The Religion Thing, Revisited

In the early days of my blog, I wrote a series of Behind the Blogger posts, to better define who I was to my new audience. One of those was on my religious beliefs, or rather, lack thereof. Last night, I watched Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God on Showtime. That rekindled a longtime fascination with the argument between belief and unbelief. I did a little googling, and found a topic on a right-wing site, where religious (nearly universally Christian) and irreligious conservatives were arguing the issue.



I read quite a bit of it, and some of it was interesting. Mostly, the interest came from seeing conservatives argue amongst themselves. Otherwise, there wasn't a lot of original arguing going on. I've participated it these types of arguments since the days of Prodigy (a very early online service, if you don't know), in the early 90s. Mostly, you've got atheists and agnostics on defense, trying in vain to explain themselves to a group of people who "know they're right," and who don't require logic, reason or rational thought to believe that. It usually results in name calling.

One of the most annoying contentions from the religious side is that atheism/agnosticism is itself a religion. It isn't. There is no atheist church. There is no atheist doctrine. And there are as many definitions of unbelievers as there are. . .well, unbelievers. I would have to classify myself as an atheistic agnostic. I'm pretty sure there isn't a god or gods. I'm pretty sure that all religion is merely superstition. I'm almost certain enough to declare those as facts, but not quite. Why? Well, it is impossible to know if there is something outside of nature, something supernatural. There might be. I tend to think there isn't. But I can't prove it, and I can't declare it definitively.

Some people call that wishy-washy or "straddling the fence." I don't see it that way. I have a lot of respect and admiration for Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and other famous atheists. But I do think that they can sometimes be as hard line and as rigid in their disbelief as some fundamentalist Christians are about their faith. That doesn't mean I make the mistake of calling their atheism a religion. I just think that saying that there is nothing supernatural is stating a belief based on supposition. Fairly educated supposition though, I'll grant them that.

I can only speak for myself though as it pertains to the question, so I have a few bullet points for any reader who might be wondering where a person like me might be coming from. Some are statements, some are ponderings. Feel free to leave a comment if you feel you can argue or refute anything. Or even if you agree!

- Religion doesn't have a lock on "good" or "bad." A non-believer can be a good person, since being one tends to get you the same consideration in return. By the same token, a religious person can be downright evil. Jim Jones ring a bell?

- A person who says they are good because of the promise of heaven or the threat of hell is not a good person at heart, and kinda scares me.

- There are many religions--none any more provable than any other--and it isn't as simple as saying that they're all different versions of the same thing. A Muslim probably will not think that being a Christian is "just as good," and an equal pathway to heaven.

- Religions and cults differ only in their longevity, and the number of followers they amass.

- As crazy as Mormonism or Scientology might appear, they are really no more so than any other when looked at critically. Though those two in particular do seem easier to debunk than some others. Probably because they are so new.

- Much of the doctrines and traditions of one religion are often cribbed from other religions, which leads this writer to think they might not be "the one."

- Even if I "saw the light," and decided to be religious, how would one possibly choose the right one? Even if you narrowed it down to the "big three," which denomination, offshoot or schism is the right one?

- Speaking of the big three, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are basically parts I, II and III (arguably, Mormonism is an alternate reality Part III). Was God just done talking to people many centuries ago?

- The Bible is self-contradictory in many places, no matter how loudly fundamentalists say otherwise. As Sweeney said in her show, "Have they read the first two chapters" of the Bible? Two different creation accounts. Both can't be true.

- It is not necessary for an unbeliever to declare their "belief" on the origins of the universe, evolution, or anything else. We are not the ones making an extraordinary claim here. It is enough to say, "I don't believe the way it is laid out in Genesis." And you wouldn't either, if you read it critically, and had any science classes at all.

- Claiming that there must have been a creator since the universe, Earth and life couldn't have "just happened" ignores the fact that fundamentalists believe that GOD "just happened." Or always was. Maybe the universe "always was." Who knows? Nobody knows.

- It is not incumbent upon a nonbeliever to "prove" that God does not exist. I can't prove that unicorns, gnomes or The Flying Spaghetti Monster don't exist. You can't either. But you can have a fairly strong feeling about it.

- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs in all other areas of life, excepting religion. Why does religion get a pass? I'd call an intangible, invisible, all-powerful, all-seeing, loving, vengeful, perfect, jealous, wrathful God, who can send you to eternal bliss or torture, an extraordinary claim.

- If humans had the power to subject a person to eternal, unimaginable suffering for the "crime" of not believing something, almost every other person would be outraged. Why is the average person more humane than God?

- What possible thing could a human do in 70-odd years on Earth--short of possibly Adolf Hitler--that deserves either eternal torment, or eternal rapture? What the hell kind of justice is that?

That's it for now. And I've probably said some of these things on the blog before. They bear repeating. As does the viewing of Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God, which is possibly the most relateable and funny journeys to abandoning religion that exists. My Google quest started with trying to find someone who debunked her. I've been so far unsuccessful.