Sometimes you need to come out and tell people something, something many people will shame you for being. I've often seen the rampant bullying surrounding my position. Many people in America believe me to be a second class citizen, simply for listening to my heart. My own father disagrees with my stance though thankfully he's less antagonistic than many people I've met. More times than I can count I've been told that what I'm doing is wrong, that I'm morally corrupt, I'll go to Hell if I don't change my ways, they'll pray for me to see the light, I've even been equated to a rapist by some. That's what I get when I open my mouth about it, but when I stay quiet they act like I, and people like me, don't even exist. Once someone told me to my face that he honestly couldn't believe how stupid he thought Bill Maher was, not for a statement he made, but simply because he couldn't understand how anyone with half a brain could believe in nothing.
You may have guessed it by now, I'm an Atheist. Why am I telling you this? Because it's April twenty-third, Openly Secular Day. Why do we need such a thing? well as I said earlier, some people don't believe we even exist. Why me specifically? Well, because it's harder for me to say it than it is for some, and easier than some others.
I transitioned from a vaguely god-believing, Christianish person into an Atheist. Always it seems to astound me that many Christians assume I never shared their view in any way that I was never brought up on the belief of a god or Jesus. Often times they try to assert that I'm missing some knowledge that they can give me, some guidance that I've never been given. Only a handful of time, a small group I could count on one hand, with fingers still wanting, have I ever in my life met a Christian, who actually asked me about what I believed or why. Only a couple Christians in my life took a path that might have actually succeeded in trying to convince someone of God, but they didn't want to. They were the only people who respected my point of view, without trying to insert their own. I respect them for it, and always will. Even though, we disagree theologically, we never debated our view, we only ever explained it to one another for understanding.
My Transition is often seen by Christians as being easy and just a simple choice. They assume it was not painful, and filled with anger, and betrayal of trust. That I didn't turn against people I never wanted to hurt, and was at times afraid of what they would think about me, just for the things I was thinking. Of course, none of those things were true. It was hard, and painful.
They always say the fastest way to make someone an Atheist is to have them read The Bible, in my case that's mostly true. Well not entirely, it's more what made me question things, and become a sort of trapped between being an Atheist and a Theist. For awhile at the end of my transition I was and Atheist who tried to find a way to be an Atheist without treading all over Theist belief systems, because it was that ingrained and forced through that I might be wrong.
One day that all changed, and I became truly Atheist. I read Douglas Adams talking about being a radical Atheist, and why he preferred the term to just Atheist. Immediately I was blown away by the beauty of his argument, he wanted to be called a radical Atheist because he didn't want to be confused with an Agnostic, he wanted people to understand he was convinced there was no God, a subtle, yet important difference to the Christian view that Atheist merely believe there is no God. He equated Agnosticism to people not wanting to think about things too much. To the people who would argue, that surely it would be better to just be Agnostic, just in case, you know, God actually exists, he said,
“If it turns out there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.”
That quote spoke to me stronger than anything I had heard from anyone else in my life. Here was someone, who I respected for writing my favorite book series of all time, telling me that removing myself completely from an idea that so many had pushed towards me, was more valid a stance than the wishy-washy middle ground many tried to suggest was superior.
He went on to address that he didn't see what belief had to do with Atheism versus Theism; he states what he sees as legitimate uses of the word belief, like believing his daughter on whether or not she made a mess. Believing in justice and fair play, he states he might be wrong on these things, but he knows and accepts that. However, in regards for the word being used as a shield for irrational notions when faced with legitimate questions, it has a lot to answer for.
My favorite, and possibly the most resonating part, of his whole response was his refusal of the assertion that any view is equal to another, using the example of him being convinced that the moon was made of rock and not Norwegian beaver cheese.
“There is such a thing as burden of proof, and in the case of God, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we'd got, and we've now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining.”
There it was as clear as day, Evolution and the Big Bang theory account for things without the help of God, that they, in fact, complicate the idea of God. It was how I felt for years, but if I made any attempt to put them into words with any but a select few, it was met with ridicule and mockery.
People still do mock me from time to time when these things are brought up, but I don't see it the same way anymore. A lot of the time, I find the mockery comes from a complete and utter lack of understanding of Evolution or the Big Bang Theory. More often it seems to be a misunderstanding of the word theory. You see something can be a theory and a fact, because they are not actually the same thing, a theory is not a state of being between hypothesis and fact. It is a well-supported explanation of some aspects of nature. Evolution is a fact and a theory at the same time, and has been for awhile now. If you believe something different you're not equally right. Using Douglas Adams one more time,
“All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated, and well-supported in logic and argument than others.”
I would like to take time now to explain Evolution in the way that I understand it, but I believe that that would require more space and time than you're already willing to give me at this moment. So let's only cover what I can, as we continue on my trek backwards into my transition from Theism to Atheism.
I want to clarify that being convinced there is no god or gods is simply a current state, if it were possible to convince me otherwise, I'd change my position. The problem I always seem to have with Christians trying to convert me to their view, is that I always seem to know more about their position then they do. Right now I sound a bit like I'm repeating myself, but it always seems to me that I have to when discussing this. The truth is, as it is with many Atheists, I'm not a Christian, not because of ignorance, but because of too much knowledge, and I find the Bible lacking in compelling evidence. The beauty of the universe cannot be explained or even quantified in the space between its pages.
I often find that my view of the universe is more enthralling than the Christian one. The subtleties of evolution capture my imagination, think of all the things that may have happened, or the majesty of what did. Singular in it's beauty of what may not have happened, and what we are incredibly lucky that did. Not only had this opened a more profound view than I could ever find under Christian teachings, but it made me feel like we were squandering what we had. Ignoring warnings about climate change and the devastating and lasting effects it will have. How we are driving head first towards the next large extinction event, except it won't be caused by natural means this time, it will have been caused by human interference.
I've heard time and again Christians claiming that only God controls the climate, humans can't affect it at all. So now to me, Not only is Christianity simplistic, boring, naive in its explanations of the universe but it is also dangerous to our survival as a species. There are people alive today who honestly debate as to whether or not we should worry about destroying the world because God, who has had a perfect and impeccable track record of stopping massive extinction events so far, was surely going to stop this one or at the least save his followers. Except he hadn't stopped any of the last five extinction events. Ninety-nine percent of all life that had ever lived on Earth is now extinct. And we as humans are going to artificially cause the next one. If any semblance of the human race survives it will not be because of a divine blessing, it will be because of humans evolved ability to adapt to unfavorable conditions, and when that fails, it will be the humans who mutated or carried a gene that made them better suited to the environment than their fellow humans. Don't get me wrong, the Earth will be fine, it's what lives on the Earth that is going to be in trouble.
Danger to our environment isn't the only place were Christianity, was dangerous, however. The abuses in Africa, and telling people that getting AIDS was better than using condoms, condemned the acts of many missionaries in my eyes. Controversy of Mother Teresa's actions coming to light, causing me to dislike missionaries even more. Christianity's stance on contraception and sexual education has been one of the leading causes of the spread of STIs and teen pregnancy rates. Abstinence-only education is likely the biggest culprit. Even though teen pregnancies in the United states overall are down, in abstinence-only education states, rates are significantly higher than almost anywhere else in the country, sometimes as high as six-hundred percent.
So now I was angry at Christianity for it's stance on climate change, and contraceptives, it couldn't get any worse, right? The Crusades and many of the Christianity violent actions past were long gone, right? Reality check, no they aren't. Something many people don't think about as an act of Christian violence, I mean, even I don't really, but I'd be remiss if I didn't state it, was Hitler. Yes, I know many people claim Hitler's violence was Atheistic, but he was a Roman Catholic, I'm not saying what he did was an act of Christian violence, but it was definitely Christianity that set the stage for it to happen. Many people don't like to talk about it, but antisemitism was rampant through Europe. After World War one much of Europe, including the Catholic church, or more specifically the Pope, decided to up their level of antisemitism. This allowed Hitler to do what he did, because the Nazi antisemitic message only fit with the overall one propagated through out Europe. Once what he was doing actually came to light, it's no wonder all of Europe suddenly went on the other-side of the fence. Something they gave little mind to, caused a madman to attempt genocide.
Sometimes I wonder about Christianity's distance it places between it and it's violent off-shoots. However, I feel there's too much feeling of the need to do so, I mean many Christians believe Hitler was an Atheist. Some Christians go so far as to use him as an example of an Atheist in power, which I find ludicrous under the circumstances. How quickly it seems Christianity is to label a wayward individual who took it's influences the wrong way as being a madman or a disturbed individual. However, when it comes to someone belonging to any other religion, or being none religious, suddenly they are an image of that group. Many Christians I have spoken to feel that they are allowed to disassociate themselves from Hitler, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, or Christian terrorist organizations, but refuse to allow Muslims the same courtesy with ISIL, or Atheists with Mao, Stalin, or, incorrect as the assertion is, even Hitler.
I don't believe I could possibly count the number of times I've heard the bible used to justify discrimination against someone based on their sex, gender, sexual orientation or the color of their skin. Worse still I don't know how many times I've been accused to discriminating against them simply for arguing a counter-point to their argument or merely stating that I'm an Atheist. As though by the mere fact that I have a differing theological stance is discriminating against them. Now, that's not most cases, it is just the most extreme, the problem I have with most Christians is the claim that people don't behave that way, that those people don't exist and I'm merely exaggerating my experiences. That's my biggest problem with Christianity is many, seemly normal, rational people close their eyes to much of what happens in the world.
You shouldn't talk about banning abortion and lie to people about the truth of contraceptives. You shouldn't be talking about how you shouldn't have to cover a woman's birth control pills when they have other uses than just preventing birth, uses that could save a woman's life. You shouldn't talk about reducing or removing funding to programs that help people with STIs while at the same time advocating a policy that lies about protection. You shouldn't be talking about doing any of these things while rape is still an issue., because guess what? Unwanted pregnancies will happen in rape cases, STIs will be transmitted. In cases of consent, both can happen with improper contraceptive use or lack thereof. That means until everyone is educated on proper contraceptive use, and you stop people from raping each other, these arguments are moot, because until those things happen, you need methods to help people who are found in unfortunate circumstances. These arguments are usually presented by people ignorant of the topics involved, in which case, your opinion is not equal to that of someone whose life it affects.
The question you ask now is why I looked into such things, what drove me away from the belief in god, and/or Jesus that made me look for so many faults to the religion that had been hidden to me. First thing would probably be my problem with seeing any god as being so small. The idea that god popped humans on the Earth and that he created the universe only six-thousand years ago, just didn't fit with my idea of omnipotence. I mean all powerful and you're going to tell me he couldn't have caused the big bang fourteen-billion years ago, or started the process of evolution? Some Christians do allow for this, but some do not, nearly half of all Americans don't, for example. To me that's as out-dated as the Earth being flat, or the Sun revolves around the Earth, as there's just as much evidence against them as there is against young Earth creationism.
Besides the divine being underwhelming there was also the issue that I had read the Bible, well that and the fact I studied its history a bit. There is no book that has more versions than the Bible. Which is why I'm always confused when someone tries to argue that it's the literal word of God. Here's a few facts about the Bible, nobody knows who wrote it, when it was written, or what language it was written in. The Gospels and the Old Testament were not written together, the Gospels were circulated separately on their own without the Old testament. It's possible that the two were never meant to fit together in the first place. Hell has no references in the Torah, which means the Old Testament was changed to include it. The myth of Jesus predates the events of the Gospels by about two-to-three-thousand years. The major events surrounding the death of Jesus never happened, there was not a massive earthquake at the crucifixion there wasn't 3-hours of darkness in mid-day, no dead walked the streets, and there was not a second quake on Easter morning. How do I know this? Because nearly every religion at the time would have taken it as a symbol, or meaning. It would have been all over the records at the time, however, outside of Christian history sources, there is not a single reference to this.
Charlemagne and his followers collected many versions of the bible condensed, and made them uniform. Which means, at best, your version of the bible is maybe twelve-hundred or so years old. Possibly more important is the fact that Charlemagne invented punctuation. Knowing the meaning of a sentence can be completely different depending on the placement of a comma, suddenly that means, that before Charlemagne, much of the bible could have, and likely would have, carried a very different meaning than it would after, and many different meanings to different people.
That all maybe would be enough to discredit the Bible, that it's been edited numerous times, or that most of its stories predate it by, in some cases, several thousand years, but that would be ignoring the contradictions and impossibilities. The contradictions are too numerous to list, so I'll post a link at the end with my other sources.
Don't get me wrong I actually like many of the stories in the Bible. As individual stories, many of them are compelling and intriguing reads, but as a collected work, I find it lacking. God seems to change moods at random and punish people for things he rewarded them for just a few stories earlier, because of this the morals between the differing stories was erratic and confusing at best. The inconsistencies alone would be enough to receive some of the harshest criticism, but because it's a religious holy book, it gets to avoid criticism by being sacred. Now back to my criticisms.
Ignoring all the things that many Christians believe that don't come directly from the Bible: world being six-thousand years old, Jesus born from a virgin, Jesus being born on Christmas, ETC., there's still plenty of impossible claims made by the bible.
Let's start simply, Kings 7:23
“And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.”
Now I don't know about you, but I can tell you it wouldn't be thirty cubits around anywhere in our universe, ever. An omniscient god would know this, and maybe I'd let it go if it said thirty-one, thirty-one and a half, or even thirty-two, but I can't let go thirty, because it's completely wrong and anyone who has taken middle school math knows this.
Kings 1:39-40 when Solomon was made king the people caused and earthquake with their shouts, what are they Dragon Born? Regular people can't shout that loud, the Earth is very sturdy. If all the people living now on the earth were gathered in the same place and all jumped at the same time, nothing would happen to the earth, no quakes, people shouting would be less effective.
I could list many more but because I'm only trying to give you a general impression of why I'm an Atheist and not all my problems with the Bible for time's sake let's only give one more big one, Noah's ark.
Okay, Noah only makes one small whole for ventilation in the ark, which wouldn't work. He's supposed to fit two or seven, reports vary, of every species, or kinds, as though that makes it easier to believe, on the boat. All the animals boarded the ark in one day. It rained to flood the world. When the flood is coming to an end he sends out a dove to be sure, it returns with an olive branch, somehow. The animals got off the Ark Noah sacrificed some of them, and they were told to go forth and multiply.
Now I don't know if you know this, but boat remotely close to the scale the ark is described, would not float. A single small window would not provide nearly the amount of ventilation that would be needed for that many animals. Which brings up another point, any boat small enough so that it could actually float, couldn't possibly carry any more than maybe three to five percent of all the animals on Earth at the time, with enough food to sustain them for a year. Not to mention the all important water that every animal would need, as the flood water would be too salty from mixing with ocean water, and no, the flood water would not be enough to dilute the salt water into potable water. The only explanation for this is, of course, god is omnipotent he can do whatever he wants, or that it never happened and it's based on a much smaller scale Babylonian story that predates it. Possibly a reference to the flooding of the Mediterranean which did happen.
Why these things drove me away from Christianity was the hostility that was presented me, whenever I asked about such things. Which is not exactly an uncommon theme in Christian history, look at Giordano Bruno for example, he was tried for heresy for daring to claim the universe was much infinite, and that their idea of God was too small. Even someone in full belief of a God who art in heaven, stating plain facts, was met with hostility by Christians, because they refused to open their eyes to a thing he saw as obvious, and making perfect sense. If God was omnipotent, then clearly the universe was infinite. He was burned at the stake, because he refused to accept a god he saw as too small. Now we have facts and proof that he was completely right, and some people to this day believe otherwise.
I came to the conclusion that the Christian god, even if he was real, was too small for me. It is not possible for me to worship a god that small, not when the Universe was so much more.
Now, you might wonder what happened that made me go seeking through the Bible for answers, what made me want to know. Probably what happened to a few Atheists, a crisis of faith.
The biggest problem I had with being a Christian was the absence of God and Jesus. People all the time talk about feeling connected to God, in touch with him. They claimed that, somehow, they could just know what God wanted from them. I never felt that way, not once, prayer or no prayer. Feeling disconnected, lost, and cast-aside, I thought I might as well pretend that I did, just to feel that I fit in. Problem was, I didn't know how to do it right, so I started going around telling people God spoke to me, I was about five or six at the time. Some of my friends started to believe me, admittedly they were about the same age. You see they didn't feel connected to god either, they were pretending like me, but they knew better what to say. That they felt God's presence and things, not, for example, something that if true would say they were the next prophet, like I was. At some point this got back to my mom and she had me straighten things out, tell them I made up him speaking to me to fit in, and that I was just being silly. When I think back to that time, I always wonder if that's how it starts, do people just start pretending they can feel god until eventually they delude themselves into believing they actually can. Later, when I would look into the matter, I discovered that everyone on Earth deludes themselves in one way or another. It's how we cope with reality.
My Grandfather was Roman Catholic, though he'd never tell an American he was. He thought of American Roman Catholics as belonging to a completely different church, and he never wanted to be lumped in with them. If I were being honest, which, I've been so far, my grandfather was probably the greatest man I have ever, or will ever meet; I had more respect for him than I've ever had for anyone else. That's right, the person I have more respect for than any one else, isn't an Atheist, it's a Christian.
To him there was a God and Jesus was divine. He wasn't the kind of Christian who, would post on facebook with such things as “If Jesus carried you this week type Amen,” nor would he bother to comment on such posts. He never believed there was such a thing as a war on Christmas, he never minded someone saying “happy holidays,” over “Merry Christmas.” He was confident in what he believe, but he never personified himself with his religion, he never took offense to someone disagreeing with him. He never once, when I lived with him, took me to church. I don't even remember if he'd gone himself, in fact, he, and my mother, got upset when my step-mother decided that my siblings and I needed to accompany her children to church. My mother isn't an Atheist either, in case you thought I got it from her.
The last time I spoke to my grandfather he asked me about my theological views. At the time I told him I didn't know, which I didn't, and his response wasn't one I had to that point been exposed to with other Christians. Most of them accused me of being closed minded for doubting their claims. He told me that I was baptized Catholic, but that it didn't matter what I was now, what mattered was that I was a good person and had a moral stance. Even though he disagreed with me, it didn't matter to him.
Why tell you about my grandfather you might ask? Wouldn't most people behave that way with their grandchildren? That's just it, the point of me telling you about him is the fact that from what I've heard from other Atheists, my experience was not common. Many Atheists have been shunned by their family, lost friends, been kicked out of their homes. There are Atheists out there who've been treated as badly as many homosexuals, can't even imagine the treatment they received if they were both. Hostility from Christians is something that many Atheists have experienced, and much of the time from people close to them. That, or the conspicuous absence of an omnipotent creator, when the help of one is pleaded for.
So often I hear stories, of someone surviving a tragedy, with God supposedly looking out for them. “Their entire family was lost, their home was destroyed, but their life was saved. Now they're homeless and on welfare, and barely making ends meet with a full-time job that prevents them from having anytime for schooling. God was definitely looking out for them!” In times of great strife, I'm told that I can pray to God and he will aid me in some way. For every instance that those coincidences do work out, there are plenty where they do not. Sure there are times where someone faith in their prayer meaning something allows them to hold on for some good to happen, or in some cases, to play down, the bad, or play up the good when it finally ends so that your prayers appear to be answered. With how much a human being deludes themselves on average just to get through the day, it's easy to see how someone committed to their faith would twist events so they appeared to them to be divinely aided in their salvation. Hell, sometimes someone outside the event, who is committed to their faith, will attach divinity to your salvation, even when you yourself may not have felt it. Their delusion can convinces you to believe and share in it, for the comfort it may offer.
Now what happens when it's something you have difficulty talking about, because many people have convinced themselves it doesn't happen. What happens when people call you delusion and that you make it up, make claims like things like that just don't happen? All you wanted was a reason why. It wasn't sympathy, but some meaning behind what happened, to put it into perspective. The only answer you get is,
“everything happens for a reason.”
When that's not good enough all you get is,
“God works in mysterious ways.”
For what reason does a drunken father enter his daughter's room at night? For what reason do people blow up clinics and kill doctors? For what reason do humans fight wars?
So often now, do I hear people giving cause for natural disasters as, god is angry at these people for doing X on Y day when they should be doing Z, or at these people for not believing enough, or for even having the audacity to be born, not completely straight. Why do we have such a clear understanding of what God wants and hates when it comes to natural disasters, but we give no reason for abuse, rape or murder? If we use the same logic God must hate all rape, murder, and abuse victims, they must have asked for it in someway. The problem isn't that many people don't apply that logic to both kinds of violence, the problem is the victim might use that logic to define the reason for their suffering, as God and religion frequently offer little, if anything, to the contrary. Since everything happens for a reason, and God usually punishes people for some transgression against him, as is often stated in the Bible, clearly if you receive some for of violence it is God telling you he is unhappy with how you behave.
Praying for it to stop, if it offers no reprieve, what then? Had your prayer offended God as much as whatever it was that made him mad in the first place? Or was you prayer simply not enough? What sacrifice would he accept?
So then you ask me,
“what good, however, is the Atheist, view, that Anything that happens, happens, without a benevolent God who may eventually save them?”
and I would tell you,
“With no God, there is not something watching my every move silently judging and passing along punishments for crimes I wouldn't even understand myself as committing. It is not that I remove the benevolent God, I remove the fickle God in his benevolence and malevolence.”
If you were to read the Bible, you'd find a god who is far more often malevolent, than benevolent. How can I even be expected to believe in such a thing, with the amount of violence and hate in this world? That the followers of said god, are usually some of the propagators of the most hate? Blaming hurricanes on homosexuals. Teaching children to hate themselves, that they're unnatural, and expecting them to grow up without mental health issues.
That's the way it is, I'm an Atheist, because I was baptized Catholic. My grandfather felt religion was something that belonged in the background of life, and didn't make you who you were. I never felt a connection to God, making me feel like he'd, for some reason, abandoned me, and I had done something to deserve his silence. My life turned sour, and prayer helped not at all. I befriended a homosexual and became confused how anyone could believe they deserved hell for what they were born. I read the Bible. I studied history, most importantly Ancient Egyptian and Babylonian history, and realized much of the Bible's stories come from various ancient civilizations. I felt my intelligence was insulted by Christian teachings, and the terminology they used to describe their followers; we were the sheep and they were the shepherd. I became lost and angry until I came to a view that fit my way of thinking better. How much respect I should give to irrational ideas, was a questions I only recently came to by reading the words of Douglas Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams.
I told this story in reverse order, because of who I am now, is more important to me than who I was. My past is less important than who I am now or who I will be. By the evidence I have seen I've been convinced in a bottom up universe, where anything that happens, happens. The profound beauty of the haphazard way the universe reached it's current state. Every atom that makes up our being, our planet and our solar system, was forged inside the hearts of stars. A universe where the worth of every person is the same as every other. You only get one life and should do everything to make it worth it, without causing harm to those that will follow.
My name is Zachary Peter Bacarella, sometimes known as Raziel, or razielsomething, and I'm an Atheist.
There are parts of this where I was a bit vague for time and space but wanted to be more detailed, like about how profound I find science, the Bible's contradictions, as well as the parts I find impossible, ETC. I will go into better detail on most of them at a later date, as I believe each deserve an entry all to themselves. So check back here for a later update.
I might have been a bit off on some of my points, I apologize, most of it was done from memory.
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