Back when I was in the later years of high school and for a few years after that I guess I was what you’d have to call a militant atheist. I was a 24 hour a day hate-fest on all things spiritual and there wasn’t much anyone could say that would really change my mind. For a lot of people, (at least this has been my observation) being critical of religion got a real leg-up after 9/11, or at least people became pretty critical of islam but this wasn’t the case for me, my disdain for religion came from a philosophical love of empiricism and truth. How on earth could people base their morals and understanding of the universe on just one book? Surely reading one book on biology doesn’t give you license to claim that you know all there is to know about biology, but after reading one book of scripture you might get the impression that “god just did it.” All I wanted to do was tell people that they were stupid for believing such nonsense and debate about religion all the time.
In the past year or so I’ve lost my desire to debate about most religious things, partly because I don’t find the debates fruitful anymore, but mostly because I think it makes me sound like an asshole when I tell people that I think they’re wrong and they just wont accept it. A good example of this was at one of the Rogers corporate events I attended last summer, I forget the guys name but he seemed like a nice guy and both of us missed the memo that it was a formal event (I was in shorts and blue plad and he was in his full orange overalls. Everyone else was in suits and ties) Anyways, I was sitting with this guy at lunch and the Jehovah witnesses came up in conversation, I mentioned that I was an atheist but I thought it was really nice that these old ladies not only remember my name but also drop off their magazines every month.
Big mistake.
As it turned out my poorly dressed coworker was a Jehovah and I got stuck talking about biblical inconsistencies for the rest of my hour long lunch. (But I still got paid! Woo!) We talked about a lot of stuff but our discussion mostly centered around morality and evolution. While I enjoyed the lunch, I left feeling that the entire conversation was useless because neither of us could find premisses that we could both agree on and when that doesn't happen you can’t have any meaningful debate. This is the core of the problem that I have when I talk to deeply religious people, they treat their scripture as internally a verifiable source, but when you are trying to convince someone that your book is divine and the only proof you have to offer is the book itself, you’re going to have a hard time convincing a skeptic.
With all that said, my coworker seemed like a really good guy, I don’t hate him or anything about him, I just really disagree with his religion. And thats ok but I also feel like if you’re going to call your self religious and live by the rules of your religion, you can’t pick the ones that are socially convenient at whatever time you find your self in. If you really think that your scripture is the true word of god, and that god omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, then you have to take all of it or none of it. After all, who are you, lowly mortal, to question the divine moral truth of god? If you want to live by your Exodus 20: 1-17 (Ten commandments) you’re also going to have to take Exodus 21: 7-11 (selling your daughter.) You’re also going to have to take Ezekiel 23:20...
So I’m sure my jehova friend is a good guy and he knows that slavery is wrong on every level, but thats not what his bible says.
I don’t see how there can be a middle ground on this, if the bible is divine then you ought to take all of it as it is and leave it at that but most people don’t actually use the bible in this fashion. They pick and choose the parts they want, the parts that are convenient for them and they tout them as god given truths and then they go on and ignore the parts that don’t make sense to them. If morality is god-given then all you need is scripture, but if morality is a social construct it evolves with society and changes over time, or in other words, its a product of human kind and has nothing to do with god.
I originally wanted to write a little bit about Penn Jillette’s new book and this was meant to be an intro but I guess I got a bit carried away. I liked the book but as a book on atheism it fell really short. Most of the book was just Penn talking about all the cool stuff he’s done over the years with a few anti-religious tangents mixed in. I think Penn Jillette is really cool so I still enjoyed the book, but if you’re looking for some really critical books on religion you’re probably better off with Dawkins or Hitchens.
Anyways, I’ve been up since 5am, my sleep schedule is pretty messed up but I have the house to my self for the next 7 hours so I’m not going to waste the day sleeping. I’m going to make some pancakes for Marley and I, then I’m gonna whale on my guitar for a bit and watch Lord of the rings in all its extended edition glory.
Pancakes turned out pretty good
And he still hasn't thrown up, go me!
I don’t normally write things this long, so if I totally effed up the grammar and spelling I’m sorry, I'm really bad at editing my own writing. Also, this is relevant to what the whole atheist thing.
Greydon Square - Squared
