The Process of Conversion

So today I'd like to discuss another of the lovely UCG booklets - this one on "Transforming Your Life: The Process of Conversion". This lovely little pamphlet explains how you know whether or not you (or more likely your neighbor) are a "true Christian" or whether Jesus will say "I never knew you". As a once-thoroughly converted Christian and current happy apostate, I'm eager to begin.

First, readers are told that conversion is

a miraculous, lifetransforming process - a process that is impossible without the direct, active intervention and participation of God.

Then we get the "free will" argument (that God values our free will more than he values our salvation, or preventing us from spending eternity being tortured in a hell he created) presented thus:

Although He clearly encourages humans to "choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:19), God does not force anyone to make the right choice. But, as we shall soon see, the consequences of our choices are enormous.

Ah, the "mercy" of Gawd is evident all around us. Now we get to the heart of the matter - an introduction to the step-by-step process of conversion, and the end result.

The process beings with God's calling, followed by the key steps of repentance, baptism, and the receiving of the Holy Spirit - finally climaxing witht he return of Jesus Christ, when the dead in Christ are resurrected to immortality and given eternal life. That is the ultimate transformation, being changed from a mortal to an immortal being! (emphasis added)

Repentance is a big favorite in Christianity, because the entire theology is based on the presupposition that we are all guilty of something which requires forgiveness (or atonement, or death, depending on your denomination's interpretation of Scripture). And of course baptism gives the clergy early inroads into the lives of their follower's children. The oddest thing about baptism to me is its early roots in death and drowning (which is why some groups still prefer a good ole fashioned dunking to the sprinkling of infant baptisms). I myself was baptized in a swimming pool when I was 7, after begging my mom to let me do it. My sister had been baptized in the lake behind a friend's house the summer before, and I was definitely jealous. Looking back, that doesn't seem to be the best of all possible motives for a baptism, but hey what can you expect from a 7 year old?

As for receiving the Holy Spirit, I gotta say I tried my hardest but the damn spook just wouldn't show up. I cried and prayed, fasted, read my Bible, yadda yadda. Basically none of my rain dancing for Yahweh yielded so much as a drop of spiritual renewal. I was quite relieved to discover that the non-existence of the Holy Spirit probably had more to do with this failure than any lack of faith or effort on my part.

But the mortal -> immortal aspect is one that wasn't taught in any denomination or church I belonged to. In fact the exact quote that was used (ad naseum) by my grandmother was, "We're all gonna live forever. Somewhere." So the idea that only converted Christians will experience immortality kind of flies in the face of the hell doctrine, don't it just? I think here's one the Mormons would really disagree on. (See Chatting with Mormons 5 for a discussion on the eternal nature of man from an LDS-persepective!)

After the introduction, we get warned that not all Christians are True Christians(TM).

Most groups that profess to be Christian represent themselves as having a "calling," as being the "chosen" of the Lord. Even many non-Christian religious groups regard themselves as divinely chosen.

I love the absolute conceit - wow even non-Christians think they're chosen by god! Of course they do. What religion would anyone take seriously that claimed to be NOT chosen by their preferred deity? Who would attend the church or mosque or synagogue that advertised "God doesn't visit here"? The authors reassure readers that we can discern which groups have it right, "If we are willing to take an honest look at the facts and accept the truth revealed in the Scriptures". sadly, accepting scripture as truth, and taking an honest look at facts, are inherently antithetical propositions. The "facts" put forth by the pamphlet are

Jesus Christ is real. He was resurrected. He is alive. And His impact on the world has exceeded that of every other man who has ever lived.

Wow - all the unsupported claims you can throw a stick at! (Is this a Southern-only phrase? I happen to love it, in part because it makes so little sense.) Okay, so as my atheist readers have surely yelled at their monitors by now, yes of course, none of those are proven "factual" at all. I don't personally care if Jesus existed as a historical figure or not, but the mere fact that it is unprovable is interesting.

Now we come to an example of the inherent contradictions of the gospel message.

God's desire is to give salvation - eternal life - to all mankind. "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3:17)

Sounds groovy, right? Eternal life seems cool (till you think it through) and a benevolent god that wants to save us all sounds rather giving as well. Oh, but wait! There's a bait-and-switch up ahead.

To become acceptable to God, all must recognize and accept God's Word as the main source of truth.

Hmmmmmm... So, he wants to save you, but only once you've become "acceptable" by taking a bunch of really outlandish supernatural and scientifically and statistically improbable stories as your main source of truth. Since the Bible gets a pretty large FAIL grade on Science, I'm gonna have to stay unsaved.

Regarding the need for repentance, our author reminds us that

Peter explained that every human being bears responsibility for Christ's death - not just the Roman soldiers or the small group of Jews who arrested and brought Jesus to trial.

Peter almost sounds like as much of a dick as Paul here, doesn't he? I've got a 3 year old. He's responsible for a lot of mayhem in my life and my landlord's - flooding the bathroom, coloring on the walls, throwing food off his high chair - but he certainly bears no responsibility in the public execution of a possibly fictitious rabbi thousands of years ago. That's a bit of a heavy burden for such a small guy, and it continues to be preposterous as we age. But hey - when did religion make sense?

Satan is credited with a whole host of accomplishments.

Satan has wielded tremendous - but not absolute - power over humanity (2 Corinthians 4:4). His role in shaping our world's entertainment, education, politics, advertising, and moral standards has been enormous.

Kind of makes God seem neutered, doesn't it? I'll never again comprehend the position of an all-powerful God getting his ass kicked on a daily basis by one of his own creations. (And then there's the whole, why doesn't he just annihilate Satan already?) Now we get into the issue of repentance.

When we repent we stop doing what is wrong and start living in harmony with God's ways and laws... Repentance should include a sense of sorrow and shame, but genuine, heart felt repentance is much more than simply an emotion. Our lives much change.

This is probably why I was such a shitty Christian. Sinning is just way too much fun! Besides, sorrow and shame are pretty crap emotions to have over the course of years. I can't tell you how many Sunday mornings I spent crying in church over the fun I'd had the night before.

The next section of the booklet, "What is Sin?" will clarify for my readers exactly why I enjoy sinning so very much. According to UCG's pamphleteers, sin is

[God] says that sin is trangressing His holy, spiritual law (Romans 7:12-14). Breaking that law - crossing that divine boundary, that limit God set for us - is sin.

God has a lot of laws, according to the Bible, including how to treat your slaves (but no prohibtion against owning other people), when to stone your children (when they don't obey you), how to treat rape victims (force them to marry their rapists!), and the penalties for working on the Sabbath (you guessed it - death, unless of course you're Jeezy Creezy).

A comment box within this section attempts to answer "What is Wrong With Our Human Nature?" by proposing

1. Our fleshly desires get us into trouble
2. We look for ways to justify our wants and actions
3. "We have a natural tendancy to resent having our fleshly desires limited by rules"

I have to say I thoroughly agree with the third point. I mean, I know I sure as heck resent when theocrats try to impose their rules on my desires, like my desire to have sex or not get stoned to death for getting a divorce or working (or sleeping in) on the Sabbath.

Next we get to baptism. Here the death-yen of Christianity becomes apparent.

[Baptism] represents death, burial and resurrection - both of Jesus and ourselves. Baptism shows that we accept the shed blood of Christ for our sins and pictures the death of our former life in the baptismal grave.

Cheery stuff, eh? Kind of thing you want to expose your children too, right? Their need to die to become acceptable? Yeah, me neither.

Finally we get to the Holy Spirit - the missing part of my own conversion. (Side note: I first said the sinner's prayer in my grandmother's bedroom at the ripe old age of 3, and after responded to at least 20 alter calls I can distinctly remember at revivals, Bible camps, youth events, and church services. Yet the spook never showed.) Now the UCG folks apparently aren't believers in the Trinity Doctrine. The booklet author points out that the word "Trinity" doesn't appear in the Bible, and states

One cannot prove something from the Bible that is not biblical. The Bible is our only reliable source of divine revelation and truth, and the Trinity concept simply is not part of God's revelation to humankind. The Holy Spirit, rather than a distinct person, is described in the Bible as being God's divine power.

Huh, so maybe I really was saved! Oh wait, duh, never mind. So, rather than being imbuing Christians with one third of God's own self (like I was taught, as a good little Pentecostal), the Spirit supposedly

• Keeps us in contact with God (and maybe the Tooth Fairy, while he's at it)
• Makes sense of the Bible (oh come now, no one can do that!)
• Makes all things possible (how about hiking the Mariana's Trench without gear?)
• Produces Godly fruit (see my thoughts on Spiritual Fruit here)
• Provides comfort (but not food for starving children in third-world countries)

Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I can get by just fine without the big HG, as God's power or as one aspect of a triune godhead. Either way, I'm cool as is.

In conclusion, the author urges us to read our Bibles. Now I honestly don't know any Christians who read their Bibles as faithfully as your average atheist. And a lot of former-Christian atheists like myself will point out that reading the Bible is exactly what led them to disbelief in the first place. Bible contradictions can be found here, here, here, and here. And that was just with one Google search. If I had more time (and didn't need to pee) I'd include more.

So once again gentle readers, we find that propaganda requires no proof, and claims of "facts" go unsupported.
And here is the rest of it.

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So I'm in Minneapolis, MN right now, and I have to say this place has an undeserved reputation for being dull.. Each time I mentioned to a fellow passenger in the airport or on a plane where I was headed for vacation, the response was invariably the same. "Why do you wanna go there?"

At the moment I'm sitting in a free wi-fi independently owned health-conscious coffee shop/bar drinking some of the best lemonade I've ever head, and munching on an organic sesame seed bagel. Last night I toured around the city with my friend Chitlin, walking across historic bridges and having a fantastic Singapore Sling at the local live-music bar 501 Club after dinner at the Bulldog. Granted, I'm here in July when it's not a frozen tundra, but the local music scene is alive and well here, as well as a lot of political activism and community gardening.

I have to give a brief "shout out" (why oh why isn't there a better phrase for this?) to two closet-atheists I met in the Charlotte, NC airport. So, hi Eric and hi Leigh. Thanks for passing the layover time with me, and I hope your destinations are fun and exciting. Remember to check out AtheistNexus.org to find more atheists in your Bible belt home communities to get together with.

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Demons in the Night

I've had insomnia since I was about 7 years old. I have the kind where it's difficult to fall asleep, no matter how tired I am. I've tried just about every trick and technique you can imagine over the years. Lots of exercise, throughout the day; exercise in the morning and cool off at night to keep my heart rate low; exercise at night only; and total couch potato. High fiber, high protein, low carb, low calorie. I've tried meditation and guided imagery, relaxing music, candles, and bubble baths. I've eaten foods to encourage serotonin and melatonin; foods like pineapple, yogurt, bananas, and warm milk. Needless to say, not much has worked.

It's ultimately fear of nightmares that keeps me awake. Going to sleep when my anxiety levels are high just isn't worth it. I could spend the hours tossing and turning, continuing to feel worse, or I could watch TV on Hulu, play sudoku at USA Today, catch up on Atheist Experience and Pat Condel videos on YouTube, join discussions at Atheist Nexus and Ex-Christian.net, catch up on liberal news via Huffington Post and the less liberal AP, or just listen to music while playing on Popcap or Jigzone. Anything but getting caught inside my own brain.

Have I mentioned that anxiety sucks? I've actually got a pretty good handle on it, but trying to avoid the feeling of being anxious is a job itself. I think my anxiety started as soon as I was old enough to understand the word "demon". My childhood nightmares were never boogy men or witches. I didn't even know what mummies or zombies were, because I wasn't allowed to participate in Halloween or read scary stories.

The first time I called someone to my room at night to investigate the creature under my bed, it wasn't a monster I feared (like in "Where the Wild Things Are") but a demon. A shadow moving across the wall, a prickling feeling of being watched, bad thoughts in my head. We weren't allowed to confess to any fear (part of the "Word of Faith" idea - no "negative confessions", so I couldn't really talk to anyone about my fears and anxieties. I'd been taught to fear the world, and it worked, but now admitting that would be the same as spitting in God's eye. I had to ignore my fear away (just like pain, sadness, or any other emotion I had as a child). Kind of not surprising really, I'm still not great at dealing with bad dreams, or thinking about how I feel frightened. It's much more soothing to just keep myself distracted, and the internet is great for that.

And people say religion does no harm. Puh-lease.

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Bible Study

I have two relationships with the Bible - a physical one and an emotional one. I have carried a Bible in my left hand, felt its weight against my side, touched the light, cool, thin pages of it, tracing my finger below each line of verse, trying to translate in my head from the King James Version. I have flipped its pages back and forth, gripped its leather cover, rifled through the tabs on the side when following the minister, and rubbed my thumb across my gold embossed name on the face of it. There's something distinct about the physical shape and nature of a KJV. I've yet to come across any other book that thick and that flexible. What else is bound in leather? It's heavy, which is easy to mistake with being weighty.

Then there's how I've felt about it or while reading it, over the decades. The Bible is the first book I ever read as a child. I still like old English enough to enjoy the sound of the Bible, and the taste of some of the more poetic words. I also think being immersed in that tongue as a young child made Shakespeare much more accessible as a poetically inclined teen. In so much of life growing up in a rather odd religious sect I find that I miss out on cultural ties. I didn't watch the same TV shows or listen to any of the music my peers did as kids in the 80s and 90s. But I know the Bible stories. And those are rather well known, at least the ones that make good illustrations, like Noah's Ark. Besides, I really enjoy the little details they throw into the writing of Kings. They're inside stories for someone familiar with the Biblical story of David and Saul.

As a small child I loved the fables and folk tales of many cultures. I thought that by reading the stories they told themselves, I could understand them better. The knee-jerk hatred I felt towards the Bible during the early months of my atheism is gone now. I don't think it's true, and I think it's used to commit horrible crimes about people, but I still like the fact that I understand the culture and I can speak the language. I know their fables.

I want my son to have that knowledge, but not the cost of gaining it. I don't think I would know the tiny Old Testament story details that I do if the Old Testament hadn't been the first book I ever read. I may not have found Shakespeare appealing without early exposure to the literary style. And I doubt I'd have any real insight into American Christianity if I hadn't been raised in it. Those benefits can't justify the price. No other book has caused me to feel so much so intently. Fear, shame, excitement, incredulity, amusement, humility, desolation, solitude, companionship, comfort, humiliation, and self-loathing.

When stressing to me that Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons aren't "real Christians", an acquaintance said to me, "It's annoying that they would just change the book or write their own and then still call it the same religion. They just stole ours." Of course, that's exactly what Christianity did to Judaism, and one reason to suppose that Christianity used to be nothing more than a weird little cult in Jerusalem.

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Creation or Evolution: Does it Really Matter?

I've been thinking about the popularity of the series "Chatting with Mormon Missionaries" here on ATAT, and I've found a new religious group to mock with a new batch of readily-available online supplies for my own amusement. Worldwide Church of God (which recently changed its name to Grace Communion International, is described on the official website thus:

We are a Christian denomination with more than 47,000 members, worshiping in about 900 congregations in almost 100 nations and territories. We began in 1934 and our main office is in southern California. We are members of the National Association of Evangelicals. In April 2009, we changed our name in the United States to Grace Communion International. This name better reflects who we are and what we teach. For a press release, click here.

The credible Christian anti-cult site Apologetics Index explains the shift from a previous near-cult church to the current one, which is much more in line with mainstream Christian doctrine. Which doesn't make it true of course, but less noticeable as strange or illogical.

Anyway, onto the pamphlets. Today's doozy had the funniest name, but there were serious contenders I plan to feature in later installments. Onto the funny. "Creation or Evolution: Does It Really Matter What You Believe?" features lovely monkey-and-dinosaur artwork on the cover, and opens with a section blaming our secular society for decreased belief in the Biblical creation story. (Society: 1, Bible: 0). In complaining about this current state of affairs the author writes,

The Bible is banned from classrooms in American schools, and serious discussion of the biblical view of the creation of our universe and our human origin is forbidden. At the same time, criticism of the theory of evolution is at times ruthlessly suppressed in academic and scientific circles.

Okay, first: Bibles aren't banned in schools. Students are free to pray, individually or collectively, to form student groups centered around their faith or religious preference, and may carry personal religious literature. What is banned is school-mandated enforcement of any religious belief or practice. Like prayer, or Bible reading, or creationism. And I love the idea of serious discussion, but the biblical views are ludicrous. Even the Vatican accepts evolution. Finally, scientists are not the ones ruthlessly suppressing any quest towards truth - the literal Bible believers are.

The section bounces around erratically, from claiming Darwin recanted in later years (yeah, pull the other one it's got bells on), to defining evolution by natural selection as "random chance", to claiming that the helplessness of the human infant is proof against evolution because (I freaking love this)

"If evolution is true and humanity is the pinnacle of the evolutionary process, why does a process as basic as human reproduction fly in the face of everything that evolution holds true?"

Wow. Okay, at this time I need to announce something: Evolution is a FACT. The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is supported by mountains of evidence that you can check out for yourself at TalkOrigins.org and is held to be the answer most likely to be true of all possible theories, including Creationism/Intelligent Design. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, who ever claimed humanity was the pinnacle of evolution? It hasn't stopped - it's occurring right now. The arrogance of man's superiority is a religious concept, so I can see why someone with no understanding of the scientific explanation might think this, but it's cocky as hell. At this point I ought to admit that I was a creationist up until a college biology class when I was 24. Let the shaming commence.

The pamphlet next blames scientific errors in the Bible like a geocentric universe on Greek philosophers and mistranslation. Then it jumps to one of the slipperiest slippery slope arguments I've seen since I watched Liz Cheney defending torture and Mormon Californians opposing same sex marriage. First, Darwin's loss of faith in the miracles of the Bible as he learned more about the natural world is presented as a frightening risk if you accept evolution. (And hey, I'd rather be on the side of fossils than fairy tales.) Then, this:

"There is great danger in following in Darwin's footsteps... Can we not lay part of the blame for rampant immorality on society's prevalent values and beliefs - derived to great extent from evolutionary theory?"

Hold up - accepting the Origin of Species as a brilliant work of natural science is the cause of immorality? What about that sin nature Christians are always going on about? It seems to only be the cause of their OWN shortcomings. Our heathen "sins" must be because of evolutionary theory infecting society's morals. Wow. Anyone else need a Dramamine to keep up with that dizzy spin?

Next is claiming paleontologists are con artists scamming an unsuspecting public, stating that there are NO transitional species in the fossil record (see some here!), and states that similarities between species are proof of a common DESIGNER, not a common ancestor. I have to admit this one tickled me a bit.

Here's a fun instance of redefining terms to make them almost fit (like doing a jigsaw puzzle with a straight razor and some krazy glue - I'll make it fit!)

"Evolution literally means simply the successive appearances of perfectly formed life without regard to how it got there. It does not have to refer to Darwinism, which is the doctrine that gradual change led to one species becoming another through the process of natural selection."

Wow, some loaded words in there. Okay, first "Darwinism" is a word used by Creationists, not by the vast majority of intelligent, rational adults who accept the viewpoint of the larger scientific community regarding evolution. So it's not an "ism" and it's not a dogma. It's a scientific theory, which means it has tons of evidence for it like other scientific theories (including gravity, which comes in handy a lot when my purse gets heavy). And on another point, please define "perfectly formed life" for me. Does the appendix factor heavily in the perfection of human life? How about our 32 teeth and jaws designed for 28? Or the aforementioned frailty of human infants? Somehow these complaints posed as objections to evolution aren't mentioned when talking about our perfect lifeforms "appearing" (spontaneously?).

Scientists are roundly abused, adaption within species (a key part of natural selection) is brushed aside as "microevolution" (which apparently has nothing to do with actual evolution), and Darwin is blamed for the Holocaust and other genocides.

The whole pamphlet is 41 pages so I'll just wrap up with this:

"You can choose to hold the view that there is no Creator and that we are simply the result of blind chance, a series of lucky accidents. You can decide for yourself how you should live and what values and principles will determine how you treat others. You can believe that man created God rather than the other way around."

Thanks, I think I will.

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Tribute to Pi

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An Appeal to Authority

It's quarter past 11 and my 3-year-old is awake. This makes Angie unhappy. Holidays are supposed to be happy days, and not just for the jackasses in my complex who got ahold of illegal, city-show commercial level fireworks (big, pretty, and loud) and thought that shooting them off every five minutes for four hours was an excellent holiday plan.

All the neighbors in the three buildings surrounding the parking lot where the pyrotechnics took place were out on their patios or at the windows, watching the show. At about 11, after a particularly loud firework that did nothing but smoke, flash, and bang at deafening volume, I called out across the lot, "Can you guys hold off one the really loud ones till tomorrow evening? I gotta kid that needs to sleep." Other neighbors' voices started to ring out, "That's what I'm saying!"

Ten minutes later they let off another of that same kind. I just lost it and yelled, in the Mommy Voice "You're being rude. Those fireworks aren't legal. Clean it up or I'm calling the cops!" And what do you know? Fifteen little hoodlums are industriously clearing the debris off the parking lot as I type this. I feel self-satisfied and smug, and very happy that I'll be moving in a month, and not only because I just pissed off a lot of people. Also because the people I just pissed off know exactly where I live.

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