Contradictions lead to happiness

A 6th generation Mormon, Jeremy Runnells had expectations and plans of living in the Church of Latter Day Saints for the rest of his life. However, in February 2012, Jeremy experienced a crisis of faith. In the spring of 2013, Jeremy was approached and asked by a Mormon Church Educational System Director to share his concerns and questions about the LDS Church's origins, history, and current practices. In response, Jeremy wrote what later became publicly known as Letter to a CES Director, and very quickly went viral on the internet. The CES Director responded that he read the "very well written" letter and that he would provide Jeremy with a response. No response ever came.

You can download the letter from this web site (click on "download the PDF" when you get there - it's a free download).

I found this letter - and the silence from the Mormon church - so hauntingly familiar. I had very similar, specific questions when I was in my teens and was realizing I just wasn't really believing what I had been taught all of my life by Christian churches, that I'd never believed it. The number of Bible contradictions - such as the examples listed here and here - I was realizing for myself were mounting. The cruelty and violence, the misogyny against women were disturbing me in particular, and no one had answers to my many questions and observations - they just kept telling me to "accept" and that I would have answers "some day." I was made to feel bad for my many questions and statements that I felt nothing people assured me I would feel if I said things like, "Christ, I accept you as my savior. Live in my heart." I might as well have said abracadabra over and over.

When I was trying to be a Christian, deep joy was always out of reach. Happiness was oh-so-fleeting. I was afraid of my own emotions, because I was being told I shouldn't be upset no matter what horrors in life I might encounter, no matter what happened in my life or anywhere in the world, because God had a plan, and to be upset was to doubt that plan - in other words, children being raped, people being slaughtered, villages and cities being destroyed by natural disasters, people dying slowly from the most horrible diseases you can imagine, and all other suffering was a good thing, a divine thing, and I would just have to hope and trust there was a reason for it all. God Makes No Mistakes and God is Good All the Time. And I was supposed to seek out other Christians as friends, specifically, and avoid non-believers. In fact, many people said I was to seek out only certain Christians - no Catholics, no Mormons, maybe not anyone that sprinkles instead of dunks...

When I quit trying to believe, when I embraced that life-long doubt in a magical invisible all-powerful friend who allowed, or caused, misery, life very slowly started to get better. No one was allowing tsunamis, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters to kill millions of people - those things happened, without any meaning behind them other than weather patterns and geological realities, and there were all sorts of things we, humans, could do to mitigate the damage. And there were all sorts of things we can do to reduce horrors visited upon humans by other humans. And God hadn't abandoned or ignored me as I prayed every day, desperately, for an end to the abuse in my family - there is no God, and I needed to find help to get out of that situation and live a very different life than I'd grown up in.

And I got to be kind to everyone, no matter their beliefs. I got to pick friends and associates based on the character they showed - the kindness, the understanding, the care - not their proclaimed religion. I get to embrace humankind, the brotherhood of man, as a species, as a family.

And I got to hope, in a way I never could before, because I knew there was no omnipotent sentient entity with some master plan causing everything in the world, helpful, glorious or harmful - instead, the world was full of endless possibilities, some of which I could control, some of which I could influence, and all of which were real.

Hallelujah!

Why I love being an atheist

Things you think are in the Bible, but aren't, & what early Christian practice was really like

I'm very fond of Cracked.com. I know - it's a total clickbait site, and it can be quite dickish. But often, the writers really nail an insight or story in a no-nonsense, fact-based way.

Two pieces on the site are particularly awesome to me. One is called "5 Stories Everyone Assumes Are in Bible but Arent." I already knew that these five stories aren't in the Bible, but Cracked does such a good job of breaking it down simply and directly. In summary:

#5. Sodom And Gomorrah Getting Destroyed For Homosexuality (they weren’t, at least not according to scripture)
#4. The Seven Deadly Sins
#3. Purgatory
#2. The Prostitute Mary Magdalene
#1. Satan, The Lone Enemy Of God

It's so much fun correcting a Christian I'm arguing with on these points. "Show me in the Bible where it says that." And they begin to scramble... hilarious. I do the same thing with Muslim friends that say the Koran says dogs are filthy. In fact, it doesn't say that - Sura 18 is a story about a dog that honors canines for their protection and loyalty, and recognizes them as members of the family.

Another Cracked article I like very much: "5 Secret Things You Won't Believe About Early Christianity." And it's true: most of the Christians I know refuse to believe this about early Christian practices, those that took place in the first 300 years after Jesus supposedly was on Earth. In summary:

#5. Women Played A Huge Part In Church History (and were entirely written out)
#4. Early Christians Spent An Unhealthy Amount Of Time Fighting About Dicks
#3. The First Church Services Were More Like Lavish Parties
#2. The New Testament Was Conceived By A Heretic (Marcion of Sinope) Who Thought God Was Also The Devil
#1. Jesus Was A Shapeshifter?

They forgot one of my favorites to bring up to Christian friends: the Nicean Council's prohibition of kneeling on Sundays and during Pentecost. Standing was the normative posture for prayer at the time of the First Council of Nicea, and it still is among Eastern Orthodox Christians. Kneeling was considered most appropriate to penitential prayer, as distinct from the festive nature of Eastertide and its remembrance every Sunday. So, next time you're in church and everyone kneels, start shouting, "Heretics! Apostates!" Good times...

I blame the First Council of Nicaea in 325 BC for solidifying non-Biblical anti-women views as official Christian doctrine, leading to the horrific religion-sanctioned oppression of women that permeates most Christian sects to this day.

Would Cracked dare articles such as "5 Things You've Been Told are in the Koran, But Aren't"? or "Things About Early Islamic Practices That Would Get Them Called Heretics Today"? I wish they would.

The more you know...

Yet another Christian leader ignorant about Atheists

Did you hear the one about the Anglican minister who said atheists have no reason for grief? I didn't, until Greta Christina blogged about comments by Rev. Gavin Dunbar, who argued that, unless you believe in God, you have no reason to care whether the people you love live or die, or even to love people at all.

Thank you, Greta, for saying what needed to be said - but I wonder if Gavin Dunbar even bothered to read your excellent comments. He obviously needs a LOT of education. He has no idea who Atheists are, our very real values and feelings. Is he ignorant - or willfully insulting?