KABOOM!!!

What happens when you mix atheism with skepticism?

Does it really go KABOOM?

Perhaps the better question to explore is why skepticism has the potential to lead someone to an atheistic posture.

Skepticism is simply shunning belief that is not accompanied by strong, supporting, verifiable evidence. You recognize that you simply cannot afford to take everyone at their word all the time. This realization even encompasses the grand authorities in one's life.

You should endeavor to think for yourself.

Nothing is wrong with consulting people smarter than you. I like to call such people "experts".

But I do not like to label anyone an "authority". The title "authority" implies that such a person not only knows the truth of reality, but dictates truth in an infallible manner.

Experts, in my view, are well skilled in their craft and their knowledge is extensive. They have honed their abilities to a level of professionalism. But they can make mistakes. You should speak up when they do or when you don't agree with their actions. Or when you want evidence to back up what they are saying.

Authorities, in my mind, dictate truth whether right or wrong. They demand you always accept what they say as truth without any proof beyond the simple fact that they said so.

So when someone says that all the nations of the world must believe in God their way and that there is no other way to know God-- a skeptical person defers to doubt towards that specific believer. And that doubt will most likely generalize to that believer's God as well.

When all major religions push to make the world believe just as they do, God's followers start sounding very suspicious. They all cannot be exclusively right. And unless only one religion is right, all religions must yield a little to the others. So then, who has a right to warn others of the coming wrath of their god?

I say that mixing skepticism and atheism is at least a reasonable practice even if skepticism doesn't necessitate a turn towards atheism.

However, I think the real danger is when someone mixes radical Fundamentalism with technology. That seems to be the true formula that goes KABOOM!

Heretic

See??

This is what I was getting at when I point out the need for the separation of Church and State.

In Pakistan, extremist Muslims killed about 80 worshipers of a minority religious group known as the Ahmadis.

The Ahmadis are forbidden in the eyes of other Muslims to refer to themselves as members of Islam and may not refer to their places of worship as mosques.

The Ahmadis believe that the (so called) prophet Mohammad predicted a future messiah in the person of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (whoever he might be).

Fundamentalist, extremist Muslims feel that this belief makes the Ahmadis non-Islamic-- not even worthy to be called a fringe group of Islam.

When the Ahmadis try to act like members of the Islamic faith, they committed a crime so horrible that extremists gunned down scores of worshipers today as two suicide bombers added to the carnage.

The Pakistani police tried to control the situation. But the police and the media made sure not to slip up and call the Ahmadis Muslims.

This sort of violence has been on the rise in Pakistan. The extremists claim that even Pakistani law forbids the Ahmadis from claiming to be true Muslims. So, that just further justifies their actions.

And Fundamentalists in the United States want a Christian nation?

The heretic is the one who isn't mainstream while the orthodox believer is the one with the majority and the muscle. Should the tables turn and you one day become a heretic through no fault of your own, will you still want Church and State to mix?

Theocracy + Nukes = Colorful Expletives

On Tuesday, January 12th, nuclear scientist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi was assassinated in Iran. Mainstream media reports from Iran claim that the U.S. and Israel instigated this tragic incident.

One could speculate that somebody within the Iranian leadership called for Ali-Mohammadi's assassination. After all, he openly supported the protests against the 2009 elections results where Mir Hossein Mousavi won lost against the current Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Now officials of Iran claim that the (alleged) terrorist act by the U.S. and Israel will only hasten the goal of turning Iran into a nuclear power.

We can all rest assured that their nuclear goals are totally peaceful, right?

I don't like the idea of a theocratic society having nuclear weapons.* At any given moment, someone in leadership can become convinced that the end of the age has finally come. I fear that someone will one day decide that nuclear weapons are a wonderful way to usher in the ultimate punishment, retribution, wrath, and final victory blow of their god.

Can this happen to a secular society? Well, the urge to press the button might be there, but hopefully the leadership of a secular society will at least pause and consider that fact that we cannot obliterate our adversaries with nuclear weapons without ourselves facing grave consequences. If one leader says that god wants the missiles to fly, other leaders (even religious ones) will undoubtedly require more evidence than that-- even if the extra evidence they demand happens to be falsified!

Perhaps this is not simply about religion, but about all radical ideologies. The extreme views of any ideology can become very dangerous very quickly. To me, religion often fuels extremist views because religious leaders tend to discourage openness of ideas (heresy) and open inquiry (the challenging religious authority).

Should two nations decide to retaliate by exchanging nuclear weapons, the whole sky will eventually turn black and the earth will turn cold. We will all suffer.


Everywhere.


And our suffering will not come by the wrath of god, but by the wrath of our own stupidity as a human race.

When I consider the awesome, destructive power of nuclear weapons, I utter colorful expletives. When the wrong group of extremist leaders gain nuclear capabilities, all of our lives will be in their hands, not gods.


Holy expletive!


* Pakistan is not a theocracy to my understanding. But, that nation does seem quite unstable. One never knows what will happen there in the next few years. That alone is cause for colorful expletives!

Hate -- the "Nondiscriminate" Killer

An unfortunate and sad event has been reported in the news recently. I alluded to this problem slightly in an earlier blog post when I said:

If my freedoms are taken away because some group doesn't like me, your freedom can just as easily be taken away, too, regardless of your skin color. Don't believe me? Learn the truth about why this country was born in the first place.

A woman contacted a Ku Klux Klan group in Louisianan and expressed interest in recruitment. Though she began initiation, she developed a change of heart for whatever reason and desired to return home.

Upon her request to leave, she was shot dead.

This was a white woman -- by the way.

Her color did not matter. They murdered her anyhow.

As I said earlier . . . the hate found by people like Klan members is generated by a desire to control and remove the rights of others. Their issue with skin color only justifies their illogical way of thinking.

Hate like that doesn't take much to generalize when it is superficial in cause.

Those Klan members killed her because they wanted to control her. At that point, she was no different from any other minority.

I bet they thought God wanted them to murder her, too.

Terror is ordered by God

I try to avoid two things in this blog:

1) Giving away my identity

2) Openly endorsing any political party or candidate.

I will still attempt to do this. But, this will be difficult as I share my feelings and experiences concerning the topic at hand.

In my local town, authorities have uncovered a plot where a hate group was planning to identify and terrorize minorities in the area.

The backdrop to this news is that on Tuesday, November 4th, the United States will have a historic and unprecedented presidential election where Sen. Barack Obama has an extremely good chance of being elected over his opponent Sen. John McCain. Mr. Obama is African-American. So, the endangered minority group in my town is naturally African-Americans.

This news unnerved me. I felt like my family and I now have a big red and white bulls eye target on our home, our cars, and on our backs.

I have two young children who are innocent and oblivious to this whole plot. How could someone bring themselves to even consider doing such a thing?

Now one can see why Jeremiah Wright was so angry and why Michelle Obama is quoted as saying that for the first time she is proud of her country. They have lived through this before during the Civil Rights era in the 1960s (well, maybe not Ms. Obama, but Rev. Wright has).

African-Americans still feel threatened today despite race relations being better. Otherwise, Mr. Obama wouldn't be ahead in the polls. But, the positive reality is still hard to accept and believe after I heard this threatening news today.

I didn't even want to leave my home after this news. But I needed to go to the grocery store. I mustard the courage to go because if I didn't, my life would be just as dead as if I were shot dead in my own home.

I went because I didn't want my wife to go alone.

I went because last time I checked, this was the United States of America and I'm a free citizen.

I have freedom of thought and opinion. Freedom of speech and the pursuit of happiness. If my freedoms are taken away because some group doesn't like me, your freedom can just as easily be taken away, too, regardless of your skin color. Don't believe me? Learn the truth about why this country was born in the first place.

I felt like I was taking the biggest risk of my life by simply going to the store. Thankfully, I arrived home safely with my family. But before leaving the parking lot of the store, I saw an old truck with a bumper sticker as I pushed my grocery cart to my parking space. I felt directly threatened all over again as I read it:

Terror is ordered by God

The sticker sited a verse from Leviticus. I couldn't keep the verse reference in memory. But, the Chicago Nazarene Theological Seminary was mentioned on the sticker.

Can this be taken out of context?

My life is in some measure of danger simply because of my skin color.

And this assassination order upon my life was ordered by God himself!


One more good reason to continue being an atheist.