Why I am an atheist – Ric Baker

I am an atheist because I got lucky. My luck came in two forms: good parents and an education in critical thinking. First, my parents had a large hand in developing my atheism. No, please don’t think that my parents “indoctrinated” me into atheism like religious parents indoctrinate their children into their superstitions. In fact, the opposite is true. My parents protected me from indoctrination. Like almost all people raised in the United States, I was reared in a relatively religious community and was surrounded by believers. Now, having grown up in the North East, my community was not nearly as rabidly religious as some, but I still felt the pressure to conform to religion as a child and felt the fear of damnation. But when others would try to indoctrinate me, my parents would subtly counteract it by explaining that what they were telling me was not THE way to believe but merely one among many ways that people believe. By simply exposing me to other religions and beliefs, I was able to see that none was more rational or believable than any other.

I was also naturally intellectually curious, and I always loved reading From a young age, I devoured every book I could get my hands on. This trend continues to this day and led to my being thoroughly educated in critical thinking and philosophy. In fact, I received an MA in Philosophy with a specialty in critical thinking. Anyone who has not been indoctrinated, who knows something about critical thinking, and who has read widely is bound, in my opinion, to come to become an atheist. And thus I did. My atheism is indeed deeply rational and scientific, but I do recognize that I was lucky to reach this conclusion based on the preparation I was given in my childhood.

Ric Baker
United States

Why I am an atheist – Leslie Klug

I am an atheist because the god stories I was raised with (Protestant Christianity) were so contrived. The story of Christ having to live here as a man, be persecuted for his philosophy, tortured and killed, then resurrected and returning to heaven just so we, his creation, could go to heaven is ridiculous.

If there is a god and he’d have periodic communication with humanity explaining the rules for entry into heaven, I’d go along with it. Asking me to believe a multi-thousands of years old collection of books which claim there is a god is just not going to do it for me. On top of it, this book collection (Bible) tells stories which are supernatural (talking snakes, great flood, parting of the sea) which go against the “rules” of the natural world which this god was supposed to have created.

It would take me multiple pages to describe all the scientific evidence against a creator and I am not even a scientist. I don’t get comfort from stories. I get comfort from facts.

Leslie Klug
United States

Why I am an atheist – Pris

I was born in Austria to Roman Catholic parents the summer of 1983 and baptised in autumn. We moved to Germany when I was one. I still live there.

We didn’t practice religion at home.

I received the standard Bavarian religious education, which is very thorough.

I went to first communion and confirmation, even became an altar girl and stayed one for years.

Despite all this I’m an atheist. What happened?

Indoctrination failure.

When I was little, god existed for me on the same level as creatures from fairy tales. When I got a bit older I learned that god was this all powerful being that made everything. For some time I even prayed regularly because due to horrible teachers my live at school was terrible. Praying didn’t help.

I always watched the news with my parents, and there are always a lot of bad things happening in the world. I started wondering about how this could happen if god was all powerful and good. Later I learned that this problem was called theodicy.

Another big problem was the existence of hell. If god forgives everything, what does hell exist for?

And don’t get me started on Pascal’s wager.

The older I got, the more inconsistencies I found.

My parents raised me to respect every human being and taught me that there was nothing wrong with being different from the norm in any way. All religious doctrine I ever met went against that.

When I got interested in politics and human rights, all respect for religion went out the window. According to most religious doctrine I’m a second class human or not human at all. Just a mobile incubator.

When I turned eighteen I went to the city hall and left the church. That’s how you have to do it in Germany. I received a letter from the local parish asking me to reconsider, which I ignored.

These days I see myself as a humanist. I follow Kant’s categorical imperative. ‘Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.’ That is all you need to be good.

To all those reading my ramblings:

Study philosophy, you don’t need to do it in depth, but you will see that religion isn’t needed to be good.

Study history. Pick one region and see how religion influenced conflicts and daily life. Take a hard look at the ‘divine right to rule’.

Study your religion, its history and its philosophy.

The most important thing I ever learned was this:

Think for yourself. Don’t accept anything at face value. Always ask questions.

Pris
Germany

Why I am an atheist – Dave H.

I am an atheist because I started outside religion, and I have never found a reason to go inside. Religion was a non-issue during my formative years, and over those same years and beyond I have never heard an argument for religion that ultimately did not reduce to “Because I/he/they said so” or something similar.

Those “profound” rituals that form a central part of so many people’s lives are only confusing or ridiculous to those of us looking in from the outside, just as the rituals of one religion look ridiculous to the followers of another. The “sense of community” that people find in their religious groups, I have found in my peers, coworkers, friends, and humanity at large. I have never found a need for religion in my life; I do not need nor want an imaginary friend in my life, I have enough real ones.

Finally, the petty tribalism that religion engenders, defining “us” and “them” based on what and how you worship, is a divisive force that our collective society, already shot through with divisions both real and imaginary, doesn’t need. If we truly seek cooperation instead of conflict between all the diverse members of humanity, we need to tear down or fill in every boundary we can. We need to act in this world, not waste our time in pointless pursuit of some imaginary next one.

Dave H.
Canada

ZOMBIE INVASION!

And they’re the worst kind of zombie: they have no brains, so shooting them in the head doesn’t work! AAAAAAAAH! What good are horror movie rules if they don’t apply to real life?

At least something is explained: recall that I mentioned I’d received a small flurry of creationist emails about Hovind? It seems Eric Hovind has been coordinating something: this afternoon, a small collection of new goons all speaking the same phrases has invaded this thread. They aren’t really discussing anything, they’re just throwing out smug one-liners and bible quotes that they seem to think will be persuasive.

They’re not. They look like mindless idiots.

Their primary approach is to assert that because logic exists, god exists, and therefore any attempt to apply reason to a problem is evidence for god. They are unable to justify their premise, however, so it’s a silly game they’re playing — there is no reason to assume an anthropic being was necessary to conjure logic into existence or even that any kind of intelligence was required, any more than we could argue that intelligence is required to start an avalanche. Small fluctuations can lead to large scale changes in that example, so there’s no logical barrier to the idea that unintelligent processes seed universes that expand with internally consistent rules (and universes seeded with illogical rules, if that were possible, wouldn’t exist and definitely wouldn’t be populated with intelligent beings contemplating the laws of their universe).

So how do they know a god created the laws of the universe. They’ve obligingly answered that.

He told us.

See? Utterly brainless.

I was amused by this question.

If you knew that God exists, would you worship Him?

If your god were shown to exist, I would fall into despair, because it means we’re living in a universe dominated by an insane cosmic tyrant. I would not worship such a horrible creature. I don’t know whether I’d collapse in futility, or whether I’d be able to fight him somehow — that omniscience and omnipotence thing is rather daunting.

But no, I’d never worship that thing. I find it disgusting that the Hovindites would so hate humanity that they’d throw themselves into servitude to an alien monster.

Why I am an atheist – Charles Miller

I am an atheist because when I was a child, my parents read to me (and later with me) every night before I went to sleep. Some of my earliest memories are of Joseph and his Technicolour Dream Coat, of Rudyard Kipling’s Elephants Child and the Cat who Walked by Himself, of Midas and his Golden Touch. If I was ever told one of that lot was more true than the rest, I can’t remember it. I am an atheist because I can not comprehend how an adult living in the modern age, confronted with the plenitude of myths that purport to explain our existence without foundation in evidence or even simple plausibility, can pick one and say “that is the truth”.

Charles Miller
Australia

Should this be encouraged?

Justin Griffith just re-enlisted in the military, something that gives me palpitations — I have a son in the army, I don’t know if I want to make that kind of behavior sound positive. Griffith also had one of those chaplain creatures give him the oath, another thing I’d like to discourage. It is, however, nice that he was allowed to leave god out of the oath.

Wait. Now I’m disturbed that we can find such a trivial omission at all significant. What’s god doing in there in the first place?

I get email

Did someone rattle the monkey cage recently? I have been getting a sudden wave of email from defenders of Kent Hovind, which is not good. Of all the creationists, Hovind spawns the most illiterate, incomprehensible mess; I think you have to be of very low intelligence to find anything at all appealing in that guy.

Anyway, here are two examples. I’d kind of like to be game-fully employed — does that mean I just sit around all day playing games? Because I suppose that could be fun.

Your assessment of Kent Hovind

You are an arrogant jackass. Your pompousness is only exceeded by your stupendous idiocracy. The fact that you are game fully employed is proof that we were created and it was obviously not survival of the fittest. If there were any true justice in this country, you would be the one sitting in jail. Hey ape-man, go back and crawl under the rock from witch you came and do the world a favor…

Have a wonderful day

This next one is just weird. He spelled my name right, but misspelled Hovind’s, which is a first. He’s also very confused — I think he has the impression I’m a Hovind supporter.

Kent hovend

as much as I love Kent hovend I have to say he is guilty
any one who has listened to any of his video’s has seen him say don’t pay your tax’s
I don’t if he did not say that in his video’s they would have left him alone
however there is a good part he get’s a captive ears that need to here what he has to say
we have copied his videos & passed them around
any one that watched them loves them
he makes it easy to understand
keeps it light [ funny ]
none of it is boring unlike most all church’s most guys drift off
in to never never land our wife’s have to nudge us
where no one that watch’s Kent never drift’s off ever

if he get’s out some day he will maybe in a few years
tell him not to talk about tax’s for or not just shut up about it
he can do more good out than in jail
on the good side when he gets out he will have a new set of suckers to
debate the old one retire or die off
hes still a young man & he has his son’s to take over
yes I did signed your paper to get him out
about a year ago
remember it is better to use a little honey to get them on your side than to
make them pissed off & wont talk to him any more
yes I know its not as much fun hahahhaha

Those are the strange line breaks in the original. I get the feeling he was trying to write a poem.

(Also on Sb)

John Haught releases the video

Haught finally gave permission to release the video of the Coyne-Haught debate — you can watch it now.

Haught had to get in the last word, though, he released it with a letter. It’s quite a letter, too. He explains that he didn’t withhold the video because he was a coward, oh, no — it’s entirely because Jerry Coyne was such an awful, bad, wicked man.

But let me come to the main reason why I have been reluctant to give permission to release the video. It is not for anything that I said during our encounter, but for a reason that I have never witnessed in public academic discussion before. I’m still in shock at how your presentation ended up. I was so offended both personally and as an academic by the vulgarity of it all that I did not want other people to have to share what I witnessed that night in October. I still don’t.

That makes you want to watch it even more, doesn’t it?

Rather than answering my point that scientism is logically incoherent–which is really the main issue–and instead of addressing my argument that the encounter with religious truth requires personal transformation, or for that matter instead of responding to any of the other points I made, you were content to use most of your time to ridicule several isolated quotes from my books. I was absolutely astounded by your woeful lack of insight into, or willingness to grapple with, the real meaning of these passages. Sophisticated argument requires as an essential condition that you have the good manners to understand before you criticize. Your approach, on the other hand was simply one of “caricature and then crush.”

I’m listening to it right now. So far, I’ve only gotten into Haught’s mealy-mouthed babble, and I don’t have much sympathy for him. What does “encounter with religious truth requires personal transformation” even mean? It’s a bald assertion. He gripes that science couldn’t detect cosmic purpose…why? And why should we believe theology can?

I’ll also add that Haught’s letter is a rather nasty, vicious, personal attack in itself. I’ll report back after I’ve heard Coyne’s part — I’ll be listening to see if it’s quite as cantankerous as Haught makes it out to be.

Yeesh. Haught’s closing statement is to tell us to read our bibles and consider kenosis and revelation — it’s pure theo-babble. Where does Haught get any kind of reputation as anything other than a very silly man? He’s just going on and on with this ridiculous crap.

I’m halfway through Jerry’s talk. No ad hominem so far; he’s arguing that there is a conflict between science and religion, and he quotes a few comments from Haught, but I’m not hearing any insults. Coyne disagrees with Haught, which is the whole reason they’re having the debate…is Haught upset because his opponent dares to present an argument in opposition to his?

I am totally baffled by Haught’s complaints. Coyne’s entire talk is on topic, emphasizing that science assesses reality effectively while religion…doesn’t. He points out that theologians, including Haught, fall back on the claim of the metaphorical interpretation, but that’s not an insult, that’s the simple, obvious truth. Sure, he points out that Catholicism has committed evil acts, but that’s part of the argument — if religion were a true source of great moral knowledge, as the religious claim, then why isn’t it legitimate to show that those claims are patently false?

Coyne’s sin is making his case strongly. Nothing more. It was a good, thorough dissection of Haught’s claims, and I can see why Haught would resent it being made publicly available, since he does a great job of making theology look feeble and ineffective and phony. But Haught’s 3-page open letter is far more defamatory than anything Coyne said.