: Status: Unconfirmed.

The last few days have been a bit weird. There's something in the back of my brain, gnawing at me, but I can't seem to focus on what it is and deal with it. Hopefully I can pry it out soon and exterminate it, as it's taking away my ability to concentrate. It's even difficult to write without getting distracted. But I'll try. 

Confirmation Yay 

I don't know if "confirmation" is the actual work used for this type of ceremony in English, and I don't feel like looking it up right now. But whatever the case, I was visiting my mom this weekend because of my sister, Silje's, confirmation. A civil confirmation, not a christian one, which I was very happy and relieved about. It was a very nice event in many ways. The actual ceremony was not boring, which surprised me. I don't think I've ever been to any confirmation ceremony before, neither civil, christian nor other, at least not that I can remember, but I've always imagined it to be dreadfully boring. And I guess that if it had been christian, it probably would have been.

My sister Therese, me, my half-sister Silje, my brother Stian, and Silje's half-sister Marie.

The best part about the whole deal, though, was after the ceremony, at the party. No, not because of the food or cakes (although both were delicious), but because we got to meet people from my sister's father's family (yeah, she's actually my half-sister), that I barely get to meet anymore. Now, I, being my usual halfway introverted and socially awkward self, didn't actually talk to too many of them. But it was still nice. I sort of wish more of the people from their family had been there, though, but the place was already rather full. 

Confirmation Boo 

I must admit, though, that part of me is feeling... Slightly pissed off at the whole confirmation thing. Or rather, slightly pissed off at my ex-step-father's (my sister's father) influence back when I was supposed to have been confirmed. You see, back then, he was so strongly against a civil confirmation that he convinced my mom that I couldn't have that. And I absolutely refused to do it in church, as I am as far from a religious person as you can get, even back then. My other sister didn't get confirmed either, for the same reason. My brother was fortunate enough to live with our father when it was his time, so he got to choose what he wanted, and got his civil confirmation. 

And yes, I'll also admit that the main reason I'm slightly pissed off about this, is because of the money I didn't get. There wasn't really much else I cared about. I didn't, and still really don't, know what a civil confirmation actually involves. I didn't really feel any peer pressure or social stigma from being one of the few, if not the only, person not to get confirmed, as at that time I was already more or less an outcast. It's really mostly the money, and the party, that I didn't get that really annoys me about it. As well as the fact that my ex-step-father really shouldn't have had any say in the matter. The fact that he now let his own daughter get the confirmation she wanted, while also making me (as mentioned) happy and relieved, makes me even more pissed off about it.

Oh well.


I guess I should add some questions to the end if I ever want some response on these blog posts.

What's your opinion on confirmations, both civil and christian (or other)?
Should step-parents have much influence on children's lives if both real parents are still involved?

: Why I'm an atheist.

I occasionally get questions from people on why I'm an atheist. So, I thought I'd write a bit about it.

Type of atheist

As I see it, there are two main types of atheist. There's the absolute atheist, that flat out denies that there is a god or gods. And then there's the agnostic atheist, that simply doesn't believe in any god or gods, without denying their possible existence. I see myself as an agnostic atheist, as, the way I see it, there is no way I or anyone else can prove the non-existence of any kind of deity. It's highly improbable that one (or more) exist, but that's as close as we can get. So, the way I see it, it's just as foolish to deny the existence of deities as it is to believe in them.

Upbringing

As far as I can remember, religion was never a part of our life when I grew up. Neither of my parents are, as far as I know, religious in any way. The biggest proof I have of this, is that neither me nor my siblings were, uh, baptized? Not sure if that's the correct term, but you probably understand what I mean. Either way... I can't remember really hearing much about religion, or even really knowing what religion or christianity was, until I started school. It was a non-issue for us, and I'm thankful for that.

School and the bible

I don't think I learned about the bible, or the stories within it, until we started having christianity classes in school. I may have heard some of the stories before that, like the one about Noah's Ark, but most likely thought of them as fantasy. I can't really remember. But what I do remember is that once we started learning about it in school, I couldn't really understand how some people believed those stories to be true. It seemed so ridiculous to me. They were nice stories, at least the ones we read back then, but nothing more.

My dad eventually pulled me out of the christianity class and got me over on an alternative class that focused on all religions and other non-religious life-views. Unfortunately, when we moved to my mom, I had to go back to regular christianity classes. I don't know why, but I suspect it had something to do with the fact that my then step-father was a christian. Whatever the case, it didn't take long before the christianity classes were replaced by something more similar to the alternative classes country-wide.

Observing the world

As I grew older, and payed more attention to the world around me, the concept of a god or gods seemed even more ridiculous. Particularly a benevolent and all-powerful god. There are so much evil and misfortune in the world, it's impossible for me to understand how anyone can believe that such a thing exist. 

If a potential god truly was benevolent, why would he turn his back on all the people around the world that live in pain, fear and stress 24/7, only because they were accidentally born in a region of the world that teaches them to believe in another god? There's no logic in that. On the other hand, if a potential god is either not benevolent or not all-powerful, what is the point in believing in it? 

So, yeah. Based on the state of the world today, there is either no god to believe in, or no point in believing in whatever god there is.

Evolution and biology

Learning about evolution, and subsequently a bit about biology through Richard Dawkins, it became even clearer to me that there's no point in believing in a god. As you know, the bible teaches that all creatures were created and have always been the same. Looking at evolution, there's no doubt that this is false. Particularly when you look at vestigial structures or organs, which is parts of a species that used to be important but no longer have a function. 

In humans, the most "famous" examples of vestigial structures are the appendix, which were once used to digest grass, leaves, etc, and the tailbone, which were once an actual tail.

In animals, some of the most famous examples of vestigial structures are; 

- Leg-bones in whales, a remnant from when the whales ancestors still had actual legs and walked on land.

- Wings on ostriches, emus, penguins, and other birds that can no longer fly.

- Eyes that can no longer actually see in cave-dwelling fish and salamanders.

Neither of these things serve any purpose anymore in these creatures, so if humans and animals were created perfectly, why are they there?

Absence of proof

Other than holy books and texts, which is only good for self-referencing proof, there is no proof of any sort that there is any kind of god or gods. To this day I haven't heard or read about a single proposed proof that can't be explained by other causes or pure chance. Particularly the argument that the Earth have "perfect" conditions for life and therefore must have been designed. 

There's an uncountable amount of planets in the universe; It's purely accidental that our planet was able to sustain what we know as life. And to say that our planet have perfect conditions for life, is just plain wrong. It has good, but far from perfect, conditions for, again, what we know as life. On the best days we have good conditions for life. But most of the time there are some kind of extreme condition for someone, somewhere, who are barely able to hang on, and often can not.

Also, there is nothing to suggest that there aren't other kinds of life on one or more of the uncountable other planets in the universe, life that we might not be able to recognize as life. In which case, there's nothing perfect or special about our planet or our version of life. And if we are the only life in the universe? What would then be the point for a creator to create everything else? Why is it there?

If anything, the universe is proof of the non-existence of gods.

Multiple and geographic religions

Then, finally, there's the problem of multiple religions. If there actually is one religion that is true, and one god or pantheon of gods that actually exist, why are there so many different religions around the world? Why is there doubt about what religion is the true religion? Why do so many millions of people believe that one religion is true, and so many other millions of people believe that another religion is true? It makes absolutely no sense.

And, of course, the problem of geographic religion. In most cases, what religion you belong to is decided by what part of the world you were born in, or what part of the world your family originally came from. If you had been born in another family, in another part of the world, you would've had an entirely different view of the world, and an entirely different religious view. The fact that no religious people is able to see that, baffles me.

So, yeah. That's much of the reason why I'm an atheist.

: Dealing with death.

I'm writing this because of a thread in the Atheists group over at Nerdfighters.

How does an atheist deal with the subject of death? I can, of course, only tell it from my own perspective, and not for atheists in general. But in my opinion, the best way to deal with death is to accept it for what it is; The end of a life. It is all we can know it is, and if you ask me, thinking about it as anything else is nothing but a waste of time. 

No one will gain anything from pondering what might be after someone dies; If they are in some kind of heaven or hell, if they live on as spirits, if they have been reincarnated as someone or something else... And particularly not from thinking about the possibilities of contacting the dead and stuff like that. If you really care about someone that have died, focus on what they were in life instead. Don't throw away their memory, and your life, desperately seeking what is impossible.

I, personally, find more comfort in the thought that there is nothing after death, than anything else. I don't see any upsides to any of the after-death theories. I don't want to think of this life as anything less than what it is, just because of some peoples unconfirmable claims of some kind of life after death. I mean, what is the point of this life if it's just some kind "test" for what comes after? And if it is just a test, why don't we know, without a doubt, the conditions of the test, and what it is that comes after? How can there be so many different variants of this test recorded throughout human history? It doesn't make sense.

It makes more sense to me that when you die there's nothing, that everything that defines me as a person simply ceases to exist. I don't believe there's anything even remotely related to a "soul", but that our personality is stored within our brain, as a result of genetics, social interaction and experience, and that when our brains shut down our personalities go with it.

This is also the reason why I feel no real relationship to whats left after someone has died, why I don't see the point of treating a persons body in any particular way, and why I don't fell any reason to visit someones grave. I don't even visit my fathers grave, which annoys my grandmother. But I just don't feel there is anything there for me to visit. Whatever is left there is not my father. It's just a shell. And not even that, as he was cremated.

So yeah, that's my opinions on, and sort of how I deal with, death.