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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The video is a discussion between two American kids and their friend “Saraa” who is Indian. In it, they discuss Indian culture and the Hindu religion, before attempting to “convert” poor Saraa to Christianity. If you don’t have time to watch the video, here are a selection of face-palm quotes you might want to peruse:

This is just an epic fail in geography.

Molly: [Saraa's] Indian. It’s like…an African country in Asia.

This is plain ignorance, not to mention quite racist.

Molly: Do you consider yourself Asian or African?

Saraa: Asian.

Molly: Because you look African…but you’re Asian.

Rachel: Why are you so dark then?

Saraa: Because I’m from Asia!

Molly: Why aren’t your eyes pointy…or slanted?

*pause*

Molly: It’s ok, I know you can be what you want, but it’s not what you look like.

Rachel: Yeah, I think she’s lying to us.

Yet more ignorance regarding race.

Rachel: It’s like, if an African and an Asian had a baby.

Then they move onto religion.

(After Saraa explains she is Hindu and doesn’t believe in Jesus)

Molly: But why don’t you change if you’re wrong? You know that believing in multiple gods is a sin?

No amateur discussion of religion is right without one mention of Pascal’s wager.

Molly: Ok, how about this. There’s a chance…well, a very good chance that Christianity is the right religion, and that’s the religion that has a hell, so if I’m wrong in your religion I don’t go to hell, but if you’re wrong in my religion then you go to hell.

So why do I think the video might be fake? It’s just an inkling I get when watching it, perhaps because I’ve seen so many Poe’s in videos, but it doesn’t come across as how actual conversation goes. Especially at the end when Molly tells Saraa that she can’t be her friend because she’s not Christian, and Saraa sort of just accepts it and says “I need to go home to eat rice”.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

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However, fundamentalist Christians stormed the proceedings, rewriting the constitution, and sending back all the Jaffa Cakes to England. This event is now known as the Boston Tea Party, because it was yet again covered up by Christian fundamentalists. By telling the population that the boxes contained tea, they tricked everyone into a riot, until no Jaffa Cakes remained and the snack was forgotten.

In retribution for this terrible event, the Church of the Smashing Orangey Bit has decided to put up our own billboards to counter the atheist and Christian versions. People may have forgotten the joining of state and cake, they may have forgotten Jaffa Cakes, but they will not forget McVities!

Thou shalt not eat Communion wafers.

Follow church updates on Twitter, and help stop this oppression of history!

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I did notice however that Edward Current had some new videos out, so I thought I’d dedicate this entire blog post to him! Edward Current is not a Christian, but a very clever and amusing comedian, who parodies religious thought on YouTube.

So, just why does the Earth support life? Was it chance, or was it…God? Edward Current tackles this question with his astounding…erm…logic.

What do you do when your “Christian soldier” is standing to attention? Using his experience as a Christian Youth Councillor, Edward Current explains why it is wrong to play with this “throbbing vessel of sin” (unless you are a Catholic priest of course).

Finally, do you think a cat can’t play Amazing Grace? Well, you’d be wrong. Through faith, everything is possible:

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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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The Partnership does not give money to individuals, religious, ethnic or political groups or third-party fundraising.^[1]

Yet when atheist Richard Green was shopping in the Salisbury branch of a Waitrose store (which is owned by the partnership), he noticed that local charity The Bridge was part of the “green token” scheme, where the customer is given a green token at the checkout to deposit in one of three charity boxes near the exit. At the end of the month, Waitrose donate an amount of money to these three charities based on the percentages of tokens they get.

The description of The Bridge that appeared on the box was as follows.

The Bridge is an organisation working in schools and the community of South Wiltshire. It offers a service to schools in providing lessons, small group work, clubs and help with children experiencing problems. The oasis programme helps those students who are finding it difficult to fit into school life and need a programme and mentoring back into school life.

The Bridge is run by a dedicated team of volunteers and paid staff who are chosen for their commitment and their ability to relate to young people. The Bridge is a registered charity and it takes around £12,000 per month to keep it running.

Unfortunately, this is not the whole truth, as The Bridge is a Christian charity. On their website they list their main aims:

We provide a service to all schools with input of an explicit Christian nature. We want to give students of all ages an opportunity to hear and respond to the Good News of Jesus Christ. Finally we want to follow up the student interest by finding appropriate Church groups and easing the transition into church life.

Of course, none of this was made clear on the donation box, and it is obvious that such a charity shouldn’t be able to even enter the scheme under the current donation policy. Richard Green felt that someone had been dishonest, so he wrote a letter to the manager of the store voicing his concerns. The charity was withdrawn from the scheme immediately.

I contacted The Bridge to get a response statement and received this from Director Andy Lund:

We have been entirely open in our submission to Waitrose and in the very first paragraph of our documentation described ourselves as a Christian Organisation.

It seems the blame lies on both sides. The Bridge seemed to have been dishonest by omitting the word Christian from the paragraphs they submitted for the description. On the other hand, if what Andy Lund says is true and they mentioned that they were a Christian organisation in the first paragraph of their submission, the people at Waitrose are guilty of either not reading the submission properly, or ignoring their own donation policy by allowing this to get further than a simple submission.

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This is a question posed by the blog “the BEattitude“, which has recently gained over 1,000 well deserved comments on a post concerning losing religion. The author’s personal answer, he says, is very simple:

I expect God to do for me what he did for virtually every Bible character.

In other words, he wants God to show himself, which shouldn’t be a difficult task to fulfill for such a being. He also shows how the Apostle Paul is being hypocritical about telling believers that faith is all you need, as Paul only became a believer after Jesus appeared to him as a blinding light. Are we really expected to have faith in Jesus Christ, when the founder of the Christian church itself could not do the same?

Faith is the most important requirement of any religion, because with faith you cannot distinguish between what cannot be seen and what does not exist. Without faith, your eyes are finally opened to all possibilities, and reason ultimately prevails.

For me, the question has an equally simple answer. I would expect the Bible to be filled with unambiguous, literal, truth.

Any God that is worth worshiping should be able to make sure that their holy book was completely accurate, doesn’t contain contradictions (or ambiguity), and can be read and understood by anyone. It doesn’t take much effort (for an omnipotent being) to correct the scribe who makes a copying error, or to protect the books from damage as believers are persecuted, or to write everything as literal fact that cannot be observed in nature.

This is what any rational person would demand of any other claim, so why can’t it be done for religion? The pseudoscience of homeopathy is less ambiguous than current interpretations of the Bible, yet more people reject the former. It is clear to anyone that the Bible is not true, and yet instead of giving up on Christianity, the believers can do nothing but lie and make excuses about the mistakes.

In the scientific community, when you are reduced to this level of dishonesty, your reputation is destroyed. In the religious community, you are held as a warrior for faith. I don’t know about yourself, but my mother taught me to never trust people who lied or made excuses for their mistakes. It seems only the scientific community has taken this to heart.

How about you? What would it take for YOU to believe in God?

(via theBEattitude)

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Book: What are we up to, sweetheart?

River: Fixing your Bible.

Book: I, um… What?

[Pan over to River, who works on a book with pens, brushes, and loose pages.]

River: Bible’s broken. Contradictions, false logistics… doesn’t make sense.

Book: No, no. You -- you can’t…

River: So we’ll integrate non-progressional evolution theory with God’s creation of Eden. Eleven inherent metaphoric parallels already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one. Noah’s ark is a problem.

Book: Really?

River: We’ll have to call it “early quantum state phenomenon”. Only way to fit 5,000 species of mammals on the same boat.

. . .

Book: River, you don’t… fix the Bible.

River: It’s broken. It doesn’t make sense.

Book: It’s not about… making sense. It’s about believing in something. And letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It’s about faith. You don’t fix faith, River. It fixes you.

Oh River, you taught us so much; like how “the human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems“. If you haven’t watched Firefly, then go watch it on Hulu, or buy the DVD. If you simply don’t have the time, then the Wikiquotes article should give you a few laughs.

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I just have to thank you. In ways you may never understand, you helped me to become a Christian.

I used to be very much like yourself. Then, two weeks ago, as a result of reading your blog, I became one of those people you hate. Thank you so much. You are probably at least a little offended by this, but I felt I needed to let you know.

Obviously I was a little confused (and concerned) about her predicament. Confused because she seemed to think I hated Christians, and concerned because she had become one. I asked her to explain, and we sent a few messages to each other. She said I came across as very angry in some of my posts; I said I was only angry at justifiable things (like parents murdering children, or newspapers lying about students). She even prophesied this blog post, saying, “I’m sure you’ll be making fun of me on your blog eventually”. Of course such a prophecy was self-fulfilling, because her final response to me, where she finally explained how I was responsible for her Christianity, was just too funny not to post.

There are way too many things that led to my becoming a Christian, now that I look back. But this is how you contributed to that:

One day, while reading your blog, I just found myself wondering how anybody could spend so much time fighting against something they don’t believe exists. You have so much stuff on there and thinking that the purpose of 99% of it, is to inspire people to be against religion just seemed pointless. Not necessarily *inspire* but that’s the best word I could find for it. I started wondering what the point was. Why waste so much time and energy on criticizing religion? If there really is no God (the backbone of religion) then there would be no need to fight religion so hard. I don’t believe in unicorns, but I don’t create entire blogs dedicated to debunking the belief in them. I just think its silly to believe in them, so I ignore those who do. You, and many other atheists, however, find something in religion that makes you want to fight against it. Many atheists claims its a silly myth, but then why fight silly beliefs so hard? That got me thinking that there was something more to it than a silly myth.

You say that you’re only angry at justifiable things, but around the time I started wondering all this stuff, I saw a bunch of pictures you had of you throwing snowballs at signs about Jesus or something like that. That really confused me. There seemed to be no point whatsoever in that. Again, if its just a silly myth, why don’t you just ignore it? But you seemed unable to ignore it.

I mean, I understand if its just about the violence that religion causes, especially if you think of it as pointless because its all just a silly myth. But if you think about it, there’s just as much violence caused by anti-religious people. So why not just advocate against violence?

So I started digging. Christianity was the only religion that answered both questions. It gives the answer for why you can’t seem to ignore religion, even though you think of it as a silly myth. Also, I found the difference between religious violence and anti-religious violence. Violence in Christianity isn’t condoned by God or the Bible. The people who are using violence for religious reasons are doing it for the wrong reasons. However, without religion, it really doesn’t matter whether you’re killing people or not. It’s actually logical to kill people.

There’s much more to this whole thing, but I really couldn’t explain it all to you. I hope this makes a little sense, but if it doesn’t, please respect my beliefs and views. That’s another thing I had trouble with when it came to atheism: most atheists are incredibly intolerant and rude. But, seeing as how you kept pressing for an answer, I’d hope that you wouldn’t mock the answer I gave you; even if it doesn’t make sense to you.

One simply stares in disbelief how any atheist could actually ask questions like these given the amount of answers that have been repeated by the “New Atheist” movement in the last 10 years or so. Jennie finds my blog (and all other atheist blogs) pointless, since we are arguing against something we don’t even believe in. Like her, I don’t believe in unicorns, and I’m not going to create a blog about my disbelief in unicorns, because 99.9999% of the rest of the population shares my beliefs. There is no point preaching to the crowd. However, if suddenly the majority (or heck, even a large minority) started believing in unicorns, I’m sure there would be blogs talking about the reasons unicorns don’t exist. The point of a blog is both to spread a message, and challenge a viewpoint. Political blogs will challenge the opposition parties, Christian blogs will challenge other religions and atheism, and atheist blogs challenge religion (or just theism, but that’s not important). Jennie’s point is self-refuting if you simply change the word “atheism” to any particular belief, be it religious or political. There are Christian blogs that write reams about evolution, and they do this even though they don’t believe in it. Jennie wants to live in a dream world, where nobody talks about other people’s opinions, and debate doesn’t exist. Such places are anti-democracy, and are terrible places to live.

The second point I want to make about why atheists blog so much against religion is that we do have a belief; we believe that religions are dangerous. It’s a justified belief, because we have the evidence to prove it. Religion is the only reason Madeline Neumann is dead, the only reason why it took so long for Daniel Hauser to get cancer treatment. In Jennie’s dream world, we would not criticize the dangerous actions of the parents, and the children would die. Being nice only gets you so far; at some point you have to start disagreeing with people for society to make the progress it has.

Jennie seems to think that pictures of me throwing snowballs at Jesus posters is disrespectful, and she’s right; it is. I don’t care though, because fundamentalist baptist churches like the one in the picture are constantly disrespectful of everyone who doesn’t share their views. They blame homosexuals for everything under the sun, and use lies and manipulation to convert people. How exactly have they earned my respect? The other reason I took the picture was that I found it funny (as did my friends who I were with), and I thought some people online might have found it funny as well. It’s only a poster. I wasn’t attacking some poor pastor, I was attacking an idea, showing that nothing can be held sacred. To make you feel better, I did pelt quite a number of snowballs at my atheist friends that day (more so than I did at Jesus), so hopefully you feel like my actions were balanced.

Jennie asks “why not just advocate against violence?” instead of against religion that causes violence. I think people should attack the causes of violence, because the fundamentalists seem to think that anything goes if it is done for the will of god. They preach against violence too, but then they attack abortion centers. It is clear that reasoning with these people against violence isn’t going to work; they don’t believe their actions are immoral. If a group of atheists bomb a church, I will decry such an act, and do whatever I can to help the victims. I can advocate against violence and still advocate against religion; I see them as two different issues.

Jennie closes her argument for Christianity with a rather bizarre statement that it is “logical to kill people”. She doesn’t give any explanation of the logic used to deduce such a statement, but I think it probably goes along the lines of “How can you be good without God? You can’t. Therefore God.” Such arguments are of course ridiculous; morality doesn’t come from scripture (thank goodness) but from a combination of instinct and the society we live in. We don’t kill other people because it is harmful to the society in the grand scheme of things. Over time this has developed into the feeling of immorality we have today. There are many instances in the Bible where God orders the massacre of millions of people, so have humans actually outgrown the childish nature of God? I certainly like to think so.

Well, hopefully you haven’t found me too “intolerant” or “rude” Jennie. Hopefully you’ll read my response with an open mind, understand the errors in your judgement, and realise your argument simply makes no good points worthy of your conversion; it was based on misunderstanding and long-refuted claims. Well, one can hope.

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