Why Is Religion a Bad Thing? Part 1: Religious Interpretation of Possibly Non-religious Events

In this series of posts, I will introduce the reasons why I feel that religion has more of a negative impact on the world than a positive one. Then, I will follow up with a few posts about why religion is not a good thing, in which I dismiss the supposed positive effects of religion on the world.

In this post, I will explore the first reason, the way a religious person might interpret a random event as a "message" or a "sign" from their god.

Imagine this scenario. A man is walking across a beach that only he knows about and he sees a pattern that looks like letters in the rocky cliff nearby. He squints, and he sees a vague resemblance of the pattern to the sentence "Kill All Gays". Sure, the K in Kill looks a bit like an R, and the G is kind of lopsided and could easily be a crude unicorn if you turn your head jsut right, but you can still easily see the words "Kill all Gays" in the stones. He'd walked by here several times before, and never saw this here before.

Now, if this man were an atheist, then there is almost no chance at all that he would think it was special. He would realize that it was just a random pattern in the rock, he might note the humor in it, but he certainly wouldn't interpret as a sign from any god. After all, he has no god to interpret it as a message from, right?

Lets change our man to a Christian. Lets say he's a man who just the night before prayed to his god, saying "God, please, help give me some direction in my life. I hate my job, and I want some sort of goal to work towards." Lets also say that this man, while only a "moderate" Christian, is also a bit homophobic. Not a whole lot, just enough to feel somewhat uncomfortable around gay people.

So, this man walks across the beach and sees this pattern in the rocky cliff nearby, and how does he react? Generally, he will react the exact same way as the atheist. But there is a small possibility that this Christian (Subsitute Muslim, Jew, etc.) will see it and say "Oh, well maybe that's a message from god, a response to my prayer last night?"

Out of all the people (Very few, for sure) who will actually think this way, even fewer will actually act on this, but our man is just one of those people, and he goes to work the next day carrying a 5.56 mm ArmaLite Fully Automatic Assault Weapon and goes from office to office, killing everyone he knows are gay (He works in fasion, so that's a lot of people)

Obviously, not every religious person will act this way. However, this post is not meant to point out that all religious people act in a particular way, but that religious people are the only people that can act this way. Those few people who do act this way would probably not have had the drive to do so were it not for their religious faith.

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." -Steven Weinberg

To be honest, religion is not the only thing through which a good person might do evil things. However, it is definately the easiest, quickest, and most effective way.


Another example compounding this effect is the interpretation of internal dialogue as a message from god. Normally, people talk to themselves inside their heads. This "internal dialogue" is integral to human reason: it is how we prepare our arguments in debate, how we advance our opinions beyond mere gut feelings.

In our new scenario, we have a man who is being constantly annoyed by the people in nearby cubicles at work, their boss is an asshole, and they hate their job.

One day, when thinking about all this, the man's internal dialogue says "Bring a gun to work and kill them."

The response of an evil person would be "Sounds like a good idea!" and he'd do it.

The response of a good person would be "Sounds like a horrid idea, no, I'm not going to do that!"

The response of a religious person would likely be either of those two, depending on if they were an evil or good person. But there is still the possibility of a person who the day before was praying for help at work from their god. This person might have the response "Okay, god" after which they go to work the next day carrying a 5.56 mm ArmaLite Fully Automatic Assault Weapon and go from office to office, killing everyone that annoyed them.

As I have said before, I know very well that most people would not do this. However, the only way a person can interpret this as a message from god is if they are religious. It is essentially impossible for a full-blown atheist to have this reaction.

Another way this problem occurs is in cases of "Exorcism". Some well-meaning priest is brought a young boy with a mental disorder, and they perform an exorcism. These rituals can cause bodily harm, and also leave the victim unhelped (Unless it is a case where the person beleives they are possessed, in which case botht he problem and the solution are placebo effects.)

"Anneliese Michel, a 23-year-old who had her first psychiatric episode at the age of 16... apparently suffered from depression, epileptic seizures, and various hallucinations. Her zealous Catholic family believed she was possessed by Satan and recruited two priests who performed the exorcism ritual 67 times on the mentally ill woman. At the time of her death Anneliese weighed about 69 pounds (31kg). The priests and her parents received only suspended jail sentences, but the Church began requiring priests to obtain permits to perform exorcisms, and the permits are not easy to get. "
-The Skeptics Dictionary

Could this have happened in any other case but for religion?

"Oh, that's uncommon, though" you may say.

It's not as uncommon as you think.
"

Pentecostal ministers in San Francisco pummeled a woman to death in 1995, as they tried to drive out her demons.

In 1997, a Korean Christian woman was stomped to death in Glendale, Calif., and in the Bronx section of New York City, a 5-year-old girl died after being forced to swallow a mixture containing ammonia and vinegar and having her mouth taped shut.

In 1998, a 17-year-old girl in Sayville, N.Y., was suffocated by her mother with a plastic bag, in an effort to destroy a demon inside her.

In 2001, a 37-year old woman, Joanna Lee, was strangled to death in an exorcism by a Korean church minister working in New Zealand. The minister, Luke Lee, was found guilty of manslaughter."

-The Skeptics Dictionary

I could find more examples, but I don't feel like taking the time unless I am asked to. The point is, there are many evils done by well-intentioned people that can only be done in the name of religion.

And today's picture of the day, related to today's post, actually, is this:

Men Misunderstood: Misconceptions About Atheists

Religion is a set of faith-based beliefs dealing with the creation and/or government of the universe.

Atheism is the absence of any such belief.

Ergo, atheism cannot be a religion, nor is it accurate to cite it as such. So stop calling it one! Critics of atheism love to point out similarities between atheists and theists, throwing around phrases like “You believe that there is no god, and that requires faith” or “Sounds to me like a religion.” The problem with such claims is that they are either examples of ignorance of what atheism actually is or they are confusions between traits that people have and traits that religion has.

When discussing atheism, note that atheism is not “the belief that god does not exist”, it is “the absence of a belief that god exists”, and this means that there are no implied beliefs. An atheist does not have to accept evolution, nor are they required to reject the existence of ghosts. The only trait that is common in all atheists, and the only one you should infer about them, is that they don’t believe that any god or gods exist. Any other traits are traits of the individual, and have nothing to do with their atheism.

Furthermore, an atheist does necessarily reject the possibility of a god; they simply don’t see a reason to believe that there must be one. There is no evidence that suggests a god exists, nor are there any observations that show that a god’s existence is required for the universe to exist, so why make the claim?

To examine this distinction more closely, I’ll present you with a similar faith claim.

When people die, their soul goes to a great celestial library in the clouds of Jupiter. Everyone there is put in a section based on their reading level.

If you read a lot and you had a high reading level, then you would be graced with books better than any book written by man, better than Orwell, Palahniuk, or Twain, and have the option to read any other book in the library, which holds every book ever written.

If you had a middle-school reading level, then you’d get to read only the best of the Earth, so you’d have I Am Legend, Ender’s Game, and Of Mice and Men, among others.

If you rarely read, and had trouble reading words like “Establishment Clause”, then you’d be sent to the kid’s section, where you’d only have Clifford Goes to School and Curious George. Entertaining, but not very satisfying.

Finally, if you were one of those people that never read except when they had to, then you’d be forced to read books like King and King and My Homosexual ABCs.

My rejection of the claim that there is a god who made the universe is no different from the reader not believing that they will go to a great library in outer space when they die: why should you believe it?

My next beef is with people who like to point out that Hitler and Stalin were atheists. Firstly, no one knows Hitler’s religious beliefs. He paid lip service to the Catholic Church, but he sometimes spoke ill about religion. We can’t rightly say that he was definitely an atheist, but if we make an assumption about his religion, we must assume he was a Catholic, both because it is what he was brought up in and because he said he was one. Secondly, assuming Hitler was indeed an atheist, pointing out that Hitler and Stalin were atheists accomplishes about as much as saying that they wore shoes: there is no way that being an atheist led to their actions, because atheism does not contain any implied dogma. There is no “atheist doctrine”. Atheists don’t have a set of Ten Commandments that say “Though Shall Commit genocide on the Sabbath” or “Though shall be unpleasant to all thou shall meet”, so there’s no connection that can be made.

This brings me to the next big problem I encounter: people assuming that atheists are in some way inherently immoral or cowardly or they all convert before death because they don’t have the courage of their convictions. This is largely due to the fact that a lot of religious people tell each other stories about how “there are no atheists in foxholes”, that Charles Darwin rejected Evolution on his deathbed, or about how they used to be atheists and they used to sin all the time and felt all empty inside.

Here’s some news to all of you folks. People don’t need the bible for morality. If you think that you do, then consider this: The bible says that you should stone to death people who work on the Sabbath. If you don’t do that, then you have proven that you do not base your morals on the bible, but on morals of society and the golden rule, or on your own personally held ideas. So the next time you find yourself assuming that atheists are immoral sinners who don’t care about anyone but themselves, remember that humans have an oft-forgotten emotion called empathy that drives people to be helpful to others, and this ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, from which we derive the golden rule (Do to others what you would have them do you) is very powerful.

Furthermore, the story of Charles Darwin saying that he was all wrong on his deathbed is a total myth. It originated in a story circulated by Lady Hope, a British evangelist who claimed to have been present during his illness. However, Darwin’s daughter-in-law, Florence, and his son Sir Francis, both rejected this story, saying that Hope was not present for his illness, or any illness of his for that matter.

Finally, if you really think that atheists are cowards that will convert at death, then present me with a tape recorder when I am dying and I will reject the Holy Spirit right there without a moment’s hesitation.

Picture of the Day:

I Left The Keys to the Kingdom On The Table

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. – Psalm 14:1

This is a short telling of my deconversion from Christianity to atheism. It's incomplete, and definitely missing key points, but it's a start.




I can't remember the first time I ever questioned my faith in the God of the Judeo-Christian religions. I remember two specific instances, however, one time while I was sitting on the porcelain throne and another while I was walking to my church's Youth Groups of all places. Other than a few isolated incidences, I never really did much. I just considered that god might not exist, then I went back to "well of course he does, what about the feeling you get when hes in your presence?" and other standbys like that.

My life really changed when I discovered internet forums. My first forum was the Dragon Ball Z film page on Countingdown.com, back in January of 2005. I made the quick transition from "speakin' 1337" because I thought it was cool, to speaking in complete sentences with proper grammar and spelling. Soon enough I joined the game maker forums, for the excellent program Game Maker 6. I hung out there a lot for a while, but quickly got bored because the topic of discussion never varied much.

I had started watching animations on stickpage.com as early as 2003, and stopped visiting after a while, but then, in November of '05, I went back again, and I noticed that there was a forum on stickpage. Stickpage.com's forum, while technically an animation forum, was unique in that its members didn't animate and talk about animation and give little discussion towards anything else. Instead, most of the site's consistently active members don't animate at all, except for a few quickies here and there. Well, the forum had a Debate Section, and I "knew" what debating was: two guys in suits arguing about politics, but not insulting the other person.

Well, that was pretty different than debating on forums, I realized. There wasn't a 2 person limit. Anyone could join in. And since it was the internet, no one worried about insulting others or wearing suits.
This was a pretty radical discovery, but it was beaten by a more ominous one: a thread called "Does God Exist."


Immediately I ripped into all the atheists and agnostics there, and developed a reputation as one of the best defenders of Christianity. While the discussions began low in scope and intelligence, like this one: http://www.stickpageportal.com/forums/s%20...%20hp?t=17459, they eventually became more sophisticated as we all got more intelligent. After a while, though, I began to question my own logic. I began using Adam's Puddle arguments (Adams Puddle is my name for the first quote on wikiquote by Douglas Adams and the logic it shows: (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams#Sourced) and other fallacies, like the "Atheists nightmare", the banana. I started to hate myself for using bad logic that I knew was bullshit, and then defending it.

Everything changed one day in January of 2007, when I was in art class. I listened to the band A Perfect Circle a lot, and I loved there music, but they had one song, Judith, which was blasphemous, and I avoided it it like the plague. Well I overheard a Junior named Blaise (At this point, I was a Freshmen in High School) saying the words "going to play Judith", and I perked up.
I was always looking for someone who listened to the same bands I do, so I asked, "Judith by A Perfect Circle?"
He said yes, he and his band would be playing it at the upcoming talent show. I asked him if he was going to censor it, and he said "No, we're just gonna go out and say '**** your God'" So I said okay and returned to my work.

That day, after school, I went to get on the computer, and memory of this event popped up in my head. I went to youtube and looked the song up, listened to it, and cried with guilt. I loved the song, I realized. I loved the beat, the passion, the guitar, the drums, the bass, and the subtleties. I started wondering "Why am I trying to hate the song so badly?" I answered myself "Because it says **** your god in it". "But why should that matter? It's just a song?"


Here's where the turn began. I asked "Why would god care about something so menial?"

Then I thought deeper. Maybe because there... isnogod! (Yes, I realize its a non-sequitor)

To borrow the analogy from Julia Sweeney, I decided to for once, just try on the atheist glasses, and if I didn't like what I say, I could rip them off.

So I did, and in horror at the sense and order and beauty I saw, I ripped them off in shock. Then I slowly put them back on.

That day, i got back into an active religion thread. I made an argument against Christianity, and someone asked "Wait, aren't you a Christian?"

"Not anymore" I responded. "I realized it was bullshit."

"That's too bad. We've now lost our best debater."






Pic of the day:

The Formation of the "Of Atheists and Ashes" blog

Today, Friday the 13th, of February 2009, I create the first entry on Of Atheists and Ashes, the blog that I will be using to document my life as an atheist, the memories of my life as a Christian, and the memory of the factors that led to my deconversion.

The name for my blog comes from my love for alliteration and of the fate that the doctrine of the Christian religion states we are destined for.

Well, here goes nothing, in the name of nothing!
Picture of the day: