You can nearly touch the passion in the air. Everyone is standing, no one is sitting, with arms raised high in the air. The chanting that started as low mumbles has organized itself into a vocal frenzy. The building is full of cheers while people jump up and down. It's raw excitement/anticipation. At the center of all of our attention is a small group of people leading the audience in these songs and chants! Jumping higher and lifting their hands to the sky with joy. There is this symbol of what unites us all front row center at this gathering. The buzz is all around us and I can feel the power of human solidarity, but I have a tinge of guilt in my heart as I don't sing with those around me. I also don't take part in the ceremonial drinking and eating. I seem to be the only one not participating. This makes things a little awkward. I don't get involved in the raising of hands or the chants. People frown on a stickler don't they? Unmistakingly, something seems to be alive, soaring through the air in this building. It's a spirit, I think. Is it the Holy Spirit?
We Got the Holy Spirit! Yes We Do! We Got the Holy Spirit! How about you?
No.
It's Team Spirit. I am at the Thomas and Mack Stadium where UNLV is taking on Fresno State in men's basketball. You may have confused where I was for a minute. What you thought was the praise and worship team leading the congregation in praise and worship was actually cheerleaders. The food and drink isn't communion (wine/grape juice and wafers) but beer and popcorn. The symbol that unites us all isn't a crucifix or cross but a mascot that represents the sports team. The atmosphere of both a sporting event and an Evangelical mega-church revival is very similar. I was just at a heavy metal concert at Planet Hollywood here in Las Vegas. The band was Meshuggah. People in front formed a mosh pit and everyone was at least mildly head-banging to the intense live music that is Meshuggah. The show was really good. It reminded me of going to see TOOL, the Pixies, or Radiohead. It is the sense of unity, the passion in the air that creates "the mood". Human connectivity is a powerful thing. This is what church is. This is what you confuse with the Holy Spirit.
At this game there was a large portion of the fans doing what they call "spirit fingers" as a UNLV player shot free throws. They were "willing" the ball to go in the basket. Of course this superstitious silliness is comical and absurd but it got me thinking- how hilarious it would be if this "willing things" really was true.. but unfortunately it only works at sporting events for free throw shooting. Nothing else. What a cruel cosmic joke, huh? I really find it hilarious to dream that there may be supernatural things but they are so useless that they aren't even worth mentioning. I think it would be hysterical if there was a God. However this "god" was just a bumbling idiot college kid who happened to create our universe in a lab in some other dimension. Like some sort of goof-up accident. I hope that it is true. Can you even imagine how Christianity, Islam, Judaism would react to that?! Oh we were WAAAY off!
Where basketball games and concerts are taken as light-hearted events that mean ultimately nothing in the grand cosmic scheme of things, evangelical revivals and youth church camps are much more intense. I would say mostly and especially the ones geared for younger kids or even teenagers. Adults don't have as much of an excuse to being mind-controlled (though it's sometimes near impossible to break the brainwashing when one's been exposed to it for so long). Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian environment I attended my fair share of revival meetings and hellfire and brimstone church camp services.
There were many reasons I was "saved" or became (as Christians say) "born again" multiple different times. I was originally "saved" at the age of 5. I think. Of course even that memory mostly escapes me at my age now. As an evangelical of the Baptist variety we didn't believe in "losing your salvation" as the Pentecostals did. You know, religious dogma differences. How comical it all seems now. So if I was having doubts then I was taught to accept the "fact" that I wasn't actually "saved" in the first place. There were 3 specific reasons I was "re-born again". I can't recall the ages, but I was consistently getting "saved" up through high school (just for afterlife insurance purposes of course). The 3 specific reasons were as follows:
1. The 70's Biblical apocalyptic film series:
"Thief in the Night", "A Distant Thunder", "Image of the Beast", and "Prodigal Planet". There was a youth ministries group called Awana (stands for Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed - from 2 Timothy 2:15). Many people growing up in evangelical churches will be familiar with this group. There were pizza parties and YMCA lock-ins. We would memorize verses and recite them back for points and badges sort of like a Christian Boy Scouts. I watched these apocalyptic films in our Awana meetings. I don't know if it was part of the curriculum or whatever, but I guess they just thought some good old fear should help scare these kids straight. Well it worked. I was terrified of devil worshipers, the anti-christ, Unite (the one world government that will arise after the rapture), and of course the rapture itself. My worse fear was coming home to my mom and dad being gone and nothing but their clothes left on the living room floor. So you can imagine how I avoided the laundry room. Thank goodness my parents weren't messy people that left clothes on the ground in their room or I would have been consistently mortified. How hilarious that seems now, but how real the fear was back then. Such needless fear.
*I remember thinking the "clothes dilemma" was such a problem for the whole rapture scenario. On one hand you had a clogged sky/atmosphere/galaxy/universe area with a bunch of naked Christians. On the other hand you had the G rated version of the rapture where everyone was caught up in heaven with Jesus still wearing all their earthly clothes (which of course contradicts that no one will be able to bring their possessions with them to heaven.)
2. The Church Camp Revival Services (specifically the night services).
For a young Evangelical teenager summer church camp was the highlight of your life. This is mostly because of social interactions with other young people from other churches all across the Midwest United States. And the social interactions I'm specifically referring too are meeting girls. This was a powerful time - Puberty. It was an impressionable time for indoctrination and fear mongering. So mix all this natural young curiosity with religious dogma and you get a hot bed of "changing lives". So these night sermons each night of the week long summer camp were very intense. They were very much scare tactics to get us to "change our lives for Christ." NO ONE wants to burn in hell forever. So again, I was once saved ... again. This was my life equation growing up:
fear + doubt = ask Jesus into your heart again (JUST TO BE SURE!)
3. Local Evangelical Revivals.
We had several different traveling evangelists that specialized in revamping "dead churches". To name a few - Jamey Ragel and Gene Wolfenbarger - to name a few. I remember Jamie Ragel always seemed so strong and powerful. He was also a comedian so that made him more engaging. All of these traveling evangelists were God's experts so they were very intimidating to us kids. They were the professional "men of god". Gene Wolfenbarger stands out the most in my memory. He came to our church when I was in junior high to hold a revival. It was one of those week long events with a service each night. I remember he once threw his shoe down the aisle in the middle of a passionate, old-time religion preach.
... And no, George W. Bush was not in attendance.
During the Gene Wolfenbarger revival week at the church, there was one night set aside specifically for kids. I was so nervous that night. Not because of the scary shoe-throwing evangelist man, but because I had finally gathered enough courage to ask out the girl who lived across the street from my church. Her name was Mandy, and I had the biggest crush on her. So much in fact that I gave her a note asking her if she would go out with me and she said "yes". So my idea for our first date?? - Gene Wolfenbarger revival service in the gym of our church/school! I was a romantic genius. Sad thing is, that's all I knew. Church activities were my only possible options growing up. I remember being so nervous to grab her hand during the ramblings of a madman. Gene kept his shoes on this time, but he made sure to scare the living hell out of all the kids. (I love the professional career choice of scaring children for a living.) I just remember not being effected by it too much this time. It's funny how just being human boy (with blooming attractions to human girls) trumps eternal damnation for your soul.
If you must know, I didn't grab her hand. I chickened out and afterwards kicked myself and felt like a failure. It mattered so much to me. So much in fact that I hadn't noticed what was happening when he finally concluded. During this sermon there were deacons of our church guarding the exit/entrance doors to the gym. Apparently Gene had went a little long on his sermon and it was much later than advertised. Parents weren't allowed in to get their kids. No kidding. In fact there were multiple complaints to the church. And Gene was never invited back again. The local paper wrote an article on it painting our church in a very bad light. They said men were trapping children inside like guard dogs. I scoured the internet trying to locate this article, but to no avail. I really wanted to share it with you in the link section at the bottom of this. Weird how I seemed to miss all of this while it was happening. I guess I was a tad preoccupied. Mandy's dad however was not, and he was pissed off, to say the least. Mandy and I weren't allowed to do anything together outside of their house ever again.
But this story has a happy ending... Even though crazy religious nonsense ruined my relationship with one of my first loves, I bounced back and yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have dated since then. I have also held hands with those girls I've dated. We can move on now...
The power of "spirit", whether it be from a sporting event, a band concert, or a revival service, can be a successful motivator for fear, elation, or unity. The psychology behind a church service is well documented at this point. The fact is our species is very sheep-like. We follow the leader. We are easily manipulated and controlled. This is what kings, popes, and priests have known for centuries. The social group setting that is church is something that is hard to break in people. As I've stated in a previous blog, my father is one that is heavily involved in his church. He attends church every Sunday for adult Sunday school, morning service, choir practice followed by Sunday evening service. He also attends church every Wednesday for Bible study. He never misses a service. Sometimes even if he is physically ill. This devotion, mixed with human connections (his close friends), collective praising and singing (unity), fearing/loving your imaginary father (Yahweh), and swimming in confirmation bias (The Bible is infallible because the Bible says its infallible) creates a complicated web often too strong to break apart.
Atheism is not a religion, despite what your Christian friends may say. They may follow with something like "Richard Dawkins is just as fundamentalist about atheism as Jerry Falwell is about Christianity." I've had agnostic friends who have said this about me and my "preachy" atheism. The second sentence does not prove the first. Atheism is of course the lack of belief in a God and an outright rejection of all religions. Those who may say this to you don't understand atheism. Richard Dawkins is very much passionate about his non-belief in a god, because he holds the default position. He's passionate about being skeptical. He's passionate about not accepting things on "faith". Atheism is the default position and it is up to the theists to prove to us their extraordinary claim that there is a god. Carl Sagan sums it up: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Period. So you can see how the analogy comparing Richard Dawkins with Jerry Falwell is incorrect. Despite saying all of this, those that are non-believers (some call us the "NONES") may need to rip off this idea of "church" from the believers.
The church of atheism wouldn't worship any deity or sing praises to any divine being, but instead would simply be a community to gather for potlucks (that's right! POTLUCKS, motherfucker!!) and human fellowship. Successful civilizations have learned from past civilizations and stolen from these the best parts of society and culture. Atheists must steal from the religious community and build a few "churches" and maybe then we can get tax breaks too. Want to avoid paying taxes? Start a church. The mission statement to the church of atheism could be "We hate and despise mission statements so this church is whatever you want it to be, ... bitch." We could marry and divorce LGBT people ONLY! Let babies cry as loud as they want during "services"; hell, we could let babies even run the "services". We could hold rock concerts and YMCA lock-ins for our kids. We could take communion (eat some magic mushrooms and drink some wine). An offering could be taken (not for missions/proselytizing, but for actually feeding poor people in the community). We would preach the importance of living locally, while thinking globally (for clean energy and biodiversity). Our sermons would be about the plight of African-Americans, Native Americans, Japanese-Americans, Iranian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans in this country and how they have suffered and been abused by the white patriarchs. (you know, the truth!) Our naturalist-centered message would simply be - let's make this natural world better. Let's help the fight against oppression, racism, bigotry, sexism, superstitious thinking, religious dogma. We embrace knowledge, doubt, freewill (in your face, Sam Harris!), love, peace, acceptance, friendship, and skepticism over all.
These atheist communities exist out in the world. They gather at conferences and retreats more often than they used to, but we need to organize locally. It's important in this day and age to communicate with our neighbors. Religions spend money and time thinking of ways to market to their community. It's our turn to turn the tables and join together in our local communities to spread the good news of "it's OK to be who you are. There is no hell. There is no heaven. There is no perfect instruction book. There is no original sin. There is no God." You can't get past the 2nd chapter of the 1st book of the Bible before you see the glaring difference between theism and atheism. God does not want his creation to eat from the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". Not the tree of good and evil. It's the "knowledge" of good and evil that's the problem here. Simply put, God does not want his creation to feed it's hunger for knowledge. If you are pro-education or pro-learning you should cringe at this. Religion is for the sheep. It's a vestige of the infancy of our species. It feeds the herd mentality and the ancient superstitious woo-woo deep within our roots. It's those that "just have faith" without evidence. Those that try to pick holes (unsuccessfully by the way) at evolution or a famous atheist's argument but REFUSE to use the same scrutiny/"skepticism" to their own beliefs. It's a deep-seated bias that they either cannot see or refuse to look at. It's a way of getting literally no where on the path of knowledge. Knowledge! There's that evil word again - according to Yahweh.
Whether a sporting event, a religious revival, or a concert, we are a passionate species that thrives off the energy of our peers. It's best to keep this in mind. It's best to recognize our biological characteristics before being swept up in the heat of the moment. Let's be contemplative and wise, let's steal from the best bits of religions and create a better world together. Here are some links:
The psychology behind mega-church services as a social movement: article from Psychology Today:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-is-he-thinking/200904/mega-churches-psychology-and-social-change
Check out Awana:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awana
Meet Gene Wolfenbarger:
http://www.thegatheringfamily.com/im-new/pastor-gene-karen/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UQOyS72igY
Meet Jamey Ragle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw7rQGiMyPU
Watch "Thief In the Night" (full movie):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYFwpx1K6bs
Watch "A Distant Thunder" (full movie):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8CaAEQGX88
Watch "Image of the Beast" (full movie):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFVcyrNB1YY
Watch the trailer to "Prodigal Planet" (can't find full movie, sorry to leave you all hanging):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJR4uQb39ik
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