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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Bible Part 1 (Genesis)

Genesis (Chapter 1 + 2)

In Genesis chapter one we read about the first few days.

We learn that god likes to give one thing two names even if he is the only one who could care at all (light/ day - darkness/night)
We learn that there was already a difference between day and night, even if no stars or anything on the sky was made yet.
We learn that everything was full of water and that he parted the water from the water somehow to create something like a sky.
We learn that in some mysterious way the water could all go to one point without releasing some of it even if EVERYTHING was full of water.
Given all that, we had day and night, the sea and the land. and before anyone could do anything to the land, God created all sorts of plants ready and fully evolved. Also animals where there fully evolved. Notice that all that life was there before there was a sun.
So after all that work he thought, "oops everything will die if there is no sun", so he put the sun, the moon and the little stars on the sky.
Now he was ready to make the birds and the fishes, which he did and he saw that he did a good job.
Then God (who is now more than one because he says "us") make the people. They made a man and a woman.

According to that all the people from today are inbreeds and I wonder why, based on that knowledge, it is forbidden to commit incest (I do not say, incest is a good thing! I just wonder, especially for Americans who think that their nation has a Christian base.).

Anyway, god have a present for the two people they made. They give them the whole earth. They say that the two people are there to rule all animals, eat from all plants that carry fruits and the animals are allowed to only eat green plants. Tigers are animals so also tigers are allowed to only eat green plants, as well as wolves and sharks and bears and.... well you get the clue.


In Genesis chapter two we get confused

Well we already know that there is life on earth and chapter two starts with the seventh day. We learn that the seventh day is holy, a day to rest, because God rests on that day, too.
But then it suddenly says that no plants could grow because everything was dry. But he made life on day 3 and 4 so... ... well but who cares, we are good Christians and we do not question such things.
It says there that it came wet through the earth so that plants could grow and also that god now made a man from clay and he blew into it's nostrils to give him life.
So somehow he created the man, and only the man, before the animals while we just learned that he created people after the animals... hm.... whatever we are good Christians, we do not questions such things.
He put that man into the east of the world that is kind of a ... disk
He let trees grow and he put the forbidden tree in the middle.
He told the man that he is not allowed to eat from the forbidden tree because that would be his death sentence. The forbidden tree is called "The tree of knowledge of good and evil". So God does not want the man to know the difference between good and evil but he expects him to do good. Well, who cares, we are good Christians, we do not questions such things.

We already learned in chapter one that the animals were on earth before the people but now we learn that until now only the plants and the man where there. Because now God wants to make the man less lonely by making animals for him. But nothing was a good partner for the man so God had a great idea.

Somehow he knocked the man out to perform surgery on him. He took one of his rips out and filled that spot with meat.
From that rip he made a woman. So the rip must have been huge. Maybe it was really a good thing to get that huge rip out of the man.
Even if God used a rip and no meat to make the woman, the man says that this is made of his leg and his meat and has to be called woman.
Oh, and even if he never knew something like a father or mother because he was created and he has never been a child, he also talks about them in the end of chapter two.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is a woman in Iran who was sentenced to death for adultery.

Let's have a look at this case:

So there is a country that still has the death sentence. And adultery is one of the crimes you can die for.
Apart from the fact that no one has the right to kill anyone, how can adultery be such a bad crime as to stone someone to death for it?
And VERY important about this are two things:
  • This woman was raped
  • This woman was treated like a witch in medieval times. She was tortured over 90 times until she finally confessed.
IF she'd really have committed a crime, she would have confessed it much faster, because no one would go through such torture just because.
No, this woman obviously thought that if she can take it just long enough, they will stop torturing and treat her fair. But they didn't and so she made it stop by confessing. And she pays for it with her life!

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani comes from a country that has Islamic leaders. And as everyone who gets informed about things knows, that in the Islam a woman is not worth much.
If a woman gets raped in this faith system it was her fault. There is no way that it was also or only the man's fault. Because the woman has to take care that no man but her husband sees enough of her to like her. She has to hide her body and face due to that. And SHE obviously did something wrong if a man liked/wanted her!
Sounds so logical and fair, doesn't it?
So the woman gets raped and it is her crime and she would be traumatized for life even IF it would be possible to get her out of it.
Not only the rape, which is already a big deal and a reason to be traumatized.
Also that EVERYONE around her obviously thinks that it is her fault and she can do nothing about it.
Also that other then running away and hiding or going to another country there is no way to escape bad looks, bad talking, cursing.
She will always be the whore, the bitch, the woman who made a man want her.
A woman in a country like Iran has usually no own money so she can't even go and get a ticket to leave.
She will have to worry for her physical health maybe even for her life once she is back at her family. Because, let's not forget that there are honour killings and this woman brought shame over her family.

So what is better for her? Taking the barbaric death penalty of getting stoned to death or getting free by some miracle but having to deal with all the problems that would come with it.

Give fairness a chance and ban religion from government once and for all!

Friday, July 2, 2010

Leaving a religion

continuing from the last entry "Sliding into a religion"

So how to get out.
Sometimes not so easy.

There are two ways:
-> The way to just leave and break contacts and simply be never seen again.
-> The way to kind of fade away nearly unnoticed

The second way is not possible in many cases. Because people will try to frighten the person who wants to leave. And don't think "if you wanna leave, just do it". It is not that easy.
You are in there. You totally have some weird dogma and rules in your head. And even if all those things are wrong in your opinion, you can't just rip those things off, that have been hammered into you for a long time.
So sometimes a person gets frightened, let's have a look at those scary things:
  • "If you leave you can never come back!"
    Yes, this is frightning, because you made friends and don't wanna disappoint them. Also if you chose to leave now and find out that you were wrong you will have a problem.
  • "If you want to leave you have to go now!"
    Yes this is frightning, because most likely you did not intend to leave NOW but organize some stuff so everything is ready to leave. Like finding an apartment and job in another city, get in contact with old friends and your family, etc.
  • "You can't leave once you joined us. We are going to find you and bring you back!"
    Yes, you might have signed something, and they really might try to find you and bring you back. And once you are back, your life will be a mess. Noone will treat you like before because you became the black sheep.
  • "You can't leave once you joined us. We are going to lock you up so you can't go!"
    Some really f***ed up organizations do that so you will just say that you have to think about it a bit longer and you WILL freaking leave without telling them a word!
I am sure there are more things they can say and scare the sh** out of you but the point is. They frighten you because by leaving you frighten them.
You have your reasons why you want to leave.
You have intern informations.
You might try to convince other members to leave.
You might try to get public to convince many people to never join in the first place
You are no longer paying into their pockets.
IF they do illegal things you might even go to the police with prove.

So what should you do in the case that you can't just fade away unnoticed?
  1. You are not going to tell anyone that you intend to leave! Not even your "best friend".
  2. If you have to fear the group once you left, your very fist destination will be a police station! You have to explain the situation and not make it sound less.
  3. You are not going to pack many bags when you leave! Just take your passport if you have acces to it and the most important papers like drivers license, birth certificate, etc
  4. Once you are out and you talked to the police (if that was nessesary) you are going to call people you trust, like old friends or your family or a church if you are religious...
  5. If you have children, you are not going to tell them beforehand. You will just take them at some point, say you make a trip or something, and go. If you tell them before, they might tell it to someone, don't forget they might still be very brainwashed.
  6. If you have a partner who does not want to leave, you will not tell him that you do. You can get in contact with him once you are out and safe.
This sounds a little dramatic but often enough it is that dramatic.
Of course noone will scare you that bad if you just leave catholic church or so. But well there are enough sick religious movements around that will get heavy on you.

So, no matter how bad they will act on you, once you decided to leave, you are going to do it. You will not care about hurting anyone and you will not look back. If you are not very sure you want to leave, don't, because that is a weakness they will use to get you back.
If you are sure, there is nothing that can hold you anymore.
If there are things you are in charge of, don't care about it. Don't try to get everything in order before you leave. That gives others signs and you might be observed (depending on what religious movement you are in)
They will deal with it when they see that no matter what they do, they can not get you back.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Sliding into a religion

That you have to be traumatised or in a bad phase of your life to slide into the hands of an organisation that is bad for your mental health is not true.
I have known enough people myself who had nice lifes, no trauma at all, and no empty space that needed to be filled by some faith, and they ended up in some weird religions.

So how (not why) does that work?
How do people get convinced about things that everyone else would reject?
Here a case that happens exactly like that hundrets of times per day.

STEP 1:
  • At some point you might talk to a person that says things that may sound logical to you and fits your world fiew. And you might even disagree on some matters and the person will say things like "yes i understand what you say, but did you ever think about this...?"
  • You might have a very interesting conversation and then suddenly get an invitation "look, i have a few friends who think the same. We meet for discussions every week. If you want, you can come, too."
  • And because you found it so interesting, the person knew so much and was so friendly and understanding and seemed trustworthy, you might come for one of those meetings.
  • You will find a group of maybe 10 - 15 people and a few "newbs" that came just to look, just like you did.
  • Someone will introduce you and show or tell you some things that sound convincing.
  • You will drink / eat together.
  • You will find one or more people that seem interesting in what they say and you might talk with them a bit.
  • You will experience a groupdiscussion about a generally interesting topic.
  • You will maybe see some lists, scedules, books, signs and get explanations for those things.
  • You might meet or see the leader and talk to him or at least see a picture or a video of the leader.
  • You will maybe be invited to spend the night there (wherever that meeting is) or at a house of a nice member.
  • You will definitely be invited to come again.

STEP 2:
  • You found the evening nice and you decide to come again.
  • So at some point you are there every week.
  • You make friends with group members.
  • You get invited to intern meetings because you are considered "worthy" (exchange "worthy" with whatever word you might find suitable)
  • You decide to take a look at that intern meeting
  • Someone explains you why it is important that things from the intern meetings stay intern. You might even have to sign something that says, you will not carry any information outside.
  • You might get something like a contract that makes you an official member.
  • You will have new discussions about topics you never thought about.
  • You will be carefully observed but you will not notice that.
  • Everyone keeps treating you nicely until you say something that doesn't fit into the "teachings / dogma".
  • Someone will explain you logically and with some pseudo-science why your opinion was wrong and the opinion of the group was correct.
  • It was logical, so you will believe it.
  • This will happen more and more often and you will not notice how these "logical" things become more and more unreasonable.
  • At some point you totally agree with all the teachings, you will accept the dogma.
  • You will not understand why some friends started to keep distance.
  • You will not understand why other friends or your family are worried.
  • You will not question a statement like "well maybe you should just break the contact with your friends. They don't wanna understand you anyway."
  • And you will think about it and then break contact with good friends, with family.
  • Maybe you will move somewhere else.
  • By now you already started paying real money into the movement you joined and it will be absolutely no problem for you.
  • You might get "enlightened", join courses, buy books.

STEP 3:
  • There is nothing more or very few to learn for you left.
  • You get the offer to start your own disussion group or you get offered a job inside the movement.
  • You will do voluntary work for the movement.
  • You will spend much time with your new friends in your spare time.
  • You will spend about no time with all the people that are worried about you.
  • You will lose more money for uniforms, books, events, vacations, etc
  • You will be in charge of some things, that makes you feel important
  • People will now come to you and ask for explanations or help
  • You will now be the nice person, that talks to a stranger and be understanding
  • You will finally invite people to meetings
The circle is now closed

Little last statement:
What I wrote above did happen. It happened to someone who used to be my best friend, and it also happened to other people i used to know, and sadly enough it happened even to me.
I, unlike many others but also like many others, found my way out and am by now able to see all the signs. Prevent myself from getting into something again.

If you want to get out of a religion or want to help someone with it read "How to get out of a religion" on this blog.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The three questions

"What is God? Why do you believe in him? Why should anybody else believe in him?"
(Atheist Experience)

These three questions should be easy to answer for a believer. But for some reason it's not. Let's look at the standard answers:


Who / What is God?
  • God is my father in heaven.
    If God is your father in heaven, then who is your mother in heaven? And why are they in heaven and not here at your side? And what / where is heaven anyway?
  • God is love!
    So God is an emotion? In the bible he caused so much trouble, pain, and hate but he is love?
  • God is everything we can't explain and don't know!
    So a few hundred years ago, we couldn't explain what a lightning is. So was God a lightning? We didn't know how rain starts so God was the cause. Today we discovered those two things, so is God now two things less? Is he going to melt away by all the things we discover? What happens at the point we know everything and can explain everything?
  • God is our creator
    Please read about biology, physics, and chemistry

Why do you believe in God?
  • I had an experience!
    Mostly the described experiences are easily explained with a bit of knowledge on topics like "Psychology", "Medicine", "Science"
  • God answers my prayers!
    "Please let me pass that test" If you pass it was God help, if you don't you didn't study enough. Sounds logical to me.
  • I saw God / I can feel God!
    Sorry man, you are delusional. If you would say "I saw the flying spaghetti monster, it touched my hand" you would go straight to a doctor, but not if you say that it was God.
  • Because I believe in the bible, Gods word!
    The bible was not written by God. It was written by people who did not understand some things in their time so they said that a God did it. That happened in many other religions, too but that is another topic and will be discussed another time.
  • Because I don't want to go to hell!
    You base your believe on the existance of a hell, that is not even really made by god but invented by believers. Invented just like the demons around the fallen angel who is sitting in hell between flames. Best you research the topic "Satan" and after some time you will see that it is not, what you have been taught.

Why should anyone believe in God?
  • Because he made everything!
    Yeah, I know that one. "Look at the trees and the complexity of the human eye and ... oh my god the banana, it fits in your hand and your mouth!" - Again, please start reading.
  • Because if not, you go to hell!
    But what if you don't believe in a hell? Why should you believe then?

In the end, after getting the "answers" I still have no clue.
So if any Monotheist (a believer in a one and only god) reads this, I would be glad to get an answer.
If you don't wanna post it here, just send me a mail to clos3rlook[at]gmail[dot]com

Monday, June 7, 2010

To stop thinking

I watch "the atheist experience" very much. It is a show about atheism sponsered by the ACA (Atheist Community of Austin). In that show I heard about the "700 club" a few times now so I just had to check it out.

Now, I am not starting to rant on the program. I am going to tell you about two stories aired on the 700 club.

1st story:
A man had a bad car accident. He crashed frontal with a truck. And it seems he might have been brain dead for some time, or he fell into a short coma, or whatever caused his brain to shut his body down for 90 Minutes.
That man reports how his dead family members, friends and teachers, waited in heaven. How he was welcomed. He reports about a constant singing he heard. He also reports about heavens gate, what it looked like.
His report clearly shows that he thought he was in heaven for those 90 minutes.

Thinking part:
That man was clearly a christian. And his whole life people around him and the church where talking about how you go to heaven or hell. And also he had some picture in mind how it would be on both places. He obviously was convinced that he is a good man and has to go to heaven. So when his mind was stressed out like that, it created exactly the picture he painted for a long time. For him it was like a proof, that heaven exists. He obviously never thought about the fact that he wasn't travelling anywhere while he was unconcious but his brain created the pictures.
I am pretty sure that the same man would have wondered if he maybe is getting insane, would he have seen a barking unicorn, floating trees and purple clouds in that moment.

2nd story:
A woman, her boyfriend, and her two children went hiking. The boyfriend fell down a rock and broke many bones, got brain damage and was at the hospital for a long time.
The woman reports that she prayed a lot, that she even started a blog and asked other people to pray for her boyfriends recovery.
He had to learn everything new (walking, talking, eating, etc), he had many surgeries.
After 4 months he left the hospital.

Thinking part:
The recovery simply had nothing to do with the fact that the woman was praying. He recovered thanks to the helicopter that brought him to the hospital. He recovered because of the good doctors and therapists and because of his own will to survive and learn everything new. Maybe he was a bit more relaxed then others in his situation, because he knew how many people are hoping he is getting well. But it is not the prayer or god who answers a prayer.
He would have gotten just as well, would everyone who had prayed just have called him or drawn a picture or light up a candle or knock on wood three times.



Example of a reaction that might be much more helpful then just stop thinking:
I forget to turn off the candle and fall asleep. At some point I turn around at night and with my blanket I knock the candle down. The carpet and curtains catch fire and I wake up when the room is full of dark smoke and the smell of fire.
My reaction: I am awake at once. I wake up my partner. I call the fire fighter while I grab a blanket try and extinguish the fire. I tell the firefighter what happened and where we are. If I see it is too much fire, I can't extinguish alone, I will turn the light on, try close the window, on my way out close the door, and get out of the house with all my pets. I will wait for the firefighters at the street.
I will hope they do a good job.
If they can extinguish it, I know it is not because I hoped so but because it is there job and they are well trained.
I will not perform any weird ritual believing that this will help...

Conclusions?
Ok, something happens to someone and suddenly the person and/or people involved stop thinking rationally.
They just do not use there common sense, their ability to think logically anymore.
What does people make to just stop thinking logically in such situations?
Shock? -> Even in a shocksituation it is possible to react!
The feeling that they can't help? -> You can always try to do something. And if it is only talking to a hurt person.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Bible argument

"Did you even read the bible?"

If you as atheist talk to a christian you might hear sentences like that.
Well when I speak for myself I must answer with "well, not the whole bible but enough". This is my opinion just like the other person's opinion is that I have to read the bible even if I do not accept the concept of a god and religion.

When I have a discussion with someone, I talk in a way the other person understands AND accepts.
So if I talk to a christian about a christian topic I will use bible quotes, as the bible is accepted as god's word. Also I will talk about the dayly life of a christian including church services, praying, dogma, rules, reasoning, etc. With the person I will talk about the symbols in the text, the message between the lines and other things. I would also include something like that "it says in the bible this, science said that" and I will find out with that person and based on the person's believes what is more likely.

But the problem in most of these discussions is, that the christian will not use science or logical thoughts when they talk to you. They will talk about religious things only or they twist scientific facts in a weird way so it fits sooomehooow into their believe system.

As I got very tired of "Did you even read the bible?" I decided to read it from the beginning to the end. And I will take you with me on my journey.
Just a little information, I use a catholic bible. Telling you that, because there are slight differences between the bibles (orthodox, catholic, protestian).

So if you are interested in the bible follow the bible series on this blog.
If not, ignore that and read the other things.

Monday, May 31, 2010

The small abc

A few statements about common misunderstandings by theists:

"atheism is a religion"
Atheism means that one does not believe in god or gods, religious dogma. It means that one will not follow religious rules. It means that someone's morality is not based on religious teachings.
Atheism is not a religion because atheists do not believe in religions.
If atheism is a religion, then "not playing soccer" is a sport.
If atheism is a religion, then "off" is a TV-channel.
If atheism is a religion, then "not playing card games" is a hobby.

"But people need religion, don't they."
No they don't. Why should they. Being religious is not the default position in which we are born, as many theists say.
When we are born we learn. And if our parents are theist, we learn that theism is the way of life. But if not, we don't and that is perfectly ok.
If you don't have to follow some weird dogma and if you don't think there is a higher power that controls everything, then you feel very free and you know that if you did something it was really your work and worth the effort.

"How could all this be if there wasn't a creator?"
Why does everything need a purpose, an intelligence.
Who are we, to think that we are so important and so sacred that some intelligence had to make us?
Is it really so unbelievable that the world started by "accident" and that everything after that "accident" just evolved? We think in years, months, weeks, days, etc, and that makes it so difficult to understand how long evolution takes.

"Which bad thing did happen to you, that you left religion?"
It does not need a trauma to lose faith. It only needs logical and critical thinking. Maybe some people lost faith because after a bad experience they started thinking clear. But not all.

"You are only atheist because you want to sin!"
Atheists have a feeling for morality. They know well what is wrong and right. But there is no sin. If you do something bad, it was not a sin, it was just doing something bad, morally incorrect.