Author: Jon Henshaw

My parents taught me that I was God’s creation and that I was loved unconditionally by Him. They told me that the Bible was God’s Word and that it was perfect (something the Bible conveniently states about itself). They made it clear that all things good come from God, that Christianity was the source of all morality and that everything good in this world comes from it. I later learned that was all bullshit.

My parents never told me the full story.

Misinformed

In the first few years of my deconversion from Christianity – something that didn’t happen until my early thirties and took about six years – I had the feeling that I had been lied to. Lied to by my parents. Lied to by the church. Basically lied to by all of the people I trusted most.

Why hadn’t anyone told me about the full history of the Bible? Like how exaggerated orally transferred stories had made their way onto paper and were altered countless times. How this religion was historically used for political purposes to unite people under a single god and belief system. How Christianity is a fairly new religion, borrowing and stealing from the traditions of other mystical belief systems that came before it.

As far as I knew, Christianity had been around for a long time, everything else was a false religion, and that’s all I needed to know.

Inherited Ignorance

If you tell a lie, but don’t know it’s a lie, is it still a lie?

Coming to the realization that I was just another victim of generational ignorance — not a vast conspiracy perpetrated by those I loved the most — greatly improved my feelings about being lied to. Without the intention of lying, I didn’t feel lied to. Instead, I felt misinformed by those who had also been misinformed.

My parents never got the full story. Their parents never got the full story. I realized nobody ever gets the full story.

I can’t haz Enlightenment

Obvious examples of misinformation include news sources like MSNBC, Fox News or the bat shit crazy Glenn Beck. Less obvious examples include any source I implicitly trust. In the same way I implicitly trusted my parents and the church, I must accept that whatever enlightenment I think I have now is ultimately still an illusion.

For example, Sam Harris’ general philosophies resonate with me today, but it’s doubtful he communicates the full story through his writings. He most certainly leaves out details that he thinks are insignificant to the arguments he’s making. He also has probably never been a true believer of any religion like I have, and therefore lacks the ability of knowing what it’s like to feel the presence of God.

Sam Harris is incapable of telling the full story, just as I am incapable of perceiving and comprehending it. It’s part of the human condition.

A Fullish Life

No matter how much I read and learn, I will most certainly die not knowing the full story. The best I can do is to continue to seek out truth, as best as I can comprehend it.

If I can do anything with this knowledge of my chronic lack of knowing, it’s to be more patient with those I don’t agree with, and to try to be less of a dick.

Some of the simplest and shortest sayings that people use in U.S. culture are actually overly complicated and philosophically wrong. They’re used to comfort those who are anxious or emotionally stressed, much like the religious institutions they are connected to.

Take for example the saying, “everything happens for a reason.” It’s something that people tell others to imply that God has a hand in certain (or all) events, and it’s okay, because the circumstances must be connected to something bigger than them – a master plan.

As a freethinker – one who espouses logic, reason and science – a more correct saying would be:

“everything happens for a reason“

While coincidences occur in practically everyone’s life, in most (if not all) cases the things that affect us are a response to stimulus from an incomprehensible system. There is no plan as the superstitious would have us believe. Everything just happens, period. We must deal with it, whatever it may be, if we can.

There’s another saying that’s become popular near where I live, and that’s, “it’s gonna be ok.” Or better known as IGBOK. The “ok” part means it will be okay after death, when you’re in Heaven, blah, blah, blah. Not exactly helpful for the here and now, unless of course you long for death and can’t wait to live in your fictitious resting place for eternity.

I prefer the more existential statement of:

“it’s gonna be ok“

At the root of these sayings is a desire to provide comfort to another person (which is obviously not a bad thing in and of itself). However, in the same way that all religions are used as a coping mechanism for our limited and sometimes miserable existence, all these sayings really do – philosophically speaking – is provide false hope.

I was thinking about ignorance today. I realized – I doubt for the first time – that ignorance is not just one thing. There are different types of ignorance. Different reasons and circumstances for why people experience ignorance.

Incapable of knowing ignorance

Some people are ignorant because their life circumstance doesn’t permit them to know. They could live in another country and be ignorant of a cultural folkway – one that’s never been discussed on the Internet or in any book. Or they could be mentally incapable of understanding something.

Choose not to know ignorance

This is the “ignorance is bliss” type of ignorance. This can be conscious or unconscious denials of facts. A mother who refuses to accept that her son is gay or a Christian who refuses to follow a logical thought pattern for fear of finding an answer that is inconsistent with their beliefs.

Influenced to not know ignorance

Then there are people who are suffocated by those around them. A religious family that shuns any education that isn’t inspired by their own canon and rituals, forcefully and intentionally keeping their children from experiencing a world view that would deviate from their own family traditions.

Not knowing how to know ignorance

There are those who lack the tools and skills to research, learn and build upon their knowledge. Even if they wanted to know more, they wouldn’t know where to begin.

Stupid ignorance

Then there are those who refuse to live mindfully, and allow their impulses to drive their behaviors and are unable to take the time to experience empathy or understand the world around them. They experience the worst kind of ignorance. The kind that makes everyone’s lives a living hell.

Since my wife and I became freethinkers – we were formerly evangelical Christians – we’ve had many discussions about the culture our children are growing up in. We are Southerners, and we live in a neighborhood that is predominantly protestant. Almost everyone we come into contact with goes to church, and their kids are active in church-related activities. While this concerns my wife, it doesn’t concern me. The main reason is the Internet.

Since the mainstream adoption of the Internet, I’ve been predicting that it would forever change religion – especially for teenagers and young adults. The main reason for this is access to knowledge.

My wife and I grew up protected from dissenting views of our faith. We were lied to (or not told enough information) about the origin of the Bible and the true history surrounding our religion, let alone all religions. Our parents and our churches used an age-old method used by all religions, which was to relentlessly educate us from a young age with a myopic worldview – one that was severely sanitized.

That approach still happens today, but something now changes when those kids become teenagers. They gain uncensored access to the Internet.

My prediction has been that access to knowledge on the Internet will forever change the religious landscape in the US. Unlike when I was a teenager, there are now numerous resources like the ExChristian.net and Think Atheist communities, books like Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why and The God Delusion, and movies like Religulous.

Based on new research by the Barna Group, my prediction (a prediction that is not unique to me) may be coming true.

Researchers found that almost three out of five young Christians (59 percent) leave church life either permanently or for an extended period of time after age 15.

While it may take another decade to see real change in our traditionally superstitious society, I believe the demise of make-believe in American society is now only a matter of time. This not only gives me hope for society, but it also gives me hope for my children.

I live in a neighborhood (just South of Nashville, TN) with a lot of evangelical Christians. This seeming majority belief in my community is usually not a big deal. The only time it gets annoying is when leaders force a truly evangelical prayer onto the festivities – something that was done a few weeks ago at our neighborhood Fourth of July celebration. It’s completely inappropriate and insensitive to those who believe differently, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s still not a big deal to me. For me, it’s no different from having a leader thanking a Sun god or asking for a blessing from ancestral spirits. It’s all just modern-day mythology, and I’m just happy nobody is sacrificing a goat or worse a virgin.

While I tolerate the evangelical god-speak at community events and in neighborhood email newsletters, there is one thing that has me continually irritated, and that’s IGBOK. It irritates me because it’s a patronizing statement based on false hope.

It’s gonna be

The first part of IGBOK I agree with. At least they recognize what I would call the ineffectiveness of prayer.

God’s “o.k.” doesn’t mean that the cancer will be healed, the relationship fully restored, the physical pain or emotional ache will go away in this life.

However, the second part – the O.K. part – is based on delusional false hope. The hope that even if life is a giant ball of shit, you will still spend a blissful eternity with God.

It means that because He has entered and overcome our brokenness…we can live this life with real hope — a hope that knows one day everything will be set right forever in the life to come.

Hope is the drug of choice for Christianity and many other religions. Similar to antidepressants, the false hope of life after death is meant to mask reality so you can better cope with your problems. All you have to do is believe.

Is religious hope a bad thing? I don’t have a good answer for that. If the hope for a better afterlife helped keep my daughter from killing herself, or my son from living in despair now, then I would be more accepting of it, regardless of my own philosophical differences. That’s simply based on wanting my children to be happy and to thrive.

However, like most drugs, there are side effects. In order to sustain hope powered by religion, a person must fully immerse themselves into its religious dogma. That means a denial of what is rational and logical (from a scientific perspective), and buying into a worldview that perpetuates exclusion and hates onto other people in the name of love.

Philosophically, I think the only true statement that can be made is, “It’s gonna be.”

As I’ve written before, the idea that anyone can explain the existence of life, let alone what happens after we die, is greater than or equal to bullshit. For me, clinging to a mistruth during a time of grief is both living on false hope, and dishonest to your being.

If you take away all of the things that cannot be observed – the superstitious beliefs that have been passed down from generation to generation, and whose origins can only be attributed to human imagination and creativity – we are left with existentialism. There was a time when we didn’t exist, and now a time when we do exist. And like all living things, we will return to the same state as before we existed. There is absolutely no reason to believe otherwise, even though our survivalism mixed with higher reasoning would have us believe otherwise.

“It’s gonna be.” There’s nothing that comes after that, and that’s O.K.

It’s important to know why you believe. As a Christian, I believed what I thought to be true. As I came to the realization that what I believed may not be true, my desire for it to remain true kicked in. I wanted there to be a loving God – a savior named Jesus – to care for and watch over me. I wanted to believe that as a human being, I was somehow special and would live forever. All of the things that had no proof, I still wanted to be true.

I think many religious people are stuck between what they want to be true, and what they know to be true. It’s a strange place that’s full of functional denial and fortified by the groupthink of socializing with only those of like mind.

It takes great mental fortitude to deny what you want for that which is true. To accept that your desire to live forever is the survivalism of higher reasoning. That your relationship with Jesus is an imaginary friendship. That the supernatural is superstition, revealed through your fears and imagination.

Intelligent, logical, and rational Christians believe in spite of what is real because they want it to be true. It’s only when they remove what they want, and settle for what is true, that they can live free of mental tyranny.

May 21st, 2011 has now come and gone, leaving everyone predictably un-raptured. The response from Harold Camping was almost exactly what Richard Dawkins predicted in the Washington Post.

I don’t know where he gets the money, but it would be no surprise to discover that it is contributed by gullible followers – gullible enough, we may guess, to go along with him when he will inevitably explain, on May 22nd, that there must have been some error in the calculation, the rapture is postponed too . . . and please send more money to pay for updated billboards.

That’s close enough to Camping’s response after his none event. However, what intrigued me most about Dawkins’ comments was this.

In our case, as the distinguished astronomer and former president of the Royal Society Martin Rees has conjectured, extinction is likely to be self-inflicted. Destructive technology becomes more powerful by the decade, and there is an ever-increasing danger that it will fall into the hands of some holy fool (Ian McEwan’s memorable phrase) whose ‘tradition’ glorifies death and longs for the hereafter: a ‘tradition’ which, not content with forecasting the end of the world, actively seeks to bring it about.

There’s a term for that – it’s called self-fulfilling prophecy. There’s nothing mystical about self-fulfilling prophecy because it requires 100% human intervention. If a person or group of people talk about and believe in a prophecy long enough, they will build a false reality around it. For example, if the existence of Israel is key to the continued validity of scriptures and prophecy, the powers that be will do whatever they can to fulfill its pre-ordained destiny.

A self-fulfilling prophecy is intriguing because it perpetuates irrational and illogical world views. It also, ever so subtlety, preserves sacred beliefs and enables global events and decisions that otherwise wouldn’t occur. And in the worst-case scenario, as Dawkins’ expressed, it may be the thing that instigates our own extinction event.

This Easter was especially enjoyable because it was spent without either of our parents (don’t get me wrong, we both love and enjoy our parents). There was no pressure to go to church, have our children confused by the absurdity of Christian theology (including the belief that a half-human, half-god came back to life, and if you don’t believe in him, you’ll go to hell for eternity). Instead, we did an Easter egg hunt at our city zoo, and on Sunday we decided to go to a local park to enjoy and celebrate the real life around us.

The freethinking blogs I follow had some interesting thoughts for this Easter that I connected with. Jody Milholland posted thoughts about past Easter morning services.

Now, with Christianity a mere reflection in the mirror of my past, I am sure it was the serenity of being with the earth at that early morning hour, and with my mom, that made it so special. Because now, I can say with true freedom and gladness that my religion-inspired guilt, shame, and fear are buried. When I rolled away from the rock of spiritual oppression and bondage, I emerged a new person. I was raised from the dead, resurrected in new life. The old is gone the new has come. I have welcomed the change, the metamorphosis of leaving behind superstitions and fears and welcoming the experience of living fully in the present. No longer with remorse for my past sins or fear of an impending doomsday, I embrace my life with enthusiasm.

Marlene Winell exclaims it is we who are alive.

We emerge from the coma of conformity and stand blinking as we get our bearings. And then we realize “We’re alive!” Here and now, in this world. We pat our own bodies and notice they are real. We pinch ourselves. We look around and see the natural world and we allow ourselves to be moved, perhaps weeping with amazement.

Not to be outdone, Atheist Revolution posted an entry called Happy Zombie Jesus Weekend. While it’s a little over the top–and by over the top, most definitely offensive to many Christians–the point made is very good. Like zombies, Jesus came back to life to claim our minds, err hearts.

There are laws that make up our universe – some of which we still don’t understand or know even exist. As best we know, we’re part of a great expansion. From the Big Bang, we are the consequences and the results of time and matter. Everything exists because of a natural structure to things.

If we are all on a continuum of some kind of great expansion, are we simply a reaction to a stimulus? Is our existence, our thoughts, our actions, simply nature playing out its natural, violent rhythm? I think the answer is yes and no. Yes, in that everything we are and do is a result (a reaction) of the structured, lawful existence of everything. No, in that the future is unknown and unlived.

There is a dichotomy between our existence and our behavior being predictable in hindsight, and the unknown chaotic future powered by our choices. A future that is most certainly predestined by the structured chaos of our universe and its mysterious properties.

For me, it reinforces the meaning of life. That is, to fulfill the purpose of our existence – to live vigorously to the end.