A long way to go to get past the bigotry: 'NO GAYS!' headline in Barbados newspaper highlights disturbing attitude

NO GAYS!

That was the blaring headline of the Nation Publications 'Saturday Sun' of yesterday, March 30th, 2013. I cringed when I saw it. It's a headline that makes all of us that live in, or have roots in Barbados seem backward and bigoted. It is ironic that it came at the end of a week where many in the world made their support for marriage equality known through changing facebook profile pics and making various statements to emphasise that people should not be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation. All the while the Supreme Court in the US was hearing oral arguments in the Proposition 8 Case dealing with these same issues.

When I saw the headline, I and most other readers I suspect, had no idea of the context of the statement. No Gays? No Gays in what? Where do we want to bar them from now? Who is making the statement? The sub heading gave a clue by revealing that it was all about the Chief Scout and his organization.

It may seem a bit odd to say, but for me that didn't really matter. The headline was in my view distasteful in the way it lashed out at a minority group. The message to them was ' We don't want you!'

Newspaper headlines are things you glance at quickly. The words hit you out of the corner of your eye when driving as you see the vendor at the side of the road, or catch your attention in the front of a bookstore in an airport terminal as you hustle to catch your next flight. Most people who see the headlines are never going to read the fine print below, but the impact of the words can be devastating.

We can recognise this by inserting another group for 'Gays' in that headline. The one that comes to mind first is 'Blacks.' What would the reaction have been if the front page headline had read 'NO BLACKS!' ? Would Barbadians have accepted that? What if we went to a country in Europe or Africa? How would we react to walking through the airport with our luggage and someone handing us a paper with 'NO BLACKS!" screaming as the headline? To say I would feel uncomfortable would be the understatement of the year. It wouldn't matter the context, it wouldn't matter what the article was saying that I shouldn't be a part of, I know I would feel tempted to just haul my suitcase up and book the next flight out and I am sure they are many that would feel the same way even if they didn't act on impulse.

What about other 'NO!' possibilities? 

NO WOMEN!

NO CHRISTIANS!

NO JEWS!

NO BAJANS!

NO TRINIS!

NO YANKEES!

I think you get the point. Any of these headlines would have been greeted with outrage. Calls would have been made for a retraction or apology.

Today after getting over some of the original disappointment over  yesterday's front page, I sat to read the actual article that had prompted the ' NO GAYS' headline. I purchased and downloaded the entire newspaper to make sure I got the full story. To read the whole thing yourself you'll have to purchase the paper, but there is a summary of the story on their webpage here. After reading the story, I was once again in shock. There was absolutely nothing said by the Scout Leader in the article that could prompt a headline of ' NO GAYS!'

It's not as if he went off on a rant against homosexuals and said never do we want anyone of 'those people' coming near our organization. What I read was nothing like that at all. There was a statement made that the Scouting movement in Barbados maintained its closed door policy against open homosexuals, but that the local organization was monitoring what was happening in the United States as petitions were being made there to change things. The discriminatory policies of the Scout movement are well known and as a member of that organisation all the leader can do is give its position whatever his personal convictions might be. I saw nothing in what I read that could be interpreted as  'Chief Scout rules out letting them join the organization.'

Recognising this inaccuracy just made the whole thing more horrible. I know that my friends in journalism will tell me that you have to editorialize. That's the way you sell newspapers, but this is going too far. The Scout leader was just stating facts, explaining the current Scouts' policy which are set internationally and have a history behind them that promotes prejudice. Thankfully people are now trying to change that. However, the Scout master can only speak to what is currently in place. In fact it sounds to me that given he is 'monitoring' what is going on in the wider world, he would acknowledge that there is a possibility that changes will have to be made in the local movement based on these developments. The Scout Leader went on to recognise that under the current regulations, atheists are also unable to join the Scouts. So indeed the headline could just have easily been 'NO ATHEISTS!'

In a way, I wish they had printed that. That would have been a great can of worms to open up and I would love to get that 'belief' debate out there in the open in Barbados. But I guess at the moment the 'Gays' are more sexy. What is happening here is that the Nation  that Published the ' Saturday Sun' is taking advantage of a prejudice that they know is present, prevalent and widespread in Barbadian and  Caribbean society. They know that many of their readers will have a positive rather than disgusted reaction to a headline like that. Many will be thinking something along the lines of the following.

'Hooray! Thank God we're keeping those gays at bay. It's a relief to know that we are not  following those North Americans who have no benchmark for morality and where absolutely anything goes.'

Just like me, these readers will see the headline without knowing what it is gays are being barred from, but they'll be happy to know that at least someone in the country has enough courage to stand up against this wayward lifestyle.

For many of us in the Caribbean, maintaining the stance against the homosexual position is a matter of national pride. It is as if we expect to be congratulated for choosing to continue to discriminate and be praised for standing in opposition to a progressive social world movement that is seeking to extend basic human rights to a marginalized group. Of course, I criticize the Nation for misrepresenting in the headline and for sensationalising at the expense of demeaning a group in Barbados and the wider world that deserves better. But the fact is that a headline like this would never appear if the national attitude was different. It wouldn't be published if the masses on the whole  decided to stand up and say we won't stand for this kind of discrimination. It wouldn't happen if the Nation thought that they would be backlash and loss of sales for being so insensitive. What is needed is for people to recognise that gay rights are human rights and treat the needs of this group with as much sensitivity as they do any of the other minority groups in Barbados. Alas, this is unlikely to happen, because in our country, the right for a person to be anti-gay appears to outstrip the right of the gay or gay advocate to push for equality.

So, life in Barbados will go on, with the homophobes cheering for a nation sticking to its anti-gay guns and a few dissenters saying that this type of treatment for people with a different sexual orientation shouldn't be. Then we'll all march forward, with the majority thinking that being anti-gay is a reasonable stance that should be respected as part of being patriotic and holding oneself to a higher standard.

Who sets that higher standard? Well, for most in Barbados and the Caribbean, that standard setter is God, the God of the bible. The one whose abominations include shell fish eating, wearing a mixture of clothing textures and trimming beards. It is the belief in that God, cherry picked as his teachings may be, who ultimately keeps a section of society from enjoying basic rights. It's not the first time that our 'Holy Book' of choice has helped us to justify denial of a human right and we can be sure that it will not be the last. If this doesn't tell us that this bronze-age book's expiry date has long past, I don't know what will.

By now, most of you know that it frustrates me no end to see our country continue to look towards Christianity to lift us up, when it so clearly continues to provide the basis for holding social development  back. But sadly we in the Caribbean continue to choose faith, prayer and religious rites over thought, reason and human rights. 

The Uncertainty of Polls and Ten Reasons why God can't get my Vote

Last Thursday will long linger in the memories of Barbadians. It ended with a night of intrigue that went back and forth as many times as any of the classic cricket test match that people talk about for decades. After the dust had settled the result was a narrow victory to the incumbent Democratic Labour Party (DLP) over the Opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP).

Tongues are still wagging in Barbados over the result. The fact that a government that came to power five years ago was voted back in is not especially remarkable, but what was noteworthy was that it went against the predictions of the poll conducted by CADRES led by Peter Wickham.

Peter Wickham: Pollster not Prophet

What some people don't seem to realise is that a pollster is not a prophet. Even as we that promote the scientific method try to explain that the strength of science is in its ability to correct itself and not in its ability to give certainty, people are quick to dismiss Mr. Wickham and even  the whole value of statistical tools based on one example where it missed the mark. But to his credit, Wickham's reaction is exactly in keeping with what you would expect from a scientist that prides himself on his work and wants to learn from any errors that he may have made.

He was quick to admit that he got his prediction wrong and immediately went about seeking to find out what factors may have been overlooked. This he did even as some in his corner tried to diffuse criticism by saying he really wasn't that far off. It's refreshing to see Peter stand by his predictions like that. He could so easily have taken the route of trying to rationalise his way out of trouble.  It's the opposite of religion, where outcomes are retrofitted to try to align with obscure statements made somewhere by somebody in the hazy past.  The evangelist's playing field could not be more uneven when it comes to religion versus science. Science only has to be wrong once to fall from its perch, faith only has to be right once to establish itself as the bearer of absolute truth

At the same time that Wickham tries to figure out what went 'wrong', he has stoutly defended the integrity of his method.  That is to say he is defending himself against claims that he deliberately 'rigged' the data to produce some desired result. Some people have criticised Peter for being too defensive of his position but I can definitely understand why he is so keen to confront such allegations. I would do the same thing. For any scientist, criticism on method, theory or interpretation is fair game, but any suggestion that you deliberately skewed your data is essentially implying that you are a cheat. You have to deal with that as seriously as if you are a World Champion 100m sprinter and people are claiming, without anything to back it up, that you are taking steroids.

This idea that somebody has deliberately set out to make things come out wrong is an idea that has always been prevalent in the Caribbean. I noticed it even when I was a kid going to Kensington Oval to watch cricket. If Brian Lara was given out caught behind by an Australian umpire when he clearly didn't touch the ball, that umpire would be immediately labeled by all in the crowd in the stand as a 'tiefin' umpire.' I could never understand it, why was it that everytime someone made an error that ended up favouring one side, people jumped to the assumption that there was some intentional conspiracy.

Looking at it now, I see the cynicism aimed at pollsters. umpires, referees and judges as a spillover from the religious mindset. In faith, you are encouraged to believe things that are deliberately constructed to get a desired result. You believe in God because you want to get to heaven or avoid hell, because God requires it from you or because it gives your life purpose. It is rare that anyone analyses the methodology of faith itself, assessing the strengths and weakness of this way of thinking in leading you to truth. It is easy when you are raised in such a mindset to think that other decisions in life are made on the same basis. People think that  you predict that a certain party will win because you want them to win. To many people in our islands, expressing an opinion on something means you are showing a bias. They don't get that in the scientific world, the outcome is not what really matters, it is the method that is the key. If your method is sound you will be close to truth far more often that not . If your method is fundamentally flawed you'll 'hit' occasionally if you get lucky, but over time people will  come to realise that you are shooting in the dark.

This idea of thinking that everybody that has an opinion, comes to it with a clear pre existing bias, helps me to understand why believers respond to us that are atheists in the way that they do. While we continually seek to promote our method for coming to the conclusion, all they see is the outcome. For them, we don't believe in God, because that was the outcome we wanted. That's what we wanted our 'polls' to say. If we want it to be that way there must be a reason. Perhaps we are angry at God and want to get back at him, we want freedom to do as we like or we just hate the hypocrisy of church people and want to see their cherished institution brought down to earth. Of course  by thinking those things, they show us their hand. They think we make our decisions the same way that they do. We think about what we want to be true and then go out to prove it. But like Peter and CADRES, all we are doing is applying a method. If like Peter our 'polls' turn out to be wrong, we will admit our mistake and look to see where we made our mis- step.  We will admit our mistake but we will still stand by the principle that we used the best method of assessment given the data we had. We do not rig numbers to get we want. Because what we want is not what we want. What we want is truth.

Our theist friends will no doubt tell us that we are wrong about the existence of a God for the same reasons that Peter Wickham was wrong in predicting the result of the elections. Indeed, immediately as  the final results were clear, Sandra a Christian facebook friend of mine, with whom I have had several lengthy exchanges on the subject of God's existence posted the following:

' Father God you are sovereign. We declare you as king over our nation. Continue to confound the wisdom of the wise!'

I laughed. I knew exactly where she was coming from. Apart from his reputation for being a pollster, Peter has gained some level of notoriety for his stance against religion on the local 'Brass Tacks' Call- In programme. Peter has been a true champion of reason when he has been on the air. He speaks of how people require him to back up his polls and predictions with evidence and he demands the same level of accountability from his callers. He is not prepared to accept any argument on faith from them and he let's them know it. He openly ridiculed those people who were trying to suggest that Reinhard Bonnke had done miracles when the government were getting ready to usher him in to Barbados. He said that it was a disgrace that a country like Barbados with its high standard of education in this 21st century was endorsing such superstitious nonsense. I was following from a distance online in Canada, but I  was punching the air in delight while he said that. It was as if I was on "Freethinking Island" listening to my co host Joy go off on one of her famous rants.

I was overjoyed, but deep down I knew there would be more than just a little consternation from those on the evangelical side. Hitting out at God is something that you just don't do in Barbados. I was sure that the faithful would not forget. As it turned out election night was when they and their God got their own back. Sandra's post said it all. God had come out of hiding to reign supreme and show Peter who was the real boss.

But what kind of God would that be to deal with? One who refused to reveal himself to a skeptic like Peter directly; but went through the trouble of making sure the polls he published indicated one thing and then knowingly inspired voters to do something different purely to leave Wickham with egg on his face. A God that would do that would be nothing more than a petty prankster. But that's not only Sandra's God, that's  the kind of God that millions in the Caribbean and the world believe in. Prankster or not, the global electorate have kept faith with this leader and his rather unfathomable style of governance for many years. Why? I have no idea. Sovereign or not there is no way this God could ever get my support for leadership. For so many reasons, I could never give him my 'X.' Below are just ten that immediately come to mind.

Ten Reasons why God can't get my Vote

1. Poor management of his Ministers and Ministries

God has a strange way of choosing his ministers and there just seem to be way too many. I suppose with all the ministries he has to administer he needs staff, but they often just get in each other's way. Messages conflict, divisions in the party happen almost daily and everybody just tries to one-up the other. We never know what criteria he is using to choose Ministers either. At one time he did not allow females to serve, but that has changed. Once he was firm in not picking those who were openly gay, now that's changing also. We just don't know what new rules this Prime Minister will bring. Also, in spite of his omniscience, he doesn't seem to pick the right people for highest office. For example, just a couple of weeks ago his most senior Minister resigned suddenly. People say that this event shows that he isn't careful enough it putting the right people in the right positions. My opinion is that the whole thing is simply a case of far too many square pegs in round holes.

2. Where is his Constituency Office?

For years now God's party faithful have told me that I need to get off my backside and try to find God. I have always found this a strange request. God wants MY vote apparently more than anything else in the world but it is ME who has to go out of my way to find HIM. Whenever I ask his supporters to ask him to at least come into my veranda and put in an appearance, they tell me I am being unreasonable. That God doesn't work on my terms. Excuse Me??? Not on my terms?? He is the one that is looking for a term in office not me!!

Still, just to satisfy his supporters I have tried to find him, but it is a fruitless search. His 'yard fowl' followers can't even tell me where his Constituency Office is. I can't even get a hotline number or an email address to get him at. Come on! How serious can this candidate be?

3. Who really has the right Manifesto?

God must be a very good campaign manager or at least a convincing one.  He may never do house to house, but his workers in the constituency never seem to tire of going all out for that one extra vote. To their credit they usually come armed with manifestos that  give details on what God's programs and policies are. The problem is that the language of these documents is usually not the most simple and things are often open to multiple interpretations. Sometimes the people that are soliciting you are themselves unsure about what their party leader really wanted to say. Also,  all the people working the area for him don't seem to have been given the same manifesto. Sometimes there are little discrepancies I see between the documents, probably because they are different versions, other times it seems like I am looking at a  different book altogether. Perhaps there was some printing error or somebody picked up an outdated stack of literature by mistake. Whatever the case it points to poor administration. I can't give my vote to someone who can't get something so basic right.

4. Lots of services provided but no social development

One thing you have to say about God is that he knows how to provide services. He can provide services for any one of the electorate at any time. The most common one is his morning service but he can also give noon service, service at sunset and even mass service at midnight if you really want it. Any time you want a service, you know God will provide.

The problem is that in spite of all these services, the communities he serves never seem to progress much. We are not seeing the social development or transformation we would expect. Clearly the services are not achieving what they were set up to do. Somebody is failing big time and the buck stops at God. Another reason I have to withhold my 'X.'

5. When is he going to call elections?

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart in Barbados received a lot of flack for delaying the calling of elections. Some people thought that this one of the big reasons why he almost lost the government. They wanted a PM that would throw down the gauntlet and positively seek his new mandate. The thing is that God has been far more tardy than Freundel in setting a day for humanity to go to the polls. I have met several people who believe they are ideal candidates to get into heaven, but God just refuses to set a date when they will finally find out whether they have made it into that house of assembly. Over the years there have been rumours that God has already set a date, but in spite of many hopeful glances upwards into the clouds there is still no sign of a Returning Officer. I am not going to vote for a God who holds up the democratic process like that.

6. Slow in adopting new policies

For an all powerful deity, God moves awfully slowly, especially when it comes to matters of policy. He seems to follow the trends in society rather than lead from the front. I find this worrying. He only realized slavery was wrong after we realised it. He only recognised that women should not be forced to marry their rapists after we pointed it out to him. He only realised that mental illness was not caused by demon possession after doctors and scientists gave him the evidence. If you want to be a leader I can support. you have to lead on policy, not change your view because of the electorate. I understand that people have power, but God has to start acting like a real leader. So far I just ain't seeing it.

7. Never turns up to speak on his platform

Invisibility has to be God's main weakness in trying to get a vote from me. Ok, maybe he thinks the door to door thing is beneath him, but surely he can turn up to speak on a platform in front of the masses, right? But election after election he is conspicuously absent. If God is the best candidate he has to show us. If he doesn't make his presence felt and get up and demonstrate to us what he can do for us, he can't expect to win. I will vote for the man or woman who presents the best case to me. If God has what it takes but doesn't show me, I am not going to vote for him. If you don't communicate your message properly to voters and they reject you at the polls, choosing the weaker candidate as a result, it's not the electorate's fault it's yours.


8. Shabby treatment of his staunchest supporters

This part is really bothersome to me. When I look at the people most enthusiastically waving God's party banner and showing the colours, I don't see prosperity. Some of God's supporters have done pretty well for themselves but the vast majority have not. In fact the constituencies where he is most popular are usually the ones that are most impoverished. God has not treated those that have been loyal to him well. Illness, poverty and natural disasters plague those that give him the vote every election day. If God treats his followers so badly how will he treat those that stand in opposition? I shudder to think. Another reason for me to keep far away from this God candidate.

9. Aligns himself with every party

This is a huge problem because it speaks to God's integrity. It's hard to trust a God who is  a  PIP (Party in Power). Wherever I go in the world, I hear that the ruling government is God's government. Whether it's Democratic, Conservative, Libertarian, Republican or Socialist it is always the party that God supports. This is not good enough. God has to set some clear principles and stick to them. He can't just swing every four or five years from one party to another. Sorry, I am not voting for a flip-flopper God.

10. Shamelessly tries to buy votes from the 'undecideds'

God should be ashamed of himself and his supporters for allowing this to happen, but I see this all the time. I hear talk that the two main parties in Barbados engaged in this, but God's party is far more guilty of this in my opinion. I know God does it, because I have had people from his party coming around trying to buy my vote numerous times. Once they hear that I am 'undecided' they swarm like bees.

Unlike many other political parties, they offer me far more than just money for going in the booth and voting for God.  Sometimes they court me by offering to take me out for a lavish dinner or a fancy show.  But they don't stop with just offering earthly, transient delights. They promise me health, happiness everything I ever dreamed of even sometimes including sexy virgins, not for just five years but all ETERNITY.

It's just ridiculous. If this kind of thing  doesn't qualify as bribing voters, I don't know what is. It's got totally out of hand over the years and it is high time that the authorities clamped down on such disgusting behaviour. It goes without saying that I can't endorse a God or any party members that support such unethical behaviour.

So, Need I say more?

Going bonkers over Bonnke: Our lack of skepticism continues to plague us

Bonnke preaching in Barbados (photo- www.nationnews.com)

It was utterly disturbing but at the same time completely predictable. German tele evangelist Reinhard Bonnke came to Barbados and the throngs came out from all corners of the island. It's by no means the first time that a famous preacher has brought out numbers like this. Back in the 1980s I remember Jimmy Swaggart filling the national stadium, with Barbadians from all walks of life swearing that he was God's special anointed without the moral failings of ordinary men. Days later they saw that same preacher in tears in a well publicized television interview, confessing to an illicit affair with a young girl he was meeting up with regularly in motels.

Other evangelists from foreign shores have come since, offering up prophecies of pending national disasters and deliverance through their words that they claim have power to remove tumors and balance financial statements. People touting magic olive oil and bath soap have also made their way to Bajan shores. So Bonnke's visit was not the first and you don't need prophetic powers to tell you that it won't be the last.

As was the case with many of the big preacher names that went before him, talk about Bonnke dominated the local discussions on the call-in programs both prior to his arrival and in the aftermath of his visit. Views on his participation were mixed, with discussions surrounding his caucasian pigmentation as much as the veracity of his miracle claims. Much has been made of Bonnke's not particularly modest claim of raising a man from the dead. People have suggested that there are many local preachers capable of delivering any message of salvation that Bonnke could bring and that it is sad that Bajans in 2013 still believe that a white man with a foreign accent preaching the word has more authenticity than anything local. Some joked that the government needed a Bonnke like miracle to bring themselves back to life after what is seen in some corners as a lacklustre performance. With elections in the country just called, it is left to see if the lingering Bonnke effect will make its supernatural presence felt at the polls.

Those supporting Bonnke have given the 'at least he is bringing the word of God to the masses' argument and one preacher repeatedly argued that the bible states that 'many will do greater miracles than me in my name,' suggesting that the idea that Bonnke brought back a dead man is not as absurd as many Christians may think.

What added to the intrigue of the whole thing, is that Bonnke's visit was a government sanctioned event. His involvement was eventually the headline act in a service for 'National Blessing and Spiritual Renewal.' This week on Episode 11 of Freethinking Island, Joy and I explored this topic quite a bit, especially from the perspective of race which always comes to the fore when one analyses phenomena such as these.  I certainly encourage you to follow the link and listen to that exchange.

However, notwithstanding the race element, there are other aspects of a visit like this that merit discussion. There was definitely doubt about Bonnke by many people of faith in Barbados. Just as Joy and I ridiculed Bonnke's 'miracle', so too did many in the island. Indeed, I was hearing that there were women who brought their ageing husbands to see if  Bonnke really had the power to raise the dead in truth. The problem that I have with these scoffers in the fold of faith is similar to the issue I had with those rapture ready Christians who were rolling on the floor laughing and pointing fingers at people like Harold Camping and the Mayan apocalypse believers. I looked at some of that irony when I wrote about the irrational 'Amayists'.

Christian fundamentalists dismiss end times prophecies that come up today by quoting the bible passage that says ' no one knows the time or the hour.' Statements like this  boil down to ' right rapture, wrong day.' Those people who are rolling their eyes at the idea of a man raising the dead today, believe that sometime ago exactly that happened, it certainly happened and you are a fool or simply evil to not accept that obvious fact. So with Bonnke it's a case of  right miracle, wrong man and wrong millennium.

Why not Bonnke?

But is it really? After all, as was noted earlier, Jesus himself said others would perform even greater miracles than he in later years. So, I ask the same question of the Bonnke skeptics as I did for those who dismissed Camping. How do you know that Bonnke is not the real thing? What method are you using to determine who God will give healing power to? If God is the one who has total charge, one who can call whosoever he wants for delivering messages and miracles, why not a white man, why not a German? It is curious to bring in these personal cultural preferences of yours and impose them on a God. Once you believe that God can do anything you have to be open to really ANYTHING. But typically Christians only want the windows of our minds to open up on their side of the avenue. When it comes to other believers selling equally untestable products they prefer to put blinds over their minds and close their windows tight, tight, tight.

Well, we on the atheist side can congratulate our theist colleagues for their personal skepticism to all faith claims other than their own, but they push themselves into a corner in trying to tell these others that they shouldn't sell their unjustified stories. They have to stop short of calling them frauds because deep down they know that their own glass houses are every bit as fragile as their neighbour's. They have to admit that if they want to keep faith their way, they have to let others have their way however absurd that way is, how ever conniving that way is, how ever money grabbing that way is, however abusive to the vulnerable and gullible that way is.

Why? Because it's  God we are talking about and he can do what he chooses. That's the argument they always give to us atheists and if they want to be consistent that's what they have to accept when others bring their faith arguments to them. The result of this? A 'live and let live' attitude to religion that many believers and even some atheists consider ideal. I won't throw stones at your glass house, if you don't interfere with mine. When this happens neither 'house' gets exposed  to the level of skepticism that it should have and we get more and more structures that are filled with eager tenants but are far too brittle to justify anybody putting trust in them.  It is rarely recognised, but nobody ultimately benefits from this ever expanding neighbourhood of flimsy dwellings.

Believers by contrast, see the mutual respect for religions as a move towards fairness, a levelling of the playing field for all who claim belief in a God. But this levelling of the playing field means that all religions get to be in the game. ALL religions, the best and the worst, the liberal and the fundamentalist, the racist and the righteous. They all get the same rights and once that happens, those with the least admirable moral principles will win and win handsomely, feeding off of all the rest.

Tele-evangelists like Bonnke know that the best places to sell their fraud is in places where religion is strong, where belief in the God they are promoting is already widespread even if there is no clear definition of who or what that God is. All they have to do is tap into that entrenched supernatural belief and the money will flow like water. Our Caribbean Christian populations will go bonkers over people like Bonnke, those who believe in him will quote from the bible just like he does and even the supposed skeptics will often hold at least a little feeling that Bonnke might be the man. However you look at it, pockets will be filled with funds gained from people of modest means in recession hit countries that can obviously ill afford it. Those who will say 'no' to Bonnke will say 'yes' to the next televangelist that visits or 'yes' to the one after that.

Reason the only way out

The only way I see out of the cycle is to promote the values of reason, evidence, logic and critical thinking. That's why I continue to blog and that's why I continue to do podcasts. I want people to be able to apply the tools of reason to all that come to our shores and all that live within our shores. Whether black or white, foreign or local, young or old, smooth talking or rough and crude around the edges all must be submitted to the same level of skepticism. We must learn how to investigate people's claims, understand what are the tell tale signs of deception so we can learn to avoid the wolves whatever the colour, design or patterns in their sheep costumes.

When the tools of reason are not available or are left unused, people will simply jump on to their bandwagon of choice. We'll see that over the next three weeks in Barbados as the BLP 'Bees' and DLP 'Dems' battle it out for supremacy and the right to govern the country for the next five years.  For most people loyalty to the party tribe will  feature far above any rational, reasonable debate on the issues. It is unfortunate, but so long as the country remains susceptible to phenomena like Bonnkemania and pushes aside critical thinking in favour of charismatic talking, things aren't going to change very much.

My Interview for 'Secular World': Where we are and where we can get to

Happy New Year to you all! At last I am emerging to rejoin the blogging world for 2013. Recent weeks have had me tied down finishing the writing of my doctoral thesis. Still, I managed to have an enjoyable holiday season and a peaceful Christmas Day, notwithstanding the Facebook debate I managed to get involved in.

Reason for the Season

Yes, even with a simple status update of 'Merry Christmas to one and all!' I found myself defending my reasons for celebrating a day which according to one friend was a day specifically meant for the celebration of the birth of OUR saviour Jesus Christ, who I don't believe in. I took the opportunity to remind her and all the rest of my facebook friends that everyone has a right to choose their own reason for the season. Hence the better phrase to use might be ' This is MY reason for the season' rather than 'This is THE reason for the season.' Interestingly, the status got quite a few 'likes' but all except one were people I knew were atheists, none was from a professed Christian. It does appear to me that as free as we may be in this world to have whatever beliefs we want, it's the theist not the non believer that is reluctant to share ideological real estate with the rest of the globe. Well, I suppose when your worldview is 'top down' you find it hard to understand how anybody can throw a party unless his or her Father gives permission.

Anyway it's been three atheist Christmases now and I am gradually finding my groove and it did  feel good, even on Christmas Day, to remind those in my online neighbourhood that non believers are here too. I firmly believe we must educate whenever we can and if that means taking a few minutes away from turkey to talk it's worth it. I later told someone that as an atheist you're always on duty.

Looking back and looking ahead

I sit here at the beginning of 2013 with lots of great things to look back on from 2012 as far as the Caribbean atheists and non believers are concerned. The Freethinking Island podcast and the Caribbean Freethinkers' Society website/blog  are two initiatives that I feel very happy about and honoured to continue to be a part of. There are other groups, forums and initiatives springing up all the time and West Indians who don't buy in to the God claims are speaking up more and more.

I had a great opportunity at the end of the year to talk about all of the things I have seen develop in this regional non believing community since I have been in it and where I would like to see us go. It was a privilege to speak to Han Hills on 'Secular World' (the Atheist Alliance International official podcast) as a representative of the Caribbean atheist community. You can hear that interview at the link below, Episode 008. Have a listen to the full show with Jake and Han, well worth it, lively holiday banter dealing with a variety of topics including 'end of the world,' Christmas and the Atheist Census. My interview comes in after about 51 minutes.  Enjoy!

My interview on Secular World Podcast

Thanks for your continued support and I look forward to sharing much more with you in the year ahead.

Irrational response to irrational behaviour: The problem with turning to faith in times of tragedy

There are times when as a blogger in the atheist community you feel you just have to speak out.  In the aftermath of the slaughter of 26 in Connecticut last Friday, now is one of those times. My heart goes out to the families and friends of those who died in the face of such unimaginable horror.

Not surprisingly, the response to the massacre particularly on the internet, was to call for prayers for the families of the victims as people tried to grapple with the enormity of the tragedy and how to make sense out of the senseless. We atheists, when faced with these sudden rush of 'prayer warriors' in these awful moments find ourselves in an awkward position. Two years ago I reflected on this when I wrote about a similar type of tragedy in Barbados when six young ladies were killed as a result of the throwing of a Molotov cocktail into a clothing store. I titled that blog "When is the right time to criticize?" and I find myself asking that same question once again today.

The thing that bothers me after these tragedies is that there is an attempt by many in the faith world to shut down any view that runs counter to the idea that we all need to pray to God for comfort to the grieving. Quick dismissals of anybody who suggests that this afterlife is simply a product of wishful thinking. Just a suggestion that it might be a better approach to try to deal with the reality on reality's own terms leads to us being lambasted as being insensitive, uncaring, disrespectful and not allowing people to grieve in peace. We are often made to feel that we are not much better than the murderer ourselves, stripping mourning family members of their spiritual well being after they have already survived such a severe physical loss. We then get accused of having a personal agenda and for using this completely inappropriate time to get up on our 'soapboxes.'

In a way, I can understand these criticisms. When you are leaning on God for all you are worth, the last thing you want is to hear someone kicking over your support by saying that there is nothing other than a concept in your mind holding you up. But that is just the nature of life. Truth is truth and sometimes it is hard and cold and cruel. Trying to spruce it up in a fancy dress and coat may give you a warm feeling for a while but it doesn't change reality at its core. Ultimately you don't end up avoiding pain, you merely delay it and the deep scars can remain as open wounds for years and even decades to come.

But generally theists don't see the God belief that way, they will often tell you when it comes to things like God and the afterlife, they just NEED to believe it. It's the only way to face the darkest hours of their lives. People have admitted to me from time to time that they know that the beliefs they have are in all likelihood not true, but they just must believe them in order to get through life happy, healthy and content.

I have heard it in the media that the time to deal with the reality of having better gun control is now; the  time to deal with the reality of a mental health system that is not working is now; but the time to address the widespread irrational belief in a supernatural entity that makes people prone to embracing a delusion seems to be never.

What happened last week Friday was that an entirely irrational act was committed which led tragically to the death of 27. We can speculate as to what was behind the irrational act. In all likelihood a mental disorder of some sort or another. Whatever the cause, an irrational act is what it was and irrational acts come as a result of irrational thoughts and irrational thoughts can be traced back to irrational beliefs. No matter how we try to spin this one, it is the irrational that lies at the heart of this massacre. Somewhere along the line, something got in the way of human reasoning and lives were lost as a result. Logic suggests that the only way to deal with a problem of irrationality is to bring rationality.

Piling on the irrationality

But what do we do in times like this?  Well, we do exactly the opposite. We run headlong into the arms of anti- reason, anti-logic and anti-evidence. Meanwhile we jettison any ideas of using a method that is reality based. It's all about talk of children running about in heavenly puddles that we know are as real as the caramel rivers in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. What we are doing is piling on the irrational on top of the irrational. Somehow we believe that if we replace deadly irrational beliefs by irrational beliefs of the warm and fuzzy kind, one set will cancel out the other and we will be left with a saner and safer world. It's not going to work.

The reality is that when we keep piling up the irrational beliefs we end up digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole. Irrational beliefs whether in fairies, pixies, goblins, gods, angels or demons often lead to flawed reasoning and bad thinking habits. Once you get into the routine of holding something as true even if you have no evidence to support it, that behaviour can become an integral part of your life. You become sloppy in checking out facts and poor at second guessing yourself in all areas if what you believe 'feels right.' Once you make desirability of a belief one of the criteria you use for determining its truth you put yourself in trouble, if as a community or a country you actively encourage that attitude it can become thousands of times worse. You end up with a society who can be controlled and manipulated so long as you can push the right emotional buttons or sweeten the belief pot enough. This at the end of the day, is not going to give you a society that will learn to be progressive or deal with the real problems it faces head on.

Reason can be a great ally even in the most dire circumstance.  It's true that people speak of faith in the midst of stressful situations regularly, but when you listen to their stories carefully, it  becomes clear that it was their ability to put training into action and think through the steps they needed to take rationally that was often the key to survival or saving a life. These accounts tells me that rational behaviour in all situations is what we should be promoting, rather than the need to believe in the supernatural.

So, that is what scares me when I see the sprint into the arms of Jesus that I see now. I am puzzled by the notion of trying to find comfort in a God who either directly caused or passively allowed the action from which the afflicted now seek relief. If God's primary interest was the happiness of the families, the thing to do was to stop the massacre from happening in the first place, not just sit on the sidelines watching and then run out at the end with a heavenly tissue to wipe away a tear. It's a case of too little too late for God. Like having your star striker in a football (soccer) match scoring a wonder goal in the 89th minute that takes the team from being 6-0 down to 6-1. In those occasions celebrations of the losing team are muted. I don't see why God's supporters should be upset when I am not cheering about what he is desperately trying to do now, deep into injury time.

What I see in times like this is irrationality being advertised like the latest brand of iPhone. Everyone in or around the tragedy feels obliged to do the godvertising and get in on the magical thinking marketing. Grieving relatives, fortunate survivors, brave first responders, counsellors, news reporters and presidents all feel obliged to speak about faith in some form. Thoughts and prayers being offered up, spirits of dead ones looking down, snowflakes as signs from them that everything is alright 'up there.' I know that many of these people are probably nominally religious if religious at all. For them it's just like taking part in a ritual. Saying the things that you say in tragedies, just because that's the custom and culturally we are perhaps primed to find comfort in such empty platitudes.

Faith becomes part of thinking routine

For some people the harm may be minimal. When they go back to 'normal' life they'll forget about these heavenly sentiments and embrace the rational life fully once more. The same President Obama that mentioned last week that he knows that Jesus 'called the children home' and that they are safe in a heaven for which no evidence exists, will be asking in the months ahead for strong empirical evidence to support the assertion of those that are arguing that fire arms in the hands of teachers would make kindergarten schools safe. Politicians like Obama may be able to turn on and off their faith switch to suit differing situations, but the masses in the country don't have regulators in their minds that work quite as well. Many will remember these faith messages long after Adam Lanza is a forgotten name.

The message that will stick with them is that faith is something we all need and should all strive to have, particularly in times of tragedy. They will become convinced that there are many times in life when faith in the unseen should be valued above evidence and logic. Once they buy into this way of thinking can we really blame them if they choose to follow their faith which says that the world is 6000 years old and give it greater weight than the evidence that is readily available and tells us that the correct number is in the billions? It's easy to slip faith in at these opportune times, but once it gets out their in the water you can't just filter it out.

People who are better at keeping scientific thought separate from faith ideas may fare better, but a lot of them will reach back for faith when they have a personal 'Sandy Hook' to deal with in life. They'll remember all the heroes in that tragedy that held on to their bibles and beliefs and consider that they'll need to do the same thing if they are to get through as well. When the next national or global disaster  comes a calling, memories will be evoked of sacred memorials and make shift crosses from last time and everyone will turn back to God. This is the cycle. The house of logic and reason becomes like a sand castle on a Caribbean beach, beautifully made, constructed painstakingly with intricate detail when the tide is out and things are calm,  but the whole edifice gets swept away in seconds as soon as an emotional wave crashes ashore.

People are turning away from deities in their numbers, churches are becoming emptier and more and more people are declaring openly that they are atheists or have no religious affiliation.The last bastion of the religious is the 'mass tragedy.' It is the one time that priests and pastors hold the limelight. The time when they are given liberty to say almost whatever they want, because in the eyes of the influential people in society, there is no such thing as too much faith in the wake of a disaster.

Still, there are glimpses of  little changes.  At least it was refreshing to see religious leaders being called out for making the ludicrous argument that God didn't save six year olds because we had the gall to expel him from the classroom.  So, maybe things are looking up.

I am encouraged to see the  progress we are making in getting people to discover the new dawn that can come in the light of reason, but our advance will continue to be stifled if those same people don't have enough faith in the ability of reason to give guidance through the dark and desperate nights as well.

Whether you're a dot or not: Get on there and make sure you're counted!

The Atheist Alliance International is administering a census that seeks to get an idea of the number of non believers in the world. Who are we? Where are we? What are our backgrounds?  The survey looks at demographics such as age range, gender, level of education, former religion (if any) and the term you prefer to be known by (atheist, agnostic, humanist, freethinker etc.)

It's been a challenge since the census suffered from a denial of service (DoS) attack on the first day it went up. The survey is back online now and the response has been steady, up over 87,000 now. I find myself looking back there from time to time because there is a running tally of the overall responses and pie charts representing how the breakdown of responses to the various questions is so far. It's there both from a global level and a country by country level.

The results are already interesting, with by far the greatest number of responses coming from the US. Brazil is in second place, which is perhaps a bit of a surprise, ahead of UK, Australia and then Canada. We always knew that atheism was skewed towards the men, but so far we are seeing that the ratio is about 3:1, which is probably not where we would want it to be. But that's why statistical studies are so important, by knowing where we are, we can take some actions to get to where we want to get to.

I am especially interested in how the Caribbean is doing. In trying to get a movement going there, those numbers will be especially useful to us. Small populations will of course mean numbers will be comparatively low. It also means that most of our countries don't show up on the globe they have on the site that shows high response countries turning steadily from a brown to green. Well, I guess that's what you get from being born on a 'dot.' But these  'dots' do add up and it's a pity that the secular world will need to do special searches for our countries if they want to see our numbers piling up. Maybe one day we'll have to stand up and insist on more 'high def' maps for these things to combat the anti 'dot' discrimination we have to live with now. But that's way in the future, we all have to deal with 'anti atheist' attitudes long before then.

Barbados my home country, has so far had 11 responses, which is interestingly enough not that few. I see that countries in Africa with large populations like Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya are barely in double figures if that. Trinidad and Tobago has got 55 responses which is certainly noteworthy and probably represents one of the strongest country responses in the world on a per capita basis. Jamaica had 30   responses which is good also.

Still, as encouraging as these numbers may be, a census like this will only be as good as the number of people that take part in it. We have to try to get every non believer we can on board if the effort is to really tell us valuable information. Let's try to get as many people counted from our 'dots' as we can. At the same time, let us show the world that these little dots in the region can be huge masses of reason.

So big or small, get on there and take the Atheist Census!

Trying to deny the undeniable: Why can't God come down like gravity?

"You'll definitely know it when it happens to you." 

It's the trope that I am hearing more and more nowadays as believers tell me that my conversion moment will come and it will be so emphatic that my life will instantly be transformed. God has a special plan for me and I better had be ready for him when the time comes. But there is an element of contradiction in this, because they will also say that I have to accept it, have my heart open to it in order to truly be able to experience it. But an undeniable experience is just that, it is what it is. It is one that by definition just can't be denied. Hearts open, closed, half way locked or on the floor there is just no other way of interpreting it. How could you possibly deny the undeniable, even if you wanted to?

The more in depth the discussions that I enter into with my theist friends, the more it appears to me that if and when I become convinced that a God exists, it will be in a single spectacular event. Something 'experiential' as one person put it. The kind of  'Saul on the road to Damascus' experience which I won't be able to deny. I have to admit that this worries me . It suggests that revelation comes from God knocking me over and beating the belief into me, rather than by just standing back and letting the evidence speak for itself. 


Tampering with the lab equipment

about.com - chemistry

I see it like if you go into the lab to do a chemistry experiment and you don't get the concentration measurement of the acid that you were expecting. Rather than looking at the mixture under review and making sure you prepared the chemicals in the way you were supposed to, you recalibrate the burette and tamper with the pipette until you get the result you want. 

In terms of evidence for God, Christians treat us like that burette. Instead of looking at the compositions of the solutions they want us to accept, they spend all their time trying to bias our 'readings', so we can give them back the 'right' results. What they forget is that just like in chemistry, tampering with the lab equipment is not going to change the nature of the reality under test. Reality is reality whatever the dials on our heart meters may tell us. Pulling my emotional strings to get me over to your side really doesn't prove anything one way or the other. That's why I am unimpressed with the claims of death bed conversions even if they are real. It is telling that a change from non belief to belief even under duress counts as evidence for God, for them. They never take into account that meters often malfunction in extreme conditions.

However, when when we change colours from a red blooded believer to a shade of grey agnostic atheist during the course of our lives, the theists want to dismiss our experimental conclusions as flawed. They insist we throw out all the chemicals that may have affected us, clean out all the beakers and start all over again from scratch. A change from belief to non belief they will argue means nothing, as they will say that God still exists whether we believe in him or not. I tell them that bringing such clear personal bias to an experiment could not get their findings published in any respectable journal but they tell me that the only publication that matters to them passed peer review by their saviour centuries ago.

Still, I am really trying my best to be open and understand what this 'experiential' evidence that theists talk so much about could be like. In trying to construct this idea, I am taking the key aspects of what these believers tell me. I have heard that this revelation is just something that hits you inside, when you feel it you'll know it is there. It is undeniable, impossible to explain from a scientific perspective but you just know that you know that you know.

Ok, I think we can use science and what we know through that method to study this concept of undeniability. I am not trying to compare types of evidence here, just the way that human beings react to something they consider undeniable. The type of reaction we have to something undeniable should be the same regardless of the way we come to the conclusion that we have experienced something we can't deny.

The closest thing to undeniable that I can think of in the natural world is the law of gravity. Sure, the purist will say not even that is strictly speaking certain, but it is as close to it as you can get in science. What the religious people are telling me is that the thing that they experienced, manifests itself in such a way that they can be as certain about it as we as general human beings are that gravity is real.

So, whatever it is that these people who have this personal experience go through, it leaves them with gravity-like certainty. Clearly the difference between the two examples is that the spiritual revelation is not something experienced by everyone, at least not yet. People experience this gravity-like spiritual awakening at different times in their lives. So I am quite open to the idea that God just hasn't gotten around to given me my heart jolt yet. Why God would have some of us wait decades while giving some others revelations at  age four is of course another of the mysteries in this convoluted novel that is God's, but we can wait for another day to explore that chapter.

The point I want to make here is that I would expect the reaction of those religious people fortunate enough to have the spiritually undeniable experience, to be similar to my undeniable experience of gravity. Curiously, when I look further, there are some differences when it comes to undeniablity in this spiritual realm.  Here is a look at some of the things that Christians and theists in general will say about their undeniable experiences that just don't measure up to me and my gravity.

1. The God I believe in turns up regularly

I could perhaps say the same thing about my gravity. Actually no, I would put it more like he came at the beginning of time and never left. Gravity is truly impossible to ignore. He is in our face from the time we walk out the house in a morning and see a leaf fall from a tree, to in the evening when we drop a fork into the sink before washing up after supper. Gravity is indeed so omnipresent that it is difficult to remember when was the last time you saw evidence of him. I mean, how many times did gravity reveal himself to you this week? You can't count because you don't even notice him, that's how eternal and ever present he is.

Compare this to how the believers speak of their 'undeniable' experiences with God. Ask people about how God has touched them and they will inevitably provide you with a list of events. A story about something that happened yesterday, or last week, last year, ten years ago. Some will tell you God has made his presence felt so many times they can't count them, but the fact that they can pinpoint specific God moments is telling.

I don't sit down marvelling about the time when gravity revealed itself in all its glory twenty years ago when I saw a coconut fall on a pavement. I don't have a journal set aside to remind me where and when I saw gravity at work. Even though I see gravity every day, I can't give you a single gravitational testimony, because he is always there.

If the spiritual experience of God was as undeniable as gravity, you would expect that theists would have similar difficulty in pinpointing specific instances of a God manifestation. A god that is always there should be always obvious to the believer. I can provide evidence of my gravity at any moment. Wake me up in the middle of the night and I can pick up a pen on my night stand and drop it. I don't need to give you anecdotes our point towards epic stories of how gravity moved through history.

The spiritual is different, but it shouldn't be. Sure, since I am not in their special club, I cannot expect them to provide evidence to my satisfaction, but they should at least be able to give immediate God examples to convince themselves. I know that people will say that the religious do see God in everything. That not even a breath can be taken unless God gives his say so.

That may be so, but they never go for these trivial arguments when they want to convince us through personal experiences. Whenever I have asked Christians to tell me of their evidence or experience that convinced them God was real, they give me something far more telling. A life transformed from drugs or prostitution, an illness defeated against the odds, a surprising job opportunity that came out of nowhere, or an indescribable super feeling that one day shot them deep down in their hearts. When it comes to convincing us our convincing themselves the more spectacular the evidence the better. But why the need to even bring these up? If God is the one who gets you out of bed everyday why do you need to reach further by bringing out these majestic accounts.

Indeed by emphasizing these major God moments they are in effect saying that the 'he woke me up this morning' proof does not cut much ice.  Interesting again to compare with my gravity. I don't need to look in to a meteor shower or some other once in a lifetime event to strengthen my belief in gravity. A  drop in the bucket is more than enough.

If the evidence is all around, you don't need to look beyond present time and place to prove it to yourself. You can't detect the presence of God without recognising the absence that immediately precedes and follows it. If you have to wait on something to show up at specific times it means it is spasmodic and that's not what you expect from something undeniable. That ex boyfriend that shows up regularly in your life, leaves you standing on your own just as often.

2. You need to understand (insert religion here) in order to understand your experience

Spiritual revelations tend to have a strange mix of the intellectual and the emotional, even as God supposedly can speak directly to the heart. It does make me scratch my head when I hear religionists tell me that it's so obvious that God made the world that even a five year old can see it, yet Prof. Richard Dawkins is unqualified to speak on whether there is a God or not because he lacks a PhD in theology.

Yes, God can move any heart, but you need to read up and learn exactly what he is going to reveal to you before he reveals it. God miraculously manages to reveal himself with a message identical to that which his followers told you in advance. I suppose God is like a lazy university lecturer who has his Teaching Assistant  hand out notes with worked examples on the first day of class and then brings back every one of those questions in the final exam. Not surprising then that students in every religion come back with 100% regardless of the name of the God that does the grading.

Again my gravity seems to beat out all of the religionists. Sure I can present references, resources from all branches of physics and cosmology and even at the quantum level to explain how my gravity works throughout the universe. I can give you all the differential equations that will make your head spin. But you know what? None of that is necessary. You can experience gravity without any prior knowledge in any field.

You don't need to speak ancient languages, you don't need to know Newton or Kepler,  you don't even need to be literate. You don't need to be at the age of reason either, a toddler in a pram understands that her favorite toy drops when she opens her hand. In fact even if you live alone on a desert island and never had a single human interaction, you can notice that things high up tend to fall. So universal is gravitational revelation you don't even need to be a human. You could be a chimpanzee or a primate on a branch of any evolutionary tree, but you know that when you let go of that twig you will fall.

Yes, the revelation of gravity has the ability to come down from on high and touch everybody, everywhere in the same way. But spiritual revelations not only seem to be open only to the privileged X %, followers apparently need to come with specific pre existing conditions as well.

3.  Sometimes in moments of weakness I have doubts

Doubts!!!? Doubts!!? How on earth can you have an undeniable truth and yet readily admit to moments of uncertainty. But this is exactly what believers who have this experience with God will tell you. They will speak of dark, desolate hours where they wonder what God is doing or if he is even there.  Then they will tell you they will get through after prayer or directly through a revelation of the same God.

I know they always have an explanation, but remember we are speaking of the UNDENIABLE. If something is clear and certain to you there is just no way you can doubt even for a second. Again I have never had this issue with my gravity. Not once in my life have I gone to bed with nagging feelings that things may not fall for me tomorrow the way that they did today. And it's not only me, nobody has ever taken me aside to tell me that they have worries over a drop in their gravity faith. You can only have doubts if you have some evidence that is in opposition to your certainty. Doesn't matter how fleeting or rare, doubt in any form means you have something that can be denied. Once again the spiritual experience falls flat in the face of gravity.

4.  You can never get the experience if you don't want it.

This is another very strange condition of an undeniable truth. This statement is a variant of 'your heart must be open.' When it comes to undeniable truths, there is literally no way you can reasonably come to another conclusion when presented with the facts. It doesn't matter how much I don't want to gravity to be real. How much I wish I could just take off in the morning and fly to work over the traffic. I can rationalize about how much better my life would be without gravity. The benefits of a life without gravity at least some of the time can easily be seen. If only we could turn off that earth attraction for just a moment.

But no matter how much we dream of these things, how many sci fi movies we come up with where this is possible, how much we wish upon a star or pray to a fairy, we can't will ourselves into becoming anti-gravitationalists. We would indeed feel justified to lock away in a mental institution, anyone that denied the existence of the law of gravity.

It's strange that in the spiritual realm, desire can have such a telling effect on the experience that you get.  No alarm bells go off when someone says no to their undeniable experience. No move to throw those who don't accept the revelation into an institution for the spiritually crazy. In fact, many believers have told me that to have a spiritual experience and not accept it as real is quite reasonable. Undesirable, but reasonable just the same. But it just doesn't follow, it's like telling someone you're a bit sad they don't believe in gravity, but you can accept it so long as they don't impose their anti falling dogma on you.

So I am left in confusion. I am to expect an experience straight to heart from an all powerful God that I have no power to deny and yet I have to make a decision to be open that heart and allow his omnipotence in.

Whatever the case, I simply wish God would leave my heart alone, it seems a bit of a cheat to circumvent the brain he gave me and just go inside and turn on some magic switch in the ventricle.

I would prefer if he left my internal organs alone and just provided the evidence for me like my gravity does. You would think that a deity that has dropped the ball so many times in the past would have grasped this simple concept by now.