the results would be conspicuous! The world would quickly notice and there’d be a run on gods. But everyone knows the truth: believers fare no better or worse than atheists in the ability to make good decisions.

Identity

I don’t usually self-identify as atheist (I might say “atheist for all practical purposes”) because it’s not very descriptive. The only information it conveys is that I’m not a theist. And since I don’t rule out the remote possibility of a supreme being, I prefer to identify as agnostic or secular humanist. It’s more descriptive. Beyond being a non-theist, a humanist stands for something. And “atheist” sounds so pejorative! But why should it, if it just means a person prefers to live by what is real rather than invoking the supernatural? Why should the one who lives in reality be looked at more askance than the one who communicates with a divine ghost or a deity or the dead?

But again, I'm not on a mission here to knock a person's sense that perhaps there is indeed a supreme being. The point of this essay is to say why I'm confident the Christian God cannot, and therefore does not, exist. It's not the possible existence of a "god" that I find offensive, but the assertion that if there is one, he would be anything like the despicable God described in the ancient texts known as the Bible.

Mourning the loss / Welcoming a whole new world

I understand that believers can hardly fathom “what would be there” if there were no god, no religion. But it’s really not all that scary. I “mourned” my mortality for about a month after consciously realizing this earth is probably all there is for us. After that, to my surprise, I quickly developed a brand new outlook on life—a far brighter, more invigorating outlook. It’s like dreading the jump into a swimming pool when you know the water is cold. When you first jump in, it is cold! But moments later, all is well and you’re having more fun than you were before.

There is something about the quality of life that skyrockets when your whole mind set changes its focus to just living, and away from a constant obsession over what the deity might be trying to tell you and whether he’s pleased with how well you follow instructions. Now I just do it. It’s great! It is invigorating to make decisions yourself. And it’s much easier, because an entire element of fear and frustration vanishes; you’re not wasting time and energy wondering what the deity thinks. You just figure it out the very same way you would have, anyway, but minus that mental detour. I have discovered, in my talking and reading, that this is a common effect in the recovery from religion, and from fundamentalism in particular. “You will feel in your bones, just how precious life is,” as Sam Harris put it.

For me, another pleasant surprise that came with chucking religious fantasy was about death. Before, there was always a foreboding about it. Am I “ready”? Was that person in the casket “ready”? Which of my loved ones will I see again, and which might I not? Which of them will one day be tortured for not being smart enough to “accept Jesus”? How will I feel during the first few thousand years thinking about, and watching, a brother or a sister writhing in pain every moment, as my loving God tortures them without allowing them to die or even go unconscious while I'm having the time of my life in Heavenly Disneyland? Maybe the jealous, vengeful, loving God will just enable me to forget about them. But no, he won’t control our minds, as that would offend our “free will.” On and on and on.

I don’t see religious people who are facing a loved one’s death taking it with any kind of real joy or celebration. But when my long-time, non-theist friend Bill died, I realized for the first time how easy it is to celebrate the life of the deceased without any baggage. No fear. No doubt. Nothing to fear or doubt! Without religion, you truly celebrate life as it was lived. You don’t die having spent 80 years miserably treading water in this life because you’re really only living for the next life. Suddenly, it’s like, now you get it! Now you have a complete picture and it makes sense. The pieces of the puzzle finally fit.

...Not that I have any more answers to the great mysteries of life than I had before (for which religion has crafted such elaborate “answers”). But suddenly living with ambiguity over those mysteries doesn’t matter. Not one whit! I don’t need to know. I see no reason to demand knowing, or to create a detailed fictional scenario as to what the answers could be or what I’d like them to be. I focus on life at hand, and that’s plenty. I don't feel left out or slighted.

But isn’t the REAL evidence changed lives?

We can not accept as evidence what seems to be the greatest proof of all, in the minds of believers themselves: they say they know it’s true because of how it transformed their lives. “And you can’t argue with that!” the notion seems to be. But there’s no evidence whatsoever that a supernatural being had anything to do with those changes. In fact, the evidence shows just the opposite: the adherents of all religions cite the same transforming power. How can such changes come only from God, if the people worship different gods, only one of which is authentic? And how can one reject the testimony of others as to the authenticity of their religion, but then expect others to accept one’s own?

The truth is that it’s the belief itself that empowers, not the object of the belief. Belief in anything can be a powerful force, for good or ill. You could have a life-changing experience worshipping a rock, if you believed strongly enough. The rock doesn’t need to respond at all for you to have a transforming experience. I am not exaggerating here nor being facetious. Some people actually worship a turtle and have similar positive life-changing experiences. (I’ve seen sacred turtles!) Not only that, such life-changing experiences occur every day entirely outside religion. They are frequently inspired by art, nature, mentors, hobbies... and by just hitting rock bottom and coming to one's senses.

It is easy to see how a person could perceive that it was the object of their belief that empowered them to get their lives in order; if you grow up thinking it really was the deity to whom you prayed that gave you your strength, it can be shocking to be told the power you got came from within yourself.

And besides, what possesses a person to imagine that their own personal epiphany and changed life somehow makes all the rest of the religion—all those enormous contradictions and problems—okay? Normal, intelligent people would understand that the courage to make changes for the better came from sources other than an invisible deity who killed pets, traded in slavery and gave captured virgins to men to rape and pillage as toys.

But if belief in anything works, then what's wrong with picking

a supernatural being to believe in?

Various scholars suggest that humans by their very nature long for something bigger and better than they, something lofty and mysterious that they can believe in, outside themselves. If we don't have any evidence of such a thing existing, why not just make it up and pretend? What's the harm if we do?

Obviously that is exactly what we did do (we’ve created many hundreds of gods), and as it turns out, there's been plenty wrong with it. As documented in a number of books, the havoc religion has brought upon humanity is enormous. [See page 2 of the sidebar below, last part.] Given that it's the very act of believing that works wonders, not a deity, doesn't it just make more sense to be grounded in reality, and put our belief in those things which are real? It would be pretty hard to start a war claiming the water cooler said to do it; and it would be easier to challenge a genocidal maniac when he couldn't get by with saying a god told him to do it.

Personally, I like looking to ourselves and to the reality of those who came before us. Not that I believe in ancestor worship (as many around the globe do), but it makes more sense to me than deity worship. What a wealth of strength those who came before us can be. Recall those powerful scenes in the movie Amistad. What a source of courage it is to ponder how Cinque and the others survived! And then recall how he did the same as he called forth his own ancestors for the strength he needed. In every case, it is the belief that generates the power. But in this case, at least it was a belief in something that was real. Cinque's ancestors really did live, really did endure. And Cinque really did exist as my own source of encouragement. And so forth.

Frankly, the answer is No

So again, it comes down to the text. Do we have a revelation beyond the ken of humans to concoct? Does the Bible stand out from all the other ancient texts as something special? Contrary to what we’ve been conditioned to think, it does not.

There are numerous facets to explore in this regard. We've already mentioned the several hundred direct contradictions in the biblical text—they are intricately detailed by others. Still others explore earlier writings that got more things right about nature and mathematics than the Bible. (If the Bible is from an omniscient god, why wouldn't it be at least as correct as texts already existing?) Sam Harris makes this observation: “What about a cure for cancer? When we fully understand the biology of cancer, this understanding will be easily summarized in a few pages of text. Why aren’t these pages, or anything remotely like them, found in the Bible? Good, pious people are dying horribly from cancer at this very moment, and many of them are children. The Bible is a very big book. God had room to instruct us in great detail about how to keep slaves and sacrifice a wide variety of animals. To one who stands outside the Christian faith, it is utterly astonishing how ordinary a book can be, and still be thought the product of omniscience.”

Three more considerations are biblical promises, prayer and prophecy.

There are many things about religions such as Christianity, any one of which should render them false by normal logic or observation. For example, the Bible is chock full of promises that say emphatically that the believer will fare considerably better than the non-believer. Let us cut to the chase. If those promises were true and really worked, everyone in the world would convert to Christianity within six months! The truth is, Christians fare no better than anyone else. Atheists have as many "miraculous" healings as believers. It can be amusing to see how this is rationalized. If a believer is rendered paraplegic in a car accident, God’s unequivocal promises aren't questioned. To the contrary, they are said to have been fulfilled! After all, the believer might have become quadriplegic, were it not for God limiting the damage to mere paraplegia. Great news as promised!

No matter how obvious it is that they don't work, biblical promises remain a favorite source of encouragement and constant fodder for sermons. Not that there’s necessarily something bad with whatever floats one's boat, but I am among those who would rather stick with reality. When there are sufficient ways and places to find encouragement within the realm of reality, why not live by what’s real instead of by false promises and fantasy?

And to be really frank, I consider it lying to traffic in promises we know will never be kept; it is part of the reason so many Christians, especially the poor, resign themselves to drudgery instead of being inspired to rise above their problems. These phony promises are a false and disingenuous reassurance that if you accept your lot in life cheerfully, well, you won't really die and your next life will be wonderful.... If you just manage to cope patiently with your current life, you’ll hit the jackpot in your next one. This works perfectly great for slave owners! The "poor me" mentality is strengthened, and the people say things like, "It's really tough and I don't know what I'll do, but I’ll just trust the Lord." Sadly there are never any results to show for it, because