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I think Bernie Sanders performed better than Hillary Clinton on debate night, and most of the initial impressions of the debate (according to online surveys, focus groups, and interest generated in Twitter postings and Google searches) seemed to corroborate this view. Honestly, I thought it was a slam dunk for Sanders…for about an hour or so. And then the mainstream press opinions came out and declared Hillary Clinton the winner. Since then, I’ve been an onlooker (and occasional participant) as my position and my suspicions have been derided by several individuals, so I though it would be helpful to provide a central hub of my rebuttals to a few arguments against Sanders winning, as well as a few arguments I’ve heard from my side of things that I hesitate to fully endorse.

FOUR REASONS WHY I ARGUE SANDERS WON

1. Um…actually the question of who won does matter.

Their claim: It doesn’t matter who won the debate. What matters are the issues.

Rebuttal: In a way, this is true — it’s hard to define who won a debate and the proper measure to use is controversial. But at the same time, something else is also true — it matters a great deal who people think won the debate. Especially if there are people who are undecided or if a candidate many are unfamiliar with makes a strong impression. In addition to making an impacting on people’s voting decisions, this impression matters because these candidates’ presentations, like it or not, color how people view the issues they represent. I am losing track of the number of times my own strongly socialist views tend to be seen through Sanders’ own personality and representation, so this makes it important to me that he is perceived as presenting such views well.

2. Sanders supporters probably didn’t rig all the online polls, conspiracy theorists.

Their claim: Bernie Sanders supporters flooded online polls, making them unreliable.

Rebuttal: This objection would seem true if it were one or two polls, or polls on primarily liberal sites, or polls on prominent sites that liberals would hone in on — leaving the outlying sites clearly neglected. But Sanders won the debate in multiple polls across a wide spectrum of sites.  And even then, the objector might have a point if the margins were close in one or two of them. Except he won those polls not by a little, but by a lot. And the conspiracy theory that so many Bernie Sanders supporters went to liberal AND conservative sites to cast ballots right after the debate seems a bit far-fetched on its face. Major sites like CNN? Sure. The conservative Drudge Report poll? Less likely. And if you say that the conservatives on that site voted for Bernie Sanders because they favored him, you’re even more in the woods, because most of them know now that Sanders is pretty far to the left of Hillary, what with him claiming to be a socialist and all. As Adam Johnson from Alternet puts it:

He won the Slate online poll, CNN/Time online poll, 9News Colorado, The Street online poll, Fox5 poll, the conservative Drudge online poll and the liberal Daily Kos online poll. There wasn’t, to this writer’s knowledge, a poll he didn’t win by at least an 18-point margin.

The collection of such a wide range of polls, and the consistently wide margins, are, together, powerful evidence that this was not a fluke.

3. Folks, it wasn’t just one focus group. It was three, and they didn’t conspire.

Their claim: A random focus group’s opinion is not enough evidence.

Rebuttal: This is absolutely true. One focus group (a group of hand-picked people meant to represent a group of voters) isn’t convincing on its own, as Slate writer Amanda Marcotte notes:

And if you think focus groups are somehow going to give you “objective” information, consider that Trump lost the GOP debate in the Fox News focus group. Didn’t seem to do squat when it came to his poll numbers, though.

Again, this is true. And she’d have a point…if that was the only focus group.

But there wasn’t just one focus group. There were at least three. Again, as Johnson put it:

Sanders won the CNN focus group, the Fusion focus group, and the Fox News focus group.

It isn’t just that he won the results of one focus group. It was that he won according to the results of every focus group that’s remotely significant.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Rzr3aVGTE[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9myTY2w0XbE[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mgw67Ubho4[/youtube]

If there was a focus group he did poorly in — any focus group at all — that would add considerable doubt into the mix.

But the theory that all three groups somehow conspired to say that Sanders won when he clearly didn’t seems fairly strange on its face.

4. Bernie gave the issues some of the passion they deserved, and people saw it.

Their claim: Bernie Sanders came across as a crazy, screaming old man. Hillary Clinton came across as more collected, so she won.

Rebuttal: Well, that depends on your perception. Several people (see above discussion, especially the focus group polls) saw Bernie Sanders as passionate and Hillary Clinton as an opportunist trying to match Sanders’ passion without necessarily succeeding. I mean, you need to be passionate to carry on a consistent 50-year fight for Civil Rights without wavering. Those who think Sanders won thinks he showed his longstanding firmness on Civil Rights with the enthusiasm it deserved, and see Clinton as more muted.  It’s in the perception.

But I will say this, personally: When I see a “moderate” imply Sanders should “calm down” about important issues we all have reason to be passionate about, I have a tendency to think that they do not have nearly the proper respect for the plight of this country’s marginalized and struggling.

WHY I’M CAREFUL ABOUT A FEW ARGUMENTS FROM MY SIDE

Common argument #1: It is definitely true that Time Warner is trying to deceptively make it look like Hillary Clinton won, since they are major contributors to her campaign.

Why I’m cautious: The theory looks promising, at first. Time Warner (the company that owns CNN and Time, two major outlets proclaiming Hillary’s win in spite of Internet polls to the contrary) is the seventh largest donor (according to the best information we have) to Clinton’s campaign efforts. They are not a major donor to Bernie Sanders’ campaign (correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t found evidence that they contributed a cent). The thought here, from several people, is that Time Warner intentionally framed Clinton as the winner of the debate, although they know Sanders actually won.

There is a very small chance that this is true, but it’s not large and won’t translate to a believable argument, for a few reasons. First, many CNN reporters are biased towards Hillary anyway, for free and without there having to be a big conspiracy involved (like, currently, the largest slice of the Democratic party). Remember — Clinton has run for President before, and CNN probably wanted to ensure it had access to her in case she became President — the donations could have been, in part, because they were concerned about accessing a promising front runner (although they were also probably because…well, read this). And the media likely has a much stronger natural relationship to Clinton due to that previous run (not to mention, of course, its relationship with her husband and her prominence as Secretary of State).

Second, it’s possible not to be biased towards Hillary and still think she clearly won. If you’re the reigning champ in the boxing ring, whoever goes against you has to do significantly better than you, oftentimes, for you to lose your belt. Not because the judges are a fan of the reigning champ, but because the reigning champ has a reputation of winning.  Clinton is the favorite, she has the reputation, and her halo is, frankly, blinding. It is highly likely that even if you don’t like Hillary, her status as the frontrunner and the presumption that she’ll win gives her an inherent advantage that it is difficult for Sanders to overcome. So Sanders may have performed better in the debate, which would naturally lead to an out-the-gate reaction that Sanders won.  But if you put that debate in the context of Hillary being the assumed frontrunner who has campaigned before, as many journalists (and, mistakingly, much of the population) does, Clinton acquires a head start based on her reputation.

Third, like it or not, the mainstream media forms opinion. So many people will agree with the mainstream media to save themselves embarrassment — so that even someone who initially thinks Sanders won will be swayed by the media and say they think Clinton did a better job to keep from having an out-of-mainstream and potentially embarrassing opinion (which, I think, is problematic, but it is what it is).

For these three reasons, I think insisting that this was definitely a conspiracy on the part of Time Warner is unwise. I’m not saying for sure that it didn’t happen, and I think that presenting the suspicious evidence is important, but I don’t think certainty should be attached to that opinion. Just my view.

Common argument #2:  Bernie Sanders got more Twitter followers from the debate, so he definitely won.

Why I’m cautious: My opponent might bring up the point that Bernie Sanders brought the hashtag #DebateWithBernie just before the debate, which ensured that this hashtag would be at the top of “trending topics” on smartphones during the debate, and also gave the campaign authority to control what you saw when you searched for the hashtage #DebateWithBernie. Looking at this objectively, it seems likely that this decision significantly impacted the Twitter activity during the debate.

But, at the same time…in addition to the previous evidence, he not only did well on Twitter…he did VERY well on Twitter, in a way that would be challenging to explain based on the Twitter purchase alone.  He got 306,000 tweets to Sanders’s 128,000 tweets, and many of them used the hashtags #cnndebate and #demdebate — Sanders far outpaced Clinton here.  And it seems that this was a good thing (as opposed to indicative of how many people were complaining about Sanders), as Sanders also gained 35,163 new followers to Clinton’s 13,252.

There is strong evidence that Twitter is an indication Bernie Sanders won, but because of the brought hashtag, this evidence doesn’t seem as strong as earlier mentioned items.

Common argument #3:  Searches on Google for Bernie Sanders skyrocketed, so he clearly won.

Why I’m cautious: It’s true that Google searches for Bernie Sander absolutely skyrocketed during the debate.  But was it about how good he was, or how bad?  There seems to be no indications here either way. So I tend to be careful here.

At the same time, as Sanders is not the frontrunner and has not been quite as scrutinized as Clinton, the fact that many more people are searching for him than for Clinton probably helps him more than hurts him – his followers are probably already largely committed, and those who aren’t his followers seem to be looking into possibilities, arguably.

IN CLOSING…

I think, as I said at the beginning, that Bernie Sanders clearly won the debate. So I remain perplexed at what seems to clearly be the flawed insistence that Hillary won.  At the same time, after some thought, conversations with several of my peers, and some research, I think many people currently see Hillary as a winner partly because she’s been seen as the assumed frontrunner for 2016 about since Obama beat her since 2008, and partly because the mainstream media has fairly consistently painted her as the winner.

Bernie Sanders, I think, communicated with the fire and passion the issues he discussed deserved, and he showed a strong, long-lasting consistency and determination to enact desperately needed reforms that seemed to dwarf Hillary Clinton’s more moderate (and, I would argue, politically opportunistic) approach. I suspect, based on the evidence and my own watching of the debate, that initial reactions that did not think of Clinton as the assumed frontrunner (and many initial reactions from those who did) correctly saw Sanders as giving a much stronger performance. It is unfortunate that this view is, for whatever reason, being disregarded by most current opinions from mainstream media.

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

I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about nothing.

The idea of nothing once intimidated me. When I saw something that seemed purposeless, or when I thought there might be an absence of life, a paranoia drove me to put something there. That something, for me, was God.

I should say here that my contemplation of nothing is not necessarily an unimpeachable feature of atheism. There are many atheists who do not think about the idea of nothing at all — to them, what I say may be nonsense. But for me…

Let me try to explain.

Yesterday I saw a movie called The Walk, and it was about Philippe Petit, a man who wanted to walk between the World Trade Center Twin Towers back in 1974. As I watched the film, I noticed that several cues hinted his  motivation. He wanted to impress crowds. He wanted to fulfill a dream. There was a drive, a purpose.

But that purpose faded for me for five minutes near the end of the movie, where he was walking on the wire, between the two towers. Everything fades for a while — the height, the crowds, even the buildings. All that was there, for about 30 seconds in the film, was the wire, stretching out some indeterminable length. It was calming. Peaceful. Beautiful.

A wire through a void.

And in walking the wire with him, I felt….

***

We live in a huge, vast universe of space. And we’re, like, this spinning ball making our way round a sun a million earths large in this vast…well, I know there are stars, and satellites, and planets and asteroids, and comets, and the rest. But still, it just strikes me as this vast, wide, overwhelming nothingness.

Not impregnated with a God or anyone who cares about us save ourselves. Just a spinning, pale, blue dot traveling along a line of nothingness. This infinitesimal thread of time and space.

And when I used to think about it, it frightened me, because I thought it was supposed to frighten me, as I thought the sense of emptiness was meant be filled with faith in an authority I saw as God. But now, thinking about that speck of dust spinning around an enormous universe, silently, peacefully, along a line through the vast blackness and winds of seemingly (or perhaps really) infinite nature of space — it makes me feel…

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=923jxZY2NPI[/youtube]

***

So I was running once, through Sedona, AZ, about seven or eight miles. At first, I ran for the beauty of the light dashing through shadows in the red canyon. But there’s a point in running when all your concerns and worries and distractions begin to fade. So eventually, I ran…just because…I honestly couldn’t tell you. It was just beautiful and raw, like “the fact is the only beauty labor knows” shit. It felt so peaceful, so quiet, so overwhelmingly gorgeous of an experience. Focusing on the trail ahead, like I was gliding on the surface of existence…and yet bound tightly within it. Floating and grounded, in that empty, wondrously meaningless space of consciousness that maybe you could call…

***

So a couple years ago I was reading A Farewell To Arms, and throughout it, there’s a soldier of World War I who is an ambulance driver named Frederic Henry. He leaves war, with all its shattered idealism, as a deserter, and is going to have a child with his wife that he marries on the run, Catherine Barkley, and they escape from the War, and it’s a fairy tale ending, full of bright hope and promise, until the end, the very last couple pages or so, when Ernest Hemingway (the author) kills off Catherine Barkley as she gives birth to her long-awaited child, who also dies, and the novel ends with Frederic Henry, with everything taken from him — glory, honor, love of his life, offspring, everything — walking out the hospital in the rain, away from largely indifferent nurses who are just spending another day of work at the hospital, and he is thoroughly alone enough for my core to feel it..

Anyways, this feeling overtook me, and I thought this feeling represented this real fact in this fiction that was a small, like, microcosm or symbol of life, or whatever — a microcosm or symbolic thing of life in how it seemed so often chock-full of a pursuit of a dream of beauty that we call “the American dream” or “justice” or some other such idealistic thing, but that somehow, propping it up, or underneath it all, and underlying it, and lying all around its edges is something of a raw void that seems, perhaps, horrifying but only if you’re still holding on to the dream that it’s not real. But when you lose the faith in the dream — and in that moment, that’s what Hemingway made me do, through his character Frederic — there are no tears, no smiles, no sadness, no happiness, no pain. Maybe peace, and yet that’s both too simple and too complex. It’s like…losing everything and realizing you’re still there, and that all along, you were still there — not the definition of you, but just a raw you, and you’re everything but you’re also, in the truest sense…

***

I’m driving down a road late on a Friday night, my last night I would call myself religious, and my faith is coming together and falling apart at the same time. I’ve spent hours over the years haunting bookstores and libraries and message boards, thinking, reading, thinking, praying, thinking, talking, thinking, writing…seeking confidence in doubt in all the supposedly right places I could. The doubts were there for greater trust, I thought, as in those gaps was God. And I filled them, filled them, filled them…for twenty years I’d tried to anxiously fill the gaping hole of doubts with more evidence, more faith, more trust, more love, more passion, more, more, more, and more — it was the solution, until now. Now, late on a Friday night driving down Highway 121, it wasn’t a solution anymore. The edifice all caved in on itself; my doubts had coalesced to burn off the illusions and I realized…

I wasn’t a Christian anymore. At that moment, though I am currently an atheist, I had no idea whether God existed or not; I just knew I wasn’t a Christian anymore.

And when I knew that, I lost my sense of up and down. Everything that had made up that solid ground that I had been so firmly standing on emptied under me. And I had been afraid, before, that this moment of losing God would feel like a free falling existential crisis, with constant horror, with a frantic searching of paranoia. To be sure, later there would be a storm as family and friends reacted to the news, and the contours of where I stood might become a bit more defined again, but right now….now I felt…not calm, not ecstatic — maybe a bit relieved, but also vaguely overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time, because at the heart of my existence was just the raw fact of me, and for the first time in my life there was this raw realization that it was up to me what I was going to do with me and my perspective and existence in general…and I realized that as I just sat there in the dark, alone, and it wasn’t just a shrugging OK but it wasn’t not OK — it was…

***

I’m reading David Foster Wallace, that writer who committed suicide, and he wrote this book Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, and I’m reading about the fictional interview some woman has with some man called subject 46. And he talks about brutal things — rape, murder, starving to death, experimenting on people during the Holocaust — all these horrific things. And in talking about this, he goes over the way people can treat you. And the words that haunt me, that pierce me to the core of my being with claws that haven’t left it ever since, are, “they can treat you like a thing.” Like, people can treat you as a thing. Worse than Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, where they see you as different than you are — no, they can treat you like a thing.

Like, your dignity or — lemme make it personal — my dignity as a fucking human being who deserves, innately, rights and respect and honor and to be the grand star at the center of the goddamn universe…people can say, “Fuck that shit” and see me as a thing. Worse than a “Coloreds Only” sign on a water faucet — I can be treated like a cadaver to be operated on and experimented on and hurt, except the people hurting me don’t think about hurting me and feel no malice, no cruelty, nothing. Just nothing. They can treat me like a thing.

And so I’m reading this standing there in Barnes and Noble with the bright calming lights over my head and the clacking of coffee cups and the polite chatter and the rustling turning pages and Sarah Bareilles singing in the fucking background — all of it together in a chorus saying, “It’s OK” over and over as this book is stripping me raw and I feel more naked than I’ve ever been in the entire history of my life…

And then, in my soul (which I don’t believe in but I need a word like that now), I believed it. In whatever is that deepest part of the psyche, I suddenly knew it was true.

And you would think this was terrifying. But the next thing subject 46 said was also true — that I DECIDE in this void who I am. This is a void and realizing that it is a void gives us the freedom to own our beauty, or brilliance, or…whatever the fucking hell it is — it’s whatever makes us, “ourselves,” it’s this…

It’s what Nietzsche said about the watchman who, in the face of God’s death, declared that we had to become gods to replace Him…it’s like, we know we are nothing, or — more, exactly, could be nothing, or whatever — but, that doesn’t matter a damn, because we can decide to see ourselves as human beings with some innate dignity while being fully aware of the gaping void, like a focus on a wire stretching out to infinity between the twin towers or…

we can DECIDE….

And it’s all in the face of…

***

So Emily Dickinson has this fucking awesome poem that I read for the first time back in undergrad and that I read maybe once every couple weeks to remind me of it…and it’s in the public domain, so I can actually quote it in full — here it is:

    There’s a certain slant of light,
    On winter afternoons,
    That oppresses, like the weight
    Of cathedral tunes.

    Heavenly hurt it gives us;
    We can find no scar,
    But internal difference
    Where the meanings are.

    None may teach it anything,
    ‘ T is the seal, despair, —
    An imperial affliction
    Sent us of the air.

    When it comes, the landscape    listens,
    Shadows hold their breath;
    When it goes, ‘t is like the distance
    On the look of death.

The oppression Dickinson is talking about, I learned, is the gap — the gap between our existence and the brilliance of nature. And I think this is the sense of awe we know — we look at the vaulted ceilings of the Sistine Chapel or the brilliance of the stars in the night sky and we feel the “heavenly hurt” of being small and different compared to the universe that we’re in.

But we are made up of stars like those we see twinkling in the night sky. This computer, these fingers, our eyes, everything…it’s all just…there.  The stars, in our minds, in all their spectacular beauty, are as lifeless as corpses…and yet, when I look in the night sky or sit near a swiftly moving stream or set my eyes on a beautiful landscape I begin to think or know that I’m part of it all and it’s beautiful because I am the universe looking at itself and it’s beautiful to me.

As Zora Neale Hurston put it:

When the consciousness we know as life ceases, I know that I shall still be part and parcel of the world. I was a part before the sun rolled into shape and burst forth in the glory of change. I was, when the earth was hurled out from its fiery rim. I shall return with the earth to Father Sun, and still exist in substance when the sun has lost its fire, and disintegrated into infinity to perhaps become a part of the whirling rubble of space. Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance.

***

I’ve thought a lot about the soul, which is strange for an atheist. And yet there is this…this raw…this thing I’ve been talking about, this nothing that I’ve been trying to get at, this gap in, as Dickinson put it, “where the meanings are.” Defining it as God seems to be a lie. But maybe, I’ve wondered…maybe when we’re talking about a soul, we’re talking about that nothing, that void. And it’s not frightening. It’s like a peaceful thing. It’s not a soul in the sense of something necessarily conscious. It’s like…just nothingness.

But it’s this part of ourselves that makes nothing, that makes the void, so pregnant with beautiful meaning in our lives. Our desires, our logic, our beauty, our perspectives, our decisions to give ourselves and each other dignity on this spinning “pale, blue dot”…this comes from there being, in my mind, no God, and in its place a void containing nothing but ourselves and the entirety of existence…just there, with no meaning save that which we give it.

That makes me eagerly embrace my life, because in this nothing, no meaning is mandated or handed down; for me it is decided by care and empathy for others and my own passions. And the freedom of there being a ” nothing” there, a void on which to paint my life, gives me something to live for. It makes the basis of my existence, if it makes sense to put it this way, “pure.”  As Alan Watts put it:

So if you really go the how way and see how you feel at the prospect of vanishing forever — of all your efforts, and all your achievements, and all your attainments turning into dust and nothingness — what is the feeling? What happens to you?

All kinds of poetry emphasize the theme of transcendence. There is a kind of nostalgic beauty to it. “The Banquet Hall deserted, after the revelry, all the guests had left and gone on their ways. The table with overturned glasses, crumbled napkins, bread crumbs , and dirty knives and forks lies empty. And the laughter echoes only in one’s mind. And then the echo goes, the memory, the traces are all gone. That’s the end you see.”
Do you see, in a way, how that is saying the most real state is the state of nothing? That’s what it’s all going to come to. With these physicists who think of the energy of the universe as running down dissipating into radiation, and gradually and gradually, and gradually, gradually, until there is nothing left.

And, for some reason, we are supposed to find this depressing. But if somebody is going to argue that the basic reality is nothingness — where does all this come from? Obviously from nothingness. Once again you get how this looks behind your eyes. So cheer up….Nothingness is really like the nothingness of space, which contains the whole universe. All the sun and the stars and mountains, and rivers, and the good men and the bad men, and the animals, and insects, and the whole bit. All are contained in void. So out of this void comes everything and you it. What else could you be?

So…I’m typing this now, but one day the heat-death of the universe will happen, and all I strive for today will turn to dust, and that may well be the end of everything. And the scary thing about it, the reason why people cling to God, is that, I think, they (like me, once) cannot bear the thought of there being nothing. But — and I realize this is a controversial point, but it is mine — to a major extent, I’m OK with nothing. I’m not a thoroughoing nihilist, understand — we still have feelings, emotions, joys, sadnesses, passions, logic, science, and the rest. But it’s all based, at the heart of it, on nothing. And the more I think about this, the more I’m ecstatic about life while, at the same time, at peace with the fact that consciousness will quite possibly dissipate into the nothingness it came from and, if you catch my drift, still is. It’s a beautiful, colorful, peaceful opportunity here, a deep joy in embracing the void and playing its variations, in accessing everything through the embrace of the raw void, so to speak.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssf7P-Sgcrk[/youtube]

Thanks for reading.

The proclamation that the God of the Bible is a necessary prerequisite for morality’s existence is, basically, rubbish.

For starters, there’s a raw non-sequitur gap of logic behind it all.  People assume: The God of the Bible (henceforth referred to simply as “God” unless otherwise clearly marked) exists – therefore morality exists.  There’s a big space in that dash to begin with.  It’s not a given — there’s an earth-to-Saturn gap of logic there, and no reason for the too-common assumption that the two statements are somehow linked.  I mean, really, that should be the long and short of an open-shut case. You can stop and start there and be logically in the right.  Just throw out the dash, and you’re good.  If you’re satisfied with that, you can stop reading.  This is only going to get as complicated as you want it to be.

However, if you start to overthink things, you can fill that dash with a lot of unnecessary stuff.  For example, you may assume that morality needs some powerful being to exist.  The gist of the argument is that, without someone to enforce the rules, we’re in a free-for-all.  So we need God as the enforcer.  In short, might makes right, so since God is mighty, God is right.

If you think that might makes right, fine.  But God isn’t necessary for that principle to exist.  It simply does not follow that since might makes right, God makes sense.  I mean, the principle has applied to rulers for centuries, because what it claims is that the most powerful person in a given situation is in charge.  In Christianity, wouldn’t you know it, the most powerful person in charge (who you can’t see, taste, touch yourseslf) often has a humble spokesman (or spokesmen, as the case may be)!  And whatever he says goes. The might of an invisible being makes the ruler seem like the most powerful being since, well, before sliced bread.

This also opens up a possibility that is rather offensive to me – which is that the most powerful person in a given situation shouldn’t be questioned.  To that, I call shenanigans.  Yet, the logic has been used to prevent everyone from parents to rulers to clergy from being questioned.  It’s like a shield, and it really has no business being there.  The fact that you are more powerful than me does not mean I am under any obligation to do what you say.  How do I know you have my best interests at heart?

So, yeah.  That whole might makes right thing doesn’t make sense to me.

And then there’s that other argument — the argument that God is naturally so good and awesome that I should automatically want to follow Him doesn’t really hold water either.  Call me crazy, but I’m not a big fan of genocide or just killing people who don’t agree with me, and God did that on an epic scale.

“Well,” comes the response from oh-so-many Christians, “He killed those bad men, women, children and infants for the good of the Israelites.”  Yes, and Hitler killed the Jews for the sake of the Germans –and, like Moses, he claimed he did so at the prompting of God.  Same difference.  Just doesn’t cut it for me.  When you understand your issues with Hitler’s God, you’ll understand my issues with Moses’ God.

And Christianity is not based on a person’s moral goodness anyway, remember?  Everyone – every last person on earth – is a sinner, supposedly.  They apparently got an F on the report card for morality.  So everyone starts from scratch.  Then they get saved by Christ, and that makes you better!  It turns that “F” into an “A”!  This is not because you’re a good person, mind you.  It’s because you believed that a cosmic Jewish zombie saved everyone from the horrifying first sin of human beings, which occurred when a naked woman bit into a fruit at the prompting of a talking snake.  Well, I guess they do say the truth is stranger than fiction.  “But,” the Christian rushes in to say, “I’m not better than you – it’s Christ who has made me perfect.”  Of course, this can be said in much more sophisticated ways, but it basically boils down to sounding a lot like, “I’m not better than you –it’s Christ who has made me better than you.”  Christianity isn’t about being moral – it’s about believing the right thing — at least, in reference to most forms of modern Christianity.  So to say you need Christianity to ensure morality is kinda to miss the point, isn’t it?  At least, according to a major segment of Christianity.

So, yeah.  To say the Christian God is necessary for morality doesn’t make any sense to me now, whatsoever.  It’s really a no-brainer, if you take a step back and just fucking think about it.

Thanks for reading.

Most Christians (though not all) would prefer a physician over their pastor when it comes to cancer. Oh, they might appreciate their pastor for moral support and for prayer, but they’ll be going to the hospital for chemotherapy instead of expecting the pastor to cure the problem. Because the pastor is an expert in theology, not an expert in oncology.

However, in many churches, the pastor serves the role of substance abuse counselor, social worker, marriage counselor, job  guidance counselor, dating coach, clinical psychologist, and so on. Every Sunday a pastor gets up to talk about how those in the congregation should be living their lives, and during the week many seem to really on him or her to figure out how to conduct their daily affairs.

Here’s the problem — very few of these pastors are licensed in anything save theology in their particular sect.

This is very scary. Christians give these pastors enormous power over how themselves and others should think and conduct themselves, and this wouldn’t be as much of a problem if these pastors were trained in these areas. But they are not. They are just random people giving advice. It’s no wonder that so much of it would be misguided. And, given that they aren’t superhuman by any means, it’s no wonder that, for many of them, the power they have in their positions would go to their heads.

Now, although I think God is a bad idea, I’ll be the first to admit that yes, it helps to share your problems with someone else (like you can here — but even these operatives are trained). And I also think the placebo effect can help people — if you think your pastors advice will help, even if it’s generally bad advice, there’s a chance that it might help. Also, given how many churches there are (here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where I live there are more churches than fast food joints), it seems that many people can and do often find churches and pastors who are going to make statements they agree with anyway, so that the pastor just gives them confidence in how they already want to live their lives.

But that said — there is an amazing amount of trust that many people have in their pastors, which leaves plenty of room for it to be exploited (which might be why the clergy is said to be one of the professions most likely to draw psychopaths).  And the pastors oftentimes may not be aware that they are exploiting the congregation — the respect from the congregation cements their own thought that they are God’s messengers, which emboldens them to give advice they are not qualified to give.

This is how, for example, a pastor I once respected as a Christian, Mark Driscoll, managed to rise to such prominence and ruin many people’s lives. His speaking style and theological grounding drew several thousands to his Mars Hill Church, and his ego began to grow way out of proportion.

Among other things, he often gave thorough dating advice:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T92qbnrQxHU[/youtube]

Marriage advice:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFPU3PFtrTI[/youtube]

Drug abuse advice:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBD0r4AO_GI[/youtube]

Parenting advice:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IusLlwY9q-w[/youtube]

And so on. And even watching a minute or two from each of these videos reveals, consistently, a very insistent, strongly worded style of giving advice on almost every aspect of your and others’s lives.

Mark Driscoll is not a licensed counselor, psychologist, or social worker. He has a BA in Communications with a minor in Philosophy. He’s not an expert in any of the areas he discusses. And yet he consistently gave strongly worded, insistent advice on these matters on and off the pulpit — advice people not only followed themselves, but judged others by. And he’s by no means unusual in churches today. He just was doing it on a wide enough scale that it made a serious impact. People were seriously hurt from his uneducated advice.

Among them was Mary Lambert. As a 2014 article notes:

There are people coming forward with objections to Mars Hill, including Mary Lambert, who wrote and performed the hook on Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s “Same Love.” On the track, Lambert croons, “I can’t change, even if I try, even if I wanted to.”

Lambert has said she realized God made her the way she is — gay — and that she can be a Christian without feeling depressed, ashamed or condemned despite what she heard from Driscoll.

And as she sings at the end of “Same Love,” now that she’s left Mars Hill, she’s not crying on Sundays.

KIRO 7 reached out to Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church several times. Our calls were not returned.

Knowing this makes me tear up even more at the “I’m not crying on Sundays” line.

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

Mark Driscoll’s uneducated advice was wreaking havoc on her emotional life, and she’s not alone.

Eventually, more and more problems came out regarding Mark Driscoll’s role in the church. Driscoll (like many clergy) had the power to raise or lower individuals’ social standing in the church, and because in his mind he was a messenger of God, he used it liberally.

As a result, Mars Hill is no more — the 13 churches that made it up are now autonomous and Driscoll resigned in 2014. But there are still people recovering from the wounds of this unlicensed counselor. For example, a website called We Love Mars Hill has sprung up, consisting of many people who, like Lambert, have been “hurt, damaged, abused, neglected, shunned, or rejected by Mark Driscoll and other elders at Mars Hill Church.”  This blog and the comments also have some disturbing stories.

I think it’s clear that this destruction to personal lives is the result of pastors who are given enormous control over the interior and exterior lives and decisions of huge groups of people. I’m not saying they are intentionally deceitful, necessarily, but I am saying that even their best intentions usually come from untrained backgrounds. We should trust them to “heal” our marriages, relationships with our kids, addictions, and so on about as much as we trust them to cure cancer. What we should do is rely on professional advice for these important areas as much as possible.

So…if a pastor’s advice seems hard to follow, or if you’re one of those who feels shame from what they say in the pulpit or an office visit, or if you’re hurt by the way they tell you to treat friends or family, maybe those emotions are sourced in the fact that, like most pastors, the pastor simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Try to seek professional advice, or do your own studies. We all need people we can trust to talk to. But when it comes to trying to figure out how certain decisions will affect our futures, it becomes important to rely on expert advice instead of that of an overconfident novice.

Thanks for reading.

Christians: Quit trying to take advantage of tragedies in our lives to convert us.

I’ve heard this way too many times — the old, “There are no atheists in foxholes” bullshit. This ridiculous thought that once shit hits the fan in our lives, as it’s bound to, you’ll be able to swoop in and say, “See! You need God!” and we’ll keel over and accept Him.

What you’re doing isn’t original. If you go back to medieval times, they kinda thought the same thing. Except then, they didn’t share this message with smiles. No. They did it with torture. And as offensive as it may be to suggest this, I think that when you, as a Christian, wait for us atheists to go through something difficult in our lives to tell us that God will make our lives all better, you’re kinda keying into this.

The reason you think there are no atheists in foxholes, I suspect, is that for hundreds of years Christianity has developed a reputation of converting people through such threats of death and torture, and possibly found the intimidation fairly effective.  And it’s easy to make up confessions, as well — which may have also coaxed people into thinking that those near to death will call out to God.  So that now, when someone is going through a rough time…people tend to think the time is right to bring them over to the Christian side of things.

I get a bit upset when this happens to me, honestly.

I mean, I’ve sat across from someone who has looked me in the eye and said that, because I don’t believe in God, I’m going to have a rough time in my life. I’ve talked to other people who have complained that the Christians in their lives have said that a hard time might be God trying to tell them something. I’ve even sat in on sermons and advice from apologists to college students saying Christians should wait till a friend has a hard time in their lives before sharing the Gospel to them.

It’s the same theory that was used during the times of Christian torture of heretics — when people are broken down psychologically, physically, and emotionally…then is your time to strike and insert the Gospel of Christ.  It’s like, “Hey — your emotional, psychological, and cognitive faculties are at their weakest — now is the best time to make a major life decision!”

Now…I can tell you that yes, I do have a bit of sympathy for some of these Christians. After all, many Christians were converted this same way — someone came into their life at a vulnerable time and said, “Here, believe this to help you get out of it,” and they did, and so now they’re passing it on to you. And if you’re one of those Christians reading this now…maybe you like the you you are now, and maybe it did “work,” in a sense, as the placebo effect is very powerful.  Thinking something works can actually make it work.

If you are this Christian, then I think you should be kinda pissed off, frankly, that someone came into your life when you were most vulnerable and took advantage of that moment to get you to accept a story that clearly seems a bit “off” on its face. The most infuriating this is that someone put an authority in your life that, it seems, doesn’t really actually exist. Because someone took advantage of you at your weakest, and not necessarily at your most confident or sharpest, you seem to have given the entirety of your life to a phantom.

Maybe it’s healthy to rethink Christianity now that you’re out of the crisis and might be a bit stronger emotionally and psychologically to honestly explore your doubts. Because that’s honestly what we atheists are often after — not trying to wait till people are at the bottom of the barrel, but coming in to help people struggling who have the ability to honestly think through and weigh evidence.

If someone took advantage of you at your weakest, don’t do that to your friends. And, worse yet, don’t lie in wait to do that to your friends or anyone else. Consider this: If you have to wait until your friend is at their weakest to convince them that something is true…maybe doubting it is a good route. Perhaps we can have a conversation now, as friends and equal human beings, instead of waiting for life to beat me down so you can force what you believe into me.

Thanks for reading.

Almost every time I ask a Christian if non-believers go to heaven or hell, they answer that it’s not up to them. It’s up to God.

My experience of talking to Christians indicates that, for many of them, passing the buck on to God is good enough. But should it be? Honestly — if you really, deeply care for your friend, wouldn’t you want to make sure that they weren’t going to spend eternity in torment, instead of just being resigned to a third party? Wouldn’t you want to make sure God let them into heaven with you?

That’s how I felt, eventually, as a Christian. “It’s up to God” wasn’t good enough. I wanted to know for sure. Did hell exist? Who was going there? Who wasn’t?

And I also asked myself an arguably more difficult question: “What does it say about me that I believe in and worship a God whose law indicates that this person I care about might go to hell forever? What kind of person would I have to be to even think to worship a God like that?”

Part of the reason I left (in addition to powerful evidence against God’s existence) is that, as I contemplated many a sleepless night,  I didn’t like the face I saw in the mirror after asking that question. And I know it may be tough, but I’m not asking any question I haven’t asked myself.

When someone passes the buck by saying “it’s up to God,” what they’re saying to me is that I might, just might, deserve to burn in hell forever. And I can kinda tell from their tone of voice that if that’s what God they’re giving their hear to decided, they might just be OK with that.

In other words, far from showing me that the Christian cares, this response shows that they think that maybe, just maybe, I might be deserving eternity in torment. And they’re also telling me that possibility isn’t one that’s important enough for you to thoroughly investigate. It’s something they’re fine shrugging about. And if I go to torment, which I might, I deserve it.

Now, after I’ve had time to think of it, I think that neither you, me, nor anyone else deserves eternity in torment. Not even Hitler. I mean, really, eternity? Even if you tortured him for a million years for each person who died by his hand…that would be more than enough, wouldn’t it? Does anyone really deserve eternal torment?

That’s part of why I left Christianity. I was not satisfied with thinking that maybe, just maybe, some of people who seemed beautiful deserved eternity in hellfire (or separation from God, or any way you define that place) if God said so. I decided that their dignity and their value was worth fighting for without apology and without any hint or slight suggestion of a “sinner” label. For me, that’s what love began to look like. “Love your neighbor as yourself” was, ironically, one of the commands in the Bible that eventually led me to reject Christianity altogether.

I’m not challenging you with anything I have not challenged myself with. I’m asking same questions that life asked me.

So…I think that, instead of saying that it’s up to God…maybe think about what decision you would make about people if it were up to you? Because if God doesn’t exist, your questioning is just you saying, “Well, maybe you’re going to hell. It’s up to this made-up being.” That can color relationships in some disturbing ways.

Try this out:

Forget about God’s judgment. You appreciate all the things you love about humanity. You see the beauty where you can glean it. You open up your heart and your mind. Forget about God.

When I tried that out…God began to fade. Oh, people still do things that upset me from time to time. They still do harmful things that make me upset, and rightfully so, I think.

But those are things that I judge myself. It’s just me and them, in real existence. Without any interference from the judgment of a supposed God. Makes things more straightforward, simplistic, personal, grounded.  And it allows me to love them without wondering if, inside them, there’s something God will judge them forever for.

Do with that as you will.

Thanks for reading.

Note: In these discussions, people usually say that my discussion of hell is naive — that most Christians don’t believe this. In the United States this is not true:

About 6 in 10 Americans (61 percent) say hell is a real place. Black Protestants (86 percent) and Evangelicals (87 percent) are most likely to say hell is real. Catholics (66 percent) and Mainline Protestants (55 percent) are less convinced.

Furthermore, Evangelicals are the largest group of Christians in the United States, and the category that’s held most steady as people have begun making an exodus from religion in the United States.  Progressives are already leaving the church, and there are fewer of them. So the most fruitful critiques of the church seem to be on the more evangelical versions of Christianity. However, it seems most versions of Christianity do have a disturbing concept of hell in them — there are a ton of sects, and no thorough agreements between any two Christians, that it’s impossible to get one view that all would agree with. But this post, I think, addresses the clear, dominant majority.

I’m not sure it’s possible to do anything that’s not selfish — every act needs motivation, and it seems like motivation for what you do would come from somewhere inside of yourself, seeing as you’d be the one doing it. So, on some level, everything you did was what you wanted to do out of the options available to you at that time. Strictly logically speaking, everything you do is probably selfish.

Still, I find myself shaking my head when someone says accuses me of leaving Christianity for selfish reasons. Although it may not be possible to perform an unselfish deed, I can honestly say that leaving Christianity is the least selfish thing I’ve ever done.

One of the reasons I say this is that I doubted God in the face of threats of hellfire that I, on some level, still believed.

A lot of Christians say they can’t imagine being afraid of hell, so let me explain what I mean.

Most Christians seem to view hell (or separation from God, or however the particular Christian defines it) a bit like it’s an electric fence — on one side is heaven, and if you cross the line (which is often hard to figure) you’re in Satan’s territory, so to speak, and you’re going to experience hell. It’s why Christians often say that atheists believe in the devil, I think — they believe that if you are opposed to God you’re automatically in hell’s camp. So, here’s the thing: when you’re far away from the “electric fence” and enjoying the green grass within its borders, you don’t really have a conscious fear of it. It’s only when you travel near the electric fence that you begin to be concerned — it’s when you are thinking about going beyond the wire that the question of whether or not it’s safe really concerns you.

That’s what leaving Christianity was like for me. When I didn’t have serious doubts, hell was the last thing on my mind. But then I began to develop more of a heart for those supposedly in danger of going to hell…it wasn’t enough for me to do that thing some Christians do and “leave it up to God.”  I had to challenge my thinking and get to the bottom of things. And that brought me nearer to that fence…and the fears came.

So, much of what motivated me to leave Christianity, in spite of this fear, is that I was uncomfortable with the fact that people I was developing a heart for were going to hell. If they were actually going to hell, the care in my heart made it absolutely necessary for me to warn them — but I also worried that warning them would make them unnecessarily afraid if I were wrong. It would also be saying that they deserved to go there if they didn’t believe in the same story I supposedly believed in.

(Note: I’m not saying that this emotional argument alone made me leave — I left primarily because I looked at the evidence carefully and found it to be against Christianity being true. But my fuel for leaving consisted, largely, of a realization regarding others’ fear of hell).

I could have kept going to church. I could have hung out with friends there, and focused on heaven without really thinking about the possibility that other people were going to hell. I would still be close to my family, I would still be close to my Christian friends (I didn’t really have atheist friends at the time), I eventually would have (perhaps, after distancing myself from the evidence I’d found) selfishly focused on the joys of heaven, and I would have lived a relatively happy life.

But I cared too much about how bad it would be to stand behind this Christianity, if it was false.  And, in my latter couple years as a Christian, I began to suspect that the way I was caring about myself was amazingly selfish. How could I be happy that I was going to heaven when I worshiped a God who seemed, in the Bible, to threaten people I cared about with punishment and hell? How could I follow the rules of someone who seemed to ask people I cared about to act against their desires, especially their desires for people they loved? How could I urge people to hold on to Jesus and say that Jesus was the answer for their emotional struggles if I suspected, deep down, that Jesus should be disregarded and that careful studies should inform the way people deal with such struggles, and that a “just trust Jesus” often encouraged more guilt than comfort in people?

And so on.

So what I’m saying is that the way I thought of myself became a little less selfish, and I became a bit more focused on other people, and that led to me becoming more and more uncomfortable with the thought that others were going to hell.

So I studied the concept of hell. And I saw, even here, that there was room for compromise. I could make it so that hell wasn’t THAT bad, and still call myself a Christian without really condemning those outside the faith. But that was increasingly dishonest to me, because when I forced myself to give a hard, straightforward look at the concept of hell, I found that there didn’t really seem to be evidence for its existence.

If I told people that they deserved eternity in hell, I’d be lying to them. If I told them they could trust in Jesus, I’d be lying to them. If I told them to follow God because He cared, I’d be lying to them.

I could have done that. I could have “faked” it. I know people who do. And, to be fair, the price of leaving Christianity is often high — I think that some people aren’t at a point in their lives where they can come out and be public about how they don’t believe it.

But then again, I couldn’t fake it, because I cared about other people and the truth too much.

There’s a short story called “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by a woman named Ursula Le Guin. It starts out with a description of a perfect utopia. But in this utopia, there is one small child who is continually beaten, without mercy. And the utopia of the town depends on that one small child being beaten.

That’s what heaven and hell seemed like to me. Not just in the afterlife, but here — the separation, I could see, created rifts between families and friends, especially in this US culture, where atheists are only about 3% of the population.

Many people stayed in Omelas, in Le Guin’s story. But every once in a while, someone would get restless and leave.

(Ursula Le Guin is an atheist, by the way. Maybe that’s part of why her analogy explained my own experience so well.)

That’s basically what I did. I got restless and packed my bags. Except, more than that, I decided to still keep up discourse with the city and tell them to stop worshiping any God who would privilege love of Himself over love of people (especially if this God was found in the Bible).

It hasn’t been easy. It’s been a difficult road.

But the love this beating heart can share gives me a smile that’s worth it. And in leaving, I’ve found a community of people who say “me, too,” and it warms my heart every time, because I didn’t know what I would find.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcrbM1l_BoI[/youtube]

As Ursula Le Guin put it:

People who spend their lives sewing doll clothes for a figment of their imagination [they call “God”] have no business running a country, making laws, interfering in people’s sex lives, teaching in public schools, or getting us into wars against people who make a different kind of doll clothes for a different figment of the imagination.

Let the tailors of the garments of God sit in their tailor shops and stitch away, but let them stay there in their temples, out of government, out of the schools. And we who live among real people—real, badly dressed people, people wearing rags, people wearing army uniforms, people sleeping on our streets without a blanket to cover them —let us have true charity: Let us look to our people, and work to clothe them better.

Thank you, and thanks for reading.

I’d like to take some time out to talk to people who are being guilt-tripped or otherwise prodded into evangelizing to their friends.

Hi.

I was a Christian for a long time who tried to witness to people, but felt increasingly uncomfortable with the message I was trying to share. At first, I thought that there was something wrong with me, because of what respected “evangelists” in the church were telling me. I was being coached on how to reach out to other people, and definitely taking it to heart…

Ray Comfort is the prototype for this business of coaxing Christians into doing this evangelism these days. So I’ll use him as an example/ proof that this happens.

On a recent post, he stated:

Do you ever practice what you preach? Perhaps you could practice with your mirror. Make sure you are alone, and ask it a friendly, “How are you doing? Did you get one of these?” Say, “It’s a Gospel tract. What do you think happens after someone dies? Do you believe in Heaven and Hell?” Keep practicing until you shake off self-consciousness. Think of how a child begins to walk. Each step is at first deliberate and stumbling. He lacks grace. But in time, one step just follows the other without a second thought. Aim to get to that place. Learn to go through the Ten Commandments as Jesus did; then preach the cross. The Bible says to always be ready to give a “reason for the hope that’s within you.” There’s no greater calling.

Practice it in the mirror? Get rid of self consciousness? Demeaning the reader as if they are a child? Maybe, before you do this, you should see if what you’re trying to tell people is actually true — perhaps that’s the reason for your hesitance. Maybe you should think before trying to say that someone else might be going to hell if they die without listening to you — putting them through that emotional anguish…

But people like Ray Comfort don’t want you to experience that doubt — he blocks people from the objections of atheists with a pretty extreme blocking policy.  As he puts it:

If you mock Christians, God, Jesus, or the Bible, or slander me by publishing lies about me advocating raping and killing children, hating doctors, etc., you will be quickly banned.

This page is for Christians to be encouraged and equipped to share their faith. Look on it as my home and the Christians here are part of my family. If you come in with filthy shoes, mock my family or spit on them, I will show you the door very quickly, and lock it so that you can’t get back in.

I’m sure you would do the same.

If you think these rules are unfair, that’s just how things are, in this life and (as you will find out) in the next.

And I know, from being a Christian, a bit about how the pressure from pastors and other influences like Ray Comfort feels. In the family, you feel warm, secure, cared for. But then there’s the push to evangelize — to bring people in. And you’re hesitant, but you think it’s cowardice. You think there’s something wrong with you.

There’s not. The unfortunate thing is that most Christians seem to use the question, “Do you really believe what you claim to believe?” as a guilt trip. I think, maybe, it would be a good idea to ask yourself that question without the guilt. Do you really, actually believe it? It’s OK to ask yourself that question, and give yourself the room to think that maybe your doubts are valid.

Maybe the reason you don’t want to share the message isn’t that you’re a coward.

Maybe the reason you don’t want to share the message is that you’re wrong.

Maybe what you like about church is the camaraderie, the friendship, the myth you have in common. But maybe you don’t want to share it because it’s insulting to tell other people they’re going to hell, or, deep inside, you’re not sure it’s true.

Perhaps, instead of succumbing to the pressure to preach this message, it’s healthy to consider these possibilities. Maybe that voice in your head that says, “Maybe you shouldn’t be doing telling people this” is one you should be listening to.

And I know, from experience, it’s a bit hard to do this, what with the weekly guilt-prodding from pastors and fellow congregants. But at the same time, I think it’s important to, with all the voices insisting every Sunday and throughout the week that you force yourself to say things you’re not comfortable saying…maybe stop, take a moment, and begin thinking that maybe, just maybe, it’s not you. Maybe it’s that this story is just hard to believe.

I’m not really making an argument either way here. What I’m saying is that, at the very least, you should consider the possibility that what you believe isn’t true.

And if you’re trying to force people to preach this message — give them some room. If you’re frustrated in getting people to evangelize, and you think that maybe they don’t really believe it…start thinking about why they may not believe it. Do the stories seem far fetched? Do the commands seem unrealistic in the real world? Does it make sense that the way God commands us to act would go so much against the way we humans may naturally want to act?

Maybe instead of pushing, you should start listening.

Unlike Ray Comfort.  And instead of getting people to practice telling stories they doubt may be true, allow them to evaluate, poke, and prod the stories honestly. And then follow the evidence where it leads.

Maybe it’s a good idea to listen to your doubts…they may know what they’re talking about. At least, they certainly did for me.

I can’t promise a bed of roses. But I do know there’s a more open world, and room to explore thinking in places that were closed off before.

Give some thought to trying it out…

Thanks for reading.

Note: If you’re an atheist or agnostic reading this, awesome! At the same time, more than most posts, I’m trying hard to get this message out to the Christians who are too often guilt-tripped by their pastors for not doing “enough” evangelism. If you think this might help them, would you mind helping me out by sharing this on social media so that more of them would read it? Thank you!

I just saw a study that I want to come right out and comment on as soon as possible.

It ranked, from fewest grammatical mistakes to most grammatical mistakes (per 100 words) the supporters of the Presidential candidates.

I’m a Bernie Sanders supporter. Sanders came in third, higher than his main contender, Hillary Clinton, who came in fifth.

I’m also a Democrat, and all the Democrats scored higher than all the Republicans.

I’m also very, very, anti-Trump. In fact, once I nearly went full-Godwin on him.

So I’m not trying to score points in politics.

Nor am I complaining about this because I’m terrible when it comes to grammar. I have an MA in English and am currently working on a doctorate in the field. I’ve also taught several semesters of college composition.

I’m complaining about this because my current day job consists of helping graduate students in the health sciences write. And English is the second language for many of them. Others focused on biology so much that the more abstract world of words received less attention.

So…I’ve been doing this for a couple years. And over this time, I’ve developed a deep respect for those who struggle with English — both those who are ESL learners and those who aren’t. I don’t just help second-language learners, but also people who may not have had the highest quality education. Most of the people I help with grammar are far more intelligent when it comes to medical policy than I’ll ever be. They could make fun of my lack of medical terminology till the cows come home. So I’ve learned to show some deep respect. I absolutely think someone of their intelligence should be able to vote.

(Edit: Somehow, in spite of attempts to the contrary, people have thought I’m only talking about ESL learners. In case it’s not obvious, I’m not — the conversation goes beyond that. Keep reading.)

I’ve also worked as a waiter with several minimum wage earners who couldn’t write “proper” English. But I know that they have concerns, goals, and ideologies borne out of their experiences, and that these ideologies contribute to the overall portrait of America.

They have a right to vote and be heard. I may be passionate about making sure they are informed, but when it comes to the voting booth I think we should focus on their experiences and contribution as fellow Americans, not on whether they’re able to put contractions in the right places.

I’ve also volunteered for political campaigns. And I know, from talking on the phones with people in these campaigns, that sometimes people don’t really know about politics and aren’t very educated on “the issues” because they’re working two or three jobs trying to provide for their families. They don’t have time to watch the news or keep up with the headlines. But they have very real concerns and contribute to society, arguably, more than I do. They deserve to have their voices heard.

And, finally, I’m black. It wasn’t too long ago when most blacks in the South, where I live, were barred from voting because they weren’t, supposedly, smart enough. Even today, you hear FOX “News” demeaning black individuals’ education as they cater to the prejudiced in their audiences.

My biggest fear is that this revelation that Trump supporters struggle with grammar will prompt Democrats and other liberals to demean those who struggle with grammar. This can’t happen. Many Republicans already demean people who supposedly don’t know their English well enough, and one of the reasons I’ve been proud to be a Democrat is that we’ve been in the business of standing up for these hard working Americans, making sure they have a voice and that we’re working in their best interests within this society.

Let’s keep doing that. Let’s not let our sense of partisanship ruin our values and prompt us to stop fighting for the most marginalized and struggling in this country.

Thanks for reading.

Ray Comfort is a self-styled Christian apologist who has one major trick pony in his arsenal, basically — the slight-of-hand assuming that one possibly negative feature about something an individual has done describes the entirety of their character.

So this is how it works: he’ll go up to somebody and ask them if they have ever lied, stolen, cheated, or anything along those lines. If the response is that they have, he’ll use the response to characterize the entirety of their identity. If you lied, you’re a liar. If you’ve stolen, you’re a thief. If you’ve cheated, you’re a cheater. If you have ever lusted, you’re an adulterer. Etc.  In response, the individual usually is fairly embarrassed about their moral condition, and in the moral quandary his fellow interlocutor feels in the pit of his heart at this newfound identity, Comfort then comes in for the “kill” — he says that if they want to be forgiven of this sin, they have to come to Christ.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLdI-t5IPPg[/youtube]

This tactic seems a bit wrong on its face, on a few levels. First, the moral standards that we have did not come from the heavens. They are decisions we make based on the particular situations we find ourselves in.  I mean, I know Immanuel Kant had this idea that moral laws are there “just because,” but in my mind, that’s not how things work. Lying may be perfectly OK in the classic scenario of having Jews in the basement in Nazi Germany.  That’s not nearly the same as, say, lying in a pulpit about the importance of having fidelity during marriage while you’re cheating on the side in your private life.

Second, the definition of a “good person” depend on us. It does not come from the heavens, it was not ordained by God, it has no “just because” status, at least in many minds. It is possible to say that some actions are more harmful than other actions. But to say that someone is completely and thoroughly a bad person — that seems problematic. It’s not that simple.

That’s the irrational jump — from, “you did this thing that hurt people” to “you, yourself, are a bad person to your core.” It seems a bit offensive, doesn’t it? People have reasons for the actions they perform, and assuming that the reason they do what they do comes from some inner, thorough evil that they have at their core and is not, possibly, the result of a collection of circumstances acting on a certain personality seems to create a drastically simplistic portrait of human nature and, by extension, morality.

Third, even if there are evil people — so what? How on earth would it logically follow that Jesus can cleanse people from their sin? I know that most Christians take it for granted that someone innocent dying for your sin can result in you being spot-free innocent of everything bad you ever did, somehow, but it’s doesn’t make sense. As Doug Stanhope once put it, you can’t tell someone “I died to pay your mortgage.” It…just doesn’t seem to follow.  And besides all that, again, this is a purely emotional argument. It is not something based on logic or reason, but purely sentiment. And on that status, it fails.

And fourth — it’s just kinda cruel to try to convince someone that they’re rotten to their core in order to get them to have your point of view. Yeah, I know this isn’t a logical objection, but still. That’s very not-nice.

Then there’s Sye Bruggencate, who often says to someone, “how do you know x?” over and over again until they finally have to say, “just because.” And when, in this genius pursuit of infinite regress, Comfort gets to that point, he says “just because” isn’t good enough, and then states that he knows what he knows because, well, God. If you say that’s not valid, he does the “how do you know” routine over again, and he also says, “well, God makes it valid, so it’s valid.”

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

Basically, what Bruggencate is doing here is arguing to nihilism and then saying, “therefore God exists.”

What he’s forgetting is that once you argue to nihilism, you don’t really have any direction to go afterwards. That’s just…kinda it.  “I don’t know anything…therefore I know that God exists!” is a complete non-sequitur. It’s like saying, “I don’t know why gravity exists…therefore I know that there’s a pillow on the bottom of this cliff!”

No. You don’t. I mean, you hardly know anything for sure — what we do is figure out what works. Does theory x allow us to figure out how things in a way that will meet our goals better than theory y? Well, then let’s go with theory x as opposed to theory y.

Does the theory that gravity pulls things down work as well in everyday life as the theory that gravity pulls things up?  In case you’re still thinkin’ on that — no, it don’t. Well, then we’ll go with the theory that gravity pulls things down.

This is how most of us have gone through life since the day we were born, and you don’t need God to do it. You don’t have to argue all the way to nihilism.  You just figure out what seems to work and use the routes that seem to work best. And even if you DID argue all the way to nihilism, you can’t just pull God out of the void. Again, that’s like saying, “I don’t know anything, therefore I know this!” No. If you don’t know anything, you don’t know anything, full stop.

I could say more, but that’s why, in a nutshell, I think Ray Comfort’s shit is bananas and Bruggencate doesn’t really know what he’s talking about.

Thanks for reading.

And now, this:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z-OLG0KyR4[/youtube]