Interestingly, one of my friends just pointed me to a question from a pastor he knows, who was asking “why are you not a Christian?” I wrote this up, and felt it would be good to send along.
If you’d like to know why I’m an atheist, its because I am also a skeptic. Atheism is in a way an application of skepticism; I only believe that which has convincing evidence, and there is no convincing evidence for the existence of a divine being. The god proposed by every major religion is a supernatural god; even religions like Buddhism that do not promote a god do promote the supernatural in various ways. But through science, the study of the world around us, the observation of reality, we see absolutely no evidence of the supernatural. Everything fits, everything follows the rules. There is no E that does not equal mc^2, no F that does not have an equivalent MA. The universe appears exactly as it should if the only forces at work were those of the elementary particles of matter responding to the laws of nature. Its possible that there is a god of some kind, but its highly unlikely, and there is no evidence that any god affects reality in any way.
Why I am not a Christian is a little more specific. I was raised as a Christian, going to church every Sunday at the United Church of Christ. But as I grew older, and learned more about the religion I was following, it simply stopped making sense. Every time the Bible, and therefore god, made verifiable statements about the nature of reality, and even most of the time when it made statements of historical fact, it got it wrong. And very importantly, the god being described didn’t actually seem very loving. He demands worship and obedience, he demands that we bow before him, and tells us that we’re sinful creatures that must beg his forgiveness for not being perfect, despite the fact that supposedly he created us. As Richard Dawkins put it in The God Delusion, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” He set the default state for the afterlife as eternal torture; how could a god who willingly sent most of his supposedly beloved children to hell be good? If there is a god, and an afterlife, and that god sits in judgement, then here is how I see it. If god is just and kind, then he will judge me on my works, not whether I believed in him. If god judges me on whether I believed in him without any evidence, then he is not just and kind, and thus isn’t worthy of worship anyway.
Matthew Prorok
United States
Matthew, just a small quibble. I thought I’d jump in here, because that isn’t entirely the case. The universe appears to be expanding, at an accelerating rate, & we don’t know why. Gravity should be slowing it down. So, ‘dark energy’ has been postulated. And the rotation of galaxies is so fast that they should be spun apart, so ‘dark matter’ has been postulated to hold them together.
The point I want to make is that if we don’t know all the answers, there is no benefit in invoking gods or magic, because those concepts don’t add to our real knowledge.
That’s part of the sophistimacted theologie us atheists don’t understand. The Loving God™ is loving in his own special way. He sets people up to fail and punishes them forever if they do fail, but in a loving way.
Well, you just have the wrong definition of ‘loving.’ This is the kind of ‘loving’ inflicted by an abusive spouse. The whole, “I beat you up because I love you and want you to be better,” bullshit.
Thanks for the essay. It is interesting to see how many different ways people arrive at similar conclusions.
Interesting fact, probably you know, in polish language “Prorok” means prophet. But interesting entry anyway :) Im’ constatntly under impression that the question should be “How i became an atheist”.
I doubt that you would say “It’s possible that there is a Easter Bunny of some kind, but it’s highly unlikely.”
I am 100% certain there are no magical rabbits. I’m equally certain there are no magical gods. God, also known as magic, is a childish fantasy that couldn’t possibly be true.
Bible thumpers and terrorists, who want to pretend they’re normal, if they saw your “it’s highly unlikely” they would think “Even atheists won’t completely rule out my god fantasy, therefore I’m not insane.”
But they are insane, as batshit crazy as a person who believes in the Easter Bunny. And theists need to be constantly reminded they’re insane. They need to understand their god fantasy is not just highly unlikely. It’s ridiculous and completely impossible.
This is nitpicking but I think your “it’s highly unlikely” comes close to sucking up to religious insanity.
http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the comments, everyone. I’m indeed well aware that my name is rather oddly biblical, and I use MJtheProphet as my Reddit name. I think its awesome just to be posted on Pharyngula; my own fledgling blog is an outlet for my ideas, but just being in the same “blogosphere” as PZ makes the whole enterprise feel more worthwhile.
Nah, I wouldn’t have anything to share then.
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Matthew, I certainly follow your reasoning regarding what make something worthy of worship. If a powerful being came along claiming to be our creator, I would surely have some curt things to say about the bodge job they did.
Did you send this along to your friend’s pastor? I wonder what he’d make of it. Perhaps this pastor is tired of the ol’ congregation and wants a good excuse to get out of Dodge. Sounds like a good enough argument for me.
how could a god who willingly sent most of his supposedly beloved children to hell be good?
How could a god who sent anybody to be tortured for an infinite period of time be considered as anything other than a malevolent psychopath? Either God allows people to be sent to hell (in which case he is utterly evil), or, as some apologists assert, he has nothing to do with it and can’t stop them from going, in which case he is lying about being all-powerful.
Thanks for writing, Matthew.
@humanape
I’m aware that my position might seem somewhat accomodationist at first glance, but I assure you, that isn’t the case. I simply place myself at a 6 on Dawkins’ scale of theistic probability, because I think that absolute certainty on any matter is philosophically indefensible. It wouldn’t be scientific of me to claim complete, perfect knowledge that no god can exist, so I simply hold the position that I am highly confident that no gods exist. However, much like philhellenes has pointed out on YouTube, I’m 99.something% certain that no gods of any kind exist, but on the topic of specific gods, such as the Abrahamic god, I have to say I’m 100% certain that they’re fictional. As described in the holy books, there’s just no way that the gods that have yet been proposed are remotely possible.
@eclectabotanics
Yes, I did send this to the pastor I was referred to, and continued with the discussion a bit. He didn’t really respond much, other than to thank me for my answer. He also asked me what I thought it meant to be a Christian, and what I thought would change in my life if I converted to Christianity. If there’s interest, I can post my responses to those inquiries as well.
I would enjoy reading the responses.
I like that. That is a very good way of putting it. Every adult in the world would describe Adam and Eve as being very naive, yet God watched as the Prince Of Liars fooled them. For the very simple act of eating a forbiden object strangely looking like a fruit, God gives them the worse punishment possible.
And I apparently fail at using html tags.
First, a loving God would give evidence of himself. This should easily be displayed in the world. Anyone with eyes can look out their window and see that there is creation, order, and beauty. That sounds like it came from a creator. When I picture an Earth built by primordial ooze, it is not beautiful. Next, Since God gives revelation to everyone he must be loving. He also gives special revelation in the Bible. Christians are working vigorously to make sure this is translated into every language. Last, you come from a generation where if you are punished you call it unloving. It should be referred to as justice. If a being meant for eternity breaks an eternal commandment, and is punished for eternity, that makes sense. Your beliefs are wrong when you start thinking we are only here for now. We are meant to be eternal and not temporal. Also, there is the miraculous that does not follow by the rules. Doctors everyday see things that are abnormal, so the universe does not work as the author sees it.
@kevinjones
#1 – Earth was not built by primordial ooze, although the primordial Earth did have plenty of primordial ooze. That is, typically, where one might expect to find primordial ooze. The lovely trees, grass, and flowers you prefer did eventually develop, over millions and billions of years. Count yourself lucky to live in an era where you can appreciate them.
#2 – Consider all the people who have ever lived, and pay special attention to those folks living in America or Japan at the time right after Jesus died. They had no shot at getting the revelation of the bible. So, your conception of God seems extremely unfair. They get to burn in hell forever simply because they were living in the wrong place. Fallible humans can design a better way that this to bring revelation to the masses. This conception of God is pretty useless.
#3 – Most of us agree that we are beings meant for about an 80 year life, at least. Yet, when we break laws, we are not punished for 80 years. Your logic here is deplorable, as is your conception of God, again. Not even us fallible humans use logic as bad as you are crediting God with. As an aside, what is better: punishment that harms or punishment that rehabilitates? Surely, if we know that rehabilitation is better than torture, then God must know… right? And don’t try the whole “it’s too late” gambit. We are talking eternity, remember? It is never too late.
#4 – When science sees something happen that seems to contradict established knowledge and expectations, it studies it until it can derive the natural explanation – at which point, we realize that the event was operating according to the rules all along – nothing supernatural about it at all. The correct response is “I do not know why that happened” not “God did it” (unless, of course, you can somehow prove that God did it… but then, such proof would render God a natural explanation as opposed to a supernatural explanation).
Come now, uruhammer, surely a world that includes something as beautiful as the guinea worm can only be the handiwork of a benevolent and omnipotent GINORMOUS guinea worm?