American Gods

This is a bad land for gods.... The old gods are ignored. The new gods are as quickly taken up as they are abandoned, cast aside for the next big thing. Either you've been forgotten, or you're scared you're going to be rendered obsolete, or maybe you're just getting tired of existing on the whim of people.

--Shadow in American Gods by Neil Gaiman

American Gods was a really fun read. I like the strange world that Neil Gaiman came up with. Or was he just writing the reality that he saw? That is what I would like to discuss here. Ever since the possibility that God may not be what I think He is, I started to wonder why religion and gods exist at all. This story explains many of my thoughts in a very artful way.

Gods started out as a way to explain all the things.

 At some point in our prehistory, one of our ancestors found the mental capacity to think about something besides survival; food, protection, and reproduction. They had questions like: why lightning? or what after death? or cause of random event? Maybe the first questions were even more basic than these. "Some external power makes it so" seems to be a reasonable answer when you don't have any other answer. As one person told another person this idea, it spread like wildfire because there was no evidence to the contrary.

People believe. It's what people do. They believe. And then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen.

--Shadow in American Gods by Neil Gaiman

We believe not because we want to believe, but because the evidence compels us to believe. It would have made my life a lot easier to just believe that God exists and not deal with the fallout with my believing family, but the evidence compelled me to believe that there probably (very, very, very likely) is no god, thus my exodus from religion. But when fire still seems like magic, and lightning can only be explained by supernatural powers, believing in a god only makes sense.

There are fewer things that need explaining.

 The gods (and mostly Yahweh, because he was the main God in the region at that time) started to loose their mighty grasp on the minds of their creators sometime around the Renaissance. People started to think, reason, and understand; science started to explain the mysteries of God. Copernicus, in my opinion, though he was a Christian, pried back the first finger of God, allowing later freethinkers to finish Him off. Stating that the earth is NOT the center of the universe starts one thinking about why God would have created humankind, the pinnacle of His creation, off to the side, putting the sun at the center of our galaxy instead. So maybe we aren't as important as we thought? As science and reason advanced, we found that lightning (and all weather in general) is not caused by a vengeful or loving god, but rather it is a natural part of the earth's ecosystem, water cycle, etc. The same goes for earthquakes and volcanoes, tsunamis and hurricanes. Not a vengeful god that is trying to punish us, but rather the earth, doing what it does without malice or forethought. Medicine has come a long way from humours and leeches to antibiotics and DNA sequencing. Thanks to Darwin, humankind no longer has reason to doubt that we are cousins to every living thing on earth.

Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.

--American Gods by Neil Gaiman

The gods are going extinct.

It would take hours to list all the things that were once ascribed to gods that we now have non-supernatural reasons for. The tenacious grip of god has turned tenuous. The gods of yesteryear are merely the stuff of myth and legend today. If it were not for the vast quantity of writing and digital caching of the Internet, they would fade away even faster. For this same reason, it seems that Yahweh (and Allah for that matter, though they are really just two names for the same God) have had a strong grip on the world because their stories are immortalized in the written word.

If it makes you more comfortable, you could simply think of it as metaphor. Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father....

--American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Someday, I expect, that even though it says in the writing that those books of scripture are the word of God written by his holy prophets, people will come to realize that it is just a story (and not a very good one at that). They will realize that religion is a metaphor, a tool that was used to calm the doubts and fears of the masses to allow civilization to flourish.

What is religion anyway?

Yes, I believe that we are genetically inclined to believe in religion. I think that Richard Dawkins has some great points in The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion.  I think that religion evolved as a social mechanism to help mankind form societies where intelligence, peace and prosperity could thrive, thus further separating us from our cousins and reaffirming the dominance of our species. But, as Dawkins says in The Selfish Gene, "Whenever a system of communication evolves, there is always the danger that some will exploit the system for their own ends." This is one of the dangers of religion: leaders wielding their power for their own ends, usually with detrimental effect to many others. Now that science has squeezed all the gods into the cracks of the unknown, another one of the issues I have with religion is that it reinforces ignorance and praises blind faith. I find it hilarious that many Mormons (members and leaders) are terrified of reading "anti-Mormon literature" because it can pull you away from the true teachings of the church. Yet, if there are things that are that dangerous to your "truths" you may want to examine those truths again to see if they match up with reality.

Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival: the analogue of steering by the moon for a moth. But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility. The inevitable by-product is vulnerability to infection by mind viruses.

--The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

As terrible as the phrase sounds (and I think the pointed wording was on purpose, because we all know that Richard Dawkins is an ass), it really rings true to me. I believed as a child with all my heart in the truth of the gospel as taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I knew it was true because I was taught that it was true. I had become a carrier to pass it onto my children as well. And I did. Isn't that how viruses spread? Or how 'viral marketing' works? One person to the next because of how great it is. When you are a believer, your religion is the one true religion and it is great, so you want to pass it on. The newly indoctrinated take over the cause and make it their own.

Now if religion did no harm, I would not have so much problem with it. But you saw how the gods in American Gods fought each other. Their subjects do as well. They are commanded by their gods to conquer other unbelieving nations and impose the good word on the infidels. Nearly universally, they oppress women and homosexuals (and every other minority). Because of this, I am somewhat anti-religious. Yes they do great good, but until we can convince the leaders of these religions of the need for HUMANITY, that there is no "us and them," that we should not be fighting, but helping, lifting up instead of oppressing, most all religions should be torn down.

Now I get off my high horse.

100 Reasons Why Dr. Hovind is Stupid

Sorry for the title, I know that is a straw man attack, but in his own words, he should be calling himself stupid. Really, though, the things Dr. Hovind preaches are ridiculously stupid. All of this to prove that his book of scripture is true.

Recently, I watched 100 Reasons Why Evolution is So Stupid, a talk by Dr. Kent Hovind given in Coeur d'Alene, ID, sometime ago. What a joke! Apparently he thinks that if he makes stupid little jokes then people will believe whatever he says. Even as a lay person in the world of science (geology, biology, and physics), I was able to debunk almost all of his arguments as he brought them up. The things people will believe! People living alongside dinosaurs. Ha!

Then I read How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments? by Dave Maston. Now we have some real arguments.

I can't stand the way young earth creationists attempt to use "science" to prove their stance is correct. The biggest blunder is that they seem to cling onto the one, obviously incorrect piece of evidence that does not fit with the rest of the very cohesive mountain of evidence. My biggest laugh was all the incorrectly radiometric dating blunders; living mollusks that are millions of years old, etc.

Anyway, if you are up for a good laugh and have a bit of spare time, give those two a shot.

Root of All Belief

I am at root a physical thinker and learner, but when that is not possible, I think my next best learning language is visual. I can't listen to people drone on and expect to learn half of what is expected. I didn't have a physical representation of God, revelation, the spirit, priesthood, etc., to see how it all related, so how better to know what I believe that to map it out visually.

I planned this great little application (originally php, later javascript) that would allow me to add 'Tenets' and relate them to each other logically (IF -> THEN, AND, OR, NOT, etc.) to make a web of belief. It was a great idea, but really flawed at its root: I didn't have absolute knowledge of much at all in which to ground my beliefs; I really only had a belief with some certainty.

It turns out that I was not the first one to come up with the idea of probabilistic logic. When I read about it, I was amazed at how well it fit my problem. All I had to do was make my Tenets application into a probabilistic logic network. Then I could see how much I really believe.

By this time, I had already pretty much come to the conclusion that my beliefs were all rooted in the idea that God exists. If God exists, it would make sense that God would want to create wonders (earth, the universe, and mankind) and would want to talk to us through revelation. Mormon theology is deeply rooted in revelation; prophetic and personal. From there, we get all other manner of beliefs: priesthood, miracles, ordinances, church organization, etc. We can trace it all back to God. If God doesn't exist, then it is all moot. Thus my radical change from a believing Mormon to an atheist, agnostic, or whatever. It's not that I found a religion that explains my purpose better, it is that I don't believe in ANY religion. As Dawkins put it, I had already stopped believing in all the other gods (thought of them as nice, interesting, or weird myths) and just took it one step further to stop believing in the last god that I had held onto since my childhood.

Since I had ruled out the root of all belief, my religious views crumbled and I kind of found my Tenets application no longer necessary. But I was thinking that someday it might be nice to revisit and put scientific discovery in where God once was. How do I explain the universe now? Someday when I get around to it, I will dust off my javascript skillz and make something cool.

The Impossibility of Atheism

Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

--Isaac Asimov

Logically speaking, it is impossible to prove the non-existence of something. Or is it? Where is the logical flaw in:

1. If A then not B
2. A
3. Not B

Where A is some natural phenomenon, B is the existence of God.

All we have do is find something that is incongruous with the existence of God and poof! God formally no longer exists. Philosophically speaking, I am in way over my head here.  People have been working on this problem for thousands of years. So really all this does is show that my thoughts really aren't any higher than your thoughts.

The book "36 Arguments for the Existence of God" gives way better proofs than I could come up with. Well, it rebuts all the proofs for the existence of God that are very clever, showing that none of them hold water. But still, none of them prove that God does not exist. It just shows how hard it is to prove that God does exist (even though logically speaking, that is supposed to be the easier case to prove.)

In the end, I don't think it is necessary to prove one way or the other. God has failed to give sufficient proof of his/her/its existence and science has done a great job of providing evidence that God did not take part in X physical law. Or more correctly, science has provided evidence that God was not required to take part in X physical law. When I look at the human eye, I see a very flawed, yet quite wondrous organ. But when a intelligent design believer looks at the human eye, they see the hand of God. We see what we want to see, believe what reinforces what we already believe and leave the rest of it outside our boxes.

So I think I will join Isaac Asimov and say that for all intents and purposes I am an atheist. If God really wants people to believe, he/she/it will have to do a lot better job of providing evidence of existence. And don't tell me that God can't provide evidence of existence without taking away our agency. An all-powerful, all-knowing, omni-present God should certainly be able to provide a way. If not, they lack the power to convince me.

You Can't Legislate Stupidity

Sometimes I have to step back and shake my head at the stupidity of some folks. Your boy is turning five years old this week, so what should you get him? Yup, that's right, a rifle. Not a BB gun or a pellet gun. A .22 caliber rifle. A killing machine. For a five year old. Huh?

I can't even begin to imagine the sorrow that is in these Kentucky parents' minds. This is a real tragedy that could have been prevented.

Ban assault rifles! Ban large ammo clips! Take away all the guns! Require background checks!

Back up. You can't legislate everything. You can't, for example legislate terrorism. Sure, you can say, "It's against the law to be a terrorist." But will that really stop anyone from being a terrorist? You can't legislate greed. But most of all, you can't legislate stupidity.

Sure, you can try. You are required to use this strappy thing in your car while you drive to help keep you safe. And yet how many stupid people do you see driving without seat belts? It's their neck on the line.

Would a law banning parents from giving guns to minors have prevented this tragedy? I doubt it. Because those same parents that are willing to give guns to minors are likely to also have unsecured guns around the house, which is just as good as a birthday gift. This poor girl was not the first child to be fatally shot by another child and will most definitely not be the last.

Let us all think twice about the wonder of life and how easily it can slip away. May we all take care to instill proper fear and respect of lethal devices into the minds of our children so they can discern between a toy and an implement of death. And until they can be trusted to know the difference, may we take extra care to keep them safe. This is just common sense.

What is a Friend

Friends are folks that despite yourself
Are beside you, buoyant as can be.
Like family, but not quite the same
'Cause they fell from a different tree.

No need to judge a friend or argue;
He's not your cousin or brother.
Accepting differences between you and me
Requires no common mother.

--Me

Sorry for the cheesy poetry. I occasionally get the urge to wax poetic and I am going to blame it on my gay dad. His execution is just more refined than mine.

I don't have a lot of friends. Well, at least not close ones. I did get an email from a friend that I haven't seen since I stopped going to church saying we should have lunch sometime. I was curious to know if it was because he missed our snarky conversations at the back of the primary room or if he was prompted by someone at church to reach out again to the less active. After I asked myself the question, I think I have to go with the former because he doesn't really seem the type to reach out if he doesn't want to.

Lunch confirmed it. He just wanted to say hi and catch up a bit. It was very nice and refreshing. Not to mention good food too. He didn't ask why he hasn't seen me at church more than twice in the last year. We talked about work, vacation, houses, kids, etc. All safe topics. I don't know if he was itching to talk about my apostasy or not, but this is a thank-you note because he didn't.

Leaving the church was a pretty easy decision for me. Once I made up my mind, I feel like I am fairly OUT. But telling people never really got easier. I haven't really told any of my friends that I am not that close to. Most of my friends from BYU don't know that I am an atheist (or agnostic or whatever). It doesn't really come up. And I don't feel it is really that important to our relationship (not that I am really *close* with most of my facebook friends). So I carry on not telling people. If anyone asks, I won't hold back, but not even friends from church that I have talked to ask. In a way, that helps me because our friendship should not be based on religion or theology. I don't ask any of them if they believe in the flying spaghetti monster. And I don't care.

Maybe it's not telling friends that is difficult. The hard part is bringing it up in the first place. Why is it so hard to talk about that 900 lb. gorilla that is standing next to me?

Comedy v. Tragedy

God's sense of humor is very different from our own.
He does not laugh at the simple
"man walks into a bar" joke. No, God needs
complex irony and subtle farcical twists
that seem macabre to you and me.
All that we can hope for is that God
God got his good laugh and
a tragedy such as this will never happen again.

--South Park (Season 7, Episode 10, Grey Dawn)

After I finished watching all 16 available seasons of South park, I thought I should mention one of the more striking quotes. When I watched season 7, it was much closer to the Newtown, CT, massacre than now. But I still think the quote is applicable. Trey Parker and Matt Stone both say they are not atheist, but they do freely poke at all things, including religion. I think that is a fairly healthy habit to do; poke and prod at things that don't make sense.

Anyhow, this episode was about old people driving cars and killing people. But really, any tragedy, disaster, terrorist attack, etc. will work fine in this situation. If you believe in God, it makes it very hard to explain some of these tragic events. How could a loving God allow that kind of stuff to happen to His children? The LDS theology says that He cannot interfere with mankind's agency, so bad things happen because of bad people. But that doesn't account for natural disasters. Do they happen because of bad people too? I suppose some of the stuff in scripture did. That does not sound like much of a loving God; vengeful, jealous, and hateful, more like. You know, the kind of God that this quote so aptly describes.

I personally reject the notion of a God that is just messing with us. I refuse to worship such a being. I also reject the notion of a God that supposedly loves us and yet allows such terrible things to happen. Hell, I am a mere mortal and can get my kids to not kill each other. I can teach them love, respect, honesty, and all manner of goodness BECAUSE I AM HERE. God would get a lot farther in His desires for all mankind to worship his great name if he were physically here doing good things for His children that He supposedly loves.

In the meantime, I will just have to give credit for all the terrible things that happen on this planet to the same place I give credit for all the wonderful things that happen: mankind. We as a species span the spectrum from unbelievably horrible to spectacularly wonderful. And I will attribute to any God the same credit I give to Santa Claus: nothing.