From Taoist to Infidel (2001)Richard CarrierMy experiences with religion as a child were all good. My mother was a church secretary at a First Methodist Church only a block from our home, and I attended Sunday School fairly regularly, but my parents rarely insisted that I attend any sermons. The religion sold at this local business was a ery liberal brand of Christianity. It was more like a preschool and social club, and that made it an excellent asset to the community, and a place of fond memoriesfor me. !midst arts and crafts, lunches, running and climbing about, and basic learning, the alphabet and numbers and whatnot, Sunday School had its story time. "ible stories were always on the menu, intermingled with other popular fables and parables, and it was neer een suggested there was any difference. The #ood "ook was always treated as a collection of handy tales used as springboards for teaching moral lessons, not as a history book. Indeed, I was neer once told that unbelieers go to hell or that I had to $beliee on Christ$ to be saed or anything like that. !ll good people went to heaen, so you%d better be good. That was it. &esus in this ersion of Christianity was little more than a moral teacher. "eing the Son of #od made him an authority on the sub'ect but had no other importance. (erhaps it was no accident that eeryone who attended this church was ery kind and 'oial and all around 'ust good folk.)uring my first few grades, wheneer I had free time in school *and wasn%t running and climbing about+ I read for myself only the ,ew Testament*red letter edition, of course--I think any child loes books with different colors in them+. "ut the moment I got home my nose was in much bigger and better books. all manner of encyclopedias, my faorite reading material. The "ible was boring and not ery informatie, and hardly intelligible to a child, but it was the only book anyone eer gae me that would fit inmy pocket. /et I neer had the feeling that I wasdoing anything religious, or what I was reading was special in any way, apart from the fact that eeryone seemed happy or impressed to see me reading it, which I neer understood since these same people thought I was weird for reading encyclopedias, which I knew, een at that age, were more educational. !s I grew older, my social life expanded, and my spare time at school was spent completing homework,leaing no time for idle reading, and my appetitefor knowledge grew to deeper leels of sophistication.The ,ew Testament had gien me no useful information about the meaning of life or the nature of the unierse. 0ater I learned that people extracted from it such things, but they only did so by importing ideas and concepts that aren%t in the book itself, and so 'ust reading it alone I found it to be shallow and unsatisfying.Its message was obsessed with strange moral rules that no one around me eer followed. Instead of turning the other cheek, people called for more cops and longer prison terms. Far from giing thiees their cloaks, people keptbaseball bats by their beds and hung signs that said "eware of )og. 1hile the ery Son of #od 2imself defended a whore from moral condemnation, whores were routinely morally condemned, most ardently by the )eout.Then there was all this talk about the worm that neer dies and morbid metaphors about washing with blood, and so forth, that weren%t ery releant to the world I saw and wanted to understand. 0ittered eerywhere was exultation about the #ood ,ews, but God forbid should any passage eer clearly explain 'ust which news that was supposed to be. !t one moment it seemed to be the moral message, which I already obsered was nonsensical, at another itwas about a horrible 3nd Times that hardly sounded good. ,o one around me thought a ,uclear 1ar was good news, yet it sounded likethe ery same thing. !t yet another moment it had something to do with &esus dying for something called sin, een though it was neer explained how he could die for it when I was always taught to seek forgieness from the person I%d wronged. !t yet another time it was the fact that there was an afterlife $so don%t despair,$ which een as a child I found to be rather childish. !nd so on. It was confused, illogical, often unintelligible, but always irreleant to the social and political reality in which I lied. 1here was any explanation and defense of democratic alues4 1here was gender e5uality4 1hat was wisdom4 1hat was irtue4 2ow come all my encyclopedias were full of the beautiful, wonderful things of the unierse, yet not a single peep about them fromthe Son of #od 2imself4 6ne would think he of all people would hae had a kick ass science education, haing the most powerful and knowledgeable father in the unierse and all. I wanted to know what the fundamental nature of the unierse was, what the fundamentals of a moral life really were, how to achiee happinessin this life. The "ible didn%t help. "etter moral wisdom came from mortal word of mouth around me, and far more knowledge from other books, and from school, where I ma'ored in science and took and mastered eery science course offered. So with the other childish things I put away as I approached my teen years, the #ood "ook was among them.!nd so I became a seeker. 7ather stereotypically, I entered teenage hungry for truth, for something that made sense of it all, fordirection. The unierse 'ust didn%t seem right. 2ypocrisy was eerywhere, problems abounded, along with contradictory opinions about how to sole them, and the most basic facts about the world were, or so I thought, unexplained by scientists, who were clearly those who were best able to get the answers. !nd yet the one book eeryone said had all the answers was shallow, fre5uently confused or uninformatie, unnecessarily erbose and obscure, and contradicted the society I found myself in. 1orse, it read like a preachy fable. nological arguments, no demonstrations of eidence, 'ust assertions, and ague ones at that. It had nothing to say about democracy or science or technology, the three things that most defined my world. 2ow useless. So I lied a life of the mind, and thought and studied, always anchored by a stable home life and friendships. 0ogic alone led me to what I would later discoer was an ambiguous form of agnostic deism.Then a miracle happened. !t least, it was what belieers would call a miracle. In a bookstore hunting for a dictionary for school, I had a feeling that told me to turn. I did, and the first thing I saw was a &ane 3nglish translation of the Tao Te Ching. I took it up, and, like !ugustine, turned to a page at random and read. 1hat it said was so simple, so true, so elegantly and concisely put, and so wise, I knewthis was the answer. I bought the book and readit all through, and from that day I declared my faith in Taoism, my first real religion. In contrast,Christianity was neer a religion for me--it was simply a fixture in my cultural atmosphere, and Ineer affirmed any faith in its principles. "ut I had faith in Taoism. I was a True "elieer. !nd I am glad that, unlike most people, I made an informed choice, at an age when I had the capacity to choose sensibly. 7eligion was neerimposed on me and no one in my family eer assumed I had to be Christian, and conse5uently I can say my one chosen religion was born neither of peer pressure nor indoctrination. I studied Taoism aidly, at one point I had eight different 3nglish translations of the Tao Te Ching and a few of the Chuang Tzu, and my Taoism became full and sophisticated. I was a (hilosophical Taoist, a Chinese tradition that held to an adherence to the texts and the wisdom alone and scorned the surrounding superstitions and religious cult that grew aroundit as being against the ery message of Taoism. In time I also discoered how Taoism was a response to Confucianism, and the relationship the two religious philosophies had, and in the course of things I ac5uired some ac5uaintance with "uddhism as well.My life was transformed. I ac5uired a sense of discipline and focus I neer had before, an attraction to 5uiet, simple liing, and a strong yet humble moral sense of things. !ll finally made sense, and I was happier than I eer imagined possible. In my holy text I had a toolbox for dealing easily and sensibly with eery problem, from sexual angst to metaphysical doubt, from political debate to material danger. There was a erse in the Tao Te Ching for eerything, and it was written beautifully and simply, often appealing, for eidence of its truths, to the one truly uniersal "ible. the world itself, as well as the undeniable eidence within the reader%s own soul. It had a train of thought, an implied logical argument. In time I created my own ersion of the Tao Te Ching, selecting my faorite translations of eery line from among the many I knew, and carried this with me as the one deotional item we were allowed in boot camp. I read it nightly.The proof that this was the one true religion wasmanifold, and seemingly irrefutable. !part from the $clearly$ supernatural miracle of my discoering the faith, and the $self-eident$ perfection of its sacred text, following its tenets Iwas led to peace of mind and a balanced life, tofriendships and goodness. 1ith it, all harm was defeated or of no conse5uence, and eery benefit came easily and naturally. I learned to hae fewer expectations, to care more about others and to worry less about what I didn%t yet know. Things were of little importance next to contentment itself, and the good life was a life of friends and the mind, not of luxury or power. !boe all, it told me the simple truth. that my humanity was a good and natural thing. From sex to humor, all had an accepted place, without being forced into unnatural modes of thought or behaior. Sin was the artificial deiation from the harmony of nature, and if youwould simply stop meddling with things you would be free of sin. It explained eerything, een the existence and nature of the unierse, in a way that made perfect and beautiful sense. !nd it cultiated a tolerant mind like I had neer seen Christianity do. The Chinese had known this for oer two thousand years. I still cherish the memory of seeing a picture of three holy men traelling a road together, all laughing with each other. 6ne was a "uddhist, another a Taoist, and the third a Confucian. This image is in fact a regular motif in China. There, the three religions, despite being so doctrinally and intellectually at odds, get along peacefully, eenhappily, a friendship that is celebrated in such artwork eerywhere. 1hat better proof is there of the goodness and truth of a creed that it inspires such 'oial tolerance4 Instead of holy wars, condemnations and combatie debates, these religions interact in dialogues, and each accepts the other as possibly different facets of the same coin. They lie comfortably with doubt and uncertainty, een thriing on it. They condemn no one to an eternal hell, and re5uire no belief.I was a happy Taoist for many years. "urned out on schooling I chose to lie a simple life, contented at gardening or ditch-digging for a liing, doing eerything from installing electrical fixtures to waiting tables."ut eentually I signed up for a life in the Coast #uard, studyingelectronics and sonar and liing at sea, until I yearned again for an education and thus embarked on a long career as a student of science and ancient history. )uring all this, in cultiating the mental life that Taoism taught, I had powerful mystical isions, which only confirmed further that I was on the right track. These ranged from the simple to the fantastic. The simplest and most common was that clarityof an almost drug-like wonder, perceiing eerything striking the senses as one, unified whole. It is hard to describe this. ,ormally, your attention is focussed, on something you are looking at or listening to, or in a semi-dream-state of reerie, but with a meditatie sense of attention this focus and dreaminess anishes and you are immersed in a total, holistic sense of the real. It is both magnificent and calming. It humbles you, and brings you to the reali8ation of how beautiful simply liing is, and how triial all your worries and difficulties are. (rofound insights about the world would strike me wheneer in such a state, leading far more readily and powerfully to an understaning of myself and the world than studying or reasoningeer did.The most fantastic experience I had was like that times ten. It happened at sea, well past midnight on the flight deck of a cutter, in international waters two hundred miles from the nearest land. I had not slept for oer 9: hours, thanks to a common misfortune of oerlapping duty schedules and emergency rescue operations. For hours we had been practicing helicopter landing and refuelling drills and at long last the chopper was away and eerything was calm. The ship was rocking slowly in a gentle, dark sea, and I was alone beneath the starriest of skies that most people hae neer seen. I fell so deeply into the clear, total immersion in the real that I left my body and my soul expanded to the si8e of the unierse, so that I could at one thought perceie, almost %feel%, eerything that existed in perfect and totalclarity. It was like undergoing a ;ulcan Mind Meld with #od. ,aturally, words cannot do 'ustice to something like this. It cannot really be described, only experienced, or hinted at. 1hat did I see4 ! beautiful, ast, harmonious and wonderful unierse all at peace with the Tao. There was plenty of life scattered like tiny seedseerywhere, but no supernatural beings, no gods or demons or souls floating about, no heaen or hell. &ust a perfect, complete unierse, with no need for anything more. The experience was absolutely real to me. There was nothing about it that would suggest it was adream or a mere flight of imagination. !nd it was magnificent."ut I had neer stopped my priate readings in the sciences, and it did not take long for me to reali8e that eerything I had experienced through Taoism had a natural explanation. !t the same time, the more I studied my religious text the more I came to disagree with certain parts of it. Since the 6ne True 7eligion could not be faulty een in part, this brought me to reali8e that Taoism was not sacred or diine, but'ust an outpouring of ery admirable and ingenious, but ultimately fallible human wisdom.That did not diminish its merit, but it did lead meto think outside the box. More and more I found I agreed with Confucians against the Taoists, but still sided with the Taoists against the Confucians on other issues, and in the dance ofthesis and antithesis I came to my own synthesis, which can now be described as a science-based secular humanism rooted in a metaphysical naturalism. More and more I found brilliant wisdom in 1estern philosophers like 3picurus or Seneca, or !yer or 2ume, and so my worldiew became more ecclectic and forthat reason more perfect. by drawing the best from many points of iew, I was purging myself of the faults of relying on only one.Ineitably, I had to confront the Christian 5uestion. There was a point in sonar school when I was regularly pestered by a Christian bothered by my Taoism, een more than my agnosticism *it didn%t matter to a Taoist whether a god existed--an answer to his 5uestion $)o you beliee in #od4$ that frustrated the hell out of him+. 3entually he argued that you hae to read the whole "ible before you can make an informed decision about it. 2e recommended the ,I; Student "ible, which I purchased, and still hae. I set down to read it all through, eeryword, front to back, 6ld Testament and ,ew *I hae since read the entire ,ew Testament in the original #reek+. I figured now, with my greater understanding and maturity, I might receie more from it than I did as a child. Instead, I was able to see far worse things in it than I eer did before. I saw a terrible, sinful #od by the standards of the simple, kind wisdom of Taoism--a 'ealous, iolent, short-tempered, engeful being whose behaior is nonsensical and oerly meddlesome and unenlightening. 0ater I was to find that the ast ma'ority of Christians neer actually read the "ible, and hae no idea what is really in there, and the hypocrisy of them telling me I had to read the whole thing before I could make an informed choice is still palpable.In all I can say that the 6ld Testament disgustedme, while the ,ew Testament disappointed me. In general, no diinely inspired text would be so long and rambling and hard to understand--wisemen speak clearly, brilliantly, their ability at communication is measured by their success at making themseles readily understood. The "ible spans oer a thousand pages of tiny, multi-columned text, and yet says nowhere nearas much, certainly nothing as well, as the Tao Te Ching does in a mere eighty-one stan8as. The "ible is full of the superfluous--extensie geneologies of no releance to the meaning of life or the nature of the unierse, long excurses on barbaric rituals of bloodletting and taboo thathae nothing to do with being a good person or adancing society toward greater happiness, lengthy diatribes against long-dead nations and constant harping on a coming doom and gloom.I asked myself. would any wise, compassionate being een allow this book to be attributed to him, much less be its author4 Certainly not. 2ow could 0ao T8u, a mere mortal, who neer claimed any superior powers or status, write better, more thoroughly, more concisely, about so much more, than the Inspired (rophets of #od4It was not only this that struck me. 1hat was most pungent was the immorality of the "ible. Though called a wise father, there is not a single example in the 6ld Testament of #od sitting down and kindly teaching anyone, and when asked by &ob, the best of men, to explain why 2e went out of 2is way to hurt a good man by eery possible means, including killing his loed ones, this $wise father$ spews arrogant rhetorical 5uestions, ultimately implying nothing more than $might makes right$ as his only excuse. I reulsed in horror at this demonic monster portrayed here. 2e was worthy of uniersal condemnation, not worship. 2e who thinks he can do whateer he wants because he can is as loathesome and untrustworthy as any psychopath. It was bad enough that this #od%s idea of the $best$ in man is a willingness to murder one%s own child on demand. It is inconceiable that any kind being would eer test !braham%s loyalty that way. To the contrary, from any compassionate being%s point of iew, !braham failed this test. he was willing to kill forfaith, setting morality aside for a god. ! decent being would reward instead the man who responded to such a re5uest with $#o to hell< 6nly a demon would ask such a thing, and no compassionate man would do it.9?-9:+, and commands that those who follow other religions be genocidally slaughtered *)euteronomy =9.:-=:+.Indeed, genocide *)euteronomy ?.9=-9@, A.=-?, ?B.=B-=>, and &oshua, e.g. =B.99+ and fascism *)euteronomy ??.?9-?@, 0eiticus ?B.=9, ?@.=9-=:, ,umbers =>.9?-:+ were the ery law and standard practice of #od, right next to the Ten Commandments. Instead of condemning slaery, #od condones it *0eiticus ?>.@@, cf. )euteronomy >.=9-=@, ?=.=B-=9+.!nd so on.,othing could be more repugnant.I could go on at length about the many horrible passages that praise the immoral, the cruel, as the height of righteous goodness. It does no good to try in desperation to make excuses for it. ! good and wise man%s message would not need excuses. It follows that the "ible was written neither by the wise nor the good. !nd the ,ew Testament was only marginally better, though it too had its inexcusable features, from commands to hate *0uke =@.?:+ to arrogantly sexist teachings about women *= Timothy ?.=?+,from &esus saying he $came not to bring peace,but the sword,$ setting een families against each other *Matthew =B.9@-9:+, to making blasphemy the worst possible crime, een worse than murder or child molesting *Matthew =?.9=-9?+. It, too, supported slaery rather than condemning it *0uke =?.@A, = Timothy :.=-?+. 1orse, its entire message is not $be good and go to heaen,$ itself a naie and childish concern *the good are good because they care, not because they want a reward+, but $beliee or be damned$ *Mark =:.=:, Matthew =B.99+, a fundamentally wicked doctrine. The good 'udge others by their character, not their beliefs, and punish deeds, not thoughts, and punish only to teach, not to torture. "ut none of this moral truthis in the "ible, and the ,ew Testament had none of the humanistic wisdom of the Tao Te Ching which spoke to all ages, but instead drones on about sub'ection to kings and acceptance of slaery, while haing no knowledge of the needs of a democratic society,of the benefits of science, or the proper uses of technology. It een promotes superstition instead of science, with all its talk about demonic possession and faith healing and speaking in tongues, and assertions that belieers will be immune to poison *Mark =:.=A-=C+. It is plagued with a general obscurity and ambiguity, and illogicality, which I had already noted as a child, and though I did understand more and saw it as less confused than I once had, the improement was minimal and not encouraging. It still taught a morality that is unliable, and aboe all contained not a hint of humor or a mature acceptance of sexuality or anything distinctly and naturally human at all.1hen I finished the last page, though alone in my room I declared aloud. $/ep, I%m an atheist.$ It was the 5uestion I had sought to answer by reading this book reered by C>D of the !merican public as the paragon of religious truth. I had neer before been so ac5uainted with how hundreds of millions of people could be so embarrassingly wrong. This reelation ledme on a 5uest to find out more about this matter. It seemed inconceiable that I was the only one who noticed what a total baloney cock-up the "ible was, the only one who could see that all the eidence, and the simple process of well-thought logic, led to the conclusion that there was no god, or certainly none around here. "ut my search in bookstores for anything about atheism came up with nothing. ,o one I knew had een gien the matter any real thought. !s far as I could tell, I was alone. That was annoying, but as the lone Taoist in a sea of nominal apathetic Christians it was nothing new.3entually I stumbled across two old books in a used book store, "ertrand 7ussell%s Why I Am Not a Christian and Corliss 0amont%s The Philosophy of Humanism, each of which gae me an excellent introduction to the thoughts of like-minded men. In time, a booth at a street-fairintroduced me with much excitement to !merican !theists, which later, through disappointment with their attitude, I traded for the more human and sensible Freedom From 7eligion Foundation. !nd though I had been $onthe internet$ since the mid-eighties, with the riseof national online communities through sericeslike (rodigy and Compusere I found seeral atheists to share notes with, and encountered for the first time ardent and aid Christian missionaries and arguers. This was largely new to me--apart, of course, for the perpetual seasonal barrage of &ehoa%s 1itnesses and Mormons who had been knocking at our doors no doubt since my conception. "ut they were rarely willing to debate, excusing themseles faster than if I were a leper the moment I raised an intellectual 5uestion. They were especially confused when hearing I was a deout Taoist, and so already had a religion and didn%t need another, thankyouerymuch.In time two things happened. 6n the one hand, my studies led me to a more 1estern humanist philosophy. Though I neer abandoned the bestof my 3astern intellectual heritage, I fell in loe with knowledge and science and logic and the 5uest and fight for truth. /et, though I no longer call myself a Taoist, I hae not lost any of the 'oy, wonder, and happiness of life. I retain the lessons that always brought peace and tran5uility and simplicity, and my life remains 'ust as spiritual as it had been. I lie 'oyfully in a free society with a loing wife and good friends, with no real problems to speak of. !nd in this lucky position, haing struggled my way from poerty to a doctoral fellowship at an Iy 0eague uniersity, I took action. 1ith compassion for the welfare and enlightenment of the human race, I deote much of my free time to defeating lies, correcting errors, and informing the unknowing. For which I am condemned regularly. (erhaps some day such behaior will instead be an ob'ect of emulation and praise, though I don%t see Christianity doinganything to make that so.6n the other hand, I became eer more ac5uainted with the horrible history of Christianity and the sorts of things Christians hae done and are still doing around een this country in less liberal places like my First Methodist neighborhood, from trying to pass blasphemy laws to murdering doctors, from throwing eggs at atheists to killing their cats, from trying to dumb-down science education to acting holier-than-thou in pushing their skewed moral agenda against goernment and priate industry alike. For the first time, rather than being merely constantly pestered, I was being called names, and haing hellfire wished upon me. It was a rude awakening. I knew of the eccentricities of Christian Fundamentalism frommy high school days, but it was more humorousthen than anything. from &ack Chick tracts informing the world, with melodramatically absurd story lines, that role playing games werea form of ritual Satanic worship, to my friend putting his I 0oe &esus girlfriend in tears because she was certain he was going to hell for belieing that there might be life on other planets. "ut I was generally spared the nasty effects of such nonsense, which was always a fringe minority in my town.,ot so elsewhere. 1hen I heard the horror stories, saw the machinations on Capitol 2ill, read the news, I found it was not so funny as I thought it was. So great is the threat of this superstition against indiiduals, against society, against knowledge, against general human happiness, that it would be immoral not to fight it. It did no good that most nominal Christians disaow all this behaior, for I discoered all too5uickly that hardly any of them had the moral fiber to stand up to it, few make much effort to defend in public their apparently kinder, gentler message of tolerance and loe against the 7ighteous 2oarde, and fewer still would call meally. 1hy would they4 &esus himself tells eeryone I am damned, and if the most informed, wise and compassionate being in the unierse condemns me utterly, deeming me worthy of un5uenchable fire and immortal worms, far be it for any mortal to hae a kinder opinion of me. 1orse, the liberal Christians hae no text. In any "ible debate, the liberal interpreter always loses, for he must admit he isputting human interpretation, indeed bold-faced speculation, before the )iine 1ord of #od. !nd without the "ible to stand on a Christian can be condemned as an unbelieer in disguise. Since being thought an atheist is worse than being thought a prostitute, not manybelieers are likely to raise their head against Fundamentalism. It was then that I reali8ed, because of this threat and because of my own experience in not being able to find like-minded people to share thoughts with, I had to state my case and publish as much as I could to help others like me and to defeat the nonsense and lies that I saw being spread eerywhere, and to answer the constant barrage of redundant 5uestions I had faced eer since I allowed the Christian public to know I%m an atheist. !nd so began my online presence, eentually landing here as a member of the Internet Infidels.