I have laid low these past few years since my deconversion. My mind works like a good stew, and then it’s ready to go. I generally take my time with things, especially after being controlled by those I thought I could trust for so long. Essentially duped by the duped. Funny now, but wow! Having just finished a couple of good books by John Zande these past few weeks, my mind has been working out a concise summary of what struck me profoundly.
So without giving too much away, here is one point I have milled in my mind to a chiseled point. Every element from hydrogen to uranium, every molecule and atom, every cell and creature is in a naturally constant state of anxiety. Each one is desperately trying to stay together, to hang on for another day. It is this drive and desire that pushes to new boundaries. Defenses continue to mount and stretch the elements ability to cope and survive. To grow. To evolve. Every bit if matter has this inherent drive to hang on. Hope is the card that religion plays. And they play it well. Hope for eternal life after death. Hope to continue on. Hope things get better. But hope is something we already have. It is in us already. So why do we need to buy it? Fear. Abrahamic religions attach fear to something that is natural and unavoidable. Then they offer the solution. Meanwhile everything in this state of panic is dying and death, struggle and change, and anxiety. Pure, perfect evil if you would. And when you are done with this struggle for existence you die. Miserably decomposing and holding on till another day, but the final outcome is without question. When we observe this creation it is fair to assume the mind and disposition of this perfect creator. If there is a god and this is his doing, then he is enjoying the suffering and delights himself in the misery of all of the elements. Including man. I choose not to believe in deities. The evidence is compelling that no good god would have done this. He is either incompetent or he is malicious. There is much, much more to be taken from Mr. Zande in these two books, and I highly recommend these for every avid learner that wants to challenge what he thinks he knows. It is a fresh look that flies in the face of “god is good”, and has compelling evidence and good supportive reasoning and science. But the conclusions will be left to you.
Tag: John Zande
Radical Atheistology
Four things or five you need to start deconverting from any invisible mythical sky god religion.
1. Read. Read more than just the official versions your church allows. You’ll be surprised what they hide from you. If you all ready know? Shame on you and skip to step 2. Stop apologizing for them. Read something contrary. You’ll be surprised at the common sense kindness of the atheist community. Smart, accepting, and reasonable. Not for power, not for money, not for control. For a free mind and acceptance. For peace. Really!
2. Observe. Even the simplest observation on your own time can easily overturn the miles of apologetic writing your church has split hairs to write. Don’t forget to look around you. Take a hike in the canyons. The earth is older than that. Cmon man! And there’s more!
3. Critical thinking. For instance, the jesus story has been told almost verbatim by several ancient civilizations long before Christianity. Virgin birth, half man, half god, dies to save everyone, celebrated at Christmas time and they were gods. But hey! This time it’s for real. Right! Think about it. Look it up. It’s all out there. Just peek outside the box. You’ve been duped! And there’s more!! Way more.
4. Whiskey. Relax. The world is not coming to an end. No one is coming out of the sky to save or rapture you. It’s up to us to fix our situation. So let’s put away the waiting for Jesus and praying for the end to come soon and get to work. We’re wasting time. A lot of time. Enjoy life and be brothers and sisters. Religion divides what otherwise would be whole. Try it. What is there to lose. What you’ve been doing is not working. Give it a chance! Peek!
If you’re still here this might be for you. I have a secret surprise I’ve waited for the end, and this is very typical of the folks I’ve met. They are liberated from guilt and they are happy. They have a high moral standard based on natural laws and consequences and we love the earth. A true deep desire to preserve the world. Our way of life
Follow some atheist books and blogs. The basics will get you by, but there is a world of good reading and real knowledge out there.
I was a follower for 50 years I’m sorry to say. I’m actually a little embarrassed by it. I walked away a few years ago from the mind games, guilt, ambiguous doctrine, cover ups, brainwashing, poorly translated mythology I was supposed to analyze and work out my salvation. If I guess wrong? Oops. Sorry jim. You’re going to hell. It was all a trap to keep me payin and prayin and obeyin. Believing a stifling dogma has consequences that restrict growth of the mind and well being. And I defended it!
respectfully–jim, the common atheist
Did I miss anything?
Are we Born Theists?
Bill the Bad Atheist has suggested here that we are all born theists and need to be taught to be atheists. I commented my feeling on his blog, I would love to see what you more experienced non believers have to say about his hypothesis. I think this is worthy of a discussion.
My Sunday Read
The fire is hot. The kiddos are busy. Time for my Sunday read. I heard I need to watch out for this Zande guy!
Believers and Bernoulli’s Principle
Misapplied evidence of god. An old friend from school was in an accident a couple of days ago. I have to share this thread and comments.
“With everything I’ve endured the past 3 yrs. I was beginning to wonder “WHY” oh Lord is ALL this happening to me!!!!!! Questioning where is God in all of this. For those who know me, my faith has never wavered in these trying times, until this accident. I’m at my breaking point!!! Asking “why me Lord” what the hell have I done to deserve ALL of this shit!!!!!! Until this morning…..I was sitting on our front patio looking@our water feature,which has 3 staggered height rocks and there sat 3 hummingbirds, yes 3😲 3 male hummingbirds, for 1 they are extremely territorial and always chase each other off, but there they all sat drinking the water for what seemed like an eternity!!!!! My mouth was wide open@this amazingly beautiful, spectacular reminder that the Lord is ALWAYS with me through EVERYTHING❤️For me, the 3 hummingbirds was such an obvious sign of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, right there in plain sight, just for me!!!!!! It was the most spiritual experience that I will forever hold onto💞 Here’s some comments– I commented in Latin “SanctaeTrinitatus ad Avem“. (The Bird Trinity). She replies “oh Jim, that’s beautiful”. Hehe.
Asimov shares an example of misapplied. This from The Ratliff Notepad is part of the old Asimov speech. We are the stagecoach people. We can show the obvious, but the tales are memorized from childhood, and they should have never left it. Why does this matter? This codependent behavior with god hamstrings the faithful and stunts their progress. She has the power to take control of her life. Her situation has not changed, but her attitude has. How much time wasted, waiting, hoping, that god will come fix this mess, when we have the power to do it ourselves?
Smug if by Faith
Recently looking at a little bit of Mel Wild, and just ran into this comment thread where John Z got gamed by this dude up above (in his own mind). He claimed victory several times, ignored questions, and was generally wrong about everything, but he backed it up with the hard, solid evidence of faith. He smugly won the day, and no amount of reason could sway his internal victory as the checkmates rolled off his keyboard. As instructed in the thread, I have prayed about it in Zande’s behalf. I also took the liberty to bless his food. I got the answer I desired by randomly opening the Old Testament, and in miraculous, ambiguous fashion from forgers inspired by god I was made to see the light. The post and comments is exactly why children don’t play ball in the men’s league. No matter the score, we can all claim victory! This was a painful display of zeal without knowledge. I could only guess, but is Banyon from the US where hanging on to disproved myth is a badge of honor? I have a relative that just knows what she knows. No amount of overwhelming evidence can shake that. No sound reasoning can spoil it. “Be humble. You might be wrong” only applies to the faithless I suppose.
ps.. I would link the thread but is just too painful. If you missed it, lucky you.
On The Problem of Good
Once in a while you stumble across something so contrary to the main views of the world that is so compelling, so convincing, that you really have to evaluate what you think you believe. As a fairly new deconvert, I found this a compelling and contrary view of good and evil, and it presented itself very plausible and convincing. A work that is very hard to counter without interjecting words like “belief” and “faith”. Another reviewer on Amazon put it well–“The research and supporting argumentation is frighteningly persuasive and would pass any Doctorate board of review.” Thank you John for the excellent work. Much appreciated! You can find the book here. On the Problem of Good (The Owner of All Infernal Names) https://www.amazon.com/dp/154247793X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_t4wkAbD9VC5W1
I’ve been Proselytized!
A nurse at work told me yesterday I seem like a believer. Are you? I said no, I don’t believe in any gods at all. Nothing. She got a puzzled eyebrows raised look on her face for just a second and told me “wow I’m surprised. You just seem so nice and have that way about you”. I guess you were all supposed to look like monsters. (not sure who to credit here. Got it from Bill’s site at badatheist)
We had a nice conversation though and she offered me the best book she ever read that convinced her to Jesus. She was so sure I just hadn’t had it explained to me proper. (Just what I want to read. More apologetics). Let me be honest I said. I won’t read it. I’ve read a ton of them and I just don’t believe any of it. Not a lot of atheist in my neck of the woods(at least that will admit it). I’m pretty sure I was her first based on her stutter. I gave her my top three reasons and she bore me her conversion story. It was all pleasant enough, but she couldn’t really grasp the fact that I’m just not interested at all. Nunca
What do you want to believe
Because the “four corners of the earth” are mentioned in the Bible, pseudo-scholars driven by faith have set out to prove the earth is flat. They will cleverly word every point to show that the Bible is right, and dupe many faithful followers to dig in their heels on this non topic to make Christianity even more silly than it already is. As if the 6 day creation wasn’t silly enough, they continue to believe this nonsense rather than look outside and see with their own eyes what the world is.
As I was walking in the canyons with my seven year old looking at the rock formations and fossils, I mentioned that some people believe all of this was created and formed in 1 day. She looked at me like I was crazy. I know she trusts me, and if I had sat down with her and read the “official” book on this (the Bible) and explained in detail that this was true, and god said so, she would have started a path of contradictory self doubt about the real world and what she is actually seeing, and myth. For now we don’t really talk about the mythical being in the sky. It’s an irrelevant distraction that keeps some of the best minds from real progress in reality.