That’s How I Got Where I Am

I have been an atheist most of my life.  I say this because a number of blogs that I have been spending way to much time reading are from former or questioning Christians that have become or are seriously leaning towards atheism or agnosticism.  I have mentioned a couple of my favorites but two more I have found are Sailing to Byzantium and Everyday Atheist.  I should mention these blogs as well as Agnostic Atheism are much better written then mine, and they have much more Bible knowledge than I currently do.

The reason for this is simple.  I decided at a very early age that I didn’t believe the Bible could be true.  From the ages of 4-8 I can remember going to church somewhat regularly with my parents, mostly my mom.  Even doing the Bible school in the summers.  We still even have an old 8mm with no sound (hey it was the 70’s) of myself and my brothers coming home one Sunday after church in the snow in our best clothes.  In my formative years of 5th through 8th grades I started going to a Baptist church with my best friend.  I actually got pretty gung-ho for religion during these years.  But then something changed.

Way back in the early 80’s I was a geek when being a geek wasn’t cool.  I read a lot.  I can remember reading a lot of Ray Bradbury and George Orwell.  I don’t even really remember which author or book it was, but something set me off between what I was learning on Sundays and what I was reading in my spare time during the rest of the week.  Meanwhile, back at church, I can remember feeling pressure to become “saved.”  I remember people I didn’t even really know asking myself and my friend if we were going to “make Jesus our personal saviour,” and similar questions.  I remember feeling a lot of pressure really, kind of like when you get older and buy a house or car for the first time.  I was having doubts and my friend was just saying to go ahead and get baptised, what could it hurt?  And I remember thinking, well, if there is a God, he would know I am faking my commitment to being saved.  So, I decided to actually read the Bible, instead of just the scriptures required for the current week’s sermon.

I don’t remember my exact age, but I must have been about 13-14.  I commited myself to reading the Bible and learning about God.  But as I read through Genesis and Exodus, I began to wonder.  Back then there was no internet, so I actually took my Bible to school and would go into the library during my spare time and both read the Bible and find ancient history book to corraborate as much as I could.  The school library had some information but I recall even going to the public library because I wasn’t getting enough.  I knew after reading just the Old Testament that I didn’t really believe most of what supposedly happened so far.  I knew I would never believe in Noah and the Flood, Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt, the whole dinosaur situation at the beginning of Genesis, and many other problems that are brought up on websites today.  But I committed myself to finishing the New Testament, but I remember not having the fervor that I had when I started, and it took a number of weeks.

So after reading the Bible, I knew a lot of it couldn’t be true.  So my rationalization is if I know parts of it aren’t true, how can I know if any of the rest of it is valid?  My friend ended up getting baptised, and I quit going to church.  He and I remained friends, but he knew something had happened.  During high school and college I don’t remember much fuss about when I would tell people I didn’t believe in God.  I think since most of us are pretty messed up during those years anyway and it wasn’t given much thought.  I do remember if I was trying to impress a girl or a group of friends I would normally stay out of religious topics until they knew me well enough so I wouldn’t get “that look.”  I am sure being an atheist cost me more than one relationship I would have liked to see continue.

As I got older, I actually got more and more secretive about my beliefs.  It seems young people are allowed to question God but as you get older you just submit.  I will discuss this topic more later but the biggest arguments I have had about my beliefs in the past 20 years were with my wife after we were married.  And there were a couple of knock down drag outs, but we perservered.  We don’t discuss it much now at all.  I am thankful I have found the blogging world, because it does let us who have been silent for awhile to discuss our beliefs and not get “that look.”

New and Improved

I have decided to make another blog.  I will keep this blog as my primary religion, marriage, taxes, politics, and general ranting blog.  The new blog is here and will discuss my more general personal life (basically one I can let my family and friends read without worrying about what I say), so if anyone who is reading my religious views would still like to see a more personal side they can still visit.  Obviously that site won’t link back here.  I already moved yesterday’s post there, but I will probably keep most of my other old posts intact.  My wife already knows me and my feelings, and our relationship is great.  The few times we have had major problems has been when her family (the majority being Jehovah’s Witnesses) interferes because I celebrate our children’s birthday’s or something to that effect.  So I don’t want to give them any reason to give my wife grief over something I am doing should someone stumble across this blog.

Just in the short time I have been doing this I have found many blogs about religion in general, and many specific ones about JW’s, fundamentalism, atheism, agnosticism, mormonism, and countless others.  But I have not found too many that specifically discuss the marriage of two people with such contrasting beliefs.  Sure, when a Lutheran marries a Catholic there are some minor issues, but we are talking two opposite ends of the spectrum here, and I think some good discussions can be had on this topic and many others.

More coming soon…

Be Thankful I Don’t Take It All Part II

In looking at my blogs stats, searches on religion and taxes have been causing me to get the most hits.  Lately I have been getting a lot of hits based on my experience that I wrote about here concerning JK Harris and some problems I had with the IRS.  In that post I included a link to www.oicsettlement.com, which, as I understood it, allowed people with a complaint to JK Harris that contacted them before March 31, 2005 to enter a class action suit (assuming they hadn’t privately sued JK Harris previously).

For whatever reason, the link to the oicsettlement now requires a password to view it.  This could be because they were getting too many people trying to join in, I don’t really know.  I even thought about it when I posted their site that it could effect the amount of money I get back, in that the settlement is a specific amount, but the amount I got back didn’t really concern me, as my case has been settled (not by JK Harris) and anything I get back is just extra money.  And I was more concerned that there were others out there like myself, that got in a bind and was wondering if they were ever going to get out, and then got strung along by JK Harris or another company like them.  For the record, do a google search on “JK Harris complaints” and see the list you get.  I am not alone by any means.  And if I referred another 50-60 people over to the settlement page and helped them I am glad.  I just hope they get their problems with the IRS solved, which is the most important.

Hopefully there is no problem with the me advertising the oicsettlement page.  I don’t see how there could be as it was printed in numerous newspapers in April, both in print and online.  Not to mention on the actual Class Action Settlement form it says you can get info and a copy of the forms at their website.  If in a day or two I do not find any issues with it, and it seems people are still hitting my JK Harris pages, I will see if I can scan in a blank settlement form and post it somewhere for download.

One other thing to note, my original post I had posted that the cutoff date was May 25, 2007 to get you paperwork turned in.  This is actually the wrong date.  The correct date is July 31, 2007.  The May 25 date is if you wanted to make an appearance or objection.

Edit to Add:  Since the original post the www.oicsettlement.com page has went back up.

Megadeth-United Abominations review

ok a break from the religion discussion.  And I know I messed up my titles, but is anyone paying attention anyway?

I bought the new Megadeth on Tuesday and I wanted to listen to it a couple of days before I decided how much I like it.  First, let me start by saying Megadeth is one of my favorite metal bands, so the review can be a little biased.  I even like the albums many do not, like Cryptic Writings and Risk.  Ok, I didn’t like The World Needs a Hero, but who did?  Moto Psycho anyone ?

After Dave Mustaine and Dave Ellefson split, I had concerns about Megadeth, especially after their last album together, mentioned above.  But in 2004 Mustaine reassembled his band and released The System Has Failed, one of my favorite recent albums.  He has now recycled a couple of more musicians for this go around, United Abominations, even though I think Glen Drover (guitars) and Shawn Drover (drums) played the tours for System even though they didn’t do the studio work, which was done by Chris Poland of the Killing is My Business and Peace Sells… years.  A bigger metalhead than me can clarify that I’m sure.

Now, I like this CD, but I would be lying if I didn’t say I wanted more.  The first four songs on the CD really get going, and then I think the CD starts to go a little flat before it picks up again.  The first song, Sleepwalkers is very good, good riffs-great solo and vocals.  Washington is Next follows, and is probably my favorite song from the album.  The title track is very good also.  Mustaine goes back to a lot of his political rants, which fueled the Symphony of Destruction and Peace Sells But Who’s Buying CD’s back in the day.  I like it in the aforementioned songs but I really don’t like Amerikhastan, where he just rants over a song for long portions instead of fusing the lyrics and music together.  Gears of War is very average also, IMO.  A Tout Le Monde is a redone song from the Train of Consequences CD with some new vocals by Christina Scabbia.  This was a decent song the first time, and didn’t really need a re-release, but who knows why they do these things.  Everytime I hear this song though I always remember the band on David Letterman back in 1994 or so playing that song.  Leading up to it, Letterman in his own dry way, continually kept promoing the band and putting their logo on the screen.  But I digress.

The last two songs, You’re Dead and Burnt Ice are both good thrashers and add a good conclusion to the album.  So overall I think it is very good, but I really thought this album was going to bring Dave and the boys all the way back, and instead I think they stay even keel with the last release.  But reading other reviews, that is obviously mostly my opinion as many other are celebrating the return of Megadeth.  I just don’t see any songs that 10-15 years from now that I still love to hear ala Hangar 18, Peace Sells, Holy Wars, and the entire Syphony album.  Time will tell…

Since most everyone gives a number rating I will give it an 8 out of 10.

That’s The Way It Ought To Be

I keep thinking I am going to stop talking religion and atheism, but it’s what’s on my mind recently so here is some more.  It’s interesting that since I started discussing the topic online I have renewed interest that I haven’t had in years.  Back in college when you had a number of different people in different backgrounds and beliefs living in the same dorm, religion would come up quite frequently, and I didn’t have to walk on eggshells discussing my beliefs.  As a matter of fact our floor manager even set up an atheist/theist debate between myself and another atheist versus two religious types.  It’s been 20+ years so it’s hard to remember the details but I know we whooped them. 

 

The thing is, after I got married I just kind of let my opinions stay in the background as far as what I really believe.  I am letting my wife raise our children with her beliefs, and we discuss some of my beliefs with them but we will let them make up their own minds when they get older, which is exactly what I did.  All of her family are religious, and even though they know my beliefs we aren’t going to have any debates about it, as no one is going to change anyone else’s mind.  The couple of friends that I have are involved in religion, so rather than cause conflicts, I just go along without really discussing anything.  My siblings all live two states away.  So the point I am making is with the internet and the blogs available, it’s like I have found some long lost friends that I didn’t know I had.  I can actually have conversations without having to worry about people suddenly thinking about me in a different light.

Quite refreshing actually…

Never Opened Myself This Way

When I started this blog, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with it, and I am still unsure.  I have a lot of interests, and I can also rant about a lot of things.   When I decided to post my beliefs about religion on my last post I started reading a few blogs on similar topics, and there are a number of excellent blogs that have very good opinions dedicated to the very topic, my two favorite being http://agnosticatheism.wordpress.com/ and http://evolutionspace.wordpress.com/. 

After visiting the above blogs and others I noticed a lot of the better ones are topic specific, and I was considering trying to do emulate that.  But even though I know a lot about sports I would get bored with that after awhile I think.  Plus there are about 500,000 sports blogs out there already.  I was also surprised at both the number of evolutionist, atheist, fundamentalist, and various other religion based blogs are out there.  And most of the authors of those blogs are much more informed on those particular topics than myself.  So for now I have decided to keep doing my rambling random thoughts.

Now, to continue where I left off.  So how did an agnostic-atheist ever get married to a Jehovah’s Witness?  How are they still married?

First, let me start out by saying Jehovah’s Witnesses get a bad rap.  I didn’t know a thing about them before I met my wife, and my mental image of a Jehovah’s Witness before I her was a picture of a Hare Krishna with a tamborine.  Which probably came from some sitcom or TV show in the 60’s or 70’s.  I thought of it as a true cult ala the recent Heaven’s Gate or something like that.  Now, there is definitely some cult characteristics in Jehovah’s Witnesses, but it is nothing like those. 

A devout Jehovah’s Witness studies the Bible regularly.  Granted, it’s their own version which many biblical scholars question their translation (and as per my previous post, you can probably guess that it doesn’t really matter to me the translation).  Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in Hell.  If you are evil or “wicked” in their terms, then when you die you die.  They don’t believe in a heaven per se, they believe that Paradise will happen on earth when Jehovah gets rid of all of the wicked people.  And the good people that died in the past will be a part of that resurrection.  You can learn more of the basics at their page on wikipedia–http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_witnesses.  All of that being said, I have been to a number of Witness “meetings” with my wife, and in the past I have been to countless other church sermons, including Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic, and Baptist.  And while all have their differences, they are all very similar as well.  Every group seems to tweak the Bible’s meanings to their liking, and while most devout believers in any of the faiths probably think theirs is the best, or truest, or whatever, really they are all about the same thing.  When we die, if you are good and obeyed God’s law, you go to Heaven or Paradise, if you are evil you die or go to Hell.

When my wife and I were first married, we had a few issues over religion.  I think when we were dating she thought she would somehow convert me eventually.  Keep in mind, she was born into the religion, her mother became a Witness when she was very young.  It was all she knew.  One thing that does make the Witnesses cultish, is if an entire family is in the Truth (another name for them), and one of the members of the family isn’t doing right, they can get disfellowshipped, or kicked out.  It is then encouraged to the rest of the family to not associate themselves with that family member until they change their evil ways.  Now, before my wife and I were married we lived together, and her family got her disfellowshipped.  When that happened I was actually happy because I didn’t like the pressures they put on her and our relationship.  But being cut off from most of her family was bad her and for our relationship, as she had few outside (worldly) friends.  After we married, she was allowed back in, and even though we have had our bouts over her religion, in the long run our differences have helped our marriage prosper.  She has seen their is an outside world that she never knew about because of her religion and family.  And while I will never belong to any religion I have learned a lot about hers and the value that can be taught from it.  Truthfully, I think values can be taught no matter whether you are religious or an atheist, but if believing in God or Jehovah can give you values and meaning, then so be it.  My wife is one of the finest human beings I have ever met, and while I believe a lot of her values were taught to her by her parents, I am sure being a Witness helped that along.

We rarely argue about religion any more.  When we were first together she would often wonder how I could not believe in God.  We had many discussions on the Bible and it’s accuracy.  She often said that I was taking the easier route.  I don’t have to be accountable.  And that’s not true.  Just because one doesn’t believe in God doesn’t mean you don’t want to do the right things.  I actually think it’s better that I am an atheist rather than say a Catholic or Baptist.  That would cause much more conflict with a Witness than me actually not believing at all.

The last thing I want to touch on this topic for now is acceptance.  For whatever reason atheists are looked down upon in the world.  It’s a weird thing.  If a group of people are together and you have a Catholic, Muslim, Jew, Baptist, Methodist, and an atheist and the topic of religion is brought up the atheist will be looked down upon by the rest of the group.  In a recent internet poll I saw that 90% answered they believed in God.  Now that poll isn’t 100% accurate, because I would venture that most atheists would be resistant to volunteering for an internet poll.  The owner of the company I work at and many of the workers here often discuss church functions and the like.  If I were to suddenly bring up that I am an atheist I would be looked down upon here, so no one knows how I feel, which is fine.  I just find it interesting.

The Orders Came From High Above They Say

I am pretty much an atheist.  I say pretty much because I have had some strange things happen to me that make me wonder if something is out there, which I guess would make me agnostic, but I just don’t believe the Bible.  And I have read it.  I went to church semi-regularly as a child and my wife is very religious-I’ll talk about that more shortly.   I don’t believe the flood or Noah’s ark happened.  I don’t believe Jonah was swallowed by a whale and lived to tell about it.  I don’t believe Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt.  And don’t get me started on how man used to live to over 500 years old.  These are stories that were handed down over generations.  I believe there was a flood, and many scientists concur their probably was a great flood around 5600 BCE.  This is probably where the Noah stories started.  I do believe Jesus existed and was a minister, but sorry, I don’t believe in the resurrection.

It’s been a few years since I searched the internet looking up this topic, and my, in just 4-5 years it’s amazing to me how many more creationist sites are out there now.  I found one that is in such denial here, it is debating whether or not Noah took dinosaurs on the ark!  It is a fact that dinosaurs were extinct for 60 million years before man even showed up!  The continents were all together when the dinosaurs were on the earth, and after they went extinct and amphibians, marsupials and mammals began to take over the earth.

What I don’t understand is some of the religions that refuse to believe that the Bible could be wrong.  It must be true, it was written with the help of God!  No, it was written by men to help further along Christianity.  Most of the New Testament was written, what decades after Jesus’ death?  Now I know that everyone wants to believe that it was God writing the Bible and not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John promoting their agenda, but that is not the case.  And think about it, we can’t figure out who killed Kennedy and it’s only been what, 44 years?  And that was filmed!  And yet everyone going to church is going to go along with resurrection story.  And I understand, that is why it is called faith.  You must have faith to believe in all of that, but I am going to go on the evidence, at least the evidence that is available.

Lastly, the other amazing thing to me is people involved in religion.  I have already mentioned the numerous creation websites that have been fruitful and multiplied over the past five years.  There are a lot of good people involved with all religions, whether it is Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, it doesn’t matter.  Yet it is amazing to me how many people that claim they are of religious faith (or at least believe in God) yet do not uphold to the very basic rules of God.  It is also not uncommon to have acquaintences of mine who are religious try to preach to me are some of the most hypocritical people I have ever met.

If you are interested in more this site pretty much follows with what I believe.

I actually have a lot more to say on this topic but this is good for now.  My next post will be on how I married a devout Jehovah’s Witness!  No kidding.