FORBIDDEN FRUIT

Virtually everyone in Christendom is familiar with the Garden of Eden morality play.  On the surface God stars as the benevolent creator who lays down a single simple rule.  Satan plays the heavy as the crafty, evil serpent, enticing humans to disobey God’s rule.  And a naive Eve and a love-smitten Adam play pawns in this battle between God and Satan.

DOING THE RIGHT THING

I’m sure this has happened to you:  You are in a store and purchase something with cash.  When the clerk makes change, you realize that he has made a mistake and is giving you back more than the correct amount.  Maybe it’s a dollar; maybe it’s ten dollars.  What do you do?  You could pocket the extra cash and walk out.  No one would know.  But, of course, that’s not what you do.  Instead, you point out the error and return the extra money.

WHY DID GOD CREATE THE UNIVERSE?

Why did God create the universe?  

When I was growing up in the Seventh-day Adventist church we were told the answer to this question without ever having to ask:  God created the universe FOR US.  God set the whole thing up so that we humans could enjoy eternal lives filled with peace and joy and worship of him.  Things didn’t work out that way, of course.  As the story goes, we proved to be feckless sinners.  In short, we humans were, well, human.

THINKING LIKE A SKEPTIC

Do atheists think differently than do those who believe in God?  I’m not talking about what the different groups believe but how they decide what they believe.

DO-IT-YOURSELF CREATION

Here’s a thought experiment:  Assume that you are a god and that you have decided to create a world. Assume further (a) that you are all-powerful so you can design the world in any conceivable manner, (b) that you are all-loving so you want to avoid the existence of any pain and suffering, and (c) that you are all-knowing so that you understand what will happen with any sort of design that you might implement.  What would your world look like?

RESPONSES TO CHRISTIAN COMMENTS REGARDING MY ATHEISM

As an atheist I have had little success in changing Christians’ religious beliefs, despite what I thought were . . . ahem . . . impeccable rational arguments.  Now I realize that my goals have been too ambitious.  Rather than trying to convert Christians to secular beliefs, perhaps I should focus on dispelling what I consider to be misconceptions regarding the secular community.  Here are some comments I have received from Christians upon learning that I do not believe in God, along with my interpretations of what those reactions might imply and my responses to them:

HOW I THINK ABOUT DEATH

I have reached an age when I am hearing more frequently of the deaths of people I have known.  I’m not talking about those in the public eye.  Rather, I am talking about individuals whom I have known personally—former colleagues and clients as well as friends and acquaintances.  If this keeps up, everyone I know will be gone . . . including myself.

RUNNING TO EPICURUS

I only recall one comment that my teacher, Mrs. Skipper, included on my kindergarten “report card.”  She said that I was a good runner and won most of the foot races.  This was not a great accomplishment.  After all, my competition were kindergarteners.  But I did have a natural running gait and remember thinking of myself as fast.  A year later, in the first grade, I confided to my parents that what I wanted above everything else was a baseball cap that was equipped with goggles that I could flip down to keep the wind out of my eyes when I ran.  I’m guessing my parents had a good laugh over that one.  Needless to say, I did not get the hat and goggles.

ANIMAL COMMUNICATORS AND THE NATURE OF SKEPTICISM

Recently I had a puzzling conversation with an individual who stated that he had consulted with an animal communicator regarding his pet dog.  Here’s the story:

SCIENCE AS A VERB

Growing up, I was taught science as a NOUN—as a body of established knowledge.  I memorized the bones of the body, learned that water molecules consist of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen, that gravity is one of four basic forces of nature, and on and on.  Essentially, we were taught science much like we were taught history (unfortunately)—as sets of rules and facts to be memorized.  I think my experience was not very different from that of most of my cohorts.

THE “MIRACLE” OF THE THAI CAVE RESCUE

I think we all experienced something of an emotional rollercoaster during the 18-day drama of the rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach from a cave in a remote part of northern Thailand.  We despaired of the boys’ rescue when we first learned that they had been trapped for several days by flash flooding of the cave.  Then on the tenth day we learned that, amazingly, rescuers had found all of the boys and their coach alive and in relatively good health.  But it became clear that their extrication from the cave would be extremely dangerous and could be delayed for weeks if not months because the only way out of the cave would remain flooded.  When rescuers ultimately managed to bring all of the boys and their coach out of the cave over a three-day period, the word “miracle” was tripping off the lips of millions who had been praying for their safe rescue.

WHY CREATIONISM IS LOSING THE WAR

Over the years I have had all manner of conversations with fundamentalist Christians regarding the theory of evolution.  In all those discussions I have not changed a single person’s mind regarding the reality of evolutionary processes.  Zero.  It seems that people either have already accepted the fact of evolution or they find reasons to deny it.

“GOD IS LOVE”?

“God is love.”  What does that mean, exactly?

WHAT IF GOD WAS ONE OF US?

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin' to make his way home?

IS IGNORANCE BLISS?

Imagine for a moment that God does not exist.  Would you nevertheless want to perpetuate belief in God on the basis that some take comfort in the false belief that there is a God who protects them, provides them guidance, and promises them an eternal life filled with joy?

COMMENT ON SCIENCE ADVOCACY

I have been accused of being an evangelist for science.  I’ve decided that that’s probably a bit strong, as the term evangelism is generally reserved for efforts to convert others to belief in the Christian gospel.  Let’s just say that I am a strong advocate for the advancement of science.  And briefly here is why.

THEODICY: THE PROBLEM OF PAIN AND SUFFERING

Q: Theodicy is the Christian apologetic defense of the seeming contradiction between the belief that God is omnibenevolent, and yet he created a world with a surfeit of pain and suffering.  This seeming contradiction has been one of the primary reasons why individuals turn away from belief in a theistic god.

A: In my case my apostasy was the result of an irreconcilable conflict between the evidence of science, on the one hand, and the fundamentalism of the Seventh-day Adventist church in which I was raised, on the other.  It was only later that I came to think about and to understand the logic problems inherent in theodicy.

THOUGHTS ON THE FUTURE OF NONBELIEF

A recent Scientific American article points out that the number of Americans who state that they are “not religious at all,” has continued to rise.  In the most recent Harris poll, conducted in 2013, that percentage had risen to 23%, up from 16% in 2007.

UNDERSTANDING THE CRUCIFIXION NARRATIVE

For Christians, Christ’s sacrifice is fundamental to the salvation narrative.  Christ’s death was a necessary condition, a requirement for God’s forgiveness of human sinfulness and for humans’ salvation.  Simply put, salvation would not be possible without Christ’s crucifixion.  When I was taught this narrative as a child, no one provided any rationale for it.  The logic of the narrative was just assumed to be self-evident.  But it isn’t self-evident; it isn’t even rational.

When as a teenager I lost my belief in God, I rejected the salvation narrative as being part and parcel of a set of false beliefs: Because there is no God, there is no Christ, no sacrifice, and no salvation.  It was only years later that I thought to analyze the rationale underlying the salvation narrative, such as it was, and found it to be, well, wanting.  For me, it raises a host of questions.

LETTING GO

More than 50 years after I took a creative writing class in college, I've decided to try my hand at writing poetry. This one is about mortality but hopefully not morbidity.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND THE NATURE OF SKEPTICISM

Q: Let’s talk about the meaning of skepticism.

A: One way to do that might be by looking at conspiracy theories.  

A while back I stumbled across an article posted on social media that claimed that the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001 was not caused by commercial passenger jets crashing into the towers.  This was a relatively recent article, by the way.  The article was followed by numerous comments from individuals who had embraced the belief, also voiced in the article, that there was some sort of coverup by the government or the media or both.  Frankly, I was shocked and dismayed and at the same time fascinated.

THE GRIEVING PROCESS

At the risk of sounding naive, I struggle with understanding the nature of the grieving process that individuals go through at the death of a loved one.  And I am looking for help to better grasp the nature of those experiences and, in particular, the basis for the grieving of those who have a firm belief in the afterlife.