Great Book to Study W/ Your Kids

Growing up, one of my best memories was a weekly Bible study with my dad. Of course at the time I thought all the indoctrination was simply the truths of the universe. My father was, for all his faults, a good, gentle, and intelligent man. Our conversations would often stray from the literature provided by the JW's, off into tangents on philosophy, physics, science, whatever I wanted to question him about. He had actually given up acceptance into the University of Chicago when he became a JW to pursue a career preaching "where the need was great". He was going to study physics at one of the best universities in the nation. Instead he got sent to south Georgia to spread the Good News to the bumpkins. Another wasted intellect. But, at any rate, even though he had twisted everything he'd known to fit the small universe of Jehovah's authorized cosmology, these conversations taught me a great deal about critical thinking. He must have detected a growing free-spirit and skeptic inside me, because he constantly warned me against the evils of skepticism and Epicureanism.

As an adult, I've tried to always make time to read and discuss things with my kids. When our daughter was little and we still believed I studied the My Book of Bible Stories with her. Looking back at the book now, it has a surprising amount of bloodshed for a children's instructional book. I'm surprised it didn't give her nightmares. Perhaps it did, and she just didn't mention it. She's always been our li'l Stoic. But that study fell off as I began to truly question my own beliefs. I remember when she was about six I shared with her some of the things I'd been reading about philosophy and epistemology, and she ran around telling everyone "You know, there's no way to truly know anything. I mean you think you know, but don't really know." I'm sure that one pissed off the grandparents. So my reading to them became limited more to story books and animal books, and left out the life lessons. (Though I think Where the Sidewalk Ends counts as an ethics primer.)

But some friends of ours were coming around to atheism about the same time as we were, and they recommended The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins. With such lessons as "What is reality? What is magic?", "When and how did everything begin?" and "Why do bad things happen?" it really helps fill in the instructional void left by the myths. It's fabulously illustrated and really appeals to my kids' innate love of biology. I have a link to it on the right, and, yes, if you use it I get a commission. So buy a thousand copies and I won't have to find a job this month!

Our friends also recommended Parenting Beyond Belief by Dale McGowan, which my wife is halfway through. It seems there's plenty of literature out there to help us raise well-rounded free-thinking youngsters. I'm excited to get started, and hopefully give them rich memories and critical thinking skills, with maybe a little better vantage point than my dad had. I wish you the same luck.

Jesus Christ! DLSU TREDTRI MTV

Religion is a Drug

Dictionary.com defines the word addiction as "the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma." Think about that in regards to religion for just a moment. What are religious people required to do? "Do not forsake the gathering of yourselves together as some have the custom" (Heb. 10:25) Regular church attendance is a requirement of all the faithful, to make it a habit. And for those with more demanding faiths, additional habits or rituals are required. As Witnesses, and Mormons to an extent, regular preaching is required, at least on a weekly basis. We are exhorted to "slave for the Lord". And prayer and daily Bible reading and meditation are added as well. It's amazing these people have time for jobs! In fact, Witnesses are explicitly told to find only such work as fits around their schedule of faith. For Muslims it can be even more demanding with the salah being practiced five times a day. What happens when people let these habits slide? Common side effects of withdrawal include depression, lethargy, anxiety, and hopelessness. These feelings encourage the user (I'm sorry, worshiper) to pick back up the habit again to feel that blessed peace. For anyone who has ever battled a drug addiction, this story sounds very familiar.


I think Karl Marx was being more literal than most people think when he said ""Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes" Religion IS, literally an opiate for the masses. In medicine, what are opiates used for? In Marx's time, opium itself was still being prescribed for pain-relief, sleep disturbances, and anxiety. Why? Because it dulls the senses, takes the mind off of awful things, and provides a euphoric sense of tranquility. Why did Constantine impose Christianity on the Roman public? Any historian will tell you that it pacified the masses. More than any Greek or Roman cult, the assurance of heaven through faith in Christ made the Roman worry less about the incursions of foreign tribes, and made it their Christian duty to observe the law of the State and pay their taxes. It lessened the fear of death fighting as Christian Roman soldiers. If you died fighting the heathen barbarian tribes, the Church guaranteed you an express ticket to the pearly gates.


I remember The Watchtower magazine of Jehovah's Witnesses consistently illustrating the world outside the religion with images of various addictions: heroine needles, pot joints, gambling, prostitutes. And when people stepped outside the faith and experienced these other addictions they'd come running back and were put on stage to explain the horrors and ravages of their "worldly" life styles, and that they were SO SO thankful to be back in the warm embrace of the "truth". Could it be that faiths like this create self-fulfilling prophecies in people's lives by giving them addictive habitual behaviors to start with? Hmmm.

Personal Introduction

Hi,

I'm Alex. Alex the Atheist. I'm kind of new to atheism. I grew up in a very controlling religion, as many of you have. Before I proceed, I need to apologize to AA and NA for satirizing their revered 12-step program to sustained sobriety. I have attended their meetings and respect their mission. You see, like many others with my personality type and zealot background, when I left my faith, my life felt like a freight train leaving the rails. My dependence on alcohol became worse, and I picked up other drug habits to help cover the fact that, shit, I was scared.

Before, my life had meaning, purpose. As a young Jehovah's Witness, I did ALL things for Jehovah. I talked to others, for Jehovah. I was good and moral, for Jehovah. I maintained my virginity up to marriage, for Jehovah. I stayed sober, for Jehovah. But then I went through a series of career, family, and personal setbacks. So I prayed. And prayed. And prayed. I prayed earnestly, I prayed humbly, I rent my clothes and called out to God from a broken heart. But then...........nothing. Something must be wrong. At conventions, I saw others brag about the blessings God poured out on them. What was I doing that was so wrong? I was faithful to my wife, worked hard to support her and my kids. The elders only answer was that maybe I wasn't preaching enough, saving enough souls from Armageddon. So I did that more. Still, one hardship after another.

Finally, I'd had it with Jehovah. I studied other faiths, and the morality was similar, but the point was the same. Show others that we're the best, the holiest, the chosen, so they will know that they need to stand over here, not over there. So I studied philosophy, and realized that the very nature of truth, and ethics and morality had many shades of gray and only mattered to humans anyhow. So I drifted towards agnosticism. I'll just live my life, no one knows anything anyhow. During this time my wife and I decided to try an open marriage. For the first time in our lives we really began to openly explore our sexuality. At the same time I began exploring two things I had been raised to categorically reject, Big Bang physics and Darwinian evolution. Finally there was beauty in the chaos again. Life and the universe itself is an amazing phenomena. To stand enraptured of all its facets in all their glory, this was more amazing and awe-inspiring than anything out of any holy book or pulpit. So I finally found myself without that yearning need for a God. Jehovah didn't need to wipe my runny nose and clean my messes, I was here to experience life, raise my healthy offspring, and stand on my own two feet throughout life's short, sweet adventure.

Except, all those years feeling lost, all that fear and uncertainty, which I could only express as anger, had been working against me. I had found so many escapes along the way. So many drugs, so many lovers, and always the sweet amnesia of alcohol. My marriage on the rocks, I thought my only solace was in my lover. After a two year affair, we tried to make the leap to breaking up our families to make each other happy. I'm sure you can imagine how well that went. In short, she went back home, I fell apart, and my poor wife tried to hold onto me but my habits and turmoil had me in a tailspin. And the whole time my two bright, beautiful children were caught in the maelstrom. I lost my job, went to rehab, and am now looking at losing my house. So here I sit in the personal wreckage that most addicts eventually find themselves in. Addiction is defined as reliance on something outside yourself to make you OK. So, you see, I was raised with an addiction....to God.

I'm starting this blog because I look around and see a lot of people with similar stories to mine. Many are former Jehovah's Witnesses, or ex-Catholics, or ex-Mormons, or ex-Muslims, Mennonites, Orthodox Jews, or what have you. Our stories are similar because we share two main ingredients, 1.) addictive personalities, and 2.) strongly faith-based upbringings. I want to share and hear from you as together we learn that we must take full responsibility of our minds, of our morals, and of our actions. After all, we can't blame it all on a god who died a long, long time ago.

P.S.- I do want to make a personal apology to everyone I've hurt along the way. If you're reading this and you recognize me, feel free to email me any ways I can make amends. Or just bless me out. I'm quite sure I deserve it.

12 steps

The Twelve Steps to Heathendom

1. WE....... admitted we were powerless within our faith - that our minds had become controlled.

2. Realized that belief in a Power Greater than ourselves had taken away our sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives back over to ourselves, as we came to understand ourselves.

4.  Made a searching and fearless moral and intellectual inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to ourselves and another human being the exact nature not only of our wrongs, but also of our strengths.

6. Were entirely ready to remove all these defects of character ourselves.

7. Humbly took full responsibility for our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, preached at, persecuted, or shunned; and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to make scientific inquiry and when we were wrong promptly admitted.

11. Sought through reading, learning, and reflection to improve our conscious contact with the world around us, as we have come to understand it, asking only for knowledge and the will and power to apply it.

12. Having had an intellectual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to religionists/ people of faith, and to practice logic and reason in all our affairs.