• Morality came from religion.
• The meaning of life came from religion.
• How we got here came from religion.
• What would happen to me after I died came from religion.

Suddenly, there was this blank slate. Nothing I thought I had known, was known.

It scared the hell out of me to realize there was no grand purpose for humanity and my life, that there was no afterlife, and that there was no set moral code telling me how to live. In other words, my religiously based life had been replaced by an immense void.

However, fear and uncertainty very quickly gave way to an insatiable, unconstrained curiosity to learn. I became full of a sense of wonder I hadn’t had since my childhood fascination for space and dinosaurs. Life was now an open road and I realized my new purpose was to explore that road.

That was almost two years ago, and my curiosity hasn’t abated – not in the least. In fact, I’d say it’s just getting stronger.

Which brings me to you. If fear has held you back from thinking god might not exist, I encourage you to press on – the rewards are truly immense. A mind-opening, perhaps even (dare I say it?) spiritual experience awaits you.

And to my fellow non-believers who get frustrated with those who don’t seem to be hearing your message, please try to be patient – there is a lot at stake for them. Letting go of immortality for one’s self and one’s loved ones can be enormously difficult, and your proposition brings a great deal of fear and uncertainty with it.

All that aside, de-conversion after years and years of belief is possible. If I can do it at 40, anyone can.

(In case you are wondering, the beautiful music is part of the Shawshank Redemption Score composed by James Newton Howard,)

What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Why am I here? These are the age-old questions I’ve been struggling with.

When you believe in god and an afterlife, those questions I think are much more easily answered. You are alive because God blessed you with life. The meaning of your life is to do good works and honor God… I know I’m over-simplifying the theist perspective, but I think I’m fairly close to the mark.

Anyway, the absence of a god-based reason for existence, left a vacuum. And, as Spinoza said, nature abhors a vacuum – I felt compelled to fill it with something.

The short of it is that it’s all there now. My life has purpose and meaning and I am happy and at peace in my little place in the universe. Life is far more wondrous than it ever was when I was a believer. And the really awesome part is that now that I’ve got the big picture stuff sorted out, I’m ready to fill in the details (e.g. specific goals for my next 40+ years!).

Getting here was difficult, but I wouldn’t trade where I am now for anything. It’s so great to be free.

As if that weren’t enough to get the last hair on my head standing up, last night I watched Dinesh D’Souza make the audacious claim that all of the good morals in western society are Christian morals.

I’ve often heard it said that the 10 Commandments is the ‘ultimate moral code’ (Dinesh has said something to this effect on numerous occasions). Let’s focus on them to see if the claim is true.

Table via Wikipedia

As you can see, the first three or four commandments (3 vs 4 depending on what brand of Christian you are) are all about worshiping god (note that I am lumping ‘keep the Sabbath’ in this grouping). Are these first commandments really about morality? It seems to me they are not – that they are about brow-beating people into accepting an insecure god’s authority. I would challenge anyone to show me how those 3/4 commandments make us more moral.

On to the remaining commandments…

Honor your father and mother: Sounds reasonable on the surface, but is it as wise as it could be? Why not “respect others as you would like to be respected”? And, while we’re on the subject, do all parents deserve to be honored, or is it more accurate that some parents are worthy and others are not?  What about parents who abuse their children? Are they to be honored at all times as the commandment commands?

You shall not murder: A pretty darn good rule. My questions about it are 1) Would we all be running around killing people without it, and 2) Does this rule not exist in other societies (religious and secular)? In other words, does Christianity think it’s the only world view to think not killing is a good thing?

You shall not steal: Again, this is a pretty good rule but I can imagine there to be nuances that it doesn’t consider. For instance, if your family is starving, and you live under a rich tyrant, would it not be acceptable to steal from him/her to keep your loved ones from perishing? This is similar to the ‘honor your father and mother’ commandment in that I don’t think it’s as wise as it could be (remember we are basing this discussion on the claim that the Ten Commandments are the ultimate moral code).

You shall not lie (bear false witness): I think we can all agree that, sometimes, lying is perfectly acceptable. Lying to avoid hurting a person’s feelings is ok. Lying to avoid being persecuted by an unjust ruler is ok. Again, couldn’t this take a wiser form?

You shall not commit adultery: This commandment really gets to personal feelings about what a marriage is and should be. The problem is that there are some variations in what people believe in this regard. What if two people no longer love one another, but have amicably agreed to remain married until their children have grown? What happens if, under these conditions, they want to have an ‘open’ marriage? Of course, a very religious person may view this choice as unacceptable in the eyes of their god, but a more secularly minded individual may think otherwise. Their viewpoint may be, “adultery is ok as long as each partner agrees and it doesn’t hurt the children”.

You shall not covet: There is a lot I could say here, but I will just say one thing – while it may not put a person’s mind at ease to be always wanting something he does not have, I cannot see it to be such a crime as to be worthy of eternal damnation. You could go your entire life wishing to have your neighbor’s wealth (or wife) but how does that mental wish make you hell bound?

Other Shortcomings of the Ten Commandments: I am sure there are others, but here are just a few off the top of my head:

1. Child Molestation: This should be a no-brainer if you’re making commandments.
2. Rape: Ditto
3. Slavery: At one time, Christians justified slavery using verses in the Bible. Now we know better. Why wasn’t something about slavery included in the ultimate moral code?
4. Equality: Women, blacks and now gays have all struggled for equality. Why didn’t something about basic human rights get included in the Christian moral code?

Ok, so we’re done looking at the Ten Commandments. To me anyway, it’s pretty clear that they are anything but an ‘ultimate moral code’. Some Christians will say that the Ten Commandments are not everything – that there is lots of other good stuff in the Bible. My answer is to agree that there is some good stuff in the Bible. However, there is also a lot of bad stuff. There are passages about stoning disobedient children, stoning women for not being virgins, carrying out genocide and much, much more.

To those charges, the liberal Christian pleads that much of the Bible should not be taken literally – that there are hidden meanings and positive messages to be found behind those passages. The passages don’t mean what they say. In other words, we need to better interpret them.

Ok fine but, at this point, I think it’s worth mentioning that interpreting and re-interpreting Bible passages has been going on for a long, long time. In fact, this sort of thing is what’s led to the multitude of Christian denominations we have today. Generally speaking, what happens is a person (or group of people) disagrees with the moral code being promoted by a given faith. In some circumstances, the dispute ends gracefully with a new moral interpretation. A good example of this is how most of Christianity eventually recognized that slavery was bad. In more extreme cases, new denominations & religions have splintered off to propagate their own moral preferences.

In both cases, their is one commonality – people engage their brains, review the Bible, strip away the bad stuff, and evolve their understanding of the Bible so that it can be made consistent with the morality of the day.

Did you pay attention to that last bit? It is people who have historically evolved their moral codes – not the Bible, and it is the re-interpretations that have  allowed the Bible to stay morally relevant.

And even then, it seems to me that the Bible is grossly inadequate compared to other sources of morality. Which sources? How about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (a clearly secular document)? I’m sorry but, on issues of human rights, the Bible doesn’t even hold a candle.

That specific document aside, there are many places where you can begin satisfying your desire to learn about morality and to formulate your own code of ethics. Philosophy loves ethics and morality and has a nasty habit (according to some!) of failing to mention deities. Here are a few links to get you started:

1. Wikipedia’s Ethics Page – a good jump-off point
2. Index of Ethical Movements (another good jump-off point)
3. Objectivism
4. Humanism
5. Secular Ethics
6. Hedonism
7. Utilitarianism
8. Stoicism (A.C. Grayling says much of Christian thought was co-opted from Stoicism)
9. Consequentialism
10. Alternatives to the Ten Commandments

Or you might read up on what some of the world’s most famous philosophers have had to say. Great thinkers like:

• Immanual Kant
• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Aristotle
• and the list goes on and on and on…

My own morality leans heavily on humanism and the Ethic of Reciprocity (a virtually universal ethical standard – not found solely in the Christian version of the ‘Golden Rule’) but I enjoy reading about other schools, and view the subject as a lifetime pursuit. I think one of the most important things we can keep in mind when considering ethics and morality is that we aren’t obligated to buy into any one school of thought. It’s your brain – use it.

I’m curious if any of my readers subscribe to a particular school of ethical thought, and what resources they’ve used to arrive at their own views on the subject. Please share.

In the meantime, I hope it’s now clear that Godless ≠ Without Morals.

]]> http://40yearoldatheist.com/godless-morals/2009/12/feed/ 50 http://40yearoldatheist.com/does-religious-faith-instill-hatred-distrust-of-science/2009/11/ http://40yearoldatheist.com/does-religious-faith-instill-hatred-distrust-of-science/2009/11/#comments Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:13:01 +0000 40 Year Old Atheist http://40yearoldatheist.com/?p=796 I have a friend who I’m finding myself disagreeing with more and more lately. This person is intelligent and generally makes a lot of sense – even when we have ideological disagreements (such as on political matters).

But lately, the disagreements have baffled and troubled me as I’ve put pieces of the puzzle together to realize how amazingly anti-science he is. Examples:

1. Climate Warming: He continually quotes out of date research and the ramblings of “scientists” with iffy (at best) credentials who claim that climate warming is a hoax.
2. Evolution: I am not exaggerating much when I say he sounds like a Ray Comfort clone. “Evolution is not a science because it’s not repeatable or observable” and “Evolution takes faith” have escaped his lips on more than one occasion.

And, in addition to those two specific examples, I’ve also heard him call science “scientism” and say that  “science is a religion”.

However, because the conversations have been widely spread apart (months at times), and because he is elusive about his beliefs, I was never able to make sense of him …until recently.

I was listening to an episode of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe when one of the hosts made the statement that, when science conflicts with a person’s ideologies, that person will often reject the science. Then, he went on to say that the most prevalent cases of these rejections flow from conflicts between science and religion.

Suddenly, two years of discussions with my friend came into clear focus…

1. He has conservative leanings.
2. He’s a climate warming denier.
3. He’s anti-evolution.
4. He’s made statements about people and even countries being punished by God for their wrongdoings.

All of these things paint a picture that we tend to ascribe to conservative Christians. Here are two of the consistencies expanded a bit to help illustrate the point I’m making:

1. Global Warming: It’s very common for conservative Christians to deny that we humans are having any appreciable effect on the planet’s temperature. This comes partly from the biblically inspired belief that it would be arrogant to think humans could have that much of an impact on God’s creation. It also comes from the connection to the end-times prophecy that – even if we were impacting the earth’s temperature, it is just part of God’s plan to bring on the rapture. In other words, bring on the destruction of the earth – because the worthy won’t be here to live on it anyway. This sort of thinking is exactly why non-believers feared George Bush being at the helm of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.
2. Evolution: Most of the world’s Christians have no issue with the theory of evolution via Natural Selection (e.g. Catholics & Anglicans are a-ok with it). Indeed, there are other religions (e.g. Hinduism) that also accept it as the explanation for the diversity of life on earth. Not so with the conservative Christian crowd. For them, evolution – especially human evolution – is an attack on the belief that God created man in his image. Humans did not come into exist by a “chance” sequence of events over billions of years – we are here according to divine plan. Humans are not simply the most intelligent of millions of species – we were created to preside over the earth and everything within it. To conservatives, evolution undermines faith – plain and simple.

The bottom line is that science opposes the conservative Christian world view – and that of my friend’s – in multiple and significant ways.

When this happens, a serious case of cognitive dissonance tends to set in. The two opposing ideas of science and religion simply cannot occupy the same space so the brain attempts to solve the problem. Unfortunately, science often loses to faith because the latter is such a hugely emotional thing (it’s tough for a scientific explanation to compete with the promise of eternal life).

One of the tricks the mind plays on itself to support its emotional choice is confirmation bias – it finds support for its viewpoint, while ignoring or downplaying contrary information. Remember my colleague’s reliance on outdated information and unqualified climate science “experts”? Yup, a perfect example.

Like millions of other conservative Christians, my friend has solved his dissonance by rejecting science.

The irony for the conservative faithful, is that they live in a society that is utterly dependent on science for virtually every aspect of the the lifestyle we’re accustomed to in 21st century North America. I imagine this irony is not entirely lost on them, and it must be difficult to keep the cognitive dissonance at bay. After all, they would find their views in opposition not only with secularists, but also with most other Christians.

I’m not interested in destroying anyone’s faith but, as a humanist, I also do not want anyone to suffer. Therefore, if you are a person who’s troubled by the collision between your faith and science, my advice to you is this…

You don’t necessarily have to abandon your belief in God to accept what science has to offer. All you have to do is adjust your faith. Not every Christian believes every word of their faith so why should you? It’s worth mentioning that there are many varieties of Christian faith that do not clash violently with science. It’s also worth mentioning that the Christian faith has been evolving for over 2000 years, so any adjustment you might make to your faith would be done in good company.

I had no specific subject in mind and found myself turning into a cemetery. It looked pretty from the road.

I wasn’t disappointed. It was beautiful and tranquil. The big surprise though was my lack of anxiety being there (it was the first time I’d set foot in a cemetery since becoming an atheist and, prior to today, I’d always felt uncomfortable being in them).

Today I felt nothing but calm introspection – I think because, over the past two years, I’d spent a lot of time thinking about death and had become quite at peace with it.

Being at the cemetery got me reflecting on what all those headstones were saying.

Of course, there were the religious messages (which I felt safe to ignore)…

There were reminders of war…

The heartbreak of losing loved ones…

People seeking peace (I hoped they had some while they were alive)…

A chorus of pleas screaming, “I was here! I existed! Don’t forget me!”…

And then there was this little fella who looked happy enough… just to exist.

And I thought, “Yeah, that’s right”.

I call bullshit.

1. Someone needs to explain how god’s morality can be so hopelessly confusing as to lead to thousands of religions – some of which are in such vehement opposition to one another other (e.g. Islam vs. Christianity). If god’s morality is objective, you’d think it would be easy for religions to agree on what is right, and what is wrong.
2. Specifically with regard to Christianity, someone needs to explain why there are so many strains of that faith. How is it that a Catholic’s moral code can be so different from a Protestant’s? Why are Jehovah’s Witnesses and Fundamentalist Baptists so different from every other faith? Also, why are each of these varieties of faith so adamant that their particular brand of Christian morality is the superior one (in answering this question, Christians need to be reminded that each competing sect bases its claim on an interpretation of the same book)? Why isn’t the objective morality of the Bible easier to reconcile within Christian denominations?
3. With respect to modern/moderate Christian thinking, why has your religion’s moral code changed so drastically over the centuries and decades? Why was it perfectly acceptable to own a slave a couple of years ago and not today? Why was it ok to severely punish (i.e. beat and/or stone to death) wives and children for their disobedience then, but not now? How can objective morality be claimed when it has, in fact, changed over the generations? Is it possible that your Christian morality is already evolving in the same manner you seem to fear it will if god were to be taken out of the equation?

Objective morality that comes down from the heavens seems pretty far from being true. From my perspective, it actually provides evidence that much of what we call morality is subject to change. Further thought on the three questions asked above leads me to think that so-called god-based objective morality is, in fact, relative morality created out of a combination of:

1. What culture you live in.
2. What religion you grow up in.
3. What point in history you are alive in.

Those three points can be wrapped up nicely into one bullet:

• There is no evidence for god-based objective morality. Rather, evidence seems to point to a high probability that religious moral codes are shaped by us.

Just how morality is developed is a much (much MUCH!) bigger topic for discussion.

And, while I proudly call myself an atheist – a person with no belief in gods – I am a whole lot more than that. Aren’t you?

I now fully realize this as the purpose for this blog – to explore all that I stand for and, hopefully, to get you thinking along the same lines. Previous posts are consistent with this purpose. Now, I’m stating it explicity.

A plan for this blog – and my life – is starting to come together.

• Atheism: 6 out of 7 (using Dawkins 7 point scale, I am a “De facto Atheist”)
• Antitheism: 7 out of 10
• Evangelism: 8 out of 10
• Militancy: 5 out of 10 (hopelessly non-committal – give me some time!)

I rate myself 30 out of 37 possible advocacy points. It’ll be interesting to see where I put myself on these scales one year from now.

(I’m really starting to think this would be a cool survey)

Knowing there were many atheist bloggers with far more experience and knowledge made me wonder how I could possibly contribute. I finally realized I can contribute because I am new, am exploring the basics and can relate well to new atheists or those exploring atheism.

With that in mind, today I’m exploring my role in the spread of atheism. What got me thinking about this is the often heated debate that goes on among atheists. We have the “leave religion and religious people alone and live your life” camp versus the “religion must be eradicated because it is hurting people and could lead to the destruction of our world” camp. Each of those camps – and shades of grey atheists between them – have ideas about the activities that should/should not be engaged in to promote atheism.

First, Some Definitions

Atheism is non-belief in gods. Atheists can be divided into strong versus weak atheists (see Richard Dawkins 7 point theism-atheism scale for something more thoughtful)

Anti-theism is opposition to belief in the existence of a God, and belief that theism is destructive.

Militant atheism is anti-theism in action – not only being philosophically opposed to theism, but actively involved to end it.

Evangelical atheism is also anti-theism in action. However, its focus is to spread atheism, rather than to end theism (the militant focus).

Atheist Scales

With the definitions above in mind, I created a few scales to help me decide my level of atheistic advocacy. I’ve labelled the left ends with extreme anti-advocacy statements, and the right ends with extreme pro-advocacy statements. Of course, there are imagined points between the ends – the shades of grey many of us will identify with. I like thinking about these as 10 point scales.

I included a strong versus weak atheist scale because I think the others are all somewhat dependent on one’s placement on that scale. Feel free to challenge me on that one – the scale is based on assumption. At any rate, the scales help me sort things out. Let me know what they do for you (if anything!).

Ok, enough talk. Here are the scales (click on the image to enlarge).

Please let me know your thoughts on this. Also, please let me know if I should make this into a survey – it might be neat to measure the responses.

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Edit: I’ve decided to call this my Atheism Advocacy Scale. Click this link to see how I rate myself.