The Second to Last Word

What is forgiveness?

We are stuck with the fact that this is a coping mechanism that is deeply rooted in religious traditions all over the globe.  This in my opinion does not a monopoly on forgiveness make.  The “golden rule” is an example of how something that is sheer common sense was appropriated by religion; so much so that it is commonly thought to be religious in origin.

Forgiveness is what exactly if it is not a coping tool we are born with.  Is it a good thing?  Is it over used?  It is necessary? Did we have this sense of needing to forgive and be forgiven when we were still struggling as early humans on the savannah?  Did our ancestors use this as a negotiating tool when ills were perpetuated between the early tribes?  Did it seep into the religious lexicon as a carry over along with theft, perjury, and murder?

Is forgiveness, the religious version we are all aware of, actually an excuse to perpetuate wrong-doing?

“Oh, I screwed up.  God will forgive me.”

Atheists do not have this “forgiveness” available to them (assuming of course it exists for the sake of this argument).  I argue that an atheist does not need this forgiveness.  If you think you will be forgiven, no matter how heinous the action is,  the believer considers a higher authority; so I ask, what good does it do?  Forgiveness in no way serves as a preventative measure; in fact it seems like an easy OUT.

“Oh, I screwed up.  God will forgive me.”

It seems that if this “law of forgiveness” did not exist… We’d be better off.  If we didn’t believe that a transcendent figure would forgive our transgressions… We would hold ourselves more accountable to each other and to ourselves.

You have the last word…

Is it fair to Christians to hold them up to scrutiny because of the actions of some of their leaders?  I mean, here are a few shepherds that lead the flock.

Ken Ham (Australian / Head of AiG; Answers in Genesis) discounts science but then wants to “use science” to prove the bible. Huh?  He is teaching children and adults to ask “Were you there?” anytime someone states anything about the earth being any older than 6,000 years old or asks about dinosaurs.  He states that the account in Genesis is factual and represents what truly occurred, without question.  He also believes that we lived in a “Land of the Lost” during the time of Noah and Noah grabbed up a few of the “baby” dinos for the ark.  Seriously. 

Ray Comfort, a New Zealander, who teaches that the banana proves god’s existence.  Seriously.

Kent Hovind is serving a ten-year prison sentence in the Federal Correctional Institution in South Carolina, after being convicted of 58 federal counts, including twelve tax offenses, one count of obstructing federal agents and forty-five counts of structuring cash transactions.  Oh yeah, and he has his theory of creation (that is sort of in line with Mr. Ham’s theory above).  There is no other way of telling it:

Hovind explains the Biblical account of Noah as follows: Noah’s family and two of every “kind” of animal (including young dinosaurs) safely boarded the Ark before a minus 300° F (~-184°C) ice meteor came flying toward the earth and broke up in space. Some of the meteor fragments became rings and others caused the impact craters on the moon and some of the planets. The remaining ice fragments fell to the north and south poles of the earth.

Hovind also states that the Grand Canyon was formed in a couple of weeks.  Seriously.

Lee Strobel click it.  Seriously.

Televangelists in general?  I mean do those count as leaders?

Is it fair?

You have the Last Word…

Just to set the record straight once and for all. I am not angry. I am not an angry individual in the least. I may be peculiar and other adjectives may better suit me, but angry is not one of them. I am not here to plug my site, but if you go to my blog and read some of my blogs under “Religious Considerations” you might learn a little about me.

I would not say that I am angry with or even at god. That, to me, is just nonsense. It would be like be being angry at the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus (also not real). I don’t want to get into a huge discussion here about my “walk” as it is called in certain circles. Suffice to say that I spent the better part of my youth (between the ages of 6 to about 19) LUI (Living Under the Influence) of religions. Plural. Not a typo. I was “born” into the Catholic persuasion of belief. I attended Catholic School from 1st grade to 4th grade. We then switched for logistic and economic reasons to a Baptist School that was much closer to home. I attended there from 4th to 6th after which I enter the public school system. There was a transitional period where we (mother and I) began attending a Presbyterian Church, which in hindsight, may have led to my mother enrolling me in the closest christian school to our house.

I became very involved in the church. I was in all the christmas and easter programs, the choir, the youth group, etc… As I got older I searched for a new church. I have met many christians that “outgrow” their church and move on. So I did. I found a church with a strong youth ministry and began again so to speak.

I charged through the ranks of the Youth Ministry and at one point became the leading youth lay-minister of the church. I would coordinate mission trips locally as well as internationally. I was knee deep. Waist deep. And of course then I became fully immersed. All the while I had questions. As I gained momentum (it is addictive if any of you have been in a similar situation you will be able to attest to the “high” of leading) my questions also grew. “Am I a fake?” “Do I even believe this?” “These kids and fellow youth must see right through me!”

I would speak to those in authority and of course it would lead to prayer and “laying of hands” and the whole flan (enchilada has been overused)! But the doubts I had as a young catholic and then a “born again” did not cease. In fact they increased instead.

I would lead the Bible studies on Friday nights as was the custom in the church. I would pore through the bible looking for something that would move and touch and be applicable. I would not have a hard time finding it. I came to realize that I would find ANY answer I WANTED to find. I realized that I would FIND meaning in just about every word. So that part of the job was easy. So easy, that I began doubting that ability. I would look around and I would be able to find the “love of god” in ANYTHING. That was fine. It worked. It worked for my audience and that should have been enough. It wasn’t enough for me. I was a fake.

As I read through the bible I realized many things that were not normally discussed. I questioned what I read as being real. I started seeing things I was not open to before once I took off my god goggles, if you will, and looked at it as an outsider. One of the things I will say helped me then and now fully understand BOTH sides of an argument and being able to defend both sides with evidence. This of course requires knowledge.

It was the last bible study I gave. The title was “Defending the Non-Believer”. I had just read To Kill a Mockingbird and was moved by Atticus’ attitude and belief in defending the un-defendable.

So I undertook a “character” change for the exercise. I removed the god goggles and read the bible as though I was a non-believer. To see what questions a non-believer might have. I started at the very beginning. I went straight through the death of Moses. I was in shock. I was in horror. I was awestruck. I took notes along the way. It took me about a week to get my material together for my weekly bible study. Word got out that it was going to be a “good one” and “don’t miss this talk” sort of thing. (This of course was orchestrated by the authorities in the church whom I had sought counsel from during the week and who were curious as to the execution of “their” knowledge and wisdom through me). It was a full house.

As I opened the study I acknowledged the help that I had received during the week from the pastors and from other church leaders. I gave a small testimonial about my walk for the “new faces” and then I stopped. I asked everyone to bow their heads in prayer. I will never forget what I said…

“Dear Lord, thank you for this day and thank you for the fruits of your labor. Your fruit gave us immediate satisfaction as well as eternal salvation. Through your fruit we tasted the sweetness and the bitterness of life and all it holds. Life and all it holds… We come here today to learn something new and something that may be uncomfortable to hear but needs to be said and learned…”

Then I just stopped. I never finished the prayer. I still haven’t. That was as far as I got.

I asked everyone to open their eyes. I asked everyone to raise their heads and asked everyone to look at me.

“I am a liar. I cannot do this anymore. I cannot lead you anymore. I am a liar because I have lied to each and every one of you here tonight. Even the new people. I am not a christian. I cannot be. I don’t believe. In fact, I never believed. I am very sorry, but I cannot do this anymore.”

With that I walked away.

Some people believed that that was part of my presentation (I tended to be somewhat dramatic at times) and expected me to return a few minutes later. I was told that people waited almost 15 minutes before they realized I had not only left the building but I had left the parking lot.

I never returned. I lost every single person I considered a friend. All of them. Not one left standing. Did that anger me? Eh. Not really. I expected that. I tried to reach out to go play some basketball or volleyball or baseball… Nothing. It was clear I was not welcomed. It took some time to adjust, I am not one to hold a grudge, but eventually I found comfort and most importantly the TIME to get to know my true self.

I am not angry with god. God is a made up thing that people needed a long, long time ago to understand life and to find hope when there wasn’t. It was created for and by man. I just can’t, and honestly, never could wrap my head around it anyway. I tried. Trust me I tried.

I am not saying that science has all the answers. It doesn’t. It falls short more often than it is “right”. I am fine with that. When two scientists get together and argue a point they argue and hope that either one will be correct or they will both discover something altogether new. Even if one of the scientists is “wrong” he still wins. If you get two opposing religious figures together this would never happen. Ever. It will inevitably lead to violence. My god vs. your god, right? Your beliefs vs. my beliefs…and so on.

I am not angry at god. I am happy with the life that I have. I happy that I can walk, talk, breathe, share, read, write, learn… there does not have to be a place to go after this life is over. I want to make THIS place the best place possible because it is the ONLY space we all share right now. If there is a heaven and I am not there, oh well. If there is a hell and I AM there… same thing. I want to concentrate on making THIS life the best possible.

I know that I lived my life as fully and as free as I could because quite frankly, this is the only one I KNOW I HAVE.

I want to urge you all to read the bible. I mean really read the bible, not in the devotional doses you are used to. Put those “out of context” verses into the context they come from. Read the story they were told in and how they were meant to be read.

Think of it like this… You are on a special diet. You find a cookbook on the sidewalk near a gas station. It is just sitting there. It sort of looks placed there, but why would anyone leave a cookbook on the sidewalk? You pick it up because you are on this new special diet. You leaf through the cookbook. You see a very delicious recipe. Problem is you can’t have the finished product. Most of the ingredients are prohibited on your new special diet. Then you have a bright idea. You will use substitute ingredients. You will take the ingredients you can use and discard the useless ones. You will regard yourself very intelligent. You have found a way to bake your lava flow without chocolate and without flow. Is it still Lava Flow? It is. It is because that is what you call it. Let it be Lava Flow.

Don’t take the ingredients (verses) you like and discard the ingredients (verses) you don’t like! You must read your bibles! All of you. You must go through the bible and take notes. Verse by verse. Chapter by chapter. Book by book. This will only strengthen your faith or show you something else. Are you afraid?

You should be. It will mean the undoing of chains and weights you have tied yourself to. It will liberate you. You will be free. But, freedom has a price. So does salvation, right?

I am sorry I “rambled” on and on. I do apologize.  But, as usual, you have the Last Word.

So I googled “hearing voices” and I got a bunch of hits.  Top hit, of course is this, which was NOT what I was looking for.

I have been posting on a blog recently and the topic was “the voice of god”.  Some one was claiming that god speaks to them regularly.  Sometimes the voice of god (VOG) compels this person to do something.  Kevin Costner’s character got laughed at for “hearing voices”.  When it comes to the religious folks, hearing voices seems quite frequent and by some reports (in my analysis) seems to occur simultaneously.  VOG, it seems is quite common.  I almost feel left out. 

I said ALMOST. 

When people hear voices, let alone the VOG, the assment seems to always depends on who you ask.  If a christian claims to hear the VOG and shares this with another christian, it is acceptable and sometimes it is called a “gift”.  If this same christian tells a non-christian that they experienced hearing the VOG the non-christian is going to scratch their head and then suggest a good doctor.  If a non-believer tells another non-believer that they hear voices they will receive the same suggestion of visiting a doctor. 

I have also spoken with christians and asked if muslims can hear the VOG (seeing that it’s the same one, right).  They say no way.  If a jew hears the VOG, I can only assume, that does not count and will be dismissed by the christian as either SATAN or hallucination (as would be the muslim).  Most christians dismiss Joseph Smith as crazy.

Andrea Yates claimed to have heard the VOG and it told her to do bad things. 

I am not sure, but it seems kinda lopsided.  Only christians can hear the VOG and no one else.  I would venture to say that muslims feel the same.  I mean Mohd even heard voices he “thought” were from the almighty that inspired literature…but then they may not have been from Allah at all as some contend(Satanic Verses?).

I have an active, very active, imagination.  Very active.  I will make a confession.  I used to think I heard voices.  I used to think I saw dead people. 

Quick Examples:

An old man appeared to me while I was outside watering.  He just said, “Bye.”  Two weeks later someon called me to ask me guess who died “two weeks ago?”

I was watering my front lawn when I hear the distinct voice of a former boss.  A few minutes later I called an old co-worker and asked how she was doing. “Fine,as far as I know.”  15 minutes later, phone rang. It was the co-worker advising that our former boss passed away that morning.

For a long time I thought I had the “gift”.  No gift.  It’s just an overactive imagination.  Right?  If not I might be suffering from one of the following causes:

Something forbid this could be the reason so many hear the VOG in their daily lives.  Some people end up hospitalized for hearing voices depending on the severity.

I must have had a slight case of something.  I don’t do drugs.  So it must have been something.

Anyhow, the point is that people find it easy to say they heard the VOG.  They are also very capable of discerning if it is indeed god or satan.  If it is good, then it is god.  If it isn’t good, then it is the devil.

Life can be so simple.

Seems delusional to me.  I was once delusional.  Then I was cured.

I found that searching for truth I found the answers.  I also found more questions.  That is how simple my life can be.  Questions and answers.  You get some and then you get some more.

You have the Last Voice…

There is a Tooth Fairy.

The Tooth Fairy is a strong woman. Do not let the sound of her name fool you. She is powerful. She is able to lift children’s heads while they rest on a pillow and remove loose teeth and replace the loose teeth with coins or depending on the size or weight of the tooth she may leave paper money. I once heard she dropped 100 smackers for 2 huge molars. Nice.

What is there not to believe? I put a old bloody tooth under my pillow when I fell asleep. In the morning I found a quarter (it wasn’t that large of a tooth). This is not magic. This is real. I investigated this and it occurred more often than I thought and sometimes simultaneously around the globe. I know what you are going to say…Santa does the same thing. Yeah, sure, but Santa is not real. So no point in going there.

Reasons I KNOW there is a Tooth Fairy

There is written proof of her existence going back hundreds of years. It may be even longer, but people used to just throw the loose teeth away and the Fairy would be forced to leave the money where she found the tooth. Have you not ever wondered where the expression, “Throwing money away” originated? It was an oral traditional (see the oft-used expression as proof) that eventually led to some great men and women to record these incredible events for future generations.

The Tooth Fairy would only allow herself to be seen by the most “believing” and not by those who did not believe. I remember Keith, he was kid in my 2nd grade class, refusing to believe that the Tooth Fairy existed. When I lost BOTH front teeth I got a fifty-cent piece. I came to school the next day. I bought Keith an ice cream. I asked him if he liked it. He said yes. Good, because the Tooth Fairy gave me the money to buy that. Keith insisted that it was my mom or dad or something. I refused to believe because I found the money under my pillow. I experienced the wonder for myself. For kids who don’t believe, the Tooth Fairy jut skips their house. Parents, on the other hand, knowing that their child does not believe will try and drop coin in the middle of the night, but we all know that is just fakery and false. These parents just wish that their children would just believe, as they did. Alas…there is no mercy from the Tooth Fairy for those parents who do believe but their children do not.

How can so many of us be wrong? I mean there are hundreds (if not millions) of believers out there all across the globe? It is just sheer madness to NOT believe.

It is basically miraculous that she can be all over the place at the same time. The fact that she knows when the teeth fall out and how much each will be worth is just incredible! She can lift pillows (with heads on them) pick up teeth…drop coin… over and over again every night (not just once).

There are so many artistic representations of her too. You can’t tell me it’s made up if there are people painting her image!

Arguments against the facts

I already mentioned Santa Claus. That is so ridiculous I won’t even reply to that as it is just silly to compare the two. I would not be surprised to find out that the people behind the entire Santa Claus myth-building didn’t lift the concept of time-travelling and time/space bending from the Tooth Fairy. Here is another reason I KNOW that the Santa Claus “thing” is a myth. It is too simple. “He” only has to show-up one day of the year. Not even a full day. A few minutes. Plus he has rules. Rules? No rules with the Tooth Fairy. With “Santa” you have to sleep in a different room. With “Santa” you have to send him a letter. With “Santa” you have to leave him food. Yada-Yada-Yada. That is so silly.

This is the most common heard argument against the existence of the Tooth Fairy. “How come no one can see her now?” That is the easiest to answer. There is no time. There are so many, many, many more people on the planet that she has to work so fast you just can’t and she can’t just stop to “prove” her existence. She exists and that is that.

Does she “deliver” money to kids that are on the fence? The answer is yes. She is all knowing! She has to be! If she knows when the teeth are being dropped she must know that deep down inside the kid believes. This is further helped by parents who believe too.

Kids are doubters by nature. Kids ask questions and usually don’t stop until it makes sense to them. Ever been around a 4 year old? “Why is the sky blue?” When it comes to the Tooth Fairy, it is just something that exists and not questioned. It should never be questioned. There is no reason to doubt or to think it is just some ancient none-sense.

The most heretical question usually asked by an Atoothfairyists is, “PROVE SHE EXISTS.”

The answer is simple.

Prove their isn’t.

The more I read the Bible the less it makes sense. These are eyewitness accounts?

Seriously?

There are so many discrepancies that it is mind boggling. Christians usually come back with with some fanciful and elaborate scheme for why these events only “seem” like discrepancies.

There are so many discrepancies that it begs the question… Were these men ACTUAL eyewitnesses?

I like the Christian’s go-to answer.

“It’s like a car accident. There are many eye witnesses and they each experience the event from a different perspective. One eyewitness might see something that another eye witness did not notice…”

OK. Let’s play.

Here’s the scenario:

There was a car accident on Saturday, January 3rd. It occurred at 12:45pm. There were two cars involved in a collision and a parked car was also damaged. It was a simple run-of-the-mill accident. One car sped through a red light and hit the car that had the right of way. This was a busy intersection and many eyewitnesses provided their information to the driver of the vehicle that had been hit (the right-of-way driver).

The police are called, the fire department is called and a towing company is called. Within 45 minutes the scene is clean. All that is left are tire marks on the street. The police have interviewed the eyewitnesses. A report is produced.

The driver of the ROW vehicle gets a ride home and looks for a lawyer. Your phone rings. You are at a party. You discuss the case with the driver and you set an appointment for that following Tuesday afternoon (3 days later). This gives you (the lawyer) time to go to the police department, request a copy of the police report from the scene, and possibly interview some of the eyewitnesses.

Here are some other facts of the event and the cars involved. Car #1 is a Red Ferrari (the ROW car). Car #2 is a Grey Nissan Altima (the sped-through-the-red-light car). The parked vehicle that was damaged is a Green Dodge Ram. It had been raining all morning.

You get a copy of the police report. You review the report. Keep in mind that this is not an eyewitness account as the police showed up 15 minutes after the event. The information provided on the police report is circumstantial at best. There are indications as to what occurred and the individual police officers “experience” and “knowledge” play into how the report is written. The police officer indicates that the Grey Nissan appears to have taken the red light and applied the breaks in order to avoid a collision (as evidenced by the tire marks on the pavement). The police officer also concludes that the driver of the Grey Nissan Altima was at-fault. The police officer interviews several “eyewitnesses” who corroborate the police officers conclusion.

It is time to call some of the eyewitnesses.

If someone says they saw a Black Ferrari and a Grey Mini Cooper at the scene of an accident, wouldn’t you think it was a different accident all together? Would you include or exclude the eyewitness account that cannot precisely describe the colors of the vehicles involved? This fact alone questions the authority of the witness as being “accurate”.

Now, for the sake of argument, let’s say 1 year passes. You (still the lawyer in the above scenario) calls the eyewitnesses. They are no longer 100% sure of the events. They have a hard time remembering the colors of the cars and whether or not it had been raining or what they were doing on Saturday, January 3rd at 12:45pm. They cannot remember if a flat-bed tow truck picked up both vehicles or two tow trucks arrived and took the vehicles. Was there a fire truck on the scene or only the paramedics? Was an ambulance called? Which way were the vehicles travelling? What were they doing at that intersection at that time? Where were they coming from? Going to? What did they eat for breakfast that day? For lunch? I know…I went a little overboard with all those other questions. Can you blame me?

Now, look at the the Keystone of Christianity. The entire belief hinges on the fact that Jesus came back from the dead after he had been crucified. I wonder if for years after people asked each other… “Where were you when Christ came back from the dead?”…the way we do with the JFK assassination, the Challenger explosion, September 11, etc…

Let’s take a close look at the “eyewitness” accounts found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Who was there on that first Easter morning according to the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 28):

Mary Magdalene and some other woman named Mary witnessed an Angel from Heaven come down, stunned the guards into a comatose state, and rolled the stone covering the entrance away. Oh yeah, there was also an earthquake.

Now, according to Mark (Mark 16):

Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James (Jesus’ brother James? Why not say Mary mother of Jesus…whatever), and Salome. The stone had already been rolled away. They even entered the tomb and saw a young man inside.

According to Luke (Luke 23:55-24:16):

A bunch of women including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, some woman named Joanna. The had already been rolled away. Two men in “dazzling clothes” appeared. Later on they actually saw Jesus.

And now John (John 20):

Mary Magdalene was the only one present. The stone had been rolled away. She then left and talked to Simon.

I could bore you some more, but how can there be so many versions and all accepted as “eyewitness accounts” when they are all different?

1) Was there an Earthquake?

2) Were there guards?

3) Did anyone actually witness the stone being rolled away from the entrance?

4) Who actually showed up?

5) How many women were present? 1 or many?

If you were the lawyer called upon to represent this case, are these accounts accurate? Which account is accurate? Which do you dismiss?

As always you have the last word…