Bunny’s TMI

I don’t often discuss my religious beliefs, and some of the reason’s are in this radio show host’s soapbox. In fact, I’m not going to get into it now, I just wanted to share the link and maybe give people something to think about.

Edited 4-4-05
The above link now goes to part two, here is the original link:

• http://www.robarnieanddawn.com/RobsSoapboxZealot.htm
• http://www.robarnieanddawn.com/RobsSoapboxZealots2.htm

March 27th, 2005

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THE QUESTION RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS WON’T ANSWER

Happy belated Easter. Now let me explain to you why your beliefs are crap.

I believe in a power and/or being greater than me. I do not, however, believe in your God. No matter which one you’ve chosen, he isn’t mine. I know this because the overwhelming majority of you have been told who your God is based on a book written by men 50 years after the events allegedly occurred. I know this also because most of you have learned who your God is by being scared into it every weekend for years by men telling you what to believe about why you are a sinner and should give them money.

The belief in my supreme being is based purely on this set of facts; while Science has debunked and disproved a great deal more than religious zealots are willing to admit, science has still never explained how and where “it” all started. In other words, no amount of science has ever told us how this all came to be. Where did that very first atom come from? The universe? In my opinion, there has to be some power greater than what we can understand somewhere out there. That’s it. That’s my foundation for my belief. You probably can’t relate to that belief system because it’s based in reason, an anathema to religion. Most of you have come to your God based on fear, faith, hope, desire, pity, weakness or sadness; all emotions, all without reason.

The most agonizing thing to watch is the unadulterated hypocrisy that runs rampant through the religious zealot, hidden behind the shield of “faith.” Religion has sold a really good lie over the years with faith, by convincing its followers that God will reward you for acknowledging your belief and trust in him and if you just have faith, everything will be fine. Faith is the way religious people defend how right they are. Absent facts and surrounded by plenty of questions, religious people answer the “what if you’re wrong question,” by dismissing the possibility that they could be wrong and ignoring your inquiry.

Don’t misunderstand me. As I said earlier, I believe in a supreme being that is beyond my comprehension. I don’t however claim to know who that being is or what his or her origins are. I prefer to err on the side of humility in the face of my creator. This is the thing that drives me most nuts about religious zealots. They all actually think they know the truth. 6 billion people on this planet, every single one of them convinced that they’re right about their god, and the story behind that god. Every single one of them are certain that they must be right, because to think otherwise would shatter the very foundation their life is built on (which by the way is nothing more than guess). The facts, of course, are that most of the planet has to be wrong, and maybe all of us are. God forbid (pun intended) anyone even ponder such a thought.

This “I’m right, you’re wrong,” mentality occurs between different religions as Muslims tell Christians how wrong they are and Christians tell Buddhists the same. It also occurs within different sects of the same religion as Catholics mocks Episcopalians, Pentecostals mock Mormons and everyone mocks Baptists. Ridiculous. All of these religious folks so badly need to be right so as to validate themselves that they tear down and defame anyone who has the audacity to have faith in something other than what they believe.

Never is this absurdity more apparent than when you back a religious person into a corner and ask them the one question they all refuse to answer. Try it out, you’ll be amazed at the results; the scenario is as follows: Your favorite religious nut has died. They and their precious soul are on the way to meet their creator. Now, say this to them:

The time has come for you to leave this world and come face to face with your creator. Close your eyes and put yourself there. Picture it in your mind. This is it. You lived your entire life basing so much of everything you do on the existence of this Supreme Being. You gave tons of time, money and mental and emotional energy to the knowledge that all would be rewarded when your life came to an end. You tried as hard as you could to live your life within his image, knowing that he would forgive you when you failed and love you always. You asked for his guidance and support on countless occasions when life seemed to have no meaning. At times when you didn’t understand events, you simply trusted that he, your God, was guiding the universe and had a purpose and knowledge greater than yours. Now imagine this…

You were wrong.

Your God ain’t the right one. Not even close. You’re staring at your creator and it is the exact opposite of everything you based all of your time on Earth on.

What now?

No religious zealot will answer this question. They all brush off the very possibility that it could be true. They refuse to even ponder the notion and fall back on their faith argument. They condescend to you and say things like, “oh, Rob it’s so sad that you can’t take a leap of faith.”

That is not a position of principle. People with confidence answer hypothetical questions because they know that their beliefs are grounded in truth. That’s why politicians never answer the hypothetical, because they have no principles. Politicians wait to see what will give them the most votes before deciding how to handle a situation.

For example, let’s look at how the “have faith, I’m a religious nut,” mind-set compares when applied to other potential situations. How would their refusal to even think of the scenario mindset compare against people of true conviction?

SCENARIO #1:

You discover that your wife is cheating on you, making the last 10 years of marriage a lie in your eyes, what do you do?

Person of True conviction answer: I immediately acknowledge that I played a role in whatever made her act this way. Either by failing to be more attentive as a husband, or by choosing poorly 10 years earlier. I begin to restructure my life.

Person of religious faith answer: That wouldn’t happen, she wouldn’t do that.

SCENARIO #2:

You walk in on your 18-year-old son having sex with another man.

Person of True conviction answer: I begin to immediately ponder what it was in his upbringing that may have contributed to his liking of and/or curiosity about the homosexual lifestyle. I talk with him about it and find the answers I am looking for and decide whether or no I am going to love accept my son for the way he is or choose to allow him to not be a part of my life because of my own shortcomings and inability to accept something I don’t understand.

Person of religious faith answer: That wouldn’t happen, he wouldn’t do that.

SCENARIO #3:

After investing blood, sweat and tears into a 20-year career, complete with taking risks while at the same time playing by the rules, forming allies within your company and making yourself invaluable, you are laid-off.

Person of True conviction answer: I acknowledge how stupid it was of me to put all of my eggs in one basket and immediately try to find out if my skills are applicable to another line of work. If not, I pursue a new leg of education while finding a way to support myself.

Person of religious faith answer: That wouldn’t happen, they wouldn’t do that.

You get the idea. You notice that all of the above scenarios involve real-life issues of faith. When you’re married, you have faith that your partner will be true. When you raise a child, you have faith that you have done a good job. Having faith is not the problem; it’s failing to acknowledge that faith itself is not enough. Having faith is a glorious thing, not being prepared to be wrong about that faith is absurd.

Your God is no different than your job, spouse or child. There are no guarantees. Believing is great; not recognizing that you don’t know is embarrassing. If more people would ponder the question they refuse to answer, they might at least be a little more humble about their faith and allow all of us live in a little more peace.

April 3rd, 2005

RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS PART II: DEFINING THE NUTS

I made one mistake in last week’s column, “The One Question Religious Zealots Refuse To Answer,” which you can still read in the Soapbox archives. I failed to properly define the term “religious zealot.”

E-mails continue to roll in response to last week’s essay. An un-scientific survey indicates that the letters are evenly split 50/50 between people writing, “Bravo, I agree completely,” and people defending their religious positions and challenging mine. All of the letters, by the way, have been respectful, well thought out and well written, qualities often lost in religious discourse.

Many people tried to answer my question, “what if you’re wrong,” and few succeeded. There were a few courageous people who recognized that they have chosen a life of faith against their better judgment, but acknowledged they needed to do so to get through life. I applaud their honesty while simultaneously pitying their weakness. Many others asked me the same question in turn, ” What, Rob, if YOU are wrong.” This shows a failure on my part to properly convey my beliefs, an error I will attempt to correct here.

First, though, I must spend a few lines properly defining a religious zealot. Many of you wrote in with lines like, “I don’t know if I am what you would call a religious zealot but…” These letters were often followed with well thought out defenses of your faith and no attempt to demean others’ beliefs. You are not a religious zealot.

A religious zealot, my mass-appeal term for a “Jesus Freak,” is the person who meets any of the following criteria:

1. Refuses to recognize the possibility that they are wrong. Having faith does not mean that all logic and reason have to go out the window. Many people wrote in saying, “I have faith that I’m right, but I know that I could be wrong and I am prepared to deal with that.” These are not the words of a religious zealot.

2. Demeans, bemoans and ridicules anyone who doesn’t believe what he believes. This was also a source of misunderstanding in the previous column. I am not ridiculing you for your beliefs, I am chiding you for being closed minded in light of logic and reason if you are a person who chooses to say, “I am right and you are wrong.”

3. Tries to change the minds of other people. These are the ones that drive most of nuts. The people who actually believe that they are on a “mission” to spread the word as they see it. True zealots, true whackos.

4. Chalks up everything that happens, regardless of its’ impact to “God’s Will.” This is the one that ropes a lot of you in to my definition. People who walk around explaining away every horrible tragedy and celebrating every new born baby as simply being “God’s Will,” have already decided that God is actually a puppet master not a supreme being and by announcing “God’s Will,” are forcing their beliefs on you (See #2 and 3 above). These people have no real purpose in life other than to find ways to absolve themselves of all responsibility by thanking or blaming their God.

As for those of you who wanted me to answer the question about being wrong, I had hoped that I had in my previous column but I obviously failed to do so. Many of you who asked me about being wrong did so with a tone of assumption that I would be terrified to be standing before Allah or God or Zeus discovering that I am wrong. Your premise is flawed in my opinion in that you went on to prescribe to me a life of damnation and eternal Hell fire.

It is possible that I am wrong. (A statement religious zealots are incapable of making). If I am wrong, I am certain of two things, which answer the question…

1. Whoever God is, he is not an angry, vengeful god and he has no need or desire for punishment. He will welcome me, teach me, hold me and love me so that I may learn the error of my ways. He will honor me for many of the ways I lived my life including the fact that I recognized that all people need to come to God of their own accord, not because I tell them to.

2. If #1 isn’t true, then the supreme being of the universe isn’t anyone I want anything to do with and I will happily live an eternity of misery. If the supreme ruler who created all of this is in fact, a father who rules by fear and has such low self esteem that he demands we all bow before him, then I do in fact refuse to acknowledge him as my God and I will bear the repercussions of that. The ability to create a universe doesn’t make vanity, insecurity and immaturity virtuous.

So there it is. Two columns, more than hour of on-air time and hundreds of emails later, people are still struggling with this. I’m not sure why so many people who are “sure” of their beliefs feel the need to so vehemently defend and justify them, but that’s one of the things that make this topic so interesting to me. Perhaps at some point someone will come along and start a church whose mission statement is the following: “If you come here on Sunday you’ll find out what we believe, other than that you’ll never know because we have the sense to keep our beliefs, which we adhere to and strongly believe, to ourselves…because we know we may be wrong.”

Now that’s a church even I would attend.
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