Christian Responses to “Militant” Atheists

Thanks Mike. There is some wisdom there.

Good luck with your doctoral program.
To bad prayer doesn’t work! 😉

The false equivocating of rationality and faith, science and organized religion, and taking arguments about facts of the universe seriously with taking some imaginary pixie seriously are all little more than tired stereotypes at best and more often massive failures at basic logic.

“Give me one good reason to believe in the existence of God.” Still somehow can’t address this one? If you admit how much brutal horrible damage your religion has and continues to do, you admit that invocation of a deity is unecessary in universal/animal existence, and you admit that a book you claim is a good source of truth and morality is full of contradictions and brutality,so, remind me again why you participate in this?

The ‘bible as methaphor’ line pisses me off more than ‘bible as completely true’ line. First, what is it a metaphor of? And those parts about stoning non-virgins to death, what do those represent? Secondly, if it is a mere metaphorical text, there is zero reason to give it any more status than any other book (actually, given the fucked up shit in it, you’d be better off using Harry Potter as your holy book). The bible is a terrible ethical guide, hence all of the slavery, sexism, homophobia, and genocide to which it has led. Thirdly, if you don’t think these stories are true, why haven’t you pitched them already?

Once, a man asked me to give my best argument for why there is no god. I responded, “Fred Rogers is dead and there are thirteen Land Before Time movies.” As that sunk in, you could see the faith drain out of him. Then I had a moment of mourning for the world, because Fred Rogers is dead, and the world a poorer place without him.

While there may be no true Scotsman, there should be some basic definition of “Christian.”

I’ve met plenty of folks who could use this one:

—You’re Christian, so you believe in Christian dogma – right?
—Not really. My made-up versions of God and Jesus are way better than the Bible’s versions. I just call myself Christian for social and emotional reasons.

To slightly misquote Douglas Adams, knowing anything about any god is like a tea leaf knowing the history of the East India Company. The real crux of the situation is that no one can by the definitions imposed by any religion know anything about the god or gods that religion claims to be about. This in turn means that anyone claiming anything else is full of it. Even atheist religions like Buddhism claim to know things about the universe it simply is not within the capabilities of man currently to know. Once you accept this then it becomes obvious that any religion is about the secular power and control of individuals and not spiritual at all. Now you have reached that point these verses and responses are pretty much irrelevant. (I suggest Small Gods by Terry Pratchett as a comical look at this.)

@ObSciGuy,

Yeah, If there can be “cultural Jews”, I guess there can also be “cultural Christians”.

Atheists do it without magic, and nobody feels guilty who doesn’t like that.

DangerousTalk, I agree that the spelling just looks wrong.

Unfortunately, a small minority of English speakers that live on an inconsequential island by the name of England, or Great Brittan, or UK or something, they keep changing it… Anyways, these backward heathens actually spell the word with a ‘C’. Odd, I know. They also publish this book called the “Oxford Dictionary” which claims to be the preeminent lexicon on the English language. Arrogant, eh? They aren’t even located in ‘Merika. Anyways, scepticism and skepticism are both accepted spellings of that beautiful word.

But if you think thats bad, you should see how they spell check and color.

Cats are clearly the manifestation of the divine in the physical world. That of course also means the ancient Egyptians were a lot closer to getting it right than current day religions do.

Careful now! As one of those “bloody Englishmen” I’d have to say bringing up Anglo/American spelling differences is pretty dangerous talk, har de har har.

(It’s from the latin, you philistine! *Shakes fist*)

More crap from someone who thinks there’s an invisible man in the sky who occasionally grants him wishes.

It’s that simple and it’s that stupid.

The very liberal christians who don’t take the Bible literally and don’t believe in miracles, etc. seem like closet atheists. They don’t really have supernatural beliefs. But they’ve grown up believing it’s an awful thing to be an atheist. God will reject you for it, people you know will too. And that conditioning is still with them.

—Darwin made the argument from design completely untenable.
—Er, Hume beat him to it.

That’s absolutely correct, and it deserves more attention. (Even Dawkins noted that issue in The Blind Watchmaker, though he clearly doesn’t find Hume very “fulfill[ing].” Bollocks!)

Dr. Dave said it well. This presupposition crap really needs to be called out. Faith is not on the same level as reason no matter how much Christians like to pretend that it is.

Nakor, I’m married to a Canadian. We have delightful fights over how words are spelled and pronounced. Of course, it’s the kissing and making up that makes the fights worth while.

I think the best argument so far was over the word ‘mauve’.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we pronounce it M-oa-ve, where she says M-awe-ve

OK, I can’t resist. I tried, I swear.

—Creationists are morons.
—That smart?

Heh, very nice.

—Religion is the opium of the people; it’s a crutch.
—Yeah, but science and technology are the crack cocaine; and you don’t limp?

True, to a point. Much more accurate is to say that science and technology are like bread and water…essential elements of modern society. Science is not creating a need for itself that wasn’t there and causing the self-destruction of individuals and societies. Well, I’ll give you twitter, but otherwise…

—Religion is inherently violent.
—You mean violence is inherently religious.

Absolutely not! Violence is inherently human, a very unfortunate part of our nature, but I would never say violence is always tied up with religion, which would be inaccurate and prejudiced. I will say that the most destructive ideologies that have led to the greatest amount of violence are religious or have the worst element of religion; the taking of things on faith and the discouragement of critical analysis. Fascism, Stalinism, and the very specialized form of hell they have in North Korea all show that it is in fact possible to impose totalitarian personality-worship pseudo-religions in the absence of (or, in the case of Fascism, parallel to) supernatural beliefs.

I’m a Brit and member of the Greater Manchester Skeptics (with a K). Not sure why this is so (the spelling, not my membership).

That said, its Colour, Armour, Cheque and its pronounced Alu-MIN-ium. Not ALOO-min-um.

Our language, our rules, bitches!

That said, its Colour, Armour, Cheque and its pronounced Alu-MIN-ium. Not ALOO-min-um.

Our language, our rules, bitches!

Yes, yes, yes, and no. The man (British) who discovered Aluminium named it Aluminum. The Yanks then adopted this, while we Brits decided that “Aluminium” fitted much better with things like sodium, potassium, etc (but not things like platinum…).

This seems to be the way with a number of other words – the Americans kept the standard words when they buggered off across the pond, and we then bastardised our own language (or “evolved” if you want a positive spin on it). “Pants” springs to mind as the most obvious.

Is this about showing that Chistians are aware of the problems in their faith? Seems like another “Christian” who doesn’t believe the traditionally held doctrines of Christianity, but still thinks it’s relevant to take up the arguments against a faith they don’t have.

Ooh, a reverse “No True Scotsman” argument. How weird.

“Your reason is unreasonable”

It is true that in any formalism, there are certain axioms that are “just accepted” and then more propositions are built applying rules of logic (and reason) based on those unproven axioms. Of course, the best formal systems have the least possible number of initial unproven axioms.

When applied to religion, one could grant a “creator” axiom and then develop a formalism from there… but you won’t get to any of the specific details of any of the world’s religions. For example, you can’t get to Christianity from Deism. That’s why I laugh when Christians bring up the Deist axiom. So what? It doesn’t have anything at all to say about Christianity. The only way to “get to” Christianity is to accept all the Christian propositions as axioms. I challenge any two Christians to write down and agree what those Christian axioms should be. If it were to happen and be adopted by “the state”, then the Baptists would probably once again be the champions of the separation of church and state so they can add in their own extra cherished Christian axioms about certain people being abominations and who gets to go to heaven.

Yeah, is it just me or is the first one basically just “NO YOU!” ?

What’s really funny, is being able to humorously highlight many problems with your beliefs, yet still hold them. Now that’s comedy.

There are still a few issues here that I want to make perfectly crystal clear.
1. Reason need not be assumed! I discussed this much more in an article I wrote on Presupposition Theology. But I really want to make this point absolutely clear here. Reason is not the same as faith. One must take faith on faith, but reason does not work that way. One does not need to have faith in reason.
2. Sure there are Christians who don’t believe in God. I’ve met them. That doesn’t mean that is what most Christians believe. The fact is that the massive majority of Christians have certain beliefs in common and so when we talk about Christianity we are generally talking about those people and not the extremely small number of Christians who have basically watered the term down to the point of meaninglessness.

Did Fabricius say that he doesn’t believe in God?

I don’t know if that particular Christian believes in God or not. What I said was that I have met Christians who don’t. So by your reasoning, we can’t really say that Christians believe in a god because there are some that don’t. I am calling that out as ridiculous.

—Religion is the opium of the people; it’s a crutch.
—Yeah, but science and technology are the crack cocaine; and you don’t limp?

A couple of things wrong with this one.

#1) The semicolon actually conflates two totally different critiques of religion. Marx’s “opium” critique was not exactly the same as saying religion “is a crutch.”

Here’s the whole passage. The last four sentences is where Marx drives the point home. The gist: Asking someone to give up the opium pipe is asking someone to give up their condition that requires an opium pipe.

So, for Marx, opium (i.e. religion) is not “a crutch”—which suggests that it’s monocausal, and a kind of necessary remedy—rather, it’s an expression of a more complex problem, the “sigh of the oppressed creature.” A good crutch won’t hurt you; Marx doesn’t think religion is a crutch at all, rather, he thinks it’s extremely hazardous because it provides false consolation and false explanations for the plight of oppressed and injured peoples. (I both agree and disagree, but that’s another matter.)

And #2) Science and technology are crack cocaine? I’m sorry, that’s just stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Are you typing your blog post on a computer? How’s the temperature in your office?—nice, air conditioned? Are you vaccinated? Did you ever require an MRI? You can thank religion for NONE of those things. It’s ALL science and technology, buddy boy. That’s A LOT of positive consequences for a crack addiction, isn’t it?! (And the fact that some of the scientists may have been religious, is totally moot. The question is, what did they use to make their discoveries and innovations? Answer: SCIENCE and the scientific method.)

So Mike Clawson,
What supernatural beliefs DO you have?
To be a christian, so far as I’m concerned, someone would have to at least believe that
1) Jesus became alive again after he was dead
2) He’s still alive and he (or the Father) can grant people a happy existence after death.
Do you believe those things?
I ask because liberal christians chronically equivocate over what they believe. They keep it private so it won’t be challenged.

Mike,
I read the link you gave.
When you say that to be atheist you would have to give up some kinds of experiencing, that isn’t true.
I had a sense of the presence of God for a long time, and still do sometimes, without attributing any supernatural powers to it, or expecting that it would do something for me, or thinking it had made the world. I just had the perception, and didn’t come to metaphysical conclusions from it.
A great many people have such perceptions. What conclusions they come to, from them, are largely from the background they came from and how they think. I was brought up totally non-religiously and unwilling to jump to conclusions. I mean, I know that the world is a very complicated place, as are people, and those perceptions have NO necessary connection with how the universe actually is. Somebody who was brought up religiously or in a christian culture, would link this perception to the interpretation (Jesus, God) they’ve been taught.
The people who actually go around identifying themselves as atheists tend to be people who constitutionally don’t have a perception of God or experiences they consider spiritual. But it would be wrong to conclude from that, that being atheist means not having an experience of God, or not having spiritual experiences.
I think if you come as a christian around a bunch of atheists, your beliefs ARE on the table and up for questioning. And trying to define the discussion away from that, saying “this is not about my beliefs”, seems to me to be a way of defending beliefs that look silly in the light of day.
Certainly the claim that there’s evidence of design in the universe, and that that implies some being, a kind of person, designing it, is a claim about physics or biology – depending on whether you’re talking about design in natural laws or of living beings. It’s a claim that can be examined rationally. There’s no reason at all to believe the claim that living beings were designed, as you apparently agree. As for physical laws, inferring some person-like entity designing them is plausible. Perhaps the physical constants were chosen by superintelligent alien beings, who are now observing our movements with interest, like a paperweight with snow falling inside. But you see that now a “religious belief” has been turned into a scientific claim. When you make it definite, take the vagueness away, it starts to look like a scientific hypothesis.
Similarly Jesus rising from the dead. This is a biology claim, is it not? If what actually is meant by this, is that his body was dead, starting to decay as bodies do, cell walls bursting or whatever happens after death … and then his body became alive again – like he had this utterly extraordinary immune system that was able to drive out all those bacteria that had started to invade, etc. etc. – this is a biological hypothesis. And a very bizarre one.
That seems to be the nature of religious belief, that it has to incorporate mystification. If you bring the beliefs out into the light, they look like really bizarre claims about how the world works, that are supported by – nothing.
It’s a confusion between inside and outside realities, between “what I would like or imagine” and what is. This confusion isn’t necessary for spirituality. It’s a confusion we’ve inherited.
There are some people who call themselves christians who don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead. Crossan, who wrote about the historical Jesus and apparently calls himself Catholic, thinks Jesus’ body was eaten by animals. Because that’s what usually happened to people who were crucified. People like that, who believe in christianity only in a very “metaphorical” way – yet denigrate atheism – seem analogous to the closeted homophobic gay person.

I had a sense of the presence of God for a long time, and still do sometimes, without attributing any supernatural powers to it, or expecting that it would do something for me, or thinking it had made the world. I just had the perception, and didn’t come to metaphysical conclusions from it.

Interesting. I went to hear a book talk by Dan Barker a few years ago, and he talked about this exact thing. In particular, he said that he thought some people were just naturally inclined towards “spiritual/mystical” experiences, but their interpretations of those experiences can vary.

Even though he’s been an atheist for over 25 years, he can still consciously flip himself into the altered state he used to get into when he was a religious person, and he can still cause himself to feel all the same old feelings. It’s just that now he interprets those feelings in a completely different way.

🙂

Gold! I love it!

Nice list.

“I had a sense of the presence of God for a long time, and still do sometimes, without attributing any supernatural powers to it, or expecting that it would do something for me, or thinking it had made the world. I just had the perception, and didn’t come to metaphysical conclusions from it.”

Me too! Well, to be clear, I called it God having been raised Christian, but eventually I realized that what I was experiencing was probably not an intelligent personal being. So then I flirted with the Tao and Deist ideas before eventually deciding “Well, I have this feeling, and it’s generally related to awe at the existence of all this, but I don’t think it’s about an actually present ‘thing’ at all.”

In the end, I am prone to magical thinking, but it turns out that you don’t have to let your beliefs be dictated by those quirks of neurology. Nor, of course, do you have to feel so bad about losing those beliefs. You’re not really “losing” anything except a frame that needlessly constrained what you thought the world could be like.

Laura wrote:

I had a sense of the presence of God for a long time, and still do sometimes, without attributing any supernatural powers to it, or expecting that it would do something for me, or thinking it had made the world. I just had the perception, and didn’t come to metaphysical conclusions from it.

That reminds me of something that Matt Dillahunty (from ‘The Atheist Experience’) said about his experience of music before and after he was a Christian ~ when he was a Christian, he would have a very emotional reaction to Christian music and attributed it to ‘God’ or the feeling of communing with God (or words to that effect), but after he lost his faith, he was surprised that he experienced almost ALL of the same feelings when he listened to music that had nothing to do with religion!

This is something that many Christians don’t really acknowledge/accept…..which is that being incredibly moved by such things has absolutely nothing to do religious belief ~ it’s simply common to being human.

I have to admit, I do kind of bristle when some religious people point to their overwhelming emotional response to certain things as being ‘proof’ of ‘God’…..or their attempts to dismiss similar secular experiences.

If you admit that your beliefs are ridiculous, why would you still hold them? *face palm*

waste*