Dear Christians,

I'd like to address a sentiment or tendency I've seen from the community of believers upon meeting an ex-Christian who is now an atheist. I haven't personally encountered this sentiment, but after witnessing it I got riled up enough to write about it.

It came up as I was watching a discussion between an atheist and two Christians who tried to call the atheist's old belief into question. Please don't do that. In other words, please don't say, "Oh, you only thought you were a Christian, but you didn't really believe." By saying this, you claim to know what was going on inside the non-believer's head better than he does, and that's a touch insulting. As for me, I was also a conservative while growing up but now I'm a liberal - would you doubt that claim about myself? Or would you insist that I was deceived, saying, "You may have cried when Clinton won in '92 [true story], but that wasn't really conservatism"? I genuinely believed that Jesus was God's son who died on the cross for my sins so I could go to heaven. I still remember asking my mother how to have a relationship with God, because I wanted it for myself. I experienced conviction on numerous occasions; I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues; I wept over my sins; I thought I felt God's presence while singing worship songs; I loved studying the Bible and reading apologetics.

I may be sad today, but it doesn't mean I wasn't happy yesterday; the Twin Towers may be gone, but they nevertheless stood for nearly three decades. My faith in God is no different: I had it once, but now I don't. Please don't claim otherwise.

Consider your belief in God at this moment. Now imagine, just for the sake of argument, that in the future you leave your faith. Would that in any way make your current belief less real? Of course not! You believe - right here, right now, regardless of what happens later. To argue otherwise is to hold that only current opinions have any weight. Change sports teams? You never really pulled for the old team. Got a new favorite band? You never loved the previous one. Ditto for your last relationship.

To suggest that my faith in high school wasn't real has some unpleasant side effects for anyone of faith within earshot - including yourself - because it means no matter how much a person may love God in the present, he or she cannot be certain of his or her own belief. Therefore, only the Christian on his deathbed can know his belief was authentic, since he never lost his faith. To put it another way, a believer cannot know if her faith is real since she cannot know the future.

Whew, I think that's all I've got for now. If you've made it this far, thanks. Regardless, I hope you're all doing well.

Open letter about city council invocations

I was so pleased with my letter, I decided to make it public. I've included links to videos so you can see what I'm talking about in the second body paragraph. 
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Mayor McFarlane and Councilor Crowder,

In light of the recent Galloway v. Greece decision from the Supreme Court, I would like to voice my concern about the practice of religious invocations before council meetings. Given the current state of affairs in which sectarian invocations from any tradition are allowed before council meetings, I suggest the council discontinue the practice to prevent exclusion and conflict. I am happy to call this large and diverse city home, so it grieves me that over the past year only Christians have been scheduled to perform the invocation (with the exceptions of two Jews and one ECKist). Each speaker affirms the existence of God in some form or fashion, and none allows for minority views such as polytheism, pantheism, atheism, or agnosticism. I understand the inherent difficulty in incorporating less common traditions, and that is partly why I think the best solution is simply discontinuing the invocations. This way, all citizens of Raleigh are represented every week, no group has to wait for its turn to be featured, and no one can claim unequal treatment.

Before I close, I would also like to state my dismay at seeing Councilor Weeks deliver the invocation at both the January 21 and the March 18 meetings. I understand that on both occasions the councilor was filling in for an absent religious leader, but even so, it seems highly inappropriate to me for anyone in the official capacity as city councilor in a city council meeting to offer a public prayer. It is one thing to allow leaders from various faith communities to give religious invocations; it is quite another altogether to have a member of the city government in his official role lead a religious ceremony.  If the issue has already been addressed, then I apologize.

Thank you both for your time and your service.

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Let me know what you think: Bad, good, exaggerated, waste of time, best letter ever?

Mormon advertising

I was watching YouTube today, waiting for a video to load, when an ad came up that really bothered me. Why? Because when it started, I thought I was going to see something inspiring about science or technology – things I like. Instead, I got an ad for religion – something I don’t like. The opening images point to the future and to achievement, while religion is fixated largely on the past. This contrast plays throughout the ad, switching between Jesus in communal baths and modern humans with subways and germ theory. It plays throughout the Mormon faith, with LDS members being 70% against abortion in most or all cases (compared with 43% of Americans), 68% against homosexuality (40% of Americans) and 75% against evolution (45% of Americans). Mormon families are also twice as likely as the national average to have three or more children at a time when natural resources are growing thin.

Therein lies the heart of my disappointment with this ad: It tries to align itself with human accomplishment when it advocates for a religion that stands largely in opposition to progress. In short, the way forward for humanity is with lab coats, not magic underwear.

Okay, that's it for this anti-religious rant. Thanks for listening.

A question's been bugging me for the last few days: How many trees do we use to make Bibles every year?

A quick Google shows there are about 100 million Bibles sold every year, with a quarter of that coming from the US. Using that information and the data from this site as well as this forestry guide, I estimate at least one square mile of trees (about 192,000 individual trees) is used each year to print the world's Bibles - and that's being very conservative with my estimates; the actual number could easily be 5-10 times that if no recycled content is used and if the trees are spaced farther apart.

Hooray for nerdery!

Debt compromise ranting

The following is a rant. I just had to get it out of my system. If I got my facts wrong, please let me know. You're welcome to raise your own arguments for or against me, but it's unlikely that I'll respond. Again, this is a rant, so my tone is more aggressive and my language more hyperbolic. I guess what I'm trying to say is: Please don't take offense, just know that I'm a bit upset with the latest news from DC. Oh, and when I say GOP, I'm not referring to the whole party - just some of their elected members.

Why is raising the debt ceiling so bad? And why won't Tea Partiers vote for it, even when they're getting $900B or more in cuts? I mean, really? No revenue increases (way to fold, Dems), and you still don't like it? Would you prefer slapping Pelosi in the face and kicking Obama in the shins? Honestly, I don't know why some GOPers on Hannity and CNN were saying, "Yes, it's good, but we still don't think we'll vote for it."

Do you not understand that you can't have everything? In my perfect world, I'd tax the top bracket more, close loopholes in the tax code, try to find a way to increase revenue from multi-national corporations, cut defense by a ton, and increase funding for the EPA, public transit, the Park Service and Forest Service (and that's just off the top of my head). But in the event that I become an elected official, I have to realize that I can't get all those things done. So, as a representative, I would fight for those things, all while knowing I'll likely come up short. I fail to see that basic understanding in freshman Republicans.

I can handle losing. What I can't handle is the other side failing to realize they've won. If this were a football game, it looks to me like the GOP just ran a play for 75 yards but refuses to walk in the endzone because it's only 6 points and they want this play to be worth 9. It's almost like these lawmakers - and I use the term loosely, because they've hardly made any laws - view themselves as warriors on a crusade to reduce the deficit: Their mission is to plant their flag on the Capitol... and anything less is a failure.

You don't trust future Congresses to balance the budget? I don't blame you. But that doesn't mean we need a Balanced Budget Amendment, tying government spending to a certain level of GDP. In WWII, our spending was off the charts, but it was worth it. Furthermore, we all recognize the need to reduce deficits, but we can't do it all at once. Government moves slowly - getting angry because it's not happening fast enough is as useful as getting angry in a traffic jam.

This is the first time I've wished for a primary challenger to Obama, just to make a point. Why try compromise when the other side is out for total domination? In health care reform, in Wall Street reform and in this debt ceiling fight, Dems made changes and concessions to bold ideas, only to gain a few paltry votes. Health care allowed the current broken system to continue by forcing people to buy insurance from private companies. Wall Street reform passed by not having any teeth. And now this "compromise" may pass with absolutely nothing for progressives. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

According to CNN this evening, liberals should be content with this new super Congress, because we'll supposedly get a break with that. Ha! I'm not satisfied for a moment with this super-Congress. First of all, why isn't the regular congress good enough? Secondly, we already had a bipartisan commission last year, also known as the Bowles-Simpson commission. Yet those ideas - which I liked - got nowhere. And somehow this new group will come up with better ideas that will also pass Congress? I doubt it. And finally, the new group will supposedly get something done because if it doesn't by a certain date, we'll have extreme cuts that both parties will hate. Why is this new deadline going to be more effective than the one on Tuesday? If working under a deadline should produce a compromise, why don't we have a compromise now?

Social issues, Wisconsin, and Rich v. Poor

"While Americans want Washington to focus on creating jobs and cutting spending, the president will have to explain why he thinks now is the appropriate time to stir up a controversial issue that sharply divides the nation." - Michael Steel, spokesman for Speaker Boehner, referring to Obama's decision not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, which declares that at the federal level marriage is only between a man and a woman.

What's funny about this comment is that if you switch "President" with "Republicans," you could very well be talking about recent GOP bills that defund Planned Parenthood and redefine rape to restrict access to abortions. My point is this: Each side hates it when the other makes a move on social issues. The offended party claims that it's a distraction from the economy. I'm starting to think that neither side truly cares about the jobs of the middle and working class.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker claims his effort to strip unions of their collective bargaining rights is because of an urgent budget crisis... but he just gave away $67M in business tax cuts? To my conservative friends, I understand this line of thinking: businesses create jobs and that money will end up back in the state's coffers, therefore we should be business friendly. But even if that's true, you're still taking that money away from the state; there's still an initial deficit to overcome. If the crisis is as bad as Gov. Walker makes it out to be, then we should be pinching pennies, not sending them off to businesses in the hopes that they'll return soon. Any investment (including investments in business) requires investment capital, so if Wisconsin is short on capital, it should be loath to sink money into any investment.

Just as a side note on the disparity between the rich and poor: the Dow is above 12K, last night I heard plastic surgery rates are up (and therefore the economy is back), and I've even seen a magazine cover proclaiming the "return of luxury." But all that only concerns rich people - and some of those same folks are the very ones who screwed up the economy in the first place. For the rest of us schmucks, it ain't so great.

As always, I relish respectful discussion and I value correction even more. Happy debating!

Five years!

Five years ago today, my life changed. I've been reflecting on this time given the anniversary, and I hope you enjoy the results. It's kind of fitting that there are rallies across the nation today in response to the recent spate of suicides, because I also came very close to taking my life on this day in 2005. One side note: this is a little patched together from separate attempts to write down my feelings, and I haven't had time to blend each piece. Without further ado...

In the fall of 2005, my thyroid gave out suddenly and I plunged into an acute, suicidal depression. Without question, it was the worst experience of my life: In a matter of hours, the world transformed from a system I knew to a place of darkness and terror. I stayed in bed all day, transfixed by visions of suicide, yet that horrible cinema was my only sanctuary from turning my grotesque screenplay into a grisly one-man show. I couldn’t stay, but I couldn’t go.

I had to leave Wake Forest University after attending for three years to spend a week in a mental hospital. Leaving my friends and life behind to check into a mental health hospital shattered my vision of the world, and it was almost as bad as the initial trauma of suicidal thoughts.

After the first months of shock, I began to build a new life: getting an apartment, finding a job, attending a class the next fall and another in the spring. Even with this progress, I still tried not to focus on why I had suffered and was still suffering so much; I only cried out in pain. For a time I felt numb, going through the motions of my previous life, but looking back, my actions resemble those of a man who stubbornly tends his garden after all his plants have burned. Even now, I am grateful for those plants; even now, they nourish my new life as they disintegrate into the soil below. I had always heard of suffering; now I knew what it was. My faith in God has never recovered; I’ve had to find a worldview that makes sense to me.

I thought I knew my world, but it was only an illusion. The picture in front of my eyes was torn away, leaving me to blink and bleed in a new light. What I took for darkness was reality piercing my retinas, searing them with more information than I could handle. I groped about for my old mask, the old painting, but now it seems darkly cartoonish; a strange distortion of reality. For nearly two years I fiddled with the old picture, but it never matched up with what I saw on That Day.

...and now I have to go to bed. Not one of my best posts, but I promised myself I'd put up something today. There's a second part to this story; hopefully I can post it in the next few days (though I'm not making any promises...).