Explaining my atheist claim II

Published without any editing!

Dear Lottie,
  Well thank you, first of all.  As to me not being an atheist, a good friend pointed out to me that I am an even worse atheist than I was a Christian! Its true.

But I feel like atheist is more accurate than any other term because “There is no difference between a God who will not act because of his nature and one who cannot act because He doesn’t exist.”

If I call myself a theist, then the next logical question is what does this person of God want from me?  The answer I get is sacrifice. I spent the first 25 years of my life sacrificing, throwing away things and people that were valauble to me.  It was misery in the name of Joy, pain in the name of Healing, and despair in the name of Hope.

Maybe I can put it best in an analogy.  Pretend that tommorow a new best seller tops the charts, its called, I am your God by Kevin Bacon.  This book claims that I can have a personal relationship with Kevin Bacon if I just say I believe in him.  That his spirit will comfort me when I am broken and he guide my life. He is everywhere, all knowing, and all seeing.

Now, until the publishing of this book, I beleived in Kevin Bacon.  I saw him in movies and heard about him on TV.  I always trusted that even thought I have never met him in person, only seen his image in movies, that he was real.  But now everytime I meet a group of Baconites, they claim that Kevin Bacon is at there Church.  When I get there, there is no Kevin Bacon.  “He’s in all of us” they say.

Soon, people are being healed in Kevin Bacon’s name.  Other people are so upset that that start murdering Baconites in the street.  The movement grows.

Now, the most resonable belief at first was that Kevin Bacon was just an actor.  Then when absurd claims were made, the most resonable belief becomes that Kevin Bacon is a real person, who wrote a crazy book.  But there comes a point…  Extrodinary claims demand extrodinary evidence.  There comes a point when the claims of the Baconites are so aburd that the evidence of Kevin Bacon’s existence is no longer the most reasonable view.  Maybe there never was a Kevin Bacon, it must have all been movie magic.

Hmm, this has weirded me out about the legitmacy of the existence of God or Kevin Bacon so much that I think I will stop here.  This makes me see further flaws in my argument, and I’m not sure if that means the argument is wrong and thus its statement, or if it is simply a lousy argument for a true statement.

Explaing my atheist claim

To those who may have only read the last few blogs, and did not read the 2 years of blogs which detailed how I went from a dishonest, unhappy Christian, to a Christian who was still unhappy, but honest about it; then explained my struggle to not believe; then finally, how I stopped struggling to believe; lastly, I detailed how by not fighting to believe, suddenly the peace and joy I had always wanted just sort of showed up in my life.

As a person who doesn’t fight to believe, I don’t know what to call myself. Not fighting to believe doesn’t mean that I don’t believe. I still view the world through a lens of good and evil. I still believe in sin. Though, I feel I must define the terms somewhat differently than I used to.

Do I believe in God? I don’t know how to answer that.

I grew up believing that God could be your friend. That if I believed the that the Lord Jesus Christ had shed His precious blood to save me from my sins, then Jesus would accept me, and He would change my life.

Well, I did believe. I believed with everything I had. To me belief is shown in action, so I took whatever actions I could to believe. And my life sucked. Sucked hardcore.

Finally, I was living in the projects in Kansas City. My neighbor got shot in a botched crack deal. The girls two doors down were prostitutes. I woke up every day wondering what new way I could find to fail God, and suck more. I thought about suicide often.

One day, I stopped trusting God to take care of me. I got a real job. I got a house where no one was getting shot. I got a car that didn’t leave my wife stranded all the time.

Getting out of debt rather than getting deeper into. Not having neighbors who got shot. Not having to wonder if my wife was getting shot. In result, not feeling like a failure. In result not wanting to kill myself. These are good things. These are the good things that I got by not trusting God to take care of me.

I don’t know how to respond to this. I want to believe in a personal God. I want to believe that good is rewarded. I want to believe that evil punished. My life shows me that trusting God to help me made things suck, and not trusting God made things not suck.

I don’t have a problem with God, I just don’t trust him to take care of me.

Maybe He will take care of me in the afterlife? But if I believe that, then I have to ask myself how I need to act now. What actions must I take that will let me know that my belief is real? And I will end up back where I was.

I don’t know how to believe in a personal relationship with God, and still be happy.

If Christianity means believing that a person should model ones life on most of the teachings of Christ, then I am a Christian. But I don’t think thats what the word Christian means to most people. It think, to most people it means belonging to subculture. I don’t belong to that subculture.

An atheist is a person who doesn’t believe that God exists. An agnostic is someone who believes that God may or may not exist. But a Christian is someone who believes that God loves them and wants a relationship with them. And personal relationship means give and take. Communication, and prayers answered.

So with in the context of Christianity, an atheist is person who doesn’t believe in a personal, in your space, changing your stuff, helping you make it God.

And I don’t believe that God pays my bills. I believe I pay my bills by working my ass off. So I guess I am atheist. Make sense? I hope so.

Always wash your hands…

So, I injured my shoulder (lifting weights!  Yeah a manly injury!).  So, my arm has some pained muscle up in the shoulder/back region.  It’s sort of a dull throb all of the time but only REALLY hurts when I twist it certain ways.  I can’t get glasses out of the top shelf of the cabinet, for instance.  Well, imagine my surprise when I found out that this odd, swollen muscle mass is the key to something far, far, more essential.

Thats right.  I injured the butt whiping muscle.  The muscle in one’s arm that one uses to twist one’s arm around just so to reach one’s anus.  Several tries of alternating reaching methods were made, but to no avail.  In the end (get it? in the end?) I had to use my less hurt left arm.  My less hurt and significantly less, um…. dexterous left arm.

Always wash your hands after use the bathroom…over and over again… With antibacterial soap… For 30 sec.

Back in flash!

Last blog for awhile, dear readers.  I’ve two finals to study and pass, I am taking a vacation which I need to prepare for and take, and I’ve not spent quite enough time with my adorable wife, and adorably goofy kid.  Back soon in 7 days or less.

Godless Love

Acts Chapter 2 (44) All the believers were together and had everything in common. (45) Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. (46) Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, (47) praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

It was these verses, and ones like them, which led me to question the ultraconservative version of Christianity I grew up believing.  It was these verses, and ones like them, which led me to question the very core of my faith.  So, some introspection seems appropriate here.

These verses speak of a magical time in the early history of the Church. Everyone was equally generous, and no one abused this generosity.  They met together everyday to pray and probably to sing.  They ate together, sharing good times around their tables.  They constantly told God how great He was, and everyone loved them.  Seeing all this love and affection, approval and care, few could resist and their numbers increased everyday.

I read this passage for the first time when I was around nine or ten years old.  My home life was pretty rough in those days: lots of screaming, lots of crying, and some rare violence, so I suppose it’s no surprise that my heart locked onto this concept of the divine super-family of the early church.

“Why then, but not now?” I remember asking someone.

“Well,” began the voice of reason, “that was a special time, and God was pouring out special gifts as a sign, to mark the beginning of this glorious age of Christ in which we dwell.  But once the time of marking the beginning was over, God began to step back those special signs.”

And for a long time that was enough of an answer.  But the question still burned in me. “Why not now?”  Sometime later I would see the movie “The Mission“.  In part of the plot development, the Jesuits explain that the Indians live as the early Church, sharing all things in common.  After viewing the movie, my father remarked, “Well, the Indians were doomed.  Communism never works.”

But it did work in the early history of the Church; the Bible says so.  What made that time so different?  And the reasonable answer was repeated.  The question remained in the back of my mind, rolling around for years.  I suppose it was this question, in fact, which made me take the interest in cults I mentioned here.

Away at college, a new friend encouraged me to really study through the New Testament and see if I could find any evidence of this theory that those “special times” of the 2nd Chapter of Acts had ended.  I found evidence aplenty, but none of it was any good.  To prove this theory with one verse, you had to forget the one in the next sentence.  To use another, you had to ignore the verse previous.  From the evidence, no person trying to base their worldview purely from scripture, rather than from the traditions about scripture, could conclude that these fascinating things had ended.

And after much consideration, I became a “Charismatic“.  I did not make this decision lightly.  I detested the touchy, “don’t-think-just-feel” vibe that I felt the Charismatic movement represented, but I felt that if I were to call myself a Christian, then I must follow the Word of God, and the Word of God did not teach (in any textually valid way) that the Signs and Wonders of the early church should have stopped.

Yet, the evidence of the Church and the world around me showed clearly: The Signs and Wonders were gone.  There was an explanation, however.  The lack of the signs of God was caused by the lack of obedience to God.  And so I joined the church which I thought did the best at obeying God.  They believed God would use them as vessels to bring His Glory, and thus His Signs and Wonders, to Kansas City.

I still love those people. They were earnest people, desperately hoping for a better world.  But when I was truly presented with the chance to live the way I thought I had always wanted, I was repulsed.  I prayed about it.  I confessed it.  I said I wanted help.  But the idea of working my butt off, to give my tiny, hard earned wages away so that others could fritter away their time in 24 hour prayer grated on me.  Worse still, then I felt terrible for feeling that way.  Obviously, the Lord had so much more work to do in me for I was still so full of self.

It’s been three years since we left that church, broken hearted.  Sadly, hoping for a better world does not alone a better world make.  More questions, and my abiding love for reality, has lead me to atheism as a world view.  And now, surprising even to me, I want that communal life that seemed so repugnant only three years ago.  How did this change in world view make me desire this deep community?

Becky and I went to another Society for Creative Anachronisms class.  The class is held in the living room of huge, rambling country house.  It is owned by one couple, whose adult sister and her husband also live there.  They share many things in common, and “break bread” together from time to time, often with the strangers that wander through their door for the S.C.A. classes.

It’s lovely.  And it sets me to thinking how lovely it would be if Becky and I could do that.  I think of all my friends under one huge roof, laughing together, joking together, and working together.  I makes me feel warm inside just to think of it, like the memory of a hug. Why this 180 degree change?

And then I knew.  Compulsion.  I don’t have to love my friends now; I choose to.  I don’t have to force myself to love any yahoo I meet; I am allowed to be honest with myself and admit that I really love some people, and really dislike some other ones.  I don’t believe anymore that there is anything particularly moral about “loving” all 6.6 billion members of the human race (as if such a thing were even possible).  So, while the quantity of my love has gone down, the quality has gone up.

I don’t love people because I am supposed to anymore.  I love them because I chose to love them.  I can choose to share my home with the people I truly love, people with whom I share reciprocal giving of happiness.  Since there is no Holy Book which can tell me the “right way to love someone” (again, as if such a way existed), there is no expectation.  I do not perform for the people I love and they do not perform for me.  We love one another because, intrinsic to our very identities, our way of showing love is the way that makes the most sense to each other.

Imagining this house full of friends now is a house full of people who love each other by choice instead of compulsion.  What could be more wonderful than living with people who could have chosen to love anyone, but chose me and mine?

Situational Morality for Everybody.

Just a quickie today, I need to vacuum my apartment.

All morality is the result of a personal judgment.  As an atheist, I know that, but its harder for people raised in religious tradition to accept.

“No, no, no!” they cry, “The source of morality is God!”

And how do you know which God?

“By his Holy book!”

And how do you know which Holy book?

“Because he lead me to it!”

And how do you know he lead you to it?

“Because He told me!”

And how did you decide this still small voice in your head was his voice and not yours?

“I made a personal judgment.  Oh.”

See, ALL morality comes from a personal judgment.  Either you personally judge each situation, or you make an appeal to some authority.  If you make an appeal to authority, you must first execute your personal judgment on whether that authority, be it God, some Holy book, a tradition, represents a good authority.

So, all morality is ultimately situational and dependent upon the person deciding it. Doesn’t bother me, but man does that bum out the religious folk.

Great Fuel Economy without a Big Oil Conspiracy or Hybrid.

“Why won’t the car companies build this car?”

I can’t tell you how often I have heard that from people in reference to some high mileage concept.  Well, luckily you all have me here to answer that for you.  Today we are are going to make an high fuel economy car on paper, then I’ll explain why no one builds it.

There is one simple way to use less fuel: make less power.  Engines burn fuel to make heat, then convert this heat into horsepower.  To save fuel, we need to make as little heat as possible, then convert that heat into power as efficiently as possible, then take that horsepower and use it to move the car as efficiently as possible.

There are 2 ways to reduce the need for power: Aerodynamics and Weight.  We turn to the Power Train (engine and transmission) to convert the energy efficiently from heat, to horsepower, to vehicle motion.

Aerodynamics.

Aerodynamics are simple.  The faster the car goes, the harder the air in front of it piles up, sticks to the sides and swirls around behind it.  Step one to good aerodynamics is to make the car’s cross section as small as possible.  No matter how aerodynamic something is, the bigger it is the more air it has to push out of the way.  So, make the car very narrow and low, say 44″ wide and 44″ tall.  (Airplanes made to sit two across are this size.  Its doable, just different.)  To keep the air from piling up in front, the nose of the car needs to be a rounded point like a bullet.  To keep the air from swirling around in back in needs to end in sharp point, like a wedge, and should be quite long.  Since some air sticks to the sides, the longer the car, the more air sticks.  If the car is too long more energy is lost unsticking the air from the sides, than swirling around behind a blunt a wedge.  6 times the length is ideal for a wedge.   The car would be about 23 feet long, but we can cut off the last 3 feet to make a “Kammback” and have it be just as good.  The car then ends in a straight edge, which is good for mounting the tail lights in anyway.

Weight

Weight is also simple.  The more it weighs, the more power is needed to accelerate, climb hills, and stop.  The last is important for two reasons. One, heavy cars need heavy brakes.  Heavy brakes mean a heavier car, which needs a heavier engine to get around, which in turn becomes heavier and needs heavier brakes. (Don’t laugh, this is why  a 73 Corvette weighs 500 lbs more than a 53 Corvette.) Two, among existing mass produced cars there is proportional relationship between weight and and likelihood of the passengers to survive a crash.  There are ways around this, but it requires some real design skills.  Bearing safety in mind, we want the car as light as it can be inexpensively made.  The only option this really leaves us is an aluminum space frame with a lightweight plastic body covering it.

Power Train

Engine

Power Train includes the engine and transmission.  We need to use as little fuel as possible.  Hybrids sip fuel by using a battery pack and electric motor to move the car at low speed and the engine to move it at full speed.  The problem is that the very best, cost-no-object batteries still don’t even hold a 1/10 the energy per pound as tank of gas.  So we will hybrid with a small engine, say 5 to 10 hp.  This engine will run the A/C and anything else necessary when the car is stopped, help accelerate it at low speed, and let the primary engine take over at higher speed.  Since the secondary engine is so small, and used occasionally, it doesn’t need the special “getting the most heat out of the engine” trick that the primary engine does.  To accomplish this we need a something called a “turbo-compound engine“.  I’ll not explain the intricacies of these here, only to say it involves a turbo that uses some of its power to supercharge the engine (like a normal turbo) and returns further power to the crankshaft.  The maximum efficiency for this set up is about 60% vs the 20% most cars make.  However, it is unlikely that in vehicle service we could get over 40-50% efficiency.  Basically double.

Transmission

The car is very light, but people aren’t.  So the car might only have to carry its own weigh plus a 160 lb person, or four 200 lb people and some luggage (a 1000 lbs).  This means the load range of the car is 625%.  To pull this off we need an unusually flexible and efficient transmission.  Luckily for these relatively low loads, there is an ideal one which shifts without gears, called a Continuously Variable Transmission or CVT.

The technology

So what went into the car?  The chassis is a welded and bonded aluminum space frame, covered in plastic panels. The Renault Sport Spider does this, and its chassis weighs less than 180 lbs.  The primary transmission is an of-the-self CVT unit, but the car needs three additional transmissions.  One to connect the secondary engine to the primary transmission, one to connect the secondary engine to all the auxiliaries of the primary engine, and one to connect the turbo to the primary engine. The secondary engine is a standard 100cc motorcycle engine.  The primary engine, on the other hand is a direct injection, turbo-compounded unit.  Though this is old technology and regularly used in power plants and other other very large engines, no one has made any transportation engines of this type since the Wright R-3350 of the 1940’s and 50’s.

Proformance

The car should have at least twice the aerodynamic efficiency of a normal car, so that doubles the mileage once.  The engine should produce its power with half the fuel of a normal engine of the same size, so double again.  Going with the mileage of existing economy cars, the Ford Festiva and Geo Metro, 40-50 MPG and taking it times 4 we get 160-200 MPG highway.  Using the example of modified economy specials from the 70’s (which never went over 30 mph) we can estimate the in town mileage of around 300 - 400 mpg.

Production

Space frame chassis do not translate well into mass production.  The more purely the form is a space frame rather than a unibody, the more this is true. (Saturn’s “space frame” chassis aren’t really.) They must be semi-mass produced, which raises the price.  The power train can be mass produced, but requires premium components in many places to function.  It also has four transmissions.  So, again the power train is expensive.  If the car is going to sell for a reasonable price, these expenses must be made up in the only remaining ways: body, non-critical component quality, interior trim quality, and lack of amenities.

Body: Instead of being the shiny, ultrahard plastics that Saturns are made of, it will be the cheap matte injection molded plastic that storage tubs are made of, and the even cheaper diecut plastic that notebooks are covered with.  The windows will be fixed, and bonded to the body.

Non-critical component quality.  This means parts that work in a way that makes you nervous.  Door handles that flex horribly before opening, blinkers that stay on until you shut them off manually, and gauges will be plain digital readouts, as if robbed from a microwave.

Interior trim quality: This mean lawn chair like seats, and and lack of fascias.  The guts of the dash will be just sitting there.  No head liner on the ceiling, just bare plastic.  No carpet or rubber mats on the floor, just bare metal. Or, conversely, if the fascias are installed, they will be of cheap material and installed sloppily.

Lack of amenities: No power steering, windows, brakes, seats, mirrors, locks.  Nothing is powered at all. No stereo, no GPS, no gear shift (push button for forward and reverse)  Spartan, spare, and minimalist.

The whole picture

So now we have our super mileage car.  It gets 300 MPG in town and 200 MPG on the road.  It costs about as much as a normal car, it comes in one color, a sort of beige gray (the cheapest plastic), and it is shaped like a turd.  You can’t use drivethru’s anymore because the wheels stick out a foot from the car and the windows are fixed in place.  You are as safe in a crash as anyone else in accident in a small car, but thats not saying a lot. You can carry 4 people and all their stuff across the country on 10 gallons of gas.

Answering, “Why don’t they make it?”

Well, quite simply, the lead times and costs are enormous.  I would buy this car because I would rather get 300 mpg than look cool.  However, most people would rather have a much more compromised car which gets 40 mpg instead of 30, and is a better phallic extension for them.  There simply aren’t enough people who would buy these to justify building a factory to produce them.  Besides, the kind of people who are so cheap they will drive what looks like a wheeled suppository just to save some scratch aren’t going to buy a new one every 5 years.  They are going to keep it like an heirloom.  Which means there is no continuing demand. Once everybody who wants one has one, they can’t sell anymore.

Finally, every company has a culture. It is no more acceptable in Detroit to be really excited about building a super economy car than it is for a school teacher to be really excited about taking preschoolers to the bathroom.  Oh sure, both parties will do the job because it is their civic virtue, but both would be highly suspected of aberrant desires if they were really excited about it.

Car companies are not in the business of selling transportation machines.  They are in the business of selling desire.  There is no profit margin on utility.  A car you actually need would probably cost about 5 grand, look at the Tato Nano.  The only way for the car companies to make that additional 25,000 dollars is to sell you what you want instead of what you need.  Do people want to get 200 mpg gallon?  Certainly, but not nearly as bad as they want to look the part of whatever dream they are having.  Men and woman who have never even seen a gravel road buy off road packages because it compliments who they like to see themselves as.  The number of people who want to look in the mirror and an ecologist more than they want to see a sexpot is just too slim to make a car for them.

Reducing Headcount

Gothic (Goth) Manifesto

It is almost, but not quite, raining as I write this. The thunder is getting louder, and the lightening is striking closer.  The glaring tropical sky, more silver than blue is hidden at last. The ubiquitous sand that coats the roads and sidewalks is swirling in tiny cyclones, and the birds are flying low, trying to get a last snack before hiding from the coming deluge.  And as if on cue! As I wrote the word ‘deluge’ it begins. Rain drums the roof and the wall of my small shop.  Huge fat raindrops are falling into the instantly formed puddles, the rings they would otherwise create torn to tatters by the falling of the next drop and the next. Visibility is fading fast now.  Water is not nearly so transparent as air, and it is displacing the air around around me at a furious rate.  I love this weather.  I love the rain, the crashing thunder, the lightening bolts, and above all, the way the darkness transforms the landscape.

I am, after many years of failure by myself and the church alike, reborn. Things I liked as child, but repressed, return to me like the familiar echo of my own voice.   All these bits of me, frozen for years, are now melting.  Like the rain of spring that melts the last of the winter snow, these rivulets pour through the funk of 20 some years of life in the church.  I am falling in love, with life, at last.

Emotions felt, but hidden, I am now free to admit and enjoy.  As I mentioned above, I love rain. I love the darkness and the cold that it brings.  I love what rain does to suburbia, how it washes away her fake tan, strips the makeup away and reveals her true age and profession.  This wasn’t a feeling I could admit before.

I love music. It seems that I never truly listened to music till now.  I listened with my ears, but not with my heart, not with my soul.  Debussy and Wagner I know well.  They have stood at the door knocking, desperately pleading me to let them make me feel, something, anything, just feel, but the door was never open.  Song crafters and songwriters, who sing the dark thoughts I once thought, but I shoveled under pastels, now speak to my soul.

I used to make up beautiful stories, tragic romances, and star crossed lovers. Walking alone at night, my black trench coat sweeping my feet, I wrote and rewrote stories in my mind, wandering but never lost. I used to drive to the lake, sit on the beach and play my guitar, waiting for the water sprites to dance.

I used to do these things, but I put them I away.  I stopped listening to music that threatened my establishment established mindset. I gave away my black trench coat.  I quite playing guitar.  I stopped working on my art.   I stopped all of these things.  This was not what successful Christians did.  It was not how they dressed, not how they talked, not how they lived, and above all, not how they believed.

What Christians believe is touchy subject.  If you make any statement which at all enpinges on the church, Christians have a ready response prepared: “Oh, but that is not what the Bible teaches” or “Oh, but no one is saying that.” or “No born again Christian would say that.”   And that is true, these beliefs are not written down, they are not in scripture, and they are not spoken.  But that truth, hides another, far darker truth. Namely, that like all groups, Christians, have powerful social norms.  Those who function in these norms are rewarded and those who do not are punished.  It is not a conscious thing.  Few, if any Christians, think, “Oh, that young man over there in all black is a bad person.”

When you belong to the church, there is an enormous pressure to be like everyone else.  I hear the Christians complaining about that statement.  “Oh, no, no, no!” they cry, ” I have never felt that pressure.”  Theres a reason for that: you already fit.  There is no reason to saw your arms and legs off to fit the suit, the suit fits you fine.  But for those of us who did not fit, there was tyranny of gentle disapproval, raised eyebrows, condescension, and undeserved pity that all pointed towards the Christian social norm.  Constantly, we were pushed and prodded. Skipped over when we wanted to be chosen and chosen when we wanted to be skipped. You would value what other Christians valued and this would be shown in the music you liked, the art you liked, the clothes you liked, the information you liked, and the professions you liked.

I was pregnant with an idea once, the idea of who I was meant to be.  But pregnancy reveals two parents.  Looking upon the child of my self, the church would have looked long and hard at the long, black coats, the love of literature and art, and the melancholy and said, “This is not my child!  I am not the father!”  I couldn’t bare the rejection, so I aborted my own soul.  If ever I am  judged, surely, that is my greatest sin.

And here I am.  Given a chance to be myself again.  Having turned my back on Christianity, I am free to love the music, the manner of dress, and above all, the manner of thinking that I wish.  For the first time in my life, I can see a future for myself that I don’t dispise.  The desire to hurt myself, physically, emotionally, financially, and in all other ways, is gone.  Without the picket fence keeping me in, I love my life.  I stand proud, my head up, and of course, wearing black.

Love the sinner; hate the sin

I wanted to talk about the phrase “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”  For a long time, that phrase was the foundation of my social life. I tried to love people in that way, loving the person, but hating the evil they did. What, to me, was evil? The absence of righteousness.  What then was righteousness? Webster’s Online Dictionary says righteousness is doing that which is in accordance with divine law.  I hated that which the Bible told me to hate.

As you know, I have a lot friends these days which you might call “free thinkers”. In that community of people,which includes atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and other questioners, alternative lifestyles are much more common than in the Church.  So, I run into people living these lifestyles more often than I used too.

Until recently, I never cared about anyone who lead an alternative lifestyle, because I didn’t know any.  Now, a few of my many oddball friends fit into that category.  When you get familiar with someone, you can empathize with them, you can accurately imagine what it would be like to live life in their shoes.  You can imagine what they might feel.  I’d never before empathized for someone who was leading any other kind of life than mine and upon doing it, I find the views I held as Christian are vicious.  You can’t really love the sinner and really hate the sin.

A person is the sum of their actions and desires.  You are, simply, what you do.  Most of my readers are heterosexual Christians.  Pretend for a moment, that the tables are turned.  You are still your straight self, but you are suddenly part of a 4% minority. 96% of the population is gay, and most call themselves Christian.  Now hear the things that most Christians believe, from that perspective.

“I think your relationship with that woman, who I refuse to call your wife, is disgusting. I think the sex you have with her is repugnant. To have heterosexual urges that you chose not to act on is sin enough, but there is something especially sinful about having that kind of sex.  But I love you!”

“I think that you are a dangerous predator, and that you cannot be a Scout Leader, and that you shouldn’t be allowed to teach in a public school even if the law says you can.  I wonder what would even make a heterosexual chose a job where they work with children in the first place.  But I love you!”

“I think it is wrong for young children to be taught that people like you even exist.  I supported the removal of the book Heather has a Mommy and Daddy from my children’s school library. I oppose any kind of sex education course that teaches kids it is OK to be like you.  But I love you.”

“I believe that you are part of a vast Heterosexual Agenda that includes heterosexuals in places of cultural authority, like media providers and colleges campuses.  I believe this group is subversively trying to hijack our society by projecting a positive image of your empty and promiscuous life. But I love you!”

How loved do you feel when someone says that it is disgusting that you make love to your wife in both theory and practice, that because of who you want to love and be loved by you are intrinsically a sexual predator, that you cannot be trusted with children in a professional setting, that children should not even know that people of your persuasion exist, and that by association you are part of conspiracy to destroy this nation’s children, this nations way of life, and ultimately, this nation?  Does being accused of horrible crimes make you feel loved?  Is this how you treat the people you love?  Do you postscript love messages to your spouse with the statement “And your lifestyle is evil and worthy of eternal suffering?”

Of course not. Your lifestyle is everything that makes you who you are. It is your identity.  You cannot love a person and hate their identity. Its not possible to love a person and hate everything that makes them that person.  Either the love of the person, or the hate of the things they do; one must be starved.

I choose the love. Within the spectrum of Christianity, I could be seen as liberal or conservative. I didn’t want to starve the hate. Righteousness you remember, is being in accordance with divine law.  God hates homosexuality, it both the Old and New Testaments.  I wanted to be righteous so I loved from half a heart.  I could never let my heart free to love.  I might give my heart to someone who wasn’t saved.  They might die, and then this person whom I loved, would be suffering in eternal agony forever.  Think of the brokenness of spouse who’s beloved is POW.  Think of the terror.  Then think forever.  Your beloved suffering… forever.

So I only let myself love a little bit.  People I defined as Christians got the most love, but even then, I love too deeply to carry the burden of forever.  I couldn’t let myself love someone who might suffer forever, because when we truly love we share suffering.  We are hurt when our children hurt, and sad when our family members are sad.

I loved from who I wanted people to be, instead of who they were.  I missed out on love.  On relationships full of meaning and purpose, because I stopped my heart from going there.  I’m done with that.  As an atheist, I don’t believe in hell or heaven.  I am not afraid to love because of the hurt of the knowledge of eternal pain, nor do feel I can live without friends, safe in the knowledge I will see them in heaven.  I must love my friends right here, right now, because any of us could gone tomorrow, and that would be the end.

Never in my life have I felt so loved as I do now, giving my heart away as I am doing.  This is the face of Joy.  This is the life of purpose and meaning I have longed my entire life.  This is the way I was meant to live.