CAN INTELLIGENT PEOPLE BE CHRISTIAN?

I stopped by Greta Christina's blog this morning and she just wrote something so inciteful that I've decided to copy it here. She's one of the most effective female bloggers out there. Here it is:

"I got an email from a reader, asking me a question. (As far as I can tell, it’s not in response to any particular piece I’ve written.) With their permission, I’m posting their email here, along with m...y response to it. (I’m keeping the reader’s name private, per their request.)

Do you think that it’s possible for an intelligent, reasonable, and well-informed person to be a Christian? Or do you feel that no reasonable, intelligent, and well-informed person could possibly believe in traditional Christianity.

Just curious.

Short answer: Yes, I think it’s possible for an intelligent, reasonable, and well-informed person to be a Christian.

But I don’t think Christianity is an intelligent, reasonable, or well-informed position.

Intelligent, reasonable, and well-informed people can be wrong. They can be profoundly wrong. They can be stubbornly wrong. They can be deeply attached to wrong ideas, with contorted and absurd rationalizations for their wrongness. They can be wrong about big, important things. In fact, I would argue that this is universally true: every intelligent, reasonable, and well-informed person is bone-headedly wrong about something. Being an intelligent, reasonable, and well-informed person doesn’t mean every opinion or idea or belief you have is intelligent, reasonable, and well-informed. You can be an intelligent, reasonable, and well-informed person, and still have dumb, unreasonable, ill-informed ideas.

And yes, I think Christianity is one of these. I think all religion is one of these.

Can an intelligent, reasonable, and well-informed person be a Christian? Obviously. Many of them are. It would be absurd to claim otherwise, entirely counter to all the available evidence.

But that doesn’t mean it is intelligent, reasonable, or well-informed to be Christian. It isn’t. There is no good reason to think Christianity is true; there are lots of good reasons to think it’s bunk. And the same is true for every religion."

A THANK YOU

Facebook keeps asking me what's on my mind. So much I couldn't begin to post it all, there or here. I try to cover as much as possible. Have no idea how many love it or hate it. I really don't care who doesn't. I'm going to write it and cross post it anyway. At least some will appreciate it.

For far too many years, I was sentenced to grumbling in silence and, alternately, soaring to the heights with ecstatic thoughts I couldn't share. Even now, so few really see or care about the things that matter to me as a caring individual and patriotic citizen.

I just want to say once again that I really appreciate what modern technology has made available to people like me. I started out fitfully a couple years ago blogging and then Facebooking and it all keeps expanding. I'm writing so much more, delving ever deeper into mass communication. No day is boring anymore. If I'm tired of doing chores, I can sit down here at the computer and let myself range free putting into prose what I may have been mulling over for hours.

I just wanted to express my appreciation. It's more fulfilling than I could ever have dreamed possible.

 

Thanks to all those who made it possible.

IS IT TOO LATE?

My nation is in horrible shape!  It no longer leads the world as a shining beacon.  That position has now gone to nations from which many of our people once emigrated (http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/05/27/do-you-know-why-denmark-is-one-of-the-happiest-countries-in-the-world/) 

 

Where did all this insanity come from, I have to ask. Why do we think we have to impoverish over ninety percent of the population to be propsperous? The mantra is alway cut, cut, cut -- less, less, less equals more, more, more -- prosperity, prosperity, prosperity.

It's insane! And, I know where it comes from as the ultimate source.

Straight from stupid religion!

I lived under a religious regime similar to what has been foisted off on the American population for over twenty years under a malevolent narcissist by the name of Herbert W. Arnmstrong.

Armstrong hated labor unions. He was an elitist. He believed only those in the top positions, as he determined those top positions, deserved real prosperity. He was class-minded in the extreme and that's one reason he liked Britain and its endemic class system so much.

Religions are predominently hierarchical. There are milder exceptions, I know. But, as a whole, from the Catholics (wherever mother Rome squats, most of the people usually end up impoverished) on down, it's the elite riding rough shod over everyone below them and living an easy life of mostly leisure and often a lot of adulation from fawning sycophants. Shut up and go along, or else is their mantra. Know your place and keep to it.

Religion wormed its way into control of the GOP, as Goldwater foresaw and dreaded, writing:  "Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the (Republican) party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible problem.  Frankly, these people frighten me.  Politics and governing demand compromise.  But these christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise.  I know, I've tried to deal with them." 

 

They have since achieved overwhelming control and any wisdom men like Eisenhower Goldwater had disappeared and is still disappearing. It's a party of unthinking fanatics with a creed that paralizes rational thought. Like a screaming holy roller preacher they hurl their bombast at any and all, vouching for unsubstantiated and totally ridiculous absurdities any thinking individual would recoil from.

Too many Americans no longer think. Like us former Worldwiders, they soak it all up and regurgitate it unthinkingly. The pat answers of smaller government, cut spending, lower taxes become a hypnotizing mantra that gets spewed forth like a torrent. Dogma rules! Reason need not apply!

Cutting myself free from the insidious slavery of religion rescued me from continuing to waste my life on an illusion. As long as my nation continues to let the illusions of the religious-minded control national affairs, we will continue to descend into a morass of destruction and despair.

I wonder if it is already too late to stem the tide.

BE ON GUARD

Technology, especially the improvements in communication, like everything else, has up and down sides. Communication has especially exploded. At the wedding yesterday, cell phones (mostly the smart variety) were ubiquitous. People were taking snapshots, maybe videos, and on them constantly. I've taken to asking people to mute their cell phones when I begin the ceremony.

We know about anything and everything minutes after an occurence anywhere in the world. Whether an assertion or emotional appeal is wise or stupid, it can be front and center to millions of people almost instantaneously.

I'm all for knowing, but I wish so much of what is slamed in my face wasn't so false and outright stupid -- geared to emotionally deceive people. It was mainly through radio that Herbert Armstrong pushed his insane agenda into my life and persuaded youthful, impressionable me that he had "the truth." It was anything but. It was so persuasive that over 700 splinter cults are now going teaching the same kind of nonsense in hundreds of different flavors. Multiple thousands have never escaped the sheer nonsense and lies he promoted.

I'm not advocating trying to stop communication. I'm using it right now and appreciate being able to do so. I'm trying to use it to get people to think and not be easily swayed by the falsities that flood all forms of communication and are often well-financed by avaricious people who don't have the welfare of the average individual at heart. We have a new generation of slave masters to be wary of. They're out to control you and me, not by chaining us with material chains, but by chaining us mentally through deceitful, lying propaganda masquerading as "truth" -- just like old Herb did.

The tele-evangelists, "conservative"politicians, and a host of other deceivers have become masters at it. Be on guard. Think!

I didn't think deeply enough at age 18, and it took me decades to shake it all off.

QUIT HIDING!

If you don't believe the religious crap the world hands you, why quail in fear and sit in that closet.

I don't shout my atheist beliefs from every street corner, but I'm not ashamed of them either and won't pretend to be a believer when I'm not.

I just had an interview with a couple that wants to get married on October 12. The gist of the conversation soon revealed a kindred spirit and they now know I'm an atheist just like them. They're looking forward to reading my blog and my autobiography.

That's the second such happy discovery this month! More people are wising up than most of us fact and reality based people realize. Again, the demographics are changing. More of the angry old white people are dying off. Even the pope is making conciliatory statements about unbelievers. How genuine that is remains to be seen. You know, if it seems too good to be true, it quite likely is.

The fact is that more and more of us humanist free thinkers are standing up and refusing to be intimidated. We're also growing in numbers, especially in the generation now coming on the scene. We'll become even more of a force to be reckoned with as each day passes.

Don't let that fact lull you to sleep. Powerful forces are arrayed against us, and history, plus contemporary news, proves they can be very, very ruthless.

 

Incidentally, if you are planning on getting married and don't want religion pervading your ceremony, actively seek out someone who thinks like you do.  They're out there.  I'm one of them.  I have an ordination from an atheist site as one of several I've gone for online.  In a lot of states, including Arizona, you can claim ordination for yourself, or someone you want to officiate for you can.  All this aura of "authority" is a smoke screen.  As I recall, Jesus didn't pay much attention to it either in his time.

IDIOCY BASED ON A LIE

I was driving to Sedona today to pick up some free wood and the old brain started musing away. I thought back to the old Sabbath issue that helped get me into that theological abortion called originally the Radio Church of God, then the Worldwide Church of God. Both are now gone and have been replaced by hundreds of splinters and offshoots, mostly championed by some egomaniacal would be clone of Herbert W. Armstrong. They vary only in the degree and depths of their fanaticisms.

We believed, unlike even dumber fundamentalists, that the earth was created long before man was (known as the gap theory) but we still were sure that Satan destroyed everything in a gigantic interstellar war and there had to be a recreation that took a literal seven days about six thousand years ago and it was incumbent on us to observe that seventh day we were convinced the Jews preserved inviolate all these centuries.

I started to doubt that BS even while I was still a member and employee. There was a nagging doubt about it all that kept coming up. The longer I tried to observe the Sabbath, the more utterly absurb it became.

Sabbaths just don't fit in a technological, advanced world such as the one in which we live. Read the rules sometime. You can't even kindle a fire if you were caught out in the open in the upper Midwest after Sundown on wintry Friday night. The world would grind to a halt every seventh day. Plane schedules would have to make sure no plane landed at an airport after sundown Friday. If you were traveling, where would you eat if no restaurants were open.

I could go on and on. It's clear that the Sabbath was a gigantic pain in the ass even in much simpler ages. It certainly was for me while I was caught up in that nonsense and it was a great relief when I got it through my stupid head that it was all a big sham based on a myth that was a lie to begin with.

Limited work weeks is all we need so people can have adequate time for rest and personal things. We don't need some supposedly "holy" piece of time based on a creation account that is a gigantic lie foisted upon the Jewish people by priests who brought back and revised Babylonian myths after the Babylonian captivity and panned them off on the Jewish people for their (the priests) benefit.  It put the populace in a straight jacket they cunningly devised.

I now rest and recreate when I feel the need to do so. I recognize no holy time someone else arbitrarily sets up, usually for the purpose of getting me to come listen to their supposedly superior knowledge, wisdom and understanding so they can sucker me into supporting them in the style they conclude they deserve for all the service they're rendering me (different priestly class, same sham with same goal).  (I'm an old ranch kid.  I know what "servicing" is all about.  When you take a cow to a bull for "service," guess what happens,)

No thanks. Whatever time I have is my time and I'll decide how to use it.

JUST RUMINATING

Those Mexicans know how to eat! We enjoyed La Fonda mexican restaurant yesterday. Tonight, we just warmed up some refried beans and had tostadas with cheese, sour cream and Chachie's salsa, topped off with a bottle of wine. I'm still sipping on that. They tend to eat more balanced meals than lots of other people do.

No outside work today, but I did book a bi-lingual wedding ceremony for May 31 at Red Rock state park. The rest of the day was taken up with sales in early morning (we hit a very good estate sale this morning) and a short stop at WalMart. Then I hit things around here for much of the afternoon, cut back the climbing roses so they'll bloom again, sorted the recycling, patroled for new weeds and a couple of other little things.

Tomorrow, there's a community sale and after that more things waiting around here. There never is a lack of chores needing done, and they went begging much of last year while I was trying to make Aflac go. Don't miss it. Quite the contrary. It's a relief not to have the pressure. Live and learn.

Same with the Lions Club. Things like that are valuable in the community, but I'll leave it to others with fewer other pressures and consuming interests. Blogging and Facebook more than take their place and I control everything about both. Old independent, ornery me likes it that way.

I've come to realize that a self-reliant, independent person like me can never be happy tied to anything that limits autonomy. Nearly forty years of entrepreneurship thoroughly spoiled me, as some people might regard it. When my son Gene and I had our carpet business together, our motto was: "Eat no shit -- kiss no ass!" We didn't walk off many jobs, but when the situation called for it, we didn't hesitate. Really shocked one lady when I firmly told my son, "Pack up." I knew we were dealing with the clasic example of a bitch when her husband disappeared as she started questioning if we knew what we were doing and asked if we had references after she'd already hired us because she didn't understand, in her ignorance, why we were proceeding as we were. No professional is going to tolerate any ignorant amateur looking over their shoulder and questioning their professional expertise. At least, not this professional.

I put these little anecdotes on here in the hope that they may help people like my grandchilddren deal with life a little better once in awhile. It's not intended to be "tooting my horn." I've learned things in more than seven decades, and I hope what I write about accomplishes some good. My son was there to learn a lot of it in person, and he tells me he appreciates it. I can only be in one place at a time, but what I write can be many places now and later.

A FULFILLING MOMENT

I did one of my favoite things yesterday.  I officiated at a wedding.

 

Yesterday's wedding was outstanding at a Sedona resort and took place under cathedral like trees on the bank of Oak Creek. The couple was from Phoenix and, being computer savvy, they had found my blog and both said they loved it. Nice change. So many people hate it. I lost one caller a few weeks ago because of it. He obviously had an hostile attitude toward my opinions. That won't deter me.  Nothing will deter me anymore.

The bride had two sons who are either teens or pre-teen. Very fine young men with good bearing and manners and they both walked her down the aisle.

They also appreciated my ceremony which I've carefully crafted over the years to avoid all the traditional nonsense and even changed one statement yesterday to give less expert credence to Paul's statements about love in I Cor. 13. I know the literary creation called Paul is the real source of what is known as Christianity today, but that chapter is not the only meaningful teaching on the subject of love. So, I changed one sentence to include all the famous teachers on the subject. I'm always thinking, analyzing and evolving.

I wish this outstanding couple and their new family unit all the happiness and fulfillment possible. I know all too well that there will be problems to overcome, challenges to meet and the occasional disappointment or heartache. That's the reality of life, but dedicated, unwavering love and commitment will get them through.

It's a real fulfillment to do these wedding ceremonies. It can hardly be described as work. I've been privileged to do hundreds now since 1997, quite a few in prisons when we were in Phoenix. I often wonder how it all turned out and how many have been successful in claiming true happiness for themselves. I can only give them the legal start. The rest is up to them.

 

I have good "vibes" about yesterday.