The Spirit Among Us All

You can nearly touch the passion in the air. Everyone is standing, no one is sitting, with arms raised high in the air. The chanting that started as low mumbles has organized itself into a vocal frenzy. The building is full of cheers while people jump up and down. It's raw excitement/anticipation. At the center of all of our attention is a small group of people leading the audience in these songs and chants! Jumping higher and lifting their hands to the sky with joy. There is this symbol of what unites us all front row center at this gathering. The buzz is all around us and I can feel the power of human solidarity, but I have a tinge of guilt in my heart as I don't sing with those around me. I also don't take part in the ceremonial drinking and eating. I seem to be the only one not participating. This makes things a little awkward. I don't get involved in the raising of hands or the chants. People frown on a stickler don't they? Unmistakingly, something seems to be alive, soaring through the air in this building. It's a spirit, I think. Is it the Holy Spirit?

We Got the Holy Spirit! Yes We Do! We Got the Holy Spirit! How about you?

No.

It's Team Spirit. I am at the Thomas and Mack Stadium where UNLV is taking on Fresno State in men's basketball. You may have confused where I was for a minute. What you thought was the praise and worship team leading the congregation in praise and worship was actually cheerleaders. The food and drink isn't communion (wine/grape juice and wafers) but beer and popcorn. The symbol that unites us all isn't a crucifix or cross but a mascot that represents the sports team. The atmosphere of both a sporting event and an Evangelical mega-church revival is very similar. I was just at a heavy metal concert at Planet Hollywood here in Las Vegas. The band was Meshuggah. People in front formed a mosh pit and everyone was at least mildly head-banging to the intense live music that is Meshuggah. The show was really good. It reminded me of going to see TOOL, the Pixies, or Radiohead. It is the sense of unity, the passion in the air that creates "the mood". Human connectivity is a powerful thing. This is what church is. This is what you confuse with the Holy Spirit.

At this game there was a large portion of the fans doing what they call "spirit fingers" as a UNLV player shot free throws. They were "willing" the ball to go in the basket. Of course this superstitious silliness is comical and absurd but it got me thinking- how hilarious it would be if this "willing things" really was true.. but unfortunately it only works at sporting events for free throw shooting. Nothing else. What a cruel cosmic joke, huh? I really find it hilarious to dream that there may be supernatural things but they are so useless that they aren't even worth mentioning. I think it would be hysterical if there was a God. However this "god" was just a bumbling idiot college kid who happened to create our universe in a lab in some other dimension. Like some sort of goof-up accident. I hope that it is true. Can you even imagine how Christianity, Islam, Judaism would react to that?! Oh we were WAAAY off!

Where basketball games and concerts are taken as light-hearted events that mean ultimately nothing in the grand cosmic scheme of things, evangelical revivals and youth church camps are much more intense. I would say mostly and especially the ones geared for younger kids or even teenagers. Adults don't have as much of an excuse to being mind-controlled (though it's sometimes near impossible to break the brainwashing when one's been exposed to it for so long). Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian environment I attended my fair share of revival meetings and hellfire and brimstone church camp services.

There were many reasons I was "saved" or became (as Christians say) "born again" multiple different times. I was originally "saved" at the age of 5. I think. Of course even that memory mostly escapes me at my age now. As an evangelical of the Baptist variety we didn't believe in "losing your salvation" as the Pentecostals did. You know, religious dogma differences. How comical it all seems now. So if I was having doubts then I was taught to accept the "fact" that I wasn't actually "saved" in the first place. There were 3 specific reasons I was "re-born again". I can't recall the ages, but I was consistently getting "saved" up through high school (just for afterlife insurance purposes of course). The 3 specific reasons were as follows:

1. The 70's Biblical apocalyptic film series:

"Thief in the Night", "A Distant Thunder", "Image of the Beast", and "Prodigal Planet". There was a youth ministries group called Awana (stands for Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed - from 2 Timothy 2:15). Many people growing up in evangelical churches will be familiar with this group. There were pizza parties and YMCA lock-ins. We would memorize verses and recite them back for points and badges sort of like a Christian Boy Scouts. I watched these apocalyptic films in our Awana meetings. I don't know if it was part of the curriculum or whatever, but I guess they just thought some good old fear should help scare these kids straight. Well it worked. I was terrified of devil worshipers, the anti-christ, Unite (the one world government that will arise after the rapture), and of course the rapture itself. My worse fear was coming home to my mom and dad being gone and nothing but their clothes left on the living room floor. So you can imagine how I avoided the laundry room. Thank goodness my parents weren't messy people that left clothes on the ground in their room or I would have been consistently mortified. How hilarious that seems now, but how real the fear was back then. Such needless fear.

*I remember thinking the "clothes dilemma" was such a problem for the whole rapture scenario. On one hand you had a clogged sky/atmosphere/galaxy/universe area with a bunch of naked Christians. On the other hand you had the G rated version of the rapture where everyone was caught up in heaven with Jesus still wearing all their earthly clothes (which of course contradicts that no one will be able to bring their possessions with them to heaven.)

2. The Church Camp Revival Services (specifically the night services).

For a young Evangelical teenager summer church camp was the highlight of your life. This is mostly because of social interactions with other young people from other churches all across the Midwest United States. And the social interactions I'm specifically referring too are meeting girls. This was a powerful time - Puberty. It was an impressionable time for indoctrination and fear mongering. So mix all this natural young curiosity with religious dogma and you get a hot bed of "changing lives".  So these night sermons each night of the week long summer camp were very intense. They were very much scare tactics to get us to "change our lives for Christ." NO ONE wants to burn in hell forever. So again, I was once saved ... again. This was my life equation growing up:

fear + doubt = ask Jesus into your heart again (JUST TO BE SURE!)

3. Local Evangelical Revivals.

We had several different traveling evangelists that specialized in revamping "dead churches". To name a few - Jamey Ragel and Gene Wolfenbarger - to name a few. I remember Jamie Ragel always seemed so strong and powerful. He was also a comedian so that made him more engaging. All of these traveling evangelists were God's experts so they were very intimidating to us kids. They were the professional "men of god". Gene Wolfenbarger stands out the most in my memory. He came to our church when I was in junior high to hold a revival. It was one of those week long events with a service each night. I remember he once threw his shoe down the aisle in the middle of a passionate, old-time religion preach.

... And no, George W. Bush was not in attendance.

During the Gene Wolfenbarger revival week at the church, there was one night set aside specifically for kids. I was so nervous that night. Not because of the scary shoe-throwing evangelist man, but because I had finally gathered enough courage to ask out the girl who lived across the street from my church. Her name was Mandy, and I had the biggest crush on her. So much in fact that I gave her a note asking her if she would go out with me and she said "yes". So my idea for our first date?? - Gene Wolfenbarger revival service in the gym of our church/school! I was a romantic genius. Sad thing is, that's all I knew. Church activities were my only possible options growing up. I remember being so nervous to grab her hand during the ramblings of a madman. Gene kept his shoes on this time, but he made sure to scare the living hell out of all the kids. (I love the professional career choice of scaring children for a living.) I just remember not being effected by it too much this time. It's funny how just being human boy (with blooming attractions to human girls) trumps eternal damnation for your soul.

If you must know, I didn't grab her hand. I chickened out and afterwards kicked myself and felt like a failure. It mattered so much to me. So much in fact that I hadn't noticed what was happening when he finally concluded. During this sermon there were deacons of our church guarding the exit/entrance doors to the gym. Apparently Gene had went a little long on his sermon and it was much later than advertised. Parents weren't allowed in to get their kids. No kidding. In fact there were multiple complaints to the church. And Gene was never invited back again. The local paper wrote an article on it painting our church in a very bad light. They said men were trapping children inside like guard dogs. I scoured the internet trying to locate this article, but to no avail. I really wanted to share it with you in the link section at the bottom of this. Weird how I seemed to miss all of this while it was happening. I guess I was a tad preoccupied. Mandy's dad however was not, and he was pissed off, to say the least. Mandy and I weren't allowed to do anything together outside of their house ever again.

But this story has a happy ending... Even though crazy religious nonsense ruined my relationship with one of my first loves, I bounced back and yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have dated since then. I have also held hands with those girls I've dated. We can move on now...

The power of "spirit", whether it be from a sporting event, a band concert, or a revival service, can be a successful motivator for fear, elation, or unity. The psychology behind a church service is well documented at this point. The fact is our species is very sheep-like. We follow the leader. We are easily manipulated and controlled. This is what kings, popes, and priests have known for centuries. The social group setting that is church is something that is hard to break in people. As I've stated in a previous blog, my father is one that is heavily involved in his church. He attends church every Sunday for adult Sunday school, morning service, choir practice followed by Sunday evening service. He also attends church every Wednesday for Bible study. He never misses a service. Sometimes even if he is physically ill. This devotion, mixed with human connections (his close friends),  collective praising and singing (unity), fearing/loving your imaginary father (Yahweh), and swimming in confirmation bias (The Bible is infallible because the Bible says its infallible) creates a complicated web often too strong to break apart.

Atheism is not a religion, despite what your Christian friends may say. They may follow with something like "Richard Dawkins is just as fundamentalist about atheism as Jerry Falwell is about Christianity." I've had agnostic friends who have said this about me and my "preachy" atheism. The second sentence does not prove the first. Atheism is of course the lack of belief in a God and an outright rejection of all religions. Those who may say this to you don't understand atheism. Richard Dawkins is very much passionate about his non-belief in a god, because he holds the default position. He's passionate about being skeptical. He's passionate about not accepting things on "faith". Atheism is the default position and it is up to the theists to prove to us their extraordinary claim that there is a god. Carl Sagan sums it up: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Period. So you can see how the analogy comparing Richard Dawkins with Jerry Falwell is incorrect. Despite saying all of this, those that are non-believers (some call us the "NONES") may need to rip off this idea of "church" from the believers.

The church of atheism wouldn't worship any deity or sing praises to any divine being, but instead would simply be a community to gather for potlucks (that's right! POTLUCKS, motherfucker!!) and human fellowship. Successful civilizations have learned from past civilizations and stolen from these the best parts of society and culture. Atheists must steal from the religious community and build a few "churches" and maybe then we can get tax breaks too. Want to avoid paying taxes? Start a church. The mission statement to the church of atheism could be "We hate and despise mission statements so this church is whatever you want it to be, ... bitch." We could marry and divorce LGBT people ONLY! Let babies cry as loud as they want during "services"; hell, we could let babies even run the "services". We could hold rock concerts and YMCA lock-ins for our kids. We could take communion (eat some magic mushrooms and drink some wine). An offering could be taken (not for missions/proselytizing, but for actually feeding poor people in the community). We would preach the importance of living locally, while thinking globally (for clean energy and biodiversity). Our sermons would be about the plight of African-Americans, Native Americans, Japanese-Americans, Iranian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans in this country and how they have suffered and been abused by the white patriarchs. (you know, the truth!) Our naturalist-centered message would simply be - let's make this natural world better. Let's help the fight against oppression, racism, bigotry, sexism, superstitious thinking, religious dogma. We embrace knowledge, doubt, freewill (in your face, Sam Harris!), love, peace, acceptance, friendship, and skepticism over all.

These atheist communities exist out in the world. They gather at conferences and retreats more often than they used to, but we need to organize locally. It's important in this day and age to communicate with our neighbors. Religions spend money and time thinking of ways to market to their community. It's our turn to turn the tables and join together in our local communities to spread the good news of "it's OK to be who you are. There is no hell. There is no heaven. There is no perfect instruction book. There is no original sin. There is no God." You can't get past the 2nd chapter of the 1st book of the Bible before you see the glaring difference between theism and atheism. God does not want his creation to eat from the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". Not the tree of good and evil. It's the "knowledge" of good and evil that's the problem here. Simply put, God does not want his creation to feed it's hunger for knowledge. If you are pro-education or pro-learning you should cringe at this. Religion is for the sheep. It's a vestige of the infancy of our species. It feeds the herd mentality and the ancient superstitious woo-woo deep within our roots. It's those that "just have faith" without evidence. Those that try to pick holes (unsuccessfully by the way) at evolution or a famous atheist's argument but REFUSE to use the same scrutiny/"skepticism" to their own beliefs. It's a deep-seated bias that they either cannot see or refuse to look at. It's a way of getting literally no where on the path of knowledge. Knowledge! There's that evil word again - according to Yahweh.

Whether a sporting event, a religious revival, or a concert, we are a passionate species that thrives off the energy of our peers. It's best to keep this in mind. It's best to recognize our biological characteristics before being swept up in the heat of the moment. Let's be contemplative and wise, let's steal from the best bits of religions and create a better world together.  Here are some links:

The psychology behind mega-church services as a social movement: article from Psychology Today:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-is-he-thinking/200904/mega-churches-psychology-and-social-change

Check out Awana:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awana

Meet Gene Wolfenbarger:

http://www.thegatheringfamily.com/im-new/pastor-gene-karen/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UQOyS72igY

Meet Jamey Ragle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw7rQGiMyPU

Watch "Thief In the Night" (full movie):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYFwpx1K6bs

Watch "A Distant Thunder" (full movie):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8CaAEQGX88

Watch "Image of the Beast" (full movie):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFVcyrNB1YY

Watch the trailer to "Prodigal Planet" (can't find full movie, sorry to leave you all hanging):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJR4uQb39ik

Leaving "Grace City"

*** I will periodically interject in the middle of quoting people in this blog. My interjections will be in parenthesis... ***

If you are a local to Las Vegas you are familiar with the free publication "The Las Vegas Weekly". In the February 21-27 issue pastor Dave Earley is featured on the cover with the headlines, "This Man Wants to Save Las Vegas: For a year, Pastor Dave Earley asked God where to start his church. Now, he's ready to turn Sin City into Grace City." The article was written by journalist, Rick Lax. I have to say I don't know Rick personally, but I'm familiar with who he is. He frequents where I work often to do his writing with his laptop. I have never spoken to him before, but now I will after I realized he was the one who wrote this article. I picked up the copy of this issue at an antique mall - where religious ideas belong. The whole concept is quite dated to say the least, however I decided to read the article and critique it. So here it is:

The article starts,

In 2012, 19 evangelists from Liberty University moved to the Valley to start a church. Now, Grace City is ready to save your soul. The author follows with, Pastor Dave Earley prays the way you and I scroll through Facebook news feeds, the way we watch TV, the way we breathe. All day, nonstop. As someone who no longer has Facebook I guess this doesn't include me. (Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely bragging.) However, I do watch TV and breathe on occasion. The article says that God woke up pastor Earley in the middle of the night by saying "Google Las Vegas". OK. I haven't even reached the end of the first paragraph of this piece and I'm already shaking my head. I just love how the God who is vulnerable to iron chariots (Judges 1:19) or doesn't understand modern medicine (Leviticus 14) is very much familiar with our largest internet search engine, Google. This modern day Christianity if so fucking ridiculous.

Paster Dave obviously then used google to look at Las Vegas (God despises "Bing" and "Yahoo" by the way) he saw a "broken city, a city that needed to be saved." What did pastor Dave do? He decided to donate money to nonprofit organizations like Three Square or Citizens United that help feed the homeless in Las Vegas first then fly out to Vegas to volunteer personally with these organizations. He decided to end hunger in Vegas. Oh, no I'm sorry... He decided to fly out here and proselytize to these poor people instead. Eh, same thing I guess. Nothing satisfies the aching hunger pangs like a good dose of "you are a sinner and you need to accept Christ or else burn in hell forever. But remember God loves you.". Yum!

Pastor Dave Earley used to teach "church planning" at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Yeah, that's right, that's the Jerry Falwell church. The crazy man who said homosexuals are causing hurricanes or some dumb ass shit. To his credit our journalist, Rick Lax addresses this in the article and asks him bluntly,

Liberty is a big school. We're all trying to follow the Bible the best way we know how, the good pastor says.

I loved the public relations contortion (for Liberty University) he gives to spin his way out of that. Apparently the group prayed for 40 days, seven hours a day for Las Vegas. This group must not have read the multiple scientific studies proving that prayer does not work. They raised financial support so they could pray "full time". I wonder if they took lunch breaks? Do you think they get benefits? Their mission was to pray away the sin in sin city and turn it into "Grace City".

Gag.

Before we go any further, I should be upfront about my impression of the author of this article - the journalist Rick Lax. He could be described as a "pretty boy". He is always looking through the "Dating/Relationships" section at the bookstore I work at. On more than one occasion he has picked up the book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss. The title says it all. To give him the benefit of the doubt he may have been doing research for a new article, but my guess is it was for personal use. He wears those jeans with these ornamental crosses and glittery gold gems all over the pockets. You know the jeans. He wears black v-neck t-shirts. He sits there, cocky with his laptop checking his facebook status constantly. So that's who's writing this. That's whose eyes we're viewing this pastor Dave through.

So ever-so-cool Mr. Lax sets the scene for us next:

We're in front of the UNLV Franklin J. Koch Auditorium. Winter break just ended a few days back and Grace City is trying to recruit new members by handing out fliers in a booth across from Kaplan Test Prep and next to 5-Hour Energy. The Grace City booth has free coffee but as Rick says, "it's hard to compete with free energy." Right, Rick, ... that's right. Our gonzo journalist Rick Lax goes on about a girl in the group saying "I like your shirt" to a passerby. A guy in the group (and I quote) "majestically bows" to other students passing by. This breaks the ice, the guy stops, and the associate pastor Sam Frye talks to this dude,

. . . and this is fucking boring. I'll skip ahead...

Pickup Artist 101: After you move in on a set, your wingman drops by and offers body contact as a social proof. - Rick Lax. Yes this is in the article.

Must everything have to go back to "picking up chicks", Rick?

OK back to the subject matter of the article:

The associate pastor tells his story. He was working on getting his masters degree at Liberty University while working at Olive Garden. I can relate to associate pastor Sam. At around the same age (25) I too was getting a college education to eventually answer God's calling - join the ministry. Sam asked God to show him which city he wanted him to live in to carry out God's ministry by the age of 30. At the age of 29, wouldn't you know it, God pointed him to Pastor Dave and Las Vegas! Just in the nick of time! The lesson I get from this? - God is a procrastinator.

The associate pastor is asked what he saw when he arrived in Las Vegas. 

A lot of sadness. I saw a lot of homeless people - the look on their faces, the emptiness, the drug addictions, the alcohol addictions, the isolation, the loneliness. Vegas is a transient place, so people get stuck in depression, and that leads to the addictions. People need to fill that void.

Lax follows with a cheesy little joke - "I was expecting him to say, 'The Bellagio fountains.'" Really, Rick? Really? I'm just a barely a 1/4th my way through this article and I already like these Bible thumpers more than the person writing this article.

Sam goes on,

We believe that Jesus is the way - the only way. A lot of people think there are other ways to fill the void and other ways to God and other ways to Heaven. We want to let them know that the only true fulfillment is in Christ.

Lax points out that Vegas is primarily anti-Christian, in a way that's what Vegas represents. It is after all "Sin City." True. He sites examples. However, Rick seems to miss the problem with everything the associate pastor just said. First off,  yes there is a lot of drugs and alcohol addicts and a lot of sadness, blah blah, but there is a lot of this in Detroit or Miami too. We could name several cities. What about other countries? I think Sam needs to visit areas in the Middle East, Africa, North Korea. These are real concerns if you are concerned about the quality of life for citizens.

Sam believes that Jesus is the way. This first sentence is enough. That is all he needs to say. It's no longer necessary for follow up sentences after that. It's Sam's belief and that's his opinion. However he goes on saying, Jesus is the ONLY way. Well, not only is Jesus NOT the only way, but we should back up to hammer in the very legit question - "Why is there even 'a way' in the first place?" A way to save ourselves from? .. you lost me at - punishment. You lost me at - Sin. Sam explains that there are people who think there are other ways to "fill this void" (because we all know if you subtract the addiction to alcohol and drugs you must fill it with worship of an ancient Jewish desert god) Other ways to get to heaven? I've said many times the Christian version of heaven sounds like hell to me. As Christopher Hitchens said, it sounds like North Korea. (with all the constant praise and worshiping of the dear leader). We are a nation obsessed with this "going to heaven" thing right now. Just look at the bestselling NON-FICTION (I reiterate - NONFICTION) books now at your local bookstore (if you still have one) and you will see what I mean. Heaven is not real. Sorry. And not to be all progressive Christian Rob Bell on you, but neither is hell either! There isn't a shred of evidence for any of it - even in books written by children or neurosurgeons or pastors. The hypothesis lacks sufficient evidence. The extraordinary claims have not met the need of extraordinary evidence.

The next setting Lax guides us to is a Sunday morning Grace City "church" service at Desert Bloom Park. 150 people are in attendance at this particular service. There's a wide variety of people, ranging from an old man wearing rainbow suspenders and a baby or two. I don't know. According to Rick Lax the sun peers through the cloud at the particular moments when the pastor is hammering home a point. What? Really? I know he was just trying to be cute here but I still cringed when I read that part.

Gag.

Pastor Dave preaches (the parentheses are my mystery science interjections),

Jesus knows what it is to suffer emotional anguish. He knows what pain is all about. He was beaten, whipped - they basically whipped him raw, took the skin off his back, put stakes in his hands and feet. (AND good morning little children, I Hope you like descriptions of graphic torture in the morning.) He suffered. Jesus Christ suffered physically, mentally and emotionally. (Christians really love playing this gore card to pull on the heart strings. It may work if one doesn't use their brain for two seconds. If one doesn't know any history. If one doesn't compare it to much worse suffering. What about the burning of witches in early America or being pulled apart on "the rack" for being a heretic in the Middle Ages? That HAS to hurt worse then being nailed then hung to a cross for a couple of days.) All of your sin and my sin (Sin City tie in!! whoop! whoop!) was dumped on Jesus Christ. (Maybe I wanted to keep my sin, damn it. Did you ever consider that option, Jesus Christ!? I do LIVE here in "Sin City". Now I just feel like a tourist since you forcibly took my sins away, Jesus. Thank you so much.) But God took the worst event in history (really? The worst?? The mass extinctions like "The Great Dying" or K-T boundary extinctions come to mind. Black plague. I could go on.) and he turned it into the best event in human history. (Really, the best?? I would lean towards the discovery of anticeptics. Or how about language? We did escape earth's atmosphere and LAND on the moon in the 60's! Robots we sent that are roaming around Mars just recently discovered that the geology and chemistry of Mars was absolutely compatible for life billions of years ago... Come on, Dave!)

I love this typical diatribe from Christian salesmen: (Now do your best to follow this line of logic!) God set up this one rule God can not break. Except he can but only by sending himself (who is also his own son) to atone for the almost unbreakable rule he set up in the first place. You know, "the way". The ONLY way to save your soul (a fictional mystical essence we all apparently have that has no physical characteristics) come on now! Just think this through for a second, Christian readers. Not one part of this is verified by any amount of sound evidence.

According to "ladies man" Lax, pastor Dave prays, the sun peaks out, and it's time for burgers and hotdogs. He meets Jeremiah, a one-handed guitar player (he should join a band with the drummer from "Def Leopard") and a drug addict that makes as much as $65 an hour as a street performer on the strip. The article says that he had a pot addiction. A pot addiction? is that real? I mean, is that a problem? It's pot, not meth. Maybe this guy needs to just learn how to better manage his street money. There's nothing wrong with smoking some grass if you are wise about how much you spend on it and maybe use it in moderation. It's now legal in a couple states. Jeremiah was dumped by his girlfriend which was proceeded by suicidal thoughts. He didn't go through with these thoughts, but it wasn't like he didn't try. Several times he jumped out into traffic only to have the oncoming vehicles stop before colliding with him.

Jeremiah's car breaks down and he gets a ride from pastor Dave's son, Andrew. During this ride Jeremiah admits to being "addicted to pot" and they go and smash all his bongs (how dramatic! . . . and tragic!) Now Jeremiah has replaced getting high with prayer.

Gag!

(He should try getting high THEN praying.)

Pastor Dave says, 

God uses my son Andrew for people on the edge, people who are gay, addicted, homeless, suffering with mental things - they're drawn to him. Even though he's a pastor's son, he's not like a pastor's son; he has like 30 tattoos. Andrew doesn't try to recruit these people, God brings them to him. They're homeless or they're couch surfers or they're addicted... and now they're free.

Wow. Yeah, there was a lot to break down there but what I noticed most was what Rick correctly picks up on - the gay part. Equating gay with mental illness and other problems. When confronted about the gay part Pastor Dave carefully dances,

I'm just referring to people who have at one time or another been viewed as being on the fringes of mainstream society. In the Bible Belt there are many traditional families with a husband and wife and three kids. Here there are more addicts, more street people and more people with what used to be called alternative lifestyles. Dave goes on to say that there are several people with "alternative lifestyles" that attend Grace City church.

Dave and his son describe themselves as "liberators of lost souls". They describe Las Vegas after being here a short time, People don't come here to go to church; they come here to gamble . It's a sad city. (unless you win a bunch of money, of course) The suicide rate is high (True.) - Three times the national average. The divorce right is high (well duh); and the addiction rate is high (to pot?). People are isolated in this town. A lot don't have families. They're looking for a family. (A family that tells you if you don't follow their line of worship and slave service to their deity he will torture you with fire for all eternity. - you know - a loving family!)

Here's where I REALLY part ways with our cheeky local journalist ...

After the service a woman approaches pastor Dave who has cancer. Pastor Dave and his wife stand on either side of the woman and pray for her cancer to go away. Ricky goes on to talk about if this women approached him he wouldn't even know where to begin. He states its easy to be skeptical about prayer making a difference. He even references the John Templeton Foundation study that found that prayer actually harms those in recovery. Rick Lax says,

Its easy to see that this woman approached Pastor Dave looking for help, and after the prayer, she felt a little bit better. Every parishioner who showed up Sunday morning seemed to.

What?? No Rick. No. You are following for that trap. Just because the placebo effects work doesn't mean it isn't wrong. Wrong is wrong. Period. There is no "Bill O'Reilly Logical Argument" applied here (each person has their own Truth). The evidence in various studies point conclusively that prayer doesn't work. I do give Rick some credit for mentioning the John Templeton Foundation study that found prayer does not work. Another study he could have mentioned is the Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP). This study produced the same results: Prayer doesn't work. It is comical to note that in this study those patients receiving intercessory prayer actually fared worse than those not receiving it. Maybe prayer does work but only in the opposite way we expect it to. I am reminded of Bill Hicks "trickster god" he describes when talking about Creationists saying that God put fossils here to "test our faith". So the lesson here is do not pray for people that are sick unless you want them to get worse.

If you follow the evidence as all reasonable people should you would come to the conclusion that all of this (from the Pastor thinking he is helping by praying to the woman who "feels better now" to our edgy favorite local journalist saying everyone seemed better off) is a giant waste of time. The best I can personally give to prayer as a practice is the meditative benefits of doing it. I even know an atheist that prays (merely using it as a methodology, not talking to any actual deity). I know an atheist friend of mine that meditates too. It's essentially internal focus and "getting it all out" into the open, privately of course. This could be healthy at relieving some stress, but yoga and meditation work much better than prayer in my opinion.

Lax switches the scene ending this article. He takes us to Andrew's (Pastor Dave's son) apartment. As pastor Dave puts it "people on the edge" are all gathered inside. He describes those in attendance of this Bible study. People with just one arm and missing toes. (More band members!) One person who was stabbed in the chest but fully recovered. How? God of course. Atheists prepare the meals for this meeting. Atheists? Rick Lax explains that one atheist, Arturo, has constant pressure from Grace City to convert to Christianity. Arturo says, They know I prefer not to be hassled, so instead they pray for me. (useless and apparently harmful as we've previously pointed out) I just smile and thank them. This atheist doesn't get it. Don't encourage Christians by thanking them for prayer but show them how prayer doesn't work. It's just a fact. Even if there are good intentions behind these prayers, it's a complete waste of time. *See Daniel Dennett talking about Christians who prayed for him when he was recovering in the hospital.

Andrew gathers everyone into a circle in the room and tells each person to pray the "evil spirits" out of the room. He then counts down 1-2-3, then BOOM! ? What? Rick writes, "Then BOOM! Wall of sound." I have no idea what that means. And no explanation, and moving on apparently... The one arm guy is praying angrily. Another is praying like a televangelist. And yet another is laying their hands on another in prayer. After this spectacle, they go around the circle reading Bible verses and explaining what they mean to each of them. (You know - it's all relative and subjective with Bible verses. )
Rick says "it's moving stuff". I sense the sarcasm. Or maybe that's just great writing. "But truth be told I'm getting bored and eyeing the door." Andrew says to our journalist, "Thanks for staying." Rick writes, "It's like he's seen into my soul."

What? Soul? Really, Rick?! That's the way that paragraph ends. No explanation, just yeah it's like he saw into my soul and moving on... Now here we are at the end of the article and this is wear the blood begins to boil. Up until this moment it was just a comical poorly written article about fringe evangelical thinking written by a pathetic, cocky excuse for a journalist, but now it just got real:

The picture at the top of the page shows pastor Dave heading up a presentation at Jack Schofield Middle School. It shows him preaching to children with a slide that reads, "Jesus has done, is doing, and will do many things. 1. In the Past, Jesus Created. As part of the trinity, Jesus created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1, 26-27, John 1:1-3, Col. 1-16, Hebrews 1:2, 7-11)" This is a public school. Yes, a PUBLIC school. This is reprehensible and screams violation between church and state. It's time to make some phone calls regarding this.

The article ends with quoting pastor Dave,

Our next steps, Pastor Dave says, are, one, change the spiritual atmosphere in the city by growing and expanding our house of prayer an, two, train an army of passionate, radical young leaders who want to serve this city with the love of God. And we want to see Sin City transformed into Grace City. We want to see thousands of young people come into the kingdom of God and experience the goodness of personal relationship with Jesus. We want to see people flying into Vegas from all over the world in order to encounter God.

Rick Lax explains that it is highly unlikely Vegas, "Sin City" will turn into "Grace City" any time soon. The "Sin City" brand is much too strong. I would obviously have to agree with him here. He ends the article showing undeserved respect to Grace City,

And he's (Pastor Dave) is right when he says they need help. Whether they need Christ to fill the void or just friendship and support is up for debate (NO RICK! It's NOT up for debate!), but there's no debating that Grace City offers all three.

All three? I counted 2. OK so our young journalist is bad at math too. Or maybe it's 1. filling void. 2. friendship. 3. support. I don't know. Overall I give this article a C-. I guess when I reflect on my grade I realize that it's mostly due to my jealousy of Rick Lax. Not because of his "pickup artist skills" but because he gets to write in a newspaper about this. When I initially picked up this edition of the Las Vegas Weekly I was very excited to do a review on something I know so much about - Evangelical lifestyle. I grew up in this environment. Our family, our friends, our church loved Jerry Falwell and considered him a man of God. My cousin and a few other people I knew attended Liberty University because it was a "good school". I was highly disappointed to say the least when I realized who it was who wrote the article. Rick didn't deserve to touch this subject matter, in my opinion. Reading from the beginning it's all I could think about. How in the world did Rick Lax write this? What an asshole. In all reality I wish it was me writing an article on pastor Dave and "Grace City" for the Las Vegas Weekly.

I've started this blog with intentions to "get out" all I have to say about religion and all it's poisonous dogma. I have aspirations of being a writer of some sort in some respect some day. I suppose my jealousy got the best of me with this article. In all reality Rick Lax is probably a fine enough guy if I were to ever get to know him. After I wrote this I saw Rick lifting weights at the UNLV gym. I wanted to approach him but everyone knows you don't attack someone's writing when they are lifting dumbbells over their head. Fact is, he's writing articles for local newspapers and I'm writing a google blog. Maybe one day somehow he'll come across this blog and kick my ass when he sees me. Or maybe he'll think it's edgy and funny and we'll become best friends (Facebook friends, of course).

I wish pastor Dave and his team a healthy life, but I think they are wasting their lives with this evangelizing the damaged people of Las Vegas. At least google another city. I used to think the same. I wanted to be like Jay Bakker. He was also a tattooed street evangelist, holding sermons in broken down buildings and bars. He was delivering the message of "Christ's love" to the druggies, the prostitutes, the homeless, the rejected citizens of this country. Why can't we just show them human love and leave it at that. What I've come to learn is that it is important to help those in need, but just preaching to them about an ancient Jewish desert god and his son's murder by the Romans is not the way to do it. (even with free coffee involved) These people need help with their addiction, with money, with food. The fact is you don't need Jesus, his father, his ghost, or his book to help people in need. You don't need supernatural nonsense. You just need time and the willingness to do it. Support your local secular charities and get involved. Here's a few links below:

The original Las Vegas Weekly Article:
http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2013/feb/21/liberty-university-evangelists-save-las-vegas/?fb_action_ids=10152583395915611&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=246965925417366

An excellent video on superstition and prayer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWo3kTYb8W0

A great book on Liberty University: 

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose

Get involved and help feed the hungry in Las Vegas:

http://www.threesquare.org/

http://www.meetup.com/actsofkindness/events/11451044/

https://pals.pioneersvolunteer.org/VM/project.aspx?ID=18714

Meet Grace City:

http://gracecityvegas.com/

Meet Rick Lax:

http://lawschoolblogger.com/

http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/staff/rick-lax/

The "Skeptics": On Climate Change Deniers and Creationists

I'm going to start this blog entry off with some statistics about climate change.:

Climate change is happening. All around us. GCM simulations and multiple lines of evidence point to a warming trend on planet Earth. This warming is directly related to human-generated greenhouse gases over natural climate variations. Here is some evidence that points to human cause over natural cause from the textbook Global Climate Change: Convergence of Disciplines by Arnold J. Bloom:

1. A number of recent analyses indicate that the rise in the global average surface temperature since 1987 is predominately associated with changes in anthropogenic greenhouse gases and aerosols and that the contribution of changes in solar electromagnetic radiation to this temperature trend is negligible. Changes in solar radiation from 1750 to 2005 account for a warming force of only 0.12 (ranging from 0.06 to 0.30) watts per square meter, whereas human activities account for 1.7 (ranging from 0.6 to 2.4) watts per square meter.

2. Global nighttime minimum temperatures show a greater increase than daytime maximum temperatures. One would expect the reverse if changes in solar electromagnetic radiation were driving global warming. Higher concentrations of greenhouse gases enhance back radiation of electromagnetic energy from the atmosphere to the surface during the night. 

3. Temperatures in the lower stratosphere - the region of the atmosphere that extends from 10 km to 22 km above Earth's surface temperatures are rising. Again this is consistent with higher concentrations of greenhouse gases retaining more energy near Earth's surface. Stratospheric and surface temperatures would rise at similar rates if changes in solar electromagnetic radiation were driving global warming. 

4. A portion of the measured rise in global temperatures may derive from an "urban heat island" effect, whereby many weather stations that were once in a rural setting are now surrounded by asphalt. Nonetheless, measurements from sea-based weather stations indicate that Earth's oceans have warmed during the last century in a manner that parallels the warming of landmasses. The global warming observed during the past 50 years amounts to about 0.9 degree C over land and 0.4 degree C over oceans (IPCC 2007c), whereas urbanization near weather stations can account for about a 0.03 degree C temperature rise over land and a negligible temperature rise over the oceans during this period. Therefore, an urban heat island effect around weather stations does not seem to commensurate with the global warming that has occurred. 

5. Jet airplanes flying at high altitudes generate contrails. These behave like clouds in that they reflect incoming solar radiation and decrease daytime temperature maximums but absorb long-wave radiation from Earth's surface and increase nighttime temperature minimums; they therefore have the potential to diminish temperature differentials between day and night. Commercial air traffic was shut down in the United States for three days after the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001. During that interval, day-night temperature differentials in the continental United States jumped by 1.8 degree C above those during the 3-day periods immediately before or after this episode. (Travis et al. 2002) This change was significantly greater than any observed for similar intervals during the preceding 30 years. Moreover, the change in day-night differentials during the shutdown was twice as large in the regions of the United States where contrails are normally most abundant. These results highlight the extent to which human activities can effect regional surface temperatures. 

These various pieces of evidence dispel many, if not most, of the issues raised by SKEPTICS who do not believe in global warming or who believe that it derives from variation in natural forcing factors. Over 75% of climate scientists agree that Earth is significantly warmer today than it has been in many centuries and that human-generated greenhouse gases have been the major driving force for this warming (Bray and von Storch 2008; Lichter 2008; Doran and Zimmerman 2009). Although uncertainties remain as to the extent of the warming and the relative contributions of each factor, the accumulation of additional data is steadily diminishing these uncertainties and is pointing directly at human activities. 

I want you to notice the word I put in all CAPS in the section above. It's the word: SKEPTIC. Who are these climate change skeptics, these global warming deniers? Who are these people that can nearly drown in all this data, all these climate models, all this evidence of human-caused climate change and still think the jury is out on human-caused climate change? Who are these skeptics who need much more evidence. There is always a "missing piece" of evidence with these people. If only we had these pieces of data we could THEN maybe say humans are having a direct effect on the climate. If only we had this specific missing link we could then see that humans came from lower level primates in the evolutionary chain. Where's the crockoduck?! (Half crocodile, half duck) These are the same people, asking for ridiculously impossible "evidence". "Evidence" that shows their clear ignorance in both climate science and biology. For the most part, the creationists, the I.Ders are the global warming skeptics. They are one and the same. Make no bones about it, these people are devoid of proper scientific understanding. They do not know what they are talking about.

The interesting thing is that the same people who are so "skeptical" (even in the face of sound evidence) of human-caused climate change are the same people that are so eager to accept an "alternative" biological "theory" to evolution with not a shred of evidence to support it. So we see these people for what they really are.: P.R. people for a religious, corporate, or political agenda. They can try to hide behind the lie of being a "skeptic". I mean, isn't being a skeptic a great thing?! Isn't it what I've been preaching about since I started this blog? Isn't a skeptic someone who is thinking scientifically about the world? Yes. But these global warming deniers are not actual skeptics.

A Christian (someone I grew up with) once argued that us "pro-evolutionists" that usually lean towards liberal politics always preach social acceptance of all lifestyles (LBGT: Lesbian, Bi-sexual, gay, transgender) yet when it comes to science education only seem to think there is one game in town in biology - Evolution. I wrote a quick blog entry about this previously, on this virus-meme of "fair and balanced" Fox News philosophy running a amok in our American culture. It is laughable to think this "accepting of all theories" or "all theories should be treated as equal" in the sciences should be taken seriously. This is absurd. That isn't the way science works. Science isn't a democracy. It follows the evidence no matter if it conflicts with anything else. And theories with the most sound evidence stick.

The problem is government with the global warming deniers. They are almost solely Republicans which means they tout "Big government is evil." Government is broken. Government can't run anything. The problem is always the government. The government wants to control everything you do - Only Democrat-elected government, mind you! When George W. Bush was in office they loved big government then.  Big government only destroys free markets and business with all it's regulations. As usual, in reality things aren't so black and white. There is a kernel of truth to this line of thinking, however there is also a time and a place for regulation. I, personally am pro-cap and trade or any regulations that will effectively help curb climate change because I am convinced its happening based on solid evidence. Some of which I presented at the beginning of this blog post. I also think the E.P.A. is a good thing. I know the conservatives among us would love to live in a concrete world with no wild ecosystems, covered in concrete and smog clouds, just as long as jobs were being created. Jobs always matter more then the natural environment. Don't ever forget this! I am of course being facetious, but when talking to citizens of this country that think this way it's hard not to see a dystopian future for planet earth. Ice caps? Melt them all. Natural rain forests - cut 'em all down. Drill baby drill. Just keep creating jobs!

Even if this line of thinking is correct and the government is completely suffocating free enterprise due to it's hopefully upcoming carbon emission regulations does it ultimately matter? I prefer to live on a planet where hundreds of thousands of people don't die due to flooding, famine, or drought. I want to keep our coastlines above water. I don't want to see Bangladesh disappear to the ocean. I don't want to see the ice caps completely melt away. If you live in Australia, you may want to move in the next few decades, because it's about to become too hot for all things living. Global warming is an absolute risk to the entire world's economy, not to mention our national security (that should get MOST Republicans on board right there! One would think.) Science doesn't always give us the results that we FEEL are right. We have to make tough, terrible, uncomfortable choices sometimes. Choices that may really hurt the economy if need be for the survival of future generations. The typical Fox News Republican will tell you they are so concerned about this national debt President Obama is inflating with each new year of his presidency, but in the same breath will deny global warming and laugh at the doomsday predictions. Isn't it strange how they can care about our children's financial future but not their actual future (their very real threat to surviving at all).

I'll close with a few links that may help shed some light and "turn up the heat" (oh, bad pun) on this topic. It's become a joke to me to even have to address this notion of an "alternative scientific theory" in biology to evolution. For anyone with even the most elementary understanding of biology, genetics, paleontology, and geology there is no other scientific theory that rivals evolution. Those that even mention Intelligent Design as "an alternative" to evolution are 100% religious which should tell us something instantly about the motives of such "scientific theory". All these religious people that may be reading this blog about evolution being completely true with disgust don't understand science doesn't align itself to what "feels right to you" it doesn't align itself to what "your holy book says". Science is a working tool that constantly self-corrects itself and evolves to take us where the evidence leads. Unbiased and unaffected by philosophies or religious beliefs. It take a re-wiring of your brain. You have to start to understand how to use reason, skepticism, and logic as tools to test this natural world. Once you grasp the importance of this and can apply it, Intelligent Design will be as funny and silly to you as it is to me. Try it. Here's some links:

Meanwhile we have Republican Representative Paul Broun saying evolution and big bang theory are all lies from the devil:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBy3MbP4WDo

His biology theory of choice: Creationism. *which is not an actual valid scientific theory. Not a single scientific paper has been published on this. How can it be a scientific theory when it hasn't even been peer-reviewed by other scientists? Lawrence Krauss correctly characterizes creationists here: (mentioning Marco Rubio - *Also a global warming denier)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTedvV6oZjo

Facts of evolution - Common descent is a fact (every living thing on earth is related to every other living thing on earth: geneologically and genetically) All modern organisms have descended from one original species. Changes within a species occur while species as a whole come and go.

Here's an excellent video on the facts of evolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7tQIB4UdiY

It has often confidently been asserted, that man's origin can never be known: but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. 

- Charles Darwin

Could Our World Have Been Created By a Hacker?

I did not write this. This is the Interlude from the book Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt

Where did our universe come from? Doesn't its sheer existence point to an ultimate creative force at play? This question, when posed by a religious believer to an atheist, generally elicits one of two responses. First, the atheist might say, if you do postulate such a "creative force", you'd better be prepared to postulate another one to explain its existence, and then another one behind that, and so forth. In other words, you end up in an infinite regress. The second atheist response is to say that even if there were an ultimate creative force, there is no reason to think of it as God-like. Why should the First Cause be an infinitely wise and good being, let alone one that is minutely concerned with our inner thoughts and sex lives? Why should it even have a mind?

The idea that our cosmos was somehow "made" by an intelligent being might seem to be a primitive one, if not downright nutty. But before dismissing it entirely, I thought it would be interesting to consult Andrei Linde, who has done more than any other scientist to explain how our cosmos got going. Linde is a Russian physicist who immigrated to the United States in 1990 and who now teaches at Standford University. While still a young man in Moscow, he came up with a novel theory of the Big Bang that answered three vexing question: What banged? Why did it bang? And what was going on before it banged? Linde's theory called "chaotic inflation," explained the overall shape of space and formation of galaxies. It also predicted the exact pattern of background radiation left over from the Big Bang that the COBE satellite observed in the 1990s.

Among the curious implications of Linde's theory, one of the most striking is that "it doesn't take all that much to create a universe." Resources on a cosmic scale are not required, nor are supernatural powers. It might even be possible for someone in a civilization not much more advanced than ours to cook up a universe in a laboratory. Which leads to an arresting thought: Could that be how "our" universe came into being?

Linde is a handsome, heavy-set man with a full head of silver hair. Among his colleagues he is legendary for his ability to perform acrobatics and baffling sleights of hand, even while a little squiffy. 

"When I invented the theory of chaotic inflation, I found that the only thing you needed to get a universe like our started is a hundred-thousandth of a gram of matter," Linde told me in his Russian-accented English. "That's enough to create a small chunk of vacuum that blows up into billions and billions of galaxies we see around us. It looks like cheating, but that's how the inflation theory works - all the matter in the universe gets created from the negative energy of the gravitational field. So what's to stop us from creating a universe in a lab? We would be like gods!"

Linde, it should be said, is known for his puckishly gloomy manner, and the preceding words were laced with irony. But he assured me that this cosmogenesis-on-a-lab-bench scenario was feasible, at least in principle.

"There are some gaps in my proof," he conceded. "But what I have shown - and Alan Guth [a codeveloper of inflation theory] and others who have looked at this matter have come to the same conclusion - is that we can't rule out the possibility that our own universe was created by someone in another universe who just felt like doing it."

It struck me that there was a hitch in this scheme. If you started a Big Band in a lab, wouldn't the baby universe you created expand into your own world, killing people and crushing buildings and so forth?

Linde assured me that there was no such danger. "The new universe would expand into itself," he said. "It's space would be so curved that it would look as tiny as an elementary particle to its creator. In fact, it might end up disappearing from his own world altogether."

But why bother making a universe if it's going to slip away from you, the way Eurydice slipped from the grasp of Orpheus? Wouldn't you want to have some quasi-divine power over how your creation unfolded, some way of monitoring it and making sure the creatures that evolved therein turned out well? Linde's creator seemed very much like the deist concept of God favored by Voltaire and America's founding fathers - a being who set our universe in motion but then took no further interest in it or its creatures.

"You've got a point," Linde said, emitting a slight snuffle of amusement. "At first I imagined that the creator might be able to send information into the new universe - to teach its creatures how to behave, to help them discover what the laws of nature are, and so forth. Then I started thinking. The inflation theory says that a baby universe blows up like a balloon in the tiniest fraction of a second. Suppose the creator tried to write something on the surface of the balloon, like "PLEASE REMEMBER THAT I MADE YOU." The inflationary expansion would make this message exponentially huge. The creatures in the new universe, living in a tiny corner of one letter, would never be able to read the whole message."

But then Linde thought of another channel of communication between creator and creation - the only one possible, as far as he could tell. The creator, by manipulating the cosmic seed in the right way, would have the power to ordain certain physical parameters of the universe he ushers into being. He could determine, for example, what the numerical ratio of the electron's mass to the proton's will be. Such numbers, called the constants of nature, look utterly arbitrary to us: there is no apparent reason why they should take the value they do rather then some other value (Why, for instance, is the strength of gravity in our universe determined by a number with the digits "6673"?) But the creator, by fixing certain values for these constraints, could write a subtle message into the very structure of the universe. And, as Linde pointed out with evident relish, such a message would be legible only to physicists.

Was he joking?

"You might take this as a joke," he said. "But perhaps it is not entirely absurd. It may furnish the explanation for why the world we live in is so weird so far from perfect. On the evidence, our universe wasn't created by a divine being. It was created by a physicist hacker!"

From a philosophical perspective, Linde's little story underscores the danger of assuming that the creative force being our universe, if there is one, must correspond to the traditional image of God: omnipotent, omniscient, infinitely benevolent, and so on. Even if the cause of our universe is an intelligent being, it could well be a painfully incompetent and fallible one, the kind that might flub the cosmogenic task by producing a thoroughly mediocre creation. Of course, orthodox believers can always respond to a scenario like Linde's by saying, "Okay, but who created the physicist hacker?" Let's hope it's not hackers all the way up.

The God of the Deist-Theist Gap. (A Quick Thought)

If you are a relatively new atheist like myself who grew up in a Christian home all your life, you may have the same addiction I have of watching god debates on YouTube. William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins vs. John Lennox. Christopher Hitchens vs. Dinesh D'souza. Atheist vs. Theist. Have you noticed a trend in all of these debates? It's always a debate on the existence of God. The new atheists say there is no extraordinary evidence to prove the extraordinary claim of a god while the theists say that the cosmos is too ordered and sophisticated to not have been created by a deity.

However, what you can rarely find on YouTube is a debate between an atheist and theist that deals with specifics of the particular religion these theists adhere to. Why is it you can never find a debate online where the theist is specifically trying to prove Catholicism, or Islam, or Mormonism as the "correct" theism? The best a theist can do is argue for deism with divine command theory or the cosmological argument. These C.S. Lewis-style weak philosophical tricks have faulty premises and are riddled with confirmation bias from the start. What you won't see is a theist trying to prove Jesus was God's only Son and that he died on a cross and rose from the dead, and walked on water, and other miracles claimed in the Bible. Their "proof" ultimately stems from "the Bible said it is so" thus it is so. The ever popular - "God Said It. I Believe It. That Settles It." Of course this is a faulty way of building a theory of anything. This is not proof. Even historical proof. Assuming we all do not believe in Zeus, or unicorns, or Atlantis but these things were written down in ancient texts too. Why the special treatment for the ancient texts that make up the Bible? Why you ask? Because they say they are true and special and divinely inspired. Circular reasoning always gives you the answer you desire from the start. There couldn't be anything more unscientific than this way of thinking.

Another thing you don't see as often online are debates between various religions. It's not as often you see a Muslim debating an Evangelical or a Scientologist debating a Mormon. Why is that exactly? As an atheists how comical would this be? I would enjoy watching a debate where one sides magic underwear and golden tablets trumps the other sides e-meter and galactic alien overlord. I'm still awaiting Scientology Vs. Mormonism: The Musical, Matt Stone and Trey Parker! That would be the funniest musical of all time. The second funniest would be the Book of Mormon of course.

Logic, science, and reason has knocked religion down to its knees. It's exposed it for what it is: man-made. It's conjured up. It is still used for controlling populations. It's been said that "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." Theists can debate atheists on the grounds of deism but not theism and certainly not a specific brand of theism: Christianity, Mormonism, Catholicism, Scientology, Islam, Judaism, etc. Once we get into the specifics we see the supernatural nonsense and the wild tales said to be true. We are exposed to what makes otherwise intelligent people believe the most outlandish things like walking on water, talking donkeys, living inside a fish, and mounds of scientific claims such as a man of god stopping the sun (?), a worldwide flood, god creating light before creating the stars and other Biblical claims that fly in direct opposition to what we know to be scientifically true.

Some may say I'm picking on the "most extreme" fundamentalists of each type of religion. The religious faithful all don't reeeally believe everything literally, but just focus in on the moral teachings of the Bible (please don't get me started on morality. There are more appalling immoral examples in the Bible said to be moral than there are scientifically inaccuracies claiming to be actual events.) I get this attitude a lot when I debate Evangelicals who want to have it both ways. They have somehow created this dualistic nature in their mind where they can be a Bible literalist but then laugh it off and point to William Lane Craig "intelligent-sounding" philosophical deist arguments. Maybe some of you other atheists out there know what I'm talking about. Some theists may say I am singling out only the holy book literalists. While this is true, it is deceptive to allude to this notion that this is a fringe minority of the religious followers on this planet. A gallup poll shows that one-third of all Americans think that the Bible is literally true:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/27682/onethird-americans-believe-bible-literally-true.aspx

We all know on which side the followers of Islam, Mormonism, and Scientology would fall on this poll. So there you have it - it's clearly not the fringe. We have all seen the polls where nearly half of all Americans do not accept evolution as a valid scientific theory, but in the same breath have said they think Intelligent Design is a sound biological theory.

And here's another thought:

How often do you see these theists living by the standards laid out in their holy books? In some minds believers may think - "just do you're best and God will sort it out in the end when I die". The most important thing is that one believe in a god in the first place. A person MUST be a theist at least. This is where most of the arguments trend with these debates from theists. It's just deism. Nothing more. Once of course, you press them on these rules and regulations laid out as laws in the Bible that must be followed you will get a litany of excuses ranging from well, that's the Old Testament so those laws don't count. *Well at least some of those laws don't count. 10 commandments still do, and let's cherry pick some others. Often you will get the educated "holy book expert" theologian that will snobbishly laugh quietly at your attempt (as an atheist) to make sense of the Bible on your own. We, as mere ignorant atheists in 2013, can't dream of understanding the complex web of incoherent ramblings from ancient bronze age desert dwellers. This requires another "spiritual expert": A theologian who has a doctorate in studying these ancient texts. Sometimes I consider getting a PhD in theology as an atheist just so I can shut these pompous pricks up. I would still consider it nonsense. I would treat the Bible as someone like Daniel Dennett does - A natural Phenomenon. That's it. Natural. A natural pieced together book in this natural world in which we live written by human beings naturally.

In conclusion I think I speak for most atheists obsessed with YouTube debates on god when I say I really want to see a debate with a Christian or Muslim or Scientologist or Mormon where we don't just debate if God exists, but we move from deism down to your specific religion. We can even start with the premise that there "is a god". We atheists can grant you that. Now prove to us that your specific version of God and what he wants of us is the correct version. Go! Any takers? (or are the only people that read this blog agnostic or atheists?)

Into The Lion's Den: Notes On a Recent Trip

I recently had the privilege of going back in time. I boarded a plane from the city in which I live now and flew to a small town in Illinois. I grew up in this small town of a little over twenty thousand people. I spent a full week, first visiting my mother in a town of around a hundred thousand people just over thirty miles from my father. Visiting family has always been very important to me and I wish deeply that I could do it much more often than just once a year. My father doesn't travel much so it's imperative that I make the journey back to see him. My mother visits me much more often and we've taken several vacations together with others. There were many warm, (and I'm not referring to the weather since it was nine degrees most of the time) memorable experiences on my trip back home, but there was also some moments that made me remember just how bizarre, illogical, and detached religious thinking can be.

First a little background:

I should begin by saying that I attended an Evangelical Christian school growing up (grade school, middle school, and high school) in this same small town. Some teachers were not even certified teachers on the subjects they taught. My graduating class for high school was only three total people including myself. Our principal was many times the teacher. He would often show up late and in many classes we would be permitted to leave to pick up snacks or run errands. One teacher even played guitar for us instead of teaching us history or science. (I forget the specific course). This isn't to say that all teachers there were unqualified or didn't care about giving us a proper education. There was one in particular who did care about the quality of education. but she was the exception to the rule.

The trip down memory lane happened almost instantaneously when I arrived at my father's house. He informed me that he wanted us both to attend a fundraiser (a night of trivia) for the Christian school I once attended, the school he paid a decent amount of money to send me to for twelve years. For reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph I was reluctant but I was mostly against this idea due to the inadequate science being taught to me and to this day at that school. I've mentioned before in previous blogs that the school I was educated in taught Intelligent Design and did not teach the Theory of Evolution. This is quite common in Evangelical Christian private schools, however knowing what I know now it's something I could never support with my money. I expressed this to my dad while not going into much detail. He said he would pay which freed up my conscious about the whole thing.

I was in a tough spot instantly and I didn't really know what to do. I texted family and friends that understand what kind of a tough position this is. The fact is my father wanted me to go. Despite all I loathe about religion and especially teaching religion as science this was my dad's social group of peers. This was a group that he was a part of and he wanted to bring his son. My dad loves me, no doubt and he wanted me to come for support and company. So I swallowed my hatred of all things religion and went along. Who knows, I thought, maybe it'll be fun. I often watch 700 Club as I often watch Fox News. Just for the novelty of watching how absurd a certain point of view is that I particularly, ardently disagree with.

The turnout was much larger than I expected. There were around ten large round tables with about ten to fifteen people sitting at each table. These were the teams. On the wall was a large board with each team name written to keep score. Creative team names such as "God is Awesome", "The No Names", and "Jesus' is Lord" were written on the left side of the trivia score chart. Our team consisted of an old grade school teacher, an adult Sunday school teacher from the church the school is affiliated with, and a handful of people that attended the church. All of these church goers were people that literally watched me grow up in the church. My dad sat to my left. To my right- a quite man who was of no help at all in trivia. Next to him was a man who had some ignorant generalizing statements about President Obama and how he will have to pull his guns from his cold dead hands. - You know - loving statements that someone like Jesus would have made. More than once I looked over at him with just a look of "seriously?!" on my face.

The trivia questions ranged from Bible topics to bad reality TV shows to movie quotes. I have to admit it was sort of fun. I enjoy a good game of trivia now and then. My favorite topic was "Religion". In this section questions where asked about Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Scientology, and Catholicism. I knew each one of these questions. And strangely I was the only one that seemed to have a working knowledge of other religions beliefs. It just goes to show you that the average Evangelical church-goer arrives at their Christian beliefs not in a scientific way. They don't learn about other religions first then compare and contrast before choosing the one that seems the most in line with reality. No they just follow like sheep. This is just speaking of most people at this particular church/school function. I'm not generalizing all evangelicals. Ultimately it boils down to faith. Faith without sufficient evidence. One particular religion was missing in this series of questions. Can you guess which one? That's right - Christianity (of the Protestant, Evangelical, Baptist variety). This is because these dear people don't consider their beliefs religion. Recently Bill O'Reilly said Christianity isn't a religion on his show. He incorrectly stated that Christianity was a philosophy. However, these people don't consider it a mere philosophy. They consider it the Truth.

During this enjoyable trivia match I noticed a roughly familiar face giving me dirty looks. It came from two tables to my right. It took me a minute but I finally realized who it was. Near the end of my facebook lifespan I remembered having a heated debate about evolution vs. creationism with this glaring creationist. He no doubt did not approve of my attendance, spoiling the good Christian fellowship with my pro-science ideas. If I remembered correctly the debate did not end well. He went off at the end and we ended the discussion on quite a sour note. What can I say, he was a dumbass. Anyways, there he was giving me the evil eye, and I just blew it off and went back to answering questions about Honey Boo Boo.

After the trivia and several plates of homemade pizza and brownies (church goers know how to cook! Seriously.) my dad and I talked with the principal of the Christian school the fundraiser was for - my old school. As much as I hated everything this ignorant small town school stood for its so hard to hate on this man. The principal is such a warm engaging individual cracking jokes with what seems to be genuine interest in my life. We laughed about old basketball stories briefly and talked about mostly sports and that was that. No confrontations like in the documentary "The God Who Wasn't There" (A film I've always wanted to recreate where a bitter atheist comes back to his California Christian school to chew out the principal for teaching children bullshit). So I was forced to come to the realization that this man that I threw all my hatred on because of my severely inadequate education was really a decent guy. I don't believe him to be maniacal, sinister, or a con man. I just think he really thinks he's doing good. Just like my dad. Just like all these religious fundamentalists at these tables playing trivia. Intent isn't an excuse for ignorance but it helps humanize things a bit. I was forced to come to terms with my hatred and redirect it away from any one individual. (My dad sent me to this school because he thought it would help me, I couldn't hate him for that either.) I had to direct it at the religion itself. I have to always remember to attack the concept, the rituals, the dogma, NOT the individuals that promote such things.

My Saturday night came to an end without a hitch and my father and I had a great ride home. I made my dad six CD compilations of oldies from the 50's and 60's. He loved that gift. We listened to each CD on the ride home and with each song brought a memory of his childhood and teenage years. He told me stories of what they reminded him of and we laughed hard at the absurdity of youth. Each track brought joy and when all is said and done so did our trivia night together at the Christian school I grew up. I was happy to make my dad happy by going and even though it was hard to do initially I think it was the right thing to do for our relationship. Just me and my dad going to Christian School Trivia Night in the gym of my old school.

The next day was Sunday, which meant church. Most people think of Sunday school as something little children attend. Well, you would be wrong at this church. In the church I grew up in adults attend Sunday school too. It starts at 9am and lasts one hour. The main church service and sermon follows and lasts til 11am. I used to always avoid the Sunday school part on these visits every year because the one time I did go I was put on the spot and asked questions about Noah's ark, burning bushes, jack and the bean stock and other real events in history. Luckily I attended Bible College for two years after Christian high school so I knew most of the answers. This year was different, I decided to go with dad to Sunday school. Sunday school was in the same gym as the night before (the school and church share the same building). Two of the same round tables were used, and mostly the same people that were in our group the night before were there. Prayer requests were taken, (Even the unspoken ones - that's for you, Steve) announcements made, prayer, then sermon.

The sermon was based on the book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament. I hit the record button on my iPhone to tape parts of it. Why? No idea. The message centered on the power of prayer. The Sunday school teacher spoke on God always answering prayers, it just may not be how we like it to be answered. He talked about trials in a Christians life and how that's all part of God's plan. It was pretty typical for a sermon on prayer. When we prayed I kept my eyes opened, didn't bow my head, but played with my phone. I don't bow my head to anyone anymore (even the ancient Jewish desert god, Yahweh). Prayer is a joke and I laughed inside at parts of the sermon and mostly didn't pay attention.

After this it was off to the main event: the sermon delivered by none other than the "spiritual expert" and our "spiritual dear leader". Pastor is a typical evangelical pastor with weirdly parted hair, extremely white from the south, and overweight. His blend of confidence, humor, and authority no doubt gave him his prestigious job of taking money from naive old people. (*I'll talk more on tithing later). The pastor of this church is the same pastor I've had most of my life. He was the same pastor that let me preach a Wednesday night service once when I was a teenager on how Christianity/Jesus was really sort of punk rock and radical. Oh God. I hope those tapes don't exist still or I would have to burn them immediately. It was the only time I ever preached to a congregation. Wednesday night services at that church were always less than fifty people so it wasn't too impressive I suppose.

My dad always sits his Bible down on the left side on far back pew so I know where to sit as he sings in the choir. I used to sing in the same choir too. Now the choir is small, just like the overall attendance of the church. There are mostly women now, only three men (including my dad and the choir director) sing. They always add a new piece of modern technology each time I visit every year. A few years back it was an electronic drum set. This year was two video screens that project a music video to accompany the choir. The song the choir sang was called "God So Loved the World". The music video playing with the song showed random people from all over the world holding post it notes up matching the lyrics to the song. Post-it's with the sentences like "Let us Love" (I thought to myself - who is not letting Christians love? Is Christian love really being suppressed? What does that even mean?!) or "God so loved the world". Well, duh. I think we all know that by now... There was even a quick clip of some book called "Atheism" randomly. Not really sure what the point of that was. God loves people that don't believe he exists in the first place?

 After the choir was a few more congregational worship songs for us to join in. Again, I did not participate. I now personally do not like singing songs talking about worshiping my master or how inadequate I am from birth. I am not a sheep and I have not gone astray (which is what the sermon was on). I have no master and I think I'm doing OK even with all of my flaws. I certainly do not think I'm damned from birth anymore. Following this was the "special music" as it is classified in the church bulletin. It was fucking terrible. Totally off key and off rhythm. I would compare it to the beginning trials of American Idol. It sure wasn't "hammer ring", I'll tell you that much. (... and that makes no sense to most people reading that. Good one.)

Then the big moment - The moment all the sheep were waiting for: The Sermon! It was titled "Being Lost" and for most of it, ... I was. Mainly because I would zone off for about ten minutes then try to catch up to what he was preaching. The pastor prefaced the entire sermon by stating,  jokingly that good pastors every once in awhile have to dust off old sermons and breathe new life in them like the sermon he was about to give. OK so this was a recycled sermon, I thought, at least he was honest. Then I began to think about how many times this has to happen. How many sermons have been given in churches like this one I was in throughout all of modern Christian history in this country alone? How much can you rehash these basically well known concepts of redemption sacrifice and faith etc? And come to think of it this is exactly what being a professional "spiritual expert" (pastor or reverend) is. The faithful that scream "TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT!!!" to us atheists when debating horrible passages in the Bible are the same people that take a specific passage of a certain book in the Bible and use it to preach a whole sermon off of. They make it modern and accessible to their flock. They basically take it out of context to make it relevant. I would love to see this done with books like "Harry Potter" or "Twilight". Just write sermons on specific parts of the book that make a sweeping generalizing sermon.

Crafting a sermon is an art form in some ways. It's merely manipulating prose to get a point across when in reality you have no real idea or way of knowing the exact motive and context of each passage of this pieced together ancient text. The really good preachers can get their flocks to do the same thing, on their own, at home. They can train the brains of their congregation (which isn't hard for us easily deceived, superstitious primates) to read more into the Bible than what is there. You see, that's where the Holy Spirit comes in. It's basically your creative imagination letting you take a specific passage and apply it to you finding your car keys or you getting that job promotion you wanted. Didn't you know that book in Job was talking about how you just got demoted at your job? God works in mysterious ways. He foresaw you losing this position at work. This is nonsense. This is the sickness of religion. Sure, it's an answer to something but it's a horrible answer. It's childish and wishful thinking. It was our very first answer as a species but we know better now and it's time to let go of this way of thinking. These were the thoughts I was thinking as I drifted away from what the pastor was preaching.

Another thought I had during the sermon was about the core of all things religious. - The supernatural. The pastor was speaking in specific parameters. These include the rules of the universe according to him - Original sin. Redemption. Atonement. Judgement. The pastor said angels are here effecting this natural world in which we live. Angels and demons are controlling real events on this planet as we speak. All of these things (including angels and demons) can be stopped in their tracks before we ever begin a discussion with a believer by saying we don't believe in the supernatural realm. There is no proof of this realm. If angels and demons are interjecting themselves and changing the course of natural events on planet earth in it's 4.6 billion year history then we ought to be able to test these effects. If it's natural, science can test it. If it's supernatural it's not science. There's no evidence for supernatural woo woo. Believers want it both ways. They can't have it both ways.

The sermon started easing into the ever recognizable softer tone which indicated it was coming to an end. The pastor did the cherished "God loves you BUT if don't accept him he will allow you to burn forever in fire" dialogue. As the sermon came to an end the "love you / burn you" message (which of course makes Yahweh seem like a bipolar psychopath) drummed loud and clear as the pastor finally concludes with the famous "Every head bowed please. Every eye closed. So that the spirit of god has an opportunity to deal with hearts and lives." - I thought. So the head bowing (like slaves do) and eyes closing (you know, be blind about your belief system) is directly linked to god being capable of dealing with hearts and lives? Could one leave their head up and open their eyes during this invitation? Would god be able to deal with their heart and life then? All these questions are good sound scientific inquiries. I'm working on it.

The dear leader did something to prove he was a "man of god". He shared a prophecy. He spoke directly to a person in the audience that hadn't been to church in awhile (hmmm.) or hadn't been faithful in some time. He spoke to the person that was like the prodigal son he spoke of in the sermon and said that your skepticism and all your critical thinking can never get you to heaven. (AKA: Celestial North Korea, you know with all the constant praising and worshiping.) - I thought to myself - no problem there. Heaven sounds terrible. I'll pass. This person, the pastor said, will have to face god's judgement and one day it will be too late to come to Jesus. (Threats of eternal fire - my personal favorite tenant of the Christian faith. It's so cute!) I think he may have been talking about me. Mainly because there was about sixty people in the audience, all of which I recognized from my past as the normal church goer here at this church. So, I stood up flipped off the pastor and said, "Fuck You and your fascist god!" ....

.... Actually I just sat there with not a tinge of guilt inside or whatever I was supposed to feel, whatever I used to feel as a child. However, I did find it amusing, I had forgotten about the invite the pastor gives in these invitations to go into a side room and talk with the "spiritual expert" about your spiritual life or lack thereof. I considered for a brief moment of doing just that. Not because I felt "lost" but because I just wanted to argue with him. The last part of the service is the offering. Gotta get paid! Gotta get paid! Holla Dolla Dolla Billz ya'll!!!

 Before the service started the secretary of the church handed my dad an envelope. It was a record of all of his tithing he had done for the year (for tax purposes). My first thought when she handed him that envelope was how pathetic that was for him to give ten percent of his net income to this church (and more for missions - where Baptist missionaries go overseas and offer great humanitarian work then force them to believe in the ancient Jewish desert God Yahweh. You know.... helping people!) . Then I began to look at it from a different perspective. It's like my father's country club. It's like a membership fee to join a social group. I mean besides the "spiritual guidance" he thinks he needs, he also receives meals and help from fellow church goers if something were ever to go wrong with his house or car. In that respect the church is good for the community. And I should emphasize ONLY in that respect. I suppose one could argue the placebo effect in regards to "spiritual things" does help some. I would argue the harm that is done to the critical thinking mind of these church goers is much worse. A skill so valuable in deciphering bullshit from real shit.

We left the church without talking to really anyone at all. My dad has a knack for racing to his vehicle like Flash Gordon so as to not socialize (which was always strange to me) or to be the first in line at the local buffet before all the fellow church goers arrived. Maybe it was a combination of both. We gorged on food like usual after the church service. I brought up a few books I was reading such as Stephen Pinker's new book on how violence has decreased in the span of human history. I felt it was a worthy topic in lieu of all the gun violence / gun control hype being sensationalized on Conservative TV (Fox News). We also talked about family and the future. We enjoyed each others company despite the utter nonsense projected upon us less than an hour prior. My dad and I spent the remainder of our time together in the next few days watching old movies, laughing about old memories, showing him interesting sites online, bowling, and having good conversation over meals.

I boarded my plane remembering why I left this way of thinking behind, but also remembering why I love my dad. I love my dad because in spite of what I consider a flawed approach to judging reality he loves me (maybe despite who I am as an non-believer). In this life we have to chose love over hate ultimately to make a pleasurable go at it. The overall goal is to simply minimize suffering and to be kind to those around us. My dad does this all the time. I miss him and I just left. I turned on my ereader and opened the book I had been enjoying on my flight home and continued on, only to glance over to my right. A man wearing cowboy boots and cowboy hat reading a book titled "Science in the Bible" by Ray Comfort. I just shut my eyes and clinched my jaw. It's time to educate those we love, show them that we love them, treat them with respect while showing them their beliefs are not worth respect. I have never came "out of the closet" about my atheism with my father. It's a combination of fear of being cut off in our relationship and not knowing exactly how to express it where he can digest it by fully understanding where I'm coming from.

My dad said when we were sitting at the dinner table how he can not believe how some scientists can be atheists. I think the same thing about scientists who are christian. The fact of the matter is my father doesn't know I'm not only a vocal atheist but a vocal anti-theist. I despise religion and think it's a dead way of thinking that needs to die off like alchemy or astrology and all the other first attempts at understanding how the universe works. I love my dad a lot but it's something that is probably best left alone. Two polar opposite views that never the twain shall meet. I'm OK leaving it that way. He is happy and I honestly think that some people are unreachable. I think that he is one of the unreachable. He needs his religion til the day he dies, and I have to say ... If it makes him happy - I'm happy for his happiness. It's a strange position to have as I type up this anti-religion blog. To think that I am OK with letting another human being (let alone someone as close to me as my own father) live a life blissfully unaware that what they believe not only isn't true but it is childish and a wish to be a slave. There is no evidence for the god of the Bible. In the words of the band Wilco, "No, your Bible can't be true." Now for those of you who are in a similar position as me understand. We must keep in mind the importance of family over all else. We must love them despite their blind faith. Show them that us non-believers have giant hearts full of love too! We must show them real love, not some sacrificial supernatural love, or some love due to rewards in heaven, but real love. A human love. Because that's who we are. And that's good enough. We don't need saving from the lion's den.

Everything Is Connected. Is Everything God?

When I look at a modern day moderate Christian with their sleek modern blog pages it's always amusing to read the content of these blogs. It's essentially just quotes from a bronze age book written by illiterate desert dwellers in the Middle East. These barbarians knew nothing about this world compared to what we know now. The mental acrobatics a modern day Biblical fundamentalist takes to make these ancient texts relevant should be an Olympic sport. Scientific discovery and Biblical texts are in direct opposition on almost every page.

Jason Tanenbaum puts it better in his article "A Science Teacher Draws the Line at Creation" in Scientific American magazine. He wrote this after visiting the ever popular Creation Museum in Kentucky,

What disturbed me most about my time spent at the museum was the theme, repeated from one exhibit to the next, that the differences between biblical literalists and mainstream scientists are minor. They are not minor; they are poles apart. This is not to say that science and religion are incompatible; many scientists believe in some kind of higher power, and many religious people accept the idea of evolution. Still, a literal interpretation of Genesis cannot be reconciled with modern science.

It's amusing to say the very least to see these young evangelists preaching something so out of touch with our modern times. I used to want to be one of these modern day evangelists, roaming the streets with the homeless talking about Jesus. Interesting thing is the homeless are already talking about Jesus. There are no shortage of crackpot religious apocalyptic prophets spewing "REPENT! end of the world" scenerios on various street corners in major cities across the U.S. Bill Maher pretends to be one, preaching the tenants of Scientology in his movie "Religulous". People just are attracted to the strange. And religious zealots are strange in their unfounded confidence.

When I was younger I believed that I could be that moderate modern day Christian that would bring Christianity to the masses. I would be a cigarette smoking, cussing, beer drinking, tattooed "street evangelist". Even though I knew literally nothing about "the streets" growing up white middle class in a small Midwest town. I wanted to relate so bad to these people that were homeless or druggies. You know, with the love of Jesus. I had never been homeless. I was very lucky to have a loving family that took great care of both of their sons. I had never done drugs when I had these ideas. I tasted alcohol once and that is when I was much younger. That was the extent of my drug use. Oh, I also took prescription drugs when I had a kidney stone. Damn, that was a painful time. I don't want to go into what I have or have not done specifically drug-wise since those days but I would like to point out that this career path fell apart relatively quickly. Within a few years of Bible school I dropped out. I hated the college I attended and it made me despise organized religion. This was the beginning of the end for me and my belief in the ancient Jewish desert god, Yahweh.

Not too much longer after I realized I was not a theist at all. However during this time I couldn't let go of the concept of "God" .. even in some Deepak Chopra sense. Everything was god. The universe was conscious. I basically took the Gaia concept of Earth and applied it to the entire Cosmos. You know, the whole thing is one big organism. We are the parasites (of course). As you may expect, during this time I was experimenting with hallucinogens. I don't want to reveal too much or which psychedelic drug, but I will say I saw the Connection. I mean I LITERALLY saw the Connection that connects us all. I witnessed myriad webs connecting everything around me in nature. These webs connected me to everything surrounding me outdoors. There were fractals everywhere, and nature seemed to have the mathematics, the geometry visibly dawn into each connecting leaf, tree, or blade of grass.

I remember this all specifically during one trip outside with my friend when the drug started to kick in full force.  I could see the normal trails that follow when you move your fingers. Then I noticed tubes or large clear worms (sort of like what came out of the chest of Donnie Darko in that film) going around the lawn chairs between my legs and then my friend's legs. It was dusk, the magic hour, and it was beautiful outside surrounded by trees (which have faces). We sat up on his roof staring at the Tree faces and tree fingers hanging down from above. The moon peering between the leaves. Trees always seemed like old wise oracles on psychedelics. If you have ever done hallucinogens you will know what I mean when I say your brain goes into pattern overload. Your brain creates an excessive amount of patterns. Faces here. Faces there. I used to think you were actually tapping into another dimension. Now I can quite firmly say with confidence that it's all in your head. Knowing this doesn't make it any less profound of an experience.

Hallucinogen drugs have been used by Shamans for religious experiences throughout human history. It's nothing new, but it certainly helps one "see" the Connection. I would go so far to argue that unless one has done a hallucinogen of some sort one can not really say they have experienced the full spectrum of a "spiritual" experience. I began reading all kinds of books on ancient aliens, UFOs, abductions, remote viewing, telepathy, out of body experiences, astral projection, and all sorts of mystical concepts, conspiracy, and new age books by David Icke and Jim Maars. I traded in my belief in Biblical doctrines, Jesus, and Christianity for UFO documentaries, Zecharia Sitchen, and everything New Age. Sagan said in his book "The Demon Haunted World" that aliens are the modern day demons or angels. What's the difference ultimately? Now I know this, but back then I thought I had stumbled across such great secrets. NASA coverups, etc. When in reality, I had just never really learned how to think skeptically about things. Things I either wished were true or feared most. I had preconceived biases and followed illogical arguments with insufficient evidence. Just as I did with religion.

Shortly after these times I was forced to really examine my beliefs. I considered myself an agnostic (I just don't know, you know), but then I found the term pantheist and that's what I became. I understood through hallucinogens that what we thought of as "god" was actually everything as a whole. The entirety of the universe is "god". Nature is god. God wasn't a being, God wasn't anthropomorphic. it wasn't a personal god or some old man with a white beard. It certainly didn't have a son and it didn't give a shit about who we slept with or which types of meat we ate or if we drank alcohol, etc. Richard Dawkins called pantheism "sexed-up atheism". Some people see pantheism as the polar opposite of atheism. I'm not really sure I see it that way, even now.

Pantheism was introduced by philosopher Baruch Spinoza in his book "Ethics" written in 1675. Albert Einstein once wrote in a letter where he denounced a belief in a personal god , We followers of Spinoza see our God in the wonderful order and lawfulness of all that exists and in its soul as it reveals itself in man and animal. I remember reading this quote and thinking OK if it's good enough for Einstein it has to be good enough for me. Catholics called it heresy (imagine that) because it failed to show the importance of salvation and man's original sin. So if it was NOT OK with the Catholic church then it was certainly OK for me. Original sin and salvation was such a dead and ignorant idea to me that I had already given it up. In a letter written in 1866 by Abraham Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon wrote:

Mr. Lincoln’s religion is too well known to me to allow of even a shadow of a doubt; he is or was a Theist & a Rationalist, denying all extraordinary – supernatural inspiration or revelation. At one time in his life, to say the least, he was an elevated Pantheist, doubting the immortality of the soul as the Christian world understands that term. He believed that the soul lost its identity and was immortal as a force. Subsequent to this he rose to the belief of a God, and this is all the change he ever underwent.

Again I thought, if pantheism is good enough for Lincoln it's certainly good enough for me. These influential people throughout human history saw something to this "everything is god/god is everything" mantra. However, I was a pantheist for only a few weeks. It only took me realizing that atheism is the simplest way of explaining my view on "god". I don't have much of a problem with pantheists these days. I understand that concept of everything connected. Cosmology tells us we are all made from star dust. There's a connection to the stars. Stars formed from the gas clouds that formed shortly after the Big Bang. There is our connection to the Big Bang. Evolutionary biology tells us that we are one species branch in a gigantic tree of life. We are related to every living thing that has ever lived on this planet. There's our connection to other animal species. Genetics tells us we are even related to the food we eat, the water we drink, the rocks beneath our feet. We share DNA with fish and yeast and tiny bacteria. We are all related. All of us living. All of us that have ever lived.

I guess when it boils down to it if this is what pantheism is. Then call me a pantheist. We are connected to everything in this vast and awesome cosmos. And that connection is real. We have evidence for it. This concept of "God" is much more beautiful, poetic, and spiritual than any of the desert gods from old dead ancient texts. It's much more powerful than vicarious redemption or scapegoats or sacrificial lambs. It's much more glorious than sorcery, or a jealous god's grace, or forgiveness of sins. I'll end with a quote from the book The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People by Neil Shubin. This is such a powerful book. I highly suggest reading it : 

Being a fossil hunter, I dig in the ground to uncover relics. But every astronomer is a paleontologist of sorts. As Carl Sagan famously said, the light of the stars we see was formed in the chemical reactions from a long time ago. The vastness of space means that starlight hitting our eyes is no artifact; it is the real deal- a visitor from a time before the birth of our species, even in some cases our planet itself. With such time travelers coming down to us each night, the trick to reconstructing our past comes from learning to see the light and radiation of stars in new ways. 

For thousands of years, mankind considered itself the pinnacle of life's creation on a planet sitting in the center of the universe. Science changed that perception. Leavitt, Hubble, and others helped us see that we live near the margin of a vast galaxy, in a universe of galaxies, with our planet one of many worlds. Darwin and the biologists had their say too. Our entire species is but one little twig on an enormous tree of life filled with all life on Earth. But each discovery that moves us from the center of creation to some obscure corner brings an entirely new relation between us, other species, and the entire universe. All the galaxies in the cosmos, like every creature on the planet, and every atom, molecule, and body on Earth are deeply connected. That connection begins at a single point 13.7 billion years ago.