I do not have children. I am certainly at that age where I should start thinking about having a child, but what I tell people who ask is that my reasoning for not having children is money and sustainability. If everyone lived like an American we would need five planet Earths to sustain the consumption and use of natural resources. I do enough damage to the environment, one of the most sustainable things a human can do in 2015 is to not breed more human beings. This may sound a bit sinister or even extreme to some of you, but despite how it makes you feel it doesn't take away from the fact that it is absolutely true.
We have to start thinking about living sustainably if our species is going to survive in the upcoming centuries. We all helped create this mess with our comfortable lifestyles so it's up to us to fix this mess. It isn't the fault of the poor people of Bangladesh that must flee their home as climate change forces sea levels to rise in the upcoming decades. Climate change is a rich people problem that poor people will suffer first and foremost. The poor will suffer deeply for a problem they had no hand in creating. Ah, God is good isn't he? And fair! Blessed are the poor.
When I was a child I was taught that many social, cultural, and religious rules were extremely important. Don't lie, cheat, steal, have sex before marriage. As some of these are important for mental and societal health (not the sex before marriage thing of course) we need to raise children with an understanding through science that they and the rest of their family are responsible for living sustainable. Lowering our families' carbon footprints should be much more important than not saying a cuss word or attending Sunday school because it's based off something verifiably real about our world and our future.
We also should teach our children it isn't enough to just bring your carbon footprint down to zero to live sustainably, but we need to contribute to our local biosphere and habitat. Just as it is not enough, in my opinion to simply NOT be a racist or a bigot, but we should all be an anti-racist or anti-bigot, fighting along side those who are being persecuted to help the cause of freedom for everyone despite their race or sexual orientation. We need to be active in our environmentalism and teach this to children over fairy tales of talking snakes and donkeys. It's time to grow the fuck up, people! Stop being afraid of a godless universe and then projecting this fear onto your children as if you are teaching them something real. Adults are the worst. Tell children anything and they will soak it up. It isn't the fault of children, it's their parents who need to wise up.
My theist friend Dan just wrote a blog called, "What is the gospel?" (I will post the link below) where he begins with a conversation with his son about "Adam" sinning. I can write hundreds of ranting blogs about how pathetic it is to indoctrinate children with unverified nonsense from ancient pieced-together books as real events in history, but I will abstain. This is exactly how we get Creationism 101 disguised as Biology 101 threatening many of our U.S. public school classrooms.
Dan writes that his kid says, - Dad, I wish Adam wouldn't have sinned by eating that forbidden fruit. Of course my theist friend agrees. The rest of the blog Dan goes on to talk about the "true" story of Adam and Eve. I once wrote Dan about this "true" story and how genetics and evolutionary biology tell us there was no first of any species... including our own species! He offered up no explanation really, but a vague picture of "Adam" being a representation of the first human. When I followed this logic asking him the simple question - If science tells us Adam must have had a father, was Adam's father sinless? He ignored the question completely, then simply said he did not know. Funny how those that are so certain of the entire narrative of the Bible that starts with Adam fall and ends with Jesus death and resurrection are so quick to brush off the problem of "no actual Adam existed or could have existed". I guess I can amend Genesis with this prequel concept (I call movie rights!):
And on the 6th day God created man - and it was good, BUT this "First Man's" father was better than good. We could say he was great even! Then of course, Adam's grandfather was the shit! Holy as I'll (God) get out! and so on... Genesis 0:1-3
I asked another Christian friend who offered a more nuanced explanation of possibilities. Apparently one theory from Biblical apologists is that "Adam" was a group of the "first of our species with culture". Even though we should all know that human culture and speciation do not work this way within one generation, we have to sort of set that aside. What of that generation pre-Adam tribe representative group of "first humans" then? Apparently they were sinless then since sin started with "Adam"? Again, no answer. Again we have people/peoples before the "first human" (whatever that means since apparently we can't take that literal there) who were clearly sinless. What then?
All this and what hangs in the balance? As nonbelievers (or some of us that may believe in a different religion with a different god) we are doomed to hell for not believing in the Jesus story (which directly hinges on the "Adam story".) So clarity is paramount but of course we have the most murky picture of human origins via the Bible. Oh well, hope you like lakes of fire! If atheism is wrong, guess what, you still don't burn forever; so which world view is more attractive to you? This should be obvious by now if you are paying attention.
No. If I had a child I would not indoctrinate them, especially with religion. I would not tell them that there is no such thing as a God or Gods either. I would give them a comparative religion run down, treating each religion equally and also introducing them to what it means to not believe in any of these religions. I want my child to come to his own conclusions naturally. Of course I will still be an atheist more than likely and I will still do atheisty things around him/her, but it will be up to them to decide. I will not judge if he/she chooses to be a Muslim or Christian. I will love them and support them til my dying day... Of course in the afterlife I will bitch like a motherfucker about how dumb they were if they do choose one of these many religions.
If I had a kid I would tell them that they were an animal. (sorry dad!) Not just an animal but one species among many other species of animals on this planet - with a long, rich history of life (99% of which are all dead and gone forever). I would show them the importance of caring for life and how precious it is. Why is it so precious? Maybe because it's rare? Not on this planet obviously, but out there in space. We have yet to find it out there though it's almost a mathematical certainty that there is life elsewhere in the cosmos since it is unfathomably vast.
I've been a bad son to my parents. I am like your grumpy Republican racist aunt, uncle, or grandpa that sends you all those "Obama is a dirty communist Muslim negro"chain emails - but in reverse. I constantly hound most of you reading this with email rants of social issues, politics, science policy, and religion. That's what this blog is essentially - long rants with bad punctuation and sentence structure. I am that crazy preachy annoying Republican relative except I'm a left-leaning - atheist American instead. I have been told many times by other family members that I should probably just stop sending emails with links on these things to other family members who do not read it. Not only do they not read it but they probably instantly delete anything I send them. This is why I never get responses from family members when I finally send a personal email with pictures of a vacation or whatever. Plus, I don't have any social media which makes me as good as dead online.
This is part of the losing battle I'm fighting. I surely won't change my conservative Christian family members' minds on any of this. It is deeply hardwired in them, attached to identity and personal journey stories of their entire lives. As Fox News watchin' Americans of course it's patriotic since the 50's to be this way! It's tribal, it's been in the family. It's small town and it's race based from time to time. It's a spell that most likely will never be broken with education or life experience. I will lose this battle with people who don't want to even play this game. It is already happened. It's pointless to continue.
I will be honest here in my last blog. A lot of the reason for me doing this, any of this, is to convince the ones I love most (my family and friends) that they are wrong and their beliefs prop up this cognitive bias-based feedback loop, echo chamber where they cannot see through to the facts - to the real world. Science education will give you this, but science is hard to grasp, to do, and to understand. I still can't get my father to watch the new Cosmos series that I lent him months ago. Our brains are not hardwired to understand deep time. No wonder so many Christians like my father think the earth is 6,000 years old - because the Bible said it, he believes it, and that settles it. This is how my quasi-liberal intelligent theist friend Dan does not think common descent is true. This is how some of my other friends can play these games of Christian apologists - these mind-contortions of logic that defy anything that makes a single bit of sense if you stop and simply use common sense and deductive reasoning.
It is circular reasoning at it's best, and we all know this. They know it, but "God said it, I believe it, that settles it" logic applies in times like these. We have to fight against this any time we see the ugly stupidity of religious barbarism peak it's deformed head through the cracks of public life. We want to live in a healthy society. We have enough problems with gun violence, healthcare, wealth gap in this country without allowing superstitious woo-talk, unfounded nonsense. Keep that shit locked away from children, my "place holder" children even! Never shy away from discussing these tough subjects of religion with your family members. If I have a kid I will talk about anything. period. We are a species that thrived off of communication and language. Use that! Some of the biggest problems with my childhood and especially teenage years and beyond have been a lack of communication because it makes one person feel uncomfortable. Confrontation with respect when deserved is healthy. Use that!
I have been uselessly trying to converse with my theist friend Dan about evolution for years. And it is time to give up too. I lost this one as well. He finally wrote me a very direct email saying he would copy and paste what he said over and over again if I ask him to discuss evolution ever again. He basically said he does not see a threat to Christianity by accepting evolution (again, this is not what I ever want to discuss with him. I have only ever wanted to merely discuss reasons why it's one of the most valid scientific theories ever). He also mentioned that he does not feel compelled to swallow the Darwinian metanarrative hook, line, and sinker (whatever the fuck that means. If common descent is part of the metanarrative than we have a issue here. This appears to be a dodge to try and keep things vague instead of focus in on specific problems with common descent). Then he expresses what he feels is the uselessness of two non-scientists bantering back and forth on something they are not experts in. I may not be a scientist now or yet but I have had classes in these things where he has not.
Though taking a step back from all of this, maybe he's right. Maybe it is useless. I am beating a dead horse here. I enjoyed talking with my Christian friend because he was unlike the family members I grew up with that refuse to discuss any of this, to work it out logically and reasonably. Dan isn't like those people. He is old school sure - he doesn't accept parts of known scientific theories and believes in heaven and hell still, but he at least will have respectful conversations and kindly disagree. It's civil and enjoyable. A few of us are even having a book discussion via google docs (2 theists/2 atheists) on Reza Aslan's book "Zealot". It's productive at times and helpful to revisit some of these older Jewish myths and history, but my response back to Dan sums up how I felt after reading that email he sent back to me letting me know he does not want to discuss evolution with me any more.
Religion to me is far in my rear view mirror now. I not only don't believe the Christian story or that the Bible is the infallible Word of God, but I don't believe in any god or gods in any of the religions throughout human history. I believe in a completely indifferent universe because attributing any anthropic attributes to the cosmos is nonsensical. The Cosmos doesn't "care" or "want" or whatever just as my book shelf doesn't care about me. I have grown up, intellectually and philosophically (some may argue with this. I can think of one person for sure! * Refer to my red letter correction comment a few blogs back). Being proactive with science writing and education would be my dream and the direction I want to head towards for the rest of my cosmically meaningless life. I don't expect the anti-theist movement and/or the New Atheist movement to win the battle over the New Christians and apologists. Religion is just way to intertwined with emotions and traditions to completely disappear. We can try to educate people to think critically and to try to shed as much bias as possible when making sense of our world, but we are hardwired for conspiracies. We are apt to keep some part of religion functioning within our modern societies for years to come. Hopefully it's the good part of religion. The humanitarian part of religion. I hope we can come together to help people and other species of animals to make their life a little better and minimize suffering as much as possible. I hope we can live more sustainably and be responsible for our actions because we do not live in a vacuum. We are not the only species that lives on this planet. We share it with a wide array of beautiful creatures great and small, let's stop acting like arrogant assholes.
Goodbye for now. This is my last blog... on religion. This entire blog is about the anti-theist in all of us, but it's coming to an end after 2 full years. Eh, what's two years? I'll see you.
ATHEIST-4-LIFE, BITCHES!!!
Here are some related links:
Dan's blog "What is the Gospel?":
http://www.theolatte.com/2014/11/what-is-the-gospel-2/
We need 5 Earth's to sustain us if everyone on this planet lived like an American:
http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/3_times_sustainable
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/footprint_basics_overview/
My new article from Best of Las Vegas:
http://bestoflasvegas.com/news/know-where-it-grows-guide-farmers-markets
My friend Forrest's movie staring me :) "In the Penal Colony":
http://vimeo.com/85180339
Whats happening for me in the near future:
There will be a handful of blogs I will finally finish if I get the time. The main one I am referring to is a book review of my friend Dan's book "Jesus or Nothing". I am about half way through it. I may have to revisit the book since it's been so long since I read it and refer to my notes. You can obviously image it's a blunt critique but he is a published author and for that - much respect! So keep an eye out for this blog at some point randomly.
I am doing other writing projects. I'm involved full time in school now so I will have very little time to do much creative writing, but I am outlining a book of short stories and a screenplay. I'm involved helping with short films with my friend Forrest Rice, as well. I do from time to time write short article for local Vegas papers. I'll post a link below with one of them. The next article will be in the January 25th 2015 issue of the Las Vegas Review Journal - "Best of Las Vegas". It's on fossils beds!
"Know Where It Grows" Best of Las Vegas article I wrote recently:
http://bestoflasvegas.com/news/know-where-it-grows-guide-farmers-markets
***And my final post here will be a picture from my past. This is from my yearbook from the Christian school I attended as a kid. You like my award?
