Taking credit for your own transformation

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the claim, from religious people of various traditions, that people have been changed by their god. They have had some experience that transformed them, improved them, or opened something up for them. And in discussions about the existence of god, these personal experiences tend to be the most powerful and, at the same time, the least applicable in those discussions.

I cannot legitimately challenge whether a person had an experience. If someone says they experience something, even if it seems impossible to me, I have to accept that they had the experience. But there is an important point to be made here; the fact that they had an experience does not necessarily imply that their interpretation of it is true. It is possible that your experience of god was not of god, but of something natural and was associated with a religious idea.

Why is it that those brought up in Christian environments almost always get transformed by the holy spirit or by Jesus? Why is it that people of Islamic backgrounds almost always feel the greatness of Allah? It seems suspect that the religious ideas that people are raised around are the ones they see in times of need. It seems to imply that it is our mind making the association between the experience an it interpretation, based upon the images we are aware of.

What is going on here is that people who find themselves in times of struggle will turn to the tradition they know. And because of the powerful emotions involved, the experiences they have are meaningful. And when people transform themselves, learn about themselves, and mature as a result, they attribute it to their god or to their religion. And when they look back on it, these experiences stand out as evidence that their beliefs are true.

I view this as problematic. No, I view it as ridiculous. There is no need to attribute these experiences to a god. We have the ability to change ourselves, upon reflecting and not liking what is seen, in ways that will be long-lasting. Attributing this to a god is, in my opinion, to underestimate our worth. This is precisely what many religious traditions do.

By making us feel sinful, and then offering us a way to be forgiven for it (for example), religion is doing nothing different than clever marketing. And just like when we watch television or see ads next to the blogs or news we read, we have to keep in mind the subtle psychological manipulation tactics similar to those of religious messages in order to not be unreasonably swayed by them.

I know it’s possible to change without help of any gods. How do I know? Because I’ve done so (and am continuing to do so). And when I see people defending their beliefs and ultimately barricading themselves behind the evidence of their experiences, I can’t help but wonder if they have ever really considered the role that they played in their own lives. Why are they not willing to take credit for their change?

Well, because they don’t believe that they are capable of it on their own. God, they believe, is necessary for something like overcoming alcoholism, gambling addiction, etc. But why? Only someone who has been convinced, or has a preexisting belief, that they are too damaged or imperfect to succeed in any such thing. Just think of the first few steps in a 12-step program.

Step 1 – We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable

Step 2 – Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity

Step 3 – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God

Take credit for your successes, failures, etc and take responsibility for them. By giving some god the credit (and, interestingly, failing to give some god the credit for failure), we are resting the responsibility somewhere else than where it belongs; on our shoulders.

If you want to change, then take responsibility for it. And if you have already, then consider all you–and those around you–have actually done rather than simply give the credit to some invisible and intangible god.

My trip through the south, while being openly atheist

For the last week and a half or so, I’ve been road-trippin’ through the south. Starting from Philadelphia, we (my girlfriend and I) drove to Atlanta, Pensacola, New Orleans, Austin, Dallas, Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville, Johnson City, Leesburg (where we got a tour through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which was awesome), and then back to Philadelphia.

So, what does this have to do with this blog? Well, there are two things. First, I spent that time with one of my girlfriends while leaving the other back home for 10 days. This required some discussion beforehand in order to make sure that this cold be done without making anyone feel unloved or left out. Luckily, everyone was fine with it, I missed my lady here in Philadelphia, but I talked with her often and I got a chance to see her again last night and today. (yay!)

But the other part of interest was traveling through parts of the country while wearing a myriad of shirts that advertised my lack of belief in any gods. I have a number of shirts that identify this about me, and I wore them almost everywhere we went. So, what kind of responses did I get? Surprisingly little.

Yes, I got looks, double-takes, and even a few people becoming less hospitable after reading them. But surprisingly few actual comments or questions from people arose. While in Austin, Texas ( a beautiful city, btw), I did have one apparently homeless man walk by and call my girlfriend (who is not an atheist) an “evil bitch” in response to reading my shirt that said “Hi, I’m your friendly neighborhood atheist!” Talk about irony!

I guess the fact that we spent most of our time in or around cities meant that we ran into either more tolerant people or people who were more used to seeing things like that. Either that or they were just being polite in not asking questions or commenting. I did have at least two people comment that hey liked my shirts. I thanked them with a smile. I had one bartender warn me that wearing such things may not be a good idea. Maybe I just got lucky.

I don’t know what I was expecting. I guess I just wanted to observe whether people would react differently in the “Bible belt” than they do in Philadelphia, where I wear said shirts fairly often. My experience, short as it was, didn’t offer much of a difference. I guess we should have hung out at more rural roadside biker bars or something….

While I was in Austin, where we spent a couple of days, I did get to meet some of the people from the Atheist Community of Austin. I have been listening to their podcast and recorded cable-access TV show for a few years, and since we would be there I figured I would meet some of them. They were very friendly and we got a chance to see them tabling at the Austin Pride festival, which was pretty fun in itself.

But before we reached Austin, we traveled through Pensacola, home of the Pensacola Christian College. This college, which I had never heard of before a couple of months ago, is a school that grew as some people split off from Bob Jones University because it was too liberal. Yes, you read that right. PCC is about at conservative Christian as they come. They are run by the A Beka book company, which means that the school has tons of money and seems to be used by the publisher as some sort of tax shelter.

Now, I know about this school because my girlfriend, with whom I traveled, went to this school before they kicked her out for, as she says, challenging them too much. This is the kind of place where not only can men and women not talk outside of specific places and times, but very conservative dress codes, segregation of races (in terms of dating at least), and constant fear of trouble for questioning pretty much anything abound (listening to jazz, for example). I don’t know how she survived more than three years before she was kicked out.

I have encouraged her to write about her experiences there. I think she could have a book deal coming, if she does. The things she has told me so far are, well, scary. And I’ve seen Jesus Camp.

We didn’t visit the campus. For one, classes were not in session. Another reason is that they would not let either one of us on campus because I am an advertised heathen and she was wearing shorts. Maybe next time we’ll try going in incognito. Maybe not.

It was an interesting trip. We saw lots of great cities, met some really nice people, and now we return to real life.

Why both atheists and the ‘spiritual’ shouldn’t despise religion

Today we should consider it the decisive sign of great culture if someone possesses the strength and flexibility to pursue knowledge purely and rigorously and, at other times, to give poetry, religion, and metaphysics a handicap, as it were, and appreciate their power and beauty.

-Nietzsche, Human All too Human, aphorism 278

So, religion is real. No, really, it is, I swear. There really are religious people out there, and they believe religious things. I know, it seems odd that such a things as religions would exist, but think about it for a moment; our minds are structured such that we tend to have blind spots, we find patterns in chaos, we see meaning where there is none. We are creators, inventors, and composers of incantations both sublime and ordinary.

I don’t mean to be snarky. OK, yes I do. But I don’t mean to be obnoxious. That’s just a natural talent I have. I only mean to be honest. Religion, as I understand it, is a natural outgrowth of our various mental strengths, weaknesses, and our extraordinary normality. Thus, within it is contained all aspects of which we are capable, whether good, bad, or neutral.

There are many atheists I know who dismiss religion. There are many ‘spiritual people’ who despise (organized) religion (the parenthetical qualifier ‘organized’ is necessary), and their are religious people who don’t agree with most of their religion. Yeah, that last one makes no sense to me either.

I applaud the skeptical mind that genuinely seeks the truth through the discipline of the scientific method. I appreciate the effort to put aside our conceits in order to look at ourselves in a mirror, and not a mirror darkly, in order to attempt to pursue the truth. I also appreciate those that attempt to pursue their own growth with deep conviction of things I may find absurd. At least they are trying. As for those religious people who don’t even agree with their own proclaimed tradition…. I’ll let that issue untouched, for now.

But there are beauties, subtleties, and profundities within religious traditions. There are expressions of ourselves, inscribed in the languages of theology, philosophy, and metaphysics that, despite not ‘true’, contain import that are worth exploring.

They are worth exploring because they teach us about ourselves, both as individuals and as social groups. They give us glimpses of what it means to be human in different ways. So we need to allow ourselves to throw off the yoke of skepticism every once in a while and delve into the parts of ourselves that speak absurdities in order to understand the subtleties of their allure.

Religions survive for a reason. That reason is not because they teach us the Truth, but perhaps they can teach us something. Maybe it is a perspective of the truth from a side angle, rather than the straight on face-to-face angle that we aspire to with more meticulous disciplines. Perhaps there are angles of the truth, shades of gray, that can better be seen from the point of view of absurdities.

So, let’s proceed with science and other honest and disciplined attempts to understand our world better. But we should allow ourselves to understand those things that pull the heart, the ‘spirit’, in order to not leave behind the creators and artists within us, even if what we create in such states are not true.

For perhaps it is the untrue that can lead to new perspectives on the true. And if not, at least we can better understand those that still live within those worldviews we may have transcended. And that, at very least, will keep the ports of dialogue open, which will engender increased understanding of our brothers and sisters on this crazy ride of life.