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!