Last week, I talked about the insidious assortment of “Shut up, that’s why” arguments that get made against atheists and atheism.

Today, I want to talk about where I think the “Shut up, that’s why” arguments come from.

There was a story on “This American Life” last week that hit me really strongly. It wasn’t about atheism, but I think it cuts to the heart of the “Shut up, that’s why” argument, so I’m going to sum it up here quickly, to show you what I’m talking about.

The story was about a family with a family legend. The grandfather of the family had been lost on a camping trip when he was a child, but was recovered eight months later, from (the legend said) the itinerant tinker who had kidnapped him. One of the granddaughters became intensely curious about this legend, and started doing research to find out more about the story — a story that had been widely reported in many newspapers, and which even had a folk song written about it.

But the more she dug, the more oddities and inconsistencies she found in the story, as reported by both the papers and the legend. In particular, there was another woman who had claimed that the kidnapped child was really hers. Her offspring also had a family legend: the legend of the kidnapped child, who, through a travesty of justice, wound up being given to another family. Long story short: The more the granddaughter dug, the more she realized that this other woman’s claims had merit. Every piece of solid evidence seemed to confirm it. Eventually she had DNA testing done… and found that, in fact, this other woman was right. Whether consciously, or un-, or some combination of the two, her great- grandparents had taken her grandfather from his real mother.

And the granddaughter’s family was furious.

At her. For digging this story up.

They didn’t want to know the truth. Seriously, passionately, entirely consciously — they didn’t want to know. They said as much. Many of them refused to accept it, despite an insurmountable body of evidence. And it caused a great family schism, with many members of the family barely speaking to the woman who had uncovered the difficult truth.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Here’s what struck me about this story. When Ingrid and I were talking about it, both of us were utterly baffled at the family members who didn’t want to know the truth. It’s not that we couldn’t grasp the “not wanting to know” concept. We’ve both had icky “I didn’t want to know that” experiences, things we’ve learned about friends or colleagues that didn’t enrich our lives and that just made things difficult. We got that. But we didn’t get how, once you knew that there was a mystery, you could just let it go. We understood how you could fool yourself unconsciously — that’s just human nature, we all do it — but we didn’t understand how you could fool yourself consciously. For both of us, knowing that there was a big unanswered question that might have a complex and difficult answer… that would eat away at us, way, way more than the complex and difficult answer itself.

I think there are two kinds of people. (Okay, that’s a gross oversimplification. It’s more like all people have two personality traits, and some of us have more of one, and some have more of the other. But for simplicity’s sake, let’s call that “two kinds of people” for now.) There are people who are content and want to stay that way; people who don’t want conflict or upset; people who want a peaceful life in which everybody gets along… and if that means you don’t talk about certain things or ask certain questions, they consider that a fair price. People who, like Slartibartfast, would rather be happy than right.

And there are people who, once curiosity bites us, cannot shake it.

Now, although it may sound like it, I’m not actually saying that one type is inherently better than the other. Obviously, I’m more the stubbornly curious type, and I’m strongly biased in that direction. But I can see the value in both. It may well be that the human race needs both. I have a lot of the “diplomat/ reconciler/ seeing both sides/ trying to defuse conflict” personality in me too, and I think that’s important — without it, we’d all be at each other’s throats constantly.

And unshakeable curiosity can be a very mixed blessing. Not just because it can stir shit up and alienate people, either. It can be a mixed blessing because sometimes it’s a dead end. Ask any true crime aficionado: detectives or reporters with unsolved cases can be driven mad by them.

So I’m not trying to say, “Atheists are better than theists.”

What I’m saying is this:

I think this is one of the reasons that conversations between atheists and theists can get so difficult.

I think that, when we argue with theists, atheists tend to assume that of course theists want to know the truth. Of course they want to follow the God question to its logical conclusion. Don’t they? The question of whether God does or does not exist is a huge one, with enormous consequences in how we live our lives and how we understand the world. Who doesn’t want to understand the world as well and as clearly as they can?

And I think — this is more of a stretch, since I don’t quite grasp this mindset or what it feels like — but I think that theists tend to assume that of course atheists are looking for a worldview that they find appealing and useful, rather than one that they find consistent and plausible. I think that many theists really don’t get why atheists would rather be right than happy. (Not that we’re not happy… but you know what I mean.) Who doesn’t want a peaceful life of contentment?

Look at the “Shut up, that’s why” arguments I talked about last week. “Atheists are so whiny.” “Atheists think they’re so smart.” “Atheists keep talking about atheism and expecting us to care about it, but we don’t, and other things are more important.” “This is private business, and it’s not nice to talk about it or to argue with people about it.” “This isn’t about arguments and evidence, anyway. “”We’re sick of hearing about it.” “Why do they care so much what other people believe?” “Can’t we all just get along?”

What else are these but arguments for getting along, over insatiable curiosity?

And look at how theists react when they debate atheists. I can’t be the only atheist who’s had this experience: theists start off debating us, all excited and revved up and proud of themselves for their open-minded willingness to engage with the atheists and question their own faith… and, as the debate wears on, they get increasingly unhappy, and upset, and angry. Anger that gets aimed at us. It’s always baffled me. I’m like, “But you said you wanted to debate this! Don’t you?”

The answer is no. They don’t. They want to want to debate it. They want to be the kind of person who wants to debate it. They want to be the insatiable curiosity type, the intellectually courageous type who will ask any question and follow the answers wherever they lead. But they’re not. Not when it comes to God.

I’m not saying that all theists are incurious sheep. Far from it. But I do think that — when it comes to the God question, at least — theists are willing to take their investigations only so far, and no further. Some won’t take it more than a step or two, as you see with hardcore young- earth creationist fundies who won’t even consider the possibility that their 5,000 year old book might be mistaken in one or two places. Some will take it very far indeed, as you see with some modern theologians who make better arguments for atheism than a lot of atheists… but then can’t quite take that final step. (And obviously, there are theists who do take that final step, and become atheists.) But the unwillingness to follow this question to its logical conclusion seems to be a hallmark of religion. I mean, isn’t that the very definition of religious faith — believing in God, even when all the evidence and arguments are telling you not to believe?

And I do think that atheists — at least, the ones who once had religious belief and left it behind — tend to have that stubbornness, that unwillingness to just let things slide, that dogged determination once we get our minds around a question to take it as far as it goes, wherever it goes, even if it goes somewhere that freaks us the fuck out. When it comes to the God question, at least.

So I think when atheists and theists debate, we’re often debating at cross purposes. We’re assuming that we have the same goals. And often we don’t. Often in a discussion or a debate, the atheist’s goal is in direct conflict with the believer’s goal. And I don’t just mean the obvious goal of “persuade this person that religion is right/ persuade this person that atheism is right.” The goal of relentlessly pursuing a difficult question to its logical conclusion is often in direct conflict with the goal of keeping things peaceful, content, and on an even keel.

And I think this explains the “blame the messenger” quality that defines so many theist/ atheist debates. If you think that the goal of a conversation is to pursue the truth as far as you possibly can, then blaming the messenger makes no sense. But if you think that the goal of a conversation is to resolve conflict and return society to the status quo, then relentlessly curious messengers are to blame. (It also explains the feeling I’ve sometimes had, one that other atheists have said they’ve had: the feeling of being a killjoy, the rain god on everybody’s parade.)

I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this. I’m not sure where the solution might lie; if anyone has any thoughts on that, I’d love to hear them. But two things are coming to mind.

One is that atheists need to be better about making atheism a safe place to land. We need to make it clear that being an atheist doesn’t mean being dissatisfied, restless, and constantly at odds with everyone around you. We need to make it clear that atheists can not only have happy lives, and meaningful lives, but calm and peaceful lives.

The other is that atheists need to keep the conversation going: not just so we can persuade more people, but so the conversation itself can become more normal.

Right now, I think one of the reasons these debates are so fraught and divisive is that, for a lot of people, the ideas in them are so new. If we keep the conversation going, in both the public sphere and our private lives, I think the flavor of it is likely to shift: from a shocking assault on people’s most fundamental values, to an ongoing family argument that everyone’s a little tired of but that everyone’s familiar with. The cat will be well and truly out of the bag. And the attempts to stop the discussion with “Shut up, that’s why” arguments will become increasingly pointless and irrelevant.

Thoughts?

There’s something I’ve been noticing lately in theists’ arguments against atheists. When you start paying attention, you notice how many of them aren’t really arguments. And no, I’m not even talking about the “I feel it in my heart” or “‘Cause the Bible tells me so” non-arguments.

I’m talking about the “Shut up, that’s why” arguments. I’m talking about the arguments that are meant to stop the discussion entirely. I’m talking about the arguments whose main purpose is to try to get atheists to stop making their arguments.

I talked about a couple of these in my recent 10 Myths and Truths About Atheists piece that I wrote for AlterNet. You know, one of the interesting things about writing for AlterNet is that it exposes me to, shall we say, a wider variety of thought processes than my own mostly well- mannered little blog does. (From atheists as well as theists.) In particular, I was a little surprised, given how clear I thought I’d been on why “Shut up, that’s why” arguments are an unfair and unreasonable form of anti-atheist bigotry, at how many people in the comments went ahead and made those arguments anyway. In a fascinating variety of forms. It was quite an opportunity to study the species in its native habitat.

The thing about the “Shut up, that’s why” arguments is that many of them can seem reasonable on the surface. They’re slippery, not actual direct arguments. It can take some attention to see what exactly is wrong with them.

So I want to go through the “Shut up, that’s why” arguments and show how they’re designed, not to move the discussion forward, but to shut it down.

For the record, I’m going to leave out the more obvious and heavy- handed versions of “Shut up, that’s why.” Like calling us inherently immoral, or accusing us of the worst war crimes in history, or ostracizing/ jailing/ beating/ killing people for being atheists. But if there are any other than those that I’ve missed, please speak up in the comments.

Don’t you have anything better to do? Why do you keep talking about atheism when (the economy is tanking, there are wars, people are being tortured, the planet is overheating, etc.)? How can you think this is important? Why do you expect anyone to pay attention to it?

Ah, yes. This is what I call the “How can you talk about blowjobs when people are dying in Darfur?” argument.

Okay. First of all, A: People are multi-faceted. We can think about, and talk about, many different things at once. We can talk about global warming, and cute cats. We can talk about Afghanistan, and the history of surrealism. And we can talk about the tanking economy, and whether or not God exists. Not everything we talk about has to be the Major Social Issue of the Day. If we only ever talked about the terrible state of the world, our heads would explode. We need a little variety.

But more to the point, B:

Atheists think religion is a major social issue. Atheists — many of us, anyway — think religion is one of the major sources of social upheaval on the planet. From sex and science education in the U.S. public schools, to the violence and chaos in the Middle East, we think a lot of what’s terribly wrong with the world would be better — not perfect, but better — without religion.

This isn’t trivial. Treating it as trivial is just an attempt to get us to shut up.

Religion is based on faith, not reason. It exists in a different realm from science and politics and such, and it’s not fair to expect it to compete on the same level. (A.k.a., non-overlapping magisteria.)

Yeah. See, here’s the problem with that.

If you believe in a God who acts on the world, then that’s not a different realm. That’s this realm. The realm of cause and effect. The one we’re living in.

And if you believe in a God who created the world but doesn’t act on it… well, who cares? Technically that’s not atheism, but in any practical sense it might as well be.

Here’s the interesting thing. Before we knew as much about the world as we do now, religious teachers loved to point to evidence in the world as proof of God’s existence. Now that we have much better explanations for the world than God, all of a sudden they’re saying that it’s unfair to expect religious believers to give evidence for their beliefs.

The “it’s unfair to expect religion to make its case” trope is just a way of trying to stop atheists from making our case. (Plus it’s a distraction from the fact that believers really don’t have one.) It’s just an attempt to get us to shut up.

Why do you care what other people believe?

Why do Democrats care what Republicans believe? And vice versa? Why do social democrat types care what free market freaks believe, and vice versa? Why do gay rights activists care what anti- gay- rights activists believe, and vice versa?

Atheists care what believers believe, because people act on their beliefs. Beliefs have consequences in the real world. And that includes religious beliefs.

To ask atheists to ignore what believers believe, even though it has an enormous impact on our lives and everybody else’s lives, is just an attempt to get us to shut up.

Religion is personal and private. I don’t see why we have to talk about this.

Funny. The same thing was said about gay people, and gay sexuality, when the gay rights movement was becoming visible. It was meant to shut up gay people, the exact same way it’s meant to shut up atheists.

And I’ll say pretty much what LGBT people have been saying on this topic:

Religious believers have been parading their beliefs in public for millennia. It is the height of hypocrisy for religious believers to ask atheists — now that we’re finally getting some traction — to keep our lack of belief private. It’s just an attempt to get us to shut up.

Atheists are so superior. They act like they’re so much smarter than believers, and they think they’re right about everything.

Right. Unlike anybody else who’s making a case.

When it comes to the question of whether or not God exists… yes, atheists think we’re right. We don’t think we can prove our case with 100% certainty — you almost never can about any case, especially when you’d need prove a negative to do so. But we think both evidence and logic are overwhelmingly in our favor, and we think we can made a pretty darned good case for our side.

And making a case is not the same as thinking you’re superior.

There’s a huge difference between thinking you’re better than people you disagree with… and thinking that, on one particular issue, you’re correct, and people who disagree are mistaken. Thinking you’re right, and trying to convince people you’re right… that’s not arrogance. That’s the marketplace of ideas.

You know what? If I’m not right? Prove me wrong. I’ll let you in on a not- so- secret secret: Every time I see an argument for religion, for just a microsecond, I wonder if it’s right. I wonder, “Could this be the argument that’ll convince me?” It never is — in fact, those microseconds are getting shorter and shorter, as I’ve now seen about eighty thousand arguments for God, all of which suck — but I always wonder. I’m open to the possibility that I might be wrong. I just don’t think I am.

To accuse atheists of acting superior for speaking out and making our case… that’s just a way of trying to stop us from speaking out and making our case. It’s just an attempt to get us to shut up.

Atheists are so whiny.

Yes. It’s so whiny of us to speak out about our opinions and experiences. It’s so whiny of us to speak out about the terrible harm and oppression that religious believers inflict on one another, and have been for thousands of years. And it’s so whiny of us to speak out when we’re discriminated against, or when people spread hateful and deceitful lies about us.

Do I even need to explain why this one is a “Shut up, that’s why?” argument?

I’m so tired of hearing about atheism. Can’t you give it a rest?

You know, it’s not like we’re standing outside your door at 3 a.m. with bullhorns. You can read other blog articles. Change the station on your radio or TV. Flip to another page in your newspaper or magazine. Browse in another section of the bookstore.

And you know what? I’m sick of hearing about religion. I’ve been getting religion shoved down my throat for as long as I can remember. That hasn’t stopped anybody from talking about it. And it shouldn’t. People should talk about the things that they care about. Believers do. Why shouldn’t atheists?

This is “Shut up, that’s why” in its purest, most direct form. (Apart from actually killing people or putting them in jail, of course.)

And finally, the most frustrating “Shut up, that’s why” argument of them all:

Can’t we just get along? Can’t we agree to disagree? Neither of us can prove our side with 100% certainty, so there’s no point in even having this discussion. Can’t we just live and let live?

This is a tough one… since it makes the believer seem reasonable and tolerant and nice, and the atheist seem like a churlish jerk. I mean, what are atheists supposed to say? “No, we can’t just agree to disagree”? “No, we can’t just live and let live”? “No, we can’t just drop it — we’re going to keep picking this fight every chance we get”?

But there are two enormous problems with this sweet, tolerant, almost certainly well- intentioned version of “Shut up, that’s why.”

The first and most obvious problem is: We are not being left alone. We are not being let to live. (Allowed to live? Left to live? Boy, “live and let live” is a hard phrase to recast.) Religious believers everywhere are treating atheists like dirt. And they’re treating other believers like dirt. If you’re not personally doing that, then good for you… but is that really reason enough for us to stop speaking out against bigotry against us? Do you really think the hard-core atheist- hating fundies are going to suddenly become sweet and nice if only the atheists would back off?

If the only religion in the world were tolerant, ecumenical, understanding, and supportive of the notion that people with different beliefs can be good people… I think most atheists wouldn’t care very much about it. But that’s not the world we live in. At the risk of sounding like a third- grader: You started it.

Second — more subtly, but in my mind equally important:

The idea that it’s bad to criticize or question religion is, in the atheist view, one of the most pernicious pieces of armor that religion has mounted against legitimate criticism.

Again, atheists see religion as just another hypothesis about how the world works and why it is the way it is. We don’t see any reason not to ask hard questions about it. In a free society, we all get to ask hard questions about scientific theories, political opinions, public policies. Hell, we ask hard questions about restaurants and dog breeding and reality show contestants. Why should religion be different? In the marketplace of ideas, why should religion get to drive its wares to the market in an armored car? And sell those wares behind a curtain? And insist that people stay politely quiet when the teakettles they bought at the religion booth don’t hold water?

For centuries, indeed for millennia, people have only been allowed to see things one way: God’s way. (Okay, thousands of ways, and thousands of gods… but you know what I mean.) For centuries, indeed for millennia, religion has been the only game in town. And now that another option is appearing on the table, now that serious questions are being asked about both its usefulness and its plausibility… now you want people to stop arguing and just let each other believe what they believe?

So I guess my reply to “Can’t we all just get along” is: Can’t we just have a conversation? Can’t we talk about religion as if it were any other political opinion/ moral philosophy/ hypothesis about how the world works? Religion is a widely- held belief system with far- reaching effects — can’t we have a conversation about whether that belief system is plausible?

If you don’t want to participate in that conversation, fine. But why are you trying to stop other people from having it?

No, don’t tell me. I know the answer to that question.

Shut up.

That’s why.

For more on the “shut up, that’s why” arguments, read this follow-up, Curiosity and the “Shut Up, That’s Why” Argument.

What — if any — are the good arguments for God?

And what do we mean by a good argument?

I recently got an email from Andy Blood, commenting on my recent 10 Myths and Truths About Atheists piece for AlterNet. And one of the things he asked me was:

I would like to know what you think the BEST anti-atheist arguments are. By that I mean, not the ones that persuade the most people (those are often based on lies, or purely emotional), but the very best ones, the ones you would have the most trouble refuting. I think the “trend” argument, for instance, suggests that many new atheists might be phonies. That doesn’t address real atheism, of course, but it’s something. There’s this Oxford prof. who wrote a book about The Twilight of Atheism or something, and he had one point — atheism is effective and liked because it’s freeing. As soon as religion (non-traditional, I guess) becomes freeing, atheism will lose it’s relevance. Again, this is refutable, but at least not the regular thing that we hear all the time.

I wrote back and said that, honestly, I didn’t think any theistic or anti- atheist arguments were good. I not only don’t find any of them persuasive; I find all of them seriously weak. Andy wrote back with what I think is an interesting notion:

I don’t think there are any WINNING arguments, but the better ones can at least make you pause and think. It’s a good brain-storming technique any way. Like: Why have humans been religious for so long — before churches and all that, many, many years ago? Isn’t it at least possible that this means that humans are innately religious? I don’t agree, but it is at least something to think about. (I was asked this question, and didn’t have a super fast answer).

So here’s my question:

Which arguments for religion — or arguments against atheism — do you think are good? I don’t mean “good” in the sense of “irrefutable” or even “persuasive” (although if you’re a believer and think there are some of these, I’d be interested to see those too). I mean: Which arguments for religion or against atheism made you think harder? Which arguments made you clarify your thinking, or even modify it?

A couple of mine:

“Maybe atheism is just a form of color- blindness. Maybe religious believers are perceiving something real, and atheists just don’t have the capacity to perceive it.”

Not a persuasive argument, I think; mostly because believers can’t come to any sort of agreement on what it is they’re supposedly perceiving. But thinking about this question made me think harder about perception, and how it is that we know what we know. It made me think harder about standards of evidence, and what kinds of things can be “known” intuitively and what kinds of things can’t. And it made me more rigorous in my thinking, not just about religion but about lots of things.

And then there’s, “If there’s no soul or immaterial spirit, then what is consciousness?”

Again, not a convincing argument. Mostly because, even though we don’t really understand consciousness, the one thing we’re pretty sure of is that it, whatever it is, it seems to be a product of the brain.

But for me, when I was letting go of my spiritual beliefs, this was the last argument to go. (I never believed in what Ingrid calls the Omnimax God — omnipotent, omniscient, and omni- benevolent — and the “god” I believed in could scarcely be called a god: it was more like the World-Soul, an aggregate of all the souls of all the living things that I thought had souls.) My personal experience of consciousness as what seems to be a vaguely immaterial substance floating around in the vicinity of my head… it’s not intellectually convincing, but it’s very hard to shake.

And the process of shaking it is largely what’s sparked my interest in the study of how the mind works. I don’t think I understand consciousness — I don’t think any of us do — but I think I understand it better for my attempts to answer the question, “If consciousness isn’t the immaterial soul, then what the hell is it?”

So what about the rest of you? Are there any arguments for religion, or against atheism, not that you find persuasive (although I’d like to hear about those too), but that have made you stop and think? Any that have made you shift the way you think — about atheism, about religion, or about the world in general?

(Oh, and BTW, Andy: If you want a good counter to the “if religions isn’t true, why have so many people believed it for so long?” argument, I strongly suggest you read “Breaking the Spell” by Daniel Dennett. That’s the whole topic of the book. Fascinating and important. Quick answer: Religion is a by-product of ways that people are wired by evolution to think, including the tendency to see intention even where none exists, the tendency to see patterns even where none exists, the tendency in children to believe what their parents tell them, the tendency in adults to trust authority figures, and the tendency to rationalize beliefs that we already have and decisions that we’ve already made.)

Maybe you’ve read 10 Myths — and 10 Truths — About Atheism, Sam Harris’s famous op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times, which was an attempt to clear up the most common misunderstandings about atheists. The piece is a good idea. But something about it bugs me. Specifically, it bugs me how much time Harris spent dissing religion.

Don’t get me wrong — I think religion deserves criticism. But here, I think it’s inappropriate. If you’re writing a piece saying, “Here’s who we are and why the myths about us are incorrect,” you shouldn’t go off on a “here’s why the rest of you are losers” tangent. It’s not persuasive … and it’s seriously off-topic.

So here’s my own version. (Very much riffing off Harris’, and with all due credit to him.)

*

That’s the teaser. I’ve written a piece for AlterNet, my own version of the ten most common myths about atheists and the truths are behind them, titled — imaginatively enough — 10 Myths and Truths About Atheists. I think this is one that my atheism readers are definitely going to want to read: it’s a piece I’ve been thinking about and working on for some time, and I think you’re going to like it.

If you’re inspired to comment, feel free to comment here as well as on AlterNet. Enjoy!

So what are the big guns of modern theology? And what do atheists have to say to them?

I spend a fair amount of blogging time shooting down arguments for religion made by ordinary Joe and Jane Believers. As do other atheists. But many believers say this is unfair. They argue that we’re shooting fish in a barrel; that we’re arguing against stupid, simplistic, outdated versions of faith, and we’re not willing to take on serious, educated, advanced theologians.

I have a lot of responses to that point. (Most powerfully, “I don’t care that much about how a handful of theologians practice religion, I care about how religion is practiced by the overwhelming majority of believers.” Not to mention, “Why am I obligated to spend a decade studying your faith before rejecting it, when you reject thousands of other faiths with barely a second thought?“) But my mind has been set even more at ease on this question — by a surprising source.

Over at the Friendly Atheist blog, Hemant has been running a series of pieces by Christian apologist Lee Strobel. Yesterday’s edition addressed the question, “What questions do you want to ask atheists?” Or, “What argument is most convincing to plant the seeds of doubt (or, rather, faith) in an atheist’s mind?” Lee got some theologian friends and fellow apologists together, to collectively come up with a good- sized set of questions for atheists that they apparently feel are stumpers.

And I was shocked at how totally identical their arguments were to the ones I see every day, from ordinary Joe and Jane Believer arguing with the atheists. I was shocked at how unfamiliar many of these apologists seem to be with some of the most basic facts of current science; especially since some of that science sheds crucial light on the heart of their arguments. I was shocked — and oddly disappointed — at how familiar their questions were, how unoriginal… and how easy they were to shoot down.

Here’s what I mean.

Historian Gary Habermas: Utilizing each of the historical facts conceded by virtually all contemporary scholars, please produce a comprehensive natural explanation of Jesus’ resurrection that makes better sense than the event itself.

These historical facts are: (1) Jesus was killed by crucifixion; (2) Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them; (3) The conversion of the church persecutor Saul, who became the Apostle Paul; (4) the conversion of the skeptic James, Jesus’ half-brother; (5) The empty tomb of Jesus. These “minimal facts” are strongly evidenced and are regarded as historical by the vast majority of scholars, including skeptics, who have written about the resurrection in French, German, and English since 1975. While the fifth fact doesn’t have quite the same virtual universal consensus, it nevertheless is conceded by 75 percent of the scholars and is well supported by the historical data if assessed without preconceptions.

First: You’re assuming one of the major things you’re trying to prove — namely, that the historial Jesus lived, and that the New Testament is an accurate description of his life and the events that followed it. Contrary to your assertion, these are questions about which there are serious scholarly doubts. Given the internal contradictions within the New Testament; the lack of corroboration of the major events described in the Gospels by contemporary historians of the time; and the fact that the New Testament was written decades after the events it supposedly describes, by people were themselves convinced of Jesus’s divinity and who wrote the books with the express purpose of recruiting others into the faith… none of that adds up to the New Testament being a reliable source. I see no reason to accept your “facts” as a given.

Second: Even if I did concede the accuracy of these events… so what? Re #1-4: The followers of the Heaven’s Gate cult were convinced, too. Convinced enough to die for their beliefs. As were the followers of Jim Jones, and Charles Manson, and so on. History is littered with true believers who believed utterly wacky things, and believed them whole-heartedly — enough to devote their lives, and even sacrifice them, to their beliefs. The supposed conviction of the apostles proves exactly nothing.

As to #5: Again, so what? The “empty tomb” thing doesn’t require a paranormal explanation. Even if it happened — which again, I don’t remotely concede — there could be any number of natural explanations for it (the body was stolen, hidden, etc.)… explanations that don’t require a supernatural entity. Any competent stage magician could manage it.

Philosopher Paul Copan: Given the commonly recognized and scientifically supported belief that the universe (all matter, energy, space, time) began to exist a finite time ago and that the universe is remarkably finely tuned for life, does this not (strongly) suggest that the universe is ontologically haunted and that this fact should require further exploration, given the metaphysically staggering implications?

No.

You’re making what I call the “puddle fallacy” (an idea stolen from Douglas Adams). A mysteriously conscious puddle says to itself, “This is an amazing hole I find myself in, it fits me perfectly — it must have been designed to have me in it!” No. The hole wasn’t made for the puddle; the puddle formed to fit into the available hole. And the same is true for life in the universe. Life developed because conditions in the universe allowed it to happen. If that hadn’t happened, something else would have happened instead… something equally astronomically unlikely. We just wouldn’t be here to see it.

An analogy: The chances that I, personally, was born, out of the billions of children my parents could have had, and the billions of children their parents could have had, and so on… it’s beyond astronomical. Does that mean I was fated to exist? Of course not. I’m sitting here rolling a die ten times, and it came up with the sequence 4632236245. The odds against that sequence are over 60 billion million to one. That doesn’t mean it was designed, or fated… or even that we need to come up with a special philosophy to explain it.

And very importantly, as I’ve written elsewhere: The universe isn’t actually all that finely-tuned for life. What with the length of time it took for Earth to come into being after the Big Bang, and the eventual explosion of the sun, and the ultimate heat-death of the universe, and all that, the window for life on Earth is, in cosmic terms, actually pretty darned short.

Paul Copan again: And, second, granted that the major objection to belief in God is the problem of evil, does the concept of evil itself not suggest a standard of goodness or a design plan from which things deviate, so that if things ought to be a certain way (rather than just happening to be the way they are in nature), don’t such “injustices” or “evils” seem to suggest a moral/design plan independent of nature?

No.

A growing body of evidence suggests that good and evil are concepts that are hard-wired into our brains by evolution. Humans are a social species, and humans that behaved morally were more likely to be socially successful and thus survive and reproduce; humans that didn’t were less likely to win the Darwinian Sweepstakes. (This also explains why evil continues, something Christianity utterly fails to do: most people succeed evolutionarily by being more or less good, but some people will always flourish by being bad and getting away with it.) The existence of morality doesn’t require a supernatural explanation. Evolution and neuropsychology explain it quite nicely.

(BTW: The problem of evil isn’t “the major objection to belief in God.” It’s one major objection to belief in one particular god [albeit a common one]: the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good god of Christian theology. Your god isn’t the only one we don’t believe in.)

Talk show host Frank Pastore: Please explain how something can come from nothing, how life can come from non-life, how mind can come from brain, and how our moral senses developed from an amoral source.

Ah, yes. The God of the gaps.

Let’s take these one as a time before we get to the big picture. Something from nothing: We don’t know that yet. That’s one of the great scientific questions of our time. (Many scientists who are working on it suspect that the answer may make us radically re-think how we conceive of time and cause/effect: the way Darwin made us radically rethink life, and Einstein made us radically rethink space and time.)

But the God hypothesis doesn’t answer that question, either. The God hypothesis merely begs it. How could God either have always existed or have come into being out of nothingness? If you’re going to hypothesize that something had to have either always existed or come into being from nothingness, why does that something have to be God? Why can’t it be the universe? (And don’t say “Because God is magic.” That’s a terrible answer.)

Life from non-life: This one’s easy. Life is a bio- chemical process. It came into being from a proto- bio- chemical process, which came into being from a regular chemical process. There’s nothing all that mysterious about the concept; it’s just physical cause and effect. Scientists think they’ll be able to replicate that process within a few years.

Mind from brain: Another one we don’t know yet. The science of neuropsychology is in its infancy, and the question of what exactly consciousness is and how it works is, IMO, one of the other great scientific questions of our time.

But again, this is a question that religion merely begs rather than answering. If there is a non-corporeal soul, how does it interact with the brain and make it do its bidding? How does a non- material entity affect the material world? And if the self is essentially not physical, how and why do changes in the brain affect the soul?

And much more to the point: No, we don’t know yet how exactly the brain produces the mind. But the overwhelming body of evidence is that it does. Changes to the brain, from injury or surgery or illness or medication, produce changes in the mind, in fairly predictable ways. (As Bertrand Russell argued: Given that damage to any part of the brain will destroy that part of the mind and self — destroying the vision center makes you blind, destroying the language center makes you unable to speak or comprehend language, etc. — it logically follows that destroying the entire brain destroys the entire mind and self.) And using magnetic resonance imaging and other new technology, we can now see thoughts appearing in the brain as they happen. As far as we can tell by all the available evidence, whatever the mind is, it seems to be a product of the brain.

How our moral senses developed from an amoral source: See above, re: the evolution of human morality.

Your arguments are what we atheists call the God of the Gaps. Whatever phenomena are currently unexplained by science, whatever gaps there are in our understanding of the universe, those get to be explained by God. And when the science fills in a gap, religion finds another gap.

But as the gaps in our understanding shrink, God shrinks along with it.

Author Greg Koukl: Why is something here rather than nothing here? Clearly, the physical universe is not eternal (Second Law of Thermodynamics, Big Bang cosmology). Either everything came from something outside the material universe, or everything came from nothing (Law of Excluded Middle). Which of those two is the most reasonable alternative? As an atheist, you seem to have opted for the latter. Why?

See above. It’s currently an unanswered question… but the God hypothesis doesn’t answer the question, either. It merely begs it.

As to why I think a physical answer is more likely to be correct than a metaphysical one (and all my regular readers are now cringing, because I’m about to make an argument I’ve made approximately 712,522 times before in this blog — I’ll be done with it here soon, I promise):

Because it always has been. Because in all of human history, unanswered questions have turned out to have natural answers thousands upon thousands upon thousands of times… and have turned out to have supernatural answers exactly never. None. Nada. Zilch. The history of human knowledge about the universe is the history of natural explanations replacing supernatual ones: consistently, relentlessly, like a steamroller.

Given that history, why on earth would I think that these two particular currently unexplained phenomena will eventually be explained by God? Why would that be the reasonable bet?

Lee Strobel summarizing philosopher Alvin Plantinga: If our cognitive faculties were selected for survival, not for truth, then how can we have any confidence, for example, that our beliefs about the reality of physical objects are true or that naturalism itself is true? (By contrast, theism says God has designed our cognitive faculties in such a way that, when functioning properly in an appropriate environment, they deliver true beliefs about the world.)

Well, for one thing: I don’t see how the God hypothesis answers that problem at all. If our senses and cognitive faculties can deceive us, then why should we trust that God isn’t deceiving us? In fact, it seems much more plausible that an all-powerful magical God could fool us than the physical senses that evolved in response to the physical world.

I mean: If God were real and created our minds to “deliver true beliefs about the world”… why would we even be having this conversation? Wouldn’t we all perceive him, in exactly the same way? Why would anybody disagree about religion? In fact, why would anybody disagree about anything? Either God created us with perfect minds — which is patently untrue — or God is deceiving us… which undercuts your whole argument.

And if our cognitive faculties are flawed by the shaping of evolution… then what makes you think a belief in God isn’t one of those cognitive flaws?

In any case: Science and naturalism don’t, in fact, assume that our perceptions and cognitive faculties are always correct.

In fact, we know that they aren’t. We know, for instance, that our minds tend to: see patterns and intentions even when they don’t exist; amplify evidence that supports what we believe, and reject evidence that undercuts it; rationalize decisions we’ve made, even when they’re clearly mistaken or harmful; etc. (All of which atheists consider very strong arguments against religion, not for it. See above, re: religion itself being one of our biggest cognitive flaws.)

Yes, our cognitive faculties are flawed. That’s why, when we’re trying to understand the universe, we don’t just rely on our intuition and perception and personal thought processes. That’s why we rigorously use the scientific method. We do it to filter out errors and biases in our perception and our judgment, as much as is humanly possible. It’s imperfect, to be sure; but over time, it’s proven astonishingly powerful.

In a naturalist worldview, we know that our perceptions and cognitive faculties are flawed. But we also have every reason to assume that they bear some connection to reality. It makes no evolutionary sense for our perceptions to be entirely disconnected from reality. We wouldn’t have survived and evolved if we hunted for rabbits that didn’t exist, or failed to run from tigers that really were there but that we didn’t see. And we wouldn’t be able to predict and shape the world, to the mind- boggling degree that the scientific method has allowed us to do, if our senses and cognitive faculties didn’t reflect reality at all.

Historian Mike Licona: Irrespective of one’s worldview, many experience periods of doubt. Do you ever doubt your atheism and, if so, what is it about theism or Christianity that is most troubling to your atheism?

Yes. Sometimes. Whenever I see a theist making an argument for God, I always have a brief moment of wondering, “Will this be the good argument? The solid evidence? Will this be the thing that finally convinces me?”

But this happens a lot less than it used to. Those brief moments are getting briefer. And frankly — this is going to sound snarky, and I’m sorry for that — it happens less because I see the same bad arguments again and again.

Including here.

Every single one of these arguments in this post is an argument I’ve seen before. Evidence from the Bible. The supposed conviction of the apostles, and the empty tomb. The first cause argument. The supposed fine-tuning of the world and the universe for life. The god of the gaps. What is reality, and how can you trust your perceptions. I’ve seen them all. Dozens of times. I can rebut them in my sleep. (None of these apologists cited personal intuition and experience, and good on them for not doing that… but I bet dollars to donuts that if this debate were pursued, that argument would eventually get rolled out as well. It always does.)

And frankly, when I have doubts, they are rarely about whether religion is correct. The fact that I’ve seen so many theistic arguments, and they’ve always been the same few bad arguments over and over again, has done more to bolster my opinion that religion is mistaken than anything any atheist has ever said.

My doubts are not about whether religion is correct, but whether it would be pleasant. There are times when I feel small and trivial on the cosmic scale, or get scared about death, or frustrated at injustice (I hate that Ken Lay died of a heart attack before we could dump him in prison), and wish for an eternal afterlife where I could be with my loved ones forever and where prosperous jerks could finally suffer. (Not Hell. Hell is one of the most evil concepts humanity has come up with. But something like Purgatory… that I’d be okay with.)

But most of the time, I don’t wish for a God. Most of the time, I’m happy about the world just being the natural, physical world, and I have no trouble accepting it. The God hypothesis provides some comforts… but it also provides horrors. (Among other things: Yes, I have to live in a world with no loving fatherly creator to care if I live or die… but I also don’t have to wonder why our loving fatherly creator is torturing children.) And the naturalist worldview provides many comforts and hopes that theism utterly fails to provide.

And even if I did sincerely wish for there to be a God… wishful thinking isn’t an argument. I wish I had a million- dollar book contract, too. And a pony. But I’m not going to live my life as if those things were true.

Sorry, theologians. I remain unconvinced. I am more than a little shocked at how unfamiliar these apologists seem to be with some of the most basic pieces of current scientific knowledge. And frankly, I’m a bit disappointed in how weak and unoriginal these arguments are. I’d expected this to be more of a challenge.