Jury Duty, Crime, and The Good Old Days

So, I have jury duty last Friday. I didn’t get picked but the weeding out process (I am sure there is a legal name for it but alas I don’t know what it is) took forever. Okay, six hours, but you get the idea, and they wouldn’t let us break for lunch. At least I got $6 for my trouble

The case was a sensitive one, which would explain 200 of us needing to be selected to get to 12 jurors. Without going into detail, basically the charge was sexual penetration of a minor. What made it more than an average trial was apparently the perpetrator is the son of a police chief or captain in a nearby city. I didn’t know the suspect or the father, but a few people did and were eliminated.

In the middle of the process, after they had given us the minimal facts stated above, the prosecuting attorney asked individuals to raise their hands if they would have problems being fair because perhaps they or a close relative had some type of abuse or assault. This went on for some time and a number of jurors were added to “the list” to be excused. When the defense attorney finally came up, one of her first questions was how many of us wanted to get up and beat the defendant as soon as we had the charges explained to us. An older gentleman with a baseball cap telling us he was a veteran stood up and said something to this effect:

I have two grandchildren and I must say this whole country has went downhill because people do not have bibles in their right hands any more and no one is obeying the laws of the bible. I don’t know if this young man is guilty but I bet he wouldn’t even be in this mess if he was reading the bible every day like we used to!

And of course the amazing thing is you could hear sighs of agreement everywhere in the room. Now I am all for whatever we need to do to make our country better, but is reading the bible going to solve criminal issues? And did our country’s supposed banning of prayers and bible study in school start the decline of western civilization?

A few google searches later and my intuition appears to be correct. According to the American Atheists website, in the 1950’s when there was a large religious uprising in the US, one which caused God to be put in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” was reinserted on our money, the US crime rate was on a very steep increase in comparison to the 1940’s. In 1963, when prayer and religious teaching were banned from public schools, the crime rates remained relatively similar. Since 1963 the crime rates have fluctuated greatly, but this can now not be considered due to or because of people “carrying bibles in their right hands.” The key to the entire article, of course, is that many seem to remember the “Good Old Days” as being much better than they really were, and thinking that it must have been that way because religion was required, and now the country world has gone to hell in a hand basket because we don’t pray in school.

I am neither a sociologist nor an expert in criminal behavior. Yet I have a feeling that if children are taught (and enforced by example) respectfulness, compassion, and love, that whether this is taught because of a religious belief or just because it is the proper thing to do, that then your children will grow up to do the right things.

Giving Thanks to the Right People

I have commented about this before on another blog, but never written a post of my own concerning it.

On Monday we had our Thanksgiving lunch at work.  Before we ate the president of the company did a prayer thanking God for our food and friendships.  This has also often happened when my wife and I go to a cookout or dinner at her sister’s house with a large group of religious people.

Every time this happens, I always wonder why everyone thanks God and not the people that actually allowed the food to be sitting there in front of us? 

We should be thanking the farmers for the turkeys and vegetables.  My grandparents had a farm before I was born, and though I never visited it, I heard enough stories from them and my father that I knew farming was not the greatest job around.  I can only imagine the conditions of being a poultry worker.  I for one thank them, I know I wouldn’t want that job, but I do want to eat turkey.

Then there are the workers at the canning/frozen food factories.  Probably not as difficult a job as a farmer or poultry worker, but still thankless in the big scheme of things.  I have worked in a factory before and can attest this is true.

What about the truck drivers getting the food to my grocer?  That’s another job, that me sitting in my cubicle, I know I wouldn’t want to do.  I beg out of a 5 hour drive to Lubbock so I can take a plane there instead; I know I couldn’t handle driving for a living.

And speaking of the grocer, I remember a time when nearly every store was closed on Thanksgiving except the 7-11’s.  now nearly every grocery store is open.  Can’t forget about the almighty dollar, so those in retail don’t get the holiday off like the majority of us do.  And don’t forget even if you are a retailer that gets Thursday off, chances are you are getting up at the butt-crack of dawn to go to work for Black Friday.  That almighty dollar again.  I think we know another god this country worships. 

I am sure there are plenty more thankless jobs out there that help get my turkey and all the trimming to my table every Thanksgiving.  So if you are like me and get caught into giving thanks to an imaginary being, do what I do, and silently think of all of those people and thank them and hope they are able to enjoy their holiday as much as you do.  And even if you are religious, you should still give thanks to the right people as well as the god you believe in.

My Life Has Taken Over + Meme

Readers of my blog have probably noticed I haven’t been around much.  Things have gotten extremely busy for me and I have not had the time to my previously normal twice weekly postings.  I do check in and read my favorites, but I just haven’t been able to write lately.  As any blogger knows, it can be time consuming, and writing articles about atheism, creationism, evolution, and religion can take some work.  I tend to be at least a little meticulous about making sure I at least appear to know what I am discussing, and finding the time to research to write a good post has been unavailable lately due to an increased workload and having two school kids in extracurricular activities (and a hyperactive 18 month old) have left me exhausted.

Evanescent tagged me with the latest meme going around, and even though I am late to this particular party I will give mine.  Hopefully this will light a little fire under my butt to be sure I at least get back up to weekly posts. 

When I started my blog I had no intentions of discussing atheism, religion, and my wife’s beliefs.  It just kind of ended up that way as you can see below:

1.  At first I tried to be cute and all of my titles were lyrics from songs, mostly heavy metal but I mixed in a Beatles tune.  My first post on religion and atheism was really my 5th or 6th overall and it was titled The Orders Came From High Above They Say.  Reading it now, it really is a very simple post, but keep in mind I had not read any blogs concerning atheism at this point–I didn’t even know that world existed.  I was just writing random thoughts.  The key to this post and why it was important was I used wordpress’ tags.  After I published that post I did a few searches with my own tags and found blogs like de-conversion (then agnosticatheism), The Friendly Athiest, and Evanescent.  Suddenly I realized that there were many others that were writing about atheism.

2.  After a few weeks of reading dozens of atheism blogs and posting a few of my own, I made the post That’s How I Got Where I Am.  Here I went into how I became an atheist in my youth because I actually read the bible trying to understand it’s mysteries.  Rereading this post you can see I have a few ideas that will come up in later posts.  This particular article made it into the 3rd The Humanist Symposium.  This was my first atheism post to start receiving a good number of hits and I realized I had an audience.

3.  My blog had now “evolved” into an actual atheism blog.  While I enjoy reading a lot of the more militant atheism blogs as the debates are entertaining, I knew my style of writing wouldn’t be a good fit for that type of blog.  I decided to write a lot about my relationship with my Jehovah’s Witness wife and how we cope with our differences in belief.  I feel as if there are a lot of blog writers out there that have better biblical and science knowledge than myself, and I knew I would write better about what I know.  A few posts into this decision to write about myself and my wife and I wrote A Blood Problem.  This post gets a number of hits every week, I am assuming from someone wondering why JW’s don’t accept blood transfusions.  Hopefully that article has been at least a little helpful.

4.  Now I was fully enveloped in the atheism blogosphere.  I actually was becoming quite addicted, reading and commenting on other blogs and writing my own.  I started paying attention to politicians views on religion, and researched more on religion and history since I had been in college over 20 years ago.  On July 1 a murder-suicide happened in my city, and it was pretty big news as the perpetrator was a prominant dentist in town.  On July 3, my local newspaper ran an article claiming the perpetrator was a “good Christian.”  I read this article at lunch and then wrote Dentist Found Slain With Wife Was a Good Christian, which was also the headline in the paper.  No other article that I have written to this point gets as many hits as this one.  The day I wrote it and the day after my hits spiked 1000%.  I still get 35-30 google searches weekly on this article and local individuals that knew the parties involved have commented as recently as last week.  While the comments have now spiraled into a different topic, I think the original concept of why I wrote it, that labeling people based upon their supposed religious beliefs instead of their actions, stands up very well.

5.  I haven’t written a post in a few weeks, but my last real post, My Awakening, pretty much sums up where I am at this point.  I have 3 posts halfway written that I will get out there soon, including my post on Julian, for those in suspense. 

An interesting sidenote that I hope I will continue to discuss over the next year or so.  I think my wife is gradually realizing the faults of Jehovah’s Witnesses and religion in general.  I cannot say for sure, because she has a hard time talking about it, but I can tell you that she has went to only one meeting (sermon) since July, and previously she would go weekly plus go to at least one bible study a week.  My children have only went when they have stayed the night over at their cousins, which has been maybe twice.  I do not know for certain if she will stay this route.  I am not trying to influence her as I want the decision to be hers.  But I can tell something clicked in her a couple of months ago, and I am hoping we have another free thinker on our hands eventually.

That’s all for now, and I will try to get back to my own posting and commenting.  I won’t forward this meme as the blogs I read most have already been tagged.

Are You Lonely?

This is an advertisement in my local paper today.  I am tempted just to post this and nothing else, but I will comment.

I know it’s just an ad, and six months ago I would never have even looked at it.  But I read it, and the first thing that popped into my mind was loneliness is not a disease.  After a little deeper thought, I started to wonder, who is this church’s target and why?  This is one of the largest churches in town, yet they have to proscelytize this way? 

” …showing up in teenagers, singles, widows, just about anyone whose lives it can slowly destroy”

This just seems to target, for a lack of better words, the weak.  A person who may be more susceptable to believing in a mythical being.  If a person is indoctrinated early like my wife, it becomes very difficult for them not to believe, so the churches already have them.   Who else to target?  I know!  A widow or a single person feeling alone!  Yeah, write an ad, get on it! 

I guess I have just turned into a cynic.

And I know HeIsSailing posted another of this same churches ads on one of his articles on de-conversion that basically used an attractive woman to get new members but in my brief search over there I couldn’t find it.  If anyone knows the post please link it back.

Religion and the Workplace

I know I am not the first to bring this up and I will be far from the last, but it is amazing to me how much religion permeates my job.  In one of my early posts when this blog wasn’t even really a full blown atheism/religion blog, and I wasn’t even getting near the number of daily hits that I get now, a small discussion developed about religion and work and the possibility of discrimination.  I don’t believe I am or can be discriminated against in the traditional ways that have oppressed many people in the past.  The last thing a white male in the US can scream about is that.  But there are some issues with religion. 

But consider this.  I have been living more in hotels the past month (thus my lack of new posts) than at home.  When I go to one of our remote offices they usually set me up in an office, usually a cubicle of sorts.  The one I had to go to in Amarillo, Texas had a poster above my workstation similar to this:

Now, my choices are to just do my work and just deal with the fact that I write a blog that is predominantly about my religious non-beliefs or to take the poster down and cause me problems in an office where everyone generally likes me.  So I chose to be a hypocrite and just grin and bear it.  What choice do I really have?  What good could come of me making a stink about it?  One of the best workers there often talks of church and her grandkids singing in the choir.  Obviously there is a good chance we know who hung the poster up.

I guess I didn’t realize it but Amarillo must be on the edge of the Bible belt.  One day we go to lunch and at the restaurant waiting area where normally you see Apartment finders or a singles scene paper there is a guide to the Christian businesses in the area.  I assume this is to encourage people or other businesses to do work together.  Yet, whenever I see things like this now I tend to think what happens to the other people?  What if an non-believer, not necessarily an atheist, but say a Muslim or Jewish person opens a business in the area?  Are they allowed to put out a Jewish flyer?  Obviously even if they did I doubt it would help in this particular city.  If you are a business owner and not a Christian best to pretend methinks.  And if it is this way there I couldn’t imagine how it is in the meat of the Bible belt.

These problems of religion in my workplace is hardly a thing that makes my job unbearable.  In actuality I work for a great company with a great owner and a lot of good people to work beside.  But I have to admit it can get uncomfortable when you get surrounded by people you know have vast differences in beliefs than myself.  Eventually the topic of religion and “What church do you attend?” comes up.  Do you spout off some Hitchens or just go with the flow.  So far I have been going with the flow, but I am starting to think I am not doing the right thing…

I am not a monkey!

This is one of my wife’s biggest arguments.  She will often tell me that she isn’t a decendant of a monkey, but I can be if I want to.

The Watchtower Society has printed a number of articles in their Watchtower pamphlet, as well as a book on Creation vs Evolution.  A summary of their beliefs are here.  A couple of excerpts:

Would you be happy to go through life with no purpose other than to eat, sleep, and reproduce? The thought repels even dedicated evolutionists. “Modern man, this enlightened skeptic and agnostic,” writes evolutionist T. Dobzhansky, “cannot refrain from at least secretly wondering about the old questions: Does my life have some meaning and purpose over and above keeping myself alive and continuing the chain of living? Does the universe in which I live have some meaning?”

And then they go on to quote some scientists:

Evolutionist Michael C. Corballis observes that “there is a striking discontinuity between humans and the other primates . . . ‘Our brain is three times as large as we would expect for a primate of our build.‘” And neurologist Richard M. Restak explains: “The [human] brain is the only organ in the known universe that seeks to understand itself.”

And that’s just a brief summation, but you get the idea.

This is a very common debate tactic when going arguing against Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I am sure many other Christian religions.  The “Many scientists have doubts about evolution,” “The gap between apes and man,” etc.  Talk origins does an excellent job of breaking down each of these arguments and many others, and I am paraphrasing from there.

The main argument is that as high as 5% (some articles claim higher) of scientists do not believe in evolution.  That number is already pretty low, yet goes down to a whopping 0.15% when you only poll scientists in the relevant earth and life sciences.  And this is in the US, where there is a higher percentage of creationists.

On the gap theory, it took MILLIONS OF YEARS for men to fully evolve from apes.  Creationists have been arguing the absence of fossils for decades, yet each year more and more fossils are found, with a gradual increase in brain size leading up to humans.

So a brief answer to my wife and other creationists:  No, you are not a monkey.  You are however a couple of chromosomes away from being one.  And that’s ok, it doesn’t make us apes.  It makes us the evolutionary descendants of apes.

To me, the Theory of Evolution came easily and at a young age.  I couldn’t understand why there was even a big debate about it.  The evidence is pretty cut and dry.  Yet, here we are 25 years after I knew evolution is what happened, and there are very big debates about it on TV, the internet, and in our daily lives.  Intelligent people try and use a book written by men more than 2000 years ago trying to understand the meaning of life and force it to fit their need of a God and afterlife.  For a reality check on this see this old post by pharyngula, one of the best I have read.

Lastly, think about this.  The airplane was invented just over 100 years ago by the Wright brothers.  60+ years after that we managed to get to the moon.  Another 40 years later we have crawlers on Mars and probes leaving our solar system.  Where will be in another 100 years?  How about 2000 years?  It’s not going to happen in my lifetime but eventually we will have enough knowledge to finally rid ourselves of the tales written long ago.

And the people wandering the earth then will be saying “I didn’t evolve from a human!”

A Blood Problem

I have been working on this topic for a couple of weeks, but a post by The Spanish Inquisitor about Indoctrination jump started me to finish this post.

One of the biggest arguments my wife and I have ever had was about blood transfusions.  As previously mentioned, my wife had gotten out of The Truth when we were first together.  By the time she was pregnant with our second child she was once again involved in her religion.  I was still new to JW’s and what they believed, and one day she made a passing statement that if anything happened in delivery that she couldn’t have a blood transfusion.  This was the first time I had heard this and it was baffling to me.  She brought home some literature for me to read about it, and it is still as baffling to me today as it was then.

The Bible verses they claim support this belief are Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:12-14, Acts 15:20 & 29, and Acts 21:25.

Now, I am not the expert of the Bible that some on a number of blogs I read are.  I am not a reformed Christian that read the Bible for a number of years before realizing I didn’t believe it.  I read it when I was younger and decided I didn’t believe in it, and rarely picked it up after that, until I met my wife. 

First and foremost, I don’t believe the Bible so no matter how many verses she would show me I would disagree.  But to me, even if I was a Christian, it seems obvious to me that the verses are talking about different things occuring in a much older and different world. 

Gen 9:4 “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat“–seems to say that you cannot eat meat with blood, or basically eat raw meat.

Lev 17:12-14 “You shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh“–where they get this to mean blood transfusions I have no idea, and while it says flesh, which by itself in our terms today would seem to mean human, the verse before is talking of beast and fowl, which clearly implies (to me anyway) when you hunt you must cook the meat. 

Acts 15: 20 & 29; 21:25 ”Abstain from blood“–This is very vague.  But two thousand years ago, blood transfusions were not even thought of.  Taken into that context with the verses from the OT, it seems to be a reinforcement to not consume animal blood.

From these verses the main point that gets across to me is the consumption of blood.  If you go to the Watchtower website they have an absurd article discussing the history of blood transfusions.  They probably had a lot of support during the 80’s and 90’s with many news stories of tainted blood with AIDS and hepatitis.  And, without belittling the people effected by these tragedies, many lives are saved by blood transfusions every day.  The Watchtower Society was also against organ transplants for a number of years, claiming it bordered on cannibalism.  Yet, in 1980 they quietly revoked that decision and now even praise it.  Some JW’s are coming out against the blood transfusion decision and are trying to get them to change their ways.  If you are a JW and you question these issues I highly recommend this site.

This brings me back to the main focus of this post.  At the time, I could not convince my wife in a worse case scenario to get a blood transfusion.  This was a little worrisome.  Even though realistically blood transfusions are rare, one of the more common instances where they are performed is on mothers during a baby’s delivery.  Fortunately, we found a doctor who was willing to go a bloodless route if necessary, and it was unneeded anyway.  But now there is the next argument.  What happens if one of our children ever need a transfusion?  Once again, statistically they will probably not need one as a youth, if ever.  But as a parent, you always have it in the back of your mind.  What if?  And the last thing you want is a husband and wife having a throw down argument in the middle of a hospital.  After some research I found that until the age of 12, most states will get a court order if needed in such situations to allow hospitals to get blood transfusions.  But even before I layed that out, my wife conceded if the situation were to ever happen, she would allow the transfusions until they were baptised in the Truth, and then it would be up to them.  Another small victory for me.  And because of the non-chalance of this writing, it may seem as if this was an easy win, but this was a large fight with a lot of screaming.  By my wife of course, I am a mellow easy going dude 

However this still brings up some issues I may have in the future with my wife and children.  The Indoctrination post mentioned above got me thinking about it.  Am I doing my children a disservice by not being more proactive in their early religious development?  While my wife has conceded some points, my children are still being raised as JW’s even if they have an atheist dad.  I haven’t previously had a large problems with it.  My wife and her family are very good moral people, and I think The Truth does help them with that to some extent.  I always thought I could kind of show my children my beliefs as they got older and could understand more.  Yet, the longer this goes the harder that gets. 

They Say It’s Your Birthday

It’s my birthday too!

Actually my birthday was yesterday.  I am now one year away from the big 4-0.  I am getting old.  Since I had to work late yesterday my wife is getting me a cake and cooking me a dinner for my birthday tonight.  Now, to the average person reading, this may not seem like such a big deal.  But to anyone who has read some of my previous posts and know that my wife is a Jehovah’s Witness and also knows that JW’s don’t celebrate birthdays would realize this is a pretty big deal.

A quick recap.  When my wife and I were dating we ended up living together before we were married.  She was disfellowshipped from The Truth.  After we were married, she let me know she wanted to get re-instated in her religion.  I knew virtually nothing about JW’s, and I of course told her it was fine with me, whatever made her happy.  I knew the odds were no matter who I married there was a good chance of them being religious, but I didn’t know anything about her religion at the time.

I would soon find out.  We had a lot of problems the first couple of years of our marriage.  JW’s do not celebrate any holidays.  We had children, and I told her that the day my kids were born one of the best days of my life, and I am going to celebrate it with them whether she liked it or not.  This was the old internet days with dial up, but there were a few websites discussing religions, and I found one really good one about Witnesses.  I also read Kingdom of the Cults, which is really a book showing how JW’s, Mormons, and 7th Day Adventists are the wrong religion compared to evangelical Christians, but it still had a lot of information about JW’s that I previously did not have.

If anyone has tried to debate with a JW, you know they are pretty knowledgeable in the Bible (at least their version).  They are indoctrined, and keep in mind, my wife was raised in The Truth, which means this was all she knew.  And the Watchtower Society tries to keep it that way.   They are discouraged from reading any other literature.  I was in sales for a long time, and after awhile, you read enough books by Zig Ziglar and Tom Hopkins and the like and you eventually have an answer to every objection a client may have.  Well, JW’s are the same on the religious objection front.  This is how they get new members by having all of the answers that a person that believes in God but isn’t getting good answers in their own church/congregation.  At first my wife had all of the answers to why we couldn’t celebrate holidays, or even my initial attempts to get her to look at evolution or some conflicts with the Bible.  They have a standard answer to nearly every question, and if you press further, they will refer you to a specific Watchtower article.  To give you an idea how bad it was, my brother was married in a Catholic Church a couple of months after we were married, and she had what came down as an anxiety attack at the rehearsal because she couldn’t stand being in the church.  At the actual wedding she ended up just watching all of the kids in the daycare so she wouldn’t have to be in the pews.

My wife’s mother was 100% involved in The Truth and made sure her kids were as well.  They were pulled out of school when they had and could not participate in numerous events (Christmas parties, anything involving Easter, etc).  Things like that made it very hard to have and maintain friends in school, and she received a lot of discrimination-not to mention that’s the way the Watchtower Society wants it anyway.  She was basically sheltered from the real world.  There was no way I was going to let my kids be raised that way.  I do not mind exposing them to religion, but they need to know about everything out there and not just be exposed to someone’s “Truth.”

My wife, our marriage, and myself have come a long way since then.  All marriages involve some compromise, and ours had plenty.  She finally stood up to some of her family and said, this is who I am married to and we will do some of the things he wants such as birthdays (and we spend Christmas with my family which is out of state).  I have learned a lot about JW’s.  I have went to a number of meetings and almost every Memorial since we have been married.  I agree with very little of their beliefs, but I give them credit as far as the amount of studying they do, and they are one of the few religions that hold their member accountable.  If you do not participate, they will boot you out.  For the most part they are all good people. 

All of that being said, after much persuasion, my wife finally read some of the research I did on JW’s and the Watchtower Society.  The 1914 and 1975 predictions loom large and she finally took some closer looks at it.  I have shown her articles about blood donations, and while she is still iffy on that she is at least listening now, where previously she was unmoveable on that topic. 

My wife is much too emotional and spiritual to be like me and become an athiest, but I think if there was a way out without the repercussions of her family that she would choose another Christian church.  I think the diversity of her spiritualness and my atheism is healthy for both us and the kids.  If my kids choose to stay JW’s and are happy then I will be happy.  But they will at least be aware of other religions and will be exposed to my own free thinking beliefs as well.  For a good deconversion story read a new post from evanescence.

Now, it’s almost time for my cake….

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.”