Green Oasis

We could use a few more people like Fred Rogers:

Maybe it sounds hokey, but Mr. Rogers really did make me feel like I was his friend.

Go fly a plane today!

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings,
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
(High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.)

When I try to step into the religious frame of mind, I get a deep urge to scream and run for the hills. Religious ideas feel like ill fitting clothes on a sweaty, sticky summer day. They chafe and confine. Their irksome restraint gives me no moment of peace. I want to leap out of my confining clothes and into a refreshingly cool shower.

Such has been my experience as I try to explain why we need compassion for people whose inclination and perhaps action deviate from cultural norms. I hoped to demonstrate the need for compassion by using religious ideas and doctrines so that my religious interlocutors could see the need. I don’t expect them to become atheist. I just hope to speak up for true compassion.

But God looms large over the shoulder of the faithful. They might want to be more compassionate, but they first check with God who gives a slow, stern shake of the head. The faithful turn back around and say, “Sorry. God says homosexuals can’t get into heaven.” God hampers our native inclination to compassion. God kills our humanity.

People think they know the mind and will of God. The arrogance! Then they justify their own bigotry in his name. Their false idols sycophantically echo the believers’ prejudices back to them with the appearance of authority. When the compassion of their views is challenged, they assume that since God is Love, his laws are loving. The believer is satisfied that all is well in Zion (2 Nephi 28:21, 25).

If anyone needs me, I’ll be outside tilting at windmills.

When I was very young, not even in school, a recurring nightmare troubled my sleep. A wolf with demonic eyes would stand on its hind legs and chase me relentlessly. I still feel the shadow of fear to this day when I think about it.

I shared my nightmares with my mother. She suggested that I pray about it, asking Heavenly Father to remove the nightmares. I prayed as she suggested, and the nightmares went away. I felt comforted that God was answering my prayers.

I now sit in church meetings as an outside observer. I often ponder on what brings people to sit in church for three hours on a Sunday. There must be some real benefits to induce them. What is real about the religious experience despite the unreality of God?

Comfort is one answer. There is real comfort available in religion. I received comfort when I prayed that my nightmares would end. Mourners receive real comfort when they imagine their deceased loved ones received into a paradisaical afterlife where they in turn will meet their dead when their time comes. It is reassuring to believe that an all-powerful being is directing our lives for our good.

Community is another answer. We flock with birds of a feather. Religion brings like-minded people together on a regular basis and encourages them to become a community. Human beings are communal creatures, and religion helps to fulfill our need to feel connected with others.

Transcendent experiences are a third answer. Adherents of religions throughout the world have real experiences involving overwhelming peace and a sense of connection and transcendence. These experiences fulfill our innate need to find a greater meaning for our life than brute survival and reproduction.

Answers to our questions are yet another benefit of religion. Curious by nature, we hate not knowing the answer to a question. Real, truthful answers are hard to come by, but we can be sated with answers that have the semblance of reality. Why does the universe exist? No one rightly knows, but it’s nice to have an answer that assuages our curiosity as long as we don’t scrutinize it too closely.

Direction is the final answer that I will mention. Without goals to work toward, life becomes a tedium of recurring cycles without end. Without purpose, we languish in a meandering existence that goes nowhere in particular. If our life doesn’t serve a greater purpose, then why live at all? Religion gives us ready-made goals to work for. We don’t have to scrounge around for our own.

Religion provides real benefits irrespective of the truthfulness of its claims. The faithful often cite these benefits as evidence in favor of those claims. A placebo has no curative benefit beyond the patient’s belief therein. The benefits of religion cannot easily be ascribed to the existence of deity. Perhaps belief in something—any plausible lie—will do.

Richard Dawkins’ OUT Campaign exhorted atheists to be more public about their godlessness. The campaign urges atheists to come out, speak out, reach out, stand out.

I agree that atheists needs to become more visible in the United States. I’m not wild about the campaign’s scarlet letter A symbol. I like the allusions to The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, but I have other reasons to dislike it. Some thought it was too in your face. I thought it wasn’t in your face enough because the symbol doesn’t have the word “atheist” anywhere. I saw very little point in displaying a symbol only other atheists know the meaning of.

So I went to spreadshirt.com and made up a shirt to suit my tastes. I drew my inspiration from a plain, gray shirt that I’ve had for years that simply said “geek.” on the front. I also liked the idea of the empty set being a symbol for godlessness. Mix in one handy atheist quote with a slightly mathematical flair, and voilà! I had a t-shirt. Here is yours truly modeling the result:

Front: godless.

Reverse: I contend that we are both atheists.
I just believe in one fewer god than you.
—Stephen F. Roberts
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My wife was out gallivanting around Vegas last week for a bachelorette party—you know how those Mormons are—so I had my four-year-old daughter take these photos. Pretty good for a first time photographer. We’ll have to get her a camera of her own.

I wore the shirt to the grocery store with my daughters. Disappointingly, I have no incidents to report. No one staring in disgust. No one refusing to serve as my cashier. Nothing. I’m left wondering what a passive-aggressive atheist has to do to get noticed around these parts. Perhaps all the showgirls make the average Las Vegan a bit jaded to such public displays.

Oh well. At least no one can accuse me of not doing my part for raising public awareness of atheism.