I have a long-time friend who I grew up with and is also a fellow bulldog. He knew me "back when" I was a Christian. Somewhere amidst the business of growing up I gave up my beliefs (See my category on religion). However, its only been a relatively recent phenomena that I've managed to catch up old friends on my changes in philosophy.

All of that is a bit of back story. Matt is a good friend and we agreed to have a little fun with some debate on the topic of religion. I challenged Matt to make a "case for God" and he obliged with his post Absurdity of the Converse (AotC). Therein, Matt notes:

The case for God that I maintain is that without Him, I wouldn't be able to make a case for anything. The proof of the existence of God is the absurdity of the converse. The atheist has no rational way to account for universal abstracts, particularly laws of thought (e.g. laws of logic, moral absolutes). Any use of the immaterial cannot be explained by the atheist.

AotC strikes me as an argument that presumes the conclusion (Perhaps the fallacy of many questions). Said differently, for someone who believes in God, the idea that God does not exist must be absurd.

As a non-believer, I'd rebut with a similar claim:

The theist* has no rational way to account for the existence of God. If God exists, where? If God exists, how does God interact with existence? Simply put: the theist believes in the immaterial, though it cannot be rationally proven. To an atheist this notion is absurd — thus, the absurdity of the converse cuts both ways.

Beyond the above, I'd argue that moral absolutes and laws of logic are human constructs. They are ideas / information / postulates. Is 2+2=4 proof of God's existence? If so, how?

One might argue that God commanded certain moral absolutes - i.e. the ten commandments or maybe even the laws of physics; however, this again presupposes the conclusion. Even assuming scientifically provable "laws" somehow prove God's existence (Though the mechanics here are all but clear), we still have the problem of turtles all the way down.

*Using this term loosely to refer to a believer in God.

The Mark Foley scandal comes full circle, back to a sexual interaction between Foley and a late-twenties priest when Foley was a young teenager:

Foley, 52, has said through attorney David Roth that he was molested by a priest when he was between the ages of 13 and 15, which would have been between 1967 and 1969. Foley was an altar boy at Sacred Heart, CNN has confirmed.

Per the priest:

"Once maybe I touched him or so, but didn't, it wasn't -- because it's not something you call, I mean, rape or penetration or anything like that you know. We were just fondling," Father Anthony Mercieca, 69, said in a phone interview ...

Mercieca, however, rejected the idea that he sexually abused Foley, saying, "See abuse, it's a bad word, you know, because abuse, you abuse someone against his will. But it involved just spontaneousness, you know?"

Who knows what really happened, and frankly, who cares? Just one more example of leaders so many uphold as righteous being nothing more than fallible, depraved individuals -- often, just like their followers.

Public schools are destined for mediocrity simply by existing as institutional extensions of the state. The abominable marriage of education and government fails because it disconnects cost and benefit, thereby severing learning from the powerful forces of scarcity, freedom and competition.

Per The Guardian's John Hooper on Pope prepares to embrace theory of intelligent design (emphasis mine):

There have been growing signs the Pope is considering aligning his church more closely with the theory of "intelligent design"
...
A prominent anti-evolutionist and Roman Catholic scientist, Dominique Tassot, told the US National Catholic Reporter that this week's meeting was "to give a broader extension to the debate. Even if [the Pope] knows where he wants to go, and I believe he does, it will take time. Most Catholic intellectuals today are convinced that evolution is obviously true because most scientists say so."
...
The Pope also raised the issue in the inaugural sermon of his pontificate, saying: "We are not the accidental product, without meaning, of evolution."

I was previously under the assumption that intelligent design was already the prevailing view of most Christians and Catholics, alike. Thus, this article left me a bit confused. The Catholic News Service helped fill in the details:

It is right to teach "the science of Darwin, not ideological Darwinism," Cardinal Schonborn said Aug. 23.
...
In 2005, Cardinal Schonborn helped fuel the debate over evolution and intelligent design when he wrote in The New York Times that science offers "overwhelming evidence for design in biology." He later said some scientists had turned Darwin's teachings into an ideological "dogma" that admitted no possibility of a divine design in the created world.
...
Cardinal Schonborn said there should be no doubt that the church does not support creationism, the idea that the biblical account of the creation of the world in six days should be taken literally.
...
But when teaching evolutionary theory, he said, schools should underline the points still awaiting clarification, the "missing links" in the theory which were recognized by Darwin himself, he said.

Cardinal Schonborn said Darwinian theory and the faith can coexist . . .

Apparently, Schonborn and Benedict are "close", which indicates, I guess, that the Pope may think similarly to Schonborn. Schonborn is "One of several scholars invited to join Pope Benedict XVI at his summer villa in early September for a private two-day symposium on 'Creation and Evolution'": perhaps the Church will determine that acceptance of Darwinism with a twist of Intelligent Design is acceptable.

If the Church does just that, where's the conflict? What is the problem of evolution? Is Schonborn's contention correct: can Darwinian theory and faith coexist?

Darwinian evolution is based on the theory of natural selection, which is the idea that life-perpetuating characteristics either propagate via reproduction or are eliminated in proportion to their ability to meet environmental demands. Herbert Spencer coined the term, "survival of the fittest" to describe this process.

Natural selection is an automatic process: it is self-reinforcing and self-regulating. As a result, there is no master hand required behind natural selection.

Comparatively, the creation argument from intelligent design contends that life is too complex to be the result of natural selection. The complexity of life appears to have a design. Like the existence of a watch implies a watchmaker, the existence of life implies a creator. About this time, Ockham's razor is employed to conclude that since intelligent design is a simpler explanation of life's complexity than the random iterations of evolution, intelligent design is preferable.

The argument from intelligent design has evolved, if you will, as the theory of evolution has become more accepted by humanity, which has occurred in step with increased supportive evidence. A common, current iteration of intelligent design allows some evolution to take place. It's a sort of hybrid, evolution-by-the-hand-of-God; I call it, "Intelligent Evolution."

Though new to the idea of Intelligent Evolution as it pertains to the Catholic church, it would seem that the Pope may be on the verge of officially endorsing such a hybrid theory of creation.

There's only one problem: and it's big.

The Problem of Evolution or Why Did God Write Himself Out of Creation?

Assuming God created everything that is, or reality as we know it ("existence"), the qualities of existence can be and are indicative of God's nature. Therefore, the characteristics of living things, the biological diversity of life, the fossil record, and the apparent age of earth, the galaxy and the universe must all be reconciled to any belief in God as creator.

Belief in evolution as propped up by intelligent design necessarily implies that God is a deceptive creator. The theory of evolution is overwhelmingly supported by evidence prevalent both in our DNA and in the fossil record. The evidence supports natural selection, which is a process that, in theory, runs without the intervention of supernatural events (Otherwise, it might be called, "Supernatural selection", right?). Therefore, if God was intricately involved in the evolutionary process whereby he directed natural selection at every step in order to produce the lifeforms he found desireable, why employ a process that requires no such master designer? Why would God leave a trail of evidence that would allow his rational, reasoning creations, man, to reasonably conclude that God wasn't a necessary part of the creative process?

If you were God, why go through all the trouble? If God wants human beings to believe in him, why imply by the very nature of existence that man is merely a by-product of natural selection, a process without any inherent purpose other than the self-regulating, self-reinforcing propagation of life?

Intelligent evolution is problematic because it takes a process that doesn't require God and assumes God drove the process anyway. It makes this juxtaposition while maintaining that God is a benevolent creator who intended on giving man the facilities of reason: the same facilities that, combined with the evidence of existence, would allow a reasonable man to conclude that God had nothing to do with the creation of life.

Said concisely, why would God write himself out of creation and then claim he was behind the whole thing? Is God so arbitrarily deceptive? What gives?

Conclusion: The Catholic Church (and many Christians, it would seem) has clearly failed to extend the belief in "Intelligent Evolution" to its inevitable conclusion, which is that it leads to uncomfortable questions about the nature of God. Is God arbitrary? Why would God so blatantly trip-up the faith of the reasoning man by creating evidence that God was unnecessary for the creation of life? Even more, why resort to such an inefficient process as natural selection when God's power would allow for absolute efficiency?

The problems and questions rage on, mostly unanswered and unasked.

The blogosphere is a'buzz about House Representative Katherine Harris' remarks to the Florida Baptist Witness. Most bloggers are gabbing about Harris' calling the separation of church and state a "lie" (How dare she blaspheme the Holy Constitution!). Here's Harris in the interview:

We have to have the faithful in government and over time, that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized . . .

She's right, though. The doctrine of separation of church and state is a lie. That said, it is all a lie. Or did you not realize that the Constitution is of no authority?

Putting aside the church-and-state-is-a-lie issue, I'd like to point out what I found as the real hilarity of Harris' comments. Harris finishes the above statement as follows (emphasis mine):

God is the one who chooses our rulers. And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women and if people aren’t involved in helping godly men in getting elected than we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that’s certainly isn’t what God intended.

Wait a second. If God is the one choosing the rulers, isn't it God's fault if we have rulers who create secular laws? If God is choosing the rulers, how are the laws U.S. "rulers" create not what God intended? Come again?

Katherine Harris is a Republican House Representative from Florida. Her existence as an elected ruler over you and me is the inevitable outcome of democracy. How do intelligent people defend democracy when it so blatantly allows crazy religious whackos the opportunity to coerce other human beings? This Representative can't even complete two sentences without completely contradicting herself!

Other Reasons to be Afraid of America Under Harris:

Here are a few other gems from Katherine's interview:

Civil rights have to do with individual rights and I don’t think they apply to the gay issues. I have not supported gay marriage and I do not support any civil rights actions with regard to homosexuality.

Note how she starts strong talking about individual rights only to end up, I think, referring to homosexual individuals as simply "gay issues." Do you feel the Christian love?

Florida Baptist Witness: Is there something wrong with Florida and federal statutes when a severely brain-damaged woman who’s not in the process of dying can be starved and dehydrated to death by her husband with the assistance of the courts?

Katherine Harris: It’s unconscionable. Having a feeding tube and being hydrated are not life-sustaining. If that were the case then you’d have to take a look at prisoners. I mean, we provide them food and hydration. It is unconscionable. That is normal living. That is what we require to live and to allow that kind of death was truly devastating.

Seriously, just take a look at prisoners, and it'll all make sense.

A few parting thoughts from Rep. Harris:

But the real issue is why should Baptists care, why should people care? If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you’re not electing Christians then in essence you are going to legislate sin. They can legislate sin. They can say that abortion is alright. They can vote to sustain gay marriage. And that will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don’t know better, we are leading them astray and it’s wrong. ...

I'm just glad that, as a non-Christian, I don't know any better. My ignorance lets me off the hook! Could I have a few more sinful laws, please?

Per the Irish Examiner, "Terror plot chaos - Police foil plan to blow up 10 airlines" (Excerpts below in blockquote have been numbered for easy reference):

[1] British police and MI5 anti-terror officers swooped in the early hours yesterday, arresting 24 young Britons of Pakistani origin in London, the Thames Valley and Birmingham.

These terrorists are young and innovative. And why shouldn't they be? They have less to lose than their elders, have watched the so-called War on Terror unfold and have access to immense amounts of information. The combination is volatile: talk about a ticking time bomb.

[2] British Home Secretary John Reid said that if the plot had succeeded, it would have caused death on an “unprecedented scale”.

Most have you have probably heard the statement above regarding "death on an 'unprecedented scale'." But what does this mean? "Unprecedented" seems to imply killing many millions (Remember Hitler? He set one hell of a precedent). Or did John Reid mean unprecedented in nature? Style?

[3] There were also claims the terrorists could have been planning to bring down airliners over major cities, either in Britain or the US.

Isn't that what the terrorists did on 9/11? Maybe these young terrorists are less innovative than I thought (although the liquid bomb idea is fairly creative - that said, how explosive can a 20 oz liquid bomb Gatorade be? More or less explosive than the fuel required for a 747?).

[4] It prompted the British authorities to raise the terrorist threat level to critical for the first time.

Why raise the terrorist threat level? By catching these terrorists, hasn't the threat been eliminated? Shouldn't the level at worst stay the same or at best lowered? What am I missing? The U.S. went to red alert, also. The reasoning here seems counter-intuitive.

[5] US President George W Bush said the plot was “a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom”.

That's a hypocritical statement if I've ever heard one. Our nation, or our government, does not "love freedom". Government, by nature, is anti-freedom. Otherwise, we wouldn't be taxed like we are or have our privacy or private property violated as it is. When has our government demonstrated that it loves freedom?

I can't help but think that the Islams hate the U.S. government and what it has done. As an extension of that hate, these people are willing to terrorize the American people, who had little to nothing to do with their struggles. Unfortunately, their violent terroristic acts on U.S. soil only lead to the U.S. government bombing them back even more (setting new precedents for death and destruction) and further restricting our freedom. Is this not akin to Roderick T. Long's analogy of victim-swapping?

[6] Scotland Yard said it was designed to cause “untold death and destruction”.

Whatever that means. Got a taste for hyperbole?

[7] Stringent new security measures were imposed at all British airports yesterday, causing widespread chaos.

What's the solution to stopping a terrorist plot? Tell travelers they have to throw away their toothpaste and shampoo. Induce panic at the airport. Stoke the fires of fear.

And that's what [1] - [7] are all about: fear. Our governments are nothing but fear-mongers. They feed on the fear of the masses. Why? Because without fear, governments would cease to exist.

I'm tired of it. Aren't you?

With the Federal Reserve in the limelight and having just completed Murray Rothbard’s America's Great Depression as well as the fact that I’m keeping an eye on the yield curve, gold and the stock market, I keep returning to thoughts on our fiat currency.

In particular, I’ve been thinking about how our currency is painted with depictions of various presidents of past. You have George Washington on the dollar bill and the quarter, Lincoln on the penny and the five dollar bill, Jefferson on the nickel, F.D.R. on the dime and J.F.K. on the fifty cent piece (Thanks for the correction sockrotter!), Susan B. Anthony and some Native American on the two one dollar coins, Hamilton on the ten dollar bill (Thanks Los), Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill, U.S. Grant on the $50 and Benny Franklin on the $100. Did I miss anything? Probably.

It’s fitting that our paper money have these mythological gods printed all over them. I don’t mean to say that our presidents weren’t real people or that none of them did great things (That said, ancient Pharaohs did a few “great things” like create the pyramids). Rather, I’m pointing out that these people have taken on a legendary status. They are the Jesus figures of recent history. Instead of Christianity, their religion is Statism.

Fiat currency is counterfeit. It’s not that it’s worth nothing. However, it’s only worth what you can purchase with it. Thus, if you’re stuck with a lot of hyperinflative cash, that cash is going to be worthless. Only when currency has value by default will it have real lasting value. The only lasting value of a dollar bill is the paper it’s printed on. Compare that meager value to gold, stock, machinery, land or any asset. Money should be an asset: it’s that simple.

And that is why the combination of fiat currency with Statist propaganda is fitting: it’s bullshit mythology for shitty currency.

1. Take control. Take control. Take control. Take control by force, as necessary. Otherwise, volunteer to take on the responsibilities of others: the more necessary the responsibility, the more important it is to take control of it.
2. If force can be used instead of cooperation, use force.
3. Keep your fellow man in a state of fear.
4. Make your workings as complicated as possible.
5. Do the exact opposite of that which is predictable: always keep your fellow man guessing.
6. Create structures that appear to help others while actually damning them further.
7. Make everything you do arbitrary: dissociate cause and effect.
8. Reward those who support you.
9. Villainize all who oppose you.
10. Obfuscate the meanings of words: jargonize everything. Take ideologically good words and redefine them to mean their opposite.
11. Convince your fellow man that he is stupid and incapable of making intelligent decisions or understanding anything.
12. Praise your own special insight. Even better, encourage others to do it.
13. Make blind faith a virtue.
14. When the systems you've designed inevitably fail, assert blame onto others. Then, volunteer your services to fix the problem. Change something but fix nothing.
15. Repeat.

I am positive I've left a number of other guidelines off and/or been redundant. As such, if you have any suggestions or additions, post a comment and I will edit this post, accordingly.

Note 1: In case you were wondering, NO I do not advocate any of the above practices. Rather, I'm just pointing out certain common denominators of institutionalization.

Governments and Gods have a lot in common: we pray for things and the government bestows upon us in kind.

If you've seen Bruce Almighty, you'll remember what happened when Bruce allowed everyone to get what they were praying for. It was a complete disaster. Government behaves similarly: it allocates resources to those praying the loudest and most often. As the government acquiesces to the needs of its citizens, things progressively get more convoluted, backwards and screwed up. The Holy Government can fix the wrongs of the world. At least, that is what individuals appear to believe.

The faith people place in the government is eerily similar to the faith people place in God.

If God exists, is good, knows all and is all-powerful, we certainly aren't seeing the positive benefits. Yet the world continues to believe.

The government exists, isn't all-powerful, tries and fails at knowing all, and repeatedly demonstrates that it is not benevolent. Yet society still believes. Why? What would it take for you to give up on Government? What would it take for you to give up on God?

Regarding both, why accept the unproveable - the arguably false - the myths of humanity - as de facto truth? We should begin with the assumption that nothing is true: the onus is on us to prove the merits of Government - to prove the existence of God.

Only after proving these things should we believe.

There is a reason such similarities exist. With Gods and Governments, the damnable point is faith.

Faith is a dangerous thing.

I concluded Meaningful Love with two questions. Below is my answer to the first. Armed with an understanding of love as a statement of value, supported by action, is the statement, "Jesus loves you," meaningful?

From what I can tell, Jesus and God do not love me. I’ve never been the recipient of any actions of love in any obvious or obscure way. Jesus and God have never had a conversation with me - this is despite voicing requests innumerate to have such conversations. I’ve never passed a test or gotten a promotion or won the lottery thanks to the assistance of the host of hosts or the man upstairs. Nothing has happened in my life to date that I can attribute to some supernatural force.

Should I be upset that God won't talk to me? Why won't he play basketball with me? Is God too good to share a cup of hot cocoa over a cool morning sunrise by my side? Perhaps I pissed God off. How? I don't know. I tried to make it work, but he was and is never there. I've shouted off cliffs for God to respond, and all I've ever heard in return was my echoing voice.

Since God refuses to interact with me in a manner consistent with my programming (programming supposedly written by God) as required by existing here in a material world (read: not supernatural), I have no choice but to conclude that God does not love me. I would further be so presumptuous to say that God doesn’t love you, either. If that is upsetting to hear, I apologize. However, if God does exists and he did create our existence, the historical record is pretty damning on his love for human beings. Or are all of the natural disasters and plagues the fault of mankind?

The Bible says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Let’s break this love statement down.

God has created a means for us to be immortals, but his actions cost him his Son, Jesus. This statement is philosophically problematic. An omnipotent being does not have scarce resources that he must sacrifice. Why would God have to give anything up to give us something? If God gave something up, wouldn’t he cease to be God? And if God did make some exchange whereby we will benefit if we do x, y and z, why not be more direct about it instead of asking us to throw caution to the wind and believe statements written in a convoluted, contradictory document?

If God did love us so much why are we damned to eternal torment if we choose rational thought over faith? Furthermore, if you loved someone, would you send them to hell? When was the last time you made an ultimatum to someone you loved? I love you immensely, in fact some say I am love, but if you don’t believe in me (Despite having insufficient evidence to sustain such belief), you’re up shit creek. Too bad, so sad. I'm God and I make the rules.

Are these ideas coherent with any idea of love? They are clearly not coherent with love as a statement of value, supported by action.

Forgiveness is a cornerstone issue of the Christian faith. We have sinned and are beyond repair: Jesus fixed that problem. All you must do is request forgiveness (Note the inconsistency between the forgivness requirement and the belief requirement of John 3:16).

In relationships, if you wrong someone you love, you ask for their forgiveness. Assuming your actions were not too egregious and the wronged party believes he or she still has the capacity and will to love you, your forgiveness will come in short order.

You have to have wronged someone for their forgiveness to have meaning. How have you ever wronged God? Even choosing not to believe in God should not be an offense to God. If God had a heart to heart with me and then I adamantly continued believing that he did not exist, I could understand him being a little peeved. Otherwise, why should he be offended?

Furthermore, sinning doesn’t hurt God: a sin might hurt yourself or someone you love, but it doesn’t hurt God because it doesn’t impact God. Action is a two-way street. If you can’t interact with God (Talking to no one fails to constitute interaction), you can’t love God, either. You might say, "God hurts because you are his child: he hurts when you hurt." It makes for a nice soundbite, but if God really cared about my well being, he would talk to me, protect me from harm, and give me fatherly advice. As it is, if God is my figurative father, he should be asking for my forgiveness: he's the one who created me and then ran off for me to deal with the world on my own (Not that I mind, mind you, but you see my point).

Now you might say, “God is everywhere. He is in creation. By loving creation, I am loving God.” I see no problem with such an assertion (Although it begs the question, "Who created God? Super-God??"). Such a belief has important consequences: creation is the good and the bad. God is also behind the natural disasters, diseases, and non-human-based suffering, too. Or couldn't God have made it so we didn't suffer? What? Adam and Eve and original sin? I don't think so. God wouldn't be so arbitrary as to make all mankind suffer for the sins of one man and woman. And if he was so arbitrary, could you still respect him?

So God doesn’t love you, you can’t love him and statements about God loving us are meaningless. However, I think there are [at least] two Biblical passages about love that are potentially meaningful.

The first is referred to as one of the most important commandments, “To love your neighbor as yourself.” I see this scripture as the Biblical equivalent of the Golden Rule. Most people simply understand it to mean that you should love your neighbor. This clearly doesn’t make any sense. How can you love your neighbor as yourself if you don’t love yourself? You can’t. The statement hinges on the idea that you love yourself first. Secondly, if love requires action, not only can you not love everyone, but it doesn’t make sense to love everyone. Ponder this: if you could somehow donate your entire existence to others, how could you love yourself? Destroying the self is not an act of love.

The second potentially meaningful Biblical love-passage is, "God is love." My third, and final, part of Meaningful Love deals with the concept of God as love from an atypical angle: does love really make the world go ‘round? And if so, maybe God is love.

After spending a good deal of time on sites where people exercise reason and logic, it's important to be reminded that there are some seriously fucked up folks out there. If there is a better, more concise way to describe these fellow inhabitants of earth, I'm all ears. Now go here:

Note: I can't even link to these nutballs out of not wanting it to show up on Technorati and thus improve their pagerank. So if you're curious, just type into your browser: www.spelledsideways.com .

Here's one humdinger pulled from the site:

The idea that there are “moderate” Muslims is a lie; there is none, no not one.

Yikes, I have some good friends who are muslim. I thought they've been giving me some suspicious looks! They must have jihad on the brain!

Want more? Go and find your own spelled ass backwards quote and post it in the comments!

Hat tip to Catallarchist Randall McElroy for upsetting such fine specimens of the human race as Dennis Fait.

I never thought installing Google's AdSense would result in links I might actually want to click on, much less post on. But somehow, my Losing my Religion posts (Parts I and II) resulted in the ad to my left about Teen Jesus.

As the ad says, "What's up with that?"

Well, it's a link to a painting by Tom Trujillo. As Tom says:

How come you never here [hear] about Jesus the teenager? It's a question I asked myself before starting this painting. You read about him as a child impressing the priests at the temple with his biblical knowledge, and we all know about him as an adult before being crucified. But you will find nothing written about him between the ages of 13- 24. Of course if you've ever raised a teenager you might know why.

And so it came to pass, that Tom painted a masterpiece: Jesus, the Teenage Years.

In Trujillo's depiction, Jesus is an anglo skin-head with an "APOSTLES" tattoo across his ripped torso. Based on the Lord's stance, I sense he's about to say like, "My dad is God, yo! Holla!" right before flashing his sign. Meanwhile, he's hanging out with his ho, Zhora from Blade Runner, and just having a good time. He has some sort of halo: I'm not sure if it's holiness or the reflection from his shaved head.

Tom wisely notes in the official symbolism, "Jesus lived all that we (weak humans), experience - anger, doubt, temptation, hunger and more." Good points, Tom, I'll come back to this.

While you're on teenagejesus.com, make sure you read some of the comments. Here is my favorite:

As I look upon this poster I want to cry and throw up. This portrays Jesus as a sexual being. And the chick with her tit showing....... now what's up with that.

Yeah, what is up with that? I'll tell you what's up with that: it's the first Mardi Gras and Jesus is throwin' down!

Seriously (cue the Full House music), I think the intent behind this painting was straight autoDogmatic: it catalyzes thought about issues we too often shelve. People don't think about Jesus as a human being - someone who makes mistakes or gets depressed. Though I think Tom's depiction of Teen Jesus is kinda silly, it begs the question: who was Jesus, really? In what ways was he human? Can you imagine sitting by a campfire with the Christ, and hearing him suddenly rip a huge fart? That's humanity, not blasphemy. I bet Jesus could break Holy Wind with the best (worst?) of us.

So I ask: if you were to paint Teen Jesus, how would you do it?

In Losing my Religion, Part I, I detailed my Christian upbringing. Part of that upbringing was learning to challenge ideas and to have a faith that was internally consistent with a loving God.

Once I left home for college, my lifestyle as a Christian became less dependent on church-based functions or regular Bible study. Having learned more than the average church-goer through having a live-in Biblical expert (my dad), I felt like I had sufficiently learned the basics of what I needed to understand the Christian faith in significantly all of its applications. In Christian discussions, I was often perceived as the guy with all of the answers.

Other's perception of my Biblical knowledge is a moot point; having a base proficiency in Christianity is not difficult. God created the heavens and the earth (everything). God is wholly good, all-knowing and all-powerful. Mankind's sin resulted in a rift between Man and God. Thus, God sent his Son Jesus to earth. Jesus Christ was the embodiment of a loving and forgiving God. He was sent to die as a sinless sacrifice and was resurrected three days later. Through this sacrifice, anybody could be reconciled to God through Jesus. A Christian life is one of love for God, yourself and your neighbor. If you do not accept Jesus as your Savior, you will suffer eternal separation from God in hell.

It is hard to pinpoint a singular event that changed my perception of Christianity. Rather, it was a slow realization effected by countless determinations that my belief in Jesus and God was inconsistent, false and unnecessary. One of the most important components in my awakening was in allowing myself to apply logical thought to my sacred Christian tenets. People build walls around their religious beliefs. These walls are constructed with statements such as "I don't know", "We are incapable of understanding", "It's a mystery", "Don't question God" or any number of other discussion-killing statements. I had to destroy this wall: I could answer the tough questions; I must challenge my beliefs both to understand and instill them with meaning. Furthermore, reason demanded that I extend my beliefs to their logical conclusions, no matter what the consequences.

Having armed myself with reason, I started tackling everything about Christianity. Here are some of the issues with which I wrestled (Read any you find interesting):

• There exist human beings whose lives are excellent. They are role models despite their stated religion or creed. However, they are not Christians. Per the Bible and Jesus' repeated teachings, these individuals will go to hell. Belief Consequence: God would punish a great human being with eternal damnation.
• God gave human beings 'free will'. Therefore, even if you are a great person, if you choose to reject Jesus, that is your free will and you will go to hell as a result. Problem: Free will requires the ability to choose. The problem with Christianity is in the choice: God or eternal pain and suffering. Such a "choice" is akin to duress. Is this really a choice? How is it meaningful to choose God when the alternative is hell? If God is okay with such free will, what does this say about God? Is he vain? Does he demand meaningless worship by his own creation?
• Man's distinction from every other being is our ability to use reason and logic. Furthermore, we have the ability to think abstractly. If God created mankind with these distinctive, uniquely human abilities - the very things that make us such amazing creatures, why would he then demand we reject our reason in favor of faith, which is inherently irrational? This is akin to a watchmaker creating a fantastic watch and then demanding the watch to stop telling time.
• The theory of evolution is a hot topic in Christendom. Assuming you can understand the Bible as a symbolic document whereby not every story is to be taken literally, you have no problem with the potential for creation to have occurred in some manner different from either of the creation stories in Genesis whether it be seven day creation (Genesis 1) or the Adam and Eve Garden of Eden myth (Genesis 2). All evidence points to the universe being billions of years old. Evolution is the dominant theory that explains the existence, complexity and diversity of life on earth. What about Creationism, you say? A wealth of evidence exists to refute the argument from Intelligent Design. If you can accept that the Intelligent Design is flawed, which can be as simple as acknowledging the existence of useless organs, you must deal with evolution. Belief Consequence: If you accept evolution as how God created life, you must deal with the consequences. Either a) The end result of evolution, humanity, is an unintended consequence of evolutionary natural selection OR b) despite God creating life via evolution, he chose to make it appear as though the process was God-less and random. In other words, God chose to paint himself out of the picture of creation and then proceed to demand we believe He actually created everything. Problematic.
• Salvation through Jesus: God had his Son die a painful death on a cross. Why? If you're God, anything is possible. Why, then, would you require this event to take place? Beyond that, why is it a meaningful act: Jesus' resurrection is hardly a feat for God/Jesus. God's all-powerful, so really, the sacrifice story is meaningless to God; therefore, why is it meaningful to Mankind? What does it accomplish aside from being a symbol of altruism? Or is it altruistic when Jesus ultimately got refunded the purchase price vis a vis resurrection?
• Christian beliefs build walls between you and other people: human beings define individuals by religious beliefs in lieu of their real complexity.
• Pascal's wager backfires: This is the argument that, "If you believe and you're wrong, you still lead a great life. But if you don't believe and you're wrong, you go to hell." Pascal's Wager is problematic for numerous excellent reasons but philosophy aside, my reason for vehemently disagreeing with Pascal's wager goes back to a late night discussion with a good friend back when I was twenty, an R.A. at Myers Hall, and on the edge of walking away from Christianity. My friend said to me, "I just can't believe that this [life] is all there is." It was then when it struck me: belief in God - in an afterlife - can actually diminish your experience of life. Why? Belief in an after-life means there's something better waiting when you die; the consequence is that it makes your life appear less important. Think about it this way: assuming you are wrong in your belief in God, your Christian beliefs net you:
  1. Nothing upon your death, and
  2. A life diminished by your fears and expectations; the knowledge that you've only got one shot at a great life is a huge motivator not to screw up your one chance.
  Pascal's argument backfires. Furthermore, Christian beliefs make for less costly mistakes: after all, you can always ask for forgiveness. Contrarily, a life without God demands you maximize the life you have knowing it's the only life you're going to get.

I ended with that last example because if there was one event that was the culmination of my faith abandonment, that was it. In truth, it took all of these examples above and many, many more to get me over to the other side. I couldn't hope to represent them all in this single post; thus, if you are unconvinced by the above, feel free to egg me into telling you some more. I enjoy debating this stuff.

Why did I lose my religion? I didn't lose it; rather, I grew out of it. I opened my eyes to a world without fear or mysticism. And it was like being reborn. I am an atheist. I do not see belief in God as meaningful: every meaningful way I ever tried to define God resulted in contradictions to the evidence of personal experience, science and reason. There still may exist some higher power. However, I am convinced its existence is inconsequential to your life and mine. Life is too important to waste chasing shadows.

I have never regretted my decision to close the book on Christianity. I feel more alive as an atheist than I ever did at the peak of my belief in God. Why? Because the world makes sense now. What a great feeling that is! If you have any questions, concerns, challenges or whatever, please comment and I'll be happy to respond. I obviously enjoy healthy debate.

Stay tuned for An Atheist Epilogue, a case for a worthwhile life.

On March 12, 1991, R.E.M. released Out of Time. Possibly R.E.M.'s greatest hit was off this album, Losing my Religion, which actually isn't about abandoning your religion at all, but rather a creepy stalker-like love song a la Sting's Every Breath You Take. The phrase "Losing your religion" is actually a southern phrase for losing your temper. Go figure.

I am going to talk about losing my religion, which is to say, my faith. As I mention in my About Neal post, I am an atheist. In Part I of Losing my Religion, I will lay out where I'm coming from.

Background:

My father has a Ph.D. in New Testament Theology and was a pastor. Around the age of five, I chose to be baptized; I attended a large moderate Baptist church until I was eighteen. I grew up a Christian professing Christian beliefs until I was around 20. By "professing Christian beliefs," I mean attending church functions up to around four times a week, leading youth worship services through playing guitar and singing, taking two mission trips to Brazil, visiting the Holy Land, taking multiple choir tours, preaching a sermon to around 500 people at age eighteen and carrying a pocket Bible around in my back pocket for about a year, among other things. I was well-known and well-received as a model young Christian.

As a Christian, a life worshipping God and His Son was deeply important to me. I understood Christianity as a belief in Jesus as the Son of God where God was love, mercy, grace and forgiveness. In keeping with my father's teachings, I approached the Bible as a window into understanding God. However, God/Jesus was bigger than the Bible, thus Biblical teachings that were inconsistent with my understanding of God/Jesus required intense study and interpretation. I frequently took issue with conservative Christian beliefs such as submission by women to their husbands and a strict seven-day creation. By not taking the Bible literally, I was already a fairly moderate Christian. As accepting the Bible as fallacious document, I moved to the bleeding edge of Christianity. Such was this moderate Christian's existence: my moderate views were perceived as extreme in comparison to Christian fundamentalism.

I love my parents. I believe they did a wonderful job in rearing me to be an educated, responsible and indepedent human being. One of the greatest gifts my father gave me was teaching me that I had a direct line to understanding anything I wanted to understand. This gift came in two pieces. For the first, I could see behind the Wizard's curtain. Because my pastor was also my father, I had no misgivings about my father's humanity or his connection to God or Jesus. I could understand everything that he could. Second, my dad taught me that understanding was critical to having meaningful faith. He exposed me to alternative interpretations of Biblical passages: he was not afraid to point out incongruencies in the Bible or challenge the mainstream paradigm. And so it is through these things that I stood on my father's shoulders.

The irony is that his endowment of a critical, challenging and searching mind led me to a place he would not go: I eventually determined that Christianity and a belief in God/Jesus was not necessary for life - the best life. The tragedy is that he often believes that he failed as a Christian and a father because of my conclusions. Naturally, I disagree: I think who I am is proof of his success. I hope he will one day see it as I do.

In Part II of Losing my Religion I will discuss certain key factors that led to my abandonment of the Christian faith and rejection of belief in any meaningful definition of God.