Friday, October 22, 2010

Discussion with a student

So yesterday I was having a discussion with a student in my class. Somehow, it turned theological, and everything was going well. Until she made a comment like, "Sometimes I don't know what I believe in, like I know it's the truth that God exists, but I just don't know--" I cut her off immediately. "NO it's NOT the truth!" I say.

This is probably what bothers me most about indoctrination is that we don't tell young, innocent minds that we are pumping them full of a theory, not facts. This leads to multiple other dilusions in life [citation needed].

Friday, October 15, 2010

God awful license plates!


So, I'm driving around, and what do I see in front of me? This license plate off to the side here! I nearly vomited! I thought to myself that if I lived in Indiana, and went to register a vehicle and they forced this belief on me, I would probably put it on my car, just so I could ram it into their building and be still insured. I'm sorta grumpy and didn't get much sleep last night due to hockey. I'm not usually this angry. I am going to make the assumption that this was a "special" plate that you could get as an option, and if you were secular/atheist/agnostic, you could just take the regular one. But I hope this plate cost extra money to get... idiot tax. I know this is bad of me, but it would be amusing to see a car rolled over in a ditch with this plate showing and forward it to people and say, "Still trust?"
Another one that I see is a personalized Saskatchewan plate that says "ILVGOD". My province is pretty strict on plates, and it was my understanding that nothing religious would be allowed to be put on them. I wondered if I could get one that says "IH8GOD", and I am sure I could not, because hate and love are two different things. But I doubt I could even get "NO GOD" or "GOD BAD" on a plate because of religious stereotypes.
Also saw a billboard that said simply, "What comes to mind when you think of Church...?" If you want to answer that question, send your email to compassregina@gmail.com

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

You're either a lazy Christian or a Secular Humanist

Which sounds better? Here is a recent article that I read:

The study published by the Church of England concludes that people born after 1982 - known as "Generation Y" - have only a “faded cultural memory” of Christianity. For many young people, religious observance extends no further than praying in their bedrooms during moments of crisis, on a “need to believe basis”.

The findings are contained a new book, The Faith of Generation Y, whose authors include the Bishop of Coventry, the Rt Rev Christopher Cocksworth. Sylvia Collins-Mayo, principal lecturer in sociology at Kingston University, said most of the 300 young people questioned for the study were not looking for answers to “ultimate questions”. “For the majority, religion and spirituality was irrelevant for day-to-day living,” she said. “On the rare occasions when a religious perspective was required, for example coping with family illnesses or bereavements, they often ‘made do’ with a very faded, inherited cultural memory of Christianity in the absence of anything else.”

The authors described this approach as “bedroom spirituality”. Some teenagers prayed for the health of loved ones or for success in relationships and exams, while others made “confessions” in an attempt to express their anxieties. But most young people today define themselves by a “secular trinity of family, friends and the reflexive self”, giving them an “immanent faith” based on relationships in this world, the study found. Fewer than one in five young people believe in a God “who created the world and hears my prayers”, and teenagers were more likely to believe in the “nicer” parts of religious doctrine than those about the devil and punishment.

Their images of God tended to be of “an old man with a beard”, while pop songs were played at memorial services “because the young congregation did not know any hymns”. The book suggested that the “chain of Christian memory” has become “eroded” in Britain, particularly as the authority of the church has declined, society has become more interested in technology to solve problems, and globalization has led to a “spiritual market” of competing beliefs.

“It is undoubtedly the case that the Christian memory is very faint and in many respects Generation Y are a largely unstoried and memoryless generation,” the study said. The 2001 census found that 62 per cent of young Britons still call themselves Christian, although in a more recent survey only 27 per cent of 18 to 24 year-olds felt they belonged to a Christian denomination.

Only two-fifths of children are being baptised into the faith as “fewer and fewer young people are being brought up in households with religiously inclined parents”. However, despite their distance from traditional religion, the young people interviewed were not actively hostile to Christianity.

The book points out that about one in three schools in England has links to a church, while all state schools are supposed to provide “acts of collective worship”. Without school religion the Christian memory would be “much weaker than it currently is”. But there was a risk that the “compulsory nature” of religion in schools could “undermine” pupils’ interest in Christianity."

I love this article for a variety of reasons... Let's look at it first from an educational standpoint:

Any teacher knows that, for the most part, when you force education upon a Gen-Y'er, they will immediately rebel and not respect its worth. Is this perhaps also why forcing religion on them is not working either? Why Catholic schools churn out Secular Humanists like myself (and other friends and relatives that I have talked to also).

I will admit to being a "bedroom spiritualist" up until the age of around 12 or 13. I recall wanting something to happen so badly that I would lay in my bed, hands clamped, and begggggggg for it to happen. I would plead to God, make bargains with him. You know, I actually recall this working once! I was playing in the kitchen one morning, with a ball and a mini stick, and I knocked the ceiling light off and it smashed on the floor. I went to my room, fearful of my father's wrath when he woke up. I prayed that he would not be mad, I prayed that he would be gentle. As it turned out, he was. He was not angry at all when I told him what happened, apologized, and it was already cleaned up.

So, did prayer work? Some would say so! But even if we assume there are only two options (being angry or not being angry) and we assume that there are equal probabilities of each, there's only a 50% chance that my prayer worked, the other 50% of the time, he was going to act like that anyway. Now, reality suggests that there are many more options (levels of anger) each with its own probability of happening. This lessens the chance that my prayer actually worked, because my father was generally not angry or abusive at all.

I digress, as this blog IS my ramblings, I still like to put something coherent to paper --urrgg to screen. The point of this post was supposed to reflect on that article... if fewer and fewer people believe in a God that created us and the world and responds to our prayers, how long will it take before our culture rejects the likelihood of a God altogether? And you know what, that's when we should be really scared. Because, as all good Catholics know, when nobody believes in God, and when we're all heathens, zealots, and sinners, that is when God will reveal himself and save those who still believe in Him and have never stopped. So let this be my warning!

Lastly, reflecting upon my title for this blog post, if all you do is "pray" in times of dire need, and nobody else knows, and you don't represent your faith by congregating on Sundays or abstaining from sex before marriage (or other archaic beliefs)... do you really believe in God at all? If you did, you would know He is displeased by the majority of your actions, and you haven't went to confession, so why would He help you anyway? You aren't really praying to "God", you are just simply arranging thoughts and hopes in your head, and when you have your thoughts and hopes aligned, they are more likely to happen, which makes it likely that you will also remember when "God" answered your "prayers" whereas it likely would have happened exactly the same way had you prayed or not! So what do you want to be? A lazy Catholic sinner or a Secular Humanist? Nobody can hate a Secular Humanist, because Jesus was a Humanist also. Well, maybe a Catholic could hate a Secular Humanist...

Anyone out there listening? Love to hear what you have to say. Either way, I'm fine with just talking to myself.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Christian Wedding

Tonight, I went to a Christian wedding of some friends of my wife (Lauren) and I. It was a gorgeous wedding! The decorations were beautiful, the ceremony in the church was amusing as the pastor made a lot of jokes and seemed to know the couple very well. The pastor quoted many bible quotes, and at one point suggested that the woman (as a woman) must submit to her husband. A few people in the audience chuckled, and then the pastor went on to explain that it's not submission as in domination, but .... and explained it in a nicer way. Inside I thought, just another way of bending literal meanings to suit current social standards... Yet homosexuality is still an abomination? Just a thought...

Anyway, on the way to the church, I asked what I knew would be a loaded question to my wife, I said, "Do you regret that we didn't get married in a church?" She shrugged, side to side, and said, "Not regret, but it would have been nice." For her entire life, she had dreamed about a big church wedding, walking down that long aisle, beautiful pictures on the church steps, rice, the whole nine yards. Did I feel bad taking that away from her? Of course I did... it was a few weeks of very stressful times when we had to figure things out as a couple regarding religion, morality, and church. They're still not 100% figured out, because she added, "It will be hard, though, not baptizing our children."

Now, indoctrination at such a young age, as you may have figured out from my last post, is something that I do not believe in. I am sure my wife thinks that when we have a child, I am going to try to indoctrinate him/her with my beliefs, constantly saying, "God doesn't exist, he's a myth some losers believe in." But that is simply not the case. As Dale McGowan said in his 9 minute interview, indoctrinating children with ANYTHING is not right. What he meant by this is religious indoctrination is not good. Parents should wait until their children are of an old enough age to actually fully comprehend what they are believing. Now, that being said, I am indoctrinated as both a Leafs fan and a Christian, but only one path do I still follow, so it's not related to intelligence or belief(leaf?) that will cause a person to choose a religious or non-religious path later on in life.

However, let's hypothesize that 90% of people are brought up by their parents being told God exists. (No, I have no proof of this number, just an estimate) And of adults in North America, apparently somewhere around 30% are atheists, secularists, freethinkers, etc... (aka, do not believe in God). So that means that 20% of people who are indoctrinated will change their opinions later in life after doing some soul searching or studying of their own. Someone once told me that atheists know more about religion than most religious people do. I would believe this entirely because when people go on spiritual journeys to find what they truly believe, they often times end up reading and studying their own religion, to find what really doesn't "jive" with them anymore.

Now, that leads me to my next gripe. Many religious people will say that it's not entirely fair to NOT tell children about God early on in life, or to not indoctrinate them. They will say that indoctrination is needed to give God a fighting chance. Does this all of a sudden make it right then? What they are saying by this is, "If you were to give educated children the option, too many would reject the God hypothesis because it is extremely far fetched and has no proof."

Even Catholic high schools teach the Scientific Method. How does the Scientific Method jive with the existence of God? And on that note, I once straight up asked my biology teacher if he believed in evolution, and he couldn't even answer me, because he was teaching in a Catholic school.

Anyway, if you watched the man in the 9 minute video speak about how to parent without the use of God, you will see he is an intelligent man with some very smart things to say. Things that make a lot of sense. He just simply asks for parents to explain God as a "theory" (because it is a theory!) and you can even say, "I believe strongly in this and it is a big part of my life, but you can choose to believe whatever you want" and in this way, the child will always know he/she has the option, and later in life if the things they learn in school or life disillusion them from belief in God, they won't be left out in the dark like I was for many years. If you are a person who is sorta "meh" about God, read the definition of Secular Humanism... you may find it is what you are. That's what happened to me!

Friday, October 1, 2010

Why I started this blog

Hey readers,

I have blogged before, and found that nobody read what I was saying. It was more like an online diary. I am going to do my best to always have useful things to say, and try to pander around to get people to follow me on their RSS. I don't always promise to be useful, but I try to be funny. Lately, I am very interested in Secular Humanism and furthering its position in the world. Because it is a position of reason and logic, it appeals to me, and can appeal to a wide variety of others who are sort of "on the fence" with religion and God, and are saying to themselves, "There has to be more to it!" (More than God? I know! Funny.)

Lately, on facebook, a relative told me to read this article: http://allanturner.com/secular.html. Now, I knew him already to be a very very dedicated Christian. He was constantly posting on boards like "Does God exist?" and "Christians vs. Atheists" and such. I started reading this... at first, I was impressed at how factual it was (especially while using biblical chapter/verse references). When it later said, "Man, in his arrogant pride, does not want to do what God wants him to do. As a result, man attempts to suppress the truth about God in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). Why? Because if man can be persuaded to believe the lie that there is no Sovereign God who lives in eternity, then he can be comfortable involving himself in all sorts of uncleanness and ungodliness (Romans 1:19-25). Secularism, of course, is the perfect vehicle for such unbelief," it was only then that I realized how truly funny this website rant would be.

I was first angered that, again, like religion always does, it masks opinions and beliefs as facts. An uneducated person may read this and their scientific mind will say, "These facts check out," or "This seems very factual and not skewed towards either belief," when in fact, it's designed to trick you into thinking it is, IMHO.

While secularism IS a vehicle for narcissism, it's only for HUMANISTIC narcissism in the sense that HUMANS are number one, and it's "all for humanity." And while secularism IS also a vehicle for hedonism, it's only in the sense that because we know there is nothing non-worldly about our bodies here and our consciousness on earth, we have to just enjoy our time while we're here. However, this page neglects to mention that along with hedonism, a secular humanist believes that hedonism is fine, but only to the extent that you are not harming another individual or the environment.

He said it was an interesting read, and this was my reply on Facebook:
"
I have no problem agreeing to disagree with anyone else's beliefs, and I won't tell anyone what to believe or not to. The read was interesting, indeed. I dislike how it started very factual, and then got very opinionated. It was deceiving i...n that regard. Also, it combined secularism and humanism at times when it wanted to suit its purposes, and pulled them apart when it wanted to say secularism was bad. I am a secularist because I am a humanist first, for the same reason I am an atheist because I am a humanist first. Jesus was also a humanist, and his teachings reflect that. If more people adopted his teachings and lived by them, this world would be a greater place to live. I feel more inclined to act in a way that is aligned with humanistic values if I adopt a secular mentality to go with it. Others work the other way around. Whichever way a person chooses, as long as their end goal is not hurting others and making the world a better place, they are on the right path!"

... A truly secular humanistic response, if I do say so myself.

Hope you enjoyed reading, I will post more random thoughts whenever I have them.