Ex-Christians and William Lane Craig

Earlier today, Demian Farnworth, author of the blog Fallen and Flawed, sent me a link to this podcast from Christian apologist Dr. William Lane Craig.

Tonight, I will be live-blogging my reactions to Dr. Craig's commentary, having never heard this podcast before. Let's see how this goes.

Question: It seems like more and more Christian apologists are leaving the faith and actively promoting atheism on the Internet. What do you think? Further, is it really possible to leave the faith for intellectual rather than emotional reasons?

Dr. Craig: You could say that the increasing number of people leaving the faith who have studied apologetics is simply a function of the increasing number of people who are studying apologetics.

Other Host: I think we have to look at in on a case-by-case basis. Could someone leave the faith for any intellectual reasons, or is it emotional?

Dr. Craig: I think it's for moral reasons, frankly...I say that not on the basis of case studies or investigations, but on the basis of what Scripture says.

Me: Whoa, I was with you up until then. You haven't done any case studies, you haven't done any investigations - you don't have any stories or rumors. Just Scripture...not very convincing.

Dr. Craig: Scripture says that if you inculcate godliness into your character, you will not fail [emphasis mine].

Me: 'The Scripture says'. I've read entirely too many deconversion accounts where people have specifically related that losing their faith was the last thing they ever wanted to do, that they wanted to serve their God but just could no longer believe. 'The Scripture says' isn't doing it for me, because unlike Dr. Craig, I actually have read up on "case studies".

Dr. Craig: This is why Christian apologists must make sure that we're keeping our lives clean and pure and holy before God.

Me: Fine. But you honestly think every other person who ever deconverted didn't try that? That's the great thing about defending Christianity: it's so difficult that no one can reasonably be expected to live it, so easy that you can get a child to do it.

Dr. Craig: I think, ultimately, that no one either fails to come to faith or falls away from faith due to intellectual difficulties alone. Ultimately, it's a spiritual matter about the orientation of that person's heart, and whether that person truly wants God and is open to God, or whether that person is closing God out of his heart and mind.

The Other Host and Dr. Craig: Some other stuff about Paul.

Dr. Craig: Some of these Christian apologists who have fallen away will often be very open about the moral difficulties which have led to their falling away: immorality, pornography, adultery"

Other Host: It's pretty easy to get burned out...so the last thing we want to do is to start taking a hardened stance towards people.

Me: That sounds like fairly good advice to me for any profession.

Dr. Craig: Another danger is becoming too cerebral...Alvin Plantinga, his book talks about how because of sin we love ourselves instead of God...the Holy Spirit helps repair that and help us respond emotionally to God and love Him. And if we ignore that side of our personality, then we can become dry and burned out.

Other Host: Sometimes people need just a human touch.

Me: Again, that sounds like good advice.

Dr. Craig: I think when you look at the some of the narratives of those who have left the faith, you will find a bitterness and a disappointment with those in the Christian Church because people did not come along side of them and help them when they were going through their time of struggle.

Me: And that's pretty much the end of the discussion on that subject.

Dr. Craig is clearly sincere about his beliefs. When presented with the potential problem of people who shared the same beliefs as Dr. Craig and no longer believe what he believes - it's only natural that Dr. Craig should find a way to reconcile his opinion that he has correct beliefs with evidence that contradicts his beliefs. By dismissing those accounts, which very obviously contradict his beliefs if he grants that some of the people who've deconverted may have done so for intellectual reasons, he's reaffirmed his beliefs from doubt. Once one begins the path of 'there may be intellectual reasons against my belief', one's priority is going to be critical thinking, and one is going to end up questioning one's beliefs.

Of course, there are plenty of religious people who are good critical thinkers. But the beliefs of Dr. Craig clearly have the most important place in his life, subordinating all other interests and motivations. Intellectual reasons for deconversion? No way. It can't be. Get out of here. There must be some other reason for this incident - they must have sinned or something, or maybe they were never Christians in the first place? It's easy to rationalize, and in the end, that's what I think this process is.

When sincere religious believers such as Dr. Craig become aware that other people around them no longer share their beliefs, there's some tension that has to be resolved. If the belief is correct, then logically people wouldn't leave the faith for intellectual reasons. If people may have left for intellectual reasons, then the faith may not be all it's cracked up to be, and that's clearly an unacceptable option for Dr. Craig and for many others who present similar arguments about the true nature of ex-Christians.

The Paradox of Theistic Morality

Hello again, dear readers! I apologize for the extended layoff, but I have been terribly busy lately. Today's topic concerns the relationship between religious values and morality.

I have envisioned a brief analysis of religion and morality as a casual, but animated, conversational dialogue. I imagine that such a conversation may develop between two close friends, Q and A. Our pal Q is a theist (he or she could be a Jew, a Muslim, or a Christian - it doesn't matter) while A happens to be a non-theist.

Q: It's incomprehensible to me how an atheist could have an explanation for morality.

A: Why so?

Q: Well, I've always believed that there must be some form of absolute morality, and that God is the best explanation for our sense of right and wrong. This seems especially likely to be the case in light of the arguments of famous defenders of the faith such as C.S. Lewis and William Lane Craig.

A: I think it's highly unlikely that God's morality is absolute. Doesn't the god of the Bible say that it's wrong to murder, yet even in books such as--

Q: --Allow me to interject. Do you believe in right and wrong? If I ask you about slavery, do you believe it is wrong? If I ask you about rape, do you believe it is wrong? If I ask you about theft, do you believe that is wrong?

The bottom line is that we all agree that certain things are just wrong, yet why should we agree to this if there is no objective morality in place?

A: You're asking me why we should agree that slavery and rape and theft are wrong?

Q: Yes.

A: Well, first of all, you're asking me whether we agree. Don't you think that if there were an absolute morality, you wouldn't have to ask me whether I agreed? In that case, wouldn't I just know that they're wrong?

Q: But don't you agree that they're wrong?

A: I do. But it's not because I believe that any god said so.

Q: Then if there is no god watching over you, if there is no ultimate moral standard, then who can tell you not to run out into the street and rape, steal, or kill? Who can tell you that it's not okay to cheat on your wife or your taxes?

A: I think you're finally beginning to understand what I'm trying to say. Who can tell me that it's not okay to cheat on my taxes? Who can tell me that it's not okay to rape or kill or defraud someone?

Q: Are you going to answer my questions, or are you just being cute with me?

A: No, I'm going to answer your questions directly. Allow me to elaborate.

Let's pretend that you have a group of agents in one place. All of them can benefit if they take something away from the others, but none of the others benefit if something is taken away from them. Wouldn't it be the most beneficial for all of the agents if everyone could have security for themselves and their possessions?

Societies decide on what is moral or immoral. Societies are built upon a foundation of respect, trust, and empathy.

If your husband or wife catches you cheating, he or she is going to lose that trust, and your relationship will deteriorate. If the government catches you cheating on your taxes, you'll go to jail -- if you aren't caught, then there will be less money to pay for things like national defense and road construction and social security, and if everybody acts like that, then the relationship of the country will deteriorate. If individuals don't cooperate, everyone suffers.

Do you really need a god to tell you that people will get hurt if you're selfish or rash or cruel? Do you really need a god to tell you that peoples' lives will be improved significantly over the long run if they would only cooperate?

Q: I'm afraid you're missing the forest for the trees. What if the majority of individuals liked or enjoyed rape? Would you still say that it's moral? Wouldn't you still say that it's morally wrong?

A: If there were a society that approved of rape, then perhaps that would be a difficult dilemma. But how likely is it that a society which widely approves of rape can survive or flourish?

Q: How naive you are. Do you realize that patriarchal societies throughout history have engaged in and even justified spousal rape under the law? Here's a case where most of the people in a society see no problem with something, the society is not negatively affected because of this something, and yet you still would hesitate to say that you are not morally opposed to this something.

A: You're right; just because something survives or flourishes doesn't make it fair or just.

Q: Ah ha, fair and just! You're using the vocabulary of absolute morality. How do you have any idea what is fair or what is just? Aren't you arguing that fairness and justice evolve along with the societies in which they develop? You have no justification to say that something isn't fair or isn't just because you have no consistent standard to say what it is that makes something fair or just in the first place.

A: You're right, again. Racial minorities and women and religious minorities and those of differing sexual orientations than the majority have struggled to obtain rights and are still struggling to obtain rights today. How far have we come in discerning what is fair or just, and how far must we go?

Q: How far? Not only are you avoiding my questions now, but you're also just bringing more and more difficulties for your position in this discussion. You can't analyze the past and discern whether something that happened then was moral or immoral unless you have a consistent, absolute standard of morality.

A: Humanity has developed different moral ideas such as justice, empathy, fairness, and loyalty. As we learn more about the universe around us and the reality of our existence, our knowledge about ourselves and about our world increases. As our quantity and quality of information increases, so does our potential opportunity to reflect upon what is fair and just.

When we are able to observe species in nature that have same-sex relationships, we gain more evidence that neither homosexuality nor bisexuality is a choice, but rather something inherent in the nature of certain individuals. When women have more choices outside the framework of their traditional roles as mothers and caretakers, we gain more evidence that women are not inferior to men. When DNA confirms that all human beings originated from the same ancestry, we gain more evidence that there is nothing superior about any one race over any other race.

Humanity's ability to learn more information about our world gives us new ways and new perspectives on what fairness and justice mean. Our circle of empathy expands; our horizon of moral concern is broadened by the new ways in which our lives are interconnected and intertwined. It has become increasingly difficult for humans to sink into their tribal tendencies and neglect those found to be outside the immediate circle of acquaintances, for we human beings have found more and more that our fate is interdependent on the fates of our fellow creatures. There is no nation, no tribe, no race, and no language that can unify or dominate our world - there is no nation, no tribe, no race and no language that can stand alone and take care of itself alone.

Our evolving morality is largely a product of two trends: our inherent moral intuitions which have evolved for the cooperation of our societies, and the ways in which our existence has been changed by technological discoveries - these two elements have combined to shift our moral compass and provide us with new perspectives on the meanings of old notions like fairness and justice. The underlying concepts are the same - the basic cooperative qualities which compel a society's attention have not changed - but the ways in which we perceive each other as a collection of overlapping societies has indeed changed. Our broader moral outlook is a function of the manner in which our way of perceiving ourselves as human beings has changed.

Q: That certainly sounds impressive, at first. You've argued that certain moral concepts develop in an inherently natural fashion because they advantage the development of complex societies, and that an increasing level of understanding between human beings emerging through new technology has also continued to expand the arc of human moral concern. However, how do you get people to accept this morality? Why should I listen to you?

A: That's a great question - I think you are getting this after all!

Before you ask, no, I am not pulling your leg. Let me explain.

Organized religion is a political system which expedites the acceptance of commonly held moral conventions by the masses. Adherence to the dominant religion of a society is an acknowledgment that one accepts the shared moral code of his or her peers. Religion is a system of political values which distills the accepted mores of the day and disincentivizes free riding from those agreements -- put more simply, religion punishes, or threatens to punish, those who do not pull their fair share.

Of course, we have both agreed that the commonly shared values of individual societies shift greatly and vary widely over time and place. The development and evolution of the dozens of widely embraced branches of the three major monotheistic religions is a prime example of this variation between evolving political values.

Thus, your claim that religion is the safeguard of absolute morality is false, because organized religions are almost exclusively interdependent with the majority views of the societies in which they develop.

Therefore, the paradox of theistic morality is this: while most theistic apologists claim assertively and vigorously that their religion is the safeguard of absolute morality, one of the major reasons that religious apologists abhor non-adherence of their religion is because of their fear that the non-absolute moral agreements of society will collapse if enough individuals dissent from the non-absolute "absolute morality" which is the paradigm of the particular time and place inhabited by said religious apologists.

My Deconversion Story

This is the story of my deconversion from Christianity. I originally posted this account on the Forum of the blog "Unreasonable Faith". I hope you'll enjoy it.

I have been raised as a Christian, having attended services for most of my life at a small ELCA Lutheran congregation. I was baptized as a baby, and I was confirmed around the time I entered high school. I attended Sunday school, Bible studies, and church camps. I sang in the choir and I was an acolyte, usher, and greeter.

However, despite my active involvement in the church, I had not thought much about the basic essentials of my beliefs. I had read large portions of the Bible (I still haven't gotten myself to read it all - I've been meaning to do it), and I prayed often, but while I grew up, I was never confronted by any serious challenges to my perspective. I had friends who went to other churches, but I didn't really know anyone who was non-religious. I had this default assumption that there was a God, and that most of things I had been told in church were true.

I was never really one to question authority, and I enjoyed church greatly, and I had a lot of friends there at first. I wish I had a higher voice so I could sing "I Wander As I Wonder" in the proper key. That hymn is eerie, and that is why it was always one of my favorites.

Many things happened to me when I was in junior high and high school. Several rifts developed in my church, attendance lowered, and we had some pastoral changes. I also first learned that some of my friends were atheists or agnostics. It actually shocked me at first -- I grew in a fairly conservative community. Every time I drive on the highway, I spy a large billboard which declares "Trust In The LORD With All Your Heart". I thought to myself, 'atheist?! I don't believe that.'

But I didn't really know them that well, so I shrugged it off.

When I was a junior in high school, one of my closer friends let me know that he is an atheist when we were discussing religion. I started debating (casually) with him and his friends about religion during our study hall period. I was the Christian, and there were two others who were atheists.

Some of the questions he asked made me reflect for a bit, but I wasn't very phased. I didn't have a literal interpretation of the Bible, and I accepted evolution, so we actually agreed on a lot. I wasn't affected by a lot of the arguments he used in the areas that we agreed. However, looking back on the experience, I think if my friends had spent more time on how those points specifically apply to religion, I would've been more receptive. But I also realize that they didn't want to push me too hard, because we were friends, and they didn't want to ruin our friendship, which I also appreciate and understand.

He did ask me why God would create homosexuality and condemn it in the Bible? I didn't know - I was unsure. I didn't think he would. My friend referenced Leviticus, and I pretty much ignored it, I have to admit. I could've been more open-minded.

He also wanted to know if I didn't take the Bible literally, how did I *know* which parts were metaphorical and which were not? I gave an answer I had already heard, that the Holy Spirit guides the believer in the interpretation of the Bible. If I were my friend now, I would've emphasized the divisions in church history. I do remember that my friend emphasized the corruption of certain church leaders, but I always brushed these criticisms away by saying that God's church was for imperfect people, as everything human in this world was imperfect. Maybe I would've been more receptive if he had argued specifically that the existence of so many divisions on interpretation and meaning of scriptures, which accord with cultural practices, makes it supremely unlikely that the texts are divinely inspired. However, that is a complicated argument and hard to fit into a 25-minute study hall period, and I know that when atheists talk to Christians, the harder they argue, the more militant or harsh they seem. I know this can be the case, so I can again understand why my friend didn't press me harder, and I do appreciate his willingness to put our friendship ahead of mere ideological differences.

When I was a senior, my English teacher exposed me to existentialism - I started reading Camus and Sartre. However, I maintained that this was fully compatible with my Christianity, and in retrospective, I don't think that this was a contributing factor to my deconversion.

I also began reading a lot of Vonnegut when I was in high school. I read Player Piano, Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five, and Slapstick. Those are all excellent, and I also read Vonnegut's brief essay autobiography, the title of which I cannot recall. I <3 Billy Pilgrim! But I hated the ending of Cat's Cradle - I despised it. It was so irredeemably depressing and gloomy. Somehow, Slapstick was the most amusing and intriguing book of the four, though it seems to be the least popular and the least well-known. There are many excerpts about tribal and community ties which really hit home what it means to be part of a group of people with the same feelings and the same beliefs. I think that book did lay some of the groundwork for my later epiphanies.

Finally, last year I was a freshmen in college. The summer before I left, I had to arrange a schedule of coursework. I was trying to fill my schedule with general education requirement classes, and I wanted to take World Politics very badly. Instead, my counselor stuck me with Forms of the Sacred, a class on Eastern religion. This would prove to be quite fateful.

The second or third week of school, we also had an activities fair. I was out walking after lunch one day, and I strolled along the path in the main common area to visit the booths for all of the clubs on campus.

I spied a banner for a non-religious group. Intrigued, I stumbled over to the display, and asked the volunteer about the nature of the club. I was told that this was a new club for discussing religion, which would primarily be focused on atheists and agnostics. Since I had discussed religion with my friends in high school, I added my information to the mailing so I could stay in contact with the club.

So two or three weeks afterward, I am sitting in my religion class, nonchalantly scribbling notes. We're talking Hinduism, and my professor is going off on a tangent. My ears perked up. The tangents were what made that class - I loved my professor's sense of humor and offbeat commentary.

So anyway, he's talking about all of the different religions in the East, and how they relate, and he casually lets out that some scholars speculated that there might be a link between the proto-religions of the East and some of the western religions. Normally, that would just be an interesting tidbit, a typically inane musing which may fascinate those students who are paying attention.

But that careless slight, that unintended observation -- it struck me. I really had an existential crisis. I felt a surge of doubt paralyze me at that very moment; thoughts of "what if this (my beliefs that I had grown up with) isn't true??!!"

"What if this isn't true?!"

Doubt. I was struck by doubt. Nagging, overwhelming, unceasing, terrifying doubt.

I suddenly realized that I had no idea why I believed what I did.

That was the beginning - that was the day I quit believing in "faith".

And of course, one of the first ever meetings of the atheists and agnostics organization was scheduled later that very week. So I went, not knowing what would happen. All I knew was uncertainty.

So I went. The chairs were arranged in a circular fashion. One of the first things that occurred, since everyone was just getting to know each other, was that each individual in the circle was supposed to say a little bit about themselves: what year they were in, where they were from, something cool about themselves, and if they were an atheist or agnostic, when they became one.

I was one of the last people to be reached, so I got to hear almost everyone else's accounts first.

I was quite nervous at that moment, I must admit. I really didn't know what to say -- I hadn't really reached out to anyone by that point. When I first told my Catholic roommate that I was going to go to the meeting, he looked at me with suspicion because I had already told him that summer that I was a Christian. I told him that I was a Christian, but that I was going anyway because I was interested in the group.

It was sort of a fib. I wasn't sure anymore if I was a Christian or not, because of the doubt that I was experiencing at that time.

Finally, it was my turn to speak. I related my year, where I was from, my hobbies, and my name. Then I stammered something like this:

"Well, I'm not really sure what I believe right now. I was raised as a Christian, but since I've gone to college..."

My brain fizzled. What was I going to say?

"I think my faith has..."

I couldn't say anymore, but I took my hand and made a downwards motion.

In the days before the meeting, I had begun to do some additional research about religion, and I continued this after I returned from the meeting.

Every time I examined my old beliefs, they made less and less sense to me.

The Bible seemed incomprehensible to me. I started asking a lot more questions about it that I couldn't answer. The evidence for a historical Jesus who did the things the Bible claimed was less than I would have liked to believe (I had never actually thought about whether he actually had existed and did the things the Gospels said he did.) It seemed there was too much cruelty and suffering in the world. Evolution and naturalism seemed to be performing spectacularly. Christianity was failing miserably. Everywhere I turned, it appeared that the answer could be better explained if there were no all-good, all-loving, interventionary god.

Finally, there was one particular area that seemed to be the nail in the coffin for my prior religious beliefs.

All the other religions in the world. I had heard Krishna call for grace - I had heard Buddha call for compassion in the wake of suffering - I had heard creation stories which sounded more plausible than the ones I heard growing up. "There was a time when there was neither nothing, nor something". That's a real creation story.

Frankly, Christianity became just another religion, just another faith, and just another mythology. People who believed in other religions seemed to be just as moral as Christians. People who were Christian based their moral ideas on the same principles that non-Christian people used.

And almost all of the so-called religious experiences claimed were more similar than they were different, no matter what the religion.

I remember reading of Near Death Experiences where Native Americans saw a vision of a great chief, where some Hindus saw a great bureaucracy in the sky, and Christians saw heaven and hell.

And even if that weren't enough, I began reading about neuroscience. I became convinced that there is no such entity as the soul. If I needed yet another nail in the coffin, that was definitely it.

The experiments demonstrate that when the brain is harmed, all of the things which have traditionally been identified with the soul are damaged.

What is the soul? Isn't the soul the essence of who you are? And what is the essence of who you are? When the brain is damaged, the essence of who you are changes irrevocably. So when the brain is damaged, is your soul damaged, or is your soul the brain? But we know what happens to the brain when you die -- it rots. So much for the after-life? How can you have a soul to be judged without the brain? It's not plausible.

Lastly, I was already an agnostic atheist for many months before I read "The Evolution of God", but it really cemented many of the conclusions which I had already reached. The evidence which emerges from the sections about political influences on the Old Testament, why the Israelites came out of Canaan and not out of Egypt, and why Paul sold Christianity the way he did in the days of the early faith really make it difficult for me to revert to Christianity or any religion similar to it.

I am an agnostic atheist. I believe that most, if not all, of the gods ever worshiped by humanity are implausible. I do not know if there are ultimately any gods or higher powers. However, I live as if there are none.

Even if there are gods or higher powers in or outside of the universe, I believe that I am living more deeply in communion with them by not adopting a set of beliefs which I am 99% sure are false, and by trying my best to live a moral life based on empathy and respect.

I know that I have prattled on at great length, but I thank all of you for sharing in my journey and my experiences. Thank you.

A Memorandum to God (Part One)

MEMORANDUM

DATE: ∞

TO: God

FROM: Teleprompter

SUBJECT: Doubt

I hope you are well, whoever or wherever you may be. My friends and family have urged me to contact you over some pressing issues I have encountered. I hope that I am not wasting your time. Here are some of my questions for you:

1. "Your followers call you the judge of the world. You are expected to love justice and fair play. You’re expected to loath all ill treatment of one person by another. A corrupt judge who has no interest in seeing right triumph over wrong is, by biblical standards, a monstrosity.

Moreover, a judge who is found to be living a double life–one condemning criminals and one condoning his own crimes–deserves no such respect, honor or admiration."

- paraphrased from statements made by Demian Farnworth, Christian apologist

So why do you allow so much injustice in your name? Why have you allowed your followers to mistreat women, gays and minorities? Why do you allow wholesale slaughter of tribes with differing theological views?

Why do you condemn those who murder in the Ten Commandments yet simultaneously order the genocide of thousands at Sihon (Deuteronomy 2:34), Bashan (Deuteronomy 3:3), Jericho (Joshua 6:21), Ai (Joshua 8:2), Libnah (Joshua 10:30), Lachish (Joshua 10:32), Eglon (Joshua 10:35), Hebron (Joshua 10:37), Debir (Joshua 10:39), the Negev (Joshua 10:40), and the northern royal cities (Joshua 11:14)? Why did you allow the destruction of the Anakites (Joshua 11:21-22)? Why did you order the total decimation of the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizites, Hivites, and Jebusites (Deuteronomy 7:1-2)?

Why did you harden the hearts of the kings of some of these cities so that you could wage war against them so that your followers “might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy” according to your commands (Joshua 11:21)?

(NOTE: this project is an ongoing series; I will devote each installment to a new question; once again, thanks for your participation!)

(SECOND NOTE: part of the opening section to this essay is a paraphrase of commentary written by Demian Farnworth on his blog Fallen and Flawed; you can read the essay in which his statements originally appeared here. The paraphrase was borrowed for rhetorical comparison.)

Evolution and the God Hypotheses

Is evolution compatible with religious beliefs?

Perhaps -- it likely depends on the selection of religious belief under consideration.

Is evolution compatible with the existence of an omni-benevolent and all-knowing god?

I believe that it is highly improbable that these two things can coincide, though I cannot eliminate the possibility.

However, there is an intriguing implication for the belief that evolution is guided by a divine hand:

Almost all of the species which have ever lived are now extinct. Does this mean that a hypothetical god has failed? Or is a non-supernatural explanation more plausible?

Would an omni-benevolent god use the mechanism of natural selection to develop the diversity of life? Perhaps there is some utility in this high failure rate, but then one must consider the immense suffering which is implicit in this arrangement.

Competition -- vicious cycles of living and dying brutally -- a state where most animals not able to thrive, but only able to do enough to survive, does not seem like a product of either an all-knowing or an all-loving god.

Let's examine each distinct god hypothesis and decide whether the claims about the nature of gods are consistent with the realities of our existence.

I consider all claims of an interventionary divine being to be a hypothesis: if a god is said to interfere in the natural world, then we cannot simply shrug off difficult questions and deflect criticism with the excuse that such a god is beyond space and time. How can a god which is said to interfere with natural processes be strictly beyond space and time? The claims are not consistent.

Can the existence of gods be proven or disproven? In all likelihood, this is an impossible task. However, I do have every confidence that we can establish the probability or improbability of religious claims.

I believe that the claims of modern religions are extremely improbable in the context of the evidence which we currently have, and therefore I cannot accept them.

Science and Religion: Which Works Better?

Let’s compare the scientific method to religion --

Scientific method: Observe. Deduce hypothesis. Make prediction. Perform experiment. Analyze results. Repeat for consistency.

Religious method: Observe. Deduce hypothesis. Do not make a prediction. Do not perform an experiment. Do not analyze results. Reject alternative explanations, even if they explain things in reality better than your hypothesis does. Or, revise hypothesis to accept alternative explanations. Then, either hold conflicting beliefs, or gradually define your hypothesis out of existence. Do not question. Repeat for consistency.

The Negativity of Atheism?

As I have repeatedly emphasized, I am an atheist.

I lack belief in the supernatural, in deities, in religion. I reject it.

Therefore, many people have accused me and other atheists of being overly negative. I'd like to analyze this sentiment.

On one hand, of course atheism is negative. That's the basic definition of atheism -- we don't believe in certain things. So sure, technically one would be correct to say that atheism is essentially negative.

However, I'd like to look at atheism another way.

Sometimes, not accepting a belief is ultimately positive. For example, I could say that Jainism is often positive because it doesn't condone violence. I also believe that my parents taught me a positive lesson by teaching me not to steal.

So what does atheism offer?

Atheism doesn't teach us that we are fundamentally bad people. Atheism doesn't teach us that believing something without evidence is virtuous. Atheism doesn't teach us that we are incapable of being rational moral agents - that we are incapable of behaving decently without the supernatural intervention of a deity. Atheism doesn't teach us that some humans will be condemned to eternal torture for offenses committed over a limited amount of time -- that morality by fiat is unacceptable except when condoned by divine scripture. Atheism doesn't teach us that some basic human instincts are reprehensible or should be avoided (humor, sexual urges, etc.). Atheism doesn't blame us for our own genetic predispositions and then condemn us for "sin" -- by saying that we have "free will" even though many critical elements of our lives have been pre-determined by genetics or circumstance.

Yes, atheism is negative. And I sincerely appreciate atheism for what it isn't.

Finally, I hope you all have a very Merry [Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, Humanlight, Eid, New Year]!

I Am An Atheist (Part Two)

As a college freshman, I was enrolled in a world religions course. We examined many of the eastern religions (such as Jainism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism) and discussed many of the fundamental qualities of faith, the sacred, and belief itself.

It was in this context that my strongest initial doubts about my faith and my religious beliefs arose. All of these religions shared many of the same fundamental tenets, yet all of them made claims of exclusivity.

I thought about my own religious beliefs in relation to the ones I had been learning about. Why was I a Christian?

Then I began to see how religions could have evolved from one another. This cast even more doubt onto my already beleagured faith. I considered how the human mind works in accordance with religion. I considered how societies interact with religion. If I had born in India, would I be a Christian? If I had been born in Turkey, would I be a Christian? If I had been born in China, would I be a Christian?

Then I looked at the claims specifically made by Christianity in this growing context of doubt.

I began to wonder, what evidence is there for any of the things happening in the Bible that it says happened? I began to do some research on the subject, and I found no compelling evidence that Jesus even existed...let alone that many of the Old Testament events themselves were historically accurate. Add to this the confusion and plagarism found in the Gospels, and the disputed authorship of Paul's letters. My Christianity just no longer made any sense to me.

But most of these things were still secondary. It was not my exposure to other religious beliefs that was the underlying challenge to my own faith (though it was a pivotal experience that led to my current views). My primary challenge was my nature.

Once I began to doubt my religion, I could examine why and how I felt the way I did, the reasons for why I acted the way I did, and the reasons why other people acted the way they did. I saw the universe as explainable by natural causes.

I told you earlier, that I spent a great deal of time thinking...especially thinking about human nature. My atheism is one of the results of the culmination of this thought process.

I saw how it could have been possible that humans could have invented religion, and why people would believe in it. My religion lost its lustre.

So one day I say to myself (after a few intense days of doubt): Maybe I am an atheist.

Should I call myself that? Would it be appropriate?

If I can live for one day while calling myself an atheist...one day, two days, three days....

Maybe I am an atheist.

I can no longer believe in Christianity. Also, I decided that I no longer believed in the supernatural, because that didn't make sense to me anymore, either, just like Christianity no longer made any sense. So I no longer believed in any religions.

I am an atheist. I am not going to use any other terms. As I see it, the only way to eliminate the negative connotation of the word is to change it by the force of our ideas. So for now, I am prepared to embrace its usage.

I am an atheist.

"Jacob wrestled the angel, and the angel was overcome." -- Bullet the Blue Sky, U2