I See Dead People

A pre-Halloween poll done by the AP and Ipsos revealed that nearly a third of Americans believe in ghosts, 23 percent have seen a ghost, 19 percent belive in witchcraft, and 48 percent believe in ESP. Oh, and 14 percent say they have seen a UFO.

We laugh at these people for believing in this ‘crazy’ stuff, yet some 90 plus percent of Americans believe in a god. Now who is crazy? You can probably find as much evidence that a UFO crashed in Roswell, New Mexico as you can the existance of a god.

Labels, bah!

Jean Low posted a comment that the label I was looking for is called Pragmatic Atheism (btw, hello Jean Low) . I have to decline this label though, as I don’t think my Atheism (and possibly anything else I believe or think) has any utility, whatsoever.

She also suggested that labels are useless. Now, there is a concept I can get behind. I’ve had many labels thrown at me over the course of my life, adding one to myself seems rather pointless. Thanks Jean.

Besides I’m running out of funny things to say about them.

To Label Or Not To Label

I’m still working on the label to use to describe my non-belief in God. Ken Perrott of Open Parachute has suggested “non-theist”.

I don’t think non-theist works. I’m not non-theist. If a god came along and made itself known, and was worth worshiping, I just might make the move. So I’m really not a non-theist, more of a non-any-god-’round-here sort of person. Besides, non-theist sounds like I should have my own section at a restaurant.

“Will that be theist or non-theist sir?”
“Non please.”

Actually that doesn’t sound half bad. Watching people say grace has always creeped me out a little.

Where I’m Coming From

I don’t want any of you to think that I actually know all the ramifications of my Atheism. I don’t. I really know nothing of the current arguments going on around the atheist camp. I haven’t really read anything concerning ‘formal’ atheism. I’m winging it.

I actually don’t even like the term atheist. I’ve thought about Humanist, but I’m somewhat acquainted with humanity and basing a life philosophy around human beings seems too complimentary to the species.

I’ve thought about being a ‘rationalist’, but I’m not rational all the time, and being so just seems like a lot of work.

I guess I’ll keep looking.

Atheism: My Journey (Epilogue)

I did not really give a time-line for my journey. Most of my struggle has happened in the last 12 years. A time in my life which hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped. It happens. Since my ‘conversion’ I’ve tried to read more on the subject of Atheism. The readings I have completed just re-enforce the correctness of my decision.

I also wanted to say that I know that my journey hasn’t been one filed with logic. Struggling illogically is a lot easier than struggling logically, but a lot less productive. Regardless of how the journey was made, it was mine. The important part of any journey is the journey itself, or so I’ve heard. The most I hope to gain from all of this is to finally be on the correct path so I can move forward and not sideways.

Atheism: My Journey Part 4

Now I have a bunch of notions that make no sense other than to me in my desire to figure out the nature of God’s relationship to me. None of which really make much logical sense. But then again, nothing about God is logical.

Now what am I supposed to do with all this? Either God hates me or nature does. Now here is probably where you think my decision toward Atheism comes in, but no, not yet. I had to wallow in this mire for awhile. Plus a move to Atheism would mean very little at this point, other than a rejection of a God whom I think hates me anyway. There’s nothing positive about that. No, I had to think about the whole thing a while longer.

There was a lot to contemplate, the rise of evangelical Christianity, September 11th and the new terror of Islam, the movement against science, and even Man’s own inhumanity to man. When looked at religion as a whole, I began to look at God as not being too beneficial to anyone.

I considered myself a man of science when I was younger. I studied biological science in college. I was certain that evolution explained how we came to be, and I am still. I’ve always rejected Genesis’ explanation of creation. I never really paid much attention to the Bible at all. I did, however, have a fascination with Catholicism. Not enough to become Catholic, but enough to be interested in all the mysticism. Perhaps that was what really interested me, the mysticism, not the religion. I always thought well of the basic teachings of Jesus. Love thy neighbor, God is love, and all that. Of course, then you actually read some of the Bible and then you are not that inspired anymore.

After a period of time, I found I just could not reconcile any of it. The Old Testament with the New, the conflicting attitudes of Jesus, the wrath and the love, the varied and differing beliefs of different branches of Christianity, Islam, Christians, and Jews worshiping the same God, the hatred of homosexuals, the rejection of evolution, and on and on and on… None of it made a damn bit of sense. I, therefore, concluded that there was no god worshiped on this planet worth my attention. I was, for the lack of a better term, an Atheist.

I don’t, however, reject the entire idea of a god. There may be one somewhere, but I’m certain that god is not worshipped by anyone here. So, as you can see, I don’t take an absolutist stand on their being no supreme power in the universe.

My journey to Atheism has been long and arduous. Why it took so long still doesn’t make sense to me. I have been on the cusp of realization many times in my life. That it took so long and took so many strange notions for me to get to this place is almost unbelievable, and in some ways regrettable. But I have finally made it.

Atheism: My Journey Part 3

So now I have to come up with some explanation (outside of God hating me) for my misfortune. Since I knew I had made, at times, bad personal choices, though I didn’t know that at the time, I started with the premise that all fortune and misfortune started with personal actions. Or to put it another way, outcomes require actions.

Some of my ‘bad’ outcomes came directly from actions I took. I did A, I got outcome B. That is no profound statement, it happens to everyone all the time. But what if there are no discernible actions to look at? What if the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ seems to happen without any direct action from me? What if even indirect causes can’t be found?

For instance, if we accept the idea of randomness we would expect that things happen in accordance to that idea. So if bad things happen to everybody, they would happen in roughly the same number, or at the very least they should happen in the shape of a Bell curve, with most toward the center and a small number at the extreme edges. So most people would expect their luck to be in accordance with randomness, with a mixture of the good and the bad, while a few people would experience inordinately good and bad luck. So, if I’m on the extreme side of bad (God hates me), what are the reasons for this? (I’ve made the analogy of myself that I’m really statistical error.)

A random universe gives no more comfort than one ruled by a capricious God. Are there reasons why I seem (to myself) to have more misfortune than others? Perhaps there is a genetic reason. If we accept that we are a product of our genetics, we then can infer that what we do and how we do them are a product of genetics as well. Out of this comes my idea that my genetics affects everything I do, every action, and hence, every outcome. Every unnoticed and unfelt nuance of my being affects the things I do and their outcomes. Which, essentially, leads to the idea of genetic determinism. Whatever I am has made me who I am. If I am a person with bad luck, it is because of all the decisions I have made stemming from what my genetic make up has compelled me to do. I have no choice in the matter. The actions I take are the only ones I have, I can take no other.

Needless to say, this result isn’t very satisfying either. Either God hates me and punishes me or I am genetically predisposed to bad juju. Either way, I’m screwed.

Continued tomorrow…

Atheism: My Journey Part 2

After my mother’s death, I began thinking more about my beliefs. I went through a lot of hardships and just plain bad luck through my life. How did God fit into that framework? I consider myself a pretty nice guy. I try my best to live a moral and ethical life. I haven’t killed anyone, I don’t steal pension checks from old women, I don’t rape women or molest little boys. Why does it seem that God doesn’t love me? Sure, I sin here and there, but no more than anyone else. What is it about me that God seems to care little about. Maybe, I’m just not handsome enough. No, I’m not baptized, that’s it. God doesn’t see you if you’re not baptized.

I couldn’t get baptized. I think you should feel a little closer to God to take that plunge at my age, and I didn’t. My final theory of why God hated me was that I should not have been born. The doctors told my mother she could not have children. I guess they were wrong. Though my mother’s first child died not long after birth, she kept trying and eventually had me, and finally, my sister.

God didn’t want me to be born (or my sister). The doctors told her no, but she went and did it anyway. I was not supposed to be here. I was God’s unwanted child and therefore, He hated me. I was a product of His disapproval. Everything that had gone wrong in my life was because I did not have God’s favor. If I did have some fortune, God immediately set it right by sending misfortune. This is how I rationalized my life without God’s grace. And no, my new understanding didn’t make me feel any better. Quite the contrary.

Now on this theory, I contemplated quite a while. Having a God that hated me was no more helpful than not believing at all. I began looking at my situation rationally (in a manner of speaking). I thought about the nature of my ‘bad luck’. Was it really bad luck or mere statistics — the chance of something good or bad happening to me. While not scientific, by any means, my analysis seemed to lean in the direction of God hating me. It just did not seem that mere statistics could explain all the ‘bad’ things and the too few ‘good’ things that happened to me. I was the sucker that never got an even break.

Despite my conclusion, I tried to find a reasonable explanation for the statistics not being, seemingly, random. What I came up with seemed as hopeless as God hating me.

Continued tomorrow…

Atheism: My Journey

I didn’t start out to be one, of course. It was a long journey through 40 years of doubt. I only recently made the leap to non-belief.

My move to atheism was gradual with many instances of back peddling. My parents were not very religious and didn’t attend church. My mother grew up Catholic, though she was non-practicing most of her adult life, and my father categorized the family as Protestant, most likely due to his growing up in rural Illinois and being raised among that particular influence. I remember him singing a couple of the old revival-type gospel songs when the mood struck. A song like “Power In The Blood”.

There is power, power
wonder-working power
in the blood
of the lamb.

There is power, power
wonder-working power
in the precious blood
of the lamb.

(some of those old gospel songs were pretty catchy)

The lack of religious influence in my home can be plainly noted in the fact that I was not baptised at birth. This was both freeing and crippling at the same time. Freeing in the sense that I could make my own mind up as to which religion I would follow and crippling in that I had no religious foundation from which to start my exploration. A religion to reject, as it were. So I had to go about this exploration in a sort of trial and error approach.

Fortunately in your youth, there is not much time for religious matters. You are too busy being young. Usually religious crises come later in life, typically when a loved one dies.

My mother was a wonderful woman who was usually liked by everyone. She was caring and helpful. Did what she could for whomever she could. Not to say she was a saint. She was simply a good person. My mother also was afflicted with many medical conditions during her life. She suffered through, sometimes, agonizing pain. She was diabetic and lost use of her legs, and eventually, lost her sight.

I remember my mother being in terrible pain. I was very upset. She had been suffering so long. That night I asked God if He planned on taking her, please do it soon. The next day she died.

I could, of course, take this as God answering my prayer for her. That would be the most comforting. On the other hand, I may have been the reason my mother died. Had I asked God not to take her, she would still be here. Neither of these options made me feel any better. As a comfort, religion had failed me. Still, I did not abandon it entirely.

Continued tomorrow…