This could be a much longer response, going over my background and
struggles with religion, how good it felt to believe that there was
always someone invisible watching over me, that there was someone who
saw all injustice and ensured that it all came out right in the end,
but frankly, I don’t think there’s anything there that you haven’t
already read or experienced yourself.
I remember during my youth I was pretty “spiritual” and believed in an after life, a higher power, etc. I didn’t affiliate myself with any particular religion. I would take a cursory interest in the main ones, but always being an independent (some would say stubborn) thinker I reveled in figuring things out for myself. Why my starting position was that of a spiritual nature I’m not wholly sure of. I wasn’t raised in a religious home or had anyone close to me during my impressionable youth that was overly religious. Maybe it was simply the general consensus in the environment I grew up in – anyway.
I grew up in Northwestern Minnesota in a nominally Christian household; Mom and Dad took us to church most Sundays, and it was usually the Methodist church, although once in a while we would go to a Catholic mass, a Baptist “come to Jesus” meeting, or a Lutheran church — just for variety, I guess. They didn’t say much about religion and it didn’t seem all that important; it was just what you did. I remember in about sixth grade that one of the neighborhood kids said that he could get away with anything he wanted to do, as long as he asked a priest for forgiveness later. He was from a Catholic family, and Mom and Dad told me that he was mistaken about that. I also went to a movie about being saved where I told the nice young man in a suit that I accepted Jesus into my heart; but I didn’t feel any different in the next few days, so I soon forgot about it.
Yeah, right, the Discovery Institute appeals to science-minded people. Here’s an interesting analysis of the 2500 people who bother to follow the Discovery Institute’s twitter feed: the top 25 or so followers are all apologists for Christianity, with only two exceptions, who are primarily classified as political. Those two? Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter.
I checked. Neither Malkin nor Coulter follow me. What a relief!
Also, I tried to look at my twitter followers and see if there were any consistent patterns. Not that I could see, but there were 118,000 of them — I took one look at that roiling mob and ran away.
For most of my life – late teens until mid-30’s – I was an Evangelical Christian, and this wasn’t just a social identification for me. I really believed, I really loved Jesus. My freshman year of college I went to a little Bible college in Minnesota, and seriously considered becoming a pastor or missionary (fortunately in the end I decided to pursue engineering). Over the years I attended various churches within the evangelical/Pentecostal part of the Christian spectrum – Assemblies of God, Vineyard Christian Fellowships, occasionally Baptist or independent churches – but always places that took the Bible seriously and believed that Jesus should be the #1 priority in a believer’s life. At various times I led youth groups, attended men’s fellowship groups, went to prayer meetings, and volunteered for various special events. I tithed. I hosted missionaries in my home when they visited our church on fundraising trips. And, I’m now ashamed to say, for a couple years in the late 90’s I helped run a pray-the-gay-away program that was sponsored by my church. My churches were for most of that time the center of my social and personal life.
It’s a serious question! I once thought that maybe Douglas Axe was going to be a serious creationist foe for a change: he has a real Ph.D. in chemical engineering, and he seemed to avoid saying the egregiously stupid things all the other creationists say. And then I saw this little clip of Doug Axe digging in his heels and denying reality — he makes a bogus mathematical argument that evolution is impossible, and flatly denies the existence of any transitional forms — and I got to wondering. Was he always this stupid and I didn’t know it because he kept his mouth mostly shut, or did he gradually become increasingly idiotic as he hung out with IDiots?
He doesn’t believe in change, which would suggest that he’s always been this way. On the other hand, he does believe in Intelligent Design creationism, so maybe he was guided towards stupidity. But then, if he believes purposeful design can shape organisms, why is he denying the existence of transitional forms?
Ah, screw it. I’m just writing him off…another creationist reveals the root ignorance of their position.
I was born rural, poor and white in western Canada, a region soaked in Christianity in all its rainbow of heresies and home to one wannabee theocracy that ruled a province for some years. Prairie communities might have churches as half the buildings in town. Because the populations were/are sparse, the community villages and towns can’t isolate parts. People have to interact, intersect marriages happen.
A creationist on twitter is pestering me to ‘debate’ her. Here’s a sampling of her arguments and style.
No way can we have a conversation about that in a 140 character limit. So I’m telling her to come here and expand on her ideas, if she can.
But first, I’d like her to answer a little quiz to see if she’s worth wasting time on.
What is a typical mutation rate? (be specific about the units!)
Are most mutations deleterious, neutral, or beneficial?
What is the difference between phenotype and genotype?
What is the difference between mutation and “deformity”?
What is “elephant disease”?
That’s a start. I’m going to tell her on Twitter to come here and address these very simple questions. Anyone want to take bets on whether she bothers?
I hope you’ve been spending your Blasphemy Day thinking irreverent thoughts and committing sacrilegious acts. I’ve been at a humanist conference where we damned religion to heck, and I’m about to board an airplane where I will spend the flight putting finishing touches on a profane pro-science and anti-religion (anti-moderate religion, even) column for Free Inquiry, and I’ll try to find a few minutes to cuss out the non-existent angels who are not holding my airplane up in the sky.
But also, this is serious business. Consider the young Greek man who has been arrested for mocking a cleric; Alexander Aan, arrested in Indonesia for denying the existence of god; Alber Saber, arrested in Egypt for linking to a stupid movie that mocked Mohammed; Rimsah Masih, accused of desecrating the Quran and facing hateful death threats; Asia Bibi, sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan; and too many others to list. Consider that the European Union has just called for “full respect of religion” and “the importance of respecting all prophets” — blasphemy laws are spreading.
So blaspheme today! Assert your right to deny bullshit loudly and honestly!
It’s been difficult to be an open atheist in my society. I went into a profession dominated by religious men, and while it doesn’t interfere with the work we do, I’m often faced with smug Christians trying to prove their superiority. I am an atheist firefighter, the only one I know. And here’s why.
