A Cosmic Observation: We Need to Colonize Mars

There is nothing I wish to see more in my lifetime than a stable extraterrestrial colony of humans. In fact, if civilians are able to live on another planet within my lifetime, I will be one of the first in line to volunteer. Not because I don't like the Earth - it is my home, after all - but because I dream of being able to go beyond our atmosphere, to see the wonders that the rest of the Universe has to offer firsthand. Do I think that this is likely to happen in the next eighty to one hundred years? I don't know. I definitely think it's possible, but I also believe that we will need the cooperation of most of the world to make it happen, and it will require a fundamental shift in how we think about humanity and our place in the cosmos for people to realize why it is necessary. But whether it is possible or not, it is a goal that we must start working towards. Humanity needs to start thinking seriously about expanding into the rest of our solar system - specifically, exploring ways to set up a stable human colony on Mars - because our very survival as a species may depend on it.



Now, I am not talking here about the petty little threats to our survival - pollution, global warming, nuclear war, and the like. I am talking about the threat of our extinction at the hands of something completely out of our control - the vast, dangerous, uncaring nature of the universe itself. This year is the International Year of Astronomy, and that, as well as the fortieth anniversary of the moon landing, has sparked some mild interest again in the potential of space travel, as well as discussion of its worth to humanity. Why, many people may ask, should we spend so much time, money, and resources on looking and traveling out into space when we could use that time, money, and resources to fix problems here on Earth? It is a legitimate question that does not have an easy answer. I hope that this post will show why it is also not a question with an all-or-nothing answer. I believe that we need to have a balance of time and resources spent on fixing the problems of the present and keeping an eye on the future as well. And space travel must play a part in the future of humanity.

Stephen Hawking made a very important observation in his famous lecture on Life in the Universe, one that gives a potential answer to the Fermi Paradox: the contradiction between the high estimates of the probability of the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life and the lack of actual evidence for such life. When the universe is looked at mathematically through hypotheses such as the Drake equation, it seems statistically unlikely that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe. However, no contact with another intelligent species has ever been made. There are obviously many possible reasons for this - I will not list them here - but the one that Hawking proposed is one that has direct and serious implications for the survival of the human race. He states that one of the reasons why the universe may not be teeming with evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence is because most planets on which any life evolved may have had that evolutionary process interrupted before it could get to a complex enough state to develop intelligence - by asteroid impacts.

It is roughly estimated that asteroid collisions with Earth-sized planets occur every one to twenty million years. The last major impact to our own planet, the asteroid impact that is thought to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, occurred seventy million years ago. Even by statistical standards, and accounting for the fact that Earth is protected from more frequent collisions by the massive gravity well of Jupiter, we are long overdue for another one. And while life would still survive in the event of a major collision - bacterial and microbial life would almost certainly survive, and anything up to small mammals also, depending on the size of the collision - large and complex life-forms, humans included, would almost certainly be completely wiped out. It took 70 million years for the small mammals that survived the last great collision to evolve into intelligent human beings, and the evolution of actual intelligence has only occurred within the last several million years. So, even if microbial life, or multi-cellular life, or even recognizable speciated life has occurred on other planets in the Universe, which is quite likely, it seems equally likely that asteroid impacts and other extra-planetary disasters may have hindered continuous evolution to the point that intelligence is vastly more rare and difficult to achieve than we previously thought.

So what does this have to do with colonizing Mars? Simple. If we distribute the human race among the other planets in our solar system - even just sending a small, sustainable colony to one other planet - then we completely remove the risk of having our entire species wiped out by a single catastrophic global event, such as an asteroid impact. And why do I think this is important? The simple answer is obviously that no one wants to see the entire human race wiped out so easily by something completely beyond our ability to control. But more importantly, consider the possibility, as outlined above, that the evolution of intelligent life in the universe is vastly more rare than previously statistically calculated. Consider the very frightening and awe-inspiring possibility that we may be the only intelligent beings currently in existence. In the entire Universe. Now consider the fact that the Universe does not - not for one second - care about that fact. It is through extreme luck and marvelous circumstances that we have been able to survive and that we are aware of that fact. And we have within our power to thwart chance and to find some way to survive despite the statistical odds stacked against us. No other species on this planet has that ability. And we owe it to ourselves, our future generations, and maybe even the Universe, to do everything in our power to preserve the human race. Otherwise, we risk allowing something extremely unique and rare to be destroyed, maybe never to come again.

And though sending people to Mars may not be possible yet, with our current technological and social limitations, it is a goal worth working towards. Because the next asteroid may not come for another seventy million years, but it could come within the next thousand years, or the next hundred. And it will probably take at least that long to get people to realize the importance of finding ways to preserve and protect all of humanity along with improving it. We have the technology and the foresight to start working on this now - there is no reason to wait.

And you don't have to take my word for it, but can you really justify ignoring Stephen Hawking?

The Best Poem I've Ever Read

I know, I know, two posts in one day... absolute insanity. But that last post left me feeling a little down, so I decided that I would go and read something to cheer me up. And nothing makes me more certain that life is good and joyful and worth every second despite the little troubles than the following poem. A good explanation for what it is can be found here, in an old post from Daylight Atheism, my first and favorite atheism-themed blog. What follows is only an excerpt of translated verses from the full poem, but it is truly one of the most beautiful things I've ever read, and it expresses my worldview far better than anything I could ever say on my own.

From The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

The bird of life is singing on the bough
His two eternal notes of "I and Thou"—
O! hearken well, for soon the song sings through,
And, would we hear it, we must hear it now.

The bird of life is singing in the sun,
Short is his song, nor only just begun,—
A call, a trill, a rapture, then—so soon!—
A silence, and the song is done—is done.

Yea! What is man that deems himself divine?
Man is a flagon, and his soul the wine;
Man is a reed, his soul the sound therein;
Man is a lantern, and his soul the shine.

Would you be happy! hearken, then, the way:
Heed not To-morrow, heed not Yesterday;
The magic words of life are Here and Now—
O fools, that after some to-morrow stray!

Were I a Sultan, say what greater bliss
Were mine to summon to my side than this,—
Dear gleaming face, far brighter than the moon!
O Love! and this immortalizing kiss.

To all of us the thought of heaven is dear—
Why not be sure of it and make it here?
No doubt there is a heaven yonder too,
But 'tis so far away—and you are near.

Men talk of heaven,—there is no heaven but here;
Men talk of hell,—there is no hell but here;
Men of hereafters talk, and future lives,—
O love, there is no other life—but here.

Look not above, there is no answer there;
Pray not, for no one listens to your prayer;
Near is as near to God as any Far,
And Here is just the same deceit as There.

But here are wine and beautiful young girls,
Be wise and hide your sorrows in their curls,
Dive as you will in life's mysterious sea,
You shall not bring us any better pearls.

Allah, perchance, the secret word might spell;
If Allah be, He keeps His secret well;
What He hath hidden, who shall hope to find?
Shall God His secret to a maggot tell?

So since with all my passion and my skill,
The world's mysterious meaning mocks me still,
Shall I not piously believe that I
Am kept in darkness by the heavenly will?

The Koran! well, come put me to the test—
Lovely old book in hideous error drest—
Believe me, I can quote the Koran too,
The unbeliever knows his Koran best.

And do you think that unto such as you,
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,
God gave the Secret, and denied it me?—
Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.

Old Khayyám, say you, is a debauchee;
If only you were half so good as he!
He sins no sins but gentle drunkenness,
Great-hearted mirth, and kind adultery.

But yours the cold heart, and the murderous tongue,
The wintry soul that hates to hear a song,
The close-shut fist, the mean and measuring eye,
And all the little poisoned ways of wrong.

So I be written in the Book of Love,
I have no care about that book above;
Erase my name, or write it, as you please—
So I be written in the Book of Love.

Honesty Isn't Always Easy

The Honest Scrap award is given by other bloggers who consider a blog’s content or design to be brilliant. The awardees must then post ten honest things about
themselves and pass the award on to other bloggers who fit the bill – in other words, whose blog is brilliant.”




Okay, so I know that getting this award from a friend is nothing more than a poorly disguised attempt to get me to post here again *grin*, but since I have been meaning to anyway, I figure - what the heck - might as well take the opportunity. I don't usually do things like this, but I have been realizing lately that the person that I know I am may not be the person that other people see me as (I am planning a rather lengthy post on the subject soon), so posting ten honest things about myself is probably a good way to start helping people understand the real me: the way my mind works, why I do and say the things I do, and that the things going through my head probably aren't that different from the things going through anyone else's head. So, anyway... here goes...

• I am in the process of working on a truly epic work of fiction that I think is absolutely the best writing I have ever done, but I don't think anyone else will ever read it. I made the mistake of posting a short draft version of it online several months ago, and the ensuing criticism and lack of interest from everyone I told about it was such a blow to my self-esteem that I would have given up on the whole thing right there if the story hadn't been consuming my every creative thought at the time. I know that I probably took the whole thing too seriously, but I have a really hard time accepting criticism or lack of interest in my accomplishments from people because I don't think I am as good at anything as others seem to think I am, and that belief needs very little outside reinforcement.


• The hardest thing about hanging out with my friends is that I know I will never be as close to any of them as they are to each other.


• Realizing that I was an atheist has made me a much happier person...


• But on the downside, I am absolutely terrified of my dad finding out. We had a major falling-out several years ago when I moved in with my husband before we got married, and it took a long time for our relationship to recover. My hope would be that he'd accept me and that it wouldn't change anything, but I don't want to risk what I just got back on that hope.


• Sometimes I get disappointed and frustrated with myself because I know I could be doing and accomplishing so much more with my life, but I enjoy just taking it easy. I have so many nebulous plans for the future, but I feel like I lack the ambition to actually accomplish anything.


• Through a number of situations and events I don't know if I could have prevented, I have managed to drive away every girl I was every really close friends with. I still have friends who are girls, but I don't really feel close enough to confide in them any more. Sometimes I miss that.
  


• I am a horrible procrastinator. Always have been. For some reason, no one ever believes me when I tell them that.


• My greatest fear at the moment is that I will never feel grown-up and mature enough to have children.


• No single activity gives me more joy than singing, but I am usually too self-conscious to do it when anyone else is around. I love games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero because they give me an excuse to sing in front of other people without feeling the least bit self-conscious.


• And, last but not least... I write this blog because it gives me a way of expressing myself that I find hard to do in person. I have so many thoughts and feelings and opinions about things, but I have a really hard time expressing myself verbally, so I write it instead. That is why I want everyone to read what I write... because I am writing the things that I can't say out loud, because my brain just doesn't work fast enough to have coherent conversations about stuff that really interests me. I will be going more in-depth on this in a future post.

So there you have it. Ten honest things about me. Some good, some bad, some that may be hard for others to hear, but all things that I feel are worth people knowing about me. I have no one to tag in order to pass on this award, so instead, I will just invite anyone who doesn't have a blog to stop and consider: What ten things would you tell others about yourself if you wanted them to understand you better?

Happy Darwin Day!

As all (or many, or some, or none) of you may know, today is the 200th birthday of one of our most famous presidents, Abraham Lincoln. However, Lincoln is not the only famous person born today. It is also the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. Yes, as amazing as it seems, these two men were born on the exact same day in the exact same year: February 12, 1809. So why is today Darwin Day, then, you ask, and not Lincoln Day? Well, for one, Lincoln already has a day, President's Day, set aside for honoring him. And, for another, this year marks not only the 200th anniversary of his birth, but also the 150th anniversary of his greatest work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, more generally known as The Origin of Species.

The celebrations of Darwin's life and legacy that are happening all around the world today and over the course of this year (for more information, you can go to the official website) fill me with hope. Over the past few years, I have watched with horror and disgust as creationists and religious people of all stripes have tried to undermine the teaching of the facts of evolution to students in the public schools. As a student of science myself, and as someone who recognizes that society will get nowhere if it does not embrace the realities of the world and work to understand them instead of trying to bury them because they do not conform to ancient dogmas, I mourn for every child who grows up without an honest understanding of evolution. To see educators and scientists and laypeople all coming together to celebrate science and reason for once, and to do it around the figure of Charles Darwin, whose theories still remain controversial despite being absolutely true, is very inspiring.

And that is the most important thing to note about Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Unlike almost every other well-known scientist whose discoveries opened up a whole new field of study, Darwin's observations and conclusions about evolution and natural selection remain as true to reality today as they were in 1859. They have been enhanced, and modified slightly by the discovery of new evidence, specifically by the understanding of DNA as the source of genetic distinction and the mapping of genomes to determine the similarities and differences between all living organisms, but the discovery that all living organisms on this planet have evolved from other organisms, and continue to evolve through the method of natural selection, is a fact of the universe.

And what an amazing fact it is! To think that even human beings have changed over time, and are still changing, that what we are now is not all that our species will ever be, is mind-boggling. Add that to the idea that our intelligence and self-awareness, the things that we have always used to set ourselves apart from the animals, may not always be unique to us, and to recognize traits of intelligence and self-awareness in other animals is incredibly humbling. We owe the ability to see our world and ourselves as more connected and more ever-changing than we could have imagined to Charles Darwin, and if that is not something worth celebrating, then I don't know what is.

Happy Darwin Day!

Why I Am An Atheist - Part 3

The lightning strike came in the form of a 2006 BBC documentary called "The Root of All Evil?" that was written and presented by a man named Richard Dawkins. Dawkins has gained notoriety over the past few years as one of several highly-educated non-believers, sometimes derisively called the "New Atheists," who have spoken openly and passionately about the harm that religion and belief in God and the supernatural are doing to society. If you wish to watch the documentary yourself, I highly recommend it. It consists of two parts; The God Delusion and The Virus of Faith. More information on Richard Dawkins can be found at his website, Richarddawkins.net.

Everything within that documentary spoke to me in one way or another, but the majority of it was stuff that I had already recognized about religion, and I had also come to realize that the existence of religion and the existence or non-existence of God are not mutually inclusive. Just because there is religion doesn't mean that God exists, and just because religions are divisive or harmful or evil does not mean that God does not exist. But there was one point that was brought up in the documentary, so brief as to almost seem an afterthought, that struck me like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky: the idea that belief in the existence of God diminishes the awesome majesty of the world around us.

It was something I had never considered before. I was never a young-earth creationist or anything - I understand and accept evolution, the age of the Earth, the depth and complexity of the cosmos, and everything that science has found out about the world so far - but it had never occurred to me to question the belief that something out there bigger than us had to have been ultimately responsible for our existence, and that that something was God. Take away the assumption that the creation and evolution of human beings, of the world, and of the universe was in some part guided by an omnipotent being, and consider that instead it had all just come about by a myriad of natural processes that we do not yet know about or fully understand: it still blows my mind to think about it in those terms.

Inventing a deity to explain the complexity of the universe may seem like an easy way out, but it really raises more questions than it answers, especially when the definition of that deity requires that it exist outside of time and space and nature, everything we are capable of examining and understanding (this is the definition of super-natural: if it is outside of nature, how can we ever have a hope of examining or understanding it?). But stop to contemplate that the vast complexity of space and time around us is the result of nothing more than billions upon billions of natural processes, each one tiny but important, most of which we have not even imagined much less begun to understand, and it makes our world, our existence, and our ability to try and understand everything we see around us all the more amazing.

And the thing that makes it so amazing, at least to me, is the fact that it means that we are nothing special. If the natural forces that created the universe one tiny step at a time were able to create us, then intelligence is not something unique or impossible to understand. If it is a natural phenomenon, and not a God-given spark, then we may not be the only intelligent beings in the universe, or the only species on our own planet capable of being intelligent. And the realization that, even with our intelligence, we are no more special or unique than any other animal that has evolved physical and mental character traits that allow it to survive and manipulate the world around it totally changes your view of the world. Once I took God out of the equation, even for a moment, I realized that the world doesn't need him to explain its existence, and therefore neither did I.

I had discarded religion because there was no way of knowing who was right, and there were too many people telling me too many contradictory things about how the creator of the universe wanted me to live my life. I discarded worship of God when I realized that he could not be the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving deity that I had been raised to believe he was, a realization best described through the words of the Greek philosopher Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

And I discarded belief in God entirely when I realized that the universe did not need such a deity in order to exist, and is in fact a more amazing and wondrous place without him. When I reached the end of the documentary, and heard Richard Dawkins speak so eloquently about how he, as an atheist, placed the highest value on this life, because it is the only one we have and we are infinitely lucky to have it, I realized that I was an atheist too.

It has taken a lot of reading, thinking, and refining of my own ideas about the world, life, and where I stand on issues of knowledge and belief, but the real reason why I am an atheist now, and will continue to be one for the foreseeable future, is because I no longer see any reason to believe in the existence of something for which there is no factual evidence. This hasn't diminished my view of the world in any way; in fact, finally discarding a belief in God made me a much happier person. I realized that the world is more complex and amazing than I could have imagined, I decided that any purpose I choose to make in life will be guided by my own hand, and I discovered that I am still the same good and decent person I always was, even without an all-seeing vindictive deity in the sky analyzing my every thought for human weakness. And I am also a much more complex person than the label of 'atheist' can cover. All I am as an atheist is a person who does not believe in the existence of God. But life is more than a series of labels, obviously, and in future posts I hope to move away from examples of what I am not and instead focus on who I am and how I see the world.

I would like to conclude this extremely long topic with two quotes by one of my favorite authors, and favorite atheists, the late Douglas Adams. I was surprised and overjoyed to find, when I discovered the writings of Richard Dawkins, that he and Douglas Adams were both great admirers of one another. I would ask that anyone who is a fan of Adams read the wonderful tribute to his life written by Dawkins; it appears at the end of The Salmon of Doubt, and you can also find it here, along with Dawkins' eulogy to Adams. I could probably fill a whole new post with my favorite Douglas Adams quotes about atheism, but these two quotes by Adams sum up my reasons for being an atheist in a way that I never could alone.

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
-- Douglas Adams, from Last Chance To See

...imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
-- From a speech given by Adams at Digital Biota 2. Later quoted in Richard Dawkin’s Eulogy for Douglas Adams.

Why I Am An Atheist - Part 2

Okay, so tomorrow ended up being a very relative term when it came to the deadline for this post, but it's here now. Also, I ended up having way more thoughts than should be put in this post, so there will be a third part to all of this, which WILL be posted tomorrow. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, I had just explained how specific events in my childhood had led me to question the nature of God and religion as it had been taught to me in church, at school, and at home. My mind was open to an understanding of religious faith, and I was not afraid to question my beliefs, but it took a long time for me to even consider questioning the existence of God or any other higher power. I realize here that saying that it took a "long time" may be misleading - long is a relative term when one is young. I had accepted that there were very few hard facts about religious belief by the time I was twelve, but it took me that many years again before coming to the conclusion that God himself did not exist. If I look back on that period of time from my fifties, it will probably seem like a very short span of time, but looking back on it from my twenties, as I am now, it has taken almost half my life to sort through and decide where I stood on one specific idea about the world. And it was both a long, slow process and a lighting bolt of revelation at the same time.

To be fair, most of my teenage years were spent not thinking very much either way about religion or the existence of God. I was still growing up within a family, a community, and a larger society that took the existence of God as a fact, so while I questioned the details of religion or aspects of God from time to time, and debated those details with others, the reality of a moderate religious childhood is that religion rarely touches many aspects of your life outside of Sunday mornings. I grew up with more religion than most because of my Catholic school upbringing, but once I entered public high school, it became almost a non-issue against the backdrop of my education and my social life. Looking back, I see a thousand tiny events that have influenced me in one way or another, but the big change did not come until I left home for the first time and moved to college.

College is the place, I am sure, where many children brought up in a religion begin to question their beliefs. Not only are they on their own in the world, without their parents looking over their shoulder any more, they are also being exposed to a whole new level and style of education that is not present within primary and secondary schooling. In college, in order to fully learn and understand one's chosen field, students are encouraged to ask questions, to do research, and to develop their own way of viewing and interacting with the world. They learn not only facts, but they learn how to add new knowledge and information to what we already know. In college, I was encouraged to develop my critical thinking skills, to understand why the things I was taught were true, and that asking questions about the world was the only way to find real answers. But that was not what changed everything, because I had already been willing to do all those things when examining religion.

What changed everything, my entire way of looking at the world, was the fact that I woke up one morning, less than a month after moving away from home for the first time, to watch the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York City. The events of September 11, 2001, turned my world upside down. I was away from home, in a big city without any family or close friends around, and I had just seen an act so evil that it was completely out of the realm of my understanding. I didn't know why it had happened, or who could have done such a thing, and I had to find answers. Delving into the investigation, and the realization that it had been committed by an extremist religious group for religiously-motivated reasons opened my eyes to an aspect of religious belief that I had never seen - or even knew existed.


I had prided myself on my understanding of different faiths. I had studied many other religions - I knew their similarities and differences to Christianity, their principle beliefs, and how they practiced and expressed their faith. Or at least I thought I did, until I was introduced to the idea of religious extremism. And not just Islamic extremism, but the extremism of all faiths. Before leaving home for college, I had very little exposure to the reality of events in the outside world. I did not have reliable access to the internet, I did not read newspapers or watch the news on television, and I was more or less oblivious to the amount of hatred and violence that went on in the world. When I went to college, I suddenly had free and ever-present access to information about the world, and the wake-up call that led me to start looking at that world with open eyes was only the beginning of the horror I felt when I saw that religious belief was more complex and more invasive than I had imagined.

Once again, I don't want you to get the impression that it was the evil I saw religious people doing that "pushed me away from God," because it wasn't. I recognized then, as I still do now, that people have done both great good and great evil in the name of religion. The same is true for many other philosophies. But recognizing that religion does drive people to do horrible things - to hate, to murder, to terrorize their fellow man - it has to make one question the all-good, all-knowing, all-loving God that in whose name those people hate, murder, and terrorize. Gaining an adult perspective on the world finally gave me the means to start asking the hard questions: If God is all-loving, then why is there evil in the world? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are people of drastically differing faiths, or no faith at all, just as good or as bad as anyone else, if only God can show you how to live a good and moral life? And why do some people believe that committing obviously immoral acts are good if done in the name of religion?

The news media gave me a full view of everything that was going on in the world, and the internet gave me access to the entire world's opinion about every event, significant and trivial. I was exposed to the true diversity of life, of human experience, and I realized that the world was darker and more complex than I could have ever imagined. And as I slowly began to question everything I had thought to be self-evident, the lightning struck.

Why I Am An Atheist - Part 1

I had to think long and hard about what to put in this post, which is why it has been delayed. It is not easy for me to pick out the elements and events in my life that specifically led me to realize that the god I had believed in probably did not exist; when I examine everything, I find that my life is just one long continuum of events and experiences that has led to my current mindset, and each day I am adding new information that modifies and enhances my view of the world. This is going to be a long post, so I am breaking it into two parts for convenience. Part 1 will describe a few events in my childhood that made it possible for me two question the validity of religion and the existence of God, Part 2 will describe the events that led me as an adult to conclude that God probably does not exist.


I was born to a family of moderate Lutherans, but my childhood had more religious emphasis than many other moderate Christians because I went to a Catholic school for kindergarten through eighth grade. Fortunately, it was a fairly progressive Catholic school (only the eighth grade teacher and the principal were nuns) but we did have religion class every week and we did attend a children's Mass every Friday. Each class took turns sitting up at the front and leading the readings and the prayers, so at the age of six, as the only student in my kindergarten class who could read, I vividly remember standing up at the pulpit to give the readings every time our class led the Mass. I was introduced to religion in the way best-suited for childhood indoctrination; as a subject to be studied, understood, and taken as fact alongside math, science, history, reading, and writing. It never occurred to me to question the existence of God, or to even consider the fact that there may be people out in the world who heard the same things I did and did not believe it to be true, or that there were people who believed entirely different things, or did not believe at all. At least not at first. But there were two inevitable clashes coming that I can directly link to my questioning of the validity of religion and the existence of God.

The first was the fact that I was being raised in two religions. Every week, I was being taught the basics of Catholicism - their interpretation of the Bible, their rules and rituals - and every Sunday, I was being schooled in the Lutheran religion. And I was proud to be a Lutheran, to be a member of the church that first split away from Catholicism and dared to find a different way of interpreting the Bible. I imagine that you can see where this is going. I was learning about the way that Catholics interpreted the Bible, and I was constantly asking questions about why they saw it one way and Lutherans saw it another. And as I began to learn about the existence of other religions, and as I came to understand that even different Protestant religions had vastly different understandings of the Bible, I just couldn't stop asking why.

My favorite example of this: I learned during a Sunday school class on other religions that Catholics, Lutherans, and other Protestant religions all have different ways of interpreting the phrase, "Take, eat, this is my body. Take, eat, this is my blood" (I'm paraphrasing here). These are the words that Jesus said over the bread and wine at the Last Supper, and these are the words that most priests and pastors say over the bread and wine at the Eucharist when they consecrate it, or turn it into the body and blood of Christ. The Catholics believe that when the priest says these words over the bread and wine, it LITERALLY turns into the body and blood of Christ. They put their emphasis on "This is my body, this is my blood." Lutherans believe that the bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Christ while remaining bread and wine, but that the transformation does not occur until it has entered the person's body. They put their emphasis on the "Take, eat" and "Take, drink." All other Protestant religions, I was told, view the changing of the bread and wine as purely symbolic - it is a representation of Christ's sacrificial body and blood, but it is not literally transformed. One simple phrase, interpreted different ways, leads to three separate types of religion. And although it may seem to be a trivial difference, these differences of interpretation occur in one of the most vital expressions of the Christian religion. If you are of one religion, it is not acceptable for you to participate in the sacrament of the Eucharist of another religion because you have not gone through the training that allows you to fully understand the significance of the ritual. Wouldn't you think, if this expression of one's belief in and devotion to God was so important, that it would be easier to interpret?

Anyway, my opportunity to study other religions and my desire to understand why they did not all believe that same things, since it all seemed to start out so easy to understand, led me to constantly question why other people believed the things they did. This inevitably led to me questioning why I believed the things I did, something that I still do and will probably continue to do for the rest of my life. Though the ability to question why one believes the things she does does not make one an atheist, it certainly makes it hard to be religious, because eventually every religion has some things you are supposed to accept without question, and that wasn't something I was willing to do. But there was another event that started me on the path of questioning not only the validity of religion, but the existence of the God that so many religions claim exists.

When I was in the fifth grade, a very close friend of mine, a man named Denny Medill, committed suicide. The event in itself was a traumatic experience for me, but since I had experienced the death of friends and loved ones before, it did not cause me to question God in the way you may expect. I knew that people died, and went to heaven, and were in a better place, and that I would see them all again when I died. That was a fact of life, as far as I was concerned. But Denny's death put me at odds with a religious teaching that I was only just starting to learn about: the existence of hell.

My religious teachers were very savvy, and they knew that exposing a small child to the fullness of their ideas about hell right off the bat would be a traumatizing and cruel experience. So when I was just learning about religion, I believed that hell was a place that only the worst people in the entire world, like Hitler, went. I was convinced that hell had to be a fairly empty place, because no one could be so bad as to deserve to be punished for eternity. Except for Hitler. (I don't know why, but I once imagined that Hitler was the only person in hell. I think he was the only person that I could imagine had done something bad enough to deserve hell. I was, and still am, very optimistic when it comes to believing in the goodness of people.) But as I got older, the list of things that people could do, or not do, during their lives that would land them in hell grew longer, and longer, and longer. And Denny had not only committed suicide, but he had also been non-religious. A double-whammy. I was terrified at the thought that I would never see him again because of that. My parents tried to comfort me by telling me that God knew what he was thinking before he died, and that there was still a chance that he would go to Heaven, but all I heard was that there was a chance that he would not. He had been the nicest, funniest, happiest man I knew: I was having a hard enough time, at such a young age, wrapping my head around the question of why someone who seemed so happy and full of life would kill himself; the thought of him being punished for all eternity for a moment of terrible weakness was just too much for me to understand. So I did the only thing I could do in that situation: I rejected the idea of hell. I told myself that it did not exist, that the God I believed in would not allow such a thing to exist. But the problem with rejecting one aspect of a belief system is that it leaves you open to questioning and rejecting other aspects of it as well. And if the God that I believed in was suddenly not the same God that everyone else believed in, if he was now different because I refused to accept the existence of hell, then what did that say about the whole idea of God?

I will conclude this essay tomorrow with Part 2, when I will explain the events in my adult life that led me to the conclusion that there is probably no God.

Atheism and Agnosticism: Defining the Discussion

Happy New Year, everyone! In an effort to get this blog off on the right foot, regular-posting-wise, I figured that my first post of the new year should be about defining some terms. Since I am planning on discussing my views on religion and atheism regularly, at least for the time being, I imagine that it will be helpful for all of you to understand what I mean when I use words like 'atheist' and 'agnostic.'


The first thing that is important to understand about the way that I, and many other atheists, use these terms is that we do not consider them to be mutually exclusive. "Atheism" means "without belief in a god or gods," and "agnosticism" means "without knowledge of god or gods." Given this distinction, many people who define themselves strictly as agnostics may find that they have never asked themselves where they fall on the theist/atheist divide.

The best way to understand this distinction between belief and knowledge is to recognize that there are differing degrees of atheism and agnosticism that people use to further define themselves: strong and weak. A strong atheist would most likely say, "I believe that there are no gods," while the weak atheist would say, "I do not believe that there are any gods." It may seem like a small distinction, but it is not, because it is the difference between saying that you refuse to believe that something exists and saying that it may exist but you are not willing to believe in it without some evidence. It may come as a surprise to some to find out that most atheists, even the most outspoken ones, consider themselves to be weak atheists. It may not come as a surprise to others, because most atheists value reason and an open mind and would not be willing to dismiss the possible existence of anything, even a god; they just will not act as if that god actually exists unless they have some tangible proof of its existence. I consider myself to be a weak atheist for this reason: I am not going to close my mind to the possibility of the existence of a god or gods, but I see no reason to believe or act as if they exist until I have some evidence that they do.

There are also strong and weak definitions of agnosticism, allowing us to further clarify the distinction between knowledge and belief - a distinction that I consider to be vital in a world that seems to enjoy blurring the lines at every turn. A strong agnostic says, "I do not know whether or not gods exist, but neither do you," while a weak agnostic says, "I do not know whether gods exist, but someone might." Some theists would probably see themselves as agnostics under this definition: having faith in something makes it completely possible to believe that a god exists while admitting that you don't actually have any specific knowledge or evidence to support that belief. Granted, very few people would ever concede to believing in something with absolutely no reason for their beliefs, but it is possible, on a personal level, to believe in something with no real proof of its existence. Though I did not realize it at the time, I was an agnostic theist for many years before I finally became an agnostic atheist, but that's an explanation better left for the next post.

I consider myself to be a weak atheist, but a strong agnostic. I will not discount the possible existence of an entity containing the characteristics of a deity, but I will not believe in one without evidence, and I do not think that anyone currently has any knowledge, scientific or otherwise, that could bring us any closer to discovering the existence of such an entity. But the great thing about this position is that it allows my beliefs to be malleable while giving me a position from which to critically examine the claims of knowledge that others bring me, because I will not accept claims of knowledge (since I do not think anyone has such knowledge) without strong, testable, scientific evidence.

I hope this has not completely confused everyone reading it, but if it has, I invite you to please ask questions in the comments, and I will do my best to clarify any points that may not be clear. I would also like to state that, while I have found these definitions to be a good explanation of my position, and that of many of the atheists that I read and communicate with, I do realize that not everyone recognizes these same definitions, so it always helps to ask others what they mean when they define themselves as a theist, atheist, or agnostic before engaging in a discussion.

That being said, though, if you consider yourself to be an agnostic, but not an atheist or a theist, I would ask you to think long and hard about whether or not you actually believe in the existence of a deity. It's fine to admit not knowing something, but if that lack of knowledge means that you do not believe in a deity, it is important to realize that that makes you an atheist by the standard definition of the word. It seems to me that a lot of people simply use the word "agnostic" to describe themselves because they see the word "atheist" as a pejorative. If more people recognized the distinction between knowledge and belief and chose to recognize that they are atheists if they do not believe in a deity, the true definition of the word would begin to overtake the pejorative definition, allowing us to have more open discussions between believers and non-believers, which is all that most atheists, myself included, really want.