Theocracy via Democracy

For today's first letter to the editor about Jacksonville's “Day of Faith”, I am adopting a new style of response whereby I insert my comments between the text rather than place it all at the end. The letter by Rev. Marcius O. King was published today under the heading, “Day of Faith: Event was clearly defined.”

As a taxpayer, I am appalled at the city of Jacksonville giving in to a group of atheists. Although the amount of money seems small, it is the principle. We are allowing a small group to prevail in a city where the majority of its citizens are God-fearing people. It was stated that the city has agreed to pay the cost of mediation. This will take more taxpayers' money. Is it still a valid statement to say: In a democratic society, the majority rules?

Yes, one principle of democracy is majority rule. There are, however, other principles such as minority rights and rule of law which this event violated.

The atheists' argument is that the event was called "A Day of Faith." I wonder if there would have been a problem if the event (the rally) had been called "A Day of Concern" or "A Unity Day Against Crime"?

If it had had a secular name and secular nature, then there would have been no problem. It did not and that was precisely the point of the lawsuit.

Mayor John Peyton's repeated statements that the word "faith" denoted faith not just in God, but in our community as well, in my opinion, clearly defines the major intent of the event.

Such concessions were mere lip service to secular interests, and they don't negate the fact that this event was an ecumenical church service funded by local tax dollars. The government cannot promote religious faith, regardless whether other types of faith are also promoted.

It is sad that the offense of any group takes precedence over the issue at hand, which is the homicide rate.

Yes, rule of law indeed takes precedence over a rally whose only apparent affect was to create the illusion that the mayor's office was doing something special to decrease violence.

If this group is offended by this rally and the word "prayer," why not sue the federal government and the president of the United States when he calls on America for a "National Day of Prayer"?

There are probably lawsuits regarding that.

People who believe in a supreme being are also taxpayers.

People who believe in Xenu are taxpayers as well, but we don't spend tax money on Scientology rallies, do we? No, we maintain neutrality in government regarding religion, not fund the services of the largest group.

If we, as a people, believe in a higher power, then we believe we have someone to call on and have at least the possibility of having problems solved. If we fail to believe in a higher power, then we fail to believe that anything can be done.

You, “as a people,” can use any of the hundreds or thousands of churches throughout the city to do exactly that without spending a dime from public funds. The mayor can even come to your church and speak without costing the city anything. The worst part is that you actually believe that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving god has been letting scores of innocent people be murdered and would continue to do so unless you ask him to stop it. That sort of theology only makes sense for an imperfect, selfish deity, not the God you claim to worship.

A Visit to a Unitarian Universalist Service

This morning I visited the Buckman Bridge Unitarian Universalist Society, one of the two Unitarian Universalist congregations here in Jacksonville, for the first time. Although I have been aware of UUism for a couple years and have read about it online more than once, yesterday I decided almost on a whim to check out a service and see what it was like. BBUUS is closer to my home than the other congregation and I was also attracted to their lay leadership, which I presume results in a greater variety of speakers and thus viewpoints.

The Sunday service begins at 10:30am, but not knowing how long it would take to drive there, I arrived not long after 10:00am. Although I should have gone inside immediately, I felt somewhat nervous and sat in my car in the parking lot until almost 10:20am. The congregation doesn't own their own building at present, so they rent a small community center which resembles a church from the outside and a theater from the inside. I later learned that they own a property on the opposite side of the river upon which they have long-term plans to construct their own building. Immediately upon entering I was greeted by a woman designated to greet members as they arrived. I was encouraged to make a name tag for myself and sign their guest book, which I did gladly. All of the regular members of the congregation have computer-printed name tags which they put on inside the building and which are kept on a large board on a table. Not all of those in attendance wore their name tags for whatever reason, and it initially seemed slightly corny, but it was helpful for me as newcomer. The original greeter introduced me to several other members and I picked up some materials before sitting down in my chair near the back of the seating area, where I glanced through the program for the day and the hymnal. The main area consists of perhaps one hundred chairs arranged in rows facing the front with an aisle down the center where at the far end is a podium with table upon which is a candle and metal ring resembling the UU logo. While I was sitting there I encountered a young woman I had met online over a year ago whom I knew was a member of this congregation and then a former coworker whom I did not. Two other women sitting nearby also introduced themselves to me. There were about eighty people in attendance when the time arrived to begin.

The service was lead by a lay woman who said a few opening words before asking visitors to stand and introduce themselves. I introduced myself with a few words after two other visitors on the opposite side of the room had done the same. Then the lay leader “lit” the candle in front of the podium, which consisted in turning on what I then saw was an electric candle. It seemed somewhat odd to use an artificial candle, but perhaps there is a good reason for this. Next there was something called the “call to worship” which consisted of a four-line poem recited by the congregation. Afterward there was a “story for all ages”, which was a short children's book read by the lay leader, presumably for the children right before they left for their separate religious instruction in another room or maybe even building. Then it was time for a few quick announcements. Next was something called “sharing of personal joys and concerns” during which members of the congregation came forward to present personal news. As they did this, they symbolically took a small polished stone from a container and placed it in a big bowl in front of the candle. There were about five or six people who came forward and afterward the lay leader placed “silent stones” for other people who raised their hands before placing one additional stone for everything else. Next came the offering plate to which I contributed a small amount. Then everyone sang a hymn from the hymnal which I didn't know and which I tried my best to sight-read. After that it was time for the speaker, an Iranian member of the Baha’i religion who discussed the common foundations of all religions. As an atheist, I don't believe the common foundations of religion are divine but rather purely human, but I enjoyed his sermon and it served the purpose of getting me to think about this topic. Afterward there was a comment and question session during which I asked why, if they all come from the same “source”, were claims to exclusivity so common among world religions. His answer was in agreement with everything else he said and plausible within that context. I don't accept the premise that a deity exists, an idea which he asked the non-theists in attendance to entertain for the sake of argument, but his discussion was interesting and worth listening to. It was refreshing to be able present one's comments and questions during the official service in a democratic manner. The service ended with another unfamiliar hymn and a few closing words by the lay leader.

After the service I spoke with several more members of the congregation who asked me about my background and what brought me to their service today. I also got some apple juice and a chocolate-frosted doughnut decorated to resemble a football. After about fifteen minutes talking to several different people, I said that I would return the following week and then drove home.

The experience was quite positive. The organization and many individual members went out of their way to welcome me and make me feel comfortable. Unitarian Universalists hold a wide variety of beliefs regarding religion. A fair number of them are atheists and agnostics, a majority even identify themselves as humanists, and this particular congregation even had the Happy Human on the program with assorted religious symbols, so I felt fully comfortable saying that I was a Humanist. From what I had read online about other locations, I was afraid that the congregation would be made up mostly of older people with whom I would have less in common, but there were people of all ages including some young adults around my age and perhaps ten or fifteen young children with their parents. The service was positive with only the most innocuous references to the divine, no prayers, no mention of sin or anything else that would have made me feel uncomfortable. I enjoyed it and intend to attend again next week.

I am quite firm in my atheism and I am not seeking a god whom I don't believe exists. Rather I am seeking a sense of community among a group of people with similar values and, if not similar beliefs, at least similar outlooks on the formation of beliefs. I am seeking to expand my social circle and meet new people. I am seeking to hear new ideas and to share my own ideas with others in a friendly, welcoming environment. This Unitarian Universalist congregation seems like an excellent place to do this seeking.

An Alternate Christian Opinion on Gay Marriage

Several months ago I had a brief but interesting conversation with my younger sister on the topic of gay marriage. Along with the rest of my family, she is a practicing Catholic who accepts the teachings of the Church, to the best of my knowledge, on all topics. She mentioned, however, that there was a petition after Mass about making gay marriage explicitly illegal in Florida which she declined to sign and my mother, who was with her, asked her why. She said that it was none of her business who anyone else wanted to marry because it didn't affect her at all. That particular sentiment is fairly common among moderate and liberal Christians, but what she said next was more novel. She said that pre-martial sex is considered just as sinful as homosexual sex, but no one was trying to make fornication illegal. She understands that you can't legally prohibit something if it doesn't hurt anyone just because you think it is sinful. If only more Christians in the United States shared her simple appreciation for separation of church and state.

Atheists Lie about Faith?

Today we find an editorial response to the news item discussed in my last entry about Jacksonville's “Day of Faith. This letter by Linn W. Howard was published today under the heading, “Religion: All are people of faith.”

As a former resident of Jacksonville and now a Presbyterian minister serving in Pittsburgh, Pa., I was sad to see that the city of Jacksonville paid $5,000 to American Atheists, Inc. The city of Jacksonville and our nation would be better served if we would recognize that all of us are people of faith.

The nonbeliever and the believer both make faith decisions about the multitude of unknowns in our world as they establish a framework for living their lives. The scientific community is full of men and women of faith. Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project, has written a fascinating book, The Language of God, in which he outlines his journey from being an atheist scientist to a scientist of faith. Even if you disagree with his faith decision after reading this book, you will more fully understand that all people are "people of faith."

I commend Mayor John Peyton and the leaders of the city of Jacksonville for their intellectual, social, civil and community integrity for calling together the whole community, with people of all faiths, in order to respond to the growing homicide rate in the city.

It is time that we call the bluff of those who are atheists and refuse to give in to their claim that they are people of "no faith." This is a simple lie they are using for their advantage over every other citizen in the United States.

Ms. Howard presents the tired argument that atheists have faith, but her attempts to justify this claim are particularly feeble. Instead of showing how an atheist might have faith, she shows that some scientists are not atheists! She says that the scientific community is full of people of faith, which is partially true. At the lower levels, it's not much different from society in general in levels of religiosity, but the higher and more distinguished a level you examine, the less faith you find. Citing one famous scientist's faith proves nothing. I haven't read Collins' book, but I read in a review that it was the sight of a waterfall that convinced him of the truth of the Christianity. That is indeed faith and of no interest to those of us who seek reasons for our beliefs. In the end, Ms. Howard has nothing but an unsupported argument.

The final paragraph is particularly infuriating. First, Ms. Howard accuses atheists of being liars. This professed Christian isn't even charitable enough to give atheists the benefit of the doubt and say we are mistaken. Rather she presumes to know our minds and our moral choices. There is no other group in the United States which it is acceptable to publicly insult in this manner without considerable backlash. Second, Ms. Howard states that atheists have some advantage by claiming not to believe, but this is absurd. She doesn't support her claim at all and the previous insult itself demonstrates the considerable disadvantages we face in living in bigoted American society.

Jacksonville's “Day of Faith”

On August 12th, 2006, the city of Jacksonville conducted and financed an anti-violence rally in the Jacksonville Veterans' Memorial Arena named “Day of Faith: Arming Our Prayer Warriors” which featured several Christian ministers and choirs, one Jewish leader and one Muslim leader. Although legal action was taken to stop the event before it happened because of church-state separation issues, the challenges were rejected and the event proceeded as planned. Last Friday, on January 19th, 2007, however, the city agreed to pay $5,000 for lawyer fees in a settlement with American Atheists, which was suing the city to return the $101,000 it spent on the event to the taxpayers of Jacksonville, and to issue a new directive to avoid such violations in the future. As an out-of-court settlement, it doesn't set legal precedent but it remains a victory for church-state separation in the Bible Belt. You can read more about the event and lawsuit in this Associated Press article which appeared in today's edition of the Florida-Times Union.

My reaction to this news is somewhat mixed. I am generally rather pleased that this violation of church-state separation was acknowledged and partially rectified, but I am also slightly concerned about the image of atheists as detractors from a program intended to fight violence, an undoubtedly admirable cause. This is a lamentable yet necessary evil, however, in the fight to preserve secularism in government, especially with such a large sum of money involved.

In addition to the legal issues, I also object to making the rally religious on pragmatic grounds. It essentially excluded not only non-believers, but those who don't take religion seriously and even those who simply don't want to mix faith with civic action. It's difficult to measure the effect of a large gathering of people focusing on one issue, but I doubt few would say that the rally would have been less effective if more people had attended.

As a final note, it seems ironic that an anti-violence rally would refer to its participants as “prayer warriors.”

Religious Opposition to Violence

Today we find the first letter to the editor of the year about religion, after a flurry of letters about freethought. This letter by John Gallo, was published today under the heading, “Religion: Oppose violence in any form.”

I get quite amused when I read about the struggle some Episcopal leaders are having in allowing their homosexual brothers and sisters full participation in the church.

Most American believers aren't really concerned about boys kissing boys. They worry much more about existential matters of faith. Examples are the immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq, the failure of our health care system, the absurd Medicare drug plan, the genocide of young black males, the oppression of the poor, and the total corruption of our political system by money and corporations.

Somehow these Anglican defenders of the faith suffer from amnesia in failing to remember Jesus' inclusive ministry to the excluded and marginalized, and his harsh condemnation of the religious and social structures that perpetuated injustice and violence against individuals and groups. Frankly, the biblical writers had no scientific concept of human sexuality and all its complexity. What Scripture does condemn is the misuse and abuse of all of God's good gifts.

All of us should heed the pope's words that urged religious leaders to oppose violence in any form. Whether it be the persecution of people because of their God-given sexual orientation or the slaughter of the innocents in Iraq, our calling is to be the peacemakers and agents of God's reconciling love.

Although Gallo's signature indicated that he is a pastor, it didn't indicate of which church. An online search returned several relevant pages, but I couldn't find his association listed anywhere, even in a newspaper article explicitly about him and another local pastor! It's not really important to the above discussion, but I wanted to provide my readers with as much information as possible before I begin my critique.

As a condemnation of violence, hatred and moral apathy, I agree with the major sentiments of this message and I am glad to see it published. There are a number of points, however, with which I disagree or upon which I would otherwise like comment.

First, although the issues listed as examples in the second paragraph are very important, none of them are matters of faith and none are existential. Perhaps the author meant to say that they should be of concern to people of faith, but they have nothing to do with religion itself and nothing to do with the philosophy of existentialism, so he should be more careful with his words.

Second, I object to some of the labels used to describe the issues. Violence among young black men is certainly a major problem in the United States, but characterizing it as a genocide is simply an abuse of the word. I wouldn't label it genocide because it's not large-scale, it's not organized, it's mostly perpetrated by members of the community itself, and it's mostly committed on an individual basis rather than according to the victim's race. It doesn't resemble a true genocide like the Rwandan genocide in which almost one million victims died in about three months during a well-organized extermination by militias of one ethnic group by another. I also object to the use of oppression of the poor because it sounds like an active conspiracy rather than culpable neglect and total corruption because corruption in the United States is actually rather low compared to most of the rest of the world.

Third, characterizing Jesus' ministry, as portrayed in the Gospels, as “inclusive” is at the best incomplete and at the worst inaccurate. Jesus repeatedly condemned to the eternal fires of hell everyone who failed to believe in him and his message. This could not be less tolerant and compassionate. And while Jesus reached out to everyone within Jewish society, he also repeatedly stated that he came to save only the children of Israel, not the Gentiles. This is hardly any more inclusive. It was only after his death, and thus after his own ministry had ended, that his message was adapted and brought to the rest of the world.

Fourth, Jesus did repeatedly condemn the religious leaders of his time, but he failed even to address two major unjust institutions of his time: slavery and the subjugation of women. In fact, by approving of the entire Old Testament and by failing to select any women as apostles, Jesus gave tacit approval to both of these social systems. A human revolutionary could be forgiven for moral shortsightedness, but a supposedly divine revolutionary has no excuse.

Fifth, I wholeheartedly agree that the authors of the Bible had no scientific concept of human sexuality and all its complexities, but their ignorance is more extensive than is suggested by this humble comment. They also had no scientific understanding about the origins of the universe, the origins of mankind, the connection between body and mind, the inefficacy of prayer, the impossibility of miracles and the very definition of God himself. One can't ignore the parts of scripture which one doesn't like on the grounds that they're unscientific unless one is willing to apply this principle consistently and examine the Bible thoroughly until all we have is a collection of occasionally interesting stories.

It's good to see someone in favor of social justice but disappointing to see them clinging to ancient superstitions as primary justification for purely human compassion.

My Freethought Library

The following is a list of works in my personal freethought library. In truth, there are a few books here which I don't own but which I instead checked out from the library, but I included them for completeness. I will provide a link to this post on the main page and update this list whenever I add a new work to the library. If you would like to recommend something, leave me a comment.

Philosophy

• Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
• Atheist Universe by David Mills
• Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith
• The Case Against Christianity by Michael Martin
• Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist by Stephen Batchelor
• Critiques of God by Peter A. Angeles
• Fifty Reasons People Give for Believing in a God by Guy P. Harrison
• Meditations for the Humanist by A.C. Grayling
• Natural Atheism by David Eller
• Not the Impossible Faith by Richard Carrier
  
• The Philosophy of Humanism by Corliss Lamont
• Sense and Goodness without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism by Richard Carrier
• Why Atheism? by George H. Smith
• Why I Am Not a Christian by Richard Carrier
• Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell
• Why I Am Not a Muslim by Ibn Warraq

Science

• Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett
• The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan
• Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes by Daniel Everett
• God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger
• The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
• The God Virus: How Religion Affects Our Lives and Culture by Darrel W. Ray
• How We Believe by Michael Shermer
• Looking for a Miracle by Joe Nickell
• The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
• The New Atheism by Victor Stenger
• Relics of the Christ by Joe Nickell
• The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan

History

• Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht
• Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby
• Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers by Brooke Allen

Politics

• The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• The End of Faith by Sam Harris
• God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
• Kingdom Coming by Michelle Goldberg
• Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
• The Secular Conscience by Austin Dacey
• Why Are You Atheists So Angry? by Greta Christina

Quotations

• The Atheist's Bible by Joan Konner
• The Quotable Atheist by Jack Huberman

Biography

• Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• Godless by Dan Barker

Fiction

• Big Domino in the Sky by Michael Martin
• The Book Against God by James Wood
• Candide by Voltaire

Humor

• The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs

Miscellaneous

• The Atheist's Guide to Christmas

Magazines

• Free Inquiry — regular reader since November 2006

Secular Ethics

In addition to the editorial on the benefits of worship, today we find yet another letter about atheism and Humanism. This letter by Carrie Renwick, president of the First Coast Freethought Society, was published today under the heading, “Secular Humanism: Ethics derived from within.”

Thumbs up to the executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism for his defense of secular humanism! As the voice of secular humanism on the First Coast, the First Coast Freethought Society applauds his contention that secular humanists are just as moral, brave and patriotic as religious people.

Churches demonize secular humanists in the pulpit, but look around. I am your neighbor. I am your co-worker in the cubicle next to yours. I am your doctor. I am a member of your family. Unless I tell you that I am a secular humanist, you will think that I am good, joyful, moral and happy because of God or religion.

Humanists affirm that ethics are derived from the application of reason and from within, not from religious scripture like the Bible. We reject the supernatural. We affirm science as the best way to understand the natural world and our place within it. We believe that this Earth is the only home we have. Therefore, we must treat it with care for the benefit of future generations. We affirm that life in this world is the only life we have, so we should live it to the fullest and be as kind to each other as possible.

If you agree with these affirmations, you could find a home in our group. You can find out more about us at firstcoastfreethoughtsociety.org.

There is not much to comment upon with the text itself, but I am pleased to see more positive exposure for Humanism within the local press, especially from a local resident!

Due to conflicts with my work schedule, I have only been able to attend one monthly meeting of the First Coast Freethought Society in the past two years, but it was a positive experience and I wish that I could attend more often. Almost every member was at least twice and in some cases three times my age, and it would be better if organization had more members from every age group, so I regret that I cannot currently help diversify the membership by my own attendance. If you are a local reader, please consider visiting their website.

Supposed Benefits of Worship

This morning I discovered the first editorial by the staff of the Florida Times-Union this year on the topic of religion or irreligion. It was published today under the heading, “Benefits of Worship.”

Want a better, longer life? Try a house of worship.

That's the conclusion of a Heritage Foundation research paper that summarizes dozens of studies on religion and its impact. The peer-reviewed papers found those who worship regularly tended to have better marriages, stronger work ethics and healthier parent-child relationships. They had less depression, suicide and domestic violence.

This can be explained in secular terms. Behavior defined as "moral" tends to be more moderate, and thus healthier, both medically and psychologically. Twelve-step programs insist on the involvement with a spiritual, higher power as part of their reform process. Also, many people establish close friendships at church, and that support sometimes helps them get through the difficult times of life. Praying involves expressing good intentions. The more people express them, the more likely they are to act on them.

Health in mind, body and spirit - ancient advice. The basis for all of it, which sets apart human beings, is spiritual health.

Although this was written regarding a particular research paper by the Heritage Foundation, I have been unable to locate any more information on this document by the conservative think-tank within the pages of the newspaper. It appears to conflict with other studies on similar topics and it's difficult to determine which studies are accurate without becoming a professional pollster oneself. The editors are most certainly aware of these conflicting studies given that three letters to the editor have been published in their very newspaper on this topic within the last two weeks, yet they choose to base their recommendation on the most favorable study without even mentioning the others.

The middle section seems rather garbled from an argumentative standpoint. First, the author states that even if the findings are true, they may have secular explanations, thus saying nothing about the truth of religion. I agree wholeheartedly. Then they imply that religion leads to more “moderate” behavior although the study investigated frequency of worship and various indicators of health, not actual behavior. It may or may not be true, but that's not what the study examined from what I have gathered. Next they state that 12-step programs depend on trust in God, but within a paragraph about secular explanations, it almost seems to imply that this trust may be nothing more than the equivalent of Dumbo's feather. Finally, regarding the usefulness of prayer, I am unconvinced that expressing a good intention within prayer correlates to a higher rate of fulfilling that intention. It's quite conceivable that a person who asks God to do something will at least occasionally actually trust him to do it and be less likely to try to achieve that goal by their own efforts. Whatever the case, this is pure speculation without any hard data.

The author recommends attending a worship service in order to improve health, but I believe they instead should have cut out the middle man and simply recommended practicing “moderate” behavior and establishing close friendships within the community. Many people find worship services meaningless and tedious, but lead healthy, fulfilling lives without God.

The final sentence of the text is notable from a linguistic viewpoint. The author used set apart as an inseparable phrasal verb (“sets apart humans”) which normally denotes to save or to preserve instead of as a separable phrasal verb (“sets humans apart”) which normally denotes to distinguish. The second construction would have fit the context much better, assuming that the author meant to say that spirituality distinguishes humans from other animals.

Atheists in Foxholes

After the conflicting claims made by two letter writers regarding atheism which appeared during the first week of the year, it was not surprising to find yet another letter on the topic this week. This letter by Norm Allen, assistant director of the Council for Secular Humanism, was published today under the heading, “Atheists: Studies are ambiguous.”

A recent letter writer challenged the notion that atheists are better behaved than theists, and that there are thousands of atheists in foxholes.

The truth is that there are studies that both support and refute the first claim. (Still, it is a curious fact that one rarely finds atheists in jails and prisons.)

However, there is no doubt regarding the second claim. In fact, there is an organization called the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers that works hard to put this vicious lie to death. As a member for the past 17 years of a leading secular humanist organization, I have personally met hundreds of former atheist military members all over the world who have served courageously in battle. Indeed, Paul Kurtz, the leading secular humanist in the world, served valiantly during World War II. The letter writer seems to think because he commanded a battalion in Vietnam that he knows for certain that there were no atheists on the battlefield. However, he would have to be God himself to know this for certain. In any case, even if there were no atheists in Vietnam, that would hardly prove that God exists. After all, during times of war, people are most likely to revert to all kinds of superstition out of fear and desperation.

What would really be shocking is if there were no atheists in science labs and philosophy classes, where reason, rather than fear and irrationality, is more likely to prevail.

I am familiar with Mr. Allen from his appearances on multiple radio shows and podcasts and am pleased that he mentioned the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers to counter the simply anecdotal claim by the writer of the anti-atheist letter to which he is responding. My only disappointment is that this letter was written by someone outside of the area instead of by a local resident like the original pro-atheist letter. The people of Jacksonville need to understand that there are more atheists, agnostics and other non-believers in the area than they probably think. The first step toward being respected for any group is standing up and being heard.

Atheism is Not a Religion

Critics of atheism often claim that atheism itself is a religion, but I have never encountered any atheist who agrees with this view. Atheists insist rather that atheism is the lack of religious belief. I would like to examine the idea that not believing in any gods is a religion by analyzing two associated claims.

“Atheism requires faith.”

This often seems to mean only that the speaker believes atheism to be incorrect, so therefore it requires faith to believe that it is correct. If this were so, then one could claim every view with with one disagrees is a religion, whether the question is religion, politics, economics, science, history or even sports. This is obviously absurd.

A more charitable interpretation of this statement is that the speaker believes that there is no proof for atheism, thefore it requires faith to believe it is true. There are at least two problems with this. First, weak atheism is simply the lack of belief in gods. A weak atheist doesn't make a claim about gods to consider true, so there can be no faith. Second, strong atheism indeed does make a claim that no gods exist, but this is based on the lack of evidence for gods and certain arguments like the problem of evil. It is true that this does not constitute absolute proof, but that doesn't mean it is believed on faith. We don't have absolute proof that the atomic theory of matter is correct, but the evidence points in that direction and it's reasonable to believe it. We also don't have absolute proof that Santa Claus doesn't exist, but again the evidence points in that direction and no one claims that disbelieving in Santa is a matter of faith. If one wants to argue that atheists just don't have good evidence, that is reasonable, but as discussed above that doesn't entail that atheism is a religion unless one wants to label as a religion every opinion with which one disagrees based on the evidence.

“Atheism worships mankind.”

The only thing all atheists have in common is that they don't believe in gods. Outside of this one opinion, there is infinite variety of other opinions. Some atheists are liberals while some are conservatives, while others are libertarians or socialists or fascists or communists or even monarchists. Some atheists believe in nothing supernatural while others believe in ghosts and the afterlife. Some atheists attend religious services while others don't. Some atheists are open about their disbelief while others hide it. Some denounce religion while some want to preserve it, while others simply don't care. There are general tendencies one can identify among atheists, such as the tendency to think independently, but even this tendency is a source of more disunity than unity. It has been said, correctly in my estimation, that organizing atheists is like herding cats. The reason is that atheists are a negatively defined group. It makes as much sense to make generalizations about people who don't believe in gods as it does to make generalizations about people who don't like chocolate ice cream.

People who make the claim that atheists worship mankind make two major mistakes. First, they think that all atheists are Humanists and thus they use the terms interchangeably. This is simply not true; nihilists are just one example of atheists who are not Humanists. Incidentally, many of the very same people also claim that atheists don't believe in morality, making the exact opposite error of thinking that all atheists are nihilists. Second, they think Humanists worship mankind, but this is also simply not true. Humanists do consider humans to be the most advanced beings we know about and do think humans should solve their own problems without help from deities, but that certainly doesn't constitute worship in any sense. Yes, there are a small number of Humanist celebrants who perform certain secular ceremonies like marriages and funerals, but none of these gatherings involve anything resembling worship like kneeling before humans and offering prayers. These ceremonies instead fulfill the desires some people have for formal rituals like graduation. No one claims that schools worship education simply because they recognize students who do well in a formal program! It should also be noted that only a tiny fraction of Humanists have ever attended even one of these services and most aren't even interested in special Humanist ceremonies. Humanism is more of a label than anything else.

Why do religious people make the argument that atheism is a religion? At first it seems odd because they themselves are religious and they obviously don't consider religion to be inherently bad. I presume, however, that it's a defense mechanism because they encounter atheists who criticize religion as irrational, so they label atheism as a religion in order to cast atheists as hypocrites. This argument might convince many faithful, but it holds no weight for atheists who understand their own position.

If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby. — Unknown

Anti-Atheist Letter

After this week's unexpected pro-atheist letter, it was not unexpected that someone would respond with an anti-atheist letter. This letter by Howard Jelinek was published today under the heading, “Atheists: No atheists in Vietnam.”

A recent letter titled "Atheists: Nonbelievers are coming out" was grossly incorrect. The letter writer stated that "you will find less crime, less divorce, less child molestation, less spousal abuse, etc., per capita among nontheists than any religious group." This is an incorrect statement without proof.

She also stated "there are also thousands of atheists in foxholes." I had the privilege of commanding a battalion from the 82nd Airborne Division during the Tet offensive in Vietnam. On several occasions, I flew chaplains to combat airborne troops fighting near Hue. During a lull in fighting, religious services were held at the battle scene. Perimeter guards had to be rotated so that all could attend the brief service. It was impressive to see all the young men take time out to bow their heads in prayer. I did not see any atheists; everyone wanted the opportunity to pray. On other occasions, I brought a Catholic chaplain to a monastery that had been partially destroyed in a fierce battle. Without being announced, church bells were rung and the nearby Vietnamese would stop their activities and come immediately to worship. This was risky for them, for the area was still contested. Again, the fields became empty, and I saw no atheists among the Vietnamese.

Mr. Jelinek's first point is completely unsubstantiated. Yes, there was no evidence presented for Ms. Perry's statistical claims, but there was also no evidence presented against Ms. Perry's claims either. I don't know whether the letter writers failed to include them in their letters or whether the newspaper failed to print them, but as it stands now, neither claim is supported.

Mr. Jelinek's second point is equally weak. He denies Ms. Perry's claim about the number of atheists in the military based solely on anecdotal evidence from a single incident! I suggest that he visit the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers with detailed statements from over 100 individual servicemen, and the Atheists in Foxholes event with the names of over 500 servicemen. I also suggest that he bear in mind that this represents only a small fraction of atheists in the ranks of the military.

Pro-Atheist Letter

It was unexpected that the first mention of religion or irreligion in the editorial section of The Florida-Times Union under my monitoring policy would be a pro-atheist letter to the editor. This letter by Beth Perry was published today under the heading, “Atheists: Non-believers are coming out.”

I was surprised and delighted to see the article on American atheists, and how they are vilified by people who claim to be "good Christians." Is this any different than what is happening in Iraq presently between the religious sects?

Non-believers are beginning to come out of the closet because of theocratic issues that have developed in Washington, D.C., by our present president, such as the faith-based office, as well as giving tax monies to mostly Christian churches for charity work. This is violating our Constitution and what it stands for, although that does not seem to bother our present commander-in-chief as far as how many violations he has made. On New Year's Day, in 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a reply from the Baptists of Danbury, Conn., to their request for an explanation of the meaning of the First Amendment phrase, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ..." Jefferson replied, "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."

For those who think non-believers cannot be good citizens, you will find less crime, less divorce, less child molestation, less spousal abuse, etc., per capita among non-theists than any religious group.

There are also thousands of "atheists in foxholes."

Having only been an atheist for two years, I am not in a position to determine whether atheists are coming out more so in recent years than previously, but this trend been noted by others who also identify the growth of theocracy as a primary cause. I agree with all of Ms. Perry's other points and am pleased to see something positive about atheism in the local newspaper.

Newspaper Monitoring Policy

Today I am adopting the policy of regularly monitoring the editorial section of my local newspaper, The Florida Times-Union, and commenting on each item regarding religion and irreligion appearing on its pages. Jacksonville is considered part of the American Bible Belt and the views presented in the only major newspaper in the area reflect this. While the editorial staff at the newspaper seem just as conservative and religious as the general populace, they usually present their opinions with greater precision and tact, so the letters to the editor will often receive more of my attention.

One does not have to be a subscriber or even register at their website to read the articles, so I will be able to link to them directly. Unfortunately today's edition contained nothing of interest. I expect, however, to publish my first comment of this series very soon.

Happy New Year 2007!

New Year's is one my favorite holidays of the year.

• non-religious — no controversy about how or why we celebrate it
• simple decorations — balloons, streamers, party hats, noisemakers, confetti and fireworks
• reflection — opportunity to consider the previous year
• resolution — opportunity to consider the next year
• football — lots of good football games on television in the United States
  
• end of the holiday season — time for our lives to return to normal

The only aspect of the celebration that I dislike is the emphasis on alcohol, but at least many people also stress the importance of moderation and taking safety precautions.

I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Happy Humanlight!

Humanlight is a Humanist holiday celebrated today, December 23rd, as a secular counterpart to Christmas, Hanukkah and other religious winter holidays. According to the official website, it celebrates the Humanist vision of the future. It is my opinion that, given the name and the proximity to the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, we should celebrate the growing light of human reason against the darkness of ignorance.

The celebration of Christmas is sufficiently secular that I feel completely comfortable celebrating it, but I like the idea of adding a Humanist holiday to the calendar. Happy Humanlight!

Happy Winter Solstice!

Although I do nothing special to celebrate this day, I would like to wish everyone who reads this a happy winter solstice, and to our friends in the southern hemisphere, a happy summer solstice!

Hooray for the return of light!

Reflections on Humanism

What is Humanism? Humanism is a philosophy of life which affirms that the only solutions to human problems are to be found in humans themselves. In particular, Humanists value:

• naturalism
  
• rationality
• science
  
• democracy
• human rights
  
• secular ethics based on human compassion
• meaning found in human relationships

Naturalism here denotes metaphysical naturalism, which is the disbelief in everything supernatural such as gods, angels, devils, ghosts, spirits, souls, blessings, curses, prayer, magic, sin and grace. Although humanism (small h) does not strictly require naturalism, Humanism (capital h) does.

Humanism shares several important features with religion, but it is not a religion because it has no belief in the supernatural. Additionally, there are no holy books, no temples, no priests, no rituals and no dogma. I tend to think of it as a philosophy of life, but others prefer to call it a life stance, an umbrella term intended to include both religions and philosophies.

It is my opinion that Humanism serves primarily as a label, though a very useful label with an important purpose. One doesn't accept Humanist principles after encountering Humanism; rather one realizes that one already holds these principles and decides to identify as a Humanist. Identifying as a Humanist doesn't affect one's daily life; the principles themselves could affect it, but even then there are no special Humanist practices resembling religious practices to give life meaning. Nevertheless, Humanism provides many atheists and agnostics with a positive label which describes what they do believe instead of what they don't believe, distinguishes atheists who hold these principles from those who do not, and allows them to organize based on these shared principles.

I am proud to say that I am a Humanist.

Born to Die

Today I saw a flier advertising the performance of a Christmas cantata entitled Born to Die by a community college gospel chorale. Although the existence of a gospel chorale at a public college strikes me as inappropriate, I am no legal expert and I cannot discuss any possible church-state separation issues. Instead I wish to comment on the name of the cantata and on the absurd Christian doctrines to which it refers: original sin, immaculate conception, incarnation and redemption.

Original Sin
Adam and Eve were unable to discern good and evil and thus could not sin. God then forever punished all of their descendants who were completely innocent of even this supposed violation and endowed them with an irresistible inclination to sin, thus causing all sins throughout history.

Immaculate Conception
God does not punish Mary with original sin, so that Jesus could be born of a pure woman. This is pointless, creates spiritual inequality, and demonstrates that original sin was not logically necessary. (This doctrine is only professed by Catholics.)

Incarnation
God is born of a virgin. This is pointless, invalidates the genealogical claims through Joseph, and too closely resembles divine incarnations in many other religions.

Redemption
God executes himself, in order to appease himself, for the sins of the beings which he himself created, against the rules he himself wrote.

Additionally, the name of the cantata also strikes me as very morbid. We are reminded that the primary reason that God assumed the form of a human baby was not so he could relieve human suffering, not so he could preach love and wisdom, not so he could found a church to act in his name, but so that he could be tortured and die in agony. What a macabre birthday!

Two Kinds of Faith

The word faith is used to denote two rather distinct concepts, tending to create considerable confusion in assessing the reasons people claim for holding their religious beliefs. I have previously addressed the common failure to distinguish between unbelief and disbelief and now I would like to turn my attention to the two kinds of faith.

Theists often claim that they have “faith in God.” This phrase has two interpretations: “I trust that what God says is true” and “I believe that God exists even though his existence is not demonstrated.” The former is a theoretically sound position while the latter is simply unreasonable. A theist can mean one, the other, or both simultaneously, and unfortunately, theists very often confound the two, feeling justified in their unreasonable belief by reference to the alternate, inapplicable meaning.

Faith as trust
Theists trust God to speak truthfully and to fulfill his promises. If an omnimax deity truly exists, then this trust is wholly appropriate. An infinitely perfect being would be infinitely trustworthy and theists would be justified in placing unlimited confidence in his sincerity and abilities. (This is not to say that they would be right to believe and obey him under all imaginable circumstances, but this is because it would require unlimited confidence in their own determination that these messages really were from an omnimax deity, not because an omnimax deity in principle shouldn't be trusted completely.)

Faith as belief without sufficient evidence
Theists usually don't claim proof or overwhelming evidence for their belief that God exists or that a religious institution or a holy book infallibly reveals God's truth. Instead they often cite faith as justification for these beliefs and present this faith as a matter of trust in a perfect being. The problem is that this is circular logic as it assumes the truth of the belief in establishing that very belief itself. One cannot trust an omnimax deity before one has established the existence of such a being. This type of faith is really belief without or even in spite of evidence. In this sense, faith is irrational and absurd because it's a carte blanche to justify absolutely any belief whatsoever.

If someone wants to believe without evidence, let them at least admit that this is irrational and absurd rather than disguising it as matter of rational trust.

Why I Am No Longer A Catholic

The following is a lengthy essay documenting my reasons for leaving the Catholic Church. It was written in December 2004, two months after my apostasy.

I. Introduction

Before I begin explaining my reasons for leaving the faith, it would be appropriate to briefly examine the reasons I was a Catholic in the first place. The story of how I entered the Church is a very common one: my Catholic parents had me baptized not long after my birth, brought me to church each Sunday, and sent me to formal religious education at the church until I made confirmation at the age of thirteen. As do many children, I simply accepted what I was told by adults in essentially all matters without questioning it, and this certainly extended to what I was told about God and religion.

While my enthusiasm for religion waxed and waned, I cannot recall any doubts of any significance until the summer after I graduated from high school, at the age of seventeen. For the next eight years I struggled from time to time with these doubts, and reassured myself with various reasons for believing the Catholic faith true. Since this is not a deconversion story, I will not detail the reasons I began my investigation into arguments against the faith, but only summarize my research, reasoning, and conclusions.

The intellectual challenge to my faith was two-pronged: questioning the reasons I had for believing and discovering distinct reasons for disbelieving. With regards to general chronology and relative strength, the order of these two elements was in fact reversed, but for stylistic reasons I am presenting them here in the listed order.

II. Reasons to Believe

A. Argument from Miracles

The history of the Catholic Church is filled with volumes upon volumes of accounts of miraculous events of all sorts: healings, apparitions, divine artifacts, extreme fasting, levitation, bilocation, mind-reading, visible Eucharistic transformations, survival of deadly force, resurrections, and even a dancing sun. St. Vincent Ferrer, a Dominican missionary of the 14th and 15th centuries from the Iberian peninsula, is reputed to have performed 40,000 miracles in his lifetime alone, which incidentally only lasted approximately 25,000 days. It's an impressive record, and very effective in quelling the doubts of a young Catholic. Its efficacy in convincing skeptics, however, is almost non-existent and for good reason. There are a number of problems with using miracles to establish the truth of a religion.

I would like to begin by saying that the sheer number of alleged miracles can seem overwhelming until one examines why mistakes, hallucinations, fraud, and forgeries could be so common. We need to understand that there is a long tradition of miracles in Christianity. Jesus Christ performed a number of miracles to establish himself as the messiah and the Son of God. The apostles performed miracles to establish their apostolic authority. Saints are only canonized by the Church after two separate confirmed miracles are attributed to them or their intercession. People in an unscientific age would be less likely to fully investigate an unusual natural occurrence and more likely to mistakenly consider it a miracle. Additionally, miracles brought respect, fame, and fortune that would entice many to try to create their own. There are even so-called pious frauds which are contrived to increase the declining faith of the people. The number of claimed cases itself proves nothing.

The most glaring difficulty with using miracles to establish the truth of a religion is determining whether these events occurred at all. A miracle qua miracle is always the least likely possible explanation of any event. While scientists and historians may be reliable enough to establish the probability of natural events, they are simply not trustworthy enough to establish the occurrence of a supernatural event which violates the basic laws we otherwise never see broken. It is always more likely that the reports are mistaken, fraudulent, or the result of later forgery than that a natural physical law was violated. Whatever the individual case, it's important to remember that there are always other possible explanations that cannot be definitively ruled out so that divine intervention can be firmly established.

Beyond the difficulties of confirming miracles at all, there is also a major problem in that each person in the world would himself need to become an expert in logic, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, psychology, history, and several other academic fields in order to be as certain as possible that no errors have occurred in the long line of research and reasoning. For while one may trust scientists and historians to establish the likelihood of natural events, one cannot confirm a supernatural occurrence and logically conclude that a certain institution is absolutely infallible on the fallible word of other persons.

The validity of using miracles to establish religious authority depends entirely on the truthfulness of whoever performed the miracle, in most cases assumed to be an omnimax (omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent) deity. This assumption, however, must be challenged. First, the very existence of such a being can be questioned; the problem of evil even suggests that such a being most certainly does not exist. Second, we cannot exclude the possibility of less honest supernatural or even advanced natural extraterrestrial beings performing these miracles. In fact, miracles in religions other than Christianity have sometimes been dismissed as the work of demons. Descartes argues that an omnimax deity would not allow supernatural beings to deceive us. This argument depends on the existence of an omnimax deity and certain knowledge of his will, and fails to consider that this deity does not prevent even other humans from deceiving us into false religions. One would need to exhaustively investigate the numerous miraculous claims in all other religions in case miracles confirm conflicting messages.

Finally, unless we blindly assume that whoever is most intimately connected to the miracle is henceforth absolutely infallible, we need a reliable method of determining when he speaks authoritatively. We cannot allow the authority to define it himself because we do not know whether this definition itself is infallible; the logic would be circular and thus invalid.

I personally consider fulfilled prophecy to be a special subtype of miracle. Everything I have said against miracles applies as well to prophecy, so there is no need to repeat my arguments. Mystical experiences are also of a similar nature to miracles and prophecy: they simply cannot establish an authority that we can trust without questioning. The argument from miracles fails.

B. Argument from Ecclesiastical Stability

The Catholic Church has experienced a certain amount of stability throughout her history. This point is certainly worth noting when studying the Church, but I argue that it cannot be used to establish her supernatural claims. First, the stability is only relative. In comparison to the doctrinal alterations experienced in the short history of Protestantism, yes, the Catholic Church has been quite solid. But in the earliest years of the religion, it was anything but stable. There were a good number of competing factions, teaching and believing very different things. These were not just heretical fringe groups. Often those who held the currently unorthodox positions greatly outnumbered those who eventually established their own beliefs as universal orthodoxy. Real and lasting stability didn't arise until Emperor Constantine converted and instated Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, and at the same time also outlawing all other religions. Now with worldly power, the Church became more and more disinclined to alter doctrines unnecessarily and thereby jeopardize the status and revenue it was accruing. It should be noted that there have always been heretical groups, but that they were unable to establish and maintain themselves indefinitely until the invention of the printing press strengthened their cause against the extremely powerful bureaucracy of the Church. The various inquisitions stand out as rather ungodly methods of maintaining ecclesiastical stability, but we should not forget how effective the economic, social, and spiritual devastation attached to the silent threat of peaceful excommunication could be throughout the history of the Church. We should also note that the Church places extremely stringent limitations on what she considers unchanged in her history. The teachings and attitudes toward non-Christians, for example, have undergone revolutionary changes in recent centuries and expert theologians have had to bend over backward to find some core teaching which fits multiple teachings. Both Vatican Councils have resulted in the birth of many schismatic or semi-schismatic groups in the last two centuries. Why is there such an appearance of instability, both in doctrinal matters and church governance, if there is in fact none?

It is not necessary that I establish the instability of the Catholic Church. It is not even necessary that I demonstrate that her stability is debatable. It is only necessary that I provide natural reasons for the stability she has displayed, and I believe I have done that. The Church's stability is not nearly strong enough to establish the divine origins she claims. If never there had existed any heretics, schismatics, or doctrinal development, if there had never been violent and non-violent threats against heretics and apostates, both in this life and the next, and if there had been only minimal worldly motives for maintaining stability, there would be some plausibility to the idea. But it is simply not the case. The numerous failings of the Church, especially on a grand scale, strongly suggest it is something other than divine. The Church may perhaps be a unique institution in world history, but it has all the markings of a merely human institution nonetheless. The argument from Church stability fails.

III. Reasons to Disbelieve

A. Divine Injustice

1. Original Sin

The doctrine of original sin teaches that all of humanity has been punished for the sin of our earliest ancestors. Punishing an innocent party for the transgressions of another party is clearly unjust. The association we have with the other party was even made without our consent. And even if substitutionary punishment were just, it would at least require the assent of the party to be punished, which we have never granted. No Catholic can argue that original sin is a logical necessity, for the Church teaches that God allowed the Virgin Mary to be conceived without any taint of sin. There exists no reason he could not do the same for each human conceived, who are all as equally innocent as the Virgin Mary before they are born. Original sin is pure injustice.

2. Eternal Punishment

Assuming for the sake of argument that God has the right to punish his creations for their sins, justice demands that the penalty match the severity of the crime. Eternal punishment in hell for temporal sins violates this principle. A human who inflicts a limited amount of unjust suffering will himself experience unimaginable agony for all of eternity. St. Thomas Aquinas recognizes this principle but argues in his famous Summa Theologica that because God is an infinite being, all sins against him are infinite in magnitude. There are two major problems with this idea.

First, God as an infinite being cannot suffer: we cannot do anything to diminish his infinite beatitude in even the slightest degree. The first reason that we imagine that we can is that our natural experiences involve only finite, harmable creatures so we cannot truly conceive of an infinite being. The second reason is that we have been taught that Jesus suffered despite the logical impossibility of the concept.

Second, the Church distinguishes not only between mortal and venial sins, but between transgressions that are inherently more or less grave. If we follow the idea presented by Aquinas, this distinction is totally mistaken; all sins are infinitely grave. One cannot argue that some sins are more infinitely grave than others.

3. Doubt, Disbelief, and Apostasy

Prohibition of doubt in matters of religion and philosophy is nothing more than tyrannical intellectual dishonesty to the extent to which it limits rational inquiry. If one is never allowed to question his own thinking, he will remained trapped in a mental jail which he has constructed for himself with the help of the Church. It should be noted that Church actually encourages members of other faiths to doubt their religions and investigate Christianity. Logical consistency would demand that they discourage them, for many non-Christians are as convinced of the truthfulness of their own religion as are many Christians.

The extent to which our beliefs are willfully held is debatable. I think that most would agree, however, that it is wrong to assume that all non-Christians, at least those sufficiently exposed to Christianity, deliberately choose to disbelieve the faith. Culpability could only be assigned if the non-believer makes the decision with sufficient consciousness and is sufficiently convinced of the truth of the faith prior to the decision. We cannot presume to truly know the mind of even one other person, much less everyone who has encountered Christianity, so it seems absurd to uniformly condemn all of those who refuse their assent to the faith.

The condemnation of apostasy rests entirely on the condemnation of disbelief. There is no reason to prohibit the discontinuation of the practice of a religion which one no longer believes.

4. Biblical Atrocities

The Bible is full of stories of violent injustice of all types committed by God, commanded by God, rewarded by God, or looked favorably upon by God: wars of conquest, slaughter of innocent men, women, and children, divine plagues, looting, slavery, death penalty for minor infractions, and a worldwide flood. The Skeptic's Annotated Bible is an excellent reference to Biblical violent injustice.

B. Divine Imperfect Benevolence

1. Prayer and Blessing

Prayers of petition are completely incompatible with the idea of an omnimax deity. With perfect knowledge, power, and benevolence, we would expect God to provide us with all of the good things we need simply because he loves us. Petitionary prayer implies that God would refrain from granting you or someone else something if you failed to ask for it. Would even a human parent fail to prepare dinner for his child if the child did not specifically ask for it, or would he cook one because he knows that is what is best for the child? Would he not attempt to catch his child falling from a tree and prevent a broken bone unless the child yelled for help, or would he try his hardest to prevent injury to his beloved child? When someone prays, for instance, that God grant him a safe journey and protect him from harm, he is essentially asking his all-loving Creator to prevent any injury that he would have allowed to happen to him if he had not made this petition. If God knows what is best for us and is completely capable of and willing to giving it to us, why ask him for anything? If he desires that we humble ourselves before him, there are other ways of doing that without making his blessings conditional.

The absolute disparity of the blessings bestowed upon each individual is normally answered by saying that God will judge each individual according to what he did with what he had and that God always judges perfectly fairly. Why not grant everyone the same blessings in this life? Why allow it to appear as though he does not exist and that blessings are randomly distributed? These questions prove nothing, but they do force one to ponder the situation. Regardless, I am often made sick when a rich person in a rich nation attributes some minor blessing to God on account of his faith and prayers when the same God allows thousands of orphaned, exploited, abused, malnourished, homeless, innocent children to die in filthy gutters around the world every single day.

2. Arbitrary Salvation

Salvation is a very highly disputed issue among Christians, with many contradictory opinions held fiercely by different groups. The requirement for salvation in the Catholic Church, however, is that one must die in a state of grace. One enters a state of grace by baptism, and if he should fall into a state of sin by committing a mortal sin, he must make a sacramental confession to a Catholic priest and receive God's forgiveness. This remains the teaching about what is necessary for believing Catholics. Over the years, the Church seems to have gone from condemning every single non-Catholic to hell to throwing her hands up into the air and making extremely vague statements about hoping for the salvation of even non-Christians. This is evidence of doctrinal instability, but the recent equivocation is almost impossible to criticize because it cannot be clearly formulated. There are, however, a number of serious problems with the clear teaching.

First, the time of death becomes disproportionately significant. One may lead a life of exemplary piety and faith, commit a single mortal sin in his dying moments, and be condemned to eternal fire. Alternatively, one may lead a life of debauchery and violence, sincerely repent in his dying moments, and be welcomed to eternal paradise, though admittedly having to spend a long time in purgatory beforehand. One may walk out of a church, having made a good and honest confession and thus in a state of grace, consent to one impure thought on the way home, get struck by lightning immediately afterward, and be condemned to hell. If the lightning had struck one minute earlier, he would have enjoyed the delights of heaven. It is completely arbitrary. Though I do not accuse the Church of having crafted the doctrine deliberately, they could not have designed one more favorable to her power: the faithful must diligently be cautious to remain in a state of grace lest their lives be wasted, while infidels are offered the chance to have their eternal condemnation voided and receive eternal paradise if they return to the Church, enter a state of grace, and die in the same. To remain in a state of grace, a Catholic must, among many other things, attend Mass on all holy days of obligation and generally contribute money to the Church.

Second, since the Church distinguishes between more and less grave sins, as discussed earlier, absurd lines must be drawn within sins that are not inherently grave. Theft is more or less grave depending on the circumstance such that, all other things being equal, stealing a small amount is generally venial in nature whereas stealing a large amount is mortal in nature. The line is sometimes drawn at an amount equal to one day's wages for the victim, but the specifics of the line are unimportant to my point. What is significant is that there does exist some line that separates two amounts which differ in the smallest monetary unit used, which would be a penny here in the United States. Let's say in one particular case that the line is drawn at $100.00. If you are in a state of grace, steal $99.99, and die immediately afterward, you would commit only a venial sin and thus go to heaven. All other things being equal, if you steal $100.00, you will commit a mortal sin and thus go to hell. Must a line be drawn? We humans must draw lines somewhere in government and business, but certainly an omnimax God could devise a superior system for determining whether we are granted entrance to paradise or to a lake of fire.

Third, the teaching allows for practically absurd scenarios to arise. Let's say that Person A hates Person B. Person A not only wants to murder Person B, but he wants to try to have him condemned to hell. Person B is a faithful Catholic and we can assume, for the sake of the story, that he would achieve salvation if Person A does not interfere. Person A, however, deliberately and successfully attempts to corrupt the morals of Person B, by encouraging and tempting him to commit various mortal sins and lose his state of grace. So Person B cheats on his wife by sleeping with a prostitute, and Person A kills Person B immediately afterward. Person B is now in hell and will remain there forever. Person A, however, can theoretically repent of his sins, go to confession, enter a state of grace, die in the same, and be rewarded with heaven for all eternity.

Fourth, with one's eternal fate always hanging in the balance, the Catholic teaching on salvation can easily lead to obsession with death, sin, and hell, if taken completely seriously. The stakes are simply too high to relax. One can diligently study Catholic morality, examine his conscience, meet with his confessor and still have doubts about the condition of his soul, whether he should go to confession when available or whether he should refrain from receiving communion. Confessors can confidently instruct their penitents to consider doubt equivalent to being no sin, but the obsession with the infinite cannot be so easily reined in. One doubts whether he should trust his confessor. He doubts whether he doubts and then fears that he claims doubts where none exist in order to excuse himself. It always seems safer to go to confession whenever possible and always refrain from communion. Can one live with the eternal consequences if he really does culpably excuse himself? Everyone does this every day when dealing with their earthly lives: we aren't certain that our food isn't poisoned, but we would rather risk our lives than ruin them obsessing over the extremely small chance of being poisoned. When you throw infinity into the equation, however, everything becomes skewed. No behavior becomes too radical. One can derive absolutely no comfort in hell by reminding himself that it was extremely unlikely that he was in a state of mortal sin when he in fact was. His choice to attend a sporting event instead of confession on one afternoon resulted in his eternal damnation; he would have been better off for the rest of his existence if he had played it safe. What's more, petitionary prayer implies that a decision to go to bed early one evening rather than spending ten minutes asking God for the gift of final penitence could eventually result in one's damnation. The Catholic teaching on salvation, if taken seriously, can easily lead to a life of obsessive-compulsive behavior. Although one can rightly argue that canonized saints certainly took the teachings of the Church seriously, it does not mean that they followed all of the teachings to their logical conclusions. The phenomenon of scrupulosity is extremely rare among canonized saints even though it affects a number of fairly devout believers. Since I have found no response to this issue, I hypothesize that canonized saints generally do not have obsessive personalities, allowing them to avoid obsession, while people who do are prevented from achieving sainthood precisely because of their personalities. I welcome research on this topic.

3. Superior Alternative Plans

Devising superior alternatives to what the Church teaches is God's divine plan of salvation is surprisingly easy. If we believe that God desires that every person be saved and avoid eternal damnation, we simply seek ways to achieve this objective while attempting to avoid compromises with different divine desires.

First, we must understand that Christians place great importance on free will and consider it logically impossible without the ability to determine our eternal fate. Christians, however, also believe two very significant things about heaven: First, no saint ever sins. Second, every saint has free will. This means that free will and not sinning are entirely compatible, which itself means that God could have created us in a state similar to heaven in which we have all the benefits of free will without anyone being damned to hell. There is no reason to think that an omnimax deity would have some other motive that would have been worth letting many of his beloved creatures suffer eternally.

Second, God could have chosen to refrain from placing temporal limits on his mercy. Catholics believe one has his entire life to enter and remain in a state of grace, and once he dies, he has no more chances. There is no reason to imagine that souls in hell cannot repent. On the contrary, they have more reasons than ever to do so. If they can repent, why would God not accept their repentance and forgive their sins, as he would joyfully have done one second before they breathed their last breath? If they can't repent, why would he remove them from the earth where repentance is always possible? The only response I have encountered is that, given an infinite amount of time to repent, all souls would achieve salvation and no one could really choose eternal torture. It is presented as though that's a bad thing! I am not convinced that an infinite number of opportunities necessitates that something will occur, but infinity is a difficult concept to grasp and apply, so I will grant this point for the sake of argument. Regardless, the one choice to repent, whenever it happens, would still be absolutely free and free will in that sense would still be maintained. Does it really matter that everyone is fated to freely accept God's love and live with him in perfect happiness for all eternity? Why would God allow us to freely choose eternal torture when he could have achieved all known objectives without a single soul in hell forever?

Third, assuming the principle that infinite chances equals necessary occurrence, God could have chosen to extend the lives of humans until they enter a state of grace and then allow them to die immediately, assuring their salvation. This plan is actually superior to the second because no one would have to suffer in hell even temporarily!

Fourth, God could have chosen to deny humans free will. Many, if not all, souls in hell would have preferred to have no free will if they had known they would be condemned to eternal torment. Unless this desire is irrational, there is no reason to suppose God would act against their wishes. Would a human parent hand his suicidal child a loaded gun so that he can freely choose whether to live or die? Or would he act in the best interest of the child and not give him that free choice? Why would God act differently?

Fifth, God could have chosen to annihilate the souls that now go to hell. I do not accept the explanation that because God wills them to be eternal, he cannot destroy them. Even if that were so, God would still have known better than to make creatures who will find themselves better off not existing. Who would prefer to suffer unimaginable pain for eternity than to be annihilated? If God is the source of all happiness, what is the point in existing without him forever?

C. Implausibility as Divine Plan

1. Redemption

God becomes incarnate, suffers an execution to cancel a debt of justice to himself, incurred by his creatures by violating rules that he himself decreed. Paying someone else's monetary debts is certainly possible, but paying someone else's debts of justice is just not possible. Allowing someone to suffer in another's place for punishment is not possible for humans, and there is no reason why it would be logically possible for God either. Debts of justice are inherently non-transferrable.

2. Faith

Christians accept the importance of faith, ironically, as a matter of faith. Never have I encountered an explanation why one's salvation depends so heavily on believing a certain set of propositions true that made any semblance of sense. The best attempt casts it as a matter of personal trust in God, but there are two major defects of this explanation. First, it completely fails to address the fact that non-believers don't believe God exists, so any discussion of trust in him is nonsensical. Second, trust is not something that is freely chosen. If one believes he can trust someone, then trust is not praiseworthy. If one believes he cannot trust someone, then mistrust is not blameworthy. The issue of belief is central and cannot be replaced with trust. Let us examine an example to illustrate. One day a man is sitting at home and he receives a telephone call. The voice at the other end is unfamiliar, but the speaker claims to be a billionaire second cousin that the man has never met or even heard of. He says that if the man sends him all the money from his savings account within twenty-four hours, he will give him ten million dollars, but if he does not, he will receive nothing. He gives the man some reasons to suggest he is legitimate, but there are problems with his story that the man cannot resolve. He asks the man just to trust him despite the difficulties. Let's say for the sake of the story that this offer is legitimate. Would the man be blameworthy for not believing this story without sufficient evidence simply because it turned out to be true? Then why do Christians consider non-Christians not just blameworthy but deserving of eternal torment for not believing the story of Jesus without sufficient evidence simply because it turned out to be true? If someone does not believe one's important message, is it better to enlighten him to best of one's ability or to torture him forever?

One story from the Gospels presents us with an interesting question. Why is the Apostle Thomas' doubt indulged by Jesus and he later considered a saint whereas later doubters were condemned, excommunicated, and occasionally tortured and executed? Why are we not justified in saying that we will not believe until we can examine Jesus' wounds ourselves?

3. Judaism

The Bible reports that the Jews are the chosen people of God. Christians view the Jews as being chosen primarily to prepare the way of Jesus to save the entire world. This presents some problems that are difficult to answer. Why did God institute the Mosaic Law if it was going to be rejected by the Christian Church? If it was salvific, then why replace it? If it was not salvific, then why institute it at all? Also, since most Jews, both in the time portrayed in the Gospel and ever since, have rejected Jesus as the messiah, why did God guard over them for three thousand years? Why would the chosen people be so unlikely to accept the message of their own messiah, who was the purpose of their entire existence? There is nothing definitive here, but it does cause one to question the plausibility of the story.

4. Biblical Problems

The Bible is full of material which suggests it is the work of humans and not of God: contradictions, failed prophecies, scientific errors, religious intolerance, misogyny, racism, sexual perversion, and blatant absurdities. I recommend The Skeptic's Annotated Bible as an excellent reference to Biblical imperfections.

5. Human or Divine?

The story of Christianity, and especially of Jesus, has all of the markings of a purely human phenomenon.

• similarities to god-men in other religions
  • divine father, human mother
  • gathered apostles
  • suffered for the sins of humans
  • resurrected from dead
  • ascended into heaven
• message not proclaimed universally
  • attested to by small, unoriginal, unverifiable miracles
  • recorded by men decades after death with many imperfections
  • Christians themselves deeply divided into many sects
  • still has not reached all persons
  • superior alternatives absurdly easily devised
• doubted by those who knew him best
  • Israelites
  • Nazarenes
  • family
  • apostles
  • St. John the Baptist
• return expected imminently for millennia still not accomplished

We can either conclude that God had some mysterious motivation for letting his perfect divine plan appear like a human-made religion, or that Christianity is a human-made religion. The choice is clear to me.

IV. Faith Paradigms

A. Definition

I have examined all of the major reasons I had for believing and have rejected all of them as insufficient for establishing the truth of the Catholic faith. At this point, some readers may be thinking that I have missed the entire point of religion: that it's about faith in that which you cannot prove, not about logic and science. Allow me to respond to this.

I had no definitive understanding of faith until high school when I acquired one, which I call the rationalistic faith paradigm, that differs from what appears to be the official position of the Catholic Church. The rationalistic claim is that one can firmly prove the truth of the Catholic faith using only reason and sense perception. That is, one can establish the authenticity of the Gospels, the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, the divinity of Jesus as the Christ, the establishment of the Catholic Church, and the certain meaning of the promise of the Holy Spirit to guide the Church, all without any appeal to faith. One normally cites the reasons I have examined and rejected above, often called the motives of credibility, as the evidence. Having demonstrated the Catholic Church to be a divinely inspired, infallible authority, we can accept as definitively certain what the Church presents for our belief. Faith is merely a matter of trust and assent to the authority that one has discovered through rational inquiry, and thus in its foundations is completely rationalistic.

What I call the mystical faith paradigm approximates the teachings of the Catholic Church to the best of my knowledge, though I am certainly open to correction and clarification. It presents all of the same motives of credibility as the rationalistic faith paradigm, and with the same intention of arguing for the reasonableness of faith, but it makes more modest claims regarding the effectiveness of this sort of reasoning. It does not claim that these motives of credibility actually prove the faith, but that they are nonetheless strong arguments in its favor and help incline the individual to believe. The mystical faith paradigm differs from the rationalistic primarily in its insistence on faith being a supernatural grace granted at God's good pleasure. Thus our faith is based on supernatural grace, not on the motives of credibility.

B. Analysis

While imperfect and mistaken, neither paradigm is particularly troublesome until one considers the Church's condemnation of unbelief. St. Thomas Aquinas, widely considered the greatest philosopher and theologian in the history of the Church, in his famous Summa Theologica, boldly states that unbelief is the worst of all sins, thus saying that not believing in Christ is worse than murder, without providing any clear reasons why it's sinful in the first place.

Under the rationalistic paradigm, which I repeat is not accepted by the Church but under which I operated for many years, the condemnation would imply that the Catholic faith is so obviously true and divine that anyone who encounters the arguments in its favor will, without exception, believe it's the one true religion. Failing to profess the faith becomes a morally culpable choice to ignore the truth. This is so obviously absurd, and additionally irrelevant, that I will discuss it no further.

Under the mystical paradigm, the condemnation implies that God grants the mystical “light of divine faith” to people of good will who encounter the arguments in favor of the faith so that they can believe, even though the arguments themselves are not completely sufficient in themselves. In fact, it is even said that the arguments are totally insufficient without this grace! This is slightly more difficult to address because of its mystical nature, but not much more. The first objection is that people, in general at least, are not consciously aware of the offer of divine grace, thus it is impossible to make a willful decision to accept or reject it. An act must be willful in order to be sinful, but the supposed worst sin of all is not willful, nor even conscious. The second objection is equally damaging: the only reason we have to believe in the existence of the light of divine faith is the authority of the Church, and the only reason we have to believe in the authority of the Church is the existence of the light of divine faith!

C. Conclusion

Anyone can present insufficient arguments for any faith, claim there is an undetectable and mysterious light of divine faith, and then condemn all unbelievers for rejecting something they don't have sufficient reasons for believing even exists. Should we take seriously everyone who makes such a claim and tremble in fear of displeasing a deity that we're supposed to believe without sufficient evidence and of burning forever in that religion's hell? Then why should we take the Church's threats seriously? If the evidence does not firmly establish an infallible authority, and I argue that in principle and for more reasons than I present in this essay that one can never be established, then we can ignore anything that is not supported by evidence.

Whether intuition and feelings, however, constitute sufficient reason for believing something falls within the jurisdiction of the individual, but I personally do not trust my own intuition enough to decide that a particular comprehensive metaphysical belief system is absolutely, objectively, and universally true and live the only life that I know that I have according to its teachings. If anything, my intuition tells me that Christianity is a purely human and historical phenomenon, not a divine religion instituted by an omnimax deity.

V. Conclusion

Having demolished all of my former reasons for believing, discovered numerous significant, unresolved difficulties, alternate explanations which make much more sense, and established that believing on faith unacceptable, my belief had disappeared. My desire for intellectual honesty and my sufferings from scrupulosity had lead me on an extensive search for the truth. My deeply ingrained fear of hell resulted in prolonging it for several months after I could no longer profess the creed. The threat of infinite suffering as infinite, discussed earlier, had not lost all of its power. Eventually, however, I mustered the courage to say to myself, “If there exists a deity who will punish me forever for rejecting something as absurd, implausible, and disgusting as Christianity, then so be it.”

Thanksgiving & Religion

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Although this thanks has always been directed primarily toward God, it's not considered a religious holiday and it belongs to people of all religions and of no religion. Americans generally do not attend religious services on this day and the only common religious ritual is a somewhat lengthened prayer before the feast of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, yams, mashed potatoes, corn and pumpkin pie. There is no well-known Thanksgiving prayer and each gathering often has its own unique invocation.

There is another common tradition before Thanksgiving dinner. Each person in attendance mentions one or more things for which they are grateful. My own family, however, does not participate in this practice, but I would like to present my list here:

• health
• intellectual freedom
  
• political freedom
• family
• friends
• financial prosperity
  

Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on and appreciate all the good things in our lives. One certainly doesn't need to believe that a supernatural being has bestowed them in order to be grateful for them. Happy Thanksgiving!