From Annabelle W.

From my personal experience, religion and breaking gender norms do not mix. I grew up in a conservative, baptist household where traditional gender norms were strongly held, encouraged, and valued. I had never questioned my parents’ views until high school, and after finally speaking up against those gender norms, I didn’t like the answers I received.

The mainstream, Christian perspective on roles for women are limiting and based on antiquated ideals. They include women being a supporter of their husbands, being kept pure (no sex) until marriage, allowing men to be the spiritual leaders at home and in the church, and women being the main home maker and raising the children. To defend this perspective, depending on which denomination you ask, husbands are then supposed to sacrifice themselves in their head-of-household role by granting women the ability to express themselves and be heard by their husbands. The husbands are expected to be pitied more because they have a lot of pressure as leaders and responsibility to maintain a household that’s wholesome and free from sin.

I remember my mom once telling me: “I let your dad know what I think, but ultimately, he makes the decisions.”

As a person who knows women are just as smart and capable as men, those words are hurtful. I believe Christianity’s gender norms are ill-suited for both men and women. One set of traits, such as leadership and strong spirituality, does not belong to one gender over the other. Decisions and sacrifices made within a household does not belong to one gender over the other. A person’s strengths, weaknesses, and personality traits are not dependent on gender but are unique to each individual. Upholding gender norms prevents both men and women the opportunity to express themselves and contribute to a marriage and household according to their own natural preferences.

I believe people should not be trapped into gender stereotypical roles, which harms both men and women. American culture in general struggles with pressuring people to follow gender norms, but I argue that Christianity is most likely one of the biggest contributors.

Q&Atheist: Questions from believers answered by an Atheist. I don’t speak for all Atheists, nor for Atheism as a whole. Just me. 

Q: How do you explain the emergence of Christianity?

Question from: Pastor David Holt, Living Hope Church, Athens Georgia 

A: I am not a historian by any means. I’m sure an entire doctoral thesis (if not multiple theses) could be written in attempt to answer this question. That being said, I do think that there were a few pivotal themes and moments in documented history that had some large effect on the emergence and spread of the Christian faith.

Christianity’s doctrines of the afterlife are a big factor in my mind. If you believe that leaving or not believing in a specific religion could result in eternal torture in Hell, you have a motivation to stay in, as well as to pass that belief on to people you care about (to save them from that fiery fate as well). This means teaching your children from an early age about the religion. When ideas like this are ingrained into people at a young age, and continually reinforced as they grow up by the authority figures in their lives, it makes those ideas hard to shed. For some, even if they wanted to shed them, it is near impossible.

I also think events like the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition had an effect on spreading the Christianity. If the alternative to professing Christianity was being persecuted or killed by Christians, then converting to Christianity might have seemed appealing. Also, we can’t deny the massive boost that Christianity got when the Roman Emperor Constantine ended the persecution of Christianity (and other religions’)  within the (historically pagan) Roman Empire and purportedly converted to Christianity himself. Holidays and feasts were amalgamated, and the new customs were given more freedom to spread. The history on some of those (like Christmas) is quite fascinating.

But, this is where I have to stop answering the question proper. Like I said, I’m not a historian. Going too much further into those topics would have me trying to fill gaps in the story which are fuzzy in my memory if not completely beyond my own knowledge base. What I find more interesting and to the point is that I get the feeling from the question itself as though there is some sort of inherent credit to be bestowed on Christianity for spreading as far and wide as it has. The question seems to place a burden of proof on the answerer to show how something “not true” could have spread so far. And, I have to reject that concept completely.

One of the best summations of my thoughts on this come from Tim Minchin’s song “White wine in the sun”:

“I don’t believe just ‘cos ideas are tenacious it means they’re worthy.”

At its base, the quote is a reference to a logical fallacy known as argumentum ad populum. This fallacy concludes that a proposition is true based on the fact that many or even most people believe it. This type of argument can be shown demonstrably to be false. For instance, most of the world used to believe that the world was flat, or that the sun revolved around the earth. But no matter how geographically widespread those beliefs were, the percentage of the populous who held the beliefs, nor the strength of their conviction had any bearing on the actual truthfulness of their respective claims. Argumentum ad populum doesn’t prove the claim itself false, only that the line of reasoning which says that it’s true is insufficient evidence by itself.

Such is the case with Christianity. It doesn’t matter how far it has spread. It doesn’t matter how many people believe it to be true. Christianity (like all other religions and literally every other positive claim in existence) still has a burden of proof to demonstrate that it’s true before it can honestly claim to be. But, whether or not Christianity is actually true is neither here nor there. For the purposes of this particular post it only matters that the emergence and spread of Christianity, vast though it is, says absolutely nothing about the validity of Christianity.

For a long time I’ve been wanting to do a series of Q&A (in the spirit of this blog’s name), answering questions from Christian believers who are curious about how an Atheist might view Christianity. Of course, I don’t speak for all Atheists, nor for Atheism as a whole. Just me. This is the first entry in my Q&Atheist series.

Q: What do you like and/or dislike about the message of the Bible?

Question from: Pastor David Holt, Living Hope Church, Athens Georgia

A: Since there are so many stories and ideas contained within the old and the new testaments of the Bible, there is a lot that we could cover here.

Let me start by saying that I do find a lot of good things in the Bible. As literature, there are some beautiful passages and worthwhile metaphors, as well as some stories that seem to have an earnest and loving message that, if taken to heart, can help guide people to live a kind and moral life. Conversely, I also see a multitude of stories that have either a morally ambiguous message or even a downright awful one. I think this is where the greatest shortcoming of the Bible exists, and definitely one of my largest issues with the Bible (and Christianity as a whole). Oddly enough, my biggest issue has less to do with the actual writings of the Bible itself, and more to do with the way that Christians revere it.

The Bible is regarded by much of Christianity as the inerrant word of God. Some would say the “inspired word of God,” but that doesn’t necessarily resolve the issue. Many biblical tales have more than one possible interpretation, leaving followers to choose the meaning and lesson that they prefer. These meanings can have vastly different effects on their personal views and actions. Regardless of what verse I’m talking about, it leaves Christianity with the claim that the perfect message from God can be taken to mean different things with no way to ensure which claim is accurate in terms of “what God meant.” This is a problem.

Then we get into the issue of some of the less than good stories. Here’s one example where God commands his people to commit genocide. Look at 1 Samuel 15:2-3 (NIV)

² This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. ³ Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.

Is this a morally good message? I don’t think so. I don’t think anything commanding the slaughter of children and infants to be a positive aspect of a leader. Oddly enough, I’ve heard many Christians try to justify this passage and what God commanded in it, and unfortunately, I’ve never heard a truly convincing argument for it. I’ve heard things like, “God knew this was the best way” or, “The Amalekites were a bad, sinful people and their children would have grown up to become just like their parents.”  I know it’s hard to come up with a scenario where “Put to death… children and infants” (i.e. “go kill those babies”) is a moral statement consistent with a benevolent deity, much less an action that should inform our behavior. But, I would think that a supreme deity could come up with a better solution than this. I mean, he is supposed to be all-powerful. All things should be possible, including a better solution (i.e. perhaps one that doesn’t condone infanticide)… and yet, according to the Bible, this is what he chose.

Worrisome passages like this can be found scattered throughout the Bible. And, even if someone can find a way to justify some of the troubling verses it still leaves us with a book meant to spread the message of God where the message itself is definitively unclear. If we are to take the Bible as a message from God meant to be applicable throughout human existence, then a textual writing is simply not an effective way to communicate that knowledge. Languages die out, transcription/translation errors occur, and the end result is a message whose meaning will vastly change as time goes on.

I have no problem with the Bible when viewed as a collection of books describing the culture and beliefs of the writers of the time it was written. Like I said, some of it is quite good. However, when imbued with the qualities that Christianity of today does, I find it insufficient in satisfying the claims that it is the timeless message of a supreme and morally perfect being. The good parts are wonderful. The ambiguous parts are problematic. The bad parts are awful. And, the fact that all three of those areas are up to some level of personal interpretation is a recipe for disaster.

This may be one of the most painful issues that any of us encounter in our lives: The death of someone close to you. In fact, it seems almost an empirical truth that the longer and fuller your life is, the more you will be forced into confronting mortality. The more people you know and the longer you live, the more chance you have of experiencing the deaths of friends, family members, and co-workers as you yourself grow older.

A friend of mine died unexpectedly last week at the age of 40. He was devoutly religious, his father being a deacon, and his older brother a preacher. And, being in the southeast region of the USA, most of those attending the funeral were also religious. We all dealt with it differently. There was much talk of God at the funeral, with many people consoling while confirming to each other that my friend was “now in a better place,” and that he was now “with Jesus.” In fact, there were many points of the service that had nothing to do with my friend or his funeral at all. Focus was intentionally shifted to God and Jesus, leaving little room for my friend or anyone else. One perfect example of this was that the eulogies given by the two family/friend speakers were limited to two minutes each (as noted in the event’s program), while in addition to a service full of chorus songs, a featured singer delivered two different solo songs, each centered on the “blood of Jesus,” that each easily passed the five minute mark. The preacher’s own, much longer, eulogy touched briefly on my friend, but still spent around 75% of the time belaying yet another message about how none of us can have full lives without the acceptance of this particular version of God.

But as an Atheist, my viewpoint was very different from the majority of those around me. I neither believe in heaven, hell, nor any type of afterlife. And yet, I found an odd type of peace at the funeral by shifting my focus back to my friend. To me, the funeral had nothing to do with where my friend was going after his death. I saw it as a celebration of his life and all of the people whom he had impacted during the course of it. I focused on everything he had done, all of the adventures that he’d had, all of the times we’d laughed and struggled, failed and succeeded. The funeral wasn’t really for him. It was for the rest of us – to remind us of the joy of life itself by sharing in how he had lived his.

My friend lived a short life by some standards – longer than many, though doubtless shorter than he would have preferred. But, the hard truth is, we all die at some point. None of us get out of this life alive. And, perhaps even harder to accept is that, none of us know exactly how long of a life we’ll have. To me, it makes no sense to weep for my friend’s death. I can weep for myself and for the rest of my friends who knew him, mourning our common loss at his absence. But, I don’t weep for my friend. He lived the life he wanted to – without regrets and (just like the rest of us) without knowing when the end would come. He made his life count, both for himself and for the rest of us.

Whether religious or not, none of us really know where we’re going after we die. Maybe there is some realm that our mind (or soul if you prefer) is sent to. Maybe there is nothing. Many religions claim that an afterlife exists. And, some even assert that they can describe its features to you. But, as far as empirical evidence goes, there simply is none. The afterlife is a conjecture. It’s a guess. At best, it’s a hope. In truth, the only life that we are absolutely assured of having is the one that we’re currently living. To me, that’s all the more reason to spend our time and energy making that life the best it can be for us and those around us. This is not an excuse to do whatever we want; It’s an obligation to live the best life we can. Worrying about where we might go after this life takes us away from embracing the grandeur that this life contains.

Attempting to overlay God, or Jesus, or an afterlife onto all of that wouldn’t add anything to my friend’s story. In fact, it may take away from it.

What do you think? The Atheist Voice has a few other personal interviews, and you can find them here. I’ll probably add another one of their videos in a bit.

The Atheist Voice also has a great platform for Hemant Mehta, which writes the blog Friendly Atheist.

The following is an interview with an Atheist couple who are a strong, positive example of a religion-free marriage. Both hold key roles in the Atheist community and demonstrate a true love for life. For privacy purposes, only their first names are mentioned.

1) Can you both please briefly describe how you were raised; were your parents religious?

Scott: I was raised Southern Baptist. Everyone in my family is either Southern Baptist or General Baptist although I don’t remember the difference. As a child, my mother would always take my sister and I to church every Sunday while my father slept in most Sundays. After my parents divorced, when I was 12, my father took me to church on the weekends that he had me and my mother took me to her new church when I was with her. I decided to be baptized when I was 16. I don’t remember what I expected to happen after the experience, but I do recall feeling absolutely no change in myself at all.

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This person has pushed through great odds to be where he is today. I congratulate him on all his hard work and hope his future continues to look bright. This interview is conducted anonymously, which will be explained under the first question I ask him. Please enjoy this personal Atheist’s story.

Anonymous Interview

Sarah: Can you briefly explain why you are keeping this interview anonymous?

Anon: In the industry I work in, it is very important to build a reputation and keep that reputation clean. In business today, people do not spend time with you to personally get to know you. All the information they need to know about you is found as easily as typing your name in Google. This could lead to disastrous losses in business opportunities for me. People who know me know my religious thoughts and ideologies. However, online business ‘stalkers’ do not need to know this information.

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Deanna is a warm hearted, friendly person. She makes you feel comfortable the minute you start talking to her. She was very kind to let me interview her. Enjoy!

Cara Fry Interview 7/28/12

Cara Fry sat comfortably next to me in the public library. She had a pink skirt on with a matching cream top. Cara was very warm and personable as she shared her story. Here is the interview.

Sarah: Tell me a little about your background.  How did you become an atheist? What was your family like, and were they religious?

Cara: I was raised Methodist in a moderately religious family. We went to church every week, and I went to Sunday school. When I was a teenager, I was involved in the youth group and went on all the outings and everything. Then in my late teens, I decided to get a little more serious about it. I decided that if I was going to be a good Christian, I should really read the bible from cover to cover and know what it is I’m saying I believe in. I read it and it went the other way. The conflicting information became very apparent. A lot of things weren’t in line with what I had been taught about, you know, how god was loving and all of that. So I kind of started to look around at other religions. I looked into Buddhism and tried to learn what I could about that for a while. I learned about Baha’i.

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