Reaching the goal of Marriage Equality: Why I truly felt the pride

It happened now over a month ago, but I am still reflecting on how the aftershocks of THAT decision in the USA continue to reverberate all across the Caribbean. The lingering vibrations even greater than the ones the Kick'em Jenny underwater volcano has been able to produce.

It was Friday June 26th. The day when we all read the headline.'Same sex marriage is now legal all across the U.S'. Ever since then, pastors from my home country Barbados and the wider Caribbean have been been digging their heels in, vowing to keep 'marriage equality' from reaching their island shores, as if it were a rare and lethal form of dengue or ebola.

Of course for me, it was not a decision that filled me with any worries. Indeed, I saw it as a landmark victory and I felt without doubt that I was part of the winning team. In some respects, it reminded me of how I felt in 2008, when Barack Obama was declared US president. It was a day you hoped you'd be alive to witness,  but never in your wildest dreams expected be there to see. I felt elated for the LGBT community, because I know for them it has been and will continue to be a long hard struggle. But even in my own euphoria, I stopped to reflect a bit.

I am not a member of the LGBT community and I don't live in the US,  so why was I feeling so excited?  Why was I so emotional?  Why was I fighting to hold back the tears? To be quite honest, I really wasn't sure. Canada has had marriage equality for a decade now, so it's no really an issue here where I live. However, though we don't always like to admit it, what happens in the US tends to have a far greater influence on the rest of the world than what happens in other countries. I knew what happened in the US would have a big impact on the debate  in other parts of the world and that has happened. As a result of this ruling,  I believe that full marriage equality worldwide is now a matter of 'when' rather than 'if'. And that, as a certain vice president would say is  'a big fucking deal'.

But that still doesn't explain why it was a big deal for me. Having had now more time to think about it, I  recognize why. It is because I myself have had my own journey over the last few years.  A journey which has brought  as significant an opening of the mind as an opening of the heart. My journey has not been one where I was to trying to be able to love who I wanted to, mine has been one of a loss of love, separation from the God I once believed in. It was coming to terms with accepting an idea I embraced six years ago. The notion that there is no higher power, no cosmic leader or arbitrator beyond space and time that pulls the levers or keeps things in motion. Going through that transition in my belief system certainly provided its degree of emotion and at that time I considered it to be perhaps the biggest struggle of my life to get through. I remember well the anxiety and uncertainty of walking that narrow secular road ahead.

At that time, it was all about finding my own way and figuring how I would "come out" to family and friends and psychologically be able to navigate in the world without that spirit to guide. Still, I happily embraced the world of 'reason' and looked on it to lead the way. In trying to come to grips with my new life, I started to reach out. First through this blog which I started back in 2010 and then through joining organizations such as Centre for Inquiry (CFI) here in Calgary.

In time these associations and activities brought me in contact with more atheist, humanist and secular groups. I discovered atheist and secular podcasts which quickly became my daily diet of listening. Two years later, I would also become a podcaster, doing what I could to add to reasonable rational voices already out there.

I realize now, that on that Friday 'same sex marriage' morning the journey that was pulling at my heartstrings was not my journey to atheism, but my journey since atheism. The journey that has led to me walking arm in arm with so many secularists all over the world. Now that I have successfully navigated my personal 'coming out' as an atheist,  I have discovered that my non-theism is about far more than ME.  It goes far beyond just getting through as David Ince. It's about a family, a community and a world that is held back in so many ways because of the prevalence of religious laws, religious norms and religious thinking that will still take many more years to sweep away.

In the beginning of my atheist life, as much as it was exciting to find a community that I could identify with and feel good about being able to reason with, it was also at times distinctly uncomfortable. The discomfort came from the fact that I realised just how much 'un-reason' there was in the world and how many people were suffering because of it day by day. People have lost their lives, families, jobs and been sent into exile in many places due to 'unreason'. Much of this irrationality stems from religion, and I felt that we as secular people, who understood these issues more than most, had a responsibility to try to fix them. But were we doing enough? Was I doing enough?

Moving beyond my disbelief

I quite quickly realized that one of the biggest issues that the secular movement was involved in, certainly in the western world, was gay rights and rights within the LGBT movement in general.
The first president of the CFI in Calgary when I joined back in 2010 was Mike Gray, He was an enthusiastic leader, passionate about building the secular community and also openly gay. I remember he would from time to time wear a t-shirt with the word "Gaytheist" emblazoned on the front.

I smiled when I saw him do that, but it also was a genuine eye opener for me. For all my time growing up in Barbados I knew my fair share of gay people, or should I say my fair share of people 'rumoured to be gay.' But that's the point, it was never something anyone wore as a source of pride, it was a mark of shame, something to hide from at all costs.

Discovering the word 'homosexual'

I remember very well the first time I heard the word 'homosexual' when I was about seven years old.. One heavy set young fellow pushed a smaller boy on the pasture at school and the little guy responded with the words  "You're a homosexual!" I can guarantee that none of us around there had a clue what that word meant. But we just knew it had to be something bad, really bad. A word so big couldn't be benign. It had four whole syllables, it had to be something dangerous and terrible. Indeed at the time, I think it was the only four syllable word we knew.

So, for the rest of that term the word 'homosexual' became the insult word of choice. It was all fun for us as kids, nothing too serious. But looking back I think the anti gay sentiment was set in for us even back then. I came to learn that homosexual was just the more formal word for 'buller' that pejorative 'b' word for being gay in Barbados.

Yes, as I grew up into adolescence in Barbados I came to realize that you could pretty much survive being accused of anything, but one thing you never wanted to be was to be 'accused' of being gay. No, if anyone were to think that even for a moment, your entire reputation would be flushed down the toilet.  Guaranteed!  In fact in my parents' generation a common euphemism for referring to a person who was gay was to call them a person 'of doubtful reputation'. I have seen it many times, artists, musicians, scientists and sportsmen. All their achievements glibly glossed over as people say ' but you know he is a 'b*****.

Backing away

I can remember one term in secondary school when I began to talk quite regularly to this one guy, as we both used to get picked up from school around the same time. One morning,  a classmate called me aside and said he had noticed I had been spending a lot of time talking with this friend. He warned me that this individual was known to be gay and if I continued to hang out with him, people would start to believe I was the same way too. I was shocked by what I heard and from the very next evening I started cutting my conversations with my new friend short and about two weeks later I was finding other people to hang out with on afternoons. It's embarrassing to look back at that now and I wish I could go back and change it, but that's just the way it was.

In spite of this, I certainly was not among the 'homophobic' in Barbados.  As a liberal, I was always in favour of gays having whatever rights others were entitled to. However, there was still a level of distance that I felt I wanted to keep from them. I endorsed the idea that gays should be equal but still separate. You should tolerate them, but that didn't mean you went out of your way to have them as your best friend. People may find this surprising, but my position at that time was at the very progressive end of the spectrum of attitudes in Barbadian society.  The more conservative  view was. 'You gays just need to find Jesus and stop sinning'.  And of course as 'good Christians' the conservatives were called to reach out to this community in 'love' by helping them to turn from their 'nasty' and  'wicked' lifestyle.

In spite of this hurtful kind of rhetoric, I have to say that at least to Barbados' credit, we never had the violence against gays that other Caribbean countries such as Jamaica had to endure. Indeed, many in the Caribbean often saw Barbados as the most 'gay friendly' island and we Bajans can attest to being frequently teased about this from our island neighbours. Additionally, within Barbados  we often made fun of the gay community ourselves. The easiest way for a comedian to get a cheap laugh, was to  make a joke about homosexuals or trans sexuals. The way they talked, the way the walked the way they dressed, it was all fodder for various forms of ridicule. That was the comedy we seemed to like more than any other type. The popular comedy and calypso singing group MADD milked it for all it was worth through their 'ArchiBULL Cox' character. For so many years we laughed and laughed, lapping up the hilarity without much of a second thought. For those of us who were straight, we would privately let out a sigh of relief that at least we weren't one of THEM.

So when I came in to the secular world and realized that the people I grew up  identifying as those "THEMS" were actually important allies,  it was somewhat of an about turn for me to take. As I said. I have never had problems with the movement for 'gay rights', but a lot of my feelings before being an atheist activist were pretty apathetic. I thought they deserved rights, but I didn't see it as something I needed to get up off the couch and join them in the fight for.

But my views changed quickly, from the time I started going to weekly CFI meetings, held at the 'Sapien ' night club.' Sapien' was a gay club, it's name a clever short form for 'homo- sapien'. I remember feeling a bit uncomfortable telling people I was going there for meetings. Especially people from the Caribbean, who had enough trouble getting over the 'atheist' thing already. I had to admit that even as a freethinker and atheist I still had lingering fears about someone thinking I was gay when I was not. I felt embarrassed about having such feelings and never shared them with any of my new secular friends, most of whom had grown up in Canada and appeared to have no such hang ups like this at all.

I realized somewhat in horror, that even though I was a liberal by Barbadian standards, I still had a way to go in dealing with aspects of my thinking which still had  remnants of indoctrination. Shedding my belief in a god was indeed only the first step of many I would need to take to embrace rationality fully. Going on to meet people like our following president Nate Phelps (son of Fred Phelps) and strong LGBT activist made me understand more. I began to realize this was more of a fight about human rights than about 'approving' of particular sexual practices. Then we interviewed gay individuals from the Caribbean such as Duane Howard and Dadland Maye on 'Freethinking Island' who had faced backlash in their respective countries of Jamaica and Trinidad. Later we interviewed Angeline Jackson whose work as an advocate in Jamaica has made her  recognized publicly by no less a person than President Barack Obama.

But it wasn't all about the social impact of my new friends in the LGBT Community that affected my thinking. It was reason and  evidence of their arguments that ultimately made me open my mind fully on this issue. The LGBT movement, in putting forward their arguments for their rights, always made a convincing and compelling case. Their arguments  made me realize that not only did they deserve tolerance and acceptance, they deserved to be fully embraced and supported in their push for all basic human rights. That included the important right to all the benefits of being 'married' if they chose to go that route.

I came to learn that to look at the gay community as 'equal but separate' was just not good enough. To do that, would be like saying to blacks in times gone by, that you can drink the same water as the whites but you just need to go to a different water fountain. I began to understand why it was important that the word 'marriage' be used to define gay unions as well as straight ones. Many people like to say that if you let gays have a  'marriage like' union you should call it something else. But that's part of the 'separate but equal' mentality that I now definitely reject.

This is what I have come to love about being in the atheist and secular community. You get your views challenged all the time and you move or adjust your position in the face of a rational argument. That's how it should be. Losing my belief in a god, has allowed me to investigate these human rights issues without the inhibition of dogma. I have come to recognize that a world where rights are extended to more people is a win for all. When this happens we should be proud that we as a human species have identified an imbalance in our system and have taken measures to correct it.

Love your neighbour

So, the marriage equality win is not a win for the 'gays' it's a win for the world. I realize this is a difficult concept for some people. For  as much as Christians claim that being good is about loving your neighbour and caring for others, the truth is that religion is generally not about including others and loving unconditionally. It's about loving your 'neighbour' in a restricted sense. Loving those who are 'next to you' culturally or ideologically. In general, religion is not about loving people who are different and respecting them for who they are. For them, love is about trying to push others who may live far away into  becoming 'neighbours'. For its only when you are in the same 'neighbourhood' as them that they think you can experience love fully

This is where the whole 'love the sinner, hate the sin' comes from. Translated it means, 'We love you, but that love is expressed through placing emotional pressure on you to embrace our belief'. So they will argue that you can't really appreciate or understand love until you experience the love of Jesus. They'll say you will only get God's full approval, if you turn away from your 'sin' of being a homosexual. Love in  a religious context definitely comes with strings attached.

You don't have to be in our neighbourhood

But those of us on the secular side don't operate from that premise. Our aim is to love our 'neighbours' but also those who have taken up residence far away, those who may have likes, preferences and cultures far different from ours. It's about looking to defend the rights of the marginalized wherever they may be. It doesn't have to be us atheists ourselves that are the ones being denied the right. In fact it could be and often is the very religious who we disagree with, whose rights we want to defend.

I realize this is a very difficult concept for a lot of people.  That's why some of my friends in Barbados, including some in my own family, wondered if my putting the rainbow filter on my Facebook profile pic, was actually me coming out as a homosexual!

It's weird, but I think I get it. So often our world promotes a 'stand up for YOUR rights' attitude. Fight for what you think that YOU have been denied. It's important to do that, but that's not where it should end. You need to stand up for the rights of others as well, even as others stand up for YOUR rights. That's how we make the world better.  The fight is not over and the battle continues. Other groups will need the support as the years go on. None more so than the 'T's in the 'LGBT' movement, I think of my brave colleague in the Caribbean secular community Gabrielle Bellot, who is the Founder of the 'Caribbean Freethinkers' Society' blog and facebook group. Gabrielle is a transgender woman living in US, who now lives in fear of returning to her native Dominica since her transition. Given the disparaging comments that have been made about people like Caitlyn Jenner in her island and the rest of the Caribbean, her fear is not at all unfounded. Things like this make it clear that we need to keep up the fight both for those in our 'neighbourhood' and those who live well outside.

So we must go on. It's amazing and remarkable. A journey that started out for me as a mere disbelief in the existence of a god has become so much more along the way, and I truly feel the PRIDE when I think about that.

Why do women hide their penises?: If only the believers could get hypothetical

'Why do you hate God?'

'Why are you so mad at him?'

'What did he ever do to hurt you?'

These are the kinds of questions that I have heard a lot from Christians, especially over the last few weeks as the Stephen Fry video about what he would do if he met God played out in mainstream media. If you haven't seen it you can watch it here, he is unapologetic about how evil, stupid and capricious that god would be. The facial responses from the interviewer are priceless. He clearly was completely taken aback. But we atheists weren't, we have seen it many times before from the likes of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Matt Dillahunty, Greta Christina and many, many more. The tirade that says that surely if a god exists he would be an evil, capricious tyrant rather than the benevolent, all caring, protective, merciful god that so many Christians have in their minds when they think about their lord and saviour.

Most of us non believers have at some point given our own version of this argument, commonly referred to as the 'problem of evil'. We use it to justify why we don't subscribe to the god that they seem to quite willingly put all their trust in. There are very few believers I have talked to who don't admit that the 'problem of evil' presents a challenge to their faith. They usually put it down to God and his 'mysterious ways'. Deep down, I think they see it as an unsatisfactory answer.  It certainly felt like a weak response to me when I was a Christian. However, the 'mystery' challenge didn't knock my faith down back then, as I reflected on how often great triumph can emerge from tragedy, and that there's plenty of opportunity to make delicious lemonade from the limes and lemons that life throws at us.

I imagine that this is the way that most of my religious brothers and sisters still think today. So, when they hear rants that the likes of Stephen Fry throw up, they hear a person who is just not willing to try to make the best of the world he has been given. Doing the easier thing of sitting back and blaming someone else for the shit, rather than getting up and trying to help ease the pain as it happens. When words like evil, bully and tyrant are used. The believers cringe, wondering what on earth could cause those that claim to not care or believe in a creator god,  hate him so much.

As one of the persons who commented on an extended conversation on my Facebook page told me,

"How can Stephen Fry say all those bad things about a person whom he has not ever met."

The power of the hypothetical:  IF changes everything

What Christians seem to miss every time they chide us for being upset with God, is the impact of that simple two letter word, 'IF'.

A small word that signifies a BIG hypothetical.

IF I won a million dollars
IF the moon were made of cheese
IF men could become pregnant
IF I were a squirrel in a tree.
IF there was a God.

In the 'non God' examples, nobody ever makes the mistake of thinking that the speaker actually believes that what is being hypothesized is true. However, when it comes to god, many Christians just don't hear the 'IF'.

They hear "God is evil".

 When what is actually being said by atheists is,

"If there was a God existing in the world, that god would be evil".

These are obviously two completely different statements.

I think that a big part that plays into this problem is many believers' inability to hypothesize in the way that atheists do. Atheists do not believe in god, but every atheist I have met has been capable of imagining what a world with a god in it might look like. We can conceive of different gods in the universe and imagine the implication of each of these god's actions or character. Much in the same way that we can imagine a super hero, give him or her fictional powers and imagine what the person may do in a particular scenario that we conjure up in our minds.

But for some reason, this power to hypothesize seems to be very difficult if not impossible for the majority of believers, even for believers that claim they were once atheists. They just seem incapable of imagining a world without a god. I have met some who feel that even putting that thought in their head for a split second would be a severe insult to the god they serve.  Since they can't make that theological leap into the hypothetical, they assume we also can't.

So, whenever we mention anything about a god,  they believe that we actually believe in that god. Any slander against his character is a slander against a real entity. Blasphemy for them is not a victimless crime.  But their god is safe, because even if he exists, we atheists have never seen him, so we certainly won't be able to find him to hurt, maim or kill him.

One of the things that is troubling about this widespread notion that atheists hate god, is that it demonstrates a barrier to many believers' ability to empathise with us. In all aspects of  life one of the most important things to be able to do is to show empathy. Through being able to imagine what it would be like to be the other person we are speaking to, we are more easily able to relate and provide the right response, or engage in the behaviour that is more likely to help that person.

It's not always easy to be able to fully empathize with a person or concept foreign to us, but I think we have an obligation to try, so that we can bridge the gap a bit. I can imagine what it might be like to be white, gay, a woman, an elderly person, a professional athlete, a starving infant or a middle aged man diagnosed with a terminal illness. Doesn't mean that I immediately can become an expert on those things by just thinking about it, but I can often come to an understanding or at least learn to ask the right questions when I think of something that I really can't get my head around.

By imagining what it is like to be gay doesn't mean I will suddenly start being attracted to  men, thinking of being a woman isn't going to make me start ovulating overnight and imagining what I might be like to be laden with a terminal illness isn't going to cut my life expectancy in half.

However, when I talk to theists and ask them to imagine what it might be like to be an atheist like me, there are often unable to do it. They say that the idea is just too far 'out there'. But why should that be a problem? I can imagine myself being a lot of things that are 'out there'. I can imagine I am an alien living on another planet coming down to investigate and probe humans. Why can I do that and my theists friends not make the relatively tiny intellectual leap to imagine what it would be like to not believe in god like me?  Why can't they walk in my shoes for a block or two? I am not telling them they have to keep the shoes on for life. Just a brief walk around to see whether or not the shoes are super comfortable or pinch around the toes.

The fact that most of them can't do that is telling. And I think that is a definite indication that the indoctrination and brain washing is deep. People's minds have been so closed off, that they can't become an atheist even for the sake of argument. It's unfortunate, because that creates a barrier to understanding our position. It explains why we so often get questions from them during our discussions that just don't make sense. Why they are often talking to straw men rather than talking to us.

It's the reason why they can't see the absurdity of using the bible to prove the bible.
It's the reason why they don't see that it's ridiculous to try to convince an atheist to have faith by telling her that without faith it is impossible to please god.
It's why they can only see our non belief in god as a denial of a god that we know in our heart is true.

The fact is that the best most believers can do when talking to us is put themselves in the position of a believer pretending to be an atheist. That's are far as their powers of hypothetical thinking can take them on this topic. So the questions we get are the questions they would pose to a person who believes like them but is trying to convince themselves that they actually believe the opposite.

It would be like if a man tried to understand a woman by assuming that the woman he was speaking with was actually a man like him, only trying to believe that she was of a different gender.

With this in mind I came up with an example of such a  HYPOTHETICAL  interview between Simon (a confused man) and Jenny, a self proclaimed woman in a HYPOTHETICAL world where the prevailing view is that gender differences are a myth and that all humans are either men or people who try to deny that they are men.  I call this fictional interview 'Why do 'women' hide their penises?'

Why do 'women' hide their penises?: The Hypothetical Interview

Confused Man (CM): I am confused. What made you decide that you are a woman? Could you please explain?  Why do you go around trying to deny that you have a penis ? Why do you self proclaimed women spend your whole lives trying to hide your penises? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Self Proclaimed Woman (SPW) : It's pretty simple really. From the time I was a kid I was told by my parents and everybody around me that I had a penis. I just accepted it to be true, even though I never saw evidence for the existence of such an organ on my body. For years and years I kept looking and looking, waiting for a penis to show up on my anatomy as promised, but it never did. One day I just  came to the conclusion that I really didn't have a penis. It was hard at first, but I thought it was important to embrace the reality that it wasn't there. Ever since that day I have identified as a woman.

CM: So, just because you looked and haven't found a penis yet, you came to the conclusion that there is no penis on your body? Did you really look hard enough? Can you honestly say that you have searched every millimetre of your body? When was the last time that you did a complete body search? How do you know it didn't become visible a minute ago? There are some parts of your body that your eyes can't see. There are some parts of your body that your hand can't reach. How do you know that your penis isn't located in one of these out-of-the-way crevices? The way I see it, you can't prove with absolute certainty that you don't have a penis.

SPW: That may be so, but I think it is very unlikely that my penis is located in one of those out-of-the-way places. I would need some strong evidence to believe that my penis is any of those locations. I have no reason to believe it would be and without any evidence pointing to that possibility, the most reasonable conclusion for me to come to, is that it's not there. Why is it so hard for you to accept that I am really not a man?

CM: This may come across as harsh, but I honestly don't believe in the existence of women. There are only people who claim to be women. Men who choose to deny their manhood or who have been deceived by 'the enemy' to believe that their manhood isn't there. The book of peneology makes it clear to all mankind. There is no such think as gender. Our Lord Testiculus has placed the mark of the penis on every human body.

SPW: Peneology is a myth. The reality of gender that we see all around us clearly shows that the words of Testiculus are false. I don't set my beliefs according to that ancient book, science has long since proven those old beliefs about a genderless universe false.

CM: (Gasp) Are you telling me you deny the words of Testiculus? You really have to have some balls to do that.

SPW: Yes, of course I don't believe in Testiculus. Read any book about chromosomes and reproductive organs and you would see the truth too.

CM: Oh my God! You're a genderologist! Do you really believe that propaganda that you came from a mutation? Those liberal universities really brainwash you young people. Sadly, you have been taken in by the religion of embryology.

SPW:  It's not propaganda it's scientific fact! Based on evidence!

CM: Ok, I can see you're very set in your views. Even if Testiculus came down from the heavens now and showed you his holy appendages you wouldn't change your mind. Let's move on.

Have you ever found anything on your body that you even once thought might have been a penis? You can't tell me that there isn't at least one time in your life that you felt something that might have been that hidden organ.

SPW: Well there was one time that I was exploring my body and I came across something that for a moment made me think I might have one.

CM: I knew it! You do believe! Deep down inside you know your penis is there!

SPW: No, I did some investigating and deep down inside me, what I was feeling was my clitoris. It wasn't a penis. It was too small to be that.

CM: A clitoris? Are you sure?

SPW: Yes.

CM: No. What you felt was a penis. I am sure. You said it was too small to be a penis. But that's a mistake that many of you self proclaimed women make. You see pictures of penises in magazines or porn sites that show all penises as large and long. So you start to look for penises that look like that. But that was your error, you were looking for the wrong type of penis.You didn't find a penis that looked like the ones you were exposed to in popular media, so you assumed that no penis existed on your body. Just because you didn't find THAT penis on your body doesn't mean that ALL penises are absent from your body.

SFW: That's ridiculous, the clitoris is inside my vagina. It's a totally different  from the penis.

CM: You and your genderology indoctrination again. Why are you so keen to hide your penis? I don't get it. Whatever the evidence you find,  you always  go out of your way to seek out the non peneological explanation.

SFW: But peneology has nothing to support it except for ancient writings. Surely the logical thing to do is to go with the explanation and descriptions found through science. It's not like I am making a predetermined decision to deny peneology or the fact that I have a penis. If I found a penis on my body tomorrow I won't deny its existence,

CM: Really? That's interesting because I still don't think you have done all you could have to find that penis. I mean, have you ever got down on your knees and begged the Lord Testiculus to reveal your penis to you? I urge you to try it.  Try Testiculus, you won't be disappointed.

SPW: No, I am not going to do that.

CM: Why not?

SPW: Because I don't believe in Testiculus. If my penis is there, there should be some good evidence for it. Why should I have to beg Testiculus to reveal to me a penis that he has already supposedly bestowed on me openly? It just doesn't make sense.

CM: Let me explain. Testiculus has given you free will,  but you have used that free will to turn away from him and reject belief in all possible penises, you have indeed become an a-prostate. This a-prostatecy has blinded you so much that you are now unfortunately unable to see your penis in all its glory.

Anyway, let's move on to my other questions.  Without a penis how does your life have worth? How do you find pleasure?

SPW: Believe me, I can find pleasure in more ways than you could ever dream of.

CM: Nonsense,  I know what my penis does for me!  I know from personal experience that having a penis is great! It's got me through so many hard times. Do you want me to tell you about all the occasions when my penis has given me ............

SPW: No, it's fine. I don't need all the details. I get the point. Your penis is important to your life, I would never try to take that away from you. I am not saying that you don't have one, I am just saying that I don't have one but I am absolutely fine.

CM: I still find that very difficult to believe. It's not just about pleasure. I mean, without a
penis where does your sense of urination come from?

SPW: Again I  can tell you, I don't need a penis for that. I know it's really difficult for you to understand, but we women can do all the things you men do and we don't need your organ to do it. You really don't need a penis to pee.

CM: I am telling you, it's just because you haven't found your penis yet. Once you find it your life will be transformed immediately, I guarantee it. Thousands of testimonies from people all over the world speak to the might of Testiculus and the transformational power of the penis.

But moving on. I must at least give you a compliment. I can see you have a considerable amount of courage about your conviction and you are more than capable of standing up for your beliefs.

SPW: Well thank you sir! * statement made dripping with obvious sarcasm which nonetheless is completely missed by confused man*

CM: In fact I am sure many would say you have testicular fortitude.

SPW: Of course.

CM: And tell me how can you have testicular fortitude if you have no penis or testicles! Ha! Checkmate genderologist!

SPW: That's just an idiomatic expression. Doesn't speak to anything in reality. It's like how I might say, " Oh my God!"

CW:  Oh my God? How dear you take our Lord' s name in vain.  I just hope Testiculus is merciful to you when it comes to the day of judgement.

SPW: That sounds like a veiled threat.

CW: No it's not. I just love you and don't want you to suffer due to your choice to deny that you have a penis.

SPW: For the final time. I am telling you. I do not have a penis! Don't have one, never had one, never will. And in spite of not having one I have a healthy, happy and contented life and there are billions in the world like me. We have purpose without a penis!

CM:  I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. There is just no getting around your non-peneological worldview. It's quite sad really. Maybe one day Testiculus will reveal to me why you are the way you are. Then I may be able to answer this big question that has baffled mankind for centuries. Why do  'women' hide their penises?

(End of Interview)

Now, if you found that hypothetical interview absurd, silly or ridiculous, you now understand how it sounds when people ask us atheists why we vehemently deny the existence of a god, that we know deep within our hearts is real.

Charlie Hebdo, terrorism and freedom of expression: How theism distorts the dialogue

May 2013 Calgary CFI protest in support of Bangladeshi atheist bloggers.
The more things change the more they remain the same.

Well it didn't take long. Barely a week into 2015 and once again the impact of religious beliefs and irrational behaviours that can follow as a consequence, were on display for us all to see. The attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris served as a reminder, as if we needed it, of the horrors that can occur when fanatic religious beliefs get out of hand. To add even more injury to insult, we recently heard the story of Raif Badawi, the Saudi Arabian blogger who is as I write this serving his sentence of a public flogging of 1000 lashes.

These two pieces of news immediately reminded me of the protest we had in Calgary in 2013, where some of us  marched in support of atheist bloggers in Bangladesh who were at that time facing persecution for their writings. That situation then was by no means as severe as the mass murders committed in Paris were, but nonetheless it was part of the overall problem we are plagued with whether through blogs, cartoons or badly produced movies. The idea is that there are some ideas, well at least one idea that has special immunity from criticism or ridicule.

As is usual in these moments, two basic perspectives came to the fore after the Charlie Hebdo massacre.  One condemning the action but also reminding us that we should respect the  religious beliefs that others may hold dear. The other set proclaiming that free speech must prevail, that no ideas should lie beyond the pail of being challenged. From my photo above and the fact that I too  regularly challenge beliefs in this blog and beyond, it shouldn't be hard to ascertain in which camp I stand.

The other discussion that came up once again,  was the extent to which religion or Islam has played in the atrocity we have just witnessed. In my experience, those outside Islam scoff at the idea that things like a belief in a saviour Jesus or a commandment bearer in chief like Moses could have anything to do with Mohammed's followers' violence.

Within Islam there are attempts to disassociate the more moderate members from the radicals at the extreme end. We hear the following comments.

 "Not all muslims are like that!'

" You shouldn't paint the whole group with one brush!"

" Most Muslims are peaceful people who respect others of different faiths and beliefs and abide by the laws in the societies in which they live."

There is also the common narrative about Muslims going to grocery stores or owning a bakery at the end of a street, speaking fearfully about the backlash they are worried about as people put them into the category of 'terrorist' without a second thought. I understand these type of responses within Muslim communities and others internationally who value the rich diversity of religious beliefs as much as they love the variety of species in a wildlife reserve.

I agree that when it comes to issues of terrorism, our emphasis should be first and foremost on those who are directly responsible for the evil acts. You can't hold those who have not pulled a trigger, brandished a knife, detonated a car bomb or piloted a plane into a tower responsible for the blood of the hundreds and thousands. But far too often while looking at direct causes after these much highlighted cases of terror, we are as quick to exonerate institutions with influence as we are to condemn individuals who commit the acts.


Never a single cause: Underlying systems are often at the root

Tragedies and terrorism:
Always direct and indirect causes

In any tragedy there are direct and indirect causes. When a plane crashes, the investigation will usually lead to figuring out the direct cause.  Perhaps it's a fire on board, a pilot error, a mechanical failure or a problem with something in the communication system.

But it doesn't end there. In trying to ensure that these kinds of things don't happen again, they look at the whole process, the overall management of the airline,  the systems of maintenance on the ground, the relevant aviation regulations and the overall governance structures. This is not to say that the CEO, president or prime minister can be held responsible for a rookie pilot  ditching an aircraft into the ocean at 2 am in the morning. But the point is that in a tragedy like that, there are a number of stakeholders throughout the system, from the designer of the plane right down to to the co-pilot. We have to pay attention to all these actors and associated networks if we want to be sure that air safety is not compromised in years to come.

When it comes to air crashes, the public doesn't seem to be resistant to the practice of looking at all aspects of the system in the aftermath of an accident. However, when fatal crashes occur as a result of religious fanaticism,  millions are quick to jump up and say it wasn't me, it wasn't you, it wasn't us, it wasn't them,  it wasn't this, it 't wasn't that.

But we do ourselves no favours if we immediately try to assume that the secondary factors are irrelevant or of little relevance. The thing about systemic causes, is that they very rarely come down to the fault of an individual or even a single group of people. It's an ideology, an established rule, norm or a way of thinking that can lead to problems right down the chain.  In the case of an airline, there may be a practice of skimping on cost that leads to reduced safety or a culture where subordinates do not feel confident enough to speak up to a captain when they discover an error made by their superior. There are indeed examples where such systemic failures were identify in an airline's management system and there have been improvements made since.

Religion in general and Islam specifically are systems, which include beliefs, widely held ideologies, laws and cultural practices. These have developed and evolved over the centuries and have been influenced by a multitude of people. But whenever these things are criticized, some people immediately leap to stop you because your criticism of a system is seen as personal attack for all who follow or are in any way connected. The result is that those of us who are sensitive about not offending others, back off from the criticism of the system so as to avoid accusations of directly attacking individuals.

In looking at most if not all the atrocities committed as a result of fanatics in the last few years, I see theism being a significant and perhaps the most significant systemic problem that runs through. Notice I am saying that the systemic problem is theism and not religion. The key issue in my view is the general promotion of the idea that a god exists. This may be surprising to many. I know it is often thought that it is organized systems of faith that are the problem. Generic, nebulous god beliefs or acceptance of a higher power and a  spiritual dimension are often thought to be benign. However,  I think these ideas  all play a part in the system of thinking that makes Charlie Hebdo and the numerous other horrific acts of terror a reality.

I hope it is clear by now that I am not saying that each individual that believes in a god of some kind has blood on her hands when a suicide bomber decides to strike.  It's similar to how I am of the opinion that the sharp decline in the performance of West Indies cricket in the last twenty years relates to general problems within the mindset and psyche of Caribbean people. That does not mean that it's the personal fault of anybody with roots in Barbados, Jamaica or Trinidad when we get bowled out for 86 or our bowlers get caned by South Africa for a score of 439 for 2. Still, in as much as those of us in and from the Caribbean contribute and influence culture, we can and do play a part in the system and can explore ways in which we can help to improve things overall.

Hopefully, that illustrates the point, but let's take a closer look at how theism plays into so much of the bad stuff that happens.

Persons who believe in some kind of god or 'higher power' in the universe tend to believe the following


1. He/she/it  is all powerful or at least far more powerful than all humans that have ever lived combined. 

2. He/she/it  is all knowing or at least has knowledge far beyond the combined knowledge of all humans who ever lived.

3.  He/she/ it  is all loving or at the very least works in the best interest of humanity and generally looks out for our welfare far more than any human individual or institution does or can.

4. He/ she/ it has revealed itself in some way that those that experience the revelation can be sure that the entity exists and have at least a good idea of what that entity wants from them and all of us.

5. He/she/ it is the source of everything in life and is the ground of their entire being. 

None of these beliefs necessarily point to a specific belief in bible, koran, torah or any particular holy writing. Nor do they necessarily indicate that the believer aligns with any particular church. Indeed many religious people who will identify as non denominational, 'spiritual but not religious' or just feel that there is 'something out there' will have these five beliefs indicated.

Now if you are convinced such a god exists and has these characteristics, it makes sense to listen to what the god says and let it override your own thinking. If you know there is a being out there that can think much better than you can, see the consequences of your actions better than you or anyone else could ever do and is looking out for you better than anyone ever would, why would you not simply follow that entity, that deity, that saviour, that higher power? I know I would. If I knew for certain there was a god out there like that, I would totally lay down my own reason to follow him, her or it. Just on the basis of characteristics 1 to 3 alone.

If I am to logically follow what my beliefs suggest, I will harm or even kill others if I am convinced that is what the god I believe in wants me to. There is no room for me to use my own reason to override the message, because as can be seen from my five step belief system, my own reasoning and even the reasoning of any human being in no way compares to that of my 'super god'.

Of course many believers will say that the god that they believe in never would suggest killing innocent people. But how can they be so sure? After all, they would be suggesting their knowledge is equal to or greater than their god to presume that they know what their god would or would not do.

The big problem with people who have this super god belief, however undefined, is that it completely obscures discussions had with people who don't have a 'super god' belief. I know from experience that some will assume they can trump you in any argument because your views and opinions are only those of 'man' weak, puny, fallible, ignorant 'man'. No way that even the best humans can in any way compare to god. Even the bible says that the wisdom of man is no where near the 'foolishness of god'. So in effect what we have in discourse of most topics is an unfair advantage given to those that have this 'super god' backing. The debate becomes distorted in favour of believers. As atheists, without that god to turn to as our source, we are forced to back up all of our positions with some kind of rational argument. We have to do all the heavy lifting. We cannot as the theist do, claim god revelation or faith knowledge when our reason tank runs out of logic fuel.

With god in the discourse you distort the dialogue

In a world where logic and reasoning are generally not seen as the end all, skeptics obligation to justify all their arguments with reason can be quite a disadvantage in the public square. Arguments in defence of faith ahead of reason are given through statements like the following.

 'science doesn't know everything'
'you can't put god in a test tube'
'sometimes we need to go beyond logic and listen to the heart'
'humans are not just molecules in motion'
'sometimes faith and hope is what really matters'
'some things just can't be solved by equations'
' if you know something from personal experience no one can take that away from you'.
'you can't prove that miracles aren't real just because you haven't seen one'

These kinds of arguments allow for religious beliefs to get through without having to go through the level of rigour for acceptance that other beliefs do. The result is that there is no filter for bad religious beliefs in the way they are for bad secular beliefs. A bad idea from science and secularism will be tossed away by reason. A bad idea from a religion will be propped up by tradition, mystery and the 'heart of the believer'. Without god as part of the dialogue, all ideas would begin on equal footing and would be fairly assessed on their own merits.  Unfortunately we don't live in such a godless utopia. In our world, once a 'super god' stands behind one idea, that equity is shattered and the god idea not the good idea rises to the top of the pile.

The only way to stop this from happening is to aim to create a world where theism is not the default position. Where ideas, ALL ideas have to pass through the same filter in order to gain acceptance by the masses. The fact that people are moved to not offend Islam is because the reason for the sanction is seen as coming from god itself. If the argument was made that images should not be drawn because of tradition, culture, laws or any other factor, people would not be moved to adhere at all cost. But as soon as the words of 'my god said so' is in there, there is an immediate feeling that respect is needed even if the person moved to show the respect does not believe or ascribe to the god being touted.

The reason why? Most people have some kind of god belief themselves and want to hold on to it. They realize that if they don't respect another person's faith theirs will one day face the same consequences. So once theism remains the default, respect for and reluctance to criticize religions will stay. This means religious beliefs will stay in spite of their lack of supporting evidence. Once religious beliefs stay, some form of fundamentalist strands will stay and once those fundamentalist strands stay, terrorism and other Charlie Hebdos will keep coming.

Need to cut that umbilical cord: Belief must be separate from believer

Notwithstanding all that I have said, there is one factor ( #5 in the list above) that makes addressing religious beliefs a gargantuan challenge. It is the idea of the god (whatever that is) being the source or the ground of all your being. Many of us in the atheist camp don't have much of an idea what that means. But to the theist it usually means that god is part of everything of who they are, as essential to their continuing existence as the air that they breathe. That kind of belief makes a link between the belief and the believer that is nearly impossible to sever.

The link to the god becomes like the umbilical cord to the unborn fetus. Cut that link and death would be instantaneous.
This is what makes religious beliefs so pernicious. It's not so much that they are irrational and toss up ideas which quite simply don't comport to reality, it is the fact that they embed themselves completely with the personal identity of the believer. Even people who don't subscribe to belief in any specific religion still tend to believe that their 'god' is at the root of their existence and they would be nothing without him.

This idea is responsible for the argument that we often hear in atheist/ theist debates that says that science, knowledge, morality and our very ability to reason could not be possible without a divine provider. Extrapolating from this, any criticism of the creator is like biting off the hand of the one who feeds you. So we atheists get caught in this trap where before we even open our mouths in a debate, whatever we have to say is deemed automatically null and void in the minds of certain believers.

Belief in a god is only an idea

So how do we change things? How do we begin to separate those beliefs out from those who hold them clasped so tightly? The first thing I think we need to do is to remind people that all god beliefs are 'ideas'.

The placard I am holding in the demonstration above states that, " Ideas don't need rights, people do"

However, so long as people don't see their faith as an idea, these messages will not have the impact that we would like. We don't have to attack the idea of god, we don't have to go out of our way to say it is bad or doesn't make sense. We just have to emphasize the point that it is an idea about the world that some people hold and some people don't. As an idea it is not something that should define who a person is, their nationality, family identity, level of intelligence or moral character. It's just an idea to  be brought to the table for consideration. And ideas are always good in so far as they push the dialogue forward and  cause us to explore something valuable that we may not have considered before.

We must nonetheless not forget that god beliefs as ideas have to go through the same process as all ideas do. They don't get special privilege because there is a 'super god' inside. The super powers of your god idea have no more power to take your belief into the mainstream than Superman or any ideas conceived in the minds of DC comics can make Krypton into a real planet.

So you have to be ready to have your beliefs scrutinized, criticized and lampooned just like all the others. It's not a matter of faith being picked on. Just like other ideas, people proposing religious ideas have all opportunity to defend them, show those who push them aside why they are wrong for doing so. We as atheist have to do this all the time. When some theists laugh at our idea that the universe could come from nothing or that even the bacteria in a sewage plant are our distant cousins, we don't get mad or violent or seek to have large world media outlets protect our deeply held beliefs from being mocked. We simply attempt to explain in as clear a way as we can, why what seems ridiculous at the outset can actually be reasonable when we look deeper. All we are asking is for people who bring god ideas to do the same. If a god idea could be backed up with reasonable evidence and logic it would be treated with the same seriousness as any ideas proposed by Darwin, Einstein or Newton that have made their way into the realm of scientific fact.

The key point for the religious to recognize is that there is no double standard here. Ridiculous ideas outside of religion are also ripe for being satirized and mocked. The difference is that other ideas that don't make sense in other realms are laughed off the stage early, as those that bring them up see the logic crumble right in front their eyes.

God ideas however survive for much longer, as those who promote them try to ensure that they never have to go up in front of a critical audience even as they seek critical acclaim. But you can't hide ideas from the impact of skeptical  minds forever, and it's better to test them in small open venues before your ideas go on to get laughed off of the world stage.

Maybe if Mohammed is given a chance to take his stand up before his critics more often in years to come, our grandchildren may one day truly be able to say that all is forgiven.

Doesn't the truth matter?

I have observed an interesting change over the years as I have continued my discussions of theological matters with theists. In the early days I got inundated with arguments for why the universe testifies to God's existence.

 'Look at the birds, the trees, the planets, pretty flowers and beautiful sunsets.' 

These I call the 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' argument for God. Many Christians just consider these signs of a god obvious and are often flummoxed when non believers push back and say that these things prove nothing. The existence of the universe is evidence for the existence of the universe, nothing more, nothing less. No, you don't need a creator. Just because you call it a creation doesn't make it so.

As my friends that are Christians have become more and more aware of the weakness and the circularity of saying that God's creation proves God and that God's existence is proven through his creation,  they've changed tact. They have switched to the 'Well, if it helps people it can't be bad, right? ' argument. What I call the 'utility' argument for belief in God that many refer to as belief in 'belief'. 

People will say that religion has a record of motivating people to do good, keeping people from harming others, giving people a sense of purpose and reassuring them of a better life in the great beyond to keep them from falling into the desolation here on earth.

So many times I have been asked what I intend to replace religion with once I have stripped it away. I have been told over and over again that people need something to believe in, something to hold on to.These are all valid points and issues that are certainly open to debate. But what people don't realise when they present me these arguments is that they are reinforcing to me that the God they believe in doesn't exist.  With every appeal to how belief in their God is helpful it becomes clear they have no good argument to put on the table for why their God is real.

Surely the strongest defence you can bring for holding on to a particular belief is that the belief is true. If Christians could clearly demonstrate that, there would be no reason to go on to all these secondary arguments for faith. 

In no other area of life do we spend time debating whether it is better to spread belief in a lie rather than the truth. I have never attended or read about any international conferences that have been held to discuss whether we should opt for reassuring lies over difficult truths because it might be better for people.

No one argues that we should work to suppress the truth about Ebola, AIDS or Chikingunya because it would reassure people that they live in a healthy world. In those cases, we recognize the far greater dangers we will face if we don't deal with reality head on.

No one is setting up missionary trips to push universal belief in Santa Claus because the idea of an omniscient saint who knows when 'you've been bad or good' and rewards you accordingly would help to keep kids all over the globe in line. Nobody as far as I know has made it their goal to seek to extend this delightful delusion into the over 20s so that grown ups around us will cut down on their naughtiness too.

Indeed, if what matters in faith is how we are led to behave or how it makes us feel, why don't we just construct a religion to have all those elements we want? We could make religions that speak  about how to treat technology and the importance of minimizing climate change, we could author new 'holy books'  with commandments about not texting and driving or how to invest wisely. If usefulness is what matters and pragmatism is what it's all about, why don't we just dive right in and come up with a 'create a religion' app that works on all platforms, ensures the  optimum in behaviour of us all and equality in treatment right across society with no 'us' versus 'them'?

So why DON'T we do that? The truth is that truth does matter to believers.
I don't think I have ever attended any religious service anywhere where I have not heard the word 'truth'  uttered at sometime or another.

At my church I  used to hear about 

The TRUTH of the gospel.

The TRUTH of Jesus' sacrifice for all mankind

The TRUTH of salvation

The TRUTH of everlasting life

Here in Calgary there is a church that even has the audacity to call is self simply 'Truth Church'.

Hank Haanegraph who runs the 'Bible Answer Man' podcast has as his tagline ' Because the truth matters.'

Yes, religion's huge selling point is TRUTH. Each of them has it and they do everything to convince you that YOU need to know it. That's their big marketing strategy. They are selling TRUTH, of course whether people buy it is a different matter altogether.  But once they get a few customers, they can usually survive. Churches know full well that they would not have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving without playing the ' We have the ONE truth' game.

Don't ask don't tell: Keeping congregations in the dark

When I point this out to believers of different types, they tend to object. They tell me that their faith is not about certainty, that they question their pastors regularly and that they grapple with doubts and it's not fair to lump them in with the fundamentalists who say that they know for sure. That's all well and good, but the layers of doubts and uncertainties come from those in the pew not from those in the pulpit. 

How many times have you heard a preacher even in the most liberal of churches go up to a pulpit and speak about his or her doubts or doubts that exist within the doctrine he or she is promoting?  And of course they will never ever talk about doubts of the existence of the God they are preaching about. But why not? In other areas of life people often speak about the arguments out there in society against their positions and actually ADDRESS THEM! Any scientist positing a hypothesis that does not speak about the objections of others in the field to it is not taken seriously. Why are those in churches so happy to let their leaders get away without responding to the points of those raised from other sides?

For every religion in the world there are more people that reject that doctrine than accept it. No denomination can lay claim to having more than 50% of the world's population. Yet the existence of gods being preached about are spoken about as if they are as clear to humans as the existence of the sun. 

There are doubts about the authorship of the gospels, historical accuracy of the exodus, the crucifixion story and as Richard Carrier would tell you, even the existence of Jesus himself. Many priests especially those that went to  top theological colleges are well aware of these doubts and controversies among scholars but will not dare speak of them to their congregations. They withhold the truth even as they go out of their way to proclaim to all and sundry that they speak only in its name. 

They know that the Genesis stories are ancient Jewish myths. They know that the talking snakes, magic gardens and floating zoos are as real as any of Aesop's fables. They also know that their congregations by and large,  buy these stories literally. When atheists like me come along to talk to their faithful and break the news that it's mythical and not mystical, they think we non-believers are the crazy ones. I am sure they would have a heart attack to know that very likely the views of their pastors  align much more with my perspective than theirs.

It's hard to live with the fact that the group of people that follow the word 'TRUTH' so much forsake it so often. 
When I went to Anglican churches, the supposed leaders of the liberal, I heard them say that 'This IS the word of the Lord'  not ' This may be' or 'this might be' or ' this could be.' 

So truth does matters to religious people, that's why they join religions in the first place. They like the comfort that certainty brings. It's also the reason that many of them feel uncomfortable about leaving religion and being atheists or agnostic. When we say we don't know it scares them. It's just not good enough, they have to put their money on the people who 'KNOW'. But saying you know doesn't mean you do any more than me saying I am a millionaire results in a six figure deposit being lodged in my savings account.

Indeed, if churches were more honest about the limits of their knowledge I might still be attending them today. If only they would stay something like this 

" We come here on Sundays because we value the social support we give each other and the love that is shared among us. We respect the tradition from which our faith has emerged but recognize that the truth claims made are dubious at best and many of the claims are plain ridiculous in light of the scientific knowledge of the 21st century. However, we think that there are certain basic teachings that come along with our faith tradition that are beneficial both to individuals and society and we choose to focus on these principles as we seek to make a better world for ourselves and everyone we may influence or come into contact with.'

Now that is a church I could get behind. That would be a real 'Truth Church' . Truthful about what it knows and what it doesn't. Recognising that the true value of the congregation is in the people and the solidarity and support that could be given. The funny thing is, is that you will hear this type of statement from church people quite often   but usually only when the truth claims they start by affirming have been torn apart. 

Preachers don't talk about doubts because they know if they did their church would be empty in a few weeks. Believers aren't looking for 'ifs', 'buts', 'maybes' or 'on the other hands'. It's all about what IS. 

But it's not fair for churches to be able to go about catching their prey through a classic 'bait and switch'. They reel you in with unreal  'truth talk'  and then keep you there with an ' It makes you feel better'  appeal. That's dishonest. If you are selling your beliefs based on 'truth' then you have to back up with arguments that speak to 'truth'. How it makes you feel inside or the purpose it gives you in your life are irrelevant to what's real.

Useful? Only if you make yourself believe the unbelievable

I know after all this talk, there will still be a few who will prefer to take that 'fantasy' pill. The one that works and tastes good too. The thing is that when you look at it, all these cited benefits of 'belief'  are only helpful if you believe. And to believe in a religion like Christianity you have to suspend reason, attempt to believe the unbelievable and claim to comprehend the incomprehensible. Convincing yourself of facts that you know that you would reject out of hand in any other context, ultimately unthinking your way out of reality. How useful is that really?

Conversing with believers: 15 things to NOT let them get away with.

Some call me a glutton for punishment, others tell me I must have been born with some type of martyr complex. Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Baha'is, Mormons, New Agers, whatever, once invited I just get in there and engage in the verbal jousting.

People don't understand why, but I usually enjoy it. I like listening to people who bring different faith angles to me, even if it is just to learn a little bit more about another irrational way of thinking. Sometimes people see my engagement as an opening to get me to their brand of belief. On the contrary, I regard a chance to bring my doubt and skepticism as an opportunity to chip away at some of those 'eye of a needle' sized cracks that may be hiding somewhere in the crevices of their faith armour.

Whatever the nature of the exchange, inevitably there are some 'sleight of hand' techniques that the believer tries to slip past my logic shield. Many times I am able to spot these and deal with them before they cause trouble later on, but little morsels of irrationally get through here and there.

Whenever I leave after having discussions with believers, I do a post mortem.

'Why didn't I challenge him on that?'

'How could I let her get away with that?'

Yes, there is always something I could have said, would have said, should have said even if I have outplayed an opponent.  When I am debating with a theist I don't take comfort from a victory. The battle is primarily against myself. I am trying to just do a better job than I did last time. Learn from any mistakes until I successfully hone my craft.

Still, the idea of practising until perfect is not always enough. In a discussion you can get distracted, go down an unnecessary rabbit hole that obscures the issue, or simply succumb to raw fatigue, because theists can easily wear you down by talking around in never ending circles. Sometimes the fallacies they spout are coming at you as fast as the water that gushed from the rivers here in Calgary last week and you just can't keep up with all the nonsense.

After all the hours of talking with these believers of all stripes, I thought it was about time I produced something useful to other non believers that occasionally try to engage theists in debate. I wanted to develop a resource for those brave secular warriors who take the challenge of boldly going forth into frontiers where reason may never have gone before.

That's what this post is all about. Yes, the blog today is designed as a support for atheists.  In some ways it is a note to self, a reference document to glance at during a debate to make sure I don't miss any of the contradictory, illogical or downright silliness that may be presented when I am trying to wrap up a marathon conversation at 1:00 in the morning, or terminate a discussion over an early breakfast that has morphed into lunch.

It's by no means exhaustive, but below is a list of 15 major things that I want to urge you atheists out there to NOT let believers get away with.


15 things to NOT let them get away with

1. Don't let them get away with saying their holy book has no contradictions.

The way I intend to deal with this one in the future is to ask them if their 'holy book' has any gods in it.  If the answer is 'yes' then their claim dies right there. For gods by nature are contradictory. Once the god of the text has powers to act in nature yet can't be established by investigating nature, he is a contradiction. Once he can give you free will while still having full control of what you can do through an unalterable plan, he is a contradiction. No need for further investigation,


2. Don't let them get away with saying you haven't brought any new arguments. 

The validity of an argument has nothing to do with how long it has been tossed around. They keep bowling the same balls at us over and over again, so it is unsurprising that we play the same strokes time after time. The arguments we make are as poignant today as there were 100 or 1000 years ago.  Arguments do not have expiry dates like cartons of milk nor do they become obsolete like last years laptops or smartphones. Arguments remain valid for as long as there has been no successful defence against them.

3. Don't let them get away with making up their own definitions. 

There is nothing that theists like to play with more than definitions. It's like a slinky that they roll, twist, slide, press and pull to get whatever shape they want. Almost every word in the world of faith has an unclear definition, 'spirit', 'faith', 'worship', 'holy','transcendent', 'metaphysical', even 'God'. The definitions slip around continuously.

Consider that in Islam, a Muslim is defined as 'someone who submits to God.'  Muslims will go on to point out that we know from the bible that Jesus submitted to God. Therefore Jesus was a Muslim. QED.

Yes just like that, the Christian's saviour gets sacrificed to Islam through a definition with whom only Muslims have a personal relationship. We have to let Muslims and other religionists understand that they can't go off in the corner and make up their own definitions. If they persist we'll just join them in the game too.

Since by atheists' definition, there is no such thing as a 'true god', everyone who believes in a God is not believing in the 'true God.' Therefore all Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus and other believers  are  atheists. They are all like us, non followers of the 'true God'. Wow! That was easy. I think it's time to re-evaluate  and inflate our numbers.

4. Don't let them get away with saying that the people who wrote their holy book were 'righteous' or 'noble' men or women whose word can be trusted.

This is laughable, but you wouldn't believe how many times that believers in different religions have told me this with a straight face. 'Righteous' and 'noble' people are indeed usually less trustworthy than the masses they represent. Reputations often don't reflect reality, especially when the claims come from their own followers who have something significant to gain from being loyal.

Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Hitler were well respected as 'righteous' and 'noble' by those who followed them at the time. For those on the other side, not so much. Today Mother Theresa is still regarded as a paragon of virtue and goodness by many all over the world. How much is this reputation fairly earned?

5. Don't let them get away with telling you they believe with 100% certainty even though there are things within their religion that they are not sure about.

They say that they are sure about God and then talk to you for half an hour on all the things about God they are not sure about. Contradictions anyone? Refer to item one on this list. Enough said.

6. Don't let them get away with saying they have a faith that's based on evidence and logic.

Oh boy, contradictions they keep a coming. If faith was based on evidence and logic then we wouldn't have to call it faith. To promote 'knowing by faith' as a virtue is to say that the best way to gain knowledge is through absence of knowledge. It is no less absurd than saying that you should pluck out both your eyes in order to attain 20/20 vision or that the best way to became a virtuoso violinist is to go through life making sure you never commit the 'sin' of picking up a bow or plucking on a string.

7. Don't let them get away with assuming that because you accept a claim they make for 'the sake of argument' that you are agreeing to the truth of that claim.

You always have to be careful with this one.  There are so many things wrong with theistic claims, that if you addressed every one during the course of a debate, discussions would probably end up lasting  40 days and 40 nights. So if you are to be effective you have to quickly recognise what points are critical to your objections and which are not. For the sake of argument, you go along with some assumptions because you know even if those patently false assumptions were true their argument would fall flat.

A lot of time theists don't get this and interpret your lack of argument as if it was acceptance. That's why they fool themselves into thinking that atheists en masse accept things like a historical Jesus. Many atheists do not, it's just that whether there was a 'real Jesus' or not is not central to the most important point, which is whether the miracles happened or not. We have to remind them that silence is not consent otherwise they will go away thinking we have conceded far more ground than we actually have.

8. Don't let them get away with saying you can't judge any claims made in their holy book unless you have read the entire book.


This is a classic move by theists. They try to make you feel that your atheism is not really stemming from a lack of belief in God, but rather from  problems you encountered from the specific version of God you grew up with. If only you were exposed to their faith you would be still in the fold of belief.  It is akin to telling somebody you don't like ice cream and they respond by telling you that you just haven't found the right flavour yet. Of course it always happens that they have five or six tubs of this elusive heavenly brand sitting in their refrigerator.

Well, unless you want to end up bumbling about weighing about 800 pounds, you can't spend your life going around the world tasting every ice cream until one titillates your pallet. What the people trying to sell you the faith sweetness don't understand is that it is the principle of faith you're rejecting not any individual belief system.  It wouldn't make sense to keep trying to sell ice cream to someone who has a violent reaction to having a cold tongue. Changing out chocolate for strawberry, banana or 'tootsie frootsie royale' is not going to relieve the suffering.

9. Don't let them get away with claiming that your refusal to consider living by faith is close minded.

It is not. Faith is accepting something without having a reason to do so. It is not difficult to realise that if you accept an answer before you even look at the problem you are far less likely to be right than if you actually look at the problem and work towards an answer. Refusing to accept a proposition through faith is not closed mindedness it's making a decision to actually use your mind.

10. Don't let them get away with saying that depending on reason 100% of the time is just as bad as depending on faith 100% of the time.

Is trying to be good 100% of the time the same as trying to be evil 100% of the time? Again, enough said.

11. Don't let them get away with claiming that the fact you don't reject what they are saying means you accept what they are saying.

This is the old burden of proof mixed with the argument from ignorance fallacy that believers like to exploit. Yes, there are many claims believers make in arguments that I don't outright reject. I don't reject the possibility of the supernatural or an after life, but I am extremely far away from accepting either of these propositions.

12. Don't let them get away with saying you are not like 'all the other atheists'.

This is an underhanded compliment that anybody who is part of a marginalised group can identify with.  It's the 'I Like you' but 'I still want to discriminate the group you belong to' tactic.

Many theists that I have had discussions with have complimented me on my rational discourse but try to maintain that I am some sort of anomaly among non believers.

They claim that unlike me, most of my counterparts are rabid, foaming at the mouth militants ready to pounce on theists due to some childhood trauma they endured for which they are blaming God.We have to let the theists know that for the vast majority of us atheists, reason has been the sole guide to non belief.

13. Don't let them get away with dismissing an argument as irrelevant because they don't understand it.

I often during exchanges with believers point out instances where they have used circular reasoning, tautologies, arguments from ignorance or special pleading. They look back at me blankly. It is clear they have no idea what I am talking about.

This is a frustration. Trying to argue logic without an understanding of logic, is as pointless as going into a workshop without bringing a single tool and expecting to construct a bookshelf a cupboard and a complete dining room set.

I have explained to people that they have manufactured a God whose existence is unfalsifiable and they grin from ear to ear thinking that this is a concession that their God is real. I don't have time to suspend an argument to teach the other person in the conversation the rules of logic. Training needs to be done before you run out on to the field of play.

Often theists use their lack of knowledge to their advantage, just ignoring the arguments that go over their heads. You are required to follow rules of logic in a discussion just as you need to follow the road traffic laws when you drive. In logic just like driving, ignorance of the law is no excuse.

14. Don't let them get away after you debunk a reason they believe in their God by allowing them to say 'well that's not the only reason I believe'.

This is another slippery tactic. As soon as they realize a reason for why they believe in a God doesn't hold water, they quickly shift to the next one on what is always a long list. They can always come up with another reason for believing and they never acknowledge the weakness of the one that you just knocked out of the park.

Invariably the next argument up is just as bad as its predecessor, but for them it doesn't matter, once they can keep spitting out another one and another one and another one into the debate, they think they are holding their own.

Don't let them move on without acknowledging the failure of their previous attempt. Let them know that a string of bad arguments lined up together doesn't get them anywhere. One thousand times zero is still zero.

And finally,

15. Don't let them get away without reminding them that their 'Truth' should have absolutely nothing to fear from your continuing investigation.

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.