I Actually Don't Hate Religion. Surprised? Let Me Explain

Hi, you may have noticed that I use the term "fundamentalist" occasionally  OK, often, all right, I give up, I use the term in almost every post ;) I don't know if you have wondered why I use that term instead of "Christianity" or "religion".

There's two reasons for this, one there is a difference between religion and fundamentalism, and two, I don't necessarily have a problem with general, but I definitely have a problem with fundamentalism.

Yes, there is a difference between religion and fundamentalism. Both often go together, but they don't necessarily have to be one and the same. First, I'll define the two, in my own way. Religion typically involves a belief in a deity or deities and a holy text. Often there is a prophet who followers of the religion see as the messenger of the deity, or as a deity himself. Depending on what the religion teaches, that in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, though more often that not, because of the religion's teachings, and/or the actions of it's followers, it becomes destructive.

Religion in and of itself, though I disagree with it, I often have no problems with it, but when belief in a religion becomes a form of fundamentalism, that's when I have a problem. Fundamentalism is the combination of ignorance and intolerance with religion. Fundamentalism in religion is the most common among those who believe that their faith and holy text are infallible (without error), and believe that their faith is the only way to achieve a positive outcome in the afterlife (all those who don't believe, regardless of how morally they lived their life).

Fundamentalism is deliberately isolating yourself from the outside world, because you feel it is too evil, and rejecting anyone as evil because they don't look, act, think, or worship the same deity as you (or refuse to believe in one at all), and forcing your children to do the same, and making it much harder for them to function when they become adults. Fundamentalism is feeling that you and your congregation are more morally superior to others, and putting on a veneer of holiness, when in reality you are no better than everyone else, or are using your act of self-righteous to cover up horrible evil done by yourself or your leaders. Check out my archive of posts on the IFB movement to see what can happen when a group isolates them themselves, and puts on an act of holiness like that.

Fundamentalism is also believing that  you have the right to use the force of law or social pressure to force others to live the same way that you do, and to persecute those who don't look, act or think you do, which happens on a daily basis in the US.

That is what I reject, and despise, not religion itself. I admire those people who still believe in a faith, but are open minded people, and reject fundamentalism. People who believe in loving others, no matter who they are. Some great examples are liberal Christians, I like reading bloggers like John Shore, or Lewis of the anti-fundamentalism blog, Commandments of Men. I enjoy seeing people like St. Louis minister Larry Rice, who has made it the sole mission of his church to help the desperately poor and homeless of the city of St. Louis, and has clashed repeatedly with city government over the treatment of the homeless by the police department of St. Louis.

I also admire Wiccans, all of the Wiccans I have ever encountered in person or online have been very open minded people, one of good friends is a Wiccan, and when I first met her (I met her when I was in the process of getting out of fundamentalism), I was surprised at how she lived out a live of loving and accepting others, more so than the Christians surrounding me who are supposed to be followers of Jesus, who told people to love others as yourself.

See, I don't hate religion, though my rants may lead you to think that sometimes, my real issue is fundamentalism...

Was Jesus a Creationist?

I always like directing my readers to the great posts of blogs I enjoy. The title you see above is the title of a new post by blogger Jonny Scaramanga of Leaving Fundamentalism, I have mentioned his blog before sometime back, he's a musician, teacher, and blogger who normally devotes his blog posts to exposing Accelerated Christian Education (A.C.E), a fundamentalist school curriculum that both he and yours truly were raised up on.

In this post, Was Jesus a Creationist?, he takes a different turn and takes a look at the view of Genesis by Christianity throughout it's history, and what he shows his readers will surprise you, Genesis was largely read in a figurative light for much of Christianity's past, even by honored church fathers like Augustine. Creationism, the literal interpretation of Genesis, was not actually the norm until about 100 years ago, when a Christian college sought to resurrect the view of a literal Genesis as the norm for Christianity. Their actions lead to the foundations for modern fundamentalist Christianity.

It's a great read, check it out!

Godless Poutine's Wife Tells Her Story

If you have been a fan of the blog for any length of time, you have seen me talk about  My Secret Atheist Blog, it's one of my favorite blogs, I always enjoying reading his perspective on atheism, and everyday life on Montreal. Like most Americans, I'm really not all that familiar with Canada, and his blog is rather enlightening on daily life up there. His post for today is a guest post, written by his wife, Kelly, who is also a blogger herself (check out the bio landing page for her blogs).
She writes about her life story, her childhood, becoming a neo-pagan as a teen, marrying a fellow Wiccan, (the author of My Secret Atheist Blog, Godless Poutine), and then the both of them losing their faith. It's a great story, check it out!. Losing My Religion? Or Shit Happens.

Blogger Incongruous Circumspection Responds to a Pascal's Wager Argument from a Reader.

When he wrote a great blog post about his change in beliefs from fundamentalist to agnostic and his friend's reactions, titled Who Am I Now, Really? , an anonymous reader left a comment that in his words was a "veiled Pascal's Wager". See his great rebuttal to that comment here, Answering a Veiled Pascal's Wager.

The Pascal's Wager argument is often used by fundamentalists as a "what if you are wrong?" argument. It basically states that if a skeptic is wrong, in the afterlife they will lose everything, but a believer who is wrong will lose nothing, other than believing in something that turned out not to be true, because that person (according to the argument) lived a better and more fuller life due to their faith.It was named after the 1700's mathematician and Christian, Blaise Pascal.

I have talked about Incongruous Circumspection before in my favorite bloggers post. He's one of those bloggers that doesn't post often, but each post is worth waiting for.

Atheists and agnostics making a positive difference in the world (and how you can help).

Atheist blogger Godless Poutine of My Secret Atheist Blog is one of my favorite bloggers, and is also the man who inspired me to start my own blog, he said blogging is "good therapy", and he was sure right.

Godless Poutine is a big supporter of the atheist charity Foundation Beyond Belief, and in recent weeks started encouraging people to contribute to one of Foundation Beyond Belief's main projects, the Kasese Humanist Primary School in Uganda. Due to the fund raising efforts of the followers of his blog, and other people on the internet, they were finally able to build a much needed chicken coop, so that students could have breakfast before classes.

It's great that people have come together to make a difference in the world. Check out the website for Foundation Beyond Belief to see the great projects that they sponsor, and how to donate.

If you see references on My Secret Atheist Blog or Foundation Beyond Belief's website for voting to get the school donations from the credit card company Chase, unfortunately, voting is now closed, it ended at midnight last night.

I'm Back! (and so are some of my favorite blog series)

Hey, finally back from vacation, and I've noticed that one of my favorite blog series has returned. "Latebloomer" of Past Tense, Present Progressive has written part 3 of her criticism of fundamentalist author Reb Bradley's awful book "Child Training Tips". Not many people have heard of this book, but it sums up all of the most harmful aspects of raising children with a fundamentalist mindset. My family had never read his book, or even heard of him, but some things he has said, I have heard my mother express about raising children, verbatim. Part 3 in the series, "A Parent who Tries to Change Hearts and Minds Through Spanking" is the conclusion of the series. Read Part 1, and Part 2 if you have not already thorough my previous post on my favorite bloggers.

Another great blog is Leaving Fundamentalism, by British musician, teacher, and former Christian, Jonny Scaramanga. He constantly rails against the Accelerated Christian Education (A.C.E) curriculum that he (and yours truly) was raised with. I saw a post recently about how their European division, Christian Education Europe, has been embarrassed by a former employee exposing their dirty secrets, read about it here.

A few good pages and articles I have stumbled across lately.

I always like to share good blog articles, and great things that I find on the internet, and here's today's list.

I'm happy to find out that The Onion is on Google +. If you are not familiar with the Onion, they are a news parody website, poking fun at the news and political stories of the day, as well as making up their own bogus news stories. They have been laughing at the news since 1988, when they started as a print publication, and the website started in 1996, according to Wikipedia, 7.5 million people view the site each month.

I stumbled across the Google + page for tech blogger "Nixie Pixel" recently, I had never heard of her before. She works in the IT industry for Revision3 Corporation, is a avid Linux fan, and has a bit of a sense of humor about technology, for example, see this post . Visit her page, and make sure to take a look through the profile's photo albums, you won't be disappointed ;)

The Friendly Atheist:

I've been a fan of Patheos atheism blogger Hemant Metha aka The Friendly Atheist for a while now, I enjoy the direct, yet classy posting style that he has in his posts. Besides being a blogger, he is a Chicago area math teacher, and chairman of the atheist charity Foundation Beyond Belief.

Here's two great posts he has written lately.

The Man Who Could Have Become the Pope

Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini died several days ago, he was considered a serious contender to become pope after John Paul II died. His liberal views often put him at odds with other clergyman. He openly criticized everything everything from clergy clothing and rituals ( he called them "pompous"), to the worldwide pedophilia scandals and attempted cover up, "The church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the pope and the bishops”. He also took far more liberal views on social issues than most of the clergy.

Why can't this atheist accept her husband's loss of faith?

Hemant Metha responds to a New York Times article. The woman in the article claims to be an atheist, married a Christian man, and responds in a rather unusual way when her husband gives up her faith. She's very confused and conflicted in her beliefs despite her professed atheism, and seems somewhat self-loathing as well. I can't get over laughing at his line in the article: "Ugh… an atheist who accepts Pascal’s Wager. That’s gotta be just one level above S.E. Cupp." 

Bruce Gecenscener Part 2: Comments on Deconversion

(My note: this is part two in my response to Bruce Gecenscener’s post about atheism and the atheist + movement)

Read my response to his comments about atheism + here.

My original post was getting long, and was going off track into my feelings and his comments about de-conversion, the following are his comments about the process of leaving Christianity, and my personal experiences with leaving the faith. His words from the original article are in bold and quotes, my responses are in plain text flowing each statement:

"I suspect that the largest percentage of new atheists come from Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches. Learning that the Bible is not what the church claims it is, and becoming disillusioned with the shrill, acerbic hate speech of their preachers, has turned more people into atheists than Madalyn Murray O’Hair could every of hoped for." 

Very true, and for more on this topic, read a great article by Johnny Scaramanga, author of Leaving Fundamentalism in this guest post, Fundamentalism: The Leading Cause of Atheism .

"When people deconvert they don’t immediately become atheists in the truest sense of the word. They may say they are atheists, but often this is just a reaction to their former religious beliefs. Some people get over their anger and return to Christianity. They were never atheists in the first place. They were angry, and hurling the words, I am an atheist, was a way of poking their finger in the eye of the bear."

This is part of the "angry" stage of deconversion, a person knows that they no longer want to be part of Christianity, and they disgusted by it's beliefs and rhetoric. At this point, they know what they don't believe, but not yet  what they do believe, so the label "atheist" sounds just about right at this point, it feels good to finally say it, because the label atheist is such a strong term, it's a rejection of what they once were, but not yet who they are now. 

People who remain in this stage, I believe are responsible for the "re-converts" that keep surfacing, people who eventually return to their faith. It's an emotional reaction and struggle without any intellectual foundation yet. Those who progress from this emotional state to an intellectual foundation become grounded atheists and agnostics, those who don't, often end up drifting back, if not to Christianity, than possibly another religion altogether.

Many de-converts take on the atheist label very early on, I didn't, it took me over a year to finally recognize myself as the agnostic that I am. Immediately after my rejection of Christianity, I still thought that I believed in a god, but knew that I didn't believe in the god of Christianity, I wondered if I was just simply a typical American non-Christian theist, who still believes in Heaven and Hell, or for a very brief time, a deist. It was a time of searching, trying to redefine myself. I spoke to very few people about my exit from fundamentalism during this time, or my ever changing feelings, until I knew what I believed for sure.

"A true atheist is born out of heartache, contemplation, and study."

During the heartache stage, I tried to find the answers within Christianity, first within the Bible, then, because of the people who influenced me spiritually at the time, in the writings of author John Piper. I desperately wanted to remain a Christian, and yet answer the nagging questions and doubts definitely, bury them once and for all, and go on with my life a stronger Christian, that, as you have guessed by now, didn't happen. 

During the contemplation stage, I prayed for answers and for wisdom in my search and received no response at all from god, just empty silence. I spent hours thinking over the Bible and the Christian writings/authors that I had read, making detailed notes of points made, and bringing my questions up to two people that I looked up to in my Christian world, two people who were well versed in the beliefs of fundamentalism. 

I still came up empty.

After all this, and coming to the realization that I am, in fact an agnostic, for a time, I still felt empty, I felt a sense of loss. This world is all there is? How disappointing! So there's no afterlife where justice is given out, the good people rewarded, and the evil people punished? Life felt utterly pointless, I also missed the sense of wonder in the universe that I had as Christian, in believing that there was a divine plan for me being on earth, and that this world was created by design for a purpose by god. Atheism felt so impersonal and uninspiring. 

Eventually I got over this, the sense of wonder is now starting to come back, when you think about it, out of the billions of years that the earth has existed, here I am, I am part of a world that is so immense, with infinite galaxies, and I only have a limited amount of time to live on this earth and appreciate it’s wonders. I also only have a limited time in which I can live life, so I need to make the time I have count, not only for my sake, but for the world around me.

I have peace now with my new beliefs.

I have also began reading any material I can get my hands on online, I have found some great atheist blogs along the way see my list here. (This is not an exhaustive list, and I may make a part 2 with more blogs later).

I have been trying to seek out more information from atheists more established, more educated, and more well versed in their beliefs than myself. I’m trying to build a strong foundation again, as well as reach out, put myself into a new community to replace the one I lost when leaving Christianity. Ex-Christian.net has been a great resource for me in that regard, and I am starting to get to know some of the people there quite well. My time there, sharing my story with others, and reading their stories, and the results of their continuing recovery from their past has helped me to be a stronger person in my beliefs.

“The true atheist (my focus is on those who come from Evangelicalism to atheism) must deconstruct their lives and rebuild them one belief at a time. The true atheist likely reads and reads and reads and…well you get the picture."

I had to revaluate everything I had been taught in life in the light of my new found beliefs, what do I really believe on crucial social issues? I had to start giving up some of the bigoted beliefs that I was still tentatively holding onto, and I was amazed at how many misconceptions and outright lies I was taught in life, and believed while simply taking them for granted that they were true. Exposing myself to new experiences, and different types of people helped me to recover from this. One of my greatest friends now is a Wiccan, growing up, I was led to believe the lie that Wicca and Satanism are one and the same, and that Wiccans, were by association, evil people. This couldn’t have been farther from the truth! Even though she doesn’t believe in Christianity, she lives more of the life that Christians are supposed to live (love your neighbor as yourself, etc), than Christians do!

“It is not enough to say, I don’t believe in God anymore. Just the Christian God? Some Gods? All Gods?  The true atheist is one who says, I reject any belief in the existence of deities. Once a person has reached this point they are an atheist. Nothing more is required to claim the label atheist.”

Nothing more."

Agreed, there’s no more qualifications needed to claim atheism (or agnosticism in my cases), there’s no other litmus test needed.

A shout out to some of my favorite atheist and former Christian bloggers

There are so many great bloggers out there who are atheists, agnostics, and former Christians, and I want to introduce you to some of them. Some are completely atheist, some are fellow fundamentalism survivors like me, but are still searching/confused as to what they currently believe (but know that they don't want any part of Christianity).

One of my favorite qualities in a blogger is when they take the time out of their day to respond to readers and their comments, concerns, and questions. If I had to give out a "most responsive blogger" award, it would hands down go to Godless Poutine of My Secret Atheist Blog. Not only does he respond regularly to comments from readers, despite having a busy life that includes being an IT professional, a husband, and a father of a 3 year old son who has autism, but he actually devoted an entire blog post to giving a well thought out response to my comments on a previous post on Freethought blog's recent controversies and their proposed Atheism + movement. Read the post and comments following here .

Taking the time to do that shows just how seriously he takes his blog, and it's readers, and that's a great quality in a blogger.

My favorite informative blog on atheism is Debunking Christianity by John Loftus. John gives a unique perspective on Christianity from an academic prospective. He was a Phd theology student in the Church of Christ denomination before leaving the faith. He is an avowed atheist, and you can read his full intro story here. If you have been looking for a good resource of Christian doctrine/ the Bible and it's flaws, as well as good atheist arguments, look no further.

My award for quirkiest former Christian blogger would have to go to Joe at Incongruous Circumspection .
He is a former fundamentalist and was part of the extremist "Quiverfull" movement which feels that birth control of any form is immoral, and that having many children is a sign of divine blessing. He and his wife have 6 children, and he now considers himself an agnostic

 His posting style is hilariously erratic, and at times full of snark. Sometimes he can go from a long response to the sexism and horrible child raising techniques of  fundamentalist leaders Ed Baker and John Piper, to this post, in which he states his opinion on abortion in just 8 words, and that includes the title of the post! He also enjoys talking about on the random insights on life that only raising children can give you. Sometimes the shortest statements are the most profound, as seen by his abortion post, there's many great comments there, including a great rebuttal comment from a reader to my comment.

A good blog for looking at Christianity from the perspective of someone who has lived it is Past Tense, Present Progessive by blogger "Latebloomer". She presents a very raw, real, personal look at her homeschooled upbringing, and how it effects her still to this day. Read the full series on her life from childhood to early adult years here. She also does a great job of exposing extremists like author Reb Bradley, (distracted OCD moment here, but seriously, a first name of "Reb"? that's just begging for some redneck jokes......) . His books on child raising give a very frightening look at how fundies view their children and their ideas on how to raise them. Her critical review of his 1995 book "Child Training Tips" is very much worth reading. Posts, Introduction , A Parent Who Assumes The Worst , and  An Extremely Controlling Parent  are her posts so far on the subject, check back every couple days for more, it's an eye-opening series.

I could post some more of my favorite blogs but I don't want this post to get too long, I might make a part 2 sometime soon, and I'm also considering expounding more on Latebloomer's criticism of Reb Bradley, my thoughts on what she has exposed about his views, and how much of his views reflect how I was raised as well.

If you don't see any more posts on these topics by Labor Day (September 3rd), you may have to wait for a while, since I will be out of the St. Louis area the week of September 4th, and are unsure how much time I will have to post.

I noticed that people are linking to my blog and reading it from some varied places, including Canada, England, and even Russia. If you are reading this, let me know! Comment, tell me what can be improved, suggest topics, tell me how you found out about my blog. I thank you for reading my thoughts here, but I want you to join me in the discussion.