Homeopathy Minus Water Plus Jesus

When I go to these things, I make a point to do my best to blend in.  Given the topic, and some recent news^[1], I decided to go another way with it.

I got a few interesting looks on the way in.  Although, since it was an event by a small church, I probably would have gotten looks in any shirt.

Niles was introduced as someone who specializes in "healing spiritually".  Among what he's claimed to have done with it is to help people overcome mental abuses.  I wonder if he's ever addressed the mental abuse inflicted by religion.  Or by scam artists.

He told a story about going to Army Ranger School.  He talked about the fact that it was physically demanding as if he hadn't expected it to be.  He then segued into a standard story about going to church during his training.  Standard story about God's love.  Blah, blah, blah.  Kingdom of Heaven.  Blah, blah, blah.  "You usually have to die go there."  In other words, we cannot verify its existence.

Then the woo started.  "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you."  I instantly felt like I was being told about one the many derivatives of Vitalism^[2].  "Christian Science, at its core is about understanding the Law of Harmony".  He might as well have been talking about Chakras^[3].

And to give himself credibility to those who want to pretend they're critical thinkers, he gave lip service to the Scientific Method^[4], talking about things being provable and repeatable.  What followed a serious of anecdotal examples, that were neither provable nor repeatable.

When a friend got there late, her 11 year daughter whispered to me, in a "What did we miss?" kind of way, "So, how funny is this?" Skeptical kids make me happy.

Soon after, I missed his story about an accident & a concussion.  It's often difficult for me to not instinctively tune out bullshit.  But I did catch him saying "Accidents are unknown to God."  I don't think he understands the implications there.  Either his god has limits, or it intentionally caused that accident, as well as gives babies AIDS or parents who withhold medical treatment from their own children who then die of curable ailments.

When his cuts healed more quickly than expected, he thought it was a miracle.  The guy who had the genetics to be able to qualify for Ranger School healed some minor cuts quicker than he expected.  WOW!  This entirely common scenario is a goddamn miracle!  Or maybe its confirmation bias^[5].

We're now half way through this thing and this guy has said nothing.  It's just a standard sermon, with a homeopathic twist, presented as something else.  Maybe he was trying to make the Jesus more powerful by diluting it in stories about the Army.

Almost as if he knew this was the time in the talk where he expected people to begin to question his honesty, he began talking about how "There's no truth in a lie."  Lies only seem true to a believer of the lie.  No shit.  He talked about "facing the lie head on."  In the middle of telling a giant lie.  Also giant is his brass.

More rambling led him to talking about Spiritual Sense.  "Spiritual Sense is our ability to understand God."  Oh, okay.  I don't have that.  I've got critical thinking skills instead.  Then he called Spiritual Sense "the ability to discern good."  See what he did there?  It was a clever segue to equate his god with good.  Is this the same god who lets kids get raped in its name^[6]?

Back to the Army stories.  They taught him how to react to an ambush.  Oddly enough, they taught him to fight.  Not to pray.

After the Army, he was a Christian Science practitioner at a summer camp.  I wondered if that camp had a real doctor or nurse.  There was no mention of it having one.  I wonder what they did when a kid fell & broke an arm or leg.

I soon got my answer as he went into a story about a guy who they thought was dying.  They left him alone with the "dying" guy.  No mention of a doctor at all.  They thought someone was near death and made no effort to call a doctor?  I hope the reason they didn't get medical help was because they knew the guy, who had been working outside in Summer, had heat exhaustion and just needed to rest a bit.  But unfortunately, I doubt it.

And that was the whole thing.  Just stories about things that were all explainable, but were still attributed to magic.  No substance whatsoever.  If only I could expect any of the religious attendees to understand that the guy was so transparently full of shit.  No wonder there's so many scammers out there when people make it so easy for these con artists.

The face of a scam

Before this meeting began, I had a headache come on.  My friend offered me some ibuprofen.  Because it fucking works.  Then there's prayer.  Prayer gets kids killed^[7].

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/herbert-catherine-schaible_n_3138001.html
2.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism
3.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakra
4.  http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_scientific_method.shtml#overviewofthescientificmethod
5.  http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
6.  http://youtu.be/rTIorwtJbhE
7.  http://whatstheharm.net/christianscience.html

Moderate Christians & Cognitive Dissonance

This banner, from in front of the First Central Congregational Church^[1], was quite popular on Reddit^[2] last week.  So that's where I attended this week.

The guy in the special robes, often known as a preacher, started the service by saying theirs is a congregation where everyone is welcome.

The back of a card in the pews

He went on to say that every member is a minister, so people with questions can ask anyone.  They're very eager to make newcomers feel welcome and it felt much more genuine than my previous trips to similarly sized churches^[3].

I was a little thrown off when the kids came up without any instruction from the front, but that was how they did every transition.  People just knew when it was their turn.

He asked the kids what they did for Easter and then segued into asking for some tips about helping the environment.  Focus on nature & care for the environment is their theme for the Easter season.  This is when I learned that there's an Easter season, which begins on Easter and ends on a holiday I hadn't known about, Pentecost^[4].

They're serious enough about the environmentalism, it's even in their prayers.

Part of this Easter Season campaign is encouragement to donate to their "Mission For One Earth" & "One Great Hour of Sharing", their charitable efforts they say have brought fresh water, food, and medicine to impoverished people and helped respond to disasters like the Japan Earthquake and drought & famine in East Africa.

It also includes sending letters to elected officials and media outlets to affect change and bring attention to the issue.  It's borderline illegal for a church to encourage lobbying for specific policy changes (depending on the details of how they're doing it).  I guess if the haters are going to do it to fight marriage equality and women's rights, at least these people are doing it for a positive goal.

The communion was interesting because of how it was presented with all the violent bits left out.  He referenced that Jesus was betrayed but said nothing about what happened next.  He referred to Jesus "blessing" the wine & bread, calling them "his life" instead of blood & flesh.  As an added bonus, they had a gluten free option for the communion bread.

It's too bad that none of that made the ritual of communion any less creepy to me.

After the service, they held a short meeting.  The purpose was to discuss details of their plan to build a columbarium^[5], a place for the ashes of the deceased to be stored.  Even as an atheist, and more importantly, as a cheapskate, the nearly $30,000 they want to raise before beginning to build it seems reasonable.  People of all kinds suffer grief.

I would prefer they did all this stuff without the appeals to a non-existent god, but I guess I'll take what I can get.  But it is still quite a source of conflict for me.

These people are preaching love for the environment and for their fellow man, but they are still putting a book filled with violence & hate in their pews.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  http://firstcentral.org/
2.  http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1bcaaw/omaha_christians_doing_it_correctly/
3.  http://allthesepiouspeople.blogspot.com/2012/08/divine-prevention.html
4.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecost
5.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbarium

What Petition Would Jesus Sign?

Since my early morning Google fail kept me from going to the church I wanted to, I ended up going to Lifegate Church instead.

Even King of Kings didn't have people directing traffic.  But Lifegate did.  It was an adult man and two kids.  One of the kids had a sign directing guests to turn on their flashers.  I declined to go through the "let's indoctrinate the new guy" bit this trip.  I decided I would have to come back later & see what that's all about.  

I'm glad I opted to skip the VIP treatment (that's really what they were calling it)  because, I when I got inside, I found this.

"The object of this petition is to adopt an ordinance to delete sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes within the City of Omaha and in City of Omaha contracts."

It's a petition to overturn the LGBT protections passed by the Omaha City Council earlier this year.  They say their goal is only to bring it up for a vote of the people.  The people I asked about it were all very careful to not say they opposed LGBT being protected along with all the others discriminated against.  Although, one woman did let it slip a negative statement about the fact that it was the Democrats who passed it.

I wanted to challenge on them on it, but I'm determined to not cause a scene on these trips.  I wanted to tell them I was there the day it was passed, with a rainbow on my sleeve.  I wanted to ask what the purpose for putting it up to a vote was, if it wasn't solely to get it overturned and allow the discrimination it is meant to prevent.  I wanted to ask if they had seen the recent speech at Springfield, Missouri's City Council meeting on the same thing.

I wanted to tell them the existence of this petition is exactly why such protections are needed.  It's pretty obvious they want employers to be able discriminate against homosexuals.  On the bright side, they're afraid to say it.  And they should be.  They're wrong.  And unfortunately, Lifegate isn't alone in being wrong about this.

The first 25 minutes of the service was pure music.  It was all modern songs, instead of the boring hymnal stuff.  It turns out that making music that sucks more modern just makes it modern sounding music that sucks.

After the music finally finished, the preacher started talking.  It was all pretty standard.  "God loves us."  "God has healing magic."  He pointed out an individual and told him "God wants to give" to him and, "God says 'Ask a little bit bigger.'"  I wonder how much that guy will ask for in the prayers that won't be answered.

Then there were more songs and the "say hi to random people" bit every church does.

A different, younger pastor came up next.  He made another push for the VIP treatment.  It comes with a free t-shirt.  He followed that by bringing up the petition, careful not to say what it was or telling people they should sign it.  Although, he did mention the main pastor spoke about it a few weeks before. 

In announcing the passing of the collection plates, they say a prayer and told their god it time to "return to you that which is yours".  Subtle.  Apparently all money is God's.  I wonder if all debt is God's too. I decided to hold onto "God's money" a little while longer, much to the chagrin of the guy who gave me a dirty look when I sent the plate by me without adding to it.

While the plates were going around, they had videos playing.  One mentioned a Prayer Night event they're having on November 5.  It's probably just a coincidence that it's the bight before Election Day

The main pastor came back after the money had been taken from people and immediately pushed the petition again. These people seem to really hate both gays and the Separation Of Church and State. When the sermon finally began, almost an hour into this thing, my attention span waned. This is when I noticed the flags hanging from the ceiling. King of Kings had the same thing going on. 

It was interesting that when he called for people to pull out their Bibles, there were not any provided. People have to bring their own Bibles in this place. It was interesting because of how much money this place clearly has and because maybe 5% of the people I could see had one with them. 

In talking about people admiring new stuff they had, he mimed a woman holding a dress up to herself, which  got a laugh. A guy wearing a dress is amusing, but we must repeal the LGBT protections. 

Then he told a story of a woman he had helped years ago, whose husband had been hitting her. He advised her to have him arrested. Hmm. He actually gave her good advice instead of telling her to pray over it. It's almost like he knew prayer wouldn't do a damn thing to help her. 

He finished up with an almost cleverly disguised recruiting drive. He was telling these people that it's their fault some people they know are going to Hell because they're not inviting them to come to church. But I'm here, and I'm still going Hell. Well not really, but this guy thinks I am. 

At that point, I wasn't surprised he worked in one last thing about voting.  He was chastising them for keeping their votes secret. "I don't keep my faith secret," why should voting be secret? I'm sure they would never hold the "wrong votes" against anyone. "No one can take your choice away from you." Really? What if I vote for the wrong guy? What if someone in the congregation wants or needs an abortion?

This thing started with nice "We love God" music and ended with threats of Hell and inappropriate behavior regarding voting.

On the bright side, I did end up deciding to stop by the VIP thing & get my free t-shirt.  Now I've got a new shirt to paint in.

Church In A House

When I learned Tom Short, the sexist & homophobic preacher who goes to colleges to preach, was brought by there by the UNO group The Rock and that they are associated with a local church, I decided to make that church my next visit.  When I got to the address provided online for Candlewood Church, I found this:

Picture obtained via Google Street View

This is Candlewood Church?  There were no cars there, and I was there during the time their services were supposedly going on.  Maybe they meet elsewhere.  But why hide it?  Why have a house as their listed address?  How do new members find them?  Perhaps it's an invite only kind of church.  That certainly would be an interesting method for a church who thinks Jesus commissioned them to convert the whole world.

I was already prepared to be creeped out by this church, but this was more creepy than I was expecting.  

Luckily, it just turned out to be because of a mix of bad information on the web and some rushed googling. With further research, I later found a working website (not sure how I didn't find it in the morning) for them that shows they meet in a local school.  I wonder if it's a public(ly funded) school.  I guess I know my plans for next Sunday morning.

Edit:  This morning and moments before I published this, www.candlewoodcc.org/ was a broken link. Minutes after publishing, it's redirecting to their other website.  Hmm . . .

Sales Pitch For Jesus

Last week, I felt like there was a lot of attention on me, as the new guy in a fairly small group (easily less than 50). So for this week I chose a larger church, King of Kings Lutheran Church, hoping to blend into the crowd. This was accomplished disturbingly easily. No one notices a new face in a crowd of a thousand.

South half of the King of Kings main parking lot

North half of the King of Kings main parking lot

The parking lot reminded me of Walmart. Considering they have a loading dock, I might as well have been at a Walmart. I'd love to compare this church's pastor's salary to the salary for the pastor of last week's church.  Or even to the salary of a Walmart regional manager.

Some churches get big deliveries

For my protection? Weird, it didn't make me feel any safer

I went to the 11am service because I was out late the night before and I'm not so devoted to this project that I'll lose sleep over it.  Maybe that's why they had the band, or maybe they do the "modern" thing at all their services. Either way, it was an 8 person band doing a mini concert.

This picture doesn't do that room's size justice.  This is not even half the room.

The songs were generic Jesusy stuff. Mostly unremarkable, until one of the last songs. A song about peace, ending suffering and war. I wonder if that desire for peace & prosperity is more of a factor in the voting booth than party loyalty. They disapprove of violence a lot for people who revere one of the most violent books ever written. Sadly, that part is nothing new.

At some point during the singing, people began forming a circle in the front of the crowd. They were preparing for the baptisms of three infant girls. That's certainly old enough to understand the commitment they're making, or more accurately the commitment that is being made for them.  It's not like it's a real commitment, since they were pledging to a myth, but they don't know that.

They began with a declaration of belief in the form of a group chant. It reminded me of something from the few times I was in church as a child. In those churches, they said the Lord's Prayer as a group. I thought it was creepy then, with only about a hundred people. It was ten times worse with a thousand.

After each child was baptized, the pastor wiped the water from their heads. I know it was to keep the children from being cold and possibly getting sick, but how could the water make them sick when it is magic?  I guess holy water's magic has limits.

During the baptism, there was a small wooden chest on the table. It was acknowledged until the end when the pastor called attention to it. He called it a Faith Chest and said they were available in the church's store. They interrupted the baptisms for a goddamn sales pitch.  

I didn't realize "Always be selling" was one of the Commandments. 

As the pastor began his transition into his sermon, he mentioned school starting soon. He made a point to pray for a blessing of "the Christian school teachers". Not all the school teachers. The Christian school teachers. Sorry non-Christians, no blessings for you.

The bit about the retirement of the Sunday school teacher, Sherry, was nice. It seemed like she meant a lot to the people of that church. One person mention the "thousands of children Sherrie's ministry has touched". 

I'm not a fan of thousands of children being indoctrinated, but whatever.  It's not like they're my kids. People do have the right to pass on their fairy tales to their children, even when they have to suppress those children's critical thinking skills to do it.

After an adult prayed for Sherry, they had one of the kids pray for her. His prayer was noticeably different than the prayers I've seen so far from adults. Their prayers always have some sort of reinforcement of the "importance of faith". This kid just wished her well in her retirement.

He didn't mention faith at all. I guess kids don't understand how much faith has to be reinforced. They don't yet have the understanding that it can slip away without constant reinforcement.

The sermon was short, since they spent most of the service on the concert and the tribute to Sherry. It was on Acts, Chapter 18. It's about a trip Paul supposedly took. He put up a map of the path of that trip. He said he did that to show that it was a real thing and not just a Sunday school story. Apparently it's visual aids that make things real. Not evidence.  No acknowledgement that,even if this trip by Paul took place as told, it does nothing to prove the existence of their god.

Paul apparently visited Corinth, where he encountered all sorts of bad behavior. The pastor went on for a while about how Corinth was known for its lack of morality. He mentioned prostitutes, who did what they did "in the name of religion". He had an interesting contempt in his voice of religion being used to justify something. It is especially interesting coming from a minister.

The Bible mentions the Jews becoming abusive toward Paul. He was preaching at them non-stop, telling them their "blood was on their own heads", and when they stood up to him about it, he calls them the abusive ones. I guess the victim mentality they have isn't such a new thing.

Funny that the story of Jesus is so unbelievable, even people in the Bible can't believe it.

One night, Paul has a vision. God tells him he won't be attacked. He's attacked in the very next line.  I cannot have been the only person in that room who noticed this.

He said the message of this story was that you shouldn't give up when you're discouraged. He asked for a show of hands for whoever was "in a good place" with god. Maybe someone raised their hand, but I didn't see them. The pastor didn't see (m)any either and commented on it.

He then moved onto a small presentation on people's needs. As a psychology major, some of his presentation was familiar.  It was a twist on Proxemics.  After going through it correctly, he unnecessarily added his god on as a new level.

He then told them they should continue to persevere, because "we know how this thing ends."  Harold Camping knew too.

During the final prayer, I looked around, as most atheists do during prayers. I was not the only one not participating. Several people in that room were not into the praying. They were probably not all atheists, but I doubt I was the only atheist in that room. I was just the only one who can admit it.

Next week, they're skipping morning services for what they called "Step Out". They're taking a day to do community service, a noble endeavor. Then they'll meet back at the church at noon, to talk about "what the lord did that morning".  Ugh.

These people's god didn't do that.  They did.  It wouldn't hurt them to take credit for their own hard work. They're the ones helping people, not their imaginary super-powered friend.

Met a friend at Cold Stone Creamery after church.  Couldn't help myself.

Divine Prevention

I chose Gospel Satellite Church for my first entry into this blog because of this picture.  That's what their sign briefly said about a week ago.  I went there fully expecting to be angered by some anti-gay hate justified by Jesus.  But they didn't mention the gays at all.

The people there were quite friendly.  Several members made a point to come over to introduce themselves and welcome the newcomer to their church.

The service began with a mini sermon from Brother Bob.  It was all fairly standard stuff.  Jesus, belief,  and nonbelievers.  I had to consciously keep myself from showing my amusement when he said, "Nonbelievers are uncomfortable around Christians."  According to Brother Bob, we feel the holy spirit when we're around Christians, which makes us uncomfortable as we resist.  Apparently, it has nothing to do with trying to understand how people believe things with no evidence or how those beliefs are so often used to justify hate and other inappropriate behavior. 

After a pause to set up some stuff, a few words from pastor Ralph Barker, and a brief song, it was time for the prayer requests.  Once again, Brother Bob was at the podium.

Bob started by mentioning a few church members and their various health issues.  A few people from the crowd mentioned people they knew with health issues.  Bob added his wife's toe to the list (she had dropped something on it and it was swollen), saying that God could do anything.  He did not go into why God didn't prevent the injury. 

Another man asked for prayers for his friend in Idaho, who was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  Later in the prayer, Bob declared the man in Idaho didn't actually have cancer.  Because of Jesus's power, of course.

A teenage girl, who didn't specifically ask for prayer, announced that she'd sprained her ankle for the 10th time.  Bob offered to have the congregation pray specifically for her ankle after the service.  He once again said that God can heal anything, still saying nothing about God's ability to prevent injury.

In the collecting of the prayer requests, Bob commented on the crowd being smaller than normal for them.  He blamed the weather being nice, and he was probably right.  People love Jesus, but many love a nice  August morning outside more.  Good for those people.

The talk of nice weather was followed by a story of a recent tornado that split just in time to miss the house of someone they all knew.  Just as an aside, it was said that the tornado immediately after destroyed another house.  The splitting of the tornado was, of course, credited to God's power.  The other house that was destroyed was not mentioned again.  I guess that family didn't love Jesus enough.

An elderly woman spoke up, not to pray for help, but to give thanks.  She'd recently fallen and broken both wrists and hurt her knee.  She was giving thanks that her injury was not worse.  Yet again, nothing about injury prevention.

The actual prayer was pretty standard.  Perhaps it was normal, for them, that he worked in some stuff about Israel and called himself an "adopted Jew", but I found it a bit strange.  I'm not even sure what else to say about it.

Then was the musical interlude.  I was a bit disappointed they didn't use the drumset that was sitting in the back, but they did use the keyboard, the piano, and a guitar.  It was quality music, if you ignore the Jesus stuff.  Only one song fit the theme of the sign outside this morning.

Pastor Ralph had led that song, and his sermon fit the theme. The rapture is coming soon, and events in Israel are how we know it.  Also, Jesus will come back like a "thief in the night", so we can't know when it will be.  It's soon because 7 is God's lucky number and we're in the 7 millennia of our existence.

We can't possibly know when it's going to happen, but it's going to be soon.  Okay, Ralph.  That makes perfect sense.

Ralph called the times of Noah the worst times in history.  He was sure that everyone was happy, safe, and successful, but it was the worst times in history.  Because they ignored God.  That one actually does make sense.  On that, Ralph and I are in agreement.  Ignoring God leads to prosperity.

He brought up this story of Noah's time, to complain about today.  God has been taken out of everything,  prayer was taken out of school, the Ten Commandants were removed from courthouse lawns. All "Christians are being oppressed" greatest hits.  He praised Dwight Eisenhower for having a prayer before political speeches.  He's under the impression that no politicians today are openly religious.  Ralph is funny.

On the way out, they were still friendly toward me, telling me they hoped I came back.  A woman even pointed out to me that my Sharpie had fallen out of my pocket.  I wonder how friendly they would be if we discussed marriage equality or the Separation of Church and State or if they knew why I carry the Sharpie.

First Impression of the Moonies

Meetup.com is a great place to find discussion groups.  A new one, on the topic of religion, recently popped up in Omaha.  Choosing to attend this one was a no-brainer.  It was several weeks before I was free during their meeting time, but last Thursday, I was finally able.  That night, they had adjusted their regular format, of just having an open discussion, to include a movie.

When I got there, the building was modest.  It was in an older residential neighborhood & the building was about the size of a three bedroom house.  With one of my biggest problems with churches being the hoarding of money, this was a good sign (I've since looked into it and found they have billions).

They were quite friendly.  I'd like to say they were too friendly, but I always think people are too friendly.  This is when I noticed the pictures of Sun Myung Moon.  These people are Moonies.  I had only recently even heard of the Unification Church, and what I'd learned was not flattering.  All I could remember was that they require marriages to be of mixed race.  Passed that, I was determined to keep an open mind.

They had food available and, as I would have expected from a church group, wanted to say a prayer over it.  The person they had do the blessing was someone I knew already.  We're in the same atheist group.  They already knew he was an atheist, as he'd been attending the group regularly already.

The movie we watched was "Hereafter", directed by Clint Eastwood.  It was chosen by a member of the church, "Joyce".  I had been aware of the film, but had never seen it.  In the announcement of what we were watching, I got the impression that several people there considered the subject matter something that actually happens.  This was not a surprise, but that made it no less annoying.

After the movie, Joyce asked if we'd ever felt like we'd been guided by an invisible force.  People responded with various stories of unexplained coincidences, but nothing worth taking seriously enough to even chime in.  When it came to my turn to answer, I only said "nope" because I have never experienced anything like that.  Looking back at it, I was probably a jerk about it, but I wasn't sure how else to answer that question.

A middle aged Mexican man (he came to America 7 years ago), who described himself as a skeptic, mentioned he'd seen weird things in his childhood but was comfortable with the answer "I don't know".  He later mentioned he was in the process of "learning about Jesus".  He volunteered opinions & skeptic viewpoints about spirituality & the concept of an afterlife that were similar to what I've heard from atheist friends.  I hope he retains that skepticism as he continues to learn about Jesus from whoever is attempting to convert him.

Later, Joyce was telling a story about a woman she knows who can talk to the dead.  When she finished with her explanation that was the standard apologetics for such things, I asked my standard question for such claims.  How can you tell the difference between someone who can talk to the dead and a schizophrenic.  The response I got was a momentary look of attempting to figure it out, then a look of confusion.  In other words, it was was the same exact response I've received every other time I've asked that question.

Then Joyce told a story of a woman who had asked for her window to be cracked open because she was "going home".  Apparently, spirits cannot go through glass or doors.  I didn't get a chance to tell her that it's quite common for dying people to know when the end us imminent.

Overall, the group was weird but not any much more weird than most other theist groups I've encountered so far, except for the rings.  The people at this event who were members of that church, were all wearing matching rings.  It seems like a minor thing, but I found it particularly weird.  Hopefully, I'll get to learn more about the rings & this church's other quirks at future meetings.