Henry Rollins – Why I’m not an Atheist

I was first exposed to the force of nature that is Henry Rollins in the 80’s when he was the front man for Black Flag, a California-based punk band. I became a fairly devoted fan and bought all of their albums. One album that comes to mind is their spoken-word release called Family Man. Most of their music was pure mayhem, with all of the angst and critiques of society of the punk genre. They also had flashes of humor, like the song TV Party.

When Rollins joined the band he brought intensity and writing skills that helped to bring Black Flag as close to the “main stream” as a punk group is going get. Rollins, if anything, is a thinker and a poet. Family Man really showcases his poetic talent and unique perspective on people and the world in general.

His M.O. Is to challenge you and make you think. When I discovered this thoughtful and intelligent article today, I was compelled to share it because he offers a viewpoint about religion and atheism that only Henry Rollins would  present. He was always direct and thought-provoking with music, poems, and opinions.

Why I’m not an Atheist – Henry Rollins

Recently I was on the podcast You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes. He’s an incredibly nice guy, and it was a good experience overall. 

At one point, he moved the conversation toward the spiritual. I told him that I had no religious or spiritual beliefs but was too lazy for atheism. I was trying to be funny, but basically it’s true.

Many years ago, I concluded that people need leadership and rules to follow. Government, laws, the threat of incarceration, traffic lights. Freedom is great, but the freedom to drive over someone and go on your way isn’t.

I reckon that religion was an early method of keeping people from running amok. The act of worshipping an unseen force requires faith and strength of conviction — and that in itself is a profound concept. If you believe in what you can’t prove conventionally, you have to land on that very hard to beat back the doubters. Like when the Westboro Baptist Church people got pushback for their “God hates fags” signs, they just made bigger signs.

To be a person of faith, it seems to me, takes no small amount of work. This idea is succinctly addressed in the King James version of the Bible, John 20:29: “Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” I had to look it up to get the words right, but I actually read a version of that in a hotel room once.

Since there aren’t enough resources for everyone to have a personal cop monitoring their every action, there must be a mega-cop so huge that his omnipresence is invisible and unquestionably powerful. 

This is what I figure religion is. Try to be good. Being human, you will make mistakes, but all is not lost. You can ask to be forgiven; by meditating on your mistake, you will see that it would be unwise to repeat the behavior. Throw in the idea of punishment and reward and it’s a workable system.

I think the most brilliant part of religion, as I understand it, is what comes after you die — eternity.

In life, Martin Luther King had to put up with the boiling rage of Jesus-loving, God-fearing citizens who wanted to keep schools segregated. It had obviously crossed his mind that something bad might come his way. On April 3, 1968, at this end of his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, Dr. King said that he would like to have a long life, but perhaps that wasn’t what was going to happen. In spite of that, he was happy and not afraid of any man, because his eyes had seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

He was dead less than 24 hours later. I guess in his way of thinking, the everlasting good stuff and far bigger part of the picture was waiting post-life.

This is why I am not an atheist. If you believe that President Obama was born outside of America, no paperwork or witness testimony will convince you otherwise. If you believe in a higher power, then anyone trying to find holes in your logic causes you to stand your ground more tenaciously. 

Basically, I believe that someone believes something.

Now and then, I get emails from religious people. They pity me and the life choices I have made. Some ask why I have covered my body with those awful tattoos and turned myself into such a freak. Others gently admonish me for not having a problem with anyone’s sexual orientation. They let me know that they will be praying for me.

Since they started it, I feel free to have a little fun. I reply, “Thanks, Gandhi!”

This often results in a long letter about the sinner and the sin. I wait a day or two and then write back, asking when they were first attracted to someone of their own gender. I let them know that I am just fine with their gayness and I bet the big guy is, too.

The benevolence usually starts to wear a little thin in the next reply. One of my favorite questions to ask is: In a fight, who would win, Jesus or Glenn Danzig?

It’s around then that the gloves come off. I have even gotten some of them to curse, which I love. There is nothing like being told to go fuck yourself by the same person who was, only days before, praying on your behalf.

When someone tells me that America is a Christian nation and all the laws we need are contained in the Bible, to me that is not a religious discussion. It’s about the notion of authority this person is employing in an attempt to control others. God might be real to this person, but what is as real to me is Article VI of the Constitution. All of our disagreements will end in stalemate, so why even bother? I have no interest at all in trying to “win” an argument like this, because to me the premise is bent to begin with. 



“New” Atheism?

In my daily searching of atheist news and tidbits, I see the phrase “new” atheists pretty often. I find it interesting. The article below is a critique of this group of non-believers. However, I offer this opinion. I think that this is more of a critique of the modern Internet culture where extreme views (one way or the other), get all of the attention. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. The most vocal and divisive voices are heard. Live and let live, I say. Do I find the concept of organized religion or the existence of a white bearded man in the sky ridiculous? You bet. But if some people need that belief to get them by everyday, I say more power to them. Do I poke fun? Sure I do, that is the lens in which I view most things…with a sense of humor. I humbly offer you the article below as yet another point of view about modern atheism.

Why self-respecting atheists should ditch the New Atheists

Ryan Cooper
February 25, 2015

Courtesy of The Week

I grew up in a conservative small town, where there was the strong belief that evangelical Protestantism was the only route to the good life, and that I was going to be tortured for eternity for not signing up. It’s no surprise, then, that I was often attracted to the “anti-theist” diatribes of Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, otherwise known as the New Atheists.

But time changes all things. Though still far from religious, I no longer accept the more extreme narratives of the New Atheists, the certainty of their religious claims, and their historical view of religion. The atheist community would be well advised to chill out.

Let’s start with the overweening certainty of the New Atheists. That there is no God is a fact so obvious it scarcely needs to be pondered, writes Sam Harris. Dawkins is a bit more careful, saying there is “no well-demonstrated reason to believe in God” in his documentary The Root of All Evil. When pressed, Dawkins admits affirmative disbelief can’t be proved, but places himself at a 6.9 out of 7 on the scale of atheism.

The problem is that Dawkins and his compadres rarely turn their jaundiced eye on themselves. Science itself rests on a foundation much more logically suspect than they tend to admit.

Science is based on simple induction, which is to say observing a particular phenomenon many times, and concluding it is always like that. The “induction problem,” as David Hume discovered, is that there is no way to rigorously prove the next instance of the phenomenon won’t be different. No matter how impressive the logical and theoretical superstructure atop these observations, there is no escape from what amounts to a massive example of begging the question.

Compare this problem to mathematical induction. That is a form of logical proof, since it contains a step demonstrating that one instance of a phenomenon logically implies the next one.

The induction problem crops in all experiences. Belief in induction, however unjustified, is simply impossible to avoid.

Richard Rorty dealt with this conundrum by tossing the whole of metaphysics in the trash. And still, maintaining an essentially atheistic viewpoint is still eminently reasonable, as Julian Sanchez demonstrates. I merely submit that the screechy fire-and-brimstone certainty that pervades so much modern atheist discourse is not justified by its logical underpinnings.

The New Atheists’ historical account of religion is far more dubious. Christopher Hitchens says that religion is merely implicated in everything bad, while Harris attempts to establish a direct causation. These arguments are historically slanted. Dawkins, meanwhile, often berates religious “Bronze Age myths” that hold civilization back. That’s not even the right age!

A sketch of a more realistic view: human beings have constantly fought and killed each other from our earliest days, and we developed various religious forms as societies became more complex. Scholars such as Francis Fukuyama argue that mass religions were a key factor in the development of the modern state, because they allowed the creation of mutual-aid networks much larger than tribal societies based on descent from a common ancestor.

Religion did not invent crusading violence nor racism, though it has eagerly participated in both. It is a part of the deeply flawed human experience, partly good and partly bad.

In decrying the New Atheists’ “comically simplistic view of religion,” Reza Aslan points out that questions of identity and ideology are central to how religions are interpreted. Most people do not have detailed knowledge of their religious texts, which have many highly divergent sections. Instead, believers pick and choose bits to fit the times:

[R]eligions are neither peaceful nor violent, neither pluralistic nor misogynistic — people are peaceful, violent, pluralistic, or misogynistic, and you bring to your religion what you yourself already believe. [New York]

Of course, it is true that many religious leaders today are vicious and unhinged. Many religious institutions have committed grave abuses in the distant and recent past. There is nothing wrong with condemning these atrocities. But that does not excuse the rank anti-Muslim bigotry of Maher or Harris, who straightforwardly invoke collective guilt to pin the sins of ISIS on all Muslims.

I suggest a return to gentle decency of Carl Sagan, a man who was highly skeptical of religious claims, but did not seize the majesty of science to pummel his opponents. For him, perhaps the most important scientific discovery in history — that of the incomprehensible size of the universe — was not reason to call Pat Robertson an idiot, but an awesome insight that “underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another.”

The chicken, or the egg? One of life’s great mysteries.

I suppose it is just a matter of perspective.

OK, so this is a baby step of sorts.

So They are Back in the News (Yet Again): Adam and Eve and All That
A book by Wheaton Old Testament Professor John H. Walton will upend many traditional – or certainly “evangelical” – ideas about Adam and Eve.

Written by Richard Ostling | Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Many evangelicals believe in “de novo” creation, a quick and complete formation of all species including homo sapiens, rejecting evolutionary development from common ancestors. Walton asserts that the Bible “does not necessarily make a de novo claim for human origins.” His proposed scenario could include “some theory of evolution” as compatible with the Bible, he says, but not necessarily the thinking of Darwin disciples “as it exists today.”

On the religion beat, the news often consists of new books about old texts with old stories, and the oldest old story of them all is the Genesis portrayal of Adam and Eve. Their status as the first humans and parents of the entire human race is a big biblical deal, especially for evangelical Protestants.

Since no evangelical school outranks Wheaton College (Illinois) in prestige and influence, journalists should get ready for an incendiary device about to explode in March.

A book by Wheaton Old Testament Professor John H. Walton will upend many traditional – or certainly “evangelical” – ideas about Adam and Eve. Moreover, “The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate” comes from the certifiably evangelical InterVarsity Press.

Walton (Ph.D., Hebrew Union College) formerly taught at the Moody Bible Institute, which professes that “the first human beings were a special and unique creation by God as contrasted to being derived from any pre-existing life forms. Further, God created everything ‘after its kind,’ which excludes any position that allows for any evolutionary process between kinds.” As a Wheaton professor since 2001, he’s required to reaffirm each year the “biblical doctrine” that “God directly created Adam and Eve, the historical parents of the entire human race,” who were “distinct from all other living creatures.”

The author’s views have been evolving (so to speak) since 1998, when he decided Genesis, like other ancient writings, offers a “functional” rather than biological depiction of God’s creation process. He explained this in “The Lost World of Genesis One” (2009, also from InterVarsity), and a more scholarly version, “Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology” (2011, Eisenbrauns). He then depicted an historical but “archetypal” Adam in “Four Views on the Historical Adam” (2013, Zondervan).

Attention Godbeat professionals: The three other contributors should also be on journalists’ source lists: William Barrick of The Master’s Seminary (historical Adam with “young earth”), C. John Collins of Covenant Theological Seminary (historical Adam with “old earth”), and Denis Lamoureux of the University of Alberta (evolution with no historical Adam).

Walton’s new book says his “faithful readings of Scripture” may “differ somewhat from some traditional readings.” That’s for sure. The book does embrace a Wheaton-style Adam and Eve as “real people involved in real events in a real past.” But they’re not necessarily “the first human beings, the only human beings, or the universal ancestors of all human beings” in the biological as opposed to the spiritual and moral sense.

His approach follows years of growing evangelical debate over new science, including what Walton calls “compelling” genetic evidence that humanity originated in “a pool of common ancestors” rather than one couple.

British humor…you gotta love it.

60 Million Atheists in Latin America

Latin America has always embraced Catholicism in huge numbers. However, this is rapidly changing. For your reading pleasure, check out this article about the growing number of “non-believers” in Latin America.

By Allison Leslie, courtesy of World Religion News

A PEW RESEARCH CENTER POLL CARRIED OUT IN NOVEMBER 2014 HAS SHOWN THAT OUT OF THE TOTAL 390 MILLION PEOPLE ON THE CONTINENT, THE NUMBER OF ATHEISTS IN LATIN AMERICA IS CURRENTLY AT AN ALL-TIME 60 MILLION HIGH.

What’s more? This number seems to be increasing by the year.

This is evident in the fact that even as 92% of Latin Americans identified as Catholic back in 1970, the number had grossly fallen over the years to just about 69% in present day, the poll states.

What could be the cause of the fall in the number of a hitherto “very Catholic” Christian population, with the subsequent rise in the number of atheists, even in a region that produces the current Pope? Perhaps a look at the current trends in the Latin American Continent will help shed light on the spate of atheism, and why it seems to be gaining traction in the region.

Though this didn’t use to be the case in the not-so-distant past, in these times, atheists, free-thinkers, agnostics, as well as self-acclaimed “secular” individuals and groups are joining their voices together in the clamor for the establishment of “more secular structures” in their Latin American countries.

From Mexico to Argentina, it is the same story of these groups of non-believers calling and fighting for their rights to be respected where separation of church and state isn’t a legal concept. With Fernando Esteban Lozada, an Argentine engineer who doubles as the spokesman for the International Association of Free Thought, calling for “respect for diversity,” he took legal action against the Jesuit-run El Salvador University, or USAL, in Buenos Aires, for discrimination “based on religion.”

In the case which was eventually won by the very vibrant activist who has hosted four annual national atheism congresses in his home country, he was suing against USAL’s charter calls for a “struggle against atheism.” The charter was drafted back in 1974 by Pope Francis, who was the country’s chief Jesuit, known as Jorge Bergoglio at the time.

In Chile, the story takes even more interesting dimension, as activists are fighting against the government for maintaining and sponsoring a long-standing discriminatory tradition in the educational system, where prospective students in Public Catholic schools are required to present their certificate of baptism, together with the marriage certificate of their parents, before they are granted admission.

The atheists and agnostics are piqued that these institutions are public ones which continue to enjoy national funding and subsidies, they are opposed to citizens holding a divergent religious orientation.

This has prompted the Chile Atheist Society (CAS) to publish its list of “truly secular” schools for the spring term, for atheist students that will be seeking admission in March.

The “discriminatory educational system” is something which Michelle Bachelet, the Chilean President, and her socialist government are expected to reform.

Also of great concern to the growing number of atheists in Latin American countries like Chile and Peru that had separated church and state decades ago, is the fact that rituals of religious connotations are still being carried out at national events.

These festivals, much to the chagrin of the atheists, are mostly presided over by the Archbishops of Lima and Santiago, and attended by state dignitaries, even as many government buildings are still decorated for Christmas.

Of the total 60 million Latin Americans, Uruguay tops the rank as the most “secular country,” with over 37% of the non-believers coming from the region. Second on the list is the Dominican Republic with 18%. The rest are 16% in Chile, and 11% in Argentina.

While many factors have contributed to the plummeting number of Christians in the continent, chief of all reasons seems to be fear, and the rising spate of corruption and “Church Scandals,” which is making people switch denominations, or ditch their faith altogether.

A Gallup poll has shown that while about 5% of Saudi Arabians could privately declare as being atheist or agnostic, they could not say so in public for fear of the outcome of being labeled a “terrorist.”

On the global scale, religion appears to be taking a nose-dive, even as a mathematical “forecast” developed by Northwestern University scientists in 2011 tells us that non-religious entities are presently the fastest-growing minority round the globe.

The current world population of atheists and non-believers is quoted as 1.1 billion, which is about 16% of the world population, as we are being told by adherents.com, a website which gathers statistics on world religion. Christians are said to be 2.1 billion in number, while Muslims 1.5 billion.

While many Catholics are hoping that Latin America’s Pope Francis’ enormous popularity could help ease the rising number of atheists in the region, is his good image alone enough to cause a reversal of the currently bullish trend, or are we going to see the numbers continue sky-rocketing to a point where Christians will be the minority in the region?

I thought this was appropriate with the Oscars yesterday.

Muahahaha, muahah! 6,000 years from now, this will cause complete chaos!

Well, since you put it THAT way…