Death of an Atheist <P>

I was born in the Springtime<br>

In the Winter I will die<br>

The Harvest Moon is shining<br>

As my time draweth nigh<P>

I brought in some sheaves, I guess<br>

Though now I don't rejoice<br>

For to embrace religion is to<br>

Silence freedom's voice<P>

The cool chill of Autumn's wind<br>

Slithers down my spine<br>

The harbinger of death I hear<br>

Whisper through the Pines<P>

I do not stand and quake in fear<br>

Or call out to a god<br>

No more down this dead end road<br>

Will I have to plod<P>

Nothing in this universe<br>

Can further torture me<br>

No master did I ever need<br>

And slave I will not be<br>

--- Temy R. Beal<P>

She was ninety-eight years old. I'm not sure why that was important, but it was. She was unusually tall and thin for a woman, especially of such advanced years. She had a regal bearing and walked with authority, and the clear message was that this was her world and only a complete fool would question that. But some of us knew that her strength was illusory... that she really was only a very frail old woman.

She reached the recliner in the living room with me by her side and I placed my hand over her heart and took her arm to steady her as she prepared to sit. Her heart fluttered as though it were a panicked little bird in a tiny cage. She did not sit as most people would sit, but folded herself into the chair. Bend slightly forward at hips, bend knees, lean back. Her glance showed appreciation of my awareness of her weakness, I flushed warm at her nod of approval and we exchanged a smile.

The house was a tiny nondescript one of very small rooms, low ceilings and linoleum over plywood floors. There were a few other people there. I did not know them but I "belonged" in this group. I knew the old lady intimately but had no clue of her name or family or personal history. I returned from the little kitchen with her glass of cold lemonade, being careful to not let the heavy wet glass slip from my hand. She had arranged her self - nested - into the chair, and raised the footrest on the chair. I set her glass on the table on a coaster and she expelled a long sigh. We locked eyes for a moment, a brief smile, a clasp of her cold frail hand in mine wet from the sweating glass and then I retreated out of the house through an upper corner of the room, watching the roof quickly recede below me, and then the planet and then.... only darkness.

A dream I had.

TRB

Goodbye Momma

I thought of momma today. And many others I have seen and met over the years. Some very good, some very bad. Some mothers are very kind and loving, some full of hate and pain, some are there as a chair is "there", some not there at all. I know of someone whose mother put on a nice clean dress, went onto the front porch, lay down and blew her brains out. I was very fortunate. Mine was the very kind and loving sort. Momma didn't live in this millennium. She expired in 1999. If there is anything left of her at all is is a few bones in a cemetery somewhere. I'm not certain exactly where because I was not there. I said my goodbye to momma in the funeral home, tried to burn her features into my mind, touched her head with the wispy white hair and felt only death. Stiffness. Immobility. Permanence. I cried out a large percentage of my body's water content, and grieved more than I thought it was possible to grieve. 

I could not go to her funeral. I could not risk losing control of myself and possibly doing bad things. Because I've known many, many Southern country funerals. I know the lies they tell; "she's gone home", "she's in a better place", "we'll see her again"... <I>ad nauseum</I>. Lies, delusions, illusions, denial... from a people too fragile apparently to grasp or know reality. I did not want to risk my life and theirs. My strong instinct is to lash out against lies and deception. Preachers preach lies like "she's in a better place", as though she has taken a bus to Atlanta, and "we'll see her again" as though we only have to wait a while to buy our own ticket. Momma is not in a better place, she has not "gone on". She is just one of the estimated 100 billion or so humans who once existed and are no more. Opinion, belief, desire, hope and faith are, at best, utterly irrelevant to that fact. It is as much fact as it is fact that you are reading these words.

I thought of momma today. I felt the loss, the lump in my throat, the sting in my eyes. Momma does not live or exist in my memories. My memories exist. Momma does not exist and will never exist in a billion trillion years. I listened to several of the old Gospel songs, funeral songs, like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSc1205qlX8" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSc1205qlX8"'); return false;" > Where the Soul of Man Never Dies</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRhpHZ85Ozk" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRhpHZ85Ozk"'); return false;" > Wayfaring Stranger</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdRdqp4N3Jw" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdRdqp4N3Jw"'); return false;" > I'll Fly Away</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3afUrkx_VwM" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3afUrkx_VwM"'); return false;" > Will the Circle be Unbroken</a>,  Precious Memories.... my tears flowed anew. I wept for my loss, wept for the loss of so very many others. I wept for momma (and paw) who was and is not, for my children who never were, and for my own end. I wept for the ignorance and weakness of my species.

 I thought of momma today.

Note to self: put toilet paper on shopping list.

TRB

Beliefs & Choices  

Part One

I like inspiring. Really. When you read or hear or see something inspiring, it often gets you a rush of chemicals that make you feel good, feel... inspired! And this usually makes you want to DO something! To save the world! Or at the very least your little section of it... to make things more like they ought to be. Sometimes you can get a law passed or get one repealed or a mess cleaned up. You might do a public protest about something, make your voice HEARD! If you have ever experienced being "on fire for Jesus" you know what I mean. I have. Aww, man, when I was singing in the bass section of the choir on TV I put everything into it... I bellowed Handel's Messiah</a> along with my fellow singers and the rafters literally vibrated, and the spirit of the Lord filled me and I felt so incredibly pumped and powerful it was just amazing.

The drugs usually came off with the choir robe and by the time I got to the parking lot and saw I still had to drive home in a broken down car, I started to feel a little less pumped... which was why I stared looking forward to Wednesday evening church and choir practice. I really wanted another fix of faith, of reassurance that God was in charge and never mind the view of physical eyes, being with brothers and sisters in Christ helped me to see with I>spiritual</I> eyes which, the Pastor often reiterated, was necessary in this evil world. Yeah, we had to be IN the world, but not OF the world. We were God's people, doing His work, and often it was necessary to be reminded to put on the whole armor of God to go out in the world, and to guard our thoughts, lest Satan rob us of our joy and plant seeds of reality negativity.

After I had managed to get rid of most of the fear that came with the horrible cloud of atheism and nihilism which inexplicably had settled upon me and I had found <a href="http://www.ffrf.org/" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.ffrf.org/"'); return false;" > FFRF</a> and Pat and Roger Cleveland and a small group meeting in a library in Birmingham, I began to feel much better. These people seemed actually REAL to me. There weren't any orgies or blood sacrifices, as I had been told I might expect from "those lost people"... just plain old country folk, for the most part, but who didn't have the bizarre "plastic" quality of church people which I had glossed over when I was with them. I mostly chalked up any odd feelings I had to just the fact that most of those folks were rich, at least by my standards.... I certainly didn't know of any others in my church that lived in a trailer park and drove rusty cars. The folks at the Alabama Freethought Association had a cigarette and a beer if they wanted, they didn't seem to "guard their thoughts", but were just folks going about their lives without any sense of pretentiousness.<P>

I began to feel good again, hell I felt downright "born again"! After the Clevelands donated land to FFRF and we were actually building our own building to have meetings in, I was pumped again, and I took on the job of editing the newsletter. Sometimes it would come to me with a start, that I used to believe the Christian stuff... all of it. I still remember the guest preacher we had once who was explaining that just because you took your car out of the garage and drove it all over town, it didn't stop being a car. Likewise, when your body dies and your soul no longer has its "garage", it doesn't stop being a living soul, it just goes (hopefully) home to be with God. This made perfect sense to me. But now, that seemed amazingly absurd and how could anybody possibly take such nonsense seriously.... but I did. Not because I wanted to, I simply did. And there was no point at which I set out to be an atheist. It simply happened to me.<P>

When I was eleven and a Jehovah's Witness told my dad and I that Armageddon would be in 1975, it literally scared the **** out of me. I peed my pants. I was really scared. I knew this meant I would never live to be seventeen. But I kept telling myself that it was ok because God was going to instantly make a whole new earth, and even if I didn't get into heaven with the <a href="http://www.letusreason.org/JW21.htm" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.letusreason.org/JW21.htm"'); return false;" > 144,000</a> at least I would be in paradise on the new earth, even if I died in Armageddon, God would resurrect me. The Bible said so right there in <a href="http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/REV/21.html" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/REV/21.html"'); return false;" > Revelation 21</a>.<P>

When 1975 had come and gone and I was still here, I came to the conclusion that those niggling little thoughts and questions I'd had about the Witnesses were probably right. I mean, why would they call all other Christians "Christendom" and say they had it all wrong about Jesus being only the Son of God and not really God? Maybe THEY had it wrong! And what was with that blood thing... granted I had no interest in <a href="http://www.adam.com.au/bstett/JwBloodDoctrineOrigin10.htm" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.adam.com.au/bstett/JwBloodDoctrineOrigin10.htm"'); return false;" > drinking any</a>, but that wasn't the same as getting a transfusion in a hospital was it?<P>

After casting about for some years I finally got married and my wife and I started going to church because I thought it was a good thing. A man is supposed to be the head of his household and lead his wife in the ways of the Lord. When the Baptists seemed a little too bland, and the Holiness seemed a tad too... um.... animated, we tried the Assembly of God. Bingo, we had a church home. It was cool cuz they were with it, as far as technology and stuff... At the Baptist church you felt like you were... in church. Everything subdued, only a piano and the choir. This place was rockin'! It had a whole orchestra! Horns, drums, guitars, keyboards, and when they sang, they SANG! I could feel God here and Philis (my wife) said she could too. We joined the choir; she into the sopranos and me into bass, right next to our mechanic, the guy we went to for a front end alignment.<P>

During this period we were big supporters (well, as much as we could anyway) of the <a href="http://www.cbn.com/" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.cbn.com/"'); return false;" > 700 Club</a> and of Jim and Tammy... we thought one year we might get to go to <a href="http://www.illicitohio.com/SBNO/heritage/heritage01.html" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.illicitohio.com/SBNO/heritage/heritage01.html"'); return false;" > Heritage USA</a>, maybe for the Christmas Lights thing. I really got into studying theology big time. I read books by Pat Robertson, Danuta Soderman (later <a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3618" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3618"'); return false;" > Pfeiffer</a>), Ben Kinchlow; I got Jerry Falwell's cassette Bible study course from <a href="http://www.liberty.edu/" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.liberty.edu/"'); return false;" > Liberty University</a> and devoured that. I always watched <a href="http://www.crystalcathedral.org/" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.crystalcathedral.org/"'); return false;" > The Hour of Power</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_PTL_Club" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_PTL_Club"'); return false;" > PTL</a>, 700 Club and, along with all the local church shows I could get in... a few odd ones like <a href="http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=615710" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=615710"'); return false;" > Garner Ted Armstrong</a>, and was interested enough to read his magazine <a href="http://www.ptm.org/ptMag_fS.htm" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.ptm.org/ptMag_fS.htm"'); return false;" > The Plain Truth</a>. Then I came down with the atheism.<P>

I had the zeal of a new convert and threw myself into activities at Lake Hypatia... it only ticked me a little that there were only meetings monthly instead of weekly. I wanted more, I wanted to DO more. I loved it when Dan and Annie Laurie came down and even went to a few of Dan's debates that were close enough to get to. Just as I had swam deep into the seas of Christian apologetics and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics"'); return false;" > hermeneutics</a>, etc., I now threw myself into intense study of everything "freethought". The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought"'); return false;" > history of freethought</a>, joined FFRF, American Atheists (before <a href="http://www.crimemagazine.com/ohair.htm" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.crimemagazine.com/ohair.htm"'); return false;" > Madalyn was murdered</a>), met people like <a href="http://www.discord.org/~lippard/" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.discord.org/~lippard/"'); return false;" > Jim Lippard</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Adams" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Adams"'); return false;" > Clark Adams</a>, <a href="http://godlessgrief.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=86#p107" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://godlessgrief.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=86#p107"'); return false;" > Eric Pepke</a>, and was pleased to attend <a href="http://ffrf.org/fttoday/1996/august96/mckown.html" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://ffrf.org/fttoday/1996/august96/mckown.html"'); return false;" > A Sermon On The Mount</a> by Delos McKown, and had very nice talks with <a href="http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/about-james-randi.html" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/about-james-randi.html"'); return false;" > James Randi</a>. I read, voraciously, through Bertrand Russell, Robert G. Ingersoll, Twain, Paine, Randi's books, Karen Armstrong's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563#" rel="nofollow" onclick="externalLink('externalLinkOverlay', '"http://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563#"'); return false;" > A History of God</a>, and a multitude of others. Sometimes I would think that those niggling little doubts I had while a Christian were valid after all. The odd "masks" that so many wore, the fact of ignoring things which were illogical (to the rational mind)... after all, the spiritual is far superior to the vulgar or mundane... or reason.<P>

to be continued...................<P>

TRB

Hi New Member:

Welcome and thanks for joining. I started this group here because I did a search and found no atheist groups listed. I think all places which have "groups" should have at least one atheist group. I did a brief member search and saw that there are quite a few AARP members listed as atheist, but no groups specifically for them. Now there is one, and I will be sending invitations. I think it is sad and absurd that there is a need for such a thing as an atheist group, but the need is there nonetheless. The current "group picture" is of a monument at Lake Hypatia.

I have spent many years as a Christian and then as an atheist. My last church affiliation was First Assembly of God in Dothan, Alabama, where I, and my wife at the time, were members of the choir and sang and acted in the Easter and Christmas productions. My first freethought group affiliation was with the Alabama Freethought Association (AFA), a chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). Though it is now much outdated, I am still listed as the editor of that group's newsletter in the book, Who's Who In Hell.

 I am aware that there is a huge range of circumstances in which atheists may find themselves, and a range of opinion about atheism, freethought, humanism, etc. For myself, I am an atheist evangelist. Some may consider this dogmatic. Perhaps. It's not that I could not, theoretically, be convinced of the existence of a god, given sufficient empirical, or even logical, proof. I just think I'm about as likely to see such proof as I am to see a 200-pound iron anvil instantly morph into a butterfly and flitter away.

I have nothing really against Christians other than perhaps that I think very few people who claim to be Christians actually are. In my opinion, the closest thing to genuine Christians around now is the group at Westboro Baptist Church. I think most people are better people than that. I've had several Christian friends - good people - who have told me "You're about the most Christian person I know", completely unaware of the incredibly insulting nature of such a comment. I try to judge people, as Dr. King said, "by the content of their character". While I have nothing against Christians per se, or other religious folk, I have a great deal against the religions themselves. The fact that all their major claims are flatly and demonstrably false, should be enough reason for people to divest themselves of such things.

Specifically regarding places like AARP (and EONS), which naturally caters to an older demographic, I think there is an even greater need for visible atheism. Perhaps it is natural for many people as they grow closer to death to become more fearful... to become somewhat more childlike in their beliefs. It would be, I think, completely absurd and unacceptable to preach atheism and the fact of death to one who is very near that often dreaded end. However, I do think it important to attempt to convince people, especially in the older group, of the fact of death. Because only when a problem is acknowledged is there any chance of overcoming it. And there may well be many people in that category who, if they truly understood and accepted the truth about death, might use some of their (sometimes considerable) resources in the effort to find a cure for that ultimate and universal disease.

I am with Mr. Jefferson in his admonition to "Fix Reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion". I hope you are as well.

Temy