The God-forsakin' Blog

 One of the most common questions that believers in God ask atheists is, "What if you're wrong?" In particular, they say or imply, what will I do if I die and find myself standing before the throne of God for a day of judgement? How would I account for my life, and for my lack of belief in him? Here's the answer: I would give an account of my actions all right. There would indeed be a reckoning. "Oh, there you are! It's about fucking time, you asshole. It's about FUCKING time I got to have this out with you at last. Let me begin by reminding you about my career working with people who experienced physical, cognitive, and mental health disabilities - you remember, all those "least of these" people you told your followers to help? You must have seen how every day of my working life I would do everything humanly possible to bring hope to the hopeless, joy to the joyless, healing to the sick, relief to those in pain, food to the hungry, drinks to t...

  It never seems to occur to Evangelicals that repentance is something they should demand of themselves and mercy something they should demand for others, rather than the inverse.

I realize that people tend to get more religious as they get older because their fear of death grows the closer their expiration date approaches. Nevertheless, it's odd that older people get more religious. Because the older I get, the more my own body refutes the argument that it's the result of intelligent design. The back? Bad workmanship. The hips? Bad workmanship. The shoulders? Bad workmanship. The ankles? Bad workmanship. The knees? Bad workmanship. The eyes? Bad workmanship. The gradually increased appetite and decreased metabolism, in an organism that gets less healthy when it puts on more fat? Bad workmanship. A body that needs exercise in order to not get injured but gets injured every time it attempts even the mildest exercise? Bad workmanship. The teeth that would already be gone if humans hadn't discovered fluoride and dentistry? Bad workmanship. Arthritis - the body's defense system attacking the body because it's too stupid to tell the difference bet...

The Evangelical preachers I grew up with in the 1980s often referred to Moloch in their sermons. They believed that Moloch was an ancient Canaanite god whose worshipers sacrificed children to him.* They preached that abortion was a modern-day Moloch, and that our nation (at least, the godless liberals of our nation that were to blame for abortion) would be judged harshly for sacrificing children on the altar of convenience.   And looking at Evangelicals, then and now… the irony of them accusing others of sacrificing children to ensure their own convenience and comfort is rich.   Who pushes hardest to defund every government program that feeds, educates, treats, or houses children - because they want to lower their own taxes a bit? Who fights for children to be kept in our broken foster system rather than *gasp* be adopted by gay couples - because if they admitted that gay couples can be good parents then they would have to admit they’ve been lied to by their pastors?...

Every week, in the Evangelical churches where I was raised, I heard the story of a man who willingly lay down his own life for the sake of others. It was the most important story in the world. It had to be told over and over, every Sunday morning and every Wednesday evening, in all the grisly detail about exactly how much he had suffered in the process of giving up his own life and safety for the sake of others. One of the most powerful and central verses in the Bible is John 15:13, which says “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” And every Evangelical – people who spent the 1990s wearing WWJD bracelets – knows that they should emulate Jesus in everything they do. I’ll get back to that in a bit. An atheist friend of mine is one of those rare people for whom vaccines actually ARE dangerous. Not “One in a million people get Guillain Barre Syndrome” levels of risk, and still less “I saw on YouTube how some guy says the government’s hushing up...

 December 2020:   Today, I talked with an Evangelical about wearing masks at large church gatherings. As everyone knows, it’s primarily rural Evangelical conservatives who have been resistant to things like wearing masks, staying home whenever possible, attending church and family events via Zoom rather than in person, and other precautions that the rest of us are taking. Not all rural Evangelical conservatives are like this; but it seems that just about all the people like this are rural Evangelical conservatives.   And honestly, this is a pretty reasonable and intelligent person who seems to understand that COVID-19 is real, and it’s dangerous. Someone who has honestly tried their best to wear masks but finds it triggers crippling panic attacks for them, and hates that but can’t overcome it. Someone who has missed some really important life events this year because they couldn’t wear a mask. And they listed a number of precautions that both they and the church...

(Written  2-17-21) I learned today about the deaths of two men who had, during their lifetimes, a lot of influence on the conservative Evangelical sub-culture in which I was raised. Everyone knows who Rush Limbaugh was. He was one of the biggest reasons that having a civil, fact-based conversation about politics became impossible in this country. He taught the right wing that if you’re abrasive enough and loud enough, you can get a lot of people to believe anything (thereby paving the way for the guy who gave him a Presidential Medal of Freedom that he didn’t deserve). I’ll waste no more time on him, and I only include him to compare and contrast with Carman. Carman Licciardello, on the other hand, was really only known to Evangelicals - especially those who were kids or had kids in the 80’s and early 90’s. He was among the first big stars in “Contemporary Christian Music” – the thing that came to be when record producers realized there was money to be made in telling Evangel...

  For years, it’s really bothered me how conservative Evangelicals keep pushing for the legal right to discriminate against LGBTQ people based on their “sincerely held religious beliefs”. I just now figured out how to articulate why that grinds on me so much: It's my sincerely held belief that Jesus of Nazareth, an impoverished Middle Eastern man famous for saying “Blessed are the peacemakers”, would have a problem with me contributing a hefty percentage of my income to bombing impoverished Middle Eastern men (which is what over half my tax dollars get spent on) – but if I decide as a result that I’m not going to pay my taxes, I can expect to go to jail. It’s my sincerely held belief that if Jesus was walking the earth right now, he would break down the door of Joel Osteen’s “church”, flip all the tables, and start beating the smarmy bastard’s ass with a whip – but if I do the same, I can expect to go to jail. It’s my sincerely held belief that the God portrayed in the Old Te...

 Evangelicals love to talk about the "moral bankruptcy" of people who aren't Evangelicals. To be clear, American Evangelicals think that supporting the right of other adults to marry whoever they choose shows moral bankruptcy, but supporting a person who tried to violently overthrow the government is the moral thing to do.

  1/9/2021 Well, Evangelicals: I told you so. I warned you four years ago that when you make a deal with the Devil in order to gain earthly power, he will not keep his end of the deal, but he will make sure that you pay. And four years later, the bill has come due. You’ve lost the House, you’ve lost the Senate, you’ve lost the White House. Your conservative Supreme Court hasn’t done jack about abortion, and never will. You lost all the earthly power you’d gained, and got nothing out of it even when you had it. And you ALSO lost any moral or spiritual authority you ever had. For at least a generation, you are all now going to be lumped in with the far-right lunatic fringe, because that’s what you voted for even if that’s not what you actually wanted. You are now going to be forever associated with the traitors who stormed the Capitol with guns and plastic handcuffs, intending to hold your elected representatives hostage or kill them, at the instigation of the guy you elect...

  People say that there are no atheists in a foxhole, and that may even be true. But I say that the existence of the foxhole is the most compelling argument against the existence of God.

  Never forget that Jesus was crucified by the Religious Right of his day. Also never forget that Jesus had among his followers people who would have hated each other. Luke the doctor and Peter the foul-mouthed blue-collar fisherman. Simon the Zealot – a guy who was everything that conservatives claim Antifa is – and Matthew the tax collector. He must have been a remarkable person to get all these guys to let go of their previous ideas and ways of life to work together and follow instead the way of radical, self-sacrificial love. It’s too bad his present-day followers can’t seem to manage it.

 Another of those things I wanted to say but couldn't under my own name... Well, Evangelical Republicans: You’ve done it. You’ve gotten control of all three branches of government. You now have what you’ve spent decades praying for – but more than that, what you’ve been working for, and voting for, and canvassing for. (And what your politicians have gerrymandered, and pandered to racists, and pretended science isn’t real, and virtue-signaled about abortion while paying for their own mistresses to abort their bastards, and paid off porn stars, and held open a Supreme Court seat for a year, and ignored everything the Bible says about how nations and their rulers should treat the poor/ elderly/ disabled/ foreigners, and put a probable sex offender on the Supreme Court, to achieve). But you held your nose and put up with all that, and now it’s finally paid off. For now and perhaps for quite some time, the power of Caesar is utterly yours to command. Congratulations. And maybe...

  The story of Abraham being told to sacrifice Isaac is certainly fucked up. God tells a man to kill his own son, makes the kid carry the wood that will be used to burn his corpse, and then at the last moment shouts "Sike! I just wanted to make sure you're loyal to me, go ahead and kill that goat instead." But: This story, though certainly fucked up, isn't even in the top ten list of fucked up things in that book.  There's also the time that God sent bears to maul a bunch of children for calling a prophet "baldy".  And the time God had his son tortured to death because he was pissed off about the behavior of everyone EXCEPT his son.  And the time a dude vowed to sacrifice the first living thing he saw, and when that turned out to be his daughter he went ahead and sacrificed her because he was less horrified by that than by breaking a rash vow.  And the time Jacob tried to marry Rachel, ended up with her sister Leah because her dad tricked him, then went ...

During sophomore year of college, I spent pretty much the whole year wearing a Santa hat everywhere. It was my own way of trying to be a quirky, unique individual at an age when that was important. One evening, I was walking down a city street with a group of friends, and a homeless person approached us to ask for money. We walked past without acknowledging him, and he called to my retreating back “Aw, come on, Santa!” I did an about-face, abashed, and went back to him and gave him some money. Because if you’re wearing the uniform, you have to do the job.   I couldn’t wear the symbol of generosity, of a saint renowned for taking risks to give, and giving anonymously with no expectation of receiving anything in return, and then refuse to behave like Saint Nicholas when called upon. I had to either behave like Santa, or take off the hat.   I’ll come back to that thought in a while.   Recently, I’m seeing Evangelicals post online that they’re tired of being att...

  I used to wonder why Evangelicals STILL support Trump. Then I realized: Unquestioning obedience to an authoritarian old white guy who lives in a golden palace in the sky and claims that he alone can save everyone? Can't imagine why Evangelicals would feel at home with that.

 Under Trump (but really Pence), we got that bullshit Religious Liberty Task Force, and here's what I was biting my tongue all the way through to NOT say to my Evangelical friends and family: I hope that the newly minted Religious Liberty Task Force ends up having to defend Muslims, and Jews, and Hindus, and Satanists, and Pastafarians… who can very likely make legitimate claims that their religious liberty is being trampled on by Christian employers (Why do we get Christmas off but not Yom Kippur?), Christian business owners (Why won’t they sell me an AR-15 while I wear this hijab?), Christian government employees (The Ten Commandments are on the wall of this courthouse, you must also post passages from the Bhagavad Gita), and of course Christian bakers (You HAVE to make a cake with a pentagram for our Sabbat sacrifice! YOU CAN’T DISCRIMINATE AGAINST MY RELIGION). Serve ‘em right for crying persecution anytime they aren’t given special dispensation to break the law.   I’d...

  So, you believe that there is an all-powerful being who, moment by moment, for all time, sustains the existence of every atom of every star of every galaxy, every millimeter of an infinite universe by continually willing it to exist… a being in whom all other beings live and move and have their being… a being who was apparently too busy doing all that to intervene in any way at all to stop the Third Reich, even though all he would’ve had to do was STOP causing Hitler to exist… and that this being somehow gives a shit about whether or not someone on one miniscule dot of a planet masturbates? Or whether two men get married? This being has time to waste on tallying every time anyone anywhere says a naughty word? It’s like, “I’m concentrating on preventing entropy from devouring everything instantly, and you’re bugging me with petty bullshit like making sure you have nice weather for your picnic tomorrow and asking whether it’s okay for you to have a beer? Fuck off, I’m busy dealing ...

 A few years back, in the wake of yet ANOTHER school shooting, Evangelicals were posting a meme saying “Dear God – why do you allow so much violence in schools? Sincerely, a concerned student”, and the response “Dear student – I’m not allowed in schools. Sincerely, God.” By this meme's logic, God also wasn't allowed in that Texas church that had a mass shooting a couple months earlier, and that's why those people died. Now to be fair, I can see why Jesus might feel unwelcome in a church in Texas. A brown-skinned, Middle Eastern Jew who didn't speak English? And who taught that nations and their rulers will be judged by whether they feed the hungry, take care of the sick, and welcome the foreigners in their midst? Yeah, he probably would be asked to leave. But still, I don't think it was a lack of prayers in that building that caused the shooting.

A few years ago I saw an article by John Pavlovitz asking these questions (in the aftermath of yet another terrorist attack by some Muslim extremist for who-the-fuck-knows-why): “What kind of God kills children? What kind of God asks followers to kill children? What loving God requires blood? What being worthy of worship and adoration and obedience, is okay with murdering babies and toddlers and middle schoolers and teenagers—let alone commands such things from the faithful?” Well… the God of the Christians (and Jews, and Muslims). The Flood. Sodom and Gomorrah. The bears eating a bunch of kids for calling Elisha “baldy”. The firstborn of Egypt. But at least God did his own dirty work in those incidents. Later, he delegated – several times, He supposedly told the people of Israel to kill every man, woman, and child in the city. The people who claim to be God’s children are just following their father’s example. A better question would be this: “What kind of man ...

 In September of 2017 I learned about this: https://abcnews.go.com/US/documents-show-wheaton-college-doubted-story-alleged-hazing/story?id=50023705 I’m not surprised that a football team included some assholes. When young men have spent their entire lives being rewarded for aggressive behavior on the field, it’s not surprising that some of them forget that it’s not okay in the real world. I’m also, sadly, not surprised that a group of professing Christians committed assault, kidnapping, and gang rape. I’ve known too many Christians whose beliefs made them LESS moral, rather than MORE moral. When you’re told all your life that you’re just the best and the special-est because you’re part of the RIGHT church, and therefore one of the lucky few that God likes enough to let into Heaven (as opposed to everyone else, who piss God off so much that He’s going to torture them in fire forever… in His infinite mercy…) it carries the risk of making you LESS compassionate and aware of others’ ...

I was raised Evangelical, and was that weirdly intense religious kid who actually took it seriously. I took it so seriously that I went to an expensive Evangelical college, minored in Bible and Christian education, seriously considered majoring in them and becoming a youth pastor.  Eventually, real life knocked me around enough to make me realize the Evangelicals had a lot of things wrong, but I still believed in God so I became an Episcopalian. That was a much better fit, and more consistent with the things that Jesus said were actually important. And even though I don't believe in God anymore, I still go to that church. Partly, to be honest, because my wife wants me to; but partly because I really do believe in the moral principles that community tries to live by, and that having the story and image of a perfectly moral human to emulate makes it easier to try and emulate perfect morality. That's why religion exists - HUMANS NEED STORIES IN ORDER TO LEARN HOW TO BE HUMAN. That...

On March 6th of 2017, when things were looking like we would be at war with Syria and that Russia would join Syria to fight us, I posted on Facebook “From the onset of World War III, good Lord, deliver us.” An Evangelical relative posted a response that we need to keep faith. I replied that it would be easier to have faith if the Big Red Button wasn’t under the control of an impulsive, belligerent toddler who had been talking enthusiastically about re-starting the nuclear arms race. The relative then said our faith should be in God, not men. And in that moment, I had a chilling realization: “I don’t believe that anymore. Not even a little bit.” I realized I couldn’t believe that God would intervene to prevent a  brewing war, because: God never saw fit to stop the Nazis - people had to do that. God never saw fit to stop polio - people had to do that too. God never saw fit to protect vulnerable people from being abused and neglected, or heal them from their trauma - I hav...