A Wonderful Journey

One ex christian blogger has taken off her blinkers and is seeing the world in all it's glory after 'coming out' as an atheist. Her site has some lovely poetry and really inspiring posts. This apology is both sad and heartwarming. Unfortunately, the author has had to turn off the comment facility due to the hate mail she's recieved from her former fellow christians. So I will have to congratulate her and wish her a wonderful journey here instead.

Why I am an atheist # 2

Because god (any version) seems to me such a small, limited idea where science, cosmology, evolution, geology, humanity involve such vast, mind expanding, life affirming yet intimately observable ideas and facts.

Moderate religion

Richard Dawkins writes in the Washington Post about the contortions 'moderate' religious people are going to to 'see God' in the hideous natural disaster in Haiti. When something so terrible happens I find myself going about my daily grind looking around me at people who I know 'believe' in god, who believe he is concerned about what they do, that Jesus loves them and watches over them, and I am almost overwhelmed with the sheer madness of it all. I want to scream at them - why? Why was god over here worrying about whether you were swearing or being nice to people when a bloody monstrous disaster was on it's way to Haiti to torture and kill and maim and widow and orphan?? And how can you just drop your few quid in the pot for the appeal and then carry on unthinkingly worshiping this terribly inept deity? Do you find another way to square the circle other than god is not omnipotent, not good, not terribly clever, not powerful enough to protect people, doesn't care or is actively vicious and nasty. I agree with Professor Dawkins in his grudging admiration for Pat Robertson at least being true to the bible and crediting god with deliberate destruction and murder as a reaction to disobedience. Otherwise, aren't you just making up whatever religion you like and calling it 'true'?

One last point, the comments as usual for a piece like this have mostly reasonable atheists with a couple of completely idiotic, ignorant religious nuts. Where are the reasonable, moderate people of faith explaining their views, enlightening the confusion, discussing their evidence? As usual they are missing, what a shame.

Why I am an Atheist#1

Religious belief has resulted in some good things and some terrible things throughout history and still does today. I believe that the good things would have happened anyway (because lots of people are basically good and want to help each other and have the urge and talent to create wonderful art, buildings, music etc) but at least some of the terrible things wouldn't have happened. Some people of course are horrible, make bad decisions, are damaged etc with or without religion's influence and natural disasters happen (but wouldn't it be a better world if there was no blame or bullshit around natural disasters just help and support for each other?). BUT there are people who do terrible things purely because they have been brainwashed into thinking they are doing a good thing and there are terrible things that happen (routinely mutilating children, oppressing women etc) for which there would simply be no excuse without religion.

Inspiration

Yesterday I was sent one of those inspirational slideshow things from a friend who is religious. The photos of very beautiful snow scenes, starry skies and expanses of water were accompanied by dreamy music and 45 life lessons including the usual stuff like 'Life is to short to waste time hating people' (I'm confused by this idea that emotions like hate and love are things we can just choose to have or not to have but that's for another post), 'Forgive everyone everything' (uh, no?) etc and also 'It's OK to be angry at God, he can take it.' and 'God never blinks'. I wonder if anyone else looking at those 2 was unable to not instantly think of the Haitian earthquake?

Anyway, thank god for Richard Dawkins coming to the rescue with this phenomenally inspirational and thought provoking reading from 'Unweaving the Rainbow', the very antithesis of the banal, life limiting messages of religious niceties. Open your Eyes.

Legal loophole permits Muslim schools to continue beating children

This story from the National Secular Society addresses the issue of child abuse in after hours faith schools.

'A report just over a year ago warned that madrassa students had been slapped, punched and had their ears twisted. Irfan Chishti, a former Government adviser on Islamic affairs, said that one madrassa student was “picked up by one leg and spun around” while another pupil said a teacher was “kicking in my head like a football”. In a separate report in 2006, leading British Muslim Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui raised fears that physical abuse in madrassas was widespread.'

Presumably the Koran makes allowance for such treatment and Muslim parents must decide whether their personal interpretation will include such treatment of their children or not, ie, they must make a moral judgment regardless of what their holy book says.

Shaking my fist at god - part 2 - Haiti

It's been well documented that Fox News' Pat Robertson has blamed a pact the Haitians made with the Devil (Fact!) for the recent horrific earthquake they have suffered. From an atheist point of view the earthquake is a terrible, tragic, heartbreaking natural event which has caused suffering to Haitians because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. These things are going to happen and a reasonable response is to work on future prevention by working to eliminate the poverty of people who are living in high risk areas without any warning systems, without anywhere to go if there was a warning anyway and living in structures which have absolutely no chance in the event of an earthquake. Before that of course, the people need food, shelter, medical treatment, clothes, the means to find their loved ones, then new homes, the means to make a living etc. I can't really see how blaming a pact made by their ancestors or Robertson's remedy of bringing the word of Jesus to the people are incredibly helpful things to do in the circumstances. It's fairly ironic that after watching Robertson express his relief that there were lots of Christians on the ground to help Haitians turn to Jesus, the next news story I saw was from the BBC. The report started 'Those who can get out are getting out', cue video of smiling christian missionaries boarding a plane to get out as quickly as possible. A few gave comments to the camera as they passed about how scary it had been when the floor shook.

I'm not quite sure from Pat Robertson's report whether it is god who sent the earthquake or the devil. It's all very confusing to me. Is god failing to protect the Haitian's from the devil because they made him angry by asking for help elsewhere when he would not help them escape from slavery? Why did the devil send the earthquake then? For fun, just because he's the devil? Or did god send the earthquake to kill and maim and orphan and traumatise modern day Haitians because their ancestors made a pact with the devil out of desperation when god failed to protect them from the trauma of slavery and abuse? And so now that god has either done this horrendous thing or failed to protect them from it out of jealous spite, the only way forward is to begin to worship and adore him? Couldn't god just take the moral high ground, be good anyway and show the devil up for the bastard he is?

Anyway, maybe I've got it all wrong and Pat Robertson is wrong and god's role in all this is now to comfort and console and welcome those who believed in him in life to the kingdom of heaven and send the rest for eternal torture (or somewhere not quite so bad, or into heaven if they managed to repent just before being crushed to death in their beds). Which ever way I think about this scenario, with a god being involved I can't help but think that shaking a fist at him would be an entirely reasonable and utterly decent response for anyone who believes in him.

On a more practical level, we could just give as much as we can to this or any other campaign which we trust and try to work towards a fairer world with better and more widespread technology that can help prevent such terrible disasters in the future. Imagine if all the wealth, all the time and all the energy that is spent on religions around the world could instead be channelled into making the world a better, safer, fairer place to live for everyone. What a fantastic daydream.