Belief

The first time I heard my father pronounce,

"When we die, we're meat for the worms,"

I was about ten. He repeated the wisdom

occasionally. He thought "preachers"

were hustlers. Ma ran away from her 

evangelical minister father when she 

was 18. He was a bigot and a creep. 

She never worshipped publicly again,

thought of Heaven, I think, 

as an earned vacation. She gave me

her leather-bound Bible, Oxford U.

Press, all of Jesus's words in red. 

I joined the Catholic Church

at age 45, but my "worship" consists

of giving food to the parish's

food bank and trying to be kind. My

wife's the real Catholic and prays for me,

in both senses of "for." As to God,

who knows? Believing isn't knowing.

Nor is atheism. I'm too busy fearing

humans--of every belief, including

atheism, to fear God.  It never surprises

me to see that another American 

Christian has turned out to be evil.

Sometimes evil and popular.

After my college

History of Philosophy class, taken

at age 17, I never stopped thinking

Spinoza had it right: God equals

everything there is, but probably

no more. A cold view, true. 

Of course, the Jews expelled him,

the Christians condemned him,

and Leibniz envied him. 

Spinoza made a living grinding lenses. 

It's a true fact, as we say

in the American West, 

that the body disintegrates.

Aging gives it a head start. 

The universe is too big, 

dynamic, and complicated

for us to understand

all the way, but I say to science:

keep trying.

We should concentrate on peace, 

equity, and care of Earth. Make these

our primary worship. Keep it

simple-like, you know?

hans ostrom 2022

Of Atheism

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Of Atheism


Its virtue is its flaw: it makes sense.
Makes sense within the tiny room
of human experience.  It is a kind of
Puritanism (atheists are often righteous),
without the fabulous fractures, the gothic
repressions: melodrama. Some atheists,
to be fair, are entertaining as hell--
when they talk about God. Some
of the jokes are excellent. When

atheists hold forth only on atheism,
however, they become preachers,
and one can hear the creaking of
the hobby-horse and the snoring
from the back of the room. Atheism

is like a three-act play with one act,
a dull, factually accurate brochure
sent to millions, or a worn windshield
wiper. I mean, really? That's it? That's

the best you can do? Spoil everybody's
mystery, smother everyone with
an empirical pillow? I love atheists
in the way I love boulders and chores.

Atheism is a glass of tepid milk.
It is a beige uniform with the letters
this is it stitched on it in brown thread.

Atheists, bless your hearts.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

No God/Yes God

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No God/Yes God


No God. Physics is all. Yes
God. Yes fathom God. God
is no dice-player. Pascal will
take your wager. No God,
they say, they say atheism is
the good news, if so: yikes.
Despair, respond, no God.
Yes God, repair, despair, Oh
God? Flawed God, no God.
God fails the test, their test,
they say, no intervention into
bad. Yes God, who knows--
who knows? If no God, then
know No. If yes God, then
never the when, yes to an
infinite go, and faith in yes--
which is often a faith in I-do-
not now know, you know?

Copyright 2011

Devout Atheist Dust-Up

There's a dust-up going on at the state capitol in Washington (Olympia). Apparently there's some kind of multi-faith display, and the people in charge of the display included some kind of poster developed by atheists, who wish to celebrate the Winter solstice and to express their view that religion is merely mythic and fantastical and should therefore be dismissed.

Apparently the poster was stolen and ended up at a country-and-western radio station in Seattle. (?) Then it was returned. But then yesterday, some 500 protestors showed up demanding that the poster be taken down. I gather most, though not all, of these protestors were Christian, or claimed to be. The governor doesn't like the poster, but she says the attorney general tells her the atheists have a constitutional right to post their views in the display.

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Of course, the most reasonable response to this dust-up is "Who cares?" Given all the problems government needs to work on, I don't want it spending one second on this debate.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that we do and should care, however, my second response is that if a Christian (for example) believes himself or herself to be solidly faithful, then what effect could the poster possibly have on the person's faith? Moreover, if a Christian really does perceive the atheist to be an "enemy," then the Christian is supposed to pray for the enemy.

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Third, one of the protestors is the wife of a well known pastor near Seattle who preaches "the gospel of wealth," lives in a mansion, owns a helicopter, and so on. Arguably, "the gospel of wealth" is a greater threat to traditional Christianity than the atheist's poster. Arguably, the teachings of Jesus do not promote the pursuit of wealth, although I'm sure the pastor has worked out his argument for why Jesus would have owned a helicopter.

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Fourth, if the atheists really are devout materialists, scientific positivists, and scoffers at faith-in-mystery or faith-in-God, then why do they want to celebrate the Winter solstice? Following their line of thought, the solstice springs from the phenomena of the earth's orbit and its tilting, so what's to celebrate--the accidents of planetary formation and gravitational force?

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Fifth, it is alleged that dismissing religion as mere counter-factual mythology constitutes "hate speech." I don't think so. I think the dismissal is simply an expression of disagreement. Hate speech would be something like, "Imprison all Christians at Guantanamo!" or "I hate Buddhists!"

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The dust-up suggests that some religious persons and some atheists give religion and atheism bad names. How about if all the groups represented at the capitol participated in a friendly competititon to see which group could distribute the most blankets, clothing, and food to homeless persons in the state of Washington? Helping the homeless does not go against any major faith tradition of which I am aware, and it certainly in no way contradicts atheism. It is also a better use of time than squabbling about a poster that expresses opposition to religion. Counterintuitively, the winner of this competition would be allowed to display the smallest poster next year--would have earned the privilege of displaying the most humility, that is.