Well, these are the results of our first ever poll conducted here at The Atheist Altar. The worst example of Christian logic appears to be, as selected by the readership, misunderstanding of evolutionary theory represented by the response, "but my uncle is not a monkey!" Yes, that was addressed at the Kent Hovind crowd.
If you look to the right, you can see our new poll: "What Is The Coolest Biblical Miracle?" Early bets for me are saying Samson ripping a lion in half, but I don't want to influence the results!
This is for all of you theists out there, more than likely Googling "how to convert an atheist" looking for good comebacks to your friends. Well, you've come to the right place! This is the handy-dandy how-to guide to changing us atheists' mind about the existence of God and, if you're coming from a Christian perspective, how to get us to believe in Jesus. So, this will be a three-part task if you are Christian:
1. You must make us believe in a, at least deistic, first-cause to the universe. 2. You must make us believe that Yahweh, the Jewish God of the Bible, is the first-cause. 3. You must convince us that following Jesus is rational and moral.
Okay, so let's take it apart. The first-cause? If you listen to "Doctor" Frank Turek, "the universe came FROM NOTHING." In other words, "what rocks dream about." I think this may be a red herring, but nonetheless, we don't have the answers as to the beginning of the universe. I think most physicists use "nothing" as a term that we laymen can relate to as a substitute for explaining to us that the universe as we know it did not exist prior to the Big Bang. For instance, an interesting presentation done by Lawrence Krauss showed that so-called "nothingness" is responsible for roughly 70% of what makes up the universe (dark matter/dark energy). So you can use all of the stats you want, appeal to incredulity, and make a case for deism, but this is far from proving that a Deity exists. So, in order to at least make most atheists fall for #1, you would have to show us how the universe could not have come into being by natural forces. This is not yet known and it's no excuse to, in the meantime, follow the Bible or any other holy text as a junk answer in favor to no answer at all.
Now, Numero Dos. If you can get atheists to believe that the universe could not have come about by natural forces, the goal here is to show that Yahweh exists. This, obviously, is much tougher. In 1 Romans, Paul says that nature around us is good enough to believe God exists. Sorry, when I see a tree and the sky and the wind, my first thought is not, "wow, the ancient God of the Jews is responsible for all of this." It could be any God. So in order to differentiate from a deistic God or one of the man-conceived theistic gods, you need some stone-cold evidence. I think it would at least help for the Bible to be found to be an accurate historical document. Since the Exodus, which is a massive part of the Bible, is not believed to have ever happened by archeologists and historians, I think this is a major hole in the plot (Moses is even mentioned in the New Testament during the transfiguration). You would have to demonstrate how miracles can happen in modern-day life, why Yahweh would favor the Jews over any other civilization of the time, and provide historical evidence of the miracles Yahweh supposedly performed. It would also help to have verifiable evidence by way of statistical research if prayer helps certain worshipers of Yahweh and if he decides to save them more. Christians love praying, yet at the same time admit that "God doesn't play favorites" since it's been proven to be ineffective. I always thought it interesting that if the Jews ever won a war, it was because they had God's blessing. If they ever lost, God was angry with them. Also, a true modern-day miracle would help if an amputee prayed to Yahweh for a new limb and it miraculously grew back. This would not be proof per se, but it would be hard to deny that Yahweh may be responsible for this.
Number three can only be met if #1 and #2 are proven. If you can convince an atheist that the universe had a first cause and that Yahweh exists, your next goal would be to prove that, using extra-biblical reasoning, following Jesus would be a good idea. Besides the coercive factor of Hell, I think it would be wrong to blindly accept a rigid dogma void of any moral considerations. So, I think as a Christian you would have to demonstrate how cursed bloodlines are valid forms of responsibility-sharing, how vicarious redemption makes sense and why Christians should accept the torturing of an innocent man for their crimes, and why turning the other cheek, loving your enemies, selling all of your possessions, and other preachings are compatible with modern life and if they make practical sense.
I feel the need to clear a few things up about moral nihilism and some of the arguments against it. Then, I plan on kind of tying it together with a recent lecture by Sam Harris in one of his latest TED Talks.
Here's the main message of moral nihilism: There are no true or false moral statements. A moral statement pertains to what can be perceived as being good or perceived as being bad. The reason there are no true or false moral statements is because these statements are not truth-apt; in other words, they cannot be falsified. If I say, "One ought to beat up people", there is no objective standard to tell me not to do it besides evolutionary psychology which tells most of us that this is a bad thing to do. However, we can't derive an ought from an is; just because we evolved to frown upon beating up people in general does not mean it is objectively wrong for everybody because morality depends on the individual's capacity to comprehend moral ideas. We are not built with the same psychology. I would argue that since moral decisions are fought out in the brain (and this can be mapped out) that moral decisions, although common between most of us homo sapiens, are subjective.
So in other words, we get a nagging feeling in our brains that if you were to walk past a homeless guy getting beaten, you would pause, consider if stopping the assailant would be the right thing to do (TO YOU!), and then you decide on action or inaction. Most of us are inclined to act but that is because we evolved that way.
Now detractors of this idea might say something along the lines of, "but we evolved to do a lot of things; we evolved good forms of sight, hearing, etc. If a person is morally handicapped (like a psychopath or Adolf Hitler), then we shouldn't accept them as being just as right/wrong as we are." In other words, it would be akin to telling somebody with 20/20 vision that somebody who needs glasses but is without them have equivalent forms of sight. This isn't totally a false comparison, but it is fallacious because it presupposes that a quality such as sight has an objective value. And this is at the core of moral nihilism; most of what we consider to be ideal standards of morality are successful for survival purposes. Therefore, I wouldn't say it's an "illusion" like some moral nihilists do because morality is something that is very real to me. It's just that morality can be efficient in it's proper context, the context of survival.
Let's just say that, hypothetically, 10,000 years ago we had glasses. If somebody says regarding sight, "one ought to wear glasses in order to survive," I think that can be demonstrated using statistical analysis, probability, logic, etc. If you plainly state, "one who can't see ought to wear glasses," this obviously has no basis. Why should somebody who can't see wear glasses? It's assumed that sight (and, in turn, survival) has objective meaning for everybody. It's out of context. And if you say, "one ought to be nice," I can just throw back the question, "why?" There is no demonstrable evidence that one ought to be nice. Saying you evolved that way doesn't cut it (is/ought fallacy). Saying "we just know what is right and what is wrong" doesn't cut it (because not everybody agrees and when there are disagreements, proof and reasoning are useful--Something that can't be applied to morality). The bottom line is that being nice is only beneficial in certain contexts; it isn't overarching, accessible to everybody, and beneficial outside of its context. You aren't really describing anything by simply stating "one ought to be nice." You can just as easily say, "one ought to be mean" and it would have the same effect. Of course many wouldn't subscribe to the latter statement. Why? Because you evolved and have inherited "useful" moral genes. That's it.
Moral nihilism is often tagged with passive, shoulder-shrugging non-resistance in relation to moral decisions when it doesn't have to be that way. William Lane Craig (the damn short-sighted individual that he is) thinks that a life of moral nihilism is "unlivable." Fine. But that's not what I would espouse. The basis of moral nihilism is just a word game. We can't prove moral statements any more than we can prove statements of taste. If you happened to lack a gene that is sensitive to sugar, you probably won't like cake. Does that mean we need to tell you, "YOU ARE WRONG. CAKE IS GOOD FOR EVERYBODY. YOU'RE LYING TO YOURSELF IF YOU THINK CAKE IS BAD. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD BE ACCESSIBLE TO YOU, SO WE WILL ENCOURAGE YOU TO ABANDON YOUR WAYS OF NON-CAKE-EATING AND REALIZE THAT CAKE TASTES OBJECTIVELY GOOD SO THAT YOU DO NOT VIOLATE THE CAKE-EATING LAW"? Absolutely not. All of our interpretation about reality comes from our senses and some have deficient senses/brain functions suited for survival compared to others. I can say that I find cake appealing, but it would be false for me to say that one ought to value cake because it tastes good to most humans. I realize this isn't a complete analogy because morality is more of a manifestation of ideas rattling around in the brain and not one of our senses to explain the external world, but they are both relative and that's the point I'm making (not to mention morality deals with interactions between individuals and it becomes a battle of wills, but I don't have time to get into that). I can say, "I believe that I ought to do good to others" which in fact would be a true statement. All I'm saying there is that this is how I interpret reality and feel I should act.
Okay, so to wrap: Moral nihilism is more of a word game stating that common moral statements cannot be proven, falsified, or demonstrated objectively. Some moral nihilists (me) may not totally reject subjective morality. Many moral nihilists do not recommend shrugging your shoulders when it comes to an issue like pedophilia and that by consciously recognizing that an action such as that is not objectively wrong that you should not attempt to stop it if it disagrees with your morals.
Okay, now on to human well-being! I promise this will be short. If you want to watch a video of a TED presentation by Sam Harris, here it is:
Alright, so if you don't want to watch all of this, this is basically what Sam Harris saying: Appreciation of human well-being is a sign of a good moral conscience. Human well-being is what most of us strive for. Moral relativism is wrong because certain social factors cloud the ideal of human well-being. Science can answer these questions as to what can get us closer to human well-being.
I hope I wrapped him up well enough! I have one minor problem with the presentation and that is only that human well-being is assumed to have objective value throughout the presentation and he drew a comparison between differing opinions to "food vs. poison." The food/poison analogy to what constitutes good moral actions versus bad moral actions I can't see as flying because, again, people have different priorities and there is no one objective priority for the human race. However, when I say that humans have a "common morality", I think this common morality can be polluted by misinformation. And lo and behold, what's a post on this site without referencing religion?
As Pat Condell says, some people in the Muslim world's only accomplishments are being "born with a Koran in one hand and a dick in the other." These people think they are improving the state of the world when, as shown in Sam's presentation, they throw battery acid on a Muslim females' face. Most of us in the West would find that ridiculous and if the goal is to increase human well-being, then it clearly is. But this distinction can only be made once we separate the idea of human well-being from the Koran. This is at the core of Sam's argument; if science can disprove the Koran, then the Muslim male will see no reason to pour battery acid on somebody's face. Doing God's will will become obsolete and since there's no reason to believe that God exists, the Muslim male will more than likely just go on living his life.
This can also be seen with regards to genital mutilation and bigotry towards homosexuals. When Steven Weinberg says that to make good people do evil things, "it takes religion", I think this is what is implied. Our judgments are clouded when superstition is involved. There's probably no way of finding out totally and proving the best manner in which to measure human well-being, but it's clear that religion denies people their well-being. When it takes James Randi 80 years to come out of the closet, the only reason for that is because of religion. The religious folks think that by discriminating against gay people, they are doing God's will and thus are in the right. Remove God from the picture and there is no reason to discriminate against gays and label their (consentual and, more than likely, natural) behavior as "sexual deviation." Because I don't believe in a God, I think the indoctrination of children that hell exits is abhorrent because it denies them an opportunity to think for themselves. But if you are a parent and truly believe that hell is a reality, would you not do everything in your power to save your child from hell? If science can answer the question of the existence of God, this will cease to be an issue.
And one last important thing, it needs to be stated that the moral relativism that Sam Harris rails against is different than moral nihilism. Again, nihilism is just questioning accepted objective standards and whether or not moral claims can be tested or proven to be true. We moral nihilists say that there is no objective way to produce a morality that works for everybody (hence, morality is common, but still overall subjective). A moral relativist says something similar in that cutting off a clitoris in the Muslim the world is the same thing as preserving it in the Western world and that morality is just an extension of the culture mixed with some predisposed biological implications. Fair enough, I'd agree so far that outside of a human mind to interpret the action, both of these actions are objectively as meaningful as eachother and also that conditioning plays an enormous part in developing morals. But I think what the moral relativist misses is that since humans strive for their self-interest (and commonly the well-being of others is part of that), certain misconceptions about what will lead to their self-interest can arise. I think it would be more fair to say that individuals act in what they perceive to be their self-interest. The bottom line is that with more information about how to achieve that, science allows for us to reach common ground when knowledge about the universe expands. If there's no God, we don't have to do animal sacrifice. Since letting the animals survive feels like the right thing to do, we don't have to face the moral question of "should we sacrifice animals?" because sacrificing has been rendered useless. Using this idea, we can eliminate the need for discrimination towards polygamists, drug users, homosexuals, etc. and eliminate the need for brainwashing children into believing there is a hell if doing so would be proven to be scientifically pointless.
Consider the following: there are two people in all of existence. These two are engaged in an extremely rudimentary discussion of mathematics. The more uneven of the two is eventually angered beyond reason and kills his rival. Does this mean then, that the killer's argument was, or is more valid? The obvious answer is no, the fact that he killed the other man has nothing to do with, and does not advance his theory. And yet, the question of which theory was superior is now irrelevant, since the murdered man's theory died with him. Surely if the killer had postulated the belief that 2+2=5, and the victim had advocated the belief that 2+2=4, it can easily be assumed that the postulate of the killer would still be wrong despite it's now dominant status. But there is now no one to refute his idea, and he remains convinced of it's validity, so for him, the singular entity of existence, 2+2=5. Does this make his assertion true?
Imagine now, that other people come into existence along with him, and he teaches them over everything else that 2+2 must always equal 5. This is the cornerstone of their society. They are taught that to believe anything else is not only wrong, it is extremely harmful and even evil. Every once in a while there is a person who disparages of such an idea and speaks against it, saying that it is holding everyone back from real knowledge, but these people are always killed and there is no record kept of their existence so each one thinks he is the first to challenge the idea. Their deaths do not make 2+2=5 more intrinsically valid, but they do superficially, since there is no one able to refute it, on pain of death. The rest of the people in existence are convinced that to believe something else is to warrant death, and so they reaffirm over and over their faith in the concept, and so everyone is convinced not only that they know the truth of the matter, but also that they know only a fool would ever consider that 2+2 somehow did not equal 5. Does this make the assertion true?
It seems that for humanity, there are two kinds of truths. Firstly there are the truths that are held by the majority, but are believed only because of fear and tradition. Secondly there are truths that can be demonstrated and are highly useful. Obviously the severely flawed mathematical assertion above would have an equally severe and crippling effect on any society that chose to hold it up as an unassailable truth because they were either unwilling to look for better alternatives or afraid to do so. Cowardly obedience or traditional deference to any concept leads only to degeneration, while courageously challenging such concepts leads to two beneficial outcomes, either the concept is proven, or it is proven to be wrong, and discarded.
I have a theory: Those that truly believe that there is a hell and don't evangelize are morally inferior to those that truly believe that there is a hell and do evangelize.
Obviously, if you subscribe to the notion of rational irrationality, this would have to make sense. The idea behind rational irrationality is that if one of your core beliefs are mistaken, then your "irrational" actions would be rational from that flawed premise in its context. For instance, if it was in your interest to obtain 72 virgins for sacrificing yourself for your faith, it would logically follow that it would be rational to obtain this goal via sacrificing yourself for your faith. I am not equating Christian evangelizing to something like 9/11, I'm only using this to illustrate the idea of rational irrationality.
So if you are really convinced that hell exists and you love your fellow man, then you should be on the street corner shaking people and beating them over the head with a Bible. That's kind of the idea behind spreading the gospel. You should make every effort possible to preach the not-so-good news in places like Pauapa New Guinea or other areas of the planet that haven't heard about Jesus. It would only make sense, right? If you don't take the time to do this, then you aren't loving your neighbor as yourself which is something that the Bible commands. To put it plainly, if you don't invest your every effort into spreading the Gospel, then you will probably go to hell. You wouldn't want that, would you? Probably an oversimplification, but at any rate, it's not "Christ-like."
I believe most Christians don't seriously believe in a place called hell. If they did and if they recognized it as a place of physical reality, I believe they would be morally obliged to go tell people about it and spend every waking moment of their life making sure the ones they loved did not spend their eternal fate in such a horrific place. Even if they subscribed to annihilationism, it would still be your responsibility to make converts. On the other hand, if you had a passive belief in Christianity to get you through the day and forget about dying someday, then I think you're not doing the job. This is a black-and-white proposition: Either you believe, or you don't. If you believe and don't spread the word, then I think you are an individual who does not care about human suffering and has no inclination of easing that potential pain. If you don't, then obviously there's no reason to go around preaching about it.
If you go to church on Sundays and invite friends to come join the fellowship, that's not enough, buster. You need to do everything (and I mean everything) in your human power to tell everybody about Jesus Christ. I think that would be the definition of loving your neighbor as yourself. This means 24/7 preaching, missionary trips to obscure parts of the world, etc. I think this would solve two things: First, we can export our Christian problem in America to other areas of the planet (he he, just joking) and secondly proposing this black-and-white scenario may convince folks to come to the realization that they can't bring themselves to seriously believe this drivel. To reiterate, either you believe or you don't; if you do, then I believe it is your moral duty to spread the gospel and if you don't, well, you obviously don't have to worry about spreading this poisonous belief system.
From a practical viewpoint, I'd really wish Christians would keep their viewpoints to themselves. As Christopher Hitchens said pretty harshly, anybody who believes in a system that has a meek and mild savior but if you don't like it you can burn forever is a "wicked and delusional idiot" whether they keep it to themselves or not. I'd agree with that assessment, but as I've stated before, not everybody who says they believe actually believe in their heart of hearts. Providing this dilemma will at least let them face the question rationally and allow them to be a little more introspective of their own priorities and beliefs.
In the mildest of terms, the relationship between Christianity and Judaism has been nothing if not rocky. It seems that only after a history of undeserved pogroms and unwarranted viciousness, Christians are at last willing to see the Jewish people as their siblings under one celestial, albeit abusive, father. But the term Judeo-Christian still has a very hollow ring, for one important reason, the glaring fact that the Jews do not, and never will accept Jesus as the messiah. There is a tendency, furnished over centuries of Christianity's dominance in Europe, to overlook Judaism as merely an incomplete version of the younger religion, but it's important to examine what Jewish scholars, both modern and ancient, had to say about Jesus. The three most important aspects of their thought on the matter are firstly, the kinds of false prophets anticipated in Scripture, secondly, the Jewish view of the Godhead itself, and thirdly, the Jewish expectations of what the messiah was to accomplish.
In Judaic theology there is an anticipation of two kinds of false prophet. The first is someone who claims to be a herald of the lord, but attempts to change the word of god as it is already known in Scripture. One need only take a glancing look at the New and Old Testaments to see that their thought is highly contradictory. For example Deuteronomy 19:21 states: And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, while Mathew 5:38 and 5:39 state: Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Clearly there is a contrast in thought here. Even someone with very little knowledge of the bible can easily think of many differences between the Old and New Testaments. While Jesus did say that he came to fulfill the Scriptures and not to change them, there is ample and apparent evidence that he did the opposite. The second type of false prophet is a man who sets himself up as an idol. Surely this is embodied in the person of Jesus, who claimed not only to be sent by the lord, but also claimed to actually be the lord, or a the very least an aspect of him or an emanation from him depending on the sect of Christianity. No matter what miracles were purported to have been performed by Jesus, Judaism does not accept a claim that one is a prophet if that person also attempts to change the Scripture or sets themselves up as an idol.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are colloquially known as the three great monotheistic religions. But Christianity differs from the other Abrahamic faiths in it's doctrine that God exists in three distinct persons. In Judaism however, God is completely transcendent of humanity, being compromised entirely of spirit and having no corporeal form. For the Jews, the idea that God was incarnated in the body of a man is deeply antithetical to the very nature of the divine. Indeed, the medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides wrote that the unity of God was a unity surpassing any other unity. In Jewish thought, God is beyond matter and energy, and can neither be born nor die.
Jesus claim that he came to fulfill the Scripture is rejected by Judaism, because he did not accomplish any of the tasks expected of the messiah. Such expectations originate in the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel, and they include a belief that the messiah will be a descendant King David through his father's line, a belief that the messiah will lead the Jews back into their homeland and will rebuild the temple. He will then reign as king and usher in an era of peace in which the nations of the earth will recognize and repent of the crimes done to Israel. Ezekiel holds that the messiah will redeem the Jews. Jesus died without fulfilling any of these prophecies, he never reigned as king, he did not even live at a time when the temple was destroyed or the Jews exiled. The Jews were not redeemed following his death, instead they were banished from their homeland and persecuted for not accepting what was an insanity to them, that God was man.
It should be noted that many rabbis have been quite generous in their view of Jesus, considering him worthy of praise for introducing Judaism to the Gentiles and for paving the way for the true messiah. However, his teachings are irreconcilable with Judaism, and in Christianity there is no talk of redemption for the Jews during the second coming, there is only conversion or destruction.
There is, at it's base, nothing wrong with the philosophical concept of Hedonism, although it's modern mention is usually pejorative. But there is a deeply troublesome disgust of this philosophical stance originating within Christianity, a belief system that seeks after that which it publicly decries. The common insult by Christianity is directed towards what it considers to be base in Hedonism, namely the attainment of pleasure. What is more, this insult is now often targeted at atheists as a whole, even though atheism requires a leaning to Hedonism no more than Hedonism requires atheism. This article will attempt to rectify the error of associating atheism automatically with hedonism, and to show that Christianity should not attempt a claim at superiority over hedonism, because the former is simply a system that regards itself as the wisest and most beneficial path to the attainment of the ideals of the latter.
Working from a premise found in the Book of Proverbs, many Christians make an annoying habit of assuming that all atheists revel in what would constitute abominations in the sight of the Christian god, which leads Christians to assume that atheists deny the existence of such a being merely out of spite for not being allowed to indulge in their "sinful" lifestyles. But as atheism is a better description of what a person does not consider themselves to be, it is a shaky accusation that assumes the ideals of atheists are in any way uniform. Suffice it to say that there are likely a great many atheists who do participate in activities that would be deemed perverse or ungodly by a Christian, but their penchant for such things is not a necessary outcome of their atheism. Speaking in generalities with regards to a specific philosophical outlook, with well-defined overall beliefs, would afford the speaker with ample opportunity to challenge said beliefs. But because atheism is essentially a non-entity in the sphere of belief, there are no adherents about whom any statements can be made, or to whom arguments can be directed. Conversely, a Humanist would be a viable target for criticism if one disagreed with the tenets of Humanism.
There is however, still the perfectly viable accusation against Hedonists, that their ultimate goal is pleasure. The nature of the complaint, and it's genesis in Christian circles is highly disconcerting though. It is fairly obvious and undeniable that Christianity is ultimately geared towards attaining a relationship with the divine, all Christians would express the desire to dwell with their god. That being said, it is obvious that at it's core, Christianity is a hedonistic institution, with the same goals as the philosophy it condemns so self-righteously. Both Hedonism and Christianity desire to acquire what is good, for Hedonists this is pleasure, for both themselves and the world as a whole, for Christians it is sharing the Firmament with their god. Of course such a scenario is, in Christian doctrine, the highest ideal of happiness for a human being, and the pinnacle of the pleasure such a human being can experience. The only seeming difference between the two ideas is that Hedonism concerns itself with reducing suffering and increasing the pleasure present in the real world, which Christianity preoccupies itself with securing otherworldly happiness. Ultimately the disagreement is how best to attain happiness or pleasure for oneself and for humanity (for the more compassionately-minded of each camp). Thus far, Christianity has failed spectacularly to build any sort of moral framework from which it could assault the ideals of Hedonism in any good conscience.
Atheism is no foundation for morality, merely a rejection of the old and feeble delusions that claim a monopoly on the subject.
Aside from the sharp, clearly visible denomination lines which have always polarized differing groups within Christianity, there is another, more subtle, but also very noteworthy divide amongst the faithful. This divide is not nearly as apparent, and is rarely cause for conflict within an otherwise homogeneous denominational sect. Despite the relatively unrecognized or seemingly trivial nature of this divisive element, it should be brought to the forefront of religious discourse because of it's impact on the perception of Christians by non-believers.
In every camp and circle of Christianity there are at the core, two very dissimilar kinds of subscription to the religion. There are those among the flock who are, to put it politely, severely deluded. Those who are unalterably convinced of the perfect nature of a religion they have incidentally been informed of, and raised in, since childhood. Alternatively, there are those who recognize the absurdity of their religion's dogma, but also view it as being either necessary or harmless. Plainly, there are delusional Christians, and there are people who willingly submit to the religion based upon a foundation of either fear or compassion. There is much to gain in the recognition of the great contrast in these Christian camps, namely the recognition that the proclamation of belief need not necessitate any actual faith, only a caring or loss-stricken heart.
Regarding the first Christians, one must be blunt if not entirely cruel in order to be kind. Into this category a great number of sheep must be herded, most pointedly among them the fundamentalists and creationists. In them there is only willing submission to slavery and outright denial of science. To any who would deny this here the only possible response is a hypothetical posing of query to the Christians themselves, regarding their response to both the Euthyphro dilemma, and their attitude towards the firmly proven scientific theory of Evolution. There can be no doubt they have happily resigned themselves to eternal slavery under a dictator in which they fervently believe. Any hint of doubt is sufficiently suffocated when they blandly utter an answer showcasing their own firm impotence and desire for omnipotence no matter the cost, saying that any act committed by their god must inherently be good merely because the action is undertaken by that god. There is also precious little room for doubting that they have set themselves against science when they adamantly and stubbornly refuse to acknowledge glaring evidence in favor of what is now regarded as the unifying theory of Biology, and increasingly attempt to stymie and thwart the teaching of such at theory in public schools. In their love for an imaginary theocratic kingdom built on sour and unimaginative phantasms, they have rightfully earned the ire and disrespect of those who would see the advancement of science and the betterment of humanity.
The second type of Christians are excessively superior to the first in terms of their (assumed) reasoning underlying their trust in the faith. Here there are men and women who, on bearing witness to the sufferings of an undeniably troubled world, cannot be reconciled to reality without the promise of a divine protector and care-taker of humanity. And here there are those who have been subject to true loss, victims of what is sadly common tragedy, who cannot endure the thought that the existence of a loved one has been irrevocably ended. These second-type Christians are unlikely to proselytize, unless it were to a fellow wounded heart, because they are far more full of doubt than their brethren. It is highly doubtful that they believe in the inerrency of scripture, or even truly put their faith in the tenets of their religion. It remains to them a consolation for the pains of life, and a framework into which they place their less strictly defined conceptions of divinity. These Christians are (usually) a source of good-will and must be regarded separately from their deranged fellows. If any advice were to be given to them, and it would admittedly be almost unforgivably pretentious and arrogant to give, it would be to recognize the love they have for the world and it's people as an end in itself, which requires neither inspiration nor validation from an either false or callous deity.
There is always human compassion amid the firestorm of religious fundamentalism, but cooler heads rarely prevail among fiery zealots, and common human decency is often tragically blotted out in favor of allegiance to dogmatic belief. Still, there will remain the hope that zealots can be halted, and that the noblest among the Christian herd might discover strength enough within themselves to aid and love their neighbor, family, and self, purely because they want to.
Glenn Beck is a lot of things. A rabble rouser. Outspoken. Eccentric. A faux libertarian (as a libertarian, this is my little jab). He's also somebody who appears to have strange cognitive qualities. When I say this, he appears to say things that are odd, reach odd conclusions based on what other people say, and so on. In other words, putting two and two together is not his greatest quality despite the charts, acronyms, and blackboards. He's also Mormon.
Which is why it's ironic that Glenn Beck published a book titled "Glenn Beck's Common Sense" in 2009 which was "inspired by Thomas Paine" and also included the original text of Paine's Common Sense (this is almost as bad as Ray Comfort issuing a foreword of On the Origin of Species to classrooms!). Of course, what this blog just irresistibly has to point out is Paine's opposition to organized religion. A faith in a deistic God is lightyears different compared to one who is invested in you personally and cares about your private habits. This is the type of God that Paine most likely believed in. Glenn Beck forgoes all critical thought and accepts the teaching of the Mormon Church, something Paine would have exposed as a racket if he were alive at the time.
Paine was also a rabble rouser, outspoken, and eccentric, but would Beck approve of Paine's deism? What is important to note about the pamphlet Common Sense (the original one) is that Paine was, above all, a propagandist. I don't say this negatively; propaganda can be good or bad depending on which point of view you take. In order to change the minds of the the colonists, Paine appealed to religious doctrine in the Bible regarding the origins of monarchy because he knew it would be an easy sell. Far be it from Paine to accept Christian theology; he was only making a point people could relate to. It makes me wonder if Beck has ever bothered to pick up The Age of Reason? Would Beck approve of these quotes?:
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true.
Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.
It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes.
My mind is my own church.
Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
Beck and Paine would probably reach a sensible consensus on political matters, but this is kind of a big issue. It's not even that I'm questioning, but in order to be a modern-day Thomas Paine, Beck would have to lose this theistic aspect of his worldview. For a guy that yucks it up with Pat Robertson and James Dobson, I'm sure Paine would be disgusted by the hijacking of his efforts to free humanity from tyranny, both from this world and the supposed next. This would be like somebody saying Ayn Rand was a 20th century Pierre-Joseph Proudhon because she didn't like government. Beck is a modern-day Glenn Beck; nothing more and nothing less.
I almost wish that people like Jefferson and Paine were around today. With access to the technology and scientific discovery of our time, I'm almost certain they would be, at the least, agnostic. That's just my personal opinion. Speaking of Jefferson, Beck also used his quote "question with boldness". Now, that's a fairly noble thing to do in my opinion in all matters of life, but he does leave out the little bit about God:
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear
This is what upsets me the most about the Glenn Beck types. I agree with Beck on some things and disagree with him on plenty as well. But like I've said before, I'm not sure if it's just dishonesty, subconsciously cutting corners to make something fit your world view, or just plain ignorance of the details, but whatever it is, Beck is not giving us the full picture. While the Tea Partiers would have you believe that our country is founded on Christianity, the founders of our nation were secularists and deists for the most part. In those inner circles, Christianity was reviled. We need more knowledge out there about what our country stood for in its foundings rather than people such as Beck who would leave bits of pretty crucial information out of the picture.
I recently saw the documentary named "Collision" which followed noted anti-theist Christopher Hitchens who went on a tour of debates with pastor Douglas Wilson. Besides the shaky camera editing and somewhat disorganized manner in which the debates were spliced and presented, I'd recommend it. There were plenty interesting points on which to focus.
However, I'm only going to highlight two topics at hand. Christopher Hitchens is an excellent debater and that's true even with all of the theistic opponents kissing his ass (I'm talking to you, Turek). However, one question he's never sufficiently answered in any debate is the question about morality. Now, I don't think morality is in any way proof for a God and the whole basis of the Christian explanation for it is bogus. In fact, I've never understood why this comes up at all in Christian/atheist debates because it is a total non sequitur to the question at hand in most instances. They often say either that morality can't come from chemicals or that atheists borrow Christian morality. This isn't quite the case.
Morality could very well work within a biological framework due to memetics or it could be hard-wired in our biology. And on another note, I do not borrow morality from Christianity; I make my own conclusions. After disowning my Christian faith, I set out to decide for myself what I would believe in. If there are similarities to a few of the preachings of Christ, so be it. They are just that--Similarities, not plagiarized copies. I agree with a lot of what Jesus said throughout the New Testament and disagree with other things. Concerning what I, and most likely Hitchens, would be content with in the teachings of Jesus, the fact that Christ never stated, "this is what I believe" or "this is how I wish everybody else would act" is troubling because the majority of his teachings are commands and not opinions. Jesus said throughout the book that this is how every person shall act, or else there will be consequences. I believe that is immoral, therefore, my morality does not totally coincide with Christianity.
Moving along, William Lane Craig said once that in the God Delusion, Richard Dawkins argues against objective morality and then uses objective morality to denounce God. I haven't read the God Delusion, but from the sample used by Craig, this is totally false. I don't think Dawkins would advocate objective morality at all; he is using his subjective morality to appeal to other readers why he feels God is immoral. There is a giant difference. As for Craig, just ask how objective morality works for Islamic terrorists or sociopathic rapists. So this takes me to the point I'm trying to make: Even if atheists admit that morality is subjective or that they are moral nihilists (like I did in an earlier post), this argument would be a lot easier to refute. I believe this is what Hitchens is saying when he states that morality is innate, but far be it from me to put words in his mouth. However, he does not state this explicitly and he allowed Pastor Wilson to run with this idea throughout the debates and the film.
Going to the second point, it's obvious that Wilson is very well-read. He converses with Hitchens and has a pretty good understanding of literature and philosophy after referencing P. G. Wodehouse and Sigmund Freud accurately. That's what I believe separates him from other opponents' of Hitchens in these formal debates. This is why it strikes me so odd that Wilson can make such a colossal error in the base of his arguments. At the beginning of his film, he is describing to a class why he chooses to use the Bible as his main source for his worldview. He says that us rationalists, materialists, or whatever else have you say we choose the way of logic and reason and provide a form of reasoning to explain why we do so. So in a way, Wilson is saying it is similar to the circular reasoning that he chooses the Biblical worldview because it says so in the Bible. Using this idea, you'd think Wilson would become an outright nihilist because no world view is right or wrong, thus having no value at all. Why choose Christianity? He whittles worldviews down to mere preference and choosing them with no purpose in mind. And why would Wilson persist in a worldview that is equally faulty as the one which he criticizes? It's like somebody saying they realize they are hypocritical and continuing the hypocrisy. If you're above being hypocritical and acknowledge when you are, you should certainly stop.
We choose rationality because it seems to work. At every level, animals evolved to use "if I do A then B happens" thought processes at some level. This is because it works. At the core of every argument, there are things taken a priori and we use these every day in our existence to draw conclusions that "make sense." I think rationality is just an extension of that idea. We don't jump off of a cliff because it seems that gravity will not make an exception in our case. We take medication because it seems that it will defeat our disease. These are actions considered to be rational. We don't believe in the supernatural because we've never seen it happen and we have no reason to believe that it happens. This is also considered rational by us atheists. I can't really justify it any more than that, but Wilson just persists in deluding himself by using so-called objective Christian dogma after he admits all worldviews are built upon flimsy foundations.
A strange but popular idea in Christianity is the idea of a personal god. The belief that the cosmic deity ruling over the entire universe is intensely interested not only in the small planet in the small solar system in which we reside, but also in each individual on that small planet. However, when such beliefs are questioned due to their logical fallacies, a retreat is made behind the "explanation" that this same god is unknowable by human beings. This appalling use of Orwellian double-think allows them to simultaneously claim to intimately know the mind of the all-powerful creator, and also to attempt to shroud their god in such a mystery that the being itself and the religion that supposedly emanates from it are placed on a pedestal above reproach. The issues that are to be brought out in this article are the inherent paradox in this line of reasoning, and an admission that a being that is by nature unknowable and beyond the thoughts of men cannot be considered to have the interests of humanity in mind, as it's motivations cannot be understood.
If this god is understood in some ways and unknowable in others, perhaps an understanding of where Christians claim to stand in their understanding is useful. Generally there is a belief that this god is understood through his revealed works, namely the bible. However, this is limited mainly to an understanding of the deity's actions. The motivations of the deity are claimed to be understood, but under scrutiny it is made abundantly clear that the apologist must retreat behind the unknowable line of defense. For example, it is made clear in Genesis that God created Adam and Eve, and that the first humans fell from grace. Purportedly, God's motivation was for them to live happily and not to suffer, but this is nonsense from a logical standpoint, since God is both omnipotent and omniscient he not only knew they would fall when he created them, he is responsible for the event occurring at all. If he did not intend for it to happen, it would not have happened. The Christian explanation is that while it would appear that God allowed suffering and death to enter the world, both he and his actions are beyond the reasoning of humans. But if this is so, then how can they claim to know this being deeply and personally? It should be noted that as stated in an earlier article, these problems behind the Christian god's dubious motivations are only problems for eutheists, as a dystheist would not have qualms about that god's motives at all. But since the overwhelming majority of Christians are eutheists, the problem persists. It is hypocritical and dishonest to claim to know the mind of a being that one would, when under pressure, claim to be inherently unknowable.
Assuming that there is a creator god, a being of unfathomable power and influence that created everything in existence, it is a complete non-sequitor to then assume that this god personally loves each individual human being. Obviously it is possible since this being is immeasurably powerful, but equally possible is the chance that such a being cares very little for humanity, or even recognizes it's existence. Often the analogy is made, that trying to understand the mind of such a god is like an ant trying to understand what a man's motivations would be. This analogy, though degrading and simplistic, is useful for attempting to imagine in what way such a powerful and cosmic entity would regard humanity, analogous to a human being regarding an ant as hardly worth notice, useful only for momentary distraction, and ultimately a nuisance to be exterminated. When the idea of an unknowable god is put forth, one cannot then assume that anything about such a god can be known, especially it's motivations. If the argument is made that the Christian god is not such a being, because it is revealed through the bible, then the claim cannot be made that such a being is unknowable. Being knowable means being subject to scrutiny and reason.
