I wrote this essay in response to Richard Dawkins' post in his book tour journal

"The most interesting question was from a young woman not from Liberty but from Randolph Macon itself, and it really startled me. She wanted to know whether people who deconverted from a religious upbringing felt ‘anger’. In my naivety, I went blank. Why should one feel anger? Anger towards what, or whom? I asked the audience whether they understood what she meant, and there was a great chorus of “Yes”. I asked them again, why anger, anger towards whom? Then they started shouting from all around the hall. It was anger towards their parents for bringing them up religious, anger towards teachers and pastors for indoctrinating them as children. One young man came up to me afterwards in the signing queue and reiterated with some passion the intense anger he felt. I gave him the url of this website and encouraged him to write in. Perhaps somebody will start a thread on the theme of anger felt by the recovered victims of childhood indoctrination."

I am the Rational Response Squad!

I was extremely angry at the time immediately after my moment of deconversion(18 years old when I did so, I am 20 now), and to this day I still have animosity towards it. My life, my hopes, my dreams, my emotions, were all centered around God. I had grown up in a cold, stoic, unloving family. God was where I put my hopes of a better day. I STROVE to be as best a Christian as I could be. I made it a strict requirement that I listen intently to each scripture read in church, each sermon spoken. If this is what I believed in, then I will damn well give my life to it. And took my life it did. I went to Catholic school, where I furthered my study of God. I became a eucharistic minister, handing out the Body of Christ to eager believers. I served on the student government and read prayers over the intercom every day before school started. This was my life, my anchor in the world. But worst of all, I tried to be like Jesus as much as I could. I oft denied myself pleasure, and I refused to be angry. I even refused to express interest in girls who were clearly interested in me even when I secretly liked them.

This delusion that I lived caught up to me. My junior year in highschool was when I first became majorly depressed. Over the years, I had accumulated stress from leading such a regimented lifestyle. All it took was a girl who crushed my self-esteem to set the ball in motion. From my junior year on through my senior year I was extremely depressed, and I didn't know why. I had gotten over the girl issue, but there was something else that it had opened up. I started to crack.

My first semester in college shattered me completely. I hoped that I would be able to put my depression aside and really start anew. I couldn't. I couldn't ignore the state I was in. I felt so horrible I couldn't even leave my bed to go to class. Then, I began fighting with guilt. I was in college, going to one of the best universities in the world, and I was wasting my life. I was missing classes left and right, and growing more and more depressed. I got depressed thinking about how I was not living up to my parent's expectations, and God's. How can I lay in bed and whine about depression when there are other people who would die to be in your place? I truly had the infamous "Catholic Guilt"

When the depression was at its worst. I had had enough. I was litterally killing myself because of my beliefs. They had been the source of such pain, they made me feel like a failure. I finally told myself that there was something wrong about it all. That despite all the good things that had come from my belief in God, that it was in a way, twisted. I had come to the understanding (especially because of my psychology class I was taking at the time) that I was a human being, with human needs, and that I could never hope to be like Jesus. That I was killing myself over it. I started to get angry. Incredibly angry, more angry then I had ever been. I began to weep. Those thoughts, those words that had been cast out of my conciousness by fear finally broke through. "I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD! I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD." I began to DARE God to strike me down! "GO AHEAD, DO IT! I DON'T CARE ANYMORE!"

I am the Rational Response Squad!

I am the Rational Response Squad. I do not look to some deity or divinity for guidance, but actively reject any idea that is not supported by reason.

To this end, I confront those who would impose upon me or others the contentious traditions which are derived from past ages and primitive peoples as necessary to appease a supernatural master. Moreover, I denounce the claims of those who attempt to delude the gullible and the ignorant at every available opportunity.

I am not afraid of confrontation, nor do I shy away from those who hold the air of authority. Neither priest nor laity can stay my tongue, as I will not be silenced.

This I do for the amelioration of the human race. I am the Rational Response Squad.

From: livingxdeadxgirlx93
To: RationalRespons...
Subject: Essay: I am the Rational Response Squad
Date: Sun, 2006-10-08 13:04

I am the Rational Response Squad. Atheism, is a way of life, allowing one self to be a human, without specific guidelines or morals, based on a myth. In the Christian religion, it is believed that Jesus Nazareth or Jesus Christ descended from God, to teach morals, and to sacrifice for the sins of mankind. As you have been usually told by your parents every Christmas. Then, they tell you the jolly story about Santa Clause, which has nothing to do with the Christian religion. Only to make commercialism to increase funding of the major corporate companies which actually happens to run the economy in this country.
There are so many Christian groups which each have different idea/opinions based on the morality and myth of Jesus Christ. Maybe they make this so everyone doesn’t have to be left out from the so called savior that died for our sins. Even so, the religion that claims to be the most peaceful also is the most cruel against non-believers. Yet, to conform to Christian religion is a common thing among today’s people. To create a comfort zone, where they don’t really believe but are too brainwashed or to used to the common belief that they are afraid of change, thinking that maybe, just maybe they believed for so long that there has to be a reason for they way in which this Earth was created. Even so, the Atheist and Christian beliefs are split up fifty-fifty, so no majority of Christianity dictates America. So there is no reason to not believe what you feel you should believe, except the pressures Christianity puts on today’s people.
The fascism of Christianity can be explained in a simple metaphor. A king, the nobles, the peasants, and the slaves, which can be controlled so easily. A king or a pope, the nobles or a church, and the peasants or us the independent ones, or the slaves, or the believers. Only to be whipped and controlled and forced against their will to do what the pope or the nobles think is right, or the slaves are forced into a forever hell, like they haven’t already lived in one. Only in reality people are simply unaware of what is happening. When they bow down to their noble king, they are right, we are wrong, they are nice, we are mean, they are good, we are bad, or so they want to believe. Perpetually brainwashed or scared into the Christian religion, believing the unrealistic picture on the world. Theirs is a painting, ours is a photograph. I am the Rational Response Squad.

thank you for reading,
Crystal

I posted this on the "How did becoming and atheist make you a better person" but I also decided to include it here as well.  I'm not in it for the prizes....which is why this is unedited and unchecked.  It's just me, and my story which is why

I am the Rational Response Squad. 

I was born atheist converted to catholicism when I was very young (and not by choice), and remained a theist until my later teen years. 

 Once I started realizing that the bible had discrepencies I started to question and became agnostic (in the sense that I wasn't sure what to believe anymore).  Years of catholic indoctrination had left me with a wanting for there to be something beyond me out there, something bigger.  It also has left me, admittedly still today, with the very thing that catholicism uses to control, Mia Colpa (My Fault: the guilt).  As I started educating myself, learning biology (and other sciences), the natural world, evolution....I became more and more critical of a supernatural being, I became more critical of religion in general.  Still, Mia Colpa reigned over me and I still wanted to believe in something bigger than myself and this earth.  However, I had started my intellectual journey to leaving theism. 

I met a woman when I was 20, she was a master's student at George Mason University who was studying philosophy/thought.  She introduced me to the Hegelian (and later incorporated to Marxist) theory of Dialectics, and I had what I needed to seal the mental coffin of theism.  Through her, I started to learn about Idealism vs. Materialism the process of dialectics, and I finally realized that the world is much too complex to have a supernatural being watching over us.  I started realizing the dangers of dogma and religion.  The bloodshed, the control, the money.  I started to see how politics and the xtian right started to melt together and how this was completely anti-thetical to our constitution. I started to understand how religion was more of a political power struggle than the belief and faith in an all loving god.  

 So....how has becoming an atheist made me a better person?  I don't know if that is necessarily what atheism has done to me...made me better?  I believe that there are many attributes that make one better or worse.  What is better anyway? 

I will say this, however, becoming an atheist has led me on a life journey that is more open to adaptability.  This in a sense puts me in better light to understand the world.  I am not tied down by a dogmatic belief, I can look at the world in a brighter and more rational manner.  I am able to see the problems associated with this world in a way that I could have never done as a theist.  I guess this makes me a better person.  But...as the old saying goes...Ignorance is Bliss...I don't necessarily think that becoming an atheist will make you "happier".  I do think that you need a strong heart and a strong mind...to realize that the world is really very ugly and that it is not blanketed by the love and grace of a god.  

We are alone, and we are killing each other and this earth, we use the excuse of a god to do so.  The picture that my mind paints is not a nice one.  But it is a real one.  One that allows me to realize that we need change.  This is why I have become active in my atheism.  I think people need to realize and see the horrors that religion has brought and continues to bring to the world.  People need to realize how they are being exploited by evangelical leaders such as Ted Haggert, Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson who make millions from their followers.  I think the type of enlightment that comes from becoming atheist is one that will allow for real change, and we have to work very hard at accomplishing this.  We have got to help others...if for no other reason, than a selfish one.  Our lives depend on this.  We are seeing too much control from the xtian right on our lives....we cannot afford for these people to take over our government, just like we cannot let extremist muslims destroy our right to exist.

So yeah...being an atheist has made me a "better" person in the sense that through the realization that there is no god, I am now able to make decisions that are more adaptable to the natural world.  I understand that since Jesus won't be coming back to earth, that we need to cherish this earth.  Which brings me to a more brighter note....  

This earth is a gem among the cosmos.  The beauty we find here on this earth, Life, is something that we all need to cherish.  Not just human life, but ALL life.  We need to protect it because I think that is the most beautiful realization I have made since becoming an atheist...that life is beautiful, this earth and it's complex, dynamic ecosystems are beautiful.  As an atheist, I understand the value of life....and we need to help conserve all of it, not destroy it under false religious pretense.

Let's all be the Rational Response Squad. 

C'mon people, please write more of these!

... I respond rationally. (This is my post from the freethinkers forum. I think it fits here.)
George Bush, General Motors, terrorists and the Pope.
by Tracy Valleau


As my years go on, human nature seems more transparent to me. For a while, I pondered why it is that humans have such a need for religion. Most with whom I discussed that topic suggested that it was "fear of death" but I now believe that lying at the very heart of the human experience is something quite the opposite: fear of life.
Life is chaotic. We arrive, "tossed in the pool" so to speak,  and in our first years can learn only by imitation. Then comes cause and effect (I cry, mom arrives.)  But we soon learn that it's not a simple relationship: sometimes when I cry, mom soothes me; other times she scolds me.
One of the first realizations to creep into our budding consciousness is the inconsistency, the chaos, of life. Even at age 60, I still recall my first awareness that mom and dad had different responses to the same situation. Nearly my first cogent thought was "there are no rules here; nobody seems to understand life," and "It's me and them." Budding self-awareness... and later the loneliness that blossomed into teenage angst.
My point here is that life is scary - it's ultimately each of us alone against a reality that cares not a whit whether we individually live or die.
That is, of course, the nature of life: big fish eat little fish; lions eat gazelles; volcanoes explode; earthquakes kill... it is chaos.
Our sentient human brains (since we have little in the way of physical prowess) must figure out how to help us survive within this swirling and dangerous reality.
And we have one really unique ability, unshared by any of the rest of life on earth, as far as I know: we tell stories.
(I am not the first to think of this. Anthropoligists noted it years ago.)
Stories pass along the experience and techniques of others in dealing with the tumult of life. "Try this; it worked for me." And rather than recount the millions of tiny details that went into the original experience, (even if one could remember them all accurately) the detail are whittled down to their essence - the bit that is common to a given challenge.
Thus, the story is made simple and memorable and serves as a tool when that experience is encountered for the first time in the life of the hearer (or later, reader.)
We hear stories from our parents beginning at the earliest age; then stories from brothers and sisters; grandparents; and later schoolmates and friends. They come from the pulpit and from the pages of books. They are nearly 100% of the content of television and movies.
Stories are a wonderful human invention. They have help us individually and collectively survive and prosper.
And because we fail to shed them along with the other affectations of youth, they are insidious and dangerous.
Stories should be something we merely learn from. They should be a part of the growing and maturing process, as they are... but then they should be discarded... something we fail to do.
Different cultures have (or do not have) rituals around the time when stories should be put aside, and one's own skills and observations are called to the fore.
The insidious part of stories is this: that we cling to them too long. That failing is natural enough, of course: they are all we have ever known... they are the only way we have ever learned to deal with this chaotic world.  To let go of the stories is a very scary, almost suicidal, thing.
So fearful of letting go are we that most will, in fact, refuse to do so. The stories are seen as the basis of our survival; the underpinning of our entire reality.
We will often fight to the death to protect (in our own minds) the stories we have assimilated.
The insidious thing is that stories cease to be the parables and guides of our youth. Instead of controlling the stories, the stories begin to control us.
It is a tiny step from using our internal stories to help us choose a course of action, to the point where the stories instead dictate our actions.
And it is actions in this reality, not our thoughts, that affect our survival. Either we actually jump out of the path of the oncoming train or we do not - thinking about jumping has no effect.
In short, in our minds we enter the dangerous place where our stories assume the mantle of "reality" so intimately are they tied with our actions.
Instead of remaining the parables about reality they were in our youth, they have instead become literal descriptions of reality in our mind.
And unfortunately, they are still just stories. They are not "reality."
It is that disjunct that ties together George Bush, General Motors, terrorists and the Pope (not to mention the rest of us.)
General Motors' corporate story is that SUVs are what the American public wants. It's bolstered by the fact that they are cheap to make and thus provide for larger profits.
On the other hand, Honda and Toyota, less vested in that story, more easily saw the reality that gas was going up, and that the purchasing trends were toward smaller, more efficient cars.
While GM insisted on its own story about reality, the Japanese did not. They turned on a dime, and began producing smaller autos. GM's "reality" (failing to understand that it was just a story) pushed them to continue advertising and making huge gas-guzzlers.
Net result: GM is no longer the world's largest auto maker and  has laid off tens of thousands of workers.
Even in the face of incontrovertible facts about auto sales, the corporate story at GM is so strong that to this day, they continue to push SUVs, and cannot understand why things are not working for them.
For GM, the story is profoundly confused with reality.
Now, tell this to anyone with marketing savvy, and you'll find i'ts old hat... sort of. That is they understand that you can influence people by feeding into their internal stories.
In fact starting with a widely assumed story, and manipulating it slowly, a bit at a time, is how societies and cultures are controlled, (just ask Adolf Eichmann or Karl Rove.)
Advertising agencies almost understand this. When I say "almost" I'm thinking specifically of GM again. Their agency has moved to marketing SUVs and trucks (the most profitable products) by appealing to the patriotic story so strong in middle Americans. Their ads croon "this is our country." Well, of course it is, and the same thing could be used to sell hair spray or toothpaste: there is no "reality-base" connection between patriotism and trucks.
Do the ads work? Sure - to some extent. They feed into an existing story and reinforce it. In turn, if you give little thought to it, which is the insidious part of stories in the first place, GM trucks become the patriotic trucks to buy.
If you don't buy one, you're not patriotic. "Not patriotic!" Wow: you're probably not a good American; you could even be an enemy. I may have to kill you... the power of the story is strong.
So, what's the almost?  Look at the ads for the Toyota Tundra truck: they show how much it can haul; how much it can carry; how quickly it can stop. They say "actual demonstration" on the bottom of the screen.
The GM ads work on people who are deeply vested in their own mental stories; the Toyota ads appeal to people who better realize that stories are parables, and that work in the real-world demands real trucks, not patriotic abstractions.
The "almost" in GMs agency is the agency's own story-cum-reality: that they can sell more trucks appealing to stories than Toyota can appealing to real-world needs.
Obviously they, and their story, are wrong.
What about George Bush, terrorists and the Pope?
All of them (I'm using "the Pope" as a generic representation of religion as a whole) are profoundly and deeply vested in their own stories-are-reality.
Why, in the face of overwhelming facts to the contrary, does (or did)  George Bush deny the reality of global warming; cause us to attack another country with little to no provocation; insist that "the splurge" will fix the issues in Iraq; think that the constitution does not apply to him and his administration?
Because he is so vested in his own mental stories as reality, that actual reality has no place.
Ditto for the terrorists, who have created a story that the West is "out to get them" when nothing could be further from the truth. But real suicide bombers kill real innocent people every day based on the strength of that story.
Right-wingers in the US are deeply vested in the story that they are persecuted, a story pushed and enhanced by Rove, Fox News and others with vested interests of their own. So controlled are they by their stories-are-reality that the rank and file are often heard saying that Democrats are "supporting terrorists."
That would mean that more than half the population of the United States are enemies of the State, a patently absurd conclusion, but demonstrative of the power of stories.
And it's the strength of stories; the investment of our lives in them, that have produced two "classes" of people in the US - those that matured to the point of remembering that stories are just that: tools of youth, to be dropped in adulthood, the lessons learned and absorbed, and now ready to deal with daily reality...
... and those who have nevered dropped the stories, but instead cling to them such that now the stories guide their lives, and have become confused with reality.
It's interesting to note the difference between the two groups, as it is to some palpable extent they are divided along party lines, or at least "liberal/conservative" and in fact may constitute a fair definition of the distinction between those two.
The Left's liberal policies offer up a choice of opportunities: you can do this or not do this - the choice is yours. The conservative Right offers no independent choice of options: you must do this our way. In fact, in the vestment in stories, the Right is so fearful of losing their stories that their one and only choice must be made into law; actually illegal to believe differently.
I'd wager that in the US, the power of stories is more pervasive than in most other countries. We are simply never rid of them; movies, television, advertising - tens of thousands of story-reinforcements hit each of us every day. That's true of most first world countries these days... and the need for the simplifying and soothing nature of stories seems to have grown as the speed of technological change, and hence complexity, has increased.
It may be a generational thing in first-world countries, however: those of us who have lived thru the information explosion - the "baby-boomers" are likely most vested. The generation born after the introduction of computers and the internet has come to dealing with vast quantities of information in their own way: grasping bits of information quickly (the so-called 'short attention span' and the "learn by doing" techniques inherited from video games, instead of the slower "read the manual" of my generation.
YouTube and MySpace promote frank and real interaction, at least to some degree.
But in the second world, the power of stories propels the youth to strap on bombs and go wander into a marketplace. Here, there is no significant technological generation (except, ironically, in Iran.)
That, at age 60, is my take on human nature and the likely fate of mankind: there are two types of people on this earth - those who have shed the stories of youth and opened their eyes to a more nuanced reality, hard as it may be to do so, and those whose fear of life has compelled them to cling to the parables of childhood, and have now become automatons in their control.
The fate of mankind depends on which type controls our governments and economy.
Good luck to us all.

(Note: Tues, May 1: Today I was thumbing thru an old copy of Communications Arts magazine (Design Annual, 2006) , and found an article with similar observations by Michael McPherson. Jung would be pleased at the synchronicity. His article predates my writing, but I wish to assure one and all that my ideas expressed here were independently concieved. Mr. McPherson's article is more scholarly than mine; makes no reference to religion, and is significantly different in other ways as well. I can heartily recommend it. I have no doubt that others have expressed similar observations previously as well... after all: human nature is human nature - observable by one and all. Tracy

I am the rational response squad.

I wake up weekdays to work.
I pay bills.
I goto school.
I enjoy music.
I love my family.
I live a moral life by most standards.
I'm just like you.

I use logic as a tool.
I use realism to decipher the truth.
I am a cynic.
I analyze the validity of ALL information I'm given.
I fill my mind with facts, not my heart with faith.
I am athiest, I do not have belief in a god.
I'm not like you.

Where you see miracles,
I see falasy.
Where you see god,
I see nothingness.
Where you see religious leaders,
I see manipulators, liars, and theives; the scum of the Earth.
Where you see god's work,
I see biological advancement at it's finest.

When you say you theres no way all of this Earth could have come from chance,
I say you're a fool, look at the galaxies, look at the stars, look at the billions upon billions upon billions of planets,
I say you're naive for thinking you're special.
When you say I'm going to hell.
I say I'll see you there, for the thousands of years of corruption, lies, theft, murder, and every other crime imagineable.
I say theres more blood on the hands and in the name of theism than any other organized group in history.

You provoke war,
I provoke unity.
You consider theisms other than your own inferior, and damned,
I consider you vain.
You want people to believe in your beliefs and see things the way you see them.
I want people to see things as they really are, without god.

I am the rational response squad.

I Am The Rational Response (Yeah I Said It)

Hi Rakehell and welcome to the forums.

We'd like to get to know you a little better.  When you get a chance, we'd love it if you'd hop over to the General Conversation, Introductions and Humor forum and introduce yourself. 

I am the Rational Response Squad. I live in conservative Indiana and was born into a life of religious indoctrination. My parents attended a small Pentecostal church, which operated under an evangelical pastor and his holier-than-thou-art wife. I was pulled out of bed and whisked away to the monotonous and irrational world of Pentecostalism every Sunday morning, certain Sunday nights, and the occasional Wednesday evening. Revival was also mandatory.

Not surprisingly, the situation took its toll. As the son of fundamentalist parents who surrounded themselves in a constant swarm of other fundamentalists, I was handed my beliefs to me. As a child raised by a family of blue-collar workers and high school dropouts, I was never exposed to the rational explanations science had to offer. No one in my immediate environment seemed to know or care about scientific explanations.

It wasn’t until high school that I seriously began to contemplate and to doubt the rationality of everything that had been prescribed to me. There was no traumatic event that “turned me against God”. There was no desire to pursue a life of drugs, booze, and insatiable lust. The whole idea simply ceased to make sense in my mind. God ceased to be rational.

Strangely, I couldn’t let go of God even when I doubted him. I felt guilty for my inability to understand the disparities between God and science. Study sessions would pass by in a daze as I pondered the fate of my own eternal soul. Every night, I would ask forgiveness for my doubt, and I would plead with God to reveal himself to me in some way that I could not question. He never obliged, but I continued to hang on, hopeful that I was among his cherished few, afraid that I would suffer the fiery alternative, and terrified of the disappointment I might ultimately cause my parents.

My senior year of high school and on into college, I developed an overwhelming curiosity toward specific areas of science. I discovered that the evolution I had been “taught” was not an honest account of the theory. I read articles describing emotions in terms of biological chemicals. I learned about morality as a sociological phenomenon rather than as an unquestionable set of rules decreed by a greater being. I learned about Big Bang cosmology, the geologic column, and opposing philosophical views. The more holistic my education became, the more irrational God appeared in my eyes.

Finally, I began to find people like Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett, Nick Gisburne, and David Mills. I became hopelessly addicted to TED talks (TED.com) and passionately interested in atheism. I’m not sure of the exact time it happened, but somewhere along the line, I had turned Christian doubt into Atheistic enthusiasm.

Today, I am a proud atheist. In promoting atheism, most of my energy (sadly) goes into debunking ignorant views about evolution. It really seems that every person in my area believes that evolution is “just a theory”, and even worse, they believe it claims humans descended from modern apes. There have been a few instances where I was asked to explain how the solar system could have occurred randomly and on its own. I have engaged my own father in debates about moral issues. For example, he honestly believes that piercings are abominations. He calls them “self-mutilation” and says that they “desecrate the temple of God”. On the other hand, he thinks ear piercings are okay. I only hope that I never sounded that ridiculous when I shared his beliefs.

Most importantly though, I want people to know how I came to atheism. I did not reject God as an act of teenage rebellion. I did not reject God because I take pleasure in immoral conduct. I did not reject God because I have never read the Bible. I did not reject God out of bitterness at the death of someone I loved. I did not reject God because he refused to talk back when I prayed. I did not reject God because I fail to understand him. I did not reject God because the voice of the devil persuaded me to turn against him.

I rejected God because I am a rational human being.

I am new to atheism compared to many, but my love of atheism and my fascination with science are tremendous. I continue to learn more every day, and I can only imagine how much we will know and how much sillier theism will look twenty years from now. In the meantime, I will be doing my best to profess atheism to those around me, and I’ll be recommending atheist literature whenever I can.

I am not afraid of your God.

I am the Rational Response Squad.