Having grown up in secular Holland in the 1980’s I don’t need a reason to be an atheist. One’s an atheist by default. Those attending church on a regular basis are either few and far between or tend to live in the heavily segregated villages in the Dutch ‘Bible belt’. The only interesting question that pertains to my situation would be; “why didn’t I become a Christian?”.
Some of the sleaziest people I know are creationists (not all of them, of course). There’s something about holding an irrational, unsupportable belief that makes them desperate to find vindication by any means possible, and that justifies lying, cheating, and thoroughly reprehensible behavior. “By any means possible” is their motto.
I got a long email from some people who had tried to deal with Eric Hovind and Sye ten Bruggencate — I know, all I have to do is mention those names and already everyone knows the story that follows will be slimy — and rather than try to paraphrase it, I’ve just posted the whole thing below the fold. The Hovind/ten Bruggencate pair are really the very worst of the creationists I’ve encountered — Ray Comfort is dumber, Ken Ham is more conniving, but these two…they truly inspire deep fountains of disgust.
My parents were Church Of England, mildly practicing (more my mother than my father). My grandparents were strongly practicing C of E (as strong as that gets anyway – that is they went to church every week and all that).
However – my father works in oil and his job took him around a lot of places including the Middle East, the Caribbean and now, Louisiana. So there were lots of ideas flying around when I was a kid. My first school was a ‘Gospel School’ (I was the only white boy in the whole school!), and my leaving present was the Good News Bible with a picture of the island the school was on.
I believe two varieties of atheists exist, which I call “small-A” and “big-A.” Small-A atheists comprise more or less ALL atheists; small-A atheism is simply the fact of not believing in any gods or practicing any theistic religion (at least, not with the understanding that any of it is real in any sense but cultural).
All big-A Atheists are small-A atheists, but only some small-A atheists are big-A Atheists. To be a big-A Atheist is to embrace the counter-culture surrounding atheism, to recognize it as a part of who you are, and to be as outspoken about it as is comfortable for each. The big, red A that so many of us display in our various corners of the social network, on our cars or cubicle walls (for those living in states where such wouldn’t get you lynched) – that’s one good example of what represents big-A Atheism. It is not only a lack of belief, but a form of expression for the sparse few of us dotted like lighthouses around seas of theists, cranks, crackpots and the terminally incurious.
Because I don’t understand what you ask me to believe in and because I don’t think you do either.
Because I don’t put a name on what science doesn’t yet know.
Y’all remember Pastor Tom, right? Weird cranky Christian who got himself banned some time ago, ran a blog that he called “Hard Truth” in which he recited conservative dogma and called himself brave for doing it? He’s back. He’s started up his blog again, and guess what? I partly inspired him!
I wondered over to Pharyngula, where our old pal PZ Myers writes. I looked at a couple things, who he was picking on now, if my name was still in his “dungeon”(it is), and what his traffic was llike. (He has a “sitemeter” link at the bottom of his page) And I was shocked at what I found.
Yes, you are seeing this correct. Pharyngula’s traffic is way, way down. I must point out that I have absolutely no idea what has caused this. But none the less, it was very motivating to see the great Pharyngula down by around eighty-four percent.
This encouraged me because it showed me that changes in this world, however small, however insignificant (which, let us be very clear, the fact that PZ’s traffic is plummeting is very insignificant) can happen, and that Christians have to remain on offense. This is why I’m back doing this. This is why I hope that I can be the best pastor, husband, soul-winner, father, etc. that I can be. Because I know it makes a difference because I know God is still on the throne. Please don’t misunderstand me, seeing a meaningless atheist blog down in traffic is not why I’ve come back to blogging, it was just something that encouraged me along the way to making this decision.
It’s true. You know, that move we made last August? The traffic at Scienceblogs is way, way down, because I’ve moved most of my efforts here, to Freethoughtblogs. The site at Sb only gets partial content, everybody knows it, and so almost everyone comes here now, where traffic is way way up. He has absolutely no way of knowing what has caused this, except maybe for the big bold banner at the top of every page that says:
More articles by PZ Myers can be found on Freethoughtblogs at the new Pharyngula!
You know, the banner with three links to the new network so that no one would miss it. Except Pastor Tom.
Poor Pastor Tom, I have some HARD TRUTH for you: you’re dumb as a bag of slugs.
Before crying triumph at the decline of the heathen, he ought to take a look at Freethoughtblogs. We’re his worst nightmare.
My journey to atheism was not long or difficult. I was raised in a Reform Jewish home that was not particularly religious. I grew up in a city where there was a fairly large Jewish population in the suburbs, but there were very few other Jews within the city. My sister, two teachers, and I were the only Jewish people in my high school of 1,000 students. At the same time, I did not identify with anyone my age at the synagogue because I attended a city school. Hence, my Jewish identity always had more to do with not being Christian than it did with actually being Jewish (I should point out that despite my minority status in school, I never experienced anything beyond glancing anti-Semitism).
As a teen and in my twenties, I came to the conclusion that no religion should be taken literally, but I still hung onto the idea of an unknowable god. In later twenties, I became increasingly uncomfortable as I realized that if there was a god, it must be extremely cruel. Then, in the fall of 2008, I had my epiphany moment while mowing the lawn. Not long before then, a friend had recommended the Radio Lab podcast and upon first listen, I was hooked. That day, I was listening to the episode titled “The (Multi) Universe(s),” which is an extended interview of Brian Green by Robert Krulwich. It begins with a discussion of infinity: In an infinite universe, all patterns, no matter how complex, will repeat. My pulse literally quickened as began to mull this over. For lack of a better description, it was like a religious revelation but ironically, it was the final step in my rejection of the guiding hand. Although it wasn’t expressly discussed in the podcast, my brain made the logical leap. In an infinite universe, all patterns, no matter how complex will not just repeat; all patterns will be attempted. Suddenly, evolution made sense to me in a way it never had before.
As someone who claims an affinity for logic, I felt silly for never having thought about it before. After all, I’d heard the old joke about infinite monkeys producing Shakespeare, but had never thought to apply the concept beyond the joke. But now that I was thinking about it, I realized that on an infinite scale, if something is even remotely possible, it is a certainty that it will happen somewhere. If you consider only the Earth, without looking beyond it, then the odds of all the variables lining up the way they did so as to give rise to life are infinitesimal. At that scale, the idea that a guiding hand was necessary is understandable. But in an infinite universe, it was not only possible, but inevitable that somewhere and sometime, a planet exactly like ours would happen. All you need is randomness and time, not god.
Since that day, I’ve read and heard much more and I confesses that I have only the most superficial understanding the various multiverse theories. I now appreciate that whether or not there is an infinite amount of the matter necessary for life as we know it is an open question. But the idea still holds, and I will not go back. On a large enough scale, life happening was just a matter of time, not divinity. Now, if I am asked, “What do you believe in if you don’t believe in God?” I respond, “I believe the Universe is very, very big.”
Infinity
United States
A Deconversion Story Of A Non-Converted
What bad thing happened to you to make you hate god so much?
Well, besides the fact that it is impossible for me to “hate” something that I think of as a fictional character in a particularly poorly written collection of essays, nothing. I’ve led a pretty charmed life. My monogamous parents got married after my mother graduated high school and they’ve been married ever since. They’re still together and they still love each other. I had a younger sister, I grew up in the suburbs, got good grades in school, had great teachers, a best friend, and a dog. I went to private school for high school and got accepted to the college of my choice. I started dating when I was 16, but I had “boyfriends” as early as 13. I wasn’t abused, I wasn’t beaten, my parents loved each other and they loved us kids, I had both sets of grandparents until I was an adult, I had aunts and uncles and cousins to grow up with, I went to church every Sunday and I sang in the choir in high school as well edited the church paper and was a youth group leader.
Libby Anne did a “Why I am an atheist” post a little while ago, and in it she mentioned how she’d been brought up to believe Ken Ham and his creationist nonsense, but when she actually started looking beyond the inbred, incestuous creationist literature, she discovered that the evidence actually rested with evolution. Ken Ham noticed that post, and complained about it. Libby Anne wasn’t a True Christian™, he said; if she’d been exposed to more AiG propaganda she wouldn’t have left the fold; she was lost when she went to an evil secular college. And, of course, the standard defense:
It’s not that “we know the Bible is true because young earth creationism is true,” but rather because the Bible is true we can believe what God said in Genesis about the time frame in which He created.
The evidence doesn’t matter. The bible says it, therefore they believe it.
Libby Anne does a fine job defending her position, and she sees right through the dogmatists at Answers in Genesis:
And the solution Ken Ham and Dr. Purdom make? Double down. That’s pretty much it. Teach the same things, just more. Oh, and isolate yourself and your children from other points of view – oh the dangers of the state college or “compromised” Christian college! Interestingly, I see the same thing happening with all too many homeschool families. They say their goal is to “teach god’s truth” and “shelter” their children from bad influences, but what they really mean is indoctrinate and isolate. And that, quite simply, is what Ken Ham and Dr. Purdom are advocating.
The funny thing is, I don’t plan to do any such thing with my daughter. I’m not afraid of her hearing other perspectives or arguments or evidence. I’m not afraid of her hearing and digesting different viewpoints. My goal is not to teach her to believe one specific thing, but to open her mind and teach her to think critically and come to her own conclusions. Ken Ham and Dr. Purdom, though, refuse to do that. Because, apparently, exposing children to a variety of viewpoints and teaching them to think critically and make their own decisions is dangerous.
That’s exactly right. How you educate your kids isn’t a matter of hiding them away from everything in the world you don’t like, because eventually they’ll grow up and look around (unless you’ve done a really good job of stunting their minds) and discover it all anyway. Expose them to it all, fearlessly. Teach them how to think, not what to think. And then what happens?
They discover that creationism is a lie, and science opens doors to the whole wide universe.
We all know now that Sam Harris has Muslim friends.
I’m proud to say I have humanist friends.
It is true that fear, hatred, and hostility of some Western people toward Islam and Muslims help made Muslims all over the world more religious, more fundamentalists, and more terrorists. We who were born in Muslim family but became an atheists and fighting Muslim fundamentalists know very well how difficult this fight has become.
We know there is a conflict. But the conflict is not between the West and Islam. Or West and East, or Christianity/Judaism/Hinduism and Islam. The conflict is between secularism and fundamentalism, between rational logical minds and irrational blind faith, between innovation and tradition, between humanism and barbarism, between the future and the past, between the people who value freedom and the people who do not.
