Why I am an Atheist (part four)

This is part four of this article, here you can find parts one, two and three.

Part IV: The Elegant Universe

When I was a boy, I looked up at the sky and wondered about all the amazing things that could be out there, all the life that must fill our universe and how it was only a matter of time before we would find someone, somewhere, who would have all the answers to all the questions I could ever think to ask. Maybe the biggest questions that have plagued us as people, center on questions of our origins. Why are we here? Where did we come from? How can we come from nothing? How can the universe and everything in it come from nothing? These are not new questions, they have been around as long as people have existed.

Long before we had modern astrophysics and cosmology, theologians attempted to answer the questions of our origin. And although the answer invokes little mystery, such are the ways of the faithful. You may have heard the old adage, it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a believer. This, of course is meant to point out a conflict that does not really exist. Believers maintaining that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, deity creating the universe, betters explains the existence of everything, than the Big Bang, which came from nothing.


In 1916, Albert Einstein shocked the world of physics by publishing a paper that described a universe that was dynamic and flowing, in direct contradiction to what everyone knew at the time, that the universe was a static one. In Einstein's theory of general relativity, space-time was not static but rather something that could be curved with sufficient gravity. Objects with sufficient mass produce gravity, and if that object had enough gravity, it could bend space around it. An example of this can be seen by pulling a blanket out tightly held at both ends, and tossing a ball in the middle. As the ball rolls around the blanket, the blanket curves around it, allowing it to flow freely with the movement of the ball. In this example, the blanket is space-time, and the ball is the object with sufficient mass.

Einstein's theory would change modern astrophysics forever, no longer would we look at the universe the same way again. Up until that point, scientists believed that the universe was a cold, dark, place that had existed forever, and would exist forever, and Einstein's theory of relativity turned that idea on it's head. When Einstein originally conceived his universe, he did so with the belief that because objects with sufficient mass would produce gravity, it meant that the universe was basically a giant field filled with objects that all pulled together with the attraction of gravity.

This meant that the universe would not expand forever, but rather that the natural attraction of gravity, actually pulled things together, in direct contradiction to science at the time. The problem with his theory, and one Einstein soon realized was that if the expansion of the universe was happening, it meant something was wrong with this theory. Einstein realized that and considered a new idea, that the universe must contain something that holds galaxies together, but keeps them apart, something he called the cosmological constant. New questions began to arise that again cosmologists would need to answer, because the theories that Einstein predicted meant that either the universe was indeed expanding and would continue to expand forever, or the gravity of the universe would eventually cause it to collapse, something scientists have called the Big Crunch.

In 1929, Edwin Hubble an astronomer, changed everything again when he proposed that the universe was indeed expanding. Hubble showed that from our observation that universe would appear to cause all galaxies to move apart from each other, something dubbed Hubble's law. Hubble's law showed that deep space objects appeared to conform to Doppler shift, that meant that there was a change in the frequency of a wave moving relative to the source of the wave.

An example of this can be heard by the whistle of a passing train, as the train gets closer, the sound gets higher, and it recedes as the train passes. Light is an emitted wave, much like sound and as such the laws of physics apply to it similarly. As light moves away from us, its wave becomes more and more stretched out, until it passes into the red end of the spectrum, a term referred to as redshifted. Hubble observed that the light from distant galaxies appeared to be more and more redshifted the farther he looked out, this allowed him to measure the velocity the galaxies were moving at, allowing him to determine that galaxies indeed were expanding away from each other. This meant that the universe was indeed born from one central place, the Big Bang, as predicted, had happened after all.

Although Hubble had explained that the universe was expanding, it meant something was still off, after all, if gravity was indeed attracting objects together, what was causing this expansion to continue, and if the universe was expanding as Hubble could show, why didn't galaxies come apart as the universe expanded?

One problem that has plagued science is the idea that something can come from nothing, after all, how can we explain a universe that came from the Big Bang, and at the same time declare there was nothing there to begin with? The answer to that question has only recently become something scientists can answer. When Einstein created his cosmological constant, he knew that the idea of such a thing meant that it would be something that more or less might never be proven, because it would be a force that no one could actually see. When Hubble released his findings of universal expansion, Einstein backed away from his theory of a cosmological constant, sighting it as “the biggest blunder of his career.”

Had Einstein lived another forty years, he would see, his prediction would not be so blunderous as he originally thought. Indeed, if you take all the matter of the universe, all the galaxies, stars and planets away, but leave the cosmological constant, you are still left with a universe that is populated with something, at the same time, being populated with nothing at all. This means that even if the universe is completely empty, it still contains something, extraordinary.

It is in the science of quantum mechanics that we begin to realize that a universe can be both empty and full simultaneously. Quantum mechanics is the study of objects at the atomic and subatomic levels. That means although relativity attempts to explain the very large objects in the universe, quantum mechanics attempts to explain the very small. Everything in the universe is made up of atoms, and when you examine atoms, you find they are made up of electrons, with a nucleus composed of protons and neutrons. The amount of protons in an atom, determine its atomic number, the scale we use to determine the chemical element of the atom, a scale we call the periodic table of elements.

For example, hydrogen is made of one proton and thus its number is 1 on the periodic table of elements, helium is composed of 2, Lithium is composed of 3, and so on and so forth. When we examine the contents of a proton, we find that although this proton contains quarks, it appears to be mostly empty. But as we examine it more closely we can see that quantum fluctuations within this proton that cause subatomic particles to pop in and out of existence actually account for much of the mass of the proton. This translates to the proton having mass, even when empty.

This means that the universe if emptied off all its matter, would still contain objects that have mass. Quantum fluctuations can be described by the change of temporary energy in a single point of space. This is best described by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This principle dictates that a subatomic particle's position and momentum cannot be accurately measured, because the act of measuring the particle would change the position and momentum of the particle. All of this may seem like hokum, but science has been able to prove that all of this is happening at the subatomic level with the invention of large particle accelerators. In particle accelerators we are able to see what happens when atoms are accelerated to something close to the speed of light and allowed to collide. This collision allows us to see the contents of atoms like never before.

Because of this we have been able to determine that matter is mostly made up of empty space, in fact, since the atoms in the matter of the universe are about 90% empty, it means that most of the mass of the universe comes from empty space. This caused a problem once again, because it meant that if everything that we couldn't see made up most of the mass of the universe, it meant that the math of the universe dictated that it contained more mass than was available to the universe as we know it. The easiest way to explain how this is possible, is to calculate that number, not in the magnitude that the calculation would predict but rather conclude that all that energy was being canceled somehow, and that it really meant that it equaled zero.

Once you realize that the number is really zero, things begin to make sense. Although this concept may seem extreme, it is easy to see how such a thing is possible once you consider that the universe works this way all the time. Things are constantly canceling each other out, a mathematical symmetry, as its called.

In Einstein's theory of relativity, a space-time that is dominated by gravity, results in a space-time that is curved. This means that the universe can be seen in a few ways. Either we live in a universe that is closed, meaning that it acts like a bubble that allows light to have an end, or one that is flat or open, meaning light would go on forever. In a closed universe as objects expand, the attraction of gravity would eventually cause the universe to pull itself together, thus causing the Big Crunch some scientists have predicted.

However, a universe that is open or flat would not suffer such a fate, in fact, a universe that is open or flat, would expand forever, and as we shall discover, in either case, Big Crunch or expansion, the future of the universe is a grim prospect in either sense. When cosmologists began to examine distant points of space looking for a way to determine the total mass of the universe they came upon an interesting problem, galaxies contained more mass than could be determined by just counting the mass of the matter found in galaxies. When they looked at clusters of galaxies something odd happened, the galaxies weighed more than they should, based on the mass that could be determined by the total amount of matter each galaxy contained. This meant that there was something there they couldn't see, in fact, it represented 90% of the total mass of the galaxy.

Scientists have now come to understand that although galaxies are made up of some matter, if you take the total mass of all the matter contained within a galaxy and examine it, you find there simply isn't enough matter to keep the objects in the galaxy attracted to one another. This means that if galaxies are mostly made of matter, they should be coming apart. But when scientists looked at distant galaxies they were not coming apart, this meant that something was keeping them together, something that had a lot more mass than the matter contained within the galaxy, scientists have dubbed this dark matter.

In 1998, scientists who ironically were attempting to measure the expansion of the universe to determine how slowly it was expanding, made a remarkable discovery. The universe was not expanding slowly as they believed, but accelerating with each passing moment. That meant that the galaxies that scientists like Edwin Hubble observed moving away from each other, didn't slow down as the universe expanded, but actually accelerated as they expanded farther from each other. This again caused an interesting problem, since we know that dark matter keeps galaxies from coming apart and it makes up most of the matter in the universe, what would be causing the acceleration of expansion then?

Scientists knew there must also be some kind of force that is working to accelerate the expansion of the universe, a theory which has been dubbed as dark energy. And although scientists cannot actually see dark matter or dark energy we know that it accounts for more than 99% of the total mass of the universe. When we attempt to account for all the matter in the universe we still only account for less than 1% of the total mass of the universe, which means that for all intents and purposes the universe is mostly made up of things we cannot see. Scientists now believe that around 70% of the universe is made from this dark energy and 30% is made of dark matter, and all the rest of the matter in the universe, all the galaxies, stars, and planets, make up less than 1% of the universe.

Because of this acceleration of the universe as it expands, the most sensible concept of the universe is that it is one that is flat. And it is because of this that we are able to see why a universe that can come from nothing is possible. It is only in a flat universe where gravity can determine the amount of energy required to do this. As I have previously explained, mathematical symmetry allows gravity to be both a positive and negative force and thus the energy required is zero, as they cancel each other out. And as I've previously explained, with quantum fluctuations that allow the introduction of particles to pop in and out of existence, it is in this kind of universe, that something can come from nothing.

So although it may be more comforting to assume a deity is responsible for the existence of the universe, the science just doesn't support such a hypothesis. And although we are left with some answers, we are also left with some questions. Why would a universe exist where so much of it is dominated by nothing, leaving such an insignificant amount left for everything else? And if the universe did come from a Big Bang of nothing and the expansion of that Big Bang is accelerating, what does it mean for the ultimate fate of the universe?

Scientists have wondered how a universe that is dominated by almost nothing can come to produce life at all? One such theory that has emerged comes from a concept of quantum mechanics, in which the possibility of multiple quantum universes exist simultaneously, and the idea that in any given situation whenever an outcome is possible to happen, every outcome does happen in multiple quantum universes, called the multiverse.

The way to think of such a thing, is to think of this multiverse as a tree with an infinite number of branches. Whenever a possibility must occur, the branch of the tree forks infinitely to account for all possible outcomes. Again this may seem purely nonsensical, however, when we observe subatomic particles we are able to see that they can exist in multiple states simultaneously, which contradicts common sense. After all, if something is here, how can it be there as well? And although, science has tried to disprove this, thus far, quantum mechanics seems to dictate that this observation appears to be happening. So if just such a multiverse exists, it means that a sort of cosmological natural selection is happening.

In that kind of multiverse it means that there are an infinite number of universes where maybe no matter emerged at all, or maybe the laws of that universe were slightly different, and gravity was too strong, thus forcing a universe like this to expand too quickly never allowing galaxies to coalesce, and therefore life becomes impossible. So it seems that the laws of inevitability would determine that eventually, that perfect universe, the Goldilocks universe, might emerge. So you could have an infinite number of failures, and only one success and we would still come to pass, after all, if it were not possible we wouldn't be here to argue the validity of just such a possibility at all.

Of course by that rationale, the possibility also exists that for as many failures there could be successes and there could be an infinite number of universes out there that have creatures much like us, asking the same questions we ask about our origin. Because of this concept it only takes a moment to realize that the possibility of a universe where the possibility of life is so small and insignificant is still ultimately, not only possible, but mostly probable. That means in the game of cosmic lottery, ultimately someone wins.

Although the possibility of a flourishing universe is mostly a probable one, we must also look at the existence of life in just such a way as well. When I was a kid my grandparents bought me a telescope, and although it wasn't terribly powerful or expensive, it allowed me to look up at the night sky and see the moon more beautifully than I had ever seen it before. I peered into its lens and could see the bright stars everywhere I looked. In 2003, the Hubble space telescope, named after Edwin Hubble, was focused on a part of space where it appeared to be completely dark, a point where no stars could be seen.

After months of compiling data a new picture of the universe began to emerge, one in which scientists always surmised the possibility, but earthbound telescopes had little luck showing. In that tiny fraction of the sky the Hubble observed, a point which appeared to consist mostly of dark space, there emerged a picture of the universe, not one of darkness but of millions of points of light. When magnified each point of light showed itself to be a galaxy. That meant that even in areas that could be observed as having no light whatsoever, if viewed under a powerful enough telescope galaxies would emerge.

If millions of galaxies could be observed by focusing on a point in space, no bigger than the size of a quarter when compared to the size of the moon as observed, it truly meant that the possibility of a flourishing universe was made even more probable than we could ever have imagined. Next time you are standing outside at night and you look up into the night sky, look for a point of space that has no visible light and imagine that, although you cannot see it, after all, your eyes are unable to view something that far away, that point in space you are looking at is full of millions of galaxies.

Then glance around at all the stars you can see, because their light is so bright, and look at all that empty space in between. If you can even envision just such a thing in your mind, you are looking at hundreds of billions of galaxies, each populated with hundreds of billions of stars. If even 1% of those galaxies have the possibility of stars capable of supporting life, and 1% of those stars have planets around them, than you are still left with billions of planets that could have life on them. If life has arisen on this planet, and we know that it has, because we are here to talk about it, than we must conclude that a universe like ours is a universe that not only possesses life, but is one that is thriving with it.

Life is an amazing thing, even once you conclude that in the cosmic equation, life is as inconsequential to the universe, as a grain of sand is to the mountains that cover the planet Earth. Life isn't something that was put here, as theologians might have us believe. Life is a matter of eventual inevitability, as a consequence of a thriving planet like Earth. The way to think of life is to think of it as merely a tumbler in the lock of universal chaos. As things move around, gravity attracts the objects of mass together, and the planets begin to form around stars. As the dial of a lock is spun around, a tumbler within the lock fits into place, and the same such things happen in the universe. When all the tumblers fall into place, the lock is opened, and life happens. Life didn't begin at the hands of a deity, but rather it began long ago in the death of a star.

After the Big Bang, a cosmic process of evolution began, the intense heat created from the explosion that created the universe allowed the forces to combine and expand. As the forces expanded, they cooled, separating into the four fundamental forces of the universe as we know them today, gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. As the universe continued to cool, the quarks of the sub-atomic realm formed, a process that is dictated by high-energy physics. Soon after that protons and neutrons formed, which lead to the formation of atoms. As the universe expands, it cools further and hydrogen atoms begin to form into clouds. Gravity attracts the clouds of hydrogen together into the formation of the first protostars. The condensing hydrogen begins to form a core, and the heat of this core causes the hydrogen atoms to fuse. This fusion to helium causes a massive release of energy, and gravity pushes against the protostar forcing more fusion of atoms.

This dance of gravity and nuclear fusion causes the first stars to form. Unfortunately, these massive stars are incapable of sustaining the fusion required to produce enough energy to stop gravitational collapse, and very quickly these stars explode in massive supernovae. These supernovae force the newly formed atoms to spread everywhere, and gravity does its best to collect these clouds of atoms into new protostars. This process will continue, over and over, spreading hydrogen throughout the universe. Soon enough the clouds of hydrogen gas have spread thin enough that as gravity attracts them together, instead of massive unstable stars forming, new galaxies of stars would form.

The smaller a star is the slower it will burn, and the longer it will survive. The longer a star can survive its eventual destruction the longer it has to fuse elements. Because of this, the larger stars that were formed in the earlier universal expansion were unlikely to form anything but simple elements like hydrogen and helium, however stars that came later, like those that would form with galaxies would burn longer and slower allowing them to form the more complex elements found in the universe, just before they ultimately explode. As stars continue to form and explode in the new universe, the elements form into clouds of dust, then coalesce into debris around the newly formed stars.

These would be the beginnings of systems, the formation of planets around a star. As the angular momentum caused by gravity, swirls the debris around, chunks of rock and dust collide as they move by, and the planets begin to take shape. In its molten form, a planet of sufficient mass has the gravitational field required to pull its mass toward the center as it forms. The angular momentum of the planet forming, causes the rock being pulled toward its center to become a molten fluid, that sets as the planet cools over time. This process is called hydrostatic equilibrium, and it is responsible for the spherical shape of planets.

At this point the planet has to cool off quite a bit for anything to happen, and as this happens much of the remaining debris that has not been formed into planets succumbs to the gravitational pull of larger bodies, many of these becoming moons themselves. The remaining debris will find itself either on a collision course with a planet or moon, or gravity will take hold of it and drop it off somewhere inside or outside the system, maybe destined to become an asteroid or comet.

From this point on all of the elements of that planet will have been determined by the debris that was used to form it, with one exception, debris that could be introduced by a crashing comet or asteroid as it collides with the planet. At this point all of those elements that make up the planet and ultimately will be used in the formation of any life on that planet will have come from the explosion of stars that came before it.

Now although hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it only comprises about 10% of the human body, and without the fusion of elements, resulting from the supernovae of stars, the elements oxygen (65%), carbon (18%), nitrogen (3%) and various other elements of which we are mostly comprised, would not have been possible. So as Lawrence Krauss so famously stated, “The only way these elements could get into your body was if stars were kind enough to explode, so forget Jesus. The stars died so you could be here today.” It seems such a waste to worship someone who had nothing to do with our existence and only existed as a result of the same cataclysmic event as the rest of us.

It would seem then if humans were meant to worship the true creators of our existence, it would not be in deities that we should hold our allegiance, but rather the stars found in the night sky. It would seem to me that being a sun worshiper makes more sense than being a Christian.

One of the hardest notions religious people have trouble understanding is the idea that life isn't special and that it doesn't take a God to create it. Life isn't special, in fact there is no difference chemically between you and the chair you might be sitting in. Sure there may be some elements found in the chair that might not be found in you, or some of the elements are of different proportions, but if that chair was made on this planet, chances are that it is comprised of much of the same things you are.

So then it begs the question if the chair and I share common elements why am I alive and the chair is not? And this is the question that seems to cause quite a stir, because religion would have you believe that God is pulling all the strings, and so the reason the chair is not alive and you are, is that God has made it that way. The problem with that is, God isn't the reason this chair isn't alive. So to understand this we must first understand that life is merely a state of being.

At the quantum level, the chair and I are really not different, in fact, you'd be unlikely at that level to see any difference at all. So what does make life? Well it's certainly not atoms, atoms are not alive. Atoms are combined to form molecules, but molecules are also not alive. Abiogenesis is the study of origin through the evolution of organic life from inorganic matter. The cells that exist in our body are all alive, and all of them contain amino acids which are inorganic molecules often referred to as the building blocks of life. So how exactly do we go from an inorganic molecule like an amino acid, to an organic cell?

Most notably abiogenesis requires either the process of replication and/or the process of metabolism as an explanation for this. The idea of self-replication in abiogenesis relies on the idea that inorganic matter would divide and replicate over and over, forming more complexity through the evolutionary process. Metabolism as it relates to abiogenesis is the introduction of chemicals into the process allowing the construction and formation of more complexity. It should be noted that although both processes have been put forward as a theory for the evolution of life from inorganic compounds, it seems more likely that a combination of the two are actually responsible for the production of life.

In 1952, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey experimented with the notion that inorganic matter could be used to create organic life, if the chemicals and conditions of primordial earth could be synthesized in a closed environment. This is often referred to as the primordial soup experiment. Miller and Urey placed water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen into sealed containers. Water was heated to simulate evaporation, and electricity was introduced to mimic the kind of storms a primordial Earth might experience. As the water vapor cooled, the mixture would reduce to the bottom where it would be heated again, evaporating and starting the process over again. After a week of continuous experimentation, a sludge had formed.

The mixture was found to contain at least eleven amino acids, responsible for the creation of proteins, which are used in the production of living cells, and organic compounds like carbohydrates and lipids, though no nucleic acids were found. Though the experiment had some interesting conclusions it left many with a conclusive answer to the question of life, that it couldn't be created in a simple experiment. Because of this, many religious people took this to mean that only God could actually create life.

In 2007, after the death of Stanley Miller, scientists who were interested in further research on the subject examined the old containers used in the experiments. Upon examination it was clear that more than twenty different amino acids had actually been produced by the experiment, all used in the production of cell building proteins. New evidence has also come to show that the experiment itself may have been flawed, not because of failed methods, but rather a lack of knowledge. We now have evidence that suggests that the Earth may have contained a much different environment than the one used by the Miller-Urey experiment.

Through further experimentation, applying a new understanding of the environment of the primordial Earth, the primordial soup experiment had yielded even more complex molecules than originally produced. One can surmise that finding that Goldilocks situation is all that is likely needed to produce the correct combination of chemicals resulting in the production of organic life.

I can understand the need for some people to run to a religion to get answers to their questions, it would seem that for them, its easier to believe that a deity was responsible for the creation of everything rather than a natural order of things. These are certainly complex questions and even more complex answers. But I believe it is our responsibility as intelligent conscious animals living in a universe that is primed for discovery to seek out this information and to teach others. On the cosmic scale, we live in a time that is important for universal discovery.

As the galaxies accelerate faster and faster apart from each other, less and less of the observable universe will be seen. That means that in billions of years, all galaxies will have accelerated to the point where they exceed speeds faster than that of light, at which point the light being emitted from those galaxies will be unable to traverse the distance needed to make it back. In Einstein's theory of general relativity, Einstein is often misquoted as saying that nothing can go faster than light. What Einstein actually said was, objects with no inertia could not accelerate to a speed that was faster than that of light. Einstein made special considerations that allow objects already accelerating, the possibility of faster than light travel. Because of this, a spaceship cannot travel faster than the speed of light, however galaxies that are already accelerating would not be affected by this limitation.

When this happens, anyone on this planet or any planet somewhere in the cosmos looking through a telescope in the night sky will only see the stars available in their own galaxy, and when they peer at a spot of darkness in that night sky, it will appear to be cold and dark and empty. Anyone looking up into just such a sky will have no evidence of the big bang, and they will have no evidence that galaxies beyond their own, exist at all. Scientists will discover all the science of the universe, do all the experiments of that science and derive from that science all the wrong conclusions about the universe they observe.

But the picture beyond that gets even bleaker, because as galaxies accelerate faster and faster away from each other, the hydrogen that is required to create new stars is spread farther and farther into the universe, and eventually the galaxies will exhaust their supply of hydrogen available and be unable to get anymore. Once this happens, no new stars will emerge and as time passes fewer and fewer stars in the night sky will be visible until one day someone might look up into that night sky and see nothing at all. One day far, far off in the future, the last star in the universe will go out and there will be no hydrogen left to create others, and on that day the universe will go dark forever.

It's hard to imagine that an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being would create such a universe, after all, such a being would certainly be able to foresee just such an eventuality and stop it, or better yet create a universe where such a possibility would not occur in the first place. Christians argue that God allows such things to happen because of free will, however it is hard to argue a concept like free will, when talking about the universe which does not possess conscious thought or an ability to make decisions.

The universe exists as it does and nothing can change that, and so human free will cannot play into a rational discussion of the repercussions of a universe that seems at present on course for its own destruction. How can a rational person reconcile the fact that God who is supposed to be perfect, would create the most imperfect of places to live, an environment where the existence of an entire planet of human beings who worship it, are doomed to destruction, but more so that all life in the universe, a possibility that certainly exists, is doomed to the very same fate.

It is my belief that fundamentally religious people who look at such evidence are affected in one of two ways, either they do not believe it, purely based on the fact that its conclusions are derived principally in science itself, or that they might believe such a possibility but contend that it's God's way, and they either await a miracle which may never come, or simply adjust to the idea that God is mysterious and we are not privy to the ways he makes his decisions. The latter conclusion leads me to believe that such religious people should be excluded from discussions on rational thinking because the principles for which they base their arguments are rooted in superstition and absurdity.

I have spent most of my life with no need for religion and have tried to live with an understanding of the science of the universe. I am by no means an expert and the information contained in this part of the article can be researched by anyone. The conclusions made herein, are based on scientific theory. It should however, be of particular importance that something should be made clear, and I think religious people often mistake it and for which the scientific community makes no attempt to correct.

Theory is defined as a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena.

It does not mean that theory refers to a guess or conjecture, which most creationists will attempt to persuade you to believe. Somehow creationists have turned the word theory into a bad word, and anytime they want to trump out a reason why relativity or evolution is not possible, they refer to it as a theory. However, understanding what theory really means it is clear that although evolution is a theory this does not mean that it is incorrect.

However, although evolution is most definitely a theory, creation cannot be a theory by definition, since it lacks scientific experimentation and observation, a requirement to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Ultimately, this means that although creationists can maintain their version of the universe as one of pure faith, it lacks the scientific reason that allows it to be considered as a serious conclusion. This does not mean however, that the existence of God can be disproved, only that it cannot be scientifically proven, which by scientific definition means that it lacks the scientific foundation to be generally accepted.

In part five of this article I will attempt to coherently blend much of my opinions and conclusions together into a working summation that I hope will complete this article and enlighten some of you.


UPDATE: You can find part five here

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Why I am an Atheist (part three)

This is part three of this article, here you can find parts one and two.

Part III: Indoctrination, endemic of a delusional mind 

As children, we are bombarded constantly with an endless barrage of information. We tend to put a lot of trust in our parents as guardians of the truth. As I've said before, for children the world is a much smaller place than the one we as adults come to know. The mind of a child is much like the surface of a sponge, and like water to a sponge, information is the thing that fills the brain. But not all information is good information, in fact most information is probably bad information, and as children we have no real sense of this struggle of good and bad, for children all information has an equal footing.

To a child who has never seen a pot of boiling water, he or she could easily be convinced to place their hand in that pot even as steam is clearly seen emerging from its top. This isn't because children by nature are unintelligent, but rather ignorant to the world they are experiencing. It is incumbent upon us as adults and parents to educate our children to the good and the bad.


To a child, fear is a concept that has no place in their world, their minds having never experienced it, have no concept of what it means to be afraid. There is something primal that can certainly be applied to a given situation, for instance, a child having never been punched in the face by a bully might run, when faced with the prospect of such a thing, even though that child having never experienced it, should have nothing to fear. However, although it is easy to say that the child was afraid, it is much more complex than that, the child is only reacting to the chemical release of adrenaline and the emotional response of neuropeptides being released into the bloodstream by the hypothalamus gland located in the brain.

This instinct to run is something that has been built into our brains through millions of years of evolution. It should be noted however, that there is nothing special about this kind of behavior as it is found in all species of animal on the planet Earth, built into the primitive, most primal, R-complex or reptilian part of the brain, known as the basil ganglia. There is, of course another part of this emotional response that plays off of the reaction to run, and that is the reaction to stay. Although it isn't really clear why some prefer to stay and others prefer to run, this reaction is classified as the fight or flight response, and it is one of the most basic emotional responses a brain can have in any given situation when faced with imminent danger.

Now you may wonder why a child who has never been burned, may place their hand in a pot of boiling water and discover a new danger, but a child who has never been bullied has the instinct to run when faced with a punch to the face? The thing to understand here is that humans, although certainly more advanced in every way to all other animals of the world, we are still animals nonetheless. Our reactions to danger are dictated by primal instinct, an emotional response that has evolved over millions of years.

Our responses to other animals, as opposed to inanimate objects are clearly discernible, after all a tiger baring his teeth, is much more frightening than a toaster. Having never seen a tiger or a toaster, one could argue a child would respond to the sight of a tiger much like any adult, and react to the sight of a toaster in just the same way. Of course, this is a hypothesis for which there will be no evidence gathered, as likely no one would put a child in the same room as a tiger, to see what kind of reaction can be elicited.

Many factors must also be considered by the brain when faced with danger, but maybe none more important than the size of the thing for which a child is afraid. A good example of this can be seen as although most children might run away from the sight of a tiger, the sight of a cat, may illicit an opposite reaction. Clearly, to an observer a cat and a tiger bare much of a resemblance, the sharp teeth, tabby paws, long twisting tail, and predator slit eyes, but unless you have had a bad experience with cats in the past, or have an allergic reaction to them, their size alone dictates how you might respond to a chance meeting with one, a response I might point out, the cat will also most certainly share. Y

ou may have heard the old adage size matters, well in these cases, it really does. Again, I must point out that the reaction to run, is in some ways equal to the reaction to stay in a given situation, and for whatever reason, in some brains, a child when faced with the hiss of a tiger who is baring his teeth and claws, may choose not to run. Of course, any child likely to do this, would be a prime example of Darwinism at work, after all, the one who runs today, can stay alive to fight another day, but certainly any child who chooses to face a tiger today, will likely be its prey.

As a very small child, I have very few memories, but I do recall an occasion in which I placed a penny into a light-bulb socket, while the light was plugged in. You might ask yourself what would possess anyone to do such a thing, but you must understand it is the inquisitive nature of children that allows such ignorance, possible. So with the light plugged in, and the light-bulb removed, I slowly placed the penny in the socket.

The only thing that I can think of that makes sense as to why I tried this was the fact that pennies are round, the socket is round, and much like the games young children play, you are taught to put the small round object through the small round hole. In a fraction of a second, I was introduced to a concept that had never occurred to me before, electricity. Now I may not have known what this was but I felt its power, throughout my body, as my hand allowed the arching electric current to pass freely through me. In that moment I learned a lesson that still haunts me to this day, electric shock...sucks.

When I try to think about what I most fear, not many things actually come to mind, but if I were faced with the possibility of being shocked I can tell you,  my reaction would seem utterly irrational for sure. Although, one occasion of electric shock should suffice to keep most people away from it ever happening again, I have had the misfortune of being shocked several times, and this has left an indelible impression of electricity that won't ever go away. One of my more memorable instances of being shocked came when I was around thirteen. I was at a friend's house playing basketball in the driveway with neighborhood kids and it started to rain. Everyone gathered their things and proceeded to head inside the house. My friend's mother asked me to grab the dog and bring him inside with me. Next to the driveway was a small square plot of cement where a shed once existed, on one side of the plot was a metal pipe protruding from the ground, a plug box affixed to the end. The dog had been been chained up to the house, but had gotten his chain wrapped around the pipe that protruded from the ground. Unable to actually get loose, the dog simply rested himself there on the cement.

Now at this point, I had been shocked at least a couple of times, and I was clearly weary of touching a metal chain, wrapped around a metal pipe, that rested upon a metal plug box. So I walked over to the door where everyone was situated and asked, “That looks like an electric box, am I going to be shocked?” “No, the electric company said it wasn't functioning anymore, so you should be fine,” she replied. So I put my trust in her words, after all, she said that the electric company said it was not working, so it should be fine. What didn't occur in my thinking and clearly should have, was her use of the word should, which went in one ear and came out the other, it seems. So without a second thought, I latched onto the chain and began to try and pull it away from the pipe it was wrapped around.

Now, I don't really remember much of what happened after that, at least not for a few minutes, but I've been told that I reached a height of air, I had never reached while playing basketball. I was literally lifted from my feet in seconds and tossed backwards onto the ground. I remember the intense pain with which the unforgiving electricity passed through me and for which horrible memories have been implanted into my consciousness forever. The dog was fortunately very lucky, he was none the wiser to what had happened, and I was glad for that fact, as I imagine, had the dog suffered even a small bit of what I had received, this twenty-five pound animal might not have survived it, and his death at my hands might have haunted me even to this day.

Childhood is a time in the life of a child where they are open to possibilities that can not be considered even later in life as adults. It is said that the cognitive abilities of children, far exceed that of adults and if evolution is still at work anywhere, it is in the minds of children where it can be readily found. I was watching the television once, and I turned it on to a conversation a woman was having with someone else about the state of her children as it related to their education. She was inquiring what she needed to do as a parent to help her kids learn. The other person gave a short cookie-cutter response to the inquiry that involved some talk about forcing the child to study more or taking away their toys to give them better focus on the objectives.

What occurred to me in that moment was that a child's mind is, as I've said much like a sponge, but more so, like a sponge without the restriction of immobility that a sponge has. A child can do all the things he or she wants to do and will do them, if not interrupted. When I look back to some of the things I did as a child, it occurs to me, although I did not know it then, that I was applying science to the world as I observed it. All children do this, everyday, all the time. A boy might wonder, what would happen if I jumped out of this tree? The boy may look down and think he could easily break a limb, or maybe not? It is then that he considers the hypothesis that forms the basis of an experiment. So the boy leaps from the tree, the experimentation of the hypothesis, he supposed. And as the boy had considered, he breaks his leg, an observation he has now made.

So in these few moments the boy has applied a scientific method and has not have even realized it. Again, this happens all the time. Children frequently shock themselves, as I did, others put their hands in the boiling pot and others still, find more interesting ways to experiment with their environment. It is at a fundamental level the inquisitive nature of a child to apply a scientific method to his or her world. What we discover is that a child is most held back by the adults in his or her life who believe that they are doing the most good by bringing such experimentation to an end.

Now, I am not suggesting that a parent should allow their child to burn themselves, jump from a great height or otherwise put themselves in danger. The role of a parent should be, to be no more repressive with their intentions than is needed to secure the safety of their child, and to allow their child to freely explore a natural affinity to use the brain they have to learn and comprehend the nature of the environment in which they thrive. It is adults to which children look to for guidance, precisely in those times when a child is unsure of something.

It is at these times when a child's mind is most open to influence. It is, as I suppose, that the mind of a child is the mind of scientist and if cultivated properly can be used to further such ends, but as you shall soon read, not all parents cultivate such things, and some further do harm by oppressing the natural urge to be scientific by exposing the child to the very antithesis of scientific reason...the delusion of faith.

We have all seen images of the picket line at an abortion clinic, at the funeral of a gay soldier; or at a school where a science teacher has chosen to teach evolution over creationism. Amongst all the rhetoric and hate we see signs confessing the most evil of intent, and when we look, often times we see it held by the small hands of a child. This child if asked, will proclaim a hatred for such things as abortionists, fags and atheists, hate filled speech of the worst kind, but we must take such speech from a child with a grain of salt, after all, the child is merely reaffirming the words spoken by the parents of such children.

A young child, is unable to comprehend the words they are repeating, and although it is certainly hurtful to hear such things spoken from the mouth of such a small being, one must take comfort in knowing that should such a child be removed from that situation, that child could easily be made to never speak of such things again. However, in this country we are not in the habit of removing children from their parents merely on the basis of promoting such hate, though it should be said, that should that child grow up to harm another human being, induced by the words of a parent, than ultimately that parent is responsible for that harm, and should this induced person ever be brought to trial for their behavior so should that parent.

Now you may recoil at the very idea that I am suggesting. In this country, we believe that a person is responsible for their own actions, and as such should be held accountable. But let's consider a few things. The government often takes steps to remove children who are in danger of being harmed, and will often institutionalize a person who is deemed not fit for society. So why should we assume that the government could not take a child out of a home where the parents are promoting not only the deliberate hatred of others, but as is often the case, educating that child to the ways of a religion that promotes violence to be taken to solve a perceived problem.

After all, the same people who stand outside the abortion clinics screaming hate filled rhetoric as the doctors and patients enter the clinic, are the same people who praise the actions of terrorists who murder the doctors and bomb those clinics. Teaching your child to not only hate a particular group of society, but also teaching them that murder is a justification for abortion, is in my opinion, harmful, and if this is in fact deemed to be the truth, than the government would be justified in taking just such a child from the home. We have, as I see it a problem in this country with placing blame where it ought to be placed.

If an adolescent boy finds a gun laying on a shelf in his father's closet, takes that gun to school and accidentally shoots a classmate with it, in some states depending on the age of the boy and the circumstance of the shooting, that boy could be charged with murder and tried as an adult. This to me seems both ridiculous and fruitless, as it will not bring back the life of the dead child, and at the same time aim to punish a boy who is developmentally incapable of truly understanding his actions.

And although the blame for this act, should fall on the father of this boy who left his gun laying on the shelf of a closet, not in a gun-safe, or having a triggerlock, which in either case would have prevented this, but instead we will punish the boy.  Even if this boy is able to understand his actions, he is at an age where his mind hasn't fully developed, and the person he is now, is not the person he will be in twenty-five years, when he may be eligible for parole, if he is convicted.

Although its easy to understand the reasoning for putting a man in prison for life, for committing heinous acts of murderous violence, I fail to see the logic in putting a boy in prison for making a mistake, that otherwise would not have been made except for the inaction of an irresponsible parent. Christian scientists have maintained a religious tradition of not allowing their children to receive medical care when needed, instead, resorting to prayer as a means to heal them, that has resulted in the death of many children. Such parents have been tried and convicted of criminally negligent homicide, meaning if not for the negligence of that parent, the child would otherwise still be alive.

This begs the question, wouldn't it have been a reasonable step by the government to take the child away from parents who chose to adhere to this doctrine, resulting in the possible survival of that child, rather than leave the child to parents who's answer to an obvious appendicitis, is to pray for the pain to stop, and put them in jail after the child has died?

Now not every child raised by bad parents turns out to be a serial killer, just as not every child raised by good parents turns out to be a decent, loving, caring, human being. Some serial killers have been shown to have had good parents, and so some people would argue that, it should be proof enough that children should never be removed from their home, in spite of bad parenting.

The act of indoctrination is defined as bestowing upon someone, the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group, at the same time ignoring all other ideas, opinions and beliefs. Religious indoctrination occurs when a person or persons indoctrinates someone to believe in their religious beliefs, disregarding evidence to the contrary, and ignoring a reasonable proposition. I would argue, that such indoctrination of a child during their formative years is a form of abuse, that although does not certainly rise to the level of the physical abuse of a child, its certainly an abuse of the mind and its implication can be felt long after the child has reached adulthood.

A properly indoctrinated child, can and will not only continue to advance the cycle of indoctrination to their own children, but do so without a second thought, as part of their belief system, its not only their right, but their duty as parents and good religious folk. A child who is not removed from such a situation during those years where they are most susceptible to such influence, is destined to become a sheep in the flock, called religion.

Many people may argue that religion is not particularly harmful, an argument which I will attempt to dismantle later on, but for now will say only this. As I mentioned before, the government institutionalizes people for their own protection, people who have been deemed non compos mentis, a latin term meaning, not of sound mind. Psychopathology is the study of mental illness. In Psychopathology, psychiatrists are taught to recognize many forms of delusion including one referred to as the grandiose delusion.

Delusions are firmly held beliefs that someone holds despite lack of evidence, and despite contradicting evidence. The grandiose delusion typically involves a person who believes themselves to be centrally special through fantastical means, usually involving science-fiction, supernatural or religious themes. If a person believed himself to be special because he is receiving special messages from a source that he thinks is God, would that not qualify just such a person as delusional?

By just such a technical description alone any psychiatrist would be justified in committing a person who believed that they heard the word of God, a contention most preachers maintain during Sunday church service. Beyond that, people often proclaim having felt God's touch or having been influenced by a voice they believed came from God. Would not all these people also be delusional? The problem, is that societal norms about religion have allowed the mass delusion of religion to continue, otherwise it would seem, many people would have been committed, possibly suffering from schizophrenic behavior.

What keeps me up at night isn't the little old lady who believes in God, as delusional as she is, she is in no position to harm anyone. What concerns me, is the intrusion of religion into the government. When we allow religious rhetoric to define public policy we are in serious trouble, and when a candidate for president is open about his beliefs as it pertains to the treatment of homosexuals and women, and no one logically considers this man insane and an opportunity for committal, that is what scares me.

For a year I rode the train into work everyday, one day, one of the conductors approached me while I was reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I had never met this man before, other than the occasional greeting, as he punched my ticket. So this conductor came up to me and asked me about what I was reading. And I showed him the book, and said something about it being a good book for a long train ride to work. He told me that he had been watching me read the book now for days and didn't know whether he should approach me or not. I wasn't alarmed, but curious and I asked him, “Are you religious or atheist?” “Oh, I believe in God,” he replied. At which point I shrugged.

Being that this was a long train ride and I had at least 45 minutes to kill, I could tell the man to leave me alone and go back to my book, or have a conversation with the man, something he obviously really wanted. So I said, “Are you allowed to sit?” “Yes, can I take this seat in front of you?” he replied, taking off his conductor's hat. “No problem,” I said, “I'm always in the mood for good conversation.” He sat down and we began to chat about many things. He told me about his upbringing in a religious home, and the fact he was happy to bring God to his children. He spoke at length about how he actually enjoyed reading books like the book I was reading because it affirmed for him, his belief in the one true God.

He seemed to be quite an intelligent man, and although clearly delusional, I could see how he might be someone I could be friends with, even if we didn't share the same beliefs. I asked him what he thought about the parasitical nature of religion? He only said something to the effect of, “Isn't God great like that?” I then asked him about his stance on abortion, a topic which seemed to light a fire under these religious folks, to which he replied, “I don't take the advice of women who allege to know all about my prostate, so in turn I don't try to advise women on matters of their womb.” “That's a very unusually modern view to take in light of the opinion of most religious conservatives,” I said. “You'll find I'm quite atypical of most conservatives,” he replied.

So I asked him, “Well, what about executions?” “I believe if they did it, they deserve to go to prison, but beyond that, I, not being the judge, jury, or executioner, what right do I have to make judgments on such things?” “Are you sure you are one of those religious folks?” I asked. He laughed and we continued to talk. When I reached my stop, he told me that I should search for some book, for the life of me I can't remember it now, but he handed me a piece of paper with the name scribbled on it, and I stepped off the train. The next day I got on the train and got into my seat and the conductor approached looking to punch my ticket. After taking the ticket, he asked me, “Did you find that book?” “No, I'll just download a copy of it later,” I told him.

Of course, I was merely placating, I had no intention of doing such a thing, after all, it was sure to be full of religious nonsense, of which I can actively listen to, but for which reading too much about, causes me to fall asleep. He continued on, punching tickets down the line until he moved into the next car. I took out my book and continued where I had left off the previous day.

About fifteen minutes later, the conductor approached me from behind and asked if he could sit again, I put my book on the seat next to me and motioned to the seat in front of me. From his pocket he pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to me again, and like the previous slip of paper this one contained a list of book titles. “You should read those as well, they will help you to see,” he said. “See what?” I inquired. “The truth, of course,” he stated with an upward motioning hand gesture. I now understood what he was thinking, and I handed him back his piece of paper. “What's the problem?” he asked. “I don't mind us having a conversation but let's make a deal, you don't try to convert me to Christianity and I won't try to convert you to atheism,” I replied.

The man placed his hand over his mouth, and rubbed his chin repeatedly. With a clearly heard grunt of disappointment, he agreed. Over the next few days we debated many things, all religious in nature of course, and he held firm in his beliefs as I held firm in mine. One of the more fervent arguments came while discussing the Pledge of Allegiance. I was of the opinion that any such pledge that involved a deity should not be forced upon children in public schools.

The public school system is funded by tax dollars, which make it a social program run by the government. Being that the government was involved and we should respect the separation of church and state, forcing children to pledge their allegiance to God in a public school equated to, in my opinion, a violation of the constitution. He believed otherwise of course, and stated that no such provision can be found in the constitution. He was right, of course, no such provision can be found in the constitution because Jefferson didn't include it. However, Jefferson in authoring the constitution, made his intent clear in a response to a letter from the Danbury Baptist Church, in 1802:

"... I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."

Although, Jefferson did not include those words specifically in the constitution, he felt that it should be understood, and his reply to the Danbury Baptist Church reiterated just that point. Having known that the Pledge of Allegiance was not always a pledge to God and country, but unsure of its original wording, I grabbed my phone and proceeded to look up the information on the Internet.

In 1954, pressured by a letter from a religious leader to President Truman two years previous, Congress enacted a bill to change the words of the pledge to include the words under God, a bill President Eisenhower than signed, June the 14th, Flag day. The curious part came when I began to read about its origins. The Pledge of Allegiance was actually created by a man named Francis Bellamy, a devout Christian and Baptist minister, who was looking for a pledge that could be recited in under 15 seconds by any school child. The original pledge contained no reference to God, in fact, the inclusion of god in the pledge would have undermined the point of the pledge itself. The pledge was meant to swear one's allegiance to his country and to the principles for which it stands. You would think in 1892, if the Baptist minister of a church felt God was important to the ideals of the country, he would have included just such a thing.

The discussion moved further into the area of politics, at which point I said, “The founders of this country would not be happy about the state of the union today.” He replied, “The government has always been a Christian government, and it always will be.” Not much angers me, but mixing religion and politics is just one of those things that really stirs something in me. “This country may have been founded in a nation populated by Christians, but the founders themselves were mostly atheists,” I said firmly. “They were not atheists, they were Christians,” he replied.

It seems in this we were both wrong, although some of the founders were Christians, not all were, and neither were they all atheists. Although many of them had religious beliefs, none of them held firmly the belief that religion should be integrated with government. It seems this notion of a Christian state is derived from the belief that if the Founders truly believed that government and religion should not be integrated than why is it not expressly prohibited in the constitution. Surely it would have been easy to simply write a few lines in there that expressed just such an opinion. We have to remember though, that the formation of any new government is surely a tumultuous time in its history. Just such a government would certainly fail without the support of its people. And although the founders themselves believed government and religion should be separate, just such a provision might have caused some displeasure with the religious factions that existed at the time.

Many people see the lack of an expression of separation as an interpretation of inclusion. The problem with that is, if the founders really wanted government and church to be integrated, it would have been just as easy to include a mention of this as it was to not include one. And of a particular problem for me is the fact that there is no mention of God at all in the constitution, in fact the only references that could be used at all in any religious context is the mention of the protection of religious freedom, as mentioned in the first amendment, and the words Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven, at the very bottom of the document, just above the signatures.

Other than these two references, there is no mention of God or anything religious in the entire document. People will also contend that the founders were obviously religious based on the premise that the Declaration of Independence makes several references to God. Contained within the Declaration of Independence are three references to what could be considered a general deism view of things, none of which actually make reference to the Christian God found in the bible. And maybe the best argument that can be made comes from the declaration itself which states that governments created by humanity derive their powers from the consent of the governed, not from any gods.

We continued to talk about religion over the next few weeks, until one day there was a new conductor. When I asked the new conductor what had happened to the other guy, he simply told me that conductors get moved from train to train. I saw him a few times later in the year, but we didn't talk much after that, and I stopped using the train after that, at which point I never saw him again. Some people think that debating things like evolution and cosmology with someone strongly religious is a little like debating a rock about its preference in cola. I however, much enjoy it, and it will take the opportunity whenever it presents itself to me.

In part four, I will attempt to dispel the notion of a creationist universe, and explain how life can come from a place with no life, and how a universe can come from a place of nothing.


UPDATE: You can find part four here

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Why I am an Atheist (part two)

This is part two of this article, you can find part one by following this link.

Part II: The Imagined, the fantastic, the miraculous and the ridiculous

As a child, I spent a lot of time living in my imagination, as I think most children do. I had a lot of toys when I was young, in fact rarely did a Christmas or birthday go by without receiving a complete set of some kind of toy. One Christmas it was M.A.S.K, another Voltron, and one Christmas I even got the complete set of these little bug guys with antennae on their head, called Sectaurs. It was kind of curious because I didn't ask for them, in fact I had no clue what they were, but I took great delight in the use of them in scaring my mother. There was one bug toy in particular that comes to mind, it was a weird plastic bug thing with a few legs, antennae and pincers.

You would take one of the toy bug people and mount him to a saddle that rested on the back of this bug, and you would insert your hand down a black sock like cloth mechanism that was fitted on the underside and allowed your fingers to be inserted into the back of this bug's head. It allowed you to work the bug much like a puppet and two rings attached on the inside could be pulled to open and close the pincers. As I said, receiving these toys from my mother was weirdly curious, after all, she made no secret her distaste for insects, arachnids, reptiles, or amphibians. In fact, as I recall, if it wasn't human she didn't really like it at all.


We never had pets growing up, though this might have more to do with the fact that my grandparents did not like them, than my parents, but of this I cannot be sure. I remember on one occasion, a gray cat having been curious, found its way on to the porch of our house. Being children, and not allowed to have pets and basically not allowed to play with animals, my younger brother and I would of course play with it. We started to feed it, which, although as a kid seems the right thing to do, as an adult I can appreciate why you don't do such a thing now. The cat returned day after day, meowing away, begging for food and purring when it received any kind of attention.

My father caught on to what was going on. He grabbed the cat, put it in the car, drove away and returned an hour later. Deeply unhappy at what was going on, both my brother and I questioned my father as to where the cat was, to which he replied, “I took it out to the woods and left it.” I can't really be sure what happened to the cat, but I had hoped wherever it was, it was happy and being fed. Thinking back, I wonder if my father really took it out to the woods as he said, or, and I hate to even think about it, disposed of the cat in some other way. My mother tells me, my father wouldn't have hurt the cat, of this I am unsure and will choose to believe her on that.

What's even more disturbing, years later a similar situation arose, now in my teen years, a skinny orange cat appeared on the porch crying, obviously hungry. And of course, I fed it, and it purred and rammed its little head into my hand, content in the love I had shown it. Not remembering the first time a cat appeared on my porch, I saw no need to hide what I was doing, and day after day the cat returned, crying and begging to be fed. When my dad found out, something different happened, he petted the cat and talked to it. He talked to it?

This was a man who as I remember it, had trouble talking to his own children, at least in any constructive manner. But as I remember it, he talked to it, much like a parent talks to a baby, and went on his way. Soon the cat was always on the porch, in fact, I doubt it ever needed to leave at all. As the weeks, then months went by, it went from the skinny cat to a fat cat. My father would bring it food and water and again, talk to it. The only thing I can say of this is that for whatever reason, something in him had either changed in his attitude towards small animals or something chemical or physical in his brain had changed. I presume the latter is most likely the answer, as a person suffering from Multiple Sclerosis(MS) finds memories, and attitudes change as the disease progresses. My mother would be quick to point out I'm sure, that I had a pet hermit crab, however, I do not consider this a pet, anymore than I would consider a rock a pet.

Although a hermit crab is cool to watch, the rare times it actually moves its shell, it is for the most part as much of a pet as a rock would be. You never really feed it, leaving its food in a bowl or corner is all that is needed. You can't really play with it, picking it up results in it jamming itself tightly into its shell so that nothing could pry it loose. Talking to it, you might as well be talking to a rock, you will certainly get the same reaction. As far as the crab is concerned, you are most likely a predator that wants to eat it, and it better keep clear of you.

As I said before my imagination as a kid led me to play with all kinds of things. From playing board games, to video games and sports. My younger brother and I and a bunch of kids in the neighborhood loved to play baseball in the park across the street from my house. It wasn't a park designed for baseball, but it was close and it had a design that created the illusion of a baseball park. Of course, this might have just been part of a kid's imagination at work.

During the summers we played baseball everyday, and as I recall I was quite good. My favorite baseball player was Mark Langston, a pitcher for the Seattle Mariners at the time, and even though I was a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan through and through, this did not matter, for whatever reason, this guy was my baseball idol. When I climbed our pseudo pitcher's mound, a bunch of dirt we piled in the middle of the park in the shape of a mound, I imagined I was Mark Langston always trying to get that illusive perfect game. In his career Langston never pitched a perfect game, but he is remembered as one of the all-time greats, having one of the best pickoff moves to first base.

After a few years, sports took a back-burner to something more interesting...role-playing games(RPGs). It was my older brother who first introduced me to the world of RPGs, the first being the game Dungeons & Dragons(D&D). Entire nights during the summers were dedicated to playing the game, sitting on the porch, drinking kool-aid and envisioning the worlds that existed only in this wondrous imaginary universe. Speaking with gamers now on the subject, I find most are Atheists, not all mind you, but most that I have talked to. It is a curiosity to me why someone that considers himself to be so grounded in science, would find pleasure in a world that is unlike anything real-world. It would make more sense that someone devoutly religious would gain more pleasure from the imaginary world of D&D than someone who bases their beliefs on the very opposite.

However, I must point out, in the 1980's TSR, the manufacturer of D&D at the time, came under fire by Christian organizations for its use of Satanism, witchcraft, suicide, pornography, and murder. As a kid playing the game, I must admit there is some violence in the game, but I challenge you to find too many games that are completely free of violence, at least the fun ones. I don't ever recall an occasion where Satanism was ever discussed, in reality or in the fictional world we would play in, in fact, I imagine, had just such a topic arisen, I likely would have objected to it purely on the basis that Satan is as real to me as God, and by this I mean the judeo christian version people belief in and not some fictional God in the game.

Since I believe in neither, and neither have anything to do with the game in which we are playing, it would seem to me such a topic would just be out of place. Now you could make the argument that none of the content of D&D exists in the real world, and you'd be right, after all Dragons aren't likely to be flying around anytime soon. The difference is that no one, with the exception of the very crazy, believe Dragons might be flying around amongst us, though many people believe in both Satan and God, without any evidence as to their existence.

As to matters of witchcraft, suicide, pornography and murder, all I can say is, witchcraft is only a part of the game as much as prayer to a fictional God is, they both happen in the game but neither is a central theme, or even a matter of importance to most. Those who find themselves committing suicide in the game, will likely find the rest of their time quite a boring one, watching others play, while you twiddle your thumbs, all in the hopes the Dungeon Master(DM) might see fit to resurrect your character in whatever comical way he or she sees fit. D&D and pornography is actually quite a laughable concept to me.

Though I imagine, that amongst very adult games with no children involved, this seems quite possible, we must consider that even in the real world there is sex. However, when I was a teenager the thought of mixing sex and games together was not even in the equation. Thinking back, I can't recall a single game where this happened, though now these days, it is arguably more common place. Lastly...murder. Yes, I confess I was responsible for many the death of orcs and bandits while playing D&D.

I find it odd that Christian organizations would protest the fictional murder of imaginary evil creatures, but say nothing of the very real world murder of millions of people all over the world every year. To me it is a travesty that children are murdered every day throughout the world and the only people seemed concerned are those related to the victims.

To me taking the life of anyone, is abhorrent, yet astonishingly most Christians find satisfaction in the death penalty. So, Christians seem more concerned with the fake deaths of millions of orcs that die each year in the world of D&D, than the sanctioned revenge-based executions of real-life human beings at the hands of the government. In even more ridiculousness, Christians seem overly zealous in their need to protect the unborn fetuses who's existence has not yet even been determined. Merely a few cells in a womb, comparable at worst to a flake of skin on the end of your elbow or at best the complexity of a frog.

This is more highly regarded than the life of a fully developed, living, breathing, human being who's life although maybe tragic, is filled with a vast wealth of experiences and knowledge that in comparison to the experience and knowledge of an unborn fetus, is clearly more valuable. But this is a topic I will further discuss later in the article.

In 1993, a professor at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington by the name of Richard Garfield approached the CEO of a small gaming company out of Washington by the name of Wizards of the Coast. Garfield had been working on the game since his days as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. He had actually developed quite a few games, his first at age 13, but it was RoboRally a game he developed in 1985, along with Magic: the Gathering(MTG), that he was interested in publishing. Then CEO, Peter Adkinson, seemed more interested in MTG, than RoboRally, and on August, 5th 1993, MTG was made a general release to the public.

Although the game is far more complex a subject than I want to dedicate my time to talking about, I can give you a general synopsis of the rules and how a game is played. Typically, two players sit facing opposite each other. They each have a deck comprised of a minimum of forty cards. These cards are comprised of different aspects of the game. Some cards are lands, some are creatures, and some are purely spells. Players draw seven cards and take turns, drawing a card, and each placing a land from their hand on the table in front of them if they have one. Lands can be tapped (turned on their side) for mana.

Mana is the fuel that allows a player to put additional cards from his hand into play. There are five basic land types, each providing a different color of mana. Swamps produce black, mountains produce red, plains produce white, forests produce green, and islands produce blue. Each creature or spell has a cost associated with it, that determines how much mana is required to put it into play. Players tap their lands, giving them mana, and put a creature or spell into play. Creatures can be used to attack the opposite player. Some creatures have special abilities a player can use to gain an advantage in the game.

Spells can either be permanent, meaning they stay on the field of play, or they can only last until the end of the turn. Every spell has some special effect on the game, usually something that is advantageous to the player playing it. Players start with a life total of twenty. Each point of damage they suffer either by a creature, or spell results in a loss of one of their total life points. When any player reaches a life total of zero, they lose the game. Although this basically describes the game, it truly does no justice to it. The nuances of the game cannot be easily described. Simply put, MTG still holds out 19 years later as one of the best strategic games ever created. It has a massive following world-wide. Players from all over the world take part in tournaments, the larger ones for cash prizes.

Though D&D and MTG are very different games, they both seem to revolve around the same lore, which is easily comparable to the world created by J.R.R. Tolkien in the Lord of the Rings. Garfield admitted that he was highly influenced by D&D while creating MTG, and Gary Gygax, creator of D&D, stating he had not considered Lord of the Rings as a source of his material, it must be noted that several parts of D&D had to be altered to comply with copyright laws, because creature types and names had been directly taken from Lord of the Rings. So it is easy to see why I was so easily taken by MTG, having been such a fan of D&D.

For many years I collected the game, played it with a ruthless fervor, and allowed it to influence my tastes in other types of media, in particular movies and video games. For years I competed regularly, winning many tournaments and rising in the ranks amongst my peers. Over the years I have taken many breaks from the game, having been disenfranchised with some of the decisions made over the years. With the success of MTG, Wizards of the Coast became synonymous with household gaming as Hasbro, Atari, Nintendo, Milton Bradley, or Parker Brothers.

So it was no surprise to anyone when Hasbro purchased Wizards of the Coast. What did come as a surprise to gamers however, was one of the first things that Hasbro did was turn what had been a primarily teenager to adult game, because of its themes, into a game marketed toward younger children. And of greater astonishment was the callousness with which they arbitrarily changed the rules of the game.

The game had always been a game that involved a gambling aspect, before players actually drew their opening hands, they would ante the top card of their library as part of the stakes of playing the game. So each player had a reason to win the game, and play with a real competitive nature. After all, if you were truly unlucky you could end up with your Black Lotus as ante. Included in the game were devilishly delightful ante cards that altered the state of the game when you played them. Some allowed you to ante additional cards in exchange for an advantage, others allowed you to alter the card being anted in exchange for some disadvantage.

Because of the nature of the game, altering one's ante was considered an act of evil and as such most ante cards were black. Since I haven't mentioned it before, I'll do it now. The colors in the game represent the different characteristics of gameplay in the fictional world.

White is the color of order, righteousness, healing and law. Blue is the color of illusion, intellect and trickery. Black is the color of power, greed, ambition, and death. Red is the color of chaos, fury, and war. Green is the color of life, nature, evolution, and instinct.

Once Hasbro took over, cards that depicted demonic-like figures were phased out of the game, the act of gambling was phased out of the game, and cards that featured text that made any reference to anything that could be considered controversial, were also removed. It was, as I referred to it, the Pussification of Wizards of the Coast. It took many years before Hasbro allowed a demonic-like figure, or even the word demon to appear on a card. Ante cards have never remade an appearance. I still play the game at times, but I have retired from competitive play for now.

One thing that I can say was that when we played the game, we never considered that we were playing with demons or devils or anything religious, to us they were just cards and idea that a picture of a demon or the word demon should rise to the level of a ban, especially in the light of the game becoming more compliant with a younger audience, seems ridiculous. After all, how many millions of children attend a church each week, sit in their seats, and listen to a preacher talk about the devil and demons and some pretty disturbing things. And here is the best part of it, NO ONE can claim that MTG depicts anything but pure fiction.

No reasonable person would believe that the cards are meant to be anything but the work of pure fantasy, however the religious people who visit church each week, read their bibles and preach their religion believe all of it. That means in their eyes the bible that they read to their children is real, contains real stories and events and depicts tremendous acts of cruelty and evil at the hands of not only men, but God himself, the Devil, angels and demons.

I'll take it a step further and say any parent who would allow their child to watch horrific movies depicting violence, death and evil acts, speak with hateful, bigoted and incendiary words, or deliberately choose ignorance over knowledge is a bad and possibly abusive parent, certainly one that shows delinquent behavior. Most people, and I'm guessing a lot of religious ones, would agree with that statement, however the Bible depicts all of these things. The bible is filled with violence, death and evil:

And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. - Genesis 4:8

And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife. - Genesis 12:17

And they journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. - Genesis 35:5

And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn. - Exodus 4:23

And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. -Exodus 22:24

Leviticus alone is filled with passages over and over again, depicting ritualistic animal sacrifice. Obviously there are tons of passages I could have added here but frankly I didn't have to go through very much of the Bible to actually find these. The Bible contains countless references to hate speech:

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. - Leviticus 20:13

Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name. - Psalm 79:6

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? - 2 Corinthians 6:14

For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews.  Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men  - 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15

I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. - Revelation 2:9

Many people will contend that the Hebrew text, that is the old testament is a depiction of God before the birth of Christ, and that many of these things are gone with the birth of Christ, and the introduction of the New Testament. I would like to point out that the last line there was a quote directly from Revelation as one coming from the mouth of Jesus Christ himself. In that one line, Jesus calls the Jews lying Satan worshipers. I should also point out this isn't the only passage in the bible where Jesus Christ speaks with such words. And as to the contention that the Bible is filled with ignorance just read these five passages:


Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. - Genesis 6:14-15

But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you. -Leviticus 11:23

Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. - Psalm 18:7

And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. - Revelation 7:1

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. - Revelation 9:1

In the first passage, Noah is tasked with making an ark that is 450 feet long, that will be able to hold two of each species of animal from all over the world. Maybe it works like Santa's toy sack, but I don't know. In the next passage God declares that all insects are an abomination, the only problem is that insects have six appendages not four, and God should know that if he created them.

And since we are on the subject why would God create anything, only to declare it an abomination later? Since he is God, would he not have known this before creating it, and thus not create it instead? In the third passage, and it is said in many many passages after, whenever God is angered earthquakes are created. By this rationale, God must be very angry at the people who live in California and Japan.

In the next passage the Earth is referred to as having four corners, depicting a flat Earth. Something that was believed to be true for a long time, until a man by the name of Christopher Columbus set sail toward the horizon and discovered the Earth was actually round. The flat Earth reference is made more than a few times throughout the Bible.

And in the final passage I have listed, an angel spots a Star falling to the Earth. As large as the Earth may seem, it pales in comparison to the stars, not to mention a star moving toward the Earth, would not fall so much as use its gravity to pull the Earth into its Corona, destroying it. Now I have left two important passages out which I chose to rather talk a little bit about instead, because these two things in the Bible cause the biggest controversy amongst people, In the beginning... and the virgin birth.

According to the Genesis creation account, God created the Earth, than he created the light and the stars. Then he created birds and whales, and then he created reptiles and insects. These events are in direct contradiction to science. We know that first came the Universe, then the Galaxies of Stars, then the systems of planets. Once the Earth formed, a long process of Evolution took place creating many things before insects and reptiles, and certainly the birds and whales. Birds are descendants of the reptiles, and whales are mammals which didn't form until much much later.

If you take Genesis as a factual account you are left with some odd problems, for instance, God makes light, which he turns into day, and darkness, which he turns into night on the first day. The problem is that God then waits until the fourth day to make the stars, which are needed to produce the light he creates on the first day. God also blunders by making plants on the third day, when they won't actually thrive, because the photosynthesis that plants all need to survive won't come until the fourth day when he creates the sun and stars.

The virgin birth is a problematic concept, the idea being that fertilization of an egg is possible with only one parent. In asexual reproduction such a thing would be possible, however humans do not reproduce this way, sexual reproduction requires that a male be present to fertilize the egg the female produces. Thus it makes the entire sequence of events impossible. Now Christians contend that God miraculously made Mary pregnant.

Miracles are a great thing because they are capable of flying in the face of a millions years of evolution and scientific progress and understanding. So let's say for the sake of argument God is invisible, this would allow him to move sight unseen into Mary's bedroom. See even if God could do this, he would still need biology, because we are biological creatures, subject to the laws of biology and evolution. What's the point of creating the universe, populating it with all these laws, and not following them. It seems more likely that such a being would also be subject to such laws, at least while within this universe that has them.

That means sperm is needed to fertilize the egg, so the invisible God would have to, without being felt, we'll assume she was asleep, insert his miraculous penis into her vagina, without tearing her hymen of course, after all she is still a virgin when Jesus is born, and inject his miracle sperm into her. Hmm, by any account if that story was told to someone and you didn't use the words God or Invisible, he would be a rapist and Mary would be his victim. After all, she refutes having had intercourse, though she is married to Joseph, and is suddenly pregnant, and oh yeah God is the father, but she doesn't remember it.

So either God is seriously light on his feet and Mary has a sleep disorder, or he used a magic pill and roofied her. Or Joseph impregnates his wife, Mary is not a virgin, and Jesus is not the son of God. There is a principle of science referred to as Occam's razor. It basically states whenever faced in any given situation with the possibility of multiple explanations, choosing the simplest explanation over the more complex one tends to be the right one.

In part three I will continue to look at the events that shape our lives, and some of the ones that shaped mine, as well as further continue my descent into religion.

UPDATE: You can find part three here

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