Good is Good

In the past, I've argued, like many atheists, against the appalling morals of the bible. Even the new testament has immoral acts being promoted in it. The first that comes to mind is that the only way God could help us poor sinful creatures (who were created by him, obviously imperfectly) was to have his son sacrificed. Seriously, is that really the best this barbaric god could come up with? Couldn't he find a better way to fix his mistakes? But I digress.

See, it's really easy to tear the bible apart with logic, a basis in good morality, reason, critical thinking and basic skepticism.

But what about the morals of actual Christians? Where do those morals come from - the Bible or elsewhere? If you ask a Christian they will say it all comes from the bible.

Certainly if you are a fundamentalist and you think the bible is the inerrant word of God, and you don't eat pork or shellfish, you think homosexuality is an abomination, you only wear one type of fabric at a time, you think owning slaves is fine as long as they come from other tribes, then you would think of yourself as a "good" Christian.

I would beg to differ. I'm talking about people who are genuinely good. So what defines a good person? I think there are two factors:

• Someone who attempts to make the lives of others better - The Golden Rule (should also include animals and the environment)
• Someone who purposefully does not negatively affect others - The Silver Rule

What I Stand For and What I Believe

One of my Facebook friends, Mark, wrote a note the other day about what he believes and what he stands for. He inspired me and I decided to do the same:

I don't believe in nothing. I believe in grand concepts like the pursuit of love and happiness. I believe in finding simple joys in everyday things.

I embrace knowledge and growth through learning as much as possible. I love science and the scientific method, which although flawed, is still the best tool we've got to understand our fantastic universe and our place in it. I am a citizen scientist.

I require evidence for claims and refuse to accept things on faith or authority. I am a skeptic.

But I am a true skeptic. Many times in the past I've changed my views based on evidence that showed that my old thinking was wrong. I constantly work on detaching my ego from my world view.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and since there is zero credible evidence for any gods or the supernatural, I don't believe in them. I don't believe in the supernatural in any sense. No gods, no heaven, no hell, no demons, no ghosts, no psychic powers. I am a skeptical atheist.

A Bit of Dawkins

One of my Facebook friends posted this to his feed today. Richard Dawkins waxing eloquent:

‎"The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces ...us that the time we have for living is quite finite."

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"

"An atheist is just somebody who feels about Yahweh the way any decent Christian feels about Thor or Baal or the golden calf. As has been said before, we are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

Jesus Was a Rationalist?

Recently I got an email from someone who said the following:

"I think that rationality and free thinking should be promoted and religious crimes and excesses and crimes condemned. What we hear and read about the churches is absolutely disgusting. However, if have a close look at the gospels, I find it to be such a rational, incredibly intelligent sum of stories, considering the time and the audience Jesus Christ was talking to. I think he was one of the greatest rationalists ever!"

I agree with him about reason, rationality and critical thinking. I don't agree about the bible though. It's so full of justified hate and bad morals.  I think that overrides the precious few rational or intelligent concepts that are scattered infrequently within. The few good things you can find in the bible are not original either. The Golden Rule, for example. Older than Jesus. Confucious had his own version, so did the Greeks. So there's really no need for the bible at all!

Also, Jesus said some pretty damned hateful things in the gospels. (see below for just a few) He was forever going on about how if you didn't follow him you'd burn in hell. That's not very rational or loving. He also said he talked in parables just to confuse people so they would end up in hell. And he said to hate your family. If you take one message of Jesus and hold it up as a shining example for good rational thinking, you really can't cherry-pick. You have to take all of his hateful stuff too.
Sure, maybe he said some good things (IF he existed, which I doubt), but it wasn't anything that amazing when put in context with all the awful stuff he said, or when you think about great thinkers who said awesome things more consistently, like Carl Sagan, Thomas Jefferson, Bertrand Russell or even Ricky Gervais!

Here are a few quotes from and about Jesus that the cherry-pickers missed:

Don't Assume I'm A Sensitive Soul

I received this email from a woman the other day. After careful thought I replied to it and decided it was worth sharing.

Here is the email in its entirety:

Thank you for sharing “Wild Geese”. After Joe Biden used most of this poem as his reflection upon the anniversary of 9/11, I went in search of the poem. The two of Mary Oliver’s collections I own did not include it. I was happy to find it at your site and amazed, actually. Amazed and delighted, because a poem I find so “religious” is at the same time such a balm for you. I grew up Roman Catholic; I am now an Episcopal priest. I am convinced after 20 years that what most people throw away – the cats they heave – are indeed worth heaving. Sometimes we have to go deeper, below the interpretations of history, to find our own deeper truth.

Yes, a “barbarous” God exists in the pages of the Bible: What all-kind God and Father would will the death of a Beloved Son? How could God command Abraham to kill his son Isaac as a test of faith? Isn’t that sadistic? Yes, indeed. On the face of it. For us in the 21st century these stories are barbaric. They are foreign to our experience. They were not foreign to the persons for whom they were written when the “first fruits” in ancient societies were offered up to the deity – including in some cases, the first born child. In some places in later writings there seems to be a critique of these practices in the Bible itself. The question becomes, it seems to me, is it worth reinterpreting these stories for our own time, or do we jettison them and replace them with our own stories of sacrificial obedience and love? Yes, life does involve sacrifice – we give up our children constantly to the gods of war who exact a savage price. There are no rams in the thicket to take their place …

But the same source of barbarism comments on itself in texts of amazing love and mercy. We cannot hear these texts enough.

The Golden Rule: Ethic Of Reciprocity

Nearly all of us have heard the age-old axiom, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Sure the words might have been a bit different, but the meaning is the same. This is the Golden Rule. There is also a Silver Rule which is the opposite: "Do not do to others as you would not have them do to you." When put together, they make a pretty good framework for living, in my opinion. For me, it's my ethical foundation.

While I chose the catholic version of the Golden Rule, that is merely because it is worded well. But this principle is as old as dirt. Basically, treat people as you wish to be treated. If you look into old philosophies and religions, you'll find it in almost all of them. Sometimes, it will be the Silver Rule instead, which is a good companion. They both rely on your thoughtful empathy of how other people may think and live.

If you live by just the Golden rule, you'll fall short because, for example, you like to sleep late and stay up late. So you party late into the night, making all kinds of noise, assuming others live like you. But your neighbors get up at dawn and go to bed very early. So in that case, the Silver Rule would be more thoughtful and helpful. It encompasses the notion of empathy in a different light than the Golden Rule.

We all know christianity claims the Golden Rule for itself, but I just wanted to highlight some other people that came up with this idea before Jesus was causing trouble in the Middle East.