Atheist Anger? It’s The Isolation, Stupid!

Last night I went to my monthly Atheist Meetup. While it was another fun evening of raucous, blasphemous discussion, some of the topics had me reflecting on a talk I had with my wife this past year.

The talk took place a few months after I finally started identifying as an atheist. The whole thing was still pretty new to me, and I felt really… scared about how the people around me would react. And while in hindsight I learned that my fears were mostly unfounded, at the time I was really apprehensive of being out and out. Hell, it’s a year later and I’m still not out at work yet.

My wife had noticed a newfound aggression and anger in me, and one afternoon we decided to talk about it.

So I shared with her how lonely it was to not have anyone to talk to about this, how I was struggling to live my life as an atheist in a Christian city, how difficult this transition was.

What she said really floored me, and not in a good way:

This sounds like something you need to talk with PastorItaly about.

!?!?!?

PastorItaly is the name we’re gonna call the pastor at our church. He’s actually a really nice guy and my favorite pastor of all the ones I’ve encountered over the years. But he was still a pastor. 

I initially had no idea to respond to this statement. I was literally speechless.

Talk to PastorItaly? Why? What on earth could he say to help me? So I asked her:

How would PastorItaly be able to help me?

She said that she didn’t know, but that he would probably know more about this than she did.

My problem in responding wasn’t that I didn’t understand her suggestion. I understood it perfectly. Probably more perfect than she realized. What caused my speechlessness was of how she completely and epicaly  did not understand me. She had no clue what I was actually going through. Not a single iota.

What on earth would PastorItaly know about living as an atheist in a Christian city? What could PastorItaly share with me about being more confident and assertive about my atheism? 

What could he possibly offer me except reasons to become a Christian?

I thought all of these things but had such a difficult time expressing them.

Those special “talks” with pastors presuppose an end goal, to believe in Jesus. People talk to pastors to root out their doubts, to work through their struggles with faith. People talk to pastors to convert or to reaffirm their commitment and to Jesus.

But I wasn’t any of this. I didn’t have doubts or faith. I wasn’t interested in converting or reaffirming. I completely rejected Christianity years ago. Being a believer was no where on my radar.

This was the fundamental flaw of her understanding. She could not comprehend the idea that I wasn’t struggling with Christianity, I wasn’t doubting Christianity, I wasn’t losing faith with Christianity. Christianity was a non issue.

She could not comprehend that my problem wasn’t my lack of faith. It wasn’t the lack of faith that I was struggling with. It wasn’t the lack of Jesus that was making me angry.

The atheism doesn’t make me angry and aggressive.

It was the isolation! It was the loneliness! It was feeling like I had to live a lie to my family and friends!

THAT was the problem! That’s what I’m struggling with. I’ll stop being angry and aggressive when I can be myself. When I have friends I can talk to, when I have a community of my own. It’s easy to speak your mind when you’re surrounded by people who agree with you. It’s much harder to speak your mind when you’re surrounded by people who vehemently disagree.

To say for me to talk to PastorItaly is to completely understand what my problem is. It offers a stereotyically Christian solution that presupposes a specific outcome (the answer is Jesus) and totally disregards my actual wants, desires, struggles, fears, and goals. It disregards me as a person and tries to solve my ills with one cookie cutter cure (believe in Jesus).

I wanted to say all of this to her, but I couldn’t. All I could muster was:

I don’t think PastorItaly can help me to be comfortable being an atheist in a Christian city

Simply put, empathy is the ability for you to put yourself in someone elses shoes and to try and understand the world through their eyes. I’m not easily surprised anymore, but I am constantly stunned and disappointed when people fail to practice this one quintessenstially human trait.

If people ever stopped to consider what it must feel like to be on our end, maybe we wouldn’t be so angry to begin with.

…

Although, she does have a point. I wouldn’t have to worry about being an atheist in a Christian city if I was a Christian too.

Nitpicking Star Trek Generations

As I’ve written before, I’m a huge Star Trek fan. Huge!

Though I wasn’t the “dress up and go to conventions” type, I was the kind of Trekkie that would obsess and nitpick the tiniest errors on the show. I was pretty pissed in The Next Generation’s season finale “All Good Things…” , when they forgot to use the arm rest control panels on the captain’s chair from season 1 for their “in the past” time travel scenes. Yeah, I’m that guy.

So it would come as no surprise that when Star Trek Generations came out in 1994, that I would find an obsess over a glaring plot hole that threatened to cripple the entire movie’s narrative.

Answering a distress call at a science station, the crew of the Enterprise rescues a man called Dr. Tolian Soran. They invite him on board to rest while they check out the problems at the science station, not realizing that Dr. Soran is the bad guy in the movie.

Chaos ensues.

At the three quarter mark, Captain Picard is on an alien planet mountain top trying to stop Dr. Soran from blowing up that planet’s sun. He fails, of course, and Dr. Soran’s evil plan comes to fruition as he and Captain Picard are whisked away into a temporal Nexus as the sun goes nova.

The temporal Nexus is a flying ribbon in space. Inside of it, time has no meaning and you pretty much can live whatever fantasy life you want. It’s the closest thing you’re gonna get to an actual “heaven” in Star Trek.

While inside Captain Picard is treated to a grand life in France where he has a boat load of kids and grandkids and has a jolly old time. But of course, he doesn’t accept the fantasy, especially since the crew of the Enterprise is out there. Oh did I mention that the Enterprise crash landed on the planet while Picard was fighting Soran on the mountaintop? Yeah, they crash landed ship blew up with the planet when the sun went supernova.

So Captain Picard, realizing that he has other responsibilities and better things to do than live out eternity blissed out, decides to leave the Nexus to stop Dr. Soren.

Because the people in the Nexus exist outside of time, Picard can technically return to any point in time that he wants to.

In his infinite wisdom, he decides to return to the mountain top minutes before Soran is able to blow up the sun to try and stop him. Before leaving, Picard meets up with Captain James T. Kirk, who happens to also be living in the Nexus.

They both leave heaven the Nexus, fight Soran, and stop his evil plan.

Uh oh, Kirk dies in the process! Oh and the Enterprise still crash landed on the planet, trashing a perfectly good, perfectly expensive star ship.

Evacuate the ship and they all live happily ever after, until the next movie. Roll credits!

Now this is where sci-fi fans freak out.

If Captain Picard could leave the Nexus and travel to any point in time, any point at all, while retaining full  knowledge and awareness of everything that has thus transpired, would it not have been better for him to have returned to the beginning of the movie when they first Soran and just arrest him there? I mean they have him on the Enterprise. They could just arrest him there and save all that trouble.

Captain Kirk would still be alive. The Enterprise would still be intact. Anyone who died or was injured in the crash landing would still be okay.

Wouldn’t that make more sense?

Of course, it would be an anticlimactic ending. You’d miss out on the drama from the second fight scene. You’d miss out on the weight of our beloved Kirk dying. You’d miss out on the opportunity to have a new ship in the next movie.

So ya, while the entertainment value is superficially increased, once you take a moment to start thinking about it, it actually makes the story less satisfying because it doesn’t make sense.

This is a big problem for writers of many genres, but especially sci-fi and fantasy where we get to explore wild and wonderous ideas. You never want a plot device or character too powerful where anything is possible. You always want very clear limits.

If it’s too easy for the plot to be resolved naturally, genuinely, and fairly because your plot devices are too powerful, you either end up sacrificing dramatic tension and genuine urgency, or you end up resolving plot points in phony and forced ways.

Additionally, you may also open the door questions that you may not be prepared to answer. Sometimes ending a story with unanswered question is powerfully compelling. Other times it’s just being lazy. 

So why do I bring this up on an atheist blog?

The Reasons I’m Not a Christian are Different from The Reasons Why I am an Atheist

My wife and I had another pleasantly surprising, pleasantly civil, pleasantly productive talk about religion yesterday (which she initiated!!!). I was debriefing some of the new thoughts that came to me while writing parts 11 and 12 of my story, the part about music being an escape and a crutch and the focal point to my resistance to treatment in the mental hospital. She asked me if I might be doing something similar with Christianity, resisting because of some other crutch or escape.

I thought it a very valid question and while some people could view my story as that way, I told her I didn’t think so. And the reason why was because I see a clear distinction between the reasons why I’m not a Christian and the reasons why I am an atheist. Indeed, while I initially abandoned Christianity for mostly interpersonal and emotional reasons, my acceptance of atheism were largely philosophical, logical, and scientific reasons which I believe refute all religions, all spirituality, and all supernatural claims (Christianity included).

I of course had a hard time explaining this to her. Some of the difficulty, I don’t think is my fault.

In America, many Christians seem to think that when it comes to religion, there are only two choices: 1) Believer, 2) Non-believer. The word “god” refers to only one god, the “one true god” (her words) and that all others don’t really count. Some readers may have already astutely identified this as the primary problem of Pascal’s Wager. The problem she had a hard time understanding, and me conveying, is that there are more than one “true religions”. There are hundreds of them, each claiming 100% truth.

The point I think she was trying to get at is that, because I largely left Christianity because of the faults of people, I shouldn’t judge the message based on that. So I should be open minded about returning to Christianity because I didn’t give it a fair chance (not her words). What she doesn’t realize is I didn’t go from Christianity to Atheism.

I went from Christianity (theism) to My Own Pet religion (pantheism) to Nondualism woo (pantheism) to Atheism. This is kinda a spoiler to anyone following along with My Story… sorry.

I actually had 3 deconversions before I ended up with atheism. Additionally, I use “atheism” incorrectly to encompass 3 other concepts: skepticism, secular humanism, and naturalism.

The important thing about my final deconversion from nondualism to atheism is that my reasons for deconversion were broad enough that they changed my basic assumptions about the world so drastically, that my reasons for atheism cut at the core concepts of spirituality and religion. In essence, I don’t have to refute specific details of any specific dogma because the reasons I discount them apply equally across all religions (Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, etc.)

Now what I’m probably failing to do, in addressing and refuting individual issues about Christianity so much (since it’s the dominant religion in America and in my house), I am not paying enough attention to those general reasons.

So, while I’m thinking about it, why don’t I map out my main reasons for disbelief in Christianity and my reasons for atheism. I’ll do Christianity in two stages: 1) initial, and 2) refined.

Christianity (Initial)

• Christians have no special revelation. Christians act like non-believers and often worse. There is often no observable, signficant, positive difference that makes them live their lives better than nonbelievers.
• Hell is an immoral place that doesn’t square with an all loving and merciful god. It is immoral that a decent nonbeliever can go to hell while a murder can go to heaven with a deathbed conversion. Also, the idea of eternal sensations doesn’t seem to make much sense.
• God seems to be absent. Miracle and intercession claims are ambiguous. The effects and presence of god looks very similar to no god existing at all.
• God may himself be evil and immoral by all of his excessive rules that don’t seem to reflect reality very well
• Too many Christians with different views of god that seem to reflect their personal preferences (SPAG)
• Circular reasoning is dumb, even to children: god is lord because the bible said so, the bible is infallible because it was written by god
• Church wastes time that can be better spent elsewhere

Christianity (Refined)

• Original sin immoral.  The idea that we’d be punished for a crime our “ancestors” “committed” is wrong and archaic and inhumane. It’s not just in any sense. Also, why did god put the tree there in the first place if he didn’t intend for Adam to eat it and the fall to happen. God set us up.
• Salvation is immoral. The idea that god has to sacrifice himself, to himself, to forgive a crime that he perpetrated, leading to the breaking of a law that he wrote, is ridiculous.
• Blood sacrifices are immoral.
• God is immoral. See Amalekites.
• Saying “God did it” doesn’t provide meaningful answers and stifles curiosity. 
• Belief in afterlife detrimental to society. When people are convinced that they are just biding time in this world in anticipation of the next better world, they have no incentive to take care of this world. they have no incentive to care for the environment or solve world poverty or any other major problem, because they’re just marking time.
• The bible is a book written by bronze aged men, copied over hundreds of years, and translated into different languages. It has errors.
• The problem of evil.
• The problem of divine hiddenness
• God as unfalsifiable. If every event that can ever happen, good or bad, pleasurable or painful, no matter the magnitude, is only further proof of god’s existence, god’s love, god’s wisdom, god’s plan, and god’s general awesomeness; then god has no reality check. If god has no reality check, you can will never be objectively certain that you are right.

Atheism

• Clarke’s 3rd Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
• God of gaps: as time goes on, science has found better explanations for phenomena that were once considered to be caused by god. We may reach a point where we don’t need god to explain anything ever again. Science doesn’t disprove god, it disregards god.
• What we call a soul seems to be a process of the mind. If there is no soul, there probably isn’t a place for our souls to go once we die. QED, no after life.
• Supernatural is a  nonsense word. If anything previously defined as supernatural (ghosts, angels, demons, god) existed in any meaningful sense to where we could unambiguously see their influence on the world, they’d be natural.  Even god, would be a part of nature and thus natural. Supernatural then has no meaning outside of being a term used to describe hard to explain phenomena.
• Faith is bad. If we define faith as belief without evidence, then I don’t see any value in faith. I may have confidence or trust (based on evidenced and a reasoned degree of risk), but not faith. While extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, mundane claims don’t really need much evidence.
• Human psychology teaches us that the human mind is a powerful thing and that, because of how it evolved, may cause us to dispersive reality: Hyperactive Agent Detection device, cognitive biases, delusions, hallucinations, how memory work, how sensory perception works, etc.
• The practical and worldly benefits claimed by religions and spirituality can be replicable by nonspiritual, natural, secular, and scientific means. See The Lessons that Led me to Atheism.

Notice in my reasons for atheism all focus on one big concept: there is only the natural world. That all of my atheism arguments, all of my reasons point to and refer back to the one core, basic premise that the natural world is all there is. Thus anything that is claimed to have a supernatural cause is can most likely be explained better via natural means.

So in the end, I don’t have to talk about errors in the bible or the problems of substitutionary atonement or the fact that many of the Christians in my past treated me kinda shitty to continue to reject Christianity. My reasons for being an atheist cut to the very basic ideas of religion and spirituality itself and thus can be applied to all past and future religious, spiritual, and supernatural claims.

As a closing side note, when I was discovering atheism I was actually refuting nondualism, not Christianity! During our talk, I even confessed to her that I wasn’t trying to be an atheist, I didn’t even want to be an atheist. I thought atheists as angry, grumpy, rude people. I was actually trying to learn more about nondualism.

It’s just that in the process, I came to the conculsion that all spiritualism was bunk. Atheism/skepticism/secular humanism/naturalism seemed to be the most logical conclusion.

The Road to Atheism Part 12: How to Kick a Man When He’s Down

This is part 12 of a series, you can catch up with other parts you’ve missed at My Story.

Within days of being discharged from the mental hospital, with a new lease on life and a new licensed clinical social worker, I was met with my first major challenge.

Ms. J’s parents (her mom and her estranged dad), freaked out after learning about my suicide attempt and hospitalization, and decided to try and have a restraining order against me. My little attempt happened not too long after Columbine, and my suicide note did mention that I wanted involve Ms. J in my suicide ritual. So I could understand why they’d be upset. But is a restraining order really necessary?

I was ill, not dangerous. I’m so much of a whip that I didn’t even break the skin with the knife! Really? A restraining order?

Didn’t seem very Christian. Didn’t seem very forgiving or understanding.

In a very short time, life had gone from dazy haze to being very, very real. And reality had no interest in ending any time soon.

My dad, ever the financial provider that he was, didn’t take any chances. He hired a very skilled, very expensive lawyer to handle our case. I wasn’t allowed to talk to, sit next to, or make eye contact with Ms J. I was to take detailed notes of every encounter we had leading up to our court hearing.

I got the feeling that Ms. J didn’t instigate this, and that there was little she could do to stop it. No this felt like the work of an absentee dad going overboard to try and make up for lost time by playing the hero. Only he didn’t realize that my absentee dad was smarter.

After a few weeks the trial came. Though we were incredibly prepared, we didn’t need it. The presiding judge displayed a keen disinterest in placing restraining orders on minors due to their lasting effects into adulthood.  Ms. J’s family decided to represent themselves, and her dad ended up looking like a right tosser when he spoke in front of the court at how dangerous I was. The moaning of the audience was an especially nice touch.

But the real kicker came in the form of our school’s principal. He was there representing the school, but when he approached the judge’s bench, he handed her a confidential file. My band director (who was an amazing support to me through this whole process), later speculated that this was my student file.  What most likely happened was that the judge saw my impeccable record, my A-B GPA, my utter lack of disciplinary action, my involvement in school sanctioned extracurricular activities, and saw what any reasonable person would: that I was ill, not dangerous.

And so she denied the restraining order and I was free to go.

That was it. I had my freedom. I had also witnessed the end of my friendship with Ms. J. If they put me through that after all I had just gone through, I didn’t need them in my life. I did missed her (and sometimes still do), but the wounds are just too deep.

Now, I could understand their panic if I was still obsessed with her, but I wasn’t. I was over her. I had moved on.

You know what “truth” I learned from this? I learned that Christians are often no better than everyone else, and in some instances worse. I also learned that what really saved me was evidenced based treatment, a commitment to confronting my issues head on, and a new found appreciation for the natural world.

XyloGal and I dated for a few months but I broke up with her. I admitted to myself that I was just settling for her because I was lonely and I didn’t want to be with anyone who wasn’t attracted to me or who wished I was something different.

By the end of high school, I was still single and my interest in music was waning. But I was alive and ready for tomorrow.

The Road to Atheism Part 11: The Suicide Stories

This is part 11 of a series, you can catch up with other parts you’ve missed at My Story. I’ve been putting this off for about 2 months, so it won’t be as detailed as I wanted since I just want to get it done.
Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

Through the letters I wrote I was wishing for help, crying out for it. And I sure as hell got it.

Being so caught up in the emotion, so caught up in the depression I never really considered what could, or would happen next. I never considered that when I gave Ms. J my letters to read, that she would do what most teens her age would; give it to her mother. I never considered that once her mother read it, that she would do a little freak out and inform the school.

But of course, that’s exactly what happened. And days after homecoming I was called out from class to the counselors office to talk about my “issues”. Our school’s counselor was a dweeby, soft spoken kinda guy. He didn’t command authority or respect, and I honestly thought him as kinda a pussy. Because of that, it was really difficult for me to take his message seriously.  For whatever reason, we listen to people more intently if they’re cool, charismatic, and attractive.

They had called my mom in to take me to another private counselor that day. So began my long journey with therapists.

The Lessons that Led Me to Atheism

This epically long post was inspred by a recent challenge by Vince over at Avangelism.com titled Are You an Atheist Success Story. He writes:

I’d like to start compiling an “I’m better off as an atheist because…” list and would love to hear your personal evidences.

In hindsight, I don’t think atheism is the cause of my becoming a better person, but instead the natural and inevitable result. Let me explain. 

On this blog, I’ve written about my experiences during my 2 years of clinical supervision while working towards my social worker license. It was an amazing opportunity to work with an amazingly smart, amazingly wise, amazingly flawed teacher. In past post’s I’ve called him Mr. R. The two years working with him not only made me a better social worker, but it made me a better person; the lessons I learned go hand in hand with work and life.

I feel better about myself. I’m more confident and assertive. I’m in better shape. I’m more connected to my family and to the world. All of these changes happened in the context of improving my work skills

They also had the curious effect of laying the ground work for my eventual conversion to atheism. Rather than spread them out in several unrelated posts, I’m just going to list them out here. And as you’ll see, they really fit with the skills and attitudes someone needs to be an atheist / secular humanist / naturalist.

1. Criticism works best if you don’t take it personally, actually listen to it, and can immediately apply it

This was the most central aspect to my learning. I’m an overly sensitive guy who takes things personally all the time. But there was something about Mr. R and the context of our relationship where I didn’t take his criticisms of me personally. He could tear into me and I wouldn’t flinch or get defensive. Instead I would immediately apply his criticisms and discuss the results the next day.

It was amazingly effective. So much so that we developed a short hand for instruction. I call it the Mr. R face. He had this look that just screamed “you’re full of shit”. And when he did it, I instantly knew where my problem was and how I could fix it.

I’ve been thinking about why I was able to not be defensive around him, in hopes of replicating the effect in other situations. Maybe it’s because I was paying for supervision? Maybe it’s because I didn’t want to waste his time or mine? Maybe it’s because it was too expensive to BS my way through?

Towards the end of our time he told me he really appreciated our time together. I was a fun student for him for this exact reason: I didn’t take anything personally and I was like a sponge, absorbing information. My growth was insane.

The Talk About Our Kids and Their Religion

I’ve been on a roll this week. I think I’ve found a good way to have non-confrontational religious discussions with my wife about the topics I want to discuss. The process is a little one sided at the moment as I’m soliciting her views on various topics, but the difference is I just listen and learn. She gets defensive whenever I do any “gotcha” motions, so I’m trying my best to be as safe and as welcoming as I can be.

Anyways, last night I went ahead and brought up a topic that has been on my mind for months now: our kids and my atheism.

Rather than my normal dance around, I just came out and asked:

So, since we’re having another one coming and our current daughter is growing older, I was wondering if you could share with me your thoughts are about me discussing my atheism with our children.

Seemed pretty harmless, ya? Well… somewhat harmless I guess. It took her a few moments to gather her self, and she initially asked what I meant. I told her that I was interested in any thoughts she had, whatever first came to mind.

She said:

Why?

She asked it how our daughter might. I think she wanted to test what I would say. I immediately caught on and responded:

Well, you know how some people think ghosts and unicorns are just pretend? Because no one has ever seen them in person? Well that’s how I feel about god.

That went on for a few moments, but I think she got the feeling that I wasn’t going to Christ bash. She then said:

Well, they’re you’re kids too. So I guess I’m okay with it.

Not a ringing endorsement, but I wasn’t expecting one. Actually this is exactly what I was expecting, which was good. She went on to voice a few of her concerns, specifically about them being confused or feeling like they have to choose between us. However, she said that she’ll just have to trust in god that they’ll turn out okay. She also said that because this was important to me, and I shouldn’t ever have to feel like a stranger or an outsider in my own home. She didn’t expect nor want me to lie or hide about myself.

She then asked me when I wanted to do it.

I responded by saying that I’ll do it whenever it comes up. I told her that I didn’t want to make a big deal, or production about it. But if it ever came up, I didn’t want to lie.

She didn’t want me to do it in secret, and I agreed.

I took the opportunity to share my thoughts on the issue. I shared with her my two major fears: 1) that my kids will unfairly judge me solely on my unbelief and not on my behaviors or actions, and 2) that they’ll have an excessive fear of me going to hell for my unbelief.

I’ve been learning a lot from Parenting Beyond Belief and by Dale McGowan’s other works. I told her that, in the end, I’m okay with whatever our kids believe in… so long as they’ve come to this belief through thoughtful, honest consideration. If after weighing all the evidence, exploring alternatives, and challenging their own beliefs, that they end up as Christians, I’m okay with that. Just as okay if they end up Jewish, or Muslim, or Buddhist, or whatever. What I will not look kindly on is them believing in something simply because someone else does. I shared that even if they become atheist, if they do so just because daddy is one, I would not like that very much. That would actually go against my values.

I will still expect them to treat us with respect, even when we as a family differ on topic. I still value their self-determination. I still value independent thought. I value constant improvement and growth. I value honest introspection and seeking out new and differing ideas. I value independent thought. I value compassion and empathy. I value changing your mind. I value living life with a sense of joy and wonder and excitement. I value truth and accepting truth even when it hurts.

And that was it.

A pleasantly productive discussion, and no fight. Marvelous!

And I’m not done yet… still more work to do!

Unfalsifiable God

Last night, I ended up asking my wife some of the questions that I thought of in my last post. She was initially skeptical of my intentions, but I assured her that only wanted to listen and learn.

When I asked her what experiences she had that informs her belief in god, she gave me several examples of what she felt were supernatural events or supernatural/spiritual interventions.

When I asked her if, whenever she doubted her faith, she would feel comfortable talking with me about it, she said, “yes and no”. She was indeed worried that I’d pounce on any disclosures as an opportunity to criticize her beliefs, but that with certain doubts she didn’t have a problem with. I responded by saying that it was important to me that she did feel safe and that I would work on becoming safer to talk with.

When I asked her if she could ever imagine anything that would cause her to leave her faith, she said “no”. She told me that no event, no piece of information, no argument, nothing could ever make her turn away from god and Jesus. Her reasons were that, over the course of her life, whenever she strayed from the church, her life basically went to shit. Whenever she rekindled her relationship with Jesus, her life got better.

When she asked me why, I said that as an atheist and someone who believes he keeps an open mind, I thought it important to have a concept of what I would expect to see that would prove my beliefs wrong. To have an idea of what would convince me that Yahweh or Allah, or any other diety existed, and what I would need to see to be loyal to them. I wrote about this previously here.

She confirmed that nothing would ever convince her. We moved on to other religious topics, and then to family topics, and then we watched Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives before going to bed.

It disappointing to hear of her unfalsifiable god. To think that any event, any occurence, any phenomenon, good or bad, pleasurable or painful, all equally and unequivocably support, reinforce, and prove a loving, all knowing, all powerful bible god is… mind boggling… and dangerous.

Skepticism is a critical weapon to fight against abuse and corruption. To take a “can do no wrong” attitude is to turn a blind eye on any potential (or often actual) injustice and suffering.

It breaks my heart when she tells me that she struggles to understand the bible, how she’ll jump from translation to translation to try and get it, and never once considers the possibility that the fault isn’t hers. That she can’t, or won’t, wonder if the problem might be with the bible, or with god.

It breaks my heart when she thinks that she’s the deficient one in all this.

Although what would I expect? This is her SPAG, her Self Projection As God. It can do no wrong.

A Few Questions for Family Discussion

My wife and I watched Creation last night. I thought it was a marvelous movie, and she liked it too. I have to admit, I was a little surprised that she was interested in watching it considering the content. After the movie was over, I understood why.

Wife: So, what book did he write again?

Me: He wrote a book called On the Origin of Species, which is the first major work documenting evolution.

She was unfamiliar with the basics of evolution, so I took a few moments to explain the general idea: small changes over a massively long period of time add up to very drastic differences. All the different animals you see today came from a common ancestor.

She understood that part as it was pretty intuitive for her.

Wife: So what’s the big deal?

I tried to be as unbiased as I could in my explanation of the “debate”. I explained how some people think that evolution removes the need for god and makes humans as animals rather than special creations (either viewing this as truth or a threat to faith), and some people think evolution and the bible are compatible (accommodationalists). She seemed to agree with the second group of people.

As we took out the NIV bible to review the creation of the universe as told in Genesis 1, what followed was a pretty frustrating discussion. Somewhere along the line I got on a tangent about how Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 tell two different creation stories that contradict each other in terms of the order in which stuff was created. She responded that I was thinking too logically and to literally and that I have to look at it in context. In particular we spared over Genesis 2:18-19:

¹⁸ The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

¹⁹ Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

I said this contradicts Genesis 1 in which animals are created before man. She responded by saying that god had already created the animals and brought them over to Adam.

I asked why they couldn’t have just said that if that’s what they meant. She said that I can’t think in linear terms and have to look at in context. I said asked what good is the bible if I can’t take 3 lines in sequential order on face value, but instead have to go back for some hidden meaning.

BTW: If you want to read more about the two creation stories, check out: Skepticfiles.Org: The Bible Has Two Creation Stories and The History of Genesis and the Creation Stories

At one point she said that whenever something disagrees with science, the world collapses. I said that this is what religion does! Science is actually the opposite. Science loves change and new ideas! I was getting hot now.

It devolved from there and we just agreed to disagree.

As we tucked in for bed, she told me that nothing I’ll show her will shake her faith and that she’s fine watching atheist stuff with an open mind. She asked me if I’d feel the same if I watched say.. the ten commandments. I was particularly offended by this revisionist history as, save this blog, she’s been adamant against reading or watching ANY atheist material. While on the other hand, I have both been voluntarily and involuntary inundated with Christian material.

I went to bed stunned and boggled.

I woke up this morning unfulfilled at where we left of, with more questions to ask than I realised. I typed them out in an email to myself so I’d remember them for later.

• You say that there are things you experienced that make you a believer that I would not understand. Can you share with me so I can understand?
• Likewise, there are basic aspects of science that I’m not sure you understand that not only help influence my atheism, but also help increase my understanding of the world. It helps me navigate the world better. As time goes on, can I share it with you to help you understand?
• You say that you would absorb atheist content and it would not shake your faith. Would you ever feel comfortable enough share with me if you ever began to doubt your faith? Or would you hide it in the event that I would pounce on it? Who would you feel comfortable talking to if you had doubts about your faith?
• Have you ever considered what would cause you to lose your faith?
• I’ve thought about what would convince me that god and/or Jesus was real. Also what would convince me to become a follower. Can I share it with you?
• Would you be open to learning more about atheism with me?
• Would to consider a book trade? I read a christian book while you read an atheist book?

I’m going to ask her these tonight and see what she’ll say. If you’re a Christian reader of this blog, perhaps you’ll consider what your responses would be.

Gave Away the Old Sax

This was her. The old gal. My saxophone. Selmer Paris Series II, Black Lacquer. Alto. My dad got it for me during my sophomore year of highschool as it became clear that I was becoming serious about music, and my starter horn was falling apart.

She’s sexy, huh?

This saxophone made up a huge chuck of my identity. Most student horns were brass, gold, or silver. Because my horn was unique, so was I.

In high school,  music was my life. All my friends were in band, all of my free time was spent doing band stuff. I was a musician, through and through.

If there was one item I owned that encapsulated my entire high school experience, one talisman or horcrux that contained all the memories, all the ups and downs, all the triumphs and tragedies, all the pleasure and pain, all the rapture and heart ache of those formative years of my life… it is that saxophone.

With that said, it’s not very surprising to find that I don’t play any more. I haven’t played for a good 7 or 8 years now. It’s been collecting dust, in a closet, in my house.

On the few occasions that I took her out and blow a few notes to show my daughter,  all of the memories came back. And that wasn’t always a good thing.

Add to that I’m rusty as hell. My embouchure is shot. Picking it up after all this time, wasn’t quite like riding a bike.

And I wasn’t even really that good to begin with. I mean, I was good for high school, but my ability didn’t really extend into the professional realm… which is actually rather typical for young musicians.

So at the end of the day, I couldn’t really figure out a reason to keep her. It was time for her to go too.

The way I see it, if my kids want to play sax, they can have their own instruments. And in the off chance I’ll ever play music again, maybe I’ll pick up guitar, or piano, or something that’s more conducive to parties and social events. You can’t really sing a round of Christmas carols with a saxophone.

I didn’t want to sell her, selling really isn’t my style. I’d rather just give it away to someone who’ll really get some good use for it. For a few months I didn’t have any takers.

And then, over a business lunch, my boss said that her youngest son was a clarinet player in high school who was interested in switching over to saxophone.

Perfect! I’ll just give it to him.

And I did. The horn, my music and instrument stands, my fake books, my technique books. All of it.

I have a voicemail from my boss letting me know how thrilled he was to get it. He’s kinda OCD so he’ll take great care of it. And she said she’d consider it a loaner, if I ever decide I want to play again.

I doubt it. There’s too much baggage attached to that horn. Too much of the past that I’m not interested in holding on to anymore. It’s just collecting dust with me. It’s best that it go to someone with whom it has no significance other than novelty, who will really use it.

See ya, gal. Thanks for the fun.