Into the Lion's Den ... Again: Notes on a Recent Trip

Culture is anything we do and the monkeys don't.
- Fitzroy Somerset (Lord Ragin)

I debated whether or not to write this blog. A year ago I wrote the original blog, "Into the Lion's Den: Notes on a Recent Trip" and this trip wasn't quite as eventful by way of anything religious. There were of course times religion crept up in conversations with my family as most of my family are devout Christians. My mother's side of the family is very moderate and not so dogmatic in their everyday life. My father's side is different. They go to church anytime the doors are open and my father is very strict on censoring his lifestyle to fit what he thinks Jesus want's from modern human beings. For example: We were watching a commercial where the character eating the sub sandwich said "damn it". My dad grunted and said, "Is this really necessary to cuss in a commercial? So ridiculous!" and gets visibly angry. I hadn't even noticed, but I'm also an atheist with no moral compass.

I usually visit my family in the Midwest U.S. in January. It's the best time of year to fit it in between school and work. However, I've always hated going back in the middle of winter. This year I timed my trip near my mother's birthday and in autumn, where the leaves are at their peak of bright colors. I am glad I did because I enjoyed a hike through our family's farm and a bicycle ride with my father through a scenic bike trail right along the Mississippi River. It was breathtakingly beautiful and reminded me that I live in a very bland surrounding here in Vegas. The desert is so brown (except of course at Red Rock or Vally of Fire). I miss trees more than I can even tell you. I literally hugged one one at a park in my dad's hometown. It was a large maple tree. Such beautifully efficient biological machines. And I'm a liberal hippy so it's just what we do.

I took a red eye flight out of Vegas that left at 11:30pm. When I finally arrived in St. Louis I rented a car and drove to my mother's house a couple hours away. I was exhausted from not getting much sleep on my overnight flight. The drive seemed to take forever and as always I kept a close lookout for deers creeping up on the side of the interstate and highways. When you don't have much sleep figments show up in the corner of your eyes as you drive. Ghost deers are there one minute, then not there the next. Ghosts, aliens, angels, demons all these things people say they "see" ... well this is what they most likely are. Figments of the brain. Tricks of the eye. Same goes with "ghost deers". This can get nerve-wracking as you feel the need to brake when you "see" these spirit animals. Unless I'm wrong and there really are such things as ghost deers. Maybe not just humans become ghosts but so do animals when they die. Only problem with this is the numbers seem somewhat staggering when you account for all the species of animals that have ever lived on planet earth. I would say the next dimension is quite crowded by now to say the least.

Anyways, I went to go get flowers to give to my mother for her birthday at the local grocery store next to her home. The flower selection was so pathetic I paced back and forth staring with clear dismay at the dead, wilted flowers in dirty water. I couldn't bring myself to hand my wonderful mother a plastic bag full of compost. Here mom, here's rotten trash. But at least it's chilled trash (the "flowers" were in the cooler.) I decided to skip the flowers and go to her house afterwards. She hugged me and we laughed, talked, and enjoy each other's company as we went out to a favorite local restaurant to eat lunch. I had a delicious "ponyshoe" (if you don't know what that is look this up!) Afterwards I was able to catch a few hours of sleep after the meal.

When I woke up my mom's boyfriend had arrived after getting off work and we went out for dinner. I had some sushi and we had a great time conversing over our Japanese food. We went to a movie in the evening and went back to St. Louis to see my mom's boyfriend's sister. While visiting at her house we started randomly taking each other's blood pressure for the hell of it. Everyone gasped as the reading on mine came up. It was extremely high. At first we thought it was a mistake, then after a few more tests the concern became real as we knew that I needed to probably go to a doctor right away. We decided to wait til at least the next morning (Saturday) to see if it got any better. It did, but by not much. My blood pressure was taken as we were getting ready to go to my family's farm. We were rushed for time and decided to go to a clinic to see what was going on when we got back from the wiener roast at the farm.

Needless to say I was nervous, as we all drove to the family farm an hour away from my my mother's and her boyfriend's house. She was worried too of course and we talked about nothing else the entire trip there from what I can remember. When we pulled in everyone was there: my two uncles and their wives, my grandma and granddad, my granddad's cousin (who is the co-owner of the family farm). This is a great piece of land with many acres, some of which is wild (my family often rents out to deer hunters during different seasons of hunting), the other is some working farm land. It was great to learn the history of the entire property that has been in my family for a few generations. I spent time moving from lawn chair to lawn chair, with a plate full of salad and raw veggies (as I was avoiding the red meats that were abundant), chatting with each of my family members. I had such a great time and walked away for a private walk in the woods to take some pictures and to soak it all in.

There is a memory here. A memory I will never forget. After my walk alone in the woods, and my tree hugging, my mom and her boyfriend joined me for a walk in a completely different direction. It was that time of year in the Midwest where it begins to snow colors. We were all surrounded in giant, blindingly-bright red and yellow leaves falling slowly around us. The sound was like rain falling but slowed down, as leaves crunched beneath our feet. The temperature was in the 60's. It was the perfect. In space and time. With my family. My mom leans over to me and says, "It's almost impossible to force yourself to soak this in and really remember this." I said, "I know."

After the walk we said our goodbyes, packed up our casseroles, and headed back to my mom's and her boyfriends house. On the way back we stopped at the local clinic to get a diagnosis on my high blood pressure. The doctor explained though it is alarming he didn't want to admit me to a hospital or anything, so he prescribed some heart medication, told me to keep track of my blood pressure readings, schedule an appointment with my personal doctor, and that was that. I had been unhealthy for several months (eating fast food, and not exercising at all) so I have went back to a near vegan diet, low salt and sugar, very very little alcohol and caffeine, and exercising.

I won't lie, the whole ordeal with my blood pressure and heart medication sort of put a damper on my time with my mom and dad. I was talking with my dad about how complicated the human body is and keeping it alive, but how resilient and fit to adapt and survive many environments, when my dad stopped me and said, "Well, we don't have control over our own death. Only God controls when we die. It is in His hands ultimately." I just stared at him, giving him almost, but not quite as blank of a stare as I gave him when he said and I quote, "One time mom (your grandma) prayed to find her keys, and guess what? She did!" This deserved only a blank stare. There are these levels in which one should be when it comes to reasoning skills where even the most mild of skeptics reside. With this quote I could tell at least at this moment my father was not there. We all say silly things, maybe this was just something that he spewed off without really thinking about, where to me it stood out drastically.

Sunday was church day. As it always is to my father. I skipped adult Sunday school and went just for the morning service. I shook the hands of the Christian greeters as always, as I walked in. The music was playing while people were taking their seats. I always get Bible anxiety when going to this church. My dad is in the choir so he is actually not sitting in the pew when I arrive, so I inevitably have to sift through all kinds of Bibles placed randomly in empty pews (he usually sits in the back left side of the church though which helps narrow down my options). Luckily I remember what his fancy leather Bible cover (with embroidered cross emblem) looks like. If he ever changes Bible covers I'm screwed. I locate it and sit down. A few stragglers come in and recognize me and shake my hand. We stand to sing in the worship songs.

The choir is extremely small. The entire church seems to get smaller with each visit. There are so many empty chairs in the choir. The songs are song (one with some weird Lion King African beat), the announcements, the releasing of the choir happens within 10-15 minutes. My dad shakes my hand and smiles. He's glowing red with what I can only interpret as joy to see his son after a year. Or maybe it's high blood pressure. It runs in the family unfortunately. After the choir has been released the entire congregation sings a few more worship songs as words are projected on screens. I am not singing, mostly due to the lyrics of the song that I don't really agree with. My dad leans over and asks if I know the songs. I say, "Yeah, some of them, but some I don't know." He always asks me that and I never sing worship songs anymore since I know longer worship anything or anyone.

As usual a lady from the church sings a solo song before the sermon. It never fails - off key, and off tempo. We all somehow get through it and wait for the pastor to take the pulpit. The pastor didn't preach, but instead introduced who would be - A missionary to St. Louis, MO. That's right. You read that correctly... A missionary to St. Louis, MO. His name is Chris Highfill. He was once a youth pastor at Seminole Baptist Church in Springfield, MO. He explained that he had been "called by God" to take the gospel to St. Louis because it didn't have enough churches. His mission is to go and start multiple churches in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He follows his introduction with a very cheesy YouTube video of his new ministry. I searched desperately for this online to be able to paste it in the links section at the end of this blog entry but could not find it anywhere.

His sermon was centered around Matthew 5:13-15. This is all about Christians being salt and light to the unbelieving world. Chris went on about how much he HATES darkness (I was thinking oh dude, grow up! There's no such thing as monsters in your closet or imaginary friends you can pray to). He explained to us hat salt is a preservative .. thus we (Christians) preserve the world because we are people of God. I wanted to be like .. what about me or my dad? He has high blood pressure due to too much salt intake among other things, so could Jesus really be saying too much Christianity (salt) is bad for the world? I'm writing that sermon and preaching it in atheist church soon. Mark my words. It will be after I write my Harry Potter sermon - taking whatever passage I want from the book and twisting it to fit some narrow point of view that sounds all religious. Play this game with any book. It's fun.

Missionary Chris also made some completely false statements like.. "We all know that things have been getting worse and worse in this world. More disease, death, starvation, violence. This is prophetic showing that Jesus is coming very soon." I wanted to raise my hand and say, "In Steven Pinker's new book Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined  he presents loads of evidence to the contrary." A lot of the specific points Chris made are things that have actually gone down significantly or gotten better so to speak.

Chris Highfill goes on to say he was a news junkie. He said he likes to watch the nightly news on NBC with Brian Williams. I heard a few faint grumbles in the congregation. I thought, "Oh seriously? ... Come on!" Then he said, "I like to watch the liberal news too so that he can know 'what the enemy is up to'". So that got a good laugh and small applause (not by me.) After this gem he goes on to compare sin to cancer, actually retracting that statement and saying it is worse than cancer. Right. Looking at a woman's cleavage and lusting is worse than pancreatic cancer. Got it. I could barely handle the sweeping generalizations that the entire audience lapped up (since he was the "man of God expert" authoritarian figure).

As usual I let me mind wonder. I started to think about what a missionary is. My friend (who grew up in the same environment that is now an atheist too) once told me of a memory he had sitting in these same pews some Sunday. The speaker was a missionary to Australia supported by this church. He said he remembers thinking to himself that missionaries are really just scamming naive people in the congregation to fund their extended family vacation. It's not like this missionary was living among the Australian Aborigines in the middle of nowhere. He was living in Sydney living the good life, eating well, sleeping comfortably. One can easily see through this nonsense. It's not that hard, even as a child. I also entertained other ideas like flipping the script with the whole missionary mission of religions to promote their dogma. This would be Atheists infiltrating churches and giving the congregation an alternative way of thinking of reality. Maybe teaching evolution along side Creationism in the Sunday School classrooms for kids and adults. This is something (not quite to this extreme but in some sense) that Atheist Experience's host Matt Dilahunty is doing by being invited into various churches in the Texas area and having a discussion on religion.

"Every head bowed please. Every eye closed." The sermon by a moron for morons came to a close and the inevitable raising of the hands if you either "Have been living in sin and need to be saved by Jesus blood." or "Are a Christian but have backslid and need to correct your walk with Jesus." We stood up, music played (altar call time!) The pastor waits like a good shepherd at the front of the church waiting for the stray sheep to come to him like little lost lambs. An elderly lady went up as the pastor hugged her and prayed with her. I yawned. We were seated. Offering was taken where for once my dad didn't put anything in the offering plate as it passed by. I found it odd that after the offering instead of dismissing in prayer the Pastor changed it up a bit and just said simply, "OK. You're dismissed." So cold so quick. And we left.

On the way out I shook the hand of an old family friend - Steve. He recently had a stroke and was showing small signs of it as we talked with him and he shook my hand weakly. I had to use the restroom downstairs. The small church building was also where I spent 12 years of my education (unfortunately) as a child and teenager. After using the bathroom I explored the gym with it's new rubber court. It used to be carpet. The adult Sunday school teacher noticed me reminiscing and said, "Boy, I bet you have fond memories of playing basketball here." I responded with, "I sure did. I just wish we had this floor instead of the carpet. I have vivid memories of nursing my millions of rug burns on my knees each night after a game or practice." He laughed and I shook his hand.

On our way out my dad showed me some reconstruction going on with the building and I said, "Cool." and we were off to go get some food. It's hard to eat healthy at Golden Coral buffet but I did my best. I notice what seemed like half-human half-pig creatures the size of rhinos shoveling food at a rapid pace into their mouths. The plates were like troughs and the sounds were pig sounds. I was actually so appalled if these creatures would have made eye contact with me they would have seen me staring at them with my mouth wide open. And I have high blood pressure. Maybe there is a god and maybe he's just an asshole.

My dad and I had a good conversation at the dinner table. Again, I made him laugh so hard he nearly choked on his food. He was in tears of laughter. I wanted to explain to him the "irreducibly complex design" of the human trachea tube as a choking hazard doesn't point to an omniscient deity but rather evolution by natural selection,  ... but I didn't.

I wanted to quote what I had just finished reading on the plane ride there:

The uniquely configured vocal tract of humans also carries a substantial cost. In all mammals, including apes, the space behind the nose and mouth (the pharynx) is divided into two partly separate tubes: in inner one for air and an outer one for food and water. This tube-within-a-tube configuration is created by contact between the epiglottis, a gutter-shaped flap of cartilage at the base of the tongue, and the soft palate, a fleshy extension of the palate that seals off the nose. In a dog or a chimpanzee, food and air take different pathways through the throat. But in humans, unlike any other mammal, the epiglottis is a few centimeters too low to contact the soft palate. By dropping the larynx low in the neck, humans lost the tube within a tube and developed a big common space behind the tongue through which food and air both travel to get into either the esophagus or the trachea. As a result, food sometimes gets lodged in the back of the throat, blocking off the airway. Humans are the only species that risks asphyxiation when we swallow something too large or imprecisely. This cause of death is more common than you may think. According to the National Safety Council, choking on food is the fourth leading cause of accidental deaths in the United States, approximately one-tenth the number of deaths caused by motor vehicles. We have paid a heavy price for speaking more clearly.

from: The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease by Daniel E. Lieberman

Some design.


We went back to his house where I studied for my chemistry exam while he went to sing praises to an ancient desert Jewish god. While I was studying about valence electrons and their configurations, I thought to myself how I should come up with a mock website that deals in "Theistic Chemistry". If there is such a thing as Christian biology/geology = creationism, why not "Christian chemistry"? The Bible gives descriptions of heaven and hell (these mystical supernatural places that apparently have elements derived from the natural world). Heaven has streets of Gold. (Au: Atomic #79) and Hell is a "lake of fire" (Fire is a result of a chemical reaction called combustion and consists usually of Oxygen: Atomic #8, Nitrogen: Atomic #7, water vapor H2O: 2 Hydrogen: Atomic #: 1 and 1 Oxygen, and Carbon Dioxide: 1 Carbon: Atomic #6 and 2 Oxygen.)

The next day I went with my father to meet up with my uncle and aunt. My dad brought two bikes. The plan was to ride our bikes from the lodge of the national park we parked at to Grafton, MO to meet with my aunt and uncle to eat at the Fin Inn (a local seafood restaurant along the banks of the Mississippi River). We started early and I bundled up with a winter coat, gloves (which were my dads), and stocking cap to keep warm.

The bike trail through the blindingly bright autumn trees was breath taking. I can't explain to you how living in the desert for several years shapes your orientation to boring brown. Red Rock canyon is a gorgeous geological wonder full of color, but in the game of color trees always win. The leaves, my god. Their were black walnut husks scattered all over the paved trail. In some instances it was almost dangerous to ride your bike through them. My dad looked back and said, "Don't worry we'll get a plastic bag in Grafton and gather some to take back and eat." I have a memory here, on the bike trail, with the wind on my face, and these black walnuts and red and yellow trees,  just me and my dad that will last me til the day I die.

I stopped multiple times to take photographs of the beautiful landscape. Somewhere, sometime, in all of the oohing and awing I dropped the glove I had borrowed from my dad. Also, I apparently left my Ray-Ban sunglasses my girlfriend had given to me in one of the multiple antique stores we went into once we reached Grafton, MO (where ironically I was shopping for a gift for my girlfriend). My dad called my aunt who said they were running late and we had arrived in Grafton early so we killed time by eating fudge at a local fudgery.

My dad and I arrived at Fin Inn early and were seated near one of the large aquariums where the large fish swim by you creepily watching you eat. My dad was in the restroom when my aunt and uncle arrived. My uncle is a very jolly man constantly making jokes. Usually not always funny but sometimes he can make me laugh. For example, when we went back to the fudgery to get more desert after our meal my uncle walks into the place where the young girl behind the counter greets him. He says hello and she asked, "OK, what can I get for you?" and he immediately responds with, "OK, well we'll start here with taking all this money here from your tip jar and thank you." then starts to pretend to grab from the jar and walk away. I know this isn't funny but for some reason I laughed pretty hard at this as the girl behind the counter just stared at him not knowing how to react.

My aunt is a very beautiful women who has aged well because she is deeply interested in organic food and eating healthy, non-processed foods. Both however are very devout Christians (Baptists) who are more open about it than anyone in my family. In fact during the meal my aunt follows something my uncle said with a jovial, "Oh, well, Bruce remember what pastor said last Sunday in his sermon on walking the narrow path." I don't recall the exact "lesson" she was referring to but it was something along those lines.

I always get "prayer anxiety" when I have a meal with my aunt and uncle. My father for some reason doesn't "say grace" before meals anymore, but my aunt and uncle not only still do that but often reach for their neighbor's hand to hold while praying. It's fine if they wanted to pray, I have no problem with these rituals if that's what they like, but what I do have a problem with is praying myself. Atheists don't pray obviously (unless of course you happen to be an atheist that observes Ramadan, but that's an exception to the rule.) My uncle Bruce almost always points to either me or my brother or my father and says, "OK, how about you say grace for this meal?" He's one of those dominant alpha males too, who is always taking charge and delegating tasks. I was sweating with nervousness. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was not wanting to come out as an atheist in front of my entire deeply religious family, in front of these fish, before our meal of fish. It's just something I wasn't prepared to do. At least not then or there.

I chickened out. The pressure was too much. As my blood pressure rose, I jumped up while the waitress was setting the plates of food in front of us and escaped to the bathroom. I came back and luckily prayer had already been said. I am not sure if they "blessed" my food. I would say, no as it was kind of bland. It wasn't a bad piece of tilapia but I've had better. We talked about our lives and Bruce mostly dominated the conversation with stories of my aunt and him taking salsa classes and all the grandchildren. My brother and I are the black sheep in the family, not just because we aren't Christian anymore, but because we don't have the typical white American modeled life. We both are not married and we both don't have children. Dinner was fun and afterwards went for icecream at the same fudgery. My uncle shook my hand but I found it kind of sad that my dad's side of the family refuses to show any sort of emotion. They do not hug. My dad never hugs or says, "I love you" to either me or my brother. My aunt never even got out of the car after dropping us off at our bikes to give me a hug. She waved from the car and that was that.

We rode the bikes back to the car where sure enough I found my dad's black glove that I had previously lost on the paved trail. I stopped to pick it up. My dad and I had a laugh about that. Not too far after this I did something stupid. I tried to take pictures with my digital camera while also riding my bike. I slightly applied the brakes with my left hand (which were the front wheel brakes) and I went flying over the handlebars like some elementary school accident. It all went in slow motion. The fall wasn't terrible. I bruised up my knee, scraped up my palm and my camera, but ultimately just got the wind knocked out of me. My dad rode on completely unaware that his oldest son just wiped out behind him in a pile of black walnut husks and awe-inspiring colorful leaves. I got up, brushed myself off and rode on.

We stopped once more to gather black walnuts as my father promised. We tried smashing them against the sidewalk, splitting some of them open. We tasted them. Wild black walnuts have a very unique taste. A mixture of sweet and bitter, but good. This is another memory I have booked marked in my mind. Another one would be when my father I and spent the morning I was leaving cracking open our found black walnuts in his driveway. We spent hours on it, using a pocket knife to surgically remove the delicate nut meat. This was our breakfast that day. When thinks like this happen, as bizarre as they are, I know they are real moments in time that define my life with my family. Times that must be seared into my recollection to be pulled up someday in the distance past as I'm sitting, old and useless in a hospital bed. I want these memories to flash before my eyes when I die. I can only hope it isn't flashes of the terrible things I've done, or the mythical places of torment like a lake of fire I was indoctrinated with as a child.

Once at the car I discovered that I had once again somehow lost the very glove I just found. There is no God!!! On the drive back to my dad's house somehow misconceptions of certain social issues got brought up. I think I've mentioned this before. I do enjoy talking with my dad, even though I don't agree with him regarding politics, religion, or social issues. Unlike my mother he doesn't just say, "I don't want to talk about these things." He will engage me in conversation, even if it is just a few minutes before he or I change the subject because it's becoming unbearably uncomfortable. One of the misconceptions I told him is this misconception of probabilities. The news media shows nothing but negative things so it's totally understandable how most people in this country have irrational fears. I explained the fear of terrorist attacks is unfounded statistically. I shared a recent Steven Pinker interview where he says the odds of a person in this country dying of their pajamas catching on fire is more probable than dying in a terrorist attack. This fact appeared to mildly offend my father as he quickly responded with, "Well, 9/11 was terrible! I can't imagine how terrible that would be. To look out that window and have to decide whether to burn to death or jump to your death." I said, "Yes, it was terrible. I never said it wasn't."

Then somehow our conversation turned to Muslims which I was instantly angered over. My father made some ridiculously generalizing statement like, "All Muslims just want to kill Americans because if they become a martyr they get hundreds of virgins." I explained I thought this specific doctrine of reward in heaven was completely absurd, but not all Muslims are jihadists. I wanted to explain to him my Ramadan experience and how wonderful I found some of the practices of the devout Muslims to be. The early morning prayer, the meditation, the giving to the poor, and pushing your body's physical boundaries during fast to cleanse yourself (a process that most definitely lowered my blood pressure). But I didn't. How does one exactly explain to their fundamentalist Evangelical Christian father that he is an atheist who participates in the rituals and practices of Islam?

Juxtapose my father's generalizations with a song from his choir that he was practicing later that night for their upcoming Christmas Contata. The song was titled "When a Savior Dreams". Let's start with the title itself. What does a supernatural being dream? In the song the lyrics talk about God dreaming (the baby Jesus) sleeping in the manger. Let's work through the logic of this: So this implies God needs rest at all? I was under the impression that the only time he rested was on the 7th day of creation some 6,000 years ago? Does a Savoir go into R.E.M. sleep? What about delta sleep? Does Yahweh ever get sleep paralysis? Celestial snores? Omniscient apnea? I am sensing another field of Christian "science" coming on: Theistic Polysomnology! Who's with me?! But I am forgetting an obvious. God the father and God the son (baby Jesus) are two separate entities and also the same entity. This logically holds up to me. What about you?

There chorus of the song is, "I wonder when a Savior dreams, can you hear the angels clapping their wings?" Such an odd image this conjures in my mind. My father doesn't apparently connect his personal irrational beliefs in angels and demons with Muslim doctrines on getting rewarded with virgins in heaven. The truth is right in front of him if only he would let go of everything he knows to be true. How depressing when I put it that way.

In the last few hours I spent with my dad we spent it as we always did, having peanut and butter and chocolate ice cream from Baskin Robbins. I started having weird pains in my heart. I felt like it could be from the medication. My face was bright red and I felt flushed and a little light headed. I was pretty scared for a minute sort of questioning whether or not to have my dad drive me to the emergency room or just let it pass as it could just be my body getting used to the new medication. While I sat there deciding my dad licked his ice cream cone like a little kid, lapping away at it fervently, honing it into a perfect cone. He was blissfully unaware of what was happening inside of my body and I kept it that way.

So my dad did the same thing as his sister did and stayed in the car as I was climbing out to leave and go get into my car in the parking lot. I looked at him dead in the eye and said something to him I don't think I've ever said, "I love you dad. I really do." He looked at me and said harshly in a manly voice, "I love you too, Brent." I got in my car, collapsed in the seat, and wept. I cleared my eyes as I pulled away and drove along side my father for a minute until I took the interstate.

I was able to see my mom during her hour lunch break. We relaxed and had a cup of coffee while saying our goodbyes. My mom cried and I said with my quivered lip, "I love you mom. I really do." And she said, "I love you too, Brent. So much!" And just like that I was driving back in my rental car to the nearest airport in St. Louis. I dropped the car off, boarded my plane and opened my notes to study for my chemistry test once more.

I missed my connecting flight on the way back, which was a complete nightmare. It was like a scene from some Tom Hanks movie, where I'm running to the gate only to find they had shut the door and the plane had just taken off. I don't even remember what my blood pressure reading was and I was so angry at American Airlines (never fly with them. Ever! they suck!) They made it near impossible for me to make it in 5 min. to my connecting flight across to the other side of the airport and through security once more (for some stupid reason). Anyways, the next flight out was 5am in the morning. It was 10:00pm. I sat back in a chair, charged my cell phone, and closed my eyes to try to breathe. I slowed my heart rate down finally and thought for one second, - maybe if I wasn't a godless atheist I wouldn't have missed this flight and had to spend a night alone in a freezing airport. Then I thought, .. nah. That's stupid.

I finally made it back safely to Vegas with some notes on my trip and some memories stored away in my brain. I enjoyed my visit. On my way back home, I continued reading in the book The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease by Daniel Lieberman,

Every religion has a different explanation for when and where our species, H. sapiens, originated. According to the Hebrew Bible, God created Adam from dust in the Garden of Eden and then made Eve from his rib; in other traditions, the first humans were vomited up by gods, fashioned from mud, or birthed by enormous turtles. Science, however, provides a single account of the origin of modern humans. Further, this event has been so well studied and tested using multiple lines of evidence that we can state with a reasonable degree of confidence that modern humans evolved from archaic humans in Africa at least 200,000 years ago.

The ability to pinpoint the time and place of our species' origin comes largely from studying people's genes. By comparing genetic variation among humans from around the globe, geneticists can calculate a family tree of everyone's relationships to one another, and by calibrating that tree, estimate when everyone last shared a common ancestor. Hundreds of such studies using data from thousands of people concur that all living humans can trace their roots to a common ancestral population that lived in Africa about 300,000 to 200,000 years ago, and that a subset of humans dispersed out of Africa starting about 100,000 to 80,000 years ago. In other words, until very recently, all human beings were Africans. These studies also reveal that all living humans are descended from an alarmingly small number of ancestors. According to one calculation, everyone alive today descends from a population of fewer than 14,000 breeding individuals from sub-Saharan Africa, and the initial population that gave rise to all non-Africans was probably fewer than 3,000 people. Our recent divergence from a small population explains another important fact, one that every human ought to know: we are a genetically homogenous species.

This got me thinking of my trip, my family, what I know, what they know, who and what they worship, where they spend their time, what I do with mine and I suddenly felt more alive, simply for reading that passage. The things I learn from science give me such elation, such joy to realize I'm learning something that is real. These things really happened. I'm getting closer to the truth more than any ancient book of fairy tales could ever get me. I only wish the same for my family. I wish I could rightly express how much good science has brought to my life compared to religion.

As put better by a YouTube atheist Phil Hennes,

When I compare what scientific knowledge has done for me and what religion tried to do to me ... I sometimes literally shiver. Religions tell children they might go to hell and they must believe, while science tells children they came from the stars and presents reasoning they can believe.

This discovery that we are all essentially Africans should have also ended racism the day it was discovered. If you have a family member that is racist you should show them the passage above. Racism is based in scientific ignorance. Period. Learn as much as you can about the natural sciences. Teach your friends and family as much as you can as well. The more informed we are about our history as a species the better we are equipped to combat ignorance, racism, and harmful religious dogma.

In that last hour that I spent with my mom in that coffee shop near her work I brought up a lot of things about my dad. I told my mom he finally said he loved me and how much fun we had. I also let her know how much fun I had with her and her boyfriend, my grandparents, and aunts and uncles. We talked about how hard it is to live so far away from your immediate family and how much we miss each other. I also brought up how my dad said us, humans are not in control of our death. When God wants us to go, we go.

I began to say, "That's what's wrong at the core of what dad believes. Faith. Not taking control of your own destiny, etc." but my mother interrupted me saying, "But now God also doesn't want us to robots either, he gives us choices... etc." I realized what she was doing. I know it probably pains my mother to know that I'm an atheist, as it does many people who are out atheists in a religious family. She didn't want to follow that logic to it's natural conclusion: we live in a cold, indifferent cosmos with no cosmic purpose or plan for our species. As desolate or empty as that may sound, it is where the evidence points. In fact, as I pointed out earlier there is just as much evidence for an UNintelligent Designer as there is an Intelligent one. This brings logically to the only rational conclusion: There is no designer. But as you have seen things still matter. I am still a (what I would consider) highly intelligent, walking, talking bipedal ape communicating and having emotional connections to other walking, talking bipedal apes. How more amazing is that than any fairy tale?

I experienced the beauty of autumn in the Midwest with all it's tree color and black walnut litter. I felt the cool breeze on my skin as I took a walk, past maple trees, old oak stumps, sunlight illuminating each yellow leaf all on a property my family owns. I experienced what it is to be a human animal. We have evolved to crave high calorie food. Our distant ancestors in the Savannah through Africa needed as much high calorie food as possible as food sources were scarce due to climate change and plate tectonics. Our bodies still crave these foods but since the advent of agriculture and our highly advanced technologies we now have an abundance of high calorie food and we still eat it like it was going out of style. I know this is what contributed to my heart condition. I know this, because I know the history of the human body now. No supernatural nonsense required, just straight scientific data.

I experienced the love and joy of my family as a highly advanced, walking talking ape. We (a bunch of bipedal apes) laughed because it relieves stress and helps lower blood pressure. We rode bikes (exercising to advance our health) through forests near the Mississippi River. I looked through old journal entries about various girlfriends, and fake movie posters I created taking me back to being a kid -- to another time when I felt like a whole different person. We enjoyed film, we discussed current affairs and we ultimately bonded as healthy families do. All of this and still I'm an ape. All of this and still the cosmos is without purpose or plan. All of this and still there is no god. And somehow when you let go of all this unfounded peripheral baggage we are allowed to focus in on what really matters:

Those we love most:

Our family.


Meet Chris Highfill:
http://www.seminolebaptist.org/#/about-us/staff

Visit the Fin Inn Restaurant in Grafton, Illinois. (where the fish watch you eat their relatives)
http://www.fininn.com/

Listen to "When a Savior Dreams":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sly2FPRlefY

Meet Matt Dilahunty: (his YouTube channel)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/HCs-YqGDJ8-lo

Read: Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker's:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/better-angels-of-our-nature-steven-pinker/1100480675?ean=9780143122012

See how science can save your soul:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk

Read: The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease by Daniel Lieberman:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-story-of-the-human-body-daniel-lieberman/1114918051?ean=9780307379412

Visit your local Baskin Robbins:
(just kidding. I'm not putting a link to Baskin Robbins)

Inventors of Reality

A thought occurred to me in my Geology 102 class ("Life Through Time") as I was learning about the Eons, Periods, and Epochs of Earth. I'll get to that in a minute, but first lets look at what we know:

We know that the earliest forms of life start peaking through the geologic record around 3.5 billion years (in the middle of the Archean Eon) ago. We know this due to stromatolite rock formations. We also have chemical evidence in chert that suggest life. The Proterozoic Eon encases the "Great Oxygenation" event where sponges are found throughout this Eon. Evidence for soft-bodied organisms preserved in the Edicaran Epoch such as Edicaran fauna appear (most found in Australia, but some recently discovered here in Nevada) just before life really takes off. Then, an explosion of life rapidly (in geologic scale - millions of years ) fills the fossil record in the Cambrian rock formations. These become index fossils geologists can use to mark older/younger layers of rock. photosynthesis and cellular respiration begin to cycle as oxygen continues to climb to a threshold that supports shelled-organisms. With the formation of shells - life explodes in the oceans and traits are selected as we see an "arms race" of predator vs. prey. With the discovery of "Red Beds" (rocks that must have oxygen to form) we get evidence for oxygen releasing into the atmosphere.

Fish first appear in the fossil record in the Cambrian Period, as well as starfish, clams, and other shelled creatures. Transitional fossils such as tiktaalik show the use of arm-like fins to climb out of the oceans. Amphibians (laying eggs without shells in water) appear in the Devonian Period. From then, despite the massive extinctions (Such as the greatest extinction event known as the "Great Dying"during the 252 million years ago in the Permian Period) there is no stopping the diversity of life. In the Carboniferous Period reptiles appear (laying shelled eggs) to the rise of the mighty dinosaurs in the Triassic Period. Almost simultaneously we see the rise of small mammals, though dinosaurs kept us down.

Birds are essentially avian dinosaurs. Birds show up in the Jurassic Period. And then it's all she wrote for the non-winged dinosaurs with the asteroid slamming into the Yucatan Peninsula some 65 million years ago. This impact kicked up enough dust and debris to block sunlight for many years - thus killing many plants and animals - the food source for the dinosaurs. Then something akin to the Cambrian Explosion happens with mammals as the top predator (dinosaurs) going extinct. Niches open up and mammalian life explodes. In the Paleogene Period we see the rise of hoofed animals, whales, and primates. Through the Neogene to the Quaternary Period our ancestors evolve with larger brains. We use tools, we form tribes, we use deductive reasoning, we shed our body hair (well some of us), we walk upright and conquer our surrounding environment.

We can actually trace our genetic makeup through the animal kingdom all the way back to the beginning. We follow the fossils backwards and we end in the deepest of oceanic trenches with single cellular organisms in the Archean Eon. The thought that occurred to me in class was contrasting active scientific research with something like "intelligent design theory" or even "climate change denial". The first sign you are accepting a UNscientific "theory" is that there is no active research being done with said "theory". In "intelligent design theory" there is no actual scientific papers being published in any scientific journals (so the peer-reviewed process so essential to science doesn't happen with ID) What we have is an organization like the Discovery Institute (which has a religious agenda - though it claims it doesn't) constantly poking holes at evolution. Or trying to. Unsuccessfully I might add. The small amount of unscientific "evidence" presented by ID has been refuted many years ago such as "irreducible complexity" and so on.

"Climate change denial" is another "theory" that is comprised of conservative groups or PR departments of large energy companies. They hire a handful of scientists. Most of which are not even climatologists but meteorologists - which should tell you something right there. The sensational partisan media machine (such as Fox News for television or all of conservative "talk radio" for radio) Conservative voices (though as Neil deGrasse Tyson says - shouldn't conservatives want to conserve the environment?!) such as Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levine, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and so on tell their listeners on a daily basis that the science of climate change is nothing more than a liberal conspiracy to implement overreaching federal government control on the citizens of this country. A conspiracy that consists of 97% of climate scientists. The people that believe this might as well join the conspiracy theorists that think that the moon landing was faked on a Hollywood set because it's equally ridiculous in the wake of insurmountable evidence.

It seems obvious that the reason most of these people (those that choose ID over evolution or "climate change denial" over evidence for anthropogenic climate change) are denying reality is because they simply aren't informed. They have not either payed attention to or been exposed to the evidence for evolution or climate change. They also may not understand how science works. It's a beautiful tool for understanding reality. The best we have! We can make predictions, we can test those predictions, theories are falsifiable thus any theory can at any time be proven wrong. Someone once asked Richard Dawkins what would make him doubt evolution. He said something like - finding ungulate fossils in the Ordovician. In other words - the fossils and layers have become so cemented in the relative dating of geology and paleontology that with all this evidence (on top of radiometric dating of isotopes) we have a pretty clear timeline of events on earth from its formation 4.54 billion years. The fact that we are so certain to round it to 3 significant figures should tell you our certainty.

Contrast all of this with the circus I walked into outside of class after it let out. At the university I attend there is a large walkway near the library where the majority of students converge between classes all crisscrossing each other. I dodged annoying kids on skateboards, longboards, scooters, roller blades (OK maybe not rollerblades). I walked through basically this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhAr_UeroCk
I was met with an enormous handmade sign that said "EVOLUTION IS A LIE! JESUS SAVES!" as a group of Christians passed out tracts and preached their Christian dogma through a bullhorn. I was tempted to approach them and say ... "Weird. I just was learning about evolution in my geology class just now. So maybe I should drop that class then?" Of course I'm being ridiculous, but I remember when I used to think I knew more then every biological scientist in the world.

I recently watched a video about the arrogance of Creationism. These ill-informed people holding the "evolution is a lie" sign are basically saying they know more than the scientific experts in their respective fields. Think about that. Think about the arrogance of someone that holds a sign like that in public! These people that claim to know that evolution is false haven't even bothered to take the time to not just learn about the theory they say is false, but they also have no degree or credentials at all in regards to evolutionary biology. No need to really understand it. Just reject it whole cloth. If this isn't a clear sign of ignorance I don't know what is.

If you are one of these people (which many reading this of course are not!) I suggest starting small. Read a simple book on evolutionary biology. If you are going to deny reality you must learn about what you are denying as much as possible. When you do I am 100% certain you will be convinced by all of the evidence that evolution is true. I don't understand people who do not wish to understand the world around them. Many people I know bury their head in the sand and like many things contort their world-view (of human history, cosmology, etc) to fit what they are comfortable with (which usually always matches to how they were raised, or at the very least what country and what time period they were born into). The beautiful thing about science is that it doesn't care about any of these biases. It simply tests theories and compares data and weeds out bad information. It gets us to physical reality. If you want metaphysical reality - have at it. I know plenty of people who do and more power to them, but if you want to know what's happening on planet earth, in this galaxy, in this universe - look to science. It has answers. Real ones.

I have mentioned my father in past blog postings. I assume he is still a Young Earth Creationist like he was when I was a kid. *Check out my blog on my childhood memory of my father saying that the Sun was not a star but a Sun. However as of recent I have noticed something different about him. He seems to be seeking more. He's more open. He seems fascinated with new information. Of course I highly doubt he will ever follow the evidence all the way and take the humble position of an atheist, but hopefully he'll let go of some silly notions of our planet and our universe. We were discussing how amazing Einstein's "E equals MC squared" is and how most people don't even understand it. I used to not. We talked about how Newton invented calculus to explain his scientific laws. Can you imagine inventing a field of mathematics to explain your theory? Newton was a god among men. Still is.

Unlike other friends or family, I am able to talk about things like climate change (tho not so much evolution) with my father. This means so much to me. On some small level my father (who didn't consider the Sun a star) is opening up in some small ways. I can tell my dad is who I get my "unquenchable search for knowledge" from. Even though his religious beliefs cause him to censor himself in many ways (he doesn't watch R-rated movies for example), he doesn't censor all scientific information. This is wonderful and I hope in the future we are able to talk more about things that matter to me.

I hope to always have a healthy appetite for knowledge. I never have understood people who say they are bored. Your life is so fleeting and you are bored?! You live 5 minutes away from a library (with an absurd amount of information in hard copy form!) Your laptop is used to play Angry Birds during chemistry class!? (true story! I was sitting behind someone in my class who's attention was divided between facebook and Angry Birds; in the meantime our teacher was talking about THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF LIFE!) There is no excuse for "downtime" in our lives. There is just too much to learn in the short amount of time we have til it all goes black. What is wrong with these people? I'm not one of them. My father isn't one of them. Isaac Newton sure as hell wasn't one of them.

On the flip side - this leads me to wonder why on earth anyone would dedicate their life to theology. There is so much going on in the natural world around us and such a small amount of time to study it. Those that do I would argue have gone off path in one of the worst ways possible. They have dedicated their lives to studying "things no one can't possibly know" (what your God has said to homo sapiens in ancient writings). This will be a separate blog post I will continue ranting about in due time.

Our lives are short. There are certain things we can check off the list as reality. Where humans come from is one of these things. Evolution is a fact of life. Modern human activity (such as the burning of fossil fuels) is causing the climate to change rapidly. In the case of climate change, ignorance is dangerous so if you are going to pick one of these to deny - please pick evolution. Denying your "inner fish" isn't nearly as detrimental as living unsustainably. Everyone is needed to help curb climate change. There are consequences to all of our actions. In some of the same ways we have discovered life evolves, we know the biosphere of this planet is interconnected. This connection is apparent in human-caused climate change. I hope those that deny reality will join us soon so that I, for one, can stop ranting about those that know nothing but preach UNscientific ideas. This will lead to a better planet for all of us.

Here are some relevant links:

The Arrogance of Creationism: (Part 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVtYAfyzkb4

The Arrogance of Creationism: (Part 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgRdA2KAMw4

Helpful books on evolution I've read and recommend:

Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5 Billion Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/your-inner-fish-neil-shubin/1102811347?ean=9780307277459

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins
 http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/greatest-show-on-earth-richard-dawkins/1100333495?ean=9781416594796

Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/why-evolution-is-true-coyne/1116745079?ean=9780143116646

Finally, an amazing reference book I just purchased with many illustrations on the history of life on this planet:
Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth by DK Publishing
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/prehistoric-life-inc-dorling-kindersley/1102558429?ean=9780756699109

An Atheist Observes Ramadan: Week 4

Day 22 (Wednesday)

I farted during morning prayer today. It just came out, and I actually felt a little embarrassed that my biological need to release gas slipped out during this most intimate moment with God. We are animals after all and these things happen, I suppose. I didn't go to the extremes before my daily prayers. I didn't bath myself completely (wudu) before I knelt in prayer to Allah. From what I've read, hygiene is very important to Muslims (especially before prayer); so saying I farted during prayer may be leaning towards the blasphemous side. Not the best way to start off week four of Ramadan.

So anyways, I woke up at 4:20am today and actually ate a breakfast of nuts, celery and some salsa. I know! It's a pretty odd combination. I prayed for fajr and went back to bed. For once I actually fell right back to sleep and woke up again at around 9:30am. It felt really good to observe prayer this morning. It does feel good to be alone, quiet, and internally focused so early in the morning, before the sun rises. I am off work today. I will hopefully pray at 12:47pm for midday prayer.

My whole day off was great. I forgot to pray however for midday prayer because I was busy awaiting an email response from my Christian friend. I've mentioned him and his blog before. We have been reading Rosenberg's "An Atheist's Guide to Reality" together and discussing it a chapter at a time. I also spent a good hour or so writing week 3 of this Ramadan blog. I really enjoy doing this. I hope everyone has enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it.

I cheated but it was with my Muslim friend so I felt it was OK by association. I had cantaloupe juice, which technically is "eating" food. My Ramadan dogmatic lines are more blurry than ever. In the afternoon I went for coffee with my girlfriend and I pointed out to her that sometimes I bend the rules of Ramadan way too far. Muslims aren't supposed to drink alcohol even if it is after 8pm. I've done my fair share of having a few beers at the end of the night or a glass of wine. I'm certain coffee and juice aren't permitted let alone water during this fast. I was clearly missing the point. I was treating Ramadan like it was some annoying rule a parent gives you as a teenager - like "don't stay out too late" or "don't watch 'Die Hard' because he says 'yippee ki yay mother******!'" This wasn't the point. The point was to deny myself something that I need to show my devotion to the one true god - Allah. Oops.

We broke fast with delicious Thai food from our favorite local Thai restaurant. That was amazing! Each meal I break fast is amazing, but this place is already so delicious. We met up with a mutual friend that I met through my girlfriend at the restaurant and we shared laughs, tea, and delicious food. We talked about old stories and joked about how they were secretly trying to kill us as it smelled like burning teflon in the restaurant. For the most part it was really enjoyable. At the end of the night, before bed, I snacked on some walnuts and read the book I mentioned earlier.

Day 23 (Thursday)

Missed Fajr today. I had a disturbing dream. The kind of sad, depressing dream that was so real it ruins your entire day. It shifts your mood during your waking life. I hate dreams like this. My girlfriend left for work and I fell back asleep again. I couldn't get the internet to work once I woke up for the day finally around 10am. I was unable get the wi-fi to work all day long so I couldn't write my Christian friend an email response regarding the book discussion. Besides all of this I completely missed the midday prayer as well. As it stands now, as I sit in my car in the parking lot of my job at 2pm, I have yet to pray today. I've only missed prayer completely once before, if I recall correctly. I plan to pray though before I go to bed at least for the final prayer of the day. One prayer is better than no prayer I never say.

I wrote my Christian friend back formerly before I went to work. I finally got the internet working a few minutes before I had to leave. In the email he mentions that he has a certain amount of respect for atheism as a world view. He said that if he were not a Christian he would be an atheist. This shocked me a bit. I found this fascinating coming from a devout Christian in the ministry. I responded by asking him -  if at the core of what you believe inside of you is "there has to be a god" then why not explore the validity of the other monotheist religions before jumping straight to atheism. His answer is very interesting to me.

I broke fast with fast food like a terrible human being and went home and went to bed without praying like a full blown heathen. Praying is something that is slipping away from me during these last few days of Ramadan.

Day 24 (Friday)

It has become very apparent that I don't pray anymore. I simply just do other things. The distinct rules and rituals of Ramadan are falling apart for me one by one. First was the "cheating" with drinking liquids during fast, now I don't pray anymore. I remember, as a teenager, t-shirts people in my church would wear that said "PRAY HARD!"I need do make one that says "HARDLY PRAYS!" But as bad as that joke is, the concept of praying "hard" is really bizarre. How does one pray hard? Does it mean you cry, sweat, or burst a blood vessel? Does praying hard look like this? Does praying hard require one to be glowing red in the face? It just makes me laugh because by contrast one can pray "soft" and I'm assuming this is the weakling who prays weak. What would that look like?

I didn't pray for midday prayer and went to work around 3pm.

**** add more here about nighttime.

(going back through this I see that not only was my Ramadan prayer fading but even blogging about my experience became less and less important to me as you can see how I never went back to "add more here about nighttime".) 

I have nothing more to add here. Looking at this now I don't recall what happened this night. Apparently nothing worth writing about.

Day 25 (Saturday)

The journal entries are becoming shorter and shorter with each new day as I wind down Ramadan. It's starting to fade. I missed prayer all day yesterday and haven't prayed at all today either. I just am never in the mood to take the time. I guess I'm not a Muslim. I'm even bad at pretending to be one. It just seems like nonstop rituals all the time. The specific ways you pray and bend your knees angle the foot so as to not point your toes towards the Qibla unless you are bowing towards Mecca.  It's like being a strict Catholic. All these symbolic gestures all the time. It all seems sort of silly and useless to me as a contemporary atheist in America. That statement may sound xenophobic or something but that's not how I intended it. People more often then not reflect the religion and cultural customs of the geographical place they grew up. I suppose I am an exception since I was raised in a Baptist home but am now an atheist.

I am going to work at 2:30pm today.

I broke fast with some leftovers from my girlfriend's parents' house at 8pm. After work I went to  meet my atheist friend for a beer at a local brewery. We were discussing my recent email exchange and book discussion with my Christian friend. We were laughing as a buzz kicked in at how much information we have actually learned from scientists such as (Krauss or Dawkins) compared to what the anti-scientism theologians and philosophers have given us. It seems that all these people want to do is poke holes in the semantics or debating techniques of the New Atheists. They are correct in a lot of ways but at the same time I have had gained so much knowledge in biology by reading a Dawkin's book. I now understand how certain scientific theories work. Those that pick holes at arguments aren't contributing as much as those that are doing science.

We also had a good laugh about how proponents of Intelligent Design, unlike the anti-scientism philosophers don't actually have any correct points in the flaws of the New Atheists. They are attempting to poke holes in the theory of evolution, but despite their confidence they are not successfully doing so. In fact, they are making themselves look really ridiculous, putting themselves out their for ridicule since reality is completely different than what the creationist gathers from his holy book.

I left the bar around midnight to go to accompany my girlfriend to her car since she got off work at 12:30am. As I was driving to meet her I saw a restaurant's sign and did a double take. The restaurant was called "Gandhi India's Cuisine". So the master faster himself is even subject to the unstoppable tidal wave of capitalism. Wow. I of course didn't pray after we got back to the house. Drunken prayers (like the TV show "Drunken History") is amusing for about a minute then it gets really old really fast. I fell asleep after having a few beers. Again, very Muslim of me. Might as well had some bacon before bed...

I am being prophetic as you will soon see.

Day 26 (Sunday)

Again no prayer. In fact I almost forgot to write anything in my journal today regarding Ramadan. It seems now just an annoying practice that is stopping me from consuming food all day. I can hardly wait for this to be over! I really mean that. I think next year if I do this again I will participate in what I call "Ramadan Light" (it's all the fun of Ramadan but in half the time! I would maybe do it for a week or two. A month is too long!) I'm writing this at 7:55pm and I'm about to go break my fast with my Muslim friend. This week hasn't been so magical and I was under the impression that it was supposed to be the best week. I have to say I read somewhere or heard on the news that during this week Muslims pray more. I have actually prayed less. I haven't again prayed at all today

I'll write more after breaking my fast.

... Or not.

Day 27 (Monday)

Has it become apparent to the readers of this last week of Ramadan I'm sort of going through the motions at this point. I have lost my steam even for writing about it. Today was another prayerless day. I woke up early to go to offsite. "Retail Now" convention. I felt like a vampire, rushing to eat as the sun slowly rises in the background. I must not be in the sunlight! AAAH!! "Muslim Vampires". Hmm. I may want to copyright that movie idea! If Abraham Lincoln can be a vampire hunter why can't a devout Muslim by a vampire? The offsite was fun. It was laid back and I sat with my co-worker talking about all sorts of things. We talked about people growing their own food and how I was really wanting to get into gardening once we moved into an adequate house that had a backyard. He told me that he always gets fresh homegrown veggies and fruits from people in his church. I had a flashback of all the tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers our fellow church-goers gave us each Sunday at church growing up. The one thing I miss desperately with religion is the community of people that help each other out. This is the biggest draw in my opinion to church-going.

I broke my fast with my Muslim friend again. We had salad, eggplant, and delicious rice with pomegranet seeds. We had a great time laughing as we also ate our dates and hot tea. He told me about when he lived in the Middle East how they all met up after Ramadan for a celebration. They would all meet up in a very large building. He said it was the size of a stadium, but so many people came for celebration that they had to open up the parking lot as well; and everyone brought their own prayer mats and prayed together. This must have been a powerful sight.

After the meal we watched the film, "Ben Hur". I've seen this movie countless times growing up with my family. It's an entertaining movie that of course has some silly over-dramatic acting at times and the whole Jesus thing goes a little too far into Christian propaganda. It's fine if you want to portray Jesus of Nazareth in Roman history, but it's quite another thing to go the Christ route. Anyways, there is this scene where a bunch of African slaves dance around - the women of course have barely any clothes on dancing seductively and I remembered my father. I was very young and my dad was grumbling under his breath while he would always turn the channel or fast forward during that part. Oh dad, must you censor every thing biology gives us homo sapiens? There weren't too many films (even older ones) that my father didn't have at least one scene in the movie that he felt needed to be censored.

My Muslim friend told me that some Jehovah Witnesses came to his house a few years back and instead of shooing them away he let them in to discuss their religion. As someone who grew up an Evangelical Christian that is now a nonbeliever I found it fascinating to hear stories about a Muslim and a Jehovah Witness debating the truth claims of their specific religion. I recently had a friend convert to the Jehovah Witness religion and he has become strict in his new faith. I may possibly be joining him for meetings to see what it is all about and quite possibly blog about this experience. Apparently I am becoming the atheist who participates in all things religion (except the belief in god part).

My Muslim friend said they talked for hours and they even brought back their pastor or whoever is in charge of the local meet ups for Jehovah Witnesses. They discussed differences between Islam and Jehovah Witness. He said that the Jehovah Witness said that no one in my friend's house should be getting a blood transfusion and that he should take down their Christmas tree. The men asked why a Muslim would even have a Christmas tree. My Muslim friend responded, "well my family likes it." The men explained that Christmas was nothing more than a holiday for consumers. I couldn't agree more with that statement myself, but the entire time he was telling me this I was so wishing I could have been there to record this exchange. I have to do more research on the Jehovah Witness faith. They have some interesting beliefs.

Today was a good day, but still again ... no prayer all day.

Day 28 (Tuesday)

I am told by my Muslim friend that this is the 2nd to last day of Ramadan. I look forward to eating when I'm hungry again. This was a very long month and I don't know if I will be doing it again. If I do it will be out of the respect for my Muslim friend and showing solidarity with him in what he cares about most. I think it made him happy to know he wasn't alone in his circle of friends observing Ramadan. He knows I am not a Muslim. In fact I was asked recently by someone "So you aren't an atheist anymore?" noting on my recent observing of Ramadan. I was taken off guard by the question. At times in our society I think its really hard to admit you are an atheist. I didn't fully admit to my atheism (I feel guilty about not being true to who I am). I essentially explained that I was agnostic, mostly because the person I was talking to probably didn't know what an agnostic atheist was. Things like this always start with, "well, it's complicated to explain." It is in some ways, but the blunt honesty of saying, "Yes. I'm an atheist" is something I'm still barely getting used to since it still isn't completely accepted in American society. I explained to her that someone can technically be an agnostic atheist, which is what I am.

I have to work again tonight at 2:30 and I am not sure how I will break my fast. I may try to actually pray for midday if I don't forget in an hour or so. I'll let you know.

I forgot dhuhr completely today. I didn't pray. Big shock. I realized this as I was sitting in my car listening to "Star Talk Radio w/ Neil deGrasse Tyson" waiting to go into work at 2:30pm. I spent a good majority of my day watching this documentary called "Searching for Noah's Ark". It was a documentary from the 70's that showed "conclusive" proof that Noah's Ark has indeed been found on Mount Ararat in Turkey. Of course this entire documentary was riddled with bias and false information. It was actually sort of like Poe's law. If you were to stumble across this you may think that it was a parody. It's hard to tell sometimes with these things.

We couldn't contact my brother who is traveling abroad til the end of this month. For a moment in my mind (as I was in line at Coffee Bean getting my gallon of iced coffee) I linked my brother's possible safety concerns (as my mother and I had not heard from him in some time) to me not praying anymore. It's funny how our mind automatically goes to what we were programmed as a child to believe. When I was younger when something terrible would happen I would beg Jesus in a very passionate tearful prayer (AKA - "Praying Hard!") to ease my pain or suffering. Now I was feeling the same guilt for not praying, but to a different god this time - Allah. And just for an instant. Of course I snapped back into reality and remembered all the studies on prayer and how they have conclusively shown prayer does not work. I considered in that brief moment to try and cover my bases with the two different gods and have my dad pray to his Christian god while my Muslim friend could pray to the god of Islam. I went with the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" instead.

After work I drank a few beers and watched a very powerful documentary on climate change. It's called "Chasing Ice". (Find it and watch it! It's on Netflix) I had tears rolling down my face as I watched ice sheets plummeting into the ocean and made a very real connection to the power I'm using in the house in which I live to watch this documentary and climate change. We like to think we are separated from nature. Religion in a general sense does not help in this regard. We are told from Islam to Christianity that God has "chosen people" .. a strand of ape species called homo sapiens that are to have "dominion over the earth" (it is our God-given right to subdue this planet as our own). This is the opposite of ecology and the opposite of how we should act. This god has set aside a chosen people to do with this planet what they will because this is not our "real home" .. this is merely temporary. In some ways this defense mechanism of religion (confronting with one's own mortality) has backfired and caused us to think we can do with this planet whatever we see fit since we are merely "passing through" in this lifetime. It's such a damaging way of thinking. We can never just be satisfied with this brief life we are so lucky to live and treat this planet with respect by living sustainably.

Went to bed with a bit of a buzz and no prayer. Tomorrow is the last day of Ramadan. Will I get up to pray?

Day 29 (Wednesday)

Nope.

In fact I slept almost til 11am like some hungover teenager. I have a dentist appointment at 3 so hopefully I can pray one last time at midday prayer. I drank coffee (imagine that) and water today. Since my Muslim friend and I started one day late (according to some Muslims) we technically should fast through tomorrow, but today will be our last day. I'm completely fine with this. However, we were talking today about using this momentum of fasting every day and supplementing it with just eating raw fruit all day, or raw veggies all day, maybe three days a week. This will of course cleanse our organs and also help us eat a healthier at least a third of the meals we consume. I also MUST stop drinking coffee every couple hours. It's very unhealthy to drink the amount of coffee I have been drinking since I started Ramadan. Not eating is just an excuse for this bad habit.

This was one of my favorite nights during Ramadan. After a delicious meal of chicken cutlets and salad we sat down (my Muslim friend, his wife, my girlfriend and I) and shared some tea and watched some TV. After awhile my Muslim friend started telling us stories of his childhood and teenage years (growing up in the Middle East). I have joked before that this man is quite possibly "the most interesting man in the world" (AKA the Dos Equis guy). Not only does he sort of look like him but he literally is the most interesting man I've met in a lot of ways. His stories are amazing tales of adventure and hilarity. He nearly went to the Olympics. He's met really famous world leaders, he's a world traveler. He had us in tears of laughter at some points while shocking us with unbelievable tales at other moments. We left feeling so connected and uplifted. I am so glad I was able to experience this Muslim tradition with him. This was another reason why I did this. Perhaps the most important reason - I wanted to have solidarity with people that matter most in my life.
It's what ultimately makes me a humanist. I like humans. Especially my Muslim friend.

I think it's important to show support even when you don't necessarily identify with a friend or family member's religion, politics, belief system, etc. As I've said before, we are all just humans trying to work things out in our own way, in our own head, in our own heart each passing moment in our fleeting lifetime. I think we need more solidarity, support, and love. I learned this lesson doing this. It's important to see where the other person is coming from. I think it is important to stand side by side with people to show them that you support their right to do whatever they want or to believe whatever they want. This should be reciprocated as well. As atheists we should be able to expect the same support and solidarity in our life choices and nonbelief. We should have our friends and family's back and they should have ours because love is more important than whether you think there is a god or not.

Day 30 (Thursday)

My Muslim friend and I celebrated the end of Ramadan (Eid-al-Fitr) in our own local way... We went to a buffet at a nearby casino to eat the "all you can eat" breakfast. We loaded up with sausage, eggs, bacon, chicken friend steak, biscuits and gravy, pancakes, waffles, and hashbrowns. We had a great time and ate until we couldn't eat anymore. The food was delicious and we dispersed and went about our day. I had forgotten what a full stomach in the morning felt like. It felt terrible. I went off to work in a food coma and almost longed for the days of fasting as feeling that full does not feel right. The food we ate was incredibly unhealthy as well, which didn't help. I would suggest for those atheists out there that are considering practicing Ramadan follow these tips:

1. Don't drink so much coffee during your fast (maybe only on your first day just so you don't get a migraine)

2. Don't ever gorge on food the day after Ramadan (it hurts! Your body isn't used to it. Don't shock your system.)

In Conclusion:

I like to put myself in other people's shoes sometimes and see the world form their perspective. I think this is vital in understanding where people are coming from and to better form a worldview that isn't narrow-minded. The news reports in the last few days have been about the al qaeda threat on U.S. embassies worldwide. The news tells me that terrorist threats are something we need to all be aware of during this time of year (the end of Ramadan). I just thought how strange. That's not been my experience at all. I am not naive enough to not think there aren't religious extremist in Islam, obviously, but it so contrasts my personal, peaceful Ramadan experience. I don't recall reading that at the end of Ramadan you are to break your fast by blowing up Americans. The Islam I experienced in that month was a peaceful Islam. It was an Islam that showed me the internal focus power of prayer, but it was also the Islam that showed me some outdated information on life and human well-being. It showed me that not all Muslims are evil terrorist, but it also showed me that not eating all day long can give you a massive migraine headache because your biological need for food is something you should satisfy.

The way people I grew up with in white middle America think of Muslims is no longer how I think about Muslims. As I've recently heard some people from my past suggest President Obama is a secret terrorist Muslim, one can only chalk these fallacies up for ignorance. It's simply that these people don't know because they are listening to the filter. As President Bush once said, it's hard to get the correct information when most Americans are listening/watching through the filter (referring to the major media in the U.S.) I agree with him. If you turn on different news stations you get a very skewed worldview. A worldview that isn't necessarily correct. It's narrow and biased in many ways. I think it would do many Christians good as well as many atheists to walk a day in a Muslim's shoes. I think many Muslims are profiled unfairly and treated as second-class citizens in this country and from my personal experience the most peaceful and loving people I know happen to be practicing Muslims. So before you judge try walking in their shoes for a day. Try Ramadan for yourself and see where you land.

Of course I stand with Sam Harris and many others who consider Islam as a very dangerous religion (going through it's rebellious, barbaric, violent teenage years) in the modern world. We need to settle it down. If religion is going to persist and survive in this modern era it has to be a moderate form of religion not a literalist version of any religion. The world cannot survive with these types of extremists out there (in any religion) as they are to get their hands on WMDs and wipe us all out. A free society is the only thing that should not be compromised. I will offend your religious dogma any day if it means saving my free society.

And what of all the charity work? This is the one thing that made me really want to do Ramadan. All this charity work. My Muslim friend said that his mother donated for me and him and his whole family to the Red Cross. This is tremendously sweet and beautiful of her to do, but I never directly participated in charity myself. (The homeless guy with the dollar doesn't count.) I am not blaming anyone but myself of course but it got me thinking about religion just being a lens to see the world through, a totally unnecessary lens at that. I mean, essentially I experienced Ramadan and didn't give to the poor where as an atheist I have at least signed up to do soup kitchen work and packing bagged lunches for poor children. Religion doesn't own morality. In fact it confuses things. One can be moral and be an unbeliever obviously, but why jump through this unnecessary hoop to just help ease the suffering of a fellow human being?

In the end of this experiment it was brought to my attention how I became an atheist. Some have testimonies of a drastic "AHA!" moment where it suddenly hit them that religion was all a crock of b.s. However, for me and many other atheist friends of mine it was a slow gradual process. It wasn't painful for me either. If you were to meet me as a child or even teenager you would have met a devout follower of Jesus Christ. I was a young earth creationist, anti-evolution, Bible-fearing punk rocker for God. And it was very real, and slowly but surely, piece by piece, with each bit of information I read here or video I watched there or hypocrisy I noticed in this church or with that pastor my faith slowly fell apart. My month long experience with Islam (through Ramadan) sort of fell apart slowly the same way. I just stopped caring and with that began to just be "over it". I suppose this could be due to laziness as much as it is missing my creature comforts. It all came crumbling down until in the end I was exactly where I started -

... an Atheist.

An Atheist Observes Ramadan: Week 3

Day 15 (Wednesday)

Woke up today late once again. I skipped morning prayer completely. I got home so late last night from the offsite apparently I hit snooze 80 times and slept through sunrise. I also missed eating, which having some disgusting bean tacos from a local fast food restaurant last night, I don't deserve breakfast.

12:52pm: Finally was able to get at least one prayer in before my four day break from Ramadan. This prayer was like the slap-stick comedy prayer. I nearly fell on my ass as I was getting up from sujood and I found it somewhat hard to concentrate at the first part of the prayer since the cat was just staring at me so intensely as if thinking "What on earth are you doing?!" However, hands down (not just literally) the prayer requests were the most enjoyable. It all came flooding back to me. How to pray and to really mean it. I couldn't stop. I was naming all my friends and family. Keep them safe, Allah. Bless them with good health and wealth! I prayed for the poor. I prayed for everyone else except for myself. This was a first time too. I usually always pray for my life, my health, my success. I was too consumed with others (which I think is a good thing) to pray for my own needs.

So I am about packed for my trip. I am looking forward to seeing my friend. It's been a long time since we've hung out. We have been friends since we were in high school and known each other throughout grade school too. I look forward to relaxing by his pool and meeting his new son. Well, off to work now. I will of course stop for my usual skinny, extra iced, (with extra shots), pumpkin spice, sprinkles, and light whip frappamochachaiatino on my way to work - You know, I'm fasting and all. This is what I like to call the "all coffee fast". This has basically just been an all coffee diet.

Day 16-20 (Thurs.-Mon.)

I took this time off of Ramadan to go visit one of my longest friends in Houston. During this time I met my best friend's 14 month old child - which was pretty much the cutest baby I have ever laid eyes upon. I also swam in his pool in his gorgeous back yard. We shared stories, beers, laughs, food, and memories. It was such a relaxing vacation. I met my friend's friend from work. She was a really funny and fun person to be around. Her hardy laugh made the baby cry as we joked that her joy basically makes the child weep.

She asked me why, as an atheist I was observing Ramadan. She said that she had read week 1 of my Ramadan blog. I told her one reason was to blog about it. (obviously) I told her I love to write and these types of experiments are really enjoyable to me. I like also to be challenged and this even goes for my atheism surprisingly. If this month of Ramadan were to convince me that the one true way is accepting Allah as the one true God then so be it. This hasn't happened yet, but maybe it's still too early to tell. As always I am a freethinker and a skeptic first. So this entire experience, reading the Qu'ran, the fasting is all part of teaching me something and if that something happens to be that the Muslim faith is the one true way to live, I will accept that. That's what being truly open minded means.

Before I left for Houston, my friend in Vegas mentioned to me that I should start writing a book called something like, The Religious Atheist: Or How I learned to Stop Being an Anti-Theist and Embrace Nonsense. It would consist of me (the atheist) participating in all these different religious rituals (not just Muslim but Christian or Hindu or whatever). I liked the idea, even though it does sort of sound like a spin-off of A.J. Jacob's book Year of Living Biblically. - Which is a great book by the way! Before I left I had some sort of weird epiphany; maybe it was the starved brain that made me feel like it was some sort of message from Allah, but it certainly seemed powerful. I felt like God was calling me to be a writer. Not that that is really anything new, but to really pursue it in a university. We'll see how far that conviction leads me. At least the epiphany wasn't to go back to Bible College. That would have sucked. And I would have ignored God.

During our trip we also attended atheist church. That's right - Atheist church. I was very disappointed I didn't come a week earlier. The guest speaker of last week was Jerry DeWitt (an ex-Assembly of God pastor/televangelist) turned atheist. This was a weekly Sunday morning meetup of atheists put together by the Oasis Center ("A community grounded in reason, celebrating the human experience." - as it said on their business cards) The group was led by Mike Aus, an ex-pastor, turned atheist. The banner on the wall just said "People are more important than beliefs". I really liked this simple message. It was more of a humanist-driven church. They discussed when and where they would meet up for upcoming charity events like soup kitchens, etc.

My friend and I recalled how we would sometimes get "called down" by the pastor growing up in our Baptist church, and just how funny it would be if the same thing happened in atheist church since we were cracking jokes the whole way through the service. I wrote in a past blog about our ridiculous "Mighty Boosh/Tim and Eric style stories" my friend and I would concoct from the surrounding cast of church-going characters. We pictured everyone shooting up heroine and tripping on acid, orgies, thievery, wild animal sacrifice (basically all the things that our conservative Christian family or friends think happens when atheists get together). We were like, "Oh I guess our parents were right all along."

We couldn't deny the strange bizarro-world that seemed to be the parallel to our Christian church from back home. There were even people in the audience that resembled some characters from back home. The speaker at Oasis meetup looked almost exactly like a deacon and faithful church-attendee from our home church named Bill. We laughed at how everything was just a mirror image. The music was whatever, but before the speaker went up to the podium a man had something he wanted to read to everyone. It was his thoughts on using the word "luck" and how there was no such thing and how faith was bad. My friend and I laughed at how directly opposite this "church" was. They were talking about the dangers of faith while at that very moment in our hometown in Illinois the pastor was probably talking about faith being a virtue. Also, people started to chime in after this man got done with his diatribe on use of the word "luck". "Can you image this happening in our old church? Can you even imagine a discussion like this where people in the congregation disagree and vocalize their disagreement with someone in authority?"-  my friend said to me. It was refreshing to see a debate and a discussion where no one was "in charge" so to speak.

The guest speaker's name was Dennis Fehr. He was an ex-Mechanized Amish turned atheist. His story was very powerful and moving. He grew up in a strict environment that didn't even allow for the simple joy of art. Mechanized Amish is a little more modern than the traditional Amish. They are allowed to drive cars but the speaker said the cars where not allowed to be "flashy", all the chrome from the vehicle was removed and everything painted black. He talked of going to college for art and how this was not acceptable to his Amish community. He also married very young and finally divorced, which too was something that ostracized him. He attended the University of Illinois for Art and even talked about Decatur, Illinois which was very close to where we both grew up. In the end he talked about his father. We all teared up with Dennis as he told of how despite the push back from everyone his father knew, his father always supported his decisions. He held back the tears, and his mouth twisted to say the words that despite all the pain he caused his family his father still showed unconditional love for him. Even through his de-conversion and path to atheism he was accepted by his family. It was such a great story. Very uplifting.

At the end of the service Mike Aus came to the podium and talked about the exciting program next Sunday that would start a half hour early. Next Sunday's program is going to be with famous internet atheist, Aaron Ra and biologist, PZ Meyers. After the "service" let out we met some people that were in attendance. There were probably, I would estimate, around a hundred people in attendance. We met people that came to atheism from all walks of life. Some were born into an atheistic home, another man was born in Pakistan as a Muslim, yet another was still a Mormon that was "working things out in his head". All very nice people and that was the thing I loved most about this, it's all about meeting people. We are social animals at our very core and it feels good to socialize. I was moved by the whole refreshing experience. I am now going to look into local atheist meet ups here in Vegas.

After the the "service" we met with the "congregation" at Jason's Deli (in our home town, growing up, after church we would all meet up at Ponderosa or Pizza Hut for the buffet - see "bizarro-world"!) My friend had been trying to call his wife multiple times to confirm if she was making lunch for all of us or not. She wasn't answering her phone so we went ahead and got in line at Jason's Deli. In front of us was a man wearing a shirt that said "It is finished!", referencing Jesus' last words on the cross. One of the atheists in attendance at the Oasis meetup was talking to him about religion. It was sort of like un-evangelizing. As we stood in an unmoving line for about ten minutes my friend said we should probably just go, just in case his wife was making food. So we ditched everyone. We didn't really say goodbye to anyone. We jokingly imagined, as we saw Mike Aus straggle in late while we left,

Mike saying, Oh you guys leaving?

Yeah, we just converted back to Christianity in line here. - we reply.

Mike Aus just sort of makes a confused look while replying back, 

Alright then, ...

We laughed about the possibility of someone that was so fickle to just instantaneously be convinced by a single argument. This person after attending atheist church would be "saved" then attend a Christian church next Sunday be convinced instantly by a conversation with a Jewish person, and Muslim and so on. Each week changing their mind on the most important of questions about life and the universe. We had a good long laugh about how absurd that would be and joined his wife and son for a delicious lunch on the patio.

I had a wonderful time in Houston. I reflected on this as I sat drinking a large beer at Chili's in the George Bush Intercontinental Airport waiting for my flight to start boarding. I miss my friend and our jokes. We discussed forming a band that will most certainly be called "Slack Jaw Jesus and the Balling Fondas". It will involve my brother, me, him, and probably a laptop, but the laptop will for sure be an actual member of the band. We saw some pretty interesting indie music in downtown Houston at a place called the Fitzgerald. The bands were "Ishi" and the "TonTons". I was able to see mission control at the NASA Space Center museum. We visited Austin, Texas where everyone has an ironic t-shirt, a mustache, and tattoos. It was a pretty cool city. I will be visiting Houston/Austin again very soon. Band practice starts next month, I think...

Or does it?!?

Day 21 (Tuesday)

Hello, Ramadan! I'm back!
I arrived back in Las Vegas late Monday night. The last non-Ramadan meal I ate was Chipotle. It was around 6pm Monday night. I woke up too late for prayer so I will do it right now at 12:47pm. I'm curious to see how this will go. How hungry I will be since I took 5 days off of fasting. This is the last day of the 3rd week of Ramadan. I work until 10:30pm tonight. Hopefully it goes well.

I stopped by Coffee Bean on my way to work for my daily fasting cheat of coffee with dark chocolate flavoring. This help sustain me and my entire day was very productive with no real hunger pangs. I almost didn't even notice it was past 8pm. I broke fast with olives, some brown rice and some orange peel chicken Thai food. I only prayed once, but the midday prayer was a good one. I have to admit I missed it. I enjoyed the time to just sit and focus on my friends and family - sending them good thoughts and wishes. Praying for them. When I was on my vacation in Houston my friend sent me a link of Reza Aslan doing a calm verbal smack down of a badgering agenda-driven Fox News "reporter" not really talking about his new book on Jesus of Nazareth. I found Reza's response refreshing and his clarity empowering. It was what I mentioned in my previous blog. I was impressed by this man's passion for history and his engaging, friendly demeanor. I will post a link below with the video I am referring to.

This is the end of my very shortened week 3 of Ramadan. Week 4 is coming soon... It will be the last week and a handful of days near the end. I hope to write a wrap up conclusion to this whole experience.

Meet Houston Oasis:
www.houstonoasis.org

Meet Mike Aus:
www.un-pastorized.com

If you are ever in Houston go to see shows here:
http://fitzlivemusic.com/

Meet the band "Tontons":
http://thetontons.com/

Meet the band "Ishi":
 http://www.ishimusic.com/

Reza Aslan being "interviewed" by a Fox News "reporter":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY92TV4_Wc0