Most excellent news: Foundation Beyond Belief is going international, opening a new chapter in Australia. If you’re interested in making charitable donations, and resent the idea that your money might be used to sponsor superstitious dogma, Foundation Beyond Belief is the organization to consult for secular charities.
I was never raised religious. For most of my youth, the concept of A Big Daddy In the Sky ™ never even existed to me. At my public primary school I was in a class called “morals”, the alternative to catholic teaching class. There was 4-5 kids in there… We were taken out of the classroom and put in another to talk about inane things I don’t remember to this day. Mostly topics about general public behaviour. The big line they would tell us though is that we are learning everything they’re learning in catholic class without the jesus part. That would make me laugh later in my life, but as a child I just didn’t think about it. Jesus was some naked dude on a cross. I had a vague idea that he was something about Christmas time… But since that it has the vague name of “Noël” in french, I didn’t see the connection. Noël’s mascot was Santa, and was about turkey dinner, a pretty tree and new Nintendo games. Especially new Nintendo games.
There was only a couple events in my young times that I remember coming into contact with the religious, besides a boring as hell wedding and christening. One time was in 5th grade, when a substitute teacher asked us to pray before class. I gave her a blank stare and said “But I’m in morals class! I don’t pray, it’s not on my school curriculum!” and the teacher answered “But you don’t have to be in catholic class to pray. Just do it and you’ll see God will be happy.” I don’t think she realized that the concept completely escaped my mind. So I closed my eyes really hard realized I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I opened my eyes and saw the other kids where mumbling over their folded hands. It didn’t look like a healthy practice so my mind started wandering off. After a couple minutes or so the teacher said prayer time was over and smiled at me. I smiled back. I was a couple minutes closer to going back home to play Zelda on SNES and I was not scolded for daydreaming in class. Excellent.
The next one was on the last days of class before Christmas vacation. I think it was on the same school year or the next. The school decided to take us to church. Yet again I objected, saying I was no supposed to go to church. Every other year, I stayed behind and did christmas time artcraft instead. Teacher said I was going. So I went. It was some sort of christmas time play with the priest dressed up as some dude called Saint Nicholas. He sternly spoke down to us saying that in his time children were not getting video games at christmas and instead were getting fruits an- oh wait, I stopped listening there. Screw that guy. I never told my parents. It looked trivial and I didn’t wanna scare them off into buying me fruits.
Up until that point I never considered myself an atheist. I was just nothing. Religion was not a care in my brain. Later on I would think about all that happened to me and I would be aghast at this happening in a public school but that wasn’t here nor now. Highschool went on with nothing happening besides me getting beat up like any other nerd.
The day I started calling myself an atheist was sometime in the year I turned 18. It was rather silly, but it was thanks to a person I met online, a girl my age who was running a Mega Man X fansite I was helping with. Then one day I started wondering she put God before everyone else in the site credits. It didn’t make sense to me that one would put God before her parents, sibblings and friends. She started explaining to me that God was a jealous but loving God and that he went before everyone else… Even those you love. I genuinely started wondering about that. What do I know about God? I don’t know anything, never bothered to learn. Am I wasting my life? What if I die tomorrow, was I going to the great barbecue? So I asked her to teach me what she knew. She gladly spoke to me about praying, the ten commandments and most interestingly that accepting Jesus as your personal savior would automatically wash away all the wrongs you did in your life… It didn’t make much sense to me. But it looked convenient, considering I fucking cuss a lot. I also pointed out that the Adam and Eve thing looked a bit silly and that, as an amateur astronomer, I sorta knew the Earth was pretty old. She denied it all, speaking about the young earth, Noah and that Darwin didn’t know jack according to the Bible. I knew the Noah story of course, I wasn’t that much of an idiot and I knew it came from the Bible, but it was just that… A story. Therefore I asked her “What proves that your God is the One True God? Why aren’t you a buddhist?” she meekly told me to read the Bible, and that all would be made Holy Clear and I would see the Light…
So I went to the library and borrowed a Bible. I then proceeded to read the full thing from cover to cover over a couple weeks…
And today I’m an atheist! Thank you, Bible!
Michelle Rochon
There’s this thing called Darwin Sunday where churches are encouraged to have sermons endorsing good science and evolution. I am not a fan, because what I see are priests babbling badly about science and using it as a hook to promote Jesus. Ken Ham has rather different reasons for disliking Darwin Sunday, though: he detests those liberal churches that compromise on “millions of years”, and also something a little surprising. Or not so surprising, given his fundamentalism.
I did tell the reporter that the list of churches that have signed up for Evolution Weekend are mainly theologically liberal churches, and I added, with an inordinate number of women clergy. The particular Sacramento-area church the writer reported on has a woman pastor—who obviously doesn’t understand the difference between operational (observational) science and historical science.
These churches allow women to speak? Oh, horrors.
Ken Ham is not one who should be lecturing those ignorant wimmenfolk on not understanding the nature of science, either, since he has made up a set of criteria for science that make no sense at all. That “Were you there?” bullshit, for example.
We all had a good time at the Darwin on the Palouse event, but for one thing: Jen got all the batty creationists, and I didn’t. My blood lust was not sated.
It was primarily two people who were especially obnoxious last night. One was a guy in the back of the room who got the microphone, pulled out a notebook, and started reading a long, rambling, incoherent statement, the gist of which was “There are creation scientists, and they really are too scientists, and evolution is not a science”. He was allowed to babble on far too long; Jen and Fred Edwords answered his question, dismissively and honestly, and then he reiterated the same nonsense. The audience was geting exasperated and fidgety, and people were telling him to sit down and give other people a chance to ask questions…flipped to another page in his notebook and started stammering out more longwinded creationist cliches. He was an inconsiderate and arrogant moron who was only parrotting stupid creationist tropes. He finally got his microphone taken away.
And now he has a supporter expressing his dismay on Facebook!
The presentations this evening at the U of I campus were well presented, thought provoking and alarming. Unfortunately, the question and answer period was cantankerous, disrespectful and all together unproductive. Surprisingly this behavior appeared to be initiated and sustained by members of the host organization. If this is how Palouse Coalition of Reason intends to treat their guests, I fear that future attempts to promote ideas centered around critical thinking and scientific understanding will be limited to a narrow group of like minded participants. Or perhaps this is the intent?
Sorry, Mr Warwell: not only was the creationist not expressing ideas, not only was he treated with excessive courtesy when he insisted on presenting an ill-thought out, ignorant manifesto, but he was an asshole, too. Please do not bother to “contribute” to other discussions on this issue: his performance was embarrassing and really deserved far harsher ridicule than he got.
The second creationist started his babble with noise about Mt St Helens and amazing whale fossils in Peru that are supposed to support the claims of the Genesis Flood. I already knew this story: it’s a classic example of a creationist quotemining the scientific literature, and it’s actually something I dealt with in a recent comment, prompted by that inane twit, David Buckna. The Peruvian whale fossils were the result of multiple deposition events, not at all compatible with a single great flood, and were produced in a sheltered harbor where whale carcasses drifted and were swiftly buried by diatom blooms. I got a bit irate and shouted him down; I told him it was not evidence for his myth, and that he was simply cherry-picking the data.
Someone else wrote in complaining about the event.
Actually, I Dislike this page now after seeing the embarrassing performance last night. I believe in evolution certainly, and I also know that since none of us can say for sure what the history of the Earth is, my reality is just that–a belief. I expect campus groups to have respect for everyone, and a respect for differences amongst us, and what went on last night was an outrageous disrespect to anyone with a religious faith, or anyone who questions the conclusions of scientists. This is the way to turn people away from one another and against each other, and an excellent way to turn religious students and community members away from the idea of evolution. You guys did no one any favors last night.
NO. This is po-mo shallow bullshit. We do not have to have respect for discredited, disconfirmed, dishonestly presented nonsense, like those creationists were doing. In a discussion of matters of empirical reality, strong skepticism is essential and useful…a meeting in which we were expected to show deference to liars and frauds and ignoramuses like those two creationists would not be a productive event.
There’s a place for more conciliatory, compromising tactics, but there’s also a place to take the muzzles off the wild dogs and turn them loose on the misleading crackpots of the young earth creationist movement.
Maybe that’s why these guys didn’t appear at my talk: they didn’t want to get shredded.
Kitty Mervine is trying to raise money to produce a book of fairy tales for children. This is a cause worth supporting, because these are stories told from a skeptical perspective.
Take a look at the announcement, and read the sample story — chip in if it’s a cause you think worth supporting.
It’s another long travel day for me, so you’ll just have to settle for a little video for a while. I agree so damned hard with this message that it is a suitable proxy.
I cannot remember a time when I didn’t suffer from what was later diagnosed as Bipolar Disorder. Imagine being a child (even under the age of 5) and being so depressed that suicide seemed the only option. I was raised as a practicing Christian. My mother took me to church every Sunday and I took in what was said. I believed that the way I felt was a punishment or moral failing from God for some failure on my part. I tried very hard to be “good.” When I reached middle school the illness reached its height. During my years in the fifth and sixth grade I was suicidal daily. Everything felt dark and unchangeable. I carried a piece of broken glass with me at all times so if the pain became too much I could slit my wrists at any moment. This was when the bipolar aspect really kicked in and I had psychotic symptoms. I thought people met and planned on ways to get me to kill myself; the blood couldn’t be on their hands. If people were talking and laughing as I went by, it must be about me. I redoubled my efforts to be good, even though the whole religion thing had begun to seem suspect. I clearly remember sitting in pew somewhere between the ages of 5 and 8 and thinking, “this just doesn’t make any sense.” Luckily for me, I was born with a very scientific mind. I always had questions and logic and science seemed to me to be the best paths to a clear answer. Initially these took the form of me questioning what was wrong with me, why was I a suffering? Between 5th and 8th grade I researched mental illness and determined I was suffering from either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. I still believed, even with my scientific views, that my illness was my fault. The religion in which I was raised seemed to imply I simply needed to try harder and become a better Christian. I tried to reach out for help from adults, but my fear that my illness was brought on by myself precluded me from doing so. As I grew up, I began to question even more. I was always interested in astronomy and physics and they focused my mind on science and the scientific method. Despite my illness, I excelled in school. I moved on through high school and began college. I finally was able to ask my parents to send me to a psychiatrist. After trying several drugs, I found one that keeps the demons mostly a bay. I married a wonderful man. I continued schooling and received my AA, BS and recently my MS.
There is simply no way there is a god. Why would a god allow a child to suffer in the way that I did? Why would a god allow any child to suffer from disease, neglect or abuse? These were the initial questions that started my atheism. I always found the basic Christian tenets iffy at best, even when I was very young; but I thought it must be because I was not trying hard enough. As an adult, I now easily state my atheism when asked. I am surprised at how many people ask me, “but what happens when you die?” I find their fear of the unknown a poor basis for believing in a deity. I have experienced fear in my life, but I still look out at our amazing universe and am at peace with the idea that I may never know all the answers. And that’s ok.
Anonymous
United States
I was raised in a house with a large property far from any city, where the night sky alone provides you with all you need in order to begin dealing with the fact that the universe is….. really freaking complicated. I would play outside on a regular basis, digging in the ground, taking apart plant life, searching for new creatures in my pond, and almost every time I’d learn something new. When I was first really introduced to religion by one of my best friends I was about 9. I went home and told my parents about this idea that my friend’s family had about this guy who hangs around behind the scenes and takes care of all the stuff we can’t understand. They as usual kept their own beliefs out of my way and encouraged me to explore this new concept and build my own opinion. When I approached my friend about it he said that I could attend church with him and his family one day. When I asked what church is all about he told me, you get up early Sunday morning, go to a building with a bunch of other people and listen to a man talk about a book for an hour or two. I declined without a moments hesitation, Sunday was one of my only two days off from school where I could play at home where I felt comfortable. I was fine with not knowing the supposed secrets of the universe, as long as I could explore it on my own.
My interest in religion disappeared for years, I never felt that it effected me. I saw it maybe as a fine and easy to understand placeholder for reality through the ages until science came along. My aforementioned friend and I were perfectly fine without speaking about religion, going on around 17 years now and he’s never once pushed anything on me. Him being my only window to religion for many years I thought that was the case for all of the religious community, they had a belief as a family, it made them feel good, but they didn’t literally believe every word and didn’t try to change my life with it.
It wasn’t until later on that I started to get a bigger picture, that there’s plenty of people who do take everything in their bible literally and without evidence, something I cannot even imagine doing. In my opinion if you want to get a deep feeling from a book, pick up a science text, read about the solar system, evolution, quantum mechanics, it all seems like fiction or even magic, the deep feeling comes when you realize that it has real evidence in it’s favor. If I read something new it almost takes me back to when I was a kid and I’d find something I’d never seen before on my property. When I hear of those from the religious community, for instance teaching children to ask dead end questions like “were you there?” when in the presence of a moon rock and told it’s age, I almost get personally offended. Asking creative questions is how we move forward, if everything is already explained as magic, we stall. I became an atheist from a previously apathetic standpoint because of miseducation, a reason quite benign in comparison to the atrocities I now realize are carried out in the names of gods all over the world on a daily basis. I am an atheist because I fear for our future and refuse to be associated with those who would see those fears come to realization, whether unconsciously, or with the best of intentions.
Will
Canada
I wish I’d had these data yesterday. I gave a creationist-bashing talk, and my introductory slides were intended to show the generally deplorable state of science education in this country. I used some national data, but what would have been more dramatic would have been to use something local and even more extreme. Walla Walla University, a Seventh Day Adventist college, did a survey of student views on origins. There is lots and lots of data in chart form on that page, and all of it is depressing and disgraceful.
Perhaps you wonder how many students think a magic man in the sky did it:
Or how many students stopped learning about science when they stopped watching the Flintstones:
Or whether these devout kids find the clergy sufficient, or have deluded themselves into believing their wacky ideas are supported by science?
I thought about raging about how WWU wasn’t doing their job as a university (but clearly, they’re doing great as a church), but then I was stopped short — what would a similar survey at other American colleges look like? What does the student body at my university think? I dread finding out.
But I want to find out. Hey, student freethought groups out there, here’s a project suggestion for you all: do a similar survey. Put together a questionnaire, table at your student union and gather respondents, and post the results somewhere. The reward is that you’ll almost certainly make your science professors cry.
As a child, it never occurred to me to doubt the existence of god. I’m not sure I even realised it was optional. When I was ten, after my mother’s remarriage, we started to attend my stepfather’s church, in which he was (and is) a very active member. This church is well known in Edinburgh for being ‘charismatic’ and ‘evangelical’, by which I mean that the organ had been dispensed with in favour of guitars and there was a lot of swaying and clapping of hands. They were very into the alpha course.
Every summer, the church would organise a retreat at a large house somewhere in the country for a week of prayer and bible study, and my older sisters and I were always taken along. The worst of these was when I was 12; that was the memorable year when the ‘Holy Spirit’ was sweeping through the land (or at least through the evangelical churches). For a week I was stuck in a remote house in the highlands of Scotland while everyone around me was filled with the holy spirit and started swaying, shaking, falling down and speaking in tongues. I spent most of the week hiding.
Around this time, I started to read a lot of old myths – Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Celtic and so on. It occurred to me that those people who had worshiped Isis thought they were right just as sincerely as I did about Jesus. And once I’d acknowledged that question, what about Muslims or Hindus? I asked my stepfather – how did we know that we were right? He told me that it was just a matter of faith (which was honest of him), and I accepted that answer. And I believed in god – but not unquestioningly. I had doubts. I saw so many contradictions in the world, so many things that didn’t make sense thought the lens of faith. But I ignored the contradictions and assumed I just didn’t understand. Perhaps we needed god to set off the big bang, I wondered. And perhaps he nudged evolution along.
Ultimately, what saved me was science. It never occurred to me to doubt that evolution is true and I never really believed that creationists existed until the horrifying day when I discovered that my mother and eldest sister (both highly educated, otherwise intelligent women) are creationists.
And one day, I finally caved to my doubts and actually considered a question that had been hanging around at the edge of my consciousness for years. It’s accepted among most Christians that humans are the only human beings to have souls. Dogs, cats, horses, goldfish – nothing. Chimps, nothing. We assume the Australopithecines had no soul. So what about Homo habilis? Or Homo erectus? No. So when had the soul appeared? Which individual was the first Homo sapiens and had the first soul? Of course, I knew that was a ridiculous question. But it had to be asked, because if there was no soul, there could be no afterlife. No heaven, or hell. And if there was no afterlife, there was no god, and it was all an invention of people who were afraid of death, and so convinced themselves that they would live forever.
Of course, that wasn’t all, and it look me a while to completely let go of my faith, but it’s gone now. I miss it sometimes. The idea that there is an omnipotent being out there who loves you and will do anything for you is incredibly comforting. But I’ll take what I have now – the ability to see and appreciate the world as it actually is and nothing more – over a lie any day.
Annabel
United Kingdom
