In an unexpected press conference earlier this week, the Lord Jesus, formerly of Bethlehem, asked charismatic and evangelical Christians everywhere to stop making art.
When asked why, the Son of the Almighty God responded simply, "It makes Me cry. Many charismatics are under the impression that I want them to be involved in creating vibrant, meaningful works that express My heart. While this call was given to the Church at large, it was never meant to include those of the charismatic persuasion. I'm sorry if there was any confusion on this very important point.
"Creating art should really be left to the Catholics. That's the way it has been done for centuries, and We have been blessed with the Sistine Chapel, Handel's Messiah, Dante's Inferno, heck, I even liked The Last Temptation of Christ. Willem Dafoe. He's intense."
Jesus assured the reporting press that this decision was not a hasty one, and that He had been watching the problem develop for several years.
"I first started to notice charismatics creating art in the late '60s when some ladies at a Pentecostal assembly in Encino made some banners to hang in their sanctuary," Jesus recalled. "The color choices were garish, and they over-estimated the effect of gold lamé, but I thought their hearts were in a good place, so I let it go. Sadly, the tradition they began continues to this day in churches across North America and the world.
"There was a brief time of hope in the early '70s, with the whole Jesus Movement thing. I mean, the music was great! It was about this time, however, that those rapture movies started getting made... the ones without Kirk Cameron. The Thief in the Night flicks. Again, while the direction, acting, production design, lighting, costuming, heck – even the on-set catering – was sub-par, I kinda liked the sincerity inherent in the attempt. They just wanted folks to know Me.
"However, the whole 'Oh, his heart's in the right place' thing can only take My all-sovereign mercy so far. I mean, this is the Alpha and Omega these folks are trying to represent here. The Judas Project is one thing, but Left Behind? Let's get serious. They made a rapture movie without even mentioning Jesus! I get more credit in an episode of Touched By An Angel!"
When asked if this "cease and desist" order applied to musicians as well, the Nazarene responded, "For now, I will continue to let evangelicals make music. We did get Keith Green, after all.
"I am giving some very strict guidelines for worship music, however. For example, when writing a new song, there shall be no further use of the words 'river,' 'fire,' 'mighty,' 'dancing' and especially not 'a-dancing.'
"This is no free ticket, and Carman, I'm watching you, bud. I've also given very specific instructions that no Christian charismatic musical artist should attempt acting and/or directing. God forbid We should end up with a Carman movie."
When one reporter pointed out that Carman had made the boxing "drama" The Champion, the Lord responded, "He did what? Oh, it's clobberin' time now!"
The conference ended a few minutes later, with the Prince of Peace adding that if the current trend of charismatics making art continued, He would consider granting the Catholic church exclusive rights to the name, image, and likeness of the Almighty.
"I feel it's a way of honoring My true fans, the ones who expect a certain level of quality and thoughtfulness when they see something with My Name attached to it."
Representatives at Carman's office in Tulsa, now only a smoking crater in the ground, could not be reached for comment.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Regarding To Catch a Predator (Thoughts after the marathon on MSNBC)
I am so tired of all of the complaints aimed at the "pedophiles" Chris Hansen catches because of this show. Much of it is unwarranted, and I will explain why:
Pedophilia is when adults are attracted to PRE-PUBESCENT children; Those who have not reached adolescence.
People who are attracted to teenagers who have gone through puberty and are no longer technically children are hebephiles.
It does make a difference. Hebephiles are usually not "preying" on anyone. A lot of the time, it's the older person in that arrangement that is being manipulated, and Perverted Justice has been taken to task many times for their questionable tactics.
Just answer this: If hottie Lindsey Lohan was coming on to you when she was 16 years old (Remember how she looked then? Before the cocaine?) and offered to fuck you, making it very clear that she's sexually active and sexually aware--- Wouldn't you at least be tempted? Would you consider being sexually attracted to her when she was that age "abnormal" or "sick"?
Apparently, nobody thought it was abnormal or sick, considering how they marketed her to audiences.
And it's not. She was a sexually mature adolescent, well past puberty, and she was clearly not an innocent lamb who would be the 'victim' if she flirted with an older guy.
I'm not defending kiddie-diddlers! ACTUAL pedophiles should be locked up and castrated as far as I'm concerned. I'm saying that being attracted to a sexually-aware teenager is completely different, and far less mentally unhealthy, than being attracted to pre-pubescent children. That's why the states can't seem to agree on their arbitrary Age of Consent. In one state it might be 12, and in another it's 18. It's ridiculous.
For the record, I lost my virginity at 15, to a 19-year-old. She lost hers when she was 14, to an 18-year-old. I have girlfriends who lost their virginity at 13, to guys in their late teens or even early 20s. None of them felt victimized. As a male, I certainly didn't feel victimized when I lost mine at 15, and harbor no ill will against the woman who took it.
Teenagers have sex, and people want to have sex with teenagers. It's human biology. I think Perverted Justice needs to drop the age of their decoy by about three to five years if they want to be taken seriously, and I really wish people would stop using the word "pedophile" to describe someone being attracted to a girl with breasts, curves, pubes, and a period. Poor taste or bad judgment-- Yes. Evil kiddie diddlers? No.
That being said, I wouldn't fool around with any teenagers because they'd be less than half my age, and they're really, really fucking annoying. Who wants a girlfriend who can't shut up, has serious hormonal imbalance and emotional issues, and has the attention span of a housefly? No thanks.
Pedophilia is when adults are attracted to PRE-PUBESCENT children; Those who have not reached adolescence.
People who are attracted to teenagers who have gone through puberty and are no longer technically children are hebephiles.
It does make a difference. Hebephiles are usually not "preying" on anyone. A lot of the time, it's the older person in that arrangement that is being manipulated, and Perverted Justice has been taken to task many times for their questionable tactics.
Just answer this: If hottie Lindsey Lohan was coming on to you when she was 16 years old (Remember how she looked then? Before the cocaine?) and offered to fuck you, making it very clear that she's sexually active and sexually aware--- Wouldn't you at least be tempted? Would you consider being sexually attracted to her when she was that age "abnormal" or "sick"?
Apparently, nobody thought it was abnormal or sick, considering how they marketed her to audiences.
And it's not. She was a sexually mature adolescent, well past puberty, and she was clearly not an innocent lamb who would be the 'victim' if she flirted with an older guy.
I'm not defending kiddie-diddlers! ACTUAL pedophiles should be locked up and castrated as far as I'm concerned. I'm saying that being attracted to a sexually-aware teenager is completely different, and far less mentally unhealthy, than being attracted to pre-pubescent children. That's why the states can't seem to agree on their arbitrary Age of Consent. In one state it might be 12, and in another it's 18. It's ridiculous.
For the record, I lost my virginity at 15, to a 19-year-old. She lost hers when she was 14, to an 18-year-old. I have girlfriends who lost their virginity at 13, to guys in their late teens or even early 20s. None of them felt victimized. As a male, I certainly didn't feel victimized when I lost mine at 15, and harbor no ill will against the woman who took it.
Teenagers have sex, and people want to have sex with teenagers. It's human biology. I think Perverted Justice needs to drop the age of their decoy by about three to five years if they want to be taken seriously, and I really wish people would stop using the word "pedophile" to describe someone being attracted to a girl with breasts, curves, pubes, and a period. Poor taste or bad judgment-- Yes. Evil kiddie diddlers? No.
That being said, I wouldn't fool around with any teenagers because they'd be less than half my age, and they're really, really fucking annoying. Who wants a girlfriend who can't shut up, has serious hormonal imbalance and emotional issues, and has the attention span of a housefly? No thanks.
A Spider-Man Who Could Have Been
Dear God, I finally found the script (with storyboards) of James Cameron's Spider-Man movie.
For those who never knew, shortly after T2 Cameron had a strong desire to make Spider-Man his next directorial effort. Corolco Pictures hurried out to buy the rights in order to supplicate their biggest moneymaking figure and to secure their next big blockbuster.
Problems arose as various studios fought over the rights to Spider-Man (no one knew who the hell owned the rights due to a series of nightmarish events as various producers bought, sold, and traded the rights with vague understandings of exactly what those rights really were)and were further compounded by the problem of Marvel Comics going bankrupt (and the publisher thus declaring the property reverted back to them in order to make much needed money) which drew out the various question of who owned the movie rights for close to a decade. In that time, James Cameron wrote a script for use on the picture which never was filmed due to Cameron's interest waning as the trial went on and his apparent retirement after the masterpiece which was Titanic. It would seem Cameron simply didn't have the balls to attempt another movie for fear of being compared to what was arguably his best picture.
As to the script, it is much different in tone from the Raimi version though some of the scenes were used (and diluted for a younger, more general audience) . I will say I prefer Cameron's much more adult take on Spider-Man. He feels realized perfectly especially for a city like NYC. Sorry, but I could never really believe in Raimi's version of Peter. A wimp like that surviving in the Big Apple was not only ludicrous but highly grating. Raimi's Spidey was a whining little wimp. Cameron's Spidey not only had an inner strength but a much more noble, albeit juvenile, slant. It's also not nearly as over the top as Raimi's Spidey would become with Part 2 being the only redeemable part of the series with Part 1 being far too campy with Goblin/Dafoe, the wrestling scene, and other characterizations/plot points I nitpick over while Part 3 was shallow, overpacked, and not really believable in even a comic book universe. Cameron's Spidey lives in a gritty, violent, very real world who doesn't wear some designer superhero suit. The villains are cold blooded, thought out, and driven.
The part which draws me most is the fact that Cameron has the character nailed much better than Raimi's scripts ever did. There are the quips and a very real story of angst as Parker matures and becomes a man. This would not have had Maguire as the lead. I don't care how you try to twist the character, Maguire never would have come across as a joking, strong willed Peter Parker. Maguire has always based his Parker more along the lines of Reeve's Clark Kent rather than what Parker really should have been: a goofy kid trying to figure out just who the hell he really was. Parker's shy, easily pushed around personality does not jive with the empowerment he discovers through becoming Spider-Man. Raimi and Maguire play Peter Parker as two separate individuals while Cameron did the right thing showing them to be one and the same.
You can catch that script here. Enjoy what could have been, my fellows.
For those who never knew, shortly after T2 Cameron had a strong desire to make Spider-Man his next directorial effort. Corolco Pictures hurried out to buy the rights in order to supplicate their biggest moneymaking figure and to secure their next big blockbuster.
Problems arose as various studios fought over the rights to Spider-Man (no one knew who the hell owned the rights due to a series of nightmarish events as various producers bought, sold, and traded the rights with vague understandings of exactly what those rights really were)and were further compounded by the problem of Marvel Comics going bankrupt (and the publisher thus declaring the property reverted back to them in order to make much needed money) which drew out the various question of who owned the movie rights for close to a decade. In that time, James Cameron wrote a script for use on the picture which never was filmed due to Cameron's interest waning as the trial went on and his apparent retirement after the masterpiece which was Titanic. It would seem Cameron simply didn't have the balls to attempt another movie for fear of being compared to what was arguably his best picture.
As to the script, it is much different in tone from the Raimi version though some of the scenes were used (and diluted for a younger, more general audience) . I will say I prefer Cameron's much more adult take on Spider-Man. He feels realized perfectly especially for a city like NYC. Sorry, but I could never really believe in Raimi's version of Peter. A wimp like that surviving in the Big Apple was not only ludicrous but highly grating. Raimi's Spidey was a whining little wimp. Cameron's Spidey not only had an inner strength but a much more noble, albeit juvenile, slant. It's also not nearly as over the top as Raimi's Spidey would become with Part 2 being the only redeemable part of the series with Part 1 being far too campy with Goblin/Dafoe, the wrestling scene, and other characterizations/plot points I nitpick over while Part 3 was shallow, overpacked, and not really believable in even a comic book universe. Cameron's Spidey lives in a gritty, violent, very real world who doesn't wear some designer superhero suit. The villains are cold blooded, thought out, and driven.
The part which draws me most is the fact that Cameron has the character nailed much better than Raimi's scripts ever did. There are the quips and a very real story of angst as Parker matures and becomes a man. This would not have had Maguire as the lead. I don't care how you try to twist the character, Maguire never would have come across as a joking, strong willed Peter Parker. Maguire has always based his Parker more along the lines of Reeve's Clark Kent rather than what Parker really should have been: a goofy kid trying to figure out just who the hell he really was. Parker's shy, easily pushed around personality does not jive with the empowerment he discovers through becoming Spider-Man. Raimi and Maguire play Peter Parker as two separate individuals while Cameron did the right thing showing them to be one and the same.
You can catch that script here. Enjoy what could have been, my fellows.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Masturbating does NOT Make You Blind
A report today challenges the notion that excessive self-abuse can affect your eyesight.
Mr Konstantine Pullinmeov, of the National Board Of Flaggelators, Fettlers and Five-Knuckle Shufflers has submitted his findings to a panel of independant anti-bellringers in Brussels.
The NBFFF has for many years campaigned for the awareness of the benefits of regular "clearing of the pipes", and has often protested for public pleasuring to be made legal. The 80 page report highlights masturbation through history, and dismisses the old adage of "Wank Blindness".
When asked for further proof, Mr Pullinmeov was seen to talk to a coat-stand for 15 minutes before being physically turned towards the panel by an embarrassed colleague.
Psychiatry Deemed a Religion in New Study
Researchers at Jakarta's renowned Hebrew University recently published a study conclusively proving that Psychiatry should be classified as a religion. The study consisted of a study of Psychiatric textbooks and journals (which will now be known as scriptures) and interviews with Psychiatrists (better classified as priests) and patients (hereafter known as "the flock").
This work brings a logical answer to many nagging questions, like how Psychiatry could be considered the "authority" in matters of the mind when their results in the field have been poor, and are known to cause more damage than benefit. It may also shed some light on the tendency of Psychiatrists to molest children in a much higher percentage than the general populace.
"Psychiatry is portrayed alternately as a scientific study or branch of medicine but either of these is rapidly disproved," says Moshe Sapere of Hebrew University. "The science of Psychiatry is flawed. Their studies are mainly funded by drug companies and they publish illogical conclusions which - Surprise! - make the drug companies look good. Psychiatry claims similarity to medicine but this is in reality only marketing; the only real similarities to actual medicine are clothing and terminology. If you dressed up a parrot in a doctor's smock and taught it some Latin phrases, it wouldn't be a doctor. It's the same with Psychiatrists."
Some of the researchers were reluctant to agree with the "religion" moniker for a group known to be profit-based and harmful, but a study of religions of the past shows that many have been used for profit and have done harm to others. The matter of faith in a deity was also a sticking point but a study of Psychiatric scriptures reveals that Psychiatrists believe in an invisible entity known as "chemical imbalance". The existence of Chemical Imbalance is stated as fact in the texts though there is no proof of his existence, analogous to a Christian's belief in God or a Muslim's belief in Allah.
The key answer that led the researchers to declare Psychiatry as a religion is that their High Priests demand complete belief in unobservable phenomena and continue to forward their beliefs despite no obvious benefit. They are also known to vehemently attack anyone who points out the lack of proof to their claims. Most religions promise salvation in a future existence. Psychiatry does not specifically make those claims but clearly provides dubious benefit in this existence. The researchers are pleased that they have been able to finally clarify this subject and would like to pass the following message to Psychiatrists worldwide, "may Chemical Imbalance bless you".
This work brings a logical answer to many nagging questions, like how Psychiatry could be considered the "authority" in matters of the mind when their results in the field have been poor, and are known to cause more damage than benefit. It may also shed some light on the tendency of Psychiatrists to molest children in a much higher percentage than the general populace.
"Psychiatry is portrayed alternately as a scientific study or branch of medicine but either of these is rapidly disproved," says Moshe Sapere of Hebrew University. "The science of Psychiatry is flawed. Their studies are mainly funded by drug companies and they publish illogical conclusions which - Surprise! - make the drug companies look good. Psychiatry claims similarity to medicine but this is in reality only marketing; the only real similarities to actual medicine are clothing and terminology. If you dressed up a parrot in a doctor's smock and taught it some Latin phrases, it wouldn't be a doctor. It's the same with Psychiatrists."
Some of the researchers were reluctant to agree with the "religion" moniker for a group known to be profit-based and harmful, but a study of religions of the past shows that many have been used for profit and have done harm to others. The matter of faith in a deity was also a sticking point but a study of Psychiatric scriptures reveals that Psychiatrists believe in an invisible entity known as "chemical imbalance". The existence of Chemical Imbalance is stated as fact in the texts though there is no proof of his existence, analogous to a Christian's belief in God or a Muslim's belief in Allah.
The key answer that led the researchers to declare Psychiatry as a religion is that their High Priests demand complete belief in unobservable phenomena and continue to forward their beliefs despite no obvious benefit. They are also known to vehemently attack anyone who points out the lack of proof to their claims. Most religions promise salvation in a future existence. Psychiatry does not specifically make those claims but clearly provides dubious benefit in this existence. The researchers are pleased that they have been able to finally clarify this subject and would like to pass the following message to Psychiatrists worldwide, "may Chemical Imbalance bless you".
Cheney Entirely New Branch of Government, He Says
For the last four years, [Vice President Cheney] has been defying a presidential order requiring executive branch agencies to account for the classified information they handle. When the agency that enforces this rule tried to do its job, Mr. Cheney proposed abolishing the agency.
Mr. Cheney, who has been at the heart of the administration's darkest episodes, has bizarre reasons for doing that. The Times reported that the vice president does not consider himself a mere member of the executive branch.
In response to inquiries concerning his failure to follow the laws applying to the White House and the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government, Dick Cheney revealed today that he is his own branch of government. Mr. Cheney, who will no longer go by the title of Vice President, said that he had not previously disclosed this information "for national security reasons." The new branch of government will be known as the Undisclosed Branch of Government, spokesmen said. The title of the branch of government -- and Mr. Cheney's actual title -- is classified.
Mr. Cheney disclosed that his office encompasses Executive, Congressional, and Judicial functions. In an usual display of cnador, aides to Cheney announced that, just as he spends time in the White House and the Capitol Building, he also spends a significant amount of time working at the Supreme Court. "This is one of the heretofore 'undisclosed locations,'" an aide divulged. The aide, who did not reveal his name because he feared future indictment by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, said that Cheney was secretly known as "the Tenth Justice".
Critics said that Mr. Cheney was out of line. "He can't just create his own branch of government," said Constiutional Scholar Professor Jenna Blinkerton. "That, in itself, is against the law."
Cheney responded that his critics were "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" after which the FBI took Professor Blinkerton into custody and placed her in a naval brig in North Carolina.
Mr. Cheney also contended that if he were breaking a law, he could only be prosecuted by the Other Undisclosed Branch of Government, which is made up of his wife, Lynn Cheney, his daughters, one of his dogs, and Alberto Gonzales.
Mr. Cheney, who has been at the heart of the administration's darkest episodes, has bizarre reasons for doing that. The Times reported that the vice president does not consider himself a mere member of the executive branch.
In response to inquiries concerning his failure to follow the laws applying to the White House and the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government, Dick Cheney revealed today that he is his own branch of government. Mr. Cheney, who will no longer go by the title of Vice President, said that he had not previously disclosed this information "for national security reasons." The new branch of government will be known as the Undisclosed Branch of Government, spokesmen said. The title of the branch of government -- and Mr. Cheney's actual title -- is classified.
Mr. Cheney disclosed that his office encompasses Executive, Congressional, and Judicial functions. In an usual display of cnador, aides to Cheney announced that, just as he spends time in the White House and the Capitol Building, he also spends a significant amount of time working at the Supreme Court. "This is one of the heretofore 'undisclosed locations,'" an aide divulged. The aide, who did not reveal his name because he feared future indictment by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, said that Cheney was secretly known as "the Tenth Justice".
Critics said that Mr. Cheney was out of line. "He can't just create his own branch of government," said Constiutional Scholar Professor Jenna Blinkerton. "That, in itself, is against the law."
Cheney responded that his critics were "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" after which the FBI took Professor Blinkerton into custody and placed her in a naval brig in North Carolina.
Mr. Cheney also contended that if he were breaking a law, he could only be prosecuted by the Other Undisclosed Branch of Government, which is made up of his wife, Lynn Cheney, his daughters, one of his dogs, and Alberto Gonzales.
Bush to Review Excessive Sentence Claims Of Million Other Felons
In light of his commutation of what he called the "excessive sentence" of I. Lewis Libby today, President Bush has agreed to review all sentences in the United States because "that would only be fair."
"Judges and panels of judges routinely review excessive sentence claims throughout the land," said Bush, " but the Libby case has made me see that our exhaustive system of appellate review is flawed."
The judge in the Libby case followed strict federal guidelines written by Congress and the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which labored for years to write an exacting code that was designed to ensure that all felons were treated equally. "What the guidelines do not take into account," said Bush, "is that some felons are more equal than others."
"These so-called 'guidelines' do not give adequate guidance to judges in certain cases," Bush said. His voice quavered as he added, "Some people -- for instance, rich and the powerful Republicans who, through no mistake of their own, are accidentally caught breaking the law -- sometimes do not receive proper treatment." Bush was then too overcome by emotion to continue with his statement. He retired to his residence on Kennebunkport to swill beer with President Putin, who agreed with the President's actions.
"In my country when pipples lied to the State, we tortured them," the former head of the KGB said, "except when they were fellow KGB. Then we clapped them on the back and danced with vodka bottles on our heads."
Other felons praised the President's decision. George Finnerty, a real estate maven doing six years for lying the I.R.S. about his income, said that Bush had "given all liars real hope."
Douglas W. Cox, who got ten months for testifying falsely about the ownership of five vending machines, prayed for Bush's forgiveness but was pessimistic. "I didn't come close to obstructing a Federal investigation of crime at the very highest levels of government," said Cox, shaking his head. "I don't think I qualify for the Libby treatment."
For her part, Lady Justice was happy to hear about President Bush's actions. "I'm so glad I'm not completely blind," she said.
"Judges and panels of judges routinely review excessive sentence claims throughout the land," said Bush, " but the Libby case has made me see that our exhaustive system of appellate review is flawed."
The judge in the Libby case followed strict federal guidelines written by Congress and the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which labored for years to write an exacting code that was designed to ensure that all felons were treated equally. "What the guidelines do not take into account," said Bush, "is that some felons are more equal than others."
"These so-called 'guidelines' do not give adequate guidance to judges in certain cases," Bush said. His voice quavered as he added, "Some people -- for instance, rich and the powerful Republicans who, through no mistake of their own, are accidentally caught breaking the law -- sometimes do not receive proper treatment." Bush was then too overcome by emotion to continue with his statement. He retired to his residence on Kennebunkport to swill beer with President Putin, who agreed with the President's actions.
"In my country when pipples lied to the State, we tortured them," the former head of the KGB said, "except when they were fellow KGB. Then we clapped them on the back and danced with vodka bottles on our heads."
Other felons praised the President's decision. George Finnerty, a real estate maven doing six years for lying the I.R.S. about his income, said that Bush had "given all liars real hope."
Douglas W. Cox, who got ten months for testifying falsely about the ownership of five vending machines, prayed for Bush's forgiveness but was pessimistic. "I didn't come close to obstructing a Federal investigation of crime at the very highest levels of government," said Cox, shaking his head. "I don't think I qualify for the Libby treatment."
For her part, Lady Justice was happy to hear about President Bush's actions. "I'm so glad I'm not completely blind," she said.
Close Encounters
I was lucky to see this in a theater when Columbia brought their selections from the 100 greatest films back for a week in 1999, and I was really surprised at what a well put-together film it is, and how refreshing it was to see a movie that is NOT from the 90's!
The first thing apparent about this film is that it takes its time -- a la 2001-- to really set up effects and atmosphere. And you can really admire Spielberg's way with composing shots to convey information -- and it seems so masterful and exciting, rather than the rather lifelessly formulized direction he often gives now (though I do remember being startled at certain shots in Amistad). You think: "Wow, he really was a very talented, personal filmmaker at one time." Sometimes I feel like now he's become more of a public figure, afraid to offend anyone.
Of course I had seen this movie a thousand times as a kid, and this was the first time I had watched it since then. Two other aspects really stood out on re-viewing: I was surprised how masterful the shocks are in the first half. Certain aspects of the aliens visits are very scary, and these scenes were terribly exciting. I still love the scene in which Richard Dreyfuss' truck is scanned by the UFO -- leaving him twitching with terror afterwards. The trademark Spielbergian "sense of wonder" really does seem scary/wondrous here.
The other really striking thing is how real and nasty the scenes of domestic disintegration are. I was shocked at the nastiness of the scene in which Richard is looking at the paper while the kids are screaming, Teri Garr is nagging him, and in the background one of the kids is banging a human doll against a baby hamper until the head falls off. Teri Garr does a good job at playing a truly hateful, bitter and disappointed wife. Most movies nowadays are so respectful of both sides that you don’t see something this raw in anything mainstream anymore. At one point Richard is saying to his wife "I'm scared, just hold me" while she's screaming "I hate you!" It's really intense and shocking. And when Richard is playing with his mashed potatoes and looks up to realize his entire family thinks he's gone insane -- and his son starts crying at seeing him like that -- it's a scene that might be too intense in a flat-out tearjerker drama, and it adds a great weight to his wish to just get off the planet once and for all. I had heard rumors that Speilberg was getting divorced just before this film… well, there ya are.
In the second half of the film, Richard hooks up with a similar looking but different wife figure. I think the key scene here is when he says to the surrogate wife "I have to [leave you and] go down there [to the spaceships]" and she says "I know," and wishes him well, where his real wife would have said "but what about me?" It's about being trapped in a marriage with a person who inhibits your life and dreams, rather than encouraging you to pursue them.
The special effects are also amazing -- much more amazing, I think, than modern, computer-generated special effects, because there’s still a sense of “how did they do that?” as opposed to “oh, it was all on the computer.” Even when you can actually see lightbulbs and stuff -- the spaceships here really seem incredible. For some reason the realism and detail of modern computer generated spaceships seem very mundane by comparison. Here they found a way to make a bunch of lightbulbs seem really otherworldly -- now that you can show anything you want, that touch of creativity and wonder is gone forever.
Anyway, it's too bad people can't always see this on the big screen. It's so nice to watch a film all the way through without answering the phone or talking out loud, and it's wonderful to be with a big audience who is really into what the movie is doing to them. This movie is prime early Speilberg, everything is in place, and it makes a wonderfully complete entertainment with just enough depth and subtext. Anyway, nice work, Steve!
What the "Left Behind" Series Really Means
A Whore That Sitteth on Many Waters
"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again."
-- From Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
"The best thing about the Left Behind books is the way the non-Christians get their guts pulled out by God."
-- 15-year old fundamentalist fan of the Left Behind series
That is the sophisticated language and appeal of America’s all-time best selling adult novels celebrating the ethnic cleansing of non-Christians at the hands of Christ. If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of the last book in the Left Behind series, Glorious Appearing, and publish it across the Middle East, Americans would go beserk. Yet tens of millions of Christians eagerly await and celebrate an End Time when everyone who disagrees with them will be murdered in ways that make Islamic beheading look like a bridal shower. Jesus -- who apparently has a much nastier streak than we have been led to believe -- merely speaks and "the bodies of the enemy are ripped wide open down the middle." In the book Christians have to drive carefully to avoid "hitting splayed and filleted corpses of men and women and horses" Even as the riders’ tongues are melting in their mouths and they are being wide open gutted by God’s own hand, the poor damned horses are getting the same treatment. Sort of a divinely inspired version of "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on."
This may be some of the bloodiest hate fiction ever published, but it is also what tens of millions of Americans believe is God’s will. It is approximately what everyone in the congregation sitting around me last Sunday at my brother’s church believes. Or some version of it. How can anyone acquire and hold such notions? Answer: The same way you got yours and I got mine. Conditioning. From family and school and society, but from within a different American caste than the one in which you were raised. And from things stamped deep in childhood -- such as coming home terrified to an empty house.
One September day when I was in the third grade I got off the school bus and walked up the red dust powdered lane to my house only to find no one there. The smudgy white front door of the old frame house stood open. My footsteps on the unpainted gray porch creaked in the fall stillness. With increasing panic, I went through every room, and then ran around the outside crying and sobbing in the grip of the most horrific loneliness and terror. I believed with all my heart that The Rapture had come and that all my family had been taken up to heaven leaving me alone on earth to face God’s terrible wrath. As it turned out they were at the neighbor’s house scarcely 300 yards down the road, and returned in a few minutes. But it took me hours to calm down. I dreamed about it for years afterward.
Since then I have spoken to others raised in fundamentalist families who had the same childhood experience of coming home and thinking everyone had been "raptured up." The Rapture -- the time when God takes up all saved Christians before he lets loose slaughter, pestilence and torture upon the earth -- is very real to people in whom its glorious and grisly promise was instilled and cultivated from birth. Even those who escape fundamentalism agree its marks are permanent. We may no longer believe in being raptured up, but the grim fundamentalist architecture of the soul stands in the background of our days. There is an apocalyptic starkness that remains somewhere inside us, one that tinges all of our feelings and thoughts of higher matters. Especially about death, oh beautiful and terrible death, for naked eternity is more real to us than to you secular humanists. I get mail from hundreds of folks like me, the different ones who fled and became lawyers and teachers and therapists and car mechanics, dope dealers and stockbrokers and waitresses. And every one of them has felt that thing we understand between us, that skulls piled clear to heaven redemption through absolute self worthlessness and you ain’t shit in the eyes of God so go bleed to death in some dark corner stab in the heart at those very moments when we should have been most proud of ourselves. Self-hate. That thing that makes us sabotage our own inner happiness when we are most free and operating as self-realizing individuals. This kind of Christianity is a black thing. It is a blood religion, that willingly gives up sons to America’s campaigns in the Holy Land, hoping they will bring on the much-anticipated war between good and evil in the Middle East that will hasten the End Times. Bring Jesus back to Earth.
Whatever the case, tens of millions of American fundamentalists, despite their claims otherwise, read and absorb the all-time best selling Left Behind book series as prophesy and fact. How could they possibly not after being conditioned all their lives to accept the End Times as the ultimate reality? We are talking about a group of Americans 20% of whose children graduate from high school identifying H2O as a cable channel. Children who, like their parents and grandparents, come from that roughly half of all Americans who can approximately read, but are dysfunctionally literate to the extent they cannot grasp any textual abstraction or overall thematic content.
Most of my family and their church friends (mainly the women) have read at least some of the Left Behind series and if pressed they will claim they understand that it is fiction. But anyone who has heard fundies around the kitchen table discussing the books knows the claim is pure bullshit. "Well, they do get an awful lot of stuff exactly right," they admit. Beyond that, most fundamentalists delight in seeing their beliefs as "persecuted Christians" become best sellers "under the guise of fiction," as the Pentecostal assistant who used to work with me put it. "They show the triumph of the righteous over those who persecute us for our faith in God." Fer cryin out loud, Christianity is scarcely a persecuted belief system in this country, or in need of a guise to protect itself. Year after year some 60% of Americans surveyed say they believe the Book of Revelations will come true and about 40% believe it will come true in their lifetimes. This from the 50% of Americans who, according to statistics, seldom if ever buy a book.
Fetishizing of the End Times as a spectacular gore-fest visited upon on the unbelievers is nothing new. But the sheer number of people gleefully enjoying the spectacle of their own blackest magical thinking made manifest by mass media is new. Or at least the media aspect is new. It reinforces the major appeal of these beliefs, the appeal being (to restate the obvious) that they get to pass judgment on everyone who disagrees with them, and then watch God kick the living snot out of them. It doesn’t get any better than that.
All my life I have seen these people and there are no more or less of them proportionately than before. It is simply that, A) they have built their own massive media, and B) educated middle class folks are noticing them now because they vote and a major political party is willing to violate the church-state boundary to get their votes. They have always been out here and always in about the same percentages. Think about that. It took me a while to accept it too. But George W. Bush learned the significance of this while campaigning for his daddy back when he was supposed to be at his National Guard meetings. Part of his job was to bring in the fundie Christian vote for Poppy. Come George’s turn to play poker for the presidency in that quadrennial rich man’s game we call elections, Sparky knew what cards to play. The effete John Kerry had not a clue. Still doesn’t. Neither did you. Right? Don’t feel bad. I even knew the great unwashed tribes of the faithful were out here, wrote spooky and panicked articles about it before the elections and still underestimated the capability of the death obsessed Christian right.
Lookie here. If you think I’m overcounting, think one more time about those Left Behind books that have sold over 65 million copies at this writing. Sold to people who do not even like or buy books. Gore Vidal and Susan Sontag never wrote anything that sold 65 million. That lead-footed prose and numbing predictability that Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye grind out in the Left Behind series might not even be called writing. But whatever it is, at least 65 million folks that our nation failed to educate find deep meaning and solace in it. LaHaye has also sold 120 million non-fiction books, which makes him the most successful Christian writer since the Bible.
Sales figures aside, it is entirely possible that the Left Behind series is as important in our time and cultural context as was, say, Harriet Beecher’s Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in its time, wherein Lincoln called it "the little book that started the big war." The truth is that LaHaye is among the most influential religious writers America ever produced and is the most powerful fundamentalist in America today. He is the founder and first president of the eerily secretive Council for National Policy, which brings together leading evangelicals and other conservatives with right-wing billionaires willing to pay for a conservative religious revolution. He is far more influential than Billy Graham or Pat Robertson and was the man who inspired Jerry Falwell to launch the Moral Majority. He gave millions of dollars to Falwell's Liberty University. He’s the man without whom Ronald Reagan would never have become governor of California and the man who grilled George W. Bush, then wiped the cocaine off George’s nose and gave him the official Christian fundie stamp of approval. He created the American Coalition for Traditional Values that has mobilized evangelical voters, putting neo-conservative wackjobs into political offices across the nation. In short, he is the Godfather of Soul, fundie style. When the man lays it down, his peeps doo dey duty.
Scratch LaHaye and you’ll find an honest-to-god surviving John Bircher. In the 1960s when LaHaye was a young up-and-coming Baptist preacher fresh out of Bob Jones University, he lectured on behalf of Republican Robert Welch’s John Birch Society. We are talking about a man who believed Dwight Eisenhower was an agent of the Communist Party taking orders from his brother, Milt Eisenhower. Along the way LaHaye extended his paranoid list of villains to include secular humanists who "are Satan’s agents hiding behind the Constitution." And the only way to destroy them is to destroy their cover.
I have asked preachers about the Left Behind books. They all claim to have reservations about them. Fundie preachers are snarky about any beliefs that do not precisely mirror their own, and no two ever agree completely. They publicly find fault with the apocalyptic Left Behind books even as they privately enjoy the books’ popularity. Most say the series overestimates the number of people going to heaven. Which figures, given that their stock and trade is the divine exclusivity of a club called "The Saved." No sense in ruining the brand by franchising it too cheaply.
Same goes for television as for the Christian pop-lit. Fundamentalists delighted in the NBC series Revelations. Admittedly it was a bullshit job from network people who had not the slightest understanding of the subject, but could smell more money the closer they got to it. They were right. Xian fundies sucked it up. Coolly as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, the fundies I know denied they enjoyed Revelations at all because the producers "got some things wrong," (as if it were possible to be wrong regarding dire predictions made centuries ago by superstitious mystic fanatics about something that never came to pass.) They say the main thing wrong was having Christ return as a little child. Most hardcore fundies preferred their vision of a Rambo Jesus arriving to beat the fuck out of everybody who ever disagreed with Him or them -- sinners’ eyeballs turning to putrid jelly, blood flowing everywhere, etc. (In Revelations Jesus arrives on horseback wearing a blood soaked robe.)
These media products are more than harmless American Christian kitsch culture or just more American religious swill. Swill it may be, but it is also dangerous propaganda and the writers know damned well that propaganda value. Just as the propaganda value of associating Jewish people with rats in Nazi Germany helped the German populace accept persecution of the Jews, the Left Behind books foster a morality that excuses horrors done to "non-believers." Forget about sanity and reason. Christian fundamentalist media promotes a hermetic worldview cut off from reason. From the standpoint of those who consume such media messages, it is not so much propaganda as it is an abundant offering so complete as to be a parallel bizzaro world of its own. It gives answers to questions not even asked.
It is a world in which the Secretary General of the United Nations is the anti-Christ (Left Behind) and the "Clinton Crime Family" deals in cocaine and is linked to the Gambino family (Joshua Project, and other sources.) It is one in which abortion doctors are microwaving and eating fetuses according to testimony given by anti-abortionists before a Kansas House subcommittee (WorldNetDaily, of course) and where crowds of good folks get teary-eyed as Rev. Pat Evans, of the NASCAR "Racing for Jesus Ministries’ rumbles onto the track. Evangelical NASCAR? Yup. What ABC called America’s "unapologetically evangelical sport." I can see you dear reader, running and holding your head and screaming at the thought. Yet it’s true. At Bristol and Talladega the earth is shaking for Jaaaayzus! Now that we have Evangelical NASCAR, what, I ask you, can ever go wrong?
"To be saved is to fall into the ludicrous and satanic flippancy of false piety, kitsch."
-- Trappist monk Thomas Merton
Forty years later Merton is still right. Like most American liberals, not to mention all of Europe and the rest of the world, I learned through education to write the U.S. born-again literature off as kitsch religion, merely bad theology in an unholy marriage to bad writing. Another product of the American Jesus industry. If we liberals can name it, assign it to some appropriately vulgar and sentimental corner of our degraded culture, and then remain tolerant of it, then we feel have dealt with the damned thing. After all, it is the comparative worldview of the teeming red state masses. But there is certain arrogance in such pop cultural erudition and thin worldliness, isn’t there? In itself, our attitude is too flip.
It took coming home to a born again red state to realize how cultural documents such as Left Behind or the movies Revelations and Passion of the Christ do great harm, and at a critical time when we are facing economic upheaval, fighting illegal wars and suffering deep religious antipathies across the planet. "Aw," my liberal New York and West Coast friends tell me, "That is overstating the case. The Democrats will eventually be back in power." We cannot afford to wait a few more years and see. No matter if the Dems actually can be elected back into powerlessness, they will have needed at least some of these people’s votes to get there. Next election we will find out if it is possible to be elected without the fundamentalist Christians. So far the Democratic political elite, who only take their thumb out of their ass to change thumbs, has not been able to stop the religious right’s relentless push. And I think it is because, at least from where I sit right now, the democratic establishment has not offered, much less delivered, and is incapable of delivering what my people really need -- decent educations so they will not be prey to three thousand year old superstitions.
The left has yet to demand for all Americans a genuine absolutely free education, an opportunity to enjoy a life of the mind, or to even know such a thing exists. Hell, you got yours and I got mine, right? So screw’em. We progressives have failed. We were always and still are our brother's keeper and now the throw-away Americans, the ugly little dickhead at the car wash and the truck driver and the guy who delivers the bottled water to our offices are coming to get our assess, even though they aren’t quite sure why. My Random House editor told me not to get on a soapbox about this, but I cannot help it. (Sorry, Rachel)
I am not trying to be smart-assed, but to indicate the fear of what is unfolding around me as a person living in the belly of the beast. The reality gap between fundamentalist and urban liberals is unfathomable. Liberal observers watching from a safe distance in New York or San Francisco conclude it is pure stupidity that caused millions of Americans to continue support of the Bush junta in the face of overwhelming evidence of lies, deceit and contempt for the constitution, even as the fat cats raided their retirements and picked their pockets at every turn. Others think it is just plain meanness that attracted them to Bush. And so do I sometimes, because stupidity (the Jesus stockcar entries should be proof enough) and meanness are surely part of the attraction to a certain type of conservative -- that poisonous toad Karl Rove being their chief deity of meanness for meanness sake.
There remains one nagging problem. Despite their masochistic voting patterns, fundamentalists are very ordinary and normal Americans. People who often as not go out of their way to help others and endorse most American values. So how do we reconcile the warmth and good nature of these hardworking citizens with the repressive politics, intolerance, nationalism and warmaking they support? Why do such ordinary people do such awful things? The Germans have been wrestling with that one for 60 years, and sixty more years from now they still will have not solved the riddle in any meaningful way for the rest of the world. Barring ecological and cultural collapse, historians will say America suffered under the same sort of extraordinary delusion, a national hallucination of God and empire and exceptionalism. The thing about a hallucination -- and take it from a person who has enjoyed many fine ones on various chemicals and herbs -- is that it is a convincing reality in its time. Try talking to a fundamentalist about politics and God for an hour. You will see the spell that holds sway. Let us be thankful for pro sports or we would have nothing whatsoever to talk about on those rare occasions when a fundamentalist and a liberal ever bother to speak to one another.
Allow me to get down to the nub of this and say what urban liberals cannot allow themselves to say out loud: "Christian majority or not, the readers of such apocalyptic books as the Left Behind series are some pretty damned dumb motherfuckers caught up in their own black, vindictive fantasy." There. I said it for you. Let us proceed.
Beyond that, there is a more mundane aspect of the success of the Left Behind books. It is fair to say that Left Behind readers are happy to discover a pop-lit phenomenon that they can participate in at all -- popular literature that doesn’t conflict with their insulated and armor plated world view. At last they have something else to read besides Guideposts and Readers Digest, both of which pass as highbrow lit in most fundamentalist households. Aw come on. You know it is the truth the same as I do. If you go into the homes of most fundamentalists, you will not find many books at all, much less books that contain real ideas. Now they have the Left Behind series, the huge sales of which, as they see it, validate their beliefs. I know I am painting with a mighty wide brush, but so what? It’s by and large true. Considering that by no means do all fundamentalists believe in The Rapture, and that the whole Rapture thing is a cult within a larger cult, the popularity of the Left Behind series says something about the sheer scale of apocalyptic Christianity in the American heartland today. Do the readers believe the books? Again, I would say most do. Here are a couple of typical reader testimonials for the books:
"This series of books is the best I have ever read. I have looked long and hard to find a resource that put scripture into easy to read, and understand format. Many people I know get frustrated when they try to read scripture because they have trouble understanding the language. ... Now after reading these books I have a better understanding of where I stand at this moment."
"I started reading the Left Behind series in 2000 with the first book in paperback. ... I read it and was impressed with how well written it was and have read or own every book. In impact, it has gotten me closer to God than where I was before. ... I grew up in church, but was always afraid of what was supposed to happen at the end times. I was afraid of the Book of Revelation, because the thought of all of the evil that had to be fought terrified me. While reading the Left Behind series, I followed along with my Bible, and I am so excited that I am understanding and learning more than I ever have. I am no longer afraid of the fight against evil, because I know that I am on the side of the greatest and most powerful force. Thank you for getting me started on this path of learning."
These people may not be your neighbors or friends, but they are ordinary and typical Americans. If you the reader are a college educated middle class person, then folks like those above outnumber you roughly three to one in this country. If that is not reason enough to drink, then I don’t know what is. No matter what happens, in the next election, we are going to be dealing for a long time to come with millions of voters who think Left Behind is great literature, spiritual guidance and a political primer all in one.
Do we really think that cartload of bloated hacks called the Democratic Party knows what to do about this? Do you really think Howard Dean has a clue about how to deal with this entire class of Americans. Hardly. And besides, even if the Dems can get elected again and restored to the impotency they have come to represent, they will have needed these people’s votes to get there. Or they simply will not get there. So let’s not expect the Democratic political elite to save us from watching the fundie takeover attempts escalate in the future (In which case, assuming my book makes some real dough, I will be watching from abroad, thank you.) Essentially it comes down to the fact that a very large portion of Americans are crazier than shithouse rats and are being led by a gang of pathological misfits, most of whom are preachers and politicians. We are not talking about simple religious faith here. There is a world of difference between having religious faith and being a born-again zealot who believes in his heart that he is thumping Darwinian demons out of classrooms and that Ted Kennedy is the anti-Christ. Trading down to the Democratic party of the pussies really will not save us. It will just buy a little time. But we have whipped the hell out of this dead horse before, haven’t we? Forgive me.
Meanwhile, we are left to contemplate communication with these folks, people whose leaders deliver unfathomable pronouncements such as the following one regarding family finances and the national economy from a Christian radio broadcast.
The mystery of the harlot of Jerusalem is solved, people! Praise the Lord!
Deuteronomy 15:6 says plain as the nose on your face that "For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee. Therefore, the harlot is NOT the gentile nations! "The harlot controls and rules over the gentile nations, sitting on them." Rev 17:1. And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: Rev 17:15. And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. NOW IS THAT NOT PROOF ENOUGH?
Get that?
Me neither.
But what the hell. It makes sense to millions of voting Americans. So do I hear a great big Amen out there?
AMEN!
I get reminders of fundamentalism’s dark magical thinking every day. And it is always the little unexpected ones that slap me hardest with the reality that these people are in the grip of their mass delusion 24 hours a day. A couple of weeks ago I loaned my brother my old truck until he could get his engine rebuilt. A week later he retuned it with much sincere thanks and a smile. On the vent window of my truck is a 4-inch decal, a silhouette of two square dancers (my father-in-law, who gave me the truck, was a square dancer.) When I climbed into it the next day I noticed that the square dancers were covered over both inside and outside the glass with two layers of duct tape. After all, we cannot be riding around in trucks with demonic emblems blasting out invisible rays of Satan’s "Power of the air," can we?
"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again."
-- From Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
"The best thing about the Left Behind books is the way the non-Christians get their guts pulled out by God."
-- 15-year old fundamentalist fan of the Left Behind series
That is the sophisticated language and appeal of America’s all-time best selling adult novels celebrating the ethnic cleansing of non-Christians at the hands of Christ. If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of the last book in the Left Behind series, Glorious Appearing, and publish it across the Middle East, Americans would go beserk. Yet tens of millions of Christians eagerly await and celebrate an End Time when everyone who disagrees with them will be murdered in ways that make Islamic beheading look like a bridal shower. Jesus -- who apparently has a much nastier streak than we have been led to believe -- merely speaks and "the bodies of the enemy are ripped wide open down the middle." In the book Christians have to drive carefully to avoid "hitting splayed and filleted corpses of men and women and horses" Even as the riders’ tongues are melting in their mouths and they are being wide open gutted by God’s own hand, the poor damned horses are getting the same treatment. Sort of a divinely inspired version of "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on."
This may be some of the bloodiest hate fiction ever published, but it is also what tens of millions of Americans believe is God’s will. It is approximately what everyone in the congregation sitting around me last Sunday at my brother’s church believes. Or some version of it. How can anyone acquire and hold such notions? Answer: The same way you got yours and I got mine. Conditioning. From family and school and society, but from within a different American caste than the one in which you were raised. And from things stamped deep in childhood -- such as coming home terrified to an empty house.
One September day when I was in the third grade I got off the school bus and walked up the red dust powdered lane to my house only to find no one there. The smudgy white front door of the old frame house stood open. My footsteps on the unpainted gray porch creaked in the fall stillness. With increasing panic, I went through every room, and then ran around the outside crying and sobbing in the grip of the most horrific loneliness and terror. I believed with all my heart that The Rapture had come and that all my family had been taken up to heaven leaving me alone on earth to face God’s terrible wrath. As it turned out they were at the neighbor’s house scarcely 300 yards down the road, and returned in a few minutes. But it took me hours to calm down. I dreamed about it for years afterward.
Since then I have spoken to others raised in fundamentalist families who had the same childhood experience of coming home and thinking everyone had been "raptured up." The Rapture -- the time when God takes up all saved Christians before he lets loose slaughter, pestilence and torture upon the earth -- is very real to people in whom its glorious and grisly promise was instilled and cultivated from birth. Even those who escape fundamentalism agree its marks are permanent. We may no longer believe in being raptured up, but the grim fundamentalist architecture of the soul stands in the background of our days. There is an apocalyptic starkness that remains somewhere inside us, one that tinges all of our feelings and thoughts of higher matters. Especially about death, oh beautiful and terrible death, for naked eternity is more real to us than to you secular humanists. I get mail from hundreds of folks like me, the different ones who fled and became lawyers and teachers and therapists and car mechanics, dope dealers and stockbrokers and waitresses. And every one of them has felt that thing we understand between us, that skulls piled clear to heaven redemption through absolute self worthlessness and you ain’t shit in the eyes of God so go bleed to death in some dark corner stab in the heart at those very moments when we should have been most proud of ourselves. Self-hate. That thing that makes us sabotage our own inner happiness when we are most free and operating as self-realizing individuals. This kind of Christianity is a black thing. It is a blood religion, that willingly gives up sons to America’s campaigns in the Holy Land, hoping they will bring on the much-anticipated war between good and evil in the Middle East that will hasten the End Times. Bring Jesus back to Earth.
Whatever the case, tens of millions of American fundamentalists, despite their claims otherwise, read and absorb the all-time best selling Left Behind book series as prophesy and fact. How could they possibly not after being conditioned all their lives to accept the End Times as the ultimate reality? We are talking about a group of Americans 20% of whose children graduate from high school identifying H2O as a cable channel. Children who, like their parents and grandparents, come from that roughly half of all Americans who can approximately read, but are dysfunctionally literate to the extent they cannot grasp any textual abstraction or overall thematic content.
Most of my family and their church friends (mainly the women) have read at least some of the Left Behind series and if pressed they will claim they understand that it is fiction. But anyone who has heard fundies around the kitchen table discussing the books knows the claim is pure bullshit. "Well, they do get an awful lot of stuff exactly right," they admit. Beyond that, most fundamentalists delight in seeing their beliefs as "persecuted Christians" become best sellers "under the guise of fiction," as the Pentecostal assistant who used to work with me put it. "They show the triumph of the righteous over those who persecute us for our faith in God." Fer cryin out loud, Christianity is scarcely a persecuted belief system in this country, or in need of a guise to protect itself. Year after year some 60% of Americans surveyed say they believe the Book of Revelations will come true and about 40% believe it will come true in their lifetimes. This from the 50% of Americans who, according to statistics, seldom if ever buy a book.
Fetishizing of the End Times as a spectacular gore-fest visited upon on the unbelievers is nothing new. But the sheer number of people gleefully enjoying the spectacle of their own blackest magical thinking made manifest by mass media is new. Or at least the media aspect is new. It reinforces the major appeal of these beliefs, the appeal being (to restate the obvious) that they get to pass judgment on everyone who disagrees with them, and then watch God kick the living snot out of them. It doesn’t get any better than that.
All my life I have seen these people and there are no more or less of them proportionately than before. It is simply that, A) they have built their own massive media, and B) educated middle class folks are noticing them now because they vote and a major political party is willing to violate the church-state boundary to get their votes. They have always been out here and always in about the same percentages. Think about that. It took me a while to accept it too. But George W. Bush learned the significance of this while campaigning for his daddy back when he was supposed to be at his National Guard meetings. Part of his job was to bring in the fundie Christian vote for Poppy. Come George’s turn to play poker for the presidency in that quadrennial rich man’s game we call elections, Sparky knew what cards to play. The effete John Kerry had not a clue. Still doesn’t. Neither did you. Right? Don’t feel bad. I even knew the great unwashed tribes of the faithful were out here, wrote spooky and panicked articles about it before the elections and still underestimated the capability of the death obsessed Christian right.
Lookie here. If you think I’m overcounting, think one more time about those Left Behind books that have sold over 65 million copies at this writing. Sold to people who do not even like or buy books. Gore Vidal and Susan Sontag never wrote anything that sold 65 million. That lead-footed prose and numbing predictability that Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye grind out in the Left Behind series might not even be called writing. But whatever it is, at least 65 million folks that our nation failed to educate find deep meaning and solace in it. LaHaye has also sold 120 million non-fiction books, which makes him the most successful Christian writer since the Bible.
Sales figures aside, it is entirely possible that the Left Behind series is as important in our time and cultural context as was, say, Harriet Beecher’s Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in its time, wherein Lincoln called it "the little book that started the big war." The truth is that LaHaye is among the most influential religious writers America ever produced and is the most powerful fundamentalist in America today. He is the founder and first president of the eerily secretive Council for National Policy, which brings together leading evangelicals and other conservatives with right-wing billionaires willing to pay for a conservative religious revolution. He is far more influential than Billy Graham or Pat Robertson and was the man who inspired Jerry Falwell to launch the Moral Majority. He gave millions of dollars to Falwell's Liberty University. He’s the man without whom Ronald Reagan would never have become governor of California and the man who grilled George W. Bush, then wiped the cocaine off George’s nose and gave him the official Christian fundie stamp of approval. He created the American Coalition for Traditional Values that has mobilized evangelical voters, putting neo-conservative wackjobs into political offices across the nation. In short, he is the Godfather of Soul, fundie style. When the man lays it down, his peeps doo dey duty.
Scratch LaHaye and you’ll find an honest-to-god surviving John Bircher. In the 1960s when LaHaye was a young up-and-coming Baptist preacher fresh out of Bob Jones University, he lectured on behalf of Republican Robert Welch’s John Birch Society. We are talking about a man who believed Dwight Eisenhower was an agent of the Communist Party taking orders from his brother, Milt Eisenhower. Along the way LaHaye extended his paranoid list of villains to include secular humanists who "are Satan’s agents hiding behind the Constitution." And the only way to destroy them is to destroy their cover.
I have asked preachers about the Left Behind books. They all claim to have reservations about them. Fundie preachers are snarky about any beliefs that do not precisely mirror their own, and no two ever agree completely. They publicly find fault with the apocalyptic Left Behind books even as they privately enjoy the books’ popularity. Most say the series overestimates the number of people going to heaven. Which figures, given that their stock and trade is the divine exclusivity of a club called "The Saved." No sense in ruining the brand by franchising it too cheaply.
Same goes for television as for the Christian pop-lit. Fundamentalists delighted in the NBC series Revelations. Admittedly it was a bullshit job from network people who had not the slightest understanding of the subject, but could smell more money the closer they got to it. They were right. Xian fundies sucked it up. Coolly as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, the fundies I know denied they enjoyed Revelations at all because the producers "got some things wrong," (as if it were possible to be wrong regarding dire predictions made centuries ago by superstitious mystic fanatics about something that never came to pass.) They say the main thing wrong was having Christ return as a little child. Most hardcore fundies preferred their vision of a Rambo Jesus arriving to beat the fuck out of everybody who ever disagreed with Him or them -- sinners’ eyeballs turning to putrid jelly, blood flowing everywhere, etc. (In Revelations Jesus arrives on horseback wearing a blood soaked robe.)
These media products are more than harmless American Christian kitsch culture or just more American religious swill. Swill it may be, but it is also dangerous propaganda and the writers know damned well that propaganda value. Just as the propaganda value of associating Jewish people with rats in Nazi Germany helped the German populace accept persecution of the Jews, the Left Behind books foster a morality that excuses horrors done to "non-believers." Forget about sanity and reason. Christian fundamentalist media promotes a hermetic worldview cut off from reason. From the standpoint of those who consume such media messages, it is not so much propaganda as it is an abundant offering so complete as to be a parallel bizzaro world of its own. It gives answers to questions not even asked.
It is a world in which the Secretary General of the United Nations is the anti-Christ (Left Behind) and the "Clinton Crime Family" deals in cocaine and is linked to the Gambino family (Joshua Project, and other sources.) It is one in which abortion doctors are microwaving and eating fetuses according to testimony given by anti-abortionists before a Kansas House subcommittee (WorldNetDaily, of course) and where crowds of good folks get teary-eyed as Rev. Pat Evans, of the NASCAR "Racing for Jesus Ministries’ rumbles onto the track. Evangelical NASCAR? Yup. What ABC called America’s "unapologetically evangelical sport." I can see you dear reader, running and holding your head and screaming at the thought. Yet it’s true. At Bristol and Talladega the earth is shaking for Jaaaayzus! Now that we have Evangelical NASCAR, what, I ask you, can ever go wrong?
"To be saved is to fall into the ludicrous and satanic flippancy of false piety, kitsch."
-- Trappist monk Thomas Merton
Forty years later Merton is still right. Like most American liberals, not to mention all of Europe and the rest of the world, I learned through education to write the U.S. born-again literature off as kitsch religion, merely bad theology in an unholy marriage to bad writing. Another product of the American Jesus industry. If we liberals can name it, assign it to some appropriately vulgar and sentimental corner of our degraded culture, and then remain tolerant of it, then we feel have dealt with the damned thing. After all, it is the comparative worldview of the teeming red state masses. But there is certain arrogance in such pop cultural erudition and thin worldliness, isn’t there? In itself, our attitude is too flip.
It took coming home to a born again red state to realize how cultural documents such as Left Behind or the movies Revelations and Passion of the Christ do great harm, and at a critical time when we are facing economic upheaval, fighting illegal wars and suffering deep religious antipathies across the planet. "Aw," my liberal New York and West Coast friends tell me, "That is overstating the case. The Democrats will eventually be back in power." We cannot afford to wait a few more years and see. No matter if the Dems actually can be elected back into powerlessness, they will have needed at least some of these people’s votes to get there. Next election we will find out if it is possible to be elected without the fundamentalist Christians. So far the Democratic political elite, who only take their thumb out of their ass to change thumbs, has not been able to stop the religious right’s relentless push. And I think it is because, at least from where I sit right now, the democratic establishment has not offered, much less delivered, and is incapable of delivering what my people really need -- decent educations so they will not be prey to three thousand year old superstitions.
The left has yet to demand for all Americans a genuine absolutely free education, an opportunity to enjoy a life of the mind, or to even know such a thing exists. Hell, you got yours and I got mine, right? So screw’em. We progressives have failed. We were always and still are our brother's keeper and now the throw-away Americans, the ugly little dickhead at the car wash and the truck driver and the guy who delivers the bottled water to our offices are coming to get our assess, even though they aren’t quite sure why. My Random House editor told me not to get on a soapbox about this, but I cannot help it. (Sorry, Rachel)
I am not trying to be smart-assed, but to indicate the fear of what is unfolding around me as a person living in the belly of the beast. The reality gap between fundamentalist and urban liberals is unfathomable. Liberal observers watching from a safe distance in New York or San Francisco conclude it is pure stupidity that caused millions of Americans to continue support of the Bush junta in the face of overwhelming evidence of lies, deceit and contempt for the constitution, even as the fat cats raided their retirements and picked their pockets at every turn. Others think it is just plain meanness that attracted them to Bush. And so do I sometimes, because stupidity (the Jesus stockcar entries should be proof enough) and meanness are surely part of the attraction to a certain type of conservative -- that poisonous toad Karl Rove being their chief deity of meanness for meanness sake.
There remains one nagging problem. Despite their masochistic voting patterns, fundamentalists are very ordinary and normal Americans. People who often as not go out of their way to help others and endorse most American values. So how do we reconcile the warmth and good nature of these hardworking citizens with the repressive politics, intolerance, nationalism and warmaking they support? Why do such ordinary people do such awful things? The Germans have been wrestling with that one for 60 years, and sixty more years from now they still will have not solved the riddle in any meaningful way for the rest of the world. Barring ecological and cultural collapse, historians will say America suffered under the same sort of extraordinary delusion, a national hallucination of God and empire and exceptionalism. The thing about a hallucination -- and take it from a person who has enjoyed many fine ones on various chemicals and herbs -- is that it is a convincing reality in its time. Try talking to a fundamentalist about politics and God for an hour. You will see the spell that holds sway. Let us be thankful for pro sports or we would have nothing whatsoever to talk about on those rare occasions when a fundamentalist and a liberal ever bother to speak to one another.
Allow me to get down to the nub of this and say what urban liberals cannot allow themselves to say out loud: "Christian majority or not, the readers of such apocalyptic books as the Left Behind series are some pretty damned dumb motherfuckers caught up in their own black, vindictive fantasy." There. I said it for you. Let us proceed.
Beyond that, there is a more mundane aspect of the success of the Left Behind books. It is fair to say that Left Behind readers are happy to discover a pop-lit phenomenon that they can participate in at all -- popular literature that doesn’t conflict with their insulated and armor plated world view. At last they have something else to read besides Guideposts and Readers Digest, both of which pass as highbrow lit in most fundamentalist households. Aw come on. You know it is the truth the same as I do. If you go into the homes of most fundamentalists, you will not find many books at all, much less books that contain real ideas. Now they have the Left Behind series, the huge sales of which, as they see it, validate their beliefs. I know I am painting with a mighty wide brush, but so what? It’s by and large true. Considering that by no means do all fundamentalists believe in The Rapture, and that the whole Rapture thing is a cult within a larger cult, the popularity of the Left Behind series says something about the sheer scale of apocalyptic Christianity in the American heartland today. Do the readers believe the books? Again, I would say most do. Here are a couple of typical reader testimonials for the books:
"This series of books is the best I have ever read. I have looked long and hard to find a resource that put scripture into easy to read, and understand format. Many people I know get frustrated when they try to read scripture because they have trouble understanding the language. ... Now after reading these books I have a better understanding of where I stand at this moment."
"I started reading the Left Behind series in 2000 with the first book in paperback. ... I read it and was impressed with how well written it was and have read or own every book. In impact, it has gotten me closer to God than where I was before. ... I grew up in church, but was always afraid of what was supposed to happen at the end times. I was afraid of the Book of Revelation, because the thought of all of the evil that had to be fought terrified me. While reading the Left Behind series, I followed along with my Bible, and I am so excited that I am understanding and learning more than I ever have. I am no longer afraid of the fight against evil, because I know that I am on the side of the greatest and most powerful force. Thank you for getting me started on this path of learning."
These people may not be your neighbors or friends, but they are ordinary and typical Americans. If you the reader are a college educated middle class person, then folks like those above outnumber you roughly three to one in this country. If that is not reason enough to drink, then I don’t know what is. No matter what happens, in the next election, we are going to be dealing for a long time to come with millions of voters who think Left Behind is great literature, spiritual guidance and a political primer all in one.
Do we really think that cartload of bloated hacks called the Democratic Party knows what to do about this? Do you really think Howard Dean has a clue about how to deal with this entire class of Americans. Hardly. And besides, even if the Dems can get elected again and restored to the impotency they have come to represent, they will have needed these people’s votes to get there. Or they simply will not get there. So let’s not expect the Democratic political elite to save us from watching the fundie takeover attempts escalate in the future (In which case, assuming my book makes some real dough, I will be watching from abroad, thank you.) Essentially it comes down to the fact that a very large portion of Americans are crazier than shithouse rats and are being led by a gang of pathological misfits, most of whom are preachers and politicians. We are not talking about simple religious faith here. There is a world of difference between having religious faith and being a born-again zealot who believes in his heart that he is thumping Darwinian demons out of classrooms and that Ted Kennedy is the anti-Christ. Trading down to the Democratic party of the pussies really will not save us. It will just buy a little time. But we have whipped the hell out of this dead horse before, haven’t we? Forgive me.
Meanwhile, we are left to contemplate communication with these folks, people whose leaders deliver unfathomable pronouncements such as the following one regarding family finances and the national economy from a Christian radio broadcast.
The mystery of the harlot of Jerusalem is solved, people! Praise the Lord!
Deuteronomy 15:6 says plain as the nose on your face that "For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee. Therefore, the harlot is NOT the gentile nations! "The harlot controls and rules over the gentile nations, sitting on them." Rev 17:1. And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: Rev 17:15. And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. NOW IS THAT NOT PROOF ENOUGH?
Get that?
Me neither.
But what the hell. It makes sense to millions of voting Americans. So do I hear a great big Amen out there?
AMEN!
I get reminders of fundamentalism’s dark magical thinking every day. And it is always the little unexpected ones that slap me hardest with the reality that these people are in the grip of their mass delusion 24 hours a day. A couple of weeks ago I loaned my brother my old truck until he could get his engine rebuilt. A week later he retuned it with much sincere thanks and a smile. On the vent window of my truck is a 4-inch decal, a silhouette of two square dancers (my father-in-law, who gave me the truck, was a square dancer.) When I climbed into it the next day I noticed that the square dancers were covered over both inside and outside the glass with two layers of duct tape. After all, we cannot be riding around in trucks with demonic emblems blasting out invisible rays of Satan’s "Power of the air," can we?
Further Reasons for my Heretical Attitude
Life is a gift to all of us. And yet, when one is an atheist, they are sometimes bothered by perhaps well meaning but nevertheless annoying theists, who accuse them of not caring about the life of anyone or anything. It's an odd reaction, because for the atheist, this life is it. In our view, we humans get a few decades on average, a tiny arc of consciousness across the infinite ocean of space-time, a blink of the cosmic eye, in which the universe can be uniquely aware of itself through each of us. And accepting that there is likely nothing afterward, nothing but the comforting non-existence that preceded conception, makes this time far more precious to the atheist, than many theists seem willing to contemplate.
Once again, a fair warning to all, this might be offensive as hell to some. Just try and understand that even though I think religion may be crazy or irrational, that doesn't mean I universally dislike religious people or that I think everything they do outside of religion is worthless. Point of Fact: This two-part series came about last evening during a friendly e-mail exchange with a Cossack friend who is definitely a believer and s/he happens to be someone whose integrity, character, and compassion, I greatly admire.
Now a foreword and a suggested code of conduct since the post got so distended: Take some time to decide if something is really worth your time to respond to, there will be trolls on both sides looking to agitate you anyway they can.
Your religion may be inspiring to you. It may have stories that are inspiring to me. It may have mnemonic value; critically important value at that. It may be rich in tradition and culture; it may encapsulate important events in human history. It may offer hope to people who have no hope left. It may serve as a useful insight into human nature. Humans may indeed have a preexisting facility to acquire belief systems similar to the one for language. It may provide a valuable ethical and behavioral framework. It may spread like a virus and mutate like bird flu. I don't necessarily think you are weak minded for buying it, I think enculturation and peer pressure is some powerful gumbo. But this diary isn't about any of that.
This is about why I am an atheist, not why you should be one. And by atheist I mean that I strongly suspect that the core, underlying, supernatural claims of religion are nonsense. If you want me to not be an atheist and share your particular flavor of supernatural belief, you need to be able to perform the magic or produce the supernatural being you claim exists and subject that creature to a battery of tests under controlled conditions.
That's it folks. That's the criteria if you want me to believe that your underlying supernatural being or beings are for real. Spare me/us word games, meaning try and avoid twisting words into unrecognizable states of vague meaningless mush. EG: The assumption that Captain Crunch exists and the assumption that dogs exist are not on the same rung in the ladder of 'faith'. One requires extraordinary faith and the mind of a child or a 'tard, the other only requires a trip to my backyard. Same for redefining atheism as a religion. You can call atheism anything you want, but you may just confuse people if you do so. Because if atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby and baldness is a hair color.
And please, try and limit any long-winded philosophical explanations of why your particular deity or supernatural claim is untestable or perfectly resembles one that does not exist; if it cannot be tested and happens to perfectly imitate one that does not exist, skeptics are not going to buy it. Same for excuses that the magic doesn't work when a skeptic is present with a camcorder. It doesn't matter, even if it's written in a book that it worked once upon a time. Same for demanding I prove your magic wizard/dragon/powers/sea monster/pantheon doesn't exist or 'you win'. This is for your own good: You don't win anything outside of exposing yourself as logically clueless.
Speaking of which here's an exhaustive list of Logical Fallacies many of which were known to even the ancients and most of which are required topics for a degree in philosophy. If you regale us in comments with your philosophical prowess or try to snow anyone in that regard, and go onto commit even one of them, you will probably be laughed at and ridiculed by people who have real training in philosophy or formal debate.
Why am I an Atheist?
In my Santa Claus analogy I mentioned near the end to imagine why it is you don't literally believe in Santa and his North Pole factory. I bet for most of you, it's not because you hate Santa, I mean who would? It's probably not because you hate Christmas or despise giving or receiving gifts. I doubt it's because you detest having days off or eating kick ass food with your family and friends. You probably can't prove there is no Santa and even if you try, I assure you from long experience in dealing with creationists* I can offer a counter argument.
No, none of that is the reason: Your disbelief in a literal Santa Claus, flying reindeer, nocturnal visits, toy factories, elves, etc., likely centers on three concrete objections:
"It" makes no sense.
There is no evidence for "it".
We're adults who can get by fine at Christmas time and enjoy ourselves without "it" having to be true
Evidence by far is the key. Something might not make sense, like Quantum Mechanics, but we accept it because of the evidence. OTOH something might make sense, like the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe, but we don't accept it as valid, yet, because we have no evidence. The reason for this asymmetry is, as the late Carl Sagan said: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Combine a bunch of bundled extraordinary claims that have no evidence to support them, not even mediocre evidence, with the fact that the set of claims don't make any sense at all kinds of levels, and that's a real problem for someone like me to get past.
Simply substitute "it" for religion in the above three points and you understand the framework of why I'm an atheist. Since most of the people who ask me about this are Christians and that's the religion I know the most about, I'll address that particular tradition under the three qualifiers I mentioned above. With the understanding that I don't think your religion is any sillier than any other as it can easily be extended to cover other supernatural cosmogonies.
It makes no sense
There is so much in the Bible (And the Koran and everything else) that makes no sense, it's pretty hard to pick a place to begin. I suppose a good enough place would be the beginning of the book: It makes no sense to create some kind of paradise in which man and woman have no inkling of right and wrong, and then hold them responsible for doing something wrong. It makes no sense to hold their descendants for all time responsible for them doing something wrong even if they did in fact have some mysterious way of determining right and wrong prior to being taught how to distinguish right from wrong.
It makes no sense for YVHW to kill off every living thing on earth with a flood or any other psychotic method of genocide if he can do whatever he wants and his goal is to engender love for His masterful and benevolent rule. It is in fact an act far, far, to the right of Hitler and Genghis Kahn combined; it makes those two pikers look like candy-stripers. And the flood is just one of many monstrous acts.
It makes no sense to talk about an immortal being dying, because by definition immortal beings cannot die. It's like talking about a square circle, or an even number that is not divisible by two; it's nonsensical words strung together in a transparently vacuous parody of meaning.
Speaking of which, what generally makes dying such a big sacrifice in the first place is that you stay dead, forever. Another thing that makes torture and execution such an unpleasant experience is that you're utterly helpless throughout the ordeal. Being the omnipotent Creator of all space and time kind of takes the edge of that, and it makes no sense that someone would try to pitch it as a big sacrifice.
This example of what I feel is nonsense bears special emphasis by graphic comparison: Casey Sheehan was sacrificed; Pat Tillman was sacrificed; People in New Orleans were sacrificed; every fireman that ran into the WTC was sacrificed. What makes those tragedies a sacrifice is not just that we know they happened or the cause they died for, but that it meant they were gone forever. OTOH, being unconscious for three days and then coming to as the Immortal Ruler of the Universe is not a sacrifice, it's a stunt. And the consequences for the stunt man are the sweetest deal in the history of mankind.
It makes no sense that God would disguise himself as a human, fake his death, and expect us to drop to our knees in abject awe at his 'sacrifice', because it pales in comparison to the ones we mere mortals face. In my view, it's frankly a grotesque insult to humanity to try and pass that off as anything close to the fear, horror, and pain that real people have to deal with under torture and execution. And it makes little sense to me that a being which creates Quasars and butterflies would come up with such an empty and downright bizarre stunt as a solution to problems they intentionally created in the first place and expect us to whimper in admiration at their sense of compassion. Especially since by all accounts they could have remedied it with the snap of their supernatural fingers, or just not let the problem happen in the first place.
This is how sense works IMO, using the Bible itself: Either Jesus died and stayed that way in which case he did not rise and Christianity is built on an erroneous premise, or he did rise in which case he did not die and there was no sacrifice, and Christianity is built on an erroneous premise. It really is that simple.
It makes no sense that an omnipotent being who wishes so much to be recognized and loved would conceal its existence with a sustained vigor well beyond the designation of paranoid. It does makes sense that if H & R Block can open up a branch office in every small town, that a motivated, omnipotent being could do the same, and personally man it himself 24/7 with angels out front serving food and drink.
It makes no sense that a perfect being would need to create the universe or mankind, because by definition a perfect beings needs or wants for nothing.
Hell, even their own beliefs don't make sense as purely cultural precepts: Morality under God is absolute, never relative--> It's immoral to destroy children at any stage after conception because it is an absolute, regardless of what good may come of it for individual people or the society they live in, except it's perfectly moral we're told by wingnuts, to drop bombs on children in Iraq, precisely because of the good that may come of it for the individual or the culture; this is 'absolute morality'? Well, It Makes No Sense.
In general, and this one applies to all Abrahamic Faiths and most others: It makes no sense that the oral histories of a few bands of rival roaming shepherds during the bronze age would harbor the one and only true secret of how the Cosmos came to be. It's far, far, more likely that they made this shit up over many generations, and we can tell that is probably exactly the case, because again, it makes no sense at all, and there is a long line of historical antecedents in ANE Mythology leading right up to the early Christian version. We can literally read old scrolls and accounts and see the various components of the God of the OT come together from other deities.
And even if the entire universe turns out to be an artificially manufactured object made by Intelligent Agency, as fascinating as that would be, it makes no sense to automatically assume the entire 10^36 cubic light-year Cosmos was made exclusively for us.
It makes no sense to me that I have this indestructible, undefined, supernatural attachment called a 'soul' which gets reincarnated or goes to a vague 'afterlife'. And if that soul existed before I did, has little or no recollection of my life while I'm alive, does not interact with me in any discernible way, and retains little or none of what makes me 'me' after I'm gone, I have news for you: The soul and have very different agendas to say the least! It doesn't make any sense to me that I'd give a hoot what happens to it, it's an unsubstantiated supernatural parasite as far as I'm concerned and its future welfare is about as important to me as an imaginary tapeworm.
Lastly, no matter how sophisticated one's apologetics are, it makes no sense that a being can be simultaneously omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, while evil and pain exists and still provide us with free will while at the same time expecting us to choose door number two or be condemned to eternal torture. All those qualities and conditionals taken together are mutually exclusive in more ways than I can count. If you argue otherwise, no matter how slick and polished your arguments, you're arguing that circles can be squares. And it makes no sense to me that such convoluted apologetics would be required in the first place to reconcile all these crazy inconsistent claims, or explain why these supernatural creatures happen to exactly imitate ones that were made up, if all this stuff was The One Truth of the Universe.
That's just a handful Biblical claims that make little or no sense to me. I'm not saying they didn't happen or that they're impossible, only that they make little or no sense To Me. I'm sure others can provide other exemplars that make no sense to them in comments.
There is no evidence for it
I don't know how the Bible, or the Koran, or a Native American Creation Fable, could mean anything else other than literally happened ... when it states clearly that something literally happened. Make sense?
With that literal interpretation in mind for the OT then, there is no evidence the universe is a few thousand years old and a shit load of evidence that it is much older. There is no evidence that there was ever a Garden of Eden and there is a mountain of evidence that neither humans nor many other species descend from a single mating pair in the geologically recent past. As would be predicted by both the Garden Story and the Ark Story.
And without that Garden and the whole bit of blaming Eve for disobeying before she knew what disobeying was, which remember makes no sense to start with, and blaming us for all eternity, which again recall makes no sense, there is no original sin and thus no need for salvation from it, which means your entire religion is built on something for which there is no evidence for. (And no I didn't invent this; Young Earth Creationists have used it for years as part of their spiel)
There is no evidence for a global flood involving trillions of cubic kilometers of water which somehow completely disappeared without a trace in the recent past, or in the distant past for that matter. And there is massive evidence against it.
No matter what kind of tests I propose for the existence of supernatural critters, the respective adherents always shoot it down as unworkable. But that's where you're stuck IMO. Because there is no testable, reasonably clear evidence for fairies or invisible dragons or Zeus or any of the Gods, Goddesses, Godlets, demi-Gods of any kind, and those are all extraordinary claims which therefore require ___ __ ?
I'm an adult
And just as a child must abandon comfortable fantasy, like Santa, if they're going to be a productive member of society and deal with real life, we as a species must abandon comforting fantasy, like YVWH, and face the cold hard truth if we're going to deal with it. The truth is, by every measure we can make, we're fragile, ephemeral sacks of meat just like every other animal species. The truth is, by every measure we can make, our minds, our sensation of love, hate, taste, sight, morality, science, sense of consciousness, everything, are all utterly dependent on the proper functioning of a mass of neurons housed in our skull weighing less than four pounds. And, if any significant portion of that mass gets heavily traumatized, it's bye-bye birdie for the owner. Asking where you 'go' when that structure ceases to exist, is like asking where your files on your hard drive 'go' when you melt it into slag. They don't 'go' anywhere, they no longer exist.
Yes, it would be nice if there was a magic invisible sky wizard who took care of us when we die and redress injustices committed against you while alive by others. It would be nice if your kid or your mom or your loved one who was cruelly cut down by painful lingering cancer was still 'out there' somewhere. It would be nice if there was a Santa Claus, and I don't mean that to sound flippant; who wouldn't want there to be a Santa Claus? For that matter who wouldn't like to be able to think themselves into the air and fly like a bird at will? Well, it doesn't matter how nice the idea of Santa is, there isn't a real Santa, and you can concentrate for all your worth and flap your arms for days, you will not fly.
It doesn't make sense, there is no evidence for it, and I'm an adult. I deal in reality as it is, not as I wish it would be, so that I can perhaps change that reality. And that's important. Because if I could be said to 'believe in' anything, it's that I believe in the human potential for progress, problem solving, and flexibility. That's how we've managed to solve problems in the past.
If we put that proven methodology to work, I think probably, one by one, diseases will fall or be engineered out of existence. I think using that methodology we can get a handle on hunger, poverty, war, greed, natural disasters, and on and on. One day it may happen that we will conquer aging, that we can record and share our minds. Maybe, sooner or later, we will even eliminate death itself; or at least postpone for practical eternity.
This "we" I'm talking about is no doubt a very different we than exists now, this is our remote descendants. They may have linked minds, be cybernetic, meld machine and biology, design themselves at the molecular level. Their consciousness may be carried by silicon, nanodevices, ensconced in exotic dark matter, or housed in something we cannot even conceive of. These descendants might ply the ocean of space time as easily as you drive to the store, make planets, create stars, build black-holes and farm them for gravity waves. They, our children's children, might learn to reconfigure the entire universe.
But a spark of us will still burn in them, all down the ages, just as a vestige of the first hominid, the first tetrapod, the first cell, is part of us. And unless there is some kind of serious disruption in record keeping, they'll probably know that they came from a single planet orbiting a small yellow star, where generations of their ancestors busted their asses so that they could be free, truly free. If so, they'll probably be able to retrieve data on the 21st century, know there was a thing called the Internet, that on it there were blogs, maybe even know about the Daily Kos: They might be able to pull up this very post.
For the last few paragraphs I've left the world of the known and engaged in some pretty far out speculation, but I see no reason why it cannot be that way, or close to it, in the distant future ... IF. IF we want it, if we make it happen.
The quicker we accept that no one is likely to just hand us these wonderful abilities and gifts, the quicker we'll get to work developing it for real, on our own. Because ultimately, we are responsible for us. What becomes of us is not in the mythical hands of invisible Gods-- as best we can tell and for better or worse. It's in our hands; and it's high time we all started accepting that wonderful gift of self determination. Hell, we should be dancing on the rooftops that we get the chance to determine our destiny as a species, because we're the only one on earth that can!
We owe it to try, to shoot for the stars, for all the people who came before us and helped pull us out of the pit of animal savagery. We owe it to the wonderful diversity of life on earth of which we are a part and which gave birth to our species; an unbroken lineage stretching back four billion years of which we are the managing agent. Is there anyone who doesn't feel that's special enough?
We owe it to ourselves to keep that flame burning, keep pushing the boundaries, so that each and every generation will more and more inherit the promise of what can be, while leaving the grimmer world of what was behind. I may reject the deities that human intellects have cooked up, but I don't doubt the potential of that intellect. That's what I 'believe in' if I could be said to 'believe in' anything; I believe in our future, because I believe in us. I believe in you.
And that's why I'm an atheist.
Once again, a fair warning to all, this might be offensive as hell to some. Just try and understand that even though I think religion may be crazy or irrational, that doesn't mean I universally dislike religious people or that I think everything they do outside of religion is worthless. Point of Fact: This two-part series came about last evening during a friendly e-mail exchange with a Cossack friend who is definitely a believer and s/he happens to be someone whose integrity, character, and compassion, I greatly admire.
Now a foreword and a suggested code of conduct since the post got so distended: Take some time to decide if something is really worth your time to respond to, there will be trolls on both sides looking to agitate you anyway they can.
Your religion may be inspiring to you. It may have stories that are inspiring to me. It may have mnemonic value; critically important value at that. It may be rich in tradition and culture; it may encapsulate important events in human history. It may offer hope to people who have no hope left. It may serve as a useful insight into human nature. Humans may indeed have a preexisting facility to acquire belief systems similar to the one for language. It may provide a valuable ethical and behavioral framework. It may spread like a virus and mutate like bird flu. I don't necessarily think you are weak minded for buying it, I think enculturation and peer pressure is some powerful gumbo. But this diary isn't about any of that.
This is about why I am an atheist, not why you should be one. And by atheist I mean that I strongly suspect that the core, underlying, supernatural claims of religion are nonsense. If you want me to not be an atheist and share your particular flavor of supernatural belief, you need to be able to perform the magic or produce the supernatural being you claim exists and subject that creature to a battery of tests under controlled conditions.
That's it folks. That's the criteria if you want me to believe that your underlying supernatural being or beings are for real. Spare me/us word games, meaning try and avoid twisting words into unrecognizable states of vague meaningless mush. EG: The assumption that Captain Crunch exists and the assumption that dogs exist are not on the same rung in the ladder of 'faith'. One requires extraordinary faith and the mind of a child or a 'tard, the other only requires a trip to my backyard. Same for redefining atheism as a religion. You can call atheism anything you want, but you may just confuse people if you do so. Because if atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby and baldness is a hair color.
And please, try and limit any long-winded philosophical explanations of why your particular deity or supernatural claim is untestable or perfectly resembles one that does not exist; if it cannot be tested and happens to perfectly imitate one that does not exist, skeptics are not going to buy it. Same for excuses that the magic doesn't work when a skeptic is present with a camcorder. It doesn't matter, even if it's written in a book that it worked once upon a time. Same for demanding I prove your magic wizard/dragon/powers/sea monster/pantheon doesn't exist or 'you win'. This is for your own good: You don't win anything outside of exposing yourself as logically clueless.
Speaking of which here's an exhaustive list of Logical Fallacies many of which were known to even the ancients and most of which are required topics for a degree in philosophy. If you regale us in comments with your philosophical prowess or try to snow anyone in that regard, and go onto commit even one of them, you will probably be laughed at and ridiculed by people who have real training in philosophy or formal debate.
Why am I an Atheist?
In my Santa Claus analogy I mentioned near the end to imagine why it is you don't literally believe in Santa and his North Pole factory. I bet for most of you, it's not because you hate Santa, I mean who would? It's probably not because you hate Christmas or despise giving or receiving gifts. I doubt it's because you detest having days off or eating kick ass food with your family and friends. You probably can't prove there is no Santa and even if you try, I assure you from long experience in dealing with creationists* I can offer a counter argument.
No, none of that is the reason: Your disbelief in a literal Santa Claus, flying reindeer, nocturnal visits, toy factories, elves, etc., likely centers on three concrete objections:
"It" makes no sense.
There is no evidence for "it".
We're adults who can get by fine at Christmas time and enjoy ourselves without "it" having to be true
Evidence by far is the key. Something might not make sense, like Quantum Mechanics, but we accept it because of the evidence. OTOH something might make sense, like the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe, but we don't accept it as valid, yet, because we have no evidence. The reason for this asymmetry is, as the late Carl Sagan said: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Combine a bunch of bundled extraordinary claims that have no evidence to support them, not even mediocre evidence, with the fact that the set of claims don't make any sense at all kinds of levels, and that's a real problem for someone like me to get past.
Simply substitute "it" for religion in the above three points and you understand the framework of why I'm an atheist. Since most of the people who ask me about this are Christians and that's the religion I know the most about, I'll address that particular tradition under the three qualifiers I mentioned above. With the understanding that I don't think your religion is any sillier than any other as it can easily be extended to cover other supernatural cosmogonies.
It makes no sense
There is so much in the Bible (And the Koran and everything else) that makes no sense, it's pretty hard to pick a place to begin. I suppose a good enough place would be the beginning of the book: It makes no sense to create some kind of paradise in which man and woman have no inkling of right and wrong, and then hold them responsible for doing something wrong. It makes no sense to hold their descendants for all time responsible for them doing something wrong even if they did in fact have some mysterious way of determining right and wrong prior to being taught how to distinguish right from wrong.
It makes no sense for YVHW to kill off every living thing on earth with a flood or any other psychotic method of genocide if he can do whatever he wants and his goal is to engender love for His masterful and benevolent rule. It is in fact an act far, far, to the right of Hitler and Genghis Kahn combined; it makes those two pikers look like candy-stripers. And the flood is just one of many monstrous acts.
It makes no sense to talk about an immortal being dying, because by definition immortal beings cannot die. It's like talking about a square circle, or an even number that is not divisible by two; it's nonsensical words strung together in a transparently vacuous parody of meaning.
Speaking of which, what generally makes dying such a big sacrifice in the first place is that you stay dead, forever. Another thing that makes torture and execution such an unpleasant experience is that you're utterly helpless throughout the ordeal. Being the omnipotent Creator of all space and time kind of takes the edge of that, and it makes no sense that someone would try to pitch it as a big sacrifice.
This example of what I feel is nonsense bears special emphasis by graphic comparison: Casey Sheehan was sacrificed; Pat Tillman was sacrificed; People in New Orleans were sacrificed; every fireman that ran into the WTC was sacrificed. What makes those tragedies a sacrifice is not just that we know they happened or the cause they died for, but that it meant they were gone forever. OTOH, being unconscious for three days and then coming to as the Immortal Ruler of the Universe is not a sacrifice, it's a stunt. And the consequences for the stunt man are the sweetest deal in the history of mankind.
It makes no sense that God would disguise himself as a human, fake his death, and expect us to drop to our knees in abject awe at his 'sacrifice', because it pales in comparison to the ones we mere mortals face. In my view, it's frankly a grotesque insult to humanity to try and pass that off as anything close to the fear, horror, and pain that real people have to deal with under torture and execution. And it makes little sense to me that a being which creates Quasars and butterflies would come up with such an empty and downright bizarre stunt as a solution to problems they intentionally created in the first place and expect us to whimper in admiration at their sense of compassion. Especially since by all accounts they could have remedied it with the snap of their supernatural fingers, or just not let the problem happen in the first place.
This is how sense works IMO, using the Bible itself: Either Jesus died and stayed that way in which case he did not rise and Christianity is built on an erroneous premise, or he did rise in which case he did not die and there was no sacrifice, and Christianity is built on an erroneous premise. It really is that simple.
It makes no sense that an omnipotent being who wishes so much to be recognized and loved would conceal its existence with a sustained vigor well beyond the designation of paranoid. It does makes sense that if H & R Block can open up a branch office in every small town, that a motivated, omnipotent being could do the same, and personally man it himself 24/7 with angels out front serving food and drink.
It makes no sense that a perfect being would need to create the universe or mankind, because by definition a perfect beings needs or wants for nothing.
Hell, even their own beliefs don't make sense as purely cultural precepts: Morality under God is absolute, never relative--> It's immoral to destroy children at any stage after conception because it is an absolute, regardless of what good may come of it for individual people or the society they live in, except it's perfectly moral we're told by wingnuts, to drop bombs on children in Iraq, precisely because of the good that may come of it for the individual or the culture; this is 'absolute morality'? Well, It Makes No Sense.
In general, and this one applies to all Abrahamic Faiths and most others: It makes no sense that the oral histories of a few bands of rival roaming shepherds during the bronze age would harbor the one and only true secret of how the Cosmos came to be. It's far, far, more likely that they made this shit up over many generations, and we can tell that is probably exactly the case, because again, it makes no sense at all, and there is a long line of historical antecedents in ANE Mythology leading right up to the early Christian version. We can literally read old scrolls and accounts and see the various components of the God of the OT come together from other deities.
And even if the entire universe turns out to be an artificially manufactured object made by Intelligent Agency, as fascinating as that would be, it makes no sense to automatically assume the entire 10^36 cubic light-year Cosmos was made exclusively for us.
It makes no sense to me that I have this indestructible, undefined, supernatural attachment called a 'soul' which gets reincarnated or goes to a vague 'afterlife'. And if that soul existed before I did, has little or no recollection of my life while I'm alive, does not interact with me in any discernible way, and retains little or none of what makes me 'me' after I'm gone, I have news for you: The soul and have very different agendas to say the least! It doesn't make any sense to me that I'd give a hoot what happens to it, it's an unsubstantiated supernatural parasite as far as I'm concerned and its future welfare is about as important to me as an imaginary tapeworm.
Lastly, no matter how sophisticated one's apologetics are, it makes no sense that a being can be simultaneously omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, while evil and pain exists and still provide us with free will while at the same time expecting us to choose door number two or be condemned to eternal torture. All those qualities and conditionals taken together are mutually exclusive in more ways than I can count. If you argue otherwise, no matter how slick and polished your arguments, you're arguing that circles can be squares. And it makes no sense to me that such convoluted apologetics would be required in the first place to reconcile all these crazy inconsistent claims, or explain why these supernatural creatures happen to exactly imitate ones that were made up, if all this stuff was The One Truth of the Universe.
That's just a handful Biblical claims that make little or no sense to me. I'm not saying they didn't happen or that they're impossible, only that they make little or no sense To Me. I'm sure others can provide other exemplars that make no sense to them in comments.
There is no evidence for it
I don't know how the Bible, or the Koran, or a Native American Creation Fable, could mean anything else other than literally happened ... when it states clearly that something literally happened. Make sense?
With that literal interpretation in mind for the OT then, there is no evidence the universe is a few thousand years old and a shit load of evidence that it is much older. There is no evidence that there was ever a Garden of Eden and there is a mountain of evidence that neither humans nor many other species descend from a single mating pair in the geologically recent past. As would be predicted by both the Garden Story and the Ark Story.
And without that Garden and the whole bit of blaming Eve for disobeying before she knew what disobeying was, which remember makes no sense to start with, and blaming us for all eternity, which again recall makes no sense, there is no original sin and thus no need for salvation from it, which means your entire religion is built on something for which there is no evidence for. (And no I didn't invent this; Young Earth Creationists have used it for years as part of their spiel)
There is no evidence for a global flood involving trillions of cubic kilometers of water which somehow completely disappeared without a trace in the recent past, or in the distant past for that matter. And there is massive evidence against it.
No matter what kind of tests I propose for the existence of supernatural critters, the respective adherents always shoot it down as unworkable. But that's where you're stuck IMO. Because there is no testable, reasonably clear evidence for fairies or invisible dragons or Zeus or any of the Gods, Goddesses, Godlets, demi-Gods of any kind, and those are all extraordinary claims which therefore require ___ __ ?
I'm an adult
And just as a child must abandon comfortable fantasy, like Santa, if they're going to be a productive member of society and deal with real life, we as a species must abandon comforting fantasy, like YVWH, and face the cold hard truth if we're going to deal with it. The truth is, by every measure we can make, we're fragile, ephemeral sacks of meat just like every other animal species. The truth is, by every measure we can make, our minds, our sensation of love, hate, taste, sight, morality, science, sense of consciousness, everything, are all utterly dependent on the proper functioning of a mass of neurons housed in our skull weighing less than four pounds. And, if any significant portion of that mass gets heavily traumatized, it's bye-bye birdie for the owner. Asking where you 'go' when that structure ceases to exist, is like asking where your files on your hard drive 'go' when you melt it into slag. They don't 'go' anywhere, they no longer exist.
Yes, it would be nice if there was a magic invisible sky wizard who took care of us when we die and redress injustices committed against you while alive by others. It would be nice if your kid or your mom or your loved one who was cruelly cut down by painful lingering cancer was still 'out there' somewhere. It would be nice if there was a Santa Claus, and I don't mean that to sound flippant; who wouldn't want there to be a Santa Claus? For that matter who wouldn't like to be able to think themselves into the air and fly like a bird at will? Well, it doesn't matter how nice the idea of Santa is, there isn't a real Santa, and you can concentrate for all your worth and flap your arms for days, you will not fly.
It doesn't make sense, there is no evidence for it, and I'm an adult. I deal in reality as it is, not as I wish it would be, so that I can perhaps change that reality. And that's important. Because if I could be said to 'believe in' anything, it's that I believe in the human potential for progress, problem solving, and flexibility. That's how we've managed to solve problems in the past.
If we put that proven methodology to work, I think probably, one by one, diseases will fall or be engineered out of existence. I think using that methodology we can get a handle on hunger, poverty, war, greed, natural disasters, and on and on. One day it may happen that we will conquer aging, that we can record and share our minds. Maybe, sooner or later, we will even eliminate death itself; or at least postpone for practical eternity.
This "we" I'm talking about is no doubt a very different we than exists now, this is our remote descendants. They may have linked minds, be cybernetic, meld machine and biology, design themselves at the molecular level. Their consciousness may be carried by silicon, nanodevices, ensconced in exotic dark matter, or housed in something we cannot even conceive of. These descendants might ply the ocean of space time as easily as you drive to the store, make planets, create stars, build black-holes and farm them for gravity waves. They, our children's children, might learn to reconfigure the entire universe.
But a spark of us will still burn in them, all down the ages, just as a vestige of the first hominid, the first tetrapod, the first cell, is part of us. And unless there is some kind of serious disruption in record keeping, they'll probably know that they came from a single planet orbiting a small yellow star, where generations of their ancestors busted their asses so that they could be free, truly free. If so, they'll probably be able to retrieve data on the 21st century, know there was a thing called the Internet, that on it there were blogs, maybe even know about the Daily Kos: They might be able to pull up this very post.
For the last few paragraphs I've left the world of the known and engaged in some pretty far out speculation, but I see no reason why it cannot be that way, or close to it, in the distant future ... IF. IF we want it, if we make it happen.
The quicker we accept that no one is likely to just hand us these wonderful abilities and gifts, the quicker we'll get to work developing it for real, on our own. Because ultimately, we are responsible for us. What becomes of us is not in the mythical hands of invisible Gods-- as best we can tell and for better or worse. It's in our hands; and it's high time we all started accepting that wonderful gift of self determination. Hell, we should be dancing on the rooftops that we get the chance to determine our destiny as a species, because we're the only one on earth that can!
We owe it to try, to shoot for the stars, for all the people who came before us and helped pull us out of the pit of animal savagery. We owe it to the wonderful diversity of life on earth of which we are a part and which gave birth to our species; an unbroken lineage stretching back four billion years of which we are the managing agent. Is there anyone who doesn't feel that's special enough?
We owe it to ourselves to keep that flame burning, keep pushing the boundaries, so that each and every generation will more and more inherit the promise of what can be, while leaving the grimmer world of what was behind. I may reject the deities that human intellects have cooked up, but I don't doubt the potential of that intellect. That's what I 'believe in' if I could be said to 'believe in' anything; I believe in our future, because I believe in us. I believe in you.
And that's why I'm an atheist.
What It's Like to be an Atheist
A few folks wanna know why I'm an atheist. I'm not planning on sugar coating this with any platitudes about how religion helps some folks cope with the brutal facts of life they never asked for and don't deserve; it does do that and it does lots of useful things. But that's not what this is about.
If you don't want to know, stop reading ... now. I mean it, stop reading this right now. If you've recently lost someone or are about to lose someone and religion is the one thread you're hanging onto to keep from going bonkers, don't read this; If you need to feel that humans have some kind of special place in the universe and without that special dispensation, it's all 'for nothing', don't read this; If you're easily offended and/or intolerant, don't read this. Normally I'd be happy to indulge all that, but in this one singular case I'm not going to be terribly empathetic about people complaining.
And, I'm gonna do this thing in two parts; one today and one tomorrow. The first trying to explain what it feels like to be an atheist, the latter part on why I'm an atheist. There will be some overlap.
What it feels like to be an Atheist
I've always been an atheist, I know nothing else. From my earliest memory of considering the question, I'm talking maybe age three or four, I was skeptical as hell. The God stories just didn't add up. I'm amazed everyday of my life that everyone isn't an atheist like me. But they're not, I have no idea why that is, but it is reality. And based on many questions over the years it sounds possibly hard for someone who is not one to understand it. So follow me for a bit if you can. And I'll try to describe the world as seen through atheist eyes.
Imagine that you live in a world where 90% of the people around you sincerely believe in something that appears to you to be downright whacky, if perhaps relatively pleasant on the surface in many respects. Say they believe in Santa Claus; beard, the big red suit, the flying reindeer, the sled loaded with a billion gifts, the North Pole Workshop, Mrs. Claus and the elves; all of it.
But in this fantasy world, they're not content merely to believe in Santa Claus, they want you to publicly agree all the time that you also believe in Santa, in their specific version of same, and they pressure everyone else in numerous ways to pretend that they're not strange or childish for believing in this. They don't just limit it at that even, they insist everyone kiss their ass about their Santa belief every damn day of their lives and if you don't humor them at the drop of hat under any circumstances, you're being disrespectful, you're out of line. No matter how much you humor them, they always demand more.
Imagine, seriously imagine for a moment now, that these people, the vast majority of the electorate, vote for politicians based in large part on what they think Santa wants, campaign speeches all end with "Be good or Santa won't come to visit". And most of these voters won't even consider voting for someone who doesn't believe in Santa Claus and his factory at the North Pole. Yet they routinely congratulate themselves as belonging to the most graciously tolerant and open minded people in all of history.
Imagine that large sections of the country, the majority in fact, reject modern geography and want to teach that Santa lives at the North Pole in a giant Dickensian factory manned by elves as part of that curriculum. They don't just want to teach it at home or in Santa Mass every Sunday, they wanna teach it as geographical fact and they're militant about it. They lobby the school board and stack them with Santa-ists who want to 'teach both sides of the geographic controversy' and let the kids decide if they wanna believe in Santa's Workshop at the North Pole, or not. They want to 'teach the evidence against naturalistic North Polism" and no amount of evidence, no sat photos, no onsite reports, no live North Pole Cams, will dissuade them from this effort.
Imagine that if you even voice the possibility that Santa might be a pleasant legend or some aspects of the story may be more allegorical in nature rather than literal, at the local school board meeting when this issue comes up, you're shouted down, called everything from a Nazi to a demon to a terrorist, exiled from the neighborhood and maybe isolated at work. Because while a bunch of nice things get done in the name of Santa, a lot of nonsense and out and out bullshit also is justified with the same. For example; your kids better not repeat any Santa skepticism, or they'll be teased horribly at the very least and might get the shit beat out of them by other kids from time to time.
Now further imagine; although the underlying story is sweet enough on its own, the actual uses it is put to by various self-serving factions are about as ugly as it can get: The ruling party is supported by a large block of truly radical Santa believers who want to run the entire country like they believe the North Pole facility operates, including sweatshops with kids all busy working away seven days a week 365 days a year in long assembly lines, with hand tools, in the freezing cold arctic winter, all for benefit of a few old men with long white beards who live in complete splendor on that labor. Because that's how Santa wants it, see?
And even though Santa loves children, it is wrong for government to do Santa's work, so really, it would be going against Santa's will to ever just give the millions of working kids a decent meal, but throw a couple of dozen of them a toy once a year you're A-OK with Santa. That's what they want and they're working hard to get it.
On top of that, based on their Santa beliefs, they also want to outlaw all cortical steroids and hormone treatments of any kind for any reason; cancer, growth defects, hormone deficiencies, replacement therapy, arthritis and other autoimmune disorders, muscular dystrophy, and on and on: Because they claim with utter certainty that Santa likes elves. Elves are Divine, and some hormones could be used to treat dwarfism. You might accidentally prevent the normal development of midgets and the bone pathologies associated with it, if hormones were legal and widely prescribed. So no hormonal or cortical drugs, no exceptions. Some of them want to reclassify all drugs as hormones ... just in case.
They try to stack the courts with Santists and they stacked the regulatory oversight boards with Santists at every chance and anytime someone rules against the interest of the sweatshop lobby they're labeled Activist St. Nicks. Anyone who presents evidence to the contrary to Santa or any of these government approved concentration/work camps or ideological Santist Policies is viciously smeared by a professional media, most of whom share the same set of Santa beliefs, and that's on the rare, once in a year occasion when someone who will argue against the literal existence of Santa is even allowed airtime. The nation slides slowly towards Santacracy year by year.
Their entire rationale for this belief system and all the ugliness and oppression associated with it, is based purely on one long Christmas Carol handed down through the ages and some self anointed speakers for Santa--who happen to be in the employ of the wealthy bearded caste--and one or two old children's books.
And BTW it's the same story with various minor differences all over the world; across the ocean are people who reject Santa by name, but who believe in Kris Kringle or Father Christmas or St. Nick with equal or greater intensity than these domestic Santa believers. And some of those pagans are ready and willing to kill each other, kill you and your entire family, in a split-second, up to and including strapping explosives to themselves and blowing up a kids daycare or turning a jet into a missile kamikaze style and plowing it into a factory; all because of that minor quibble over the name and/or suit style of Santa, just to make the point that they really believe their story more than our Santists believe theirs.
Picture your life unfolding in this world: As a child you also believe in Santa because your parents told you to, but as you grow up you become skeptical, some things just don't seem to add up. By the time you're six or seven years-old, you start asking legitimate questions like "How does Santa get down the little chimney, how does Santa get the time to visit each house, how does Santa know the kids who've been good from the ones who've been bad" and so forth. These questions elicit first strangely evasive answers devoid of content and a general sense of unease among the adults you're asking. Over the next few years that moves onto reactions of scorn, patronizing insults, and open hostility. But never, ever one single answer that holds up over time.
Finally you come to suspect there is a real possibility that there is no literal Santa Claus at the North Pole with a toy factory run by elves and flying reindeer. You began gently asking other folks about your concern. But, when you confide in a few of your most trusted friends and closest family members that the whole Santa idea is a nice sentiment to be sure, but it doesn't make much rational sense and there is no evidence for it, the reaction ranges from puzzlement, to pity, to shock, to anger, to open accusations and implications that you're some kind of mental defective for even wondering about it.
You don't understand what's going on, none of this Santa stuff makes any sense and there's zero evidence for it, why can't everyone just admit that? What's the big conspiracy about? Why is everyone pretending there really is a Santa? Then it slowly dawns on you, around age ten or eleven ... the chilling, horrible truth:
They're Not Pretending. They REALLY Do Believe There Is a Santa Claus.
Egads! Holy Shit! You suddenly feel a little bit lonely at age sixteen as you come to realize that you may surrounded by fully grown adults who are delusional incompetents that cannot distinguish fiction from fact and are enthralled by some kind of massive group hysteria! They're most of them all like that! And they all think you're nuts for not buying into their delusion! What the hell is wrong with these fucking people, can't they see how crazy this shit is?
So, being an adolescent who wants to know things and unafraid, you confront people who are trying to convince you about the existence of Santa with what seems to you to be pretty obvious shortcomings in the story. The result is a torrent of stupidly phased questions, anger, at times hatred, usually disguised as pity or concern, but not always.
"Where do you think Christmas came from? How do you think the idea of giving gifts arose in the first place?" you're asked repeatedly.
Some of the questions you're being badgered with now are utterly exempt of any semblance of logic, "I've seen Santa so how do you explain that one?" or "How do you think the North Pole came to be Santa's Workshop if there is no Santa for crying out loud???? Huh? Huh? Answer THAT ONE Mr. Smarty-pants!!!"
And no matter how many times you explain it's more likely Santa was thought up and refined over time by earlier generations, that there is in fact a long historical trail of Santa like characters in the cultures of your ancestors seamlessly leading up to the present day version, you are ignored or laughed at. And over and over the same tired old questions incessantly get thrown in your face again and again as though there was never a response on your part and there is no possible explanation outside of Santa (Or St. Nick or Kris Kringle or Father Christmas, if you happen to be questioned by those respective adherents). It's baffling to you.
Come your college years, more serious folks around now, I'm talking otherwise fully functional adults who hold jobs, sport an array of impressive degrees in Law, Philosophy, Science, or Mathematics, and who make important decisions, bombard you constantly with "Without Santa there would be no reason for us to be good, where do you think morality and ethics come from?; What's your 'world-view' and what evidence do you have for it, if you have no origin for morality?; I mean what's to stop you from going on a killing and raping spree if you don't believe in Santa?"
And no matter how many times you freely state you have no 'world-view' outside of an intuitive 'reality' and that such ideas regarding morality and ethical behavior and what is or is not a crime, likely stem from the culture you are raised in where they're acquired as a child unconsciously and then refined over time as one matures, they ignore you and keep throwing back the same question. The same question over and over in a dazzling variety of slick, pseudo intellectual wrappers, while they practically dance in victory with glee every time they hurl the same dumbass question, as though they proved their Santa belief beyond any questionable doubt.
As you begin your adult life, marry or have a family of your own, the arguments don't get any better, they in fact get noticeably worse at times. Irate e-mailers demand, "How do you explain Rudolph's glowing red nose?"
And no matter how many times you patiently explain that Rudolph's existence and his nose is no more rational or supported than Santa's, that the question exhibits a fundamental logical fallacy by assuming the premise, you are ignored as if your response is invisible to your questioner and the same question is thrown endlessly back in your face as if it's a dead-cinch proof of Santa. You begin to understand that these folks aren't only whacked in the head, they're either liars or unable to think beyond the level of a toddler. Because it really is like arguing with a two-year old most of the time, only these aren't two-year olds, these are grown educated human beings. And you start to really worry now; what if most people are insane and you just happen by the luck of the draw to be one of the few sane ones? A lucid person in a world gone mad?
Hey, maybe you've not given this Santa thing a fair shot. Maybe if you talk to a pro, or meditate or think on it long and hard, something will click into place you're missing. So you embark on a multiyear voyage asking Santa ministers and reading the theology of Santa. You look at other beliefs like the ones who worship St. Nick or Father Christmas, you try, you really try to make it work. You play with altered states of consciousness and talk to people from other cultures about their version of the Santa belief.
And sure, you learn some useful tips, like how to distinguish fresh blotter acid from stuff that's been laying around turning into strychnine, and you might be able to lower or raise your heartbeat using biofeedback after a few sessions. But you find in the end none of the actual Santa like beliefs make any more sense than your own homegrown version. And you can no more force yourself to believe any of them, than you can flap your arms and fly away.
Still, incessantly they recruit you, incessantly they beat you down anytime you open your mouth and try to engage in a real, honest, thoughtful discussion, with the same damn cheesy worthless lines you've been hearing for years now. And from time to time, when you finally convince someone, say someone who is trying to recruit you to accept that Santa is a real entity and really does all those amazing things, that you're not buying it merely on their say-so, they stalk off screaming things like "OH I get it! You HATE Santa Claus and you HATE Christmas and you HATE getting presents, and you're trying to get even by pretending you don't believe in Him. Well, I'll be laughing this Christmas when I'm opening my presents and your only gift is a brand new brain tumor for being bad".
Imagine, as you puzzle your way through this temporal menagerie called life, full to the brim with more of the functionally insane humanoids that make the fabric of experience; bosses, girlfriends, pals, enemies, and role models, that Santa reminders are on every coin, every paper dollar, on every street corner, on every news show, on every cable network, that there are radio and TV stations that are dedicated 24 hours a day to extolling the virtues of Santa and the power of his mighty Sled. Every now and then you come across a fellow traveler who also marvels at the insane people, and you might become friends, compare notes, and laugh about the crazy mother fuckers, but it's a rare thing to meet them in person.
And in every one of those Santa reminders on every five cent piece and every dollar bill, lurks a tiny hint, a latent glimpse of those ugly components of Santa-ism and open wounds of rival Santa-like beliefs that are always at each other's throats; the wars justified and condoned, we're assured, by Santa; the sweatshops and pagan suicide bombers and the political opportunists who want to outlaw a huge class of life saving drugs based on Santa belief; the crazies who want to enact laws forcing everyone else to suffer horrible pain and disfiguring fatal diseases, all to humor their belief in mythological elves. Sometimes as you get older, all you can do is laugh so that you don't cry at the immense human tragedy of it all.
And sure, you're used to it, it doesn't really bother you most of the time because you just don't think about how totally fucking nuts the people around you are or what easy prey they are for the shameless predators of this loony jungle, as long as they're kept from hurting you or enacting their crazed legendary tenets into law and screwing up your life, but it's every damn place you go and it's getting worse and worse. The Santa Clausians are becoming more demanding, more powerful, more delusional and more arrogant every year. You grew up swearing your allegiance at the start of every school day that America was One Nation Under Santa from kindergarten on, and now some people are questioning the usefulness of that tradition, and pointing out it could be seen as blatant brainwashing, and they're being attacked day and night by Santa apologists and compared to pedophiles in the process. The entire Congress shuts down to pass a unanimous amendment supporting saying Santa in the Pledge in School and recites it on the steps of the capitol, shrieking the word Santa out, playing to the cameras and the demented Santa believers on the other side of the optical pipes they're attached to. Which is more comforting? That the leaders of the nation are lying and pandering to Santa believers? Or that they actually believe it also? Hell of a choice, eh?
It starts getting uglier: Imagine that one very loud group of Santa believers regularly demands that you move to another country and/or that you be prevented from giving or receiving gifts or having Christmas Day off because you don't believe in Santa, while members of the same group are attacking you in an even louder voice claiming you are trying to ruin or cancel Christmas, and they demand that you be forced to celebrate it and participate in each and every Santa Claus ritual they personally deem requisite. It's pretty clear to you now: These seemingly normal people are not just fucking insane when it comes to Santa, they're incoherent, dangerously unbalanced, demanding mutually exclusive sets of behavior from you that would be impossible to comply with.
Now imagine: Just two or three-hundred years ago it was totally SOP to take folks, men, women, children, who didn't believe in a specific version of Santa and stick red-hot steel objects into their rectums and vaginas, boil their limbs, beat them senseless with padded clubs, tear them apart with teams of horses, cut open their stomachs and rip out their intestines while they're still alive in front of their loved ones, or slowly burn them alive in public; all in the name of Santa's good will and often on the mere anonymous allegation from some two-bit ten-year old kid or a crazy deranged nutcase suffering from schizophrenia that you once said you don't believe Santa can really fly. Now imagine that that still goes on in some parts of the world AND there's a whole bunch of people in your country who are clamoring to bring that all back.
Imagine that when your mom or dad or heart surgeon or teacher or your best friend tells you they firmly, devoutly, believe in Santa replete with the flying reindeer and the ability to get down every chimney in the world in one evening, that you'd better believe also or you won't be getting a damn thing in the will or in life from them ever, or maybe they'll just treat you like shit in front of the rest of the family, AND THEY'RE NOT KIDDING IN THE SLIGHTEST ABOUT ANY OF IT.
You are under a barrage of Santa believers from the cradle to grave who act everything from shocked to disgusted that you don't believe in Santa, they're getting increasingly militant, yet not a one of them has the slightest bit of evidence that an entity called Santa really exists; not one of them is willing to explain why the North Pole is nothing but a barren, frozen wasteland, except maybe to vaguely explain that the "Workshop" is incorporeal or not meant to be taken "literally"; a claim which other Santa believers disagree with vigorously. Not one of them offers up the slightest tidbit of convincing scientific rationale for how reindeer fly and tow an arial sled, or how Santa reads the minds and keeps tabs on 2 billion kids, and visits them in a single 24 hour period once a year to deliver toys built at his workshop by magic miniature toymakers. Not one of them can offer any compelling real-world reasoning for why Santa would want to do this anyway, what he gets out of it, how he obtains supplies, feeds himself and his workers, treats disease, avoids old age and death, or how they all came to play this role in the first place. And yet you are portrayed as an imbecile and one chip short of Adolph Hitler for not believing it.
Pretty ridiculous, huh? A world gone bonkers, populated and completely run by a majority of people who are frankly clinically insane, dangerously immature, often violent, historically monstrous, completely irrational, closed to any internal questioning, convinced you're either stupid, evil, or dangerous, and hoping for all they're worth to infect you with the same mimetic virus. Can you even imagine how whacked it would be to have to deal with that kind of shit? To have to go through life walking on eggshells on the subject of Santa lest you offend a believer and they blow their stack at you, target you for persecution for political purposes, and/or question your worth, your job, your very life?
Well, if you can imagine all that, you know for just a few moments how it feels everyday to be a grown adult surrounded by wishful childish thinkers clinging to nonsensical myths as if they were real and insisting, in fact force feeding, that mythology to you; people who sometimes turn quite violent, get downright nasty if you express the slightest disagreement with their specific version of the Jolly Old Guy; people who happen to wield incredibly powerful arsenals of WMDs and massive traditional military might as well as running everything from the local police department to the IRS; people who are now are reopening torture chambers and gulags with armies of pundits cackling with delight at the very thought of returning to the good ole torture days.
It's not like we're living everyday in mortal fear, but it's nevertheless a little nerve racking that we find ourselves surrounded, defenseless, and at the mercy of hordes of people that for all the world appear to have lost their minds. And it's a bit depressing that this is the best the human species and/or our own nation can do or has done in millennia, especially now given our potential and the technology/knowledge now at our disposal.
And in the end, you can either pretend to be a Santa believer, basically live a lie 24/7 and try to avoid any showdowns over it that would expose you. Or you can be yourself, embrace reason, live truth, and take your chances, thanking your lucky stars the whole time you don't live in the past or somewhere else in the present; hoping to hell that the Santa believers don't completely dominate everything and go on some kind of anti-Santa purge.
That's kind of what it feels like to be an atheist. If you try and imagine further why you don't believe that Santa is real regardless of how nice a story it is or all the nice things about Christmas you enjoy, you'll be ahead of the game for tomorrow's post on why I don't believe in deities, including yours. More then.
If you don't want to know, stop reading ... now. I mean it, stop reading this right now. If you've recently lost someone or are about to lose someone and religion is the one thread you're hanging onto to keep from going bonkers, don't read this; If you need to feel that humans have some kind of special place in the universe and without that special dispensation, it's all 'for nothing', don't read this; If you're easily offended and/or intolerant, don't read this. Normally I'd be happy to indulge all that, but in this one singular case I'm not going to be terribly empathetic about people complaining.
And, I'm gonna do this thing in two parts; one today and one tomorrow. The first trying to explain what it feels like to be an atheist, the latter part on why I'm an atheist. There will be some overlap.
What it feels like to be an Atheist
I've always been an atheist, I know nothing else. From my earliest memory of considering the question, I'm talking maybe age three or four, I was skeptical as hell. The God stories just didn't add up. I'm amazed everyday of my life that everyone isn't an atheist like me. But they're not, I have no idea why that is, but it is reality. And based on many questions over the years it sounds possibly hard for someone who is not one to understand it. So follow me for a bit if you can. And I'll try to describe the world as seen through atheist eyes.
Imagine that you live in a world where 90% of the people around you sincerely believe in something that appears to you to be downright whacky, if perhaps relatively pleasant on the surface in many respects. Say they believe in Santa Claus; beard, the big red suit, the flying reindeer, the sled loaded with a billion gifts, the North Pole Workshop, Mrs. Claus and the elves; all of it.
But in this fantasy world, they're not content merely to believe in Santa Claus, they want you to publicly agree all the time that you also believe in Santa, in their specific version of same, and they pressure everyone else in numerous ways to pretend that they're not strange or childish for believing in this. They don't just limit it at that even, they insist everyone kiss their ass about their Santa belief every damn day of their lives and if you don't humor them at the drop of hat under any circumstances, you're being disrespectful, you're out of line. No matter how much you humor them, they always demand more.
Imagine, seriously imagine for a moment now, that these people, the vast majority of the electorate, vote for politicians based in large part on what they think Santa wants, campaign speeches all end with "Be good or Santa won't come to visit". And most of these voters won't even consider voting for someone who doesn't believe in Santa Claus and his factory at the North Pole. Yet they routinely congratulate themselves as belonging to the most graciously tolerant and open minded people in all of history.
Imagine that large sections of the country, the majority in fact, reject modern geography and want to teach that Santa lives at the North Pole in a giant Dickensian factory manned by elves as part of that curriculum. They don't just want to teach it at home or in Santa Mass every Sunday, they wanna teach it as geographical fact and they're militant about it. They lobby the school board and stack them with Santa-ists who want to 'teach both sides of the geographic controversy' and let the kids decide if they wanna believe in Santa's Workshop at the North Pole, or not. They want to 'teach the evidence against naturalistic North Polism" and no amount of evidence, no sat photos, no onsite reports, no live North Pole Cams, will dissuade them from this effort.
Imagine that if you even voice the possibility that Santa might be a pleasant legend or some aspects of the story may be more allegorical in nature rather than literal, at the local school board meeting when this issue comes up, you're shouted down, called everything from a Nazi to a demon to a terrorist, exiled from the neighborhood and maybe isolated at work. Because while a bunch of nice things get done in the name of Santa, a lot of nonsense and out and out bullshit also is justified with the same. For example; your kids better not repeat any Santa skepticism, or they'll be teased horribly at the very least and might get the shit beat out of them by other kids from time to time.
Now further imagine; although the underlying story is sweet enough on its own, the actual uses it is put to by various self-serving factions are about as ugly as it can get: The ruling party is supported by a large block of truly radical Santa believers who want to run the entire country like they believe the North Pole facility operates, including sweatshops with kids all busy working away seven days a week 365 days a year in long assembly lines, with hand tools, in the freezing cold arctic winter, all for benefit of a few old men with long white beards who live in complete splendor on that labor. Because that's how Santa wants it, see?
And even though Santa loves children, it is wrong for government to do Santa's work, so really, it would be going against Santa's will to ever just give the millions of working kids a decent meal, but throw a couple of dozen of them a toy once a year you're A-OK with Santa. That's what they want and they're working hard to get it.
On top of that, based on their Santa beliefs, they also want to outlaw all cortical steroids and hormone treatments of any kind for any reason; cancer, growth defects, hormone deficiencies, replacement therapy, arthritis and other autoimmune disorders, muscular dystrophy, and on and on: Because they claim with utter certainty that Santa likes elves. Elves are Divine, and some hormones could be used to treat dwarfism. You might accidentally prevent the normal development of midgets and the bone pathologies associated with it, if hormones were legal and widely prescribed. So no hormonal or cortical drugs, no exceptions. Some of them want to reclassify all drugs as hormones ... just in case.
They try to stack the courts with Santists and they stacked the regulatory oversight boards with Santists at every chance and anytime someone rules against the interest of the sweatshop lobby they're labeled Activist St. Nicks. Anyone who presents evidence to the contrary to Santa or any of these government approved concentration/work camps or ideological Santist Policies is viciously smeared by a professional media, most of whom share the same set of Santa beliefs, and that's on the rare, once in a year occasion when someone who will argue against the literal existence of Santa is even allowed airtime. The nation slides slowly towards Santacracy year by year.
Their entire rationale for this belief system and all the ugliness and oppression associated with it, is based purely on one long Christmas Carol handed down through the ages and some self anointed speakers for Santa--who happen to be in the employ of the wealthy bearded caste--and one or two old children's books.
And BTW it's the same story with various minor differences all over the world; across the ocean are people who reject Santa by name, but who believe in Kris Kringle or Father Christmas or St. Nick with equal or greater intensity than these domestic Santa believers. And some of those pagans are ready and willing to kill each other, kill you and your entire family, in a split-second, up to and including strapping explosives to themselves and blowing up a kids daycare or turning a jet into a missile kamikaze style and plowing it into a factory; all because of that minor quibble over the name and/or suit style of Santa, just to make the point that they really believe their story more than our Santists believe theirs.
Picture your life unfolding in this world: As a child you also believe in Santa because your parents told you to, but as you grow up you become skeptical, some things just don't seem to add up. By the time you're six or seven years-old, you start asking legitimate questions like "How does Santa get down the little chimney, how does Santa get the time to visit each house, how does Santa know the kids who've been good from the ones who've been bad" and so forth. These questions elicit first strangely evasive answers devoid of content and a general sense of unease among the adults you're asking. Over the next few years that moves onto reactions of scorn, patronizing insults, and open hostility. But never, ever one single answer that holds up over time.
Finally you come to suspect there is a real possibility that there is no literal Santa Claus at the North Pole with a toy factory run by elves and flying reindeer. You began gently asking other folks about your concern. But, when you confide in a few of your most trusted friends and closest family members that the whole Santa idea is a nice sentiment to be sure, but it doesn't make much rational sense and there is no evidence for it, the reaction ranges from puzzlement, to pity, to shock, to anger, to open accusations and implications that you're some kind of mental defective for even wondering about it.
You don't understand what's going on, none of this Santa stuff makes any sense and there's zero evidence for it, why can't everyone just admit that? What's the big conspiracy about? Why is everyone pretending there really is a Santa? Then it slowly dawns on you, around age ten or eleven ... the chilling, horrible truth:
They're Not Pretending. They REALLY Do Believe There Is a Santa Claus.
Egads! Holy Shit! You suddenly feel a little bit lonely at age sixteen as you come to realize that you may surrounded by fully grown adults who are delusional incompetents that cannot distinguish fiction from fact and are enthralled by some kind of massive group hysteria! They're most of them all like that! And they all think you're nuts for not buying into their delusion! What the hell is wrong with these fucking people, can't they see how crazy this shit is?
So, being an adolescent who wants to know things and unafraid, you confront people who are trying to convince you about the existence of Santa with what seems to you to be pretty obvious shortcomings in the story. The result is a torrent of stupidly phased questions, anger, at times hatred, usually disguised as pity or concern, but not always.
"Where do you think Christmas came from? How do you think the idea of giving gifts arose in the first place?" you're asked repeatedly.
Some of the questions you're being badgered with now are utterly exempt of any semblance of logic, "I've seen Santa so how do you explain that one?" or "How do you think the North Pole came to be Santa's Workshop if there is no Santa for crying out loud???? Huh? Huh? Answer THAT ONE Mr. Smarty-pants!!!"
And no matter how many times you explain it's more likely Santa was thought up and refined over time by earlier generations, that there is in fact a long historical trail of Santa like characters in the cultures of your ancestors seamlessly leading up to the present day version, you are ignored or laughed at. And over and over the same tired old questions incessantly get thrown in your face again and again as though there was never a response on your part and there is no possible explanation outside of Santa (Or St. Nick or Kris Kringle or Father Christmas, if you happen to be questioned by those respective adherents). It's baffling to you.
Come your college years, more serious folks around now, I'm talking otherwise fully functional adults who hold jobs, sport an array of impressive degrees in Law, Philosophy, Science, or Mathematics, and who make important decisions, bombard you constantly with "Without Santa there would be no reason for us to be good, where do you think morality and ethics come from?; What's your 'world-view' and what evidence do you have for it, if you have no origin for morality?; I mean what's to stop you from going on a killing and raping spree if you don't believe in Santa?"
And no matter how many times you freely state you have no 'world-view' outside of an intuitive 'reality' and that such ideas regarding morality and ethical behavior and what is or is not a crime, likely stem from the culture you are raised in where they're acquired as a child unconsciously and then refined over time as one matures, they ignore you and keep throwing back the same question. The same question over and over in a dazzling variety of slick, pseudo intellectual wrappers, while they practically dance in victory with glee every time they hurl the same dumbass question, as though they proved their Santa belief beyond any questionable doubt.
As you begin your adult life, marry or have a family of your own, the arguments don't get any better, they in fact get noticeably worse at times. Irate e-mailers demand, "How do you explain Rudolph's glowing red nose?"
And no matter how many times you patiently explain that Rudolph's existence and his nose is no more rational or supported than Santa's, that the question exhibits a fundamental logical fallacy by assuming the premise, you are ignored as if your response is invisible to your questioner and the same question is thrown endlessly back in your face as if it's a dead-cinch proof of Santa. You begin to understand that these folks aren't only whacked in the head, they're either liars or unable to think beyond the level of a toddler. Because it really is like arguing with a two-year old most of the time, only these aren't two-year olds, these are grown educated human beings. And you start to really worry now; what if most people are insane and you just happen by the luck of the draw to be one of the few sane ones? A lucid person in a world gone mad?
Hey, maybe you've not given this Santa thing a fair shot. Maybe if you talk to a pro, or meditate or think on it long and hard, something will click into place you're missing. So you embark on a multiyear voyage asking Santa ministers and reading the theology of Santa. You look at other beliefs like the ones who worship St. Nick or Father Christmas, you try, you really try to make it work. You play with altered states of consciousness and talk to people from other cultures about their version of the Santa belief.
And sure, you learn some useful tips, like how to distinguish fresh blotter acid from stuff that's been laying around turning into strychnine, and you might be able to lower or raise your heartbeat using biofeedback after a few sessions. But you find in the end none of the actual Santa like beliefs make any more sense than your own homegrown version. And you can no more force yourself to believe any of them, than you can flap your arms and fly away.
Still, incessantly they recruit you, incessantly they beat you down anytime you open your mouth and try to engage in a real, honest, thoughtful discussion, with the same damn cheesy worthless lines you've been hearing for years now. And from time to time, when you finally convince someone, say someone who is trying to recruit you to accept that Santa is a real entity and really does all those amazing things, that you're not buying it merely on their say-so, they stalk off screaming things like "OH I get it! You HATE Santa Claus and you HATE Christmas and you HATE getting presents, and you're trying to get even by pretending you don't believe in Him. Well, I'll be laughing this Christmas when I'm opening my presents and your only gift is a brand new brain tumor for being bad".
Imagine, as you puzzle your way through this temporal menagerie called life, full to the brim with more of the functionally insane humanoids that make the fabric of experience; bosses, girlfriends, pals, enemies, and role models, that Santa reminders are on every coin, every paper dollar, on every street corner, on every news show, on every cable network, that there are radio and TV stations that are dedicated 24 hours a day to extolling the virtues of Santa and the power of his mighty Sled. Every now and then you come across a fellow traveler who also marvels at the insane people, and you might become friends, compare notes, and laugh about the crazy mother fuckers, but it's a rare thing to meet them in person.
And in every one of those Santa reminders on every five cent piece and every dollar bill, lurks a tiny hint, a latent glimpse of those ugly components of Santa-ism and open wounds of rival Santa-like beliefs that are always at each other's throats; the wars justified and condoned, we're assured, by Santa; the sweatshops and pagan suicide bombers and the political opportunists who want to outlaw a huge class of life saving drugs based on Santa belief; the crazies who want to enact laws forcing everyone else to suffer horrible pain and disfiguring fatal diseases, all to humor their belief in mythological elves. Sometimes as you get older, all you can do is laugh so that you don't cry at the immense human tragedy of it all.
And sure, you're used to it, it doesn't really bother you most of the time because you just don't think about how totally fucking nuts the people around you are or what easy prey they are for the shameless predators of this loony jungle, as long as they're kept from hurting you or enacting their crazed legendary tenets into law and screwing up your life, but it's every damn place you go and it's getting worse and worse. The Santa Clausians are becoming more demanding, more powerful, more delusional and more arrogant every year. You grew up swearing your allegiance at the start of every school day that America was One Nation Under Santa from kindergarten on, and now some people are questioning the usefulness of that tradition, and pointing out it could be seen as blatant brainwashing, and they're being attacked day and night by Santa apologists and compared to pedophiles in the process. The entire Congress shuts down to pass a unanimous amendment supporting saying Santa in the Pledge in School and recites it on the steps of the capitol, shrieking the word Santa out, playing to the cameras and the demented Santa believers on the other side of the optical pipes they're attached to. Which is more comforting? That the leaders of the nation are lying and pandering to Santa believers? Or that they actually believe it also? Hell of a choice, eh?
It starts getting uglier: Imagine that one very loud group of Santa believers regularly demands that you move to another country and/or that you be prevented from giving or receiving gifts or having Christmas Day off because you don't believe in Santa, while members of the same group are attacking you in an even louder voice claiming you are trying to ruin or cancel Christmas, and they demand that you be forced to celebrate it and participate in each and every Santa Claus ritual they personally deem requisite. It's pretty clear to you now: These seemingly normal people are not just fucking insane when it comes to Santa, they're incoherent, dangerously unbalanced, demanding mutually exclusive sets of behavior from you that would be impossible to comply with.
Now imagine: Just two or three-hundred years ago it was totally SOP to take folks, men, women, children, who didn't believe in a specific version of Santa and stick red-hot steel objects into their rectums and vaginas, boil their limbs, beat them senseless with padded clubs, tear them apart with teams of horses, cut open their stomachs and rip out their intestines while they're still alive in front of their loved ones, or slowly burn them alive in public; all in the name of Santa's good will and often on the mere anonymous allegation from some two-bit ten-year old kid or a crazy deranged nutcase suffering from schizophrenia that you once said you don't believe Santa can really fly. Now imagine that that still goes on in some parts of the world AND there's a whole bunch of people in your country who are clamoring to bring that all back.
Imagine that when your mom or dad or heart surgeon or teacher or your best friend tells you they firmly, devoutly, believe in Santa replete with the flying reindeer and the ability to get down every chimney in the world in one evening, that you'd better believe also or you won't be getting a damn thing in the will or in life from them ever, or maybe they'll just treat you like shit in front of the rest of the family, AND THEY'RE NOT KIDDING IN THE SLIGHTEST ABOUT ANY OF IT.
You are under a barrage of Santa believers from the cradle to grave who act everything from shocked to disgusted that you don't believe in Santa, they're getting increasingly militant, yet not a one of them has the slightest bit of evidence that an entity called Santa really exists; not one of them is willing to explain why the North Pole is nothing but a barren, frozen wasteland, except maybe to vaguely explain that the "Workshop" is incorporeal or not meant to be taken "literally"; a claim which other Santa believers disagree with vigorously. Not one of them offers up the slightest tidbit of convincing scientific rationale for how reindeer fly and tow an arial sled, or how Santa reads the minds and keeps tabs on 2 billion kids, and visits them in a single 24 hour period once a year to deliver toys built at his workshop by magic miniature toymakers. Not one of them can offer any compelling real-world reasoning for why Santa would want to do this anyway, what he gets out of it, how he obtains supplies, feeds himself and his workers, treats disease, avoids old age and death, or how they all came to play this role in the first place. And yet you are portrayed as an imbecile and one chip short of Adolph Hitler for not believing it.
Pretty ridiculous, huh? A world gone bonkers, populated and completely run by a majority of people who are frankly clinically insane, dangerously immature, often violent, historically monstrous, completely irrational, closed to any internal questioning, convinced you're either stupid, evil, or dangerous, and hoping for all they're worth to infect you with the same mimetic virus. Can you even imagine how whacked it would be to have to deal with that kind of shit? To have to go through life walking on eggshells on the subject of Santa lest you offend a believer and they blow their stack at you, target you for persecution for political purposes, and/or question your worth, your job, your very life?
Well, if you can imagine all that, you know for just a few moments how it feels everyday to be a grown adult surrounded by wishful childish thinkers clinging to nonsensical myths as if they were real and insisting, in fact force feeding, that mythology to you; people who sometimes turn quite violent, get downright nasty if you express the slightest disagreement with their specific version of the Jolly Old Guy; people who happen to wield incredibly powerful arsenals of WMDs and massive traditional military might as well as running everything from the local police department to the IRS; people who are now are reopening torture chambers and gulags with armies of pundits cackling with delight at the very thought of returning to the good ole torture days.
It's not like we're living everyday in mortal fear, but it's nevertheless a little nerve racking that we find ourselves surrounded, defenseless, and at the mercy of hordes of people that for all the world appear to have lost their minds. And it's a bit depressing that this is the best the human species and/or our own nation can do or has done in millennia, especially now given our potential and the technology/knowledge now at our disposal.
And in the end, you can either pretend to be a Santa believer, basically live a lie 24/7 and try to avoid any showdowns over it that would expose you. Or you can be yourself, embrace reason, live truth, and take your chances, thanking your lucky stars the whole time you don't live in the past or somewhere else in the present; hoping to hell that the Santa believers don't completely dominate everything and go on some kind of anti-Santa purge.
That's kind of what it feels like to be an atheist. If you try and imagine further why you don't believe that Santa is real regardless of how nice a story it is or all the nice things about Christmas you enjoy, you'll be ahead of the game for tomorrow's post on why I don't believe in deities, including yours. More then.
Just Suppose
Just suppose you were a psychotherapist and you had never heard or read anything about the dogma of Christianity.
Just suppose you had a client who is explaining his internal world to you.
Just suppose he had told you he often has conversations with a man who died over 2000 years ago.
Just suppose you question your client as to what this person looked like and he answers he does not know. When you question his not knowing, he answers "The man I speak to is invisible."
Just suppose you ask him for more details about this invisible man and he answers that the invisible man was his own father and son and the Holy Ghost all at the same time.
Just suppose you press for more information and you are told that this invisible person is really three people but remains one.
Just suppose your client tells you that this invisible man's mother never had sexual relations yet gave birth to this man.
Just suppose your client tells you when asked where this invisible man lives that he tells you he lives up there in the stratosphere.
Just suppose your client tells you that once a week he partakes in the ritual of eating this man's flesh and drinking his blood in a mass ceremony with many other people.
Just suppose your client tells you that he will never die because he is going to a place where people will live forever.
Just suppose your client tells you that even though his body will be consumed his soul, that is also invisible, will live forever.
Just suppose your client tells you that he will meet all of his deceased friends and relatives in this place high above the clouds.
Just suppose the client tells you that twice a week he visits a man, who is unseen, in a little cubicle to listen to the crimes he has committed during the week. If the crimes are severe he is told to say a "Hail Mary" prayer ten times depending upon the gravity of the crime and they will be excused.
Just suppose your client tells you that there are certain laws he must follow or he will be punished in a sea of fire for eternity.
Just suppose your client tells you that there is a certain man called the Devil who watches over him in that sea of fire to be sure he suffers.
Just suppose your client tells you that it is okay to suffer pain during your lifetime because he will be rewarded for his suffering after he dies.
Just suppose you have to diagnose your client for a Mental Status Exam, what would be your diagnoses?
Just suppose you had a client who is explaining his internal world to you.
Just suppose he had told you he often has conversations with a man who died over 2000 years ago.
Just suppose you question your client as to what this person looked like and he answers he does not know. When you question his not knowing, he answers "The man I speak to is invisible."
Just suppose you ask him for more details about this invisible man and he answers that the invisible man was his own father and son and the Holy Ghost all at the same time.
Just suppose you press for more information and you are told that this invisible person is really three people but remains one.
Just suppose your client tells you that this invisible man's mother never had sexual relations yet gave birth to this man.
Just suppose your client tells you when asked where this invisible man lives that he tells you he lives up there in the stratosphere.
Just suppose your client tells you that once a week he partakes in the ritual of eating this man's flesh and drinking his blood in a mass ceremony with many other people.
Just suppose your client tells you that he will never die because he is going to a place where people will live forever.
Just suppose your client tells you that even though his body will be consumed his soul, that is also invisible, will live forever.
Just suppose your client tells you that he will meet all of his deceased friends and relatives in this place high above the clouds.
Just suppose the client tells you that twice a week he visits a man, who is unseen, in a little cubicle to listen to the crimes he has committed during the week. If the crimes are severe he is told to say a "Hail Mary" prayer ten times depending upon the gravity of the crime and they will be excused.
Just suppose your client tells you that there are certain laws he must follow or he will be punished in a sea of fire for eternity.
Just suppose your client tells you that there is a certain man called the Devil who watches over him in that sea of fire to be sure he suffers.
Just suppose your client tells you that it is okay to suffer pain during your lifetime because he will be rewarded for his suffering after he dies.
Just suppose you have to diagnose your client for a Mental Status Exam, what would be your diagnoses?
The Deity in the Data
Brother, have you heard the bad news?
It was supposed to be good news, like the kind in the Bible. After three years, $2.4 million, and 1.7 million prayers, the biggest and best study ever was supposed to show that the prayers of faraway strangers help patients recover after heart surgery. But things didn't go as ordained. Patients who knowingly received prayers developed more post-surgery complications than did patients who unknowingly received prayers—and patients who were prayed for did no better than patients who weren't prayed for. In fact, patients who received prayers without their knowledge ended up with more major complications than did patients who received no prayers at all.
If the data had turned out the other way, clerics would be trumpeting the power of prayer on every street corner. Instead, the study's authors and many media outlets are straining to brush off the results. The study "cannot address a large number of religious questions, such as whether God exists, whether God answers intercessory prayers, or whether prayers from one religious group work in the same way as prayers from other groups," the authors shrug.
Bull. If these findings involved any other kind of therapy, doctors would spin hypotheses about the underlying mechanisms and why the treatment failed or backfired. And that's exactly what theologians and scientists are doing as they try to explain away the data. They're implicitly sketching possibilities as to what sort of God could account for the results. Here's a list.
1. God doesn't exist. This is the simplest explanation, favored by atheists. You pray, but nobody's there, so nothing happens.
2. God doesn't intervene. This is the view of self-limiting-deity theorists and of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. God may be there, but He's not doing anything here.
3. God is highly selective. The positive effect of prayer on the study's participants "could be smaller than the 10% that our study was powered to detect," the authors suggest. Maybe God heeds prayers, but not enough of them to reach statistical significance.
4. God ignores form letters. According to the study's protocol, if you were assigned to pray for patients, the only information you got about them was a daily fax listing their first names and the initials of their surnames. A script told you to pray in each case "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications." This cookie-cutter approach may have "impacted the quality of the prayer," according to a scientific editorial that accompanies the study. Form letters don't impress Congress; why should they impress God?
5. God requires a personal reference. "Intercessory prayer makes much more sense in community, in family, [where] we're concerned about the well-being of one another," one of the study's authors argued in a teleconference on the findings. A congressman may care whether your lobbyist knows the congressman, but what God cares about is whether your intercessor knows you.
6. God is unmoved by the size of your lobbying team. The authors lament contamination from "background prayer" as though it were radiation. Patients "may have been exposed to a large amount of non-study prayer" from friends and family, they warn, possibly swamping "the effects of prayer provided by the intercessors." Evidently, the 1,000 prayers delivered on your behalf by strangers in this study added no discernible effect to the prayers God heard from people who knew you.
7. God ignores third parties. Why should God do what a fax from one stranger tells another stranger to ask for on your behalf? The person God's going to listen to is you—and maybe you want relief or salvation more than life. As one author puts it, "What we have in mind for someone else may not be what they have in mind for themselves."
8. God takes His time. Maybe the study didn't follow patients long enough, the authors suggest: "The occurrence of any complication within 30 days of surgery may not be appropriate or relevant to the effects of intercessory prayer." When ordering from Heaven, allow at least one month for shipping.
9. God has a backlog. Patients' names were faxed to intercessors "starting the night before each patient's scheduled surgery," according to the protocol. Was that too late?
10. God ignores you if you don't pray hard enough. "Maybe the people weren't praying very hard," a monsignor tells the St. Petersburg Times.
11. God ignores you if you're wicked. Responding to the findings, a Baptist pastor cites James 5:16: "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." No righteousness, no effect.
12. God helps those who help themselves. "Many if not most of the wonderful hospitals in this country were built through the intercessory prayers of religious communities of various denominations," a member of the study team observed during the teleconference. "Theirs was the prayer of action instead of word." Deeds, not pleas, save lives.
13. God does not hear the prayer of a Christian. The protocol says prayers were delivered by members of a Benedictine monastery, a Carmelite community, and a Protestant prayer ministry. "We were unable to locate other Christian, Jewish, or non-Christian groups that could receive the daily prayer list required for this multiyear study," the authors explain. Oops! Maybe Jerry Falwell had it backward.
14. God chooses His own outcome measures. The study measured the effect of prayers on "postoperative complications defined by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons." But as the accompanying editorial notes, "many prayers for the sick contain the implicit objective of easing the passage of the spirit out of the body, an outcome which, by Society of Thoracic Surgeons definition, would be coded as death." If God doesn't pass your test, maybe you're using the wrong test.
15. God doesn't participate in studies. The authors say 1,493 people refused to participate in the study because they had other priorities or were "not interested in clinical research." Why should God, who has a lot more to do and nothing to learn from a study, react differently? "I don't see him cooperating in a test," opines a Baptist theologian.
16. God hates being told what to do. Several clerics argue that the kind of intercessory prayer used in the study is "manipulative … of divine action" and sinfully treats God "as our instrument." The editorial accompanying the study, noting that patients who were prayed for "had worse absolute rates of complications" than those who weren't, asks "whether it was the intercessory prayer per se that may be unsafe." Is the prayer study, like so much in the Bible, a sign of God's wrath? "Researchers must be vigilant in asking the question of whether a well-intentioned, loving, heartfelt healing prayer might inadvertently harm or kill vulnerable patients," the editorial concludes.
17. God is malevolent. Patients who received prayers were marginally more likely to develop complications (52.5 to 50.9 percent) and substantially more likely to develop major complications (18.0 to 13.4 percent) than patients who received none. You can't blame the major-complication gap on psychology, since both groups were told that they might or might not be prayed for. In the teleconference, one of the study's authors tried to explain the gap away—"We don't feel confident statistically that that difference is at the level of significance barely that it's actually perhaps real"—whatever that means. But another called it a "possible hotspot," and the editorial warns that in clinical research, "assumptions of Divine benevolence … could only be considered scientifically naïve," since "in the history of medicine there has never been a healing remedy that was actually effective without having potential side effects or toxicities."
Warning: The surgeon general may determine that prayer is hazardous to your health. That's what can happen when faith sets out to prove its power through science.
It was supposed to be good news, like the kind in the Bible. After three years, $2.4 million, and 1.7 million prayers, the biggest and best study ever was supposed to show that the prayers of faraway strangers help patients recover after heart surgery. But things didn't go as ordained. Patients who knowingly received prayers developed more post-surgery complications than did patients who unknowingly received prayers—and patients who were prayed for did no better than patients who weren't prayed for. In fact, patients who received prayers without their knowledge ended up with more major complications than did patients who received no prayers at all.
If the data had turned out the other way, clerics would be trumpeting the power of prayer on every street corner. Instead, the study's authors and many media outlets are straining to brush off the results. The study "cannot address a large number of religious questions, such as whether God exists, whether God answers intercessory prayers, or whether prayers from one religious group work in the same way as prayers from other groups," the authors shrug.
Bull. If these findings involved any other kind of therapy, doctors would spin hypotheses about the underlying mechanisms and why the treatment failed or backfired. And that's exactly what theologians and scientists are doing as they try to explain away the data. They're implicitly sketching possibilities as to what sort of God could account for the results. Here's a list.
1. God doesn't exist. This is the simplest explanation, favored by atheists. You pray, but nobody's there, so nothing happens.
2. God doesn't intervene. This is the view of self-limiting-deity theorists and of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. God may be there, but He's not doing anything here.
3. God is highly selective. The positive effect of prayer on the study's participants "could be smaller than the 10% that our study was powered to detect," the authors suggest. Maybe God heeds prayers, but not enough of them to reach statistical significance.
4. God ignores form letters. According to the study's protocol, if you were assigned to pray for patients, the only information you got about them was a daily fax listing their first names and the initials of their surnames. A script told you to pray in each case "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications." This cookie-cutter approach may have "impacted the quality of the prayer," according to a scientific editorial that accompanies the study. Form letters don't impress Congress; why should they impress God?
5. God requires a personal reference. "Intercessory prayer makes much more sense in community, in family, [where] we're concerned about the well-being of one another," one of the study's authors argued in a teleconference on the findings. A congressman may care whether your lobbyist knows the congressman, but what God cares about is whether your intercessor knows you.
6. God is unmoved by the size of your lobbying team. The authors lament contamination from "background prayer" as though it were radiation. Patients "may have been exposed to a large amount of non-study prayer" from friends and family, they warn, possibly swamping "the effects of prayer provided by the intercessors." Evidently, the 1,000 prayers delivered on your behalf by strangers in this study added no discernible effect to the prayers God heard from people who knew you.
7. God ignores third parties. Why should God do what a fax from one stranger tells another stranger to ask for on your behalf? The person God's going to listen to is you—and maybe you want relief or salvation more than life. As one author puts it, "What we have in mind for someone else may not be what they have in mind for themselves."
8. God takes His time. Maybe the study didn't follow patients long enough, the authors suggest: "The occurrence of any complication within 30 days of surgery may not be appropriate or relevant to the effects of intercessory prayer." When ordering from Heaven, allow at least one month for shipping.
9. God has a backlog. Patients' names were faxed to intercessors "starting the night before each patient's scheduled surgery," according to the protocol. Was that too late?
10. God ignores you if you don't pray hard enough. "Maybe the people weren't praying very hard," a monsignor tells the St. Petersburg Times.
11. God ignores you if you're wicked. Responding to the findings, a Baptist pastor cites James 5:16: "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." No righteousness, no effect.
12. God helps those who help themselves. "Many if not most of the wonderful hospitals in this country were built through the intercessory prayers of religious communities of various denominations," a member of the study team observed during the teleconference. "Theirs was the prayer of action instead of word." Deeds, not pleas, save lives.
13. God does not hear the prayer of a Christian. The protocol says prayers were delivered by members of a Benedictine monastery, a Carmelite community, and a Protestant prayer ministry. "We were unable to locate other Christian, Jewish, or non-Christian groups that could receive the daily prayer list required for this multiyear study," the authors explain. Oops! Maybe Jerry Falwell had it backward.
14. God chooses His own outcome measures. The study measured the effect of prayers on "postoperative complications defined by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons." But as the accompanying editorial notes, "many prayers for the sick contain the implicit objective of easing the passage of the spirit out of the body, an outcome which, by Society of Thoracic Surgeons definition, would be coded as death." If God doesn't pass your test, maybe you're using the wrong test.
15. God doesn't participate in studies. The authors say 1,493 people refused to participate in the study because they had other priorities or were "not interested in clinical research." Why should God, who has a lot more to do and nothing to learn from a study, react differently? "I don't see him cooperating in a test," opines a Baptist theologian.
16. God hates being told what to do. Several clerics argue that the kind of intercessory prayer used in the study is "manipulative … of divine action" and sinfully treats God "as our instrument." The editorial accompanying the study, noting that patients who were prayed for "had worse absolute rates of complications" than those who weren't, asks "whether it was the intercessory prayer per se that may be unsafe." Is the prayer study, like so much in the Bible, a sign of God's wrath? "Researchers must be vigilant in asking the question of whether a well-intentioned, loving, heartfelt healing prayer might inadvertently harm or kill vulnerable patients," the editorial concludes.
17. God is malevolent. Patients who received prayers were marginally more likely to develop complications (52.5 to 50.9 percent) and substantially more likely to develop major complications (18.0 to 13.4 percent) than patients who received none. You can't blame the major-complication gap on psychology, since both groups were told that they might or might not be prayed for. In the teleconference, one of the study's authors tried to explain the gap away—"We don't feel confident statistically that that difference is at the level of significance barely that it's actually perhaps real"—whatever that means. But another called it a "possible hotspot," and the editorial warns that in clinical research, "assumptions of Divine benevolence … could only be considered scientifically naïve," since "in the history of medicine there has never been a healing remedy that was actually effective without having potential side effects or toxicities."
Warning: The surgeon general may determine that prayer is hazardous to your health. That's what can happen when faith sets out to prove its power through science.
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