simply is.  I make of my life what I want to make of it.  And that’s kind of beautiful. — Sarah P.

A couple months ago a fellow atheist at a dinner-eating atheist event and said something that made a profound impact on me. He said he rarely came to such groups because they got boring pretty quickly — he wanted to do more than just sit around with a bunch of people who didn’t have a belief in God or gods in their heads.  He could do that at home.  Instead, He wanted a community of people who enjoyed sharing experiences, passions, thoughts and ideas.

He’s not the only one seeking deeper connections in an atheist community. Here in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex we are located in a Bible-Belt environment, so it’s often hard to be an atheist. As a result, many of us want to build connections to godless people, and those of us who have succeeded tend to find that such connections and support groups can make our lives easier to live.

We thought other people might appreciate the support too, so we’re sharing the conversation here.

The question we handled, in various ways, was: “How do you find meaning in your life without God?”

Wait.

If that question annoys you — believe me, you’re not the only one. As I said, we’re in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Bible Belt country.

We get asked that question all. the. time.

Religious people often think that there is just one answer atheists subscribe to. If you’ve spent any time talking to atheists, you’ll know that’s not true. We differ on this question widely.  Some of us don’t think the question is relevant, some of us say that we create meaning in relationships, some of us say we discover meaning through observation of the way the world works, some of us find meaning in abstract ideas and experiences, and there are many others in between.

Sharing our answers with each other widened our individual perspectives and strengthened our understanding of each other.

In case you wanted to join the conversation, we decided to share the written answers to our questions to a larger audience.

We’re interested in hearing about what resonates with you, and hope you enjoy reading our responses.

Click an image below:

      

“I don’t mind talking about God with atheists. In fact, the stronger their arguments are, the more God strengthens my faith.”

I’ve heard this or variations of it countless times. It can be bewildering, because Christians often seem most confident after what seem to be the most fact-based, strongest attacks against their faith. Sometimes, this characteristic of debates has led me to walk away from the debate and give up, especially when Christians do it with pride. They feel more confident after debate, no matter what the atheist says — so that must mean, to them, that the atheist is wrong.

But I’ve found that there is actually a really straightforward way to explain it.

First, there’s this thing that psychologists call “belief perseverance,” and it’s a phenomenon that was first discovered in a 1975 study. What the researchers did is give the subjects suicide notes to read, and the subjects were instructed to decide who killed themselves and who did not based on the notes. The researchers then split the subjects up, and told one group they did very well on the test, and another that they did very poorly. Then, they called them back and said that they had lied the first time — neither group had done exceptionally well or exceptionally bad. After this, they had the groups rate themselves.

They found that even though both groups had been told, the second time, that they had not done very well OR very poorly, the group that had been told the first time that they had done well continued to think they had done well, and the group that had been told they had done poorly continued to think they had done poorly.

Their beliefs were persistent, in spite of clear evidence that they were wrong.

Then, there was another experiment in 1977. Here, the researchers gave a psychological profile of one man to one group, and a psychological profile of another man to a second group. They told the first group that their man ended up committing suicide, and told the second group that their man ran for public office. Then the researchers asked the members of the groups to use the psychological profiles in order to determine how each man’s psychology led him to the decision that he made. They came up with very well thought out theories.

After that, the researchers said that actually neither of the endings were true — the first man did not commit suicide, and the second man didn’t run for public office. After they explicitly told both groups that these events did not happen, they asked the groups to go back and rethink what each man’s probable outcome was.

And…each group kept their reasoning intact. The first group STILL said that the first man probably committed suicide, and the second group STILL said that the second man probably ran for public office, even though they had been clearly told that neither of these events actually happened.

In each case, the work researchers had done indicated that the more work a person goes through to establish a conclusion, the more likely the conclusion will remain in spite of contradictory evidence — even very strong contradictory evidence.

This tendency also plays into confirmation bias to produce the backfire effect, which not only makes incorrect beliefs persist in the face of strong contradictory evidence, but actually makes them stronger. There are several disturbing examples of this. For example:

In a 2010 study, Nyhan and Reifler asked people to read a fake newspaper article containing a real quotation of George W. Bush, in which the former president asserted that his tax cuts “helped increase revenues to the Treasury.” In some versions of the article, this false claim was then debunked by economic evidence: A correction appended to the end of the article stated that in fact, the Bush tax cuts “were followed by an unprecedented three-year decline in nominal tax revenues, from $2 trillion in 2000 to $1.8 trillion in 2003.” The study found that conservatives who read the correction were twice as likely to believe Bush’s claim was true as were conservatives who did not read the correction.

In addition, the more someone has invested in a belief being true, the more they continue to believe that it is true.  We call this phenomenon “motivated reasoning.” In short, we are likely to highlight evidence that we already believe.  And I’ve been victim of this, as an atheist. For example, in arguments online someone has given me a series of articles from very reputable sources contradicting something I thought was true based on a something I read before from a much less reputable source, like Wikipedia or a highly biased blogger. My strong temptation, oftentimes, is to respond by increasing my confidence in the original source, which decreases my confidence in the series of more reputable articles. Whereas before I thought I was right based on what I knew was shaky evidence, now I think I am right because I have responded to contradictory evidence by making the original evidence stronger in my mind than it originally was. It’s like pulling teeth, sometimes, to force myself to admit I’m wrong and avoid this tendency.

You follow? It’s not just Christians who make this error. It’s a human glitch. We all have it.

And that’s why, when presented with contradictory evidence, belief perseverance, confirmation bias, the backfire effect, and motivated reading can actually make Christians more, not less, confident they are right. It might be part of why the most stubborn Christian demographic in the United States — the category that is bleeding the fewest adherents in today’s increasingly nonreligious world — is Christian evangelicals. The more they are given evidence against Christianity, the more (just like that biased article I clung to in the above example) they may cling to the actual words of the Bible, so that arguments against them increase, as opposed to decrease, their faith.

Yes, atheists are susceptible to this bias, too — we all are. But for us, “faith” isn’t a virtue. For many Christians, “faith” is so effective and strong because it’s essentially glorified confirmation bias, and the Bible often actively encourages Christians to disregard sources (no matter how reputable) that contradict it. In Christendom, belief perseverance is actively encouraged.  When children are young, they are taught these beliefs and their belief perseverance/confirmation bias is actively encouraged by references to faith, exaltation of the Bible and, often, respect for church leaders. Once these traits are embedded and encouraged as a way of life, attacks can encourage, as opposed to discourage, faith.

Which is why, after volleying a powerful attack against a Christian, the response may often be, “Y’know, you have some thoughtful arguments — but God just uses them to increase my faith.”

That’s not your God; that’s a tendency we both have, whether the belief is right or wrong. If we want to be right, we often need to fight this tendency, not encourage it.

How can we do this? Partly by realizing that feeling more confident after a powerful attack against your pre-held beliefs is normal –not an act of God — and is a feature of many beliefs you may have, not just the ones pertaining to God’s existence. Realizing this can help people see powerful attacks against their beliefs for whether or not they are valid, not just how they make the person feel. In doing this we can increasingly work towards (whatever our beliefs) being “less wrong.”

So, because you are likely to emphasize evidence that confirms what you already believe and de-emphasize evidence that contradicts what you believe, evidence that contradicts what you believe will tend to look less important and, thus, less convincing to you. As a result, evidence confirming what you believe will seem MORE convincing, making you more confident in your position.

And the only thing needed to jump start this process, you remember, is evidence that contradicts your beliefs. Contrary to popular wisdom, it is completely normal for evidence contradicting your beliefs to make those beliefs even stronger.

This is not something to be proud of because it’s faith or God’s work. This is a tendency to watch out for, to guard against, if it is important to us to actually be right.

Thanks for reading.

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ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos

This morning on The View, the question “Can an atheist be President?” was asked in reference to Bernie Sanders, who recently said that, although he believed in God, he was not involved in religious organizations, which Whoopi Goldberg interpreted as him not going to church often.

After this, Nicolle Wallace, who referred to herself as “the resident Jew,” responded that, in Jewish culture, religion is practiced differently — she doesn’t see going to church as important.

Following this, Candace Bure stated that a recent poll stated that 51% of the population claims that, right off the bat, they won’t vote for an atheist president (which, by the way, is a big change from 1958, when around 80% wouldn’t).

The nicest thing about having an atheist President, Sunny Hostin noted, is that such a President wouldn’t favor any one religion. As she stated, “I personally wouldn’t want my President to believe in the god I believe in because I wouldn’t want his religious beliefs to persuade politics.”

Interestingly, this is also what the Twitter account of The View chose to feature:

.@SunnyHostin says she doesn’t need her president to believe in her same God. Do you agree? https://t.co/DfaKXrfJkC pic.twitter.com/WiOu8P8xmQ

— The View (@TheView) January 28, 2016

Then, Candace Bure stated that she appreciated Sanders’s honesty but, as a Christian, was interested in the “foundation” on which we would build our country, which is why she had an issue with it. Um…news flash…there is no religious foundation in government. Argh.

Whoopi Goldberg then says that, because the President is going to be governing for people of all faiths, the beliefs of the President may not gel with what he or she does as a government leader. Well…I should hope not. But still, a couple head nods indicated that there may be some agreement on that point, which was somewhat interesting.

In any case…it seems people are warming up to the idea of an atheist President — as is especially apparent in their reaction to the view that, whether the President is an atheist or not, religion should not be a factor in government decisions.

With a few notable exceptions, obviously. But the times, they are a’changin.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” — Steve Jobs

When Joyce Meyer says:

God has a plan for you – and His plan is much better than yours. So give yourself to Him and see what happens. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

It seems obvious that the God she is encouraging hijacks other people’s lives.

Think about it. How would the Christian know that God’s plan is better than their plan? How would you test it, verify it?

You can’t. Because that would be you trying to make sense of it. That would be your reasoning, your rational mind, your plans, sitting in judgment of God’s.

Essentially, your own judgment, your own plans, your own thinking…that’s worthless and different from God’s greater plan that you have to follow. You’re dangerous to yourself, so you need to follow God instead.

I know what this belief does. I’ve felt it myself — the Bible and pastors telling you to be afraid of yourself and who you are. No thanks.

I’d rather not spend my whole life terrified of who I am and seeking the guidance of a nonexistent phantom controlled by moneygrubbing pastors and churches. When I need motivation, having the freedom to think through my own life and make my own plans without a 2000-year-old fictional God’s interference helps me find it more inherently than a wagging, ill-informed finger from Joyce Meyer and her ilk. It’s much more accepting of who I am, less guilt and shame-ridden and much more beautiful. And it helps me respect and understand others who actually exist, instead of forcing them into the supposed plan of someone who doesn’t.

Maybe, instead of being alienated from yourself, it might be a good idea to get in touch with yourself, to be honest about the parts of your desires that you like and those you want to fulfill, to embrace those you love without having to worry about God’s approval (while at the same time experiencing the freedom to distance yourself from those who are toxic) and to experience the freedom of prudently choosing a course in your own life.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IA3ZvCkRkQ[/youtube]

You may surprise yourself as you continue, every day, to discover yourself.

Maybe you don’t have to be afraid of who you are…

Perhaps you’re better at having your own life than you think.

Thank you for reading.

 

 

 

“I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward—how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?

“I mean, if I believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that.” — Penn Jillette (an atheist)

Before the police made them quit, there were street preachers every Friday and Saturday night in Downtown Fort Worth, right by the movie theatre. It was a good spot — perfect for heckling crowds going in to see R-rated movies, and right where everyone walked from the main parking garage to tour the bars and nightclubs.

One night, they yelled at some people (as was their custom) about their skimpy Friday night clothing. These people happened to be fairly passionate atheists. So the next week these people came back in full force, dressed in black, even skimpier clothing, holding signs, and setting up shop right beside the street preachers.

It was entertaining, in the least. The preachers screamed at the atheists, and the atheists screamed back.

I was a Christian at the time, and in my social group we often talked disparagingly of the street preachers, who were ruining the message. But I had my doubts; I was curious. I didn’t want to just talk ABOUT them without talking TO them.  So I went over and had a chat.

What I saw shattered all the stereotypes. These people cared. They were anxious, tortured souls who thought that the people passing them were going to hell.

They didn’t want them to go to hell. And it challenged me to my core, because if I really believed that unsaved sinners were spinning eternity in hellfire — why was I afraid to put my neck out there?

Because I didn’t believe it as much as I thought I did. Because I was fine communicating that in places where I was protected, in places where Christians would affirm my conviction, in places where I could really intimidate people with my belief. If I really thought that people were going to spend eternity in hellfire, I wouldn’t be able to shut up about it. I’d be screaming it on the streets, urgently, too — without worrying about the damage it would do to my personal reputation.

The more times I talked to them, the more I found that they were getting a bad rap. And they challenged me to be serious about the Bible — showing me scripture after scripture discussing their heroes, light in their eyes when they talked about a God who had saved them and taken over them in their lives, teared-up vision as they surveyed the people passing by them on the sidewalk.

Their main target, they told me, wasn’t non-Christians. It was Christians. I saw them shout out the Bible verses in the New Testament to keep your mind pure, to avoid filthy language, and so on — right to the Christians buying tickets to movies. And the Christians couldn’t deny the verses; they just stood there awkwardly.

What angered them wasn’t non-Christians; what angered them was hypocrisy, the double standard, the claiming of Christianity without taking seriously what the book said. And as I saw this, I began to see the double standards increasingly, and I became angry too — at them and at myself.

The stakes were raised. If Christianity was true, I was going to follow it wholeheartedly. No half-assing it — people were going to hell, and if it was true, I needed to save them. And I needed to live more like a Christian — getting serious about following Christ’s commands and dedicating myself more wholeheartedly to him. And I needed to really realize that hell was real and heaven was real and that we should do our best to get people to heaven and get them to avoid hell, instead of enjoying our day-to-day lives.

The stakes being that high drove me to study Christianity more and, long story short, determine it wasn’t true.

I also chatted with the atheists in Wal-Mart, and again in Barnes and Noble, when I was a Christian. And I found that they were upset at how the scripture being shouted at them was insulting them and their lifestyles; they found value in protecting people from what they saw as harmful, sexist, condemning rhetoric. The problem was not, really, the street preachers. The problem was the Bible itself.

So…….

I’ve thought about this ever since, and to this day I am conflicted when I talk about Christianity. I am squarely an atheist now, and I am driven to ward off fundamentalist harmful Christian influences from the lives of as many people as possible.  I challenge Christian thought and try to strip it of much of the dignity it has gained that has allowed it to ruin the dignity of so many flesh-and-blood human beings.

But I still scratch my head, admittedly, when Christians who believe in hell don’t get more serious about warning people about it, or when Christians who support the Bible ignore its commandments on how to live on a regular basis…and don’t seem too worried about it. To me, the people who come closest to really, sincerely believing in Christianity are like the street preacher I once greeted as a Christian, a friend I was surprised to find standing there, taking all the abuse, the embarrassment, and the rest, and who said, when I asked him why he did what he did, “Christ did so much for me; how could I not do this for him and share it with other people?”

Even as an atheist who disagrees with him deeply regarding his infuriatingly wrong and harmful beliefs, that tugs at my heartstrings.  He may be wrong, but at least he’s really sincere.

Most Christians I know try to avoid up-front debate like the plague; they want to be left alone in the coziness of their Christianity and are extremely thin-skinned about having their views challenged. Makes you wonder…how strong is their belief?

Do they disparage street preachers because they think they’re ineffective at evangelizing, when they do so little to take Christian life seriously and to evangelize themselves? Or do they do it because it challenges the sincerity and hypocrisy inherent within the way the view Christianity?

Because if you really think people are going to hell, why would you binge on “immoral” (according to the Bible’s standards) Netflix shows instead of telling them?

Maybe, like I had to once, you have to face some hard, uncomfortable truths about yourself and question whether you really believe in God or you are hiding behind a religious system for more personal benefits. And maybe it’s also a good idea to realize how your beliefs affect other people, and how important it is to know whether or not you are right.

Thanks for reading.

[Featured image via rebecca olarte under CCL 2.0]