god in the rearview mirror

parallel myths

click here... parallels to Jesus

plus Jesus & Romulus

BEWARE if you are a Christian... you're not going to like these links unless you have doubts about your faith... just warning you. Don't even bother if your heart is racing while you read these words. Go somewhere else, quick!
  

the cost of belief

Religion forces walls between people. Here are words from a song written by the band Words Such As Burn.

Flow

I know you can't sleep at night
You worry about me.
And I know you wish I would
Return to the fold.

Can't do as I'm told.
Because I don’t believe and won’t pretend
That your beliefs are sacred.
Not sacred.

Sometimes I can't sleep at night
You worry about me.
I wish you could see from my side
See through my eyes

I know you can't sleep at night
You fear for my soul.
You only want what’s best for me
But I can't do as I'm told.

Can't do as I'm told.
Because I don’t believe and won’t pretend
That your beliefs are sacred.
They’re yours to defend.
And I don't say this to hurt you
But because you have to know.
If you love me, then...
Let love flow.

Lately, I can't talk to you
You no longer hear me.
But I’m the same; the change is you.
The true cost of your belief

I know this won't change over night
But please don’t let go
I’ll meet you half way, take my hand
and don't go with the flow.

Don't do as you’re told.
Do not believe and do not pretend
That your beliefs are sacred,
Nor are mine, my friend.
Tell me, how can I show you,
That your beliefs are torturing us?
If you love me, then...
Let love flow

the skip

The Skip by James Fenton

I took my life and threw it on the skip,
Reckoning the next-door neighbours wouldn't mind
If my life hitched a lift to the council tip
With their dry rot and rubble. What you find

With skips is - the whole community joins in
Old mattresses appear, doors kind of drift
Along with all that won't fit in the bin
And what the bin-men can't be fished to shift

I threw away my life, and there it lay
And grew quite sodden. 'What a dreadful shame, '
Clucked some old bag and sucked her teeth. 'The way
The young these days.... no values....... me, I blame..... '

But I blamed no-one. Quality control
Had loused it up, and that was that. 'Nough said
I couldn't stick at home, I took a stroll
And passed the skip, and left my life for dead.

Without my life, the beer was just as foul,
The landlord still as filthy as his wife,
The chicken in the basket was an owl,
And no one said: 'Ee, Jim-lad, whur's thee life? '

Well, I got back that night the worse for wear,
But still just capable of single vision;
Looked in the skip, my life- it wasn't there!
Some bugger'd nicked it - WITHOUT my permission.

Okay, so I got angry and began
To shout, and woke the street. Okay, OKAY,
AND I was sick all down the neighbour's van
AND I disgraced myself on the par-kay

And then.... you know how if you've had a few
You'll wake at dawn, all healthy, like sea breezes,
Raring to go, and thinking: 'Clever you!
You've got away with it' and then, Oh Jesus,

It hits you. Well, that morning, just at six
I woke, got up and looked down at the skip.
There lay my life, still sodden, on the bricks,
There lay my poor old life, arse over tip.

Or was it mine? Still dressed, I went downstairs
And took a long cool look. The truth was dawning.
Someone had just exchanged my life for theirs.
Poor fool, I thought - I should have left a warning.

Some bastard saw my life and thought it nicer
Than what he had. Yet what he'd had seemed fine.
He'd never caught his fingers in the slicer
The way I'd managed in that life of mine.

His life lay glistening in the rain, neglected,
Yet still a decent, an authentic life.
Some people I can think of, I reflected
Would take that thing as soon as you'd say Knife.

It seemed a shame to miss a chance like that
I brought the life in, dried it by the stove.
It looked so fetching, stretched out on the mat
I tried it on. It fitted, like a glove.

And now, when some local bat drops off the twig
And new folk take the house, and pull up floors
And knock down walls and hire some kind of big
Container (say, a skip) for their old doors.

I'll watch it like a hawk, and every day
I'll make at least - oh - half a dozen trips.
I've furnished an existence in this way.
You'd not believe the things you'd find on skips.

why I am an atheist

Holly writes a concise and "accurate to my experience" rendition about how she became an atheist.

probably not benevolent, or anything for that matter

I see something like this and think about the marvel of natural selection and how we've evolved over time. The body has figured out how to isolate these nasty little bacteria and protect us from who knows what. No, I don't think that God made it this way. God can't be credited with everything amazing and then take no responsibility for the bacteria.

Some would posit that God gets the glory no matter what. The idea that our world was designed in order that praise be received by a god makes no sense to me. When I think about all the evil perpetrated upon innocents, suffering and abuse cannot glorify any kind of benevolent god. Malevolent is a more apt describer.

disbelief is not a choice

I did not choose to disbelieve. As I educated myself by reading and listening to science and theology related materials, which as a believer I would not have read, belief gradually fell away. This article from Psychology Today explains that people don't one day just decide they will no longer believe. It took some time before that day in which I realized I was no longer a believer. And I was okay with it. Actually it was a bit exhilerating to realize that I had so much to learn regarding things which I had ignored before.

Would believing be a better life than the life I live now? Perhaps. Could I do it again? No. I don't see it as possible anymore. That fairy-tale life has been extinquished from my heart (brain). How do you ignore knowledge and reality? Once the knowledge is inside the brain and understanding comes about things that most of humanity accepts, there is no reason to go back and believe what I previously believed. My worldview paradigm has shifted and I see things very different now than I did in the past.