Three Crucial Things You Must Know Before Challenging An Atheist’s Unbelief

I propose that there are three categories of atheists:

  1. Natural Atheists: Those brought up by atheist parents who never experienced the conflict between religion and rationality.
  2. Apathetic Atheists: Those whose faith was not particularly strong and who, without a compelling drive to believe or not believe, defaulted to atheism - becoming an atheist involved very little internal debate and conflict.
  3. Dissonant Atheists: Those who grew up with belief but who were overwhelmingly torn up over the incompatibility between faith and rationality. These people sought one thing - to rid themselves of the terrible cognitive dissonance cat #1 and #2 atheists are spared from.

I’m here to talk about category #3 atheists because, well, I fall in that grouping.

Three Things You Must Know About Category #3 Atheists

  1. We Sometimes Wish Were Wrong (Even Though We Know We Are Not): I think one of the biggest mistakes theists make is to assume an atheist’s decision to ditch god was arrived at without deeply studying the issue. They honestly believe that all they have to do is raise a little awareness and, viola, they will have an easy conversion. This is not the case for cat #3 atheists. For us, becoming an atheist was the biggest decision of our lives. After all, becoming an atheist, not only means (for 99.9999% of us) getting rid of god, it also means abandoning the idea of immortality (ourselves and our loved ones) and that makes it a very, very big decision. Many of us go through a very real grieving process over all of this. With all this on the line, do you really think we’d only put a half-assed effort into our decision?
  2. We’ve Heard It All Before: I’m amazed how often - in my short, six months as an atheist - I’ve been challenged by someone who thinks they have the ultimate argument for religion. Trust me, you have nothing new to offer us on this discussion. Why am I so cocky (clue: see #1 above)? We’ve heard all your objections and questions before - probably many times before. Where have we heard them? We heard them inside our own heads during our de-conversion process. We’ve run the scenarios and questions many, many times - over and over - in our minds and, eventually, logic won out over these objections and we accepted reality. Most cat #3 atheists will have read multiple books on both sides of the argument, spend hundreds of hours on the web, and viewed countless Youtube debates (frankly, once you’ve seen Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris demolish the likes of Dinesh D’Souza a few times, our own debates seem …rather lame). What you need to know is that by the time you come into the picture, your objections are not at all new to us.
  3. You are Projecting: What we’ve come to realize about your questions and objections (e.g. “What’s the purpose of life without God?” and “Why be moral?”) is that you’re projecting your thoughts, insecurities and fears onto us. Sure, we can answer your questions but, we know in doing so that our worldview troubles you, and that you ask those questions to help you imagine what it might be like to be an atheist. My advice is to keep on asking these good questions, but to also make sure you ask them of yourself. I think you’ll find that you can imagine there’s no heaven. You may even find that it’s easy if you try.

To be blunt, what all this means is that you have very little hope of converting a cat #3 atheist to your religion (you probably won’t have much luck with a cat #1 either). Seriously, your best chance probably lies in converting cat #2 atheists so you might want to start by asking a few questions before wasting time on the wrong category.

Now you have a better understanding of us. You also have a more specific target conversion market.

You’re welcome.

October 28, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, religion

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The Chocolate On Top of Shit Argument for God

sundaeI once asked a friend if he’d like to go bowling with my family. He said, “No thanks. I hate bowling”.

I tried again. “It’s not just bowling - it’s neon bowling“.

My friend: “Mark, do you like eating shit?”.

“Uh, no”.

“If I put chocolate on some shit, do you think you’d eat it”?

I laughed and dropped the subject.

I’m weary of the chocolate-on-top-of-shit argument for god.

Even people with a belief in god see the ridiculousness of fundamentalist Christianity. A 6000 year old earth, hatred of homosexuals and the jealous, vengeful god of the Old Testament do not ring true in 21st century society.

Common sense leads moderate, liberal Christians to focus on the kinder, gentler aspects of the New Testament. Only problem is, in doing so, they conveniently leave out two important parts:

  1. If you reject the god of the New Testament, not only are you denied entry to heaven, but you are also condemned to eternal hell. Note: Eternity is a helluva long time.
  2. Jesus Christ endorsed the Old Testament. How do you resolve this little problem? If it was good enough for him, why isn’t it good enough for you?

So much for the kinder, gentler version of Christianity the moderates and liberals want us to believe their religion is about.

But, hold on - there’s more. The cherry-picking of moderates doesn’t end there. As each year passes, we get even kinder and gentler versions of Christianity where believers try to convince us that we are to pay attention to even less of the Bible (e.g. let’s try not to talk about eternal damnation part). Does Rick Warren ring a bell for anyone?

This, is what I will henceforth call the Chocolate on Top of Shit Argument for God - the idea that, if we ignore enough of the Bible, and put a coat of chocolate on top of the crap underneath, it will magically become palatable.

Attention new-age Christians: No matter how much chocolate you put on your religion, it’s still based on some pretty mean, awful torturous ideas. Ideas based on virtually no evidence. Ideas that don’t jive with hundreds of other religions (they don’t like the taste of your chocolate shit any more than you like the taste of theirs).

All this to say that I don’t care how much you tell me “Jesus loves you” - I just can’t buy it. I can’t buy a sales-pitch that has all these shortcomings and that ultimately ends with the threat of eternal damnation.

October 13, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, religion

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One Atheist’s Perspective on Prayers

With the scare I had over my son becoming a diabetic, I had a number of friends say they were praying for Christopher and my family.

I know some atheists take a really hard line on anything to do with religion - including prayer (e.g. “I don’t want anyone praying for me”) whereas I’m softer on the whole thing. As a “Dawkins” atheist, I know all about the argument that there is a slippery slope between the average, well-meaning, good Christian, and wacky fundamentalists. However, I am not quite as militant about the former kind simply because I don’t think they are bad people. Incorrect, yes. Bad, no.

In fact, they mean well. They mean to help. I can’t fault them for that. I’m happy and grateful they have concern for me and my family.

If someone says, “I’m praying for you”, the translator in my head hears, “I am thinking about your family and hoping for the best”.

In my view, the only difference between them and me is that they believe there is someone “up there” listening to those prayers whereas, of course, I don’t.

Thinking about this makes me wonder … to those of you who do take a hard line, how do you reject a prayer?

July 28, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, religion

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U.S. Doesn’t Have a Monopoly on Fundie/Creationist Crap

Much of the ridicule aimed at fundamentalists and creationists is directed at the US Bible Belt. I’m not from there. I’m Canadian.

And while many people are correct to say that Canada has much less of this garbage going on, there is one province that is the exception. That province is where I make my home - the province of Alberta.

Alberta is known as the most conservative province in Canada. There are good reasons for it being included in a recent variation of the United States of Canada and Jesusland map.

After all, we have our very own Big Valley Creation Museum. Yay Alberta.

dinosaurs among humans

July 7, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, religion

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George Carlin Dies

Via The Atheist Blog comes word that George Carlin has died. Mr. Carlin was unquestionably my favorite comedian, and was an atheist who chose to spread the word through brilliantly crafted comedy.

George will be missed and remembered.

June 23, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, religion

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Let’s Agree Not to Bother

I know, I know. Many of the people who read this think I am wrong. Terribly wrong. So wrong in fact, that some of you think I am going to hell.

You want to convince me to change my mind. You want to save me from eternal damnation.

While I appreciate your kindness (I really do), I want to tell you something: Your chances of convincing me are less than my convincing you. Yes, that’s how strong my dis-belief in god is - I know you cannot convince me to believe any more than you can convince me that my parents are goats.

Likewise, I know many of you hold the same conviction. You really believe in what you believe in. More than anything. It’s 100% wrapped up in who and what you are. I get that.

So, while there are other atheists out there who want to debate fundamentalists and evangelicals, I am not one of them. It’s just not my gig.

Now that we’ve agreed not to debate who’s right and who’s wrong, let’s figure out what we can talk about.

I want to talk to three kinds of people. First, I’m interested in connecting with other atheists. Being new at this, I’m hungry for knowledge so I want to meet people to help me with that.

Second, I want to talk to people who want to gain an understanding of atheism. They want to learn what makes atheists tick. In other words, they want to learn about non-religious world views.

And third, I am open to talking to religious people who have at least some doubt about religion. These are people experiencing the internal battle between religious faith, and rational thought. These are the people who have heard the voice of religion and want to hear the atheist perspective.

June 18, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, religion

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