Walking away from religious belief - my story

I grew up as a quasi- Episcopalian, sang in the junior choir. When I was 14, I was invited by a classmate to a baptist vacation bible school where I got “SAVED” i.e. born again as they say. I was an over-imaginative and socially alienated teen, happy to hear somebody loved me.... And when I say over imaginative, I was the sort, who as a child of three or four years old, had conversations with an imaginary species of “pookiebell,” a sort of small fairy creature that tended the ferns. It wasn't so much delusion as a strong creative streak that needed guidance.

In my teenage loneliness I conjured a deep emotional connection to Jesus and to god as I imagined their love for me. And this was the attraction.  I started going to a baptist church, and felt accepted there, and began writing christian folk songs. This belief conveniently kept me from having to make the usual teenage decisions about sex and drugs, gave me a ready-made group of people who were supposed to care about me and another far more  authoritative imaginary presence to talk to. After high school, I went to Philadelphia College of Bible as a music student. (Subsequent name changes include Philadelphia Biblical University. and now Cairn University)

The first chink in the old armor came one day when I was out passing out "Jesus Saves" booklets in Rittenhouse Square. I met a Hindu man and we spent some three and a half hours trying to convert each other.. My mind churned. We couldn't both be right, one of us had to be wrong, I thought. But he was every bit as sincere and devout as I was, knew his own holy books just as well...

The summer I got a job as a camp counselor at a religious “ranch” I was brought up short again when a fellow counselor told all the children that their mommies and daddies would burn in hell unless they came to believe. The terrible anguish of these children, who assumed the words of that counselor to be literal, immediate truth - starkly framed the barbarism inherent in the concept of hell.  It was the beginning of the end of fundamental evangelical Christianity for me. I no longer could believe in this version of god. Despite this, I returned to college in the fall - I needed to figure out what to do instead, how to change direction.

After one more year (three total) at bible collage, going through the motions, trying to understand - I dropped out and became an avid non-christian, interested in whatever I could read about religion(s). For many years I told the census takers I was a pantheist, a pagan, a  heathen. For a short while I I was into a sort of new age mumbo-jumboism & reincarnation,  and then dabbled in home-styled American buddhism & insight meditation. My religious opinions were further fleshed out by six years working for churches as a mezzo-soprano, including four years working for a Roman catholic church. I was a non-christian, quasi-atheist at the time, and my immediate musical bosses knew it.

Over the years I have done a lot of thinking about religion and it's creator - the human mind. At the core of each religion, there is always a set of people called mystics. When you read about their experiences they are remarkably similar even in religions that call each other heretics and infidels. I think the similarity is because a “mystical experience” is a brain-state that can happen to anyone who's brain chemistry gets bent in a particular way. It is a state accessible through mediation practice BUT it is a physical phenomenon, not a revelation of a god or gods and not a product of any supernatural process. Religious states of communion, thankfulness or “oneness” that often accompany prayer or meditation are also brain-based and beautiful even apart the common religious labels applied to them. They are natural states of the human brain.

Apparently, I have a atheistic and naturalistic view which excludes divinities as well as the supernatural.. Naturalists see no evidence for the supernatural, and no need for it either as all things, both interior and exterior, arise from the natural physical world. I am also a secular humanist. Secular humanists think that human beings should, without a god or a religion, try to live the best life they can using the power of reason to realize their unique abilities and thereby contribute to the good of society, mankind in general and to the life and history of the planet.

- Mar Walker

LECTURE NOTES: Not Enough about Einstein's god, too much about Tippett

*****In retrospect: IF I had read the book before attending the lecture I would not have had the following reaction to it, since I would have already heard what she had to say on Einstein.****

Krista Tippett who hosts the National Public Radio show "Speaking of Faith" gave a lecture on Eintstein's God in New Haven tonight.

$30 was way too much for the lecture - unless you went because you are a Tippett fan and most people there were by the sound of the thundering applause. I went hoping to hear a detailed lecture on Einstein's concept of god, (which Tippetts did at least say was an impersonal overarching nature) --  and I was very disappointed there wasn't more on that subject. Though I guess she had covered it already in her book. And it is my fault for going without having read it....

So unfortunately the talk wasn't just about Einstein, nor actually about god either. People fans, had submitted a bunch of questions about Tippett and she endeavored to answer them.

She also quoted a few scientists, including Einstein and Darwin, and kept saying that religion and science were compatible -- apparently through the mechanism of a sort of new age niceness with a little scientific awe thrown in for good measure. Compatible as long as you don't mention specific doctrines, as long as you are talking to the theologians, who prefer verbal fencing, to strap-on bombs. As long as you are alluding to passages in scientists writings that sound vaguely spiritual or that refer to beauty or infinity. Still I doubt many main stream theologians would count that as 'god' even with a little g.... Sure its all compatible as long as nobody talks details. The devil is in the details they say. For good reason they say that..

Of course asking people about their faith is what Tippett does for a living. She wants her guests on her NPR show to reveal their journey of belief - yet she did not welcome a question about her own belief during the Question and Answer session. Her reply referenced her need to get people to interview for her show. (I guess all these fair minded religious folks she chooses for her interviews might not talk to her if they thought she was really a non-theist.) So in the end -  it's about continuing her personal mission in life,  which she can't do without the other people, ( not a bad thing I guess all in all)  and maybe selling her book Einstein's God. Can't blame her for that I guess.

I thought she gave rather a too high regard for the scriptures of various religions, ascribed wisdom to them without any qualification. No mention of cutting off the hands of thieves. Or subjugating woman. Wonder how she defines wisdom.... and I wonder if it includes forbearance -- during the Q&A Tippett called Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins bigots.  Live, In the Shubert Theater . Hmmm. I guess niceness only goes so far.

So called infallible pope covers up abuse

http://www.youtube.com/v/jT8sQvXXU8Y&hl=en_US&fs=1&

http://www.youtube.com/v/dWErBV0MfEg&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Interesting talk on the inner grammar of human moral decision making

Interesting thoughts on morality in religious vs nonreligious persons:

http://www.youtube.com/v/KiUqBKGHp8o&hl=en_US&fs=1&


http://www.youtube.com/v/zpqFTuD_5nU&hl=en_US&fs=1&


http://www.youtube.com/v/1qiaJ0myd2U&hl=en_US&fs=1&

A Song by Markella Hatziano

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klpjjFf9fL8&w=560&h=349]
‪You can really tap your feet or dance all around to this one..... Well, I could. The words are very powerful and enhanced by the grim and very real pictures of violence done in the real world to real people in the name of god. Her words describe a joyful determination to be done with all this cruelty. The refrain says this:

"All I see around me are the casualties of god delusion
Everyone bamboozled with the certainties of god delusion
Why cant we have freedom from the cruelties of god delusion
Save us all from god delusion" - Markella Hatziano

Click through - and watch it on its own YouTube page where you can see the rest of the words (just click "show more" in the box under the video.)

Visit the song-writer's website: http://www.markella.com/‬
or  http://www.newageofreason.com/‬

A Poem & Digital drawing regarding the "Heaven's Gate" cult suicides

Heaven's Gate was a religious cult a bit sci-fi in nature.  The believed a UFO hiding behind the comet Hail-Bop would "beam"  their purefied beings into another, better realm. First of course, they would have to shed their mortal bodies by putting plastic bags over their heads after eating poison tapioca pudding.

Religious delusions haven't changed much since I wrote the poem below. Since the early 1990s we have seen countless religiously motivated killings in the form of suicide bombers, the 9/11 attack, abortion clinic bombers and doctor shooters.  Cult suicide is a tremendous waste of human life and potential. Of course it can't occur without blind faith. Heaven's Gate followers believed these things because their LEADER told them so.  Just one more little reason to never subscribe to a religion of any sort.

.One-Way Portal -

As Earth’s mechanical eyes scan

this not-so-empty darkness, her restless

children ache to dance down galaxies,

chase cosmic winds on callused primate feet.

Unsatisfied as voyeurs, 39 webheads queued

at Heaven's Gate, backpacks at the ready,

humming at the window, eating tapioca.

They clutched plastic, vacuous and opaque,

waited for data retrieval, personal uploads

facing unrecoverable error, depression

deferred in bunk-bed suburban stillness, escape

velocity for the purple-shrouded dead.

They hardly knew their Mother.
Bury them in her darkest loam,
rich compost of stars.

April 6, 1997
©1997 M. M. Walker

-from Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding
--- Mar (Mistryel) Walker, © 1998
Puzzled Dragon Press

  I was thinking about the ever expanding galactic structures of space and the even more convoluted eddies of the human mind when I drew this. As with all my digital drawings, it has been manipulated electronically in a host of programs over the years.

Catholic Church backs Anti-gay Episcopal Congregations - with a new 'Pseudo Catholic" status

Well well - the Diocese of Bridgeport's unofficial homophobia gets a backhanded endorsement from Rome....  Now  they can go right on denigrating and campaigning against gay rights and marriage in Connecticut with the Pope's blessing ....   Oh wait, I think they already had that.....

The Episcopal Church in the U.S - half of which is somewhat gay friendly, is STILL at war with itself over the installation of gay bishops. I guess Rome is hoping to lure some of the homophobes and the breakaway congregations over to the Catholic camp by blessing certain parts of the Anglican liturgy to ease the transition and encourage conversions.

According to the New York Times, Cardinal William Levanda, who they cite as the Vatican's "chief doctrinal official" presented the plan at a news conference earlier today.

Of course I offer a remedy: Give up this anachronistic paternalistic god, along with all these man-made doctrines and leave the life and love commitments of the populace alone.

Here's a link to the New York Times article by Rachel Donadio
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/world/europe/21pope.html?hp

Bent Pin: Cortney Davis, Stephen Muret, Ken Pobo, Lisa Siedlarz

POST ABOUT MY NOW DEAD EZINE: 

This week's Bent Pin is unusual in that it features four writers instead of the usual pair. Each work offers a different twist on religion. I have titled the page brand loyalties, since there are so many competing varieties of religion. Take a peek

Coming out heathen

In case you missed it, I am an atheist. That is not what I believe - merely what I lack a belief in...

Being an atheist  means I do not have a belief in a god or gods. By inference it means that I regard religion as a vestigial organ of human culture best understood as psychological metaphor. I think that human beings invented gods and god-appeasement rituals, partly in an attempt get protection and control over a dangerous natural world beyond their understanding. And partly in an attempt to get control over their own impulses for the good of the tribe. And often to get and keep control over each other....

As a possible hanger on of the brights movement ** with a naturalistic world view - I am interested in living in this world, this universe, and in this present life. I believe that everything that is, both within us and without us, arises from the natural physical world. That what most folks refer to as the soul is merely the amazingly intricate human brain. (I suggest a book called "The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" by Oliver Sacks which shows how our very core changes when the brain is injured...)

I think when we die, that we are gone forever - so cherish this one life you have. Never throw it away as few folks I know have done. Cherish it. You only get this one, so live it well.

For those of you who think an Atheist is an immoral angry monster - well, you are suffering from a stereotype - a prejudice - a form of bigotry. I am just a human being, with a catalog of merit and defect, just as all you religious folks are. Nothing more, but nothing less. A human being. As a secular humanist, I believe that each human being should endeavor to live a good and moral life using his or her individual talents for the good of society, life in general, and for the life of the planet. Living toward this ideal does not requires the assistance, inspiration, commandment or hellfire threats of various gods and religions.

** the brights movement is a loose internet-based alliance of people with a naturalistic view of the world, who see life in terms of the testable, beautiful physical world and who do not find it necessary to cobble imagined gods or goblins, spirits, ghosts, supernatural powers, fairies, what have you, onto a reality that is already complex and amazing.

Another murderer made in god's image....

Dr. George Tiller, a father and grandfather, as well as a doctor who's abortion clinic performed late term abortions, was murdered in his own church where he was an usher.

My question is this: Why does it surprise us when those who say they are "god"s messengers whip out guns and start shooting?

The following is a list of murders ordered or carried out by "god" in the old testament. I found this on several websites but I am not sure it is a complete listing....

• All men, women & children on earth except for Noah's immediate family(Genesis 7:23)
• All inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah except a single family, (and he turned one of the spared family into a pillar of salt...) (Genesis 19:24)
• The first born of Egypt (Exodus 12:29)
• The hosts of the Pharaoh, including 600 chariot-captains (Exodus 14:27,28)
• Amalek & all his people (Exodus 17:11,16)
• 3,000 Israelites (Exodus 32:27)
• 250 Levite princes who'd challenged Moses (Numbers 16:1-40)
• 14,700 Jews killed with a plague (they'd rebelled against Moses following the killing of the princes) (Numbers 16:41-49)
• All subjects of Og (Numbers 21:34, 35)
• 24,000 Israelites who'd shacked up with Moabite women (Numbers 25:4, 9)
• All males, kings, and non-virgin females of the Midianites (Numbers 31:7, 8)
• The Ammonites (Deuteronomy 2:19-21)
• The Horims (Deuteronomy 2:22)
• All inhabitants of Jericho, except for a prostitute and her family (Joshua 6)
• 12,000 residents of Ai. Joshua hung the king on a tree. (Joshua 8:1-30)
• The population of Makkedah (Joshua 10:28)
• The people of Libnah (Joshua 10:29, 30)
• All inhabitants of Gezer (Joshua 10:33)
• All of Lachish (Joshua 10:32)
• The entire people of Eglon (Joshua 10:34, 35)
• The population of Hebron (Joshua 10:36, 37)
• All inhabitants of the "country of the hills", and (of course there's more), of the south, and the vale, and of the springs and all their kings (Joshua 10:40)
• 31 kings and inhabitants of their countries, and south country, and the land of Goshen, and the valley, and the plain, and the mountain of Israel, & the valley of the same from Mt. Halak to Mt. Hermon (Joshua 11:12, 16, 17, 12:24)
• 10,000 Moabites (Judges 3:29)
• 10,000 Perizzites and Canaanites (Judges 1:4)
• 600 Phillistines (Judges 3:31)
• All from Sisera (Judges 4:16)
• 120,000 Midianites (Judges 8:10)
• 25,100 Benjaminites (Judges 20:35)
• 50,070 from Bethshemesh (I Samuel 6:19)
• The Amalekites (I Samuel 15:3, 7)
• The armies & the 5 kings of the Amorites (Amos 3:2)
• The Moabites, plus 22,000 Syrians (II Samuel 8:2, 5, 6, 14)
• 40,000 Syrian horsemen (II Samuel 10:18)
• 100,000 Syrian footmen, plus by 27,000 who are all crushed by a wall (I Kings 20:28, 29, 30)
• 42 children, (god sends a bear to eat them)(II Kings 2:23, 24)
• 185,000 Assyrians killed by an angel (II Kings 19:35)
• 10,000 Edomites, followed by 10,000 more whose killers threw them from a rock so they were broken in pieces (II Chronicles 28)
• 120,000 Judeans (II Chronicles 28)
• 75,000 Persians (Esther 9:16)

Enough said.

Christian right's odd position on Illegal Immigrants

A while ago, a relative who is a member of a "born-again" type church was talking to me about the "rightness" of arresting and deporting illegal immigrants. She quoted her pastor on the matter. As "de-converted" former believer, who is essentially an atheist, (though perhaps more of an naturalist), I thought this was an extremely odd position for an evangelical to take. The following is adapted from a letter I wrote to her.

Dear .....

I have been pondering how fundamentalism could have joined the bourgeoisie. I was under the impression that if you are an evangelical christian, your task is to spread "the gospel" the supposed good news so that "souls" can be saved. I heard you are "fishers of men" not "fishers of law abiding citizens and men with green cards."

According to the gospels Jesus had lunch with outcasts. Do you think that today he might be visiting the homes of illegals who are as reviled as the tax collectors, harlots and lepers of his time?

The gospels don't mention a single instance where Jesus hailed a Roman soldier or one of the High Priests and asked that a harlot get the punishment the law required. Nor did he ever ask that a homeless leper be escorted to the city limits. "Go and sin no more," isn't the same statement as Romans! Police! deport this criminal! Read your "holy" book, and think about the way a god who supposedly loves all humans and wants to "save" them would want you to behave towards the precious and possibly "unsaved" souls you want to deport.

Just a thought from your friendly local atheist

=========================================

Truthism - crazier than other isms?

It's tragic how people's ideas can clash.

On Youtube on my SingingMist channel, (Now thePuzzledDragon channel) I have a "Got Christmas Dread " video. Someone left a comment on it, that Religion and Science were bullshit and should be junked infavor of Truthism.

When I visited the website indicated on Truthism, I found about six pagse of of circular bushwhacking before it finally got around to the crux of it - an emphatic belief that the planet is controlled by "Reptilian Overseers." And of course you can see these reptiles only under the influence of meditation or hallucinogenic drugs. Imagine that.

I thought that was crazy enough, but then an equally strange thing happened. One of my regular viewers told the "truthist" person to get outta dodge with his "filth" I replied with some notes about free speech - but shortly after the fellow's account was suspended. I guess that was considered spam? His comments had vanished. I thought well, I will just start over again. And I deleted all the comments on that video.....

Funny how one man's truth is another's ridiculous fantasy - how one man's free discourse is another's filth. When talking about the religion, the storyline always gets crazy no matter what faith is under discussion. How outlandish is a virgin birth or people rising from death or the whole world being carried on a giant turtles back? It seems like no one is able to think of these crazy notions as psychological metaphor. No wonder we are bumping each other off at a frantic pace over religion. Maybe that's man's tragic flaw - his penchant for us-and-them self-delusion.

-- Mar Walker

Another Christmas, Another Religious War

It's Christmas morning and a new religious war is afoot between Christians in Ethiopia and Muslims in Somalia. Religion all around seems more a cause of war than a source of comfort. This photo is one not used for a story I did recently on Hanukah. A Reformed Congregation Rabbi, a warm and caring person and a great interviewe, is reflecting on and reflected in a display-case of seasonal items. Hanukah celebrates the 're-taking' and re-dedication of the Temple by the Maccabees -- who mounted what this Rabbi called 'guerrilla warfare' to do so. Is there any religion with a truly peaceful history? I doubt it, since religion is the invention of mankind, and man is a dangerous and aggressive animal. (Women I do not exclude you here....) We are an animal species full of loving kindness and also full of savage craft. Selah.