Just wanted to share something a buddy of mine wrote about his dog, Scout. Strange, but I felt I was actually a better person for simply having read it. By the way, Goetz designs as well as he writes.
If you've got a minute, a toast to a friend...
Almost 16 years ago, in the spring of 1994, I decided it was a good
time to get a dog. I had just bought my first house and was starting
to admit to myself that among the reasons I had bought the house on
Coolair Drive was to have a place to keep my dog. The only thing
missing was a dog. So on a sunny afternoon in May, I aimed my car in
the direction of the Animal Adoption Center on Garland Road and set
out to find that dog. That's where I met my gal Scout.
Instantly, and for the next 15-odd years of my life, that sweet
patchwork quilt of a dog became the most loyal friend I have ever
known. Whether we were claiming the Pedernales River for a day -- not
a soul in sight for miles, except for an occasional herd of cattle
taking a drink from the river at sundown -- or hiking the trails of
Dinosaur Valley, Scout was with me literally every step of the way. We
took road trips, we camped, we hiked, we terrorized armadillos, we
chased jackrabbits and bobcats (Scout carried a "souvenir" on her ear
as the result of one particularly ill-fated but memorable encounter
with the latter), we drank beer on the patio, we crashed buddies'
bars, we made friends, we met girls, we mowed the lawn, we smoked
brisket, we stared at the stars in the back yard, we hosted parties
and we pissed off the neighbors. From the death of my father to the
birth of my daughter, Scout was a constant, comforting, irreplaceable
fixture in virtually every aspect of my life.
But Norbuck Park was the best. For 14 straight years, Norbuck was the
place where Scout and I would escape the world, if only for an hour or
so, but damn near every single day, rain or shine. A 40-acre oasis
comprised of trails and woods and cedar trees and pecan groves in the
middle of East Dallas, Norbuck was Heaven on Earth and the Greatest
Secret in Dallas. We'd run those trails every morning like a couple of
goofy giddy school kids, competing to see who could outsmart and
outrun the other and make it to the pecan grove on the north end
first. It was the place where we both spent some of the finest hours
of our lives. It was where our Wild Things were.
I had to put my dog Scout to sleep last week. She had become a ghost
of her old self over the past many months and finally let me know, in
no uncertain terms, that she had had enough. There's no doubt that
sentiment as sappy as this, spent on a dog no less, must seem entirely
silly to most, but for those of you who have been blessed to share
such a large portion of your life with a friend as steadfast and
virtuous as my dog Scout, you know exactly where I'm coming from.
Hell, that's what dogs do to us... they make us far sappier than we
ever plan on being. Scout was a damn good friend and a damn fine dog
-- as fine as they come -- and worthy of as dignified a salutation as
I could muster for all the joy she brought to me and those who knew her.
It's been about a year and a half since Scout was able to run the
Norbuck trails with me, but I will always remember our adventures
there like they happened yesterday -- especially on those crisp autumn
mornings when the sky was impossibly blue, the trees impossibly
brilliant and the promise of the day impossibly boundless. And I can
still hear the silent conversation that took place five thousand times
between she and me on those shady trails...
"Hey buddy, I'm going to run up this trail a little ways. You cool
with that?"
"That's cool, buddy. You run on up ahead. But don't stray too far."
"I won't. I'll be just a little ways ahead of you."
"I know you will. I'll see you soon, sweet girl."
~ Pierce Goetz
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
thought of the day.339
“I consider religion the enemy of science because it short-circuits critical thought and gives believers an escape hatch to superstition. As long as religion teaches that the answers to real world issues can be found in revelation and authority and the interpretation of holy texts, belief is inimical to scientific thinking.”
~PZ Myers
~PZ Myers
Monday, October 19, 2009
thought of the day.338
“Organized religion came of age...to fill many roles, not the least of which was the justification of power for the ruling elite. The ‘divine right of kings’ is not the invention of early-modern European monarchs. In fact, every chiefdom and state society known to archaeologists from around the world, including those in the Middle East, near East, Far East, North and South America, and the Polynesian Pacific islands, jutified political power through divine sanction, in which the chief, pharaoh, king, queen, monarch, emperor, sovereign, or ruler of whatever title claimed a relationship to God or the gods, who allegedly anointed them with the power to act on behalf of the divinity.”
Michael Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil, pg.33-34
Michael Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil, pg.33-34
Saturday, October 17, 2009
thought of the day.337
"Tell me a creation story more wondrous than that of a living cell forged from the residue of exploding stars. Tell me a story of transformation more magical than that of a fish hauling out onto land and becoming amphibian, or a reptile taking to the air and becoming bird, or a mammal slipping back into the sea and becoming whale. Surely this science-based culture of all cultures can find meaning and cause for celebration in its very own cosmic creation story."
-- Connie Barlow
-- Connie Barlow
Thursday, October 15, 2009
thought of the day.336
In the long run—the real long run—our actions make no difference at all. In the short run, they make all the difference.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
thought of the day.335
“Since there is no place large enough to contain so much happiness, you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you into everything you touch. You are not responsible. You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it, and in that way, be known.”
-Naomi Shihab
-Naomi Shihab
Monday, October 12, 2009
thought of the day. 334
Conversing with a fundamentalist Christian friend the other day I was struck by his statement that if it wasn’t for his God calling him to be other-centered, he would be very self-centered. But isn’t it far better, far more authentic, to be other-centered because one genuinely cares about others—has true empathy for others—than to be motivated by a “divine calling?”
“The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition.”
~ Albert Einstein
Monday, October 5, 2009
thought of the day.333
Beautiful thoughts about struggle and joy by my insightful sister,
Sandy Fish.
‘till you find your dream’….
10.4.09
Oh my our lives are hard and we can wonder, ‘what have I done to deserve such a fate’…’why me?’ ‘the only luck I have is bad luck, or I’d have no luck at all’….and again and again, thumping our chests with our question and crying out in our psyches, ‘why ME?!’…..
Spend a day at the grocery store and you’ll get your answer. There could be a chorus from every single customer, ‘help! Why me!‘ ‘Why us?!’ That’s more like it, Why US?….struggle, bad legs, humped backs, big bodies, frail ones, toothless, broken inside and out….single, married big large small tiny…..
Standing at the cookie demo cart for four hours I get to watch this human spectacle of us….I watch as the grocery shelves are scoured by these creatures who after a few hours all look like either descendants of birds or monkeys… foraging for food….we have to…we have to go and get food no matter how depressed or heartbroke or body bent we are….
I watch.
I cry. I do…I hold back tears at the bravery of most people. Their struggles are too much for me….at once I am grateful for my own struggles, they are what I barely handle….but these….I can almost smell the sofa on some of the pale soft bodies who have dragged themselves to the store to get food….and when I call out for them to try a cookie or ask how they are….they smile, they do, they smile! In spite of the flat tire, the broken tooth, the traffic ticket, the stolen purse, the transmission and the goddam computer crashing, they smile and say they are fine. A woman is hunched over making her way….so many seem to lumber or limp and in others you see the stress of it all on their faces as they frown at the different eggs or butter they must choose in spite of the divorce, the death, the disappointments, the disappointments, disappointments…..
This is our lot. I see that. We dress up our broken beleaguered bodies, pull a red sweater, clean and fresh, over the hump….place a bright pin on our collar buttoned up on the aging neck that has seen deaths by now of loved ones, the teens in new sneakers or shiny belts dressing up the aches, fears, manic gladnesses that turn at a text into sadnesses….the eyes twinkle after they bite a cookie, they raise it up, ‘these are good!’….there are sweet moments.
It is mostly struggle. That is our plight. It just simply is. And why have we been fed some notion of attaining comfort? That, that is some attainable goal? That, there is some comfy destiny some reach. I don’t believe it! It’s a lie! It is! I watch. I watch and watch and watch….. I see the huge burdens, physical or emotional….I see it…I smell it, I feel it….and I am impressed.
And I want to know, not how to attain comfort or riches-- things that are but a glamour…a glimmer of glamour of smoke and mirrors, illusion….but to know the struggle….to embrace that fact with maybe a wince but not a whine, not a why me, not a poor me…..but Me! We! I am here because I am struggling, therefore I know- I Am. No, no, not I THINK Therefore I am, I STRUGGLE Therefore I Am; I am, I am very much alive and there, aha, it is, the twinkle, the smile, the grandness of all who can do it….and say, “I’m Fine”….
The glory that we are not shiny photos in magazines, not popping out in high def luxury….not cruising in cars with painted smiles 24/7 being what is called prettiness….that is not alive and as far as I can tell and see when I watch for hours all of us….being alive is the goal…….living
The disappointments come from the lie. To try to believe a lie is to be weighted in a constant inert fog of disappointment….
There is substance in….working in the cold or lugging heavy things up and down hills in the heat; to have sore feet and not enough money, to feel lonely or inadequate or crowded and nervous, sick or sore, exhausted, frustrated. It brings, I suppose most would say, a ridiculous, smile to me….yet it is the finest sweetest lightest kind of joy…..because to feel these things, to be involved in the battle against the elements whether outside of us or inside of us or on our very bodies….is to share the burden of our humanness… and shared burdens are lighter….there now… that’s true… and so my struggle becomes my comfort giving me the knowledge that ‘I am’, one of us, which brings a joy that makes me smile and say, ‘I’m Fine!”
~ Sandy Fish
Sandy Fish.
‘till you find your dream’….
10.4.09
Oh my our lives are hard and we can wonder, ‘what have I done to deserve such a fate’…’why me?’ ‘the only luck I have is bad luck, or I’d have no luck at all’….and again and again, thumping our chests with our question and crying out in our psyches, ‘why ME?!’…..
Spend a day at the grocery store and you’ll get your answer. There could be a chorus from every single customer, ‘help! Why me!‘ ‘Why us?!’ That’s more like it, Why US?….struggle, bad legs, humped backs, big bodies, frail ones, toothless, broken inside and out….single, married big large small tiny…..
Standing at the cookie demo cart for four hours I get to watch this human spectacle of us….I watch as the grocery shelves are scoured by these creatures who after a few hours all look like either descendants of birds or monkeys… foraging for food….we have to…we have to go and get food no matter how depressed or heartbroke or body bent we are….
I watch.
I cry. I do…I hold back tears at the bravery of most people. Their struggles are too much for me….at once I am grateful for my own struggles, they are what I barely handle….but these….I can almost smell the sofa on some of the pale soft bodies who have dragged themselves to the store to get food….and when I call out for them to try a cookie or ask how they are….they smile, they do, they smile! In spite of the flat tire, the broken tooth, the traffic ticket, the stolen purse, the transmission and the goddam computer crashing, they smile and say they are fine. A woman is hunched over making her way….so many seem to lumber or limp and in others you see the stress of it all on their faces as they frown at the different eggs or butter they must choose in spite of the divorce, the death, the disappointments, the disappointments, disappointments…..
This is our lot. I see that. We dress up our broken beleaguered bodies, pull a red sweater, clean and fresh, over the hump….place a bright pin on our collar buttoned up on the aging neck that has seen deaths by now of loved ones, the teens in new sneakers or shiny belts dressing up the aches, fears, manic gladnesses that turn at a text into sadnesses….the eyes twinkle after they bite a cookie, they raise it up, ‘these are good!’….there are sweet moments.
It is mostly struggle. That is our plight. It just simply is. And why have we been fed some notion of attaining comfort? That, that is some attainable goal? That, there is some comfy destiny some reach. I don’t believe it! It’s a lie! It is! I watch. I watch and watch and watch….. I see the huge burdens, physical or emotional….I see it…I smell it, I feel it….and I am impressed.
And I want to know, not how to attain comfort or riches-- things that are but a glamour…a glimmer of glamour of smoke and mirrors, illusion….but to know the struggle….to embrace that fact with maybe a wince but not a whine, not a why me, not a poor me…..but Me! We! I am here because I am struggling, therefore I know- I Am. No, no, not I THINK Therefore I am, I STRUGGLE Therefore I Am; I am, I am very much alive and there, aha, it is, the twinkle, the smile, the grandness of all who can do it….and say, “I’m Fine”….
The glory that we are not shiny photos in magazines, not popping out in high def luxury….not cruising in cars with painted smiles 24/7 being what is called prettiness….that is not alive and as far as I can tell and see when I watch for hours all of us….being alive is the goal…….living
The disappointments come from the lie. To try to believe a lie is to be weighted in a constant inert fog of disappointment….
There is substance in….working in the cold or lugging heavy things up and down hills in the heat; to have sore feet and not enough money, to feel lonely or inadequate or crowded and nervous, sick or sore, exhausted, frustrated. It brings, I suppose most would say, a ridiculous, smile to me….yet it is the finest sweetest lightest kind of joy…..because to feel these things, to be involved in the battle against the elements whether outside of us or inside of us or on our very bodies….is to share the burden of our humanness… and shared burdens are lighter….there now… that’s true… and so my struggle becomes my comfort giving me the knowledge that ‘I am’, one of us, which brings a joy that makes me smile and say, ‘I’m Fine!”
~ Sandy Fish
Thursday, October 1, 2009
thought of the day.332
(From the Religious Tolerance web site)
How and why do people become Atheists?
A series of personal stories and journeys
A very common belief expressed by many conservative Christians is that many, perhaps most, Atheists are deceitful liars. They suggest that Atheists really do believe in the existence of God. However, Atheists deny this because if they admitted that he existed, they would have to come to terms with God's demands in their life concerning morality and ethics, salvation, heaven and hell, beliefs in the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, etc.
From the personal experiences I have had with the Atheist in our virtual office and with other Atheists, I suspect that this is a false understanding of why people become Atheists. That suspicion was confirmed by reading an Internet forum provided by Amazon.com. The personal stories of many Atheists indicate that people are forced to become Atheists because they become convinced -- often reluctantly -- that either:
An all-powerful, all knowing, all-present, creator God does not exist, or
The probability of the existence of such a God is extremely small.
They are often compelled to become Atheists because their personal ethics demand that they be true to themselves. They have no other option.
On 2007-SEP-09, Karen Terrell posted a new discussion to an Amazon.com religion forum called "Dear atheists." She wrote to the Atheists of the world:
"There are times when I actually feel more comfortable talking with you guys than with others on this Forum. I enjoy the intelligence and wit that you express. And I'd really like to hear how you came to be atheists. Were you brought up in atheistic homes? Or did you experience some epiphany that brought you to atheism? Or did you see a whole lot of hypocrisy amongst God-believers that just turned you off? Or did atheism come to you as a result of reasoning and education? Did any of you start off as Christians / Pagans / Muslims / Buddhists and then have some experience that took away your belief in a god?"
She appears to imply that Buddhists have a belief in God. Actually, most Buddhists have no concept of a deity.
Fourteen out of sixteen readers reacted positively to Karen's posting. The forum received 200 responses in its first 35 days. Some are shown below.
Two things struck me about the individual postings. There was an almost complete lack of spelling and grammatical errors. More important, there was a high level of respect for each other's postings that I have never observed before on a religious forum. Everyone was quite respectful of each other's opinions and beliefs.
Personal stories of conversion to Atheism:
"Ariex:" My childhood family life was disorganized, with only minimal contact with religion. In my teens, I found myself drawn to the "clean cut" among my schoolmates, and I began to be curious about Christianity. When I became engaged to a Christian girl, I took the leap and became a Christian, enthusiastically attending church. A couple of years after marriage I began to seriously study the Bible, beginning with a thorough reading from cover to cover, and immediately found problems. I sought answers from clergy, who pointed me to various apologetic works. These actually set off "alarm bells" in my head as I recognized things that seemed contrived and artificial, designed to save the reliability of the Bible, but I began to feel as if they were directed at people who were gullible and would believe anything. I kept at it, but the problems kept cropping up and the answers kept looking lame. Finally I started reading critical Biblical scholarship and found that there were answers, just not the ones I was hoping to find. I kept on studying and finally recognized the probability that gods were mythology, the product of ancient minds trying to explain their own existence and purpose. My search for "truth" began in 1964, and continues to this day.
James Longmire: I grew up in a nominally Baptist family. We did not go to church, or discuss religious matters. We did go thru some of the motions, including Sunday school, at least until I was expelled at the age of 8 ;o)
I can't recall ever believing in God, altho' I'm sure I must have at one time. I certainly remember believing in Santa! (but not the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, LOL)
Religion was never an issue where I grew up (Nova Scotia, mostly) and those who were overly vocal about their beliefs were looked upon as being slightly daft. Quite different from the US Bible Belt, I guess...
I was a bit of an evangelical atheist for a while, but eventually came to realize that such an approach was not only pointless, but was in fact, presumptuous. Who am I to tell people what to believe?
As I am a skeptic by nature, and a materialist philosophically, I regard all claims of the supernatural to be without merit. Still, I may very well be wrong, tho' I've yet to encounter either evidence for the supernatural, or even a compelling argument for its' existence.
So, I experienced no trauma, nor do I feel a sense of 'betrayal', as ... many other atheists seem to. The concept of the supernatural just never made sense to me. I know that 'absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence', but I also know that evidence cannot be found for the non-existent...
I believe in tolerance of other's beliefs, but not respect. Respect must be earned.
John E. Evans: I was a Christian from the time I was 5 until about 4 years ago. That is when I turned 40 and was compelled to know God as much as humanly possible. I wanted to love God more than any human that had walked the earth. I began a quest for truth that started with an in-depth study of the bible which I continue today, consultation with theologians, intensive book reading of almost a book a week for the past 4 years, interviewing church leaders, attending laity classes at SMU and much personal thinking.
I loved Jesus and God with all my heart. I never questioned heaven. I prayed almost every day. We were even one of those families that prayed before dinner in restaurants. I felt sorry for atheists and could not comprehend why they did not believe.
But early in my journey, as I was trying to wrap my mind around God, I decided that if God was anything, God was truth. So I made truth my god and decided to follow it wherever it led. I NEVER would have guessed it would have led me to atheism but it has. It was not pleasant letting go of the idea of God. It was scary and dark and lonely at first.
But I discovered a new way of seeing that makes far more sense and is actually far more interesting than my old way. Like opening a dirty window and feeling a spring breeze and morning light illuminate a dark musty room, I feel more alive than I ever did while accepting the Christian worldview. I feel like I am making steady progress toward a better understanding of reality and that is incredibly exciting and fulfilling.
Conley Thorn: I was born into a Baptist family in the hills of West Virginia. They were solidly religious, and my mother regularly read me stories from a large illustrated Bible. Later we moved to a small city in southern Virginia where I attended a rural public school. I was a sincere believer until about my 15th birthday, leader of a youth Baptist training class, etc. I had met two women missionaries and corresponded with them briefly after they returned to the Sudan. For three years I was privileged to attend a week-long summer church camp, the third year at Massanetta Springs, VA. On the first evening there, everyone assembled at an outdoor amphitheater for vespers. When the service ended it was beginning to get dark and red streaks were visible in the sky through the pines. I sat on the hillside, glorying in "God's universe" until everyone else had gone to their cabins. My "heart" seemed filled with glory, and I was certain I was communing with God. The following morning, in a Bible class, a lovely young lady asked the instructor a question regarding free will and predestination. His reply was to the effect that that was one of the thorniest problems in the Christian tradition. "A problem?" I thought--"in my religion?" It was almost a shock to me. I'd never before questioned any item of belief, nor heard anyone else do so. I began to wrestle with the seeming contradiction that had been posed. It was the first time I had realized that I could think critically about such things--probably the first time I realized I had the capacity to do so. Once begun, I continued the process fervently and fearlessly. I was agnostic within a month, though there were many more years of thought and study before I considered myself an atheist. But my apostasy resulted purely from intellection, not from any anger or disappointment with family, church or "God." I have always felt very fortunate that I had those years of experience in religion, and in Bible classes. It's a rich heritage that I would not want to have missed.
"LawStudent2187:" For me, there was nothing dramatic that led me to atheism. I'm a confirmed catholic, but I never really felt what others apparently do while I was going through the rituals. When I went to college and started spending more time critically thinking, I started to reevaluate the wisdom of the religious teachings I'd been exposed to. I too acknowledge the possibility there's a god, but I know of no good reason to believe in one.
"Zoltan:" It was easy, quick and painless, really. The Easter Bunny turned out to be a lie, Santa Claus turned out to be a lie, along with a whole lot of other things that adults tell kids. Stories about God always sounded suspect to me, if a little bit scary sometimes. When the things adults told me about God didn't pan out, he entered the same category as the bunny and the fat guy. I think I was about eight when I figured this out. Later, as an adult, I began to explore theism and religious belief. Everything I have encountered reinforces my childhood notion that all of theism is a sham.
"Ponger:" ... I don't blindly disbelieve. I look at how religion came to be and see a rational progression that has nothing to do with any real evidence of a god. And I understand that our the emotions and ego allow us to believe in anything from Astrology to Tarot cards to created a reality we can feel more comfortable in. So when I factor all this stuff in the evidenced gives me 99.99% confidence we created God in our own image. I am surprised most people don't see it this way. But I have been lucky to have a good life and don't need to find fulfillment by being made in God's image. ...
J. Stewart: I was raised in a very strict Christian home. My six siblings and I were home-schooled all of our lives; we never owned a television or a computer. There was no explanation, meaning or purpose outside of the Bible and we studied it for hours every day. My father is an international evangelist. As far as I know, I am the only atheist in my family.
I believe that my de-conversion occurred because I searched for answers; over a period of roughly ten years, I came to regard religion as being intelligently designed. I envy those who never truly believed. The trauma associated with my de-conversion is greater than anything I have ever experienced, but I survived and I suspect that this is more than can be said for many others. The freedom of being able to think for myself without the constraints of a totalitarian deity was worth the price.
Thomas A. Lewis: I was born-again at 12, home schooled for seventh grade with the usual creationist, "Christian history" propaganda (and sincerely believed it,) and baptized at 15.
That all started to unravel at about age 19 when I started to realize the psychological functionalism inherent in afterlife beliefs. At that point, religion became quite clearly false to me but I still held to a generic theism/deism. After that it was simply an intellectual journey. Sometime around my sophomore year in college I wanted to become a "better Christian" (I still called myself and believed the basic tenets of Christianity at this time even though in retrospect it is more accurately called "generic theism/deism.") and so I began studying my religion.
After about two years and 100 books ranging and hailing from both sides of creation/evolution, psychology of religion, history of religion, etc I was pretty sure that atheism was correct.
I still have an open mind and would accept a god (gods) if I found that plausible, for to me it is a simple question of correctness. However, I find that highly unlikely because a thoroughgoing naturalism seems to be the standard of reality.
bullet "Old man:" I came from a non-religious family. I envied my friends who believed in god and went to Sunday school. I read the Bible off and on throughout my life and I found nothing in it that wasn't in any other history book, fiction mythology book.
What convinced me was when I studied anthropology/evolution/mythology and found that religious mythology to be no different than any other mythology and today's science fiction stories.
Eric Pyle: My experience parallels that of old (but wise) man's. Like him, I felt no religious pressure from my family. Like him, I occasionally envied those who had faith. In my case, this wasn't true in childhood, but in my teens when I started to look around. The beauties of Dante, Milton, Bach, the cathedrals of Europe, these really appealed to me, and their aesthetics lured me to learn as much as I could about Christianity.
But as he wrote before, when you study history, anthropology, etc, you realize that every culture in history has had a religion. They have had as much reason to believe theirs as we have to believe one from ancient Palestine. They were as sincere and as intelligent as we are.
In the zillion years of human history, am I supposed to believe that only our supernatural unprovable beliefs are true? Though many generations have believed they were in "end times", in our case it's really true? That the theology of the trinity makes more sense than Hinduism or Jainism? Nope, can't believe that. I still love the art, though."
Daniel Burdette: My parents weren't the most religious people. My dad was an agnostic, and my mom always said she believed in God, but they were the types to just make the customary Easter & Christmas appearances at church. For some reason, they felt that we (my sisters and I) needed to go to Sunday school every week though.
So, early on, I was learning religious stuff pretty much every week. I don't know how critically I thought about it (being maybe 6 or 7 when I started), but I definitely remember it never seeming real to me.
I was very much an imaginative kid, always drawing pictures of monsters and dragons, and whatever else I could come up with, and while I knew the difference between reality and fiction, even the stuff I made up seemed more "real" than what they taught me every week at Sunday school. One day, in probably 3rd or 4th grade, our teacher was talking about how old the earth was, and he said something about it being only thousands of years old (I forget his exact number). Being a young boy, I had a fairly vested interest in dinosaurs, and his statement alarmed me.
I asked "But what about the dinosaurs? If Earth isn't millions of years old, when did the dinosaurs live?". His answer? "They didn't, their bones are just a trick of Satan". And with that, I was gone forever.
I still had to attend, per my parents wishes, until I finally negotiated my way out of it at age 12, but mentally, I was never back in that room after that. I *knew* that dinosaurs were real, and not the trick of some evil dude who I never really believed existed.
From there, I eventually looked into several other things (wiccan nonsense that was all the rage among loners in high school, LaVeyan Satanism, because it seemed "cool", etc), and found all of them lacking as well.
Beyond that, I never really thought seriously about it again. I'll debate religious beliefs, think about religious concepts, philosophy, etc...but nothing I've ever read, watched, or experienced has given me any reason to think that belief in a higher power is anything more than wishful thinking.
David Lister: ... I was raised in a nominally Christian family, although neither of my parents were churchgoers. As a teen, I was a member of a Presbyterian youth group, primarily for the exposure to social activities. A friend and I often attended churches of other denominations out of curiosity. It was through this habit that I was able to observe everything from the majesty of a Catholic midnight mass to the passion of a large evangelical service, a Billy Graham crusade held at the Seattle Domed Stadium, and the anti-music, anti-dancing, anti-everything teaching of a particular branch of Christian fundamentalism. While in the army, stationed in Italy, I briefly studied Mormon theology with the Mormon missionaries that were living nearby.
In other words, from a very early age, I've always been a religious seeker, but not for the typical reasons. I was more interested in understanding why people believed what they believed, and less interested in picking a belief system that I could then ascribe to.
For much of my adult life I was an agnostic, and I argued that atheism was as foolish as theism. Eventually, however, I came to understand that in reality I was an atheist. I think Richard Dawkins did it for me, when I read his quote (I think it was his and I'm paraphrasing here) that most people are atheists about all gods but one, but that atheists simply take it one god farther.
A light bulb went off in my head, and I realized that since I believed in no theology, I was without theology--therefore an atheist, by very definition of the word. It became revelation (if I can use that term) to me that to be an atheist one need not deny the possibility of a creator (proving a negative is, after all, impossible), but that he/she merely must choose to live without theology and to assume God's nonexistence, based on the lack of evidence to the contrary.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/atheist11.htm
How and why do people become Atheists?
A series of personal stories and journeys
A very common belief expressed by many conservative Christians is that many, perhaps most, Atheists are deceitful liars. They suggest that Atheists really do believe in the existence of God. However, Atheists deny this because if they admitted that he existed, they would have to come to terms with God's demands in their life concerning morality and ethics, salvation, heaven and hell, beliefs in the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, etc.
From the personal experiences I have had with the Atheist in our virtual office and with other Atheists, I suspect that this is a false understanding of why people become Atheists. That suspicion was confirmed by reading an Internet forum provided by Amazon.com. The personal stories of many Atheists indicate that people are forced to become Atheists because they become convinced -- often reluctantly -- that either:
An all-powerful, all knowing, all-present, creator God does not exist, or
The probability of the existence of such a God is extremely small.
They are often compelled to become Atheists because their personal ethics demand that they be true to themselves. They have no other option.
On 2007-SEP-09, Karen Terrell posted a new discussion to an Amazon.com religion forum called "Dear atheists." She wrote to the Atheists of the world:
"There are times when I actually feel more comfortable talking with you guys than with others on this Forum. I enjoy the intelligence and wit that you express. And I'd really like to hear how you came to be atheists. Were you brought up in atheistic homes? Or did you experience some epiphany that brought you to atheism? Or did you see a whole lot of hypocrisy amongst God-believers that just turned you off? Or did atheism come to you as a result of reasoning and education? Did any of you start off as Christians / Pagans / Muslims / Buddhists and then have some experience that took away your belief in a god?"
She appears to imply that Buddhists have a belief in God. Actually, most Buddhists have no concept of a deity.
Fourteen out of sixteen readers reacted positively to Karen's posting. The forum received 200 responses in its first 35 days. Some are shown below.
Two things struck me about the individual postings. There was an almost complete lack of spelling and grammatical errors. More important, there was a high level of respect for each other's postings that I have never observed before on a religious forum. Everyone was quite respectful of each other's opinions and beliefs.
Personal stories of conversion to Atheism:
"Ariex:" My childhood family life was disorganized, with only minimal contact with religion. In my teens, I found myself drawn to the "clean cut" among my schoolmates, and I began to be curious about Christianity. When I became engaged to a Christian girl, I took the leap and became a Christian, enthusiastically attending church. A couple of years after marriage I began to seriously study the Bible, beginning with a thorough reading from cover to cover, and immediately found problems. I sought answers from clergy, who pointed me to various apologetic works. These actually set off "alarm bells" in my head as I recognized things that seemed contrived and artificial, designed to save the reliability of the Bible, but I began to feel as if they were directed at people who were gullible and would believe anything. I kept at it, but the problems kept cropping up and the answers kept looking lame. Finally I started reading critical Biblical scholarship and found that there were answers, just not the ones I was hoping to find. I kept on studying and finally recognized the probability that gods were mythology, the product of ancient minds trying to explain their own existence and purpose. My search for "truth" began in 1964, and continues to this day.
James Longmire: I grew up in a nominally Baptist family. We did not go to church, or discuss religious matters. We did go thru some of the motions, including Sunday school, at least until I was expelled at the age of 8 ;o)
I can't recall ever believing in God, altho' I'm sure I must have at one time. I certainly remember believing in Santa! (but not the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, LOL)
Religion was never an issue where I grew up (Nova Scotia, mostly) and those who were overly vocal about their beliefs were looked upon as being slightly daft. Quite different from the US Bible Belt, I guess...
I was a bit of an evangelical atheist for a while, but eventually came to realize that such an approach was not only pointless, but was in fact, presumptuous. Who am I to tell people what to believe?
As I am a skeptic by nature, and a materialist philosophically, I regard all claims of the supernatural to be without merit. Still, I may very well be wrong, tho' I've yet to encounter either evidence for the supernatural, or even a compelling argument for its' existence.
So, I experienced no trauma, nor do I feel a sense of 'betrayal', as ... many other atheists seem to. The concept of the supernatural just never made sense to me. I know that 'absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence', but I also know that evidence cannot be found for the non-existent...
I believe in tolerance of other's beliefs, but not respect. Respect must be earned.
John E. Evans: I was a Christian from the time I was 5 until about 4 years ago. That is when I turned 40 and was compelled to know God as much as humanly possible. I wanted to love God more than any human that had walked the earth. I began a quest for truth that started with an in-depth study of the bible which I continue today, consultation with theologians, intensive book reading of almost a book a week for the past 4 years, interviewing church leaders, attending laity classes at SMU and much personal thinking.
I loved Jesus and God with all my heart. I never questioned heaven. I prayed almost every day. We were even one of those families that prayed before dinner in restaurants. I felt sorry for atheists and could not comprehend why they did not believe.
But early in my journey, as I was trying to wrap my mind around God, I decided that if God was anything, God was truth. So I made truth my god and decided to follow it wherever it led. I NEVER would have guessed it would have led me to atheism but it has. It was not pleasant letting go of the idea of God. It was scary and dark and lonely at first.
But I discovered a new way of seeing that makes far more sense and is actually far more interesting than my old way. Like opening a dirty window and feeling a spring breeze and morning light illuminate a dark musty room, I feel more alive than I ever did while accepting the Christian worldview. I feel like I am making steady progress toward a better understanding of reality and that is incredibly exciting and fulfilling.
Conley Thorn: I was born into a Baptist family in the hills of West Virginia. They were solidly religious, and my mother regularly read me stories from a large illustrated Bible. Later we moved to a small city in southern Virginia where I attended a rural public school. I was a sincere believer until about my 15th birthday, leader of a youth Baptist training class, etc. I had met two women missionaries and corresponded with them briefly after they returned to the Sudan. For three years I was privileged to attend a week-long summer church camp, the third year at Massanetta Springs, VA. On the first evening there, everyone assembled at an outdoor amphitheater for vespers. When the service ended it was beginning to get dark and red streaks were visible in the sky through the pines. I sat on the hillside, glorying in "God's universe" until everyone else had gone to their cabins. My "heart" seemed filled with glory, and I was certain I was communing with God. The following morning, in a Bible class, a lovely young lady asked the instructor a question regarding free will and predestination. His reply was to the effect that that was one of the thorniest problems in the Christian tradition. "A problem?" I thought--"in my religion?" It was almost a shock to me. I'd never before questioned any item of belief, nor heard anyone else do so. I began to wrestle with the seeming contradiction that had been posed. It was the first time I had realized that I could think critically about such things--probably the first time I realized I had the capacity to do so. Once begun, I continued the process fervently and fearlessly. I was agnostic within a month, though there were many more years of thought and study before I considered myself an atheist. But my apostasy resulted purely from intellection, not from any anger or disappointment with family, church or "God." I have always felt very fortunate that I had those years of experience in religion, and in Bible classes. It's a rich heritage that I would not want to have missed.
"LawStudent2187:" For me, there was nothing dramatic that led me to atheism. I'm a confirmed catholic, but I never really felt what others apparently do while I was going through the rituals. When I went to college and started spending more time critically thinking, I started to reevaluate the wisdom of the religious teachings I'd been exposed to. I too acknowledge the possibility there's a god, but I know of no good reason to believe in one.
"Zoltan:" It was easy, quick and painless, really. The Easter Bunny turned out to be a lie, Santa Claus turned out to be a lie, along with a whole lot of other things that adults tell kids. Stories about God always sounded suspect to me, if a little bit scary sometimes. When the things adults told me about God didn't pan out, he entered the same category as the bunny and the fat guy. I think I was about eight when I figured this out. Later, as an adult, I began to explore theism and religious belief. Everything I have encountered reinforces my childhood notion that all of theism is a sham.
"Ponger:" ... I don't blindly disbelieve. I look at how religion came to be and see a rational progression that has nothing to do with any real evidence of a god. And I understand that our the emotions and ego allow us to believe in anything from Astrology to Tarot cards to created a reality we can feel more comfortable in. So when I factor all this stuff in the evidenced gives me 99.99% confidence we created God in our own image. I am surprised most people don't see it this way. But I have been lucky to have a good life and don't need to find fulfillment by being made in God's image. ...
J. Stewart: I was raised in a very strict Christian home. My six siblings and I were home-schooled all of our lives; we never owned a television or a computer. There was no explanation, meaning or purpose outside of the Bible and we studied it for hours every day. My father is an international evangelist. As far as I know, I am the only atheist in my family.
I believe that my de-conversion occurred because I searched for answers; over a period of roughly ten years, I came to regard religion as being intelligently designed. I envy those who never truly believed. The trauma associated with my de-conversion is greater than anything I have ever experienced, but I survived and I suspect that this is more than can be said for many others. The freedom of being able to think for myself without the constraints of a totalitarian deity was worth the price.
Thomas A. Lewis: I was born-again at 12, home schooled for seventh grade with the usual creationist, "Christian history" propaganda (and sincerely believed it,) and baptized at 15.
That all started to unravel at about age 19 when I started to realize the psychological functionalism inherent in afterlife beliefs. At that point, religion became quite clearly false to me but I still held to a generic theism/deism. After that it was simply an intellectual journey. Sometime around my sophomore year in college I wanted to become a "better Christian" (I still called myself and believed the basic tenets of Christianity at this time even though in retrospect it is more accurately called "generic theism/deism.") and so I began studying my religion.
After about two years and 100 books ranging and hailing from both sides of creation/evolution, psychology of religion, history of religion, etc I was pretty sure that atheism was correct.
I still have an open mind and would accept a god (gods) if I found that plausible, for to me it is a simple question of correctness. However, I find that highly unlikely because a thoroughgoing naturalism seems to be the standard of reality.
bullet "Old man:" I came from a non-religious family. I envied my friends who believed in god and went to Sunday school. I read the Bible off and on throughout my life and I found nothing in it that wasn't in any other history book, fiction mythology book.
What convinced me was when I studied anthropology/evolution/mythology and found that religious mythology to be no different than any other mythology and today's science fiction stories.
Eric Pyle: My experience parallels that of old (but wise) man's. Like him, I felt no religious pressure from my family. Like him, I occasionally envied those who had faith. In my case, this wasn't true in childhood, but in my teens when I started to look around. The beauties of Dante, Milton, Bach, the cathedrals of Europe, these really appealed to me, and their aesthetics lured me to learn as much as I could about Christianity.
But as he wrote before, when you study history, anthropology, etc, you realize that every culture in history has had a religion. They have had as much reason to believe theirs as we have to believe one from ancient Palestine. They were as sincere and as intelligent as we are.
In the zillion years of human history, am I supposed to believe that only our supernatural unprovable beliefs are true? Though many generations have believed they were in "end times", in our case it's really true? That the theology of the trinity makes more sense than Hinduism or Jainism? Nope, can't believe that. I still love the art, though."
Daniel Burdette: My parents weren't the most religious people. My dad was an agnostic, and my mom always said she believed in God, but they were the types to just make the customary Easter & Christmas appearances at church. For some reason, they felt that we (my sisters and I) needed to go to Sunday school every week though.
So, early on, I was learning religious stuff pretty much every week. I don't know how critically I thought about it (being maybe 6 or 7 when I started), but I definitely remember it never seeming real to me.
I was very much an imaginative kid, always drawing pictures of monsters and dragons, and whatever else I could come up with, and while I knew the difference between reality and fiction, even the stuff I made up seemed more "real" than what they taught me every week at Sunday school. One day, in probably 3rd or 4th grade, our teacher was talking about how old the earth was, and he said something about it being only thousands of years old (I forget his exact number). Being a young boy, I had a fairly vested interest in dinosaurs, and his statement alarmed me.
I asked "But what about the dinosaurs? If Earth isn't millions of years old, when did the dinosaurs live?". His answer? "They didn't, their bones are just a trick of Satan". And with that, I was gone forever.
I still had to attend, per my parents wishes, until I finally negotiated my way out of it at age 12, but mentally, I was never back in that room after that. I *knew* that dinosaurs were real, and not the trick of some evil dude who I never really believed existed.
From there, I eventually looked into several other things (wiccan nonsense that was all the rage among loners in high school, LaVeyan Satanism, because it seemed "cool", etc), and found all of them lacking as well.
Beyond that, I never really thought seriously about it again. I'll debate religious beliefs, think about religious concepts, philosophy, etc...but nothing I've ever read, watched, or experienced has given me any reason to think that belief in a higher power is anything more than wishful thinking.
David Lister: ... I was raised in a nominally Christian family, although neither of my parents were churchgoers. As a teen, I was a member of a Presbyterian youth group, primarily for the exposure to social activities. A friend and I often attended churches of other denominations out of curiosity. It was through this habit that I was able to observe everything from the majesty of a Catholic midnight mass to the passion of a large evangelical service, a Billy Graham crusade held at the Seattle Domed Stadium, and the anti-music, anti-dancing, anti-everything teaching of a particular branch of Christian fundamentalism. While in the army, stationed in Italy, I briefly studied Mormon theology with the Mormon missionaries that were living nearby.
In other words, from a very early age, I've always been a religious seeker, but not for the typical reasons. I was more interested in understanding why people believed what they believed, and less interested in picking a belief system that I could then ascribe to.
For much of my adult life I was an agnostic, and I argued that atheism was as foolish as theism. Eventually, however, I came to understand that in reality I was an atheist. I think Richard Dawkins did it for me, when I read his quote (I think it was his and I'm paraphrasing here) that most people are atheists about all gods but one, but that atheists simply take it one god farther.
A light bulb went off in my head, and I realized that since I believed in no theology, I was without theology--therefore an atheist, by very definition of the word. It became revelation (if I can use that term) to me that to be an atheist one need not deny the possibility of a creator (proving a negative is, after all, impossible), but that he/she merely must choose to live without theology and to assume God's nonexistence, based on the lack of evidence to the contrary.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/atheist11.htm
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