To Whom It May Concern,

I was absolutely astounded at the decision of the Student’s Union to cancel the lunchtime bookings made by the Christian Union at Royal Holloway. Before I continue, let it be known that I am not a Christian, nor do I support the views held by the Christian Union in the slightest. I am the president of the Royal Holloway Secular Students group on campus, and despite our differences we have had a positive relationship with the Christian Union during the last 3 years. This relationship has enabled us to have several engaging debates on issues such as religion and the existence of God. It was at one of these debates (“Can we know God?”) last night that I was informed by a member of the Christian Union about the SU’s aforementioned decision.

I am writing to you to express my outrage and utter disbelief over this decision, which I believe was made without proper consideration or rationalisation. Firstly, the email that was sent to cancel these events and offer the refund of the fees paid was undeniably vague, alluding to something “wholly inappropriate” that had apparently caused “controversy” at the lunch event on Tuesday 9th February. I later learned (from an unverified source, so please correct me if this is wrong) that this controversial, inappropriate idea was that God had caused the Asian tsunami as some sort of punishment^[1].

If this is indeed the cause of the controversy, I can completely understand why. Such an idea is not only irrational, but blatantly disrespectful of the people, and families of people lost in that terrible tragedy. You may wonder then, why I am so against your decision. It is because, as a rationalist and sceptic, I cannot abide censorship of any form. All ideas, especially the controversial ones, are valid for discussion. Our entire modern culture, science, and political system is built on radical inappropriate ideas being discussed openly without fear. The strength of the ideology of free speech is that anyone can have an opinion, no-matter how absurd or offensive, because at the end of the day, those on the opposition have the same freedom to refute the absurdities.

It is unbelievable that at a university, a place where the very discussion of ideas forms part of the purpose of the institution, censorship of an idea can take place under the guise of “not being suitable” as you stated in your email. By disallowing the presentation of an idea, the Student’s Union has issued a statement; that it has the control over what students can think, what we can discuss in public, what ideas are “correct” and which are not. If anything is inappropriate here, it is the use of political correctness at an institution where the search for truth, whatever that truth might be, should be held as the highest form of being. I ask you, what is the purpose of our education if we cannot question what we are taught, challenge ideas where we see fit, and discuss the alternative possibilities openly?

I plead you to see reason, and let the Christian Union continue to host talks, preach, and cause controversy. Controversy feeds the mind; it allows us to think about new ideas, to explore them, and to refute them. Causing controversy is a right protected by the freedom of speech; getting offended by such controversy and using that offence to censor ideas, is not. By all means, be offended, shout, scream with a fiery passion, but for the sake of the freedoms which we hold dear, do not stoop to the level of censoring ideas! As I have previously stated, there isn’t much agreement to be had between my society and the Christian Union, yet I respect their right to have the opinions they do, as long as they respect my right to disagree with them. We debate them annually to share our views with those who might not have heard them before, to challenge notions that may be held dear, and to make known our disagreement in an intellectual forum.

I have sent a copy of this email to my friends, to members of the Royal Holloway Secular Students, and to members of the Christian Union. I will give them instructions to forward it to you if they support the freedom of speech and the discussion of ideas as much as I do. I hope this will make you see the irrationality behind your decision. If not, and if the Christian Union are still prohibited from speaking at the end of the week, I am quite prepared to send this letter to the Founder^[2], the NUS^[3], and as many media organisations connected to students as possible. I honestly hope it does not come to that, but if it must, it must.

-Adrian

Our debate last night went extremely well, with both speakers for the atheist / agnostic side presenting clear arguments and defending criticism from the audience. It helps when one of them is a PhD student in evolutionary psychology though.

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So a Times Online article, written by religion correspondent Ruth Gledhill, broke the ‘news’ over the weekend that the children featured in the new BHA billboards are ‘evangelicals’. This article has so many falsehoods and misrepresentations (not to mention completely missing the point of the adverts) that I’m afraid I’m going to have to go through it a paragraph at a time.

The two children chosen to front Richard Dawkins’s latest assault on God could not look more free of the misery he associates with religious baggage. With the slogan “Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself”, the youngsters with broad grins seem to be the perfect advertisement for the new atheism being promoted by Professor Dawkins and the British Humanist Association.

It boggles the mind as to how Gledhill managed to come to the conclusion that this is the “perfect advertisement for the new atheism being promoted”. Come on Ruth! In the same sentence you describe the adverts as “new atheism”, you wrote the slogan of the campaign: “Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself”. Tell me, how on earth does that slogan have anything to do with belief or disbelief in God?

Except that they are about as far from atheism as it is possible to be. The Times can reveal that Charlotte, 8, and Ollie, 7, are from one of the country’s most devout Christian families.

So? Like I said before, this isn’t an advert about atheism, this is an advert about calling children “Christian child” or “Muslim child” when they are clearly too young to understand and make a rational decision for themselves on what they believe. When I was Charlotte’s age, I could too be described as a “Christian child”, except I really wasn’t. I believed in God and Jesus not because I had considered the subject, but because my parents told me that’s what we believed. Indeed, it wasn’t until later that I started considering the issue for myself, and first described myself as an atheist.

My personal story aside, there isn’t anything wrong with featuring children of religious parents in this advert. In fact, the whole point of the advert is to show that all children are equal, free, and shouldn’t be called by the religion of their parents. A religious couple’s children would be perfect for such an advert.

Their father, Brad Mason, is something of a celebrity within evangelical circles as the drummer for the popular Christian musician Noel Richards. Now a web designer and photographer, Mr Mason has been supplementing his income for years by providing photographs to agencies who sell them on to newspapers and advertising campaigns.

I say ‘perfect’ a bit more timidly now. Evangelicals are a different kind of religious believer, more intent on proselyting that having an active discussion about anything concerning their beliefs. Still, the fact that the children in the photo are the children of an evangelical Christian has nothing to do with the advert itself, which is, afterall, asking parents not to label their children.

He said: “It is quite funny, because obviously they were searching for images of children that looked happy and free. They happened to choose children who are Christian. It is ironic. The humanists obviously did not know the background of these children.”

Yes, I suppose it’s kind of ironic that the children chosen for an advert about not labeling children were in fact, children who have been labeled by their father. The again, it adds a little humour to the advert from a humanist perspective; these children are now ‘asking’ their father not to label them, and to let them decide for themselves. I wonder if he’ll listen?

He said that the children’s Christianity had shone through. “Obviously there is something in their faces which is different. So they judged that they were happy and free without knowing that they are Christians. That is quite a compliment. I reckon it shows we have brought up our children in a good way and that they are happy.

I reckon it does show that the children have been brought up in a good way, and they do look very happy. Nobody has said that being brought up by Christian parents (or any religious parents for that matter) means that you will be unhappy. I was perfectly happy as a child of religious parents, and I’m sure many are. The only thing shining through here is the happiness of the child, which has more to do with their upbringing than the religion they most likely do not understand.

Gerald Coates, the leader of the Pioneer network of churches, which Mr Mason and his family used to attend before they moved to Dorset, said: “I think it is hilarious that the happy and liberated children on the atheist poster are in fact Christian.”

The only thing ‘hilarious’ about this is that it has revealed how needed the advert is. Both the journalist who wrote this piece, the father, and the church leader quoted above have referred to these children as ‘Christian’ when they are not. They are children of Christian parents, they come from a Christian family, but you cannot expect an 8 year old and a 7 year old to understand the complexity of the Christian belief system. These are children who in all likelihood still believe in Santa Claus (if their evangelical parents do that sort of thing that is), and the Easter bunny. You can tell a child of this age anything and they will believe it; they have not yet developed the reasoning skills or the understanding that adults can be wrong.

The British Humanist Association said that it did not matter whether the children were Christians. “That’s one of the points of our campaign,” said Andrew Copson, the association’s education director. “People who criticise us for saying that children raised in religious families won’t be happy, or that no child should have any contact with religion, should take the time to read the adverts.

“The message is that the labelling of children by their parents’ religion fails to respect the rights of the child and their autonomy. We are saying that religions and philosophies — and ‘humanist’ is one of the labels we use on our poster — should not be foisted on or assumed of young children.”

Finally, the voice of reason appears in the form of Andrew Copson. It’s a shame that it took the entire length of the article before reaching some actually truthful comment, but I guess you don’t sell newspapers any other way. Luckily, in only two paragraphs, Andrew dispels all previous misinterpretation, ignorance, and blatant lying that the previous six contained.

So, are the children in the advert ‘Christian’? No.

Are they children of Christian parents? Yes.

Does it matter that such children are appearing in an advert? Not really, no.

Problem solved, crisis over. Let’s see who can misinterpret the billboard next! I can’t wait, but to fill the void, here’s a lovely quote from writer Philip Pullman, who supports the billboards and actually bothered to read them.

It is absolutely right that we shouldn’t label children until they are old enough to decide for themselves.

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Ok, but seriously, the next stop on the Atheist Bus Campaign (which should really just be called the “Atheist Advertising Campaign” now) is a bunch of billboards set up in strategic locations across the UK; in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast respectively. The billboards display an important message concerning the religious labeling of children:

The "Please Don't Label Me" Billboard

The new advert (and similar variations of it) makes the rightful comparison between calling a child of Marxist parents a “Marxist child” and calling a child of Christian parents a “Christian child”. We shouldn’t be labeling children with the faiths or political views of their parents; we shouldn’t label kids at all. The billboard background is made up of a combination of political and religion labels for children, all the way from “Libertarian Child” in the top left, to “Liberal Child” in the bottom right.

Of course, like the buses, these adverts don’t have an agenda (although the religious will surely interpret one anyway). We aren’t telling people they can’t bring children up in their faith; we aren’t even telling them to stop labeling their children! What we’re asking is that parents let the child decide what they want to be called, and whether that happens early or later on in life is ultimately irrelevant, just as long as the child gets the final decision.

It’s a powerful message, and one worthy of more discussion. If you want to learn more about the campaign, or support it through donations, please visit the British Humanist Association campaign page.

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Image via Wikipedia

My friend Bef Milne is a long time protester of Scientology (as well as other cults and religions), and has written a great article where he attempts to answer a question that is often presented to him at anti-Scientology events (presumably by ignorant members of the public): “What’s wrong with Scientology?”

To answer this seemingly simple question, you have to explore the history of the cult, including the writings of the cult founder, L. Ron Hubbard. Bef’s article is both highly informative, whilst at the same time revealing the sickening truth behind Scientology’s past.

If you have a reddit account and want to help spread this article around, please vote it up the atheism sub-reddit by clicking here. Please help spread it around through other means too though!

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Image via Wikipedia

Reader Ryan Latham has created an informative presentation on the origins and history of the Pledge of Allegiance, and a brief introduction to the constitutional issues it faces. I’m not an American citizen, but it is hard to be a secularist online and not know about the 1954 inclusion of the words “under God” into the Pledge to counter “godless communism” at the time.

Ryan’s presentation fills you in on the court cases involving the Pledge, and how the addition of “under God” would fare if tested by the courts today.

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Now for what is meant to be somewhat of a secular broadcasting company, the BBC still managed to astound me with this headline: “Flying rabbis fight swine flu“. The story as reported by the BBC is that a group of rabbis and “Jewish mystics” have been flying around over Israel in an attempt to ward off swine flu. Don’t stop me there, because it gets better.

Apparently “about 50 religious leaders circled over the country on Monday, chanting prayers and blowing horns” because they got it into their heads that this would “stop the pandemic so people will stop dying from it”, at least this is according to Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri, who is evidently a complete idiot.

The video included with the article will brings tears of laughter (as well as utter disbelief) to your eyes, so please go and watch it. What is perhaps even crazier is the announcement by our friend Rabbi Batzri, that “thanks to the prayer, the danger is already behind us”. No Rabbi, I’m afraid that we discovered centuries ago that these things have natural causes, and do not go away with prayer; they go away with medical treatment!

Now back to the BBC, which has a history or putting ‘quotation marks’ where they don’t belong, yet failed to put the obvious ones in this headline: Flying rabbis ‘fight’ swine flu. Honestly, how could they justify giving these people credit? They are not fighting swine flu in any sense of the word; what they are doing is flying around in a plane acting like a bunch of children.

If I was cruel I’d make some kind of remark like “I hope they get swine flu”, but I don’t want anyone to suffer through something like that, even if they are displaying such idiotic behavior. Instead, I can only hope that once they see that the threat isn’t gone; instead of pulling a stunt like this again, they will encourage their followers to get proper treatment.

Well…one can dream.

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(Let me make the disclaimer, of course, that I’m not going to rag on the good intentions of so many people that will take the time to try to help a complete stranger with their problems. The motivation for setting up a site to help people in need obviously comes from a good place. The problem, of course, is that petitionary prayer doesn’t actually do anything, beyond a placebo effect at best; and that if you want to help someone in need, they will quite obviously be better off if you actually take action of some kind.)

You’d think that if God was going to respond to a prayer, he’d just do it, without factoring in if there was a massive effort on the part of many people. If the person praying has great needs, the last thing he or she needs is to have to find others that will echo the prayer around. Is there some kind of threshold criteria God uses to determine how he answers, or if he answers? For example, suppose I want divine help in looking for a new job. Is twenty other co-supplicants twice as good as ten? Why would it matter?

These are the kinds of questions I asked myself as I perused a bunch of prayer sites. I found many to be dull, but a few were interesting or funny for one reason or another. What follows is my top ten list.

10. Requestprayers.com

Pretty vanilla site, this is run by the Baha’i organization. Seems odd that they’d give it a commercial rather than organizational extension, but that was true for most of these places. They have one page that purports to have the most powerful prayer ever devised. Testimonitals include:

The Baha’is have some of the most beautiful and powerful prayers in the world. Add that power to a million souls across the globe praying on your behalf from all the religions, and the Light is dumbfounding. Need immediate help? You were guided to this site, and nothing happens by accident!

9. Liveprayer.com

The extremely conservative minister behind this site claims to have started the entire business of online prayer requests, apparently. He also claims to have personally received and re-prayed 60 million prayer requests. Wow! If that was not impressive enough, the main page devotes much attention to President Obama, naming him “God’s Enemy”; plus, they feature a tasteful, if amateurishly photoshopped, portrait of him next to Hiter. There is also extensive advertising for something called The Jonah Project, an effort to better Christianize the U.S. (and the world).

8. CarmelTemple.org

Not just your typical prayer submission site where your request is simply posted to a page for others to dutifully recite. No, this is the Home of the Crystal Prayer Bowl! (Yes, they have pictures of it, too.) Here is what they do with it:

The Crystal Prayer Bowl is used to collect prayer requests sent to Carmel Temple. It is placed under the Blue-White Healing Light at the beginning of healing sessions in the Sanctuary. The prayer requests then receive the energy and prayers of those present. We encourage you to place into the bowl the name (even the initials will do) of the person, persons, or situations that need prayer or healing energy. This procedure has been very effective and that bowl has an excellent reputation!

7. Donjuddministries.org

You can send them your prayer requests, which they will compile with all the others that they receive. Then they will print the entire list out. Why? So that they can “lay hands on the list” as they pray over it. Why not just lay hands on the hard drive and save time, paper, and ink?

6. Prayerblaster.com

I had high expectations for this page, and I was disappointed. I was hoping it would be a bit like Pingmyblog.com. Instead it is just a pedestrian list of links. Not much of a blaster at all, as you’d have to manually go through the list and submit your prayer to each site individually. This page might have been made in 1992.

5. Prayer.la

The folks running this site seem proud to offer an exhausting 218 pages of prayer requests that are all less than one month old. Apparently they expire after that. No stale prayers! Would take hours to go through them all and pray for each one, I’d imagine.

4. Prayerrequestweb.com

Much like prayer.la, in terms of sheer volume, but at least you won’t have to click through 218 pages of prayers. They are all on one very long page that you can just scroll down.

Here is an excerpt that I found particularly pathetic and sad, yet somehow representative of what you’ll find posted. There is a compulsory tone to it at the end… as if the author meant to finish with “Or else!”

Please pray GOD gives me all the desires of my heart that are righteous in GODs eyes.Pray GOD sends me on the mission He has for me now,Pray GOD raises me a mile above those used by Satan to glorify GOD,Pray GOD Blesses me financially now and always.Pray GOD heals my body completely now.Pray GOD brings me my soulmate now,the loneliness is tormenting me. In JESUS Name Pray.

3. Holylandprayer.com

Now this is a “dot com” that truly deserve that extension. Also fitting is the image of the glowing gold Jesus hanging on a cross that adorns their home page.

Here is what they offer, for some nominal fees: If you send them a prayer, they’ll have it prayed in Jerusalem, “steps from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the spot where Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.”

Or, they’ll light a candle for you there. Or do both together and get a discount!

Why would God care where the prayer originated from? Does it get more power coming from Jerusalem? Does that make it more bona fide, somehow? Or is God impressed that you are in dire enough straights that you’d send these people money? (Back in Dante’s time, accepting money for ecclessiastical favors was called Simony and earned one a very hot reward in the Eight Circle of Hell.)

Costs: $10 for a candle, $15 for a prayer. $20 for both.

2. Healinglifecoach.com Looking for something a little different from the same old prayer site? Then this is the place for you.

These folks offer special stones imbued with power because they are not merely prayed over, but “programmed.” Specifically, they tell us:

Programmed Stones can be effective and powerful tools for anything from Prayer, Freedom from Worry and Creative Visualization to Healing, Forgiveness, Gratitude and much more!

How are the stones programmed? They are cleaned and set in the Healing Sanctuary with your individualized and special requests with daily prayers being said over them for a minimum of 30 days. Then they are sent to you!

1. Ipraytoday.com

This was my favorite site because, beneath the name and prayer entry fields, it has a “capcha” device, so that you can prove you are a human being! To be fair, I suppose this is more to save the devout from being asked to repeat bogus prayers, but it struck me as hilarious to think of it as a spam filter for The Lord God Himself. I can only imagine Jehovah’s fury at realizing he was tricked into granting the request of a bot.

-S.A. Alenthony

www.blackburnianpress.com

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There have been several moderately publicized court cases this summer that involve religious parents being tried for the deaths of their own children. Below I’ll explain why I feel a strong resonance with these stories, and what they motivate me to do in turn; but first, I’ll summarize the details for anyone that isn’t familiar with the cases.

In the first case, the AP reported on July 31 that an Oregon man convicted of criminal mistreatment in the “faith-healing” death of his young daughter was sentenced to a whopping 60 days in jail. (Two months?! That’s it?)

A jury convicted Carl Worthington of a misdemeanor charge of criminal mistreatment after acquitting him and his wife of felony manslaughter in the March 2008 death of their 15-month-old daughter, Ava, from illnesses that could have been treated with antibiotics.

The pair belong to the Followers of Christ Church, which avoids doctors in favor of “spiritual healing.”

As for the second case, the AP reported on the following day that a Wisconsin man, Dale Neumann, that was accused of killing his 11-year-old daughter by praying instead of seeking medical care, had been found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide.

Neumann was convicted in the death of his daughter, Madeline, from undiagnosed diabetes. Prosecutors contended he should have taken her to a hospital when she couldn’t walk, talk, eat or drink. Instead, she died on the floor of the family’s home as people prayed.

Sentencing will be in October for both parents, who face up to 25 years in prison. (Which sounds far more fitting than 60 days.)

Neumann, who had studied to be a minister, testified Thursday that he believed God would heal the child, and that he never expected her to die. “If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God,” Neumann testified. “I am not believing what He said He would do.“  (Some might wonder, as I did, what this fellow must be thinking about his God now, given that he followed directions but the girl still died… Certainly I’m sure he’s rationalized something.)

The capability that religion has for inducing this sort of mindless, death-affirming behavior is, of course, just one of its many problems. I hardly need to point out, as a guest writer on an atheist blog, what an indictment of faith-based thinking these examples are. (Mainstream and liberal Christians will protest that such behavior is a fringe occurrence and not representative of them – and they are right. But that isn’t because of anything religion per se has done, but because of the steady progress of secular enlightenment over the centuries.)

These stories are troubling, exasperating and revolting, of course, but occasionally they don’t have bleak endings; it turns out my life provides one rare example. For I had the very bad luck of not only being born to a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but to also have developed a condition at birth requiring medical intervention.

If you are familiar with the cult that is the Witnesses, you’ll know that they have odd interpretations of certain biblical passages. There are several that they read as injunctions against blood-transfusions, regardless of the medical emergency at hand. So when I was diagnosed with Hemolytic Disease of the Newborn, a condition where the red blood cells are slowly destroyed by the immune system (another example of that intelligent human body design, eh?) my father told the hospital staff that the fact that I could die was not sufficient reason to perform the abominable transfusion. Luckily for me, the state of New York issued a court order for the procedure. (I learned about this well into my adult life from my mother, who was horrified at the time that my father had actually proposed trying to remove me from the hospital.)

Afforded a chance at a life that religion would have taken, I’ve tended to direct my energies in the direction most opposite to those of the Witnesses and other godly fanatics: I pursued a science career and married an atheist biologist. We’re raising two freethinking kids, and more recently, we’ve become active in volunteering with our state Academy of Science in order to try to motivate more young people to study in our fields. And I have bigger plans as well.

I bring all this up because, as important as it is for we secularists to speak out against ongoing outrages such as those demonstrated by “faith-healing” parents, it is equally important to try to be inspirational and motivational about what we are for. Too often, atheism appears as a viewpoint that only opposes something. A religious friend of mine says that many Americans view atheists negatively because they see us as being something like The Grinch That Stole Christmas. While we know this isn’t the case, the perception is out there, and it works against us.

If my experience has any motivational power to it at all, I hope I can use it to plant a seed in the minds of other freethinkers to get more involved, if they are not already: to sign up to judge a science fair competition at a nearby school; to support a local museum; or to spoil their own kids with telescopes and chemistry sets.

And may they help find the world its next Carl Sagan. And help put the Doctor before god.

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Santa? Rarely seen? Surely not!

Now Santa is hardly a symbol of a popular religion, a symbol of a certain holiday usually associated with a popular religion maybe, but not of actual Christianity itself. However, is Bin Laden a symbol of Islam? The first thing that comes to mind when I hear the name Bin Laden is “terrorist”, or “9/11″, but it was Islamic terrorists who committed that atrocity (as well as many others). It seems almost too easy to associate terrorists with Islam, and vice-versa; the religion certainly encourages followers to kill unbelievers, even if the “moderates” deny it.

Proponents of Islam will often refer to it as the “religion of peace”, and yet you have to take a step back and look at what this so called peace has brought. I have to admit, every time I hear Islam described in such a way, I just stare in disbelief. It all boils down to a couple of things; namely, whether it is right to judge a religion by its extremists, and whether the religious beliefs of the terrorists were the influencing factor in their decision to carry out their plans.

Religion being an influencing factor is, in my opinion, undeniable. The hijackers died as martyrs for Islam, and we all know what their last words were, so the factor that remains is whether religious extremism is a good indicator of the actual religion. There are extremists in all religions; many simply twist the words of prophets to force their own agenda, but others are quite the opposite. Islam rewards those who kill infidels in battle, whilst Christianity makes no such promise. When considering the religion of Islam purely from scripture, I’d say it is more of a religion of hate than of peace.

As a religion of hate, Bin Laden is a good a symbol as any, although he is one of many, including the hijab (symbol of the Islamic oppression of women), and the scores of young Islamic girls who know all too well the religion’s position on child molestation.

I noticed we haven’t had a poll recently, so this is a good point to have one. Simple yes or no question: Do you think of Osama Bin Laden as a symbol of Islam? Leave a comment on why you voted, or if you think I’m talking complete nonsense.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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The Alpha course is a 10 week introduction to Christianity, run here in the UK by various churches and Christian groups. It is organized by Nicky Gumbel, an evangelical Christian (surprised?) as an attempt to convert as many non-believers as possible to Christianity. The previous version of the Alpha course was aimed solely at Christians, teaching them more about their faith, but through Nicky Gumbel’s leadership, the course claims to have converted “many” people to the Christian religion.

One of the members of the London Atheist Meetup group (John Rico) recently endured the Alpha course, even going so far as to attend the weekend away they provide. The following is taken from an email John sent to a group of us, so it is written informally, but here is what happened on that weekend…

And as I had a thing in London late Friday, I arrived very late on the coast and then slept in and missed the first of four Saturday lectures – not off to a great start.

I entered the hotel conference room as the second lecturer had just started and I wasn’t quite sure where to sit or what the seating arrangement was, so I leaned to one of the fellows who often gives lectures at the Alpha Course – the reformed atheist with the curly hair who’s always making jokes about how he was reluctant to join Alpha – and asked him if there was a seating arrangement. In keeping within his typically sardonic tone, as if I just “didn’t get it yet” – he said, “This is Christianity, man – there’s no rules.”

The preposterousness of that statement immediately floored me and I must have grimaced because he offered me a slightly odd stare as a rebuttal. Of course, this “no rules, no Hell, no doctrine”, is all keeping within the Christian-lite theology offered by the Alpha Course; God loves unconditionally and no mention of damnation.

I stood briefly at the back of the hall looking for my group when a girl whom rarely spoke during the regular alpha course flagged me down, waving her hand. I moved over to her and took a seat as she leaned in and explained that she and I were the only ones from the regular group in attendance…in any case, we had been “absorbed” by a larger group for the weekend. My initial thought was that this was merely an incidental absorption, something I would later find out to be an erroneous assumption. I made brief eye contact and let a few passing nods with my new group pass as a proper introduction as I settled into receive my spiritual guidance.

The talk was of the Holy Spirit. I had never bothered to so much as look throughout the guide book to see the subject of the speech, but it was immediately apparent that the course had been strategically designed to culminate in our acceptance of the Holy Spirit.

The lecture was more of the same – canned jokes teaching a moral lesson that were passed off as being someone the lecturer actually knew, that false story of the lecturer’s first weekend away with Alpha and how he had resisted because he “didn’t like Christians” and all the rest. One of the lying jokes, passed off as true, was that a woman who was an Alpha member was married to a devout atheist. She attempted to get her husband to go, and he repeatedly resisted saying, “Honey, I don’t believe in that crap, and you know my temperament, I can’t turn down a fight, and if I go, I’ll end up getting in arguments with everyone and then you’ll be embarrassed and mad at me.” The punch line of wisdom (each joke has to have one) is that the wife simply responded, “Okay.” (As in, it was okay that her husband would go as an atheist and openly argue with everyone.) The irony of this joke is that this is effectively what would later happen to me and it didn’t seem okay. The parcel of wisdom was followed up with a joke at the expense of atheists everywhere, as the lecturer, in his cocky smug tone said, “You can guess what happened to that atheist who was convinced he’d be able to come here and disprove God.” OUTRAGEOUS thigh-slapping laughter from the audience – this is the funniest thing they’ve ever heard!! (The atheist was converted!)

Afterwards, I meet my new group which consists of a rich former businessman who is now an ordained minister and missionary, his wife, another mousy woman who was prone to vacuous statements devoid of any intelligence, and an overweight teacher who would later admit to believing that Harry Potter had demonic influence. I then horrify them by refusing their offer of a joint prayer between lectures, by preferring instead to take a nap before the next session.

The second lecture: I sit on the end away from the creepy missionary. And then, right before the lecturer starts, he switches chairs with the Harry Potter hater on my left so that he’s sitting next to me. This lecture is again on the Holy Spirit and how tongues and speaking in tongues is just one manifestation that the Holy spirit has consumed the body and made communion with the soul. As usual, I don’t stand for the song, but this time, I get a gentle lift in my arm from the minister who is not so subtly suggesting that I rise. And although I regret it, I do rise.

Our God is an awesome God, he reigns from Heaven above!..
(More singing)

Finished, we then we sit and as they start talking, I’m half-listening while playing on my iPhone. They play a video of people who were afraid to speak in tongues and how they overcame their fears. Throughout the minister doesn’t think I’m paying enough attention and periodically leans over, and always gripping my arm as he whispers something in my ear that is meant to make me pay more attention. At first it’s useless information – that he knows the guy in the video. That’s nice, now let me get back to my iPhone.

But then, his interruptions are more frequent and more direct, he taps me on the shoulder and I look over and he motions at my phone that I should put it away. Feigning confusion and a poor ability to read body language, I shrug my shoulders in a bewildered sort of way and continue on…

It’s Saturday lunch and the old missionary man is taking an unusual interest in me and my life – I mean, the Christians are always polite and friendly, but he’s being almost creepy about it, and he’s “touchy” too…and I don’t liked being touched. A friendly arm around the shoulder which would only be removed after I visibly brushed it off, a gentle touch on my forearm – friendly, but gripping slightly – that sort of thing. In fact, the entire group is giving me just “too much” attention – I suppose I called attention to myself by showing up late and then ducking out for a quick nap. There’s a few polite jokes at my expense about arriving late and taking a nap when I should be studying and learning about Christ.

The final lecture…all this time, I’m assuming it’s all a build-up for Sunday morning, that on our last day, it will congregate in some weird communion. But instead, the speaker asks everybody to stand, and I realize, to my ABSOLUTE HORROR, that we’re about ready to start speaking in tongues. The minister grabs me by the arm and gently starts to pull me away from the group, saying, “Come on, let me talk to you outside.” I lightly pull my arm from his shallow limp grip and politely say, “No thanks, I’m fine!” (I need to see this!)

And…I’d like to add…I participate as much as possible in this moment…I too stand…and we all stand quietly for a long time, a very long time, and then we’re asked to sway, and we do this while standing for a long time, and then stand and sway and hold our arms out and just, let them hang out there, and we do this…and to be honest, the effect is pleasant. You do start to get a bit of a buzz, a peaceful calm that fills you. And I begin to feel it…the Holy Spirit entering my body!!!!!

Of course, this isn’t the Holy Spirit, but only what Buddhist monks have realized for millennia, that the body is very susceptible to trance-like meditative states, a state reinforced by the group behavior. (I should add that during all this time, the creepy old minister is standing RIGHT behind me, slightly just outside my peripheral line of vision, as if just watching me or there to intervene should I act out of order.)

And then…it starts. The lecturer with the microphone starts to sing in tongues. But it’s not the sloppy gurgling sounding tongues, it’s melodic and high-pitched nonsensical singing. And slowly, it builds, all throughout the room, until it’s a roaring chant with all these different pitches and rhythms and variations of melody…and I’m FREAKING THE FUCK OUT! My eyes darting all around me, their lost in the rapturous gaze of Jesus fire!!! I turn around and the cranky old minister is just watching me. He offers me an awkward uncomfortable smile…deep down he too knows this is stupid.

This goes on for maybe five minutes and I think it’s going to end, but then suddenly everyone starts to come to the podium to reveal their revelation…their visions…their prophecy…

“I feel, someone in the audience is hurting…someone’s been betrayed, and they can’t reconcile this betrayal yet…God says healing is coming…”

“I don’t know if this belongs to anyone, but I saw a vision of a field? A field with a big house, maybe it’s a memory, maybe it’s someone’s home, but there’s a house, and it’s an empty house, a house longing to be filled.”

And strangely, some of them are VERY specific…

“I’m seeing a young girl in a meat market in Belgium and the girl suffers from a crippling of the legs, don’t know who that is, but God’s thinking of you.”

And this goes on for another five minutes, this wave of people who take the microphone and say absurd statements. If I was going to have my moment where I publicly revealed myself as an atheist, this would be it…I strongly wish I had the courage and the foresight to approach the stage and say something really bizarre and just over the top, to see if the absurdity of my statement would break their rapture or be lost in their rapture. But as it occurred to me to do so right as they were ending that bit, and as I tried to simultaneously summon the courage (should I do it?! Should I?!) and also think of what to say (the most important and difficult part), we moved onto praying for others.

The lecturer said, “And we will now move about the room, asking others if we can pray for them.” And before he had finished the
sentence, my entire newly adopted group had converged on me as if a trap had just been sprung, surrounding me on all sides asking if it was okay to pray for me. Such desperate neediness in their voices. It was very obvious this had been discussed before hand by them and that they had been anxiously awaiting this moment they knew would arrive. Apparently, I’ve been the subject of some concern by my group for awhile – a concern I was never notified about.

No…no, it’s not okay for you to pray for me. I don’t want any of you praying for me.

And that’s when the minister motions me outside with a wave of his head. I nod. Sure, now I’m ready. Now that I’ve witnessed what I witnessed, now I’m ready to talk.

We move outside just the two of us while everyone inside runs around the room praying for one another. We sit on a bench in the sun and he is full of bravado, of a smug intellect, of an unparalleled capacity for debate earned through thirty years as a Christian that he’s just waiting to unleash upon me.

He starts off by wanting to know why I’ve come. And, taking the alpha course at face value, I explained it was supposed to be for non-believers and that was me and that’s why I was here. And then, in a bit that’s still a lot creepy, he knows my full name which I had never offered, and says, “Johnny Rico, attends the first two weeks, skips weeks three, attends week four, and then doesn’t show up until the Alpha weekend. (I should add that I still don’t quite remember my own attendance record, so I’m not sure which weeks I did and did not show at, but he knew. Oh he did know!) And then he says, he just figures it might be more productive with me to have a conversation rather than to just pray for me, and that he and my regular Alpha course group leader had “discussed my case” together.

And it’s at this moment, that I realize that my pairing with him was not accidental, but that I’ve, more or less, been assigned a handler. Mind you while these actions may appear hostile as I write them, all of this is offered with traditional Christian graciousness and faux friendliness. And so, I put it all on the line, I’m an atheist, and these are my problems with Christianity…
Unfortunately, for him, he didn’t quite know who he was dealing with…to be honest, he was doomed the moment he stepped into the ring with me.

Lions and lambs, my friends. Lions and lambs.

I’ll save you all the specifics of my rant as it would just be preaching to the converted, but what’s important is that I awed this man of Jesus with my tirade. I think he quickly realized I knew my shit because rather quickly he gave up attempting to argue half his positions and agreed with me that prayer doesn’t work, that the Bible can’t be taken literally, that the Bible is a work of man, and that there’s no scientific or historical evidentiary support for Jesus whatsoever.

And so, left with nothing, he sighed heavily, and with a deeply troubled heart, as a last ditch effort, he began telling me his story of conversion. And, after sixteen or so minutes when he still hadn’t gotten to the point, I interrupted him and said, “Please forgive the interruption, but I’m far past being convinced by the subjective anecdotal evidence of personal spiritual relief being offered by individuals of whom I know nothing about.” (Or something like that.)

Our conversation in total lasted an hour and a half and, to be honest, I really did dominate the conversation. Not in a mean or aggressive way (he did most of the talking, while I mostly listened), but in that I had effective counter-arguments for each and every tactic he tried, counter-arguments for which he had no response and had to admit as such. It was a play by play of every dumb Christian argument, and each of them rolled out in the same familiar repetition, and as such, it was so easy to perform each parry and counter thrust that I didn’t have to exert any energy thinking about my responses and could instead just be amused by the whole thing.

It ended with him saying that he wasn’t the person I should be speaking to, that he was an old man and wasn’t very good at debate, and that it was his son (whom has recently graduated from Oxford with a PhD in divinity) that I should be arguing with. I graciously offered that I didn’t know if I wanted to debate an Oxford PhD and we both laughed. And then, he suggested the absurd idea that all of my questions (which he couldn’t begin to answer) would have perhaps been responded to and maybe I would be a believer if I had attended the WHOLE Alpha Course and not just shown up on random weeks.

I didn’t know what else to say and walked off. I was planning on hanging out with the Christians for the evening festivities, but I needed a break and went into town to see a movie.

The next morning…

So today, I get up, and head to breakfast. There’s polite conversation at the table. The minister’s wife has obviously been informed of our encounter because she immediately explains that neither of them are good people to explain the intellectual side of Christianity and that I should argue with her son, but she’s pretty sure she knows where I’m coming from because she has the same doubts all the time. (I doubt it.)

And I’m COMPLETELY fine with not talking at all about religion and just making small talk. But almost immediately, the minister starts asking me to tell the people at the table about the sort of concerns I have because it’d be good for them to hear it and get another perspective. I demure, because I’m not ready to regurgitate a thoughtful and long-winded diatribe with bacon and eggs in my mouth. And I try and change the subject to just peaceful queries regarding his mission work which sure does sound interesting. And immediately he brings it back to Christianity and says that, “What I don’t get about Christianity is that God is a loving God, that he loves me unconditionally, even if I don’t love him, God loves me.”

And to this I respond, “Really? That’s funny, because I thought I was going to burn in Hell for all eternity for not accepting Jesus Christ as my savior and that doesn’t sound like the actions of a loving deity.”

He says it IS loving, actually. That God has shown himself to me and I refused to accept God.

I respond by reminding him that just yesterday he agreed that:
1. People have a responsibility to be rational beings.
2. That the Bible cannot be trusted as the literal word of God.
3. That there’s no evidence of any kind for the Bible.

So why, under such conditions – conditions that God created – was it fair to punish me for not believing?

“Yes,” he responds. “But you CHOSE not to believe.”

I sigh. It’s like he can’t follow a single line of thinking.

Again, I reiterate that I see nothing loving about a God which will punish us with eternal damnation for the very finite sin of temporal disbelief.

His response is that God created us, so God has the right to destroy us.

“That may be,” I reply. “But it’s certainly not loving.”

“No,” he counters. “That IS love!”

Somehow Hitler and Stalin entered the conversation and it was suggested from here on out that, theoretically, I won’t just be burning in Hell, but burning in Hell with Hitler and Stalin.

(War is peace. Slavery is freedom. Ignorance is strength.)

And then I repeat his assertion back to him, “So I’m going to burn in Hell for all eternity because I don’t believe in God, and that makes God loving? Boy that’s a REALLY loving God, soooo loving!!!”

And then the minister had a slight meltdown moment, he was troubled, you could see it in his brow, but he wasn’t just troubled because I was being impertinent, he was troubled because he couldn’t rectify the conflict of ideas I had presented to him, and that’s when, in response to a statement I had offered with a bit of sarcastic and emotive emphasis meant to sound as such, he said that I should, “Enjoy burning in Hell with Hitler…”

…and he said it just as I got up to leave.

He wasn’t mad at me, it was more that he felt he couldn’t help me, that if I was going to continue with my un-Godly ways, well then I’d just have to resign myself to burning in Hell with Hitler. And I could immediately tell he didn’t mean to say it, he was just frustrated with my flippant disregard for that which he feared most in the world and offered an accidental and careless statement which he seemed to immediately regret. (So, no, I feel no need to go to the Alpha authorities with this.)

I felt that he had adequately concluded my own argument for me and left to my room for another brief nap. (I’m all about the naps. Naps are good.)

And then, it was group time. By the time I arrived, I found that the group had arrived early and was informed that they had discussed it, and prayed on the matter, and decided that they would continue to take me into their group for the day – although it was insinuated that it was a close vote.

Jolly good!

So I sat down, and then I explained that I didn’t want to monopolize the conversation with my atheism, and that they could all discuss god and I just wanted to listen, and I wouldn’t participate as I didn’t want to be rude. They all quickly turned the conversation to me, anyway.

This, by the way, was I believe, an attempt at an intervention. The old man, having failed by himself, was now going to take me on with the group on his side.

And bam! Bam! Bam!…the questions from all sides. And at first, I must admit, I did lose my footing a bit…for example, there was a question about whether or not I saw the glory of creation in everyday life…I said that I thought it was glorious but done by processes of evolution…and everyone immediately laughed at how poor and naïve I was to think such things. This was quickly followed up by a conversation of who created the Universe then…to which my response elicited more laughter. Polite laughter. Not meant to be mean, but condescending nonetheless.

The problem was that these were all long conversations which needed to be carefully conducted and explained and I was being given ten seconds of response before the next question was fielded and they felt empowered by their numbers.

I knew I needed to go on the offensive and quickly did so when it was suggested that there were no atheists in foxholes and that eventually I would kneel before God. The minister laughed as he said it proudly and forcefully, “All knees WILL bow before God, whether they like it or not.” He smiled at his wife and looked at me with pity. I think he also threw in some Biblical verse.

And then I said, well, actually, I WAS an atheist in a foxhole. I was on an infantry team in Afghanistan and almost died numerous times and not once did I feel the need to pray to God. And actually, I do know what it’s like to be a Christian because I grew up as a devout Evangelical who prayed each and every night and felt I had a deep personal relationship with God. I talked about Mithra and earlier historical claims of Jesus and then brought up religious relativism, forcing them to be in the defensive posture…how do YOU know you’re praying to the right God when there are a billion Muslims who say that you’re wrong. This brought about the most stupid stream of explanations, “But Jesus is the only true God!”

But, my tactic worked and soon THEY were on the defensive attempting to justify their feelings and moments of conversion, each of which I immediately minimized, made light of, and explained away through various psychological processes, something that infuriated them and made them even MORE on the defensive…

…but within their passions, they got sloppy and now they were offering up really stupid comments it was obvious they hadn’t thought out and which I could easily use against them. Shit like, “If you feel it, it has to be true…”

Okay – and I have to take a break for a moment here – I’m not the type of guy who likes to brag, in fact, 90% of the time I’m very self-deprecating and playing my few admirable qualities down – but it’s almost impossible to do such when explaining the rest of this conversation. I don’t know if they’re just not articulate speakers and perhaps have a rich and thoughtful interior life that they simply can’t explain, or if they’re just well…fucking dumb – I mean, seriously – the level of discourse barely approached intermediate competency.

We talked for thirty or so more minutes, and it was beautiful, I had a reply for everything! And I was getting pretty fierce…for example, there was a statement about how it’s not just mindless thinking, that God has to be understood intellectually, and I ripped into her saying she didn’t get to appropriate reason to explain God, that you can’t sit here in front of me, unable to articulate a single piece of evidence, and then say God has anything to do with reason, you don’t get to do that. (She looked down at the ground sadly.) Another one said that the Muslims were all wrong, a position which derived from my forcing her into a defensive posture to justify her belief, and I called her out on it and said that was the most arrogant thing I had ever heard, and I quite meanly said, “Who the hell do you think you are to discount the intense religious convictions of a billion people on the planet, that shows the most remarkable lack of humility!” (Truth be told, I’m guilty of discounting the religious convictions of even greater numbers of people, but I was attempting to win a numerically lopsided argument, not be fair.)

I was quite forceful about it all. Never really mean, but certainly assertive and blunt.

And when it ended, the minister’s wife just reiterated over and over that I needed to speak to her son, the minister looked troubled and had kind of just shut-up for a long while, one girl was still trying to work through the implications of the idea that people in other religions believe their religion with just as much intensity as she did, and the lady who thought Harry Potter was demonic looked at me with this quiet gaze of absolute hatred and contempt.

And the girl whom I was normally in a group with thought real hard and then said, “So you believe in God, you just don’t like organized religion, right?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t believe in God. At all.”

And her mouth kind of hung open as she considered this which she had never considered before – that someone could sincerely not believe in God. Amazing that even after I had just spent forty minutes bashing every religious and theological impulse they had, that she would even ask such a stupid question.

And then, it was time for communion. The minister suggested that I maybe wait outside, you know…only if I wanted to.

But I had enough, shook hands, and left.

They could keep their damn communion.

And now I’m home.

The End

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