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.

Shaking my fist at God - Part 1 - The Loch Ness Monster

In his blog entry 'A meaningless Atheist Conference' Ken Ham accuses atheists of 'shaking their fist at god' and even asks 'but why?' I thought I would have a go at explaining.

Each year my boys and I try to plan and take a trip to explore part of the UK. We have a lot of fun planning, budgeting, saving up, finding bargains, and learning about the history, geology, mythology, folklore, wildlife and architecture of the place before we go. This year we have decided to 'do' Scotland. We will be taking in the Edinburgh Festival and visiting Loch Ness. We have been watching documentaries and reading about the legend of the Loch Ness Monster and we are very excited about taking a boat trip on the loch and visiting the Exhibition Centre. While we are there we will be thinking, talking and learning about the history of the legend, the people who have lived around Loch Ness, the geography of the loch, the scientific studies that have been done, the photos that have been taken of 'nessie' and how science has debunked them, the wildlife in the loch, the tricks of waves and light and psychology that have contributed to sightings and how the legend of the monster has benefitted the local economy. We will read stories and gaze in wonder across the loch, and just a little bit of us will probably long for nessie to rise up out of the water and reveal herself to us. Perhaps we will be lucky and a log or a wave or a parade of water birds will momentarily give us a glimpse of magic.

What we wont do is look over the loch and decide that as it is such a magical place and as there are so many who believe they have seen a monster there, that the monster must definitely be real and that we will believe in it forever, regardless of any evidence to the contrary, and live our lives according to great truths she has unveiled for us. Neither will we stand at the bank and shake our fists in the direction of the monster (how will we know where to shake them, it's a big loch?). Why would we, there is not a shred of evidence it exists.

Another part of our Scotland trip will involve the Orkney Isles where we will spend time observing the diverse and exciting wildlife, marvelling at the amazing geology and beautiful landscape and where we will visit Skara Brae, the 5,000 year old neolithic village where evidence of lives involving community, hunting, fishing, producing items of beauty and technology have been found. As always when visiting historical sites, I know I will get a real feeling for the people who lived there and feel a deep connection with these ancestors and our shared humanity. I will think about how they might have cared for their children, mourned their dead, cooked and laughed and argued and how they might have thought about the world. I know the whole trip will be an uplifting, exciting and inspirational experience. I know we will sometimes drive each other nuts and we will argue and we will share amazing experiences and learn a little more tolerance towards each other. Can't wait!

Spare the Rod

I've been thinking about the question of how we decide what is right and wrong in our daily lives, with and without god. I think a good example that I'm familiar with is the child smacking debate. In recent years we have seen changes in the law in the UK and these were preceded by much debate on the home education lists and groups. You can now only hit a child as long as you do not leave a mark where as before the change it was ok to leave bruises or wounds provided a judge felt that the force you had used was 'reasonable'. The (often repeated) argument would go something like this...

Fundamentalist Christians 'The bible clearly states 'spare the rod and spoil the child', children must be physically disciplined so they grow up godly and good and obedient.'

Moderate Christians 'Spare the rod does not mean hitting children, Jesus would never hit a child, the rod refers to a stick used by shepherds to guide their sheep, it means you must guide your children not hit them, it means exactly the opposite to what you say.'

Atheists and/or Pagans 'Hitting children is just revolting and is child abuse. Adults are protected by law from being hit so children should be too'.

I'm not sure where Muslim parents stand on the issue or those of other faiths, I know at least one Muslim parent who thinks hitting children is wrong but I don't know if there is a similar argument in Islam about what the Koran says on the subject.

The argument once developed along these lines...

Someone against smacking 'There are much better ways to discipline children, reasoning with them, sanctions, being grounded, time out etc'

Fundamentalist Christian, 'those ways are humiliating and destroy your argument that children should have the same protections as adults, we don't do any of those things to adults do we?'

Someone else 'errr, yes, of course we do. Adult bad behaviour sanctions include fines (taking pocket money away), prison (grounded), losing a job/relationship etc (consequences of actions) etc'

The fundamentalist would then go on to argue that it is religious discrimination that he cannot hit his child with a 'rod' (yes you can actually buy ones that god approves of for hitting your children - special feature, they wont hurt the parents hand while inflicting pain on the errant child) as the bible clearly tells him he must.

Someone will then post the link to stop the rod where moderate Christians campaign for the end to the revolting practice of using the bible as an excuse for beating children.

Personally, I am against hitting children for the simple reason that children learn by example. I do not want my children to learn that if someone doesn't do as they ask they should hit them until they do - that's called bullying. I disagree that hitting children 'doesn't work anyway'. I think that probably if my children were afraid of me they wouldn't do some of the things they have done. When they were much younger, one of mine was quite rude to me in front of a friend who had grown up in a large family in the Bahamas. After I had told him not to speak to me in that way as it was rude and he'd apologised, she said to him 'If I had talked to my father in that way, he would have sent me down the garden to cut a switch from the bush, then when I bought it back to him he would have hit me with it until my legs were bleeding'. Needless to say, they were all obedient children, but were now scattered throughout the world, having very little to do with their father who they all agreed was a 'right bastard'.

My point is that I am not parenting children in order for them to be obedient, or for parenting to be made as easy as possible. For me the goal is for them to reach their potential as thinking, independent, capable human beings who can make a positive contribution to society and have a fulfilled life. And quite often I would very much like to give them a clip round the ear, just as quite often I would like to ram my car into the person who just pulled out in front of me. I don't think either option is morally justifiable.

So, the question of how we decide what is right or wrong. It seems pretty clear to me in these online 'debates' about this and many other topics, that everyone is deciding for his or her self what is right or wrong whether influenced by a holy book or not. If you want to hit your child, you can find justification in the bible. If you think hitting children is wrong you can find that the bible agrees with you. If you do not use the bible to decide your moral code, you must think the issue through and decide from experience, reading about child psychology and following your parental instincts (or deciding not to). In the end, the decision is a personal one and god is simply used to back up the decision you personally make.

There are questions that arise from this. Without the bible, I would conjecture that those against smacking would still be against smacking, but what of those who use the bible to justify their violence towards children? What justification would they find for their actions without religion? Could it be that they would come to a different conclusion based on compassion and the human instinct to protect our young?

I think inevitably this leads me to put the same question about suicide bombers, stoners, death penalty fans and oppressors of women and children in the name of religion. Those who can find it in their interpretation of their holy book to condemn all these things would surely still condemn them without the holy book because they are decent human beings. But could it be that all those doing terrible things are just terrible people anyway or does religion make decent people do terrible things?

Incidentally, I've not yet met an atheist who believes hitting children is morally justifiable. They probably do exist, but maybe they just don't feel the need to join in the argument.

The Known Universe by American Museum of Natural History on YouTube.

Absolutely awesome and so much bigger, more inspiring and more mind boggling than anything I've ever heard about any god.

My story so far....

I have always been an atheist. I have never believed in god. I have tried, very hard at times, but nothing happened. My earliest religious memories are our local church services, Sunday school and the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations attached to both. Jelly and ice cream, singing songs in church and games in the church garden. Very nice when you are 7, church is great, monarchy undoubtedly a wonderful idea! Around the same time, in the summer holidays, we had a visit from some sort of christian camp for kids to the park at the bottom of our garden. I loved it! Trendy young things came with their long hair, flowers and guitars (it was the 70's!) and taught us songs about how much Jesus loved us. We drew pictures , played games and sat around on rugs eating picnic lunches in the sun. I remember they had good scissors and plenty of glue and we did lots of cutting and sticking (I still love a bit of cutting and sticking!) As part of this 'camp' we were given workbooks to take home and do a page a day. I don't remember much about the content but I do remember keeping the booklet under my pillow, 'religiously' filling in my page a day and memorising the biblical quotes. I loved the attention I got for showing my filled in book and there were prizes and lots of clapping. I was hooked and really wanted to 'believe'. I guess the camps lasted a couple of weeks and I know I went for more than one year. I also remember around this time having a problem with the belief bit. Was I going to 'see' Jesus? Was he going to talk to me? Would I just 'know' that he was there? I sometimes used to squeeze my eyes shut and wish that when I opened them I would know Jesus was there.

Later we moved to a different region, to a small village and once again I found a positive space at the local church. I sang in the choir and went to Sunday school. The local vicar and his wife were really lovely and cared so much for all the kids in the village. We had wonderful games in the vicarage garden, homemade cakes and the vicar's wife spent a lot of time with me for singing lessons. As I grew older, both the vicar and his wife offered support and kindness through difficulties I faced. At this point, as a teenager, I took to reading from the bible every night. I had a beautiful white and gold bible with wonderful colour pictures that my grandmother had given me. However hard I tried though I still struggled with belief. I saw how the bible was often contradictory, how god was often mean and how some things just surely couldn't be. I wondered how god could make Jesus suffer so and then could be called a 'merciful father'. How could Noah get all those animals in the ark? Not like a child's set of wooden animals with say 15 pairs or something but ALL of the species represented? I remember being told that faith is about believing first then seeing the evidence, about taking that leap of faith. I tried it but I didn't really know what that meant. Saying you believe? Pretending? Fake it till you make it? I then began to worry that there was something wrong with me, maybe I was too thick to see what everyone else could see or maybe I was lacking some sort of 'belief' capacity. I didn't want anyone to find out that I couldn't do it.

At that point I didn't really know anything about atheists or evolution or science or even other religions. I think I really wanted to be a good person and I also wanted someone to be looking after me and I got the message that these things came with belief in Jesus but I was somehow letting the whole side down by not believing and that's why I couldn't believe and I kind of felt trapped in that circle.

As a teen, my mother started going to a spiritualist church and I went with her a few times. The nice vicar had left and I didn't like the new one much. I began to think about other denominations, other religions and maybe that I needed to find a different one in which I would be able to believe. The spiritualist church was a joke. I think the medium was so thrilled to have a young person in her church she tried really hard to make me feel special so came to me all the time which made my mum and others pretty cross as they weren't getting their turn! She told me I had a red indian guide with me, a really tall man in battle dress! Then did that question and answer thing trying to get some 'hit'. I had no clue what she was on about most of the time but my mum often jumped in identifying long dead relatives I had never heard of. Why long dead relatives should want to come to me with banal and pointless messages beats me - maybe they could have come to my mum instead and told her to stop being such a cow to me, but maybe that's not suitable for church. One time the medium also told me I had 'healing hands', and another time that I could soothe animals. So that whole experience kind of left me back at square one. If Jesus was so good and god looks after us all why aren't they looking out for me and why don't I feel this kind of 'belief' hit that others seemed to find so easy?

I kind of lost interest after that in a bit of a haze of heavy metal blow outs and mostly lost touch with my parents, which was no bad thing. Many happy, hazy, slightly mental memories. Coming out the other end , then finding myself a young divorced mum with 3 small boys, my next thoughts on religion were really triggered while studying a joint archaeology and history course. Bizzarely it seemed to me, I was being taught about human evolution and anthropology and finding it all very fascinating, then having history lessons from a devout catholic who raised my awareness considerably, blowing me away in one go with the comment 'as if a lizard would one day find itself up a tree and suddenly grow wings, and that's how birds 'evolved' how ridiculous'.

Wow! Can it be true that this intelligent, articulate woman, a professor who I admired and was fond of, be so unbelievably thick when it came to evolution? Can it really be that I understand more than she does? Am I being really thick? Does the theory of evolution really say that and somehow advocates make it look presentable by blinding us with science? This triggered a burst of reading, thinking and observing for me. I delved a little into evolution and looked at creationists refutations. I learned that it is quite easy for a creationist to attempt the 'blinding with science' option and that it was sometimes quite difficult to understand the nitty gritty of evolutionary theory. I also learned that being a single mum to 3 small boys and studying full time left little time for reading, mulling things over and looking up references.

A christian friend said 2 things to me around this time that made me think and nagged at me. Firstly, that she had looked inside herself and just 'knew' that god was there and that Jesus loved her. When I asked why he would love her and not others who suffered horribly she talked about lifestyle choices and how god had given us freewill to choose whether to believe in him or not. Secondly she told me later that maybe for her believing in god was lazy and that she had not looked into evidence or anything. I could see how both these thoughts make it very easy for religious leaders to exploit people and reinforce the comfort of ignorance. Still, I wondered whether I was just being bloody minded in 'being bothered' to want to look at evidence and if I wanted the 'consolation' of religion, maybe I'd just have to pretend. I also considered whether I could join a church for the fellowship, community and routine that I felt I needed and keep hidden the fact that I didn't believe in god. I really like a song on a Sunday morning and enjoy 'being involved'. I decided I would not be happy with the hypocrisy of this.

Since this time I have mostly home educated my boys and we have been on a real journey together. I have learned massive amounts about the universe, the natural world and science alongside them, far more than I ever learned before and ironically, have been able to have really open, critical, exploratory conversations with my children, far more than with anyone I have met before! Children are not happy with shallow, brush off answers I find and demand evidence, even when you are tired and can't be bothered. They have learned to look things up themselves and then discuss what they've found. Home education has also meant we have met, socialised with and learned from people of many different faiths and met real life atheists and this has led to many insights.

So now, as my boys grow up and have less need of me (or different needs anyway!) I find myself noticing more and more the debates going on around me, the books being published, the radio and TV interviews, Darwin's Bicentenary, the atheist comedians popping up all over and having a little time to read and mull and rant and read some more. I am astonished and outraged to read such things as Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor saying that atheists are 'not fully human' and Ken Ham waxing lyrical about an atheist conference being meaningless. I suppose it never really occured to me that life should be meaningless or pointless without god. I am more shocked when someone I know to be clever, decent and thoughtful reminds me that they do believe in god by saying something about their faith. I think I realised a long time ago that there are plenty of ways to find fellowship and community and to wonder at the natural world and the cosmos, do meaningful work, decide about morality, relish the company of interesting people etc and hadn't thought for a long time that my life was missing anything for not believing in god. I just wish I'd had the opportunity to explore these issues as a child and I've tried to make sure that my kids can do that.

So I have lots of questions, observations and thoughts I'd love to explore either by myself or even better with anyone of any persuasion who has any interesting insights.