Arguing With Christians

Well, it seems I am locking horns more and more with the faithful.  What's interesting is that the moment they discover I am an atheist, the gloves come off.  I've rarely experienced a more judgmental group of people than the sharers of my former faith.  "You just weren't a true Christian,"enter the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.  It seems they have difficulty accepting that I could ever leave Christianity.  It makes me glad that Christianity carries no death penalty for apostasy à la islam.

Another interesting facet of these arguments is that Christians almost without exception assume that I am a big-time liberal democrat.  It's funny, because although I do agree with a few of the democrats' views on the social issues, I disagree with them vehemently on most issues, particularly those pertaining to the role of government--e.g. gun rights, welfare, affirmative action, and budgets.  Nevertheless, straw men are particularly easy to deconstruct, so keep on preaching, Christians!  On an almost daily basis, you reinforce why I am no longer Christian.  

And, There Was Nothing...

So, I've been reading about the origins of the universe, and although I do not totally comprehend all of the concepts, it seems that a universe springing from "nothing" is not as far-fetched as it seems.

Particle physics seemingly allows for both matter and energy to spontaneously emerge, provided conditions are right.  Although I believe the catalyst is unknown at this point, the Big Bang seems to have provided these ideal conditions.  The Big Bang resulted in the high temperatures necessary to create the numerous interactions between particles from which all matter can trace its origins.

I need to learn the math necessary to understand this completely, which means that I may alway be at least partially in the dark.

More to follow later, but this is where I am right now.

You Have No Control Over Whether Or Not You Read This Post...

Since I no longer believe in the "Divine Will of God," it stands to reason that I am curious about the nature of the universe, fate, origins, and even my own thoughts.  Because there is no soul upon which I can hang my own person, I began to ponder at the nature of my own consciousness.  While I was still Christian, I had been introduced to causal determinism by a friend of mine, but since I was Christian, I had no cause to explore what this meant.

"The laws of chemistry and physics do not change in the human brain," is how this friend of mine once explained determinism to me.  Although determinism has larger implications than mere human physiology, the fact that I may not be driving the bus of my own consciousness really antagonizes my ego, and so I have spent the last few weeks looking for a loophole I could exploit to say that I - my consciousness - am more than a collection of chemical reactions.

My uncle is a very successful surgeon in northern Alabama, in addition to being a very smart guy (of course, the latter is usually a prerequisite for the former), so I inquired about his thoughts on the matter.  He responded that he believes that conscious thought occurs at a subatomic level, and thus the Uncertainty Principle guarantees that we have free will.  Although I do not have the same level of scientific education as my uncle, I do not agree with his thesis, here's why:

If consciousness occurs at the chemical level, then the laws of chemistry and physics dictate those interactions (within the brain), thus consciousness is deterministic.

If consciousness occurs at the atomic level, then the laws of physics and chemistry dictate those interactions, thus consciousness is deterministic.

If consciousness occurs at the subatomic level, then the laws of physics dictate those interactions, thus consciousness is deterministic.

If consciousness occurs at the quantum level, then the laws of physics dictate those interactions, thus consciousness is deterministic.

Granted, we do not fully understand quantum physics yet, but that does not mean that the behavior of quarks is not dictated fully by laws that are every bit as inviolable as the laws of gravity.  Moreover, I highly doubt that consciousness occurs at this level; since lower forms of thought occur at the chemical level, it stands to reason that conscious thought lies within this realm as well.

Assuming for a second that I believe that consciousness occurs at the quantum level, I do not believe Heisenberg or the Observer Principle give us any leeway for free will, because I believe that every action in the universe is dictated by laws, regardless of whether or not we are able to count on the accuracy of our observations concerning those laws.  Of course, I am not a professional scientist and my scientific education is limited, so my opinions are merely those of a curious layman.

Determinism poses interesting problems for religious belief though.  Using the Christian model, interpreting the "will of God" to mean that God "saves" whom he will, and assuming a universe with immutable laws, one can therefore infer that God established beforehand whom he would "save."  Of course, this is consistent with Calvinist theology and demolishes Arminianism - in addition to pretty much all other religions which base treatment in the afterlife upon one's deeds in life.  For Calvinism though, it is much more problematic, since it exposes God as being unjust, unfair, cruel, and capricious; since one has no choice whatsoever how one behaves, it further compounds the issue of "accident of birth" --meaning one has no choice where one is born, because one now has no choice regarding the decisions one makes either.

Faith Is The Evidence of Things Unseen--In Other Words, Nothing

Since I've become an atheist, I find myself more frequently embroiled in arguments with the "faithful" concerning the nature of my <ahem> "beliefs;" as though something about the nature of religious belief requires that all others must espouse a system of belief too.

"I lack the faith to be an atheist."  I've already encountered this argument a number of times since I began arguing from an atheist perspective.  Being an atheist requires no faith, since one is not trying to assert anything beyond what is observable.  Faith is only required when trying to assert that some invisible, all-powerful being exists and created the universe, etc., etc..

During my Christian days, I argued that atheism was "no different than any other religion."  I then proceeded to construct an elaborate straw man, in which I argued that atheism was a religion, and science--evolution in particular--was its canon.  Of course, this argument never held up when I endeavored to argue with atheists, since--as I stated in previous blog posts--there are no unifying atheist beliefs.  Still, I persisted with trying to make atheism into some sort of religion, analogous to any of the other religious beliefs I prided my self in deconstructing.  Now that I find myself on the other side of the argument, it's amusing to see exactly how absurd my arguments actually were.

For the Christian (probably for many other belief systems as well), one's faith is how one identifies within the Christian community.  Public acceptance of certain tenets of belief often determines how others within the church perceive one another.  In other words, if you espouse beliefs that diverge from what is considered orthodox within a particular faith group, you are viewed as less Christian, whereas acceptance of the group's orthodoxy means you are a good Christian.  In short, the religious--Christians in particular--cannot imagine one being bereft of faith.

Christians, in order to make their arguments more effective, tend to deliberately conflate science and atheism.  Although atheists usually respect science a great deal more than do our religious counterparts, we usually refrain from replacing religion with science (I am sure there are a few kooks out there claiming science in lieu of belief).  Mankind does not need religion; it is, as Marx said, the "opiate of the masses."

Science is, as I like to say, a system of doubt.  Science is nothing more than the summation of human knowledge about the natural world, which has derived from both observation and the postulation that agrees with those observations.  Science is not merely agreement with scientists; for example, many scientists believe that the planet is warming and is thus on a collision course with destructively high temperatures, and that man is largely responsible for this phenomenon.  Unlike evolution, for which there are years of research and thousands of peer-reviewed papers to validate, catastrophic AGW is based on dubious premises and the subjective research of scientists trying to prove their beliefs instead of just following the evidence where it takes them.  If science were a religion, then by the reasoning of most Christians I should be a heretical atheist (is such a thing possible?); however, because I am not religious, I can accept that which makes sense to me, and ignore that which does not.  I can keep the baby and the bathwater, or I can throw either or both without fear of losing regard in the eyes of my ideological peers.  It takes no faith to believe in that which I can experience or read and understand for myself.  

Atheists Can Be Assholes Too...

In retrospect I probably would have left religious belief years sooner, had it not been for the attitudes of many atheist types--specifically the “evangelistic” atheist, the pretentious atheist, and the “God-hater” atheist.  Before I go into the characteristics of these types, let me first say that the only belief shared by atheists is a lack of belief in any deity.  Since religious people tend to group all atheists together, I feel that it is imperative that I first dispel the notion that there is some gestalt core of atheist thought; atheists are united only in their lack of belief in God or religion.

Of the different atheist types I describe above, I think the most annoying is the “God-hating” atheist.  For whatever reason, these tended to be white, male southerners.  (I suspect that among atheists in this group there is a higher rate of recidivism or, shall I say, the existence of recidivism at all.)  I call these the “God-hating atheists” because in my conversations with these gentlemen (admittedly, most of these conversations took place while I was still religious), invariably their lack of religion was couched in terms like “my father was religious and he was abusive, therefore religion causes fathers to be abusive.”  (Incidentally, this statement is a perfect example of denying the antecedent, because, while religion may have indeed been a contributing factor, one has to consider that there is probably another cause.)  My father too, was religious, and some of his abuses can be attributed his beliefs, but my father was also insecure and had come from an abusive home; I do believe that he would have been less inclined to follow suit had he not been religious, but since the other underlying causes are far more likely to have caused his behavior, it would be disingenuous for me to lay the blame solely at the feet of his religious beliefs.  I digress.  These anti-God atheists always bothered me because they were not even convinced of their arguments.  Despite them possessing the superior factual position, I was always able to soundly defeat these men in arguments--if only because they tended towards facile and intellectually dishonest positions (e.g. “Jesus never existed,” despite sufficient evidence to the contrary--his claim to deity is another thing), or positions they could not support (e.g., “The Bible is a lie,” which is true, but the onus is upon the speaker to prove).  They also rejected most of the other edifices of their childhoods, which cast shadows of doubt upon the sincerity of their atheist positions.  In short, they didn’t believe themselves, so it was difficult for me to take their positions seriously.  I think atheists of this stripe tend to come across as tepid and incredulous, and thus weaken the position of atheism in the eyes of those with whom they discourse.  

The pretentious atheist, like the God-hating atheist, wears his atheism as a badge of honor.  I’ve always been regarded as a pretty smart guy, and encounters with these atheists always frustrated me because I hated having my intelligence questioned because of my belief in the God of Christianity.  I believe it’s a slight variation on the “poisoning the well” logical fallacy, because there are many highly intelligent people who do espouse belief in some sort of religious system.  I do believe that high intelligence often leads people to atheism (simple: smarter people tend to ask questions, and religion’s answers lead to more questions that end at the corner of bromide and question-begging), but it’s laughable to assert that a lack of belief in God causes high intelligence, which seems to pervade the thought processes of these individuals.  A.Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear weapon program, is a devout muslim, so only an utter fool would question this man’s intelligence.  Furthermore, although many of the smartest people I have ever met have been atheists, I’ve also known some stupid atheists--I mean really stupid.  

The third atheist type, the evangelical, is my least favorite (author’s note: while I realize that the term “evangelical” is a Christian one, I am claiming poetic license).  This atheist is the most ardently anti-religion of any of the types mentioned in this blog post, although he chooses to employ similar methodologies as the religionists he decries.  I think that the absence of a Christian-style (or any, for that matter) deity becomes self-evident to the intellectually curious, if given enough contemplation.  I do not think there is any shared characteristic which causes once-believers to cast off the shackles of religion, so these “There Is No Reason For The Season,” and similar campaigns by atheists seem more designed to raise the hackles of the religious than designed for outreach.  Also, the anti-religious campaigns such as those endeavored by Ms. Ahlquist of Connecticut seem more designed to garner local notoriety and Barnum’s “15 minutes” than to combat any over-proliferation of religious expression in the public square.  Stridency such as that I’ve described smacks, in my opinion, of a lack of confidence in one’s position; it certainly does nothing to promote the cause of leading people away from whatever myths they might subscribe to.  Such cocksureness on the part of the evangelical atheists always irritated me, and thus kept me from introspection regarding my beliefs. 

Granted, I am new to atheism (though I’ve self-described as an agnostic for much of the last year and a half), but I think we should stay away from being directly confrontational, at least not on the same scale as the religious.  I’d like to present my own view of being non-religious as it was presented to me, not by being as raucous and outspoken as the religious (particularly Christians) whom we love to decry.  Individuals must be confronted on a one-on-one basis, and they must be shown why each of their beliefs is non-factual or illogical.  I think we gain no new...ahem...”converts” by smashing their beliefs in the public square.  Christians in particular gain “brownie” points for adhering to their beliefs in the heart of overwhelming opposition and damning evidence, so being “embarrassed for Christ” is almost a badge of honor amongst Christians.  I became an atheist because I found the “truth” of the Bible to be ephemeral, not because a bunch of pretentious jerks in Seattle put up billboards and signs insulting my beliefs.  Many of the things I had been taught as “fact” seemed to contradict one another, and the answers to my questions left me feeling cheated.  In my childhood I was only regularly exposed to one atheist, and I think he was too young to answer the questions that niggled at me.  Finally, in my adulthood I was exposed to friends of my own age demographic who steered me in the introspective direction I would need to discover for myself the truths that demonstrate the Christian religion as farcical as any of the others I’d grown used to lampooning and discrediting.  My atheist friends were not the nihilistic monsters that Christianity had told me they should be.  I became an atheist because the atheists who inspired me to look away from religion were unlike the stereotypes ascribed to them; pretentious, “God-hating,” evangelical atheists confirmed the stereotypes I’d been taught.  If all atheists, regardless of what their other beliefs might be, were to present themselves as contrary to the scary, belligerent Christian stereotype, I think more people would be inclined to listen to what we have to say.

Heretics and Hypocrites

People who take an ideology too seriously tend to irritate me, whether it's the overzealous (and bigoted)  hillbillies of the Westboro Baptist Church, or the equally bigoted atheists protesting the slightest mention of religion--regardless of context--in the public square.  The former made me feel embarrassed to profess any beliefs we might have in common, and would likely have expedited my departure from religious belief, had it not been for the sanctimonious intransigence of the latter.

In my observation, Christians seem to have a tendency to believe that the "small is the gate and narrow is the road" verse (Matt 7:13, to those that care) pertains to them and their beliefs only.  To that end, the Christians are highly critical of anyone whose Christian beliefs diverge from their own.  I can recall two conversations from early in my transition from believer to non-believer which were crucial in my conversion from Bible-believing Christian, to disenchanted nonbeliever.

Christian views of evolution vary from outright rejection to incorporation into creationism ("Intelligent Design" and its variants).  In my most recent period of belief, I was on the far end of Christians who did believe in evolution as a mechanism of God.  With this premise in mind, I found myself in a conversation with a man who believed, as I did, that the schools were full of "liberals" who were polluting the minds of our children.  This gentleman said that schools had no business teaching students "cockamamie theories like evolution."  I asked him how much he knew about evolution.  He said it was enough to know he did not believe in it (what is startling about this statement is that it is a reflection of sentiments that pervade much of the Christian community).  His explanation why was that dinosaurs and mankind had coexisted and that the Earth was only 6,000 years old.  "Any fossils," he said, "that lead men away from the Bible must have been put there by Satan to trick mankind."  When I calmly told him that such an assertion was not logical and that I subscribed to ID, he told me that the Bible did not support my beliefs--which is tantamount to calling me a heretic.

Most Christians believe that homosexuality is a choice, and therefore a sin (because the Bible describes it as so in both the Old and New Testaments).  With this assumption, it is not hard to see why they try so hard to "rescue" gays from their sexuality.  I've always been curious about homosexuality, not--as I am sure some would assert--in the sense that I wanted to experience it for myself, but simply because I had always wondered what mechanism could turn a man away from women.  My personal compulsion to "chase" vagina is very strong, and I work every day to suppress it so that I can remain faithful to my wife and family (to that end, I have a 100% success rate, if you really must know).  Having said that, I have never been able to understand why a man would go after another man.  I made no choice in this regard; it was imprinted in my DNA that I should be attracted to females and the very thought of diverging from this compulsion is repugnant to me; the homosexuals I know tell me that it is the same way with them and women--the very thought of being with a woman repulses them.  In a conversation with one of the deacons from my Church, he revealed to me that it is extreme sinfulness, in this case "self-love" that leads gays to defy God.  I told him that I disagreed that this was the case, and I explained my position.  He calmly told me that God disagreed with me and that I should read my Bible for guidance.  I followed his advice, but I was still unconvinced: I remember thinking, "How could God allow these people to be born with such a deficiency that they're already on the path to hell?".  It really makes no sense to me that a "loving" God would stack the deck against his "beloved creation."  For my unwillingness to accept trite, illogical answers to my questions about God and gays, I was viewed as a heretic.

Though the WBBC rednecks are indeed bigoted freaks, and--believe it or not--regarded as such by most of the Christian community, they are also among the most hypocritical of any group claiming the Christian moniker (treating their fellow believers as heretics simply because they do not subscribe to their hatred).  Sadly, they do not differ as much from their Christian "brethren" as we'd like to believe.  In many of the churches I attended the hypocrisy was so rampant that it was hard to figure out who was really whom.  At one church I attended, one faction reviled another faction so much that they would avoid each other.  I don't know from whence these hatreds derived, but as a former Christian, I do not understand how these prejudices comported with Christian ideology.  Jealousy and hubris were also put on display every week during the weekly worship service; as this person's daughter or that person's wife would perform her song, dance, or whatever "look-at-me" display she had decided upon, the snickers and murmurs within the congregation were palpable.  I was no better, in fact, I think I was worse in some ways, probably because I knew that these displays were nothing more than ego-waxing of the highest order, just disguised as "giving glory to God."  The ubiquitous manger scenes around Christmas amount to nothing more than the congregations of local churches trying to outdo one another.  Christians can claim no moral superiority over non-believers when Churches are nothing more than covens of hypocritical false piety.

Aggravating atheists: next post.

Religious Abuses of Children (No, Not Priests This Time)

Richard Dawkins has said that religious parents who impose their beliefs should be arrested for child abuse.  While I don't subscribe to this notion, I do believe that religious belief can make parents more draconian in their punishment regimens than they would be otherwise.  Religious beliefs are not usually, in my opinion, "abusive" towards children, though there are a few exceptions.

"Spare the rod and spoil the child," so says the wisdom of the Bible; however, I think most Christian parents see "rod" as a metaphor for discipline or correction.  This commonly accepted nuance missed my father.  My dad had a tendency to apply the rod--which happened to be a 3/4" oak dowel--first and ask questions later.  I can remember welts that covered my backside, from the back of my knees up to the top of my buttocks (I'm not trying to pick on my father per se, because although most Christians have moved away from beating their children, his literal interpretation of this verse was the rule of thumb for most of American history).  Do I know if my father would have been as tough on my backside if he'd not been Christian?  No, I do not.  What I do know is that my dad was a pretty good dad otherwise, and I suspect that had he not believed that refraining from whipping my ass for the smallest mistake would lead me straight to hell, he would have probably reserved swats for more dire infractions.  He thought he had to beat me to save me from hell...

Hell.  The Lake of Fire.  Hades.  Eternal Torment.  I mentioned in my previous post that this was what led me to "salvation" in the first place.  I was a five year-old kid when I said my first "sinner's" prayer.  A virtual baby, not to mention a baby with a highly overactive imagination and a predilection for worrying.  So, on top of the specters that my imagination already subjected me to, my unknowing and well-meaning parents introduced me to concepts that would add more bogeymen to my already packed-full closet of nightmares.  The worst nightmare I had in my childhood was one where I walked into my kitchen and the gates of hell opened up, and Satan in his demonic horror reached out to grab me--with my mother and sisters on the couch less than ten feet away, oblivious to my plight.  I had many nightmares of this same variety: demons popping out from underneath my bed, family members languishing in hell, the devil's voice taunting me, demons hissing, etc..  I likely still would have had nightmares, given my imagination, but there was something particularly horrifying about my nightmares having eternal implications.  I think it would not have taken me until I was 14 to get over my constant nightmares if I had not had such a strong belief in demons and the afterlife.  I had cause to believe that my nightmares were real, and that the only way I could protect myself was through prayers or reading my Bible.  I spent many nights lying in bed with my heart pounding, just waiting for the dawn to break.  Maybe this isn't child abuse in that it wasn't deliberate; he didn't mean for me to have so many fearful, sleepless nights, but the consequences were the same regardless of my father's intent.

Of course Christianity isn't the most pernicious of religions with regard to its treatment of children.  Hindus often value cattle above their own children, and those who practice Asian ancestor-worship can be pretty harsh towards their offspring.  Of course the religion that wrote the book on child abuse is islam.  Muslims marry their daughters off at ages as young as nine in some countries, and to men old enough to be their grandfathers.  Young girls are subjected to clitorectomies, often performed in ritualistic fashion by unqualified, non-medical religious leaders, or even the girls' own female relatives.  If a young woman makes it to puberty, she has to worry that she might be "honor" killed--which is startlingly easy to do: be in the wrong place at the wrong time, wear the wrong clothes, be too "westernized," and her father and brothers might strangle, shoot, or even decapitate her for bringing dishonor to the family.  Little boys get a bit more freedom, but must dodge the affections of men in a pederast culture which says that any boy is fair game until his facial hair grows in (but sex between consenting men is just gay, therefore unacceptable and punishable by death).

It's absurd that an innocent child should be held to account for religious beliefs that they do not even fully understand.  A child should be allowed to be a child and discover the world for themselves.  If a set of religious beliefs is so fantastic, then it stands to reason that at some point that child will accept those beliefs and subject himself to that religion.  It's not fair to children that parents must torture, abuse, or even murder them in pursuit of their religious ideals.  Children are born without religion.

(Note **The occasional spanking for behavior that infracts a set of carefully defined parameters understood by the child is acceptable and a useful parenting tool, in my opinion.**)