ÿþ<table border="1" cellspacing="150" cellpadding="50" align=""> <tr> <td> <html> <head> <title>Untitled Document</title> </head> <font face=arial size=3> <b>Absent Angel</b><br> <font face=times size=3><i>Inaction is consistent with non-existence</i><br> <font size=1 face=arial>Occasionally updated and edited. Copyright &copy; 2011<hr><br> Kenn Gividen | <a href="http://www.kenngividen.com">KennGividen.com</a></font size=1><br><br><br> <font size=2 face=arial> <body> <img src="http://kenngividen.com/pic/kenn" border="1" width="100" hspace="10" align="left">My Christian sales associate took a seat in the restaurant while I excused myself to the men's room. As I was returning to the table I approached my Christian friend from behind. I couldn't help but overhear his cell-phone conversation. He was talking about me. <br><br> I stopped to listen.<br><br> For the next few minutes I heard this closest of friends conspire to steal a key account from me. Apparently God's commandment regarding theft was suspended in this case. 'Thou shalt not steal' didn't apply.<br><br> Having heard enough I walked to my seat. My dear Christian friend quickly snapped his cell phone shut. He didn't realize I had overheard his conversation. He smiled and continued his friendly demeanor as if all was well. <br><br> His secrecy implicated him. What was he thinking? What I didn't know wouldn't hurt me? Not true. I can't think of a more traumatic moment in my life. The pain of betrayal, the shame of allowing myself to be fooled; the loss of a close friend. <br><br> Apart from the emotional fallout, there are practical aspects to consider. <br><br> &bull; How did this tragic episode confirm the non-existence of God?<br><br> &bull; How did my Christian 'friend' simultaneously merge Christian faith and dishonest ethics in his mind?<br><br> &bull; Why had I believed he was a true friend when evidence indicated otherwise?<br><br> &bull; How was my faith in false friendship analogous to my faith in a non-existent God?<br><br> &bull; How does Christian behavior consistently argue against the existence of God? <br><br> Let's consider the above questions.<br><br> <b>This tragic episode confirms the non-existence of God</b><br><br> We begin by parsing the empirical evidence. <br><br> During the years following my deconversion God 'chose' not to send a close personal friend into my life to derail my fling with reality. God's inaction is consistent with his non-existence. <br><br> Granted, there were -- and still are -- a number of Christian friends who make stabs at roping me back into the fold. I genuinely appreciate their concerns; I'm glad they care. But there was never an intimate friend, call him an 'angel unaware', to compassionately nudge me back to the path from which I strayed. <br><br> Conversely God also allowed me to become victim to a nefarious bad guy whose fancied himself a faithful Christian. God's action is consistent with his non-existence.<br><br> God's inaction (he sent no 'angel unawares') and action (he sent a 'devil unawares') are not what we would expect if God existed. <br><br> I realize, of course, there is a wide array of ammunition in the arsenals of apologists to explain why God isn't doing what we would expect him to do. Which argument one chooses depends largely on how entrenched that person is in Calvinism. Among those arguments are: 1) God's ways are higher than our ways and are past finding out. 2) God is doing something, you just don't know it yet. 3) God has given up on you. 4) You were never 'saved' to begin with and, therefore, are not one of his 'sheep'. 5) When we get to heaven it will be made apparent. And so on. <br><br> Those arguments are placeholders in lieu of logic. They are designed to dodge the obvious, not explain it. <br><br> The conclusion is that there is nothing supernatural. We observe that:<br><br> 1 - What is isn't an action of God. <br> 2 - What isn't isn't an inaction of God.<br> <br> <b>Religion and immorality occupy the same mind</b><br><br> When I was a pastor I frequently preached from Romans chapters six and seven. Here the Apostle Paul makes a logical argument. He explains how Christian folks can be good and bad simultaneously. Christians, he says, must contend with the 'law of evil' and the 'law of God' that reside within them. <br><br> Paul's argument fails to address the fact that Christians often don't distinguish between the 'law of evil' and the 'law of God.' Nor does he account for narcistic personality disorders. My Christian friend, for example, had no qualms. There was no inner conflict. Stealing an account seemed no more sinful that singing a hymn. <br><br> If the world were a laboratory in which human behavior can be studied, I would conclude that humans compartmentalize competing belief systems, then merge them when necessary to erase conflict. <br><br> <b>We deny obvious evidence that challenges our faith</b><br><br> I wonder why I believed in God for fifty years when the evidence against super-naturalism was so obvious. I also wonder why I believed in friendship when the evidence against it was overwhelming. <br><br> About three years prior to the experience in the restaurant, my close Christian friend approached me with a business proposal. There were small tables being liquidated for pennies on the dollar. If I would purchase the tables, my friend would sell them. I would invest money. He would invest effort. We would share the profit. <br><br> I purchased the tables. My Christian friend sold them. And that's the end of the story. He not only kept my half of the profit, he kept all the income from the sales. Why did I continue to believe he was my friend?<br><br> A few months later he approached me regarding a dilemma. His son was out of state and had no money for a motel. If I would send his son $200 via Western Union, he would pay back the loan. I agreed, expecting to be repaid within a week. I was never repaid. Why did I remain faithful to my friend?<br><br> When his son lost his job, my friend asked me to loan him $2,000. I agreed. I informed my friend that the funds were being 'borrowed' from my income tax fund. I would need to be repaid no later than April 14, the day before my taxes were due. He agreed. April 14 came and went, I was not repaid. Yet, I still believed this Christian man was a dependable friend. How so?<br><br> <b>Faith blindness make us gullible</b><br><br> "We walk by faith," the Apostle Paul wrote, "not by sight."<br><br> The Apostle was stating a fact, not offering an admonition. Faith blinds us to reality. The outcome is often devastating.<br><br> After I agreed to loan my friend $2,000, he asked me to pretend to use the money to buy his son's junk Cadillac. I agreed in spite of the fact that the car was practically worthless. His son had bought the car by faith (sight unseen) from an out-of-state seller. My friend was now dumping the car on me. But I believed in our friendship and so I believed his story that he would have the car restored and later surprise his son.<br><br> I saw the car was junk, experienced my friend's past dishonesty and knew he had no money to restore the car. Nonetheless, by faith in our friendship, I foolish accompanied my friend to his son's home and handed him a check for $2,000. My Christian friend took the keys and the title when his son wasn't looking.<br><br> I had 'absolute' faith that my friend would repay the loan. Faith, however, is not an absolute. <br><br> Similarly I had heard stories of a virgin birth, a sinless life, a vicarious atonement and a resurrection. I believed those stories in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. There are no virgin births, perfect lives, or absolute atoning deaths. People don't raise from the dead. I believed because I wanted to believe. <br><br> I later heard my Christian friend sold the Cadillac for junk and kept the money. <br><br> <b>Ignoring corollary evidence is foolishness, not faith</b><br><br> My Christian friend has a knack for winning the confidence of others. He befriended a young woman, for example. who was employed at McDonalds. She blindly trusted him as I had done, confided in him and revealed much of her personal life. When my Christian friend was overheard sharing her private information to other customers, she became distraught. And no wonder. My Christian friend made her appear to be the greatest whore in three states. <br><br> Her husband was outraged. He called my Christian friend and left a strongly worded and obscenity laced message on his voice mail. Although my Christian friend was terrified at the prospect of being accosted and, perhaps, beaten by the angry husband, he arrogantly refused to apologize and, instead, conspired to have her fired from McDonalds. <br><br> Having witnessed this bizarre pattern of narcissistic behavior, I continued to believe. My faith in my friend was as foolish as my faith in religion. I continued to believe in spite of abundant corollary evidence that my faith was abject foolishness. <br><br> <b>Blind faith is abject denial</b><br><br> My Christian friend lived in the basement of an elderly woman. When she sold her house, he had no place to live. I offered him temporary accommodations in my downtown office. My friend literally lived in my office for about three years, never paying rent nor offering to cover the increased cost of utilities. But I believed he was my friend.<br><br> To assist in sales, I bought him his first cell phone and paid the monthly charges of exceeding $100 for over three years. On two occasions he surpassed the allotted time limits and stuck me with phone bills totaling hundreds of additional dollars. He never offered to repay. It should have occurred to me that something was amiss. Yet my faith in our friendship held fast.<br><br> I was blinded to reality because I was 'walking by faith' in a 'friend', not by sight. What I thought was faithfulness to a friendship was actually denial of reality. The same applies to religion.<br><br> My intention to donate hundreds of books to a prison ministry was abruptly ended. When I showed up at the warehouse to pick up the books, I was told my good Christian friend had taken them. After the police investigated, they informed me that my friend said I gave them to him. The books had an estimated face value of about $70,000. He sold them for $400, according to the police. That occurred after I had lost faith in my friend.<br><br> There were many other similar experiences; all within 36 months. <br><br> While I supposed I was applying altruisms, I was actually acting out misguided fantasies. That is, I was not merely living by faith; I was blinded by fantastic absurdities. <br><br> <b>Substance of things not seen</b><br><br> The question persists.<br><br> Why do humans continue to cling to faith? Why do we ignore the evidence? Why do we insist on believing that which is obviously false? Why do we reject the truth?<br><br> As I examine my own experiences the conclusion is relatively simple: I believe because I want to believe. I desire the lie to be truth. That desire trumps reality. It blinds the mind to the apparent and replaces it with delusions. <br><br> <b>False friendship is analogous to a non-existent God</b><br><br> There was value in my experience. It provided an analogy to my misplaced faith in God. <br><br> I believed in friendship because I wanted to. Likewise, I believed in God because I wanted to. Reason was overridden by a mental hankering for that which I wanted to be real; not what was real. <br><br> I 'walked by faith, not by sight' when I clung to our friendship. I trusted in our friendship with all my heart and didn't lean to my own understanding. <br><br> Everyone does it. <br><br> Someone did a background check on my friend and anonymously sent me a copy. Unfortunately I was not privy to it until after I came to my senses and lost faith in our friendship. <br><br> The background check consisted of county court records. They revealed my good, Christian friend had been taken to court about fifty times over a fifteen year period. Those legal actions included three instances of check deception, several evictions, non-payment of financial obligations, and numerous instances of wage garnishments and attachments. <br><br> My friend managed to merge his religious faith with his bad behavior. <br><br> He explained that he didn't desire to be a part of the evil world system. Therefore, he righteously rejected employment, had no bank account, no credit card, no driver license and lived with friends rather than pay rent. <br><br> Ironically, he was the quintessential example of the 'evil' world system. <br><br> I suspect there was a non-religious reason for his unemployment: The wage garnishments had considerably reduced the size of his paycheck. Why bother going to work? <br><br>Could there also be non-religious reasons for not having a bank account? A driver license? A credit card? Renting a home?<br><br> My Christian friend may be an extreme case of mental merging. But we all do it. <br><br> <b>Christian behavior argues against the existence of God</b><br><br> I recall an older couple who held a firm belief: Sunday evening church services should last no longer than one hour. Therefore, every Sunday evening they would leave the church precisely at 7 pm. They didn't mind that their departure disrupted the service. They weren't bothered that their distraction could result in some poor soul spending an eternity in hell. Yet this same couple would insist they held a genuine compassion for souls. They held conflicting beliefs but, somehow, managed to merge them. <br><br> There are hundreds of similar examples I have witnessed. <br><br> The behavior of Church folk is consistently inconsistent with their stated belief in God. That's corroborated by fifty years of observing Christian fundamentalists. The evidence is irrefutable. Their bad behavior routinely denies God's existence. <br><br> Sometimes their bad behavior becomes personal. <br><br> In recent months I discovered that my Christian friend encouraged other Christians to shun me. Silly? Maybe. But it illustrates how God-denying bad behavior can go viral. <br><br> His efforts had some limited effects. Christians I had known for years refused to talk to me. Those who did explained that I had been labeled an 'atheist'. My friend was obeying God by refusing to be 'unequally yoked' with an unbeliever. If Christians refused to speak with me, they would not be privy to the truth. My friend would proudly wear his halo of holiness and none would be the wiser. It was his spiritual spin. No mention was made of stealing accounts, unpaid loans, overages on phone usage, years of free rent, check deception, wage garnishments, evictions, etc. <br><br> Many gullible church folks believed him. And why shouldn't they? I had believed him. I also had once believed the viral story of the resurrection. <br><br> That's not to say that religion has no positive impact. Like Santa's naughty and nice list, the prospect of facing a wrathful God can be a powerful behavior modifier. In spite of his lack of ethics, I never once heard my Christian friend cuss.<br><br> <b>Displaced reality</b><br><br> The writer of Hebrews describes faith as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." This biblical observation reflects Paul's observation that 'we walk by faith, not by sight.' <br><br> Phrased in more practical terms, faith displaces sight. Sense is displaced by nonsense. The emphasis is on ignoring 'things seen' and 'sight'. Reality, that which can be observed, is necessarily suspended when we live by blind faith. <br><br> <b>Living by faith: Acting out absurdities</b> <br><br> Tom is an intelligent business owner who holds an advanced marketing degree. He earns an above average income, drives an expensive car and lives with his family in an upscale neighborhood. He is well-dressed, well-groomed and well-behaved. Tom is the epitome of stability.<br><br> Tom is also a man of Christian faith. Upon following him to a religious gathering, we observe his normal behavior displaced by irrational faith. During the course of the religious service, Tom dances in circles, flails his arms about, speaks 'in tongues', and commits various other erratic acts. At the conclusion of the religious meeting, Tom reverts to his normal, well-behaved demeanor. <br><br> What has happened? During the religious service Tom's sense was displaced by nonsense. His sight was displaced by faith. He was blinded to his silly behavior.<br><br> George, like Tom, is a well-respected professional. Tom lives his life wearing peculiar underwear because his Mormon faith compels him to do so. Nonsense has displaced sense; faith has replaced sight.<br><br> Barb invests hours each week trudging through residential neighborhoods, banging on doors, and selling copies of Watchtower magazine. Her absurd behavior is a displacement of reality by faith. <br><br> The Yoders drive horse-drawn buggies, wear 19th century attire and refuse to attach electric power lines to their home. Other than their intentional quest to adhere to an antiquated lifestyle, they are quite normal. Nonsense has displaced sense. <br><br> Years ago I observed Hare Krishnas dancing erratically along Santa Monica's Promenade. I wondered what compelled otherwise intelligent men to shave their heads, dress in flowing pinks garments and behave like loons in public. Among the dancers were a man and woman who were dressed normally, but were obviously a part of the troop. I tried to make eye contact with the man as he skipped around in circles like a four year old, but to no avail. I wanted to ask him simply, "Are you nuts?"<br><br> Moments later I was nearly trampled by a horde of protestors loudly chanting their belief that convicted killer Mumia Abu-Jamal should be freed. As the rowdy marchers faded in the distance, I passed a disheaveled man on the street corner preaching the evils of the Viet Nam war; apparently unaware the conflict had ended decades earlier <br><br> All were acting out their deeply held faiths.<br><br> Hasidic male Jews sport a strand of hair in front of each ear. Called 'payots' or 'simanim', the peculiar-looking style adheres to a biblical injunction against shaving the "corners" of one's head. Some Mennonite women wear white mesh bonnets or snoods in compliance with perceived biblical mandates. Some fundamentalist Baptist males crop their hair to near-peach fuzz length. Hindu women blot their foreheads with a red dot and Holiness women refuse to wear make-up or cut their hair. Some orthodox Jewish males wear yarmulkes, or beanies, in obedience to their relgious views. All are matters of faith that displace good sense. <br><br> More dramatic is the case of Kara Neumann. The eleven year old "died from diabetic ketoacidosis resulting from undiagnosed and untreated juvenile diabetes," according to news reports, because her parents' religion opted for faith over sight. Nonsense displaced sense. [<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/us/21faith.html">source</a>] <br><br> Members of the FLDS sect practice polygamy. They are unphased by simple math: If one man has ten wives, nine men will have none. God, they say, will supply a bumper crop of females. Meanwhile their leader remains imprisoned, convicted of two felony counts of child sexual assault. It's a matter of sense displaced by nonsense.[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Jeffs">source</a>]<br><br> By faith Michael Servetus attended a church to hear John Calvin's Sunday sermon. By faith John Calvin consented to have Michael Servetus burned at the stake. As a matter of faith, each considered the other a heretic. It's a matter of faith displacement. <br><br> Fervent faith convinced the tiny Heaven's Gate cult members to kill themselves. By faith scores of altruistic believers followed Rev. Jim Jones to a jungle encampment in Guyana where they perished in forced suicide. The Aztecs routinely sacrificed humans to their gods. Many of the victims were happy to die as a fast-track to heavenly bliss. Sense was displaced by nonsense. <br><br> <b>DNA directed dogma</b><br><br> The universal aversion to naturalistic explanations and the default to religion serve as evidence that faith is a hard-wired component of our gray matter. Our distant ancestors who sensed accountability to a higher power successfully competed against non-believers. The outcome is a genetic propensity to believe nonsense. <br><br> This awareness that our minds default to nonsense ought to compel us to engage our brains in a perennial effort to override bind faith and walk by sight. <center> <img src="/001/lucy"> <br> <br><hr> 2011 </body> </html>