better to be honest rather than delusional

P.Z. Myers can be an acerbic sort of fellow at times, especially to those of faith. His Sunday blog post really hit a sore spot inside me. I used to think life was simple in my former "believer" state of mind. "Pray to Jesus and your problems will be solved." "Surrender to God and He will take care of you." "The 'simplicity of the gospel' is all a person needs to live." "All things work together for good." (This never seemed to work the way I thought it should much to my chagrin over many years of trying. These kinds of platitudes are rampant in the Christian world.)

This thinking is also simplistic, lazy, childish, and an irresponsible way to approach life. It mummifies a person's brain and the synapses that should fire don't fire. Problems that a person should or could be solving go unsolved waiting for their God to do it. How many times did I miss an opportunity to progress while waiting for God to move? How many relationships were harmed because I failed to act on behalf of myself or someone else while waiting for God to do something about the situation?

There will never be a complete set of answers to these questions. Many memories have already been lost by the brain never to be recovered. There are a few, however, that come to mind and those are regrettable, almost unconquerable events. The past is impossible to change. It contains circumstances that will affect me for the rest of my life, leaving a sadness which makes its rounds every once in a while.

I'm not any kind of an expert on these matters. This is just the way it seems to me. We all  need to make sense of our life story in order to continue moving forward. Better to be honest rather than delusional. Figuring out the difference between the two is the difficult task we all face.

any other way seems dangerous

Don't know if this will come as a shock, but I no longer can attribute any of my human experiences to the god that is described in the Christian/Jewish holy books. The process I went through to get to this place is complicated and at the same time quite deliberate. After years of consideration and study, it seems to me that "evil/wickedness/all the atrocious things that happen to people" must be equally attributable to this same god, which in turn makes him/her/it evil also. In my mind this totally undermines the idea of a loving, omniscient, omnipotent Christian God, which in turn shoots the whole thing out of the water.


I see religion as mankind's attempt to make sense of life. Cultural and geographical differences have created the thousands of religions and sects which we see around the world today. Our brain convinces us that our religion is the one true religion. Obviously not everyone can be right. And the idea that I think mine is right and everyone else is wrong leads to selfish, prideful living. So I've decided to live life from a very different place. If a thing can't be known for certain, I will not believe it. In other words, I won't believe because I don't have the evidence. Any other way to live in this causal world seems a dangerous way.

greetings to all

I refuse to participate in the "Christmas greeting war"; after all, isn't it supposed to be a time of peace, joy, and goodwill to all, including those who don't believe like me or you (maybe especially to those who don't believe the same). Exclusivity won't draw anyone to an opposing view. Aren't the "Merry Christmas" warriors being slightly incongruent with their own beliefs regarding love and winning people to their Christ? Or is war the only response to those who disagree with them and are offended by their insistence on greeting the way they greet. It all seems childish and silly to me.

So.....

Merry Christmas

Happy Christmas

Happy Hanukkah

Happy Holidays

Happy Kwanza

Happy Winter Solstice

Season's Greetings

Merry Xmas

Happy New Year.... to ALL!!!

say

Seems like it's time for another change. I've decided to pull out all the stops and start over again. When the next blog opens its doors for business, I'll post the link here at Take Another Look. Until then I'll be practicing saying what I need to say... gotta love John Mayer (he's so good!).

openness or skepticism

Here are a few Carl Sagan quotes taken from his book The Demon-Haunted World which I am currently reading (my emphasis in bold):

"...the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking, working together, keeps the field on track."

"If you're only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything. You become a crotchety misanthrope convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) Since major discoveries at the borderlines of science are rare, experience will tend to confirm your grumpiness. But every now and then a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you're too resolutely and uncompromisingly skeptical, you're going to miss (or resent) the transforming discoveries in science, and either way you will be obstructing understanding and progress. Mere skepticism is not enough."

"...science requires the most vigorous and uncompromising skepticism, because the vast majority of ideas are simply wrong, and the only way to winnow the wheat from the chaff is by critical experiment and analysis. If you're open to the point of gullibility and have not a microgram of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the promising ideas from the worthless ones. Uncritically accepting every proffered notion, idea, and hypothesis is tantamount to knowing nothing. Ideas contradict one another; only through skeptical scrutiny can we decide among them. Some ideas really are better than others."

"No one can be entirely open or completely skeptical. We all must draw the line somewhere. An ancient Chinese proverb advises, 'Better to be too credulous than too skeptical,' but this is from an extremely conservative society in which stability was much more prized than freedom and where the rulers had a powerful vested interest in not being challenged. Most scientists, I believe, would say, 'Better to be too skeptical than too credulous.' But neither is easy. Responsible, thoroughgoing, rigorous skepticism requires a hard-nosed habit of thought that takes practice and training to master. Credulity -- I think a better word here is 'openness' or 'wonder' -- does not come easily either. If we really are to be open to counterintuitive ideas in physics or social organization or anything else, we must grasp those ideas. It means nothing to be open to a proposition we don't understand." 

an unimaginative god

The creative abilities of the God that we've been told made the universe seem to be limited. Why do so many animals have similar physical systems: respiratory, alimentary, circulatory, skeletal, and muscular. Many of us eat, breathe, reproduce, and move about in similar manner. I think that if we humans were created we should have been made to stand out from all the rest with some obvious exceptionalism. Take a look at the similarities of these skeletons. What do you think?

frog

tortoise

rabbit

rat

bat

gorilla
chimpanzee

human

It seems to me that the design of these animals speaks to the amazing creative evolutionary development of life on this planet through natural selection.

de-conversion story

Here is a video series which explains point by point the de-conversion process of a young Christian man. Each of the points he discusses I too have spent much time thinking about in recent years. His conclusions were very similar to mine.