Why I'm No Longer Just An Atheist

Some time ago I became an atheist.

I was 12, and I'd just finished reading the family Bible (yes, we had one of those.) It was a huge, leather-bound monstrosity which sat on a corner table, set up against the stair rail on our first landing.

It took ages to read, and I have to admit to not fully understanding it at the time, but every time I came up against a passage which advocated what humans would consider an evil act I saw God at the helm.

I felt betrayed by everyone who had ever told me "God is Love". I still am.

I came to realise that the "God" of the Bible (Elohim/Yahweh take your pick) was not the god we consider to be the creator of the universe. Which meant that in that time I became a deist. A few months later I had shaken off the shackles completely and became an atheist looking for a way to express my new found love of being a human with no ties to a deity.

That is how I came to paganism. Most people think of paganism as a polytheistic religion based on a lot of woo-science, tarot card nonsense and incense burning. Yes, we burned a lot of incense, and I still like to, and I still have my tarot cards by my bed. They often fondly remind me of the actress Jane Seymour, because they are the same sort used by her in a Bond movie.

What most people don't understand is that many, many pagans know that when they invoke Pan in order to feel more free and less inhibited, they are in fact just invoking that part of themselves which can be free and uninhibited. They know it's not a prayer being received by a deity. It's self-talk. It's like knitting yourself a jumper for the cold days of winter. I was, and still am, that type of pagan. Though today I call all the gods and goddesses by their real name. Me.

In the eyes of the Christians we non-believers are all pagans and heretics.

So, why am I no longer just an atheist?

Labels matter to me. I know many people disagree, but when you see someone wearing a uniform you have a certain vision of the type of person he/she is. For good or for bad. Out of uniform their character is a little more difficult to establish. I know that when I say I'm an atheist, other atheists like me, and Christians don't (when they get to know me both groups usually agree I'm a bit of a dick!) 

:)

I have been "active" about atheism for a number of years now. But something changed recently. I see now that my simple disbelief in a deity is not getting me anywhere. 

That's why if anyone asks me what I believe now I have to be honest and tell them that religion, for me, is nothing short of POISON! I'm not an atheist anymore, I'm now a confirmed Antitheist and my new drive is that feeling of utter contempt for those religions, and their followers, which try to impose their on everyone else!

I look to that contempt to push me forward, and my compassion for humanity to take the bumps out of the ride.

Your common or garden theist is not my target. They might fund their religion and enable its crimes against humanity, reason and common sense, but they are victims too, of the venomous, institutionalised barbarism which threatens more now than ever to undermine good science and good philosophical and critical thinking; especially in our children.

All atheist activists have a responsibility to get pissed off at the constant encroachment of what is now a panicking, ever-decreasing minority of theists worming their way into our schools and colleges, either physically, or through legislation to save their religions from extinction.

We must stop this now.

Before it's too late.

Who is Mr. Maker?

The God posited by most Christians is one with ultimate, or infinite, power.

We see that term "maximally great" coming up from time to time.

However, if you think that a god exists and he is the creator of the universe, and everything in it, at which point do you make the leap from there to his power being greater than all other gods?

We have no idea, in god terms, how much power making this universe requires. For all we know this could all be a level one class at god school. 

"Great work Yahweh, I like what you've done with physics there. The gravity is really good, but that dark matter is... Class, look at Yah's universe for a second. Look at the way his dark matter flows through his space. That's really neat Yah... 'A+', but be careful not to over reach in your next assignment in Level Two's blended reality project."

How does anyone know that this god is maximally great? It's like bees thinking I'm some fantastic ethereal creature just because the hive I made for them was of perfect quality, by their standards.. The only difference being that occasionally a bee-keeper is going to pop along and make (at least) his existence known.

This brings me back to a point I made in an earlier post. Let's say God did make this universe, does it follow that He is in charge of it still? How can we be sure that the god in charge now is the same one who created it all? Did you make the car you drive?

All we have to go on is a rather simplistic view posited by ancient people's who were keen to move away from a polytheistic concept into a more monotheistic view which affords far better control of the flow of ideas and, ultimately, distribution of power.

Of course it could also be true, that the Elohim (plural) created the universe and everything in it for the LORD (God) who has since assumed control over a prefab universe. Elohim is a plural (essentially the distilled essence of all the gods) so why isn't it so that a group of gods made everything? This could account for Yahweh's inability to change anything dramatically, or intervene to stop tornadoes from tearing up houses in the US Bible-Belt! He just doesn't have that sort of juice!

Any of these scenarios could be true, so why is it that the standard Christian idea, that God rules the universe He created, so pervasive?

The church wants it to be this way and their "sheep" just lap it all up.

That's the only reason I can think of. 

"Ad homs" and why they don't matter

We're all painfully aware of the theists' black and white attitudes to morality (however twisted) and the way they insist that a person's character somehow dictates the veracity of their arguments about the (non) existence of a god, or gods. This is known as an ad hominem fallacy and it roughly translates as "you're a bad person and so you know sod all" or "I don't have to listen to you because you say things I think are immoral... lalalala talk to the hand!"

Luckily we're also quite aware of the old saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me." Well, at least I hope we all are. Otherwise I might be talking to a few precious souls who think that insults and swearing matter. They don't. Get over yourself already!

This is the problem we have. Recently someone on the atheist side of the fence was tagged as being a racist, or sexist, or both, I wasn't really paying attention, and so his arguments were deemed null and void on the theist side. A classic ad hominem fallacy. We've all said things in the past which we regret, and I suspect that if half the stuff we think were to be broadcast we'd all be in the mire up to our necks, or personae non grata within our own communities. Such is the way of things. None of us are completely free of bias, or prejudice in our daily lives. How else do you size someone up?

Hopefully most of us are completely accepting of the big things, like LGBT rights, anti-racism, anti-bullying, anti-bigotry etc, and write off swearing at the moron who cut us up on the dual-carriageway as a blip in an otherwise flawless personality. But, would it matter a bit to the argument for God's existence if I were a racist arsehole? If I thought that the evidence for God's existence is insubstantial and therefore unproven, which it is, would being a "nigger-hater"* matter a jot as far as the debate goes?

No. Emphatically NO!

You see, it's time we stopped worrying about what people on the side of irrationality and nonsense think of us. They're not thinking clearly. Remember. They think a god exists. They're not being honest with themselves, so why would we consider what they think of us to be relevant?

What matters is the honesty of the discussion, not who's having it. Remember that according to legend, Socrates was convicted of a crime for which he received a death sentence, but nobody is writing off the Socratic Method of questioning as a dud are they?

Frankly the theists can say what they like about me. In fact I encourage them to defame me as much as they like. Perhaps they'll come up with something I've not heard from anyone else before... I doubt they'll come close to anything I've said of myself.

Our call to them should be a simple one... say whatever you want about us, as long as you're honest in the debate and everything will eventually work out.

As long as we remember to not make the same mistakes they do and try to avoid calling them names, or writing off their arguments as invalid just because they are paying money to institutions which may actively promote science denial, child abuse, abuse of civil and women's rights and hatred of gays.




*a hypothetical argument

My Doctoral Thesis

This is a copy of my doctoral thesis entitled "Do Atheists Believe In GOD?"

So what do you think? Will I get my PhD in Sarcasm?

Onus Probandi

I've been off for a while. My apologies, but my health fluctuates so sometimes I'm unable to focus clearly enough to write extensively.

Back with it now though.

While I've been away I've noticed that many theists on twitter, and in TV debates are still using the old fallacy of trying to turn the debate around and putting the onus probandi, or burden of proof, back onto the person denying the claim that they are making. This argument from ignorance is truly annoying.

Theists think that they get to claim whatever they like and because we cannot prove them wrong they get to claim victory.

The problem lies in their inability to extrapolate. If we cannot prove a god exists, then the god must be real, right? Well, they cannot prove that a universe-creating troll exists, so that must be the real truth. How would we ever decide which one was responsible for creating our universe? Then there's Bertrand Russell's cosmic teapot. How do you prove him to be incorrect? Is the teapot going to collide with any future mission to Mars? Does NASA need to take it into account?

Sometimes you achieve minor successes. I recently got one theist to admit that humans make up gods, but he couldn't get his head around the idea that the one he follows might likewise be a human invention. How frustrating! The cognitive dissonance required to apply rules to other ideas, but not your own, is beyond me.

Theists also tend to demand greater evidence for the negation of their claim than the claim they are themselves making. If I told you that I could fly without mechanical assistance you wouldn't be expected to prove me wrong, and likewise it wouldn't be incumbent upon you to prove that humans could not fly under any circumstances. I would not expect you to provide anatomical evidence, such as examples of bone or muscle tissue, or models of the physiological makeup of humans etc. etc. The onus is on me to provide you with evidence, perhaps by actually flying!

This moving of the goalposts is irritating, but like the shifting of the burden of proof it is just aimed at shutting down the conversation. It's the debating equivalent of "I am, but what are you?"

Why should an atheist be expected to be an expert in archaeology, chemistry, cosmology, physics, biology, anatomy, evolution, geology, theology, philosophy, literary studies, Biblical studies, history, climatology, or many other theoretical and physical sciences, arts and social sciences, just to defend their rejection of a theist's ridiculous claims? Atheism is the adoption of single position on a single claim. The burden of proof lies on the person making the claim, not on you or me.

Theists need (constantly) to be reminded of that.

In a recent to-ing and fro-ing in the local paper's letters section a contributor claimed that the Bible was true because he had knowledge of 40 excavations which proved the Bible to be historically accurate. Several problems arise as a result of this comment, but chief among them is the fact that even if the Bible was 100% reliable in its account of history and every single detail was absolutely true, nothing about that would be proof of a supernatural entity creating, or controlling, everything!

What on Earth makes him think it does?

If an excavation of, let's say, Tell ed-Dab'a, the home of the Canaanites* in Egypt, revealed intricate details of their religion, supporting every word of the Bible in remarkable detail, why should that prove Yaweh is real? After all, an investigation into Roman ruins does not in any way prove that Julius Caesar was a divine being. No examination of Japanese texts or temples proves that the Emperor is godly! Why do these people make that leap from A to WTF?

I think you can probably sense that I'm somewhat frustrated by these situations. I perhaps need to take a lie down and do an Apache-language crossword puzzle or a 10,000 piece jigsaw, perhaps even nail a jelly to the ceiling. Something less difficult than trying to argue with theists about their own responsibilities in the "god-debate"!

Remember:

onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat

The burden of proof lies on the claimant, not the person denying the claim.

*Excavations revealed that the language of the inhabitants of Tell ed-Dab'a was Semitic, therefore they would have to have been Canaanite. Further evidence of the nature of their religious ideas and burial methods cemented the fact. The idea of a sudden Hyksos invasion, previously accepted by many historians as the true history, but now acknowledged to have been an exaggeration, was attributed to Manethos, an Egyptian historian who must have thought that a sudden attack on Egypt sounded sexier than the centuries of slow migration by Canaanites which actually is known to have happened.

The Impossible God

Many people I speak to just won't accept that a god who is both omnipotent and omniscient cannot exist.

So, I thought I'd lay out one simple 'proof' for you all.

An all-knowing god would know every emotion felt by humans. An all-powerful god would not know what it is like to be weak, he couldn't know regret, fear, worry, or grief.

An omnipotent god could not have true knowledge of any emotion such as self-doubt, self-criticism, or feel suicidal.

An omnipotent god could not feel pain either, since nothing could hurt him. Likewise, how could anything we do hurt him, or his feelings? Falling prey to that pain we feel when someone we love deeply does something we just know they're going to do just isn't possible for an all-powerful being. There's no way to experience pain and anguish without there being a physical component.

Also, a god who feels regret could not be said to be all-knowing, simply because knowing everything would yield no surprises, and no future left unknown. Even his own actions would already be laid out. He would be as a robot carrying out his own predestined actions. Any attempt to change path would already be built in to his knowledge of that path.

It really is that simple. If a god is omnipotent it could not be all-knowing, and if he's all-knowing he could not be all-powerful.

So What?

This post is for the atheists.

In my everyday conversations with theists I get a great deal of scripture quoted at me and a fair bit of the "God did this" and "God did that". As atheists, you probably all do. I mean, what else do we expect?

Theists are taught to prosletylize at us. It's in their books after all. Many of them are taught to follow certain scripts too, and this is the point we must get into our heads when we speak to them. They are parroting key lines and phrases taught to them at their places of worship. Particularly the Creationists. It's easy to believe that getting through to these folks is impossible, but it isn't. I know from experience that very often your seed of rationality can take months, or years, to bear fruit.

A little while ago I got a message from a chap who had been deconverted by something I had said months earlier. It had played on his mind and it sparked a realization. Though still a believer in an ultimate power, in a deist fashion, he no longer accepted Creationism as a valid model. Planting that seed is very important. You never know what might grow from it.

We've all heard the lines from the Theist Script a decent few hundreds of times. I don't need to reiterate them here, because the answers we should be giving don't come from a vantage point of defending our positions at all. 

In aikido, defence strategies are defined by the circle. Almost every technique relies on taking the opponent's attack and redirecting it back onto them. A swirling motion guides the attack from where it was going to where you want it to go, until ultimately it ends in a throw, a lock, or a grounding. Our strategy in defence of these theistic attacks on our credibility should be the same.

This is where the "So what?" comes in. 

The theist says "God did this..." so our answer has to be "So what? How does that action prove the current state of being of your God?" She says "God said this..." so our answer should be "So what? Why is this more important than what other gods are saying? What if it is more prudent to ignore these words in favour of our own, more successful philosophy?"

Recently the two earthquakes in Nepal have been in the news and it didn't take long for someone to attribute some of the discoveries of people alive in the rubble as 'God's mercy.' It may come across as cynical, or even nasty, but our response has to be "So what? Why did God create that earthquake in the first place? Why save that one person, but kill so many others? If it was a purely natural thing, why did God not save everyone?"

More often than not we get "the Creation happened as per the book and evolution is rubbish/lies etc" argument. Jeesh, how often do we get that?

If you'll recall in my earlier post I discussed how the idea that a god created the Earth and universe in no way supports the argument that he/she/it currently has anything to do with us.

Our answer to the "God created everything" statement has to be "So what? Why does that matter? What proof is there that this god, or any other god, interacts with us? What if, in creating everything, he blew himself to pieces? How can you get from 'God did it' to 'God still exists and he cares about what we do'?" 

There's no point arguing about science, especially abiogenesis or evolution. "How did life begin?" Is a common question. Saying "I don't know" shuts down their line of thinking because they are fuelled by anti-evolution websites which we all know they've got bookmarked already to go. Avoid trading facts with these folk. It does very little good.

It's far more important to ask questions than to present arguments:

"So what? What does X mean to Y?"

"How do you know that?"

"Why is that significant?"

"Why should I believe that?"

and so on.

However, that said, there is another set of questions which we often overlook, because we assume that the person we're speaking to is fixed in their belief and cannot be swayed. The first question is: "On a scale of zero to one hundred, how certain are you that you are correct!"

This puts the theist in the position of having to put a number on their belief, and it gives you an idea of what you're dealing with.

The next one is: "What evidence could I present to you in order to lower your belief score by just one point?" This establishes whether the theist is using evidence (or what they consider to be evidence) to form their beliefs. Technically it measures their doxastic openness... how willing they are to hear other people's opinions and change their minds if necessary.

The last one is: "What one single piece of evidence could you offer me to change my mind and make me believe in God?"

This sets in place their best pitch. Something you could explore with them, or later, or work on the next time you see them.

So, what do you do if they pitch something which makes sense and actually changes your mind? Not necessarily converts you to their religion, but makes you stop and think. What's your best strategy?

It's simple. Revise your thinking! If you feel that you might have got it wrong then do your research and assess your stance properly, and, if you are wrong, change your mind to better fit the evidence.

In other words, there's no point going into these discussions and asking questions if you're afraid to change your own mind.

If you do, so what?