The thought is on my mind because a theology student recently asked me to answer some survey questions (he’d been assigned an “interview an atheist” project). I’m not sure if the questions were his own, or if they’d been fed to him by a professor, but the bias in them hurt my brain and caused me to feed on baby flesh.

Anyway, while all the questions had bias (I may post the others later), one in particular got my goat:

James Spiegel wrote in The Making of an Atheist that most people are atheists or agnostics because either one or both of the following are true: (1) there was a major disaster earlier in life that made the person angry toward God (perhaps a death of a loved one or disappointment with some people in the church), (2) the person simply does not want God to be a part of their life. Do either of these descriptions fit why you think there is no God? When did you become an atheist/agnostic, and what would you say brought this about?

Not Enough Options

The claim that there are only two options is incorrect. Including those mentioned above, I can think of four possibilities (I’m probably missing some):

1. A person could grow up in an atheist household and know virtually nothing about religion or god.
2. A person could use rational thinking and an examination of evidence and history to conclude there is no god.
3. There was a major disaster earlier in life that made the person angry toward God (perhaps a death of a loved one or disappointment with some people in the church (part of the original question).
4. The person simply does not want God to be a part of their life (also part of the original question).

Analysis

1. Why does the author see only points 3 & 4 as possible reasons for a person being an atheist? Is it because he is a shallow thinker? Or is it because he is purposefully misleading his readers?
2. Both reasons 3 & 4 mischaracterize what it means to be an atheist:
   • Definition of an Atheist: A person who does not believe in the existence of deities (Christian, Islamic, Judaic, Hindu, Greek & Roman gods – among thousands of other deities – all included).
   • Author’s Definition (my interpretation): A person who has been alienated from, or is angry with God and who, as a result, has decided to force god’s existence from their minds by an act of mental will.
   • The author’s definition seems very similar to a person who is angry with their father and decides to shut him out of their lives. Note that, in this example, the father still exists, but he is avoided or ignored or pushed far away from the person’s daily life and thoughts.
   • The author’s conceptualization of what an atheist is, is a grossly ignorant, dishonest misrepresentation of the concept. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in deities. It is not an emotional rejection of something a person knows to exist.

One More Thing

It is entirely possible for a person to begin their journey toward atheism based on an emotional/traumatic event, but to arrive at their destination based on rational thinking. In other words, emotion can be the trigger that leads to further investigation, that leads to a weighing of evidence, that leads to a non-emotion based abandonment of belief.

In my case, I became an atheist at 40 years of age after a lifetime of trying to believe. Certainly, there were troubling events in my life, but they did not solely lead to my atheism. My decision to abandon belief in god was based on the combined impact of these major findings (among others):

1. That religions do not adequately explain the problem of evil.
2. That there is no evidence for any god or deity.
3. That the existence of thousands of religions – all claiming to be the exclusive holders of truth and none of them providing compelling evidence for their claim suggests that none of their claims are to be trusted.

It’s important to realize that, for a long time, I really wanted to believe but, the more investigation I did, the less I was able to stomach the Kool-Aid.

One More, One More Thing

We are not mad at God. We simply do not think your god exists. Would you accept my claim that you are angry at glow-in-the-dark, spacesuit-wearing six-legged chickens? Or that you are mad at the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

No? Well, now you know how ridiculous we view your claim that “atheists are just mad at God”.

Starting in the early 1960′s, the province of Quebec, Canada went through a Quiet Revolution – a revolution that’s resulted in an increasingly secular society. Link

Compared to the US, most of Canada is a relative haven for non-believers. A recent survey shows that one in four Canadians do not believe in god, but Quebec is leading the way with huge declines in church attendance. Things have gotten so bad there (or, good depending on how you look at it!) that churches are being sold to the lowest bidder.

And it appears that Quebec isn’t done sticking nails in the coffin of religion.

So, the next time you think it might be nice to get a change of scenery, think of Quebec …just make sure you brush up on your French.

Before getting into the backward logic of the latter demand, let’s look at some examples of evidence:

1. Fingerprints and hair samples (DNA) are evidence for a person being placed at a crime scene.
2. Fossils are evidence that extinct species of animals once existed.
3. A photo of my wife and I kissing is evidence that we love one another.
4. Observing the speed of different items falling (in a frictionless vacuum) is evidence that gravity has the same pull on items of different mass.

Sometimes, the evidence is convincing and easy to find. Other times, it is weak and difficult to come by (for Galileo’s gravity experiment, we need a frictionless environment). In science, when evidence is weak, we continue to push until we have more and more of it – until we have a degree of confidence that our theory is correct.

What all evidence has in common is that it demonstrates something about the physical properties of the world we live in (i.e. that everything is made of matter). Therefore, evidence must take physical form. It may be visual. It may be auditory. It may be something we can touch or measure in some physical way because, where there’s matter, there’s generally a way to measure it. The point is, evidence is more substantial that a thought that exists in our minds.

The claims of religion operate on two levels. At the macro level, we have the claim that God exists while, on the micro level, we have the claim that the Bible is true, and that Jesus existed.

What evidence do we have that supports those claims? Well, the Bible claims that there is a God. Outside of that, he seems to exist only in the minds of people since there has not, in our time, been any documented, verifiable, observable, physical proof that he’s around.

With respect to the Bible, where’s the evidence in support of its claims? I think to answer this question, it’s helpful to separate the claims into two areas:

1. Its claims about the origins of the universe and life.
2. Its claims about history – specifically, about Jesus’ existence.

With regard to claim #1, virtually everything we know about the origins of the universe (e.g. that it’s 14 billion years old) come into direct conflict with what’s said in the Bible (6000 years?). Most importantly, the knowledge we have is supported by copious amount of evidence. In contrast, the Bible’s evidence is that the Bible says so. A key concept used in the scientific method is this: When a theory is shown to have massive amounts of evidence that conflicts with a theory with no evidence, the latter theory is very likely implausible. This IS evidence for the non-existence of God – or, at least, for the god that is written about in the Bible. It’s also evidence that the Bible is deeply flawed. Given that, I think its prudent that we ask ourselves, “Why should we trust the Bible?”. I see no reason we should.

Aside: Even the claim that god loves us is bogus. Where, outside a thought in your brain can one find evidence for the love of an invisible man in the sky?

With regard to claim #2, again, the Bible runs up against a method similar to science. Historians test in specific ways when they evaluate claims about what happened in the past. Unfortunately, the Bible doesn’t do well when these tests are applied. Without getting too deeply into the historicity of the Bible, one of the best examples of this test is that Jesus is not mentioned anywhere in Roman records of the time. You’d think, someone of that importance would have been mentioned somewhere by the Romans – wouldn’t you?

Aside #2: I recommend reading anything by Bart Ehrman (you can also find some excellent videos of him debating believers on YouTube).

All this means that there is little if any reliable evidence showing the Bible to be worth the paper it is written on. And if this is so, what does it say about the claims about Jesus, or his father?

All this aside, the claim that we must prove the non-existence of god is ludicrous. It’s a claim that was adeptly brushed aside by Bertrand Russel when he conceptualized his “celestial teapot”:

___

I really can’t put a finer point on it than that. Besides, it’s late and I’m tired.

At first, I tackled the problem by exposing myself to more religion. I attended more church, met more church people, and read more of the Bible.

Still, nothing made sense.

“It must be my church”, I thought, and spent another couple of years church shopping.

Things didn’t get any clearer. Seeing that God’s churches could disagree on so much made things worse. The world, according to the Bible, just didn’t add up.

So, I withdrew from church life. But I wasn’t done with religion. I was still trying to make make God fit into the evil and suffering within the world. I watched hundreds of hours of video and read countless articles on (what seemed like) hundreds of websites.

Still, nothing made sense.

Finally, after many years of this heavy lifting, I asked the unthinkable…

“Maybe there isn’t a god?”

And then I read and watched for another two months before I finally read The God Delusion.

In between chapters, I supplemented The God Delusion with even more articles and videos – this time with a heavy focus on debates between believers and unbelievers.

And just like that, the world started making sense.

Thinking about the unthinkable was – UNDOUBTEDLY – the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Nevertheless, I finally arrived at an answer that really made sense. There was no god.

Why was it so hard?

First, because in addition to letting go of god, I let go of my ideas around immortality. I saw my mind/my consciousness/my soul as nothing more than what my brain did. When my brain died, I recognized that my life would end and there would be nothing more. This, after 40 years, was an excruciating loss. There was a very real mourning period.

Worse, not only had I let go of my own immortality, but I also recognized the mortality of my family. In a very short period of time, I had to come to terms with one day losing my parents – forever. Even harder, I began to imagine what losing my wife or one of my children would mean to me. I felt such fear. Such sadness.

I was preparing myself for future losses in a reality-based way that I’d never had to consider before.

The permanent loss of loved ones was the hardest idea I’d ever had to deal with – I’m still amazed I was able to accept all of it.

Can you accept the seemingly harsh reality atheism offers? Why would you want to go any further down this path? After all, compared to what the rest of your life has taught you, what I am saying is pretty damn bleak, isn’t it?

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley suggested that comfort and happiness often come at the expense of freedom and truth.

Yes, sometimes religion is comfortable. Sometimes it will make you happy. But, if inter-mixed and underlying that shallow sense of comfort and happiness, you feel conflict between religion and reality, it may be because you are doubting the truthfulness of what you’ve been taught so far. Accepting faith may also be impinging on your mental freedom to explore the real nature of the universe.

Comfort and happiness versus freedom and truth. Is that the choice? Not necessarily.

Since becoming an atheist, I’ve become free to think deeper about the meaning of life, and I believe I’m closer to the truth of this world than I ever was when I held a belief in God.

But, to my surprise, I am also much happier and more comfortable than I ever was before. There is no more internal conflict because the world finally makes sense. I’ve also gotten past mourning my immortality and am probably better prepared than most for my death, and the death of my loved ones. In fact, I no longer dwell on death at all (except of course to share these experiences!).

And that’s why you owe it to yourself to push a little further – to think outside the box that religion has put you in. You are seeking a melding of comfort, happiness, truth and freedom.

Is today the day you finally allow yourself to think the unthinkable?

For my part, I am rarely anti-theistic. Generally, as long as you don’t try to impose your beliefs on me – or the government (e.g. educational system) – I think your religion is none of my business.

And then something like the attack on Hemant Mehta – the Friendly Atheist – happens (how militant can a guy who calls himself “friendly” be?).

Links: here , here , and here.

When the religious attack good people like Hemant – try to get him FIRED from his job for beliefs that are never brought up in his MATH class (it’d be pretty difficult to talk about atheism while discussing algebra), it pisses us off.

So, now I’m mad. A lot of atheists are mad. Hemant’s unfortunate experience has reminded us that we must be vigilant to protect our rights. We must band together. We must speak out against religious wing-nuts.

Congratulations to the Illinois Family Institute for getting more of us atheists up in arms.

Well, it wasn’t.

At all.

I’ve got pages and pages of notes and will try to post something here when I’m done organizing my thoughts.

In the meantime, all I can say is that if The Case for Faith is an example of Strobel’s “investigative journalism”, I’m really glad I haven’t been subjected to his blatant one-sided approach to researching a topic.

Awful. Just awful.

While you wait on bated breath for my review, you may want to check out The Case Against Faith. I’m sure the site will be much more comprehensive than anything I have to say. I think I’ll go browse it now, myself.

Almost as soon as we sat down, my daughter (11 years) mentioned how someone in the family thinks they saw a ghost at the side of her bed. My response was an immediate and confident, “there’s no such thing as ghosts”.

It was a that point where my other half took a friendly jab at the fact that I “don’t believe in anything”.

“Not true”, I said. “I believe in a lot of things. I just need to see convincing evidence before I proclaim belief”.

Something about that really clicked with my daughter who immediately went into a litany of things she didn’t believe or that didn’t make sense to her. Guess what sorts of things don’t sit well with her?

- the idea that there’s an invisible man up there that created everything.

- the creation of a woman from a man’s rib.

- how Adam and Eve could have populated the entire earth.

- Noah’s Ark.

The subject of god and my beliefs hasn’t come up with my daughter since I became an atheist. In other words, I didn’t put these thoughts in her head. Truth be known, I was a bit worried about how she’d react to knowing my thoughts on religion because she spent five years in a Catholic school (it’s a long story) before I became an atheist.

But, the conversation was exactly as I’d always hoped it would be – spontaneously initiated by her, at an age where she could formulate reasoned questions and answers. She was SO inquisitive and thoughtful. I also got the feeling she was really appreciative of the alternative viewpoint I had. I think she may have felt previously that her doubts about those things had no audience.

After she talked about what she didn’t believe, she asked how I thought the world was created. I was very excited to share what little I know about The Big Bang! Then, she surprised me even further by asking if we “came from apes”. “Wow! What a great day”, I thought, and proceeded to give her a quick run down on the theory of evolution.

She SOAKED it up …we connected in a way we never had before.

While all this was going on, my son (7 years) was going into great detail about how he was going to grow up to be a scientist and prove that zombies really do exist. I may have to work on that one a bit more!

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.

One of the lines of thought that keeps creeping into Ed’s conversation is that his life was empty/without meaning and that he was searching for something until he came to Christ. Of course, he wants to share that – he wants me and other atheists to find Christ so that we can plug that hole in our hearts and become fulfilled.

To Ed and all you other Christians/Theists: I am not empty. I am not searching for something. I am quite happy and have no holes to fill.

In fact, it might surprise you to learn that, upon letting go of religion/god/faith/Jesus etc, I felt a great weight lift off my shoulders. I felt tremendous joy in being freed from religion. Not only that, but since de-converting, I have had an insatiable curiosity about the world, as well as an ever-increasing concern for our planet and the life on it.

Does this mean everything is perfect in my life? Of course not! But it does mean that I am a happy, contented, self-actualizing individual with a great deal of gratitude for having breath in my lungs, food on my plate and love in my life.

In other words, I am fulfilled and I’m sorry to tell you that your offer of fulfillment through Christ …offers me nothing.

And I suspect many other atheists are just like me.

My wife has also largely abandoned religion (believes in “a greater force” but not a personal god) so we are, for the most part, on the same page with regard to religion.

But we also agree that moving the kids to a new school now is not the best idea. We don’t want to disrupt a stable educational situation, nor do we want them to have to make new friends (especially my daughter). So, we’re going to let them finish elementary school, and then we’ll transfer them to public junior high. This will work well since many of our kid’s classmates will also attend the public school due to there being very few Catholic schools in the area.

So, although not ideal, the whole thing provides a transition we can live with. In addition, I have a plan for systematically displacing religion’s impact on my children’s psyche.

Step one is to educate them about the thousands of religions and religious denominations. This will get them thinking about the very low probability that one religion is the right one (and the implication that the rest are all, to one degree or another, wrong). To that end, I’ve placed orders for this and this. I may add this to the list.

Step two is to introduce them to rational arguments against belief in god. To me, this step is very much like telling a child that Santa doesn’t exist. In fact, when I begin on step two, I’m going to intentionally draw parallels between the existence of Santa and God. Of course, there will be more explanation than that, but the Santa parallel will provide the bridge of showing how something you once believed in, can be absolutely false.

At first of course, the news will be disappointing to them (and probably a bit scary) but, when accompanied by strong reason (e.g analyzing the problem of suffering) and evidence-based thinking (e.g. no evidence), I am confident that it will become the only idea that makes sense. Of course, sharing our own beliefs will go a long way toward helping them see that non-belief is acceptable.

My daughter is ten and is figuring out that Santa doesn’t exist (she seems to be staying quiet about it – probably for the benefit of her brother). It’s definitely time to teach her. I’ll also start my son on step one and will proceed to step two when I think he’s ready. The last thing I want is for him to run off to school yelling, “there is no god” among a classroom full of believers.

My children will ultimately make up their own minds, but at least they’ll have access to all the options – all tempered with a good dose of rational thinking.

I’m going to follow up this post with another on my thoughts around the relationship between belief in God, Satan, ghosts and lots of other unproved stuff.

—
Oh, in case you wondered: definition of heathen