My atheism

This morning on Twitter the question came up: What made you finally realize that God never existed? Here's my answer.

"I was in my mid-30s before I was certain. I realized that this universe we find ourselves in is nothing like the world described in the Bible. Humans guessed wrong all the time about it. God was just another wrong guess, but like astrology, the belief itself was socially useful."

Before I elaborate, I must confess that I'm no expert. I was raised Catholic, but I was never a good religion student. In Catholic school, I tried to believe, but I found religion classes baffling. My education was a fiasco, because I had ADHD. I've spent my life catching up on years of learning and socialization I missed, but I didn't begin to make serious progress until the ADHD was treated. By that time, I was fifty-years old. Now I'm racing the onset of old age to learn.  

I'll support my Tweet above by saying one strange quirk the Bible's Yahweh character is he makes believing in him the first requirement of avoiding Hell and reaching a blissful eternal life. This is all the more odd considering that he's supposed to be all-powerful. Why would an all powerful God have a problem with people not even knowing he exists? How many ordinary people on Earth have that issue? With their very presence being doubted? Furthermore, why does such a God need believers to help him, actually vouch for him, saying they know something they really don't? An all powerful God doesn't have that problem, unless he's also fictional.

I know he demonstrates his power in the Bible, but that just underlines the fact that he can't do it now. Just as easily as write a book, a God who created this universe could move a black hole into Earth's orbit and use it to saw the moon apart. His smiting and miracle-making in the Bible actually makes a case against his existence; it emphasizes the difference between the real world and the Biblical one, making the the latter transparently mythical.

Also, books are written by people for people. A real supreme being wouldn't need a book to make his point. He also wouldn't need angels to carry messages for him, nor believers to preach about him. He has a serious existence problem.

People who originated, compiled and wrote the Bible had no idea how large and old this universe is. Therefore, Yahweh character they concocted is as small-minded as the barbarians who created him. He has a personality of a tribal despot who must constantly keep his people in fear to maintain power. His insecurities are out of character for a supreme being whose power can never be threatened. Yahweh is vain, narcissistic, cruel, demanding and obsessed with obedience and fidelity. He's also erratic, becoming unpredictably enraged about the slightest, strangest infractions.

God's creators had to make him more awesome than any over-king on Earth. So, they simply took every personality trait they'd ever seen in the most powerful people at the time. Then they pushed those up to 11. 

Later, the Greek-influenced theologians promoted Yahweh from tribal tyrant with superpowers to the all-powerful, ever-present, all-knowing creator of the whole world. Oddly enough, they also later recast him as all-loving. In the meantime, humans learned our world is actually small part of an unimaginably large and old universe. We discovered, literally, all of creation didn't revolve around us and couldn't have been created for us. But Yahweh's powers stayed worldly, his disposition stayed petty. His existence problem made him onery. Rather, it made his believers depict him that way. As we learned more of the universe, believers tried to revise their concept of God to fit, but I think it's broken beyond repair.

In my humble opinion, this universe was never created. Yes, plainly, it exists, but it wasn't made by anything with mind, anything with a plan or purpose. Definitely, the Yahweh character never would've created this. I'll go as far to assert that no over-God humans have ever dreamed of would've concocted this universe. "Creation" is the wrong understanding of it, as creating is something humans do with a purpose. We imagined a supreme being with a mind like a human mind. We hoped we existed under its care as part of its creation, and our living in its creation, but that doesn't describe this universe.
 

Bertrand Russell in his book, A History of Western Philosophy, said Christianity is combination of Jewish scriptures and Greek philosophy. Most Christians see their religious origins in the Old Testament, unaware that much of their dogma and doctrine comes from the Greek philosophical thought.

Those theological conjectures were almost totally dependent on logic, reasoning and guesswork. They were impoverished in terms of empirical testing, information, and peer review. Historically, Greek philosophers always guessed wrong, and never corrected themselves. Other philosophers in other cultures failed just as badly. The only Greek thinkers who were even close to getting any physical facts about the universe right were the Atomists, such as Leucippus, Democritus and Parmenides. Yet, they were wrong on every detail. Parmenides, for example, thought motion didn't exist, that it was an illusion. Today, this is laughable. But the Greeks were important in that they originated questions that sparked thinking for two millennia.

The lesson here is that the most imaginative, most educated guesses made from a dearth of information are almost always wrong. Yet, the wrong guesses made then stayed around because they proved useful despite being wrong. God became an ad hoc way to regulate and direct human effort on a mass scale.

This raises the question: if ancients were so consistently wrong about every other thing in existence, how right could they have been about guessing there's a God? Who in the ancient world was in a position to guess right about such a thing?

In my thirties, I realized the entire Biblical story was incoherent. If you look at how many plans the purportedly omniscient, perfect God made, how terribly they all failed, and how each time Yahweh blamed and punished his believers, you'll agree with me.*

The Biblical story hasn't aged well. We now know there is no heaven in the sky for Jesus to have ascended to. So that didn't happen, or it was a cheap, staged magician's trick. Most likely it was the former, because lying about it a century later is as good as a magician's trick. I actually have doubts that Jesus the man even existed, but that opinion is too weak to argue.

Nevertheless, the important teaching was he would return very soon, within the lifetimes of his apostles. Except it's been 2,000 years and nothing of the sort has happened. The gospels said clearly that any further prediction regarding the time of Jesus's return would be wrong. Christians have predicted it, even though their scripture says it's foolish.

By my count, his not returning is the fifth plan of Yahweh's that's failed*. We on Earth await Plan F, but whenever Yahweh comes up with a whole new plan, first he punishes us humans for messing up the previous one; we're purportedly his greatest creation.

It's a relief that a supreme being with Yahweh's personality doesn't exist. Except Christians earnest about believing it anyway, and their honesty is corrupted by vouching for the existence of God, claiming they witness it when they've really witnessed nothing like it. 

I'm not a Christian anymore because now that I've seen the empty throne of God, I can't un-see it. I think for the first time in history atheism is a tenable philosophical position. However, as true as it is for individual skeptics, I don't think it's true for humankind collectively.

We use fictions for organizing and cooperating. If religion could be said to have function for society, it gives people a certain level of trust in each other, i.e. it sets a minimal level of confidence and suppresses suspicions and acrimony. However, even if we need a powerful God-overseer, the need is completely irrelevant to its existence.

A consequence of this is that atheists are so distrusted. In a Pew Research poll of the American public, only Muslims are distrusted more than atheists.

Religion doesn't perform this ad hoc function very well, but it's  important that people believe it regulates their neighbors, their families, their superiors and subordinates. It restrains paranoia and cynicism. I believe it's due to implied trust religion provides that humans are able to intelligently organize into nations and whole corporations, while other higher primates can't even come close. Marx was wrong: religion's not opiate of the masses. It's the placebo of the masses. 

Therefore, I think it's necessary that atheists should swear to a code of conduct that's similar to Christian morality in all the important ways: i.e. don't murder, don't steal, don't bear false witness, and so on. Atheists should find this reasonable. Since we can't see what we don't see, there is no other solution I can think of.

Humans cooperate in such complex ways because we tell each other stories. Religion is only one of our practical mind games. It's not necessary for social cohesion that everyone believe in the omniscient God, but it's necessary that enough people act like that do.

The next question: if I know atheists are so distrusted, why do I identify as an atheist? I'll leave that for some other blog entry.

The Arizona ninja recount is comedy relief

 If 2020 was an epic disaster, 2021 is already a historically significant year. First we had the insurrection, the pitched battle with police, Trump's banishment from social media, and the arrests of the insurrectionists. This was followed by the inauguration of President Joseph Biden, with its unsettling atmosphere of armed guards and unrest. Then we had the (first?) Derek Chauvin trial, with some of the darkest, most dramatic courtroom testimony in courtroom history. Right on the heels of that we had a whole rash of police shootings, including the first one where a an officer with 26-years of experience claims to have mistaken her gun for a taser. President Biden managed to get 200 million people COVID shots within the first 100 days of his administration. Recently, a judge said the CDC couldn't block evictions, which might cause a million people to go homeless. In case we didn't get the message from Trump the power crisis in Texas about what incompetent, indifferent government could accomplish. Oh, in there someplace, the COVID relief bill was passed.

Republicans have got to be frustrated that their "border crisis" can't get any attention, neither can their cancel culture message. All of those events are going to be fodder for the entertainment industry, but it's all either solemn, tragic and heavy.

That changed when the GOP got to work and have finally given the year some comedy material: behold, the Arizona Recount to find evidence of election fraud Trump declares is there, evidence that Sherlock Holmes couldn't find. This is done by a "not-at all-a-fly-by-night-outfit," Cyber Ninjas. Its Qanon company president is Doug Logan. His very recent job titles include, "Insurrectionist," and "Seditionist," and to Arizona Republicans, that makes him properly vigilant, if not exactly qualified.

He must have skipped Donald Trump's first lesson on running a fly-by-night, a form of enterprise in which Trump has had much experience, Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka (which the Russians won't touch), Go Trump, and his crown jewel, Trump University. The first rule, violated by Trump many times himself because he can't help it: keep a low profile.

Just because Logan was at the insurrection and supported all of Trump's crackpot election fraud scenarios doesn't mean he can't make an impartial count. Given the fiasco, there's some question whether he can count at all. In this assignment, Cyber Ninjas doesn't have to slash computer viruses, assassinate hackers, and disarm spam bombs. On both counts, it's failing. Their getting sidetracked on checking ballot paper for traces of bamboo, a sign that Chinese have handled the ballots. It's unclear whether C-Nincompoops have employed anyone who can tell bamboo from pubic hair. They've also been using UV light, apparently looking for . . . semen or blood? Also, they've been warned by the justice department that contacting the voters to confirm their votes are correct (secret ballots) looks enough like voter intimidation to start an investigation.

All of this mission creep is leading to counting creep. They've only done 10% in 2 weeks, which means they'll finish sometime in September. I can't say how long the many other audits of ballots took, because they were done before I knew they were being done. The venue they're doing the count in has other events scheduled. Two more weeks, and it's probably over.

But while the C-Ninnies are making asses of themselves, they've spoiled the ballots and have created chain-of-custody issues. No other audit can be done of the presidential race in Arizona.

Yet, this dog and pony clusterfuck gives me confidence that the GOP is dying quickly. Forty years of believing their own propaganda, followed by a Trump lobotomy, has created a brain drain. Trump has a conman's talent for making people who listen to him dumber than he is. They're too dumb to hold on to power. At least, that's the theory I'm going with.

A Recap for new readers: My ordinary origin story

There's never been a better time in history to be a nobody, and still I'm tired of it. Given the (minor) surge in my social exposure, I think new readers need to know who I am.

I'll hit on the marks minus the details: I was born and I live in St. Louis. I'm 62 in August. This surprises me.

I had an unhappy childhood. My parents also did. My parents childhood was one of poverty. They saved me from that problem. Instead, my troubles came from emotional poverty. They raised me and the five other siblings who following me. This they did despite a having a terrible marriage, one of alcohol abuse, mental illness, and tragedy. They deserve acclaim for that achievement.

The main family tragedy was the child born immediately after me. He had a severe birth defect. This congenital disorder saddled him life-long with a mental age of a two-year old. My parents chose to raise him with the rest of his siblings.

Mother's mental illness was the second tragedy. She would spend whole months in psych wards. In the interim she was either going psychotic or in full-blown psychosis.

Due to this, I lost my mother's emotional support early on. She was distracted at best. At worst she was mean-tempered and abusive. My father was out of the home most the time. He worked late. They would fight, usually in the late night. He was drunk and manipulative; she was buzzing on caffeine, nicotine, and clinical mania. This deprived all of his children of sleep.

My father did his work very well. In fact, he became wealthy. He never succeeded as spectacularly with his family life. When he was home, he was an asshole half the time. He reserved the right to become one at any time. Yet, because of his hard work and diligence, we were never in poverty. This is how and why we stayed out of foster care. Kudos to him for that.

This upbringing has negatively affected my siblings and I into adulthood. For myself, I was a depressed, angry, lonely child. I passed most of my childhood watching television. distracted myself with comedy. I tried sometimes tried to socialize despite my depression. None of it ever worked. Depressed and angry is never a good posture for childhood socialization.

Catholic school never did anything for me. A poor student and sickly, I missed dozens of school days every year. To this day, and likely until the day I die, I've been trying to catch up on the learning I lost during those empty years.

As an adult, I struggled to keep a job. I ended up living in my parent's, sad, chaotic home for long periods. I never married, never had children, and all my relationships were disastrous and traumatic. I had my own hospitalizations due to mental issues. Of course, therapy has been a big part of my life for over forty years. Yet, I never complicated my illness with substance abuse. My resolve appears to have carried over to my siblings. (Kudos to me.)

Then, in 2011, I was diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It wasn't a borderline issue. I now take the maximum doses of two anti-ADHD medications. My life began to change much for the better. My parents, too distracted by a child who was by far worse off, never detected it. To them, and to the Catholic schools they insisted I attend, I was a behavior problem. 

I might have had a hard childhood, but I realized recently my own bottled-up anger greatly magnified my problems. It also made me a worse person to others. Yes, I had a serious neurological issue, but even that would've been clearer to see if not for the displaced rage. I'm sorry for everything I did wrong, and people that I hurt. (I might be brave enough to elaborate on these later).

For decades I knew I wanted to be a writer. I'm not published yet, but I write fantasy, horror, and science ficton. I call that FIBS, Fantasy Informed By Science, which would make me a FIBber. 

Prior to now, I was always too distracted and short on time to write. Controlling the ADHD has given me time now. I want to spend my remaining life, without resentment or anger, doing the best writing I can, and helping who I can.

PS. This blog is called Life After Shocks because I hit bottom in 2009 when I received electro-convulsive therapy. Afterward, I decided my biggest misstep in life was never writing. Now it's my vocation.

I'm a left-of-Bernie-Sanders liberal. I think Trump was (is) the worst crisis this nation has suffered in my lifetime. I support and I'm optimistic about the Biden administration.

 

I also keep a political blog called AnArch Liberal.