The Uncomfortable Truth

When I was a young boy I had a horrible and haunting experience. It was a few days after my seventh birthday, and I was awoken by the sound of my Grandad calling my Nan from the bottom of the stairs. I ran to see what I could do. 

He was stood there with blood all down his lips, neck and chest. To my innocent eyes it looked like a very bad nosebleed. I ran to tell my Nan about the nosebleed, and it was this fact which she took at face value. Grandad was having a nosebleed. The tissues were in the kitchen. I should go off to tell him. She would follow on in a bit. No big deal.

A few minutes later I was kneeling on the blood-soaked floor of the kitchen, cradling my beloved Grandad, as he died. His eyes were begging me to help him. There was nothing I could do but hold him.

I finally came to terms with this in my late thirties.

When I was 19, I met with a psychologist who explained how my tendency to run the incident through in my mind could have been shut off by grief therapy, had it existed when I was seven. Later still, another counsellor asked me to honestly ask myself what a seven-year-old me could have done... really? The honest answer was nothing, but that fact took a while to sink in.

You see, the problem is that as I got older, and studied more about first aid, First Response & pre-hospital emergency care, in these increasing levels of complexity, I saw that incident from a more and more informed perspective. I lost sight of the fact that I was only a seven year old kid, with none of the knowledge I gained as I grew up.

This 'Grandad's Death Apologism' ultimately led me to have some serious delusions about how his demise was my fault, because I didn't perform some, now, routine actions which may have saved him. Such as recognizing that it wasn't an epistaxis for starters!

An astute reader will already know where this story is headed. This is a blog about religions and their follies after all. So, where do we usually find events recorded by ill-informed, scientifically ignorant authors whose stories are later retold from more modern and complex perspectives as more information becomes available?

Yes... The Holy Bible.

The job of the Christian Apologist is to deny the actual words of the authors, the stories within the text as seen through primitive eyes, and make up new ideas to explain what they meant, and why the stories actually meant something other than what they say.

Genesis 1:1-2:3 is a text by Aaronid "Priestly" scribes of the 6-5th centuries BCE, writing around the time of or just after the Jewish exile in Babylon, whose Yahweh speaks everything into being from some pre-existing materials, such as space, water and soil. Meanwhile, Gen 2:4b-Gen 3:24 is a text two hundred years older, written by Elohists who were following their tradition of Yahweh moulding humans, animals and plants out of the earth, clearly more from an agricultural perspective.

These texts actually have messages all of their own, but modern Creationists cannot bear to accept that these are from two traditions, which if taken at face value, clearly demonstrate that Yahweh is a human literary construction, used as 'Priestly Propaganda'! Instead, they have to find a way to construct a narrative that explains how the second, older story is a clarification of a period within the first, younger story, and tells us that they are both, in fact, telling a single story.

They are rewriting the story from a point of view of having both an agenda and a new set of data. Just as I did with my Grandad's death.

When you fail to take a story, or an account of an event, at face value, and forget the knowledge level of its author(s), or participants, you diminish your ability to objectively analyse the truth of it. If you're not 100% honest in your dealing with Bible texts, you relinquish any claim you have of understanding some 'arcane knowledge' or 'hidden truths' held within the text.

I didn't know about pulmonary pathologies, traumatic cardiac events, haemostatic techniques, CPR, or Stroke management when I was seven. I had to be honest about that before I could recognize the truth of my Grandad's death. If you're honest about the Creation myths of the Bible, you must accept that they inadvertently undermine the veracity of your god claim... in short, they explain the circumstances in which you can be certain your god isn't real... and never was. 

This is the uncomfortable truth!

An Open Letter

I recently received the following letter from the head of education at the British Humanist Association. It speaks for itself, but I'm more than happy to respond to it... enjoy:

  

Dear Sir

Thank you for attending our school speakers training event in Cardiff and for completing the post-course task.

I am writing to say that, with regret, we will not be accrediting you as a BHA School Speaker.

It is of vital importance to the BHA that we are completely confident that our school speakers understand that their role in schools is to raise young people's awareness and understanding of Humanism, and that they are not there to be critical of religion. This is essential to ensure we are invited back for repeat visits and therefore for the success of the programme.

On the training course, some of the things you said made us worried that you may on occasions feel a temptation to be critical of religions or religious beliefs and that this might occasionally override the need to show respect. It was felt by myself and a number of other people on the course that occasionally your tone crossed from respectful disagreement to less tolerant criticism, a tone that could prove unhelpful in the school environment and the situations our speakers often find themselves in. I hope you do not feel this is a criticism of your views; it is simply that we need to be 100% sure that all our speakers present an appropriate message in the classroom.

We have therefore decided not to accredit you.

We appreciate your commitment to Humanism and there are many other ways in which you can support us, which we hope you will investigate on our website.

If you would like to talk about this in more detail on the phone, I would be happy to speak to you.

Kind regards

Luke Donnellan

Head of Education, British Humanist Association

I'm going to point out to start with that I'm in no way bothered about not being offered accreditation. Accreditation by the BHA is not a statutory requirement for speaking about Humanism in schools. It merely adds an additional layer of credibility and authority, and ensures that there is a forum for the school to report on the conduct of the speaker, and content of the talk given to the children. During the course my enthusiasm for the project was destroyed, by another course attendee, who pointed out the near impossibility of getting SACRE* groups to agree to schools booking Humanist speakers. I wonder which is of more importance in this context... a person occasionally making comments against established religious ideas, or someone utterly undermining the entire project with tales of being blocked and blacklisted by the SACRE he actually belongs to?

I do have antitheistic views. That much is obvious to anyone who meets me, however, this letter directly attacks my professionalism and that is something I will not allow to go unchallenged. Nobody on the course knew me well enough to judge my approach to Humanism, or have any knowledge at all of my ability to address the subject under different conditions. 

The course was attended by a fairly substantial group, including the leader of the Swansea Humanists, and its Secretary, and the Director of the Wales Humanists (WH), a group which has just over 600 members... about 200 fewer people than who follow me on Twitter!

Another person in attendance, who is a teacher and member of the board of the WH and an ex-girlfriend of mine who visibly turned sour-faced when she realised who I was. I have no doubt that her hatred of me, spanning almost two decades, drove her to poison the well and speak ill of me (not putting lies out of the picture you understand); imagining that this wasn't a significant occurrence is a little naïve. 

I wonder how you get from seeing how a person behaves in a room full of his peers, and many much older, to translating that into how a person, who is a school governor and PTA treasurer, would act in a school? I have teachers in my family, and I know that talk in the staff room is often highly critical of parents and students, yet somehow that never seems to spill out past the staff room door. Why? Could it be that teachers are professional educators who can put their personal views to one side as and when required? Just like me!

Luke Donnelly is an ex-headmaster. He of all people should appreciate that educators are able to compartmentalise their private views away from the set spiel they deliver in the classroom, to remain 'on message'. I was an actor for almost 25 years. If anyone can play the part of the perfect Humanist school visitor, it's me.

Whether Luke reads this or not, I don't care. I'm busy with my new projects, like the Llanelli Humanists, which is an online group for the moment. It is intentionally independent, because we feel that the BHA and National Secular Society are just talking-shops in Wales, with very little presence. There are no billboards, bus posters, leaflets, wall posters, TV or radio adverts explaining what Humanism is, or what it means to be a part of a group. Everyone I've ever spoken to, outside of the movement, has asked me to explain what Humanism is... Oh, and in doing so, I've NEVER denigrated any other religions! I don't need to, because I'm explaining what something is, not comparing it to other beliefs. There is a difference that I recognise, because I'm not the blithering idiot Luke seems to think I am!

The loss is the BHA's not mine. Schools aren't going to be welcoming in strangers to talk about Humanism, when the SACREs just instruct them to send their RE teachers on courses which they direct and script. Not in this decade, or the next! The money invested in this project would be better spent addressing the need for educating parents about their rights to withdraw their children from Collective Worship, and raising the profile of WH. You can teach the kids all you want, but the legal power to remove children from the indoctrination process rests with the parents. It is they who urgently need to learn about Humanism. 

My 5 Top Tips for Atheists

Hi... it's been a while.

It has been suggested that I write a post about how to deal with being new to the wonderfully liberating world that is atheism.

I have been an atheist for 30 years. It started when I was bored one summer in 1985 and decided to read the family Bible. It was a big, old, leather bound thing with a family tree in the front of it and lots of illuminations (Bible-speak for drawings.) So, once a day I settled down in the spare room to read the book, from cover to cover. About half way through reading Genesis I became an atheist. To this day I fail to see how anyone with any sense can make it through the first two chapters of Genesis and not immediately realize that the book is fiction. I finished the Old Testament (OT) and gave up, only to go back to it a few years later when we started doing work on the New Testament (NT) in school. Trust me when I tell you that the content of the book bares little or no resemblance to what teachers and preachers tell you it says. No wonder the Christian community spends so much time and energy (and money) on apologetics... but more on that later.

Paganism crept in shortly after this, but it was always of the atheist variety, that being a belief that the "gods and goddesses" of the religion are nothing more than archetypes (see Jung) for the ways in which we express ourselves and look forward to new challenges. A less wank-tastic version of the "think like a lion become a lion" crap they try to make you do at 'self-improvement' seminars.

Anyway, since I am not new to this game I will let you new atheists (not to be confused with "New Atheists"*) into a few secrets on how to handle your new life.

Many of you reading this will not be in the liberal and accepting position I was in. My father is an ignostic aptheist, which is someone who literally does not see the point of gods and therefore doesn't give a hoot about them. My mother, was and still is a Christian, although she has not seen the inside of a regular church for as long as I can remember, except for weddings, baptisms and funerals. So, my dad puts up with my talking about atheism and theism but considers the subject to be entirely boring and my mother listens with polite amusement. I am 42 now, with kids of my own (both self-declared atheists) so what can she say, eh?

I know this might seem like a dream come true for many of you. There are those who cannot speak up for fear of harm, isolation and financial loss. I worry about you guys. It boggles my mind that a religion (and they all do this) which talks about caring and accepting everyone, puts so many caveats in place to prevent people from leaving. There are a number of reasons why, but the biggest one has to be what social psychologist Irving Janis affectionately call "groupthink".

"Groupthink occurs when a group values harmony and coherance over accurate analysis and critical evaluation. It causes individual members of the group to unquestioningly follow the word of the leader and it strongly discourages any disagreement with the concensus." - Psychology Today

For this reason I am not here to tell you how, or when, to 'come out' as a non-believer. That is for you to decide, based on your circumstances and perception of the results that might follow from such an action. My advice is to hold fast and remember that atheism is growing quickly and social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook are providing some great resources and bringing people together. You are NOT alone. Atheism is becoming more normal, and the proof of this can be seen in the recent escalation in religious people and groups becoming more vocal about their faith, and declarations of whole countries which are seeing a decline in religiosity being "Christian countries" by various politicians.

All I can tell you is that (on the whole) the atheist community are very supportive of recently deconverted atheists and the level of tolerance found here is infinitely higher than in any religion.

In with being asked to write this was a tacit request for advice on how to deal with internet theists who flood the cables with apologetics and nonsense. So here are my top 5 tips for dealing with theists online and in real life:

1. Remember that YOU do NOT have to prove anything. 

The theist is the one making the positive claim that a god exists, and therefore the onus (no matter what they tell you) is on them to prove it. Apart from saying "I don't believe your claims." you really do not have to say much else. You can be as dismissive as you like. Often I like to treat them like some drunk who tells you that they are a secret agent, or an alien. A "Really? That's interesting, but oh... look at the time... gotta run!" is all you need to say. You can block the ones who just will not quit talking at you. "So what?" is a powerful phrase.

"Atheism isn't true" - "So what?"
"So GOD is!" - "So what?"
"So YOU have to listen?" - "OK, why?"
"If you don't YOU WILL BURN IN HELLFIRE!" - "Yeah? So what?"
"You're LOST and need to be FOUND again! Find SALVATION in the arms of JEEEEEEEEEEZZZUUUUUSSS!!!" - "Yeah? OK. Whatever. See ya round mate."

The more people of this ilk start to realise that we don't care what they think and/or say, the more agitated they get, but eventually one or two do start to wonder why we don't care and look for answers. If they do so with an objective mind they usually deconvert. Trying to get a theist to be objective can be difficult. Though, that's perhaps how you got here. Hi... welcome to sanity.

2. Learn how to ask the right questions.

Let's say you have decided to engage with the theist and argue your point with them. My advice to you is to learn about Socratic Questioning, either from Dr Peter Boghossian's book "A Manual For Creating Atheists", or the excellent YouTube video series on Street Epistemology by Anthony Magnabosco. This line of thinking is extremely effective at dealing with theists.

The hardcore "hell and brimstone" types hate Socratic questioning because no matter how hard they try you just keep requesting more detailed information. This "lunatic fringe" cannot understand why you are deflecting their nonsense back at them, and even the "scholars" eventually start to hate it when their knowledge runs out and they are either forced to ignore you, go around in circles or get angry. In each cases you have won the debate. You'll get used to a lot of toys being thrown from a lot of prams on this journey.

3. Be patient. 

Many of the people you come across are victims of their own religion's brainwashing scheme. Think back to when you believed the nonsense. You may still harbour fears about losing your soul, burning in a fiery lake, or being tortured forever. Religious bullshit can be very hard to wash off.
Ask yourself how would you want to be spoken to? You have an advantage in that you have been there too and so you know how it feels to believe those things, and be in their situation. I know that for some people enlightenment came when someone ridiculed them and they got pissed enough to go looking for counter-arguments and found only common sense staring at them (like Jerry DeWitt and Matt Dillahunty) but for many telling them they're stupid only makes them more likely to entrench themselves in their beliefs.

4. Follow your own path. 

Are you interested in evolution and science? If so, then read, read, read! Lots of great books by many great authors are out there waiting for you to pick them up and read, or listen to in the car on the way to work. For some good recommendations follow people like David Smalley, or Aron Ra, or ask me. If you are not interested in evolution, or science you don't have to be. Only theists equate atheism with an interest in science and technology. You might prefer art, literature, music or any number of other things.

When you find a theist who argues that atheism is not true because evolution is false just ignore them. For one, they are using a form of logical fallacy and for another, who cares? You don't, right? Evolution isn't your thing, so just don't worry about it. Your non-belief is probably founded on your realization that the evidence for a god just doesn't stack up. It has nothing to do with science. Even if evolutionary scientists have it all wrong, the claims of the theist are no more likely to be true. In this vein I often ask that very question: "If evolutionary scientist are mistaken, how does that affect the claims made by theists about creation?" You'd be surprised how often that's met with silence, or a lot of words thrown together which don't make any sense to anyone but the person who said it (word-salad.)

It's not your job to argue FOR evolution, or any argument FOR your position at all. See point 1. The argument "Evolution isn't true, therefore Yahweh!" is no more valid than "Jelly isn't true, therefore Sasquatch!"

5. Look for inconsistencies.

When one theist makes a point, try to remember who it was who made that claim, or said that thing. For instance, if one of them says gays are evil, then make a mental note. Then, when someone else, says that gays are misguided, or putting on a show, you can point towards that other guy and say "I've heard *insert name of other person here* say *whatever he/she said*, why do you think you are right and not him/her?" or something to that effect. The point being that if theism were true and there WAS a god out there telling his subjects that ONE truth they all claim to be privy to, why do they all take up such different, and often opposite positions on things?

It's helpful, though not essential, that you learn what is and what isn't a logical fallacy. Matt Dillahunty's videos and episodes of the Atheist Experience and David Smalley's Dogma Debate are great resources.

If Christianity was uniform across the board its claim might have a bit more weight to it, but with around 40,000 versions (denominations) of it out there in the world we can be sure that, they can't ALL be right and they're probably all wrong. If one theist is really good at being consistent you can contrast his/her views with that of another and watch as the "he's wrong I'm right" arguments start.

These are my "top-tips", though other atheists approach debate in entirely different ways. I'm not always so kind to believers because their BS is so damn stupid the only thing I can offer them is my impatience.

I hope these ideas have been helpful. Thanks for reading. As usual, all comments are welcome.


*New Atheists is a term, usually used derogatorily against atheists who are vocal about their disdain for religion and the use of faith over good reasoning. Basically its used to describe any atheist who, when told to shut up by a preacher or imam, says "NO!"

Something You Ought To Know About

Hi,

I'm not sure it's usual for a blogger to recommend you leave his site immediately and check out someone else's blog, but that's precisely what this blogger is now doing.

A twitter friend of mine, who goes by the necessarily anonymous title of @Elishabenabuya, has a blog in which he shares his extensive knowledge of the Old Testament. His background is that of being a Talmud scholar for over 50 years, but who is now an atheist, putting to rest those oft cited myths of the Bible being a reliable source of history and the current translations being representative of the original texts.

You can find it here: apikoris.blogspot.co.il

If you are an atheist and you're not reading Elisha's blog and following him on twitter I don't really know what to do with you.

Perhaps a darkened room might help.

I jest, but you do really need to get on it.

Cheers y'all!

Why I'm No Longer Just An Atheist

Some time ago I became an atheist.

I was 12, and I'd just finished reading the family Bible (yes, we had one of those.) It was a huge, leather-bound monstrosity which sat on a corner table, set up against the stair rail on our first landing.

It took ages to read, and I have to admit to not fully understanding it at the time, but every time I came up against a passage which advocated what humans would consider an evil act I saw God at the helm.

I felt betrayed by everyone who had ever told me "God is Love". I still am.

I came to realise that the "God" of the Bible (Elohim/Yahweh take your pick) was not the god we consider to be the creator of the universe. Which meant that in that time I became a deist. A few months later I had shaken off the shackles completely and became an atheist looking for a way to express my new found love of being a human with no ties to a deity.

That is how I came to paganism. Most people think of paganism as a polytheistic religion based on a lot of woo-science, tarot card nonsense and incense burning. Yes, we burned a lot of incense, and I still like to, and I still have my tarot cards by my bed. They often fondly remind me of the actress Jane Seymour, because they are the same sort used by her in a Bond movie.

What most people don't understand is that many, many pagans know that when they invoke Pan in order to feel more free and less inhibited, they are in fact just invoking that part of themselves which can be free and uninhibited. They know it's not a prayer being received by a deity. It's self-talk. It's like knitting yourself a jumper for the cold days of winter. I was, and still am, that type of pagan. Though today I call all the gods and goddesses by their real name. Me.

In the eyes of the Christians we non-believers are all pagans and heretics.

So, why am I no longer just an atheist?

Labels matter to me. I know many people disagree, but when you see someone wearing a uniform you have a certain vision of the type of person he/she is. For good or for bad. Out of uniform their character is a little more difficult to establish. I know that when I say I'm an atheist, other atheists like me, and Christians don't (when they get to know me both groups usually agree I'm a bit of a dick!) 

:)

I have been "active" about atheism for a number of years now. But something changed recently. I see now that my simple disbelief in a deity is not getting me anywhere. 

That's why if anyone asks me what I believe now I have to be honest and tell them that religion, for me, is nothing short of POISON! I'm not an atheist anymore, I'm now a confirmed Antitheist and my new drive is that feeling of utter contempt for those religions, and their followers, which try to impose their on everyone else!

I look to that contempt to push me forward, and my compassion for humanity to take the bumps out of the ride.

Your common or garden theist is not my target. They might fund their religion and enable its crimes against humanity, reason and common sense, but they are victims too, of the venomous, institutionalised barbarism which threatens more now than ever to undermine good science and good philosophical and critical thinking; especially in our children.

All atheist activists have a responsibility to get pissed off at the constant encroachment of what is now a panicking, ever-decreasing minority of theists worming their way into our schools and colleges, either physically, or through legislation to save their religions from extinction.

We must stop this now.

Before it's too late.