One of the things that has always bothered me about religion, at least those that rely on holy books, is that the teachings are set in stone. They are written many hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago and just left. Having read some of the things I’d written earlier in my life, I can’t believe that God, if he existed, wouldn’t want to make any changes. Let’s take the Bible as an example. We know for a fact that some of the Bible is just plain wrong. The age of the earth for example, or any number of unpleasant Bible quotes.
So we know that the Bible isn’t perfect, and I’m sure God, being a decent fictional entity, would happily admit that he got things wrong in the past and want to correct them. But how would he do it? After all, you can’t just whisper sweet nothings in a human’s ear if your invisible, we have a name for that, so what would you do?
Perhaps, you would manipulate the world to show your displeasure at certain actions you’re Children are taking. Like the Wildfires in California occuring around the same time they banned gay marriage, possibly? The problem is that those that follow a religious book are closed to any suggestion that the book may be wrong. So are they missing the signs, or choosing to ignore them? Or, as Occam’s Razor might suggest, the book has always been incorrect.
This is something I’ve been pondering for a while after I saw a comment on another website implying that Christians were better than non Christians because of charity work, such as operation shoe box, that Christians participate in and run. I’ll concentrate on Christians in this post because it was a comment from a Christian that sparked off my train of thought, but the same principals can be applied to any religion.
After reading that comment, I started thinking about the motivations of Christians to participate in such activities, and I came to two conclusions, both of which are worryingly self-serving. So let’s take a look at them.
Conversion
You’ll notice that any charitable organisation that is affiliated with a religion makes it very obvious that such a link exists. Take the Christian Missionaries for example, they promised technology, food and social advancement to the people indiginous to the areas they visited. In return, the people would have to become Christian. It was a simple premise that exploited the most vulnerable people in the world under the guise of charity. What they were really doing was exploitation. We’ll give you X if you convert to our religion. I’ve spoken about the need for the church to maintain its numbers in the past, so sending workers out to relatively unknown areas of the world in order to “plant” churches seems like a sensible, if not moral, way to do this.
While modern Christian charitable organisations aren’t so overt, they still have alterior motives. Christian Aid, for example, makes sure that everyone they help knows that they have been helped by a Christian organisation. In fact, I was asked for a donation by a friend who was collecting for Christian Aid. I pointed out that while I do donate to charity, I am very careful not to donate to any charity with a strong religious affiliate, because of the reasons detailed above.
Prizes
I think we all know what the prize on offer is, an eternity in the best (but most boring) place not-on-earth, heaven. What people seem to forget is that all Christians have been incentivised to follow other Christians. And if they believe in God, they also believe in heaven (and hell), so the incentive, as far as they’re concerned, is a good one.
So when a Christian does a good act, you have to remember that it is never selfless. At the end of the day, each and every Christian is thinking to themselves “one more point I can make to get into heaven”. If they can help someone and get them to convert to Christianity, well just imagine how many points that would be!
Conclusion
So based on the two points above, it’s very difficult to accept that a Christian would do a good deed for the sake of doing a good deed. And whilst I’m sure many Christians will argue the fact that they have been incentivised, they can’t argue about its existence (in their mind). And once an incentive exists, it’s very difficult to ignore.
On the face of it, it would appear that Atheists acting on bahalf of charities are in a far better position to help. Otherwise, it’s like letting a car salesman fix your alternator. You know you’re going to get sold to, and you know he’s looking to get some reward in the end.
What are your thoughts? Can there be a truly good Christian?
I have really mixed feeling about this claim. While I think he’s right, I wish it was someone other than Richard Lynn making the claim. After all, Richard Lynn is known formaking outrageousclaims. I’m torn as to whether the person making the statement is enough to invalidate, or call into question, the claim itself.
Quite frankly, in this case, the claim is so strong, and backed up by so much circumstantial evidence. If you need any evidence of the lack of intelligence evident in “believers” (beyond the obvious), just look for any attempted use of logic, and you will no doubt find it.
When I first read this article, my initial response was “Yeah, and French people speak French”. It just seems so obvious that to believe in something that clearly isn’t true, to be subjected to years of brainwashing and lies and to not even begin to question it, you must be lacking something intellectually. After all, those who consider themselves to be intellectual question everything.
I always find it amusing when misguided people try and use logic to prove the existence of that which does not exist. The latest attempt comes from Canada Free Press (!). Shall we gloss over the obvious failings of this article (there are many, like assuming that all reproduction is reliant on two genders, certain organs, which just isn’t true)? I could pick apart every argument he clumsily puts forward, but quite frankly we’ve all been down this path before, and it’s not a challenge, nor is it entertaining. I encourage you to take up the opportunity in the comments though.
Let’s look at the crux of the article’s argument.
No one in their right mind would claim that 10,000 hundred story buildings built themselves from randomness, even over time. Yet those who doubt the existence of a Creator believe that an entire universe, containing all of the billions of elements necessary for life to form, may have come about without a builder. As such, they give credence to billions of times more coincidences to having come about.
Now clearly, I am an Atheist. And I know many other Atheists. Yet I’ve never heard any of them claim that buildings can build themselves. Likewise, we don’t claim that humans have built themselves. The above quote really belies the author’s complete lack of understanding of evolution. It would appear that the author’s intention is to argue that the sheer complexity of the universe means that it cannot have happened randomly. Something must have sparked this surge of life. And that something must be “The Creator”. What isn’t clear is how a being so complex that they can create a universe of this complexity was created themselves. And how the being that created that being was created? if you assume that anything of any complexity must have been created, there really is no beginning. It’s one of the most flawed, illogical, self-defeating arguments I’ve ever had the misfortune of stumbling across (thank you Richard Dawkins!).
And by the way, if the Author doesn’t realize that the opening line alone means that he’s floated into the land of Personal Incredulity, he should read some real books. Not the hokum pokum the exploitative Anthony Flew churned out.
So what do we have on the other side of the argument? I was fascinated to read in New Scientist about experiments that have shown bacteria making massive evolutionary hurdles in just 44,000 generations. To be clear, these bacterium have evolved to a point where they have lost one of the limitations that effectively defined them as a species. It would appear that the seeds were sown as early as the 20,000th generation, which is a truly remarkable find. What makes this even more remarkable is the fact that this has been reproduced. It’s evolution “on-tap”.
Both pieces of news came across my inbox the same day, and really serve as a microcosm of the two sides of the argument. On the one side we have the religious, regurgitating the same old flawed, defeated, arguments in new and badly written diatribes. On the other side we have science. Tests, experiements, results and reproducable scenarios. The absurdity of the fact that such a so-called argument even exists is clearly evident.
This is a fantastic debate between an atheist and a theist (he doesn’t state his affiliation, but he’s definitely a theist). I particularly like the line “I don’t want to compare God to Bigfoot”. Definitely worth 10 minutes of your time. It mirrors many of the debates I’ve had over the years with theist friends, with a familiar conclusion. Enjoy.
The interesting part of the post, for me at least, is the fact it’s been written by a Christian. A Christian who supports the separation of Church and State. The stand out comment is:
A great many members of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State believe as I do that intelligent design is a specific attempt by Fundamentalists to inject religion into the public schools, and some of us also believe that if the State teaches the Bible they will misinterpret it for our children.
Which is something I find rather confusing. So, intelligent design, which is in line with the Bible, is being used by fundamentalists to inject religion into public schools. So once again I have to ask, to be a Christian, what percentage of the Bible do you need to believe? How can you ignore the bit about creationism, but believe the bit about Jesus coming back to life? Forget Adam and Eve but believe the whole Water into Wine thing? Not drown people, but still go to Church? Which part of the Bible should be ignored next?
Oddly, people like the author of the Crooks and Liars post give me hope. It’s obvious that they can see the faults in Christianity but for some reason haven’t quite put two and two together and come up with four. And while they have enough of their facilities in tact to realize that separation of Church/Religion and stae is a good idea, there’s hope for them, and us.
I just want to share a conversation overheard a a few weeks ago and comment on it. The key point is below, I’ll leave the rest out.
Person 1: I think I’m becoming an Atheist.
Person 2: That’s fantastic.
Person 1: Not really, it means I’m going to hell.
Funny, isnt it. The person involved had obviously been questioning their long held beliefs, but can’t quite overcome what’s been deeply ingrained into her, that hell exists. Fear is a favourite tool of the religious, if you don’t believe in God, you will be subjected to an eternity of torture. And there’s no point tippy toeing around the fact, it may not be phrased that exact way in the holy books, but it’s what they mean.
This fear, in some cases, results in people trying their best to be “good”. This causes two problems. Firstly, if it’s only fear that’s making you be a decent person, it’s all obviously fleeting and secondly, the same thing that is imposing the fear, also controls the conditions of that fear. What I mean by this is, if you believe the Bible’s version of things, with Hell existing, the only way you can avoid Hell is to follow the handy directions contained in the same source that describes Hell itself.
So on to the headline, why is denying atheism rejecting humanity? Logic dictates that if you are not an Atheist, you are involved in some belief (wishy washy agnostics excluded). Most belief systems include the concept of punishing those who do not follow it’s guidance. So therefore, by extension, a non-atheist is highly likely to be living in fear of punishment if they do not comply to the moral rules set out in their religion. So, it appears that by applying this logic, the only people on earth who are currently bound by their own moral values are atheists. The only people no living in fear. To me, this solves a whole bunch of problems. We’ve already seen that religious writings can be interpreted in multiple ways, and because of this it’s very easy to end up with fundamentalists. Those who apply the religious rules literally, or those who are filled with so much fear that they become overzealous in enforcing the rules they are bound by.
Personally, I’d rather be bound by my own moral compass, not one written hundreds of years ago that may not even be relevant or applicable today. Any teaching that tries to portray moral ambiguities as straight forward, and black and white, is far off the mark. People need to ability to adapt themselves based on the current position, environment and climate. And they need to do this without fear hanging over their head.
I’ve mentioned previously that one of the major problems I have with Christians is this growing trend of only “believing” certain aspects of The Bible. Yes, I’m talking about those who have recently shunned away from creationist theory, seeing the scientific evidence as overwhelming, yet still abiding by the rest of the Bible. This is one of those “let me get this straight…” issues. So, even though the Bible says God, the invisible all powerful entity exists ,and created everything, they are choosing to believe God exists but not that he created everything? So what did the “creator” actually create?
As someone who likes to apply logic to much of what I do, I find this genuinely hard to understand. If I was reading a book, lets say an encyclopedia, and it stated that fire is wet, I’d question the validity and accuracy of the rest of the book. For some reason, Christians don’t do this. This fits in with my long held view that people are pre-determined by personality type to be religious. It may very well be that one of the personality traits that leads people to religion is the inability to question something you are told. This is the equivalent of repeatedly voting for a politician because they tell you your life is better, even though your life isn’t better at all.
For fundamentalist Christians, an even more worrying trend is emerging. While creationism can be disproved through science, there are Christians out there choosing not to follow parts of the Bible because they don’t agree with it. The latest “evidence” (I never truly believe surveys, so I use the word “evidence” advisedly) that supports this is a survey performed with young (under 30) Christians and non-Christians. A couple of striking facts came out of the survey. Firstly, both Christians and non-Christians feel that the image of Christianity is waning. The other striking fact is that both believers and non-believers feel that Christianity is too homophobic. And this is putting people off it as a religion. Once again, this came from Christians.
So, we have God creating everything, which is fairly clearly set out in the Bible, and Homosexuality, also fairly clearly dealt with in the Bible, being questioned by both believers and non-believers. So what else is up for the chop? My money is on Jesus.
It just seems that as atheists address the fundamental points of religion, and raise sufficient doubt in the minds of a religion’s followers, believers are going to have less and less to hang on to. You almost get the impression that everyone knows the game is up, followers of religion know they are wrong, but they have so much invested in this little game they won’t give up without a fight. So the way to do it is clearly to chip away at their most strongly held beliefs. Twenty years ago, it would have seemed absurd to have a Christian who wasn’t also a creationist, not so now.
I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone in this post. Firstly, I thought I’d introduce the Atheist Blogroll, which I’ve added to the sidebar. It contains over 400 blogs, all of which are written from the Atheist Standpoint. I’ve had a browse through some of the sites, and there’s some real quality, thought provoking content produced by members. By displaying this blog roll, as well as the Out Campaign logo, I am clearly stating that I am an Atheist. Something that Sam Harris is against. This raises the question, is being labeled an atheist problematic? Obviously, I have no problem with it, the clue is in the name of the blog, but obviously some do.
To summarize, Sam Harris gave a speech pointing out the problems he perceives with the labelling of atheists as atheists. One of the cornerstones of his argument is that many people who are actually atheists, don’t admit to it in public because of the negative connotations associated with the word. The idea that Atheists are seen as a “Cranky Subculture”. The net result is that people who are rightfully atheists, in that they do not believe in a god, are reluctant to be labeled as such. The other cornerstone of his argument is that atheism does not exist, in the same way as there is no word for people who do not believe in astrology. I think, in particular, the second argument is worth exploring. To concentrate on the first aspect of the argument, the perceived view of atheists, would be to do what the religious do, believe something with no empirical evidence to back it up.
So let’s look the other aspect of the argument, the fact that atheism doesn’t exist. In a way, this follows Richard Dawkins’ argument regarding the proof of the non-existence of God. If someone suggests that there is an invisible unicorn in the room, it is not the naysayers responsibility to prove it isn’t there. Or to put it another way, when something is suggested that may or may not be true, it is not the responsibility to the non-believers to prove the non-existence, nor is it their responsibility to label themselves. There is a follow up, a response to the critical atheist community, already up.
I’d recommend you read the posts by Sam linked to throughout this post. However, I think the argument has been diluted by the response. In it, referring to the perception of atheism, he presents two quotes and asks which you would rather see asked of the President on the six o’clock news. As examples go, it’s a pretty bad one. I think the difference between being an atheist, and being overtly atheist is lost. This is a very good example of a certain way of forming an argument. You give people two options, the one you want them to pick and one which is so far in the other direction no one could pick it. To demonstrate this, I’ve written two sentences below. Given they are the only options available, which would you choose?
I want to send troops to Iraq.
-or-
I want my friends and family to be murdered by terrorists.
It’s an argument style used by politicians all over the world.
So, with that out of the way, where do I stand on the labeling of atheists? I’m firmly in the camp that believes such labeling is a necessary evil. I can see the point of view put forward, and in an ideal world people who don’t believe would be the norm and not require a label. However, this isn’t a perfect world and I thoroughly believe we need something to rally around. I also think that if we don’t have a label, accept the label and embrace it, we will be labeled anyway. And if it is a label we don’t choose, we lose all control.
