Canadian Theocracy

For several years when current Prime Minister Stephen Harper was becoming prominent in the federal political landscape and then was leader of the opposition, there was a feeling that he had a hidden agenda that was undesirable to most Canadians in that it was regressive socially and dominated by antiquated religious dogma. The best trick Harper managed to pull was to get the public to forget about that worry and actually elect him to the highest office in the country. How he did so was by using two words: "jobs" and "economy". Stephen Harper is smart enough to realize that money makes the world go around. You are not going to get elected in Canada by talking about how gays shouldn't marry, about how abortion is wrong, and about how we should generally be a "Christian nation with good family values", whatever that means. That rhetoric might work in Republican dominated states south of the border, but not in a country like Canada that is dominated politically by the main socially progressive cities.

But, most people do care about money and about having a good job, even if they already have a good job. For some reason, when a politician talks about jobs and the economy over and over and over again like a broken record, even those people who have lots of money and a secure job start to listen and start to believe that maybe he's their best bet in the Prime Minister's office. And so, to make a long story short, Stephen Harper and his gang of religious Reform Party (Americans can read this as Tea Party) wingnuts achieved a small majority government in 2011.

And then, as surely as a leopard that has coloured over its spots with some cheap water based paint, the jobs and economy paint because to wear off and the real spots began to show through.

First, it was the Office of Religious Freedom, purportedly established at great expense to Canadian taxpayers, to promote religious freedom in a world in which religion is under attack from all sorts of places. But, of course, this office was solely intended to promote Christianity. Photo ops with the foreign minister were taken with the pope and not with imams or the Dalai Lama. Comments by readers in the popular media were overwhelmingly against this office on two counts: it was a waste of tax payers money by a government that promised fiscal restraint; and secondly it was pretty obvious that it was a thinly veiled and politically spun attempt to spread Christianity with no regard for other religions, never mind those with no religion.

Now, the Conservative government has boldly cancelled the contracts of any religious counsellor for inmates who is not Christian. Therefore, if you are a federal prisoner and happen to be Muslim or Jewish, you can only expect counselling to come from a Christian counsellor. The Muslim or Jewish counsellor you previously had, to help with your rehabilitation and help get you ready for society again, is gone. Of course, every Christian on earth has the goal of increasing the number of Christians, of converting people to the "good news". There are varying degrees of how blatant Christians are with their proselytizing, but a good Christian can hardly claim to not care that their fellow human is headed of to an eternity of hell. No, whether public or private, they want you to convert to Christianity.

Maybe this is simply a voting tactic. Maybe Stephen Harper realizes that most of his votes come from undereducated redneck conservative Christians and therefore the more of them he can create in the voter pool the better his chances of re-election. Watch next for a new law that limits immigration into Canada to places that are crazy fundamentalist Christian. If you are from the deep south or the mid-west of the U.S., well come on in. If you're from Afghanistan or France, well not so much.

But, all joking aside, this is a very frightening trend. Stephen Harper never grew out of his immature, self-serving, Bronze Aged secret agenda. He just figured out that the average Canadian wasn't going to buy it wholesale and so he had to really bury it until he got elected. Harper stopped making all his ridiculous statments about gay marriage, homosexuality, and abortion for a few years, focused on the economy and jobs in his election campaigns, finally got elected when the 65% of the electorate that hates him divided their votes between other parties, and then brought in his crazy theocratic reform.

This all illustrates a characteristic of Christianity that is absolutely deadly in politics: close-mindedness. Christians all believe they are 100% right. They have been told by God what life is all about and what is right and what is wrong, so when they get in positions of power nothing else really matters. If God didn't mention the environment in the Bible, then anything to do with care for the environment must just be some evil anti-God made-up conspiracy and can safely be ignored. If God tells you homosexuality is wrong, then it doesn't really matter how enlightened your society has become on human rights, you can just plough ahead and try to make it illegal because that is what's right. (See American politics for more examples of this type of bull-headed dogmatic "leadership". George Bush was a walking example of it. Never mind that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that the whole world thinks I'm wrong for invading Iraq, God told me to do it so I'm right). Can you imagine bringing this type of 100% right attitude into any other scenario such as a marriage, a workplace, a friendship? Disaster. Just like when religious people bring their stubborn and ignorant dogma into politics.

Questioning your Faith Part I

Are you a Christian?

If you are, the first question you should probably ask yourself is why you find yourself on this blog. Why are you reading a blog about atheism, written by someone who used to be a Christian? Is there something about your religious faith that nags at your subconscious? Or perhaps your doubts are more obvious to you. Perhaps you have started to have serious questions about your religious beliefs. Either way, maybe you have doubts, and maybe you are wondering...what next?

I thought I would aim my writing towards those who consider themselves Christians or religious but who may be wondering about their religion or their God. Does God really exist? Are there really people who don't believe in Him? Am I alone in having doubts about the religion I have believed for so long?

Firstly, if you don't have any interest in questioning your religion, then there is probably no point in reading any further. Questions, whether big or small, are the key to understanding your religion in a new light. If you still believe that God exists and you have a personal relationship with Him, if it makes you angry when people deny His existence, then these writings are unlikely to be of interest to you. But, if you've ever wondered whether it is OK to question God's existence, please read on.

I've written earlier on my blog about the time when I started to question my religion and my belief in God. It can be a frightening propostition to question the existence of God. You fear what He might think if you question Him and if you wonder if He even exists. You worry where it might lead. What questions might come next. Put aside your fear. If God exists, surely he would want followers who do ask difficult questions. Surely he would want you to ask every difficult question, even the ones that seem to have no answer. Surely your loving Heavenly Father isn't going to strike you down in anger just because you question His existence. On the other hand, if God does not exist, then that is a question you really, really need to ask. The stakes are very high, there is the rest of your life to consider...do you want to take the chance that you will waste the one life you'll ever have by believing in something that doesn't exist? After all, hundreds of millions of people from other religions do just that, don't they? What makes you right and them wrong?

Christianity doesn't like difficult questions. Some Christians even teach that questioning God is the Devil's work. See, that's the trick of it all. If you have been taught your whole life that you shouldn't question something, and have fear put into you of what might happen if you do, then you're going to stay in line. Just ask anyone who lived in the Soviet Union. Never question the authority. Just keep your head down and believe, right? No. Put your fears aside and question. Ask yourself the really difficult questions that might have been nagging at you.

If God exists and loves everyone, why did tens of thousands of children die painfully from hunger this week? Is it really all part of his loving plan for humanity? Is it really the result of original sin that entered the world through one man and one woman, and it's just too bad that all those children are suffering as a result? Or is it just the painful and sorry reality of the world we live in, without a God?

If God exists, why has He never once really shown himself to you? Oh sure, you've "felt" his presence from time to time, but there's never been anything conclusive, has there? He's never appeared to you in the same way as another human being does. You've never heard his voice as clearly as you hear the radio out loud, have you? It's always just a feeling that you have that He wants you to do something or to live a certain way. Why?

If God exists, then why is there not a single documented case ever of an amputee being healed by Him? Sure, there are lots of wonderful miracle stories of invisible diseases like cancer being cured, but it's never the obviously visible ones that God tackles. Why? Does he really have a problem with amputees? Or is he really trying to keep himself that hidden, so that only those who really, really, really seek Him will find Him? Or, is it more likely that there are no miracles at all, and that sometimes people are cured of diseases for unexplained reasons but that incurable things like amputations do not happen without explanation?

If God exists, then why were there relgions around before the Abrahamic religions of the Bible? Wouldn't He want His one true religion to be the first documented one? Yet it is not. There were religions in the Americas before the time of Christ. Did Satan really mislead all those tens of millions of Native Americans before they had a chance to even hear the Gospel? Why not just leave them alone and let them have no religion at all? Doesn't make any sense, does it?

If God exists, then why did most human beings in history die young, painful deaths? Before science discovered the incredible finds of modern medicine, you'd be lucky to make it to 35 years of age. Many, if not most, children died in infancy or childhood. Doesn't that sound a bit of a cruel way for a loving God to set up the world? Is all that death really fair punishment just because one man and one woman once ate the wrong piece of fruit?

Why are there so many "paradoxes" (i.e. contradictions) in the Bible? Anyone who has gone to Sunday School must have noticed them. First God tells people to not eat certain foods and to be circumcized, then he says it doesn't matter after all. First God tells you that he is all-loving, but then he lashes out in anger all the time at innocent people and animals. Then there are all the things in the Bible that contradict known facts in our world. In the creation story, why was time divided into day and night before the creation of the sun? A global flood at the time of Noah is physically impossible. There is no way to cover the earth with water to a height of the highest mountains on earth (roughly 30,000 feet). There is not enough water on earth for that too happen. Where did it all go afterwards? Et cetera, et cetera. All of these contradictions can be explained away if you want. Most Christians will find a way to reconcile the Biblical contradictions with their belief in God...but that's not why you are here. You already raised these questions yourself, didn't you? So, why are there so many contradictions in the one book handed to humanity from an all-wise, all-knowing God?

Perhaps the hardest part of questioning one's faith is not wondering about these few questions I've raised. The harder part is accepting that it is OK to question. It is very hard to set aside one's fear of what is going to happen if you question your faith. What happens if you lose your faith? Won't you go to hell?

It is time to ask yourself to answer a question very honestly. If there was no such thing as an afterlife, would you still stick with your religion? If Christianity ended when you die, and you just ceased to exist like a plant does when it dies, would you still be a Christian for the rest of your life? What would be the point? Sure, you might like to think that life would have more meaning being in a relationship with God, and following his lead in your life, but be honest, would you really stick with it? If not, then consider what you are really saying is that you are only a Christian because of fear of Hell. Time to set that irrational fear aside and ask yourself some more questions.

Why Can't People of Religion Ever Just Admit That They Might Be Wrong?

I've had a lot of debates online with religious people, mostly Christians. Sometimes these debates are interesting, sometimes they are enlightening, more often though they are simply arguments intended to prove one is right rather than trying to learn the other person's opinion or to understand their point of view. One thing that I find really negative and annoying though is what seems to me to be a complete inability for Christian believers to ever accept that they might be wrong. Why is that?

Countless times I've commented on a blog post, engaged in conversation on a youtube video, et cetera and become involved in lengthy conversations about religion and atheism. I try to only engage in these conversations when they are respectful, I have no need for hateful, ignorant conversations. Some of these conversations have been truly enjoyable and enlightening. There is one acquaintance I have with whom I often converse online and I very much appreciate his perspective and his deep desire to make the world a better place. But, I find that almost without exception, someone who has a religious belief is unable, at the conclusion of a discussion, to ever accept that you've constructed a rational, logical argument that comes to a conclusion that cannot be denied. The conversation always ends with something along the lines of: "Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree." Why is this?

My opinion on why this happens is because of the foundation of the belief system that the religious have. Their beliefs are not formed following rational logical thought about the nature of the world. Rather, their primary belief is based on revelation and faith. For example, a Christian is, by the very definition of what it means to be a Christian, unable to ever accept that Jesus did not exist. Therefore, they may enter into an argument about the possibility of the existence of Jesus, but their end point will always be that he existed. Even if you present a rational, logical, and evidence-based case for how unlikely it is that Jesus ever existed (just as an example), the conversation will have to end with the Christian saying that they will have to disagree with you, even if they have no ability to respond to your points. It's either that, or they have to admit that you have made your case and decide not to be a Christian anymore. That's usually not an option in one conversation.

The topics that I encounter this phenomenon more often are those relating to science and evolution. No matter how much evidence you present to a creationist, they will always simply end the conversation with: "Well, we'll have to just agree to disagree" because they are fundamentally unable to change their point of view, even if they've been shown the error of their belief. This is fundamentally opposed to the process of discussion used in science. At a scientific meeting, no scientist will ever simply state that he/she has to disagree with someone after they've been shown conclusively to be wrong. They accept their error and move on, humbly.

To me, this is another example of Christians putting the cart before the horse, of drawing your conclusion before you look for evidence, and of the immense arrogance of their position that there are certain pillars of their belief system that they will never give up no matter how wrong they are shown to be.

Is it possible to be a former Christian or a former atheist?

One of the arguments that I find Christians trot out immediately in conversation with someone who left the faith and became an atheist, is to claim that they were never a Christian to begin with. Christianity is based upon a personal relationship with Jesus, so it is impossible for Christians to accept that someone who had that personal relationship can now abandon it and leave the faith. The only plausible explanation is that the person was never really a Christian, that they never really knew Jesus. I have heard Christians make this claim about the most dedicated former Christians, including people who were preachers for decades. The claim is always that the person must have been faking it, or that they must have just viewed their Christianity as a dry religion rather than as a living relationship with the creator. The ironic thing is that, no one ever seems able to point to those Christians who are not real Christians while they are still Christians. It is easy to simply state that someone was never a real Christian after they have given it all up, but if they were never really a Christian, shouldn't that lack of real faith been detectable at the time?

Ironically, I find myself making the exact same statement about some people who claim to have converted from atheism to Christianity. "You weren't a real atheist, or else you never would have become a Christian. If you really understood what it means to accept that there is no evidence for deities, then you couldn't possibly become a believing Christian." I have wondered if I am just being hypocritical in my criticism of Christians for taking the easy way out in disregarding a former Christian and then doing much the same when it comes to former atheists. However, I think that my claim that someone who became a Christian was not a real atheist is fundamentally different for the reason I alluded to above. The person who claims to be an atheist and then embraces Christianity can be "outed" while they are still an atheist. If you walked me into a room full of people who claimed to be atheists and asked me to have a conversation with them to find out the people who are most likely to convert to Christianity, I believe I could do so. I believe I would be able to point out some people who would never become Christians and others who simpy don't get atheism and rationalism and therefore may one day become religious. I don't think the opposite scenario is plausible - that a Christian could do the same in a room full of Christians. I don't think anyone who met me when I was a Christian would  have thought: "That guy isn't going to be a Christian in the future."

A couple of examples to illustrate my point. Take Kirk Cameron of Growing Pains fame. Everyone knows he is a Christian who had a pretty public conversion during the latter years of the show's production, and he has a fairly public profile as a Christian to this day. But he has claimed that, before he became a Christian in his late teens or early twenties he was an atheist. I don't believe that for a moment. I don't think he was ever a real atheist. I think he simply didn't think about religion or atheism, so he now categorizes himself as a former atheist just because he wasn't a Christian. I think if you had sat down with Kirk Cameron as a twenty year old and asked him why he doesn't believe there are any deities, I doubt you would have gotten a carefully thought through explanation about rationalism and lack of evidence. I doubt he would have outlined how scientific advances have, at every turn, discredited the notion of a personal God. Another example is Alister McGrath. He is a prominent Christian who also claims to be a former atheist. But, I don't think he was an atheist at all. When you listen to him in interviews, he simply mentions that he was an atheist but then became a Christian in university once he started to think for himself. (Ironic that he converted to the religion of the culture he was living in if he truly started to think for himself...notice that very few people in England or America convert to Buddhism once they become religious). An example video interview is found here:

As an aside, it is interesting to note that McGrath states that there are interesting questions that science cannot answer but which religion can, questions such as "Why are we here?" But, he never suggests why religion can answer those questions, or what the answers are. He simply comes up with something that he thinks is outside the realm of science. This is a classic example of someone not liking the answer that science provides and turning somewhere else for a more palatable, though fictitious answer.


In conclusion then, I believe it is very much possible to be a former Christian. While it might be technically possible to be a former atheist, it is very much less likely.

God-made man, or man-made gods?

Beleif or non-belief in religion ultimately boils down to the question of whether you think a god made humans or whether humans made gods. If you are in the former camp, then you pretty well have to be an atheist or at least an agnostic. There might be a few people in a fringe group who accept that humans made the gods, but who still want to believe they exist and worship them, but that would be an unusual position. If you think that human beings are responsible for creating all the gods, including the Christian god "God", then it is probably only a matter of time until you reject religion and embrace atheism.

So, how do we answer that question? As the old AC/DC song goes: "Who made who?" It's a question which cannot be proven one way or the other, at least scientifically. Since there is no way to disprove the existence of God scientifically, many Christians take that to mean that he must exist or that his existence is likely or even plausible. It is not. The scientific approach to things shows us no evidence for any gods. When there is no evidence for something in science, despite our best efforts to find it, it almost certainly doesn't exist.


Let's think for a minute about the option of God creating humans. While we have to allow that it is technically possible, it is more important to examine the question of whether it is a plausible concept. What would we expect if God had created the world and everything in it, us included? God is love, so say Christians. Above all else he is a loving god. It's all they sing about in their hymns. While sermons and lessons also include a fair bit about judgement and power, Christians almost all agree that their god is loving. Yet, what do we see through history and pre-history in terms of humanity? The vast majority of humans have died a premature, painful, and lonely death. All through pre-history, humans were mostly dying off as infants without a chance to enjoy anything in life. The few that survived to adulthood could expect a primitive, painful existence of hunger, disease, fighting off predators, and a death by age 30 at the latest. Is this really they system of life you would set up if you were an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving god? Imagine you were sitting there with no universe in place yet. You get to choose everything about the universe. You can create it any way you want, and you can fine tune it any way you want. Plus, you get to foresee all the possible outcomes of any universe you decided to create before hand. You would go ahead and create one in which your chosen species, molded in your image, whom you loved so dearly you would sacrifice your only son for, that species would suffer tremendously every day? The newborns of that species that you love would mostly die off shortly after birth through some disease, caused by a microorganism that you also created. Really?

OK, so let's assume that God knows more than we do. Perhaps he knows that dying is actually the easy way out because it leads to heaven. Maybe he's actually doing us all a favour by creating a world where, for most of our existence we've scratched out a meager existence full of pain, disease and death. Doesn't that then beg the question of what about all those people who don't hear about Jesus (i.e. the vast majority of humans throughout pre-history and history). They all just get shuffled off to hell forever. Congratulations, you survived infancy and childhood, you lived to age 18 and then got picked off by a sabre-toothed tiger. But, unfortunately it is the nature of the universe that you now get to spend an eternity of pain and misery in hell because you didn't accept Jesus Christ as your personal saviour. So sorry about that. Does this sound like the all-loving Christian god?

Let me pause at this point and state that I am aware that many or most Christians would object to this line of characterization of their religion, that I am focusing on things that are not really relevant or part of their loving god. Jesus is all about love and forgiveness, he brought light and salvation to the very dark and cruel world that I've just described, right? Well, to me that attitude it nothing more than a particular brand of patriotism. I hate patriotism because it blinds people to the objective facts about their country. Patriotism also insists that one's country is better than everyone else's, and it leads to all sorts of nastiness like wars. Patriotism over one's religion is no different. It is easy to turn a blind eye to the darker side of one's beliefs, to the assumptions that must co-exist with your established beliefs, but which no Sunday School teacher really spends any time on. Consider Nazi Germany for a minute. Almost everyone, except for a few punk skinheads, will agree that Hitler was the embodiment of evil, that his Third Reich was a ruthless and evil empire. Yet, it would not be hard to imagine a poor German in the 1930s and early 1940s being quite in awe of Hitler. It would not be hard to imagine a German peasant praising him for re-igniting the German economy into a world power, for re-claiming the German territories that were unfairly taken from them at the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. Hitler brought in autobahns, Volkswagen, and gave people jobs (the all important mantra of today's politicians). You might even say he was Germany's saviour. Yet, his evil deeds cannot be ignored or glossed over. All the good he did for Germany came at a terrible cost to the rest of humanity. Similarly with the Christian god Yahweh. He does so much good for Christians, offering them love, hope, forgiveness, and jobs, and yet punishes the rest of humanity eternally. No Nazi concentration camp could come close to the horrors of the Christian hell.

But I digress. The point of this post is not to compare Hitler and God. God wins that comparison hands down. No, rather I am trying to point out how ridiculous the notion is that God made humans. God is so human in character and temperament that he really offers nothing that humans cannot offer. He is fickle, jealous, unforgiving, and ruthless. He is also capable of great love, friendship, forgiveness and hope. What could be more human? We are all capable for such good and such bad. God is definitely made in man's image, both good and bad.

Another thought that must be examined, if you believe that God created humans with the intention of relating to them, of having humans come to know him fully and entering into an eternal relationship. One must consider his communication with humanity. Apart from those momentous occasions in the Old Testament when God actually spoke out loud, appeared as a pillar of fire or a burning bush, or walked about as a human being for a few years in the time of the Romans, God's only realy communication with humanity is through his book, the Bible. So, how effective of a book is the Bible, considering it is authored by an omniscient, omnipotent creator of the universe? How effective is it at helping humans get to know God and come to love him and want to relate to him? What would you write in a book if you wanted your human children to have a long-lasting and loving relationship with you?

Well, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be the Bible. Imagine you were having a child of your own. You knew you wouldn't be around physically to guide and teach your child as they grow up, so you write a book for them to read, to help them learn about the nature of the world, about your character, and about how much you love them and want to relate to them. Would you spend the first two thirds of the book basically outlining your personal history, complete with all your vindictive little stories about how you screwed over everyone who ever crossed you or made you mad? Would you spell out in intimate details all the little rules that you want your child to follow, including how they should cut their hair and precisely what foods they should and shouldn't eat? Would you point out what a worthless piece of shit they are, and how their whole life is full of evil deeds and sin, and how the only way to really make it up is to try to spend the rest of their lives finding you and asking for forgiveness for being born? Would you pour a huge guilt trip over them, all about how you sacrificed so much for them so that they could have a life, how you basically gave up your life completely just so that they could have a life? How do you think that would go over it you wrote a book like that to your child? Just a hunch, but I don't think once they reached adulthood they'd be setting out on a mission to find you and spend the rest of their lives relating to you (when "relating to you" actually means begging forgiveness on a regular basis and having hope that you'll still forgive and love them, because you did include that part in your book to them as well).

So, the more realistic examination of what kind of person God is really doesn't leave much doubt that he's a human-created phenomenon. There is no god. God is a concept we created in the infancy of our history as a species to help us deal with our fear of the dark, of the unexplained, and of death.