Essential to the understanding of my position on religion is that it is not simply Christianity, or Islam, or any other religions for that matter that I am addressing: these arguments can often apply to any supernatural claim. This includes Astrology, Witchcraft, Dousing, and New Age medicine. Keep that in mind as I define "supernatural".
Any time a claim is made about the universe that is not supported by evidence (This doesn't mean that there is necessarily evidence against it, just that there is no evidence FOR it), that is superfluous to our knowledge and understanding of the universe, that takes advantage of vague terms such as "energy" being used in the wrong manner, or that violates a known law of physics without offering a modification to our understanding of that law, it can be called "supernatural".
The moment a person describes their own claim as supernatural, they have show it is false already. Where "super" means "beyond", and natural means "what occurs in the universe as a normal part of operation", anything which can be said to happen, such as a person's consciousness living on after their bodily death as a ghost, is not beyond the natural, it is natural. If it is possible for a dying person to exert will and prevent their "soul" from leaving the "world of the living", then it must be a natural part of the world order. Babies are born, humans digest food, rocks fall when thrown into the air, and dead people's souls can be ghosts. Just another day at the office.
At the core of most supernatural claims is some superfluous something. The soul is an example: we see that humans operate, wesee that people are regularly born and function in very similar ways to each other, and we understand that conscious thought is the result of extremely complex interactions between nerve cells in our brains. When you say that there is also this magic copy of our memories and thoughts and personalities that resides inside ourselves and serves only as a back-up of ourselves for when we die that will be able to allow us to live forever, you haven't done anything to explain the world. (I won't go into more detail about souls here, that's a subject for a different post)
Another superfluous claim is that of a deistic god. Instead of starting at what we know (the universe exists) and working backwards to how it got here by learning more, there are those that assume that because we don't have an explanation for the existence of the universe that the first one that is offered must be correct. Occum's Razor quickly disposes of this.
For those that aren't familiar with this term, I'll fill you in. Occum's Razor is a principle of science and philosophy that states "All things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the right one". In practice, this means stripping superfluous aspects of an explanation, because that which is superfluous has no explaining power. For example, when we are investigating a murder, and it is shown that the murder weapon was a .44 Caliber pistol, it would not help to also state that your uncle had a wart on his left big toe that planted the idea in there murderer's head to use the pistol. It is normal for a person to use a .44 Caliber pistol at hand to be chosen as a murder weapon, and as such it is normal for a murderer to think of such a weapon. It does not help to state that the idea came from the magic wart on your uncle's left big toe, and going out of their way to arrest this wart would be a serious misallocation of government funds. Is it possible that the wart is magic? Sure, I'd say so. But until we find some reason to assume that this is the case, or that this explanation would help progress the investigation, it does not help, and must be discarded as explanation. Its just not practical to lend credence to every claim someone makes when they offer no evidence and the claim doesn't help to explain anything.
So what about if a person decides to spend their own hard-earned money on investigating the properties of telepathic murder-weapon-expert warts? If that is the case, they do have that right. But is it a good thing? Well obviously investigating something like that can be called a waste of money, but after all, it's their money, right? Well yes, and I would never suggest that this should be illegal. However, if I were to walk into a popular bookstore chain and see that the books on Magic Wart Weaponselectionology outnumber books on Criminal Psychology by a 3 to 1 ratio, I would become concerned.
But this is not just some hypothetical scenario. A visit to a Barnes and Noble revealed exactly this in regards to the ratio of Astrology books against Astronomy. This is because there are more people who actually believe that astrology is a science and who are willing to buy books on it than there are people willing to buy books on astronomy. The laws of supply and demand reveal the beliefs of the region, it seems.
I propose that this sort of thing has a majorly ill effect on people. We have, for thousands of years, been developing a reliable standard for determining what we should spend time investigating. We have come to the point quite recently where we first have to establish the testability of a claim before investigating. This is a way to make sure that we don't waste time on hundreds of thousands of possible untestable hypotheses.
Many people who believe in certain supernatural claims call this closed mindedness. But, it was our open-mindedness that led us to come to the point where we realized that we had to filter our hypotheses.
Carl Sagan described the issue the best: "It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas … If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you … On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones."
In short, it's good to be open minded, but not so open-minded that your brains fall out.
I'm not posting this essay merely for the sake of my readers (Read: both of you) but for the forum on Richard Dawkins.net However, you are obviously free to read it and comment on it, and as always I appreciate comments and will reply to as many of them as I can.
Why I Am an Atheist (or Why I Am Not a Theist)
The title of this paper is meant to bring to light a very big difference between theism and atheist. Atheism, at least based on its roots, does not mean “One who believes that god does not exist”. Instead, it means “one who does not believe any god exists”. It follows, then, that one does not need a reason to be an atheist, since as an atheist you are not actually carrying a belief, and instead one must explain why you are or are not a theist. In order to present to you a better understanding of the distinction between the two claims, and to help relate more of my views on the nature and definition of atheism, I will use an analogy. I shall call it the “god mittens” analogy to make it easier to reference.
The analogy is as follows. Imagine a boy. He is a normal boy, and, as one would expect, has two hands. On his hands, he may wear mittens. These mittens may be one of several colors. He may also decide not to wear any mittens.In my analogy, each color of mitten is a different religion. Red might be Islam, yellow is Christianity, and Judaism is blue, just to stick to the major monotheistic religions, of which I am most familiar, and the primary colors of pigment. Another boy is not wearing any gloves, however. Many opponents of atheism like to entertain the notion that atheism is a religion, when in fact it is merely the absence of a religion. In my analogy, the boy wearing no mittens is a placeholder for an atheist, who believes in no god. The fact that atheism is not a religion can be further demonstrated by citing a rather humorous idiom, whose author I do not know.
“Saying that atheism is a religion is like saying that bald is a hair color. Now excuse me while I return to my hobby of not collecting stamps.”
I will also cite the definition from the American Heritage Dictionary, which shows that religion is the belief in the supernatural or in some specific powers of creation.
Religion (n)
1.
•Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
•A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
Atheism, in and of itself, cannot be called a religion, simply for the fact that it does not imply or automatically associate itself with any supernatural beliefs, or any beliefs at all. While many atheists do have some belief regarding the origin or government of the universe, this is not a trait of atheism, but of individuals who are interested in such aspects of the universe. Furthermore, I insist that religion must involve faith, or belief in spite of evidence.
Faith is a more difficult issue, and is involved more in the actual reason why I am not a theist. The doctrine of faith is largely religious. It is religion’s glue, the thing that makes religious belief possible. The basic doctrine of faith, from what I understand, is as follows.
•Because one cannot disprove something, it must be considered equal to things that are true, because they cannot be disproven either.
•If something is not provable, but you still believe it, it is a virtue to believe it.
•Faith does not require evidence. If evidence arises to contradict one’s faith, you do not have to change your faith to fit the new evidence.
•Furthermore, it is generally best to attempt to alter facts to fit your faith.
•The spreading of faith to other people is even more virtuous than holding on to one’s own faith.
•If you have faith in something, you can ignore evidence as you see fit.
•On that note, one cannot disprove a faith claim, because one with faith holds onto it no matter what, so as to be a model faith-holder.
•If you attempt to disprove a faith claim, then either the holder is personally offended, or you are met with a refusal to listen.
•In short, faith is simply a combination of “I think this is true, and you can’t make me stop believing it. LALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” and “How dare you question my faith!”
This is just a general outline, and not every object on that list will be common to every holder of faith. However, these seem to be the main tenets of religious faith, and I will use that outline when I refer to faith. The main trait of faith that I wish to focus on is that of the lack of requirement of evidence. When the ideal scientist holds an idea, we can trace the idea back to its source: observation. Science continues with a bit of thought, the development of a hypothesis, the design of an experiment, and the carrying out of said experiment. Finally, the results are put in a journal to be reviewed and scrutinized by other scientists, and other evidence is examined to see if it fits the conclusion. In faith, however, evidence is not required. It is the belief without requirement of evidence, and as such we can't use evidence to try to invalidate it. Instead, we have to convince the holder of the faith claim to look at the source of the belief. When one believes in a religion, they do so for one of 5 major reasons.
1.Childhood Indoctrination.
2.Convinced Conversion.
3.Extraordinary Events
4.Emotional/Relationship Reasons
5.Personal Revelation
I'll start by detailing childhood indoctrination. This tends to be the most controversial object on this list, primarily because of how sinister its implications are.
1. Childhood Indoctrination
When a person is young, they have a mind "like a sponge". Anything you tell them will be assumed to be true, and for good reason. In fact, evolution predicts exactly that: when a child is young, there just isn't enough time for them to learn to stay away from wolves through trial and error. It is far more effective to tell a child that they will be eaten if they go too near a wolf and have the child believe exactly that. Religious belief is usually established in the same way. When you tell a child that a god, let’s use Yahweh as our example, exists, or even talk about Yahweh as if he exists, the child will feel that they "know" that he exists. One can make the argument that we do exactly this with Santa Claus, but there is a demonstrable difference: we don't offer a punishment for not believing in Santa. I'd imagine that telling a child to stay away from wolves without explaining that they would be eaten would be less effective at keeping the child away from wolves than if they had such a punishment. Likewise, I'd expect that if you were to tell a child that if they don't believe in Santa they will get no presents, they would be more likely to believe in Santa longer. I don't just mean that they would pretend to believe, either, because if you say that Santa always knows if little girls and boys believe he exists, the child will retain the belief out of a subconscious control over what they believe.
To further my point, I'd like for the reader to join me in a thought experiment. Imagine a person telling their child that if they don't believe in Santa Claus, they will burn in Hell at Christmas. Of course, I don't condone the practical implementation of such an experiment, that's why we're performing a thought experiment. I would expect the child in our thoughts to believe well into their teenage years, but stop around high school age, especially if they meet other children who don't believe in Santa Claus. These children don't burn in hell at Christmas, so why would I? For this reason, we must adjust the experiment. Now the child is told that after it dies, it will be given an abundance of presents in the Christmassy Afterlife as long as they believe in Santa Claus, but if they do not, then they will go to a hellish, coal-filled afterlife filled with pain and torment where they will be in unbearable, inescapable pain for all eternity. We also add that the others who don’t believe are agents of Ogd, a person that was once one of Santa’s elves and then went bad. (“Ogd” is an anagram of “God”, just as “Santa” is an anagram of “Satan”, for humorous value only.) I expect that our thought-child would believe for a very long time. However, there is still one small detail that must be remedied if we want the child to believe for his entire life: we must make sure that we're not the only one telling them all this. We have to isolate the child from exposure to opposing versions of Santa. We can also show him a book that supports our claims. In the end, the child will likely still believe in Santa up until their death.
I hope you see what parallel I am trying to draw. We do exactly this with religious faith. You may say that this is just an extreme example, that no one scares their child like that. But remember that you are still talking about god, even if you don't try to convince the child of it. If the child hears you talking about god in the same way you would talk to anyone else, or if they see you praying, they will put two and two together. Furthermore, if you never talk about hell, the child will likely still learn about it from school, church, or books and television.
The big problem with childhood indoctrination is that if the child goes to church every Sunday, reads their holy book, etc. they will have what they believe to be the "fact” of god drilled so deeply into their heads that they will be unable to believe anything else except in a few instances, when scientific explanations for their existence are at hand, or when they realize that the whole of their belief is the result of their upbringing, and has no bearing on what is actually true.
2. Convinced Conversion
This is a bit simpler to explain, and as such won’t be quite as long-winded as the explanation and critique of childhood indoctrination. Convinced Conversion is when a person is convinced through words or violence to convert to another belief. Instances of such conversion are awfully rare now, because most people can’t be forced to convert to another religion, even if they pretend to believe the new religion. There is one form that is oddly common today, though, and that is marriage arrangement. Some people are so made that when they marry a person of another religion, they will leave their own and join their spouse’s. This is probably the strangest reason for being a part of a religion, because it involves oneself either pretending or really becoming a part of another religion. When I hear stories like this, I can’t help but wonder about the thought process involved.
3. Extraordinary Events
This reason is far less common today than it would presumably have been a few hundred years ago. When the average person sees something that they can’t explain, they will usually accept the first explanation they come across. A person visiting Alaska in 1903 might have seen the northern lights, and if they had a religious slant, would likely assume it was a sign from their god. While we now know that the northern lights, an example of an aurora, are the result of charged particles interacting with the atmosphere, a person without this knowledge would readily embrace a supernatural explanation.
Sadly, even in our modern society, there are people who are too ready to jump the gun and accept a supernatural explanation for extraordinary occurrences. The only people who don’t are the rationalists, who prefer to wait for an explanation that fits snugly in with the evidence. And yet a select few are genuinely convinced that the occurrence (or perceived occurrence) of an incredible event is evidence, or even proof of the existence of their god.
4. Trauma
This reason for religious faith is often the one that garners the most emotional reaction. An emotionally scarring event occurs in a person’s life, and a religious person is there to comfort them, and the comforter encourages the traumatized individual to join in their religious faith. There is little I can say about this, because these individuals are usually the most ardent followers of their religion.
5. Personal Revelation
Once the territory of ancient prophets, personal revelation is a very interesting, but not wholly convincing, reason for religious faith. This is likely responsible for the biggest changes to religious doctrines in the world, especially the tenets of the Catholic Church. Personal Revelation can be summed up in the phrase “I know because it was revealed to me.” While this is rarely a reason for the initiation of faith, it can be a large source of strength in religious conviction.
My list is hardly complete, and is only meant to highlight the few reasons that are most common. There could be some that I missed, and if there are, I apologize for the omission.
Hopefully I have given some idea of how religious faith starts. Now, I will go over why this is important, and how it effects deconversion to atheism. When a person has a religion, since their belief cannot be challenged with evidence, the only way to convince them that their faith is wrong is by getting them to understand why they hold it to begin with. Many people do not know the reason, and those that do often see nothing wrong with it. This realization was very important in my deconversion.
My Deconversion
This is simply an anecdote showing how I became an atheist. It’s a bit long, and fairly in-depth, but is the main point of this paper.
I was born into a Christian family. It is not accurate to say that I was born a Christian, because at birth, I had no religion. I was an atheist at birth, and no baby is different. I know that I went to church every Sunday at least until I was 12. I have a few specific memories of my early life as a Christian. I remember discussing Noah’s Ark with my cousin, Kate, going to Sunday school where the teachers would tell parables with little wooden figures in glass sandboxes, and becoming old enough to take communion. I remember begging to put a quarter in the offering tray that was passed around the sanctuary, going to Vacation Bible School every summer, and even helping out with it one year. I have very specific memory of the Ash Wednesday services, when my family would go to church after school and get a cross drawn on our foreheads. It was very embarrassing to be seen like that, and I avoided people’s gaze afterwards whenever possible. Some Sundays, someone else would be baptized, and I would get jealous, especially when I knew the person. I always wanted to be baptized, and finally, when I was about 11 or 12, I took the class required for baptism. I did awful, because I never did the homework. (Yes, we had to do homework for the class!)
Life as a Christian was fairly comfortable. I was like most young Christians, I didn’t ask many questions, I didn’t always want to go to church, and I subscribed to the notion that an atheist was a person who “hated god”.
When I was about 11 was when I first began to explore the internet. However, it was in 2004 at age 12 that I first posted on a message board. It was the CountingDown.com message board for the Dragon Ball Z film, and I was quick on catching on to the level of discourse involved in discussions about movies with like-aged individuals. Eventually, I discovered a computer program called Game Maker, and that led me to the Game maker Community, a large forum devoted to the program. I spent much of my time in the summer on that board, but grew tired of the lack of variety in discussion. In 2005 I joined the stickpage.com forum, and that was just about the most life-changing event in my entire life. Here was a small animation forum where one could actually know most of the members well. Better than that, however, was the fact that most of its user base was just there for the community, and didn’t animate at all. This became my home that fall. Eventually, I was led to the Debate section. I knew what debate was, or so I thought. It was when two smart guys in suits stood at podiums and argued kindly. Well, debating on stickpage was much different than that. We had lots of members active in a debate at a time, often insulted each other, and caused a lot of internet drama. The first topic I posted was called “For those who have read A Brief History of Time…”, and it detailed a postulate I had presented to a friend involving the travel to another universe where one could control everything, and essentially BE god. It was a really silly proposition, but I took it seriously, and it became the main source of my faith in God for a long time.
My first religion thread was “My Views on the Bible and Christianity, a topic posted by a member named Jevon, who has long since left. Jevon was an atheist, and so were many other members, so I was astonished at some of the things people said. At this point, I began to fervently defend my religion. I worked long and hard, developing quite a reputation as one of the most essential defenders of the bible on the site.
Time flew by, and my knowledge grew. I finally read the bible cover-to-cover in June and July of 2006. As my knowledge of the bible grew, so did my understanding of science. It was inevitable that I would notice the contradiction, but I was able to write it off under the intelligent design explanation.
In all this time, however, I still doubted occasionally. I entertained the notion that god may not exist here and there, but never very seriously; it was mainly just a form of curiosity.
In the later summer of 2006, I caught myself using an argument that I knew was horribly fallacious against another member in a debate, and although I came out on top, I still didn’t feel victorious. I ignored it, however, and quickly resumed my vigorous arguments.
In 2007, on the 11th of January, the members of the stickpage forums performed a “raid” of a hardcore Christian forum called “Dare2Share”, which is now gone. Many of us made accounts on the site and spammed it with shock images, blasphemous posts, and generally bad stuff as a kind of game. One member of Dare2Share posted a message warning other users of the “invasion of evil atheists” and I responded saying that I was actually a Christian, but I hated blindly-held faith. The user asked me how I was any different, and I realized then that I wasn’t. I held onto my belief as blindly as any other theist might. “Because of an event that affirmed my faith”, I lied.
A week later, I was sitting in my art class and another person in my class named Blaise Salazar (I am reminded of Blaise Pascal) was talking to one of his friends. I overheard him say “Judith”. This rang a very big bell. I had been listening to a band called A Perfect Circle for well over a year, and one song, Judith, was heavily blasphemous. When I first heard the song, I really got into it, but was taken aback when the line “Fuck your God” came up. I had avoided the song from then on, but now Blaise mentions the song, and I ask him if it’s Judith by A Perfect Circle.
He says “Yeah, what, do you like APC?”
“Yeah, it’s one of my favorite bands.” I respond.
“Cool. Well our band’s going to be playing it at the battle of the bands.” He motions to his friend.
“So, are you going to censor it or anything, or what?”
“No, we’re going to just gonna go out and say ‘Fuck your God’ on stage.”
I chuckled and returned to my artwork. Well, it turns out they never did play at the Battle of the Bands, but this event got wheels turning in my head. Later that day, I went home and I listened to Judith again, and I was mortified.
I loved it. A lot. And that scared me. It was blasphemy! How could I actually enjoy a song like that? No matter how much I tried to hate it, I couldn’t help myself. I listened to it again. It was like a drug, I loved it, even though I knew I shouldn’t. But I did, and I kept listening. I finally stopped it, and I froze. What if I go to hell for this?
“But wait”, I thought to myself. “Why the heck would god get mad about that?”
Suddenly, something clicked in my head. All that I had learned in my Ancient World History class, all my debating on stickpage, all these little pieces clicked together.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I suddenly thought “Hey, maybe god doesn’t exist?” At first I was dumbfounded. What’s that got to do with this? Then it hit me.
I didn’t really believe in god. I don’t know how it happened, I don’t know what made it visible, but suddenly, right then, I realized that I was actually an atheist.
The world began to dissolve. I was going to hell! There’s no saving me now! I just thought the unthinkable, and now there’s no turning back!
“But wait”, said my internal dialogue. “You aren’t going to hell; you’re rotting in the ground like everyone else, right?”
“Well yeah,” I replied to myself. “But I don’t know that! What if I’m wrong?”
“Well, then you go to hell. But that doesn’t mean it’s right to think it, does it? After all, you can’t MAKE yourself believe.” (This, in case you don’t know, is Pascal’s Wager. If you don’t believe in god and you are wrong, then you go to hell. If you are right, then nothing happens. If you believe in god and are wrong, then nothing happens, and if you’re right, you go to heaven. The obvious choice is belief, right? But this ignores the fact that there are other gods to which this can apply, and the fact that you can’t MAKE yourself believe like that. It also pretends that religious faith will have no ill effects on your life.)
“Hey, that’s right! But wait, how do I not believe in God? What motivation for life do I have? What purpose do I have in life?” I was desperate.
“Who says you need a purpose?” I answered my own question.
“Why don’t you just kill yourself if you have no purpose?” The thought came through, even though I knew it seemed dangerous.
That was a novel idea. “Why DO I keep living? I asked myself. “If god doesn’t exist, then why keep on living?”
This stopped me for a moment. Then I realized that I wanted to finish my book, I Am Legend. And I had a crush on a girl, and if I killed myself, I’d never see the fruits of being with her. And I had friends that would hate it if I killed myself, also. I also wanted to see the Halo film sometime.
I realized that I didn’t need some purpose to keep living. Terrestrial reasons are good enough. Plus, suicide would be a big bother. Going through the process of killing me just wasn’t very convenient.
“So… You don’t believe in god now. You’re an atheist?” I was still testing the waters.
“Yes. I am an atheist. Now let’s go make an argument against religion. That’ll be funny.”
So I did just that.
Someone, I forget who, saw this post and asked me about it. “Hey, aren’t you a Christian?” they asked.
“Not anymore, now I’m an atheist. I realized my stance was bullshit.” I said. And from then on it was so, and I never looked back.
This story is not necessarily unique among atheists, but neither is it prevalent. Other atheists, such as Julia Sweeney, became atheists after a long search for God. Some become atheists after a major tragedy in their life, or witnessing an event or piece of evidence that suggests God doesn’t exist. Still others don’t become atheists, they merely stay atheists from birth onward.
My last statement might need some explaining. I am aware that this might be a controversial thing to say, but to understand the nature of atheism it is important to say. Earlier in this essay we looked at an analogy for religious faith that I called the “God Mittens” analogy. In it, religion is compared to mittens, while atheism is merely the lack of mittens. One obvious aspect of the analogy has to do with birth. A newborn baby has no mittens at birth, and as such is born “amitteny”, that is, without mittens. This logic applies to atheism as well. Babies are born without any belief in god, and therefore are atheists, where atheism is exactly that: “The lack of belief in a deity.” Many argue that a baby is too young to have developed any religious belief, and therefore it is inaccurate to say they are atheists, but does the fact that a baby is too young to have worn mittens make it inaccurate to say that it is mittenless? By this same token, any person who has never seen a mitten is still mittenless.
I choose the analogy of mittens because I know that religion keeps some people warm. Atheism alone doesn’t do anything to help a person survive the bitter iciness of the world.But along with atheism, we have something else: science. Atheism combined with science is like a fingerless glove in my mitten analogy. It may not keep you quite as warm as mittens do, but you are given far more freedom to move your fingers, to grasp oddly-shaped concepts that mittens restrict you from. Anyone who has tried to perform a complex task with mittens will agree that it is difficult, because you are forced to move your fingers in unison with little variation, and little allowance for individual movement. Religion is the same way: individual thought is usually discouraged. People are supposed to accept something as true and not question it, lest they change their mind.
Atheism is bittersweet. It may pain you to know that you will never see a dead relative or friend again. But is it not worse to go to a place of eternal worship and supposed bliss, knowing that others have gone to a place of eternal torment? Islam teaches people this. Many denominations of Christianity teach people this as well. Atheism teaches nothing of the sort, because you cannot directly associate any beliefs with atheism, except the lack of belief in a god.
The idea that there is no afterlife has a massive positive effect though. If you only focus on the life you have right now, the one that you know you really have, then it becomes all the more important.
Noted astronomer and popularize of science Carl Sagan once said
“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”
Indeed, I wish the same thing Carl does sometimes. That I will not have the chance to continue my pursuit of knowledge after I die is indeed a sad thought, but it gives me the strength to cherish my life while it lasts, and to be more relentless in my consumption of knowledge, that I might help others after me do the same more easily.
Life is a constant effort to give more to the next generation, to prolong their lives, to make thought easier, to provide more freedom.I will die thankful that I was able to attempt to aid the pursuit of such a goal, one that has no end, but may always be worked towards.
I will close this essay with an excerpt from Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, a book that has taken the place of devotional literature in my life since I became an atheist. It is a book that explains where our place in the universe is, and is a perfect example of beauty in scientific literature. In this excerpt, Carl is talking about an image known as the “pale blue dot picture”, a photograph of the Earth taken from 6 billion kilometers away, beyond the dwarf planet Pluto.
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe:, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
This Essay is dedicated to Carl Sagan, Douglas Adams, and George Carlin
I think you’re all up there, smiling down on us. Or not.
I just got back from a Richard Dawkins lecture, part of his Darwin 2009 tour.
This is probably going to be the most widely-known of the lectures, because when State Representative Ted Thomsen caught wind of Dawkins' lecture, he immediately tried to ban him from the state. No joke. http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=74468
Well, first I left class early with my friend Hayden, and we made the 45 minute drive from Oklahoma City to the OU Campus in Norman. We chilled at Starbucks for an hour or so, and I had a Chai Tea for the first time (It was great). When the parking lot was opened, we parked and sat outside the Field House, the location of the lecture. I had the opportunity to talk to R.J., the DJ of a radio station called Shocknet Radio, and Gene Rhoden, a storm chaser who is responsible for many recordings of severe weather. I had a great time talking to them. We got seats fairly early, and so I got a great view of Dawkins, and there was a fair turn-out, enough to fill the equivelent of an exceptionatly large high school gymnasium.
Dawkins opened the talk with a response to Thomsen's attempt to prevent the lecture, which stirred a nice reaction from the many athesits that turned up to see him. He gave some very warm compliments to the campus as well as to our state, despite the horrible welcome he recieved from our rather stupid State Representative. The highlight of his introduction was when he said "Obviously, this man does not represent the people of the fine state of Oklahoma", to great applause.
The entire lecture was incredible, but I sadly had to leave durning the Q&A session, though I might be lucky enough to catch a recording of the lecture somewhere on the net so I can see the whole thing.
In this series of posts, I will introduce the reasons why I feel that religion has more of a negative impact on the world than a positive one. Then, I will follow up with a few posts about why religion is not a good thing, in which I dismiss the supposed positive effects of religion on the world.
In this post, I will explore the first reason, the way a religious person might interpret a random event as a "message" or a "sign" from their god.
Imagine this scenario. A man is walking across a beach that only he knows about and he sees a pattern that looks like letters in the rocky cliff nearby. He squints, and he sees a vague resemblance of the pattern to the sentence "Kill All Gays". Sure, the K in Kill looks a bit like an R, and the G is kind of lopsided and could easily be a crude unicorn if you turn your head jsut right, but you can still easily see the words "Kill all Gays" in the stones. He'd walked by here several times before, and never saw this here before.
Now, if this man were an atheist, then there is almost no chance at all that he would think it was special. He would realize that it was just a random pattern in the rock, he might note the humor in it, but he certainly wouldn't interpret as a sign from any god. After all, he has no god to interpret it as a message from, right?
Lets change our man to a Christian. Lets say he's a man who just the night before prayed to his god, saying "God, please, help give me some direction in my life. I hate my job, and I want some sort of goal to work towards." Lets also say that this man, while only a "moderate" Christian, is also a bit homophobic. Not a whole lot, just enough to feel somewhat uncomfortable around gay people.
So, this man walks across the beach and sees this pattern in the rocky cliff nearby, and how does he react? Generally, he will react the exact same way as the atheist. But there is a small possibility that this Christian (Subsitute Muslim, Jew, etc.) will see it and say "Oh, well maybe that's a message from god, a response to my prayer last night?"
Out of all the people (Very few, for sure) who will actually think this way, even fewer will actually act on this, but our man is just one of those people, and he goes to work the next day carrying a 5.56 mm ArmaLite Fully Automatic Assault Weapon and goes from office to office, killing everyone he knows are gay (He works in fasion, so that's a lot of people)
Obviously, not every religious person will act this way. However, this post is not meant to point out that all religious people act in a particular way, but that religious people are the only people that can act this way. Those few people who do act this way would probably not have had the drive to do so were it not for their religious faith.
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."-Steven Weinberg
To be honest, religion is not the only thing through which a good person might do evil things. However, it is definately the easiest, quickest, and most effective way.
Another example compounding this effect is the interpretation of internal dialogue as a message from god. Normally, people talk to themselves inside their heads. This "internal dialogue" is integral to human reason: it is how we prepare our arguments in debate, how we advance our opinions beyond mere gut feelings.
In our new scenario, we have a man who is being constantly annoyed by the people in nearby cubicles at work, their boss is an asshole, and they hate their job.
One day, when thinking about all this, the man's internal dialogue says "Bring a gun to work and kill them."
The response of an evil person would be "Sounds like a good idea!" and he'd do it.
The response of a good person would be "Sounds like a horrid idea, no, I'm not going to do that!"
The response of a religious person would likely be either of those two, depending on if they were an evil or good person. But there is still the possibility of a person who the day before was praying for help at work from their god. This person might have the response "Okay, god" after which they go to work the next day carrying a 5.56 mm ArmaLite Fully Automatic Assault Weapon and go from office to office, killing everyone that annoyed them.
As I have said before, I know very well that most people would not do this. However, the only way a person can interpret this as a message from god is if they are religious. It is essentially impossible for a full-blown atheist to have this reaction.
Another way this problem occurs is in cases of "Exorcism". Some well-meaning priest is brought a young boy with a mental disorder, and they perform an exorcism. These rituals can cause bodily harm, and also leave the victim unhelped (Unless it is a case where the person beleives they are possessed, in which case botht he problem and the solution are placebo effects.)
"Anneliese Michel, a 23-year-old who had her first psychiatric episode at the age of 16... apparently suffered from depression, epileptic seizures, and various hallucinations. Her zealous Catholic family believed she was possessed by Satan and recruited two priests who performed the exorcism ritual 67 times on the mentally ill woman. At the time of her death Anneliese weighed about 69 pounds (31kg). The priests and her parents received only suspended jail sentences, but the Church began requiring priests to obtain permits to perform exorcisms, and the permits are not easy to get. " -The Skeptics Dictionary
Could this have happened in any other case but for religion?
"Oh, that's uncommon, though" you may say.
It's not as uncommon as you think. "
Pentecostal ministers in San Francisco pummeled a woman to death in 1995, as they tried to drive out her demons.
In 1997, a Korean Christian woman was stomped to death in Glendale, Calif., and in the Bronx section of New York City, a 5-year-old girl died after being forced to swallow a mixture containing ammonia and vinegar and having her mouth taped shut.
In 1998, a 17-year-old girl in Sayville, N.Y., was suffocated by her mother with a plastic bag, in an effort to destroy a demon inside her.
In 2001, a 37-year old woman, Joanna Lee, was strangled to death in an exorcism by a Korean church minister working in New Zealand. The minister, Luke Lee, was found guilty of manslaughter."
-The Skeptics Dictionary
I could find more examples, but I don't feel like taking the time unless I am asked to. The point is, there are many evils done by well-intentioned people that can only be done in the name of religion.
And today's picture of the day, related to today's post, actually, is this:
Religion is a set of faith-based beliefs dealing with the creation and/or government of the universe.
Atheism is the absence of any such belief.
Ergo, atheism cannot be a religion, nor is it accurate to cite it as such. So stop calling it one! Critics of atheism love to point out similarities between atheists and theists, throwing around phrases like “You believe that there is no god, and that requires faith” or “Sounds to me like a religion.” The problem with such claims is that they are either examples of ignorance of what atheism actually is or they are confusions between traits that people have and traits that religion has.
When discussing atheism, note that atheism is not “the belief that god does not exist”, it is “the absence of a belief that god exists”, and this means that there are no implied beliefs. An atheist does not have to accept evolution, nor are they required to reject the existence of ghosts. The only trait that is common in all atheists, and the only one you should infer about them, is that they don’t believe that any god or gods exist. Any other traits are traits of the individual, and have nothing to do with their atheism.
Furthermore, an atheist does necessarily reject the possibility of a god; they simply don’t see a reason to believe that there must be one. There is no evidence that suggests a god exists, nor are there any observations that show that a god’s existence is required for the universe to exist, so why make the claim?
To examine this distinction more closely, I’ll present you with a similar faith claim.
When people die, their soul goes to a great celestial library in the clouds of Jupiter. Everyone there is put in a section based on their reading level.
If you read a lot and you had a high reading level, then you would be graced with books better than any book written by man, better than Orwell, Palahniuk, or Twain, and have the option to read any other book in the library, which holds every book ever written.
If you had a middle-school reading level, then you’d get to read only the best of the Earth, so you’d have I Am Legend, Ender’s Game, and Of Mice and Men, among others.
If you rarely read, and had trouble reading words like “Establishment Clause”, then you’d be sent to the kid’s section, where you’d only have Clifford Goes to School and Curious George. Entertaining, but not very satisfying.
Finally, if you were one of those people that never read except when they had to, then you’d be forced to read books like King and King and My Homosexual ABCs.
My rejection of the claim that there is a god who made the universe is no different from the reader not believing that they will go to a great library in outer space when they die: why should you believe it?
My next beef is with people who like to point out that Hitler and Stalin were atheists. Firstly, no one knows Hitler’s religious beliefs. He paid lip service to the Catholic Church, but he sometimes spoke ill about religion. We can’t rightly say that he was definitely an atheist, but if we make an assumption about his religion, we must assume he was a Catholic, both because it is what he was brought up in and because he said he was one. Secondly, assuming Hitler was indeed an atheist, pointing out that Hitler and Stalin were atheists accomplishes about as much as saying that they wore shoes: there is no way that being an atheist led to their actions, because atheism does not contain any implied dogma. There is no “atheist doctrine”. Atheists don’t have a set of Ten Commandments that say “Though Shall Commit genocide on the Sabbath” or “Though shall be unpleasant to all thou shall meet”, so there’s no connection that can be made.
This brings me to the next big problem I encounter: people assuming that atheists are in some way inherently immoral or cowardly or they all convert before death because they don’t have the courage of their convictions. This is largely due to the fact that a lot of religious people tell each other stories about how “there are no atheists in foxholes”, that Charles Darwin rejected Evolution on his deathbed, or about how they used to be atheists and they used to sin all the time and felt all empty inside.
Here’s some news to all of you folks. People don’t need the bible for morality. If you think that you do, then consider this: The bible says that you should stone to death people who work on the Sabbath. If you don’t do that, then you have proven that you do not base your morals on the bible, but on morals of society and the golden rule, or on your own personally held ideas. So the next time you find yourself assuming that atheists are immoral sinners who don’t care about anyone but themselves, remember that humans have an oft-forgotten emotion called empathy that drives people to be helpful to others, and this ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, from which we derive the golden rule (Do to others what you would have them do you) is very powerful.
Furthermore, the story of Charles Darwin saying that he was all wrong on his deathbed is a total myth. It originated in a story circulated by Lady Hope, a British evangelist who claimed to have been present during his illness. However, Darwin’s daughter-in-law, Florence, and his son Sir Francis, both rejected this story, saying that Hope was not present for his illness, or any illness of his for that matter.
Finally, if you really think that atheists are cowards that will convert at death, then present me with a tape recorder when I am dying and I will reject the Holy Spirit right there without a moment’s hesitation.
The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. – Psalm 14:1
This is a short telling of my deconversion from Christianity to atheism. It's incomplete, and definitely missing key points, but it's a start.
I can't remember the first time I ever questioned my faith in the God of the Judeo-Christian religions. I remember two specific instances, however, one time while I was sitting on the porcelain throne and another while I was walking to my church's Youth Groups of all places. Other than a few isolated incidences, I never really did much. I just considered that god might not exist, then I went back to "well of course he does, what about the feeling you get when hes in your presence?" and other standbys like that.
My life really changed when I discovered internet forums. My first forum was the Dragon Ball Z film page on Countingdown.com, back in January of 2005. I made the quick transition from "speakin' 1337" because I thought it was cool, to speaking in complete sentences with proper grammar and spelling. Soon enough I joined the game maker forums, for the excellent program Game Maker 6. I hung out there a lot for a while, but quickly got bored because the topic of discussion never varied much.
I had started watching animations on stickpage.com as early as 2003, and stopped visiting after a while, but then, in November of '05, I went back again, and I noticed that there was a forum on stickpage. Stickpage.com's forum, while technically an animation forum, was unique in that its members didn't animate and talk about animation and give little discussion towards anything else. Instead, most of the site's consistently active members don't animate at all, except for a few quickies here and there. Well, the forum had a Debate Section, and I "knew" what debating was: two guys in suits arguing about politics, but not insulting the other person.
Well, that was pretty different than debating on forums, I realized. There wasn't a 2 person limit. Anyone could join in. And since it was the internet, no one worried about insulting others or wearing suits. This was a pretty radical discovery, but it was beaten by a more ominous one: a thread called "Does God Exist."
Immediately I ripped into all the atheists and agnostics there, and developed a reputation as one of the best defenders of Christianity. While the discussions began low in scope and intelligence, like this one: http://www.stickpageportal.com/forums/s%20...%20hp?t=17459, they eventually became more sophisticated as we all got more intelligent. After a while, though, I began to question my own logic. I began using Adam's Puddle arguments (Adams Puddle is my name for the first quote on wikiquote by Douglas Adams and the logic it shows: (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams#Sourced) and other fallacies, like the "Atheists nightmare", the banana. I started to hate myself for using bad logic that I knew was bullshit, and then defending it.
Everything changed one day in January of 2007, when I was in art class. I listened to the band A Perfect Circle a lot, and I loved there music, but they had one song, Judith, which was blasphemous, and I avoided it it like the plague. Well I overheard a Junior named Blaise (At this point, I was a Freshmen in High School) saying the words "going to play Judith", and I perked up. I was always looking for someone who listened to the same bands I do, so I asked, "Judith by A Perfect Circle?" He said yes, he and his band would be playing it at the upcoming talent show. I asked him if he was going to censor it, and he said "No, we're just gonna go out and say '**** your God'" So I said okay and returned to my work.
That day, after school, I went to get on the computer, and memory of this event popped up in my head. I went to youtube and looked the song up, listened to it, and cried with guilt. I loved the song, I realized. I loved the beat, the passion, the guitar, the drums, the bass, and the subtleties. I started wondering "Why am I trying to hate the song so badly?" I answered myself "Because it says **** your god in it". "But why should that matter? It's just a song?"
Here's where the turn began. I asked "Why would god care about something so menial?"
Then I thought deeper. Maybe because there... isnogod! (Yes, I realize its a non-sequitor)
To borrow the analogy from Julia Sweeney, I decided to for once, just try on the atheist glasses, and if I didn't like what I say, I could rip them off.
So I did, and in horror at the sense and order and beauty I saw, I ripped them off in shock. Then I slowly put them back on.
That day, i got back into an active religion thread. I made an argument against Christianity, and someone asked "Wait, aren't you a Christian?"
"Not anymore" I responded. "I realized it was bullshit."
"That's too bad. We've now lost our best debater."
Today, Friday the 13th, of February 2009, I create the first entry on Of Atheists and Ashes, the blog that I will be using to document my life as an atheist, the memories of my life as a Christian, and the memory of the factors that led to my deconversion.
The name for my blog comes from my love for alliteration and of the fate that the doctrine of the Christian religion states we are destined for.
Well, here goes nothing, in the name of nothing! Picture of the day:
I am Ash, otherwise known as Nazzer and Nick Rogers, and I am an atheist. I was born in 1991 to Lori and Steven Rogers, and was a Christian from as soon as I was able to know that I believed in God to January 2007.
