Christianity
Follow up to atheist morals
I just read a painful post about A Christian Analysis of Atheism. I don’t know what I might have expected with a title like that, but the ideas in this misguided commentary make me cringe. I’m embarrassed for both of us. You because you don’t understand a lot of things, and me because we aren’t explaining it well (apparently).
This reminded me of a recent post I made about atheists and morals. This is, apparently, what some Christians think of when they hear the term “atheist”:
According to Chuck Colson in Against The Night: Living In The New Dark Ages, in the arena where relativism reigns supreme in opposition to the law of God, there is no legitimate ground in which one can exclude the arguments and proposals of Nazis, serial killers, and pedophiles (47). From today’s headlines, the nation is coming to realize in the most brutal of ways that these ideas do not confine themselves to academic journals or newspaper opinion pages. And in the case of school shootings such as Columbine High, this radical antipathy towards God can in fact turn deadly.
If the lawlessness of atheism can wreak havoc upon individual lives, just imagine its affects (sic) magnified across entire societies. The major dictatorships of the twentieth century testify to this blood-soaked historical truth. Founded upon assorted atheistic ideologies, these totalitarian regimes promised secular heavens on earth but instead dragged their nations down to the very borders of hell.
Unfettered by eternal external standards, those holding the reins of power in such societies had nothing to hamper the implementation of their most extreme policy whims, not even the value of innocent human lives.
Oh no. Really? The “lawlessness of atheism”? I get so tired of this argument. There is no lawlessness necessitated by atheism. Read that past post of mine for more of that. Atrocities have been committed in the name of many things, including CHRISTIANITY. Some people may try to blame the religion for them, but in general, I do not. It’s the people using what they can to rationalize what they want, nothing more. Blaming atheism for the Columbine shooting? I seem to remember that they picked that day to coincide with Hitler’s birthday (and lest we forget, he made numerous mentions of his Christian beliefs and motivations). So just drop it! Atheism is not about abandoning morality because you don’t have to answer to anyone. Would Mr. Meekins go on a shooting rampage if he wasn’t worried that he would be punished by an invisible man in the sky? Let’s hope not.
But my main point is this: Atheism is not inconsistent with morality, and it’s completely orthogonal. The discussion of belief in a god has nothing to do with if we lose our morality or not. It’s a complete non sequitur. Saying, “Christianity must be true, otherwise people will kill each other” is not arguing any point of truth about Christianity, it’s appealing to the emotions of listeners who don’t really want to die.
And I’m not done with this commentary. He wants to bring up science, so I’m happy to oblige.
The Laws of Thermodynamics declare that, left to themselves, systems degrade to the maximum level of entropy; or in laymen’s terms, things wear out. Employing this principle, one is forced to conclude that, if the universe is an infinitely-old closed system those like Sagan claim it to be, then the universe would have already wound down in eons past. Therefore, the universe must have had a beginning. And since something finite cannot come from nothing, the hypothesis of a divine creator provides the most plausible alternative.
Now, my thermodynamics is a little rusty, but if I remember from college, thermodynamics deals very heavily in probabilities. That is to say, all of the molecules of air in this room could rush to one corner all of a sudden, but that isn’t very likely. The laws of thermodynamics make predictions based on the fact that, over time, things tend to follow certain rules, because the probabilities of them not doing so are so small. But IF the universe is an infinitely-old closed system, you would need zero probability for an event before you could say it won’t ever happen. Don’t underestimate infinity, it’s quite a long time. I’m not claiming that this is true, but consider the possibility. Some 13.5 billion years ago was the last time that all the matter in the universe happened to get to a state that it was crunched down together so tightly and exploded. Can you say with certainty that this hasn’t happened before, or will again? In another 20 billion years? 20 billion billion? (20 billion billion)^(20 billion billion)?
One more comment on the cosmological argument in general, while we’re talking science and math. The argument is more or less a failure of semantics. We start with a premise: everything in motion has a cause. So, that cause must then have a cause, and so forth until we get to a “First Cause”, which must be God. There is a fallacy here that is less than obvious: you can’t use a timeline argument to discuss something that is not temporal. Give it some time to roll around in your brain. If you want to ask “What happened before time began?” you have already used language to make any answer meaningless. What does “before time began” mean? You’re asking what temporal relation something had when there was no measure of time at all. Time is a tricky thing to think about, but watch out for this mistake. “Before time” is meaningless.
It’s too bad so many people misunderstand these things. But I’ll keep doing my part, one post at a time.
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
Intelligent Design: What has history taught us?
No, I’m not surprised. But it’s certainly worth pointing out, because this kind of “missing the forest for the trees” is a common mistake. This commentary comes from an intelligent design writer who begs the very apt question, “What has history taught us?” Feel free to read through to see his view on abiogenesis, but it boils down to this: We’ve seen in history that abiogenesis doesn’t really seem probable, and scientists haven’t come up with any proof, so abandon the idea. So first of all, I’d like to make a quick point about an intelligent design advocate missing the point of the scientific process (the one actually used, not the rigid sequence taught to 6th graders to get them used to the idea). Putting forth an idea for something we hope to discover, what he calls “philosophical faith”, has nothing to do with faith. Science makes progress like this: observe, attempt to explain, use explaination to predict, look for prediction, reformulate theory, repeat. It has nothing to do with any kind of faith. The whole point is that you try to explain it the best you can, and when you get more information, you use that to help your explanation. The fact that an idea has been around for some time without evidence either way does not mean abandon it for religious based theories.
But what makes me almost laugh about this commentary is the way he seems to bring up a good point, and ignore the elephant in the room. Exactly what has history taught us about religiously backed explanations for natural phenomena? I’ll tell you: in every instance, EVERY single instance, the religious explanation has been shown to be wrong. It is a crutch during times that we didn’t have the knowledge to actually explain it. Ancient people cowering at the lightning, thinking that Zeus was angry with them look pretty silly to us today don’t they? How can you ask the question “What has history taught us?” and igonore the obvious end to your question? History has taught us that when we think we know, we don’t. The difference between science (real science, not intelligent design) and religion is that science expects to be wrong and has mechanisms to absorb new information and evolve (pun intended). Religion fights it with all its might. Whether it’s today, next year or in 500 years, this one will too. The evidence will pile up until it is overwhelming and we will come up with something new. The common component is science, humming along in the background, making itself better and better all the time. You can try to fight it, or you can swallow your pride and let go of outdated superstitions.
Learn from history: you’re fighting a losing battle.
My biggest issues with Christianity (vol 1)
I’ve had an idea rolling around in my head for a while now, and I’ve decided to make it happen. A while ago, I realized that I was getting tired of the same old arguments, from both sides. The problem is that atheists and theists (to somewhat over simplify the two sides) go back and forth with the same old reasoning and never get anywhere. And the problem, I think, is that out here on the internet, there’s no authority. So when some anonymous theist says something like, “Christians believe that Jesus rode dinosaurs to get around,” and I point out the stupidity there, another may just come up and say “No we don’t. Here’s what we really believe.” And the cycle continues.
We all know the basics of Christianity, but there are so many controversial points with a countless number of arguments that we just get lost in semantics most of the time. This is literal, that is not. This is part of my core belief, that is not. This part of the bible is dubious, that part is the word of god. It’s enough to make your head spin. With the accessability of the internet growing every day, the number of Christian “denominations” is growing to meet the number of people who have an opinion.
So I got tired of it. In the interest of information gathering and sharing, I am setting out on a project. I’ve done my research, compiled a list of the most hotly debated topics that we deal with, and I’m going to find out what the authorities think. I’m requesting that local church leaders find an hour or so to sit down with me and discuss these things, not because I want to try to argue them into submission, but because it’s important to know what they actually teach. I don’t care what the crackpot on the street says about the rapture coming in 17 days. Christian denominations have assemblies of large numbers of theologians that determine exactly what their church teaches. I want to know what that really is. What are these people hearing in the sermons every week?
Let me stress again that this is not a confrontational “interview”. I’m a sucker for a good debate, so I will probably bring up some of my personal questions regarding some of these issues, but in no way do I intend to make it combatative. It is simply that I know very well what kinds of questions a lot of people already have, and I want to discuss them with someone who is well versed in the official teachings of his/her church.
In this light, I’d like anyone who would like to leave a comment regarding any issue you want me to bring up. I have already hit the big obvious ones, so you don’t need to worry about those. But if there is something that you’ve never gotten an adequate answer on, let me know. I will do the research as much as I can, and then raise it to the church leaders.
Stay posted for updates. I think this will be a very interesting and enlightening project.
Lutherans vote to allow gay ministers
Apparently, this is becoming such a big issue that it’s creating a divide in the Christian denomination as a whole, and others are facing the same issue. My question is: How is this an issue? Not because I have reservations about gay rights, but because I really wonder about the people that are discriminated against and stick with the church! The original article states that the current ban prohibits gay people from being appointed as ministers unless they vow to be celibate (which I guess is not a requirement if you’re straight).
So is it just people clinging to their beliefs? I would think that people who are gay, with their church telling them it is sinful from the start, would not even want to be a minister, much less enough of them that it’s dividing their organization. Maybe I just don’t understand the details very well.
But can I take a quick moment to raise some points about the gay rights issues in Christian denominations? First, I challenge someone to give me bible verses that show that this is really the teaching of your religion, rather than people trying to justify their prejudice. You want to quote me Leviticus?
Leviticus 18:22 – “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”
Fine, then I get to quote Leviticus too:
Leviticus 25:44-46 – “Thy bond-men and thy bond-maids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you: of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids…. And they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bond-man forever.”
I guess our hands are tied. We get to have slaves. How convenient that the bible commands this one too, or do you just want to pick out the passage that suits your current beliefs? Or, we can use the one from Deuteronomy:
Deuteronomy 23:17-18 - “There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.”
My turn again:
Deuteronomy 23:2 – “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD. ”
Deuteronomy 21:15-16 – “If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn.”
So it would seem we also can take multiple wives, and we need to turn away people who were born out of wedlock from praying with us. Better get some good church bouncers if you’re going to stick to the bible! There’s also some fun stuff about not letting any man whose genitals have been crushed into your church. How do you plan on enforcing that one?
Either follow the bible or don’t. You can’t call it a sacred text when you want to interpret it literally, and then ignore the parts that seem wrong for this age when you want that. Give me a break.
Sunday school teacher indicted for rape and murder
Original story here.
Cue the outraged atheists…. now! This is one of those tricky issues that we really need to watch. Rapists and murderers have a funny habit of commiting crimes whether we like it or not. So, did religion play a role here, or is it a coincidence? First, let’s all agree that if we make a huge deal about her connection to religion, we’ll just get more “well, HITLER was an atheist, so there!” responses. That may be false, but we need to criticize the right thing. You can’t run around screaming “religion is evil in all ways”, because someone’s just going to find one way that it’s not and call that a complete argument.
No, the real problem here is the trust that people put in church-appointed authority figures. What kind of background check did we do on this woman? What kind of trust did the parents put in her just because she was a Sunday school teacher? I would be willing to bet that most parents spend ten times the energy picking out a babysitter they trust than they do thinking about who takes their kids for a few hours a week. You can’t tell your kids to trust someone you don’t know anything about and expect them to be different than the rest of the people out there (who they probably don’t trust at all). I’ve never seen any statistics that show that religious people are any less likely to commit a crime. The only difference is that they have someone waiting at the church to listen to it, forgive them, and go on with their lives.
Bible in Texas Schools: Quit whining!
I’m sure that anyone who is interested in what I write has already heard some alarming statements about Texas public schools requiring a course covering the Bible! Oh no! I’d like to be one of the first to say, “Easy there killer, it’s not as bad as you pretend”. I will admit that there are a lot of atheists, especially on the internet, who take the alarmist stance on anything that promotes religion in our country. And in general, I would agree that in government controlled and/or funded situations (like public schools) we should refrain from promoting any religious ideas. It’s simply not the place for the government to endorse any beliefs in particular (and no, atheism is not a belief system that’s subject to the same rules).
But, guys, read about it a little more before you hit the “Submit with alarming caption” button. First of all, it’s an ELECTIVE. Kids can choose to take it if they want. I bet they already have a Greek mythology elective too. I don’t recall outrage when that was made an option. Second, it’s not even a standard, always available, elective:
The legislation states that all school districts must offer a course as an elective for the 2009-2010 school year if more than 15 students show interest.
That’s right, 15 students have to ask for there to be a bible course before they are required to provide it. And let’s not get into the debate about parents asking for it when the kids don’t want it. If the parents want to force them to go to bible study every night, they can already do that.
Finally, while I may not agree with following the bible for a guide on every decision in your daily life, learning about what it says is hardly a bad thing. The vast majority of people in this country identify themselves as Christian (I think it’s near 75%). I think that makes the book somewhat relevant to our society, whether I like it or not. It’s up to the teacher to decide how the book is presented, but you cannot deny that a book that has survived 2000 years and has 75% of the country following it isn’t worth some study.
So please, atheists, let’s stop jumping at shadows and spend our time worrying about things that really are a problem. Here are two reasonable examples: [Atheists can't hold office in Arkansas] [Atheist bus ads pulled].
What do you think? Am I too lenient here?
The Critical Thought Black Hole of Christianity
Let’s face it, the United States is dominated by Christianity. It’s a powerful group that reaches all aspects of our country, in one way or another. And they continue to add important social issues to their black hole of mindless following, stuff that had no bearing on any kind of religious debate until they made it so.
I think that this is a very large group of misguided individuals, but I don’t usually subscribe to the idea that the religion in itself is evil. Many atheist themed forums tend to get post after post about “This religious person did that terrible thing”. While this can occasionally be informative and thought provoking (say, for example, parents praying while their sick child dies instead of going to a hospital, or a school teacher having his career threatened because he didn’t share the beliefs of his superiors), I’m not usually the one to push the story around just because it casts religion in a negative light. In general, I think that there are bad people in all parts of society who can do bad things with or without religion.
But to me there is one part of organized religion in general, and Christianity in specific, that makes me worry for my future: they continue to drag non-religious issues into the religious debate ring. Now, any of these issues can be a book of subject matter and debate on its own, so I have no intention of starting that kind of thing in this post. But let me illustrate the problem with a few examples. Let’s start with the big one: Evolution. Why is this such a debate between (some, not all, I understand that) Christians and atheists? It’s because it was made a religious issue by Christians. Let’s look from the point of view of an atheist for a moment. This is a scientific theory which attempts to explain phenomena that we have observed. It’s no different than the theory of gravity in that sense.
(Side note, I cringe every time I hear someone talk about the Law of gravity as if it has some greater proof than merely a “theory” of evolution. First, Newton’s Law of Gravity has been shown to be incorrect. Second, you are misunderstanding the use of the words in a scientific setting. Do the research.)
Now, consider what is motivating the Christian side of the argument. As science continues its steady march of gathering information, it appears to encroach on a more literal interpretation of their holy book. Science itself has no care about any religion. When we understood what lightning really was, and Zeus became a little less plausible, there was no intent from science to detract from that belief, only evidence. There is no significant difference here. It’s a religious issue only because the early writers of Christianity tried to explain something they didn’t understand, and the modern followers have trouble resolving that with what we learn by exploring the world.
While always controversial, that was a relatively gentle example. How about this: Abortion. There are few debates that can get as heated as this one, and I think it separates Christians from atheists even more strongly. Why is this a religious issue? Because there are some cryptic passages in the bible that can be interpreted to have an opinion on this issue. In no way do I pretend that even without religion that this is a simple issue with a cut and dry answer. However, I do contend that religion needs to kindly butt out. Why? Because the people using religion as backup for their opinion aren’t actually thinking. Perhaps someone argues, “Before 5 weeks, there isn’t even a heartbeat, so I am ok with the morning-after pill.” And what if the response comes back, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. [Jeremiah 1:5]” It’s a non-sequitur that blocks any exchange of ideas. It says “My religion commands this, and no amount of debate will change the words that I’m told to believe.”
Don’t get me wrong, there are Christians who see shades of gray and exceptions to the rule, and there are atheists who may not. But they got to that point by drawing their own conclusions, by thinking for themselves.
There will always be nutjobs around us, doing terrible things, and they’ll find some reason to do them whether we have religion or not. The danger of Christianity in this country isn’t from pedophile priests. They would commit the same crimes however they could. The danger is that 75% of the country is being told exactly what to think on a growing number of very important social issues. It destroys democracy, and the more issues that Christian leaders decide to pull under their umbrella the worse it gets.
And it isn’t just dangers from Christianity that worry me in this topic, it affects atheists as well. If we can’t separate these issues from the debate over religious truth, more people will actively resist free thought. The debate over abortion is a perfect example. I know people who are religious, but have strong feelings about abortion for their own reasons as well. To them, this issue is so mixed up with religion, however, that the word “atheist” might as well mean “baby killer”. They won’t open up to the idea of questioning their religious beliefs because they think that there is a similar atheist dogma that they would be accepting by default. Atheism isn’t about evolution or abortion or gay marriage, but religion has so clouded these issues that it’s become that way in the minds of these people.
Sure, everyone has an opinion about these issues, but they are not critical to the ideas of atheism. You can reject belief in God and still form your own conclusions on other issues.
Misunderstanding the Burden of Proof
Over the course of my daily net-wandering, I came across this post, entitled “Proving God exists doesn’t work“. I don’t want to pick apart this post in too much detail, but I think that it’s important to point out what is a common misconception about the burden of proof argument. First, let me detail a few refutations of this atheistic stance that I’ve come across:
- You can’t see germs/wind/mother’s love, but you believe in that, therefore, God.
- With proof, there is no need for faith, which is the strongest acceptance of God (or variations)
- God could prove it, but he wouldn’t do so
- God is unknowable, so proof is out of the question
- We have the bible. QED.
I’ll begin at the top. Aside from emotional arguments (mother’s love, etc.) we can see those things. It’s not a valid argument to pick a sense and an object that is undetectable by that sense and equate it to God. I can’t see the wind, but I can feel it. I can see the leaves moving in a breeze. And when it comes to the appeal to emotion found by asking you to prove that your mother loved you, or some equally specious example, it is really nothing more than a sucker punch. It’s like if you argue the point, you’re agreeing that your mother didn’t love you, because you can’t quantify/touch/see it. The mother was real, and the experiences that led you to believe that she deeply loved you were real.
The need for faith: This one is a dodge, pure and simple. It basically says that this particular subject doesn’t apply to your argument, so drop it.
God can, but wont: He won’t? He used to prove himself all the time. What happened to the fun God that would create a son, send him down and perform miracles? Or talk out of a burning bush? Or… It seems that God’s presence in the world decreases as our understanding of how things work increases. Not to mention this little mind puzzle: If people were to accept God, they would be saved. God loves all of us infinitely. He could easily prove himself to every person on the planet, but leave the free will of choosing to follow him still in their hands. But he doesn’t, so some souls suffer for eternity.
God is unknowable: Then why are we even talking about this? This seems to be a backed-into-a-corner argument. When there aren’t any more convincing answers, pull out the unknowable argument and we’re stuck. Not because there was a crushing argument, but because there’s no argument to make with this. It’s as if we had this conversation:
Him: I believe in God.
Me: I do not.
Him: Banana pudding.
Me: …
Bible is proof: No, it isn’t. This has been thrown around for a long time, but it still comes up for some reason. The key point here is that the bible is only an authority if you’ve already accepted it as an authority. The circular logic is sound, as long as you’re in the loop. But I am not, and you need to show me why to take it seriously before I will take it seriously.
I have digressed somewhat from my original intent, so I’m sorry. The point that I want to make is that saying that the burden of proof is on the person making the claim isn’t really about asking you for proof of God’s existence. It’s really about highlighting the disparity between how Christians think about everything else in their lives, and how they think about God. I’m not looking for airtight evidence that God exists; I’m asking you to consider that this subject is no different to me than any other. I can parade a list of fictional things that I don’t believe in because there is no evidence (God, the tooth fairy, Bigfoot, unicorns, vampires), and in all but one case you will probably agree with me, but you treat religious belief differently. And once that happens we’re not able to discuss it. We’ve accepted different premises, and our arguments will be meaningless to each other from now on.
Jesus Camp and Science Prejudice
I recently watched the documentary Jesus Camp again. First of all, if you haven’t seen this, I would recommend renting it some time. It is really a well done movie, and I’ve seen it at most of the movie rental stores that I’ve been to, even in relatively religious midwest areas. I actually picked up a copy to own at one Blockbuster because the price to own it was only a couple of dollars more than renting.
Anyway, just watching this movie floods my mind with topics that all deserve their own post, so I want to single out one aspect that I feel is the most crushing issue that faces children in this country. As a little bit of background, in case you haven’t seen it, the movie documents some evangelical Christian families during a few seminars. The focus of this aspect of evangelical Christianity is how they indoctrinate their children. There are, in my opinion, graphic scenes of children who are, at most, ten years old looking up through streaming tears and babbling nonsense words to “let the holy spirit come out”. Other scenes depict these poor children reduced to sobbing heaps on the floor because they’ve just spent the last hour hearing about what terrible, horrid people they have been. They’re told to cleanse themselves to be worthy of being in God’s army. One of the children that the movie follows more than the others tells us how he was “saved” when he was five years old. Yes, at five years old, he was of sound mind and judgement, enough to devote his life to preaching the good word. I could go on.
But that isn’t the worst of what happens. A statistic quoted in the movie states that of the home-schooled children in the United States, 75% of them are evangelical Christians. This is where the damage is done. I think a couple of quotes will do more justice to the problem than I can:
*************
Mother: How would you like to go to a school where a teacher says, “Creationism is stupid, and you’re stupid if you believe it”
Son: I wouldn’t like that.
Mother: How about if you went to a school where a teacher says, “Evolution is stupid, and you’re stupid if you believe that.”
Son: I probably wouldn’t mind that, haha…
*************
Mother: And how much has the global temperature risen?
Son: About 0.6 degrees
Mother: That’s not very much is it? Doesn’t sound like a very big problem, does it?
************
Preacher: You are not just some blob of protoplasm… Whatever that is, heh heh
************
These children are taught to mock science and dismiss it before even learning what it’s supposed to mean. The last example makes my blood boil just thinking about it. This man immediately gave these kids the idea that it was stupid to believe that anything that sounds as weird as “protoplasm” could have any bearing on reality. They also watched a movie on creationism where a guy said something like, “We’re supposed to have come from a pile of goo?”. And he looks disgustedly at some green slime that is all over his hands. This tactic is despicable, and it works amazingly well for young children. There is immediately a mob-mentality that sucks up all of the kids learning this crap, because children love to ridicule. Now, instead of sharing ideas with other children, teachers or learning from books, they can immediately band together and laugh at the mockery that’s been made of very real scientific results.
I grew up in 12 years of Catholic school. My fiance spent her childhood in camps and youthgroups just like this, and none of it is insurmountable. I strongly believe that nobody is so indoctrinated that they cannot come out of it. But don’t for a second tell me that these preachers don’t know what they are doing to these kids. They are building up walls to free thought, and it will take years for these kids to undo it. That’s if they are exposed to anything but their evangelical Christian community. This community is nearly 25% of the American population, so you had better believe that they get heard. One particular evangelist in this movie was reported to have weekly meetings with the president. This agenda is a political powerhouse. I can be disgusted that states are pushing intelligent design into public school curriculums, but I honestly can’t be that surprised.
