To All The Sheep: Wake Up! That's A Wolf!

I really like Sharlet as a writer and how well he covers this subject. I look forward with pride to be able to someday say, "Why are you so surprised? Jeff Sharlet has been telling us about this for years!"

Of course, he's not the only one. There are several of us who are keeping watch. Sharlet has his finger on the pulse when he says:

"The Family is not a conspiracy. A conspiracy is a secret agreement to break the law. It is not interested in law. God-led government is not a specific agenda but rather a perspective through which all decisions, personal as well as political, should be evaluated. The Family is not a conspiracy but a religious worldview, . . . The Family believes it values the "least of these," the poor; which is why it must serve the powerful, those blessed by God with the authority to dole out aid to the deserving.

. . . The idea that the powerful are powerful because they have been "given" their rank and position -- that they did not grasp for it, that they did not politick -- is as deceptive as "noblesse oblige," a moral sleight of hand that exists to preserve social class. So, too, its corollary, that the poor should be grateful for whatever blessings trickle down to them." (pp. 81-82)

This point was made in Sharlet's previous book, The Family, and it is this kind of twisted thinking that concerns me. Although, I must say that nothing that the fundamentalist elite does comes as a shock to me anymore, when their entire religion has been shaped and molded for centuries by those in power, always "making it up" as they go along. "Jesus plus nothing" my ass! These people are greedy and manipulative, and they will not be satisfied until all of us nonbelievers are locked up and rotting away in some labor camp!

I Don't Believe in Chris Hedges: A Book Review

Is this guy kidding, or what?
I have just finished reading I Don't Believe in Atheists, by Chris Hedges (2008) and I am a bit shattered by what I have just read. Personally, I am marginally indifferent to this book -- bordering on disgust, especially when he makes statements like this:

The agenda of the new atheists . . . is disturbing. These atheists embrace a belief system as intolerant, chauvinistic, and bigoted as that of religious fundamentalists. They propose a route to collective salvation and the moral advancement of the human species through science and reason. --p. 1-2.

Throughout the book Hedges takes Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens out of context and tries to make the reader see their ideas as extremist and violent. I did not perceive this, and I have read three or four of the books he mentions at least twice! Hedges subscribes to a defeatist attitude toward humankind and I think that is sad.

I agree with Hedges views on moral advancement, to a point, but his accusation that atheists "seek to destroy those who do not conform to their vision" seems a bit harsh and downright paranoid, really.

And saying that atheists are "as intolerant, chauvinistic, and bigoted as fundamentalists" also hardly seems fair when you consider that atheists are still practically in hiding for fear of being called "unpatriotic", "un-American," and immoral collectively. This is not a very good book, at least when I compare it to American Fascists (2004), which is a better book and one that I generally liked.

Hedges also seems too much against science and reason for my taste. Despite what he says, I still think science and reason have a good track record on positive advancements for humanity overall. His stance against science and reason is based on all the immoral uses of the results of science and reason and he comes off as an anti-intellectualist. Apparently he is not as alarmed as some of us are by the virtual "dumbing down" of American society.

I am aligned with Hedges on his views of our corrupt government and the need to dismantle the current corporate power structure, but on this book's topic, we part ways. Atheists are not as Hedges describes them in this weak argument of a book. **1/2

The Story of My Belief

This article was drafted while I was living in Kansas in the spring of 2010. After a few revisions it was posted in my Notes section on Facebook. My reluctance to 'publish' it on that site has now past and I am including it here to show how I evolved into a 'naturalist', which I like better than 'atheist'. I am refraining from editing the 'atheist' from this piece, as it is integral to my story.

To believe is to know that one believes, and to know that one believes is no longer to believe.
—Jean-Paul Sartre

Freethinkers are dangerous.
—from the song, MIND, by System Of A Down (1998)

Belief can be hazardous to one's health and I propose to explain why I feel this way. But first I must make a bold statement.
I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of God. This is the stance taken by many of my newest mentors on the subject of is there, or is there not a God. After reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (2006), which I read last year (2009), I realized that I was a practicing atheist. You can read in my journal writings where I am still praying to God around that time, but I had to come to grips with the whole mess and finally declare myself a freethinker. I did this on Facebook, in the info section that asks you to specify your religion. Originally, when I first set up my Facebook account last year, I put 'spiritual,' which I still feel that I am in a strange kind of way. In 2008 I had read a book called The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, by Andre Comte-Sponville (2007), a French philosopher. In this witty book, Sponville points out that:

    ". . . God just isn't logically necessary, but we can still have love, ethical behavior, and even the experience of eternity. . ."
    —From a review by Publishers Weekly posted on Amazon.com.

With this idea in mind, I changed my religious stance to 'spiritual atheist.' For about less than a day, I think. I started to get nervous about the reaction that I would get from friends and family, so I changed it to 'freethinker', as I had just become a member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), based out of Madison, Wisconsin, where Dan Barker (Losing Faith In Faith: From Preacher To Atheist, 1992, 2006) is also a member. Their monthly newspaper, Freethought Today, is a wonderful publication that keeps freethinkers around the world up-to-date on all things religious. Most especially, FFRF has a superb legal team that is constantly doing battle on the front lines defending our constitutional mandate to keep church and state separate.
Here is a good reason why I am nervous about declaring myself an atheist:

    When [two thousand randomly selected people . . . interviewed by the University of Minnesota in 2006 were] asked which groups did not share their vision of American society, 39.5 percent of those interviewed mentioned atheists. Asked the same question about Muslims and homosexuals, the figures dropped to a slightly less depressing 26.3 percent and 22.6 percent, respectively. For Hispanics, Jews, Asian-Americans, and African-Americans, they fell further to 7.6 percent, 7.4 percent, 7.0 percent, and 4.6 percent, respectively.
    The study contains other results, but these are sufficient to underline its gist: atheists are seen by many Americans (especially conservative Christians) as alien and are, in the words of the sociologist Penny Edgell, the study's lead researcher, "a glaring exception to the rule of increasing tolerance over the last 30 years."
    Edgell also maintains that atheists seem to be outside the limits of American morality, which has largely been defined by religion. Many of those interviewed saw atheists as cultural elitists or amoral materialists or given to criminal behavior or drugs. The study states, "Our findings seem to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good." Of course, I repeat - I hope unnecessarily - that belief in God isn't at all necessary to have a keen ethical concern for others, the smug certainty of the benighted notwithstanding. An odd example of this benightedness is the fact that the state of Arkansas has not yet roused itself to rescind Article 19 (no doubt unenforced) of its constitution: "No person who denies the being of God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court." Half a dozen other states have similar laws.
    —from irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up, by John Allen Paulos (2008), pp. 143-144.

So, according to the University of Minnesota study, I stand a better chance of being accepted as a homosexual than I do as an atheist! 'Coming out' as an atheist is indeed dangerous business in America.

The Path Begins To Change

The irony of me turning into an atheist while staying here in Kansas is that I had originally come here to 'get closer to God.' One of the many things that facilitated my change was all the hypocrisy and slander that 'conservative Christians' seem to exhibit here in the high plains of America. They are really fond of blaming President Obama for all our nations ills, totally forgetting that President George W. Bush and his 'Axis Of Evil' ran up the highest foreign held debt ever, higher than all the previous Presidents combined! Absurd. But, I digress. Here is another passage that further illustrates my dilemma:

    Our species will never run out of fools but I dare say that there have been at least as many credulous idiots who professed faith in god as there have been dolts and simpletons who concluded otherwise. It might be immodest to suggest that the odds rather favor the intelligence and curiosity of the atheists, but it is the case that some humans have always noticed the improbability of god, the evil done in his name, the likelihood that he is man-made, and the availability of less harmful alternative beliefs and explanations. We cannot know the names of all these men and women, because they have in all times and all places been subject to ruthless suppression. For the identical reason, nor can we know how many ostensibly devout people were secretly unbelievers. As late as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in relatively free societies as Britain and the United States, unbelievers as secure and prosperous as James Mill and Benjamin Franklin felt it advisable to keep their opinions private. Thus, when we read of the glories of "Christian" devotional painting and architecture, or "Islamic" astronomy and medicine, we are talking about advances of civilization and culture - some of them anticipated by Aztecs and Chinese - that have as much to do with "faith" as their predecessors had to do with human sacrifice and imperialism. And we have no means of knowing, except in a very few special cases, how many of these architects and painters and scientists were preserving their innermost thoughts from the scrutiny of the godly. Galileo might have been unmolested in his telescopic work if he had not been so unwise as to admit that it had cosmological implications.
    —From god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens (2007), pp. 254-255.

And:

    I do not wish to repeat the gross mistake that Christian apologists have made. They expended huge and needless effort to show that wise men who wrote before Christ were in effect prophets and prefigurations of his coming. (As late as the nineteenth century, William Ewart Gladstone covered reams of wasted paper trying to prove this about the ancient Greeks.) I have no right to claim past philosophers as putative ancestors of atheism. I do, however, have the right to point out that because of religious intolerance we cannot know what they really thought privately, and were very nearly prevented from learning what they wrote publicly. Even the relatively conformist Descartes, who found it advisable to live in the freer atmosphere of the Netherlands, proposed a few lapidary words for his own headstone: "He who hid well, lived well."
    —ibid., pp. 263-264.

And, from former President George H.W. Bush (brackets mine):

    [President George H. W. Bush said when asked] whether he recognized the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists: 'No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.'
    —from Robert I. Sherman, in Free Inquiry 8: 4, Fall, 1988, 16.

Another great book that is actually very frightening in its scope is The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism At The Heart Of American Power, by Jeff Sharlet (2008). I have read this one twice, because I wanted to make sure that I really understood the premise behind this piece of investigative writing by Sharlet. In light of the statement by Bush, it would seem that our nation is close to having the separation of church and state blurred, at least behind closed doors, for now. And that atheists are technically 'un-American.' The synopsis from the back cover of the paperback edition says it all:

    They insist they are just a group of friends, yet they funnel millions of dollars through tax-free corporations. They claim to disdain politics, but congressmen of both parties describe them as the most influential religious organization in Washington. They say they are not Christians, but simply believers.
    Behind the scenes at every National Prayer Breakfast since 1953 has been the Family, an elite network dedicated to a religion of power for the powerful. Their goal is "Jesus plus nothing." Their method is backroom diplomacy. The Family is the startling story of how their faith - part free-market fundamentalism, part imperial ambition - has come to be interwoven with the affairs of nations around the world.

Books That Have Influenced My Belief

My real investigation began back in 2008 when I read a few books about the life of Jesus that were told from different angles. One that my mother sent to me was The Shack, by William P. Young (2007), a fictional story in which God is a very large black woman. I read it twice and I did not feel changed by reading it like others did - including my mother. Books like The Shack are written more for those who are already believers, so it does not surprise me that I was unaffected by this story. But, one thing that reading The Shack did do for me was lead me to want to get back into the study of religion and see if it still held some promise for me.
So the next book that I found was The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity, by James D. Tabor (2006). Tabor enlightened me to the fact that Paul is really the one who founded Christianity (certainly not Jesus!) and that the proof for the actual existence of a historical Jesus is sketchy, at best. This really started me into some serious investigation.

I followed that book with a reading of American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, by Kevin Phillips (2006). The fact that I read this right around the time that our economy tanked in 2008 was quite prescient, to say the least. Phillips talks about how the 'Moral Majority' that had its launch during Nixon's administration and gained full-swing during of the Reagan era has slowly but surely entrenched itself into our government at all levels. More importantly, Phillips compares our nations trajectory with that of the Dutch during the Age of Discovery and then Great Britain's blunder at the turn of the twentieth century. It seems that these two powers had their fall from dominance caused by their zealous behavior in espousing Christian ideals and the impending doom and gloom of the end of the world that both had thought would occur during their respective eras. Phillips also points out that, while manufacturing in our nation has been on a steady but swift decline since 1980, financial institutions' earnings showed a steady and comparative rise since the same time. He illustrates this using a graph. Financial institutions were the big money makers when the economy tanked. Go figure.

The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History, by Michael Baigent (2006), was similar to the Tabor book and was also very enlightening. I immediately followed that one with A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, by Karen Armstrong (1993, 2004), which was very informative on the origins of the big three monotheistic religions (My knowledge of these origins came also from twenty-two years of reading the entire works of Joseph Campbell). From there I delved into The Vision of the Buddha: Buddhism - The Path to Spiritual Enlightenment, by Tom Lowenstein (1996, 2005), just one of many books that I have devoured on Buddhism. Even though Buddhism is called a religion, it puts forth a different stance compared to the big three monotheistic religions, as Sam Harris points out:

    While this is not a treatise on Eastern spirituality, it does not seem out of place to briefly examine the differences between the Eastern and Western canons, for they are genuinely startling. To illustrate this point, I have selected a passage at random from a shelf of Buddhist literature. The following text was found with closed eyes, on the first attempt, from among scores of books. I invite the reader to find anything even remotely like this in the Bible or the Koran.

    [I]n the present moment, when (your mind) remains in its own condition, without constructing anything,
    Awareness at that moment in itself is quite ordinary.
    And when you look into yourself in this way nakedly (without any discursive thoughts),
    Since there is only this pure observing, there will be found a lucid clarity without anyone being there who is the observer;
    Only a naked manifest awareness is present.
    (This awareness) is empty and immaculately pure, not being created by anything whatsoever.
    It is authentic and unadulterated, without any duality of clarity and emptiness.
    It is not permanent and yet it is not created by anything.
    However, it is not a mere nothingness or something annihilated because it is lucid and present.
    It does not exist as a single entity because it is present and clear in terms of being many.
    (On the other hand) it is not created as a multiplicity of things because it is inseparable and of a single flavor.
    This inherent self-awareness does not derive from anything outside itself.
    This is the real introduction to the actual condition of things.
    --Padmasambhava

    One could live an eon as a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew and never encounter any teachings like this about the nature of consciousness. The comparison with Islam is especially invidious, because Padmasambhava was virtually Muhammad's contemporary. While the meaning of the above passage might not be perfectly apparent to all readers - it is just a section of a longer teaching on the nature of mind and contains a fair amount of Buddhist jargon ("clarity," "emptiness," "single flavor," etc.) - it is a rigorously empirical document, not a statement of metaphysics. Even the contemporary literature on consciousness, which spans philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience, cannot match the kind of precise, phenomenological studies that can be found throughout the Buddhist canon. Although we have no reason to be dogmatically attached to any one tradition of spiritual instruction, we should not imagine that they are all equally wise or equally sophisticated. They are not. Mysticism, to be viable, requires explicit instructions, which need suffer no more ambiguity or artifice in their exposition than we find in a manual for operating a lawn mower. Some traditions realized that millennia ago. Others did not.
    —from The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by Sam Harris (2005, 2004), pp. 215-217.

Then I came across an interesting book called The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything, by Brian D. McLaren (2006). Here is what I wrote in my A Reader's Journal about this book:

    Comments: I had recently read the fine book, The Shack, again (see page 189 in this journal) and I was finding myself drawn to Jesus in an even stronger way than usual; I started browsing the Christian Inspiration section of Barnes & Noble a lot after work everyday, and I somehow 'stumbled' upon this book.
    Actually, I'm sure it was the Holy Spirit leading me! I picked it up and began to read it, and then bought it and took it 'home' to really get into it and, as you can see, I read it real fast.
    Of course, I am reading this one again!*
    *I did! Complete w/underlined passages!
    Recommend to: people who are tired of the 'old' Christian rhetoric!

I include this just to show where my head was at as I was preparing to move to Kansas. I was so moved by McLaren's writing that I read A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey (2001) and Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope (2007) and my heart was lifted in a way that it hadn't been in many years. I was back on the spiritual path that I had left back in 1984 and all was good. Randy had been mentioning to me in phone conversations over the past few years that he had 'been reading his Bible a lot lately,' and I was excited to get to Kansas and the veritable retreat that such a rural setting would afford for spiritual growth.
I read another McLaren book that was new that year, Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices (2008). Soon, I was reading a couple of Deepak Chopra's Jesus books, as well as his story of Buddha, sort of as diversions, but I was definitely getting ready to enter into Christian ministry again. I had suddenly found myself in a strange sort of quandary: Just exactly what did I believe? I still had so many doubts that I had to take a few steps back and examine a little more closely just what I was contemplating.
I even had to read a couple of my old Joseph Campbell books (The Hero With A Thousand Faces and The Mythic Image) just to regain my investigative mindset.

The Religious Case Against Belief

Then I found a book that slammed me so hard, I had to read it again, even marking passages with a pencil. That book was The Religious Case Against Belief, by James P. Carse (2008). I must cite here the synopsis found inside the dust jacket, because it concisely explains what the book attempts to say:

    In the current and quite popular assessment of religion, there is one thing missing: religion itself. Through careful, creative analysis, James P. Carse's The Religious Case Against Belief reveals the surprising truth that what is currently criticized as religion is, in fact, the territory of belief. Looking to both historical and contemporary crises, Carse distinguishes religion from belief systems and pinpoints how the closed-mindedness and hostility of belief has corrupted religion and spawned violence the world over.
    Drawing on the lessons of Galileo, Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus Christ, Carse creates his own brand of parable and establishes a new vocabulary with which to study conflict in the modern world. The Religious Case Against Belief introduces three kinds of ignorance: ordinary ignorance, willful ignorance, and finally higher ignorance. Ordinary ignorance is the innocuous and unavoidable ignorance common to all people - such as ignorance of tomorrow's weather or the reason your stove is malfunctioning - while willful ignorance is the chosen state of the most fervent (and dangerous) of believers. In The Religious Case Against Belief we learn that such believers - from Luther to the contemporary Christian right - construct identity by erecting boundaries, fostering aggression between themselves and the other, and willfully avoiding accessible knowledge that may undermine the authority of their belief systems. It becomes clear that the rules of belief dictate that belief systems remain locked in bloody conflict and preclude the possibility of open-ended dialogue.
    In fierce contrast to willful ignorance, higher ignorance - an understanding that whatever knowledge we accumulate falls infinitely short of the truth - is an acquired state enhanced by religion. Those traveling the path to higher ignorance recognize faith teachings, such as the Bible, as poetry intended to promote contemplation, interpretation, and a sense of wonder. Religion - uncontaminated by belief systems - emerges a school of thought that rejects the imagined boundaries that falsely divide people and ideas, and instead expands horizons.
    The Religious Case Against Belief exposes a world in which religion and belief have become erroneously (and terrifyingly) conflated. In strengthening their association with powerful belief systems, religions have departed from their essential purpose as agencies of higher ignorance. James Carse uses his wide-ranging understanding of religion to find a viable and vital path away from what he calls the Age of Faith II and toward open-ended global dialogue.

As I stated, I read this book twice and I refer to it often. It was in this book that I first read about Sam Harris and Daniel C. Dennett. Their books, (2005, 2004) The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, and Breaking The Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006) respectively, Carse criticizes their approach and he does raise an interesting point (the underlining is mine):

    It has . . . become fashionable to assail religion for its excesses - and for the excesses of the ideologies that reach the level of religious intensity. The question is how effective these critics have been, and how appropriate their objections are.
    In . . . Sam Harris's The End of Faith, the author asserts in sizzling prose that "religion is nothing but bad concepts held in place of good ones for all time. It is the denial, at once full of hope and full of fear, of the vastitude [sic] of human ignorance."
    . . . Harris's assumption is that religious belief is a matter of "historical and metaphysical propositions." A companion work by a popular writer of science, Daniel Dennett, agrees, and adds that we can show empirically that religious belief has evolved in a roughly Darwinian manner, by causes so natural they can be explained by the physical sciences. . . Religion, he says, is the most powerful force on earth, therefore the most dangerous. Here, too, the author attacks religious beliefs, however they evolved, as false claims. And the solution is the same: universal scientific education, the only way of "breaking the spell."
    There are several fatal problems with such a treatment of religion. The most obvious is the presumption that the errors and evils of religion can be eliminated by the kind of verifiable information suitable to the classroom and laboratory. Belief systems are stunningly resistant to such correction, for the simple reason that deeply committed believers are not offering a variety of debatable proposals about the nature of the world. They see the world through their beliefs, not their beliefs from a worldly perspective. Therefore, whatever happens can only confirm the truth of what they believe. When we present believers with contrary "evidence," we only prove to them that we are outside the realm of faith and therefore unable to see the world as it is. For this reason, belief systems are not only impervious to opposition, they thrive on it. Such arguments can only defeat themselves.
    Objections of this kind come dangerously close to being belief systems themselves. . . .
    Neither of our authors seems to note that his critique edges over into a belief system of its own.
    —from pp. 27-29.

Of course, I had to get those two books and read them just to see what all the fuss was about. One or both of those books mentioned The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, so I had to get that one, too. I read all three of these books twice, and also Letter To A Christian Nation, by Sam Harris (2006, 2008), which I have read three times. It was Dawkins that led me to FFRF, and my decision to come out as an atheist.
Carse is brilliant in his distinction between 'religion' and 'belief,' but I am not so sure that I agree with his assessment that 'Those traveling the path to higher ignorance recognize faith teachings, such as the Bible, as poetry intended to promote contemplation, interpretation, and a sense of wonder.' Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Barker, and countless others disagree with Carse, vehemently. Dawkins and Harris especially both like to cite passages from the Bible and Koran (although Harris cites the Koran more than Dawkins) that do not show God in a very good light. Genocide, murder, deceit, bribery, and outright wrathful anger are revealed throughout the Old and New Testaments, and this is God we're talking about here! Mankind does not fare any better, but God has a lot of explaining to do.

Creationism vs. Natural Selection/Evolution

The nature of 'belief' and 'religion' aside, one other argument that has been going on forever - at least more so since Darwin first published On The Origin Of Species back in 1859 - is the argument between 'creationism' and 'evolution.' Dawkins brilliantly displays the evidence for evolution in his book, The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence For Evolution (2009). And, just as Carse has stated about how believers react to "contrary" evidence, Dawkins points out that the 'history deniers' still abound. Believe it or not, Americans far out number other advanced nations - as well as less-developed ones - in recent polls regarding the issue that the earth - and specifically humans - have been around less than 10,000 years:

    At regular but frequent intervals since 1982, Gallup, America's best-known polling organization, has been sampling the national opinion on this question:
    Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings?


       1. Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process. (36%)

       2. Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process. (14%)

       3. God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so. (44%)


    The percentages I have inserted are from 2008. The figures for 1982, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2006 and 2007 are pretty much the same.
    I am in what I am not surprised to see is a minority of 14% ticking the box for proposition 2. It is unfortunate that the wording of proposition 2, 'but God had no part in this process,' seems calculated to bias religious people gratuitously against it. The real killer is the lamentably strong support for proposition 3. Forty-four percent of Americans deny evolution totally, whether it is guided by God or not, and the implication is that they believe the entire world is no more than 10,000 years old. As I have pointed out before, given that the true age of the world is 4.6 billion years, this is equivalent to believing that the width of North America is less than 10 yards. In none of the nine years sampled did the support for proposition 3 drop below 40%. In two of the sampling years, it hit 47%. More than 40% of Americans deny that humans evolved from other animals, and think that we - and by implication all of life - were created by God within the last 10,000 years. This book is necessary.
    —pp. 429-430.

And:

    The polls, then, suggest that at least 40% of Americans are creationists - that's dyed-in-the-wool, out-and-out, anti-evolution creationists, not believers in 'evolution but God sort of helped it along' (there were plenty of them too). The equivalent figures for Britain, and much of Europe, are slightly less extreme, but not much more encouraging. There are still no grounds for complacency.
    —p. 437.

I think that what I like about Dawkins is his boldness and his knowledge combined make him the ideal spokesperson for the cause of evolution. I watched a video of him giving a speech where he ended it by saying, "And let's stop being so damned respectable!", referring as he was to the idea that we 'evolutionists' need to respect the opposite opinion. Carse also seems to feel that 'open-ended global dialog' - as he terms it - will only be possible if we 'respect' other people's views. Actually, Carse makes another valid point in saying that 'belief systems' thrive on the 'unbelief' of the opponent and visa versa, something to that effect. That may be the case, but what person of science and reason could possibly agree with or respect such absurd propositions as those that 'creationists' believe based on the massive amounts of evidence to the contrary?

Separation of Church and State

Let's take a look at another issue that is fomenting in America, the belief that our forefathers and those that inspired them were 'Christians' and that the founding of our nation was based on these 'Christian' principles. I intend to reveal that this is, in fact, not the case at all. The often cited inspiration for our forefathers is Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, which is ironic considering this little publicized fact:

    . . . [Thomas] Paine's Age of Reason marks almost the first time that frank contempt for organized religion was openly expressed. It had a tremendous worldwide effect. His American friends and contemporaries, partly inspired by him to declare independence from the Hanoverian usurpers and their private Anglican Church, meanwhile achieved an extraordinary and unprecedented thing: the writing of a democratic and republican constitution that made no mention of god and that mentioned religion only when guaranteeing that it would always be separated from the state. Almost all of the American founders died without any priest by their bedside, as also did Paine, who was much pestered in his last hours by religious hooligans who demanded that he accept Christ as his savior. Like David Hume, he declined all such consolation and his memory has outlasted the calumnious rumor that he begged to be reconciled with the church at the end. (The mere fact that such deathbed "repentances" were sought by the godly, let alone subsequently fabricated, speaks volumes about the bad faith of the faith-based.)
    —From god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens (2007), pp. 268-269.

Interesting, to say the least. After hearing repeatedly over the past several years about this belief that our nation was founded on 'Christian' principles, and that even the Constitution says so, I decided to actually read the Constitution for myself to see if this is true. Not one mention of God, let alone Jesus Christ, is to be found anywhere in this document. Only the word 'Lord' appears at the end as a formal way of stating that the document was signed 'In The Year Of Our Lord,' which was common for the era. This kind of false bravado on the part of believers is what ticks me off the most, and I am sure that it bothers many other atheists and agnostics. When believers attempt to 'slay' us with what they term as 'facts' and we confront them about this, the reply tends to be inane and childish. A superb example comes from one of America's most beloved leaders of the twentieth century:

    "Facts are stupid things."
    —(American historical figure) Ronald Reagan from his address to the Republican National Convention, 1988
    (printed in the liner notes contained in the CD, Broadway The Hard Way, by Frank Zappa, 1988)

I am not exactly sure of the context of Ron's statement, but I am guessing that it is in reference to his involvement in the infamous Iran/Contra affair, of which he is also on record stating that he could not remember what, if any, his involvement actually was. Apparently the 'facts' did not jog his memory in the least!
Frank Zappa was famous for being outspoken on many topics, but his pet peeve was organized religion, especially televangelists. He was a big proponent of trying to change the tax-free status of churches in America. Imagine the tax revenue if this could happen! Frustrated that America's secular status was vigorously being eroded by the 'Moral Majority' Zappa campaigned heavily during his 1988 tour to get people to register to vote so that we could vote these people out of office. Unfortunately, Zappa was fighting an uphill battle in this regard. He even mentions in his official biography, published in 1989, that he had an idea for a church of his own so that he could 'cash-in' with a tax-free status. His proposed name for this new modern church? C.A.S.H., which stands for the Church of American Secular Humanism. Nice.
Zappa even contemplated running for our nation's highest office in the 1992 election, but prostate cancer intervened and shortened this prolific artist/composer's life. He remains an important influence for me on all matters musical, political (he once said that it takes a lot of pressure to become a Democrat or a Republican, and abhorred both parties equally) and even spiritual. I had been a big fan from near the beginning of Zappa's career but became even more so in the eighties when I first 'jumped ship' from religion.

Overcoming My Fear of 'Coming Out'

What I am initially finding out since I have 'come out' is that there is probably more freethinkers in America than is evident. As I stated earlier, being an atheist in America is tantamount to committing suicide. It has often been said that there is strength in numbers, but nonbelievers are not very organized in the twenty-first century. Consider this passage from Dawkins:

    American polls suggest that atheists and agnostics far outnumber religious Jews, and even outnumber most other particular religious groups. Unlike Jews, however, who are notoriously one of the most effective political lobbies in the United States, and unlike evangelical Christians, who wield even greater political power, atheists and agnostics are not organized and therefore exert almost zero influence. Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority. But a good first step would be to build up a critical mass of those willing to 'come out', thereby encouraging others to do so. Even if they can't be herded, cats in sufficient numbers can make a lot of noise and they cannot be ignored.
    —From The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins (2006), p. 27.

My "deconversion" experience is a very emotional one for me and I am not alone in feeling this way. Dan Barker talks about this extensively in his book, Losing Faith In Faith (1992, 2006), where he says that it took him five years to make his change of heart public. The whole time he still preached the word from the pulpit and wrote Christian musicals for youth groups to sing! A book that I am reading as I write this is God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer, by Bart D. Erhman (2008). Erhman is famous for his bestselling book, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (2005). In God's Problem, Erhman talks about how "deconversion" was for him:

    People who have gone through a kind of "deconversion" experience like mine understand how emotionally wrenching it can be. . . . it was very traumatic. . . . I went from being a hard-core and committed evangelical Christian who had spent his young adulthood in a fundamentalist Bible college, and evangelical liberal arts college, and a number of Bible-believing churches, to being an agnostic who viewed the Bible as a book produced entirely by human hands, who viewed Jesus as a first-century apocalyptic Jew who was crucified but not raised from the dead, and who viewed the ultimate questions of theology as beyond a human's ability to answer.
    —From God's Problem, p. 125.

I have not shared my new status with too many folks, except for my sister, who has been very supportive, and my mother who, initially was crushed, but who still retains her Christian quality of love toward me and respect for my belief (or lack thereof!). But I am afraid that I am headed for some serious confrontation with my friends and family, although my goal is not to 'preach' my unbelief, but to live a life free from belief, especially belief in a delusion. Let the adventure begin!
Oh, and I had an idea that was inspired by that description about cats from Richard Dawkins. I am proposing an organization of freethinkers called Citizen Atheists Taskforce Society, the acronym being CATS! Dawkins would be proud.

The Venom of Belief

This piece was written in August 2010 during the whole 'flap doodle' about the Park 51 Center in NYC. It was originally posted on my Facebook page, but I am entering it on this blog so that I can start a conversation on religious tolerance.

WILLIAMSPORT, PENNSYLVANIA -- August 17, 2010. A heated debate is on regarding the building of the Park 51 Community Center a couple of blocks away from Ground Zero (GZ) in Lower Manhattan in New York City. It has been in the news for months, but has recently escalated to a hysterical level, with President Obama finally weighing in as of last weekend. While merely upholding his oath to defend the Constitution of The United States of America, the President is being condemned again for being anti-American by, of course, Rush Limbaugh as well as many other politicians.
I have sat and listened to the pros and cons of this argument and I am outraged and saddened by what I am witnessing. It reminds me of how I initially felt on September 11, 2001, when terrorists 'awakened' America to the fact that we are hated by extremists everywhere. I felt then -- as I do now -- that religion was the cause of those attacks and I see the same venom being spewed by media commentators, politicians left and right and others on this 'made-up' issue.

I say 'made-up' because that is exactly what it is. Those against the center being built are mistaken when they call it a "mosque" and they are also mistaken when they claim that Muslims are attempting to build this supposed "mosque" on the site revered as hallowed ground. Of course, those that bicker back and forth about this continue to use the term "mosque" as well as denying that the proposed project is a couple of blocks away from GZ. And just how many blocks away is far enough away from GZ anyway? But that is the kind of doublespeak and distraction that is preventing me from even getting to my point.

First let me state something that I am sure will create even more controversy than the "mosque" hysteria. I am a freethinker who believes that religion -- as Christopher Hitchens has said -- poisons everything. When the attack on the WTC and Pentagon occurred, I was pretty sure that America was going to snap at the 'bait' and do something in retaliation to those attacks. The problem with just who to retaliate against was evident in those fearful moments following 9/11 and later on it worked out just fine for Bush and his 'Axis of Evil' to promote their already planned attack on Iraq. Oh, it's true. A little digging is all it will take to find out that several months before we invaded Iraq, as well as several months before 9/11, the plans were on the table at the White House. They just needed a good enough reason which they began to fabricate in earnest after 9/11. But again, I digress.

In her book, The Age of American Unreason (2008), Susan Jacoby says:

For the most part, Americans throughout the nation's history have been content to view themselves as a predominantly Christian people with a secular government -- a civic paradox and a delicate balance that seemed entirely natural for most of the nation's history, . . . The reasons why that balance has been upset by the resurgence of an intolerant fundamentalism during the past three decades are not altogether clear. The explanation cannot be found in the original American separation of church and state and the existence of a "free market" of faiths, because the distant past offers few answers to the question of why so many Americans today are attracted to forms of religion that educated men and women were beginning to reject a century ago. --p. 204.

The question Jacoby refers to, of why so many Americans have embraced a dead religion, is a good one and one that I am not going to get into here, but it is part and parcel to my thinking. Between the lines of all the rhetoric regarding the "mosque" hysteria that I have been hearing is the subtle and unspoken ideology of America as a Christian nation. Like I said, it's subtle, but you can hear it. Although a Rev. Bennett did spew some very vitriolic venom regarding Islam coming from the pit of hell. This was done on some cable news show, I cannot remember which, and he even held up a Bible during the "discussion." It is the only way that I can reason why the debaters keep saying that it would be insensitive to build a "mosque" on GZ, implying that all of Islam is to blame for 9/11 when in fact we know that it was done by a small group of extremists of the Muslim faith. It is easy for me, as a freethinker, to see that Christian America has a deep-seeded hatred for Islam. Actually, Christian America is more divided among themselves about their own doctrines, but that is another tale for another time.

The other issue is that those who want to build their cultural center say they are trying to build a bridge of tolerance and understanding between the faiths, but those against it do not see it that way. To them and to those they are so often referring to -- the families of all the victims -- it would be wrong to let them build the center so close to GZ, and round and round they go.

After a few days of this, I started to realize that it is time for someone to present a whole different argument and here it is: Who needs these religions -- any of them, take your pick -- trying to light the fire of discord in our nation? Do they really think that the voters give a rat's ass about this issue? When are intelligent people going to speak out against these delusions?

I applaud writers like Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Stenger, and many others who declare that not only are the extremists dangerous, but the moderates that allow the extremists to exist in the first place and are indirectly aiding and abetting those very extremist causes are just as dangerous! Religion poisons everything indeed! When are the freethinkers going to have their say? Will we be listened to by fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, etc. when we say enough already with this argument? It is a civic issue and has already been decided upon by the people who make those decisions. What about passing the Bill in Congress that would demand health care not be denied to those 'first-responders' of 9/11 who are still being denied care? Who, besides Harry Reid and Michael Moore, speaks for them?

What really bothers me is that I see this issue not going away, as many commentators are hoping it will, but I see it becoming one of the sparks that begins the war on America that the Christian Right has been planning for the past three decades. The other spark was of course 9/11. Some, like Chris Hedges in his book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, (2006) think that something like a terrible recession would also bring it on but that still remains to be seen, as unemployment continues to rise and manufacturing jobs continue to decline.

But if Christian America keeps pouring gasoline on this issue I see trouble ahead. Our founding fathers did not set up our government to be based on Christian principles as so many of the faithful want to believe, and they did  purposely create the First Amendment to guarantee the separation of church and state. They knew what they were doing because they had history to teach them what becomes of nations that allow this kind of ill-fated pairing to happen. The argument around this "mosque" issue is all about fear which in turn breeds hatred. The irony is that I am fearful and full of hatred right now as I write this, but I am pushing through my fear and hate as I write, so please bear with me.

Also interesting about President Obama's talk regarding this issue was his mention of nonbelievers as being part of the framework in this issue, and I was proud to be an American that is included in that particular group. We freethinkers are tired of the politics of Washington, who seem to be a little too concerned about this issue. Let it go, people! We have more pressing concerns to be dealing with right now. Get your heads out of your. . . well, I mean, you know, get a grip on your, uh, . . . aw, just shut up already about your fear of Islam! You are trying to create unwanted controversy and we are all sick of it!

The venom of belief is thick in this argument and it threatens our very freedoms as Americans. Wake up, America. Our nation has been and continues to be poisoned by religion and we are about to go through some more growing pains. We will most assuredly come out of all this with our dignity and integrity intact, I hope. But not until we stop deluding ourselves into believing that we are the 'cat's meow' and that we are at war with someone else's ideology, whatever that ideology is.

Some would say that my "belief" is also venomous and they are probably right to think so. After all, it does take a little of the venom to create the anti-venom to counteract the poison so, yes, I am venomous with this issue! My anti-venom is this: Love and Tolerance. Love is the right thing to do; Tolerance is what Americans do. Get it right, people. Press on to the important issues and quit trying to throw snakes on everything!

Introduction to my voice

Hello. My name is d r melbie and welcome to my blog. This is where I allow my voice to be heard and where anyone is welcome to join in, disagree, rant, sneer, or whatever else 'hikes your skirt.' 2010 was the year that I finally declared myself an 'naturalist' (as opposed to 'supernaturalist') after a lifetime of religious study, skepticism and practicing various forms of spirituality. This blog is the place where religion, politics, culture, music, science, literature, and social commentary of all stripes will be written and made available to the general public.

I have no formal academic credentials to back up what my voice says, and I do not claim to be an expert in any subject that I write about in this blog or anywhere else that my writing may appear. The main purpose of my voice is to get the conversation started and to keep the conversation going. I encourage anyone to respond in any manner. Everyone has a voice, this is my voice.

I am currently working on my Bachelor of Science in Communications Degree and I am very excited about going back to school after being away from academia for 36 years! My insatiable thirst for knowledge has been gaining momentum from the age of 28 until now, and that is why I have decided to continue my education at the age of 54.

Of course, as everyone knows, age is just a state of mind, and I feel like a student even though I do not look like one! It's a good life, it's a great gift!