This is a response to Blogosaurus Vex’s post, which you may want to read first. I’ll take it point by point, with a summary.
Here are some things that bother me about how some athiests think and behave:
Some athiests seem to think that the problem with religious people is they aren’t or can’t be logical.
Well, I’d certainly agree about the first part (aren’t logical) about their religious beliefs. Those beliefs aren’t logical, despite attempts to make them so with things like Descarte’s Ontological Proof of God.
And I do think that religious believers tend towards a less logical worldview overall. Of course there are a great many exceptions to this. The biggest that comes to mind is Ken Miller, who is a Roman Catholic, and yet an incredibly intelligent and educated biology professor who defended evolution and made a mockery of Intelligent Design proponents during the Kitzmiller v Dover trial.
But the subset of believers we tend to call “creationists”, who take the bible as the inerrant and non-metaphorical word of God?
They can’t be logical.
Some athiests seem to think that religious people are less than athiests somehow
I do — about that specific facet. There are a lot of believers who have done more than me in my life, have achieved more, have helped more people, are better looking, funnier, cleverer, are kinder, richer…
But they believe in a fairy story as though it were true, and many base their lives around it. They — if they’re Christian — make decisions based on a 2000 year old desert cult whose beliefs were originally an oral tradition and changed with each telling and was finally written down.
This doesn’t make me a better person than them. I don’t feel superior to them overall, but that one broken gap in their reasoning is certainly inferior to mine.
Tell me, Blogo, did you feel superior to your woo-spouting instructor? I’ll bet you did, and don’t really regret it. Why should religion be protected from mockery and her “chakra” bullshit not be?
Some athiests seem unwilling to admit the value and importance of religion in many people’s lives.
And apparently, some atheists can’t admit the value of a world based on reason, logic and truth.
The problem with the comfort of religion is that it’s a false one, and isn’t based on the real world or whether you should be comforted at all. The 9/11 hijackers were so comforted by their religion that they were able to fly the plan they were on into a building to their certain deaths.
They act as though becoming an athiest is no big deal, like nothing would be lost.
Nothing is lost, except for weekly social gatherings at the church where you can make business contacts. I don’t see the world as a big scary place where I need a security blanket of falseness to make me feel good about living in it. The “life is scary without religion” angle is brought up all the time by apologist atheists, and I have only to point you to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos as a positive, uplifting and heartwarming display of the wonder and marvel of the real world around us, how we fit into it, and what we can do in it to make our lives worthwhile.
Saying that others do need it is arrogant in the extreme, as though there’s something special about you and your mind.
Some athiests think we can make progress towards a more secular society by mocking the religious.
Oh, I don’t do it just because I think we can make progress. I do it because I can be a jerk sometimes.
That said, comedy is a powerful way to make uncomfortable points. The jester was the only one who could make fun of the king, and today’s comedians — or anybody being funny — are still far safer making fun of things nobody else will.
See, that’s mockery, funny, and true. And eye-opening to some.
Oh demotivators, your wisdom might just save us all.
People don’t become religious after careful consideration of the facts.
There are no facts to support religion, so of course not. However, a great many people become non-religious after careful consideration of the facts. I’ve had a few people I know through the Internet tell me that my posts on this blog opened their eyes and had them re-examine why they believed. Eventually they become non-believers. It blew my mind the first time because I honestly thought I was just shouting into the wind.
the elements that comprise religion are all drawn from cognitive “modules” that were naturally selected for to solve problems common in the ancestral environment.
In this way we can see religiosity as a natural phenomenon that, while it was not selected for itself, piggy-backs on systems that were. This means that it is “natural” for us as this evolved species to be religious.
Well of course we have a natural propensity towards belief. I’ve read quite a few great articles about the subject, and I’m currently listening to the audiobook of Michael Shermer’s “Why People Believe Weird Things”. The fact that we all look for someone to get angry at when it rains on a day we wanted to go outside doesn’t mean that someone did make it rain. It certainly doesn’t mean we should believe that nonsense and change our lives because of that belief, no matter how good it might make you feel. It will still rain on some days.
The “it’s natural” argument fails completely in the modern world. Human beings have a lot of natural tendencies that we are already actively suppressing. Rape was a viable way to continue your genetic makeup, but it’s abhorrent to us in modern society. Male dominance is another that our society has only recently begun to reverse.
We get rid of these things because they’re harmful to our society. Religious belief can be both helpful (I admit it, sometimes) and incredibly harmful. The usual way one deals with complex issues with both positives and negatives is to reason them out and try to keep the helpful while getting rid of the harmful. But then we’re simply insisting religion be subject to logic and reason, which you cannot do because it is inherently illogical and unreasonable! Where do you draw the line? Do you say “You can *believe* in killing non-believers and being rewarded with 72 virgins in the afterlife, but don’t go *doing* anything about it!”? or “You can *believe* God created all species in a puff of magic on one day, but don’t go influencing the schools with that belief!”?
The root problem of religion in our modern society is that it is not subject to rational discussion. It is inherently irrational and cannot be controlled by reasonable discourse.
And finally…
No secular ideology has ever successfully replaced religion in a people.
“It’s never been done, so stop trying to do it.”
Even if we don’t fully achieve it, every step we take towards a secular society makes our society better.
Sooner or later the Earth will be hit by a huge asteroid that’s floating out there in space. Prayer won’t stop it from wiping out every living thing on the plate — science, reason, and wide open eyes will.
Prayer won’t stop a world leader from pressing the big shiny button that wipes us all out. In fact it might make him (or her) do it. Reason is what we count on to keep that from happening.
Your piece stands on its own as a decent piece of writing.
I’m not sure if it’s a reply, extension or rebuttal of BV though, because it doesn’t seem to address BV’s central points and isn’t even mutually exclusive of them.
I take BV’s argument to be something like this:
1) Religion is an evolutionary product, yet is not obviously adaptive, so why does it exist and persist? There must be more to the story than naivete.
Nothing you’ve said above addresses the astonishing fact that religion exists. A very biased analogy would be cancer. Cancer exists, across not just humans but all animal species, and yet it has no adaptive function and is a huge detriment. A good question then would be, “Holy crap! Why does cancer exist?” To come up with a facile explanation for cancer is about as helpful as a facile explanation for religion.
2) Mocking the religious is most often counterproductive (and doesn’t seem to make religion go away)
You mention shouting in the wind. That’s not quite the same as directly mocking and shaming someone, so people may feel safer reading and reflecting on your viewpoints from the privacy of their home computers. You mention that some change their minds as a result of your persuasion. I suspect that would be less likely in a belligerent setting.
3) Maintaining a sense of superiority is probably also counterproductive (and also doesn’t seem to make religion go away)
Ok, now here there’s a real disagreement between you and BV. I’m pretty wary of superiority as a helpful attitude. It closes down curiosity, closes down nuance, closes down complexity and is the first step on the path to in-group vs out-group distinctions that plague us as a species. You mention that it’s ok to feel superior. I’d certainly say it seems to be a natural phenomenon that some humans feel superior to others, for all kinds of reasons, but I’m not sure that makes it ok. I think your analogy of rape is a great example of natural but not OK sorts of things. I think rational persons are aware of the tendency to feel superior and work hard to resist it: “Maybe my kid *isn’t* the best looking, smartest, most talented kid in the known universe.”
4) Religion is a complex phenomenon, not a simple phenomenon (e.g. calling it a “fairy tale” seems to miss the definition of both religions and fairy tales)
Religion may be factually incorrect. So what? That makes its existence and persistence mysterious. Calling it a fairy tale is about as scientifically useful as calling thunder “the gods bowling.”
5) If we accept that religion is evolutionary, it’s reasonable to think it isn’t going away.
Now here I think you are more activist than BV. You advocate active resistance of religion, religiosity, and religious belief. I think I’m more along these lines, though I’m not sure what the best approach is. What’s interesting is that in societies where religion has gone away, it has almost always been in the context of a rising standard of living, democratization, and increased technology – all factors which have nothing to do with religion per se. Western Europe is the most obvious example. The USA is, however, the most obvious counter-example, where religious belief and adherence appears to have been on the rise over the past 100 years. So, if we agree religion is undesirable, how do we stamp it out? Not sure I have an answer, but I suspect that like religion, the answer is complex.
Anyway, like I said, good piece of writing, but I don’t see it as a rebuttal. Was that its intent?
Firstly, I totally did misquote her and I’m going to correct that. I started off not “quoting” but “summarizing” her points and then half-edited it, and then turned it into quotes rather than italicized and the whole formatting thing just made it look like I was directly (mis)quoting. I’ll fix that ASAP, with a note about the change and how I’m a dope.
Anyway…
I think it was less a rebuttal of her post than an explanation of the nuances of my personal position. She starts off the post with
On some points I disagree that we behave that way. On others I disagree that behaving that way is a bad thing. And on a lot of them it’s both.
I know Blogo has a real “can’t we all just get along?” personality, while I prefer hashing things out directly. On that, I suspect, we’ll never agree.
1) I actually disagree that religion isn’t adaptive. Dawkins points out that it could very much be a survival trait for children to believe their parents warnings about the dangers of the world without question. Those who didn’t have faith got eaten by tigers or what have you.
You can then take the survival trait of consciously recognizing “cause and effect” and intent of the cause. Those that do this would surely survive more readily to a changing environment than those with instinct alone. And perhaps this trait was reinforced so much that we inherently think there’s an intent behind everything. This is what I was shorthand mentioning when talking about “blaming someone for the rain”. We all do it, I recognize the built-in look for an intent behind something.
However, that is a survival trait that is long past its prime. Reason and critical thinking are far more important in this age.
2) My “shouting in the wind” has been mockery on quite a few occasions. I think I tend to save that for those that truly deserve it — not just for their beliefs but for their actions on top of that. I don’t often directly mock someone just for believing, but when they believe and then start organizing to vote for constitutional amendments to ban equal marriage rights for homosexuals they’re going to get it both barrels.
Sometimes mockery is easily accomplished simply by explaining exactly what you believe without the religious trappings (see also my “demotivators” posted above).
While that mockery might not work against those with the beliefs, it can create resistance to religious belief in those who don’t already have it, or who are “on the edge”.
3) I agree with you that maintaining a sense of superiority is probably counterproductive. Any superiority I feel isn’t exactly personal — I don’t think *I’m* superior but that my *position* is superior. And they can join me if they’d only come around to it.
4) I call it “fairy tales” a lot because the stories used to spread the “wisdom” of religious belief — at least in the codified dogma of major religions — are just like fairy tales except their believers claim they are true. In fact, old religions like the Norse Mythos have become fairy tales and folklore. Balder being slain by a spear of misteltoe was, at one time, told with the same conviction that Noah’s Ark is now.
And they’re equally as silly to be claimed as truth.
You can certainly argue that those stories aren’t all that religion is about and you’d be right. But the claim that they’re true and unquestionably so and that their rules and laws must be followed is as ridiculous as claiming geese lay golden eggs — and more harmful.
5) I think we have a tendency towards faith and religion, and that tendency is reinforced by our upbringing. But obviously we can overcome it, as you and I both have. While that tendency may never go away, I think it’s possible for religion to, though that will certainly be a long struggle.
What do we do? We spread the word about living free from religion. I think the Atheist Bus Campaign is a great start. “There’s probably no god, sto stop worrying and live your life” was the perfect slogan to use there.
A lot of believers live in fear that they can’t live without that belief, that they’d have no purpose, or moral grounding. They’re simply afraid of the unknown. I have a strong moral grounding and it’s not because I’m worried about burning eternally but because I’m (generally) a good person, though that has grown into a realization that being a good person encourages others around me to also be good so my life is better.
So we spread the word. We organize together. We create the fellowship that non-believers haven’t really had before.
And we don’t remain silent.
“I don’t think *I’m* superior but that my *position* is superior.”
This is one of my main complaints about extremely vocal atheists. Why, exactly, is your position superior? How is a firm belief in the non-existence of a higher power in any way better than a firm belief in the existence of one?
How can either position be described as being logical or illogical when neither can be proven? You cannot prove that god doesn’t exist, you can only prove that you’ve never experienced anything that indicates he does exist. Other people have had those experiences, so what makes your experiences more valid than theirs?
Claiming superiority of what is essentially an opinion makes that kind of atheism as obnoxious as the extremely vocal religious people that they mock. It’s atheism as a religion, basically.
“It’s atheism as a religion, basically.”
That’s how I feel a lot of the time. Atheism has turned from an absence of belief to a solid belief that there is nothing. It’s still a belief. It basically becomes “My religion (or lack there of) is better than yours.” Beliefs seem to be ok, but fundamental beliefs seem to be the ones that cause more harm than good. Logic would dictate that you can’t completely dismiss the idea of a higher power simply because it’s imperceivable, just like you can’t say with absolute certainty that there is a higher power.
My firm (though admittedly not completely unassailable) belief is based on reason and science. I’m very much in the Dawkins camp of “a supreme being who created everything is really really really really really really really really really really unlikely and there’s absolutely no evidence”.
It’s the same thing as, to borrow from Dawkins again, believing faeries live in your garden. Sure, maybe they do. Proving they don’t is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, as people will simply excuse any attempt at detecting them by handwaving and claiming that method doesn’t work for faeries.
Carl Sagan touched on this in his book “The Demon Haunted World” and you can read the specific section on this called The Dragon in My Garage.
If someone truly believe they had faeries living in their garden, I would also think my position of “you really probably don’t” was superior too.
Oh, I’m so tired of this claim. As noted earlier, my “belief” isn’t unassailable. It would be possible — if there were a God — for me to change my mind based on evidence. I would first wonder if I was going mad or being tricked, but I could reason that out eventually and discount it. Say I was seeing angels but was otherwise completely rational, and the angels did things absolutely impossible to pull off.
Believing in a God with no evidence for one whatsoever (they call this “faith” and claim it’s a good thing — hah!) is ridiculous. The Universe would have to work in a vastly different way from how we have determined it to based on thousands of years of studying it, testing, throwing away explanations that don’t work, creating new ones, expanding our knowledge more and more as time goes by.
Believing there isn’t a God because there isn’t evidence is completely reasonable. Sure, “absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence”, but when you look for evidence for thousands of years and find absolutely none you can be very sure it doesn’t exist.
This isn’t “atheism as a religion” any more than you not believing someone has faeries in their garden is a religion.
There’s a distinct difference between “I don’t believe in god” and “There is no god”. Yours appears to be the latter, with a hefty helping of disrespect to those who disagree. It’s the aura of condescension and closed-mindedness that makes it more like everything I hate about organized religion. Hence, the basis for my comparison.
Personally, I am not arrogant enough to believe that I know everything and that my opinions are better than anyone else’s. I find the in-your-face atheist every bit as offensive as a Jehovah’s Witness who shows up at my door, and pretty much for the same reason. What gives you the right to make a value judgment on someone else’s belief system?
I just pointed out that my mind could be changed with some (pretty astounding) evidence. That’s not close-mindedness, that’s rationality. Close-mindedness comes from believers who cannot possibly be assailed by evidence or reason.
Do you “not believe in faeries” or do you say “there are no faeries”? How about “monster trucker rednecks from the future visiting our time”?
Or to get back to religion, how about Odin, Zeus, or Enki? Do you just not believe in them, or do they most probably not exist?
This whole post-modern “every viewpoint is correct” thinking is really offensive. When you start using it, you can’t argue the 9/11 attackers were awful because you have to respect *their* belief in 72 virgins in the afterlife and that their god commanded them to strike down the disbelievers.
Bollocks.
There are things that are true, things that are probably true, things that may be true, things that are probably not true, and things that are not true.
“God” is so far along the “probably not true” scale (everything we’d know about the Universe would be *wrong*) that it’s about as close to “not true” as can be. It’s mind-bogglingly improbable, and is in fact less likely than “moster trucker rednecks from the future”. That’s where I lie on the scale of “is there a God?” Some would call that “agnostic” because I’m open to the possibility, but then we’re just arguing semantics.
I never said I know everything, but I know how to use critical thinking and reason. If you do that about God, the conclusion is inescapable.
The comparison to people who come knocking on the door of your house, interrupting your time at home to spread the foundationless word is insulting, by the way. I’m not going door-to-door with my message and being a nuisance.
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If only there were more people out there questioning a belief system that may cause the end of us all.