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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Statistics: Awareness of Atheism

Disclaimer: From the school of you can make statistics say anything you want, I’ve collected some data and made some speculations (feel free to make your own).
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I’ve heard it said that atheism is growing, but I wonder if the assertion is true. One way to get a clue is by surveying the public - the best example being national census/surveys. Polls in Canada show atheism clearly on the rise (we went from 1% to 16% between 1971 and 2001). The picture doesn’t seem to be quite as quite as rosy in the United States.

Surveys aren’t the complete picture since they don’t fully address awareness of atheism - awareness being the first step toward deconversion. The question of awareness got me wondering about the number of news articles being written at least partially on the subject of atheism. I went to Google News to see what I could learn:

    Click to Enlarge                  

  1. Good News: Between January 2006 and 2008, there was an approximate 75% increase in the number of news articles containing “atheism” or “atheist”. This figure throws out a December 2007 spike to be explained below.
  2. Interesting News: There are more articles written about atheism in December than any other month. Is it just a coincidence that December is the high point of the Christian calendar and that more is being said about atheism at that time of year?
  3. Depressing News: Articles that generated the highest peaks were almost always written on religious websites/by theist authors. In other words, we get our best press when theists ponder our - in their view - wrongness. This is, unfortunately, consistent with the previous point about December articles.
  4. Celebrity News: By far, the biggest boost to atheism came with the December release of The Golden Compass. In case you were asleep, there was quite a bit of controversy in religious circles as to the films anti-religious leanings. Atheism got it’s all-time biggest boost over this nugget of controversy.
  5. Not Surprising News: There were some upswings in conjunction with major book releases. Generally speaking, there were small two to three month blips around The God Delusion (October 2006) and God Is Not Great (May 2007). This is pure speculation - although there were blips in those months, I can’t say for sure the books were 100% causal. That said, it’s probably a fair guess they had at least some impact.
  6. Very Bad News: March 2008 (the last month of Google News data) showed the largest drop in atheism articles over the past two years. In fact, the number of articles indexed on Google in March 2008 was almost as low as the number indexed in March 2006.

Notes On The Data

  1. I conducted analysis using “atheism” and “atheists”. The numbers (e.g. 75% growth) were similar for each.
  2. I was a bit concerned that the numbers may have been indicative of overall Google News growth. Meaning, I thought that perhaps Google’s overall news grew by 75% - just like the percent increase in atheist articles. To test this, I conducted the same analysis on “religion” and “Christianity” and found that the percent growth wasn’t even close to “atheism” and “atheist” growth. The growth of the former search words were quite flat.

What Can We Learn From This?

I’m not a media guy, but I think someone with media background could use this information to great effect. My own thoughts are that:

  1. Books Help (I know - duh): My sense (based on nothing) is that most of the big books have probably already been written and that, to be successful, new ones will need to hit a new demographic (e.g. maybe someone can break in by dumbing it down a bit and speaking to the masses). If famous atheists Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were to write a book about atheism, it might just become cool to be one.
  2. Movies and Controversy Bring More Attention Than Books: Let’s face it, North America loves its movies. The bigger the movie with ties to atheism, the better the message will get out. Someone needs to get on that. I tend to think that a mainstream movie with a controversial atheist agenda might do well because of it.
  3. The Tail Needs to Learn How to Wag the Dog: We know the news covers atheism when theists write about it. My view is we should figure out one kick-ass way to feed the trolls.
  4. Christmas: Feed the trolls more at Christmas since theists seem to be looking for it anyway.
  5. No Stopping: Does the trend of less media coverage mean people are tiring of the atheist message, or is it just time to think hard about the approach we’re using to get that message across? 

One Last Thought

We still don’t seem to have a meme that’s taken hold in a big way. We’ve got a few out there (Out Campaign, The Brights, and The Blasphemy Challenge) that seem to appeal to atheists, but none that seem to have really struck a positive chord with the greater public.

What makes a good internet meme? How do we get all the cool kids to run around with an atheist related t-shirt? I’m no expert on memes - I just think that no one has hit that particular nail on the head …yet.

What are your thoughts? How do we increase atheism’s visibility in the news? How do we reverse what looks like a recent decline in news coverage and public awareness?

August 11, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism

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Turn the Other Cheek

I’m increasingly bothered in some of my regular hangouts - places like the Atheism Reddit, YouTube and some atheist blogs. To my disappointment, I’m even bothered by some of my own writings.

What’s bugging me is the arrogant, condescending attitude we often have toward believers. Certainly not everyone is guilty of this and, of those, not everyone is guilty all the time but it is, in my estimation, still too prevalent.

You’d be right to say that we atheists are often the object of arrogance and disrespect and that all we’re doing is a tit-for-tat thing but, do two wrongs make a right? Do you really want to have that kind of dialogue?

7 Pillars I Try to Live My Life By was my first shot at conveying that, although I have no belief in god, I do have values that might connect with people examining their own beliefs. And that’s what I think we should be striving for - to connect and demonstrate alternative world views, and communicate that we do not lead empty, uncaring, valueless lives.

Perhaps more importantly, is a group of people who speak degradingly of others a group that someone questioning their faith would want to be a part of?

One of my pillars is being empathetic to others, but I think compassion and being humble are also important when it comes to discussing atheism. Overall, I’d rather be empathetic and treat people with compassion, than add fuel to the theist-atheist fire.

Of course, in doing so, I’m sure there will be those who do not respond in kind. That’s ok. The conversations I want to have are with people exploring belief versus non-belief in a non-combative manner, and I think that those people will turn away from discussing atheism if all they see from the messenger is arrogance and condescension.

So, I’m going to take one out of that book many of us like to ridicule and turn the other cheek.

My Pledge: If you’re coming here to learn about atheism, I will give my best effort to always treat you with respect. I hope you’ll afford me the same courtesy.

I’m not interested at all in patting myself and other atheists on the back for being more clever than “those poor, dumb, deluded religious people”. No, to spread atheism, we don’t need an ego building initiative - we need to convince others that there are hope-filled, meaningful alternatives to being religious.

I understand that for questioning theists, a leap of unfaith can be a difficult and scary thing. I’m here to respect - not denigrate - that challenge.

August 6, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism

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The Lord’s Prayer - Sung by a 2 Year Old

A co-worker sent this to me - presumably because she thought it was cute. It did nothing except make me fill ill. If that weren’t enough to make me blow chunks there is a whole youtube channel devoted to this child’s religious indoctrination.

July 8, 2008 · Filed Under religulous, video

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10 New Commandments for Fundamentalists, Evangelicals & Creationists

  1. Thou shalt promise heaven for believers at the beginning of arguments, and hell for non-believers at the end of arguments.
  2. Thou shalt put thy fingers in thy ears and repeat “I’m not listening, I’m not listening” when confronted with evidence against your faith.
  3. Thou shall make no attempt to understand scientific or rational explanations of things when they conflict with the word of God.
  4. Thou shalt condemn evils committed by non-believers, and ignore or praise evils committed by believers
  5. Thou shalt explain all of the world’s seemingly needless suffering as “necessary but unknowable due to the mystery of the Lord”.
  6. Thou shalt look forward to, and even encourage, the destruction of the world.
  7. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as long as he attendith thy church.
  8. Thou shalt cherry-pick the Bible to suit thy purpose.
  9. Thou shalt memorize the circular argument that “God exists because the Bible tells us he exists, and the Bible was written by God, therefore it must be true”.
  10. Thou shalt blame all the evils of the world - as found in the Bible and interpreted by you - on homosexuals and atheists.
  11. Bonus Commandment (follow this one and get an eternal supply of salt-water taffy and Nike Air Sandals when you arrive in heaven): Thou shalt take all atheist quotes about God out of context to make it appear the source is/was a believer.

June 26, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, funnier than hell

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