Tragic Opportunity

I wrote this piece a few years ago. I'll explain why I'm posting it here again at the bottom.

Good Chrisians

The other day I saw a church van with a few bumper stickers on the back. I won't say here to which church it belonged. Anyway, the first sticker I noticed was an anti-Obama sticker. The sticker read "Obama can keep the change. We'll keep our money, guns, and freedom." Now even though I voted for Obama I had to laugh because I can appreciate good humor. But then I started thinking, these are supposed to be good Christian people and what are their top priorities? First is money, which is supposed to be the root of all evil. Second is guns, which are weapons used for violence and murder. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against money or guns, especially money. But are these really the top priorities of good Christian people? The last item listed was freedom. Well there is certainly nothing wrong with freedom. I think we can all agree that we should have freedom to make choices and live our lives as we please. Right? Then I seen the other stickers which were an anti-ProChoice sticker and an anti-Gay sticker. I guess the people of this church only care about freedom for themselves and not other people. Maybe these "Good Christians" should review their priorities.

Since the shootings in Newtown, CT this week, I have changed my position about guns. What needs to be done? I don’t know, but the time has come for something to be done.

R.I.P. John Lennon

          Yesterday was the anniversary of John Lennon’s death.  So when I got home from work I posted Lennon’s “Imagine” video on Facebook.  The only status I posted with the video was the dates of his birth and death.  Within minutes one of my brothers posted a video called “Genius - the Movie” that has a picture of Lennon on it.  This brother happens to be a devout SuperChrisian and he never post anything on Facebook without it being about religion.  I was curious so I watched the movie.  Of course it turned out to be just another Christian propaganda film.  What did it have to do with John Lennon you ask?  Well it attempted to explain that the song “Imagine” was not an Atheist theme song but in fact a Christian theme song.  We all know the lyrics - No hell below us, above us only sky.  They claim that when someone hears these lyrics they can’t “imagine” this scenario so therefore heaven and hell must exist.  Crazy, right?  Christians will do anything to twist and pervert the truth to match their narrow minded view.

Dad, Do You Believe In God?

The American Humanist Association recently started a new website, www.kidswithoutgod.com .  They are calling this a site for the millions of young people around the world who have embraced science, rejected superstition, and are dedicated to being Good Without A God.  All I can say is that its about time parents had some tools and resources to help them with this subject.
I remember when my son came to me and asked if I believed in God.  He was about 10 years old and I was not prepared for the question.  My son had been taught about religion, but since we did not attend any religious services I guess he wanted to know where I stood on the subject.  I answered him with the question, “Do you?”  He told me that he did not.  I tried not to smile but I know it was there.  I’ll admit that I was relieved, because although he was taught about many of the different religions (and that some people believe in this one and some that one), he was never taught that he didn’t have to believe in any of them.  So I explained to my son that I didn’t believe in any gods, certainly not the one in the bible.  It was a great conversation, but it sure would have been nice to have a website to go to for information.  Thank you AHA.

We're All Born Atheist

When I was born, I was born an Atheist.  We all enter the world this way.  And just like everyone else, I didn’t know it.  My first memories of religion are of attending a Catholic church with my family.  As a young child (4-6 years old) I don’t remember much about it.  I can still see the large cathedral in my mind.  I also remember the kneeling then sitting and then kneeling again.  I didn’t understand this, but I just went along.  I can also still see the basket of money being passed down the aisle, and my dad putting in his couple of dollars.  I didn’t understand any of it.
When I was 7 years old we moved to a different part of the state.  We started attending a Baptist church.  The Baptist church was different from the Catholic church.  We sang a lot of songs about Jesus, and the Pastor loudly preached how we were going to burn in hell if we didn’t follow god’s word.  This was my first introduction to the bible.  We had Sunday school before services every week, and we were taught stories from the bible.  I found them to be unbelievable, they sounded like fairy tales to me.  So I would question the teachers.  Questions like - Why can’t we see god? Where is heaven? How did Noah get all those animals on the ark? (and that was before I knew just how many animals are in this world!)  The teachers were very annoyed with me, and I never got a strait answer out of them.  I didn’t believe in god or the bible, but everyone that I knew did.  My family, teachers, friends…all of them.
One day after Sunday school( I was 8 years old) I heard some men talking in the hallway.  I probably wouldn’t have even noticed them, but I heard them talking about people called “Atheists“.  Now, I was a pretty good student in public school.  I loved science, math, and history - especially history!  So I had heard of Germans, French, British, Japanese, etc.  But I hadn’t heard of Atheists.  I walked up to the men and I asked about these Atheist people.  One man told me, “Atheists are people who don’t believe in god”.  I can only imagine the expression on my face as I became overjoyed and blurted out, “There are other people who don’t believe in god.  I don’t believe in god.  So I’m an Atheist”.  The men rushed me to the room where my parents were and told them what I had said.  My dad promptly dragged me out to the parking lot and beat my ass.  But I didn’t care.  I was still happy because I knew I wasn’t alone in the world.  I was an Atheist.