Christianity's Celebration of Death

Today, I walked out of the local grocery store as a Christian walked in.  I could tell she was a Christian because she wore a huge blinged-out cross around her neck; you know, like the over-sized necklace bling that many hip-hop artists wear to show off their money.  Yet, this old woman wasn't showing off her bank account.  She was displaying her obsession with death.  I am reminded about how the cross is just one of the many symbols and ideas of death that are part of the Christian faith.

The cross is the symbol that epitomizes what it means to be Christian, since their savior supposedly died on one.  Christians decorate tombstones, churches, and public and private lands with it.  Many Christian officials proudly display a bloodied Jesus hanging from a cross within church walls.  Another idea of their celebration of death is the Eucharist, Holy Communion, Sacrament, or Lord's Supper, in which transubstantiation occurs.  Transubstantiation is the symbolic change from wine into blood and bread into the body of Jesus Christ.  This could be viewed as symbolic cannibalism; an unnerving deathly observance.

Some fundamentalist Christians even believe what is called The Rapture; the idea that Jesus will return a second time and believers will immediately move on to the afterlife in Heaven, while non-believers will be left behind to perish in the apocalypse.  "The majority of present-day Christians support the idea that war is regrettable but unavoidable..."  They believe wars and killing are just if it positively influences their future.  The Christian Bible also celebrates genocide.  This fascination with death and quickly entering the Christian heaven is depressing.  Many Christians incorrectly think atheists can't find a purpose for living, but since Christians obsess about death, it's curious how they can find positive fulfillment in their own life.

In Theocracy We Trust

The United States of America still has the words "In God We Trust" inscribed on its money and its pledge of allegiance still includes "under God."  This should concern all Americans.  It's been roughly a half-century since Congress adopted the motto and the pledge at the request of a majority.  Yet both changes go against the constitutional right to freedom of and freedom from religion.

Having a religious motto with God on U.S. currency essentially turns America into a theocracy.  It says that all Americans believe in God, the Christian god; because if one trusts in God, logically they must first believe in God.  If that isn't enough, in most states, the U.S. Pledge is required.  There are no state or federal laws prohibiting the U.S. Pledge.  Texas public school students, for example, are required to recite the U.S. and Texas Pledges, both of which include "under God," even though public schools are government entities.  Other examples of Christianizing that could lead to tyranny can also be seen in the placement of crosses and the Biblical ten commandments on public government property.  This is not the separation of church and state as Thomas Jefferson intended.

The Establishment Clause within the first amendment in the Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."  U.S. currency is legal tender, which is why it's concerning to see "God" on it.  Regardless of recent efforts by Dr. Michael Newdow and the Freedom From Religion Foundation to have the motto removed, federal judges continue to deny atheists their first amendment rights.  Supposedly, the Establishment Clause doesn't apply to atheists, according to the ruling on the Newdow case.  That couldn't be further from the truth.

If people are allowed to believe whatever religion they desire, then atheists should be able to freely disagree with theism.  America doesn't have blasphemy laws.  It prides itself as being a country of many cultures and ideas.  America's first amendment is suppose to cover people of all worldviews and protect all minorities from tyranny of the majority.  The inclusion of "God" on public property prevents equality for all citizens.  One could argue that if "Allah," "Krishna," or "Zeus" were in the place of "God," Christians would most likely feel like their rights were being threatened; but they still demand that Christian displays exist in the public domain. Non-Christian minorities are forced into deity worship, which goes against their worldview.  They have a right to be upset.  This coercion not only violates an atheist's right to free thought, but it also violates the Jehovah's Witnesses' desire not to swear allegiance to any god or salute any flag.  Whether Christians like it or not, having their god in the Pledge and on money is divisive, unconstitutional, and disrespectful; and in other words, it's anti-American. If one accepts the Pledge and U.S. legal tender as they are, then they don't believe in freedom of or from religion and become a non-compassionate trampler of minority rights.  Minorities, like atheists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, and others, are citizens and people just like Christians and should be able to enjoy their first amendment freedoms too.  America is not the land of the free if theocracy is allowed to flourish.

Do Rights Come From A God?

United States citizens know they have personal freedoms of religion, speech, gun ownership, speedy trials, and unwarranted searches and seizures.  These are the perks of being born American.  Yet, many do not know where these freedoms come from.  Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh broadcast that the Christian god is the giver of these rights and without God, there is no natural law.  However, those who believe this have not studied the history of natural rights and the United States Constitution.

People want to succeed in life in pursuit of happiness, so they cooperate with fellow humans to achieve mutual goals.  Tom Head writes, "We believe that rights exist because we care enough about people to respect their livelihood and their autonomy."  Humans are sentient empathetic creatures, different than most animals.  Animals are selfish and violent, yet most humans try to suppress their natural instincts in favor of cooperation and love.  It is because of this tendency toward compassion and cooperation that humans give each other rights.

American citizens receive their basic rights from the United States Bill of Rights as part of the United States Constitution.  Founder James Madison introduced these rights as amendments and the House of Representatives adopted them on August 21st, 1789.  These Constitutional rights came into effect through ratification on December 15th, 1791.  The Bill of Rights was influenced by other documents such as Virginia's Declaration of Rights of 1776, the Magna Carta written in 1215, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689.  These are all government documents.  Most famously, and perhaps also most confusingly, in the Declaration of Independence is the statement, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  Nevermind that the "all men were created equal" part only extended to rich, white, land-owning men.  What does the term "Creator" mean here?  Founder Thomas Jefferson is on record having said that state delegates are an assembly of "demi-gods."  Could it be that "Creator" symbolizes the United States founders?  Perhaps a better statement would be that rights are endowed by our fellow citizens or humans.  In any case, without the government's creation of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, American citizens wouldn't have the guaranteed rights protected by these documents.

The question then becomes, why don't rights come from religious texts and by extension a deity?  Part of it is because rights aren't explicitly given in religious texts.  Sure, there are examples of love and compassion in the Bible, but it's not equal.  The Bible supports slavery and women as servants to men.  It rejects education and supports injustice since all future generations of innocent children were punished because Adam and Eve simply ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Plagues and genocide were frequently thrust upon civilizations so God must not care for human life as many think.  Amos 3:6 says that God is the source of all evil; "Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?" Religious texts aren't a model for social justice, because they encourage so many human injustices.  Since the Bible tells of a god who supports evil and violence, we shouldn't assume that such a being would guarantee human rights.

Surely, religions and their followers are a model for where rights come from?  In fact, they are not.  William T. Cavanaugh finds that religion is absolutist, divisive, irrational, and shows a tendency to promote violence.  He found that "Jehovah's Witnesses...were attacked, beaten, tarred, castrated, and imprisoned in the United States [a nation with a majority of Christians] in the 1940s because they believed that followers of Jesus Christ should not salute a flag."  In many Islamic countries like Syria and Pakistan, girls are not permitted to go to school and risk injury and death for attempting to go.  Religions don't support the social construct of basic human rights.

So if rights do not come from a god, how will they be guaranteed?  Some, like Glenn Beck, say the United States government can't be trusted to guarantee such rights.  Yet, it is because of the United States government that American citizens have rights.  Luckily, the American government was set up by its founders to include protections against changing the United States Constitution.  There are three branches of government, including the Judiciary, Executive, and Legislative, that enforce the Constitution and serve to keep the other branches in check.  As an added protection, every citizen is required to go to school and learn about United States history, including learning that they have rights.  The United States government also functions by implementing the will of its people through elections of government representatives.  If government representatives go against the will of the majority, they are replaced.  This system has worked well for 237 years.  This system of secular social contract that American citizens will treat each other equally and nicely is strictly an agreement between Americans.  However, it can change at any time if there is a government overthrow.  This is why Americans need to be vigilant against any threat, foreign and domestic.

Those who still think that their rights come from their god must ask themselves, if they lived in a different country, would they have what they consider natural rights?  Citizens of poorer countries don't have the same rights that United States citizens enjoy.  Many African nations cannot ensure the safety and well-being of their citizens.  Some of the most religious places on Earth, like the Middle East, are also centers of extreme violence. This is because rights are not granted and enforced by holy books.  They are granted and enforced by societies with strong and economically sound secular governments.  Rather than serving our own self-interests, caring and rational human beings realize that for the survival of the species it is in our best interest to look out for others.

Are We Intelligently Designed?

The short answer is yes and no.  Most people question how they came into being and what it means to exist.  Is there an intelligent designer?  If a supernatural creator put us here, what were his or her motivations?  What is our purpose for living?  Yet, what many people seem to ignore is the likelihood that nothing paved the way for the human species, other than millions of years of selective reproduction, or natural selection.

To understand these questions, we must first know how we each individually got here.  The birds and the bees discussion is quite handy.  Most caring parents at some point or another discuss this with their children at maturity.  Yet, it appears that when people question their existence, they don't think about the birds and the bees.  Each individual can determine whether or not their parents are intelligent, but the problem is that they take their mom and dad out of the equation completely and look toward a god for help in understanding their questions.

Human parents are the creators of baby humans and their parents were their creators.  The logical conclusion here is that there had to be a first human, the first common ancestor.  Surely, they were created by a god right?  No.  Evolution points to tranistions between species.  We have to look further into the past at the first single-celled organism as the common ancestor to all life on Earth.  Was that cell intelligently created?  Science tells us that the world and universe are constantly changing.  Particles enter and exit each other all of the time.  The first lifeform came into being because the particles needed to sustain life came together.

If we look at statistics, the likelihood of such particles coming together was astronomical given that Earth has water, a fluid substance.  We call this chance and people don't like that they were created by chance.  Chance makes it more difficult to determine self-purpose.  The question then becomes if we weren't created by a god, then what is our purpose for being here?  Humans are silly creatures.  We must know why and how everything works.  People also like having mentors help them through the difficult and winding path that is life.  They like thinking that there is a supernatural sky daddy watching over them.  They like wondering if this sky daddy gave them a pre-determined destiny.

The cool thing about not having a divine purpose is that we get to decide our own purpose.  Just as we have our parents to thank for our existence, we also have our parents to thank for our specific skills and talents, due to genetics.  Such skills and talents are often what people use to determine identity, friendships, love interests, and occupations.  Other than that, it is up to each person to figure out how they want to live, given that they live in a country that supports free will.

Evolution is the Fittest Survivor

Despite the Theory of Evolution becoming more refined as the years pass, it still remains one of the most contentiously debated topics since Charles Darwin's scientific breakthrough in the 19th century.  So, why is this theory controversial?  Why don't theists hotly debate the Theory of Gravitation as well?  It is because the Theory of Evolution goes against the religious idea that the Christian god made all species as they were in the beginning of creation.  Evolution tells a different story than the one within the Bible; and if major plot points in the Bible do not correlate with such a major history telling theory, then that theory is assumed to be detrimentally flawed.  Such a theory must be wrong, in their eyes, because if it is true, then the Biblical history begins to fall apart.

Hence, the reason for breaking ground on the Discorvery Institute, an organization devoted to finding evidence for Creationism or Intelligent Deisgn, and the wide attack on the integrity of science in public schools.  Theists posit that if schools "teach the controversy" or include all competing ideas in the science curriculum, Creationism has a fighting chance to stick with the next generation of youth.  What they don't realize is that the Theory of Evolution and Creationism are not competing scientific theories.  In fact, Creationism isn't a scientific theory at all.  Creationism doesn't have testable data that can help explain its process, despite the Discovery Institute's best efforts.  In the end, it cannot receive the consensus it needs in the scientific community to become a legitimate contender.

Even if we were going to "teach the controversy," we might as well include all available ideas and not just the false dichotomy between Evolution and Creationism.  For instance, time would be doled out to discuss spontaneous speciation.  This is the idea that species randomly and suddenly change into other species; poof.  Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy tells of the Heart of Gold ship with the Infinite Improbability Drive that displays this concept quite nicely when its use spontaneously turns the main characters into flowers.  A second idea that should be considered is the one that many proponents of Creationism incorrectly use to describe the Theory of Evolution, known to them as Macro-Evolution.  An example of such is the duck turning into a cat or a dog turning into a horse over time.  Another idea to consider would be that all species have a changeling ability, in that they can selectively quickly morph into whatever species meets their needs, like Mystique from X-Men or Odo from Star Trek Deep Space Nine.  Perhaps we can teach that contact with toxic waste or venomous creatures mutates the affected into completely different species with super powers, such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Spiderman.  There's also Creationism, the idea that all species were created just as they are now and no changes occur whatsoever.  These are all options that flood the realm of hypotheses, or testable ideas.

Howerver, based on the available evidence on Earth, including fossils and studies of fruit flies and flu viruses, the only idea that can explain what we see in nature and in laboratories is evolution.  Time and again fossils are dug up by paleontologists that repeatedly test and improve our understanding of evolution.  Sure there are holes in understanding and findings sometimes create questions, but the available data nevertheless continues to show that species change into other species over time through natural selection.  This is why only Evolution out of the bunch is granted the esteemed title of scientific theory.  All other ideas fail the rigorous test of the scientific method and should not be included in a science curriculum.  Hypotheses, like Creationism, deserve only a tiny side note when teaching Evolution.  A better outlet to discuss this concept within public school grounds would be electives, like the History of Creationism and Religious Studies, or perhaps a debate club focusing on Evolution versus Creationism.

5 Reasons The Christian God Doesn't Exist

1.  The Christian god was created by man.

Early civilizations included imaginative people.  For what they lacked in scientific understanding, they balanced with creative stories.  They thought supernatural beings controlled every aspect of daily life.  Good fortune in weather, food, and war required prayer, ritual, and sacrifice to specific deities.  When Christianity was first created, founders borrowed holidays and traditions from other religions.  Instead of multiple deities to explain each facet of daily life, Biblical writers figured it would be easier for people to believe in one god that controlled all of life.  Instead of a god creating man in his image, man created a god in his image.  The Christian god is vengeful, petty, insensitive, racist, sexist, destructive, greedy, a liar, a killer, and a male.  Of course, man also gave the Christian god many kind and loving qualities so that there would be reasons to like him.

2.  The Christian god doesn't physically manifest itself.

It would be easy to know and potentially have a relationship with a deity if they showed up every once in a while.  The Christian god is invisible, mute, and non-corporeal.  We can't see, hear, or touch him.  The scientific method is important when deciding what is real and not real.  If one can not sense a physical presence with any of their five senses, record their measurements, and have their findings scientifically verified, how do they know a being actually exists?  The phrase, "pictures or it didn't happen," is apt here.

3.  As scientific discoveries increase, credit given to the Christian god decreases.

Discoveries and inventions made as a result of the scientific method are diminishing what the Christian god supposedly does for people.  Medicine erases the need for faith healers and exorcists.  Technology brings information to the masses rather than priests in churches.  Math, probabilities, and chance show us that "miracles" are statistically predictable and therefore are not a result of a deity.  Flip a coin to determine the accuracy of prayers.  Over time, fear of the unknown has become confidence in the known.  We can now explain what used to be attributed to gods, including the Christian god.

4.  The supernatural doesn't exist, therefore the Christian god doesn't exist.

The Bible tells of instances when the Christian god is physically present and regularly interacts with the populace.  This book also tells of talking snakes, talking burning bushes, walking on and parting water, and turning inanimate objects into animals.  These abilities and beings are not present today and there is no evidentiary support for such Biblical examples; therefore the supernatural, as dictated by the Bible, isn't real.  Since the Christian god is of the supernatural, he is also a work of fiction.

5.  The Biblical description of the Christian god is impossible.

The Christian god is said to be omnipresent (everywhere at once), omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omnibenevolent (all-good).   These are very high and scientifically testable standards.  However, nothing in nature shows that any of these qualities are possible.  Fictional powers that would allow for omnipresence, like telepathy and astral-projection, are not representative in nature.  An all-knowing god would not write a book riddled with errors and inconsistencies.  He would also know how his scientific laws worked and would have created the sun first and then plants; not vice versa.  An all-powerful god would be able to save all lives in a natural disaster and not just the lucky ones.  An omnibenevolent god would not commit genocide and start over with what can only be an incest ancestry for all living species.  Since the "infallible" Bible does describe the Christian god with each of these characteristics, in addition to his limitations, we can safely know that the Christian god doesn't exist.