Advice for the recently deconverted

Julian the Apostate

I figure that if I can give sincere advice to proselytizing Christians, I should probably be able to do an even better job of giving advice to those who have recently abandoned their religious faith. While nonbelievers are not a monolithic group, I think that what I have to say should prove useful for most of them, whether they identify as an atheist, an agnostic, or perhaps even a deist.

1. Be open about it. This might be easier said than done depending on your family situation and where you live. If you think that you can still maintain your important relationships (not to mention your career) with this revelation, then let people know where you stand. I'm not saying that you need to confront people and get in debates, but don't let people assume that you're something that you're not. I wrote before about how atheists can learn from the struggle for equality that gay people have faced. Many people have come to accept gays and support their rights simply by realizing how many of them are around them and learning that they're really not all that different from them. When more believers realize that apostates don't become cat-sacrificing meth-heads upon deconversion, then we'll start to become less scary to them.

2. Be prepared to hear points as though you've never even considered them, even though you've spent much time pondering and ultimately rejecting them. If you follow my first piece of advice, then you're probably going to find this to be one of the most frustrating things. Did you spend a long time thinking about the various arguments for the existence of God only to find them wanting? Did you even use to say some of them yourself? Don't expect any of that to matter, as you'll hear everything from the ridiculous "Why are there still monkeys?" to the more thoughtful (but ultimately flawed) "The universe must have a case that exists outside of itself, and the best explanation for that cause is God". Not only will you hear all of these arguments, but believers will say them as though you've never given them any thought - even when you demonstrate that you have. They'll likely then accuse you of being close-minded and/or biased (even though you have already demonstrated that you can change your mind and overcome a bias).

3. It won't matter that you used to believe. This certainly seems to be the case with Christians in particular, but I imagine it's probably true for other faiths as well. Once you tell somebody that you don't believe, they assume that the problem is that you somehow don't know the theology. The problem won't be that you've found some flaw in the system. Clearly, it's that you don't know anything about it. Much like in my last point, even when you explain that you were a firm believer, many theists have a hard time accepting that one can sincerely believe and then change his or her mind. You might even find this happening with people you've known your whole lives and prayed next to in church. Prepare for frustration.

4. They will assume things about you. Without even listening to your objections, many believers will immediately start formulating a narrative in their heads about why you feel the way you do. Obviously, you're angry at God. Or, you had a bad experience. Probably the most helpful thing you can do is, instead of debate, simply explain why you don't believe (rather than telling them why they shouldn't believe).

5. They're not interested in what you've found out. For some nonbelievers, coming away from faith feels like stepping out of a prison where you had the key all along. You step outside the bars, look back, and wonder how the hell you could have stayed in there for so long. And then you see your friends and family and you want to yell at them: "Hey! Look in your hands! You have the key! It's obvious!"  Unfortunately, instead of them thanking you, they'll insist that they're not in a prison and won't even look to see what's in their hand. The truth is, many of them are perfectly happy in there. Their families and friends are there. They like the music. They like the camaraderie. For some of them, it's actually pretty comfortable and they have a lot of space to move around and the guards are pretty nice to them.

I realize that any believers out there are probably feeling a bit insulted with this analogy. Please realize that I'm trying to address nonbelievers, and whether we're right or wrong, this is how it feels. Many of us want to help others get away from faith, but the reaction on the part of many is to completely reject what we have to say rather than even consider that we might be on to something.

6. If you debate, stick with conversations about evidence. I think that I've learned this one the hard way. I've gotten into long debates about issues like how the Bible endorses slavery, and ultimately it's just frustrating and pointless. Apologists will excuse anything, no matter how horrific, that's in The Bible. (If I had a nickel for every time I heard the intellectually and morally bankrupt "Slavery was different back then/It was more like indentured servitude!" argument, I'd have a hell of a lot of nickels.) Ultimately though, these kinds of discussions are pointless. Let's say that The Bible clearly stated that owning human beings was wrong. Would that suddenly make the Christian God real? No. You'll find better morals in the average Superman comic, but that doesn't make Superman any more real than Jesus.

Stick with discussing what you both consider to be evidence, and then determine whether such evidence exists. Don't hold your breath thinking that they'll give you something, but be open to hearing about it.

7. Remember that they're not stupid. Don't get all tribalistic about this and assume that those on your side are somehow smarter than the opposition. There are plenty of bad reasons to become a nonbeliever, and a lot of atheists and agnostics aren't very thoughtful about their unbelief.

8. Beware the condescending nonbeliever. If you're the kind of person who likes to debate this stuff, don't be shocked when some of your fellow nonbelievers think that you're somehow doing the equivalent of what the Westboro Baptist Church does. It's funny, because even though I'm very public in my nonbelief, I've found myself making friends with a lot of Christians. It's weird, because they send me friend requests. I even get a few +1's on Google Plus from believers on some of the blog entries I've written.

However, talking to some atheists and agnostics, you're creating the crime of all crimes by critiquing an idea. They act like believers are little children holding on to their teddy bears, and you're trying to tear them away from their beloved toy. Are there some atheists who are obnoxious and insulting? Sure. But even in that case, you'll find that most believers can handle it just fine. They're not as fragile as you think.

The ironic thing about this is that in an effort to be more open and tolerant, these kinds of nonbelievers wind up being the most insulting of all.

Four years of daddyhood

Last Friday, my dad came down to visit, and when he left to take the three and a half hour drive home, he took my son, Logan, (who turned four today) with him to spend a couple of nights up at "Papa's Ranch". I had told Logan that he would be going up there for about a week beforehand. He's been up to my dad's before but always with my wife and me. He's also been away from us (once for a week) while staying with my wife's parents. The difference is that they live close by, so he sees them fairly regularly.

When we finished lunch, Logan started asking when it was time to go. He got into my dad's car and said goodbye to us with no drama whatsoever. When we talked to him the next day on the phone, he was having a great time.

I realize that there's nothing remarkable to all this, but I think that a lot of parents know what I mean that while it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, it's a big deal to me. There were a lot of emotions going through me. First of all, he was finally old enough to go up there and spend a couple of days on his own. Next summer, he'll probably spend several days there just as his older cousins have in the past. Basically, it was a crossing of the threshold as he's clearly no longer a baby or a toddler but a little kid now. I was also immensely proud of him for being so confident - and I dare say that I'm a bit proud of my wife and me, as we probably did something right to have him be like that. Still, there's something kinda sad about the fact that he's so nonchalant about leaving us for a few days!

I've mentioned this before, but the best and most bittersweet advice I received when I first became a dad was that my job was to teach my son how to live without me. While he's obviously not going to be there for some time, it's safe to say that he's on his way. The thing is, I can understand overly-protective parents. At least, I can understand the instinct that drives it. But ultimately that kind of parenting can only lead to harm. They're not puppies who will still require your care when they reach adulthood.

Aside from all these mixed feelings, here are some other random notes and observations from me being a dad. I imagine that some of these are universal.

1. My feet hurt. Seriously. Little kids don't look where they're walking, and if you're not wearing shoes and they are, be prepared to have them step on your feet. Sure, they don't weigh as much as an adult, but when it happens repeatedly throughout the day, no matter how many times I caution him to be careful, it starts to add up.

2. It's like having a little drunk Jack Tripper living in the house. I have never seen a real life human being do as many pratfalls as my son. He's always spinning around, acting silly, and totally unaware of his environment. Try and ask him to stand in one spot for more than three minutes, and he'll fall down somehow.

3. Just when I think I'm about to engage in a conversation and/or explain something, everything gets derailed. He'll ask about something like whether a seal is a fish, and then when I try to explain what mammals are, he'll start talking about how he had ice cream yesterday. Stay on topic, dammit! (Actually, I'm noticing a bit of an evolution on this one - he seems to be able to stay focused on a conversation for at least a couple of minutes now as opposed to half a minute before.)

4. I'm trying my best to let him be his own person. When I was in my early twenties, I took my nephew to get some Star Wars toys. When he saw the Power Rangers toys, he told me that he wanted them, and I insisted that we were there to get Star Wars toys for him. Oh boy. How embarrassing. Good thing I waited until my late thirties, where I gained a little perspective, to have my son. As of now, he seems to be taking to superheroes and Star Wars, but I don't think that's so strange for a little boy. However, he's got some other interests, and he really loves monsters. For his birthday, I got him a Godzilla, which he insists is his favorite present. He also likes this show called Ninjago, and I got him one of those toys not too long ago. I guess there's always going to be some crossover in interests though when your dad is basically a little kid at heart himself.

He's not showing much interest in sports, but if he does, then I'll sign him up for something. As of right now, he doesn't get any exposure to it at home. However, we do have him in a couple of activities, both of which he loves: dancing and swim lessons. He really loves the dancing, and his teacher told us that he's doing a great job and he's always eager to volunteer for freestyle dancing when asked. We even got to see a performance, and only about half of them volunteered for the freestyle dancing, but his hand was up right from the beginning. So long as he remains this enthusiastic, we'll keep him in dance class.

He's also a bit of a ham and a storyteller (that's probably a bit of my DNA in there) so we hope to sign him up for some kind of drama class when we can find one that takes his age group.

Still, I'm not trying to set my heart on anything. If he changes interests and wants to do something else, then I will encourage him to do what he wants. I guess the only thing that I'll kind of push is for him to at least take interest in something, whatever that might be.

5. I have a hard time reading about or watching anything to do with kids being harmed. I think that's pretty self-explanatory.

6. He has a mischievous streak like his maternal grandfather, and he likes to make up stories like my dad. When asked what his favorite movie was at preschool, he said that it was Planet of the Apes. When asked about his favorite T-shirt, he said that it was his Green Lantern one. When asked about his favorite toy, it was his Batman action figure.

And yet he had never seen that movie, and he didn't own that shirt, and he doesn't have that toy. When we asked him why he told his teacher that, he just let out a big belly laugh. Kinda like Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood.

7. He's well-loved, and he knows that he is. I figure that's probably pretty important.

Conquer the bias

Everybody has biases, and it's foolish to pretend that you don't. Your biases are often a product of your personal experiences, your upbringing, and the society in which you live. They shape your opinions on things, and you like it when you discover things that reconfirm your biases. There's nothing wrong with having them, but I think that they do become a problem when we use them to justify how we feel about things without analyzing the situation even deeper.

To be more specific, I once was in a conversation with somebody about marriage equality. The other person couldn't give a single logical reason for why same sex couples shouldn't be allowed to get married. Ultimately, the other person just went with: "That's just the way I was raised." So, one can justify denying people their equal rights because it aligns with the values that you were brought up with? How does that make sense?

I sometimes get it lobbed at me that I'm "biased" when I reject supposed "evidence" for the supernatural. When I try to point out that the "evidence" that's being presented is either an anecdote, an argument from ignorance, or some other logical fallacy, that's when the accusation of bias comes out. If anything, I have a bias towards evidence-based reasoning, but I don't have a bias toward the supernatural not being real.

I suppose that I am biased against certain forms of supernatural belief systems. I don't particularly like the tenets of the Christian faith, and I not only don't believe them, but I hope that they're not true. However, when one embraces an evidence-based worldview, then one has to accept even the things that he or she doesn't like. For instance, I really, really, really wish that anthropogenic climate change wasn't real, and I tend to have a bias against things that get people all worried and panicky over things that might happen. However, it doesn't matter what my bias is; the evidence shows that it's happening. I also am biased in favor of the idea that alien civilizations are visiting our planet. The evidence doesn't match my bias though, darnit.

It especially doesn't make sense to me when people accuse me of not believing in a god because of my bias. I was raised to believe in God. When I started this journey, my bias was toward him existing. It's not that I decided one day to adopt a new bias; it's that I figured out that my bias wasn't justified. (Because sometimes they are justified. I have a bias against people who don't like The Beatles, and scientific evidence shows them to be untrustworthy.) Are there people who are so biased against any form of faith that they won't even hear the arguments? Of course. Are they so biased that even if God came down and gave a clear, unambiguous, verifiable sign that they'd still hold on to their nonbelief? I suppose so. But it's a mistake to assume that people don't reach the same conclusions as you simply because of a bias.

A bias is something that one should recognize and view as an obstacle toward discovering the truth. If anything, you look for things that would prove your bias to be unfounded rather than things that confirm it. That's easier said than done, and I like having my biases confirmed as much as the next guy, but I recognize that sometimes I need to at least hear the other side out in case my bias is taking me down the wrong path.

Sincere advice for the proselytizing Christian

An article on WikiHow, entitled "How to Persuade an Atheist to Become Christian" has been making the rounds on various skeptic and atheist forums these last couple of days. I'm not sure if it's been going around the various online Christian communities, but just in case it has, I would like to offer some advice to any Christian who's thinking of employing this particular strategy. I'm not going to pick apart its various faults or attack Christianity, rather, I'm going to explain why you're probably just going to find yourself frustrated more than anything, and maybe I'll be doing you a favor by saving you some time.

The first thing that I should note is that not all atheists are alike. I can only speak for myself, and I became an atheist through skepticism. This is not true for all atheists. There are lots of reasons why people don't believe. However, I know a lot of atheists who approach the issue of religious faith the same way that I do, so even though this is from my point of view, I feel confident that a lot of atheists will agree with what I'm saying.

Also, I'm not going to go through each and every point. No doubt there are all sorts of people doing a thorough analysis already. I'm just going to point out a few things that jumped out at me.

1. It starts off with a pretty bad premise when it gives the following bit of advice:

Put yourself in your friend's seat. First, they don't have your concept of salvation, as "to be saved from The Law of Sin and Death", or that "all have sinned and deserve judgment".

One thing that I find odd when I debate with Christians is that they often talk about some of its basic principles as though I've never heard of it before. This article assumes right from the get-go that the atheist has no "concept" of some pretty basic Christian ideas.

I think a better bit of advice, especially if you're living in a Christian-dominated country, is that you can assume that there's a good chance that they know the basics. Not only that, but you have to realize that many atheists are former believers. Some of them were fervent believers, and some of them were even pastors. They can talk the talk, and they've walked the walk. Sure, there are some people out there who don't have the faintest clue about Christianity, but don't this idea makes the mistake of thinking that people reject the idea of the Christian God out of ignorance. And I don't mean to be snarky here, but let's face it - Christianity is an evangelizing religion by nature, and it's not like you're the Druids.

And if you're tempted to tell the former believer that he or she was never a "true" Christian in the first place, well, good luck with that. Trust me, it's not going to get you very far.

2. The second point under "preparation" goes as follows:

Before starting a discussion, you must expect that they have a non-religious orthodoxy with their evidence aligned in their favor, as they see it, regarding origins from the vacuum of space, universe and life from a black hole, from nothing but (mindless) energy changing to matter by no plan, yet results so astonishing, with no design -- matter "rattling around" to create all the orderly, interdependent processes -- as the basis of theories of origins (unobservable stuff form into theories of what they believe) may be arguable, perhaps logical, but how so?

If this is the best way that you can articulate the atheist position, then don't be surprised if the atheist rolls his or her eyes at you. Try reading up on what the actual science says, as theories are NOT formed from "unobservable stuff".

3. The fourth point under preparation says:

Verify that the Bible is scientifically correct every time it mentions science, even though it isn't a science text.

Not even all Christians will try and tell you this. As I stated before, I'm not interested in getting into debunking Christianity, but don't expect to find agreement with this premise. In fact, expect to find a long list of refutations with specific examples.

4. The fifth bit of "preparation" advice:

Be prepared to have a genuine conversation with them. Show interest in what they are saying. If you are going to convince him or her of anything one-on-one, you have to first take a genuine interest in that person's point of view.

The article doesn't state this, but a "genuine" conversation and sincere "interest" means that you're willing to consider that the other person is right. If you don't think that there's any way you can be wrong, then you're already failing this step. (And this is probably the biggest failure of the article, as it the writer doesn't understand the premises behind his/her own advice.)

5. I should first note that much of the advice is good stuff that could be useful no matter what you're discussing. However, it starts to assume too much with point number five under "Discussions":

Explain why Christianity helps people to live better lives.

Don't be shocked if the atheist doesn't even accept the premise of this. Has Christianity helped some people lead better lives? Absolutely. Some people kick drugs, alcohol, abusive relationships, etc. with Christianity. The same can be said of other religions. More importantly, there are atheists who don't feel as though they're somehow living an "worse" life than the average Christian. In fact, many of us feel the opposite, if anything. Be prepared to have the atheist point out that places that are more religious/Christian (the "Bible Belt" of the U.S.) tend to have lower standards of living than places with less religiosity (Scandinavia).

6. Again, some more good advice is given, but step 3 under "Long Term Goals" is curious:

After their arguments about any advantages of being atheist, say that their arguments are perfectly good points, but not enough to convert you to atheism.

In other words: "Make sure your mind is sufficiently made up and unwilling to change when given new evidence or a different perspective." I don't know about you, but I always assume that I can be wrong about anything and everything. I'm willing to  convert if given proper evidence (I don't care about "arguments" for belief) and I can spell out for you numerous examples of what that evidence would look like.

This relates back to point number 4, as it's not a genuine conversation if you're unwilling to even consider that you might be wrong.

7. The seventh point under "Long Term Goals" states:

As your friend listens (or just allows you to pray), pray that God will bless your friend and draw closer.

Honestly? Go ahead and pray for your friend. But don't do it in front of him or her because they're likely to view that as condescending. It carries the assumption that there's something wrong with them, and I hate to break it to you, but most of us atheists don't feel like we're missing something. Even if you're right, this will likely only turn the atheist off entirely.

Overall, I think that the article comes from a good, sincere place, and the writer wants to help people. However, it makes a few fundamental mistakes that will likely set off several alarm bells for atheists rather than have them consider converting to Christianity.

Not to be

There are plenty of tributes to the recently deceased Robin Williams out there that are no doubt better written. I was definitely a fan of some of his work, and even though he turned up in a lot of dreck, he'd still surprise me every now and then and remind me of what a talent he is.

Instead of a tribute, I'd like to add my voice to the growing list of people who are trying to spread awareness about depression, as it's clear that he suffered from it. Some people seem to be under the impression that the man needed to change his outlook, or he needed the people in his life to be there for him and remind him of how loved he was.

The problem is that neither of those things solve depression.

I have only had brief tastes of depression myself, the most recent being a massive mental crash that overtook me at the end of the school year. When I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me, I couldn't pinpoint anything that was making me sad. My wife is great to me. I have a wonderful, healthy, hilarious son. I had a good school year, and through the magic of Facebook, I'm able to keep in touch with many of my favorite students. I had recently officiated my sister-in-law's wedding, and I was overwhelmed by the positive response. I was starting to feel exhausted with everything coming to a close, and instead of coming down for a smooth landing, the plane smashed into the side of a mountain.

I'm much better - even looking forward to getting back in the swing of things in about a week. But I also took the precaution of setting an email reminder at the beginning of June to prepare myself to ease into next summer lest I go through that again.

It's hard for people to understand other people sometimes. Our brains don't all function exactly the same way. Maybe a bunch of compliments make you feel good, and you can hang on to those for months, but it just doesn't work that way for me. When students thank me for doing a good job, my initial suspicion is that they probably don't know what they're talking about, as I'm just moments away from everybody figuring out that I don't know what the hell I'm doing. When I was complimented on my officiating, my mind instantly went to thinking that they probably have pretty low standards and/or they would have said the same thing to anybody.

In other words, I was riding a wave of good feelings and love, but I still felt like the world was crushing me down, and everything was making me sad. I couldn't just shake myself out of it.

I don't know the full story of Robin Williams, but I suspect it's safe to say that his bouts of depression were far worse than mine. I've felt like I was losing the will to live, but I've never started to plan how to actually bring about my demise. In other words, I was a lot like Hamlet in Act I, where he expresses his wish that his "solid flesh" would "thaw and resolve itself into a dew" since the whole world had become "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable" to him. What I've never done though is actually start to plan out how I'd end my life.

In other words, I've felt myself losing the will to live, but I've also never found myself having the will to end my life.

People talk about mental and physical problems as though they're two different things. There's something about human psychology that makes us feel like our personalities and our bodies are completely distinct from one another. Yet we all know that's demonstrably false. You don't even have to do anything drastic like remove bits of your brain from your skull to see a fundamental difference in who you are as a person. Have a few beers/glasses of wine/shots of tequila. You won't be exactly the same person anymore, will you? Seriously, imagine if you were to feel the effects of alcohol for the rest of your life - minus the vertigo/dizziness/vomiting/etc. You wouldn't exactly be you, now would you?

Your brain is a physical part of your body, and its workings are a physical interaction of your body chemistry. Just as you can have something wrong with your heart that will make it not beat right or something wrong with your lungs to not make you breathe right, you can have something wrong with your brain that can make you not THINK right.

Anything that would make you take up arms against that sea of troubles that we call life and finally bring about the end of it all is your brain not doing the one thing that it's supposed to do - keep you alive.

We need to start being honest about this if we're going to help people who suffer from depression. I'm not saying that there was nothing that could have been done for Robin Williams. I don't know enough about his situation one way or the other. I do know that if we think that he just "gave up" or took some sort of cowardly way out of his problems, then we're not going to get anywhere near the solution to this problem.

If you want to read some other (probably better) articles on the subject of depression and suicide, I recommend the following:

"Only the Lonely" by Stephen Fry - I share this with my seniors when we read Hamlet.

Matt Fraction's blog, where he addresses a depressed fan.

These lousy kids nowadays

You're tearing him apart!

Anybody else notice that the kids nowadays are different from when I was younger? They're lazier, and they expect things to just be handed to them. On top of all of that, they lack respect. You should hear the way they talk to adults sometimes! It's unbelievable! To think that they're the future of blah blah Blah BLah BLAh BLAH BLARGH BLAAGRRHH.

If you were nodding your head at the beginning of this post, then guess what? You are officially a cliche. If there's anything that's been consistent since humanity has kept written records, it's that the older generation complains about the younger one. I was reading some Peanuts comics from the 1950s, and in it Linus and Charlie Brown were discussing the way their parents viewed the current generation. (Hint: it wasn't anything positive.) I also watched the movie Twelve Angry Men recently for the first time (great film) and in it the characters were complaining about how the kids are "these days".

Ever hear of Socrates? He lived about 2,500 years ago. The following quote is attributed to him:

Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.

As a kid, I always was skeptical of this kind of rhetoric when I would hear it from people of my parents' generation and before. (I don't seem to recall hearing it from my parents all that much though.) Too bad I didn't have that Peanuts collection handy or have greater knowledge about how the greasers, beatniks, and hippies were bringing the world to hell in a handbasket. What's really brought it all into perspective is when I hear people my own age talk this way - especially when it's somebody I knew as a kid.

Such disrespect!

You'll hear them complain or see them post memes on Facebook about how the kids today don't understand "respect" the way we did. I seriously want to call them out. "Do you not remember what you were like when you were a teenager? 'Cause I do!" The worst of the memes though are the ones that say that this "problem" that's totally unique to the present generation of kids could be solved by spankings. I dunno - my almost-four-year old is pretty respectful, and his teachers have told me how he often says "please" and "thank you". Just imagine how more respectful he'd be if I'd smack him around a little!

As a high school teacher, I happen to know a lot of young people, and I find them to be as decent and respectful as I find people of every generation. Yeah, some of them are total A-holes. Many more of them are awesome though. Plus, and this is purely anecdotal, but I frequently have them holding doors open for me - even going out of their way to do so. And it's not like I'm struggling with a cane here. They're doing it purely out of the goodness of their hearts.

5th century B.C. kids are the worst!

Another anecdote, but one that seems to match the experience of many of my colleagues, is that if I've
noticed any change over my 13 years of teaching, it's that they're more accepting and respectful of those who are different from them. Sure, bullying is still a problem, but one thing that's fantastic is how much they recognize that it IS a problem. Also, I remember that I would often have to remind the class to not say things like "That's gay" or disparage homosexuals, as it would frequently come up at the most random times. I don't even feel the need to point this out anymore, as I've had classes where it's never even been an issue. (And if you're somebody who thinks that kids being accepting of homosexuals is a bad thing, kindly buzz off and read another blog.)

My point is that if you're going to take a few stories about kids being disrespectful and use that as a wide brush to paint the entire generation, then I can easily play the same game and show you that they're not only not so bad, but they're better than we used to be. It's not that I think that's necessarily the case either, but every generation is going to have its own faults and issues, and there's never going to be one where the older folks will say: "Ya know what? These kids nowadays have got it together! Why couldn't we have been this good?" I'm sure even the "Greatest Generation" had their parents complain about them. And let's face it - does the word "generation" even mean anything more than just an illustrative generalization? (That's a tangent that could be its own blog post.)

Stop romanticizing the past and be a little bit more realistic about how you used to be. And for those of you who are part of today's youthful generation, remember what you're reading here, and don't let me catch you saying the same thing when you get older. Because I knew what you were like, and I'll call you out on it.

Why I'm a humanist

One of my favorite things to teach in both my freshmen and senior English classes is The Heroic Cycle. Essentially, it's a series of notes that I created that are essentially adapted from Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. I realize that there are some legitimate criticisms of it, and it borders on oversimplifying things, but I find that when it comes to teaching high school students it's a good start for getting them to think about stories in ways that they haven't before.

Even though the school where I teach is not as diverse as others, I like to emphasize that even though we learn about the Greek myths and Norse myths (I go heavier on the Greek with the freshmen and heavier on the Norse with the seniors) that they have elements in their stories that can be found in stories all over the world. I tell my students that it doesn't matter what part of the world their ancestors came from - those ancestors of theirs told stories, hero stories in particular.

I'm also keen on telling them that this shouldn't be so surprising considering that when it comes down to it, we're all the same species and when you go back far enough, we're all related. It only makes sense that if we're all telling stories that we'd find some commonalities in those stories.

I don't just say this as a way to get them to appreciate myths and storytelling though. Sure, it's a way to get those who aren't of European descent to find something to connect to, and that's part of the point as well. For me though, the one thing that I hope seeps in is inherent in the idea that I expressed in the previous paragraph - we're all related. We're all of the same species. Sure, some of us might have a little more Neanderthal in our DNA, but none of us are so different as to constitute a different animal.

I've written in a couple of recent posts that I'm finding myself identifying more and more with being a humanist. I've resisted this label for some odd reason for the longest time. When I finally broke away from my faith, I quickly became so comfortable with the word "atheist" that I practically wore it like a badge of honor. It's not that I've suddenly become shy about that word, as it still fits me. But as I've noted before, it's a word that describes my answer to only one question. When it comes to being a humanist though, that gives a bit more of a description of how I see the world. One of the definitions from Google is as follows:

an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.

I've run into disagreements with religious friends who think that somehow as an atheist I'm incapable of finding value or meaning in life because I don't subscribe to a supernatural explanation. I don't see why the explanation has to come outside of ourselves. The key thing is that we can see the "potential value and goodness". It doesn't mean that we ignore all of the screwed up things that humanity has done. It means that we look at the good, and we say: "Hey! We can do it! We need to do more of that!" It's looking at what's there and deciding for ourselves that it's worth pursuing.

Where do we find this goodness? It's everywhere if you just pay attention. It's in the stranger who helps you pick up a bunch of stuff you just dropped (just happened to me yesterday). It's in my son standing up for his preschool teacher when the other students call her names. It's when people work together to help one guy who's stuck in the train station's gap. It's everywhere, and people do these things without stopping to think about it first. There's something decent and worthwhile in us, and it's time to stop pretending that we're inherently corrupt or immoral. Even if we are, we have shown that we can overcome that.

Ultimately what I like about humanism is that it rejects tribalism. Even if somebody doesn't want to think of himself or herself as a humanist, the humanist will still look at them as "one of us" because there's only one criteria to be found worthy and of value. I also am leaning toward this label, if I gotta have a label, because it gives me something to endorse rather than something to tear down (which is what's inherent in writing about atheism).

And if you need a quick reminder of the humanity that unites us all, this is what does it for me. Yeah, you've probably already seen them. Watch them again.