Religious Insight

So, many people have asked me to explain my religious beliefs and how I came upon these beliefs…well it’s a long story and I’ve never really had the motivation to rationally and logically write out my reasoning. However, I just stumbled upon someone else’s blog in which the blogger was explaining why he lost his religion. While there are a few disparities, this is about as close as you can come to my own reasoning without literally taking the words out of my mouth. If you don’t agree with any of the points, feel free to leave a comment; I’m always up for a good discussion!

Anyway, the original post can be found here, but I’ve attached most of it below:

I was planning to write up a detailed story about my Christian life and the recent rejection of my faith. But my goal is not to build a case to prove I believed in God or to demonstrate how good of a Christian I was. I did truly believe in God for most of my life and worshiped and prayed to him daily. I believed he was at work in my life at all times and using me to touch other people’s lives.

So you might be wondering what changed.

The change was a culmination of things that I could no longer ignore. Faith is belief in the unseen and unprovable, but still requires a foundation for that faith. With the countless religions of the world, I began to question why the god of the Bible is more believable than all other gods worshiped on earth. With the mountain of evidence staring me in the face, my faith began to die.

Last fall, I finally moved past guilt and admitted to myself that I no longer believe in Jesus or the god of the Bible. Surprisingly it was a relief. Not because I wanted to run wild and sin freely, but because I no longer felt the weight a Christian carries. The weight of guilt, unworthiness and fear of god’s judgement. I continue to spend my days striving to be a good husband, father and son. I help others in need around me as often as I can. The big difference is I do these things today because it brings me joy, not because I believe it brings an imaginary god joy.

For those wondering, here is a condensed “Top 20 List” of the things that led to my rejection of Christianity.

1. God is wrathful, jealous, hateful, and kills nations of people like it is a bodily function. He is certainly not just or “holy” in nature.
2. The act of throwing people into infinite torture and punishment for not believing a Jewish guy from 2,000 years ago was God’s son, or unknowingly worshiping the wrong god, is extremely cruel and sadistic.
3. The statements, “God works in mysterious ways,” or “It will all make sense in heaven,” are little more than irrational cop outs. This God allows horrible atrocities to be committed against innocent men, women and children every day.
4. Bloody animal and human sacrifices are illogical demands by a divine god as payment for petty wrong doings. These actions are no different than the rituals of archaic pagan religions. Not to mention the bizarre ritual of symbolically drinking human blood and eating human flesh.
5. If God loves us and wants us to know and believe in him, why be so completely invisible? What is the purpose of being so illusive to those who believe and worship him?
6. God never manifests himself or performs miracles as he regularly did for the Israelites in Old Testament stories.
7. Prayers are never answered. Certainly not in the way Jesus described. Prayer has absolutely no affect on the world around us.
8. Jesus did not fulfill major Old Testament prophesies or even fulfill his own promises and predictions.
9. The authors of much of the Bible are unknown. And of these unknown authors, the men who wrote the gospels likely never even met Jesus considering they were written 40-70 years after his death. A far cry from reliable testimony.
10. The Bible is repeatedly contradictory with itself, reality, and the laws of morality. Couldn’t God inspire a less poorly written book?
11. The Bible is open to interpretation. Everyone interprets it in the way that suits them best or serves their purposes.
12. Throughout history, Christians have justified horrific actions by the Bible and its teaching.
13. The Bible promotes hate and persecution against women, homosexuals and those who worship other gods or no god at all.
14. According to the Bible, nearly 70% percent of the people in the world will burn in hell because they don’t believe Jesus was the son of God.
15. The only reason I was a Christian was because I was indoctrinated into the religion as a child as a result of the culture and region of the world in which I was born.
16. Christianity has no more rational or factual foundation than any other religion on earth that I openly reject.
17. The Christian church is disjointed and can’t even agree with one another.
18. Christians are not at all ethically or morally different from non-Christians.
19. Today, powerful church leaders steal, lie and molest young children. The church repeatedly attempts to cover up these atrocities, only to reluctantly apologize as a last resort.
20. It is absolutely irrational to continue to believe archaic teaching with the amount of knowledge we’ve gained through science and technology. The Bible reads like a book of primitive folklore, not divinely inspired insight into our true reason for existence.

http://thebeattitude.com/2009/05/28/losing-my-religion-why-i-walked-away-from-christianity/

 

Highlights from the Week that Was (5-24-09)

Being that I’m now out of college for the summer, I have a lot more free time to surf the internet.  Because of this I’ve decided to start compiling a list of some of the top content I have found over the past week from some of my favorite websites.  I will try to do this weekly.  Anyway, here is the first edition:

FMyLife.com:  Today, I brought some cupcakes to my class for my birthday, like all the cool kids do. When it came time to sing happy birthday, the entire class said “happy birthday to” then forgot my name. Except my teacher. She said Steve. My name’s Jeff. FML

MyLifeIsAverage.com:  Today, I had to choose between a strawberry flavored Dum Dum and a mystery flavored Dum Dum. I decided to be adventurous and choose the mystery flavor; it was strawberry flavored. MLIA

Digg:  Check out the reviews of this t-shirt on Amazon.com.

YouTube: 

CollegeHumor:  Video of the most arrogant Call of Duty: World at War kill ever.

Fail Blog:

Awkward Family Photos:

MyLifeIsAverage.com:  Today, I had to choose between a strawberry flavored Dum Dum and a mystery flavored Dum Dum. I decided to be adventurous and choose the mystery flavor; it was strawberry flavored. MLIA

 

A Quick Religious History Lesson

Courtesy of: http://www.mattbors.com

 

On the Topic of Homosexuality

While browsing through websites looking for something interesting to read, I stumbled upon a man’s recount of attending a workshop about “homosexual activism in the public schools.”  It took place in a church, but it was sponsored by the Illinois Family Institute, a conservative group that seeks to “uphold marriage & family, life & liberty in the Land of Lincoln.”  I personally am not gay so I’m not typically that passionate about or caught up in gay rights or gay agenda, however this man’s experience was really very intriguing.

The workshop was basically a seminar on how to justify being anti-gay, why it is not OK to be gay, how being homophobic is not being prejudiced, and how to fight the gay agenda.  I’ve been witness to many confounding trains of thought having grown up and even worked in a Baptist Church community,  but this was more appalling than anything I have personally experienced.  All of the reasoning and logic these people used was completely false and their intentions were blatantly cruel, yet people were actually listening.  It constantly amazes me how people can become so deluded to the most illogical of groupthink while in such an atmosphere, especially a church.  I can’t help but wonder sometimes if this is how people felt around the Civil Rights Era.  Anyway, below is the article, I hope you can take the time to read it.

Last night, I attended a workshop about “homosexual activism in the public schools.” The meeting took place at a church and it was sponsored by the Illinois Family Institute, a conservative group. About 80 people were packed into a tiny room.

My observations:

• I overheard one man sitting near me talking to a friend of his before the event started. He quoted the Edmund Burke line, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” He was referring to homosexual activists versus Christians.Funny. I was thinking the same line, but in a completely different way…
• The speaker spoke about the myth that Christians “hate” homosexuals. We don’t hate homosexuals, she said, adding: “We’re not like Fred Phelps!”So at least we have that in common. We all think Phelps is one crazy mofo.They may not hate homosexuals, but they do hate homosexuality. (And apparently, they hate the word “gay.” Because it was barely uttered all evening. “Homosexual” must sound more evil and un-Christian.)
• I learned it’s ok to say being gay is wrong. We can’t worry about hurting people’s feelings. If we did, that would make it impossible for us to say plagiarism and promiscuity are wrong because that would hurt the feelings of plagiarists and promiscuous people. Therefore, it’s ok to attack homosexuality.I’ll admit that’s the first time I’ve heard homosexuality compared to plagiarism.
• The speaker told the crowd that speaking out against homosexuality was not hate speech. Her argument for this? “Homosexual supporters speak out against polygamy and pedophiles all the time. Is that considered hate speech? No. So neither is our anti-gay speech.”Not for the first time that evening, she compared gay people to pedophiles.
• The speaker mentioned a local high school in which students “had to read” Tony Kushner’s play “Angels in America.” She asked if everyone picked up the handout listing excerpts from the book (after warning us that it would be graphic).This was how she began a part of her talk against those homosexual activist English teachers. There was no mention of the facts that excerpts do not a book make. (You want to play the excerpt game? You want to take things out of context? Because the Bible is great fodder for that.) There was no mention that the book was for an Advanced Placement class for seniors, or that parents had to approve the book first before their children could read it (or opt for an alternative book instead, which would be ok), or that only a handful of students (and their parents) decided to take the alternative option. Most were fine with the book.
• There were several jabs at homosexual teachers and superintendents and administrators (they named names) who were trying to push that awful, hideous belief that it was ok to be gay. (Can you believe their gall?!)
• There was a lot of talk about the upcoming Day of Silence, during which gay students and straight allies choose not to speak for the day to bring attention to the silencing experienced by GLBT students. IFI wants parents to remove their children from the classroom for the day if students are taking part in this.The speaker’s arguments? Let me quote from her handout (PDF):
  

  Parents should call their children’s middle schools and high schools to ask whether the administration and/or teachers will be permitting students to remain silent during class on the Day of Silence. If students will be permitted to remain silent, parents can express their opposition most effectively by calling their children out of school on the Day of Silence and sending letters of explanation to their administrators, their children’s teachers, and all school board members. One reason this is effective is that most school districts lose money for each student absence.

  School administrators err when they allow the classroom to be disrupted and politicized by granting students permission to remain silent throughout an entire day. The DOS requires that teachers either create activities around the silence of some or many, or exempt silent students from any activity that involves speaking. Furthermore, DOS participants have a captive audience, many of whom disagree with and are made uncomfortable by the politicization of their classroom.

  I teach high school students. Some of them are silent every day. I don’t see Christian parents complaining about that. Also, the DOS doesn’t “require” anything. It’s sponsors don’t run my classroom and I’m not required to “do” anything. Personally, I think it’s irresponsible of teachers to be silent on that day because we still have a job to do (just like pharmacists shouldn’t be able to not sell people birth control or morning-after pills because of their own beliefs), but it’s fine if students want to be silent for one day — it won’t throw me off as a teacher. I can still do my job.

  I’m amazed these parents are willing to remove their kids from a day of instruction because other students are choosing to remain silent for a day. Are you kidding me?

• The Day of Silence thing reminded me of a similar incident happening earlier this year. In fact, when you put these incidents together, the IFI sounds downright hypocritical.Earlier this year, I had students remaining silent because of the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity. It was fine by me and I taught my lessons as planned. But how come I wasn’t hearing anything about that day?Would the speakers be in favor of pro-choice parents removing their students from the classroom?They never mentioned that.So I asked them about it.The conversation went something like this:
  

  Me: Isn’t the pro-life silence day the exact same idea as the Day of Silence?

  Them: Umm… yes. And we do not support the pro-life silence day.

  Me: Well, that’s good to hear. But I don’t remember getting any press releases from your organization asking parents to remove their children from school because some students were also going to remain silent for political reasons and personal beliefs.

  Them: Umm… yeah… we should really have sent one out about that.

  I’m not keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll mention it next year. A quick search on IFI’s website lists several results dealing with the Day of Silence. I can’t find a single result having to do with the Day of Solidarity.

• When the speaker discussed how many schools were putting on the pro-homosexual play “The Laramie Project,” she tried to cite a dubious 20/20 segment in which it was asserted that Matthew Shepard was not killed in a hate crime, but rather that he was the victim of a drug-induced rage. That segment has been debunked, but we didn’t hear that side of the story.And really, going after Matthew Shepard and the play written about him? That was low.
• During any mention of the word “transgender,” there was something of an eye roll from the speaker and people in the audience. It was obvious the speaker didn’t think transgendered people actually existed. “A man is not a woman,” she said, adding that her mother had cancer and had to get her uterus removed, but that didn’t make her any less of a woman.I failed to see any connection.The speaker said she knew one student who “claimed” to be transgendered. He said he was a woman trapped in a man’s body. I knew that boy well, she said. “He was troubled.”
• The speaker mentioned the homosexual agenda. Not just as a general idea, though. She mentioned an actual, specific agenda written by Harvard-trained psychologists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen. I’d never heard of them… am I the only one that doesn’t know who to take my orders from?
• My favorite line of the night, referring to how Christians need to fight back against the gays:
  

  “There’s a great reluctance of churches in getting involved in the political arena.”

  They didn’t really say that, did they?! Yes. Yes they did.

• It was pointed out that being anti-gay does not constitute prejudice. We are not pre-judging, they said. We are coming to our conclusions after careful consideration! Therefore, it is not technically prejudice.I guess they won the battle of semantics… so make sure you don’t call homophobic people prejudiced. They’re not prejudiced. They’re “Christians who love everybody.” Got it?
• One bright side to all this: I found out we liberals are winning the Culture Wars! (Congratulations, you sodomites!)

The first 20 minutes of the talk, I wondered how much of my own rhetoric I’d be willing to say to their faces. I concluded I would probably tone it down a bit… try to engage them more. Maybe speak their language.

As the evening progressed, I became less eager to please them or to even talk to them. I wanted to point out all the flaws in their thinking, all the parts where they weren’t telling the whole story, all the times they were flat out lying to the audience.

I really wanted to know what the speaker would have said if there were openly gay people in the audience. The speaker made a point to say that there was a Facebook group against her formed by students at the school at which she used to work. A transgendered student wrote to the group that she was actually a nice lady.

As the student did this, the speaker didn’t even acknowledge the student’s sexual identity — couldn’t even fathom that there was a real issue there. I didn’t see that “nice lady” side of her, and the more she speak, the more I felt the desire to stoop to her level. It’s not a side of me I want to see come out.

Afterwards, I walked out of the church and away from that group of people. And good riddance.

I should point out one additional part to this story.

When I mentioned the other day that I was attending this event, I got an email from an acquaintance. She asked if I was going to this particular church (she gave me a name) for the event. That was the one I was going to. It turns out that’s her regular church. She wouldn’t be able to make it that night, but she wanted to let me know that the church did a lot of great things to support the local community and the people there were really nice and caring.

I really believe her. I believe that they mean well and they have the best of intentions.

But, as I told my friend, it’s hard for me to focus on that side when at the same time they are propagating these ridiculous notions. It’s also hard to believe I’m the only person there who felt that way.

I didn’t really say much at the event. I basically listened to them and observed other people. But I wonder if I was the only person there last night who held a contrary view to what was being said.

Where were the Christians who believe that it’s ok to be gay — that God loves gay people and straight people equally? Why weren’t they there to ask questions and challenge what was being said?

Is what I saw typical of what others have seen?

http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/03/05/things-i-found-out-at-the-anti-gay-workshop/

 

Top Ten Signs You’re a Fundamentalist Christian

10 – You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 – You feel insulted and “dehumanized” when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 – You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7 – Your face turns purple when you hear of the “atrocities” attributed to Allah, but you don’t even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in “Exodus” and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in “Joshua” including women, children, and trees!

6 – You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5 – You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 – You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs — though excluding those in all rival sects – will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering.  And yet consider your religion the most “tolerant” and “loving.”

3 – While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in “tongues” may be all the evidence you need to “prove” Christianity.

2 – You define 0.01% as a “high success rate” when it comes to answered prayers.  You consider that to be evidence that prayer works.  And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 – You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history – but still call yourself a Christian.

 

People With High IQs Less Likely to Believe in God

According to Richard Lynn, a psychology professor at the University of Ulster in Ireland, the decline in religious observance is directly due related to the rise in average intelligence.  Not surprisingly, Lynn has encountered a lot of criticism for this claim, but he is not unfamiliar with this type of controversy.  He has also supported controversial research that links intelligence to race and gender.  But, he reached his conclusion based upon a survey of The Royal Society, which serves as the academy of science in the UK.  Only 3.3 percent of these people believed in God.

Here’s the link: http://www.wmconnect.com/whatsnew/default.jsp?story=20080720-0700

Nothing too terribly surprising.  From my experience, a lot of academics (teachers, etc.) seem to not believe, but I don’t necessarily buy the whole “academics representing the entire intelligent population.”  There are plenty of people with high IQs who would not be considered “academics.”  I think skepticism is an inherent trait of academia.  The more a person learns or is taught, the more they are going to question things the around them; it’s a natural result of learning.  And what exactly can you expect when you poll a bunch of science scholars as to the existence of God?  Science and religion have never really co-existed all that well.  Certainly a scientist is going to be less likely to accept something that cannot be proven.  I agree with Lynn’s hypothesis in general, but I can’t help but be skeptical of the range of evidence.

 

Quiet Strength

This is a book that I had been meaning to talk about for a while but haven’t had the chance up until now.  I picked it up on a whim in a bookstore while I was in the Cincinnati Airport.  I had an 8+ hour flight to Morocco ahead of me and figured I could use something to read.  It may seem a bit strange that I would pick this book as I’m a hardcore Cincinnati Bengals fan and Tony Dungy is the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, but something about it just happened to catch my eye.  It was most likely the tag-line: “The Principles, Practices, & Priorities of a Winning Life.”  Obviously Dungy has had a winning life; he’s a successful Super Bowl winning head coach…he must have gotten something right along the way.

But maybe the most appealing thing to me was the title of the book: “Quiet Strength.”  It would also prove to be one of the biggest themes I took away from Dungy’s memoir.  This title appealed to me first because it was uncommon: you don’t often hear about someone being “quietly strong,” but it also drew my attention because it touched me personally.  I am in no way the loudest or most verbose person you will ever meet and I sometimes get a lot of criticism for being too shy or not talking enough.  So it was encouraging to see a book by a very successful individual that focused on being both quiet AND strong.  Now that’s a concept.

This was definitely one of the most interesting books I have ever read; and certainly the best autobiography.  One of my major surprises was how grounded the book was on faith and Christianity.  Usually I don’t like to get caught up in those sorts of things; I like to confine my faith to my own personal thinking….but the way Dungy intertwined his religion with the events in his life was very compelling.  It was also amazing the amount of struggle he experienced and how he was able to calmly deal with it; from the opportunities denied to him in high school and college for being black to not being able to cut it as a player in the NFL to being fired as a head coach in Tampa Bay to the suicide of his son.  With all of these occurrences, it would seem like he would break down at some point, but he never does.  He always carries the mottoes of “Stick to what we believe in” and “Do what we do.”  He never lets a disappointment deter him from his plans and the way he lives his life.  This, along with “doing the common things uncommonly well” is his basic formula for success.

However, despite the success, Dungy remains a humble man.  He also does not define success in the way that most might.  His definition of success comes from a much more spiritual perspective: “God’s definition of success is really one of significance-the significant difference our lives can make in the lives of others. The significance doesn’t show up in won-loss records, long resumes, or the trophies gathering dust on our mantels. It’s found in the hearts and lives of those we’ve come across who are in some way better because of the way we lived.”  Even if you’re not a religious person, I think there’s something you can take away from that thinking.  Our definitions of success are often too selfish and material-based.  We shouldn’t call ourselves successful because we became millionaires, we should call ourselves successful based on the impact we’ve left on the world around us.

Those are just a few things I took away from the book; there are many other things that I could not even remember to mention.  I would definitely recommend reading this book; I guarantee it will have an impact on your life or your thinking in some way.  I know it did on mine.