Evidence of a rational mind

I’m not sure how to put it more succinctly than this. I read a post by John Loftus yesterday titled Osama Bin Laden was probably a good man. It was so rational, I thought I would post it here. It reaffirms the stuff I think and say, but rarely get validated. Maybe why I like reading his blog. Sometimes it feels strange to be criticized for being “too accepting” when deep in your mind you know you are really just “too rational” when it comes to people.

Osama Bin Laden was probably a good man; sincere, devout and God fearing. But all it takes to make good people do evil is religion. Keep that in mind. That is the lesson of his life. He was deluded in the same way as other believers. Some delusions cause more harm than others though, and he caused a great deal of it. The problem is he will never know he was deluded. Neither will any of the rest of them. What a waste of a life.

I would add that not all people who are religious waste their lives, but sometimes the bad people do outweighs any positive they have put into the world. And sometimes the bad can be rhetoric which influences thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of others. This can apply to nonreligious people as well.

‘Prayer Partners’

Now I know this may seem somewhat inappropriate of me but I simply can’t resist the urge to share this. The ‘prayer email’ I received today (included below) is a perfect example of one of the many reasons Christian missionaries drive me crazy! In an attempt to be somewhat sensitive, I’ve removed the names of the couple responsible for this prayer letter:

The Rapture is nigh

When I was in middle-school my parents sent my sister and I to an all night moviethon at our church while we were on furlough from the mission field (a one year break spent in the States raising financial support). We brought our sleeping bags and the church provided the popcorn and drinks. It was a “lock-in”, meaning the doors of the church were locked and we were not allowed to leave until the next morning when our parents picked us up. For the next several hours we were subjected to what can only be described as a totally terrifying and gruesome series of movies based on the idea of The Rapture as interpreted from the book of Revelation.

I’m better than you.

Anyone else ever look back on their childhood and realize that many parts of life were heavily influenced by a completely unjustified superiority complex? Maybe that sounds a little harsh, but recently I’ve been curious about how growing up as a missionary kid changed the way I looked at the world around me.