Jesusaurus Rex FC

 

I was playing an X-Box live game one day when I was matched up with an opponent named 'Jesusaurus Rex' which I thought was a pretty funny name. It's really hard to narrow down what someone finds funny about something but I think I appreciated the novelty of the name and the contrast between the two ideas of Jesus and the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

It looks like I'm not the only one either, as there are songs entitled Jesusaurus Rex, a pretty funny youtube video, a Wikipedia style page and a few pictures on Google images, which are all pretty funny, although I didn't find the songs particularly enjoyable.

Anyway, after playing against this person I've unabashedly stole the name and used it for quite a few things when forced to name something. My trivia team, a name for my computer, and whatever happens to come up. It turns out that a few of my friends liked the name as well and one of them used the name for his Rec soccer team.

This seemed pretty lighthearted and silly, as Rec soccer usually is, but another friend didn't like the name. I don't have any problem with not liking the name as taste is pretty flexible, but the reason for not liking it was something I did disagree with. He didn't like the name because he found it to be derogatory against people of faith.

This is something I don't really understand because there is nothing inherently bad with Jesus or the Tyrannosaurus, so putting the two together shouldn't be a cause for offense. It isn't derogatory, mean spirited, or meant to imply ridicule. Yet, maybe there is one problem?

Would it fall under the third commandment of taking the lords name in vain? Well from what I've read (1 2) taking the lords name in vain has very little to do with swearing, as in vain usually applies to some kind of falsity. We looked for ketchup at the supermarket in vain or I tried to muster up the courage to say, "I don't want Dairy Queen" in vain. In fact, at least one page says that saying God dammit is pretty much the opposite equivalent of saying god bless, and neither should be offensive to anyone.

Historically taking Gods name in vain meant to put God's providence for something that God didn't really say. God tells me we will win this game! It was by the power of God that made apples taste better than oranges! God said go jump off that roof! Would all be examples of taking the lords name in vain and would violate the third commandment, but saying, 'god damn it' when you want god to damn something, or making a name like Jesusaurus Rex which makes no reference to what God would have done does not violate taking the lords name in vain.

What if the name instead was Muhammadaurus Rex would that make it worse? It seems like it would to me because Muslim sensitivity is so high. Muhammadaurus Rex shouldn't be any more offensive, but it is, not because the name is more derogatory, but because the people who believe in Muhammad are more inflexibly offended.  The problem then isn't with the name, but the people.

Does it belittle God? Possibly, but it shouldn't. If God is all powerful than how could a sarcastic name make him less powerful or diminish him at all? I think the one thing I got out of the God Delusion was that people need to be able to talk about belief in the same way they can talk about taxes without it becoming a personal attack that eliminates the conversation. Jesusaurus Rex shouldn't be any more offensive than Obamasaurus Rex or Muhammadsaurus Rex, any of which shouldn't be a call to arms for anyone.


Thanks for reading,
-themoralskeptic

Cee Lo Green - Stupid or Just Religious?

 

First of all I know that the title is a false dilemma, so if your here just to point that out, congratulations for being so clever. This is my first post in a while, but I've been busy moving, getting ready for my masters program and hibernating (It's cold in Canada).

Anyway, I was getting ready to break out of the new years slump when I heard about Cee Lo Green's New Years Eve performance where he changed the words to John Lennon's song Imagine.  Now I'm not a huge Beatles fan, but I don't mind them by any means and I respect what a song is trying to say when it does have a clear message, which is more than I can say for Cee Lo.

I'm also an atheist, so the words that were changed drew a lot of interest. Instead of saying, "Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too." Cee Lo chose to sing, "Nothing to kill or die for and all religion's true."

I understand the personal reasons that could have lead Cee Lo Green to change the words of the song to represent himself better, and he should have the freedom to do so, but I also have the freedom to criticize the changes he made.

The problem isn't that Cee Lo made changes to the song, it's that the changes he made ruined the message/meaning of the song. John Lennon wasn't bashing religion when he sang of there being an absence of religion. He was creating a situation where all the things that define and keep people separate from each other were magically taken away, so that people could be free to get along.  That being the case I don't see why even a religious person would have a problem with the hypothetical situation, just as no religious person should have a problem with John Rawl's Vail of Ignorance. 

It's a hypothetical situation created to show something, and if you don't like what you see because, you see that the world would be better off without religion than you don't have a problem with the hypothetical, you have a problem with religion. However, if you see the world as worse off without religion in the scenario 'Imagine' creates then there is no need to be offended by it, or to change the words.

That said, lets look at what Cee Lo Green created when he changed the words. Instead of there being no religion in the hypothetical situation, all religions are true. Well, that's nice to say, but how would it really work?

1. There could be one world where the rules change all the time, and then what ever your religion says comes true. It would  be an arbitrary world where everyone's religion's were true, but where it would be impossible to really communicate with others because of basic incompatibilities. For instance, 2+2 would be 4 for some people and maybe other people would have a religion where 2+2 = 5 and in Cee Lo's world both of them would  be correct. Yet, this complete incompatibility would leave people unable to communicate basic truths to each other and even if they could communicate them, they would be meaningless to the other person who has their own truth. 

2. Another way for it to work would be for every person to have their own little world where what their personal religion says is true. This is a world where you can be happy about having the capital 't' truth that just doesn't exist now, but it is also a world disconnected from everyone else. 

Either way, these are situations that seem less desirable than the world in which we currently reside, but that's alright because Cee Lo tweeted a clarification for us, "Yo I meant no disrespect by changing the lyric guys! I was trying to say a world were u could believe what u wanted that’s all.”

I have a news flash for Cee Lo, we live in a world where you can believe whatever you want! You don't have to create a hypothetical situation so see what that world looks like. There is no thought police, and the only limitations are in John Lennon's terms, what you can 'Imagine'.

So while he meant no disrespect, he did manage to take a classic song, ruin the message it had and create a new message that doesn't make any sense. If this were a game of clue we would find Mr. Green in the study humming while he urinated on John Lennon's rug that just so happened to tie the room together.

I've clearly put more thought into this than Cee Lo did, because I think anyone who knows the message of the song and then went through the implications of Cee Lo's words would come to the same conclusions I have.

Thanks for reading,
-the moral skeptic

P.S. To those who were waiting to find out what a false dilemma was, it's when you're given a choice between a limited number of things and the answer isn't necessarily contained within the list of choices. Cee Lo Green is both stupid and religious, a choice excluded in the title. 

Anton's Syndrome and Religion

I just learned of a new and interesting rare problem that a few people suffer from and think that it applies well to religious people and specifically how they prefer to answer one type of question. The idea to write this came from David Eagleman's book Incognito, so I'll just plug it for a second. It's a book that expands on the idea of how the mind constructs reality and the importance of the subconscious, so if I haven't jaded you from the subject it's worth a look at.

Anton's syndrome or Anton-Babinski syndrome is a problem that happens when there is damage to the occipital lobe. It causes a person to become completely blind, but the sufferers don't immediately report any problem at all. Not all that interesting so far. What is interesting is that this blindness is also coupled with two other symptoms, the lack of awareness of the blindness and the creation of the objects around them through the mind only.

All this means that the person will be completely blind, but will still think that they can see. Their condition is only exposed when someone else notices that what they say or how they act, turns out to be independent of the visual reality around them. A doctor will put up there hand and ask how many fingers they are holding up and the person will reply '3' when the doctor never lifted their hand in the first place, they will walk straight into walls and trip over anything put in front of them. What they are seeing is a complete fabrication generated by their mind and a fabrication that is independent of sensory information from the eyes. People with Anton's syndrome are living in completely in a visual world of their own creation.

This is what I feel like happens to an ultra-religious person and explains a nonsensical answer that is commonly given to a simple question. The questions of, 'Where is god?' or 'Where is the proof for god?' is commonly answered with the statement that "God is all around you." or "I see God in the leaves, the tide, and the stars....I see God in everything."

Now I have looked at many leafs and still have yet to find the God part of the leaf. These people are seeing what is an Anton's Syndrome like connection. There is something that makes it evident that God is a part of that thing that they are seeing, a part of the mind is coloring the view of what they are seeing. These people too are living in a world of there own creation that has no connection with reality, tripping over God and not noticing that the doctor's arm had never moved.

Now, it may be fair to criticize this view and say the people that are making these comments are making a metaphorical statement and surely some people are. It is always the charitable thing to take the strongest or most logical sense of what someone is saying. Yet, I don't think that the people making those kinds of blanket statements are always describing something metaphorically, they could be seeing the fingerprint of God on everything and must be taken literally when they say, "Yes, I see God in nature and not just his handiwork."

Perhaps, like in left temporal lobe epilepsy, there is a physiological mistake being made and people really are 'seeing something', but whether the connection is real or not Anton's syndrome provides an interesting way to interpret literally seeing God in the world.  

Then again they would probably use Anton's syndrome to deconstruct what I'm saying in the same way, I once was blind but now can see seems to imply exactly that.

The only problem with that is, I've never heard anyone say that they 'See evolution in the leaves' or 'The big bang in the rocks', although you could say that you hear evidence of the big bang in the cosmic background radiation.  You can't really see a process in a picture, in the same way you can apparently see God.

In one world I can point to the leafs and say "There are some leaves." and there can be an agreement, in the other you can look at leaves and say "I see God.", but you can't see it, and they tell you to look harder still, yet how hard must one look to see that emperor doesn't have any clothes?

Thanks for reading,
-the moral skeptic

Wouldn't A More Appropriate Response be to Burn the Bible?

In the spirit of the Canadian Election and politics in general I will once again put off writing about the Great Pacific Garbage patch and instead concentrate on a hot button political topic, making the environment, as usual, wait its turn behind sensationalism.

Now the issue that I really want to talk about is the burning of the Koran by an obscure Florida church, but this incident has so many parallels to the Mohammad Cartoon Controversy that I think that discussing it would give the appropriate background  to further understand what is going on now.

In 2005 in Denmark, there was a battle between what should be covered and what should be self censored, and at the culmination of this struggle the Jutland Post showed an article consisting of 12 political cartoons (shown above) some of which depicted Mohammad. Those cartoon images sparked over 100 deaths in riots that took place agianst them in many Muslim countries.

The deaths were a direct result of the hypersensitivity numerous Muslim people to what would be seen as rather routine political cartoons and what is comparable to many cartoons published about other religions.

In a question and answer on the BBC the answer to why the cartoons were received with such vitriol and venom was given. "Of course, there is the prohibition on images of Muhammad. But one cartoon, showing the Prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse, extends the caricature of Muslims as terrorists to Muhammad. In this image, Muslims see a depiction of Islam, its prophet and Muslims in general as terrorists. This will certainly play into a widespread perception among Muslims across the world that many in the West harbor a hostility towards - or fear of - Islam and Muslims."

Hrmmm, the deeply puzzling thing is not the hypocrisy that it is alright to have political cartoons of other political figures, and religions, but not of Muslims or the Muslim religion. That hypersensitivity is pretty well understood by there being such a barrier to religious criticism, as Dawkins puts it in The God Delusion, ""A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society accepts - the non-religious included - is [held] that religious faith is especially vulnerable to offense and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect in a different class from the respect that any human being should pay to any other.(p.20)"

There is so great a barrier to criticizing anything Muslim that it isn't puzzling at all why there was a visceral response to the cartoons, but how that response played out is puzzling.  How is it that someone offended by being characterized as a terrorist could, in any way, think that the answer was in taking part in terrorism?

This is what happened again last week. A church in Gainesville, Florida put the Koren on trail, and burned it after a deliberation of  8, hard thinking I'm sure, minutes. A video of the 'trail' and burning was then placed on the internet and took a couple of months to resurface in Afghanistan last week, but it resurfaced in a big way. The video was shown and there was a call for justice during April 1st sermons and thousands took to the streets causing riots that have reportedly settled on Monday and a death toll around 20.

A United Nations building was surrounded, two people were be-headed and Nine people foreign to Afghanistan died including, "Five Nepalese guards, a Norwegian, a Russian, a Romanian and a Swede." No one from Florida was found injured.

Barack Obama in response released a statement saying, "The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry...However, to attack and kill innocent people in response is outrageous, and an affront to human decency and dignity."

Now the act of burning the Koran has been rightly criticized as causing harm, and showing the intolerance of some people in the west, yet I do believe in a strong enough freedom of speech that it would allow someone to be extremely  intolerant and make political statements like burning the flag out of protest or holding a mock trail to burn the Koran (I'll post about this at a later time). 

So while the burning of the Koran showed intolerance, Barack and any sane commenter rightly condemns the mob actions as an atrocity that lies on a completely different scale than burning any book.

The appropriate response would have been to hold a trail, burn the Bible and declare Terry Jones and his followers hypocrites. It would have been a political act on the same scale and would point out the inconsistencies in the logic that Terry Jones was using, but I guess it might not been as immediately satisfying as beheading someone from the United Nations there trying to make your nation a better place, making Terry Jones's criticism justified. 

"What is so special about religion that we grant it such uniquely privileged respect?" p.27 The God Delusion. All this respect does is build up a barrier that makes people think that when that barrier is broken that they can respond with mob justice or purely unjustifiable actions.

There is a systematic self limiting of criticism of religion because of reactions like this and the answer isn't to demonize and alienate Muslims, it's to treat them like equals and let people have the freedom to make political cartoons and allow people to burn Koran as a political statement even if only to condemn the action afterwords as bigoted and intolerant.

The answer isn't to not talk about peoples religions at all, it's to be much more open about them.

Thanks for Reading,
-the moral skeptic

A Competency Test for Government Officials Is Needed

 

In the recent past two examples come to mind that make it readily apparent that governmental positions may be held by people with little or no competency in the positions they hold. This isn't a US, or Canadian thing, but a systematic problem that can be easily seen in many places, but the recent example of a Canadian and American will be used.

The Canadian example is older and has circulated, dieing down recently, but it still remains in the fore-front of my mind. Gary Goodyear made headlines in 2009 when he refused to answer a question about evolution, citing religious reasons for his lack of response, and then further showed that he failed to grasp evolution when making an apology later. This would be a slight mishap for most members of government, but when it is Canada's Minister of Science and Technology it shows a major systematic failure.

Gary's background is as a former chiropractor, which isn't the best background for scientific understanding. It might be thought that a medical background would lead to someone being well versed in dealing with science, but there is often a large gap between people doing studies and the practitioner who deals with patients. Someone can treat patients as a doctor, chiropractor, or therapist and no longer be immersed in the scientific process. This situation was talked about indepthly during The Skeptics Guide to the Universes interview with Carol Tavris in episode 269.

This was shown to be the case when Canada's Science minister was asked if he believed in evolution. His response was that, "I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate."

I don't think he understood that as the Minister of Science and Technology it is necessary that he be able to talk about scientific theories. He then went further to say that,

"I do believe that just because you can't see it under a microscope doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It could mean we don't have a powerful enough microscope yet. So I'm not fussy on this business that we already know everything. ... I think we need to recognize that we don't know."

Again, I'm sure that we don't know everything, but to say that, 'Just because you can't prove that it's there doesn't mean that it isn't there' is directly opposed to any scientific view. Without any evidence to believe that something is there, it shouldn't be thought of as being there or be appealed to as being there.

Until that new microscope shows that something is indeed there the question really isn't open to guess work. Everyone recognizes that there are things we don't know, but a Mister of Science and Technology should understand the need for evidence to decide if something is really there.

Than as a follow-up to make up for his obvious blunder he came out and officially demonstrated that he didn't know what he was talking about,

“We are evolving every year, every decade. That's a fact, whether it is to the intensity of the sun, whether it is to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it is running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment. But that's not relevant and that is why I refused to answer the question. The interview was about our science and tech strategy, which is strong.”

Evolution isn't a process where bodies get used to doing something and pass on that knowledge to future generations. That view of the process of evolution is the Lamarckian view and it is strong version of it at that. It is a view that incorrectly describes human evolution. People aren't being genetically selected because they can better walk on cement, it's a negligible factor in human reproduction. The question is relevant and Goodyear showed even in correcting himself he couldn't understand the most important scientific theory of our time (an argument could be made for general relativity).

Goodyear is a joke as a minister of science and technology, but as sometimes happens the United States has gone and one upped Canada. This 'one-upmanship' or 'down-manship', I'm really not sure, took place when John Shimkus, while running for the chair of the council on energy, brought his bible along to testify.

He then proceeded to read Genesis 8 verse 21 and 22, which states that, "Never again will I curse the ground because of man even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood and never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." and stated that, that was the infallible word of God and it will hold true about the earth.

I guess Mr. Shimkus really wanted to pile on the 'evidence' because he also read a second verse which came from Mathew 24 which states that, "And he will send his angles with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other. The earth will end only when god declares its time to be over."

Wow...that's all I can say. Even if this guy isn't elected to the head of the energy council he will still be part of the council, and will share the view that nothing drastic has to be done because God won't let the earth go to ruins, and won't destroy all living creatures. This is a tragedy, as he is someone with an ingrained  and obviously hazardous view, yet he will be helping to decide the energy policy for the most powerful nation in the free world.

Something has to be done about those type of people in government. I have no problem with people holding religious positions privately, or even having them in government when they don't have a direct bearing on the matters at hand, but there are some governmental positions that require a higher standard than others.

Take, I don't know....being the Minister of Science and Technology, for instance. That person should probably have to have an understanding of the scientific method, and some of the most prominent scientific theories. Ideally a science geek should be the minister of science and technology, just as someone with a real grasp about energy and how the world works should be a member of a council on energy, but looking at the situation now I'd take anyone who could pass a simple test.

This action takes no thought at all, just like when testing someone to show that the person has the knowledge to perform a job, government officials should have to pass a test to show that they are competent at fulfilling the position they are put in. It would save a lot of embarrassment, and would ensure that people like the above wouldn't sneak through the cracks as often.

Thanks for reading,
-the moral skeptic

Two Funerals and An Atheist: Part 3

This will  be my last post on this memory, and I'll move onto my more regular and less personal topics. The first post detailed the death and funeral of my Grandfather Charlie, while the second detailed the deathbed happenings surrounding Grandpa Allen's death. All that remains to write about are the few curious things that were said around my grandpa's wake/funeral and a choice that I made.

Grandpa Allen was dead, my second grandpa to have died in less than a week. This left my grandmother enough dessert and sandwiches for her to survive a nuclear winter and me just wanting to relax and take my mind off things by watching football. Yet it wasn't possible that day, but at least no one asked me to do any kind of bible readings. However, I was asked if I wanted to say something on behalf of the family during the funeral, I didn't answer, as I was thinking about more fundamental question.

I had been to Grandpa Charlie's funeral and felt out of place, uncomfortable, and unhappy from the onset and that was a funeral performed by a minster that was pretty laid back according to some church regulars. This minister would be less laid back and more long winded, but it wouldn't have mattered if he/she only did a 5 minute talk. What he/she would have expressed is a dogma that I don't accept, through a lack of reason for believing it. Given that it would be articulately spouted bullshit erupting from the lips it wouldn't really have mattered how long the fecal vomiting would have gone on, I didn't want to be a part of it.

Yet, I also didn't want make this funeral about me at all. This wasn't an act of protest that I wanted to be noted for, illogical belief was just something I didn't want to tastily endorse, or having tarnishing my memories as it still does for my memories of Charlie. So while I would have liked to stand up and express how much me meant to me, I wasn't willing to be a part of something I am ardently agianst. The decision was easily to make after looking at my feelings; the funeral is something that I would not go to, all that remained was to tell my family that...

As couple of days passed, it came to be the day before the wake would take place, and two days before the funeral. I was staying at Grandma's that night so she wouldn't have to be alone. It was about 8 p.m. and grandma left to take a bath and mom came down for a tea before bed, it was time I started explaining how I felt.

'I wouldn't be attending the funeral' I blurted out before explaining how I felt. She took it well, but asked if I was an atheist, butt she knew I was already, it was fairly obvious for a number of reasons. I explained the reasons that I've outlined in the previous two posts about why I wouldn't be attending, and she agreed that it was probably the best decision. Yet, she worried that Grandma might not take it as well as she did.

However, Grandma was even more understanding than anyone else. She said that it was fine, and didn't give me a shocked look or question as a response. It was arranged so that I would be there the morning of the funeral and just before it started I would slip out a side door and wait in the car. 

Yet, before the funeral there was the wake where I would shake those many hands again. Except this side of the family was much smaller and many people from my local community would be there. This was fine, although it gets a bit taxing when you have to say the same thing over and over again, especially when you don't really have too many good things to say about your current situation. I'll spare most of the details, but two incidents from the wake still stand out in my mind.

The first being what someone said to me in response to one of my stock responses. As I've written the LSAT's (the test to get into law school), and been in the process of applying, so as I was unemployed at the time when someone asked me what I was doing that is what I told them. When I went into my usual explanation of what I was currently doing and got a response that differed greatly from the, 'Ah, that's great.' it remained memorable.

An older man in his 70's or 80's came up to me and after a handshake he turned away slightly. The line to the casket wasn't really moving; it was time to make some idol small talk. He asked what relation I was to my Grandpa, and what I was currently doing. I explained to him what I stated in the previous paragraph. That's when he overtly stated that,'Well that's good but the law school test isn't as hard as the medical school test'. It was also better to be a doctor than a lawyer. All this from someone I hadn't met before, and he was telling me this at the funeral of my grandfather.

Perhaps the law school test is easier in some way, but like most people with strong opinions that they like to freely assert, he had no evidence to back up what he was saying. Although the tests results are determined by which percentile among the test takers you finish in, and not about an overall mark anyway, so the difficultly of the test a small factor in the results anyway. Either way this guy was a dick for what he said, and for saying it without any understanding of the process of the tests.

Which brings me to the other interesting memory of the wake. My brother was talking to a woman and they were talking about my grandfather, as one would expect in the setting. Yet, this conversation was a strange one. The part that I remember is when the woman said that Allen could be stubborn enough about something that it sometimes made him right. My brother and the woman laughed and nodded, seemingly to agree on the point.


Yet, I'm sure it would be agreed that stubbornness is no way to settle anything, and has no correlation with being right. Stubbornness instead is a quality that hinders being able to really look at the evidence and make an evaluation. The key is often stated as being open minded, but not so open minded that your brain falls out. Alfred Russel Wallace was so open minded that his indeed did, but there are many who error in the opposite direction, and Allen was one of those people. The quality of listening and careful evaluation was not his strong suit, and unlike at least two other people, I wouldn't celebrate it. People's faults after they die, still remain as faults, even with rose coloured glasses on.

That was all that was interesting at the wake, and as it ended it meant the next morning I would be living up to my choice of not going to the funeral. As it would turn out it went pretty smoothly. I would shake some more hands in the morning and just before it started than I walked into the hallway where they kept the coffee and tea. I exited through the door and sat in the car reading Sartre. The reading went pretty well, and so went the funeral from what I learned afterwords.

There was no regret for missing it, and no second thoughts about what I decided. A knock on the side of the car window told me it was over. My memories were persevered, free of bitterness. I was no longer a complacent supporter of religious pathological mythology. Yet, there remained the actual burial and the post funeral gluttony. They, like my Grandfather, wouldn't pass without incident.

At the burial I didn't stand near the casket and with my immediate family beside the priest, I stood far enough back that I didn't have to hear him and my aunt came to stand beside me, which I appreciated a lot. Yet, this priest was determined to have me hear him say something  so he blessed the food later.

I attended that post funeral meal and talked to a few different people. One person in particular wanted to speak with me, my Grandmother Jessie. Up to this point I had spoken with a few people and no one had mentioned my absence from the funeral, so I was starting to feel more relaxed. I was making the rounds, and talking to people, when I got to my grandma.

I gave her a hug and she asked me how I was doing. "I'm alright", I told her and then she let out a long 'ohhhh'. She then asked me where I went at the start of the funeral, and so I told her that I didn't feel that the funeral was something I wanted to be a part of and it really didn't represent my views at all. With that out of the way, she then had the obvious wonderment at why I attended her husbands funeral the week before.

With that I explained what I've explained in much greater detail in my first post of this series,  and told her that, at her husband's funeral I felt uneasy and out of place the whole time. It was the reason that I was able to make the decision not to attend the funeral of my other grandfather. I also told her that what was said at the funeral wasn't something that I had any belief in and was something I didn't want to complicity support.

Well, she looked a little taken-a-back by my candour. She quickly asked a question that still amuses me even now, "So your going to be a lawyer without Jesus in your heart?"

I can quite honestly say that I don't know exactly what my face looked like the moment I understood what she was going to say, but I'd bet I had a smile. Yes, I was going to be a lawyer without Jesus in my heart, but I chose not to answer the question. Answering that question wouldn't get me anywhere and wasn't something I wanted to get into about in front of a room of about 200 acquaintances, friends, and family members immediately after a funeral.

I instead just told her that I still loved her and that, that hadn't changed at all. She returned my sentiment and told me that she loved me as well, but also added that, "She wasn't giving up on me."

I'm sure that atheist's or agnostics that have gone through a similar situation have heard those words as well. The words that you were a lost soul in need of being saved; the type of soul that is sang about in Amazing Grace.

Well I don't need a song, personal opinions or priests to save me, I'll be humbled by the evidence that is brought before me. Show me the soul and it will save itself.

Thanks for reading,
-the moral skeptic

A Tale of Two Funerals and an Skeptical Atheist: Part 2

Well the previous post dealt with my feelings from the death of Grandpa Charlie. It ran on longer than expected so this is the second part of the story and the second death I had to deal with. Instead of being a passive observer in what was going on and being complicit, tacitly supporting the mysticism that surrounded me I took more of a stand...but I'm getting ahead of myself .


When my last post ended I was just leaving the after funeral family gathering based around snacks, cakes, caffeinated beverages: a smorgasbord of artificial togetherness. Other family's may have been brought closer together by an event like this, but I don't feel that was the case with this unfortunate passing.

So my family drove home, tired and emotionally drained. I went to bed to lay down and quickly found myself asleep and then awoken. The phone rang, something urgent had come up an hour into my after funeral slumber. Mom and Dad were driving to the hospital, it appeared that Grandpa Allen was having some difficulty, his lungs had filled with fluid again. I sat at home with my brother and a close family friend. We sat waiting for the inevitable phone call telling us to come to the hospital and tell him our good-byes.

We didn't have to wait long, as soon as my parents got to the hospital it was apparent that this would be last night of his life. Grandpa Allen would die early in the morning of his 51st wedding anniversary, a fact that would only be remembered afterwords. He would be surrounded by family and friends, but I would not be among them. 

The three of us drove to the hospital in a surreal state. How do you say your good-byes to someone full of morphine, struggling to breath and who has no waking consciousness? It is a hallow self serving good-bye, but at least it grants a little closure.

We arrived and walked with heavy steps to the evaluator that would lead us to the 10th floor and a hallway to a room that had been emptied for us. The walk took only a couple minutes, but it felt much longer. There was a nervous energy that filled me, it was like I was excited to be there, but I didn't know why and still can't really make sense of it.

In the room were Grandma, Mom, Dad and pale man breathing loudly and fighting for each breath. It was 9 P.M. and for the next three hours were filled with many tears, tissue boxes, and stories of a man who would soon cease to be.

The stories were great. I learned, laughed and cried. An uncle showed up an hour later and brought back all the emotion that had somewhat eased with time. Doctors came in and out and kept the morphine flowing, and all the while we remembered and celebrated the better times. This was a proper sending out.

Of course I had to ignore a few statements about how he was going to a 'better place', or how Allen was dying  because he couldn't let Charlie beat him to heaven and that they will both be 'up there' laughing at us. I understood not only that that's what they think happens when someone dies, but also it is how they are able to cope with an awful situation. Knowing and thinking about that, left comments lacking the usual sting of annoyance they usually held.

Yet, as the minutes turned into hours, and the tears faded, and so to did the stories. All that remained was my Grandpa Allen gasping, struggling to breath despite the oxygen that was being pumped into his nose. With each minute that passed I had a greater appreciation for what was going on. I had said my good-byes, reminisced about Allen, and cried my tears. All that remained was waiting for him to die. The more I thought about it the more morbid it seemed, why sit and watch the person you loved die, what good does it do?

I was the only one that left, everyone else stayed, staring at the upcoming car crash. The car ride hope brought little solace, but I was able to relax a little more now that I wasn't watching, waiting for someone to die. Laying in bed I couldn't sleep, and just listened to music. After a few hours my family came home, everything was over, and I could now rest my tired eyes.

Part three, will talk about the funeral and the days after.

Thanks for reading,
-the moral skeptic

A Tale of Two Funerals and an Skeptical Atheist

While, with my last post I briefly mentioned that there had been a couple deaths in my immediate family, I didn't really talk about them at all. I was saving it all for one post that will be a lot more intimate then my other posts (two parts). Now, while some of the specific memories have faded a few have stood out and those are the ones that I will talk about here.

In the past couple of weeks both my Grandpa's have passed away, and while they weren't in the most healthy of conditions, the sad fact remains that I will never get to see or enjoy being with them again, except in the memories that I can only roughly piece together. This is one time where I did wish the mind worked more like a video camera, because the assumptions my mind makes in the memories only takes me further away from them.

I guess a chronological order is the best way to deal with everything I'll have to say, but I'll have to provide a little context for everything to make sense. For anyone who reads my blog or noticed the big red A on the side bar they probably realized that I'm an atheist, but this post will leave no doubts of that. While, my personal atheism may have been slightly understated, my skepticism surrounding issues that have no evidence or where the evidence points agianst has been loud and upfront.

Thus I will begin with the death of Grandpa Charlie. Now the death itself, while a sad occasion and unfortunate circumstance, it was better then what he was enduring in his day to day life. So for that I reason I wasn't too saddened by the passing. My brother flew home, and my fathers brothers/sisters got together to make the necessary arrangements.

It was during this process that it was suggested that I could read a passage. I pretty sure could could guess the source of the passage, but I don't think they would have liked the verses that I would have picked out if they really forced me to read.

These are courtesy of Dumb Shit the Bible Says:

"So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son."

— 2 Kings 6:29

So why not boil Grandpa up and make some soup for the masses? or How about?

"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. While he was on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him. 'Go up, baldhead,' they shouted, 'go up, baldhead!'"

"The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the children to pieces."

— 2 Kings 2:23-24

Good thing my Grandpa had all his hair or the she-bears might have came to the funeral, but I could also go with the always classic. 

"And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished."

"Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money."

— Exodus 21:20-21

Not that I really would read those at a funeral, I wouldn't want to take the emphasis away from the person who is being remembered. That being said, I did flatly refused to read anything from the bible and didn't want to really participate in a religious ceremony, as I personally don't want to endorse or complicity endorse any religion as they cherish counter-intuitive beliefs that go agianst evidence and reason.

So I didn't have to read anything, and the wake went fine. Lots of hand shaking, while hearing how much I look like this uncle, that cousin, and even a few more distant relatives. Nothing really to eventful happened until the next day.

The day of the funeral came and I had mixed emotions, I knew that what was going to take place was something I didn't believe in. Not only that, I also knew there would also be lecturing and different varieties of thumping the bible, but I'd couldn't recall going to a funeral before so I wasn't exactly sure what was in store for me.

We gathered at 9 in the morning at the funeral home and shook a few more hands that weren't able to make it the day before. Then everyone who wasn't part of the very immediate family were ushered out and a older lady in a white robe came in. She made some small talk, then said a prayer and there was a moment of silence. During which everyone put there head down, bowed and closed their eyes. I bowed my head too, with the respect and appropriateness that the situation called for.

Family, by family we were ushered into the funeral home's chapel. My family was first, but there was just enough of us so that I could hide in anonymity in the corner of the next row. I sat there with the family of my dads brother and watched as the chapel slowly filled up.

Then it started. 45 minutes of singing, dancing and clapping for Jesus. I was called a sheep and told that Charlie would now be living with God. The lasting memories of the person's life took a backseat to the supposed spiritual journey that had been taking place. I could not sing Amazing Grace, because unlike the other wretched people I hadn't been lost, nor was I blind to what was going on.

My eyes were all to open. Instead of the sadness of the occasion, I felt the unease of being different than everyone else, and the bitterness of being preached at left a sour taste in my mouth for the remained of the day. I didn't say much as we drove to the graveyard, but I knew that, that would be the last funeral service of that kind I would be apart of. Where was the celebration of who the person was? What had they accomplished? All that took it's place was some lady talking who had no idea who he was, yet she was smiling the whole time. She could smile and tell me what happened after death, but so could my 5 year old cousin, and at least he would have had some insight from spending a Christmas with the man before.

I said little the whole day, and knew that I was the only one who had any of those kind of feelings. I couldn't stomach the sandwiches, crackers and desserts. The commonality that exists between families and the need to find out what someone else is doing because they are related to you never really appealed to me anyway, so for the most part I stood alone and thought. 

Yet, this was only be beginning....part two will tell the rest of my story.


Thanks for reading,
-the moral skeptic