(Robert Ingersoll had captured my thoughts with his words!- emphasis below is mine)

Why I Am Agnostic, Part 11.- Robert Ingersoll, 1896

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural — that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom.

The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world — not even in infinite space.

I was FREE– free to think, to express my thoughts — free to live to my own ideal — free to live for myself and those I loved — free to use all my faculties, all my senses — free to spread imagination’s wings — free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope — free to judge and determine for myself — free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past — free from popes and priests — free from all the “called” and “set apart” — free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies — free from the fear of eternal pain — free from the winged monsters of the night — free from devils, ghosts and gods.

For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought — no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings — no chains for my limbs — no lashes for my back — no fires for my flesh – no master’s frown or threat — no following another’s steps — no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain — for the freedom of labor and thought — to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains — to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs — to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn — to those by fire consumed — to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.

Let us be true to ourselves – true to the facts we know, and let us, above all things, preserve the veracity of our souls.

If there be gods we cannot help them, but we can assist our fellow-men. We cannot love the inconceivable, but we can love wife and child and friend.

We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know. We can tell the truth, and we can enjoy the blessed freedom that the brave have won.

We can destroy the monsters of superstition, the hissing snakes of ignorance and fear. We can drive from our minds the frightful things that tear and wound with beak and fang. We can civilize our fellow-men.

We CAN fill our lives with generous deeds, with loving words, with art and song, and all the ecstasies of love. We can flood our years with sunshine — with the divine climate of kindness, and we can drain to the last drop the golden cup of joy.

”Freedom Tree” sculpture in St. Helier, Jersey, Unveiled 9 May 2005

(My thoughts are below the work below.)

Why I Am Agnostic, Part 10.- Robert Ingersoll, 1896

This God must be, if he exists, a person — a conscious being. Who can imagine an infinite personality? This God must have force, and we cannot conceive of force apart from matter. This God must be material. He must have the means by which he changes force to what we call thought. When he thinks he uses force, force that must be replaced. Yet we are told that he is infinitely wise. If he is, he does not think. Thought is a ladder — a process by which we reach a conclusion. He who knows all conclusions cannot think. He cannot hope or fear. When knowledge is perfect there can be no passion, no emotion. If God is infinite he does not want. He has all. He who does not want does not act. The infinite must dwell in eternal calm.

It is as impossible to conceive of such a being as to imagine a square triangle, or to think of a circle without a diameter.

Yet we are told that it is our duty to love this God. Can we love the unknown, the inconceivable? Can it be our duty to love anybody? It is our duty to act justly, honestly, but it cannot be our duty to love. We cannot be under obligation to admire a painting — to be charmed with a poem — or thrilled with music. Admiration cannot be controlled. Taste and love are not the servants of the will. Love is, and must be free. It rises from the heart like perfume from a flower.

For thousands of ages men and women have been trying to love the gods — trying to soften their hearts — trying to get their aid.

I see them all. The panorama passes before me. I see them with outstretched hands — with reverently closed eyes — worshiping the sun. I see them bowing, in their fear and need, to meteoric stones — imploring serpents, beasts and sacred trees — praying to idols wrought of wood and stone. I see them building altars to the unseen powers, staining them with blood of child and beast. I see the countless priests and hear their solemn chants. I see the dying victims, the smoking altars, the swinging censers, and the rising clouds. I see the half-god men — the mournful Christs, in many lands. I see the common things of life change to miracles as they speed from mouth to mouth. I see the insane prophets reading the secret book of fate by signs and dreams. I see them all — the Assyrians chanting the praises of Asshur and Ishtar — the Hindus worshiping Brahma, Vishnu and Draupadi, the white-armed — the Chaldeans sacrificing to Bel and Hea — the Egyptians bowing to Ptah and Ra, Osiris and Isis — the Medes placating the storm, worshiping the fire — the Babylonians supplicating Bel and Murodach — I see them all by the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Ganges and the Nile. I see the Greeks building temples for Zeus, Neptune and Venus. I see the Romans kneeling to a hundred gods. I see others spurning idols and pouring out their hopes and fears to a vague image in the mind. I see the multitudes, with open mouths, receive as truths the myths and fables of the vanished years. I see them give their toil, their wealth to robe the priests, to build the vaulted roofs, the spacious aisles, the glittering domes. I see them clad in rags, huddled in dens and huts, devouring crusts and scraps, that they may give the more to ghosts and gods. I see them make their cruel creeds and fill the world with hatred, war, and death. I see them with their faces in the dust in the dark days of plague and sudden death, when cheeks are wan and lips are white for lack of bread. I hear their prayers, their sighs, their sobs. I see them kiss the unconscious lips as their hot tears fall on the pallid faces of the dead. I see the nations as they fade and fail. I see them captured and enslaved. I see their altars mingle with the common earth, their temples crumble slowly back to dust. I see their gods grow old and weak, infirm and faint. I see them fall from vague and misty thrones, helpless and dead. The worshipers receive no help. Injustice triumphs. Toilers are paid with the lash, — babes are sold, — the innocent stand on scaffolds, and the heroic perish in flames. I see the earthquakes devour, the volcanoes overwhelm, the cyclones wreck, the floods destroy, and the lightnings kill.

The nations perished. The gods died. The toil and wealth were lost. The temples were built in vain, and all the prayers died unanswered in the heedless air.

Then I asked myself the question: Is there a supernatural power — an arbitrary mind — an enthroned God — a supreme will that sways the tides and currents of the world — to which all causes bow?

I do not deny. I do not know — but I do not believe. I believe that the natural is supreme — that from the infinite chain no link can be lost or broken — that there is no supernatural power that can answer prayer — no power that worship can persuade or change — no power that cares for man.

I believe that with infinite arms Nature embraces the all — that there is no interference — no chance — that behind every event are the necessary and countless causes, and that beyond every event will be and must be the necessary and countless effects.

Man must protect himself. He cannot depend upon the supernatural — upon an imaginary father in the skies. He must protect himself by finding the facts in Nature, by developing his brain, to the end that he may overcome the obstructions and take advantage of the forces of Nature.

Is there a God?

I do not know.

Is man immortal?

I do not know.

One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.

We wait and hope.

Sacrifice of a young boar, with kalos inscription (ΕΠΙΔΡΟΜΟΣ ΚΑΛΟΣ). Tondo from an Attic red-figure cup, ca. 510 BC–500 BC., Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Sully, first floor, room 39, case 10

It becomes a superstitious ritual; Believing that good will come (in this lifetime or the next)  if I only prayed hard enough, did many good deeds, or witnessed to one more person.  Many religions still kill themselves for promised virgins in paradise and mansions in the sky.  Unfortunately, no one can see proof of another reaching paradise.  There is only hope that they will- and fear that they won’t.

I still think about all the years I have spent praying, singing in worship, taking communion, giving offering, listening to sermons, watching baptisms, reading scripture etc, etc,.  I had also spent a good amount of time during my deconversion, researching what these represented and what they meant to me.  I decided that they were merely traditions that the church expected me to participate in.

This realization was a slow process as I gradually changed:

1. I full heartily participated in all rituals.
2. I “spiritually” ( and partially phyiscally participated) which was a partial rebellion in the idea that one has to physically eat communion to commune with god, etc.  I would still pray and read scripture but I wouldn’t attend church services.
3. I did not physically participate in any ritual- including Christmas celebration because of the “pagan” ties.  The scriptures were not a literal translation, but all spiritual.  I stopped praying and reading scripture.  I only felt that god was a creator.
4. I did not spiritually or physically participate in any rituals/traditions.  Since I couldn’t prove that god existed, I would lean on the idea that organized religion was mere mythology full of superstition and lies.

When I had decided that the god of the Bible was man-made, I still considered there to be a force that was god.  Much like the god that Albert Einstein refers to:

I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.

As an agnostic, I will not say that there is no god.  I will say that I have found it hard to  believe in a man-made, cruel, god like of the Bible.  I can only hope that if there is a god, that he would approve of his creation using the brains he/she gave them to think with.  If our brains are faulty, in which we deduce that a god is unlikely, then he/she would have no one to blame but them self for allowing this error.

Rituals, traditions and superstitions are not merely innocent means to explain the world we live in.  These mental and physical actions have taken many people to their graves prematurely.  Human and animal sacrifice, suicide, starvation, mental abuse, physical abuse, war, and ignorance are simply effects from these causes. The list of indignation would continue beyond my few examples.  I only hope we can contain the causes enough to eliminate the effects.

Image from the US National Park Service of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City. Source: http://www.nps.gov/remembrance/start.html {{PD-USGov-NPS}} Category:9/11\) Public Domain no copyright

(My thoughts are below the work below.)

Why I Am Agnostic, Part 9.- Robert Ingersoll, 1896

I took another step. What is matter — substance? Can it be destroyed — annihilated? Is it possible to conceive of the destruction of the smallest atom of substance? It can be ground to powder — changed from a solid to a liquid — from a liquid to a gas — but it all remains. Nothing is lost — nothing destroyed.

Let an infinite God, if there be one, attack a grain of sand — attack it with infinite power. It cannot be destroyed. It cannot surrender. It defies all force. Substance cannot be destroyed.

Then I took another step.

If matter cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated, it could not have been created.

The indestructible must be uncreateable.

And then I asked myself: What is force?

We cannot conceive of the creation of force, or of its destruction. Force may be changed from one form to another — from motion to heat — but it cannot be destroyed — annihilated.

If force cannot be destroyed it could not have been created. It is eternal.

Another thing — matter cannot exist apart from force. Force cannot exist apart from matter. Matter could not have existed before force. Force could not have existed before matter. Matter and force can only be conceived of together. This has been shown by several scientists, but most clearly, most forcibly by Buchner.

Thought is a form of force, consequently it could not have caused or created matter. Intelligence is a form of force and could not have existed without or apart from matter. Without substance there could have been no mind, no will, no force in any form, and there could have been no substance without force.

Matter and force were not created. They have existed from eternity. They cannot be destroyed.

There was, there is, no creator. Then came the question: Is there a God? Is there a being of infinite intelligence, power and goodness, who governs the world?

There can be goodness without much intelligence — but it seems to me that perfect intelligence and perfect goodness must go together.

In nature I see, or seem to see, good and evil –”intelligence and ignorance — goodness and cruelty — care and carelessness — economy and waste. I see means that do not accomplish the ends — designs that seem to fail.

To me it seems infinitely cruel for life to feed on life — to create animals that devour others.

The teeth and beaks, the claws and fangs, that tear and rend, fill me with horror. What can be more frightful than a world at war? Every leaf a battle-field — every flower a Golgotha — in every drop of water pursuit, capture and death. Under every piece of bark, life lying in wait for life. On every blade of grass, something that kills, — something that suffers. Everywhere the strong living on the weak — the superior on the inferior. Everywhere the weak, the insignificant, living on the strong — the inferior on the superior — the highest food for the lowest — man sacrificed for the sake of microbes. Murder universal. Everywhere pain, disease and death — death that does not wait for bent forms and gray hairs, but clutches babes and happy youths. Death that takes the mother from her helpless, dimpled child — death that fills the world with grief and tears.

How can the orthodox Christian explain these things?

I know that life is good. I remember the sunshine and rain. Then I think of the earthquake and flood. I do not forget health and harvest, home and love — but what of pestilence and famine? I cannot harmonize all these contradictions — these blessings and agonies — with the existence of an infinitely good, wise and powerful God.

The theologian says that what we call evil is for our benefit — that we are placed in this world of sin and sorrow to develop character. If this is true I ask why the infant dies? Millions and millions draw a few breaths and fade away in the arms of their mothers. They are not allowed to develop character.

The theologian says that serpents were given fangs to protect themselves from their enemies. Why did the God who made them, make enemies? Why is it that many species of serpents have no fangs?

The theologian says that God armored the hippopotamus, covered his body, except the under part, with scales and plates, that other animals could not pierce with tooth or tusk. But the same God made the rhinoceros and supplied him with a horn on his nose, with which he disembowels the hippopotamus.

The same God made the eagle, the vulture, the hawk, and their helpless prey.

On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design.

If God created man — if he is the father of us all, why did he make the criminals, the insane, the deformed and idiotic?

Should the inferior man thank God? Should the mother, who clasps to her breast an idiot child, thank God? Should the slave thank God?

The theologian says that God governs the wind, the rain, the lightning. How then can we account for the cyclone, the flood, the drought, the glittering bolt that kills?

Suppose we had a man in this country who could control the wind, the rain and lightning, and suppose we elected him to govern these things, and suppose that he allowed whole States to dry and wither, and at the same time wasted the rain in the sea. Suppose that he allowed the winds to destroy cities and to crush to shapelessness thousands of men and women, and allowed the lightnings to strike the life out of mothers and babes. What would we say? What would we think of such a savage?

And yet, according to the theologians, this is exactly the course pursued by God.

What do we think of a man, who will not, when he has the power, protect his friends? Yet the Christian’s God allowed his enemies to torture and burn his friends, his worshipers.

Who has ingenuity enough to explain this?

What good man, having the power to prevent it, would allow the innocent to be imprisoned, chained in dungeons, and sigh against the dripping walls their weary lives away?

If God governs the world, why is innocence not a perfect shield? Why does injustice triumph?

Who can answer these questions?

In answer, the intelligent, honest man must say: I do not know.

Oldest known photograph of a tornado, August 28, 1884, 22 miles southwest of Howard, South Dakota, USA

“… The intelligent, honest man must say:  I do not know”.

I have found it interesting that instead of saying ‘I don’t know’, myself and others since the beginning of mankind’s existence, have claimed that we do know.  The gods of the time have been used to explain every natural occurrence, although as Robert Ingersoll states, how can we accept the god who brings bad?

It isn’t even as if god is said to be fallible, making errors as he goes.  Instead, we are told that “god saw that [his creation] was good”!  I was even told that evil was a backdrop featuring the good in life, otherwise how could we know what was good.  Life was a way to see god’s goodness through the evil.

Some religious circles today still explain disasters and tragedy as punishment for those afflicted.  They say that faith will or could have saved the victim.  Unfortunately, those who were religious and prayed wholeheartedly, could not avoid their circumstances. Billy Graham said in his message to the people after the terrorist attacks on 9-11-2001:

There is also hope for the future because of God’s promises. As a Christian, I have hope not just for this life, but for heaven and the life to come. And many of those people who died this past week are in heaven right now and they wouldn’t want to come back. It’s so glorious and so wonderful. And that’s the hope for all of us who put our faith in God.  I pray that you will have this hope in your heart.

I have heard it asked on various occasions how would Billy Graham know that all of these people were in heaven and that they all would indeed not want to come back.  According to Christian logic and scripture, those who are not saved will be in everlasting fire (Revelations 20:15).  Secondly, how does he know their soul’s desire in an afterlife?

Billy Graham also stated in the same speech:

I have been asked on hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept, by faith, that God is sovereign, and He is a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering. The Bible says God is not the author of evil.  It speaks of evil as a “mystery.”  In 2 Thessalonians 2:7 it talks about the mystery of iniquity. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” He asked that question, “Who can understand it?” And that is one reason we each need God in our lives.

At first I was pleasantly shocked to find his words of uncertainty, that he, or Christians don’t have all of the answers. Unfortunately the attitude of “god only knows” limits humanities desire to even want to investigate how the world works.  It is beyond them to know.

Mr. Graham after admitting his ignorance on life’s mysteries, falls back onto “blind faith” to deal with that lack of knowledge. Again, we humans should just live life without inquiry, investigation, doubts, and ambition;  we should just trust in a god that the ancients said was real.

Beyond  blind faith, Mr. Graham claims that his god does not know evil!  This is in the same paragraph which says that his god is sovereign!  Mr. Graham references specific scripture on evil being a mystery, but in context that mystery was directed at humanity, not their god. Perhaps Mr. Graham was confused on what the definition of sovereign is.

Sovereignty is having supreme authority over all things.  All things would include evil.  Christian scripture even supports this, as I list just a few examples:

• God, (before Satan was mentioned), created the tree of good and EVIL. (Genesis 2:9)
• God brought a flood on the world, killing all but eight humans. (Genesis 6:17)
• God turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt for disobeying (Genesis 19:26)
• God intended evil things to happen to Joseph so that Joseph would end up in Egypt. (Genesis 50:20)
• God specifically hardens Pharaoh’s heart in order to perform more miracles. (Exodus 4:21 and Romans 9:17-18)
• God used nature to plague the Egyptians. (Exodus 9:14)
• God controls what Satan is allowed to do to Job. Job even asks should we accept only good from god and not  trouble? (Job, especially Job 2:6-10)
• God, under his power, controlled the devil to use Judas in the betrayal (John 13:2-3)
• God predestined that Esau to be hated by Issac.  (Romans 9:11-13:¹¹Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: ¹²not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”¹³Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”)
• God the potter makes people out of clay for whatever purpose he wishes, good or evil. (Romans 9:19)
• God controls Satan by sending him back to earth when he wants him to be there. (Revelations 12:9)

I agree with Robert Ingersoll in regards to not blindly accept a god who brings bad.  I now disagree with Job by not believing in a god that brings trouble on his creation.  Leaving bad and evil things in the hands of chance and nature, makes it, at the least, bearable.

I saw a dead squirrel on the road this morning that had been hit by a car.  I covered my face in sadness, while my husband said, ‘nature is cruel’.  That was easier to take, knowing that bad things happen because of chance instead of god controlling a car’s whereabouts in order to end this little creature’s life.

Life isn’t fair, life isn’t without bad.  Humans have a hard time accepting this.  They want a supreme being to pray to in order to cheat death, destruction, illness, or ill favor.  They want an everlasting parental figure to destroy the enemy and care for them always.  That is a natural desire; a childish desire.  Life is cruel and one cannot pray for a miracle to change events.

Perhaps the answer to why injustice triumphs while god governs, is because since life is cruel, humans couldn’t omit this fact from their god’s history.  They had to incorporate it somehow.  In turn, their god became imperfect and they were no better off with him.  With all of the rules, barbaric laws and prejudices, they would have been better off without him to begin with.

“The Deluge” (family drowning in the flood) from Gustave Doré’s illustrated edition of the Bible, circa 1866

(My thoughts are below the work below.)

Why I Am Agnostic, Part 8.- Robert Ingersoll, 1896

The theologians had always insisted that their God was the creator of all living things — that the forms, parts, functions, colors and varieties of animals were the expressions of his fancy, taste and wisdom — that he made them all precisely as they are to-day — that he invented fins and legs and wings — that he furnished them with the weapons of attack, the shields of defense — that he formed them with reference to food and climate, taking into consideration all facts affecting life.

They insisted that man was a special creation, not related in any way to the animals below him. They also asserted that all the forms of vegetation, from mosses to forests, were just the same to-day as the moment they were made.

Men of genius, who were for the most part free from religious prejudice, were examining these things — were looking for facts. They were examining the fossils of animals and plants — studying the forms of animals — their bones and muscles — the effect of climate and food — the strange modifications through which they had passed.

Humboldt had published his lectures — filled with great thoughts — with splendid generalizations — with suggestions that stimulated the spirit of investigation, and with conclusions that satisfied the mind. He demonstrated the uniformity of Nature — the kinship of all that lives and grows — that breathes and thinks.

Darwin, with his Origin of Species, his theories about Natural Selection, the Survival of the Fittest, and the influence of environment, shed a flood of light upon the great problems of plant and animal life.

These things had been guessed, prophesied, asserted, hinted by many others, but Darwin, with infinite patience, with perfect care and candor, found the facts, fulfilled the prophecies, and demonstrated the truth of the guesses, hints and assertions. He was, in my judgment, the keenest observer, the best judge of the meaning and value of a fact, the greatest Naturalist the world has produced.

The theological view began to look small and mean.

Spencer gave his theory of evolution and sustained it by countless facts. He stood at a great height, and with the eyes of a philosopher, a profound thinker, surveyed the world. He has influenced the thought of the wisest.

Theology looked more absurd than ever.

Huxley entered the lists for Darwin. No man ever had a sharper sword — a better shield. He challenged the world. The great theologians and the small scientists — those who had more courage than sense, accepted the challenge. Their poor bodies were carried away by their friends.

Huxley had intelligence, industry, genius, and the courage to express his thought. He was absolutely loyal to what he thought was truth. Without prejudice and without fear, he followed the footsteps of life front the lowest to the highest forms.

Theology looked smaller still.

Haeckel began at the simplest cell, went from change to change — from form to form — followed the line of development, the path of life, until he reached the human race. It was all natural. There had been no interference from without.

I read the works of these great men — of many others — and became convinced that they were right, and that all the theologians — all the believers in “special creation” were absolutely wrong.

The Garden of Eden faded away, Adam and Eve fell back to dust, the snake crawled into the grass, and Jehovah became a miserable myth.

Adam and Eve, Cranach d. Ä., Lucas, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London, 1526

Fast forward to present day, where after having been to the moon, cloning animals, and replacing failing human organs with that of a pig’s, some still live in the archaic past of fables and myth.  The Creation Museum, located in Kentucky, USA, explains on their main web page:

The state-of-the-art 70,000 square foot museum brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings. Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Majestic murals, great masterpieces brimming with pulsating colors and details, provide a backdrop for many of the settings.

I didn’t even get two words into the first sentence before I saw a ironic association to science.  The phrase, “State-of-the-art”, although likely true regarding the building itself and it’s displays , does not define the science behind the displays themselves.  It wouldn’t be ironic if this museum were like a museum of Greek mythology stating it as mythological history, but the website claims the myths to be truth.

The debate continues whether or not creationism and evolution can co-exist.  Some say that since we cannot understand god and the language of the days in Genesis, we cannot prove that Genesis isn’t poetic.  Some recite the scripture verse, 2 Peter, 3:8:  With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. This appears to cover all of the bases for people to simply accept that we humans cannot understand god’s plans, words, descriptions, etc, etc.

It may seem like a stretch to apply all scripture to be impossible to translate but realistically, is isn’t.  The arguments that creationists  use to defend every contradiction and false facts are that of interpretation.  So if today we cannot decide if the earth was created only thousands of years ago or if god just wasn’t being specific in order to keep us ignorant, then we cannot trust that anything in scripture is literal.

I struggled greatly with the idea that I should literally give someone all of my possessions because they simply asked for them(^{Luke 6:29:} If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Because so many cannot decide if the whole bible, certain books of the bible, certain verses of the bible, or ever certain words of the bible should be taken literally, I have decided demote it to simply a historic book.

I can learn nice things from some of the parables (some because for example, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is far from nice- Luke 16:19-31).  I can do unto others as I would have them do unto me, I can obviously know not to kill, steal or cheat, but these things I can learn without the bible.

The crude history and this vengeful god are not remotely civilized.  It took thousands of years for a number of barbaric acts to subside in a handful of countries.  The rest are still burning witches at stakes, owning other humans as slaves,  selling their women as cattle, and sacrificing their children for the gods.

I am tired of people guessing why something happened, without investigation, without experimentation, and without sound proof.  Instead some use fear and ignorance to push their reasons on the innocent.  The innocent then believe with reverence and “faith”, continuing the false claims and perpetuating these myths.

With the rejection that religions have toward science, contradicting what their ancient scriptures says, I am amazed we do not still believe the earth looks like the below image!

Homer’s View of the Earth, Homer, prior to 900 B.C.

(My thoughts are below the work below.)

Why I Am Agnostic, Part 7.- Robert Ingersoll, 1896

My attention was turned to other religions, to the sacred books, the creeds and ceremonies of other lands — of India, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, of the dead and dying nations.

I concluded that all religions had the same foundation — a belief in the supernatural — a power above nature that man could influence by worship — by sacrifice and prayer.

I found that all religions rested on a mistaken conception of nature — that the religion of a people was the science of that people, that is to say, their explanation of the world — of life and death — of origin and destiny.

I concluded that all religions had substantially the same origin, and that in fact there has never been but one religion in the world. The twigs and leaves may differ, but the trunk is the same.

The poor African that pours out his heart to his deity of stone is on an exact religious level with the robed priest who supplicates his God. The same mistake, the same superstition, bends the knees and shuts the eyes of both. Both ask for supernatural aid, and neither has the slightest thought of the absolute uniformity of nature.

It seems probable to me that the first organized ceremonial religion was the worship of the sun. The sun was the “Sky Father,” the “All Seeing,” the source of life — the fireside of the world. The sun was regarded as a god who fought the darkness, the power of evil, the enemy of man.

There have been many sun-gods, and they seem to have been the chief deities in the ancient religions. They have been worshiped in many lands — by many nations that have passed to death and dust.

Apollo was a sun-god and he fought and conquered the serpent of night. Baldur was a sun-god. He was in love with the Dawn — a maiden. Chrishna was a sun-god. At his birth the Ganges was thrilled from its source to the sea, and all the trees, the dead as well as the living, burst into leaf and bud and flower. Hercules was a sun-god and so was Samson, whose strength was in his hair — that is to say, in his beams. He was shorn of his strength by Delilah, the shadow — the darkness. Osiris, Bacchus, and Mithra, Hermes, Buddha, and Quetzalcoatl, Prometheus, Zoroaster, and Perseus, Cadom, Lao-tsze, Fo-hi, Horus and Rameses, were all sun-gods.

All of these gods had gods for fathers and their mothers were virgins. The births of nearly all were announced by stars, celebrated by celestial music, and voices declared that a blessing had come to the poor world. All of these gods were born in humble places — in caves, under trees, in common inns, and tyrants sought to kill them all when they were babes. All of these sun-gods were born at the winter solstice — on Christmas. Nearly all were worshiped by “wise men.” All of them fasted for forty days — all of them taught in parables — all of them wrought miracles — all met with a violent death, and all rose from the dead.

The history of these gods is the exact history of our Christ.

This is not a coincidence — an accident. Christ was a sun-god. Christ was a new name for an old biography — a survival — the last of the sun-gods. Christ was not a man, but a myth — not a life, but a legend.

I found that we had not only borrowed our Christ — but that all our sacraments, symbols and ceremonies were legacies that we received from the buried past. There is nothing original in Christianity.

The cross was a symbol thousands of years before our era. It was a symbol of life, of immortality — of the god Agni, and it was chiseled upon tombs many ages before a line of our Bible was written.

Baptism is far older than Christianity — than Judaism. The Hindus, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans had Holy Water long before a Catholic lived. The eucharist was borrowed from the Pagans. Ceres was the goddess of the fields — Bacchus of the vine. At the harvest festival they made cakes of wheat and said: “This is the flesh of the goddess.” They drank wine and cried: “This is the blood of our god.”

The Egyptians had a Trinity. They worshiped Osiris, Isis and Horus, thousands of years before the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were known.

The Tree of Life grew in India, in China, and among the Aztecs, long before the Garden of Eden was planted.

Long before our Bible was known, other nations had their sacred books.

The dogmas of the Fall of Man, the Atonement and Salvation by Faith, are far older than our religion.

In our blessed gospel, — in our “divine scheme,” — there is nothing new — nothing original. All old — all borrowed, pieced and patched.

Then I concluded that all religions had been naturally produced, and that all were variation, modifications of one, — then I felt that I knew that all were the work of man.

Metropolitan prays, Alexander II. Coronation Book of 1856

(Note:  Robert Ingersoll says that the sun god’s histories are “exactly” like Christ.  Actually, this is not accurate.  The winter solstice birth dates as well as other specific coinciding facts have not been proven.)

I wanted to investigate further into “why” so many cultures seemed to have similar religious histories.  Furthermore, I wanted to know “why” humanity seemed to use religion to explain the world.  I understand that they used stories because the science and technology hadn’t been discovered.

While in religion, I was always trying to better myself, to perfect how I lived.  In my early years in college, I created a way to gauge and curb my gossip and complaining.  I would wear many bracelets on one wrist and when I would complain or gossip about someone, I would move one bracelet to the other wrist.  I would then daily record how many I had moved that day and work on doing better the next.  While I may have reduced my verbal complaints, I could not extinguish my inner feelings.

I had read many self help Christian books but always ending up feeling like I came up short.  I was never good enough.  The church tried to console me and these feelings by using “grace” as Jesus’ sacrifice as an answer.  However, conflicting verses I found while reading the Bible, pressured me to continue to not feel good enough.  Matthew 5:48, for instance, would pound in me to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler (1870-1937) had the idea that:

…we try to compensate for inferiorities that we perceive in ourselves. A lack of power often lies at the root of feelings of inferiority. One way that religion enters into this picture is through our beliefs in God, which are characteristic of our tendency to strive for perfection and superiority. For example, in many religions God is considered to be perfect and omnipotent, and commands people likewise to be perfect. If we, too, achieve perfection, we become one with God. By identifying with God in this way, we compensate for our imperfections and feelings of inferiority.

Unfortunately for me and the experiences I had trying to be perfect, caused added unnecessary anxiety in my life.  Once freed from religion, I took my mistakes and failures with less grief.  I still suffer from perfectionism and it is a slow process to let go of pleasing god and man.

At my cousin’s funeral in 2008, his pastor, dared to ask why we must feel we need to be perfect:

Where do we get this idea that we must be perfect, to be worthy of love and acceptance? Did we get it from our parents who had such lofty goals for us, who always wanted us to do better and make the most of ourselves? Did we get it from our teachers, who spent more time pointing out what we did wrong than praising us for what we got right? Did we get it from our religious leaders who emphasized the seriousness of whatever moral and ritual infraction we were capable of when we were children, and taught us that every deed counted?  (Keith Stewart, July 14, 2008)

I felt he hit a nerve through myself and my family who had overemphasized perfection and being “good”.  I am not saying that we should be allowed to run wild, with no consequences for our actions, but when we are expected to be good continuously, that is a lot of pressure on any human to take.  The underlying reason behind these religious demands fall with their need to control the community.

There is a fine line that government, or in the case of religious government between creating fair laws for safety and overtaking ones livelihood. While it may have started with the latter, religious governments soon began playing out their “gods”, controlling everything.  The taste of power was exciting and made their shortcomings seem to be absolved with their positions; corruption crept in.

The cognitive aspect of religion is multifaceted. There is the idea that humans created religion to come to grips with our own mortality:

Freud’s suggestion that our large brains, which evolved for other reasons, led to consciousness. The beginning of consciousness forced humans to deal with the concept of personal mortality. Religion may have been one solution to this problem.

There are ideas that religion came about to explain natural phenomenon and that religion evolved out of the need to try and control environmental factors (floods, crops, heath and death through rituals, prayers, etc).  Most recently the idea that human actions, thoughts or ideas are duplicated throughout a people (a.k.a. memes)

[Richard] Dawkins … argues that because religious truths cannot be questioned, their very nature encourages religions to spread like “mind viruses”.

Whatever the reason, it is hard to prove religion; It is also hard to disprove religion.  Beyond using scientific facts which contradict scriptures written centuries and millenniums ago, one cannot fight against an illusion.

Orion constellation in Uranographia, Johannes Hevelius, 1690

(My thoughts are below the work below.)

Why I Am Agnostic, Part 6.- Robert Ingersoll, 1896

Up to this time I had read nothing against our blessed religion except what I had found in Burns, Byron and Shelley. By some accident I read Volney, who shows that all religions are, and have been, established in the same way — that all had their Christs, their apostles, miracles and sacred books, and then asked how it is possible to decide which is the true one. A question that is still waiting for an answer.

I read Gibbon, the greatest of historians, who marshaled his facts as skillfully as Caesar did his legions, and I learned that Christianity is only a name for Paganism — for the old religion, shorn of its beauty — that some absurdities had been exchanged for others — that some gods had been killed — a vast multitude of devils created, and that hell had been enlarged.

And then I read the Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Let me tell you something about this sublime and slandered man. He came to this country just before the Revolution. He brought a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin, at that time the greatest American.

In Philadelphia, Paine was employed to write for the Pennsylvania Magazine. We know that he wrote at least five articles. The first was against slavery, the second against dueling, the third on the treatment of prisoners — showing that the object should be to reform, not to punish and degrade — the fourth on the rights of woman, and the fifth in favor of forming societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals.

From this you see that he suggested the great reforms of our century.

The truth is that he labored all his life for the good of his fellow-men, and did as much to found the Great Republic as any man who ever stood beneath our flag.

He gave his thoughts about religion — bout the blessed Scriptures, about the superstitions of his time. He was perfectly sincere and what he said was kind and fair.

The Age of Reason filled with hatred the hearts of those who loved their enemies, and the occupant of every orthodox pulpit became, and still is, a passionate malinger of Thomas Paine.

No one has answered — no one will answer, his argument against the dogma of inspiration — his objections to the Bible.

He did not rise above all the superstitions of his day. While he hated Jehovah, he praised the God of Nature, the creator and preserver of all. In this he was wrong, because, as Watson said in his Reply to Paine, the God of Nature is as heartless, as cruel as the God of the Bible.

But Paine was one of the pioneers — one of the Titans, one of the heroes, who gladly gave his life, his every thought and act, to free and civilize mankind.

I read Voltaire — Voltaire, the greatest man of his century, and who did more for liberty of thought and speech than any other being, human or “divine.” Voltaire, who tore the mask from hypocrisy and found behind the painted smile the fangs of hate. Voltaire, who attacked the savagery of the law, the cruel decisions of venal courts, and rescued victims from the wheel and rack. Voltaire, who waged war against the tyranny of thrones, the greed and heartlessness of power. Voltaire, who filled the flesh of priests with the barbed and poisoned arrows of his wit and made the pious jugglers, who cursed him in public, laugh at themselves in private. Voltaire, who sided with the oppressed, rescued the unfortunate, championed the obscure and weak, civilized judges, repealed laws and abolished torture in his native land.

In every direction this tireless man fought the absurd, the miraculous, the supernatural, the idiotic, the unjust. He had no reverence for the ancient. He was not awed by pageantry and pomp, by crowned Crime or mitered Pretense. Beneath the crown he saw the criminal, under the miter, the hypocrite.

To the bar of his conscience, his reason, he summoned the barbarism and the barbarians of his time. He pronounced judgment against them all, and that judgment has been affirmed by the intelligent world. Voltaire lighted a torch and gave to others the sacred flame. The light still shines and will as long as man loves liberty and seeks for truth.

I read Zeno, the man who said, centuries before our Christ was born, that man could not own his fellow-man.

“No matter whether you claim a slave by purchase or capture, the title is bad. They who claim to own their fellow-men, look down into the pit and forget the justice that should rule the world.”

I became acquainted with Epicurus, who taught the religion of usefulness, of temperance, of courage and wisdom, and who said: “Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?”

I read about Socrates, who when on trial for his life, said, among other things, to his judges, these wondrous words: “I have not sought during my life to amass wealth and to adorn my body, but I have sought to adorn my soul with the jewels of wisdom, patience, and above all with a love of liberty.”

So, I read about Diogenes, the philosopher who hated the superfluous — the enemy of waste and greed, and who one day entered the temple, reverently approached the altar, crushed a louse between the nails of his thumbs, and solemnly said: “The sacrifice of Diogenes to all the gods.” This parodied the worship of the world — satirized all creeds, and in one act put the essence of religion.

Diogenes must have know of this “inspired” passage — “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.”

I compared Zeno, Epicures and Socrates, three heathen wretches who had never heard of the Old Testament or the Ten Commandments, with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, three favorites of Jehovah, and I was depraved enough to think that the Pagans were superior to the Patriarchs — and to Jehovah himself.

Thomas Paine, London : published by W. Sharp, 1793 April 20.

“The Age of Reason”, by Thomas Paine (1795) indeed tackled the religion of that day.  “The Age of Reason” had helped me transition from Christianity to Agnosticism.  I remember running into a woman in a grocery store from the church I had left.  She was obsessively concerned whether or not I had found a new church where I moved to.

After telling her no a couple times I finally had to end the topic by saying that “church” was inside of me.  I said I didn’t need to be in a building dedicated to a god and that fellowship was overemphasized.   Later, while reading “The Age of Reason”, I read Thomas Paine’s words, “My mind is my own church” (The Age of Reason, Part 1, Chapter 1).

Coming quite a distance from that day in the grocery store, I have found more reasons than I can count that convince me that religion is archaic.  In the store, I merely had rejected the dogma and doctrine, not religion in it’s entirety.  Now I have seen the historic patterns that develop religions, which Ingersoll and Paine both mention.

In Part 1, 2nd chapter of “The Age of Reason”, Thomas Paine writes about the similarities between Christianity and previous religions.  I have read of a number of religions, predating Christianity, having similar plot lines which Christianity borrowed from (not directly copied from) ancient religions. For instance, the story of the ancient Egyptian god, Osiris, shows striking similarities to the ‘future’ Christianity including:

• his future son’s iconography with his wife (as with the Madonna and child of Christianity)
• a resurrection bringing new life
• a begotten son:  Horus who was conceived by his mother and father, Osiris (after his earthly death)
• having a name of the bread of life, perfection and of love.
• Savior qualities of giving eternal life for all people if  “they incurred the costs of the assimilation rituals”
• water baptism
• a hell-like afterlife known as the  “devourer”
• an evil god-like counterpart battling good

Quoted on Wikipedia.com about Osiris:

Egyptologist Erik Hornung observes that Egyptian Christians continued to mummify corpses (an integral part of the Osirian beliefs) until it finally came to an end with the arrival of Islam. and argues for an association between the passion of Jesus and Osirian traditions, particularly in the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus and Christ’s descent into Hades. He concludes that whilst Christianity rejected anything “pagan” it did so only at a superficial level and that early Christianity was “deeply indebted” to Ancient Egypt”

There are numerous other religions that predate Christianity having similar stories, borrowed later by Christians.  Some examples are: Iranian Zoroaster, Mithra of Persia, Krisha of India, Romulus of Rome and the Greek Dionysus to name a few.  All of these having the same godly characteristics as the “new” god of Judaism and Christianity.

Simply put, the ancient and current religions found ways to explain life in the absence of science.  Egyptians used Horus the falcon god to explain the sun and moon (eclipses, etc) were his eyes as he flew over the land.  The Greeks used god the Atlas to explain how the firmament (or space above the earth) was held up.  Even before Jesus was born, demons and angels were ways to explain how sicknesses came about and healing happened.  The more science progresses and is accepted, the less these religious explanations are taken seriously.

Thomas Paine summarizes well when he said:

That many good men have believed this strange fable, and lived very good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime) is what I have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated to believe it, and they would have believed anything else in the same manner. There are also many who have been so enthusiastically enraptured by what they conceived to be the infinite love of God to man, in making a sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of the idea has forbidden and deterred them from examining into the absurdity and profaneness of the story. The more unnatural anything is, the more is it capable of becoming the object of blind and dismal admiration (“The Age of Reason”, Part 1, Chapter 5). (emphasis mine)

Left:  Isis and Horus, (Isis Giving Milk, Louvre, France)

Right: Madonna and Child, (National Gallery, Washington, D.C., Benedetto da Maiano, 1475)

(My thoughts are below the work below.)

Why I Am Agnostic, Part 5.- Robert Ingersoll, 1896

Having spent my youth in reading books about religion — about the “new birth” — the disobedience of our first parents, the atonement, salvation by faith, the wickedness of pleasure, the degrading consequences of love, and the impossibility of getting to heaven by being honest and generous, and having become somewhat weary of the frayed and raveled thoughts, you can imagine my surprise, my delight when I read the poems of Robert Burns.

I was familiar with the writings of the devout and insincere, the pious and petrified, the pure and heartless. Here was a natural honest man. I knew the works of those who regarded all nature as depraved, and looked upon love as the legacy and perpetual witness of original sin. Here was a man who plucked joy from the mire, made goddesses of peasant girls, and enthroned the honest man. One whose sympathy, with loving arms, embraced all forms of suffering life, who hated slavery of every kind, who was as natural as heaven’s blue, with humor kindly as an autumn day, with wit as sharp as Ithuriel’s spear, and scorn that blasted like the simoon’s breath. A man who loved this world, this life, the things of every day, and placed above all else the thrilling ecstasies of human love.

I read and read again with rapture, tears and smiles, feeling that a great heart was throbbing in the lines.

The religious, the lugubrious, the artificial, the spiritual poets were forgotten or remained only as the fragments, the half remembered horrors of monstrous and distorted dreams.

I had found at last a natural man, one who despised his country’s cruel creed, and was brave and sensible enough to say: “All religions are auld wives’ fables, but an honest man has nothing to fear, either in this world or the world to come.”

One who had the genius to write Holy Willie’s Prayer — a poem that crucified Calvinism and through its bloodless heart thrust the spear of common sense — a poem that made every orthodox creed the food of scorn — of inextinguishable laughter.

Burns had his faults, his frailties. He was intensely human. Still, I would rather appear at the “Judgment Seat” drunk, and be able to say that I was the author of “A man’s a man for ‘a that,” than to be perfectly sober and admit that I had lived and died a Scotch Presbyterian.

I read Byron — read his Cain, in which, as in Paradise Lost, the Devil seems to be the better god — read his beautiful, sublime and bitter lines — read his Prisoner of Chillon — his best — a poem that filled my heart with tenderness, with pity, and with an eternal hatred of tyranny.

I read Shelley’s Queen Mab — a poem filled with beauty, courage, thought, sympathy, tears and scorn, in which a brave soul tears down the prison walls and floods the cells with light. I read his Skylark — a winged flame — passionate as blood — tender as tears — pure as light.

I read Keats, “whose name was writ in water” — read St. Agnes Eve, a story told with such an artless art that this poor common world is changed to fairy land — the Grecian Urn, that fills the soul with ever eager love, with all the rapture of imagined song — the Nightingale — a melody in which there is the memory of morn — a melody that dies away in dusk and tears, paining the senses with its perfectness.

And then I read Shakespeare, the plays, the sonnets, the poems — read all. I beheld a new heaven and a new earth; Shakespeare, who knew the brain and heart of man — the hopes and fears, the loves and hatreds, the vices and the virtues of the human race; whose imagination read the tear-blurred records, the blood-stained pages of all the past, and saw falling athwart the outspread scroll the light of hope and love; Shakespeare, who sounded every depth — while on the loftiest peak there fell the shadow of his wings.

I compared the Plays with the “inspired” books — Romeo and Juliet with the Song of Solomon, Lear with Job, and the Sonnets with the Psalms, and I found that Jehovah did not understand the art of speech. I compared Shakespeare’s women — his perfect women — with the women of the Bible. I found that Jehovah was not a sculptor, not a painter — not an artist — that he lacked the power that changes clay to flesh — the art, the plastic touch, that molds the perfect form — the breath that gives it free and joyous life — the genius that creates the faultless.

The sacred books of all the world are worthless dross and common stones compared with Shakespeare’s glittering gold and gleaming gems

This portion of Robert Ingersoll’s work reminds me of all of the non-religious books I have read.  Most notably, in the past year, I have discovered Ayn Rand. Though she may be extreme and I may not fully understand her philosophy, I truly respect her free-thinking.

One of her novella’s titled “Anthem” from 1938 really spoke to me about what a carried away society (or religion) can do to people.  Control, fear, hate and ignorance, all spawn a sort of dark age of the mind.  The sense of self is sacrificed for the better good, which is the greatest sin if there were such a thing.

“Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.”

I am forever grateful for the people who left the entrappment of the mind and thought for themselves such as Galileo Galilei, Leonardo DaVinci, Ayn Rand, Albert Einstein, Clarence Darrow, Robert Ingersoll, Charles Darwin, Bertrand Russel, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony and Thomas Jefferson to name but a few.  These natural, free-thinking men and women deserve all of our gratitude!

(My thoughts are below the work below.)

Why I Am Agnostic, Part 4.- Robert Ingersoll, 1896

Among such books my youth was passed. All the seeds of Christianity — of superstition, were sown in my mind and cultivated with great diligence and care.

All that time I knew nothing of any science — nothing about the other side — nothing of the objections that had been urged against the blessed Scriptures, or against the perfect Congregational creed. Of course I had heard the ministers speak of blasphemers, of infidel wretches, of scoffers who laughed at holy things. They did not answer their arguments, but they tore their characters into shreds and demonstrated by the fury of assertion that they had done the Devil’s work. And yet in spite of all I heard — of all I read, I could not quite believe. My brain and heart said No.

For a time I left the dreams, the insanities, the illusions and delusions, the nightmares of theology. I studied astronomy, just a little — I examined maps of the heavens — learned the names of some of the constellations — of some of the stars — found something of their size and the velocity with which they wheeled in their orbits — obtained a faint conception of astronomical spaces — found that some of the known stars were so far away in the depths of space that their light, traveling at the rate of nearly two hundred thousand miles a second, required many years to reach this little world — found that, compared with the great stars, our earth was but a grain of sand — an atom — found that the old belief that all the hosts of heaven had been created for the benefit of man, was infinitely absurd.

I compared what was really known about the stars with the account of creation as told in Genesis. I found that the writer of the inspired book had no knowledge of astronomy — that he was as ignorant as a Choctaw chief — as an Eskimo driver of dogs. Does any one imagine that the author of Genesis knew anything about the sun — its size? that he was acquainted with Sirius, the North Star, with Capella, or that he knew anything of the clusters of stars so far away that their light, now visiting our eyes, has been traveling for two million years?

If he had known these facts would he have said that Jehovah worked nearly six days to make this world, and only a part of the afternoon of the fourth day to make the sun and moon and all the stars?

Yet millions of people insist that the writer of Genesis was inspired by the Creator of all worlds.

Now, intelligent men, who are not frightened, whose brains have not been paralyzed by fear, know that the sacred story of creation was written by an ignorant savage. The story is inconsistent with all known facts, and every star shining in the heavens testifies that its author was an uninspired barbarian.

I admit that this unknown writer was sincere, that he wrote what he believed to be true — that he did the best he could. He did not claim to be inspired — did not pretend that the story had been told to him by Jehovah. He simply stated the “facts” as he understood them.

After I had learned a little about the stars I concluded that this writer, this “inspired” scribe, had been misled by myth and legend, and that he knew no more about creation than the average theologian of my day. In other words, that he knew absolutely nothing.

And here, allow me to say that the ministers who are answering me are turning their guns in the wrong direction. These reverend gentlemen should attack the astronomers. They should malign and vilify Kepler, Copernicus, Newton, Herschel and Laplace. These men were the real destroyers of the sacred story. Then, after having disposed of them, they can wage a war against the stars, and against Jehovah himself for having furnished evidence against the truthfulness of his book.

Then I studied geology — not much, just a little — Just enough to find in a general way the principal facts that had been discovered, and some of the conclusions that had been reached. I learned something of the action of fire — of water — of the formation of islands and continents — of the sedimentary and igneous rocks — of the coal measures — of the chalk cliffs, something about coral reefs — about the deposits made by rivers, the effect of volcanoes, of glaciers, and of the all surrounding sea — just enough to know that the Laurentian rocks were millions of years older than the grass beneath my feet — just enough to feel certain that this world had been pursuing its flight about the sun, wheeling in light and shade, for hundreds of millions of years — just enough to know that the “inspired” writer knew nothing of the history of the earth — nothing of the great forces of nature — of wind and wave and fire — forces that have destroyed and built, wrecked and wrought through all the countless years.

And let me tell the ministers again that they should not waste their time in answering me. They should attack the geologists. They should deny the facts that have been discovered. They should launch their curses at the blaspheming seas, and dash their heads against the infidel rocks.

Then I studied biology — not much — just enough to know something of animal forms, enough to know that life existed when the Laurentian rocks were made — just enough to know that implements of stone, implements that had been formed by human hands, had been found mingled with the bones of extinct animals, bones that had been split with these implements, and that these animals had ceased to exist hundreds of thousands of years before the manufacture of Adam and Eve.

Then I felt sure that the “inspired” record was false — that many millions of people had been deceived and that all I had been taught about the origin of worlds and men was utterly untrue. I felt that I knew that the Old Testament was the work of ignorant men — that it was a mingling of truth and mistake, of wisdom and foolishness, of cruelty and kindness, of philosophy and absurdity — that it contained some elevated thoughts, some poetry, — a good deal of the solemn and commonplace, — some hysterical, some tender, some wicked prayers, some insane predictions, some delusions, and some chaotic dreams.

Of course the theologians fought the facts found by the geologists, the scientists, and sought to sustain the sacred Scriptures. They mistook the bones of the mastodon for those of human beings, and by them proudly proved that “there were giants in those days.” They accounted for the fossils by saying that God had made them to try our faith, or that the Devil had imitated the works of the Creator.

They answered the geologists by saying that the “days” in Genesis were long periods of time, and that after all the flood might have been local. They told the astronomers that the sun and moon were not actually, but only apparently, stopped. And that the appearance was produced by the reflection and refraction of light.

They excused the slavery and polygamy, the robbery and murder upheld in the Old Testament by saying that the people were so degraded that Jehovah was compelled to pander to their ignorance and prejudice.

In every way the clergy sought to evade the facts, to dodge the truth, to preserve the creed.

At first they flatly denied the facts — then they belittled them — then they harmonized them — then they denied that they had denied them. Then they changed the meaning of the “inspired” book to fit the facts.

At first they said that if the facts, as claimed, were true, the Bible was false and Christianity itself a superstition. Afterward they said the facts, as claimed, were true and that they established beyond all doubt the inspiration of the Bible and the divine origin of orthodox religion.

Anything they could not dodge, they swallowed, and anything they could not swallow, they dodged.

I gave up the Old Testament on account of its mistakes, its absurdities, its ignorance and its cruelty. I gave up the New because it vouched for the truth of the Old. I gave it up on account of its miracles, its contradictions, because Christ and his disciples believe in the existence of devils — talked and made bargains with them, expelled them from people and animals.

This, of itself, is enough. We know, if we know anything, that devils do not exist — that Christ never cast them out, and that if he pretended to, he was either ignorant, dishonest or insane. These stories about devils demonstrate the human, the ignorant origin of the New Testament. I gave up the New Testament because it rewards credulity, and curses brave and honest men, and because it teaches the infinite horror of eternal pain.

I want to know if others are content with their ignorance.  I want to know if they are confused at all with the contradictions between science and religion.  I imagine they are content.  So is it better to be content in falsities or unsatisfied with truth?

When I was a Christian, I was content that God “works in mysterious ways”.  I would answer my doubt with “who am I, a human, to question god’s powerful ways.”  Deep down inside though, I felt like a fool against science.  I felt that my beliefs were as silly as believing in Santa Clause as an adult.  They were make-believe.

I could write a novel on the horrific history of the church regarding science and religious heretics.  I could stand on a soap box and scream at the religious bigots who set the flame to the fagots, burning those who refused to be told how to think and live.  However, I have been wrong enough in my life to not feel that I am done learning, that I could still be wrong.

Instead I only urge others to not feel the church’s pressure to give up their minds. Please allow yourselves to think and investigate.

Last night on the History Channel a story about an Asian, island tribe who witnessed WWII airplanes for the first time, reiterates my thinking.  The airplanes would drop off food and after the war, never returned.  The islanders in their ignorance believed these airplanes to be gods that if they prayed hard enough, they would return some day with more food and provisions.  Over the years the cargo cults have become as fantastical as our ancient religions.

My problem with religions is the dangerous mind control caused by ignorance and fear.  Too many historic events could have been prevented by education.  Once a group has established a culture, religions, livelihoods around a specific belief, even the most obvious facts can be ignored.  They just will not let themselves see the facts.  Robert Ingersoll’s words from above sum this up:

At first they flatly denied the facts — then they belittled them — then they harmonized them — then they denied that they had denied them. Then they changed the meaning of the “inspired” book to fit the facts.

My extreme disgust in religious actions past and present prevent me from ever trusting them when they base their actions on scriptures.  My continued investigation into science and history refuse to let me pander to their fantasies.  Their sincerity is not a license to harm others.

Burning of a Heritic: Illustration from the illuminated manuscript Grandes Chroniques de France. Artist : Jean Fouquet Date : 1455-1460 Source : Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

(My thoughts are below the work below.)

Why I Am Agnostic, Part 3.- Robert Ingersoll, 1896

In my youth I read religious books — books about God, about the atonement — about salvation by faith, and about the other worlds. I became familiar with the commentators — with Adam Clark, who thought that the serpent seduced our mother Eve, and was in fact the father of Cain. He also believed that the animals, while in the ark, had their natures’ changed to that degree that they devoured straw together and enjoyed each other’s society — thus prefiguring the blessed millennium. I read Scott, who was such a natural theologian that he really thought the story of Phaeton — of the wild steeds dashing across the sky — corroborated the story of Joshua having stopped the sun and moon. So, I read Henry and MacKnight and found that God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race. I read Cruden, who made the great Concordance, and made the miracles as small and probable as he could.

I remember that he explained the miracle of feeding the wandering Jews with quails, by saying that even at this day immense numbers of quails crossed the Red Sea, and that sometimes when tired, they settled on ships that sank beneath their weight. The fact that the explanation was as hard to believe as the miracle made no difference to the devout Cruden.

To while away the time I read Calvin’s Institutes, a book calculated to produce, in any natural mind, considerable respect for the Devil.

I read Paley’s Evidences and found that the evidence of ingenuity in producing the evil, in contriving the hurtful, was at least equal to the evidence tending to show the use of intelligence in the creation of what we call good.

You know the watch argument was Paley’s greatest effort. A man finds a watch and it is so wonderful that he concludes that it must have had a maker. He finds the maker and he is so much more wonderful than the watch that he says he must have had a maker. Then he finds God, the maker of the man, and he is so much more wonderful than the man that he could not have had a maker. This is what the lawyers call a departure in pleading.

According to Paley there can be no design without a designer — but there can be a designer without a design. The wonder of the watch suggested the watchmaker, and the wonder of the watchmaker, suggested the creator, and the wonder of the creator demonstrated that he was not created — but was uncaused and eternal.

We had Edwards on The Will, in which the reverend author shows that necessity has no effect on accountability — and that when God creates a human being, and at the same time determines and decrees exactly what that being shall do and be, the human being is responsible, and God in his justice and mercy has the right to torture the soul of that human being forever. Yet Edwards said that he loved God.

The fact is that if you believe in an infinite God, and also in eternal punishment, then you must admit that Edwards and Calvin were absolutely right. There is no escape from their conclusions if you admit their premises. They were infinitely cruel, their premises infinitely absurd, their God infinitely fiendish, and their logic perfect.

And yet I have kindness and candor enough to say that Calvin and Edwards were both insane.

We had plenty of theological literature. There was Jenkyn on the Atonement, who demonstrated the wisdom of God in devising a way in which the sufferings of innocence could justify the guilty. He tried to show that children could justly be punished for the sins of their ancestors, and that men could, if they had faith, be justly credited with the virtues of others. Nothing could be more devout, orthodox, and idiotic. But all of our theology was not in prose. We had Milton with his celestial militia — with his great and blundering God, his proud and cunning Devil — his wars between immortals, and all the sublime absurdities that religion wrought within the blind man’s brain.

The theology taught by Milton was dear to the Puritan heart. It was accepted by New England, and it poisoned the souls and ruined the lives of thousands. The genius of Shakespeare could not make the theology of Milton poetic. In the literature of the world there is nothing, outside of the “sacred books,” more perfectly absurd.

We had Young’s Night Thoughts, and I supposed that the author was an exceedingly devout and loving follower of the Lord. Yet Young had a great desire to be a bishop, and to accomplish that end he electioneered with the king’s mistress. In other words, he was a fine old hypocrite. In the “Night Thoughts” there is scarcely a genuinely honest, natural line. It is pretense from beginning to end. He did not write what he felt, but what he thought he ought to feel.

We had Pollok’s Course of Time, with its worm that never dies, its quenchless flames, its endless pangs, its leering devils, and its gloating God. This frightful poem should have been written in a madhouse. In it you find all the cries and groans and shrieks of maniacs, when they tear and rend each other’s flesh. It is as heartless, as hideous, as hellish as the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy.

We all know the beautiful hymn commencing with the cheerful line: “Hark from the tombs, a doleful sound.” Nothing could have been more appropriate for children. It is well to put a coffin where it can be seen from the cradle. When a mother nurses her child, an open grave should be at her feet. This would tend to make the babe serious, reflective, religious and miserable.

God hates laughter and despises mirth. To feel free, untrammeled, irresponsible, joyous, — to forget care and death — to be flooded with sunshine without a fear of night — to forget the past, to have no thought of the future, no dream of God, or heaven, or hell — to be intoxicated with the present — to be conscious only of the clasp and kiss of the one you love — this is the sin against the Holy Ghost.

But we had Cowper’s poems. Cowper was sincere. He was the opposite of Young. He had an observing eye, a gentle heart and a sense of the artistic. He sympathized with all who suffered — with the imprisoned, the enslaved, the outcasts. He loved the beautiful. No wonder that the belief in eternal punishment made this loving soul insane. No wonder that the “tidings of great joy” quenched Hope’s great star and left his broken heart in the darkness of despair.

We had many volumes of orthodox sermons, filled with wrath and the terrors of the judgment to come — sermons that had been delivered by savage saints.

We had the Book of Martyrs, showing that Christians had for many centuries imitated the God they worshiped.

We had the history of the Waldenses — of the reformation of the Church. We had Pilgrim’s Progress, Baxter’s Call and Butler’s Analogy.

To use a Western phrase or saying, I found that Bishop Butler dug up more snakes than he killed — suggested more difficulties than he explained — more doubts than he dispelled.

Medieval Writing Desk, scanned from the book Rodwell, G. F.: “South by East: Notes of Travel in Southern Europe” (1877)

Because of the difference in time periods, I am not familiar with the authors that Ingersoll mentions, however I have had my fill of Christian authors in my lifetime. From the Christian author of fantasy, Frank Peretti, to the light writings of Max Lucado.

To be honest, I never finished “This Present Darkness” by Frank Peretti because it was too real.  The situations were truth to me although the characters may have been fictional.

Max Lucado’s writings were fairly harmless with the exception of the fantastical subjects portrayed as truth.  Lucado’s writings were more symbolic though and were more of guidelines to good living than anything else.

In Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life” I became more and more upset with each chapter I read.  Not only was the Bible telling me what to do, which I took seriously since it was the word of god, but now others were telling me what god’s word meant and how to live.  I didn’t know what to do with the feelings I had.  I tried to apply his words to my Christian life but had trouble with my bad feelings and carrying out the “suggestions”.

During my early doubting years, I refused to read the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins because it confused readers beyond merely regurgitating scripture; it elaborated and interpreted it for them.  Having to do with the Biblical book of Revelations and the end times, they created a story of what would actually happen to Christians and non-Christians during Armageddon.

This was when I began to have serious concerns with other people, clergy or otherwise, tell me what to believe.  I am not sure if the authors believed what they wrote to be true at first, but it seems they began to believe their own lies.

I felt that it was hard enough for Christians (myself at the time) to interpret scripture as it was;  Adding extreme exaggerations and stories to the Bible made it even harder.  Some people I knew had visited New York and were upset that it would be where the Antichrist would be (a place in the novels where he had appeared).  This was too much for me.  I was done believing people’s predictions as fact.

People of all times show evidence of their ignorance by explaining the unknown with magical creatures, events and happenings, and our society is no different.

St. Catherine of Siena Besieged by Demons”, tempera on wood, about 1500, National Museum in Warsaw

(My thoughts are below the work below.)

Why I Am Agnostic, Part 2.- Robert Ingersoll, 1896

From my childhood I had heard read, and read the Bible myself. Morning and evening the sacred volume was opened and prayers were said. The Bible was my first history, the Jews were the first people, and the events narrated by Moses and the other inspired writers, and those predicted by prophets were the all important things. In other books were found the thoughts and dreams of men, but in the Bible were the sacred truths of God.

Yet in spite of my surroundings, of my education, I had no love for God. He was so saving of mercy, so extravagant in murder, so anxious to kill, so ready to assassinate, that I hated him with all my heart. At his command, babes were butchered, women violated, and the white hair of trembling age stained with blood. This God visited the people with pestilence — filled the houses and covered the streets with the dying and the dead — saw babes starving on the empty breasts of pallid mothers, heard the sobs, saw the tears, the sunken cheeks, the sightless eyes, the new made graves, and remained as pitiless as the pestilence.

This God withheld the rain — caused the famine — saw the fierce eyes of hunger — the wasted forms, the white lips, saw mothers eating babes, and remained ferocious as famine.

It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt.

But in the old days the good people justified Jehovah in his treatment of the heathen. The wretches who were murdered were idolaters and therefore unfit to live.

According to the Bible, God had never revealed himself to these people and he knew that without a revelation they could not know that he was the true God. Whose fault was it then that they were heathen?

The Christians said that God had the right to destroy them because he created them. What did he create them for? He knew when he made them that they would be food for the sword. He knew that he would have the pleasure of seeing them murdered.

As a last answer, as a final excuse, the worshipers of Jehovah said that all these horrible things happened under the “old dispensation” of unyielding law, and absolute justice, but that now under the “new dispensation,” all had been changed — the sword of justice had been sheathed and love enthroned. In the Old Testament, they said, God is the judge — but in the New, Christ is the merciful. As a matter of fact, the New Testament is infinitely worse than the Old. In the Old there is no threat of eternal pain. Jehovah had no eternal prison — no everlasting fire. His hatred ended at the grave. His revenge was satisfied when his enemy was dead.

In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the beginning of punishment that has no end. In the New Testament the malice of God is infinite and the hunger of his revenge eternal.

The orthodox God, when clothed in human flesh, told his disciples not to resist evil, to love their enemies, and when smitten on one cheek to turn the other, and yet we are told that this same God, with the same loving lips, uttered these heartless, these fiendish words: “Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”

These are the words of “eternal love.”

No human being has imagination enough to conceive of this infinite horror.

All that the human race has suffered in war and want, in pestilence and famine, in fire and flood, — all the pangs and pains of every disease and every death — all this is as nothing compared with the agonies to be endured by one lost soul.

This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This is the justice of God — the mercy of Christ.

This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor. It founded the Inquisition, forged the chains, and furnished the fagots. It has darkened the lives of many millions. It made the cradle as terrible as the coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. It subverted the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed men to fiends and banished reason from the brain.

Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every orthodox creed.

It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge.

Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.

While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie.

Nothing gives me greater joy than to know that this belief in eternal pain is growing weaker every day — that thousands of ministers are ashamed of it. It gives me joy to know that Christians are becoming merciful, so merciful that the fires of hell are burning low — flickering, choked with ashes, destined in a few years to die out forever.

For centuries Christendom was a madhouse. Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, monks and heretics were all insane.

Only a few — four or five in a century were sound in heart and brain. Only a few, in spite of the roar and din, in spite of the savage cries, heard reason’s voice. Only a few in the wild rage of ignorance, fear and zeal preserved the perfect calm that wisdom gives.

We have advanced. In a few years the Christians will become — let us hope — humane and sensible enough to deny the dogma that fills the endless years with pain. They ought to know now that this dogma is utterly inconsistent with the wisdom, the justice, the goodness of their God. They ought to know that their belief in hell, gives to the Holy Ghost — the Dove — the beak of a vulture, and fills the mouth of the Lamb of God with the fangs of a viper.

Statue Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna in Florence, Loggia dei Lanzi, seen from the Piazza della Signoria

I, unlike Robert Ingersoll, dearly loved and worshiped god and Jesus with all of my heart.  Some may think about me now that I could not have truly believed what I did because of how I feel now. I know my heart and what I felt.  The doubt didn’t start for a long time and even when it crept in, I blocked it out.  I was taught it was wrong to doubt.  I was to not be a “doubting Thomas”.

I remember in seventh grade having a writing assignment on my hero.  After no time thinking about it at all, my hero was Jesus.  I wrote on his life and he was so real to me.  Below is a caption of the paper I wrote about when Jesus came to visit me:

..we stood up, hugged, and were ready to say goodbye, Jesus simply said, “I’ll soon see you again and our fun will last forever.”  Running outside, I smiled and waved while He rose up into His kingdom in a cloud.

I would draw all kinds of images at all ages of my Jesus.

Defending my youth’s heart is futile.  Some may even say that I may have fully believed and may still deep down inside.  Time will only tell what I will believe in the future. Perhaps I believed in an imaginary friend who happened to share the name of god or Jesus.  Perhaps the church poisoned my friend with their interpretation of god. As of now, I cannot deny my doubts of the god of Christianity.

In elementary school I remember participating in what was called “Bible Bowl”, where a group of children would memorize given books of the Bible and then compete against other church’s in what we had learned.

The year I had belonged to the group, we studied Exodus.  This was some of the first real studying I did of the Bible.  I did more than the required memorization, I actually thought about what I was reading.  Many passages linked to other books in the Bible and I was led to the Book of Judges.

The passage in Judges 19 which tells the story of a man who traveled to a new land only to find that the men of the city wanted to have sex with him.

²³ The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this disgraceful thing. ²⁴ Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don’t do such a disgraceful thing.”

²⁵ But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. ²⁶ At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.

²⁷ When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. ²⁸ He said to her, “Get up; let’s go.” But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.

²⁹ When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel. ³⁰ Everyone who saw it said, “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!”

The god that I was introduced to here who would allow this kind of action, was not worthy of worship.  Because I was a girl and the victim was a woman got to me more than other Biblical war stories.  I was upset.

I was told that this was the god of the Old Testament and that this was his plan then. I was also told at other times the god did not change, so this answer was not acceptable.  From then on, I began to fear god more than I had before.  More than fear, was mistrust.  If he could change and allow these things to happen to his children in the past, what was stopping him from forsaking me now.

Hell was another, and possibly the main cause of my de-conversion.  I have written already of my thoughts of that topic and you can read them here.

If god is real, he is not this man-made god of the bible who I knew; my god would not be so barbaric.  My god would actually be perfect and more advanced than the god of the Bible. My god would not have limitations and be pacified by blood sacrifices for humanity’s sins.