High School Made Me Agnostic; It Paved My Way To Atheism

It is hard to think way back to high school (I'm 47 now, so details really escape me).
I do know that it was discussing literature that started making me really doubt the existence of God.
I acknowledge that even though I grew up in an ultra-secular Jewish home, I was brought up to assume God existed. Questions about the afterlife were not dealt with, but again, it was assumed that I had a lot of dead relatives I hardly knew waiting for me in heaven.
I've mentioned this before, we have evolved the susceptibility to believe in the supernatural to help us explain the unexplainable and to help us from going nuts (at least it worked well on our ancestors who couldn't explain lightning).
I had a crash course Bar Mitvah. I was in junior high school (in Canada, grades 7-9, while high school consisted of grades 10 through 13). I remember listening to two songs that made me "think" about the grand scheme of things. They seemed to be played every hour on the car radio: Imagine and We're Here For A Good Time (Not A Long Time).
The songs actually upset me, when I was thinking about the words...the tunes were good though. I started to come to grips that there doesn't have to be a heaven, that this might be our only shot at living.
I'd like to think that every thinking teenager goes through a time, when late at night, insomnia sets in as one thinks about mortality, the universe, even the beginning of time.
My father took me to Bar Mitvah lessons. The person giving me the lessons was probably in his early 20's. I remember after a lesson, my father started talking to my teacher and brought up heaven. My dad asked him about "Jewish heaven." I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember the answer that was given was definitely not cut and clear. I didn't know it at the time, but now I think the teacher was either agnostic or atheist.
The idea of the Bar Mitvah just seemed so irrational to me. Becoming a man? I didn't feel like a man. And besides, now what?
So that brings me to high school and the North York English curriculum. Again, the details escape me and so does the exact year, but grade 11 and a teacher named Mr. Perlmutter seems to stick in my head. Mr. Perlmutter was an ethnic Jew, and it was rumoured that he was from such a rich family that he didn't have to work but did because he enjoyed it so much. He used to call his students "goos." That aside, he had a really good sense of humour. I hated reading, but I looked forward to his class.
Again, I don't know if the books that officially turned me agnostic were taught in his class, but I will rattle off a few of them right now (without reasons why):

1. Waiting For Godot
2. The Stone Angel
3. Who Has Seen The Wind

Again, I can't remember exactly why, but these books got me questioning the existence of God, and coupled with grade 12 physics, a godless universe started making lots of sense.

Fundies, when your kids bring home any of those three books from school, be afraid, be very afraid!

An afterthought. In high school, I walked to school almost every day. It was an 18 minute walk each way. I wonder if there is a correlation having to do with us who are now atheists, and the distance we walked to school. A lot more thinking and reflection occurs during a long walk (assuming you are walking by yourself) than a bus ride, at least in my experience.


Thanks to Simply Jews for linking my blog post questioning theists in his Haveil Havalim # 164 post. Apparently, I'm some sort of opponent:)

Edward Current Takes No Chances: He Converts To All Religions

This is just really really funny:



The next time a Christian (usually) presents you with Pascal's Wager, it might be best to refer him or her to the above video.

Of course, there is also the Atheist's Wager:

(1) It is possible that God exists and it is possible that God does not exist.
(2) If one believes in God then if he exists then one either receives an infinitely great reward or an infinitely great punishment and if he does not exist then one loses little or nothing.
(3) If one does not believe in God then if he exists then one either receives an infinitely great reward or an infinitely great punishment and if he does not exist then one gains little or nothing.
(4) It is better to either receive an infinitely great reward or an infinitely great punishment or gain little or nothing than it is to either receive an infinitely great reward or an infinitely great punishment or lose little or nothing.
Therefore:
(5) It is better not to believe in God than it is to believe in God.
(6) If one course of action is better than another then it is rational to follow that course of action and irrational to follow the other.
Therefore:
(7) It is rational not to believe in God and irrational to believe in God.

A Few More Questions For Theists and Especially Creationists

I love trying to get creationists to think. My experience though, is that they really don't want to think that much. All their answers are in a little book written a long long time ago by people who didn't understand electricity, amongst many other things.

Alrighty, first I'm not aiming this question at only creationist Christians, I'm aiming it at any religious person:

Lets assume that you believe your religion is the "right religion." Have you ever pondered if your religion is in fact the right religion?, and do you believe it to be the right religion 100%?


The second question pertains to those who answered the last half of the first question "YES," and it also assumes that you are still a member of the same religion you were raised in.

If your parents gave you up for adoption at birth, and your new parents were a different religion, do you think you would be a believer in your new parents religion? Be honest. Ok, try to be honest.

Now, a question to those of you who do not accept evolution.

If evolution was proven to you, and I know this is a hard stretch for the wilfully ignorant creationists, but still, if it finally clicked in that science is not a vast conspiracy to disprove God, but is in fact a study of empirical facts, that includes rigorously tested theories that explain facts, would you have to give up on your current religion?

I've had a recent discussion on Youtube with a Muslim who accepts that life came about around the Pre-Cambrian explosion, but doesn't believe in evolution of man. He believes (wrongly) that Pre-Cambrian life didn't have ancestors. I asked him if he thinks man was created during the Pre-Cambrian timeline. He has yet to answer me.

For those who accept the earth is ancient, but still don't accept evolution of man.

When did God poof life on earth? And when approximately did God poof man into existence?

I don't expect many comments from theists. I rarely get them when I ask for them. I'd really like to see real answers though.

In the meantime, I'm starting to get tired of the "atheists have no basis for morality" garbage. So I will fight back again, with a video I made and posted last year. It includes quite a few questions for creationists:



Bonus question to theists: Did I make your brain hurt from having to think so much?

Peanut Butter Evolution Revisited

This maddening 2 minute video, Peanut Butter, The Atheists Nightmare! is definitely worth watching again:

The reason I'm bringing it back is because recently I've been getting quite a few comments by creationists the satire video I did in response to the one you just viewed. Besides the video I did is freakin hilarious (I'm a legend in my own mind!), and it needs to be viewed by more and more people.




Amazingly, many atheists and other science minded individuals took my video seriously. If you expand the comments (and there are over 300 of them), you'll see what I mean. I understand, because my portrayal of a homeschooled creationist isn't too far off the mark. Even though in the video description, I clearly label the video as comedy and satire....oh well.

But now it looks like I got linked to a creationist site. And the comments I've been getting are the usual "evolution isn't science" bull crap.

How About Some Separation Of Church And American Idol

I've admitted here before that I am an American Idol fan. But this year for some reason I'm noticing way too many Jesus songs.

There are two possibilities here. One, the Christian Right has something major to do with the advertising that goes on with the show, or American Idol has a very large Christian Right audience. I'm not sure which is true. But I do know one thing, this Jesus crap is getting annoying. And yes, I know I can always change the channel. I did that on Wednesday night for the Idol Gives Back show. No matter how great a cause is, my brain just melts down when I see multi-multi-multi millionaires asking me to donate. This makes it very hard for me to enjoy the entertainment that goes with it.

I noticed a rash of Jesus songs during the ridiculous Dolly Parton week. To get the contestants to do Dolly Parton songs was sadistic at best. Many of her songs contains praises for that guy who probably never existed (Jesus Christ). We got a good dose of Jesus that week, capped off by Dolly's new single: JESUS and GRAVITY. I actually laughed at that song. I was thinking of the article from the Onion: Intelligent Falling: Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity.

KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University...

Some evangelical physicists propose that Intelligent Falling provides an elegant solution to the central problem of modern physics.

"Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the 'electromagnetic force,' the 'weak nuclear force,' the 'strong nuclear force,' and so-called 'force of gravity,'" Burdett said. "And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus."

The past week, the theme was Inspirational Songs, and of course this led to more Jesus or Lordy type songs. They probably wanted to appeal to the Jesus freaks to open up their wallets and give. I get it, but what I don't get is forcing the group of singers to sing a Jesus song. Actually a controversy arose. In the telethon show at the end, the contestants all sang an evangelical Christian song called "Shout The Lord." The first line of the song is "My Jesus, my Savior." This line was replaced with "My Shepherd, my Savior." Thanks to complaints by the Christian Right, the song became the opener on the elimination show on Thursday, and they changed the lyrics back to the original.

Michael Giltz sums it up way better than I can:

1. It's unfair to the performers who want to win -- Pressuring them to sing an evangelical number is wrong. Who wants to be revealed as the Idol who refused to sing a song about Jesus? Think that might hurt their chances with Middle America? They should never have been put in that position.

2. It's unfair to the performers of conscience -- I'm a Catholic and that's a tune we would never sing in Church, though none of its lyrics are of the sort that conflict with my faith. (Though many evangelical tunes, in fact, do and entire trends in Christian music are embraced by liberal evangelicals, rejected by conservative evangelicals and vice versa.) But what about the Idols who aren't Christian? Maybe some of them are Buddhist or agnostic or Jewish or Muslim or god forbid, atheist.

3. It's offensive to the viewers -- I'm a Catholic and I was offended. I don't turn on Idol to be converted or evangelized to by the show -- and that's exactly what a group sing-along is. It's a statement by the show, not individual kids. America is the most religiously diverse country in the world (and I live in Queens, New York -- the most religiously and ethnically diverse corner of the world). That's something to celebrate and it also means respecting other faiths and people of no faith. You don't do that by hijacking Idol to make all the kids sing about Jesus. Even if each and every one of them is born again and dying to sing the praises of the Lord, you don't alienate the viewers like me -- and most Americans are not evangelicals -- who don't identity with that particular strand of Christianity.

Dropping the "Jesus" from "Shout to the Lord" was a big mistake. Making all the Idol contestants sing it together in the first place was an even bigger one. If any individual Idol wanted to sing it, fine. But a group sing-along? Wrong.

Aside from all that, I couldn't believe the very talented Michael Johns was eliminated. I know that his choice of inspirational songs, Dream On, was not what the producers were looking for, and this probably led to him not getting a reprise like what happened during Idol Gives Back Week last year when they didn't dismiss anyone. I still don't know why Ryan Seacrest actually teased him by stating it as if they were going to let him stay on and then abruptly told him "this year, you will be leaving," or something like that. Maybe he was rubbing it in his face for his choice of song that could have been written about drugs (some say it was a song about cocaine), and at the very least has agnostic overtones. The song is about living for today because you might die tomorrow, and death MAY not be all the great, or why care if you die tomorrow? At least we know we can sing today. Anyway, if the Christian Right had a huge influence on the voting and voted those who sang more Lordy Lordy Christian type songs the past week, "The good Lord" really did take him away...at least from the show.

A few other things, since this is probably going to be my only Idol post this year. First, I still laugh to myself when I think of the line that Kristy Lee Cook said to Simon Cowell weeks ago, after Simon said some bad things about her singing. Kristy said "I'm going to BLOW YOU out of your socks." Everyone on Idol was uncomfortably grinning after that one.
Jordin Sparks (last years Idol) new single was the worst song I think I've heard in years (was it really a song?). I would have rather heard nails screeching on a chalkboard.
I think Simon Cowell has to be atheist or agnostic. He is just too clever to be a theist.
Paula and Randy though, they are believers. Nothing is holding them back.
David Archuleta is going to win this year. He has a great voice, and being so young, he has a great future.

Michael Johns "Dream On":