About God

I Believe in God

This is not a test. There is no score. This is only an attempt to help you think about what you really believe. Answer all questions then answer the questions as your grandparents would have answered them. Why is there a difference?

1. I believe in God. True___ False___ Don’t know___
2. God is old and has a beard. True___ False___ Don’t know___
3. God is white (Caucasian) True___ False___ Don’t know___
4. God answers payers. True___ False___ Don’t know___
5. God know everything, can do anything and is loving. (Omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent.) True___ False___ Don’t know___
6. If I ask God to help me win the State Football Championship he will support my sincere effort. True___ False___ Don’t know___
7. If I ask God to help win in a battle and vanquish our declared enemy he will help me and my fellow soldiers. True___ False___ Don’t know___
8. If I ask God to cure my dying child he may intervene and spare my innocent child. True___ False___ Don’t know___
9. If I ask God to give me proof of his existence and show me the truth he will do so. True___ False___ Don’t know___
10. God lets man make his own choices in the world and refuses to give him the factual proof of His will. True___ False___ Don’t know___
11. The punishment for making an incorrect decision in believing in the divinity of God is everlasting hell. True___ False___ Don’t know___
12. Heaven is a place where there is happiness and harmony for all and families will be together in love. True___ False___ Don’t know___
13. Children will obey their parents. True___ False___ Don’t know___
14. We will all be children. True___ False___ Don’t know___
15. There will be no evil in heaven. True___ False___ Don’t know___
16. There will be no choice in heaven. True___ False___ Don’t know___
17. There will be no passion or pain in heaven. We will be all knowing and supremely content with everlasting contemplation of eternal good and justice. (Nirvana) True___ False___ Don’t know___
18. You will be blessed and accepted by God if you die in the support of your beliefs. True___ False___ Don’t know___
19. Murder is alright if done for God. True___ False___ Don’t know___
20. I know what God wants me to do. True___ False___ Don’t know___

Did you answer the questions? Please do so before you read the second page.


Did you answer many of the questions “Don’t know”? If you know what you believe why would you say that you don’t know the answers? Is it because you don’t think the questions are fair or pertinent? The purpose of the questions is to demonstrate that most people don’t really know what they mean when they say they believe in God. Even the churches are am biguous about what God is. Some even state that God is unknowable. Then what is it that you say you believe in? Indeed, most of us can’t even decide what we think is good or moral. We say we believe in the Ten Commandment. But we take pictures and feel no compunction ignoring that God said “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing…..” We are honored and praised by our country and by the church leaders for killing the enemy in war. But God said, “Thou shalt not kill.” Unlike most of the other Ten Commandments there is no commentary, no conditions, no amendments, only those four words. But most of the churches support the death penalty.
God, or men saying that they are talking with His authority, tells us to do things certain that we can follow their directions. In other words, we can make the choice they want us to make. That is called Free Will. We all know we have it. We can feel it and know it in the most fundamental way of knowing. Still we also know that given certain training (up-bringing. childhood environment, parents, gang membership, etc.) most of us will act in a certain way. Our free will is only partially free. Our free choice was really a directed choice without our consent.
Do you love and adore a God that is so eager for your abject submission that He demands you kill your son? Do you respect a deity who would kill a person for looking over her shoulder at her home town being destroyed, men, women and children summarily killed? How about all those animals drowned in the Flood? How about the people not on the ark?
That’s all part of the Old Book. The modern New Book says only that you have to believe in God to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But which God? There is only one God but each church has a different take on whom or what He is. He, why not Her? More likely It. Perhaps it is the word God that we believe in rather than a specific concept. He is Love, but not all love. He is the Word but not all words. He is Peace but supports war. When you say you believe in God do you know what you mean? That’s not an answer I need to know. It is an answer you should know. I hope the above questions will help you think about what you mean. I was afraid to think about these questions at one time. I would like to encourage you to ask yourself these and more questions. How can searching for the Truth be wrong or bad?
As for my own belief, I do believe in an omnipotent ubiquitous force. It influences all people regardless of their faith or probity. No one can hide from it or render it ineffectual by denying it. You may call this all pervasive force God. I call it gravity. I believe in the laws of nature; science. Some call this naive empiricism or logical empiricism. Basically it says that we don’t know all the truth but the truth is knowable. There are serious philosophical problems with such a belief but it seems the best I can accept. There is always a question of what is the inherent limitation of consciousness since thinking is just an artifact of the brain. Philosophy has never been able to find that answer. So I do have faith that there are things that are knowable by our consciousness although my reason stumbles along that path. But I do not believe in the hocus pocus of religion nor the subjugation it requires and most certainly not in the men who proclaim themselves divinely ordained.

The Stephen Williams Law Suit

The Stephen Williams Law Suit

There is a lot of press locally about a Cupertino teacher, Stephen Williams, who is suing his school district for not letting him express his religious bias in his fifth grade class. His case has even gotten some national press. His contention is that Christianity is part of the history of the United States and he should therefore be allowed to teach about that Christianity.

I would not want my grand children to be taught such information even though one of my grand children is going to a church support school and is indeed learning just doctrine.

I therefore suggest some additional lessons as a test of the sincerity of the interest in historical accuracy.

1. One of the largest churches practices catabolism. That is the church encourages the eating of the flesh and blood of a person. The official dogma of the Catholic Church and the doctrine of some Protestant churches proclaim that the wafers and wine of the Eucharist literally becomes the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Participants are therefore eating the flesh and blood of Christ.
2. Almost all sins, murder, rape, adultery, robbery and most others, could be paid for and would be forgiven. The money went to the medieval church, the church that proclaimed that it had a direct line back to Jesus Christ.
3. Many people, especially poor old women, could be possessed by evil and were then burned alive under the sanction of the Catholic Church.

The doctrinal references might also be included as examples of what the church teaches.

1. God chose to punish by an exceptional horrible execution his own son for the sins of other people.
2. One of God’s chosen people, Lot, had sex with his two young daughters and got them both pregnant. The fact that he was dead drunk made it OK. However, because his wife looked back to take one last look at her home town she was turned into a pillar of salt. All of the people in the town, women, children, little babies, were killed by a vengeful God because there was sin in the town.
3. God requires sacrifice of you to prove your love of Him. Abraham was required to kill his first born son to show his love. Abraham was allowed to substitute a lamb at the last moment once he was ready to cut his son’s throat.
4. Even the august Abraham practiced incest by marrying his half sister. Then he claimed she is his sister to save himself and allowed his wife to enter into the harem of the Pharaoh for a generous payment. The great prophet of the Old Testament and revered by Jews, Moslems and Christians would today be called a pimp.

There are many, many more horrific tales in the Christian Bible that are not taught in Sunday School and which are ignored of unknown by most Christians. Neither the doctrine nor the practice of the Christian Church is noble or honorable. To teach children that the belief in Christianity is a good thing is not historically correct. Teaching only selective myths and limited episodes in the name of history is to endanger the intellectual integrity of the students.

What does Christ have to do with Christmas

What’s the retrograde right up to now? They want to put Christ into Christmas. Parents and religious leaders have been trying to do that for as long as I can remember. It is a doomed effort. Originally there was a pagan celebration of the winter solstice. The popular possibilities beckoned the power structure, mainly the Church at that time, to compete with the pagan gods for the recognition and homage. Originally the Church was opposed to the celebration of birthdays. The desire to get and keep the adoration of the masses was reason enough to change and to establish a religious counter action.

Ask any child why he likes Christmas. I have never met one who said it was because he was eager to celebrate the birth of Christ unless of course the parents are there to overhear his answer and have done their best to brain wash him. Yes, there are a few sects that do not participate in the commercial aspects of Christmas. They have not been successful in convincing the general population. Even the non-Christians have a hard time keeping their children from wanting to participate in the popular celebration with gifts and songs.

Some of my fellow atheists want to ban any public reference to Christ in the Christmas Season. They think that their rights under the constitution are being abused by being greeted with a Merry Christmas rather than an amorphous Happy Holidays. I am as opposed to religion as any of them but I see no reason to try to abandon custom and offend many for such a minor offence. There are many more insidious practices that should be attacked. The preemptive war in Iraq is worthy of far more press attention than the public view of a crèche. The continued slaughter of innocent civilians as collateral damage should be continually in American pulpits and press.

Christmas is supposed to be the celebration of the birth of Christ, whose murder is somehow going to save us from our basic sinful nature. Christ died for us. Now our soldiers are to die for our leaders. Are they atoning for the sins of our leaders by dying in a Christ like emulation? I would much rather see a more direct approach to atoning their sins by trying them in an international court of justice. Let’s start with Chaney and Rumsfeld.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

As a devout atheist and a life inspired skeptic, I marvel at the perspicacity of our founding fathers in proclaiming that all humankind has “unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. In a search for the meaning of these rights I have been wondering just how far off track the United States has gotten.

In the popular definition of moral values in the recent presidential campaign the pursuit of happiness did not include the right to marry whomever one wishes or the right of a woman to choose not to have a child. But those values did include denying life to other people and destroying their way of life by invading their land and occupying their country. Over half of the population of the United States supported the war that denied those “unalienable rights” to the people of Iraq.

In the pursuit of happiness what are the limitations? The line between my pursuit and your pursuit is not a clear cut one. Our Supreme Court is always being asked to determine where my arm stops and your nose begins. If we can’t even agree what I do in private with a willing partner that does not affect anyone else is always my right then I wonder what does such a right mean. Still we have laws against sodomy and marijuana use. Our unalienable rights are not absolute after all.

One may not legally ride a motorcycle without a wearing a helmet. Isn’t that unreasonable? But if the helmet-less rider is left brain damaged after a crash it is the taxpayers who often pay for the injured person's support. So whose rights are abridged by the helmet law, the rider who can not have the wind in his hair or the taxpayer who must pay for a lifetime of support? The same argument can be made for smokers. But it can also be made for overweight people.

While absolute moral values may be very difficult to determine I think there should be no question at all about depriving a person of his life for specious reasons and dishonest allegations. It’s time for Americans to return to the values declared when the country was conceived; the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everyone.

A Christmas Lament December 2004

A Christmas Lament

December 2004

I’m not writing a Christmas Letter this year as I have since 1979. Such a letter should be filled with optimism and good cheer. I just can’t pretend that is how I see the world at this time. So this is a Letter in Lieu of a Christmas Letter.

Ever since I went to Europe in 1949 and saw the destruction of the Second World War I have realized that war is not what the propaganda purports it to be. Old ego driven men vie for power and dominance by having young men kill each other. Those naive young men are told they are heroes. While there may never have been a just war there have been necessary wars. WW2 was such a war. It could have been avoided but once the Nazis had started their mass murder they had to be stopped. However, our present war has no redeeming reason to be. My country has abandoned the very principles it proclaims and that made it the envy of the world. Like the Nazis the American people supported the instigation of the Iraqi War. Like the Nazis we invaded a sovereign nation. Like the Nazis we kill civilians in cities. The Nazis called their tactics Blitz-Krieg. We call our tactics Shock and Awe. Like the Nazis we are the occupying army and are hated by the occupied nation. Ask yourself it was honorable for the German people to support their invading troops. After all, each German soldier had “Gott mit uns” (God with us) on his belt buckle giving him moral authority. Is it honorable for the American people to support their invading troops because their president proclaims that he is directed by God? How can such evil actions be called honorable just by calling them “moral values”? The killing is just as tragic. The German people were suffering greatly from uncontrolled inflation and unemployment before the war preparations improved their economy. The American people enjoyed one of the highest standards of living the world has ever known before we started our Iraqi War. America has not instituted genocide against the Moslems as the Nazis did against the Jews although many Americans believe Moslems are evil. I see too many unethical similarities between the tragedy of World War 2 and our present war. I believe our invasion of Iraq is irrational, illegal and immoral. It is this distressful immorality that dissuades me from writing a Christmas Letter.

With the borrow and spend, spend, spend philosophy of the Bush Administration I expect to see the Euro become the dominant monetary unit with a value of over three dollars for one Euro. It appears that many people expect the dollar to lose much of its value since our personal debt is very high and still rising. Buy now and pay latter with cheaper dollars. I long for the good old days of tax and spend and a robust economy based on a pay as you go principle. Sorry grand children, I don’t have a large enough fortune to leave you an inheritance to pay for the debt my generation is leaving you.