tBlog - American Expatriate

Every now and again I am asked why I am an atheist or an agnostic, depending upon the questioner's definitions. The answer to this question is that because I have truly thought about everything involved in my native religion - Catholicism - and concluded that it was completely bogus. I gave it long and careful thought while reading the bible and the various papal edicts (such as Vatican II). I looked for proof and I found none. An elective religion course I took during my final year of college (Death & the Afterlife, taught by a weird religious studies professor) truly opened my eyes because despite being a devout practicing Lutheran and former clergyman, the prof admitted that the various books of the bible were chosen by a committee of sorts, and that the authenticity of much of it is suspect. There are several versions of the "inspired word of god," and they disagree at various points, and each version is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy... and so on. Often whomever did the copying (or those employing the scribes) had an agenda and made certain this agenda was advanced by putting a "spin" on the wording. Couple this with the difficulties involved in translating from one language to another - from Hebrew and/or Aramaic, then to Greek, then to Latin, and then to English, resulting in a gradually mutating canon. Each tongue has its own unique quirks and idioms which cannot be translated verbatim without sounding ridiculous (imagine trying to explain to someone learning English what it means when someone tells them to go and fuck themselves). The professor admitted that the bible was a shaky basis for faith, that scholars basically agreed biblical tracts were influenced by other religious beliefs and that in some cases it was practically plagiarism of mythology from now-extinct religions. The stories of Moses and Noah, for example, are almost certainly based on mythology from other religions. Outside of the bible, there is absolutely zero historical evidence that many of the people mentioned in the bible even existed (even the existence of Jesus is questionable, admitted the professor). And if there's no Jesus, then I couldn't see why I was bothering to go to church at all. It took a while for all of this to sink in - four or five years spent reading and analyzing the bible. It hit me all at once that it was all a bunch of bullshit, and it was a lot like catching a sucker punch to the stomach. It felt a lot like betrayal, to be honest. Someone somewhere at some time in the histories of various religions had to know it was all a load of malarkey, and it pisses me off knowing they kept it to themselves.

I understand what it's like to believe deeply in a god and how it offends to hear someone else disparaging that belief. But imagine if you knew for certain that a belief was completely, utterly wrong - would you keep it to yourself, and would you speak honestly about it when asked? I feel pity for people who believe so strongly that it hurts them to know I don't. I understand why someone wouldn't understand how even to begin critically examining aspects of religious belief. From an early age, we're taught that it's taboo to have thoughts like these. Doubt becomes a vice, while faith is praised as a virtue. But what is faith? The best definition I have found for "faith" comes from Mark Twain: "Faith is believing what you know ain't so," except that I would add "especially in the presence of contradictory facts." Laughing at or mocking aspects of Catholicism was a reliable way to get deeply into trouble during my childhood. Some ultra-religious right-wing groups want not only to muzzle science but to destroy it: they understand that their creation myth looks silly when compared to the (what I believe is) fascinating truth that evolution by means of natural selection as the explanation for the question of "where did we come from?" Sometimes, when faced with the overwhelming evidence that evolution is factual, some people simultaneously reject their religion's creation myths and their religion as being false (anything written two thousand or more years ago, in my opinion, should be considered factually incorrect until proven otherwise). Because of this and because they cannot tolerate the existence of anything which contradicts their religious superstitions, they would gladly destroy the American scientific community. Far too many of these "people of god" would, if given the opportunity (I fear), gladly commit genocide against unbelievers: all they need is the sense that everyone else will go along with it, or at least no one will speak up on an infidel's behalf. The actual murderers in genocidal crimes are usually ordinary people, not very different from their community average, often very religious (many Nazis were also active and devout Christians, for example). The horrifying thing about mass murder on a grand scale is that it can be carried out by normal, ordinary folk. Give them a hated enemy and tell them that harshly punishing the enemy is their patriotic duty; tell them it is their duty to their god as well to seal the deal. The crematory chimneys will be spewing a steady stream of ashy grey smoke in no time, and no one at all will notice that their fellow citizens are vanishings while there's an underclass to scapegoat. I fear people who are deeply religious because I understand they could easily justify killing me, that their god wants me to die because gods always want precisely what their worshippers want. The last thing any religious leader wants is for the flock to start reading the rule books critically. Soon after that, they start asking why there are absurd passages like Ezekiel 4:12 telling them to bake their bread with human poop along with the "love thy neighbor" stuff. The "biblical inerrancy" crowd cannot tolerate a single incorrect thing in the bible or else the whole thing is invalidated. I have no problem believing that they'd kill whomever could prove the bible was false and call it a virtuous act. I have no feelings at all towards the gods themselves, but their followers frighten me.

And so I enumerate the ways in which I reasoned that belief in gods was folly. Read on, and tell me honestly that I didn't give the question some thought.

1. The Problem of Evil: An omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity allowing evil to flourish in the world is preposterous. If a god is all-powerful and all-loving, then (s)he/it would be both capable and willing to prevent evil from harming his/her/its creation. The fact that horrible things frequently happen to innocent people, especially newborn infants, negates the possibility of there being an omnibenevolent and omnipotent deity - otherwise, the truly innocent and undeserving would not meet with too-frequently& nbsp;grisly and painful fates. In addition, the existence of evil is incompatible with an omnibenevolent creator-deity: if a being were all-good, then how could it create evil? The Christian bible states that evil was created by their god, which is an impossibility for a being of pure good: evil must come from an evil being, as like begets like. Epicurus, who predates the early Christians, addressed the problem of evil in the world as follows: "Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?" Thus, because there is evil in the world, an omnibenevolent and omnipotent deity cannot exist.

2. Biblical Bullshit: Every religion has a holy text which, according to the true believers, contains the actual word of their god(s). The Christian biblehttp://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com" title="http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com" target="_blank"http://www.skepticsannotatedb... contains numerous historical and factual errors, contradictory statements and outright ridiculousness; if this is the inerrant word of a god, then that god is a moron and definitely not worthy of worship. Many scriptures describe activities taking place which defy physical laws as we understand them today: the raising of the dead, walking on water, parting seas, a man living in the belly of a whale, every living creature on earth being saved from a global flood by a single boat. Real historical scholars have found many similarities between biblical stories and the mythologies from extinct religions that existed concurrently with religions still practiced today. Babylonian stories, Egyptian folktales, sagas of Sumerian deities - many of these bear striking similarities to Old Testament stories. Mithra (or Mithras, or "Sol Invictus" - the Invincible Sun, to his Roman worshippers) worshippers believed that their god was born of a human virgin female and the sun god Ahura-Mazda and celebrated Mithra's birthday on the 25th of December. Mithra(s) allowed himself to die so that his followers could be admitted into his father's heavenly kingdom, rising from the dead after three days spent in the underworld. Since the cult of Mithra predates Christianity by several centuries, it is very clear from whom stories, myths, and theology were borrowed.

3. The Lack of Evidence: Were the universe created by a deity, it is not unreasonable to expect said deity to have left some kind of signature that would prove this beyond any argument. In addition, an omnipotent deity - by its very definition - should have no difficulty addressin g his/her/its creation directly and clearly. That there is no message seen and no attempt to communicate with us, either there is no god(s) or the god(s) is/are playing a game of hide-and-seek with us. There is no testable empirical evidence that any deity exists. We're looking in the place our predecessors believed the gods lived - in the heavens - using the finest viewing instruments available. Although the images made by the Hubble Telescope (for example) are spectacular, it has failed to capture any images of deities of any sort. Science has traveled a great distance from its humble origins but provides us today as it has our forebears a verifiable method of determining what is (and is not) correct. Our ancestors believed comets were messengers of the gods, and such misinformation was perpetuated across generations by religious persons; earlier this month, NASA scientists crashed a probe into a comet and analyzed the ejected dust to determine the comet's composition. Which group should be able to make the claim that they speak with authority on the subject of comets? No scientist I know is claiming that no gods exists - I don't even make the claim that I can prove no gods exist. But I can say without reservation that there is no evidence demonstrating any god exists and no verifiable evidence of the existence of any deity has ever been put forth. To anyone who claims that gods, leprechauns, unicorns or pegasi actually exist, the response "prove it" silences them most of the time. Until believers can produce some kind of evidence, the null hypothesis stands. Anyone is welcomed by me to believe in whatever religious nonsense they fancy, but I suffer no one who proselytizes and insists that I must also believe in their religious nonsense. It might be rude, but anyone who goes around spouting religious beliefs publicly deserves a good skeptical debunking, I say.

4. The Multitude of Diverse Religious Beliefs: If there were truly a single deity, then it is not unreasonable to assume that said deity would have revealed itself to its creation and the manner in which it wished to be worshipped. Instead, we find numerous religious beliefs which disagree with one another in key tenets. Even Christianity is far from uniform - disparate sects with wildly varying interpretations of the same book often violently opposed to other "christian" sects. Islam has at least four different major sects, depending on who is asked (Sunni, Shia, Wahhabi, and a less formal "unorthodox" sect whose name escapes me) Judaism likewise has its varying branches. In addition to disliking their closely-related religions (Catholic vs. Protestant, Sunni vs. Shia, etc), most faiths have a strong mistrust of "sister" religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all arose from very similar beliefs and are considered extremely related to one another. Yet Christians hate Muslims, who hate Jews, who dislike both groups but dislike Muslims slightly more. This doesn't even mention the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Shintoists, Confucianists, Scientologists, and assorted other new-age nut cults. Not even the defining characteristics and basic nature of a deity are shared among religions. Many major wars that have been fought were religious in origins. What omnibenevolent deity would allow killing to go on in its name? Either only one religion out of the current crop is the correct one, or they're all false. Universalists, many Baha'ii, some sects of Buddhists and many pagans frequently speak of the ridiculous idea that "all religions are true." So the Sunni and Shia muslims have been killing each other for nothing, since both of their faiths are correct and any apparent contradictions are explained by... come on, this is your cue, "All Religions Are True" believers: this is the part you have to explain because I can't answer it. Once again, all of religions in the world can't all be true, but they certainly can all be false. There are too many completely unrelated and dissimilar religious beliefs for religion to be considered the voice of the almighty. Eating pork is blasphemy / eating pork is no offense to anyone, except maybe the pig; expressing homosexual desires violates all that is holy and God clearly condemns homosexuals in his word / God is ok with you being gay. Those are but two dissonant views among many points of contention. If you ask me, I say: No Matter How Thin You Slice It, It's Still Bologna.

5. Omnipotence Denied: Omnipotence, by its definition, refers to the nature of a deity to be able to do anything. For a deity, the impossible feat becomes an ordinary act. But what if there are limits to omnipotence? Consider the following questions: could a god create a rock so heavy (s)he/it could not lift it? Could a god microwave a burrito so hot that even (s)he/it could not eat it? Could a god make a triangle with four sides (or a 5-sided square)? Could a god draw parallel lines which intersect? A question of far more importance is: can a god prove this sentence true? The answer to all of the posited questions are "no." Since a limit has been placed on the deity's powers, then the deity is not omnipotent. Anyone whose beliefs in an omnipotent deity remain unshakable are invited to explain why their invisible friend hasn't used its mighty powers to eradicate a disease - any one, just pick a disease and have the&nb sp;god make it no longer exist.

For the record, I've lost count of how many diseases have been eradicated by modern medical science. I'll keep medicine and the faithful can count on prayer to cure their woes. By the way, prayer is worthless as medicine: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl- aprayer15jul15" title="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl- aprayer15jul15" target="_blank"http://www.sun-sentinel.com/n...,0,5212179.story

6. Unanswered Prayers: Even if prayers were heard, what use are they? Imagine a father with a sick child, praying to his god to heal his child. What does this prayer imply? Either that his god allowed the child to become ill or that his god was unaware of the child's illness. In the first case, his god is not omnibenevolent, and in the second, his god is not omniscient; in both cases, neither a malicious nor ignorant god should be worthy of worshipping. It's like thanking a bully for beating you to the point of pissing blood, being thankful that you weren't beaten into a coma. A peculiar doctrine called predestination states that every event and action which ever has or ever shall take place has already been decided by an omnipotent/omniscient deity -- this doctrine, then, denies the existence of free will. In this instance, the sick child was supposed to get sick, and the prayer request for healing runs counter to the divine plan already set in place. Adherents of predestination should view prayer as futile logically, but this is not usually the case. They pray just as loudly as the ones who only half-believe it'll do any good (free clue: it doesn't http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl- aprayer15jul15" title="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl- aprayer15jul15" target="_blank"http://www.sun-sentinel.com/n...,0,5212179.story )

7. Free Will: Either we can have free will, or there can be an omnipotent and omniscient deity. The two are mutually exclusive: you can have one or the other, but not both simultaneously. An omnipotent and omniscient deity has the power, by definition, to make us act in any way it chooses - and if that is the case, then there is definitely no free will since the all-powerful being controls everything (including us). If we have free will - the freedom to do either good or evil - then there cannot be an omnibenevolent deity in whose image we are created since such a being cannot have free will since it cannot be evil. If the deity does have free will, then it can choose to do evil and by definition is not omnibenevolent (which is being all-good all of the time). Certain fundamentalist faiths argue that evil is caused by a devil figure (e.g. - Satan, Beelzebub, etc), obviously not having thought the problem through: if people do evil because "the devil made them do it," then there is no need for there to have been a Savior since we'd be powerless not to sin and commit evil acts. If invisible evil spirits were to blame, then why are people still punished for their crimes? You'd think an enterprising religion would find a way to charge money for the expulsion of invisible evil spirits... oh yeah - a bunch of different religions have been doing that for millenia already.

8. Religions- Fallacies, Quirks, & Absurd Beliefs: Religions, being human inventions, were founded by human beings. At some point in history, some person living in some part of the world came up with a set of beliefs and, instead of just keeping the ideas to his/herself (usually his - you have to have a pretty big ego to found a religion, Mary Baker Eddy being a notable exception) told a certain number of people and began putting their ideas onto the written page. These texts made the foundations of the religion, a feat that, once accomplished, leads to people giving money and churches getting built. Whoever is at the head of a religion followed by a lot of people has a lot of influence, to say the least, often living in gilded luxury while the ordinary believer lives in deplorable squalor. As top dog of a religion, this person gets accustomed to other people doing exactly as (s)he says; history provides numerous examples of religious leaders influencing politics along with political leaders influencing religion. Both are a means of controlling other (lots of) people. A common feature of religion are rules governing social interactions and behavior, describing what is proper and what is verboten. Mormons eschew caffeinated drinks, Orthodox Jews and Muslims avoid pork and pork products, Catholics refrain from eating meat on Fridays during Lent (used to be every Friday, no meat) - the list is long and the reasoning behind these restrictions can be charitably described as "unsound" (with "utter nonsense" being my preferred term). By either writing or interpreting sacred texts, the upper echelons of religions influence the minds of their "flocks". A preacher concludes that abortion is wrong, and soon his parishioners are waving placards down at the local women's health clinic. Joseph Smith didn't like alcohol and especially didn't like anyone else drinking alcohol, so when he composed his holy book he made certain to make alcohol prohibition the will of god (funny thing how god and Mr. Smith thought exactly alike, isn't it?) Thoughtful examination of these religions and their holy texts reveals logical flaws too large not to notice, and once you accept the idea that maybe that Mohammed guy wasn't dictating the word of god and the koran is nothing but Mohammed's own words, it's difficult to get you to fall in line at the mosque (for example - I grew weary of christer-only examples). No religion stands up to logical analysis. Their founders were people - extraordinary people in many examples (but not all, L. Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith coming to mind, both being little more than liars of great magnitude). Stories abound of holy men with feet of clay. They may not be holy, but they are men. To me, one man's idea has no more intrinsic worth than another man's idea - even if it's a very good idea. If you understand a complicated subject, then the subject is understandable. Congratulations are in order for understanding something difficult, but not worship. And if your complicated idea involves something you claim was told to you by a being no one else but you can see or speak with, then you should probably just keep those ideas to yourself. There are already a lot of religions out there; they clash frequently, and they won't exactly welcome new competition. Not even the Televangelists, who make a living pimping jesus: it's a theatrical job, and you don't necessarily have to believe in whatever you're selling so long as you're convincing enough to get those purses and wallets to open up wide when the collection baskets get passed around. The proper amounts of hellfire and unconditional hot man love from jesus gets those velvet-lined basked stuffed full, and because it's religion you needn't worry about paying taxes on your rake.

Religions today are monied institutions who thrive on the generosity of the suckers who go to church. Churches own real estate, pension plans, stocks, art, expensive cars. The very rich ones tend to look palatial and gaudy, but sometimes even the churches catering to the extremely poor go balls-out when it comes to decorating and adding golden fixtures (the people in the nearby village may be starving but their church has silver candlesticks and gold chalices). Religions provide a means for a priest class to exist - since they are patronized by the wealthy, those who can pay get far more access to the god's representatives. I've long believed churches existed primarily to keep the poor from rising up and killing the rich, convincing the unwashed masses that worldly wealth was a sign of being favored and blessed by the almighty deity. Thankfully, the influence churches exert in many places around the world is gradually fading. The sooner these irrational people are excluded from participating in public life, the better. As people get smarter, they'll abandon religion. Some day, no one will grow up being taught about Jesus, or Mohammed, or L.Ron or any other religious superman. People will learn, I hope, to believe in things that are real and not to fret about unanswerable shit like "why are we here" or "what is my life purpose". Questions like that you figure out on your own. There are too many people out there who would gladly do your thinking for you. Don't allow them. As for churches and synagogues and mosques, I'd suggest making them into schools where real things get taught.

9. The Problem of Worship: Why would a deity want to be worshipped in the first place? Does no one else think it is presumptuous (at the very least) to form belief systems around beings who speak only through priestly intermediaries? If there is a benefit to be derived from being worshipped and prayed to and adored, I cannot understand it. To me, no omnipotent and omniscient being could possibly require an ego-stroking like that. So far, no one has adequately explained why any god would want to be worshipped by the groveling faithful. Many prayers contain little more but praise for the deity's mercy and might - suggesting that perhaps the deity becomes forgetful from time to time and requires reminding of its basic nature and attributes in these prayers. In addition, prayer requesting restored health or healing begs the question "Why did god allow this person to get ill in the first place?" Given that the being in question is supposed to know everything as well as being able to do anything, it stands to reason that the ill health which befell whomever is being prayed for represents a single facet of an infinitely complex plan put in place and set into motion by the omnipotent, omniscient deity. The person doing the praying is requesting that the current plan in use (presumably made and done by an infinitely wise and powerful being) be adjusted so that his compatriot is no longer ill. The prayer-petitioner does not take into consideration that this infinitely wise and powerful being had already given thought to not inflicting illness upon the petitioner's friend, and that the illness may be a vital component of their deity's plan. Imagine that each and every possibility had been examined and considered, but this person becoming sick at that time was the best of all available choices. If the concept of an omniscient deity planning out each and every event occurring in and around every individual human being's life is rejected as false, then these events occur at random and there's no need for the deity in the first place. If prayer may convince an omnipotent deity to relieve one person's suffering, then it should stand to reason that another person continues suffering because their prayers have not convinced the deity to act: either the prayers or the petitioners are faulty, reasons the unmovable believer, not once considering the possibility of a faulty deity. In a universe created by an deity without a divine predestination plan, then evil and horrible things happen to innocent undeserving people because either (a) the god was unaware of it (and so cannot be omniscient), (b) the god was aware of it but could not prevent it (and so cannot be omnipotent), or (c) the god was aware of it, could have prevented it but chose not to do so (and so must be malicious and evil). The possibility that god has both the qualities of omniscience and omnipotence because this is non sequetur in a world where terrible things happen to innocent people: an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent god would never allow such things to happen. A world with such a god would be a world where no evil existed. But evil does exist, and believers in god must explain why evil is among us - either the evil is part of their god's grand scheme or their god is powerless to stop evil. Their god cannot claim to be omnipotent when innocent b abes are born with painful diseases and are released from this suffering by a quick death, where children starve until they die in the same land as their greedy oppressors grow fat and wealthy, where people cry out to their god for justice and nothing is done. Their god cannot claim to be omniscient when it must be reminded through prayer to ease the suffering of its creations. Indeed, they cannot claim their god is not vain while demanding that everyone worship it in ways proscribed by the priestly castes - without whom, their god would be speechless. Unless this deity directly asks to be worshipped, the null hypothesis must be the correct one. In this case, the null hypothesis is: if there is a god, it does not want worship.

It seems to me the people are the real problem here. Without the creator-god who does everything on their behalf, some people honestly see no reason to live. They need that "center of the universe" belief and will brook no one contradicting it without an immediate, often violent response. They remind me of preadolescent children who have just learned Santa does not exist. Like the bumper sticker says, God is Santa for Adults.

Count how many of those bumper stickers you see on the road and express that number as a ratio to how many "Real Men Love Jesus" stickers you find for extra credit (Experiment void outside the United States). End results should look like "small number: much larger number" if my basic understanding of how widespread religious belief has afflicted my country is valid. Most atheists I know aren't too keen on advertising that fact on their vehicles - the furthest I go is one of these:

No flat tires so far, but I have gotten more than my fair share of key scratches. I haven't caught anyone doing that yet, and I'm afraid of what I'd do to the culprit if I did. Doubtless it's one of my asshole Talibornagain neighbors keying my car every once in a while, but only at the directive of the holy spirit I'm sure.

10. The Problem of No Jesus http://www.jesusneverexisted.com" title="http://www.jesusneverexisted.com" target="_blank"http://www.jesusneverexisted.... : Outside of the bible (and apocryphal writings considered "canonical" but not included in the bible), there is no written evidence that a man called Jesus Christ and/or Jesus of Nazareth ever existed. Despite an earthquake said to have rumbled in Jerusalem along with an eclipse and the rending in two of a great curtain when Christ died on the cross, there are no records of any of these things occurring by either the Jews or the occupying Romans (who were sticklers for writing things down). No secular writing making any mention at all of Jesus during his lifetime has been found, despite the numerous miraculous events attributed to Jesus. Even more damning is the fact that, although Jesus is described as learned and wise and one may assume he understood his identity as the son of god, Jesus apparently made no effort to write down his own philosophy and teachings for the rest of the world. Unless Jesus was illiterate, there is no explanation for the lack of a first-hand gospel from the source himself. Not even a dictated copy of the direct words of Jesus has ever been found to exist. The existing gospels, religious scholars admit, were written no sooner than forty years after the crucifixion and could have been written as late as a hundred years or more after the fact. And they're third and fourth-hand sources, having heard the story told by someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone else, who heard it from someone who said what Jesus said. Anyone who cites the New Testament as any kind of trustworthy source clearly has no idea of the circumstances they were written.

11. Church as an Agent of Social Control : For some people, atheists should keep their ideas to themselves because if the word got out about how religions are nothing but hokum, the social fabric would disintegrate and chaos like nothing before witnessed would engulf the cities. These peculiar few see religion as a vital stopgap in the social order, without which respect for law and order would cease and common behavior would devolve to the level of wild beasts. This belief is without logical foundation, as numerous historical examples exist of avowed atheists having notable humanitarian and charitable deeds; many philosophers, although admittedly atheistic, have contributed to the ideas of secular humanism, a code of moral conduct based on principles of human dignity rather than religious faith. It is not only possible for a person to lack a belief in deities while possessing moral standards of conduct most religions would consider reasonable, it is boringly common. Secular humanism, for example, states in simple terms why murder violates others' rights yet can call murder "wrong" without needing to refer to a religious book or a tenet of belief. Historically, religions have exerted great control over the societies to which their parishioners belonged (in many cases, the majority of city residents were likewise members of a single church). Political leaders intermingled freely with religious leaders, each using the other as a means to an end - often to tighten the stranglehold they had on their society. Witch hunts, for example, served as a means to dispense of both enemies and those with desirable properties; once convicted and executed, seizing property and money is a relatively simple thing handled with a minimum of paperwork, often as mandatory "donation" to the church given as part of the sentence (so that, in addition to being tortured to death, the victim had to pay an outrageous sum to his tormentors). These and other examples of misdeeds demonstrate that churches are organizations of human beings just as fallible as any other group, capable of committing atrocities as easily as their fellows, as greedy as ordinary people usually are, given to violent actions especially when done in the name of their god. There is no good reason not to do away with churches - the social control they exert is minimal at best, and they are hardly maintaining the delicate balance which prevents ordinary citizens from succumbing to baser instincts that would make them run wild and rape, murder, pillage, and loot their fellows. What little good a church manages to accomplish is far outweighed by the many terrible things which are done regularly in the name of all faiths. How does hosting a soup kitchen atone for boiling women alive in hot oil? How does operating a home for unwed teen mothers make up for all of the children sexually molested by the clergy, who were then protected from the authorities by their bishops and vicars and various sub-popes? For every one good thing a theist can recite as a positive act by his church, I can come up with five harmful things churches have done and still do. Keeping society functioning in order is not a feat any sane person can attribute to any church anywhere. It's a stupid claim and anyone who makes this claim should have their error explained to them using small, non-complex words. Which leads us to our next category, being....

12. Clergy Gone Bad : It happens too frequently and the details are often too horrible to talk about, but the fact that many shameful scandals surround not so few "people of the word" and "men of the cloth." Rape. Incest. Forcible Sodomy. Grand Theft. Fraud. Theft by Deception. Adultery (which isn't a crime and doesn't bother me so much, it's just that it violates their own rules which they themselves are so insistent everyone else follow). If deities were real all-knowing, all-seeing beings, then there is no logical way a clergyperson would be permitted to go astray, especially when the misdeeds involved would bring shame upon the church. The priest-caste, being the closest to their respective deities, are nonetheless vulnerable to worldly temptations and deviant perversions. Thus, it is demonstrated once again that if the deity actually exists, then the deity in question either does not know or does not care that its messengers engage in shameful acts; if the deity does not know, then it is not omniscient; if the deity does know but cannot act, then it is not omnipotent; if the deity knows, can act but doesn't, then it is an evil god. In all three instances, a god unworthy of human worship is described, especially considering this in the light of far too-frequently perverted and debauched clergy.

13. Nothing on the Global P.A. System : Although this is a variation on "no evidence," it directly addresses the unique problem associated with deity-belief whereby the deity believed in fails to address its creation despite this being well within the abilities believers attribute to their god. Not even omnipotence is required for something as simple as direct communication, which needn't necessarily be on a mass scale. It takes very few special powers to make a telephone call or draft an e-mail, never mind engraving messages into stone. A word or two directly spoken to a fraction of the people who are vaguely skeptical about religion would fill the pews each Sunday. In addition, it stands to reason that the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving being could (and indeed should) take a moment to point out to everyone which of the ten thousand or so active religions is the one closest to the manner in which this all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving being likes to be worshipped. It would certainly help in the way of cutting down on religious violence, seeing how everyone would belong to the same religion. Yet the gods have failed to speak, despite being invited numerous times and given ample opportunity to make an address to the whole world if (s)he/it chose. This is the least any god could do as the smallest courtesy to its faithful. The silence says a lot to anyone paying attention. I hear it just fine. It says: There's Nothing There.

14. Ridiculous Icons : I think the people who go to churches to pray are a little weird, especially when you consider how much simpler this would be to do in the privacy of home. But the people who go to pray at water-stains on mirrored windows sort of shaped like the Blessed Virgin who appears again on a grilled cheese sandwich and every once in a while on doors or on buildings, and even on the occasional tortilla. Some statuaries are rigged to look like they're crying or bleeding or crying blood - it's not even a cool magic trick, but the faithful hand over wads of cash by the fistful. The people seeing holy images in ordinary things desperately want their religion to be the correct one; they want to be right, and they want it so badly that they begin seeing images from their religion in all sorts of places. Pretty soon they're looking at the wood grains on the back of a door and seeing a hooded Blessed Virgin and convincing others to visit it and pray there. I see it as a kind of infectious foolishness, people frightened of annihilation at death who must have proof that their myths are true, who have to know for certain that Cotton Candy Trees await them as does a cherubic Jesus in a golden chariot, passing out teddybears and chocolate hearts to all the children in the heaven place that absolutely has got to be real. People who believe in wacky shit like this are either deluded or they're running a con job themselves.

I could easily go on and find many more topics to cover explaining why I lack religious belief. I hope that the reasons already put forth explain in some adequate way my lack of belief in any gods. This lack of belief is applied equally: I lack a belief in Zeus precisely the same manner in which I lack belief in Jehovah, or in Shiva, or in Quetzalcoatl, or in Jesus Christ, or Allah. Show me a deity, and I'll not believe in it. It's not something I just decided one day without giving it a great deal of thought and meditation. It was, by no means, something easy and simple to do. I struggled with the questions I had, rejecting as false the possibility that there was nothing there. I wanted so much to be a good christian man who gets into heaven, doing god's work as second nature, mostly because I had been programmed with religious belief from a young age. Now that I am an adult and capable of understanding things about the world better and deeper than I was able when first introduced to religious beliefs, rejecting religion as preposterous is a simple thing to do; before, it wasn't so easy to be skeptical with Mom & Dad taking you to mass every weekend. I am a good person because of the good things I do for my fellow beings - those I know and those I don't. I share what I have, and I give to the needy. I don't need religion to be good. Neither does anyone else. Neither do you.

I wonder which is harder to admit to one's parents: homosexuality or atheism? In some families, they'd have an easier time accepting a queer than someone who can look around at the world and not see the hand of God. My family is a lot like this, only not so vigorously religious that they're difficult to be around. As my mother has gotten older, she has gone to church less and less frequently, keeping fewer and fewer religious icons on display in her house. I don't know how much of Catholicism she's let go of, but it's safe to say that she still holds onto the major points (existence of God/Jesus/Mary, etc.) She asked me once about my beliefs and then hushed me before I could finish speaking, so my guess is that she doesn't want to know because it would hurt her feelings. It saddens me that an adult whom I love is too emotionally immature to handle my ideas because they may contradict hers. I demand evidence before putting faith into anything - which is somewhat of a contradiction since faith is belief without evidence (or with a more sarcastic bent, belief in the utterly ridiculous despite overwhelming contradictory evidence). Some people just have to have faith - I don't need it. I get along fine living in a world I can see, touch, smell and taste. I'm doing o.k. trusting only the stuff I know is real. Letting go of religious faith hurt a little - it's made to work that way, being a feature designed to keep you on the inside of the religion in question. Not believing in God is described as the ultimate sin, the one thing God cannot forgive: I heard this so many times from so many different priests and nuns that I forget who told it to me first. What kind of god would hide the evidence proving that it is real and, despite this appalling lack of evidence, torture for all eternity any of the beings he created for lacking belief? Only a mind-bogglingly cruel and capricious being could justify punishment of such gravity and magnitude disproportionate to the offense -- and knowing this, agents of God still make the claim that "God loves you." Following priest logic, anally raping a child against his will is a terrible offense against God but not nearly as terrible as saying "There is no god." In a Catholic theocracy, the former crime would be punished by forcible relocation to a new community while the latter would be a capital crime punishable by execution (if you don't understand this joke, then you haven't read a newspaper in years, have you?) My younger brother who, for reasons I cannot explain, has embraced both fundamental evangelistic christianity and AM talk radio, which he was pleasantly surprised to find out he could listen to at night (another joke: whoooosh ). Because he heard from someone who heard that someone said I didn't believe in God, he hasn't spoken to me in what's going on two years. My theory is that he's never cared for me much in the first place and this provides him with a convenient excuse not to have any contact with me.

Like I said, my brother believes very strongly in a fundamentalist christian version of god. He and his wife also forced an elderly woman out of her house, having her placed against her will into a poorly-run nursing home so that they could move in. The elderly woman was his wife's grandmother, and the poor old thing had a drinking problem and took a nasty fall which got her hospitalized. The ambulance brought her - stinking drunk - to the hospital. While she was in the hospital, she went into alcohol withdrawal with DTs, acquiring an "Organic Brain Syndrome" diagnosis from a fourth-year medical student doing rounds on the orthopedic floor. My brother's wife filed as Grandma's power of attorney and went to work on having Grandma placed in a nursing home (price was an object - she made sure Grandma got the least expensive bed in town, which was also in the worst nursing home in three counties). A couple of weeks after drying out completely and finally weaned from whatever antipsychotic the resident prescribed, Grandma became completely lucid and began asking when she would be going home. Soon, they kept telling her.She was discharged from the hospital and went directly into the nursing home, while my brother and his wife remodeled her home using the money in Grandma's checking account. They also had Grandma pay their utilities bills while staying there rent-free. All of this was done very soon after my brother sold his house, admitting that he had fallen so far behind on the mortgage that he feared losing it. He saw moving into Grandma's house as an opportunity to catch up on his (many) bills, even joking about how leaving open a window while the air conditioner was running didn't matter because the electricity was on someone else's tab. Once Grandma's house was suitably remodeled, my brother's wife listed it for sale; Grandma's attorney had to remind them sternly that they weren't allowed to take a single penny of Grandma's share of the proceeds. This greatly vexed my brother's wife, who had planned on using the money to erase all of their debt in a single swoop. The house was sold and Grandma kept asking when she was going home - it was never explained what had happened or why. Grandma died soon afterwards but not fast enough for them - in the end, uterine cancer metastasized to her lungs, liver and brain, the span from diagnosis to death being about three weeks. The money, after sitting in a probate account for a while, eventually was split between my brother's wife and her mother. Since the house sold for in excess of $300K, it's safe to say that they must have some sizable debts. Both of them have driven new vehicles since they've been married, recently driving a lumbering Ford SUV and a domestic full-size van, along with various half-ton pickup trucks. They both wear heavy gold jewelry, and they fly out on vacations wherever and whenever they choose, often at irresponsible times. Despite being obvious money-hungry greedheads, because they believe in God, they say that they are morally superior to me. I'm an atheist, but I've never sold anyone's house against their will - and certainly never my own fucking grandmother (or my wife's).

I don't feel superior to anyone else - not to people who swindle old people out of their homes, not to convicted pederasts (hello, Dave!) I'm no better and certainly no worse than anyone else in moral terms. I've made grievous mistakes and no one will ever accuse me of total innocence. But goddamn - why is it that people who think they're at the top of Jesus' Favorites list never fail to ignore their own faults but have no difficulty at all pointing out whatever they think my faults are? There's a biblical passage mentioning this strange attribute true christians seem to acquire: something about a speck of wood in someone else's eye and a beam of wood in your own eye. It's a strange way to describe hypocrisy, but then again it's not my book and I don't claim to use it as a guidebook to life. You'd think they'd have read the damned thing, you know?

Schiavo case wasn't about politics - it was about life