SuperSkeptic's World of Doubt

Interview with the skeptic

2007-02-13T00:35:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone.

If you're interested, Wineskins, a Christian e-zine, just published an interview with me.

The interviewee was very respectful throughout the process, and I hope that the interview will help interpersonal relationships between theists and skeptics.

Spinning my wheels

2006-11-19T12:12:00.000-08:00

In the last month or so, I haven't felt like my spiritual journey is getting anywhere. Or -- it's getting ME anywhere. I've fulfilled some desire for myself in writing, and in some form of therapy, and I've met some members of the blogging community that I hope to continue discussions with--but I feel like I personally am no closer to anything than when I began.

Although perhaps my disappointment is with the fact that I remain unconvinced in the Christian God. My beliefs in recent years have drifted closer to Taoism than anything else. Part of me wants to resist Taoism and embrace Christianity, there is really nothing that pulls me closer to the Christian God. Couple that with the enormous hypocrisy of those who call themselves Christian every day--whether it's a national Christian leader or a neighbor or co-worker who says one thing and does another--and I find myself more disillusioned with the Christian community in general, and less and less willing to want to identify myself as Christian.

The Christians who I've met who I think aren't hypocrites have often had bad experiences with the church themselves. Many of them have turned in on themselves and made their religion extremely personal. I guess I've been doing that myself the last few years.

That makes me sad, but it makes me more angry when I attempt to commune with my local Christian communities and feel their hatred towards gays and non-Christians and their willingness to overlook blatent and horrible things their fellow Christians do. It even extends to an unwillingness they have to have a conversation that challenges any of their pre-conceived ideas. (Just try having a conversation on the notion of slavery in the NT with a churchgoer. A local pastor told me the book of Philemon shouldn't really be in NT.)

I find myself smiling and nodding in conversations with them and then wanting to get the hell away from them and go take a shower. Ick.

We all create our own truths, I guess.

Creating your own reality

2006-10-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

One of the things I've realized is that we all make our own realities.

If you're married, you know that every marriage has its challenges. I'm realizing that every time there is something that my wife does that pisses me off, I can ask myself a helpful question, or an unhelpful question.

Unhelpful:
"Why is she trying to piss me off?"

Helpful:
"I know my wife loves me, and she's not trying to piss me off. So what was she trying to accomplish?"

This was very helpful a couple of days ago. We took the kids to a local pumpkin patch where they have all kinds of animals and games and mazes and hayrides--but it was late. I didn't want to go because I thought was too late, and I had to leave on a business trip the next day and wanted to pack. My wife insisted, though, saying we could have dinner there to save time, so we went.

We got there, and it was too late. The barbecue shack that has pretty good food had just closed, and the crappy snack bar was the only thing that was open. We had awful food, my two-year old didn't eat anything, and the sun had set, so we couldn't go on a hayride, or go through and see the farm animals, or have the kids play on any of the rides. Now we were getting the kids to bed late, and I was getting pissed off.

Unhelpful:
"Why doesn't she ever listen to me? She knew it was too late, we had a crappy time, and now we've wasted the whole night."

That was my first thought, but then I thought it through a little, and decided to instead ask myself:

Helpful:
"I know she loves me, so what was she trying to accomplish?"

That was easy to answer. She wanted to spend time as a family together before I left. We go to this pumpkin patch every year, and we've always had fun before, and she wanted to keep our tradition going since Halloween is a week away.

And you know what I realized? We didn't have a crappy time. The kids had a great time. They played on a pumpkin truck, they ran around a little wooden school bus, and they jumped on a big pile of hay for 15 minutes while we were waiting for our crappy food. It didn't matter to them that we didn't get Tri-tip sandwiches at the BBQ shack, or that we didn't get to pick out pumpkins, or that we only spent an hour there.

I was no longer pissed off. I was a little disappointed that we had gotten there so late, but there was nothing at all to be angry about. In fact, I think it may have strengthened our relationship, since I realized that she put a lot of effort into getting us to the pumpkin patch that night.

If I had continued with my Unhelpful Question, I could have found all kinds of evidence to back it up as well. That one time last week when blah blah blah. It's not the evidence that supports the proposition; it's the proposition that supports the evidence.

And then I realized that this is how Bad Things Can Happen and people don't lose their faith. "I know Jesus loves me, so what was He trying to accomplish when my six-year old child died?" We all create our own reality.

Whether or not you are a Christian, it's important to realize that people of all faiths do this. And when they can answer that question, it can even strengthen their faith. "God killed my child so that I could understand the pain He went through when Jesus was on the cross." (For example.) I also suppose this is how people can stay with spouses who abuse them. "My husband hit me because he wants to protect me."

And I suppose that whether or not your religion is the Truth, this can be very Helpful. Are we interested in the Truth, or are we interested in a Helpful life? I am interested in having a healthy marriage with good communication. So I am going to continue asking my Helpful Questions instead of getting angry in my relationship. I suppose there's an argument to be made about the validity of the proposition ("How do you know she loves you and she's not trying to piss you off?"). Well, I don't have all the answers--I don't know why it's important for me to do this with my wife and not with God. (In fact, if I did this with God I'd think I was a bit delusional.)

This kind of thinking, however, is leading me to realize that "evidence" might not be that valid in spiritual matters. Evidence is everywhere if we choose to interpret it in different ways. We all want certainty in spiritual matters, and usually what we've chosen (at that moment, anyway) is what we've convinced ourselves that the evidence supports.

It's our own reality.

Bang, bang, bang

2006-10-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

There are an awful lot of people getting senselessly shot and killed lately. This morning, 4 people, including a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old, were found shot near Port St. Lucie, FL. This is in addition to the Colorado school shooting, and the Amish shooting, and all the newborns dumped in trash cans, and Mark Foley.

On the plus side, Apple will donate $10 of every $199 red iPod nano to an AIDS charity.

God may exist, but He's either 1) not all-powerful, 2) not all-benevolent, or 3) owns a lot of Apple stock.

The slippery slope

2006-09-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

I know many people talk about a "slippery slope" in all kinds of contexts. For me, the slippery slope went like this:

- I went to Bible to find answers to troubling questions.
- Instead of finding answers, I found contradictions, both internally and with the physical world.
- This led to more troubling questions.
- I concluded that the Bible could not logically be 100% accurate.

OK, most liberal Christians admit to this; and most conservative Christians reject much of the teaching and the historical accounts in the Bible even if they don't admit this. But:

- How are we supposed to figure out which parts are true and which ones aren't?
- If God is supposed to inspire us to know, why do so many groups view different parts of the Bible differently? This leads to completely different worship systems and bitterly divides Christians internally.
- If God is supposed to inspire us to know, why do so many parts of the Bible seem to contradict each other?
- I can't answer these questions in any way that makes sense, so I concluded that maybe God isn't supposed to inspire us to know.
- Well, if God isn't supposed to inspire us, how do we know he inspired the writings to begin with?
- Why did God inspire writings with apparent contradictions? If he is all-powerful, how could he allow this to happen? (Forget natural disasters and evil in the world -- why didn't any original documents survive? Why do the earliest and best writings conflict with each other in ways that totally change the Christian worldview? (e.g., the earliest writings leave out the verses that the Trinity is based on).
- I can't answer these questions in any way that makes sense. Natural disasters and evil might be part of God's plan, but creating such chaos around The Word of God makes no sense and there is no reasonable explanation that I have found. So I concluded that maybe God isn't omnipotent.
- If God isn't omnipotent, and he didn't inspire the Bible, then what, exactly, does the real God have to do with the God in the Bible?

There's nothing that proves any of this conjecture, of course, but the physical evidence (including the words of the Bible itself) support the idea that the Bible is not infallible. And if the Bible is erroneous in places, how can anyone conclude that God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent? How can anyone conclude that God is revealed to us accurately in the Bible? How can anyone conclude that the Real God is the same God of the Bible?

I could have stronger faith, I guess, but that would be ignoring evidence of the physical world. Ignoring evidence of the physical world, in my opinion, is admitting that God is trying to trick us. (Kind of like he did with Job.) I guess that could be the case, but if that is so, then God is mean and unjust and not loving. (Well, that would be the OT God, I guess.)

And whether or not God is real, I have no interest in following an unjust, cruel, unloving God, just to get to heaven. A God that delights in pain and suffering does not have morals that line up with what I believe is right. I don't know how I have determined what I think is right, but delighting in pain and suffering ain't it.

The thing that really makes me mad is that many Christians call me "misled" or "ignorant" or "stupid" for thinking like this. "Read the Bible," they'll say. Uh--yeah, that's what got me into this mess in the first place.

Now I know why the old Catholic church said that laymen weren't allowed to read the Bible -- that only clerics could. Yeah: all it takes is an open mind to realize that the Bible is conflicting and inconsistent. It takes a very intelligent person with a gift for persuasion and rhetoric to resolve those conflicts and inconsistencies in any way that makes sense. (And often these intelligent people use fallicious reasoning and circular arguments to reach their conclusions.)

In this context, how can I be Christian?

And: Are any of these questions and problems even important, or do they attempt to put the concept of God into a box that can never fit? Does spirituality exist outside the realm of reason and logic? If so, how does anyone ever be confident in a spiritual path?

Oy. My brain hurts.

Like the time I ran away...

2006-09-15T00:41:00.000-07:00

I just read an interview on the Christianity Today site with Mike Yaconelli, author of Messy Spirituality.

He talks about his relationship with God as having to deal with "annoying love," where God grabs on, and just won't let go. Much like my 4-year-old who must give me a hug and tell me that he'll love me forever, especially when I'm in a bad mood and don't want to talk to anyone.

Actually, the interviewer, Dick Staub, does a lot of good interviews--John Loftus (Debunking Christianity) even talks about one of Stuab's latest interviewees, Dr. Ruth Tucker, on the DC blog.

A lot of the interviewees have the same points:
- Yep, it's messy.
- Yep, there's suffering.
- Nope, it doesn't make sense.
- Yep, I believe in Jesus anyway.

Yaconelli talks about apologists and others putting God in a neat little box that conforms to 10 Points About God. Tucker talks about the fact that the Bible was written by fallible people who were wrong a lot of the time. They agree that God doesn't make sense. Suffering doesn't make sense. And the Bible is probably wrong in a lot of places.

But they believe anyway.

I know that, in my recent conversations with Sandalstraps (and others), he's made a similar point. God is too big for rationality. God is too big for human understanding. So learning about God with your heart or your soul or your emotions is more important than learning with reason and logic. (I'm paraphrasing, and probably oversimplifying his message to me...)

After my last series of posts, I felt like I was drifting way into AtheismLand. But I believe there are many things we don't know, and I don't think our current understanding of the physical world can explain everything. (Not even most things.)

My favorite song is an 18 minute tune by Yes called Awaken. It is a song that I have an emotional reaction to every time I listen to it. And the last line is:

"Like the time I ran away/Turned around and you were standing close to me"

Yes isn't a Christian band by any stretch of the imagination, but there may be something to this. I'd say it was food for thought, but it's food for something different than thought.

Spiritual questions: Part 4

2006-09-11T23:23:00.000-07:00

On the Dar Alluding blog, Tichius commented: "Science cannot and will never answer the larger questions of life, such as: Why are we here? Where are we going? How did we get here?" Part 1 discussed underlying assumptions of that statement; Part 2 outlined the scientific answers; Part 3 discussed Christian answers.

When comparing the scientific answers to the Christian answers, many things start bubbling to the top, and I find it very revealing to my struggle with faith.

1) Christianity's answers are much simpler and much more comforting. Science's current answers--at least the way I understand them--hold very little comfort. No one is taking care of me. No one is looking out for me. I am it. I am totally responsible for not only me, not only the human race, but for this planet. And there's no Omnipotent Being with a Master Plan to help me. Global warming? I'm responsible for doing something about it. Hate my life? I'm responsible for doing something about it. Those problems are complicated. I'm not sure I'm that smart or that powerful. Those problems are really, really scary.

2) Christianity's answers make it easy to turn off your brain and to abdicate responsibility. Don't want to worry about global warming? It's in God's plan; let's go buy a Hummer H2. Why are we here? Just serve God and everything will fall into place. Hate your life? Don't worry, you'll go to Heaven if you believe. Push the anger down. Squash the hurt feelings. Put it on Jesus. There ya go. Doesn't that feel better? (And yes, having done that before--it does feel better.)

Oh, how I (sometimes) wish I could just turn my brain off and believe. But it's not that simple. And all the contradictions in religious texts, and all the physical evidence against the "facts" of the Bible, and all the weird ways everything needs to be interpreted in order to not contradict itself -- it's not that simple. In fact, if the Bible were rewritten so that it was simple, I'd find it much easier to believe. Many people tell me that I think too much in the physical world and not enough in the spiritual world. But I don't even know what that means. In fact, I don't even know where to start.

One thing I've done, therefore, is to live my life in a way that I believe is moral. I want to do everything I can to save our fellow humans and help my brothers and sisters. That means solarizing my house. That means donating to Heifer International and the One Campaign. I need to live right now as if there is no reward for me at the end, that there is no meaning to this life beyond what I have and what I am and what I can do.

Perhaps I will find God at the end of that tunnel. As always, I have my doubts.

Spiritual questions: Part 3

2006-09-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

On the Dar Alluding blog, Tichius commented: "Science cannot and will never answer the larger questions of life, such as: Why are we here? Where are we going? How did we get here?"

Part 1 said that Tichius implied that only Christianity could adequately answer these questions; Part 2 answered these questions from a scientific perspective (as I understand it).

Now, here is my understanding of the Christian answers to these questions (evangelical, conservative, mainline, and some liberal denominations):

1) Why are we here? To serve God and to love Jesus.

2) Where are we going? When we die, and if we accept Christ, we'll go to Heaven. If not, we go to Hell.

3) How did we get here? God created everything. (He may or may not have used evolution and/or the Big Bang to accomplish these tasks.) How did God come into existence? God has always existed.

How do we know all this? Because the Bible says so. The Bible says a lot of stuff that Christians (of all types) choose to ignore, but many Christians agree on the parts that should be ignored and the parts that are, um, true.

Now, this sounds oversimplified, but I really don't think it is. There are many, many, many schools of thought on the right way to serve God and love Jesus; there are differing schools of thought on Heaven and Hell, and how we might get there; but this is Christianity. There's more to it than that (just like there's more to science than what I wrote in Part 2), but I don't think any Christian will argue with those three answers (at least #1 and #3).

Spiritual questions: Part 2

2006-09-11T23:10:00.000-07:00

On the Dar Alluding blog, Tichius commented: "Science cannot and will never answer the larger questions of life, such as: Why are we here? Where are we going? How did we get here?"

I think science has answered these questions.

1) Why are we here? The evidence leads us to theorize that life exists for its own sake; that life will exist anywhere it can; and that our purpose as humans is to further our species.

2) Where are we going? As a species, the evidence leads us to theorize that humankind will end of our own doing. It is also theorized that there may be a natural disaster that may wipe out humankind (though probably not all life on the planet).

3) How did we get here? The evidence leads us to theorize that some combination of evolution and natural selection led to species on this planet as they are today. In terms of how the universe began, we don't know--the Big Bang is one theory; however, science is uncovering new answers every year that may help us uncover evidence to develop a new theory on this.

How did we get to our answers? Much of the evidence is based on what we can see and what we believe follows logically, based on repeatable experiments (aka the scientific method).

Now, I'm no scientist, and a lot of what I've read is from Bill Bryson books, or Carl Sagan, or Stephen Hawking, and the above is based on my limited capability to analyze stuff I barely grasp. But part of the beauty of science is: It's OK to be wrong. If we never theorized anything, we wouldn't test anything. If the tests didn't disprove our theories, we'd never learn. So if I'm off base with current scientific thought -- that's OK. I'm just wrong.

Spiritual questions: Part 1

2006-09-11T23:04:00.000-07:00

On the Dar Alluding blog, a comment by Tichius said, in part:

"Science cannot and will never answer the larger questions of life, such as: Why are we here? Where are we going? How did we get here?"

The first part of this post will address the assumption behind this statement.

First of all, if one concedes that science cannot currently answer some of these questions, it is still folly to conclude that it will never get there. True, many of science's answers have led to a bazillion more questions, but science has revealed truths that a mere 100 years ago we would have thought impossible. (Never mind 2,000 years ago.) In 100 more years--assuming we don't kill ourselves off as a species before that--who knows what questions will be answered?

Secondly, science's answer always begins with, "The evidence leads us to theorize that..." because our learning is not yet done. (And the evidence leads us to theorize that it is unlikely to ever be done.)

Thirdly, each religion in this world answers those three questions in a different way. There is no way to prove or disprove any of those religions. Further, there is little or no evidence (outside of religious texts) that supports the conclusions that religions provide for these answers. Tichius's statement (in context) implies that only Christianity can adequately answer these questions.

Idiotic e-mail forward

2006-09-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

I received the following e-mail from a former co-worker, asking me to "KEEP IT GOING."

A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was a vowed atheist and a member of the ACLU.

One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you exactly 15 minutes."

The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, "Here I am God. I'm still waiting." It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his Chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him; knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold.

The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, "What the hell is the matter with you? Why did you do that?" The Marine calmly replied, "God was too busy today protecting America's soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid shit and act like an asshole. So, He sent me."

I wanted to "reply to all" and respond, somehow, that this is one of the most asinine e-mails I've ever received.

First possible response: "I'm glad the Marine is Christian enough to follow Jesus's words in Matthew 5:38-39 ("You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.") Way to make Christians look like hypocrites!"

Second possible response: "Who would Jesus assault?" (This is my wife's favorite.)

Third possible response: "Good thing the professor was a grown-up atheist and not a 14-year-old Muslim girl; the Marine would have raped her and killed her family instead of just going with a sucker punch! Ha ha! Go America!"

If anyone has any better response, I'd be happy to hear it.

Current mood: LIVID.

Answers for Sandalstraps' "Bible as the Word of God"

2006-08-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

I have been exposed to the Sandalstraps' Sanctuary blog recently. He's one of the few Christian bloggers I've seen who discuss theism and Christianity without resorting to insults to skeptics like myself, and in my spiritual journey, I sincerely appreciate that.

One of his comments to an earlier post of mine linked to his blog's Exodus as a Macro Story. At the end of that post, he lists a few questions about how freethinkers (and I include people who still call themselves Christians, as I sometimes do) view the Bible.

I'd like to respond to his questions here. It's funny: on some days I consider myself a liberal Christian, on others, an agnostic. So I'll answer all three of these questions, as I've been in all three places recently:

If you say that the Bible is somehow the Word of God, what do you mean by that?
This is one of the points that lead me away from Christianity. I don't believe the Bible is inerrant, and that has caused the whole house of cards to topple in my mind. Part of me still thinks that part of the Bible is somehow the Word of God, but I certainly don't think it was divinely inspired and translated to page without error. So how much of it was misunderstood or simply made up by the original authors or subsequent translators? I think God is in there somewhere, but probably isn't recognizable.

If you are within the Christian tradition, and do not use that phrase to describe the Bible, why don't you use it? What phrases do you use to describe the Bible? How do you approach the Bible?
The Bible is a holy book that many people believe verbatim. I used to approach it as a place to prove Christianity. Now I don't trust the veracity of just about anything in it. It may be a decent place to go to for metaphorical truth (similar to Sandalstraps' point in his post), but I can't get away from the feeling that all Christians pick and choose which parts to follow and which parts to ignore. And that destroys the notion of absolute truth.

If you are outside the Christian tradition, what do you think of a group holding up a work like the Bible as in some form a communication of God and from God?
Even inside the Christian tradition, I'm not sure it's a good idea to elevate the Bible to its current standing. It lets people think and act irrationally.

Responses to John Loftus ("Tough Questions for Christians")

2006-08-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

Finally!

I found John Loftus’s Tough Questions for Christians and I wanted to respond from my Sorta-Christian-And-Not-Really-Atheist perspective.

First set of questions:
Can God be surprised? Can God laugh? Can God think? Thinking means weighing alternatives. But if God knows everything then can God think? Is God metaphysically free? Did God ever choose his character and his moral standards? Does God ever know what it is to make a choice?
These questions are all philosophically interesting. However, I believe that it is outside the realm of human knowledge to understand the nature of God. Much like Einstein’s mind-bending concept of “spacetime” as a whole unit, the metaphysical existence of God isn’t something we can really wrap our heads around. So—all these answers are, “I don’t know.”

Is God good?
When presented with the three statements: 1) God is omnipotent; 2) God is omnibenevolent; 3) evil exists/bad things happen; it is clear that one of those three statements is incorrect. Christians would probably say that #3 is not the correct statement, as everything is based on God’s will and therefore everything is ultimately good. Deists and atheists both disagree with #1 and #2. From my perspective, #1 is probably false. I think God probably has a way to affect the world, but not completely control it. From a Biblical perspective, however, there is little to support the falsity of #1, and much to support the falsity of #2. The OT supports the notion that God isn’t omnibenevolent -- God commits genocide and stuff.

I find this answer very unsatisfying. I want God to be omnibenevolent—I’d prefer a God who is 100% good over a God who is 100% powerful. But what I want to be true is unsupported by any physical evidence or historical text that I have found (including the Bible). This brings me to the conclusion that if there is a God, and He is the God of the Bible, I don’t like the things he does. And the answer to Loftus’s question (in my estimation) is, “probably not.”

If God didn’t need anything, then why did he create us?
Hm. I don’t know the answer to this. I’d question the validity of the “if” statement, though. How do we know God doesn’t need anything? Our human definition of perfection logically excludes God having needs, but those definitions are human constructions with human limitations. I don’t see any problem with God’s need. (I also don’t necessarily agree that God is perfect, but that’s another discussion.)

Loftus then puts forth several questions that challenge Calvinist thinking:
What’s the point of creating humans, if God planned everything in advance?
What is the basis of God’s foreknowledge?
If God gave us free will and he knew we would abuse it so badly, then why give it to us?
Can God create free creatures who always obey?
Why didn’t God create us with a propensity to dislike sin?
So these questions aren’t really answerable from my worldview. I don’t believe the Bible is inerrant, I don’t believe that the picture of God in the Bible is accurate, and I don’t believe that any of these concepts (about foreknowledge, free will, etc) as they relate to God are necessarily true. So I guess my answers to all of these questions are “I don’t know, but I don’t accept the basis of the ‘if’ statements.”

Loftus then has two questions about why God allows bad things to happen (slavery, tsunamis, hurricanes, etc—that’s oversimplifying his questions, but this is a long post). Again, if, from the textual and physical evidence, I have come to the idea that God is probably not all good, that’s the answer. God allows bad things to happen because he’s either not all good or not all powerful.

These answers are leading me down the path of a major crisis of faith. I think God would probably still be worthy of worship if He were not omnipotent, but probably not if He weren’t omnibenevolent. If He’s not all good, just how bad is He? The textual evidence tells of genocide, Hell, and more horrific (and in my mind, unethical) things performed by the hand of God. I’m not an atheist, but it’s hard for me not to reject the Christian God, whether or not He exists.

A final note: I don’t know where I get the ideas that slavery, misogyny, discrimination against homosexuals, and discrimination against non-Christians are unethical. It appears that God didn’t say those things are unethical (often quite the opposite, in fact), so I guess I didn’t get them from God. I do know that I feel horrible about these things happening in human history, and I do believe evil (as either an absolute or as a human construct) lies in each one of those things. I can’t justify believing these things are evil and believing in Christianity too.

Please comment and answer

2006-08-14T23:41:00.000-07:00

Can I be a Christian if I don't necessarily believe that Jesus was resurrected?

The dictionary defines a Christian as "one who believes in Jesus Christ and his teachings." Doesn't say anything about the resurrection. But if you go here, it says:

"Christians universally agree that the resurrection of Jesus is central to their faith...Indeed, one cannot be a Christian unless one believes that God raised Jesus from the dead."

Christian site says "atheists can't say that rape is wrong"

2006-08-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

So, it looks like on Debunking Christianity, John W. Loftus (a former minister and current atheist) has gotten into a spat with a Christian blogger by the name of Frank Walton (writer of Atheism Sucks).

First of all, I think atheism does suck. I don't like it. It makes me feel alone and separated from my family.

Secondly, I think the Christian view of atheism sucks more. On this post states that "in no objective sense can they [atheists] say this [rape] is wrong." I think the way he makes his point has a million logical flaws, but that's not what I'm getting at.

This statement reflects a common belief among Christians: that in a life without God, there is no basis for morals. This is not what many atheists believe. The Bible of the Good and Moral Atheist, in its Book of Morality, says:

"All morality begins and ends with sympathy... With sympathy for others and recognition of the similarities between people, we each build an internal code of the morality of our actions. We seek to protect innocent children, for we were once children ourselves and needed protection. We seek a society that does not foster immoral actions, in order to protect the members of society like ourselves. We feel and internalize various plights and pains of others in this process, and develop a true morality."

Armed with sympathy for others, atheists can (and do) state that rape is wrong. One can debate the cause of sympathy (evolution vs. God-given), but atheists need not believe in God to have reasoning behind their moral code.

Why pick on homosexuality?

2006-08-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

Having a bit of trouble finding the questions that John Loftus posed on Debunking Christianity. I'll post when I find 'em.

So here's something that puzzles me.

In most translations of the Bible, it's pretty clear that homosexuality is a no-no. There are plenty of other things that are no-nos, of course. The single biggest rule, though, doesn't have anything to do with homosexuality. It's the first commandment (Exodus 20:3), and Jesus puts it above the Golden Rule in Mark 12.

It is this concept: There is no other God but God.

Being gay is not in the Ten Commandments. Being gay is not addressed anywhere by Jesus. But the Christian right want to stop gay marraige because, um, well, I'm not sure.

The American Family Association has an article here that attempts to follow the following logic: If homosexual marraige is legalized, all Christians will be persecuted for their belief that homosexuality is a sin. It cites a teacher who was suspended because of an anti-gay letter he wrote to a newspaper, and a printer who was fined because he refused to print literature from a gay advocacy group.

I guess the Christian right doesn't want gay marraige to be legalized because then they won't be able to legally discriminate against gays.

But, the Christian right isn't making any noise about annulling all marraiges between Sikhs, or Jews, or Muslims, or athiests. "If we legalize it," antigay activists say, "that tells my kids that it's OK to be gay."

Really? Just like it's OK for their kids to be Sikh, or Muslim, or athiest? Many Christian families don't think it's OK to be anything but Christian. Yet thousands of people in America are disobeying the first commandment, nay, what Jesus calls the most important commandment everyday. Why is it OK with Christians that Americans tolerate and offer protection to the breaking of the first and most important commandment, yet homosexuality (which, since Jesus never talks about it, seems like it's much less important of an issue) is condemned to the point where most members of the Christian right still fight to have it criminalized?

Seriously, Christians: why is it OK for Sikhs to get married but not gays?

About Liberal Christianity

2006-08-09T16:32:00.000-07:00

As a Liberal Christian, I believed:
- Evolution is the best explanation for the current state of the Earth
- God set evolution in motion
- God created the universe, possibly via the Big Bang
- I did not (and probably would never) understand the nature of God
- I could not answer if God was caused or uncaused
- Jesus was a real person, who was probably touched by the divine in some way
- Jesus was crucified
- The books discussing Jesus (in fact, whole of the Bible) were sometimes accurate/truthful and sometimes inaccurate/untruthful
- Salvation might be true but Jesus probably felt it was more important to be good to each other while on this earth
- The concept of salvation makes it easy for people to be selfish about Christianity
- Everyone should treat each other the way they want to be treated

Uh oh. I just realized that I still believe most of those things. Maybe I'm not ready to deconvert.

Except that when I'm asked the really hard questions (John Loftus-type questions), the above statements mean things about the nature of the universe that don't make sense to me.

I'll go over a few of those questions in the next post...

I'm washed on your shore and barely alive

2006-08-08T00:05:00.000-07:00

I dig my heels into the dirt
'Cause this one's gonna hurt
Won't let the waves wash me away
Is what I always pray
In my heart I know you couldn't see
In the dark or find your way through me
Now I'm alone, my hands are numb
How do I carry on?

At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?

Now I'm held hostage in my head
With every word you said
God, all those lessons in my past
I spit them out so fast
I see myself with you, I act so small
I see myself with you, I always crawl
So someone leave a raft for me
The water's getting deep

At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?

Here I am in my insecurity
Here I am in my damaged dignity
Here I am, you're pulling me in too deep
Here I am
Here I am, I'm in the mercy seat
Here I am, running without my feet
Here I am, oh what's come over me?
Here I am

When I was melting in your hand
You didn't understand
You slip through me like grains of sand
You still don't understand
Overboard, I'm thrown out to see
What you are and what I mean to me
But I will always have my dream where you can swim to me

At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
I've been on your shore before
And it was no waste of time
Over my head and in my mind
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?

—Charlotte Martin, "On Your Shore"

I heard these lyrics for the first time a few weeks ago, and it really touched a nerve. It's possible that Charlotte Martin wrote this song about a lover who spurned her. However, I heard this and I immediately thought the song was written to God about a faith the narrator is just barely hanging onto. The song hit me very deeply and I haven't yet recovered.

Because those lyrics are exactly how I feel about my relationship with Christianity. The ocean of athiesm is pulling me out to sea, and I'm clinging to anything I can to somehow believe. But I know I can't anymore.

My years as a liberal Christian were "no waste of time," certainly. I learned a lot about myself as a person and a lot about viewing faith in different ways. But when I moved to Sacramento, there was a dire shortage of churches that were liberal (at least in my area). A few of my neighbors were extremely Christian--one was a Promise Keeper--and they always found ways to throw God and Blessed and Jesus into the conversation. Yes, we're really blessed to be in such a good neighborhood. Have you found a church yet? It's really important for your kids to grow up with Jesus. Make sure they have lots of friends in church. This was very tough to hear for me--especially since I came back to the church because of the movie The Last Temptation of Christ (yes, the 1988 Scorcese film that Christians picketed).

There are two enormous churches in my area, and I really couldn't stand either of them. One preached about the evils of Harry Potter one Sunday. The UCC's in my area were going through an enormous amount of turmoil--one had lost over half its congregation. I went through a couple of discussion groups led by a pastor--in one, we discussed "God's Politics" by Jim Wallis. But she moved to Washington DC about six months after we met her.

My parents, afraid for my soul, had me talk to a missionary friend of theirs--a really intelligent, well-read guy who I'll call M. I was actually looking forward to having my faith strengthened by this conversation. Now, I was a liberal Christian at this time, although I didn't go to church, but I was reading Marcus Borg and liking his worldview. Immediately, M starts debunking Borg, calling him names and saying no serious Biblical scholar believes anything he says. I told him my view (see previous posts about not believing the book of John and reading the letters as criticism, not Truth).

He tried to debunk that as well--he pulled out 2 Peter 3, in which Peter says Paul's letters should be treated like Scripture. I left empty and confused. (And to think that I hadn't been that confused before I met with M, at my parents' insistence! Irony!)

Turns out that most scholars don't think Peter actually wrote 2 Peter. Most scholars don't think Paul wrote some of the letters attributed to him. Turns out a lot of what I value in the Gnostic Gospels were added in centuries later. Jesus saving the adulterous woman from the stoning ("let the one who is without sin cast the first stone") was added 400 to 600 years later. The verses on the Trinity? Added years later. And the book that revealed all this was by a Christian apologist!

All of this information indicated very strongly to me that I couldn't trust the Bible. And when I sat down and actually read though it, I didn't like what was in there. When I was 10 and read the Bible straight through, cover to cover, did I even think about what I was reading? No. Did I catch all the differences (not necessarily conflicts, but definite differences) between the Gospels and how they portray Jesus? I did not.

But once that whole Bible inerrancy was shot down in my mind, I realized that a lot more was possibly errant than I thought. I also realized that the fear of hell was a very selfish reason to believe in Jesus.

I came back to Christianity a few years ago with an open mind and an open heart, ready and willing to believe, and confident that the more I found out, the more it would strengthen, not shake, my faith. Instead, everything I've uncovered has undermined my assumptions and contraindicated my expectations of Christianity.

While there have been a couple of Christians along the way who have been respectful and understanding, the vast majority have been downright nasty and disrespectful to me. I've been called arrogant, stupid, evil.

Many of the athiests I talk to say that the loss of their faith was liberating. I've found it excruciating. But my goal in life now is to improve others' lives here on this earth. I want to be a good citizen and a good neighbor in a way I never wanted to as a Christian. I want to understand, tolerate, make better. I want my kids to have sympathy and empathy and to act on it, with or without a higher power. I want to leave this world better than it was when I came in. Before, the world didn't matter since I had salvation. Now, my life does matter. I'm scared of that, and it's hard sometimes to get through the day without the comfort of Jesus. That's because I am responsible for everything I do and every decision I make. Accountability is probably the scariest thing in the world.

At the turn of the tide, I felt that part of me die. Now I have to keep myself afloat.

Not just yet...

2006-08-06T23:27:00.000-07:00

So, I was planning to talk about my latest deconversion, but the wound is still pretty raw. Maybe it will be better in a few days. In lieu of that, take a look at the The Common Sense Bill of Non-Rights, attributed to U.S. politician Mitchell Aye from Georgia. (For those of you outside the U.S., this is a spoof of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, commonly referred to as the Bill of Rights.) I just received this in an e-mail from a friend.

There are a zillion things I disagree with, but the last article takes the cake:
ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!!!!

This country was founded on the belief in one true God.
So, so, so untrue. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Paine, and many of the other Founding Fathers were Deists or Athiests. Jefferson even took it upon himself to rewrite the Bible because he disliked it. Many church leaders wrote sermons and pamphlets decrying their leadership because of their lack of Godliness.

The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history...
In the 1950's, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy scared many Americans with an imagined Communist threat. In addition to "blackballing" many Americans, effectively ending their careers, he equated Communism and athiesm. As a result of his efforts, "In God We Trust" was placed on all U.S. coins, and "under God" was added after "one nation" in the Pledge of Allegiance. If anyone changed the U.S. history and heritage, it was McCarthyism.

This willful ignorance on the part of the American people stupefies and scares me. How can thinking people fight these misconceptions without making people of faith think we're agents of Satan?

So what am I?

2006-07-31T11:37:00.001-07:00

So if I want to follow many of the philosophical teachings of Jesus (minus the Gospel of John) but don't believe in heaven, hell, or salvation, what does that make me? A Christian? An athiest? Both?

I have a feeling that if it weren't for my need to be accepted by my parents, I'd probably be a secular humanist. Right now, though, the term "Christian athiest" appeals to me. And might even get me killed. ;-)

The New Testament and the U.S. Constitution

2006-07-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

Before I get into the details of my latest de-conversion, I want to give some more details about my views as a liberal Christian.

When I came back to Christianity a few years ago, I studied it a lot. I decided that the evidence wasn't contradictory for about 60 to 80% of the Gnostic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke). I put more credence in many of the quotes that are given to Jesus, rather than the stuff about him fulfilling prophecies. Because of the hundreds of inconsistencies in John, I rejected that Gospel pretty much in its entirety (as well as Revelation).

The rest of the New Testament I view as literary criticism. Much of it has interesting philosophical points, and contain useful information about how one can positively influence society. Some of it is the product of its time and it has, I believe, human errors (the stuff about slavery, etc). And some of it is not worth following or appears contradictory.

I became convinced of the idea that Jesus was talking about the Kingdom of God as a philosophical place we can experience on Earth, by doing good for the sake of doing good. (As Jesus was a rabbi, he probably subscribed to the concept of Sheol as an afterlife instead of Heaven or Hell--at least if one doesn't read John.)

One thing is for certain -- many of the words attributed to Jesus in the first 3 Gospels have a lot of value to me in how to live my life. The parable about The Good Samaritan, the Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule, etc. This way of thinking has led me on a path where I'm looking at the New Testament more like the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution (um, if you couldn't tell, I live in the U.S.). They are both great but flawed documents about how we should treat each other. The U.S. founding documents have pro-slavery stuff in it too, just like the N.T. But it also has the "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Even though many of those documents' authors owned slaves, I believe their words to be morally correct (especially if by 'men' one uses the definition meaning 'humankind').

I'm sure many Christians (even the legalistic and evangelicals) would agree with me that the Gospels have a lot of value. However, that's pretty much where I part ways with most Christians. The most imporatant thing about the Bible for most Christians is salvation. The idea that there really isn't a heaven means rejecting a lot of NT text. Rejecting the concept of salvation requires rejecting more NT text. Reading the letters as mere literary criticism (as if they were the writings of Thomas Aquinas or Marcus Borg) requires a sea-change in one's thinking, and certainly the rejection of the notion that the letter-writers were inspired by God.

But the more I studied the NT text, the more several points became clear to me.
1) The Gospels present four vastly different pictures of Jesus; even without direct textual contradictions, it is strongly indicated that at least 3 of the 4 are somewhat (if not mostly) unreliable.
2) The letter-writers think differently than each other about many aspects of the church and of Jesus. These points might have value, but should not be taken as divine inspiration.

And here was the biggie: I could follow the examples of Christ presented in the NT (at least the portions of the NT that I believed to be true) without needing to be "saved" in the John 3:16 sense. I called myself a Christian--one who follows Christ--without believing in the Resurrection, the Second Coming, or Biblical inerrancy.

That's where I was for a few years. And then, as I said in my last post, I moved.

Regaining my faith

2006-07-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

Read the last post if you haven't yet...

So in losing my faith the first time, I pretty much threw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. I spent my college years and my early twenties considering myself an athiest. I learned a little about eastern religions/philosophies in college, and I was particularly interested in Taoism and its view of the world. Ultimately, I decided that Taoism was an interesting way of looking at the world, and while it also spoke to me on an emotional level, I didn't "believe" in it the way I was used to believing in Christianity.

When I was 22, I went through a really nasty breakup with a girl I was living with. I moved back in with my parents for about six months and started to rebuild my relationship with them. They were pushing really hard for Christianity to come back into my life, and I kind of half-heartedly said I'd give church another chance. But I would get really irritated during the service when the sermon or the hymns would get judgmental or espouse something I didn't agree with. Two things in particular I disagree with: one cannot have morals without God; and one needs to "spread the word" about the Christian faith.

It was this last point that kept me away for years. I'm all for freedom of religion. I didn't (and don't) think Christians (or any other thiests) are stupid or misinformed just because they believe in God and I didn't. I realize that some people need to believe in a higher power to feel secure, and I respect that. But that same respect was not afforded to me, and no Christian ever even asked me why I no longer believed; instead, they'd just rail at me why I was misguided and going to hell.

This was also a major problem with me trying to rebuild my relationship with my parents. Whenever I thought things were going well, they'd bring up Christian salvation again and that would push me away.

But when I was 25, my landlord recommended the church that she went to, which was a five minute walk from my house. It was a United Church of Christ. There, I met a pastor who believed that the book of John should be thrown away, an associate pastor who was openly gay and in a committed relationship, and another associate pastor who didn't believe in the concept of heaven. I was floored. I never even realized there was a Christian community that was welcoming to homosexuals and didn't want to "cure" them--nevermind that this UCC was also OK with doubt, that was OK with the concept of biblical errancy, and that they felt it was important to *think* about one's relationship with God, instead of the mindless "I love you Lord I love you Lord Praise Jesus" rote-memorization, turn-your-brain-off, you-think-too-much attitudes I had seen at other Christian churches.

So I started going pretty regularly, and my girlfriend (who became my fiancee then my wife) started going too. We really liked it. We enjoyed the after-church study group--the first time I had ever enjoyed anything like that. I started calling myself Christian again, and sort of became an apologist to all my friends who only saw the hellfire-and-damnation side of Christianity, the Christianity that wants you to follow God without engaging your mind. I was starting to feel like I belonged again.

And then we moved.

Losing my religion, part 1

2006-07-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

I was raised in California in a family that was very Christian. We went to a church that called itself non-denominational, but was really evangelical. The minister -- let's call him Dr. P -- was very educated (and was British besides, which made him sound even more learned). He had very intellectual approaches to everything. The church taught Biblical inerrancy. I went to this church from the time I was 4 until I graduated high school. My parents taught Sunday School there, I did summer camp through this church -- it was a big part of my life.

Or -- it should have been a big part of my life. I made very few friends there. Actually, I made *no* friends there. None of the kids wanted to hang out with me. I realized later that it was because I followed the stuff they taught in Sunday school. The boys at camp were sneaking over to the girls' camp and getting to third base.

In high school, I actually went to the adults' service instead of the high school service because I enjoyed it more. Dr. P analyzed and compared and worked the text over, which I really liked. The high school service was a bunch of "I love you Lord"s spoken by teenagers who didn't like turning their brains to the on position.

And then one Saturday during my senior year of high school, a really good friend of mine, let's call her A, came out to me. I freaked out when it happened and made up an excuse about having to leave--and left. (Part of it was that I had a thing for A.)

The following day, Dr. P's sermon was on a refocusing of the church to solve "the homosexual problem." He actually called all homosexuals "pederasts." I remember thinking, "I'm mad at A, but she's not a pederast." Right then I had a huge moral dilemma. I thought it was immoral to be disrespecting homosexuals like that--and it was sactioned in the Bible.

When I brought it up to an older Christian family friend (who had a Masters of Divinity), he basically said, "the Bible is right; if you reject that homosexuality is a sin, you're not a true Christian. Plus, God didn't make Adam and Bruce, he made Adam and Eve."

But I still thought it wasn't right to view homosexuality like that. So I just completely rejected Christianity, and slowly, slowly, slowly, rebuilt my friendship with A. (She ended being "Best Man" at my wedding.)

Next, how I came back to Christianity.

Oof.

2006-07-19T23:37:00.000-07:00

So, one good thing and one bad thing.

Good: Kevin Parry, from the Memoirs of an Ex-Christian site, asked about my story of how I lost my faith twice. I guess I've never thought of my life as that interesting, and it's a pretty long story, but I'll share it in my next post.

Bad: My mom babysits for my two kids (ages 2 and 4) two days a week. And this morning, she starts getting on me about the fact that we're not exposing the kids to God. (My mom is a Christian, and you'll find out more about the church I grew up in and her beliefs in future posts.) I got really angry and really upset, and she touched a nerve as only a parent can. So: oof.

It has occurred to me it's possible that the only reason haven't completely rejected Christianity is that I don't want to disappoint my parents. That is not an easy thing to admit to myself, especially since I'm in my thirties, but there you have it.

Moral argument for thiesm

2006-07-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

There's a debate on The Secular Web on thiesm vs. naturalism.

Wanchick, the thiest, argues in his opening statement:
"But what makes us obliged not to mistreat humans? After all, if naturalism is true, "a human being is a biological animal," as naturalist Julian Baggini admits. But unless humans have unique moral worth not had by beasts, it seems objective moral truth wouldn't exist. It wouldn't, for instance, be immoral to rape or kill, for animals do so to each other regularly with no moral significance."

There are some major flaws in this argument.

First, Wanchick makes the incorrect assumption that animals who rape/kill each other do so with no moral significance. We can't possibly know what moral significance there is in the animal world. Some animals groups shun a killer. Other animal groups may simply don't have the capability to punish the killer. This is not to state definitively that animals have morals, it is simply that we cannot blindly assume that they do not simply because it's not obvious to us.

Second, humans have developed rules for the good of our species over time. It used to be considered moral to own slaves. Now it is not. It used to be considered moral for a husband to rape his wife. Now it is not. To imply that there has always been a moral significance to these actions (and others) just because humans are human is not backed up by historical evidence. History also undercuts the assumption that objective moral truth exists.

Third, humans have always (and continue to) rape and kill each other. Sometimes society punishes the offenders (murder) and sometimes not (war, execution). Again, this undercuts the concepts of objective moral truth and an anthrocentric moral significance.

Biblical inerrancy and metaphorical truth

2006-07-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

Regarding inerrancy: After reading Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman (among other things), I don't think the Bible is inerrant. The Bible was written down by humans, and copied by other humans hundreds, if not thousands, of times. We have lost the original manuscripts in all cases, and there are more differences in the surviving manuscript than there are words in the NT. It is reasonable to conclude that versions of the Bible that exist today are not inerrant.

However, it has been pointed out by Marcus Borg (Reading the Bible Again for the First Time) and others that the audience for both the OT and the NT did not necessarily take things at face value. It has been postulated that the intent of the authors was not historical record but rather teaching through analogy, just like Jesus did with the parables.

For instance, no one believes that The Good Samaritan was supposed to historically represent a real person, but that doesn't mean that the story isn't "true"--on the contrary, I think it's one of the fundamental points of the "New Covenant." It just isn't historical fact.

Therefore, although I'm still a skeptic, I read Genesis 1 as metaphorical, not literal. Assume for a moment that God set The Big Bang in motion. Would an ancient people understand how The Big Bang Theory works? I doubt it. So does it matter how the world came into being, or is what matters the fact that God made it, and wants humans to understand that He made it? (And if you argue that times have changed, and why would God put in an inaccurate version of history, all I have to say is that modern people have the ability to understand metaphor just as well as ancients.)

I read the account of the Deluge the same way. There are a ton of problems, scientific and chronological, with the Deluge. But it doesn't need to have actually happened for it to be "true." The lesson of the Deluge is that the farther away we get from God, the more destructive our lives can become. Even today, we see how people clean up their lives after finding God. While I don't believe in the actual cause that losing one's faith leads to destruction in one's life, I certainly see that the point is valid in many cases, and that finding God is one way (though certainly not the only way) people can straighten out their lives.

Reconciling "Biblical inerrancy" in the light of "metaphorical truth" solves some of the problems I see, but raises many other questions. For instance, I now heavily doubt the omnipotence of God. After a much more critical reading of the NT, I now doubt that Jesus was talking about salvation, as I see major accuracy problems with the Gospel of John. I see that many of the letters (often attributed to Paul) contradict each other greatly (1 Corinthians and 2 Timothy about the role of women in the church in particular). I'm inclined to view everything after the Gospels as theological criticism, to be given no more weight than the writings of Aquinas, Spong, or Dobson.

Much of this post was included in a comment I left on the Debunking Christianity blog, as a response to other comments left here.

Christians: convince me.

2006-07-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

Listen up, you blogging Christians: you are being ridiculous with your circular arguments about the existence of God.
I've been following a line of discussion about the transcendental argument of God's existence (often shortened to TAG) on the Debunking Christianity and Pressing the Antithesis blogs, as well as published discussion between Michael Martin and John Frame. You can argue all you like about "If Knowledge Then God," but it comes down to the fact that you have decided to believe in God without physical proof.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. The bad thing is that you attempt to prove it using faulty logic. The argument can be (over)simplified to this: "If laws of logic are possible then God exists, because God is the necessary precondition for logic. Laws of logic are possible. Therefore, God exists." However, there is no agreement (except perhaps among transcendentalists) that God is the necessary precondition for logic. There is no way to demonstrate to an atheist that the Christian God is the necessary precondition for logic--any more than a Muslim could make *you* believe that Allah is a necessary precondition for logic.
One interesting thing that many Christian bloggers have pointed out is that many atheists use science and logic as their absolute truth, much like legalistic Christians use the Bible as the absolute truth.

To point out the possibilities, however, is a good first step for both parties. Certainly one can admit *possibilities* without accepting them as fact. See the argument below for an example.

I think it would do Christians a lot of good if they stopped acting superior to atheists, though. The insulting, condesending tones some of these discussions take push athiests further away from God, which is the opposite of what Christians want. Right?

Atheists: convince me.

2006-07-14T22:33:00.000-07:00

Listen up, you blogging atheists: you are being ridiculous when you tell Christians and other theists to prove the existence of God using the scientific method.

It makes no logical sense to attempt to prove the existence of something on a plane we can't (supposedly) see using only the things we can see.

If you can imagine for a moment a world that lives in one dimension--a line--and a point on that line asking another point to prove the existence of a cube, what would that proof look like? When the cube in question intersects the line, it only affects it in one dimension -- and there's nothing in that one-dimensional world to prove that it's a 3-D object. In fact, I think it's doubtful that those living in 1-D could even comprehend what a cube means. (Einstein postulated this first.)

Well, if a supreme being exists, there is no reason to think that the supreme being is confined to a dimensional world that we can understand. The powers and reasons of that supreme being possibly defy what we understand as science and logic. It's possible that we cannot even begin to concieve of what this being (if it's even a being) is like.
If you insist on demanding scientific proof, you must believe the following:

1) All that we perceive and can measure is all that there is.
2) We can measure and perceive everything there is.

Well, as for #1, I think that's pretty shortsighted, considering that technology continues to allow us to perceive and measure more every year. (Microscopes and telescopes come to mind.) And as for #2 -- well, we still can't know at any given time where an electron is and its velocity.

I think it would do atheists a lot of good if they stopped acting superior to thiests just because their highest authority is the findings of scientists. Yes, it's frustrating to try to prove a negative ("God doesn't exist"), and theists pull the Faith card when cornered. But that doesn't make you right and them wrong.