God

When I was about six, my dad gave me a Bible Stories in Pictures book. It was beautiful, with old engravings of biblical heroes and heroines fighting each other and prophesizing and conquering and building and destroying, and all the other stuff people did back then.

The relationship between the pictures and the text was straightforward. The story of Joseph was accompanied by an engraving of a young idealist blessing his youngest brother kneeling before him, the story of Sisra and Yael was followed by an image of the proud Yael standing outside her tent with the severed head of the evil Sisra, and Samson’s broken heart was evidently there as he declared himself the first suicide killer.

The first page told the story of God creating the world, daily blessing his creation, altogether pretty pleased with himself. However, the engraving on the opposite page showed dark clouds with scattered sun rays breaking through to shine brightly on a barren land.

And me, being a kid who believed everything he heard and everything he saw, looked at the picture of the breaking clouds and thought this was what God looked like.

I’m an unbeliever, and Atheism is a cherished part of my identity, but I just can’t rid myself of this childhood concept of God. You see, I can ask religious people to prove the existence of God in a logical, scientific world, and I can scorn them, asking, “With all the tragedies in the world, and the wars, and Bush, how can anyone say there is a God?” But maybe their view of the world is just as valid as my own. How can anyone look at the struggling rays of the sun and not see God?

Which Religion is the Right One for Me? Which One Comes a Close Second?

So I visited Bun-Girl and found this religion quiz. A guy from work also did that so I said what the hell. I got my answer:

On Sand and God

When I was eight, after playing soccer for an hour, I lost the key to the apartment and thought my parents would be mad. I sat on the sandy soccer field after a long hour of searching and I cried. Then I came up with a great idea. If God knew everything, that meant he knew where everything was. So I made a deal with God.

If I eat this pile of sand, Dear God, you will reveal the location of my keys.

It was simple and fair, although I don’t know why God would want me to eat sand other than to show his superiority, which is fair enough. So I ate sand and still didn’t find the keys. My parents weren’t that angry though. Still, I discovered two things that day:

1. Eating sand is gross but it won’t kill you.
2. There is no God.

Who Was Jesus?

So I've heard about this Washington Post "On Faith" thing and decided to go over and have a look around. I appreciate the people commenting there, including the greatest religious experts of our time, and all that. And who am I? Just a simple man with a blog and borrowed opinions. Still, maybe as I'm still recovering from the honor bestowed upon me by Time Magazine, let me just say: Are you seriously asking me if Jesus was the son of God? Is that how you plan to pull readers away from blogs and back into the warm bosom of MSM?

Still, I'm there so I might as well answer their question:

Do you believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God? If so, what exactly does that mean? If not, who was he?

Is this question for real? I mean, I see some point in asking what we think about the philosophy of the New Testament or what we should learn from this or from any other book of mythology. I can imagine a question about the link between practiced Christianity and the actual words ascribed to Jesus, but are you seriously asking if I think he was the son of God?

Even strict Christians consider Jesus the son of God only in a symbolic way (like we are all God's children, etc.), so the only thing left is to stretch this metaphor slightly further and then what do we have?

Some people didn't get Stoic philosophy; it was too complicated. So they needed an example. That's all there is to it.

Now, if you want to tell me Merry Christmas, I don't care; I take that as a compliment. If you want to pray to God to bless me when I sneeze, I'm still grateful. But don't expect me to take that book literally. To argue about the history of Jesus would be to miss the point of the philosophy he supposedly preached.

Read The Golden Sayings of Epictetus. He said the same things Jesus did. But for some reason, as Epictetus was never witnessed walking on water, Jesus received all the glory...

Ted Haggard's Letters from Home

I know it's a terrible sin to kick a man when he's down, especially someone with so much inner torment and self-delusion, but this guy, who calls Bush the great liberator of the Islamic world, well... it's still inexcusable. Sorry.


Ted Haggard quotes from Letters from Home, a collection of letters to his teenage children:

Actually, you two are already a source of strength. I can see it in your friends when they come over to our home. They see you as stable, consistent people. They trust you. When they have no idea what their own parents are doing, they know that our home is a safe place. They can depend on the fact that there is security and love here. They can tell that no one is nervous or deceptive.

Some of your friends will be in sexual trouble. . . . Others will forfeit their lives because of their lack of self-control and may lose themselves in drugs and alcohol.

Here is the basic idea: Everything in your life is public. There are no secrets. Everything you say, everything you do, everyplace you go, every thought you think is going to be known by all. So if you want to do something that you'll have to keep secret, don't do it. If you want to say something that you'll have to ask people to keep secret, don't say it. Don't believe the lie that you can ever say something, do something, go somewhere or think things that others won't know about. People who believe in secrets are people who ultimately fail.

Every time you hear that thought in your head or have someone tell you, "Let's do it-no one will ever find out," you can be sure that whatever you're considering is not worth doing.

One lie, one drink, one rendezvous, one pill, one joint, one look, one time. Yeah! Sure! Really? I don't think so.

Most of the things that happen to us are a result of the seeds that we have sown. Sometimes these seeds sprout quickly; other times they take years before producing a harvest. But they always produce.

Haggard has just stepped down from the Presidency of The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). If he trusts his own faith, he shouldn't worry too much, as the NAE states:

We further call upon pastors and theologians, along with medical and sociological specialists with the Christian community to expand research on the factors which give rise to homosexuality and to develop therapy, pastoral care and congregational support leading to complete restoration.

Good luck, Ted.

Why do Atheists care about Religion?