Letter to a Christian

Dear _______,

I was deeply touched by your very honest and personal letter, partly because I never would have guessed how similar our stories are. My first sexual experience was also a date rape (at age 15) which left me feeling absolutely ruined and which led to many destructive choices down the road, including promiscuity, alcohol abuse, and isolation far from my home. Even now, my husband and I are treading the painful path of dealing with how he feels about the many men I slept with and how badly some of them treated me. It is hard for him to square his adoring view of me with the slutty behavior of my past, and it makes him violently angry to think about the things some of those men did and said to me and how worthless they made me feel. He obsesses over it. I also had deep depression and suicidal feelings because of the resulting sense of worthlessness and hopelessness. It was part of what led me to accept Christ at the age of 19. I did feel like I needed forgiveness and a new start then. After more years of healing, though, I saw that I was more of a victim than a perpetrator. I needed to forgive more than I needed to be forgiven. I needed to understand why I made the choices I made and who was harmed by them. I was not ruined by sex. I was ruined by my own beliefs about what happened. I was hurt by sex, but it was my own belief that I should be a virgin until I married that really messed me up. I intend to teach my children that sex is a natural and enjoyable act between two adults in love. I will urge them to wait until they are sure they are ready and are in a committed relationship with someone they love and believe they can trust. I will also try to help them decide that nothing anyone does to them can “ruin” them. As they get older, I will try to explain some of the complicated dynamics that make sex into a powerful weapon and what they can do if they are pressured to do something they don’t want to. I know in the end that they must decide for themselves what their values are. My mom was a feminist, and she tried to teach me something very similar to what I hope to teach my kids, but I decided for myself to be a virgin bride because I always valued honesty. I didn’t think I should wear white if I wasn’t a virgin. Isn’t that silly? But it broke my heart when my virginity was taken, and I never will get the big white wedding I dreamed of as a child.

I’m not sure where to start to explain how being an atheist works for me. I suppose I should explain that I am not as hardcore as I sound. I cannot honestly say that I know for sure that there is no God. I have had my own share of miraculous events, and I still cling to the hope that I will be reunited with my beloved dead some day. But I cannot believe in the Abrahamic God...Yahweh, Jehovah, or Allah. To me, he seems so barbaric that even if he is real, I cannot worship him. I’d rather burn for eternity. The core of my problem with Him is the blood sacrifice. What kind of decent God requires or even allows the crucifixion of an innocent man to atone for the sins of all mankind? I have never done anything to merit eternal damnation or blood sacrifice. Can you imagine damning your kids to eternal hell for stealing a candy? for doubting something that makes no sense? for failing to love a barbarian god whom they have never seen a speck of proof of? For being of the same nature as Adam and Eve? Where is the righteousness in that? Can you imagine thinking crucifixion is a suitable solution to the problem? Would you reward them for murdering the best human ever? Would you reward them for accepting that bargain 2,000 years after the fact so they can go to heaven and avoid the unfortunate pain of hell? I cannot worship a God that values an impossibly difficult leap of faith over honesty and thoughtfulness and open mindedness. I cannot worship a God who offers exclusion and punishment to those who cannot help but doubt. I cannot worship a God that no two humans can fully agree on, and on whom most war is founded. It seems so fundamentally wrong to me that I reject that God absolutely.

I don’t mean to rant. I value open mindedness, and I don’t know everything, but I have made my choice for strong reasons, and I am angry about the violence being done every day in God’s name. I hate it that a woman dies in childbirth every single minute of every day on this planet because she cannot get medical care and yet Christians deny her access to birth control. I hate it that Muslims think it is okay to stone a woman to death for the sin of being a rape victim. I hate it that my Jewish neighbors won’t eat at our house because my kitchen isn’t kosher. I hate it that gay kids have to cope with the self loathing that comes from growing up gay in this largely Christian nation. The thing that makes me angriest, though, is when Christians try to force the rest of us to follow their beliefs by legislating morality. If I don’t believe it is a sin to have gay sex, then why should gay marriage be illegal? To me it is just a different lifestyle, one I do not understand and will not pass judgment on. I really do believe that religion does more harm than good.

It is hard to give up on God, though. It hurts beyond belief to think that this brief life is all there is, and to believe that every loving relationship in my life will be severed by death. It is almost unbearable, but it forces me to cherish my loved ones and each glorious day more than I might otherwise. It makes me want to fight for what I believe is right because if this life is all we get, how can we justify building our happiness on someone else’s misery. It’s their only life, too! It makes it even more important to be just and honorable and loving because there is no second chance or divine forgiveness. I am exactly who I am. If I murder, I am a murderer. If I steal, I am a thief. Any forgiveness I receive can come only from my victims. I will not be redeemed by blood.

I believe in my own goodness. I believe my children are inherently good. Every day they demonstrate to me that I am right about them by being loving and thoughtful and honest. I have always thought it sort of funny that believers think atheists have no reason to do good. Does that mean that Christians are only good because God says they should be? Is it because they want to go to heaven, or because they fear hell? I believe in doing good because it is the right thing, because I have to live with myself if I don’t, and because we cannot have a civil society without civil behavior. Besides, it feels good to do good. Goodness is its own reward. I know that is not true for everyone, but in my experience, being religious does nothing to redeem a bad apple.

You put in quotes from Matthew Henry and Rick Warren about how one must have faith despite lack of evidence, how one is judged by how one acts when God’s presence is undetectable. I can’t. I chose to believe in 1985, but I could not turn off my rational mind. Plus, the further I move from faith, the more honest and whole I feel. I don’t have to pretend. I don’t have to shut down lines of reasoning because they plant doubt. I don’t fear debate and discussion with others about what they believe because I am absolutely certain that I have followed the best path for me. I do feel awe and reverence in nature but, like Carl Sagan and John Muir, I believe that the miracle of my existence and that of our living world is every bit as wonderful without an author. My life has meaning because I live each day as the rare and precious improbability it is. I have the energy to volunteer and to pursue my core values because there will be no second chance. I don’t know everything. I know I might be wrong, but odds are most humans are wrong. There are so many religions and philosophies, most of them must be wrong. What reason do you have to choose the path you are on among the thousands of choices? If you had been brought up in the insular animist culture of Myanmar, you’d almost certainly be an animist, wouldn’t you?

You asked if I pray and where I find comfort and guidance. I never could pray, even when I was trying to believe. I guess I don’t have enough imagination. I seek comfort in nature. I am always uplifted by the beauty and wildness of the natural world. I seek guidance from within myself by walking, journaling, and meditating in nature. You asked if I think I’ll see my Mom again. I honestly don’t know. Just because I don’t believe in organized religion doesn’t mean that I am closed to the possibility that there is more to consciousness and personality and the universe itself than I know, or that somehow we do carry on after death. I think it is unlikely that I will see her as she was in my life. I take comfort in the knowledge that the water in her body was released into the clouds and into the web of life when she was cremated. I touch the salt water when I go to the shore and take comfort that her elements are there where her ashes were scattered. I feel like her spirit carries on in my heart and in my children. I hope that when I die I find that we are all reunited somehow. After she died, I read books about near death experiences, seeking some sort of evidence that I would see her again. This is the most painful part of atheism, as I have said before, but it does make me really appreciate the people in my life every day.

You asked what I hope for and in whom I place my trust. It sounds arrogant to say that I trust my own heart and I trust the people I love. It isn’t arrogance, though. I can’t help being who I am and following my own internal compass. I do not trust people who claim to know who God is and what God wants. To me, that is the ultimate arrogance and dishonesty. I don’t mean you here. You are not telling me what I should believe. It is religious leaders I refer to. The only one I know really well is the pastor of a Bible church, and he is one of the most seriously messed up individuals I know. He means well, and seeks healing for himself and his flock, but I really think that his beliefs keep him from seeing the truth and healing, and I believe his search for answers in the Bible leads him to interpret scripture as creatively as any other religious leader, including jihadist ayatollahs in Iran. His family is as wounded and unable to heal as he is. He has been crying every day for the past four years over the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. His wife hates herself because she cannot write the novel she has been trying to write for the past 20 years. I really believe it is because she realizes that she needs to be honest in order to write, but if she is honest about her own lack of faith, her entire world will fall apart. Their children are as messed up as they are. On top of it all, he recently decided to get out of the ministry and take a sales job. He sought a “Christian” company with “Christian ethics.” He is now selling air purifiers for a pyramid scheme company called _________. He had to pay $10,000 to become a salesman for them, despite the fact that this was the last of their savings and they are in imminent danger of losing their home. Now he is selling a product that puts harmful ozone into room air. The company intentionally uses verbal sales tactics and not documentation so they can make claims that they are supported by the American Lung Association and NASA. When I did a bit of research to see if I could support his efforts by recommending his product to people I reach as an American Lung Association volunteer, I learned that the company is specifically cited by ALAW, Consumer Reports, and NASA as a company which is making false claims and whose product is harmful to those with lung conditions. How’s that for Christian ethics?! Add in the Catholic priests who diddled little boys and girls under their care, protestant televangelists who fleece their flocks and screw whomever they like, and the thousands of other examples of abuse of religious authority, and you’ll begin to see why I despise people who dare to preach.

You also asked why I continue to celebrate Christmas and Easter. It is just because we started the traditions when my oldest was small, and I cannot take that away from my kids. They enjoy the traditions even without the beliefs underlying them. I fumble my way forward same as all humans do.

My greatest role model, ________ told me, years before I called myself an atheist, that she did not believe she had ever done anything to merit Hell, and she believed that the dead live on only in the memories of those who loved them. She never went to church, prayed, or spoke of faith or God. Yet there is no denying that she lived a wonderful, full life and reflected the values of love and family and generosity. When I compare her to the Christians I know well (and I don’t mean you here), the Christians don’t look so good. They mistrust science and reason because they fear being led astray. What kind of real God would be threatened by scientific scrutiny? They don’t take responsibility for their own emotional growth and their impact on the world around them because at heart they don’t believe this life matters as much as the next. From my perspective, they are throwing away all that is real and important for something imaginary. It is insane! Just as Christians think science is dangerous, I think faith is. Once you believe something because you choose to, or because someone says you should, and you discount evidence to the contrary, you are set up to be a lifelong sucker. It’s just like George Orwell’s “doublethink.” Once you can accept that God created the world in a week less than 5,000 years ago and that the planet is billions of years old and all life evolved from single celled organisms in primordial goo, your ability to reason is done for. They can’t both be true, and only one theory holds up to scientific scrutiny.

I feel unkind, bashing Christianity this way. I don’t want to insult you or _____. He is doing such good work as ___________. Fighting the abuse of children has to be one of the most important missions possible. And I know you are a beautifully loving and giving and brilliant woman. I don’t for a minute believe I am smarter than you. I just don’t believe you two are good because you are Christians. I believe you are good despite being Christians. I know you will disagree. I am content to leave it at that.

Lovingly,
Rachel

Chloe's Boots

I'm trying something new, as of two days ago. I'm going to make some sort of "art" every day, if I feel like it, and post the results of my effort. I'm intentionally keeping the pressure on myself to produce as low as possible, but I do have a goal. The urge to make art again has been growing for weeks, and is accompanied by a sense of restlessness I haven't been able to shake. I need something I'm not getting from books, movies, music, or other people's art. I have been looking for my own art, and not finding it, I guess. The only chance I have of satisfying this craving is to give art a try again. As I have examined the specificity of this craving, I find that I know what I need to do, for a change. I am usually clueless about where I'm trying to go with my art. I hesitate to say too much about what I'm looking for at this early point, but I want my images to evoke a sense of vertigo and flight. I want a fully saturated range of shades from dark to light. I want mystery, rough texture and earthiness. I want enough realism to allow the viewer to believe in the space to some extent, and to be comfortable with any figures I may represent, but it needs to be loose enough to evoke a sense of things being slightly out of control, wild, and unreal. I don't want to get bogged down with my choice of subject matter or emotional tone. I'll leave that wide open for play. My mentors for the moment will be Francesco Goya, Guy Anderson, George Tooker, Edwin Ushiro, and Hayao Miyazaki. Let's see where that takes me. I'll keep posting my efforts.

The work I did yesterday was practice. I was practicing my observation skills and getting my hands dirty again for the first time in ages. Don't take it too seriously.

Racism, alive and well in the USA

I’ve never seen such a climate of mistrust and antipathy toward the president of the United States of America. Granted, I’m only 43, and I’m sure things were worse during the civil war, the Vietnam war, and probably a few other choice points in history. Granted, some level of antipathy has been there all my life. Even in my twenties, I understood that Clinton’s impeachment had nothing to do with his ability to serve well as president, and everything to do with politics. His enemies found his Achilles’ heel and tried to bring him down with it. Liberals like me mistakenly thought Bush’s Achille’s heel was his lack of foreign relations skills. We did our level best to bring him down for getting us into the wrong war at the wrong time. President Obama’s Achilles’ heel is that many white Americans are not comfortable with a black president. His enemies are using the weapon of mistrust to try to bring him down. They are using your unexamined, unspoken, guilty little secret, racism. Never mind that he is the most qualified president we have had since the founding fathers, in terms of education, intellect, temperament, and natural leadership skills. Never mind that he more truly represents our nation today than any white man could. His personal history is black and white, Christian and Muslim, welfare and Ivy League. His story is quintessentially American.
I should be philosophical about it, I suppose. All is fair in politics, after all. But I can’t because Clinton and Bush made really big, stupid mistakes. To some extent, they brought it on themselves. As far as I can tell, Obama has not. Instead, his enemies are spreading lies and rumors about him, playing up our most disturbing, nameless fears. The stories are designed to keep you profoundly uncomfortable, even afraid of the untrustworthy black man. “Obama wants to socialize health care.” “Obama is like Hitler, fooling Americans into creating death camps for ‘undesirables’.” “Obama wants to euthanize the elderly.” ‘Don’t let your kids see his stay in school speech and be indoctrinated by our most liberal president ever.” “Obama’s birth certificate has never been produced.” “ Obama is responsible for the biggest budget deficit in history.” Really? Do you believe the shit being spouted by the likes of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and their like? Why? Why believe that instead of doing a little bit of research, not on conservative blogs and talk shows, but on factcheck.org. You can even read the health care bill (as it stands now) on congress.com. The stories are racist. Believing them is racist. Holding this president to a different standard than any other is racist. I cannot let it go unsaid any longer. I’m fighting the racism right now.

Death Panels

Sarah Palin claims that “Obama’s” health care plan includes a provision that will result in the creation of death panels of doctors who will decide when your life is too costly to maintain. Off you’ll go to be euthanized, thus saving the insurance company lots of end-of-life expenses. Typically, the overdressed Alaskan sociopath has grossly misunderstood the facts. We do need the “death panel” provision, which has unfortunately been cut thanks to the furor the megalomaniac bimbo from the 49th state raised.
When my mother was hospitalized for her final illness, we had to choose day by day to what extent we would honor her wish not to be on life support. Each decision was excruciating to make. If we said no to the ventilator, she would die. If we said yes, we were going against her wishes. Did her odds of survival justify saying yes? We were not ready to let her go. One doctor gave her 50-50 odds of survival. Even I thought that was overly optimistic, but his input was important in making decisions. We badly needed a conference with her pulmonologist, her nephrologist, and her hospitalist to discuss the choices. Fortunately these doctors saw this as part of the job and did not charge for their time. But what if she had had a slower course of disease...say, cancer? What if we needed an appointment to discuss when to withdraw treatment because it would only prolong her suffering? Would insurance cover that? What if we needed to discuss palliative care? Is that permitted in conservative ideology? Or is it too similar to assisted suicide? Do they have the right to force her to keep fighting even when it’s obvious she hasn’t a chance and the fight is simple cruelty? The right to die takes on a whole new meaning.
I tend to watch the antics of the conservatives with a shake of my head and a look of disgust. My first reaction to Obama’s statement that they were dropping the end of life counseling provision was, “Oh well, that’s a reasonable concession.” But it isn’t. We’ve let a flat out fabrication undermine good medicine. I was a hospice volunteer years before I had to handle my mother’s end of life care. I have seen how much end of life care matters. Most of us will need it eventually. I know that hospice will continue to fill in the gap for many, but we should be making insurance pay their share. It matters. Please write to your representatives and ask that this provision not be cut. We need clarity, not concession. Define end of life care so Americans can understand it.

Conversion: Chapter 1

I was raised in a casually Presbyterian family. We went to First Presbyterian Church in downtown Dallas for weddings, funerals, Sunday school, choir, youth group, and the occasional Sunday morning service. It seemed more social than religious to me. Even in my preadolescent years, I recognized the template each sermon followed: amusing anecdotal tale, a smattering of toothless jokes, a gentle moral lesson, and an assurance that we, the congregation, were right with God. A couple of times I was exposed to a more passionate version of faith, in the form of a new youth pastor with a guitar and a burning desire to ignite our hearts with love for Jesus, or a weekend at my friend’s Baptist bible camp at which everyone was encouraged to witness for or accept Christ right then and there. I responded, but didn’t maintain interest for long. My default personal belief was pretty liberal. I believed all religious faiths had a road to God, not just Christians. In my naive and idealistic youth, I named my highest values as Truth, Beauty, and Love. I believed that God was basically a loving presence, and that He was most present when we humans loved one another. I think I formed this belief because I wanted a good God, and so I ascribed my own highest values to my personal deity. I had a powerful need to know the meaning of my life, and to be a force for good in the world. I’m sure it was rooted in some childish need for love and approval. It drove me to seek a God that was never there.

In college I started to seek some verifiable truth about God. I attended Intervarsity Christian Fellowship meetings and took a class called “Judaism and New Testament Christianity.” I formed a close friendship with the wife of the IVCF leader and, after answering my many questions and assuaging my doubts temporarily, she “led me to accept Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.” Jesus seemed like a really powerful man-god, displaying the best values of love, charity, courage, and peacefulness. I wanted to internalize his guidance, and as far as I could tell, accepting Christ would cost me nothing. I was “born again.” I pursued that course of faith with the best intentions. I prayed, I read the Bible, I went to IVCF meetings. But even then I didn’t believe that I needed forgiveness, nor did I fear eternal damnation. I could not imagine a God who would consign people to hell for failure to follow the narrow path of fundamental Christianity. Immediately upon my conversion to fundamentalism I became aware of an overwhelming sense of emptiness. I was utterly unable to convince my heart that anyone was listening to my prayers. It began to feel like I was playing some giant make-believe game which I really needed to end because it felt unnatural and wrong. I became depressed as I realized that I could not make the leap of faith required. It went way beyond doubt. I could plainly see that I was trying to believe something which was unsupportable in the face of reality. Jesus was great, but he was dead. I could not believe in, much less worship a God who was so fundamentally brutal and unfair as to demand blood sacrifice to atone for the simple “flaw” of curiosity and willfulness. I kept trying though, to varying degrees for another twenty years.

Two years after I was “born again,” I took an outdoors course, consisting of 22 days of backpacking in the North Cascades mountain range in Washington State. Ten students and two instructors carried food, camping and cooking equipment, climbing gear, clothes, and barest of necessities, meeting at designated re-supply points once a week. Our packs weighed an average of forty pounds, and we covered about 150 miles on foot over rugged mountain terrain. We had tarps instead of tents, and went without such luxuries as soap, shampoo, and toilet paper. We were taught to take only photographs and leave only footprints. We learned to use compasses and geological contour maps to navigate. We got up before dawn to ascend steep inclines and watch the sun rise over high cirques and meadows. We climbed peaks that had never been climbed before. We meandered up and down through soul searingly beautiful mountains and forests in every kind of weather. I remember trudging in heavy rain through forest which had been decimated by fire, awed by the stark beauty of the blackened trees and blazing purple fireweed under the heavy gray sky. I remember sitting on a boulder above a high, curving valley blanketed in wildflowers, watching a train of fluffy white clouds skirt by with surprising speed, following the curve of the near valley wall, filling my nose with the smell of ozone as it briefly engulfed me in white fog.

I was pushed beyond my physical limits many times on that adventure, and I felt mortal fear as I never had before. I was the pale, slim, bookworm daughter of a Dallas librarian. I had never climbed anything higher than the stairs up the bleachers at my college before that trip. On the second day in the wilderness, we crossed a talus field, a tumble of boulders ranging in size from football to panel van. I was already exhausted when we approached it, from hiking several miles and gaining a couple of thousand feet in altitude as we ascended from our starting point. I was off balance and feeling fairly crushed by the extra 40 pounds on my back. I was still breaking in my new leather hiking boots, and had the mole-skinned blisters to prove it. As I committed myself to the traverse, I became aware of how easy it would be to break a leg. It began to seem very unlikely that I could cross those giant boulders without falling, as they tipped under my boots and my backpack pushed and pulled me off balance. I fell behind as I became more and more cautious, crouching down so I could use my hands and half crawl across the talus. I was getting panicky about falling behind and not being able to make it across. I began to hyperventilate. One of the instructors had to climb back down to me and put my arms over my head until my breathing slowed, then coach me across the talus. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. I learned what it means to feel your bowels loosen with fear as I approached my first technical rock climb. I didn’t believe the ropes would protect me from head trauma and broken bones because I could see that I didn’t have to fall far to mangle myself on jagged rock, and we were days from any sort of help. A terrifying high point of the trip was a traverse across a ridge of sharp shale with extraordinarily steep drops off either side. All ten students were roped together as we crossed. If one fell, we all would. I crossed it, walking upright and tall, though I was sure we would fall and be shredded to ribbons on the blades of shale. My reward was to lie on my back on a high mountain peak, feeling like the mountain was breathing under me, lifting my closer to the black of space, just visible behind the blue of the sky. The price of my courage on that and other occasions was paid each night. I had the most terrifying nightmares of my life. Each night, I dreamed of falling over sharp stone into a malevolent void, an empty and voracious black hole which would inevitably devour me. It was simple mortality made real to me.

Living in nature, completely removed from the many numbing distractions of society such as books, music, television, and food, forced me to see the simple structure of life itself. I began to see how hostile nature is to human life. We are so fragile and defenseless against cold and hunger, sharp edges and hard objects. We are slow, clumsy, loud, smelly, weak, and defenseless. I felt humble and small as I walked through those immense and ancient mountains. I came to love and admire the trees, so old and well rooted, beautifully adapted and in harmony with their ecosystem. I found myself gazing into the eyes of birds, deer, marmots, and pika. I felt like the wilderness had a soul, ageless and silent, looking knowingly out from the eyes of the animals. I was pleased, rather than scared to wake one night and find a small animal trying to nest in my hair. I came to appreciate my own ability to adapt as my body became leaner and stronger. I was not a part of this wild place, but I was in it long enough to begin to see it for what it was.

Then came my solo. Our instructors took us to a warm, lushly forested valley where we each set up a small campsite along a river. I was isolated in my own patch of forest with an 8’x10’ tarp, a sleeping bag and mat, warm clothes, and a water bottle I could refill in the river. I fasted for three days, alone in that place, with nothing to do but listen to the river and the wind in the trees. I soothed my empty stomach with cold river water and waited for something to happen. I built the best shelter I could craft with my tarp. It was as symmetrical and secure against the weather as it could be. I was uncomfortable for the first two days, bored, hungry, hot, and plagued with mosquitoes, which gathered in black clouds on the inside of my tarp. By the third day, though, I began to feel strangely calm and no longer hungry. I felt as if my mind and body had slowed and become attuned with the trees and the river and the breeze and even the stones. The trees were threaded with spider silk and dew, lit up with golden sunlight. It seemed like the very fabric of existence was visible as light. I felt more at peace than I ever had before, and I remember thinking, “There is no need for God. Life itself is enough.” It was so simple and so profound to me, and the truth of it was inescapable. God died right then and there for me, though I didn’t quite let go of Him just yet. I wasn’t ready to face the ramifications of atheism then. I needed to work through them slowly and find my own path to the truth.

Why believe?

This is a work in progress. As I come to accept that there is no God, and bone up on all the rational arguments against His existence, I find myself wondering why people choose to believe. The following list represents my thoughts thus far on the subject. I'm pursuing this because I do think that belief in any god does more harm than good for most people, and especially for society as a whole.

People don’t choose to believe in God because evidence supports the theory that He exists. People choose to believe because in our society, it is their best option. It is a fully rational choice to make. Here’s why:

1. Social Convention. To disbelieve is to go against the powerful forces of conformity and tradition. Those who do not believe are portrayed as a threat to the American way of life and all that we as a nation hold dear.
2. Family and peer pressure is similar to convention, but more personal. Being an atheist challenges the dearly held beliefs of those close to us, and there is no denying that this causes friction and misery. The fundamental rift between believers and nonbelievers is irreconcilable, so most of us keep our atheism to ourselves.
3. Self image. Atheists are seen as cold rationalists, lacking all normal feelings of sentimentality and romance. They are thought to be arrogant, unable to feel humility before the magnificence of “the created order.” They are less sympathetic characters than suicide bombers to most Americans. They are considered unelectable to any public office. Coming out as an atheist is harder than coming out gay.
4. Social networking. Churches, mosques, and synagogues are vital centers for social and business networking. Furthermore, sharing a faith confers some degree of trust automatically, because it is assumed that the same moral structure is in the heart of each member of your religious community, plus there tends to be a narrow socioeconomic spectrum within most church/mosque/synagogue communities.
5. Perception of ethics/morals. Atheists are thought by many of the faithful to have no moral center and no reason to behave ethically. Although this represents a grievous misunderstanding of most atheists, who often come to atheism because they feel a deep need to know the truth and be part of a rational society (in which ethical behavior is the result of fully internalized reason rather than some threat of punishment by an all too forgiving deity), this belief prevails. I wonder why believers think we’d all revert to monsters if God weren’t watching.
6. Odds/benefit ratio. To believe is thought to cost you nothing, and even if the likelihood that there is a god is immeasurably low, the benefit (eternity in paradise) is infinitely high. It is the ultimate lottery. Statistically, it makes good sense to believe. The same is true of the inverse, the threat of eternal hell. The risk that hell exists is immeasurably low, but the price is immeasurably high if it does exist, and it costs nothing to believe. Of course you buy in. The truth is irrelevant.
7. Avoidance of pain. Losing faith is like losing a loved one. At least it was for me. There is no fatherly figure listening to my pain, loving me despite my imperfection, carrying me through the rough patches. My ultimate imaginary friend is dead. I still grieve, especially at Christmas and Easter. Both occasions are absolutely hollow and banal for me now. I resent having to participate, though I try to rationalize that generosity and festivity with the people I love is worthwhile in any guise. The most painful part, though, is when I have lost a loved one. The thought that I will never see them again is unbearable, and the thought that every relationship will eventually be severed by death terrifies me.
8. Preservation of mystery. Who wants to live in a world without magic, mystery, and miracles? What do we do with our overdeveloped temporal lobes if we cannot participate in worship and prayer and divine ecstasy? We seem to have been designed for faith. I don’t believe we were.
9. Vestigial survival trait. We evolved to seek pattern and meaning because that is how we learn. Historically, the gaps in our understanding of life, the universe, and everything were huge, and we needed something huge and godlike to fill them. As these gaps, though still immense, begin to shrink, and the fabric of existence takes on a more distinct and comprehensible shape, God ceases to fit. The urge to believe in God is vestigial.
We also evolved to be social creatures. Faith has provided a shared sense of identity to hold societies together, and also the strength to believe we can prevail even when prospects seem bleak. Belief is a survival trait.

Fabric

Glimmer-threaded,
green-feathered
grandfather hemlock,
dewfingers drip
a thousand trembling orbs,
each a gold-green crystal inverse,
an inverted snow-globe shrine,
star-hearted foci of silence.

Summer Day Ditty

Slimshanks leaped,
fastfolded knee-to-chin,
elbows locked in and
crater-crack splash,
saltsilver shards of green glass bay
cold speckle my legs,
slow-surfing the bobbing dock
and laughing.
Seal-pup sleek, up pops
my love.

moment

rose in cut glass craves earth,
but stiffened with her moment,
she iridesces, velvet and moist,
welcoming the penetrating gaze
until she is permitted to drop
petals by threes and fours,
weep sap, and melt clumsily
into the warm, loving ground.

limerick

Chloe, Chlo-A, Chloetta
likes her mother bettah;
her father's no grinch,
but in a pinch,
her mother can knit her a sweatah.

Riddled

It's the earth's back yard.
It's a bug light for meteors.
It's the blushing cheek of God against the breast of Mother Earth.
It's a soul vault.
It's the mind that conceives sunrise and sunset as a full circle.
It's the air mountains breathe.
It's the abyss over which we hang by our feet.
It's the reflection of a puddle.
It's a big, blue cross hanging over a downtown intersection.
It's the fabric you can puncture, but never rend.
It's straight-pinned to railroad tracks
and tattooed to oceans.
It can't come in.
It threads itself endlessly through my squinted eye.