Roger J. Wendell
Defending 3.8 Billion Years of Organic EvolutionSM
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There is no God
"God is merely the answer that you get if you do not ask enough questions." |
"I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means."- Clarence Seward Darrow
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Okay, for a bit of an honesty check, I'd like to make it clear that I hope you're
right and that there is a God! However, for a variety of reasons, I just haven't been convinced of it. That's not to say you're wrong (although I strongly suspect you are...), or I'm right (I even more strongly suspect I am!), or the peyote worshipers have the answer (it would be nice if they did!). It's just that after 50 years of living, and all kinds of problems (including a cancer diagnosis) and other insights, I don't have an answer. That being said, I don't think others have an answer, either - evidence the thousands of different sects, infighting, arguments, and
even wars over the matter...
Anyway, my web pages aren't meant to change your mind - if it's one thing I've learned, by age 50, is that belief systems are deep and a few simple words from somebody like me aren't going to make a lot of difference. And, on the flip side, it's going to be tough for me to change despite all of the great folks who have prayed for me, taken me to their Passion plays, invited me to their Easter dinners, or quoted Bible verses at our evening campsites. All have good and honorable intentions yet I remain very skeptical... So, the point of this and most of my other pages, and my personal philosophy, isn't to change you but to protect me, others, and the planet from the damage that's been done by harmful philosophies that are forced upon the rest of us at times. You've seen it yourself - wars and conflict over various religions while countless numbers of innocents die and suffer as a result. Certainly we can do better than that!? Hopefully you'll read on and find something moving, or motivating, in the quotes I've provided below and elsewhere on my site; they're from people who are much more thoughtful and disciplined than me. I quote them here because I believe they know something of what they're talking about and what they're talking about might plant that spark that's so desperately needed to make positive change. Or, at least, their words will help fight what John Stewart Mills referred to as the tyranny of the majority.
Golden, Colorado - 2006 |
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Click Here for my page on Death... |
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Quotes: |
The Goodness of God
"Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl. Soon he will rape, torture, and kill her. If an atrocity of this kind is not occurring at precisely this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or days at most. Such is the confidence we can draw from the statistical laws that govern the lives of six billion human beings. The same statistics also suggest that this girl's parents believe - as you believe - that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them and their family. Are they right to believe this? Is it good that they believe this?"No.
"The entirety of atheism is contained in this response. Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, 'atheism' is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a 'non-astrologer' or a 'non-alchemist.' We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs that the 260 million Americans (87 percent of the population) claiming to 'never doubt the existence of God' should be obliged to present evidence for his existence - and, indeed, for his benevolence, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day. An atheist is a person who believes that the murder of a single little girl - even once in a million years - casts doubt upon the idea of a benevolent God."
- Sam Harris
Letter to a Christian Nation, pp. 51-52
"While you believe that bringing an end to religion is an impossible goal, it is important to realize that much of the developed world has nearly accomplished it. Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on earth. According to the United Nation's Human Development Report (2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate, and infant mortality."
"I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond Atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again."So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power.
"Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.
"Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.
"Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have."
- Penn Jillette
from his November 21, 2005 NPR essay, "This I Believe." Penn is a research fellow at the Cato Institute and has lectured at Oxford and MIT in addition to co-authoring three best-selling books. He is also one half the magic and comedy act Penn and Teller.
(NOTE: This is NOT his entire essay!)
"I don't want to belabor the point, but before I leave you, I ask you to consider the fact that we live in a web of mystery, and have simply gotten so used to the fact that we have crossed out the word and replaced it with one we like better, that one being reality. Where do we come from? Where were we before we were here? Don't know. Where are we going? Don't know. A lot of churches have what they assure us are the answers, but most of us have a sneaking suspicion all that might be a con-job laid down to fill the collection plates. In the meantime, we're in a kind of compulsory dodgeball game as we free-fall from Wherever to Ain't Got a Clue. Sometime bombs go off and sometimes the planes land okay and sometimes the blood tests come back clean and sometimes the biopsies come back positive. Most times the bad telephone call doesn't come in the middle of the night but sometimes it does, and either way we know we're going to drive pedal-to-the-metal into the mystery eventually."
- Stephen King
January 31, 2005, The Colorado Kid, p. 184.
"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part
of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural
traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking."
- Carl Sagan from his book, Billions & Billions:
Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, p. 258
 "Bunny on a Cross" by Dan Disner |
MAY REASON PREVAIL
THERE ARE NO GODS,
Freedom From Religion Foundation |
"I'm one of those who Pascal is actually thinking about, or was thinking about, when he wrote to the person who is so made that he can not believe. There are millions of us, there always have been. There are now, there are going to be many more of us in the future and we're just a little bit fed up being treated by freaks in American culture."
- Christopher Hitchens debating Al Sharpton on
Hitchen's book, God is not Great at the New York Public Library May 7th, 2007
"In fact, I don't believe sins can be washed away by anything, not by the Blood of the Lamb, not by Christ on or off the Cross, not by love of God or God's love, not by a billion Hail Marys or a Milky Way of candles or a thousand ages of penance or a million miles of contrition on broken glass and burning coals and leprous bodies.""In fact, I indignantly reject, with horror and with loathing, the dark, ancient, vile and filthy lie that another man or God-Man can redeem us of sins by his own suffering, or that we can purify ourselves and start over again by his own suffering, or that we can purify ourselves and start over again by compounding our sins with more suffering, more ugliness, more filth and gibbering faith.
"What an utterly horrible doctrine! What a contemptible and nightmarish horror-story to preach to grave, thoughtful children. It's time we stood up like men and faced our responsibilities, admitted and lived with our past sins, and cleared our hearts, in so far as we can, not by atonement or by condemning someone else to die for us, but by refusing to cooperate with evil and insisting upon doing good."
- Edward Abbey
from his March 1, 1952 journal entry
while in Edinburgh, Scotland
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"Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!
"But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more."
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The Ridiculous:
Blessed are the Rich?
It's no secret that the rich have always felt it was their God-given right to corner markets, horde wealth, and control others. www.cnn.com Reported on the September 10th Time Magazine Cover story this way; "A booming movement that began with Evangelical Christians holds to the belief that a God who loves you does not want you to be broke. In a Time poll, 17 percent of Christians surveyed said they considered themselves part of such a movement, while a full 61 percent believed that God wants people to be prosperous. The movement's renaissance has infuriated a number of prominent pastors, theologians and commentators." It amazes me that "believers" would think that one of God's concerns are that they become prosperous while children are starving to death in other parts of the World. God wants you to be rich? Ridiculous!
- Roger J. Wendell
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